Sitting of 28 May 1913

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with)—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—

Porthcawl and District Gas Bill [Lords].

Wimbledon and Sutton Railway Bill [Lords].

West Hampshire Water Bill [Lords].

Llantrisant Gas Bill [Lords].

Cambrian Railways Bill [Lords].

Halkyn District Mines Drainage Bill [Lords].

Metropolitan District Railway Bill [Lords].

Cardiff Railway Bill [Lords].

London Electric Railway Bill [Lords].

Grays and Tilbury Gas Bill [Lords].

Barry Railway Bill [Lords].

Oxford University (St. Edmund Hall and Gatcombe Rectory) Bill [Lords].

Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
Provisional Order Bills (No Standing Orders applicable)—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—
Trade Boards Act Provisional Orders Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time upon Monday next.
Provisional Order Bills (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with)—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from
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one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, namely:—
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.
Derby Corporation Bill (by Order),
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Southampton Harbour Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Friday.
London County Council (Money) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
North Eastern Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Swansea Harbour Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Order (Gas) Bill (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 13) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Manchester and Stockport." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That Standing Order 193A be suspended, and the Bill be now read the first time."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Mr. BOOTH: Might we have a short explanation of this?
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Maclean): Under Standing Order 193A it is provided that no Bill originating in this House for confirming a Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate shall be read the first time after Whitsuntide. As my hon. Friend knows Whitsuntide was very early this year, and it is necessary to make this Motion in order to avoid a breach of the Standing Order.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193A be suspended, and the Bill be now read the first time.
Bill accordingly read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 183.]
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 14) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Liverpool." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193A be suspended, and the Bill be now read the first time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 184.]
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 15) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to the East Lancing Sea Defence District." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193A be suspended, and the Bill be now read the first time.—(The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 185.]
Local Government. Provisional Order (No. 16) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Bacup and the district of the Bury and District Joint Water Board." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr Burns.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193A be suspended, and the Bill be now read the first time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 186.]

ALIENS ACT, 1905.
Copy presented of Statement with regard to the Expulsion of Aliens, Part I. Seventh Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector under the Act for the year 1912, Part II. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON).
Copy presented of Order made by the Council of the county of Southampton altering certain Polling Districts in the New Forest Parliamentary Division of the county [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders made by the Councils of the boroughs of Cardiff, Gloucester (2), Colchester, Grimsby, Leicester (2), Morley, Southend-on-Sea, Torquay, Workington (2), East Ham, Hornsey, Birkenhead, and Chester, of the urban districts of Gosport and Alverstoke, Leyton, and Ashton-in-Makerfield, and of the administrative county of Surrey (parish of Surbiton), under the Shops Act, 1912, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copy presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Annual Series, No. 5086 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS, 1882 TO 1909.
Copy presented of Special Reports by the Board of Trade under Section 1 of the Electric Lighting Act, 1888 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
REGENT'S PARK ENCLOSURES.
Copy presented of Papers relating to the Enclosures in Regent's Park [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

ULTIMUS HAERES (SCOTLAND) (ACCOUNT AND LIST OF ESTATES).
Return ordered "of Abstract Account of the receipts and payments of the King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Scotland in the year ended the 31st day of December, 1912, in the administration of Estates and treasure trove on behalf of the Crown:
And of alphabetical List of Estates which fell to the Crown as Ultimus Hæres in Scotland, administered by the King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer, in the same year."—[Mr. Masterman.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to:—

Crowborough District Gas and Electricity Bill,

Harrow and Stanmore Gas Bill, without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law relating to Solicitors." [Solicitors Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer powers upon the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Hove in relation to the acquisition of the undertaking of the Hove Electric Lighting Company, Limited; and to the supply of electricity; and to make further provision for the health, local government, and improvement of the borough; and for other purposes." [Hove Corporation Bill [Lords.]

HOVE CORPORATION BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  National Reserve.
  Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary of State for War, if he will give in detail the number of troops, exclusive of the National Reserve, who would be left in the country after the departure of the Expeditionary Force?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): I am afraid that to give the detailed information for which the hon. Gentleman asks would be contrary to precedent and would not be in the interests of the public service.

  Income Tax.
  Mr. FELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what evidence is in the possession of the Government to prove that the persons who pay Income Tax at
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  the rate of 1s. 2d. in the £ only number 150,000; and whether all those persons who receive small dividends from which 1s. 2d. in the £ has been deducted are included among the 150,000 persons?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The total number of Income Tax payers is estimated to be about 1,100,000. Of this number, at least 950,000 are entitled to relief in respect of small or earned incomes, leaving 150,000 who pay at the full rate. The figure 950,000 does not of course include persons who claim relief solely in respect of life insurance premiums. If these were added, the number of those who pay at the full rate in respect of their whole income, would be very small indeed. Recipients of small dividends from which tax is deducted at the source are for the most part of the class whose total incomes fall within the limits of exemption or abatement, which in such cases are conferred by way of repayment. Any recipients who are not entitled to relief are included in the estimate of 150,000.
  Mr. FELL: Is there no certain means of ascertaining how many Income Tax payers there are paying this 1s. 2d. in the £? I should suggest that it would be double this 150,000
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman says that it is double. I agree that we cannot ascertain exactly the precise figure, but we are able to arrive at something like a pretty fair estimate.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    CITY OF LONDON (MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH).
    Mr. HUNTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the statement that Dr. Howarth, the new medical officer of health for the City of London, has been voted an honorarium of 200 guineas by the insurance committee for Kent; and whether the Kent insurance committee has power to vote honorariums out of insurance funds provided by the people of this country?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): I am informed by the insurance committee that the sum mentioned was voted by them in consideration of the services rendered by Dr. Howarth as medical adviser of the committee from the time when it was constituted in June, 1912, until the 25th March

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    last. The work performed by Dr. Howarth during this time obviated the necessity of the committee obtaining alternative expert professional assistance, which would otherwise have been necessary for the administration of sanatorium benefit, and which would probably have cost much more than the sum paid to Dr. Howarth. Similar payments to medical officers of health for services of a like character have been voted by many other insurance committees, and have been approved by the Commission.

    New Forest.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he proposes to appoint a Departmental Committee to consider the present condition and the future management and economic administration of the New Forest; and, if so, whether he will state the names of the Committee and the terms of reference to them?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): The answer is in the negative.

    Live Stock Improvement Scheme.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked if the President of the Board of Agriculture proposes to appoint a special officer at the Board to supervise the work carried on in the twelve provincial areas in England and Wales under the new live stock improvement scheme of the Board; and, if so, whether he is prepared to receive applications from duly qualified persons for the post?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Mr. E. J. Cheney, one of the Assistant Secretaries of the Board, is the officer specially charged with the administration of the live-stock improvement scheme. If, as is probable, expert inspectors are required to supervise the work in the provinces on behalf of the Board, applications from duly qualified persons will be invited by public advertisement.

    Regent's Park.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked on what conditions about eighteen acres of Regent's Park were leased to the Royal Botanic Society in 1901; whether these conditions have been strictly complied with; what are the terms of membership of that society and the number of members; and whether the President of the
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    Board of Agriculture will consider the desirability of terminating a tenancy which reserves for the pleasure of a favoured few a considerable area of Crown Land?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The Lease (dated 17th July, 1901) to the Royal Botanic Society of London is for a term of 31 years from 5th April, 1901, at a rent of £450 per annum. The lessees are under covenant to use the premises as a Botanic Garden unless with the previous consent, in writing, of the Commissioner of Woods, not to erect any additional building or altering existing building without the like consent, and to permit all well-conducted and respectably attired persons, on payment of one shilling, to have access to the gardens during reasonable hours on not less than two days in every week during thirty-four weeks in January, February, March, April, August, September, October, November, and December, and on not less than sixteen days during May, June, and July. I have no reason to suppose that the conditions are not complied with. I am unable to give the information desired as to the terms of membership of the society and the number of members. There is no power to determine the lease so long as the covenants and conditions of it are duly observed.
    Sir W. BYLES: May I ask whether this land was alienated from public use for the sake of the rent in 1901?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No, Sir. All that was held-by the Crown in 1901 was let on a new lease to the Royal Botanic Society.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the Crowns has received payment in the past for opening for public use portions of Regent's Park previously reserved for private use; and whether the Crown would require any payment, and, if so, what lump sum for permanently opening for public use the following portions of Regent's Park, namely, the Toxophilite Society's premises (about six and a half acres), two enclosures in the south-west portion of the park adjoining the Outer Circle road (about eight acres), and the additional land attached to the Baptist College (about four acres)?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Payment has not been made in the past for opening for public use portions of Regent's Park previously reserved for private use, as it has been practicable to open such portions

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    without loss of revenue. As I have before stated, further land cannot be given up without adequate compensation if loss of revenue is involved, but as no offer to make compensation for the lands referred to has been received, the amount that should be required has not been considered. The land attached to the Baptist College is held under a lease that has still nineteen years unexpired, and the two enclosures referred to are held under a lease that will not expire until 1922.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the President of the Board of Agriculture will guarantee that no leases of premises in Regent's Park, renewals of which are under negotiation, shall be renewed until the leases hitherto in force have expired?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have undertaken that negotiations shall be suspended until 1st July next, and I cannot give any further guarantee.

    Fishing Vessels (England and Wales).
    Mr. WINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will assent to the Return standing on to-day's Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring? [Return, "showing the number of Fishing Vessels of all classes, sail and steam, in England and Wales; number in each class which come under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act; number of wrecks of such Fishing Vessels; number of lives lost; number of those whose relatives were benefited under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act; number of accidents, together with the number of those who received benefit under the Workmen's Compensation Act; and the aggregate and the average amount received in each case under the Workmen's Compensation Act,"]—[Mr. Wing.]
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): As I have informed my hon. Friend, the information in the possession of the Board of Trade and the Home Office does not enable a Return of the nature suggested to be compiled.
    Mr. WING: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter, seeing that during the past winter there was an unexampled loss of life and suffering caused by the mates and skippers not being under the Workmen's Compensation Act?
    Mr. BUXTON: I have not got the information and figures, and therefore I cannot answer the hon. Member.

    British Tinplate Trade.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked whether the Prime Minister is aware that whereas in 1909 25,081 tons of tinplates were imported into Canada from the United Kingdom and only 7,856 tons from the United States, in 1912, as the result of the repeal of the Canadian anti-dumping law, 8,071 tons only were imported from the United Kingdom and 45,941 tons from the United States; and whether, in view of the present depression in the British tinplate trade, the Government will make representations to the Canadian Government with a view to re-enactment of the said law?
    Mr. BUXTON: The so-called antidumping duty in Canada is leviable by virtue of the Dominion Tariff Act of 1907, which has never been repealed. The Act, however, provides for the imposition of this special duty only in the case of imported articles of a class or kind made in Canada, and in view of the cessation of the manufacture of tinplate in the Dominion, the special duty so far as regards this article was withdrawn on 6th July, 1909. Unless and until the manufacture of tinplate is resumed in Canada, no question of the application of the antidumping clause to tinplate can arise.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: As there is a very general feeling amongst the masters and men that such a representation should be made to the Canadian Government, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to receive a deputation from the trade on the subject?
    Mr. BUXTON: I do not quite understand. The Anti-Dumping Clause can only come into force when tinplate is made in Canada. Tinplate is not made in Canada, therefore the Anti-Dumping Clause does not apply.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in consequence of the action of the Canadian Government, to which he has referred, the United States have got possession of the tinplate market in Canada which formerly we possessed?
    Mr. BUXTON: I am not in possession of the figures as to the tinplate trade of the United States in regard to Canada.
    Mr. HEWINS: Surely the anti-dumping law was in operation? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is it not the fact that in consequence of the coal strike in 1912 a great deal of the Welsh tinplate trade went to America, and that it had nothing to do with the question of Tariff Reform at all?
    Mr. BUXTON: I think that is so.

  EGYPT (ARREST OF ALEXANDRE ADAMOVITZ).
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I desire to ask the Foreign Secretary a question, of which I have given him private notice, namely: If he can state whether His Majesty's Agent and Consul-General in Egypt was consulted before the arrest of Alexandre Adamovitz in Alexandria; what was the specific charge on which he was arrested; whether the prisoner has been deported, and, if so, to what place; whether any correspondence on the matter has passed between the Russian Consul and the British Representative since the arrest; and, if so, will he communicate the gist of it to the House?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): I regret that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has been so engaged this morning that I have not been able to get an answer to the question approved. No doubt my hon. Friend requires the information for to-morrow's Debate, and if he will repeat his question to-morrow at Question Time, I have no doubt an answer will be given.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether Alexandre Adamovitz has been deported?
  Mr. ACLAND: That is one of the points on which I have no information.

ROYAL FLYING CORPS (FATAL ACCIDENT AT MONTROSE).
Sir HENRY DALZIEL: May I ask the Secretary for War whether he can add anything to the information which we have in the papers this morning in reference to the unfortunate and fatal aeroplane accident which occurred at. Montrose yesterday, and whether he will see that special inquiry is made into the cause of the accident?
Colonel SEELY: The officer commanding the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was at one dispatched, on the occasion of this very sad accident, to make special inquiry into its cause. I cannot make any statement as to the cause until this officer and those who are with him have reported. As soon as they have done so, I shall certainly communicate it to the House and to the hon. Member.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Lord EDMUND TALBOT: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a position to make any statement as to the business next week, as promised yesterday?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I hope to be in a position to-morrow to make a more definite statement about next week's business. Perhaps I may say in the meantime that we shall ask the House to adjourn early on Tuesday, in connection with the King's Birthday celebrations, probably about seven o'clock.
  Mr. J. HOGGE: Will any of the Scottish Estimates be taken next week?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Perhaps my hon. Friend will put a question down tomorrow.

  APPELLATE JURISDICTION BILL [Lords].
  Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [27th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time." Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
  Mr. MARTIN: I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."
  Last night I stated that I disagreed with the statements made by the Attorney-General in introducing the Bill. This is the third time the measure has come before us. In connection with the two previous Bills the statement was made that they were for the purpose of meeting the claim of the Dominions, made at the Imperial Conference, and that statement is repeated in a modified form in the Memorandum to the present Bill. If the proceedings of the Imperial Conference are referred to it will be found that none of the Dominions ever asked for this, and there was no arrangement of the kind whatever. The question is whether there is a shortage of judicial strength in the House of Lords and in the Judicial Committee. Again, if I were satisfied that that was so, I would be prepared to support the appointment of additional judges, or such number of additional judges as might be required for the purpose of giving adequate strength to those two very important Courts, being the highest Court
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  of Appeal for the Courts of this country, and also for the Courts in the Colonies throughout the Empire. Dealing first with the Attorney-General's suggestion that this was a pledge made at the Imperial Conference, I notice that the Memorandum states that the increase in the number of Law Lords from four to six, proposed by this Bill, is the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed at the Imperial Conference in 1911. That is a very plain, definite statement, but there is no truth in it whatever. I do not wish to suggest that the Government are deliberately trying to mislead the House—far from it—but I do say that no resolution bearing on this question involving the appointment by this Government of two additional judges was passed at the Imperial Conference. I think, if I can establish that point, that I take away the whole strength of the appeal made by the Government to the House. We are on this side—and I think I am able to include the Front Bench—economists. We profess to be. Charges are made by the other side that in face of being declared economists we have largely increased the expenditure. That has nothing to do with it. An economic Government may largely increase expenditure if that expenditure is for the good of the people. Economy means that the expenditure which the Government disburses which is not for the benefit of the country should be done away with. Everyone will admit I think that £ 12,000 per year is a very large sum of money, and capitalised it means that because it is to go for ever, since you may depend on it that if we agree to this Bill appointing two judges we will never get rid of those two judges, in our lifetime at any rate. Therefore I hope that if I can convince the Government they have made a great mistake—and I am sure they have—in suggesting such a Resolution was passed; and also, in addition, that the Attorney-General is mistaken in supposing that there is not at present on the rota judges available for the House of Lords and Privy Council sufficient for all purposes, that then the Government, being a Government pledged to the hilt in favour of economy, will no longer press this proposition on the House. The record of this matter is a very brief one. It commenced in this way. Mr. Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia, proposed a short resolution that there should be an Imperial Court constituting a Court of Appeal for the Courts in Great Britain and also constituting a final Court of Appeal for the

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  Colonies. That is a proposition I have supported in this House before, and which was very considerably supported by Liberal speakers. Mr. Fisher's point was that the present constitution of the House of Lords and the Privy Council is not a good one. His resolution was:—
  "That it is desirable that the judicial functions in regard to the Dominions now exercised by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be vested in an Imperial Appeal Court, which should also be the final Court of Appeal for Great Britain and Ireland."
  In other words that the House of Lords as a judicial body should be abolished and that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a judicial body should be abolished, and that a new Grand Court of Appeal should be established for all those purposes. I think there are many reasons why that proposal should be adopted. We know that the Gladstone Government carried through the great judicial reforms and did away with many of the abuses to which I referred yesterday, and which were portrayed by Charles Dickens in "Bleak House," and by many other writers, abuses in the Court of Chancery which have been largely done away with in 1873 when Lord Selborne, then Lord Chancellor, carried through the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, which to a large extent removed the distinction between Common Law and Chancery so far as procedure was concerned. The Courts were then consolidated into one Court to a considerable extent, and we know that one of the great reforms adopted by that Act was the change in the composition of the final Court of Appeal. The judicial functions were taken away from the House of Lords, but, unfortunately for the country, in the following year, 1874, the Liberals went out of power, and the Conservatives came into office. They had not been in power for more than a year or two before they reversed that very great change, and we have the very unsatisfactory arrangement at present of the House of Lords, which is composed of a large number of laymen, and a very small number of lawyers, having those judicial powers. Every Member of the House of Lords has the right, the strict right, to appear and vote on every appeal which comes before the House of Lords. They do not, as a matter of fact, do it, but it leaves the matter in a very unsatisfactory condition. Another matter which has created a great deal of confusion in the Colonies has been that there are different decisions given by
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  the Judicial Committee and the House of Lords. There are several subjects on which those two High Courts have come to different conclusions which makes it almost impossible to determine what the law is. If you are in a Colony and your appeal goes to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then you get the law as it has been laid down there. If the same circumstances arise in this country on appeal to the House of Lords, the precedents are all the other way. That is all wrong, and no doubt those were some of the reasons which induced Mr. Fisher to suggest this Motion. The Prime Minister of New Zealand had another Motion:—
  "That it has now become evident, considering the growth of population, the diversity of laws enacted, and the differing public policies affecting legal interpretation in His Majesty's Overseas Dominions, that no Imperial Court of Appeal can be satisfactory which does not include judicial representatives of those Overseas Dominions."
  That is a resolution which personally I would not agree with, because I think the great advantage of the Judicial Committee to the Colonies is that it is composed of judges who are not Colonial and are not concerned with the political affairs of the different Dominions and Colonies from which the appeals come. That has always been amongst us Canadians one of the strong reasons why we have always been glad that we have had an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When questions affecting the Constitution under the British North America Act, 1867, have come up in the Canadian Courts, they have nearly always been matters of bitter controversy between the two political parties, and it very rarely happens in the Colonial Courts, as also here to a large extent, that the judges have not been in their time politicians on one side or the other. Hence the people of Canada have never been really satisfied with the interpretation placed by the Canadian Courts upon debated constitutional questions arising out of the British North America Act, and every question of importance has sooner or later found its way to the Judicial Committee, whose decisions in these matters have been very acceptable to the general body of people in Canada. Sometimes those decisions have gone against one party, sometimes against the other, but it has been recognised that the questions have been approached here entirely from the legal point of view, unembarrassed by any political prepossessions on the part of the judges. Therefore, I should oppose

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  the proposal of New Zealand. It is far more advantageous to the Colonies that they should get the benefit of the distinguished judges who sit in the Judicial Committee in connection with all cases, but particularly in connection with constitutional cases. That, too, was the view taken by the Imperial Conference. While there was no objection to Mr. Fisher's resolution, the New Zealand resolution did not meet with the approval of any other Dominion. After discussion both resolutions were withdrawn, and the only other resolution passed was one moved by Mr. Fisher in these terms:—
  "That having heard the views of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Haldane, the Conference recommends that the proposals of the Government of the United Kingdom be embodied in a communication to be sent to the Dominions as early as possible."
  In the face of that how can the Government make the statement that this proposed increase in the number of Law Lords is the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed by the Imperial Conference in 1911? There is no connection between the two things at all. I may say that in pursuance of that resolution the Government here some time afterwards put forward their proposals, one of which was an increase of two judges in the Judicial Committee, but those proposals were not discussed at the Conference. The Dominions do not care how many judges there are, so long as there are enough, and whether or not there are enough is entirely a matter for this Government to determine. I will deal with that question later on; at present I want to dispose of the idea that this increase has been asked for in any sense whatever by the Dominions. It would be invidious for the representatives of the Dominions at an Imperial Conference to dictate to the Government here, who pay the judges and are responsible for them, what they should do in the matter. What the Dominions did say in the discussion was that they were not satisfied with the quorum which now sits in the Judicial Committee. The Attorney-General referred to that last night, and I quite accept his statement. The Dominions wanted a quorum of five instead of three. How the larger quorum should be obtained was a matter entirely for this Government to determine. The Dominions did not suggest that it should be obtained by the appointment of two additional judges. I think I shall be able to show conclusively that a quorum of five can be obtained very easily from the
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  number of judges at present available. The hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham) last night completely disposed of the suggestion of the Attorney-General that the appointment of these two new judges would enable the Court to do any more business than at present. It is not proposed to provide for two Courts; you would have only one Court to dispose of Colonial appeals; and if you appoint two new judges in order to increase the quorum, you certainly will not be able to do more business. In further proof of my statement that there is nothing in the proceedings to show that the Dominions want two more judges appointed, I propose to read the remarks made by the different representatives at the Conference. I will quote from the précis. There is a longer report, but really everything that was said is contained in the shorter statement taken at the time:—
  "Mr. Fisher, in moving the Commonwealth Resolution, said that they wished to advance the view that it was advisable to have one Imperial Court to which all cases could be submitted for final decision. The constitution of that Court need not be gone into at the moment.
  Mr. Batchelor pointed out that there were two Courts of Final Appeal in the Empire: one, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for the Crown Colonies, India, and the Overseas Dominions; and the other the House of Lords, for the United Kingdom. That was an anomalous position, and unless there were serious practical difficulties in the way it ought not to be continued in the Empire as now developed. When an appeal was made to a Court of Final Jurisdiction there ought to be no possibility of uncertainty or of conflict of opinion in different parts of the Empire as to what the law really was. As the two bodies were composed largely of the same judges there seemed to be no great reason against having one Court. The judgments of the Privy Council were findings of a Board rather than decisions of a Court. It was the one Court in the Empire which did not give individual judgments."
  That is another grievance raised by the Dominions. The first was that the Court should have at least five judges sitting. In Canada the Supreme Court consists of six judges, of whom five make a quorum. It has always been felt to be not quite satisfactory that in appeals coming over here from Courts consisting of five or six members the judgments should be reversed by a smaller Court of three or four members. The representatives of the Dominions spoke very strongly upon that. The other question was that referred to by Mr. Batchelor. There has been a feeling that it would be more satisfactory to the Dominions that in the case of their appeals, as in the case of House of Lords appeals, the different judges should give their individual judgments, instead of there being one single judgment, which is not necessarily the judgment of the whole Court, but simply

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  the judgment of a majority. The reason that point was taken was in connection with constitutional cases. It does not make so much difference in ordinary private cases whether or not you get all the opinions of the judges. What you want is the final decision. But in a constitutional case it is sometimes of the greatest importance to know whether or not the decision of the final Court is a unanimous decision, or whether there was a difference of opinion, because very often these constitutional questions result sooner or later in new legislation. It is therefore very important indeed, in suggesting new legislation, to know whether the final Court of Appeal was unanimous upon the question or whether there was a decided difference of opinion, and what that difference of opinion was. So that Mr. Batchelor and the other representatives took the ground that they would like to have individual judgments in the case of their appeals.
  "Mr. Asquith said that some people thought that that was a drawback, others that it was an advantage. One never knew whether a judgment of the Privy Council was unanimous or not, or to what extent it was dissented from.
  Mr. Batchelor said that was one of the arguments sometimes used against it. The practice of giving one judgment only could not tend to the same close study of a case by each individual member of the Court as the giving of an individual judgment would require. Moreover, the institution of one Final Court would be another step in the direction of Imperial unity.
  Lord Loreburn, in explaining the nature of the jurisdiction already existing, said that the House of Lords heard all the appeals from the United Kingdom. In theory every Peer was entitled to sit in the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal."
  A most absurd proposition, if you take into consideration that the House of Lords is appointed, not by election, but comes into existence by birth; for a man may be an idiot and yet be entitled, as a Law Lord, to sit and hear these appeals. [An HON. MEMBER: "They never do."]
  "For a long time"—
  Lord Loreburn goes on—
  "the attendance had been restricted to the judicial members, namely, the Lord Chancellor, four Lords of Appeal, with any previous Chancellor, and any Peer who had held high judicial office; three members formed a quorum, but the Court seldom sat with less than four. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had jurisdiction, broadly speaking, in regard to India, the Dominion and Colonial Courts, and certain other Courts. From this it followed that the cases dealt with might involve old French Law, Roman Dutch Law, English Common Law, considerably modified by statutes in different Dominions, and also the Indian Codes. It was, therefore, necessary to adjust the composition of the Tribunal to the nature of the laws with which it had to deal. The judges entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee were the Lord Chancellor, the four Lords of Appeal, all Privy Councillors who had held high judicial office, two judges with special knowledge of Indian law, and also
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  judges, not exceeding five in number, from the Dominions or Colonies."
  I am rather sorry that the Attorney-General is not present, because he referred last night in one of the Clauses of this Bill to the raising of the five Colonial judges to seven. I understood him to say that these Colonial judges were now entitled to sit in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but did not sit in cases except those from their own Dominions. I would have liked to ask him about that. I think that is a mistake. I think I have seen sitting in the Privy Council and hearing appeals from Canada Lord de Villiers, who, of course, comes from South Africa. It does seem to me that the suggestion of the Attorney-General, if it be correct, is the proper one. That is to say, that this Court should not, for reasons I gave a short time ago, be composed of representatives from the different Colonies deciding one another's cases, but that the deciding judges in any particular case should be English judges if it so happens to be convenient to have representation from the particular Dominions from which the case comes. I have no objection whatever to having the number increased from five to seven. But I would like to have the point cleared up. Lord Loreburn goes on to say:—
  "In practice the members were the same as those who sat in the House of Lords, with the addition of Sir Arthur Wilson, who was unquestionably a judge of the very highest ability, but of whose services they would shortly be deprived"—
  That has happened since, but there are still two judges like Sir A. Wilson who sit in Indian appeals.
  "If both the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee were sitting at the same time, a distribution of the available members was made, and the utmost care was taken to equalise as far as possible the strength in the two Courts. In substance the personnel of the two Courts was identical, and he had never known a case in which there had been conflict between their decisions."
  I do not agree with that, for I have known a case where there was a conflict between the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Councl. That, I think, is a most unfortunate incident.
  "Dr. Findlay said that the conflict, when any, had been in connection with dicta of different members.
  Lord Loreburn said that that constantly occurred in England and between different dicta in the House of Lords itself, where it was the custom for each judge to deliver his own judgment. Sometimes the judges differed in opinion and sometimes they agreed, but for different reasons. His own view was that if in every Court there was only one judgment there would be more coherence and consistency. That, however, was a point in regard to which the Home Government would not be disposed to make any difficulty. Each constituent part of the Empire ought to judge for itself as to the kind of tribunal it wished, and the composition of that tribunal. Whatever Court of Final Appeal in England was desired by any of the Colonies the Home Government would wish to give effect to the desire as far as possible,

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  and if they would agree on the same kind of Court and the same kind of judges so much the better."
  All this is from Lord Loreburn: I hope the House will bear that in mind. What I am reading are not suggestions from any of the Colonial delegates, but from Lord Loreburn, and, of course, that what he may say in an Imperial Conference is binding upon the Government here. It cannot be said that it was a request from the delegates from the Colonies, as suggested in the Memorandum of the Government!
  "With regard to the Privy Council, was it desired to have British judges only? Was it desired that the Indian judges should take part in the appeals from the Dominions? Was it desired that there should be a permanent judge from each Dominion, and that those judges should deal with all the appeals to the Privy Council, or that the individual judges should with the British judges deal only with the appeals from their respective Dominions? If desired, it could be arranged that all the cases from a particular Dominion should be heard consecutively, and a time fixed for their hearing convenient to the Dominion concerned, so that a judge from that Dominion might be present. Having regard to the complex nature of the jurisdiction, the best course would probably be to have always a wide membership of the Judicial Committee, and that a selection should be made according to the nature of the case to be tried. That was done at present so far as there was the necessary judicial strength. Another point for consideration was the different rules which prevailed in different Dominions as to special leave being required as to the limit of the amount involved, as to the nature of the security to be given, and so forth. With regard to the United Kingdom, the Government were not prepared to recommend that the personnel of the judicial body in the House of Lords should be changed. It was already possible to add any distinguished judge from the Dominions. If each Dominion would say what kind of Court they preferred and the class of judges they wished to see, the Home Government would do its very best to meet their views. His own idea was that they should add to the highest Court of Appeal both in the United Kingdom and for the Dominions and Colonies by selecting two English judges of the finest quality, that the quorum should be fixed at, say, five, and that the Court should sit successively in the House of Lords for United Kingdom appeals, and in the Privy Council for appeals from the Dominions and Colonies. In that way they would have substantially the same Court in its full strength for both classes of appeals."
  There is a direct suggestion that two additional judges should be appointed. I ask the House to remember that this suggestion was made by Lord Loreburn, and did not in any way come from the Dominions:—
  "Sir Joseph Ward pointed out that in order for a New Zealand judge to deal only with New Zealand cases it would be necessary for him to leave New Zealand for six months, and then perhaps have only one case to deal with. He and his colleagues would have no objection to Canadian or South African judges sitting in New Zealand cases, but it would hardly be practicable for New Zealand judges to come over to deal only with New Zealand cases.
  Lord Haldane remarked that in connection with a Maori land case, which occupied nearly ten days before the Privy Council, it would have been useful if they could have had a New Zealand judge present as an assessor, to make sure that no points of importance on a long series of special Statutes were missed.
  Sir Joseph Ward said that the majority of cases from New Zealand would have reference to native land, in
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  regard to which there was much difference of legal opinion, and it was of the greatest importance that there should be present a judge who knew the customs of the natives, which had to be considered in such cases.
  Mr. Asquith pointed out that if the Court sat in full strength it would meet the complaint sometimes made with regard to the Judicial Committee being a scratch Court and too few in numbers. He had often argued cases in the Judicial Committee before three judges, which he thought was hardly fitting, seeing that they might be appeals from the Supreme Courts of various Dominions."
  And Mr. Asquith did seem to think that there should be a greater number. I quite admit that they asked for that:—
  "Sir Joseph Ward asked if the Lord Chancellor had any objection to there being only one Court by merging the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the House of Lords, instead of one for the United Kingdom and another for the Overseas Dominions, and make the one a final Court of Appeal.
  Lord Loreburn said it was practically the same thing, and the system which he had suggested might develop into the one Court. Personally, he would be very well pleased if it did. Our own system was somewhat complicated, but he did not think that the legal profession or the people at large at home had any quarrel with the existing final Court of Appeal."
  I cannot agree with that. I have heard Member after Member in this House get up and object very strongly to the continuance of the judicial powers of the House of Lords. There is no advantage in it, and it involves a great many inconsistencies. Why, if the Government are so much concerned, as I think they ought to be, to fall in with the views of the Dominions as suggested in this Imperial Conference, do not they meet the Dominions upon this point? Why not, as was suggested here every time this Bill has come up, have one great Imperial Court—not a House of Lords Appeal Court, nor a Judicial Committee—but one real Court? We have that, in a way, at present. Why not have it really, instead of nominally? If we are to have appeals heard, why not substitute a Court? Australia asked for it, and Canada would like to have it, and I am sure there would be no objection as far as the people of this country are concerned that there should be a Court of that kind.
  "Lord Haldane said that the Lord Chancellor's proposition was really to make one Court, but to keep the old forms.
  Mr. Malan said that in South Africa there was no right of appeal from their Appeal Court to any Court outside the Union. But every subject had the right to petition the King, and any such petition would, as a matter of practice, go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. If the Committee gave leave to appeal the case would be considered on its merits. It was not anticipated that there would be more than one such case in five or ten years. Therefore, as far as South Africa was concerned, they were generally satisfied with the present practice. It was, however, felt that the Judicial Committee was in some respects no ordinary Court of Law at all, and it would be an advantage to have its procedure in conformity with that of the other Courts of Law."

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  I could not put my view on this matter before the House anything like as well as they are expressed in this document, especially as the Government are trying to make out, as I think most improperly, that they are meeting the views of the Dominions in the proposition to increase the number of judges. Mr. Malan went on to say:—
  "The appeal to the King was one of the connecting links of the Empire, and on purely sentimental grounds it would be a right thing to have one final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire. A great deal sometimes depended on a name, and if they had one Imperial Court of Appeal, perhaps in two divisions, one dealing with appeals from the United Kingdom, and the other with appeals from the Dominions and India, leaving the Lord Chancellor certain discretion in constituting the bench of the respective divisions, the difficulty might be solved.
  Mr. Brodeur said that in Canada they had been very well satisfied with the existing system of appeals before the Privy Council. In view of the dispositions of the British North America Act and of the different procedures and practices of the various provinces, it would be somewhat difficult to make a change. Everyone who had practised before the Judicial Committee must have been impressed with the great breadth of mind which prevailed amongst its members. Not only might a change be objected to by some of the provinces, but it would be a reflection on the present Court, which had given satisfaction.
  Sir Joseph Ward said that there was not the slightest idea of reflecting on the Privy Council or its members. If such a line of argument were followed no change at all would ever be made. New Zealand were in the peculiar position that out of their limited area some 7,000,000 acres of land were owned by natives. When litigation in connection with this land arose, native customs had to be taken into account, and it was felt that when important cases of this kind came before the Privy Council, it would be a great advantage if they had a representative judge from New Zealand present. In view of the statement of the Lord Chancellor, he would not urge that the Judicial Committee should be merged in the House of Lords. He suggested, however, that in addition to the present members of the Judicial Committee, there should be a permanent judge from each of the important Oversea Dominions. The difficulty with regard to a judge coming over specially was that in all probability he would have to deal with cases which had already come before him in New Zealand. If permanent judges were appointed as he suggested, possibly for five or seven years, after which they would resume their work as Supreme Court judges, it would not only get over various difficulties which stood in the way of other proposals, but would greatly assist towards securing that uniformity and co-ordination of the law in different parts of the Empire which was so eminently desirable. In view of the importance of the interests involved, the question of expense, so far as each Dominion was concerned, was a secondary matter. New Zealand would hail with supreme satisfaction the presence of judges from the other Dominions in cases in which New Zealand was concerned, and he could hardly think that there would be any objection on their part on practical grounds to a New Zealand judge taking part in cases from the other Dominions.
  Dr. Findlay said that the creation of one final Court of Appeal for the Emplre would satisfy a great Imperial sentiment."
  I am sure that appeals to hon. Members on the other side of the House, and I am surprised when there is an opportunity like this of talking real Imperialism, and of trying to meet the demands of our
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  Dominions we hear so little from hon. Members opposite. Their Imperialism is more connected with Toryism than with Empire. If there is any Tory capital to be made out of talk about Empire and waving the flag they are always prepared to do it, but when we are trying to induce the Government to meet the suggestions of the Dominions which are most reasonable for a great Imperial Court, not only for Great Britain and Ireland, but also for the Colonies and Dominions, including India, they are silent. That would be true Imperialism compared with what we hear suggested upon the other side of the House. Dr. Findlay went on to say:—
  "and although the personnel would differ very little from that of the present Court, it would constitute a step towards closer union. The presence of a resident Colonial judge would obviate the necessity for sending over at great expense counsel from, for instance, New Zealand to see that the Privy Council were instructed on the peculiar features of New Zealand law. In any fair conception of the burdens of Empire, there should be no objection to the Dominions sharing the cost of the Imperial Court of Appeal by paying the salary of one of their own judges."
  Sir Edward Morris said that very few appeals came from Newfoundland, and they were generally satisfied with the present arrangements. At the same time, if there was a desire for change on the part of Dominions who were more largely concerned in the work of the Judicial Committee, he would not consider himself justified in voting against the resolution. The proposed change was largely one of name, the Imperial Court of Appeal instead of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There could be no objection to each Dominion having a representative on the permanent Court of Appeal. The principle was in harmony with the general sentiment of unification now prevailing.
  Mr. Asquith asked whether the other Dominions would approve of Sir Joseph Ward's suggestion that each Dominion should appoint a resident judge who should sit, not only in cases affecting his own Dominions, but in appeals from all the Dominions.
  Mr. Fisher said that in Australia they desired to have an Australian final Court of Appeal, failing that, they desired to have one Court of Appeal in England. He was not at present prepared to accept Sir J. Ward's suggestion.
  Sir E. Morris said that Newfoundland would not be prepared to appoint a man and pay his salary and expenses in view of the small number of cases from that country."
  That is as I stated. They were unanimously opposed to Sir Joseph Ward's suggestion that Colonial judges should act on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. They also unanimously supported the resolution proposed by Mr. Fisher that there should be one Court of Appeal instead of two Courts. The report proceeds:—
  "Mr. Asquith said that he would much prefer the suggestion that the cases from a particular Dominion should be fixed to be heard at a time to suit the convenience of a judge from that Dominion. He thought that this would substantially meet Sir J. Ward's view that when cases from a particular Dominion came on, it would be an advantage to have a local judge present, and the Government would be glad to meet that view as far as possible.

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  Lord Loreburn agreed that if there were only one or two cases, the sending over of a judge would be a large order for a comparatively small result."
  That is Lord Loreburn's statement, and it is not a statement made by any of the Colonials, and it contains the suggestion that there should be two additional judges appointed. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that Lord Lore-burn made that statement because the Imperial Government have the responsibility of providing the Court, and that was his statement. It was not made by any of the Colonial representatives, and they did not ask for it. Lord Loreburn goes on to say:
  "As he understood the discussion there was general agreement to the following effect: That there should be for the whole British Empire one final Court of Appeal in two divisions, one for the United Kingdom consisting of the same persons who were now entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and the other for the Overseas Dominions, consisting of the persons now entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee, with such further additions as might be agreed upon, and that it should be strengthened by the addition of two English judges."
  If the Government think that that justifies them in saying that a resolution to this effect was passed by the Imperial Conference, very well.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does the hon. Member quote Lord Loreburn as saying that that is the general summing up. Was there any dissent from Lord Loreburn's statement?
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. MARTIN: No. He said there should be two additional judges appointed. There would have been no dissent from the Dominions in regard to that proposition, and they were not called upon to pay any part of the expense. The suggestion of having two judges came entirely from Lord Loreburn. No doubt they have a reason for it. I do not know what it is exactly, but I have my suspicions. My point is that it was their proposition, and it was not asked for by the Dominions. I shall endeavour, in my subsequent remarks, to show that there was no necessity whatever to have two additional judges. In other words, a quorum of five can be obtained both by the Judicial Committee and the House of Lords from the present judges who are receiving salaries now without appointing these two additional judges.
  "Sir Joseph Ward thought that that represented the only modus vivendi.
  Mr. Fisher said that he would withdraw his resolution and substitute the following:—"
  I have already read the resolution.
  "Mr. Batchelor said that they looked forward to one final Court of Appeal for the Empire. The two divisions seemed to be a practicable arrangement for the
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  time being, but it ought to be understood that the proposal was merely for the time being.
  The original resolutions were then withdrawn, and the substituted resolution was unanimously agreed to."
  I am sorry I have had to detain the House reading quotations from this Report, but when I make the charge that the statement set forth in the Memorandum has no truth whatever in it. I feel that it is necessary to prove it, and I submit that I have now proved it up to the hilt. I think I have shown that the suggestion to increase the number of judges from four to six as the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed at the Imperial Conference in 1911 is an absolute misstatement of what occurred on that occasion. Quite apart from what took place at the Imperial Conference, the Attorney-General suggested that there were not enough judges available to do the work. The real difficulty in connection with these two Courts arises from a matter that can be fixed without any legislation whatever, and it is that the two Courts should sit at the same time. There is no reason why the judicial Courts should not be divided into two parts, one sitting as the Judicial Committee and the other sitting in the House of Lords. When that was suggested it was stated that they could not keep up with the work. I do not know myself how many days a judge ought to work. In discussing this question in regard to the King's Bench Division, we found out that the judges work about 200 days in the year, or perhaps a little less. They work 170 days, and there are thirty-five Saturdays. Some of them do not work on Saturday at all, and some of them only half a day. There are thirty-five Saturdays in the judicial year, and Lord Loreburn, before the Joint Committee, made a suggestion that it would be fair to consider those thirty-five Saturdays as about seventeen working days. On this subject I have had a reply from the Attorney-General to a question I put which throws a great deal of light upon the point of these two Courts not being able to keep up with the work. I asked how many days the House of Lords sat as a judicial body and as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, respectively, actually hearing cases during the years 1910, 1911, and 1912. I also asked how many days in each of the said years the said Courts sat on the same day. Mr. Gulland, for the Attorney General, said that the House of Lords sat judicially 87 days in 1910, 100 days in 1911, and 86 days in

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  1912. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat 76 days in 1910, 101 days in 1911, and 101 days in 1912. Taking the year 1910, you get 163 as the total number of working days of these two Courts. Is it to be suggested that judges who sit altogether 163 days in the year cannot possibly take on any more work? It is a very serious thing for the Attorney-General to ask us to agree to an annual expenditure of £12,000 involving pensions for these judges, and to represent to us that they are required for the transaction of business when the Courts only needed to sit 160 days in 1910, 201 in 1911, and 197 in 1912 to clear up the business of both of them. The Attorney-General took the ground that the only judges available to constitute these two Courts were the four Law Lords. He objected to including the Lord Chancellor because he said he was a Member of the Government and had to attend Cabinet meetings, and was not always available. I think it will be found that the last three Lord Chancellors have always been on hand to sit in these Courts. We must remember that the Lord Chancellor receives the salary of £10,000 per annum, which is double the amount received by the Prime Minister, and he receives that seemingly large salary because he has to do this judicial work in addition to his responsible duties as a Member of the Government. The Attorney-General rather suggested that it was a matter of free will on the part of the Lord Chancellor whether he sat in these Courts. I object to that view. I say that if this country pays him a salary of £10,000 to fulfil certain duties it is not within the competence of that Noble Lord to say, "I will," or, "I will not attend in these Courts, as I see fit." I am not making any reflection upon these Noble Lords because they have always taken that view themselves. They do not shirk their work. They appear in these Courts, and preside over them, and there is no question that the Lord Chancellor is absolutely at the disposal of the country for the purpose of filling the office of one of the judges of the House of Lords. That makes five judges.
  We always have in the House of Lords a number of ex-Lord Chancellors. At present we have two. A short time ago we had three, but unfortunately Lord Ashbourne died a few days ago. The Attorney-General said that none of these ex-Lord Chancellors were available except when they saw fit to sit in these Courts. I join issue with him there. He stated
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  that these gentlemen had pensions in respect of the services which they had performed for the State. That is true with regard to an ordinary judge. He has to sit for fifteen years before he is entitled to a pension of £3,500 a year. Of course, it has so happened that in recent years Governments have remained in office a reasonably long time, though hon. Members opposite think that this Government is staying in a most unreasonably long time, and they are trying, with very poor success so far, to put them out; but it might happen that there might be a succession of Governments with very short terms of office. Lord Herschell was only in office for nine months, and that might occur again. We might at the next General Election have a very close result. This Government might be turned out, and their successors might only be able to remain in for a few months. Lord Halsbury is an old man now, and possibly he would not care to take up the appointment of Lord Chancellor again. We might, therefore, easily have a Lord Chancellor in office for only a few days. Is it reasonable to suggest that if a Government were in power for, say, a month, and a Lord Chancellor were appointed, that he would be entitled to a pension of £5,000 a year for the services he had performed for the country during that period of one month? To state the proposition is to furnish its contradiction. I suggest, therefore, that when the country agreed to give the ex-Lord Chancellor a pension of £5,000 a year the intention was that he should be available as one of the judges of these Courts. If I am right, then we are entitled absolutely to the services of the Earl of Halsbury and Lord Loreburn in addition to the other five judges. That makes seven judges.
  The Attorney-General said that Lord Halsbury was very good, and that he came in of his own free will and gave his services on the Judicial Committee and in the House of Lords. I say it is not of his own free will. I say that as long as he takes that money from the country he is bound to give his services in these Courts. The large pension of £5,000 a year, equal to the salary of the Prime Minister, is given to these ex-Lord Chancellors in order that they may be available as members of the Court of the House of Lords and on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. We therefore have the four ordinary Law Lords, the Lord Chancellor, and two ex-Lord Chancellors. We may at any time

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  have more. If hon. Gentlemen opposite and this Government comes to an end in three months or so, then we shall have another ex-Lord Chancellor, the present Lord Haldane. We, at any rate, have two, which makes seven judges to constitute a Court in which the quorum is five. That, however, is not all. We have, in addition, Lord Dunedin and Lord Kinnear, Scotch judges, who can be got at any time, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the Chief Justice of Ireland. We had Baron Palles over here the other day. He was called in by the Lord Chancellor to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to hear an important case from Canada affecting the marriage laws. We have also the Master of the Rolls, the President of the Probate Division, and five Lords Justice. We have fifteen or twenty judges who can be called upon if necessary. We have seven judges of whom we are absolutely sure, and, if by any chance any of them happen to be sick, we have this reserve force to fall back upon. There are always the two Indian judges, Sir John Edge and Syed Ameer Ali, so that all that is needed for the Indian cases, which constitute a considerable portion of the work of the Judicial Committee, are three other judges. Under these circumstances, there is no necessity whatever for the expenditure of this large sum of money.
  I am very glad that this time the Government have put the salary of the new judges at £6,000. That may not meet with the approval of some of my hon. Friends, but I think it would be very invidious to appoint two new judges and give them £5,000 when there are four others, who have no additional duties to perform, getting £6,000 a year. It is suggested that the proper course would be to cut the salaries of the others down to £5,000, but I disagree with that. The salary of an ordinary judge in England is £5,000 per annum, and I do not think it is one penny too much. I oppose the appointment of these judges, but I would not oppose paying them the whole salary if they were appointed; and, if the salary of an ordinary judge is £5,000 a year, it does seem to me only proper that the judges who sit in appeal from these judges and who are naturally selected men, men who are considered to be most capable of filling the judicial office, should receive £1,000 additional, so that so far as that point is concerned I quite support the change in the Bill. Last night the Attorney-General raised the question as to the calls on the new judges, and antici-
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  pated there would be no objection to it. Certainly, I have no objection to it, but I would like some information on the point. I understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the judges would only sit on cases from their particular Dominions. I have seen Lord de Villiers from South Africa sitting in cases of appeal from Canada. Do I understand there is to be a change in the law in that regard? If so, I agree with it. I do not think it would be acceptable to Canada or Australia to have their cases decided by judges from other Dominions or Colonies. What we really want, as Colonials, is to have the Court constituted of English judges, not acquainted with the politics or particular circumstances of the particular countries, so that they can look at the cases that come before them purely from a constitutional and legal standpoint, as they have done in the past.
  The Attorney-General, I think unfairly, attempted to prejudice this discussion by pointing out that there were sixty-three cases standing for trial which ought to be disposed of before the 31st July next. Thirty-four of these cases are in the House of Lords, and it therefore comes to this, that there are about forty cases to be disposed of in ten weeks. That is no argument for increasing the number of judges. As a matter of fact, I suppose, there is not in the world, and certainly not in this country or in Canada, or in the United States, any Court which is in a better position to do its work than these Courts are, so far as the business before them is concerned. I believe I am correct in saying that there are really no arrears whatever either in the House of Lords or in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that the only cases in which judgment has not been delivered are a few cases very recently argued, as must always be the case before any final Court of Appeal. If there are forty cases to be tried in ten weeks, it means disposing of four cases weekly. If the Courts were in arrear, as are those in the King's Bench Division, I would suggest that the Privy Council might well sit oftener than it does. It sits regularly, I believe, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It sits sometimes on Friday, but never on Monday or Saturday. There is no objection to that, of course, so long as it keeps pace with the work. The Attorney-General tried to prejudice the issue before this House by suggesting that there are forty cases to be decided between now

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  and the 31st July, and adding that the Lord Chancellor tells him that if we do not give him these additional judges the work cannot be accomplished. I do not think it is fair. I do not think it is true even. On the 31st July, every single case from the Colonies, including fifteen from Canada, will have been disposed of by the present judges in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and if for any reason whatever it may prove difficult to dispose of them, the Judicial Committee will only have to sit on Mondays and Fridays, and occasionally on a Saturday, in order to accommodate the Colonies and dispose of the cases. Colonial counsel are under great obligations to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the careful way in which they consider the circumstances of counsel coming over, and go out of their way to oblige them by expediting the hearing. I object to the Attorney-General taking this course.
  Recently a long article appeared in the "Times." Evidently it was inspired by the Government. I always suspect, when I see anything on politics in the "Times," that it is more or less inspired by the Government, although it is a Tory paper. The Attorney-General has stated that there is a terrible rush in the Judicial Committee, and that, unless the House of Commons comes to the rescue, and authorises the appointment of these additional judges, there will be a great block. There is nothing whatever in that. The writer in the "Times" went so far as to point out that there were two cases which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had ordered to be reargued, and suggested that probably that order would not have been made had these additional judges been in existence. That shows how little the writer of the article knows about the law. What difference could it make whether there were five or twenty judges if the argument had been ineffective? The truth is that one case was argued ex parte. The Court probably saw that some point had not been dealt with, because there was no representative of the other side, and, consequently, provided for a reargument of the case. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the number of judges. When we find an argument such as this put forward by the Attorney-General, we are driven to the conclusion that the Government have a very weak case indeed for their demand for two more judges.
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  What really was promised at the Imperial Conference was that there should be individual judgment given by the judges of the Judicial Committee. We are told by the Attorney-General that the Colonies have agreed to the abandonment of that. It would be satisfactory to this House to have published the correspondence upon that point. We had the representatives of the Colonies at the Conference taking a strong ground in favour of separate judgments, and I, for one, should like to see the correspondence which, according to the Government, has released them from the undertaking they certainly gave on this point. The other matter was that the Courts should sit separately. I do not think there would be any difficulty whatever in regard to that so far as the question of time is concerned. It would only mean, at the utmost, the Court sitting 200 days in the year, and surely that is a not unreasonable period of time. So much for the Government's position!
  I should like to point out this one thing. While Canada has been very glad to avail herself of the services of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—it costs her nothing, and is furnished by the taxpayers of this country for the benefit of the Dominion—I would like to point out that in all probability the number of appeals from Canada hereafter is not likely to be so great as in the past. There have been a number of cases decided by the Judicial Committee during the past year the decisions in which have proved very unsatisfactory indeed to the people of Canada. I am not going to discuss these cases. I am not suggesting that they were wrongly decided; I am merely mentioning the fact that there is a great deal of discussion in Canada at the present time with regard to the advisability of sending appeals over here, and that discussion has arisen from the fact that there have been a number of cases between big financial corporations and municipal bodies in which the municipal corporations have got very much the worst of the decision. I am not saying it is not right. I have great respect for this Court; I have not examined these cases; in all probability the Court is right on matters of law. We may assume that to be so, considering the high character of the Court in question. What. I am doing is putting before the Government the fact that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in Canada, and it has grown stronger within the last few months in connection with a case decided from

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  the Province of Alberta. There has been a great deal of trouble in that province with regard to the construction of a certain railway, and various Acts in regard to it have been passed by the Legislature. These Statutes came up for revision by the Judicial Committee, and, a few months ago, a most remarkable decision was pronounced. Again I do not propose to discuss it. I do not say it was wrong. But it almost paralyses the Legislatures of the different provinces in Canada, and it seems probable that, if the decision is allowed to stand, those Legislatures will not be able in the future effectually to legislate on a subject which has always been understood to be exclusively within their jurisdiction. So strongly has this feeling grown, and so much has it been discussed in the newspapers and periodicals in Canada, that recently a long discussion took place in the Senate on the point, and strong views were expressed by lawyers and others in the Senate that the time had arrived when Canada should cease sending appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I think that bears materially on this question whether we should precipitately appoint two additional judges to this Court, seeing that one of the reasons put forward for the appointment of the new judges is that the business before the Judicial Committee is likely to increase.
  If this Bill passes its Second Reading—I hope it will not—there should be some legislation by this House in another direction. If there is a strong feeling in the Colonies in favour of having the power of appeal to the Judicial Committee, that is not a feeling which this House should for a moment undertake to force in any way. If any Colony, if Australia or Canada, should desire to have its own final Court of Appeal, I think it would be, from an Imperial standpoint, the greatest mistake in the world for this House to attempt to force upon any Colony which desired a change, the duty of sending its appeals to this country. The Dominion of Canada many years ago inserted in its Criminal Code a clause to the effect that there should be no appeal to the Privy Council in connection with criminal matters. I do not know whether that was constitutional or not, but, in spite of the clause being in the Criminal Code, the Privy Council has continued to hear criminal appeals from Canada. It seems to me Parliament should make it clear that if a
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  Dominion passes legislation in favour of taking away the right of appeal with regard to particular classes of cases, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, we ought to make that constitutional, and it would be a great mistake to force the hands of the Colonies in this matter. The fact that that Clause was put into the Criminal Code of Canada does not in any way suggest that Canada is dissatisfied with the Judicial Committee as a Court of Appeal. The reason it was put in was to prevent delay in criminal matters. Canada has a great reputation for its exceedingly fine criminal law, which is so well administered. A very important thing in connection with the administration of the criminal law is speed, and we who are acquainted with what occurs in the United States fully understand the position. In the United States it is possible, on account of the numerous appeals, for a person convicted of murder to keep his case going in the Courts for seven or eight years.
  Mr. SPEAKER: This is totally irrelevant to the matter now being discussed. I must call the attention of the House to the continued irrelevance of the hon. Member, and warn him against it. The delays the hon. Member was dealing with were delays in the criminal jurisdiction of the United States. That has nothing whatever to do with this Bill. I must ask the hon. Member to approach more closely the subject-matter of this Bill.
  Mr. MARTIN: We have a Bill here affecting the constitution of a Court of Appeal—the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It will be proposed to insert in that Bill a Clause making it clear that any Colony or Dominion can, if it likes, legislate constitutionally so as to prevent appeals coming from its Court to the Judicial Committee. The reason I referred to the United States was to show why it was that Canada legislated in that direction. It was because we appreciated so much the undesirability of having long delays caused by appeals to the different Courts in connection with criminal matters. That is all, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. Member that he has already occupied an hour and twenty minutes, and that a great deal of what he has said has been tedious repetition. I give him a warning—that is all I wish to do at present—and I invite him to approach more closely to the subject-matter of the Bill now before us.
  Mr. MARTIN: I look upon this as a very important matter indeed. I did not know that I repeated myself. I am very sorry that I should have done so, and I will endeavour to avoid that defect. I have just about finished the points with which I wish to deal. In conclusion, let me say with regard to both the reasons put forward by the Attorney-General last night—the first that this Bill has been asked for by the Dominions at the last Imperial Conference, and, secondly, that the Court requires additional strength—I submit that I have shown conclusively that there is absolutely nothing in either of those points. I have read every word of the précis of the Report of the Conference upon this particular matter, and I defy any Member of this House to point out in any way that any single representative of any Dominion at that Conference asked for an increase in the number of judges. With regard to the other matter, I have shown that we have at our disposal seven judges who are paid salaries for the purpose of sitting in these Courts, and who are bound, I submit, to sit in those Courts already. The quorum attempted to be established is five instead of three. There is no trouble at all in having a quorum of five when you have seven judges available, and in addition to those seven judges there are eight or ten more who can always be had on short notice in case any of the seven should be ill at any particular time. I may have repeated myself, but I was not aware of it. I devoted a large part of my speech to reading these extracts. That may have been wearisome and tiresome, and I should not have done it if the Government had not made certain statements. When I challenge the correctness of the statements of the Government I am bound to show that my challenge is a correct one. For these reasons I hope the House will refuse to give the Government power to put upon the taxpayers of this country for all time a further charge of £12,000 a year.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment. I desire, in the first place, to protest against the methods adopted by the Government in putting down for discussion three Bills which are opposed by a number of their own party.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not relevant to this discussion now.
  Mr. WATT: Perhaps it may, to some ex-tent, account for our action in strenuously opposing this measure that the Govern-
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  ment have tried to punish their own supporters by bringing them back earlier than the regular Opposition. Seeing that you Sir, have ruled that out of order, I shall address myself to the question under discussion. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Martin), in his brief observations to the House, made one error. He said that this was the third occasion upon which this Bill had conic before the House. In fact, this is the fourth occasion. In 1911 a Bill was discussed in this House, the. Second Reading was passed after a protest, and nothing more was heard of it. In 1912 it was put upon the Paper, and the Motions for its rejection were many in number. This year it has been twice before the House. It has been twice through the House of Lords, and has twice come down here. The first occasion was on the 1st April—a very suitable day—when it was found that an error was made by the Upper Chamber in putting in the pensions and salaries of the judges, and a new edition had to be sent down to us. On the first of the two occasions, when the Bill was practically rejected by this House, we had the support of the Labour party in opposing the measure. They actively opposed the measure in 1911 by speeches and by votes, and in 1912, by their own Motions on the Paper, they indicated that they as a party intended to oppose the measure. It is an extraordinary thing that the Labour party are to-day conspicuous by their absence. Not a single representative of that party is in the House at the present moment. Yesterday, when an Address for a new judge was passed, only one Member of the Labour party voted with the thirteen who opposed it. I hope that the country will be made aware of the fact that yesterday the Labour party voted for an additional judge at a salary of £5,000 a year, and that now, when two new judges are being appointed, or the Bill appointing them at £6,000 a year—which is equal to a capitalised sum of something like £350,000—is being discussed, not a single representative of the Labour party is in the House. My belief is that the Labour party in the House are a stupendous fraud. The point which should make them most strenuous in opposing this measure is the fact that in the later editions of the Bill, as was indicated by the Attorney-General, the salaries to be paid to the judges are to be increased. Six thousand pounds a year is to be paid to each of these new judges, whereas in 1911 and 1912 the salaries were only £5,000 a year.

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  What is the idea at the back of this Bill? What is the Government supposed to be aiming at? What is the demand of the Colonies which they are constantly trotting out as an argument in its favour? In a nutshell, the demand of the Colonies is that when they bring their cases forward to this country on appeal they should have six judges to sit on those cases. They object to the fact that while in the Dominions, or in some of them, six judges sit on their cases, when they are brought over here on appeal the number of judges sitting on the appeals is four. That is the problem that has to be solved. The Dominions suggested a solution of the problem, which has been referred to by my hon. and learned Friend. The suggestion they made was that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be amalgamated, or made into one Court, and should be an Imperial Court for the Empire. The Government did not see their way to adopt that suggestion. I can see quite readily that there were many difficulties. There is the question of the reform of the House of Lords, which is to come in the immediate future, I suppose, and no doubt that will be dealt with when we do come to reform the House of Lords. The Government rejected that solution, but is there no other solution, apart from the one adopted in this measure, to the appointment of two additional judges? As my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, by an arrangement of the sittings of the two Courts it could easily be provided that six judges should always sit on the cases that come from the Dominions. What is the supply of Lords to constitute these two Courts? There are fourteen Lords who sit in the House of Peers who are qualified to sit in the House of Lords Appeal Court; there are fifteen Lords qualified to sit with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and there are twenty-one judges who hold or have held high judicial positions which qualify them to sit with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There are fifty men available from the Lord Chancellor to constitute the two Courts which only require six men to constitute them. Fifty available, and only six wanted! The Lord Chancellor has it quite within his power so to arrange the sittings that he will always have these six men available for the constitution of these Courts. The Bill of 1911 set about settling this demand from the
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  Dominions in a different way from the Bill of 1913. The Bill of 1911 laid down that the sittings of these two judicial bodies should never be upon the same day. The Clause read:—
  The sittings of the House of Lords for the hearing and determination of appeals and the sittings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council shall, so far as practicable, be arranged in such a manner as not to take place simultaneously, but nothing in this section shall be construed as requiring those sittings to be held at any time other than those prescribed for the sittings of the Court of Appeal in England under the provisions of the Judicature Act.
  The last portion of the Clause was a saving of the holidays to the judicial bodies, but the first part indicated that they should not sit simultaneously. Since that measure was practically rejected by this House it has been found possible by the administration of the Lord Chancellor and by arrangement to provide that they shall not sit simultaneously. In the years 1911–12, in many instances the two Courts did not sit on the same day. My hon. and learned Friend referred to the fact that the Courts sat, in 1910, 163 times between them; in 1911, 201, and in 1912, 187. But the principle which I am advocating, of not sitting at all on the same days, was departed from in these years on several occasions. In the year 1910 they sat on the same day and at the same time on thirty-four occasions, in 1911 fifty times, and in 1912 thirty-nine times. My suggestion is that all that has to be done by administration on the part of the Lord Chancellor is that these thirty-four times, fifty times, and thirty-nine times should be done away with, that the principle which in the main is carried out, that they do not sit on the same day, should be carried out in its entirety, and I think with the fact that there are fifty men available, and that there are only, roughly, about 180 sittings, it might be very easily arranged. Then the question of the number of cases which come before these bodies is worthy of consideration. In 1910, which is the latest year for which we have statistics, the House of Lords dealt with 100 cases, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council dealt with seventy-eight cases, so that between the two judicial bodies in that year only 178 cases were dealt with—fifty men to deal with 178 cases. I think it could be easily arranged if it were desired.

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  Then with regard to the number of days on which the men available have sat I asked a question of the Attorney-General on 10th November, 1911, and the reply was:—
  "The number of days on which each Lord qualified to sit for the hearing of appeals in either the House of Lords or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council during the last legal year is as follows:—Lord Chancellor 87, Earl of Halsbury 60, Viscount Haldane 7, Lord Ashbourne 27, Lord Macnaghten 121, Lord Atkinson 101, the late Lord James of Hereford 1, Lord Shaw 112, Lord Robson 119."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1911, col. 2046, Vol. XXX.]
  Then come fewer numbers, Lord Gorell twenty-four times, Lord Mersey sixty-eight, Lord Dunedin nine, Lord Kinnear twelve, Lord Alverstone nine. These numbers indicate to me that the distinguished gentlemen who are available for the constitution of these Courts can readily be called on to take part in the work of the Court in a greater number of cases than they have done in the past. Then there is the financial aspect of this Motion, namely, the fact that£12,000 per annum and pensions are being passed by practically an empty House. That point becomes important when one realises the figures which are already paid to the distinguished gentlemen in connection with the work of these Courts. On 22nd November I asked the Chancellor what money was paid, either as salary or pension, to the fourteen Members of the House of Lords qualified to sit for the hearing of appeals in the House of Lords or in the Judicial Committee. The reply was that the fourteen Lords who were qualified received £75,000. Then I asked on 9th December what the twenty-one judges who were qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee were paid, and the reply was that only sixteen of these twenty-one received payment from British funds, and that these payments amounted to £63,712. Then I asked on 10th December what was the money paid either as salary or as pension to the fifteen Lords of Appeal qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee. The reply was:—
  "The annual amount paid for this purpose is £70,792 6s."
  So that with these three figures together we have the sum of £217,547 10s. 8d. for the administration of justice in these two Courts, that £217,000 now being raised to £229,000, and the Labour party will probably vote in its favour.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs): The hon. Member makes a very extraordinary statement when he says
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  these moneys are paid for the administration of justice in these particular Courts. He must know, if he looks at the answer, that in a great number of instances they are pensions to judges who have retired.
  Mr. WATT: I know that £56,000 is paid in salaries to the judges of the King's Bench Division and £17,000 in pensions, and I am quite willing to accept the proportion of seventeen to fifty-six.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. MACMASTER: It must be remembered that this measure is based upon certain decisions which were arrived at by the Imperial Conference, and we must look at those decisions and also look at what preceded their coming to those particular conclusions. I think it has been quite correctly stated by the hon. Member (Mr. Martin) that, in the first instance, the suggestion of Australia was for the creation of what will be practically an Imperial Court of Appeal, by the merger of the present House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Prime Minister of New Zealand had in view the representation of his particular Dominion in the Judicial Committee, and his suggestion was that all the great Overseas Dominions should be represented in an Imperial Court of Appeal. These were the two main points pressed, though there were some subsidiary points of importance with regard to the small number of judges who sit in the Judicial Committee and the manner of recording dissent, if there was dissent, in arriving at the conclusions. It was pointed out by the Prime Minister, who presided, that it was a matter of opinion whether a dissenting judgment should be recorded or not, and he also indicated that in the great tribunal of the Supreme Court of the United States usually one reasoned opinion was delivered on behalf of the majority who gave judgment, and all the dissenting judgments were embodied in one dissenting opinion from one of the other judges. After a great deal of discussion a considerable number of difficulties in connection with the matter vanished. For instance, it became apparent to New Zealand that as they only had one or two appeals a year, and sometimes not that, it would not be worth while for a judge to come over and remain in England all the year round to wait for the hearing of one or two appeals at the outside. Ultimately the ex-Lord Chancellor suggested in a most reasonable way that the sole desire of the Government of this country was to arrive at some conclusion

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  which would best facilitate the objects the different Dominions Overseas had in view, and he ultimately made the suggestion that we should add to the highest Court of Appeal, both in the United Kingdom and in the Dominions and Colonies, by selecting "two English judges of the finest quality."
  The Dominion of Canada has no ground for complaint whatever. The Minister representing it said they were satisfied with the decisions which were given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that they would view a change with some apprehension. The Prime Minister of Newfoundland said that his Government was satisfied, but that if it was the general desire that there should be a change he would fall in with it. Australia did not appear to be particularly interested except in respect of the establishment of an Imperial Court of Appeal. The whole basis of the discussion in the Imperial Conference very rapidly disappeared, leaving nothing behind it except the fact of some little inconvenience with regard to the presentation of cases, the small number of judges who heard them, and certain other minor matters. The Prime Minister of New Zealand pointed out something which is extremely important, and which has not formed the subject of sufficient consideration. He said—
  "I would urge that in addition to the present members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council there should be a permanent judge from each of the important Overseas Dominions, one for Canada, one for Australia, one for South Africa, and one for India."
  That was the general proposition. I believe if an Imperial Court is ever to be established on an enduring basis that idea must be given effect to. At present we have the Chief Justices of five of the Dominions taking part intermittently in the proceedings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, perhaps one once a year, and then for many years not appearing again. I am convinced, as a practitioner before the Judicial Committee for many years, that that system is bound to fail. It is already a failure. You cannot prepare a judge for the important work of an Appellate Court like the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by merely allowing him to look in occasionally, and have there what is practically a very minor status compared with the regular judges of the Court. If you wish to establish a truly Imperial Court you must select the best men, not merely from the United Kingdom, but throughout the Empire, and place them in the Court for a term of years—let them get their training
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  that comes from the experience of hearing cases, and from association with the great men who are in the Court. They must inhale the atmosphere of the Court. If it is not worth while paying for that, it is not worth while making a change at all. What is proposed in the introductory Memorandum of this Bill? We are asked to sanction the appointment of two additional judges who are to be "English judges of the finest quality." I recognise these were the words used by the Lord Chancellor in his first alternative proposal, but they are not the words of his later formal proposal. I have not seen the reference to the quality of English judges put so emphatically before. I have always understood that it was difficult to discriminate as to the quality of the justice administered by English judges. But let that pass. Why "English judges?" What about my brother Scots and the Irish fighting brigade? Are these English judges to be restricted to the judges of Courts in England? Are we not to have included as eligible for appointment judges and lawyers practising in Ireland and in Scotland? But, even if you were to include these, then there is complete exclusion in this Bill of the possible appointment of judges and lawyers trained in the systems which prevail in our great Dominions. In that respect there is differentiation against members of the profession to which I belong, and of judges who come from that profession, and to that differentiation I cannot give my adhesion. I repeat that if you wish to have a great Imperial Court you must have representation in it not merely from England, not merely from the United Kingdom, but, if it is to be worth having at all, you must see that it represents the greatest men in the profession, whether they are judges or lawyers, from all these parts of our great Dominions which can supply such men. This Bill professes to be based upon the resolution of the Imperial Conference. After a long discussion at the Conference on 12th June, 1911, the late Lord Chancellor (Lord Loreburn) summarised what he believed to be the conclusion arrived at. He said:—
  "Is this the substance of what is proposed—I think it has been spoken to by all the Prime Ministers—that there should be one Final Court of Appeal for the whole British Empire in two divisions, the first division for the United Kingdom, consisting of the same persons as are now entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and the second division for the Oversea Dominions, consisting of those now entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee, with such further additions as may be needed. Does that represent the view?

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  "Sir Joseph Ward: I should accept that.
  "Mr. Fisher: Practically it is that."
  That was what the Imperial Conference accepted. Then the President said:—
  "You agree that what the Lord Chancellor read fairly represents the opinion of the Conference, and that will appear on the Minutes.
  Viscount Haldane: It is understood that this final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire is not merely to be of the strength of the existing one. We hare agreed to strengthen it, and propose to add to it as the Lord Chancellor said, two highly-picked lawyers."
  That is the conclusion they came to. There I discern that the present Lord Chancellor saw at once the absurdity of the previous description of the men who are to constitute this Court. He had in his recollection, no doubt, that two of the greatest men we ever had in the Judicial Committee were Lord Watson and Lord Macnaghten, both of whom came directly from the Bar and not from the Bench. He had in view that the best men should be "picked," no matter where they came from. It is clear that what the Conference decided was that the change should be in the direction of establishing an Imperial Court, one Division to deal with matters that now come before the House of Lords, and composed of the men who administer justice in the House of Lords, and the second Division to be for the hearing of appeals from the Dominions Overseas, and that to the second Division there should be added two highly picked men. Their decision, therefore, was that, if you appoint an imperial Court, the work, so far as the House of Lords is concerned, should be carried on on existing lines, that you should not abolish the judicial body of the House of Lords, which has done most important service—service which was acknowledged when this Bill was brought in in the Upper Chamber, but that simply the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should have an addition of two members. The point was put directly to Lord Loreburn as to how far the existing decisions of the House of Lords were satisfactory, and in clear terms he stated that their decisions were satisfactory, so far as Chambers of Commerce, the profession, and so far as the public generally were concerned. That being so, no amendment or improvement is required in that respect in the House of Lords. If we restrict the discussion to-clay to the question of the amendment or improvement of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I would say that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have made
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  out a very strong case that the Judicial Committee at the present time is sufficiently manned, so long as you are not creating in two Divisions an Imperial Court of Appeal for the whole Empire. If such Court is created, and if it has two Divisions, then of necessity a certain number will be restricted to the hearing of United Kingdom Appeals, and a certain number will be restricted to the hearing of appeals brought before the Judicial Committee. In that case, you require two strong Divisions, and it is in these circumstances that provision is required, so far as the Judicial Committee is concerned, that it should be strengthened by additional judges. If you proceed on the lines laid down by the Imperial Conference and create an Imperial Court in two Divisions, then you are justified in adding strength to the Judicial Committee. But if you do not proceed on these lines you must demonstrate that the House of Lords is not now efficiently discharging its duty as a judicial body, which you cannot do, because the Lord Chancellor has said that it is not so; and you must also demonstrate that the Dominions Overseas are dissatisfied with the decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which you cannot do, for they have not said so. I think my hon. Friend has made out a strong case on that point. Many of the retired judges who are in receipt of pensions would be only too happy to appear and assist in the administration of justice, upon receiving the summons of their Sovereign to aid him in Council. In these respects, it seems to me, in view of the limited lines projected by the Bill, as distinguished from those forecasted by the Imperial Conference, this Bill is unnecessary. If you do create an Imperial Court of Appeal, I agree that the Judicial Committee should be strengthened. I do not say that it should be strengthened by the addition merely of English judges. It should be strengthened by the selection of the best men wherever they are to be found in the Empire.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: I certainly do not intend in the very short reply I propose to make to travel over the ground which was travelled yesterday. In the speech I made yesterday I endeavoured to answer by anticipation all the arguments which have been addressed to the House today. I put forward the case for the Bill then in order that it might be unnecessary to go at any length into the matter again

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  when I replied. There are only one or two points to which I propose to refer. My hon. Friends who moved and seconded the Amendment have, as I gathered from their speeches, some grievance—or, at all events, they think that they have some grievance. It would be out of order for me to travel into that. What we have to deal with is the merits of the Bill to which we are asking the House to give Second Reading. The hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) made, I confess, a speech containing statements which startled me, because they were based on answers to questions given by myself or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I really think that the use he made of them was quite unwarrantable. He put together all the pensions which were paid to judges who had served their time and had retired, or who had retired in consequence of ill-health, and he stated that payments were made to some of these judges who were agreeable to sit in the Privy Council. His point was that the payments so made to them for that purpose ought not to be paid. Well, obviously it is quite inaccurate, and I think the hon and learned Gentleman appreciated that when it was pointed out—
  Mr. WATT: Pensions were included.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: One must be careful when a statement is made and a lot of figures are given to see quite clearly what the figures represent. Then he enumerated the number of judges who have work to perform in Courts which are themselves in arrears He referred to the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, and others. Anyone who has the faintest knowledge of what is going on at present must know that nothing could be more unfair than to say that these payments are made for services on the Judicial Committee. To put that forward as an argument against the proposition of this Bill is, I think, very surprising indeed, and the only explanation that I can give is that my hon. and learned Friend cannot have quite grasped the meaning of the answers that were given to the question. I can scarcely credit him with intending to present to the House that a large proportion of the payments made were for judges whose services could properly be given to the Judicial Committee. He must have known perfectly well that none of those judges could be spared from the Courts in which they sit. Every one of them has his
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  work to do there, and it would be impossible to come away without disarranging the whole of the work of the Courts.
  Mr. WATT: Sixteen judges were qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: When the hon. and learned Gentleman represents that there are sixteen judges available, then I say that that is not a correct statement, because he knows, or should know, perfectly well that the majority of those judges are actually engaged in their own Courts, just the same as the President of the Court in Scotland has his work in Scotland to perform, and he can no more be spared from there to attend regularly here at a Judicial Committee than the President of the Probate and Divorce Division can be spared from the Courts in which he exercises jurisdiction.
  Mr. WATT: There are no arrears.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACS: It is not a question of arrears. In order to keep down arrears a judge must preside over his own Court. Take the Master of the Rolls. The Master of the Rolls presided over the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal is itself in arrears with its work, and does anyone seriously suggest that the Master of the Rolls should be asked to sit on the Judicial Committee? The Lord Chief Justice of England, when he is well enough to resume work, might be asked to sit at the expense of the King's Bench Division. When you come to examine the number of judges who are really available, they amount to very few. I gave that Memorandum yesterday, and showed that they do willingly give their services whenever it is possible. Reference has been made to Lord Halsbury who has been receiving a pension for a considerable number of years, but no one will suggest that he has not given valuable services for that pension, although he is not bound to do it. Lord Loreburn retired on account of ill health, but he does sit whenever he can; but that is not the same thing as having judges who are paid their salaries and are under obligation to sit in those Courts. One word with reference to what took place at the Imperial Conference. The result of the whole discussion there was that a conclusion was arrived at which was formulated in the proposition quoted to some extent by the hon. and learned Member for Chertsey. It came to this, after considering the various proposals that were put forward with reference to the Judicial

  207
  Committee and the Imperial Final Court of Appeal, that there should be three new Law Lords appointed. That was the conclusion arrived at by the Conference. It is in order to carry out that conclusion that we introduce this Bill. It is summed up in those words which were read advocating the strengthening of the Court and proposing to add, as the Lord Chancellor said, two judges. Mr. Fisher said, "Two or more, just as you please." It is the minimum of that request that I ask the House to adopt, and I do submit that this is a proper thing to do in order that we may make our Imperial Court of Appeal one which will give satisfaction to all the Dominions and enable it to do the work of the United Kingdom, and in which appeals will be heard by a sufficient number of judges, and I will only conclude by calling attention to the extraordinary spectacle here in this country of the Dominions having recourse to our final Court of Appeal in this country as one of the great connecting links between them and this country, and pointing out that if they desire, that we should add two more to our judges in order that we may give them More satisfaction—and that is the result of the discussion which they had with us at the Imperial Conference—then I really do fail to understand on what ground it can be suggested that we should not give assent to their wish and should not pass this Bill.
  Mr. DENNISS: At the Imperial Conference the Prime Minister of Australia particularly asked that the judges appointed should be English judges, because he said that the Australians prefer that their appeals should be heard by the House of Lords rather than by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The hon. and learned Member for Chertsey was rather opposed to the Bill on the ground that the words "English judges" were put in. I think it is a fact that the Scotch and the Irish have already in this country a very undue proportion of judicial appointments. A very large number of our present judges, from whom those two judges will be selected, are Scotsmen and Irishmen, and if they were to be selected also from the benches in Scotland and Ireland as well, in all probability that proportion, which is already undue, would be very much increased. I got up, principally to draw attention to the fact that the greater part of the speech of the hon. Member for East St.
  208
  Pancras was directed to attacking the Memorandum upon the Bill. He endeavoured to prove that what is stated there was not the result of the Imperial Conference at all. I have taken the trouble to go to the Library and get the Official Report, and I see that on page 236, Command Paper 5746, contains a résumé of the proposal to His Majesty's Government agreed to by the Imperial Conference, and I think that if the hon. Member for East St. Pancras had read those words—which evidently he has not, as apparently he has only read the précis, which seems to have misled him—he would have found that the Memorandum endorsed on the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill is as correct a précis of what was agreed on at that Conference as it is possible for a précis to be.
  If the hon. Member had read the proceedings at the Conference through he would have found that it was said time after time that it was impossible that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords could sit together at the same time because there were not sufficient judges available; that it was extremely important for the proper conduct of the business of the United Kingdom that the House of Lords should be able to sit for appeals at the same time as the Privy Council; and inasmuch as the number of paid judges who could alone be applied for was limited, it was impossible that the business of the United Kingdom could be carried on in the case of appeals where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was sitting. For that it would be necessary that you should at least have ten paid judges available. The point insisted on at the Conference was that the quorum should be increased from three to five, and that it was not fair to the Colonies that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should only consist of three judges when the appeals were from a larger number of judges in the Courts. It was also advisable that the House of Lords as the Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom should have its quorum increased to five judges. Now there are not ten judges available. That being the case the essence of the Bill is that there should be two new Lords of Appeal appointed who would bring the numbers up so that there can be two sittings, one for the United Kingdom and one for Appeals from the Colonies, each consisting of a minimum of five judges. That is the scope of the Bill. The origin of it was this. While it was

  209
  impossible at present for this country to agree to have one Imperial Court of Appeal both for appeals from the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Dominions, yet they could take the first step towards it by strengthening the existing Courts of the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in such a way that the same judges would sit upon both Divisions. The Government were very anxious to meet the wish that as far as possible the appeals that came from the Colonies should be heard, not by the House of Lords sitting as the House of Lords, but by the Law Lords of the House of Lords sitting as a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. With that view two more Law Lords were to be added to the House of Lords, and they would be available to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
  The other provision of the Bill with regard to increasing from five to seven the number of Colonial judges who may become members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council when they are here for the purpose of sitting and hearing appeals is really a subsidiary matter, but it is one that has been thought to be important for this reason, that the Government have found that the five Colonial judges who have been appointed to positions which allow them to become members of the Privy Council and sit to hear appeals have not been able to attend more than very occasionally, and practically they are of little or no assistance, and it is hoped that if you have seven there will be more chance of more of them attending. The Bill also contains a very important provision to amend the Act of 1908 by which those judges were required to be drawn from men holding actual judicial offices in the Colonies. Sub-section (2) of Section 3 allows them to be drawn from
  ex-judges and ex-chief justices. It is perfectly clear that one of the reasons why the five judges from the Colonies who have the privilege of sitting upon the Judicial Committee have not been able to attend, is that the positions were restricted to judges who were actually in office. Naturally they could not be in two places at the one time, but now by a provision of this Bill ex-judges will be allowed to become members of the Committee of the Privy Council, and therefore in all probability they will be able to come over here and sit at a later period, matters being so arranged that long batches of appeals from one Colony can all be taken together, thus giving the Privy Council that Imperial character which is sought by all the Colonies. This Bill is the first attempt towards the creation of an Imperial Court of Appeal. While it does not fuse the House of Lords or the Privy Council directly, the House of Lords and the Privy Council judges, will sit equally on the Privy Council, so that the two Divisions, really consisting of the same judges, will practically form one Imperial Court of Appeal so far as the Colonies are concerned, but not so far as the United Kingdom is concerned. I support the Bill, particularly on account of the statement which the learned Attorney-General has just made, namely, that this is one of the connecting links which will help to strengthen the bond between ourselves and our Dominions.
  Sir RUFUS ISAACSrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided: Ayes. 225; Noes, 90.

  Division No. 90.]

  AYES.

  [5.31 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Addison, Dr. C.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Agnew, Sir George William

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Dawes, J. A.

  Alden, Percy

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Delany, William

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

  Bytes, Sir William Pollard

  Dickinson. W. H.

  Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Doris, William

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

  Duffy, William J.

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts, St. George)

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Bentham, G. J.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Essex, Sir Richard Walter

  Bethell, Sir J.

  Clough, William

  Falconer, James

  Black, Arthur W.

  Clynes, John R.

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Boland, John Plus

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Cotton, William Francis

  Furness, Stephen

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Cowan, W. H.

  Gelder, Sir W. A.

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Crooks, William

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Gill, A. H.

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Glanville, H. J.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Goldstone, Frank

  M'Curdy, C. A.

  Robinson, Sidney

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

  M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs., Spalding)

  Rowlands, James

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Hackett, John

  Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Hancock, J G.

  Meagher, Michael

  Sandys, G. J.

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

  Middlebrook, William

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Malteno Percy Alport

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz

  Scott, Leslie, (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Mooney. John J.

  Shortt, Edward

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Morrell, Philip

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Morison, Hector

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Muldoon, John

  Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)

  Hayward, Evan

  Munro, R.

  Snowden, Philip

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Murray, Captain Hon. A. C.

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Henry, Sir Charles

  Nolan, Joseph

  Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

  Norton, Captain Cecil W.

  Stewart, Gershom

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Hinds, John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Sutton, John E.

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Ratcliffe)

  Hodge, John

  O'Grady, James

  Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Thomas, James Henry

  Holt, Richard Durning

  O'Malley, William

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

  O'Shee, James John

  Toulmin, Sir George

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Verney, Sir Harry

  Hume-Williams, W. E.

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Incs)

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Pease, Rt. Hon, Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  Walton, Sir Joseph

  John, Edward Thomas

  Philipps, Colonel Ivor (Southampton)

  Wardle, George J.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Pirie, Duncan Vernon

  Webb, H.

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Pointer, Joseph

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Jowett, F. W.

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

  Joyce, Michael

  Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

  Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

  Kelly, Edward

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Williamson, Sir Archibald

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Radford, G. H.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

  Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

  Winfrey, Richard

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Wing, Thomas

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Reddy, M.

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Yate, Colonel C. E.

  Lynch, A. A.

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Younger, Sir George

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.)

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Macdonald, J M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

  McGhee, Richard

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  NOES.

  Adamson, William

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

  Amery, L. C. M. S.

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Hills, John Waller

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Hoare, S. J. G.

  Baker, Sir Randall L. (Dorset, N.)

  Denison-Pender, J.

  Hogge, James Myles

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Denniss, E. R. B.

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Doughty, Sir George

  Jessel, Captain H. M.

  Barnes, George N.

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

  Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

  Barnston, Harry

  Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Barrie, H. T.

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

  Bennett-Goldney, Francis

  Fell, Arthur

  Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

  Bird, Alfred

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

  MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

  Blair, Reginald

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  Macmaster, Donald

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Forster, Henry William

  Macpherson, James Ian

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Malcolm, Ian

  Bull, Sir William James

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Martin, Joseph

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

  Butcher, John George

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Campion, W. R.

  Gretton, John

  Mount, William Arthur

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Cassel, Felix

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Cave, George

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Nield, Herbert

  Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

  Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Perkins, Walter F.

  Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Hewins, William Albert Samuel

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  212

  213

  Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Sanders, Robert Arthur

  Tryon, Captain G, C.

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Sanderson, Lancelot

  Watt, Henry Anderson

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  Stanier, Beville

  Weigall, Captain A. G.

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

  Weston, Colonel J. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  Stanley, Hon, G. F. (Preston)

  White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

  Wedgwood and Mr. Booth.

  Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 299; Noes, 22.

  Division No. 91.]

  AYES.

  [5.41 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Dawes, J. A.

  Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

  Addison, Dr. Christopher

  Delany, William

  Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

  Agnew, Sir George William

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Alden, Percy

  Denison-Pender, J.

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Allan, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire)

  Denniss, E. R. B.

  Hume-William Ellis

  Allan, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

  Dickinson, W. H.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Amery, L. C. M. S.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

  Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

  Doris, William

  Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

  Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

  Doughty, Sir George

  Jessel, Captain Herbert M.

  Baird, Jahn Lawrence

  Duffy, William J.

  John, Edward Thomas

  Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Duncan, J, Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Essex, Sir Richard Walter

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Eyres-Mensell, Bolton M.

  Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Barnston, Harry

  Falconer, J.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Barrie, H. T.

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Joyce, Michael

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Fell, Arthur

  Joynson-Hicks, William

  Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

  Fishier, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

  Kelly, Edward

  Bean, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

  Bennett-Goldney, Francis

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Bentham, George Jackson

  Forster, Henry William

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Bethell, Sir John Henry

  Furness, Stephen W.

  Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)

  Bird, Alfred

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Black, Arthur W.

  Gelder, Sir William Alfred

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Blair, Reginald

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

  Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

  Boland, John Pius

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Gilmour, Captain J.

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Glanville, Harold James

  Lynch, A. A.

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han S.)

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Goldstone, Frank

  MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Bull, Sir William James

  Gretton, John

  McGhee, Richard

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Macpherson, James Ian

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Butcher, John George

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Campion, W. R.

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  Hackett, John

  M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs., Spalding)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Hancock, John George

  Malcolm, Ian

  Carson, Rt. Hon, Sir Edward H.

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Cassel, Felix

  Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Cave, George

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

  Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Calthness-shire)

  Meagher, Michael

  Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Middlebrook, William

  Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Millar, James Duncan

  Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Chancellor, H. G.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Mond, Sir Alfred M.

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Morrell, Philip

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

  Clough, William

  Hayward, Evan

  Morison, Hector

  Clynes, John R.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Henry, Sir Charles

  Muldoon, John

  Cotton, William Francis

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

  Munro, Robert

  Cowan, W. H.

  Hewins, William Albert Samuel

  Murray, Captain Hon. A. C.

  Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

  Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

  Neville, Reginald J. N.

  Craig, Captain James (Down. E.)

  Higham, John Sharp

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Hills, John Waller

  Nield, Herbert

  Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred

  Hinds, John

  Nolan, Joseph

  Crooks, William

  Hoare, S. J. G.

  Norton, Captain Cecil W.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Hodge, John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  O'Doherty, Philip

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Roch, Waiter F. (Pembroke)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  O'Malley, William

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Tryon, Captain George Clement

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Verney, Sir Harry

  O'Shee, James John

  Rowlands, James

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Walton, Sir Joseph

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Wardle, G. J.

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Webb, H.

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  Sanders, Robert Arthur

  Weigall, Captain A. G.

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Sanderson, Lancelot

  Weston, Colonel J. W.

  Philipps, Colonel Ivor (Southampton)

  Sandys, G. J.

  White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Scanlan, Thomas

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

  Whyte, Alexander F.

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Shortt, Edward

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

  Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

  Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Radford, G. H.

  Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs.)

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Smith, Harold (Warrington)

  Winfrey, Richard

  Raphael, Sir Herbert Henry

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Wing, Thomas

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Spicer, Rt. Hon Sir Albert

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Stanier, Beville

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Reddy, M.

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Stewart, Gershom

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

  Yate, Colonel C. E.

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Younger, Sir George

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Taylor, Theodore C. ((Radcliffe)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

  Robinson, Sidney

  Toulmin, Sir George

  NOES.

  Adamson, William

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Sutton, John E.

  Barnes, George N.

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Thomas, James Henry

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  O'Grady, James

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Pointer, Joseph

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Hogge, lames Myles

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Snowden, Philip

  Martin and Mr. Watt.

  Macmaster, Donald

  Question put, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 296; Noes, 20.

  Division No. 92.]

  AYES.

  [5.51 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Crooks, William

  Addison, Dr. Christopher

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Crumley, Patrick

  Agnew, Sir George William

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Alden, Percy

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Dawes, J. A.

  Amery, L. C. M. S.

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Delany, William

  Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Arnold, Sydney

  Butcher, John George

  Denison-Pender, J.

  Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

  Denniss, E. R. B.

  Baird, J. L.

  Campion, W. R.

  Dickinson, W. H.

  Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Doris, William

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Cassel, Felix

  Doughty, Sir George

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Duffy, William J.

  Barnston, Harry

  Cave, George

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Barrie, H. T.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

  Essex, Sir Richard Walter

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

  Falconer, James

  Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets. St. George)

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Bennett-Goldney, Francis

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Fell, Arthur

  Bentham, G. J.

  Clough, William

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

  Bethell, Sir J. H.

  Clynes, John R.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Bird, A.

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Fletcher, John Samuel

  Black, Arthur W.

  Cotton, William Francis

  Forster, Henry William

  Blair, Reginald

  Cowan, W. H.

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Boland, John Pius

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Furness, Stephen

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Gelder, Sir William Alfred

  George. Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Glanville, Harold James

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Lynch, A. A.

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Goldstone, Frank

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

  Robinson, Sidney

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Gretton, John

  Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  McGhee, Richard

  Rowlands, James

  Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

  Macpherson, James Ian

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Sandys, G. J.

  Hackett, John

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Hancock, John George

  M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs., Spalding)

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glos., Bridgeton)

  Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Scott, Leslie C. (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Harmsworth, Cecll (Luton, Beds)

  Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

  Shortt, Edward

  Harmsworth, R. L, (Caithness-shire)

  Meagher, Michael

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B

  Middlebrook, William

  Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)

  Harvey. A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Millar, James Duncan

  Smith, Harold (Warrington)

  Harvey. T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Melteno, Percy Alport

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz

  Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Mooney, John J.

  Stanier, Beville

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

  Hayward, Evan

  Morison, Hector

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Stewart, Gershom

  Henry, Sir Charles

  Muldoon, John

  Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

  Munro, Robert

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Hewins, William Albert Samuel

  Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

  Neville, Reginald J. N.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Higham, John Sharp

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

  Hills, John Waller

  Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Hinds, John

  Nield, Herbert

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Hoare, S. J. G.

  Nolan, Joseph

  Toulmin, Sis George

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Norton, Captain Cecil W.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Hodge, John

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Verney, Sir Harry

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  O'Connor. T. P. (Liverpool)

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Walton, Sir Joseph

  Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

  Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

  O'Malley, William

  Wardle, G. J.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  O'Shee, James John

  Webb, H.

  Hume-Williams, W. E.

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  Weigall, Captain A. G,

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Weston, Colonel J. W.

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

  Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Jessel, Captain H M.

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  John, Edward Thomas

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Winfrey, Richard

  Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Wing, Thomas

  Joyce, Michael

  Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk. E.)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

  Kelly, Edward

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

  Radford, G, H.

  Yate, Colonel C. E.

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Younger, Sir George

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

  Larmor, Sir J.

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

  Leach, Charles

  Reddy, Michael

  NOES.

  Adamson, William

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Thomas, James Henry

  Barnes, George N.

  O'Grady, James

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Bytes, Sir William Pollard

  Pointer, Joseph

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Hogge, James Myles

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Snowden, Philip

  Martin and Mr. Watt.

  Macmaster, Donald

  Sutton, John E.

  Bill read a second time.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the
  218
  Whole House for To-morrow (Thursday).—[Sir Rufus Isaacs.]

  MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The scope and purpose of this Bill is the same as that of the Bill to which the House gave a Second Reading last year. Hon. Members will remember that on that occasion, after a Debate covering the whole ground, only nineteen Gentlemen voted against the Second Reading.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: The Debate was closured.
  Mr. McKENNA: I am not discussing the question of Closure. The number of Gentlemen who voted against the Second Reading was only nineteen. I am encouraged by that experience to believe that the general principle of this measure has been accepted by the House, and will be accepted again. But although the scope and purpose of the Bill is the same, in many material respects the machinery has been altered. In introducing the subject now I would only remind the House that this question was dealt with by a Royal Commission, which took evidence over no less than four years, and in its Report came unanimously to certain recommendations, upon which this Bill is founded. It was observed that there is a class of persons in this country who, by reason of mental defect, are not able to take proper care of themselves. Under the existing law they are not provided for under the Lunacy Acts or under the Idiots Act, except in a certain measure. The Idiots Act applies to a certain number of them, but it does not deal appropriately with the class of persons whom it is intended to provide for under this Bill. Therefore it is proposed to repeal the Idiots Act, and to re-enact and incorporate it in this measure. Not only have we a unanimous Report of a Royal Commission in favour of some legislative measure, but I am not exaggerating when I say that local authorities have been overwhelming in their petitions in favour of this Bill. I go further and say that persons now engaged in every kind of social work, who are brought in contact with the feeble-minded, have without exception recognised the need for some legislation of this kind. At this moment there are, I regret that I must say, scores of thousands of people who, owing to mental
  220
  defect, are unable to take proper care of themselves, and who might, as I believe, if this Bill were passed, live happy and, within the limits of their powers, even useful lives. At present they are left, uncared for and unprotected, to live miserable existences, and, quite apart from their own habits, become a source of degradation, misery, and poverty to others.
  Last year considerable criticism was directed against the proposed machinery. In the Bill then put forward it was proposed to set up a new Commission, quite separate from the existing Lunacy Commission, to have the special control of all feeble-minded persons. I remember that the hon. and learned Member for one of the Divisions of Liverpool (Mr. Leslie Scott) took very strong objection to the Bill on that ground, and in that view he was supported by the hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division (Mr. Goldsmith), the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Pollock), and the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Charles Roberts). Their arguments, which I admit impressed me very strongly at the time, were further pressed in Committee upstairs, and in consequence the whole scheme of the Bill, so far as that part is concerned, was altered. The whole charge for mentally defective persons, whether lunatics, idiots, imbeciles, or feebleminded, was proposed to be placed under a single Board of Control. That is the proposal contained in the present Bill. The Board of Control will consist primarily of the existing eight paid Lunacy Commissioners. It is proposed that there should be altogether twelve paid and three unpaid Commissioners. Of the twelve paid Commissioners one at least must be a woman, and of the three unpaid Commissioners also one at least must be a woman. The Board of Control will deal with all forms of mental deficiency. After the discussion which we had upstairs, I think I am justified in recommending to the House this second proposal as being far superior to that contained in last year's Bill. It would only be right for me to say here how much I am indebted to hon. Gentlemen opposite for the interest they have taken in this measure and for the great knowledge they showed in debating it upstairs. My hon. Friends on this side will agree with me that, interested and keen as they are in the subject, the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, the hon. and learned Member for East Birmingham

  221
  the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington and others, were not less interested in securing for this unfortunate class of persons such care and protection as this Bill would give them.
  The next important change in the Bill is one which in justice I am bound to attribute in large measure to the strong criticism made to the proposal of last year by my hon. Friends the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) and the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood). Those Members took a very strong line in support of the principle of individual liberty, and it is only justice to them to say that, although they opposed me very strongly in the course of the Bill, their arguments were singularly effective in pointing out the particulars in which the Bill might be considered to transgress the due line of the care and preservation of individual rights. We have in the Bill as now presented to the House, so far as is possible consistent with the existence of the principle of compulsion at all, done everything to meet the objections put forward by my hon. Friends. Let me point out the very important changes which have been made. Last year the persons to be dealt with included persons who might be classed as coming under the definition of the Bill by a subsequent Order of the Secretary of State. That portion of the Bill is omitted now. The Bill, so far as the definition goes, is limited to what is contained in the actual words of the Bill. No power was given either to the existing holder of the Home Office or any future holder of the office to extend the operations of the Bill except by introducing a new Act of Parliament. We have also omitted any reference to what might be regarded as the Eugenic idea, which my hon. Friend behind me believes underlies the whole promotion of this Bill. I can assure him that, as the measure now stands, it exists for the protection of individual sufferers.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: By locking them up?
  Mr. McKENNA: Well, let me put this case to my hon. Friend: I suppose he will agree that the Lunacy Acts were designed by Parliament for the protection of the sufferers, the lunatic patients? Yet they are locked up for their own protection. Persons suffering from mental defect who come under this Bill are only locked up in those cases where it is shown by past experience that they ought to be locked up. Let me explain very briefly the classes of
  222
  persons whom we now propose to include in this Bill. We, first of all, define the mentally deficient. These are persons suffering from mental deficiency. They are idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral imbeciles. We make a clear distinction between the different categories of feeble-minded persons who come under this Bill. Idiots and imbeciles, who may already be certified under the Lunacy and Idiots Acts, continue to be certifiable under the Lunacy Acts, or under this Bill, without importing any new condition; but when we come to the classes of feebleminded persons who are not now certified, either idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, or moral imbeciles, such persons cannot be dealt with compulsorily under this Bill unless certain conditions co-exist together with such feeble-mindedness. They must either be proved to be neglected, abandoned, or cruelly treated. That is to say, they must obviously require the protection of the State; or they must have been found guilty of a criminal offence, they must be proved to be habitual drunkards, they must be children notified by the local education authority as being too low mentally or morally to benefit by the special schools provided, or they must be children who, on leaving the special schools, have been notified by the local authorities as requiring further protection. The only other class is that of women who give birth to illegitimate children whilst in receipt of Poor Law relief.
  Mr. BOOTH: Or who are pregnant.
  Mr. McKENNA: The difference between the two is obviously only a question of time. I hope my hon. Friend will be satisfied that we are only endeavouring to deal with those cases of feeble-minded persons where we have tangible proof that they are of a kind which calls for some degree of care from the State. My last few words are upon a point of the Bill about which I think there has been a good deal of misunderstanding. I refer to the financial side. It is proposed that the local authority shall have certain duties imposed upon them, and that certain powers shall be placed in their hands. So far as a duty is imposed upon a local authority under this Bill, it is limited to the extent to which the cost of carrying out the duty is borne by the State as to one half of the amount. The local authority will have no duty imposed on it except that in which the State bears one half the cost.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Would that amount to half the total cost of maintenance, including interest on capital, sinking fund, and cost of administration?
  Mr. McKENNA: That will include half the total cost of maintenance, including interest and sinking fund, upon the cost of the institution and including so much of the administration as is directly and solely related to this Bill. It will not include half for the maintenance of that which might be termed the general administrative charges of the local authority, and which the local authority will have to bear in any circumstances. Beyond that the local authority is given power to spend money without assistance from the State, but this is a purely optional power. The amount of the State Grant is primarily limited to £150,000 a year under the Bill, but that sum does not by any means exhaust the whole charge which will fall upon the State. Outside this charge of £150,000 per year, the State will bear half the cost of the patients who are sent to institutions or placed under guardianship by order of the Court when charged with a criminal offence—that is to say, as the State will be relieved of the cost of maintaining the mentally deficient prisoners in prison the State, in exchange for that, pays half the cost of the maintenance of the mentally deficient person during the whole of the time he is treated as mentally deficient. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because the State would be bearing the whole cost only during the time the prisoner would be in prison, but the patient will be under treatment in the institution or under guardianship very likely for a much longer period, and so the State bears half the cost for the whole period that the patient remains under observation.
  Mr. GERSHOM STEWART: Is it the place where the patient lives or the place where he was born that bears the other half of the cost?
  Mr. McKENNA: I should be very sorry to answer a question of that kind without reference to authority, but if the hon. Member will mention the matter afterwards, I shall be very happy to find out.
  Mr. GOLDSMITH: How many persons are expected to be dealt with under the Bill?
  Mr. McKENNA: I expect that immediately under the Bill about 20,000 to 30,000 persons will be provided for in one
  224
  form or another. The State will also pay the whole cost of the patients in the State institutions which will be provided for dangerous and criminally dangerous persons. I think it is clear that in the first instance that the number under this Bill will be quite as much aided by the State contributions as the local authorities will be able to deal with—at any rate for some time to come. The hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division asked me how many would be dealt with. I have made inquiry as nearly as I can, and I think I am not very far wrong in saying between twenty and thirty thousand people. That is, I am quite aware, not more than one-third of the whole number of people who will ultimately have to be dealt with. But it will take considerable time before we shall be able under local administration to absorb these twenty or thirty thousand, and I am quite certain, when experience has shown all the alarms of my hon. Friends on this side are entirely groundless, that Parliament will be able to expend the necessary sum in order to assist the local authority to carry their work further.
  Mr. BOOTH: I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to insert the words "upon this day three months."
  I am not altogether satisfied with what the right hon. Genleman said in the latter part of his speech, nor do I quite agree with him that the Debate was at all exhausted on the last occasion or was a satisfactory Debate. When we met in Committee upstairs we found that nearly every Member's time was occupied in trying to discover what the Government intended. There was a total lack of any general comradeship of idea as to the interpretation of any view of this House. We were totally without guidance when we met in Committee, and no one attempted to open the Debate by giving us what was the general view and spirit of this House. We commenced practically in chaos, and instead of considering the Bill which was passed by this House we had to consider a new Bill. Scores and scores of individual Amendments were poured upon us until we had to have special printing done in order that we might be able to form some hazy idea of what the Bill would be if the Government's Amendments were carried. Then there were many Members of the Opposition who put forward Amendments which the Government accepted in preference to those they had drafted,

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  and the Bill was left in so fragmentary a form that I intended, when it came back to this House, to take the ruling of the Speaker upon the point that this was not a Bill that had passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons. I feel perfectly sure that I could make it clear to the House in a moment or two that my point of Order would have had considerable substance. The original Bill that we passed, and that the Home Secretary has described in the manner he has, would have set up a new authority. It would set up three new Commissioners to tackle this urgent problem. It is a new problem. There has been no light thrown upon its solution from the history of our own land. The Home Office of this country were in despair. There was something to be said for the idea of the three Commissioners, but the Home Secretary to-day has rather poured contempt upon it. I do not submit to the House that when we are approaching a new problem of this kind there is an argument in favour of three men being set apart to deal with it untrammelled and unbiassed by experience in any Government Department. The pressure for this new legislation upon the Government undoubtedly comes from the Opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] There is no doubt about it. The experience we have had shows that a most lively interest is taken in it by the Unionist party, particularly by the leaders of the opposition to the Welsh Church Bill. Immediately after the Bill was withdrawn a little temporary disappointment manifested itself in impatient exclamations from the Unionist party. I have seen very little evidence during the last winter of any genuine interest in this matter by the Unionist party, but I prophesy it will revive, and revive vigorously. I am not saying that at all in discredit to the Unionist party. I do not want to suggest for a moment that they are not perfectly sincere in their views upon this question. What I am rather suggesting is that the urgency of the matter in the view of the Opposition is determined, unconsciously no doubt, by party considerations.
  When we met in the Grand Committee upstairs the Government immediately capitulated to the Opposition on a vital principle. This was a new experiment, and three men were to approach it with open minds. The Government immediately capitulated and decided to bring in the existing Lunacy Commissioners. I submit
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  if it is wise to legislate upon this important question, it is not a good idea to put old wine into new bottles, and it does seem to me that if you take the Lunacy Commissioners, some of them very aged men who have served the State in a particular capacity, and a very definite capacity, and if you make them the definite and heavy majority of this new authority, you cannot expect justice to be done to the new experiment. What are the chief duties of the Lunacy Commissioners, who are taken bodily in response to the advocacy of the Conservative party and put into this Bill? The original idea, through the agency of Lord Shaftesbury, was that the Lunacy Commissioners were to protect liberty. In this case they are to be brought in to protect property; they are to spend money, which was never a part of the Lunacy Commissioners' duty. There was always a lawyer accompanying the doctor to visit each case, the idea of the State, as I understand it, being that, the medical man might possibly lean to institutional treatment in certain doubtful cases, and the lawyer was there to safeguard the State upon the question of personal liberty. You had first got to satisfy, not the medical expert, but the lawyer, trained to a correct sense of justice, that it was a suitable case to be incarcerated. That was their function; the idea was not to put people in. The whole foundation of that agitation was opposed to what the Home Secretary-stated to-day. It was to protect liberty. Scandals had only been too common. People were put away by their enemies or by relatives who were anxious to get rid of them in the country, and this course was, adopted in order to safeguard liberty. The Lunacy Commissioners were not a machine to drive people into these institutions, but to safeguard the liberties of those charged.
  I venture to submit that the Lunacy Commissioners are not the right people to take in hand the administration of this new scheme. I think they are totally unsuitable, and this arrangement has only been came to as the result of a fight between the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department. They are officials and they have arrived at a compromise, and the one Department has to submit to the other their nominees and so on. I submit that if we are to look upon this question as we ought to, untrammelled by any bias and uninfluenced by wild theories, it is not right to put that scheme up merely as a barter

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  with regard to posts. I am bound to say quite candidly that I consider the great question of the treatment of the feebleminded in this country, without any relation to the fate of this Bill and the composition of the authority, hangs upon a compromise between these two great Departments. There is no necessity for tackling the problem in this way. I know it will be represented that I am in favour of letting feeble-minded people have numerous children chargeable upon the rates. That is utter moonshine, and I do not merely criticise the Bill from the standpoint of individual liberty, but I say this is not the way to treat these unfortunate people. You are beginning at the wrong end. I should have thought that in a State like ours, proceeding on cautious and conservative lines, we should have built slowly and securely upon a sure foundation. We ought to recognise the present authorities. There was not a word of reference to-day to the position of the Poor Law guardians. Many boards of guardians wanting something done passed vague resolutions in support of a Mental Deficiency Bill. None of them read the details, and they were horrified when they came to particulars. What is the point of complaint? There was a meeting held yesterday under Liberal auspices, and some Members of the Government were present. That meeting was addressed by two or three Conservative women. When mental deficiency is the subject, it is only natural, of course, that those who speak upon it should come from the opposite side. What was the point made there? The hysterical suggestion was made that unless we pass this particular Bill a great number of children were going to die. That is not the way to approach this question. If there are a number of unfortunate women who go down to the workhouses and have illegitimate children because of being feebleminded, and then go out and come back again upon the Poor Law premises to be confined—if there is any reality in that case—why not face the thing in a straightforward way. Why not give the guardians power to go to some kind of public Court and to state the case and to get power to detain those persons and prevent, them from going out again. The idea of the Home Office is not to use the present authorities with their men of experience, but to create a Commission of twelve paid people with £1,500 or £2,000 a year each, and while that feature is in the Bill, while open minds are not brought to bear upon
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  the question, while science and experience is not brought to bear upon it, we shall only find ourselves back to the old position.
  I do not propose to divide the House on the Bill, but I am bound to say that if there is a Division of any kind, while that feature is in the Bill, I must vote with many Members of this House who forces such a Division. I do not propose to go through the various points of the Bill. I want to take the general objection. We have heard nothing from the Home Secretary about the law of heredity, and very little about the magnitude of the problem. I have made close inquiry, and I do not believe that there is an increase in this problem; I think it is a lessening problem, and it would be sad to think, after we have been spending so much money on social reform, and particularly on education and other great administrations, if there was an increase in it. How is it that idiots are made? I remember the first idiot I ever saw. A woman in my village was called from her bed through the window and asked to open the door to admit the bodies of her husband and two sons who were killed in a mine. The consequence was that that woman was an idiot for the rest of her life. What takes place now in such circumstances? It is the clergyman or some minister of religion, or perhaps the schoolmaster, who is called upon to break such news to those people, and you do not see the idiots and the imbeciles you formerly did. Somebody said they are hidden from us. I do not believe that is so. I speak feelingly on this question, because it has been my duty more than once to approach the widow and break the news to her in order to save her reason. It is not a nice duty, but I appeal to the House to realise that many of those cases of idiocy were the result and were brought about in such a way, not through lack of kindness or of mildness, but through lack of education. Working men and women now are educated, and they will not break news like that, as it was done commonly before. They were not to blame; it was because they were denied education and enlightenment that they did these things, and it would be most disheartening to all sorts of reformers to believe the awful and the false statements made with regard to the increase in feeble-mindedness.
  What about the Christian position? This is frankly a pagan Bill, anti-Christian from its first line to its last The whole of the discussion upstairs was a challenge to the position of the New Testament. The ex-

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  perience is not what Members assume. It does not fallow that feeble-minded people have feeble-minded offspring; that deaf people have deaf offspring. We do not know the real truth or remedy. Only this morning I had a circular from Wakefield Deaf and Dumb Institute, where they claim that it is people who hear who have deaf children, and that deaf people have children who can hear. They appeal for support for that institution which is under the ægis of the Church authorities in Wales. I do not believe these various theories; we want wore information, and therefore I suggest that to take an old body like the Lunacy Commissioners to dominate this new authority is not the way to do justice to this new experiment. If the Home Secretary would make research into history, he would find some of the most famous men in the history of the world had mentally defective mothers. I will name three, Bacon, Turner, and Lincoln, three great authorities. No one will deny that Bacon is in the foremost group, and no one will challenge the position of Turner or Lincoln. When you come to examine the lives of these men who have moulded our opinions, and have given us a definite lead, you find that there is a great deal yet to be learned in connection with this question of feeble-mindedness. Mozart, Nelson, and Spinoza suffered from the disease of phthisis, which they inherited. It is all very well to ignore history and put these extreme opinions into practice. How dare we do it? What authority have you from God or Nature to interfere in this way without more study of the question? To treat the subject in this way is to me a matter of the gravest concern. I am sorry on the last occasion that insufficient time was not allowed on the Second Reading. If I were to attempt now to go into the question deeply I know I should occupy an unfair portion of the time of the House. I will, however, refer to the Home Secretary's explanation, and to the Clause upon which I challenge him. In Clause 2, Subsection (1), paragraph (a) (vi.), it is provided that a person
  "placed under guardianship—
  (vi.) who is in receipt of poor relief at the time of giving birth to an illegitimate child or when pregnant of such child."
  We have been told that it is only a case of time, but I think that is a monstrous answer to give. How can anyone say when a woman is pregnant of a child that that child is illegitimate? A marriage up
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  to the time of giving birth would make that child legitimate. If you are going to treat the question in this way you are disregarding in many respects the liberty of the subject. If the question is approached in that spirit, then I have very little faith in this Bill becoming law this Session. I thank the Home Secretary for the concessions he has made from the point of view represented by some of my hon. Friends below the Gangway and myself. I admit that the Home Secretary has made a most genuine effort to meet that which he conceived to be sound and valid argument. I willingly acknowledge that this has not been done formally but in reality, and that influences me in not pressing my opposition on this occasion very far. After all, the Committee upstairs gave considerable time to the subject last year. Concessions have been made to Members of the Opposition on some points, and to the minority opposing the Bill on this side on some other points. Unless some other turn is given to the Debate, I do not think that one would be justified in trying to kill the Bill at this stage. I would, however, like to hear from some Member of the Government some announcement that when this Bill is before the Grand Committee—upon Which I sincerely hope I shall not be asked to serve—that there will be thorough latitude of discussion given, and I hope the Government do not think, because they have made these concessions, that the Bill is now perfect. If some assurance is given that an open mind will be kept, in view of the discussion which may take place, I shall not press to a Division the Amendment which I have moved.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Speaking on behalf of the Opposition, I can safely say that there are a very large number of us who could wish the compliment attributed to us by the hon. Member for Pontefract were correct, namely, that we were the real promoters of this excellent Bill. We cannot claim to be the promoters of it, and we recognise that the Home Secretary is entitled to that honour. As the Home Secretary most graciously, courteously, and generously said in his speech, we have done what we could to help him to deal with this difficult subject and make the proposals of the Government better than they were when they were first introduced in order that the Bill might become a good Act. It is an exceptionally pleasant task for one on this side, who is

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  in the bitterest disagreement on many subjects with hon. Members opposite, and particularly with the Home Secretary, to have the opportunity of saying that the right hon. Gentleman has met us throughout the discussion on this difficult subject in a spirit of absolute open-mindedness, and with a single-hearted desire to try to make the Bill better. With that little interchange of compliments, I pass to the speech of the hon. Member who has moved the rejection of this Bill. I believe the hon. Member for Pontefract is perfectly sincere in his opposition, but at the same time I wish to point out that he represents the smallest possible minority of thought in this country. I believe the necessity for legislation on this subject is almost universally recognised throughout the country. The hon. Member has objected because he thinks that there should be one central authority instead of two, and also on the ground that the Lunacy Commission is like old bottles into which the new wine of the new Commission is to be introduced. The justification for the course adopted is that the Lunacy Commission has been trained in traditions of liberty in reference to the patients brought under its charge, and has had experience extending over many years in dealing with patients who are most akin to the patients to be dealt with under the new proposals. It is because of that experience and because we know they will protect the liberty of the subject that we want to utilise to advantage all their existing knowledge.
  Although there was great regret expressed on the side of the Opposition at the close of last year at the withdrawal of last year's Bill, and although we expressed that regret absolutely honestly, I wish to say that I believe the country will be better off by that Bill having been dropped. That Bill, from the difficulty of the subject, and from the departmental difficulties necessarily involved, was introduced in an experimental form. We discussed it very thoroughly from certain aspects in Grand Committee, and that brought to light many new considerations, and I believe the work we did then was done once and for all in its main outlines, and will not have to be done over again. But in the meantime there has been opportunity for reflection on the criticisms passed, and above all an opportunity for reconsideration of the Bill with its alterations in Grand Committee, with the result that the Bill now before the
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  House is a much more coherent measure than it would have been if those alterations had been grafted upon the original proposals. All those who have followed the subject carefully take that view very strongly, and when I say that, I think it is an admission which shows that our attitude to this subject has been in no sense a party attitude. Indeed, I believe party considerations have been absent from the discussion of this measure in an almost unprecedented degree.
  7.0 P.M.
  There are only one or two matters to which I think it desirable or necessary to draw the attention of the House upon the Second Reading. The first is the question as to whether the liberty of the subject is endangered or not by this Bill. The second is how children ought to be dealt with under the proposals of this measure; and the third is the question of the provision of proper medical research. There are also two other minor points I wish to deal with. I will deal first of all with the question of the liberty of the subject. It is said on behalf of a certain small section of this House, representing proportionately a very much smaller section outside, that the proposals of this Bill seriously interfere with the liberty of the subject. The best answer to that is to consider some of the concrete cases of feeble-minded persons who are dealt with in actual experience. And for the purpose of meeting this argument, which seems to me a fallacy likely to cause much misunderstanding, and possibly damage to the Bill in its passage through this House, I have had collected by skilled persons engaged daily in the care of the feeble-minded, a certain number of critical instances, and I should like to quote some of them. They have been collected by authorities whose weight will be recognised at once. They are Miss Mary Dendy, Mrs. Hume-Pinsent of Birmingham, and Miss Grayson of Liverpool, all of them persons in daily contact with the subject. These I put forward as typical cases to establish two propositions; (1) the necessity of power being obtained to detain children from their parents, and. (2) the necessity of power being given to parents to deal with their children when they are unable to do so without this power. Take the first aspect of the question, the need of power to detain children from their parents. Here is the first case:—
  Birmingham Cases.
  "Grandmother insane: mother feeble-minded, with, two feeble-minded, illegitimate daughters. (1)

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  Daughter educated in a special school, and on leaving great efforts were made by After-care Committee to place her in the guardians' colony at Monyhull for the feeble-minded. Feeble-minded mother absolutely refused to give her consent. This girl went into the workhouse for a confinement, and further efforts were made to induce her to go to the colony, but she refused and took her discharge. She had a second confine-anent about a year afterwards. She is now absolutely degraded and is reported to be earning her living by prostitution, and is accused of improper conduct with the grandfather. (2) The second daughter is a low-grade, feeble-minded girl who was found utterly neglected and committed by the magistrates to an industrial school. She is now licensed-out under the Children's Act to the Monyhull Colony, where she has greatly improved in manners, habits and physique, and where she is perfectly happy. Is learning to be useful. She is very nearly sixteen years old and her feebleminded mother has announced her intention of withdrawing her as soon as she possibly can. She will, therefore, return to live in the same house as the grandfather and feeble-minded mother and sister, and at is a foregone conclusion that she will lead the same life. If the Bill passes this year it will be possible to save this girl."
  "G. C.—Feeble-minded prostitute. Two feebleminded daughters. (1) First daughter: Father a criminal, having had various long terms of imprisonment; since in workhouse, and now in Winson Green Asylum. The daughter was educated in a special school and every effort was made to induce her mother to allow her to go to the Monyhull Colony, but the mother always refused to do so. When the girl left school she sold matches in the street and made a good deal of money, as she was a pitiable object and people constantly gave her money. This made it more difficult to induce her parents to consider sending her to a home. She became associated with a street hawker, with whom she lived for some time. She is now constantly in and out of the workhouse and various charitable homes, in none of which has she ever stayed long. (2) The second daughter: Father, defective, epileptic; was found absolutely neglected and was committed to an industrial school. She, too, has been licensed-out to the Monyhull Colony, and has made great improvement in manners and habits. Her mother is also constantly in and out of the workhouse, and is waiting until the girl is sixteen to try to get her back again."
  "G.D.—This feeble-minded girl was discharged from a special school at sixteen years of age. She went to live with her married sister and brother-in-law. She had a child by her brother-in-law and was confined in the workhouse. She took her discharge a fortnight: afterwards and went to live with a feeble-minded brother and a feeble-minded sister, She is so feeble-minded that she could not remember the month in which her baby was born only six months after the event. She is a girl who, if she had been sent to a colony for the feeble-minded on leaving school, would have been useful, respectable, and happy. Is now utterly degraded and miserable. Every effort has been made to induce this girl to go to the colony, but nothing will persuade her or her feeble-minded sister to entertain the idea."
  "Liverpool Case, F.P.—A feeble-minded, good-looking girl, doing well in a home; taken away by her sister, a bad woman, who induced the girl to lead an Immoral life."
  Here is a case which illustrates the need of parents having power to place their children under care:—
  "G. B.—This girl was two and a half years in a special school. She has just been confined in the Birmingham workhouse of an illegitimate child. The mother carne to the office and implored me to try to get her into the Monyhull Colony, but the girl absolutely refuses to go. The mother cannot control her in the least."
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  I have the letter written by the mother to the schoolmistress asking for help. I will read it—a pathetic human document:—
  "Would you kindly try your best to get Johnny into Home?…. I went out on an errand and saw a crowd of people. There were a dozen lads or more beating Johnny in the entry.…. He stood by the lamp-post and said he would not come for me. It was between nine and ten when he came from school; it is sometimes twelve o'clock when he comes home. Miss, do not you think he would be better if he was in Home? He would be cared for. I am quite willing to pay 1s. 6d. a week, and, as you know, it would be a great burden off my mind. His father is only a poor navvy and his wages is not much. P.S.—I would come myself, only I have got no boots. Please kindly do your best."
  The comment on that case by the school doctor was this:—
  "Regular street arab. Violent propensities; very little reasoning power. Very poor home; mother drinks. Boy often plays truant. Cripple in family. Typical farm colony case. Presence in school detrimental to other children."
  Is not that a typical case where, if the mother had such power as this Bill gives, it would be a great advantage?
  Mr. BOOTH: Is that a feeble-minded case?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: They are all feeble-minded cases. I myself saw and wrote to Miss Dendy, Mrs. Hume-Pinsent, and Miss Grayson, and asked them to give me typical feeble-minded cases to illustrate the importance for the sake of the individual feeble-minded persons of these provisions which hon. Members are now attacking as taking away the liberty of the subject. I will take a few more, which I got Miss Dendy to print and circulate. Take this one:—
  "R.I.A.—An abnormally developed and overgrown girl. At thirteen had already suffered every evil that can fall to the lot of a woman. Had several times been taken home by respectable men whom she had accosted. It was difficult to train her into habits of common decency, but at eighteen she was a happy girl living a simple, wholesome life, and her health, which had been very delicate, had improved. Her father, a drunken, disreputable man, then came and persuaded her to leave her shelter."
  Take two more cases:—
  "O. O.—An epileptic woman. Had an illegitimate child. Boarded it with a respectable woman and paid for its keep. One day fetched it saying she was going to place it elsewhere. Drowned it in the river on her way home. Is now in prison, being punished for a crime which she was probably quite unable to avoid committing."
  "C. A.—A strong boy, small; high grade feebleminded; subject to very violent attacks of temper in which be does not know what he is doing. His father murdered his mother. So far as the law goes, C.A. is 'at liberty' to leave his home at eighteen."
  I could quote these instances galore. Miss Dendy sums them up in these sentences:—
  "These cases might be multiplied by the thousand. They are not exceptional. There are large numbers who, without further legislative powers, cannot be

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  placed in any safe refuge. Even for those who are so placed, there is great danger that their criminal or feeble-minded patents may persuade them to leave."
  That is the view taken by all those who have had to do with the subject. I had the honour of introducing to the Home Secretary a deputation, representing working men and women from Manchester and the surrounding districts on this subject. It is for those working men and women that those advocates on that side of the House are posing as protagonists in order to preserve to them the liberty they are supposed to desire. Listen to what these working men and women say. The first was a deputation of the Manchester and Salford District Trades and Labour Council, composed of 33,000 working men who signed a petition unanimously in favour of the Bill, and their representative, Mr. Kean, a shrewd working man himself, said:—
  "There have been a good many remarks made as to the infringement or interference with parental responsibility, but to our mind, as workers, we rather look upon it as a liberation of the responsibility than an interference. Working people who have a child of this description may to some extent he able to look after the child. Still there is the constant harassing thought and dread as to what will become of the child after they have passed away, and we believe the way this Bill proposes to deal with this class of children is really the humane way. The time is long overdue and the question ought to be dealt with. We trust the voice of our workmen at all events will be some means of strengthening and helping you to make this measure an Act of Parliament, so that it will be put in working operation as soon as possible for the benefit of the children and parents and the community at large."
  Take the view of the representative of the working women. Mrs. Nevitt said:—
  "Speaking on behalf of the working women, who are mostly married women, I say with their full consent and understanding of what they are doing in this matter, as women who have studied the questions of the day and are much interested in social reform work, that we have come to the conclusion that these matters, have been dealt with from the wrong end. We wait until our workhouses and homes and prisons are filled, and we really think this Mental Deficiency Bill will deal with it at the right end, and prevent many of these people finding their way into the places I have mentioned."
  Mr. BOOTH: What is the name of that lady?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Mrs. Nevitt, of the Manchester District Co-operative Guild. The second point she made was this:—
  "Our women also feel very keenly at the present time that there is no restraint on this class of people perpetuating their race. We find that the working-class people at the present time are restricting their families - that I am absolutely certain of—because they feel they cannot bring their children up in the manner they would like to do. Yet at the same time they have to keep, or help to do so, this class of person, and there is no restraint whatever put on their bringing families into the world. We feel that very strongly: that we are populating the country with the wrong class, and the people who are worthy citizens have to restrict their own families."
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  That is the working-class view; no scientific eugenics.
  "With regard to the liberty of the subject, I may say that our women do not look at it as in any way restricting it. They say "We see the feeble-minded people about the streets, and they seem to be the butt for everyone, and they are neglected, many of them. Even with the best intentions in the world, the parents cannot always look after them as they would like to do because they are working women. They have other work to do, and other children sometimes to look after, and all their family affairs. The child cannot be taken out, and is sometimes kept altogether in the house, which I suppose is one way of taking care of it. But to our minds the provisions laid down in this Bill would be more humane altogether, and these children would really have more liberty than they have at present, because they will be taken care of in the homes and schools and the same class will be kept together and looked after. They really will have more liberty in a sense, because they cannot be taken care of in the home."
  I will only give one sentence more. Mr. McGlasson of the Trades Council said:—
  "Our experience, as leaders, has been that the quarter from which the opposition would come is not the quarter where the child is happy. The economic condition of their homes is such that the parents hold fast to these children because they see the possibility of putting them to work even at the sacrifice of the child. They look forward to the time when the children will reach the age of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen, and when they can put them out to make money out of them."
  I think that sufficiently illustrates my proposition that it is for the sake of these unfortunate individuals themselves that restrictions on liberty, if they are restrictions on liberty, are absolutely essential. I have here the report of Mr. Travis-Clegg, the Chairman of the Lancashire Inebriates Acts Board upon the work of the Langho Reformatory. During the last ten years a large number of women have been consigned, under the magistrate's order, to that reformatory, and of those women substantially more than 50 per cent. are feeble-minded, and drunkards because they are feeble-minded, and absolutely incapable of cure. Under the existing law, those women have to be discharged after three years' confinement, and of those, 50, per cent. are bound necessarily to relapse at once into that state of inebriety which sent them there. I will read one single sentence:—
  "As I have pointed out before, these women, as their life history shows, have not become mentally defective through drink, but are inebriates because they are mentally defective and cannot resist indulging either that or any other passion to the full which happens to, take possession of them for the time being."
  I want to quote one fact which is am answer, and I believe a conclusive answer to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Pontefract, that the evil is a decreasing evil. There are those who are wont to attribute this evil not to congenital variation, which is the technical phrase for saying that it is inherited, but to environment

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  and bad conditions. So far as medical knowledge goes it is most unlikely that any appreciable number of cases is due to environment. I believe most doctors hold that opinion. If it be that environment is the chief cause, one would expect to find the evil to a large extent restricted to old civilisations like ours in England, where you have slums. But it exists in new and undeveloped countries—in the Colonies and in open lands, and the evil there is a growing evil. If hon. Members will read the Reports on the subject from Australia and. Canada, they will find it recognised as a growing evil. I will not trouble the House with details. Hon. Members can ascertain the facts for themselves from Reports recently issued, for instance, in New Zealand, Victoria, and Ontario. These Reports all show that it is becoming a serious problem how to deal with the mentally deficient. No doubt their presence in the Colonies is largely a heritage from the wastrels and criminals whom a beneficent Mother country sent out in times gone by. Recently they have adopted stringent immigration regulations to prevent that, but it is too late. They have the stock which breeds and makes the feeble-minded. This Bill in its present form does not represent any experiment in eugenics. It contains no single proposition which is, in any sense, an experiment in the new discoveries of eugenic scientists. It is a Bill based on practical experience, on the experience of people who have had to deal with mentally deficient persons in voluntary institutions. It is based on the conclusions at which they have arrived as a result of their experience.
  I pass to another point. The Government in this Bill have accepted the suggestions that were made in Committee that the proper method of approaching this subject is to begin with the children. There is before the House not only the Mental Deficiency Bill, but also the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Bill. These Bills are part of one coherent scheme. They cannot be discussed separately. One is the complement of the other. Shortly the scheme is this: That the education authorities of the country, having already special schools in a great number of districts, having already had some experience of feeble-minded children, and being by law bound to deal with the education of all children, should be used as the means by which the children are to be sifted, so that
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  those who are capable of education should be educated, while those who are not, and who ought to be treated as patients, should be sent on to be dealt with by the authorities under this Mental Deficiency Bill. The proposal in essence is right. But there is at present in the scheme as it stands a necessity for some further statement of the principles which ought to be applied as the criteria for deciding which children should be sent on and which should be retained. The proposal as it stands in the Mental Deficiency Bill is this: By Section 2 Subsection (2) all children in regard to whom notice is given by the local education authority are to be sent on to be dealt with by the mental deficiency authority, if they have been ascertained to be incapable, by reason of mental defects, of receiving benefit or further benefit in special schools or classes, or who cannot be instructed in a special school or class without detriment to the other children, or who within three months before attaining the age of sixteen, they are discharged from a special school or class, and in whose care the local education authority are of opinion it would be for their benefit to be sent to an institution or placed under guardianship.
  I do not want to discuss Committee questions here. But there is a question of principle involved. I submit the true principle ought to be this. As the education authority is, by our system, placed there for the purpose of training our children to grow into useful citizens, it follows that, so long as the children are capable of being converted into useful citizens, it is the duty of the education authority to retain them and educate them. But as soon as it becomes evident, which it does after a comparatively short period of observation, that a child will never be capable in after life of standing on its own legs unaided, i.e., of becoming an independent citizen, then you ought to approach the question of what to do with that child from a different point of view. You have to bear in mind that that child will need support as it grows up; it will always remain mentally a child and always be in need of care and guardianship. Therefore, for its own sake, it ought to be sent on to the mental deficiency authority to be dealt with under the provisions of this Bill. This would certainly be in its own interests. There are two subsidary points on that. One is this: that a mentally deficient child will be able to learn

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  very much more how to be happy in life and moderately useful, if taught by the manual method of training now systematically employed in all institutions for the feeble-minded. I am aware that that method is also applied in the special schools of the Education authorities. But what I suggest is this, that in an institution under this Bill that will be the normal method of teaching and training mentally deficient children, and it would be a waste of public money to keep these children in expensive special schools when you cannot ex hypothesi educate them into independent citizens.
  Therefore I maintain the true principle should be that as soon as you have satisfied yourselves through the doctor—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Then I will use a colourless expression, and say that as soon as it has been properly ascertained that the individual child will never be an independent citizen, you should send that child on at once, and then he will have the advantage of being developed to the maximum of his limited powers from the earliest years. This will save a considerable amount of expenditure to the local education authority, for I gather that the cost per individual in institutions under this Act will be very much less than the cost per child in special schools. That, I suggest, would be the proper criterion to be applied. I believe the President of the Board of Education and the Home Secretary both share that view; and, if that be the case, then in Committee we shall have to consider how that principle can be satisfactorily expressed in the Bill, so as to prevent the possibility of divergent departmental views in the future between the Home Office and the Board of Control on the one hand and the Board of Education on the other. Those children will be kept in the schools so long as it is possible that they may develop into independent citizens, while those who cannot be so developed will be sent on, on the ground that they will throughout their lives require to be under care and guardianship. This point seems to me important. If that principle is applied, these children will be sent on just as soon as it has been ascertained that they can never become independent citizens without waiting for any particular age. I find corroboration of that view in this fact that, according to the information that has been supplied to
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  me, 90 per cent. are now discharged from the special schools on or before reaching the age of fourteen; and the effect of inserting the age of sixteen in this Bill would be to leave a period in which they would go hopelessly to the bad through not being looked after.
  I want to say a word on a class of feebleminded not technically children, but to which similar considerations apply. This perhaps is more a matter for the Home Secretary. There are a good many mentally defective, persons over the age of twenty-one who are not idiots or imbeciles, but who are, for all practical purposes, mere children over whom, under the law as it stands parents have no power of compulsion. These parents cannot send their sons and daughters to these institutions if they do not want to go. It may be desirable that the Bill should confer such a power on parents. I do not want to discuss that here, but I mention the matter as one important to be considered in Committee upstairs. They are mostly cases of what are described as "moral imbeciles."
  There is one more point in connection with the scheme of these two Bills in regard to children. The provisions and safeguards with regard to certification, discharge, and so on, are more effective, in regard to children who come "in contact with the law," to use the Home Secretary's phrase, under Section 2, than in regard to those sent on by the Board of Education. With regard to these the ipse dixit of the school doctors is apparently conclusive. The Mental Deficiency Bill gives the President of the Board of Education power to make Regulations which are not required to be laid on the Table of this House, and which give him in fact autocratic authority to deal with the question as he likes, and to drive a coach-and-four through the Mental Deficiency Bill. I do not, of course, think that that is intended, nor will it be carried out in principle.
  In regard to matters other than children there is one point on which I would like to lay stress. Under the existing law guardians of the poor are entitled to receive a 4s. Grant for every pauper sent to a voluntary institution under the Idiots Act. As the Bill is drawn I believe that 4s. Grant will be lost. I submit to the House that it ought to be preserved.
  Mr. McKENNA: It is intended to be preserved.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I accept that statement as satisfactory. The only other question is one which has not yet been discussed at all. Doctors say they believe that in a great majority of cases feeblemindedness is a permanent condition which cannot be cured. On the other hand, a committee of doctors specially appointed by those used to dealing with mental cases, acting through the Medical Psychological Association, have expressed a strong opinion that research work ought to be prosecuted with the greatest zeal. It may very likely be, they think that, at any rate in early life, many of those conditions which result in feeble-mindedness will, in the future, be discovered to be remediable. If so, the gravity of this evil is such that we ought to do everything in our power to open out a hope to the public that feeblemindedness may not only be dealt with as under this Bill, but may be cured. There is at present research in connection with most of the asylums. The Home Secretary knows what is going on. But there is no co-ordinated research work in relation to this matter. I have had a report prepared for me by medical experts, showing the kind of work possible, its urgency, and the great expense of the necessary, equipment. I will not trouble the House with details now, but I do suggest that some provision ought to be made not necessarily for a definite Grant of public money this year, but that there ought to be provision in this Bill for allowing some money to be given year by year for National Research in connection with feeble-mindedness. That is a matter of the greatest importance, and I ask the Home Secretary, when he deals with the Financial Resolution, which will be necessary for this Bill, to bear in mind that all-important question of research work.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: All of us on this side of the House who dislike this Bill, who dislike the principle underlying it, who believe that it is inspired by the grossest materialism, and who prefer to trust Providence rather than the Home Secretary, ought to be deeply grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down. We could not have had a more perfect example of the sort of thing to which we most strongly object. I do not believe the hon and learned Member can really appreciate the sort of blank dismay with which an attitude such as his strikes those of us on this side of the House who disagree with him. He gets up and advocates for the lower orders, for
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  the working classes, for the children of the poor, a measure which he would never tolerate for one moment for his own children. Is it conceivable that the hon. Member—I do not know whether he s married and has children—if this measure were to be applied to his own children, if he were to have his own feebleminded daughter taken away from him at seven years of age, in spite of his protests, and in spite of his wife's tears, would consent to that daughter being taken away to an institution a hundred miles away from his home, and locked up there?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I did not quite catch the hon. Member's question, but I understood it to be whether I understood that this measure applied to children of all classes of the community. I regard it as applying to both rich and poor. The evil is quite as bad, and in some points worse among the rich than among the poor.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: The question I asked the hon. Member was whether, if he had a feeble-minded child of seven years of age, he would be advocating this Bill, and contemplating with equanimity that child being taken away, against his wish and against his wife's wishes, and locked up for life from seven years of age onwards?
  Mr. MCKENNA: That is not in the Bill.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: The Home Secretary may be acquainted with his own Bill, but he can hardly have read the Bill which is to be brought in next by his colleague, the President of the Board of Education. Those two Bills have to be taken together, as the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Leslie Scott) has stated, and, taken together, a child from the age of seven is taken from its parents, becomes the property of the State, and is segregated, and deprived of all chance of ever going home again.
  Mr. McKENNA: That is in neither Bill.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: I will deal with the Bill. I do not like being contradicted, so I will deal with the matter at once. If you look at Clause 2, Sub-section (1), paragraph (v.), you will see that the defectives dealt with are those in whose case such notice has been given by the local education authority; and in Clause 2, Subsection (2), (b), yon find that in the case of the children who are at one of these

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  special schools, as they are called, and who are reaching the age of sixteen, the local education authority is to inform the local authority, under this Act, that those children are about to leave and are not fit to look after themselves, and thereupon these children are automatically drafted into these homes. What is called a "petition" is presented by the officer of the local authority, and the child, on reaching the age of sixteen, passes on automatically from the special school to the special home. These new special schools which are proposed under the Bill brought forward by the Minister for Education are to be residential special schools; they will be exactly like the homes proposed to be set up under this Bill, except that they will not be locked, barred, and bolted. Therefore I am justified in asking the hon. Member whether he would support this Bill for his own children as well as for the children of the lower orders. He says that the Bill is intended to apply to rich and poor alike, but he knows it is not so, for there are provisions whereby those who are well-to-do can send their children to homes, not to places locked and bolted, and to put them under the charge of a guardian, so that they may be saved from the segregation provided for the children of the poor. I do not think the hon. and learned Member would be quite so keen on this Bill, and advocate it with such enthusiasm, if he felt that his own children were likely to come under its scourge.
  What I liked about his speech was the way in which he viewed the education of children as being entirely a matter for the children and not for the parents. He viewed the child as a potential producer of wealth, as a citizen who is not only to be trained to look after himself, but to be able to earn something as he grew up. I do not know whether he thinks that the only end of existence is to produce wealth for other people. It seems to me that whether or not the child is to be sent to a feeble-minded home and segregated is a question far more of the wishes of the child and the parents than whether the officials and the doctors of the State believe that when the child grows up it will be either a wealth producer or a drag. The one interest of hon. Members who support this Bill is the production of wealth by the community. They have no interest whatever in the real well-being of the child, in its happiness or in the happiness or wishes of the parents. The Home Secretary, in in-
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  troducing this Bill, started by saying, quite-correctly, that this Bill was simply the outcome of the Report of the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission sat for four years and produced a Report upon which this Bill is founded. I do not believe it is the business of Liberal Governments, of Liberal Ministers, of men inspired by really Liberal ideas, to take, without examination, solidly the Report of a Royal Commission and embody it in legislation. Nobody can read the Report of the Royal Commission without seeing that from first to last they never conceived the idea that the welfare of the individual was one of the first things they should protect. Whether the people on the Royal Commission thought that or not, it is the duty of a Liberal Home Secretary and a Liberal Government to look at the question from that point of view. We are not here to enact in Acts of Parliament the Reports of all Royal Commissions. There are two absolutely diametrically opposite points of view of the government of the country. You can either accept the autocracy of the expert and do whatever the experts tell you, or you must ask what the people of the country really want, what you have a mandate for, and what is possibly not in the interests of efficiency or in the interests of wealth production, but what is in the real interest of the individual citizens of the country.
  I complain that the home Secretary, in accepting the Report of the Royal Commission and embodying it in this Bill, never regarded it from the democratic point of view at all. He knows that he has no mandate from the country for this Bill. The whole of the Liberal Press—the "Manchester Guardian," the "Daily News," the "Citizen," and the "Daily Herald"—opposed this Bill last year, and denounced it as an illiberal, anti-democratic measure. It has absolutely no support from the country. The right hon. Gentleman has never mentioned it in his speeches in the country, and none of the Cabinet Ministers have attempted to defend it in the country. None of them had it in their election addresses when the last election was on. I do not suppose that any of them, except the Home Secretary, has ever read the Bill. It is now brought forward, based on the Report of the Royal Commission, and drafted by the Home Office. We should not swallow everything the Home Office puts before the House of Commons. I am against government by experts, and still more against government by artificial agitation. Last year we had

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  a sudden, raging, tearing agitation got up over what was called the "White Slave Traffic" Bill. This House passed the Bill, and then discovered that there was no trade at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, no."] Not a single white slave trader has been arrested since. They may have passed over to France. That was a Bill to arrest all those people who were waiting at railway stations to lure poor girls away. The Bill was passed, and nobody has been arrested. A similar agitation has been got up now. Miss Pinsent, who speaks on Liberal platforms for the National Liberal Women's Association, has wonderful ability, such ability as only ladies seem to possess nowadays. She organised all over the country a series of petitions and a campaign in favour of this measure. It is very likely to grow in force, and we shall hear the women of the country clamouring for this Bill, as they did for the White Slave Bill. But it is our business to look at the measure from the point of view of actual law; to read the Bill, and see how it will actually affect our constituents. If this Bill is passed into law, it will put into prison 100,000 people who are at present at liberty. That means that in each of our constituencies there are fifty people now at liberty who will be put into prison. Before we enact a law doing that, we ought to carefully consider whether we are justified in making the change.
  I admit at once that there can be a very strong case indeed made out for some measure on these lines. The heartrending examples react out by the hon. Member for Liverpool can be multiplied in every corner of the country. There are hundreds of cases of women who drift in and out of the workhouses. They go in to have a child, come out, and go back again. There are hundreds of cases of people who sink to the lowest depth of degradation because they are not properly looked after at the present time. While we admit all that—and everyone knows it is true—it by no means leads us to accept this solution of the Government as the proper solution of the difficulty. Hon. Members interested in the question know that at Sandlebridge, near Birmingham, there is an admirable institution. Such institutions are homes in the best sense; they are looked after by people who are interested in looking after this particular class of persons. There are separate houses for each class of defective and for each sex. The people who run these houses subsist partly on grants from the county council, and partly from voluntary contributions, and they have the
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  utmost difficulty in making both ends meet. They are overwhelmed by applications from parents to make room for their children, So that their children can go to these homes. I think I was told there were 4,000 applications for a vacancy at Sandlebridge. These are the homes which are run on admirable lines.
  Surely if yon want to do anything really to help the feeble-minded, and not something which is to turn out more defective children, the best thing we can do is to, encourage homes such as these. There ought to be far more of such homes. But let us be quite certain that we keep them as homes, and do not turn them into, prisons. Everyone who has studied the question knows that the backbone of this. Bill is the abolition of these homes and the substitution for them of asylums, where there are bolts and bars, where people are locked up at night, where people may not go in order to visit their friends, where they will be hunted like runaway slaves if they escape, and brought back by any constable or any servant of the asylum. The will power of these mentally defective people is so poor that there are hardly any escapes from these existing real homes. They do not run away, because they are-persuaded not to. You are going to alter these homes into places where they are locked up. The first result of that will be that people outside will no longer have confidence in the way these homes are being managed. Directly you put obstacles in the way of free egress you immediately start all sorts of ideas as to what goes on in these homes. No one who has read Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," no one who, reads the newspapers and sees the accounts which occasionally come up of ill-treatment of convicts, will for a moment assert that if you establish all over this country asylums where people on the borderline between sanity and insanity are locked up you will not take all manner of tales, and probably more than tales, of what goes on inside these new asylums. I believe good work can be done by amending our existing lunacy laws in the direction of more careful inspection and more humane treatment in these asylums. I should be the last person to do anything to add to the number of people in asylums in this country—100,000 poor people who cannot do anything for themselves and who are on the borderline between sanity and insanity.
  We have at present admirable homes. Why not use the money which this Bill finds for increasing those homes and for

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  establishing them all over the country? As the Home Secretary said last year, but unfortunately did not repeat to-day, if these were voluntary homes, if there were no locks and bolts and bars, 99 per cent. of the people in them would remain there just as though they were involuntary. Why, for the sake of the odd 1 per cent., introduce a prison instead of leaving to develope, still more fully than it is developing at present, the voluntary: system where the feeble-minded person is genuinely looked after. If you put on bolts and bars, you not only arouse suspicion, but you will get far more brusque treatment, possibly brutal treatment, of the inmates. If the home is voluntary, there is every inducement to the people who run it to see that the inmates are treated humanely, and not made to dislike the place. But if you make them closed homes, whence the people cannot escape, one of your greatest safeguards for kind treatment of the inmates vanishes, and you do not know what may take its place. We know there are these hard cases. We know there are feeble-minded men and women who ought to be looked after by the State. Let the 'Government go gently. Let them extend the existing system. Let them increase the number of these homes, but do not let them jump from the present system to one with which we have no acquaintance except so far as the Lunacy Commissioners and our present asylum for the insane give us light upon what may happen. If you give money to these homes; if you put local authorities in charge of homes such as Sandlebridge all over the country, if there are vacancies for all the parents who want to send their children to these homes, you will have done something for the feeble-minded people of the country, and at the same time you will not have committed any crime against them. You will not be scrapping them for life; you will not be locking them up against their wish, but you will be safeguarding them against ill-treatment. That is what I think the Government ought to do. Let them establish voluntary homes. If they like, let them make it impossible for the parents to take the children away from the homes until they are twenty-one years of age, but after twenty-one years of age, let them be free to go or come as they like, and we know that 99 per cent, will be so much at home in the homes that they will stop on naturally.
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  But we have come to an age in which the State is supposed to do everything by compulsion, an age in which the policeman is a god, and in which he has to rule the people. The Government now say we will put these children away at seven years of age, and keep them in these institutions for the rest of their life. We will segregate them; we will look after them very kindly, but we will segregate them in order that the breed of the race may be improved and in order that the wealth producing power of the working classes may be increased.
  I want to go through this Bill and see exactly what it does propose, because, after all, it is a long Bill, and 99 out of every 100 who talk about it have never read it. In the first Clause you have the definition of the various people who are to come within the ambit of the Bill. There are four different classes. There used to be more, but fortunately, we have reduced them to four. There are, first, idiots and imbeciles, about whom we need say nothing, because they are already dealt with; then we come to feeble-minded persons, in whose case there exists from birth defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care for their own protection, or for the protection of others. That is appallingly vague, and in many cases it is not a matter that a doctor can decide. It is not a question that he can diagnose. It is merely a matter of opinion that they require care for their protection or for the protection of others. Merely under the words, "for the protection of others," you might bring in all the ideas of the Eugenist School. We might want to protect others in the future from coming in contact with feeble-minded persons, and therefore we might segregate them. We might say that people like the hon. Member (Mr. Keir Hardie) are a danger to society, and for the protection of others they should be segregated and kept out of the way. Dr. Bernard Hollander, who has written an extremely interesting article upon this Bill, writes as follows on this important point of the definition of feeble-minded persons:—
  "This definition is unsatisfactory. It can be made applicable to a great many persons who are leading normal and useful Is it not true of many men, and still more so of a great many women, that they are mentally defective—of course not amounting to imbecility, yet sufficiently pronounced that some care, supervision and control should be given for their protection and for the protection of others? We are all feeble-minded in some respects, or when taken out of our accustomed environment. For the law to interfere with the border-line feeble-minded it should be proved

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  in any given case that the person was always in need of supervision and not merely at a particular time; and in the case of children it is not sufficient to say that they are incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in ordinary schools, which may apply to a great many children who do well in after life, but it should be stated that they have failed to acquire even rudimentary knowledge."
  Of course Cowper the poet would have been locked up under this Bill. He was sufficiently feeble-minded. In fact, the children who would come under the definition of "incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools" might be extended to include nearly one-half the population. It is a matter which anyone who is put in authority would be able to use as a tremendous weapon to bully or blackmail people or in other ways to bend them to their will. People who are incapable of receiving proper benefit and instruction are unfortunately too numerous in this country, though there are plenty of them in this House, as far as I can see. The definition of feeble-minded is so vague as to be utterly valueless.
  8.0 P.M.
  Then we come to the people whom we really want to get at on the other side. Those are the moral imbeciles—that is to say, persons who from an early age display some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities, on which punishment has little or no deterrent effect. There are a great many people upon whom punishment has very little deterrent effect. I rather thought we were growing out of the habit of regarding punishment as being the best deterrent. Let me read what Dr. Hollander says about moral imbeciles:—
  "What is meant by mental defects? Moral imbeciles are those who display some mental defect. If a moral defect is meant, it should be stated so, but if intellectual defect is meant, it is in the majority of cases not true. Moral imbeciles show, as a rule, intellectually, but little, if any, abnormality. They do not lack brain or intelligence. Of these they have more than their share, but they put them to a bad use."
  When the other Bill was going through Committee upstairs an hon. Member actually proposed that all prostitutes should be included with persons who are liable to be segregated, and obviously there must be a large class of people who believe that prostitutes are feeble-minded persons, and should all be segregated for life. It is not fair to the citizens of this country to leave them absolutely at the mercy of people who can read into this Bill exactly what they like owing to the vagueness of these definitions. Such, then, are the classes of persons—idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral imbeciles. Having got these four
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  different classes, what does the Bill propose to do? It does not say all these people are to be segregated. They have got to come in contact with the law, or-come under some of the Sub-clauses of Clause 2. Those who are idiots and imbeciles, the worst class, and also the feeble-minded and moral imbeciles who, are below twenty-one, can be put away by their parents after an inspection by a doctor. That seems to me to be a very satisfactory part of the Bill. At present a parent can put away a feeble-minded child if he is lucky enough to get a vacancy in a home. Then the next thing is that any of them who are found neglected or cruelly treated may be taken away. That seems to be perfectly just. They are the children of all parents who are not taken proper care of. Then we come to those "found guilty of any offence." The Home Secretary in stating what this Bill did inserted-there the word "criminal," which, at any rate, makes the Clause better. As the Bill stands at present "any offence" would include such offences as being sued for debt, non-payment of rates, or anything of that sort.
  Mr. McKENNA: That is expressly excluded.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is such an offence not included under paragraph (ii.), Clause 2, Sub-section (1)? It provides that a mentally defective person may be sent to or placed in an institution for defectives or placed under guardianship
  "who is found guilty of any offence, or who is ordered or liable to be ordered to be sent to a certified industrial school."
  Even there I would like to point out to the House that it makes a great deal of difference to a person sentenced to seven days' imprisonment whether the actual imprisonment is to be for seven days or for life. Paragraph (b), Clause 2, seem to me in need of amendment in the direction of excluding people who receive short sentences from the ambit of the measure. We have to remember that people in prison, undergoing short sentences can be transferred under the Bill by the ipse digit of the Home Secretary into these asylums for life. It is a very serious thing to pass an Act that gives such power over citizens of this country who have been guilty of some minor offence. There are powers dealing with habitual drunkards, and women "in receipt of poor relief at the-time of giving birth to an illegitimate.

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  child." However much some Members of this House may look down on these women who go to the workhouse, we must remember that it is not fair to punish them in the way this Bill would do. It is rather hard that a woman who has been betrayed by some man, and who must go to the workhouse simply because necessity compels her to go there, should incur the risk of being sent to one of these asylums. There is a certain prejudice against women who have illegitimate children, and you might find boards of guardians acting with extraordinary stringency. I would ask the Home Secretary, when this Bill goes upstairs, to make a modification of this provision. He should make it apply after the birth of a second child, and not a first child, so as not to condemn these women to the awful doom contemplated by this provision.
  You cannot do much even under eugenic regulations to deal with this question in the case of feeble-minded persons. The Government have followed up the suggestions of eugenic cranks in regard to this Bill and the Bill of the Education Department dealing with elementary education. They propose to deal with the children in this way: In the first place, schools are to be provided all over the country, both in urban and rural districts. There are many of these special schools already all over the country, and admirable schools they are. But there are country districts where it is impossible to put up a school for a couple of children. You will have these schools as residential schools. They will not be day schools to which the children will go in the day time, and return to their homes every night. During the term and very often during holidays as well, the children will be entirely separated from their parents, just as boys who are at public schools. At the present time children are not forced to go to school if they are mentally defective. Even in the urban districts children who go to the "silly schools" are not forced to go to the ordinary schools at the present time. So far as they are concerned education is voluntary, but directly the Board of Education Bill has been passed education for those children will become compulsory both in town and country, and people who have defective children will be bound to send them to these schools. The great argument in favour of compulsory education, so far as education in the ordinary schools is concerned, is that if the parents were not compelled to send their children
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  to school they would make them work to bring in a little money. That argument does not hold good so far as defective children are concerned. The Bill proposes that children from seven to sixteen years of age should be weeded out from the ordinary elementary schools and sent to these homes for the mentally defective. To that part of the scheme I have no objection. It seems to me that it would be of advantage to the other children in the ordinary schools that defective children should be weeded out and sent to these institutions. What I have the greatest objection to is what, is to happen to these children when they get to sixteen years of age. When they get to that age they do not return to their parents and to normal life. After the presentation of a petition—a purely formal proceeding—they are segregated for the rest of their life.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): The hon. Member is under an entire misapprehension in regard to what will happen to these children. We believe that a very large number of them will never have to be placed under any such custodial conditions as the hon. Member suggests.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Many experts agree that at the age of sixteen mentally defective boys or girls are not in a state to look after themselves. A very small proportion will be able to do so, and I do not think that the Education Department can say that they will be in a fit state to look after themselves at that age. If the age were raised to eighteen, I think he would be right, and that he would be able to let out a great many more boys and girls. At the age of sixteen it is very unlikely that the children would be able to be set free. They will be sent to an involuntary home—in fact, to an asylum. It will be observed that in hardly any of these cases are rich people touched. It is the lower orders who are being dealt with. Section 3 is immaterial. Under Section 4 we see the method by which the State gets hold of the mentally defective in certain circumstances. There are three ways for different classes. When a child has reached the age of sixteen a petition is to be presented to a magistrate by the officer of the local authority. The application is made in private, the petition is accompanied by two medical certificates, or, if they cannot examine the boy or girl, they must state why they have not done so. The doctors have to certify on a question

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  which is not a medical question at all. Feeble-mindedness is not something that can be diagnosed like chicken-pox or phthisis.
  The matter is one in which almost any-one is as good a judge as a doctor. The British Phrenological Society has put forward a very good point about this. They say that in every case there should be a statutory declaration in regard to the mental condition of the defective person made before laymen to be appointed for the purpose by a judicial authority, and they consider that one holding a public office or a justice of the peace would be preferable. You must remember that it will be fatally easy to get these certificates. The local authority makes the petition when the child is sixteen years of age, and inevitably the doctors will have thousands of these petitions to sign. They will be in all probability the servants of the local authorities, and the petition will be a mere matter of form in the case of children attending the special schools. I think there is the utmost need for an out-side medium in these cases—a justice of the peace, or somebody who is not a mere medical officer, or servant of the local authority. Having presented the petition, the next stage is that the person who is feeble-minded is summoned and brought before the magistrate. He is tried in private on the evidence of these two medical certificates. It is true that the magistrate can, if he wishes, have the inquiry held in public, but if he does not wish it, the inquiry will be held in private. He is to be empowered to allow the mentally defective person to have friends present. I am afraid those persons will not be in a mental state to demand the privilege of having their friends present. In this connection I wish to read to the House an extract from the letter of a man who was confined in an asylum.
  It being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, Further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  CITY OF LONDON (CELLULOID REGULATIONS) BILL.—(By Order.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. BAIRD: I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."
  I move this Amendment in the interests of a certain number of my Constituents who are engaged in the manufacture of celluloid. It is an exemplary factory where a great number of people obtain work at a good wage and under very admirable conditions. And I think that before a Bill is passed which threatens to deprive them of their livelihood some very good reason ought to be shown to prove its necessity. This Bill is based upon a certain amount of confusion with regard to the celluloid business. It deals with manufacturers of celluloid and dealers in celluloid. As regards manufacturers of celluloid, so far as I am informed, they have not the slightest objection to regulations for securing the safety of those engaged in the business. Nobody denies that celluloid is a dangerous, inflammable material, though it is quite easy to exaggerate the degree of danger. It is perfectly practicable to make regulations which will secure that that danger shall be reduced to a minimum. As an instance of the excellent arrangements which have been made for that purpose I may refer to the low terms of insurance which are exacted at a large celluloid factory where some 2,400 men are employed. The rates are: sheet warehouses only 10s. 6d. per cent., for the warehouses 11s. 6d. per cent., for the collar finishing and boxing warehouses 12s. 6d. per cent., for the drawing-room 17s. 6d. per cent., with a rebate on the above for sprinklers of 50 per cent. If a business can be insured on those terms it is obvious that, though it is a dangerous business, steps are taken by the manufacturers engaged to do their utmost to secure the safety of those employed in the business. The utility of celluloid makes this business particularly one which has to be considered rather from a different standpoint than other businesses. The increasing scarcity of fibrine, and to a certain extent of horn, the superiority of celluloid in appearance to bone, the increasing dearness of rubber, have all combined to lead to the employment of celluloid in a great many forms which I dare say a good many people do not suspect.
  For instance, I fancy that many hon. Members would not be aware of the fact that the eyelets on their shoes are made of celluloid, and a good many other homely

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  useful articles are made of celluloid, the consequence being that it is an extremely difficult thing fairly to impose regulations dealing with celluloid alone which will not be exceedingly extravagant and expensive, and the enforcing of which will not lead to such hampering or harassing treatment of the dealers in that material that they will find it pay them better to give up its use and thereby throw out of employment those who are engaged in the manufacture of that article. Before we consent to any measure of that sort it behoves us to be quite certain that such a measure is required for the safety of the community, and I would suggest that the terms of this Bill have not been sufficiently thought out, in the light of the information which can be obtained in the celluloid trade, to secure that no injustice shall be done. There is another very important point in connection with this Bill. After the regrettable affair which occurred in a Christmas card factory last July—it was a factory, and not a store where celluloid was handled or where it was simply stored—a Departmental Committee was appointed, very properly, by the Home Office for the purpose of investigating the whole business of celluloid. That Committee has taken a great deal of evidence, and, from what one can learn, has impressed those who have come before it in the capacity of witnesses as having done its work in a thoroughly businesslike manner. It has not yet reported. I understand that it is at present engaged in inquiring into these questions in Germany and France, and there is no doubt that its report will be exceedingly valuable. What can the promoters of this Bill point to as having occurred which excuses or justifies the introduction of legislation which, if carried into effect, would have far-reaching results on this trade, while we who have got to consider it are not in possession of the necessary information which alone can be supplied from these expert gentlemen who are engaged in the examination of this important; question?
  I have not heard what justification there is for this kind of what I may call panicky legislation, which really requires far greater justification than appears on the surface of this measure. I may deal briefly with some of the objections to the Bill itself. The Preamble of the Bill states that it is expedient to impose licences on premises in which celluloid is
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  manufactured or subject to any process of manufacture, or kept, handled, or otherwise dealt with. Nobody objects to regulations for factories and in their own interests, and, from the point of view of good business principles and humanity, all manufacturers of celluloid have very stringent regulations enforced, and they are prepared to adopt any regulations. But when you come to talk about a place where celluloid is kept, handled, or otherwise dealt with, then you have got to consider how far-reaching that phrase may be. There are no shops I understand which deal solely in articles made of celluloid, therefore this does not apply to any particular kind of warehouse or stores. A friend of mine tells me that he caused an examination to be made of Holloway Road, and he discovered in the course of his examination that 40 per cent. of the shopkeepers on that road dealt in articles which contained celluloid; and he said at the same time that 5 per cent. would be a very high proportion of the articles dealt with in those stores into the composition of which celluloid entered. Furthermore, celluloid articles are not all kept in one place, and it is impossibe in a general store containing a variety of articles to separate those special articles into the composition of which a certain proportion of celluloid enters. For instance, you may have a battery on a motor weighing 10 or 12 lbs., and you may have articles of celluloid in it; there are appliances the tips of which are made of celluloid. How are you going to say what proportion of the entire appliance is celluloid and what proportion consists of other material?
  If you take a motor car weighing a ton, you have the tyre and other parts, which are partly composed of celluloid, and right through the whole list of motor-car accessories you have articles made of celluloid; brushes and combs are entirely made of celluloid. Then, when you come to consider how these articles are to be dealt with, you say to the dealer in his shop, that if there is an amount of celluloid exceeding 10 lbs. and not exceeding 560 lbs., he must have a licence. Inevitably that would lead, so my friends tell me, to dealers no longer storing articles in which celluloid was used, and the result would be detrimental to the manufacturers of celluloid and cause inconvenience to the public. That is what I desire to say as regards the-application of the Bill to places in which celluloid is now "handled or otherwise dealt with." What is meant by "handled" is left to conjecture. If it means only

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  handling in the process of manufacture, or in the application of celluloid in some industry, then, of course, that is a process of manufacture, and nobody would object to stringent regulations; but if handling means simply handling and lifting about articles of celluloid in stores, then, I submit, that is carrying the matter too far. The main objection of those who are opposed to this Bill has reference to the question of the definition of a store and of a shop. Under this Bill the shop is a place in which at least 10 lbs. and not more than 560 lbs. of celluloid is stored.
  I have endeavoured to indicate the difficulty from a practical point of view by showing that 10 lbs. of celluloid might be contained in an enormous number of articles into the composition of which it partly entered. There might be only 5 per cent. in the whole of the articles, and that is a very small proportion. That is one difficulty. According to Clause 2 of this Bill, a "shop" means "any premises in the City of London in or upon which for the purposes of sale or hire or profit celluloid is kept, handled, or otherwise dealt with in quantities which in the aggregate at any one time exceed 10 lbs., but never exceed 560 lbs. in weight." That shop has to be subject to regulations which would be made by the corporation, and as regards the City of London, the hardship is that if appeal be made against the regulations to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, in the case of the City of London, the Court will be either the Mansion House or the Guildhall, where the aldermen and the Lord Mayor would be judges in their own cause, in their capacity of members of the corporation that has drawn up the regulations against which complaint may presumably be made by those who object to them. That seems to me a very unfair position. Then there is the case of what is known as the "store," and here we are told that the store is a place where celluloid is "kept, handled, or otherwise dealt with in quantities which at any one time exceed in the aggregate 560 lbs. in weight." Nobody objects to that, and, if it is desired to impose regulations, those who manufacture celluloid, according to my information, are perfectly ready to submit to reasonable regulations, but they desire, and I think any fair-minded person will agree to them, that those regulations should not be made until the Committee appointed by the Home Office have presented their Report.
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  They desire, inasmuch as their livelihood depends upon it, that any regulation shall be based on a thorough examination on the whole matter by fair-minded men. You cannot say that this Bill is based on any inquiry. Whatever else it may be based upon, it is certainly not based upon an inquiry of that kind. I do think we are justified in requiring that those who support this measure should give some justification for bringing it forward, for it is a Bill which would certainly hamper and dislocate a very important and rising industry in this country, while it would lead to a great deal of loss and inconvenience to dealers as well as a good deal of inconvenience to the general public. I have only endeavoured to plead the cause of a considerable number of my Constituents who depend upon the celluloid trade being carried on. While they are perfectly prepared, after proper investigation has been made, to submit to any regulations which are fair and in the interests of the community, yet they are not persuaded that in this Bill sufficient precautions have been taken to avoid injustice, and they believe that they would certainly suffer, in common with a great many other sections of the community, if the Bill becomes law.
  Sir CROYDON MARKS: I think this Bill has been founded on a complete misunderstanding and misapprehension as to the nature of this very important industry. It is quite possible to carry on this industry in a manner to cause no trouble, no loss of life, and no inconvenience, or no more inconvenience to those who happen to occupy adjacent premises in which the manufacture is carried on than arises from many other manufactures not attempted to be dealt with in this Bill. At the present moment a very important Committee, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Rugby, is examining into the conditions which may be necessary in connection with the manufacture of articles in which there may be something inflammable. On the other hand, in this Bill you have a sectional proposal which may rob the citizens of London of advantages which will result to them by waiting a little longer for suggestions which the Home Office inquiry may bring about. It may be that the Committee of Inquiry may be able to get from other countries where the industry is carried on some evidence of the process of manufacture which would be very much better than anything that is at the present time known to us. This seems to be hurried and rushed legislation for

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  one part of the country only, and a Bill hurried and rushed through will harass a large number of people who are now engaged in the industry, and cause inconvenience in many districts where, as a matter of fact, the business is carried on without the slightest trouble. The hon. Member referred to one road where 40 per cent. of the shopkeepers have 10 lbs. of this material called celluloid, or other similar substance, at the present time on their premises. What is proposed is that every shopkeeper who happens to have 10 lbs. of material called celluloid or other similar substance on his premises is to come under this Bill. This particular person, who may have a yearly tenancy of his shop, must obtain plans and sections of his premises and of the adjacent premises and submit them to the corporation, pay a sum and ask for a licence.
  Mr. W. GUINNESS: The licence is only for people dealing on a large scale. A dealer dealing with only 10 lbs. weight up to 580 lbs. weight is only subjected to regulations.
  Sir C. MARKS: According to this he has to produce plans and sections on his application. If the hon. Member looks at page 3, line 25, he will find that he must produce plans and sections of the premises in which this business is carried on.
  Mr. W. GUINNESS: That is dealing with licences.
  Sir C. MARKS: I suggest in connection with this that 10 lbs. of material, or for that matter, 560 lbs. of material would not be a very large amount to be in a store in which there might be bags, on which there are mounts, billiard balls which may be almost entirely made of celluloid, brushes, combs, mounts for picture frames, and in connection with motor cars, and a great many other articles where ivory is to be replaced by something which is of constant colour, and very much less cost. Those people are to be harassed simply because the City of London is endeavouring to legislate for itself without waiting for the advice to be obtained from the scientific and impartial tribunal which is at present investigating the matter. Then the City of London also wishes to be in connection with this matter its own appellant. They are to have the opportunity, if they so wish, of refusing to grant a licence to a manufacturer, who has been to all the expense, and here I will take
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  the hon. Member's suggestion that this refers to the licences. If that person appeals, having gone to the City of London with his plans, his only appeal is to the City of London itself, to the aldermen and others connected with the City Corporation, who are then sitting in a judicial capacity, to review that which has been done by their colleagues in another place or by themselves, and who are to give a final decision in reference to it. It is a travesty of appeal to suggest taking it from one body of the City of London to another body on which the City of London authorities may themselves be sitting. An industry such as this, which goes into businesses that are not solely engaged upon the selling of articles that may be celluloid, ought not to be hampered or to be restrained in any manner in one district more than it is to be restrained or controlled in another district. That which is attempted to be done is putting the City of London at an advantage or a disadvantage in connection with that which may hereafter be done in the rest of the country, when general legislation is attempted. I think this House should very carefully consider any attempt that may be made by any authority to come here and get behind that which may by general regulation be imposed, and to apply conditions which will have a most deleterious effect not only upon their own people, but on the industry of others not resident in the district controlled.
  There are a great many things we have suffered in the past from what is known as grandmotherly legislation. For years, this country was held back, and we lost the start in the motor car industry owing to the fact that it was necessary under our legislation for a man with a red flag to walk in front of a vehicle going at more than five miles an hour. Simply because of a restriction which was put in to prevent horses being frightened and timid persons being annoyed when they saw smoke coming from a vehicle, we lost our lead, which we ought to have had from the first, in connection with that which has now a world wide industry. Here now is a big industry. Rubber has got costly and ivory is becoming scarce, horn has become dear, and here is an artificial product which will replace all those, and which can be made just as safely as any other, and it is attempted to cripple it, not in the place where it is made, but in the place where it is to be handled, in the great City of London. It seems to me that the City fathers have gone mad in their methods

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  in connection with this legislation. I hope the House will take it on itself to suggest that no Bill should pass through this House dealing with sectional legislation on any subject in reference to which there is a Committee of Inquiry sitting, and to deal with that which has reference to the whole nation. I therefore seriously suggest that this is not the proper time and that it is not fitting for anybody to come here and ask for exceptional powers for legislation in a matter concerning which public money is already being spent, in order that the country may be benefited by inquiry, and arrangements may be made hereafter to prevent trouble and cause greater convenience and greater safety in reference to that in which there may be any carelessness. I second this Motion, and I hope the House will consider it is not by any means a City of London proposal or a party proposal, but a national proposal. We do not want to harass industry. What we want to do is to protect industry, and to protect dealers and sellers of the articles as well as the citizens. The best way of doing that is to wait until the inquiry is finished, and, arming ourselves with the recommendations that will be made, it will then be possible to have better precautions granted to the City than possibly could be given to them by what they propose now.
  Mr. MORTON: The hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill talked about there being confusion. Let me assure him that there is no confusion with regard to the matter at all, and that it is simply a question of protecting life, and especially the lives of young girls who work, and who cannot help themselves. It is admitted that this is a dangerous trade which wants regulating, and that is all we claim. They think we ought to wait until the Departmental Committee has reported. We do not think that is necessary. We think that the Report of the Departmental Committee will probably come to hand just in time to help the Home Secretary in the regulations, whatever they are to be. The hon. Member referred to the Preamble, and said something about Clause 2. All I wish to say in regard to that is that we are most anxious to have all those points considered upstairs fairly by the Committee. I was sorry to hear the attack upon the City aldermen. Somebody said, "The City aldermen and others." Let me inform my hon. Friend that there are no
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  others concerned in it, as only the twenty-six aldermen are magistrates in the City. I do not want to argue the question, but they have 600 years' good character. I never heard a complaint that they were likely to do injustice, and I am sorry that any Members of this House should make such a charge. It is said that we are going to harass people. We never harass people in the City of London. We know what we owe to traders and the trading community, and we act fairly towards them. We are charged with legislating for ourselves. I am glad to hear that. For many years we have been legislating in the City of London in advance of the country generally. We began some years ago by introducing and carrying a Bill whereby we have an inquiry by the coroner into every fire, whether there has been loss of life or not. That is legislation for ourselves. Nobody else has done it. We have set an example to the rest of the country, and it has been most useful in preventing fires. Then we started an ambulance service. They have not got that elsewhere the same as we have it. Two or three years ago we asked to be allowed to make regulations with regard to traffic in the City of London. We were told distinctly that there would be some difficulty in applying the system anywhere else. My advice to the corporation was that they should go to the Home Office and see what they thought about it. The present Lord Gladstone, who was then Home Secretary, after considering the matter, said that he would not oppose our Bill, and he added that he would be exceedingly pleased to see the City of London showing how these things should be attended to.
  That is exactly what we want to do with regard to this dangerous trade. We may be in advance of the rest of the country, but it is necessary that we should consider the question. As showing the effect that such regulations may have, I may point out in connection with the traffic regulations that, according to the Police Commissioner's report, during the three months ending 31st March, 1913, there were 270 accidents resulting in injuries and six deaths, while in the corresponding three months of last year there were 320 accidents and seven deaths. So that apparently owing to these regulations, which we have got and other authorities have not, there has been a saving of fifty accidents and one life. I mention this because it has been said that we

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  ought not to act by ourselves, but should wait for other parts of the country. That has not been our custom. This is not a political Bill in any sense whatever. Its object is simply to save life and protect the workers. I hope that every hon. Member will bear that in mind. In consequence of the verdicts of juries and the strong remarks made by the City coroner the corporation felt bound to come to Parliament and ask for power to deal with this matter. Our attention was called to it in the first place in 1902, when there was a fire in Queen Victoria Street and ten lives were lost. In 1912 there was the fire in Moor Lane, when nine lives were lost. In both cases the victims were mostly young girls, who were quite unable to make regulations for themselves. There have been many other fires, but those two afford ample reason why the corporation should intervene. The City has always fully recognised traders' and trade interests and treated them fairly, but in our opinion the protection of life must come first, and what has been proved to be a dangerous trade must be regulated.
  The City may almost be called a congested and exceptional district. Every week-day about a million people come in and out of the City, and about 400,000 of those people come in to work of different kinds. Those workers are entitled to our protection, and I hope we shall have the fullest possible credit for endeavouring to help those who cannot help themselves. We say that there is no reason for delay. The matter is urgent. The City has always been in advance with these improvements, with most excellent results. We have done everything that could be done by way of safeguarding the traders and those connected with the work. If anything else can be suggested, if the Bill is sent upstairs where everything can be taken into consideration, we shall be only too pleased to consider any reasonable proposal. We have given the right of appeal to the City magistrates. If the Committee do not like that appeal—although the City magistrates have the highest character of any magistracy in the Kingdom—some other Court can be appointed. We shall make no difficulty about that. These regulations, before they come into force, have to be made by the corporation, and the same course will be followed as in the case of the traffic regulations. The matter will be sent to a Committee, where everybody interested
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  will be heard before the regulations are drafted. Here in open Court, if necessary, people can come and say what they like. After the regulations have passed the corporation they are to be sent to the Home Office, where, before they are approved, the authorities will again hear anybody who wishes to be heard on the matter. I should think that that will be sufficient protection for anybody against unfair or improper regulations. Let me repeat what I said before. I think, on the whole, that the Report of the Departmental Committee will just come in time to help the Home Office to consider and approve of these particular regulations. As I have said, the corporation will be pleased to consider all reasonable suggestions towards the further protection of trades, and so on. Under all these circumstances, I do hope that this House will bear in mind that we are quite honest and sincere in bringing this forward. We would rather not have had to bring it forward, but it is our duty to protect those hundreds of thousands of people who come into the City, amongst them being the workers that I have referred to. I hope that this House will read this Bill a second time and allow it to go before the Local Legislation Committee for the very fullest possible consideration. If that is refused, I respectfully say that the traders may go farther and fare worse. I mention that because the City has always had the highest possible character in dealing with all these matters, and I have often heard that people would sooner go before the City magistrate or the City Council than any other body. I mention that with all due deference as a member of the corporation. At any rate, the corporation will have done its best to protect the workers who are not always able to protect themselves. I am satisfied that we have done right in coming to ask for this power to deal with this matter. Everyone says there must be regulation; that it is time there was regulation. We do not intend—in fact we are most anxious otherwise—to harass anybody or to interfere with any of the trades in the City, for it is trade which has made the City what it is. All we ask is that Parliament will do, as in the case of the traffic and in relation to coroner's inquests, where there is no loss of life—that it will allow the City to show the way to do these things.
  9.0 P.M.
  Mr. NEWTON: I think the opponents of this Bill can not have been much reassured by the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down. He gave us an interesting

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  defence of the ancient corporation of the City of London, which I think—at all events, which I hope—was not necessary, but which certainly had very little to do with the particular Bill that the House is now considering. We were told that the corporation initiated electrical ambulance before any other body, but how that really comes into consideration of the question before us, dealing with the regulation of the celluloid trade and vendors, I am unable to see. The hon. Member told us that 400,000 persons came daily into the City, and I was under the impression that those 400,000 persons must be engaged in the celluloid business, or surely the hon. Gentleman would not have mentioned the matter in the way he did. Surely the promoters of this Bill must have overlooked one or two very obvious facts. In the first place; they must have overlooked the fact, drawn attention to by an hon. Member, that celluloid plays an important part in a huge variety of articles in daily use, and it is not, as some seem to imagine, employed only in making films for the cinematograph. Look at the matter from the point of view of danger from cinematograph films. I think the promoters of this Bill must have forgotten that many of these films are worth from £500 to £1,000, and the owners of them are going to take the very greatest possible precautions against the possibility of risk by fire. I further understand that celluloid is not liable to spontaneous combustion. I am told, in fact, it is hardly more inflammable than perhaps 40 per cent of a draper's stock. Therefore, I should have thought that the promoters of this Bill in fairness to that industry would have legislated, or attempted to legislate at all events, for all those inflammable articles, and not confined their attention to one article just because there happened to be a regrettable and disastrous fire on which they were able to hang this Bill, and so try to work on the panic feelings of some Members of the House of Commons.
  I oppose this Bill, I quite frankly say, in the interests of a number of my Constituents who are employed in a very important and, I am glad to say, a prosperous factory some sixty or seventy miles from the City of London. How are they affected? Clearly in this way, that if these regulations are insisted upon, undoubtedly there will be great temptation put upon traders—in fact, upon a large majority of the shopkeepers in the area covered—to dispense altogether with stocking any of the
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  articles in which celluloid plays any part—this rather than subject themselves to the regulations that are foreshadowed in this Bill. I have had some experience of a large business house with a large number of departments, and except the butcher's meat and fish department I cannot for a moment think of any department that would not employ celluloid in some way or another. One runs through the departments in one's mind, and it is quite easy to prove that celluloid is employed in a vast number of articles. Apart from that altogether, I would like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who preceded me upon one thing, and one thing only, in his speech, and that was where he seemed to display a willingness—if this Bill should receive a Second Reading—to be very reasonable upstairs. I think it would have been more satisfactory to the House if he had indicated any concessions which the promoters would be prepared to make. The concession of transferring appeals from the bench of City aldermen to some other Court is not one which appeals much to me, because it is not the criticism that I should myself have directed against the Bill. I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that for many centuries the magistrates of the City of London have had a reputation second to no other bench of magistrates.
  Mr. MORTON: May I inform the hon. Member that we shall be glad to consider any suggestions, but none have been made to us?
  Mr. NEWTON: The hon. Member would not expect me to make these proposals at this particular time, nor, in fact, do I think it would be in order for me to do so, but it would be in order for him to indicate how to meet the objections to the Bill. In regard to a fact which has already been drawn attention to that a Committee of Experts has been sitting, I agree with those who have said that the Report of that. Committee ought to have been awaited, for this reason, it is probable that the Committee will recommend regulations in regard to this industry. The hon. Member opposite says he hopes that these recommendations will be issued just at the time, at the psychological moment, when the Home Secretary has to approve or amend the regulations of the City Corporation. That may or may not be so. If it be not so, the trade will be faced with this position, that they will have in the City of London, a set of regulations to comply with, that they will have to make structural alterations perhaps in the case

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  they desire a licence as a store, while they will find prevailing in the rest of the country under the National Bill, if I may so describe it, a different set of regulations. In fact you will have conflict between the traders in the City and traders in other parts of the country that do not come in under the City Corporation Bill, and that may be a great disadvantage to the traders in the City. For these reasons amongst others, I hope this Bill will not be read a second time, nor will any Bill which treats the trade in different ways. Should the Bill be read a second time, then I think we shall have to rely upon the hon. Gentleman who last spoke, and upon the promoters, to act in this matter with caution, and to avoid passing any regulations which might have the effect of inducing traders to abandon stocking these goods, and so inflict very serious injury upon a body of men engaged in the manufacturing industry in various parts of the country.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: The hon. Member for Rugby said this was an instance of panic legislation brought forward in great haste, but this is not the first proposal to deal with celluloid that has been before the House of Commons, as the London County Council last year brought forward with their General Powers Bill, Clauses that covered very much the same ground. [Hon. MEMBERS: "What happened then?"]—I am coming to that—It is obviously what I am leading up to—and again this year they are bringing forward proposals to try and deal with the danger of inflammable substances and celluloid, and I think that will meet the points raised by the hon. Member that celluloid is not the only combustible material which causes danger. I am therefore supporting this Bill, not only upon its individual merits, but because I have a particular interest in its passing, feeling, as I do, that if these proposals are defeated the wider and perhaps the more important proposals of the London County Council will share their fate. I understand the alarm with traders against any vexatious interference. I do not think it is necessary for me to follow the hon. Member for Sutherland in giving a testimonial to the City Corporation, and saying they will avoid anything vexatious. I think the traders who are afraid of this Bill are labouring under a certain confusion of mind as to its provisions. My reason for that is that both the hon. Member for Rugby and the hon.
  268
  Member for Launceston appear not to have fully mastered the proposals of the Bill. They apparently are confused between the licensing proposals of the Bill and the regulations which it imposes. Retailers, with whose interest both hon. Members are very rightly concerned, would not be affected by the licensing proposals at all. Retailers would not have to produce plans or to pay a fee; they would only have to carry out the regulations. These regulations would not be the mere whim of the local authority; they would have to be approved by the Home Office, and these regulations would no doubt embody the proposals of those to whom so much weight was given this evening. The hon. Member for Rugby pointed out that certain commodities, such as ladies' stay-bones and various other articles such as electrical apparatus, contain only a small proportion of celluloid. These obviously would only come under the regulations if the Home Office approved. If the article only contained an infinitesimal proportion of celluloid, or if it was not a very combustible proportion, we rely upon the Home Office not allowing these regulations which it has to approve of to deal with these articles at all.
  Last year the County Council Bill did not deal with celluloid at all except in the form of cinematograph films. Since last year their hands have been very much forced by the fire alluded to, and the jury in the case of that fire, where nine girls perished, held it was preventible by reasonable precautions such as having no naked lights and not using sealing wax for the boxes. They held that such accidents could be prevented in future by registration and proper supervision on the part of the local authorities. We have been told the manufacturers generally object to reasonable licences or regulations on the ground naturally that they take very full precautions themselves. I think that the people affected by licences really have no ground for complaint. The Home Office suggested last year that instead of these licences the matter could be dealt with by the extension of Clause 11 of the London Building Act, which deals with inflammable liquids. That Clause only Prevents rooms used for stores from communicating with living rooms unless there are adequate means for preventing the spread of fire and adequate means for escape. Under that provision there is no control over sites, and it has been long felt it is obviously necessary to have

  269
  control over sites, and that it is obviously undesirable, if you have tenement houses or if you have a street where inflammable liquids are likely to run down, that new buildings should be put up where such trades are carried on. Unless you have some provision of this kind there is no onus on the owners of those buildings to notify the local authorities of the class of business carried on. I think that is a danger, because where there is manufacture as opposed to a local dealer, I think the local authorities and the fire authority ought to be warned. The local authority already licenses business on very much the same lines. They license retail dealers in explosives; they license the sale and storing of petroleum, and no complaint is made that any vexatious interference takes place under those licensing powers.
  The details of this Bill are susceptible of drastic amendment, if necessary. The local authorities only wish to do their duty to prevent a recurrence of those regrettable fires, and I think that the proper course is to send the Bill upstairs, and to knock out any of those proposals that may be found too onerous. Personally, I think 10 lbs. weight is too low a figure to choose as a cause of regulation. I think that any building with so small a quantity as 15 lbs. weight need not be under regulations, much less licence, and the London County Council is agreeable to raise that figure to 56 lbs. weight. The Home Office will be able to embody the Report of the Select Committee in the regulations brought forward. The Home Office suggested last year that sufficient steps could be taken under the Factory Acts, but they have not been taken, and so far the Home Office have failed to make any move to provide greater safety. Under the Factory Acts, you can only deal with the interests of the workers, and not the interests of the general public, passers by in the street, or dwellers in tenement houses in a dangerous position. The Home Office powers have proved absolutely insufficient in this connection, and in view of the recent fires and recommendations of coroners' juries, local authorities would have been neglecting their duties if they had failed to bring forward some such measure as I suggest.
  Mr. BOOTH: The hon. Member used the phrase that the powers of the Home Office are insufficient in this connection. I would like to know if he is challenging the present law or the Home Office administration.
  Mr. W. GUINNESS: I am challenging the present law, because I do not believe the Factory Acts give the Home Office the power necessary to secure public safety. If the law does give them the necessary power then they have not put it into force. I suggest that this is a matter which could be sent to the Committee to hear evidence, and if they find that this Bill is unduly restrictive on the celluloid trades, they can drastically amend it. If the House rejects this course, and takes no other steps, then the responsibility for these constantly recurring fires in London, which are continually being brought to the notice of local authorities, will be removed from the London County Council and the City Corporation, and it will rest upon the shoulders of the Home Office.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Maclean): Although I formally moved the Second Reading, I wish to make a statement. I have carefully listened to the arguments addressed to the House in favour and against this Bill. With very great respect I hope the House will permit me to express the opinion I have formed after hearing what has been said, and also in view of the information I possess as to the line of action which the Home Office will be compelled to take should this Bill proceed to a Committee upstairs. The position we find ourselves in is that the Home Office would be compelled to oppose the Bill, owing to the fact that a Departmental Committee has been appointed under the Chairmanship of Lord Plymouth, and has not yet finished its labours, and the fact that experts are engaged in some most important practical experiments for our guidance. I feel that should the House give a Second Reading to this Bill, in view of the attitude of the Home Office the Committee would come to the same conclusion as it did last year, and would again reject these proposals. What does that amount to? This is a crowded Session and the Committees upstairs are very much overworked, and that course would entail enormous and increasing expense to all the parties who have to appear before the Committee. Above all things, this is a matter for experts, and the traders placed their case before the Committee last year. Those traders will have to do that over again with I fear precisely the same result. Therefore, I most respectfully suggest to the House to consider whether under all these circumstances, giving every possible

  271
  credit to those who are promoting this Bill in the public interests and who are anxious for the public safety, it is worth while to send this Bill upstairs.
  Mr. NEWTON: Could the hon. Member say anything as to the probable attitude of the Home Office in regard to the county council proposals on this question?
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have no hesitation in saying that the attitude of the Home Office would be identical in the case of the County Council Bill with its attitude in regard to the Bill now before the House.
  Mr. BOOTH: I wish to ask—
  Mr. KINGrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  Mr. BOOTH: I wish to ask the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, as this Bill and the County Councils Bill are closely connected with this question, whether he can indicate what course he suggests with
  regard to the next Order on the Paper? The House has now given a considerable amount of time to this Bill. This is the second time it has been put down, and if the idea is to bring the celluloid question up again, and thus interfere with the smooth working of a debate on some important Bill, then I think the House is quite competent to dispose of this question on this occasion. I did not quite gather what the suggestion of the Deputy-Chairman amounted to.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: My suggestion is to move the next Order on the Paper. I sincerely trust the House will dispose of the Question now before it, and take up the London County Council (General Powers) Bill. That is a measure of very considerable importance, and I urge the House to spend as little time as possible on these Bills, allowing them to go upstairs in order that the Committees may get to work upon them.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 47; Noes, 127.

  Division No. 93.]

  AYES.

  [9.23 p.m.

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

  Goldstone, Frank

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

  Hancock, John George

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

  Barnes, George N.

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Stewart, Gershom

  Blair, Reginald

  Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

  Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Sutton, John E.

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

  Hume-Williams, W. E.

  Thomas, James Henry

  Cassel, Felix

  Jessel, Captain H. M.

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Watt, Henry Anderson

  Clough, William

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Weston, Colonel J. W.

  Cooper, Richard Ashmole

  O'Grady, James

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Crooks, William

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Worthington-Evans, L.

  Dawes, J. A.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Perkins, Walter F.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Fell, Arthur

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Morton and Mr. W. Guinness

  Gill, A. H.

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Cotton, William Francis

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Adamson, William

  Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

  Glanville, H. J.

  Arnold, Sidney

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Crumley, Patrick

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

  Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Gulland, John William

  Barrie, H. T.

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Delany, William

  Hackett, John

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Dickinson, W. H.

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

  Doris, William

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Bennett-Goldney, Francis

  Duffy, William J.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Bentham, G. J.

  Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Boland, John Pius

  Essex, Sir Walter Richard

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Higham, John Sharp

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

  Hinds, John

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Forster, Henry William

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

  Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

  Furness, Stephen

  John, Edward Thomas

  Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

  Gelder, Sir W. A.

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Sanders, Robert Arthur

  Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Sandys, G. J.

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Kelly, Edward

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  King, Joseph

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Leach, Charles

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Toulmin, Sir George

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Verney, Sir Harry

  Lynch, A. A.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  McGhee, Richard

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Walters, Sir John Tudor

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford)

  Webb, H.

  Martin, Joseph

  Radford, G. H.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Millar, James Duncan

  Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Morison, Hector

  Reddy, Michael

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Muldoon, John

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Robinson, Sidney

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

  Nolan, Joseph

  Rowlands, James

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Baird and Sir Croydon Marks

  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to. Second Reading put off for three months.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
Postponed proceeding resumed on Amendment to Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."
Mr. WEDGWOOD: When the Debate was interrupted we were dealing with the Mental Deficiency Bill, a Bill introduced by the Government, and a replica of the Bill we had last year which was defeated, or more or less defeated, by the energetic action of some Liberals upstairs in the Committee Room. This Bill has been reintroduced by the same Minister, and is a Bill with practically all the same evil features of the last Bill and some extra ones to make it even worse. We still have the liberty of the citizen in danger, and we still give to the overseers of the poor and to the police the power of black-listing people, and there is also the danger of people having petitions presented to magistrates against them and of their being sent to prison for life. When the Debate was interrupted, I was venturing to criticise this method of trying these unfortunate people in camera. The surest safeguard for the liberty of the subject is the presence of the Press. It is all very well to give these unfortunate people the opportunity of having friends with them present at the inquiry, but that privilege is practically valueless. How are people on the borderline of insanity,
274
when they have this charge suddenly sprung upon them which may involve imprisonment for life, to look round among their relations and friends and select those who will be capable of defending them from being sent to imprisonment? It is an illusory safeguard; the great safeguard is the presence of the Press. This is one of the features which appeals most strongly to the people who run the risk of being sent to one of these institutions. I have here a pathetic letter from a man who has been an inmate of one of them, and, dealing with the question of publicity of trial, he says:—
"Last but not least important is that a deep feeling of gross injustice would be removed by the right of open trial—a right such as is not denied to the worst criminal."
He adds that the trial can be held in any manner that may be thought necessary so long as it is open in the true sense of the word, and he suggests that neither the doctors nor the Commissioners can do their duty properly under the present procedure. Publicity is the only adequate safeguard against abuse and maladministration. This is a letter from a man who has suffered from imprisonment in one of these institutions, and who has now obviously recovered the full use of his mental powers, and he insists on the importance of open trial as the best possible chance of those similarly situated making their voices heard by the community. It is in Section 6 that this secret power is provided. The Section says:—
"Proceedings before the judicial authority may, in any case, if the judicial authority thinks fit, and shall, if so desired by the person to whom the petition relates, be conducted in private, and, in that case, no one, except the petitioner, the person to whom the petition relates, any two persons appointed for the purpose by the person to whom

275
the petition relates, and the persons signing the medical certificates and the statutory declaration accompanying the petition, shall without the leave of the judicial authority be allowed to be present."
I hope when this Bill goes upstairs the Government will accept an Amendment which will not only throw these trials open so that the public shall be present, but will also give these unfortunate people the same rights as are given to poor prisoners at the present time to have counsel freely given them in order to defend them against the charge. All the reasons which make it necessary to have a Poor Prisoners Defence Act apply with equal or greater force to these poor people who run the risk of sentences infinitely worse than ordinary imprisonment. I do hope, before the Second Reading of this Bill is passed, we shall have some pledge from the Home Secretary that more adequate provision will be made in the Bill for the defence of these people, so as to give them the best possible chance when a petition is presented against them. Obviously, a child of sixteen would not be in the condition to defend herself in strange surroundings when brought before a magistrate. Section 7 deals with variations of orders. Section 8 provides the second method of segregating these people. The first method, it will be remembered, is by petition by an officer of the local authority to the magistrate. Section 8 provides that where a feebleminded person has come in contact with the law and been found guilty of some offence, or is under a charge which renders him liable to be sent to a reformatory or industrial home, it is not necessary there should be a petition to the Court before which they are being tried, but the Court may make any order which—
"If a petition had been duly presented under this Act the judicial authority might have made, which order shall have the like effect as if it had been made by a judicial authority on a petition under the Act."
There is no medical certificate required in that case. Personally I do not attach much importance to medical certificates in this connection. But I must point out that whereas in the case of a petition two medical certificates are required, in the case of a person convicted and sentenced, it may be, to only three days' imprisonment, or merely charged with an offence
276
rendering him liable to be sent to a reformatory or industrial school, no medical certificate is required, and in Sub-section (2) of Section 8, it is provided that the Court may act on the evidence given during the trial, or may call further medical or other evidence. It can actually act without medical evidence at all, and without a medical certificate. I do not think that the Home Office here has shown that care for the liberty of the subject and for the protection of the individual against this Act that we have a right to expect from a Liberal administration. Then if you turn to Sub-section (5) of Section 8 you will find that the police authorities are the people who are to use this second method. This Sub-section provides:—
"Where it appears to the police authority that any person charged with an offence is a defective, they shall communicate with the local authority, and it shall be the duty of the police authority to bring before the Court such evidence as to his mental condition as may be available."
This is bringing in the police in a way I consider thoroughly undesirable. I have been told by the Home Secretary that the policeman is regarded as a universal friend of these poor creatures. It seems to me that the idea of using the police as their protectors—
Mr. McKENNA: Is the hon. Member quoting my words?
Mr. CROOKS: It is quite true. The policeman is the protector of these people. The right hon. Gentleman need not be ashamed of the statement.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The statement was made in this House in answer to a question which I put during the passage of the White Slave Act. If the right hon. Gentleman disputes it I will withdraw it. But I do not think that under any circumstances, whether the police are the friends of the people or not, it is desirable they should have the power of going to the local authority and saying, "So-and-So is a defective and ought to be petitioned against." It is extremely undesirable that they should have that duty cast upon them, and it would be much better to leave it to the authorities rather than to an ordinary constable. Now I come to Section 9, which gives the third process by which the defective is to be caught. This Section gives the Secretary of State power to transfer defectives from prison to these asylums.

277
I think it is extremely undesirable that the Home Secretary should have the power of saying that people who starve themselves in prison ought to run the risk, not only of starvation, but of being sent to a home for the feeble-minded. I do not think the present Home Secretary is likely to take the view that self-starvation constitutes feeble-mindedness, but we do want to provide against a Home Secretary of some future day taking up the position that this is a condition of mind which requires a person to be sent to a lunatic asylum. In this third method of procedure there is the safeguard of two medical certificates being required, whereas in the case of a person convicted of an offence against the law no medical certificate is required. I think, in the case of prisoners proposed to be transferred by the Home Office, it would be desirable that the doctor giving the certificate should not be a servant of the State—that he should not be the prison doctor. It is extremely desirable that we should have independent medical evidence, instead of merely the evidence of the prison doctors. I pass over Clause 10, which merely deals with the period of detention. We come to Clause 11. This is a very important Clause. Hitherto we have merely got these people into their asylums; now comes the question of what privileges they are to have, and what chance they are to have of getting out of the asylums once they are in. The order made by the Court, whether on petition or after the person has been found guilty, or has been transferred from prison to one of these asylums, runs for one year. At the end of that year a report is to be made upon the condition of that defective person, but the report is made, not individually upon a particular case, but, just as you fill up any other form, upon all the mentally defective persons. It is made not after examination by the patient's own doctor, but by the doctor of the institution. That is a most undesirable thing. Obviously if these people are to have the best chance of getting out, the report should be made by people who are not connected in any way with the institution, which are, it is to be remembered, not State but private institutions. I hope that before this Bill is very long upstairs, we shall cut out of it the provision that one report, a purely formal report, should be made by the prison doctor.
Mr. McKENNA: That is not so.
Mr. CROOKS: It does not matter.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am very sorry to have the Home Secretary differing from me, but if he turns to Sub-section (4), he will see that it is so. I know the Bill pretty well.
Mr. McKENNA: Read it to the House.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: It says:—
"The special report above mentioned shall be a special report as to the mental and bodily conditions of the defective made, in the case of a person detained in an institution, by the medical officer of that institution, and in any other case by a duly qualified practitioner."
That is the case of people who are not in an institution.
Mr. McKENNA: My hon. Friend said "a general report." This is a special report. An institution means a public institution.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I do not quite see what I have said wrong.
Mr. BOOTH: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. While my hon. Friend has been speaking he has been interrupted by four or five remarks. If that is continued he will never be able to pursue the even tenor of his way.
Mr. CROOKS: Is it in order for an hon. Member to repeat himself twenty times, and expect us to remain quite silent, when we shall not get an opportunity of replying?
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has heard the observations of the hon. Member for Woolwich.
Mr. BOOTH: They are not true.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: They are absolutely untrue. I have not repeated myself.
Mr. CROOKS: I have a record of what you said.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: When my hon. Friend reads my speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow, he will see I have not repeated myself. I shall proceed to deal with each Clause of the Bill to which I object.
Mr. HAROLD SMITH: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to say to another hon. Member that his statements are untrue?
Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that "untrue" is really a, very suitable expression to use. It is rather difficult to correct it every time. It has been used occasionally. I think if the hon. Member intended to suggest that the statements were deliberately untrue, that would not be a correct expression. He could only have meant that they were inadvertently untrue.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am very sorry to be led away from the Bill. You must understand, Sir, that we had stormy times in Committee. I certainly withdraw the word "untrue." I know that the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Crooks) has the interests of these people as much at heart as I have. We are only pursuing this subject from different points of view, and I am sure that before we have done with the Bill he will be more in accordance with my views than he is at present. The hon. Member for Woolwich wants to have these people segregated. I believe he will, with me, do his best to get an Amendment made in the Bill to make it impossible to take children away from their parents against the wishes of the parents. If we do that, we shall have done something to improve the Bill. Upon the question of repetition I feel absolutely guiltless, for I do not remember having repeated myself upon any matter. This is a very long Bill, and it is almost impossible to deal with it without some repetition. Clause 13 is an important Clause. It gives a power which is new in this Bill, and which was not in the last Bill, there-fore I want to refer to it. Under this Clause the local authority or the Government have the power to recover the expenses from the parents, so that even when the State has taken a child from the parents they can still make the parents pay for its keep It says:—
"Where an order that a defective be sent to an institution or be placed under guardianship has been made under this Act, the judicial authority which made the order.…may, on the application of the petitioner or of the managers of the institution or the guardian.…or of an officer of the local authority, make an order requiring the defective, or any person liable to maintain him, to contribute such sum towards the expenses of his maintenance."
That is a new feature in this Bill, one which is particularly undesirable, because you may be taking away these children
280
against the parents' wishes, and in such cases it is obviously most unjust, having taken the child away, that you should make the parents pay for the upkeep of that child. Clause 14 gives further powers to constables which I think are undesirable. Where a constable finds neglected, abandoned, or cruelly treated any child he considers to be defective, he may take the child to the workhouse without anybody's permission or inquiry. In ninety-nine cases out of 100 that may be thoroughly desirable, but I do not think it ought, to be a constable who should have the power to do it. A constable may have a spite against somebody. If you take a child to the workhouse without inquiry you are contravening the Habeas Corpus Act, and it may lead to a certain amount of bullying of the poor. That is undesirable. The less we have of the constable, and the more we have of the officials of the authority, the better it will be. Clause 15 deals with the transfers from institutions to asylums. Clause 16 is also a new Clause, and to my mind a most undesirable one. It is a Clause about religion. I do not think religion has much place in this Bill. Clause 18 gives the Secretary of State very extended powers to make rules and regulations respecting the trial of the petitions presented against feebleminded persons. They can make regulations with respect to applications for orders to vary and applications for orders of contribution towards maintenance, and they have very wide powers towards taxing the persons whose children are taken to these homes and with regard to procedure regarding visitors—I am glad to find that, because in the last Bill there was nothing respecting visitors at all—and the form of petition, statutory declarations, and certificates. These are all very well, and, of course, it is obvious that the Secretary of State must have power in these directions, but the House ought to insist that the Regulations made by the Secretary of State on these matters should be laid upon the Table of the House and should be open to criticism. This is a leap in the dark at the best, and when we are dealing with the liberties of 100,000 people it is desirable that the very extremities of criticism should be applied to the Regulations which may be made by the experts of the Home Office. People can be sent there in three ways. Once there they will be kept for a year, when a report will be made. If the report says they may stop another year, they will stop

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another year and another report will be made, again by the officer of the institution. After that time reports are made every five years, and I think those who have much acquaintance with feebleminded people would agree that feeblemindedness cannot be cured like insanity, and the people in these institutions are likely to stop there for the rest of their lives. I would make a plea at any rate that when past the age of child-bearing women should be allowed to come out of the institution.
Children who reach the age of twenty-one, having been in these institutions since seven or sixteen, are examined not by doctors but by a body of visitors—and that is an improvement—who are to decide whether these adult children require keeping in. The principle of lay visitors might very well be extended, and we might have to have less of the doctor and more of the visitor. With Clause 19 we come to the second part of the Bill, which deals with the central authority. The Lunacy Commissioners are to take over the feebleminded; they are to be increased in number, their salaries are substantial, and there are three unpaid ones and twelve paid ones. It is undesirable that we should put feeble-minded persons under the Lunacy Commissioners. People at large outside do not like having a relation in the lunatic asylum, and when you class all feebleminded people as lunatics you will inflict an undeserved slur upon a good many people which will make the Act more unpopular than it would be otherwise, and if it is only done in order to square this little difference between the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor, it is undesirable that so big a sacrifice should be made. The central authority has, of course, inspectors, and will have a large and expensive staff, and this is only another case of the Opposition bringing forward a Bill creating an enormous number of new posts, and then going round the country saying we wicked Liberals are creating these posts.
Captain JESSEL: What is the first case?
10.0 P.M.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The previous Debate to this was on the making of two new Lords of Appeal at £6,000 apiece—supported by the other side. The preceding Debate was to make a new judge at £5,000 a year—supported by the other side. The Housing Bill was proposed from the other side, and there are the land valuers for valuation. All these things are proposed from the other side. [Hon. MEMBERS:
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"Not land valuers."] Certainly, the valuation originally proposed was to be made by the landlord, and as a concession you got the valuation made by the State at enormous expense. Now we are in this Bill super-imposing upon the unfortunate taxpayers of the country another body of uniformed officials. We shall soon all be wearing a uniform and receiving a salary, and there will be no one to pay the salary. The central authority is not the only charge upon the taxpayers in the country, because there are to be also local authorities. Every county council and county borough is to have its local authorities to deal with the feeble-minded, and it is to employ a staff of persons obviously of considerable size because they have got to make a list of all the people who are mentally defective. In some cases two counties can join together, but knowing the jealousy of different counties, I do not think there will be many cases of joint action. Their duties are to ascertain what persons within their area are defective, and are subject to be dealt with under the Bill otherwise than at the instance of their parent or guardian. So that there you have the duty put upon the county council to find out all the defectives within their area. Just think what that will mean in the expense of the staff and in interference with all these unfortunate people. It will not be your house and my house which will be invaded by the inspectors because we are rich. It is only the poor who are inspected. Their houses will be entered at any hour of the day by these inspectors. Children will be examined; impertinent questions will be asked, and all sorts of indignities will be put upon people in order to make a black list of the mentally defective in the county area. Then they have to provide suitable supervision over such persons, or if such supervision has been insufficient, they have to take steps to secure that they shall be dealt with by the institutions, that is to present petitions against them, which means, of course, the attendance of the officer at the Court, in order to get the magistrate to send the patient to one of these homes. It means also a certain amount of expense for medical certificates and for carrying to and fro. They have also to provide suitable accommodation.
As I understand it, the Government are going to provide half the cost of the accommodation and half the cost of the maintenance. I should like to know

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whether the Government also contemplate finding half the cost of all the inspectors and all the proceedings before the Court, because that undoubtedly will be a very large element in the cost. I dare say I am wrong, but I imagine it would be possible for the county council to assist financially private institutions, such as Sandlebridge, and that they are to be privately managed. I was contradicted by the Home Secretary, and I suppose I am wrong, and that these institutions will be State managed. They have to employ sufficient officers and other persons to assist them in the performance of their duty, and to make to the Board annual reports. I think that is a pretty heavy duty to saddle upon the local authorities, who are already complaining bitterly that we keep on passing Acts of Parliament, and leaving them to pay the piper. It is true that they are to pay half, but if it is only half, I do not think it will go very far to meet the extra expense in which the county council will be involved. The education authority works in with the new authority dealing with the mentally defective in the sense that it takes care of the children up to sixteen years of age, and weeds them out in order to send them to these homes.
The rest of the Bill deals with minor points. The only other provisions to which I object are those under which the Secretary of State has power to take over prisons in order to convert them into homes. I dislike the idea of converting a prison into a home, because I think it will lead to those homes being more prison-like in character and less educational than otherwise they might be made. There are elaborate precautions for dealing with people who escape, and those who give protection to those who escape—all undesirable provisions. Once you put bolts and bars on these homes, you must have these powers dealing with persons who escape. All those provisions come simply from one cardinal defect, namely, that you are putting bolts and bars on the homes and converting them from homes into asylums. During the French Revolution they passed laws against the emigrés. When the Bill was proposed Robespierre said "The Bill is unjust. You may pass the Bill, but I will never obey it." I think the same spirit should actuate us. This Bill, however desirable in the interest of the State, is, I think, unjust, and therefore we ought
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not to pass it. There may be an innumerable number of cases where it is desirable that these mentally defective people should be prevented from coming out of the homes, but I think the House will agree that to run the risk of locking up people who have committed no crime should not be imposed on other people. We as Englishmen have no right to subject our fellow citizens to such a risk. It is worse than committing to a lunatic asylum to put a sane person into the company of those who are confined because they are mentally defective. It is a monstrous cruelty, and at the same time a monstrous injustice. We want to help these mental defective people by all means, and by seeing that they have the best possible chance that can be given to them. We should see that they have the opportunity of being put into the best surroundings, but do not let us do two things which I think are criminal—do not take away children from their parents against the parents' wish, and do not put bolts and bars on these homes and convert them from real homes into prisons.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: The discussion of the question of mental deficiency seems to be the cause of very lengthy speeches on the other side of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "Both sides."] I know from the attitude the House took up on a previous occasion it is not likely to support the hon. Gentleman who has just addressed us. All the more because the Bill of this year is a very great improvement on the Bill which was introduced by the Home Secretary last year. While I do not wish to endorse all the complimentary remarks made to the Home Secretary by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, I wish to take this opportunity of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on the changes which he has made in the Bill. One of the great objections to the Bill of last year was with respect to the proposal to set up a new central authority, new Commissioners for the mentally defective. The Home Secretary told us to-day that this Bill is founded, to a large extent, on the recommendations of the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission in their Report strongly recommended that one central body, a Board of Control, a sort of enlarged Lunacy Commission, should be set up, and that this Central Board should deal with mentally defective cases of all classes, whether lunatics, idiots, or simply people who are feeble-minded. A local authority was to be established, which was to have care of the mentally defective

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in its district. It was to act through a statutory committee, but the duties and responsibilities of the Poor Law authorities and the education authorities were to cease. Under this Bill it is proposed to set up a Central Board of Control, and we are also to have a local committee to act under the county council, but I can see nothing in this Bill which affects the powers of the Poor Law authorities with respect to any defectives dealt with under the Poor Law, unless it is proposed that the subject should be dealt with by Regulations made by the Home Secretary. In London all the defectives now under the care of the Metropolitan Asylums Board will still remain under that Board, and will not be transferred to the local authority acting under the London County Council. What is still worse is the proposal that the special schools which have been established under the Act of 1899 should remain under the Board of Education. The Government are bringing in another Bill, making it compulsory on education authorities all over the country to adopt the Defective and Epileptic Children Bill—that is to say, to make it compulsory to set up special schools for mentally defective children. The Royal Commission was perfectly clear on this matter. They recommended, in the first place, not only that the Act setting up special schools should not be made compulsory, but, in the second place, they recommended that existing special schools should be transferred to the Board of Control. If the proposals of the Government are adopted, we shall have two sets of institutions dealing with the mentally defective under the age of sixteen—one set under the Board of Education and one set under the Board of Control.
Mr. BOOTH: And the Poor Law authority as well.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: There will be the special schools under the Board of Education and the others under the Board of Control, which will be under the Home Secretary. These special schools were established and were intended for children who are feeble-minded. They are not intended for children who are merely backward or dull, or for children who are idiots or imbeciles. They are intended for one class of mental defect, which under this Bill is defined as feeble-mindedness, and the children in the special schools now come under paragraph (c) of Clause 1 of this Bill. They are the feeble-minded.
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A child which is an idiot, which according to the definition here is unable to guard against common physical dangers, will be under the Board of Control. A child which cannot be taught to manage its own affairs will also be under the Board of Control, but a child which requires supervision and control for its own protection will be under the Board of Education and under the local education authority, and at the age of sixteen such child, too, is to pass away from the control of the Board of Education and is to be handed over to the Board of Control. I may also point out that under this Bill, as it stands, the parent of the child at any time can transfer his child from the education authority to a residential institution under the Board of Control. All he has to do is to get a certificate from a doctor saying that the child is defective under the Act. It seems to me utterly absurd to have two or three authorities dealing with the same subject. Mentally defectives ought to be under one central authority and under one local authority. Where special schools can be used they ought to be used merely as a sifting ground, as a place of observation for distinguishing between children who are merely backward and children who are really mentally defective. Children who are really mentally defective ought certainly to be handed over to the Board of Control, and ought to be placed in an institution. At present special schools have been established only by a certain limited number of education authorities in the country. I believe that they have only been established in our large towns. I do not believe that a single special school has been erected in country districts. Nearly all those special schools are day schools. There are something like 13,000 children in those schools, and 7,000 of them are in London special schools. I think that the House will agree that the proper place for a child who is mentally defective is a custodial home, a residential home, and not a day school, in which it would only spend perhaps thirty hours a week, while the rest of the time it would be without any control whatever. I believe that it is not only in the interest of the child that it should be placed in a residential home, but that it is also in the interest of the child's family that the family should be relieved from the continual presence of the feebleminded person in their midst. It is absolutely impossible to draw a distinction between an idiot, an imbecile, and a feeble-minded child on the lines of the definitions contained in this Bill.

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There is one other matter. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is not adopting the recommendation of the Royal Commission with regard to the special schools simply and solely owing to the fact that he does not wish to poach on the preserves of his right hon. colleague, the President of the Board of Education. For the same reason it is sought in this Bill to preserve the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor. We have the absurd proposal that some of these Commissioners are to be appointed by the Home Secretary after consulting with the Lord Chancellor, and in other cases the Commissioners are to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor after consulting with the Home Secretary. Certain reports are to be made by the Commissioners to the Home Secretary, and other reports are to be made to the Lord Chancellor. It is impossible for this Board of Control to serve two masters, and we are anxious to have a Minister in this House who will be directly responsible to it in respect of the actions of the Board of Control. It is of no use that the Lord Chancellor, who is not responsible to this House, should have power to ask the Commissioners and the Board of Control to draw up reports. The Home Secretary might come here and tell us that he was not responsible for certain reports because they had been ordered by the Lord Chancellor. Let us have one central authority responsible to one Minister in this House. One word with regard to the composition of the Board. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Newcastle that the questions which the Board will have to decide will not be of a medical nature. The Board will have to decide whether persons are mentally defective, and to which class of the mentally defective they belong. That is entirely a medical question, and it is essential that the proportion of medical men on the Board should not be decreased. Half the members of the present Lunacy Commission are medical men. Under the proposals made in this Bill the proportion of medical men will be reduced from one-half to less than one-third. I believe that is a Committee point which can be put right upstairs. The first two Clauses deal with the definition of "defectives," and the circumstances in which the defective subject is to be dealt with were discussed by the Committee upstairs. There is one part of Clause 2 which was not approved of by the Standing Committee.
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Sub-section (1) of Clause 2 was not before the Committee upstairs. In that Sub-section it is provided that a person who is an idiot or imbecile, or who is feeble-minded, and who is under the age of twenty-one, may be sent to an institution without any order, without any judicial inquiry, and simply and solely by his parent or guardian, and with one medical certificate—that is to say, the parent or guardian may send his son to an institution if he has a doctor to testify that the son is not capable of managing his own affairs. I believe there are a large number of persons in this country who are incapable of managing their own affairs. Although we want drastic powers, those drastic powers ought to be accompanied by adequate safeguards. There are no safeguards contained in this particular Clause, and I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to some Amendment when this Clause is discussed in Committee. There is the question of finance. I think the House will agree that provision for the mental defectives is a national and not a local charge. Under the Bill, as it stands, you are going to put more than half the cost on the local authorities. The right hon. Gentleman told us, I think, in answer to a question to-day, that half the cost borne by the State included the administration expenses. I should like to know whether that cost of administration will include the salaries of medical officers and inspectors who will have to be appointed under the Bill, and also whether the cost of making the necessary preliminary inquiry, finding out how many defectives there are in each particular area, will be included in that cost of administration—that would make a very large difference. The right hon. Gentleman, under this Bill, is only providing £150,000. That is not a very large, and I believe it is not by any means an adequate, sum. We have got the right to know from him how that sum of £150,000 is going to be distributed and divided amongst the various local authorities. Is each local authority going to be told in advance what its share is going to be, because the local authority is not to do any work under this Bill at all unless the Government pays half the cost. Is this sum to be divided amongst those authorities before they undertake any work under the Bill, or are they going to do the work first and then see what they can get out out of the National Exchequer. If it is going to be distributed at the start a very small sum indeed will

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go to each local authority, and practically nothing, I am afraid, will be done. Anyhow, we ought to be assured by the right hon. Gentleman that this sum will be increased during the next few years. According to the right hon. Gentleman only 20,000 feeble-minded persons can be dealt with under this Bill, but there are 70,000 feeble-minded persons who ought to be dealt with. According to the calculations of the Association of Municipal Corporations that sum of £150,000, in addition to the money spent out of the rates, will not be anything like sufficient to deal with the 20,000 persons, the figure given by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think it is the intention of many Members, or of any Member on this side, to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, but we hope that upstairs we shall have full opportunity to discuss the various details of the Bill, with many of which we are unable to agree. This Bill is no doubt a great improvement on the Bill of last year, but a great many on this side certainly do not consider it by any means a perfect Bill.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: I regret the last sentence that fell from the lips of the hon. Gentleman when he said that it was not the intention of hon. Members opposite to oppose this Bill. I, for what it is worth, intend to give my most unequivocal opposition to this Bill. This is extraordinarily exceptional legislation. There is no such legislation in any other civilised country. It has been sedulously refused by every State in the United States of America. It stands as an absolutely isolated exception in legislation. I hope before I sit down to give hon. Members on both sides cogent and sufficient reasons why they should not vote in favour of the Bill. I believe that it will be carried in this House, but I hope that the Press, which is now to a large extent in this House the guardian of the public liberties, will, at any rate, take such action in regard to this Bill as will prevent its being passed when it goes to another place. My objections are objections, not of detail, but of principle. I was a Member of this House when the Lunacy Act of 1890 was passed. The object of that measure was to prevent and terminate undoubted abuses, which, in my judgment this Bill will renew. Prior to the Act of 1890 there were numerous cases in which persons were oppressively imprisoned, and it was one of the most
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beneficent objects of that measure to prevent the continuance of that evil. Three categories of persons are dealt with under the present law—lunatics, idiots, and imbeciles. There is ample provision under the existing law for dealing with those categories. The present Bill does not affect to touch them: it introduces a new category called the feeble-minded. I want, first, to call the attention of the House to the definition of a feeble-minded person. An imbecile, according to the statutory definition and the definition of the judiciary, is a person incapable of managing his affairs. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Goldsmith) did not quite appreciate what the definition of a feeble-minded person is under this Bill. It is a person who is capable of managing his affairs, not a person who is incapable, but who is not supposed to be capable of effectively managing his affairs; that is to say, according to the evidence given and according to the Report of the Commission, a person who under favourable circumstances is capable of managing his affairs. That is the person who may be sent into captivity for the rest of his life. The second person—I really do not understand the definition; the Bill has been drafted in the loosest possible manner—is a person who is a moral imbecile—whatever that may be; who labours under a permanent defect—what the permanent defect is the draftsman does not condescend to indicate; and who is of vicious propensities. We know that that is directed against the person, usually a young person, of vicious propensities, who the medical officer of the prison, or some other person in authority, says will never get out of habits of crime. I have known many cases where persons so reported have got out habits of crime, and become competent and decent citizens. Those are the two classes—let hon. Members remember—who under this Bill may be sent into captivity for life. There is a third class: an educational authority may send a dull child or one who cannot learn his lessons into captivity for life upon their petition to the central authorities to make the required order. Is the House prepared, are hon. Members below the Gangway prepared, to deal so with the liberties of individual citizens? I should be very much surprised if they are. How are they to be placed into captivity? I think the hon. Member opposite pointed out that the parent or guardian—and apparently the guardian may be anybody who is interested in the welfare of the

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child, or pretends to be—may send any lad of eighteen to twenty-one on the certificate of two medical practitioners—[An HON. MEMBER: "One."]—and without any judicial inquiry—Is it one medical practitioner? So much the worse; I thought it was two—on merely making that report to the central authority. Under the Act of 1890—I am speaking from memory—which we discussed at great length and not in this superficial manner—which on Second Reading and in Committee we discussed long and seriously—we provided that before a person could be committed to an asylum as a lunatic there had to be a judicial inquiry, that there had to be notice of it given to the person implicated, that he had to be represented by counsel or by friends, that the exact particulars had to be known as to why the man was to be regarded as a lunatic, and that the full facilities for a properly constituted tribunal should be afforded the person to controvert the charge.
Mr. CAWLEY: This Act simply extends the present law to feeble-minded persons.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: I beg respectfully to state that it is not so. If the hon. Member will look at the first three Sections of the Lunacy Act of 1890—[An HON. MEMBER: "The Idiots Act?"]—he will find there that there has to be a judicial inquiry before the person can be sent to a lunatic asylum. Under this Statute there is no provision of that sort. All that takes place is that a parent or guardian gets a certificate from two medical men and on that a boy of twenty-one or under is committed to an institution, and the central authority merely gets a report. Anything more monstrous than this interference with public liberty I cannot conceive. Let us look at the next category, the case of persons not liable to be dealt with by parents or guardians, but who may be dealt with by other persons. There are three provisions with regard to this. One is that there should be an order of the judicial authority. Who? I speak with great respect—as I ought to do, and rightly—of the police magistrates of the Metropolis or the justices of the peace throughout the country.
Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to correct what is an obvious misapprehension, which ought not to go out as a public statement? Under the Idiots Act of 1886 any parent or guar-
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dian under a certificate of one medical practitioner may send a child into a home under the Act.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: That is so in regard to that Act, but I was dealing with another Department. It is not the parent or guardian here; it may be an adult or a child. The judicial authority may be the police magistrate. I speak with the greatest respect for police magistrates, but that is not the kind of tribunal which should take away permanently the liberty of the subject. It is, or might be, a jury, whose business it is to inquire into the sanity of a person. Here a police magistrate or a County Court judge may send a person to captivity for life. On what? On petition! That petition may be presented by anybody—by a friend, that is to say a friend of a sort. Anybody who wishes to put somebody away for life may draw up a petition and present it. There is the safeguard and the certificate of two medical men. I speak with the greatest respect of the medical profession to which we owe so much. But there again, do not we know this perfectly well that the very essence of the Act of 1890 was because there had been abuse by medical men. I remember how, in the discussions in this House, it was pointed out that people had been spirited away simply through getting some practitioners, of evil reputation probably, to give certificates. You are re-enacting that by this Bill; you are enabling two medical men, at the instance of a friend, to sign a medical certificate to say that a person is feeble-minded, capable of managing affairs, but feeble-minded. And then upon the judicial authority of a police magistrate, who is over-burdened with work, this person is rushed before him, and without an opportunity being afforded to this unfortunate person to answer the complaint made against him, he is spirited away to an institution where he has to remain, or may remain, for the rest of his life. What is the judicial inquiry? I ask hon. Members to take note of this. I have shown the machinery by which this is brought about, and I ask them will they vote for this measure? I am perfectly certain if they do they will hear more about it. The judicial authority may hold this inquiry in secret if it so pleases. No one is to be present except who? The feeble-minded person and two persons selected by him. It is a somewhat difficult task for a person against whom this charge is made—not perhaps being a person of the strongest mind—in

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the difficult circumstances in which he is placed to make such a selection. It is to be heard in private or it may be heard in private before a police magistrate, who may make an order to send this person away for the rest of his life. I do not think that is congenial to the spirit of the legislation we have been pursuing in this matter.
Mr. McKENNA: Yes.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that my statement is not accurate?
Mr. McKENNA: Certainly.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: It is wholly accurate, and I should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman's reply. It is within the power of two magistrates, or one magistrate in London, when a person is charged with larceny, upon a medical man certifying that he is feeble-minded, to send that person away for the rest of his life. Let us see whether I am accurate in stating that this man is liable to be confined for the rest of his life. At the termination of the first year of confinement it cannot continue unless a report is made. Supposing a report is made that the person is still feeble-minded, he has to remain for another five years. At the end of another five years another report has to be made, and if he is still feebleminded he has to remain for another five years. Who is the person to make that report? Is it to be made after judicial inquiry, such as exists under the Lunacy Acts? Is it the Commissioner sent to inquire? No. It is a report sent to the central authority by the person who is the proprietor of the establishment in which the person is detained. Anything more terrible I cannot conceive.
Mr. McKENNAdissented.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but if he makes himself acquainted with the contents of his own measure, he will see that I am quite accurate.
Mr. McKENNA: The hon. and learned Member insinuated that the proprietor might have a personal interest in keeping a person under detention. Under this Bill there are no proprietors in the institutions in question, because they are all public.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: That is a very narrow distinction. If I understand this measure correctly, a feeble-minded person
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may be put in charge of an individual. I do not see any special provision differing in respect of the individual, but I do not think it makes much difference. I think a person who has the custody of a feeble-minded person is not a person upon whose report alone they should act. I do not propose to go into details. This Bill is full of gross absurdities and contradictions. It is enough for me to say that I oppose this measure on principle. I do not mean to say that there are not feebleminded persons whom it is to the interest of the State to detain. I agree that there are a great many persons with vicious propensities whom it is desirable to isolate in this way, but they should be dealt with by a judicial authority acting upon evidence of the highest authority, and not in a way which will lead to the abuses to which I have referred. In reading the evidence there is nothing which has touched me more than those passages which point to the solicitude which poor people feel for the feeble-minded members of their family and how they refuse to allow them to be torn away from the protection of their family. In that respect this Bill is ruthless. I have spoken strongly because I feel strongly, and I feel a sense of relief that there is another tribunal before which this Bill will go. Although it may be carried here, elsewhere it may be rejected, or, at any rate, amended in such a way that it will not infringe in so violent a manner the liberty of the subject as it does now. Perhaps the disappearance of the picturesque figure which Dickens immortalised in "Barnaby Rudge," the village idiot, may draw from someone some lingering regret, but I am content that these people should be properly cared for in some humane institution. I object, however, to the right hon. Gentleman in a spirit of bureaucracy coming to this House and saying, "We will appoint officials who will, at the instigation perhaps of some interested individual put away for a period which may be coincident with their natural life every person who may be regarded by a justice on the evidence of two medical practitioners, who may be corrupted, as mentally defective. I would refer the hon. Member for St. Pancras to the evidence given by medical men of distinction that these people who are feebleminded should be put away, not for a mere temporary period, but for all time. With that spirit I have no sympathy, and therefore I intend to give this Bill my most determined opposition.
Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOW: Like many on this side of the House, I am a supporter of this Bill in principle, though a critic of its details. I could not help being interested and rather amused at the speech to which we have just listened. I was amused for two reasons. The hon. Member who, I suppose would call himself for most purposes a Radical, relies apparently upon an institution in another place for effecting his purpose with regard to this Bill. Secondly, he appealed to the sacred principle of liberty, and in that name he proposes to perpetuate the most horrible system of slavery that I think exists in any country. By your present system you are definitely encouraging the horrible possibility of mental infirmity and imbecility being carried from one generation to the next. I am willing to concede to hon. Members opposite the most righteous anxiety for the liberty of the existing subject, but they entirely forget the liberty of the next generation. It is a difficult subject to deal with, but the topic is a perfectly familiar one. You are by your present educational method, allowing feeble-minded girls to acquire a certain amount of education and capacity to go into the world thereby enabling, and indeed encouraging, them to become themselves mothers of mentally defective children. How you can claim for that process the protection of the sacred name of liberty passes my comprehension altogether. We have had several horrible instances given; one came across my personal experience. Parents in a poor class of life had one daughter who was mentally defective, but who suffered from the fatal gift of beauty. So anxious were the parents for her welfare that they were determined she should not leave the house because they feared fatal consequences. They were not in a position to secure nurses in order to prevent her from going away, and the result was that they deliberately chained their daughter up in order to prevent the worst happening. It is all very well for hon. Members to talk about the liberty of the present generation. What I plead for is the liberty of the next generation. I have a word or two to say in criticism of the Bill from the point of view of inspection by local authorities. The Bill itself is a good measure, but it is no good for Parliament to propose it if it is left to the local authority to dispose of it, and if you do not supply them with sufficient funds to administer it. We do
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not want in regard to this Bill to repeat the mistakes which were made with regard to education. If you pass this Bill, and expect it to work effectively, you can only secure that by supplying the local authorities with adequate funds. As vice-president of the Association of Municipal Corporations, perhaps I may be allowed to quote a few figures which in my view will prove this Bill if it passes in its present form is hopelessly unworkable from the point of view of finance. The question of finance rises in two forms—first, there is the current expenditure for running the administration of the Bill, and, secondly, there is the question of capital expenditure. With regard to current expenditure there are three items—supervision, which is a general matter, accommodation and guardianship under guardianship orders, and finally the employment of officers to make returns. The duty of employing officers for this purpose is one which under this Bill falls entirely on the local authority. It is true that with regard to accommodation and guardianship what is proposed in the Bill is that the local authority—it is put into curiously guarded language—shall be under no obligation to incur expenditure unless an equivalent amount is provided by Parliament. What is to happen supposing the inhabitants of any locality are very much wrought up, as I know many are wrought up, and determined that their local authority shall—
It being Eleven o'clock, the Debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed Tomorrow (Thursday).
The remaining Orders of the Day were read and postponed.

APPELLATE JURISDICTION (SALARIES AND PENSIONS).
Committee to consider of authorising the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of the Salaries and Pensions of every Lord of Appeal in Ordinary appointed under the provisions of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to the number and duties of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.
King's Recommendation signified—[Mr. Attorney-General]—To-morrow.
Adjourned at Four minutes after Eleven o'clock.

  Public Expenditure.
  Public Expenditure.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  BOOKS OF STAMPS.
  BOOKS OF STAMPS.
  Traffic Combinations.
  Traffic Combinations.
  Buildings Operation Bill.
  Buildings Operation Bill.
  Boy Scouts.
  Boy Scouts.
  Load Line (Departmental Committee).
  Load Line (Departmental Committee).
  Undermanning.
  Undermanning.
  Central Telegraph Office (Overseership).
  Central Telegraph Office (Overseership).

VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET.
Report made from the Lord Chancellor that the right of Edmund Somerset, Viscount Mountgarret and Baron of Bells, in the Peerage of Ireland, to vote at the election of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
The Viscount BANGOR—Took the Oath.

DUNDEE CORPORATION (IMPROVE MENTS AND TRAMWAYS) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.

CONYNGHAM HEIRLOOMS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed.
BISHOP'S WALTHAM WATER BILL.
CHESTERFIELD CORPORATION RAILLESS TRACTION BILL.
SOUTHPORT CORPORATION BILL.
WESTGATE AND BIRCHINGTON GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
LOCAL GOVERN MENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
UNITED DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
MIDLAND RAILWAY (SUPERANNUATION FUND) BILL. [H.L.]
CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
LEEDS CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
HERNE BAY GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL.
RICHMOND (SUBREY) ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.

BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
GREENOCK PORT AND HARBOURS BILL. [H.L.]
The KING'S consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

ANCIENT MONUMENTS CONSOLIDATION AND AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONODGIIMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Purchase of ancient monuments by agreement.
1.—(1) Any local authority within the meaning of this Act may, if they think fit, purchase by agreement any monument situate in or in the vicinity of their area, which appears to them to he an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act.
(2) For the purpose of any such purchase, the Lands Clauses Acts shall be incorporated with this Act (with the exception of the provisions which relate to the purchase and taking of lands otherwise than by agreement), and in construing those Acts for the purposes of this Act, this Act shall be deemed to be the special Act, and the local authority shall be deemed to be the promoters of the undertaking.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I move to add a new subsection to provide that the Commissioners of Works may, with the consent of the Treasury, purchase by agreement, out of any moneys which may be provided by Parliament for that purpose, any monument which appears to them to be an ancient monument within the meaning of the Act. I was, unfortunately, not able to be present in your Lordships' House when this Bill was read a second time, but I have read the speeches that were then made. My noble friend Lord Curzon raised the point with which my first Amendment deals, and I agree so entirely
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with the observations which he made upon it that I need not do more than say a very few words on this occasion. I venture in this Amendment to put back into the Bill the power of the Commissioners of Works, with the consent of the Treasury, to purchase. It seemed to me an extraordinary thing that this power should have been taken out of the Bill, and I do not think that the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, has had an opportunity yet of explaining exactly why it was taken out. I do not object at all to power of purchase being given to local authorities, but I think it is an unfortunate thing that the Government themselves should not retain the power of making purchases. I always understood that, the object in view was that local authorities should deal with monuments of a minor and local character such as could not be described as of national importance, but that if there was a case of an ancient monument of very great, what we may call of national, importance, the Government should obtain possession of it supposing it were for sale rather than that any local authority should attempt to do so. It is with a view of asking for an explanation from the noble Earl in charge of the Bill that I have put down this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, at the beginning of clause 1 insert the following new subsection:
(1) The Commissioners of Works may with the consent of the Treasury purchase by agreement, out of any moneys which may be provided by Parliament for that purpose, any monument which appears to them to be an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I should like to support the Amendment of the noble Earl who has just spoken. As I stated in the debate on the last occasion, I can see no reason why the power of purchase by the State, which was enjoyed under previous legislation and which was provided for in the first draft of this Bill, should now have been dropped. There may still be cases, as the noble Earl who has moved this Amendment stated, in which purchase by the State may be an infinitely more serviceable and more practicable method of dealing with the question than purchase by a local authority. I shall have a word to say about purchase by local authorities later on; but I would not have your Lordships imagine for a moment that very much is to be anticipated from the power of purchase by local

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authorities, because, whatever their inclination, they have not the means. Therefore we should certainly retain the power of purchase by the State. During the Second Reading discussion the noble Earl in charge of the Bill replied to me that the provision in previous Acts regarding purchase by the Government applied only to monuments in the Schedule of the Act of 1882. I think, with all respect, that he was not quite correct in that, and that since the Act of 1900 this provision has applied to all monuments and not only to the restricted number to which he referred.
There is a reason which I did not hear stated by the noble Earl, Lord Plymouth, but it is important in advocating a power of purchase by the Government. It is this. Under the terms contemplated by the Bill such purchase, as I understand, would be purchase under the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act, and therefore would be purchase by the State in circumstances more favourable to the State than purchase in the open market. The State, with the protection of this Act behind it, would be in a better position to make a good bargain for itself. Surely in this matter, when we are trying to set up, or at any rate to encourage, a higher standard of public conduct, the State ought not to be behindhand in setting an example. It is all very well to say to local authorities, "You play your part; you conserve your local buildings"; but the local authorities will reply, "Why should not the State give us a lead?" My own impression is that the only reason that deters the Government from taking such a line is fear of the Treasury. I do not see why you should be any more afraid of the Treasury than local authorities should be afraid of the ratepayers. Indeed, you have much greater command over the Treasury than local authorities have over the ratepayers. In my judgment it is for the Government to set an example in this matter. I hope the noble Earl in charge of the Bill will consent to do so on grounds both of logic and expediency—on the ground of logic because it seems unfair that local authorities should be expected to do the whole thing, and on the ground of expediency because there may well be cases in which the State, and the State alone, can be the purchaser. For these reasons I support the Amendment which my noble friend has moved.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): A great deal of what we may say on this Amendment is very much a repetition of the discussion which took place on this point on Second Reading, and I am afraid that our positions are the same to-day as they were on that occasion. Therefore I shall have to trouble your Lordships with, in some part at any rate, a repetition of what I then said. In the first place, we are of opinion, influenced very largely by some of the evidence given before the Joint Select Committee last year, that it is important to local authorities that they should be in charge of these monuments. The educational value of these monuments is so great that we should like to put in the forefront the duty of the local authorities to take possession of them. We think that they are more likely to be used in that way than if they belonged to the central authority.
But there is, further, the point mentioned by the noble Earl who has just sat down, that when all is said and done there is still retained by the Treasury a general power of purchase which is unaffected by this Bill. His Majesty's Government for the time being must always exercise the power of being able to buy if they wish to do so, and there is nothing in this Bill which takes away from the Treasury or the Department concerned the power, if great necessity arises, to complete the purchase of an ancient monument. But it is important to remember that, however great that power in the past may have been, it has never once been exercised. The noble Earl, Lord Curzon, referred to the statement which I made on the Second Reading, that power of purchase existed only with regard to those monuments which were specially mentioned in the Schedule of the Act of 1882. My impression, after reading the Act again, remains the same—that at the present moment our power to purchase only extends to certain specified monuments; and the fact that that power is not likely to be of very great use in the future is evidenced by the fact that although we have had the power in the past not one single building have we purchased, though in the Schedule some of the most important ancient monuments in this country have been included. We ask ourselves, therefore, whether it is worth while to include in this new Bill a power which in the past has not been found necessary.

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There is yet another reason why the provision in the Amendment is unnecessary. We have gone further in this Bill in the direction of preservation and do more to prevent ancient monuments being spoiled than in the Bill of last year. Therefore for the State to purchase would be in a great many cases at any rate an unnecessary expense; and your Lordships will, I think, see that if you put in the forefront of a Bill of this kind the power of the Treasury to purchase, you are not likely to encourage local authorities to take advantage of the powers which you give them in later portions of the Bill. Considering the large sums which are demanded always from the State on occasions of this kind, it is clear that by putting the State in as a possible rival to local authorities we might do something to force up the price unfairly as against the Government or the local authority. But this is a Bill on which there has been so much general agreement that I shall not press the House to a Division in regard to the Amendment now before us. I would, however, point out that this Amendment, in so far as it creates a charge or a possible charge upon public funds, comes within that debatable ground upon which I venture to think it is sometimes wiser for this House not to trench. It would in another place involve a financial resolution, and in the present state of business I think it is impossible to deny that any further complication of the measure must retard and might even prevent its chance of passing into law during the present session.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: There are one or two questions which I should like to put to the noble Earl in charge of this Bill. In his reply just now he said that His Majesty's Government desire —and I sympathise with their desire—to put the local authorities in the forefront of the Bill, and to suggest to them the desirability of making these purchases when they can. But what will be the result? Look at what will emerge with respect to local authorities under this clause. In the first place the local authority can only purchase by agreement with the owner. That, of course, will in itself apply a very strict limitation to the number of cases concerned. Then I imagine that before the local authority buys there
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would have to be an inquiry by the Local Government Board, and that the assent of that Department would have to be given in the event of the money being raised.
Thus we arrive at the stage when, presuming a desire to exist to buy and assuming the consent of the Local Government Board to have been given, the money will have to be raised. This is a point on which I ask for some information. How is the local authority going to raise the money? On what security will it raise it? I imagine it can only borrow on the security of the rates. Will the local authority be allowed to pledge the rates? One must remember this, that local authorities are very amenable to public opinion. The noble Earl said just now that the State had never exercised its prerogative of purchase. Quite true. But that has been due, as I contend, to a failure to recognise its duty on the part of the State, or it may have been due to reluctance on the part of the Treasury. But the local authority has its constituents behind it, and I cannot imagine any local authority, certainly none with which I am familiar, voluntarily putting on an extra rate in order to purchase an ancient monument. I am sorry to say that the local authorities with whom I have had contact do not care at all about the archæo-logical or historic value of monuments. What they think of is the value of the monuments as a means of advertisement for the locality, or as a means of entertainment for the people. If you can show that the proper safeguarding of a particular building will bring crowds of people to visit it at a cost of sixpence each, then the interest of the local authority is excited; or if you can show that in a particular locality it is desirable to have as an open space the ground around an ancient monument, they may be interested. But otherwise, their interest is very slight.
I venture to predict, although we pass this Bill, that just as the noble Earl has said that in not a single case has the Government exercised its power of purchase under the old law, so not a single case will arise in which a local authority will purchase under this Bill. I regard the clause as only of value as indicating to local authorities a form of duty which they will perhaps recognise in theory, but which I expect they will be very reluctant to convert into practice. However, it is not for me to disparage a clause of the Bill

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will which I agree. But I should like to ask the noble Earl in what manner the local authority will raise the money, and the extent to which, if at all, it will be allowed to pledge the rates.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: What will happen under the clause will be that it will become one of its normal powers for a local authority to purchase such an ancient monument as there is within its own borders. Then the process which the noble Earl has accurately described will no doubt take place; but it will remain as it is now within the power of the Local Government Board to say whether in their opinion the money which it is proposed to spend is too much, or whether they think it undesirable that the particular monument should be purchased. We must remember that behind the local authorities there are the electors, and. that the local authorities may be presumed to be anxious to carry out the wishes of the electors, and with that, for my part, I am perfectly prepared to remain content. As to the local authorities acting, I am more sanguine than the noble Earl. Take such a place, for instance, as Anne Hathaway's cottage. I know nothing about it, but it is conceivable to me that the local authority would be inclined to purchase it, and then by the help of a certain amount of contributions—
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: The cottage belongs to the Shakespeare Trust.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I said I knew nothing about the circumstances of that particular case. But there might be lots of similar places which the local authority might wish to buy and which they would be able to secure with the help of contributions, with the future hope of visitors' fees, and with some assistance from the rates. I am not so despondent as the noble Earl is of the use which local authorities will make of this clause, and I trust that with the hope of contributions and visitors' fees they will see their way in many instances to purchase these monuments.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Earl has replied on many of the points raised by my noble friend, but he has not informed your Lordships whether a local authority could throw a charge on the rates in order to carry out this duty.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: Yes, they could do so.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My recollection is that in any Act of Parliament which entrusts local authorities with such a power there are words to the effect that the expense should be a charge on the county fund or on some particular fund. I hope the noble Earl will thoroughly satisfy himself on the point before the Bill passes, so that we may not have inserted a nonsensical provision which by itself has no meaning.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: Subsection (1) of this clause provides that any local authority may, if they think fit, purchase by agreement any monument situate in or in the vicinity of their area which appears to them to be an ancient monument within the meaning of this Bill. That obviously gives them power to spend the ratepayers' money upon the purchase, and I should have thought that if they purchased an ancient monument as a direct charge on the rates there would be no need for them to go to the Local Government Board at all. At present we are rather putting up sign-posts, and I hope that these sign-posts will be an encouragement to those who come after us to display more courage and go rather further in preserving our ancient monuments. We have seen, in the case of the purchase of important pictures by the National Gallery, instances where the Treasury have shrunk from giving the whole of the money, but where the Treasury have been stimulated by public opinion into supplementing the original grant. I have no doubt that if a monument like Kenilworth Castle was open to purchase by the public, the people in Warwickshire and outside would come forward with sufficient money to induce the local authority of Warwickshire and the Government to give contributions to complete the purchase. Therefore I hope that words will be inserted which will indicate not merely a power to purchase but a power to contribute towards the purchase.
THE EARL OF CROMER: Clause 21 of the Bill deals with the point raised by the noble Marquess as to the power of a local authority to levy a rate for the purpose of this Bill.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I had not the least doubt as to the power of local authorities to deal with the matter in the way suggested by the noble Earl. I will, however, look into the point, and if that is not so I will bring up any necessary Amendment on Report. But it never occurred to me that a local authority would be able to purchase an ancient monument out of its current rate but would require to get a loan, and in that way the consent of the Local Government Board would be required.
THE EARL OF POWIS: My own experience of local authorities coincides much more with that of Lord Curzon than with that of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill. The noble Earl has given an imaginary case of purchase by the local authority. I should like to give a concrete case—I will not mention the particular place publicly, but will give the information to the noble Earl afterwards if he desires it—where the local authority is already the owner of a building such as would come under this Bill. It is a matter of the greatest anxiety in that county lest the local authority may destroy that monument in the interests of economy, and it is doubtful whether there is power to prevent them from doing so. I mention that as showing that there is a distinct danger in putting too great confidence in local authorities in regard to the care of ancient monuments.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: The next is a consequential Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 17, after the second ("the") insert ("Commissioners of Works or") and after ("authority") insert ("as the case may be").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:

PART II. GUARDIANSHIP OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
3.—(1) The owner of any monument which appears to the Commissioners of Works to be an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act may, if the Commissioners consent, by deed, constitute the Commissioners guardians of the monument:
Provided that the Commissioners shall not consent to become guardians of any structure which is occupied as a dwelling-house by any person other than a person employed as the caretaker thereof or his family.
(2) The owner of any monument which appears to a local authority to be an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act, and is situate in or in the vicinity of their area may, by deed,
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constitute the local authority guardians of the monument, if the local authority consent.
(3) Every person deriving title to any monument from, through, or under any owner who has constituted the Commissioners of Works or a local authority guardians of the monument under this section shall be bound by the deed executed by the owner for that purpose, and where the owner of any land being the site of a monument is a tenant for life or in tail, or heir in tail in possession in Scotland, having a power of sale of the land either under the terms of a will or settlement or under any Act of Parliament, the deed executed by the owner in respect of the site of which he is so tenant for life or in tail or heir in tail shall bind every successive owner of any estate or interest in the land, and the execution of any such deed by the tenant for life or in tail or heir in tail in possession shall not render him subject to any liability on account of any depreciation of property attributable thereto.
(4) Where the site of a monument is, at the time of the execution of the deed, subject to any incumbrance not capable of being over-reached by the tenant for life under the powers conferred on him by the Settled Land Acts, 1882 to 1890, or by the instrument creating the settlement, the deed shall not bind the incumbrancer.
(5) Except as provided by this Act, the owner of a monument of which the Commissioners of Works or a local authority become guardians under this Act shall have the same right and title to, and estate and interest in, the monument in all respects as if the Commissioners or local authority, as the case may be, had not become guardians thereof.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I move to delete the proviso to subsection (1)—namely, "Provided that the Commissioners shall not consent to become guardians of any structure which is occupied as a dwelling-house by any person other than a person employed as the caretaker thereof or Ins family." I have put down this Amendment as a preliminary step towards leaving out of the Bill altogether dwelling-houses that are actually inhabited, and there are on your Lordships' Paper consequential Amendments to carry that out. I understand, from the Amendments which appear on the Paper in the name of His Majesty's Government, that they do not assent to that proceeding, but I do not know that I need press the point at this moment, because so far as the actual Amendment which is now under consideration is concerned the Government and myself are in agreement. But the Government propose to reinsert the words later on, and no doubt they will explain their reasons when we come to that Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, leave out lines 7 to 10 inclusive.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I think it would be convenient to your Lordships if at this stage I explained the difference between the Amendments standing in the noble Marquess's name and those standing in my name. What the noble Marquess does by his Amendments is to exclude entirely ecclesiastical buildings and dwelling-houses from the scope of the Bill. We are entirely at one with regard to ecclesiastical buildings, though I know that that feeling is not shared by some of the noble Marquess's colleagues. He and I, however, are agreed that we must exclude ecclesiastical buildings. What on consideration seems best to us to do is to put into the definition clause such form of words as will entirely exclude ecclesiastical buildings from the scope of the Bill, and then no difficulties can arise in the future.
Then we come to dwelling-houses, and this is where the noble Marquess and I are at issue. The noble Marquess's Amendment goes further than I think your Lordships would generally wish that it should go. His Amendment would make it impossible for the local authority to purchase a dwelling-house even by agreement with the owner; it would make it impossible for the owner of such a house to give his interest in it of his own accord; and it would also make it impossible for the owner of such a house to hand it over to the local authority so as to make them guardians of it. The form of words which I have put on the Paper and to which we shall come in due time, makes this distinction—that without the consent of the owner it cannot be done. The owner of the dwelling-house which is occupied can, by the mere exercise of his will, prevent anything being done. The noble Marquess would prevent the owner from handing it over by consent, but I do not put that disability upon him. I would allow him to do it if he were willing to do so himself. That is the point at issue between us.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I may say at once that I do not propose to discuss the question of ecclesiastical buildings, which it is quite clear does not arise on this Amendment. I am entirely in agreement with His Majesty's Government on that point. But as regards dwelling-houses, I understand that the point between, us is a very small one. The Government wish to retain power for the local authority, and, as the Bill now stands, for the Government
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themselves, to buy a dwelling-house in which the owner is living. I think that will be a very unusual proceeding and not likely often to be availed of. At any rate, I am not concerned to resist it if the Government desire to have that power. There will, however, be rather a difference of opinion between us when we reach Clause 13. I do not think that Clause 13 ought to be applied to dwelling-houses which are actually occupied. As I mentioned in the observations which I made on the Second Reading of this Bill, there are many houses, with one of which I am very closely acquainted, which might easily become ancient monuments under this Bill, and by the Bill as it stands the owner would not be allowed to throw two servants' rooms into one without giving a month's notice to the Commissioners. That really is absurd, and Clause 13 ought not to apply to dwelling-houses at all. But it will be much more regular, of course, to raise that point when we come to Clause 13.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: Your Lordships will see that the next Amendment is part of the scheme, the object of the Amendment being to allow the local authorities as well as the Commissioners of Works to become guardians by consent.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 13, after ("consent") insert ("Provided that the Commissioners of Works or the local authority, as the case may be, shall not consent to become guardians of any structure winch is occupied as a dwelling-house by any person other than a person employed as the caretaker thereof or his family").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4:
Effect of becoming guardians of ancient monuments. [1882, s. 2.]
4.—(1) Where the Commissioners of Works or a local authority become guardians of any ancient monument under this Act, they shall, until they receive notice in writing to the contrary from any owner of the monument who is not bound by the deed constituting them guardians of the monument, maintain, and shall, with a view to the maintenance of the monument, have access by themselves, their inspectors, agents, or workmen to the monument for the purpose of inspecting it, and of bringing such materials and doing such acts and things as may be required for the maintenance thereof.
(2) All expenses incurred by the Commissioners of Works in maintaining the monument shall, subject to the approval of the Treasury, be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament.
(3) The expression "maintenance" in this section includes the fencing, repairing, and covering in, of a monument and the doing of any other act or thing which may be required for the purpose of repairing the monument or protecting it from decay or injury, and the expression "maintain" shall be construed accordingly.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I move to insert, in subsection (1), the words "the monument" after the word "maintain." This is a purely drafting Amendment for which I am indebted to the noble Marquess opposite.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 9, after ("maintain") insert ("the monument").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:

PART III. PROTECTION OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
6.— (1) If the Ancient Monuments Board constituted under this Act report to the Commissioners of Works that any monument is in danger of destruction or damage from neglect or injudicious treatment, and that the preservation of the monument is of national importance, the Commissioners may, if they think fit, and if it appears to them that the monument is an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act, make an order (in this Act referred to as a Preservation Order) placing the monument under the protection of the Commissioners.
(2) A Preservation Order shall have effect for a period of eighteen months after the date on which it is made, but on the expiration of that period shall cease to have effect unless it has been confirmed by Parliament; and if a Preservation Order so made is not confirmed by Parliament within a period of eighteen months, no further Preservation Order shall be made with reference to same monument until after the expiration of five years from the date on which the Order which has ceased to have effect was made.
(3) The Commissioners of Works may bring in a Bill for confirming any Preservation Order, and if, while the Bill confirming any such Order is pending in either House of Parliament, a petition is presented against the Order, the Bill, so far as it relates to the Order, may be referred to a select committee or, if the two Houses of Parliament think fit so to order, to a joint committee of those Houses, and the petitioner shall be allowed to appear and oppose as in the case of a private Bill.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I move to omit from the beginning of the clause the words "the Ancient Monuments Board constituted under this Act report" and to insert in their place the words "it appears." I am rather afraid that the Advisory Board will not be quite so active a body as we should like them to be. Is it not natural that the attention of the representative persons who are placed upon such a Board as this, all of them with other occupations of a very important character, may not be drawn to these particular monuments with which the Commissioners of Works ought to deal, and deal at as early a moment as possible? Is it not likely that the members of this Board would act on the motion of the Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and is it necessary that they should intervene? I do not wish to suggest anything which would place a hardship upon an owner, but would it not be more reasonable for the Commissioners of Works to be able to act on the advice of the Inspector of Ancient Monuments? Therefore in order to make the action of this clause as easy as possible I have put down this Amendment, which might be better in another form, perhaps, but I have put it down in the simplest way I could think of. The adoption of my Amendment would enable the Commissioners of Works to take action on the advice of the Inspector of Ancient Monuments. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Southwark, has an Amendment on the Paper which makes some provision for these particular cases, and it may be more convenient to deal with the matter in the way that he proposes.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 26, leave out ("the Ancient Monuments Board constituted under this Act report") and insert ("it appears").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: Your Lordships will see that we ask various important bodies to be good enough to send each a representative to serve on the Ancient Monuments Board. It will be their principal duty to report to the Chief Commissioner when from time to time they think that a special monument is in danger of destruction or damage. The main drawback to the noble Earl's Amendment seems to me to be this, that it would take away from the Ancient Monuments Board their chief duty and their chief occupation; and if the Amendment were carried it would simplify the Bill

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if we got rid of the Schedule and the Ancient Monuments Board altogether. I should be reluctant to do that, as I believe that the existence of such a Board would be of great value in steadying the occupant of the office of Chief Commissioner of Works and in giving a general feeling of confidence in the action taken.
The Amendment which stands on the Paper in the name of Lord Southwark seems to me to meet the case. That Amendment would allow the First Commissioner to act in matters of urgency, but otherwise forces him to rely on the Ancient Monuments Board. It is idle to conceal from ourselves the fact that all legislation of this kind creates a certain amount of distrust in. a good many minds, and it was in order to allay any fears that might exist that I proposed to institute this Ancient Monuments Board as a guard against hasty action. I am delighted to think that our proposal should be looked upon by noble Lords opposite as retrograde and unnecessary and as unduly safeguarding the interests of property. That is certainly a new position in which to find ourselves. But in view of the fact that there really are a certain number of people who are afraid that this power might be used tyrannically by the First Commissioner, I hope your Lordships will allow the Ancient Monuments Board to stand between him and the owners.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am disposed to agree with the arguments of the noble Earl who has just sat down. The creation of the Ancient Monuments Board is certainly one of the main principles of the Bill, and it would be a pity to take from them what will be one of their most important and most interesting functions. Therefore I hope that my noble friend Lord Plymouth will be content with the Amendment which is to be moved later by Lord Southwark, which gives him what he requires in another form.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD EVERSLEY: I move, after the word "destruction" in subsection (1), to insert the words "or removal." I propose this Amendment because it is not quite clear to my mind that removal means destruction. As the subsection now stands, the provision is only against destruction. I think it ought to apply also to removal.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 28, after ("destruction") insert ("or removal").—(Lord Eversley.)
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: I hope that His Majesty's Government will agree to this Amendment. I can give an instance where it certainly would have been applicable. When I was Chancellor of the Exchequer I received one day from the owner of Stonehenge a letter informing me that unless I gave a very exorbitant sum for Stonehenge and surrounding land the monument would probably be sold and removed by the purchaser to America. The removal of Stonehenge would be a national loss, but it would not be destruction or damage. The words at present in the subsection do not cover an action of that kind, and therefore, although I do not anticipate that such a thing would really happen, I think we ought to safeguard its possibility by accepting the noble Lord's Amendment.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I quite agree with the noble Viscount, and am much obliged to my noble friend for moving this Amendment, which certainly does stop up a loophole in the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SOUTHWARK: I move the addition, at the end of subsection (1), of the proviso standing in my name. As the observations which have been made by noble Lords in the course of the discussion this evening show that we are all agreed upon this proviso, it is not necessary for me to do more than move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 34, after ("Commissioners") insert ("Provided that, if in any case the Commissioners of Works consider that the making of such an order is a matter of immediate urgency, the Commissioners may make the order without receiving any such report as aforesaid").—(Lord Southwark.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The new subsection which I move to insert after subsection (1) is designed to meet an objection which was raised by a newspaper which published an article on the subject of this Bill, in which it was pointed out that unless the Board could inspect a monument which was believed to be in danger they might not be in a position to furnish a report, and that a recalcitrant owner might refuse to allow them permission

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to inspect the monument. I hope your Lordships will agree to add this new subsection.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 34, after ("Commissioners") insert the following new subsection:
"(2) Where the Ancient Monuments Board have reason to believe that any monument is in danger as aforesaid, and that the preservation of the monument is of national importance, they may themselves, or by any person authorised in writing by them, enter at any reasonable time upon any premises for the purpose of enabling them to determine by inspection of the, monument whether it is proper for them to report to the Commissioners:
Provided that unless the Ancient Monuments Board consider that the inspection of the monument is a matter of immediate urgency they shall give not less than seven clear days' notice to the occupier of the premises of their intention so to enter upon them."—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I move to insert a new subsection after subsection (3). The only remedy possessed by an owner who thinks himself aggrieved under the powers which are now conferred is that he may appear before the Committee to which the Preservation Order is referred and may do his best to persuade the Committee to reject it. He may possibly have a very good case, and yet any of us who have had dealings with Committees know that a man thinks twice before he enters an opposition, because of the enormous expense which it involves. The owner of the monument may be a very rich man, but he may be a poor man. Yet his only chance of justice if he has a good case is to contest it before the Committee. Then whom has he to oppose? He has to oppose the armed forces of His Majesty's Government, backed up by the bottomless purse which they have at their command, he himself being a poor man. Let us put the case that he succeeds. I believe that unless the Committee is unanimous he will get no costs against the Government. I submit that that is most unfair. I think the whole system under which the Government are allowed to enter into a controversy with a private individual in which the private individual, if unsuccessful, has to pay the costs, but the Government, if they are unsuccessful, will not have to pay the costs, is on the face of it most unfair. If the majority of the Committee think that costs ought to be awarded against the Government, then they ought
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to be entitled to award them just as they do against a private individual. That is all that this Amendment proposes. There are precedents for it, but I will not trouble your Lordships with them as I hope there will be no difficulty in persuading the Government to accept the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 12, after subsection (3) insert the following new subsection:
(4) "Where a Committee on a Bill for confirming any Preservation Order report by a majority of the members for the time being present and voting that a petitioner against the Bill has been unreasonably subjected to expense, or has been subjected to an unreasonable amount of expense in defending his rights proposed to he interfered with by the Bill, they may award costs against the Commissioners of Works, and any costs under this section may be taxed and recovered in accordance with the Parliamentary Costs Act, 1865."—(The Marques of Salisbury.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I quite agree with the noble Marquess that there is some case for an Amendment of this kind. I do not, however, quite like the extent to which the noble Marquess's Amendment goes. But I find myself in considerable difficulty in proposing an alternative, because any alternative would come within those limits of privilege to which I have already referred in relation to another Amendment. In the Parliamentary Costs Act, as your Lordships know, there is a provision that a petitioner who has been unreasonably or vexatiously subjected to expense is entitled in certain circumstances to get his costs, but he must get them by the unanimous recommendation of the Committee. The noble Marquess goes rather further than that. He asks that he should get them if a majority of the Committee think it right that he should receive them. What I would venture to suggest to the noble Marquess is that the general provisions of the Parliamentary Costs Act of 1865 should be made to apply to this Bill, and in that way the owners of ancient monuments would be put in the same position as the owners of any other forms of property. Otherwise the noble Marquess will be creating a new precedent in the way of placing owners of ancient monuments in a specially privileged position in the matter. I have the draft of my suggested Amendment here, and if the noble Marquess desires to move it in that form I shall be happy to hand the draft to him.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If the noble Earl wishes an Amendment moved in his own form he must leave the courage to move it himself. I submit that in this Amendment I am not asking for anything unreasonable. There is a precedent for it in the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, Section 145, and also in the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899. It appears, therefore, that our fellow-subjects in the kingdom of Scotland have in this case, as in many others, much better laws than we have. I do not know why that should be so in this case, though perhaps it is due to the fact that they are notoriously more careful in matters of money than their southern neighbours. May I say that I do not fear at all the terrors of privilege, for in matters of this kind the House of Commons has waived its privilege over and over again. I will adhere to the Amendment in the form in which I have moved it, and if the Government wish to alter it they will, perhaps, put their Amendment on the Paper for a later stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7:
Effect of Preservation Order.
7.—(1) While a Preservation Order is in force, the monument to which the Order relates shall not be demolished nor shall any additions or alterations be made thereto or any work carried out in connection therewith except with the written consent of the Commissioners of Works.
(2) If, while a Preservation Order is in force, it appears to the Commissioners of Works that owing to the neglect of the owner of the monument the monument is liable to fall into decay, the Commissioners may, with the consent of the Treasury, make an order constituting themselves guardians of the monument so long as the Preservation Order is in force, and in that case the provisions of this Act shall during that period take effect as if the Commissioners had been constituted guardians by virtue of a deed executed by the owner.
Any order made under this subsection may be revoked at any time by the Commissioners.
(3) Where a Preservation Order is in force no sale of the monument shall have any effect unless the owner of the monument has offered to sell the monument to the local authority in the area of which the monument is situate at such price as may be fixed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue as the price which the monument would fetch if sold in the open market, and the local authority have refused that offer.
Loan EVERSLEY: My Amendment to this clause is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 14, after ("demolished") insert ("or removed").—(Lord Eversley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: After the word "nor," in subsection (1), I move to insert the words "except in the case of urgent necessity." The object of this Amendment is to meet an argument that was brought in evidence before the joint Committee. The subsection provides that while a Preservation Order is in force the monument to which the Order relates shall not be demolished, nor shall any additions or alterations be made thereto, or any work carried out in connection therewith except with the written consent of the Commissioners of Works. It was suggested to us that there might occur a convulsion of nature, a thunderstorm, or something which would affect a monument in such a way that if the owner were unable at the moment to do something in the way of preserving, perhaps, a wall that was threatening to fall down, serious results to the monument might follow. It would be impossible, without the insertion of some such words as I suggest, to carry out urgent and sudden repairs. I therefore hope that the Government will have no objection to this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 14, after ("nor") insert ("except in the case of urgent necessity").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: This is really more a matter of administration than any thing else. The noble Earl quite fairly instanced the case of a gale, or something of that kind, which might make urgent repair necessary. I can assure him that we should make no difficulty with regard to an owner who honestly did not do more than was urgently necessary at the moment. I hope we may be trusted in that respect. But the Amendment goes further. We have to consider two classes of people, not only good owners who wish to do their duty, but also owners who have neglected their duty. The majority of these Orders will have to be put in force against recalcitrant owners. It is not because I object to a single argument put forward by the noble Earl but because his Amendment goes further than he would wish it to go, that I hope your Lordships will not accept it. In the form in which he puts it, also, there is no easy method of deciding what is a case of urgent necessity, and it might be the owner who would decide it rather than the Commissioners.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I have put down an Amendment to leave out subsection (3) because I cannot see the use of this subsection. It seems to me that if, especially by the addition of the words moved by Lord Eversley which we have just accepted, all power of destruction and removal is taken away by the Preservation Order it cannot really matter whether the owner sells the monument to another person or whether it remains in his own hands. I fail to see what reason there is for preventing him from selling the monument without first of all offering it to the local authority. Moreover, the proposal might very seriously damage the value of the owner's property as a whole. The intending purchaser, attaching considerable value to the ancient monument forming a part of the property, might desire to purchase the property with the ancient monument upon it, and might give considerably less for the property without the monument, although the value of the monument itself might not be great. My only object in moving this Amendment is to prevent any hardship accruing to the owner who wanted to sell a property with an ancient monument upon it, and I ask the noble Earl in charge of the Bill whether there is any very important reason why this subsection should be retained.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, lines 20 to 35, leave out subsection (3).—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I shall offer no objection to this Amendment, although perhaps I should explain that the subsection was inserted in order to encourage the local authority and give them an opportunity of purchasing the monument. But after what the noble Earl has said and more particularly in view of his remarks with regard to the harm which the subsection might inflict upon an owner who was selling a large property, I shall offer no opposition to the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8:
Expert aid to be given by Commissioners of Works.
8. The Commissioners of Works shall, as and when required, give advice with reference to the treatment of any monument which is placed under their protection by virtue of a Preservation Order, and, if in their opinion it is advisable, superintend any work carried out in connection with the monument.
THE EARL OF POWIS: The object of the Amendment standing in my name is to enable the Commissioners of Works, if they think fit, to give advice with reference to the treatment of any ancient monument which is not under their protection. An owner might prefer to keep the monument in his own care, and yet would welcome advice from the Commissioners of Works. It is in the interests of the public that owners of ancient monuments should have available the best advice that can be obtained. Your Lordships will see that the Amendment as drawn is permissive. It says that the Commissioners of Works may "if they think fit" give advice if invited to do so by the owner.
There is a subsection in Clause 16 which gives power to the Ancient Monuments Board to give advice, but I think that if Clause 8 remains as it stands without some such additional words as I have suggested it would look as if the Commissioners of Works were not entitled to give advice, and it might be read in that way.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 40, after ("monument") insert ("and the Commissioners of Works may, if they think fit, give advice with reference to the treatment of any ancient monument which is not under their protection and may, if in their opinion it is advisable, and if invited to do so by the owner, superintend any work carried out in connection with the monument").—(The Earl of Powis.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am very glad to accept this Amendment, but I hope the noble Earl will allow me to make a small alteration in it on Report. I would propose to add a provision that these owners should in the circumstances pay the out-of-pocket expenses—not fees, but just the out-of pocket expenses—of the architects who went down to give advice. I think that will be a reasonable addition to the Amendment.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I am pleased that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill has been able to accept Lord Powis's Amendment, because I believe that the provision will be of great assistance to many persons who desire to do their best by the ancient monuments in their care.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9:
Saving for buildings used for ecclesiastical purposes or as dwelling-house.
9. This Part of the Act shall not apply to any structure which appears to the Commissioners of Works to be occupied as a dwelling-house (otherwise than by a person employed as the caretaker thereof or his family), or to he an ecclesiastical building which is for the time being used for religious purposes.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I move to delete from the end of this clause the words "or to be an ecclesiastical building which is for the time being used for religious purposes." This is a consequential Amendment upon the definition of what an ancient monument is.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 4, leave out from ("family") to the end of the clause.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
*LORD SHEFFIELD: I do not propose to offer any opposition to this Amendment, but I hope your Lordships will allow me to call attention to what the view of the Joint Committee was with reference to ecclesiastical monuments. The Joint Committee were unanimously of opinion that much harm had been done by careless restoration in the case of cathedrals and parish churches. They did not, however, recommend any alteration in the law, because they were agreed that if the existing law as to faculties was successfully carried out there was adequate power to protect these ancient ecclesiastical buildings. On page vii of their Report the Joint Committee say—
"The Committee are aware that the ecclesiastical authorities along with the general sense of the nation are increasingly alive to the necessity of protecting old churches while doing what is necessary for their use as places of public worship, but they are of opinion that there are still cases where due regard is not had to architectural and historic considerations in dealing with these fabrics."
It was admitted that there had been, almost up to the present day, cases where injudicious restoration had been permitted, but we were told that the Bench of Bishops were keenly alive to the importance of the matter and were doing as a rule what reasonable and educated public opinion would require.
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We hoped that in every case the Bench of Bishops, probably by concerted action, would lay down rules among themselves by which care would be taken before any faculty was granted that there was no risk of injudicious restoration. We thought that they might cause the application for the faculty to be advertised in the district, so that persons interested would be acquainted with what was proposed; that then there should be a report upon the proposal by a competent body, on which were two or three architects; and that their report should be published. We felt also, as a further security, that if the Bishop over-rode that opinion he might fairly be asked to state in writing his reasons, and that those reasons should be published. In our opinion a procedure of that sort would considerably strengthen the hands of the Bishops, who are not always free agents in the matter. But, as I say, we did not recommend any legislation in regard to this question, and I do not believe it is necessary.
While we all felt, having regard to the sensitiveness of ecclesiastical authorities to State interference, that it would be better that any action in this matter should proceed from the Bench of Bishops themselves, we considered that the time had come when legislation might be passed providing that in the case of cathedrals and such buildings the two Archbishops might be the court of appeal in the granting of faculties. But prudence dictated that we should rather appeal to the ecclesiastical authorities than call in the omnipotence of Parliament. I think it was the caution and moderation of those members of the Joint Committee who came from your Lordships' House which a little pulled in the rein. It is sometimes said that too much should not be put into this Bill lest it should be destroyed in the House of Commons, but I would like to point out that the Members of the House of Commons who sat with us upon the Joint Committee seemed eager to do everything in their power to preserve these monuments, and were more inclined to call in the aid of the State in preserving them than we were. I hope that we shall have some intimation from the Bench of Bishops that they themselves are thinking of this question seriously, and will be prepared at some future time to lay proposals of their own before Parliament.
*THE LORD BISHOP OF BRISTOL: I am glad, as a member of the Joint Select Committee, to find myself in general agreement with Lord Sheffield on this subject. I can assure the House that the Bishops feel very strongly on the matter. We quite realise that there is a certain amount of anxiety in the country, and there is no doubt that we shall do all we possibly can to allay it. It might save time, perhaps, if I just state what the instruction was which I myself desired that we should put into our Report. It was that we "were of opinion that procedure by faculty, when it is proposed to alter any parish church, should in all cases be strictly carried out, and that the chancellor of each diocese should have access to an advisory council, to whom plans of the proposed alterations should be submitted before the work was carried out." In the case of cathedral churches we felt that the "vast importance and the national character of these noble monuments rendered it essential that plans for dealing with them should in all cases be submitted to some central board of advice to he appointed by the ecclesiastical authorities, either one Board for the whole of England or one for each of the two Provinces." That very fairly expresses our view.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I communicated on this subject with Sir Alfred Kempe, who has been chancellor of many dioceses and is now chancellor of the diocese of London, and in his reply he says—
"I certainly do take account of archæological interest in dealing with applications for faculties for alterations in churches, and have frequently refused to allow alterations which appeared to me to be improper."
It is therefore clear that Sir Alfred Kempe has borne these matters in mind, and I believe that will be the universal practice among chancellors especially after the debates which have taken place in your Lordships' House.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 12 agreed to.
Clause 13:
Notice to be given by owners of certain monuments.
13. —(1) The Commissioners of Works shall from time to time cause to be prepared and published a list of such monuments as are reported by the Ancient Monuments Board as being monuments the preservation of which is of national importance, and of such other monuments as the Commissioners think ought to be included in the list.
(2) Where the owner of any ancient monument which is included in any such list of monuments as aforesaid proposes to demolish in whole or in part, structurally alter, or make additions to, the monument, he shall forthwith give notice of his intention to the Commissioners of Works, and shall not, except in the case of urgent necessity, commence any work of demolition, alteration, or addition for a period of one calendar month after having given such notice; and any person guilty of a contravention of or noncompliance with this provision shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
LORD EVERSLEY: The two Amendments standing in my name to this clause are consequential upon the Amendments which your Lordships have already inserted enabling Orders to be made when a monument is in danger of removal as well as in cases where the danger is that of destruction or damage.
Amendments moved—
Page 7, line 9, after ("demolish") insert ("or remove")
Page 7, line 13, after ("demolition") insert ("removal").—(Lord Eversley.)
EARL FERRERS: I should like to ask whether this would not affect living sculptors. As the definition clause is drafted an ancient monument does not seem to be limited to what we should call ancient, but would embrace a monument of public interest on the ground, for instance, of its artistic nature; and if a statue on a pedestal might not be removed it would he rather tiresome for modern sculptors and their employers.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The two Amendments which Lord Eversley has moved to this clause are merely consequential, and I have therefore no objection to offer to them.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I move to omit from the end of subsection (2) the words "and any person guilty of a contravention of or non-compliance with this provision shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding£20," and to insert the words in my Amendment enabling any person who contravenes, or gives reasonable grounds for apprehending that he is about to contravene, the clause to be restrained by injunction. The real object to be aimed at is not punishment, but the prevention of damage. I do not know whether the noble Earl in charge of the Bill thinks it is practicable to insert such

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an Amendment as I am moving, but it seems to me that the great object is to prevent a person from doing damage and not to fine him afterwards, which is not of ninth use.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 14, leave out from ("notice") to the end of the clause, and insert ("and any person who contravenes or is shown to the satisfaction of the court to have given reasonable ground for apprehending that he is about to contravene the provisions of this subsection in respect of any such ancient monument as aforesaid may on the application of the Commissioners of Works be restrained by interim or perpetual injunction by a Judge of the High Court from contravening the provisions of this subsection and for the purpose of granting an interim injunction prima facie proof of the contravention or apprehended contravention shall be sufficient.
(3) In the application of this section to Scotland, the expression 'High Court' means the 'Court of Session' and the expression 'injunction' means 'interdict.'").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I quite agree with the noble Earl that some Amendment is desirable in order to make it quite certain that there shall be some deterrent force to prevent owners from contravening the clause. I confess I am not wholly satisfied with the£20 penalty, because I suppose that an owner offending against this provision would not mind paying that, or indeed a higher, sum. For that reason I admit that the clause needs strengthening. But I cannot say that I am entirely satisfied with the Amendment which the noble Earl has proposed. I suggest that the penalty clause should be strengthened by giving the alternative of a term of imprisonment, which I think would be sufficient to deter anybody from proceeding to destroy an ancient monument. We are here dealing with an owner who has been warned and who knows perfectly well that the monument is in the list and that he ought to let the Commissioners of Works know what he is proposing to do. If he disobeys the law he does so wilfully, and in these circumstances I suggest that we should omit "£20" and insert a penalty of£100 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or both. I am sure that a mere monetary fine is not sufficient. If your Lordships, on consideration, are not, willing to accept either the noble Earl's Amendment or the one which I have suggested, perhaps you will allow me to put down an Amendment dealing with the point on Report, when it can then be further considered.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am glad that the noble Earl has recognised the importance of dealing with this matter. I think it would be rash for us straightway to accept his suggestion of a penalty of£100 and imprisonment, but it is well worthy of discussion. I hope, however, that before the Report stage he will allow some of us who are interested in the Bill not merely to discuss this matter with him but one or two other points which arise out of the same clause. In his remarks the noble Earl dealt with the case of what he described as the wilful owner. The case which is more likely to present itself is that of the willing owner, and what I want to be clear about is that, the clause as it stands does not inflict any injury upon him. Notice the procedure to be adopted. In the first place, the monument is to be scheduled. I am entirely in favour of the Schedule; I think it is vital to the Bill. But when you schedule a man's monument, with all the responsibilities, the possible difficulties, and even the penalties that may arise in consequence to him, you ought at least to give him an opportunity of stating his case before his monument appears on the Schedule. That was the view of the Committee, for in their Report they say—
"The Committee think that, in the case of an ancient monument declared by the Commissioners of Works, on the recommendation of the Advisory Board, to be a monument of national importance, and after au opportunity has been given to the owner to be heard, the consent of the Commissioners of Works should be obtained before any structural alterations are taken."
That seems to me to be entirely just. It seems hard that. I or anybody else who is in possession of some ancient mansion should suddenly find the building placed on this Schedule without our knowing anything about it. I ask the noble Earl in charge of the Bill to allow us to discuss that point with him.
When a monument is placed on the schedule, what is it that it is contemplated will happen under the clause? The owner is to submit all his plans for alterations to the Commissioners of Works. Does that mean that he is to submit the initial plans for the restoration of the building, or all the plans that may he required from time to time? Take, for instance, my own case Tattershall. The work of restoration which I am conducting there will last altogether two years. Every week almost we make new discoveries as we dig, necessi-

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tating new plans. I have had twenty plans already. Does the provision mean that if this place had been scheduled every one of those plans would have to go to the Government Department and receive their approval That would be a most serious thing to any one doing the work which I am doing, and might act as a very great deterrent. Plans of restoration cannot be discharged, so to speak, straight away; they must be spread over a space of time. It will lead to a great deal of delay if the owner is not to commence before permission is obtained.
But suppose without your permission he does commence the work. I do not see what you are to do with him. When I made that point the other day in the Second Reading debate the noble Earl in charge of the Bill replied that if the owner took the law into his own hands and proceeded the Department would at once put the monument under a Preservation Order. That is a very strong measure. You may have a man willing to do, and capable of doing, the work admirably; yet because he is not prepared to place himself entirely in your hands you hold over his head the threat that the monument will be placed under a Preservation Order. Further, a Preservation Order means in the last resort, if it is confirmed by Act of Parliament, that the Government—the State—will practically have to take over the monument. I see no alternative to that. But this can only apply to monuments of the first class, and only to a limited number of them; otherwise you will enormously increase the responsibilities and pile up the burdens of the State. Then I put the question, How are you to deal with monuments of minor importance, of not sufficient importance to be taken over by the State but of sufficient importance to be preserved from destruction I think we want some machinery a good deal more flexible than that provided by the clause as it at present stands, and this is one of the points which I hope the noble Earl will allow me to talk over with him before the next stage.
There is another point under the Bill. It seems to me that you do not save the very thing you may most want to save. Take the case of stained glass. I will suppose that under this clause you schedule Ockwells Manor, near Bray. As I understand the clause, you schedule the fabric but you do not schedule the contents. You could
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prevent a man from doing anything to the fabric, but you would not prevent him from selling the armorial glass. Or take Rotherwas. Supposing that under this Bill you had scheduled Rotherwas, would you have been able to prevent the whole of the contents being sold as they have been and removed to America? As far as I can see, no. That is a point that requires consideration, and I suggest to the noble Earl that he should consider between now and the Report stage of the Bill whether when you proceed to schedule an ancient monument you may not also be able to schedule those parts of it which are essential. I have not put down an Amendment on the point because I would sooner act in consultation with the Government than independently, but I mention it now because it is relevant to the present issue.
There is one other point which I fancy is going to be raised by the noble Marquess. As at present drawn this clause applies to dwelling-houses. It is clear it cannot be allowed to do so. But even supposing it does not apply to dwelling-houses, I can see another difficulty which may arise. We will suppose that any one of us has a monument which we are anxious to treat in our own way. We desire to evade the severe restrictions of this clause. As I understand, all we have to do is to put a bed in one of the rooms and sleep in it a single night, and the building escapes. Take Tattershall. All I have to do is to sleep a single night in Tattershall Castle and you can have nothing further to say to it. I mention these as points worth considering, and I hope, as I have said, that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill will not be unwilling to allow me and others to meet him before the Report stage with a view to considering some of the points I have raised.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: In my opinion we want both Lord Plymouth's Amendment and the provision in the clause. Power of injunction would be an effective deterrent, but we want also smaller penalties for smaller offences. Sonic noble Lords have talked as if they were dealing with private owners only. I think some of the greatest sinners have been corporations. The gates of the City of York are monuments of importance, but if you have a Philistine local authority in York anxious to widen the thoroughfare they might do what the City of London did in the case of Temple Bar. I do not say that I shed tears over

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Temple Bar, hut I should regret the disappearance of the gates of the City of York. A corporation would not take notice of a line of£20, but every corporation would be afraid of defying a perpetual injunction. I would press upon the Government that we require the protection of an injunction, and for smaller things we need also the protection of a fine. The essential thing is to have a double-handed remedy. The importance in itself of a. monument is not necessarily the measure of its national importance. The right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Bristol is interested in inscribed scones, and we all knew that at one time local authorities would have taken inscribed stones to pave the roadway. As to dwelling-houses, if power is to be given to schedule a dwelling-house it must be remembered that in some eases practically nine pars of its importance lie in, say, its early frescos or painted glass, and if those are the essential parts of the ancient monument no doubt there would be a memorandum saying the building was of importance on account of certain things and that would make them part of the monument.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: By all means make the clause effective. I am in sympathy with Lord Plymouth and with the noble Earl opposite in the change which they propose to make. But I ask your Lordships to remember, while you are making the penalties more drastic, what a terrific clause you are applying them to. My noble friend Lord Curzon did not go far enough in his criticism. The first subsection of this clause allows the Commissioners of Works to schedule, not merely ancient monuments, but "such other monuments as the Commissioners think ought to be included in the list." They need not be ancient; they need not be of national importance; they need be of no importance whatever; and if the noble Earl will look at the definition clause he will find that the expression "monument" includes "any structure or erection."
*LORD SHEFFIELD: It must be of national importance.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Not necessarily. Any monument may be scheduled which the Commissioners think fit to include in the list. I do not suppose that that is what is intended, but that is the reading of subsection (1) of this clause. Clearly the wording of the subsection will have to be reconsidered.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I cannot agree with the noble Marquess. If he will read the wording of the clause carefully he will see that we only take power over ancient monuments. But I quite agree that the clause would be the better for a consultation between those interested, and I shall be glad to arrange such a conference as will enable us to produce agreed Amendments when we reach the Report stage.
Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I move to add a new subsection providing that the clause shall not apply to any structure which is occupied as a dwelling-house by any person other than the person employed as the caretaker thereof or any member of his family.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 17, to add as a new subsection—
"(3) This section shall not apply to any structure which is occupied as a dwelling-house by any person other than the person employed as the caretaker thereof or any member of his family."—(The Marquess of Salisbury)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I have no objection to this subsection being inserted now, but should we find later that a further Amendment is necessary I hope the noble Marquess will allow us to make it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
*LORD EVERSLEY: The object of the new clause which I move to insert after Clause 13 is to provide that it shall not be lawful to sell any ancient monument or any part thereof for the purpose of removal out of the United Kingdom. This new clause is aimed at preventing the possible danger of ancient monuments being sold to American millionaires with a view to their being exported across the Atlantic. There have been several cases within the last few years in which threats have been held out that this would be done, mainly with the object of extracting larger sums of money from local authorities or from the Government or from private individuals. The first case of this kind occurred a few years ago when the owner of Stonehenge sent an emissary to the Government offering to sell it for£120,000, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to entertain so exorbitant a price lie was told

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that the owner of Stonehenge would in that case sell it to an American millionaire who would ship it across the Atlantic.
Later there was the case of Tattershall Castle. The sale was effected to an American syndicate, not, I believe, with the intention of its being immediately sent across the Atlantic, but statements were made in the Press that it was the intention of the syndicate to send it across to America. Fortunately, however, the noble Earl opposite (Lord Curzon) most generously intervened and paid a very large sum of money for the castle, with the result that it was saved from anything of the kind; and the noble Earl is now engaged, I believe, in preserving it in the interests of the public. Another and more recent case was that of a very interesting building at Maidstone. The Corporation of Maidstone were induced to purchase it for a considerable sum of money through a threat that the owner intended to sell it to an American for the purpose of its being shipped across the Atlantic. I think your Lordships will admit that this kind of transaction ought to be stopped, if possible. I feel great doubt, however, whether these transactions could he stopped under the Bill as it stands.
Let us suppose the existence of a contract between the owner of one of these monuments and an American millionaire with the intention of its being sent across the Atlantic. I presume that in such a case it would be open to the Commissioners under the Bill to make a Preservation Order, and then it would conic before Parliament for confirmation. The question then would arise before the Committees of both Houses whether they would confirm an Order of that kind without calling upon the local authority or the Government to pay the value of the monument as appraised in the contract between the owner and the American millionaire. I feel doubtful on that point.
But there is another clause in the Bill which is worthy of consideration. Clause 7, subsection (3), gives a preferential right of purchase to the local authority in the case of the sale of an ancient monument. The clause goes on to say that the Inland Revenue is to determine the price of the monument, and that the puke is to he the full market value. What is the full market value of an ancient monument? It
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be extremely difficult to determine. Is it to be determined by the price which an American millionaire has offered for it? If so, I am inclined to think that transactions of this kind will be very rare, and that the clause will be of practically no effect. On the whole, therefore, it seems to me desirable that a clause should be inserted which would make it clear that in no circumstances in future will it be permitted to ship an ancient monument across the Atlantic or to any other country.
There are precedents for legislation of this kind, though not in this country. Many European countries forbid the export of pictures or works of art which the Governments think are of national importance and should be retained in those countries. If that is permissible in the case of pictures and works of art, it is a fortiori permissible in the case of ancient monuments. If I thought that the insertion of this new clause would cause any difficulty in regard to the Bill in the other House I should not move it, but at all events I venture to submit it to the House and ask the opinion of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill upon it.
Amendment moved—
Insert the following, new clause:
"It shall not be lawful to sell any ancient monument or any part thereof for the purpose of removal out of the United Kingdom; and any such sale under circumstances which shall indicate such a purpose shall he of no effect."—(Lord Ercrsley.)
EARL BEAUCHAINIP: Your Lordships know so well the services which have been rendered by Lord Eversley to the cause which we are trying to assist this evening that you will appreciate my unwillingness to say that we cannot accept this Amendment. The noble Lord has had on the Paper during this stage of the Bill a number of Amendments all of which, until the present one, I have been able to accept. I venture to hope that he will be satisfied with the acceptance of those Amendments and not ask us to go to the extreme length of the clause which he now suggests. I think that in many quarters of the House considerable doubt will be felt as to the policy of such a clause as this having regard to the history of a great many of the artistic possessions of this country, which would never have come into the country at all if laws of the nature proposed had been in existence abroad in times gone by.

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As to whether we should embark upon a policy of this kind is a matter which demands a great deal more consideration than can be given to it this evening. At any rate, it would be quite impossible to adopt the clause as it stands and add it to the Bill. We should be compelled to narrow very much the definition of an ancient monument. Moreover, such a clause would practically prevent sales by auction, because the vendor would never know whether or not the purchaser was going to move the monument out of the United Kingdom, and he would run the risk of having his sale upset afterwards on the ground that the monument was to go abroad. That would obviously put him in a very unfair position. I hope that in the circumstances the noble Lord will consent to withdraw the Amendment.
*EARL CURZON or KEDLESTON: The noble Earl has pointed out, in his reference to its possible effect on sales by auction, a serious practical difficulty in the way of the acceptance of such a clause as this. I think there might be a difficulty also in getting a clause of this sort through the House of Commons. On the other hand I have the warmest sympathy with the object which the noble Lord has in view, because my own experience is such a melancholy one in that respect. Mention has often been made of what happened at Tatter-shall, but I do not think your Lordships realise that the mantelpieces had been torn out, packed in cases, and were in a stable in London on the verge of being shipped to America by an early boat when I succeeded, by a happy accident, in preventing their departure. My idea is that the best way to do what is desired is not to put a clause in the Bill prohibiting removal out of the United Kingdom, but when scheduling ancient monuments to schedule those parts which it is desired to keep in this country. In that way the operation of the clause dealing with demolition ought to enable a firm hand to be kept on these things. I hope that, after consultation with the noble Earl, we may be able to frame words before the Report stage to meet this point.
"LORD SHEFFIELD: In my opinion the mischief of destroying an ancient monument would be completed if you took the thing from its proper surroundings. To take some important pieces of a complete building and put them in a
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museum is as destructive of the continuity of the monument as if they were sent to America. The whole interest of these things is that they should be in the place for which they were originally designed. Let us suppose that Dorchester House were scheduled. I think we should all feel that if the chimney-pieces were taken out of Dorchester House it would be a destruction of the interest of the building. I am glad that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill does not propose to load the Bill with this additional clause.
LORD EVERSLEY: After the discussion which has taken place I will withdraw the Amendment. But I may say that I have obtained something from the noble Earl in the Amendments which he has already conceded.
Amendiment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11:
Public access to ancient movements. [1900, s.5.]
14. THE, public shall have access to any monumeat of which the Commissioners of Works or a local authority are the owners or guardians at such times and under such regulations as may from time to time be prescribed by the Commissioners or local authority.
Provided than where the deed constituting the Commissioners or local authority the guardians of the monument so provides, the public shall not have access to the monument without the consent of the owner of the monument.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH moved to amend the proviso, after the words "Provided that," by adding "where the Commissioners or the local authority have been constituted guardians of the monument before the passing of this Act or." The noble Earl said: This is a small Amendment the object of which is to safeguard any person who may have constituted the Commissioners of Works or the local authority the guardians of an ancient monument under the Act of 1900. I believe that under that Act no deed is required. The clause as it stands would allow the public to have access to any monument of which the Commissioners of Works or a local authority were the guardians, provided only that where the deed constituting the Commissioners or local authority the guardians of the monument so provided the public should not have access to the monument without the consent of the owner. If this clause were retrospective, it seems to me that it would not be just to those who had

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made the public authority the guardians of their monuments and had not specially provided for keeping control over the 'question of public access.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 25, after ("that") insert ("where the Commissioners or the local authority have been constituted guardians of the monument before the passing of this Act or").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I quite agree that this is a point which ought to be guarded against, but it was our opinion that it was amply guarded against by the terms of the Bill itself. Where the owner had excluded the public, that right will be retained. We do not think there is any doubt about it. What the noble Earl proposes might prevent the public from enjoying rights which they had enjoyed before the passing of the Bill. Assume a case where the Office of Works had taken over a monument to which the public had access and had then spent a great deal of public money upon it. The Amendment of the noble Earl, going further, I think, than he meant it to do, would give the owner the opportunity of saying that he would not allow any further right of access, and though public money had been spent in the way I have suggested the public would not have that right of access which they had enjoyed in the past. Therefore I suggest that after the word "monument" where it first occurs in the proviso there should be added the words "whether made before or after the passing of this Act." Perhaps the noble Earl will allow those words to be inserted now and reconsider the point further on Report.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: Very well.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My noble friend Lord Plymouth is wise in accepting for the time being the words suggested by the noble Earl in charge of the Bill. He can look at them again when they appear in print and see if they are effective for his purpose. As I understand the old Act, no one was allowed access necessarily unless it was specifically stated that access was allowed. In other words, unless it was specifically stated that the public had access they did not have access. But I think the words read out by Lord Beauchamp would make it necessary for the owner to show that he had reserved his right. The point needs to be considered before the Report stage.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: At present the presumption of a person who puts his monument under guardianship is that he gives no right to any one except the right to protect. The provision here should only apply in cases where monuments are put under guardianship subsequent to the passing of this Bill. I thought that the Bill of last year gave access over the head of the owner and I called attention to the matter, but the noble Earl explained that that was expressly guarded against. The noble Earl is in possession of the point, and no doubt it will be put right on Report.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP then moved his suggested alternative Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 26, after ("monument") insert ("whether made before or after the passing of this Act").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 1.5:
Penalty for injuring ancient monuments. [1882 s.6; 1900, s.2; 1910, s. 1.]
15. —(1) If any person injures or defaces any monument of which the Commissioners of Works or a local authority are the owners or guardians or to which this section applies by virtue of an order in Council made thereunder, that person shall, on summary conviction, he liable either to a fine not exceeding five pounds, and, in addition to the fine, to pay such sums as the court by whom he is tried think just for the purpose of repairing any damages caused by him, or to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding one month.
(2) In England, any person convicted of an offence under this Act may appeal to quarter sessions in manlier provided by the Summary Jurisdiction Acts.
(3) The owner of an ancient monument shall not be punishable under this section in respect of any act which he may do to the monument, except in cases where the Commissioners of Works or the local authority have been constituted guardians of the monument, and in that case he may be dealt with as if he were not the owner.
(4) His Majesty may, by Order in Council, declare that this section shall apply to any monument specified in the Order which appears to His Majesty to be an ancient monument within the meaning of the Act, and on any such Order being made this section shall apply accordingly.
LORD EVERSLEY LORD EVERSLEY moved, in subsection (1), after the word "guardians," to insert "or which is the subject of a Preservation Order."
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line:11, after ("guardians") insert ("or which is the subject of a Preservation order").—(Lord Eversley.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 16 and 17 agreed to.
Clause 18:
Relaxation of byelaws.
18. Where it appears to the council of a borough or a district that the erection of buildings of a style of architecture in harmony with other buildings or artistic merit existing in the locality is impeded in consequence of any by-laws with respect to new streets or buildings in force in the borough or district, the council may, with the consent of the Local Government Board, relax the by-laws so far as may be necessary to allow the erection of such buildings, provided that the council is satisfied that such buildings can be erected with due regard I. safety from fire and to sanitation.
LORD RITCHIE: With the leave of the. House I should like to move an Amendment which does not appear on the Paper. This Bill provides for conferring, certain powers on every borough and district council in the country except the Corporation of the City of London. I imagine that that is an oversight, and therefore I will not trouble the House with any arguments on the subject, but will formally move my Amendment,
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 2, after ("district") insert ("which expression in this Act shall include the Common Council of the City of London").—(Lord Ritchie.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: This is the first of a series of Amendments which might produce a very pretty quarrel between some of the local authorities in London, and I think it is very desirable that we should not pledge ourselves to take any side in the quarrel this evening. But if the noble Lord will be good enough to put his Amendment on the Paper for the Report stage I am sure your Lordships will be prepared to give it careful attention. In the meanwhile I am sure your Lordships will be anxious to follow the general practice of the House and not accept a contentious Amendment without.
LORD RITCHIE: I am quite innocent of the impending quarrel which the noble Earl suggests, but I will do what; he advises and bring up the Amendment on Report.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19:
Power of councils to make byclaws regulating advertisements.
19. The power of councils of counties and boroughs to make by-laws for the good rule and Government of their areas and of district councils to make by-laws under the Public Health Acts shall include a power to make by-laws prohibiting or restricting the display of advertisements or notices of such a nature, or in such a manner as to be detrimental to the amenities of the locality in which they are displayed: Provided that no such by-laws shall prohibit or restrict, the display of advertisements outside buildings other than ancient monuments or shall apply to such notices as may reasonably be required to warn off trespassers or for similar purposes.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I move, before the words "district councils," to insert the word "urban." The object is to make it clear that rural district councils shall not have power to make by-laws regulating advertisements.
Amendment moved—
Page line 13, after the second ("of") insert ("urban").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH moved to delete the words "to be" ["advertisements or notices of such a nature or in such a manner as to be"] and to insert "in the opinion of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction is." The noble Earl said: The object of this Amendment is to raise the point as to what authority is to decide whether advertisements or notices are such as to be detrimental to the amenities of a locality. It seems to me that it is left so indefinitely that we ought to know what the intention of the Government is as to the manlier in which that sort of question should be decided. I therefore move to insert the words "in the opinion of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction," but perhaps the Government have in their minds other methods of deciding this question.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 17, leave out ("to be") and insert ("in the opinion of a. Court of Summary Juris diction is").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I confess that we do not like this Amendment, because it seems to us to be inserting a further and unnecessary authority. All by-laws are subject to some confirming authority. By-laws which concern public health go to one authority, those which concern traffic go to another, and so on. All by-laws of whatever kind are subject to some confirming authority. These by-laws would be subject to confirmation by the Local Government Board. What the noble Earl suggests is that, not only should we have the Local Government. Board, but he also introduces the Court of Summary Jurisdiction. In our view it should be considered as a matter of fact by the Government Department concerned, and not be put before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction as a matter of opinion, because you would then have the conflicting authority of bylaws and Courts of Summary Jurisdiction. Moreover, it is introducing a new principle to submit a by-law to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: The confirming of the by-law is a matter for the Local Government Board. But surely you would not make the. Local Government Board the authority to decide whether the bylaw had been infringed.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The by-law would first be submitted to the Local Government Board, and if they approved of it any one breaking the by-law would be brought before the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and the Court would in the normal way decide whether the bylaw had been broken.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I understand, the power given is to prevent advertisements anywhere which interfere with the amenities of the district except outside buildings which are not ancient buildings. I do not object very much to this power being given, but I think the House ought to be fully aware of what they are doing.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: The power is limited to the case of ancient monuments.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is a point on which I should like to be informed.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The clause follows entirely the recommendation of the Joint Committee on page ix of their Report under the heading "Power to Prohibit Landscape-spoiling and other Undesirable Advertisements." It is not confined to ancient monuments.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Is this, then, a provision against vulgar advertisements in general without reference to ancient monuments in particular? For instance, is it contemplated under this clause that local authorities are to act against the erection of the monstrous boards which we see from the windows of railway trains? When I saw this provision in the Bill I thought that the noble Earl wanted to save ancient monuments and the ground round them from desecration, but the reply he has just given seems to infer that the provision has greater scope.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I was misled by a double negative. As the noble Earl will see on reference to Clause 19, there are the words "Provided that no such bylaws shall prohibit or restrict the display of advertisements outside buildings other than ancient monuments, or shall apply to such notices as may reasonably be required to warn off trespassers, or for similar purposes."
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: What does "outside buildings" mean?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I understand, this clause is general. There is only one exception—namely, buildings other than ancient monuments. On those buildings advertisements are allowed to be displayed, but everywhere else they are to be capable of being prevented by bylaw.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Does "outside" mean the external walls of the building or the environment, of the building?
*LORD SHEFFIELD: My impression is that the noble Earl who moved the Amendment now before us meant that the sanctioning of the by-law should be with the Local Government Board, but that the question of determining whether the bylaw had been violated should rest with the local magistrates. I understand that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill agrees

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with that. Now we have got on to a separate point, as to how far these advertisements are intended to be prohibited. The Joint Committee made a more sweeping recommendation because they recommended that local authorities might make by-laws prohibiting these vulgar advertisements where they were displayed outside or upon public buildings, erections, or ancient monuments. The noble Earl in charge of the Bill stated that the Government had adopted the words of the Committee. They have not adopted them exactly. Under the clause these advertisements are not prohibited outside buildings other than ancient monuments. The noble Earl opposite asks whether "outside buildings" means the external walls or the environment. We did not think it our business to meddle with the whole country-side. We were dealing with ancient monuments.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: This discussion has arisen over the wording of the latter part of the proviso. I will see that on Report a form of words is introduced which is not open to misunderstanding on the part of anybody.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I withdraw my Amendment on the understanding that the noble Earl admits that the Court of Summary Jurisdiction will have ultimately to decide, not whether the by-laws are good or not, but whether they have been broken.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: That is so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The object of the next Amendment is to make it quite clear that the borough council and the county council shall not have concurrent powers.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 22, after ("purposes") insert ("and that any by-laws so made by the council of a county shall not have effect within any borough or urban district in the county")—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20 agreed to.
Clause 21:
Local authorities.
21.—(1) The council of every county and borough shall be a local authority within the meaning of this Act.
(2) The expenses of a local authority under this Act shall be defrayed, in the ease of a county council out of the county fund, and in the case of a borough council out of the borough fund or borough rate, or if no borough rate is levied, out of a separate rate to be made, assessed, and levied in like manner as a borough rate, and a local authority may borrow for the purposes of this Act in the case of a county council, as for the purposes of the Local Government Act, 1888, and in the case of a county borough council, as for the purposes of the Public Health Acts; but the money borrowed by a borough council shall be borrowed on the security of the fund or rate out of which the expenses of the council under this Act are payable.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I move to omit the word "county" ["and in the case of a county borough council."] This is a mistake which we wish to correct.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 3, leave out ("county").—(Ear Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 22:
Definition of ancient monument. [1882, s. 11; 1900, s. 6 (1).]
22. In this Act the expression "monument" includes any structure or erection; and the expression "ancient monument" includes any monument, the preservation of which is a matter of public interest by reason of the historic, architectural, traditional, artistic, or archæO-logical interest attaching thereto, or any remains thereof, and includes the site of any such monument, structure, or erection, and any part of the adjoining land which may be required for the purpose of fencing, covering in, or otherwise preserving from injury the monument, structure, or erection, and also includes the means of access thereto.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I move to add to the definition of "monument," at the beginning of the clause, the words in my Amendment. This is consequential on the discussion we had earlier in the evening.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 8, after ("erection") insert ("other than an ecclesiastical building which is for the time being used for ecclesiastical purposes").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD EVERSLEY LORD EVERSLEY moved, after the word "erection" where it last appeared in the clause, to insert "or of preserving the aspect thereof."
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 15, after ("erection") insert ("or of preserving the aspect thereof").—(Lord Eversley.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I do not like the form of this Amendment, but if the noble Lord will allow me to do so I will bring up on Report some words which will carry out his object. The preservation of the aspect of a building may entail the keeping of miles of land free from building. On the other hand, in order to preserve the character of the ancient monument it might he necessary not only to preserve the aspect of the building, but also to preserve the places from which the building might be seen.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: On the Question that Clause 22 stand part of the Bill I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the definition of "monument." It is a definition which I hope the Government will consider before they part with the Bill. "Monument" is defined as including any structure or erection. Afterwards the clause deals with the site of any such monument, but it must be governed by the definition and can only be the site of a structure or erection. The general feeling on the Joint Committee was that this definition was not wide enough. Take the case of the White Horse. That is neither a structure nor an erection: it is an incision. We recommended on the Committee that "monument" should be defined as meaning "any immovable monument in the widest sense of the word whose preservation was in the interests of the public," and that it should include an earthwork, excavation, or structure. We found that the definition of monument in foreign legislation on the subject was much wider and in that respect much better. I hope that before Report or before the Bill leaves your Lordships' House the Government will insert words which unmistakably cover such things as the White Horse.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: It is quite clear that such a case as the White Horse ought to come within the provisions of this Bill, but I am sure the noble Lord himself will see that the Amendment which was suggested by the Committee was not one that was likely to be approved of by the legal mind. "Any immovable monument in the widest sense of the word" would not be a definition that would commend itself to the draftsman. If the noble Lord would accept such a word as "excavation" we might come to an agreement on Report.
*LORD SHEFFIELD: I would much rather leave it to the Government draftsman to select suitable words now that attention has been called to the point.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 23 and 24 agreed to.
Clause 25:
Short title and application.
25.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Ancient, Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act, 1913.
(2) This Act shall not apply to Ireland.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should like to ask why the Bill is not to apply to Ireland.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: They have in Ireland sufficient authorities, I believe, which can deal with the matter in a different way. There is no hidden meaning behind the exclusion of Ireland.
Clause 25 agreed to.
First Schedule agreed to.
Second Schedule:

ENACTMENTS REPEALED.

Session and Chapter.

Short Title.

Extent of Repeal.

45 & 46 Vict. c.73.

The Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1882.

The whole Act.

63 & 04 Viet, c. 34.

The Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1900.

The whole Act.

10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5, c. 3.

The Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1910.

The whole Act.

Amendment moved—
Page 11, after ("The whole Act") in each place where those words occur insert ("except so far us it relates to Ireland").—(Earl Beauchamp.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Second Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Your Lordships may remember that in the Report of the Joint Committee there is a. suggestion that monuments which are scheduled as ancient. monuments should he exempt from Probate and Death Duties. There is no mention of such exemption in this Bill. I should like to ask whether the Government have considered the matter, and whether it is possible for us to raise it in any form on Report, or whether such exemption, if contemplated, would have to be made as an Amendment to the Finance Act both in this House and in another place.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am in communication with my right hon. friend upon the point. He is not unfavourably disposed to consider it, but he is of opinion that it should be done by an Amendment to the Revenue Bill or the Finance Bill—I cannot charge my memory at the moment as to which Bill he mentioned.
The Report of Amendments to be received on the 5th of June next, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 50.)

UNDERGROUND WORKROOMS BILL. [H.L.]
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I propose to put this Bill clown for Second Reading on Monday next, but if it should appear between now and then that that day is too early for the Government, I shall be willing to postpone it again.
Second Reading (which stands appointed for this day) put off to Monday next accordingly.

MACCOLL'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Amendment reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, in the absence of any business on the Paper for to-morrow, I beg to move that the House do adjourn until Monday next.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at five minutes kick re Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before One o'clock.