Sitting of 22 May 1912

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bognor Gas Light and Coke Company (Electricity) Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Cardiff Railway Bill,
As amended, to be considered upon Tuesday, 4th June.
Everton, etc., Drainage Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
Tendring Hundred Water and Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
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),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 5th June.
South Suburban Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday, 7th June.
Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill (by Order),
Read the third time, and passed.
Glasgow and South-Western Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Third Reading deferred till Wednesday, 5th June, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Clyde Lighthouses Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered; to be read the third time upon Tuesday, 4th June.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Brixham, Gillingham, and Lowestoft." Presented by Mr. ROBERTSON; supported by Mr. Sydney Buxton; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Kent and Bela Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1907, relating to the Rivers Kent and Bela and other waters." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Exe Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1907, relating to the River Exe and other "waters." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Norfolk Fisheries Provisional Order Bill, "To confirm a Provisional Order under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1907, relating to certain waters in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Land Drainage Act, 1861, in the matter of a proposed drainage district in the parishes of Pitsea, Bowers Gifford, and South Benfleet, in the county of Essex." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Sea Fisheries (Lynn) Provisional Orders Bill,
"To confirm two Provisional Orders under the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, relating to oyster and mussel fisheries in the estuary of the Wash, in the county of Norfolk." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Sea Fisheries (Conway) Provisional Order Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, relating to mussel fisheries in the estuary of the River Conway." Presented by Mr. RUNCIMAN; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Dundee Harbour and Tay Ferries Order Confirmation Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Dundee Harbour and Tay Ferries." Presented by Mr. MCKINNON WOOD; and ordered under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered upon Tuesday, 4th June.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION (ENGLAND) (REGULATIONS).
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations, dated 22nd May, 1912, made by the Insurance Comissioners under Section 2 of The National Insurance Act, 1911, as to Claims for Exemption [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed, [No. 142.]
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (JOINT COMMITTEE) (REGULATIONS).
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations, dated 22nd May, 1912, of the National Insurance Joint Committee and the Insurance Commissioners, acting jointly, as to the Payment and Collection of Contributions [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 143.]
TREATY SERIES (No. 11, 1912).
Copy presented of Agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States of America for the settlement of certain pecuniary claims outstanding between the two Countries. Signed at Washington, 18th August, 1910 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (CHILDREN UNDER THE POOR LAW).
Copy presented of Memorandum of the Local Government Board as to numbers
1900
of Children under the Poor Law and the methods adopted by Boards of Guardians for their relief [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

TRADE (FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND BRITISH POSSESSIONS).
Copy presented of Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions for 1911, compared with the four preceding years. Volume I. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MERCANTILE MARINE (ISSUE OF CERTIFICATES OF COMPETENCY SINCE 1886).
Copy presented of Return of the number of Certificates of Competency of each grade issued since 1886 to Officers of the Mercantile Marine [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LIFE ANNUITIES.
Copies presented of Tables for the grant of Life Annuities under the provisions of the Government Annuities Act, 1882 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Thirty-ninth Annual Report by the Accountant for Scotland to the Scotch Education Department [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
EAST INDIA (FINANCIAL STATE- MENT AND BUDGET).
Return presented relative thereto [Address 15th May; Sir Henry Havelock-Allan]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
ANCIENT MONUMENTS PRESERVA-TION (MISCELLANEOUS, No. 7, 1912).
Copies presented of Reports from His Majesty's Representatives Abroad showing the systems adopted in certain Foreign countries for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
BANKING AND RAILWAY STATISTICS (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Report on the Banking and Railway Statistics of Ireland for the half-year ended 31st December, 1911 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Isle of St. Kilda.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will consider the possibility of obtaining communication with the inhabitants of the Isle of St. Kilda, by means of signalling or otherwise, with His Majesty's ships from time to time to safeguard them against the danger of starvation to which they have recently been exposed?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The consideration of the best means of securing periodical communication with St. Kilda does not appear to be a matter which primarily concerns the Admiralty. In case of real emergency, however, the Admiralty would at any time render assistance, as on a recent occasion, but I would depreciate reliance being placed upon His Majesty's ships in normal circumstances.
  Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he will take measures to prevent any recurrence of the conditions reducing the islanders of St. Kilda to hardship by establishing some better and more regular means of communication between the island and the mainland?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The question of communications with St. Kilda is primarily one for the Postmaster-General, who is answering a question upon this subject, and with whom I am in communication.
  Mr. HOGGE: Can the Secretary for Scotland tell us what has been the result of the information obtained by the recent communication with St. Kilda? Can he state the condition the islanders are in?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have no information beyond what appears in the public Press. Of course, my hon. Friend is aware that a warship has taken to the island a sufficient supply of provisions for some time to come. I have no report as
  1902
  to the condition the warship found the islanders in.
  Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the Admiralty has any report?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: That question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty. If they have any report, they have not communicated to us at the Scottish Office yet. I do not think they have had time to receive a report.
  Lord N. CRICHTON-STUART: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether some arrangement could not be made for communication with St. Kilda during the worst months of the year?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: There are arrangements made by which the island is visited during certain months each year. There is a very stormy sea in that part, and there are certain times of the year when the island cannot be visited.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Postmaster-General whether he can take any steps, either by the installation of wireless telegraphy or otherwise, to improve the means of communication with the Isle of St. Kilda to prevent the danger of starvation to which the inhabitants have recently been exposed?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The provision of telegraphic communication with St. Kilda would be far too costly to be justified as part of the ordinary Post Office service. But I will discuss the matter with the Scottish office.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    PENSIONS (WOUNDS OR INJURIES).
    Mr. HUNTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that a man in the Navy, although wounded in action and consequently invalided out of the Navy permanently injured, can be deprived of so small a pension as 1s. 1d. a day, he will take this into consideration when deciding the amount of the increase of pay now being considered by the Admiralty?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Regulations with regard to naval pensions for wounds or injuries sustained on duty contemplate that the governing considerations in determining the rates, and the duration of the awards, shall be length of service, rating,

    1903
    and character of the individuals, and the degree in which the wounds or injuries incapacitate them from contributing to their own support. As regards the last sentence of the question, I can add nothing to the statement made by the First Lord on Monday last.

    Miss Malecka (Sentence).
    Mr. WHITEHOUSEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a further statement with regard to the case of Miss Malecka?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. Grey): I will lay the full report of the trial, with other papers concerning the case, before the House, and after the Government has considered the whole question, a statement will be made. Till such a statement can be made I can only say that the report goes to show that taking into account the character of the evidence on which the graver charges against Miss Malecka rest and the severity of the sentence there is ground for a petition for mitigation of it. I understand this petition is to be made, and pending this I hope the House will reserve any discussion of the question, at any rate till it has the papers before it, which it will have when it reassembles after the adjournment.
    Mr. MORRELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what attitude the Government will take up with regard to Miss Malecka's nationality? Will they be prepared to consider that she is entitled to the privileges of a British subject, and to such protection as a British subject may be entitled to.
    Sir E. GREY: I am going to include in the papers all the correspondence which passed on the subject of Miss Malecka's nationality. These papers will also be brought under the consideration of the Cabinet and will include that point, of course, until the Cabinet has had an opportunity of reviewing the whole case with the matter now at our disposal, and until the House has also the correspondence on the subject of nationality, before it I think it will be impossible for me to make any statement and it will also be impossible for the House to come to any conclusion without the papers.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: When will the papers be laid?
    Sir E. GREY: I gave instructions a few days ago for the papers to be prepared. I received the full report yesterday and, of course, that is being added to the papers. I shall get the papers printed and circulated during the Whitsuntide Recess, so that the House when it meets will have the full papers in its possession.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Are negotiations still going on with the Russian Government?
    Sir E. GREY: I have been in communication with the Russian Government on the subject both last year and, of course, again since the trial has taken place.
    Sir J. D. REES: Will the papers show clearly whether Russian law allows or does not allow a Russian subject to abjure or contract out of his or her nationality?
    Sir E. GREY: The papers will include the arguments advanced on both sides with regard to nationality.
    Sir WILLIAM BYLES: Will the position of Miss Malecka be prejudiced by the delay.
    Sir E. GREY: No, Sir, on the contrary I think if her case is to be prejudiced at all it will be much more likely to result from the House entering into a discussion on it and expressing strong opinions before it has the full papers before it. I am anxious to give the fullest information. I am also anxious the Government should consider the whole case most carefully, but, obviously, now to make any strong statements would prejudice in advance any efforts we may feel justified in making or anything which we may feel justified in asking when we make our statement after Whitsuntide.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNE: Will the papers be circulated before the House reassembles?
    Sir E. GREY: I hope to be able to circulate them during the Recess, so that the House may meet in full possession of the papers. I will endeavour to circulate them as soon as possible.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May we feel assured that the lady will not be removed to penal servitude before the case is further considered by the House?
    Sir E. GREY: The report we have had from the Consul states definitely that there

    1905
    is an opportunity for petition after the sentence, and that pending that petition being made, and pending the decision on the petition, though Miss Malecka will be detained in prison, the sentence of hard labour will not be carried into execution.
    Mr. MORRELLrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: We have already had several supplementary questions.

    China (Six-Power Loan).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether, in view of the forthcoming prospectuses of developments in China on behalf of the international financiers calling themselves the six-Power group, he will define what authority those persons have from the British Government for using this description of themselves as a means of floating their projects; whether the name correctly implies, as it is intended to do, that the six Powers in question guarantee to investors repayment of their money, with a fixed rate of interest, to be collected, if necessary, by force and appropriation of territory or of rights, irrespective of the success of the projects or their utility to China; on what evidence the Powers have satisfied themselves as to the merits of the projects and the security for investors, and in what way they have made themselves responsible for the remunerative application of the money, whether by assuming "control of contracts, appointments, privileges, and the purchase of materials, or by requiring these to be dealt with by public competition in the open market; if the guarantee or obligation of whatever nature is common to all the six Powers; what provision is made for the event of serious disagreement among those Powers apart from China or relative to China; and whether the obligation assumed extends to enforcing the secret terms common to agreements between the Chinese Government and the financiers under which the latter derive additional and subsequent advantages not disclosed to the public in which investors do not participate?
    Sir E. GREY: I have no knowledge that the financial groups who are negotiating a loan with China intend to adopt any particular designation and as has been already stated in this House, though we give diplomatic support, His Majesty's Government incur no pecuniary liability whatsoever in respect of the loan. They will not
    1906
    give diplomatic support to any loan which does not provide adequate guarantees for the proper expenditure of the proceeds and satisfactory securities for the payment of principal and interest. The arrangement will be a financial one and the groups will be represented on an equal basis in any combination that may be formed. I see no reason to anticipate any disagreements between the Powers and I am unaware of any such secret terms as suggested in the question in agreements between the Chinese Government and financiers.
    Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the American section of the six-Power group is identical in personnel with the American group with which the Chinese Government contracted for a loan in 1910?
    Sir E. GREY: No, Sir, I cannot say off hand.
    Mr. GINNELL: I beg to give notice that I will ask that question.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked whether the Russian Government have notified that they will only participate in the six-Power loan to China on condition that special Russian interests in outer China are recognised; whether these interests infringe the policy of the open door and the integrity and sovereignty of China in this district; and whether His Majesty's Government are prepared to give diplomatic support to a loan on such conditions?
    Sir E. GREY: The conditions of Russian participation in the loan to China are at present the subject of confidential negotiations between the Powers and financial groups concerned. His Majesty's Government would refuse to approve any loan the conditions of which infringe the policy of the open door in Manchuria and Mongolia for British commerce.
    Mr. PONSONBY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say on what revenues and assets of the Chinese Government the loan is secured?
    Sir E. GREY: No, Sir. The loan has not yet been concluded. The negotiations are still going on.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked whether in the loan agreement between the Chinese Government and the banks of the six Powers at Peking there is any provision for effective supervision of expenditure by foreign experts?
    Sir E. GREY: No loan agreement has yet been concluded. His Majesty's Government have from the first made it a condition of diplomatic support of any loan which may be negotiated with China that there should be adequate guarantees for the proper expenditure of the proceeds. The best means of securing these guarantees are now being considered by the Powers and financial groups concerned.

    Ceylon Cadetships.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any and, if so, what change has been made in the Regulation with regard to racial descent for the admission of candidates for Ceylon cadetships; and whether he can say how many members of the present Civil Service of Ceylon would have been excluded had the new Regulations been in force at the time they entered the service?
    Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury, for Mr. Harcourt): As regards the first part of this question, the Secretary of State would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which he gave on the 12th of December last to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent. The answer to the second part is, the Secretary of State believes, two.

    Colonial Civil Service.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked what was the nature of the ambiguity in the Colonial Office Regulations which made necessary the recent change of wording whereby all British subjects who are not of pure European descent on both sides are excluded from the Civil and police services of Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, and the Federated Malay States; and whether any and, if so, what cases of doubt had arisen calling for a more stringent wording of the Regulation?
    Mr. GULLAND: The Regulations up to the year 1910 merely stated that candidates must be of European descent. In that year a candidate of mixed blood claimed that the phrase "European descent" covered the case of a person who was partly of European descent. The wording was, therefore, altered in order to show beyond possibility of doubt what was the real meaning of the phrase.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether any correspondence between himself and the Government of the Straits
    1908
    Settlements with reference to the recently abolished Queen's scholarships has been published in the local Gazette; and, if so, whether he will place copies of the Gazette in the Library, indicating on which pages the correspondence may be found?
    Mr. GULLAND: The Secretary of State has, himself, never had any correspondence with the Government of the Straits Settlements on the subject.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Are we to understand that this reversal of the previous policy was made by the Secretary of State without any correspondence with the Colony or the Governor of the Colony affected?
    Mr. GULLAND: On this point the Secretary of State has never had any, correspondence with the Governor on the subject.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked why the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements was not consulted before the new-Regulation was made excluding from the Civil and police service all British subjects who are not of pure European descent on both sides?
    Mr. GULLAND: The Secretary of State understands that his predecessor who was in office when the restriction of Cadetships and Probationerships to persons of European descent was introduced, did not consider it necessary to consult the Council. The Secretary of State's own share in the matter, as he has repeatedly stated, consisted only in the removal of a possible ambiguity. It was obviously unnecessary to trouble the Council on such a trifling point.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Arising out of the very clear answers of the hon. Gentleman, may I ask is the change in the personnel of the Colonial Office permanent?
    Mr. GULLAND: I am sure the hon. Member will agree with me that that would be a great disaster for the Empire.

    Retail Licences (Sale of Spirits).
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many retail licences for the sale of spirits for medicinal purposes have been issued under Section 9 of the Finance Act, 1911, at the reduced duty of £10 during the-financial year 1911–12, and in respect of how many licences for similar purposes issued during the same year was a duty

    1909
    of £50 charged; and whether a return of £40 will be made in the latter cases.
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): No licences under Section 9 of the Finance Act, 1911, were issued during the financial year 1911–12. Ordinary spirit retailers' off-licences were necessary for the sale of spirits for medicinal purposes prior to the passing of the Finance Act, 1911, and those taken out are still current. They are not distinguished from licences of the same description taken out for the sale of ordinary potable spirits, and I am therefore unable to state in respect of how many licences for the sale of spirits for medicinal purposes issued during the year the duty of £50 was charged. As regards the last part of the question, I am advised that the Section referred to has no retrospective effect.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Will the hon. Gentleman inquire whether an undertaking was not given to refund if the Finance Act was passed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the hon. Gentleman has any information on the subject I shall be glad to have it.

    Mineral Eights Duty.
    Mr. ROYDSasked in respect of what minerals Mineral Rights Duty is at the present time being claimed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the answer my right hon. Friend gave on the 20th instant to a similar question put by the hon. Member for Brentford.
    Lord BALCARRES: Will the Secretary to the Treasury be so good as to say why he refuses to state what articles are taxed under this Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the Noble Lord will refer to the answer given on the 20th instant, I think he will find them there.

    Bee Disease.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, in view of the losses now annually experienced by bee-keepers in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and elsewhere in consequence of the prevalence or recrudescence of Isle of Wight bee disease, the continuous dissemination of disease spores by the non-destruction of refuse from infected hives and the readiness of bee-keepers to submit to reasonable restrictions in the interests
    1910
    of the health of their broods, he will introduce forthwith and carry through Parliament this Session his Bee Diseases Bill, so as to enable protective measures to be adopted to prevent the reappearance of the disease in the spring of 1913?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Lewis, for Mr. Runciman): I would refer the hon. Member to the written answer given on Friday last to-the hon. Member for the Aylesbury Division of Buckinghamshire. My right hon. Friend hopes that the Bill will become law this Session.

    Ophthalmia (Strand Union).
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been called to the condition of six children sent from the Poor Law school of the Strand Union to the Anerley Poor Law district schools; if he is aware that these children, two of whom had been in the Strand Union school for two years, two for over one year, and one, a boy of twelve, who is four feet one inch in height and weighs only three stone thirteen pounds, for over four years, were all suffering from acute ophthalmia, had been so suffering for periods ranging from 1909 to not later than 1910, were refused admission to the Anerley schools, and were removed to the Metropolitan Asylum Board ophthalmic hospital; if he will ascertain whether these children were suffering from ophthalmia on their admission into the Strand school and whether any other children maintained there are suffering from ophthalmia; and, in that case, whether he will order an inquiry into the condition of the school and why these children are not sent to the Metropolitan Asylum Board ophthalmic school for treatment directly the disease is discovered?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Bums): My attention was called to a newspaper paragraph on this subject, and one of my inspectors has made careful inquiry into the matter. The paragraph appears to have been somewhat inaccurate. It is not certain that the boy referred to is twelve years old, and there seems no ground for any suggestion that he has been badly nourished or that his health has suffered. I am informed that there is no suggestion that the six children had been suffering from acute ophthalmia.

    1911
    since 1909, though one had had ophthalmia before he went to the Strand schools in December of that year. The others, with one exception, are stated to have been healthy on admission, and there is no record of their having suffered from this disease while they were there. The guardians of the Strand Union, as a result of the statement in the newspaper, obtained a report on the condition of the children at their schools by an independent ophthalmic surgeon, who states that the result of his examination "was distinctly satisfactory; there was only one case of really severe ophthalmia, and of the others that were in any way affected only a very few were anything but quite trivial cases." He also reports that the general health and appearance of the children impressed him very favourably. It rests with the medical officer of the schools to send to the Asylums Board Ophthalmic school all cases that require treatment, and I understand this is habitually done.

    S.S. "Glenfinlas" (Death of Second Mate).
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the circumstances of the disablement which resulted in the death of the late Mr. Morgan when second mate of the steamship "Glenfinlas," at Calcutta; whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter; whether the Board of Trade are in possession of written statements of members of the crew saying that they saw the alleged assault on Mr. Morgan; if so, whether he will allow Mrs. Morgan's solicitors to inspect them; and whether he will consider the granting of compensation to the widow?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): The attention of my right hon. Friend has been drawn to the circumstances referred to by the Noble Lord, but it is not possible for him to take any further action in the matter. The Board of Trade are not in possession of any written statements on the subject by members of the crew of the "Glenfinlas." Certain statements were made orally to one of the Board's superintendents, but as the superintendent's account was made for the confidential information of the Board my right hon. Friend regrets that he is unable to allow it to be inspected without the assent
    1912
    of the seamen. The Board have no power to grant compensation in such a case.
    Lord N. CRICHTON-STUART: Do the Board of Trade therefore refuse to this woman any possible means of finding out the truth as to her husband's death?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: They only refuse to the extent I have mentioned. Of course, the consent of the seamen being given would make it possible to give that information.
    Lord N. CRICHTON-STUART: Is the seaman mentioned in the answer at the present moment in this country?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I cannot answer that.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    MARRIED WOMEN OUTWORKERS.
    Mr. AUBREY HERBERTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is responsible for the promise made on his behalf by the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury in a telegram sent to Mr. Schunk, Liberal candidate for Taunton, and read by the chairman of the Liberal Association of South Somerset at a meeting of delegates held in Yeovil on 27th October last year, namely, that, married women out-workers, whose husbands are insured persons, and who are not solely or mainly dependent on their own earnings, should not be compulsorily insured?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer is in the affirmative.

    SPECIAL SOCIETIES.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether it will be possible for nurses, domestic servants, secondary school teachers, and other classes of workers who belong to special societies limited to such workers in one country of the United Kingdom, but liable to be transferred in the course of their employment to another part, to retain the membership of their original society in their own country, and by a system of adjustment based on a bank clearing house system to make their contributions to and obtain their benefits from the corresponding society in the country in which they are for the time being actually employed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I would refer the hon. Member to the detailed answers given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kirkcudbright on 2nd May, and my

    1913
    hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry on 2nd and 13th May. The society can retain as members those who move their residence from one part of the United Kingdom to another, and can arrange such machinery as it may find convenient for administering benefits, i.e., through the head office for members resident in all parts of the United Kingdom, or through local branches and agents. Separate accounts would require to be kept for members resident in different parts of the United Kingdom and when members moved their residence across, their transfer values would be carried from the one fund of the society to the other.
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked whether, in the case of nurses, secondary school teachers, and other professional workers, who desire to form their own separate societies under the National Insurance Act in order to provide benefits suited to their special requirements, it will be necessary to limit the membership of such societies to the geographical areas of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, respectively, and to prevent the formation of such societies in countries like Wales if the number of persons employed there in such professions does not amount to 5,000?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Either one society for the four parts of the United Kingdom or a separate society for each part could be formed. Separate funds would require to be kept in any case, and if the number of members in one part of the United Kingdom were less than 5,000 it would be necessary for them to be associated or grouped under the provisions of Section 39 for the purpose of valuation.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Will it be possible for a society in Wales with less than 5,000 members to be grouped in a society in England with more than 5,000 members?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think, for the purposes of valuation, not.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Then will they have to be grouped with some other societies not containing the same class?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: With some other society, for the purpose of valuation in the country in which they are operating.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that if you have members
    1914
    in England and Ireland they can be part and parcel of one group for valuation purposes?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, just the opposite. For valuation purposes they will have to be separate.

    PROVISIONAL COMMITTEES.
    Mr. KINGasked whether provisional committees will be set up in counties and county boroughs in order to bring the National Insurance Act into operation without delay; and, if so, whether their work will be purely preliminary and intended to assist, and not to fetter, the work of the permanent county and county borough committees to be set up hereafter?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

    TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARIES.
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he realises that the proposed provision of tuberculosis dispensaries in accordance with estimates framed on a population basis will be found impracticable in Wiltshire and other agricultural counties with a comparatively small and scattered population, without an expenditure of at least three times the amount of money provided for this purpose by the National Insurance Act; and whether, in the event of sufficient funds not being available in the hands of the county insurance committees, it will be the duty of the county councils to raise the balance of the required sum by an additional county rate?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I presume the hon. Member refers to the proposals of the Interim Report of the Departmental Committee on Tuberculosis in connection with the distribution of the sum available under Section 16 of the Finance Act, 1911, and Section 64 of the National Insurance Act for the provision of sanatoria and other institutions approved by the Local Government Board. The Report explicitly recognises the necessity of a greater number of dispensaries in proportion to population in rural districts. With regard to the second part of the question, it is not contemplated that tuberculosis dispensaries should be established for the provision of treatment for insured persons only. They are intended to meet the requirements of the whole population, and in so far as others than insured persons and their dependents are treated it is

    1915
    obvious that the cost of such treatment must be borne by the authorities or persons who refer them to the dispensary for treatment.

    LECTURES AT ELECTIONS.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked whether any National Insurance lecturers are now giving lectures or holding conferences in the North-West Norfolk constituency; and how many lectures and conferences have been held there during the past fortnight?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No official lecturers are delivering lectures or holding conferences in North-West Norfolk. During the past fortnight an official lecturer has attended one meeting held to consider the position of two works' sick clubs. This meeting was asked for and arranged in April.
    Mr. BOOTH: Had a lecturer whom I heard in a street in North-West Norfolk say that a woman on confinement had to pay 30s. anything to do with the Insurance Commissioners, or was she a lecturer belonging to the Conservative party?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If it was stated that every woman on confinement had to pay 30s. it was not an official lecturer.

    INSTRUCTION CLASSES.
    Mr. FELLasked how many pupils are now attending the classes of instruction for the National Insurance Act, and how much pay they each receive per week for attending the classes until they are efficient?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No persons paid from public funds are at present attending classes of instruction on the National Insurance Act.
    Mr. FELLasked if the £25,000, the estimated sum to be spent on preliminary work connected with the explanatory work of the National Insurance Act, will all be spent before the 15th day of July; and if the lectures and explanatory work are to be continued after the Act is in operation?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The £25,000 was given as a rough estimate of what would probably be spent on the explanatory work, including lectures and leaflets, by 15th July. Lectures and explanatory work generally will be continued beyond 15th
    1916
    July, if and for as long as they prove to be necessary.
    Lord BALCARRES: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the first part of the question—will the estimated sum of £25,000 all be spent prior to 15th July?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: It was a rough estimate of what will probably be spent. That is all I can say.

    ENGLISH AND WELSH SOCIETIES.
    Mr. BRIDGEMANasked if, in view of the decision that an approved society or branch will have to keep separate accounts for its members resident on the English and Welsh sides of the border, and that the transfer values of such members will have to be transferred from the English to the Welsh fund of the society or branch when they move from England into Wales, the society or branch will be entitled, in case the payment of benefits from its Welsh fund should exceed the receipts of that fund, to make up the difference from its English fund; if not, will the joint committee consider the advisability of providing that the society or branch may have one fund for all its members on both sides of the border; and is there any similar restriction on the movements of a deposit contributor?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The joint committee have no power to permit a society to have one fund for persons resident in England and Wales; nor has any society the power of making up the deficiency in one national fund out of the contributions of members in another national fund. If a deposit contributor moves his residence the sum standing to his individual account is transferred and no fund of any approved society is affected.
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very great feeling of anxiety all along the English and Welsh border on this question, and is there no possibility of having it reconsidered?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have never heard of that anxiety. No such anxiety has been brought to my notice.
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Has it not been brought to the right hon. Gentleman's notice by the Manchester Unity?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, I have not heard anything from them on the subject.

    BELFAST CORPORATION TRAMWAYS.
    Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the manager of the Belfast Corporation Tramways has issued a notice to the employés with regard to the National Insurance Act, in which he states that he is very clearly of the opinion that the men should not select any society, no matter how first-rate it may be, which has anything whatever to do with politics or trade unionism; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any steps to secure to the employés their right of selection of an approved society?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: It is both the clear intention of the Act and in itself very desirable that insured persons should have absolute freedom in the choice of their approved society. I have no legal power, however, to prevent such circulars being issued as those described in the question.

    Population Statistics (England and Wales).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Local Government Board (1) whether he is aware that it is over thirteen months since the Census of 1911, that the Preliminary Report of the Census for England and Wales is out of print, and that the Preliminary Report contains information not otherwise available; and whether Tie can promise that further statistics of the population in England and Wales will be published shortly; and (2) whether he is aware that the delay in publishing the information collected at the Census of England and Wales in 1911 is causing inconvenience and discontent; and whether, seeing that Census Returns for Ireland and Scotland are now published in detail, he can promise an immediate issue of a further Report?
    Mr. BURNS: The Preliminary Report of the Census of England and Wales which is now out of print, gave the unrevised population figures for England and Wales and the more important of its subdivisions; that publication will be superseded very shortly by the issue of volumes which will give the revised population figures for every civil parish, and of the administrative and Poor Law areas into which England and Wales is divided. The volumes containing this information will be issued some time in July. In the meantime, each local authority has been furnished with an advance proof giving
    1918
    the revised population figures for their district.
    Mr. KING: Can the right hon. Gentleman give no hope of something to take the place of the Preliminary Report, which will be available to all persons and will cover the whole of England until July next?
    Mr. BURNS: No, I am sorry I cannot.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that for months past the figures have been available for the rest of Scotland and Ireland?
    Mr. BURNS: Yes, I am, but the hon. Member must also be aware of the fact that the population covered in England and Wales is 36,000,000, and in Scotland and Ireland combined, it is just under 10,000,000.
    Mr. KING: But have you not a much greater staff to cope with this difficulty?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot argue those matters.
    Mr. KINGasked whether it is intended to publish separate volumes of the Census statistics and information for each county of England and Wales; and, if not, what reason can be given for a different procedure in England and Wales from that followed in Scotland?
    Mr. BURNS: The results of the 1911 Census of England and Wales will be presented in volumes each dealing with the country as a whole and containing information on certain subjects only. To meet the convenience of those interested in particular areas only, the issue of the above-mentioned publications will be followed by volumes which will relate to separate counties or groups of counties, and will contain statistics calculated from the several subject-volumes. The Scottish and Irish Census authorities were informed as to the method of publication to be adopted in England and Wales; they preferred, however, to publish their results in county parts.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the preliminary Report of the Census for England and Wales (Command Paper, No. 5705, of 1911) has been for some time out of print; that it contains information constantly required and not elsewhere available; that second-hand copies of this Report are

    1919
    fetching 10s. a copy; and whether, under these circumstances, the Treasury will consent to its being reprinted?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have received no request for the reprinting of the preliminary Report; and though I regret that the original supply has not been found sufficient, in view of the fact that the preliminary Report will shortly be rendered obsolete by the publication of the volume dealing with the Census Population Statistics, I think it would be hardly justifiable to incur the considerable expense involved in resetting the type of the earlier Report.
    Mr. KING: How many copies were originally printed?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am afraid I cannot say without notice.

    Customs Department (Pensions).
    Dr. CHAPPLEasked whether a pension granted to an officer of the Customs Department may, at any time or under any circumstances, be commuted; and, if so, under what terms and conditions?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Treasury have no power to commute a pension (i.e., a superannuation allowance) granted to a Civil Servant, though a compensation allowance granted on abolition of office may be commuted in accordance with the provisions of the Pensions Commutation Acts.
    Dr. CHAPPLE: Is there not at least one case on record?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have no knowledge of it. Perhaps the hon. Member will bring it to my notice and I will look into it.

    Art Teachers.
    Mr. GOLDSTONEasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the effect of Circular 786 will be to prevent the nomination of a considerable number of candidates for art pupil teacherships who have already been preparing to become art teachers but who cannot satisfy the present requirements of the Board of Education, and will thus be prevented from becoming art teachers, after having spent several years in preliminary training without being aware that conditions subsequently imposed would debar them from proceeding further with their training; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): The Board have no information as to the number of students in. Schools of Art who may have any intention of becoming candidates for art pupil teacherships, but most of such students will have had ample notice to enable them to attain the moderate standard of general education, evidence of which is required by the circular from persons desiring certificates as teachers of art. The Board are advised that an improvement in the general education of teachers of art is necessary, and they consider that they would not, therefore, be justified in encouraging inadequately equipped candidates to enter upon a teaching career. The Board's regulations for the admission of art pupil teachers were amended in 1910, so as to make quite clear that they required to be satisfied as to the preliminary general education of candidates.
    Mr. GOLDSTONEasked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the late issue of Form 461T to managers of schools of art and candidates for art pupil teacherships, he will consent to fix a later date than 1st June as that before which the forms must be returned to ther Board of Education?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: My right hon. Friend is willing to extend the period for the return of the form referred to until 1st July.

    Mr. Tom Mann (Mitigation of Sentence).
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that Mr. Guy Bowman was editor of the "Syndicalist" in which the "don't shoot" appeal to soldiers appeared, whereas Mr. Tom Mann had no direct connection with the production of the paper, and was only very indirectly and in a general way liable for the management; and whether, as two months' imprisonment has been held sufficient to vindicate the law in the case of the former, he will reduce Mr. Mann's sentence still further by ordering his immediate release?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I have carefully considered all the facts of this case, and I regret that I am unable to advise any further reduction of the sentence passed upon Mr. Mann.
    Mr. HUNT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can say if any Member of this House can lawfully at public meetings urge soldiers not to shoot?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is a legal question, and not one for the Home Secretary.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Of course he can.

    Powell v. Junior Army and Navy Stores.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the recent case of Powell v. Junior Army and Navy Stores, in which the jury found that the conditions of the office in which the plaintiff worked were injurious to the health of the persons employed in it, and that the office was so overcrowded as to be injurious or dangerous to the health of the inmates; and whether, in view of the fact that such places do not come under the Factory Act, he will introduce legislation to prevent clerks and typists from being forced to work in dangerously insanitary surroundings?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have seen the reports in the newspapers on the proceedings in this case. The regulation of the sanitary conditions in offices and similar places is matter that falls under the general legislation relating to public health, and any question of making further provision with regard to it would have, I think, to be considered in connection with that legislation. This would not be a matter for my Department to undertake, but I will consult with my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board as to whether the existing powers are sufficient to enable the local authorities to deal with conditions injurious to the persons employed and whether any amendment or extension is desirable.

    East Nottingham By-Election.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Home Secretary whether he has obtained any further information regarding the circular, without the name of the printer or publisher, embellished with the Royal arms, which was circulated to all licensed houses during the late by-election in East Nottingham?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. The police have made inquiry, but without result.
    Sir J. D. REES: Has the Public Prosecutor been invited to assist in this matter?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Public Prosecutor has no machinery for making an investigation of this kind. The police are the proper authorities to inquire.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a matter of some importance, because circulars were circulated without the name of the printer or publisher? This is not the first time it has happened.
    Mr. McKENNA: I believe that is so.

    Aliens (Expulsion).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Home Secretary whether any cases have recently occurred in which prisoners who have been subjected to expulsion orders under the Aliens Act have returned to this country; and whether only one in five of convicted aliens have been recommended for expulsion under the Act?
    Mr. McKENNA: In the first four months of the present year twenty-four aliens have been brought before the Courts on the charge of being found in the United Kingdom in contravention of expulsion orders. The Report for the year 1911, recently presented to Parliament, shows that in that year the recommendations for expulsion represented rather less than one in five of the aliens received into prisons throughout the United Kingdom. The proportions varied in different parts of the country, rising to nearly one in three in the Metropolis.
    Sir J. D. REES: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do anything to stiffen the administration of this Act?
    Mr. McKENNA: That is entirely a matter in the discretion of the magistrates. The hon. Gentleman may have seen that a recommendation has been made by the Home Office that regard should be had to the provisions of the Statute.

    Assault Case (West London Police Court).
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the case of two men who summoned each other for assault at the West London Police Court, the result being that the man Martin, whom it was admitted first assaulted the other man, named Jones, was dismissed, while Jones was ordered to enter into his own recognisances for twelve months and to pay a fine of 30s.; and

    1923
    whether, in view of the discrimination made by the magistrate between the two men, he will remit the fine?
    Mr. McKENNA: On full consideration of all the facts the magistrate who heard the summonses thought both men might be let off without punishment, but as Jones originated the disturbance he ordered him to pay the costs of the hearing, amounting to 30s. On the facts before me, I see no reason to doubt the justice of this decision.
    Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how it is that when the Liberal party is in office there are always more prosecutions than when the Tories are in power?
    Mr. McKENNA: It would be a remarkable fact if it were the case, but I cannot accept the statement that it is so.

    Great Britain and Ireland (Financial Relations).
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the memorial signed by many 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 given or is now insisted upon?
    Mr. McKENNA: The memorial referred to was only received yesterday. It will be submitted to the Prime Minister for his consideration.

    Established Church (Wales) Bill.
    Mr. HUNTasked the Prime Minister whether, if the Established Church (Wales) Bill fails to pass through all its stages in the House of Commons before Christmas, it is the intention of the Government to hold over the Bill till next year and pass the remainder then; and, if so, would the people have two years to consider the Bill before it is forced through both Houses of Parliament, and, if not, what time would be allowed?
    Mr. McKENNA: This is a purely hypothetical question, which I am not prepared to answer.
    Mr. HUNT: Did the Prime Minister promise, on the introduction of the Bill, that we should have two years to consider it before it was forced through?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Prime Minister can speak for himself.

    Strikes.
    Mr. HUNTasked the Prime Minister whether he can give any reason for the number of strikes among working people during the last ten months; and, in view of the injury caused by them to working people and to the general prosperity of the country, he has any plan to prevent their continuance?
    Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: The Prime Minister has asked the Board of Trade to take this question. I do not think I can at present usefully add anything to the statements recently made in the House by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. HUNT: Will the hon. Gentleman ask the Prime Minister if he would consider the advisability of giving the people a chance of changing the Government under the present ruinous system of taxation?

    Telephone Service.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Postmaster-General, whether the charges levied by his Department for the use of telephones will be higher than those previously charged by the National Telephone Company; and, if so, in what direction the advantage to the public from the transfer is to be sought?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The tariff rates charged by the National Telephone Company are being maintained in force pending the general revision which I have promised to undertake when the purchase price of the company's plant has been settled. As at present advised, I do not anticipate that it will then be necessary to increase those rates.
    Mr. MOONEY: Is it not a fact that the Department in Ireland has already given notice to certain local authorities that the rates which were charged by the National Telephone Company are to be increased?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The facts are as stated in the answer I have given. There is no general revision of rates now taking place. Certain preferential rates granted by the National Telephone Company below the ordinary tariff have to be discontinued because the Postmaster-General is precluded by law from giving preferential rates to anyone.
    Mr. MOONEY: Is the Postmaster-General not bound by the agreement when

    1925
    he took over the telephone from the company to give the same rates?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, Sir.
    Sir J. D. REES: Did he not say that in view of the higher prices for labour the cost of the telephone would be increased?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, Sir. I made no such statement.

    Thaxted Post Office, Essex.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the local postmaster at Thaxted, Essex, who is a bookseller, has been informed by the surveyor at Dunmow that the display of Socialist and political pamphlets has been objected to, and that in consequence of this the bookseller has considered it advisable not to have on sale Socialist and political pamphlets; and whether there is any rule or regulation which prohibits the sale of such pamphlets in booksellers' and stationers' shops where there also is a post office?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I understand that the sub-postmaster of Thaxted displayed certain pamphlets, and an announcement of a meeting, and that complaint was made by members of the public. When the attention of the sub-postmaster was called to the matter he withdrew the pamphlets and notice. I will make further inquiry. The rule which applies in such circumstances is a general regulation requiring officers of the Post Office to maintain a certain reserve in political affairs. There is no rule prohibiting the sale by sub-postmasters of political pamphlets as part of their ordinary business.

    Political Offences (Prosecutions).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Attorney-General how many prosecutions have been undertaken in the last five years by the Director of Public Prosecutions for offences which may be described as political; and whether the Government will grant a return of such prosecutions and of the results?
    Mr. McKENNA: My right hon. and learned Friend cannot answer this question until he knows what the hon. Member means by "offences which may be described as political."
    Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the question I have adopted his own words contained in an answer to a question?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir, I am not aware of that.
    Sir J. D. REES: I shall be happy to supply the right hon. Gentleman with the words of the answer.
    Mr. McKENNA: The Attorney-General's opinion as to what constitutes a political offence might not correspond to what the hon. Gentleman would describe as a political offence.
    Sir J. D. REES: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman will lay aside the craft and subtlety of the Minister and answer the question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will have an opportunity of raising the question on another occasion.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, in the records of the Estates Commissioners, there are returns showing that in the years 1904 and 1905 estates were sold in the county of Wexford at an immediate cash price to vendors of more than twenty-three years' purchase, exclusive of bonus?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH (Lord of the Treasury): The reports of the Estates Commissioners show that the average number of years' purchase of all classes of rents was 21.6 in the case of estates in county Wexford in respect of which advances were made in direct sales under the Irish Land Act, 1903, during the period from 1st November, 1903, to 31st March, 1905, and 22.1 for the period ending 31st March, 1906. There are no returns showing the number of years' purchase of the individual estates sold in the period mentioned, and this information could not be obtained without an examination of the details of all the estates sold in the period.
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has had brought to his notice a statement made by the solicitors having carriage of sale of the Geoffrey Browne estate in counties Mayo and Galway; whether he is aware that the firm in question return the net selling price of the tenanted lands, taking Three per Cent. Land Stock at 85, to be 15.5 years' purchase, and of the untenanted lands in county Mayo to be 13.2 years' purchase, and the untenanted lands in county Galway 15.6 years' purchase, making a total offer by the Board on a cash basis equivalent to 14.6 years' purchase;

    1927
    and whether, in view of the fact that he has stated that the purchase price of tenanted land worked out, with bonus, at 18.1 years' purchase and of untenanted Ian, including bonus, at 22 years' purchase of net income, or an immediate cash price of 19.1 years' purchase, he will state how the discrepancy between the figures furnished by the solicitors having carriage of sale and those of the Board can be accounted for?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: My right hon. Friend's attention has been called to the letter in question. In the case of the tenanted land the statement that the number of years' purchase was 15.5 is correct if the cash bonus is excluded and Stock is taken at 85. Adding the estimated bonus of £616 the immediate cash value to the owner works out at 18.1 years' purchase as stated in the reply to the hon. Member's question of the 6th instant. There is therefore no discrepancy on this point between that answer and the solicitor's letter. As regards untenanted land, the discrepancy arises from the fact that the solicitors have divided the purchase money by the gross instead of the net rental. According to the statement furnished to the Board on behalf of the vendors the gross rental was £941, out of which rates, taxes, and other specified outgoings amounting to £121 had to be paid, showing the annual value to the owner to be £820. The price offered for these lands was £15,928 Land Stock which, if Land Stock is taken at 85, is equivalent to £13,538 cash. This represents 16.5 years' purchase, exclusive of the bonus, or 19.1 years' purchase if the bonus is included.
    Mr. NEWMAN: Is it a fact that the cash bonus may not go to this gentleman at all?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The matter was taken into consideration in the price.
    Mr. NEWMANasked whether, in any Returns hitherto issued by the Estates Commissioners showing the number of years' purchase of judicial or non-judicial rent at which sales have been effected, it has been customary to include in the number of years' purchase the prospective cash bonus which may accrue to the vendor?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The reply is in the negative.
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that the Crown has recently been compelled to make application to have the venue of trial in certain cases arising out of agrarian disturbance transferred to Dublin; whether by affidavit a county inspector stated that there existed in parts of Galway and Roscommon a strong agitation to compel landowners to part with their estates to the Congested Districts Board, and that, owing to the sympathy of the jurors with the object of the agitation, an impartial trial could not be secured; and whether at the earliest possible moment he will move for or appoint a Select Committee to investigate and report on the policy of the Board both in the sphere of land purchase and land distribution?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The answer to the first two paragraphs is in the affirmative. My right hon. Friend sees no reason for instituting the inquiry suggested in the last paragraph of the question.

  TERRITORIAL FORCE.

    CANADIAN EXHIBITION.
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Under-secretary of State for War whether he can state the reasons that led the War Office to entrust solely to the City and County of London Territorial Force Association the selection of representative cadets to attend the Canadian Exhibition; and whether he is aware of the disappointment which this decision has caused to other Territorial associations and notably to Middlesex, which has already recognised over 3,000 cadets and is excluded from representation?
    Mr. MILLSasked why the Territorial Force Association of the county of Middlesex has not been permitted to nominate cadets to proceed to Canada, in response to the invitation of the Governor-General conveyed to them by the Army Council in order that they should take part in the Canadian Exhibition in the coming autumn?
    Mr. NIELDasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why, if it was the intention of the Army Council to permit the selection of representative cadets who are to proceed to Canada in response to the invitation of the Governor-General to be made by one association, it was necessary to circularise all the Territorial associations and invite them to send in nominations; and whether he will in future take steps to avoid the friction and annoyance

    1929
    which these methods occasion to a branch of the service which the Secretary of State has made such efforts to popularise?
    Mr. NIELDalso asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, while the Middlesex Territorial Force Association is only required to raise and furnish an effective strength of 4,000 men, they have already recognised upwards of 3,000 cadets, being upwards of 75 per cent, of their regulation strength; that the City and County of London Territorial Force Association, being required to raise and furnish an effective strength of 37,000 Territorials, have only between them collected 3,400 cadets, or 10 per cent, of their regulation strength; and why, having regard to these circumstances, the latter associations have been selected to nominate the whole of the representative cadets who are to proceed to Canada, to the exclusion of the association of the county of Middlesex and the other counties adjacent to the county of London?
    Mr. GULLAND: The Territorial Force Associations were informed on 2nd January that an invitation had been received from the Governor-General of Canada inviting a team of fourteen cadets to proceed to Canada from England. They were informed in that letter that if more applications were received than vacancies existed the final selection would rest with the Army Council. There was no means of ascertaining whether Associations would be willing to send representatives other than by means of a circular letter. Twenty-five Associations in England and Wales were anxious to send representatives. In accordance with the intimation conveyed in the circular letter, the Army Council selected the City and County of London Territorial Force as being the most concentrated. Since the original selection of this Association on 9th April, the Middlesex Association has been informed that one cadet per company of the corps administered by that Association will be allowed to compete with the cadets of the City and County of London Association for places in the team under the conditions formulated by the latter Association. According to the latest returns, the cadets administered by the City and County of London Association number 3,959, and twelve battalions recently recognised are not included therein.
    Mr. NEWMAN: Will these cadets be allowed to compete against the County of London ones?
    Mr. GULLAND: As a team; not individually.
    Mr. NEWMAN: Will they go out as a team to replace the County of London Cadets?
    Mr. GULLAND: I cannot say exactly. One cadet per company will be allowed to compete.
    Mr. PEEL: Why should these privileges be confined to Middlesex, and why are the other associations that sent in notices not allowed to share?
    Mr. GULLAND: I am sorry that I have not information on the subject, or I should reply.

    PUNISHMENTS.
    Mr. HUNTasked whether, in the event of a Territorial who had failed to attend camp being fined for the offence, what punishment could be inflicted on him if he was unable to pay or refused to pay any fine imposed?
    Mr. GULLAND: In such a case the magistrates can inflict imprisonment for periods varying with the amount of the fine, but not exceeding one month in any case.
    Mr. HUNT: If they fine a man and he does not pay, can they distrain or make him pay in any way?
    Mr. GULLAND: They can inflict imprisonment.
    Mr. HUNT: They cannot make him pay then.

    Army Ordnance Corps.
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that Staff Quartermaster-Sergeant Stickney, of the Army Ordnance Corps, laid charges against a number of officers, under Section 43 of the Army Act, of illegal practices in South Africa in 1911; and if he will explain why those officers have not been tried by general court-martial under Section 37 of the Army Act for ill-treating a soldier?
    Mr. GULLAND: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. His complaints have been duly investigated by the authorities mentioned in Section 43 of the Army Act. The action of the officers concerned has called for no comment of an unfavourable nature.

    Expeditionary Forces (Foreign Countries).
    Mr. HUNTasked in view of the official estimate that we have an expeditionary Army which is about three times as large as any expeditionary Army for oversea service of any other Power in the world, what was the number of Spanish troops employed in dealing with the insurrection in Cuba in 1895–6; what was the number of troops placed in Manchuria by Japan in 1904–5; and what was the number of troops sent by Italy to Tripoli?
    Mr. GULLAND: The number of Spanish troops sent to Cuba from Spain was 188,724; the number of Japanese troops sent to Manchuria was 1,014,887; the number of Italian troops sent to Tripoli is not available. These figures do not appear to have any bearing on the statement quoted by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. HUNT: Were not the Japanese sent overseas, and is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Japanese actually had 174,000 men killed and wounded—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is giving information, and not asking for it.
    Mr. AMERY: Can the hon. Gentleman explain the difference between expeditionary forces and forces sent overseas?
    Mr. GULLAND: I am sorry to say I am not in a position to answer that question.

ERRICO MALATESTA (SENTENCE).
Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: I beg to ask the Home Secretary a question of which I have given him private notice—whether his attention has been called to the sentence of three months' imprisonment pronounced on 20th May, at the Central Criminal Court, upon Errico Malatesta for a criminal libel in which an opponent had been stated to be an Italian police spy; whether Malatesta was also recommended by the Common Sergeant for expulsion as an undesirable alien, and whether, in view of the witness borne by Prince Kropotkin and Prince Varlan Tscherkesoff to the high character of Malatesta, and the fact that no other offence than the above-mentioned libel was proved against Malatesta, he will withhold his consent to an order for expulsion.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I also beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman practically the same question.
Mr. McKENNA: I have received this morning from the Common Serjeant a recommendation for the expulsion of Errico Malatesta. I have not had time yet to consider the matter or make any inquiries. I shall proceed forthwith to inform myself fully of all the circumstances of the present case and of Malatesta's previous record, and shall consider the whole question most carefully before deciding whether or not I will act on the recommendation of the Court and make an expulsion order at the end of his sentence of imprisonment. At the present moment I am not in a position to express an opinion on the matter.
Mr. E. HARVEY: Will the Home Secretary also inquire into the allegation made in this morning's paper that a representative of the police had a private interview with the jury after they had retired from Court and before they gave their verdict?
Mr. McKENNA: Yes, I should consider that a most cardinal fact.
Mr. WILLIAM THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that after the jury had given their verdict a detective was allowed to make a damaging statement against this man, who has resided in this country for the last twelve years, with nothing against him?
Mr. McKENNA: I must have all the facts before me before coming to a decision.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  PILOTAGE BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Pilot-age." Presented by Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 4th June, and to be printed. [Bill 233.]
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (LEGAL EXPENSES) BILL.
  "To enable Local Authorities to contribute towards the expenses of legal proceedings and Private and other Bills involving questions of common interest." Presented by Sir RYLAND ADKINS; supported by Mr. Lane-Fox, Mr. Hastings Duncan, Mr. Courthope, Mr. Manfield, Mr. Summers, Mr. Harmood-Banner, and Sir Luke White; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 6th June, and to be printed. [Bill 234.]
  COUNTY COUNCILS (CONFERENCES) BILL.
  "To remove doubts as to the legality of certain payments by County Councils in respect of the attendance of their officials at Conferences." Presented by Sir EYLAND ADKINS; supported by Colonel Williams, Sir John Barlow, Mr. Parker, Mr. Glyn-Jones, and Mr. Raffan; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 6th June, and to be printed. [Bill 235.]

  ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That so much of the Lords Messages [15th and 16th May] as relates to the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords] be now considered."—[Mr. Gulland.]
  Mr. BOOTH: I should like to call the attention of the House to this proposed appointment of a Joint Committee, which seems to me to be a proposal that would be better honoured in the breach than in the observance. I do not see why we should be asked without a word of explanation, without any argument at all, from time to time to set up these Joint Committees upon something or other. The ordinary Members of the House, seeing that the Patronage Secretary submits a Motion, very often come to the conclusion that it is a matter of no moment, and it goes through, and, as a rule, nothing more is ever heard of it. Last Session, something very much of this character was brought forward, and I was enabled, by my action, to get it put on one side, but I do not think any one Member should have that in his power. Here is a Motion relating to the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment. Bill, and the Ancient Monuments Protection Bill, and I think we are entitled to know who are the Members to be suggested by the other House before we appoint our own representatives. As far as I can see the six Members named in this Resolution seem to be three Liberals and three Conservatives. I am not going to challenge the ability of my colleagues in this House, but at the same time I hope, if a Committee of this kind is to be set up, that some of those Members who have asked questions on the subject, and taken keen interest in it, will have their claims to selection as Members of this Committee considered.
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  I might refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset (Mr. King), who has repeatedly asked questions with regard to these monuments and works of art, and the protection of things ancient and venerable. I object to this proposal because I am not prepared to surrender my own individual rights upon these non-party questions. I do not like these joint committees, and I think the House of Commons ought to be sufficient for us. Why there should be a Joint Committee on a matter of this kind passes my comprehension.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would point out to the hon. Member that the House has already agreed to the appointment of a Joint Committee to which his speech has particular reference. The Motion was passed on 8th May.
  1.0 P.M.
  Mr. BOOTH: My objection is now to considering the matter and letting it go further. The Motion the other night was passed without discussion. If the House in a moment of forgetfulness—I was absent, the Whips having conveniently got me out of the way—pass a Resolution of this kind I want to ask the House at any rate to see that it gets fair play. I do not think we ought to go forward with the appointment of the Committee at this short notice. The question put to the House, Mr. Speaker, is, I suppose, "That this matter be now considered," and I desire that the House shall consider it after the Recess. The Motion has just appeared on the Notice Paper, when the bulk of Members are away, and, if I have any suggestions to make with regard to the composition of the Committee, I do not like to do it in an empty House. I think Members should have longer notice of a matter like this before proceeding to settle the membership of the Joint Committee. I make this protest against our considering the proposal in the absence of any information or any statement on the part of the Government. I think we ought to have more consideration shown to us, and we should not be asked to accept these proposals as a mere matter of form. If the Government is not prepared to give an explanation, I shall go to a Division.
  Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury): I should like to say in reply to the hon. Member that this has been done in the usual way. The House has already agreed that these Bills should be sent to a Joint Committee of the two Houses. The hon.

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  Member will see that the Bills originated in the other House, and therefore it is appropriate that there should be a proper discussion of them by the Members of this House. At any rate, this House has already expressed its concurrence with the idea that they should be considered in Joint Committee. I am very sorry if that was done on an occasion when the hon. Member was absent. My hon. Friend the Member for St. George's-in-the-East (Mr. Wedgwood Benn), who is absent, is more conversant with these matters than I am, and if the hon. Gentleman asks me I should be very glad to withdraw the Motion and put it down again when we meet after Whitsuntide. I would like to add, in reply to one point raised by the hon. Member for Pontefract, that the Members whose names appear on the Paper are Members who have taken a great deal of interest in this subject, and it is for that very reason that their names have been put down. I ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Sir W. BYLES: I wish to ask—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member object to the withdrawal of the Motion
  Sir W. BYLES: I wish to elicit, Sir—
  Mr. SPEAKER: I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he objects to the withdrawal of the Motion?
  Mr. KING: I object, Sir.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Then I must put the Question—
  "That so much of the Lords Messages [15th and 16th May] as relates to the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords], be now considered."
  Mr. HOGGE: If the Government could hold this over for a short time, might I suggest that the names of Members of this Committee—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) has objected to the Motion being withdrawn, and, of course, it must be discussed now to its conclusion.
  Sir W. BYLES: Shall I be in order, Mr. Speaker, in asking my hon. Friend, who is responsible for the selection of the names—
  Mr. SPEAKER: We have not yet reached that point.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I rise to appeal to the representative of the Government not to withdraw the Motion that is on the Paper. It appears to me that the only way to obtain the discussion of the very important matters that are dealt with in these Bills is to set up this Committee in the form in which it is now proposed upon the Paper. With all respect to the remarks that have fallen from my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), this is not the time to hold over this matter, because this is the only way to secure a discussion. Owing to the congested state of the business of this House proposals like those which are the subject of the Motion cannot be discussed unless we succeed in referring them either to an ordinary or a special Committee. I therefore dissent altogether from the view that we must wait for a chance Debate in this House before having these matters considered in detail by special or other Committees. I respectfully point out that the House does maintain all its rights and powers over these matters on the Report stage and the Third Reading stage, and that it would be appropriate for any objection to be taken, if there are hon. Members who object, on those stages. I therefore hope that the Government will not withdraw the proposal, but will deal with the very urgent question in the manner proposed by the Motion on the Paper.
  Mr. KING: I have objected to the withdrawal of the Motion because I suggest that in the present form it is unsatisfactory. I do not think there are sufficient members upon the suggested Joint Committee, or that you should set up a Committee and allow it to carry on its deliberations with only three as a quorum.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is the next paragraph.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Mr. GULLAND: I beg to Move, "That a Select Committee of six Members be appointed, to join with a Committee of the Lords, as mentioned in their lordship's messages of the 15th and 16th May, to consider the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords].
  Mr. KING: I beg to Move as an Amendment to leave out the word "six" ["Six members"], and to insert instead thereof the word "Eight."
  It seems to me that the Committee might well be larger. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) suggested that I should be glad to serve on the Committee. He did so without consulting me. It is a compliment which I appreciate, but it was quite unexpected. I feel, however, that the Committee certainly should be larger in numbers and more representative. I see with something akin to amazement that there is actually no Irishman on this Committee. I have always understood that Ireland is a very historic land, with a great number of wonderful historical monuments. I should like that the Committee should not be deprived of having an Irish representative upon it. I observe also that there is no Labour representative upon it. I do not see how it is possible to erect any monument or building without labour. I really think that by having a Labour representative on this Committee we would be adding weigh and dignity to its deliberations. I am quite willing that there should be nine members on the Committee, but for the present I suggest that there should be at least two more.
  Mr. HOGGE: I beg to second the Amendment. I think that in the selection of a Committee of this kind regard ought to be had to the national traditions of each country. The only Scotchman who is on this Committee is a Welshman.
  Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR: It has been suggested that an Irish Member should be placed on this Committee. On examining the Bills I find that they do not refer to any of the ancient monuments in Ireland. No doubt if they had been included an Irish representative would have been placed on the Committee. We have no desire to interfere with the suggestion that the Committee should be enlarged, nor do we desire to have an Irish Member on it. Of course, if it included historical manuscripts or anything like that we should assert our right to be there. Some of those manuscripts have been printed, and others are in preparation, but these Bills do not deal with them.
  Mr. GULLAND: The number of six is inserted here because the number of representatives from the other House is six, and I think this House would agree that it is
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  only fair that there should be equal representation from the two Houses. I may remind the House of the names of those who have been appointed from the other House: The Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Plymouth, the Bishop of Bristol, the Earl of Sheffield, Lord Southwark, and Lord Willingdon. Those are very representative men. With regard to the point made by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) as to Scottish representation on this Committee, the hon. Member has no grievance at all, because there is a Scottish Member, the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. C. E. Price), in whose constituency there is a large number of ancient monuments. There is a Welsh Member who is a well-known authority on the subject, and there is a Scotchman who sits for an English constituency, so that Scotland really has more representation than the other countries. I may say that every care was taken in the selection of the names, and I hope the House will now agree to them.
  Mr. BOOTH: I think our purpose has largely been served in getting some information, although I would be inclined to support the Amendment, one does not want to interfere too much with the discussion which is to follow, and to which the Opposition attach importance. The suggestion I make is not that we should have nine representatives as against six from the other House. If we suggested nine the other House would suggest three more. It may be that aristocrats and members of ancient families may take a different view as to the advisability of expending a great deal of money on monuments, whereas the representatives of working men may take a different view. There is no working man on this Committee, and I think it would be strengthened rather than weakened if there were, but if the point will be borne in mind in future, and it is not raised in any spirit of narrow-mindedness, perhaps my hon. Friend will be satisfied to withdraw.
  Lord BALCARRES: It is extremely difficult to form a Select Committee of this House, and it is still more difficult to form a Select Committee of restricted numbers to meet with a Select Committee of equal numbers from the other House. I can only speak for myself, but if the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury and his colleagues take as much trouble in suggesting names to the House for Select Committees as I do with the assistance of my colleagues, then I can assure

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  the hon. Member that every point that has been considered this afternoon has been already considered with the greatest care. This seems to me to be an extremely good Committee. It is good in the distinction between county Members and borough Members, and it contains the names of Members who have had great administrative experience in art matters. It contains the name of an hon. Member who is in his own country known as a leading authority on this question. I think it would be difficult, assuming that only six Members could be selected, to get together a stronger panel. Three Members have been appointed from this quarter of the House. The hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. J. O'Connor) has explained conclusively why no Irish or Nationalist Members desire to serve on the Committee. I could have found on this side two or three more hon. Members equally qualified with those who have been selected, and I am sure that equally applies to the Patronage Secretary, but in selecting Members for a Committee you have got to consider what those Members are doing on other Committees or on Royal Commissions, or you have got to remember that a Member is going for the next few months, to be closely occupied, with the Home Rule Bill, say, if you like, and that he is going to come down to this House three or four days per week. Therefore it is impossible always to select what, on paper, would be the ideal list of Members, because some of the most interested and most qualified in many cases have other and prior engagements. I submit, with great respect to the House, that the points which occur on a casual perusal of a Motion of this kind have very seldom been overlooked in the selection of a Committee. It rests with the House to settle, but I assure hon. Member's on my own behalf, with perfect frankness and confidence, and I believe the Parliamentary Secretary for the Treasury could say the same if he were asked, that these matters are considered with the utmost scruple and care.
  Question, "That the word 'six' stand part of the question," put, and agreed to.
  Original question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Bennett-Goldney, Mr. Noel Buxton, Mr. Grant, Mr. Charles Price, Mr. Mark Sykes, and Mr. Llewelyn Williams be Members of the Committee."—[Mr. Gulland.]
  Sir W. BYLES: Who is responsible for the selection of Members? I have no objection to the names proposed.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has just heard that, from the last speaker.
  Sir W. BYLES: I want to know whether the Selection Committee or the Government Whips are responsible.
  Mr. GULLAND: The Selection Committee has nothing to do with the suggestion of these names. These names are suggested by the Whips of the different parties and the House appoints them.
  Sir W. BYLES: To the Selection Committee?
  Mr. GULLAND: No, the Selection Committee has nothing to do with this Committee.
  Sir W. BYLES: What is the Selection Committee for?
  Mr. GULLAND: The Selection Committee selects the Members for Standing and other Committees; but these Members are appointed by the House on the suggestion of the Whips of the different parties.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records: That Three be the quorum."—[Mr. Gulland.]
  Mr. BOOTH: Does that mean that three Members of the Commons must always be present, or simply three Members of the Whole Committee?
  Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot fix a quorum for another place. We can only fix a quorum for ourselves.
  Mr. BOOTH: Then do I understand that we are now resolving that there must be three Members of this House present before there is a quorum?
  Question put, and agreed to.

  ADJOURNMENT (WHITSUNTIDE).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn until Tuesday, the 4th June."—[Mr. Gulland.]

  IMPERIAL TRADE COMMISSION.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: I wish to draw attention to a matter to which we on this

  1941
  side attach considerable importance. I came down to-day with the intention of raising the question of the composition of the Imperial Trade Commission; but I find still on the Order Paper the blocking Motion of the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. C. Roberts). The history of this matter is very brief. The names of the Members of the Commission were stated by the Colonial Secretary at the end of the discussion on the Motion for the Easter Adjournment. The names were wholly unfamiliar, and in consequence there could be no discussion of the composition of the Commission. I repeatedly asked the Prime Minister and the Colonial Secretary for information which we felt was necessary in order to understand what the work of the Commission was to be and what the qualifications of the Members were. Then there appeared on the Order Paper the Motion of the hon. Member for Lincoln which blocks the discussion for the remainder of the Session. I appealed to the Prime Minister in these words:—
  "Whether the Prime Minister, in view of his repealed objection to blocking Motions, would have the goodness to use his influence with the hon. Member for Lincoln, who has put down a Motion which prevents any hon. Member of this House from raising this question?"
  The Prime Minister said in reply:—
  "I was not aware of that. I will look into the matter."
  I then asked the Prime Minister—
  "Will the right hon. Gentleman use his influence?"
  And the Prime Minister said that he would look into it. Later, I asked the Colonial Secretary, who was answering for the Prime Minister, whether the Prime Minister had gone into the question, and whether he possessed the Prime Minister's mind regarding it. The reply of the Colonial Secretary was that he did not possess the Prime Minister's mind regarding the removal of the blocking Motion; but that an early and full opportunity would be given to this House to consider the composition of and the reference to the Commission. If there is one opportunity which this House values it is that which occurs on Motions for Adjournment, which give Members on both sides an opportunity of raising questions which they consider of gravity and importance. This was a question of very great gravity and importance, and I would like to ask the representative of the Government whether the Prime Minister did look into the matter, whether he made up his mind that the blocking Motion should not be removed from the Paper, and, if so, why.
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  There is no one in the House who has expressed himself so strongly regarding these blocking Motions as the Prime Minister himself. I can only conceive that this blocking Motion has not been removed in order to prevent discussion upon a question which obviously the Government do not wish discussed. I consider that the action of the Government is unworthy, pusillanimous and tyrannical, and obstructive of the discussion of a subject which has never been properly discussed in this House, which, indeed, has never been discussed at all. I should like to know what the reply of the Government is, because this is a gross and unmannerly interference with the rights of Private Members which ought to be resented by everybody who respects the credit of this House. Does the Government fear a discussion of the composition of the Commission? I think it well might. At any rate, we desire to raise that question, and I think the public outside will ask why it is that the Government refuses a discussion on the Motion for Adjournment, when they wish to know what defence the Government has against any attack that we might make. I believe that in the Overseas Dominions they will be just as anxious, knowing that this discussion was coming on, to know why it was the Government has blocked it. I protest against this action of the Government in not removing this blocking Motion; and I call your attention. Sir, and the attention of the House to it, believing it to be an abuse of our rights.
  Mr. BOOTH: May I put in a word of explanation for my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln, who is not present?
  Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member is authorised on his behalf to make any statement, I am sure the House will be glad to hear him.
  Mr. BOOTH: I have discussed this matter with my hon. Friend and I assure the hon. Member opposite that the Motion is on his initiation; no one else is responsible for it.
  Sir G. PARKER: May I ask whether the representative of the Government present (Mr. Masterman) has any reply to make?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will see that it is impossible for the Secretary to the Treasury to reply at this stage. If he does, he loses his right to reply later,

  1943
  and there are other Members who wish to raise a variety of important points. The hon. Baronet must wait until the conclusion of the discussion in order to hear the reply of the Secretary to the Treasury.
  Mr. CROFT: On a point of Order. This question is not merely one concerning the hon. Member for Lincoln. We were clearly led to understand that there would be a discussion—
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order at all.

  INSURANCE ACT (ADMINISTRATION.)
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I propose to take this opportunity of calling attention to the breathless scramble with which the Insurance Act is being administered, and to the reports and regulations which are thrown at us day by day by the Insurance Commissioners. Some of those reports are of extreme importance. Some are recommending alterations in the Act, and others are actually altering the Act in somewhat important particulars. First, I propose to call attention to this outworkers' question, then to the winding up of the small societies, then the appointment of additional officials, and, lastly, the scandalous leaflet which has been issued by an organisation which is sometimes called the National Insurance Committee, and sometimes the Liberal Insurance Committee, and for which the Patronage Secretary is responsible. In regard to the outworkers' position an outworkers' Committee has been appointed and has made a long Report. This is only one Committee out of a large number that has been appointed by the Government. I want to know from the Government what the Government intend to do in reference to the outworkers' question? The Committee's Report is a very long one, but I think it is quite easy to summarise it. The Committee reports that it is impracticable to arrange any scheme for the inclusion of any of the outworkers unless all are included. The Committee recommend that there should be included in the compulsory insurance married women—the wives of insured persons not dependent upon their own labour for their livelihood; and they recommend a different method of fixing the contributions to that which is adopted for other people who come under compulsory insurance. They also recommend what is in effect a different system of benefit for outworkers.
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  The House will recognise that those are all extremely important recommendations. I do not propose to discuss the merits of them. I want to know what the Government are going to do in connection with them, for this has been before the House on other occasions. In July last the Chancellor of the Exchequer was approached by employers from South Somerset to exempt married women outworkers. He refused. A little later, in October, just before the by-election in South Somerset, further representations were made. The Patronage Secretary to the Treasury communicated with the electors of South Somerset, and said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been carefully considering their case, and had come to the conclusion that a case had been made out for the exemption of married women. Later on—I suppose it was in order to attempt to win that by-election—the Liberal candidate who then stood, wrote to the electors of South Somerset, appealing to them "to trust my word, and to trust the word of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the married women outworkers should not be included in the scheme." That is not by any means the whole of the curious history of the outworkers. When Part I. of the First Schedule, which does include outworkers, was before this House in Committee it was pointed out that the definition given of outworkers was a very vague one; that it was a definition by reference to the Factory and Workshops Act, and that it would be quite impossible to say who would be included and who would not be included in the definition of outworkers. In Committee that point was left over for further discussion. All the Committee did was to put in the word "outworker" without giving any definition at all.
  The Government's original proposal in this matter was withdrawn in Committee, and we were promised on Report that another definition should be substituted. Obviously that presupposed that we should have the opportunity then of considering whether the married woman outworker was to come in, and on what conditions, or whether she was to go out. This by-election occurred in the meanwhile, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer pledged himself to the electors of South Somerset to exclude married women outworkers when the matter came up for consideration on Report. This is what happened. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is true, fulfilled his promise to the Committee in the exemption of the

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  married women outworkers, but he seemed to be then a little uncertain as to the future, for he put in something else also in Part I. of the First Schedule, which enabled him later, if he had any reason to change his mind, to cancel the concessions being made to South Somerset and to reinstate those concerned as compulsorily insured persons. That precisely is the provision, so fortunately put in by the Chancellor of the Exchequer owing to clamour when the word was discussed in the House of Commons, which the Committee that has been sitting on the outworkers' question now proposes to be availed of and acted upon. There is also in that definition of outworkers, which was smuggled in on Report, a power to postpone the application of the Act as regards the outworkers, and I venture to think that that will be a power which the Government will be forced, whether they like it or not, to avail themselves of unless they are going to fly in the fact of their own Committee's Report. The position is this: The Committee recommend that the married women outworkers should be compulsorily insured. The Government have given a promise, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given a promise to the electors of South Somerset, that they shall not be included. The Committee say that if they are not included then no equitable scheme can be formulated for the purpose of dealing with the outworkers. What I want to know is this: what is the last stage of the outworkers' question? I want to know whether the Government are going to keep their promise to South Somerset and exclude the outworkers? If so, then their scheme is bound to be an inequitable scheme according to their own Committee. Are they, too, going behind the backs of Members of Parliament whom they have deprived of the right to discuss this matter in the House of Commons, and are they going to include the outworkers, and to admit that their promise to South Somerset was a mere electioneering dodge? It seems to me that the only course they can take is to postpone the application of the Act to the outworkers under the powers they have got, and really consider the question afresh and untrammelled by their previous promises. If they do that I hope they will consider also the question of the casual worker, for the same arguments exactly that are brought forward by the Subcommittee on the outworkers apply with just as great force to the casual worker.
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  The rushing tactics of the Government have had a most deplorable effect. A large number of small societies are being wound-up all over the country. The hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary when last time this was before the House dealt with the question of the small societies being wound up, and admitted the effect, saying that it was a most deplorable thing that they should be wound up. He tried to find a reason for it. He quoted from one of the official lecturer's reports of what that gentleman found to be the state of things at Haslingden. That official lecturer told him that—
  "he had held a meeting of small friendly societies and at the beginning of the meeting those present clamoured for dissolution. When he left the parish he was informed that the society's officials had decided upon formulating a scheme and would endeavour to make a fresh start."
  The hon. Gentleman said it was a fortunate thing that the official lecturer had gone down, because he was able to correct the misapprehensions which had been left by previous speakers in the district and also the misapprehensions which had arisen owing to what he called an inaccuracy of which he accused me in a summary of the Act which I published. I do not propose to weary the House by discussing whether that summary is accurate or inaccurate. In my view it is accurate. It reduces to about half the number of words the Act of Parliament, and so it is not in the least likely that every word in the Act of Parliament can possibly be included in the summary. Subject to the fact that it is a summary it is a correct summary, but fortunately it is not necessary to go into the question whether it is accurate or inaccurate, because it is quite clear that it had no effect whatever upon the decision of the societies at Haslingden in winding up. I only raise the question now because the real reason these societies are winding up is a reason operating not only with them but with other societies throughout the country. I shall ask the Financial Secretary to correct the statement he made to the House, and I think he will do so. He said that something that I had done had caused deplorable results in this small village. I asked him what the society in question was and the name of the particular village. He promised very kindly to communicate with me, but he did not do so immediately. I wrote asking if he could give me the name of one of the societies, and I got the name of the Salem Sick and Burial Society. That society is reported to have been misled by me or

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  someone else, and to have wound up in consequence of misapprehension, and it was also reported by the official lecturer to be reconsidering its decision, and was endeavouring to put itself upon solvent basis, and so on. I think the president and secretary of that society are likely to know what was operating in their mind. They were asked several question. They were asked if they had decided to dissolve their sick and burial society, and they answered, "Yes, quite unanimously."
  "Why have you decided to dissolve?"
  And this is the answer to which I want to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury:
  "Because they were unable to pay two contributions, and as most of our members are members of trade unions, they choose the trade unions as their approved society."
  Of course, that may be a good or bad reason why a small society like that should wind up. If the insured person chooses his trade union as his approved society the 4d. deducted from his wages will go to the trade union, and unless those persons can afford to pay us an extra contribution to these small chapel societies it is impossible for them to continue their membership. They were asked whether they were influenced by any speaker. They said they were not, and that they acted entirely upon their own initiative. They were asked in specific words whether the report of the Government lecturer was accurate, and they answered it was inaccurate, and they were asked whether they were misled by my summary, and they said they had never heard of or seen the book by Mr. Worthington-Evans. I am sure the Financial Secretary after that will withdraw his allegation against me. These statements are signed by the president and secretary and by the president and secretary of another society in the same district.
  I have the rules here of five of these little chapel societies, and I understand they, too, have resolved to wind up and distribute their funds, largely for the reason given that their members are members of trades unions, and cannot afford to pay the additional contribution, and therefore the compulsory contribution is being given to their trades unions, and not being able to pay the second contribution the societies are losing their members right and left, and they have decided to wind up. That is the deplorable result of the Act, because it is causing a great deal of hardship to the old members. The president of that society at Salem has
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  been in charge of the society's operations for twenty or thirty years, and it is enough to break a man's heart that, looking after his society for all those years, and doing the good he has done, he is now to be forced out of his position of honour and responsibility and obliged to join some other society of employed persons, whether he wishes it or not. I do not think I need dwell any longer upon that, but if the Financial Secretary wants any more confirmation the local Press will give him that confirmation. If any lecturer or speaker did mislead any of the members of societies in that district the hon. Gentleman will find it was not speakers on our side. There were three Liberal speakers, and no Tory speaker at all, addressed meetings in that district, and the result of the meetings was summarised in the Press as "apparently purely with the object of persuading the members of these societies from disbanding, but what they did was to stiffen the members in their decision to disband," so no one can be accused of having brought about the dissolution of these societies except the provisions of the Act itself.
  Apparently there is another result of this rush, and I should also like to have some explanation upon this point. The Home Office is losing one or more of the best members of its staff to assist the Insurance Commissioners, and I understand also the Board of Education have been put under tribute and have parted with some of their best members. The Treasury too are having men transferred to the Insurance Commissioners. I want to know whether it is a fact that higher salaries have been offered to the officials in these various Departments in order to get them to help in the scramble in the administration of the Insurance Act, and if so, upon what Votes we shall find them, whether the whole of their salaries will be charged to the Insurance Commissioners or whether part of them will remain upon the old Votes. There is one other result of this rush, which is that last night a regulation was issued which was labelled a draft regulation. It gives the conditions under which persons can become members of approved societies. I want to call attention to it because it seems to me to be a most unhappily worded regulation. It is headed a draft regulation. If it is a regulation it ought to show that not only may people join approved societies in the manner set out in the regulation, but that they must, if they wish to join approved societies do so within a certain time,

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  because unless they do so within the time specified in the regulation they automatically become deposit contributors. Let me read the draft regulation:—
  "For the purpose of Section 42 of the Act, the time within which person may join an approved society shall be—"
  and then it goes on with the time. The real truth, if properly expressed, is not "for the purposes of Section 42 of the Act," but for the purposes of the Insurance Act persons must join, not may join, an approved society within these dates or the consequence will be that they will be deposit contributors. This seems an unhappily worded regulation which, unless it is made clear, will certainly mislead people. Will the Secretary to the Treasury say why this is called a draft regulation, and when he expects it to become operative. If it is a regulation I suppose the answer will be that it will become operative within twenty-one days after it has been laid on the Table of this House.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): Has the hon. Member that regulation in his possession?
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Yes, here it is. It came through the post I believe with the compliments of the Insurance Commissioners, and I believe every hon. Member received it in exactly the same way. It has upon it all the ordinary marks. The Act has got to operate before the 15th July, and will operate then, but this regulation cannot possibly be operative until long after the 10th July. If it is a draft regulation I do not know when it will be operative, but if it is a regulation now it cannot be binding until long after the 15th July, because it will not have been laid on the Table twenty-one days. I think the Government ought to do something to give the people much more time to understand the position. They might save the small societies if they gave them more time to turn round instead of being under the wrong impression that they have got to do something before the 15th July. If the Government would make it clear that they were prepared to put a little more business common sense into the administration of this Act and a little less political driving force, then further time could be given to acquaint the various classes of people affected by the Act as to their real rights and obligations under the Act, and this would clear up any mistakes, and there are many, that still are current. They would then have
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  time to settle the proper form of insurance for outworkers and casual labourers which it is absolutely impossible to do by the 15th July. I know we run a certain risk in suggesting anything which looks like postponement. No doubt we run the risk of another leaflet such as that known as "Killing no murder." I do not know whether the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will disown this leaflet. I believe it is the product of a diseased mind because no one would like to suppose that anybody would be so reckless and cruel as to wilfully produce such a leaflet as this. I do not know whether the Financial Secretary to the Treasury knows what the leaflet is, but I will read just a few lines of it. It talks about the number of people who are entitled or who will be entitled to maternity benefit, and then it says:—
  "It follows that for every day of glorious success in dishing the Liberals by postponing the great liberal Insurance Act, the Tories will have the honour of killing one poor mother."
  That leaflet is issued by a Committee presided over by the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, the same right hon. Gentleman who communicated to the electors of South Somerset the statement that the married women were to be excluded from compulsory insurance. The leaflet issued under those auspices, for which the right hon. Gentleman must be held responsible, accuses the Tories, whose desire is that this Act shall be put in a form in which it can work, of killing or wishing to kill, one poor mother a day for each day's delay. I think the Patronage Secretary, as well as the writer of that leaflet, ought to withdraw it, and apologise for ever having put the thing forward. Instead of doing that the writer of the leaflet is trying to justify it by quotations from it in the local Press. At the same time he does not say that one of the biggest friendly societies, the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, have resolved to apply for a six months' delay. He does not seem to see that he is accusing them also of desiring to kill 150 poor mothers a day. The writer does not seem to see that the Liberal Government itself cannot be held blameless in this matter, seeing that they were six years in power before they took the step of attempting to save one poor mother a day. It may be an absurd leaflet, but it is a cruel, abominable outrage upon political honesty and decency, that hundreds and thousands of that leaflet should have been distributed throughout the country. It affects the

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  Government, and the Government cannot get away from responsibility for it, because it has been issued by a Committee over which the Patronage Secretary presides. It is issued with their imprint, and upon their responsibility. We know the Patronage Secretary intervenes in a by-election to communicate what is supposed to be good electioneering news when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is dealing with outworkers. The two things are so linked together that we have a right to say that the Government itself and those sitting on the Treasury Bench should to-day disclaim responsibility and undertake that that leaflet should be withdrawn.
  Mr. BOOTH: I have not seen the leaflet of which the hon. Member for Colchester complains, but, of course, I accept his phraseology. At no public meeting have I ever used such language about my opponent. I have always endeavoured to treat this question a little more from the non-party standpoint, and it is not my fault if controversy has so shaped itself that I have been forced to take an active part in the country in these discussions. In the remarks I am about to make I think I can free myself entirely from any party bias. I have a most serious case to bring before the attention of the House in regard to which I shall appeal to Members on all sides of the House. The case I shall bring forward is one far more serious than that of Miss Malecka. She chose to leave this country. I am horrified at the way in which she has been treated, but she left this country and went to Poland, and one must run some risks in going into the Russian Empire. I am bringing forward the case of a poor woman who was treated far worse than Miss Malecka, and I think it is my duty to bring her case before this House. I feel it my duty to make some disclosures with regard to the members of an honoured and respected profession, and the disclosures I have to make would rival in horror what has been said about some of the rescues from the "Titanic." I shall have to tell the House of a poor man who was left to die, neglected by the doctors of his own profession, who have been largely guilty of hastening his end. I think it is time we, as a House of Commons, did not let our sympathy run to the ends of the earth, or even into the North Sea, but determined to see justice done in a painful case of oppression, of cruelty, and of heartrending conduct in our ancient
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  county of Devonshire—a county which has produced good writers and seamen, and some of the greatest heroes in English history. The heroes in Devonshire at the present time are a handful of friendly society men who, at some risk of persecution and difficulty, have determined to expose to the whole world the circumstances connected with the death of the first victim of the Insurance Act.
  I would like to remind the House, before I give the particulars of that case; what we did when dealing with the Insurance Bill in Committee. The doctors asked that they should be taken away from the purview of the friendly societies in contract practice, and a Division took place against what was then supposed to be the doctors' request. There were only a mere handful of men who voted against them. They asked to be put under the county health committees rather than under the approved societies. I voted for them, not because I had lost my faith in friendly societies by any means, but because I thought it was a reasonable settlement. That was the decision of the House. I am bound to say now I consider the House was misled on that occasion. No defence was put up for the friendly societies. The House was led to believe they were harsh masters, and that they stood in the light of the deserving doctor. I waited for some exponent of the friendly societies to get up and make a defence; but there was no real defence put up on that occasion. What was the reason? At that time the trade unionists who were thinking of forming approved societies under the Act, the insurance societies which wished to do so, the dividing societies, and the other thrift organisations were not united in one common purpose with the old friendly orders, which were anxious with regard to their own place and their own sphere under this great scheme. I wish to warn the medical profession, and I think I have some authority, that if they pursue their demands extravagantly and unreasonably, and if they persist in a campaign of attack upon the old friendly orders for their treatment of doctors and their club practice, they will find in the future that all approved societies must and will stand together.
  2.0 P.M.
  Now the Act is passed and all those various forms of approved societies are being admitted by the Insurance Commissioners, I hope the medical profession will see that the great friendly orders, the

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  great insurance organisations, the dividing societies, and the great trade unions will have a common interest in seeing that doctors are not too greedy and not too unreasonable. I have hopes that conflict will not take place. I have still some faith in that great and noble profession, and one of my objects in speaking is to appeal to the moderate men, who do not attend meetings and shout their champions down and refuse, them a hearing, and who do not agree with their organisations in declining to enter into a conference and in declining to send delegates to meet the Insurance Commissioners set up by this House, but who still have a pride in their profession. Scarcely a day passes without I receive a letter from some medical man repudiating these agitators, these medical syndicalists, who are introducing a new spirit into that great and noble profession. In the years gone by they have not always asked themselves whether they could screw the utmost sixpence or shilling out of their patients, and their patients have not asked them, "How much are you going to charge me?" or tried to beat them down in price. That has not been the custom or the tradition in this country. Private patients and doctors alike have regarded medical labours in the past on a much higher footing; but now we are face to face with a new state of things, and this combative spirit of which we have had such an unfortunate manifestation in the instance which has taken place in Devonshire, is almost beyond belief. The doctors have been reticent in regard to their figures. They have not supplied us with them. They have not thought it wise to supply the details with regard to their practice, and they have never made it clear what they want. Some asked one price, and some another. Some condemn the Act from one standpoint and some from another.
  I want, before I give my own views with regard to a possible settlement to point out to the House as clearly as I can where this ultra-combative spirit of the doctors is leading some of the more extravagant spirits. In a beautiful district of North Devon, there was a vacancy with regard to a medical practice a little over eighteen months ago; and a doctor, as is customary in this country, bought the practice and went to take up his residence there. The system of buying and selling practices and of exploiting assistants at a small salary is, I think, peculiar to this country. I
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  know it is not tolerated in any of our Colonies, or generally all over the world. If a man asks for a medical man he wants the personal services of the man of his choice; but the medical profession of this country has developed the system of buying and selling practices and employing assistants to an extent which does not prevail in any other country of the world. I have investigated these conditions in many parts of the world, and I can tell my hon. Friend (Dr. Chapple) to begin with that it is not so in Canada, where I got all the particulars from the president of the medical association in Canada, and studied the question on the spot. Neither is it so all over the world. I challenge the hon. Member to name any country where exactly the same system prevails. I have no doubt the hon. Member, being a medical man, will devote a great deal of attention to the matter in order to escape the serious part of my charge. This man bought this practice and went down there. Part of the duty which the previous doctor exercised was attendance upon clubs, and I have a document in my hand signed by seven officers of various friendly societies who form the medical club of which this man was the officer.
  Shortly after the new man's arrival in the village he made use of some remarkable expressions, expressions which, I may say, were repudiated by all the friendly societies throughout the country. He said he regarded all medical clubs as a form of charity. I say they have been a business transaction of which the doctors themselves have been very pleased to enjoy the benefits. These contracts have been the means of lifting up many a struggling man to a honoured place in his profession when boycotted and ostracised sometimes by neighbouring medical men who did not welcome him in their midst. Clubs have given him contracts; they have been the introduction of business, and he has gone on his way perhaps to become a wealthy man. Many of the leading men of the profession, rolling in wealth at the present time, owe their real start in life to being given a post by some medical club. If the doctor says he regards medical clubs as a form of charity I reply at once that the working classes repudiate any such designation. I hope that the medical profession will also repudiate it. But this doctor went on to make a rather remarkable addition to his statement. He said, "I am not anxious to undertake club work, and I shall be quite pleased if the

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  clubs referred to will make their arrangements with another medical man." They proceeded to do that. But this gentleman wanted to dictate terms to working men. When they took him at his word, and advertised for a new medical officer on the same terms as were accepted by the old medical officer, he objected, and suggested that they were sweaters. This suggestion that these working men's clubs are sweaters is unfounded, for in this country district they pay the highest subscription, they pay 5s. or 6s. per annum, and that is a very large sum when it is remembered that in crowded towns and in Scottish villages 2s. 6d. is often the allowance. I think the hon. Member will be obliged to admit that there are places all over the country where doctors freely compete for jobs like this at 2s. 6d. per head per annum. It therefore cannot be suggested that these men in this particular place have been sweaters seeing that they have been paying 5s. and 6s. in this club practice.
  They got a number of applications from duly qualified medical men offering their services, and selected one. But what happened in the meantime? A cruel organisation which has gone further than any trade union ever did intervened. This was a medical trade union formed in 1832 as a scientific society, and transformed in 1902 into a class organisation. It issued one of its favourite warning notices. One of my medical correspondents—an esteemed doctor—I may say he is a Conservative—has sent me a copy of the warning notice which this medical association issues. It is an attempt to dictate to people all over the country as to how they shall be employed, and Members who may not be familiar with the "British Medical Journal" would be aghast to see places near their own constituencies which are tabooed, and in connection with which doctors are warned off in the same way as a man might be warned off Newmarket Heath.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member has said, but so far I cannot see how he can connect his remarks either with a Government Department or with the administration of the Insurance Act.
  Mr. BOOTH: You will be quite able to connect them before my story is finished. Part of my case is that the doctors boycotted the new man who came in under
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  these terms and said he was doing it against the Insurance Act.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not see how any Member of the Government can reply to that. Whatever the doctors may have said does not affect the fact that no Government Department is concerned.
  Mr. PEEL: Is the hon. Member aware that the quarrel which is now under discussion began before the Insurance Bill was even introduced into the House of Commons?
  Mr. BOOTH: That is not so at all. I will of course obey the ruling of the Chair. I am not anxious to avoid it, but I am exceedingly anxious that these facts shall be placed before the House, because I am going to make a strong appeal to the Government, in the name of the working men's societies throughout the country, not to pay the extravagant terms demanded by the doctors. The whole of my argument is based on the warning notice to which I have referred.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I want the hon. Member to clearly understand that I cannot allow him to proceed with reference to this purely local case.
  Mr. BOOTH: I must appeal to you upon that point, because it is not merely one instance. I have tried to explain exactly what is the club practice, and in order to do that I am quoting a concrete case to this House. But in the process of administering the Insurance Act the Commissioners are finding this point constantly recurring, and I claim therefore that I am entitled to throw such light as I can upon the matter and to strongly appeal to the Government to take the stand which I indicate is desirable on the facts I am able to adduce.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: As far as I understand it the hon. Gentleman is dealing with a case which is closed, because the doctor concerned is dead. I believe the hon. Gentleman admits that these matters took place before the Insurance Act was brought in. He is, of course, entitled to deal with the general question of contract practices, because they relate to the administration of the Insurance Act, but I do not think he is entitled, and I must rule this definitely, to deal with the case to which he is referring, as it does not come within the purview of any

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  Government Department and no Minister can reply to it. As the hon. Member must be aware, questions raised upon the Motion for Adjournment must have some relation, direct or indirect, to a Government Department or to matters which come within its administration.
  Mr. BOOTH: I shall have something to say on the general question, but I again appeal to you on the ground that this incident is not closed. There is a poor widow. The Medical Association will not allow her to realise the practice. They have killed her husband by their conduct. There is a woman and child living who have to be provided for. They get no money from the medical fraternity. I saw a letter only to-day in the papers, written by the locum tenens who attended her husband when the rest of the doctors boycotted him, and he appeals in that letter—
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not see how the Government can be held to be responsible in this case. The hon. Member, to put himself in order, must suggest some remedy, and as it could only be by special legislation it is out of order to raise this matter on the Motion for Adjournment.
  Mr. BOOTH: I am not suggesting fresh legislation. I am not proposing to do that, but I do wish to urge that the Insurance Commissioners, in administering the Act, should take notice of what is going on, and should make such arrangements with the medical profession as will prevent a repetition of this kind of thing. The medical profession at the present time are taking up a very antagonistic attitude—an attitude altogether unreasonable, when compared with the statement they made in their report in 1905, which is largely the foundation of the Insurance Act. I want to appeal to the House to support me in this. The Insurance Act is our work. It was built up in Committee here stage by stage We all thought we were advancing the interests of the medical profession. I still think so. I still believe they will be far better off working tinder this Act than under the existing system, and I do suggest that there is no need for this bitter and intolerant spirit of persecution which is breaking out in various parts of the country. I have had letters from all over the country protesting against the action of some of their spokesmen, and I want to
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  make an appeal to the medical profession to be reasonable with members of their own profession. If they are reasonable they will find the House willing to support them in any arrangements they make. But I want to appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Insurance Commissioners, if they find the doctors are led by extremists and by unreasonable men, who will not fairly look facts in the face, to make it clear to them that they must be prepared for stronger criticism and even opposition from the great body of working men throughout the country.
  I sincerely hope that a way out will be found. If the doctors are still unreconciled, if they show the same spirit that they have shown at Winkleigh in doing that poor man to death, and the same spirit in dealing with exponents of the Act who go about the country, such as myself, who receive anonymous letters nearly every day, and epistles attacking both myself and my wife for speaking on the Act—I have never said a disrespectful word of a doctor in public, but such is their anxiety about this that they think anyone connected with the Act or connected with the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be met in this spirit; it is only a minority, I am not bringing the charge against the majority of the great medical profession—I would appeal to them to show a better spirit. What are the facts? In 1905 they issued a report, and their calculations as to what remuneration should be given them appear on pages 35 to 37. The medical profession invited the men in their own profession to state what remuneration they would like. As far as one can learn, the principal reason for the deadlock between the Insurance Commissioners and the doctors is the question of money. If that be so, I would refer them to their own document issued by the British Medical Association, Strand, and published in 1905. Out of 568 doctors who answered communications as to suggestions with regard to the future remuneration for club practice, no less than 471 were satisfied with 6s. per year or less. The Act provides 6s. It was, therefore, very clear that when they were bargaining and putting up their top request, none of them dreamt they would get such good terms as the National Insurance Act provides. When people receiving an average of 4s. or less throughout the country find the Insurance Act giving them 6s., then they immediately ask for 10s. or 8s. 6d. I do not think a great profession ought

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  to come into the market and begin huckstering in that manner. How can a big association which took up that standpoint indulge in the bitter opposition it does now to the National Insurance Act?
  As a matter of fact, I estimate that a doctor will get four subscribers for one patient. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite have taken the trouble to get figures from the societies with which they are acquainted. The best evidence I can get points to the fact that there will be one patient for every four members of these clubs or approved societies. In many cases the doctors have been under the impression that they were going to receive 6s. per patient. All over the country doctors have been arguing as if we were going to pay so much per patient. They turn up their books, and see that the average patient costs so much per annum. As a matter of fact, I think it will be found right to take one patient for four subscribers, that is to say, the doctors will get 24s. per annum for one case. There is no doubt that under the National Insurance Act, if they accept that figure, the medical profession will receive a much larger amount of money than they are now getting from the same people. In Leeds some of the doctors have been attacking me, or replying to me in the local papers, but the only one who in discussing this Act ventured to give any definite opinion with regard to remuneration agreed that if he was in club practice this would increase his remuneration. I believe the average for Scotland is 3s. and the average for England is not above 4s. There will be an increase in fees to the doctors. Why should they want another cut off the joint? They are the only people now standing out. If they cannot accept a reasonable scheme, if they are claiming to have the Bill defeated because we do not give them fair terms, the only suggestion I can make is that the medical benefit should be deleted from the arrangement, and that the money should be handed back to the societies. The people who would lose by that arrangement would be the doctors. They would lose a large sum. If it is their wish to be so treated—I would warn the medical profession it is the goal to which they are hastening—the alternative is a State system or a municipal system of doctors, which takes in the hospitals and the services of these approved societies.
  Sir J. D. REES: Do I understand the hon. Member to say that under the Insurance Act the doctor does not get 6s. per patient per year, but 6s. per visit?
  Mr. BOOTH: It is 6s. per subscriber. The Act enrols all the working classes as subscribers to the medical profession. The people from whom they cannot get money at all now, or from whom they can only get it with great difficulty, are to come upon the books and are to be regular subscribers to the doctor's income to the extent of 6s. per subscriber and per member of the approved societies. I hope I have made that clear. It is not a bad advantage for the doctor. I would suggest to the medical profession, to those who are inclined to look at it upon reasonable business lines—I am glad to say many of them are doing it—that if they cannot get the money from those people who pay weekly they will not get it at all. The working classes cannot pay bills for pounds. Trade unions and societies dealing with people earning weekly wages have solved the problem by getting in. small weekly subscriptions. The doctor has not solved it except by club practice. The only opportunity we can afford to large masses of the working population of this country to subscribe for doctors is through the medium of these approved societies and of the National Insurance Act. The doctors are attacking it as an antagonistic scheme. To my utter amazement, wherever I go they are denouncing Lloyd George, they are furious at the sound of his name, or that of anybody who goes about speaking of the Act.
  My conception of the Bill as it passed through the House of Commons was that it would increase the prestige of the medical profession, add to its income, and put it on a better and sounder financial basis. If they take the opposite view, I will not say it is because of party bias, because I know some of them are as good Liberals as myself. There may be some party bias in the case of some doctors, but I prefer to delete that element. The fact is that a great many doctors have made up their minds that the Act shall not work. I attach much less importance to the medical benefit than does the average Member here. In the meetings I have addressed in dealing with benefits the medical benefit is that which has been least appreciated by the audience. I think the medican profession should understand that the Bill makes an effort to strengthen them and to improve their position. It is a

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  chance they will never get again. If they reject it and treat it as a hostile movement instead of a friendly help the medical profession must take the responsibility. The inevitable outcome will be that men like myself, who are not Socialists, will be driven at once to the conclusion that the only solution is a State or a municipal service. Business men of the community generally will seek for that solution. It will solve many a question besides the National Insurance Act. I do not want to be driven there. It has been no part of my programme to attempt to set up a State service in the place of the present relations of the profession. But when men can boycott suffering people, when they can refuse to help because men have club practices, when they are asking men to sign pledges now that if they work under the Act they shall be boycotted and ostracised, and refused any help and consultation, it is time to cry halt.
  In Hunslet a vacancy arose recently, and some of the doctors no doubt are very antagonistic to the Act, but the friendly society was successful in getting its contract renewed at half-a-crown per head per annum, and there was a considerable amount of competition among the local doctors for it. Some of the doctors have written to me asking me to tell the House that they did not apply. It is true that all the doctors in Hunslet did not apply, but the doctors in the immediate neighbourhood of the club to whom notices were sent did apply at the rate of half-a-crown. Now I get a letter from that district pointing out the danger of administering the Act. One doctor asked me not to give his name, and, after the experience of Devonshire, there will be a great deal more of that. He will probably refuse to sign the pledge; at any rate, he does not like it, and if he signs it it will be under duress. But the most popular doctors do not like this scheme to come into operation except at a price which would remunerate them. They do not seem to like that the struggling doctor who may want to do this work, and who has done it in the past, who may like a working-class practice—they do not want it to be made easy for him to go on the panel and make a better living and get an increased practice. That is the view of this doctor, a Liberal, simply weighing up the position, and the Government must be aware—I do not know what the trade unionists of the House will say—that men are being asked to pledge themselves not to act in
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  consultation with doctors who take work under the Act unless they are satisfied with the conditions of this Star Chamber which led to the boycotting and death of Dr. Richards, of Winkleigh, and unless this body of Syndicalists get them to comply with it, the doctors are not even to consult with regard to people on the point of death and they are not to take cases in hospitals. I can only warn the medical profession, as one who has many personal friends in it, with all the solemnity I can muster, that if they embark on that their day as an independent profession is gone. The community will take care of themselves. I cannot conceive of a more terrible way of putting pressure upon a Government or upon the Insurance Commissioners than that.
  I should like to tell the House what my correspondence with the doctors results in. What is their solution? They have not any. I think the Act is very good or I think State service should be good, but what is their proposal? Nearly every man you meet suggests something different. It is impossible to get together a dinner party or a meeting of doctors who would agree for five minutes upon any of the important points dealing with this Act. One man writes to me with regard to the choice of a doctor, that he is now in club practice and he does not want any panel and choice of a doctor. He therefore opposes the Act. By the next post a man says the only good thing in the Act is the choice of a doctor. It will weed out the bad ones. Another writes that he is a young medical man with no chance against an older and more popular doctor. An old doctor writes and Hays the Act unduly favours the young man starting business, and here is a remarkable phrase, "There will be a swarm of Scotch doctors coming down from Edinburgh and Glasgow who are not fit to be associated with socially, and who are on a much lower scale," and so on, "and they will spoil the profession." Another writes to say that he is a beginner and he thinks when the Act is passed it will be more difficult for a beginner to start in practice and get on the panel. An old doctor writes to say his assistants will leave him immediately the Act is passed, because it is so easy for a new man to start. Another man says that when the Act is passed there will be a gain financially, but all the rest of the Bill is bad. Another says the whole scheme should be suspended because the remuneration is so niggardly. Another says it will break up all the amicable

  1963
  arrangements now existing between the clubs and the profession, and he regrets that the Act is setting up State machinery instead of these beautiful friendly agreements which are being made all over the country. Another says the Act perpetuates the detestable system of bargaining, and he wants fixity of price and of tenure by legislation. Another writes to say that the only result of the Act, so far, and the attempt of the Commissioners to negotiate with them has been the breaking up of the doctors as a united body and sowing discord in a peaceable profession. Another says this Act has made them trade unionists, and has abolished all their rivalry.
  In these conditions what can we expect? The trade unions of this country, it is true, have always looked after the conditions and wages of their people, and I do not blame the doctors' trade union for doing it, though, as a rule, the doctors themselves have been the first to condemn working men when they went out on strike or asked for an increase of wages. I ask whether that is not the almost universal experience. One of the chief difficulties of a trade union leader is to repress the extreme spirits in the ranks. The trade union leaders of the present time are experienced men, and they know that they have to restrain some of the bolder and more youthful spirits from time to time. When you come to the medical profession they had not had that experience; they have not got men at the head, trained unionists, who will repress the wilder spirits, and the consequence is an outburst like that at Winkleigh, with such deplorable results which I hope the British Radical Association will repudiate with its whole heart and soul. I agree that there are some difficulties about this matter. I am not always sure, when one speaks and lays the facts bare, what amount of good may be done. If you state anything upon a matter which really goes to the heart of the question you find yourself in a storm of controversy, and you almost suffer personal violence, but that does not deflect me or any Member of the House. The thing must be faced boldly; the Government must face it boldly; the moderate men in the doctors' ranks must face it boldly, because I can assure them that the inevitable outcome will be either a breakdown of the Insurance Act on the one hand, if the Government are foolish enough to give too much away and to bribe the medical profession to come in, and, on the other hand,
  1964
  if the doctors remain unreasonable and have their demand refused, we shall have to set about making a State or municipal medical service and train our own medical men, who will not turn a deaf ear to the cry of the child or the despairing mother.
  Captain SPENDER CLAY: I will not go into the alleged delinquencies of the doctors which the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) has dealt with at some length. I should like to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to a few of the difficulties which I think will, be brought about in carrying out the Insurance Act in regard to seasonal labour. I call seasonal labour such occupations as hop-picking, fruit-picking, and market-gardening. After July next every employer of labour will be responsible for seeing that his own and his employés' contributions are paid up to date. But just think of the difficulty you are going to throw upon an employer of seasonal labour. Some hop-growers and fruit-growers employ thousands of men, women, and children, and some of the people come from the very poorest parts of the great cities. On the other hand, others may not be insured persons under the Act. They may be small tradesmen, and yet the employer will have to find out from each one of these workers, whose names in many cases he does not know, and of whom he can have no possible knowledge, what the position is in relation to the Act. I maintain that you are putting a great burden, an almost impossible task, upon employers in these trades at the busiest time of the year. It seems to me that there are only two alternatives for an employer of labour to take. One is that he must engage proper clerks to carry out the business at a considerable price, which must increase the cost of production, because you cannot get responsible clerks for a few weeks' employment at a moderate wage—they do not grow on mulberry bushes or on hop grounds—he will have to employ clerks, or else the Insurance Commissioners must indicate some very simple system of carrying out these regulations in seasonal trades. They have got what is unquestionably a difficult work to do. I think if this is brought to the attention of the Insurance Commissioners, they will devise some scheme whereby those engaged in these trades may be treated fairly and not put to great trouble or expense. The matter is urgent, as we all know, because the Act

  1965
  will soon come into force. I hope the Insurance Commissioners will do this at the earliest possible moment. Personally, I should have liked to see the Act postponed for those engaged in the agricultural industry from the very inconvenient date of 15th July, for at that time farmers all over the country are engaged getting in their hay. They have extra hands in their employment, and in many cases they do not know much about the workers. At the most ticklish time of the year farmers will be required to start this new work of which they are entirely ignorant, and which must put them at some disadvantage.
  There is another point to which I wish to call the attention of the Insurance Commissioners. I understand that in some counties in England private committees are being formed at this moment. They are being called together in a more or less informal manner to prepare the way for the local insurance committees which are to be set up later on. I attended one of these meetings the other day. I had not much knowledge of what the meeting was called for; but I understand it had been ordered that meetings should be arranged in villages within a certain area, and that honorary correspondents should be appointed, so that when a date was fixed a lecturer would be appointed from the central office who would attend free of all charge to give explanations of the Act. One of the things I asked was, Who pays the preliminary expenses? There are expenses for postage, calling the meeting, and bill-posting, and I was informed that in this particular county certain gentlemen had agreed to guarantee a sum of £50 each in order that these meetings should be held for explaining the Act in every part of the county. I maintain that it is an absolutely wrong principle. There may be other counties which do not possess gentlemen who have adequate means or who have the inclination to spend money in this way. People who would be insured persons may possibly be put to greater disadvantage than they would be in other parts owing to the want of knowledge as to the best way of availing themselves of the Act. I think it is entirely wrong that the dissemination of knowledge and the explanation of the Act should be left to private generosity. I would urge the Secretary to the Treasury to make inquiries and see if it is not possible that the funds required for what I may call unofficial committees might be found out of the funds at the
  1966
  disposal of the Insurance Commissioners, so that in every county insured persons may have the opportunity of hearing an official lecturer and questioning him on this subject. The expenses would probably be very small. There is no reason why they should be large, but I think the reasonable expenses in matters of this kind should be found out of public funds.
  Mr. PEEL: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member (Mr. Booth) at any length as to what he said about the doctors, for this reason: We had a discussion on this subject a short time ago, and I understand that the relations between the Government and the doctors are now being discussed by the Advisory Committee. Therefore it is not necessary now to enter into that subject. The hon. Member referred to a particular case in Devonshire. I am not at liberty to go into the particulars of that case; but I would say that he made certain assumptions which did not seem to me to be quite warranted. He alleged that the gentleman to whom he referred had been worried to death by certain people. All I have to say is that the Association mentioned absolutely denies that. If I do not say more on the subject, it must not be taken that I agree with what was said by the hon. Member. I am only prevented from going into this matter by the ruling of the Chair. I want to call the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the lecturing which has been going on in Norfolk. I understand the hon. Gentleman was asked a question this afternoon, and that he said lectures were not taking place in that county. I have in my hand the notice of a lecture to be given in regard to the National Insurance Act at Fakenham on Friday, 17th May, 1912, to explain the provisions of the Act. When an Act of this kind is a matter of keen controversy between the parties and when elections are being fought on the details of this Act there is really no defence for such action as sending by means of public money lecturers to give lectures on this subject in places where an election is going on at which this Act is being discussed. The Government has shown a most extraordinary unwillingness to deal with the Insurance Act at the present time. They want to treat it as if it did not exist. I asked a question on a very delicate matter about the Insurance Act yesterday, and though three days notice was given neither the hon. Member (Mr.

  1967
  Masterman) nor the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, and the question was answered by an hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood Benn) whom I generally associate with the duty of keeping his Friends in the Lobby from going home late at night.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I think it is most unfair to say that, as yesterday was the first time that I was absent from questions since last January.
  Mr. PEEL: I do not see why the hon. Gentleman should be absent from questions. It is his business to be here. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has swept the matter out of his mind altogether. The Insurance Act is beneath his notice. He leaves it to be managed by the Insurance Commissioners and goes off to some obscure place in Wales to meditate on minus values or perhaps study a little of the history of the Church or go more deeply into the peerage to see whether there are any other representatives of noble families whose ancestors got church lands. After all, these gentlemen are responsible, and it is their business to be here to answer questions. With regard to outworkers there is only one way of dealing with them; either they must all come in or be all excluded. It is quite impossible to draw the line between those who are wholly or mainly dependent, and those who are not, and also between those two classes and widows and unmarried women. The question is not free from difficulty, because in considering the outworkers you have to consider the in-workers also, so as not either to throw work into the factory or throw more work outside the factory, because I assume that the right hon. Gentleman in this Act simply wants to administer sickness insurance and does not want to utilise it as a means of carrying out some theory about either working in or working out, which I understand is held by many persons.
  All these arguments were laid very clearly by different hon. Members before the Chancellor of the Exchequer while the Bill was passing through the Committee stage. I have looked with some interest into the Report of the Outworkers' Committee, and I find that those who spoke for the outworkers and also those who spoke for the employers were absolutely unanimous on the point that
  1968
  no distinction can be made between these different classes. I will repeat the question which I asked yesterday. On what ground has the Government made this particular exemption? I do not wish to be thrust back on the ordinary answer, that these women were wives of electors and therefore it was done. That would be too ignominious an answer. I do not suppose that the hon. Gentleman is going to confess that it was done for electioneering purposes. He must have some reason outside that, and I should be very glad to know what it is, because I want to show the hon. Gentleman in how disagreeable a position the Government would have been placed if they had won South Somersetshire. Before the election they exempted under the exemption provision in the first Schedule these particular classes of workers. At the same time, under the proviso of the first Clause, the Insurance Commissioners have got the power, subject to the consent of the Treasury by special order, to admit any of these exempted classes, outworkers and other workers also, and bring them within the purview of the Act. Suppose they had won South Somersetshire on what they had done? Suppose, afterwards they appointed a Committee, and that Committee reported, as this Committee has done, that they must be all included, and the Treasury gave its consent, and under the special order these women who had been excluded were now brought in, it would be said, "This is a trick played upon us. We were excluded for the purpose of the election, the Government all the while knowing that they had the power to bring us in again, and then they appointed a Committee, which they knew must report in a certain way, as any half-dozen men of ordinary common sense must report, for the purpose of common sense in administration." The Committee suggest that payments should be made for work actually done. That may come in in a fortnight as well as a week. That suggestion is a valuable one. I would ask the hon. Gentleman whether it is as easy as the Committee seem to suggest to set up an average common denominator, which must be done before payments are made under this Act, of the average wage which these people would be earning if they were working an ordinary normal week? In many cases it is extremely difficult to decide. If they were working for more than one employer it might well be, however, where you split up between the week's work, the

  1969
  amount contributed by employer and employed, no matter what fraction you get, you are very likely in the end to get a larger contribution from employers and employed than you would get if the whole of the work is spread over a fortnight.
  Then the question arises, after all, supposing these people do contribute on that basis, they will contribute far less than would the people who are permanently employed. The Commissioners say that it is no disgrace to be in arrears, and these people who work between twenty-six weeks and thirty-nine weeks would, of course, be in arrears in this sense, that they will never get sickness benefit or medical benefit, but they will if they work between twenty-six weeks and thirty-nine weeks obtain the certain benefits. The question is whether they will be taken by the friendly societies, because surely there must be very great difficulty in dealing with these people who are constantly varying in their arrears. I should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that they are really likely, under this double difficulty, to be accepted by the friendly societies, or whether it is not far more likely that they will fall into the unfortunate class of Post Office contributors. You are really, if you follow the recommendations of the Committee, setting up alternative benefits, and I think it will be better to have a different system of lower contributions and lower benefits suited to the particular conditions of those contributors who work not more than twenty-six weeks in the year. A few weeks ago I asked a question as to what was to be done about seasonal workers, and I was requested to put the question later on, and I ask it now. I need not remind the House that the question of seasonal workers is one of those matters which were thrust into the Act without our having had any opportunity of discussing it, and the provision made is entirely inadequate to the situation. I ask the hon. Gentleman representing the Government to tell us what he has done to carry out the provision dealing with the hard case of seasonal workers who, in my opinion, ought to have a special class of insurance provided for them, and who ought not to be lumped into the general provisions that are applied to all classes of workers who, of course, are more regularly employed, and are not subject to those disabilities which fall so heavily on seasonal workers.
  3.0 P.M.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: I desire to say a word or two on a question which was raised by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) in regard to doctors and the Insurance Act. Let me say, personally, I think that some of the statements he made with regard to persecution in connection with the profession were a little wide of the mark. The right of doctors to refuse to meet others in consultation has never been challenged. It is part of the etiquette of the medical profession to attend when called upon in urgent cases, and no rule of professional etiquette is inconsistent with the health or life of a patient in need. This statement was made in the leaflet referred to by my hon. Friend (Mr. Booth):—
  "And with such rigour was this boycott exercised that not even in critical emergencies as, for example, the one in which the life of a woman may depend upon the assistance of a competent anæsthetist, were the services of his professional brethren available."
  It is impossible for such a boycott to exist, and any doctor would be really violating the spirit of professional etiquette if he denied professional attendance in any circumstances whatever to any patient in need. But when we come to the question of the State commandeering the services of the medical profession in order to retail them out on its own terms, we touch on entirely new grounds. I quite agree that many advantages will be gained by the profession as a result of this Act. There will be 8,000,000 new members brought under friendly society conditions, and they will include a large section of the community whom the doctors now attend without being paid. For the future they will be paid. That is a new source of income. Moreover, among these 8,000,000 new members will be a large number of men who in the past have abstained from joining friendly societies because they enjoy such good health that they never require professional attendance, and continually boast that they never swallowed a dose of medicine in their lives. These men are all roped in under the National Insurance scheme, and will be a new source of income to doctors, notwithstanding that they would not require the services of those doctors. Moreover, the maternity benefit will be practically ear-marked for medical men. That is another new source of income. Again, practically all cases of tuberculosis will in future go to the sanatoria, and so doctors of friendly societies will be relieved from attendance on tuberculous

  1971
  cases which involve protracted and continuous attention, with a great expenditure of time, and medicine. These cases will in future be taken out of contract practice and relegated to the sanatoria. Working men, because of the operation of the Act, will be better off, and will thus be better able to pay for attendance upon their wives and families.
  This is equivalent to still another new source of income for doctors. These are some of the advantages that are going to come to the medical profession under the National Insurance Act. What are the terms and conditions under which medical men engage to do contract practice? A doctor is offered 5s. per member per year. The hon. Member for Hoxton (Dr. Addison) said the other day it did not matter whether these members were employed at 25s. a week, 35s. a week, or 75s. a week, because the medical services were all the same. But it matters very much indeed; in fact, the whole trouble of the doctors is whether you are going to ask them to attend a man who has 75s. a week for the same amount as the man who gets 25s. a week. That is the whole trouble, and it is where the injustice lies. A doctor takes a contract practice say at 5s. per head per year. If a member has 25s. a week he is presumably a working man with a workman's home. That would rule out a large number of serious diseases. For instance, it would rule out typhoid fever. A man living in a working-class home with that wage could not afford to have professional nurses night and day, and would have to go to a special institution. It rules out also compound fracture of the thigh or of the lower limbs, and all Major operations for which he could not stay in his home. The doctor has to estimate all these things in taking contract practice, and with these serious cases ruled out he would simply have to attend indigestion, rheumatism, the lancing of small abcesses, and so on. If a member with that wage advances and gets a larger wage, say £4 or £5 per week, he has a larger home and he makes greater demands on his doctor. If he had typhoid, he might say that he would not go to an institution and would spare no expense on professional nurses. If you are going to make these extra demands without giving a higher fee you are going to do an injustice. That is the basis of the demand for an income limit. Are you going to pay any more or not? If you are not, you are going to violate the implied terms of
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  contract. If a man joins a society with a wage of 29s. per week and goes on to 79s. per week, then he is going to demand services from the doctor which were impliedly ruled out. He is going to consult the doctor for simple ailments about which he never would have consulted him if he had been in the enjoyment of 29s. per week. A man who has a small wage has often not the time to lie up or consult a doctor. We know that 50 per cent, of the simple ailments cure themselves if you give them time. Club patients do not know that; but if the hon. Member for Pontefract would carry on a propaganda and tell them that there would not be so much demand for medical service.
  If you are going to make greater demands upon the doctor, are you going to pay him more, or are you going to violate the original terms of the contract? That is the one crucial difficulty. It is a difficulty which has always existed, and from which the doctors have tried for years to emancipate themselves. The State now comes along suddenly and stereotypes and makes permanent the very evil from which they were endeavouring and from which they hoped to emancipate themselves. That is at the basis of the agitation, and is the justification for it. What are the remedies? The doctors' remedy of an income limit of £2 per week is absolutely impossible; and the doctors are beating their heads against a brick wall when they advocate such a remedy. For the future men are going to join the societies at sixteen. At that age a member may have 10s. per week. At the age of twenty-five or thirty, he may have £3 per week; and at that time he may require the services of a doctor for the first time. The doctor comes along and says: "No, you are in the enjoyment of more than £2 per week; I shall not attend you." To that, the man replies, that he has for ten or fifteen years been paying in contributions, and he expected that when he got ill he would have the services of a doctor. In fact, during all those years the doctors would have been receiving the contributions of those men. In that sense, a £2 limit is impossible, and yet the injustice remains. How are you going to remedy it? I make this suggestion. As soon as a member gets to the enjoyment of a larger wage, when admittedly he makes more demands on the doctor, he should pay more. Surely, if he makes more demands, he ought to-pay more. How are you going to pay the doctor more? In my own professional

  1973
  experience, I carried it out in this way. If a man were in receipt of a wage beyond a certain sum, then he payed me a proportion of the usual fee; and I seldom found anyone in the enjoyment of a higher salary than what was considered to be a working man's wage who refused to do that. I do not mind saying that they got better service for it. It is worth while for the members of any society to be on good terms with the doctors who attend them, because the doctor cannot give the same prompt attention and the same general care to those cases which he feels make unjust demands upon him.
  I think it is to the advantage of the society and of this Act, to remove from the doctors any sense of injustice. You can do it by saying that if any man is in receipt of more than £2 per week, the doctor shall be entitled, the onus of proof being on him, to claim from his patient a proportion of the usual fee according to a scale to be fixed by the health committees of the different localities. In the case of over £2 per week, say quarter of the fee, or in the case of £3 per week, half the fee; or if that quarter and half do not seem fair, then some other proportion. Nobody knows so well as the doctor what is the approximate income of the people he attends. He knows roughly the rental of the house, whether it is ten shillings, one pound or five pounds a week; he knows what kind of furniture there is; he has a good idea of its cost; he knows the occupation of Mr. John Waldorf Smith whom he is attending, whether he is a Civil servant, whether he is earning two pounds or five pounds a week. No official of a society can know approximately as well as the doctor the salary of the person he is attending. I suggest that you should allow the doctor, putting upon him the entire onus of proof, to make a private charge, if he can prove that a man is receiving more than a certain income, the capitation being a sort of retaining fee. I do not fix what the proportion should be but I think that would be a solution of the difficulty. The problem is a very serious one. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) that members of friendly societies under-value medical attention and over-value some of the other benefits under the Act. I think they consider adequate and proper medical attendance a very important benefit, and we should do all we can to make medical attendance as efficient as possible in time of need.
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: This is the second time within a short period that I have had the fortune to follow the hon. Member opposite (Dr. Chapple). Last time I was in a position of very violent antagonism to him. I will not say that I agree with his speech to-day, but I do agree with his mild criticism of the speech, of the hon. Member for Pontefract. I listened to that speech with great interest, because I know that the hon. Member has studied the Insurance Act as much as any man in this House, but there were two points with which I entirely disagree, and they were in reference to the doctors. The hon. Member said that he knew a number of doctors who are as good Liberals as he is, but who disagree thoroughly with this Act from their own point of view. If that is the case, much as the hon. Member has studied this measure, these doctors are the best judges of their own lives and their own interests, and as far as they are concerned they know more about it than he does. I also understood him to say that there was an alternative if the doctors refused to work under the provisions of the Act, and that was a State medical service. That can only mean one thing. The State is dealing with the health of the nation. The doctors refuse to accept the Act. The State is to provide its own service. That can only mean that it will provide its service on the terms that the doctors are refusing to-day. That means lower salaries, lower remuneration. My strong feeling is that sweating in any way is a very bad thing, but the worst kind of sweating is when you sweat your doctor or your cook; it does not pay you, and it never will pay.
  I wish to make one or two references concerning my own Constituency of South Somerset. I am extremely sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not present, because whatever answer I may receive from the Secretary to the Treasury, it cannot come with quite the same satisfaction as the explanation I shall ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give me regarding the election in South Somerset some months ago. Under a measure of the magnitude and complexity of the Insurance Act there are bound to be hardships. With that I do not quarrel, and I do not think any reasonable man does, but what you need not necessarily have is the deception and trickery that we had in South Somerset. I will give a brief history of the very curious parentage of these concessions. In the summer of last year,

  1975
  when the measure was being discussed in the House of Commons, it was soon seen that if the Bill became an Act outworkers would suffer; because, generally speaking, in the country outwork is not a livelihood, It is the woman's supplement of the man's employment. From the employers' point of view it is more profitable to employ fewer people for more hours rather than more people for fewer hours. For that reason, and because they saw that work being concentrated in a certain number of hands, and that a number of people would lose their employment, a deputation waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That deputation left without any hope in its heart at all. The urgency of the case was such and the interest involved so vital, that my Constituents refused to accept defeat, and some months later they came up again. It was explained to them that the real difficulty of the situation lay in the fact that it was not possible to exclude country outworkers without excluding town outworkers, and that if that principle was followed, it would involve putting a certain premium upon sweating in the towns. Outwork is a very good thing in South Somerset, but it may be a very bad thing in London. At the same time, it was suggested that if they could devise a plan to mitigate the hardships of the Act their case would be reconsidered. Very reluctantly and with many misgivings they thought out a plan which I gather met with a certain amount of consideration. That plan was a compromise. It did not do away with all the difficulties or disadvantages that the business would suffer under the Act, but it made a fair compromise between the interests of the workers and the business of the employers. A most dramatic change occurred. As we have heard, a by-election came about and—this is really the serious point, because it is a national point that we on this side of the House have a right to make—when people went to advocate the interests of poor people they received no kind of consideration. On the other hand, when a deputation of Liberals went to the right hon. Gentleman to put before him those same grievances they did receive consideration. But those hardships and those grievances were not changed by one tittle: they were the same in the autumn as in the summer. The only difference was this, that you had one deputation looking at the real facts of life, and the other deputation—of politicians—looking at the way the election
  1976
  was turning. You have the Government, on the one hand, refusing to consider the conditions of the poor families, and you have the Government, on the other hand, considering, and very ably, I am bound to say—and I congratulate them on their electioneering—considering its own interests in this House. The net result of that was this: When the Chancellor of the Exchequer was convinced, he had the courage of his convictions, and very quickly a telegram was sent to South Somerset. The result of it was that a number of people, opponents of mine, adhered to their own allegiance, for the simple reason that they trusted the word of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer did me the honour to attack me in this House when I was not here. He put forward some of my pamphlets. I have here a written promise, a guarantee, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Patronage Secretary was fully authorised to send the telegram that he did, and to which I have referred. What happened was this: That once the right hon. Gentleman became convinced that the outworkers had a case his benevolence became far more elastic and far more complicated than it had been before. Before this he had said: "You ought to derive golden years of prosperity by coming under my measure." Now, he said—at the moment of the election—"You shall prosper by not coming under that measure." The thing which I think we do feel a great deal upon in my Constituency is that after his every effort of cajolery had been exhausted, after all his futile cunning had been expended to win the constituency, and expended uselessly, then from the altitude of his own political integrity and rectitude the right hon. Gentleman turned round and attacked me for fraud and accused my Constituents of credulity, because I had won the seat by saying that he could not fulfil his promise to give thirteen millions of people 9d. for 4d. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is not what he said."] Well, that is the occasion of recent speeches. We all know the case of the man who at tennis makes a desperate lunge at a ball, and then, when he misses the ball, cries out "Fault!" That is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done. So far as that contest was concerned, I am quite ready to allow time to judge between the truth of my pamphlet and the truth of the right hon. Gentleman's own prophecies

  1977
  in regard to the matter. I do not want to go on much longer, but there is one subject—the pro rata concession to which I would like to refer. There have been two possible concessions which we might have had, either the exclusion of married women outworkers or the pro rata method.
  With regard to the first, although we were promised, I myself, and I think a great many other people, thought that after the formidable objections which were heard against it, after the definite refusal which we had had in the summer, it would be very difficult to reconstitute the Bill so that those people should be excluded and exempted from its operations. If that was the case, I think there is only one alternative, and that is the alternative which is now before us, the pro rata alternative. I think that will minimise the hardships of the Insurance Act to the outworkers in my Constituency. I think that it will to a very great extent lessen the unemployment that the measure would have caused. What, however, I do feel most inclined to say upon the whole matter is that it has been insufficiently discussed. The Act has been altered since it became an Act. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not really perpetrated a fraud upon my Constituency—[HON. MEMBEBS: "Oh, oh!"]— I am using the word that I am using advisedly—if the right hon. Gentleman has not been absolutely false to his pledges which he gave to us, it is only for one reason, and that is that the Commissioners and the Committee would have to bear the blame of his rash electioneering words. Under those circumstances it seems to me that the only satisfactory thing the Government can do is to postpone the Bill for at least another year, and to go into it from the point of view of business and philanthropy, and not from the point of view of electioneering.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken will forgive me if I do not follow him, because I rise rather to direct the attention of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the fact that we are within two months of the date when we all hope—most of us, anyhow —to see the Insurance Act in operation, and to inquire of him what is being done by the Insurance Commissioners to stem the current of misrepresentation that is still being set going throughout the country. The matter is of great moment, because the Insurance Act is a matter of life and death
  1978
  to a large number of people. National Insurance Acts have been passed by a number of nations, and are in operation in a number of civilised countries at the present time. I do not, I am glad to say, know of any instance in which a measure of National Insurance has been met by the kind of opposition which is being opposed to it in this country. National Insurance is in operation in Germany, and has been for a generation. It is in operation in. Austria, in Hungary; it is beginning to be in operation in France, and it has just been adopted by the referendum in Switzerland. In many forms, varying very considerably one from the other it operates. I suppose it will be said of these measures in force in different parts of the world that they are inperfect; that they contain, to quote the term used by the hon. Member who has just sat down, cases of hardship—unintentional hardship—inflicted upon some people. But in all those countries it is recognised that the measures are of such a nature that the patriotic citizens needs must examine them on their merits, and if he opposes them his opposition must be the opposition of honest criticism. That has been so fully recognised that in no other country but this has there been opposed to a measure of National Insurance the kind of opposition to which I am going to refer. What is the work that the Insurance Commissioners are doing in order to protect the British public from the consequences of this opposition? If persons who are to be compulsorily insured or—and this is important also—who might be voluntarily insured under this Act, really believe the pamphlet put out by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Colchester that the Act is "a swindle." "a dodge." [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, Hear."] I direct the attention of the House that those epithets are cheered. They are not ashamed of these words and they are willing to cheer them in this House. They are willing to make the assertion that the National Insurance Act for which they have voted on First Beading, and then, after a considerable interval voted for it again on Second Reading, that that Act is a fraud, and to-day they actually cheer the words that it is a swindle, a dodge and a lie.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Read the words.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Member did not give me notice of his attack upon me this afternoon. If he had

  1979
  followed not only the traditions of this House, but even the ordinary traditions of courtesy, he would have given me notice.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I believe the hon. Member had the usual notice from the Whips.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: No, Sir, I had not.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Yes, it is so.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: No; I happened to be accidentally talking to one of our Whips when he said that possibly this subject would be raised. I had no other notice, and on such an occasion the hon. Member should have told me that he was going to raise this matter. He preferred to deliver his attack on me when he knew we were about to adjourn for the holidays, so that he might be able to make another attack such as he made at Portsmouth. Now, coming to the subject with which I rose to deal, let me show the House the very serious character of the deliberate misrepresentations that have been made in the country in leaflets which are circulated by the million upon the Insurance Act. These are attacks by which the party opposite win by-elections and by which a by-election was won which returned the hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir J. D. Rees), whose presence used at one time to grace the benches on this side of the House. Let me read these attacks, and I ask what the Insurance Commissioners are doing to meet these false representations:—
  "None of those who cannot now obtain a first-class health certificate should hope to get into strong societies."
  I put this to hon. Gentlemen opposite. This is a matter of life and death. Here you have a man at fifty years of age who has a chance for fourpence of joining the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, or the Foresters, or some other strong friendly society. This Act gives him that power which he never had before. Here is a sentence which, if that man believed would have the effect of inducing him not to seek membership of such a society, but merely to become a deposit contributor. The hon. Member opposite said something that I had stated was despicable. I challenge him to get up in his place and deny that this is despicable.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: That has nothing to do with me.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Gentleman was on the platform of the Amend-the-Act League which has circulated this statement. I challenge him to get up and deny that. The hon. Member is very brave when he is 200 miles away in the country, surrounded by gentlemen of the Amend-the-Act League, but sitting at the corner of the bench opposite when challenged he dare not get up and deny it.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Deny what? That is the "Daily Mail." What is it you want me to deny?
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Here is another piece:—
  "Sections 30 and 31 of the Act provide for the rejection of weak members and the transfer of some strong members from one society to another."
  I see the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Forster) sitting opposite. He said something I wrote was nauseous. I ask him what he thinks of this suggestion that by a Section in the Act it is open to a society to reject its weak members. Does he think that nauseous? The particular Sections of the Act referred to enables a member to leave one society for another and take his reserve value with him.
  Mr. H. W. FORSTER: What do you call a "strong member"?
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: I do not know. I am quoting from the leaflet. I think the hon. Member had better explain to his constituency what the "Daily Mail" means by a strong member. This is the "Amend-the-Act" League, which is the party that supplies the writers that circulate these things. The hon. Member for Colchester apparently is ashamed of the leaflet. Does he deny it? He says it is the "Daily Mail," not us, and I hope the "Daily Mail" will take notice of that fact. I pass on to another part, and I come to sanatorium benefits, and in this connection I ask the House to remember that one hon. Member on the Unionist side opposite reminded us that he had been inside of a sanatorium, and that was the reason why he took such an interest in sanatorium benefits. The hon. Member has done good service in this House and in the country by taking the chairmanship of the Tuberculosis Committee. I wish he were here today so that I might show him what is said in this leaflet:—
  "Only one-third of a penny per week is devoted to this insurance."
  The leaflet ignores the fact that sanatorium benefit has an income of £1,000,000

  1981
  a year. It completely hides that. Misrepresentation of this character has never been equalled in this or any other country. Here is another gem in the leaflet circulated by the "Daily Mail":—
  "Most of the women workers who are past middle age are excluded, for the sums offered to the societies are not such as to procure their admission."
  The Insurance Commissioners have just issued the reserve values for each man and woman, based on expert actuarial Authority. They are going to provide for women over middle age such a sum as will enable the Foresters or the Hearts of Oak or any other well conducted friendly society to accept as members women who otherwise could not become members. Here is a leaflet going out in millions to servant girls and poor ignorant women leading them to believe that the Act is no use, although that Act was passed through this House nemini contradicente.
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: There would have been one.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Member was not here then, but I hope his constituents will take notice of the fact. Here you have Gentlemen who voted for this Act leaving these poor people under the impression that they will not get the benefits of the Act, and that they will not get the sum which hon. Members know very well they will get. Let me pass to another quotation. The hon. Member for Colchester said his party were not responsible for these statements. He gave the House to believe that.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I thought the hon. Gentleman was giving the House the impression that he was quoting some writing by me. He is not quoting a leaflet by me. If he thinks I have said or written anything which my former action contradicted I challenge him now to call attention to what I have written, and I challenge him to contradict it if he can.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am not going to do that. I am simply giving a quotation from a leaflet edited by the hon. Member.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: You do not call that a signed article?
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: I will exculpate the hon. Member from that, and I will come to him again in a moment:—
  "Which ever way you look at the Insurance Act, as Mr. Amery, M.P., has said, it is rotten through and through."
  1982
  The hon. Member and other hon. Members opposite voted for the Second Reading of a measure which is "rotten through and through." I now pass to the hon. Member for Colchester, and I have in my hand the report of a speech which he made at Portsmouth. The hon. Member used language there which he would not dare repeat in this House.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Hear, hear.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Member says "Hear, hear" to that statement, but he is so full of interruptions that they come from him, I am afraid, accidentally. Let me quote from a speech which he made to the citizens of Portsmouth. There happened to be a number of my friends at that meeting, and I think they let him know it. They told me that the meeting was called with all the attractions of the hon. Member and the Noble Lord who represents the Division; but, notwithstanding this, the hall was only one-third full. The hon. Member tried to stimulate them with some very strong language. He not only attacked me, but he also attacked the Insurance Commissioners. It is never a good thing to attack Civil servants, because they cannot reply for themselves, and the hon. Member in doing that showed the dame kind of courtesy as he did when he attacked me in my absence this afternoon. At the meeting to which I refer the hon. Member said, in reference to an Act, the Second Reading of which he voted for:—
  "The Insurance Commissioners, in their despair—"
  Is that a fair observation?
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Read on.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: I will read on in my own good time. The hon. Member said:—
  "The Insurance Commissioners, in their despair—"
  Is that a proper way to refer to the work of Civil servants and to the work of men who are doing their duty so well? Continuing, the hon. Member said:—
  "The Insurance Commissioners, in their despair, were trying to popularise the Act."
  Does the hon. Member deny the use of those words?
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: Does the hon. Member deny the innuendo which they convey, which is that the Insurance Commissioners were improperly trying to

  1983
  popularise the Act? Is that a proper way to refer to the Insurance Commissioners, or to any other Civil servants? Is it a proper way to refer to a measure which is fraught with the issues of life and death? Is the hon. Member aware that even this day, as I am speaking here, poor mothers are dying in childbirth in the United Kingdom? Is the hon. Member unaware that as the days go by, day after day poor mothers are dying for the want of maternity benefits which this Act provides? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. H. W. Forster), for whom I had a very great respect, has challenged a leaflet which I wrote—or rather an article which was afterwards made into a leaflet—the writing of which I remember as well as though I had only ceased dictating it an hour ago. Since the right hon. Gentleman has attacked the writer, may I ask him to remember and believe that that article was written with feelings of indignation which I still entertain? Will he also believe that it was not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks and many others I could mention in his party, that I had in mind when I wrote that leaflet. The persons I had in mind were those engaged in a campaign of a despicable character calculated to lead to a loss of life in this country; and that is why I wrote the words of which the right hon. Gentleman complains. I ask him to believe that I had not in mind another hon. Member I see before me when I wrote those words. I make this appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. He has taken a genuine interest in social reform, and when I spoke on the Second Reading of the National Insurance Act, I welcomed the co-operation, as it then seemed to me, of hon. Members opposite. I welcomed it, and I did so not only with my mouth but with my heart, because I wanted to see insurance, housing, and other questions of that kind lifted above party, and I thought we were getting some glimmerings of a non-party treatment of insurance and other matters of that kind.
  Let him look at the leaflet entitled "The Nation Insured," and see whether there is one word—I do not say there are no inaccuracies in it, because that would be absurd—let him find one word in which I disgrace that great subject by reducing it to a party question. It was issued by the Liberal party, but whatever party it was was issued by I challenge any hon. Member of this House to find a single word in
  1984
  which the subject was treated as a party issue. I want the right hon. Gentleman to understand why I wrote the words which distressed him. I wrote them because I had before me the kind of thing I have quoted, articles full of calculated misrepresentations which I believe now, as I believed then, are calculated to rob a very large number of innocent people of benefits which they ought to enjoy. The right hon. Gentleman, I believe is going to speak in this Debate, and I ask him to dissociate himself from those writings, and do what he can to stop, that sort of thing. Let him not only criticise the writings of those who are opposed to him, but also have some regard to the cheap literature which is being used by his own party at the by-elections in this country. Let him join with us in putting before the public an Act which is admittedly full of difficulties, and let him recommend the Act to every citizen in the country, so as to enable them to get the best benefits they can out of it. I ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to say what he is doing with regard to stemming all this misrepresentation. I hope he will say that he will be able to spread information with regard to the Act, and do something to stem the circulation of statements such as those I have referred to. There are only two more months at our disposal before the first contributions are to be collected, and I earnestly hope that the Insurance Commissioners will not merely take the steps they have taken at present to circulate leaflets, but also that they will see their way to do something to contradict directly statements with regard to the Act which will certainly bring loss, and very serious loss, to tens of thousands of people in this country.
  Mr. H. W. FORSTER: I had not any intention of intervening in this Debate; but after the speech which has just been addressed to the House by the hon. Member opposite I am afraid I cannot altogether maintain silence. The hon. Member who has just sat down has addressed to me personally an appeal to dissociate myself from party attacks upon the Insurance Act. I can only say that an appeal of that kind, coming from him, comes from a very strange source. He complains of an attack which has been made upon him in his absence by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester. I heard my hon. Friend speak, but I did not hear him make any attack upon the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire (Mr. Money). I do not

  1985
  think my hon. Friend even mentioned his name. What he did do was to make an attack upon the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, who is the chairman of the Liberal Insurance Committee, for a leaflet which was issued under their auspices, which I believe was written by the hon. Member who has just sat down.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: It was a left-handed attack.
  Mr. FORSTER: At any rate, the attack was made upon the Patronage Secretary for the Treasury for having thrown the cloak of the Government over a leaflet which I have described in public as nauseous and revolting. I also had occasion to refer to this document in a letter I wrote to the newspapers, and I was moved to draw attention to the matter, not because I placed any great value upon the opinion or the expressions of the hon. Member who has just sat down, but because I thought it absolutely foreign to all the traditions of public life in this country that those who are responsible for the Government of the day should lend their authority to an attack upon the party opposite to them which I considered to be of so disgraceful a kind. I can assure the hon. Member I did not concern myself very vitally as to what he thought or said or wrote. I was concerned with the official action of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to a series of leaflets which I thought he imagined had been issued by the party to which I belong, but I understand he was quoting from a certain book prepared by one of the great daily newspapers, and I do not quite understand why he invites us to accept full responsibility for the statements therein contained.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: If the hon. Gentleman is addressing me, I attach responsibility to them for this reason, that several hon. Members who have been elected to this House during the last few months have publicly expressed their indebtedness to the "Daily Mail" for issuing those leaflets. They acknowledge they used them and attributed their success to them.
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. FORSTER: Then we should "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," and, if the hon. Member wanted to attack those who are responsible for the leaflets, I should have thought he would have attacked the "Daily Mail,"
  1986
  which did issue them, and not the party which did not. The hon. Gentleman in connection with this matter, referred to a publication which was edited by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans), and one or two statements contained therein. He said, "how disgraceful it is, and how can you complain in face of the fact that in your publication you have said that the one result of the Insurance Act would be to drive, as I understand, strong members out of a society." I gather that was contained in one of the "Daily Mail" leaflets and not in the publication of my hon. Friend at all. He quarrelled with a sentence that was, I believe, contained in the publication of my hon. Friend, where it is pointed out that if, owing to fierce competition which is created among societies in the race to secure new members, they are driven to abandon medical examination, then there is grave reason to fear that the weak lives will be herded with the weak, if I may use the expression, and societies that are weak will become insolvent and the benefits will consequently have to be reduced. That is the forecast of the result of the Act contained in the pamphlet which my hon. Friend edited, and it is a matter for argument. A great many people still believe that my hon. Friend is right, and that the abandonment of medical examination will have a deteriorating influence upon the general level of health throughout the society. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) keeps up a running commentary which does not really disturb me, but I do not think it assists the argument. I say it is a matter for argument, and a great many people still believe that the abandonment of medical examination will lead to a general lowering of the level of health throughout the membership. If that argument is sound—and whether it is sound or not can only be proved by experience—then undoubtedly the Act will fail to give full benefit to the individual members of that particular society. Then the hon. Gentleman partially quoted another extract from the pamphlet, and pointed the finger of scorn at us because we voted for a Bill which one of our own Members who contributes to this pamphlet, as he says, describes the Act as rotten through and through. As a matter of fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Amery) described the finance of the Act, and not the Act itself, as rotten through and through, and I do not think the hon.

  1987
  Member for Northamptonshire need express such surprise that we did not altogether agree with the finance of the Act. If he had attended the Debates in Committee throughout he would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester move an Amendment which was designed to create what I believe would have been a far better financial scheme than the one which the Act now contains. I should like in order to show how fair-minded is the attack made upon us and upon my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down to complete the extract which he began to read from a speech which my hon. Friend delivered at Portsmouth. The hon. Member was moved to indignation by what he described as an attack upon the Insurance Commissioners, and he read two or three lines from my hon. Friend's speech:—
  "The Insurance Commissioners in their despair"—
  He left out the word "laughter"—
  "were trying to popularise the Act"
  That is as far as the hon. Gentleman read. How did my hon. Friend go on?—
  "by drawing the attention of employers to the Section under which, in return for six weeks' guaranteed pay in sickness, their contribution could be reduced by one penny for men, and one halfpenny for women. That offer was unjust to the employer."
  Does he still think that constitutes a grave attack upon the Insurance Commissioners for having ventured to point out one of the benefits. The Act says—
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: If the hon. Gentleman challenges me, let me say I considered it a most unfair thing for the hon. Member for Colchester to state to a public meeting, in depreciation of an Act administered by Civil servants, that the Civil servants are in despair. I say that is unfair and untrue.
  Mr. FORSTER: I understand it was the use of the word "despair"—
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: I dwelt upon that.
  Mr. FORSTER: That caused the wrath of the hon. Gentleman, and there was nothing further than that.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The whole innuendo. I think the hon. Gentleman had better refer to my speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT. If he wants me to make it again, I will do so with pleasure. [HON. MEMBEES: "Despair."] "The Insurance Commissioners in their despair were trying to
  1988
  popularise the Act by drawing attention," etc. The only possible understanding on the part of the audience was that the Insurance Commissioners were in despair, and were trying to draw attention to some features of the Act in order to give it a false popularity.
  Mr. FORSTER: I grant the word "despair" is the only point at issue, because the Insurance Commissioners, acting under the authority of the Government themselves, are endeavouring to do this by sending official lecturers throughout the country.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY: The hon. Gentleman must allow me—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has had a very fair opportunity of stating his case.
  Mr. FORSTER: I do not want to do an injustice to the hon. Gentleman. I will, therefore, not pursue the subject further. But there is one thing I hope the Insurance Commissioners are directing their attention to. I referred to it in the Debate which took place not long ago, and that is the urgent need for immediate action on the part of the profession. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester referred to the draft regulations circulated by the Commissioners, and in those regulations it is pointed out that three months only is given to those who are insured as soon as the Act comes into force. During that three months they will have to make up their minds whether they will join an approved society or whether they will exercise their option within that three months to become deposit contributors. I want to remind the hon. Gentleman opposite that these people stand in need of a special kind of insurance. They are already provided for in regard to sickness by their employers, but, so far as I know, there are practically no approved societies which offer them the alternative advantages, and they are not in a position to start with these societies themselves, because they have neither the knowledge, nor the time, nor, perhaps, the ability to do this work. I want to know whether the Insurance Commissioners are doing anything to encourage or to assist those who might be willing to start these societies, otherwise unless something is done and is done soon, the power which is given by Section 13 will, I am afraid, become wholly inoperative.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I feel some regret that polemics have been introduced into this discussion, and certain statements have been made to which I must make a reply. The hon. Member opposite, the Member for the Sevenoaks Division, complained that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton had asked that every kind of party attack should be withdrawn. But that was not the request of my hon. Friend. His request was that Members opposite should repudiate the mendacious statements made. I think if we had made an appeal to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks that any kind of party attack should be withdrawn, we should have a right to do so. I have never heard anyone rise from this side of the House without expressing respect and admiration for the attitude the hon. Gentleman first took up concerning this Bill, and his attitude in Committee, and the general way in which he has refused to accept the method adopted by some of his colleagues. No one ever imagined that he would make himself responsible for such nauseous trash as that contained in the so-called "Hard Facts," which is advertised as an "Election Winner," and which I believe has been used by his party in every by-election since the Bill was introduced. I think we do express regret, and I say it without cant, that he has been unable to see his way to carry out the promise he made last June, and that having done his best to modify the Bill and to make it a better Bill—and in some respects I gladly acknowledge his having succeeded—when the Bill became law he might not only himself, but through his great influence in his party, have ceased from that date to make the Bill a matter of party controversy in connection with the winning or losing of election seats. I am delighted at one thing, at all events, that this Debate has called forth: that is, the complete repudiation, both by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans) and the hon. Gentleman who speaks in the name of the party opposite, of this particular form of electioneering literature. I hope that repudiation may be conveyed to Norfolk and South Hackney. I have only looked at it in a cursory manner. I find it is stuffed with every kind of mendacity. This is what is being used to give people information concerning the Act at various by-elections in the country:—
  "Not only is the unfortunate Post Office contributor—remember that you may be one of them—robbed in this way, but he suffers a still greater injustice. He is branded as a man who on account, of his ill-health or other reasons, has been refined by an 'approved'
  1990
  society. His employer will know this as soon as he asks for work. It will be shown on his card."
  This is the speech of an agent of the Conservative party, taken down verbatim:—
  "The Post Office contributor however whose life is not sufficiently vigorous to enable him to join an approved society, would be provided with a white card. What would be the first question the employer would ask? Instead of the question 'Are you strong?' as they had been accustomed to hear, it would be 'Let me look at your card.' Naturally the man with a red card would stand a better chance of securing a job than the man with a white card."
  When the same literature goes on to say that a medical certificate is demanded by all the best societies, which is also an absolute untruth, and when you realise that this statement about the red and white cards is a lie, brazen and apparently deliberate, I think we sometimes wonder at the difference between the very generous promise made by the hon. Gentleman last June, and the methods adopted by the friends of the hon. Gentleman when they wish to deceive the people of this country in the hope of gaining a small party victory.
  Mr. FORSTER: As a matter of curiosity, have the Insurance Commissioners fixed the colours of the cards?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes, long ago they fixed the colour of the cards. Long ago they decided it, and long ago did the Chancellor of the Exchequer state in this House—it was last October—that there would be no distinguishable difference of any sort whatever between the card of the deposit contributor and the card of the approved society member. The whole thing is a figment, in order, apparently, to deceive some of the unhappy electors of this country. There is only one other word I will say before I get to more satisfactory matters. I think it is discreditable to our public life that when this Act does come into force it could not be supported by all parties until an amending Act can be passed. The hon. Member for South Somerset (Mr. Aubrey Herbert) complained that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had attacked him in his absence. He has evidently got quits with the Chancellor of the Exchequer by attacking him, and then declining to wait for my reply.
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: I am here.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. He made an interesting speech concerning the outworkers, on which I hope to be able to satisfy him, and he has every right to put their case before the House and the Government. What

  1991
  was the question upon which he complains that the Chancellor of the Exchequer at tacked him? It had nothing to do with the outworkers at all. Because he issued a leaflet, or a leaflet was issued under his aegis in his election, which I suppose is one of the most disgraceful electioneering leaflets ever issued in this country—
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: The point of my speech was far less the attack that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made on me than the attack I was making on the Chancellor of the Exchequer for not having acted up to the pledges of his letter at a time when a by-election was going on in South Somerset, and everything that the right hon. Gentleman has just said about the meanness of making this a party question applies to the conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The hon. Member misses my point. If he had not referred to the Chancellor's attack on him I would have said nothing about it. He announces that the Chancellor of the Exchequer attacked him in his absence, and gave the House reason to believe he had no right to attack him. I say the Chancellor of the Exchequer attacked him for having permitted the issue during this by-election of one of the most scandalous leaflets which has ever been issued in any by-election in this country. It led every agricultural labourer to believe that the 4d. which they were going to be asked to pay for the Insurance Act for next July was going to pay the salaries of Members of Parliament.
  Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: I have already dealt with that point in a way absolutely satisfactory to every agricultural labourer in my Constituency.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The only dealing with it that I saw was when the hon. Member had not even the grace to withdraw it, but tried to defend it in a letter written to a paper. When hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about the nauseous cant of a leaflet issued by my right hon. Friend with an air of self-righteousness, and say we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, they might look a little nearer home and see what kind of stuff they have been issuing during these by-elections, which they are now prepared, quite cheerfully, to say have nothing to do with them; they only issued them to win the election, they did not issue them themselves. The hon. Member (Mr. Peel) seemed to assume that
  1992
  the only time we were considering the question of the outworkers was when there was a by-election in South Somerset. Five or six months before the Bill was introduced we were troubled with the question of outworkers, and were making investigations as to their condition.
  Mr. PEEL: You refused to do anything, and sent a deputation away.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: For twelve months the question was before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself, and then, before anyone interested in social reform, and then before the whole of this Parliament. Invitations were issued again and again to hon. Members on that side and on this to give suggestions how best to deal with what has been found to be by far the most difficult problem in dealing with National Insurance. I am not aware that any particularly helpful suggestions have come from the hon. Member opposite or his Friends.
  Mr. PEEL: You only acted at by-elections.
  Mr. MASTERMAN: We did not do anything of the kind at all. We were acting all the time trying to obtain information how best to deal with this extraordinarily difficult and complicated problem. It baffled the House of Commons, it baffled us, it baffled various social reformers to whom we applied for information and for advice on the subject, and I am not sure it has not at present baffled the great National Insurance schemes of foreign countries. Everyone who has studied this subject, and who is not trying to make party capital out of it, knows what an extraordinarily difficult problem it is. Everyone who has studied the 250 close pages of the investigations and evidence before the Outworkers' Committee will realise how, even among the various representatives of employés and employers, there is a divergence of opinion how best to treat the problem. I think everyone will be grateful to the Committee for the way they have tackled the subject and for the advice they have given.
  Mr. PEEL: What is their opinion as to the exclusion of married women?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: I think sixteen out of the thirty-two representatives of the employers, while agreeing to unmarried women being included, ask for the continuance of the exclusion of married women.

  1993
  The utmost that the Committee finally ask for is this:—
  "The Committee are convinced that, no scheme can be considered as complete and permanently applicable to the whole body of outworkers, unless it provides for the ultimate inclusion of married women."
  The first thing we have to do is to see whether the scheme proposed by the Committee will work. That is a matter which is being considered by the Insurance Commissioners' Committee. We have no intention at present to make an order to bring in the various classes excluded under the Schedule. They may in future be brought in by request, but we have to see how this scheme will work before we make any order at all. We do not know how many will be included in this class which has been referred to, but we believe there will be very, very few indeed. We do not know whether they will want to come in, and on that question, long before we make a special order, I am quite prepared to consult with hon. Members who are interested.
  Mr. CASSEL: Will there be an opportunity for the House to discuss it?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The method of dealing by special order is this: A special order is issued, and anyone who takes exception can object to it. A competent and impartial person will then be appointed to report on the objection, and that course will be open to Members of the House just as to people outside. There will be no special opportunity for the discussion of it in this House. We do not know whether the new scheme will be adopted, and we do not know whether, if adopted, it will work. We do not know what subsidiary effect it will have on the employment of married women and single women, or on the transference from the one class to the other. I am told there may be actuarial difficulties under paragraph (j) of the exceptions in Part II. of the First Schedule. We can only rely on learning by experience. Not being able to gain any satisfactory experience for 12 months, we have to see that the Act is put into force, and we have to learn by experience how best the problem may be dealt with. I am not sure that we shall not find the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Peel) and his Friends, after the Act has been in operation for a few months, asking the inclusion of this special class of workers rather than that they should continue to be excluded.
  Mr. PEEL: Are they to retain a preference for some time?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: It is not a question of preference at all. We have no knowledge that there will be a preference. The next point was raised by the hon. Member for the Tonbridge Division of Kent (Captain Spender Clay) in a speech which, if I may say so, compared very favourably in its moderation and suggestion with some of the speeches we have heard this afternoon. He raised, and rightly raised, difficulties in connection with certain special classes of persons for whom, as their representative he has a special right to speak. The question of seasonal labour, of subsidiary employments, which are not the main means of livelihood, and how far hop-picking and fruit-picking can be included in such subsidiary employments, is engaging not only the study of the Insurance Commissioners, but also of the Advisory Committee, which consists largely of agricultural representatives. I hope to be able to report shortly after Whitsuntide. I have received many deputations on the subject, and I think I am familiar with the facts of the case, but if the hon. Member has any special points to bring before the Commissioners we shall be very glad to receive him at any time. He also drew my attention to the fact that in some cases private subscriptions had been used in order that advertisements may be obtained for the imparting of further information in connection with the working of the Act, and urged that that should not be left to private cost, but should be borne by the money voted by Parliament. I was very glad to hear that suggestion from him, because during all the earlier part of the year, when I was chairman of the Joint Committee in January I was subject to a perfect storm of obloquy and attack by hon. Gentlemen opposite for the very existence of a single lecturer, the spending of a single farthing, not as the hon. Gentleman said to popularise the Act, which is not the duty of the Commissioners, but to explain to the people the intricate details of the Act, and I shall certainly convey to the Insurance Commissioners the strong appeal made by the hon. Member for Tonbridge that more money should be used in order that more lectures should be given to more people in connection with the working of the Act. I was very glad to hear that recommendation of the hon. Member. The next point was raised by the hon. Member for Colchester, who, if I may say so without disrespect, is far better than some of his

  1995
  Friends, and in all the Debates with this House shows, what it would be almost indecent for me to say, not only a great grasp of the subject, but also great moderation in putting the points which he brings before us. I wish he could persuade his Friends to do the same. He asked me about draft regulations. Draft regulations, provisional regulations, and complete regulations are dealt with in the Rules Publication Act. Draft regulations have to be published for forty days before they conic into operation. Provisional regulations come into operation at once, immediately they are produced. The regulations which have urgency now, which are being made by the Commissioners, are being issued both as draft and provisional regulations. That is to say they will come into operation at once as provisional regulations, but, before they are made complete and full regulations there will be full opportunity for any criticism to be made either by people outside or inside the House.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Are there also provisional besides being draft?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON - EVANS: And are now in force?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: They will be in force from the day they are laid on the Table of the House. It is a good point, and I am glad of the opportunity of explaining it, but no provisional regulations will be made final regulations without a full opportunity for objections and criticisms to be made. In respect to the regulation which he has criticised, that regulation was laid before the Advisory Committee at its last meeting. It was revised by them and altered from what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Forster) wanted, to its present form on the advice of the Advisory Committee. The regulation originally allowed for a six months' waiting period within which a member could decide whether he would join an approved society. Practically the whole Advisory Committee asked for a three months' waiting period, and in consequence of that advice it was altered. That is to say, from July to October, no man will become a deposit contributor, but will have a full opportunity of joining an approved society, but only after
  1996
  October he will become a deposit contributor, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, ever after that he can still join an approved society and take his full reserve value with him.
  As the hon. Gentleman has reminded me of that, perhaps I may be allowed to take this opportunity of giving as much publicity as I can to an expression of gratitude for the work of the Advisory Committee. I can assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that the tone and temper with which the Advisory Committee are discussing the conditions and regulations are very different from the tone and temper in which some Members have been discussing the Act in the House. It is a very large Committee; it is not elected by us; it consists of representatives of great employers in this country, of trades unions and collecting societies, and a great number of clashing interests. There has not been a suggestion of a desire for postponement of the Act from any of them. From the employers individually we have had nothing but helpful criticism. I wish in our Debates instead of recrimination hon. Members would endeavour to help us in the same way as the Advisory Committee has helped us. Another point alluded to by the hon. Member for Colchester was that some personal imputation had been made against him. The hon. Member asked me to withdraw the statement made by one of our lecturers that certain members of friendly societies of a village felt urged towards dissolution by a misunderstanding of the Act due to the reading of a pamphlet issued by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans). I cannot withdraw the statement, because the lecturer, not from any pride or temper, asserts to me that the statement is absolutely correct, and that the hon. Gentleman with his accustomed modesty, has really miscalculated the extent to which his pamphlet has worked among the rural districts of England. The statement is quite clear in the Act. Section 55, (Sub-section (2), says:—
  "On a person of the age of 17 or upwards joining an approved society for the purposes of this part of this Act, there shall be credited to the society the reserve value (if any) appropriate to such person," etc.
  The statement of the hon. Gentleman was:—
  "On a person of seventeen and upwards joining a society the reserve value applicable to him shall be credited to the society, etc."

  1997
  It is because of that the lecturer was publicly questioned by a man who stated that "he was a member of a village society of this character which had agreed to dissolve because the society had not for some time secured many new members, and because it thought that no reserve would be created in respect to those persons who are at that time members of the society, but only in respect of those members joining the society after it became approved." The lecturer read out the actual words of the Act; but the interrupter countered him with the statement read out from the hon. Gentleman's pamphlet, and on being asked for the name of the publisher he said "It was Mr. Worthington-Evans."
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Will the hon. Gentleman lay that paper?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Certainly, because I think the hon. Member for Colchester will see that there is no question of doubt about the matter. The lecturer states that this statement was made in public, and I have no reason to think that the lecturer is stating anything but what he believes to be true.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: May I remind the hon. Member that the president and secretary of the society say that nothing of the sort occurred, and that the statement, is quite inaccurate?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: There were several societies represented at the meeting.
  Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Was the particular society the Salem Sick Society?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: That was the society, but I understand that the Members of all the local village societies were there. Really it is simply a matter of fact as to whether the hon. Gentleman's name was mentioned or not. Surely there need be no trouble about the matter. If the hon. Gentleman can show me, after conferring with the lecturer, that it was not mentioned, then the statement can be withdrawn. My hon. Friend the Member for Paddington asked if we were taking any steps to counteract the various mendacities and misrepresentations which were being spread about the country in connection with the Insurance Act. We are continuing as far as possible to do so, both by the spread of pamphlets and leaflets, which I hope will be very greatly increased
  1998
  within the next two or three days, and by trying to meet the still unslackened demand for our lecturers. We are hardly able to meet a quarter of the demand for our lecturers from all over the country, and we are endeavouring to arrange for classes specially for members of trade unions and friendly societies to give purely authentic information concerning the effect of the Act. I cannot guarantee that all those statements will be immediately dispelled. What I can guarantee is that when through the natural process of time and the operations of the Act those who have been told those things find out how far they are from the truth they will not be particularly in love with those who gave them those particular statements.
  The Act will come into operation on the 15th July, and I have never contemplated any other date for its coming into operation. The four Commissions are working for that date. Although a resolution which was not discussed was proposed many months ago by one of the great friendly societies suggesting delay, I would respectfully ask hon. Members to go to any members of the great friendly societies and find out whether they are not anxious that the Act should come into operation as speedily as possible. Postponement would be disastrous to the members of the friendly societies, and to all those who are making preparation for the Act to come into force, and to those who, if the Act was delayed, would be deprived of benefit. The cards are ready and will be distributed next month. Schemes which have been considered with the employers and the Advisory Committee for bulk payments in the case of large employers will also be issued probably next week, and certainly within a very short space of time. Immediately after Whitsuntide I hope to be able to announce that societies have been approved representing at the present time something like 4,500,000 of insured persons, in addition to industrial societies, collecting societies and companies which hold about 30,000,000 life policies, and whose number of insured persons we cannot at present estimate. Those numbers of approved persons will probably increase by several hundred thousands every week, and I should be very much surprised if they are not something like 10,000,000 by the 15th July. There will be then at least three months for the remainder of the insured to come in before they need become deposit contributors. Schemes under

  1999
  Clause 72 are not necessary for the Act to come into operation, because, as will be seen from a most ingenious table which has been circulated, and which is in the hands of a number of friendly societies, the Registrar has expressed himself willing to sanction provisional schemes which can be put into operation whereby the deductions can be met and solvent societies can fill up to the 4d. which is necessary and which shall be paid through the State contribution so that there will be no need for anyone to pay twice over. Those schemes can come into operation immediately, and will be in operation before 15th July.
  Apparatus is being set up for dealing fully with various disputes that will arise. I anticipate a large amount of uncertainty at the beginning in connection with the exact position of a number of persons. I should not be in the least surprised or in the least dismayed if hundreds of thousands of persons did not know exactly the first week what their position was. The same number would not know their position if the Act was postponed for six months or a year. The only thing that will make them inquire and understand is the coming of the Act into operation, exactly as we found when we brought in the old age pension scheme. All the draft regulations which are necessary to bring the Act into operation are, I think, now approved. Most of them have been submitted to and approved by the Advisory Committee, and they are being circulated among the Members of this House for their information. I will not say a word, following the advice of the hon. Member for Taunton, in what I thought was the best sentence of his speech, in connection with the doctors, because most friendly and amicable negotiations are at present proceeding between the representatives of the doctors of the Advisory Committee and the Insurance Commission. I would not by suggestion or word, which might be misinterpreted, do anything which might make those negotiations have a less favourable outcome. It is perfectly true that there will be, and must be, a waiting period, during which many persons will be paying into insurance and not receiving benefits, and during which time misrepresentations may be circulated that they will never receive any such benefits at all. But what are the actual facts looking to the future? By the end of 1913, after the benefits have been in operation for a year, it is calculated by
  2000
  our actuaries that 800,000 mothers will have received maternity benefit to the value of 30s. by right of their husbands, and another 100,000 mothers by right of themselves being insured; that 2,500,000 persons, men and women, will have received sick pay from the National Insurance scheme; that at least 250,000 persons suffering from tuberculosis will have received one of the many varieties of treatment which have been suggested as suitable to their condition by the Tuberculosis Committee, and I should think that, as the result of the Insurance Act, a very large number of those persons will have received restoration of life after a sentence of death. If the hon. Member will raise the question of the Insurance Act on the Motion for Adjournment before the Whitsuntide Recess of 1914 he will not find much support for the kind of criticism that we have had this afternoon.
  Sir J. D. REES: The Secretary to the Treasury, in representing the views of the employers and doctors on the Advisory Committee, seems to have got very far away from the views of the employers and doctors off the Advisory Committee. It was only a day or two ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, taking credit to himself for having banded the doctors together into a trade union, was prepared to threaten them with a legion of blacklegs and strike-breaking doctors to bear down their opposition if they did not meet him in his policy. Only quite recently Sir Charles Macara, representing many of the greatest industries in Lancashire, expressed views exactly opposite to those with which the hon. Gentleman has just credited the representatives of the employers upon the Advisory Committee. However, since the hon. Member will not be able to reply, I will not say any more about his speech. The hon. Member for East Northampton (Mr. Chiozza Money), when he pointed the finger of scorn at me in a significant and melodramatic manner, suggested that I was one of those members who had been elected on the issue of the Insurance Act. I do not agree with anything the hon. Member said, except perhaps that I should be rather inclined to admit that I, and any other Members who have recently been elected to this House, had actually been elected upon that issue. I really believe, this being necessarily a conjectural matter to some extent, that no conjecture is more likely to be within the four corners of fact

  2001
  than the conjecture that any of the Members who have recently been elected came in upon that Act. I happen to have been the first candidate in a by-election after the measure was brought in, and certainly the last since it was passed into law. I remember that there was no subject that came before the electorate to which they listened with so much interest, and no subject on which they so united in unanimous condemnation. The hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of the Treasury, referred to a National Insurance scheme as having been in force in Germany for many years. He did not mention that the official who has been responsible for the management of insurance for many years in Germany, throughout its life in fact, when he retired published a comprehensive condemnation of the system, and in the last words of his pamphlet referred to it as in some respects "a cancer on the body politic." These are facts which the hon. Gentleman did not deal with.
  Though I am very unwilling to speak on this subject, and shall only deal with it a minute or two, since it has been raised and since the hon. Member has pointed to me as one who came here elected upon that issue, I need simply say that I believe myself that the Act in the recent by-election through which I went, in the former one in which I was, and in all the elections through which others have gone, has been unpopular to the last degree amongst the people of the country. It has been unpopular for the reason that under it men are taxed in proportion as they are doing good. They are taxed in proportion as they are employing their fellow-countrymen. They are not taxed upon profits; they are taxed upon the amount of labour that they employ. It is unpopular for the reason that it means an increase of unemployment; that it does not help those who need help—and is therefore not national—that it does help those who are helped and well helped; that it helps powerful societies that can well look after themselves; that it destroys and impairs private enterprise; that it was forced upon the country without proper consideration; that the bribes that are to be given to conciliate different interests will come out of the pockets of those who are to be bribed to their own detriment, which it is supposed that they will not see. For these reasons, I believe in all these by-elections this Act has been most unpopular, and there is a strong feeling throughout the country that its
  2002
  introduction should at least be postponed for another year.
  As to East Nottingham, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, why a stronger case of condemnation of this Act than that cannot possibly be imagined. The candidate who represented the Liberals, and the Government side was an insurance lecturer. Whether as a Committee lecturer or a Liberal lecturer I cannot say, but his occupation was a lecturer upon this Act until it became apparent that a by-election was coming on. Then he shed the garb of a lecturer to put on the white robe of a candidate. It was a case very much like that of South Somerset, and a case very much like—I speak without knowledge here—that which has been alluded to as happening at West Norfolk. The hon. Gentleman, who has just left the House (Mr. Money), has condemned on every occasion the action of the Conservatives in respect to this Act, but I say that the strongest possible case can be made out for the condemnation of the action of his side. The proceedings at Nottingham emphasise that fact. You had a gentleman who was converted at a moment's notice from a lecturer into a candidate, who spent the whole of his time in explaining the provisions of this Act to the electors of Nottingham. So successful was he that by a very large, majority, when they really understood it, they rejected both the Act and him. I note the hon. Member has returned, and I am willing to leave the subject, to which I only referred because he brought me into it. Nevertheless I am glad to have the opportunity of making the few remarks I have about him and his speech.

  POLITICAL OFFENCES.
  But the subject that I myself wish to bring before the House for a moment or two may also be said to arise out of the Order Paper for the day. I asked the Attorney-General—
  "How many prosecutions have been undertaken in the last five years by the Director of Public Prosecutions for offences which may be described as political; and whether the Government will grant a Return of such prosecutions and of the results."
  On a former occasion I asked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary for a Return of the prosecutions for political offences, and in answering me—he gave a perfectly courteous answer; I am not making any objection whatever to it—he spoke of offences "which may be described as political," I said "political offences."
  He was not quite willing to take that, and referred to offences which "may be described as political offences." I returned to the charge and asked for a Return of the number of prosecutions for offences which "may be described as political." The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary then referred me to the Attorney-General who was sitting beside him. I expressed my readiness to ask the Attorney-General, and thereupon I put down the question which I have had the honour to read to the House, asking the Attorney-General for an answer, but the Home Secretary thereupon answered for the Attorney-General, and actually took exception to my words, which were those he used in answer to my question. He said he could not discover what was meant by offences which "may be described as political." As a last resort I take this opportunity and ask that question again.
  It took me some two or three years before I forced the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in office unwillingly to admit that there was no such thing known to the law of England as a political offence and a political offender, and that the law recognised neither one nor the other, and it is for the purpose of getting a similar admission to-day that I adopt this means of pursuing this matter. The House will see that this is not merely, I will not say seeking for information, because that would rather condemn myself in having put down this question, but the House, will see that this question is not put for mere motives of curiosity, but for really valid and substantial Reasons. Upon the use in this House of the expression "political offences" and offenders a great fabric has been reared. Only just now the junior Member for Merthyr lodged a Bill for lenient treatment which political offenders are to claim as a matter of right. The case of the suffragists will be well remembered by the hon. Member. They are claiming lenient treatment as political offenders. Only to-day a case was brought up of an individual recommended, greatly to my satisfaction, for deportation, by the Common Sergeant, and hon. Members in this House at once took up his case, and asked, Is he not a political offender? Why should he be deported any more than those anarchists, nihilists, and seditionists, and all those who settle down here from various parts of the world? Why should not they too go? I mention Miss Malecka's
  2004
  case only because the agitation with regard to that lady arises on the ground that her offence is claimed to be a political offence, and therefore she should have lenient treatment as a political offender. Not only are there Members in this House who indulge in this kind of agitation; but I deplore very much the tendency on the part of Members of His Majesty's Government to encourage it. Members of the Government continually use this expression. They dare not come out and say frankly there is no such thing as a political offence and political offender. Not only is this the case in this House; but this deplorable tendency has spread to our Indian Empire.
  Only quite lately, under the rule of a Viceroy who gained great distinction as an ambassador before becoming Viceroy of our Indian Empire, we have seen what I think is the shocking spectacle of prisoners being released upon undertaking to come up for trial when required, upon the avowed ground that the offence of which they were accused, robbery with violence, was a political offence, because they claimed that as their object in committing this offence! It is very easy, I think, upon, this doctrine to hold that any man will be entitled to rob and kill any other man on the ground that the money is to be used for what he is pleased to call the propagation of political views. Only to-day in this House exemption was claimed for Malatesta, whose deportation was ordered, and will, I hope, be carried out, on the ground that he was a political offender, and was entitled to lenient treatment, and because others spoke for him who are well known to have been exiled from their country as political offenders. Men like Prince Kropotkin, whose name was mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman has hitherto been exceedingly shy about admitting that there is no such thing as a political offence in English law and no such thing as a political offender. What the Government has been practising is surrender to agitation. That has now become the sole and persistent principle of government of this country, and there is a disposition to allow to those who are called political offenders a certain character which does not accrue to other offenders, on which they base a claim for more lenient treatment, whereas really they deserve above all others more severe treatment, because they are not driven by distress to commit crimes, but do them in order to destroy, as they say,

  2005
  existing institutions, or supplant existing institutions by others which in their ideal or imaginary worlds would be better than those which have stood the test of centuries of experience.
  5.0 P.M.
  These acts are of a peculiarly cruel and callous character. Even a lady who breaks an unoffending person's window in order to call attention to something she wants done is a far greater criminal than a person who is driven to commit a crime in order to satisfy his needs. If once responsible persons admit that the motive, when a person claims a political motive, entitles the offender to more lenient treatment, let the House consider where that leads those who hold that doctrine. In no very long time they are driven, if they pursue their policy to its logical conclusion, to palliating assassination; in no long time they will find political assassination is palliated. I have heard criticisms here about Russia, and they have generally proceeded from people who have had no experience of Russia except that which is derived from sensational novels and the records of the travels of people, who cannot speak a word of the language, and who are perfectly incapable of learning anything about the country through which they have travelled. I have travelled all over parts of that country, and I am a Russian interpreter, and I believe it is a fatal policy to allow that there is such a thing as a political offence and a political offender, and excuse acts because the perpetrators claim that they are done with a political motive. It is this kind of argument in Russia which leads people who appear otherwise to be everything that is estimable, to become implicated in no long time in ramifications and conspiracies, the avowed object of which is political assassination. I know we have not reached that stage in this country, but once you get upon this slippery slope, no man knows where he will stop, and I hope I shall hear from the Attorney-General some plain and absolute repudiation of the idea that there is any such thing recognised by the law of this country as a political offence or a political offender. I see to-day in the "Times" that the Home Secretary received a deputation from the National Political Reform League on the subject of the prison treatment of political offenders, and that "in the course of a sympathetic reply"—I protest against any sympathy being shown by the right hon.
  2006
  Gentleman for political offenders. I protest with all the force of which I am capable against it, and I say it is not a proper attitude on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. He will find himself hard set to get up and defend it in view of the considerations I have placed before the House:—
  "In the course of a sympathetic reply, he assured the deputation that full use would he made of the regulations introduced by Mr. Churchill for the treatment of prisoners convicted of offences in which no moral stigma was involved."
  His predecessor, now the First Lord of the Admiralty, when I pressed him upon this subject, said there must be some distinction in offences which involved "no-moral turpitude." There is just this difference between the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): What is the hon. Member quoting?
  Sir J. D. REES: I am quoting from a report in the "Times." I say his predecessor, when I pressed him on this subject, used the words "moral turpitude." It is a difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They both, in face of these ladies, or whoever was pressing them, maintain that there must be a distinction in offences which involve "no moral stigma" in the one case or "moral turpitude" in the other. I call that dangerous.
  Mr. McKENNA: I assure the hon. Member I never said that.
  Sir J. D. REES: Is this an inaccurate report? It is from the "Times," which is generally accurate. I am very glad, however, to accept the right hon. Gentleman's denial, and I shall be very glad if, when he rises, he says that offences such as these, or such as are described as political offences generally do have attached to them "moral stigma" in his words, or "moral turpitude" in the words of the First Lord of the Admiralty. When anybody deliberately breaks the law of this country, that is an occasion on which moral blame or turpitude must attach to them, and to say you offend for a particular object makes no difference whatever. The fact that a person of education with no pressure of circumstance offends deliberately and in cold blood makes the moral stigma or turpitude greater than that which attaches to ordinary offenders, who are dealt with in large numbers by our criminal Courts from day to day. I think

  2007
  it is due to society and to the general law-abiding population who do not sympathise with these deputations, and do not want a sympathetic attitude towards what are called, wrongly and improperly, "political offences," that the right hon. Gentleman should not use the expression "political offenders," that he and the Attorney-General should disclaim it and make it perfectly clear to all and sundry that the law of England does not recognise any such thing as a political offence or a political offender.

  PROSECUTION OF MR. TOM MANN.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I rise to take the opportunity afforded by the Motion for Adjournment, to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a subject which has been introduced, although I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman opposite in what he has said. The hon. Gentleman is in search of truth no doubt, but I would suggest that there is no such thing as a political crime so far as the administration is concerned. I prefer to use an expression which is strictly accurate. There have been certain disquieting circumstances which have recently arisen. We have been passing through a time which has been commonly described as one of "labour unrest." It has also been a time of mental and intellectual unrest, and these things, have resulted in this peculiar phenomenon of political crime. I think the distinction that ought to have been drawn, but which has not always been drawn between this crime and any other, is that the event which is illegal has been caused by circumstances affecting society, and there has been no criminal intent and no moral turpitude. This has not been caused by any anti-Socialistic influence or intention, and the only justification that the State can put forward for prosecutions under these circumstances is this, that those who hold these opinions must be taught that society cannot tolerate a propaganda which may result in deeds. The law has to be vindicated, and when it has been vindicated, then all that is necessary, under the circumstances, is that the sentence passed by the judges has vindicated the law, and the law has been vindicated by the mere passing of the sentences. If prosecutions are to be effective they can be effective only so far as they prevent obnoxious opinions being advertised, and so far as they ensure that these
  2008
  opinions, instead of being actually strengthened, should be suppressed. Let us assume, for instance, that Syndicalism is a dangerous doctrine—I am only assuming it—and let us assume that the Law Officers of the Crown are quite convinced that that is the case.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs): Convinced of what?
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I am assuming that the Law Officers come to the conclusion that the doctrines of Syndicalism are dangerous to civil order, and ought to be made the subject of prosecution. If by prosecuting they suddenly raise an insignificant propaganda that nobody took the least trouble about, that nobody concerned themselves about, and nobody cared about, to a position of national importance, then they are really committing suicide, and instead of protecting civil order they are actually menacing civil order. I think that is a proposition my right hon. and learned Friend will not dispute for a single moment. What have they done? They have prosecuted five persons in three batches, two individually and three together. I admit that they have not prosecuted them because they were Syndicalists. I admit that the justification, so far as I understand it, that they put forward is that they committed certain definite acts, namely, gave certain specific advice to certain specific people who had special duties to perform, namely, soldiers, and that by giving that advice they committed an illegal and unlawful act for which they should be prosecuted. But the general effect of all that has been this: the whole of their general propaganda has been magnified, and there is not a single leaflet of the "Don't Shoot" class that has been withheld because of the prosecutions, there is not a single speech of the "Don't Shoot" class that has been unsaid because of the prosecutions. As a matter of fact, the prosecutions have brought out a flood of these leaflets that otherwise would never have seen the light of day, or appeared in printing presses, and they have given notoriety, prominence and importance to propaganda which otherwise would have remained obscure and of no consequence whatever. I think that is a great pity. I think they ought to have considered expediency as well as mere red-tape justice and legality before they took that action.

  2009
  Let me specify one case, which is in many respects the most important of them all: I mean the case of Mr. Tom Mann. Mr. Tom Mann never advised soldiers, as such, not to shoot; he never went to soldiers and said, "Don't shoot"; he never specifically addressed soldiers and said, "Don't shoot." He simply expressed, in a somewhat dramatic form, his opinion that soldiers asked to shoot during the time of trade disputes, or disorder arising out of trade disputes, should not shoot at all. He expressed a general opinion. He said that if soldiers were called out he would advise that they should not shoot. When he was put on trial he defended himself on the ground that when soldiers were called out under these circumstances they ought to act as ordinary citizens, and that all the operations of the law, such as coroners' inquests, and so forth, proved conclusively to his mind—this was his defence—that the soldier when shooting as a citizen under the command of his superior officer was still a citizen, and occupied precisely the position that he himself or I myself would occupy if he also shot or I also shot because somebody with a red coat and with a badge upon his coat asked him or me to shoot. That was the defence. Then the judge said, "If one went to a soldier or sailor and said you must not fire when the commanding officer orders you, that would be unlawful, because it would not be an expression of opinion." I agree. But that was not what Tom Mann did at all. The statement made by the judge of what was unlawful was not a statement of the fact so far as Tom Mann was concerned. Tom Mann expressed opinions. The judge sentenced him on the assumption that he had done a certain act which he never did at all. I think, under the circumstances, the Home Secretary ought not only to have reduced the sentence, which he did, but to have removed it altogether.
  Then the next question arises, seeing that he has not let Mr. Mann out altogether, about Mr. Mann's treatment. Surely, if there was any justification for putting a condemned man in the first division that justification exists now. No one can say it was really morally a criminal act. It was purely an expression of opinion, an opinion which is expressed every day of the week in our Christian Churches, that men should not kill each other. It is an opinion that is held specifically by a very considerable section of the community—the Quakers. It is held
  2010
  also by another, not perhaps quite so important and influential a section, but nevertheless equally sincere and law-abiding, those who follow the doctrines of Count Tolstoi. These people are bound to express themselves in this way, and because Tom Mann, under special circumstances and at a time of special unrest, expressed these opinions in a dramatic way he is condemned. Then surely, if the whole of the sentence cannot be wiped out, my right hon. Friend will see reason to revise the decision and put him in the first class. All that is necessary surely is detention and no further punishment. If he does not he really must excuse us, for a great many believe it—I do not want to believe those things; I strive not to believe them—if we are bound to come to the conclusion that when a man belongs to certain sections of the community he gets treatment far more severe than when he belongs to other sections of the community. Take the Dr. Jameson ease. I have been refreshing my memory of that after what my right hon. Friend said yesterday. It was a case in point. It is a very clear case. The judge, in the speech he delivered before pronouncing sentence, points out that the accused persons were officers in the service of the Queen—that was one very important circumstance—with the exception of Dr. Jameson himself, who at the time of the Jameson raid, held an exceedingly important administrative office under the Crown. That is point number one. Tom Mann is a private citizen, and the difference tells against the officer of the Crown. Then the judge points out that the action of these men resulted in loss of life—in loss of property, but specially in loss of life. That did not happen at all in this particular case.
  Then he points out that it led to a serious disturbance of the peace and the destruction of mutual good will and sympathy between two people who at the time were in a somewhat dangerous mental condition regarding each other. Then he passed his sentence, and the sentences were all without hard labour. Then the description in the "Times" goes on to say that when the sentences were passed the friends of these gentlemen greeted them with hearty handshakes and other expressions of emotion. I wonder what the expressions of emotion would be by the very same people if they were allowed to express them in the Tom Mann case. In the case of the Raid the sentences were for periods of imprison

  2011
  ment without hard labour. In a very short time they were modified, and the prisoners were made first-class misdemeanants. In Dr. Jameson's case it is perfectly true that his health broke down, and that he had to undergo an operation while still in prison. He was released while trying to get better from the operation. But that is not true of the others. It is a perfectly well-known fact—and nobody, I think, can honestly deny it—that the social influence brought to bear on the Government of that time was so enormous that they could not stand against it. The men who did all these things, and wrote one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of this country were condemned to very short sentences comparatively, fifteen months being the extreme one, and then almost in the twinkling of an eye, and upon excuses which is these days do not bear examination, they were transferred to the first division, and got a very good time during the remainder of their sentences. We cannot resist the impression, however much we may try to do it, that a working man does not get the same treatment as a man who belongs to another grade of society, and who can get influence brought to bear in his favour which a working man cannot. I want to be quite fair. I do not wish to make any unjust accusation against my right hon. Friend. We are all biassed in these matters. We have all our class prejudices—I have got mine—but there is not the least doubt that these do unconsciously influence our point of view; but in a place like this where the various forms of bias and the various prejudices are brought to bear on each other, we are able to see how they clash. That is why I brought this matter up this afternoon. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to say whether he can reconsider the decision which he announced two days ago, and put Mr. Mann while in prison into the first class.
  There is another reflection that comes into our minds in regard to the administration of justice and the arrangement of prosecutions during the last two or three months. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) is going to raise a matter concerning a right hon. Gentleman opposite and his friends. [An HON. MEMBER: "The right hon. Gentleman is ill."] I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is ill, and that the matter is not going to be raised. I am sorry I mentioned it so far.
  2012
  I had no knowledge of that, otherwise I would not have mentioned it. I understand that at Question Time the case of Malatesta was raised. I hope my right hon. Friend will not give any definite decision, especially if it is an adverse one, on this case until he has had full time to consider the whole of the facts. I happened to know Malatesta. I also understand this is going to be the subject of appeal, and, therefore, I must say nothing improper in the circumstances. But in common with everybody interested in the case, I read the statement made by the gentleman who attended from Scotland Yard, and I will say no more than this, that if that statement is true, I am the most deceived man in the whole world. What is more, if my right hon. Friend will just take the trouble to go through the writings of this man he will see that if writing means anything at all, and if a man can express his opinions and prejudices in his books and pamphlets, Malatesta himself is the most extraordinarily self-deceived man in the whole world. As a matter of fact, Malatesta was once shot at by the very school of Anarchists with which he is now being mixed up.
  The whole of the man's life in this country has been the life of a citizen. Brought up under oppressive conditions in a foreign State and having been driven by those oppressive conditions while living in that State to certain acts which I dare say even the hon. Gentleman opposite might occasionally have been driven to if he lived under those conditions, yet no sooner—and this is the magnificent splendour of the right of asylum which we have in this country—does this man come to this country, something like twelve years ago, than he settles down in the mildest possible way and expresses opinions opposed to the anti-Socialist Anarchism, which is the revolutionary wild Anarchism, and fights it far more actively than the hon. Gentleman opposite and with greater knowledge and with greater mental capacity; and when there are such things as the Hounsditch crime he dissociates himself from them and constantly in newspapers, pamphlets and larger books he points out to the Italian Anarchist who comes here as a political refugee, that these men are not Anarchists at all, but merely individualists like hon. Gentlemen opposite who have not carried that individualism to the logical extreme of urging robbery, and because he has done this he gets the wrath of the whole of that crowd of blackguards upon his

  2013
  head and then because he libels a man we have all been libelled, and the deliberate libel of an Englishman is much more serious than the passionate libel of an Italian—because he libels a man, which is not a crime at all and no offence against the person, but because he says a certain gentleman who has been settled here for some years is suspected, though probably he may be altogether wrong and the man may be the most honest man on the face of the earth, yet the trouble is deep seated, and because he issues a leaflet, which is a libel against this man, a judge actually suggests that he has become an undesirable person and should be deported. I hope that my right hon. Friend before he makes up his mind will go very carefully into this case, because I fed perfectly certain that when the full facts are before him, he will agree that deportation is not at all in accordance, either with the crime of the man or the offence that was committed.
  The final case to which I wish to refer is in reference to the Poles. This power of deportation is undoubtedly going to be oppressively used. I hope that my right hon. Friend will think very carefully before he allows himself to be used as the tool of persons who want to use this act oppressively. These were men who had come over to this country, and we are not going to raise the question whether they ought to have come or not. They work in the Lanarkshire mines, and they won the friendship of the Scotch and Irish workers. But trade disputes came along, and we have to recollect that these men are of a different race and more excitable than the Scotch miners. On a Saturday evening they occasionally broke out, but there was not a single serious charge ever brought up against them. There have been instances where the knife has been used in such circumstances, but not one of these men were ever accused of that. Nobody ever suggested that they should be deported until the recent miners' dispute. When that dispute arose there was a lot of ill-feeling, a loss of temper, and some trouble, and these Poles, being perhaps a little bit more inflammable than the Scotch miners, went a little bit further, and were far more readily inflamed than were their fellow-workers. They were sentenced, and then the sheriff asked that they should be deported. That is very unfair, and there is not the least doubt that these men could have got drunk on Saturday night and
  2014
  assaulted their wives and neighbours as often as they liked and there would have been no question of deportation.
  But the moment a trade dispute arose, then came the suggestion for deportation. I am sorry my right hon. Friend agreed that some of them should go. I am very delighted that he has refused to send others. I hope he will not, in the case of the man who is a deserter from the Russian army, send him away. He does not deserve it. He is an excellent citizen and an excellent workman, and he has got the friendship and esteem of all his neighbours. I do beg my right hon. Friend in that case not to carry out the suggestion made by the magistrate who tried it. It is certain death to the man if he is sent back, and I am sure, if asylum means anything at all, if it is to help this man in any way, as it has always done, my right hon. Friend will not agree to the deportation of the man. I appeal to the good old Liberalism in the treatment of political crimes. In this matter rapid action is not always wise, and legal action is not always wise. We have got to use our good, broad, and far-seeing understanding and common sense, and we have got to remember that very often by prosecuting we make popular that which we wish to make unpopular. That is really why I have troubled the House at this time. I hope my right hon. Friend, in any further action he may take, will not allow himself to be pushed by mere clamour, or be led by hon. Members who do not appear to know that there is such a thing as political crime. I hope he will continue the old traditions of Liberal administration and Liberal law, because on these depend, after all, security, civil order, peace, and good citizenship.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I propose first to deal with the questions raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham as to what are the political offences, and, to some extent, they involve the questions raised by my hon. Friend in a speech which, if he will allow me to say so, breathed the true spirit of Liberalism. First, we must understand quite clearly that, generally speaking, there is no such thing known in British law as a political crime. I do not mean for a moment to say because that is so that the political nature of an offence should not be, and is not, taken into account, but it is necessary to keep quite clearly in mind that those are two distinct and separate considerations. An offence is committed whatever the motive, and

  2015
  the intention to commit the act, if it is a criminal act, makes the offence complete. Whether the motive was a political one or not is immaterial in determining whether or not a crime has been committed. I do not think that either any lawyer or any layman will dispute those propositions with safety. When we enter into the consideration whether or not the political nature of a crime, by which I mean the motive which has actuated the crime, is to be taken into account, then I think we enter at once into another domain. According to my experience in the administration of the law in this country, such considerations are taken into account, and properly taken into account. The hon. Gentleman seems to be surprised, but it is almost a frequent occurrence. I hesitate to use too strong a term, because we do not have very many or too many of this class of offence, or of these considerations which may affect this class of offence. But, as I understand the administration of our law, it is this, that once a crime has been committed then the motive which actuated the perpetrator of the crime is taken into consideration by the judge in passing sentence.
  Sir J. D. REES: What I want to know is where does the right hon. Gentleman draw the line. Was the motive for the cruel assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie what could be called political?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I doubt very much whether that could be said to be political, but whether it was or was not does not affect my proposition. The judge who has to sentence a prisoner takes into account invariably all the circumstances which are proper for him to consider before he passes sentence upon a prisoner. One of the considerations which must affect the judge is whether or not the man has been actuated by what I may call pure, though misguided motives it may have been. You do not excuse crime because a man commits it from a pure motive, but you do draw a distinction between the punishment to be meted out to the person who commits a crime from some personal or selfish motive and the person who does so from some pure motive, and possibly even high and lofty.
  Sir J. D. REES: Assassination.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I am not dealing with the case of assassination. That does not enter into the consideration of the
  2016
  general proposition. In the case of assassination, as I conceive, very different considerations may apply when you come to consider motive. I am dealing now with the broad question of what should be considered. I do not want to go unnecessarily into the question, but we have only to look at the annals of crime in this country and it will be seen again and again that the motive actuating the perpetrator of the crime when it has been pure and unselfish has been considered by the judge inasmuch as he passes a less sentence than if the crime had been committed for gain or greed or from mere selfish motives or from anything which could be classified as a wrong, improper, or impure motive. To my mind that really is the answer, broadly speaking, to all the questions that can be raised on the proposition put forward by the hon. Gentleman and dealt with to some extent by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester.
  Sir J. D. REES: Are the considerations which the Attorney-General has described as being proper for the judge or the Court to take into account such as the Home Secretary should take: into account when he is pressed for political reasons to allow lenience for what is urged to be political crime?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I was about to deal with that. Once the Court has pronounced its sentence and has taken the motives into account—I speak with diffidence in the presence if my right hon. Friend who can answer for himself—I should have thought that my right hon. Friend would have said that he would consider the case as he considers every case put before him, and determine whether or not it is a proper case for the recommendation of mercy. He also takes into account circumstances which are brought before him, sometimes outside, sometimes inside this House, which have not been present to the mind of the judge. In any event, he has to exercise his own judgment on the matter in view of the circumstances laid before him. My hon. Friend raised another question, namely, the sentence on Mr. Tom Mann, and incidentally the prosecution. That is to say, he thought that this might be one of those cases—I am not sure whether he thought it was—in which a prosecution did more harm than good. As to that, I would say in the first instance I dissent entirely from the view of the offence which he has put forward. He put forward what would be an excellent

  2017
  defence if it was a true statement of the case, and on which the accused would be acquitted. If it is true that he only stated an opinion and nothing more, I do not think that would be enough to bring him within the Statute. If that was the true view—and it was the question discussed and relied on, and put by the judge in the fairest possible way, as all who have read the summing up to the jury will agree—the jury would in accordance with the directions of the judge have acquitted him. Let me put as clearly as I can the difference between the two cases. In one case it is the mere expression of opinion. Suppose, for example, my hon. Friend or any one else, in this House or outside, expressed the opinion that soldiers ought not to be brought into operation in the case of riots or of trade disputes. Nobody would say that he should be prosecuted for that. Certainly I should not. That is an expression of opinion which every man is entitled to utter, and for which no one would ever dream of prosecuting him. But when it is not an expression of opinion, when it takes the form of a writing which is published, which remains not only for the actual person to take up and read, but to be circulated amongst soldiers or other persons, then it becomes an expression which is followed by an act intended by the person who perpetrates the act to have a certain consequence. That really is the difference. Let me put it again in another form. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that this "Don't Shoot" letter was not intended, if it fell into the hands of a soldier, to induce that soldier not to fire when called upon by his officer to shoot? That really is the whole point. You may say that no armies or navies ought to exist. No doubt that would be a very enviable state of things if we could ever reach it. I have no doubt we might—
  Mr. O'GRADY: Why do you not discharge the whole of the chaplains of the Army? They are constantly preaching to the soldiers "Thou shalt do no murder."
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: Because you have chaplains in the Army, it does not follow that they are going to preach that you must not fire upon anybody under any circumstances and any conditions. But an interesting point has been raised by my hon. Friend, and I am only too glad to have the opportunity of dealing with it, because I cannot but think there has been
  2018
  again and again the greatest misconception with regard to it, in spite of the attempts which I have made to explain the matter. What is, perhaps, more important, is that there has been considerable misrepresentation as to the action taken by myself, and for which I have taken responsibility. These misconceptions have been shared by those who are not in a position to judge whether or not the things stated are true, and who have accepted the statements as they are made. The consequence is that there are no doubt a good many persons in this country who have been led to the conclusion that this prosecution was a prosecution against Mr. Tom Mann, not for what he had done in this respect, but for opinions which he held. I defy any hon. Member in this House to get up and state that that is his view. Again and again it has been explained.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman has just admitted that Mr. Tom Mann was locked up because he expressed those opinions in writing?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACSdissented.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Well, I understood you to say that it became an act when it became printed matter?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I am sorry if my hon. Friend has not clearly understood what I said, but there is a difference between one's opinion and the expression of that opinion, and publishing something which is intended to have a particular effect. I put the test which is to my mind a real test in this matter. If I were a juryman and had to decide upon the matter I should take this view: That letter is brought to a soldier and the soldier reads it; is it the intention of the person who publishes that letter that the soldier who reads it shall refuse to obey the order to shoot, if called upon to do so, in the case of riot or trade dispute; that is the real point?
  Mr. LANSBURY: That is his opinion.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: It is useless to say that. It is an expression of feeling which is intended to have certain consequences. It is the intention which creates the act. It is that act which makes it criminal. You may argue about it as often as you like, but you will never get away from the fact that that is the real

  2019
  test of the question. An hon. Member says to me: Mr. Tom Mann never actually did publish this letter to a soldier. I do not know whether he did or not. What he did do was to publish it with the intention that it should reach the soldier, and if he did not do it, then he ought to have been acquitted. I quite understand how it did have the consequence which was intended. The House may have forgotten one incident in connection with this prosecution which I have already discussed at some length. What was the first thing that led to action being taken upon my part in this matter? It was that the letter was being taken up by a person and circulated at the Barracks at Aldershot to the very persons who were, of course, intended to be affected by it. This is the consequence which the act must have, and every man is presumed to intend the reasonable consequence of his act, and I have no doubt that a very intelligent person like Tom Mann, when he published that, knew that in some form or other it would reach the soldiers and was intended to be operative in their minds in connection with this dispute. That is the whole question. My hon. Friend assumed that I or someone in the Government was opposed to Syndicalist opinion. For fear of misconception, I repeat what I am sure no one in the House will contradict, that no question of Syndicalist opinion entered into this matter from beginning to end. It was the merest chance, I think, perhaps, an unfortunate chance, that this open letter in the form in which it was published, happened to be brought before us in the paper called "The Syndicalist," of which I never heard or knew anything before, and my view is that from the moment you get as far as that and had this letter circulated amongst the soldiers whom it was intended to reach, it became necessary to take some action to stop it, and to see that those who choose to perpetrate this offence were rendering themselves liable to very serious penalties, and were, moreover, subjecting the soldier, if he was influenced by this letter and did follow the expression of advice and the incitement held out to him in the letter, subject to the severest penalty of military discipline.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: May I point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the question to which I want an answer was this. Supposing I issued a statement of my own opinion that
  2020
  if a soldier is called out during a time of a trade dispute, he ought not to shoot, and that somebody else, without consultation with me, without being my agent in any way, takes that opinion and circulates it at Aldershot, is it the view of the Attorney-General that I am responsible for that and ought to be prosecuted?
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I have never said any such thing. But I will put another question to the hon. Member, or rather I will make a statement to him which will give perhaps the one addition that is necessary to make it an offence. He has left out an important thing, and it is that when he writes this opinion and publishes it, he intended it to reach the soldiers and intends to induce the soldiers not to shoot. Once you have got that intention I think he does commit an offence, and it is no good saying it is merely put forward as an expression of opinion if you have that intention present as part of the Act. That was the whole question in the hands of the Jury. They had got to determine what was the intention when the publication was made. That was the question put by the learned judge in the clearest possible terms, and it was very carefully considered by the jury and answered by them, and, I venture to think, answered in the only possible way in the circumstances. If anybody put the question to himself he could only give the same answer.
  I pass from that question to one other aspect of this matter of political offences raised in this Debate. It was said that persons who commit offences of this kind ought to be treated in a different category from the ordinary prisoners. I wish to point out in the first place that that is exactly what the judge has done in this case. The judge took into account what Mr. Mann had done, and his motive, and sentenced him to what was not a severe punishment in comparison with the sentence which could have been imposed under the Act. Having done that, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary afterwards reduced the sentence because the intention with which the prosecution had been started was simply to show what the law was, in order to stop so far as he could a recurrence of this offence, and to show if people committed such acts again they would do so with the knowledge of the penalties they would incur. The question which has now been raised is whether the sentence imposed should be still further reduced. Let me point out one most

  2021
  important consideration. I can quite understand why a judge who tries a case of this character, and who is going to sentence a prisoner, takes into account, and properly takes into account, whether or not it is the intention of the prisoner found guilty to repeat the offence.
  If a statement is made by the prisoner regretting that he has perpetrated this offence, or that he has committed it in ignorance of the law, and says that he does not intend to repeat it, then there would be no difficulty with the judge, or with my right hon. Friend in making a very material alteration in the sentence; but unless you have some reasonable ground for thinking that the offence will not be repeated, it is impossible to treat it as a matter to be dealt with nominally, and until some such course as that has taken place, the reduction of the sentence is the utmost that can be expected in the present circumstances. Some of the other questions which have been raised in this Debate I do not propose to deal with because they come much more within the sphere of the administration of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I will content myself with saying that, so far as I know, and so far as I understand the administration of the criminal law, we have never, except in considering questions of political offences in extradition treaties, attempted to define what is the meaning of a political offence. Hon. Members are aware that in our extradition treaties there are exceptions with regard to political offences, and some definitions have been laid down, which I need not quote now, because they are well known to those who take an interest in this subject. As we know, they are very difficult of application In this country, and the only pronouncement of the law on this subject you get in this country is a pronouncement as to whether a particular offence committed under particular circumstances comes within the treaty which exempts a person charged with a political offence. That is all the law says on this point.

  SUFFRAGIST PBOSECUTIONS (SENTENCES).
  6.0 P.M.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I desire to call the attention of the House to the sentences which have been announced this afternoon in the Central Criminal Court upon three suffragist prisoners, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Mrs. Pankhurst, who were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment in the second division, and to
  2022
  pay the costs of the trial. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] It is worse to rejoice in women being sentenced to prison for doing these things than the doing of them, because it does not require the same amount of courage. My ancestors went to the scaffold for this same offence, and I am proud of it. I would remind the House that the accused in this case were on trial not for themselves committing these acts, but for advising others to do so. It is just as well to keep that fact in mind. Further, the jury, in finding them guilty, recommended them to the consideration of the Court because of their high moral character and the purity of the motives which actuated them in the action they had taken. The judge, in pronouncing sentence, gave two reasons why he could not comply with the request of the accused persons that they should be treated as first-class misdemeanants. The first reason was that they gave no promise not to commit the offence in future. They refused to give any such promise, and he said they were therefore not entitled to consideration on that score. The second reason was that if they were put in prison as first-class misdemeanants they would be able to carry on their campaign from within the prison, and that, of course, could not be tolerated. As a matter of fact, I think his Lordship was mistaken and under a misapprehension when he made that statement. If they had been committed as first-class misdemeanants, any communications which they sent outside would have been subject to examination by the prison authorities, and they would have stopped any material for carrying on the propaganda from being passed out. I hope, therefore, the Home Secretary will not allow that consideration to weigh with him. There has been a point raised whether a political offence is known to the law, and it was dealt with by the Attorney-General in the speech he has just made. The hon. Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Bees) said there is no such offence known to the law of England, and I rather think the Attorney-General accepted that point of view.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: Although I am not sure whether it is dealt with as a political offence, there is certainly a provision which says that a person convicted of seditious libel shall be dealt with as a first-class misdemeanant.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: There is a provision which expressly lays it down that a person convicted of sedition is a first-class

  2023
  misdemeanant. The other evidence is contained in the latest Extradition Act, and it was referred to by the Attorney-General. It is laid down that a fugitive criminal shall not be surrendered in respect of crime of a political character, and the Court has to construe what is meant by an offence of a "political character." Surely if a judge is capable of deciding what constitutes a political offence in the case of an alien he is equally capable with regard to British subjects. The House has drawn a broad distinction between the political offender and the ordinary criminal, a distinction between the altruistic offender and the sordid and selfish motive of the ordinary criminal. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir J. D. Bees), when sitting on this side, held the same opinion, because on 20th July in this House he raised a question with regard to the suffragettes, and the present First Lord of the Admiralty, who was then Home Secretary, drew a very clear line of demarcation between the political offender and the ordinary criminal. He said:—
  "My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire has spoken about political prisoners. He has said there is no such thing as a political prisoner known in law. I have never attempted to trespass on that difficult ground, but I will point out that there are prisoners who are committed to prison for offences which do not involve any moral turpitude. I think that will be the general opinion of the House. I am very glad the House has assented to the new prison rule which I placed on the Table some time ago. That rule enables the Home Secretary, in virtue of the various Acts which he has to administer, to relieve certain prisoners not guilty of any acts involving moral turpitude. I propose to relieve them of the necessity of wearing prison clothing, of being specially searched, and of being compelled to take the regulation pri-on bath. I also propose to enable the offenders in the first division to be permitted, under certain circumstances, to obtain food from outside, to exercise freely both in the morning and in the afternoon, to converse with other prisoners when taking exercise, and to have at their own expense such books, not dealing with current events, and such literature as are in accordance with the public interests.
  "Sir J. D. Rees: May I venture to ask my right hon. Friend if there is no moral turpitude involved in deliberately breaking the law?
  "Mr. Churchill: By my moral turpitude I mean offences involving dishonesty, indecency, gross violations of morality, or cruelty. I am not now talking of those other offences which are undoubtedly reprehensible, but do not go so far as that. I have given instructions that all persons committed to prison for passive resistance and all persons committed to prison as suffragettes are, as a matter of course, in the absence of special circumstances, to be accorded the full benefit of the new rules, and any other cases to which it will be possible to apply those rules."
  There we have two classes of offenders deliberately mentioned to whom relief is to be accorded because they are political offenders. I ask that the present Home Secretary will at once take into his consideration the question of having the three
  2024
  accused persons, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Mrs. Pankhurst, transferred immediately from the second division to the first division. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and the others made an appeal on that head to-day. The Attorney-General will admit it to be a powerful and logical appeal. She quoted two instances of men highly placed in society, whose names I will not mention because I do not want to give annoyance to their families, who were convicted of serious indecencies against young women and sentenced to imprisonment in the first division. If the first division was good enough in the two cases I have referred to, and in many other cases that might be mentioned, it ought to be accorded to the three persons who were sentenced to-day; persons of high character, persons of good education, persons who, whatever we may say about their acts, everyone, including the Home Secretary himself, will admit are actuated by the highest motives in what they have done and are doing. I ask definitely that the new rule, as it is called, of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor shall, whilst he is considering his decision on the point of making them first-class misdemeanants, immediately be made to apply in the case of these three persons, and that he will take into serious consideration the remission of the sentences, and especially that part of the sentence making the accused persons, responsible for all the costs.
  May I point out the difference between men and women when being tried for practically similar offences. Mr. Tom Mann gets six months' imprisonment for calling upon soldiers to disobey their officers, to disobey the oath they have taken, and to endanger the peace and property of the realm. Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, for advising their colleagues to break windows, get nine months' imprisonment, and, in addition, have to pay the costs of the trial. How can the two sentences be justified? Either Mr. Tom Mann got too little or these others got too much. We are entitled to ask that the sentences should be drastically revised by the Home Secretary. My third point is that he shall at once consider the question of transferring these persons from the. second division, to which they have been sent, to that of first-class misdemeanants, as has been done so often in the past in the cases of the Trish Members opposite, the Chartist leaders, and other political offenders, so

  2025
  that it may not be said that modern administration under a Liberal Government is more harsh than it has been in the past, while the offence committed is practically identical.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I want to explain that it is not our fault that we have not raised the question of Ulster. We gave notice of it, but we understand that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) is not well. I should like to make the point clear that I tried to make in interrupting the Attorney-General. I agree entirely with the "Don't shoot" advice. If I or anyone else makes a speech and someone takes it down and prints it and distributes it to soldiers, am I therefore not as guilty as Tom Mann was, who apparently had something to do with printing the "Syndicalist"? I am not a lawyer, but it strikes me that one thing is as bad as the other, and that advice, whether it is given verbally or written, comes to exactly the same thing. I do not understand the difference between saying a thing and writing it. It is equally culpable, and if it is bad in the one case it is bad in the other.
  With regard to political prisoners generally, and to women in particular, I should like to tell the hon. Member (Sir J. D. Rees) that it is very doubtful if this Assembly would be here if people had not broken the law in the past. On a memorable occasion a man named Cromwell marched up to this place, or the building that preceded it, and broke the law, and the whole of English liberties have been won by people who have broken the law. I am quite aware that in a country like India we do not allow them to break the law. We send Gentlemen like the hon. Member to keep them in order, and I can quite understand now why there is sedition. If the sort of spirit that he expressed this afternoon in reference to Malatesta is the kind of spirit that sent him on his duties when he was in India, I can quite understand the Hindus and Mahomedans, who are becoming educated, being in revolt against such government. I have no doubt he would very much like to be taking in hand the people in this country in the same fashion. It is perfectly certain that that kind of policy is really played out so far as this country is concerned. I should have thought the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary would long ago have learnt that the policy of coercion in any kind of way only helps the movement that you are attempting to put down. I was
  2026
  amazed the other afternoon to hear the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) eulogise the Nationalist Members in this House in the fashion that he did. It only shows that men have only to sit tight enough and be persistent enough, and in the end they get their way whatever they do. I am speaking what every intelligent man here can, if he pleases, put to the test by reading up the Debates and the sort of discussion that went on as to the position in the political sphere of the Nationalist Members during the last twenty-five years.
  With regard to the suffragist prisoners, most of them have done nearly half and some a little more than half the time they were sentenced for. In the main they are drawn from every rank of society. There are working women; there are women who get their living by teaching of various kinds; there are nurses, and there are women who have no occupation except social work, which they undertake from a love of it. There is the sister of one of the richest shipowners in the land in gaol at this moment. No one will want to argue that these women have undertaken this imprisonment, and the torture of forcible feeding merely for the fun of the thing or merely to get notoriety. I hear that many of them are in prison under assumed names simply because they do not want to get notoriety. I wonder whether any hon. Member now present has ever suffered one minute for any cause in the world. Has any one of us, for any principle we happen to believe in, endured a moment's suffering? I speak quite honestly, and say I have not. I am very doubtful if anyone here has. There is not a Nationalist Member present, otherwise it would not be safe to make that statement, for many of them have gone to prison and suffered all sorts of indignities. Why did women go to prison and suffer forcible feeding? It was because they wanted to emphasise their right to be treated not as common prisoners. I know that what will be said is, "Some punishment must be meted out to them; we must put down law-breaking, or the whole fabric of society will break up." If we admit that, you can treat them in prison with some amount of dignity, so as to enable them to maintain their own self-respect. They cannot do that if you treat them as common felons, and they have gone in for forcible feeding as a protest against being put into the second division. I was present at the trial, and heard the

  2027
  speeches of Mrs. Pankhurst and Mr. Lawrence. I believe that if these speeches had been made at the Bar of this House, there is hardly a man here who would refuse to put these prisoners in the first division. We might say that punishment of some kind is needed; but we would be bound to say, in view of the cases that were cited, that women are not tried by their own sex at all. They are tried from our point of view, and this woman made her appeal from the point of view of a woman. I ask whether, if it was right to put certain men, because of their position, in the first division when they had committed crimes against womanhood, you should treat women in the way they are being treated. Highly placed men have certainly been guilty of more violence than the hundreds of women were guilty of in the latest raid; and if they were put in the first division is it not reasonable that these women should ask to be put on the same status?
  I do not ask the Home Secretary or the Attorney-General to settle the matter this afternoon. I ask them to give due weight to the verdict of the jury—a verdict which was only given because they felt that they were obliged to bring in a verdict of guilty on the evidence. I am sure they meant their recommendation for lenient treatment, and they hoped it would be acted upon. I join in the appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to consider this matter. The judge, in passing sentence, stood out for one thing, and that was that the prisoners had expressed no contrition and had not promised not to do it again. They could not promise not to do it again. Irishmen went to prison over and over again, though they could have been released many a time if they had promised not to do it again. If a man commits a theft, and you say to him, "Will you turn over a new leaf and promise to do better," he can answer by promising. You may put these people in gaol, but they are bound when they come out to claim what they believe to be their rights. Despite the sneers of the hon. Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees) this country has been the home of political refugees. I am proud to think that my country shelters Kropotkin, and I am proud to think that it sheltered Mazzini. One of the reasons why I am proud to be an Englishman is that England is the asylum of oppressed people. I hope while I live that it will remain that, and that in the treatment of our own prisoners we will
  2028
  have regard to the principle that if people are fighting for a thing which they believe to be right, and are getting nothing out of it, and if we feel bound to deal with them we will deal with them in the most lenient manner possible.
  Mr. McKENNA: My right ton. Friend the Attorney-General has dealt fully with the issues, and there remains to me such questions as those relating to the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. The responsibility for advising upon that subject rests with the Home Secretary, and I do not for one moment flinch from taking full responsibility for such advice, either as I have given recently or shall feel it my duty to give in future cases. The hon. Member for Merthyr pressed me to give an immediate answer with regard to the advice which I shall tender in relation to a trial which concluded at two or three o'clock this afternoon.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I asked the immediate application of the new rule to these persons, and that the consideration of the sentence should be proceeded with at once.
  Mr. McKENNA: In all cases of this kind I think it my duty to enter on the examination of the circumstances of the case without any delay, and in this case, as in any other, I shall not fail to give the fullest attention to all the circumstances of the trial and the decision of the judge. But to promise to come to a speedy conclusion on the matter would be a promise which I could not venture to make to the House. This subject has been rather dealt with as if it were the duty of the Home Secretary in all cases which are described as political offences invariably to exercise the prerogative of mercy. I confess to having, as all my hon. Friends on this side of the House have, considerable sympathy with the point of view stated so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, that motive must be a strong element in our moral judgment upon the crime, and that motive ought to be taken into account by the judge in passing sentence. I recognise equally that motive ought also to be taken into account by those who have the duty of advising upon the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. On all those points all my predecessors in office on both sides of the House would agree. But when he goes further and wishes to lay down a general rule that the Home Secretary in every case of a political offence should advise the exercise of the

  2029
  prerogative of mercy, then I join issue. If such a general rule is to be made it should be laid down by Parliament and embodied in a Statute. Parliament in certain cases has prescribed the legal punishment in regard to first-class misdemeanants, and if Parliament wishes to define any further category of offence, then it is Parliament that must do it.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I would like to explain that, if the right hon. Gentleman is under the impression that I put in a plea to him for mercy and for a total remission of sentence of detention, I did not mean that. All that I meant was that where there is a political motive the accused should be treated as a first-class misdemeanant.
  Mr. McKENNA: I am dealing with the point whether there should be a general rule in the case of all defendants who are described as being actuated by political motives, and should of necessity be treated as first-class misdemeanants. My reply to that is, if that should be the wish of Parliament, then that rule ought to be embodied in a Statute. So great a change as that ought not to be undertaken by a Minister acting upon his own judgment. Parliament has already passed Statutes defining the particular offence punishable with punishment in the first division. First of all I have to assure the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), that I will give immediate attention to the case of the suffragist prisoners. I can assure him also that I have already felt it my duty to consider the circumstances and to form an opinion as to whether the cases are such as to which could properly be applied to rule 243 (a). My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) I think was perhaps more sympathetic to me in raising the case of Malatesta, when he asked me not to express an opinion on the subject at once, but to take time to consider all the circumstances in connection with the case, and to make up my mind as to whether the recommendation of the Common Serjeant for expulsion should be agreed to. I have not yet been able to go into the whole of the circumstances of the case. If on examination the circumstances prove to be such as those put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, I can assure him that I do not think any Home Secretary would be disposed to exercise his powers under the Aliens Act to expel
  2030
  the prisoner. I would remind him, however, that if the circumstances are not such as he described, and that if there is a case against the prisoner apart from that in which he has been convicted, it would not be proper for me, I conclude, in the exercise of my duty, to override the opinion of the judge who heard the case. It must be remembered that it is a duty laid upon our magistrates and upon our judges, under the Aliens Act, to recommend expulsion in cases in which the evidence goes to show that the prisoner was an undesirable subject, and an undesirable resident for the British islands.
  As a matter of fact as to the powers which exist under the Aliens Act so far from having been over anxious to expel, it is only in one case on the average in five that judges have made any order of expulsion, and after the Home Office calls the attention of magistrates to the existence of the Act it would hardly be consistent with my duty or that of any Home Secretary in face of those facts to override a judge when he is endeavouring to do what he conceives to be his duty on a careful examination of the circumstances of the case. I am unable to give my hon. Friend any other assurance. I should not be desirous to override the action of the judge unless the circumstances proved to be of a kind, I would not say the exact kind, but of a similar kind to those which he related to the House this afternoon. With regard to the expulsion of the Poles I can assure my hon. Friend that when the case came before me to be decided there was no question in my mind as to whether those Poles had or had not been engaged in a labour dispute. The only consideration which occurred to me was whether, on the whole evidence of the case, those men were or were not desirable citizens. I think about ten or twelve of those Poles have altogether been sentenced, and of those I think five have either been expelled or are under orders of expulsion. Some of them have been sentenced previously, at least twice, and in some cases six times. My hon. Friend says that those are mere trivial cases of Saturday-night drunks. The facts as reported to me do not bear out that view. Those men have been reported to me as frequent disturbers of the peace. Under those circumstances, when the Sheriff who heard all the cases and had all the evidence before him, came to the conclusion that he ought to advise expulsion in cases of men who had been previously convicted on several occasions, I did not feel justified in overriding that

  2031
  decision, and as a matter of fact expulsion was recommended in other cases with which I have not agreed. I think I have now dealt with all the matters.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I am not quite sure whether the right hon. Gentleman said that the new rule is to be applied to those persons who were sentenced to-day, and if that is to apply immediately, as I think each predecessor said it should do.
  Mr. McKENNA: I did not make that statement for the very simple reason that I have not yet been able to examine the cases sufficiently to know whether the prison discipline and prison arrangements will permit of all the conditions of the rule being applied to those prisoners. I do not know at this moment, as I have not been able to consult my advisers, even which prison they are going to, and, consequently I cannot make any statement on the point now. I will give my most sympathetic consideration generally, and I shall certainly consider favourably as to the applications under the rule, but I cannot make any definite statement.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Would you say as to prison dress.
  Mr. McKENNA: In no case have any of those prisoners ever been asked to put on prison dress. In no single case has that been so, and it is quite unnecessary to ask whether they are required. The House will be interested to hear the nature of the Court referred to by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade last night in dealing with the strike in connection with the transport workers on the Thames. The right hon. Sir Edward Clarke will constitute the Court of Inquiry. Many hon. Members will remember that he was a very distinguished Member of this House, and I am sure that the mention of his name will meet with universal satisfaction. The terms of the reference will be as follows:—
  "To inquire and report into the facts and circumstances of the present dispute affecting the transport workers in the Port of London and on the Medway."
  Thus, the whole range of the present disturbance is covered, but the Inquiry will relate only to the facts and circumstances of the present disturbance. It will not be a general roving inquiry into the facts and circumstances relating to the industry at large. Sir Edward Clarke, it is expected, will hold a preliminary meeting on Friday
  2032
  next, at eleven o'clock, at the Court of Fishmongers' Hall, so that hon. Members may be satisfied that there will be no delay in conducting the Inquiry.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Will Sir Edward Clarke act alone, or is he to be assisted by anyone in the nature of assessor?
  Mr. McKENNA: As this is purely an Inquiry into facts, and no question of policy will be discussed, it is thought that the Inquiry will probably be best conducted by Sir Edward Clarke alone. There is no occasion really for him to be assisted by assessors.

  TERRITORIAL FORCE (PADDINGTON RIFLES).
  Mr. NIELD: I am driven to intervene in the Debate this afternoon because there has not been present at any time any Minister who could give me an assurance on behalf of the War Office in relation to a matter of urgency which has arisen in regard to the Territorials. I am asked to bring the matter forward in the absence of the two Members for Paddington, as a question of great urgency which is likely to upset the whole of the arrangements of the Territorial Force in that part of London. I am sure the Secretary of State for War will be the last to desire that such a calamity should overtake the movement which he has done so much to foster. I refer to a letter just received by the Paddington Bines from the officer commanding, based on a communication from the Army Council, regretting that he had received an intimation of the disbandment of the Paddington Rifles. I submit that there is nothing in the world to justify this drastic order. The Paddington Rifles have been steadily improving their position. They have been taken in hand by the mayor and the chief tradesmen in the borough of Paddington. Money has been collected. A committee has been formed which has sat every other week for two years doing its best to provide for the popularity of the corps, and the result has been an extraordinary increase of membership, which has brought up the strength since 1909 to almost 100 per cent. Indeed, so keen is the interest now taken in this battalion that fifteen or twenty recruits had to be refused on Monday night last in view of the intimation which had been received. Surely that is a very undesirable result. I hold in my hand a report recently issued by the battalion showing a most promising state of

  2033
  affairs. After referring to the interest which the leading tradesmen, headed by the mayor, have taken in the matter, the report proceeds to show the immense improvement which has been made in the comfort of the men and the very large accession of strength the battalion has received. It goes on to refer to the fact, as being a matter which has been a very great difficulty, that the headquarters of the battalion have been allowed to get into a neglected state. Years ago, the Urban District Council proposed to spend no less a sum than £10,000 in putting these headquarters into proper condition. For some reason or another, unknown to either the officers or others, no money has been spent at all. No doubt that has somewhat to do with the difficulties of the battalion in the past. The armoury is small, dark and damp. The weapons are not properly housed there. Generally speaking outside the drill hall the premises are wholly unsuitable. In face of all these difficulties the committee have collected money and have aroused public interest. They have held concerts and other means of entertainment for the purpose of inducing recruiting. At this present moment, the walls of Paddington are decorated with double crown bills inviting men to join this very regiment in order to go to camp at Swanage, for which all arrangements have been made.
  Surely, in face of this activity, this great interest which has been taken in this particular regiment—which has a history of which Paddington is very proud—it would be the sheerest folly if the War Office should persist in the order disbanding this corps. Once disbanded the men will not be got easily together again. They would not be able to join other battalions, and out of sheer disgust they will go away. I appeal to such Ministers as are responsible this afternoon on behalf of the Government—and I intimated that I proposed to bring this matter forward—and should have been glad if there had been any Minister connected with the War Office present. I hope some one on the Government Benches will in the absence of the Under-Secretary or the Parliamentary Secretary make a strong protest and convey that strong protest to the permanent officials of the War Office, that at any rate the operation of this order shall be suspended for one month to allow some inquiry to be made, and to allow a deputation of citizens headed by the mayor to wait upon the Army Council or the War
  2034
  Office to urge them not to perpetrate so disastrous a blow to the interests of the Territorial Force as may be perpetrated if this order is insisted upon and this corps broken up.

  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND).
  Mr. O'MALLEY: I rise to deal for a few moments—because I am quite aware that hon. Members are anxious now to get away—with a matter which affects a number of poor people in my Constituency in Connemara. I gave notice the other day to raise this question, and I am sorry that the Chief Secretary for Ireland is not here. I understand, however, that he has been urgently called away to attend a meeting of the Congested Districts Board which was held yesterday. I cannot, therefore, complain of his absence. It is in connection with that Board that I wish to speak. I have no intention whatever of making any attack upon the Congested Districts Board. I am well aware that the members composing it are most admirable men, single-minded, able, and most anxious to see that the work they are appointed to do should be efficiently carried out. I am further aware that the permanent officials of the Board, Messrs. Doran and Micks are among the best qualified and hardworking in the kingdom. But my complaint is that this Board with the best intentions in the world, is proceeding so very slowly with the work of purchase in the West of Ireland, and especially in Connemara, that I am afraid, unless the pace is accelerated, the condition of these poor people, bad as it is, will very soon become worse. The old Congested Districts Board, established by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland, did very excellent work on the West Coast of Ireland, especially Connemara. They bought estates, built new houses for the tenants, and I can testify to the fact that these very poor people who were living in a chronic state of poverty are now comparatively comfortable. But that Board had very limited funds, at most only £60,000 or £70,000 a year to work on, but they turned them to admirable account even in Connemara. I recognise they helped the fishing industry and did a good deal to help the people, but it is recognised that the only way to deal with the chronic poverty and destitution of Connemara and places like Connemara is by land purchase on a large scale. While

  2035
  people continue to pay exorbitant rents for miserable holdings so long will there be poverty and discontent. It was hoped when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham) introduced his great Land Purchase Bill nine years ago, that a land purchase scheme would be carried out in the West of Ireland by which the trouble would be removed. When the right hon. Gentleman passed that Bill through this House it will be in the recollection of those who were then Members of it how eloquent and touching were the speeches he made with regard to the condition of the poor people in the West of Ireland, especially in Connemara. In eloquent and touching language he described the condition of their houses and the wretchedness of their holdings, and I have no doubt whatever that the speeches he made on that occasion had a great deal to do with the sympathetic reception of that Bill in this House and in another place.
  I am here to-day to say that no benefits whatever have accrued for the people of Connemara from the Wyndham Act of 1903, not a single estate has been purchased under that Act there, the reason, of course, being that the landlords in the south and west and the central parts of Ireland sold to their tenants automatically and that in these districts land purchase went through and many millions of money were spent and used up in that purchase. In Connemara and the West of Ireland generally no sale took place for the simple reason that the landlords were exacting exorbitant terms. They demanded for these wretched holdings twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-eight and thirty years' purchase, and, of course, the Estates Commissioners could not listen to these terms. The landlords had no desire to sell for the simple reason that they had been for many years and are to-day extracting exorbitant rents from those poor people. In many cases they get rents as high as £3 an acre, because in some holdings of ten acres, if you gathered up the soil it would not make one acre of land. The Land Act of 1903 failed in Connemara because the landlords were getting their rents fairly well, and they were also getting competition rents for the grass farms which are still in the possession of the graziers, and not a single benefit has come to the people of Connemara from the Land Act of 1903. Then we were looking forward to another Land Act. The present Chief Secretary for Ireland
  2036
  three years ago introduced a Bill specially intended to deal with the West of Ireland, and here I am to-day, three years after the passing of that Act, and I must say of it as I have already said of the Wyndham Act, that not a single estate so far has been purchased under it in Connemara. I have made excuses to my Constituents for the last two years; I have made apologies for the Board, and pointed out the difficulties of their position and the enormous amount of work they have to get through, and all sorts of excuses, and I have asked them to be patient. I have specially brought under the notice of the Board the Berridge estate, which is the largest in the whole of Ireland, although the rental derived from the holdings there is only £4,000 or £5,000 a year.
  The Board last year approached the landlord, or the landlord approached the Board. A few months ago I understand that the Board made an offer of fourteen years' purchase to Mr. Berridge, the landlord, and he declined it. I say deliberately that fourteen years' purchase is an excessive price for any estate in Connemara, but I should be very sorry that the Board should haggle about a year or two more than fourteen years, because I am convinced that unless that estate is purchased within a very short time from now I shall not be able any longer to restrain those people from taking some drastic action. I have always condemned cattle-driving; I have condemned it in the public Press, and in addresses to my Constituents, and I have over and over again begged of them to be patient. In Connemara there are dozens of grass farms which have existed for thirty years, and they are still in the possession of the grazier, and the Board has not made any attempt to acquire any of those farms. I do not like cattle driving, and although the Chief Secretary has said that if the people commit any crime such as cattle driving, or adopt any course of that sort, it will rather tend to hinder than hasten land purchase, I must point out that I promised the people of Connemara last year and the various districts around there, that if the land of the Berridge estate, and some other estates, was not purchased within a year or so I would not hesitate to advise the people to commence cattle driving. That would be a very unpleasant duty for me to perform, and I shrink from it, and it is because I shrink from it that I have raised this question here to-day.
  7.0 P.M.
  There is one thing, I am afraid, stands in the way of land purchase in Conne-

  2037
  mara. When the new Board was formed under this Act the congested area was considerably extended, and several counties were brought in; and in everyone of those counties a representative was appointed, with the exception of the county of Galway. In this respect the people of Connemara thought they had been overlooked and neglected, and the idea is that the members of that Board are all struggling for land purchase in their own particular districts, and as there is no representative of the county of Galway on that Board, Galway has to take a back seat. It is because of that fact that I have ventured to raise this question to-day. I had intended speaking at some length on this subject, but in view of the lateness of the hour I have no desire to continue any longer, and I would appeal to the Chief Secretary and to the Congested Districts Board not to stand upon ceremony with regard to two or three years' purchase more or less of these estates. It will be remembered that for the last twenty-five or thirty years we have been raising the question of famine in the West of Ireland. They have nearly always originated in Galway and Connemara, and the millions of money that have been guaranteed by this country have not touched or benefited these people. There is no part of the country which demands the attention of the Congested Districts Board more than Galway and especially Connemara, and I hope what I have said will have some effect in making the Congested Districts Board accelerate their pace with regard to my Constituency.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: I wish to mention one matter with regard to the present dispute among transport workers. I want to ask the Minister responsible if he will keep in mind that nearly all the fodder required for feeding the horses in London is unloaded at the docks, and to urge him to make such arrangements as will prevent any unnecessary suffering of these animals.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOAD of TRADE (Mr. d. M. Robertson): I need only say the matter will at once be brought to the attention of the Department of the Board of Trade concerned.
  Mr. HOGGE: I wish to refer to a question which is interesting the people of
  2038
  Scotland at the present moment, and to ask whether we can have some information, about the state and condition of the people of St. Kilda. Last Friday or Saturday, by some casual information at Aberdeen it was ascertained that those people, at least the newspaper report said so, were on the point of starvation, and indeed the Admiralty at once sent a cruiser to the island. It arrived there on the Sunday morning. It is now Wednesday, and we have been unable to get any information as to the condition of the people in the island, or as to what was done by the cruiser to relieve them. I should like to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether it is not time something was done to prevent a recurrence of this sort of thing in that island. I asked the question this afternoon, and the right hon. Gentleman informed me it was a question for the Postmaster-General, with whom he was in in communication. It is certainly time the Postmaster-General attended to the service between St. Kilda and the mainland. At present letters are posted in tin boxes which are thrown into the sea when the weather is rough, and they have to take their chance of getting to the mainland. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what condition the people were in when the cruiser-arrived, and what has been done to alleviate their distress. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will also be able to promise to look into this matter, and try if possible to prevent a recurrence of this sort of thing.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I am deeply interested in the affairs of this small island out in the Atlantic, but I would like to impress on the Secretary for Scotland, seeing that the position of the island geographically is what it is, whether he cannot see his way to bring it in touch with the mainland, and I hope he will give the Members for Scotland a satisfactory answer on this point.
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have been in communication with the representatives of the Admiralty with regard to the conditions of the inhabitants of the island of St. Kilda, and they assure me that the boat which carries the stores will have reached there by now. With regard to the question of postal facilities, I understand that the Postmaster-General three years ago made new arrangements which I understand are working satisfactorily; and as to setting up a system of wireless

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  telegraphy, that is not a matter with which we can now deal. It rests of course with the Postmaster-General.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned at Nine minutes after Seven o'clock, till Tuesday, the 4th June.

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