Sitting of 10 June 1912

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (No Standing Orders applicable), Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—

Exe Fisheries Provisional Order Bill.

Sea Fisheries (Lynn) Provisional Orders Bill.

Sea Fisheries (Conway) Provisional Order Bill.

Kent and Bela Fisheries Provisional Order Bill.

Norfolk Fisheries Provisional Order Bill.

Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill.

Ordered, That the Bills be read a, second time To-morrow.
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Tendring Hundred Water and Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
London and North-Western Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Lea Bridge District Gas Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Maidenhead Gas Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),
North Middlesex Gas Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Southgate and District Gas Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Brighton and Hove General Gas Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),
South Suburban Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Herne Bay Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
York United Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
National Electric Construction Company Bill (by Order),
Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [6th June] further adjourned till Thursday, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Prestonpans Combination Water Supply (Finance) Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 10) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 11) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 12) Bill,
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 13) Bill,
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Minute of the Committee of (Council on Education in Scotland, dated 10th June, 1912, providing for the allocation of the balance of the Education (Scotland) Fund [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Report of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland in 1911–12 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION (ENGLAND) (REGULATIONS).
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations of the National Insurance Joint Committee and the Insurance Commissioners acting jointly as to the payment and collection of Contributions payable by an Employer under Section 4 (4) of the National Insurance Act, 1911 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
EXPLOSIVES.
Copy presented of Thirty-sixth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives, being for the year 1911 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series Nos. 4893, 4895, and 4896 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TREATY SERIES (No. 14, 1912).
Copy presented of Treaties, etc., between the United Kingdom and foreign States. Accessions, Withdrawals, etc. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Copy presented of Regulations modifying the Grant Regulations for Technical Schools, Schools of Art, and other forms of provision of Further Education in England and Wales, 1910. Dated 7th June, 1912 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Reports from Universities and University Colleges, 1910–11. Vols. I and II. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

BOARD OF EDUCATION (WELSH INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION ACT, 1889).
Copy presented of Report of the Board of Education under The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889, for the year 1911 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 154.]
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Report No. 714 (St. Helena, Annual Report for 1911) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 8th June; Mr. Sydney Buxton]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE (DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE).
Copy presented of Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to inquire into Foot-and-Mouth
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Disease. II. Minutes of Evidence, Appendices, etc. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

SUPREME COURT (RULES).
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House: Copy of Rules of the Supreme Court (May), 1912 [by Act].
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Women's Suffrage Letters.
  Mr. JOWETTasked the Postmaster-General if his Department have opened letters directed to persons who are, or who are supposed to be, connected with the women's suffrage movement?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): Letters which are not accepted at the premises to which they are addressed have of course to be opened, whatever their subject-matter, in order to return them to the senders. Otherwise, no letters such as those described in the question have been opened in the Post Office.

  Wireless Telegraphy.
  Mr. HASTINGS DUNCANasked when the agreement entered into with the Marconi Company for the establishment of high-power stations will be made public?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The details of the arrangements are not all settled, but I hope to be able to lay the agreement before the House shortly.

  Highland Railway (Inverness Train Service).
  Mr. MACPHERSONasked whether the Postmaster-General is aware that the Highland Railway Company during the coal strike withdrew the train leaving Inverness for the South at 10.50 p.m. from their train service, and that this train has not yet been restored; and whether, in view of the fact that the absence of this train delays all letters for the South posted North of Inverness after 1.30 p.m. for a whole night in Inverness, and consequently creates hardship and inconvenience to business people in the North, he will make representations to ensure that this train is restored at the earliest possible moment for the dispatch of His Majesty's mails?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware of the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers. The train is not under Post Office control; but I am informed that the company intend to reinstate it next month.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    POST OFFICE (COST OF ADMINISTRATION).
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked whether, in the event of the deficiency in the cost of administration of the Post Office Department in Ireland being increased, such increased deficiency will be paid out of the transferred sum or will have to be made good by the Irish Exchequer; and whether, in the event of the deficiency being reduced, there will be a corresponding decrease in the transferred sum?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The transferred sum would not be affected in either of the cases contemplated in the question. After the Post Office in Ireland had passed to the control of the Irish Government, the Irish Exchequer would be required to make good any increase in the deficiency, and would benefit by any decrease.

    CONSIDERATION IN COMMITTEE.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether the Government have decided upon the form of Motion to be adopted for allotment of time for consideration in Committee of the Government of Ireland Bill?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): The Committee stage will be entered upon to-morrow without any such Motion.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman when he proposes to take the financial Resolution necessary?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, I cannot say.

    COMMITTEE ON IRISH FINANCE.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether, in view of the memorial signed by a large number of Members of this House, he will now publish that portion of the evidence given before the Committee on Irish Finance in respect of which no pledge of secrecy was made or is now insisted upon?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The number of signatures to the memorial is not sufficient to show that the House as a whole
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    desires the evidence to be published, and I stated that I should require proof that there was such a general desire before publication took place.
    Mr. GEORGE LLOYD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many signatures he would require?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Enough to show the signatures were sufficient, and that it was the general desire of the House.
    Mr. LLOYD: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what is his objection to giving the information?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think I have stated it several times. It is very undesirable it should be discussed piecemeal.
    Mr. LLOYD: Would the right hon. Gentleman give the House the whole information, then?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir; because a large part of it was confidential.

    Brussels Sugar Convention.
    Mr. LOUGHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Italy has signed the agreement for the removal of the Brussels Sugar Convention; how many Powers have done so; and what are the differences, if any, in the list of fresh signatories, apart from the United Kingdom, from the former Convention?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): The Protocol renewing the Brussels Sugar Convention for a further period of five years from 1st September, 1913, was signed on 17th March last by the representatives of the following States: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Peru, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. For full information I would refer the hon. Member to the dispatches from His Majesty's Minister at Brussels on the subject, which have already been published in Commercial No. 3 (1912) Cd. 6146.
    Mr. LOUGH: Can my hon. Friend not tell me whether Italy has signed the new Convention?
    Mr. ACLAND: The position of Italy is fully explained in the White Paper to which I have referred my right hon. Friend.

    Italy and Turkey (Rhodes and other Islands).
    Mr. FELLasked if the Italian Government claims to have annexed the Island of Rhodes and the other islands in the Ægean Sea which have recently been occupied by Italian troops?
    Mr. ACLAND: So far as I am aware, no such claim has been made by the Italian Government.
    Mr. HUNTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether Italy is using or has used her merchant ships as auxiliary cruisers in the war with Turkey?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): Judging by reports which have appeared in the Press, the answer appears to be in the affirmative. We have, however, no official information on the subject.

    Trans-Persian Line.
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked whether the proposals for the representation of each of the three Powers on the Société d'Etudes for the construction of the Trans-Persian line have been accepted as satisfactory in principle by His Majesty's Government; and, if so, when Papers will be laid?
    Mr. ACLAND: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I think that no useful purpose would be served by laying Papers at present, because, as stated on the 6th inst., in reply to a supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Burnley, there is so little that is definite to be said on the subject.
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it proper that the main principles of the proposal should be laid before the House?
    Mr. ACLAND: I think it would be quite proper if Members of the House desire to Debate this subject, and they might secure an early date on the Estimates, or in some other way.

    Office of Woods and Forests (Forms of Lease).
    Mr. FRED HALLasked the hon. Member for St. George' s-in-the-East (Mr. Wedgwood Benn), as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether the Office of Woods and Forests
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    has or has not, within recent years, modified the stringency of its old-fashioned forms of agreement for lease, as most other landlords in London, public authorities, and private persons have done?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman, for Mr. Wedgwood Benn): I understand that agreements for leases are framed by the Commissioners of Woods to meet the special circumstances (if any) of each case. As far as is reasonably practicable, they are in one common form, but this is modified from time to time as seems desirable. Perhaps, if the hon. Member has any particular point in mind, he would communicate with me with regard to it.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked whether the Office of Woods and Forests, who administer the Crown estates in London, are refusing to grant leases for more than eighty years; and, if so, whether the First Commissioner of Works will consider the advisability of these leases in future being granted on terms similar to those of the London County Council and practically all the great London landlords, who have now conceded such a period as too brief in order that a tenant might get suitably financed and a proper return for his outlay during the existence of the lease, and have extended their forms of leases to periods varying between ninety and ninety-nine years?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed that for many years it has been the common practice of the Commissioners of Woods in. London to grant leases for terms of eighty years, but that if in special cases it could be shown that this term would be insufficient to afford a tenant a proper return for his outlay, an extension of it would be considered.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    INITIAL RESERVE VALUES.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury what amount of the estimated initial reserve values would be released in the case of insured male lives if each male contributor falls into arrear, the arrears for the purposes of Schedule V. being assumed to amount to thirteen contributions a year on the average?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No reserves are released in the circumstances named. The

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    member becomes suspended from sickness and disablement benefits, but under Section 10 (1) has the option at a subsequent date on becoming employed of receiving such benefits as his contributions during the whole period of his membership would have entitled him to.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether the Secretary to the Treasury will request the Insurance Commissioners to issue Tables similar to Tables A, B, VIII., IX., X., XL, XII., XIII., and XIV. of Messrs. Hardy and Wyatt's Report, dated 28th November, 1911, showing the contributions at the age of sixteen for minimum benefit, the estimated aggregate initial reserve values, and the total amount required to meet the cost of the various benefits each year, the calculations to be based on the rates of sickness and mortality adopted by the Commissioners in calculating the reserve values in place of being based on the rates of sickness and mortality adopted by Messrs. Hardy and Wyatt?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: There is no material difference between the results of Messrs. Hardy and Wyatt's calculations and those made officially since the passing of the National Insurance Act. The calculation of such Tables as those named in the question is not in any way required for the administration of the Act, and it would be impossible to take the Chief Actuary and his staff away from the important duties with which they are occupied at present in order to undertake it.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is it not the fact that owing to the differences between the methods of calculation there is a large hidden reserve which would afford considerably better benefits than could be obtained under the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think that is not so. If the hon. Member compares the two Tables I think he will find that the results are practically the same in each case.

    COMPLETE AND PROVISIONAL SCHEMES.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked how many complete and how many provisional schemes have been lodged under Section 72 of the National Insurance Act, and how many have been approved or sanctioned and how many have been disallowed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The number of schemes under Section 72 of the National
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    Insurance Act, 1911, confirmed by the Registrar is seventy-seven, namely, fifty-one schemes and twenty-six provisional schemes. No schemes or provisional schemes have been disallowed, but 187 have been returned to the societies with suggestions for amendment. In addition, 163 registered friendly societies have shown to the satisfaction of the registrar that they do not fall within the Section. Many of the largest orders are engaged in preparing schemes for their branches and it is anticipated that several thousand of these will be submitted to the Registrar very shortly.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: May I ask, with regard to the 187 forms that have been sent back, whether they will be accepted if they are sent back again without alterations?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: They were only suggestions for amendments that were made.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: But are those suggestions to be insisted upon?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I cannot say that in regard to every individual case, but that is the present position.

    PRODUCTION OF INSURANCE BOOK.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked whether there is any penalty attaching to an employer who insists, before engaging an employé, upon the production of his insurance book; whether the statement in the draft and provisional regulations, dated 22nd and 24th May, 1912, that the employer cannot demand the production of this book is in fact correct; and whether the statement is true of a prospective employer?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The regulations provide that under the Act the employed person is not legally bound to produce his insurance book on demand of his employer; nor is any penalty enforceable under the Act for refusal to produce the book. The contribution card must be produced, under the circumstances laid down under the regulations, for stamping by the employer.

    SCHEMES OF AFFILIATED ORDERS.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked whether the Registrar of Friendly Societies has refused to sanction schemes brought in by the central bodies of the large affiliated orders, under Section 72 of

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    the National Insurance Act, providing for the workman's 4d. being taken into account against his future contributions to the society unless each branch or lodge of the order is solvent; and whether he has insisted that the degree of solvency of the worst branch or lodge of an order is to govern the scheme of all other branches or lodges of that order?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.

    APPROVED SOCIETIES.
    Mr. HUDSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury if his attention has been called to cases of men who have given their assent to join certain societies for the purposes of the National Health Insurance Act, and on further consideration have written informing the secretary of such society that they withdraw from their first intention to join some other approved society; and are they not at liberty to do so before the Act becomes operative?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: There is nothing in the Act to prevent their withdrawal. If the applications have not yet been accepted by the society they can withdraw at any time. If the applications have been accepted, withdrawal might or might not, according to the rules of the society, involve a breach of contract. In any case the society could not obtain damages without proving financial loss to itself.

    DOMESTIC MAID SERVANTS.
    Mr. STEWARTasked whether any approved society is being specially formed for the purpose of insuring domestic maidservants under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. FELLasked what steps have been taken towards the formation of a friendly society to be reserved exclusively for domestic servants so that they may enjoy the full benefit of their contributions under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The first list of approved societies, which was laid on the Table of the House on Thursday, includes three societies concerned exclusively or primarily with the insurance of domestic servants, namely, the Domestic Workers' Union, in England, and the Scottish Domestic Servants' Association and Servants' Institution, in Scotland. In addition the application of a society, called the
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    Liverpool and District Women Domestic Servants' Insurance Society, is now being examined with a view to approval. I believe that all the friendly and collecting societies hitherto approved which take women members will receive amongst them domestic servants.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me how the idea of these associations is to become known to the servants?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not know quite what the hon. Member means by the "idea of these associations."
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Their existence.
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Every step is taken to communicate that, but if the hon. Member can give me any further suggestions I shall be glad to communicate them to the Commissioners in order to get the facts of the societies brought before the people who are interested.
    Mr. FELL: Is there one society in England and two in Scotland, and can the hon. Gentleman recommend the society in England?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not give any opinion as to societies as to whether they are satisfactory or not. There is a society in England which is exclusively confined to domestic servants. In addition the large friendly societies which take women members will also take domestic servants I think.
    Mr. FELL: With regard to the one which is exclusively reserved, is that a substantial society which can be recommended?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I could not attempt to make any differentiation between the different societies.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is it proposed that the mistresses should themselves find out those societies for servants and become purveyors of those societies as in the—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can put that question down.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any well-established friendly society has or proposes to

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    establish branches or sections dealing with domestic servants only?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: That is an important question, and as soon as I get any information on the subject I shall be glad to give it to the House.

    RESERVES.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether any reserves released by virtue of any scheme under Section 72 of the National Insurance Act, 1911, must be applied rate-ably for the benefit of all existing members of the society concerned; and (2) whether his attention has been called to the fact that certain friendly societies with branches have given the option to their members either to continue their present contributions and benefits in addition to those under the National Insurance Act or to take those under the Act in part substitution for present contributions and benefits; and whether any reserves released where the latter option is exercised will be shared by those who exercise the former option, or whether, as no reserves will be released in the cases of those who exercise the former option, they will be excluded from sharing in the reserves released in the latter cases?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Under Section 72 a friendly society may, if it so determines, give to each of its members an option either to continue his present contributions and benefits or to reduce his contributions and to receive reduced benefits, whether he takes his benefits under the Act from that society or from some other society. If the member elects to reduce his contributions he will remain entitled to any excess of benefits from his society where such benefits exceed those of the Act. He will remain insured, further, for such benefits of his society as are outside the benefits provided by the Act, whilst he will become entitled to such benefits under the Act as were not originally provided by his society. The application of any reserves set free is a question for the scheme or supplementary scheme to be prepared on an actuarial valuation after it has been ascertained which members have adopted the alternative of reduced contributions and benefits under which alone can any funds be set free. The mode of application of any released funds and questions relative to the exercise of their discretion by the societies in dealing with such funds are still under consideration.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Would the hon. Gentleman say shortly whether the released reserves are to apply rateably amongst the existing members or not?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I was very much puzzled with the word "rateably" in the hon. Gentleman's question. I do not know quite what he means by it. Perhaps he will put down a question.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Can the hon. Gentleman say, seeing that the reserves only arise when the contributions are reduced, whether those persons only will get the benefits or whether the reserves will go to people for whom no reserves have arisen?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: That is the question which is under consideration, and to which I hope to give an answer in a few days' time.

    CONTRIBUTION CARDS AND STAMPS.
    Mr. BOOTHasked when the National Insurance contribution cards and stamps will be made available to the public, and when and how they can be obtained?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Supplies of cards for health insurance are now ready for members of approved societies in England, and will be immediately issued to such societies on application. Some time next week insurance stamps for both health insurance and unemployment insurance will be on sale at the post offices. Cards for health insurance will be obtainable on application at English post offices after next week by those persons liable to compulsory insurance who have not then joined approved societies. Employers, of domestic servants will also be able to obtain cards at the post offices for issue to such of their employés as fail to obtain cards for themselves. Specimens of the stamps and of the health insurance cards are exhibited in the Tea Room. With reference to Part II. of the National Insurance Act (Unemployment Insurance), for which distinct unemployment books will be required, I have received the following information from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade: The unemployment books will be issued by the Board of Trade on receipt of application to be made on forms which are now ready. These forms can be obtained at any Labour Exchange or local office of the unemployment fund, and the

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    address of the nearest Labour Exchange or local office can be obtained on inquiry at any post office. Arrangements have also been made to distribute the forms of application to employers and trade unions. The form when filled must be returned to a Labour Exchange or other local office, and in return the actual unemployment book will be sent direct to the workmen at any address he may desire.
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Do the same provisions apply to the supply of books and cards in the cases of Scotland and Ireland?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The same provisions apply, but I understand they will be a few days later than England in issuing them.

    ADMISSION OF PRESS.
    Sir HILDRED CARLILEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, in view of the general interest taken in the subject, he will consider the advisability of permitting the Press to publish reports of the proceedings at meetings now being held under his Department in some centres for the purpose of explaining to women the provisions of the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Meetings are being supplied on application with women lecturers to give general instruction in the Act. At these no objection is being raised to the free admittance of the Press, if desired by those convening the meetings. Special courses of instruction for officials or would-be officials of approved societies are also being given and these, at the request of the organisations concerned, are private meetings. The Commissioners will be glad (as far as possible) to supply lecturers for general instruction in the Act as it affects women to any body of persons who will make arrangements for such lectures.
    Mr. LLOYD: What does the hon. Member mean by those convening the meetings? Could anyone ask for publicity and the Admission of the Press?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes. If anyone convenes a special meeting and wishes the Press to be present we have no objection.
    Mr. LLOYD: If anyone wishes to be present, to whom do they apply?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The conveners of the meeting.
    Mr. AMERY: Can the hon. Member say whether the meeting of fifty ladies held at Birmingham—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of a question of that kind.

    Public Buildings, Dublin.
    Mr. BRADYasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is prepared to make any further statement regarding the stoppage of the work on the new Science and Art and other public buildings at Upper Merrion Street, Dublin; and whether His Majesty's Government is now prepared to carry this scheme to completion, a course which, apart from the necessity for office accommodation, will ensure an amount of employment in Dublin?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: After very carefully considering this matter, I have decided to authorise the Board of Works to invite tenders as soon as possible for the erection of new Public Offices in Upper Merrion Street.

    Census (England and Wales).
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary to the Treasury how many copies of the Preliminary Report of the Census for England and Wales (Cd. 5705, of 1912) have been printed, and how many copies issued to the public; and how long has this Preliminary Report been out of print?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Four thousand copies of the Preliminary Report of the Census for England and Wales (Cd. 5705) were printed, of which 2,187 were issued to the public. The Report has been out of print since March last.

    National School Teachers (Ireland).
    Captain CRAIGasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in the case of national school teachers who have retired recently or are about to retire after long and efficient service, they will be entitled to the new scale of pensions which has been repeatedly foreshadowed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and whether he can state the date on which it is expected the new scale will be made public?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I fear I can add nothing at present to the answer I gave on the 10th ultimo to the hon. Member for

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    West Kerry, but I understand my right hon. Friend proposes to receive a deputation shortly with regard to the details of the new scheme.
    Captain CRAIG: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that owing to the long delay in the settlement of this matter teachers have been dropping out under the old scheme and great discontent exists at the present moment, and would not it be possible to make the bases of settlement retrospective to cover such cases?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: That is a point worth considering, but I do not think there has been any long delay as the scheme was only announced a few months ago.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Captain CRAIGasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the rate of interest now reckoned on the accumulated savings of pensioners who have been thrifty, in order to arrive at their yearly incomes is 5 per cent.; and whether, in view of the fact that many of these old people have their savings invested in Government securities yielding about 2½ to 3 per cent., he will adjust the calculations in order that a more equitable method of arriving at the pensioner's yearly income may be secured?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The method of calculation to which the hon. Member refers was specifically laid down last year by Statute after very full consideration, and I fear I do not see my way to propose an amendment of the law on this point.
    Captain CRAIG: Would it not be well to have an amendment before the Act comes into force?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: This is a reference to the Old Age Pensions Act of 1911, and it is rather too early to suggest an amendment of that.

    Shops Act.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether waiters employed in bonâ-fide hotels, as distinct from restaurants or public-houses, come within the definition of shop assistants?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Retail trade is expressly defined in the
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    Act as including the sale of refreshments or intoxicating liquors, and waiters wholly or mainly employed in serving customers with refreshments or liquor, whether in a restaurant or in a hotel, would, in my opinion, come within the definition of shop assistant in the Act.
    Mr. ALBERT SMITH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether a temperance hotel where nothing but food is sold comes within the Act?
    Mr. McKENNA: The same reply as that which I have just given applies to that case also. They would be engaged in the sale of refreshments.
    Mr. CASSEL: Has the right hon. Gentleman given consideration to an amendment of the Act in that respect?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes. I have frequently answered questions on that point. An amending Bill is going to be introduced by an hon. Member.
    Mr. A. SMITH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what constitutes a sale, and would a resident going to his hotel for lunch, which is an extra charge, commit the hotel to a sale under the Act?
    Mr. McKENNA: Those are difficult points which I have no power to construe.
    Mr. CASSEL: Will facilities be given for the hon. Member's Bill which he says will be introduced?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have frequently answered questions on this point, and I would refer the hon. Member to the answers I have already given.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked whether peripatetic vendors of newspapers were permitted to pursue their calling during such time as newsagents and stationers might agree to close their shops?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir, the sale of newspapers is expressly exempted from the provisions of Section 9 of the Act which prohibit a retail business being carried on in the streets or any other place which is not a shop at times when it would be unlawful to keep a shop open for that business. I may point out, however, that the sale of newspapers in shops is exempted from the half-holiday provisions of the Act, and can only be brought under those provisions if two-thirds of the shops affected are in favour.

    Cruelty to Horses (Clerkenwell).
    Dr. ADDISONasked the Home Secretary whether his attention had been called to the number of cases of alleged cruelty to horses in which a veterinary surgeon of Clerkenwell had appeared, and to the number for which one police constable had been responsible; and whether he would direct an inquiry to be made into the circumstances, and into the mode in which these prosecutions were undertaken and the character of the evidence brought forward, and at the same time obtain information as to the methods of the disposal of the carcases of animals condemned to be slaughtered?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police informs me that in the last twelve months 366 cases of cruelty to horses and donkeys were heard at Clerkenwell Police Court; that two constables possessed of special knowledge of horses and their diseases were responsible for eighty-six and sixty-four respectively of these cases; and that the veterinary surgeon employed to examine these animals has performed his duty for many years to the satisfaction of the Court. In seventy-seven of the cases the horse was ordered by the magistrate to be slaughtered. The carcases of horses ordered to be killed are as a rule retained by the slaughterer, who makes the owner of the animal an allowance in respect of its value. I am not aware of any grounds for instituting the inquiry suggested.

    Vivisection.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the Home Secretary whether his attention had been called to a shop in Piccadilly and to one recently opened in Oxford Street, in which were exhibited stuffed animals tied down for an imaginary operation and suggesting that animals were tortured by vivisection; and whether, having regard to the congestion of passenger traffic due to the nature of such exhibits and the bad effects thereby produced on sensitive and uninformed people, he would take steps to prevent the public display of such shows?
    Mr. McKENNA: My attention has been drawn to these shops, but the police report that they have not caused any congestion of traffic. I regret that I have no power to prevent such displays. The persons responsible for them can only damage their cause by adopting methods which are
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    calculated to spread the false belief that in this country cutting operations are allowed to be performed on animals without anaæsthetics. The recent report of the Royal Commission condemned this method of propaganda.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are practitioners of vivisection certificated to perform such operations without anæsthetics; and is it not a fact that the illustrations in these shops are illustrations of actual experiments, that the instruments shown are those which are on sale for the purpose, and that practically the whole of these illustrations are taken from medical publications?
    Mr. McKENNA: I understand that my hon. Friend is in conflict with the Royal Commission on the subject. I can only remind him that the whole of the circumstances were carefully considered by the Commission, and they reported against this particular form of propaganda.
    Mr. LYNCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nearly all men of science—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member seems, to be about to give a general opinion.

    Established Church (Wales) Bill.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the Home Secretary whether he could now state how many Churches and how many mission halls, and how many communicants of the Church, and how many Calvinistic Methodist chapels and mission halls and communicants there were in Cardiff; whether any conclusion could be drawn from these figures as to which denomination did most to meet the religious needs of the people of Cardiff; whether he could state if the Established Church (Wales) Bill would in any way assist the good work at present carried on in Cardiff by the Calvinistic Methodists; and how much of the property of the Church in Cardiff would be confiscated under the terms of that Bill?
    Mr. McKENNA: The full statistics for the Church of England are given in Volume V. of the Appendices to the Report of the Welsh Church Commission (Cd. paper 5436, page 39), and the statistics for the Calvinistic Methodists in Volume VI. (Cd. paper 5437, pages 250 and 260). The list of Calvinistic Methodist Forward Movement Halls is given in Volume I., Part II. (Cd. paper 5432—I., page 167). One conclusion that can be

    517
    drawn from the statistics referred to is that the mission work of the Church of England in Cardiff is less than that of the Calvinistic Methodists alone. Inasmuch as the Established Church (Wales) Bill is warmly supported by the Calvinistic Methodists of Cardiff, who regard it as an act of bare justice, I cannot think it will be other than helpful to them and other Churches in their good work. I am further led to the opinion that it will tend towards better co-operation in good work among all Christian Churches. None of the property of the Church will be confiscated under the Bill. As far as I have been able to obtain figures for Cardiff, about £700 a year now held in trust by the Church for national purposes, but at present not devoted to those purposes, will be alienated from the present trustees and the property restored to the original beneficiaries of the trust.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUART: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman has not been to Wales to find out the wishes of the Welsh people?
    Mr. G. LLOYD: Was it on these statistics the right hon. Gentleman based his speech the other day?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: On what ground does the right hon. Gentleman say that the missionary efforts of the Church of England in Cardiff are less than those of the Calvinistic Methodists?
    Mr. McKENNA: It is the conclusion the Noble Lord may draw from the statistics, the authorities for which I have quoted.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: But what mental process has the right hon. Gentleman been through in order to arrive at that conclusion?

    Automatic Gas Meters (Thefts).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the large and increasing number of petty robberies from automatic gas meters in working-class houses, he would place himself in communication with the gas companies with a view to arranging for the use of metal discs, or of devising some other scheme for putting a stop to these thefts?
    Mr. McKENNA: This is a matter of importance, and has engaged my attention
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    for some time. I am anxious to find a remedy for the various evils involved. I propose to request the gas companies to send representatives to confer with the Home Office on the subject.

    Suffragist Prisoners.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Home Secretary whether he had come to any conclusion on the matter of treating Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her fellow prisoners as first-class misdemeanants; whether he had received any communication from any of the jurymen who tried the case recommending a remission of the remainder of the sentence; and what decision had he come to on this point?
    Mr. McKENNA: In consequence of a communication I received from the solicitor representing the three prisoners, I wrote to the judge who tried the case. The judge, in reply, advised me that if the prisoners undertook not to incite to any illegal act while in prison he considered they should be placed in the first division, as he himself would have so placed them at the time of sentence had such an undertaking been given. I have now received the following assurance from the three prisoners:—
    "We have been asked whether we are prepared to give an assurance that we will not take advantage of any facilities afforded to us as offenders in the first division to incite persons to commit illegal acts. We repeat what we have said throughout, that we consider it too great a responsibility under the circumstances of imprisonment to continue to control the movement, and that while in prison we shall not direct or control the commission of any acts whatever, whether legal or illegal."
    Although the words used do not exactly conform to the assurance referred to by the judge, they seem to me to have the same meaning, and I, therefore, propose to advise the transfer of the three prisoners to the first division.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any communication from a juryman in regard to a reduction of the sentence or the remission of the costs of the trial?
    Mr. McKENNA: I believe a letter was sent by a gentleman who purported to be a member of the jury.
    Mr. EVELYN CECIL: Is the decision of the right hon. Gentleman to treat these prisoners as first-class misdemeanants to be a precedent for all future cases of political assaults on the police?
    Mr. McKENNA: No. The hon. Gentleman will see that I have limited the recommendation to the particular circumstances of this particular case upon the advice of the judge.
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Will similar treatment be meted out to those who may be involved in trade disputes, seeing that their agitation is one involving public policy?
    Mr. McKENNA: Each case will be considered upon its merits and after consultation with the judge.
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure me that the social status of the prisoner will have no bearing upon his decision?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes; I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.

    Conviction for Sleeping Out (Pontefract).
    Mr. POINTERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Louisa Hunt, of Knottingley, who was sentenced at Pontefract on the 25th of May last to three months' hard labour for the crime of sleeping out; and whether he will investigate the case with a view to remitting the sentence if possible?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have inquired into the circumstances of the case, and I regret that I cannot advise any remission. Though not certifiably insane, the prisoner is weak-minded and entirely wanting in moral sense and self-control, and though still under the age of nineteen has been repeatedly convicted. It is most desirable in her own interest and in that of the community that she should be placed under control. I hope that when the Feeble-Minded Bill passes it will be possible to deal with this case more adequately than can be done under the powers now existing.
    Mr. POINTER: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that three months' hard labour is the proper treatment for a weak-minded person?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir; it is a very difficult problem, for which at present there is no adequate law. I hope, however, in the course of the present Session that we shall be able to deal with persons of the kind more satisfactorily.
    Mr. POINTER: Would it be possible for imprisonment, if it is necessary, to be continued without the hard labour?
    Mr. KING: Can she not be put in the first division?
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Is not this a case, social status aside, for first-class treatment?
    Mr. McKENNA: I hardly think so.
    Mr. POINTER: May I have an answer to my question?
    Mr. McKENNA: I will inquire into the matter.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    NEW SHIPS "TIGER," "BENBOW," AND "DELHI."
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked whether the "Tiger," "Benbow," and "Delhi" have yet been laid down; if so, on what dates; and what are the contract dates of delivery?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The "Benbow" and "Delhi" were laid down on the 30th and 31st May respectively. The contract date for delivery in each case is the 14th February, 1914. It is anticipated that the "Tiger" will be laid down about the 20th instant. The contract date for delivery in her case is the 31st March, 1914.

    NAVAL DISCIPLINE.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can make any statement regarding the decisions and conclusions so far arrived at by the Admiralty Committee appointed to consider questions affecting the personnel?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: If, as I assume, the hon. Member refers to the Committee on Naval Discipline, that Committee has not yet reported.
    Mr. BURGOYNE: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to a statement in the Press on the matter?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No decision had been taken, but I hope it will not be unduly delayed.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when Admiral Brock's Discipline Committee will report?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot tell: as I have said, I hope it will not be unduly delayed.

    CONFERENCES AT MALTA.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked whether any alteration is to be made in the scheme for the reorganisation and redisposition of the Fleet as the result of recent conferences at Malta?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not in a position to make any statement at present.
    Mr. BURGOYNE: When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to make a statement?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: There are regular periods in the Session when the Naval Estimates come before the House, and it may be that when such occasion arises that a statement may be made.

    NEW DESTROYERS.
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the twenty destroyers of the present programme have all been ordered; if so, from whom; and what are their names and contract dates of delivery?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Orders have been placed provisionally for the twenty torpedo-boat destroyers of this year's programme with the Fairfield Shipbuilding Company, 4; Denny and Brothers, 2; Yarrow and Company, 4; Thornycroft and Company, 2; J. S. White and Company, 2; Swan Hunter, 2; Parsons, 2; Beardmore and Company, 2. The dates for delivery to be inserted in the contracts are under consideration. No names have yet been given to these vessels.

    NAVAL RATINGS AND CONTRACTORS' WORK.
    Mr. BARNESasked the reason why naval ratings were sent from the Tyne on His Majesty ship "Monarch" to do the work which should have been done by the contractors' engineers; and what payment was made, if any, by the contractors to the Admiralty for the services rendered?
    Mr. HUDSONasked why naval ratings were put on to do the work of the contractors' men in the case of His Majesty's ship "Monarch" running her final acceptance trials?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The services of naval ratings, who were already drafted to the "Monarch" for the purpose of navigating her, were utilised for the acceptance trial, this trial being carried out on
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    passage to Devonport. This course was adopted with a view to economising coal during the coal strike. If the ordinary procedure had been followed, the vessel would have carried out the trial off the mouth of the Tyne, and returned to discharge contractors' workmen. A suitable rebate on the contract price was allowed by the contractors.
    Mr. HUDSON: Is it not a fact that there was a dispute on between the contractor and the men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that. It was done because of a desire to exercise expedition in the circumstances.
    Mr. HUDSON: Would the right hon. Gentleman inquire into my question?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the naval ratings receive any extra pay for this work?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: In any case the stokers who fired would be on naval ratings. The only naval ratings who took the place of the men for the purposes I have stated were those to mind the engines.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: To what purpose does the right hon. Gentleman propose to apply the money that should have gone to the men that ought to have done the work?
    Mr. HUDSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the circumstances I have mentioned?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My suggestion is there was a dispute in the coal trade at the time, and in consequence of that dispute we used naval ratings instead of contractors' men.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Am I not entitled, Mr. Speaker, to an answer to my question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not expect an answer to every supplementary question. He must put his question down.
    Mr. BARNES: Was the naval rating pay equivalent to the amount paid by the contractor to the men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I should say, offhand, no. I shall look into the matter and in that way find the answer for which the hon. Gentleman opposite is so anxious.

    "DREADNOUGHTS" (CONSTRUCTION).
    Mr. HUNTasked whether, in view of the fact that Germany carried out her full programme of having nine "Dreadnoughts" in commission on the 31st of March last, whilst we had only fifteen in commission on that date instead of twenty, he can say what was the cause of the delay of the five "Dreadnoughts"; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent delay in the future?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Germany had nine "Dreadnoughts" and "Dreadnought" cruisers on 31st March. We had fifteen, a sixteenth—His Majesty's Ship "Monarch"—having commissioned on 6th April. As regards the remaining four, the "Thunderer" is due for immediate despatch from the contractors, and will be commissioned within the present month in time for the manœuvres. The "Conqueror" has completed her steam trials, and it is expected that she will complete her other trials within the next few days, and will be ready for commission by the middle of September. The "Princess Royal" will probably be ready for her trials about the end of August, and for commission very shortly afterwards. The completion of the "Lion" has been delayed partly by late delivery on the part of the machinery contractors, and partly by alterations which experience showed that it was desirable to make. She is already in commission. As the hon. Member is aware, every effort is made to adhere to programme dates, though delay is always liable to arise owing to unforseen contingencies.
    Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand the Government are going to risk the delay in the completion of ships upon which our safety depends in the future?
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: Has the right hon. Gentleman arrived at any decision as to penalties for contractors when there has been substantial delay?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; I have not. Each particular case would be a matter for special consideration.
    Mr. HUNT: May I have an answer to my question?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The country will not be involved in any danger.

    Oriental Studies.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Prime Minister if he will say when the Govern-
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    ment proposes to proceed with the Bill for the transfer of the London Institute for the purpose of a school of Oriental studies?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot fix a date, but we shall take an early opportunity.

Business of the House.
Mr. FELLasked when it is proposed to proceed with the Report of the Resolutions agreed to in Committee of Ways and Means?
The PRIME MINISTER: I fear it is not yet possible to fix a date.
Mr. FELL: May I have the Prime Minister's assurance that it will be taken, and that the Finance Bill will be brought in in the usual course before we separate for the summer?
The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I cannot give that assurance.
Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that never in the last twenty-five years has the introduction of the Finance Bill been postponed so late as 30th June?
The PRIME MINISTER: I should like to consult the records.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman refresh his memory as to the answer he gave me before the Whitsuntide adjournment. He promised, I think he will remember, that the Report of the Sinking Fund Resolution should be taken at an early date—he did not fix the exact date—but he agreed that we should have favourable time for its discussion?
The PRIME MINISTER: I adhere to everything I said, Sir.

PORT OF LONDON (STRIKE).

  POLICE ESCORTING CONVOYS.
  Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the Home Secretary whether his attention had been called to the police attack upon people who stood upon the footpath between Canning Town station and the iron bridge, Barking Road, on Thursday morning last; if he was aware that a reporter of the "Star" newspaper was witness to a man being chased across the road, and to his being pushed and struck by the police, and of the fact that the man moved off to the pavement and approached a sergeant, when two other constables rushed at him, seized him by the scruff of the neck, and, with unnecessary force, hurried him off down a side turning; whether he was aware that on Wednesday, 29th May, at the corner of Beckton Road, the police on horseback rushed into the crowd and attacked men, women, and children, with the result that two children and an old man and woman were injured; and if he was prepared to hold an inquiry into the matter?
  Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police reports to me that he has made inquiries. The spot referred to in the first part of the question is one at which the police have experienced much difficulty in escorting the convoys owing to the large numbers of strikers who assemble there. The incident referred to took place at 11.50 a.m. on 30th May. It became necessary on this occasion to remove a man who was interfering with horses, but, so far as the inquiries have gone, there is no reason to believe that unnecessary force was used. There was nothing in the nature of an attack by the police upon any person present. On Wednesday, 29th May, the police experienced difficulties in escorting a convoy past the junction of Barking Road and Beckton Road, where a meeting was being held, and some thousands of persons were assembled. The incident mentioned in the question arose out of a driver's mistaking his direction and having

  531
  to turn in the middle of the crowd. Some missiles were thrown, the reins of one of the horses were seized, and the crowd obstructed the van. As a result, the mounted police were compelled to clear the way, but, though one officer waved his baton indiscreetly, it is not correct to say that the crowd was charged or attacked. Beyond the fact that one man had his foot accidentally trodden on by a horse, no person present, so far as the police have been able to ascertain, was injured.
  Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to hold a public inquiry into the matter; and is he aware that a reporter of the "Star" newspaper was standing close by, and is quite prepared to give evidence in the matter?
  Mr. McKENNA: Well, Sir, I will inquire further into the subject, but the circumstances at present do not seem to be sufficient to warrant a formal inquiry being held.

  FREE LABOUR SHIP, "LADY JOCELYN."
  Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary for the Home Department if he can state for what reason he prevented the ship "Lady Jocelyn" from entering the docks?
  Mr. McKENNA: I would refer the hon. 'Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for East Nottingham last Thursday.
  Mr. HUNT: Was it not clear that the ship had free labourers on board?
  Mr. McKENNA: I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the very full answer I have already given.

  UNION AND NON-UNION LABOUR.
  Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in the future it is the intention of the Government to afford protection to either trade unionists or non-unionists willing to work during a strike in cases when such Government protection may be likely to bring about a breach of the peace by the men on strike?
  Mr. McKENNA: If it be necessary, and so far as the resources of the police extend, protection will be given to unionists and non-unionists alike; and so far as possible it will be given in such a way and under such conditions as appear least likely to lead to any breach of the peace.
  Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand that the working men of this country are no longer to be free to work for themselves and their families unless they can protect themselves from violence?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, the whole tenour of the answer that I have given to the hon. Gentleman would not lead to the conclusion which he now draws.
  Mr. HUNT: Has the right hon. Gentleman reversed the decision of Thursday which he gave to the House?
  Mr. McKENNA: I gave no such decision on Thursday. If the hon. Member, before he puts another question, will be so good as to read the report, and to quote my words, I shall be happy to answer him.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman send a copy of his answer to Messrs. Houlder?
  Mr. LLOYD: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the introduction of free labour will always be prevented in future, and whether it will always be considered provocative?
  Mr. McKENNA: If the hon. Member were only aware of the facts he would know that in London at the present time more free labour is being protected than has ever been protected before in the course of the strike.
  Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the police are preventing the strikers from picketing the railway stations in the usual way?
  Mr. McKENNA: I would like notice of that question.
  Sir J. D. REESasked whether the police force available in London is insufficient to afford protection to the inhabitants in the exercise of their legal rights; and, if not, what steps are contemplated for bringing it up to the necessary strength?
  Mr. McKENNA: In normal circumstances, and even in such abnormal circumstances as the present dock strike, I do not think the force can be regarded as insufficient.

  LONDON WATERSIDE MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION.
  Mr. FREDHALLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in reply to a request for

  533
  protection from the London Waterside Manufacturers' Association, he informed the association that if any of their members suffered from rioting, violence, or illegal intimidation they should communicate with the Metropolitan Police; and, if so, whether he will state what steps he proposes to take in the case of anticipated molestation?
  Mr. McKENNA: I advised the association to apply to the Metropolitan Police, and I said the police would do their utmost with the resources at their command to supply protection. During the past week special protection has been given to a larger number of men at work than on any previous occasion, and, if the need for it continues, the protection will be continued.
  Mr. F. HALL: Taking into consideration the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman on Thursday last, may I ask whether there is any utility whatever in applying for police aid until rioting has actually taken place, or whether the police are to be utilised for preserving order—
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a question; the hon. Member is making a speech.

  MASTER-LIGHTERMEN'S AGREEMENT.
  Mr. FRED HALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the alleged breach by the master-lightermen of the Thames of the agreement come to in August, 1911, concerned only a small number of employers and not by the master-lightermen as one of the contracting parties, whereas the Transport Workers' Federation, who represented the whole of the men in the acceptance of that agreement, had by their action in the present difficulty been guilty, as one of the principal parties to the agreement, of a distinct breach thereof; and whether the Government proposes to take any action to enable agreements entered into tinder their direction, or with their approval, to be loyally enforced or to enable penalties to be imposed for any breach thereof by either one of the contracting parties?
  Mr. BUXTON: The facts of the dispute have been carefully investigated by Sir Edward Clarke, and his report has been circulated to Members. The whole question of agreements affecting transport workers and their employers in the Port of London is being considered by the
  534
  Government, in conjunction with the parties to the present dispute.
  Mr. FRED HALL: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reply to the last part of the question?
  Mr. BUXTON: The matter as to the best way in which agreements should be enforced and carried out is under the consideration of the two parties concerned.
  Mr. FRED HALL: If I repeat the question in a week's time, will the right hon. Gentleman be able to give me an answer?
  Mr. BUXTON: Perhaps so.
  Mr. FRED HALL: Then I will repeat it.

  NOTICE OF MOTION.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I beg to give notice that a Motion will be placed on the Paper to-morrow, to be moved from this Bench, dealing with the declaration of the Government that they have refused the necessary protection to men desirous to work, and I shall to-morrow ask the Prime Minister to give us a day for its discussion.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I desire to say at once that the right hon. Gentleman shall have the earliest possible day.

MISS MALECKA (PARDON).
Sir W. BYLES: I wish to ask a question of which I have given private notice, namely, whether the Foreign Secretary can make any announcement to the House about the release of Miss Malecka.
Mr. ACLAND: We have been informed by His Majesty's Consul at Warsaw that Miss Malecka's counsel reports that she has been pardoned on condition that she leaves the country immediately. We have no official information of this report, but I have no reason to doubt its accuracy.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE OUTBREAK.
Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that six months have now elapsed since the stamping out of the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in England, and that, according to precedent, Argentine ports should now be thrown open to English live stock; whether

535
he is aware that the Argentine authorities have declined to adopt this course until the British Government have made an official notification to the above effect to the Argentine Government; and whether, in the interests of English stock owners, he will cause such notification to be made forthwith?
The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): The Argentine Government were officially informed by telegram on 5th February that the last case of foot-and-mouth disease was extirpated on 11th December by the slaughter of all animals affected or directly exposed to danger of infection, that the precautionary measures which had been imposed locally were withdrawn on 10th January, and that no sign of foot-and-mouth disease then existed in any part of the United Kingdom. That statement holds good at the present time, and it is therefore the case that six months have now elapsed since the last outbreak occurred. The Argentine Government have not asked for an official notification to this effect from the Government of this country. Such a notification will, of course, be furnished to them at once if they desire it, but I assume that, being aware of the date of the last outbreak, they will now proceed to issue a new Decree withdrawing the restrictions imposed on account of the recent outbreaks.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.
As amended, considered.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
Sir J. D. REES: The policy to which this Bill now gives effect has been advocated by the Government of India in proposing it as
"involving one of the most weighty decisions ever made since the establishment of British rule in India,"
and the Secretary of State, in sanctioning this policy, has described it as
"a momentous change, an abrupt departure from the traditions of British government, and a complete dislocation of settled official habits."
Lord Crewe wrote that
"he could not recall in history nor could he picture in any portion of the civilised world, as it now exists, a series of administrative changes of so wide a scope, culminating in the transfer of the main seat of government."
536
It seems to me that much point is given to the bitter, sarcastic criticisms which are made in India upon the treatment of Indian affairs in this House by the fact that but for the accident of a printer's error in the Schedule changes which have been described by the Secretary of State and the Viceroy as among the most important that have ever been made in the government of India would have passed through this House uncriticised, unremarked upon, and almost without notice, for the greater part of Friday was occupied with the discussion of details for the most part of a technical and drafting character and hardly of any substance whatsoever. It is very distinctly stated in the despatches relating to these changes that the matters immediately dealt with in the Bill are indissolubly connected with the transfer of the Capital, and, in view of the pains which the Secretary of State has taken to make it clear that these changes depend upon the change of Capital, I presume I shall be in order in running through these despatches and dealing as briefly as possible with the changes dealt with in the Bill. Let me say at the outset that I repudiate entirely the suggestion that the manner in which these great administrative changes were introduced precludes or renders undesirable any discussion in this House, because His Majesty the King, in making the announcement he did, said the action was taken
"on the advice of our Ministers, tendered after consultation with our Governor-General in Council."
The matter, therefore, is as much an official act of the Government as any act which ever came before this House of Commons. I am as conscious as any Member of the great advantages following from the King's visit to India, but I regret that the opportunity was taken to announce by the Sovereign changes which I think so far from meeting with universal consent meet with the strongest disapproval in India among both natives and Europeans. The authority of Sir Courtenay Ilbert will not be repudiated in this House. He says:—
"The Government of India rests on English Acts of Parliament largely supported by Indian Acts and Regulations."
That undoubtedly is the case. Consequently, the matters which lie behind this apparently simple-looking Bill are such as should be commented upon on this occasion, though I do not personally propose to attempt to divide the House. The Government of India, under a power granted to it

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long ago, under circumstances wholly different from those now obtaining, has taken action on one of the chief points, and has already appointed a Governor in the Council for Bengal. There is little use in attempting to defeat any proposals brought forward by the Government in this House when the Upper House can exercise no other function than that of delaying for a time the operation of hasty and ill-considered legislation. Taking the despatch of the Government of India of 25th August, I would remark that it is characteristically and improperly addressed to the Secretary of State instead of to the Secretary of State in Council, and the correspondence, to my mind, bears incontestable evidence that these despatches have not been through the usual official mill so as to obtain the advantages of official experience of authorities who ordinarily note upon them; indeed, they partake to an unusual extent of the character of personal communication. The transfer of the Capital, I say, is indissolubly linked with the other changes, and the earliest reason given is that the Government of India feels the necessity of withdrawing from a provincial environment. The European commercial community of Calcutta is the least provincial, the most virile, the most independent, and the most broad-minded British community in the whole East, but the Government having made this statement that they wish to withdraw themselves from a provincial environment as a reason for removing to Delhi, proceed to move to the Punjaub, where they will spend both the hot and cold weather instead as previously of the hot weather only. The Government of India having previously spent the greater part of the year in the Punjaub, now says it is bound, lest it should be contaminated by its friends in Bengal, to spend the rest of the year in the Punjaub. Lord Hardinge says the Bengalese are in no way representative of anyone but themselves. I admit that, but no one forgets it so much as Lord Hardinge's Government. I am not a defender of the Bengalese, but they might fairly ask if four months' association with them is objectionable how much more so is a whole year's association with the Punjaubis in the sequestered retreats of the Himalayas?
The Government of India in its despatch foreshadows a future federal system, under which India will consist of a number of administrations, autonomous in provincial affairs, but restricted in regard to matters
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of Imperial concern. I wish to express my deep regret that the Government of India should have made a statement like that at the present moment, when it is just digesting and experimenting upon the very considerable changes introduced by Lord Morley and Lord Minto. Surely it would have been better to have seen the effect of those changes before stimulating an appetite for more by making such a statement in a despatch to the Secretary of State. This message has been interpreted in India as a pledge that the Governor-General in Council will shortly introduce popular government in each province, and Mr. Gokhale, a prominent Indian leader, says the outlook is most hopeful, and they want young men of means and leisure who will study. They look forward to popular government in every province, composed as far as possible of young students, who, I think, should be kept under discipline. The views I wish to put forward will not be those of inexperienced young students, but those of men of business and experience. I hope schoolboys will be kept in their proper places. Earlier in the Governor-General's despatch the real reason for these far-reaching proposals comes out, and the Viceroy-in-Council discloses a desire to allay the feeling aroused by the Partition of Bengal among the Bengalese. Any such dissatisfaction as did exist is dead, and there is no ground whatever for taking any such action. I could quote innumerable authorities to prove that this statement of the Governor-General in Council is entirely mistaken. Of course, I do not accuse him of any deliberate mis-statement. I would quote Lord Minto, who, I think, is a sufficiently good authority. Before he left India he said:—
"The agitation against the Partition was stone dead. There was never any genuinely national feeling in the Bengal agitation against Partition and the policy now pursued of unsettling the settled fact of the Partition could not but depreciate the reputation of the British in India."
4.0 P.M.
I heartily associate myself with that statement. I deplore that British rule in India should have suffered so severely from the treatment to which this Bill gives legislative effect. I wish to say a word as to Delhi. It is taken for granted that Delhi is a name with which to conjure in India. The Government argues as if it were equally sacred to Hindus and Mahomedans. There could be no greater mistake. The people of India have no sentiment. It is a characteristic of Western people, but there is nothing of that sort in

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India. Having lived among Indian people for many years, and having studied them carefully, I commit myself deliberately to the statement that all this talk about sentiment in the dispatches amounts to nothing but sound. Let us assume that they have this sentiment—which I am sure they have not—in favour of Delhi. The Government of India assume that the Hindus and Mahomedans will be equally filled with admiration for the reversion to this ancient capital. They cannot have it both ways. It is a place where the Mahomedans beat the Hindus. It is also the place which, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, has been associated with great massacres of Hindus and Mahomedans alike by foreign invaders. I absolutely deny that Delhi is the great capital city of India. It was not more associated with the short period of the splendour of the Moguls than Agra and Lahore, and Milton, a contemporary of two of the greatest of this line, wrote, in "Paradise Lost," of "Agra and Lahore of great Mogul," saying nothing whatever of Delhi, with which the great Kings Akbar, Jehan Gir, Aurangzeb, and Shah Jehan were certainly no more associated than with Agra. The new capital, was the scene of the long humiliation and final fall of the Moguls. Therefore its history and feeling will be associated with suffering and pain rather than with pride. I speak with some confidence on this point. I was once asked to write a short history of the Mahomedan period, because I was familiar with their records, and I declare that the Government of India are perfectly wrong in assuming that there is any sentimental love for Delhi, even on the side of the Indian Mahomedans.
Lord Crewe actually commits himself to this statement, that "the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal, in common with others of their faith, will regard with satisfaction the removal of the capital." But these Mahomedans are converted Hindus, and the Moguls and their lieutenants were formerly their cruel oppressors. These despatches are more like an exchange of personal letters between two high officials, and are full or sham history, false sentiment, and historical hysteria. I object to Delhi also on the ground that it is situated in a strategically weak and dangerous situation, for it is on a plain, a thousand miles away from the sea, where our strength lies. To retire from
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Calcutta to Delhi is like leaving Westminster to go to Winchester. It is very much like going back to the capital of the Heptarchy. Suppose that this centre of administration in India were captured, a vital blow would be dealt at our prestige, whereas, if we were at Calcutta, we should be safe even if a dozen Delhis were captured. I wish, with all respect to the Under-Secretary, to say I deeply deplore that he should have allowed himself to say in a lecture at Cambridge:—
"Oh, India, how much happier would have been your history if the word 'prestige' had been left out or the English vocabulary!"
I offered the hon. Gentleman an opportunity of disclaiming this the other day, because I consider it is a sentence which should not have been given utterance to by a British Minister. Calcutta is situated so far inland as to be safe from attack from the sea. It is situated on a river up which nobody but trained pilots can take ships. It is an ideal situation, and to leave it for Delhi is a great mistake.
Were our great soldiers consulted before this step was taken? Were the Chambers of Commerce, as the representatives of commerce who made modern India, consulted? I cannot answer for the soldiers, but I can answer for some of the representatives of commerce. The Undersecretary says that the anticipations of Lord Crewe and Lord Hardinge have been realised. I should like to know what proof he has of that assertion. I admit that in December, 1911, the Radical newspapers rejoiced that Home Rule for India had preceded Home Rule for Ireland—a mischievous and false analogy which I pressed the hon. Gentleman in vain to repudiate on Friday. The majority of the Anglo-Indian newspapers condemn these changes, root and branch, lock, stock and barrel, and such condemnation is not confined to the Anglo-Indian newspapers, for such a paper as the "Amrita Bazaar Patrika" complained last April:—
"That the repartition of Bengal, instead of easing public feeling in Bengal, had only embittered it. The mischief which certain so-called Bengali leaders and other friends have done Bengal by supporting these changes is simply incalculable."
The Government of India admitted that the administrative reforms were chiefly intended to conciliate Bengali sentiment, and this is the result apparently. Lord Crewe described the repartition as—
"an adequate compensation to Bengali sentiment,"
yet from one of their own leading newspapers the House learns of the complete

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failure of this policy. Who then is pleased? Not even will the Government assert that of the Mahomedans or of the unofficial Europeans. The Aga Khan, the Mahomedan leader, loyal to them and to us, was constrained to state, like an honest man, that he did not speak for the Mahomedan community, and that he only expressed his personal view, and we know that the Moslem League, of which he is President, is memorialising the India Office against these changes. There must be something seriously wrong when the Under-Secretary can deliberately decry British prestige and when an Indian newspaper like the "Indian Patriot" can write:—
"The partition has been modified. The settled fact has been unsettled. The cry for prestige has been hushed. It seems that no one except the King can kill this powerful enemy of the Indian people."
It is a singular state of things when a paper, commonly called seditious, and the Under-Secretary of State use almost identical language, and declare that the Government of India have brought things to such a pass, that the name of the Sovereign is actually introduced as killing prestige—the powerful enemy of the Indian people. The conjunction of two such constellations as the Under-Secretary of State for India, and the "Amrita Bazaar Patrika" is of evil omen. Be it observed that while unsettling the settled fact with a mistaken and unrealised idea of satisfying a small and hostile section of Bengalis, the Governor-General in India (Lord Hardinge) was actually constrained to admit that Eastern Bengal and Assam have no doubt benefited greatly by the partition, that is to say, by Lord Curzon's partition, and he used these words:—
"Lord Curzon's plan effected some beneficial changes in Eastern Bengal and made for the relief of our own overburdened Government."
Instead of being placated, Bengal has been embittered by the change, and it is more discontented than ever. The fact is that the sole policy the Government has pursued in India, as in England, has been a policy of surrender to agitation. Whether or not it may be necessary or excusable in England is a point on which I will not express an opinion, although I do hold very strong views on it, but I believe that in India it is absolutely futile and fraught with disaster to our country. Lord Crewe speaks of "the Mahomedans who have been loyal to the British throughout the trouble," and of the Biharis "who did not wish to join the Bengalis in opposition to the Government." The bulk of the
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Bengalis are thoroughly loyal, which makes it the more deplorable that a disloyal and infinitesimal minority should have their way. Heaven forbid that we should assume that the Bengalis are disloyal. I know that they are not. There is a small vocal majority, powerful with this Government, out of all proportion to its numerical strength, and I think it is deplorable, to the last degree, that our policy should be to sacrifice the friendly many to the unfriendly few.
There is an old proverb that persons who excuse themselves accuse themselves. The Government of India does not omit to negative any presumption that this so-called settlement has been exacted by clamour and agitation. It was exacted by a miserably small and inadequate agitation, and it has satisfied nobody. Lord Hardinge says that the Bengalis are labouring under a "sense of real injustice," whatever that may mean. The words seem to me to import something extremely intangible and indefinite, and probably infinitesimal. Then with regard to this agitation in deference to which these tremendous changes have been made, even the chief spokesman of the anti-partition party admitted in the Legislative Council in 1911 that the chief opponents of partition had agreed to "bury the hatchet." Surely it is proved beyond all contradiction that the Coronation concessions, instead of "satisfying the historic sense of millions and relieving a deeply-felt grievance of many Bengalis" have done no such thing, but have failed all along, and have aroused the greatest possible hostility among the powerful and independent commercial community of Calcutta, as well as the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal. They have been received by the great bulk of the population with absolute indifference. I do not suppose that more than one-fifth of the Mahomedans have any colourable or conceivable interest in Delhi or any blood-relationship with anybody who ever saw Delhi in their lives. Not one-fifth have any connection with those strangers and invaders of India. The Mahomedans are said to aspire to a full Governorship. Why should they so aspire? It is an absolutely unintelligible thing to me. Is it likely that the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom are poor peasants, can care whether there is a bodyguard and a band, which are the only things that mark the difference between a Governor and a, Lieutenant-Governor in Council. But these

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trivialities are absolutely unworthy of the subject.
As to the creation of a Lieutenant-Governorship of Bihar and Orissa, the objection to that is the great expense upon the Indian taxpayer, otherwise I do not think it is in itself objectionable. The resuscitation of the province of Assam convicts the Government in the eyes of their subjects of levity and vacillation. If Egypt was the gift of the Nile, British India is the gift of British commerce, and Assam of the British planter. The Government now cut off that province, which is the centre of the tea industry, from the greatest tea market in the world, Calcutta, and Assam also loses its port of Chittagong, and becomes merged once more in Bengal. It is wrong that changes of this sort should have been rushed through in complete secrecy, and sprung as a surprise on the country, without consulting the British merchants who, until now, have never been left out when any great changes have been introduced in which they are interested. Calcutta merchants are not merely agents, but also holders of a vast stake in the country and holders of capital invested in the great industrial concerns In India. Then Lord Crewe takes up the parable, and goes one better in historical hysteria than Lord Hardinge. He actually compares Delhi with Rome and Constantinople, a comparison which, to use Ms own words, I believe may be left to
"the historic sense of millions."
Lord Crewe condemns the present "system" of the Government of Bengal because of the collocation of that Government with the Government of India in Calcutta. Where is the system in that? The mere fact that they sit together on the same soil of Calcutta for four months in the year does not mean any closer connection of the Government of India with Bengal than with any other provincial Government, and there never has been closer connection between the Government of Bengal and the Government of India since Bengal became a separate Government. Mr. Lovat Fraser, an authority on Indian affairs, has aptly pointed out what is a proof of this, that the three Bills upon which the Bengalis have insisted, the Ilbert Bill, the Universities Bill and the Partition, so far from having been forced upon the Government of India, were all three rejected by that Government of India when they and the
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Bengal Government sat side by side in Calcutta. The fact is that such collocation is dangerous only with a weak Government in office.
The Under-Secretary on Friday with some warmth—natural and, I think, proper in an Under-Secretary—resented the unwillingness on the part of the Noble Lord the Member for Hornsey (Lord Ronaldshay) and myself to accept as sufficient the statement of Lord Crewe to the effect that he was sure that the new Governor of Bengal would spend an appreciable part of the year in the disestablished capital of Dacca. I am not going into that at length, but I wish to say that I implied no disrespect or distrust of Lord Crewe as a gentleman; I have the profoundest respect for him. But the position has somewhat altered in respect of these assurances since the equally strong pledge given by Lord Morley in this House, and in the other House, that this partition should not be undone, has been broken. Therefore I am entitled to assume, and so is the Noble Lord, that in the fell clutch of circumstance the personal pledge given by a particular Minister may be broken, apparently without loss of honour, but not—perhaps the Under-Secretary will excuse me for using a word he so much dislikes—without sad and terrible loss of our prestige and of our character in India. I must say a word as to the cost of these changes. The expense of building the new capital at Delhi will be enormous, as will also be the disestablishment of those magnificent buildings now at Calcutta, the stopping of the works in progress at the now abandoned capital of Dacca, and the creation of a new capital at Patna. The Under-Secretary has informed me that the extra administrative cost will be five and a-half lakhs, or about £36,000 or £37,000. That sum may not be very much, but it is the exact sum paid to all the principal Secretaries of State in the Government. That is the extra amount imposed upon the people of India by these changes. I calculate that the total cost, with interest on capital expended at Delhi, will be no less than £400,000, and if we accept the estimate put forward of £4,000,000 for the new Delhi, it will be reduced to £250,000, which extra charge will be imposed upon the Government of India. The hon. Gentleman has not yet answered my question about the extra cost resulting from the proposed duplication of the Department of Commerce and Industry.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): I do not quite understand the hon. Member when he uses the word "duplication."
Sir J. D. REES: There is to be duplication of the Director-Generals in particular. There are to be two instead of one. That is the recommendation of the Government of India in a despatch which the hon. Gentleman informed me the Government approved. I disapprove of it, and so do the Chamber of Commerce. That brings me to the case of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. I beg the indulgence of the House while I deal with the objections raised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. They have memorialised the Government of India, objecting altogether to these changes, and an answer was sent which they deemed unsatisfactory. They have returned to the charge, and have asked me to take charge of their case. I may be allowed at the outset to state that these gentlemen are merchants, and are as well-fitted to deal with this matter as any official that ever wrote a minute. Burke said on one occasions that:
"If there have been pedlars who were statesmen there have been statesmen who were pedlars."
I do not apply the expression "pedlars" to our merchants
"who are princes and whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth,"
nor do I apply the expression to the high-contracting parties to the proposals recently adopted. But this is a case which is worthy of the attention of the House of Commons, and no technicalities should be allowed to interfere with such a matter of vital importance. The members of the Chamber of Commerce, who have felt aggrieved by the answer returned by the Government of India to their representations, comprised 130 representatives of nearly ninety firms in Calcutta, including banks, steamship and other companies, the Port Commissioners, and the East India Railway Company. They passed certain resolutions which I hope I may be allowed to read to the House. The first of these resolutions protests against the removal of the Department of Commerce and Industry and the Railway Department to Simla and Delhi, at great distance from all maritime centres of commerce as inimical to railway, trading and financial interests, and directly antagonistic to the promotion of satisfactory relations between the State and the mercantile community. In support of this resolution, it was pointed out that the case of
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India differs from that of America, Canada, or of Australia, where the Governors are of the same class in colour, creed, and sentiment as the governed, and are recruited from the merchant classes, whereas in India the case is wholly different. An official grows up as an official, and unless he subsequently has some connection with commerce when he is retired, he is likely for the whole of his life to be hidebound by official sentiment. They therefore protest against the establishment of offices far removed from all those influences which should sway the government of India. They remark, in the words of Lord Morley, that the prosperity of India is based upon the maintenance of a firm and just British rule, and that that rule must be autocratic and bureaucratic. Neither Lord Morley nor the Chamber of Commerce have any objection to the word "prestige" as applied to the British Government.
The merchants claim that the supreme Government should reside in that part of India where British industrial enterprise and British population predominate. They protest, and I naturally sympathise with them from all I know, that the Department of Commerce and Industry, posts, telegraphs, customs, railway board, factory, mining, planting and company business and legislation must be carried on in the great commercial centre of Calcutta. I believe it will still come to that, and I believe the Government will have to go back upon this in the end. The Chamber remarks, and very properly, that the want at this moment in India is the attraction of British capital. They say that this operation will be impeded by the new policy. That seems to be proved by the experience with regard to the recent gold loan, 67 per cent. of which was left in the hands of underwriters. India Office finance has always been unpopular in the City, but it never fell so low as that loan did with the investing public. These British merchants also urge that an accredited deputation should be received at Westminster in order to open the eyes of the House of Commons to the real facts. I have seen the Lord Mayor of Dublin with his councillors at the Bar of this House, and it would give me the greatest satisfaction to see the president and members of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce appear at the Bar, to open the eyes of the British House of Commons to the results of these great administrative changes, and to wake up the House and the Government to the real meaning of the facts.

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The second resolution of the same Gentlemen protests against the proposal to finance the building of the new capital of Delhi partly by loans and partly out of spare revenue. They point out, what is known to the veriest tiro in finance, that the important savings under each head must be applied to the development of that head business or the general reduction of taxation, and the Government are actually proposing to sandwich unproductive Delhi in between productive railway and irrigation works, and the Minister, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson, I am sure very much against his own will, has pointed out the admirable elasticity of this proceeding. It is very elastic. It will enable the Government of India to spend vast and indefinite sums upon this new capital out of the grants made for railway and irrigation. Productive works will be starved that the unproductive capital may rise above the swamps and ruins of an ancient city, and this at a time when business in India is at a standstill for want of development of the railways, when the lines require duplication in order to take the 8,500 extra wagons, which are the minimum additions required for the carrying trade, and when the Budget for the present year actually provides for only thirty-four miles of new line. It would be comic if it was not tragic—the great Government of India with 300,000,000 subjects, with 1¾ millions of square miles, with the same number of miles almost of railways as in these small islands, and in the Dominion of Canada, actually budgeting for thirty-four new miles of railway, very much because of the necessity for providing out of savings in current revenue for carrying out this fantastic proposal. And the House must not forget that it is not only Delhi that wants a new capital. Patna has to have a new capital, and at Calcutta and Dacca buildings will be left to fall to ruin which will cost millions to the Indian taxpayer. The Chamber urge that this new capital must be financed from a special loan raised for the purpose. I accept that policy. The Government of India in respect of national debt is better off than any Government of equal importance in the world. It has a very small national debt, and though I protest against these changes which are fantastic and will fail in their object, such as it is, and cause the greatest administrative dislocation as Lord Crewe admits, if they are to be carried out, they should be carried out from special, loans and upon
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estimates. There is no estimate even yet of the cost of these proceedings. The Railway Commission laid it down that £12,500,000 should be annually allotted for Indian railways, and only £9,000,000 are allotted in all this year, and of that sum sufficient for a paltry extension of thirty-four miles alone of new line is provided.
I now come to the third resolution of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce which is that in the new Council of the Governor in Council, arising directly out of these changes, European commerce should be adequately represented by nine members, two for the general commercial interests, two for tea, and one each for jute, coal, railways, retail trade, and mining. They point out that nearly 40 per cent. of the seaborne trade of India is dealt with by the members of this Bengal Chamber of Commerce, that there are £13,000,000 of capital invested in jute, and that jute and tea between them employ upwards of 750,000 natives of India. They point out that they are entitled to adequate representation, and I heartily agree with them, not according to their numbers, but according to their enterprise and their importance, living as they do amongst a population, 94 per cent. of which is returned in the census as illiterate. It is also pointed out that, of the exports of jute, European shippers treat 94 per cent.; of wheat, Europeans treat 95 per cent., and of the imports they treat: of cotton goods 70 percent., of metals 60 per cent., and of oils 85 per cent.; and the Europeans pay from 65 per cent. to 70 per cent. of all the income tax collected in Calcutta. I instance that as showing how great and incontestable is the claim of these merchants as compared with the claim of the students and schoolboys who Mr. Gokhale is so anxious in future should take the lead under the new Constitution in governing India.
The fourth resolution refers to the policy to which this Bill was intended to give effect. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce claims that these changes so affect Bengal that the continued application to Indian railways of general minima mileage rates will greatly prejudice Calcutta as compared with Bombay, Karachi, and the western coast. I will not describe these matters more particularly because they only ask that the whole subject should be reconsidered' so that it shall not happen in future, as it does at present, that the lines which are-worked at a low cost and take produce to Calcutta are forced to charge a high rate

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under the minima mileage rates, while lines which are worked at a high cost and take produce to the Western ports gain the advantage because of the cheaper freights they get from the Western coast to Europe and other parts of the world. In this respect the great seaport of Calcutta, which has already been prejudiced to some extent by the application of these rates, will be still more greatly prejudiced now that the capital is moved to Delhi. The subject does not strike hon. Members as it would if we were dealing with it in England, because the great lines in India, to the extent of three-fourths, fourteen-fifteenths, or eighteen-nineteenths, belong to the Government of India, and that Government is bound to see that they are so worked that East and West, Calcutta and Bombay, receive equal and fair consideration
I will not refer to these resolutions at any greater length, but I was absolutely bound to lay each one before the House of Commons. The fact that the railway provision has been restricted is deplorable from any point of view. Hon. Members whose minds are set upon education will readily understand that a railway is the most educative influence in India, that it spreads employment, it spreads education, and it spreads enlightenment, and it is not to be regarded in the light of a mere communication, important as it is in that particular. Chiefly because they are managed by private companies the railways yield a handsome surplus to the taxpayer and so does irrigation; and on this score also it is deplorable, as well as for the reasons I have given, that the Grant should be reduced. I have endeavoured to show how momentous are these administrative changes, how unprecedented is the manner in which they were carried through, how impossible it is to pass them in silence through this House, though it may be undesirable to compromise in the slightest degree the position of the Grown in India by dividing the House. I have tried to show how unsatisfactory and debatable are the positions laid down in the despatches which passed between the Secretary of State and the Governor-General, so unsatisfactory that I cannot believe they went through the usual official mill; and how costly these changes must prove, for the cost has never been estimated. The Indian press in criticising the request that these measures should be passed without regard to an estimate—and I cannot put it higher, and neither could the critics
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—said that not even the present Chancellor of the Exchequer would have ventured to come to the House of Commons with such a proposal. I cannot put it higher than that. I leave it there. I have tried to show, and have shown distinctly, how dead was the agitation which is accepted as the excuse, how false was the sentiment which weighed with the Government of India, how false is the assumption that the people of India have any sentiment towards Delhi, how aggrieved are the inhabitants in Eastern Bengal, and how utterly the removal to Delhi fails as a compensation to them for the destruction of their own Lieutenant-Governorship of Eastern Bengal; how bad an example to India is the unsettling of the settled fact, the breach of a pledge made over and over again in the eyes of all men in both Houses of Parliament; how strategically unfit Delhi is to be the capital of a great Empire, and how secretly and without advice or discussion these momentous changes were adopted, following the practice of the present Government in great measures in this country.
It may be said that nothing can now be done, and there is no use indulging in vain lament, but I think a great deal can be done. If once public opinion in the House of Commons and the country is really stirred, the Government of India may be forced to use the new administrative capital of Delhi as a mere standing camp, which is what it was in the days of the great Moguls. They did build great mosques and great temples and beautiful tombs, but they did not waste money in dotting capitals about the country with ugly official offices and such like. I hope the Government of India may yet be forced by public opinion to make the capital of Delhi a mere standing official camp, and I hope the Department, against the removal of which the Bengal Chamber of Commerce protests with such force, will be left at Calcutta, and not removed—the Department of Industry and Commerce—from all connection with commerce and industry. I trust the Government of India will be forced to finance their new capital by loans raised for the purpose, and not by sums filched from railway development or from much-needed irrigation. I hope that the representation which European commerce claims, and rightly claims, upon the Bengal Council will be conceded and that the uniform minima railway rates will be reconsidered in order that the great capital of Calcutta, for that it will always be in fact, may

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not be prejudiced in comparison with its rivals. I hope due force will be given at the eleventh hour, or at a quarter to twelve, to the reasonable and right representation of British interests in India, and that the error of attaching undue importance to the discontented element, so small and so unimportant, in Bengal, will be avoided in future, and that the old order of consulting those who are most concerned and those upon whose loyalty the Government of India will have to fall back in the day of trouble will be reverted to, and this new policy, fantastic, expensive, unnecessary, and already a failure, will be as far as possible abandoned.
EARL of RONALDSHAY: I find myself in agreement with many of the criticisms which the hon. Gentleman has made, and I shall have to add one or two to them. I should like to make it quite clear that I am under no delusion as to the character of the discussion which is possible on the Third Reading of this Bill. It can only be of an academic nature. It can have no influence upon the fortunes of the Bill, or upon the policy which is embodied in the Bill, for the very good reason that the policy is already in operation, and that the Bill has, to all intents and purposes, already received the Royal Assent. The Government resent the suggestion that they have not acted altogether constitutionally in this matter. Surely the conditions under which we are asked to deal with this Bill are a sufficient answer to that. Suppose that a Motion for the rejection of the Bill on the Third Reading was carried, we should find ourselves with a Bill to which the Royal Assent had been given, but from which the assent of Parliament had been withheld. It is surely obvious that if the Government had acted in strict accordance with the usual practice and custom of the Constitution no such situation as that could possibly have arisen. Our discussion, therefore, can only be of an academic nature, and can have no effect on the changes announced at the Delhi Durbar, I lay stress upon that because I am most anxious to make it clear that, so far as I am concerned, I loyally accept the situation in which we find ourselves. Parliament, which is responsible for the Government of India, has in this case been relieved of its responsibility and deprived of its control. I loyally accept the situation for one reason, and one reason only, and that is, I realise the tremendous
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sanctity which attaches to any decision announced amid circumstances of great solemnity and great significance by the King-Emperor himself. I appreciate the tremendous sanctity which attaches to a decision of that kind in a country like the Indian Empire. It is simply because the announcement was made by the King-Emperor himself that criticisms of the changes brought about, which would unquestionably under other circumstances have arisen, have for the most part been hushed, and that where they have been made they have been characterised by great dignity and restraint. Let us pay our tribute of admiration to Europeans and Indians for the restraint they have shown, but let us not be led by it into the false assumption that, because they have not loudly and widely criticised these proposals therefore the proposals are not viewed in many quarters with serious apprehension, and even with alarm and dismay.
It seemed to me, when I read the speech delivered by the Under-Secretary on the Second Reading of this Bill, that he had given the House the wholly incorrect impression that these changes had been received in India by all Indians as tremendous improvements. If the hon. Member had had the opportunity of accompanying me to India during the past winter and hearing, at first hand, the views of representative Mahomedans with regard to these changes, he would have had a very different story to tell. Nor indeed is it among Mahomedans alone that apprehension and dissatisfaction have had expression as to the new policy. The Indian National Congress, which is the organisation par excellence of the Bengali Hindus, met at Calcutta on 26th December last, and was presided over by Bhupendra Nath Basu, who used these words:—
"I am aware blank despair has spread in many of our humble homes, if not in the palaces of the rich. We in Bengal shall lose indeed, but let us have faith in ourselves and our destiny. The loss will not be only ours. The isolation of the Government of India, apart from any centre of public opinion, surrounded only by pomp and ceremony, will be a loss to all India. It will not conduce to the strength or popularity of the Government which will come to be regarded an a secret conclave, screened by long-stretching partitions of time and space, and issuing its edicts through the cold pages of lifeless official publications."
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: May I ask whether the Noble Lord suggests that Bhupendra Nath Basu is opposed to this policy as a whole?
EARL of RONALDSHAY: I do not pretend that he is opposed to the repartition

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of Bengal, but what I do say is that for a man of his standing and known views to use these words in regard to the movement of the capital to Delhi is sufficient to show that even among the Bengali Hindus themselves there is considerable apprehension as to the future of this new policy. More recently a very prominent Bengali newspaper used words very much to the same effect. It stated that the mischief which certain Bengali leaders and their English friends had done to Bengal by supporting these changes was simply incalculable. That is the expression of opinion by a Hindu newspaper, and it conveys the sentiments which are entertained by a large portion of the Bengali Hindus themselves. I do not wish to dwell on that aspect of the question, and I have referred to it only because it seems to me that we should not allow our very natural inclinations to blind us to the realities of the situation, however unpalatable these realities may be.
While I accept these changes as settled and inviolable facts, I do not think, nevertheless, we ought to feel ourselves bound to consider that we have not been provided with some lessons which we may usefully bear in mind in our dealings with India in future. They suggest these three main conclusions: In the first place, it is neither wise nor expedient to show distrust of your high executive officers in the Indian Civil Service; secondly, the Government ought at all times to be particularly careful to avoid creating the impression that they will give way to clamour and agitation; and thirdly, the Government should avoid taking any action which has the effect of shaking the faith of those they govern in the inviolability of their pledged word. As to the first of these conclusions, I would point out that the effect of showing distrust of the Indian Civil Service tends to alienate their sympathies. Let it never be forgotten that it is upon the whole-hearted co-operation of the Civil Service that the success of your policy in India must inevitably depend. If you show distrust you deprive yourself of the expert knowledge which they, and they alone, are able to give, and which you ought to have before you embark upon any large changes of policy. Let me give an example of what I mean. The Government of India declared in a despatch that—
"the salubrity of Delhi could be ensured at a reasonable cost."
How did they know that? Did they consuls their expert medical advisers?
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They did nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, the death-rate of Delhi is the highest of any district in the Punjab. The malaria season extends over two months, covering the period during which the Government will be in residence at the new capital. In 1909—the last year for which I have seen official figures—the death-rate at Delhi from malarial fever was the highest but one in any district in the Punjab, amounting to 28 per thousand. When these facts are borne in mind surely it was somewhat rash for the Government of India to declare in an official dispatch, without first consulting their expert advisers, that the salubrity of Delhi could be secured at a reasonable cost. I could give many other examples of this extraordinary refusal on the part of the Government of India to consult their advisers, and their executive officers. The Lieutenant-Governor of Assam, the man primarily concerned in the changes about to be effected, the man whose province is going to be blotted out of the map, was not informed of the policy before it was announced at Delhi. Surely that is not treating a high officer with courtesy or even ordinary decency.
Let me give the House another instance. The President of the Durbar Committee—a Committee that was appointed for the special purpose of carrying out the arrangements in connection with the Durbar—was not even informed that His Majesty the King was going to lay the foundation stone of the new city in the course of the Durbar ceremonies. I am afraid the result of this has been that His Majesty has been made to lay the foundation stone where it is hardly possible to build the new city. My hon. Friend reminds me that the Committee sent out from this country to decide upon the new Imperial City in India has decided that it is quite impossible to build it on that spot. I am also told, although I do not vouch for the accuracy of the statement, that in the hurry of the moment an old tombstone was made use of for the purpose of His Majesty in laying the foundation-stone of the Imperial city. Surely this is secrecy run mad? I say that when changes of this kind are to be brought about in India it is indeed reasonable and wise to consult those who have had long residence in the country, and who are thus able to supply that expert knowledge and information which the Government of India themselves cannot in the very nature of things possess. As to my second conclusion, I do not think the Under-Secretary would deny

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that there is a very widespread feeling In India that the repartition of Bengal has been brought about as the result of clamour and agitation on the part of the Bengali people. That, at any rate, is the impression I formed from discussing the matter with a great many people in India, Europeans and Indians, during the months of the past winter. But I also have plenty of documentary evidence in support of that contention. The planters of Assam, for instance, in a memorial to the Government declared that it was a regrettable surrender to agitation. Then again, the Mahomedans in their annual congress held at Calcutta under the presidency of Sir Salimulah Khan, Nawab of Dacca, condemned these changes on the same grounds. The President of the Conference said:—
"The annulment of the partition had all the appearance of a real concession to the clamours of an utterly seditious agitation. It has appeared to put a premium on sedition and disloyalty, and created an impression in the minds of the irresponsible masses, that even the Government can be brought down on its knees by a reckless and persistent defiance of constituted authority."
5.0 P.M.
I may be permitted to give one more example, from "The Comrad," one of the better class and more important of the native newspapers published in Calcutta.
"After all,"
said the writer,
"the test of these things is not the conviction of the Government but what the people themselves believe, and if the Government wish to verify their own opinions and beliefs, they have not far to go. Every schoolboy knows that it is clamour and agitation that have exacted the modification of the partition. It is impossible to convince any sane Indian to-day—"
I ask the hon. Member to listen to these words:—
"that clamour and agitation do not pay in Indian politics. Some are even inclined to think that agitation gains rather than loses if it has a slight flavour of force."
I quote those words to show that the impression does exist that the Government have been brought to their knees by clamour and agitation. It is a most unfortunate thing that they should in the course of their dispatch have done so much to give rise to that view. I do not think necessarily that the Government of India have given way to this clamour and agitation; but I do say that by the wording of that dispatch they are responsible for creating an impression in India that they have so given way. If the hon. Member will turn to paragraph 12 he will see the Government state they would not carry
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through the policy of the revocation of the partition upon its own merits. In paragraph 7 they say quite frankly that that part of their policy is designed especially to reconcile Bengali Hindus to the loss which they are likely to feel by the removal of the capital. Again in paragraph 9 of the dispatch, they say:—
"Various circumstances have forced upon us the bitterness of feeling engendered by the Partition of Bengal is very widespread and unyielding."
The inevitable result of embodying an expression of the kind in a dispatch in which you are defending your policy is to create in the minds of the people who read that dispatch the feeling that you have been unduly influenced by past and prospective agitation on the part of the Bengalis. It is all the more unfortunate that belief in the efficacy of agitation should be revived at the present time by reason of the fact that that belief had at last, I believe, been effectively destroyed by the firmness of Lord Morley during his time as Secretary of State for India. I would like to ask the Under-Secretary what are those various circumstances which were referred to by the Government as showing that the feeling of bitterness was very widespread? I have been able to find none of these circumstances. Indeed, I have here a copy of the last administrative Report for Bengal, and I would commend its words to the hon. Gentleman. It states:—
"Boycott Day in August, 1910, passed off without any demonstration in any part of the province, while the Partition Day in October, 1919, was celebrated with the usual demonstration in Calcutta, but the assembled crowds took very little active interest in the speeches delivered by the popular leaders, while little or no enthusiasm was exhibited in the mofussil. The movement was losing its hold upon popular imagination."
That does not look as if these various circumstances of which the Government of India speak ought to have forced upon them the conviction that bitterness over the partition is very widespread. As my hon. Friend has already reminded the House, Lord Minto—who must have spoken with knowledge on this point, as the agitation, so far as it took place at all, took place through the whole of his Vice-royalty—said that when he left India, the agitation against partition was stone dead. I am afraid that the dispatch of the Government of India is responsible for this impression, and I entirely agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Melton (Colonel Yate) that it would have been very much better if this dispatch had never seen the light of day at all. The inevitable result of creating this impression is that you invite further agitation. Ever since

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that dispatch saw the light of day, whenever the Government of India announced some proposal which was not wholly satisfactory to the Bengali leaders, it was immediately met with agitation. The Government of India proposed to establish a University at Dacca, and the Bengali leaders protested against it. The Government of India proposed to appoint a special education officer for Eastern Bengal, and the Bengali leaders agitated against it. And the same thing happened when the Government of India defined the boundaries of the new province of Bengal. I may read an extract from an address protesting against the new university which was presented to the Viceroy by a deputation of leading Bengali gentlemen on the 16th February. The address, which was read by Dr. Rash Behari Ghose, said:—
"We feel it our duty to approach Your Excellency with this humble representation regarding the proposal to establish a new university at Dacca, which has filled the public mind with alarm and apprehension. It is feared that the creation of a separate university at Dacca will be in the nature of an internal partition."
Then they go back to the actual words of the old agitation and say—
"a break of the old national life of the people now happily reunited."
The address then went on to set forth in detail the objection to the university at Dacca. The first and foremost was that—
"it would reproduce in an acute form the evils that many of them apprehended would arise and did arise from the partition of the province."
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Do you suggest that there is anything improper in that representation?
EARL of RONALDSHAY: No, but I say that the moment the Government make a proposal which is distasteful to the Bengali leaders, it invariably results in Bengali agitation.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Do you call that an agitation?
EARL of RONALDSHAY: I have not finished. Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to proceed. Here is what they say on the next point—
"The appointment of a special officer in charge of education in Eastern Bengal would widen the division and there would be a general feeling that the heavy sacrifices which Bengal had had to make for the revocation of the partition—"
They are already beginning to realise that they have had to make a heavy sacrifice for the revocation of the partition, and that does not bode particularly well for the future—
"have been unavailing in putting an end to the evils which it had brought into existence."
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I will give one more example. When the Government of India announced their decision as to the boundaries of the new province of Bengal, a meeting was immediately convened by the Bengali leaders in the Town Hall, Calcutta, and somewhat violent speeches were made protesting against the boundaries of the new province. Babu Surendranath Bannerjea, a gentleman who is well known by Members of this House who have taken an interest in Indian affairs, moved the following resolution:—
"That this meeting has read with a sense of profound regret and disappointment the proclamation of the Government of India defining the territories to be included within the province of Bengal."
The newspaper report says:—
"He feelingly alluded to the repartition as a proof that there was no such thing as a settled fact in British rule in India."
And another gentleman, Babu Moti Lal Ghose, who claimed to voice the whole Bengal nation, said:—
"The contemplated redistribution of territories will be a gross wrong to our kith and kin in the new province, who will be in the position of a banished people."
He went on to suggest that—
"it would also be a sore point to the entire Bengali nation, who would regard it in the same light as they did the original dismemberment of Bengal, and—"
I would draw special attention to these words—
"may organise as fierce an agitation in trying to get it annulled."
One of the leading English papers in India, the "Pioneer Mail," commenting on the meeting in its issue of 5th April, 1912, said:—
"Thus on the eve of a new administrative reorganisation which was to placate the outraged feelings of Bengal, we are assured that the Bengali nation's heart is lacerated, yet the boon is already discounted, and some of its detects denounced, and in the near future the country is promised a recrudescence of that constitutional agitation which has been such an unpleasing feature of Bengal politics in the recent past "
That inevitably creates in a country like India the impression that the Government of the country is ready to yield to clamour and agitation. I come now to the last of my three conclusions, that the Government should avoid taking any action which has the effect of shaking the faith of those they govern in the inviolability of their pledged word. I wish to express my profound sense of the grave injury which is done to the good name of Great Britain as a great ruling Power by indifference on the part of the Government to the inviolability of their pledged word. I cannot recall a single representative Mahomedan with whom I spoke recently in India who did not assert

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with great bitterness that by going back upon the partitition of Bengal the Government of the day had broken its pledge with them. I have not to rely exclusively upon my own conversations with Mohamedan representatives. We have the resolution passed at the All-India Muslim League, in March last, protesting against the revocation of the partition on these grounds, and Sir Salimulah Khan, who moved the resolution, said:—
"It has hitherto been felt throughout the East that the word of the British Government is its bond, and that come what may the Government cannot go back on its plighted word. Anything which weakens this belief must irreparably injure British prestige in India and the East in general."
I would ask this question, Can the Mahomedans be blamed for considering that the Government have broken faith with them? Were they not entitled to believe and accept the distinct statement of Lord Morley in Parliament that the partition of Bengal was settled, and has it not been declared in India over and over again that no British Government would go back on any decision that it had made? At any rate, that was said by Lord Minto. What are the Mahomedans to think when the whole of these pledges are swept by the board? Nobody has had a better opportunity than I have of realising how deeply the Mahomedans in India resented what they considered a breach of faith on the part of the Government in regard to communal representation under Lord Morley's reform scheme of 1909. Is it not natural, after that breach, that their indignation was kindled afresh when they heard of this new breach of faith? I speak with full knowledge when I say that the younger Mahomedans are beginning to show signs or disaffection under the restraint of the wiser and older leaders. I pay my tribute of admiration to the loyalty and restraint which they have hitherto shown, but I ask the Government not to impose upon that loyalty too great a strain. I feel convinced that the present position will be accepted by them because the decision came from the lips of their Sovereign, but let me ask the Government, when in future they are intending to embark on a policy which is likely to affect the interests of the Mahomedan community, to remember that their loyalty under our rule is deserving not of punishment but of reward. On all sides of the House we desire that the tremendous task which Great Britain has undertaken in India should meet with a full and increasing measure of success. I think it was the late John Bright who once
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said that if ever India was lost to this country it would be lost on the floor of the House of Commons. At any rate, we should do what we can to prevent the fulfilment off that prophesy. We do not want to see Indian made the shuttlecock of the party game—it would be folly, it would be a crime. It is while holding these views that I have said what I have this afternoon, and yet am able, with all sincerity, to hope that my doubts as to the complete wisdom of the course pursued may prove to be unfounded, and that the policy now under review may be attended, in spite of the views I hold with regard to it, with great and abiding success.
Mr. MONTAGU: I will endeavour to reply to the criticisms of hon. Members opposite as shortly as possible, but I cannot disregard my responsibility to answer some of the very grave charges which have been made against the Government of India, particularly by the hon. Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees). If he will forgive me, I propose to leave over to another occasion, namely, the Debate on the Indian Budget, to which I think it more properly belongs, the discussion of the financial questions connected with the removal of the Government to Delhi. He will fully admit that Delhi does not come into this Bill directly at all, and therefore, complicated and difficult as a complete account of the financial arrangements will be, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to defer the answer I would make to that portion of his speech to another occasion. I would only say that, so far as Delhi has been financed out of revenue, it has been financed out of windfalls which have accrued to the Government through exceptional circumstances, but circumstances which do not render them available for the reduction of taxation. It does not very much matter whether you pay off debts with surpluses such as these and borrow again, or whether you use these surpluses directly for purposes for which you would be bound to borrow. With regard to the criticism of the Bill itself, may I tell the House quite shortly, first of all, what this scheme really is.
The Government of India is first moved from Calcutta. The hon. Member for East Nottingham objects to the description of the Government of India as it was at Calcutta, namely, "as being in provincial surroundings." Very amusingly, but quite inaccurately, he suggested that the term "provincial" was a stigma

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on Calcutta, such as might be used by a Metropolitan snob when referring to Nottingham. The word "provincial" is used in this sense, that it merely refers to the fact that the Government, whilst at Calcutta, was in the centre of the Government of one of the provinces of India. It was provincial in the sense that Calcutta was the provincial centre of Bengal, and, therefore, the Imperial Government of India was in the provincial centre of Bengal. I assert without fear of contradiction that students of the government of India for generations past have been impressed with the growing difficulty which was presented by the fact that you had two sets of government in the same place, interlaced and intertwined, so that those who are affected by the decisions of one or the other had difficulty in disentangling the responsibility. The Government of India is now going to Delhi, which is not the centre of a provincial Government, because it is to be taken out of the Punjab into an Imperial enclave in India, as Washington is an enclave in the United States of America. The hon. Member, so far as his position was based on the statement that we were going from one province to another, was misrepresenting the true state of the facts to the House. The same object might have been achieved possibly by making Calcutta an enclave, and transferring the Government of Bengal from Calcutta. But, as the hon. Member for Nottingham will be the first to admit, Calcutta is far too large and important a commercial centre to be a suitable city for an Imperial enclave.
Sir J. D. REES: In what respect are the Government of India and the Government of Bengal interlaced and intertwined?
Mr. MONTAGU: I will send the hon. Gentleman a copy of the Regulations by which he will see what officials are concerned with both governments.
Sir J. D. REES: Their functions are quite distinct.
Mr. MONTAGU: The Government of India have taken up a proud position not only in the historic capital of India, but in what is a railway centre. The hon. Member for East Nottingham does not go so far as Lord Curzon in another place who quoted as his best and most modern military authority, the great Duke of Wellington, but when the Gentleman discourses on the strategic
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disadvantages of Delhi, when he discusses its isolated position, he forgets that it is not only a considerable manufacturing town already, but that it is the centre of the whole railway system of India, and is from many points of view a more accessible part of our great Empire to the North-East, to such important places as Bombay and the whole of the West of India, than ever Calcutta was. I cannot enter into the dispute between the hon. Member for Nottingham and the Government of India as to the reverence which is felt for Delhi by the various peoples of India. I will only say that his description of Delhi does not carry conviction to me when I read such words as these which appear in paragraph 6 of the White Paper as to the East Indian Coronation Durbar:—
"Throughout India, as far south as the Mahomedan conquest extended, every walled town has its 'Delhi Gate,' and among the masses of the people it is still revered as the seat of the former Empire."
So much for the removal of the Government to Delhi. What of the resultant changes in Bengal? The fundamental error which is made in regard to the whole policy of the Government of India is the suggestion that there has been a reversal of the Partition of Bengal. There has been no reversal of the Partition of Bengal. I have been accused of saying something derogatory of Lord Curzon, when I suggested that Lord Curzon in these matters has no policy at all. In saying that I am not saying anything derogatory of him; it is merely a well-known fact. Lord Curzon was a great administrator—as I have said before, perhaps the greatest, administrator that India has ever known; but in regard to the Partition of Bengal, a great province of about 98,000,000 people, roughly speaking, he described his motives for Partition when he used words to the effect that during the time he was in India he became acquainted with the scandalous mal-administration which was going on in the eastern part of the Province of Bengal. What were the facts? The province was too big, the standard of administration all over India was improving, and it was impossible to administer Bengal according to modern ideals, considering its great size. So Lord Curzon decided to divide it, but he did not divide it with the idea of making a Mahomedan State. He did not divide it with a view to redress alleged Mahomedan grievances. There was no policy underlying it; it was merely an administrative

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reform to produce efficiency. I can quote from Lord Curzon's own words:—
"What was the particular line to be drawn was a matter not for the Viceroy. The line was settled by consultation and discussion between the local governments and the officials."
Precisely. Lord Curzon was not concerned to find where the line was drawn at all. He wanted to split up an unwieldy province and make it two parts which were more wieldy. Bitter experience has taught that even in the sacred cause of efficiency you cannot move masses of the population about and destroy their national ideals without regard to their thoughts and opinions. We have done over again what Lord Curzon wanted to do.
EARL of RONALDSHAY: What am I to understand by the hon. Gentleman's statement as to moving masses of population about? Nobody has ever suggested moving the population.
Mr. MONTAGU: I do not mean that you take a man from one place and force him to go to another. I mean, to move him from one Government to another. You cannot say let the man cease to be a subject of the Government of Bengal and put him into Eastern Bengal, without very serious consequences, even in the cause of efficiency. It did require investigation as to whether the line—
Sir J. D. REES: The man remains where he is.
Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in saying that the man remains where he is, but he is no longer in Bengal.
Sir J. D. REES: He is subject to the same class of administration.
Mr. MONTAGU: We have, therefore, because the unrest which was produced militated against the efficiency of Lord Curzon's scheme, done over again in the light of experience Lord Curzon's work. We have divided Bengal, and there is indeed a partition of Bengal, not into two parts, but into three, and we claim that our partition is a better one and likely to produce greater efficiency because it is more acceptable to the population than Lord Curzon's was. But the Noble Lord may say that may be so, but that, on account of what Lord Curzon did, whatever the motives a Mahomedan State came into existence,
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and that the Mahomedans had a right to expect that that state of affairs should remain for ever, and that therefore we have in that sense broken our arrangement with the Mahomedans. That is a serious charge. Nobody knows better than the hon. Member for East Nottingham how Debates in this House find their way to India. Nobody has been more vehement than the hon. Member in criticising some of my hon. Friends below the Gangway on this side because of the way in which their words might be received in India. I venture to hope that he will have serious misgivings about his own utterances this afternoon when he reads the accusations he has levelled of breaches of faith and breaches of pledges, not only against Lord Crewe and the Government which I represent, but against the whole fabric of the Government of India which jointly are responsible for these great changes which have been taking place in India. The hon. Member regrets, and the Noble Lord regrets, that there should be any idea in India that we have broken our pledges. But what has the hon. Member done to discourage that by the words which he has carelessly thrown out this afternoon, and which I will show are without a shadow of foundation?
Sir J. D. REES: What had I to do with the facts?
Mr. MONTAGU: I am merely pointing out, before I proceed to show to the hon. Member that his facts are without foundation, the serious consequences of speaking, as I think he has done, without a sufficient sense of responsibility and more especially as he has lectured hon. Members on this side on this mischief that can be done by allowing such words to go to India. The words which have been continually quoted against the Government in this Debate are the words of Lord Morley, about a settled fact. I would ask the Noble Lord to be good enough to read Lord Morley's own speech on this subject in the House of Lords. Lord Morley is a Member of the Government which is responsible for this, as he was a Member of the Government when he used the famous words, "the partition is a settled fact." What Lord Morley meant was that the great improvement of administration which was to come from the sub-division of Bengal must never again be sacrificed, and the Partition of Bengal would never have been reversed. I submit, on Lord Morley's statement and the Government of India's statement that there has been no reversal

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of policy. What is to be the meaning of the words "settled fact"? Are they to mean, as the Noble Lord suggests, that a thing once done should never be modified or changed in the light of experience, and though it may have been done very badly we are to stop and admire it for generation after generation and not have the courage to alter it? That is a theory of crystallised conservatism which I cannot accept as applicable to a quickly changing and developing country like India.
I would submit earnestly to the Noble Lord that the Mahomedan people of Bengal have lost nothing by this change. Eastern Bengal was not the overwhelming Mahomedan State which some critics seem to think it was. I think that at the beginning of last year on the Legislative Council in Eastern Bengal the unofficial members were ten Hindus and eight Mahomedans. What have the Mahomedans got now? They have got their new university, they have got one of the seats of Government of the new Presidency of Bengal at Dacca, so that instead of what they used to have, a Lieutenant-Governor ruling from Dacca, they have got now a Governor ruling them from Dacca. The hon. Member for East Nottingham poured scorn on the difference between a Lieu tenant-Governor and a Governor. Surely he forgets that the Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal had no Executive Council. The Governor of Bengal has an Executive Council.
Sir J. D. REES: And the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal had an Executive.
Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member is wrong in his facts. The Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal had no Executive.
Sir J. D. REES: Bengal, I said.
Mr. MONTAGU: I am afraid the hon. Member is now getting excited. We are referring to the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal. The Mahomedans were governed from Dacca by a Lieutenant-Governor, who had no Executive Council to assist him. Under the new scheme they are governed still from Dacca for certain portions of the year by the Governor of Bengal, who will be assisted by an Executive Council, and they will therefore have a more modern and up to-date system of government. Further than that, when the Parition of Bengal was brought about, Eastern Bengal had
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no representative Legislative Council, because Lord Morley's and Lord Minto's Reform Bill was in 1909, so that I venture to say that if you take the form of government the Mahomedans will enjoy now it will be a better and more efficient government than the old government which they are said to have lost by the modification. When the partition was brought about the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal formed about 30 per cent. of a population of over 80,000,000. Now they are going to form a population of about 50 per cent. of 50,000,000. So that in numbers, in form of government, and in position the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal have lost nothing by the partition; and, in addition, though it is only a side question, the Noble Lord will remember that the present Indian member of the Executive Council of the Governor of Bengal is a Mahomedan from Eastern Bengal
I desire, in conclusion, to deal with two criticisms of the hon. Member for East Nottingham. He says that the Department of Commerce and Industry will now be divorced entirely from commerce and industry, and he says he has been asked to voice the opinions of the Chambers of Commerce of India. As he proceeded it appeared that he meant the Chamber of Commerce in Bengal. I should be the last to try and detract from the importance of the great representative Chamber of that great commercial community in India, but it must be clearly remembered that it is only the Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta that is anxious to have its objections to this proposal represented. Naturally, what Calcutta loses, Bombay and Karachi gain. I venture to suggest, if the hon. Member will come to my office and read the files of the newspapers in India, which I have carefully collected ever since this reform scheme came into being, he would be struck by the remarkable way in which the serious alarm of the Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta has been isolated and ignored by the rest of European opinion from one end of the country to the other. I think that alarm is based largely on misapprehension, and I believe, when they see the scheme at work and the better government which will result, that the fears of the commercial community in Calcutta will be allayed, and that they will share in what is the enthusiastic welcome of this scheme from the vast majority of the people of all classes and races in the great Empire of India. There is one further

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matter I feel bound to ask the permission of the House to refer to. We have been accused, both by the Noble Lord and the Member for East Nottingham, of giving way to agitation and irresponsible clamour. The House will have noticed a very curious inconsistency in the way in which this charge was levelled. It was levelled with great vehemence by the hon. Member for East Nottingham, and immediately afterwards he quoted from Lord Minto an assurance that there was no agitation and no clamour to which to give way. You cannot have it both ways; you cannot say that there was no agitation to which to give way, and immediately afterwards blame us for having given way to an agitation that never existed. The fact of the matter is that in Bengal, as in many other countries, the large, overwhelming, and almost universal numbers of the inhabitants are peaceful, law-abiding, and loyal citizens. There is a small—very small and insignificant—minority of irresponsible agitators. I challenge the House to say, looking back over history since 1906, that the Government which I am here to represent has been supine in putting down the agitation, which was the work of that insignificant, disloyal, and rebellious minority. Lord Minto himself, who says that the agitation has ceased to exist, brings back from India, as one of the greatest triumphs of his rule, the way in which he and Lord Morley put down and stamped out as, I believe, what was known as the seditious movement in India. But there are two ways of stamping out sedition, and neither is complete without the other. You have not only to punish the seditious, but you have to remove the just causes of complaint which bring recruits to the ranks of the seditious, and which therefore prevent all your repressive legislation from having the effect you desire, whilst there is the slightest suspicion to make honest men's minds uneasy that those responsible for the government of the country are not quick to redress legitimate grievances. The Government of India believes that the real feeling—spreading far beyond the miserable confines of the seditions, disloyal, and rebellious—of wounded nationality, of wounded race susceptibilities, of unfair treatment, which has resulted from the partition, was as strong on Durbar Day as it ever was when the irresponsible agitation existed.
I hope the Noble Lord will not think that I am making any accusation against
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him, but no greater disservice can be done to the Government of India than carelessly to lump together in speech an agitation such as the presentation of a petition against the University at Dacca, and, let us say, the agitation that was punished by deportation. The former is a legitimate Western method of gaining access to those who are in authority. In a country like India I venture to suggest that the responsibility of those who govern to listen to the grievances of those they govern is even more vital than in a country where votes are the armoury of those who are governed. If in any part of my speech today I have shown irritation at anything' that has fallen from hon. Gentlemen opposite, I can only plead as an excuse that a charge of broken pledges—annoying, irritating and wounding as it may be in domestic affairs—cannot be ignored, but must be met by a Government which has the overwhelming responsibility of the good government of India to answer for. It is because I believe I have answered the charge, which I wish had never been made on a subject where party politics play no part, that I confidently commend this Bill to the House—the first Bill of importance connected with the affairs of my Department which I have had the honour to introduce, and a Bill which I can recommend with enthusiasm, because I believe, and all the more strongly after the Debate of to-day, that it will lead to the improved government and the greater peace of that country, which benefits to a higher degree every day by the fact that the British people are responsible for its government.
Sir JOHN JARDINE: I think that, as a general rule, in times of peace and quiet no great changes should be made in India such as the transfer of the ancient capital without the House of Commons being previously informed. I am not going to give any opinion on the question whether the action in regard to Delhi was constitutional or unconstitutional. I would point out, however, that the circumstances were extremely unusual, and that the manner in which the formal act was announced to the people of India was entirely different from anything that had been seen before since British rule began. I refer, of course, to the presence of and the personal announcement made by the King-Emperor in the old famous Imperial city of Delhi. In these circumstances, I think one should rather judge the act by the results, and so far as my information goes, the results

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have been good. When the King went to Delhi the country had been in a state of great agitation. There had been murders of high officials in different parts of the country. There had been many attempts at sedition. There was a great increase in coercive methods. There were dangerous signs, causing great anxiety to the Government of India. These things have ceased, and I attribute a great deal of the present peace and quiet to the announcement at Delhi and to the manner in which it was made. Hence I would claim that the act has been justified by the results. There is less coercion and less discontent; and political assassinations are no longer taking place. If we compare the old seat of Imperial Government at Calcutta with Delhi, it has to be said that Delhi was the capital of the great Mogul, and it is associated with the names of great Emperors such as Akbar, Jehan Gir, Aurangzeb, and others. It is also a political advantage that our Government should be centred in a place of such great memories. I refer to the part played by our troops during the siege at the time of the Mutiny, connected with the memories of John Nicholson, Alexander Taylor and their companions.
6.0 P.M.
Another point to be taken into account is that the change brings the Viceroy and the Government into closer connection with the greater part of the European community. It is desirable that the Viceroy should be for a longer portion of the year in their midst. It is also a distinct advantage that the new seat of Government is nearer to the great Native States. The Viceroy usually takes in his personal charge the department of our relations with Native States and it is highly desirable that he should be nearer to the Chiefs. We all know that in the Mutiny when our control of great districts had wholly disappeared, some of the great Chiefs of Native States remained loyal, preserved order and helped to maintain our paramouncy, of whom the Gaekwar of Baroda is an example; and their loyal services in that dangerous time were amply acknowledged by the Crown. Again, although it is farther from Calcutta, it is nearer to the most important port of Bombay, and to the rising city of Karachi, and as has already been mentioned, Delhi, is a great railway centre. As regards Calcutta and the grievances of the British community there, I also have received the printed statement of the views of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. No one will deny the
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enormous importance to Calcutta of the facts set out, but I think the grievance might be called somewhat local, or, if the word "provincial" is not too much objected to, it might be called by that name. From my experience, and from what I have read of the history of India, I think it is in many respects well that the Governor-General should not be tied down to Calcutta so much as he was. Anyone who has studied the history of India knows how much Lord Canning was tormented by the British community in Calcutta because of his policy in dealing with the Indian Mutiny. One of the officials of this House, who in my time held a high position in the Viceroy's Cabinet, if asked, would confirm my statement that when Lord Ripon was Viceroy every attempt was made by the people to boycott him. It is well that the Viceroy should spend more of his time away from Calcutta; at any rate, there is no reason why he should spend so much more time there than he is able to give to Madras and Bombay. He ought to know them all well. One would like to say that the new arrangement will in practice leave the Governor of that part of Bengal in which Calcutta is situated more independent. That, too, I think, in the way of official management is a much better system than what has prevailed before. The people were too much in the habit, if they did not get what they wanted, of rushing off to see if they could not get it from the Viceroy. I do not doubt that the commercial community of Calcutta, and a good many of the natives, will be glad to have what the Statutes of Parliament years ago provided for, that is, a Governor in Council there.
It would ill become me to make comparisons between the Lieutenant-Governors trained in the Indian Civil Service, and knowing the ways of the people and those statesmen sent from Europe who occupy the position of Governors; but I believe that the British inhabitants in Calcutta would much prefer to have Governors rather than to have, as hitherto, a member of that service to which I have the honour to belong. I was particularly pleased when the question of the Indian Civil Service was dealt with the other day to hear my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary state that there would be no change made in regard to appointments, nor to their status; and that, as has been pointed out, the service will gain something by way of new appointments in the new part of the

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Bengal Province. I will just make one observation as to the agitations which were recapitulated by the Noble Lord. If they were called "movements" it would sound not so bad. If they were called "representations" it would sound much milder. But I do not think the Noble Lord accused the persons who made those representations of misrepresenting anything or of doing anything contrary to law, or to that which was not well within their rights as citizens, which, by our laws, they are. Altogether I think this discussion must have had a good effect. The Bill has been well discussed, and nearly all its points dealt with. I for one will be very well pleased to vote for the Third Reading.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT (WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Mr. ARTHUR LEE: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who has now technically taken charge of this Bill, wishes to reserve his remarks until a later stage in the Debate. Therefore it falls upon me, as the one formerly responsible for the Bill, to make the few remarks on this Motion. I desire, in the first place, to express the gratitude which the promoters feel to the Government for having decided to take up the Bill, and to give it facilities without which it would have been quite hopeless to suppose it would have passed into law during the present Session. I cannot help thinking that it is far better that this Bill should become a Government measure. It deals with amendments to the existing law; and without wishing to introduce the note of party, I cannot help feeling that it would be a more useful and beneficent measure than some others of more imposing title which at present ornaments the Government programme. At any rate, the Bill commands the support, and I believe the enthusiastic support, of all parties in this House. Before, however, I come to the actual subject-matter of the Bill itself, I feel bound to make a very brief reply to certain strictures which were passed
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upon me, the sponsor of the Bill, by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), I believe on Thursday night. It is quite true that I have not attended here constantly during the present Session to move the reading of this Bill at the adjournment of the House, but I can assure hon. Members generally that it has not been through any lack of interest on my part.
Whilst I have no right to intrude my private affairs in the public business, I will ask Members of the House to believe that it would have been far easier for me to have resigned my political career altogether than to have been present here during the last two months. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, and any of those who may have felt inclined to criticise my action in this matter, that neither I nor any of the promoters of the Bill feel any lack of enthusiasm for it. The point I wish to urge is that there are different methods by which enthusiasm can be shown. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract, no doubt, thinks that the true test of enthusiasm would have been for either I or some other promoter to have attended here night after night in order to move the Second Reading of the Bill, and to have the pleasure of making appeals ad misericordiam perpetually, and to suffer the humiliation of hearing those appeals rejected, not only curtly, but even with contempt, as they have been by the hon. Member and by the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), who sits behind me.
Mr. BOOTH: I had not the right hon. Gentleman in mind at all when I spoke, and I never alluded to him in any way. I was merely replying to the statement that the Bill bad been moved a hundred times.
Mr. LEE: I am not responsible for the hundred times. I have moved it many times myself, and I have been met by a curt refusal. However gratifying that method of procedure of trying to wear-down an hon. Member and of blocking his Bill may be to hon. Gentlemen who love power in these matters, at any rate it would have done no good to the Bill itself.
Mr. BOOTH: The Bill was objected to from your own side.
Mr. LEE: I am not referring to the hon. Gentleman only, but there are certain Members in this House who were determined that this Bill, no doubt for a sufficient reason, should not secure a Second Reading by consent, and those of us who

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realised that devoted our energies to trying to achieve our end by other means. We have, I venture to say, achieved a certain measure of success as indicated by the position of the Bill to-day. We have endeavoured to mobilise and to make vocal that body of public opinion, both inside and outside this House, which exists in favour of this Bill. I think that our method of procedure has been amply justified. I only say that in answer to the criticism which was passed in the course of the short discussion on Thursday night. But I realise that this is not the occasion on which the details of the Bill should be closely discussed. That will be done in Committee upstairs. It is necessary for me, as one who has assumed responsibility for the Bill, at any rate during the present Session, to say something about its main object—
Mr. BOOTH: Hear, hear.
Mr. LEE: And its principles, and to dispel, if I can, any legitimate apprehension which may be felt in regard to its effect on what is called "the liberty of the subject." First of all, in regard to its title. I believe that certain objections were raised by the hon. Baronet behind me as to the title of the Bill.
Sir F. BANBURY: Not the title, but the sham title.
Mr. LEE: I do not wish to bandy words with the hon. Baronet, but the title as printed on the Bill. His chief objection appeared to be that the use of the words "White Slave Traffic" in the Bill had had the great disadvantage of having attracted a good deal of popular attention. He will forgive me for saying that I think that is one of the great merits of the title. I think it is very important that popular attention should be directed to the matter. The title is not misleading. At any rate, that objection comes very badly from a good party man like my hon. Friend, who I am sure would not hesitate to use any title for a Bill which he thought would either assist his own side or act to the detriment of his opponents. I go further, and say that I think the title as printed is accurate. In the first place, the Bill deals with certain amendments to the existing criminal law. It is, therefore, a criminal law amendment Bill. It also hits, and as I hope, hits hard at certain most objectionable individuals who are engaged in the white slave traffic. I think the title of the Bill therefore is fully justi-
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fied. I think the hon. Baronet, if prepared to pursue the point, will find it very difficult to show that the title is, as he calls it, a sham title.
That, however, is of very little importance. What is of importance is what the Bill actually attempts to do. Let me start by saying the Bill does not attempt the impossible. The Bill does not certainly attempt anything so foolish as to attempt to abolish prostitution altogether. I do not suppose it is possible for any Bill to make the people of this country moral by Act of Parliament. The promoters are determined, if possible, to save the unwilling victims and prevent the white slave-market from being supplied by violence, by fraud, or by hideous forms of cruelty. Against whom, after all, is this Bill directed? It is certainly not directed, or intended to be directed, against the unfortunate women who are the victims of commercialised vice. I have no wish to add to the miseries of their lot. They are sufficiently hard as the world goes. I certainly wish to take no steps to harry them by first of all chasing them off the streets into the houses, and then chasing them out of the houses into the streets again, or anything of the kind. As a matter of fact, I do not think there is any provision in the Bill which really will affect prostitutes at all. The Bill aims only at those sinister creatures who batten upon commercialised vice, and who make a profitable business out of kidnapping, decoying, and ruining, and subsequently turning into prostitutes unwilling girls. These are the people at whom the Bill aims, and they are also the people at whom the original Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 aimed, namely, procurers, keepers, "ponces"—as they are called—and bullies. It aims at those people who unfortunately under the existing law are able to evade responsibility through certain gaps and loopholes through which those who are both cautious and cunning can nearly always escape. The object of this Bill is to close up those loopholes. It introduces no new principle of any kind, and it only ensures that the previously declared will of Parliament, as expressed in the Criminal Amendment Act of 1885, is made really effective.
The need of this amendment of the existing Act is, I believe, established beyond all question. Expert opinion is unanimous upon that point. This Bill represents not the ideas of a few enthusiasts, but the considered demand of practically all important societies engaged in

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the suppression of this traffic. It represents the considered demand of the Home Office, that has to administer the law, and of the police, who have to enforce it, and, after making the most careful inquiries I can in every direction, I have come to the conclusion that without the amendment of the law suggested in this Bill, the police are really powerless to deal with the worst and most habitual offenders in connection with this white slave traffic. I know perfectly well the objection will be made in the course of this Debate that it is dangerous to entrust the police with such exceptional powers, and particularly the powers given in Clause 1 of the Bill. Personally, I do not share that view; at any rate, I am convinced of this, that far greater evils to the community accrue from the withholding of those powers than can possibly result to the community from the granting of those powers in view of the existing situation. Clause 1 gives power to the police to arrest without warrant in the case of certain offences. That is not a new power. It exists under many of our laws of the present day, and in connection with offences which, comparatively speaking, are entirely trivial. Let us consider for a moment what these are. The police are empowered now to arrest without warrant any person they suspect of being about to commit a burglary. They can arrest without warrant people who commit petty larceny, and persons guilty of offences of obscenity. That is to say, people who are either selling obscene publications in the streets, using obscene language in the streets, singing obscene songs, or writing up obscene words. The power of arrest without warrant is given by the existing laws to gamekeepers against persons whom they suspect of the intention of trapping pheasants or rabbits. Power is given under the existing law for any private person to arrest any individual who is guilty of cheating at cards.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: This Clause deals with persons being about to commit an offence.
Mr. LEE: I dealt with that in connection with burglaries, and I am only showing by actual illustration that the power of arrest without warrant does not introduce a new principle, but that the principle exists under many Acts of our existing legislation. If these powers already exist in regard to such cases as I have mentioned, surely the liberty of the subject in this
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country is not going to be endangered by empowering the police to arrest, or, what is really wanted, empowering the police to detain for the purpose of inquiry notorious procurers, "ponces," and bullies, and who, owing to the absence of this power, are in nearly all cases enabled to escape. Surely if we are dealing with personal liberty, the personal liberty of these unfortunate girls, who are the daughters of our own people, is more important than a man's property in pheasants and rabbits, or than such matters as gambling or the use of light language in the street, and it is against persons guilty of that offence against those young girls that these powers are directed. There is no likelihood of the police abusing these powers. Personally, I would wish that the Bill went further in this respect, and that these offences committed by procurers, "ponces," and bullies should be made felonies instead of misdemeanours. It would not then be necessary to use the particular form of words in Clause 1, because that power would be implied and would, I think, be exercised with perfect safety to the liberty of the subject.
It has been suggested, and, no doubt, it will be suggested again to-day, that the police would be likely to abuse these powers and that they would lead in some mysterious way to the corruption of the force. I think that fear is entirely unjustifiable, and I think it is an unfair reflection upon the most honest and humane police force in the world. After making the most careful investigation I can, I believe that the detestation of this white slave traffic is absolutely universal throughout the police force, and I do not believe there is a single man in the force who could be bribed to co-operate with those taking part in this vile trade. Without Clause 1 of the Bill the police are really helpless to intervene in regard to the worst and most habitual offenders. After all, I ask the House to remember this: we are not dealing with cases where girls are seized forcibly and carried off. The case is a very different one from that. We have to deal with the situation where the girls are carried off not by force, but by pledges and hopes which are held out to them of being married, by promises of excitement and travel, and things of that kind, and by promises of happiness and comfort and possibly wealthy existences in another country. It is a gradual process of capture, and one which by its very nature makes it almost impossible for the police

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to see exactly the moment at which an indictable offence is committed. When I come to the legislative points of the Bill I will show how it works. At present I do not wish to dwell unduly upon the details of the measure. I will only say this, that in my opinion the most important Clauses are Clause 1, Clause 2, and the second portion of Clause 4, that is Clause 4 (b), because these Clauses aim specially at the class of scoundrels to which I have already referred, the procurers, the "ponces," and the bullies.
I am not responsible for the drafting of the Bill, which has been in existence for some time. If I were to make a criticism at this stage it would be that for the particular class of offenders with which the Bill deals it does not go far enough, particularly in regard to the extent of the punishment possible. I believe the Bill is too lenient in regard to these particular offenders. With regard to the remainder of the Clauses in the Bill, they are designed mainly to remedy the defects in the case of the Criminal Amendment Act of 1885. They are aimed mainly at brothel keepers and that class of landlord who knowingly and deliberately, and after the matter has been brought to their notice, continue and persist in continuing in profiting by the proceeds of prostitution. I admit that these Clauses require very careful examination in Committee, and no doubt they will receive it. They can be amended where necessary, and no doubt will be amended if necessary, so that no innocent person will be adversely affected "by the provisions of this Bill. In connection with these Clauses I am quite prepared to have it said that the evils of brothels in their worst form are not so common in this country as abroad. I do not think they are, and I further admit that the particular phase of the white slave traffic in which girls are kidnapped and detained, either by violence or promises or devices of that kind, is not so prevalent in this country as in many others.
On the other hand I am afraid it is none the less true that the United Kingdom, and particularly England, is increasingly becoming a clearing-house and depot and dispatch centre of the white slave traffic, and the headquarters of the foreign agents engaged in the most expensive and lucrative phase of the business. That state of affairs is well known to all who have to administer the law, and I venture to say it is a standing reproach to our national
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honour. I am afraid without the powers contained in Clause 1 it would be impossible to interfere with effect. If necessary I could give many actual cases brought to my notice, and I hope to do so if this Bill goes to Committee showing how these foreign agents of the international white slave traffic are enabled to use this country of ours as a clearing-house for the dispatch of their marketable goods to South America and other countries. I know our time in this Debate is limited and I do not wish to take up more than my share in view of the fact that many other Members want to speak, but I do appeal to the House to afford a Second Reading to this Bill this afternoon, in order that it may be sent upstairs to a Committee where all reasonable objections may be raised, and every detail of the Bill threshed out. The promoters are willing and anxious to continue any Amendment which, whilst carrying into effect the main object of the Bill, may at the same time safeguard any innocent persons from illtreatment or injustice under any of its provisions. I feel very strongly as an opponent of Women's Suffrage that we men are under a special obligation to pay heed to the appeal made to us as men by the united voice of women on behalf of the most miserable and unfortunate of their sex. In my judgment the attitude of the anti-suffragists would be inexcusable, and its position untenable if it could be said, and said truly, that men were callous to the sufferings of women, and not willing to accord them even an elementary measure of protection. That commercialised vice—I distinguish this from mere prostitution—flourishes as a widespread and profitable business in the midst of our civilisation I do not think can be denied, and it flourishes only because there is a demand for it; and let us not forget that that demand comes solely from men. Therefore, speaking here as men, we must realise that there is a heavy responsibility upon us in this matter. Whilst, of course, it is not in our power by means of legislation to abolish prostitution, a profession which is as old and as enduring as the world, it is, I believe, in our power—and it is certainly our duty, if it is in our power—to see that that profession is not recruited by violence, by force, and by cruelty so unspeakable that no one who contemplates it can feel anything but passionate resentment, and a stern resolve to see that this blot on our national honour is removed at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. BOOTH: I think the Bill before the House is wrongly titled. It is quite true that the hon. Gentleman's speech dealt very largely with the white slave traffic, but I think the House became painfully aware as he proceeded with his speech that the Clauses of this Bill had very little connection with this international traffic in commercialised vice. There was one assertion made by the hon. Member, and I regret that an assertion of that nature should have been made in this House. It dealt with the subject which to me seems to be more in the minds of the framers of this Bill than the traffic in innocent girls. I regret that it should go forth from one of the Front Benches in this House that the profession of prostitution is as old as the world, and as enduring. I should have thought students of sociology, and those who have taken advantage of the researches of eminent scientists, would have been aware that the state of things complained of largely results from crowded communities in cities, and is not the natural state of the human race. Without attempting to dwell too long upon an unpleasant subject, I must say that I join issue with such a pronouncement as that, and with a great deal of what is enshrined in that assertion. This Bill, so far as it deals with the great question of sexual immorality, is of little importance. As a student of this subject for a great portion of my life, honestly I say that I think the House would be wrong to imagine that it will be accomplishing much in this direction by this legislation. I say quite frankly that the Insurance Act, about which there is so much controversy, will do a thousand times more to prevent immorality and prostitution than the Bill which is now before the House—I refer more to the provision made for domestic servants who come happily within the scope of the Insurance Act, which takes care of them during sickness, so that they shall not be tempted by extreme poverty after their illness to earn money by this deplorable means to buy clothes before they can get a new situation.
I am not one of those who believe so much in compulsory good conduct. I am too sad when I think upon the subject to be able to imagine that by the passing of a few pages of legislation we can materially affect the destiny of the human race. We ought not to proceed upon the idea that girls go into this life through being decoyed and deceived. The evils enshrined in this question of the abuse of
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sexual instincts cannot be put right by a puny Bill of this description. I regret to say that in one grave measure this Bill is heading in a wrong direction. I want to appeal to this House, and to all friends of morality and all teachers of the young, so far as my voice can carry, not to depend upon Acts of Parliament and the Police Courts in endeavouring to save the youth, both male and female, of our native land. Whenever the responsibility for the morality or chastity of a young girl is taken away from the mother and afterwards from the school teacher and reposed in the policeman on the beat, I have very little faith in the progress of my own land. I consider the real responsibility of the grave evils with which we are now faced arises in a large measure from the ignorance of those youthful people, an ignorance which has been encouraged by the prudery of the older people. I know how difficult it is to get consent for a woman doctor to enter our secondary schools; I know how difficult it is to get public authorities to employ a woman doctor to teach sexual hygiene. There is a movement among some education reformers to limit the teaching in the schools entirely to single women. There is an opposition from the ranks of the teachers themselves against the employment of married women teachers.
What hope can there be for a real guidance of the young girls and women of this country when their teachers are entirely prudish old maids? I claim that if we were to give a little more attention to the enlightenment of the young we should be doing far more good to restrain them in after-life than by increasing the powers of the police. What do you teach girls at the schools now? I am sorry to say that in most homes, as well as in most schools, there is almost a deadly silence upon this all-important problem, and I think that is largely the cause of the deplorable state of things around us. You teach a girl how to get to Timbuctoo, but you do not teach her how to avoid Piccadilly Circus. I ask whether there is not the gravest responsibility in leaving these young people in entire ignorance of their natural functions; and the awful punishment which attends any abuse of their own bodies. I think it is necessary for me to briefly draw the attention of the House to the evil that is to be met and show while there is some good in the Bill it will require great amendment in certain particulars; and even then it will only relieve the fringe of this great problem. What

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are the evils that are troubling us at the present time? In my opinion this international traffic and commercialised vice as it has been called largely exists in novels and is a figment of the imagination, so far as it applies to this country. I am not prepared to admit that London is the centre of an international traffic of this kind, because that has never been proved. If it is true, it is the greatest reflection upon previous legislation, and upon the present administrative authorities, that can possibly be uttered. I do not think so badly of past laws and the administration of the police force as some hon. Members who are prepared to believe that this vice exists in all its enormity. My view is that this traffic exists and flourishes in proportion to police and State regulations of the vice.
I regret that the hon. Member in charge of this Bill did not think it right even to mention the all-important subject of the State regulation of vice. If there is one conclusion more than another which can be drawn on this question, it is that in proportion as the State and the police interfere to regulate immoral traffic, so is this unspeakable merchandise promoted. I have no hesitation in saying that the headquarters of this traffic are not in London, never have been in London, and are not likely ever to be in London. If the hon. Member opposite thinks they are in London, if he were in charge of Scotland Yard for a week I am sure he would soon alter that condition. What are the painful facts in regard to the evil which this Bill only touches very lightly? There are thousands of people being accosted in London every night, and that is illegal. There are thousands of disorderly houses in this city, and they are illegal institutions. If our administration has been perfect in the past how do you explain these breaches of the law which are occurring every day in this great city, and will occur to-night? You have in London couples, and very often young couples, or mere boys and girls, waiting in queues in order to gain entrance to disorderly houses on the South side of London, and pay a shilling for the use of those rooms. Let us look facts in the face. That is illegal, and why is it going on? Will new legislation put that down? Certain thoroughfares are given up nightly to street-walking and solicitation in many of our great cities. In certain streets respectable people are warned not to take houses because there are so many disorderly premises. We have our parks as night approaches very largely occupied, I regret to
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say, in the practice of unnatural vice. Youthful immorality in England, I regret to say, is in my opinion on the increase, and so is juvenile immorality, in spite of the Children Act. What is the meaning of all this? You have hundreds of wealthy men prowling about in the West of London, in Bond Street and Regent Street, all day, endeavouring to attract the attention of women shopping. Are you aware of the great spread of venereal disease among shopgirls and others, who only go quite casually and indulge in this dreadful way of earning money? Are you aware that is one of the most serious things that confronts the doctors in hospitals at the present time? Do you really know what takes place on the sands of the seashore at our resorts or in Epping Forest on Bank holidays? I mention this in order to let the House realise the tragedy of the position. We cannot save the human family, and particularly the boys and girls who are dear to us, merely by increasing the powers of the police constables and then thinking we have done our duty. When you come to look at these great evils, and then examine the Bill before the House, good though it is in its intentions and beneficial no doubt in one or two of its Clauses, it does seem to me a lame conclusion of the whole matter.
I have ventured to place an Amendment on the Paper to indicate my view. I put it down at a time when no facilities were given to the Bill. I wish to give some idea of what was in my mind. It was not hostility to any legislation designed to catch the bullies or to protect the young and innocent. I make that suggestion to the House. I appeal to the hon. Gentleman who presented this case with a sincerity and with an ability which I am very pleased to recognise—and which I am sure the House is—upon this point. It does not seem to me that we can get very far without more evidence. When the late W. T. Stead passed his Bill he did it after a great agitation. He made researches himself with regard to the depths of iniquity in modern Babylon, and published the result. The same thing preceded the repeal of another Act, at instance of that woman of priceless value, Mrs. Josephine Butler. We have had twenty-seven years pass since the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. What is the situation, and why is it so unsatisfactory? It seems to me our first duty is to collect information, ascertain the facts, go into the question thoroughly, and in a more drastic

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way than we do by this Bill, and get our evidence. Then next Session we shall be able to come to the House with a Bill that of its own right will command entry to the House and a passage through it. That is my view. I think the cause of social purity and the protection of young women would be greater served by this searching inquiry which I now advocate. The Bill in its first Clause deals with the question of the traffic. I have only one objection to that, and it is my principal objection to the Bill. That is the increase of the power of the police. Clauses 2 and 3 do not deal with what is known as the white slave traffic at all, but with the general question of brothels. I have no desire to go into that question at all. It does, however, seem to me a new thing to introduce evidence of a previous conviction in the way that is done by Clause 2. I think it is a little more dangerous upon this question than upon any other. Still, it is one of those questions that can be discussed in Committee, and, if a case can be made out, I will waive my objection to it, though probably the lawyers in the House will have something more to say.
With regard to Clause 3, Sub-section (2), there is, of course, a very severe punishment which might, I think, occasionally fall upon an innocent landlord. I mean the landlord of a house, and not the ground landlord. I quite admit there is no desire on the part of the promoters to inflict any hardships upon an innocent owner of property, and again, I say, it is purely a question for the Committee. I have every confidence, however the Committee is constituted, that it will be put right. When we come to Clause 4, I join issue with the promoters of the Bill upon somewhat the same lines as the hon. Gentleman himself did. Paragraph (b) is absolutely futile. I would make that very much stronger. I do not think this will alter the situation with regard to dealing with these foreign bullies at all. I do not know whether the promoters have taken the trouble to ask the magistrates and those who administer the law why so many of these dreadful exploiters of women's vicious practices escape. As far as I can learn, it is because of the decisions of certain London magistrates, who will not send a case forward unless the woman herself gives evidence. I had hoped when I read the Bill, to find that it would meet the difficulty which has arisen. I am not in a position to say whether these stipendiary magistrates are justified or
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not. I am not a lawyer, and would not for a moment challenge their fairness or their knowledge of the law, but I understand that is the difficulty. It is quite plain the woman herself is almost the last person that can be got to give evidence. Even if she had a passionate desire for liberty and to shake herself free from the shackles of this beast and rushed to the Court to seek protection, then what happened? Almost invariably she withdraws the case, because the neighbouring bullies, men who are left free, but who are in the same gang with the scoundrel locked up, threaten to spoil her face, I am not quite sure whether, in Committee, that could be put right. I say candidly that is the way, to my mind, reform of the law is needed. While expressing entire sympathy with the idea of dealing with this rascality, I am not quite sure if you deal courageously with these terrible creatures. The very fact that there are these bullies, who want girls to steal money, watches, and chains, and make exorbitant demands, prevents or disinclines many men from seeking the society of these girls and preying upon them. It is a sad reflection, I admit; but surely we must look at the thing all round. If we remove some of the horrors that surround this vicious traffic, we may imprison rascals who deserve the lash, but if we stop there we shall have done very little to improve the morals of the community.
It was a matter of some astonishment to me to find that many Members who are supporters of this Bill were actually supporters of another Bill introduced in this House to lessen the penalties against procurers and bullies. When I examined these Bills last Session, I took about six of them and went through them. They seemed to me to be a kind of common bundle. This was called the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, and another had a similar title. I found some of the same Members supporting both, this introduced with an idea of increasing the punishment, and the other Bill introduced to lessen the punishment and to do away with the lash. I want to be quite sure that we know where we are going. There are some Members who came to me to see if it was possible I had the remotest sympathy with this horrible business, but I found they were against using the lash. I am in favour of it. Yet some of these Members who want to abolish the use of the lash on these criminals were suggesting they were really more anxious than I to increase the penalty. There is only one sentence in

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the first Clause dealing with police regulations, and, if that one sentence had been taken out, I think my view of the Bill would have been entirely different. I would suggest to the promoters, in the first place, that it will not accomplish what they want, and, secondly, that it may contribute to the evil which we all deplore. I do not thing the Bill as it stands will suppress the white slave traffic. My view is this. If we are seriously determined as a House to grapple with this problem, we must get special officers. They may be police officers or they may not, but we must have specially trained, reliable officers, married men, men of experience and great integrity, men of character, and men with high salaries. They must be men very well paid and of the soundest judgment to defeat the machinations and intentions of those engaged in this traffic. You have clever and unscrupulous villains against you, and we want the best brains we can find to checkmate them and to vanquish them. You will not do that by a general power given to every police constable.
7.0 P.M.
We are not giving the police constable power merely to arrest villains and offenders. If he thinks a person is about to commit an offence, he can arrest him without a warrant. I cannot therefore see that anybody is quite safe unless the individual is personally known to the policeman whose mind is dwelling upon the subject. I am not here to make an attack upon the police, and particularly the police of London. I am inclined to the view that if you were to take the whole of the police force of London and change them for another set of men you would be worse off, no matter from where you picked them. I say quite straightly that if we are to have the police I would sooner have the present contingent we know, and who have been proved to be true and loyal in such large numbers, than any other set of men; but I want to ask whether any constable, even the latest recruit to the police ranks, is to have such general and wide powers? Do the police never make mistakes? What was the evidence with regard to the police mistakes before the Acts were repealed for the State regulation of vice? I have been favoured with a document given to me personally by a member of the Royal Commission. There are not many alive now, but a member who sat on that Commission came and gave me this document, which is now, as the House may see, venerable with age. What was
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the controversy then between this member of the Royal Commission which sat to consider the State regulation of vice and the Assistant Commissioner of Police, who is largely responsible for its administration? It was because of cases of mistake and corruption on the part of the police. Mrs. Josephine Butler, with that marvellous power of persuasion which is given to very few people, and is given mainly to women, in pleading the cause of her sex, went from town to town and village to village making speeches in which she mentioned pitiable instances of those who suffered from police action. This House will remember the case of a girl wrongly served with a summons for degrading personal inspection by a doctor to see whether she was fit for the service of wicked men—a girl who, rather than answer the summons, jumped into the dock at Devonport and drowned herself. That was the case of an innocent girl living with her employer and his wife.
I do not wish to bring any personal charges against individuals. It is the system we have to deal with. Everybody makes mistakes, and how can a policeman tell one woman from another woman, or one girl from another girl. If we had specially trained men these mistakes might be avoided, and I ask the House, in the interest of the police, not to employ them too fully in this degrading occupation of regulating vice. The controversy to which I am referring was in regard to mistakes which were frequently made, and I am merely mentioning it in order to show the extent to which this curse of examination had been pursued. I ask hon. Members only to read the daily papers of the last few days. There was the case of an innocent woman who, by mistake, was put into dock at a certain police court and charged with being drunk and disorderly. The policeman swore that she was the right woman. She herself was very nervous and quite unable to put forward her case, and it was only when the guilty woman turned up half an hour afterwards that she was released.
Mr. JOHN WARD: She was convicted.
Mr. BOOTH: Yes, I meant to say that she was convicted, and the magistrate, in ordering her release, said he was sorry for the inconvenience to which she had been subjected. When I read those words I carefully refrained from looking to see who was the police magistrate, so that I

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might not remember his name. But it was a disgraceful thing that the woman should have been treated in this way, because she is liable in years to come to have thrown in her face, by unscrupulous people, the fact that she was once convicted of being drunk and disorderly. I do not think that the constable was guilty of wilful carelessness. It was a case undoubtedly of a pure mistake. But what a terrible mistake as far as the woman, herself was concerned! There was a case in last Saturday's Courts, a case in which a chauffeur, a tee-totaller, who, after he had been in a collision enough to shake anyone's nerves, was charged by the police-constable, whose evidence was supported by the police-sergeant at the station, with being drunk, and it was only through the intervention of a trained nurse, who said that the man was not suffering from drink at all that he was freed from the charge. I say that, in view of this possibility of mistakes, we ought to be very careful. If we pass hasty legislation and a few mistakes of this kind are made there will be such an uprising of public sentiment that even the good parts of the Bill will be destroyed.
I wish to draw attention to the case which has been made out by the "Spectator." I say all honour to the "Spectator" for the action it has taken. I consider that the editor has done a noble duty in publishing the articles which have appeared. On 1st June he printed a remarkable review of a book by Miss Adams. Miss Adams lived in Chicago, the city from which a great evangelist came over here in order to convert benighted England. She gives such a picture of that city as should case us to pause, when we come to consider the question of the State regulation of vice, which, in my opinion, is wrapt up in the questions embodied in this Bill. Her conclusion is that nothing affords better political material than the regulation of commercial life and the very existence of a segregated district under police regulation means that the existing laws are nullified or rendered totally inoperative, while police regulation involves police and municipal blackmail. I am not here to compare the London police with the police of Chicago. But we cannot forget that they speak the same language in the United States as we do. We cannot forget that that great country was founded by religious men, who went out in the "Mayflower," and who could not have had the remotest idea that, in course of time,
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there would rise such a terrible blot on civilisation as Chicago has become. I want the House to reflect on what it is doing.
This brings me to ask for certain assurances, both from the promoters of the Bill and from the Government; and if I receive satisfactory assurances on two points, which I will name, I think I may be able to welcome the Second Reading of this measure. First, I want to know is there in the mind of the promoters or in the mind of the Government any tendency whatever to go back on the decision of the nation to be free from the horrors of the State regulation of vice.
Mr. LEE: No, none whatever.
Mr. BOOTH: I am glad to hear that. But I must say that some gentlemen who have thought fit to interview me, and have endeavoured to persuade me to give my support to this Bill have been active advocates of the hideous system of the State regulation of vice. I know that the hon. Gentleman and his Friends are against it, but in the appeal there is something which rather astonished me. It is a strong appeal from Scotland Yard and from Parliament Street, and we are asked to pass this Bill as a memorial to the late Mr. W. T. Stead. Now we cannot forget that Mr. Stead was frequently in controversy with the people at Scotland Yard. Then, again, we find the doctors recommending the Bill on the ground that it is necessary for the health of the people. We are also informed that it must be followed by further legislation. I think I am entitled to ask both from the promoters and from the Government, with their full knowledge of those who administer the laws, whether this will have to be followed by further legislation in the direction I have indicated? When the Home Secretary replies we are, I would suggest, entitled to a definite pronouncement on this important subject.
Secondly, I wish to ask, will the police clause, if I may so term Clause 1, be open for free discussion and reasonable amendment. I am not asking that a place shall be given, but that it shall be altered. If in the discussion in Committee a proper case can be made out for these extreme powers—I cannot at present conceive it possible—the arguments advanced will have full weight given to them. But I should like to know whether the Government, in the Committee, will invite contributions from such Members as have studied the subject, and if they will support the

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hon. Member in his efforts to free the Clause from any possibility of doing damage to innocent persons. I may say that any effort to amend the law with a view to letting ruffians escape will be as strongly opposed by myself as by the promoters of the Bill. In conclusion, I would again repeat my desire for a much larger measure which could have been brought forward after evidence had been tendered and given. It is true, as the hon. Gentleman says, the problem is an old one. It may not have existed from the foundation of the world, but it certainly has existed for thousands of years. I have often wondered whether any statesman in or our of office would ever be so bold as to offer candid advice to his countrymen and countrywomen on this topic. I am sure that many questions dealt with by Parliament are not half as important as this; but a solution will not be found by legislation. We might free our country from villainy to a certain extent, but when we come to the large questions of prostitution and sexual immorality, they cannot be dealt with merely by legislation. It would be a sorry thing if we relaxed our personal efforts' to get rid of this evil simply because Parliament passed an Act giving a little more power to the police constable. We can learn a great deal from history; but I will not trouble the House with that. I consider that the speech of the hon. Gentleman justifies the claim some of us have made that this Bill is too important to be passed without a word of discussion. The dangers involved in it are too grave for us to be content with passing it after eleven o'clock at night. I appeal to social reformers and students of morality not to be too pessimistic. I have great faith in knowledge and education, as well as in human nature, if we are only candid enough to tell our young people what are the great facts of life. I believe it is to the spread of education that we must look for improvement in the matter of this social evil, and I believe that liberty and enlightenment will dispel these horrors much in the same way as glorious sunshine dispels microbes.
Mr. BURGOYNE: As one who is very earnest in the desire to get this Bill passed, I would like to register my sympathy with everything that has fallen from my hon. Friend in introducing the measure, and I should like to express my hope that the House will be able to send it to a Committee without a Division.
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But I desire first to refer to the short debate which arose on a Motion for Adjournment last Friday. In the course of it the hon. Member for Pontefract, who has just spoken, suggested that there was an attempt to rush the Bill through, and he made statements which, if accepted, would be very damaging to Members in this House and in the country. He said that there had been no definite effort made to pass the Bill; that there had been no real demand for its second reading, and that night after night no Member had taken the trouble to move it. He also denied a statement that such a Motion had been made a hundred times only to be met with the cry, "I object." I was the Member responsible for this statement that it had been moved a hundred times. I will not pretend it was precisely a hundred times, but I do state that, during the two Sessions the Bill stood in my name, I was here night after night, and that it was not far short of a hundred times that I, or some other hon. Member whose name was on the back of the Bill, moved the Second Reading only to have the Motion thus curtly received and dealt with. I would appeal to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) whether, on scores of occasions, he did not object when I moved the Second Reading. It is only fair that it should be stated that the matter was pressed in this House until we discovered that by no ordinary means of general assent could we obtain a Second Reading, and in that way we have been forced to carry on an even more earnest and ardent campaign in the country than has been done during the last twenty years. I turn to the campaign outside the House. There has been a strong and ardent campaign there, carried on with the support of all the religious denominations throughout the United Kingdom. We have had the whole of that sex most deeply affected behind us, and we felt that the time had come when the Government could, with the support they had behind them in the country, give a day, or part of a day, to the discussion of a measure which for so long has been necessary, and which in my opinion has been very long delayed. There is not a Member in this House who has not had a large number of requests and letters sent to him by various sections of the community and by societies asking him to support this measure. I think it was necessary to let it be seen that those interested in this Bill for many years past

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have worked in order to bring it about that the House, whatever views they may have upon it, should give adequate discussion to the measure, whether they believed it to be good or bad. This is a Bill which has been approved by the Home Office under Conservative and Liberal Administrations.
I am not going to deal with the terms of the Bill itself; they have been very adequately dealt with by the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lee), and I hope I shall have an opportunity, if the House permits the Bill to go to a Committee, of dealing with, it in detail as one who has taken a deep interest in it from the beginning. I would ask the House not to be so far influenced as to prevent the Bill being read a second time because of the criticisms that have been made against it. I do not doubt that the criticisms of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Booth) have been entirely sincere. Many of them are germane. Nevertheless, I think that in this Debate they were considerably ill-placed. We do not pretend that this Bill is the last word in this type of legislation. Obviously if revision could not take place in a Bill, and if all Bills presented to the House for discussions were perfect in their drafting, then the value of the House of Commons as a debating assembly would be gone. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that there was leniency in Clause 4. I can only tell him this, that we have had great difficulty in meeting the warring factions in promoting this Bill. It would not be possible for anybody to present a Bill entirely acceptable to every Member of the House, prior to its discussion in Committee by the Members themselves. There is a fear that innocent persons may be touched by some of the Clauses of the Bill. I can only speak for the view of the promoters, and say that if any Amendment had been brought forward in Committee it would have been most favourably considered, because we, above all others, would have been most desirous to see that the innocent were not mixed up with the guilty.
There are two further observations I wish to make. The first is, that I noticed in a speech of the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) on Friday last, that he made some reference to the fact that my hon. Friend who is backing this Bill has not promoted it with very great strength in the House. My
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hon. Friend has defended himself very adequately, and does not require my defence, but I notice that the Noble Lord the Member for Chorley (Lord Balcarres) did speak in his defence for what the hon. Member described as lack of enthusiasm. I should like to associate myself with the Noble Lord, but in rather a contradictory fashion, because I say the hon. Member for Fareham has, if I may say so, worked like a Trojan in this matter. Not only has everything he has done been praiseworthy, but he has got other people to work, and it is owing to his enthusiasm that we have obtained the success of getting the Second Reading of this measure debated to-day. My second observation is, that we are not all very friendly at the present moment with the Home Secretary: We on this side of the House have a very big bone to pick with him. Some of us think he has done things that he ought not to have done, and that he has left undone things that he ought to have done. I am grateful to him that he should thus early in the tenure of his office have obtained time from the Prime Minister for the discussion of this measure, which is a measure of a Christian, charitable and national nature, to which I hope the House will be prepared to give a Second Reading.
Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Member who has just sat down has not advanced a single reason for this Bill. He has told us that there is a large number of societies outside the House in favour of the Bill, but he has not given a single reason in favour of it himself. He told us that he brought forward the Bill after eleven o'clock, but was met on my part by a curt refusal. What are you to do after eleven o'clock, except to stop a Bill which you consider requires discussion? I think the House generally will acquit me of any want of courtesy. I only followed the usual precedent, and said "I object." The hon. Member says he understands the Bill very-well, but the first time I objected to this Bill last year, the hon. Member came to me and asked me why I objected, and I said, "Because of Clause 3, which takes away a man's house from him when he may have paid a premium for it. That premium is lost and he is punished twice over." The hon. Member said, "There is no such Clause in the Bill." I said, "There is." I went to the Office, got a copy of the Bill, showed it to him, and then he was obliged to admit I was right and he was wrong.
Mr. BURGOYNE: I am very loth to interrupt the hon. Baronet, but he is entirely incorrect in his remembrance of what took place. I sympathise with him on his loss of memory. The facts are these: I never denied that there was not that Clause, but what I did state at the time was, that if he would put an Amendment down in Committee we should be happy to see what could be done in the matter.
Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Member charges me with loss of memory. The loss of memory is with himself. What I said is absolutely accurate, and it was not until after I had shown him the Clause in the Bill which he denied had existed, that he then said, "Very well, I was not aware that was in the Bill, but if you like to move an Amendment in Committee, no doubt it will receive favourable consideration." The majority of people, including the people to whom the hon. Member alludes as having been in favour of the Bill, do not know in the least what is in the Bill. I venture to say the majority of Members did not yesterday, and I am not certain that they do to-day, know what is in the Bill. My hon. Friend (Mr. Lee) talked about the Title. May I point out to my hon. Friend that the Title of the Bill is in the Bill, and that in the Title of the Bill there is not a single word about "white slave traffic." The Title of the Bill is—
"A Bill to amend the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, the Vagrancy Act, 1898, and the Immoral Traffic (Scotland) Act, 1902."
The short title of the Bill is in Clause" 5—
"This Act may be cited as the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1912."
The words "White Slave Traffic" appear only on the outside of the Bill, and would not appear inside the Bill when it becomes an Act. They are not the Title of the Bill, nor have they anything to do with anything in the Bill, with the possible exception of Clause 1. It is because the ordinary person in the street, and because the vast majority of Members in this House, think that this Bill has something to do with the white slave traffic, to which they are opposed, as am I, that this agitation has been got up. The hon. Member (Mr. Burgoyne) has taken credit to himself and to the hon. Member for Fareham in that they have brought this Bill before the House at a time when it can be discussed. That was my object, and I am exceedingly glad that it has come up for discussion.
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It is quite clear what is in the minds of the public of this country when they talk about white slave traffic. It was in the mind of the hon. Member below me (Mr. Lee), because he will remember he had a conversation with me about the case of the Argentine Republic, and he related to me certain stories which had come to his knowledge with regard to the Argentine Republic. He will understand why I do not repeat them. What was in the mind of my hon. Friend, and is in the mind of the majority of the people in this country, is the exportation of women from this country to foreign countries. That that is so is proved by a letter which appeared in the "Times" this morning, signed "Ettie Sayer." She says:—
"The trade is tremendously lucrative to those engaged in it."
She gives statistics of what goes on in New York. The whole of her complaint is with regard to the exportation of women from this country to foreign countries. She says:—
"The proposed Bill does not touch questions involving the personal morality of independent individuals."
I venture to say that this lady has not read the Bill or she would not have written this letter. Let me prove my contention. The first Clause—I am in favour of it, and disagree with the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) with regard to it—is the best Clause in the Bill. I told my hon. Friend that if he would limit the Bill to the first Clause—at one moment I went further, and said if he would limit it to the first and fourth Clauses—I should not object to it. At one time I almost committed myself to the fourth Clause, but fortunately my hon. Friend did not take advantage of my offer. The first Clause says:—
"A constable may take into custody without a warrant any person whom he shall have good cause to suspect of having committed, or being about to commit, any offence against Section 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885."
Section 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, does deal with procuration. I do not object to that Clause, although I think it gives rather dangerous powers to the police. Now we come to Clause 2. It is a very curious Clause. It begins by applying Section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885 to this Bill. Section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, has nothing what ever to do with the exportation of women

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from this country to any other country. Therefore this Clause does not affect, one way or the other, the white slave traffic. This Clause is a Clause for the suppression of brothels in this country, and in this country alone. Clause 2 says:—
"Section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885 (which relates to the suppression of brothels) shall apply to a person in charge of any premises who knowingly permits such premises, or any part thereof, to be used as a brothel …. and accordingly in that Section, after the word 'occupier,' the words 'or person in charge' shall be inserted."
I can only find the word "occupier" in Sub-section (2) of Clause 13, and I want to know whether this Clause applies to the whole of Section 13 or only to Sub-section (2), because the Bill is so badly drafted that it is impossible for a layman, even if it is for a lawyer, to say. Sub-section (2) of Section 13 says:—
"Being a tenant, lessee, or occupier of any premises knowingly permits such premises, or any part thereof, to be used as a brothel or for the purposes of habitual prostitution."
But in the very next Sub-section the words "for the purpose of habitual prostitution" are left out. I do not know whether the words "as a brothel or for the purpose of habitual prostitution" have a legal meaning special to themselves. I can find no definition in any of the Acts which I have looked at to define what habitual prostitution is, but unless these words have some definite legal interpretation this Clause, as it is drawn now, would prevent any woman who, having a house, a room, or a flat, if she used it for habitual prostitution, distinct from a brothel, in contradistinction of what the hon. Gentleman said that the Bill would only affect procurers and not the ordinary prostitute—
Mr. LEE: It has already been held by the Courts that if an occupier receives visits by day and night from a man and no other woman lived in the house or frequented it for such purposes, this was held not to constitute keeping a brothel within the Section.
Sir F. BANBURY: Then I want to know whether the wording of this Clause, which apparently is different from the wording of the Act of 1885, alters in any way the decision which the Law Courts have given?
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Then Sub-section (2) of Clause 2 does not in any way relate to procurers or bullies or the white slave traffic, but only to brothels.
Mr. CROOKS: Where they maintain them after they procure them.
Sir F. BANBURY: This has nothing to do with the white slave traffic abroad. We have had no proof that there is any detention of girls or women against their will in houses in London. As I understand it, with the exception of people who are charged with receiving stolen goods, every man who is prosecuted in the Criminal Court is supposed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and the mere fact, that he has committed a similar offence before is not to be allowed to be brought up in evidence against him, and it is one of the great safeguards of English liberty that because a man has committed an offence three or four years ago, and is charged with a similar offence later on, the fact that he has been convicted before is not brought out as evidence of his guilt until he has been convicted, and then only in order to extend his sentence. But this Clause says that where a man is prosecuted, the fact that he has been convicted before shall be allowed to be used in evidence against him. That is utterly wrong. Then under this Clause a man who has been convicted of being a rogue and vagabond in respect of any such second offence can be flogged, and therefore what the Clause does is not to procurers or bullies, but to the keeper of a brothel. Then we come to the most extraordinary Clause of the lot, which again has nothing whatever to do with the white slave traffic. When a man has been convicted under Clause 3 of an offence against Section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, his landlord is to determine the lease. That is to say, that if I have taken a house at a rental of £10 a year, and paid a minimum of £1,000 and been convicted, I shall be punished with all the vigour of the law, as I should deserve to be, and I might have been convicted two or three times as well, and the house for which I paid £1,000 is taken away from me. That is utterly contrary to the spirit of the English law. You should put your penalty in the Act and not add another penalty in Committee, and in a disguised form. There is still a further extraordinary Sub-section:—
"If the landlord or lessor does not so determine the lease or other contract and subsequently during the subsistence

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of the lease or contract any such offence is again committed…the offence shall be deemed to have been committed with the knowledge of the landlord."
It has nothing to do with the sentimental desire which has brought forward the agitation for this Bill, because it has nothing to do with the white slave traffic. Clause 4 says:—
"In paragraph (b) of Sub-section (1) (which deals with soliciting for immoral purposes) after the word 'importunes 'there shall be inserted the words 'any person of either sex.'"
This is what the Section of the Act says:—
"Every male person who knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution or in any public place persistently solicits or importunes for immoral purposes."
I believe this Clause was inserted to prevent unnatural offences. That Section is going to be altered in such a way that if a man speaks to a woman in the street he may be taken before a magistrate and told that he has committed an offence under this Bill. What a power of blackmail will be given by this provision. Anyone who had a grudge against any person and happened to see him speak to a woman in the street, perhaps a friend, may inform a policeman, who may arrest him. It is a tremendous temptation to a policeman if the man, from the position he is in, cannot risk a charge of that sort being brought against him. It will require great moral courage to go to the police station and face it. The next Sub-section says—
"There shall be inserted, 'or is proved to have been habitually directing or superintending the movements of a common prostitute.'"
What on earth has that to do with the white slave traffic? Certainly a policeman controls, directs, and superintends the movements of a prostitute in a public place. Under the Bill he would be liable to prosecution. I have endeavoured to put the Bill as it is before' the House. I do not believe anyone will hold me guilty of wrongdoing because I have insisted upon a Bill of this sort being discussed in the House of Commons when Members can know what is in it, when the Press will report what has taken place, instead of letting it be smuggled through after eleven o'clock. I have received letters from people, one of whom says I am worse than a Robespierre, another wanted to know
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what my profits out of immoral earnings are, and another said the Bill had been printed a long time, as if it followed that anyone had read it or that discussion of it is unnecessary. Now that the House of Commons is acquainted with what is in the Bill, the responsibility rests not upon me, but upon the House of Commons. I venture to say that if this Bill receives a Second Reading, it will require very great consideration in Grand Committee. The consideration which is usually given in Grand Committee to a Bill which is not discussed in the House on the Second Reading, is of the most perfunctory kind, and everyone knows that probably if this Bill had not been discussed on the Second Reading, the attendance in Grand Committee would not have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five Members composed of people in favour of the Bill who would not be likely to criticise it. I hope, at any rate, the House of Commons will acquit me of having done anything I should not have done, and will believe me when I state that I have had to stand a great storm of obliquy and accusation, unjust and uncalled for, merely because, as I happen to know the forms and usages of the House, I have endeavoured that the House of Commons on a Bill of this importance should have an opportunity of discussing it.
Mr. BOWERMAN: I happen to be associated with those who are promoting this Bill. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) has been good enough to say that he finds one Clause in the Bill of which he approves. I think it must be very satisfactory to the promoters that the hon. Baronet who, from time to time, has opposed this Bill, as he has opposed other measures, finds it in his power to support one of its provisions. The hon. Baronet stated that the Bill has been badly drafted. May I say that it will not be the first badly drafted Bill that has received a Second Reading in this House and been amended in Committee. For that reason I ask him to give a whole-hearted support to the Bill. I speak for those on this side of the House when I soy that it is not the daughters of rich men who are affected by this traffic; it is the daughters of the working classes of this and other countries. I am not a traveller, but I have crossed the Atlantic two or three times, and I make the statement that no one can travel by Atlantic steamers without finding evidence of this traffic going on. Girls, mainly

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young girls, are drawn through specious reasons into the net of these people. They do not know quite what they are going to. Simply certain inducements are held out to them, and they realise what they mean when it is too late. In every port of this country the police know very well what is being done so far as this traffic is concerned. They know the men; they know the uses to which these girls are brought, and, so far as I know, at present they have no power to stop the traffic. I take it that the main object of this Bill is to provide the authorities with power to endeavour to stop the traffic. I cannot conceive that the House could devote itself to any better cause than assisting the promoters to make the Bill an Act of Parliament. Obviously the provisions as drawn will have to be modified in some respects. It is only the main principles I am anxious about, and as a workman I do sincerely ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. Whatever Clauses there may be in it, so far as draftsmanship is concerned, which require amendment, let it be borne in mind that the main idea is to stop a traffic which is well known to the authorities and which up to the present they have had no power to deal with—a traffic which is, not only a disgrace to this country, but a disgrace to every civilised country. It passes through this land of ours. This country is a kind of refuge for this traffic, but when evil is known I am sure the House will be eager and ready to do its best to stop it.
Sir THOMAS ESMONDE: May I say a word on this subject on behalf of Ireland? I and my colleagues are in favour of the Bill, and we are anxious that it should be read a second time this evening and passed into law as speedily as possible. Any country placed in the position of my country, where there is a considerable amount of emigration, must naturally take an interest in such a question as this. I do not say that the daughters of Ireland are abnormally interested in this question, but at the same time it is one in which, as an Irishman, I must naturally take a very great interest. May I say to the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) that there was no necessity for him to apologise to the House for objecting to the Bill on previous occasions. The hon. Baronet objects to every Bill on principle. It is, I fancy, the ordinary occupation of his life to object to everything. May I also say that the speech he made was very much the
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sort of speech we anticipated from him. The details to which he referred are matters which can be dealt with in Committee. Some of them exist possibly in his own imagination. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) appeared to me to urge that the Bill should be made very much stronger. With that I thoroughly agree. But as practical men we must accept what we can get. Nobody will expect us to pass a Bill this Session dealing with all the very intricate and difficult questions involved in view of the other work which is to be done, but when we have a chance of passing this small measure as a step in the right direction I think we should make the most of our opportunity. The result of previous legislation on this subject has on the whole been beneficial. We all know that the question has not been finally dealt with, but considerable progress has been made in dealing with various details. No doubt further progress will be made even after this Bill has been passed. This Bill deals with what has become a great and crying evil in the country. It deals with one of the most hideous blots on our civilisation, and attempts to put some check on this traffic, and on those who derive a lucrative living from it at the present moment. No doubt when the Bill goes up into Committee it will be quite possible to meet the objections of the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) and the hon. Member (Mr. Booth). I am quite certain it will be possible to meet them fairly and squarely. One point which both hon. Members laid stress upon is the-question of the increased powers given to the police. It may be questionable, speaking generally, whether the powers of the police should be increased, but, after all, the police have power in relation to other matters similar to what is now proposed. For instance, they can arrest a man if they suspect him of intending to commit a burglary; but, after all, what is burglary in comparison with the crime with which this Bill is intended to deal? The police may make mistakes. I have no doubt they will make mistakes. I am quite willing that they should make mistakes if they can do something to put a stop to this hideous traffic. So far as the general question is concerned, everybody knows that it can only be dealt with by international agreement. I think the time is ripe for some further step in this direction. I would impress upon the Government that they might now take the initiative, through diplomatic or other means, and approach other Governments to ascertain whether something

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could not be done in the way of discussing this question internationally among the nations, with a view to legislation, and in order that there might be international agreement.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I do not think that this Bill, if it passes, will do very much harm, except perhaps to those people who salve their consciences by fancying that such a Bill as this is likely to do much good. I have also received many resolutions on this question from people who, I think, have not read the Bill. The House and the country must be thoroughly grateful to the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) for having afforded the House the opportunity of discussing the Bill in detail, of showing exactly what its provisions are, and how far they go to wipe out what, many times to-day, has been called a "blot on civilisation." My impression is that the Bill does very little indeed to wipe out a blot of any sort, and there are traces in the Bill of the manufacture of fresh blots, not so bad as the old ones, upon this wonderful civilisation. I was very glad the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lee) said that he drew a clear distinction between those Clauses in this Bill which referred to what is known as the white slave traffic and the others which deal with brothels. I was glad he stated that he would not, when the Bill was upstairs, emphasise the necessity of retaining the Clauses dealing with brothels.
Mr. LEE: What I said was that I would listen to any Amendments which might be proposed in relation to these Clauses.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I think the hon. Member said that the main principle of the Bill was to deal with the white slave traffic, and not to deal with brothels or the persons who keep them open.
8.0 P.M.
Mr. LEE: I said it deals with three classes of criminals. I did not even say that it was intended to deal with the white slave traffic, because it is quite clear that the phrase is differently understood in different parts of the House. It is to deal with the procurer, the "ponce," and the bully.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: This Clause, if passed, is going to make it more difficult for these unfortunate women to find a room for their head at night. I do not want hon. Members to force this Bill through the House, making it more difficult
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for these women to find shelter than they already do. Now that the hon. Member (Mr. Lee) is going to stick to Clauses 2 and 3, I wish to make it quite clear what our objections are. The objection is to making it more difficult for these women to find a shelter. You chase them off the streets, and then you chase them out of their houses. Where are they to find shelter if the police are always after them? We know perfectly well that under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 it is difficult enough for these women to get on, and some people say that bribery of the police does occur. Are you going to make it more impossible for these women to carry on this traffic, which, however much you may disagree with it, or hate it, is bound to go on in some way or other, whatever laws you pass? Driving this sort of thing underground merely makes it worse and merely leads to additional vice. I think that everybody who was in the movement for the abolition of the CD. Act must recognise that the increase of the police supervision is about the worst possible thing you can do for morality in this country, and for the general abolition of prostitution. Under Clause 1, which is a Clause to which I take very serious objection, the police are given power to arrest anyone whom they have good cause to suspect of being about to commit an offence. These are the words to which we take objection. These are the words which do constitute a serious danger to the liberty of the English nation. It is all very well for the hon. Baronet (Sir Thomas Esmonde) opposite and for the hon. Member for Fareham to say that the police have this right in other cases at the present time, and that they have the right to arrest people whom they have good cause to suspect of being about to commit a burglary. But surely in these cases you have the tools of their trade as primâ facie evidence that they are about to commit the offence. In the same way we are told that they have the right to arrest people who are about to commit poaching. There also they have the instruments of their trade. In both those cases the person who is about to affect the arrest has something definite to go upon to show him that he is not making a mistake. But I will undertake to say that this is absolutely the first time that we are proposing to put on the Statute Book the power of giving the police the right to arrest people who they think are about to commit an offence when there is absolutely nothing definite to justify the supposition that the offence is

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about to be committed. They have absolutely to read into the mind of a man or a woman before they can get any definite evidence on the matter at all. Therefore I think that a very strong ease will have to be made out by the promoters of the Bill. I do not say that it is impossible; but it must be a much stronger case than they have made out up to the present for giving them this power of making an arrest without any warrant when they have nothing to go upon.
An HON. MEMBER: Those people are well-known to the police.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: That is what I want to know. I am not a lawyer, nor am I a specialist in this particular line of business; but what evidence is there that this traffic is going on at the present time? The hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Bowerman) has said that he has come across the Atlantic and seen traces of it on every journey across. What are these traces? What is the knowledge of the fact that is possessed? What evidence is there that it does exist? I have got a booklet giving letters from the "Spectator," but I cannot find any definite evidence on which this Bill is prepared at all. I understand now that there was a Committee which sat twenty or thirty years ago and dealt with this subject, and I suppose I should read its proceedings to see what the evidence is. But surely we should have from the promoters of this Bill some evidence that this traffic does go on at the present time, and that there are people waiting at railway stations for any girl who comes through London. I simply cannot believe it. I cannot believe that it is profitable enough for this sort of thing to go on. We have had the promoter of the Bill saying himself what I always believed to be a fact, that this system of depriving women of their clothes and imprisoning them in a brothel may go on possibly in the United States or in Belgium, but does not go on in London. I was very glad to hear him say that. But all these letters in the "Spectator" are all the evidence that we have to go on almost that these brothels do imprison women against their will and confine them there. Is it true or is it not? Surely we have got a considerable amount of knowledge about this subject, or it can be got from the police; and I think that those who brought in this Bill might have made a stronger case, and told us definitely what the evil was against which they were going to fight. As far as
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I can gather, the evil against which they aim this Bill—and a very bad aim it is—is the importation into this country from foreign countries of girls and their re-exportation across the Atlantic.
Mr. LEE: That is one of the evils.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I think that is the main feature. As far as I can gather, there are far more foreign women exported from here than English women. Is it impossible to get from the police or from the immigration authorities, and the people who have the supervision of the immigration of aliens, any figures or evidence-whatever that this trade goes on? It is said that this place is the centre of this traffic. I cannot believe that it is the centre. I believe that our police are more unbribed than any other police; but if it is the centre of the traffic, then that must depend upon the connivance of the police. Do you mean to say that our laws are not strong enough at present. [HON MEMBERS: "Yes."] That the denial to the police of this power of arresting a person without a. warrant makes it absolutely impossible for them to deal with this traffic? That statement requires some evidence behind it. I am very sorry that the mover of this Bill in his very excellent speech did not emphasise that point more than he did. We want to know what case there is for breaking all precedents and giving the police, for the first time, this power to arrest people on mere suspicion without any evidence and without any warrant? I know perfectly well from the shoals of letters on this subject that the people who want this Bill passed do believe in the necessity for putting an end to the horrible state of affairs which exist at present, and I think that they honestly would do far more than agitate for this Bill in order to put a stop to this state of affairs. I ask those people to consider more closely what is the cause of the evil we see at the present day? I saw a letter in the "Times" of to-day, which has been quoted to-day, from a doctor, Ettie Sayer. She gave figures of the women working in the refreshment rooms of the West-End shops at 4s., 5s., and 6s. a week; and she said that the entire staffs of these establishments were on some nights to be found on the streets soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. Does not that show that at the bottom of this prostitution question is the poverty question, and that it is far more vital to put an end to that than to go on tinkering as this Bill, in my opinion is merely

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tinkering with the results of the system which we have at the present time? The self-respecting artisan either thinks or acts as though he thought that he could not afford to marry a wife very often before he gets to thirty years, and consequently there is an increase of prostitution because he continues to lead a single life. In addition to that, the women not being able to find husbands also adds to the stream of prostitution; and you have also the horribly low wages of women producing the same effect. All these sources of prostitution come from the poverty which exist at the present day, and I would earnestly ask those people who support this Bill—and I know that many of them are earnest Christian people who would do anything in order to put a stop to the existing state of affairs—to consider whether they could not throw themselves with the same genius and enthusiasm into putting an end to poverty and exploitation that they put into this tinkering measure dealing with the results of the existing system.
Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: All those speakers who have dealt with this Bill on behalf of the Promoters have only dealt with the vampires who live upon the lives of women, and whom they wish to suppress; and while there is no Member of the House who is not in the fullest sympathy with that object, my object is at present to find out the intention of the Government, who, I understand, are now responsible for this Bill, on the remaining Clauses. I particularly want to ask the Home Secretary what his intention is in dealing, as this Bill does, with the habitual prostitutes as distinct from brothels. The interruption of the hon. Member for Fareham during the speech of the hon. Member for the City of London made it clear that the promoters do recognise that there is a distinction between habitual prostitution and women in brothels; and it is rather disquieting to find that because apparently they have framed Clause 2 to hit the habitual prostitute. I think that Clause 2 does go very much further than merely the question of brothels, because it makes it an offence for anyone in charge of premises to allow them to be used for the purposes of prostitution.
This is a very serious extension of the law. A landlord at the present time, under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, is under no obligation to prevent, say, a flat on his property, from being used for the purpose
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of habitual prostitution. It is quite true that there is this obligation on the tenant, lessee or occupier; but it is a very serious extension of that principle to throw this responsibility on the person in charge of the premises. We know that women of this class, of course, many of them, live-in flats, and the person in charge is liable to proceeding under Clause 13, if the tenant is a prostitute. I want to know what "the person in charge" covers. Is. it only the manager of the flat, or does it also include the porters? If so, I think this Clause may lead to a terrible amount of inquisition and great danger of blackmailing. Those whom you would ultimately affect would not be the owners of the flats, but the unfortunate women themselves. If this Bill, as the promoter admitted, is not aimed at stamping out prostitution if you cannot abolish the evil altogether, have you any right to harden the already terrible lot of these ruined lives that are already paying tribute to our social law? The hon. Member disclaimed it, but he did not deal with the point. But it was a point raised by an hon. Member who spoke, and I only raise it again to try and get an answer from the Home Secretary as to what the Government intend. I believe that a provision of this kind would not in the least be a deterrent; it would not prevent a single woman from falling into a life of shame. It is inconceivable that any woman comes to this life from choice, and in cold blood, and no disability of this kind would weigh in the scale. If you pass this provision as it stands, the only difference will be that you will add to the lot of these women the new terror that they will be turned out into the streets. You make their lot harder by driving out all landlords except those who are prepared to go to prison as criminals for letting these women find a roof over their heads. Surely society has no right to treat these women vindictively, because they already pay a terrible price in misery, disease, and despair. I ask the Home Secretary whether I am right in so understanding the Clause, and if he will say whether he is prepared to modify it so that it would not be a crime on the part of the landlord to have a prostitute on his premises. I hope that this will be done, especially in view of an article which I find in regard to this Bill published by the "Spectator":—
"Suppressive laws directed in general against vice often do more harm than good, because they drive it underground and make the type of it that remains more virulent. If the law tried absolutely to suppress

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prostitution one effect would be that the price of the material of the trade would go up. While this might mean an outward improvement, it would certainly produce secret infamies more terrible than those described. …"
I cannot help thinking that if this provision is carried in its present form instead of remedying the disease at which it is aimed, it will only further punish those who are already the chief sufferers.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I regret that owing to other claims and other business of a pressing nature, it was impossible for me to be present to hear the important speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lee), and one or two speeches that followed. The hon. Member who has just spoken, Mr. Guinness, has addressed a question to me, and an argument to the House. His argument, if it has any value at all, and with respect I submit it has not, is directed not against this Bill, but against the Act of 1885. His argument is against the whole Act. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] My hon. Friends on this side of the House agree with me on that point. All that we do under Clause 2 is to make a very small extension of the Act of 1885. The hon. Gentleman argues against the whole principle.
Mr. W. GUINNESS: I cannot have made myself quite clear on the point, that under the Act of 1885, the tenant, the lessee, or occupier of premises which are used for purposes of habitual prostitution is rendered liable. This Bill proposes to go further, and, under Clause 2, to make any one in charge of the premises who knowingly permits them to be used for the purpose of habitual prostitution liable. I say that is a very great extension of the Act of 1885, and will lead to these women being driven into the streets.
Mr. McKENNA: That was the hon. Member's question to me, but his argument was directed against the suppression of premises habitually used for the purpose of prostitution, and he argued that unfortunate women would thereby be driven into the streets. But that is an argument against the Act of 1885, which has had most satisfactory results, as admitted on all hands.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: No.
Mr. McKENNA: With rare exceptions.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Rare, but important.
Mr. McKENNA: Parliament has been satisfied that the general operation of the Act of 1885 was good. The hon. Member (Mr. W. Guinness) asks me what reason is there for extending the operation of the Act of 1885. The reason is that in prosecutions of this class of case it is very difficult to get at anybody except the person in charge. It is not a case of the owner, it is not a case of any person who is not responsible, it is the case of the only person who is "knowingly responsible," the person in charge. It is proposed in a very small way to extend the operation of the Act of 1885. But, of course, this particular Clause 2, which the hon. Member has spoken about, is not the real bone of contention in this Bill. I am glad to say that there is a generally expressed determination on the part of this House; if possible by some means, to get rid of the great evil which this measure aims at. The trouble is to adopt a satisfactory measure. This Bill may not do all that its promoters would wish, but they have not fixed their tune in a very high key. They are the first to recognise, as I know they recognise, that this Bill is in effect a simple police Bill. But it is, nevertheless, although simple and although it will not extend the law in any great degree beyond what it stands at now, a most important Bill, because, which is of the utmost importance, it will enable the police hereafter to suppress some of the worst evils connected with public vice. The main argument has been directed against Clause 1, which gives the name to the bill of "the white slave traffic." It has been argued by my hon. Friend behind me that the Clause breaks our tradition that there shall be no arrest of any person without a warrant on suspicion. I can only assure him that, however extensive his reading may be of other branches, his reading of the law is very defective.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I directed my argument to the only two instances that were brought forward by hon. Members on the other side, namely, the case of burglary and the case of poaching, and I pointed out that in both those cases there was an entire distinction, in view of the fact that in arrest on suspicion, before the offence was committed, it could be reasonably inferred from the tools possessed that the offence could be committed,
Mr. McKENNA: I can assure my hon. Friend there is nothing in the Act dealing

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with that particular class of offence which requires the offender to be in possession of his tools. A person may be a burglar, or under the Larceny Act may be arrested on reasonable suspicion without a warrant whether he has got any of the tools of his trade in his possession or not. My hon. Friend's reference to tools is wholly irrelevant to this argument.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: They are always mentioned.
Mr. RAWLINSON: The right hon. Gentleman does not suggest that there is any such power in the case of poaching. You surely must have the man committing an offence.
Mr. McKENNA: I did not mention poaching. I said the Larceny Act. Under the Larceny Act there is clearly no necessity for a warrant, and in offences against the person the offender may be arrested on reasonable suspicion without a warrant.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Before he commits an offence?
Mr. McKENNA: In the case of offences against the person he may be arrested without a warrant. The same is true of malicious damage. In all those cases the law has recognised and Parliament has recognised that it is proper in a certain class of offence that a person may be arrested on suspicion without a warrant. Of course, when a person is arrested on suspicion without a warrant the Court would inquire very closely into the grounds of suspicion. The principle which Parliament has always acted on is this: to determine whether the offence is of such a kind that unless the person is summarily arrested he is likely to escape. The offence under Clause 1 of procuration is, in the case of young girls being taken abroad exactly the kind of case which unless the arrest takes place on the spot you never can prove. If you do not arrest without a warrant the girls are gone and assuming the man comes back again there is no legal evidence in existence. Consequently the perpetration of the offence is rendered not merely possible, but certain in a large number of cases, unless you have the power of arrest without warrant. The mere fact that you require twenty-four hours' delay, or something of that sort, in order to get the warrant, enables the offender to escape. That is the reason why following precedent, and fully in accord with the best traditions of Parliament, it is proposed in this class of case
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also to allow arrest on suspicion without a warrant. I really think that the hon. Member is entirely unjustified in his charge that in that particular Clause the Government were proceeding to support a measure which had no parallel in this House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) asked for an assurance from the Government on two points. With the Bill he finds himself in agreement, although he expressed serious doubts as to whether it would fulfil all its promises. He particularly wished to have a double assurance. He asked that I should assure him on behalf of the Government that the support of this Bill disclosed no tendency to go back to the State regulation of vice. That assurance I can give him frankly, fully, and without qualification. He next asked me will Clause 1 be open to reasonable amendment if a proper case is made out in Committee. Of course, I must say of this Bill not only of Clause 1, but of all the other Clauses, that I am not sure that every word is inspired. I am sure it will be necessary to make Amendments on particular points in Committee, and, although I think Clause 1 is more watertight than the others, nevertheless, I assure him we shall consider any reasonable Amendments which are proposed, and if a case is made out shall accept them. That is one of the liabilities the promoters of the Bill suffer by the Bill being taken over by the Government. In general, so far as I have been able to listen to the Debate, the feeling of the House has been expressed in support of the Bill. It is quite true, as I have said, that complaint is made on particular points. There is one point which will have to be remedied, and I hope the promoters will not be unduly shocked, and that is in the provision with regard to the landlord's liability which is in Clause 3. I think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Fareham is probably already aware that some Amendment will have to be made. There is no provision for meeting the case where a landlord was genuinely ignorant of the use of the premises. There are various points in each Clause in which Amendments will have to be made. I do not think that on the Second Reading it is exactly the time to go through the Bill seriatim.
I think it my duty to say that generally the proposals of the Bill are good in the opinion of the Government, and that they will undeniably, acting upon the experience of the Metropolitan Police, at any rate,

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assist the operation, not of any new law, but of the existing law, and will aid the police in carrying out the declared intentions of Parliament. We are all united upon the desire to meet the objects sought after, and I hope that no hon. Member will be deterred from assisting this Bill through by the mere fact that it does not go further. Poverty, of course, is one of the great causes of prostitution, but are we to wait until we get rid of the poor before we pass any preventive measures dealing with a great social evil of this kind. If we are we must say farewell and even repeal all the measures of the kind already passed. I hope the hon. Member will not press the objection. The Bill is a small Bill, but it is a good Bill. It will have far-reaching effects, and, that being so, I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.
Mr. NIELD: I think it will be said of me I am not often here to bless the acts of His Majesty's Government, but I do on this occasion sincerely congratulate them and the Home Secretary upon having taken up this Bill and on having indicated their firm intention of seeing it through its remaining stages. If all the promised legislation which is to occupy us during this prolonged Session, which rumour says will take until Easter of next year, were abandoned, and this Bill alone put on the Statute Book, the Government would have done something, at any rate, to justify the confidence of the country. Those of us who know the workings of the Metropolitan Police Force have no reason to suspect, as the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London suspects, that they are likely to abuse the powers which are given to them by Clause 1. Those of us in this House, and they are not a few, who are Recorders, or, like myself, the chairman of a quarter sessions, and brought constantly into contact with the police, have not any reason to suppose that the powers proposed to be given under this Bill will be abused. I agree with the Home Secretary that unless the police are to have the opportunity of arrest on suspicion their opportunities for putting an end to this deplorable trade are reduced to a minimum. Those hon. Members who take the experience of Peter the Painter as being sufficient evidence that because occasionally the police make a mistake they should condemn the whole force, have not the faintest idea of the number of cases in which the
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police prove to be correct in their suspicions. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) has made one of his characteristic speeches, in which he has maintained his character in this House for eccentricity. I should have thought that he of all men would have been one of the foremost to have welcomed this Bill and every one of its provisions, and to have endeavoured if possible to strengthen them. But I find him inveighing against the Bill on numerous grounds, one of which is that that this evil is the product of poverty, and therefore we must not do anything which will make the lot of the unfortunate people worse. Nobody wants to make their lot worse. What we want to do is to make it apparent to them that they cannot carry on their trade, voluntarily or involuntarily, without the disapprobation of the State. Let the State help them to become honest women.
Every one of us sympathises with the lot of these unfortunate creatures. Every one of us condemns the act of those rascals who bring them into the position in which they find themselves. No one will accuse me of being an extreme puritanical type of man, but I condemn root and branch the mischief with which this Bill deals. I condemn everything in connection with it. But I see no danger of any man or woman being apprehended on suspicion merely because he or she talks to somebody in the street. A man must so regulate his conduct as to prevent his acts being liable to suspicion. He can do that perfectly well. A man can answer an interrogation in the street—it may be an inquiry as to the way—without making it obvious to a policeman that an offence is about to be committed, and that therefore he is justified in exercising the right which this Bill gives him of arresting without warrant. A point was made by the hon. Member about burglary being one of the few cases in which at present you can arrest without warrant. I spent the best part of Saturday in trying two men who had been arrested on suspicion of committing a burglary, and both those men are now in one of His Majesty's prisons. I agree that there may be something to be said in regard to Clause 3, Sub-section (2), under which a landlord may be convicted if he does not determine the lease after an offence has been proved to have been committed. But I believe that in all well-regulated tenancies, if the agreements are properly drawn, the tenancies may be determined upon

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suspicion. Clause 2 of the Bill, however, is very carefully drawn. The Debate has run at some length, and points have been made in great detail. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) said that unless a Bill was debated at great length on Second Reading the Committee stage was usually perfunctory. I think he is not quite right in his facts. I hope that after the consensus of opinion which has been expressed in regard to the urgent needs for legislation which will advance the law at all events one step towards dealing with an abominable evil, the Committee upstairs will have an opportunity of strengthening the Bill in detail, and of affirming a measure which is, at any rate, sufficient for the time, until the Government turn their attention from those somewhat chimerical schemes which they have put before us and pass a more complete measure or attempt the codification of the law regarding crimes of this kind. There is no Bill they have yet introduced, in my experience, that has not been completely turned inside out either on the floor of the House or in Committee upstairs.
Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: The Insurance Act.
Mr. NIELD: I understand that the Insurance Act was improved beyond recognition.
Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: The accusation in the country was that there was no discussion of it at all.
Mr. NIELD: The Insurance Act was turned inside out so that its authors did not know it. But I will not discuss that now. I simply congratulate the Government on being able to take up this Bill, and I hope that where necessary it will be suitably amended in Committee.
Mr. MARSHALL: I have to appeal for the indulgence of the House which is usually accorded to those who venture to address it for the first time, and I am sure I shall not appeal in vain. I wish to make one or two observations upon the Bill, which I think has commended itself to the general sense of the House. In doing so I do not wish to supplement the good things which have been said about the purpose of those who have brought the measure forward. I wish to say a word in regard to the remedy proposed in the first Clause, which has been regarded with some suspicion by those who have spoken against the measure. I do not share in
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the serious view of the danger of the Clause here introduced. The Clause has been well defended, but I should like to put before those who have criticised it one point which has not yet been mentioned. In dealing with an offence of the class here aimed at, speed in the action of those who are endeavouring to prevent the offence is most essential. It would be easy to base the soundness of the Clause on the fact that the evidence necessary to procure convictions in these cases might easily be removed from the power of those who bring the charge. Apart altogether from that, apart from the fact that the girls who are being procured for this class of offence might, at a subsequent date, be out of the country, and therefore not be available for the purposes of prosecution, or of evidence to support a prosecution, it is essential when you are dealing with men of the class referred to that you should be able at once to put your hands upon them there and then and deal with them without having to go to the trouble and delay of procuring a warrant. I wish to say, in addition to that, that those of us who are familiar with the practice of the Criminal Courts know perfectly well that this power, as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has said, is constantly being brought into use in various classes of offences. What I wish rather to make a point of is this: it is essential that we should remember that people suspected in this way generally have, perhaps, even more latitude in regard to the way in which they are treated in the Courts of Law than those who are charged with more definite offences. Upon the police and those supporting the charge a great burden always rests when before a Court of Law charges are being made in regard to a case where you have not got definite evidence, but where the case is rather of the nature of a suspicion.
I listened in vain when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract was criticising this Bill for anything in the nature of a practical proposal. The urgency of the case has been admitted on all hands. The gravity of the evils with which we intend to deal in this Bill have been admitted, even by the hon. Gentleman himself, as well as by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. What were the practical proposals of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract? He only asked for delay, for the amassing of evidence for presentation, and the consideration of that evidence as to evils that he admitted actually existed. I do not think any

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further body of evidence can be gathered together. The facts are admitted. The evil is admitted. When we come to consider what it is that he wishes, what hon. Members who oppose this Bill wish to put in its place, there is not one single practical proposition brought before this House. No proposal that can be brought before the House, I venture to think, can be so effective as the first Clause of this Bill. There was one suggestion of a practical character that was made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract. I think that this House, and especially those of us who have experience of the Criminal Courts, must have rejected that proposition as being altogether an impossible one. The hon. Gentleman suggested that there should be the creation of a special class of policemen rather than that the general powers that are suggested in the first Clause should be conferred upon the whole body of police. It seems to me that that is a fantastic and a most dangerous proposition. It would be difficult for us to gather together and select from the general body of the police of this country men who should be detailed for this particular class of work.
I do trust that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract, even in Committee, will not make so fantastic a suggestion as that we should have highly paid officials gathered together for the special purpose of spying upon this particular class of offenders. It seems to me that it would inevitably result in this particular class of police being gathered into particular sections for a particular purpose, and would bring about what we should really avoid in this connection: that is the creation of a body of men whose purview of life is based upon the consideration and the suspicion of this particular class of offence. I think that the police, with their common sense and general capacity for estimating the character of the people they are dealing with, and their general knowledge of life are capable of dealing with this class of offence without making a special selection of police. I have only ventured to intrude these few remarks, because I feel it is very vital that we should have in this matter very earnest, very speedy, and very definite legislation. The moral sense of the country is entirely roused. Although there may be a cavil here and there about the title of this Bill, I believe its main effects would be to deal with that particular class of offence which
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meets with the reprobation of every right minded man and woman throughout the country, and I support the Second Reading very earnestly.
Mr. SANDERSON: I desire merely to make one or two suggestions to the Home Secretary. I am heartily in favour of this Bill, although I am bound to say it is a great pity that "White Slave Traffic" is put at the top, because this Bill, as I interpret it, has precious little to do with a traffic which all of us thoroughly detest and abhor. The only Clause which can possibly deal with the traffic is the first one. I have a very great difficulty in seeing how it is to be of very much help in putting down that traffic. A pamphlet has been circulated, and several cases have been put forward in that. First of all, there is the case of the woman who is enticed to leave her home by a promise of marriage. I do not see how power given to a constable to arrest on suspicion is going to deal with that case or put an end to cases of that kind. There is a second case of a woman being enticed to go to a servants' registry, and who, expecting to find a prospective employer or mistress, on some pretext or other is detained in the town. How can power to arrest on suspicion by a constable stop that? Then there is the case of a woman who meets a girl at a railway station, and passes herself off as the agent of a travellers' aid society. How in the world is compulsory power to a constable to arrest on suspicion going to put an end to that? There is the case of a girl who goes to a railway station expecting to meet a friend who does not turn up, and who is accosted by a pleasant stranger, who leads her away on some pretext. How will that be stopped by the powers suggested?
I can quite see one case which I think the Home Secretary must have had in his mind: of the well-known person engaged in this traffic who by one pretext or another persuades a woman or a girl to go on board ship, and who does not turn up himself till the last moment. There is no time to make the whole facts of the case known to the girl, to acquaint her with the real character of the man, who may be known perfectly well to the police, but not to the girl. There is no time on such an occasion to make her understand her real position. In that case I can understand the first Clause. I would suggest to the Home Secretary that he might think it desirable to put some words into the first Section to limit it to cases of that kind. I do not

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want to go into Committee points, but I do want to make this suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman; because I possibly will not have the honour of sitting on the Committee, and I suggest to him that this first Section is going beyond anything that has ever been done before. I think I am right in saying that at common law a constable has the right to arrest a person without a warrant only in two cases; in the one if he has good grounds for believing that a felony has been committed, or if he sees a breach of the peace taking place under his eyes. Certain statutory powers are given to the constable to arrest without a warrant, but nearly always they are in cases where he cannot make a mistake. For instance, if he finds a man loitering about in a dark road at night—in the neighbourhood of a deserted house, or something of that kind, he is then entitled to arrest him without a warrant, on suspicion of being about to commit a felony. Or, again, if he comes across a ticket-of-leave man whom he knows well loitering about, then I think he may arrest him on suspicion, not that he is going to commit a felony, but that he has committed a felony. Here you are going to give power by this Bill, if it is passed as framed, to a constable to arrest on suspicion that a man is about to commit an offence in circumstances that it must be most difficult for any person to come to a proper conclusion as to whether an offence is going to be committed or not. I draw the Home Secretary's attention to the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act. There, I think, a constable has power to arrest a person without a warrant if he believes he has committed any offence of cruelty. That seems to me to be very much like this case, but there are very important provisions in that Act, and these provisions are if the constable has reasonable grounds of believing that such person will abscond. That is not going nearly so far as this Bill, and I suggest it will be desirable to consider whether this first Clause ought not to be limited in some way, at all events, to the kind of case I have indicated, namely, believing that the man intends to leave the country or to take his victim out of the country, and where there is no power to obtain a warrant. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary whether it would not be desirable in the interests of justice and fair play to have the whole of Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 struck out, and let us have the penalties in black and white instead.
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I think there were a great many Members of this House thoroughly astonished when they found it was proposed that a man convicted three times of keeping a brothel should be subjected to a year's imprisonment, and, not only to that, but to whipping as well. I think that a good dose of whipping is perhaps about the very best punishment you could give to a man of that kind. I am thoroughly in accord with hon. Members on that point, but let us have it in the Bill and not by reference to other Acts, which only lawyers, in all probability, can determine. Speaking from my own experience—I will not say how long I have been at the law—I had to go to my books and refresh my memory and make quite certain what was the punishment that could be inflicted at quarter sessions upon an incorrigible rogue. There are a great number of people in this House who had not the slightest idea that that Clause involved, not only one year's imprisonment, but whipping also. With regard to Clause 4, Sub-section (b), which deals with the question of a man living upon the earnings of such prostitution, I do not know whether he is aware that there are, I am sorry to say, places where the husband, I will not mention any particular towns, has sunk to such a state of degradation that he lives upon the earnings of his wife from prostitution. I think I am correct in the statement that in such a case the wife is not a compellable witness against the husband, and if the right hon. Gentleman wants to improve the Bill he might consider that case and see whether he cannot put in an additional Clause to do away with that inability at the present moment. It is very difficult indeed to obtain the conviction of a man earning his living in that degraded way, simply because the most important witness, the poor woman forced into this state of life, cannot be heard as a witness. I suggest to the Home Secretary that if on inquiry he finds I am right, he might very easily improve this Bill by inserting a Clause such as I have suggested.
Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: Speaking as a Scottish Member, I should like the House to understand there is a very strong feeling in Scotland in support of this Bill. I welcome very cordially indeed the attitude which the Government has now taken up upon this Bill. We certainly might have expected the Government to move in this matter a good many years ago. I have always maintained this was a matter upon

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which there was no degree of controversy in the House. There are two Members of this House, the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) and the junior Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) who have blocked this Bill as a private Member's Bill. I am glad to know they have modified their action, but I protest against the tactics by which one single Member may block every private Members Bill, although he may have sympathy generally with the proposals in the Bill. I rejoice very heartily that the Government have now taken up this Bill and are pressing it forward. From the point of view of Scotland, I should like to say that while this Bill deals with Scotland, there is a Bill to amend the Immoral Traffic (Scotland) Act of 1902. I hope that Bill may receive special consideration from the Government. It has been for a considerable period of time in the hands of the Scottish Office; it was framed by the large corporations in Scotland, and the Corporation of Glasgow was specially interested in it. That Bill has amongst its provisions one to which the hon. Member opposite has referred, namely, making it competent for the wife or one of the persons living upon the earnings of prostitution to appear as a competent witness. It is a very important provision indeed, and I think that provision should also be inserted in this Bill. My point with regard to the Immoral Traffic Act is this: I understand the matter may be fully dealt with in a Scottish Amendment Bill. I do not know whether the Home Secretary is in a position to indicate the intention of the Government with regard to this Scottish Bill and whether it may be taken up separately. Considerable labour has been expended on its drafting, and I hope it may be possible to deal with the matter fully in the form of an amending Statute for Scotland. If that were so I trust the provisions of this Bill will be made applicable to Scotland as well, and the reason I ask for that is that some of the Acts referred to in this Bill now before the House are purely English Statutes. For example, Sub-section (3) of Clause 2. dealing with the increased penalties which it proposed to inflict under the provisions of the Vagrancy Act which do not apply to Scotland. I think it would be a great misfortune if we had not in Scotland also the increase of penalties provided in case of breach of Section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. With regard to the other Sections, I think
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one or two of them would apply as they stand to Scotland, and I hope I may have the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that it is intended in Committee to lay down how far those Clauses are to apply to Scotland, and how far the penalties will be applicable to the Scotch law. There-has been found in our large centres of population in Scotland very great need indeed for such a measure. We have had evidence from every possible source, and in Glasgow we have at the present time a very strong Vigilance Association doing very good work in watching cases which ought to be dealt with under an amended Statute, and the suggestions put forward are practical—in fact, similar suggestions are contained in one or two of the provisions of this Bill. With regard to the portion of the Bill which applies purely to England, this is capable of being altered so as to give Scotland the advantage of those provisions as well. In passing a Bill of this character I feel we are endeavouring to stamp out an evil which is a disgrace to our civilised humanity, and we are doing what we can to remove a reproach and a blot upon our national honour. I hope this Bill at this stage, and in all its later stages, will receive the warmhearted support of all hon. Members.
Mr. GEORGE GREENWOOD: I feel certain that there is not a man in this. House or outside of it who would not be prepared to give his enthusiastic and strong support to any reasonably conceived measure which he believes would have the effect of counteracting the machinations of those scoundrels who by fraud and false pretences decoy English girls away to foreign countries for immoral purposes. That is what I understand to be the white slave traffic, and I do not believe there is anyone who would not enthusiastically support a measure of that kind. But one cannot help asking, Will this particular measure deal with an evil which we all want to put down? I think there is only one Clause in the Bill which has any chance of touching that evil at all, and that is the first Clause. That Clause may be necessary, but speaking as a lawyer, although it is some years since I practised, I believe it goes a long way beyond anything that exists at the present time. We know there are many cases in which a constable may arrest without warrant, but in those cases it is for the most part the arrest of a man committing some offence at sight. A constable may arrest without a warrant on a charge

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made when he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a felony has been committed. If the constable arrests without reasonable grounds, he is liable to an action. If a constable finds a man loitering about in the streets at night he may arrest him on suspicion of going to commit a felony. That is the only analogy to the present law, and although it may be necessary that this power should be given, I think it ought to be very carefully safeguarded, because it may lead to an abuse which all of us would deplore. I think my hon. and learned Friend opposite will agree that is the only analogous case under the present law of a power to arrest, not on the suspicion that a felony has been committed, but on the suspicion that a felony is going to be committed. That is a very rare case, although there is that one instance.
If you come to the second Clause of the Bill, that is designed, it seems to me, for an entirely different purpose, and it will have no effect, as far as I can see, in regard to what is understood by the white slave traffic, that is preventing girls being decoyed by fraud and false pretences out of this country. This is a Bill for amending the Criminal Law Amendment Act. It may be rather late in the day, but I confess I have great sympathy with some observations which fell from the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Walter Guinness). I know it is very difficult to speak on this subject, but I wish that some of our legislators would think a little more deeply on this particular subject, and ask whether they really do good by dealing with symptoms rather than with causes. If the object is to stamp out prostitution, and if it is thought that that can be done by law; if it is thought that prostitution is an offence and ought to be made an illegal offence, why not have the courage of your convictions and make it an indictable offence. Instead of that you harry women from one house to another, and any of these women having a flat or a house can be prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. I remember some words which fell from the late Chief Magistrate at Bow Street Police Court, Sir John Bridge, in which he said that many of these measures which had been recently taken with regard to these unhappy women had had the effect of driving them into the arms of bullies, because they must live somewhere. You have not the courage to say that they are doing something which is punishable as an indictable offence, but you harry them by
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bringing in new measures which make their lives more miserable and more intolerable, and then, as Sir John Bridge says, you throw them into the arms of bullies. Therefore it is worth considering whether you are doing any real good which is not counterbalanced by harm by these particular measures with regard to these women and the houses in which they live. I do not think that is a matter which has been sufficiently considered, and I think this particular Clause should be very carefully considered in Committee as to whether or not it should stand as it is now.
I want to say a word with regard to the punishment under the Vagrancy Act. I disagree entirely with some of my hon. Friends as to the punishment of the lash. You may say that these men richly deserve the lash; you may also say they richly deserve being branded, but you do not brand them because you think that torture would do more harm than good. I am one of those who believe that the infliction of the lash does more harm than good. I have put questions to the Home Secretary once or twice about this old Act of George IV. I think it is a disgrace that it should stand as it does now. Under that Section a man who has been convicted three times of wandering abroad without any visible means of subsistence can be ordered by the magistrate to be flogged, and not only to be flogged, but in this particular Act there is no discretion, and no other Act gives any discretion, with regard to the number of strokes that can be inflicted or with regard to the instrument by which they are to be inflicted. The Home Secretary says, "Oh, but you can trust the magistrates; they will not inflict these punishments." I say it is wrong to allow such punishments to be at the discretion of the magistrates, and recently sentences of flogging have very greatly increased. It may be a Committee point, and certainly in Committee I should strongly support an Amendment to prevent the lash being applied in addition to all the other punishments under this Bill; but I may not be upon the Committee, and I think it is only right to say that these particular points ought to, and I hope will, be taken into consideration when the Bill goes to Committee.
Mr. KING: Perhaps the House will listen for a few moments to one who has studied this question, and who has himself at the present moment Bills before the House dealing with the same subject. I welcome

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the action of the Government in taking up this Bill, and I welcome especially the speech of the Home Secretary. He said, and I think said very well, that this Bill by no means treats the whole subject, nor indeed does it attempt to deal with the whole evil. It is simply a police Bill. It takes up one or two points which have been found in practice to need taking up, and in which the action of the police is at present restricted largely because flaws have been found in the way in which the original Act was drafted. It is, therefore, quite absurd to suppose that the supporters of this Bill expect it will abolish, or even go any distance towards abolishing, the white slave traffic. It will put a great instrument in the power of the police to take steps against men who are manifestly offending which they at present do not possess, but it will not really deal with the white slave traffic as it has been defined by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterboro' (Mr. George Greenwood). He defined it as obtaining women for immoral purposes to be sent abroad by fraud or by false pretences. In the Bill which I have introduced, and which I am afraid I do not expect to see passed until we have a Government ready to take up that Bill also, there are one or two points to which I desire to draw attention here, because to me they are essential if Parliament means really to deal with this question. One of the evils which has recently grown up has been the procuring of women and girls either by threats, false pretences, promises, or inducements in connection with their employment. There are one or two kinds of agencies which can be understood and imagined by Members which really are in many cases a fruitful field for recruiting for this terrible traffic, and until we strengthen the law in connection with inducements, threats, or promises with regard to employment we shall not really strike at what is a fruitful source of the white slave traffic at the present time. Another respect in which the law needs strengthening is in connection with the expulsion of foreigners who are proved in any way guilty of immoral practices. I would extend the powers at present to not only loose women, but to procurers and all persons connected with this traffic. There are other points in connection with the law which need strengthening. I will not mention them, I will only say they are so serious and indeed so numerous that
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sooner or later I hope there will be a Bill dealing with this subject. After all this, as the Home Secretary has said, is only a police Bill, and in order to bring the law of the land up to the higher standard of sexual morality which there is among the people I believe legislation on wider lines will sooner or later be found necessary, but, as a step in the right direction, I heartily approve of this Bill, and I heartily thank the Government for taking it up.
Mr. RAWLINSON: We have heard a great deal to-day upon the question of sexual morality generally. Probably we all agree with that which has been said, but personally I do not see the necessity for it having been trotted out to-day, because it does not touch the provisions of this Bill in the least. Let us look at the Bill, and see whether we are in favour of the principles which it seeks to set up. They are two in number. My hon. Friend who introduced the Bill did not refer to them. The case of a person who keeps a brothel, who allows his house to be habitually used by prostitutes for immoral purposes for the sake of the remuneration he gets, is common throughout the length and breadth of the land, and no one has any sympathy with him, but his crime is absolutely devoid of violence or fraud. It is merely letting out the house for an improper and illegal purpose. That in the old indictment was called "keeping a common bawdy house." One has seen people tried, convicted, and properly punished for this offence. When they have been punished they sometimes revert to the old practice. There is, we are told, a demand—I was entirely unaware of the extent of that demand—among people who wait outside houses of this type for accommodation. Men and women willingly use these place for these purposes and pay a price for the accommodation which no doubt offers a temptation to the people who occupy the premises. You have the same thing in connection with flats in London. A large number of flats are kept for this purpose. I have of course no sympathy with people who carry on this trade, but I wish to point out that the question of principle involved in this Bill is whether the punishment of flogging with a cat-o'-nine tails should be inflicted in these cases. I am not sentimental on this subject; I hold very strongly that flogging is an excellent punishment for certain crimes, but I think the House should give its serious attention to the question whether it is a

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right punishment for an offence which involves neither force nor fraud.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend in introducing this Bill did not mention this point in the course of his speech. He may not know as well as I do how very few Members ever take the trouble to read the Bills laid before them. I do not blame them for not looking into legislation by reference; I do not blame them for not looking up the different Acts of Parliament, a perusal of which only will enable them to really understand the Bill. I took a considerable amount of time to do it in this case, and I think it is a very important question which the House itself should determine, whether or not a person who lets lodgings for this purpose is to be liable at the discretion, not of a judge of the High Court, but at the discretion of a Recorder or of a Chairman of Quarter Sessions, to a punishment of this nature. I am proud of being a Recorder myself, but I am not so certain that all my brother Recorders would be certain to exercise that discretion in the most desirable way, while as to chairmen of Quarter Sessions, we know they are all liable at times to be affected by sentiment, and and they might not improbably say in a case of this kind, "A good job too: flog them." Are you going to deal in this way with some poor old man who has succumbed to the temptation of carrying on this trade? No doubt he should be punished for it, but is it right he should be liable to flogging to an unlimited extent at the discretion of a chairman of Quarter Sessions. I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London for having had the courage to block this Bill so that this question might be brought before the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham spoke of the views of the suffragettes and of the anti-suffragettes. I believe one of the chief contentions of the suffragettes is that men and women should be treated alike. If you are to flog a man for this offence, what about a woman? Would you also flog her? I am in favour of neither being flogged. In the few cases I have seen tried for this offence the defendants have generally been women. I do not think that it is necessary here to introduce the question of the equality of the sexes. We need not introduce either the question whether men are or are not the only people absolutely responsible for immorality and prostitution. I have had cases which raise that ques-
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tion. There may be the cases of women in the, habit of refusing their husbands their right which has led to results not very satisfactory, but I do not want to go into that subject. I want to point out that the first question of principle involved is whether or not a person who keeps a bawdy-house should, on conviction, be flogged.
The second question of principle which I wish to raise is whether or not a constable should have the right to arrest on suspicion not only that an offence has been committed, but that an offence is likely, in his opinion, to be committed. I would point out that this is a very great step in advance, and there is a peculiar irony in the fact that it comes from the quarter from which it does. In the question of procuration, the idea is that if you have to wait until you get a warrant there is difficulty on the part of the police in arresting a man or woman supposed to be soliciting a girl. But under this Bill an intelligent policeman at a railway terminus, if he sees a man or woman walking or talking with a good-looking girl and if he suspects they are there to commit an offence under the Act, and to try and procure the girl for immoral purposes, he is to have the power of arresting them. I only want to make it perfectly plain that that is a step far in advance of what is possible at present, with one exception which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Peterborough—namely, the arrest of people loitering about after dark on the highway or in enclosed premises. I am not quite sure whether the London police have been most happy when dealing with this question of the control of prostitution. I do not want to dwell on it. A certain Government went out on the Cass case. What I do remember is this. In the town of Cambridge, with which I am particularly connected, there used to be an ancient power of arresting women "suspected of evil." That power of arrest was confined to University constables, and it had to be carried out in the presence of the Proctor. It was, I believe, used with great care. So far as I know, no mistake was made, but in the agitation which arose some thirteen or fourteen years ago, so strong was the feeling expressed by ladies interested in the subject, lest mistakes might be made and people who were perfectly respectable taken up by error, that these very powers were finally abandoned, and they do not exist at the present day. Yet to-day the very same class of persons

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who protested in those days against the limited powers which then existed are coming down to this House to propose that very extended powers should be given to the police to arrest people. I put forward this point tentatively. It is not a strong point, but there is a risk run from it, and it may cause inconvenience to a certain number of people, and I do not think the House should shut their eyes to it. As regards the last question, as the Bill is drafted, it would seem to raise some question of principle, because as it reads it would seem that a man addressing a woman in the street, possibly a prostitute, and requesting her on one or two occasions to come home, would be guilty of an offence under the Vagrancy Act. I am not taking any technical point about that. My hon. Friend says it is likely to be met. As it stands in the Bill it would have been a new principle. I was bound to be suspicious with regard to the question of flogging being introduced by reference, and, as nobody else in the House had taken the trouble to look up the point, I thought it worth while to mention it. While I have every confidence that the Committee will put matters right, I think we ought in this House to pledge ourselves to a particular principle and then leave it to the Committee to carry it out.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. McKENNA: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
The Bill is of much wider scope than the measure which the House has just been discussing. I cannot hope to get the Second Reading with such unanimity as I was fortunate enough to obtain in connection with the last Bill. On this subject the flag of individual liberty has been unfurled, and I recognise that in recommending the Bill to the House I shall have a certain amount of difficulty in persuading some hon. Members opposite, and particularly some of my hon. Friends behind me, that the Bill in itself does not in the least assail any principle of individual liberty, which is so dear to them. In the main, this Bill deals with a class of person who
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is already the subject of treatment under various branches of the public administration. If it is feared that we shall interfere with the individual liberty of the subject in the case of the feeble-minded, we are already interfering with that liberty now. We clap feeble-minded persons into prisons, we detain them in the workhouses, we teach the children in special schools, and in each case we are interfering with the individual liberty of the feeble-minded person. The unfortunate thing is, that we interfere with his liberty in the wrong way. The feeble-minded subject ought not to be dealt with in prison for an offence which is no more than the offence of being feeble-minded. He ought not to be treated in the workhouse, because his case is one which workhouse treatment is of no value to him, whereas treatment, not in the workhouse, but in a. suitable home would, if not cure him, at any rate give him a prospect of leading a. fairly tolerable life.
This subject became so troublesome and so burdensome to the Prison Authorities and to the administrators of the Local Government Board that in 1904 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole subject. That Commission sat for four years and collected most valuable evidence. The Commission included experts in medicine and law, persons versed in local government and education, in administration and in philanthropic enterprise, and they carried out a most patient and searching investigation. They examined 250 witnesses, competent to lay before them the state of affairs now existing; they informed themselves, by personal visits and otherwise, of the difficulties which had arisen and the remedies which had been applied in America and Continental countries; and with the aid of expert medical investigators they carried out, in sixteen varied and typical districts of the United Kingdom, a novel and most authoritative research as to the numbers and conditions of the feebleminded. I recite these particulars to the House to remind hon. Members of the scope and extent of the inquiry, which lasted for four years, and which was certainly as complete an inquiry upon this subject as could possibly be made. As I have said, the Commission was appointed in order to lay down lines upon which in future we could deal with the feebleminded instead of having to deal with them through the prison authorities and the workhouse authorities. The findings

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of the Commission must be quoted in their own words. This is what the Commissioners say:—
"There are numbers of mentally defective persons whose training is neglected, over whom no sufficient control is exercised, and whose wayward and irresponsible lives are productive of crime and misery, of much injury and mischief to themselves and to others, and of much continuous expenditure wasteful to the community and to individual families.
"We find a local and 'permissive' system of public education which is available, here and there, for a limited section of mentally defective children, and which, even if it be useful during the years of training, is supplemented by no subsequent supervision and control, and is in consequence often misdirected and unserviceable. We find large numbers of persons who are committed to prisons for repeated offences, which, being the manifestations of a permanent defect of mind, there is no hope of repressing, much less of stopping, by short punitive sentences. We find lunatic asylums crowded with patients who do not require the careful hospital treatment that well-equipped asylums now afford, and who might be treated in many other ways more economically and as efficiently. We find, also, at large in the population many mentally defective persons, adults, young persons and children, who are, some in one way, some in another, incapable of self-control, and who are therefore exposed to constant moral danger themselves and become the source of lasting injury to the community."
There we have the case summarised by the Commissioners that the treatment of the feeble-minded in prison is wasteful and wrong; that the treatment of the feeble-minded in lunatic asylums is not the right method of dealing with them, and that workhouse treatment offers the feeble-minded no prospect either of cure or of such conditions of life as in a humane society we should be anxious to give them. In substance the recommendation of the Commissioners amounts to this, that the feeble-minded persons should be specially treated and kept under guardianship or under control for varying lengths of time in homes built and adapted to the peculiar conditions of the feeble-minded person. It is a remarkable fact, recognised by everyone who has inquired into the subject, that in the majority of cases, if the weight of responsibility is removed from the feebleminded person, he leads a fairly happy life. It is the trouble of having to look after himself which is intolerable to him. He knows himself to be incompetent in the ordinary competition of life. Place him in a home, where he will be looked after, directed, and, to a certain limited extent, controlled, and you will find him capable of working, almost of maintaining himself, and certainly of living a fairly happy life. He does not want to go outside. Throw the doors open to him and he would not go.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Then why close them?
Mr. McKENNA: We do not close them. He can only be sent to a home on the order of a magistrate who finds that he is incapable of taking care of himself. He is not committed to these homes in perpetuity.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Yes.
Mr. McKENNA: If my hon. Friend thinks he is, I shall be happy to meet him, when we come to discuss the Bill in detail. He can only be committed to a home for a limited period of time.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Will it be convenient for the right hon. Gentleman to explain the judicial procedure by which the order of detention will be made? Before what Court, and what procedure?
Mr. McKENNA: The feeble-minded person who is to be sent to a home must be brought before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction and be committed by the Court to a home, and a medical certificate must be obtained, but if an appeal is desired against the judgment of the Court it can be taken. If on any point of this kind there is criticism of the Bill, we shall be most willing to consider it at the proper stage. We are only dealing now with the principle of the measure, which is that where an order is made, upon evidence, before a properly constituted Court, and a medical certificate has been obtained, a person may be then sent to a feeble-minded home as a feeble-minded person. At present in a great many cases such a person is sent to a lunatic asylum because there is no other place to which he can be sent. He ought not to be sent to a lunatic asylum. He is not a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. Sent to a feeble-minded home, where he can be put to work appropriate to his peculiar and particular mental development, he is able to work. We have seen from the experience of a considerable number of homes throughout the country that they have worked well. There have been no such difficulties in their case as my hon. Friend speaks of—no difficulties of persons being detained in these homes against their will. They are not compulsorily detained, I agree, but they have in fact been inmates of these homes in many cases for a large number of years. But the great majority of the cases which will be dealt with under this Bill are cases which are now dealt with by compulsory orders. Persons who are sent to a lunatic asylum and to prison, and who have been without any means of

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subsistence do in fact live in workhouses. We are therefore really only providing an appropriate method of dealing with persons who are now dealt with most inappropriately. There has been considerable criticism of the Bill on account of the definition which it includes of defective persons. Those who have criticised the Bill on that ground, in the majority of cases at any rate—there are some exceptions—have not read the whole of the definition. Clause 17, which deals with persons who are subject to be dealt with says:—
"The following persons, and no others, shall be subject to be dealt with under this Act, that is to say, per sons who are defectives and who are found wandering about, neglected, or cruelly treated, who are charged with the commission of any offence, or are undergoing imprisonment or penal servitude or detention in a place of detention or a reformatory…. who are habitual drunkards …. in whose case, being children discharged on attaining the age of sixteen from a special school established under the Defective and Epileptic Children Act (and who therefore have already been proved to be defective persons), in whose case it is desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children."
That, I admit, is a much more debateable point, and it will be very properly a point to be closely examined in Committee. Finally,
"in whose case such other circumstances exist as may be specified in any order made by the Secretary of State as being circumstances which make it desirable that they should be subject to be dealt with under this Act."
That also is a case which Parliament would naturally wish to examine very closely in Committee and to have an assurance from the Secretary of State as to what are the circumstances which, in his opinion, would justify him in making an order for detention. It must be observed that the person has not only to be defective, but also to conform to one or other of the conditions I have read out, and therefore all the arguments which are directed to show what a gross violation of individual liberty this is, because a person may be locked up in a home merely for being defective, omit to take into account the other provisions of the Bill. This Clause in the main deals with persons who are found wandering about, who are cruelly treated, or who are included among persons in lunatic asylums, prisons, or work-houses. In the main those are the persons we seek to deal with under this Bill, and it is a criticism which goes considerably beyond the proposals of the Bill which alleges in broad terms that we are unjustifiably interfering with the liberty of the subject.
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In this Bill there is the element of compulsion. The first compulsion is upon the local authority to inquire and investigate as to feeble-minded persons within its area, and to provide for them. There is a limitation, however, to the duty which is imposed upon the local authority. There is no compulsion on the local authority to provide and maintain homes for feebleminded persons beyond such a number as the State contributes for. It was felt that with so many charges upon local authorities at the present time, it would be too burdensome to impose upon them a new duty with a large heavy charge, unless at the same time the State contributed towards the cost. There is therefore this limitation of the duty of a local authority. They need not provide for and maintain the feeble-minded persons in their area beyond the number to which the State contributes. There is power given to them to provide for all the feeble-minded in their area, but there is no compulsion to exercise the power if their means do not admit of it. In order to start the local authorities in this work, it is proposed that there shall be a payment by the Exchequer of £150,000 a year. That will greatly assist the local authorities in dealing with those feeble-minded persons. There will no doubt be economies in respect of those who will be taken out of workhouses, and further economies in respect of those taken out of lunatic asylums and prisons. We must also remember that to a considerable extent the feeble-minded homes will be self-supporting, and, therefore, I am not without hope that, while this Grant of £150,000 will not and cannot cover the whole ground, it will be a sufficient sum to enable local authorities to make a real substantial start in the work that lies before them, and to meet to a certain extent the cost in the first years of the Act. The local authority are to act through a committee. This committee, if the county council or the county borough council desire, may be the visiting committee or the asylums committee under the Lunacy Act. It is thought better to leave discretion on this matter to the local authorities. The local authorities are bound to appoint medical and other officers to assist them in carrying out the Act. They have the functions of keeping a register of defectives within their district, of dealing with cases under their control, and of providing accommodation for those who require custody. Then power is given to the Secretary of

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State to establish and maintain institutions for defectives with criminal, dangerous, or violent propensities.
It is made criminal to undertake for reward the care and control of any person who is a defective without giving notice forty-eight hours after the reception of such person to the local authority. Provision is made for penalties where the manager of any institution for defectives, or the owner of a certified house, or the guardian of a defective, detains a patient or exercises any of the powers conferred upon him after he has knowledge that the Order has expired. Intermarriage with persons known to be defective is made a misdemeanour. I do not think that anybody who has studied workhouse statistics will be able to raise a valid argument against these provisions. It is an unfortunate fact that the feeble-minded appear to be far more prolific than ordinary citizens. I believe there is no member of a board of guardians in the country who would not be able to give this House detailed accounts not of one or two, but of considerable numbers of feeble-minded mothers who go into the workhouses regularly for a year or two, leaving their children behind them, and then go out again into the world. Of these children two-thirds grow up to be either lunatics or feeble-minded, and from the day of their birth to the day of their death they remain either a charge upon or a danger to the State. Although I know this is a subject which deserves the closest examination by the House when we come to deal with points of detail, these circumstances do not touch the real principle of the Bill. I still hope that the House will be prepared to give its assent to the principle.
Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the chief differences between the Bill which he is now introducing and the private Member's Bill, the Second Reading of which was passed a few days ago?
Mr. McKENNA: I am just coming to that. Earlier in the Session another Bill received a Second Reading, and therefore on the present occasion I have not gone into the general argument in favour of dealing with the feeble-minded by law. That was settled on the Second Reading of the last Bill, which was carried without a Division; and in view of the fact that I hope to get my Second Reading this evening, I do not wish to take much time
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dealing with the general subject. The proposals of this Bill differ from the other Bill in this respect, that they throw compulsion on the local authority to inquire into the feeble-minded within its area, keep a register of them, and provide for and maintain them. The only limitation on this duty is the limitation of the amount of money which is provided by the State. All these points find no place in the Bill introduced earlier in the Session. Under this Bill it is proposed to find £150,000 out of the Exchequer. Add to that the burden which will be thrown on the local authority and you have a sum which will provide a considerable number of homes which will and must deal with the feeble-minded. In the Bill introduced earlier in the Session there were no compulsory powers and no means of meeting the cost, as a private Member's Bill could not throw any charge on the Exchequer. We provide both compulsory powers and the means of discharging them?
Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON: Who are the authorities?
Mr. McKENNA: We propose to set up a body of Commissioners who will be Commissioners for the feeble-minded, very much on the same lines as the Prison Commissioners deal with all questions of prisons and prison treatment. It may be argued that inasmuch as we have already a body of Lunacy Commissioners it is undesirable to create a new body. There is, however, a serious difficulty. The Lunacy Commissioners exercise their powers under the authority of the Lord Chancellor. Personally I feel I have got quite enough to do, and I am not anxious in the least to extend the scope of my authority; but, although that is my personal view, I have got to take cognisance of the fact that there is a very large Department of the State called the Home Office which is fully competent to deal with all these matters, and has got all the means of administration, while the Lord Chancellor and the Lunacy Commissioners, than whom as individuals no persons could be more competent, have not, unfortunately, or perhaps for themselves fortunately, under their authority a large department, capable of carrying on the necessary work. The Royal Commission was confronted with this difficulty, and I believe in one of their conclusions pointed to the desirability of the Lunacy Commissioners and the Commissioners under legislation for feeble-minded being united in one body ultimately to come under the authority of

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the Home Office. There can be no doubt that the Lunacy Commission is very well administered now under the authority of the Lord Chancellor, and it would be invidious for the Home Secretary to introduce a Bill taking away from the Lord Chancellor work which is now so admirably done. What we do therefore is we set up this Commission to deal with the feeble-minded a small body and not more than would be required in any case in the way of addition to the Lunacy Commissioners if this work were placed on them, and we prepare the way for the ultimate union of the two bodies, whether under the Lord Chancellor or the Home Secretary ultimately must be determined. But at present there can be no question, and the Commission found the fact to be so, that the Home Office is the office specially constituted to deal with the work of this kind. That is the simple reason why we now set up a small Commission for dealing with the feeble-minded in the early days of the work, although hereafter the Bill contemplates the possibility of the future amalgamation of the Lunacy Commissioners and the Commissioners for the feeble-minded.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Why is the staff of the Home Office peculiarly qualified to deal with this question?
Mr. McKENNA: We have a large staff at the Home Office.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: What particular experience of dealing with this work have they got?
Mr. McKENNA: I regret to say that we have got a large prison experience on this subject. There is no Department that has experience of dealing with this subject exactly, because the subject is new; but the Home Office, as an administrative Department, have the experience of dealing with the local authorities, a work with which we are thoroughly familiar. Here we are simply proceeding on the same lines on which we have proceeded in the past with admirable success. This Bill has been limited to the actual needs of the case, and I think will be found to provide all necessary securities against justifiable interference with individual liberty, and against any measures which would shock or go far in advance of instructed public opinion. Any proposal in this measure which can be shown to shock public opinion deserves, and will receive, the
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fullest consideration in the Committee stage. I hope that those who are anxious about the individual liberty of the subject will be satisfied with that assurance. Detention in institutions which is authorised in the Bill for cases needing such a degree of control will include detention for short or protracted periods as may be necessary, or even, in some cases, permanently, but only in such cases where an order has been made by a duly constituted Court. It is certain, and it is a fact which strikes all visitors to institutions for feebleminded people, that the defective, who when at large are unhappy, or the cause of unhappiness to others, are, when in a well-managed colony or training home happy and more contented with their lot. I think that the subject is one that we must all approach with the greatest consideration, care and anxiety. I feel confident, when all the evidence is brought before the Committee and is understood, that the same effect will be produced upon the minds of other hon. Members as has been produced upon mine, and that even in the only contentious part of the Bill I shall obtain the assent of the House to the very limited extent to which the Bill goes in that particular. I commend the Bill, as a whole, to the House, which has already given a Second Reading to another Bill for the same purpose. I commend it to the House in the confident assurance that if it is passed into law we shall be taking a great step towards removing one of the worst evils in our time.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: The whole House, from the attitude it has taken on the Bill before it, feels that the matter in question is one of great importance to the body politic. The Royal Commission gave to the public some figures which show that the number of mentally defective persons in this country is alarming in its size and likely to increase still further. So far as modern science can tell, mental defect of this kind is strictly hereditary, and, further, as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary explained, it is a quality to be found in those who are more fertile than the normal members of the community. Whilst we recognise the need therefore, of dealing with this evil, I think we all at the same time must feel that peculiar care is necessary in the measures that we take. Under the Lunacy Acts which have been administered for some time precautions are taken which have now been proved efficacious by the experience of a

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considerable number of years. The number of mistakes that are made in the administration of the Lunacy Acts I trust we all believe are very small. But we are in this matter dealing with a subject that is not a subject of experience to the same extent as lunacy is; therefore I suggest to the House we must be peculiarly careful in all respects. We must in the Bill define with extreme care the nature of the mental defect which is to subject the person to the medical control intended by the Bill; and, in the second place, we must see that the administration of the Act, including that phrase "judicial administration," is such that initial mistakes may be remedied at the earliest possible opportunity. Those, I believe, are the two main precautions that have to be taken. With a view to dealing with those two main precautions.
I ask the House to approach first of all this question of the central body which is to administer the Act. The broad fact is that the matter in question is more or less new, but, on the other hand, feeble-mindedness, mental defect of that character, is germane in character to lunacy. It is more akin to ordinary unsoundness of mind than to any thing else. We have in existence at the present time the body which has been administering the Lunacy Acts for a large number of years, and I therefore say to the Home Secretary why, when we have a body with that experience on a subject germane to the subject of this Bill, reject all the accumulated experience of years, which the people of this country has been led to believe by practice is a safe guide in the administration of lunacy?
The opposition to this Bill is largely based upon fear that the detention provisions will be applied in cases in which they ought not to be applied. The definition of the Bill is quoted, and it says that a, feeble-minded person is one who, from mental defect arising from birth or from early age, is unable to compete on equal terms with normal persons. Those of us who are modest perhaps sometimes feel that we might come within the definition. I observe a responding smile from the other side of the House. That very danger shows the extreme importance of utilising all the existing administrative experience and method of certifying that the country has at present in dealing with this new category of defective persons. The whole community must recognise, if they read with care the Report of the Royal Commission and the considerable volume of litera-
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ture which has been published on the subject, that, outside persons of unsound mind, lunatics, there is a very large body of persons of defective mind who cannot be dealt with under the existing law as it stands. That must be realised as it is beyond controversy, and that being so I do urge on the right hon. Gentleman and on the Government the extreme importance of calling to our aid that body which has experience in dealing with persons of a similar or germane character to those with whom this Bill proposes to deal. In that way we shall meet to a large extent the dangers which the opponents of the Bill have pointed out, and we shall be in the advantageous position further of preventing the very large expenditure which the Bill proposes to make on an entirely new administrative body.
The Bill proposes to create a new Commission with very considerable new expenditure. I suggest that it is essentially a case in which the existing body should be asked to deal with what is a new subject, it may be on a tentative basis. The subject being new, not only do we want to utilise the existing experience on the subject nearest to it, but we need to go slowly, in order that we may judge by the experience of the early years of the administration of the Act how many of the defective-minded persons there are, and under what categories they fall, so that we may utilise the experience of the Commissioners to ascertain the nature of the provisions that ought to be made, and also to prevent the certification of persons whom it is not really intended should be dealt with under the Act.
Another objection to the proposal of the Government in regard to the central authority administering the Act is that it necessarily introduces a dual control which must lead to friction in administration. Under the Definition Clause, both idiots and imbeciles are included as defective persons within the meaning of the Act. Both these categories of persons are now dealt with by the Lunacy Commissioners under the Idiots and Imbeciles Act. Under these circumstances, the question whether idiots and imbeciles should be dealt with as persons of unsound mind or as defective-minded persons—that is to say, under the Lunacy Act or under the Mentally Deficient Act—will depnd upon the financial temptations offered to the authorities who have to deal with them. Under the Lunacy Acts no new private homes may be licensed for

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lunacy purposes; under this Bill it is proposed that new homes may be licensed. The temptation will be very great to send to these new homes, not merely idiots or imbeciles, but persons of unsound mind. Therefore you risk transgressing the provisions of the Lunacy Acts and of introducing friction between the Defective-Minded Commissioners and the Lunacy Commissioners. Take, again, the education authority. It is proposed in the Bill that the new authority should have no power to control defective-minded children under sixteen years of age who are in elementary special schools. But no provision is made for children under that age who are not in special schools, nor, as far as I can see, for children over sixteen. Take, further, the Poor Law authorities. Under the present arrangement many feebleminded paupers are sent by the guardians to lunatic asylums, where they occupy beds in expensive institutions, when they might be treated in other institutions at a very much cheaper rate.
Under the present law the Poor Law guardians get 4s. per head under the Lunacy Acts for every person sent to an asylum. When this Bill is passed it will be a question whether it will pay the Poor Law authorities better to send these people to lunatic asylums and get the 4s. or to request the local authorities to deal with them. The Bill is not at all clear, and I do not know whether it allows the local authorities that option. When asked the other day in this House for a Return of mentally affected persons who were paupers the President of the Local Government Board replied that there had been no Return since 1906, and he did not think any good purpose would be served by granting it. This, I submit, was an odd commentary on the right hon. Gentleman, the Home Secretary, who has introduced the Bill. The Home Secretary says that the Home Office is the proper authority and office for dealing with the subject, because it has a large administrative staff. We are all prepared to concede that the Home Office staff is a most efficient one, but their experience is not that of persons suffering mentally. The Lunacy Commissioners are.
Mr. McKENNA: The administration of the Act is undertaken not by the Home Office, and not through any Government Department, but by the local authorities: the Home Office staff, accustomed to this class of work, are in communication with the local authorities.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I am grateful for that interruption, but surely that raises a point of the greatest importance? If the administration is to be left to the local authorities I say the Bill is wrong. Administration by the local authorities from one point of view is right and necessary; but the safety of the individual who is brought within the purview of the provisions of this Bill depends upon the administration by the central controlling and supervising authority. What is the real safeguard against abuse under the Lunacy Acts? It is that the Lunacy Commissioners inspect and personally see every lunatic every year. They have reports sent to them. They visit every asylum and they see for themselves that no abuse of the Acts are committed. It is from that point of view that the central authority under the Bill is so important. The right hon. Gentleman has inserted provisions in his own Bill for visits of this kind by a central authority. That is the true and the right safeguard, and I say that the Lunacy Commissioners are the people to administer visitation of the sort effectively and not the Home Office. That being so, I submit that it is an overwhelming reason for leaving the central administration in the hands of that body which has administered the kindred subjects so exceedingly well for so many years, and you have here an additional reason that you should not introduce a totally new system involving dual control.
Personally I shall be very glad to see the Bill read a second time to-night, because the principle is one of such very great importance, and so much of the criticism is a matter for Committee. But there is the finance of the Bill. Under the Bill it is proposed that the Government should give altogether £150,000 a year. Let me suggest that £30,000 or £40,000 will be involved in administration expenses. I observe a smile on the face of the right hon. Gentleman, but I would remind him that this Government has expended a good deal on new officials of one sort or another, and I think he will find it very difficult—I have worked it out—to administer the Act under about £32,000. That leaves £l20,000. Under the Bill no local authority is obliged to find provision for mentally deficient persons unless that local authority receives 7s. per week for that person. Seven shillings a week from the Government for each person will provide for a total of 6,000 persons and no more. The Royal Commission reported that there are at least 60,000 persons who

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ought to be dealt with. I observe the Government provision only allows for one-tenth of those persons to be dealt with who the Royal Commission said at least ought to be dealt with. Taking the figures of the Royal Commission it appears the total number that ought to be dealt with was 150,000, but I admit that a large number of these were criminals or paupers or children in the elementary special schools, and therefore no doubt the total figure is very much smaller, but that leaves none the less a very large number to be provided for, and, taking the charge of 7s. per week per head, it would give a total of expenditure upon all paupers and criminals and children, as well as others, of something like £2,500,000. That is a mere question of arithmetic.
The question of mental deficiency is essentially a national question and not a local question. It is to the interest of the nation as a whole that the race should be maintained, and not become degenerate. It is a burden which is to be discharged locally, but I submit it is a burden which ought not to be put by the Government direct on to the local authorities, particularly when the local bodies had not been consulted. This burden, which may amount to a couple of millions with an infinitesimal contribution from the Government, is imposed upon the county councils, and so far as I know the Government have not consulted the county councils and the country with regard to the Bill. I submit the question of finance requires most careful consideration. Why is this beneficent Bill not extended to Ireland? The doctors of Ireland and the asylums' officers of Ireland are, I believe, unanimous in their protest against the exclusion of that unfortunate country from the provisions of this Bill. I hope the Government may see its way to refer this Bill, with the Bill read a second time a week ago and the other Bill which has been introduced into this House upon a similar subject, to the same Committee in order that all three may be dealt with together, so that in Committee we may cautiously and with due care and consideration thresh out a scheme which will benefit the race and at the same time protect the individual.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I wish, in the first place, to thank the Home Secretary for approaching this matter from a very different point of view to what he did when the previous Bill was before the House. I cannot help thinking that if this Bill had
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been printed a little later it would have been printed with a good many modifications and a good many further safeguards. As the Bill stands at the present time, I am bound to admit it is a Bill of very serious risks and dangers to the people of this country. It seems to have been drafted with one object in view, namely, the putting an end to the free circulation of the feeble-minded, which is a very admirable object, but not the only object to be considered when a Bill is being drafted and framed. It was necessary that the Home Office, when drafting this Bill, should have considered also safeguards for the interests of the feeble-minded as well as the interests of the community as a whole. Anyone who reads this Bill will see that the Clause directed towards strengthening the machinery whereby the feeble-minded persons would be segregated from the rest of society will search in vain for any Clauses safeguarding their interest while looking after the justice side of the case. I am afraid the Home Secretary was not in his place when I spoke on this subject when a private Member's Bill dealing with this question was before the House.
Mr. McKENNA: Yes, I was.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman has not made any reply to the objection I put forward then, which I think is a serious objection, namely, that in legislation of this sort the danger is of institution government by specialists. The growing authority of the specialist over the liberty of the individual is a very serious matter. One can bring public opinion to bear on an autocrat when he exercises his autocratic power in a way we can all understand. If it happened to be a Bill saying that people holding certain opinions should be put in prison, we should all exercise our criticism upon the way that power is exercised, but when you put this autocratic power in the hands of specialists whom we cannot criticise because we do not know on what ground they base their executive action, it is then you are introducing a serious danger to the State. If a specialist, a doctor, or a eugenist said that So-and-So is a danger to society and ought to be imprisoned, it is not possible for the ordinary layman to criticise the grounds on which he has based his dictum of imprisonment. Here, in this Bill, we have a very large number of people, who are at present perfectly free and in the enjoyment of a

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certain amount of happiness, rendered liable to be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment on the dictum of these specialists, and that is a very dangerous thing.
I know that the Home Secretary urged that there was no perpetual imprisonment in this Bill. I have studied this measure very carefully, and I can assure hon. Members that there is perpetual imprisonment writ large all over the Bill. The people who are the victims, or subject to a petition under this Bill, are first of all sent to a home for feeble-minded for one year. They are not released at the end of that year, but at the end of that period their case is reconsidered. Reconsideration does not necessarily mean an examination of the victims by the people considering the case. If at the end of the year the case is decided against them, another period of five years' detention follows, and there is no reconsideration of that case, and at the end of the five years they will be recommitted for another five years. For ever after they first enter the doors of that lunatic asylum, gaol, feeble-minded home, or whatever it is, they will never be allowed to leave even to see their parents or go out on ticket-of-leave. They are segregated for life. Consider the terms under which their cases are reconsidered at the end of one, five, ten, or twenty years, or whatever it be. A special report is asked for on each case at the end of one or five years. That report is made by the medical officer in charge of the feebleminded home, a person who prima facie has an interest in keeping up the numbers in the home, because these homes are run for private profit. You would think, at any rate, that the report of that medical officer in each case would be considered by the Commissioners. Not a bit of it. By a sort of refinement of cruelty, the report is made a general one and not a special report on each case, so that the Commissioners merely get a report saying, "We have examined all the persons in this establishment, and they all ought to be locked up for a further period." I want to make this quite certain. The Clause says:—
"The special report and certificates under this section may include and refer to more than one patient."
I think that is making it intolerable. Of course, that is a Committee point, but I do submit that a Bill drafted on these lines and with such a Clause, is not one which this House should readily accept, even on
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Second Reading, because it shows the spirit in which the whole Bill has been drafted. The Home Secretary dealt at length with the Report of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-Minded, and this Bill, of course, is based upon that Report. The Royal Commission consisted of specialists, many of them members of the Eugenics Society, all of them people who have one aim and object, and one only, and that is the materialistic one of improving the race and the breed of people in this country. I submit our object as politicians in a democratic country is not first and foremost to breed the working classes as though they were cattle. Our object first and foremost is to secure justice for everybody, and that is a higher duty of every Member of Parliament than the materialistic one of improving the breed. It seems to me that Commission concentrated throughout on the materialistic side, and not on what you might call the idealistic or religious side, the side which considers human rights as coming before human advantages. Therefore, I do not lay in the same way as the Home Secretary does this excessive importance upon the Report of that Commission. They are a Commission of experts and specialists, I admit, but they are a Commission of experts and specialists on lines which should not necessarily appeal to every Member of this House. The great mass of the evidence given before the Commission and the gravamen of the Report are subjects with which I and my Friends who take the same view on this question can heartily agree. We approve of the Government providing homes in which these people can be looked after. I think we approve very largely the administration of these homes by local authorities, and of the Government finding the money in order that these unfortunate people may be decently looked afted instead of dragging out a miserable existence in homes where they are ill-treated. But our approval of that is quite another thing from saying that we ought to give to the doctors and magistrates a power to compulsorily send people to homes for an indefinite period whether they like it or not. Every one knows that the homes that have been successful are the voluntary homes. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred sent to them prefer to remain rather than go back to their old position. Why has the Government jumped from the natural stage of developing the homes on voluntary lines. And why have they gone

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the further stage of making them compulsory prisons. Not only are you committing the offence of putting people in prison who have committed no crime but you are inducing the people who run homes at the present time on humanitarian lines to cease to conduct them, as they should be regarded as voluntary homes. There will be no longer the temptation to lead people to run them on the lines which the inmates will appreciate, and there will be the risk that the inmates will no longer have the option of freedom, and that they will not be treated as hitherto.
Dr. CHAPPLE: Would the hon. Member allow an inmate his liberty irrespective of his mental condition?
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Certainly. If they are feeble-minded people we must give them this power. The report on which this Bill is based is in favour of the provision of homes for the feeble-minded on those lines, and it is merely when you change the character of the institutions and turn them from voluntary homes into prisons that we object to it. You will find that the whole country will be up in arms against a Bill run on these lines; in fact, it will have a very poor chance of becoming law.
I want to go into the details of this Bill in some detail, because there has been very little chance of discussing it up and down the country. It was only last Friday we were told that it was to be brought on to-day, and I am sure other hon. Members would have done as I have done—had they had time—and given notice to move its rejection. Here, again, we have a proposal for an increase of the staff of permanent officials. You are proposing to create a new Department. Hon. Members cry "Hear, hear," but the only question they have raised is whether the new Commissioners shall be under the Home Office or the Lunacy Commissioners.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I only suggest that at first the Lunacy Commissioners would probably be able to do the work.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The hon. Member stated, in the short speech he made on the question just now, that he wanted to have every one of these defectives examined personally by the Commissioners once a year. Does he imagine that the Lunacy Commissioners can do that? Is. it not obvious, if any sort of segregation of
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defectives is to be combined with satisfactory inspection, that a vast army of officials is necessary to carry out that inspection. He comes here and pretends to attack the Government, while the whole party he belongs to is behind this Bill and the compulsory scheme of segregation. We here are in a perfectly fair and honest position to attack this Bill, but not a single Member opposite except the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) has opposed the principle of compulsory segregation. Not a single Member opposite has to this day shown any objection to the fundamental principle of this Bill; they have merely criticised details in order to try to find, if they can, some ground for fighting in the country as they fought the Insurance Bill. Our objection to this Bill is that it is unjust. The objection of hon. Members opposite is apparently that the Lunacy Commissioners are not to be consulted instead of the county councils. I come to the powers that are to be conferred on the local authorities under Clause 5. The House will see that the Commissioners are to perform various duties. They shall
"exercise general supervision, protection, and control over defectives"
and
"they shall provide and maintain institutions for defectives of criminal, dangerous, or violent propensities."
Those are one class of defectives. I see the justification of selecting that class. It is because they have already provided for them in gaols, and if the Government are going to deal with this question on the lines of this Bill it is more necessary that we should provide for the other defective classes as well. I hope that in Committee they will consider whether the Government cannot take over the whole of these homes for defective persons, because anyone who has intimate knowledge of the way in which charity mongering goes on in this country must be aware of the tremendous risks incurred when we see defective persons in semi-charitable institutions run without any inspection, where you cannot be certain that the best treatment is being undertaken for those defective persons. Any treatment of defectives, such as goes on at Birmingham or Sande-bridge, is intimately connected with education. These semi-charitable homes are not places where you are likely to get this educative side to the treatment of defectives. They are bound to be run on the most economical lines and not on the lines most to the interest of the defectives.

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Therefore I urge that the Government should, if this legislation goes through, see that all the homes in which defectives are looked after are homes run by the Government, and not for private profit, where the inspection is of the best and where the treatment is of the very highest character, and that the earliest possible term should be set to this licensing of private homes where private profit is likely to be the main cause of the existence of the home, and where, to a large extent, employment will be carried on under extremely undesirable conditions by people who are absolutely unable to protect themselves.
And, it being Eleven o'clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed to-morrow (Tuesday.)
Adjourned at Five minutes after Eleven o'clock.

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