Sitting of 2 March 1916

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

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

Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway Bill.

Beighton and District Gas Bill.

Cardiff Railway Bill.

City of Dublin Steam Packet Company Bill.

Folkestone Gas Bill.

Uxbridge Gas Bill.

Ordered, That the Bills be committed.

POLICE (COUNTIES AND BOROUHS, ENGLAND AND WALES).
Copy presented of Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary for the year ended 29th September, 1915 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 35.]
DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS AND PESTS ACTS.
Copy presented of Order, numbered D.I.P. 361, declaring an area described in the Schedule thereto to be infected with Wart Disease and an infected area for the purposes of the Wart Disease of Potatoes (Infected Areas) Order of 1914 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Report, No. 875 (Mauritius, Report for 1914) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    CONTRABAND COMMITTEE.
    Mr. MACMASTERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what services on the sea have been rendered by the two representatives of the Admiralty on the Contraband Committee; and whether, without disparaging the personnel of the Committee as at present constituted, he will consider the desirability, in the public interests, of arranging that the Committee should be strengthened by the addition of a sailor of acknowledged and recognised naval service and of two experienced business men, familiar with the ways of commerce and the recognised methods of invoicing, and the use and misuse of bills of lading, in order to give an article carried a designation, character, and destination that it frequently does not possess?
    The SECRETARY OF STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey: The hon. Member must ask the Admiralty for information as to the qualifications of those chosen to represent it on the Contraband Committee. I believe that one of their representatives has had many years of sea service, that the Committee has the necessary technical knowledge, and that its efficiency would be impaired by in creasing its numbers.

    CONSULAR OFFICES.
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in Sweden some 24 out of 31 British Consuls and Vice-Consuls are aliens, in Norway 26 out of 30, in Denmark 19 out of 26, and in Holland and its colonies 14 out of 24; and whether it is now propesed to limit the appointment of British Consuls and Vice-Consuls to men of purely British descent?
    Sir E. GREY: I must point out that the hon. and gallant Member has mixed up salaried and unsalaried officers in his question. This is hopelessly misleading. All salaried Consular officers in the countries named are of British birth. Of the unsalaried officers the great proportion in the countries named are foreigners. The

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    hon. and gallant Member is no doubt aware that these appointments are made in places where it is a choice between having an unsalaried officer or none at all.
    In such places where a suitable British candidate is forthcoming he is given the post, but British merchants and ship-owners constantly employ foreigners as their agents, and it therefore often happens that there is no one of British birth resident and qualified for the unsalaried post.
    Colonel YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman not take steps to replace these unsalaried aliens by salaried Britishers? Could it not easily be done by instituting a system of Consular invoices, bringing in several millions?
    Sir E. GREY: The question which the hon. and gallant Gentleman is raising is whether a vast amount more should not be spent on the Consular service than is being now spent. It is a very big question. When the trade or importance of a place justifies the appointment of a salaried Consular officer one is placed there. There are lots of places that are not of sufficient importance to do so, and in those cases an unsalaried officer is appointed. A British subject is chosen if available, and, if not, the most suitable foreigner.
    Colonel YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question at all?

    FOREIGN NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES.
    Mr. NIELDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what are the conditions of naval and military service in force in France, Italy, and Russia, and also Germany and Austria, with regard to the pay and allowances to the dependants of professional men and others engaged in civil occupations and earning substantial incomes at the outbreak of war who have been summoned to the Colours; and whether there is any total or partial suspension of current obligations for rent, rates, taxes, insurance premiums, or their equivalent periodical payments in such countries?
    Sir E. GREY: The information we have on this subject is incomplete, but all the available decrees of foreign Governments bearing upon it in the possession of the Foreign Office will be placed in the Library of the House

    BRITISH PRISONERS.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is in a position to make any statement regarding the treatment of British prisoners in Bulgaria; and if he has received any report from the American Ambassador regarding their condition?
    Sir E. GREY: The United States Chargé d'Affaires informed the United States Ambassador here by telegram, on the 17th ultimo, that all the British prisoners of war in Bulgaria were to be transferred to Philippopolis, that an American physician had been placed in attendance, and that the present arrangement was very satisfactory. The Chargé d'Affaires has also reported that there are sixty or seventy British prisoners of war in different hospitals in Sofia, and that they are well treated.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman be receiving further reports?
    Sir E. GREY: Yes, we are constantly receiving them. We are getting them as frequently as we can, and by all the means in our power obtaining the fullest information we can.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to accounts which have recently appeared regarding the treatment of British prisoners at Schneidemuhl; whether the American Ambassador has been asked to inquire and report on the treatment of prisoners in this camp; and, if not, will he take steps to have inquiries made?
    Sir E. GREY: A report on the camp at Schneidemuhl by the United States Embassy at Berlin was published in the Press on 2nd November. The report is not unsatisfactory. Many complaints have been received as to the conditions prevailing at this camp at an earlier date, and it is, I presume, to such complaints that the hon. Member refers. If the hon. Member has received unsatisfactory information as to the present conditions at this camp, and will communicate this information to me, I shall be glad to make inquiries.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that British prisoners are being used by the German authorities for cleaning the streets, clearing away the snow, and for similar work?
    Sir E. GREY: Perhaps the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will give me notice of that question.

    COPPER (CARGO AT LERWICK).
    Sir EDWARD BEAUCHAMPasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the 1,000 tons of copper, forming part of the cargo of the "Esrom," was neutral property at the time the vessel was brought into Lerwick; whether there was any evidence to show its ultimate destination; whether it has been allowed to go forward to Copenhagen; and, if so, has any guarantee been given that it will not reach the enemy?
    Sir E. GREY: The answers to the first and second questions are in the affirmative; the answer to the third question is in the negative, but the copper has been re-exported from this country under Privy Council licence to Gothenburg, the vessel herself having been placed in the Prize Court; the answer to the fourth question is in the affirmative.

  MUNITIONS.

    LICENSING RESTRICTIONS.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware that the whole agricultural county of Kirkcudbrightshire, in which no military are stationed and no munitions manufactured, was scheduled, along with Carlisle and Dumfriesshire, with the result that certain licensees are ruined; why the local governing bodies were not consulted before the Order was issued; whether any petition has been received for the exclusion of Minnigaff; and, if so, what answer has been returned to such petition?
    The MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Lloyd George): I am informed that it was decided to schedule the whole of Kirkcudbrightshire on account of its proximity to an important munition centre and as the result of the inquiry held by the Central Board at Carlisle, which was attended by representatives from the county. In reply to the latter part of the question, I am informed that no petition has been received from Minnigaff.
    Sir J. D. REES: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire about the petition?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I did inquire, and I was informed there was nothing of that nature.

    GARFORTH EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
    Mr. TURTONasked the Minister of Munitions the grounds upon which the Munitions Department have, without notice and without any preliminary negotiation, entered upon the experimental farm of the Yorkshire Council for Agricultural Education at Garforth; whether some 70 acres, including the plots where the chief seed and other experiments are conducted, are already staked out; and whether a more suitable site for a shell-filling factory can be found in the neighbourhood?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It was at one time under consideration to use a portion of the land referred to in the question for the purposes of a filling factory, but I am glad to say that arrangements have now been made which render it unnecessary for the Ministry of Munitions to take possession of the land.

    WORKMEN'S TRAINS (APPEAL TO MEMBERS).
    Major M'MICKINGasked the Minister of Munitions whether, in view of the fact that the families of many men who are employed on munitions work in Dumfriesshire reside in a stewartry of Kirkcudbright, he will endeavour to arrange for a workmen's train to be run night and morning between Dalbeattie and Gretna?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I understand that a workmen's train runs between Dumfries and Gretna, and that there would be no difficulty in arranging for a workmen's train to run from Dalbeattie to Dumfries; but Dalbeattie is forty-one miles from Gretna, and it seems hardly possible for workmen to travel that distance morning and night each day.
    I should like to appeal to hon. and right hon. Members if they would be good enough not to put down questions which will indicate the locality of munitions factories. It is giving information which, I am sorry to say, has turned out on one or two occasions to be rather valuable to the enemy, and it has endangered one or two factories. I should be exceedingly obliged to hon. Members when they frame their questions if they will not frame them in such a way as to indicate the existence of munition factories at particular centres.

    E. H. BENTALL, LIMITED, MALDON.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Minister of Munitions whether he has been in communication with the controlled firm

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    of Messrs. E. H. Bentall, Limited, at Maldon, who have discharged three of their workmen because they were members of a trade union; whether any decision has been arrived at; and, if so, what action does he propose to take in the matter with a view to putting a stop to this practice and thereby safeguarding the interests of trade union members?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am taking legal advice in this matter, and will communicate my decision to my hon. Friend as soon as I am in a position to do so.

    REST DAYS FOR WORKERS.
    Mr. COWANasked the Minister of Munitions whether, in order to ensure that the production of shells and other munitions of war in adequate quantity may not be endangered by the necessity, particularly in the case of women, of allowing one day's rest in seven, he will recommend the employment of week-end relief workers in controlled and other munition factories and take steps to provide further facilities for the training of additional workers of this class?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am entirely in agreement with my hon. Friend, and a special branch of the Labour Supply Department has been formed at the Ministry of Munitions to encourage the use and organise the supply of special shifts of labour for week-end work. This is done in order to give a necessary day of rest to regular workers and at the same time to secure the minimum diminution of output. The head of this branch is now visiting various munition areas with a view to furthering the policy.
    Mr. COWAN: Will that apply to women workers also?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Undoubtedly.

    GLYCERINE COMMANDEERED BY GOVERNMENT.
    Mr. PATRICK MEEHANasked the Minister of Munitions if all the glycerine produced by Irish soap manufacturers has been commandeered by the Government at the price of £59 10s. per ton; if the War Office are paying American soap makers £250 per ton for glycerine, and, if not, what price is being paid the American makers; if he is aware that the percentage of glycerine in the fats used in making soap is 10 per cent., and that the American manufacturer, owing to the price paid him for his glycerine, can
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    afford to pay £20 per ton more for his fats than the Irish manufacturer and make his soap as cheaply; and if he is aware that the stopping of the importation of American soap during the War, owing to the increase in the production of British-made soap, would place at the disposal of the War Office an increased supply of cheap glycerine?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, no glycerine is being bought from America by the Ministry of Munitions. As regards the third part, the answer is in the affirmative. As regards the rest of the question, I am not aware of the price being paid by American manufacturers of soap for their fats, nor what it costs them to make soap. All possible steps are being taken to. increase the supply of cheap glycerine for war purposes.
    Mr. MEEHAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a circular from soap manufacturers stating that the War Office or the Ministry of Munitions paid £250 per ton for glycerine from America?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, we are not buying any from America. Steps were taken here to secure the glycerine required for war purposes at a considerably lower price than that paid in America. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in saying that prices are very much higher in America than here. That is why we took action in this country.

    POST-OFFICE BANKING FACILITIES.
    Mr. KINGasked the Postmaster-General whether he has considered the system of Post Office current accounts and postal cheque payments introduced in Germany since the War; whether he is aware that by these means the amount of outstanding Reichsbank notes has been reduced, the issue of current coin restricted, and all classes supplied with the advantages of banking facilities; and whether similar methods are contemplated to ease the currency and relieve financial and commercial stringency in this country?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): The postal cheque system was introduced in Germany some years before the War, namely, on 1st January, 1909. The conditions in this

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    country are different; the banking system is more widely extended, and, in view of the extensive use of cheques and postal orders for remittances, it is doubtful if there would be much demand or scope for the system suggested.
    Mr. KING: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that Germany has since the War largely developed its postal cheque system, and has given popular banking facilities which gets a great amount of current money into the hands of the Government?
    Mr. PIKE PEASE: I understand that the system to which the hon. Gentleman refers was inaugurated on 1st January, 1909. I will have inquiry made with regard to the other matter.

    RAILWAY PASSES.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has information showing the number of railway directors, railway company officials, Board of Trade officials, and representatives of other Government Departments to whom passes still in use have been issued entitling the holders to travel free in first-class carriages over the railways of England; and, if no exact figures are available, whether he has formed an approximate estimate of the number of such outstanding privileges?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Pretyman): I have no information which would enable me to furnish either the exact or the estimated figures desired by my hon. Friend. I have, however, no reason to suppose that free travelling by directors or officials of the railway companies has in any way increased during the period of the War, and I understand that the number of free passes issued to representatives of Government Departments is very small.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    EXPORT TRADE.
    Mr. WATTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the speeches of members of tribunals under the Military Service Act, 1916, to the effect that our export trade is of less importance than the supply
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    of men at the front; and, if so, will he take some action to impress on tribunals the necessity of keeping our trades going, especially during War time?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: The Board of Trade have no direct control over the local tribunals, which were set up by the Local Government Board. I have no reason to think that the tribunals are insufficiently impressed with the necessity of maintaining our export trade, to which their attention has been called in a circular issued by the Local Government Board, of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.

    MARRIED MEN (PECUNIARY OBLIGATIONS).
    Mr. THOMASasked the Prime Minister whether he will make an authoritative announcement on the subject of the calling up for service of married men; whether the Government are taking steps to introduce legislation with a view to relieving these men from the pecuniary obligations for which they would still be liable when called to the Colours; and whether he can give an assurance before the married men are called up that the Government will consider the whole question of hardship that is likely to arise?
    Mr. NIELDasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that a widespread feeling of alarm exists among many married men who have attested under the Derby scheme as to the total insufficiency of the separation allowances to meet payments of rent, rates, taxes, and insurance premiums and for provision for the maintenance of wife and children; and whether, having regard to the substantial incomes, especially in the case of professional men, which will be lost by reason of military service, he will consider the necessity for and make additional provision in such cases where serious loss is proved to have been sustained?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: This matter is engaging the careful attention of the Government, and a statement as to the civil obligations of married men called to the Colours will be made as soon as possible.
    Mr. THOMAS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say that before any of the married groups are called up this question will be settled and proposals made?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think it is possible to give an undertaking of that kind, but I understand that the question will be settled quite soon.
    Major NEWMANasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that many married men whose groups may shortly be called up have purchased and are paying for their houses by means of periodical instalments combining payment of interest and repayment of the capital sum, and extending over a period of more than ten years; whether the Government have considered the position of these men in the event of their not being able to continue such periodical repayment of the capital sum; and whether, having regard to the consequences which might be entailed to building and other societies in the event of such repayments ceasing under any extension of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1916, he will say what action the Government intend to take?
    Mr. LONG: Although I have no official information on the subject, there may, no doubt, be cases of the kind referred to. In the event of any proposal being made to extend the Act in question, the point mentioned by my hon. Friend would be borne in mind.

    LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked whether a single man who in December last applied under the Derby scheme for admission to the Naval Reserve but was rejected as medically unfit, and given a paper to that effect signed by a doctor and magistrate, is under any obligation to be re-examined for the Army, or whether he is exempt for further service?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If the man applied through the Army group system and was rejected by the Army medical authorities, he is not subject to the Military Service Act, provided such proof of rejection as the hon. Member mentions is produced.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether a rejection for the Navy or Royal Naval Reserve is for the purposes of the Military Service Act the same as a rejection for the Army?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is there any difference between "rejected" and "not accepted"?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, I understand not.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that a man who is rejected but given no certificate comes within the Act?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: He has to give the necessary proof of rejection.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that tribunals are showing no consideration to cases of men who are the last remaining members of their families; and whether he will take steps to prevent entire families being wiped out by casualties in the War?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I must remind my hon. Friend that in cases of doubt there is a right of appeal ultimately to the central appeal tribunal.
    Mr. HOGGE: Would it not save a great deal of trouble if the tribunals did as the Government said they were to do?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I understand they are doing so.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no right of appeal to the central tribunal except by permission?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Long): Perhaps I may reply on that point. There are two kinds of cases, as I told the House the other day. There are those under attestation. Attested men have an appeal to the central tribunal, and there is no middle court of appeal. In the other cases there is an appeal from the tribunal to the local tribunal court, which has been established now and is of a very high order all over the country. In these cases, it is true, an appeal from them to the central tribunal can only be with consent; but in the instructions which I have issued I have made it quite clear that in special cases that consent should be given.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the statement made at the Sheffield Tribunal by the military representative, Mr. A. C. Caporn, B.A., LL.B., that there was only one ground of total exemption before his tribunal, and that was "death"; and whether any steps will be taken to acquaint this military representative with the provisions of the Military Service Act, 1916?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): I am not aware of the circumstances to which my hon. Friend calls attention. I do not know whether the statement reported was in fact made. Instructions on the administration of the group and class system will be circulated to military representatives this week.
    Mr. ANDERSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter if I supply him with information in regard to this statement?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes.
    Mr. ANDERSON: I will supply the right hon. Gentleman with the information.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that when application was being made before the Sheffield Tribunal on behalf of the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society for the exemption of their prime costs clerk, the military representative remarked that co-operators did not pay Income Tax; whether he is aware that a similar assertion was made by the military representative at the Chesterfield Tribunal on 23rd February; and whether steps will be taken to inform these military representatives that remarks which have no foundation in fact, and which can only be introduced in order to prejudice the issues, decrease public confidence in the impartiality of the tribunals, and render more difficult the smooth administration of the Military Service Act, 1916?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am not aware of the circumstances mentioned by my hon. Friend. If irrelevant remarks are made it is for the tribunal to check them. Regulation No. 16 lays down very clearly that only questions relevant to the decision of an application may be raised. As I have just stated, the new book on the administration of the group and class systems will be circulated this week to military representatives and others concerned, and stress is laid in that book on the fact that all that is allowed is the presentation of evidence and the elucidation of facts relevant to the decision of an application. It is also pointed out that speeches or advocacy on the part of the military representative or on the part of an applicant are undesirable.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Will those instructions about to be issued be available for Members of Parliament?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir; I will see that they are.

    CLERICAL WORK (WAR DEPARTMENT).
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the policy of the recruiting authorities of compulsory enlisting for clerical work men who are medically unfit for military service; and whether, in view of his pledge that the Military Service Act would not be used for the purpose of introducing compulsory labour, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Men only fit for clerical work who are not immediately required for such work in the Army are returned to their civil occupations, and are not called up without at least two months' notice. They may never be called up, but it is impossible to give a pledge that their services will not be required under any circumstances.
    Mr. THOMAS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the War Office can use discharged soldiers for clerical work to take the place of the other men, instead of asking other employers to employ them?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think that is a question that ought to be addressed to the War Office.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: With special regard to the part of the answer that says these men might never be called up, is it the intention to leave these men in doubt as to whether or not they will be called up, and in doubt as to whether they should make arrangements for disposing of their businesses and the meeting of other contingencies?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: They will not be called up unless they are absolutely needed by the War Office for the purpose of the War. It cannot be stated at the present time how many will be required, but as soon as it is known ample notice will be given so that these men can make their arrangements.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Will my right hon. Friend reply to the last part of the question?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think an answer has been given. There is no compulsory labour. These men are serving in the Army, and as the Army requires men to do clerical work they are doing military service, and not compulsory labour in any sense of the term.
    Mr. PRINGLE: May I—
    Mr. SPEAKER: I would remind hon. Members that there are a very large number of questions down on the Paper.

    RECRUITING AUTHORITIES (PRESSURE OF WORK).
    Mr. THOMASasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Army Form W. 3236 has been addressed to a man named C. S. H. Oliver (Regimental No. C/203), New Cross, dated 23rd February, 1916, warning him that he is required to join for service with the Colours on 10th March under the provisions of the Military Service Act, 1916; whether he is aware that the above-named man enlisted on the 26th November, 1915, and is now serving (No. 4802) in D Company, 2/20th County of London Regiment, at Warminster; whether this man was included in the 650,000 unattested single men, notwithstanding the fact that he was married and had enlisted; and whether he will institute inquiries with a view to preventing annoyance and waste of time and money by adopting some system which would also avert the Military Service Act, 1916, being violated in this manner?
    Mr TENNANT: If the facts are as stated in the question, it would appear that a mistake has been made. This is a matter for regret, but, in view of the enormous burden of work which the recruiting authorities had to deal with in the last few months, a mistake is not altogether surprising. I cannot see that the man in question has suffered any damage.

    CHOICE OF REGIMENTS.
    Mr. WATTasked whether under the Derby scheme recruits have the right to choose their regiments provided there are vacancies therein; if so, is he aware that the officials of the Whitehall recruiting office are refusing to allow Scotsmen to choose Scottish regiments even where vacancies are known to exist, and in particular that they have recently refused to allow men to proceed to Scotland to join the Lowland Brigade Royal Field Artillery, even though they had arranged with
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    that Brigade so to act; and whether, in order not to injure recruiting, he will see this matter remedied?
    Mr. TENNANT: Subject to the existence of vacancies which, of course, depend on the exigencies of the Service, men are sent to the regiments they desire to join. If a Scotsman, who finds himself in Whitehall, wishes to return to his native country to join a Scottish regiment in which there is a vacancy, I can assure my hon. Friend that he would be posted to it. I have made inquiries regarding the incident mentioned, but the officials at the Whitehall recruiting office, who are most sympathetic to the claims of national patriotism, have no recollection of the case.

    MEDICAL UNFITNESS.
    Mr. WATTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has yet had any information as to the destruction at several of the recruiting stations in Glasgow by the recruiting sergeants and by the medical examiners of the evidence of medical unfitness since 14th August of men calling at these stations for purposes other than enlistment; if so, what action he proposes to take; and are these recruiting sergeants and medical men to continue as agents of his Department?
    Mr. TENNANT: Where a man has not attested the certificate of rejection will be returned to him. Instructions have been issued that the rejection certificate of any man who subsequently attested and was placed in category "B," which consists of men previously rejected on account of eyesight or some slight physical defect, is not to be destroyed but should be preserved by the recruiting officer and filed with the man's documents.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the case of R. Hope, S 2522, of Exeter, who attested under the group system in November last, was medically examined both at Taunton and Bristol, and passed as fit for service and placed in Group 6; whether he is aware that this man when his group was called up made all arrangements to leave civil life and gave up his employment as a shop manager; that on presenting himself he was again examined, informed that he was fit for Home service only, given 2s 9d., and sent away by the military authorities, who told him to hold himself in readiness to be called up in a week or a month or

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    six months; and that similar cases are occurring in other places; and whether it is the intention of the Government to accept financial responsibility in respect of men treated in this way?
    Mr. TENNANT: My attention has not been called to the case mentioned by my hon. Friend. It is open to any man who has been attested and who is desirous of knowing whether he is likely to be accepted as fit for general service to apply to the recruiting officer for medical examination by a board at any time before he is called up. The only expense the man is put to in the matter is that of his journey if the examination cannot take place near his own home. If upon such examination the man is rejected as unfit for service he is not called up. If he is passed as fit for service he will be again examined when he is called up, but the former certificate will be attached to his papers.

    CERTIFICATES OF EXEMPTION.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that starred and badged men at Sheffield who have asked for exemption forms have been refused such forms on the ground that the applicants were starred and badged; and whether he will state definitely that such men are exempt from compulsory military service, and cannot get into trouble at any future time because they do not possess a certificate of exemption?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am not sure whether the hon. Member is referring to men who have become voluntarily attested or to men to whom the Military Service Act applies. Instructions have been given by the War Office that a voluntarily attested man who is engaged in a certified occupation can go to the recruiting officer, and, upon satisfying him as to his occupation, receive a document corresponding to a certificate of exemption.
    In respect of men to whom the Military Service Act applies it was necessary for every man who desires exemption from the provisions of that Act (other than a man rightfully in possession on the 1st March of a war badge, and a certificate in conjunction therewith) to make an application to the local tribunal before this date. I am not aware that any starred and badged men have been refused exemption certificates on the ground that
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    they were starred. A badged man does not require any other certificate than the certificate issued with his badge.

    ROYAL ENGINEERS (ALLEGED WRONGFUL ARREST).
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Philip Edward Davey, private in the Royal Engineers, was wrongfully arrested as a deserter; that this lad went to the front at the age of sixteen and is only seventeen at the present time; that Davey, being claimed by his father on account of his age, was granted indefinite leave; and will he say on whose orders the wrongful arrest was made?
    Mr. TENNANT: Until I have made inquiry I cannot answer this question. I am making inquiry.

    BRITISH-BORN SONS OF ENEMY ALIENS.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked whether the British-born sons of enemy aliens will be accepted under the Military Service Act, 1916?
    Mr. TENNANT: The British-born sons of enemy parents are not outside the provisions of the Military Service Act. Such persons may be taken for military service under certain conditions and restrictions.

    BOYS UNDER EIGHTEEN AND NINETEEN.
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked if arrangements will be made whereby boys under eighteen years of age who have enlisted in the Army will be retained for Home service until they reach the enlistment age; and whether a boy under nine teen years of age who is an only son, or who is the surviving son of a family killed in action, and who enlisted under the age of nineteen, will be retained for Home service until he reaches the prescribed enlistment age?
    Mr. TENNANT: I would ask leave of the hon. Member to take the liberty of referring him to the answer I gave on the 2nd November, 1915, to the hon. Member for Blackburn.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Under-Secretary for War if he can say on what ground the officer in charge of records, No. 12 District, Cork, refused the application of Mrs. O'Sullivan, Hill View Road, Newcastle West, county Limerick, to have her son,

    1185
    Private Mortimer O' Sullivan, 8th Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, No. 5,816, discharged from the Army, as he is not yet eighteen years of age, as proved by his birth certificate forwarded to the said officer and receipt acknowledged; and whether, as he has not yet reached the military age, he will now be discharged?
    Mr. TENNANT: I must refer my hon. Friend to the same reply which I, a few moments ago, referred the hon. Member for Leix Division of Queen's County.

    BILLETING (BRAINTREE).
    Mr. KEATINGasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that the Rev. D. Coghlan, Presbytery, Bradford Street, Braintree, consented to billet nine soldiers, who remained from 4th November to 18th December, for which he is entitled, under the Army Regulations (Class III.a), to a rate of 2d. per man per day; that Father Coghlan supplied firing and hot water free during the whole time, and gas for five weeks, when Captain Matthews expressed a desire that it should be cut off; that he withdrew his consent on 13th December, owing to the refusal of the military authorities to admit the rate payable under Class III. a, but readmitted the soldiers upon the same day under the threat of Brigadier Watts to enforce the Defence of the Realm Act; that he has vainly applied for payment to the following persons to whom he was referred, seriatim: Quartermaster-Sergeant Glass, the Adjutant, Captain Minnett, Captain Matthews, Brigadier Watts, War Office, Lieutenant Halcrow, Land Agent at Bishop's Stortford, and the Defence of Realm Losses Royal Commission, to state claim in detail and swear before a magistrate, and obtain his signature that the claim is correct; that the amount payable is £3 6s., plus 12s. 6d. (the estimate of the officer in charge) for dilapidations, and that Captain Matthews informed him on 13th December that he may get something within six months' time; that other people in the same locality are being treated in the same way; and what steps he will take to remedy matters?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): I am having inquiry made into this case, and will let my hon. Friend know the result.

    MEDICAL STUDENTS.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked whether it is the intention of the Government to allow
    1186
    fourth and fifth-year medical students to complete their curriculum and thus qualify for commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps?
    Mr. TENNANT: Medical students in their fourth or fifth years of study and those in their third year of study whose examination takes place during the winter session must either attest under the group system or become liable to the Military Service Act. The fourth and fifth-year students will not be called up, and if the third-year students pass their examination they also will not be called up, but if they fail they will be called up. Students who have not attested under the group system, and who in consequence become liable to the Military Service Act, must appeal to the local tribunal if they desire exemption.
    Mr. PRINGLE: What is the intention of the War Office as to using these men when they qualify?
    Mr. TENNANT: It is intended that in the fourth and fifth year they should continue their studies.

    INFANTRY AND CAVALRY CAPTAINS (PROMOTION).
    Captain CLIVEasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that, by the unequal treatment in regard to promotion of Infantry and Cavalry captains with fifteen years' service and over, the latter not only suffer injustice at present but also must look forward during their future service to being superseded by officers now their contemporaries or their juniors; and whether he will take any action in the matter?
    Mr. TENNANT: I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer I have given to the hon. Baronet the Member for Mid-Armagh on the 17th February. Perhaps I may be permitted to point out that when, as was the case for a considerable period, Cavalry promotion was more rapid than Infantry promotion, there was never any agitation to accelerate Infantry promotion to the same degree of rapidity as prevailed in the Cavalry. I regret that I cannot undertake that sympathetic promotion for the Cavalry will be adopted.

    NORTH SEA FISHERIES (INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION).
    Mr. WATTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the work of

    1187
    the International Investigation of North Sea Fisheries is still proceeding; whether the agreement made in 1914 with the Continental countries, including Germany, to continue the co-operation for other five years, is being carried out; if not, what has been arranged; and are the staff engaged still being paid their salaries?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Acland): The work, which now consists mainly of the study of material previously collected, is proceeding. The agreement is being carried out as fully as the state of war will permit, the central organisation being maintained, but on a reduced scale, and its expenses for the current year being met out of the reserve fund. The staff at Copenhagen has been reduced and the three principal remaining members of it are, at their own suggestion, being paid at salaries reduced from 30 to 50 per cent. of the original amounts. The Board's own research staff is very largely reduced and its members are very largely employed in war work. I can let my hon. Friend have details as to this if he desires.
    Mr. WATT: Is the information obtained to be supplied to Germany as usual?
    Mr. ACLAND: I am not quite sure about that; I hope not.

    UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (INTERNED CIVILIANS).
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether insured civilians who have been interned abroad, and whose period of internment is to be treated as a period of temporary unemployment for the purposes of the National Insurance Acts, will be entitled to unemployment benefit in respect of any part of such period; must they pay such part of the contributions as would not have been payable in the ordinary course by the employer; and to what benefit will they be entitled in respect of such payments?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: The statement that a period of internment is to be treated as a period of temporary unemployment relates solely to health insurance, and has no application to unemployment insurance. No unemployment benefit and no unemployment insurance contributions are payable in respect of a period of internment.

    GOODS TRAFFIC.
    Mr. WILESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether complete arrangements have now been made for the interchange of goods trucks between the railway companies so that the waste of power, time, and labour caused by sending trucks back empty to the various depots may be avoided and the congestion at so many junctions and stations relieved?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave on Tuesday last to a similar question by the hon. Member for West Newington, of which I am sending him a copy.
    Mr. WILESasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will arrange that railway companies shall instruct all station masters to advise consignees of goods carried at station-to-station rates by telegram or telephone at once on receipt of the goods, instead of by post as at present, so that in many cases the accelerating of the unloading of the truck by at least twenty-four hours will result?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: I am afraid that a general arrangement such as that suggested by my hon. Friend would not be practicable. In addition, for example, to the considerable expense involved, it would throw a good deal of extra work on the depleted staff of the Post Office and the railway companies.

    WOOD IMPORTATION.
    Sir WALTER ESSEXasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the demands of the Admiralty and of the War Office, and their contractors, are jeopardised by the prohibition of import of hickory, lancewood, sabicu, padouk, lignum-vitæ, and other non-furnishing trade woods?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: A Committee has been appointed to issue licences in respect of woods covered by the prohibition, where special circumstances exist; and there is consequently no reason why any difficulties should be experienced of the kind suggested by my hon. Friend.
    Sir W. ESSEX: Will these licences be necessary in the case of vessels which left foreign ports before the date of issue of the Order making import licences necessary?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: Yes, licences will be necessary, but they will be issued with regard to these circumstances.

    DISCHARGED SOLDIERS, SCOTLAND (ALLOTMENTS).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he has received resolutions from Scotland asking that a scheme for providing discharged soldiers with allotments and small holdings should be carried out in Scotland; and whether he has anything further to announce regarding any such proposals?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I have received some resolutions to the effect mentioned in the first part of the question. In reply to the second part, I am unable to add anything to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Perthshire on 17th of last month.
    Mr. HOGGE: When will my right hon. Friend be able to add anything?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I cannot give an exact date.

    COTTON EXPORT LICENCES.
    Mr. WATTasked the hon. Member for Oswestry, as representing the War Trade Department, whether the export of cotton licences come wholly under his Department or whether the work is shared with some other Department; if the latter, can he say whether this is one of the causes of the delays in granting such licences; and will he see that his Department, having the responsibility, will in future do all the work?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN (representing the War Trade Department): The export of cotton is controlled by the Cotton Exports Committee appointed by the Board of Trade, and they advise the "War Trade Department as to whether licences should be granted or withheld. The position of the Committee in relation to the Department is at present receiving the consideration of the Minister of Blockade.

    NATURAL-BORN BRITISH SUBJECTS (INTERNMENT).
    Mr. ELLIS DAVIESasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has
    1190
    been called to the fact that, in course of the argument on the Zadig case, the Attorney-General claimed that naturalborn British subjects could be interned without trial under the Regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act; and whether, if the statement made by the Attorney-General represents the view of the Cabinet, he can see his way to afford the House of Commons an opportunity of discussing the advisability or otherwise of vesting such powers in the Executive?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE (for the Prime Minister): The Attorney-General did not make the claim in the language or the sense suggested in the question. The Attorney-General claimed, as is the fact, that natural-born British subjects can be interned "if they have a hostile origin or associations," and not otherwise. I believe the case is under appeal, and I do not think it desirable that the question should be discussed in this House till the appeal has been decided.
    Mr. DAVIES: Is not the Attorney-General so reported in the "'Times' Law. Reports"?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That I cannot say. The Attorney-General states that that is the position which he maintained in argument.
    Mr. ASHLEY: Are we to understand that no British subjects are interned under that Order?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If they are of hostile origin or association they come within that principle.
    Mr. DAVIES: Did not the Lord Chief Justice expressly say that the question was not the validity of that regulation, but the power of the Executive to make the regulation, and that was the decision?
    Mr. PRINGLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what "hostile association" is?
    Mr. KINGrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: I understand that the matter is before the Courts.

    AIR RAIDS (STATE INSURANCE SCHEME).
    Mr. ROWNTREEasked the Prime Minister whether he has received from the York City Council a resolution urging that the present scheme of insurance against

    1191
    damage to property by aircraft and bombardment is unjust; and whether he will consider the advisability of amending the scheme?
    Mr LLOYD GEORGE: My right hon. Friend has received the resolution referred to, and the representations that have been made to the Government on this subject have been considered. It is not proposed to alter the basis of the existing Government insurance scheme.

    EVACUATION OF GALLIPOLI (REWARDS AND PROMOTIONS).
    Colonel LOCKWOODasked the Prime Minister when the list of special rewards to officers concerned in the evacuation of Gallipoli, which he foreshadowed on 10th January, will be announced; and whether, in view of the delay which has occurred, he will arrange that any promotions which may be granted shall be antedated to 1st January, in order that the officers concerned may not be placed at a disadvantage as compared with those who were rewarded on the strength of Lord French's and Sir Ian Hamilton's recent dispatches?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I hope that the list may be published in the course of next week. Any promotions which may be given as special rewards will, under arrangements already made, bear date 1st January.

    IRON (MINIMUM PRICES).
    Mr. WATTasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the fact that a firm of ironbrokers in the city of Glasgow were aware for ten days beforehand of the intention of the Government to fix a minimum price for iron and what that price was to be; and whether he will take any action to prevent such leakage in the future of Cabinet information?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Ministry of Munitions has been in communication for some weeks with the manufacturers of iron and steel in the country with a view to fixing maximum prices for their various products, and the matter has been discussed quite openly. The price depends on a variety of factors, such as the cost of ore, freights and coke, all of which have to be taken into account.

    MONTENEGRO.
    Sir WILLIAM BULLasked whether it is the intention of the British Government to include Montenegro in the promise that has been made to Belgium and Serbia?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member may rest assured that the interests of Montenegro will not be lost sight of by the Allies in the final settlement.

    PARLIAMENTARY SALARIES.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSONasked whether arrangements can be made to pay the salaries of Ministers and Members of the House partly in cash and partly in Exchequer Bonds?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): As regards Ministers, I would refer to the answer given to the hon. Member for London University on the 29th ultimo; as regards Members, the question is one for the consideration of the authorities of the House, and perhaps my hon. Friend would consult with them.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain what he means by "this is a question for the consideration of the authorities of the House"? Is it not a question for the House itself?
    Mr. MONTAGU: What I meant was that if a Member of the House of Commons desires that his salary should be paid in a particular way, the proper course is to apply to the proper authorities of the House and state his wishes.

    OLD AGE PENSIONS.
    Mr. BOYTONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the Department, in estimating the value of the benefit derived by the inmate of a home applying for a pension under the Old Age Pensions Act, takes into consideration for the purpose of disqualification the increased value attaching to such benefit by reason of the increased cost of food; and whether, for example, a person resident in a home the value of the benefit from which had been increased from 12s. 6d. a week to 15s. a week on account of the increased cost of food, and who would have been eligible for a 5s. pension as part of

    1193
    the sum of 12s. 6d. becomes ineligible for such pension by reason of the increase to 15s.?
    Mr. LONG: I do not find that a decision has been given in any case involving the point raised by my hon. Friend. An appeal, however, in circumstances similar to those mentioned in the question is now before me, and is being investigated. I will give the matter my most careful consideration.

    INCREASED RENTS (NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE).
    Mr. HUDSONasked the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that in quite a large number of cases the landlords in Newcastle-upon-Tyne increased the standard rents of workmen's dwellings between the 3rd day of August, 1914, and the date upon which the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1916, became operative, and that in cases where the tenants refuse to pay such increase the landlords are entering the difference in rent in the arrears column of the rent books; and will he say what action, if any, he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. LONG: I am not aware that there are many cases of the kind referred to. I may point out that, if the increase above the standard rent was made between the 3rd August, 1914, and the date of passing of the Act, and there are arrears, such arrears are recoverable in respect of rent which accrued due before the 25th November, 1915, and are irrecoverable in respect of rent which accrued due on or after that date. In so far as the arrears are irrecoverable, the tenant seems sufficiently protected, and I do not think it necessary, on the information before me, to take any action.

    COLONIAL OFFICE VOTE.
    Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked whether the Colonial Office Vote will be brought on at an early day?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If there is a general desire that the Colonial Office Vote should be put down for an early date it will be so arranged.

    NORTH SEA LIGHTSHIPS.
    Mr. FELLasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if his attention has been
    1194
    called to the crews of the lightships stationed in the North Sea and to the fact that they have to pay full duty on the tobacco they consume whilst on these ships for two months at a time; and why they cannot, whilst doing what is to all purposes Government work during the War, be put on the same footing as an auxiliary force of the Admiralty and have their tobacco duty free?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. McKenna): I am afraid I cannot agree to extend to the merchant service in Home waters a concession which is strictly confined to the Royal Navy and is refused to other Government vessels.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT.

    EDINBURGH PROSECUTION.
    Mr. CURRIEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been drawn to the recent criminal prosecution, lasting for several days in the Edinburgh High Court, of the officials of a railway company; whether he is aware that the sum of money at stake was 19s. 2d. and that the costs of the trial, which engaged the attention of the Lord President of the Court of Session, six counsel, and several naval officers of high rank, are estimated at about £2,000; whether the case for the prosecution broke down on every single point; whether the whole costs now fall to be paid by the taxpayers of the country or by the defendants found guiltless of any offence; whether he is aware that the parties prosecuted have received the thanks of the Government for their services in connection with the mobilisation of troops; and whether his Department has any power to prevent such actions in Scotland?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The suggestion that the sum of money at stake was 19s. 2d. proceeds on a misapprehension of the proceedings. The proceedings were criminal proceedings for a contravention of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and not for the recovery in the Civil Courts of the sum of 19s. 2d.
    My hon. Friend is, I believe, incorrect as to the costs of the trial, but upon that, no doubt, the Lord Advocate could inform him.
    The object of the Admiralty in instituting these proceedings was to establish the principle that no local authority or

    1195
    person shall have the power to hamper the movements of any ship engaged in His Majesty's Service upon war work. This principle we still think of vital importance.
    As regards the last paragraph of the question the Admiralty is always glad to acknowledge the great services performed by Mr. Whitelaw, as general manager of the North British Railway, in the transport of troops and war-like stores.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Did the Admiralty think it necessary to spend all this money to establish a principle?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The amount of money, I think, has not been quite correctly stated; but, as I have said, it was necessary to establish the principle.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Was it denied?
    Mr. HOGGE: May I inquire whether one of the accused persons was the manager of one of the railways that is now controlled by the Government, and therefore one of the Government's own servants? Will the right hon. Gentleman see in future that one servant of the Government in one Department does not quarrel with another servant in another Department, so involving this kind of action?
    Mr. COWAN: Was £2,000 actually expended in this action?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As I have said, the Lord Advocate can give the facts, but I understand the figure is very much smaller—something in the region of £30—because counsel for the Crown, including the Lord Advocate, are paid an inclusive salary, and do not receive any fees for such proceedings as do English law officers.
    Mr. CURRIE: Arising out of that question—
    Mr. SPEAKER: There are many questions on the Paper.

    CAP HELLES AND SUVLA BAY (EVACUATION).
    Mr. STUART-WORTLEYasked when it is to be expected that detailed naval dispatches will be made public dealing with the evacuation of Cap Helles and Suvla Bay?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not intended to publish these dispatches which concern themselves almost entirely with the organisation for carrying out the operation, and are therefore necessarily confidential.

    GLASGOW TRAWLER.
    Mr. WATTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the trawler "Nettle of Granton," belonging to Glasgow owners, has been commandeered recently by his Department; whether, in view of the fact that this vessel is to be used only for boom-protecting, many other boats less useful for fishing would have served the purpose of his Department; and whether he is aware that such commandeering of up-to-date trawlers deprives the workers of the West of Scotland engaged on important work for his Department of one of the necessary and cheap articles of diet?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. Friend is misinformed. This vessel has not been commandeered by the Admiralty.

    ADMIRALTY TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the names of the shipowners who are giving their assistance and advice to the Transport Department of the Admiralty?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The members of the Committee appointed to advise the Director of Transports are: Mr. T. Royden, Mr. E. W. Glover, Mr. F. C. Gardiner, Mr. J. Groves, Sir Edward Hain. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham has been a member of the Committee from the beginning, but has been temporarily detached from the Committee while employed on another service for the Government.

    ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCES.
    Sir E. BEAUCHAMPasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the anti-aircraft defences of Lowestoft are under the control of the naval authorities; and, if so, whether he can say how soon after the German aeroplanes first appeared over the town, on Sunday, 20th February, our aeroplanes, if any, were sent up in pursuit?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As my hon. Friend is aware, the Under-Secretary of State for War stated in Debate, on 16th February, the arrangements made under which the Navy undertake to deal with all hostile aircraft attempting to reach this country, whilst the Army undertake to deal with all such craft which reach these shores.
    In this particular case, machines went up from the nearest air station to Lowestoft ten minutes after the hostile aeroplanes arrived at Lowestoft.
    This is shown in the communication issued by the Press Bureau on 20th February.

    EDUCATION (IRELAND).
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Secretary to the Treasury if Grants in aid of building new schools or altering old ones in necessitous areas are still made in England while all building Grants are stopped in Ireland, even in areas where the health of the pupils and teachers is gravely endangered owing to insanitary surroundings; and whether Grants in aid of building schools in Irish necessitous areas will be made as heretofore?
    Mr. MONTAGU: No Grants in aid of building or altering schools are made in England. Such Grants in Ireland have not, as the hon. Member suggests, been entirely discontinued, but have been confined in the interest of the national finances to specially urgent cases.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS ACT, 1915.
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether the Statutory Committee, acting under Section 3, Sub-section (3), of the Naval and Military War Pensions, etc., Act, 1915, have appointed a special Sub-Committee, including representatives of employers and of labour, to make provision for the care of disabled officers and men; and when the names of such Committee can be announced?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The special Sub-Committee in question has been appointed. Subject to the possible addition of a few members, who have not at present signi-
    1198
    fied their acceptance of the invitation to serve on the Committee, the membership of the Committee is as follows:—
    Ex-officio Members—

    H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, as Chairman of the Statutory Committee.

    Mr. Cyril Jackson, as Vice-Chairman of the Statutory Committee.

    Right Hon. W. Hayes Fisher, M.P.

    Soldiers' and Sailors' Help Society—
    Lord Cheylesmore.
    Officers' Families Association—
    Lady Roberts.
    Admiralty—
    Admiral Sir Wilmot H. Fawkes, G.C.B., K.C.V.O., etc.
    Army Council—
    Mr. B. B. Cubitt, C.B.
    National Health Insurance Joint Committee—
    Mr. D. J. Shackleton.
    Labour Exchanges Dept. (Board of Trade)—
    Mr. J. S. Nicholson.
    Local Government Board—
    Mr. A. V. Symonds.
    Board of Agriculture—
    Mr. F. L. C. Floud.
    Representatives of Labour—

    Right Hon. G. N. Barnes, M.P.

    Mr. Harry Gosling.

    Mr. Will Thorne, M.P.

    Mr. Herbert Smith.

    Mr. Wm. Mullins.

    Mr. J. E. Williams.

    Representing the Co-operative Interest—

    Mr. Lander,

    Mr. Harry May.

    Lieut.-Colonel (R.A.M.C.) Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, K.C.V.O., etc.

    Sir John Cowan.

    Sir Archibald McInnes Shaw.

    Mr. Patrick O'Brien, M.P.

    The Right Hon. R. Thompson, M.P.

    Mr. L. A. Martin.

    Mr. Harris Spencer.

    Dr. William Garnett.

    HON. MEMBERS: Any more names?
    Mr. HOGGE: Has my right hon. Friend any intention of setting up separate Committees for the various nationalities, or will this Committee deal with the United Kingdom?
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: That will be one of the first questions for the consideration of the Committee whose names I have just read out.

    HUNTS (IRELAND).
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that the continuance of hunts is strongly desired by the Government, the Treasury will grant reasonable subsidies to hunts in Ireland, the abandonment of which is inevitable owing to the impossibility of maintenance during the continuance of the War?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): It does not appear to me that a case will be made out for the subsidies suggested by the hon. Member.

    PRISON WARDERS (IRELAND).
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that owing to increased cost of living prison warders in Ireland are finding it impossible to support themselves and their families out of their present wage; and whether, taking into consideration the fact that a considerable sum has been saved out of last year's Prison Estimates, a sufficient increase of wages can be granted to enable a responsible body of public servants to support themselves and their families without incurring debts they cannot discharge?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am aware of the difficulties with which Irish prison warders, in common with other classes of the community are faced in consequence of the present hight cost of living. Proposals for an increase of wages in their case are at present receiving the consideration of the Treasury and the Irish Government.
    Mr. MEEHAN: Is the right hon. Genman aware that before the War the Advisory Board appointed by the Lord Lieutenant unanimously recommended an increased wage for warders employed in our prisons?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am very well aware that the prison warders have a very strong case indeed.

    NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS (IRELAND).
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that, owing to the increase in the cost of living caused by the War, the present salaries payable to national teachers in Ireland, at no time extravagant, are totally inadequate to meet their current expenses and that many teachers with families are verging on actual want; and whether, under the circumstances, an increase in salaries or grants will be made to Irish national teachers to enable them to live at least in a self-respecting manner befitting public servants entrusted with the education of a nation?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am aware of the difficulties with which national school teachers, in common with other classes of the community, are faced in consequence of the present high cost of living, but I regret that under present conditions I am not in a position to recommend general increases of salaries.
    Mr. MEEHAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any hope of getting the scheme for the payment of salaries monthly approved by the Treasury?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have made proposals of that kind before the teachers, and I have urged them to accept them. I think it is most desirable for the teachers to accept them, and, although they do entertain them favourably, I have not yet received from the teachers any acceptance of the proposal.

    DIVIDENDS (INCOME TAX).
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that in cases where investors received dividends and interest in 1914, subject to deduction of Income Tax at 1s. 4d., the rate passed in Committee of Ways and Means but subsequently altered in the Finance Bill to 1s. 3d., they are being called upon by the Inland Revenue to make payment of an additional 5d. in the £ (and not 4d.), so as to meet the subsequent increase in the rate for the year 1914–15 from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 8d., and to make a reclaim of the difference of 1d. by obtaining from the various companies or paying agents certificates that tax was deducted at 1s. 4d. instead of at 1s. 3d.; is he aware that a demand has been made for additional tax even in a case where the varying rates

    1201
    deducted during the year 1914–15 resulted in a total deduction in excess of 1s. 8d.; will he take into consideration that the method employed causes much inconvenience and trouble to all parties concerned, and must increase the work of the Inland Revenue authorities themselves; that in many cases it is practically impossible to produce certificates of deduction, as bankers follow the rule of issuing certificates only if asked for them when the coupons are presented for encashment; that it is the desire of customers to give the bankers as little trouble as possible at a time when they are working with greatly reduced staffs; that the procedure of the Inland Revenue would necessitate applications for certificates involving mere matters of pence in individual cases, but amounting to substantial sums in the aggregate; and will he consider the desirability of instructing the Inland Revenue authorities to obtain from the companies or paying agents supplying particulars of dividends or interest on which tax was not adjusted statements of the rate of tax actually deducted, and to claim from the recipients of the dividends only the actual amount required to adjust the tax to the basis of 1s. 8d. in the £?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The course suggested in the last part of the question has been adopted by the Inland Revenue authorities, as far as practicable, but in a number of individual cases the information before them has not been sufficient to show whether or not the originally excessive deduction had subsequently been adjusted. If the hon. Member will give me particulars of any case in which the method employed in the collection of the additional duty causes disproportionate trouble, I will see whether the procedure cannot be simplified.

    PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can see his way to reduce the printing account by stopping the circulation amongst Members of the House, the Press, and public institutions, of the daily Parliamentary papers, "Board of Trade Labour Gazette," circulars from the Boards of Agriculture, Education, etc., during the War?
    Mr. MONTAGU: Much is being done in the direction suggested by my hon. Friend, and I would gladly consider any
    1202
    suggestions he may have to offer. As regards Members of the House they can do much to help by refraining from applying for Papers which they do not want.

    WOOLWICH ARSENAL (EMPLOYMENT OF BOYS).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the annual loss of boys employed at Woolwich Arsenal owing to defects of health or character resulting from the abnormal hours, wages, and conditions of their employment now reaches 50 per cent. per annum; and what steps is he taking to secure for these boys a renewal of education, discipline, and health which will equip them for another chance in life
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. H. L Lewis): The figure given in the first part of the question has been mentioned to me, but I am not aware how far it is authoritative. I am informed that Local Juvenile Advisory Committees in London receive particulars of all boys in their districts who leave Woolwich Arsenal, and make it a practice to invite the boys to the Labour Exchange in cases where this appears desirable, and to advise and assist them with regard to their industrial future. The question of making special educational provision for children and young persons who have been abnormally employed in consequence of the War is receiving my careful consideration.

    STALLIONS (TRAVELLING).
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the difficulty owners of heavy horses (stallions) are experiencing in making arrangements for the travelling of their horses for the coming season in consequence of their men having joined the Army; and will he arrange that such of these men as are still in training be released for a few weeks for this purpose?
    Mr. ACLAND: Yes, Sir, the attention of the Department has been called to this difficulty, and we are in communication with the War Office on the subject. I hope that suitable arrangements to meet the difficulty will be approved before very long.

    WAR AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEES (SCHOOL EXEMPTIONS).
    Mr. KINGasked whether the Board of Agriculture has now formed about six or seven hundred War Agricultural Committees; whether these Committees are sending resolutions to the education authorities demanding the exemption of boys and girls from school at eleven years of age; whether these resolutions are sent in the name of the Board of Agriculture; and whether the Board accepts responsibility for the acts and resolutions of the War Agricultural Committees?
    Mr. ACLAND: War Agricultural Committees have been formed, probably between six hundred and seven hundred in number, at the invitation of the President of the Board. I have reason to believe that in a few instances resolutions to the effect suggested by the hon. Member have been sent by such Committees to the education authorities. The answers to the third and fourth parts of the question are in the negative.

    BRITISH CURRENCY NOTES IN GERMANY.
    Mr. FELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give any information respecting the £1 notes purporting to have been issued by the British Government which are said to be in circulation in Germany; and if he knows anything of the origin of such notes or how they are supposed to have reached Germany?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have no official nor authentic information on the point, but I understand that it has been stated in the Press that British currency notes are finding their way into Germany.
    Mr. FELL: Is the Treasury making any inquiry in Holland or in other places respecting this suggestion?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have no means of inquiring with regard to Germany.
    Mr. FELL: Are these percolating into Germany through Holland, or are they forged notes?
    Mr McKENNA: If the hon. Gentleman asks me my personal opinion upon the point, I very much doubt if there are any of these notes in Germany.

    OVERSEAS RECRUITS (INCOME TAX).
    Mr. NIELDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Inland Revenue Department through its officers are demanding from members of the Overseas Forces, who have been granted commissions in British regiments, payment of Income Tax not only on their regimental pay and allowances, but on their aggregate income, including that derived from business or other sources in the Dominions, and based upon the rate in force in this country, although such last-mentioned income has been taxed or is liable to Income Tax in such Dominions; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. McKENNA: The instructions given by the Board of Inland Revenue are that any Income Tax assessments on a person who has come from overseas to join the naval or military forces should be restricted to his pay from the United Kingdom, and that any income derived by him from sources in the Dominions should neither be charged with tax nor included in the calculation of total income in determining his title to exemption or abatement.

    LOCAL AUTHORITIES (GRANTS).
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, for the guidance of local governing bodies who are now preparing their yearly estimates, he will state whether any reduction or discontinuance of Grants to local authorities will be proposed this year?
    Mr. McKENNA: I fear I am unable to anticipate the next financial statement.

    PRISONERS OF WAR IN TURKEY.
    Mr. MACMASTERasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he can give a list of the names of British prisoners of war in Turkey and the place of their internment; and what are the opportunities for communicating with them and of dispatching letters and parcels to them?
    Mr. TENNANT: I deeply regret that the list of the names of the British prisoners of war in Turkey is so long that if I were to attempt to read it no further progress could be made to-day with the other important business before the House.

    1205
    I can, however, show the hon. Member a list. Most of the names have, I think, been published. The places at which the prisoners are interned are: Angora, Afion-Kara-Hisar Bozanti. There are also wounded in the hospitals at Constantinople and some in hospital at Smyrna. I understand that the majority, if not the whole, of the prisoners captured by the Turks in Mesopotamia are at Mossoul. Letters and parcels can be dispatched to prisoners and are sent through the Swiss post office. It is believed that the majority of them reach the addressees.

    SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
    Mr. THOMASasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a number of men of the 1st Monmouthshire Regiment have not had leave of absence since going to France in February, 1915; and, having regard to the fact that inquiries were being made recently into this matter, since when these men have been in Egypt and are now back in France, he will take steps to ensure leave being granted after such long service?
    Mr. TENNANT: I fear I cannot intervene to ask that leave may be given to particular soldiers or bodies of soldiers, without regard to the rules and conditions in force at the time. These rules and conditions are administered, and can only be administered with fairness and impartiality, by the military authorities in France, who have the whole position before them. If the battalion in question has returned to France from elsewhere, my hon. Friend may, I think, be assured that they will be granted equal facilities with other units of the British Expeditionary Force in that country. This, of course, will be subject to military exigencies. I submit to the House that when our Allies are heavily engaged with the enemy, the moment is not altogether appropriate for discussion of questions of leave for British soldiers, though I, of course, fully sympathise with and understand the point of view from which my hon. Friend has put this question.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that when men are warned for drafts for the front all leave is now cancelled; and whether he will consider
    1206
    the possibility of granting every man forty-eight hours' leave after he is warned for the purpose of seeing his relatives?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am afraid that it is impossible when a draft is placed under orders for embarkation to grant further leave to those included in the draft, but every possible opportunity is taken to ensure that the men who are likely to be included in drafts are given leave in advance of the draft being placed under orders. As I indicated just now, the present and future phases of the War do not, and will not, admit of increased facilities for leave. The position will, in fact, be rather the reverse.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that men who are sent out have some means of communicating with their relatives before they go?
    Mr. TENNANT: It is not always possible to do what my hon. Friend suggests. It is the policy of the War Office to endeavour to do it, but sometimes the order comes for the men to go out very rapidly, and it cannot be done.

    SERVICE RIFLES.
    Major Sir CHARLES HUNTERasked what number of service rifles, either Mark I.* or Mark III., remained in store after the Reserves had been called up and armed at the commencement of the War?
    Mr. TENNANT: It is not in the public interest to give this information. The authorised reserve of rifles was in possession at the outbreak of war.
    Major Sir C. HUNTER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why it is not in the public interest to give information as to what happened eighteen months ago? The information that is asked for concerns what happened eighteen months ago.
    Mr. TENNANT: It is never in the public interest to give numbers of weapons or munitions of war. It never has been. All I wish to assure the hon. and gallant Member is that at the time of the outbreak of War we were in possession of the proper reserves of rifles.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYDasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will inquire into the case of Corporal A. R. H. Davies, No. 12722, 6th King's Shropshire Light Infantry, who was wounded in the spine at Loos and has now received his discharge papers, and consider his parents' belief that with care and skilled treatment for a short time longer their son may be cured, and request that he may not be discharged until every effort has been made to restore him to health?
    Mr. TENNANT: The desire of Corporal Davies to remain in the Army does him great credit. I understand that he is at present a patient in the Kingsland Red Cross Hospital, Shrewsbury, and further inquiry is being made as to his present state of health, and his parents' request, as stated in the question, will receive every consideration.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he can say why Mrs. M. Harte, of Maiden Street, Newcastle West, county Limerick, wife of Sergeant Patrick Harte, No. 3497, Royal Munster Fusiliers, attached to the 2nd, who was mentioned in Sir John French's dispatches for bravery and distinguished conduct, has not received, since the 2nd January last, her separation allowance of 19s. 8d. a week, but a pension from Army funds of 11s. a week, although there is no proof of the death of her husband; and whether her application for separation allowance will be granted?
    Mr. FORSTER: This soldier was reported missing on 20th May of last year, and has not been heard of since. In such circumstances payment of separation allowance and allotment continues for thirty weeks from the date on which the payee is notified that a soldier is missing, after which pension becomes payable. This procedure has been followed in the case of Sergeant Harte.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether a man is discharged from the Army upon the recommendation of the medical board and before the amount of his pension has been settled by Chelsea, and whether a gap of some weeks occurs between the time when he ceases to receive Army pay and becomes entitled to his pension; and what arrangements are made by the War Office to meet this obvious hardship?
    Mr. FORSTER: No, Sir; the arrangements made by the War Office are such that the delay feared by the hon. Member does not occur, except by mishap in an occasional case.

    PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION (EMPLOYéS' STRIKE.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that in the Portsmouth Garrison Orders, dated 21st February, there is inserted an advertisement to the effect that the Portsmouth Corporation has vacancies for men as stokers, cleaners, labourers, drivers, and scavengers; whether he is aware that these vacancies are caused by the corporation employés being on strike; and whether he will inform the garrison commander that such an advertisement should not be inserted in the orders?
    Mr. TENNANT: I was not aware of what is stated in the question to have happened. I am obtaining a report.

    Assets of Deceased British Subjects (United States).
    Mr. P. WHITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, when a subject of the United Kingdom long resident in the United States dies leaving assets of considerable value and the next-of-kin in this country does not claim the amount until a period of fifteen years has elapsed, it becomes necessary that a Bill should be passed by the legislature of the State where the funds are deposited before the money can be obtained; and if, in such cases, the British Consul to the State undertakes the passage of the necessary Bill authorising payment?
    Sir E. GREY: I am not aware of this requirement. Each State of the Union has its own laws, but His Majesty's Consular officers abroad cannot interfere in matters of internal legislation of the country in which they reside.
    A Convention signed at Washington, 2nd March, 1899, deals with the question of the disposal of real and personal property within the territories of the one Power on the death of subjects or citizens holding such property of the other Power.

    Franciscan Fathers, Athlone.
    Mr. P. WHITEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has received a resolution from the Oldcastle Board of Guardians protesting against the action of the Local Government Board auditor in treating the Franciscan Fathers of Athlone as outlaws; what action he proposes to take; whether he will state what statutory authority the auditor had for his action; at what date it was passed; and whether it put a price on the heads of the outlawed priests?
    Mr. BIRRELL: As there is a great deal of misconception in Ireland about this matter, I will ask the indulgence of the House for the length of my reply.
    Various Irish Poor Law and other Statutes exempt from liability to rating premises used exclusively for public worship and premises used exclusively for charitable purposes. The Franciscans, who are an Order subsisting by public charity, occupy in Athlone, besides their church, a building in which they live. The church is immune from rating liability, and has been always and is so treated. On the other hand, it having been decided by the Lord Chief Baron, in a similar case from Ennis, that premises used as a residence for particular persons who are the owners or some of the owners thereof are not used exclusively for charitable purposes, and are, therefore, subject to rating, these premises in Athlone were included by the Commissioner of Valuation in the lists of premises liable to rating. Thereupon, it was the legal duty of the local authorities to collect the rates on the premises, and, as they did not do so, the auditor, as he was legally obliged to do, surcharged them with the amount of the rates, about £4 or £5. The auditor is an official whose duties are of a semi-judicial character, in the discharge of which he is not under the control of the Local Government Board or of anybody else, nor does he consult the Local Government Board. The surcharge in the circumstances above stated is all that happened, and the Local Government Board had, directly or indirectly, nothing whatever to do with the matter. It is, therefore, not correct to say that the Franciscan priests were treated as outlaws by the Local Government Board, or by the auditor, or by anybody else.
    The question of law as to the liability of the premises to rating is not one for the Local Government Board or for me,
    1210
    but the Franciscans can next year, if they are so advised, challenge the auditor's decision in a Court of Law. I may add I am informed that the notion that the Franciscans were treated as outlaws seems to have arisen from observations made in the course of the Ennis case as to the effect of an old and practically obsolete Section of a famous Statute of 1829. Were this Section to be repealed, as it ought to be, I am advised that the legal question of the liability of these premises to rating would be left unaffected.

    Navan Rural District Council.
    Mr. P. WHITEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Navan Rural District Council applied to the Department of Agriculture for permission to plough part of the Oldtown farm in order to eradicate disease and were refused; whether the council has since applied for a Grant to purchase such manures as were suitable to the condition of the land; if the Grant will be given; and, if not, what steps the Board propose to take to render the land suitable for the purpose for which it was intended?
    Mr. BIRRELL: In reply to the first part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him by the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) on 13th January on this subject. The Navan Rural District Council have applied to the Department for a Grant or loan towards the cost of manuring the plot referred to. This Department have, however, no funds available for the making of such Grants or loans. The decision as to the steps which should be taken to improve the land in question for use as a pasture is a matter for the trustees, but the Department will be glad, if the Rural District Council so desire, to advise as to the best methods of treatment.
    Mr. WHITE: When do they hope to acquire the land?
    Mr. BIRRELL: There is some doubt about giving an answer to a question of that sort, because delays in this matter constantly arise, but it is being pressed forward.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. WHITEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have yet pronounced their

    1211
    decision on the question of acquiring untenanted land on the Nicholson estate, Balrath, county Meath; and, if not, whether, having regard to the fact that the time has now arrived for cultivating the land for this year's crops, they will deal with that portion of the untenanted land on the estate which is intended for the enlargement of the economic holdings without further delay?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. The Estates Commissioners, not having yet acquired the lands referred to in the second part of the question, have no power to deal with them.

    Sheep Dipping Order (Ireland).
    Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) if his attention has been called to resolutions passed by county councils in Ireland calling for the withdrawal of the Sheep Dipping (Appointment of Inspectors) Order, 1915, owing to the expenditure involved by its operation; and what action he intends taking in the matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Department of Agriculture (Ireland) have received in a few instances resolutions from local authorities objecting to the Sheep Dipping (Appointment of Inspectors) (Ireland) Order of 1915, on the grounds of the expense involved. The Department, in the interests of the important sheep trade of the country, consider the Order in question to be necessary, and do not propose to withdraw it. It is not believed that the ultimate expense which would fall on the local authorities in connection with the enforcement of the Order need be considerable.
    Mr. MEEHAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that up to the present the Royal Irish Constabulary have superintended sheep dipping in Ireland, and has there been any outbreak of sheep scab or other disease which would warrant a new set of officials?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am aware that the Royal Irish Constabulary, in the discharge of their very numerous duties, have undertaken this peculiar operation. I can only say the Department consider that the Order in question is one they ought not to withdraw.
    Mr. LYNCH: Would the right hon. Gentleman take the sense of the various counties in Ireland, especially at a moment when economy is being instituted everywhere?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Oliver Cromwell, when asked to take the sense of the House, said he found it easier to take the nonsense of the House.

    Procurators-fiscal, Ayr and Rothesay.
    Mr. WATTasked the Lord Advocate whether, in his recent appointments of Procurators-fiscal to Ayr and Rothesay, he considered the advisability of uniting the office of the latter with that of Dunoon; whether he has considered the possibility of the one official performing the duties of both offices, with the saving to the nation of a considerable sum of money; and whether he will, in future appointments to posts that partially occupy one day in seven, adopt the policy of amalgamation?
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Munro): I consider that an amalgamation of the offices of Procurator-fiscal at Dunoon and Procurator-fiscal at Rothesay would, in view of the local circumstances, not be advisable. While I am not aware of the existence of any such leisured posts as are referred to in the last part of my hon. and learned Friend's question, I would refer him to recent appointments to the office of Procurator-fiscal, which show that the policy of amalgamation is considered and, if thought proper, adopted in making appointments to that office.

    Portsmouth Corporation (Employés' Strike).
    Mr. C. DUNCANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that about 300 men in different grades of service under the Portsmouth Corporation are out on strike for an advance of wages to bring them up to the trade union level; that before the strike commenced, and since, the men's offer to submit the matter to arbitration has been refused by the corporation; and whether he will take steps to secure that the local authority shall adopt the policy recommended by the Government at the present time in all matters of industrial dispute?
    Mr. PRETYMAN: The strike to which my hon. Friend refers has been the subject of communications between the Board of

    1213
    Trade and the parties, and I understand that the corporation have not, so far, seen their way to agree to refer the difference to arbitration. As my hon. Friend is aware, unless the dispute is one which comes within the provisions of the Munitions of War Acts, the Department have no authority to appoint an arbitrator, except with the consent of both parties.

    Agricultural Inquiry (Ireland).
    Mr. P. WHITEasked the Secretary to the Treasury the cost of the Depart mental Committee's Inquiry into agricultural credit, Ireland, the Irish pig-breeding industry, and the Viceregal Commission on the Irish milk supply, respectively?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The cost to the funds of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into agricultural credit in that country was £1,688, and that of the pig-breeding Committee £420. The expenditure for the Viceregal Commission on Irish milk supply was £2,048.

    Public Elementary Schools (Number on Registers).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education when he will be able to make public the number of children at each year of age on the registers of public elementary schools in January, 1916?
    Mr. H. LEWIS: I cannot at the present moment answer my hon. Friend's question, but the matter is being gone into.

    Revenue (Ireland).
    Mr. P. WHITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total estimated revenue expected from Ireland for the current financial year, and the amount of its constituent parts under the headings of Customs, Excise, Estate Duties, Stamps, Income Tax, Land Value Duties, and from other sources; and whether he will give a corresponding return for each of the three preceding years, and also for the three complete financial years preceding the coming into operation of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910?
    Mr. McKENNA: As regards the first part of the question I am not at present in a position to add to the information given in reply to questions by the hon. Member for Westmeath, North, on 4th January last. The information asked for in the
    1214
    last part of the question will be found in House of Commons Paper, No. 309, of 1915, and the corresponding returns for previous years.

    NEW MEMBERS SWORN.
    Herbert James Whiteley, Esquire, for County of Worcester (Mid or Droitwich Division).
    Captain William Edge, for Borough of Bolton.

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have agreed to,—
    Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill,
    Naval Prize Procedure Bill, without Amendment.

CITY OF LONDON TRIBUNAL.

  PERSONAL EXPLANATION: MAJOR ROTHSCHILD.
  Major LIONEL DE ROTHSCHILD: It has always been the practice of the House of Commons to allow a personal explanation, and I hope that the House will allow me to make a reply this afternoon to the attack which was made upon me, as military representative to the City of London Tribunal, on Monday afternoon, and to explain details which were not quite clear. I am aware that I should have been present during the Debate, but recruiting officers and military representatives are so hard-worked at present that it is impossible for them to give any attention except to the work before them. The reason of my explanation lies in the fact that hon. Members have accused me, as well as other recruiting officers and military representatives, of trying to evade the wishes of Parliament and drag men into the Army by bullying and improper action. I wish to deny this as strongly as possible, and here I should like most emphatically to assert that recruiting officers are instructed in every case to give every possible consideration to the man, and that orders have been issued to them to obey the spirit of the law rather than the mere letter.
  The case I wish to refer to especially is where I was reported to have stated that a Territorial certificate of rejection was of no use, and this I deny absolutely.

  1215
  A newspaper report is rarely full and often, through lack of fullness, misleading, and that is so in the present instance. The application which came before the City of London Tribunal was for the exemption of a clerk employed by a firm of distillers, on the ground that he was indispensable to the business of the firm. The man had attested under the Derby Group system, and his employers, as an argument to show that the man was of no use to the Army, produced a Territorial certificate of unfitness issued during the summer of last year, which stated that the man was physically fit but had been rejected because he was short-sighted and had to wear glasses. As the man had since that, in the autumn, attested of his own free will under the Derby Group system, I remarked that the certificate was of no use, and I further stated that whereas the particular Territorial Regiment in which the man had tried to enlist at that time did not accept men who wore glasses, when the man offered himself for enlistment later on in the year, conditions had altered, regulations had changed, and men were accepted providing they had reasonably efficient sight.
  I made those remarks to the tribunal in order to show the tribunal that the whole question was whether it was in the national interest that the employer should retain his clerk or whether he would be better employed in the Army. I again wish to emphasise that it was in no way a personal claim, and that it was not a claim which came under the Military Service Act. I should like here to add that if, when the man attested voluntarily, his Territorial form had been torn up (as is only right and proper for a man who offers himself for service again and is accepted after having been refused once), the whole mistake would never have arisen.
  I am sorry to have detained the House so long on a personal explanation, but recruiting officers and military representatives are really trying their best at the present time to carry out the expressed wishes of the House of Commons. Their work is new and difficult, and, as a rule, the day is not long enough for the accumulation of work. Both military representatives and tribunals fully realise the important duties with which they are entrusted, and from what I have seen of the working of the scheme I feel sure that
  1216
  they are only too anxious to allow full consideration to each case of individual hardship and to give as ample relief as the exigencies of the military situation will allow. I thank the House for having listened to me, and for having allowed me to make this explanation.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Munitions give us some information as to the business of the House for next week?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: On Tuesday, we shall move, Mr. Speaker leave the Chair on the Navy Estimates;
  On Wednesday, we shall take the Report of the Supplementary Navy and Army Estimates;
  And on Thursday, the Report of the Civil Service (Vote on Account).
  Resolved, "That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Tuesday next."—[Mr. Lloyd George.]

  SUPPLY.— [1st Allotted Day.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1916–17.—[VOTE ON ACCOUNT.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £36,634,000 be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1917, namely:—

  Class I.

  £

  Royal Palaces

  23,000

  Osborne

  7,000

  Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens

  45,000

  Houses of Parliament Buildings

  25,000

  Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain

  25,000

  Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain

  27,000

  Diplomatic and Consular Buildings

  12,000

  Revenue Buildings

  230,000

  Insurance and Labour Exchange Buildings, Great Britain

  56,000

  Public Buildings, Great Britain

  483,000

  Surveys of the United Kingdom

  55,000

  1232

  Harbours under the Board of Trade

  5,000

  Peterhead Harbour

  8,000

  Rates on Government Property

  420,000

  Public Works and Buildings, Ireland

  90,000

  Railways, Ireland

  7,000

  Class II.

  United Kingdom and England:—

  House of Lords Offices

  20,000

  House of Commons

  85,000

  Treasury and Subordinate Departments

  47,000

  Home Office

  100,000

  Foreign Office

  30,000

  Colonial Office

  23,000

  Privy Council Office

  5,000

  Board of Trade

  180,000

  Mercantile Marine Services

  75,000

  Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade

  4

  Board of Agriculture and Fisheries

  200,000

  Charity Commission

  13,000

  Government Chemist

  20,000

  Civil Service Commission

  20,000

  Exchequer and Audit Department

  26,000

  Friendly Societies Registry

  10,000

  Local Government Board

  190,000

  Board of Control

  40,000

  Mint, including Coinage

  15

  National Debt Office

  6,000

  Public Record Office

  10,000

  Public Works Loan Commission

  4,000

  Registrar-General's Office

  21,000

  Stationery and Printing

  750,000

  Woods, Forests, etc., Office of

  10,000

  Works and Public Buildings, Office of

  67,000

  Secret Service

  180,000

  Scotland:—

  Secretary for Scotland, Office of

  10,000

  Board of Agriculture

  25,000

  Fishery Board

  8,000

  General Board of Control

  10,000

  Registrar-General's Office

  3,000

  Local Government Board

  12,000

  Ireland:—

  Lord Lieutenant's Household

  2,000

  Chief Secretary's Offices and Subordinate Departments

  11,000

  Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction

  75,000

  Charitable Donations and Bequests Office

  1,000

  Congested Districts Board

  64,000

  1233

  £

  Local Government Board

  50,000

  Public Record Office

  3,000

  Public Works Office

  18,000

  Registrar-General's Office

  5,000

  Valuation and Boundary Survey

  12,000

  Class III.

  United Kingdom and England:—

  Law Charges

  50,000

  Miscellaneous Legal Expenses

  26,000

  Supreme Court of Judicature, etc.

  150,000

  Land Registry

  15,000

  Public Trustee

  5

  County Courts

  45,000

  Police, England and Wales

  50,000

  Prisons, England and the Colonies

  400,000

  Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain

  170,000

  Criminal Lunatic Asylums, England

  24,000

  Scotland:—

  Law Charges and Courts of Law

  30,000

  Scottish Land Court

  3,000

  Register House, Edinburgh

  17,000

  Prisons

  50,000

  Ireland:—

  Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions

  30,000

  Supreme Court of Judicature, and other Legal Departments

  45,000

  Land Commission

  320,000

  County Court Officers, etc.

  35,000

  Dublin Metropolitan Police

  55,000

  Royal Irish Constabulary

  650,000

  Prisons

  45,000

  Reformatory and Industrial Schools

  60,000

  Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum

  4,000

  Class IV.

  United Kingdom and England:—

  Board of Education

  5,450,000

  British Museum

  60,000

  National Gallery

  5,000

  National Portrait Gallery

  2,000

  Wallace Collection

  2,000

  London Museum

  1,000

  Scientific Investigation, &c.

  55,000

  Universities and Colleges, Great Britain, and Intermediate Education, Wales

  110,000

  Scotland:—

  Public Education

  1,000,000

  National Galleries

  2,000

  1234

  Ireland:—

  Public Education

  980,000

  Endowed Schools Commissioners

  400

  National Gallery

  1,000

  Science and Art

  25,000

  Universities and Colleges, Ireland

  55,000

  Class V.

  Diplomatic and Consular Services

  310,000

  Colonial Services

  120,000

  Telegraph Subisidies and Pacific Cable

  16,000

  Cyprus (Grant-in-Aid)

  49,000

  Class VI.

  Superannuation and Retired Allowances

  380,000

  Miscellances Expenses

  12,866

  Hospitals and Charities, Ireland

  16,000

  Temporary Commissions

  15,000

  Ireland Development Grant

  180,000

  Statutory Committee

  600

  Class VII.

  Old Age Pensions

  5,000,000

  National Health Insurance Joint Committee

  60,000

  National Health Insurance Commission (England)

  1,500,000

  National Health Insurance Commission (Wales)

  110,000

  National Health Insurance Commission (Scotland)

  190,000

  National Health Insurance Commission (Ireland)

  120,000

  Labour Exchanges and Unemployment Insurance

  300,000

  National Insurance Audit Department

  50,000

  Treatment of Tuberculosis (Special Grants)

  150,000

  Highlands and Islands (Medical Service) Board

  2000

  Ministry of Munitions

  100

  Ministry of Munitions, Ordnance Factories

  10

  Revenue Departments.

  Customs and Excise

  1,100,000

  Inland Revenue

  980,000

  Post Office

  12,000,000

  Total for Civil Services and Revenue Departments

  £36,634,000."

  [NOTE.—The sum taken represents a provision for between four and five months' expenditure.]

  PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to move, in Class II., to reduce Vote 2 by £50,000.
  The object of this Amendment is to abolish the payment of salaries to Members. This is not a very convenient opportunity to bring forward that Amendment, because if it were carried I believe it would deprive the officials of the House of their salaries as well as Members of Parliament. That could possibly be arranged for, but I understand the Government, recognising that this is not a very convenient moment to bring the matter before the House, are prepared to come to some other arrangement. I therefore make this proposal to the right hon. Gentleman who is now leading the House: If he will undertake to give a day before the 15th April for the discussion of the Resolution on the payment of double salaries to Members on service with the Navy and Army and that this Resolution shall be in such a form that an Amendment can be moved that no Members shall receive salaries, then I will undertake to withdraw my Amendment to-day.
  Mr. HOGGE: Will my right hon. Friend also undertake, if he gives any undertaking at all, that on that occasion he will so provide that we shall be able to discuss the reduction of salaries from the top of the Civil List to the bottom?
  4.0 P.M.
  The MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Lloyd George): I agree with the right hon. Baronet that this is not a very convenient opportunity for discussing the Amendment which he has down on the Paper. It is not a very convenient opportunity for raising the issue which he wishes to raise. It would be complicated with other issues which would make it impossible for the House of Commons to express a clear judgment on the matter. Therefore, I think he has exercised a very wise judgment in preferring another opportunity which would enable him to raise the distinct issue on which he wants to have the opinion of the House, and the Government, after consultation with the authorities of the House, are prepared to give a day before the 15th April for the discussion of the Resolution about the payment of double salaries to Members on service with the Army and Navy. And the Resolution will be framed so as to enable any hon. Member to move as an Amendment that no Members
  1236
  shall receive salaries. I understand that the authorities in the House have been consulted on the subject, and agree it would be possible to move an Amendment in that form. That meets, I think, the wishes of the right hon. Baronet and those who wish to challenge the issue. With regard to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), that raises an issue of a totally different character—
  Mr. HOGGE: This is a sham fight.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is a matter on which I would rather not express an opinion at the present moment. The right hon. Baronet opposite has made a definite Motion, and we are dealing with that. The Government have, I think, met him in a fair spirit.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I am obliged to the Government for accepting my proposal, and, therefore, I do not propose now to move my Amendment.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that, if a Motion is put down to consider the whole question of salaries of Ministers and other State officials, a day will be given for it?

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT (DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL).
  Mr. ASHLEY: I beg to move, "That Item Class II., Vote 4 (Home Office), be reduced by £100."
  I rise to draw attention to a matter which the Committee will agree is of considerable importance, namely, the interpretation of the Defence of the Realm Act by the Home Office, and the regulations which have been made by the Home Office under that Act. We all know that these regulations have been made some considerable time, and that under them a substantial number of people have been imprisoned. I would appeal to the Committee to try and exclude from their minds any preconceived ideas on this very important subject, because some of us, who are extremely anxious that the War should be pushed on as fast as possible and with the greatest possible advantage, are inclined to set aside, or minimise, the great constitutional safeguards which, in ordinary peace time, we set great store by, and are, therefore, inclined rather too much to allow the Executive uncurbed powers to do anything they like; whereas, on the other hand,

  1237
  there are Members who, while they are just as anxious to win the War, yet attach such importance to the constitutional safeguards, that they almost forget that a War is going on, considering that the same constitutional safeguards can be exacted from the Executive as if we were at peace, and therefore are inclined to attach undue importance to constitutional safeguards, and do not realise that some extraordinary powers, not necessarily the extraordinary powers in existence at the present moment, arc necessary if the safety of the' realm is to be looked after.
  I do not rise this afternoon to attack the Home Secretary or the Home Office. I gladly recognise that the Home Office under its successive heads, has, on the whole, according to its lights, done its very best to carry out the very difficult duties entrusted to it under the Regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act. I, myself, and the Home Office are in accord with the object which we seek to attain, but I am afraid we are not in accord as to the means which they have adopted in order to attain these ends. The right hon. Gentleman who will reply for the Home Office this afternoon was not responsible for the Regulations. He was engaged in another sphere of usefulness when the Regulations were made, and I quite conceive it may even be unpalatable to him to have to carry out these Regulations which descended to him from his predecessor. It may be he only carries them out from a sense of loyalty in carrying on the Home Office traditions. What are the Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act to which I so strongly object? The Defence of the Realm Act gave very wide powers to the Executive—practically unlimited powers—and it enacted that Orders in Council should be issued by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to ensure the safety of the realm. The one I wish particularly to call attention to this afternoon is 14 B. If the Committee will bear with me for a moment, I will read the regulation. It is to the effect that
  "where, on the recommendation of a competent naval or military authority, or of one of the Advisory Committees hereinafter mentioned, it appears to the Secretary of State that for securing the public safety, or for the defence of the realm, it is expedient, in view of the hostile origin or association of any person, that he shall be subjected to such obligations and restrictions as are hereinafter mentioned, the Secretary of State may, by Order, require"
  him to remove from or to a certain district, or he may be interned in such place
  1238
  as may be specified in the Order. It is further provided that such Order shall, in the case of any person who is not a subject of a State at war with His Majesty, include express provision for the due consideration by one of such Advisory Committees of any representations he may make against the Order. What does that amount to? It amounts to this, that if the Secretary of State either has representations made to him by a competent naval or military authority, or an Advisory Committee, or if he can induce a competent naval or military authority or Advisory Committee to suggest to him, he may absolutely, at his will and pleasure, shut up any British subject, and keep him interned until the end of the War. The Advisory Committee, and I say this with the greatest respect for my hon. Friends around me, is pure "eyewash." The Home Secretary is the absolute judge as to who is to be interned. He can release or shut up anybody he likes, and we have here frankly, nakedly and openly, the system of the Bastille, of lettres de cachet, and of the Star Chamber. The extraordinary thing is the personality of the man who made this Order. It was not made by the right hon. Gentleman the present Home Secretary; it was not made by some wicked Tory who wished to pass the National Service Act. It was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow, who objected to compelling young men to defend their country, and yet makes a regulation which enabled him to intern, at his own pleasure, any British subject he likes. Surely a more extraordinary situation it is impossible to conceive—the liberty of the subject is to be respected if a man does not wish to defend his country, but the liberty of the subject is not to be respected if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow considers that he ought to be shut up. I hope and trust that the right hon. Gentleman, when he speaks, will be able to explain this seeming discrepancy.
  I do not pretend that any of these British subjects, both naturalised and British born, who have been interned are innocent. I know nothing about them. I have not the slightest reason to suppose they do not thoroughly deserve the treatment they have received. That is not the point I wish to raise. Even if they are all guilty, the point is that the Habeas Corpus Act has, by this Regulation, been suspended, and we have substituted for

  1239
  the tyranny of the King the tyranny of the Home Secretary. I think the House of Commons, and what is more important, the public, ought to realise exactly where we stand. I was yesterday talking to an hon. Member of this House who did not even know that these powers existed, and was not acquainted with what is going on. If hon. Members do not know these things, is it likely the public would know? Under these circumstances I think any hon. Member is justified in bringing this Regulation under the notice of this Committee. What has been done under this Regulation? Seventeen British subjects and sixteen naturalised subjects have been interned. They have been shut up without trial and without any charge made against them, and they have had no counsel to defend them. In fact, they have not been informed of any charge against them.
  What is the only safeguard provided under this Regulation? It is the Advisory Committee. If that Committee were a judicial body—a body independent of the Government—I should accept the Advisory Committee with the greatest pleasure, because the members of the Committee are very eminent people—people in whom one can have confidence. They include two of His Majesty's judges and the other members are respected Members of this House, most of them personal friends of my own. I am sure that their decisions have been come to after the greatest deliberation and consideration, and that no substantial injustice has, so far, been done. But the fact is this Advisory Committee is absolutely the servant of the Government. The Members are appointed by the Government and can be dismissed by the Government, and none of their recommendations can be insisted upon if the Government do not choose to accept them. Therefore, when I referred to the appointment of this Committee as pure "eyewash," I think I was absolutely stating the case. I have no wish in any way to impugn the uprightness or ability of the Gentlemen who compose the Committee. But we have a combination here which is most repugnant, in my opinion, to all British ideas of justice. We have the prosecutor and the judge combined in one person. When I make that remark, I hope the Home Secretary will understand that I am not making any personal attack. I am sure that, to the best of his ability, he carries
  1240
  out the duties of the difficult position he fills, and he would be the last, in his heart of hearts, to maintain that it is a very desirable or possible situation to defend before the House of Commons. It is not right that the same person should be both the prosecutor and the judge in his own case. It will be said, "You have denounced this system which has been created under the regulations made in pursuance of the Defence of the Realm Act. But we are at war, and things which would not be tolerated in time of peace by any Member of this House have now to be tolerated and put up with, and it is necessary that these wide and despotic powers should be given to the Secretary of State in order to prevent any danger to the realm. "That is a very natural thought to pass through hon. Members' minds.
  In conclusion, might I suggest to the Committee that the Regulation might be altered, so that true justice might be given to these people and an opportunity of a fair trial given to them, while the realm could be perfectly well safeguarded? I am perfectly willing that the power to arrest on suspicion should remain. I think that is essential. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite may not agree with me, but if they will consider it, they will see that there might be people in this country, British subjects, naturalised or otherwise, whom the authorities know are plotting against their native country, and who, if the ordinary procedure of the law were followed, might do a great deal of mischief before they were laid by the heels. Therefore, I think it is necessary, under the Regulations, that that power should still be vested in the Home Secretary and other competent officials. But when I have made that suggestion I part company with the right hon. Gentleman—perhaps not with him, because I do not know what he will say in his answer, but with the present Regulation, because, when you have laid these persons by the heels, there is nothing to prevent the more normal, the fair, and the more English course of procedure being followed. After you have put him in prison, and prevented him from doing any more harm, I see no reason why you should not tell him what is charged against him, why he should not be given a trial, and why he should not have counsel to defend him, because the bulk of these people, I suppose, are foreigners who do not know the English language.

  1241
  Then I come to what is to me the most important of all, the tribunal which should try him. I have indicated to the Committee that I have the strongest objection to the Home Secretary being both prosecutor and judge in his own cause. Why should he not agree to these suspects being given a fair trial before judges of the High Court? There can be no suspicion of undue partiality to the enemy on the part of the judges of the High Court, and no suspicion of undue partiality towards the Government on the part of the judges of the High Court. They are independent of the Executive and cannot be removed by the Executive. They can only be removed by a Joint Address from both Houses of Parliament. You would secure by these means the inalienable right of British subjects to a fair trial, you would prevent any arbitrary acts by the Executive, and I cannot see that you would in any way impair any action that ought to be taken to secure the defence of this realm. Before I sit down, may I say I can quite conceive it to be necessary that the judges should be given the power to hold a trial in camera. It might conceivably happen that in the trial some things might come out which would be helpful to the enemy or show how our Secret Service was working. I would give these judges, if they think it right, power to order the continued imprisonment of these people, if they have evidence almost amounting to certainty that they were guilty. I would not make it absolutely necessary that they should be proved to be guilty, but only that there should be a strong suspicion that they were guilty. By these means you would give the man a fair trial, and I cannot conceive that any injustice would be done to anybody in this Kingdom.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr Herbert Samuel): The hon. Member has brought to the attention of the Committee a subject of interest and of importance. It is one in which, I believe, he is entitled to take an hereditary interest, since it was an ancestor of his own who was mainly responsible for the introduction and the passage of the Habeas Corpus Act as long ago as 1679. It is desirable and it would be for the convenience of the Committee that I should at once state the reasons why this Regulation was framed and the procedure that is adopted under it, and describe the action that has been taken. At the outbreak of war there were, of course, large numbers of Germans of German nationality in
  1242
  this country. Under the common law the Executive has the power, and it exercised that power, of interning those who belong to the country with which we are engaged in war, in order to secure the safety of the State. Not because they had committed offences, not because they had rendered themselves liable to be charged with any crime, but for the sake of security and for the prevention of possible danger, a considerable number of Germans were straightway interned. After the country had had more experience of German methods in this War, public opinion demanded that a wider measure of internment should be adopted, and that course was taken by the Government at that time. A very large number of Germans, after some months of war, were interned not, let me repeat, because they had committed offences, but for the sake of security. It was at once evident, however, that it was impossible to draw any clear, definite line between the German who had retained his German nationality and the German who had acquired British nationality, although in many cases he had not surrendered his German nationality. I have always held the view—it is merely a verbal point—that "nationalisation" would be a much better word to use than "naturalisation" in these cases, because, although a man may change his nation, he does not always thereby change his nature. It is quite clear, from one or two cases which I shall quote to the Committee, that there might be many who, although they had changed their ostensible allegiance, in fact, for all purposes as far as regards the safety and security of the State, ought still to be regarded as Germans. It was felt that it was impossible to leave the Executive unarmed with any powers to deal with these men. Further, there was a considerable number of persons who, although born in this country, were born of German parents, who were brought up in German surroundings, who were frequently educated in Germany, and who were really indistinguishable from the native-born German. It was felt, therefore, with regard to all these cases, that you could not draw a clear line of distinction between them and other German subjects, nor ought you to draw a clear line of distinction in a matter of this kind between a British subject born in England of German parents and a British subject who was a naturalised German.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Or born of British parents?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I am coming to that later on. Our Naturalisation Acts provide specifically that a person once naturalised shall be placed upon the same footing as a British subject. Further, there was undoubtedly a small number—I am glad to think an exceedingly small number—of British subjects, pure born British subjects, who were untrustworthy and who ought properly to be placed under control. It has been suggested that this matter was never brought to the attention of the House of Commons before the Regulation was made and acted upon. When the Prime Minister, on 13th May, 1915, declared the policy of the Government with regard to the internment of Germans, he stated clearly:
  "In the case of these naturalised aliens, who are in law British subjects (numbering about 8,000), we think the prima facie presumption should be the other way,—"
  that is, that they should not be interned except on cause shown—
  'but exceptional cases, established to the satisfaction of the advisory body will be specially dealt with. There must be a power of interning in cases of proved necessity of danger."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1915, col. 1842, Vol. LXXI.]
  On the 9th June my right hon. Friend and predecessor stated to the House of Commons, in answer to a question put by the hon. Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. R. McNeill)—who drew attention to a number of individual cases of naturalised Germans in this country and of others—
  "Of the remaining six, three are naturalised British subjects, and an Order in Council to cover such cases is being obtained."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th June, 1915, col. 247, Vol. LXXII.]
  Then on the Home Office Vote, on 17th June, 1915, the whole question was raised, and my right hon. Friend, the then Home Secretary, used this language:
  "When a person is naturalised and given a certificate he is, by the terms of that certificate, assured by the State that henceforward he will stand in the same position as a person who is a natural-born British subject. I think we should be acting very foolishly if we did not remember that we had given that promise. The right way to deal with the matter is to say, 'I do not care whether a man is natural born or naturalised. There is a rule which, in time of war, we must apply, and that rule is, that when it is fairly shown that an individual is dangerous to the State, because he is at large, whether it be because of his hostile origin or because of his hostile associations, then if it is fairly shown, even if he is a British-born subject, he must submit to restraint—"
  He went on to say:
  "Applying that means that we do not in the least deny the advantages of British citizenship to anybody, but we say as a practical matter of importance, in time of war, that we ought to be able in a proper case to deal with persons, even if they are British subjects, by naturalisation or otherwise, provided that they are persons of hostile origin and associations, and that a case is made out for shutting them up, or having some special security in respect of them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1915, cols. 851-2, Vol. LXXII.]
  1244
  My right hon. Friend then proceeded to describe the Regulation under which the Home Office is now acting. In the somewhat lengthy Debate that followed not a word was raised in protest or objection to the course which the Government was then pursuing. Although on these various occasions the House of Commons did have its attention drawn to the matter, there was never any objection raised to the policy that was being pursued.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the House of Commons was definitely told that the Home Secretary, and he alone, was going to try the case?
  Mr. SAMUEL: No, Sir, it was told that there would be an Advisory Committee and so there is.
  Mr. ROCH: As a right?
  Mr. SAMUEL: As the hon. Member (Mr. Ashley) stated, this Regulation was made by my right hon. and learned Friend (Sir J. Simon), who will speak later in this Debate, but I desire to state now at the outset that I fully identify myself with it. Although, as the hon. Member has been good enough to suggest, it is a distasteful matter to me, and must be to any Home Secretary, to have to deprive any individual of his liberty and especially to bear the heavy weight of responsibility that lies on the incumbent of this office in deciding an individual case, nevertheless one's duty to the State must over ride all sentiments of that kind, and I personally feel quite convinced that powers of this kind are necessary. Whether they are legal or not, whether the particular Regulation is ultra vires or not, is a matter that has to be decided in the Courts and is still sub judice. I should like to mention that no fewer than seven judges of the High Court have, in two cases, unanimously decided that the Regulation is in accordance with the law, and three Lords Justices of the Court of Appeal have similarly held the same view. So that there are ten judges who have already unanimously expressed their opinion as to the legality of this Regulation.
  The Committee will desire to learn to what extent this power has been, put into operation. All those who are dealt with must be persons of hostile origin or association. It is not the case that the Home Secretary has power to pick any British subject or alien and whisk him off into internment regardless of circumstances.

  1245
  The point must be made clear that he is a man of hostile origin or association. There are now in internment in England eight persons of British origin and British nationality. There are seven who are natural-born British subjects of German origin, and there is one natural-born British subject of uncertain origin—possibly French, possibly German. There are six women who are of German birth but have become British by marriage. There are seventeen naturalised Germans, two naturalised Austrians, and twenty-eight who are not British subjects at all—a total of sixty-nine, of whom only eight are British subjects of British origin. In Scotland there are four cases, and in Ireland there are none. The Committee will not be fully acquainted with all the circumstances of the case unless they realise the class of person who is interned under this Regulation, and therefore I will give half a dozen quite typical cases, without mentioning names so as to enable them to be identified, which show the circumstances which have necessitated action under this Regulation. Case A is a young man of military age, British born of German parents. His father, who was a German subject, was repatriated some time ago, and when he was going back to Germany he was detected smuggling a number of letters which he was endeavouring to carry with him. Amongst them was one from his son which included passages stating that he was longing to help the Germans, that his clearest wish was to join the German Army, that he was confident Germany would win the War, and he said in the course of his letter to his friend in Germany that he was a German now and always would be. When they examined him before the authorities he quite frankly and courageously and honestly made the same profession. That man was technically a British subject; but are we ready to say that he ought to be treated by the Government in time of War as though he were a loyal British subject, and that the Executive ought not to have power to deal with a man of that character?
  Mr. ASHLEY: Give him a trial.
  Mr. SAMUEL: For what?
  Mr. ASHLEY: I suggested that when he was brought up before these judges and if his guilt was unanswerably proved, if the suspicion was so strong against him as to amount to absolute certainty that his sympathies were against this country, he should remain interned.
  Mr. SAMUEL: I am not a lawyer, nor is the hon. Member, but I doubt whether any lawyer would hold that it was possible to frame any indictment on the strength of a letter of that character. On what charge would you bring him before the judges? Let me take the next case. Another young man, also British born, also of German parents, who was educated in Germany from the age of seven to fourteen and openly professes pro-German sentiments. He made no secret of it that if called up under the Military Service Act he would refuse to fight, and if he could get to Germany he would join their army. Owing to his openly expressed pro-German sentiments the workmen of the place where he was employed refused to work with him. He was unable to get other employment. His father was interned, and his mother and four sisters had all returned to Germany. This young man, on account of the sentiments he had expressed, and of his very German name, was unable to obtain employment, was destitute, and came to the authorities and asked to be interned. Case C was the daughter of a German officer. She has two brothers who are officers now serving in the German Army. She is British because she is married to an Englishman. Ever since the War began she has carried on correspondence with her relatives in Germany which contains quite freely expressions of the most pronounced pro-German sentiments. She had to stay with her in her house, and afterwards corresponded on very friendly terms with a person who was afterwards prosecuted as a German spy, convicted and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Case D was another German woman who acquired British nationality by marriage. She was herself prosecuted for espionage—for endeavouring to communicate information which she had collected as to the manufacture of guns, shells, and other munitions of war in the district in which she resided. She was sentenced to six months imprisonment. It was not a very grave case—she was a very unskilled spy—but it has been discovered that she was in touch with a German agent, and it is certainly not regarded as safe to leave her at large with the freedom that attaches to a loyal British subject. Case E is a person of pure British birth, one of the very few, but a man who has frequently expressed anti-British sentiments. He resided for some months after the out

  1247
  break of the War in a foreign capital, where he almost daily visited the head of the German Secret Service, and lived with him on terms of the closest intimacy. He paid a visit to England meantime, returning again and visiting the person, who is well known to be the head of the German Secret Service there. When he came back to England he was arrested and interned. There was insufficient evidence to level any charge on which he could be convicted, but it would not be safe to leave him at large or permit him to go abroad. Case F was another person of British birth. Four years before the War he was quite clearly guilty of espionage. He went to live in one dockyard town after another. He was in close touch with a German agent and was prosecuted as a spy. It was found that he was insane and he was committed to a lunatic asylum; but he has recovered his sanity. He disappeared from view but was found not long ago under another name, employed in the works of a contractor for explosives, and there was evidence, though not proof, that he was again in correspondence with German agents. He is a pure-bred British subject.
  What course is to be taken with regard to those persons? It is not the case that they are confined under a mere Home Secretary's lettre de cachet. Each case has to be dealt with in the first place by the competent naval or military authority, and I should like to bear testimony to the fact, after now some little experience, that these departments of the War Office and the Admiralty are highly competent, not merely in legal phrase but in fact, careful and discriminating. The cases then come to the Home Office, where they are examined, and each is considered by the Home Secretary personally. Then the person who is interned, if an Order for internment is made, is formally advised that he has a right to refer his case for the consideration of the Advisory Committee, and the vast majority of them have done so. That Committee consists of six gentlemen—Mr. Justice Sankey, Mr. Justice Younger, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Maclean, Mr. Baldwin, and Mr. Mooney. I believe they are almost invariably present at each meeting, and at every meeting both the judges are present to consider the cases.
  Mr. WATT: So many hundred cases a day!
  Mr. SAMUEL: My hon. Friend is considering an entirely different Regulation. Those are ordinary cases of Germans who are to be exempted from internment. That is different altogether. These cases are given most prolonged and patient hearing. The person interned is always heard in person if he desires to be so heard, which is usually the case. He is able to call witnesses. If there is any element of doubt, or if any further inquiry is necessary, the Committee nearly always adjourns the case—sometimes more than once—and if they desire to make further inquiries they do so through their own officers, and those inquiries are frequently of a very exhaustive character.
  Mr. MARSHALL: In these cases are they represented by counsel or do they have legal advice before the Committee?
  Mr. SAMUEL: The Committee has determined its own procedure. It does not hear counsel or anyone employed for the purpose of advocacy, but it frequently hears solicitors, and the people are always able to get legal advice, if they so desire, as to the presentation of their case. It is said they do not know what charge is made against them. The examination which takes place in the first instance before they are interned, as a rule, lets them know pretty well what it is they are suspected of. When they come before the Committee the judge presides at the examination of the suspected person, and in the course of that examination shows to the individual beyond the possibility of doubt what the authorities have in mind as the cause of his internment. But I agree that as a matter of form it would be better that they should have clearly written on a piece of paper and in general terms the charge which is made against them, and after consultation with the two judges who serve upon the Committee, and after consultation with the military authorities concerned, I propose to make arrangements that in all cases, as soon as the Order for the internment of the person is issued, a statement shall be furnished him showing on what grounds that internment Order is made. The advice of the Committee has always been taken where it recommends release. I think there was one case in my predecessor's time when the Committee took a somewhat more severe view than was taken by the Home Office. In that case the more lenient view was adopted. Always where release is suggested the advice of the

  1249
  Committee is taken. At the same time I do not wish the Committee to imagine that I regard the Advisory Committee as having the primary responsibility in the matter. The responsibility for the action taken quite definitely rests upon the Home Secretary and he is free either to accept or to refuse the advice of the Committee. It would be a very exceptional case in which he would not accept the recommendation of so highly competent a body as that the constitution of which I have just stated to the House.
  Sir JOHN JARDINE: While this inquiry is going on, is the person in any kind of custody or is he on bail, or what is his position as regards freedom until the matter is definitely settled by the Advisory Committee?
  Mr. SAMUEL: As a rule he is interned first; then he is brought before the Committee at its next sitting. But there are cases in which the Home Secretary desires the advice of the Committee before finally deciding whether a man should be interned or not. That is the procedure that is followed in these cases. The hon. Member thinks, and other hon. Members apparently hold the view, that the right course would be to prosecute these persons, but I have pointed out that these are not cases in which any indictment could be drawn. If you take one by one the six cases which I have mentioned it will at once be apparent that legal proceeding's in the majority, or in all these cases, could not be taken with any real hope of success. Further, there are cases in which, while a prosecution might be possible if witnesses were available, the witnesses are out of the country and could not be brought here. There are one or two others in which the authorities who are engaged in the difficult work of counter-espionage would far rather that the individual should escape internment than that the source of their information should be revealed. It will be clear to every member of the Committee that the source of information must be in these cases frequently of a most secret character, and to bring the witnesses before a tribunal would destroy all possibility of their future usefulness. Lastly, on this branch of the subject, let me point out that if some of these individuals could be prosecuted successfully their lot would be far harder than it now is. If we were to take proceedings in some of these cases, as a rule they would escape punishment, because the Courts would hold, and rightly
  1250
  hold, that you must have the clearest possible proof before exposing a person to the very heavy penalties which such an offence would bring; but where they were found guilty, instead of being interned under somewhat easy conditions during the course of the "War, several of these individuals would probably be sentenced to long terms of penal servitude.
  If they cannot be prosecuted under the ordinary civil law, what other powers, might be conferred upon the Executive to deal with these cases? In other countries on the Continent they deal with cases of this kind under martial law, or under what is called a state of siege. Some exceptional powers are customary in every country in time of war to deal with enemies within the State, whether of alien birth or of national birth. Parliament frequently in times of danger and stress has given almost unlimited powers to the Executive by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act by Act of Parliament. That has been done eleven times in Great Britain and eight times in Ireland. It has been done also in the United States, where the system of jurisprudence is not dissimilar to our own. We consider that the adoption of any kind of general system of martial law or the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act would be going far beyond the needs of the case, and would be adopting an excessive remedy for the evil with which we have to deal. There is one other alternative, and only one, and that is, to let loose these sixty-nine men and women to carry on their activities as they desire. I am sure there is no member of the Committee who would think that in time of war we must wait until a person has committed an offence which can be proved before he is kept under lock and key. We cannot wait for a proved offence and not deal with a plain danger. In war, of course, you must run many risks; but surely you ought not to run risks which are avoidable, and when we consider what the German methods are, and what has been done in the interests of the German cause in the United States and Canada, I think the Committee will agree that the precautions which have been taken are not excessive.
  Suppose this action had not been taken by my predecessor and the Government; and suppose—not an impossible supposition either—that some conspiracy had been hatched in this country by naturalised or natural-born British subjects of German origin or sympathies; and suppose that

  1251
  conspiracy had taken effect and some outrages had been committed. Straightway the Government would have been blamed in this House and throughout the country for leaving it too late before taking action. All the world would have said, "You have been warned again and again that you had dangerous persons in your midst; you knew they were there, and yet because the ordinary processes of law would not enable you to deal with them effectively you supinely sat still and take no steps in regard to them." But when we do take steps, and when we do forestal the evil, rather than wait for it and punish afterwards, then in this House we are criticised for impairing the liberty of the subject. Hon. Members who take that view in this House, and other people outside, make an appeal to the ancient sentiment of liberty which is one of the most precious of our national characteristics. It would, indeed, be a disaster if there were any weakening in that sentiment. It is true that the tendency of autocracy in all ages and in all countries has been to endeavour to meet criticism or opposition of the powers that be by imprisoning or executing the critics or opponents. Against that democracy has always had to fight, and has fought successfully in this country, and now the hon. Member seeks to bring to bear all this force of liberty-loving sentiment, accumulated through the centuries, to deal with a case which is of an entirely different character.
  There is no question here of imprisoning men contrary to the law. It is not the case dealt with under Magna Charta, and the other constitutional instruments, of imprisoning persons not in accordance with the law. This action is taken authorised under an Order in Council by an Act of Parliament, and has been held by the judges, so far, to be lawful. Nor is this a case in which the Government seeks to use its powers to suppress opposition to itself, or criticism of itself, such as we find dealt with in the course of our constitutional history. These are not domestic opponents of the Government. They are persons of hostile origin or hostile associations, who are a danger to the realm in the state of war in which we find ourselves. It is not I have before remarked, in which action is taken by the fiat of a Minister. We have this Committee, consisting of two judges and four unofficial Members of this House, which has brought before it these cases, and which would cer-
  1252
  tainly check any attempt to break the law and any abuse of authority that an evil-minded Minister sought to commit under cover of secrecy and darkness. These are the reasons why we regard this measure as necessary. The Executive, which is responsible after all for the peace and safety of this realm in the grave conditions in which we now find ourselves, must not be left unarmed in time of peril to deal with cases such as those I have described, and this power, moderately and carefully used, will, I think, be regarded by the Committee as necessary for the safety of the State.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Could the right hon. Gentleman answer one of the questions which I put to him, and which I regard as of great importance, and that is, why he cannot consent to hand over to the judges of the High Court the trial of the case instead of keeping it in his own hands, thereby making himself both prosecutor and judge in his own case?
  Mr. SAMUEL: Because of the difficulty of framing legal procedings and of formulating a specific charge which might be proceeded upon and upon which the persons could be found guilty.
  Mr. ANDERSON: I think it will be admitted that the Home Secretary has made a very able defence and I think we shall also agree that in time of war in any country there must be national safeguards and additional restrictions. That is, I think, common ground. Where I differ from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman is as to the procedure which has been followed in this case, and I think the steps which have been taken go very far indeed to sweep away the protection of Acts like the Habeas Corpus Act. I think on that point there is no doubt at all. I suppose that it is necessary in war time that the Government must be responsible for stringency in regard to the defence of the realm, but I think that the very worst way in which you can carry that out is by legislation of a panic character. We have had panic legislation pushed through this House more than once. Some of the first Defence of the Realm Acts gave such unlimited powers that the Members of the House of Lords had to tone down that legislation. Nobody will say that the Members of the House of Lords were less concerned with the safety of the realm than the Members of the House of Commons, but they believed that the legislalation was going beyond what was necessary and was being done in a wrong way.

  1253
  Exactly the same thing is true of an Act like the original Munitions Act, which went far beyond what was desired and what was necessary. One of the most objectionable features of legislation of this character is that the House of Commons passes more or less a skeleton measure and allows others outside to fill up the measure in any way they like. The House of Commons gives practically a blank cheque to outside bodies like these Advisory Committees, and powers which ought to be vested in this House and in the Law Courts and the judges of this country are passed on to bodies set up over which we have no real effective control. That, I think, is a very important matter which demands attention. The cases that were mentioned by the Home Secretary were very significant. In some of the cases there were actual letters proving that the persons concerned were in active sympathy with the enemy and were writing to people in enemy countries and expressing the view that they would like to be over there fighting for those countries. Those letters could have been produced as evidence if the tribunal had been a tribunal of judges of this country.
  An HON. MEMBER: Evidence of what?
  Mr. ANDERSON: Surely it is clear. If it is necessary to get additional Regulations for the Defence of the Realm, that is one matter. Surely to be resident in this country and to show that you are actively in sympathy with the enemy of this country, and that you desire the enemy of this country to win, and that you would gladly do anything in your power to assist the enemy of this country to win, is a matter which could be dealt with by Regulation of this House. If you are going to give a vague power of this kind to a Committee, why cannot it be done by the House of Commons, and why cannot Regulations of that kind be drafted by the House of Commons?
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now criticising the Act of Parliament. He is quite entitled to criticise the Home Secretary for the Regulations which are made, but he is not entitled to criticise the Act of Parliament.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. ANDERSON: I am sorry that I took a very wide line, but it is necessary to take a very wide sweep in order to explain the whole matter, and I was trying to explain what might be done as an alternative to what has been done. The various phrases that were quoted by the Home Secretary
  1254
  included such matters as this. There must be in the cases of these British-born subjects the proved necessity of dealing with them, and it must be clearly shown so on and so forth, and in all these cases they have no real chance of legal proceedings. They have had up to the present no chance of being defended by counsel. Many of those people could only put their case in a very poor way. Up to the present, in dealing with all those cases, they have not had even a written statement of the charge against them. Even the Home Secretary now admits that that would be a very necessary and desirable thing, and at least to that extent what has been urged both in and out of this House is going to be done. The very worst thing which we can do is to use the dangers of the War for the purpose of sweeping away those things which have been traditional in English history and English legal procedure. In "Hallam's Constitutional History" he says:—
  "The Writ—'that is of Habeas Corpus'—is rendered more actively remedial by the Statue of Charles II. but, founded upon the old basis of Magna Charter, it is the principal bulwark of English liberty, and if even temporary circumstances or the doubtful plea of political necessity should lead men to look on its denial with apathy, the most distinguished characteristics of our Constitution will be effaced."
  I believe that to a very considerable extent is being done under the Advisory Committee. We have been told the lines on which the Committee is formed. On what rules is evidence brought before it? Is it on ordinary legal lines? Is it not the case that in practically every case these trials are held behind closed doors? There no doubt would be cases where it would not be advisable in the national interest that the trials should be public, lest matters might go forward that ought not to be publicly reported, but, where it is possible to have the right of public trial, public trial should be granted. It comes back to this in the end, that, despite the so-called safeguard of the Advisory Committee, the man who is supreme in this matter is the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He is the judge and jury. He can try the people and pass sentence upon them. The whole matter is in his hands, and he is prosecuting counsel at the same time. I do suggest that, that is an unsatisfactory arrangement, even from the standpoint of the Home Secretary himself. The Home Secretary ought not to be asked to undertake an obligation of this character. Therefore, while I entirely agree that you have

  1255
  got to have additional restrictions and safeguards at this time, the tribunal ought to be a tribunal whose impartiality is beyond doubt and dispute. I believe that that can be done. Legislation by legislative order is open to very grave abuse, and I would suggest that, when amending legislation is possible, we should modify that. Also I would say that while you still attach—as you ought to attach—supreme importance to seeing that there is no danger to the Realm, you should keep freedom, constitutional liberty at the same time safe at home.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: I do not like to intervene, but as a member of the Committee, may I say for the information of this Committee that the man or woman accused invariably knows what the accusation is—hostile association, and so on?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: In the course of the very able speech by the Home Secretary just now I think that he hardly really met the essential point of the hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) who moved the reduction. After all, what has been said is not that injustice has necessarily been done to any person under this Regulation by the action of the Home Secretary, but that you have no security that injustice has not been done, and absolutely no security that great injustice will be done in the future. It is no answer to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary is, as we all know, a reasonable man himself, or that the Committee, all of whom we know, are reasonable men. What we complain of is that these ordinary safeguards for British safety have been removed, and that cases may occur in which injustice is perpetuated, even by accident, by my right hon. Friend and by this Committee, and that then these citizens will not have the ordinary recourse to the ordinary tribunals. Nor does the hon. Gentleman who moved this reduction say that anything illegal has been done by the Government. That is not the point. What happened when this legislation was passed in the House of Commons I am quite certain was this: We had long Debates as to whether a British subject in all circumstances should have an appeal to the civil tribunal, and the House of Commons was practically assured that in all circumstances he would. We never had the smallest suspicion that all the superior executive power was going to be given to the Home Secretary to imprison certain classes of citizens.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: On a point of Order. Is it competent for this Committee to upset an Act of Parliament? Either the legislation is right or it is not.
  The CHAIRMAN: I have ruled a few minutes ago that it was not in order, on Supply, to criticise or ask for the amendment or alteration of an Act of Parliament, but Regulations made under the Act of course are a proper subject for reference.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: What I have said is that when this Act was passed it was commonly understood that all British subjects were to have legal access to the Courts. I do not say that the Government are acting illegally. In all probability they are not. The case has not yet been decided. But it is not good enough for the Government to pass an Act on the clear understanding that there shall be recourse to the Civil Courts in last resort for all British citizens, and then to make Regulations under an Act of Parliament, which may be quite legal, which make that resort in the end impossible. The safeguards which are offered for certain classes of British citizens now are the reasonableness and good will of the Home Secretary, and the reasonableness of the tribunal. There is no resort to the Courts. That is what I complain of. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that this power is necessarily confined to certain very small sections of the community. He laid great emphasis on the fact that they were citizens of hostile origin or association What does that mean? I do not think that there has been any legal interpretation of these words. The fact is that if the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee will say that they have hostile associations, they thereby have hostile associations, and become liable to be permanently imprisoned without any legal redress. The people who decide whether they have hostile associations are the right hon. Gentleman and this Committee.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Not even the Committee.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: The right hon. Gentleman decides whether they have hostile associations or not. What does "a man having hostile associations" mean, or what may it mean? As far as I can see the mayors who were feasted by German corporations before the War may be meant It may mean almost anything which the right hon. Gentleman chooses to interpret it as meaning. I dare say that he is going

  1257
  to be reasonable in his interpretation, but there may be cases in which he makes a mistake, and in which British citizens with no hostile associations may be subject to this most unjust detention. I will go a little further. If the right hon. Gentleman has been able to make this Regulation, which he defends by saying that those under it are to be of hostile orign or association, I want to ask him this question quite definitely. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that if he can do that he can also make a Regultaion leaving out the words "hostile origin or association," and so subject all British citizens under a new Regulation to that absence of final legal resort to the Courts which under this Regulation is applied to one class of citizens? As far as I can see there is no reason why we should not do that.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir F. Smith)was understood to say: The Executive decides. It decided in this case.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: That is to say that the House of Commons, having never in tended under this Act that British citizens of any kind shall not have a final resort to the Courts, now find themselves in this position, that they are at the mercy in these cases of the right hon. Gentleman or whoever may be Home Secretary, and then that the decision as to whether all British citizens—
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member now is either criticising a point which is sub judice or else he is criticising the Home Secretary for something that he has not done but that he might do.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I think that I have, at any rate, made clear to the House what the danger is to the individual even under existing Regulations, and how those Regulations might possibly be extended. What we complain of is that though we have every reason to believe that my right hon. Friend is reasonable, we do not like British liberty to be dependent on the reasonableness of any one man or of any few men. We prefer that it should depend on the user of legal resort which has existed for all time except when, as my right hon. Friend points out, Parliament has deliberately suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. That is not the case to-day. What we are afraid of is the further extension by the Government, under the powers which they now have, of the circumscription of the liberty of the subject, and I think it most
  1258
  unfortunate that the Government are not prepared to make some concession to my hon. Friend to secure the liberty of the subject.
  Sir JOHN SIMON: The Regulation under discussion this afternoon is a Regulation made by the Home Office at a time when I had the responsibility of answering for that Department in this House, and perhaps the Committee will allow me to make one or two observations in the Debate. Home Secretaries come and go, but the Home Office goes on for ever; and I am not surprised to find that the view which is taken by that Department, under its present chief, is the view which was held not as the result of some sudden spasmodic hasty action, but as the result of a great deal of care and deliberation on this matter when the Regulation was made. Something has been said this afternoon about Habeas Corpus, and I am not quite clear whether some of the speeches that have been made in criticism of this Regulation are made from the point of view of law or of policy. It is very necessary that we should distinguish between these two things. So far as the legal question is concerned the legality of this particular Regulation has already been discussed in the Courts, as we have been told. A great number of judges both in the High Court and the Court of Appeal have expressed the opinion that the Regulation is perfectly legal, and the matter, if it has to be further considered, will have to be decided in the House of Lords. Therefore, it is quite wrong that we should discuss the legality of the matter. The only observation that I will make under that head is that it is a complete mistake to suppose that the legality or the illegality of this business can be judged simply by looking at the Regulations. The Regulation, standing by itself, of course has no validity whatever. The Regulation is only a good authority of what is done if it is justified by the terms of the Act of Parliament which has been carried through this House.
  It is said that this is interfering with Habeas Corpus. I was a little surprised to hear my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary speak in terms quite so sweeping of what was in fact secured by legislation in the past when. Habeas Corpus was, as it has been popularly described, suspended. Historically, I think it is quite a mistake to suppose that when an Act is passed for suspension of Habeas Corpus—

  1259
  as, for instance, was done by Pitt in the course of the wars at the end of the eighteenth century, and was renewed year after year—it abolished the writ of Habeas Corpus for all British subjects, as though the Act of Habeas Corpus had never been passed. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was nothing more than this, that it provided that for twelve months a man arrested by the Executive on a charge of high treason could not compel the authorities either to release him or to bring him to trial. It left Habeas Corpus always to operate just the same for everybody else—just the same for persons detained by the authorities on any charge of crime—and, so far as I recollect, it was strictly limited to the man who, arrested on a charge of high treason, could not claim a release because they did not bring him to trial within the twelve months. Ireland has had more severe and more frequent suspensions of Habeas Corpus, but experience has shown, I think, how jealous, and rightly jealous, this country has always been of anything that savours of interference with personal liberty. Whatever view may be taken of the matter by anybody in this House or out of it, no one in the least complains or expresses or feels any sort of resentment because this question is raised here by some who, rightly and naturally, are anxious to see that British liberties are not interfered with. This is the right place to raise the question; and whether my hon. Friends are right or wrong in their criticism—I think their criticism is not quite right—the spirit which moves that criticism is a spirit which shows that our institutions are really worthy of being enjoyed by a free people.
  Another thing about Habeas Corpus. It is a complete mistake to suppose that Habeas Corpus is the privilege of the British subject, of a man who is the subject of the British Crown. That is not the least true. The writ of Habeas Corpus is available for all persons within the jurisdiction of the British Court, which is quite a different thing. In the actual experience of the Court, nine times out of ten, when there is an application for a writ of Habeas Corpus, it is an application, not on behalf of a British subject at all, but on behalf of some foreigner in this country, the ordinary case being where a foreigner is arrested on the charge of being a fugitive
  1260
  from justice; he is about to be handed over to the authorities in his own country, but, before he goes, he sues out a writ of Habeas Corpus in order to test whether it is right that he should be handed over. It is quite a mistake to suppose that Habeas Corpus is the privilege of the British subject or of a man naturalised as an Englishman. I hope the Committee will excuse my mentioning those points. They seem to have a bearing when we try really to see how much force and substance there is in the complaint that this is an interference with the traditional rights of British subjects.
  I come to the matter of policy. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman who raised this matter, in so temperate and careful a speech, agreed in all respects with my hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) who spoke so feelingly just now. The hon. Gentleman who raised the matter stated quite frankly that in time of war we must be prepared to forego some portion of the full legal protection which exists in time of peace. I am not quite sure that my hon. Friend who has just spoken indicated a similar view.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: Yes.
  Sir J. SIMON: Then we are all at one. Therefore on the point of policy we start with this, that in time of war the law in relation to this matter will not be the same as it is in time of peace. The next thing is this: Nobody disputes that the subjects of an enemy State in this country—and they were in this country in great numbers at the beginning of the War—are to be interned in proper cases by order of the Executive without trial and without writ of Habeas Corpus. No one disputes that, and I do not think it has ever been disputed; indeed, it is an indisputable proposition. We, therefore, reach this point: Can it be that, after you have admitted that Regulations must be different in time of war, and after you concede that everybody who is actually a subject of an enemy State is liable to be interned without trial, there is nothing which can be properly done short of putting all other persons upon their trial, with the necessary consequence that in the case of the person prosecuted the strictest laws of evidence would have to be observed, and the jury would not convict unless there was seen to be sufficient and proper cause? It seems to me that it would be absurd to say that a German-Swiss, who is perfectly well known by the authorities to be an agent

  1261
  of the enemy, or a Dutchman, who is in constant communication with the enemy, or the member of a German family who has recently passed to the United States of America and becomes naturalised there, runs in one category, while, on the other hand, the person who remains a subject of the enemy, by common consent, may be interned without trial. Therefore I submit to the Committee that we have to approach this from the point of view of recognising that for persons who are not enemy subjects you must have in war such a Regulation as this, not of the technical kind requiring strict proof, but some proper Regulation to secure the safety of the State.
  Then there is another criticism made by my hon. Friend—that the House of Commons did not understand all this, and that the country did not understand it. He will forgive me if I say that, really, if the House of Commons did not understand it, it is entirely the fault of the House of Commons. I quite agree that, if in this matter we are simply to rely upon the action taken by the House of Commons on the first day of the War—a day which I do not think any one Member of this House will forget as long as he lives—I quite agree that if we were to draw up a whole schedule of Regulations on an Act of Parliament hastily passed by common consent of the House, under pressure of terrible anxiety and terrible urgency, it would not be giving full and fair information to the House of Commons. That is not the position at all. Criticism and complaint were constantly made in this House month after month, after the War began, that the Home Office had not got effective machinery for dealing with those suspected persons who were not, in fact, enemy subjects. I apologise very much for referring to anything which I have myself said on the Home Office Vote, but, as the Home Secretary has reminded the House, I made some remarks about this question, and I will read one or two passages, in addition to that which has already been read, which show that those hon. Members, the hon. Member for Salford and the hon. Member for Elland, could not have been present, or that they did not attend to what was said in respect to the Regulation. This is what I ventured to say on the 17th June, 1915:—
  "One of the first thing's that was done, when I took over my new duties as Home Secretary, was to devise an amendment in the Defence of the Realm Regulations, by which it may be possible with proper safeguards—of course it should not be done without the most careful safeguards—that a British citizen may be required
  1262
  to live in a particular place, or to notify his movements, or submit to other necessary conditions for the safety of the State. What are the safeguards? In the first place, such a person must be reported to the Secretary of State, either by the naval or military authorities or by one of these Advisory Committees of which I have already spoken."
  I pause there with the greatest satisfaction and sincerity to refer to what my successor said as to the efficiency, combined with extreme care and sense of justice, with which the Department of the War Office deals with this matter, and the way in which it has conducted these proceedings ever since the War began. I went on to say:
  "In the second place, I thought it right that the Home Secretary, who is answerable in this House, should not be able to shield himself in connection with these acts behind the recommendation of the naval or military authorities. I thought it plainly right, in the interests of British subjects, that I should have to answer if an unreasonable use was made of this most exceptional power. Therefore, the Regulation is so drawn as to secure that. In the third place, any Order that is made under these new Regulations can only be made for the defence of the realm and the security of the public from danger, and it must contain express provision which will secure that the person to be dealt with shall have any representation he wants to make, as to any mistake having been made, or as to any other matter in his favour, fully and properly considered."
  Really, I think, language could not more clearly describe what this Regulation is. And having made that statement in the month of June last in the House of Commons, from that day to this, so far as I know, the matter has not been challenged until in the course of last week; and now some of my hon. Friends, whose motives and desires I most fully recognise, seem to think that they have been trapped into this. The Regulation was very fully discussed. The number of cases to which the Regulation applies is extremely limited, and for the life of me I cannot see how you are going to secure the safety of the State, unless you have some such power as that, surrounded by such safeguards as are possible. One other matter. The hon. Member who raised this question said fairly enough that, of course, some such power must exist, but he suggested an improvement of the machinery or methods. He asked why these people should not be tried by a judge—he suggested more than one, but so far as I know, they are generally only tried by one.
  Mr. ASHLEY: There are two on the Advisory Committee.
  Sir J. SIMON: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say why should they not be tried by a judge or judges in a Court if necessary, and that after the judge has tried them on some accusation of crime,

  1263
  even though the judge comes to the conclusion it is not proved, that the judge might still order that the person should be imprisoned. I venture to think that that is a far more dangerous proposal, if we desire to preserve the traditions of British justice, than anything which is contained in these Regulations. I dislike extremely the idea that you are going to use our strict judicial forms and at the same time are going to dispense with the conditions which are laid down before a man is subject to any punishment under those forms. To pretend to have a trial on the understanding that whether he is found guilty or not he is going to be imprisoned does seem to me to be a trial out of "Alice in Wonderland." If you are going to have resort to strict criminal jurisprudence, you must take the consequences. You must tell a man, "Here is an accusation. It is for the prosecution to prove the case. You may stand still and do nothing, and give no evidence or offer no defence, and the judge will see that unless the case is proved you will be free the moment the trial is over." That is justice.
  Mr. ASHLEY: What I proposed was that a separate person should decide the case from the person who interned the man. At the present moment the Home Secretary is both prosecutor and judge. What I am trying to secure is to have two separate entities to deal with these two matters.
  Sir J. SIMON: I had appreciated the point. It has been urged, I think, by the hon. Gentleman and by others that you really ought to have something like a trial through judicial officers, in which, even though the case is not made out, the judge who presides might sentence the man to a terms of imprisonment. I object to that in toto. It appears to me that there is nothing more dangerous than for you to suggest that judges administering law in a Criminal Court, though the case is not made out, should none the less be able to punish the prisoner. There is then the other suggestion which the hon. Gentleman has made. Is he not wrong when he says that the Home Secretary is both accuser and judge. He is using language which is perfectly appropriate if you are dealing with accusations of crime, and punishment for crime, but which does not seem to me to be at all appropriate when you are dealing with the perfectly separate question, namely, whether a man
  1264
  who may have committed no crime should in the interests of the State be put under some surveillance by the State, which I agree is a most dangerous thing to do, and a thing which the House of Commons is entitled to watch. But the two questions are not the same. I do not think in this matter the Home Secretary is prosecutor, and I do not think that in the full sense of the term he is judge. So far from being prosecutor, if the hon. Member will look at the Regulations he will find that no case can be so much as started under these Regulations on the instigation of the Home Secretary at all unless the military authority, the secret service authorities of the Foreign Office, or the corresponding department in the Admiralty, or the Advisory Committee, of which the Home Secretary is not a Member—
  Mr. ASHLEY: He appoints them.
  Sir J. SIMON: It is no good saying that a man is prosecutor because he appoints the Advisory Committee, but even the hon. Gentleman would be wrong, because the Home Secretary does not appoint either the military authority or the naval authority. The point of the matter is this, that different persons who have this kind of work to do may in the course of the discharge of their duty come across some cases of which they consider the civil authority ought to be informed, and they bring the matter to the Home Office, but it does not begin there. Therefore the Home Secretary is not prosecutor, and neither is he in the proper sense of the term the judge. What he does is this, as about many other matters which have to do with the detention or liberation of citizens, he exercises a discretion which has, of course, to be exercised fairly, but it is not a discretion similar to a sentence by a judge, and it has no relation to it. As he has told us, there has been no case in which the Home Secretary has ever departed from the advice of the Advisory Committee, if the Committee has advised that a man should be released. There was a case in my time in which I did take a rather different view from that of the Committee. Having in fact found further information about the case, and after seeing the Committee we were agreed, I think, that it was right that a particular individual should be released. I do not believe that anybody who will consider the realities of this situation will doubt that if it were hereafter determined

  1265
  that Regulation 14 (b) does not authorise the detention of these people, it would not be necessary for the House of Commons instantly to legislate on the subject. It is really inconceivable that we should suddenly release into our midst a limited number of persons every one of whom is the centre of the very gravest suspicion by the authorities, and every one of whom has been called before a perfectly independent body presided over by two judges, and every one of whom, in spite of any explanation he has made, has been thought by the authorities a person whom it is not safe to leave at liberty. I regret that these things have to happen; it is one of the misfortunes of war, but I suggest that it would be really wrong, under some impression that this is suspending Habeas Corpus, or that this is the appointment of the Home Secretary to be prosecutor and judge of any British subject, to take a wrong view of such a matter. The hon. Gentleman said he could not understand how I take the view I do about the proceedings of the authorities under the Military Service Act and justify this. This is the distinction: I want to see the law observed, and as long as this is the law the only question for the House of Commons is whether as a matter of policy it is wise. I suggest it is wise for reasons which I have mentioned, and I hope that the House will accept the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: We run some risk, I think, of missing some fundamental facts. This is not a case of arriving at penal decisions, and it is not so much a question of law as of policy. It is policy, not perhaps general policy, but general policy as applied to cases arising out of the overmastering exigencies of national defence. To arrive at decisions in these cases we have to consider not retributive but preventive measures. In all these cases it is not really the past acts of individuals for which it is sought to exact vengeance. What this Committee and the Home Secretary are engaged in doing is arriving at an estimate of the dispositions of these individuals for the purpose of deciding whether it is necessary to apply to them preventive detention. In these cases what the Committee and the Home Secretary have to consider are not past facts but future probabilities. The point which has been urged by the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. Trevelyan), that there was an understanding in this House that questions of that kind were to be referred
  1266
  to a legal tribunal, is to suppose that the House was really in sympathy with some of the lurid imaginings which I well remember the hon. Member was giving expression to almost the day after the War was declared. To propose that these kind of questions should be referred to judicial tribunals would be doing a thing most disastrous to British judicial decisions, since it would be referring to the judges of the land a question of policy, and not of law. This is a very difficult matter, for the difficulties and complexity and embarrassment of which not we but our enemies are to be blamed.
  Mr. ELLIS DAVIES: The hon. Member who moved raised the question that when the man is arrested he has now no right to see whether or not he has been properly arrested. I raised this matter by question in the House, and the answer I received was from the Prime Minister that the Regulation only applied to naturalised British subjects. On the other hand, the Attorney-General, in the course of his argument in the case, said that with regard to Regulation 4 (B), the effect was that the power conferred by it could be applied not only in the case of alien enemies, but also, if necessary, in the case of persons who were natural-born British subjects or naturalised British subjects. Our contention is this, that British subjects are being arrested and interned and held in custody, and have no access to the Courts of Law. The answer is made that no right is given under the Regulations for an appeal to the Court, but I think the complaint of the British subject is that a Regulation should have been made not to give him the right to appeal to a Court of Law first of all, to ascertain what is the exact nature of the charge upon which he is interned, and secondly, to ascertain what evidence the Executive possess of the charge which they make against him. It has been suggested to-day that the Court of Law is in a position to question the Regulations made by the Government. With all respect to the hon. Member, that suggestion is in-accurate. The question was raised before the Lord Chief Justice, who said:
  "What we are to consider is whether or not the words of the Act of Parliament authorise the making of this Regulation. If they do, it is not for as to say whether the Regulation is good or whether it is bad."
  The position in which a man finds himself is this, that he is arrested, that he is interned, that no definite charge is very often made against him, and if he appeals

  1267
  to the Court, the Court tells him "you have no right under the Regulations to come here." I venture to say that that is a power vested in the Executive of which the House was not conscious. I distinctly raised the issue on the Second Reading of the Amending Bill of the Defence of the Realm Act in March of last year.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: On a point of Order. Is it competent to discuss the basis upon which we passed the Act, and under cover of this Vote to seek to upset an Act of Parliament?
  Mr. DAVIES: I am not disputing the question of the Act of Parliament at all. I am simply pointing out that what the hon. Member who raised the issue to-day claimed was the right of the person charged and interned under the Regulation to go to the Court, and I am mentioning that on the discussion of the Amending Bill I distinctly raised the issue as to whether a person arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act had the right to go to a Court of Law.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): If the remarks of the hon. Member are directed to suggesting a change in legislation they are out of order. As far as his remarks are directed to the Regulations, they are in order.
  Mr. DAVIES: The point I was going to make is that this House was given to understand that under these Regulations a person arrested was entitled to know the charge against him and to go to a Court of Law to have it tested. Perhaps I may read what was said on the occasion in question. I referred to a case reported a few months before of a British citizen who was arrested and held in custody under the Defence of the Realm Act without any offence being charged against him. He appealed to the High Court for a writ of Habeas Corpus, and the Court refused to interfere. In answer to that criticism we had a speech from the then Attorney-General the Member for Walthamstow, and this is what the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "If a British subject is arrested in connection with the Defence of the Realm Act"—
  His answer is quite definite, and is not limited to a particular Regulation—
  "and an unreasonable time elapses before he is told what is the charge against him, it would take a good deal of argument to convince me that he would not be able to move for a writ of Habeas Corpus."
  I submit that the amending Act of Parliament was passed on the distinct under-
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  standing in this House that a person charged in connection with the Defence of the Realm Act, whether under Regulations made before or after that date, had the right to apply for a writ of Habeas Corpus.
  Sir J. SIMON: My hon. Friend is really confusing the dates. I do not complain of that, but I naturally know the dates, because the Act was passed when I was Attorney-General, and the Regulation we are discussing was made when I was Home Secretary. When I was Attorney-General what I said was quite correct, because the hon. Member was complaining of a case where the military authorities had arrested a man with the intention of trying him on a charge, but he was not being brought to trial. I naturally said that if that was the case he could move for a writ of Habeas Corpus. That has nothing to do with the question whether you can detain people without trial under a Regulation made afterwards.
  Mr. DAVIES: The question was whether a person charged under the Defence of the Realm Act, under Regulations made by the Executive, had access to the Courts. The power to make Regulations was already vested in the Executive. It is perfectly true that this particular Regulation was not made until a subsequent date. But the decision of the Court goes a great deal further than this Regulation. It really decides the question, and asserts that under a Regulation made under the Defence of the Realm Act, provided it is within the power of the Executive to make the Regulation, there can be no appeal to a Court of Law by the person interned. The complaint of the hon. Member who raised this question is, I understand, that under this Regulation there is no provision, as there should be, enabling the matter to be tested in a Court of Law. It is true there is an Advisory Committee to which these questions are referred; but I put it to the Committee that it was clearly understood that anyone arrested under these Regulations could go to a Court of Law, and I cannot understand why in the circumstances, when an alien spy is entitled to be tried by the judges of the High Court, the same right in any event is not given to natural-born British subjects who may be interned at the will of the Home Secretary.
  Sir W. BYLES: I do not approach this question as a lawyer. I want to get it

  1269
  away from the mass of cobwebs which have been woven around it in recent speeches. I interrupted my right hon. Friend to say that it was not done by Act of Parliament. He disputed that. I say that the whole of the mischief complained of in this Debate has arisen not from the Act of Parliament, but from the Regulations which have been arbitrarily made under that Act. I maintain that the House of Commons at the time the Defence of the Realm Act was going through had no idea whatever that they were surrendering an immemorial liberty which they enjoyed. I watched the passage of that measure when very few of my colleagues were taking any interest in it. The Noble Lord who is now Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was very watchful, as he very often is, in questions affecting personal liberty. I was grateful to him then, and I have been many times since. It is true there was a phrase in that Act—I forget the exact words—enabling the King, by Proclamation, to make Regulations. I do not dispute the legality of the Regulations which have been made; they may be legal, but they are altogether apart from the intentions of Parliament. That is all I say.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is not in order to discuss the intentions of Parliament in an Act which is now on the Statute Book. The hon. Member must confine himself to questions of administration.
  Sir W. BYLES: I agree that the Act is on the Statute Book and these Regulations are made under it. I am not sure but that we get rather clearer ideas now on these broad questions of British personal liberty in another place than we do in this House. I think there is more outspoken criticism there, and sometimes franker explanations by the Government in reply. A Noble Lord who lately sat on the benches opposite, Lord Parmoor, has been writing letters to the "Times" on this subject, and he points out in a recent letter two things which we ought to watch, and which I hope not only the House of Commons, but the country, will watch. One is that Parliament should make the law and not the administrative body after the Act has been passed. The other is that the judges should administer the law, and not some irregular committee set up outside. It seems to me that we ought to keep these two principles broadly in mind. These Regulations, which are so voluminous, are not the Act of Parliament; they are made by administrative
  1270
  authority outside what Parliament intended. Further, the law is not administered by the judges of the land. I admit the great ability and persuasiveness shown by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary earlier in the Debate. What upset me, as far as my opinions had been previously formed, was that he said you cannot charge these people, and therefore you cannot try them—that is to say, you should have an arbitrary power to deal with them. Why not get an Act of Parliament to enable you to detain them until you can try them? I am satisfied it is a dangerous thing that the Executive should have power to dispense with the protection which these laws have given us in the past. No doubt the difficult cases which the right hon. Gentleman picked out from the list are such that no one would contend that the people ought to be at large All I maintain is that you ought to have the power of an Act of Parliament to detain them.
  Colonel YATE: I cannot acquiesce in, or agree in any way with, the suggestion that great praise ought to be bestowed for the prompt action of the competent military authorities in arresting aliens and other diaffected persons. I have heard of a case where there was a fire in a large store. I have heard of a case where a fuse of gunpowder was laid to another store. The military authorities have reported such matters time after time and begged for something to be done, but could get nothing done. I ask the Home Secretary to take the matter into consideration and allow the officers in charge of stores and other places where there is great danger to take prompt action in connection with the local police, instead of having to report to the red-tape-bound Departments of the War Office. These reports are sent to the War Office, but are never acted upon; they are banded about from one to another, and nothing is done. We must have prompt action in this matter. Our stores are far too valuable to be at the mercy of any red-tape system like that at the War Office. I hope the question of permitting reports to the local police and taking prompt action on them will be seriously considered.
  6.0 P.M.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: It must not be supposed that those Members who have not risen to support the hon. Member who raised this question are not in sympathy with maintaining the liberty of the subject. I think there is no more important question that could be brought before the Committee, and I do not think our time to-day

  1271
  has been wasted in dealing with the manner in which the authorities have endeavoured to carry out their exceedingly difficult duties in this connection. I am sure the whole Committee is thankful to the hon. Member for Blackpool for bringing this subject before us. The country owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for his watchfulness on this point. Whenever it is found necessary to interfere in the slightest degree with the ancient privileges and liberties of everyone who sets foot on British soil, whether a British subject or not, it is not a waste of time at intervals to see whether those powers are being efficiently and properly carried out. I do not think it is possible for any hon. Member who heard the full statement of the Home Secretary to doubt the intense care and trouble that have been taken by that right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor in connection with this very difficult subject. We are at war, and we are obliged to resort to special means, not of punishing offences which have been committed—that is not the point at all—but of preventing the possibility of something being done which might be very harmful to a vast number of our fellow citizens. We ought to be content to leave these well-guarded and well-executed powers in the present hands. It has been made perfectly clear to the Committee that nobody can be deprived of their liberty without the proceedings first being set on foot by the naval or the military authorities, and the Home Secretary has to be personally satisfied by evidence brought before him that it is a proper case in which to act. In addition to that you have the Advisory Committee. Some hon. Members have said, Why not have a judge of the High Court? On this Advisory Committee there are two judges of the High Court, therefore there is double the safeguard for which those hon. Members ask. There are Members of this House upon the Committee. It is not possible for this procedure to approximate in the remotest degree to anything in the nature of letters-de-cachet or anything to which the liberty-loving British subject objects. We have spent, I think, a very useful afternoon in brushing away any idea that anybody might possibly have that there was any injustice being done in this matter, or that anybody was being detained whom it
  1272
  was not highly desirable should be detained in the interests of the people of this realm.
  Mr. ASHLEY: I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  ACCOUNTANT OF COURT (SCOTLAND).
  Mr. CURRIE: I think this is a convenient opportunity to draw the attention of the Government to the opportunity open to them of rendering a very considerable service to the people of Scotland by developing the administrative side of one of the offices attached to the Court of Session there. I refer to the office of Accountant of Court. As a rule, when an officer of this kind is mentioned in connection with Estimates, it is with the intention of endeavouring to make some criticism or economy. None of the Members from Scotland, or other professional men who have occasion to do business with the present incumbent of the office, would desire to criticise him. On the contrary, it is because the administration of the office has been so sound for many years that I shall be glad if the Government can see their way to make a little more use of it, either permanently or if more easily done temporarily, or even for emergency purposes. The office is regulated by rules and regulations laid down, either by the judges of the Court of Session as a body, or by the Lord President of the Court, or perhaps by the Lord Advocate—I do not know. I think without legislation, but by some sort of administrative order, a useful purpose would be served if the powers of the Accountant of Court could be extended so as to enable him to supervise, and in some degree to manage, trust estates in Scotland.
  I do not think it would be in order, and I do not for a moment intend to raise the general question of the institution of the office of Public Trustee in Scotland—however much I wish that could be done. But for the narrower purpose I may add that the Accountant of Court already has power of supervision and investment of trust estates. I think his powers might be stretched just a little further so that the large number of married soldiers who are appointed to be sent away from Scotland—many of whom must be anxious to appoint trustees—could appoint him. Only the other day the Government were looking for a trustee, or depository, of enemy

  1273
  funds in Scotland, and they naturally turned to the Accountant of Court and made use of him. It is a very great hardship that married soldiers, who must be anxious to make provision of this kind, should not have it made as easy as possible for them. Nothing is more difficult than for poor men to secure reliable, competent, and experienced trustees. Something of the kind is clamant in Scotland. If my suggestion were acted upon, very large numbers of men in Scotland would be very grateful to the Secretary of State. In Scotland we have the great advantage that there is practically no initial prejudice against this office to be overcome. Some years ago there was a feeling of the kind, but I believe that it has almost entirely disappeared. I think it must be acknowledged that the efforts that several Members for Scottish seats have made in this direction have resulted in the old prejudice being quite taken out of the way. Judging by the experience—the English successful experience of the Public Trustee, I think that such a development of the powers of the Accountant of Court would be extremely welcome.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: There is one point to which I should like to call the attention of the House. It would be a very great convenience, I am certain, to a number of our soldiers and sailors if facilities for the safe deposit of wills under a certain Scottish Act, with which my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate is familiar, could be made more largely known and could be more widely advertised than now. A short time ago I asked a question as to the number of wills deposited under the provisions of that Act, and I found that it rarely ran into three figures a year. I think it was something less than twenty wills per year. In England also, under a corresponding provision of an old Act, the figures were somewhat more. In effect the facilities were not used at all. Then came the office of Public Trustee in England, and facilities were given by him. Those facilities were widely advertised, and wills which are deposited for safe keeping with him amount now to several thousands per year. That shows what can be done by letting the facilities and opportunities be known. There are a great many men on active service, as well as a great many other people, who would be glad to avail themselves of these facilities if they were brought to their notice as the Public Trustee has brought to the notice of the people in England the
  1274
  facilities given by his Department. I fully recognise what my hon. and learned Friend said about the discussion on the Public Trustee question being out of place. I shall be glad if it can be raised some time, because with the help of some of my hon. and learned Friends I brought in a Bill in several successive Sessions to deal with the matter. A great point is, of course, that the people should have someone whom they can nominate, so that they may put in their will: "I nominate 'So-and-so' as my executor and trustee." That "So-and-so" being some public official who is known by his corporate name. I think that is what the hon. Member has principally in view. I cannot say whether in any of the existing Statutes there is the power to enable testators to name the Accountant of Court in that way. I should rather doubt it. I cannot express an opinion. In any case, I think the whole subject is well worthy of the attention of my hon. and learned Friend.
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Munro): I venture to think, if I may say so, that both the manner and the time in which this subject has been brought up are a little unfortunate. My hon. Friend who first spoke did not communicate with me on the subject that he proposed to raise until I came into the House this afternoon. As it is manifest that many interests are involved, I think it is quite manifest also that I cannot give him a very full reply at so short notice. The time at which the matter has been brought up is also rather unfortunate, because what my hon. Friend was hinting at throughout his speech was obviously the desirability of putting upon the Accountant of Court in Scotland the duty of Public Trustee. Manifestly that cannot be done without legislation. This is not an appropriate time to discuss legislation. My hon. Friend seemed to suggest that what he desired might be done by administrative Order. Apparently what he had in his mind was that it could be done by an Act of Sederunt passed by the judges of the Court of Session. In the first place, the Accountant of Court is a statutory official who has statutory duties to perform, and any enlargement of those duties would obviously have to be in virtue of an Act of Parliament. I say no more about that. But so far as an Act of Sederunt, that has been suggested, is concerned, I would remind my hon. Friend that that matter is one simply and solely for the judges for the Court of Session to determine; one

  1275
  with which I have no concern at all and no right to interfere. Accordingly I am afraid, so far as the proposals which my hon. Friend put forward are concerned, they all involve, and necessarily involve, legislation. I cannot, therefore, appropriately discuss them on this occasion. I am afraid the same observation applies to what my hon. Friend behind me said. I think his suggestions, while deserving consideration, involve legislation, and accordingly I am again debarred from discussing them on this occasion.

  EXEMPTION FROM SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire, in a few sentences, to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Board of Education some questions in regard to the release of children from school who are under a statutory obligation to attend school. I should like to remind the Committee of the history of this question in the House of Commons. Very soon—a week or two—after the outbreak of the War in 1914 demands were made in this House for the release of children of school age to help, particularly in the work of agriculture.
  Sir F. BANBURY: And a very good thing too!
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The right hon. Baronet says, "And a very good thing too." He is consistent, because he has always opposed in this House any legislation to restrict the labour of children. He is taking the same attitude that he took in regard to legislation for the protection of children trading in the streets. From the first there was opposition in the House to the withdrawal of children of school age from school. I want the Committee to remember that I am speaking, not of the children who may legally leave school, but of the children who are under a statutory obligation to attend school, in compliance with the law passed for their express protection. The Committee knows that the Government to some extent gave way, and said that in cases of proved necessity, and under certain rigid conditions, the statutory law would. not be insisted upon, and no obstacle would be placed in the way of the local authority granting exception for special purposes at an age somewhat earlier than the legal age for leaving school. Many of us heard that decision with extreme apprehension. I think our fears are now proved to have
  1276
  been justified, because education authorities all over the country have been availing themselves of this concession—if that is a right word to use!—and great numbers of children have been withdrawn from school for the purpose of work in various industries in the country. I think we are entitled to have fuller information than has yet been given us in regard to the extent of the withdrawal of these children from school.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: On a point of Order. We are now discussing a Vote about the law courts in Scotland and the hon. Member is talking about children going to school?
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Question before the Committee at present is the general one on the whole number of Votes that are set down on the Paper. So far as the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse) is concerned, he is not out of order. I will endeavour to keep the discussion as closely as possible to the point.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I am, if I may say so, dealing with a question of administration that properly falls within these general purposes.
  Sir J. D. REES: What is the Vote?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The Education Vote.
  Sir J. D. REES: What number?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The hon. Baronet will be able to see the number for himself by referring to the Paper which has been issued. I am sorry I have not it with me, or I would give him the number of the Vote.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I presume it is Vote I. of Class 4 on which the hon. Member bases his remarks.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: On a point of Order. An hon. Member moved a Reduction, but it was not put, and if that is so, of course it would be on Vote I.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: As I said before, the Question before the Committee is a general one covering all the Votes which are in the Vote of Credit, and it is entirely at the option of hon. Members when they are called upon to move a Reduction or not as they like. I have called upon hon. Members, so far as possible, in the order in which their names appear on

  1277
  the Paper. It is, of course, open to any Member to speak on any topic covered by this Vote of Credit.
  Mr. CURRIE: With the greatest deference, on the same point of Order. Did you notice, Mr. Maclean, that I had given notice of Motion in regard to No. 12, which I should have supposed came immediately after No. 11?
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: Might I just call your attention to this, Mr. Maclean? It has already been laid down from the Chair that it is not possible to go back. I think it was laid down as long as twenty-five years ago that, in order to secure something like continuity of the different subjects even on a Vote of Credit, it is not possible to travel right back to anything you like on the whole series of matters.
  Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order. Is it the case that an hon. Member secures priority by putting a notice on the Paper? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I will take the last point of Order first. It is a method of convenience, in order to draw the attention of the Chair to the fact that Hon. Members desire to take part in the discussion, for hon. Members to put their names down, but it does not by any means secure them any right of priority. With regard to the other point, it is not the duty of the Chairman to call an hon. Member's attention to the fact that he has intimated a desire to take part in the discussion. He ought to have risen, but he did not rise, and I called upon the hon. Member who caught my eye. I regret that it is not possible to go back. We must take the position in which the Committee finds the discussion and proceed from that.
  Mr. CURRIE: I endeavoured to rise, "but I thought you had some reason for calling upon the hon. Member. I began to rise, but did not fully rise, I admit.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: One often notices physical motions of that kind, but one does not always associate them with a desire to catch the eye of the Chairman. I am sorry I did not see the hon. Member.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: Before we leave the matter of order, might I ask, for the convenience of the Committee, to what point we have got?
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Class IV., Vote 1.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I should not like to make any extended demand upon the patience of hon. Members. There will be plenty of time for other points to be raised, if it is in order to raise them. When I was interrupted by these very numerous points of order, I was about to say that the very last thing in my mind was to charge the Board of Education, either the representatives of the Board in this House or the permanent officials of the Board, with any lack of sympathy or any lack of interest in this great question. I am quite sure, from the replies that have been given in this House, from the statements that have been made to deputations which have waited upon the Board of Education, that the Board is fully sympathetic towards this question and fully realises the great importance of it. I only regret that the Board of Education has not a free hand in this matter, but is controlled to a large extent by other Departments and cannot wholly act upon the merits of the case. But I think we are entitled from the Board to more information, and I want this afternoon to ask my right hon. Friend if he will now give us the statistics relating to the children who have been released from the elementary schools who are under a statutory obligation to attend school.
  I should like to ask also whether, in addition to giving us the total number of exemptions, he could also give us more detailed information with regard to the respective ages at which children have been released from school. Some, for instance, have been released at so early an age as eleven years, some at twelve, and some at thirteen. I hope my right hon. Friend can give us detailed information, not only as to the total number of children exempted, but the ages of the children who have been exempted. Then I want also to ask for a statement as to the present policy of the Board in this matter. I want to ask what safeguard the Board insists upon when children are exempted. I want to ask whether local education authorities obtain permission from the Board of Education before they disregard the statutory law, and I want to ask whether any education authorities have exempted children of school age without the permission of the Board or in defiance of the opinion of the Board; and I would venture to suggest that it would be a helpful thing if the

  1279
  Board would issue some account of the correspondence which has taken place on this matter with the local education authorities, showing the views they have expressed and the conditions they have tried to lay down in the interests of the children.
  I want to ask the Committee to think for a moment if they will see how important this problem is. When the House of Commons in years past has been discussing any great question of social reform, or any great social problem, it has repeatedly been brought up against the fact that the problem which it is discussing was due to the absence of education, or to a faulty and inadequate system of education, and during long years the State has built up a system of education which is still very incomplete, still very partial, still very inadequate, and in a few weeks all that system, inadequate as it was, is swept away—the greater part of the safeguards erected for these children are swept away, and that creates a very great problem for the future. In five, six, seven, or eight years we shall have a generation who will have been taken from schools when they were still infants, who will grow up into men and women uneducated, and deteriorated in many ways, mentally, physically, morally, by reason of the fact that at the age of eleven or twelve or thirteen years they were withdrawn from all educational influence and care. For I would ask the Committee to observe that this is not a temporary matter. The children who were withdrawn in August or September of 1914 have not gone back to school. If they were then twelve years of age they are now approaching the age, or have perhaps have exceeded the age, when they were under any statutory obligation to attend school, and the interruption to their education, which was represented eighteen months ago as a temporary interruption, is now in the vast majority of cases a permanent interruption. Therefore, we are creating for ourselves by this policy a vast social problem for the future. I decline to believe that the resources of this country have reached such a state that it is necessary to adopt this policy, and to release children at the elementary schools for various forms of industrial work. If there were a serious shortage demanding the labour of infants I cannot understand why the secondary schools are not first raided, for obviously
  1280
  children of secondary schools have been longer at school than children at elementary schools, and, therefore, though I should equally deplore it in that case, it would be less of an evil to take older children between the ages, roughly, of fourteen and sixteen or seventeen than to take these children at the elementary schools, whose ages are less than fourteen, and sometimes some years less than fourteen.
  One other piece of information I would like to ask for, if I am not making too great a demand upon the patience of my right hon. Friend, is as to the occupations to which these children have gone, because the agricultural industry is not the only industry that has claimed these children. Factories of various kinds have claimed them also, and many local education authorities have not restricted the use of these children for the purpose of agricultural employment. I hope, too, we may hear whether, in the case of those children who have permanently left school whilst under the statutory age, any scheme of further educational care has been developed by the Board of Education, and to what extent it has been put into operation. Finally, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will receive with sympathy—I feel sure he will, from all he has said in the past—the inquiries and the recommendations of a committee of persons interested in child-life and education, who are inquiring into this matter, and who desire to co-operate with the Board of Education in solving this problem, and in putting before him various; suggestions to meet what, I am sure he will acknowledge, is a very serious problem?
  Sir J. D. REES: I do not want to delay this Vote, but I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he is replying to his hon. Friend behind him, if he will take due note of the fact, and give some explanation, why it is that the very class of children who have enjoyed all those advantages on which the hon. Gentleman expatiated, and the loss of which he described as such a disaster to the country, is the class above all others which has not shown up well in the present crisis and has produced those younger men who have shown want of proper patriotism in going to fight for their country. Rather than dwell on what the hon. Gentleman said, with which I express myself in the

  1281
  utmost disagreement, the occasion of this Vote should be taken to impress on the Board of Education that their methods should be entirely altered, that patriotism should be one of the chief things taught in the schools, and that not so much the right as the duty, and the necessity to live for that duty, should be made the main object of the public education of the country.
  Colonel YATE: I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman who is going to reply to this discussion not to interfere in any way with the discretion of the local education authorities in permitting children to be released from school for agricultural employment. In Norway the whole of the schools are closed during the summer when agricultural pursuits are in operation, and I think we might well take a lead from them. I ask that full discretion may be given to these local authorities to permit children to go in the summer and work in agriculture. It improves their health, both physically and morally, and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will not listen to the demands made by the hon. Member opposite who spoke last, but will allow these children to be employed in this way.
  Sir JAMES YOXALL: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has referred to the practice in the Scandinavian schools, but may I point out that those children attend school during the long winter months to a much later age than is the case in this country? A very one-sided case has been put before the Committee by the hon. Member who has just sat down. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees), I heard his few remarks with amazement, if not with dismay. They are remarks which are founded upon anything but the facts of the case, and they draw attention entirely to a small section of the population in one or two parts of the country alone. The hon. Member omitted to refer to the fact that the great bulk of the volunteers to the Army and Navy, amounting to nearly 6,000,000, were drawn from the very class who have passed through the very schools which the hon. Member condemns. A more unfair inference could not be drawn from the actual facts by any hon. Member professing to have any knowledge upon the subject. The hon. Member for East Nottingham further stated that the falterers came from one class of the population. Does the hon. Member not know that the tribunals are considering cases of exemp-
  1282
  tion from all classes of the population, and is he not aware from the experience of those tribunals that some of the most trivial excuses come from the classes whom the hon. Member presumes to defend in this House?
  Sir J. D. REES: The hon. Member is taking very great pains to demolish propositions put up by himself, but he is referring to things that have nothing whatever to do with what I said. Class refers to age, those maturing at a given time for military duty.
  Sir J. YOXALL: The hon. Member's remark applied to the class of population whose children went to these schools, and his argument was that the schools in question required to be revised and checked, and if he did not say that, then his remarks had no bearing whatever on the question. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse) that there is very small fault indeed to be found with the action of the Board of Education on this matter. I agree that the Board of Education under difficult circumstances have done the best they could, and they have restricted within most reasonable limits the withdrawal of children from school. The hon. Member opposite expressed the hope that there will be no interference with the powers of local educational authorities in this matter. I think that many of the education authorities in some of the rural districts have shown a most short sighted attitude, and in many cases they have been sacrificing by their action the future interests of the children. It has been proved that if the farmers cared to employ adult labour they could obtain it, and it has been shown to be the case by the Agricultural Labourers Union, and by other bodies associated with agriculture, that if the farmers care to pay a fair rate of wage they can obtain labour, but in order to save a few shillings out of the enormous revenue they are reaping during the War, they ask for the labour of children between eleven and eleven and a half years of age who have to leave school, not during the summer only as has been stated, but in some cases all the year round. That is what hon. Members are asking should be permitted to go on without interference. I only wish the Board of Education had greater powers to restrict that sort of thing, and I wish they had been stricter

  1283
  in the matter than they have been. I fully recognise the difficulty, and I do not wish to be unreasonable.
  In these times I know we must all make sacrifices. I do not wish to lay any very great stress upon this matter. I only rose to reply to some of the remarks made by the hon. Member opposite. With regard to this question of exemptions from school by the local education authorities I think it is desirable to say a few words in a strong and pointed manner. There were 12,000 male teachers from public elementary schools now serving with His Majesty's Forces. Since the Derby scheme and the Military Service Act came into operation the number has been increased to over 20,000, and their places have had to be filled by makeshift teachers. Already I have had brought to my notice the loss educationally which has been caused by the absence of those teachers, particularly among the boys. I would ask my right hon. Friend to see that everything that can be properly and reasonably done is done to maintain in each boys' school at least one male teacher, and in the larger schools more than one, in order that the influence which male teachers exercise upon the boys in the school may not be entirely lost. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will listen to my appeal. It is not merely a question of these lads losing educational benefits for one and a half or two years, but it affects the whole of their school life. Although you may bring in women and makeshift teachers to take the place of the male teachers serving with the Colours, they cannot bring to bear on the boys the same influence which men alone can do. I have carefully watched the employment of girl teachers in boys' schools, and it succeeds up to a certain age, but beyond that age you want the masculine mind, with its natural kinship and mode of understanding the boys, just as you require women teachers for the girls. You cannot give to the boys the proper teaching they ought to have by a makeshift teacher of another sex. Therefore this is a most important matter for the Board of Education to consider. You should not allow the exemption of the children unduly from the schools, and you have also to remember the effect of the absence of the male teachers from the schools upon the boys who remain in the schools.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): This Debate has come upon me like a bolt from the blue, because neither from my hon. Friend who spoke first or from any other speaker had I any notice whatever of the raising of these questions until this Debate had actually begun. A few questions have been addressed to me, and I shall do my best to answer them with the materials which I have been able to obtain at practically a few minutes' notice. My hon. Friend who initiated this Debate argued that practically no children should be exempted from attendance for the purpose of entering upon agricultural or other labour. The hon. and gallant Member for the Melton Division (Colonel Yate), on the other hand, urged that all local authorities should be granted a perfectly free hand in this matter. It is really unnecessary for me to enter into a debate upon this particular question, because Parliament has already carefully considered the matter, and the lines upon which exemption is to be granted were laid down, with the consent of both parties, by the Prime Minister, and all that I have to say in the matter is that so far as the Board of Education is concerned it has done its very utmost to keep the local education authorities to the lines definitely agreed upon and laid down in Parliament by the Prime Minister. [An HON. MEMBER: "When?"] In March of last year. To the extent of the powers we possess we have acted in accordance with the spirit of the conditions laid down by the Prime Minister. I have been asked how many children of school age have been withdrawn from school, and also to give as detailed particulars as possible of the children who have been withdrawn between various ages. A Parliamentary Paper has been published, which I hope will be in the hands of hon. Members tomorrow morning, which will give in detail the information for which my hon. Friend has asked. Perhaps I may be allowed to summarise it by saying that the number of boys between 11 and 12 years of age who have been withdrawn throughout the whole of the country is 143, and the number of girls is 1. In the case of those between 12 and 13 years of age the number of boys withdrawn is 4,208, and the number of girls 13; between 13 and 14 years of age, boys 3,511, and girls 78. The total number of withdrawals throughout the country is, boys 7,934, and girls 92.
  Mr. GOLDSTONE: All in contravention of existing by-laws.
  Mr. LEWIS: Yes, I understand the action that was agreed to by Parliament was that if local education authorities dispensed with their by-laws for this particular purpose they would only do so upon certain stringent conditions being adhered to.
  Mr. CLAVELL SALTER: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us out of what totals those numbers have been drawn, so that we may judge the proportion?
  Mr. LEWIS: I regret that I am unable at this very short notice to give the total number of children between the ages of eleven and thirteen, but, of course, they will be several hundreds of thousands, at least. I am not at all sure that the number may not even be a couple of million—[HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"]—not so much as that?—but I should not like to tie myself down to any figure.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: Will the total number be given in the information to be placed in our hands to-morrow?
  Mr. LEWIS: I am afraid it will not include that, but if my hon. Friend, or any other hon. Member, puts down a question upon that point, I shall be very pleased to do my best to supply the information.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: It is already in the official reports of the Board.
  Mr. LEWIS: The information, at any rate, can be given at the request of any hon. Member. The proportion in itself is not large, but at the same time I frankly admit that the numbers do give the Board of Education considerable uneasiness. I think that every possible effort should be made to induce local education authorities to keep strictly within the limits of the lines that have already been laid down by Parliament. My. hon. Friend asked me whether the Board would issue any of its correspondence with local authorities upon this question. The Board have already published one White Paper. I am not at all sure that the letters which have followed are of sufficient importance to justify the publication of another Paper, but I can assure my hon. Friend that, so far as the Board of Education is concerned, all the letters that have been addressed to local authorities have been in the sense I have already indicated, namely, that of a strict adherence to the lines that have
  1286
  already been laid down. My hon. Friend asked what were the safeguards that the Board insisted upon? The safeguards are the conditions to which I have already referred, namely, that the employment of school children shall be regarded as an exceptional measure, permitted only to meet a special emergency; that it shall only be allowed where the authority are satisfied that no other labour is available, that in considering the available supply of labour the authorities shall satisfy themselves that all possible efforts have been made to secure adult labour, that every case shall be considered on its merits, that there shall be no general relaxation of by-laws, that the employment shall be of a light character and suitable to the capacity of the child, and that if permission is given at all it shall be given for a definitely limited period only. I am not quite sure, but I think my hon. Friend asked me what occupations the children so released had entered. So far as the Board of Education are aware they have nearly all gone into agriculture. Most of them, at any rate, have gone into agriculture. The latest return I have shows that 900 have gone into other occupations.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I ask whether the permission of the Board has been obtained in the case of all these exemptions?
  Mr. LEWIS: It is not a question at all of obtaining the permission of the Board. That is not necessary. The local education authority has the right, if it chooses to exercise it, of releasing children in accordance with the conditions laid down by Parliament. I am glad to say that a large number of local education authorities, covering rural areas, have not thought it necessary to release any children whatever for agricultural employment, and, with regard to those that appear to have transgressed the rules laid down, the Board, wherever the occasion has arisen, has addressed a remonstrance to them. My hon. Friend asked whether, if representations were made to the Board by a committee which has been recently constituted for the purpose of considering matters like those referred to in this Debate, the Board would receive them. I need hardly assure my hon. Friend that the Board would receive with the greatest I respect any representations that might be received of the character he has mentioned.
  Sir F. BANBURY: With regard to curtailing the employment of children?
  Mr. LEWIS: So far as curtailing the employment of children in agriculture is concerned, I have stated over and over again that the Board adhere to the lines laid down by Parliament, but whatever representations may be made by the committee that has been constituted for the purpose of considering these matters, will receive most respectful attention at the hands of the Board of Education.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I should like to ask a question, not in any critical sense. The right hon. Gentleman throughout his very sympathetic and full reply has constantly referred to conditions laid down by Parliament.
  Mr. LEWIS: In Parliament?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: No. "Conditions that have been laid down by Parliament." I presume that he is referring simply to the answer given in this House by the Prime Minister and not to any decision that has been reached by this House, or to any Vote that has been taken by this House.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: I wish to add one word to the very clear statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education. Of course, it is quite clear that no legislation has taken place in this House, but it was distinctly understood that the Board of Education and the local authorities would be governed in this matter by the restrictions which were announced by the Prime Minister when the matter was being discussed. I merely rose to correct one striking misapprehension of the hon. Member who raised this question (Mr. Whitehouse). In the course of his remarks, he asked why it was that children were not taken from secondary schools instead of children from the public elementary schools. He thought it would be better to take children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen than those under the age of thirteen. I do hope the idea will not go forth that children from either schools are to be taken. It is not a question of taking children from these schools; it is a question whether the local authorities should be in a position to grant permission to parents who ask that their children may be taken from school. Every pupil in a secondary school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen would be
  1288
  able to enter any employment if his parents wished him to do so, but they can only go from the elementary schools at the request of their parents and by permission of the local authorities. Further than that, the local authority must act and should act in strict accordance with the restrictions laid down by the Prime Minister.
  Sir R. WINFREY: I ventured to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education because, whilst it is true that the Board of Education has laid down, as he says, certain safeguards, it has never attempted to see that those safeguards are put into operation. It is one thing to prepare a set of safeguards on paper and to circulate them amongst local authorities, and it is quite another thing to see that those safeguards are put into operation, and that is exactly where the Board of Education has failed. I happen to be a member of a local authority which has agreed that children of eleven years of age shall be allowed to be withdrawn from school. We have had no remonstrance from the Board of Education.
  Mr. LEWISindicated dissent.
  Sir R. WINFREY: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. We had not received any remonstrance up to the other day, and we carried that Resolution over a month ago.
  Mr. LEWIS: If the local education authority which my hon. Friend has in mind is the same as that which I have in mind, then a very strong remonstrance indeed was addressed by the Board of Education to that authority.
  Sir R. WINFREY: All I can say is that I attended a meeting of this education authority on Wednesday of last week, and it had not reached us then. A year ago we agreed, reluctantly it is true, to allow children to be withdrawn from school at the age of twelve. We thought that was going far enough, and some of us reluctantly agreed to it. This year a resolution was passed, by six votes to five, that children of eleven years of age could be withdrawn from school. At the same time the Board of Agriculture have issued a notice to farmers that they can have soldiers who have been accustomed to agriculture to assist in farm work this spring at 4s. per day, and there is not a single farmer who has asked for a single soldier in that district. I say that

  1289
  is proof positive that these safeguards which the Board of Education talk about have never been carried out at all.

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  7.0 P.M.
  Whereupon the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod (Admiral Sir H. F. Stephenson), having come with a Message to attend the Lords Commissioners, the Chairman left the Chair.
  Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners; the House went; and, having returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

  1. Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Act, 1916.

  2. Naval Prize (Procedure) Act, 1916.

  Supply again considered in Committee.
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
  Sir R. WINFREY(resuming): I have very little else to say, except this, that instead of the Board of Education addressing remonstrances to those local education authorities, who evidently intend to take these children, and have indeed taken them, it seems to me, as a practical business man, it would be far better for them to send down an inspector to see whether the safeguards are really being carried out. If the Board did so, it would be found that they are not being carried out, and that this is a question merely of pounds, shillings and pence. If farmers who are taking these children at eleven years of age would only pay a proper wage, they could have soldiers from the War Office to do their work. But while they can get children at 5s. a week they will not pay a man 4s. a day. That is the crux of the question. The inspector would also find out that after a child has been withdrawn from school he is not watched in any way. He may go to an agricultural employment for a month or so, but then he may drift into a town and take up some other employment. There is no attempt whatever to follow the child to see whether the safeguards and regulations are being carried out. Inspectors enough are available to send down to secondary schools for a variety of purposes. I attended a meeting of my secondary education committee the other day, when we had no fewer than
  1290
  three of these gentlemen down from the Board of Education. We were, of course, pleased to see them, but I think one would have been quite sufficient. If the Board can send them down in that way, they surely can send them down to see if these safeguards are being carried out by the local authorities. I hope the Board will act upon this suggestion. There is one other point. Not only are the Board of Education letting these local authorities break the by-laws, but they are actually breaking the Act of Parliament itself by withdrawing children who are under twelve years of age. If I am rightly informed, these children are protected by Act of Parliament, yet at the present time we are flouting that Act by allowing the children to be withdrawn.
  Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: I should like to support the appeal made by the last speaker, that more care should be taken to secure that the excellent safeguards laid down by the Board are adequately carried out. It is not only necessary there should be inspection by the Board of Education itself, but I would beg the right hon. Gentleman to use his influence to secure that the local authorities themselves do more in the way of local inspection. Although it is impossible for them to increase their staff of inspectors, I believe that for this purpose, as a war measure, they might make use of unpaid voluntary assistance, particularly in urban areas, where there are a large number of qualified women who would be willing to give such assistance in seeing that the safeguards are carried out. I believe, too, that men who do not come within the military age would in many cases be willing, if they were encouraged, to assist in this work. I hope that the Board of Education will insist that the local education authorities, when they allow children to leave school at this tender age, shall take proper steps to see that the safeguards imposed are carried out in practice. I know we have the good will of the Board in this matter, and I trust they will be able to take such further steps as may be required to secure this end.
  Mr. JARDINE: I hope the Board of Education will not be induced to make it more difficult for agriculture than it is to-day by appointing underpaid and voluntary spies or inspectors to go round. I have to go to-morrow night to address a number of women and persuade them to go in for agricultural work, yet we have an hon. Member here suggesting that it would

  1291
  be better that these women, instead of working on the land, should go round spying on the farmers.
  Mr. HARVEY: No. I referred primarily to urban conditions when I spoke of women inspectors.
  Mr. JARDINE: I assumed that the hon. Member was referring to agriculture. The difficulties of agriculture are great and the assistance and sympathy of the Board of Education are required for, and not against it. We are having to-day appeals made by Ministers for economy. The greatest economy is to increase the efficiency of the people, and the efficiency of agriculture can be helped very much if the Board of Education would encourage local authorities to release children at an earlier age. Afterwards I would support any hon. Member who brought in a measure providing that those children should continue their education to make up for the time they had lost. I appeal to the Board of Education not to interfere with the use of children in agriculture. A cheap sneer has been cast at the farmer who objects to employing occasionally soldiers at 4s. a day on agricultural work. Soldiers are doing magnificent work. We cannot be too grateful to them and cannot give them too good a time. If the hon. Member were a farmer he would not think 4s. a day was a cheap wage to give a soldier whose whole thought is on soldiering, and whose desire is to get out to the front, but who was dumped for a few days on the land. He is not cheap at 4s. a day, and he would not be cheap at 3s. a day. Farmers are men who know their business, and they would not think it a profitable investment to have soldiers occasionally on their land at 4s. a day.

  BRITISH MUSEUM (CLOSING).
  Mr. BUTCHER: I beg to move, "That Item Class. IV., Vote 2 (British Museum), be reduced by £10."
  My object in moving this Reduction is to call attention to the action of the Government in closing a large portion of the British Museum and of the Natural History Museum. I understand the present intention is to close a considerable portion of the Natural History Museum and the whole of the British Museum with the exception of the Reading Room and, I believe, the Manuscript Room. Let me say, at once that I do not desire in any way to challenge the action of the
  1292
  Trustees of the British Museum. They have no choice in the matter. It is the Executive Government, and they alone, who are responsible for this action. In this connection may I quote the words uttered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is one of the three principal trustees of the British Museum, in a speech he made in another place on the 27th of last month. He said:
  "The responsibility in this matter is, of course, a Government responsibility and does not rest with the trustees."
  A little later on he said:
  "It has not been without the greatest disappointment that the trustees have been obliged to acquiesce in the demands of the Government."
  My objection to the Government's action is twofold. In the first place, I dissent from their general policy, that is, the policy of closing a considerable portion of this museum, because we know the Natural History Museum is a part of the British Museum; and, in the second place, I would ask the Committee to say that if it were necessary to close parts of the Museum the Government have adopted an entirely wrong method of doing so. On the first point, I suggest the decision was an unwise one, and was not founded on any kind of reason. The importance of free public access to collections of unexampled value and interest which are found in the British Museum, great as it is in time of peace is, in some respects, greater in time of war. In wartime the opportunities for rational study and recreation are necessarily limited, and it would be very unfortunate if we were to curtail unduly those small opportunities which exist. Whether you regard the British Museum from the standpoint of a place of educational value or a place of rational recreation, it stands in almost a unique position in the world, far above and beyond any of our other national collections, with the possible exception of the National Gallery. A very strong case must be made in order to justify the closing of any part of that museum.
  Consider the matter from the point of view of the public for a moment. Is it not desirable to place before the public the possibility of attending to some better occupation in their times of leisure than moving pictures which, I grant you, may be of value and interest but which, for the most part, although my experience of them is not wide, appear to be exceedingly trivial and very often mischievous. I am

  1293
  not sanguine enough to hope that all those who now frequent moving pictures will rush to the British Museum, even if it is open. I wish they would, children and all. But I think it is not unreasonable to hope that at any rate a portion of those who now spend their time in that way might be induced to attend the British Museum during war time if they had the chance of doing so. There is one special class of the community who ought to be given free access to the British Museum and every form of rational recreation, namely, our wounded officers and men, many of whom are in hospitals in London or in the neighbourhood of London, and many of whom would be delighted to have the opportunity of visiting these magnificent collections, which probably they have never seen and which they may never have another opportunity of seeing, that are housed in the British Museum. Indeed, if my information is correct, wounded officers and men have resorted to the British Museum while it was open in very large numbers lately. There is yet another class to whom I might make reference, that is, the men of our own race who have come from our Dominions. They are splendid men, many of whom we regret to know are now in our midst wounded. Those men, perhaps, will never have another chance in their lives of going into the British Museum. Therefore I trust the Government will see their way to reconsider their decision and give these men, as well as others, an opportunity of visiting these collections. May I quote the opinion of two men whose opinion is of the highest importance in this matter? The Archbishop of Canterbury said in his speech in another place:
  "It would cause general inconvenience and a great? deal of serious disappointment."
  Lord Lansdowne, speaking on the same occasion for the Government, said:
  "I think it is a misfortune that this museum has to be closed."
  What, then, are the grounds upon which the Government justify their action? It is not a question of the preservation of the collections in the museum. If it were that, I suppose there is not a man in this Committee who would dissent. That is not the reason they give and upon which they act. The main ground upon which they have based their decision is the ground of economy—I will examine that in a moment—and, as a secondary ground, they suggest the possible employment of some of the museum staff on other work. If it were a question of a large saving being concerned here the matter would
  1294
  assume an entirely different aspect. No one realises more than I do, and I suppose most hon. Members do realise, the immeasurable importance at this time of national and personal economy. If we could see a large saving resulting from this action I should certainly not be here to oppose the closing. But what are the facts? The truth is that the saving is of the most trivial description. I put a question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the 29th of last month as to the amount of the saving to be effected, and his answer was:
  "The direct annual saving is estimated at approximately £19,000. In addition there may he considerable indirect savings from the employment of the museum staff on other work."
  I should like to put two questions to the right hon. Gentleman upon that. Does that £19,000 include economies which the trustees of the British Museum had already resolved upon before the closing, and which would be in no wise affected if the museum were kept open; and, secondly, can he give us the approximate number of the staff of the museum who are employed on other work, and who will not be able to be employed on other work if the museum were kept open? In other words, can he tell us how many of the staff now employed on other work would have to return to the museum if the Government decision was altered and it was kept open Further, I should like to ask, what economy, if any, is going to result from the employment of this staff on other work? We know where the proposal originated. It came from the Retrenchment Committee, who, I have no doubt, devoted the greatest care and attention to the question of economy and made very many admirable suggestions. I do not think this is one of their happiest suggestions. Their original proposal was to close the whole of the Natural History Museum and the whole of the British Museum, with the exception of the Reading Room. The Government were pressed by deputations and other influences, and they very rightly and properly abandoned the suggestion of the Retrenchment Committee to some extent, and promised to keep the Natural History Museum open. By so doing they cut practically the whole of the ground from under the feet of the recommendation, because they largely reduced the small economies involved in the other proposal. The saving suggested is £19,000, and no more. I am not going to decry small savings, but

  1295
  if you wanted to save £19,000 in order to keep the museums open there are many ways, and far better ways, in which you could effect small savings. Let me suggest one. If you were to cut off only half of the salaries of Members of this House and leave us in possession of the other half, you would thereby effect an economy seven times as great as that effected by closing the Museum. A proposal of that sort would be not only better in itself, but would be much more acceptable to the general public than debarring them access to these collections in the museum. The Retrenchment Committee supported their recommendation by one suggestion, the force of which has really entirely disappeared. They said, "They have shut up the museums in Paris." It is quite true that upon the near approach of the enemy to Paris the museums were closed—I doubt not for purposes of safety and preservation—but for some considerable time past the Luxembourg Museum has been open—not merely the Luxembourg Palace, where the French Parliament sits, but the museum, which is an entirely separate building where those treasures which most of us know are deposited. Only recently a decision has been arrived at to reopen many of the galleries of the Louvre, and that has already, I believe, been done or is immediately about to be done. In view of the state of things which I have recounted, I ask the Committee to say that no adequate case has been made out for closing a portion of the museum.
  I pass to my second point. Supposing there were a substantial saving to be effected and the Government desired to carry it out, what is their proper way of doing it? The mode in which they have done it, namely, by Executive action, is entirely wrong. The facts with regard to the foundation of the British Museum are these: Prior to 1753 the nation possessed certain collections of great value, for which the housing accommodation and the provisions for custody were inadequate. In 1753 the British Museum Act was passed, by which the museum was established and provision was made for erecting a building in which the then existing collections and all future collections which might be taken into the building by the trustees were, in the words of the Act,
  "To remain and be preserved for public use to all posterity."
  Further, by that Act a body of trustees was appointed of which the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the
  1296
  Speaker of the House of Commons and other great officials of the State were made trustees and the buildings and collections were vested in them upon a special trust and conference, and the words of the Act were these:
  "Upon this trust and conference free access to this general repository and the collections therein contained shall be given to all studious and curious persons at such times and manners as the trustees shall think fit.'
  The effect of that is to impose a statutory duty on the trustees to keep these collections open to the public use and inspection at all times subject, of course, to the power of the trustees to make rules as to the precise times and mode of access. Is it not clear that the duty of the trustees, as imposed upon them by Parliament, was to keep these museums open to the public and that the trustees could not, of their own motion, without a breach of their public duty, close the museum, or indeed any part of it, for an indefinite period. If Parliament said the museum was to be kept open, no less an authority than Parliament is entitled to say it shall be shut for an indefinite period. If, therefore, the Government were desirous of closing the museum, or part of it for an unlimited time they should have brought in a short emergency Bill saying it should be within the power of the trustees to close the museum for such time as might be necessary during the War. That is not what they have done. They have used their executive power to compel the trustees not to do what Parliament said they should do, and the way in which they have been able to use that executive power arises in this way. Parliament has for many years voted a substantial sum for keeping up the museum, and of course that Vote cannot be brought forward except by a Minister of the Crown. The Government have said, "We will use our executive power not to bring forward a Vote of sufficient amount to enable the trustees to do their duty." That is an abuse of the executive power. Their proper course was to come to Parliament and ask for an Act to alter temporarily, for an emergency, the Act of 1753. That this is so, and that the trustees acted under the coercion of the Government, is quite clear from an answer given me by the Financial Secretary on 21st February last. My right hon. Friend said:
  "In view of the fact that the Government does not feel justified, in present conditions, in inviting Parliament to vote moneys sufficient to enable the trustees to keep the British Museum fully open, the trustees have obviously no alternative but to close the larger portion of the museum."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 21st February, 1916. col. 422.]

  1297
  They used their power of the purse to force the trustees to do what they ought not to have done, and the truth of the matter is that the Government has, by executive action, coerced the trustees into a breach of their statutory duties and thereby compelled them to close the museum. They have adopted a wrong mode of carrying out a wrong policy, and I urge them to reconsider the position. The amount is very small to be gained by shutting it up and the advantage to be gained by keeping it open is very great, and I would ask them, if it is not too late, to bring forward at some further period of the Session a small additional Vote for the purpose of enabling the museum to be kept open and enabling the trustees to comply with their statutory duties under the Act of Parliament.
  The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid I cannot put the Amendment the hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested in view of the Rule of the House that a reduction of a Vote or item must be a substantial and not a trivial amount.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Then I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
  Mr. MORRELL: I should like to support the appeal of the hon. and learned Gentleman. It is important that the Government should realise the extremely unfortunate impression that has been made on public opinion in this country and amongst our fellow countrymen from the Colonies, and also amongst the Belgians who are now staying in this country as our guests, by the action the Government have taken. This is a time when London is particularly full of people who are here for a short time, passing through on business and for other purposes, and London is not a place which is too hospitable in the number of public buildings which are open for guests passing through. It is a very unfortunate time for the Government to choose, when we have so many Colonials, so many foreigners, and so many soldiers and officers staying in London, to close what is one of the greatest prides of our country—the British Museum, the best possible place which could be selected for passing the leisure time which these men are forced to spend here in London. I am as much in favour of rational economy, and unsparing economy, as any man in the House. I have urged the Government to increase taxation with a view to enforcing economy, but this is an unfortunate beginning to make. The hon. and learned
  1298
  Gentleman says that £19,000 is the amount. I thought it was as much as £50,000. How much is the War going to be prolonged by that?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Two and a half seconds.
  Mr. MORRELL: I had not worked it out, but it is ridiculous when we are dealing with such large figures. It is a little unfortunate that we should have to discuss this cheese-paring economy in the matter of public education when the Government is spending £60,000 in buying a racing stud.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: Nothing of the sort!
  Mr. MORRELL: The two are not connected, I agree. But if we can spend money in one way, it is unfortunate that we should be unable to continue what I believe to be a necessary part of the public expenditure at this time.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: The Government is not spending, and has never proposed to spend, £60,000 in the purchase of any stud. You are completely wrong on the whole point.
  Mr. MORRELL: At any rate, the hon. Member will not deny that the stud is going to cost the country £4,000 a year.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: Nothing of the sort!
  Mr. MORRELL: I will not discuss this, now. I am in the recollection of the Committee. I appeal to the Government to reconsider the decision they have taken upon this point. It is well worth their while to consider public opinion and the opinion of our friends and of our Allies, and not to do what I consider is something like dishonouring the country at this time by closing our finest exhibition when there is really no need shown for it.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: I desire to take this opportunity of supporting the proposal of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Butcher) that the Government will reconsider their position in regard to the British Museum. It is difficult, if not impossible, to add anything to the arguments that he has brought forward. I must own that I did not attach as much importance as he did to the constitutional and historical argument in favour of this question. The

  1299
  trustees of the museum, of course, will be unable to keep it open unless they have the funds, and Parliament is quite justified in refusing to give them the funds if they think it is necessary for the purpose of economy. On the question as to whether it really is worth while for the sake of a small sum like £19,000 to deprive not only the inhabitants of this country, but all the visitors to this country, of the great educational advantage of being able to visit these museums, I think there can be no doubt that by closing them you are shutting out the public from enjoying what is a very great and important educational advantage. We have just heard a discussion in regard to the impropriety of allowing our school children to engage, in agricultural pursuits under the age of fourteen. If you close these museums you will be preventing our children from having an opportunity of visiting them and having facts explained to them immediately connected with the operation of the War, an opportunity the occasion for which we hope will never occur again. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of maintaining these museums open, not only for educational purposes, but also for the purpose of recreation. There are many persons who, at the present time, disapprove of going to theatres and to visiting moving-picture shows or any amusement of that kind. The persons who hold these views take the opportunity to a larger extent than at any previous time of visiting our museums and making themselves conversant with the splendid collections there. I do hope that on all these grounds the right hon. Gentleman will be able to induce the Government to withdraw from the position they have taken up, and not to allow this paltry sum of £19,000 to stand in the way of the great advantages which attendance at these museums gives.
  Mr. E. HARVEY: I desire to support the able and overwhelming arguments of the hon. and learned Member for York. I had the privilege of being a member of the staff of the British Museum for some years, and I feel that it is due to my former colleagues that I should say a few words in support of this plea. I think the whole country received with real regret the announcement that the first economy to be made by the nation was an economy of this character, so small in amount, and yet so far reaching in its
  1300
  consequences. I support to the full all that the hon. and learned Member said as to the value of the British Museum as an educational institution and as a means of enlightened recreation, especially to the poor, and also at this time to those fellow subjects of ours from the Dominions, whose only opportunity it is to see these great national treasures. It is shutting up very large educational capital entirely without interest, when the Government decides not to make use of these collections in any way. I want to make two practical appeals to the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Treasury. I hope he will be able to withdraw from this policy, but if he is not able to indicate any hope of withdrawal from it, will he at least consider the possibility of opening on one or two days in the week the British Museum for the benefit of the, public? He could make use of wounded soldiers, who have had to leave the Army, as commissionaires, and he could make use even of volunteer labour in connection with the gallery. It would be a very trifling expenditure, but if on one or two days, or on two afternoons in the week, the galleries could be open for the use and enjoyment of our wounded soldiers and the public generally it would be a very great advantage. The other point I want to make is also a practical one. The library of the British Museum has been resorted to in the past by large numbers of poor students. It is only open up to five o'clock.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: Until dusk.
  Mr. HARVEY: The latest regulation is until five o'clock.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: The library of the British Museum will be open until dusk.
  Mr. HARVEY: My point is that a large number of poor students can only make use of the library during the evening. If the library could be open on one or two evenings in the week, or if some selected room could be open, through which there would be no danger of light from above—and it is possible that that could be done—poor students could write in advance, as they have done in the past, asking for certain books to be reserved for them. This room, which might be a basement room, could then be made available at certain hours, and it would be maintaining the poor man's privilege of sharing in this great store-house of knowledge. I think if any practical arrangement of that kind is possible it ought to be

  1301
  adopted. I would especially appeal to the Treasury to reconsider the possibility of reopening at least on certain days in the week the main collection of the British Musem for the benefit of the public at large.
  Mr. BRYCE: The announcement of the closing of the British Museum has created a great deal of dissatisfaction throughout the country. As hon. Members have said, immense numbers of persons from the Colonies are here—not only wounded soldiers, but soldiers in the course of training, and their relatives who have come over to look after them and be near them—and they will not have the opportunity again of seeing collections which are held by this country in trust for the whole Empire. We have a duty not only to our own education, but to the education of the whole Empire. It would be a very great misfortune if this chance, which will never occur again, should not be taken advantage of by these visitors. If, unfortunately, this proposal to close the museum is carried out, I would like to know what arrangements have been made for the discharge of the commissionaires, who, I think, are mainly employed in the British Museum. A great number of them are disabled soldiers who have been disabled in this War and who have been discharged. I understand that they have actually suffered pecuniarily, because by joining the Corps of Commissionaires I believe they have parted with certain rights of remuneration in pension as disabled soldiers. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Duchy can tell us what is going to be done with these men who are going to be discharged if this proposal is, unfortunately, carried out. I do hope that the protest which has been made by the hon. Member for London University (Sir P. Magnus) and the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Butcher), and other hon. Members, will produce the desired effect with the Treasury. I think the Treasury can be assured that the country at large does not think that a saving which only means a few minutes of war expenditure is worth while. If they could get the Admiralty Transport Department to send off a ship a few days sooner, it would save three or four times as much as the whole of this saving by the closing of the British Museum.
  Sir J. D. REES: Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly consider a proposal, which is not mine, but which I have been
  1302
  asked by capable ladies serving in public offices to represent to him, and that is that if he adopts the arguments made by my hon. Friends—which, I am sorry to say, I do not adopt—will he consider the propriety of keeping the museum open, or keeping more of it open, and substitute female for male labour? So keenly do many of these ladies feel on this subject that they propose to take up the duties of the men who are now employed at the museum, without remuneration, rather than that the museum should be closed. I find myself, with pride, but with some surprise, the representative of ladies in this respect, and I am bound honestly to say, while I have got up to make this proposal, I do not share the argument myself. I support the Government with my vote in far more drastic proposals in this or in any other direction. I do not regard £19,000 as a paltry sum. I regard it as a very large sum, and I would prefer the Government to stick to their guns. If, however, they make a change in their present plan, will they take into consideration the proposal of these ladies? It should be remembered that the Reading Room is open. There is no question of closing the Reading Room, which is an educational advantage. However, it is very dangerous to say a word about education without being hopelessly misunderstood and misconstrued, so I will say nothing further.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): I must acknowledge the great weight and earnestness with which the hon. Members who have spoken on this subject have put their case. I recognise that so far as the Debate has gone, with the exception of the qualified support from the hon. Member for Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees) I have not succeeded in obtaining any commendation of the Government's proposal from any quarter of the House. I can only take to myself some satisfaction at the fact that although it is a very representative and distinguished assembly it does not number very many Members of this House. Let me say, first of all, that there is no question of a compensating economy somewhere else which would find us this £19,000. If I could find an economy somewhere else I would make that also, so as to have a bigger saving. If my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Butcher), who brought this subject forward, succeeded in doing what he suggested in regard to what has

  1303
  come to be part of our Constitution, namely, the payment of Members, that would be an economy—
  Mr. HASLAM: Is recreation given to wounded soldiers not a real advantage in bringing about their health, and does the right hon. Gentleman take note of the fact that the museum is used by nurses and others?
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman except on a point of order.
  8.0 P.M.
  Mr. MONTAGU: Despite the public attention which this item of economy has attracted, it has never been dealt with as an isolated proposal. This is not the first step in the direction of economy. It happens as an instance, important or not, as hon. Members may think, in the preparation of the Estimates for this year. Never have Estimates received so much attention from the Treasury and from all the spending Departments concerned. By rigorously scrutinising every single Department or branch of a Department, cutting off one salary there, where a man could be spared, or postponing some activity elsewhere, where it would not suffer by postponement, we have rigorously set ourselves to propose to Parliament nothing that was not necessary, in so far as we could without disturbing the settled practice of the country or prejudicing our development on the restoration of peace. We have succeeded, by large and small economy, in cutting down the Civil Service Estimates by something like £3,500,000. This £19,000 is one item out of this larger sum. I have tried during the two periods I have had at the Treasury, but I find that you never can make any economy or attempt an economy without finding at once that you have far more enemies than friends, and without finding that economy is the easiest thing to talk about in the abstract but the most unpopular thing in the world to bring about in practice. This is one instance which on the highest possible plane you cannot say it is necessary in order to beat the Germans; which on the highest plane you cannot say will materially affect the well being of this country in time to come. I venture to suggest that the Committee will endorse the Government proposals for the moment. I say "for the moment," because this decision is a decision of the moment, and is. meant
  1304
  as a temporary expedient. If the trustees of the British Museum found that they could defend their invaluable treasures with voluntary woman labour instead of police, if arrangements could be made later on without materially increasing the cost of the library, such as my hon. Friend suggests, and if the trustees do suggest an extension of the reading room these decisions could be reviewed. But at the present moment I am treating this as one of a series of separate economies, and I venture to suggest that we should not be justified in asking the House of Commons to vote the money. One of the arguments which my hon. and learned Friend brought forward was that this was a measure for which the Government were responsible and not the trustees. I accept that. The trustees have acted in response to the suggestion of the Government that they should close, because we did not feel justified in asking Parliament for the money necessary to open. There is nothing unconstitutional in that. It is one of the most ancient constitutional privileges of the House of Commons to exercise its control of bodies which otherwise it could not control by refusing to grant money for particular purposes. When the statute which the hon. and learned Member quoted was passed, we did not give a grant to the trustees, and I have the best of legal advice that the trustees are in no way bound to do what their funds from the Trust do not permit them to do, and which the House of Commons refuses to vote them the money to carry out; so that the legal position is quite clear.
  Mr. BUTCHER: What would be the objection to proceeding regularly by a short Emergency Bill?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I do not think that that would be a proper course to adopt. You would have to put a definite time in the Bill. It seemed to us that the presentation of Estimates on behalf of trustees—which falls to my lot—who are not responsible to Parliament in any other way, affords us an opportunity of controlling the action of trustees. If my hon. and learned Friend says, "Why make the distinction, which has been made between this and the other museums?" I will explain why. It is quite true that a distinguished body of men, who have attempted to consider the question of retrenchment, recommended that the whole of the museums of London and elsewhere should

  1305
  be closed. We have not acceded to that suggestion, because, in the main, of the argument which hon. Members have used this afternoon. It is true that many Colonials and soldiers, who are now in London for the first time in their lives, want to visit museums. I do not think that there is any evidence to show that because of the presence of these forces there is any great influx of visitors to museums, because I find that during the last three years the number of visitors to the British Museum has consistently and continuously declined; but what we felt was, that there ought to be some places where the soldier and the visitor could go, and that, therefore, some museums should be kept open, and we are keeping open the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Gallery, as a concession to the very argument which has been used. With regard to the Natural History Museum, large exhibits have been prepared for the purposes of the War, in order to give soldiers certain information which is valuable to them in the War, such as the causes of diseases conveyed by parasites. These exhibits have been specially designed for the War. It was, therefore, suggested that those galleries which were particularly interesting to the public, and contained these exhibits, should remain open. I do not think that it is likely to distress our friends that we have taken this step, because the French have closed some of their collections, and the fact that they have opened one of them, and that, as my hon. and learned Friend told me, they intend to open another, shows that they, like us, have taken steps to close some of their museums and open others.
  Mr. HASLAM: It is on the ground of safety.
  Mr. MONTAGU: My hon. Friend must not forget that there was a certain element of safety in this matter. If the British Museum were open to-day it would not be the British Museum of peace times. Many of its treasures would not be on exhibition. It is far easier to safeguard a national collection when closed than when open. I do not say that that was one of the main reasons, but it certainly was one of the reasons, which affected the Cabinet in coming to this decision. Therefore, after paying the tribute, which I hope I may be allowed to pay, that I thoroughly recognise the strength of the arguments brought against this proposal, I do think that, viewed in its proper perspec-
  1306
  tive as an item in very large Estimates, we ought to persevere for the present in the course which we have undertaken, and not simply because the amount involved is small Vote money which it is really unnecessary to vote at the present time.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Does the £19,000 include any economies which have been resolved upon by the trustees, and which can be carried out without closing the museum? Also how many of the staff are engaged on other work which would prevent the museum from being kept open?
  Mr. ROWNTREE: Can we have the number of those who now attend?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The number of persons who attended the British Museum, including the Reading Room, during the twelve months of 1915 was 733,000. In answer to my hon. and learned Friend, the whole of this £19,000 is made up of savings consequent on the closing. I can give my hon. Friend the figures. I have not with me to-night the number of people who have found employment elsewhere. We estimate that the total saving on the closing of the museum, not only on this Vote, but on the others, will be altogether £10,000, in addition to the estimate of the direct result of closing the museum.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I wish to thank my right hon. Friend for the sympathetic spirit in which he has replied to the criticisms which have been made, and he will forgive me for saying that it marks a great. advance on the reply which he made on this subject when it was first raised in the House a month ago, when my right hon. Friend went so far as to suggest that, so far from regarding institutions like the British Museum as places for the purpose of education, it would be more accurate to regard them as places of pleasure resort. The truth is, as I think my right hon. Friend recognises now more fully than he did before, that the educational value of the British Museum and the picture galleries is being recognised more and more, and that these places are being regarded more and more as adjuncts to our schools and other educational influences. I wish to associate myself with what has been said in support of the opening of these museums, and to say that, in time of war especially, it appears to me that it is a poor sort of economy to check any of the intellectual and spiritual—I use the word in the

  1307
  broadest sense—influences that act upon the lives of individuals in the nation. I will make a suggestion to my right hon. Friend. I understood him to say that if he could save the money and still keep the museum open, his objection would be met. I think there is a very simple way of doing this. I speak with some reluctance in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rutherford).
  Yesterday we were told, when voting a large sum of money in connection with the Hall Walker stud, of the acquisition by the State of Night Hawk, which, we were told, is worth quite a fabulous figure. We could well dispense with Night Hawk, and if we disposed of him it would provide funds for keeping open the whole of the British Museum, if the price given for Night Hawk was equal to the figure which we heard, of which I have some doubts; but if we could get anything like the amount stated yesterday as the value, we should have ample funds to keep open the British Museum and the picture galleries also.
  Though I make this suggestion, I cannot believe it possible that the Secretary to the Treasury and the Government will find it in their hearts to part with Night Hawk. Therefore, if that remedy is too heroic even for contemplation—and I observe the panic with which the hon. Member for Liverpool listens to my suggestion—then there is another way less heroic, not calling for the same amount of self-sacrifice: that is, that the British Museum should be open every day of the week, but that a charge should be made for admission except, say, on Saturdays and Sundays, which are the two days on which it is most convenient for the poorer classes of the community to attend, and I should like very much to know if any estimate has been prepared, showing whether the admission fees which might be expected on five days of the week would not entirely meet the cost of keeping the museum open.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: It would not half pay for it.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I should prefer to have an official estimate, because this policy has been tried in another Department and has been successful. For instance, in Kew Gardens a charge of one penny was made. This charge, we learn, is going to bring in, I think it is said,
  1308
  about £20,000 per annum, and, according to the admission fees that are now coming in, it is producing at a rate which is greater than this amount. So I think the suggestion is worth consideration. It would have this advantage: that it would encourage local authorities, who own local museums, not necessarily to shut up those museums, but to consider the option of charging a small admission fee on some days of the week, always being careful to have one or two days in the week when the museum would be open free for the benefit of the poor. I should be very grateful if the Committee could learn whether any estimate dealing with that point has been prepared.
  Mr. BRYCE: The right hon. Gentleman did not say anything about those people who are going to be dismissed from the British Museum under this proposal. Can he say what is going to happen to them?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I have referred to that in reply to the hon. and learned Member for York.
  Mr. BUTCHER: I regret the decision of the Government, but naturally I do not want at the present time to divide the House, though I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to do this: He has heard the almost unanimous expression of opinion from everyone who has spoken to-night in favour of opening the museum, and he has heard my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds on the question of opening at least some departments of that institution. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench to bring that expression of opinion before his colleagues, and ask the Cabinet to reconsider their decision with a view to seeing whether they could not at a later period of the Session bring forward a smaller additional Vote to enable some access to the British Museum to be obtained? I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: I desire to call attention to the next Vote, for the National Gallery. I think before we vote the amount we ought to have some explanation with regard to it. If it is money for keeping the National Gallery open, I shall be the very last to raise any objection to it, for I am delighted to know that when other places are being closed the National Gallery at any rate is being kept open. I think we should have some assurance with regard to the practice of

  1309
  economy by the trustees of the National Gallery. I notice that the Vote this year compared with last year's total Vote is down £4,000, an excellent thing in itself; nevertheless, the recent proceedings of the trustees of the National Gallery cannot, I think, excite any confidence in our minds in regard to their practice of economy at the present time. I wish to give, as an example of what I mean, the fact that has recently been announced of the trustees having purchased from Holland a picture by the celebrated painter, Pieter de Hooch. This picture was sold in Paris some three years ago for £3,300, or a little more. I put down a question the other day, and I was told that on this occasion it was bought for a smaller sum. If the rules permitted, I should have liked to ask how much war economy there was in buying this picture from Holland at the present time, even though it was got for a smaller sum than was paid for it some years ago. I do not know how much smaller the sum is; that information was not given; I presume very little less than the £3,300.
  There may have been some special reason why this picture should have been bought even in war time, but I cannot conceive what it is, though I do think it is a matter on which we should have some explanation before we vote money for the National Gallery. Everyone is preaching war economy, but it is not very easy to see how the Departments of the State are practising economy. It is true that we are shutting up museums, and even withdrawing children from school, while making other minor economies in that direction. I do not wish it to be understood that I have any want of sympathy with the work of the trustees of the National Gallery. On the contrary, I am delighted that the gallery is to be kept open. In time of peace I should be one of the first to desire that we should be liberal and generous in voting money in order that the country might have the best collection of the best pictures in the world, but I do venture to say that in war time when we find the trustees buying pictures from abroad we are entitled to ask what is the explanation of it before we vote a sum of money for the National Gallery. I think also that we are entitled to make the suggestion that if the trustees have funds to expend on capital account at this time, it would be more to the point if they invested that money in War Loan or Exchequer Bonds
  1310
  or something of the same sort until the War is over, rather than sending it into a foreign country to bring back an additional picture when we are supposed to be so poor that we have to shut up some of our galleries, as we have already done.
  Mr. MONTAGU: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for having given me notice that he intended to bring up this question. I would point out that we have no control over the trustees of the British Museum or of the National Gallery, except when they ask for Grants. This picture was; not bought with public money, and these purchases with public money for the National Gallery and British Museum have been practically stopped altogether during the War. The present purchase was made out of moneys that were available from some investment that had been made. I trust that my hon. Friend will not press this matter further, but personally I would like to express my own agreement with him, seeing that we are in time of war, when the difficulty to find money for foreign purchases, as the Committee well knows, is very great indeed.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: I cannot allow Class V. to pass at this juncture in public affairs without saying a word or two upon the Consular service. I do so in no spirit of criticism of the administration, because I believe that with the material at hand in regard to the system that has been adopted, perhaps as good results are being-obtained as can be expected. But there are one or two outstanding facts which I think ought to be taken into our earnest consideration, and something ought to be done about them before this War ends. Therefore, to that extent the subject is extremely important, and the matter is very urgent. It has been my experience, during the last seven or eight years, to receive an object lesson as to how this service is worked in a neutral country, I find that on page 7 of the Estimates that in the case of Roumania His Brit-tannic Majesty's representative is receiving the salary of £2,400 a year, with £250 to his clerk; a second secretary mentioned on page 10 has no salary stated for him; and on page 20 the Consul General at Galatz is recorded as receiving £800 a year and a Vice-Consul £340 a year, and another £100, while there are four other Consuls altogether in Roumania, in regard to whom the figures are given. The

  1311
  total amount paid for the officers of the whole of our representatives in that country is £1,250.
  I have taken the trouble to ascertain some general figures. We have to-day, according to these lists, 960 paid Consuls, altogether representing the United Kingdom in foreign countries, and 643 unpaid, of whom 286 were foreigners, and a considerable proportion of those were Germans. I suggest that now is the time to look at this system straight in the face and compare it with the German system, which has brought about such splendid results in trade for Germany in some of these countries before our very eyes. Instead of having something like less than two thousand Consuls paid and unpaid to represent the United Kingdom in all the countries of the world, we ought to have four or five times that number. If, instead of spending £2,400 on our representative in Rumania and permitting the paltry conditions under which he is housed there, and the absolutely disgraceful appearance which the Government compels him to make, we had put our representative on a level with the representative from Russia or from Germany or from Austria or any other country with regard to his appointments, salary, and therefore opportunities to effectively represent this country, I am one of those who think we should not have come to such an astounding diplomatic want of success as we have done in the Balkans. The persons appointed have not been given proper salaries and appointments and the money has not been spent on them that ought to have been spent. I desire to utter a word of protest in favour of the representation of our country in these foreign places being more effectively and more generously carried out.
  Let us see how the German system per contra works. It starts with their schools of commerce upon which they spend large sums. A certain proportion of their young men are sent abroad at the expense of the central authority in Berlin. They are sent into merchants' offices and other offices at small salaries. Some of those Germans, I do not say all, who were in the United Kingdom before the War, were every three months sending confidential reports home to Berlin about their employer's business, the volume of it, the class of goods, the prices, and so on. There is many a merchant and shipowner and large dealer and manufacturer in
  1312
  this country to-day the whole of the secrets of whose business is to be found in the pigeon holes of Berlin. We have got five Consuls in Rumania, and we spend on them less than £2,000. The principal Consul in Rumania, a man I frequently met, is a German, a very excellent man to meet and have a little talk with, and perhaps the most intelligent person in our Consular service in that country. The fact remained that he was a German and had been our principal Consul in Rumania for over thirty years. I say it is a disgraceful thing to find when we are competing, and will have to compete again, with Germany in those markets when this War is over, that that is the state of the Consular service. The German Consuls in Rumania are four or five times as many as the British, and the money spent upon them is ten or fifteen times as much. The business of those Consuls is to find business and trade for the fatherland. None of our Consuls do anything of the sort. They ought to do it, and we ought to send our young men and pay them properly in order to get business for our British manufacturers and merchants.
  Mr. WATT: Commercial men.
  Mr. RUTHERFORD: The whole system requires to be completely altered. When those Consuls have got that business an emissary comes from Germany to carry it out. The moral of this matter is this, from my actual personal experience, we had eight years ago three times the trade of Germany in Rumania, and the year before the War Germany had three times the amount of our trade. I say that if in a neutral country that arrangements are such as to bring about an astonishing state of affairs like that, we ought, in this time of War, seeing that this competition is going to begin again after the War, take that lesson to heart and see if something cannot be done, because when peace is signed it will be too late to make the necessary alterations. For the past twenty or twenty-five years before the present War there has been a trade war going on which has been carried on with ruthlessness by our present enemy in the trickery and in the system which I have already described. The next stage is that the emissary sells the goods on credit if the German consul certifies that the purchaser is a respectable man. There is no Consul to help in a thing of that kind with regard to English trade. I know of a number of cases of that kind

  1313
  where the German consul had given the assurance that it was all right, and where the manufacturer took a six months' bill which was discounted in Berlin by a committee of bankers. Our bankers have been approached by the Government, who hoped that the bankers would be more lenient and helpful to British trade, but not at all. They said distinctly they would do nothing of the sort. This committee of bankers in Berlin discount those bills because the State has given a guarantee of 75 per cent. of the amount. Then a great deal of those bills are sent over to London and re-discounted here, and the money of the London City and Midland Bank, Parrs Bank, and other great institutions of that kind which has been absolutely refused to British manufacturers to enable them to sell goods on credit, is made use of for the purpose of enabling the German manufacturer to sell goods on credit to a Roumanian customer and cut out the British manufacturer in that trade. It is very interesting and important to see the sequence of events in this matter. It is necessary to look at it from the School of Commerce down to the time when, in London, our bankers find the money to enable the German manufacturers to cut the British manufacturers out of their trade. The whole of that has been carried out through their Consular Service, and if we are wise we will put our house in order in this respect now. It will be too late when the War is over. The whole Consular Service should be put under a Minister of Commerce. It should be the duty of those Consuls to get business for Great Britain, to ascertain whether the customers are worth trusting, and if they are to certify to that effect so that credit may be given. Then we shall have to have in this country—although it is nothing to do with the Consular Service, but it will be the completion of the idea—a proper bank of foreign commerce with a State guarantee, so that we can carry out all that system which has been adopted so successfully by the Germans, with the exception of the trickery, of which, of course, British young men sent out either as Consuls or into other persons' offices would not be guilty. I have not intervened for the purpose of raising a general Debate on an opportunity which is not adequate for the subject; but I thought that, when the Associated Chambers of Commerce are sitting and when we see in the newspaper columns with regard to what is to be done in reference to British
  1314
  trade after the War, it was my duty on this Vote to call public attention to this extremely important aspect of the matter.
  Colonel YATE: I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend (Mr. Rutherford) on having referred to the subject of the Consular Service, and to say how cordially I agree with him. I sincerely hope that we may have a Debate on the subject on the Report stage of this Vote. I wish to raise a question on Class VI., Vote 1, Separation and Retiring Allowances. I wish particularly to call the attention of the Treasury to the question of commutation payments, as the matter is so absolutely important to all servants of the State, especially at present on account of the War. I raised the question two years ago, when I pointed out that money was obtained for the commutation of these pensions on a 3 ½ per cent. basis, that the commutation by servants of the State was on a 5 per cent. basis, that these poor unfortunate servants of the State therefore lost a great deal of money, and that the Treasury was making money out of them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledged that he had made a profit of £200,000 out of men who had commuted their pensions. He told me that he would consider the question of the 3½ per cent. basis. The Government of India have issued a commutation scheme on a 3½ per cent. basis, and they have also passed rules for the limitation of the commutation of pension to, I think, one-third or one-fourth of their amount. There is no such rule in the Pensions Commutation Act of 1871, but there ought to be. As to the 5 per cent. basis charged now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed to look into the matter to see whether the difference of 1½ per cent. was not too large a margin. Two years have elapsed and nothing has yet been done. This year we have an enormous number of military and naval officers in addition to Civil servants who have been receiving pensions, and a large number of them will wish to commute those pensions. Therefore I hope the present Chancellor of the Exchequer will carry out the promise of his predecessor and see whether a fairer basis of commutation cannot be brought in, and also introduce rules limiting the amount that may be commuted. Unless something of that sort is done, we shall have great difficulty among those who commute their pensions this year or next.
  Mr. KING: I should like to support the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool in reference to the Consular service.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is not in order to resume the Debate on that item, a debate having already arisen on it and a subsequent item having been discussed.
  Mr. CURRIE: I beg to move, "That Item Class VII., Vote 5 (National Health Insurance Joint Committee, Scotland), be reduced by £100."
  I do so for the purpose of drawing the attention of the Minister responsible for the administration of the Insurance Act in Scotland to the urgent need for further economy. It is a matter of common knowledge that Sir James Leishman, the chairman of the Scottish Commissioners, has been able to conduct the business of his Commission with as much regard for economy as has been evident in any other part of the United Kingdom. In spite of that, the fact remains that if the extravagance associated with the Act and the lack of economy in its administration are continued in Scotland and elsewhere a state of insolvency or of partial insolvency and of deficiencies amongst individual societies is bound to arise. I referred the other night to a speech made by the chairman of the Scottish Commissioners in regard to the working of the Act in Scotland. I was not able then to quote what Sir James had said, but I am now able to do so. I wish to draw attention, in the first place, to two paragraphs of that speech. The first paragraph deals with the general question of solvency in Scotland, and the second with the deficiency proposals. I rely for the accuracy of what I say upon the report in the Scottish newspapers. I have taken some trouble by applying to friends of mine who were present at the meeting to verify its accuracy, and I have no doubt whatever that the report is a very fair résumé of what Sir James said. Dealing with the question of solvency, he said:
  "If he were to take Scotland as a whole up to the present time the Insurance Fund would be solvent and would be able to meet its claims."
  Sir James went on to say:—
  "He wished to make a reservation on that point. Societies were given the right of admitting or rejecting members, and for their own reasons certain people formed themselves into particular societies. Some selected very good lives and some accepted lives not so good. "What was going to happen was that some societies would have a considerable surplus, and some
  1316
  would scrape through, while some again would possibly have a deficit. That was inseparable from the operation of the option given to societies. There could not be any bankruptcy in the general sense."
  It appears to me that a certificate by the chairman of the Scottish Commission "that there could not be any bankruptcy in the general sense," is a very qualified statement indeed. I am not surprised to see that he also said:
  "He had had insured persons calling on him in great distress and asking if their money was safe in certain societies."
  That is one of the results of undue extravagance. He came to the matter of individual societies and to deficiency proposals, and I beg to call the attention of the hon. Member opposite to the fact that, however confidently he himself repudiated the other night the bare idea that the Government would countenance wholesale robbery of the surpluses of solvent societies, the chairman of the Scottish Commission spoke with all the weight of his authority, and in a very much more uncertain accent. It is idle to pretend that insured persons who read what the chairman of the Scottish Commissioners said should not be perturbed. I hope most of them having read what the Government said the other night, are now feeling somewhat reassured. The chairman said:
  "They had had suggestions from societies to deal with questions of this kind"—
  That is with deficiencies:
  "There were people who argued that if societies had a big surplus they should devote the surplus to wiping out the deficits of other societies. The Act, however, was there; but even if they could adopt this course the surpluses might not be found to exist later on, because if people who were careful and managed their affairs well in the expectation of having a surplus to deal with, had that surplus taken away, they would not be so much inclined to husband their resources in the future. There were others who make a much stronger case for taking a small portion of the surplus. After all, it was a national system. Insurance was the principle of the strong helping the weak. He was not frightened in this connection by any such term as raiding the sinking fund.'"
  Such language should now be repudiated, and absolutely repudiated, by the Government. However much it is not intended to mislead, it is very much calculated to do so. I think that the hon. Gentleman opposite might once more repudiate the idea of such conduct on the part of the Government. To pass from that point I do not propose—in fact I do not think I would be in order—to deal with the most obvious source of economy. I will say that in Scotland the insurance committees might be abolished, and the administration of tuberculosis benefit might be handed over to the public health authorities. But on the point of Scottish administration I

  1317
  think it is well to point out that a great deal of the extravagance results from the habit into which the Scottish Commissioners have drifted—I do not say it is entirely their own fault—of creating separate classes of insured persons.
  I am quite sure it was never the intention of this House, and it was never realised by the country, that dozens upon dozens of separate classes of insured persons should be brought into existence. There is the cause of a great deal of the expenditure of money in Scotland which I wish so much to be brought to an end! I do not know how many classes there are. The hon. Member no doubt can tell us. I believe that at one time—possibly still—one separate class existed which contained one individual member. A number of other classes contained half a dozen members, or twenty or thirty, or some mere tribe. If so complicated an organisation is to be brought into being in this way it is impossible to be properly economical, and it is quite impossible to even think of doing without the Scottish Commission. I confess that if these complications could be materially reduced the establishment of the Scottish Commission could also be reduced and could, and should be rendered a great deal more economical than ever it has been. Can the hon. Member tell us whether he sees any early prospect of bringing about economy in the establishment of the Scottish Commission? I would like to know whether certain members of the Commission whe were not appointed for life but for a definite term of years, are likely to retire from office, and whether a smaller number of Commissioners, and consequently a smaller number of salaries, will be borne upon future Votes? I make these observations realising to the full that the hon. Member is as anxious as anyone could possibly be to see the Act, for which he is responsible, administered in as economical a way as is consistent with efficiency.
  Mr. KING: I wish to pass from this Vote—
  Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS (Comptroller of the Household): If the hon. Member is going to pass from this Vote I should like—
  Mr. KING: I think I am in possession of the Committee. I was called upon.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I called upon the hon. Member under the impression that he was going to speak on the question before the Committee, which
  1318
  related solely to this item. Of course, if he makes any reference that is not relevant to this Vote, I shall regretfully have to rule him out of order.
  Mr. KING: I am quite ready to obey your ruling as far as I can do so. From the course of this Debate, which I have followed with the most careful attention, and which has ranged over a great variety of subjects, dealing with the Defence of the Realm Regulations, payment of Members, the British Museum—
  Mr. WATT: The National Gallery?
  Mr. KING: The National Gallery, Consular buildings, and a great variety of other things, and I could imagine that—
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I would direct the hon. Member's attention to the fact that the Question before the Committee at present is Class VII., Vote 5.
  Mr. KING: I wish just merely by way of prelimianry remarks to call the attention of the Committee to the point with which we are now dealing—the Vote we have reached. It represents the National Health Insurance Joint Committee of Scotland. Apparently what is required on account for the year 1916-17 is only £190,000. The total estimate for the year is £616,902. This is a very large sum, and I hope we shall have some adequate defence of these large figures from the hon. Gentleman who, I understand, is now desirous of addressing the House.
  Mr. ROBERTS: I hope that I shall be able to fully satisfy the natural curiosity of the hon. Member for North Somerset. He, I know, includes in his interests the affairs in Scotland as well as all other parts of the British Empire. I do not in the least regret the fact that the hon. Member for Leith Burghs comes forward again to-night in the interests of economy in Scotland, and that he proposes to reduce. the Vote for the Scottish Commission by £100. He paid credit to the Scottish Commission for their administration in Scotland but I think he might also at the same time have noticed that this Vote is a considerable reduction as compared with the Estimate of the previous year, and that we are already saving on the Scottish Estimates £101,250, so that the reduction which he is now asking is a very small addition to a very considerable saving. He said, with truth, that that saving in Scotland was characteristic of the savings in the rest of the country, and I am glad to draw his attention also to the fact that on the four

  1319
  Commissions and the Joint Committee, the total saving in these Votes is £875,000. Therefore, when he advocates the need of further economy in connection with the administration of national health insurance, I hope he will realise that the Estimates this year do show a very considerable reduction, and that it is not merely a reduction due to some changes of method, to some alterations in the basis of provision, but that there are real reductions in the cost of administration, in restriction of services, and in carrying on the existing services at a cheaper cost. That must be my defence, also, to the hon. Member for Somerset. I think he ought to give us credit for the work which the Commissioners are doing.
  The hon. Member for Leith Burghs drew attention to a speech by the Chairman of the Scottish Commission to which he referred the other night. I had not then seen the speech, and he has been good enough to show me the report in the newspaper from which he quoted. I fully admit that that report does give him ground for asking me if there has been any change of policy on the part of the Government from the position I indicated to him in a previous reply which I made him. The report of that speech does give some ground for his apprehensions about it, but it is not a verbatim report. I have not had time yet to get a full report of the speech, and I am not sure that the summarised report though the reporter may think that it was perfectly accurate—does really represent the meaning of the chairman of the Scottish Commission if we had his verbatim words in front of us. I think the hon. Member will realise that when the Chairman of the Scottish Commission is not here, and is a Civil servant, unable to defend himself, it is not fair to attack him for advocating a doctrine which the hon. Member regards as amounting practically to robbery.
  Mr. CURRIE: He did not mean to suggest robbery.
  9.0 P.M.
  Mr. ROBERTS: No, but the policy which he advocates was described as robbery. So far as my own position goes, it has not altered. I regard that particular solution of the difficulty, as at present advised, as a solution which need not require serious consideration. The hon. Member is well aware of the Committee which is sitting to deal with questions of the kind, and, if I may repeat what I said the other
  1320
  night, I am bound to consider any arguments put before me, but I feel sure the speech quoted of the Chairman of the Scottish Commission cannot intentionally have deviated from the policy of the Government which I had to express in the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Leith Burghs. Before I pass from this subject, may I ask the hon. Member for Leith Burghs, and other hon. Members, if they would moderate their apprehensions as to what they call the partial insolvency of the Act. The Act is not insolvent. It is at the present time piling up large reserves of money, and if any particular society does get into difficulties there are means, by levies and so on, by which it can be prevented from becoming bankrupt. That was, I understand, the point to which allusion was made in the speech of the Chairman of the Scottish Commission. I regret this talk about the bankruptcy of the Act, because it does give rise to misapprehensions by people who cannot appreciate the real financial position, and I am quite certain that these misapprehensions should be swept away. I regret very much that every now and then Members get up and in a spirit of gloomy pessimism exaggerate any flaw or defect that they can find in the Act, and I am sure leave a wrong impression upon the minds of the people, who cannot understand what the real financial position is.
  The hon. Member made certain suggestions as to further economies that might take place. Some of those economies I cannot deal with; they would involve legislation. He asked me whether there was any intention of filling up the vacancies which might occur on the Commissions, and on that point I might refer him to the Report of the Retrenchment Committee, which recommends that the vacancies on the permanent staffs should not be filled up without the concurrence of the Treasury. There are a number of points which he suggested, and I am quite aware that further economies can be made, but we have just had the Report of the Committee on Retrenchment which suggests certain lines of economy, and we have got a Committee sitting at the present time with a view to discover what means can be taken to reduce the cost of the Act and to simplify administration. As I am precluded from discussing changes of legislation, and as these questions of administration are being discussed and considered by that Committee, from whom I hope to receive

  1321
  real assistance, I find it impossible to go into those details, but I can assure the hon. Member that the question of economy and of simplification of the Act is receiving close attention. It will continue to receive close attention, and I have very little doubt, though a large economy is shown in the Estimates of this year, it is still possible to carry economy further.
  Mr. WATT: The hon. Member for Lincoln has told the Committee the amount of savings exercised this year as compared with past years, but he did not explain one thing, and it is to elicit an explanation on this point that I have risen. I think the hon. Gentleman will notice that the proportion of saving in Scotland is much greater than in England, and if he will take the figures of the various nationalities under the Insurance Act he will see that Scotland, in regard to the Vote with which we are now dealing, there is a saving of £101,000 upon a turnover of £616,000. In England the saving is only double that amount, that is £200,000 upon a turnover of something like £5,000,000. This is the usual complaint as to the way the Treasury effect economies in Scotland which are not exercised to the same extent in England. England has continued her expenses in a larger degree than Scotland, and I should like the hon. Member for Lincoln to explain why he has been able to effect greater savings in Scotland than in England.
  Mr. CURRIE: I wish to acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman in charge of the administration of the Insurance Act has met my criticisms very fairly indeed. I must, however, point out that, according to the report of a speech of his own chairman in Scotland, certain societies would only scrape through and others might possibly have deficits. If the chairman of the Scottish Commission makes use of phrases like that we cannot be blamed for making our criticism. I am sure that Sir James Leishman is the last man who would wish to misrepresent me or anyone else, and far be it for me to run the risk of misrepresenting him. The hon. Member for Lincoln, however, will be able to obtain a verbatim copy of the Report, and if it subsequently appears that I have by one jot or tittle misrepresented what Sir James Leishman said, I shall take the earliest opportunity of removing the impression so conveyed.
  Mr. ROBERTS: I think the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Watt) might wait until he sees the actual items before he makes up his mind, because I am afraid that Scotland looks rather better than it actually is in regard to this matter. Although there are apparent savings of £101,000, that is due to changes in the basis of the provision, and the savings which represent a real economy are about £51,500. That will appear more explicitly when the items can be scrutinised individually, and I can assure the hon. Member for Glasgow that the pressure of economy has been exercised not unjustly in the case of Scotland, and it has been brought to bear equally in all parts of the United Kingdom.
  Amendment, negatived.
  Mr. KING: I wish to suggest to hon. Members upon the Treasury Bench that when we are voting something like £36,000,000 we ought to have a Cabinet Minister present. It is really unreasonable, and I think it is quite impossible, to exercise due economy in this House if vast sums of this nature are voted without any member of the Cabinet being present. I am sorry to have to make this protest, because I know the members of the Cabinet are very hard worked at the present time. Nevertheless, I think one member of the Cabinet ought to be present when we have a great Vote like this before the House.
  Mr. ROBERTS: All the Ministers have been present who were notified by any hon. Members of points that were going to be raised. The Secretary to the Treasury who is a Cabinet Minister, has been here for the greater part of the evening. He is very much overworked at the present time, and he left me in charge because no further points had been notified to him except the point about the Scottish Commission.
  Mr. KING: I think that is a very poor explanation, indeed. I have heard a great many poor explanations from the Treasury Bench, but I think that is by far the poorest I have ever heard. We all agree that we have in the hon. Member for Lincoln a very able and courteous Gentleman, but to say that the Comptroller of the Household is able to give an answer to all the large questions dealt with under this Vote is most unreasonable. As a Member of the House of Commons who tries to understand the business and follow

  1323
  the discussions energetically, I protest against the way the Government is treating the House of Commons.
  Mr. CURRIE: As I am the only Member left in the House of those who have moved reductions, I should like to say for myself—I think I may speak for others who moved similar Amendments—that I think the Government have treated us extremely fairly to-day, because every hon. Member who brought forward a proposal has been dealt with as fully and fairly as could possibly be expected.
  Mr. KING: I do not know whether those remarks are intended for me or not, but I repudiate what the hon. Member has said with all the energy of which I am capable. I have not made a single remark derogatory to Ministers who have answered questions, because they have done their part admirably. I think, however, that we are entitled, when we are voting £36,000,000 of money in one evening, to have a member of the Cabinet present.
  Mr. CURRIE: We have had a member of the Cabinet here.
  Mr. WATT: Order in the compound!
  Mr. KING: We ought to try and carry out economy, and if we have practical suggestions to bring before the Committee, we ought to get some assistance from members of the Government. I believe if I were to move to report Pro-
  1324
  gress I should be well within my rights, but I am not going to do that, and I will content myself with protesting against the action of the Cabinet in this matter.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported upon Tuesday next; Committee to sit again upon Tuesday next.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 21st February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter after Nine o'clock, till Tuesday next, 7th March, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.
  Mr. Speaker has, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 1, nominated

  The Right hon. Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley,

  The Right hon. Charles Fenwick,

  The Right hon. John William Wilson,

  The Right hon. Willoughby Hyett Dickinson, and

  Mr. Thomas Power O'Connor

  to act during this Session as temporary Chairmen of Committees when requested by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

WAR.
  MILITARY SERVICE.
    MARYLEBONE TRIBUNAL.
    MARYLEBONE TRIBUNAL.
    MEDICAL UNFITNESS.
    MEDICAL UNFITNESS.
    MARRIED MEN.
    MARRIED MEN.
    MEN ATTESTED.
    MEN ATTESTED.
    WORCESTER REGIMENT.
    WORCESTER REGIMENT.
    FARMERS.
    FARMERS.
  SCOTTISH PROVISIONAL BATTALION.
  SCOTTISH PROVISIONAL BATTALION.
  ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCES.
  ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCES.
  GALLIPOLI OPERATIONS.
  GALLIPOLI OPERATIONS.
  REGIMENTAL INSTITUTES (BOARD OF CONTROL).
  REGIMENTAL INSTITUTES (BOARD OF CONTROL).
  ARMY SERVICE CORPS (WARRANT OFFICERS).
  ARMY SERVICE CORPS (WARRANT OFFICERS).
  4TH BATTALION, ROYAL FUSILIERS (PRIVATE H. W. BRADLEY).
  4TH BATTALION, ROYAL FUSILIERS (PRIVATE H. W. BRADLEY).
  TERRITORIAL FORCE (OFFICERS WOUNDED).
  TERRITORIAL FORCE (OFFICERS WOUNDED).
  NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
  NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
  MUNITIONS.
    MALE AND FEMALE WORKERS (DUBLIN).
    MALE AND FEMALE WORKERS (DUBLIN).
    GRETNA WORKS.
    GRETNA WORKS.
  COCAINE DENS.
  COCAINE DENS.
  VOLUNTEERING IN INDIA.
  VOLUNTEERING IN INDIA.
  IRISH TOBACCO IMPORTERS.
  IRISH TOBACCO IMPORTERS.
  MILITARY SERVICE ACT (INSTRUCTIONS).
  MILITARY SERVICE ACT (INSTRUCTIONS).
  BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.
  BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.
  ALIEN ENEMY FIRMS.
  ALIEN ENEMY FIRMS.
  DOCK LABOURERS.
  DOCK LABOURERS.
  Vaccination (Ireland).
  Vaccination (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Fishery Poachers, Co. Cavan.
  Fishery Poachers, Co. Cavan.
  National School Teachers (Ireland).
  National School Teachers (Ireland).
  Department of Agriculture (Ireland).
  Department of Agriculture (Ireland).
  Trichinopoli (Assassination of District Judge).
  Trichinopoli (Assassination of District Judge).
  Robberies from Vans (London).
  Robberies from Vans (London).
  Poor Law Statutes.
  Poor Law Statutes.
  Aran Isles Cable.
  Aran Isles Cable.
HORNSEY GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND GATESHEAD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Second Reading (which stands appointed for Wednesday next) put off to Thursday next.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
Navy—Navy Estimates for the year 1916–1917:
Ecclesiastical Commission—Sixty-eighth Report from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England and Wales, with an Appendix:
Presented (by command) and ordered to lie on the Table.
Destructive Insects and Pests Acts,1877 and 1907—Order, numbered D.I.P. 361, dated 24th February 1916, declaring an area described in the Schedule thereto to be an infected area for the purposes of the Wart Disease of Potatoes (Infected Areas) Order of 1914:
Post Office (Money Orders)—The Money Order Amendment (No. 3) Regulations, 1916. Dated 20th January, 1916:
Police (England and Wales)—Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary on the County and Borough Police Forces, for the year ended 29th September 1915, made to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State under Section 15 of the County and Borough Police Act, 1856:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be suspended for this day's sitting (The Lord President (M. Crewe)); agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
NAVAL PRIZE (PROCEDURE) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment: Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed.

THE IMPORTATION OF HOPS.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE rose to ask the Paymaster-General whether the Board of Trade have considered the desirability of restricting the importation of hops so that more space in ships may be available for the importation of food stuffs.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not profess to be an expert upon hops, but I bring this question forward in order that we may get some statement from the representative of the Board of Trade in this House as to the position and attitude of the Government upon this subject, which it cannot be denied is one of very great importance. The Central Chamber of Agriculture some ten days ago, at a large and influential meeting, unanimously expressed the view that there ought to be a very great restriction of the importation of hops in the interests not only of agriculture generally, but also of the consumer. Hops are a bulky freight and prevent goods that are much more required from being brought in because of the want of shipping space. The absence of any restriction upon hops has the further effect of raising the prices of other commodities which cannot come into the country in larger quantities owing to there not being sufficient ships to carry them. The Central Chamber of Agriculture sent a copy of their Resolution to the Board of Trade, and, no doubt, to the Board of Agriculture and the other Government Departments to which they usually send their resolutions, but up to the present they have had merely acknowledgments and have received no information as to whether the Government are considering the matter.
I should not be surprised if, when the Government eventually decide to act with regard to hops, it may not be said of their action, in the words of the Minister of Munitions, that it was "too late." The Minister of Munitions said that what the Government always does in these matters is to act too late; and that is why I am venturing to ask the Paymaster-General to-day whether he will not prevail upon the

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Government—and still more I ask the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture—to do something at once to restrict the importation of hops into this country. There is the other question to be considered—namely, whether it is right only to restrict the importation of hops, or whether it might not be also desirable, in conjunction with restriction, to impose a heavy duty. In old days this would have been a rather thorny and difficult question to deal with, and I can imagine my noble friend, who I suppose is a Tariff Reformer, saving to me, "Why do you, as a Free Trader, make any suggestion of this sort?" We know that during the continuation of the war we must not be hidebound in regard to our views on any of these questions. It is clear that the unrestricted importation of hops is having a very bad effect. It is one of the causes for the present exorbitant price of meat and of feeding stuffs and artificial manures. Prices are high, not because there is a shortage of these articles, but because there is a shortage of freightage. Excessive shipping charges are caused by this very fact, so that the agriculturist and the consumer suffer in both directions, in the dearness of the article and in the large decrease in the supply.
I was struck by a reply which was given by the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture to a deputation on the subject of artificial manures. The noble Earl said that the Government were the owners of some 50,000 tons of nitrate of soda which had been bought in Chili many months ago, and that he could have put it on the market at something under £13 a ton but in the present condition of things was unable to have it brought over from Chili. From an agricultural point of view that is a very serious matter. In the same way there is a difficulty in regard to sulphate of ammonia. There is a "corner" in that article, and from £17 to £18 a ton is being asked for it. I know that I may be met with the suggestion that it is too late now to raise this question because it is a seasonal matter. I will not deal with that argument if my noble friend is not going to put it forward, but I know that it is one of the stock arguments that during the next few months we shall not be importing any hops and that therefore the restrictions are unnecessary. I understand my noble friend to indicate that he is not going to put forward that argument. Consequently I need
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not trouble the House with the figures which I have in my hand, which show that imports are spread over all the months of the year, and if we continue to import at the same rate this year we shall receive very large quantities of hops in the ensuing six months.
Again, I hope that my noble friend does not intend to take his figures from the year 1914, during which a comparatively small amount of hops was imported. But during 1915 rather more hops were imported than in an average year. In that year—1915—the 200,337 cwts. of hops which we imported required at least 2,500,000 cubic feet of shipping accommodation—certainly a startling figure. This is calculated at 253 cubic feet to the ton of hops, the average room required by the most conveniently packed bales. In this space there could have been carried approximately 1,500,000 cwts. of nitrate of soda, or 1,054,000 cwts. of sugar, or 1,100,000 cwts. of oilcake, or 1,082,000 cwts. of wheat, or, 1,001,000 cwts. of maize. Thus the unchecked importation of hops has a bad effect not only on the farmer but on the consumer as well, because the farmer is obliged, when he has to pay such high prices as obtain at the present moment, to put up the price of milk and of every other kind of produce.
I may be told that the Government have attempted to do something as regards this question. I will read a letter which was written by Mr. Rew, Assistant Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, at the direction of the noble Earl (Lord Selborne), to the Hop Trade Association in January last. The letter was worded as follows—
"I am directed by the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to say that his attention has been called to the continuous importation of hops from abroad; and having regard to the desirability of restricting imports, he desires me to invite your Association to consider whether any steps can be Taken with a view to inducing members engaged in this trade to refrain as far as possible from purchasing foreign hops during the continuance of the war. The exigencies of the financial situation make it extremely desirable to restrict imports from abroad, more especially from America, to absolute necessities, and Lord Selborne is disposed to doubt whether there is any evidence to show that the requirements of brewers in regard to hops cannot he economically and sufficiently met from the home-grown supply. In these circumstances he would be glad to learn that your Association is prepared to appeal to its members to discountenance generally on national grounds transactions involving the importation of foreign hops into this country.

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The Association considered this letter on two occasions, and sent an appropriate reply showing the methods by which the desires of the Government could easily be carried out, and stating that it was not the Association's business to tell brewers and other people what they were to do or what importations they ought to restrict. Surely it is the duty of the President of the Board of Agriculture—who, from the letter I have read, appears to be fully convinced of the absolute necessity of restricting the importation of foreign hops—to remonstrate with his colleagues in this matter end urge upon them the desirability of restriction. I submit that it is a weak policy for the Government to appeal to private traders. The Government are restricting the importation of pulp, of sugar, and of tobacco. Why should they not take their courage in both hands and restrict, also the importation of hops?
It may be said that the Government are afraid that the brewers and public opinion—certainly those who believe in Free Trade—would be against restriction. But we have such a strong supporter of the Government and of Free Trade as the Daily Chronicle remonstrating with the Government for "holding their hand about the privilege of the beer industry to use as much shipping tonnage as it likes." I submit that this is one of these questions which want taking up and dealing with immediately. It may be that my noble friend is going to tell me that the Government intend to do this. I hope that we may hear that this is the case. It cannot be said that the brewing trade is a dying industry. I saw in the Press a report of the year's results of the brewery company of Style and Winch, of Maidstone. Their net profit, after meeting all charges and preference dividend, is £47,900, against £42,660 last Year; and not only is the ordinary dividend, which is paid free of Income Tax, raised from 8 to 10 per cent., but £10,000 is again placed to reserve, and the amount carried forward is increased from £26,050 to £34,000. What is also interesting is that this particular brewery, I am told, deals almost entirely with English hops, which is plain proof that it pays to support the home industry and that foreign hops are not necessary in order to obtain good results. Brewers cannot say that if there is a restriction on the importation of hops they will not be able to pay dividends and the heavy taxation which is
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placed upon them, for brewers are doing very well during the war, there being a very large consumption of beer in the country. I hope that the Board of Trade have some intention of themselves acting in the matter instead of asking private associations, as the President of the Board of Agriculture has done, to induce their members to refrain from purchasing foreign hops. I trust that they will take up the question and at once restrict the large importation of hops, which is filling shipping space which could be much better used in bringing into the country food for our people and feeding stuffs for our flecks and herds.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, during the course of the noble Lord's speech I could not help being reminded of a historical observation by the late Lord Salisbury, who once remarked that there was "a great deal to be said for hops." My noble friend has said a good deal about hops and about many other things as to which I am afraid I am unable to give him such information as he would be contented with. But I am certainly not going to begin by reproaching him for a reversal of his fiscal theories. The action of His Majesty's Government with regard to the restriction of imports has hitherto been based upon the restriction of a few commodities which have been imported in very large quantities—quantities so large that even when a few commoditiesonly are affected a very large amount of tonnage is thereby released. I do not think that it can be fairly contended that this applies to hops. We have heard a good deal from my noble friend with regard to the importation of hops, but I do not think he will dispute the fact that for the last five years the annual average was 9,500 tons, and in 1915 the imports were just over 10,000 tons. I observed that my noble friend, no doubt with the intention of impressing the House, gave his figures in cubic feet. Let me point out that a ton weight of hops is equivalent to about six measurement tons—roughly speaking, 40 cubic feet; so that an absolute and complete prohibition of the importation of hops would result in the saving of only 60,000 measurement tons. That is not a very important figure, all things considered. In fact, some people might say it was even insignificant. At all events, it is clear that the importation of hops is not in any way comparable to sonic of the other

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commodities to which prohibition has been extended. But I can reassure my noble friend, I think, by informing him that there is an extreme probability that the prohibited list will be very largely extended. These points are under the consideration of the Committee which is presided over by my noble friend Lord Curzon, and the advisability of including hops in any such enlarged list will, of course, be considered. I am afraid I cannot make any definite statement as to whether or not hops will eventually be prohibited, but I think my noble friend may take it as absolutely certain that if the war lasts long enough hops will in all probability suffer the same fate as many other commodities.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, one cannot help feeling disappointed at the reply of my noble friend opposite. One had hoped to hear that Government were endeavouring to get out of their present extremely inconsistent attitude. The noble Earl at the head of the Board of Agriculture implored hop merchants to use less foreign hops, but as far as I can see, from the figures which have been supplied to me, the hop merchants have replied by importing more hops than usual. It is suggested to the Government that to be consistent they ought to discourage the importation of extremely bulky packages like pockets of hops. But, no; they cannot make any response which is the least satisfactory so far as their own consistency is concerned. Therefore one us left under the impression that they prefer to remain in the extremely inconsistent position in which they have been for some time past.
I have studiously avoided attacking His Majesty's Government on any subject—though there are plenty of them—except upon this one subject of the importation of hops; and some months ago I begged my noble friend at the head of the Board of Agriculture to go into this question and see whether he could not help an industry which is failing. I have asked fur information from my own county, and I am told that the reduction of the hop area in East Kent, which is supposed to and does, I believe, produce as fine an article in the way of hops as any part of England, amounts to something like 10 per cent. My noble friend is not going to be thanked for that by the poor people in the villages who are going to be deprived of their industry next summer, or by the poor people from the towns who go down there for
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their summer's outing, or by the poor children in the hop districts who will have to go without new boots and shoes because there is no hop money coming in. I have informed your Lordships that the "grubbing" that has taken place in East Kent amounts to something like 10 per cent., and it is as great, no doubt, in other parts of the county. One of the causes is unquestionably the importation of foreign hops. We are killed by the price at which Oregons are put upon the market before we can get any offer for ours. When I spoke last there was some suspicion that hops had been coming in through neutral countries from Germany, and my noble friend said he would undertake to look into the origin of one particular importation of hops from Norway. We have never had any reply with regard to that.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: They came from Russia.
LORD HARRIS: That was the information I obtained myself to-day. There are no hops grown in Norway, and the question was where the hops in question came from. My noble friend thought the case very suspicious and said he would make inquiry, and I am glad to hear that those hops did not come front the enemy. In the begging letter which was written by Mr. Rew, on behalf of my noble friend, it was suggested that the hop merchants should endeavour to do without foreign hops as far as they could. It is obvious that they have not taken that advice, because the importation of foreign hops is about double what it was. I am taking the calendar year. I am told that recently there has been issued from the Government Department concerned figures based upon some other year which has been invented, and which is called, I believe, a seasonal year.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: No; a cereal year. I will explain later.
LORD HARRIS: This has been done in order to bring the months of September, October, November, and December in with the eight months of the year following. Heaven knows why. There is no particular reason why these four months should be looked upon as particularly important to the importation of hope, because haps are imported all the year round, and the importation is going up. For January the importation of hops was over 26,000 cwts.,

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a larger amount than in any month last year except July. The figures for February are not yet completed, but for the first eight weeks in this year there were imported over 39,000 cwts. My noble friend's prayer to the hop trade has been treated with the most profound contempt; he has had no response at all to his appeal. Is it not natural, therefore, that we should make a point now of the fact that the Government are so inconsistent as to allow to come in these extremely bulky pockets of hops instead of permitting the many other articles, far more wanted, a great many of them, to come in in their place?
I will not comment upon the points that were dealt with by my noble friend Lord Strachie with regard to the amount of space taken up on board ship by hops, but your Lordships may take it from me that the space occupied by hops owing to their bulk is enormously in excess of that of a number of other articles which are seriously wanted, some of them particularly by agriculturists. I have in my hand a letter which shows that a farmer keeping a very large herd of cattle and a very large flock of sheep is unable to get the cake that he wants because of the lack of shipping space. This matter would be really laughable were it not serious. The two States in America which threaten us more than any other are Oregon and Washington. Both have adopted total abolition; they go on growing hops all the same, but take care that they shall not be used in those States but in England, and that is being encouraged by my noble friend opposite in the attitude he is adopting to the whole industry.
I cannot congratulate the Government upon the result of their policy as regards Excise in reference to drink generally. Some figures were presented to the House of Commons the other day at the request of Mr. Laurence Hardy which show that whereas there has been a reduction in homemade beer from 35,000,000 to 28,000,000 barrels—a reduction of 7,000,000 barrels a year in beer, which I take leave to think a very wholesome drink although I am not able to partake of it my self now—on the other hand the manufacture of spirits has gone up from 25,000,000 to 28,000,000 gallons. The result of the Government's policy as regards alcoholic drink is that beer is being consumed in a very largely reduced quantity, whilst the consumption of spirits has gone up. I recommend that
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to the notice of the advocates of total abolition.
I would once more impress upon my noble friend that he is doing the very worst possible service to an industry which he acknowledged, when he spoke last, is deserving of sympathy for many other reasons than any question touching Protection. The noble Earl said that it is an industry which employed more hand labour than any other connected with agriculture—I suppose 60 per cent. of the growing of hops is in hand labour; that it is an industry which is especially attractive to the poorest classes of our town population, because they are able to get into the country for perhaps their one holiday in the year and are able to earn something at the same time; that it is an industry which demands an enormous amount of capital—which, in the case of the percentage that has now had to be "grubbed," is all scrapped; and, lastly, the noble Earl acknowledged that this country was perfectly capable of growing every hop that was wanted by our brewers. On all these grounds I again urge upon my noble friend that he should induce his colleagues to look more favourably upon what I believe is his own view in regard to this industry, which is being to a very great extent, I will not say crushed, but seriously injured by the unrestricted introduction of foreign hops.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF SELBORNE): My Lords, when my noble friend speaks about hops, as he always does with great authority, he has a considerable advantage over me. He always knows from our conversations in past days what my opinions are, but I do not know in advance what line on the particular occasion he is going to take. He knows quite well that I should regard any permanent injury to the hop farmers of this country as a great calamity. He knows also that if we had been discussing this question before the war, in normal times, we should approach it from points of view which are closed to us now. This Government is a war Government, and can only deal with such questions from their war aspect. It is in its war aspect that this question is now being considered by the Board of Trade, and I am very glad that it is being so considered. For the first time we are going through the whole list

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of imports to see which can be prohibited without too much detriment to national consumption and national industries, from the point of view of saving tonnage space. As my noble friend told the noble Lord, the question of hops is being considered in that aspect and from that point of view; and I put it to him whether he does not admit that this is the only point of view from which this Government could have approached the question. He rather scoffed at what he called the "begging letter" which I sent to the brewers through Mr. Rew. I think that is rather ungrateful. I sent that letter because I was asked to do so by his friends the hop growers. I do not know what effect the letter has had, but I was so anxious, and am so anxious, to help them that when they asked me to make an appeal to users of foreign hops I did not think it right to decline to do so.
I have only one more aspect of the case to refer to this afternoon. The noble Lord cannot understand why, in the Board of Agriculture, we use a cereal and not a calendar year. Let me explain to my noble friend that the word is spelt c-e-r-e-a-l. It has always been the custom—I think a very natural and proper custom—to deal with questions of corn crops and of hops from harvest to harvest. It makes all the calculations much easier and much simpler. If you take the calendar year you are in every case dealing with the harvest of two different years, which upsets all possible bases of a useful comparison. Therefore I hope the noble Lord will reassure his correspondent that there is no sinister "hankey-pankey" on the part of the Board of Agriculture in this matter, that this use of the cereal year is not new, and that we have always calculated our figures on that principle. Although I know there has been this comparatively heavy importation of hops and should be glad to see it cease, the comparison with the year 1915 is not really a fair one, because—and I am taking now my noble friend's calendar year in order to show that I will meet him wherever I possibly can on a basis of calculation—the imports in the calendar years 1912 and 1913 were in both cases larger than in 1915; and the Year 1914 was an abnormally low year. If my noble friend makes his comparison with the years 1912 and 1913, he will find, as I have said, that the imports were much larger then than in 1915. No doubt what is
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in the mind of my noble friend and of many hop growers is the comparative magnitude of the imports during the last two or three months; but although they are larger than in the corresponding period of 1914 and 1915, they are much less than in 1913 and 1914. For the six months from September, 1915, to February, 1916, the total imports were just under 96,000 cwts., as compared with 214,000 cwts. in the corresponding period of 1913 and 1914 before the war.

ALIENS OF MILITARY AGE.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE rose to ask the Lord President of the Council whether in Westminster alone there are over 3,000 unmarried aliens of military age registered under the National Registration Act; and, if so, why those men who are subjects of countries allied with us are not sent back to serve in their own Armies.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have been asked by persons interested in trying to get as many recruits as possible to come in under the Derby scheme to place this Question on the Paper. I am informed that there is great dissatisfaction amongst young unmarried men in this country who find, especially in London and our great towns, many men of military age belonging to countries allied with us who are earning good wages here and in some cases actually taking the places of men who have been called up in the various Derby groups. It does cause a certain heartburning to our men to feel that they are called up to fight, perhaps, in defence of the country of which these aliens are subjects, whilst these men remain in England earning good wages.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, this is a Question which should have been addressed to the representative of the Home Office, but as the Lord Privy Seal, who answers in your Lordships' House on behalf of that Department, is unavoidably absent this afternoon, I am authorised to give the noble Lord the best information which the Home Office has on this matter. There are no official figures available as to the number of unmarried aliens of military age registered under the National Registration Act, and even if such particulars were available it would be very difficult to arrive at any estimate as to the number liable for military service in their own country, having regard to the fact that the

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limits of military age and the conditions of service vary so much in different countries. I think I might quote an answer which was given in another place recently with regard to Belgians. By a Decree of March 1, 1915, all male Belgians between the ages of 18 and 25 were required to enrol themselves and to appear before a Belgian Recruiting Committee for enlistment or exemption. The Belgian authorities have been given every assistance by the Home Office and the Police and also by the Local Government Board and the Registrar-General in carrying out this Decree, with a view to securing that every male Belgian in this country to whom it applied should be either exempted temporarily or permanently, or enlisted. Apart from the requirements of the Decree, a large number of Belgians have joined the Belgian Army from this country as volunteers. When similar assistance has been asked for by other Allied Governments His Majesty's Government have rendered it according to the various circumstances and as far as their powers allow. This is, as I am sure my noble friend who asked the Question will see, a matter of some delicacy with regard to the relations between His Majesty's Government and the Governments of the Allied Powers. I hope, therefore, that he will be content with the answer I have given.

EXEMPTIONS FROM MILITARY SERVICE.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON VISCOUNT MIDLETON rose to ask the Earl of Derby, as Director-General of Recruiting, whether he is in a position to make any statement regarding the number of exemptions given by Local Tribunals to attested single men.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the fact that the noble Earl is, I understand, now in a position to make some statement to your Lordships on the effect of the action of the Tribunals upon the recruiting which he has set on foot makes it unnecessary for me to detain your Lordships for more than a moment. But I would just say this. You will recollect that when the recent Bill was passing through this House very grave doubts were expressed from many parts of the House as to its sufficiency and whether with its restricted scope it would produce the number of recruits which were asked for by the noble and gallant Field-Marshal opposite (Lord
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Kitchener). Apart from that, the exemptions which were put in the Bill were of so broad a character that it appeared absolutely certain that the number of recruits would be largely governed by the spirit in which the exemption clauses were interpreted by the Tribunals.
Grave rumours have reached us as to the extent to which exemptions are being granted, and I hold in my hand a letter addressed to me by a member of Your Lordships' House who would have been present but is still incapacitated by wounds received in the field. He mentions that in the case of two Tribunals north of the Tweed, 86 applications for exemption came before one and 75 before the other. Out of the 86, 70 exemptions were given; and out of the 75, 63 exemptions were given—all agricultural. It is quite obvious that if the Act is going to be interpreted in that spirit throughout the country it will practically become of no effect. I am far from suggesting that there is any conspiracy on the part of any person to abrogate the Act as passed by Parliament, but there does seem to be a want of organisation in making it clear on what lines the Act ought to be worked in order to produce the proper number of recruits; and if the noble Earl in his answer should bear out either the figures of which I have given one instance or the general statements which have reached us through the Press, I am quite certain that your Lordships will feel that a strong case exists for the Government to take up the matter boldly if they desire the wish of the whole country and of Parliament to be carried out.
THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, I look back some years and remember probably the happiest days of my life when I was a subordinate of my noble friend at the War Office, and nobody recognises more than I do what he did for the Army. Recognising that, I feel that the Question he has put is not like so many Questions that have been put in another place with a view to embarrass the War Office. I am therefore delighted to give him such an answer as I can. I am afraid it will extend beyond the usual scope of an answer, and I cannot think it will be wholly satisfactory. It is impossible to give any actual figures, and for a reason which I will endeavour to explain. To give figures that would be of any use, you ought to take the number of men attested

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in a class and then see how many in that class you have obtained for actual service. Until all the class has been dealt with and all the appeals decided upon in the Local Tribunals, in the Intermediate Tribunal, and again in the Central Tribunal, it is impossible to get accurate figures; and to give any other figures at the present moment would be extremely misleading.
There have been criticisms, and my noble friend mentioned just now a letter in which apparently there was a criticism of the action of the Local Tribunals. I think that any criticism of the Local Tribunals is unjust. The Advisory Committees in the first place are doing extraordinarily good work. They are all gentlemen who are ready without reward of any sort or kind to give an enormous amount of their time to the consideration of these cases. I saw one gentleman only a few hours ago who sat for eight hours, going through these cases, in order to advise the military representative as to what action he should take before the Local Tribunal. The Local Tribunals, again, are doing their work most satisfactorily. Of course, there will occasionally be Tribunals which are perhaps not up to the level of others. There must be, of course, where there are so many Tribunals, cases where there has been a want of uniformity in the decisions. But everything that can be done by the War Office to secure uniformity is being done.
And if I might tell the House the way in which this uniformity is being secured, it will be a sufficient answer to a letter written by Sir Charles Welby which appeared in The Times yesterday. He evidently is under a complete misapprehension as to certain steps that we have taken. The War Office have appointed some Staff captains, men with knowledge of the world, who know what is required, and men on whose judgment we can thoroughly rely. Sir Charles Welby refers to them and says we are going to create a lot of officials who are not required, and he adds—
"May I urge that better cause should be shown before the War Office proceeds to create and pay some hundreds of sham captains to do work for which they can be in no way qualified?"
They are not sham captains. These are all officers who are unable to do more active work and who have undertaken this particular and most useful work for the War Office. The "hundreds of sham captains" that he says are to be spread all over the kingdom consist, as a matter of fact, of
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ten only for the whole of the United Kingdom. By means of these officers we hope to secure uniformity between the decisions of the various Tribunals. The Courts of appeal will be another way of rectifying mistakes that may have been made, and I am in hopes that when the final decisions are arrived at it will be found that uniformity of decision is so great that nobody will have any cause for complaint.
I do not think that the Tribunals are lax in their way of granting rejections. In my humble opinion they are giving a fair number of exemptions, but I only refer to those exemptions which I may say they give of themselves on their own consideration. I am not referring to those which are forced upon them, so to speak, by the action of various Departments of the State. The Tribunals as a rule are just Tribunals; as a rule they have in front of them the object we would wish them to have, and that is to secure all the men that we legitimately can expect for the Army. There are cases undoubtedly in which this has not been done, certainly in some agricultural districts. There is no doubt that while the agricultural population in some parts of the country has done extraordinarily well, there are other parts where it has done extraordinarily badly. It is very what I must call "patchy."
There is another misapprehension that exists which I should like to correct, and in correcting it I hope to be able to justify what I have said with regard to the necessity for carefully watching agricultural exemptions. The Central Tribunal has been good enough to supply me with the following information: Statements have been made in the Press that the Central Tribunal has had before it 16,000 cases. It has also been stated in some quarters that these were claims from men actually attested under the Group system. This is a misapprehension. More than one-half of the cases were from men claiming to be engaged in starred occupations but who had not been starred and who made application to be treated as if they were starred. Under the old instructions, chiefly at the instance of the Board of Agriculture, such an application could be made whether a man had come forward for the Army or not. A considerable number of men made such application without having attested. Out of the total number of cases of this kind decided by the Central Tribunal over 90 per cent. are connected with the

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agricultural interest, and in about one-half of such cases decided by the Local Tribunals the indications are that the men in question were related to the farmer. My noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture and myself have had some correspondence on this subject, and I feel certain that he will do alt he possibly can to help us to secure the men whom we may legitimately expect from the agricultural industry.
I am not afraid of the exemptions which the Tribunals will give of their own free will. What I am afraid of—I made some deductions for it in my Report on the subject of recruiting, and I mentioned again my fears when the Military Service Bill was before the House—is the number of exemptions that will be secured because men are able to claim that they have some protection given to them. I am afraid because men are starred. I am afraid of the number of badged men, of men in reserved occupations, of the conscientious objectors, and incidentally of the action of Sir John Simon. I am very much alarmed at what I will call official exemptions. I do not know whether your Lordships have seen the list, but I have it here. It is long, closely printed, and it gives not only individuals but there are whole trades exempted from service with His Majesty's Forces. Something is being done undoubtedly with regard to this matter. The issue of badges, which was conducted at one time in the most indiscriminate manner, is now being carefully organised under the direction of the Badge Department of the Ministry of Munitions. In every case the badges are now being brought in and verified, and if they are legitimately obtained they are accompanied with a certificate. The various Departments—not before it was wanted—are now revising their list of badges with a view, if possible, to reducing them. I should like to point out to these Departments, when they are reducing, that it is no use taking away badges from men who are over military age. The only thing they ought to have in view if they can reduce the number of badged mend is to reduce those who are of serviceable age, and preferably those who are single. The Board of Trade has lately made a proposal to reduce, not any large number of the reserved occupations as occupations, but to take out from the occupations certain individual classes. It is a step in the
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right direction, and I appeal to my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture to do the same in his Department. He has not yet seen his way to do it, but I am hopeful that he will meet us as far as he possibly can.
All these steps are to a certain extent in the right direction, but they are not nearly enough, and the Government must be prepared to take far stronger measures if we are going to get anything at all like the number of men that we anticipated we should get and which it is necessary we should get. We have got to go most carefully into the question of what are called the indispensable men. There are very few men who are indispensable. When you get at the present moment, as you do in so many of these Tribunals, employers claiming a man as indispensable for a big industry, and you find he is paid only 18 s. a week—well, indispensable men are not obtained at that price, and one wonders whether it is not some relation who has been conveniently put into a starred occupation. Now what is happening? There is no doubt whatever that men are going into these various occupations although quite unsuited to them in many cases, simply with a view to avoiding service. What the Government have to do is to take such steps as will get these men out of these industries, fill their places with women or with men returned from the Front or with men who are medically unfit, and let us have the strong, healthy, single young men for service with the Colours.
I do not believe in criticising unless you can yourself put forward some definite proposals. I am going to put forward my proposals. I admit that they are drastic. I admit that they will probably want some modification. At the same time I sincerely hope that the Government will accept them as a basis for a new arrangement for dealing with starred, badged men, and reserved occupations. These are my two proposals. (1) No single man who has not attained the age of thirty-one should be allowed to plead for exemption on the ground that he is starred, badged, or in a reserved occupation. (2) In the case of all other single men and all married men, their plea to be considered as starred or in a reserved occupation should not be entertained unless they have held their present post, or one of a similar character with another firm, previous to August 15. If that is done we shall get the men whom

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we require. You must, of course, give to these men the same right to appeal on personal grounds that you give to any other men, but I would take away from them the right to appeal on the ground that they are starred, badged, or in reserved occupations. This, of course, cannot apply to skilled workers in munition works. Munition works at the present moment undoubtedly absorb more of these men whom I want to get than any other department, and there is no doubt that this is giving rise to a great deal of friction. I recognise, however, that munitions must stand on a different footing from anything else. Munitions we must have, and I know of my own knowledge that Mr. Lloyd George, the Minister for Munitions, is doing all that he possibly can to help us to get men released for service with the Colours and to replace them, as I have suggested they should be replaced generally in other occupations, by women and by men medically unfit. I know it is said that there may be labour difficulties, difficulties with the trade unions, but I would suggest to these leaders of labour unions—what, indeed, I have noticed in the newspapers they are seeing for themselves—that if you allow these men who are escaping from service to creep into and get a hold in these industries it will mean that they will remain in them, and that when the men at the Front come back they will find themselves deprived of their occupations by those who have staved behind. I see that in one particular union in Scotland this has been recognised. Therefore if trade union leaders generally would recognise this and help to place women in these various industries they would be doing a good service not only to the State, but also to their members who are serving abroad.
I implore the Government to take a very strong line in regard to this exemption question. They must have recognised by this time that when they do take a strong line they have practically the whole country at their back. The passing of the Military Service Act was probably the greatest revolution that has taken place in this country, but it was passed with the almost unanimous consent of the House of Commons and still more of the country. But you are allowing your strength to be whittled away by a small body of men in the House of Commons who are endeavouring to take advantage of everything they can to prevent you from
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getting men. I venture to say that if you judged them by their actions you would say they would rather lose the war than win it. I have a very profound contempt for these gentlemen—I believe most people have—but it would require the freer air of a public platform to enable one to say exactly what one thinks about them. I would like to mention one matter in which they are agitating—the question of exempting those men who have been medically rejected subsequent to August 14. The difficulties that are being put in the way of the War Office when that Department tries to ascertain whether a man has been legitimately rejected on medical grounds are making our work there extremely difficult. The necessity for some such proof I think I can best show your Lordships when I tell you that at the present moment many of these rejection forms have practically nothing upon them except the word "rejected" written across them, no signature, nothing to show the cause of rejection. That is what this small body of men would like to force the War Office to accept as legitimate proof that the men have been exempted. I can further point out to your Lordships how necessary it is to go carefully into this matter by telling you that we had a report that in one district these spurious—they are really nothing but that—these spurious rejection forms are fetching anything from £2 to £3 apiece.
These persons are a small and insignificant body in themselves, but there is one Member who leads them, though I hope he does not entirely associate himself with all that they do. I refer, needless to say, to Sir John Simon, and I cannot resist saying how deeply I regret that his great influence should be used, as it is undoubtedly being used—he, perhaps, did not mean that it should be so—as a incentive to people in the country to do what they can to defeat the Military Service Act. I have been accused by some of these gentlemen of having tricked and trapped the Prime Minister into giving the pledge that he did give. That is untrue, but most complimentary in a sense, because I wish I could flatter myself that I am clever enough to trap so clever a man as the present Prime Minister. No; the man who trapped the Prime Minister was Sir John Simon when he remained in the Cabinet—a War Cabinet, as the noble Earl mentioned just now—with no intention apparently of ever being ready to take the responsibility

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which the whole of that Cabinet must have felt might at some time be imposed upon them—namely, that of imposing compulsory service on this country. He was ready to stay in the Government and bring in what is known as the Military Service (No. 1) Act, a measure to compel, men who had served to go on serving. He was ready to do that; he was ready to institute and did institute the rules and regulations under which passports were not to be issued to eligible men of serviceable age, but when it came actually to the point of making eligible men serve, Sir John Simon became a conscientious objector.
I deprecate very much the publication in the Press of some of the cases of conscientious objectors. I think it very often provides an excuse for somebody to become a conscientious objector who has not hitherto thought of it. But there is one conscientious objector who must appeal to one's sense of humour, and who is so like Sir John Simon that, with your Lordships' permission, I will quote the case. It is that of a home service Territorial; such a man now, if he is a single man and of the right age, has to undertake foreign service. This particular man enlisted in a home battalion of the Territorial Force. He declined to go on general service, and appealed to the Tribunal. They said, "Why will you not take on this general service?" "Because," he replied, "I have a conscientious objection to killing a man." "But," said the astonished Tribunal, "if when you were defending the coast the Germans had landed, what would you have done?" Straight came the answer, "I should have gone to my commanding officer and have asked to be at once transferred to a non-combatant branch." That is exactly what Sir John Simon did. He was a home service man until it came to doing real service which he was capable of doing, and that was supporting the Government. He asked for exemption and he has got his exemption. I should not have mentioned it but for this fact—and it is a fact that, if I may say so, is considerably commented on in the country—that in the speech which Sir John Simon made when he left the Government, pointing to his late colleagues, he said that, though he had gone, there were members still left whose opinions could not be distinguished from his own. That must give one some cause for alarm. If they still have conscientious objections
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may I suggest to them that they should take the course prescribed by the Bill, and should apply to their local tribunals—their constituencies—for exemption from further service? They will get it, and the military officers will make no appeal.
But what is the effect of all this? What is the effect of all these exemption? What is the effect of these attempts to find even more loopholes than the Act provides? It is to establish a feeling of unrest among those married men who have attested, have joined, and who recognise, and rightly recognise, that the effect of these exemptions is that they will be called up for service long before they expected, and long before the War office had ever anticipated, that they would. I cannot go with those married men to the same extent that some would wish to go—namely, that the pledge made by the Prime Minister has not been kept. It has been kept. It has been kept in the letter, and now I am asking the Government to take such steps as will make it kept in the spirit as well. But this agitation is not prejudicing the patriotism of the married men. That patriotism is, I think, best illustrated by the statement that although since the beginning of the year it has been an open secret that no married men would be compelled to join, vet no fewer than 130,000 married men have voluntarily attested, and no fewer than 4,500 attested yesterday afternoon. I must say I sympathise with them, and I wish to do all that I possibly can to represent their case as fairly to the Government as possible, and to secure the Government's co-operation with the War Office to help them in what, after all, is a difficult position.
May I be allowed here to digress, and make what I am afraid is rather an irrelevant statement? There have been some articles in the newspapers—and I have received a great many letters—in which the suggestion is made that I am leaving the War Office for another task, and in that way neglecting the married men's interests, which I ought not to do, in view of my having been the mouthpiece, so to speak, of the Prime Minister in his pledge. In the first place, of course nothing would induce me to run away from any difficulty that existed, and if I thought that by remaining at the War Office twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four I could better advance their cause I would certainly do

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so. There is no intention on my part of leaving my post at the War Office as long as my noble and gallant friend the Secretary of State wishes me to stay there. My work there of necessity becomes very much less than it was, and it was only with his permission, and with the permission of two other gentlemen—the Adjutant-General, and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Mr. Tennant)—that I undertook the other work in addition. I feel that if I can do anything to relieve the Parliamentary under-Secretary of the extraordinary burden of work that has been placed upon him—a burden which I think few realise—I should willingly do so. I hope he will not think it impertinent on my part if I say that all those who in the War Office come in contact with him cannot speak too highly of the tact, and, above all, the patience with which he is upholding the work of the War Office in the House of Commons.
I again must go into a more irrelevant statement. I know that the next accusation that will be made—if it be an accusation—is that I cannot possibly undertake what work I have at the War Office and at the same time undertake the other work connected with the Air Service. If only those who would accuse me of that—of trying to do more than one possibly can—would realise my position with regard to the Air Service, which is very different indeed from what they assert, they would know that it is perfectly possible to undertake the two. There are talks of an Air Minister, and I am stated to be responsible for the air defence of the United Kingdom. I have nothing whatever to do with an Air Minister. I am chairman of a Committee, and I am glad to say that I have nothing whatever to do with the defence of the United Kingdom against aircraft. I wish to emphasise that, because one newspaper said—and it has been repeated by others and also by one distinguished man in Parliamentary life—that what was required was that the Air Service should have at its head for the defence of this kingdom against aircraft a man who, if anything went wrong, could be hanged. My sense of self-preservation makes me emphasise the fact that I have nothing whatever to do with the defence of this country against aircraft.
I must apologise for keeping your Lordships so long. I have endeavoured to put before the Government the very serious
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position that we are in with regard to the provision of men. It is not a question of the administration of an Office or of any individual in the Office. It must be a question of a policy to be decided by the whole Government. The Government must take this matter into immediate consideration. On their action must depend, not the success of the scheme, but, far more than that, the provision of men, without which the Empire might fall. I am not despondent in the least as to getting the men. I believe we shall get them. But time is the most important element, and therefore I do hope that His Majesty's Government will do all that they can to facilitate the releasing of men for service. Do not let them hesitate; do not let them wait; do not let them have another outspoken colleague who will get up and say with regard to recruiting what one colleague has said with regard to other matters—"Too late! Too late!"
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I think I shall best assist this debate if I deal at once, before any other noble Lord speaks, with the aspect of the case to which the noble Earl has drawn such pointed attention—the exemptions in agriculture. The general case will be dealt with later by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne. We have had many debates in this House on finance, on contraband, and now on recruiting. I am afraid that the public gets in one respect a false impression from these debates. The public thinks that we are discussing a series of very interesting but disconnected and separate subjects, but that is not true. In reality we are always discussing only one subject—the conduct of the war. All these questions dovetail into one another and are interdependent to a degree that no one can imagine unless it has been his duty to deal with the problem. Take the questions of financial stability and of the food of the people. There is no use in ensuring the financial stability of the country or the food of its people if we cannot supply an Army large enough to turn the scale towards victory in the war. On the other hand, it is equally true that there is no use in having a large Army if the country is not able to finance the whole Allied cause or if there is any danger of insufficiency in the food supply of the people.
I should like to say a good deal about the question of food supply but I am at

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a disadvantage, because I cannot speak to my noble friend opposite or to this House or to the public without speaking also to our enemies, and therefore I am obliged to hold my tongue. But I do say this, and I say it with a great sense of responsibility and with absolute conviction—that every month the war goes on the more important becomes the question of the food produced in the United Kingdom. I foresaw so far as I could the importance of this question, and therefore I went to my noble friend Lord Kitchener many months ago, soon after I had the honour of becoming Minister for Agriculture and before the National Registration Bill was introduced, and pointed out to him the danger that would arise if certain skilled men in agriculture were recruited for the Army. Lord Kitchener was convinced by my arguments and agreed, while he could not refuse to take a man belonging to these skilled classes if he wished to join the Army, that he would instruct the recruiting officers not to solicit these men to join the Army. I announced that fact, with Lord Kitchener's consent, publicly in August. Therefore when the National Register was compiled it is quite true that the farmers knew that I had agreed with Lord Kitchener that certain classes of skilled agricultural labour were indispensable to agriculture and should not, if possible, be recruited. No hint was given to farmers that these men would be starred. The star came afterwards. But the wise farmer was careful to see that the men who did belong to these classes described themselves as such in the Register; and also I am afraid it is true that there were cases in some districts—fairly numerous cases—where farmers took precautions for the inclusion under these headings of men who did not really belong to these classes. But I am quite sure that if Lord Kitchener had not so met me in this matter last summer an absolute catastrophe would have occurred to agriculture, and at the present moment the food supply of the people would be in a very different position from what I believe and hope it is.
When Lord Derby undertook the duties which he has fulfilled to our great admiration, he and I had often to discuss this question together. He, of course, was contending for the size of the Army; I was contending for the safeguarding of agriculture. We generally arranged our
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differences, though I do not think I have ever convinced him that too many men have not been reserved to agriculture. Only yesterday he came to me, as he has stated to-day, and asked me to agree to strike off the starred list a certain class of men. I felt quite unable to agree to his proposal.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Not the whole class.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: No; I beg the noble Earl's pardon; that is quite right—unmarried men under thirty years of age belonging to a certain class.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Yes.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I was not able to agree to my noble friend's proposal. The class is not a large one, but in my opinion there is no more important class among all those who have been starred. I will tell your Lordships what the class is, because I do not think my noble friend would wish that there should be any mystery in the matter—it is the foreman class. In my judgment there is no man on a farm more important than the foreman. Not only is he the man through whom the organisation of the labour proceeds, but he is probably the one man on the farm who can turn his hand to any one of the skilled occupations if the necessity arose. He can be cowman, farmer, shepherd; indeed, he can do and is doing everything in many cases; he is "jack of all trades" in all the most important farm operations at the present moment. Therefore although it has been always a matter of great regret to me ever to say "No" to my noble friend, I did not feel that I could say "Yes" to that proposition. I believed the consequences to agriculture would be very serious, whereas the number of men that the Army would gain would be proportionately small.
I have spoken on this subject in the country at a great many meetings, and I should like to repeat to your Lordships what I have said to the farmers and what I shall say again. I say to the farmers that upon them is laid the grave responsibility of producing all the food they possibly can from their farms during this time of war. That is their war job, and it is just as much a responsibility in their

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case as fighting is in the case of others of their fellow-countrymen. To the extent to which, through unwillingness to adapt themselves to new conditions or to laziness or to selfishness, they fail in producing the greatest possible amount of food they can, to that extent they are allies of the Germans. And I say to them also that it is incumbent upon them to do that with the retention on their farms of the smallest possible number of men of military age who either come under the Military Service Act or would be willing of their own accord to join the Army. It is the absolute duty of the farmer, if he wishes to be regarded in the future as a patriotic man who did his duty in this time, to do all he can to find substitutes for men of military age, be those substitutes older men, be they men who are unfit for military duty, or be they women; and my Department are doing all we possibly can to show the women of the land that although they may not need to work—indeed, many of them are better off now than they have ever been before—yet there is just as much a call to them to work on the land to-day in order to release the men to fight as there has been to their men folk to go into the Fleet or into the Army.
I would say a word particularly about farmers' families, to which my noble friend referred. I hope the farmers will not think for one single moment that I make any accusation against them as a class. Far from it. Noble Lords know well that a more patriotic class does not exist. But unless all the information that has reached me is wrong, and I do not think it is, there are districts in the country in which some farmers have deliberately tried to shield their sons from the obligation of military service.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Hear, hear.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I am not alluding to the cases, of which I know several personally, where all the labourers have gone from a farm and the farmer and his sons are working the whole farm as labourers. In that case the sons are to be counted as labourers, and they are indispensable. I am alluding to the cases where the farm is, I will not say fully equipped with labour—no farm is fully equipped with labour now—but where it has its fair proportion of male or female labour, and in addition the farmer has tried to make it appear that his sons are
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indispensable as shepherds, or as stockmen, or as carters, and where he has arranged that part of those duties should fall upon them in order to strengthen their case for exemption before the Tribunal. I have no wish to shelter those farmers' sons. It is just as much their duty to take up arms at the present moment as it has been the duty of agricultural labourers or the duty of our sons, and I know that the farmers of England will agree with me. They have no wish that any special privilege or degree of exemption should attach to the families of farmers. Therefore I have told my noble friend, and I repeat it here, that I am willing and anxious that ever case of a reserved or starred man which appears to the officers appointed by my noble friend to be doubtful should be tested before the Tribunal. If a man has been improperly starred, let that be shown before the Tribunal; or if he has been properly starred but his services are no longer indispensable for the national welfare, let that be shown before the Tribunal, and let that man be released for service in the Army.
I would go further. There is no absolute finality in these matters. I am quite prepared to agree with my noble friend opposite that there should be an authority in the Government to revise from time to time the lists of reserved occupations and starred classes, provided that I am permitted to speak for my own Department in each case and that if I feel that I cannot concur I should be allowed to make my case and be heard. While, as I think I have shown, I am as anxious as a Minister can be to assist my noble and gallant friend the Secretary of State for War to get all the men that he can into the ranks, I feel my own responsibility very heavily. My noble friend has truly said that munitions are as important as the Army; but it can also be said that the food of the people is just as important as munitions or the Army. Therefore I cannot always accede to the suggestions which my noble friend makes to me.
But I would add the weight of my testimony to what my noble friend said to the married men. Do not let them be beguiled by the insidious suggestions made to them from one quarter or another that the promise made to them by the Prime Minister is being broken in this matter of exemption. I can say most honestly and conscientiously before my fellow-

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countrymen as before this House that I have never stood up for an agricultural exemption that I did not believe to be absolutely essential to the national welfare, and having by the help of my noble friend secured those exemptions I have ever since been endeavouring so far as I possibly could to secure substitutes for the men, or some of them, who have been exempted, and I shall continue that practice. But it is quite inevitable that some unmarried men of military age must be kept upon the land. It is not possible for agriculture to part with all the unmarried men of military age, and it would be a wholly false reading of the Prime Minister's pledge and of the real facts of the problem of the conduct of the war if the married men believed that in no circumstances should an unmarried man be kept in one of these excepted classes.
THE EARL OF DESART: My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of making any comment on the extremely interesting if somewhat disquieting speech made by my noble friend Lord Derby. I want to deal with another point on which I hope the Government may be able—though I am very much afraid they will not—to take some steps to prevent that which I think is a very considerable evil which has arisen out of the action of the Tribunals regarding exemptions. I should like to say this about my noble friend, Lord Derby's speech, that it struck me—as I think it struck most noble Lords in this House—that in what he said he added to the debt which the country owes him for his great services in the interest of the State at a moment of extreme crisis. The only point I want to make is whether it is not desirable that somewhat less publicity should be given in the daily Press to individual cases of applications for exemption and their consequences. I do not know how it strikes the public in this country, but it does produce abroad a sort of general impression, which I believe to be absolutely remote from the truth, that the large proportion of single men are desirous of avoiding the service which they are asked to perform at the moment of their country's peril and need. That it is misleading is exactly what makes the evil all the greater.
I have been very much impressed with this, because I had occasion to spend last week in Paris, and when I read the London
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papers there and saw the accounts of the proceedings before the Tribunals and the reasons—some good, some indifferent, some bad—that were given for exemption, I recalled that I was among people whose sons had necessarily but ungrudgingly been sent to the service of their country, and among employers who had necessarily but ungrudgingly parted with the men who were essential to their trades, and had accepted this as a matter of course with cheerfulness and with patriotism and without grumbling, and I really hoped that those Frenchmen did not read the English newspapers. I looked anxiously at the French newspapers and was relieved to find that these cases were not reported there. Not that I think that comes to very much, because all the more educated Frenchmen now watch with great care what is passing in this country. I find that they have the deepest admiration for the response which voluntary enlistment met with, and they have been somewhat surprised that when the Government appealed for Parliamentary sanction to limited compulsory service there was a section, he it a small section, which passionately opposed even that measure for the defence of the country in its extreme need; and I think they are looking with still greater surprise at the number of cases in which on more or less sufficient, often on less sufficient, grounds men are applying for and obtaining exemption.
By this system of reporting at length—two or three columns sometimes—all these applications there is put in the limelight every bad case, if I may call them bad cases, and we have no record day by day of the numbers who have loyally met the Government and come forward willingly to perform the service which is called from them. I do not know whether it is possible in any way to check this great publicity. I know it is very difficult, but I honestly think it is a very serious thing. I am sure it affects our reputation abroad, and I do think it is deplorable that the Press should lend itself to advertising our weaknesses while we do not have any opportunity of recording that of which we may well be proud.
This is not, I fear, the only case in which the Press has produced false impressions abroad. I have been spoken to more than once on the subject by people closely

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connected with public affairs and living in neutral countries. They have commented in very strong terms on the harm which our Press has done to us in neutral countries. From other foreigners who are in sympathy with us I have heard the same; and while appreciating the difficulty of dealing with a matter of this kind, I do think it is one which ought to be considered. If by appeal or by any method some limit could be placed on the reporting of these cases or some corrective record given to show the good side as well as the questionable side, I am sure it would be of great service and prevent our losing reputation in allied and neutral countries. At a time like the present, this is a matter which seems to me of enormous importance.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I should like to refer in a few words to the extremely emphatic conclusion, as I understood it, that came from my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture. I understood him to insist that it was absolutely essential to keep a certain number of unmarried men on the land. If I am wrong, I will sit down at once. That is what I understood him to say. Well, I have a good deal to do with agriculture. I have had to farm for a good many years a large number of acres, all arable land, and I do not hesitate to say with great respect that I disagree with the noble Earl absolutely. So far as agriculture is concerned, I cannot see where the difficulty of the young married man doing the unmarried man's work arises. I dare say there may be difficulty in getting the married men, but when my noble friend says that it is absolutely essential that a certain number of unmarried men should be kept upon the land, so far as what I know of agriculture is concerned in the part of the country with which I am acquainted I absolutely disagree with him, and I am extremely sorry to hear such a statement come from the Government.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I may, perhaps, be allowed to express my entire sympathy with what was said by my noble friend Lord Desart in regard to the regrettable effect produced by the publication of the details connected with some of the applications for exemption, but whether it is possible, as he would like us to do, to impose a limit upon publicity of that kind is another matter. Of one thing I am sure, and that
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is that there would be great suspicion if we were to suggest for a moment that these proceedings should be heard in camera. I speak only from a not very distinct recollection, but I am under the impression that during the course of the discussion on this question great importance was attached to the publicity of the proceedings before the Tribunals.
THE EARL OF DESART: I did not suggest anything so drastic as that. In the first instance at any rate, perhaps some kind of appeal might have a measure of success. I was not advocating the hearing of the cases in private, but I depreciate the reporting of the cases at length.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I have no doubt that what has been said by the noble Earl will have its effect out of doors. I can only express my entire agreement with him, although I do not see any way of giving effect to his proposal. But I think it is quite fair to anticipate that when the novelty of these proceedings has passed away and when the practice of the Courts becomes more established than it is at present, we may look forward to a cessation of these publications to which my noble friend so much objects.
Lord Selborne, in the course of the speech to which your Lordships have just listened, went, I think, a considerable way towards meeting the criticisms of lay noble friend Lord Derby.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Therefore I do not propose to follow him in much of what he said. The fact is we all of us really want the same thing. Nobody will be found to say here or anywhere else, I hope, that it is only the Army which matters. Nobody again, I hope, will be found to say that the importance of our industries is so great that we must safeguard them no matter at what cost to the Army. We have to steer an even course between those two extremes. The action of His Majesty's Government throughout all these transactions has been one long effort to adjust these difficulties in a manner fair and reasonable and just to both sides. We had to do this—I am sure my noble friend will admit it—under very great difficulties.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: This was one of the many cases where we were inevitably unprepared. As we all know, nobody ever looked forward to the kind of military effort which this country has made during this war, and therefore nobody could have anticipated a state of things which would impose so serious an inroad upon our industrial resources. Your Lordships will remember that it was not until the month of August last year that the National Register was called into existence, when we were for the first time supplied with a means of taking stock of our industrial resources. It has from the first been evident to all concerned that some measure of protection for the industrial occupations of this country was inevitable. There has been a series of endeavours to do this. The first was that which my noble friend Lord Selborne described just now, when he, in consultation with the Secretary of State for War, framed the list of agricultural operations which were to be given the protection of a star. Then we had the badging of the men employed in the munition works. Then came the lists of reserved occupations. I know my noble friend feels rather keenly upon the subject of these lists, and I am not surprised. They followed one another at no great distance, and they contain what appears to be a most portentous list of protected occupations. Those lists were framed by a Committee which was assisted by experts who were thorough masters of the subject, and I think I may say this in defence of the great number of occupations which it was found necessary to include in these lists—that the lists were made long, not with the object of increasing the number of men who were to be included within them, but because unless the occupations were divided and sub-divided the lists would be wanting in precision and might consequently have been applied to protect people who were in fact not entitled to protection.
It is upon these lists that the Tribunals depend, and my noble friend is evidently dismayed at the result of the cases which have been hitherto before them, and I agree with him that, unless I am quite misinformed, the number of men who pass through without exemption is alarmingly small. But I ask my noble friend to remember this. I think it was
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inevitable that the result of the earlier groups should be disappointing, and for this reason. The younger men, naturally knowing what was in the wind and what the prospects were of some measure of compulsion, enlisted in great numbers. The men who did not enlist but who remained in the groups were probably in a great many cases men who were pretty sure that when they had to come eventually before the Tribunals they would be able to show that they had sufficient reason to claim exemption. Another explanation which, I think, helps a little to reassure us is one that was suggested by my noble friend himself. We do not yet know what the effect of the proceedings on appeal will be, and I am inclined to hope that in a great many of these cases the decisions of the Central Court may be such as to have a very steadying effect upon appeals in future.
I think my noble friend made out with great force a case for a careful scrutiny of these proceedings, and I am glad to be able to assure him that this scrutiny not only will take place but is taking place at the present moment. There is already sitting at the Board of Trade an inter-Departmental Committee whose business it is to go very carefully through the lists of reserved occupations; and it was announced only last night in the House of Commons that steps had been taken not only to revise the list of starred and badged men but materially to reduce the number of reserved occupations. That is, at any rate, a step which I think will commend itself to my noble friend. But I quite agree that this is a matter which requires constant and most careful watching—watching in two directions. In the first place, to see that no occupations are allowed to remain in the reserved lists unless there is an absolutely conclusive case to show that they ought to remain there; and, in the next place, there is the necessity of watching very carefully the case of individual men. As to that, my noble friend Lord Selborne has said emphatically that in the case of the industry with which he is specially connected—and the same may be said of other industries—we are most anxious that every case should be thoroughly gone into so that if protection has been improperly given to any man, if he has got into the starred list improperly, if he has been included in a reserved occupation im-

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properly, means may be found to deprive him of the immunity which he has thus obtained.
I heard with great satisfaction what was said by my noble friend in regard to the Tribunals, because really everything turns upon these bodies; and I may say that, so far as my information extends, I have every reason to believe that both the Local Tribunals and the Central Tribunal—so ably presided over by a member of this House, Lord Sydenham—are doing their work well and successfully. And I certainly will not leave out in the compliment which I venture to pay these Tribunals a word of commendation for the Advisory Committees which we owe to a great extent to the initiative of my noble friend, and which are doing invaluable work in sifting these cases before they come to the Courts and deciding what cases should be carried further and what cases can, with general advantage, be dropped. I prefer to accept the account given of the Tribunals by my noble friend Lord Derby than that which was given at the beginning of this discussion by my noble friend Lord Midleton. Lord Midleton told us that he had heard serious complaints at the spirit in which the Tribunals administered the Act. It is quite possible that you may find here a Tribunal with bias in one direction and there another Tribunal with a contrary bias, but I believe these Courts really are doing their work with absolute conscientiousness, and that all that is wanted is the steadying effect which will certainly be produced when a sufficient number of cases have been dealt with on appeal, and when consequently the interpretation of the Act is more firmly established than it is at present.
I would like to say one word upon the question of the interpretation of the Act. My noble friend rather took exception to the manner in which some men were allowed to claim that they were indispensable and should therefore be protected. All I can say is that the Instructions which have been issued to the Tribunals are drafted in such a way as to leave no excuse to the Tribunal if it does not interpret the Act with sufficient strictness. Let me read to the House one sentence in the most recent Instructions. This is the Instruction given to the Tribunals as to the manner in which they are to deal with the man who
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claims that he is indispensable and that he ought to be allowed to remain in civil employment—
"In deciding cases in this class, Local Tribunals should take into account not only whether the service is such as ministers to the national interests at the present moment, but also whether it is in the national interest that the particular man should continue in civil employment, and whether, even if the services which he renders are essential, they cannot be performed by available men not of military age or otherwise not fit for military service, or by women."
That really, if I may say so, is a very stiff Instruction, and makes it the business of the Tribunal to go very thoroughly indeed into the question whether the man before them is really indispensable in the truest sense of the word.
As I mentioned the question of substitution, to which my noble friend also referred, let me say this. I am a thorough believer in the policy of substitution. I think we should use every effort to persuade employers to substitute married men for unmarried men with the object of releasing the latter whenever it is possible to do so. I am not sure that my noble friend Lord Harris quite understood Lord Selborne when he suggested that he (Lord Selborne) was absolutely bent upon keeping a certain number of unmarried men in the farmer's service. What I think my noble friend had in his mind was the case of the foreman. It is not because the man is a single man that he should remain, but because he is a foreman; and whether he is a single man or a married man my noble friend pleads that he is a man who ought to be kept upon the farm because his services are essential.
Then there is the other question, which to my mind is all-important—the question of the substitution of the labour of women for that of men. This is a matter to which we have given a great deal of attention. I am glad to say that there is a steady increase, though not a very large one, in the number of women employed. My noble friend knows that there is a good deal of prejudice to be overcome in this matter, and it is not very easy to overcome it. In fact, I am pretty well convinced that in many cases we shall never overcome the prejudice unless it is made clear to the employer that he is going to lose his men, and therefore will have, whether he likes it or not, to find women to replace them.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: But I venture to plead that if this change is to take place it must be gradually effected, and that it would be grossly unjust to deprive the employer of a great number of men on the assumption that he was able to fill their places within the next few days by an equivalent number of women. To show how much can probably be done in this direction, I may, perhaps, be allowed to say that I have lately seen figures which show that there are at this moment 1,600,000 women in this country who are returned as experienced in industry, but who at this moment are not employed. That shows what a large field there is open for this most important change.
I listened with great interest to the two specific suggestions made by my noble friend. The first was that no single man who has not attained the age of thirty-one should be allowed to remain in a reserved occupation. My noble friend himself saw quite clearly that this was not a rule which could be indiscriminately enforced, because I think he said that in the case of munitions it would be impossible to do it.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Not at present. I think gradually it could be done there.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: If my noble friend will admit that these things are to be done gradually, I will travel a great length with him. But what I suggest to him is that you could not, either in munitions work or in many other industries, suddenly withdraw the whole of the reserved or starred men who happened to be below a certain limit of age. I think the same kind of argument applies to my noble friend's other suggestion, which was, if I remember rightly, that no man should be allowed to remain in a reserved occupation unless he was in that occupation before August 15 last. There again I admit, in considering whether a man was indispensable or not, that it would be very fair to urge that as he had been recruited for his occupation only a few months ago he could hardly be considered indispensable. But that, too, seems to me to be a rule which it would be very difficult to apply indiscriminately and all of a sudden.
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I should like before I sit down to assure my noble friend that this question is engaging our very earnest attention. We quite realise its great importance. Almost immediately there will be an important conference between the heads of the Departments mainly concerned, and all these criticisms shall be taken into account, and all these suggestions duly weighed. We, at any rate, are quite determined that the effect of the efforts which we are making shall not be whittled away by vexatious or useless restrictions.
THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Marquess sincerely for saying that he will take my proposals into consideration. I would like, at the risk of repetition, to say one or two things on his speech. Do not let us flatter ourselves that it is only the earlier groups that will be disappointing. Do not let us flatter ourselves that in the present circumstances the effect of appeals, even if the majority went in our favour, would be altogether satisfactory. Do not let us think that what I may call the small proposal made by the Board of Trade for a certain reduction in the number of reserved occupations is likely to give us the men we want. The thing has to be done on a much bigger scale, and I hope that the Government as a whole will decide that it shall be done on a bigger scale. Lord Selborne spoke of the particular case in which he had not been able to meet the request, not made by me in the first instance, but made through me by the Committee that sits at the Board of Trade, for dealing with these cases. They asked that Lord Selborne should agree that single men under thirty in certain occupations should be released. Lord Selborne refused. If I may say so, it seems to me that two of the speeches made to-night should cause the Government to inquire very carefully into the question of agricultural exemptions. Here is Lord Selborne, the theoretical head of the Board of Agriculture, saying that single men under thirty years of age engaged in certain agricultural occupations cannot be released; and here is Lord Harris, a practical farmer, who says that no single men of any sort or kind need be kept on a farm.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent—

Consolidated Fund (No. 1).

Naval Prize (Procedure).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD COLEBROOKE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do adjourn,
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except for Judicial business, until Wednesday next, March 8.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at ten minutes past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.