Sitting of 9 March 1916

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
Aberdeen Corporation Water Order Confirmation Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now considered."
Objection taken.
Mr. SPEAKER: The new Clause standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for South Monmouthshire (Major-General Sir Ivor Herbert) [as to compensation water] is out of order; it is beyond the scope of the Bill.
Consideration deferred till Tuesday next.
City of Dublin Steam Packet Company Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' DEFERRED ANNUITY FUND.
Copy presented of Second Septennial Actuarial Report on the Assets and Liabilities of the Fund [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 42.]
ARMY (MILITARY SAVINGS BANKS).
Copy presented of Statement of the Amount due by the Public to Depositors on 31st March, 1914, and of the Receipts, Interest, and Disbursements during the year ended 31st March, 1915, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 43.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    GERMANS' FALSE PASSPORTS.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if
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    he has any information that numbers of Germans of military age have succeeded in returning to Germany from neutral countries in neutral ships, travelling under assumed names with false passports; and if effective steps are now being taken to prevent this proceeding?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord Robert Cecil): A large number of Germans of military age attempting to return to Germany with passports of neutral countries have been detected and arrested. No doubt a certain number have succeeded in getting through. Information to this effect has been received. Every effort is made to prevent them, but the habitual use of forged and false passports and of false papers purchased from neutral seamen makes the work of detection difficult. Various neutral Governments have been warned of the abuse of their passports by Germans, and such steps as are possible have been taken to make the acquisition of false papers difficult.

    CONTRABAND.
    Sir J. LONSDALEasked if any decision has been arrived at on the question of extending the list of absolute contraband, so as to include every commodity which is vitally necessary to our enemies?
    Lord R. CECIL: The proper method of dealing with this question is under consideration. My hon. Friend will not forget that we have to act in these matters in concert with our Allies.
    Sir J. LONSDALEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that, owing to the standard of proof of enemy destination required by the Contraband Committee, many cargoes are released without being sent before the Prize Court; and if it is intended to modify the instructions to the Contraband Committee so as to allow the question of destination to be settled in the Prize Court?
    Lord R. CECIL: I do not think that any cargoes are allowed to proceed by the Contraband Committee against which there is any reasonable evidence that they are destined for the enemy. In this matter the discretion of the Contraband Committee is as it ought to be unfettered by any instructions, and in my opinion they have exercised that discretion well.

    PRISONERS OF WAR (EMPLOYMENT).
    Colonel LOCKWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the fact that war prisoners are employed to clean the streets of Munich, he will consider the advisability of employing our prisoners of war in this country for a similar purpose?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): Work can be enforced only on combatant prisoners of war. Dorchester and Shrewsbury are the only places of considerable size near which such prisoners are interned, and they have not been employed there in this work; but the matter shall receive consideration.

    HUNGARY.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, when consenting to the use of Mrs. Scott, recently deported, as carrier of a letter written in Hungarian from London to the Finance Commissioner of Hungary making a certain offer if Hungary would secede from Austria and join Russia, he was aware of the other uses previously and concurrently made of Mrs. Scott by Messrs. Rothschild; on what grounds the Foreign Office enabled Mrs. Scott to pass into and out of enemy countries once a month during eighteen months of the War; and whether the American Embassy, through which legitimate communication with those countries was carried on, was kept informed of the uses being made of Mrs. Scott over the same ground?
    Lord R. CECIL: I must have time to make inquiries with regard to this matter, and perhaps the hon. Member will repeat his question on Tuesday next.

    EGYPTIAN RESERVISTS.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the cause of the demonstration made by the Egyptian Reserve at the Sultan's Palace, Cairo, on the 29th January, in which both soldiers and civilians were shot at and injured, and the number and nature of the casualties?
    Lord R. CECIL: Certain Egyptian Reservists recently appeared before the palace with the object of presenting cer-
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    tain specific grievances to the Sultan, and a slight disturbance resulted, in which a few people were injured. The incident, which was of no importance, is not likely to be repeated.

    NEWSPAPERS (EGYPT).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the absence of law empowering the Egyptian Government to refuse permission to found a newspaper without giving a reason for the refusal and to prohibit the publication of a newspaper in more than one language, will he say what are the principles or rules for guidance in these matters respectively?
    Lord R. CECIL: I do not think it would be desirable to make a general statement of that description, but if the hon. Member raises the question of any specific newspaper, the matter will be considered.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.
    Sir ARTHUR MARKHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any information showing that there is any considerable number of officers and men at the present moment prisoners of war in Turkey; if so, will he state the reasons why the Turkish Government have refused to furnish these names; and whether His Majesty's Government have refused to furnish the Turkish Government with the names of Turkish officers and men taken prisoners?
    Lord R. CECIL: I have recently received from the United States Embassy at Constantinople through the United States Ambassador in London a list of 491 British naval and military prisoners of war taken at the Dardanelles. The United States Embassy believe this list to be complete. I have also received from the United States Embassy a list of 107 British prisoners taken in Mesopotamia. I am pressing for a complete list of prisoners taken in Mesopotamia. It was at one moment found necessary to suspend the transmission to the Porte of lists of Turkish prisoners of war, but on the receipt of the lists of the British prisoners of war the transmission of the lists of Turkish prisoners of war was resumed.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Have the relatives been notified?
    Lord R. CECIL: Yes, I think the relatives have all been notified—I believe so.
    Mr. MALCOLMasked how soon the first British invalid prisoners of war will be sent to sanatoria in Switzerland?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, I am not yet in a position to say.
    Mr. MALCOLM: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me when he will be in a position to say? Can he say how long these negotiations are likely to take?
    Mr. TENNANT: It is very difficult to answer that question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a question in a week or ten days' time.
    Mr. MALCOLMasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any answer has yet been received to the telegram sent from the Foreign Office to The Hague relative to the punishment of the sixteen Naval Reserve prisoners interned at Groeningen; whether he can explain the delay in the reply to his telegram, and state what sentence these men have served; and what action His Majesty's Government propose to take in the matter?
    Lord R. CECIL: The inquiry was made by dispatch, and on its receipt at The Hague the Commodire at Groeningen was requested by telegram to furnish a Report, which has now been received. Four of the men concerned have completed their sentence of fourteen days in cells. The remainder have been provisionally released pending further inquiries, but I cannot say how much of their sentence they served. His Majesty's Minister at The Hague is making representations to the Netherlands Government with regard to the case.
    Mr. MALCOLM: Does that mean that His Majesty's Government will demand a full explanation of these unjust sentences, and will demand compensation for those who have been wrongly imprisoned?
    Lord R. CECIL: I cannot answer that question without further consideration. Undoubtedly a full inquiry will be made, and if my hon. Friend wishes to proceed further in the matter, as I dare say he does, perhaps he will put down a question.
    Mr. MALCOLMasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Interdepartmental Committee recently appointed to deal with
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    the question of prisoners of war has the power to take evidence, to reconsider decisions arrived at by the Government before it was appointed, and to consider questions affecting the conduct of prison camps in Great Britain as well as of those abroad?
    Lord R. CECIL: Evidence as to the treatment of British prisoners of war will continue to be taken by the Government Committee recently set up for this purpose. The reference to the Interdepartmental Committee is that it should deal with any questions with which two or more of the Departments represented are concerned. It will be for the Committee to decide whether any particular question raised comes within its reference.
    Mr. MALCOLM: Is the Interdepartmental Committee permitted to decide?
    Lord R. CECIL: The Interdepartmental Committee will decide whether the question comes within its reference, and will take such action as it is able to take in the matter.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why, in exchanging prisoners of war with the enemy, only one British officer was obtained in exchange for Prince Salm, notwithstanding the promise of three British officers given in the letter which Mrs. Harriet Scott brought to this country from Austria?
    Mr. TENNANT: All points bearing on the exchange of Prince Salm-Salm were considered before the agreement with Ger many was reached.

    AGREEMENTS (DENMARK AND SWEDEN).
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked who is the party, or who are the parties, on behalf of Great Britain to the agreements with certain bodies of merchants in Denmark and Sweden, respectively; and by what authority they became parties to those agreements?
    Lord R. CECIL: I am not sure to what specific agreements the hon. Member alludes, but agreements concluded on behalf of Great Britain are concluded by His Majesty's Government under the authority of His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked whether any person of German origin who was a member of the Ford peace party which left the United States of America some time ago is now in this country, despite the assurance that no member of this party would be allowed to land and remain in the country?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I am not aware that any member of the Ford peace party who is of German origin has been allowed to land and remain in this country. If the hon. Baronet will give me particulars of any case which he has in mind, I will inquire into it.

    ENEMY GOODS (DETENTION).
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he still adheres to his declaration made in his Note of the 23rd July last that we are not detaining enemy goods as such; if this implies that all enemy goods detained at sea by our cruisers are at once released without being submitted to the Prize Court as contemplated by the Order in Council of 11th March, 1915; and, if so, can he explain why greater indulgence is shown to enemy goods than is shown to neutral goods detained under that Order?
    Lord R. CECIL: If the hon. Member will refer to what I said on 23rd July in the Note which I addressed to the United States Ambassador, he will see that this question does not convey a correct impression of my statement. It was only where the fact of enemy ownership afforded no evidence that the goods were of enemy origin, or possessed an enemy destination, that I said they were not in practice being detained. Such cases are extremely rare, but with respect to them the declaration made has not been withdrawn. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative, and the third, therefore, does not arise.

    CONSULAR SERVICE.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked if in 1913 Germany had about seventy-five unsalaried Consular officers in the United Kingdom as against about thirty-six unsalaried British Consular officers in Ger-
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    many; how many of the unsalaried German Consular officers in the United Kingdom were Germans; how many were of enemy origin who had become naturalised British subjects; how many of the unsalaried British Consular officers in Germany were British subjects; and how many were subjects of countries with which we are now at War?
    Lord R. CECIL: It has been found very difficult to get complete information on the subject of this question, and the following must be regarded as only approximate: British unsalaried Consular officers in Germany, at the end of 1913, numbered thirty-seven, of whom eight were British and the remainder German subjects. Germany at the same time, according to the list compiled at the Foreign Office, had in this country fifty-seven unsalaried Consular officers, of whom, according to information available, four were Germans and eight were naturalised British subjects of enemy origin. These figures do not include a number of so-called Consular Agents, who, according to the German Consular Regulations, have no official authority, and are consequently not members of the Consular body, properly speaking. The German Consular Agents in the United Kingdom were, with one possible exception, all British subjects.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked how many Consular inspectors are now in the Service; in which countries they serve; the salaries paid them; and their principal duties?
    Lord R. CECIL: The system of Consular inspection is in suspense during the War.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked if any of the recommendations of the last Royal Commission which reported on the General Consular Service have been adopted; and, if so, which?
    Lord R. CECIL: It will, I am afraid, be impracticable to deal with the recommendations of the Royal Commission in regard to the General Consular Service during the War.

    SCOTSMEN ON LONDON JURIES.
    Mr. WATTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that Scotsmen domiciled in Scotland, but having places of call in London for business purposes are being summoned to serve on London juries; that

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    this is being continued even though these premises are closed and unutilised on account of the War; that this practice presses severely on Scotsmen resident so far from where the jury is to sit, especially as they often are unaware that they have been so summoned, the notices not having reached them on account of the premises being closed; and whether he will see that this practice is discontinued during the period of the War?
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: I have no authority under the present law to intervene in this matter, and cannot undertake in existing circumstances to introduce legislation to amend the law relating to jury lists. But I will call the attention of the City authorities to the question, as it would appear from the representations made that the present arrangements may operate harshly in individual cases.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the claim at Oxford City tribunal, on the 3rd instant, of one Joseph Kaye for exemption; whether this man's real name was Kaufmann; whether his father is a German; whether he himself was in Germany a month before the War; and, if so, whether, as he is an obvious enemy of this country, he will consider the desirability of interning him?
      Mr. RONALD McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Joseph Kaye, or Kaufmann, an undergraduate of St. John's College, Oxford, who applied before the Oxford City tribunal for exemption from military service on the ground of conscientious objections to assisting in the organised murder of fellow Socialists; if he is aware that it was given in evidence that Kaye, or Kaufmann, is the son of a German father, born in Bavaria, and of a mother born in England of German parents, and that the conscientious objector was in Germany a month before the outbreak of war and is a notorious pro-German in sympathy; whether the tribunal decided that they had no jurisdiction to hear the application for exemption; whether this decision was on the ground that the applicant was an alien enemy; and, if so, will he say why Kaye, or Kaufmann, has not long ago been interned?
      Mr. SAMUEL: I have made inquiry and am informed that Joseph Kaye or Kaufmann is a natural-born British subject born in Liverpool, that his father who was born in Bavaria came to this country in 1871 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1879, and that the family changed their name to Kaye in September, 1914. I am not aware of the grounds on which the tribunal decided that they had no jurisdiction—that is a question for the military authorities—but I may say that so far as regards nationality, he clearly comes within the provisions of the Military Service Act. I am informed that Kaye is at present under arrest on a charge under the Defence of the Realm Regulations.
      Mr. PRINGLEasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a case in which the Battersea tribunal refused exemption on 29th February to an only son who was the sole support of a widowed mother, and to another case on the same day in which the Brentford tribunal granted total exemption to a brewer on the application of a brewery company on the ground that it was impossible for a brewery to supply beer without its brewer; and whether these tribunals were respectively giving effect to the intentions of the Government when they passed the Military Service Act, 1916?
      The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Long): The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. My attention has not been previously called to these cases. I cannot undertake to deal with individual cases of this kind, but an aggrieved person can appeal from the decision of the local tribunal.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand then, that a brewer is more a matter of concern to the Government than the only son of a widow?
      Mr. LONG: No, Sir. The hon. Gentleman knows quite well that his suggestion has no foundation whatever. The action of the tribunals is subject to revision by the Court of Appeal and we have provided not only an Appeal Court, but we have put in exact words to make it clear what the functions of the tribunals are.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Would it not be better to give clear instructions in the first instance to the local tribunals?
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the President of the Local Government Board

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      whether his attention has been called to the case of Albert E. Pearce, 27, Windsor Terrace, Penarth, near Cardiff, who has owned a dentistry business for two years and has still to meet a loan of £30; whether he is aware that this man, who has been refused exemption by the tribunal, is the support of a mother and two sisters, one of them being an invalid, and that his only brother has been on foreign service and is now in hospital; and whether, in view of the undertakings of the Prime Minister and himself, he will say what action, if any, it is proposed to take?
      Mr. LONG: My attention has not been called to this case. I must refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to his question on Tuesday last.
      Mr. C. DUNCANasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the local tribunal appointed under the Military Service Act, 1916, at Salisbury have failed to appoint representatives of organised labour on the committee; and whether he will make inquiry into the matter with a view to its rectification, as such action on the part of the local authority creates instead of allaying friction?
      Mr. LONG: I understand that the town council have decided to appoint a representative from the National Union of Railwaymen on the local tribunal.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that members of tribunals are seeking to hold up to contempt and ridicule applicants for exemption from military service who base their claims on certain scriptural injunctions; and will he take steps to prohibit this practice, in view of the fact that the clergy have secured exemption from the Act as professional exponents of these precepts?
      Mr. LONG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second point, therefore, does not arise.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: May I bring the cases referred to in the question before the right hon. Gentleman, and will he take steps to draw the attention of the local tribunals to the matter?
      Mr. LONG: If information is brought before me which proves to be trustworthy I will take any steps on it I think right.
      Mr. McNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman refrain from doing anything to deter the exposure of contemptible travesties of moral conscience?
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the President of the Local Government Beard whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Westminster tribunal, on the 7th instant, granted three months' postponement to a director of Drummond's Bank on the ground that there was only one partner left to carry on the business, and on the same day allowed only one month's postponement to a man who is supporting his invalid mother, a widow whose other son is serving, the applicant being told to get his mother into a room; and will he take steps to secure greater equality of treatment than was shown in the matter of these two cases?
      Mr. LONG: I cannot undertake to discuss individual decisions of the local tribunals. I may refer to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division on Tuesday.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of his instructions to local tribunals that they should confine their inquiries to ascertaining facts, he will discourage the putting of hypothetic questions to the conscientious objector, such as those as to what he would do in the case of his mother being attacked by a German, such questions having no relation to fact, in view of the recent statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty that enlistment is for a cause which does not involve invasion or even the serious danger of invasion of our hearths and homes?
      Mr. LONG: I cannot undertake to issue such instructions as are suggested.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that owing to the action of local tribunals thousands of appeal cases are going to the Appeal Court which need not do so if the local tribunal does its work properly?
      Mr. LONG: I am not aware of the fact. I do not admit that to be a correct statement of fact. No announcement here is going to affect the action of the tribunals. They have the Act and the Regulations, and there are countless questions answered here If they make a mistake the Appeal Courts must revise their decision.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: In the case of tribunals constantly flouting the Act and the Regulations and compelling appeals will the right hon. Gentleman compel the tribunal to follow the law?
      Mr. LONG: I have no power to do anything of the kind.
      Major-General Sir IVOR HERBERT: Will the right hon. Gentleman hasten the setting up of the Appeal Tribunal in order to get these questions settled?
      Mr. LONG: As far as I know the great majority of the local appeal tribunals have been established already. Where there has been delay it has not been the fault of the Government. But the delay has been on the part of the local authority in providing us with the names.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: Does the right hon. Gentleman approve of the bullying of witnesses by solicitors?
      Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been directed to the refusal of a number of local tribunals to consider the granting of certificates of exemption to conscientious objectors except from combatant service only; and whether, in view of the provisions of the Military Service Act, 1916, he will take steps to see that the letter and spirit of the Act are more faithfully observed by such tribunals?
      Mr. LONG: It has been stated in some instances that local tribunals have been under the impression that no exemption? could be given to an applicant for exemption on conscientious grounds other than a certificate of exemption from combatant service. Where this has been alleged I have communicated with the tribunal. I do not think the misconception is at all prevalent.
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of two members of the British Socialist party who applied for exemption before the Huddersfield Tribunal on 4th March; whether Captain Bradbury, the military representative, said that such men were a great evil and would hinder recruiting if they were left; and, since no evidence was forthcoming that the men had done anything whatever to hinder recruiting, and since men who do hinder recruiting can be dealt with by law, whether steps will
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      be taken to impress upon military representatives that it is desirable to avoid creating the impression that men are to be conscripted for their political opinions?
      Mr. TENNANT: I have not heard of the circumstances to which my hon. Friend calls my attention. It would be quite wrong for any military representative to attempt to prejudice any man before a local tribunal on account of his political opinion, and if a statement, such as is mentioned by my hon. Friend, was made, it was improper and should not have been made. I have no reason to suppose that military representatives drag in the question of men's political opinions in conducting cases before local tribunals. A local tribunal is not only a judicial but a representative body, and, as such, the members would naturally resent and check any improper procedure of this kind.
      Mr. ANDERSON: I will send my right hon. Friend full particulars of both cases.

      MERCANTILE MARINE.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked if the officers and their crew of the mercantile marine have been exempted from service under the Military Service Act, 1916; if so, why ships' stewards on passenger ships have not been included in such exemption, seeing that under the Merchant Shipping Act the stewards are part of the crew; and, in view of the fact that ship stewards are often required to take up duties which it would not be possible for women to discharge, he will consider the desirability of also exempting ship stewards who can produce a three years' continuous discharge for sea-going experience?
      The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply on this subject given to the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness on the 7th March, a copy of which is being sent to my hon. Friend.

      MEN WITH DEPENDENT CHILDREN.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the President of the Local Government Board if a communication has been addressed to the Ilford local tribunal saying that a man who has divorced his wife and has the custody of dependent children is not in the same position under the Military Service Act, 1916, as a widower with dependent children; and, if so, on what grounds such a decision has been given?
      Mr. LONG: I am advised that a man who is legally divorced is "unmarried" within the meaning of Section 1 (1) (b) of the Military Service Act, and the local tribunal in question were informed to that effect.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Could the right hon. Gentleman explain how he justifies this distinction between a divorced man with children and a widower with children?
      Mr. LONG: The hon. Gentleman is now asking me to defend a proposition of law. A man is either married or unmarried, and if he is divorced he is unmarried.

      MINISTERS' PLEDGES.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the President of the Local Government Board if, in view of the fact that local tribunals are stating that pledges given by Ministers in Parliament on the Military Service Act, 1916, are not binding upon them, he will obtain an amendment of the Order in Council made under that Act embodying the pledges of Ministers as a part of the Regulations, particularly those pledges in regard to widows' sons, to serious domestic hardships, and the right of conscientious objectors to employment in industrial occupations of national importance?
      Mr. LONG: The answer is in the negative.

      AGRICULTURAL LABOUR (SHORTAGE).
      Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that there is disquietude among farmers owing to a recent speech delivered by a great authority; if he can state whether farm servants who have attested, and who have been exempted by the tribunals, are still liable to be called up; and if he is aware that farmers are under the impression that if they now carry out the usual ploughing and sowing they may be left at harvest without the essential labour, and that they consider the position most unsatisfactory?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Acland): I am aware that there is disquietude among farmers as among other classes on the ground of the supply of labour. It is undoubtedly extremely difficult for them to carry out the two duties of sparing as many men as possible for the Army, and maintaining to the utmost possible extent the output from the land. And it is a difficult task for the
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      Government to see that a proper balance is kept between the claims of these two national duties. As my hon. Friend knows farm servants who have attested, and been exempted by the tribunals, are not liable to be called up as long as their certificates of exemption remain in force. Certificates may be renewed, or reviewed on grounds which were widely published in notices issued on the 12th and 14th February. But while this is so, farmers undoubtedly ought not to refrain from the usual ploughing and sowing of the land, as the provision of adequate labour for harvest must and will be regarded as a primary necessity in the interests of the nation.
      Mr. MORRELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that land is actually going out of cultivation owing to the ruthless way in which men are being called up?
      Mr. ACLAND: It is extremely difficult to keep a proper balance between the necessity of getting men for the Army and keeping sufficient men on the land.

      APPEALS (UNATTESTED MEN).
      Mr. WALTER ROCHasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the fact that at the military service tribunal at Llandilo, Carmarthenshire, the military representative stated that in the Regulations it was clearly stated that no appeal could be entertained by a local tribunal unless it was made by or in respect of an attested man, and that in consequence of this statement many men who had come 15 miles with aged relations to attend the Court were unable to have their applications heard; and whether, in view of this, he will see that the Regulations issued to recruiting officers are correctly amended?
      Mr. TENNANT: My attention has not been called to the circumstances mentioned by my hon. Friend. I cannot understand why a man who has not attested and who is not subject to the Military Service Act should wish to attend before a tribunal. As regards men to whom the Military Service Act applies, full instructions have been given to local tribunals that under the Act applications were to be made before the 2nd March, i.e., before any man had been deemed to be enlisted under the Military Service Act.

      MARRIED GROUPS.
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the

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      Government will consider the advisability of not calling up married groups until the supply of single men has been exhausted?
      Mr. TENNANT: All groups of unmarried men who have voluntarily attested and all classes of unmarried men subject to the Military Service Act have already been called up. The Government fully considered the necessities of the due supply of men to be drawn for Army service before calling up any groups of married men.
      Sir J. D. REES: Without controverting what the right hon. Gentleman says, does not the Government think that the loyal married men have a just cause of complaint in the numerous exemptions given on the pretext of conscience?
      Mr. SPEAKER: That opens up a very wide question.

      UNFIT PERSONS.
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of a clerk who claimed exemption before the City of London Tribunal on 6th March, on the ground that he had been rejected five times and was subject to epileptic fits, having had a fit whilst waiting to be examined at the headquarters of the Queen's Westminsters; whether, though the man's condition was known to the doctors, he was passed, his rejection paper which he had just received being recalled; that the man was refused exemption by the tribunal; whether the War Office has considered the human and economic waste involved in the wholesale recruitment of unfit persons; and what provision the War Office propose to make for them in view of the probability of their speedy physical collapse and consequent discharge from the Army?
      Mr. TENNANT: If my hon. Friend will furnish me with particulars of this case, I will have it inquired into.
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has received any communication respecting the case of J. H. Bailey, No. 35, Wolseley Road, Lowfields, Sheffield; whether Army Form W3236 has been sent to this man, informing him that he is required for service on 9th March under Class No. S3; whether this man has three times presented himself for attestation and three times been rejected; that he holds a rejection certificate dated 16th November, 1915, and
      1698
      signed by A. Taylor, recruiting officer, Sheffield; that on presenting this certificate as recently as 2nd March he was informed by the Sheffield recruiting officer that the rejection certificate does not hold good; whether this man will be provided with his cancellation notice; or whether, being legally exempt from service under the Military Service Act, 1916, he should disregard future notices and warnings from the military authorities?
      Mr. MORRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will have inquiries made into the case of William Harrison of 11, Dall Street, Burnley, who has recently been enlisted under the Military Service Act, 1916, and, in particular, if he will ascertain whether this lad since the outbreak of war has offered himself voluntarily for enlistment four times, twice at Blackburn and twice at Burnley, and has each time been rejected as unfit; whether he is aware that on the last occasion, which was since the 14th August last, he received from the recruiting officer at Burnley a certificate of unfitness; that on or about 1st March he took this certificate to the same officer at the recruiting office at Bridge Street, Burnley, and asked for an armlet; that this certificate was then taken from him and orders given him to go and report himself at Burnley Barracks; and that on his going there he was at once taken on as a recruit without further examination; whether at this time he was still under a doctor's care suffering from a serious complaint and general weakness, so that he had not been able to do any work for the past two weeks; and whether the War Office will take any steps in the matter?
      Sir WALTER ESSEXasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why Mr. W. H. Rebbeck, of Stafford, who was certified by a military doctor as medically unfit for service in July, 1915, and again, on his own application, on 4th November, 1915, was once more certified as unfit and given a certificate to that effect, has since been summoned to submit himself to a further examination?
      Mr. TENNANT: Inquiries shall be made into these three cases.

      NOTICES TO REJECTED MEN.
      Mr. MORRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether single men of military age who have offered themselves for enlistment and been rejected since 14th August are still receiving

      1699
      yellow notices issued under the Military Service Act, 1916, requiring them to join the Colours on a given date; that the officers at the recruiting offices refuse to accept the production of a certificate as sufficient evidence of rejection, but require that the man shall himself attend a second time before they will cancel the notice, which ought never to have been sent; whether he is aware that there is no provision in the Act under which such attendance can properly be asked; and whether, in order to simplify the procedure, he will now give instructions to all recruiting officers that in every case where a valid certificate is produced showing that the man to whom a yellow notice has been sent is within the exceptions mentioned in the First Schedule of the Act such notice shall at once be cancelled?
      Mr. TENNANT: I have already dealt with the first part of this question in answer to questions in this House, and a communiqué has been issued to the Press and a poster widely exhibited instructing men who receive the notice paper in the circumstances mentioned how to act. Action, if such has been taken in the sense of the second part of the question, would be quite contrary to the spirit of all the instructions that have been issued. Attendance of men who have been rejected is not required so long as they can produce proof of rejection. Instructions in the sense of the last part of the question have already been given.
      Mr. MORRELL: Would it then be sufficient to send the certificate through the post to the recruiting officer in order to get the yellow form cancelled?
      Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir. My hon. Friend cannot have seen the instructions which have been issued. The man must return the yellow paper.
      Mr. ROWLANDS: Will he upon giving notice receive another certificate?
      Mr. TENNANT: If the person who receives a yellow notice has documentary evidence of his rejection, he should state what that documentary evidence is. If he has no documentary evidence, he should state the date, place and circumstances in connection with the occasion when he was rejected.
      Mr. ROWLANDS: Where he has not this documentary evidence, will the notice be annulled?
      Mr. TENNANT: He will have to give something which is acceptable.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Have these instructions reached all recruiting officers throughout the country?
      Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir.

      FRIENDLY ALIENS.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why the Army Form W 3236 has been sent in very large numbers to friendly aliens in this country who were registered as such in the National Register; and whether, in cases where aliens have answered the summons under a misapprehension, they are being accepted for the Army?
      Mr. TENNANT: British-born subjects who are the sons of aliens and aliens who have been naturalised are accepted.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question: If these documents have been sent to friendly aliens and they have been accepted under a misapprehension, will they be released?
      Mr. TENNANT: I do not see that the answer I have given does not answer my hon. Friend's question. He asked me why the form has been sent in large numbers to aliens, and I have said it is because aliens who have been naturalised—
      Mr. SNOWDEN: These have not.
      Mr. TENNANT: Then I can only suppose a mistake has been made. It was in order to get in aliens who have been naturalised that the form has been issued.

      MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS (FEES).
      Mr. RENDALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether Major D. Paton, Headquarters No. 8 District, Exeter, gave instructions to the recruiting officers under him to agree to pay to doctors undertaking the examination of recruits in November and December last 2s. 6d. per examination; that such recruiting officers thereupon verbally and in two cases in writing agreed with large numbers of doctors to pay them this fee, and on the strength of the undertaking secured the services of these doctors; that thereafter, when the examination of recruits had been made, the same recruiting officers were instructed by Major Paton to write to the doctors informing them that

      1701
      in promising the payment of 2s. 6d. per recruit they had exceeded their duty and the agreed payment would therefore not be made, and offering payment on a lower scale; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): I regret that my inquiries into this matter are not yet complete. When they are I will communicate with my hon. Friend.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if Army medical examiners of recruits are paid a fee only on cases which are passed; and if this can be accepted as the explanation of the fact that recently men have been passed as fit for military service who have an artificial leg, men who are so mentally deficient that they are unable to understand or answer any question put to them by the recruiting officer, and men who have never done any work for years on account of daily attacks of epilepsy, or what other reason there may be for passing such persons into the Army?
      Sir F. CAWLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether recruiting medical officers are paid only for recruits whom they pass as sound; and whether officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps receive special payment for each recruit passed?
      Mr. TENNANT: I will answer at the same time Question No. 130. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn and also to the hon. Baronet for giving me the opportunity for contradicting categorically the statement that recruiting medical officers are paid only for recruits whom they pass as sound. It is the examination which is paid for, and the pecuniary result to the examining medical officer is the same whether he accepts or rejects a recruit. I have stated this upon several occasions. I should add that a medical man holding a commission receives no fees for the examination of recruits. I cannot accept the latter part of the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn as being anything else than an incorrect representation of the results of the work of the examining medical officers. I think that instead of being held up to obloquy they deserve support and recognition in the heavy work they are patriotically doing on behalf of the country.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: As the right hon. Gentleman casts reflections on the accuracy of the statement I made, if he disputes the facts will he allow me to give him actual cases bearing out every statement I have made?
      Mr. TENNANT: Certainly.

      WIDOWS' SONS.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Prime Minister what action he proposes to take in order to secure that local tribunals shall carry out the pledge he gave to the House of Commons in regard to the Military Service Act, namely, that the last remaining son of a widow should not be taken; and particularly what does he propose to do in regard to a case which came before the St. Pancras tribunal on 23rd February, where an applicant, basing his claim for exemption on the fact that he was the only son of an aged mother, living at home, the two other sons having gone to the War, was refused exemption by the tribunal on the advice of the military representative that no financial loss would be suffered by the mother if her third and last remaining son was taken into the Army?
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether if he cannot see his way to carry out his intention that care should be exercised by tribunals in selecting the last remaining son in families which have already contributed all the other members of the family to the Army and Navy and so avoid the catastrophe of entire families being wiped out, he will see that steps are taken at once to secure that these last remaining sons are placed in non-combatant service?
      The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I would refer the hon. Members to the exact language used by me on the 5th January last. It will be seen that it was carefully confined to the case of a single unmarried son whose parent, if he were called up for service, would be deprived of the means of maintenance. My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board has also dealt with the matter under the head of "serious hardship" in a letter addressed by him to the Central Appeal Tribunal on the 23rd February. It is, of course, impossible to go into the merits of particular decisions without knowing the special circumstances of each case.
      Mr. HOGGE: Cannot my right hon. Friend distinguish between the case of a

      1703
      single unmarried man and the case of a man who is, say, the fifth or sixth but last remaining member of the family and will he not see that a single unmarried son who is the last remaining son who has not enlisted may be retained to the parents in order that the family may not be wiped out?
      The PRIME MINISTER: That is exactly what I said. I refer my hon. Friend to the remarks I made, reported in columns 956 and 957 on 5th January last.

      ENLISTMENT UNDER AGE.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for War by what authority Private F. Cockshutt, 14th Battalion, Worcester Regiment, is being retained in the Army; by what authority the War Office refuses to give an undertaking that he will not be sent abroad, seeing that the boy is only seventeen years of age; and if further consideration will be given to the case and a promise given that he will not be sent abroad until he has reached the age of a conscript soldier?
      Mr. TENNANT: I must refer my hon. Friend to the letter I sent him on 21st February.
      Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has yet completed his inquiry into the case of No. 14756. Gunner F. Ellender, 15th Division, C battery, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, who enlisted in August, 1914, at the age of sixteen years against the wishes of his parents, and, although not yet eighteen years of age, has been on active service in France since July, 1915; if he is aware that correspondence with a view to having the boy sent back to England has been passing between his relations and the military authorities for eleven months, and that his birth certificate was sent to and acknowledged by his commanding officer several weeks ago; if he will say who is responsible for such delay in sending the boy back from the front; and whether, especially in view of the fact that Ellender's parents have five other sons serving in the Army, he will take immediate steps to have the boy transferred to a unit at home until he attains nineteen years of age?
      Mr. TENNANT: Inquiries have been addressed to the military authorities in France about this case. T will inform my hon. Friend when the reply is received.
      Mr. McNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that it is now more than a week since I put this question to him? Has the delay not been sufficient to discover whether these facts are true, bearing in mind the fact that the correspondence has been going on for many months?
      Mr. TENNANT: I am quite aware that there has been unusual and regrettable delay, but I have not succeeded in getting the information from the other side.

    POISONOUS DOPE.
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked whether the French Government has prohibited the use of poisonous dope in France; and whether the dope has to be free of tetra-chlorethone and other poisonous spirits?
    Mr. SAMUEL: I am making inquiries, and I will inform my hon. Friend of the result.

    ANILINE DYES AND OILS.
    Sir RICHARD COOPERasked (1) the President of the Board of Trade if he can say whether aniline dyes and oils now being sold to consumers in Britain by the Society of Chemical Industry in Basle as being of Swiss production are in fact in a large measure of German manufacture; and (2) if he is aware of the advantage that is being taken of our present shortage of aniline dyes and oils by German manufacturers through intermediaries in Switzerland and the United Kingdom to secure a monopoly of the aniline dye trade of Britain for three years after the termination of the War, and to make it impracticable for British Dyes, Limited, and other British manufacturers of aniline dyes to compete in this trade; and will he give an assurance to consumers of aniline dyes in Britain that they will be suitably protected after the War against unreasonable contracts which they are being compelled to enter into in order to secure any supply of dyes for their immediate needs?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am not aware of any basis for the suggestion that the Swiss makers of dyestuffs are sending German dyestuffs to this country, or in any way acting as intermediaries for German firms; and I have no reason to suppose that any contracts which British consumers may make with the Swiss firms will have the result suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
    Sir R. COOPER: If evidence can be brought to the Board of Trade to show that the present consumers are practically threatened with the inability to obtain their dyes unless they do enter into a contract three years after the Trading With the Enemy Act becomes law, would the Government protect them and enable them to get their present supplies?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not know that that arises out of the question.
    Sir R. COOPER: May I make representations to the right hon. Gentleman giving him what I regard as a case?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I shall be delighted to receive any information from my hon. Friend.

    TRADING WITH THE ENEMY (GERMAN COMPANY).
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that some years ago a company was registered under the name of Arthur Wilson Peck and Company to acquire two well-known Sheffield houses who dealt in pianos and musical instruments; that at the outbreak of war 1,940 of the 2,000 £10 shares in this company were held by Germans or persons of German origin; that E. Bechstein, piano manufacturers, of Berlin, held the majority of the shares and controlled the company; and whether he proposes taking any steps to inform the inhabitants of Nottingham, Sheffield, and Leeds, where this firm carries on business, that this company is a purely German firm trading under an English name?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware that Arthur Wilson Peck and Company. Limited, was registered in the year 1892 to take over two piano businesses carried on in Sheffield. 1,025 shares of £10 each out of an issued capital of 2,000 shares are held on behalf of Edwin Bechstein, who is a German subject. The greater part of the remaining shares are held by naturalised British subjects of German origin who were naturalised twenty years ago. The application of the Trading With the Enemy Amendment Act, 1916, to this case will be considered in due course.

    SPIRITS (EXPORT TO NEUTRAL COUNTRIES).
    Mr. WINGasked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has
    1706
    been called to the increasing export of spirits to neutral countries since 4th August, 1914, and the suggestion of their being smuggled through to the enemy in the interest of the manufacture of munitions, to the disadvantage of our Allies and the Forces of His Majesty at the front; and will he take steps to prevent the exportation of such spirits?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware that there was recently evidence of an increase in the export of certain spirits, chiefly rum, to neutral countries contiguous to the enemy, and it was in view of this evidence that the exportation of rum and imitation rum to such countries was prohibited by an Order in Council dated the 28th January. The export of spirits of a strength of not less than 43 degrees above proof has been prohibited to all destinations for a considerable period of time.

    INTERNED GERMAN STEAMERS (PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT).
    Mr. PRINGLEasked how many German interned steamers have been requisitioned by the Portuguese Government both in their home and colonial ports?
    Lord R. CECIL: I have not yet learnt the exact number of German ships requisitioned by the Portuguese Government, but I have asked the Portuguese Government for information on the point.

    MUNITIONS.

      MUNITIONS OF WAR (AMENDMENT) ACT.
      Mr. ROCHasked the Minister of Munitions if he can say whether any Order has yet been made under Sections 6 or 7 of the Munitions of War (Amendment) Act, 1916?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Dr. Addison): Orders under Sections 6 and 7 of the Munitions of War (Amendment) Act, 1916, were made on 24th February, and came into force as from 28th February. The effect of the Order under Section 6 is to make mandatory upon all controlled establishments engaged in the engineering, shipbuilding, metal and kindred trades in Great Britain the recommendations contained in the circular known as L 2, relating to the remuneration and em-

      1707
      ployment of women on certain classes of munition work. The effect of the Order under Section 7 is to make mandatory on all controlled establishments engaged in the above-mentioned trades in the United Kingdom, subject only to the exception mentioned below, the recommendations contained in the circular known as L 3, as to the remuneration of men on certain classes of munition work. The exception mentioned above relates only to some thirteen establishments in districts where, having regard to the existing district pates, the recommendations of the circular as they stand would clearly be inapplicable. The case of these establishments will be referred to the special Arbitration Tribunal which has been set up under Section 8 of the Amendment Act.
      Mr. ROCH: Will the hon. Member tell me where this Order can be obtained? Has it been published anywhere?
      Dr. ADDISON: Yes, it has been published, and I shall be glad to send the hon. Member a copy.

      TOOL-SETTERS.
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of Munitions whether a letter has been sent from his Department to the Surveyors' Institution and similar organisations regarding the supply of tool-setters, in which it is stated that the demand for such skilled workers is greater than the supply and that the most suitable type of man to be trained for this work is of the higher educated type who in ordinary times would be in the university or just leaving one of the public schools; whether the letter proceeds to argue that the skilled mechanic is not useful material to train for this purpose owing to the high level of accuracy required; and, since skilled mechanics have had to accomplish the most delicate and accurate tool-setting up to the present time, whether he will state the facts and experience upon which the conclusion of the Ministry of Munitions is based?
      Dr. ADDISON: I think my hon. Friend is under some misapprehension as to the precise purport and intention of this letter. In the present very acute shortage of this particular kind of highly-skilled labour it is absolutely essential to increase the supply by giving a specialised training in a single operation to persons who were previously not in the trade, and there are manifest advantages in utilising so far as possible for this purpose persons of a class
      1708
      who are unlikely to remain in the engineering trade after the War, since we thus avoid depleting other branches of the engineering trade whose services are required for munitions, and also the danger of overstocking the market with this particular kind of labour after the War. Fortunately it has been established by experience that persons of a good general education are quite well adapted to take the rapid emergency training provided in the schools established by the Ministry of Munitions, sometimes even more readily than men who, though possessing ordinary industrial experience and manual skill, may be accustomed in their ordinary occupation to work to a lower degree of accuracy. This was explained in the letter, for the purpose of making it perfectly clear that well-educated persons without previous industrial experience are eligible, in suitable cases, for training in the schools. I hope that no one will imagine that there was the least intention to institute a comparison between the general industrial capacity of the school-trained munition worker and the professional engineer. Any such comparison is obviously out of the question.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can my hon. Friend say whether the people to whom a preference was to be given were mainly men of military age?
      Dr. ADDISON: No, I think not.
      Mr. PRINGLE: If they come out of the universities and public schools obviously they must be?
      Mr. BARNES: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he will publish this letter?
      Dr. ADDISON: No, it was a letter sent to the heads of public schools and universities. It was not a public document; it was only an exhortation to certain persons.
      Mr. BARNES: In view of the uncertainty which has arisen and the misrepresentations which have been made, would it not be better to clear it up?
      Dr. ADDISON: I have endeavoured to clear it up by the long answer which I have given.
      Mr. ANDERSON: Is it not a fact that the letter does draw the comparison of which I speak, and does say that skilled workpeople who have been doing the work up to the present time are of less value than university students?
      Dr. ADDISON: That is not a fair way of putting it; it makes the matter much worse than it really is.
      Mr. ANDERSON: Then why not publish the letter?
      Mr. PRINGLE: Why should these people who are of military age be specially favoured?

    ROYAL NAVY (COMMISSIONS AND PROMOTIONS).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of commissions as assistant paymaster, Royal Naval Reserve, temporary and permanent, conferred since the outbreak of hostilities on civilians without examination and with no previous naval experience, the number of naval writer ranks and ratings promoted to commissioned rank, the number of warrant writers promoted to commissioned warrant rank, and the number of chief writers promoted to warrant rank during the same period?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The numbers are as follows:

    Temporary commissions as assistant paymaster, Royal Naval Reserve

    509

    Permanent commissions as assistant paymaster, Royal Naval Reserve

    68

    Temporary commissions as assistant paymaster, Royal Naval Reserve (for service in Auxiliaries)

    241

    The officers in the third category are not entered for general service but are signed on under an agreement which may be terminated at any time. Candidates are interviewed before entry. Those entered for general service, that is to say the first of the two classes mentioned, are drawn from bank clerks, chartered accountants, actuaries, and gentlemen in business houses, who have considerable previous experience in accountant work. Before being drafted to the fleet they are given a ten to fourteen days' course of instruction in cash, ledger and victualling work. No naval writer ranks and ratings have been promoted to commissioned rank, there being no commissioned rank in existence for the writer branch.

    Warrant writers promoted to commissioned warrant rank

    3

    Chief writers promoted to warrant writer

    23

    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of chief writers recommended for promotion at the beginning of the War, and the number now recommended; whether, in view of the increase and the long service and standard of character and efficiency essential to obtain such recommendation, the Board of Admiralty will favourably consider the desirability of filling a proportion of future requirements for accountant officers during hostilities from the writers; and whether preference will be given to writer ranks and ratings at the end of the War if an increase in the number of accountant officers is then found necessary?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards the first part of the question, the figures are 214 and 234 respectively; as regards the second part of the question, twelve chief writers were promoted to warrant rank at the end of 1914, and eleven in 1915. The question of making further promotions is now under consideration with reference to the requirements of the Service. The claims of writer ranks and ratings to be considered in connection with the whole question of the officers of the accountant branch will not be lost sight of.

    SERBIA (BRITISH NAVAL MISSION).
    Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any despatches were received from the head of the British naval mission to Serbia since the beginning of the late offensive there; and, if so, whether it is intended to publish the same in the near future?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Reports were received from the head of the Mission both before and since the enemy offensive in Serbia. It is not proposed to publish them; nor would it be appropriate to call for a formal despatch with a view to publication, since the Mission, however gallant its conduct, was almost insignificant in numbers, and its proceedings were merely incidental to the general operations of the Serbian Army.

    DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT.

      EDINBURGH PROSECUTION.
      Mr. CURRIEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether reparation and

      1711
      apology have been or will be publicly tendered by His Majesty's Government to Mr. Whitelaw, chairman of the North British Railway Company, and others, in respect of the injury, insult, and outlay inflicted upon them through the recent unsuccessful criminal prosecution in the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I can add nothing to the answer which I gave my hon. Friend on the 2nd March.
      Sir G. YOUNGER: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that an unnecessary indignity was put upon these people by the manner in which action was taken by the Admiralty for an alleged offence of a purely technical kind?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: As I said on 2nd March, the object of the Admiralty is to establish that no local authority or person shall have the power to hamper the movements of any ship connected with His Majesty's Service engaged upon war work, and that is a principle which we still think is of vital importance.
      Sir G. YOUNGER: Could not that principle have been perfectly well established by a totally different proceeding than that adopted?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: That was not the view which the Admiralty took.
      Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is there any more reason why an apology should be given to these gentlemen than to the hundreds of workmen who have been prosecuted under the Munitions Act?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Oh. but I have not given an apology in this case!
      Mr. WATT: Did the right hon. Gentleman's Department overrule the Law Officers of the Crown in this prosecution?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Perhaps the hon. Member will do me the favour of reading what I ventured to say upon this matter yesterday.
      Mr. CURRIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman make public the representations of fact to which he referred yesterday as being the basis of these proceedings?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I have given them what publicity I could, and they are published in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of names of men considered suitable for commissions in the Royal Naval Air Service which are kept on a list for consideration; and the reason why they are not promptly given commissions and sent to classes of instruction?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There are at the present time 103 candidates on the waiting list to be trained as pilots for the Royal Naval Air Service. I am afraid that they must wait until there are vacancies at the schools for them.

    MERCHANT SHIPS REQUISITIONED.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Wilson liner "Sappho" was requisitioned by the Admiralty on her last voyage to Archangel?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No, Sir.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the steamship "Uganda" is or has been under requisition by the Admiralty?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There are two ships named "Uganda" according to "Lloyd's Register." The one belonging to the British India Steam Navigation Company is still under requisition by the Commonwealth Government. The other belonging to the La Plata Steamship Company, Limited, was requisitioned by the Admiralty, but has since been discharged from transport work.

    VOTERS LISTS.
    Mr. ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board what has been paid to revising barristers in England and Wales for 1915, either for certification of expenditure incurred under the Elections and Registration Act, 1915, or revising lists; and what sum was paid to them in 1914?
    Mr. LONG: The amount paid to revising barristers in England and Wales for certification of expenditure and other duties under the Elections and Registration Act, 1915, was £11,280. The total sum paid to revising barristers in the previous year was £25,462.
    Mr. ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board how much

    1713
    was paid for the preparation of overseers' lists from Government sources and local rates, respectively, up to 1st August in the years 1914 and 1915, respectively, and excluding the cost of printing claims and objections after 1st August in each year?
    Mr. LONG: The information in my possession does not enable me to give the particulars desired.
    Mr. RENDALL: Will the overseers prepare the lists for the revising barristers this year?
    Mr. LONG: I could not say now.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS.

      STATUTORY COMMITTEE.
      Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board if the Statutory Committee on pensions, grants, and allowances has forwarded to him a resolution adopted by that body demanding that applicants for pensions should have a right to appeal against decisions of the War Office or Admiralty; and if he will state the terms of such resolution to the House and convey the same to the Government?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): I am aware that a resolution as follows has been passed by the Statutory Committee:—
      "That, as the result of our investigations into the claims of widows and other dependants of deceased sailors and soldiers who have been refused pensions on the ground that they are not eligible for the same and whose cases in consequence have been referred to us by the Admiralty or War Office, with a view to their obtaining pensions or grants out of the funds at the disposal of the Statutory Committee, it is in our opinion just and expedient that such persons should have a right of appeal to some new tribunal, and inasmuch as we are by Statute obliged to consider whether or not we ought to award pensions or grants in such cases it is absolutely necessary that we should have the right to call for the papers connected with any case where a pension has been refused, and after considering the same to make recommendations to the Admiralty or the War Office with a view to their revising their decision."
      I understand that copies of the resolution have been forwarded to the Admiralty and War Office.

    FORE (WESTMEATH) SUB-POST OFFICE.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Postmaster-General what amount it is proposed to
    1714
    save by discontinuing the sub-post office at Fore, Westmeath; and whether, in view of the hardship this would impose on the old age pensioners of the district in addition to the inconvenience to the general public, he will have the proposed change reconsidered and not persisted in?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): I am not aware of the facts of this case, but I may say that, in the interests of economy, discretionary power has been given to local executive officers to close any rural sub-post office, on the occurrence of a vacancy, where the business done is small and the circumstances otherwise are suitable. In such cases practically the whole cost of the office is saved, and ordinary postal requirements can be met by the postman who delivers letters in the locality.
    Mr. GINNELL: The hon. Gentleman has not stated the amount saved by closing this office?
    Mr. PEASE: I said I was not aware of the facts of this particular case. There certainly are some hardships in regard to this question, but under existing conditions that is inevitable.

    ARMY HORSES (GOVERNMENT STUD).
    Mr. ROCHasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether any of the stallions included in the Government racing stud will travel different districts for the convenience of breeders of Cavalry horses or whether they will only be available for such purpose at the respective stud farms?
    Mr. ACLAND: None of the stallions at the National Stud at Tully will travel or be available for the service of half-bred mares for the production of Cavalry horses. The depot for stallions who will be available for this purpose will be formed at Russley after the War.
    Mr. ROCHasked whether any requests have been made to the Board of Agriculture by the War Office during the past eighteen months to acquire thoroughbred stallions suitable for the breeding of Cavalry horses; whether there is any shortage of such stallions; and whether such stallions are readily obtainable at prices of from £200 to £300?
    Mr. ACLAND: Yes, Sir, the War Office have recommended the provision of more stallions suitable for producing Cavalry horses. There is a shortage of such stallions, and they are certainly not readily obtainable at the prices named.
    Mr. ROCH: Has the right hon. Gentleman advertised the fact that the Government are ready to buy such stallions?
    Mr. ACLAND: No, but that is the opinion of the War Office.
    Mr. ROCHasked the number and ages of the stallions, brood mares, geldings, and fillies now included in the Government Racing Stud?
    Mr. ACLAND: I will have the particulars which my hon. Friend desires obtained from the Director of the National Stud in Ireland, and will send them to him.
    Mr. ROCHasked the number of stallions available for stud purposes for this season at the Government Racing Stud; and how many of such stallions will be available at service fees for half-bred mares of £3 3s. or under?
    Mr. ACLAND: Four stallions (White Eagle, Royal Realm, Great Sport and Night Hawk) are available this season for the service of thoroughbred mares at the National Stud at Tully, but none of them will be available for the service of half-bred mares.
    Mr. ROCH: In what way will these stallions be helpful in providing Cavalry horses?
    Mr. ACLAND: They will be very valuable in keeping up our light-horse supply, which is the basis of our supply of Cavalry horses.

    WAR SAVINGS.

      NATIONAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE.
      Mr. WATTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the advisability of inviting the co-operation of friendly societies, industrial insurance associations, and National Health Insurance approved societies, to place the machinery of their organisations at the disposal of the State on suitable terms of remuneration, in order to bring facilities for saving to the homes of the people, and to collect by means of stamps or otherwise whatever savings they are willing to lend to the Government?
      The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. McKenna): The National Organising Committee or War Savings is inviting the co-operation (so far as possible on a voluntary basis) of all classes and all existing organisations in the work of bringing before every member of the community the national need for saving and the facilities now available for the investment of savings in securities issued by the Treasury for financing the War. I understand that representatives of all the bodies mentioned in the question are already in consultation with the Committee as to the best means to be adopted.
      Mr. BOOTH: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why representatives of these institutions were not put on the Committee?
      Mr. McKENNAasked for notice of that question.

    STATIONERY OFFICE (GERMAN PENCILS).
    Mr. S. BENNasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many copying pencils have been purchased by the Stationery Office since the War began having inscribed upon them "Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad—made in Germany"?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am informed that the pencils in question formed part of a consignment purchased by the Stationery Office in October, 1915, and were accepted on the assurance of the firm from whom they were bought that the pencils had been in the United States of America from before the War. It is not now possible to state how many pencils of this description were originally received, but the quantity was small.

    BUDGET STATEMENT.
    Sir JOSEPH WALTONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will introduce his Budget in time to allow of new taxation becoming operative on 5th April in order to secure a full year's revenue in the next financial year?
    Mr. McKENNA: My hon. Friend may rest assurred that the consideration he mentions will not be lost sight of.

    INCOME TAX (OFFICERS).
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the pay

    1717
    of officers serving in the Army and Navy is in the great majority of cases far less than it appears officially to be; whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in practice officers receive their pay after Income Tax has been deducted, and that they thus never really receive the sum to which they are supposed to be entitled; and if, as an act of grace to those who are risking their lives at the front, he will so adjust the new Income Tax regulations that the pay of all officers amounting to and including £400 a year shall be exempt from Income Tax?
    Mr. McKENNA: Diminution of gross income is a necessary corollary of an Income Tax, and the method of paying the tax by deduction from salary is applicable to all Government servants, and is not confined to naval and military officers. As regards the last part of the question, I am unable to anticipate my next Financial Statement.

    VOLUNTEER TRAINING CORPS (DUMMY RIFLES).
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the dummy rifles used last year by the War Office can now be given or lent to the National Training Corps, so that working men who are sacrificing much time in carrying out the necessary drills efficiently may be saved the expense of buying them?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am not quite sure to what rifles my hon. Friend may be referring, but I may say that all rifles of the D.P. or Drill Pattern type are in use by troops under training.

    MARRIAGE LICENCES (SOLDIERS IN IRELAND).
    Sir J. LONSDALEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if, whereas in England a soldier on active service can obtain a marriage licence on twenty-four hours' notice, in Ireland a week's notice is required before a licence can be obtained; and if he can take steps to ensure that Irish soldiers shall be given equal facilities to English soldiers in this respect?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am informed that in every case of marriage in Ireland in which a licence is necessary the length of notice
    1718
    is fixed by Statute, which requires a period of not less than seven days to elapse between service of notice and grant of licence.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Why are the same facilities not afforded to soldiers in Ireland as they are in England?
    Mr. TENNANT: Because the Statute does not provide for them.

    SOLDIERS SUFFERING FROM TUBERCULOSIS (PENSIONS).
    Mr. PARTINGTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether no pensions are granted to soldiers who have contracted tuberculosis on active service?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, any statement to that effect is altogether incorrect, as my hon. Friend stated in debate on 21st February. I find that of eighty-seven cases of men discharged in January, 1916, for tuberculosis contracted in France, seventy were granted pensions at war rates, nine have been granted final pensions and eight cases are still under consideration.
    Mr. BOOTH: Have not hundreds of these cases now come back on to the Insurance Act?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, I am not aware of anything of the kind. If this particular month which I have quoted is an average month, then out of eighty-seven cases seventy-nine have received pensions, therefore there can be no kind of reason for doing what my hon. Friend suggests.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is it not a fact that there is one man at any rate, suffering from tuberculosis who is now in the workhouse and has no pension?
    Mr. TENNANT: One man! I have no doubt that may be true.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that people have been prosecuted and sent to prison for saying what the hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke) has just said?

    OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS.
    Mr. PARTINGTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is aware that attacks are being made upon

    1719
    the officers of the Officers' Training Corps; whether there are any grounds for these attacks; and whether he can state what is now the position of officers of such corps?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir, I have seen the attacks upon these officers in some irresponsible journals. Officers of the Officers' Training Corps have been allowed to leave their contingents only in cases where, in the opinion of the Army Council, the efficiency of the corps would not suffer by their absence. Those of these officers who are unmarried and of military age are liable to service under the Military Service Act if they have not already signed the Imperial Service obligation. I may state that a large number of officers of the Officers' Training Corps have already seen active service, and a considerable proportion of them have been killed or wounded. The officer who has remained with his contingent is doing as good work for the country in training the future junior officers for the Army as he would be doing if serving with a unit of the Service or Reserve unit in the field, and all right-minded persons and responsible journals will, I am sure, utterly disapprove of the attacks being made on these officers by uninformed and irresponsible people.

    ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS (DEATH OF SOLDIER AT WEYMOUTH).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has yet obtained an explanation of the conduct of the military in allowing Patrick Sullivan, a soldier of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, one of two brothers both wounded in action, to die of neglect in the workhouse at Weymouth and be buried in a pauper's grave; why Sullivan's appeal for other treatment was disregarded; and why no inquest was held?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am in correspondence with the hon. Member with regard to this question, and I am not yet in a position to furnish him with a reply. I hope he received my letter.

    WOUNDED SOLDIERS.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War (1) how
    1720
    many soldiers have undergone amputation of a limb since the beginning of the War; how many of such cases have recovered and are now living; and (2) if he will obtain a Return from the hospitals receiving wounded soldiers in the United Kingdom, showing the number of wounded soldiers whose wounds were in an aseptic condition at the time of their reception from the front?
    Mr. TENNANT: These Returns would involve much labour. I should not feel justified in imposing upon the hospitals the duty of preparing the monumental Returns suggested by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. McNEILL: Are not these Returns necessarily kept at every hospital?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, I am afraid they are not. I have no doubt they are kept in some, but not in all.
    Mr. McNEILL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it is very faulty organisation that they should not be kept?
    Mr. TENNANT: I would not say that. Attendants upon sick men very often have not time to make extracts and keep records of what has been done.

    CIVIL SERVICE APPOINTMENTS.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether any examinations will be held this year for junior appointments in the Civil Service; and whether any changes have been made or are proposed in the mode of making such appointments during the War?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): It is not intended to hold an examination this year, or during the War, for junior appointments in the Civil Service. Vacant appointments which cannot be left unfilled will ordinarily be provided for by the engagement of temporary male clerks ineligible for service with the forces or of temporary women clerks.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Are these temporary clerks supposed to be in general over military age?
    Mr. MONTAGU: If they are male clerks they are ineligible for military service in some form or other.

    BULGARIA.
    Mr. BOOTHasked the Prime Minister if His Majesty's Government is in a state of war with Bulgaria; whether Bulgarian; subjects are treated in this country as enemy aliens; whether it is illegal to trade with Bulgaria or to give her support in the present conflict; and whether it is intended to break the power of our enemies in the Balkans and to succour our Allies?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first, second and third parts of the question is in the affirmative. In the Balkans, as elsewhere, it is the policy of the Allies to take such steps as are; necessary to win the War.

    NATIONAL ECONOMY.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether he will provide an opportunity prior to 15th April for a discussion on the reduction or abolition of every salary which is a public charge?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, I do not see my way to provide opportunity for such a discussion.
    Mr. HOGGE: Why has the junior Member for the City of London so much more influence with my right hon. Friend than his own followers?
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Does my right hon. Friend not think that if it is necessary for Ministers to go to the Guildhall to tell the citizens of London to practise economy, he must give the House an opportunity of debating the question?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The House will have many opportunities of debating it. I have promised a day for the discussion of payment of salaries of Members of Parliament.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: That does not cover anything.
    Mr. HOGGE: Who made representations in addition to the junior Member for the City of London? Did my right hon. Friend receive through the usual channels any general request from Members on the other side or this side of the House above or below the Gangway?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I really cannot say at this moment.

    SURGICAL OPERATIONS (ABDOMINAL CASES)
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, at the outbreak of war, an order was in force forbidding medical officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps to operate in abdominal cases; whether, notwithstanding this order, an eminent surgeon operated in abdominal cases in Antwerp in the autumn of 1914 with satisfactory results; whether the order nevertheless remained in force until after September, 1915; whether the usefulness of operation in abdominal cases in saving life has now been established, provided the operation can be performed with a minimum loss of time; and whether steps are being taken to inaugurate a complete system of operating field hospitals as close as possible to the fighting zone?
    Mr. TENNANT: I cannot find that the order referred to is anything else than a figment of some fertile imagination. The arrangements in France have the full approval of the consulting surgeons, and of others most competent to judge. I have quite recently received a report from Sir Frederick Treves, in which he states that in many cases a man in need of a grave operation has found himself on the operating table within three or four hours of his being shot, and that he was informed of cases in which operations upon the skull and the abdomen had been carried out within two and a half hours of the receipt of the wound; and he adds that such prompt attention could not be obtained by a wounded civilian in any rural district in England. If he so desires, I will show my hon. Friend the whole of the Report from which I have read this extract.
    Mr. McNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that the facts spoken to by Sir Frederick Treves are extremely exceptional, and will he be prepared to say that there is an organisation whereby facilities are provided for operations to be carried out at the front?
    Mr. TENNANT: Such a sweeping statement might not be permissible or proper, but there is an organisation of clearing stations so near the front that they are constantly under shell fire in which these operations can and do take place at all hours of the day and night.

    DARDANELLES EXPEDITION (OFFICERS AND. MEN MISSING).
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Under-Secretary of State for War what is the number of officers and men, respectively, who have been officially reported as wounded and missing, or are missing, in connection with the Dardanelles operations; and how many of these officers and men have since been reported to be prisoners of war?
    Mr. TENNANT: The total number reported missing in the Dardanelles among the British, Colonial and Indian Forces, and the Royal Naval Division, now stands as follows:—

    Officers

    333

    Other ranks

    11,221

    The total number of prisoners (including Naval) so far as they can be identified is as follows:—

    Officers

    32

    Other ranks or ratings

    470

    A large number of names which were difficult to identify owing to very defective descriptions have been found to be duplicate and have been eliminated from the lists rendered by the Turkish Government, but some addition may have to be made for names not yet identified. The totals do not include officers or men who have died as prisoners of war.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Does that include the number referred to by the Foreign Secretary to-day?
    Mr. TENNANT: I cannot say, but I imagine that it does.

    NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

      SCOTTISH COMMISSION.
      Mr. CURRIEasked the Comptroller of the Household, as representing the National Health Insurance Commissioners, whether he has now received a full report of a recent speech by the chairman of the Scottish Insurance Commission?
      Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS (Comptroller of the Household): The answer is in the affirmative, and I should be happy to show the report in question to the hon. Member.

      COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION.
      Mr. CURRIEasked whether the meetings of the Committee of Inquiry
      1724
      into the working of the Act are open to the public, and whether shorthand notes of evidence tendered are being kept?
      Mr. ROBERTS: As regards the first part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy to a similar question on the 22nd ultimo. The point raised in the second part of the question is one for the determination of the Committee.
      Mr. BOOTH: In view of the previous answer given to me, have the Committee come to a decision on the point?
      Mr. ROBERTS: I am not quite sure whether they have or not, but the matter is entirely in their own hands.

      Probate Registry.
      Mr. CURRIEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the written opinion of the senior registrar of the Principal Probate Registry that the habitual requirement of the Probate authorities in England that the executors of a deceased Scottish owner of a United Kingdom patent should reseal the Scottish confirmation in England is unnecessary; and whether he will now take steps to have the practice discontinued?
      Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am taking steps to consult the Law Officers on the point raised in the hon. Gentleman's question.

      Ground Olive Stones (Imports).
      Captain STANIERasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that a considerable quantity of ground olive stones have been imported recently into this country; whether there is a regular trade in this commodity; to what commercial use is it put; have any traces of this article been found as an adulterant of human or cattle foods; and is there any nutritive value in these ground olive stones?
      Mr. ACLAND: The Board are aware of the importation of ground olive stones, and are inquiring as to the uses to which the material is being put. Ground olive stones have no value as a feeding material.

      Public Funds (Registration of Joint Holders).
      Mr. CURRIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Bank of England, in refusing to grant more than partial registration of joint holders of

      1725
      public funds, do so on any instructions issued by the Government or on its own responsibility?
      Mr. McKENNA: The practice, as I have stated, has been long established, and I have no information which will enable me to say whether it originated on instructions issued by the Government or not.

      Income Tax (Assessment under Schedule D).
      Sir JOHN SPEARasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that numbers of farmers in the country are in doubt as to what kind of accounts they must exhibit in order to be assessed for Income Tax under Schedule D; whether they must show details of their expenses or whether the gross total of their revenue and the total amount of their expenses will be sufficient in order to find their net income; and will he cause a specimen form of accounts that would be required of applicants to be provided?
      Mr. McKENNA.The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, after consultation with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, have drawn up a form of account which they hope may be useful to farmers. The form will be printed shortly, and I have asked the Commissioners to furnish my hon. Friend with a copy as soon as it is in print.
      Sir J. SPEAR: When will the forms be available?
      Mr. McKENNA: As soon as they are printed.
      Sir J. SPEAR: How will the farmers be able to obtain them?
      Mr. McKENNA: From the Board of Agriculture

      Members of Parliament (Pensions).
      Mr. KINGasked the Secretary to the Treasury how many hon. Members of this House receive pensions from Army, Navy, or Civil Service sources, respectively, and what is the total amount of those pensions?
      Mr. MONTAGU: Two hon. Members are in receipt of pensions in respect of Civil Service. The total annual amount is £1,713. Inquiries regarding Army and Navy pensions should be addressed to the War Office and Admiralty.

      Old Age Pensions.
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether any instruction has been issued to old age pension officers in this country corresponding to that upon which they are acting in Ireland in appealing against and resisting all grants of new pensions irrespective of the facts, and reviewing and appealing against existing pensions; if so, will he state its terms; how many existing old age pensions were cut off in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively, in 1915; and also the respective numbers of new pensions granted by local committees in that year and the number of these disallowed by the central authority in each country?
      Mr. MONTAGU: No instructions have been issued to pension officers in any part of the United Kingdom directing them to resist or appeal against the grant of old age pensions or to try and get existing pensions reduced, irrespective of the facts; nor is there any foundation for the allegation that the officers are so acting. The number of pensions revoked in Great Britain in 1915 was 15,154, and in Ireland 1,767. The figures asked for in the last portion of the question are not available.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: Can the Prime Minister tell us the course of business for next week?
  The PRIME MINISTER The PRIME MINISTER: On Tuesday, we shall move the Speaker out of the Chair on the Army Estimates, and take the Second Reading of the War Pensions (Expenses) Bill.
  On Wednesday, we shall take Army Votes A and 1; and on Thursday Reports of the Army Votes, and of any other outstanding Votes.
  Motion made, and Question proposed," That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Tuesday next."—[The Prime Minister.]
  Mr. R. McNEILL: May I take the opportunity afforded by this Motion to make a request to the Prime Minister which I think he will regard as reasonable, and which I believe very many Members will support? The right hon. Gentleman has been good enough to give special facilities for our giving notice of questions to Ministers under the procedure at present obtaining, while we are only sitting three days a week. He will see that owing to the very few sittings of the House, questions sometimes are very numerous. To-day there are 142 questions on the list. Owing to the few sittings of the House the number of questions of public interest which hon. Members desire to bring before the notice of the Government must necessarily be large. The request I have to make is that while the present procedure is continued, and we are sitting only three days a week, will it not be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to propose a temporary Amendment of the Standing Orders, which would enable questions to be continued until four o'clock, and would give us another fifteen minutes? That concession would not take every much from the time of the House for other business, but it is probable that the extra fifteen minutes would enable the questions to be got through.
  Mr. ASHLEY: I would like to put another matter to the right hon. Gentleman. The point has been conceded that we may send in questions on a Monday to be answered on Wednesday. Could not
  1752
  that be amended so that Notices of Motion for reduction of Votes could also be received on Monday? I understand from the Clerk at the Table that they cannot be received by post, but have to be personally handed in. If one thinks of something on Saturday night, it would be a great convenience if it could be sent in by post on Monday for Tuesday.
  Mr. ROCH: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind the question of moratorium, or some form of relief for men called up for service, as the matter is becoming a very pressing one?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That question is not permissible. We are now dealing with the Question, that the House, at its rising, do adjourn until Tuesday next.
  Mr. ROCH: May I point out that my object was to suggest that we should not adjourn until Tuesday, but that, as Monday is apparently a free day, possibly we might get a discussion on the question of the moratorium, and hear what are the Government's views. That was the sole object of my rising.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: If the House will agree to give up this extra day, will the right hon. Gentleman carry out his pledge to the House, and see that when important Estimates are before the House Ministers should be in attendance? Yesterday Ministers made their speeches, went out, and we saw nothing more of them.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise on this Motion.
  The PRIME MINISTER: With respect to the point raised by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. R. McNeill), I may state that although we have 142 questions to-day, there were only seventy-nine yesterday. There is a very unequal distribution as between the three days. I think it would be better if we could equalise the number of questions for the various days. I will consider the matter, and also the point raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Ashley). With respect to what my hon. Friend (Mr. Roch) has said, I do not think it is desirable to meet on Monday in order to have an academic discussion. The Government are very carefully considering the matter, and in due course will announce their decision.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: What about Ministers?
  Question put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY.
  SECOND ALLOTTED DAY.— [2nd March.]
    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1916–17.

      VOTE ON ACCOUNT.—REPORT.
      Resolution reported,
      "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,
      [For details of Vote on Account, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1916, cols. 1231–1234.]
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
      Mr. ASHLEY: I wish to bring before the notice of the Financial Secretary to the War Office a point which arises in Class I., Vote 14—Rates on Government Property. In many parts of the country the War Office, under the Defence of the Realm Act, has taken considerable tracts of land for the purpose of military camps. They have come down under the Defence of the Realm Act and forcibly—I do not complain of that—taken away from farmers some of their best fields, and sometimes their whole farms, for the purpose of making military camps, remount camps, and for other Government purposes. When they have taken over these lands they have proceeded to build very extensive structures there, some of them of quite a permanent character. They have made roads with concrete bottoms, and in other ways have made the camps of a permanent rather than of a temporary kind. Naturally, the rates on this land which has now been built over will be very much enhanced. They will be trebled, quadrupled, and in some cases will be five times as great as formerly. I am informed, and I believe it is the fact, that the farmer who lets this land is liable for all the rates levied upon it. What I want to get from the Financial Secretary to the War Office is a statement that when the rates have been raised to the farmer owing to the Government having come down and taken his land and having built upon it, that the War Office will shoulder that responsibility and not leave it as a burden on the farmer. I am informed that the
      1754
      legal liability still remains with the farmer, even though the land has been taken compulsorily from him under the Defence of the Realm Act by the military authorities, and they have put buildings upon it. The answer may be made that the War Office will behave with justice and recoup the farmer any extra money he has to pay in rates, and he will not be out of pocket in the end. I do not think that is quite fair, and I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me on that point, because possibly the farmer may have to find a very considerable sum of money at a time when money is not easy to obtain, and afterwards have to beg as a matter of courtesy and justice from the War Office for money which really is entirely a War Office responsibility. I ask for a definite assurance that where a demand is made for increased rates owing to the action of the Government in having taken over a man's land and placed buildings upon it, the War Office will pay the money direct to the rate collector, and not oblige the farmer to find the money.
      4.0 P.M.
      Sir J. SPEAR: I beg to endorse the appeal of my hon. Friend It is an equitable and just one, and his suggestion is businesslike and straightforward. We all hope that the Government will pay rates for the property which they take, just as the owners of private property would have to do, and at a fair rate as well. It is most unfair to local administrative bodies that the Government have, in many directions of Government work, objected to pay rates on the same principle as that on which private owners would have to pay if they had the same property. The contribution which is given in lieu of rates is a contribution which is fixed by themselves, and this is not an equitable system. I strongly support the appeal of my hon. Friend that the Government on taking possession of property should pay rates to local authorities just as would be the case if a private individual had taken possession of it. I go beyond that and say that all Government establishments should be liable to a contribution to local expenses and local rates on the same basis as private persons. It is inequitable that the Government should treat themselves, with reference to the contribution to public expenses, more leniently than private individuals are treated. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to assure us that in this case the Government

      1755
      are going to take the straightforward action of paying their liabilities direct to the local authorities
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The question which my hon. and gallant Friend raises is a question of great complexity. Had I known that he was going to raise it I should have taken steps to fortify myself with some inquiries into the Departmental rules on the matter. In a great many parts of the country temporary camps have been provided and huts have been built for the purposes of the War. It is not in any way confined to land taken by the War Office; it might equally-well be land taken by any other Government Department. Therefore, so far as Government action is necessary, it will not depend upon one Department more than another. It seems to me that a very difficult problem connected with the rate-able value of land has been raised by my hon. and gallant Friend. Speaking generally, I should suppose that in this case, as indeed in all cases where loss or damage has been suffered owing to military occupation of land, it would be a matter which would be properly referred to the Duke Commission, and I cannot anticipate any decision which they may reach on the question. But, speaking in very general terms, my own opinion would be that where they are satisfied that any action of the Government threw upon farmers the burden of paying rates on land occupied by hutments or camps that should be dealt with. I do not think that I can carry the matter further than that just now, and I do not think that my hon. and gallant Friend would expect me to do so; but I can say that the question will have the most careful consideration of the War Office, and, I have no doubt, of the other Departments concerned. I hope that what I have said will give satisfaction to my hon. Friend and to those interested in this matter.

      TRADE AFTER WAR.
      Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: My object in desiring to move the reduction of the Vote ("That Item Class 2, Vote 8 (Board of Trade), be reduced by £100") for a service which I hold in the highest esteem is solely to ask from the Government an assurance, which I hope they will be able to give, on a subject which is causing great disquietude throughout the country. There are three
      1756
      sets of facts before us which, taken together, set up the disquietude of which I speak. First, we have the very important announcement of the Government that they will shortly take part in a fiscal conference with our Allies with the object of making some arrangement with regard to a future joint fiscal policy. Second, recent speeches have been made, one by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Runciman) and one by my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Montagu), in each of which some expressions were used which have, I think, been misinterpreted outside, but which would quite naturally give rise to misapprehension. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade used expressions as to measures which would be used for keeping down German trade after the War. My right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury made remarks as to the probability that after the War we should have to face different sets of circumstances and a different state of things with regard to trade from that which existed in the past. Knowing as I do the high economic competence of both of my right hon. Friends, I interpret both these statements in a sense which gave no ground for apprehension as to any steps to be taken at the coming fiscal conference which would put in jeopardy or in peril or old-established fiscal system or give rise to any premature innovation in that system. I think that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade had in mind some scheme which has actually been discussed with the object of preventing the exploitation of the resources of many parts of the British Empire by German capital, and I attach a somewhat similar meaning to some of the expressions used by my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury.
      But that was not, and I am afraid I must say naturally was not, the sole interpretation placed on those speeches outside, especially seeing that there is going on in some large sections of the Press a two-fold propaganda with the object of securing a speedy decision of the Government by way of making a radical revolutionary alteration in our system. It would be quite improper to go into the question in detail. I want simply to set before Ministers the kind of propaganda that is going on, and the reason why that propaganda, taken with the forthcoming fiscal conference, is creating the dis-

      1757
      quietude of which I have spoken. For instance, there is a propaganda in many quarters calling for the decision in advance to establish after the War a boycott of German trade. Put in a general way, it amounts to saying that the Allies should take measures to prevent, so far as they can, the exportation of goods by Germany after the War. In so far as suggestions of the kind are inspired by a desire to keep Germany after the War in a position in which she would not be dangerous to the rest of the world, I entirely agree with the idea. Germany deserves nothing at the hands of the Allies but the bread and water of affliction, and if it can be secured that any trade measures whatever would keep Germany in future in a position of economic weakness, and thereby in a position of military weakness, without at the same time creating economic injury to the Allies, I do not see that any objection could be taken to that course in this country. The Allies would be morally bound, having regard to the moral and political evolution of Germany in recent times, to take any steps in their power to prevent a rapid recovery of strength by Germany provided that those steps are not dangerous to themselves.
      But those who have proposed this policy of trade boycott do not appear to have given the slightest attention to the question of what the effect of such policy would be upon our own trade. To put the matter in the simplest and broadest way, the Prime Minister has more than once declared that it is the settled purpose of the Government to secure compensation for Belgium and Serbia—to name no other Powers. That is to say, the Government hope, and we all hope, that one of the first results of the War will be an adequate indemnity to Belgium. An adequate indemnity to Belgium cannot possibly be paid save by the export of produce on the part of Germany. I had a letter this morning from a trade union organiser putting the question whether we should do anything to assist Germany to pay an indemnity, and urging upon me that it was Germany's business to find out a way of paying the indemnity. Obviously it is. There are only three ways in which an indemnity can be paid. It may be paid in specie, in scrip, or in produce. The whole of the bullion in Germany would be quite insufficient to pay an adequate indemnity to Belgium alone. Payment by scrip would simply mean in future a necessary ex-
      1758
      portation of German goods in order to pay interest on the scrip or to redeem it Indeed, an export of all the specie in Germany would have the same result; Germany would need to buy her specie back by produce; and those schemes of boycott directed again German trade would simply have the effect of preventing the payment of an indemnity by Germany. In that case, I should say that if we took part in the prevention of the only possible mode of paying an indemnity, we should ourselves be morally liable to pay it. I cannot suppose that those who advocate this policy have realised for one moment its economic results.
      Then we have a somewhat varied Tariffist propaganda. The tone of that propaganda in some sections of the Press seems to me to be a flagrant breach of the party truce. We have a number of journals openly vaunting that the cause of Tariff is won, that Free Trade is at an end, and that tariffs must now and will now be imposed. Some of the organs carrying on the propaganda actually demand that we should impose import duties on food now while the War is in progress, this at a time when nearly all, if not all, the belligerent Powers have actually taken the food duties off. One Power perhaps has not, and another Power has not taken off all its food duties. The enemy Powers have taken off, so far as I am aware, all the import duties on food. They have had to do so, and this is the time at which the Tariffist organs in this country are demanding that we should not wait for the conclusion of the War, but should impose food duties at once with a view to securing an adequate protection of food in the future. I do not intend to-day to discuss in general the very large, wide, and familiar fiscal question, and I want to limit myself solely to the effect any kind of policy will have on our national interest after the War is over. In the first place, the proposed tariff is either to be one of preference to our Dominions over our Allies and neutrals or one of preference to our Dominions and Allies over neutrals. There may be a third, but these are the only two to which I will call attention.
      To give preference to the Dominions over our Allies would be an extremely dangerous policy. It would set up heart-burnings of a serious description. To give preference to Canadian and Australian wheat over Russian wheat, to Austra-

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      lian wines over French wines, would be setting up difficulties of a serious kind the moment it came into force. I cannot imagine that that course will be taken, though it is very vehemently proposed. If you should give preference to our Dominions and Allies over neutrals you would be creating a set of circumstances which would give rise to special difficulties, and which might, in future, cause a very unstable and nationally dangerous political situation. But perhaps the most serious aspect, certainly not the least serious aspect, of the two schemes I have seen promulgated is that they contemplate better terms to the Dominions and Allies than are to be given to neutrals. If that policy be adopted, the inevitable result will be to drive all the trade of the neutrals into the hands of Germany, and neutrals will desire to resume trade with Germany as soon as possible. If we give worse terms to the neutrals than to the Allies, Germany will absolutely and inevitably do her very best to offer terms to the neutrals that would secure their trade.
      Let me remind the House what neutral trade means. It means South America, the United States trade, the China trade, and the trade of a number of European Powers, not of the first magnitude, but which, collectively, are of very great commercial importance. To all those Powers Germany would offer special treatment, giving them advantages which would in turn give Germany a very large trade with them. The Allies by a system of trading among themselves might in part compensate for that, but I cannot conceive anyone saying that trade between the Allies would compensate any of them, and us in particular, for the substantial loss of a great mass of trade with neutral Powers. Let me remind hon. Members that, after the War, we shall be under the economic necessity to export a large quantity of goods to the United States. We shall be bound to do so in respect of our heavy debts in that quarter. Germany will be equally bound to export goods in all directions for obvious financial reasons. If Germany were placed on specially good terms with the United States, then we would be under a double disadvantage. We should be compelled to make good and square our accounts, and the result of a fiscal system of preference of the Allies over neutrals would be to inflict the very greatest commercial disadvantage on this country at a time when freedom of export and equal power
      1760
      of competition in foreign markets will be of the very highest importance. There are arguments as to a preferential duty on food which are of a military description, and I make no demur to the use of arguments of that kind. We can find various methods of dealing with this subject at the conclusion of the War. I shall assume that this War will be concluded only on terms under which Germany is compelled to pay indemnity. I do not contemplate any other issue. There may be another issue, and I do not dispute that we may be committed to other measures of a different kind.
      But when we are told that there is to be an import duty on food, and that there is to be tariff in regard to agriculture after this War, I am bound to say that such a line of argument is nothing short of fraudulent. In a country like Germany, with a larger area and a proportionately larger population than we possess, this War has disclosed the fact that she is unable to feed herself even with a system of agricultural protection. Since the War she has reduced the food duties, but yet has totally failed to make Germany adequately feed herself. If in a great European war Germany has thus failed, what prospect is there that this country, under a similar plan of putting a duty on food, could make herself self-feeding, unless our large surplus population was driven out of the country at an unprecendented rate? In view of the military considerations which are urged upon us, surely there must be regard to the importance of that consideration, in view of the possibility of a future European war. The importation of food to this country is largely the basis of the British mercantile marine, and without men for it we could not remain a maritime State on the present scale. I notice with some apprehension the propaganda for boycott and tariffs; but I do not think, on patriotic grounds, that that is compatible with the formation of a sound economic basis. Some of the propagandists are making the greatest efforts, and one journal declares that those who make any objection to tariffs are German importers and foreign importers. We are accustomed to that sort of tactics on the part of our upper class journals.
      It may be that it is taken for granted by the advocates of a tariff system that Germany, after the War, will remain, as she has been, a highly Protectionist country. I do not for a moment pretend that

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      there is going to be any change of heart in Germany after the War. We have seen plenty of deliverances showing the present frame of mind of the German people, which is no more favourable to international relations after the War than it has been in the past. There are still multitudes in Germany whose conception of international life is the promotion of the interests of their own country at the expense of all others, and hon. Members will do well to ask themselves whether it is possible for Germany after the War to remain Protectionist. I learn that there has recently appeared an article by Prof. Delbrück, writing in the "Preussische Jahrbücker." He urges that Germany, after the War, should set up a Free Trade system. I cannot pretend to estimate the probability of that, but it seems to me that enormous difficulties will be found in Germany in reimposing food duties after the War. With a population who have been half starved for a period of two years, will the German Government be able at once to impose food duties which would continue to keep food dear for that half-starved population? I cannot imagine that a militarist and Protectionist Government in Germany would face such an undertaking at an early date, but if the food duties could be reimposed, the strongest collective force in that country is the Social Democratic party, who have the support of millions of voters. It is a strong political combination for that one purpose, but it will not be very strong after the War. There is strong probability that Protectionist Germany, having already suspended the food duties under the stress of war, will not reimpose them after the War is over, and if the food duties are suspended, and all things tend against the reimposition of any other form of impost, there is a distinct probability that the Protectionist enemy might prefer a policy of Free Trade after the War. What position should we be in if an insensate propaganda were carried on making demagogic appeals to impose duties on food? We should find ourselves resorting to the policy of tariffs at the exact moment the enemy were resorting to Free Trade?
      That is the position I want to put to the Government, and it is a seriously vital subject at present. Many good citizens think that the conference with the Allies will in some degree settle some basis of fiscal policy after the War. I myself do not share any alarm expressed by my
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      Friends, but I do think the country is entitled to an assurance in this matter to this effect, that whatever negotiations may be entered into, nothing shall be done that shall commit us to any serious change in our fiscal system, without an absolutely adequate and complete discussion of the subject in this House. I do not think that is too much to ask. I am not saying that the Government should have its hands tied, and should be unable to make any arrangements, and I have indicated some of the arrangements which might fitly be made, and I have no doubt those are the main arrangements as to the future that the Government have in view; but in view of the declarations which are being made outside and the open boasts in many quarters that the policy of tariffs is now settled, and that the Free Trade system is done with, I respectfully appeal to the Prime Minister and to the Government to give the country an assurance that no such decision will be taken at the forthcoming conference which will amount to any gratification of that boast, and that whatever is to be the future of the fiscal policy of the country, a change shall come only as a result of absolutely free discussion in this House, and that we shall in no way be morally committed to our Allies in advance on a matter of such vital importance.
      Mr. HOLT: I desire to support the right hon. Gentleman, and I need hardly say that I agree with every word he has addressed to the House. I wish to make a protest against negotiations with our Allies being carried on in such a way that when this matter comes up for discussion in the House, as it must, because it must become a taxing matter if any engagements are entered into, and against them coming to the House in such a form that the Government can get up and say that they have pledged themselves to our Allies, and that the repudiation of any agreement which they have entered into involves their resignation, and is, indeed, not compatible with good relations with our Allies. We ought to have the position so left that we can discuss a matter which is not only free in name, but in fact. I think we have great ground for feeling anxious as to the position of Free Trade Ministers in the Coalition. There have been very disquieting speeches. Nothing has disquieted me more than the remarks of the Chancellor of the Duchy, when he called upon us to have open minds on the

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      fiscal question. That surely could only come from a right hon. Gentleman who was seriously contemplating the possibility of changing his own mind. When we have a declaration of that sort coming from an avowed exponent of Free Trade, then I think that those who are attached to Free Trade principles have some right to be anxious. The Prime Minister, no doubt, is a staunch supporter of Free Trade. He was also at one time a staunch supporter of the voluntary system of recruiting.
      The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): And is still.
      Mr. HOLT: Some people think the right hon. Gentleman may serve the Free Trade cause in the same way that he has served the other. A policy of Protection and Tariff negotiations are already being discussed. I, of course, make no complaint, and could make no complaint, against those advocates and those people who have always been in the habit of advocating Protection, Colonial Preference, and all the various Tariff Reform proposals, except that it is hardly fair at a time when we are supposed to have a party truce to be using the special circumstances of the War to push forward an issue of domestic controversy, which has been decided against those people three times at the polls, and at a time when the issue cannot possibly affect the conduct of the War, in order to secure a decision after the War is over. I do not think that that can be described as fairly adhering to the party truce. It is not adhering to the party truce to use the circumstances of the War as a lever for obtaining a change in the fiscal system after the War. Amongst those who are inclined to agree to some system of tariff after the War, but who were not Protectionists before, there are two classes. First, there are those who are actuated by a genuine desire to make our trade independent of Germany. They point to supplies of dyes, zinc, potash, in which we have been very dependent upon Germany. If anything is to be done in that direction I should say, as a Free Trader, that a tariff would have nothing to do with it, and in those cases it would, I think, be a question of establishing, either under direct State control or by subsidy, means which would make us independent in those respects. Whether you could be independent with regard to a supply of potash, which depends, I understand, on natural sources, I very much doubt. An effort to do so which
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      is not successful seems more likely to end in disaster. I am not at all sure that the idea of nations being self-sufficient and independent is a good idea. I believe that the idea of the interdependence of nations is a far better idea, and one which is more directed to establish peace and good will on earth. I do not believe in the idea of proud self-sufficiency in any nation.
      We have, then, people actuated by hatred of Germany. I confess it is very difficult for anybody who looks upon the atrocious way in which this War was planned, and in which it has been carried out, to feel anything but hatred of Germany. That is a sentiment which, though not praiseworthy, is one which I believe there is scarcely a single man in this country but feels at the present time towards Germany. But it is an extraordinarily bad sentiment to entertain in trade and finance. In commercial operations there is no more fruitful source of loss and disaster than to allow yourself to be led away by sentiments of hatred. I observe that like feelings are not expressed with regard to trading with either Austria or Turkey. I do not know whether those who want a tariff wall against Germany also want one against Austria and Turkey. In my judgment, whenever peace comes, it must be a really complete peace. You cannot have a peace which merely means the cessation of military operations in order that we should get ready to perfect ourselves in the almost more equally operations of a tariff war. This idea of following up your war of arms by a war of tariffs is repugnant to common sense, and really means no peace at all. I entirely agree with the statement of the Prime Minister as to the terms on which we are going to make peace. I agree equally with my right hon. Friend (Mr. Robertson) that it is quite impossible that Germany should pay an indemnity to Belgium, France, Serbia, and the other nations whom she has outraged and violated if you are going to completely break up her trade. It is only a prosperous Germany that can be in a position in which she is going to make an adequate return to those she has wronged. To make complete peace it must be on the basis that when Germany has made restitution she shall be accorded forgiveness. You cannot have restitution which involves admission of wrong-doing without following it up with forgiveness for the wrong-doing if you want to have a lasting

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      and enduring settlement. Whatever happens, if you are going to have a peaceful settlement such as everybody longs for and looks to as the only tolerable result of this War, it must be one providing for Germany an honourable position in the family of nations with which a reasonable Germany can reasonably be satisfied. I question the doctrine that economic weakness in Germany is going to be necessarily followed by military weakness. I think it is far more likely if you refuse opportunities of economic expansion to Germany that she will be driven back to the Prussian policy of expansion by military force.
      I would also remind the House that the most generous peace ever recorded to a foreign nation was that given in the terms which the Liberal Government at the commencement of its period of office accorded to South Africa, and that has been by far the most successful in producing a lasting and honourable settlement. Suppose it were possible to crush German trade by a tariff combination with our Allies, let us consider what the probable results to our-selves would be. What are we going to get out of it? We trade with Germany, not because we want to please Germany, or build up Prussian militarism, but because we want to develop the economic position of the United Kingdom. You cannot cut off trade with Germany after the War, any more than before the War, without inflicting injury upon the people of this country. I want to put this question to hon. Gentlemen who think we can do without trade with Germany. Suppose we were to divide the world into two tariff camps, as it is now divided into two military camps: those tariff camps consisting of the Allies and their Colonies on the one side, and the Central Powers with a body of neutrals on the other. In that event, what is going to happen to London, as the money market and insurance centre of the world? Surely it must be obvious that if you have those two divided camps carrying on no business, or very little business, with one another, that the central place must be in one of the neutral countries which is on speaking and friendly terms with both sets of warring nations. I do not think it is possible to reject Germany from the circle of trading nations without destroying ourselves as the great financial money centre of the world. We shall have some difficulty to defend that position after the War. The power and the wealth of neutrals has increased at a very rapid rate, and out of
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      all proportion to anything we ourselves have been able to do. Apart from any question of tariff against Germany, there may be grave reasons to doubt whether the money market after the War may not of its own accord move to New York, or, perhaps, to Amsterdam. I submit that that is a most serious consideration. I believe it to be an inevitable result of any refusal to open our markets and ports freely to all the nations of the world.
      My right hon. Friend alluded to the position of neutrals, many of whom are very friendly. What beneficial result can anybody suppose will happen to us, either as a commercial Power, or a military Power, by trying to drive neutrals into the camp of the Central Powers. Look at the position of Holland. It has most valuable colonies—one of the most prosperous portions of the globe—and under this proposal Holland would be driven into the German orbit, out of which we are very anxious to keep her. We should suffer most serious loss in that direction. Under this proposal, too, as far as we can judge from what has been adumbrated, we would have all the difficulties associated with Colonial Preference on a larger scale. You would have Colonial Preference with one scale, and another for the Allied Powers, and yet another for friendly neutrals, and yet another for neutrals less friendly, and, finally, a scale for your enemies last of all. That is, in my judgment, an absolutely impossible position. How are we to refuse to neutrals, who give us Free Trade, commercial terms equal to those we give to our Allies, who will not and do not give us Free Trade? I think it is necessary to direct the attention of the House to the record of our Allies in the matter of trade, because we are going to discuss this, I suppose, as a business proposition. It is no use blinking the fact that in the past the views of Russia and France have been more inimical to our trade expansion than those of almost any other country, except possibly the United States of America. I do not think that we ought to make that a ground of complaint against our Allies. They, no doubt, adopted a fiscal policy which they believed to be good for themselves, just as we adopted a fiscal policy which we believed to be good for ourselves. French colonial expansion destroyed our trade in Madagascar and many other places, and endeavoured to destroy every other nation's trade in those places, and in the opinion

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      of many good judges it was largely responsible for reviving Germany's extreme unwillingness to witness the colonial expansion of others.
      What is really going to happen? Is France going to be asked in the name of good will to give up the surtaxe d'entrepót system, a fiscal arrangement which is most injurious to the trade of this country? Is she going to be asked to throw open her coasting trade to British ships? Is she going to be asked to make what she would regard as a very great sacrifice in order that we in return should make what we believe to be a very great sacrifice by abandoning our Free Trade system? How can you build up mutual friendship and good will between two men on the basis of asking each to make what he believes to be a sacrifice to the other but which the recipient does not believe to be of great advantage to himself? That is not the way to build up friendship. If we are going to build up friendship with our Allies—and I hope we shall—I submit that we have got to go on with it in the way in which we began making our political alliance or political friendship with them, wholly independently of any fiscal question. Such fiscal friendship is not possible as long as they and we entertain wholly different ideas on intellectual grounds as to what is best in order to promote the financial and economic strength of the country.
      I submit that the fiscal policy of this country after the War, just as before the War, ought to be dictated by a regard for our own interests. I submit that the facts which have come to light during the course of the War constitute the most triumphant vindication of the policy of Free Trade anyone has ever seen. What was the greatest injury which the Protectionists of this country believed they could confer upon Germany? It was the system of total protection presented to Germany by the British Navy under the name of blockade. What is at present regarded by most people as the greatest injury we ourselves are receiving? It is the modified system of Protection caused by the blockade of our trade, brought about by the reduction in the supply of merchant shipping throughout the world. You have got a very good system of Protection going on at present, brought about by the enhancement of freights, and I cannot make out that there is any large number of people in this country in favour
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      of the continuance of that system. Is it not a fact that of all the warring nations we alone, the Free Traders, are solvent? Germany and Austria, as we believe, are in terrible financial straits, and we know from the Estimates that very large sums of money have to be produced by us for the assistance of our Allies. Free Trade as a method of financing war, at any rate, has been justified above the expectation of any human being; The mercantile marine of this country is built up on Free Trade. The mercantile marine could never have existed without Free Trade. I am certain that I have heard my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade allude to that circumstance in his Free Trade speeches with a considerable amount of satisfaction, which satisfaction I share. That mercantile marine has been necessary to keep us going. It has been necessary to keep our Allies going. Our Protectionist Allies would have been absolutely on their beam-ends had it not been for the mercantile marine of their Free Trade comrade.
      Is it suggested that our Free Trade policy, which has provided us with a mercantile marine without which it would have been impossible to carry on the War successfully and without which we could not have taken an expedition across the seas, is during the War to be scrapped? It has given us something that our Allies have not got. We have an organisation enabling us to get the goods we require from almost every quarter of the world. With that great organisation we have been able in times of difficulty to get imports from places where we were not in the habit of getting them. That is exactly what many of our friends have not been able to do. The prosperity of this country before the War depended on our Free Trade policy; our safety throughout the War has been based upon our Free Trade policy; and I submit that there is every reason to believe that our recuperation from the evils of the War and the losses of the War will be best provided for by Free Trade. On Free Trade alone have we reason to hope that a solid and durable peace can be based. I hope we may have emphatic assurances from the Front Bench to-day that that Free Trade policy will not be departed from in any conference with the Allies at Paris.
      Sir F. BANBURY: I rather regret the speech just delivered by the hon. Gentleman opposite. I do not understand what

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      the object of that speech was, any more than I understand what was the object of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman beside me (Mr. Robertson). The right hon. Gentleman said that the only request he would make was that the House of Commons should have an opportunity of discussing any proposals which might be made in the direction of Tariff Reform.
      Mr. ROBERTSON: That we should not be committed to any serious change of policy until it had been debated in the House of Commons.
      Sir F. BANBURY: I do not see that that alteration makes much difference. It would be quite impossible to have any alteration in the fiscal system of this country until the House of Commons had been consulted. Any alteration must involve the imposition of taxation, and taxation cannot be imposed until this House has been consulted and has approved of it. [An HON. MEMBER: "We might be committed to it!"] Nothing can commit the House of Commons except a vote of the House of Commons itself. That really is the answer to the hon. Gentleman opposite also. From the beginning of his speech I could not understand of what he was afraid. As far as I know what is proposed is that there shall be in Paris a conference of the Allies to consider what is to happen in regard to trade questions after the War. Why is the hon. Gentleman afraid that the Government, including the President of the Board of Trade, are going to do something that will be injurious to English interests?
      Mr. HOLT: The right hon. Baronet apparently expects a reply from me. I am afraid that our delegates may come back from that conference, present to the House a report which has been agreed upon there, and tell us that unless we vote for it the Government must resign. Therefore, although we shall be technically free, we shall be in fact bound.
      Sir F. BANBURY: He believes that this Government, which is a Free Trade Government [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] The majority of the members of the Government are Free Traders. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] The majority of the Cabinet surely are Free Traders, or they were Free Traders two years ago. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] The course of events has shown that they were wrong. They have had the courage to see that they were wrong and to admit their error. That is what hon. Members mean.
      Mr. PRINGLE: They have submitted to the squeeze.
      Sir F. BANBURY: That does not touch my point. The hon. Member for Hexham is afraid that the President of the Board of Trade, who, if I may say so, is a business man of considerable experience and in the shipping trade too, of which the hon. Gentleman opposite knows something, is going to change all his past beliefs and advocate with the Allies a policy of Protection, and that when the right hon. Gentleman comes back from Paris the House of Commons will be obliged to accept that policy because the right hon. Gentleman has inaugurated it. In order to prevent that the hon. Gentleman has given us this afternoon his homily upon Free Trade. If it is correct that the Free Trade members of the Government have changed their opinion, I think it is a very great triumph for the Tariff Reformers, and a very great evidence that the Tariff Reformers were right. At any rate the matter should be considered without pressure either from the Tariff Reformers or from the Free Traders.
      I think the speech of the hon. Gentleman was very unfortunate at the present moment. As far as I could understand it, it was devoted to endeavouring to make an arrangement with Germany in order that Germany might be prosperous, while not making an arrangement with our Allies. The hon. Gentleman said that it was necessary to have a prosperous Germany. I do not think it is at all necessary to have a prosperous Germany. I shall be very glad to see Germany in future not prosperous. The hon. Gentleman said that the crushing of German trade would be bad for us. Why should it be bad for us? Why should protection or a tariff be bad for us if it was good for Germany? Germany prospered under a tariff for many years. If Germany prospered, why should not we? If it has the effect of crushing Germany I shall be very glad to see it and approve of it. The hon. Gentleman went into a long discussion about the solvency of our Allies. Surely that was a rather unfortunate and foolish thing to do, if he will excuse my saying so. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] The hon. Gentleman said that owing to Free Trade we were the only solvent nation in the War. That is saying by implication that our Allies are not solvent. France, at any rate, is solvent. The last loan raised by France has gone to a considerable premium—I

      1771
      think four or five, certainly three or four—whereas none of the loans raised by' England has gone to a premium at all; in fact, they have all gone to a discount. I do not mean to say that England is not solvent, but it shows at any rate that France is able to raise money. The return on French Loans at the present rate of exchange is about 5 per cent., which is the rate which the Government has to pay on Treasury Bills. It is quite true that if the exchange alters the rate of interest will increase, but at the present moment any person taking French Loans would only receive 5 per cent. upon his money.
      The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. McKenna): In France?
      Sir F. BANBURY: No, in England. The hon. Member for Hexham said that our Allies had in the past always looked after their own interests and done what they could to injure our trade. He said that they were looking out for their own interests. We all look out for our own interests, more or less. Is it not a good thing that at the present moment something of this sort should take place? Is it not a good thing that we should try to cement the alliance which we have already made with the nations which are fighting for us? Is it not a good thing that we should try to cement those alliances in other ways? Is not that what the Government are going to do? I do not know that I am always prepared to support the action of the Government, but I am surprised that in a matter of this sort anyone should have risen in the House to object to it. If the Government enter into arrangements with the Allies which are not wise, then it will be the duty of the House to object. At the present moment all that is proposed is that there should be consultation in order to see whether or not some arrangements can be made. Surely the Government ought to enter into that conference unfettered and with their hands untied.
      5.0 P.M.
      The PRIME MINISTER: I do not propose, nor I imagine would it be relevant to the Vote which is now before the House, to enter into a discussion of a dialectical or controversial kind on most of the topics, interesting and important as they are, that have been raised in the speeches of my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. J. M. Robertson)
      1772
      and of the hon. Member who followed him (Mr. Holt). I think, if I may say so, that my right hon. Friend opposite, one of the most skilled economists in this country, presented for the consideration of the House and the country points which were not academic, but of very practical interest, in such a way that must command, and ought to command, the very gravest attention and consideration. My hon. Friend who followed him, speaking from a very wide commercial experience, illustrated and emphasised some of those points. But both my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend expressed some apprehension—and here I come to what is strictly material to the Vote before the House—as to the contemplated or possible administrative action of the Government in the conference which is about to take place in Paris. I wish to say, in the plainest and clearest terms, that no such apprehensions should in future exist; that nothing will be done, and nothing will be said, by the representatives of His Majesty's Government in Paris which will in any degree fetter the free action either of the Government or of the House of Commons. I do not think it would be possible for us, and I am quite sure that my hon. Friend behind me will not differ from me here, to decline the invitation offered to us by our Allies, particularly by France, to join in consultation and conference with them, first and primarily—and this is a matter of real, urgent, and pressing importance—as to whether it is possible or not during the War, as part of the War, as a belligerent operation, to put some kind of economic-pressure upon our opponents, or to offer some kind of economic assistance to our friends. Strictly speaking, I think we shall all agree that that has always been within the scope of the concerted action of the Allies, who are engaged in the common purpose and desire to use even-legitimate and expedient means for the speedy attainment of their purpose. So far I am sure we shall all be on entirely common ground, and any measures which seem practicable as belligerent measures, for warlike purposes, for the better attainment of that end, will command a general assent of the Allies and of this House. But with regard to the future, that is to say as to how we are to meet the changed economic conditions—for changed they will be most materially in many respects by a vast conflict of this kind, which has produced enormous destruction of fixed

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      capital, prodigious loss of life, unexampled dislocation of industry, and a necessary alteration in, I will not call them sentimental relations, but in relations which are not merely industrial or material, but which none the less have a very great influence on the commerce and trade of the different nations of the world.
      In view of that contingency it is surely a wise thing and a provident thing, and not a premature thing, that we should take counsel together, and that we should interchange views, survey the ground, and, as far as possible, forecast the future. And I think we should be very wrong, in that it would not only be an unneighbourly and an unfriendly thing, but even impolitic, to refuse the invitation extended to us for such an interchange of views between ourselves and our Allies. Beyond that we do not intend to go, and my hon. Friends may rest assured that our representatives will return from Paris absolutely uncommitted, as far as the Government and Parliament of this country are concerned, to any specific measures to be taken in the, I hope, not very remote future.
      I will only say one thing, speaking for myself—and I think I speak for the whole of my colleagues in the matter—about any measures that may eventually be taken in the future in that contingency, and it is that whatever you do you must be careful that you are not led by passion, or by short-sightedness, or by very natural feelings, I will not say of vindictiveness, but of a desire to make your victory secure and certain, into steps which are calculated to produce greater injury to yourselves than the injury you intend, and rightly intend, to inflict upon the enemy, in order to prevent them having the possibility in the future of using the measures which they have used in the past against you. Nothing can be more important. Just as in private life, in the affairs of man and man, you are very much tempted, under the influence of perfectly natural and legitimate feelings, to adopt short-sighted measures, which in the long run will be more harmful to yourself than to those you intend to injure, so in international affairs you should always keep that possibility strictly in view. I say that, and I believe that in saying it I shall command the assent of everyone in all quarters of this House. It is not a controversial matter, or a question that divides Free Traders and Tariff Reformers. We are all agreed that that is an object we should carefully
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      keep in view as a safeguard in any possible action we may in future take. I can assure my hon. Friends, speaking on behalf of the Government, that there need be no fear in any quarter that we are going to commit them or the country prematurely at this stage to measures which require the most careful consideration in regard to which we shall have to take into counsel not only our Allies but our own Dominions, and which must have far-reaching results, and possibly tremendous consequences. Having said that clearly, and I hope in language beyond a charge of ambiguity, or the risk of misconstruction, which have occurred in the past, as I know by painful experiences; having said that, I do ask from the House that they will tacitly, at any rate implicitly, give to the Government an assurance that they believe we are right in accepting this invitation and entering this conference, and that they will not believe we shall misuse the trust they have reposed in us.
      Mr. DAVID MASON: The right hon. Gentleman in his speech said this was an invitation, and that we ought not to refuse this invitation. If I am correctly informed—we have only a Press account to go upon with reference to the matter, and I quote from a report of the "Times"—the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was to this effect:
      "We have arranged, in concert with our Allies—I think the first suggestion came from the Government of France—to hold a Conference in Paris, which I hope will take place in the course of the next fortnight or so, at which all the Allied States will be represented and at which the whole of this question of the economic and commercial relations inter se, and as between them jointly and individually on the one side, and our present enemies on the other, will form the subject of debate and deliberation."
      That is hardly an invitation. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech, went on to say, very properly, and I think he carried the whole House with him, that in the deliberations that are to take place, we shall have to guard ourselves from passion, vindictiveness, and any uncharitable feelings which might affect our judgment, and might do something that would really hurt ourselves rather than the enemy; that we might, perhaps, in a state of passion do something now which would kill and not benefit our trade, or our commercial relation. I ask the House if that is not the most eloquent and convincing condemnation of the proposed conference. Here the right hon. Gentleman is evidently alive to the fact that if you have such a conference in the middle of the War, that of course the liability will be

      1775
      for you and your actions to be coloured and inspired by feelings which cannot be of a very warm character towards the enemy, and which are, therefore, most likely to, effect the very object which he is anxious to guard against. I say, therefore, that to ask this House to give a tacit consent to such a proposal is to suggest that we are incapable of any judgment whatever. There are many of us who differ on Free Trade and Tariff Reform, but I hope I voice the feeling of a great many of us when I say that there can only be one opinion, and that is that to hold a conference of this character at this time is most unwise, and most calculated to do the very opposite from what the right hon. Gentleman desires. To my mind, he condemned the conference by that very statement which he made, and I hope that he may perhaps take from that lack of confirmation of his pronouncement that there is not a tacit confirmation or endorsement of the action of the Government in entering upon this most unfortunate conference at this stage. To commit such an action seems to me to be premature. The right hon. Gentleman also, in this same speech, spoke of the object of this conference as being to create what is called a Peace Book. I hope he will not inscribe in that Peace Book recipes as to how to make future peace or future wars, because to enter into any Zollverein as between the Allies against the Central Powers at this stage seems to be to make absolutely certain that we shall have this, or a similar war, again within a very short period.
      I do not think so far this House has shown any enthusiasm for this conference. We have still a fortnight, according to the right hon. Gentleman's statement, to make known our views, and possibly even at the eleventh hour we may be able to make some impression on the Government that the holding of this conference is a great mistake. In view of the fact that there is still a fortnight for us to make known our views, I do hope that many hon. Members will express their views, whatever their fiscal opinions may be, more on the general principle that the holding of a conference of this character at this time is most unwise, most premature, and most unlikely to bring about the object which the Government may desire. But we must assume it is likely to take place, and, therefore, perhaps one ought to offer some observations on the facts as
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      regards our Allies, and as to the likelihood of anything emerging from the conference of a useful character. Take, for example, France. It is well known that in 1860 we did enter into a commercial treaty with France, and that treaty lasted from 1860 to 1871, when it was again renewed. There was an attempt to renew it again in 1881, but the negotiations fell through. The basis of this Treaty was that all reductions of duties should apply to all countries alike. As a result of that policy, the foreign trade of this country went forward by leaps and bounds. The foreign trade of France expanded for a time as a result of the Treaty, and, if I may be allowed a personal reference, my own father, who subsequently sat in this House, helped Mr. Cobden in that famous Treaty of 1860, and the sum of that Treaty was largely to expand the foreign trade of France. But when France cancelled it eventually, the foreign trade of France declined, whereas the foreign trade of this country went forward and doubled and quadrupled itself. When one has regard to that fact, what prospect is there of France, which has adopted a high tariff, of Russia, which has adopted a high tariff, and of our Dominions, which have adopted high tariffs, altering their fiscal policies now? I think we may regard it as fixed for good or ill, and it is difficult to imagine we are likely to bring them to our way of thinking and to bring about the dream of Cobden, who hoped that the result of Free Trade would lead to other nations adopting it. But they did not do so, and, so far as we are concerned, we regret it, but I think the enormous expansion of our trade is the most eloquent testimony to our policy of Free Trade. But it does not blind us to the fact that these countries, faced with enormous deficits, largely as a result of their military expenditure, have adopted a different policy, and to imagine now. in the middle of a war of this character—
      Mr. SPEAKER: This is hardly an occasion for a general review of the history of Free Trade and Protection. The hon. Member must endeavour to come a little closer to his subject than that.
      Mr. MASON: I mention it only to show that it seems to me so unwise for us to waste time in a conference when history shows how unlikely they are to change their fiscal policy and come in on a Free

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      Trade basis. It is much more likely, if we enter into such a conference, that we shall rather give way on our principles and sink to a Protectionist level than draw other countries into Free Trade. I will not develop that further, but I wish just briefly to point out the same with regard to Russia and our Dominions. Those Dominions have built up tariffs, and they are not likely to alter them now at the bidding of this country; but I would like to emphasise the supreme importance of even now urging the Government to reconsider their decision with regard to this conference. We cannot go to the conference and deceive our Allies by the mere presence of our delegates that we are inclined to give way on our principles or our policy, and, therefore, to my mind it is contrary to kindness to agree to this suggestion of a conference. We must necessarily deceive them if we go there, because, if we go there to do nothing, then I should say that our alliance, instead of being cemented, would tend towards disintegration. I think Mr. Gladstone once said with regard to the Crimean war that a war in which we were engaged with Allies, should be short, sharp, and decisive. The tendency of a war with Allies was towards disintegration, and it seems to me that to hold such a conference, instead of tending to the advantage of an alliance would tend rather to disintegrate it. I say you cannot go back on your principles, and the Prime Minister says he does not desire to do so, but I submit that if we go there and nothing results from the conference that will tend to have an irritating effect on our Allies, and tend rather to disintegrate the alliance than to consolidate it. The right hon. Gentleman said there was another point of view, and that was the coming together with the object of trying to evolve some economic pressure upon our enemy. I cannot follow how you can evolve any economic pressure further than a military pressure or a blockade when you are not trading with an enemy. There can be no economic result in that case from a conference, and I think the wording of the Prime Minister's speech, which I have already quoted, shows, if his earlier definition is a correct one, that this is with the object of formulating some proposals after the War either with the Allies or with our Dominions, and I do think, as I have endeavoured to show, that such a proposal is most unwise, and calculated to have
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      the very opposite effect to that intended. I do hope, therefore, even now at the eleventh hour some pressure may be brought to bear upon the Government to reconsider the attitude they have taken.

      LAND COURT (SCOTLAND).
      Mr. CURRIE: I do not wish to continue this discussion, as I recognise it would be somewhat indecent on the part of a mere Tariff Reformer to intervene in the domestic dispute which threatens to break out between the faithful followers and the faithful leaders who were so united when Free Trade was their policy in the country. I rather wish to move to reduce Vote 12 of Class III. by £100 and to call attention—
      Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order. Is anybody else entitled to speak on this Vote?
      Mr. SPEAKER: Everybody is entitled to speak on this Vote. Even the hon. Member is entitled to speak on it.
      Mr. PRINGLE: I always understood that if we went on to a subsequent Vote it was impossible to revert to an earlier one.
      Mr. SPEAKER: The discussion is general now, and ranges over the whole topic.
      Mr. HOGGE: Can the hon. Gentleman move a reduction on the Vote, and if he does will discussion be confined to the topic which the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise, and, until that is finished, can we return to this important question of Free Trade?
      Mr. SPEAKER: There cannot be any Motion for a reduction. I have already put the Question, "That the House do agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
      Mr. CURRIE: Then I would only make the further remark that I would like to protest against language which has been used in this discussion, such as "base," "deceitful" and "fraudulent." I think it should not be necessary to do more than to recall these adjectives to point out how unfortunate it is at a time like this to revert to a practice, which most of us are wishing to get rid of, making wholesale charges of downright dishonest motives against those who view matters from a rather different point of view to oneself. I wish to return to Vote 12 of Class III. I

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      understand I cannot move an actual reduction at present, but I wish to call some Attention to the amount of expenditure still associated with the Land Court in Scotland. It is, of course, the case that the questions with which the Land Court was brought into existence to deal were at one time highly controversial, and we had a suggestion from the Chancellor of the Exchequer only yesterday that controversial questions should not be raised. At the same time, I think there is a limit to the extent to which one can follow that doctrine, with all the wish in the world to promote peaceful discussion here. My complaint against the administration of the Land Court is not a complaint against all the individuals associated with it. Far from it. My complaint is that the country is not getting value for its money. The present Secretary for Scotland is, I think, one of the last men one would wish to blame for the state of matters that exists. I do not suppose he is in favour of the waste of money any more than I am myself, and I think in some ways if the Secretary for Scotland had more control over some of these decisions we might have a better state of things. I am afraid the fault lies very much with the Act itself. It is not a very good Act. It is a very bad foundation for anything like good administration. I acknowledge that in Scotland a good deal of economy has already been effected. I believe the Secretary for Scotland is very anxious to effect more, but I think the fact remains that the Court has really failed to justify its existence. It is a sort of Court ad hoc, and I think it is a pretty bad sort of Court.
      Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member in order in discussing the policy of legislation on a Vote of this kind?
      Mr. SPEAKER: I understood the hon. Member was discussing the administration of this Court. That, of course, he is entitled to do.
      Mr. CURRIE: I think that, as a rule, when anything is heard in the Land Court of Scotland it is in connection with some humiliating reversal of judgment of the High Court or some abject fiasco in the House of Lords, and it is really not saying too much that, in the view of the ordinary taxpayer and business man in Scotland, a feeling has sprung up that the time has come when this Land Court might really be reformed or economised practically out of existence. I made a
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      suggestion in the form of a question to the right hon. Gentleman quite recently that, in so far as the Court existed for the purpose of dispensing law, use might be made of the ordinary judges in Scotland, and I still think a good deal of money would be saved. I understand legislation would be required, and I would probably not be in order in pressing that matter at the moment. But I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give us an assurance that no more of these unfortunate reversals of judgments and grossly extravagant legal proceedings arising out of the Land Court's deliberations will characterise it. The feeling is very strong indeed that on several occasions—in connection with the Lindean case, and so on—that a gross waste of money is taking place, and that is the assurance I ask of the right hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. PRINGLE: The case which the hon. Member refers to is one which is not connected with the Land Court at all.
      Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to deal with matters requiring legislation, but if he is criticising the Administration there is no objection to that.
      Mr. CURRIE: My appeal is to the Secretary for Scotland to use every effort he can in order to put an end to this gross extravagance in legal proceedings.
      The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): So far as the Land Court is concerned, I am not in a position to answer for it. Parliament in its wisdom has made it an independent Court, and has given the head of it the rank of a judge of the Court of Session. Therefore, it would be improper on my part either to defend or criticise its decisions, and I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. Indeed, I do not think I should be in order in doing so. As far as the Lindean case is concerned, so far as I am responsible, it was absolutely necessary to get a decision of the Court on the question as to whether a certain claim came within the terms of the Scottish Land Act. Undoubtedly it is the case that the compensation paid in that instance was extravagant, and there I quite agree with the hon. Member.
      Mr. CURRIE: I never said that the compensation was extravagant.
      Mr. MCKINNON WOOD: I thought that was the hon. Member's complaint; but, at any rate, I say that it was extravagant.
      Mr. CURRIE: The right hon. Gentleman was not in the House when I commenced my speech. My complaint was that these cases, which generally end in appeals to the House of Lords, are really allowed to arise, and I blame the Act for it, and not the Secretary for Scotland.
      Mr. MCKINNON WOOD: I understood that the hon. Member complained that money was spent in that case, and he expressed the hope that no more money would be spent on similar cases, and I quite agree with him there. I hope money will not be spent upon extravagant compensation. During the present time of national necessity I am doing my best to avoid extravagant compensation. As far as the action of the Board of Agriculture was concerned in that case, they were bound to get a decision. The matter was one which must affect my mind in deciding other cases. Whether all these cases were legally sustainable or not was a very material consideration in deciding whether one should proceed with a certain scheme. Nobody expected that the compensation would be so extravagant; in fact, it was thought at first that we should have a sort of pleasant agreement with the landlord, but the landlord went for his pound of flesh and got a hundredweight. I think that sort of thing ought to be stopped, but it is clear that you cannot start at the present time the highly controversial question of an amendment of that Act. It is now perfectly plain from the decision of the Courts that according to the law the landlords are entitled to raise these speculative claims, and I cannot help that. I do not know why this question is brought up on the Land Court Vote, because the final decision was not given by the Land Court at all. A decision was given by the Court of Session, and finally by the House of Lords. The advantage is that we now know exactly what the law is, and that has always been a very expensive proceeding, which, as a layman, I regret, but under present circumstances it cannot possibly be avoided.
      Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: I wish to say a word in answer to the speech of the Secretary for Scotland. I admit that a decision in this case had to be taken in the House of Lords, and I think the right hon. Gentleman who made the appeal was entitled to ask for the verdict of the highest Court in the land. I do not, however, think the right hon. Gentleman was quite fair when he spoke about speculative claims. In this particular case the claim was not
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      a speculative one in the ordinary sense of the term, but only in the sense used by Lord Haldane, who gave his judgment in this particular action. It was speculative with regard to the actual loss by reason of certain things having been done. It was speculative, but not in an offensive, or unfair, or irregular sense. I do not agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said on this point, but I do not wish to carry on the discussion of this matter any further.

      DECLARATION OF LONDON.
      Sir J. D. REES: The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in answer to a question which I put to him, said that the Declaration of London as such had no existence, and he rather hinted that one ought to know that. Later, the Attorney-General said that it was not binding upon any nation. If that is so, why cannot we completely repudiate it? Why should we continue to cling to the remnants of a discarded and almost discredited Declaration? The War has now reached that stage in which the pressure of high prices may be most brought to bear in the same way in which the Germans were able to take Paris by keeping out all supplies, and in which we were able to defeat Napoleon by raising prices all over the Continent with our blockade. Although the Declaration of London has, no doubt, been greatly modified and minimised by Proclamations and Orders in Council, there still remains a residuum which dangerously affects and impedes the action of the Fleet. The German nation, having their merchant ships all bottled up, are particularly dependent upon neutral countries like Scandinavia. We cannot blockade the Scandinavian coast, and therefore it becomes important that we should do all we can to capture all enemy property on the high seas wherever it is. I submit that the Declaration of London still impedes the Navy in that all-important task.
      In regard to this question, there have been four Royal Proclamations and three Orders in Council since the War began. The first of these was put forward with the reason that we must act with Russia and France, but a subsequent Order cancelled that, and also threw over the Report of the Drafting Committee, which was described in the earliest Order as a text or manual of law and an exposition of the Declaration for the use of our Prize Courts, or, as I understand, for the International Prize Court, had we not mercifully been

      1783
      spared that by the action of the House of Lords which threw out the Naval Prize Bill. This document, which is in French, is impeding the action of the British Navy. The Foreign Secretary said that it was the most that could be obtained by consent, that is by consent of Germany, France and Russia. Military Powers then agreed to curb sea power. When war broke out a new list of absolute and conditional contraband was made. Aeroplanes were created absolute contraband, contrary to Articles 23 and 25 of the Declaration, and so were iron ores, unwrought copper, lead, rubber, and hides. These were added to the conditional contraband, contrary to the Declaration of London. These lists were withdrawn later, and the lists in the original text of the Declaration were withdrawn, and new lists made prescribing further restrictions contrary to Articles 15, 32, and 35 affecting neutrals as regards carrying contraband. Whether these restrictions and alterations were really legal, or whether this unratified Declaration was ever binding at all on Prize Courts, I do not know, and I believe there has been no judgment j to teach me or others whether they are really binding or not.
      The Declaration of London was to be adopted during hostilities. There was a provision to minimise trouble to innocent neutral trade, about which I submit the Government have been far too careful; in fact, they have gone to the extent of putting neutral trade almost before the destruction and capture of enemy trade and property. What is left of the Declaration of London? When the War began it was held under Article 45 of the Declaration of London that German reservists must be allowed to return in neutral ships to their own country to fight. Since then there has been a demand for the withdrawal of those orders, and they have been withdrawn. I believe that if the public were fully instructed as to what this Declaration is, or what remains of. it, the whole of it would have to be withdrawn, and it would be impossible for the Foreign Office to maintain any portion of it in force. I cannot for the life of me see why it should not be withdrawn, because all sorts of creeds and beliefs have now gone by the board. Those who wanted a small Navy, against whom I had the honour to act with all my might and main when I sat on the other side of the House, have altered
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      their tune, and now they want a large Navy. Why should the Foreign Office not hold that this Declaration and its policy was drawn up to meet special circumstances, and that it is now impossible to carry it out? Why not say so if that is the case, because it would be a comfort to the country. There is the greatest alarm in the country about what remains of this Declaration. May I quite rapidly run through a few stipulations and conditions in it, by which I understand, subject to correction, and my object is to get information, the action of our Fleet is still grievously hampered. By Article 14, 16, 17, 19 and 20 help is given to the enemy to break a blockade by forbidding the right of the blockading power to capture blockade runners at any time up to the end of the ship's voyage. The enemy is helped by restricting the right of capture to the blockading force. Are the Navies of the Allies one force for the purposes of this Article? Are the different divisions or sections of the Navies one force for the purpose of this, apparently, and on the face of it, most disastrous Clause? I really do not know, and I have never heard anyone explain.
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord R. Cecil): I did not catch the Clause the hon. Member was speaking about.
      Sir J. D. REES: I am sorry, but I have not got the Clause with me. It is there. Lists of contraband are made by the Government instead of leaving it to the Prize Courts. I can show the Noble Lord the Clause. They are to be communicated by the Government to other Governments. I consider that implies that the Government make lists of contraband, and indeed they have done so. I maintain that contraband is not a matter of any hard and fast rule. It cannot be laid down in a list like goods for sale. It depends so much upon circumstances; and it is a matter for the Prize Courts in its discretion, as I maintain it was formerly under the Law of Nations. Formerly, it was for the Prize Court to determine what was contraband, and this is a departure against British interests as is every departure. It is therefore still further hampering the Fleet. Then there is an Article by which the condemnation of a ship carrying contraband is restricted to cases in which the contraband amounts to over half the cargo. Can anything be more monstrous? If a ship has a cargo of 200 tons and 100 tons or more is contraband, that ship may be condemned, but if

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      a ship has a cargo of 20,000 tons and something less than 10,000 tons is contraband, that ship apparently goes free. I may be wrong in this interpretation, but I should like to have the opinion of my Noble Friend. The matter is of the utmost importance. Finding that this Declaration put grievous shackles upon the Fleet, on 11th March, 1915, an Order in Council was issued, which no doubt freed the Fleet to some extent, though I submit not sufficiently. It was provided in that Order in Council that no merchant vessel, neutral or other, should take goods to or from a German port, and that every merchant vessel bound to other than a German port and carrying enemy goods or goods of enemy destination, even although not contraband, might be required to be discharged in a British or allied port. This is an exceedingly difficult matter, and I dare say I do not understand it all. I am endeavouring to get information from my Noble Friend which will be of benefit to myself and others in the like case.
      Germany complained that we were dropping the Declaration of London. That, no doubt, was a grievous matter with Germany. It was pointed out immediately after the issue of the Order of 11th March, 1915, by which the freedom of the Fleet was to some extent restored, that we did not stop or confiscate cotton, and when we did subsequently take in hand the stopping of cotton, we did not confiscate it; we paid for it. It was also provided that United States citizens wishing to import goods of German origin via neutral ports might produce proof of payment and then the Fleet was not to interfere. What is the position of cotton? The Government contemplated the issue of measures to relieve any abnormal temporary depression in the cotton market consequent upon these regulations. I do not know how far that goes, or whether it amounts to anything. It might amount to hundreds of millions. Again, the Foreign Secretary in his dispatch to the American Ambassador says that Prize Court decisions may be reopened and subjected to review by an International Court. I do not understand whether that contemplates the establishment at any time of an International Prize Court such as the predecessors of this Government attempted to get and could not get, owing to their Bill being thrown out by the House of Lords. The Foreign Secretary also laid it down that the question of the freedom of the seas might
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      reasonably be a legitimate subject for discussion, definition and agreement. I again urge that the Foreign Office should throw this Declaration over, once and for all, because they do not want definition and discussion. Definition is the worst thing in the world for the most powerful naval Power. They want these things left open. Leave it, therefore, to the Prize Courts merely to interpret and carry out what was known as the Law of Nations and what was undoubtedly in favour of the greatest naval Power. There was one provision of The Hague Convention, upon which the Declaration of London was based, which has proved to be good in effect. By legalising the conversion of merchant ships on the high seas, the abolition of privateering by the Declaration of Paris was practically cancelled. It was in return for the abolition of privateering that the main feaure of the Declaration of Paris was accepted by the British Government. I submit that with the disappearance of that consideration the concession also disappears. There was another provision, the authorisation of the laying of mines, which was carried by Germany, really with an object with which we are all now familiar. Another provision allowing neutrals to harbour prizes taken by belligerents is all in favour of the weaker Power.
      Lord R. CECIL: May I ask the hon. Gentleman what are the Clauses to which he is referring?
      Sir J. D. REES: I am now on Clauses 19 to 23. I am merely running through these to show upon what the Declaration of London is based, and how disastrous to the strongest sea Power was every single decision of The Hague Convention, upon which the Declaration of London was based.
      Lord R. CECIL: I cannot find that all these observations which the hon. Gentleman has recently made have any reference to Clauses 19 to 23.
      Sir J. D. REES: If my Noble Friend will look at the Clauses he will see what I was referring to. I do not wish to be led off on to the origin of the Declaration; I wish rather to urge that it is disastrous to British interests, that it has been modified and altered in many respects, and that there can be no object in British trade having shackles imposed upon it by any remains of that Declaration. Why does not the Government now provide for the

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      confiscation of enemy goods captured? It can do that under the Order in Council of 11th March, 1915, but it rarely does it and I should like to know why. I will not say a fear of neutrals, but, as I think, an excessive regard for the feelings of neutrals has no doubt weighed with the Government in their action in this respect. Instead of proceeding under the pre-existing law which governed in all these cases prior to The Hague Convention and' the Declaration of London, they have endeavoured to effect their object by concluding agreements with the different Powers concerned. Those agreements are not concluded with the neutral States themselves, but with subjects of those States, and there is no guarantee that those agreements are not for the benefit of such neutral subjects. It is extremely improbable that they are concluded solely for the benefit of this country. Does the Cabinet or the Admiralty sanction these agreements? The Admiralty was certainly no party to the agreement made in the case of Denmark. I do not know why this method of dealing with this subject should be preferred, rather than that of trusting to our own Prize Courts. Why are we only detaining neutral and not enemy goods? Why do we only sometimes detain enemy goods instead of generally?
      It seems to me that our delegates, in concert with those of other nations, at The Hague Convention had instructions to handicap the British nation so as to reduce us to a position of equality, or almost of equality, with lesser naval nations. I submit that the Declaration and the two Orders in Council under it might now with advantage be withdrawn. If I liked I could bombard my Noble Friend with these articles, clauses, and provisions, but I hope he will admit that I have made my general plea clear. I really want to ask him why the Foreign Office cannot own up to it that the instructions given to our delegates at The Hague Convention, to put it mildly, were a mistake and that the action subsequently taken was an error. They admit that the Declaration of London is no good, although they pretended to cling to it after it was practically destroyed in another place, because no sooner did it become confronted with the stress of war than they issued an Order in Council practically abolishing the whole thing. They knocked the whole stuffing out of it. Nevertheless, there are certain
      1788
      articles left which I think prejudice us at the present moment. It is of the utmost importance that the Fleet should be able to exercise the right of search and capture of property without let or hindrance according to all that clear and uncomplicated law which obtained before that era of perfect peace was expected which only ushered in a period of war, extremely likely to last through the lives of this generation. Is it not time then to throw over the whole thing? Would it not be a sign of a glorious repentance? Nobody blames them for taking this view. They did it out of love of peace, it is presumed. Let them now, out of a love of justice and out of a desire to let the country see that the spirit which now animates the Foreign Office is totally remote from that which animated The Hague Convention and the Declaration of London, finally repudiate the Declaration and the two unrepealed Orders in Council which have been issued under it.

      CONSULAR SERVICE AND BLOCKADE.
      6.0 P.M.
      Colonel YATE: The point I wish to bring to the notice of the Noble Lord who represents the Foreign Office here is connected with the condition of our Consular Services. I would like to ask the Noble Lord to tell us what steps have been taken for the training of student interpreters in the Russian language for service as Consuls in Russia, in view of the probable enormous expansion of our trade with Russia at the termination of the present War. I have called attention to this subject more than once, but have never been able to get any reply from the Foreign Office. We have a school for student interpreters in Turkey, where they teach not only Turkish, but also Arabic and Persian. But we have no school established in Russia, although the Russian language is just as difficult to learn as the Turkish. Our trade, too, with Russia is just as important as that with Turkey, and, in fact, at the conclusion of this War, considering that our Russian friends are coming over here and inviting us to trade with them, it is to be hoped that that trade will be enormously expanded and become even more important than the Turkish trade is. I would like to bring to the notice of the Noble Lord the fact that all Russian Consular and Diplomatic officers in the East are specially trained at the Oriental school at Petrograd. We now have the school of Oriental languages under the

      1789
      University of London, where I hope our young men will have opportunities for qualifying themselves for service in the East. But I think we ought to have a school for student interpreters in Russia itself. I trust that the attention of the Foreign Office will be given to this matter. We have an excellent training ground for Consuls in Persia and Arabia in India, and every facility exists there, and no men are better fitted to fill our Consular posts in Persia and Arabia than the officers of the Indian Political Service. Persian chiefs and tribesmen, as I think the Noble Lord is well aware, much prefer to deal with officers of a commissioned service, and it is a great mistake in Oriental countries like Persia to appoint a man to a Consular post who happens for the time being to be in mercantile employ and has not the requisite standing. I may give an instance of what I mean. The British Vice-Consulship at Sultanabad, in Persia, a town which has recently come into great prominence during the late Russian advance, has hitherto been filled by the manager of the firm of Ziegler and Company, who are naturalised Swiss. Their manager, who himself is British, has done excellent service for us there. But the manager at Shiraz is a German, who, I may mention, was not interfered with when the British Consul and community were arrested and compelled to undergo great hardships at the hands of the Germans there. This shows how difficult it is to arrange with managers of mercantile firms to represent this country. At Yezd the British Consul was the representative of the Indo-European Telegraph Company—a warrant officer of the Royal Engineers. My contention is that all the Consular posts in the East and South of Persia should be filled by regular officers of the Indian Political Service. Those in the North and West of Persia are held by Foreign Office nominees, but special care should be taken in the matter of selecting them. In the Persian Gulf ports I honestly admit a certain knowledge of commercial and shipping law is necessary for which special Vice-Consuls should be appointed.
      When I was serving as a Consul-General in the East I often had opportunities of discussing with my foreign colleagues the different conditions of our respective Services. I found that the Russians divide their Diplomatic and Consular Services into two—one for the East and the other
      1790
      for the West. When I asked the reason for that I got the reply, "We require our best men for the East; any fool is good enough for the West." The Noble Lord will no doubt agree that we do not proceed on those lines. We rather seek to secure our best men for the West, and act as though any fool is good enough for the East. In fact, in the British Consular Service we attach more importance to appointments in the West than to those in the East. I submit that our appointments in the East should have greater importance attached to them than they have at the present time. There is another point in which the Russian Service differs greatly from ours. In the East the Russian Diplomatic and Consular Services are one, while, as the Noble Lord knows, our Diplomatic and Consular Services are kept rigidly distinct. Under present conditions, in case of any emergency, the last joint Secretary or Attaché of the Embassy would take charge as His Majesty's representative over the head of the oldest and most experienced Consul-General. What I would suggest is that in the East, except in the seaports, where, as I have said, a certain knowledge of commercial and shipping law is necessary, the Diplomatic and Consular duties are so intermixed that it is difficult to distinguish between them, and I think we might well take a leaf out of Russia's book in this respect and make our Diplomatic and Consular Services more interchangeable. Long Consular service and long Consular experience in any Eastern country should get more recognition than it does at present.
      I should like the Noble Lord to remember that Sir Edwin Pears, in his book entitled "Forty Years of Constantinople," has forcibly brought to notice the difference between the German and British Services in this respect. Discussing the contrast between the German and British Embassies at Constantinople, he used these words:
      "It was made worse than it might have been from the mischievous general rule of our Foreign Office which erects an almost impassable barrier between the Consular and Diplomatic Services, a barrier which I have long desired to break down."
      That book clearly shows how handicapped the British Embassy in Constantinople was. As the Noble Lord will remember, this matter was the subject of a question in this House later on, and he gave, in the course of his reply, a whole string of names of people at Constantinople who had long knowledge of Turkey and with whom our

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      Ambassador was said to be in constant touch. But the Noble Lord must know, as anyone who has ever been inside a British Embassy knows perfectly well, that no Consular official is admitted within those sacred precincts, and Sir Edwin Pears' remarks about the impassable barrier that exist between the two Services are perfectly true. The result is that, in all Eastern countries at any rate, if not in Western, British interests go to the wall. The whole system requires alteration, and unless it is altered British interests will continue to go to the wall. We know that in the commercial world there is a great agitation going on at the present moment for the appointment of a Minister of Commerce. Whether or not one will be appointed, I cannot say, but I do urge that we should in the immediate future pay more attention to our commercial requirements, and, above all, we should join up our Diplomatic and commercial departments more than we do at present.
      Another point which I should like to mention in connection with our Consular Services is the vast number of aliens who now hold office as British Consular officers abroad. Nearly a year ago I asked that at least all persons holding the rank of Consul-General and Consul should in future be British-born subjects. The Noble Lord was unable to give me any assurance on that subject. The question of our Consular Service in neutral countries has come up rather prominently of late, and it was brought to the notice of the Government by my hon. Friend the Member for the Kirkdale Division of Liverpool (Mr. Pennefather) in the form of a question. It was stated by the Noble Lord, in reply, that at the present moment we are only spending .05 of the value of our commerce with America on our Consuls in America, and .07 of the value of our exports to Spain on our Consuls in Spain. That shows how little we spend on this important Service in comparison with our commerce. Further, in our Consular Service in Spain alone there are twenty unsalaried aliens. Out of 111 Consuls and Vice-Consuls in Scandinavia and Holland only eleven salaried and seventeen unsalaried are of British descent, and eighty-three are all unsalaried aliens. I urged upon the Foreign Office the importance of replacing all the unsalaried aliens by salaried Britishers. I have represented more than once
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      the fact that the necessary funds might be obtained for the payment of British Consuls by instituting the system of levying fees for Consular invoice certificates, certificates of origin and legalisation of bills of lading by our Consular officers resident in those countries which levy similar fees in England. The reply I received referred me to the Board of Trade. I honestly believe it is the Board of Trade and not the Foreign Office which has hitherto stood in the way of levying these fees.
      In a letter published in the papers the other day it was stated that the levying of these fees on the same scale as other countries levy them from us would bring in a revenue to the Treasury of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 sterling a year. Whether that is true or not I cannot say. But this I do know, that when I put the question to the President of the Board of Trade the other day he put me off by saying he could not recommend the levying of these fees in view of the considerable additional burden which it would impose on His Majesty's Consular Service. Can one imagine a more futile reply? What are British Consuls for if they cannot levy fees? If any Consulate is overworked an additional clerk for each might easily be added, and it would not cost more than £100,000 out of the £5,000,000 that might be thus obtained. On being pressed the President of the Board of Trade acknowledged that an additional £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 would be welcomed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he added, "Other considerations had to be taken into account." I set to work to try and find out if I could what those other considerations were. What did I find? I found that ten or eleven years ago certain wise acres at the Board of Trade recorded their objections to the levying of these Consular invoice fees, on the ground of their being a detriment to trade and an annoyance to the merchant. But those wiseacres quite forgot that under the present system, by which only foreign Consuls in this country levy these fees, it is the British merchant who has to suffer the detriment and annoyance, while his rival abroad goes scot-free. The sooner the foreign merchant has to pay the same fees and suffer the same detriment and annoyance the better it will be. So far as I can gather, the whole of this time the Board of Trade has been saving foreign merchants at the expense of and to the detriment of British merchants.

      1793
      I look to the Foreign Office to try to set this matter right and no longer to uphold these unpatriotic actions on the part of the officials of the Board of Trade, to say nothing of the necessity of safeguarding the interests of our own revenue. The levy of these fees will provide funds sufficient to enable us to replace those alien unsalaried Vice-Consuls in all these neutral countries by British Commercial Vice-Consuls, who will have nothing to do but to further British trade. I would ask the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs to see if he cannot set about making this change at once. To sum up, I ask, first of all, for a greater combination and amalgamation between the Diplomatic and the Consular Services, especially in Eastern countries. Secondly, I ask for an entire change in the method of appointment in the Diplomatic Service. Those who know anything about the Diplomatic Service know that at the present moment the younger members of that service have neither discipline nor responsibility. On appointment to an Embassy the young diplomatic secretary has nothing to do beyond ciphering and deciphering code telegrams, which is the work of a clerk. He has no initiative and no real responsibility until he is getting on to forty years of age. He has not had the advantage of the discipline of any large public office in his youth, and as he gets on in life we find that he cannot compare in any way with the officers in the Intelligence Departments of the Army and Navy. The Diplomatic Service requires the best men it can possibly get. We want to get them wherever we can, and the wider the range the better. I do not ask the Noble Lord to answer these questions now. I put them before him for consideration in the hope that we may get greater efficiency than we have had hitherto. Thirdly, and finally, I ask that all alien Consuls-General and Consuls should be abolished, that the offices should always be held by British-born subjects, that unsalaried alien Vice-Consuls should be replaced as far as possible by Britishers and that the funds for this should be found by levying the Consular invoice fees which I have suggested. I trust the Noble Lord will consent to take these steps.
      I should like to put one point to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to Somaliland. I have here the last Report, which is brought up to 31st March, 1915, and I notice that it says:
      "The military force of the Protectorate was considerably increased during the year under review in order to
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      protect the friendly tribes from Dervish raids, to keep open the caravan routes and to preserve order in the interior."
      I should like to congratulate the Under-Secretary upon the fact that this has at last been done. Our withdrawal to the coast and the desertion of the friendly tribes that took place three or four years ago was one of the most disastrous and disgraceful acts ever committed by us in our Eastern Empire. Originally we took over all these Somaliland tribesmen from the Egyptian Government in 1884, and the British Government, as the hon. Member will recollect, solemnly guaranteed protection to those tribesmen when we took them over, yet when the Mullah came we basely deserted them. I, for one, shall never forget the despairing letters I received from officers serving in Somaliland at the time, in regard to the manner in which they were ordered to desert the friendlies after the death of the brave and gallant Corfield. By his pluck and gallantry he won a great victory. Had he lived it would have been a great victory. The enemy had fled and our men were left in possession of the field of battle. Had he lived we should have held on. As it was, a disastrous and disgraceful retreat to the coast was ordered. Burao was abandoned and the whole country was left open to plunder. I am thankful to see that that policy of blue funk and panic, that cut and run policy, has been abandoned, and that new and stronger action has been taken. The Report goes on to say:
      "With the military re-occupation of the interior a complete transformation has been brought about in the internal condition of the country, and peace among the various friendly tribes within the protected area has been well established. The Somalis have shown themselves quick to respond to the new order of things, and the settlement of tribal disputes and the return of looted property have been proceeded with apace. It is clear that the establishment of a fair measure of law and order amongst the friendly tribes presents no insuperable difficulty, though the raids of Abyssinian Somali subjects from across the border are apt to lead to disturbances and reprisals."
      That shows the advantages of a strong and forward policy. As to Abyssinian raids, they are mentioned; but nothing is said about the Mullah, and I hope the Under-Secretary will be able to tell us something about him. The military re-occupation of the interior has at once brought peace to the country, and I cannot understand why it was ever withdrawn. I remember when Somaliland was under the Government of India and was administered by the Resident at Aden. It started well, the country was peaceful and contented, the roads were open, and the country was

      1795
      a great source of the supply of food for the garrison at Aden. Then all that was altered. The bad time came. Somaliland was taken away from the Government of India and handed over to the Foreign Office at home. The Foreign Office had no more idea how to rule the country than they had of ruling anything. Finally it was handed over by the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office. That was the last straw. Since then the country has gone from bad to worse, culminating in the final bolt from Burao under the policy of sheer funk. I am glad to think that the Colonial Office has seen the error of its ways, that the country has been reoccupied again, and that we have no longer to hang our heads over the shame of Somaliland being held up as a hideous example to the Eastern world that the British were no longer to be trusted to keep their word. I desire to ask the Under-Secretary a question as to the Military Forces there now. Is our hold over the tribes sufficient to keep down tribal raids and to afford protection against the Mullah or Abyssinian raids? Nothing would consolidate the country so much as a railway. I know that you cannot start a railway now, but I hope before this War comes to an end we may have made arrangements to lay a railway, if it is only a surface line on a 2 ft. 6 in. gauge to Burao, and, if possible, to Bohotle. At any rate, something that will give permanence and show the tribes that we mean to hold and keep the country in proper order.
      I turn for a minute to the Colonial Civil Service. The Under-Secretary may have heard, if he did not know at the time, how a few years ago a young clerk at the Colonial Office, with ten years' service, was sent out to Ceylon as Colonial Secretary to supersede an old and valued servant there, who had no less than thirty-five years' service, and whose right it was to get the promotion. That appointment resulted in a feeling, not only of dissatisfaction and discontent, but of absolute despair throughout the whole Colonial Service. The Colonial Civil Service, after all, is very like the Indian Civil Service. Most Colonial Civil Service men have to pass their lives in unhealthy tropical climates in the Crown Colonies. They are often separated from their wives and children, and do not get very much pay. They rule vast lands in far out of the way places for the honour and glory of England, and a happy and. contented Colonial Civil
      1796
      Service is of the utmost importance. How can we have a happy and contented Service if the men who nave served all their lives in it are superseded by young fellows sent out from home to take the promotion to which these men are entitled? I mention the Ceylon case as the newspapers were full of it at the time and it is public property, but the result was that young men in England were seriously warned not to take Indian or Colonial service in future and told that the Home service was much better, all of which, naturally, tended to lower the status of the Indian and Colonial Civil Services. I hope we shall have an assurance that that sort of thing will not go on in the future. By all means let their be interchangeability between the Colonial Office at home and the Colonial Civil Service abroad, but let it be an interchangeability on equal terms. Let one man be sent out and another taken home of equal standing, but do not send out a young man of ten years' service to supersede the old and experienced man of thirty-five years service. I trust the Under-Secretary will take these matters into consideration and give some assurance to the Service that it will be treated fairly in the future.
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Steel-Maitland):. I should like to answer one or two points which the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Yate) has raised with regard to the Colonial Service. With regard to Somaliland, the hon. Member was perfectly right in thinking that the situation there at the present moment is quite extraordinarily favourable. Indeed, it is quite surprising, considering the amount of unrest existing in so many parts of the world just over the sea at Aden and in many places in the vicinity, that in Somaliland there has been less trouble during the last eighteen months than there was during the many years of the chequered history of that country before. As regards the retreat from Burao, to which the hon. Member refers, at present the sphere of British control extends not only as far as Burao but far inland to places which are as far from the coast as is Bohotle over the the border. For that state of affairs the administration of the present Commissioner is largely responsible. The hon. Member asked me, in particular, questions with regard to the military, the friendly tribes, and the Mullah. At present, so far as the military are concerned, the forces there have got the situation, and—I believe that the Wish is net father to the thought

      1797
      —absolutely in hand, so far as one can humanly say such a thing, and so much so that they are able to give certain facilities in regard to the British operations outside the Somalilanl area itself. With regard to the friendly tribes I think the same holds good. Indeed, it goes even beyond the friendly tribes. In their state of civilisation they have reached a maxim which is observed among much more civilised people, and that is to wait upon the march of events and to jump as the cat jumps. For that reason it is all the more gratifying to note that those tribes which were largely the cause of the trouble in being the support of the Mullah before, and whom he claims semi-paternally as his dervishes, are now by degrees deserting from his cause and intimating that they wish to side with the British Government—that is the tribes to the North. The other tribe to the South, which used to be one of his stand-byes, has in turn been itself so raided by an Abyssinian tribe from across the border that it is hors de combat for the present, even if it wished to commit any depredations. As for the Mullah himself, little has been heard of that interesting personality of late. I have had conversations recently with some of those who have returned from there, and I am told that the fact that he has been quiescent is perhaps less due to any decrease in his mental obliquity than to an increase of obesity, which makes it increasingly difficult for him to get about. But at the same time, as far as we know his resources in men and in camels have decreased. Not only therefore has he been quiescent, but there is every reason to suppose that his power is broken or is at any rate much less than it was before and more easily coped with. I do not think it is possible to say anything further, because while it is difficult to prophesy at any time the Mullah himself is a peculiarly unreliable subject for prophecy. At any rate that is the whole state of the information so far as we have it at present. As regards a railway, that is a development which is not yet contemplated. Of course, it is always an advantage if you can have a light railway, but I am afraid that is one of those developments which must be left to the not immediate future.
      I now turn to the remarks which my hon. Friend (Colonel Yate) has made with regard to the Colonial Civil Service, mentioning in particular an appointment
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      in Ceylon. There I must say quite distinctly that I entirely differ from nearly every word that he has said. Quite obviously it is to the advantage of any Government Department to do its best to see that the various claims of the officers under its administration should be scrupulously regarded. Obviously it is the best and it is the easiest course for the Department. But when my hon. Friend proceeds to suggest that any Government Department should always regard the number of years service and the ordinary expectation of office, it is there that I would part company with him entirely. No doubt any sensible Department would pay—and I can claim it in this present case—quite scrupulous care to the claims, to the capacities, and abilities of the various officers who are charged with administration. But to say that it is not right to give particular office or advancement under particular circumstances for pronounced ability or for other special reason would, I think, be running contrary to the true interests of the whole of the service. My hon. Friend mentions a particular appointment. Though he did not speak to me of this beforehand, and I did not know the question was going to be raised, I know perfectly well that that particular appointment was not for one single moment dictated by any idea of favouritism of any sort or kind whatsoever. I have heard criticisms during the past year from the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Cheshire with regard to what he considered to be faults of administration in the Straits Settlements, and how a particularly firm hold was not kept there, and he alleged that lack of firmness was partly responsible for the outbreak which took place. I put it to the hon. Member, Does that not mean that while in general it is perfectly natural and right to advance officers by seniority, yet for given reasons you have got to pick out men of capacity who are most suited to the circumstances? And if I were asked on my own responsibility, I should say that when it comes to conditions that need men of particular capacities I should, without the least hesitation whatsoever, make just such an appointment again, because I believe it entirely warranted by the circumstances. That does not in the least detract from the general wish of any Department to do equal justice, but I submit that it is for the benefit, of the service as a whole and of the country

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      that, just at a time when you want particular capacity to be given its full scope, that should be done freely and absolutely without reservation as circumstances require it.
      Commander BELLAIRS: I am afraid my hon. Friend (Sir J. D. Rees) will draw on himself a reproof which I drew from the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs some time ago when I mentioned the question of the Declaration of London. He said I had not got rid of my pre-war mind. I shall endeavour to avoid that reproof again, but I am bound to point out that the Foreign Office undoubtedly hampered us in this War by their adoption of the Declaration of London in the first instance. The effect of that was that we issued a prize manual to the British Navy in 1914 embodying all the worse features of the Declaration of London. This we subsequently rectified. You will find, in addition, that in consequence of our affirmation of the Declaration of London the Germans in November raised the question that we were violating its conditions. Of course, the Foreign Office had a complete answer. The Declaration of London was in precisely the same condition as treaties which had not been ratified by the Senate, and that was the position. But it led to many delays. Nearly all the delays which have taken place, such as in making cotton contraband, have been due to that Declaration. When one contrasts what was done by Lincoln when he declared a blockade within seven days of the declaration of war, I am afraid the record of the Foreign Office is deplorable. It took, I think, three and a half months before they seized enemy reservists. It took ten months before they used the weapon of our coal exports against Sweden and Denmark and Norway to encourage them to help us in our efforts to blockade. It took thirteen months before they declared cotton contraband, though, of course, I know the Foreign Office contend that they were interfering with cotton long before they made it contraband; and, finally, it took seventeen months before we dealt with the mails, which was one of the special things in the Declaration of London, and before we dealt with ships which were masquerading under neutral flags. I do not know whether that question of German ships under neutral flags is in a satisfactory position even now. I attribute all these delays to the Declara-
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      tion of London. What I think my hon. Friend is pleading for is a real blockade, in which you apply all the penalties of blockade, including the confiscation of the ships and cargo, as was done by the Americans in the Civil War. He pointed out that it was by applying the full rigour of our sea power that we brought Napoleon's domination of the Continent TO an end. It might be equally well pointed out that by applying the full rigour of sea power and blockade Lincoln brought the American Civil War to an end. If, for instance, Russia had been hampered in the Black Sea by contiguous neutral territories passing things through to Armenia I doubt very much whether Erzerum would have fallen. The fact of the matter is that, there being no neutral territories through which the Turkish army could be supplied, Russia was able to interfere with the shipping and cargoes which went into Turkish Armenia. If we were only to extend the doctrine of continuous voyage as it was carried out by America we should be able to interfere very considerably with these neutral countries in the same way. I know the Foreign Office say there are very considerable risks. In fact, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster reproved us the other day, and said that we critics who want this rigorous blockade carried out know perfectly well the reasons why the Foreign Office cannot act, and yet we go on criticising them. My answer is that we are not the least impressed by those reasons. I know there is a way of getting hold of Members, and telling them of so called secret risks, and some are silenced by these communications. It is a method which was well known to Cagliostro, who was a bit of a diplomat, I think. He used to say to his friends, "Your soul is attuned to mine, and I will make you participator in all my secrets," and there are a great many Members who share the secrets of the Foreign Office. But so far as I have heard the reasons, I am not the least bit impressed by them. They consist in this, that there are certain risks to this country if we were to take more drastic action with the neutrals, as is perfectly true. But I think the Foreign Office have a way of estimating the risks to ourselves without balancing them sufficiently against the risks of the enemy. I hope there will be great changes consequent upon the appointment of a Minister of Blockade. Everyone hopes for great things from my Noble Friend, but so long as we go on in the way we are going on we shall continue

      1801
      to say, although the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs objects to our saying so, that the Navy is hampered in its efforts. In fact, I would say the Navy is being made the shuttlecock of political expediency.
      There is one other point that I wish to raise, and that is that as we are applying this system of trusting to the neutrals, we ought to have sufficient people to watch our interests in those neutral countries. We have a Danish agreement. We have these changes coming one by one, and each time we are told that is finality. I myself cheered the Prime Minister for all I was worth last March when he made that declaration that it was our intention to prevent goods of all kinds from going into Germany or coming out. I was very much impressed, but in a few months we found it was not the case. I was a little impressed with what I could hear about the Danish agreement, but I very much fear these things are like what happened once when a great sculptor was employed to make a statue of snow. He made a beautiful statue but it melted away, and I fear this Danish agreement may come to the same fate. It must depend to a large extent on whom we have to watch over our affairs. When I come to look up the lists of our representatives in Denmark, I find that we have three Consuls in Copenhagen, but outside Copenhagen we have only one Consul who is of British nationality. At Aarhus, which is the capital of Jutland, a very great port and a great city which has double railway tracks into Germany and steamship lines going to Germany, there is no British Consul, and we are represented by a Dane. We should take our courage in both hands, and demand from these neutrals the right to be represented by Consular authorities in the same way as Germany. That would, I think, satisfy most of us. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was very curt with me when I asked a question about Lord Faringdon's Report. I think we are entitled to ask how long Lord Faringdon spent in Copenhagen. He only went to Copenhagen, and as a result of his Report we are told that of the trade that goes into Denmark very little is passing into Germany. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs said his only object in keeping the Report secret was to prevent the important information in it getting into the hands of the Germans. I have seen the Report. It is very contradictory. It abounds with buts and its, and in one
      1802
      part it certainly contradicts the statement that very little is passing into Germany, that is is regard to cargoes that go to Malmo. As a matter of fact, Lord Faring-don, whose great ability we all recognise as well as the high prestige he possesses in the business world, only spent five days in Denmark. He never went out of Copenhagen. That is not enough to enable him to pronounce on such a question. I think it requires the evidence of many Consuls who have resided there for a considerable time.
      My hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Yate) has raised the question of Consuls and their relation to the diplomatic service. The Consuls are under the direction of the diplomatic service, but my information is that Consuls in Denmark are not allowed to visit the ports and watch the destination of cargoes. The British Ministers will not allow them to do it. I do not see how the Foreign Office can ever hope to get proper information under such circumstances. I understand they rely to a considerable extent on the head of the Danish United Shipping Company for information. The head of that company controls 135 steamers which trade largely between Denmark and Germany. What makes me suspicious as to his information is that while Norway has lost twenty-six steamers from mines and torpedoes, the Danish United Shipping Company, with 135 steamers, has lost two, and that was at the beginning of the War. That might have happened then as a lesson in German frightfulness, and after that my belief is that he became to a very great extent the obedient slave of Germany, at any rate this company has succeeded although the dangers threatened are much greater than the dangers threatening the Norwegian ships in carrying on its steamship trade without losing a single steamer since then. However much we may trust to Denmark to furnish us with information as to what is passing to Germany, I would much rather rely on the efforts of our Consuls, if we are not to have the complete efforts of our Navy available. I would like to see our Consular staff in Denmark considerably increased. We have a complete right to be represented in Denmark on the same scale as Germany is represented there Until you insist on your rights it will continue to be the case that in Denmark, in the view of foreigners, in the view of Danes, of Englishmen and Germans, that Germany occupies the bed of honour and England the truckle bed.
      Mr. PENNEFATHER: I should like to associate myself with many of the remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friends who have spoken on the Consular service. I would particularly like to draw the attention of the House and of the Government to a resolution which was passed at a great meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce held in London last week, which was honoured by the presence of the Colonial Secretary and other distinguished persons. The resolution was as follows:
      "That the present Consular arrangements are not of an adequate nature and that steps be taken to re-organise the Consular service with a view to providing better facilities for the maintenance and expansion of the trade of the Empire."
      That was passed unanimously by that great gathering of business men. The necessity for that resolution is borne out by the fact that the Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade, which has recently issued a report under the heading of "Consular Service," says:
      "The organisation of the Consular service should be dealt with so soon as possible after the completion of the report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, with a view to an increase of its commercial utility."
      The Royal Commission has reported, but the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) told me to-day apparently it is not possible during the War to take any notice of its recommendation. Therefore, we have a distinct conflict between the views of the commercial community, represented by the Associated Chambers of Commerce, supported by the Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade, and the views held by the Foreign Office. From the point of view of the commercial men of this country it is because we are at war, and because the War is changing everything, that it is absolutely necessary now that we should make a fresh start and look at our Consular Service in the light of the experience which we have gained in this War. The main points of complaint, so far as I can gather from the commercial community, are these: (1) That a Consular career, although it has been somewhat improved as a result of recommendations from the Chambers of Commerce, does not yet offer sufficient inducements to the class of men best calculated to serve national commercial interests, the prizes being few, the promotions slow, and the pay on the whole poor; (2) that the Consulates are frequently understaffed, with the result that the Consuls are too busy with the other details of their office to devote sufficient time to what ought to be their main duty,
      1804
      namely, the maintenance and expansion of British commerce; (3) that there are too few salaried and too many unsalaried Consular officers, and that these unsalaried officers are far too often persons not of British nationality, but whose national and personal interests are frequently opposed to British national interests, and that this, so far from being economical, is merely being penny wise and pound foolish.
      I will endeavour to make these points good. I need not dwell upon the question of a Consular career being somewhat unattractive as compared with other careers, because I think that every Report of every Committee and every Commission which has dealt with this subject in recent years has admitted that fact, and that every one of these Reports has contained some suggestion for making the Service more attractive. At the present day it is still found not to be sufficiently attractive to gather ino the Consular Service men who are best suited to further the interests of this country commercially abroad. It is more than ever important now that we should draw into the Consular Service men of the right class who are likely to be useful, because we all know that after the War is over it will be more than ever necessary for us to keep up the volume of our exports, and that we shall have not only to meet the old competition, but we shall have to meet serious competition in new quarters. As regards the under-staffing of Consular offices I do not need to say much. Every commercial man who has been abroad and who has been brought into close contact with our Consulates is aware of the fact that these Consulates are very frequently understaffed. If the Foreign Office will look at their records I think that they will find that year after year they have received complaints on this very point from our Consular officers themselves. The third point, which is really the most important point, is one which has been touched upon by both my hon. and gallant Friends. Before the War, out of 653 of our unsalaried Consular representatives abroad, no less than 268, or 45 per cent., were of foreign nationality. Out of these 268, 44 were Germans or Austrians. In answer to a question which I put to the Noble Lord to-day he informed me that in 1913 in Germany, among our unsalaried Consular officers, of whom there were 37, 8 were of British nationality and 29 were of German nationality. How can we expect that the Consular Service

      1805
      is going to do what it ought to do for this country if we find that in that one country alone no less than 29 out of 37 of our Consular officers were of German nationality? How could you expect that these men were going to push British interests as against German interests? It is incredible!
      I went into a British Consulate in Germany two years ago. The Union Jack was flying over the building, and I wanted information with the object of diverting some commerce from German channels into British channels. I asked to see the Consul. I may say that I had a special introduction to the Consul from the Foreign Office and to the Consuls generally. I was shown into a private office, and a very urbane German gentleman came in to see me and informed me that he was the British Consul there. It was absolutely impossible for me even to broach to that man the object of my visit. How could I ask him to assist me in diverting trade from German channels into British channels? Therefore I did not broach the subject at all. He was very affable. He gave me a cigar, which was a very bad one, but it was very much better than his information, because on certain points which I addressed to him he gave me information which to my knowledge was absolutely erroneous. I do not know that I could blame him. He knew that I was a Britisher trying to further British interests at the expense of Germany, and although he was the British Consul by name, and entitled to wear British uniform, he naturally was not going to give away the interests of his nationality in order to benefit British nationality. There is another case with which the Noble Lord is familiar. It is the case of a certain neutral merchant in a neutral country who had on his letter-paper, "Imperial German Consul" and underneath "British Vice-Consul."
      7.0 P.M.
      And this particular Vice-Consul was actually trading with Germany six months after the War began! As long as we rely upon economy of that kind we are certainly not studying economy in the broad national sense; we are merely saving a £100 here and there, and losing thousands of pounds in making these paltry savings. The Noble Lord, in replying to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Melton (Colonel Yate) yesterday, gave information in regard to the Consular Service in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, from which it would appear that for every
      1806
      British Consular servant we have three of foreign nationalities. I believe that we have been trying in past years to run our Consular Service too much on the cheap. We all know that the things that are cheap are very often nasty. We have got the cheapness, and I think we have some of the nastiness.
      As an example of how cheaply we try to do these things, losing sight of efficiency thereby, I may mention what my hon. and gallant Friend has referred to already, that is the answer which the Noble Lord gave a few weeks ago when I asked what was the percentage of the cost of our Consular Service in America as compared with the value of our exports to that country. His reply was that it was .05 per cent.; in other words, the cost of our Consular Service amounts to 1s. for every £100 of our exports to that country, or, to put it in other words, the cost was the twentieth part of 1 per cent. I submit that is too cheap and that it might pay us very much better to increase these minute percentages if thereby we could increase the volume of our trade with those countries. The Noble Lord said, in answer to another question to-day or yesterday, that Britishers have been and will be appointed so far as is possible at all places where their presence is necessary. Who is to be the judge as to how far it is possible to appoint a British Consul in a place, and who is to be the judge as to whether it is necessary? Are the Government going to consult the British merchants, the men who know? Because, after all, the Foreign Office are not always in a position to say whether it is or is not necessary or possible to appoint a British Consul in a certain place, and I have never yet heard of the Foreign Office making any inquiry from responsible mercantile bodies in this country as to whether it is possible or necessary to appoint British Consuls in these various places.
      I should like to show how important it is that we should have reliable British officers in these various salaried or unsalaried positions in as many places as possible. Very good work is being done by the Commercial Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade. They issue to those who pay a subscription of a guinea a year what are called Special or Confidential Reports. I think that there are between two and three thousand subscribers, which shows what a desire there is for such information in this

      1807
      country. Two or three thousand people pay a guinea a year, not for the privilege of getting the Board of Trade Journal, but for the privilege of getting these special reports; and if a merchant in this country wishes to investigate any problem abroad, he can, if he subscribes to the Intelligence Department, put in an inquiry which is sent from the Board of Trade to the Foreign Office and then goes out to the Consul of the country affected, and that Consul in a very large number of cases has to pass this inquiry oh to these unsalaried Vice-Consuls or unsalaried Consuls. And the reply which comes back to this country is based in the large majority of cases on the information which is given by these unsalaried officers; and here again we come to the point that if these unsalaried officers are foreigners, if they have no particular interest in this country, if they are more largely interested in the welfare of other countries, then the information which comes back to this country is tainted at its source. It may not only be valueless, it may be absolutely misleading; and the two or three thousand people who pay their guinea a year for these special reports are, in a certain number of cases, undoubtedly receiving reports which are not calculated to assist the British trader, but are calculated very likely to keep him out of the way or put him on the wrong track.
      For instance, take those twenty-nine Germans to whom I have referred, who were Consular officers in Germany. Does any sane man suppose that during the last five or ten years these men have sent home to this country information which is likely to be of any great service to this country or to the detriment of Germany? Knowing what we know, can we believe that such a thing is likely? It is incredible, and has been such a blot upon the Consular Service that it must be taken into very serious consideration by the proper people. This question of the Consular Service has never been taken into consideration by the proper people. By the proper people I mean men who understand the international trade of this country, men who do business abroad, who know the various markets, and who know what is required. Consider for a moment the composition of the Royal Commission on Civil Service which was appointed in 1912. The Report of that Commission was made up at the begin-
      1808
      ning of the War, and was, I think, issued on the 14th October, 1914. That Royal Commission had to inquire into the whole of the Civil Service, and as to very many branches of the Civil Service it was no doubt an excellent Commission. But was that Royal Commission one which any reasonable person could suppose was calculated to form a correct opinion as to the requirements of British merchants in foreign countries?
      I do not propose to offer any opinion, but merely to read out, very briefly, how that Commission was constituted. It consisted of one bishop, one duke, three eminent lawyers, an eminent physician, a railway manager, an ex-Colonial Secretary, two university professors, two labour leaders, two ladies, two shipowners, one person whose occupation I have been unable to trace, and two permanent officials. Does it not seem ludicrous that the question of Consular Service should be submitted to be adjudicated upon by a Commission of those very eminent people who no doubt have a very wide knowledge of everything except this one subject which is of such great importance to commercial men of this country? In conclusion, I may ask the Noble Lord a very definite question, to which I hope he will be able to give a definite and favourable reply Will the Government enter into consultation with the Associated Chambers of Commerce in regard to appointing as soon as possible a Committee of business men conversant with the requirements of British commerce in all parts of the world in order that they may draw up a considered report as to changes, if any, which should be made in the Consular Service in the light of the experience of this War, and with the object of using the Consular Service in the best way in the national interests of this Empire as a whole?
      Lord R. CECIL: My hon. Friend who has just sat down has concluded his valuable speech by asking me a very definite question, and he is perfectly entitled to an answer. I may remind him that he had not told me that he was going to ask me that question, and therefore I am afraid that it would not be right for me to give him as definite and as clear a reply as I could wish to. I will say this at once on my own responsibility, that the suggestion which he makes appears to me to be extremely valuable, and though it would not be right for me to say that the Government will act upon it immediately, I will certainly convey my own favourable

      1809
      opinion to those with whom the final decision must rest. I agree, generally speaking myself, that great changes will have to be made as the result partly of the changes produced by the War, and partly as the result of the experience which this War has forced upon us. I myself feel that it would no longer do to act as if it was possible to proceed upon the theory that trade is a matter with which Governments have no concern, and that the less they interfere with it the better. That was the theory on which we proceeded for many years. But I am convinced myself that we cannot proceed nowadays upon that theory to the extent which we have proceeded upon it in times past. I have no doubt that as part of the change which we shall have to make we shall have to make very considerable changes in our Consular Services. It would be quite easy for me to point out various matters as to which I could meet the criticisms of my hon. Friends. I could point out that the amounts of the rewards that we give to our Consuls, though they may not be very great are yet not markedly inferior to those which obtain in other Departments of the Civil Service, and I could say a great deal about under-staffing, too. I could even say something about allegations that there are too few salaried and too many unsalaried officers. I prefer to, say quite frankly that I think that a great many changes must be made. And as I prefer to make that broad admission I think that it is not worth my while or the while of the House to examine in detail the particular matters whch have been mentioned by my hon. Friend. The only thing I do say is this, I think that any Government which has to consider these changes must make up its mind as to what it desires from its Consul My hon. Friend who has just spoken thinks that it is a great mistake to treat Consuls as part of the Diplomatic Service. It is his suggestion, I think, that the Foreign Office should have nothing to do with it.
      Mr. PENNEFATHER: I did not suggest that. What I desired was to express my commiseration with the Foreign Office on the fact that at a time like this, when they are so busy, they are burdened with the Consular Service.
      Lord R. CECIL: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend, but it is a great difficulty, even on a subject of such importance to the country, to deal with
      1810
      it at a time like the present, and I think he will recognise that it is almost impossible to expect any Department of the Government to initiate great changes at this time. Another suggestion which has been made is that we should consult and collect information in order to make those changes at the end of the War. I speak with great deference in the presence of my hon. Friend, but I think it is a mistake to regard our Consuls as a kind of glorified commercial traveller. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I think he will agree with me, further, when I say that they ought to be officers of the Foreign Commercial Intelligence Department of the Government. They ought to be officers to collect and to co-ordinate all the information which is serviceable and available to the traders of this country. They ought not to inquire with a view to pushing a particular trader's interest; they ought to be machinery by which information and knowledge is acquired for our trading purposes. If we are once agreed upon that as our object, I quite agree with my hon. Friend—within the limits placed upon us by the Treasury—that it is desirable that we should have more Consular officers, that their prospects should be better, and that their pay should be better. I cannot promise that it will be so, but it is a matter which will be considered. I think if we provide a greater number of Consuls they ought to be able to devote their whole time to the commercial public, and we might have a trade commissioner or superior officer in the various countries dealing with the Consular Service, and we ought undoubtedly to provide for some system of Consular inspection. Speaking for myself, I am quite confident that anyone who undertakes to carry out any changes on these lines will be very foolish unless he takes account of commercial authorities, and avails himself of their knowledge, experience, and reports, which I am quite sure the Government, whatever may be said of it, are always ready to do. In connection with the Consuls my hon. and gallant Friend made some observations about our want of Consuls in the Scandinavian countries.
      Commander BELLAIRS: Denmark.
      Lord R. CECIL: Denmark? I will look into that again; but I must remind my hon. and gallant Friend that it is not true to say that the Government have altogether neglected that matter. We have increased very largely the diplomatic staff

      1811
      in all those countries, and although it may be true of this important place, Denmark—I do not wish to throw any doubt upon it at all—yet I think he will agree that the trade of Denmark is undoubtedly in Copenhagen, and the great national oversea trade with which we have to deal goes through Copenhagen. I have not got the figures, but I think it will be found that the proportion which goes through Copenhagen is overwhelming compared with that through any other port in that country. In regard to Copenhagen, we have increased our diplomatic staff, and added to it a number of people well qualified and of ability. Quite recently several appointments have been made; we have appointed a commercial adviser there of considerable experience, and not drawn from the diplomatic service at all. Our commercial interests are now in thoroughly capable hands. I will look into the matter again and see whether there are any further appointments to be made. We have, of course, been guided very largely by the views of our representatives there, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we have not stinted these appointments at all, and wherever any particular appointment has been recommended, we have hastened to make that appointment without delay.
      I now pass to the familiar question of what we are doing with reference to the blockade. That fell into two main parts, or rather the topic was put in two different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham (Sir J. D. Bees) and the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) apparently regard as the fountain of evil the Declaration of London. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham made a number of detailed criticisms, to which I venture to make some reply. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not think me discourteous if I say that I do not think he really has fully appreciated what is the nature of the Declaration of London. The Declaration of London is; for the most part, overwhelmingly the most part, a restatement of the rules of international law which were perfectly familiar and agreed upon by all authorities on the subject before the Declaration of London.
      Sir J. D. REES: Before the Declaration of Paris?
      Lord R. CECIL: No; the Declaration of London is intended to be a codification of
      1812
      international law as it existed at that date, and not before the Declaration of Paris.
      Mr. DENNISS: It was more than a codification; it was an alteration.
      Lord R. CECIL: I am merely stating what was intended by the Declaration of London. Though there were some very important changes introduced, we are now, I think, all of us agreed—I believe the greater part of us—that they were changes for the worse. I think we are all agreed about that. But a large portion of the articles to which the hon. Member for Nottingham referred are really only a restatement—that is my impression; I do not know, but it is intended to be, so far as I know, only a restatement—of the rules of international law, which are quite apart from the Declaration of London. I do not want to particularise, but we may take, for instance, the doctrine about the interruption of that part which deals with blockade. All those articles are intended, and I believe the most part are—I say that generally, and I do not want to commit myself—to be a restatement of the ordinary rules which you will find in any text-book.
      Sir J. D. REES: But there is a restatement purporting to be a statement of the existing law as altered by the Declaration of Paris. My object was to claim that the alterations made by the Declaration of Paris were subsequent, and the restatement, therefore, is an erroneous one.
      Lord R. CECIL: That is an entirely different point and was not made by my hon. Friend in his speech, and it is not a point which bears upon this question. The Declaration of Paris no longer binds us, so far as Germany is concerned, bat no one will contend for a moment that anything which has been done makes the Declaration of Paris less vital between us and neutrals. Perhaps I might put it a little stronger, but at any rate that is the purport of what is the position between ourselves and neutrals in regard to the Declaration of Paris, and other matters of that sort. I think it unfortunate that any hon. Member in this House or elsewhere should indulge in any statements that this country ought not to be bound by the rules of international law or anything of that kind. It produces the worst possible impression, and it makes it absolutely necessary for a Minister to get up and say, as I do say, that I entirely disagree with

      1813
      the proposition, and it really does not advance the hon. Member at all. I do venture to ask hon. Members to recollect how closely their words are scanned in quarters of which, perhaps, they have not the least idea, and when they speak in this House there is no doubt they are speaking to people in other countries. I am not talking about Germany. There are neutral countries where they are very closely watching us, and it is of the very greatest importance that nothing should be said, even by private Members of this House, which might add to the great difficulties which already rest upon the Government in dealing with neutral countries.
      Let me pass to the broad question which my hon. Friend desires to put. He desires the definite abandonment of the Declaration of London. I have constantly told the House that, in my view, the Declaration of London is an instrument which has no binding force whatever. The position with regard to this country is that certain parts, only certain parts, were selected at the outbreak of the War by the Government of the day as embodying what they believed to be the principle of international law applicable to belligerent conditions, and believing that to be the case they have agreed, and they think it a convenient form, to refer to the Declaration of London as embodying it. But the Government never intended—at any rate, this Government does not intend—to be bound by the Declaration of London, apart from and so far as it differs from the principle of international law which prevailed at the outbreak of the War. I very much doubt, and it is very much doubted by lawyers, whether the issue of an Order in Council that the Government intend to adopt the Declaration of London would bind the Prize Court, and it is a matter of great doubt, in point of fact, if that Declaration contained principles and doctrines which were not in accordance with the principles of international law. But I cannot make it too clear whether that is so or not, the policy of the Government is to abide by the principles of international law whether they are in favour of or against us, and to adhere to them, and them only, and it is only so far as the Declaration of London embodies those principles that they have any intention of being bound by its provisions.
      Commander BELLAIRS: I trust my right hon. Friend does not exclude the ex-
      1814
      tension of the law to meet new conditions brought about by modern inventions and changed conditions?
      Lord R. CECIL: Of course I do not That is why I used over and over again the words "principles of international law." The subject is so delicate and so dangerous that I am anxious not to say too much.
      Commander BELLAIRS: That is all I want
      Lord R. CECIL: If they are changes in principles, they ought not to be made, but if they are merely applying the principles to new conditions, that is not a change. All English lawyers are profoundly familiar with that. It is just as the ordinary growth of case law. You have your principle of law which is applied to the particular circumstances of each case, and the rulings thereupon being made make new definitions of the principle of law, which none the less always existed before those decisions. That is what I intended to convey, and that is, I think, the only sound view. Whether it would or would not be right to make a change in the form of our Orders in Council adopting the Declaration of London seems to me a matter well worthy of consideration. I hope my hon. Friend will not think me impertinent if I say that his speech convinces me that there is so much profound misapprehension on the subject that it may be well worth while to put the matter more clearly than it has been put up to the present. I do not mean it as any insult to him, but when a Gentleman of his knowledge and attainment can misread the position of affairs so completely, as I gather from his speech he has done, then it is obvious that many other people must have fallen into a like mistake and therefore it is a matter well worthy of consideration, of course after consultation with our Allies, whether it would be desirable to restate in some form or other the Orders in Council so as to avoid those misapprehensions.
      Let me say a word about the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs). I was very sorry to hear him say that the Navy was hampered. I have had the opportunity of seeing all the Orders to the Fleet, and I can find no trace of any such hampering. The hon. and gallant Gentleman recommends what he calls a "real blockade." I hate those general phrases. I wish he could tell me exatly—I do not mean now, but at some other time—

      1815
      what it is he means. If it means that we are to prohibit all commerce going to and coming out of neutral countries, that is a policy which I am quite sure this House would never sanction and no Government would propose. If he means the definite blockade of German ports in so far as it is practicable, and I agree it has never been declared in so many words, then that is in existence at the present moment. I am not quite sure what is meant by this phrase of a "real blockade." I do know that such legal opinion as I have been able to consult agrees with my own impression that to make any Declaration of Blockade, as we should have to do under the ordinary rules of international law, defining the limits and showing where the line of blockade was to be, if we attempted to do anything of that kind I think we should find ourselves in much greater legal difficulties than we find ourselves in at the present time. I do not see that we should get anything whatever by doing so. My hon. and gallant Friend said. Why not apply the doctrine of continuous voyage? We have applied it and worked it, and it is the very foundation of the whole of the action which we have taken. You cannot blockade an enemy through a neutral country except by the operation of that dectrine. Our plan is to arrest all com merce of Germany, whether going in or coming out, whether it comes through a neutral port or a German port; that is the whole object and the whole difficulty of our position. We have to discover for certain what is German and what is neutral commerce. I cannot understand what more you can do by blockade—
      Commander BELLAIRS: Without dealing with the matter as a whole, may I ask why does not the Government carry out the practice of confiscating the ships and cargo that they are entitled to confiscate? That is the great deterrent.
      Lord R. CECIL: If you were to declare a blockade on a fixed line you might confiscate any ship that broke the blockade, but, after all, your object is to destroy enemy commerce if you can do that without running such risks as we would run in the other case. As far as exports are concerned, where we know what German trade really is, it is much easier to ascertain, and we have in fact stopped substantially the whole of the German overseas export trade. It is not our instrument that is ineffective. The difficulty is
      1816
      to know exactly what German trade is, and as far as the greater part of it is concerned the whole of the goods now are seized and confiscated. Therefore, you would gain nothing except the chance of being able to confiscate a few more ships. I cannot think that that would be a wise policy or a policy that would really facilitate the operations. I am quite sure of this, if you were to adopt any such policy you would only increase the difficulties under which you are working without increasing at all the facilities for arresting German commerce.
      This I will say in conclusion: The vital thing is to succeed in stopping German commerce. I believe we have a perfect right to do that by every principle of international law. I believe it is perfectly legitimate for a belligerent to cut off all commerce from his enemy and to destroy and injure it by economic pressure exerted to the fullest extent quite as much as by any military operation. I am sure it is not only a legitimate and effective but that it is also a humane method. I am quite sure that since this country has the power to exercise it this country ought to do so to the full. With that I think we ought to combine absolute respect for the rights of other nations. We ought to set an example of law-abiding and just treatment even of the smaller nations, and I believe myself that that policy, which I am convinced is right and in accordance with the best principles of British conduct in the past, is also the wisest and effective policy if we desire to carry out the main object of all these operations, namely, the destruction of the power of the enemy.

      TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.
      Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: I had given notice of an Amendment to reduce this Vote, but I have no intention of making any general charge against the whole administration of the Board of Education. I intend only to refer to one comparatively small point which was raised on questions I put to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education yesterday. I asked him whether notice had been given to our local authority and to our technical schools that the Grants made for technical instruction would be decreased this year and that the schools could not expect that the Grants should be made the same as were made last year. The Parliamentary Secretary admitted that that was the case. He said that the Board have informed certain schools that where the number

      1817
      of students has diminished that they must not assume that the Grant for the coming Session will be as much as that for the preceding Session. This was not altogether a satisfactory statement of the case, and I desire to obtain from him more definite information as to the intentions of the Board. In answer to a further question which I put to him, he stated that the Board fully appreciated the importance of maintaining the efficiency of technical instruction, and that since the War broke out they had done their best to meet the various difficulties experienced in carrying on the schools. That was entirely a sympathetic reply to my question, but at the same time these important schools in all parts of the country cannot be carried on by any mere sympathetic reply. What we want instead of that is a promise for adequate funds to meet the requirements of these schools. I have no right to address the House on this question unless I recognise, as I am sure everyone does, the importance of exercising in all our services the greatest possible economy under present conditions. But even in the matter of education, which I think is one of the last of the subjects on which economy should be exercised, I would point out that we are endeavouring to do all we can to practice economy. I myself am a member of one of the largest local education authorities, and I know that much of the business of nearly all our committees and sub-committees consists in seeing in what way we can reduce the expenditure on education without interfering too much with the education of the children and students committed to our care. But even in devising means of economy a certain amount of discretion ought to be exercised, and technical instruction is the last form of instruction on which the hand of the economist should be placed.
      8.0 P.M.
      We all hope that when this War is over we may be able not only to retain the industries which we at present possess, but also to develop other industries equally essential to this country either in peace or in war. We have heard, in the course of an earlier discussion to-day, the rumblings of the old controversy with regard to Tariff Reform and Protection. I am not going to enter upon that subject, but it is generally admitted that if we are to acquire certain new industries it may be necessary to put protective duties upon some imports. What I particularly want to urge is that neither Protection nor prohibitive duties upon our imports will en-
      1818
      able us to retain our present industries, or to acquire new ones, unless we are competent to train an adequate army of skilled artisans to carry out the important work connected with those industries. It is for that reason that I think our technical institutions have the first call on our educational Grants. Even now these technical institutions are rendering very great service to the country. Many of them are training the very skilled artisans who are required for the production of munitions, and others are placing their workshops and laboratories at the disposal of the Government for the absolute production of some of those munitions. Only recently, when the Munitions Department commandeered all the optical instruments in the hands of wholesale or retail dealers, many of the optical instruments were sent to our technical institutions in order that they might be scientifically tested as to their fitness before being acquired by the Government. In a matter of national importance such as this, technical classes should, I think, be adequately maintained and the instruction continued even if the number of students has been reduced, as undoubtedly it must have been by the absence of so many of them at the War. The Board of Education, foreseeing this possible depletion of classes, and recognising the urgent importance of giving adequate training to students in technical subjects, issued in December, 1914, a statement in which they distinctly said:
      "So long as a class is serving a valuable educational function, even though for a reduced number of students, the Board would regard it as regrettable that it should be closed merely for the want of adequate financial support."
      Our local authorities and technical institutions have kept in mind that statement of the Board of Education which, they regarded as a promise, and have consequently retained a number of teachers and kept up a certain number of classes, even although the number of students in those classes was much smaller than previously. The Board of Education, in order to carry out this desire on their part, further amended their own regulations by substituting for payment on student hours—that is to say, the number of students in attendance multiplied by the number of hours they had attended—payment by class hours—that is, the amount of provision made by the local authorities. This means that so long as the local authorities think it important to maintain a class, even although there be few students in that class, so as to

      1819
      provide for the future the Grant will not be reduced, notwithstanding the fact that the number of students has fallen off so much, and payment will be made on the class hours rather than on the student hours. This is exactly what the Board have said in their circular, for after stating the change they have made in their regulations they say:
      "Consequently where an authority has maintained its normal provision of evening class work, in spite of the shrinking in attendance, this Article gives the Board power to avoid any reduction in the Grant."
      Notwithstanding that statement, the Board have intimated to local authorities and technical institutions that they cannot expect the same Grant this year as they received last. In a letter sent by the Board to many of the local authorities as recently as the 11th of last month, with respect to the proposed Grant, they state:
      "It is observed, however, that there was a considerable decline in the number and attendances of students, and if that is continued during the current year, it must not be assumed that the Grant for 1915-16 will be as high as in 1914–15."
      It will be seen that a statement of this kind is in direct contradiction to the circular previously issued, in which it was pointed out that the Grant would not depend on the number of students. Several letters, in which a statement of this kind is made, have been written to local authorities and classes. In another letter, dated the 19th January, it is said:
      "It is observed that there was a great decline in the number of students. If that decline continues during the current year, the authority must not expect that the Grant for 1915-16 will be as high as for 1914–15."
      The worst of it is that these schools, with many of which I am familiar, have already made up their estimates for this year, and many of their commitments cannot possibly be changed. Yet they are told, notwithstanding what is stated in a previous circular, that if, as must be the case, the attendance of students has fallen off, the institutions cannot expect the same Grant as they had in previous years. I would not have brought this matter under the notice of the House, but for the fact that considerable anxiety has been expressed by numbers of these classes. I have recently had placed in my hands the answers to a circular letter which was sent out to a large number of schools by the Secretary of the Association of Technical Institutions. For the information of the House I will read one or two of those replies. One school says:
      "It should be represented to the Board that the revision of the block Grant on the basis of student hours would be manifestly unfair."
      1820
      and it points out that the following charges cannot be reduced and that some of them would even be increased, namely, interest and sinking fund, buildings, fuel-light, cleaning, rates and taxes, expenses of maintenance and administration, and salaries of officers; while, on the other hand, the income which these classes receive from fees is very much reduced by the very absence of the students. Another states:
      "A communication from the Board has been received, notifying a possible reduction of Grant for this session The professor points out that in view of the fact that the Board sanctioned the scheme of classes on the recognition form, it would appear that the Board have a responsibility for the scheme being carried out. In face of this, it hardly seems honourable that they should decrease the Grant."
      Another school says:
      "The committee have written to the Board saying that all possible curtailment of expenditure on such things as repairs, prizes. and even new apparatus, has already been made, and that it is impossible to reduce the expenditure in proportion to the decrease in attendance, and expressing the hope that this will be taken into account and that the Grant will be decreased very slightly, if at all."
      I do not propose to read any more letters, though I have some dozens of them. I understand that the Board have not written to all the schools, but have selected a certain number only. In their letter they refer only to the decrease in the number of students as the reason for diminishing the Grant, forgetting that these classes are being kept up for the students who remain, and that the Grants should consequently be assessed on what is known as class hours instead of student hours. All I wish to do is to express the hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to allay the fear which is at present felt in a large number of schools that they will be unable to maintain their technical classes. I should like to make the right hon. Gentleman clearly realise what I know he understands, that it is extremely necessary, if we are to be able to train skilled artisans in the future, that those who being under military age are left here and attend our classes, even in small numbers, should receive a training so that they may be able after the War to take their place in our skilled industries. This matter, to my mind, is of real national importance, and I do sincerely trust that the Parliamentary Secretary in reply will be able to give such an answer as will satisfy the schools throughout the country, from whom many letters have been received, that they will not be required to close their classes altogether

      1821
      because the number of students has fallen off, but that they may expect, having regard to their commitments, that during the present Session at least they will receive Grants equal to those of the past.
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): There is no one in this House who is better entitled to speak on questions relating to technical education than the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Sir P. Magnus) and the question he has raised is certainly technical in more senses than one. The presence of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General (Mr. Pease), a former President of the Board of Education, reminds me that just before the War he foreshadowed a great scheme for the improvement of technical education, and but for the unfortunate intervention of the War that scheme might by this time have been in progress. There was one point I think I ought to clear up at the very outset of my remarks upon this very question. The hon. Gentleman read a letter which he applied to Clause 5 of the Memorandum of the 11th December, 1914. As a matter of fact that letter has no reference whatever to the Grants which are given for courses under what is known as Article 34 of the Technical Instruction Grants. I think he has rather misunderstood the position on that point. So far as the Grants given under Article 34 arc concerned, there will, as I understand, be no difference this year, and if there is any reduction at all in respect of those Grants it will only be a reduction in respect of the class hours and not of the student hours. That is to say, if the classes are held, those classes will be paid for, unless, of course, they should be classes so extremely small in number that it would be unreasonable to hold them. I therefore hope my hon. Friend will understand that so far as his quotation from paragraph (5) of the Circular of 11th December, 1914, is concerned, he was under some misapprehension. I understood that his point really related to the large technical schools, of which there are 130 in this country, which receive Grants for the greater part of their work under an emergency Regulation, which was made at the beginning of the War, in the form of a block Grant, or a round sum, assessed by the Board under what is known as Article 33 of the Regulations for Technical Schools, That assessment is
      1822
      made after a consideration of the character and the efficiency of the work of the school, as it is known to the inspectors, of the volume of the work, that is to say the number of attendances, the number of students, and the number of hours spent by teachers in giving instruction, as shown by the annual returns, and of the cost of the work as shown by the annual accounts rendered by the school. The schools also get some smaller Grants of a per capita kind for particular courses, mainly for day students, varying according, to the number of students, and are outside the block Grant. I understand, however, that the hon. Gentleman's question really refers to the block Grants. Before the emergency Regulation to which I have already referred, Article 33, was introduced, these schools received Grants based upon what are called student hours, and they were paid according to a very complicated system which was an inheritance of the Board from the old Science and Art Department, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the system was a very unsatisfactory one. The amounts to be paid were calculated in each autumn upon the returns of the amount of work done in a school year, ending on the previous 31st July, and the Grants were ordinarily paid towards the end of the financial year ending on the following 31st March. It is obvious, therefore, that as the number of student hours fluctuated considerably from year to year, no school was at any time in a position to say at the beginning of any financial year, when it was preparing its estimate, what amount of Grant it would receive during that financial year, although it is probable that as the rates of Grant became in the course of time more or less stereotyped, the schools could, so long as the number of students was fairly stable, form a fair guess of what they might expect.
      In the autumn of 1914, after the War had broken out, the Board were faced with two new facts. The first was that their staff had been very considerably depleted, and would no longer be able to carry out properly the calculations upon which the Grants were based. The second was that as the old Grants depended very largely upon the number of students, and the regularity of their attendance, the schools were becoming alarmed at the probable loss of Grants, which would be caused by a loss of students owing to the War, The Board, therefore, obtained authority from the Treasury to substitute block Grants, and

      1823
      on the 11th December, 1914, issued a Circular, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, in explanation of their action. That Circular deals also with the small Grants for evening schools, but these Grants, as I have already explained, are not at the present time in question. The hon. Gentleman has quoted already the main points in that Circular. He has mentioned one point referred to in it, namely, that so long as the class is serving a valuable education function, even though for a reduced number of students, the Board would regard it as regrettable that it should be closed merely for the want of the necessary financial support. Further, it went on to say that it was hoped the Board would be able to deal in a comprehensive and equitable way with the evening class work in the larger and more stable institutions in which much of the work is generally done by a permanent staff who receive fixed salaries, so that even the closure of classes could not be relied upon to restore a financial equilibrium. May I point out, however, that that Circular, which the hon. Gentleman has just quoted, did not contain any promise that the Board in exercising their discretion under this particular Regulation, would in no case reduce the existing Grant to any school during the War. The first Grants under the new Regulation were assessed on the Returns for the last school year before the War, that is to say, the school year ending the 31st July, 1914, and this may roughly be taken as equivalent to the Grants which the school would have got for the same work under the old Regulations. This assessment was completed, and the Grants were paid in January, February and March, 1915, and they, therefore, fell within the financial year 1914–15. During the last few months the Board have been assessing and paying the second series of Grants under the new Regulation, after consideration of the volume and cost of the work during the school year ending 31st July, 1915. In practically every case the same Grant was paid as in the previous year, but the Board have been faced by a new factor, to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded, a factor which has certainly become more material since the Circular of December, 1914, was issued.
      I am, of course, alluding to the urgent need for economy which has been pressed upon the Department. There is a distinction, between economy and retrenchment.
      1824
      By economy I mean good and thrifty management. I do not mean by economy cutting down education in any vital department, and upon that point I am in absolute sympathy with the hon. Gentleman, and in the remarks he made upon that question he was simply preaching to the converted. The attitude of the Board is this: They were anxious that in spite of the difficult circumstances the technical schools should maintain, and if possible increase, their efficiency, and should not be obliged to retrench valuable courses of instruction for which there were a reasonable number of students available merely and simply because the number of students was less than in earlier years. At the same time they knew that the Schools were familiar, when they began their session's work in the. autumn of 1915, with the need for economy which had been pressed upon the authorities responsible for them by a circular from the Local Government Board, and the Board thought it incumbent upon all schools to do whatever was within their power, subject to what I have already-said, to reduce expenses wherever this could be done without really affecting efficiency. In examining the returns of the schools for 1914–15 they found that while in some cases the attendance of the students had fallen off by from 10 to 12 per cent., in other cases they had fallen off by 30, 40, and as much as 50 per cent. Where the falling-off was small they did not suppose that it would leave them much opportunity for economy in the schools which had permanent staffs, and in these cases they simply paid the Grant at its former amount without any comment whatever. The hon. Gentleman said that the letter had not gone to all the schools. As a matter of fact it only went to fifty out of 130 schools in the country. As regards thirty they simply paid the Grant, whatever the reduction had been, without any comment whatever. But in cases where the falling-off had been heavy they considered there was a primâ facie ground for supposing that economies could and ought to have been effected for the year 1915–16. Besides that, they considered that where economies were possible the advantage of them should be divided between the Exchequer and the rates, the two main sources of revenue for the schools. Any other view than that would hardly have been fair to the Treasury, because Grant has grown in the past as the work of the school has grown,

      1825
      and it must be expected to fall as the work becomes less expensive. I say this entirely without prejudice to the general question as to whether the proportion of the cost of advanced technical work, which has hitherto been met out of national as distinct from local funds, has been an adequate one.
      It has been argued that the national contribution has not hitherto been adequate and, so far as the Board of Education are concerned, they entirely agree with that view, and they hope that when the War is over the Treasury will confirm them in that view. But it would obviously be quite wrong for the Board of Education to use an emergency regulation for the purpose of prejudicing a question of that kind. The announcement the Board of Education made to the schools was that where the falling-off in attendance had been anything from 20 to 30, 40, or 50 per cent., it must not be taken for granted that, if this falling-off was again apparent during the current session, the Grant payable after consideration of the returns for that session—that is to say, the Grant which will fall due for payment towards the end of the financial year 1916–17—will be as high as the one just paid; and they warned the responsible authority that, if they had not already done so, they should, as soon as possible, take steps to reduce the annual maintenance expenditure upon the institution. The letters that the hon. Gentleman quoted—and I draw attention to this point—did not convey a final decision of the Board that the Grant to a school will be reduced next year. Further investigation may show that the prima facie grounds for supposing that economies were possible were not in fact justified.
      The hon. Gentleman has just read some letters to the House from representatives of authorities who say, so far as they are concerned, they have done their utmost to effect economies wherever economies have been possible. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, so far as economies of that class are concerned, the representations that they make to the Board will be most carefully considered and taken into account. If an authority can show that all reasonable attempts have been made to effect economy, then the Board will give the fullest attention to the representations. I would add, if it is necessary to do so, that the Board are strongly convinced of the importance of maintaining the standard of technical instruction, even under war con-
      1826
      ditions, and of developing that instruction to the highest possible point as soon as the pressure of external circumstances is reduced. But I want to say one thing in conclusion that may reassure the hon. Gentleman and other Members who take, as I know they do take, a keen interest in this matter, and it is this, that the total amount taken by the Board in their own Estimates for 1916–17, out of which to pay Grants to the large technical schools to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, shows no reduction upon the amount which is being expended in the current financial year, and those interested in the technical schools will perhaps be able to infer from this fact that they are not faced with any prospect whatever of any sweeping reduction.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Is my right hon. Friend referring to the Estimate for a special branch of education—the technical schools;—or to the total Estimate for the whole educational service?
      Mr. LEWIS: No, I was referring to the estimate of the particular matter raised now.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The general Estimate shows reduction.
      Mr. LEWIS: I said nothing with regard to the general Estimate at all. I was confining myself purely to this particular question.
      Sir P. MAGNUS: The right hon. Gentleman's remarks, I take it, only refer to the large schools, and not to the large number of small schools, which are doing excellent work and which feel the pinch perhaps?
      Mr. LEWIS: With regard to these particular schools, as I have already explained, the only possible reduction of Grant that will take place will be in respect of the number of class hours. For instance, if a teacher has gone to the War and the class is not held, naturally there would be no Grant made in respect of that particular class not held. But so long as the class hours—and this, of course, is a very much better system, as I think everyone will agree, than the application of student hours—are maintained, the Grant will also be maintained. I give that assurance, and I think my hon. Friends need feel no apprehension that the Board of Education desire in any way to fetter the working of these admirable institutions. They desire to maintain the spirit of the

      1827
      policy that they have already announced. They are bound, at the same time, to see that in cases where there have been large reductions in the number of students, every proper precaution has been taken that the work is carried on as economically as possible. It is possible that in certain cases amalgamation of classes can be economically effected. It is to considerations of that kind that the Board of Education are addressing themselves. They feel bound to warn the schools, in 'order that, as far as possible, this absolutely essential work in this time of war may be as thriftily done as possible, and that the money allotted for this purpose may be made to go as far as possible under the circumstances.

      PUBLIC SERVICES (ECONOMY).
      Mr. GEORGE TERRELL: I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman on the Government Bench in his remarks about economy, and I feel really that the Government have not the remotest idea what the word "economy" or the word "retrenchment" means. In every Department of the Service we see the same old extravagance to-day which existed in the days of peace. They do not know what economy means, and they do not know how to practice it. They talk about it, but nothing really happens. Now, my object in rising to-day was to offer a few observations on this subject in connection with the Vote which is before the House, and I venture to think that there are items in that Vote which have not been really considered at all. We have large sums of expenditure on the Royal palaces, on the parks and pleasure gardens, and on the Houses of Parliament. Looking through the figures of the Estimates for the coming year, of which the present Vote is the first instalment, we find that there is very little attempt to practice economy in regard to what one would have thought would be the first item—namely, maintenance and repairs. Taking the palaces not in the occupation of His Majesty—St. James's Palace, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court—on maintenance and repairs it is proposed to spend £17,000—a very large sum indeed. On the Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens Vote, there is another huge figure of £81,000 for maintenance and repairs. That does not include the park-keepers and people of that
      1828
      sort, but it is an item over and above all that for maintenance and repairs. One wonders how the money is spent, and one would have thought that in times like the present the repairs would have been limited to the barest necessities, and that everything in the way of maintenance works would have been cut down to the lowest possible limit, and only the repair of such things as a cracked slate or a leaky pipe attended to, while everything else would be allowed to stand over until the War is finished. Look at the Vote for this House. There is an item for the repair of the roof of Westminster Hall upon which it is proposed to spend £10,000. Surely that might have been left until the War is over. You are using skilled labour there which ought to be utilised in the munition factories, and that labour might very well have been diverted to that purpose. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has talked about economy, but when one looks at these Votes and the way it is proposed to spend money at a time when it is so scarce and when labour is so scarce, I feel that the Government do not really understand what economy is, or what retrenchment is. The Government recently appointed a Retrenchment Committee, but it set about its work with its hands tied behind its back, and they were not allowed to look into certain things. The Committee reported that they were restricted and that questins of expenditure on the Army, Navy, and munition services were outside their terms of reference. Another limitation was that they were not allowed to go into the questions of policy already decided by Parliament. In their Report, this Committee says:
      "This latter limitation has precluded us from considering, except in points of detailed administration, some of the most costly services provided for in the Civil Service and Revenue Department Estimates."
      I feel that this huge sum which is being dealt with in the Vote on Account is really a most grave matter. I saw an estimate of the economies introduced into the Civil Service Estimates this year as compared with the Estimates of last year, and it was something like £3,500,000, but that is nothing, and it barely represents the salaries of the members of the service who have enlisted voluntarily or who have joined the Army under the Military Service Act. If that is the limit of the retrenchment which the Government see their way to introduce into the Estimate, then I say they are trifling and playing with the matter, and the sooner they realise that the House and the country

      1829
      is alive to the importance of economy the better it will be for everybody. The Government approach this question of economy with a sort of pruning knife, cutting off a little here and there, but what they want to do is to attack these Estimates with a chopper. That is the only way, and if it is true that economy in our expenditure is going to count as a factor in winning the War, then we should pull ourselves together, and deal drastically with this matter in the financial struggle with which we are faced. My object in rising was only to raise a vigorous protest against the expenditure which is going on and which is proposed in connection with these Estimates, and I trust that the Government will endeavour to do better than they have done in the past in this direction.

      EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN.
      Mr. WING: I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said in regard to an economical chopper, but I rise to compliment the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education for informing us that there is not going to be a chopper used so far as the Education Department is concerned, and I hope that policy will be maintained. I think the last thing we ought to be economical about is the education of our young people. I have specially risen to ask what is to be the policy of the Board of Education with reference to the children who have been called into the various forms of employment. A great demand is being made by a certain class of employers to obtain cheap juvenile labour, and I hope the Board will set its face against this, because we have had in this country experiences in this respect which have been exceedingly disastrous. During the Napoleonic Wars, we had the same problem raised, and it was followed by the absorption of juvenile labour to an extent which interfered with adult labour and led to the lowering of the standard of life, a reduction of wages, and brought about a period of economic and industrial depression in this country which had never been suffered either before or since the new order of life had come about in which we have raised the age at which children should go to work. I want to ask what is to be the policy of the Board in this matter, and whether they are strong enough to resist the calling of children into the industrial world when they ought
      1830
      to be at school. I hope that there will be a satisfactory reply given to this point, because many specious peas are being put forward. No doubt there is a shortage of labour in many cases, but in some cases employers will not pay the proper price for labour, and they are evading the price of adult labour because they wish to replace it by juvenile labour. I hope the Board will watch this matter with exceedingly great care in order that children of tender years shall not be called into the industrial world, because I think there should be a general resistance to that tendency during the present crisis.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire to offer some observations to the representative of the Board of Education upon some aspects of the subjects which have been discussed this afternoon. I should like to express what I think is the common feeling of the House as to the sympathetic way in which the right hon. Gentleman always approaches problems of education in this House. We are quite sure that the Parliamentary Secretary is sensible of the extreme importance of this question in time of war. I am glad, for my own part, that the Department is represented in this House to-night by one of whose sympathy we are assured. I think of all economies which can be effected in this time of war, the last economy that should be thought of is in connection with education, so far as it is real education. I want to ask my right hon. Friend to remember the strange transformation that is taking place at the present time. The statutory law of the land is now being overridden not with the sanction of this House, but I am sorry to say with the sanction of the Board of Education and the local education authorities. A large number of children who are under a statutory obligation to attend school are being released from school in direct defiance of the statutory law and are being swallowed up in industry. There is to-day a great and an ever-widening market for the labour of children who are within the school age and who should be at school. In a few days a great portion of the fabric that has been built up during long years for the protection of children of school age has been swept away. We not only go back to a pre-war period, but to a condition of things that existed many years before the outbreak of the War. That is a most serious thing.

      1831
      I want my right hon. Friend to remember another aspect of this question which is almost equally serious. The State has been engaged for long years in building up safeguards for children above the school age, for the better care of adolescents. To-day the child a little above school age is greatly in demand by the whole of the labour world, and that child for the first time in history can secure almost his economic independence. That means that a great portion of the system of further education for youths above the school age is not now, in a great number of cases, being taken advantage of. One of the statements which I heard with some alarm from my right hon. Friend just now was that where attendance at technical schools and at schools for further education had decreased, the Board is insisting that, in consequence of that decrease, the expenditure should be reduced accordingly, and that strict economy should be carried out. My right hon. Friend, without knowing it, was emphasising the fact that one of the greatest dangers of the present situation is that the systems for further education of all kinds are not now being taken advantage of as they were before the War because of the competition in the labour world for youthful labour, and because now boys of little above the school age are not only easily able to get employment of various kinds, but are able to get employment at very high wages indeed.
      The problem which faces the Board of Education is a double one. It is a problem which relates, in the first case, to children who are under a statutory obligation to attend school, and, in the second place, to children who, although above the elementary school age, are now on a scale without parallel in modern years being withdrawn, enticed, and tempted from all forms of further education because of the demands of the labour world and the high wages offered. I hope that the Board of Education will not be content, in the face of these facts, merely to secure economies where attendances have dropped, but that they will prefer a positive and constructive policy to prevent this great number of the future citizens of the country being deprived at this period of their lives of educational influence and care. Otherwise we arc creating for the future a social problem on a very vast scale. It is a problem which in
      1832
      a few years will assume proportions so grave as to require very extensive action. By taking wise constructive action now the Board can greatly reduce this problem for the future and secure, as it can in no other way be secured, the future welfare of this country.
      I want in this connection to express my disappointment at the attitude of the Board with regard to the position under the Military Service Act of those engaged in the service of education. I think much more will be heard of this subject a little later. It is a matter of administration, and therefore I believe I am in order in raising it upon this Vote. The right hon. Gentleman's Department has the power under the Act that was passed to secure that those engaged in the service of education shall not be unwisely withdrawn from it. I hope that it may be possible-for us to learn why no general action has been taken to prevent the education service being deprived of those essential to it. That the service is being so deprived is obvious from the speech of my right hon. Friend himself, because he said, "Suppose a master or a teacher of a special class, or of any class, has been j taken into the Army, and there is no longer any teacher for that class, of course we want a corresponding economy effected and we do not pay the Grant." I desire to emphasise the point that that teacher should never have been withdrawn from that class. Our national system of education should never have been I narrowed and destroyed in this way. I want to urge upon my right hon. Friend, if he is not in a position to make a further statement to-day, to concern himself with this matter at the Board, and to satisfy himself that adequate arrangements have been made to prevent any further encroachment upon the service of education.
      In order to encourage him in his researches in this matter may I bring to his notice a case which I think has attained the dimension of a great public scandal, and requires immediate action by the Department. I am not going to give names now. There is no need for them to be stated in public at this stage. No doubt my right hon. Friend is familiar with this typical case. There is a school in a large town not very many miles from London—an old-established secondary school, recognised by the Board of Education, containing 400 or 500 children, and presided

      1833
      over by a head master who is recognised as a great expert upon education, who has had a distinguished career in the service of education in many parts of the world, and who has written two or more books upon education which are recognised as the work of an expert and as authoritative. That distinguished scholar is thirty-eight or thirty-nine years of age. Since his undergraduate days he has spent his whole life in the service of the youth of this nation. But he is subject to the provisions of the Military Service Act, and under the machinery provided by that Act he claimed exemption before the local tribunal as one entitled to exemption by reason of the national importance of the work upon which he is engaged. I wonder whether the House will credit it, that his application was absolutely refused, and this amazing doctrine is laid down: that a head master who has spent all his life in this service is to be taken away from his work, that the 400 or 500 children under his charge are to be left without their natural shepherd, and that he is to be conscripted into the Army and sent into the trenches! Can anyone imagine a more stupid waste of our national resources than that? I do not think I need labour the point as to the colossal folly of a proceeding of that kind, but I do want to know what is the policy of the Board of Education with regard to cases like that. What steps are the Board going to take to prevent other cases like this occurring? Let me remind my right hon. Friend that his Department has full power under the Act to prevent this folly being carried out. I appeal to him to see that the powers of this Department are used, and that the Department, which is the only guardian of our system of education, shall not fail in its duty at this moment.
      Mr. HERBERT LEWIS: I only rise by leave of the House to say one word in reply to the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Wing), who raised an important question. I gather from him that he was not present at the Debate which took place in this House a week ago, when this question was very fully discussed. May I refer him to the several speeches on that question, including one of my own? With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse), I really must make a respectful protest. He has raised a very important question, but he gave me no notice whatever of his intention to do so.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I do not press for an answer now.
      Mr. LEWIS: The hon. Gentleman said I was familiar with one particular case, but I only became familiar with it by reason of what he has told me during the last few minutes. I must be allowed to make a gentle remonstrance against having questions of this kind raised suddenly. How is it possible for me to declare the policy of the Department at such short notice? I am a conscientious objector to Ministers being asked, on the spur of the moment, to give considered replies under such circumstances. But I understand, however, my hon. Friend is not pressing me for any further reply. Still, I hope when he has any further question to raise he will kindly give me more notice.
      Question put, and agreed to.

      SUPPLY [8th March].
      Resolutions reported,

      NAVY ESTIMATES, 1916–17.
      1. "That 350,000 Officers, Seamen, and Boys, Coast Guard, and Royal Marines be employed for the Sea and Coast Guard Services for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1917."

      2. "That a sum, not exceeding £l,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Wages, etc., to Officers, Seamen, and Boys, Coast Guard, and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1917."

      Resolutions agreed to.
      The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

      SUPPLY (1st March] REPORT.
      Further Consideration of Eleventh and Twelfth Resolutions deferred till Tuesday next.

      ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CABINET MINISTER.
      Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 3rd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
      9.0 P.M.
      Mr. R. McNEILL: I rise to call the attention of the House to a matter which I gave notice that I intended to refer to the day before yesterday. I deplore very much the fact that the Prime Minister, to whom I shall have to refer in the course of my observation, is still prevented by ill-health from being present. I also regret that the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Alden) is not present, but I understand that he is not in the country at the moment. He is abroad on some Government work. I sent him notice of my intention to refer to the matter to-day. It is an unpleasant necessity for me to make these remarks in the absence of the two Gentlemen who are mainly concerned. The matter has already attracted so much attention outside this House that I think it is better on the whole I should bring to the attention of the Government and of the House the facts which in my opinion have an importance, and I might even say a gravity, which the Government seem up till now entirely to have missed, and then at some future date, if the hon. Member for Tottenham chooses to refer to the matter by way of personal explanation or otherwise, or if the Government propose to give a fuller reply than they are able at this moment, that is a matter, of course, for them to consider. I wish, however, to state the facts as they are known to me. On the 12th February a meeting was held of the Wood Green Liberal Association. That meeting, so far as I understand from the reports, was held in order to consider the conduct of the hon. Member for that Division with relation to the Government Bill, which is now the Military Service Act, and the proceedings were reported in a newspaper called the "Tottenham Weekly Herald," on 18th February. I should like to tell the House, first of all, the result of that meeting. The resolution which the meeting passed, after what I am told was a long and animated debate, was this:
      "That this association expresses its confidence in the Government and is of opinion that the passage of the Compulsory Service Bill will help to bring the War to a successful conclusion—"
      In the absence of the hon. Member for Tottenham, it is especially right that I should add that the resolution continued:
      "While many members regret Mr. Alden's vote on compulsory service it does not withdraw confidence from him."
      The point I wish to emphasise at this stage is that the meeting was held for the specific
      1836
      purpose of discussing not the general opinions or the general conduct of the Member of Parliament, but the vote which he had given in opposition to a particular measure in this House, and it was in order to meet the objections which some of his constituents apparently held to the vote which he gave that this resolution was arrived at. It will become of some slight importance, as I shall show later on. The whole concern was with regard to the vote given upon that Bill. I should like to read the report of the speech given by the hon. Member after a lengthy and animated debate. This is the report given in the newspaper which I have quoted:
      "Mr. Alden said his vote on the Bill"
      Again I pause to say that what it was concerned with was his vote on the Bill—
      "was to be regarded as a protest against the intrigue and plotting by which it was preceded. His action was prompted by a present member of the Cabinet, who had asked him to organise opposition to the Bill as the hands of the Premier were being forced by the compulsion party."
      The report in the newspaper then continues—perhaps it is not altogether surprising—
      "There was interruption here, and various guesses were made at the identity of the Minister, but Mr. Alden declined to say who it was."
      Let me here dwell for a moment to say why I thought it necessary to bring this matter to the attention of the House. Here we have a definite statement by a Member of this House defending himself against the strictures of his constituents for having voted against a Bill which was a Government measure brought in by the Leader of the nation and, also, if we may refer to obsolete matters, the Leader of his own party. His conduct was open to the strictures of his constituents, and in order to defend himself he says that his vote was given because he had been asked by a member of the Cabinet to organise opposition to the Bill. That was a direct accusation against a Minister of the Crown, although he did not name the Minister, of treacherous intrigue against his own colleagues and against the policy that the Minister was bound in honour to support. The question is, was that a true statement on the part of the hon. Member? If it was true, if he had been asked by a Cabinet Minister to organise opposition to a Government measure for which that Cabinet Minister was himself responsible, or going to be responsible, then it is quite obvious it was a disgraceful transaction, it was a

      1837
      transaction which touched the Government as a whole, and which I should have thought every member of the Cabinet was bound to investigate or would have desired to see investigated, at all events, and, if possible, to repudiate as touching himself. I suggest, above all, that it was, as I should have thought, the duty of the Prime Minister, as soon as this was brought to his knowledge, to take steps without a single day's delay to discover who the traitor in his own camp was. He was bound to protect the rest of his colleagues from the very unjust suspicion which might attach to any one of them of having been the guilty member, and it was also his duty to do it in order to get rid of the want of confidence in the earnestness of the Government as a whole which could hardly fail to be created out of doors when this transaction became known. Of course, one cannot complain of the Prime Minister not knowing anything of a report occurring in the Tottenham local paper, but the report of this meeting and the speech of the hon. Member was reproduced in prominent organs in the London Press. If the Prime Minister, after this meeting had been reported in the London Press, still continued in ignorance of what had been said about some unnamed member of his own Cabinet, all that one can say is that the Prime Minister must be deplorably badly served by his own private secretaries. At all events, the hon. Member for Tottenham was a good deal scared by the result of this meeting and of his speech, and he began to back out, or attempted to back out to some extent, from the position he had taken up. He did this in a letter which he wrote to the "Morning Post." I want to tell the House exactly what the hon. Member said in that letter, and the extent to which he altered, if he did alter at all, the complexion of the matter as reported in the Tottenham paper. He began by saying that it was a mistake in the newspaper I have already quoted to say that he was asked to organise opposition to the Bill. Then he goes on in these words:
      "What I did say was that my action was prompted by a present member of the Cabinet, who asked me to organise opposition to Conscription, but I added that this was some considerable time—three or four weeks at least—before the Bill was introduced."
      The hon. Member concluded this portion of his letter by saying.
      "The correct account of the meeting appeared in the 'Wood Green Sentinel' on 18th February."
      1838
      Let us see what the "Wood Green Sentinel," of February 18th, to which the hon. Member himself refers us, said. This was their report:
      "Then Mr. Alden made his statement. In justice to himself—"
      Justice to himself for what? Justice to himself for having given his vote against the Government Bill.
      "In justice to himself he revealed the fact that it was at the request of a member of the present Cabinet that he organised his opposition to conscription. At this someone cried Traitor,' and Mr. Alden was asked to give the name."
      Then the report goes on in these words, which I will give verbatim, not making myself responsible for the grammar:
      "This, of course, he declined to do, his character sufficient that he was telling the truth."
      These are the exact words which the paper printed. I presume they mean that the hon. Member held out that his character was sufficient guarantee that he was speaking the truth:
      "As that minister and his colleagues in the Cabinet including the Prime Minister, were then having a very difficult time, it was put to him that unless it was shown that people outside were not in favour of it, Conscription was certain. That was a short time before the Bill was introduced."
      In other words, the hon. Member, having written to the "Morning Post" that it had been some considerable time before the Bill was introduced, referred us for a correct account to a newspaper which to that extent contradicts him and says it was a short time before the Bill was introduced. If the Prime Minister knew nothing of all this, in spite of the reproduction of the local account in the London Press, and in spite of the letter prominently printed from the hon. Member himself in the local Press, he certainly could not have remained in ignorance beyond 23rd February, because on that date an hon. and gallant Friend of mine put a question on the subject. It set out the facts as given in the paper which I first quoted, alleging that the hon. Member had claimed that he had been asked by a Member of the Cabinet to organise opposition to the Bill, and he asked the Prime Minister whether it had been brought to his notice, or words to that effect. The Prime Minister's reply was that the statements were without foundation. What I want to lay stress upon is that it was that answer of the Prime Minister which first, I think, gave a really serious complexion to the whole affair, because there you had the Prime Minister apparently giving

      1839
      the lie direct, in as plain language as was possible, to a statement made by one of his own supporters and reported in the Press. My hon. and gallant Friend put a second question after seeing that there had been at all events a verbal alteration made by the hon. Member (Mr. Alden), saying that the opposition was not to the Bill but to Conscription, and these were the terms of the question:
      "To ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that opposition to compulsory military service is being justified in the country on the ground that a Member of this House was asked to organise such opposition by a member of the Cabinet as at present constituted,' as both that Minister and his colleagues in the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, were having a very difficult time and unless it was shown to people outside that we are not in favour of it compulsion was certain,' and whether he is able to give a direct negative to the above statement both on behalf of himself and his colleagues in the Cabinet?"
      The terms of the question are taken directly from the report given in the "Wood Green Sentinel," which is accepted as correct by the hon. Member. The reply to that question was given by the Minister of Munitions:
      "The Prime Minister has no knowledge of anything of the kind."
      That is a totally different answer from that given to the earlier question. I do not wish to lay any particular stress upon the discrepancy. I do not make any allegation with regard to it beyond saying that I do not myself quite understand how, if the right hon. Gentleman had, as he says, no knowledge whatever of the subject, he was able to state in answer to the earlier question that it had no foundation. The day before yesterday I put a question to the Prime Minister, in consequence of that reply, whether he would- make inquiry with a view to finding out the identity of the Cabinet Minister, and the Prime Minister declined to take any such step. It is for that reason that I am now bringing these facts to the attention of the House. There are perhaps some Members who do not appreciate, as I think, the importance of it, and of course there may be some who will differ from me in holding that it has any importance at all. An hon. Member below the Gangway opposite seems to lay a good deal of stress upon the decision which the hon. Member (Mr. Alden) draws between opposition to the Government Bill and opposition to Conscription.
      An HON. MEMBER: Don't you?
      Mr. McNEILL: I do not. For this reason: First of all, we have all known,
      1840
      in the course of the Debates which have taken place recently in this House, that the Military Service Bill, when it was before the House, was constantly spoken of by hon. Members, certainly by hon. Members in that quarter of the House, as Conscription. The two were practically convertible terms, and therefore, apart from any other consideration, when the hon. Member speaks about Conscription I take him to mean the Conscription which he was objecting to in the Government measure, and that is surely established when you bear in mind the fact, on which I laid stress at the outset for this very purpose, that the whole purpose of this meeting at which the hon. Member made the speech to his constituents was to justify himself, not for being an opponent of Conscription generally, not for being an opponent of Conscription in the same sense in which the Prime Minister says he is himself, but it was for his definite action in opposing the measure which had been introduced and passed by the Government. Therefore I maintain that there is no distinction whatever between the two things.
      But it does not end there. Even supposing that the Cabinet Minister was not asking the hon. Member to organise opposition to a Bill which was already drafted—I do not allege that the Bill was drafted. I do not know. The paper says it was a. short time before the Bill was introduced. I do not know how short a time, and I cannot say whether it was drafted. But that does not matter. What matters is that it certainly was after the famous pledge given by the Prime Minister to the married men of the country that he was going to introduce a measure of compulsion if it should be necessary in order to get the unmarried men to come forward. Therefore, even it can be shown that this opposition was not to be directed against the actual Government measure, it certainly cannot be shown that it was not an opposition directed against the fulfilment of the Prime Minister's pledge. It was in either event, if the facts are correct an intrigue in the Cabinet against the personal honour of the Prime Minister. But that is not all. One would imagine that even those facts would be regarded as a matter of considerable importance, not only by the Government, but I should think by every member of the Cabinet and by this House as a whole. It has a further deplorable aspect at the present moment. I am sure the House must realise that at

      1841
      the present time there is a very considerable and widespread feeling of dissatisfaction in the minds of attested married men throughout the country, for whose benefit the Prime Minister's pledge was given, because they think—for my present purpose it does not matter whether they think rightly or wrongly—that owing to the action of various Government Departments in multiplying the indispensable men, and owing to the large number of conscientious objectors, who are getting exemption, that the Prime Minister's pledge, although carried out in the letter by the passing of the Military Service Bill, is being whittled away in spirit, and that they are not getting the benefit they were entitled to expect from the pledge of the Prime Minister.
      I see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon) is present. I do not know whether he is going to make a reply, although I see that he is engaged in taking notes. If so, may I remind the right hon. Gentleman that this feeling which I say is widespread, has been to some extent caused by a statement which he made. Hon. Members will recall that fact that when the right hon. Gentleman was giving to the House his reasons for leaving the Government he made one very significant statement. He told us that while he was parting from the Government, of which he had been such a distinguished ornament, on this question of compulsory service, he was leaving behind him in the Cabinet men whose opinions were identical with his own. The people of this country, who are concerned in the Prime Minister's pledge and in the whole of this recruiting problem, noted what the right hon. Gentleman said. They noted that he left behind in the Cabinet men who shared his views against compulsion. What is the inference they drew? They have drawn the inference, and they are drawing the inference to-day, that within the Cabinet itself there are men at the present time whose desire, and, very probably, whose energies are directed to whittling away the fulfilment of the Prime Minister's pledge and therefore committing what is, I do not say a fraud, but something which is unfair to the married recruits. On the top of that they read this account of what the hon. Member for Tottenham said, and they say, "Here is ample confirmation of what has already been hinted at by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Simon). Here we have
      1842
      evidence that these men who remained in the Cabinet when the Home Secretary left it are actually intriguing against the Prime Minister. They are going to supporters of the Government and asking them not merely to vote against the Bill for which they themselves are responsible, but asking them to organise opposition to the Bill." Is it possible that when that impression is being created on the word of an hon. Member of this House that the Prime Minister and his colleagues can take up the attitude that this does not matter at all, although it apparently affects their honour and although it apparently reveals the fact that one is intriguing against the other and that men who are responsible for Government policy are trying to defeat it? If they can pass over all that, how it is conceivable that they can allow the feeling of dissatisfaction and the feeling of uneasiness that exists, and which is undermining the confidence of the country in the Government's earnestness of purpose in regard to this policy, to go on as it has done for a month without any sort of attempt to explain the circumstances, is to me perfectly amazing! I should have thought that no apology was required from any Member of this House for having brought the facts before the attention of the House and the attention of the Government. Although I understand, and, of course, I absolutely accept the statement, that the Prime Minister knows nothing about it, I repeat that now that the facts are known it is the duty of the head of the Government to take steps to find out what he does not know already, and to put an end to the very unpleasant state of feeling which these facts have brought about.
      Sir. J. SIMON: The hon. Member for Tottenham is absent, and inasmuch as he is absent, and inevitably absent, I hope the House will excuse me if in two or three sentences I intervene to make some observations on this matter. I do not intervene because I have any authority from my hon Friend the Member for Tottenham to do so. I have had no communication with him, direct or indirect, on this subject. I do not know the circumstances any further than I have gathered them from what has been said to-night, and what I previously read in the papers, but when an hon. Friend of mine—and I call him an hon. Friend, not only in the sense that he shares my general political views, but because I am proud to regard him as one of my personal

      1843
      friends—is necessarily away, I hope the House will think it right that one who knows him well should make a few observations on this occasion. I do not desire to take part in the analysis, and, if I may venture to say so, the unduly minute analysis, of how this particular incident is recorded, whether correctly or incorrectly, whether grammatically or ungrammatically, in various local newspapers. I desire to intervene to say only two things. One is that, as many of the personal friends of the hon. Member for Tottenham know, he is at present in very poor health. He has for some considerable time past, to the knowledge of those who have the honour of his personal friendship and acquaintance, been suffering from serious illness, which at one time led to a breakdown and to his absence from the service of the House for a substantial period, and which I know even now has left serious traces both upon his constitution and upon his general health. It is to his credit and his honour that though he is still far from well, he is endeavouring to combine the search for health with the service of the cause of this country and its Allies. He is, in fact, at this moment on the Continent, endeavouring to render help to Belgium and her refugees in the adjoining country of Holland.
      Those facts, I think, will be felt by the House to be an abundant justification for his absence. I know very well that the hon. Gentleman opposite would, on every ground, desire him to be present. I hope he will understand that I am not making any sort of reflection upon him, because in the nature of the case he had to bring up the matter, if he were to bring it up at all, without my hon. Friend being present. But another matter in this connection is this. Those of us who do enjoy and hope to continue to enjoy the personal friendship and acquaintanceship of the hon. Member for Tottenham, know very well that his reputation for high character and integrity is thoroughly deserved. A man who is in ill-health and is suffering under severe strain and threatened with a nervous breakdown may make mistakes on matters of fact and matters of conduct. I do not rise at all to justify what would appear to me to be in any event, whatever the exact circumstances may be found to be, a regrettable lapse undoubtedly. But it is right, I hope the House of Commons will
      1844
      think, that one, at any rate, of those who know him well and who have had no communication about this at all and know nothing about the circumstances, should, in his enforced absence, should get up and briefly express his firm and unshaken confidence in my hon Friend's good faith and integrity.
      Long before he came here he was known to many who have taken an interest in social work among the poorest as a devoted and sincere servant of the public. I would resist the temptation, if indeed there be a temptation, to deal with the other and more general topics to which the hon. Gentleman opposite referred. Let me, however, say, as one who has had the privilege of enjoying Cabinet secrets—and I honestly believe that I never could be accused of having betrayed any one of them—that I share to the full the very proper doctrine that communication should not take place on matters of confidence between Members of the Cabinet, whoever they may be, and even the most faithful and devoted of their supporters on any confidential subject whatever. For this purpose it does not make any difference who the Cabinet Minister is, or who his henchman may be. It does not matter whether the opinion is an opinion in favour of or against a controversial view. Upon the secrecy of confidential Cabinet matters the basis of Parliamentary Government depends. I really cannot share in the notion, I might almost venture to say the pretence, that this is some unexampled solecism without any conceivable parallel in the history of the last ten years. I recollect, if I am not mistaken, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Sir E Carson), whose attachment to Parliamentary tradition, and whose personal good faith nobody would ever think of questioning, committing, as seemed to some of us, a rather astonishing lapse not so long ago, when he referred actually, after he had resigned, to a confidential Cabinet document written by the Colonial Secretary. I do not remember that on that occasion the hon. Gentleman opposite stood up to point the narrow way and to chide this erring and identified Cabinet Minister.
      Mr. McNEILL: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the memorandum to which he refers was mentioned by my right hon. Friend in his letter to the Prime Minister, and that it was only

      1845
      after he had obtained the Prime Minister's consent that this reference was made public.
      Sir J. SIMON: The worse thing that could happen in a matter of this sort is that we should start bandying illustrations between one another.
      Mr. McNEILL: You started the illustration.
      Sir J. SIMON: No, I am within the recollection of the House. What I ventured to say was I hope in no way an attempt to do so. I do not think that my inaccuracy was serious to those who regard what was the nature of the topic. What I am pointing out is that slips of this sort—I say no more—do happen from time to time. I am not concerned to put them in an ascending or descending order or series. I do not attempt to suggest other illustrations, because naturally enough it does provoke a cross fire. I would very much prefer, if I should be so happy to succeed in doing so, if I should induce the House of Commons in my concluding sentence, to feel that while I daresay it was quite proper to call attention to this matter, and that while certainly the friends of my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham quite recognise that from any point of view a mistake was made, yet that not merely his personal friends, but that all Members of the House of Commons recognise that he was acting and speaking in circumstances when it was difficult for him to command the ordinary balance which comes with health and good nerves, that he has been through a severe time of illness, that he is fortunately recovering from his attack, and that whatever be our political or personal attachments we all look forward with confidence to welcoming him when he comes back as one of the hon. Members of this House.
      Mr. KING: As I have been privileged for many years to have a very close intimacy with the hon. Member for Tottenham, I should like to take this opportunity of saying that I look upon him as a most honourable man, a most courageous man, and a man in whom I will always have the greatest confidence until I find that he has been clearly and obviously convicted of some fault. The remarkable speech which we have heard to-night from the hon. Member for St. Augustine's does not for one moment make me inclined to think that anything more
      1846
      than the very merest and most venial indiscretion, even if that, has been committed by the hon. Member.
      Mr. McNEILL: The hon. Member is. entirely misinterpreting my speech. I never made the slightest allegation against the hon. Member for Tottenham. I never complained that he had disclosed a Cabinet secret. The whole of the case which I made was that if his statement was true and accurate, and my hon. Friend is only trying to prove that it was true, then there was a case made, not against the hon. Member for Tottenham but against some member of the Cabinet.
      Mr. KING: I quite see the hon. Member's point. I was just going to proceed to it. I think that there is reason to complain that the hon. Member for Tottenham has been attacked in this way when he could not possibly reply. The hon. Member here is the "Morning Post" in another form. The "Morning Post" has been attacking the hon. Member for Tottenham day after day with an unkind-ness and a persistence which does no credit to it. But I go further. Of course, this is not only an attack, an insidious attack, upon the hon. Member, but it is an attack upon the Cabinet, and especially upon the Prime Minister. I must say that I look upon the speech of the hon. Member for St. Augustine's as a most extraordinary performance. He has given us several extraordinary performances before in his career in this House, and I hope that he will continue to do so. I have always admired his originality of character, and I am always looking for some new direction in which he will break out. But to-night he has come here, and after he has been well advertised in the "Morning Post" for about a fortnight, and after advertising himself by giving notice two or three days running in this House, he brings forward, in a long rigmarole of a speech, an accusation against the Prime Minister, practically, for not keeping his colleagues in order. That is a ridiculous charge to bring against the Prime Minister; first of all, because everybody knows that if there is a man who can handle a difficult Cabinet it is the Prime Minister we have got at the present time. I must say that considering we have got a Coalition Cabinet, and considering some of the men who are in it, I look upon the Prime Minister's achievement in having kept the Cabinet

      1847
      together as well as he has done, and having kept control of them, as a magnificent achievement.
      We have had a rigmarole of half an hour from the hon. Member, who complained that on one occasion, which he cannot fix, that some Minister whom he cannot name, said to somebody that though he was in the Cabinet he still adhered to his Liberal principles. That is all the accusation that has been brought against the Prime Minister and his colleagues. It is quite vague, no date is fixed nor is even the month of this alleged conversation stated. It is therefore very material to know, which we do not know, whether it was before the Prime Minister's pledge that this conversation had taken place—in November or after it. We do not know whether it was even when the Derby scheme was supposed to have been a great success or to have been somewhat of a failure. All these facts are very material indeed, in judging of the case, and upon these facts we get no light whatever from the hon. Member. We can all see—I believe even his Friends can see, those who believe that he has actually done right to bring this mish-mash farago of allegations against the Prime Minister—that his object is to discredit the Government. I have myself never believed in a Coalition Government at all, and since it was formed I have sat on the opposite side of the House just to show that I was something more than a candid friend; but at any rate I am not going, if I do attack them, to attack them in any but a straightforward way on a basis of facts, and when the man of whom I am speaking is here. That is not the course which has been taken by the hon. Member to-day. He has attacked the Prime Minister when he knew the" Prime Minister could not be here. He has alleged a lot of facts which are not facts at all, but mere surmises, and as to the details of the charge he has made he has not the slightest idea himself. I might say a good deal more, but I hope I have interpreted the feeling of the House generally in saying that this is an unfortunate occasion. It will do nobody any harm except possibly the hon. Member for St. Augustine's, who is not always taken quite seriously. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are you?"] I am asked if I am taken quite seriously, and I might ask if anybody takes this quite seriously.
      I am going to make one more observation, because I think it is pertinent to the
      1848
      question that has been raised—it has already been touched upon by the right hon. Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon)—it is that we have not that strict sense of Cabinet secrecy, or of Cabinet unity, which we had some years ago. I do not make any accusation whatever against the hon. Member for Waltham stow; the observation I made is quite apart from anything connected with his recent action, but I say this most emphatically, that during the last six months we have had, day after day, the tendencies of the Cabinet repeated by one paper or another. If you wanted to see what the Liberal wing of the Cabinet was doing, you took the "Daily News." On the same day you had what a different wing in the Cabinet was doing repeated in the "Times."
      Mr. PRINGLE: No, no! The "Daily Express."
      Mr. KING: The "Daily Express" is supposed to be more of an authority than the "Times." We had day after day during the week preceding the introduction of the Military Service (No. 2) Bill, the position of this Minister or that in relation to the proposals of the Bill, in relation to his colleagues, in relation to other Ministers, definitely stated. Take the case of the right hon. Member for Walthamstow, who, we were told several days before he resigned, or his resignation was made public, that he would resign, or had resigned, and that his would be the only resignation.
      Sir J. SIMON: I did not say so.
      Mr. KING: I must say you did not, but other members of the Cabinet might have done so, and I can guess pretty well who the members were; they were members possibly with a short experience of Cabinet responsibility, and they were therefore members of the Cabinet that we can the more readily pardon. The matter of Cabinet secrecy and Cabinet unity is not what it was in the past—in the days that Mr. Gladstone, and certainly in the days of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, nor as it was in the early days of the present Prime Minister, when it was something very different from what it is now. I shall not pursue that matter further, but I am sure that it is at the root and is really the cause of the little episode which has been magnified to-night into a Parliamentary Debate.
      The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Montagu): I do not disagree with the statement that this debates involves no charge against my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, and I should like to share in the high tribute already expressed in different quarters of the House to the hon. Gentleman. I really failed, although I listened with great attention, to see what the hon. Member wants or hopes to gain by this Debate. The Military Service Bill is through. It was passed without any opposition of any kind raised by intrigue or cabal, though there were certain Members honestly opposed to the measure. But it is now the law of the land, and members of the Cabinet, in the administration of their offices, are animated by no other purpose, in the working of the Departments entrusted to them, than to abide loyally by the decisions of this House and the House of Lords. The suggestion that anybody in the Cabinet is trying to minimise the effect of this Act is an accusation which is absurd and without any foundation. The hon. and learned Member seems to have a strange idea of the functions of the Prime Minister, which certainly differs from mine and also from the Prime Minister's idea. His suggestion is that the Prime Minister should send for his colleagues and say: "My private secretary told me that Alden has made a speech of which there are two versions. I want to know, and it is better to confess before I find out, whether it is your report or is not," and then I suppose hold out your hand if it is. The Prime Minister is the leader of a Party and the leader of his colleagues. He is not the headmaster of a private school. For myself I have only to say that since I have been in the Cabinet, only now a few weeks, I am perfectly convinced from what I have seen there that there is nothing to choose in loyalty to the Prime Minister between any Members of the Cabinet, Liberal, Conservative or Labour, and that it is a united and loyal Cabinet. I believe that the whole treatment of this incident by the Prime Minister shows that he is confident, as he has a right to be, of the enthusiastic loyalty of all his colleagues.
      Mr. PRINGLE: I am sure the House will be relieved to hear one observation from the Chancellor of the Duchy in which he announced that the Government is going to stand by the Military Service Act. We have seen the War Office trying to wriggle out of its provisions, and we have seen a
      1850
      Noble Lord who holds a position in the War Office in another place from the Front Opposition Bench making an attack on the Government of which he is a servant. We are delighted in spite of all this to learn that the Government is going to stand by the Act. There is an unofficial Committee of Members of this House of which another official of the War Office is a member. That Committee has appointed a Sub-Committee to criticise the Army Estimate, and a member of that Committee is the hon. and learned Baronet the Member for Sunderland (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood), who is also an official at the War Office at the present time. These seem to me much more interesting examples of Government insubordination than the mare's-nest discovered by the hon. Member for St. Augustine's. We have not to go into the highways and by ways of suburban London to find these things which are proclaimed from the housetops. The hon. Member comes here, holds up his hands in holy horror, and says: "Here we have another example of treason to the Prime Minister." Why, a Noble Lord in another place hoped that the Prime Minister was going to carry out his pledge in the spirit—a clear insinuation that he was not doing so. I think that is a much more serious thing than this alleged indiscretion of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Alden). After all, are we not living in an atmosphere of cant about these things? It is all a mockery about Cabinet secrets, yes, and Cabinet loyalty and Cabinet responsibility. We know there is nothing of the kind; there never has been since this Government came into existence. [An HON. MEMBER: "Which Government?"] The present, and I doubt if it existed in the past. There was a very significant incident that happened in this House three nights before the last Government fell, when several Members indicated before any public statement was made that the Government was going to fall. How did they know? On the adjournment for the Autumn Recess, when we dealt with the question of Compulsory Military Service, an hon. Member of this House stated categorically from the bench opposite that the needs of the Army then were seventy divisions. That was a Cabinet secret. How did he know? Of course he did not say that a right hon. Friend had told him, but it was obvious that he had some access to confidential information.

      1851
      I think my hon. Friend was rather premature in trying to exculpate his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University. It is true that the right hon. and learned Gentleman read a letter in j the Prime Minister's presence, but on a later occasion, in a speech in the Prime Minister's absence, he gave further confidential particulars of Cabinet information. He said:
      "What is more than that, if that is controverted as a tact, I say that I discussed the question with the Secretary of State for the Colonies and also with the Minister of Munitions, as being two of the Ministers in whose judgment I most relied in the Cabinet, and they certainly never dissented from that view."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1915, col. 1555, Vol. LXXV.]
      That occurred on the 15th November, 1915. In another one of his speeches the same right hon. and learned Gentleman asked the Prime Minister whether the Official Secrets Act ought not to be made to apply to the Cabinet. I think the hon. Member for St. Augustine's, who was a
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      diligent student of every word that has ever fallen from the lips of his right hon. and learned Friend, will remember that. He regards everything that his right hon. and learned Friend says as verbally in spired, and he has transferred his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible to the Member for Dublin University. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman actually challenged the Prme Minister to invoke the Official Secrets Act in regard to his over burdened Cabinet of twenty-two or twenty-three, and I do not know that it is not twenty-four, as it seems to be growing—
      It being one hour after the conclusion of Government Business, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 22nd February.
      Adjourned at Seven minutes before Ten o'clock, until Tuesday next, 14th March, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.

WAR.
  NON-COMBATANTS KILLED OR DROWNED BY ENEMY.
  NON-COMBATANTS KILLED OR DROWNED BY ENEMY.
  NATIONAL ECONOMY.
  NATIONAL ECONOMY.
  CUSTOMS STAFF.
  CUSTOMS STAFF.
  STEAMSHIP "EL ZORRO" (COMPENSATION).
  STEAMSHIP "EL ZORRO" (COMPENSATION).
  MILITARY SERVICE.
    SINGLE MEN OF MILITARY AGE IN MUNITION FACTORIES.
    SINGLE MEN OF MILITARY AGE IN MUNITION FACTORIES.
    VOLUNTARY SERVICE FOLLOWING DISCHARGE.
    VOLUNTARY SERVICE FOLLOWING DISCHARGE.
    STUDENTS.
    STUDENTS.
    MARRIED MEN ATTESTED.
    MARRIED MEN ATTESTED.
    REGISTRATION ACT.
    REGISTRATION ACT.
    NON-COMBATANT SERVICE.
    NON-COMBATANT SERVICE.
    EXEMPTION CERTIFICATES.
    EXEMPTION CERTIFICATES.
    LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
    LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
    DENTISTS.
    DENTISTS.
    SOUTHERN COMMAND.
    SOUTHERN COMMAND.
    REJECTION OF RECRUITS.
    REJECTION OF RECRUITS.
    CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD, IRELAND.
    CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD, IRELAND.
  PRISONERS OF WAR.
  PRISONERS OF WAR.
  "NOTES ON THE BALKANS."
  "NOTES ON THE BALKANS."
  MACHINE GUN CORPS (TRAINING CENTRE).
  MACHINE GUN CORPS (TRAINING CENTRE).
  MOORE BARRACKS HOSPITAL, SHORNCLIFFE.
  MOORE BARRACKS HOSPITAL, SHORNCLIFFE.
  ARMY VETERINARY CORPS.
  ARMY VETERINARY CORPS.
  ARMY DISCHARGES (PENSIONS).
  ARMY DISCHARGES (PENSIONS).
  TIME-EXPIRED NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.
  TIME-EXPIRED NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.
  TROOP AND ARTILLERY HORSES.
  TROOP AND ARTILLERY HORSES.
  PERMANENTLY UNFIT OR DISABLED MEN DISCHARGED.
  PERMANENTLY UNFIT OR DISABLED MEN DISCHARGED.
  DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES.
  DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES.
  CONVALESCENT HORSE DEPOT, SOMERSET.
  CONVALESCENT HORSE DEPOT, SOMERSET.
  MUNITIONS.
    WOMEN WORKERS.
    WOMEN WORKERS.
    WORKING PAINTERS.
    WORKING PAINTERS.
    EMPLOYERS AND TRADE UNIONS.
    EMPLOYERS AND TRADE UNIONS.
    MUNITION WORKS (IRELAND).
    MUNITION WORKS (IRELAND).
    MUNITION WORKERS' WAGES.
    MUNITION WORKERS' WAGES.
  SUGAR PURCHASES BY ROYAL COMMISSION.
  SUGAR PURCHASES BY ROYAL COMMISSION.
  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (WAR OFFICE).
  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (WAR OFFICE).
  ALIEN ENEMIES RELEASED.
  ALIEN ENEMIES RELEASED.
  INDUSTRIAL LIFE ASSURANCE POLICIES.
  INDUSTRIAL LIFE ASSURANCE POLICIES.
  POSTERS (SUGGESTED TAX).
  POSTERS (SUGGESTED TAX).
  SERVICES IN INDIA (PENSIONS).
  SERVICES IN INDIA (PENSIONS).
  BRITISH EXPORT TRADERS (RELIEF IN RESPECT OF DEBTS ABROAD).
  BRITISH EXPORT TRADERS (RELIEF IN RESPECT OF DEBTS ABROAD).
  BRITISH SHIPPING.
  BRITISH SHIPPING.
  WAGES (PERCENTAGE INCREASE).
  WAGES (PERCENTAGE INCREASE).
  BEEF PRICES.
  BEEF PRICES.
  LIFEBELTS.
  LIFEBELTS.
  EX-SERVICE MEN (LAND SETTLEMENT).
  EX-SERVICE MEN (LAND SETTLEMENT).
  SHETLANDS (LIGHTING REGULATIONS).
  SHETLANDS (LIGHTING REGULATIONS).
  Colonial and Foreign Investments.
  Colonial and Foreign Investments.
  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Old Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Congested Districts Board, Ireland.
  Congested Districts Board, Ireland.
  Indian Students in United Kingdom.
  Indian Students in United Kingdom.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES (COUNTY ANTRIM).
  ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES (COUNTY ANTRIM).
Preamble
The Lord Burnham—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
BURNLEY CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  SWANSEA HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
    VAN DIEMEN'S LAND COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
    Committee to meet on Tuesday next.
HORNSEY GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND GATESHEAD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 2a (according to Order), and committed: The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
Army (Military Savings Banks)—Statement of amount due by the public to depositors in Military Savings Banks on 31st March 1914, and of the receipts, interest and disbursements on the said Military Savings Banks during the year next ensuing ended on 31st March 1915, &c., &c., &c.:
National Insurance Acts—The National Health Insurance (Arrears) Amendment Regulations, 1916, dated 6th March 1916:
Elementary School Teachers' Deferred Annuity Fund—Second Septennial Actuarial Report on the Assets and Liabilities:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

WAR RISKS (INSURANCE BY TRUSTEES) BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to facilitate the Insurance against War Risks of Property subject to Trusts—Was presented by the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next.
THE AIR SERVICE.

  PROPOSED MINISTRY OF AVIATION.
  LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in view of the great and growing importance of aviation in modern warfare both by sea and land, and the need for special attention and effort being concentrated upon it, they will create a separate Ministry to deal with the whole question.
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, before I touch on the subject of the Question standing on the Paper in my name I desire to take this the first opportunity I have had of thanking the noble Viscount who sits below me (Viscount Midleton) for the very sympathetic reference which he made concerning myself* on the occasion of a former debate, and also your Lordships for the kind welcome which you gave to those words. I was only serving my country as many of your Lordships have been doing in other directions, and if fate so ordains and one has to run dangers, well in time of war that is but natural.
  The subject which I am raising is at this particular time one of more than ordinary importance. Your Lordships will note the actual terms of my Question—the need for special attention and effort being concentrated upon the problems which have to do with aviation. That need has always been great, but it has now become so insistent that further steps should be taken by His Majesty's Government to deal with it. I am aware that in this country we never take a bold stroke at once unless there is great weight of public opinion in its favour. We like to do things by compromises and by degrees. I venture to think that everything must now be subordinated to the needs of the war, and although I welcome with all my heart the appointment of Lord Derby's Committee—the appointment of which in itself is, to my mind, a confession of weakness—I wish this afternoon, if I can, to convince His Majesty's Government and the House that there is need for something a, great deal bigger, for a body with much wider powers, and, above all, for a certain amount of imagination and foresight to be applied to the whole of this problem.
  I have been classed among that unfortunate body of people who are called
  * The reference was to Lord Montagu's rescue when the "Persia" was sunk.

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  prophets. The fate of prophets is always to be received at first with derision, later on with quiet contempt, and finally with dislike. In olden time prophets were coupled with martyrs, and that may be their fate again. I can claim that I have endeavoured in past years to direct your Lordships' attention—I did so as far back as 1909 and in subsequent debates—to the importance of this question, and although I make no complaint that the Government did not attach exaggerated value to what I then said, I do think, looking back upon those debates, that something might have been done. Had the Government appointed the Committee which I suggested in 1910 the problem of aviation would not have been neglected and we should not have been in the position we are now. One of the difficulties I have to confront to-day is the danger of saying too much. Everything that is said in this House and in the other House of Parliament is known in Germany in a few days, and your Lordships will understand that I cannot therefore discuss the technical aspect of the subject, for by so doing I should be helping the enemy and possibly discouraging our own people on this side and damping the spirits of our Allies. But I may remind your Lordships that there is very little of importance which is going on in this country which is not known to the German General Staff, for their means of information are very extraordinary.
  It is also necessary to remember in connection with this problem before we blame those who have held, either in the Army or in the Navy, responsible positions in the matter, that there has been no experience upon which to build a policy and no precedents to follow. There has been that difficulty in all countries, and in this country to suggest something novel is almost at once to be condemned. There has been opposition emanating from the established heads of Departments, and to a certain extent, no doubt, from the Treasury, which has retarded the efforts of those who have wished to push on with aviation. I do not propose therefore to criticise too much to-day any shortcomings that there may have been on the part of individuals, for although they may not have done all we could have wished, we must recollect that they have been to a large extent hampered by restrictions put upon them by other Departments. I
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  welcome also the appointment of Sir David Henderson, the Director of Military Aeronautics, as a member of the Army Council. Whether that was a result of this impending debate or of mature consideration in the past I will not inquire, but it is a step in the right direction. I am one of those who would like to see the Derby Committee magnified and not minimised. In it may lie the nucleus and germ of something much bigger in the future.
  As regards the actual concrete proposition which I have placed on the Paper today—that is, the formation of a Ministry of Aviation—I must confess that until quite recently, I mean a year or two ago, I was very doubtful whether the Air Service ought not to run on as it is at present, divided into two branches—the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps—without any formal tie between them, for there are great difficulties in combining the services. I admit that the executive must remain, at any rate for the present, with the responsible heads of the Army and the Navy. I admit that there are prejudices to be got over in any combination of this kind which it will be bard to overcome. But the needs of the country must be paramount, and if the needs of the country are that we must have a combined Air Service I think highly enough of the permanent chiefs in the two Departments and of the personnel to believe that they will, after a moment perhaps of hesitation, combine to make a unified Air Service.
  It cannot be denied that the present position of our Air Service is thoroughly unsatisfactory. What is the position today? A year ago at the Front we had practically attained supremacy of the air. You might be in the trenches for weeks together and hardly see a German plane come over. I am informed that at many places in Flanders, even so late as last spring and summer, the appearance of a German plane was quite a rare occurrence. That is different now. The supremacy in the air which we had then attained we have since lost. It is our duty at all costs to regain it, but we shall not regain it, in my opinion, until there has been an alteration in our present system. It is difficult, as I have said, to go into technical details, but I will sum it up by saying that the Germans now have aeroplanes which can fly faster and ascend more quickly than

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  ours; and although it may be said—and rightly—in defence that some of these, like the Fokker, are very short range machines, that does not prevent them being very dangerous; and if short range machines possess these qualities we should have them as well as the enemy.
  Then look at the position at home. We have had over this country something like twenty-five raids by Zeppelins since the commencement of the war. On none of those occasions have we been able to bring down a Zeppelin, and with the exception of part of a propeller which was said to have been found in Kent last week I think I am right in saying that there is no evidence that any German Zeppelin has been seriously damaged. That proves that we have not had enough energy in our policy. I will refer to the possibilities of the future in regard to Zeppelin raids, and I think when your Lordships have heard what I have to say there will not be so much talk of these operations being of little military value. I must say at this stage how sorry I am that the noble Earl who presides over this new Committee is not in his place. I would have asked your Lordships to postpone the debate had it been possible, but other reasons prevented it. This Committee which has been appointed, according to Lord Derby himself, is merely a Committee to allocate the production of our factories in the matter of machines between the Army and the Navy. It is, in other words, merely an inter-Departmental Committee, and though it may have other powers thrust upon it, according to the terms of its appointment it should do nothing but consider this one point. I do not think it will take us very far if the Committee confines its operations merely to that.
  I know that there will be opposition to the appointment of a larger body—opposition which will come from the two great fighting Services. You must always be prepared for that. After all, are not the arguments which are used—I have not seen any fresh ones—against the appointment of a Ministry of Aviation precisely the same as those which were urged against the Appointment of a Ministry of Munitions? That Ministry may have its faults, but it has undoubtedly increased the supply of munitions for the Forces; and looking back it is difficult to see how we could possibly have got on without that Ministry. There are objections, as I have said, from
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  the point of view of the Services as well as from that of the Departments to my suggestion. It will be said—and there is something in it—that it is difficult to have in time of war any single Service which is operating with the Navy and Army and yet not under their control. But at the present moment you have all kinds of cross operations between the two Services. The Navy has under its control probably the finest Infantry and Artillery in the world, the Blue and the Red Marines, and there is no difficulty in working between the Marines and the Admiralty. The War Office, again, have in their Ordnance Department a certain number of seamen, and no difficulty whatever arises. I believe that it would be possible in the near future to combine in the Air Service the personnel of both these services. There is also the argument that it is a mistake to swap horses while crossing a stream. That is an old adage with a great deal of truth in it, but if the horse you are on is drowning, I think it would be wise to take the other. The question is whether you are going to make the difficulties of working between the two Services into an argument which will be stronger than the efficiency of the Service which you desire to benefit.
  I am one of those who think that the proper motto should be "One Element, one Service." The Air Service will in a short time be of such a magnitude and so important to the country that this will be the inevitable result, whether the Government give us any hope of appointing a separate body immediately or whether it is to come in a year or two, either during or after the war. It is to the air that the attention of both Forces will shortly have to be directed. At various times in our history we have had to make new Ministries for new needs. New problems demand new solutions. I dare say many members of your Lordships' House will recollect that up to the time of the Crimean War the Minister for the Colonies and the Minister for War were one and the same person. I do not know whether that led to the mistakes of the Crimean War, but nobody outside a lunatic asylum would think of trying to-day to combine the functions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and those of the Secretary of State for War in one and the same Ministry and one and the same person. Only lately we have had new Ministries created, and no doubt we shall have more. I noticed that the Prime Minister, in reply to a deputation yesterday,

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  did not altogether deny that there might be a need for a Minister of Commerce. That would be a new Ministry against which exactly the same arguments might be used as against a Ministry of Aviation. The real difficulty at the moment is said to be that you might, by carrying out my proposal, produce confusion in a time of war. I believe that the possibilities of confusion are exaggerated. As I have said, in my opinion you would very soon get the heads of the Services and the personnel to work together.
  I may be asked what I propose should be the functions of the, as I will call it, Board of Aviation. The first function of such a Board should be that of construction and supply. The Derby Committee to-day, I believe, has to do with supply, but not with construction; at least, it has not been announced that it has anything to do with construction. I should like to see the Board of Aviation deal also with the question of future policy. It should be able to inform the General Staff what is the best kind of machines to construct for certain purposes. It should, I think, include amongst its members a representative certainly of the Admiralty and of the War Office; it ought also to have upon it a member with commercial and manufacturing experience, and a member of the General Staff. Per contra it ought to have a member delegated to the General Staff for informing the General Staff of what it proposes to do. It might be formed largely on the model of the Board of Admiralty, on which Naval Lords have separate and distinct functions, but sit together, with possible additions, as the Board of Admiralty. Then look at the matter from the point of view of purely Parliamentary responsibility. If anything goes wrong with our Air Service, if Zeppelins come over and do serious harm in this country, who is the Minister responsible? I have never discovered that there is any Minister particularly responsible.
  As to the defence of London, there have been, I think, four different stages in regard to its organisation. It originally had to do with Scotland Yard; then it passed to the Admiralty; it was then diluted with a certain number of garrison gunners; and now, I believe, it is under the control of Lord French. The very fact that there has been such vacillation proves to my mind that it is almost impossible—whether it is an anti-aircraft corps which has to be organised or an Air Service—for the Army
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  and the Navy, both responsible and both putting the blame if anything goes wrong on to the other, to carry out the proper organisation and control of the Air Service of this country. I know that it would be useless at this stage to ask the Government to consent right away to a Ministry of Aviation. A great deal has to be thought out—I am being perfectly straightforward about it, I hope—before such a Ministry could be established. But I do think that the Government ought to take the Derby Committee, magnify it, and give it more power so that it may form the germ of what may come later. I think that whoever is chairman of that Committee should certainly be a member of the Cabinet, if not of the War Council. But to leave the Committee as it is, merely an inter-Departmental Committee, is only touching the fringe of the question and is not going to do any real good at all.
  Then there is the question of how far you should throw your vision forward in regard to the Air Service. At the present moment the Air Service both by land and sea is merely auxiliary to the great forces of the Navy and the Army. I can see a time coming when the Air Service will be more important than either the Navy or the Army. Recent improvements in aviation have made this country no longer an island from a military sense. It is so close to the Continent as to be vulnerable to attack by a nation which has organised better than we have its Air Service, and the danger will increase as the years go on. I think the country must get into the habit of looking upon the Air Service not as an auxiliary to the Army and the Navy, but as a great Service which must establish traditions of its own and to which we will have to look in future years largely for the defence of this country. It took many years before the value of sea-power was realised; it will be many years before the value of air-power is realised. It should be brought home to every one that the air is a universal element; it is not confined, like the sea, between land and land; it is not like the land, on only a portion of which you can fight owing to mountains, rivers, arid wastes, sandy deserts, and so on. It is possible, except at the Poles, to fly everywhere with comparative ease. Therefore you see what a huge problem the Air Service is.
  I believe it is one of the logical outcomes of the present system of warfare that the

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  greater part of our future warfare will be in the air. Look at the position of the infantryman of to-day. He has become a cave-dweller; he has to dig himself in the ground, and to stay there the greater part of his time unless he is actually charging the trenches facing him. Look at what is happening on the sea—the same kind of thing. Many of our most gallant sailors have become diving men, because the submarine means nothing less. The effect of modern powerful guns and explosives so great that it will tend more and more to drive the issue of battle into the element of the air. You will never get past trenches without an enormous loss of life, unless you can take people over them or shell them from above, and that can only be done by means of the air. Therefore the lesson to be learned is that warfare in the air will increase, and that supremacy in the air is the goal for which this country should strive.
  There is another aspect. All war is becoming more and more scientific as years go on, but warfare in the air will become more scientific than anything that has preceded it, and we in this country, who have rather despised science up to now, must alter our national attitude. In Germany science is worshipped. I wish it were only half as much worshipped here. And it is because war is becoming more scientific that our foes will become more dangerous. There is no part of our national offence and defence that I can think of in which we are not laboriously copying the enemy—after, in some cases, the elapse of months. We have followed him in guns, in trench warfare, and in many other things; and although we had supremacy in the air a year ago, I am afraid we shall have to follow him in the air also. The truth is that all war is tending to become more scientific, and war in the air more scientific of all; and that being so, it is to me unthinkable that we should leave the foresight which has to be exercised and the organisation of this great Service to a divided responsibility, the Navy having responsibility for a portion and the Army for the other. Let it be one Service; by all means with two branches, but one Service for one element.
  I will give three instances of present problems of our Air Service with which the Board of Aviation should deal—problems which are simple enough, but which will require all the brains we have at our
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  disposal in this country to solve. Without going into details, I will say that the problems which the Board of Aviation should consider are, first, the provision of powerful enough aeroplanes for use at the Front; secondly, the provision of powerful enough anti-aircraft guns; and, thirdly, the construction and building at once of airships of the rigid type—in other words, of the Zeppelin type—for this country. As regards the first point, I think it is admitted that for the moment we have lost our supremacy in the air, and that we must have more powerful planes. I will not go further into that question. As regards the second point our anti-aircraft guns at the present moment are with few exceptions of far too small a calibre and nothing like powerful enough to do serious damage to a Zeppelin. Any one who saw one of the raids in September last, as I did when I first came home from India, must have thought it tragic and pitiable that the shells fired at a Zeppelin flying between 7,000 and 8,000 feet high burst at the extreme range of 5,000 feet. Any one acquainted with the construction of the Zeppelin and its powers of ascent and flight knows that you want powerful guns to do it material damage. The modem Zeppelin consists of many balloonettes, perhaps twenty. If you perforate only one of them, that particular balloonette may lose its ascending power, but unless you can set it on fire or tear the envelopes of other balloonettes seriously, the airship will probably get home, and, after repair, become a formidable adversary on a future occasion.
  There was at one time in this country a great contempt for Zeppelins, and a conviction that they could always he overcome by aeroplanes. I have never subscribed to that view. I told your Lordships in 1913, and in 1910 as well, that for the proper defence of this country you must have both kinds of aircraft. They have their separate uses, and to depend entirely upon aeroplanes to protect our shores against aircraft is a great mistake. There is something else which we should remember. We should do to our enemies what they do to us, to this extent. They attack, and are going to attack more, our manufacturing districts, while we have never attacked their manufacturing districts to any serious extent. We have only got a few miles, comparatively speaking, behind their lines. Yet

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  there are points on our frontier in Flanders which are far closer to Essen and the great industrial centres of Westphalia than are our industrial districts to, say, the town of Ghent, in Belgium, from which some of the German airships come. We are absolutely unable to give the only proper reply we should make—that is, the bombing and destruction of the hangars of the enemy and the harassing of his manufacturing districts.
  To convince your Lordships of the seriousness of the modern Zeppelin, I shall, perhaps, be excused if I quote a few technical details which will in no way assist the enemy because they come from a German source. First of all, I suppose that everyone will grant that the Zeppelin fleet possessed by Germany is still a considerable one. I believe our General Staff put it at seventeen. Within the last few days I have seen a gentleman from Berlin, a neutral, who is in a position to know what he is talking about, and he puts it as high as fifty. I put it myself, from evidence I have received, at between thirty and forty. Of that fleet a certain number are, of course, on the Russian front, and a certain number are always under repair; but to-day as we sit here in this House there would be the possibility, supposing the naval and the military airships of Germany combined, of a fleet of certainly not less than twenty being put in the air at the same moment. That is a very formidable fleet when you consider that each ship can carry from one and a-half to two tons of explosives, and, what is much more dangerous than explosives, fire-raising chemicals like thermit and oxide of aluminium, materials under which steel melts like wax and which hardly anything known to science can resist, for they have a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The great danger in this country is not from explosives but from fires. I do not wish to say anything that would lead to panic, but I would like His Majesty's Government to consult acknowledged fire experts, such as the London Fire Brigade and the fire brigades of our great cities, on this subject. They will corroborate my statement that if enough thermit bombs are dropped on a city one would not like to contemplate the loss of life, the damage, and the shock to the national nerves which would follow.
  I have reason to believe that the length of the most recent form of Zeppelins is
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  over 500 feet, and will shortly be over 600 feet. Westminster Hall is 220 feet long. Therefore the newest form of Zeppelins approaches three times the length of Westminster Hall. They are 65 feet in diameter; they are furnished with four engines and propellers; the weight of the ship exceeds 12½ tons; and the freight, including fuel, crew, and bombs, 11 tons; and these Zeppelins have a radius, or will very shortly have a radius, of 2,500 miles at economical speeds. In other words, even from Emden itself, without taking into consideration the hangars which may exist in Belgium, these formidable engines of war can not only cover all the parts of this country that matter, all the industrial districts, But they can and may operate in a very dangerous way against the use of our Fleet. These machines take only about 5 lbs. weight of fuel and lubricating oil for every mile that they cover. Thus if they are going a short distance, say to London—for London is a short distance—they would carry many more bombs and less fuel than if they were going further; but in any case they would carry bombs in enough quantities to be very dangerous to this country.
  Let us consider for a moment the distances. I take Ghent as the centre. London is only 160 miles from Ghent, Sheerness 120 miles, Dover 110 miles, Portsmouth 220 miles, and our manufacturing districts as far West as the west of Staffordshire are not more than 250 miles; whilst from the important naval base of Emden the distance to Hull is only 300 miles, to Newcastle 320 miles, to Manchester 350 miles—and now I come to one of the most important aspects—to the Firth of Forth 450 miles, to Cromarty 530 miles, and to Scapa Flow 550 miles. So that when we consider that the range of these airships, with their frightfully dangerous freight, certainly exceeds 2,000 miles, we have to extend our ideas considerably of the danger that may exist for us.
  The naval aspect of the Zeppelin is at least as serious as—in my opinion more serious than—the aspect on land. If the German Fleet comes out some day—it may be at a time which does not only suit the fleet, but at a time which suits the Zeppelins—and a large fleet of Zeppelins accompany the German Fleet, they will, I feel sure, although their aid may not redress the balance against the superiority of our Fleet

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  on account of numbers, efficiency, and other things, yet they will cause extra losses, they will make the tactics of our Fleet more difficult, and they may even have a serious influence on the battle itself.
  Some people say, as regards this country, that we should try and defend it to a large extent by artillery, and I was sorry when the Secretary of State for War gave us to understand the other day that the building of certain anti-aircraft guns had been accelerated to the disadvantage of other guns in order, if possible, to cope with this danger. You might just as well try to retain the supremacy of the sea by means of a few forts on the land around the coast of England as to cope with Zeppelins by setting up artillery all over this country. Unless you are going—and the idea is unthinkable on account of the number of places to protect—unless you are going to have at least 6-in. guns all over your manufacturing centres, artillery can do little good. The Zeppelins can rise higher than the extreme range—I will not give the figure—of our present guns. Even the Zeppelins that existed before the war could fly to a height of something like 15,000 feet, and they habitually operate to-day at between 10,000 and 11,000 feet. To do any damage to a Zeppelin in the air at that height would need a very large gun indeed, and any gunnery expert will tell you that accurate shooting at an object travelling, as some of these airships do, at seventy miles an hour, is a very difficult thing. The airships when attacking us do not come over at their top speed. They come over at an economical speed—about thirty-five miles an hour; but when they get here, if they are fired at—although the Germans claim they have airships that can go up to eighty miles an hour, I think myself that is an excessive claim—they can go up to a mile a minute and probably seventy miles an hour; and to hit an object going at seventy miles an hour when you do not know the drift in a particular wind at something like 12,000 to 13,000 feet high is beyond the powers of gunnery even in its most refined form. It is all very well to have guns at definite points, but that is not the way to overcome the Zeppelin danger. The way to overcome the Zeppelin danger is to carry the war into the enemy's camp, to be prepared yourself with Zeppelins, and, above all, to have more powerful planes to bomb the enemy's hangars. That is the only and the surest way of defending your own territory.
  Now a word about the position of 'planes. Here it becomes very difficult for me to say much, because one naturally wants to say nothing to discourage our pilots or manufacturers or to give information to the other side. But if I put it in this way I do not think it will do any harm. The Germans know perfectly well that they have some machines which are faster than any we have got by certainly 200 feet a minute in their power of ascending. They have also some two-seaters carrying a pilot and an observer which are more heavily armoured and more heavily armed than anything we possess. That is not satisfactory. And there is a new engine, I am informed, coming out in Germany of 225 horse-power, and an extraordinarily light 'plane which should give better results than are being obtained at present.
  At the moment in this country I consider that the private firms have largely saved the situation. If we had depended entirely upon our Royal Aircraft Factory we should have been left further behind than we are at present. I know that at one time our Royal Aircraft Factory was doing fairly well, and I should be the last to blame the director there—Mr. O'Gorman—because I know how he was handicapped by financial restrictions and want of support in other directions in the early days of the war; and this being a Government Department he has not the same latitude for research, investigation, and trial, as exists in a private undertaking. I think it is worth while noting that both in France and in Germany all the finest guns as well as the finest 'planes come out of private factories. The Creusot firm in France and Krupps in Germany are both private firms. I doubt very much the wisdom in any branch of military or naval science of setting up Government manufactories except on a very small scale, It is on your big firms that you must rely when the time of strain comes, and not to give them orders in time of peace is, I believe, a very bad policy indeed. The French have very powerful and better 'planes than we have, and I think we should acknowledge publicly the debt we owe to them. We are at the present moment copying many of their planes in our workshops, and they have been very fair and generous to us in the way they have helped us. The Renault firm's engines are being made here without restriction or hindrance; and any advantage that they may possess to-day only conies from the fact that they have been more enterprising, and we only copy what

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  they have perfected. I draw attention to this because I know there are people who say that the French have not given us all the information they might, have done on this question.
  I would like before I sit down, not with any idea of self-glorification but with the idea of showing that my interest in this matter has been consistent for many years past, to refer to some of my former utterances on this subject, because I think that my words are to a certain extent a condemnation of the methods adopted by the Government in past years. As long ago as 1909—on March 16—I called the attention of the House to this matter. After recounting what had been done by foreign nations, I asked whether we should be able to carry out our national policy, the policy we always adopt in this country, of trying to come in with a rush at the end. I asked, Shall we be able in this matter to come in with a rush? You cannot improvise planes or factories, and the answer you see to-day in the unsatisfactory state we are in. Then on April 13, 1910, I warned your Lordships that there was only one way of meeting an attack by dirigibles and aeroplanes, and that was by "meeting like with like." That is quite true to-day. Later, on April 29, 1913, I mentioned the fact that explosives might be dropped from Zeppelins. I said—
  "It would produce a state of dismay and a scene of ruin which could hardly be paralleled by any artillery work."
  That I think you will see before the end of the war. I went on to say—
  "That is a new and serious problem which we have to consider. To civilised life nerves are as important as muscles. Our complicated civilised life is dependent upon the smooth and automatic working of transport or means of communication, banks, the Stock Exchange, telegraphs and telephones, the distribution of food, and so on."
  Then I went on to warn the Government of the day of the danger to which our manufacturing centres were exposed. I saidߞ
  "An inland town like Birmingham or Leicester is just as vulnerable now as is London or Portsmouth. The fact is that with the great range of dirigibles nowadays—"
  this was fifteen months before the outbreak of war—
  "there is no town in this comparatively small island of England, there is no place in your manufacturing districts, which could be considered safe, and which would not be liable to serious damage from explosives dropped from above; whilst the amount of damage that might be done in the case of our arsenals would be of a serious description."
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  I If I had written that last night I could not have prophesied more correctly. But, as I said at the beginning of my speech, it is no use saying "I told you so."
  What we have to look at now is our policy in the future. I am one of those who think that Zeppelins are to-day a very great danger indeed, and that there is no amount of comfort in the phrase that "no damage has been done of military value." The truth is we have had stupendous luck up to now. I will not quote the cases because it might help the enemy, but I know the case of one great powder works, one great munition works, and one great factory which only escaped by a matter of a few yards. In a raid in last September one airship actually dropped bombs in the garden of the manager of a powder works, and came directly from a point in Germany or Belgium. In the raid of January 31 one of our most important machine-shops for making air-engines, and one of the best air engines, was only missed by a few yards also. That luck cannot be expected to continue. Sooner or later you will not only have factories destroyed which are of military value, but, as I said before, you may have fires which may not only burn your stores but create an immense amount of damage.
  I fear I have taken up too much of your Lordships' time, but the subject with which I have had to deal is a serious one and one about which I feel deeply. I have tried to say nothing which would help the enemy. I have tried to restrain my criticisms within the length to which they ought to be restrained in a time of war. I could say much more. I could tell of scandals which only a few days ago even were still going on. In one factory, while all this demand for aviation is so insistent, they are still making twenty-five motor-cars a week for the use of the Staff and have handicapped the production of these most important engines. That is worse than a scandal. The man who is responsible for that ought to be hanged. I will not, however, go into details, because it would help the enemy and would not help us. But I ask the Government to take up this matter very seriously indeed. I would point out again that from a military or naval point of view we cannot be said any longer to be an island. Parts of our shores are within an hour's flight of the enemy; our capital can be reached from the nearest. German hangar in three hours; our industrial centres are not more than

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  four hours' flight. We are unprepared to resist or to destroy any Zeppelins that come over in force. Our original advantages arising from our insular position are rapidly disappearing. Even the favourable meteorological position we hold is diminishing, because any neutral can send a wireless from the Thames without let or hindrance about the state of the weather in this country. Upon the efficiency of our Air Service now and in the future much will depend; and although I do not attach much value as a rule to a peroration, if I may end on a note of grave warning I would say—Let it not be said with shame of our generation that we did not trouble to guard in the air what our forefathers won on the sea.
  LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: My Lords, I am very glad that this question has been raised by the noble Lord, for there is certainly no one in this House who can speak with greater authority on the subject, and I am sure that his speech has been listened to with the greatest interest and attention. Before I say anything on the subject under discussion, I should like, if he will allow me, to offer him my hearty congratulations on his recent escape, and to assure him of the great pleasure it gives me and I am sure every member of the House to see him in his place.
  My noble friend has not only the right to speak from intimate knowledge of the subject, but also from the fact that ever since the commencement of aviation as we now know it he has not ceased to call the attention of the House to the dangers which were being incurred and to urge upon His Majesty's Government to take action before it was too late. I have refreshed my memory by reading his speeches—some of them were quoted this morning in The Times—and I have been struck by the evidence he produced to show what Germany had been doing and the arguments he brought forward to induce the Government to take immediate action. What also struck me were the replies made on behalf of the Government. They were of the usual kind. They were short; they did not occupy more than a column or two of Hansard; and they stated that the Government were alive to the necessities of the case and thought it advisable on the whole not to spend much money but to await their time and profit by the mistakes—I think the word used was
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  "experience"—of other countries. We are all agreed, I am sure, that we can no longer wait to profit by the mistakes of Germany; we ought rather to try and emulate her success. I am afraid it all points to the great advantage which in preparations for war an autocratic country has over a democratic country, because the latter is so occupied with schemes of social legislation that it is sometimes inclined to neglect even the measures necessary for the defence of the country and without which those measures of social legislation are of little avail.
  About three weeks ago I asked a question in this House on the subject of Zeppelin raids, and I ventured to say that in my opinion it was only part of a larger subject—that of aerial offence and defence—which to my mind could only be properly solved by the creation of an Air Minister. I did not receive much encouragement from the noble and gallant Field-Marshal who replied on behalf of the Government. I did not expect it from that source, but I was rather disappointed to find that cold water was thrown on the idea by noble Lords in various parts of the House who seemed to think that the Cabinet was already so large that it would be a pity to increase its number. I was therefore rather amused when, within two days, the noble Marquess (Lord Lansdowne) announced, with the universal approval of everybody in this House—and I think that approval was not confined to this House—that the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Robert Cecil) had been raised to Cabinet rank as Blockade Minister. The truth is that when the Cabinet has reached its present unwieldy dimensions it does not make very much difference whether it consists of twenty-two or thirty-two members. The real business of carrying on the war is confined to the War Committee. The other Ministers confine themselves to attending to their own Departmental concerns and as far as possible making them fit in with the exigencies of the war, and I imagine they are seldom consulted by the members of the War Committee unless an absolutely new scheme of policy is decided on or it is desired to consult a special Minister with reference to something to do with his own Department.
  I am not wedded to the idea that a Minister of Aviation should necessarily be

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  a member of the Cabinet. I think it is an advantage that he should be, because he would then be on terms of equality with his colleagues the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War; and I am perfectly certain that if an Air Minister were appointed and he were a sufficiently strong man, it would not be very long before he became a member of the Cabinet. Since I spoke the other day, as my noble friend has pointed out, a Committee has been appointed with the noble Earl, Lord Derby, as chairman. I am sorry the noble Earl is not in his place to-day—I believe he is in France. But when he spoke on the subject he was careful to tell us that the Committee's duties were very limited. As far as I can make out, they are those, as the noble Lord said, of an inter-Departmental Committee, which is to try if possible to co-ordinate the use of men and materials between the Army and the Navy—at any rate, it has nothing to do with the question of the defence of the United Kingdom. Perhaps I may quote from the noble Earl's speech. Lord Derby said—
  "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."
  I think the noble Earl was perfectly right if by that he meant that we wished to have at the head of the Air Department a man who would be responsible for what occurred; though I may add, with regard to the noble Earl himself, that if he were willing to undertake the task and fulfilled it with the same ability as he fulfilled the task of Director-General of Recruiting, I think we would be much more likely to surround his brow with a laurel wreath than encircle his neck with a silken rope. My noble friend, Lord Midleton, on the opening night of the session, stated that advice was often given in this House to members of His Majesty's Government and it generally took six months before they acted upon it. I hope that the Government will not take so long as six months before acting upon the advice which has been given to them by Lord Montagu this evening, as there is certainly at the present moment serious discontent with the manner
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  in which this question is being dealt with, and a feeling that the Army and Navy are dealing with it purely from a hand to mouth point of view, thinking only of supplying the immediate needs of the Army and the Navy with regard to aeroplanes and not looking upon the matter from a broader point of view.
  Let me take one instance where I think the creation of an Air Minister would be of use—the defence of London. It is rather difficult for me to give reasons. In the first place, there is the fear of giving information to the enemy, and in the second place, if any mention is made of the desirability of defending London there are some people and some newspapers who immediately think that one wishes to save oneself from any risk even at the expense of hampering the movements of the Army in France by preventing it from acquiring the aeroplanes it needs. That is a calumny which it is unnecessary to refute in this House. But I should like to refer to how matters stand with regard to the defence of London. The noble Lord who has just spoken told us that its organisation had passed through several hands. What I believe really happened was that at the time the war broke out the War Office had too much to do to attend to it, and the Lord Mayor approached the Admiralty to see if anything could be done. They found a certain number of special constables whom they formed into an Anti Aircraft Corps, and this corps, about a month ago when the question of defence was transferred to the Army, consisted of over 1,600 men, nearly all above military age; and there was a long waiting list which would have enabled their numbers to be supplemented. They are men of good education—civil engineers, electrical engineers, surveyors, and men of that kind; a great many of them are trained in higher mathematics. In addition a large number of them, both officers and men, underwent a course of training in anti-aircraft gunnery—range finding, attack tables, and things of that kind—at Shoeburyness, Chatham, and elsewhere. They were so highly thought of that when Sir Percy Scott relinquished the command of the corps he wrote a letter to the First Lord of the Admiralty. A portion of that letter was reproduced in an Order of the Day to the Anti-Aircraft Corps, and with your Lordships' permission I will read it Sir Percy Scott wrote—

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  "The members of the Anti-Aircraft Corps, drawn as they are from all professions and spheres, have rendered me the most valuable help. They have all, both officers and men, displayed an energetic eagerness to master the intricacies of their new duties, and it gives me great pleasure to convey to you how much I have appreciated their intelligent services."
  When the defence of London was taken over by the Army, the number of these men was diminished and a certain number of soldiers replaced them. I suppose this was necessary as it was in military hands. I asked a Question with reference to this the other day, and the noble and gallant Field-Marshal said that I was mistaken as to the fears I had expressed with regard to it. He added—
  "The new garrison artillery that are taking over guns for the defence of London are for new guns, newly-mounted, and they do not take the place of the naval gunners."
  Since the noble and gallant Field-Marshal made that statement this arrangement has, I think, been somewhat modified, because I believe I am right in saying that some of the garrison artillery who now have charge of the defence of the metropolis are extremely young men, some of them having not more than four or five weeks training, and they have absolutely no knowledge of gunnery of any kind or description. Besides this, they are ill young men of military age who one would imagine would naturally go to the Front, particularly when these other Anti-Aircraft Corps men who are all over military age are willing to take their places. And owing to the fact that they are on duty day and night it requires thirty soldiers to do the work which was formerly performed by eight anti-aircraft men.
  The noble and gallant Field-Marshal, in the speech to which I have referred, said that among the men who were taking charge of the defence of London were trained gunners, "who have been shooting at enemy aeroplanes at the Front." I wish, however, to ask whether this experience necessarily fits them for the work which they are called upon to perform in London. At the Front they have to fire against aeroplanes in the day time. I believe that they take direct aim, that there is no necessity for range finding. And they are able to see the effect of their shots. Here they are called upon to take charge of a different kind of gun which has to fire against Zeppelins at night, and they have no practice for any range finding or attack tables or anything of that kind. A story is current—I do not know whether it is true—that
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  one of these men was so troubled with the different directions he had received with regard to the new guns that he said, "Well, if I see a Zeppelin all I can do is to aim straight at it, and I hope that the order will be given 'F.L.H.,' which being interpreted means 'Fire like—shall we say?—Hades.'" I am glad to learn that the officers of the anti-aircraft stations have been retained in these stations to give instruction to their successors, and that consequently we are not exposed to dangers from these inexperienced gunners. The fact that the defence of London was handed over to the military and added to the already onerous duties of Lord French made it inevitable that a certain number of soldiers should be employed. But this would not have been the case with an Air Minister, because he would have been free to retain the whole of the Anti-Aircraft Corps, to add to their number, and to pay special attention to the requirements of London. He would have been able to see to the necessity of keeping up an adequate supply of high-explosive and incendiary shells, of seeing that there were proper listening posts, of having night tracers, and also of seeing that wherever possible there are four batteries, which would ensure that the Zeppelin should fly into a zone of fire.
  I have dwelt upon only one small point, because it is familiar to us all. I have not touched upon the larger question referred to by my noble friend—namely, the supply of aeroplanes and of airships—which is of the very first necessity. It seems to me that the appointment of an Air Minister would be of the greatest use to see that these were properly provided. Let the Army and the Navy have all they want; their claim comes first. But this should not prevent a special Department from inquiring what else can be done. The noble Lord alluded to the fact that one factory which is specially adapted for the manufacture of engines for aeroplanes is now being utilised for the manufacture of engines for motorcars for the Staff officers at the Front. I was going to refer to that particularly, but there is now no need for me to do so. My Lords, we do want to feel that we are no longer going on from hand to mouth, being fully satisfied if we can supply the wants of the Army and Navy. We have to take immediate steps to let Germany know that we are making up for lost time. We have done so with regard to the Army and with regard to munitions. Why should we

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  sit with folded hands while Germany raids our towns, and may, perhaps, even raid our Fleet? Let us know that there is some one in charge who is considering this question, who is devising new protection for us at home, who is planning fresh methods of attack on the Zeppelins in their homes—some one who will make Germany realise that she will not be allowed to maintain her present supremacy in the air, but that we are as determined to wrest it from her as we are to maintain our supremacy at sea.
  VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, with the conclusion of the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat clown I, like your Lordships, am in entire agreement. The question is not what we desire to do, but how to get it done; and it is upon that question that I wish to offer a few observations. The noble Lord who introduced the subject this afternoon has, as all of us know, worked at this subject with great devotion, and I who some years ago was concerned with its early developments can testify personally, not only to the services that he rendered to those who were charged with the responsible duty of laying the foundations of the Air Service, but to the way in which he was always helpful and always of assistance from the large fund of information which he had accumulated. Yet in the speeches both of the noble Lord and of Lord Oranmore there seemed to me to be a note of uncertainty. A Minister of the Air is suggested, another Minister to be added to the already very large Cabinet. The noble Lord who spoke last remarked reflectively that the Cabinet is so large that it does not matter very much whether you add another, and he might have added that it will not do very much good if you add another.
  I thought, in listening to both speeches, that there was one question about which it was desirable that we should come to some conclusion before we proceed further, and that is this. What is the new Minister to administer? What is he to look after, and what is to be his task? The noble Lord suggested that he might look after the personnel not only of the defence of London, but of the whole Air Service. I wonder what Admiral Jellicoe would say if the men who were responsible for his sea scouting in the North Sea were men whom he did not himself command, and who did not belong to the Naval Service.
  LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: I suggest that the Air Minister should be responsible for home defence and also for the supply of aeroplanes and of airships for defence and offence, but that aeroplanes and airships when co-operating with the Army or the Navy should be under the local commander.
  VISCOUNT HALDANE: I can only say that if there are to be, not two Services as at present, but three Services, then I think the confusion will be worse confounded. If you are going to train your men, you must train them under the people who are responsible for them and to whom they are to be responsible; and three Services would certainly lead to greater confusion in that direction than the present arrangement. To me it is clear that there are two quite distinct questions here. One is how the machines are to be used and who is to use them, and the other is how the requisite machines are to be provided. There, I think, both noble Lords who have spoken have a good point. Owing to the division of energy and of capacity there is no doubt to my mind that we have suffered, for we have not been able to concentrate the resources and brains of the nation upon the production of the machines. But, after all this like anything else, is a question of settling first principles. We have heard a good deal too much of "push and go," what is called violent action before thinking, instead of violent thinking before action. I want to see a little more violent thinking introduced into the problem which we have to consider. In every respect the lesson of this war has been the absolute necessity of getting clear conceptions of what it is we want to accomplish and working them out. That principle, I am glad to say, has been developed lately in our military affairs, and I think in our naval affairs though possibly not with the same distinct recognition. It is absolutely necessary that you should apply that principle now before you can make any real progress with the air problem.
  Let me illustrate what I mean. As I have said, I had a good deal to do with the early question of aeroplanes. I remember very well when aeroplanes first became a pressing necessity, and I remember the shoal of inventions and projects which came to me as Minister of War in those days and which I had to consider. I saw a great many of the inventors, and I read any quantity of

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  specifications and plans, and I consulted any number of experts. And what was impressed on me was this, that I was asked to deal with the second stage of the problem instead of first being called upon to deal with the first stage. The first stage was how to get definitely ascertained the principles which should guide construction. I do not mean merely as regards the shape of the machines but as regards the material out of which they should be constructed, the power of the machines, and an infinity of technical detail of great importance. The second was how to carry these principles into practice and to apply them. The course we took in those days was this, and I have no reason to doubt that it was a good course. The first thing we did was to take the National Physical Laboratory, one of the most valuable institutions in this country which covers a great deal of the field of research in matters of this kind, and to construct a new wing there which should be the laboratory or rather the permanent working place of a continuously working Committee. For that Committee we were fortunate enough to secure the services of Lord Rayleigh as president, and we secured the co-operation of some of the greatest theoretical experts in the country. We also had the assistance of Mr. Lanchester and Mr. Mallock, who were famed throughout the country for their remarkable skill in the adaptation of new principles to practice, particularly in problems of mechanical construction. Of course, that Committee could only do one part of the work. At Farnborough, near where the Committee were at work, was established, under the able guidance of Mr. O'Gorman, who was picked for the purpose, a Construction Department. Mr. O'Gorman was in the closest consultation with the Committee, and he set to work, not to produce aeroplanes on a large scale in regard to numbers—which I think the noble Lord rather assumed—but to work out the models on the principles which had been ascertained and worked out by the Committee.
  The noble Lord referred to the very good position which our aeroplanes attained early in the war. I think that was largely due to the work of Lord Rayleigh's Committee and of Mr. O'Gorman. Somehow this country did not take the interest in the Air Service that was taken in France and Germany, and the result was that we were much behind. I remember in those days
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  it was almost impossible to get a good engine in this country. We had to go to France for nearly all our engines. But there came a period when I do not think we were behind, and certainly quite early in the war the Commander-in-Chief in France announced that in his opinion and in the opinion of his Staff we had established our ascendancy in the air. Just see what that implies. It implies that in this matter of the aeroplane, working upon these definite principles, trying to think first before acting and to apply science first, we had made up a good deal of the ground. I do not desire your Lordships to assume for a moment that I think there is not an enormous amount of ground to be covered that we ought to have covered. We are far behind, but not in construction and not in design. The Germans may have invented a new engine, but the engine which works the Fokker aeroplane, I am told, is only an adaptation of the already familiar Morane model in France. That may be so, or it may not. But you are bound to have ups and downs in aeroplane construction. In one month one nation will be ahead, and in another month another nation; but I have no fear that France and England, organised as they are in the matter of construction and with the scientific assistance they are receiving, will be able to hold their own if only we use our opportunities.
  In the matter of aeroplanes, something else was done after my time. Colonel Seely and Mr. Churchill between them organised the Flying Corps who were to operate these machines, and we were fortunate enough to get for the head of the corps an officer of great distinction, General Sir David Henderson, than whom I venture to say there is no more competent person to be found. I do not know how we stand at this moment as regards our aeroplane service for the Army, but I should doubt very much if we are behind the enemy. If we are, it is nothing more than temporary. In any circumstances we may hope speedily to recover ourselves. With the organisation I have described and the development and the capacity here, it is our own fault if we are behind.
  But when I come to speak of Zeppelins—the lighter-than-air machines—I have a different tale to tell. The Zeppelin is an invention of the enemy in which we are lamentably behind; and we are behind not because we did not try, but because we did not succeed in accomplishing. I

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  should have thought that the Zeppelin required at least as much scientific investigation before the foundation of the pattern was laid and the construction decided upon as did the aeroplane, but in those early days the Zeppelin did not receive the same attention. The Zeppelin did not rest with the Army. It was consigned to the Navy by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The Navy are magnificent in construction, but their construction had not included any experience for the making of these great airships. I do not know, but I doubt, whether Lord Rayleigh's Committee was consulted very much upon the physical conditions to which a Zeppelin must conform. I do not think the Farnborough factory, which, after all, included experts of a very high order in engine construction, had much to do with them. The only real Zeppelin that I know of that was ever constructed here was constructed at Barrow, and it met with an accident and went to pieces immediately. The Admiralty appear to have been discouraged and not to have proceeded further. Speaking for myself, I think we missed a great opportunity of applying to the construction of Zeppelins the same amount of science that we endeavoured to apply to the construction of aeroplanes. I think that if the same course had been taken with regard to them we should be much further advanced than we are to-day. We did try to construct airships, and we constructed some small ones. I remember the very primitive airship which was all we could accomplish in the beginning, and I shall never forget an ascent which I made myself in the earliest of them. It was an experience I do not look back to with any pleasure. But somehow the progress has been very uneven. The heavier-than-air machine has progressed well, while with the lighter-than-air machine we seem never to have succeeded; and the cause to which I assign that is our not having worked out first principles in the same way as regards the heavier-than-air machine, and not having had the same special expert attention devoted to its construction.
  If that be so, what is its bearing on the problem we have to-day? Its bearing is that we have to make up the lost ground. A Minister of Air is all very well. Some day or other the Air Service may have grown to such enormous dimensions that we will need a Minister of Air; but I feel sure he will be a Minister of Construction.
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  I do not think you will ever be able to take the machines—the arms, as they are—which have been produced by the Construction Department away from the Commander-in-Chief of the naval and of the military forces and put them under anybody else. I am quite sure that you must distinguish between the weapon you produce, so far as its construction is concerned, and the person who is to use it. If that be so, then at the present time what we should, like to be assured of is that the same amount of science is being devoted to the construction of the Zeppelin as certainly was devoted to the construction of the aeroplane. I do not know what course the Government are taking in this respect. It would not be the slightest use to appoint a Minister to solve that problem unless he were a person of very remarkable talent. What you really want is to insist that to the problems of construction the amount of attention is given which is required. I do not think it is possible to turn round suddenly and take the construction out of the hands in which it is at the present time. That would only bring things into confusion. I should be very sorry to see the control and the direction of the Army Air Service in any way removed from the responsibility and control of General Henderson, but I should like to feel sure, in regard to the problem of constructing the other kind of ships, that we are putting our backs into the business of producing the requisite scientific and technical ability. It is not for the Admiralty merely to hit upon a pattern and then hand it over to the constructor. It is not enough to do these things when you have leeway to make up on the science which has been brought to bear on this subject in Germany.
  In Germany there has been no separate Minister for Air, as far as I know; nor in France. What has been done is that the Navy and Army have been strengthened to the utmost point with scientific equipment. General Staff principles have been applied, and the work has been divided into two. Construction has been treated as one subject, and the use of the weapon as another. When the weapon is produced the fighting Service takes charge of it and uses it, and in my opinion that must be so; but to construction as well as to the use of the weapon General Stall principles have been applied. The beginning that has always been made has been

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  a scientific beginning. Ours has not been a scientific beginning, at any rate so far as lighter-than-air machines are concerned, and I put down our want of progress to a want of seriousness about methods of construction. The work of the Admiralty in shipbuilding has been for long magnificent, simply because there has grown up silently and unobtrusively a scientific department which thoroughly understands these things. But in days when everything is strained, when the work of naval construction is enormous, you certainly cannot develop the requisite talent; and if you are to make any progress, you will have to bring in the very best outside ability to assist in the production of the requisite machines.
  I have said these things because I think the whole of these questions relating to the air are discussed too lightly. You have people constantly coming forward with this and that prescription for remedying the evil. Remedy the evil rapidly you cannot. You have to make up the leeway of neglect in the past of science in a hundred departments which are telling against us in this war. I have said it many times before, and I say it again—that is the thing we have to learn most if we are to make sure of keeping our position in the future. There are departments now in which the most scientific consideration is being devoted by other nations to problems which will arise immediately after the war, as well as to problems which are arising now. I wish I felt sure that we were devoting anything like the time we ought to that kind of reflective consideration. I am sure we are not. We are a great deal better than we used to be, but that is not enough. Other nations have progressed with enormous rapidity in this direction, while we have been progressing with very moderate rapidity.
  The question before your Lordships today is profoundly illustrative of that of which I am speaking. It is not a question of calling in some energetic person and making him Minister of Air and saying, "Now produce something." If he is appointed, then indeed in a short time the silken rope of which Lord Derby spoke and to which my noble friend alluded will be about his neck. What you have to do is to begin, at this hour even, by laying the proper foundations which are required before you can hope for success in this
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  new and most difficult construction. I agree with both speakers that in the future the war in the air is likely to play a much greater part than it does at the present time; how great, we cannot tell; it is useless to prophesy. We know that we are far behind in point of scouting through the absence of Zeppelins at the present time; that is where the Zeppelins would have been of great use to our Navy. We know that we are materially hampered through not having a fleet of Zeppelins with which we could attack enemy Zeppelins approaching these shores. We have not got them, as we have not set to work seriously in this matter like we have about creating fleets of battleships and other things in which we excel. I believe this country to be behind no other country in its capacity when once it is invoked; We are splendidly practical and resolute; but what we need is to get definite conceptions and to get interests which will stimulate us to action, and until we get those interests we shall never progress. It is not too late to get them in regard to these problems which are pressing on the public attention with reference to the air. But you certainly will not make matters better if you snatch things out of the hands in which they are and put them into the hands of somebody who has probably had less experience and will be less capable of handling them. The true policy is for the Government to strengthen by every means they can what I will call the scientific foundation upon which the Service rests at the present time, and, above all, to make sure that no action is undertaken which does not rest upon the basis of carefully considered conceptions.
  LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount who has just sat down said that it was quite true that at the beginning of the war we were ahead of all nations in regard to aircraft, and that since then other nations have gone ahead of us. The noble Viscount supplied the explanation himself. There was a good deal too much "push and go" with regard to aircraft; there was nothing thought out; the duties to be performed were never considered; we had no Operations Department; money was spent like water buying from other nations, particularly from America, the machines that they could spare—all different patterns, all requiring different handling and different pilots. That is what happened. I entirely

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  agree with my noble friend Lord Montagu that this new air warfare is going to be perhaps of so tremendous a character that it may supersede armies and navies. Anyway, whatever happens, we should be ahead in the air the same as we are on the water.
  Zeppelins are a very grave danger, and I agree with Lord Montagu that the danger is not so much from explosives but from fire. If bombs that contain the liquids of which my noble friend spoke are dropped, you cannot extinguish the outbreak except with sand. Therefore once they drop these fire bombs over magazines or arsenals or towns, which they will do when they have enough Zeppelins, it will be a most deadly danger to us. You might ask, "Well, what do you propose to do?" I would propose that Zeppelins should be built as soon as ever it is possible, for the simple reason that in all war machines you must meet like with like. Artillery is met with Artillery, Infantry with Infantry, and Cavalry with Cavalry. And Zeppelins must be met with Zeppelins. They can get so high up in the air that, even if you have a gun capable of hitting them when it gets its sights on and you have a proper range-finder, it is still problematical whether that gun would hit them. I do not think it is possible for aeroplanes or that class of air-craft to attack a Zeppelin, and for this reason. When the Zeppelin puts her helm down her great buoyancy takes her up; when the aeroplane puts its helm down to climb it reduces its speed because it is driving itself against the atmosphere to get up. Therefore you will not beat Zeppelins except by Zeppelins. The question was asked in another place, "Why do not the British continue to raid or attack places of the enemy, as they did at the beginning of the war or shortly after?" That is easily answered. The machines we bought were nearly all bad machines and had not got air endurance. We have to improve the whole of our machines. Had we at the beginning undertaken the work according to Lord Haldane's idea, we should have been very much further than we are at present. This is a new weapon which requires most scientific working out before you produce it; it requires tremendous science, perhaps more than anything else, after you have produced it in order to enable it to act; and if we had taken English artisans and English manufacturers and had a proper Committee to work this new weapon out
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  at first, we should have been a great deal more advanced than we are at present.
  Of this I am certain, that when it comes to air fighting we shall produce young men second to none. They are now the best pilots and the best observers, but they have not the best machines. It is murder to send them up in bad machines. We have lost several of the finest young men in the world by sending them up in bad machines.* We lost Rice and Cresswell, who were sent up in a White's machine which was fitted with petrol for three hours and a water cooler for one hour; the water gave out before the petrol and the joints fused, and those two young men lost their lives. That fine young man Warneford lost his life in an experimental machine. You have no right to send your first-class airmen up in experimental machines. His propeller had the dry rot, and he lost his life. Ireland and Usborne went up with gas bags on the top of one experimental machine that were to be slipped. The first two went, but the third hung on and they were both killed. That was all incorrect and wrong, and, as I say, it is murder so to send them up. The amount of money we have spent uselessly is something fabulous. Why is our naval air machine so far behind the military? Because we want to join on to the air machines the armed motor people. Was there ever anything so lunatic? The officer in charge of the air was, of course, looking after the armed motors. You scattered them all over the globe; they were perfectly useless, and we have spent millions on that. Then we have the "S.S." machine for searching for submarines. It has cost millions upon millions and is practically useless. It might get 100 miles with a fair wind but it is most unlikely, and if it meets a head wind it cannot get back. That is what we have done. We have been too much in a hurry, and have not had the scientific people to work out first what was necessary.
  My noble friend Lord Montagu suggested that we should have an Air Minister. I quite see his point, but I do not think it will help the case. And I am sorry to say that I do not quite agree with him as to having one Air Service. An air service is needed for the Army and another for the Navy. The first thing we have to do is to ascertain and define the duties and the
  * See LORD BERESFORD'S statement, col. 458.

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  functions of the Army and the Navy with regard to air service. They are both totally different. The Navy has no business to undertake military work, such as it did with armed motors and flying machines, over the Army. These things are innovations. This is not the Navy's work. It provokes irritation, and very natural irritation, from the sister Service that is so friendly. You have first to make out what are the Navy's duties appertaining to the new air fighting. When those duties are made out clearly, the air squadrons or fleets that belong to the Navy must be as distinctly under the Admiral as are the torpedo squadrons, the cruiser squadrons, or submarine squadrons. It is another arm, but it must be under the Admiral in command. Exactly the same with the Army. The duties of the Army in regard to air service must be clearly defined, and when defined should, as with other arms—the Cavalry, Horse Artillery, Heavy Siege Train and so on—come under one head.
  With regard to manufacture, I think I have the sympathy of my noble friend Lord Montagu in this. May I draw a parallel? We will take a seaman who wants to float a certain gun. He says, "I want to float that gun and its complement of 300 rounds of ammunition, so much armour, so much engines, get so much speed, and so much allowed for weight of men and stores." The sailor does not build the ship. That is consigned to the constructor who calculates the platform and the buoyancy necessary. Then we come to the constructor. He does not go down in the market and buy his own material; he orders it, and there is a contract made. You have two different departments for that. That is what we ought to have with the air machine; the soldier and the sailor ought to make out carefully what is wanted for certain purposes, then it ought to be turned over to the scientific man to say how he is going to make those things, and then you have the man who buys what material is necessary.
  To revert to my proposal with regard to Zeppelins, we must remember that it took the Germans twelve years before they got a Zeppelin at all, and I think they had fourteen failures. Do we suppose that in this country we are going to find at this moment either the material, the artisans, the gear, or the tools necessary to make this novel machine? It will take years to do it. The only thing we can do at present
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  is to fit up the best machine we can to cover the distances which Lord Montagu mentioned, which will not be very difficult, and make not monthly or weekly but daily attacks against the Zeppelin sheds. They are enormous targets, and our whole individuality at this moment should be devoted to smashing the Zeppelin sheds. If Zeppelins come here—I give my opinion for what it is worth—I do not see, for the reason. I have given, how we can attack them. These ships go at seventy miles an hour, remember. You are not able to know whether they are on an even keel or descending or ascending, which makes all the difference in finding the range; and I do not think, even if you had a gun that would reach them at the height to which they can go, you would ever hit them—anyway it is extremely problematical. They are a very grave danger, and our best way of meeting them is to attack them in the places from where they come.
  I have no great confidence in what Lord Derby will be able to do on his Committee after his speech in this House in which he said he was responsible for nothing. What we really want is somebody responsible. We should have a small Committee for the Army and a small Committee for the Navy, and they should consider the question of designs for the Air Service. We want a co-ordinated organisation, not only between the different parts of the Navy and the different parts of the Army, but, if possible, as my noble friend Lord Montagu said, between the two Services. The sooner we get that the better.
  Before I sit down, though I believe I am totally out of order, there is a question so transcendently important that, if your Lordships will permit me, I should like to make a, remark about it. Statements have been made that our Fleet is not ready, that it will be less ready in a few months' time, and that the management of the Fleet is not satisfactory. I think these statements are wicked statements to make. They are liable to make our Allies and the neutrals nervous, and they have created a grave amount of anxiety in this country and of irritation in the Fleet. I feel that it is necessary in the public interest that somebody in this House should call attention to the matter and repudiate the statements with considerable vehemence. It is an attempt in my belief of a small mind to hurt the Government. Whether

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  it has hurt the Government or not, it has hurt the Fleet; it has hurt the country, it has hurt our credit, and created doubts in the minds of the Allies, and the sooner it is smashed and pulverised the better. That is why I have asked you to allow me to make these remarks.
  The suggestions were vague. Innuendos of that sort tend to promote panic and nervousness in the middle of the biggest war that has ever been known, and when more depends upon the efficiency of the British Fleet and upon its government than upon anything else in the whole war. One of the unfortunate things that happen to men who go to the Front is that their mentality is sometimes affected—whether in this case it was by the noise of the high explosives or by gas I do not know, but the right hon. gentleman who made these statements ought to go and see a specialist as soon as he can. I cannot account otherwise for his confusion of thought. He was relieved of his office, and what has he done? He has come back from the trenches, where I have no doubt he would do very good work, for he is not wanting in pluck. But he comes back and arrogates to himself the rights that only belong to His Majesty's Government and the Crown—that of appointing the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. I think his mentality has been affected. The present First Lord of the Admiralty referred to the right hon. gentleman's distinguished ancestor who had to go into a general action to make up his mind; but his descendant has to go into a general action to clear up what he is pleased to call his mind—but what that is I really cannot discover.
  It was a most mischievous agitation all through. It was thought that it was engineered by the late First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher; and as I thought I might be able to make these remarks I wrote to him and begged him to attend here and correct me if I said anything that was wrong. I can only say that from his influence with the Press it was thought he had engineered it. However, at present the agitation is only conducted by the right hon. gentleman the Member for Dundee, and a few newspapers, assisted by twenty sandwichmen. There is not much support behind it, and I hope it will soon cease. But the noble Lord (Lord Fisher) could stop it in one day. He has only to write publicly to the Press to repudiate it, and then it will
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  cease. He must know the mischief it is doing in the Service and in the country, and he must know that it is bad for the State, bad for our Allies, and bad for the continuance of the war. If he does not at once repudiate the agitation we are bound to think that he is encouraging it. I say this. If you want to go straight to disaster let the House of Commons and the Press nominate your Admirals and your Generals by popular clamour.
  Let us remember that no one man is necessary. No one man created the Navy; that has been the outcome of the combined intelligence, patriotism, and loyalty—without advertisement—for centuries of the best brains the land can produce. Leave the Navy alone; do not hamper it; and do not try to sow dissension among its splendid officers and men. At this moment the Navy has the completest faith in its Commander-in-Chief. That is absolutely necessary. He is the man who is going to do the work when the fight comes on. The Navy has complete faith in the present Board of Admiralty, because it knows perfectly well that naval opinion—not political or personal opinion—is going to guide it. It knows also that the Navy's honour is safe in the hands of a Minister like my right hon. friend Mr. Balfour. I am obliged to your Lordships for letting me be so flagrantly out of order for so long. But I do advise the country to trust implicitly in the Navy. It has never failed this country yet through all the long centuries during which it has maintained our honour and our safety.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am sure that every member of the House was delighted to see my noble friend Lord Montagu back in his place and able not only to take a part in our proceedings but to initiate with great effect one of the most important discussions which have occurred during the present session of Parliament. We are glad to notice that he shows no sign of having sustained any permanent detriment from an ordeal from which he would probably not have escaped but for qualities of fortitude which it is not given to every man to possess. My noble friend has dealt this evening with a subject which he has made his own, and he has a right to claim that he made it his own long before it attracted the amount of public attention which it

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  now commands. To-night he has spoken with great knowledge on his subject, with much moderation of tone, and with a wealth of illustration which greatly interested his hearers.
  Before I attempt to follow him, perhaps I may say half-a-dozen words about one or two other speeches to which we have listened. I come first to the speech of my noble and gallant friend on the Second Bench opposite (Lord Beresford). He has not taken long to show that he is really one of us, for no hardened Back-Bencher could have taken more liberal advantage of the lines of deviation which we allow ourselves in this House. We felt, as he addressed us, what a joy it must be to him to feel that it is no longer necessary for him to keep his weather eye upon the Speaker. His speech was really a continuation of a discussion which took place not many hours ago in the other House of Parliament, and he must not expect me to follow him along the path of disorder. But I gathered from the reception of his remarks that they were not wholly distasteful to your Lordships' House; and we all felt that if there was any breach of order it might well be extenuated by my noble and gallant friend's devotion to the Service of which he has been an ornament, and the honour of which he naturally desires to uphold in this House or elsewhere.
  I want to say a word or two with regard to the speech of my noble friend Lord Oranmore. The points with which he dealt were really points of detail, and I do not wish to take up the time of the House for long in referring to them. I think he has been misinformed on several points. He is under the impression that in connection with the defence of London a large number of men were discharged from the Anti-Aircraft Corps as the result of the transfer of the defence of London from the Admiralty to the War Office. I am assured that no officers or men were discharged on the occasion of that transfer, and that there is no intention of discharging any. Then he gave us some information with regard to the age of the men employed upon this service. I am told that it is by no means the case that the personnel of the Anti-Aircraft Corps are all over military age. As a matter of fact, these men are at this moment considered as on active service. With regard to his reference to the retention of certain officers for the purpose of training
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  their successors, I am told that the average service of the Regular officers now in charge is twenty-two years and that of the Royal Naval Anti-Aircraft Corps only fifteen months. All these officers serve together until the newcomers are thoroughly acquainted with their duties. But if my noble friend is exercised in his mind about these things and will be good enough to let me talk to him about them, I will see to it that he is given a full explanation of the facts of the case.
  I come now to my noble friend Lord Montagu. He has been described—I think rather appositely described—as a prophet in connection with this particular subject; and to-night we may say that he appeared not only as a prophet, but in the guise of a physician. He gave us a diagnosis of the disease from which we are suffering, and he prescribed his remedy. With regard to the disease no one, I take it, will get up in this House or anywhere else and say that there have not been very serious shortcomings in connection with the Air Service of this country, or that it is not our duty to devote all our energy to correct the defects and the miscarriages which have arisen would only ask my noble friend to remember that this science is still in its infancy. It is undergoing the most extraordinary and rapid developments. Just as there have been new developments in trench and submarine warfare, so there have been rapid developments in connection with aerial warfare, and accordingly it is impossible to say that either our Army or our Navy ought at any given moment to have been supplied with a standardised equipment of any particular kind of air craft or weapon. Another thing that ought not to be forgotten is that in the case of equipment for aerial warfare, as in the case of all other military and naval equipment, we have to contend with the great difficulties due to the stupendous, and, we must say, wholly unexpected efforts which this country has been called upon to make. We cannot be surprised if there is a certain shortage of material, whether for naval, or military, or aircraft purposes.
  But I should be very sorry to say anything that might be taken as admitting that there was no other side to the case than the somewhat depressing picture which has been drawn by one or two speakers to-night. The increase in the quality of our military equipment has

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  been remarkable. I have made it my business to make inquiries upon this point, and they certainly tend to show, in the first place, that so far as warfare at the Front is concerned we have not been outclassed by our opponents. I say that with regard to the quality of our equipment. Now a word with regard to its quantity. Taking first the number of pilots. I am told that the output per month is at the present moment twenty times that of peace, and that it will more than double itself during the summer, and that in spite of the fact that there has been as we all know, deeply to our regret, a large percentage of casualties, which I am glad to say have all been replaced. Now with regard to aeroplanes. The intake per week is about three-quarters of that for the whole of the year ended August, 1914. All the original types of aeroplane and engine which accompanied the Expeditionary Force in August, 1914, have now been replaced by something better, and this progress continues. In regard to the number of units, I am told that by the end of the month the number of squadrons abroad will be eight times those which accompanied the Expeditionary Force in August, 1914.
  LORD BERESFORD: Is that an improved type?
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Type of aeroplane?
  LORD BERESFORD: Yes.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am afraid I cannot tell my noble friend. I have not sufficient knowledge to speak on that subject. I mention these things because there is a certain tendency to lose sight of what is actually being done by those responsible for our Air Service, and of the remarkable results which they have accomplished.
  Then may I say two or three words with regard to the question of air raids upon this country. So far as our experience has gone, I should be inclined to say that what people have resented most is not so much the extent of the damage which has been done by these Zeppelin raids as the impunity with which they have been carried
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  out. As far as their success goes, I doubt whether either the material or the moral effects of these raids have been at all considerable in proportion to the effort which they must have cost our enemy. It is true that there has been a regrettable loss of life, particularly amongst noncombatants, and that there has been considerable destruction of buildings. But I do not think it can be said that any of these occurrences, no matter how regrettable, have really advanced the cause of our enemies or brought them any nearer to a victorious conclusion of the war. As regards their moral effect, I certainly have neither seen nor heard any sign of panic, although there has been a feeling of very deep indignation and resentment, accompanied by a resolve to support the authorities in any precautionary measures which can be taken to guard against these raids. I say that without any idea of suggesting that we desire to ignore the emphatic warning with which my noble friend concluded his speech. On the contrary, we do fully realise that this danger of invasion by aircraft is a very real danger, that it is one which might at any moment threaten the bases of our Armies abroad, and that it is our duty to take every possible precaution to meet it. There is, for example, no idea of suggesting that inferior guns or less highly trained gunners should be employed on this service. On the contrary, it is intended that the best guns and the best men shall be used for it, and that a service of this kind shall be regarded as interchangeable with service at the Front.
  The main and the best-founded complaint which has been made is that our Air Service is faulty in its organisation, that there has been a dispersal of effort, a scramble between the two Services, and an absence of a comprehensive and directing policy. That is, I think, a fair summary of the indictment. One word as to policy. When people talk of an air policy I am not quite sure that I know exactly what they have in their mind. I think I do know what they have in their mind if they talk of a military policy or of a naval policy, although I shall always maintain that the two form part of a single policy for the defence of the country, and, for the matter of that, for the defence of the Empire—a single policy which ought to be directed by a single controlling authority. I find it more difficult,

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  I must say, to think of a separate air policy than I do of a separate military or naval policy, because unless I am mistaken the Air Service must always be to a great extent ancillary to the Army or the Navy as the case may be. The Navy will always insist on having an Air Service of its own.
  LORD BERESFORD: Hear, hear.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It will always contend that the duties to be performed are different, and the craft to be used are of a different kind; and probably a similar plea will be put in, with equal effect, by the Army. I venture to suggest that the proper way of looking at this question is to recognise the Air Service as a most important ally of the other two Services, to put it alongside of them, and to see that if there is a tripartite policy it is really directed from one controlling source and in accordance with the general needs of the country and of the Empire.
  Now what are we doing in order to carry out the policy which I have endeavoured to sketch? We have appointed the Join War Air Committee, over which my noble friend Lord Derby is to preside. Let me say two or three words about that Committee, first as to its personnel. It is presided over by a public man who at this moment stands very high indeed in the estimation of his fellow-countrymen. He is not in the Cabinet, but he is quite as well known, I may say, as most members of the Cabinet. He is certainly in a position which will not deny to him any opportunities which he may seek for ascertaining the mind of His Majesty's Government and keeping in the closest possible contact with its counsels. The Committee will include three distinguished officers representing the Admiralty, two representing the War Office, and it may also summon to its assistance advisory members. I think that is an important point with regard to what fell from Lord Haldane, because there you have an opening, of which use might be made, for calling in that special and scientific knowledge upon the value of which he so very properly insists. And I think the House will have noticed with satisfaction that one member of the Committee, General Sir David Henderson, has just been appointed a member of the Army Council, which at once gives him a special status in connection with Army affairs. But what
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  is almost as important, I think, is the fact that the Committee is to have for its secretaries the secretary and the assistant secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence. We all know what an important part a good secretary plays in matters of this kind, and all who know the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence know how great his knowledge and experience are and how valuable his assistance is likely to be to Lord Derby and his colleagues.
  A word as to the functions of the Committee. The Committee has a free hand to deal with questions of design, of production, and of distribution. I ask your Lordships whether that Reference does not cover a very wide ground. I listened very carefully to what was said by Lord Montagu as to the different branches of the subject which he considered ought not to be, left out of account, and unless I am quite mistaken I think those were really the three divisions of the subject upon which he dwelt with most force. It is also be remembered that it is precisely in regard to these questions that outside criticism has been most pronounced. When I am told that Lord Derby's Committee should be in a position to deal with air policy, I venture to say that these three great questions of design, production, and distribution cannot be dealt with separately from the question of general policy.
  LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: Hear, hear.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE:And I think you might invert that proposition and say that the question of general policy could not be dealt with apart from the consideration of the questions of design, production, and distribution. I press that because I think it shows what a very large grip upon the subject Lord Derby's Committee is likely to have. If I may sum up the functions of the Committee I do so in these words. It will be the business of the Committee to ensure that the manufacture, supply, and distribution of material required is in accordance with the policy of aerial warfare laid down by His Majesty's Government. I think two of the noble Lords who addressed the House to-night commented upon the language held by my noble friend Lord Derby when he spoke here the other evening, and they quoted certain expressions in his speech in order

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  to show that, by Lord Derby's own admission, the scope of his functions was very narrowly limited. I think Lord Derby's language has been rather unfairly interpreted. I heard Lord Derby's speech and I admit that it might have left the impression upon some people's minds that Lord Derby was desiring to minimise the importance of his own Committee. What I think Lord Derby really wanted to explain was that he had no executive functions, and that for that reason he was not to be held in any way responsible for the air defence either of London or of the United Kingdom. That is perfectly true. Lord Derby will not have any executive functions, but with that reservation I still maintain that Lord Derby's position and that of his Committee is an extremely powerful one, and that there is really no portion of the field of inquiry from which he and his colleagues are excluded. Something was said as to the Parliamentary representation of the Committee. I think we may find some comfort in the thought that Lord Derby, who attends this House frequently, will I am sure always be ready to give us the benefit of his knowledge of the work upon which the Committee is engaged.
  I may be asked why, having gone so far, we do not pluck up a little more courage and appoint a Minister with a full-blown Department subordinate to him. Let me say, with reference to what was said I think by Lord Oranmore, that we certainly should not be deterred from making an arrangement of that kind merely because it would have the effect of adding one more to an already somewhat numerous Cabinet. That, I can tell my noble friend, is certainly not a consideration which would be Allowed to weigh against any material arguments in favour of the change which he advocates. But what it seems to me has to be shown by those who favour an arrangement of that kind is that you really would get any substantial advantage beyond that which we certainly shall derive under the new arrangement. I confess, although I have quite readily admitted that there are imperfections to be removed, that it has never been established to my satisfaction that the only way of removing them is by appointing a Cabinet Minister to deal with them. What really matters is the essence of the arrangement, and not the particular style and title which you give to the public man whom you place
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  at the head of the new Department. A great many of the mistakes to which reference has been made during this debate were, as far as I could make out, mistakes committed, not by the heads of the Aircraft Department, but by subordinates—blunders which might have been committed at any time, and which probably would have been committed whether there was a Cabinet Minister at the head of the Department or not.
  As matters now stand, we have a very strong Committee and a strong man at the head of it. We have given the Committee access to every source of information, and to every branch of the whole subject of aerial warfare. We have given them liberal instructions, which I feel quite sure we may trust them to interpret in a liberal sense. I submit to the House that this is a business-like arrangement, that it is a great advance upon anything which we have yet had, and that it promises well. But I am certainly not here to tell your Lordships that in our opinion there can be any finality in these things, or that we exclude altogether the possibility of further developments. The experience which will be gained will show whether the present arrangement will work, and what modifications in it, if any, are desirable. Meanwhile I certainly am not prepared to admit that the country is undergoing any detriment because we have stopped short at this point. The Committee, I believe, is doing its work well. We may trust it to take advantage of the wide latitude which has been given to it; and I, for one, am deeply convinced that it will not disregard the emphatic warning which my noble friend has given to it and to the country this evening.
  VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, after the reassuring speech made by my noble friend opposite, I have not the slightest desire to enter into the general subject of the debate. My noble friend does not see his way to appoint a head of the Air Service, and he has strictly defined the limits under which Lord Derby will act. I think one very serious result follows upon that. At present the Air Service, the most recent of our Services, has no head. It has been made quite clear by the speeches both from the Government Bench and from behind us to-day that there are certain services which our present aircraft cannot undertake.

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  Partly owing to the question of the craft themselves and partly to the development of the enemy air service, there are certain occasions on which our airmen cannot act with any advantage. There is a serious difficulty at this moment from the pressure which public opinion is exercising on those who are responsible for the Air Service to press pilots into the air on occasions when, as has been shown, it is quite impossible for them to act with advantage. I should be glad if, before the debate closes, we could have from the noble Marquess an assurance that the Government will see that this point is not overlooked. On the last occasion when the subject was discussed the noble Earl the Secretary of State for War said—
  "I am informed that no order has ever been sent to a pilot, of the Royal flying Corps to make an ascent at night to attack a Zeppelin. The decision whether to fly or not is left to the senior officer on the spot."
  I have not the least doubt that the Secretary of State for War was speaking with technical accuracy in making that statement. But there is at this moment a great pressure of public opinion; there is a great keenness on the part of the Air Service; but there is, so to speak, no co-ordinating opinion at all; and even if technically the Secretary of State for War's statement was accurate, the pressure is very great to undertake an ascent at times when it is really rash beyond description to do so. I do not wish to say more or to give any facts or figures, but I hope the noble Marquess will assure us that this matter will have the serious attention of the Government.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I really cannot say what the facts of the case are, but I will take upon myself to represent the substance of my noble friend's observations, which certainly seem to me worthy of attention, and no doubt they will receive it.
  LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, I have no reason to complain of the attitude of His Majesty's Government as laid down by the noble Marquess, except in one particular. I fear that they have not yet realised the importance which ought to be attached to this Committee presided over by Lord Derby. I have never asked, in anything I have said, that a Board of Aviation—which I think would be better than an Air Minister—should be given executive power. That,
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  of course, must be left to the Admiral of the Fleet and to the General Commanding the Army. The Derby Committee is not important enough, and certainly its chairman should have a defined title, such as Chairman of the Board of Aviation, and he should have certain responsibility in regard to supply, construction. and organisation.
  As to the quantity of material available for aeroplanes, I cannot enter into figures any more than the noble Marquess. But it seems to me profoundly unsatisfactory that at the present moment you should have only one engine for every three planes. You are woefully behind in engine production, and your engine is not of the best kind. That is where I fervently hope that the Derby Committee may be of assistance. The courage of our pilots is magnificent, expecially as they have to go up with admittedly inferior machines to those of the enemy. No one could have been at the Front even for the short time I was there without realising the handicap there is in manipulating a 'plane which you know is inferior by fifteen to twenty miles an hour to the 'plane opposed to you. The vast majority of our pilots at the Front are going up in inferior machines to those of the energy; yet they are doing magnificent work, and not showing any want of those great qualities for which our race has always been famous.
  The noble Marquess referred to policy. I, like him, thick that the policy of our Air Service should be co-ordinated with the policy of the Imperial Defence Committee. Therefore I rejoice that Colonel Hankey is to be identified with Lord Derby's Committee. But the noble Marquess did not reply to two important points. One was, Who is going to be responsible for the building of rigid airships to meet the Zeppelins? I gather that this Committee is mainly, if not exclusively, dealing with aeroplanes. Secondly, the noble Marquess has not laid down who is really responsible for taking steps to repel air raids and to make it hot for the Zeppelins when they come here. There, again, you have a divided responsibility—divided responsibility as regards news of those raids, the news which ought to be sent, as I conceive, from submarines in the first line to the destroyers in the second line and then to the authorities on land. Those are all questions which I hope the Derby Com

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  mittee will think out. In conclusion I have only to say this. I was delighted to hear the noble Marquess, at the end of his speech, hold out hopes that the Government have not finally made up their mind on the subject. I trust they will magnify the functions of this Committee until it becomes something like the Board of Aviation which I have longed to see established in this country.

STEEL HELMETS.
VISCOUNT BRYCE VISCOUNT BRYCE had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House if it is proposed to supply to His Majesty's forces in the field light steel helmets similar to those which are now being generally used in the French Army and which are said to have been of much value to them especially in trench fighting.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I desire to put a Question to His Majesty's Government upon a matter connected with the war which is of much smaller compass than that which we have been debating for the last three hours but nevertheless one which possesses a certain importance. When I happened recently to be in France the troops there, those going to the Front and those returning, appeared to be all wearing a light helmet composed of steel of a very simple make which I was informed is of great value and greatly reduces the casualties, especially in warfare in the trenches. It is really very much like that barbarous headgear which Don Quixote wore for a proper knight's helmet. It is convex in form, with a brim which projects a little both before and behind. Its peculiar merit or value is this, that the convexity of the smooth steel causes small projectiles, fragments of shells, to glance off, unless they happen to strike it at precisely a right angle. Of course if they strike it at precisely a right angle they penetrate, but when they strike it at any other angle in most cases they glance off harmlessly. The helmet is extremely light; it is very little heavier than an ordinary cloth cap, and is said not to be trying even in summer. And it is extremely cheap, the price being, I was told, fr. 2.40 (practically two shillings), and it is easy of production because it can be manufactured by machinery with great rapidity. The results of its use having been so
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favourable in very greatly reducing casualties, the French Army is now, I understand, completely furnished with it, and all those to whom I spoke on the subject said they regarded it as a change of the greatest value. I do not quite know what has been done in the British Army. I gather that the helmet has been supplied to a considerable extent already, but that it has been very far from being supplied to all our troops. I desire to ask the Government what opinion they have formed of its value, how far they have supplied it to our troops already, and whether they intend to go on supplying it until the whole of His Majesty's forces in the field are equipped with it. Whatever information can be accorded on this subject will, I am sure, be of considerable interest to us.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, I am happy to be able to assure the noble Viscount that a large number of these steel helmets have already been provided for our troops. The supply began in the early autumn of last year, and very large quantities have since been sent out and are now in use in the trenches. The scale of supply is that which was recommended by the Field-Marshal then Commanding-in-Chief. The design adopted is not the same as that used by the French, nor, so far as is known, as that used by the Germans. Expert surgeons and others were consulted in regard to the pattern, shape, and material of the helmet. I do not know whether my noble friend saw in The Times of yesterday a Reuter message regarding these helmets.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: No, I have not read it.
LORD SANDHURST: It is not official but it is interesting, and perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read it—
BRITISH HEADQUARTERS, France, March 6.
The new British steel casque has had its first great test in the assault upon the Ypres Bluff on March 2, and the results are more than satisfactory.
I was this morning shown a batch of casques from wounded men, which have been collected from the field. In all cases the men who were wearing these were either unscathed or suffering from slight concussion or mere scalp wounds. It is believed that had they not been wearing these helmets, they would either have been all killed or dangerously wounded. One of the casques bears an indentation from a heavy blow with the butt-end of a German rifle. The man thus struck bayoneted his assailant and was none the worse for the assault.

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Another casque bears distinct evidence of a direct hit with the business end of a shell. Several of them are rent by fragments of shrapnel casing, manifestly with a force which against a cloth cap would have been quite sufficient to cause fracture of the bone. Others are pitted by shrapnel bullets. Most of the men who wore these state that except for a rattling like a hailstorm sweeping over a galvanised roof, and a sudden compression around the rim of the helmet, they were unaware that they were being struck.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: Do I understand from my noble friend that it is proposed to continue supplying these helmets until the whole of the Army possesses them? I hope I am right in gathering that from what he has said.
LORD SANDHURST: I cannot, of course, say what the intentions are; but I have given my noble friend the answer to his Question as it appears on the Paper.

EQUIPMENT OF A BATTALION.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask the Secretary of State for War why the 1/4th Somerset Light Infantry were despatched from India without proper equipment for Mesopotamia.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I gave private notice to my noble friend the Lord Chamberlain, who now represents the War Office, that I intended to ask this Question. My Question appears in its proper form upon the Order Paper of your Lordships' House, but I notice that in the public Press the noble Lord opposite has had it censored, and it is altered there to read—
"To ask whether a certain battalion was despatched from India without proper equipment for Mesopotamia."
I have not a word of complaint about its being censored. If it is desirable that it should not be known what the battalion is, I am certainly the last person to desire to make it public. But I am surprised that it was necessary to censor such a very harmless Question, because I should have thought the noble Lord could have at once told me to-day that no battalion had been sent from India without the proper equipment. The fact of censor I am afraid rather shows that the War Office is not at the present moment up to date in this matter any more than we are, as has been
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shown by the debate we have just had, in the case of air defence. In my Notice I have confined myself to asking whether a battalion has been sent from India without proper equipment—without telephones, without machine guns, without proper bayonets. If that is so, I consider it very serious indeed, for it would be very wrong that men who are, I am certain, all spoiling for the fight and anxious to be employed, in France, in Mesopotamia, or elsewhere, should be sent not properly equipped. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to tell me that they were perfectly equipped, and that the War Office have not allowed any battalions to go from India without the fullest equipment.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, my noble friend will remember that I told him yesterday that it was quite impossible to get this information to-day, as last night was the first time I saw his Question—indeed, I think this morning was the first time it appeared on the Notice Paper. The noble Lord says that the Question has been censored with regard to the number of the battalion—
LORD STRACHIE: What I said was that it appears on the Notice Paper in full, but it has been censored in the Press.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: Do you mean censored outside?
LORD STRACHIE: If the noble Duke will refer to The Times he will see that my Question has been altered. I do not complain.
LORD SANDHURST: I can only go by what I see on the Notice Paper. As I told the noble Lord yesterday, it was quite impossible for me to get the information for him by this afternoon. I have, however, made some inquiry, and I find that there has been no complaint from the General Officer Commanding in Mesopotamia that a battalion has arrived short of equipment.
LORD STRACHIE: Has this particular battalion arrived?
LORD SANDHURST: I do not know.
LORD STRACHIE: That is the point.
LORD SANDHURST: If it has not arrived it can hardly have arrived without proper equipment. If the noble Lord will be so good as to give me the statement which he wishes inquired into, I will report to the Secretary of State for War, and steps will be taken as he directs.
LORD STRACHIE: I do not think it is worth while proceeding with the matter. It is quite certain that the War Office cannot give the assurance that no battalion has left India without being properly equipped.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE:Surely the noble Lord is somewhat unreasonable. He makes a charge against the Government of India. My noble friend Lord Sandhurst tells him that he cannot answer it without making some inquiries. But, notwithstanding that, the noble Lord opposite puts down his Question without giving my noble friend even two or three days' time in which to procure the necessary information.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: Would the noble Marquess care to say anything with regard to the future meetings of the House?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I have conferred with my noble friend Lord Crewe upon this subject, and, in deference to a suggestion made by my noble friend opposite, we propose that the House should meet as usual on three days next week—Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday—that in the following week the House should meet on one day, which I presume will be Wednesday, and that this arrangement should be continued for alternate weeks. But, as my noble friend Lord Crewe said the other day, the matter of our sittings is not for the decision of us who sit upon this Bench, but for the consideration of your Lordships as a whole.
House adjourned at half-past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.