Sitting of 5 March 1914

BARONIES OF DYNAUNT, FITZWARYN AND MARTIN.
Committee for Privileges met: Counsel further heard on behalf of the Claimants: Witnesses examined: The Attorney-General heard on behalf of the Crown: Counsel heard on behalf of the Petitioner Reginald Joseph Weld and also on behalf of the Petitioner Thomas Touchet Jesson: Resolution agreed to by the Committee; report thereof to be made to the House.
The Lord LAWRENCE—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Duke of SUTHERLAND—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Earl NELSON—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

SKEGNESS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
  BELFAST CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Thursday next.
WEST GLOUCESTERSHIRE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Second Reading (which stands appointed for Tuesday next) put off to Thursday next.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION BILL.
  SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
  The Order of yesterday referring the Examiner's Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders to the Standing Orders Committee on Tuesday next, discharged.
WESLEYAN AND GENERAL ASSURANCE SOCIETY BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
TERRITORIAL FORCES (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Second Reading (which stands appointed for Monday next) put off to Thursday next.
TOWN CHARITIES (EXTENSION) BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to authorise the extension of the Area for the benefit of which Charities in a Town may be applied and the variation of the purposes for which dole Charities may be applied in certain cases—Was presented by the Lord Parmoor; read la; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next. (No. 20.)
BETTING INDUCEMENTS BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to prevent or restrict the writing, printing, publishing or circulating in the United Kingdom of advertisements of any betting or tipster's business—Was presented by the Lord Newton; read la; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Wednesday next. (No. 21.)

THE MARCONI ALLEGATIONS.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, who is unfortunately unable to be in his place this evening, I beg to give notice that on Monday he will move that the following Peers be named of the Select Committee to inquire into the charges and allegations made in the public Press against Lord Murray of Elibank, viz.:—

E. Halsbury.

E. Loreburn. [†]

L. Sanderson.

L. Desart (E. Desart).

L. Charnwood.

[†] See statement by the MARQUESS OF CREWE on the rising of the House.

SMALL HOLDINGS (TENANTS ACQUISITION) BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, the Bill to which I am going to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading this afternoon is almost identical with the Bill which I introduced into your Lordships' House and which passed through all its stages here in the year 1911. It deals with what seems to me to be a very considerable grievance. Under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 19Q8, county councils are empowered to purchase land for small holdings, and when they let this land to tenants they are also empowered by regulations made by the Treasury, and, I think, either confirmed or agreed to by the Board of Agriculture, to charge instalments of the principal as well as the rent to the tenants. But the extraordinary part of this arrangement under the law is this, that when the tenant, besides paying the rent, has discharged all the instalments of purchase, the land becomes, not his, but the property of the county council whose loan the tenant has repaid.
The provisions of this Bill are very short. Clause 1 provides that in fixing the rent to be paid for any small holding purchased by a county council, the county council shall determine the proportion of such rent, if any, which is attributable to the instalment of principal intended to recoup to the county council the cost of the acquisition of the land and of the adaptation thereof as a small holding, and shall keep a separate account thereof. Then, if your Lordships turn to Clause 2, subsection (3), you will see that it is there provided that when the total amount credited to a tenant in the recoupment account is equal to the sum necessary to recoup to the county council the cost of the acquisition of the land leased to such tenant and the adaptation thereof as a small holding, the county council shall transfer such land to the tenant in fee simple.
There is another case. A tenant may be turned out of his holding at a time when he has repaid some but not all of the instalments of purchase. It seems to me rather hard that he should incur that loss unless he has cultivated his holding badly.
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That is dealt with in subsection (1) of Clause 2, which provides that if the county council without good and sufficient cause and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management give to the tenant of a small holding notice to quit, they shall repay to such tenant, on his quitting the holding, the total amount then standing to his credit in the recoupment account. Then there is a further case—namely, when land is let by a county council to a tenant and when they require him to repay instalments of the purchase money. In that case—it is in Clause 2, subsection (2)— the tenant who is established on the purchase principle may give notice to the county council that he will pay up all the instalments at once, and he thereby becomes possessor of his holding.
This Bill, as I have said, is almost identical with the Bill which I introduced in your Lordships' House three years ago. On that occasion it was strongly opposed by the Government. The noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, who was then Earl Carrington and filled the office of President of the Board of Agriculture, said that this was "the third time within a week that the land policy of the Government had been attacked." He submitted that there was "no real demand for purchase," and said—
"I quite admit that it is rather a clever thing to bring in this sort of Bill, and I do not for a moment say that it is not a good electioneering cry."
He went on to say—
"I strongly object, it being included in the rent, to a provision enabling tenants in some cases, but not in all, to recover payment or to claim the land on payment of a sum which need have no relation to the true value of the land. … We object to the Bill and most earnestly hope that the noble Earl will not carry his Bill to a Second Reading, but will be satisfied with having brought what he considers this great grievance before the House."
The noble Marquess evidently himself did not consider that there was a grievance at that time. I cannot say that I shared his opinion. Therefore I did ask your Lordships to read the Bill a second time, and you were good enough to do so and the Bill proceeded through its various stages in this House. I need not say that the Bill went no further.
What I wish to call your Lordships' attention to is that the Government at that time did not recognise that there was

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a grievance. They said that this was an idea of mine, and from that day to this the noble Marquess who was at that time President of the Board of Agriculture has never done anything in Parliament to remedy this grievance, and, so far as I know, he has never mentioned the matter in Parliament since. That was the end of the Bill of 1911. But at the beginning of this year an event occurred. There was a by-election in South Buckinghamshire in consequence of the elevation of my noble friend near me. I am sure we are all very glad to welcome him in this House, and I may say that I am equally glad to know that his successor holds very much the same opinions as he did. At this time the whole position had changed. Earl Carrington had become Marquess of Lincolnshire, and instead of being President of the Board of Agriculture he had become chairman of the Land and Housing Council, which, as your Lordships know, is an organisation for the purpose of forwarding Mr. Lloyd George's land campaign.
In the course of this by-election, the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, made a good many speeches. I read some of them—they were sent to me—and I must say that one of them certainly did surprise me. It was a speech made on February 2, and was to this effect—
"In carrying out the Act [the Small Holdings Act] a grievance has grown up, inasmuch as the tenants have not only to pay rent but also to contribute to the sinking fund for the extinction of the debt of the local authority incurred in purchasing the land. It is a distinct grievance, and by remedying it we should be removing a very great objection which has been taken by the Opposition to our Small Holdings Act. On Saturday last [January 31] I wrote to my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and asked him whether I might state at this meeting that, after June of next year, when the Liberal Government are again returned to power and when they bring in their Land Bill, this charge will be removed from that worthy body of men, that hard-working body of people, of whom England might well be proud, and this injustice done away with. Just before I came into this hall I had put into my hand a message 'On His Majesty's Service,' dated from Whitehall, to Lord Lincolnshire—' Yes, Lloyd George.'"
It is rather a curious thing, as it seems to me, that the sudden discovery of the existence of this grievance happened to synchronise with the by-election in South Buckinghamshire.
The noble Marquess for the first time appears to have discovered that this was
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a distinct grievance, but he apparently had been aware all along that this had been brought forward as a grievance by the Opposition—I suppose he meant by myself in my Bill of 1911. Observe the course which the noble Marquess took. Two days before this meeting—namely, on Saturday, January 31, for he was speaking on February 2—he wrote to Mr. Lloyd George and asked the Chancellor whether he would give him authority to state that on the earliest possible occasion he would do away with this grievance. It certainly does seem extraordinary to me that this revelation only occurred to the noble Marquess when this by-election was taking place. I should like to see the letter which he wrote to Mr. Lloyd George, because I have no doubt it would give us some very valuable information as to the manner in which this land campaign is being conducted. I do not suppose the noble Marquess will give me the letter. I wish he would. But, if you will allow me, I think I can, with the aid of internal evidence and this speech which I have just read to you, convey to your Lordships a tolerably good guess of what was in the letter. I should think it probably ran thus—
"Dear Mr. Lloyd George,—In the course of this by-election I have discovered that there are persons in the constituency who are obliged to pay to the county council instalments of principal as well as the rent of their holdings, and if you will only authorise me to say that at the earliest possible opportunity you will abolish this I am inclined to think that the votes of some of these most deserving and industrious men will be secured to our side."
I think it must have been something like that. All I can say in the absence of a satisfactory explanation is that it seems to me that this was an open attempt to bribe the votes of certain electors at that time by making promises to them.
Just see how the thing happened. The noble Marquess sent a tip to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, as he has told us, is always vote-catching, promptly accepted. I think it was in November last that Mr. Lloyd George told us that he pleaded guilty to the charge of vote-catching. In this democratic country it is impossible to do anything without votes; therefore it seems to me that this is a case of "get votes, honestly if you can; if not—get votes." I must observe that this is not a solitary instance of this practice being

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followed by the present Government in by-elections. We have had several recent instances. For instance, there was the famous case of Wick. You know what happened there. No less a person than the Scottish Liberal Whip went down and made promises to the electors of Wick, for which he has since apologised in the House of Commons. He asked to be excused on this ground, that his speech had been unpremeditated, but, unluckily for him, it has turned out that he delivered very much the same speech in three other burghs. Thereby he made his chief make an apology which was entirely contrary to what had happened. Then there was the case of Bethnal Green, where the late Financial Secretary to the Treasury was standing for re-election. We know that in the House of Commons he always said that the Insurance Act was almost perfect. Well, in Bethnal Green he took a very different line, but in that case it was not successful.
I think really that the noble Marquess ought to give the House some explanation of this speech of his. How was it that it was at this particular moment that he discovered the existence of this grievance? What was it that created his new-born desire to remedy this grievance, the existence of which, when I mentioned it before, he had almost denied? Leaving him and turning to the Government, I venture to express the hope that the Government will adopt an attitude a little more favourable to my Bill on this occasion than they did on the last, because Mr. Lloyd George has now promised to remedy this grievance. If the Government are willing to make good the promise of Mr. Lloyd George, surely they can hardly avoid taking this, the first, opportunity of remedying the grievance in an effectual way. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (The Earl of Camperdown.)
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, I think that on the whole the House has never listened to a more extraordinary speech on the introduction of a Land Bill than that which has just been delivered by my noble friend opposite. He introduced his Bill, for which certainly there is a great deal to be said, and explained its provisions. Then he launched out on various other topics, such as Wick, and Mr. Gulland, and other matters, which did not seem entirely relevant to the Bill
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before your Lordships' House, and he was good enough to mention my name and to quote me at considerable length. When Lord Willoughby de Broke made an agricultural speech the other day, I ventured very respectfully to call the attention of the House to the fact that in a speech of twenty-two minutes Mr. Lloyd George was dragged in thirty-two times, which was a considerable allowance; and if I may venture to make a criticism on the speech of my noble friend opposite, I think there was a little bit too much in it about Lord Carrington and too little about the Bill which the noble Earl has the honour to submit to your Lordships. He was good enough to say that I had never recognised the existence of a grievance. I do not know where he gets that idea from, or how he can substantiate it.
THE EARL OF
CAMPERDOWN: Let me read to the noble Marquess his own words when I introduced this Bill in 1911. He then said—
"I hope the noble Earl will not carry his Bill to a Second Reading, but will be satisfied with having brought what he considers this great grievance before the House."
The natural meaning of that is that the noble Marquess, who had attacked my Bill pretty heavily, did not consider this a grievance.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My noble friend must not put words into my mouth. I said that he had brought forward a Bill to remedy what he considered a great grievance. I never stated that I did not consider it a grievance. Then the noble Earl was kind enough to say that the speech of mine which he quoted at considerable length was an attempt to bribe votes.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: I hardly think that that is an accusation which my noble friend ought to throw across the House on an occasion of this sort. If the noble Earl wishes to make that accusation, let him have it so. I will leave it at that. Then the noble Earl said that Mr. Lloyd George had never made this announcement before. I beg the noble Earl's pardon. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made the announcement before that he would remit—
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: When?
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: I have not got the quotation with me, but I know that he had made the announcement previously, and it was in order to verify it that I sent a telegram to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask whether I might state that he had said so, and he answered "Yes." The statement had been made—I do not know whether it was made at Bedford—
LORD LUCAS: It was to a deputation of Cornish farmers.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My noble friend tells me that it was made to a deputation of Cornish farmers—
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: The deputation of Cornish farmers was received on February 26, but the noble Marquess's letter was written on January 31, and Mr. Lloyd George's reply was received on February 2.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: Then I think there is a mistake as to the occasion on which the announcement was made. But I telegraphed to verify the statement, and the statement was verified. As to the speech that I made, to which the noble Earl referred, I am not going to bother the House with that; but I say this—that every word that I uttered in that speech I stick to, and every word that I uttered in that speech I am satisfied is correct.
Now may I say a word on this Bill. The noble Earl says that I have never admitted that there was a grievance. What really the noble Earl means is that the practice of charging rents sufficient to cover the sinking fund is an injustice and ought to be remedied. But what originated this injustice, if it is an injustice? When I brought forward the Small Holdings Bill I had to encounter a great deal of opposition from the other side of the House. We are a very small body of men in this Liberal zareba, forty or fifty at the most, and we have to stand up to six hundred men on the other side of the House. It is an uncommonly difficult thing to get a Liberal Bill through the House of Lords. The only way to get the Bill of 1908 through was by making concessions and seeing what could be
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done, and, of course, if there had been the smallest idea that there would have been any charge put upon the rates by that Bill, there would not have been a ghost of a chance of getting the Bill through.
There was a great demand all over England for small holdings. That was denied from the opposite side of the House. It was thrown in my teeth that a lot of correspondents, who had been put into their positions by the late Lord Onslow and were all of an advanced Tory type, were to a man dead against small holdings. The only way to get the Bill through, therefore, was to make it self-supporting, and not to give anybody a chance of saying that by any possibility could any charge be put on the taxes or rates; and on that account, and on that account only, was this injustice done. What was the result? The money was advanced at 3¾ per cent. by the Government—3½ per cent. was for the expenses and ¼ per cent. for the sinking fund. This ¼ per cent. is the injustice which is paraded by the noble Earl, who now comes forward as the great champion of the small holders. What help did he give me when I tried to get the Small Holdings Bill through this House? All he did was, in his own caustic way, to put every possible difficulty he could in the way during the Committee stage. The noble Earl was one of the first to get up and make difficulties. Now he comes forward and poses as a friend of the Act which he did nothing to further. He stands up in this House as a friend of the small holders and pretends that this is a monstrous injustice and that he is the St. George come to slay the Dragon.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Can the noble Marquess tell me why, when I tried to get him out of this difficulty by my Bill of 1911, he opposed that Bill?
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: As the noble Earl has spoken in plain English, I will speak in plain English to him. His Bill of 1911 was a rotten Bill. I am not to-day going through all the objections to it, but if the noble Earl will this evening after dinner be good enough to read the speech that I made in 1911 in answer to his Bill he will see how absolutely useless a Bill it was. It was not in any way the sort of Bill which would have remedied the so-called injustice that

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he desired to remedy. As I have said before, the small holders were only too pleased to get land under these conditions. It was not my idea. The idea had worked extremely well in London. I do not know whether the noble Earl has ever heard of the housing schemes that were initiated under the Progressive movement by the London County Council. I was chairman of the Housing Committee of the London County Council, and I got three great schemes through, costing some millions of money, at Norbury, at Totterdown Fields, and at Old Oak Common. There was a great demand for houses, and these houses were built for the people; but it was only done by bringing in this payment by the tenants of the sinking fund, which payment the noble Earl opposite holds up to execration and to ridicule.
A good deal of water has flown under the bridges since the Small Holdings Bill was introduced in 1907, and the time has arrived, as people are in favour of small holdings now, to remedy this injustice. But the remedy is not in these—I will not use any epithet—not in these Bills which the noble Earl keeps bringing before the House. The remedy of this so-called injustice is in the Government proposal to relieve the tenant of the obligation he is now under to pay this ¼ per cent. That will be the proper remedy, and I am sure it will be received, not as a bribe, but as a recognition that the principle of small holdings has at last been acknowledged by noble Lords opposite.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD LUCAS): My Lords, before dealing with this Bill may I make one observation in regard to what has fallen from my noble friend behind me. I was responsible for prompting him to say that it was to a deputation of Cornish farmers that the Chancellor of the Exchequer first spoke about this question, but, as the noble Earl opposite has pointed out, I was entirely wrong with regard to that. That deputation was received at a subsequent date. I have since looked up the reference, and I find that there was a discussion on this subject in the House of Commons on February 16 of this year, in which Mr. Lloyd George said—
"The hon. Member has been good enough to refer to something that I said, and I think at any rate he might have given me notice or called my
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attention to it. He read my telegram to High Wycombe. He seems to suggest that this is the first time I ever made that statement. On the contrary, when unfolding my scheme with regard to land weeks ago, I made that statement."
And later the Chancellor of the Exchequer said—
"My own recollection is that I made the statement to my constituents in a speech which I delivered at the end of last year."
I think it is quite plain from what has passed that the noble Earl opposite was under a misapprehension when he said that the Government had. not before the Wycombe election recognised the nature of the grievance borne by small holders with regard to their having to pay the sinking fund.
We have always admitted this grievance, especially in those cases where the combined interest and sinking fund on land and buildings and the charges for repairs and maintenance exceed, as they do in some cases under the Small Holdings Act, what may be considered to be the fair agricultural rent. I would like to distinguish between the sinking fund on land and the sinking fund on buildings. The grievance is entirely directed, or ought to be entirely directed, though I am not sure that it is—there is a great deal of confusion in people's minds on the subject— entirely against the sinking fund on land, which is not a very large sum—4s. 9d. per cent. The period of loan on buildings, in theory at any rate, is intended to represent the life of the buildings. Buildings arc a wasting security, and the sinking fund is intended to replace them when their life is at an end.
The difficulty has always been a great one with regard to the question of the sinking fund on land, and it has always been recognised as such. The question has been, not the recognition of it, but the method of dealing with it. We quite recognise that the noble Earl has brought forward one possible method of dealing with it. What the noble Earl in effect proposes is, where the tenant quits and has to be refunded the amount of the sinking fund by the county council, that in all those cases the sinking fund should be thrown on the rates. The noble Earl seems to think that there is a kind of sinking fund the payments for which will be made by the tenant and will accumulate as a fund and be repaid to the tenant

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when he quits. But, as a matter of fact, the sinking fund will have to be paid to the Public Works Loans Commissioners, from whom the money has been obtained to purchase the land. Therefore there will be no existing fund out of which you can repay the tenant, and you will have to throw a burden upon the rates in order to be able to pay off the tenant. That has been the great difficulty with regard to the whole thing.
It has been insisted upon in this House and outside that in the normal working of this Act there should be thrown no burden on the rates. I entirely agree with what was said by my noble friend behind me, who had actual experience of administering the Act during its early years —that it would have been impossible to make any headway at all if you had thrown any charge on the rates. In fact, it was clearly understood—it was an undertaking that was given in this House— that the normal working of the Act should throw no burden on the rates and that the Act should be self-supporting. The term "self-supporting" has been interpreted in two ways. Most counties have taken it that in order to make the schemes self-supporting the sinking fund should be paid by the tenants. Two counties—the West Riding and Glamorganshire—have put a different interpretation upon it, and have paid the sinking fund on the land themselves out of the rates, regarding it as the proper way to pay for property which was in course of time to come into the hands of the county council. But that system has been confined to those two counties only, and there is no sign at the present moment of an inclination on the part of other county councils to put the sinking fund on their rates. In fact, a further obstacle to doing so has arisen. I refer to the decision of the Public Works Loans Commissioners to refuse to make loans unless the county council gave an undertaking that the rent should be sufficient to cover the sinking fund. That, coupled with the fact that the ratepayers quite naturally object to pay for benefits which do not accrue for eighty years, has kept the position as it was at the beginning practically unchanged.
I think nobody will deny that the fairest method is for county councils to pay this sinking fund. The land is going to be theirs at the end of the eighty years for
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which the loan is made, and therefore they ought to pay for it. If we were dealing with this simply from the point of view of abstract justice, they should be made to pay at any rate in those cases where, owing to the inclusion of the sinking fund, the rent paid exceeds the fair agricultural rent; but, as a matter of fact, this would stop the working of the Act, and we are certainly not going to quarrel with county councils on this matter. On the contrary, our desire is to get them to increase the rate at which they are acquiring land for small holdings. It is the intention of the Government to make a subvention during the coming financial year in relief of the burdens of local authorities, and it is the view of the Government that it would be thoroughly in harmony with this policy to include the sinking fund upon land in this grant to those authorities who administer the Small Holdings Act. It may be necessary to ask for legislative sanction for this, and if, as is to be hoped, such a measure were to prove uncontroversial, it should be possible to make the first payment at the end of the financial year 1914–15.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, has left his place, as I wanted to condole with him on the position in which he stood just now, because it was quite clear to your Lordships that he and the Government which he represents had made a complete right-about-face on this question. The noble Marquess was called upon to explain it. His explanation was the usual one given by noble Lords opposite —that it was all our fault. It was all the fault of the wicked Unionist Party, who would certainly have opposed the beneficent Small Holdings Bill if the Government had recognised the grievance. But the Government always had recognised the grievance in their heart. They never doubted that this was a grievance, and the noble Lord who has just spoken for the Board of Agriculture repeated that they had always recognised the grievance. Well, it was very surprising that in the debate in 1911 that consciousness of the grievance was never allowed to appear.
I took the precaution, which I do not think was taken by the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire—who, I am glad to see, has returned to his place—of reading the former debate before coming to your

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Lordships' House this afternoon, and there is not a sign in either of the speeches of the noble Lords who represented the Government on that occasion that they recognised the grievance in the least. The noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, spoke for the Board of Agriculture, and the noble and learned Viscount who is now on the Woolsack also spoke for his colleagues on the Front Bench. But neither of them found that there was any grievance. The noble Marquess proceeded to point out that my noble friend's remedy was impossible and wrong. Why, he said, the sinking fund would fall upon the rates! That was conclusive with the noble Marquess then. He could not endure that it should fall on public funds. Lord Lucas has explained to us to-day that it is going to fall on public funds, though not on the rates. Still, three years ago the noble Marquess thought it was very improper that it should fall on public funds. He went on to say that, after all, the small holder had not any particular grievance. He did not say it in exactly this language, but—
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: Will the noble Marquess quote my language?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Marquess's argument was that, after all, the small holder got something for this extra payment. He got more security.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Marquess assents to that. Then what comes of the grievance in the noble Marquess's opinion? There was not a sign of the existence of a grievance in the whole of the observations which he made in 1911. I will quote the noble Marquess's own words—
"The tenant under the county council has this great advantage. After all, it is only a matter of insurance. If a tenant is on the Carabas estate, the Marquess of Carabas may find it convenient, for reasons best known to himself, to put the property into the market—everybody knows how it is done and why it is done—and the unfortunate tenant finds himself within a very few months deprived not only of his livelihood but of his home. Tenants under a county council run no risk of that sort."
And so the argument of the noble Marquess was that they were very legitimately and
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properly charged something extra in return for that security. The noble Marquess shakes his head. He asked me to quote his language, and I have done so. He will notice that he did not say one word in his speech about there being a grievance. On the contrary, he brought forward argument after argument to show that the proposal of my noble friend was not founded on a just security, and he showed in the observations I have quoted that the tenant was getting something for which he paid and therefore there was no grievance.
Now the noble Marquess stands up and says that he always knew there was a grievance, and the Government also knew there was a grievance. The fact is that something has happened since to make him alter his view. What has happened? There was this tiresome by-election at Wick. It was so annoying when you had told all your late colleagues that you were certain to do well at the election and you were not quite so certain when the time came. Something had to be done. There must be tome remedy lest one should turn out to be a false prophet. "Well," says the noble Marquess, "it is very shocking that my noble friend should accuse any noble Lord in this House of desiring to bribe votes; I never would do' such a thing." But the noble Marquess certainly desired to induce voters to vote for the Liberal Party. I am sure he did. Why did he make the speech to which reference has been made? For any other reason? He thought that if he told them something which would put money into their pockets the voters would be more likely to vote for the Liberal Party. We do not call it bribery, but that is the kind of thing that is done in politics. It is sometimes a harbour; it is sometimes a little payment for sinking fund; but it is always made at the time of an election, and though it is not proper it is always with the object of getting votes.
The truth is that the Government have found out that this is a grievance, and whereas on the last occasion when my noble friend produced his Bill they criticised and opposed it, now I suppose they are going to bless it and let it go through. I am not quite certain, however, from the observations of Lord Lucas what their attitude towards the Bill is. But I am glad that your Lordships have had this opportunity of judging how the exigencies

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of electioneering affect the strongest of Governments, and I hope that in the future they will not say, when we bring forward grievances of the agricultural interest, of which we in your Lordships' House know a great deal, that our arguments are not founded on fact, and that the grievances are not genuine ones. I think we ought to be very much obliged to my noble friend for having brought this Bill before the House, and even if this particular remedy may not be the best one I hope that some remedy will be applied.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, the noble Marquess who has just sat down has devoted himself almost entirely to the question of the grievance which, by common admission, may be said to affect those small holders who find themselves paying sinking fund for the purpose of acquiring a holding, not for themselves, but for somebody else—to wit, the county council. I cannot say that I have followed the various discussions in this House on the subject very closely. I have not the faintest recollection, I confess, of the noble Earl's Bill of 1911. It is possible that I may have been absent from the House at that time. Anyhow, I have no recollection whatever of the debate. But I certainly can say this, that when the original Bill was introduced in 1908 it was fully realised, as it was bound to be realised, that any small holder who was paying a considerable rent was certain to regard this as a grievance; and I venture to say that we were all agreed that as a grievance it could not be disputed if he found himself paying the sinking fund, although the amount, as has been pointed out, in many cases is not in itself a large one. All of us who are acquainted with small holdings in those parts of England in which we live are aware that the sinking fund is regarded as a grievance and always has been since they have been instituted.
I do not think that it is possible for noble Lords opposite to quarrel with the accuracy of the account given by my noble friend behind me (Lord Lincolnshire) of the reason which prevented the Government in their legislation of 1908 from compelling the people to pay the sinking fund who obviously ought to pay it— namely, the ultimate possessors of the holding, the local authority. It is quite
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evident that the opposition, not merely in this House but throughout the agricultural community generally, which would have been certain to be directed against a measure of which the principal effect was in many cases to cause an increase in the rates, was bound to be almost insuperable; and the conclusion which we reached was this, that it was impossible to deal with this particular grievance until we were in a position to deal with other grievances with which the rates are concerned. It would have been conceivable, no doubt, to make these particular payments out of Imperial funds. It would have been a possible thing to do; but it would have been regarded as a very small and poor tinkering with that great operation with rates which we have to admit—I, not without some humiliation, have to admit— is sadly belated, because I recollect a declaration which I made at this Table which it has been found impossible for His Majesty's Government as yet to fulfil. Therefore it was felt that the shouldering of this particular charge could only take place in one or two ways—either, while the sense of the undue burden of rates exists, it must be taken over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; or the whole question of the burden of rates must be dealt with, in which case it is quite possible that this might be considered a reasonable charge for the local authority themselves to pay. How the adjustment will ultimately take place I am not in a position now to state, but it is bound to take place in one of those two ways; and it seems to me that the explanation which my noble friends have given of the reason why this grievance has been allowed to stand so far to the detriment of those who have small holdings is quite explicit, and it is one which I think the House may reasonably accept.
I do not wish to go into the whole question of the machinery of the Bill introduced by the noble Earl, and which we do not see our way to accept. It is obvious, of course, that this is one sign of the preference for land purchase as against land occupation which so many noble Lords entertain, and it is no doubt the hope of the noble Earl and many of his friends that this may lead in many cases to the turning of these small holders into peasant proprietors. The only observation I should make upon that and the particular terms of the Bill is this, that it is hardly to be supposed that a public authority

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owning an estate of small holdings would agree to its estate being, so to speak, chess-boarded by the advent of tenant purchasers; that if it were going to sell it would like to sell in its own way and in the situation which it chooses, precisely as any one of us, if we were going to sell a small holding from any estate of ours, would probably greatly prefer to sell it on the edge rather than in the centre of the property. I cannot help thinking that any public authority would claim a similar right to that which a landlord would claim in such an instance. That, however, is the only point on which I desire to touch in the noble Earl's Bill. I merely rose in order to reply to the observations which were made by the noble Marquess opposite.
LORD CHANNING OF WELLING-BOROUGH: My Lords, I have not the slightest desire to claim any share in the crossing of swords which has taken place this afternoon. Lord Lincolnshire is more than capable of holding his own, and so is the noble Marquess opposite. I merely wish, as an old supporter of the expansion of small holdings who has followed all these questions very closely for many years and served on all the inquiries with regard to them, to say that I welcome in the warmest way the assurances we have received from Lord Lincolnshire, Lord Lucas, and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House that the question raised by the noble Earl opposite is now recognised as a real grievance which must be promptly dealt with. I do not want to reproach my friends in any way; but my noble friend Lord Lincolnshire knows that I was a pretty sharp critic of the Bill of 1907, and certainly that not specially well drafted Bill was found defective in two respects. There was one grave defect in not giving sufficient protection to tenant farmers by compensation when they were displaced in order to create small holdings. That defect was remedied by an Act passed by His Majesty's Government a year or two ago. But I do think that those of us who have interested ourselves in this question for many years have some reason to complain that His Majesty's Government have not been sufficiently prompt in dealing with this other grievance, which in my opinion is an inexcusable injustice which ought to have been remedied long ago. In view of the spirit in which the grievance has now been met by my noble friends on
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this side of the House, I hope that His Majesty's Government will frankly accept the very practical and wise Bill of the noble Earl opposite.
I am one of those who have read the debate which took place in your Lordships' House on this Bill in 1911, and I do not attach conclusive weight to some of the arguments which were advanced against the Bill on that occasion. In my opinion this Bill goes right to the root of the matter here and now. That is its first merit. Its second merit is this, that it does give a further chance to the expansion of the principle of ownership. I voted for that principle in the Standing Committee on the Bill of 1907, and I have always held—I hold now more strongly than ever, after studying the question in New Zealand as well as in this country—that extension of the principle of ownership is a most desirable policy to adopt. The change from State tenancies in New Zealand to direct ownership in the last few years has not only improved the standard of farming but has helped to create a stalwart race of independent farmers there who were able to restore order last autumn when a general strike threatened the complete paralysis of commerce in New Zealand. The principle of ownership is one the merits of which some of my friends on the Liberal side do not recognise as fully as they ought. It is a principle of great importance; and although this Bill only opens a very small door in that direction, it does open a useful door. I have myself seen groups of small holdings, and I have not the dread of the chessboard policy to which the noble Marquess the Leader of the House alluded. I think that a leaven of ownership would be very valuable in the development of the standard of work in small holdings.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

REVERSION DUTY.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is intended to introduce in the Finance Bill of this year provisions to exempt lands or houses let on lease for charitable or philanthropic purposes from Reversion Duty on the expiry of such leases.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I ventured to bring this subject forward in your Lordships' House a year ago, when

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it attracted some interest and there was a short discussion. The point briefly is this. If a landowner is anxious to give a lease of land or buildings for philanthropic or charitable purposes and agrees to do so at a nominal rent, say a penny a year, when that lease expires his heirs will be mulcted for Reversion Duty; whereas had a full rack rent for these buildings or land been insisted upon no Reversion Duty would be chargeable. The noble Earl, Lord Granard, who replied to me on the last occasion, agreed that this was a serious grievance which called for revision, and said that he would call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to it in the hope that he might be able to do something to change this aspect of affairs. The right hon. gentleman last year, in the Bill which he introduced after the decision in the Bowles's case, included a clause which would have put this absolutely right. But, as your Lordships are aware, that Bill did not pass the House of Commons; and I therefore think it is desirable at this early stage in the session to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are able to give me any promise or undertaking that the subject will receive attention in the Finance Bill of this year. It is not in any way a Party question, as we must all agree that it is very desirable to encourage owners to give their land at low rents for charitable and philanthropic purposes.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, the attention of His Majesty's Government was directed to this question last year, and it was in order to meet the wishes of the noble Lord that one of the clauses was put into the Revenue Bill. That clause—Clause 9—did not pass the House of Commons, because the Bill was not proceeded with. I am not quite sure from what the noble Lord said whether he was satisfied with the terms of Clause 9. [Lord ORANMORE nodded assent.] I am glad to think that the terms satisfied the noble Lord. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that it is his intention to revive the Revenue Bill this year, and when he does Clause 9 will form part of it. I hope that on this occasion my right hon. friend will be more fortunate, and will succeed in persuading both Houses of Parliament to allow the Bill to become law.

THE TERRITORIAL DEPARTMENT OF THE WAR OFFICE.
The EARL OF DENBIGH The EARL OF DENBIGH rose to call attention to the desirability of effecting some alteration in the present constitution of the Territorial Department of the War Office whereby, through the appointment of a permanent Secretariat or otherwise, greater continuity of representation might be ensured.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I desire to call attention to the question of the organisation of the War Office for dealing with the Territorial Force. The Territorial Force now comes under the Department of the Civil Member of the Army Council, and the Civil Member is a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and, of course, goes out of office on any change of Parties. The Civil Member also deals with the War Department, Lands, and Non-effective Votes, and by the nature of his appointment he is not able to give undivided attention to the Territorial Force or to represent continuity of policy and of administration. He is presumed to be personally accessible to the Territorial Force, but, as a matter of fact, I do not know that he is very widely known outside. Then the Director-General of the Territorial Force is, of course, a military officer. His appointment is for four years, and he then acquires, no doubt, much valuable information of the Territorial Force which he takes away with him. Consequently there is no particular continuity there. The Director-General has two Assistant Directors, who are appointed for the same term—namely, four years. One of these two Assistant Directors is on the Unattached List of the Territorial Force, and is only nominally an Assistant Director since his appointment, work, and pay are always purely honorary. He is an officer of the Territorial Force on the Retired List, and is supposed to represent the views of the Territorial Force. Then the Territorial Associations are responsible for the administration, recruitment, etc., of the Territorial Force, and the Force is administered from the Territorial Department at the War Office, with the exception of finance; but the Territorial Reserve and the National Reserve and the Cadet Forces come under the Department of the Adjutant-General. I therefore wish to point out that there is no particular continuity of representation for the Territorial Force, and that even the Department

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responsible for it has no particular voice in connection with two branches for which the Associations are responsible. It is understood that the Director-General of the Territorial Force cannot go to the Secretary of State direct, but through the medium of the Adjutant-General or the Civil Member of the Army Council, and that, my Lords, is the really important part of the whole case.
There is a strong argument in favour of a Territorial Department with a permanent Secretariat, as in the case of the War Office itself and of the Finance Branch, the suggestion being that it is desirable that there should be greater continuity in the system of representation of the Territorial Force. At the time when the War Office was reorganised the Territorial Force, of course, was not in existence. The suggestion I put forward is that it is desirable that the authorities should consider whether some new appointment might not be created in the nature of a Permanent Secretary to the Civil Member and Assistant Director, and possibly the present honorary Assistant Directorship might be abolished and the Department rearranged in such a way as to cause no increased cost. I do not expect any definite reply to-day from the noble Lord who responds for the War Office; but this question is one which has excited a considerable amount of interest amongst many who are concerned in the administration of the Territorial Force, and I ask for it the careful consideration of the War Office.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, may I be permitted to say a few words in support of the noble Earl's suggestion. When the War Office was reorganised in 1904 in accordance with the recommendations of a small Committee, on which I had the honour to serve, the Territorial Force, as we now understand it, had not come into being. We had only to deal with the administrative needs of the Militia and Volunteers of those days, which were on a totally different footing from that of our present Home Defence Force. Had we had to deal with the Associations which now exist and which must be regarded as the mainsprings of the whole machinery of the Territorial Force, I am quite sure that we should have given most careful consideration with a view to devising some measures which would have secured that continuity of representation to which the
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noble Earl has referred. In devising administrative machinery one has to try and steer between two extremes. On the one hand, there is the danger—a danger one must always try to avoid—of the paralysing effect of bureaucratic routine. On the other hand, there is the danger of making a Department in which there are too many or too frequent changes of personnel, or the members of which may not have quite enough authority for their work, or their time may be too much taken up with other matters. Those things may lead to just that want of continuity and of knowledge to which the noble Earl has referred.
I suppose that the greatest optimist among us would admit that all is not quite well at present with the Territorial Force. I believe that the time has come to give serious consideration to what can be done to place the Force on a better footing both as regards numbers and efficiency, but this is not the time to allude to a great question of that kind. The point to which the noble Earl has drawn attention may in some ways be directly accountable for some of the deficiencies in this Force of which we are all aware. I therefore earnestly hope that we shall be told this evening that serious consideration will be given to the proposal of the noble Earl. It may well be that only some small change or readjustment such as he proposes would meet the difficulty, but I do think that a strong case has been made out for something in the direction which he has indicated being done.
LORD LUCAS: My Lords, I shall, of course, make it my business to see that the point of view which the noble Earl has put forward is placed before the Secretary of State for War, and that the views which he expressed as a prominent member of a County Association and a prominent commanding officer in the Territorial Force receive their full consideration at the War Office. It is impossible for me to speak, and I know you will not expect me to speak, with any authority on this question, but I should like to inform your Lordships of one or two small changes that have been made, and perhaps I may say a word about some of the results. I notice that the noble Earl treats the Civil Member of the Army Council as a being who is not in any way really fit to carry out the important duties with which he is entrusted. As

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things are at present, he is the mouthpiece on the Army Council of the Territorial Force. Under the division of labours which were laid down so clearly by the Committee of which Lord Sydenham was a member, the whole scheme of that reorganisation seemed to preclude having an especial representative for a body like the Territorial Force. It was interesting to hear what Lord Sydenham said, because I should have thought it was hardly in keeping with the general tenor of the Report of the Esher Committee. However, that is a question outside the mark. The Civil Member has these very important duties to perform, and I must say that the other duties which are ascribed to him in the Army List are certainly not of so serious a nature as to prevent him devoting practically the whole of his time to the Territorial Force. There is absolutely nothing in the working of the system to prevent the Territorial Force being just as well represented on the Army Council as under any other system you can suggest; in fact, I did not gather that the noble Earl, in the suggestions he made, asked for any better representation than that.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: I did not mean for one moment to convey the idea that the Civil Member was not an efficient representative. What I was asking for was better continuity, because it might easily arise owing to the exigencies of Party politics that the Civil Member might go out of office perhaps at the very time when the Assistant Director was also going out. If there were a permanent Secretariat it would enable the work to be carried on with continuity.
LORD LUCAS: The amount of continuity you get in the Territorial Branch is no more and no less than you get in all the other branches of the War Office. The military appointments are always held for a stated term of years; the political offices are held during the term of office of a Government, and there only remain the civilian staff. The Finance Branch is entirely staffed by civilians, and the only way in which you could have permanent representation of that kind—that is to say, a number of permanent officials who remain for a number of years—would be by having your branch staffed in all its more important posts by civilians; and that, I take it, is not a contention which the noble Earl would particularly wish to put forward. I gather that he does not
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object to the fact that the Territorial Department is staffed largely by soldiers at the present moment; and as long as it continues to be staffed by soldiers you are bound to have these people changing places. But any one acquainted with the working of a big Department would say at once that the fact that the head of the Department or a number of subordinates in the Department changed did not in the least necessarily change the amount of continuity that went on in the Department. It has its own methods of working and its own system, and there is always a majority of people in it at any one moment who have been there a considerable time, and that is the thing that guarantees continuity.
A step has been taken which goes in a certain direction along the lines suggested by the noble Earl, in the fact that there has been recently appointed to the Territorial Force Branch a civilian with the rank of Assistant Principal, who is really in charge of the majority of questions in which there is correspondence with Associations. That is to say, the greater part of the administrative questions—Territorial Force property, rifle ranges, general questions affecting the organisation of County Associations—will come under him. Finance comes partly under him as well; also advice upon Territorial Force and Territorial Force Reserve questions involving finance and involving all legal matters and all regulations. That practically covers most of the questions which arise and are the subject of correspondence between County Associations and the War Office, so that on all those points you will get the kind of continuity for which the noble Earl asks.
Then with regard to the other points mentioned. The organisation of the National Reserve and the Cadet Corps took place during the time when I was at the War Office, and I quite agree with the noble Earl that there is a great deal to be said for putting it in the Territorial Force Branch; logically, I think that is where the Cadets ought to be. The Territorial Force Branch at the time of the organisation of the National Reserve and the Cadet Corps had its hands so full of other matters that in order to get the work done the National Reserve and the Cadet Corps were placed in the Adjutant-General's Branch; and the success that has attended those two movements has, I think, been the principal

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reason for leaving them in the hands of the branch which has administered them so well. But I will see that the attention of the Secretary of State is drawn to these points.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I think the noble Earl was well advised in binging forward this matter, and I quite realise that the noble Lord opposite was in rather a difficulty in replying. First of all, because he has no connection with the War Office now; and, beyond that, I do not think he had an easy case to defend. I sympathise with what fell from Lord Sydenham. When the noble Viscount who is now Lord Chancellor originally brought forward the present arrangement and said that the Civil Member would be responsible for the Auxiliary Forces, I ventured then to criticise it and to express the opinion that it would not be a very fortunate arrangement. I recollect that the idea mainly followed from the fact that the Under-Secretary had for a long period of years been treated as tutelary representative of the Auxiliary Forces. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who knew the War Office as well as any man ever did, said this was not because the Undersecretary had any particular qualification for that office, but because he happened to be a free and more or less idle official, and not being, like the Secretary of State, overburdened with work, or, like the Financial Secretary, having a special Department, he was just the one spare man who could be given an odd job, and the Auxiliary Forces were the odd job which fell to him.
But the Under-Secretary had in those days two advantages which he has not got now. In the first place, he was a member of this House, and he was, therefore, in the very place where most questions were raised by the very large number of members of this House who had special information and knowledge of the Auxiliary Forces. But, in addition to the circumstance that he was a member of this House, for a long term of years, perhaps by chance to some extent, the Under-Secretary happened to be an officer who had served for a considerable period in the Auxiliary Forces— men like Lord Harris, Earl Brownlow, Lord Raglan, and, afterwards, Mr. George Wyndham. For a long period of years it was almost an exception not to have in the War Office an Under-Secretary who was experienced in Auxiliary Force matters
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by his own service. That is not the case with the present Under-Secretary, who also has the disadvantage that he does not sit in this House, a disadvantage which I am certain no one feels more than the noble Marquess the Leader of this House.
I do not think the present arrangement is a sound one. If you are to get out of the Territorial Force the work that is now expected of it, and to undertake the whole organisation of the Force within the purview of the War Office, you really require a military representative on the Army Council—either a military representative who is a regular soldier, or some one who is able to attend to the work of the Auxiliary Forces, as Lord Sydenham said, permanently. To have a man possibly without any military experience coming to the Army Council and trying to represent there the needs of a Force when he cannot speak with authority on a single point as regards their equipment or their preparedness, is really to make it almost impossible to obtain for them that which is their right. I have myself on one or two occasions been asked in the course of the last few years to go to the War Office to meet the Secretary of State, and I have been struck by the fact that in each case he was surrounded by officers who on any single point must speak with more authority than the Under-Secretary of State, merely because of his lack of technical knowledge. We are all familiar with the position in which the head of an Office is when he has to weigh opinions and make a decision upon them, but that is a very different thing from making a man who is not an expert a member of a Council on which there are a number of experts, any one of whom could state the case with more effect than he could hope to do. I do not want to elaborate that at this moment, but I think the system might have worked for some little time if the old custom of appointing as Under-Secretaries men who happened to have experience and authority as leaders of the Auxiliary Forces had been continued. But that has now been done away with. I think the last shred of justification for the present arrangement has gone with it; and I would urge the noble Lord to report to the Secretary of State—that is all we can do in our present enfeebled condition—that there is sufficient ground for reconsidering the position of the Army Council.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, as reference has been made to the principle upon which the present arrangements were constituted I think it right to say a few words, because in my opinion there is a great deal of misapprehension about this matter. It is not the fact that the Territorial Force is a separate department, separately organised and administered. The equipment of the Territorial Force comes from the Quartermaster-General's Department, and is managed there; there is not a separate department of the Territorial Force under the Civil Member. Again, the finance, which is the main business of the County Associations, is worked through the Finance Department, where the element of permanence exists and where there is great experience.
To set up something like a permanent civil branch to administer the Territorial Force would have very striking results. When the Force was constituted there was a fierce outcry. People did not know what we were planning, and they cried out against the notion of a "county council" Army. There is nothing that the Territorial Force hates so much as being put under civilians. What they want to do is to deal with soldiers; and because their finance is dealt with in connection with the Finance Department and because their equipment and so on is dealt with in connection with the Quartermaster-General's Department, it is possible to do that. They prefer to see military people, to see officers and to deal with them, and if you asked even the Associations whether they wanted to deal with permanent civilians at the War Office, the majority of them would tell you that that was the very thing they did not want to do. So long as they get their arrangements met, what they want is to manage their own affairs and to communicate with those who are officers. That is why it was thought not only wise but necessary to put the Territorial Force upon the same footing as any other military department of the War Office. The Territorials themselves loathe the very notion of being put under civilians, and if we had done anything of the sort at the time we should have had very great difficulties to face.
It may well be that it is a fortunate circumstance when the Civil Member has
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had large experience of the Territorial Force. My noble friend who has just spoken had that experience when he was at the War Office, and no doubt found it to be useful. But it is a delusion to suppose that the Territorial Force has no one to speak for it at the War Office. For the reasons I have given, the Quartermaster-General is interested in it; the Finance Member is interested in it; and the Secretary of State is coming constantly in contact with it. From the fact that its affairs are managed by the Military Department and that it has no separate organisation of its own, the Territorial Force, so far as headquarters are concerned, has a comparatively small staff which does contain a certain amount of permanent members who can conduct the business. No doubt there is a great deal to be said if you can always find some one of great experience of the Territorial Force who is able to fill the position of Undersecretary, but that is not always possible. Meanwhile, I doubt whether you can make any very great change with advantage; and I do not think the grievances which have been spoken of to-night really exist.

THE MARCONI ALLEGATIONS.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I desire to say one word by way of explanation. I had not been aware that at the beginning of business to-day the noble Marquess opposite (Lord Salisbury) was about to announce the composition of the Committee which will be appointed by the House to inquire into the charges made against Lord Murray of Elibank. In view of what I stated on behalf of the Government when the matter was before the House on the 19th of February, and in view of various comments on the whole subject which have been made outside, I think it will be required, in justice to my noble friends on this side of the House, and in particular to my noble and learned friend Lord Loreburn, that I should state in what circumstances they have come to give their names as members of the Committee. I propose, therefore, if, as I understand, it is the noble Marquess's intention to move the appointment of the Committee on Monday next, at that time to make the statement to which I have referred.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am exceedingly sorry if I appeared to be wanting in courtesy to the noble Marquess in announcing the names. Of course, I was only acting, may I say, ministerially, and for a much greater man than myself, in giving the notice. The noble Marquess well understands that it is necessary, according to the Orders of your Lordships' House, to give notice, and the only difference would have been that I could have handed the Motion to the
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Clerk at the Table instead of announcing it publicly. In any case the names would have appeared in the Press to-morrow morning, and the result would have been the same. I quite realised that this was only a preliminary step to what will take place on Monday, when my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, I hope, will be in his place to move the Motion himself.
House adjourned at ten minutes past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.