Sitting of 25 May 1916

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (No Standing Orders applicable),—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time upon Monday next.
North British Railway Bill (Substituted Bill),
Read the third time, and passed.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND CHARGES ACT, 1891.
Copy presented of Treasury Minute, dated 5th February, 1916, directing that Fees, etc., payable to the Registry of Friendly Societies shall be applied as Appropriations in Aid of the Vote for that Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
EAST INDIA (MILITARY).
Copy presented of Papers relating to Major-General C. V. F. Townshend's appreciation of the position after the battle of Kut-el-Amara [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Annual Report of the Chief Veterinary Officer for the year 1915 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    INVALID PRISONERS (SWISS AGREEMENT).
    Mr. MALCOLMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he expects to be able to fulfil his promise to publish and circulate the agreement under which invalid German and British prisoners of war will be sent to Switzerland and also the categories of diseases that will qualify prisoners for this transfer?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): We hope to lay before Parliament the correspondence constituting the agreement very shortly.
    Mr. MALCOLMasked whether the arrangements now arrived at between Great Britain and Germany for the internment in Switzerland of invalid prisoners of war are applicable alike to civilian and military prisoners?
    Sir E. GREY: The question of the inclusion of civilians in the arrangement arrived at between Great Britain and Germany for the internment in Switzerland of invalid prisoners of war not entitled to repatriation is under consideration. As my hon. Friend is, no doubt, aware, we already have an agreement with Germany for the repatriation of invalid civilians.
    Mr. MALCOLM: I asked not about repatriation, but as to internment in Switzerland.
    Sir E. GREY: Yes, I know, and my reply is that internment in Switzerland of invalid prisoners of war is under consideration.
    Mr. MALCOLM: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in France it is already done?
    Sir E. GREY: I believe it is under consideration.

    BRITISH PRISONERS IN GERMANY.

      AMERICAN REPORTS.
      Mr. MALCOLMasked when the White Paper containing the American Reports of British prisoner camps in Germany will be issued; what reason is assigned for the delay in its publication; and how many Reports have been received since 31st March?
      Sir E. GREY: The White Paper in question has, I understand, been issued this afternoon. I am afraid that some delay was inevitable in view of the pressure of work in the printing department. I understand that twenty-one Reports have been received since the 31st March last.
      Mr. MALCOLM: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether those Reports will be included in the White Paper?
      Sir E. GREY: I would like to inquire about that.
      Mr. MALCOLMasked what reply has been received in reply to the inquiries made of the German Government as to the rate of exchange governing the issue of pay to officer prisoners in Germany; and, if the reply was unsatisfactory, what further representations have been made to the German Government?
      Sir E. GREY: No reply has yet been received from the German Government, and the United States Ambassador has been requested to endeavour to obtain a reply at an early date.

    DYE-STUFFS (AMERICAN PURCHASE FROM GERMANY).
    Major HUNTasked whether the Government has agreed to allow, or is considering an agreement to allow, the Americans to buy from the Germans 15,000 tons of dye-stuffs, or any less amount; and has the Government made any sort of agreement that dye-stuffs going from Germany to America shall not be stopped by the British Navy?
    Sir E. GREY: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies returned on the 23rd instant to the questions asked by the hon. Members for Mid-Armagh and Great Yarmouth.
    Major HUNT: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question?
    Sir E. GREY: I would refer the hon. Member to the previous replies given as late as two days ago, and if they do not cover the question then I will answer a further question.

  DISTURBANCES IN IRELAND.

    ARRESTS AT CHARLEVILLE.
    The following questions stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. W. O'BRIEN: 10 and 77. (1) To ask what is the result of the inquiries as to the arrests of three teachers of the Christian Brothers' schools in Charleville and of two other young men, Joseph and Richard Nagle, who were marched off handcuffed through the town and prevented even from receiving overcoats from their mother; and whether the immediate discharge of these young men will be ordered in deference to the public opinion of a town almost every household in which has contributed a recruit to the Army; and (2) to ask why no information has yet been received from Charleville with respect to the military raid upon that town; have the military authorities refused to offer any explanation; if so, what steps will be taken to enforce the authority of the civil government over Sir John Maxwell; will he say whether, while this question has remained unanswered, the soldiers remain quartered on the inhabitants; whether a constable named Prendergast has represented that he was fired at three times; whether sixteen young man, including one who has two brothers serving in the Army, were in consequence arrested, and discharged on the following morning in the absence of any evidence whatever against them; whether four unimpeachable witnesses have since tendered evidence to the authorities that they saw Prendergast himself fire three shots with a revolver at his cap which he held in his hand; and whether he will comply with the demand of the townspeople for a sworn public investigation into the alleged shooting at Prendergast and the rest of the outrages to which the people of this town have been subjected?
    Mr. O'BRIEN: I do not know whether there is any representative of the Chief Secretary who can answer these questions?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Herbert Samuel): This is a military matter, and should be addressed to the War Office.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): I am afraid that I have not got the particulars yet.
    Mr. O'BRIEN: In my second question I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has been refused information by the military authorities? Is that so? If it is so, are steps going to be taken by the civil government to enforce their authority?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am sorry that I have not been able to get the information.
    Mr. O'BRIEN: You are only making trouble for yourselves.

    TRANSIT OF GOODS TO DUBLIN.
    Mr. T. M. HEALYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government, in view of the heavy losses suffered by Dublin traders, will now give better facilities for the transit of goods by rail to Holyhead and thence by sea, as a month has often hitherto been required to get stock through which before the War could be sent in twenty-four hours?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Pretyman): I have communicated with the London and North-Western Railway Company on this matter, and I am sending my hon. and learned Friend a copy of their reply.

    ARRESTS.
    Mr. CREANasked the Prime Minister whether the house of Mr. Mark Wickham, Merchant's Quay, Cork, was entered by the military and police authorities on the 8th instant in search of arms; if the only arms found was a small toy air-gun, the plaything of his little son, which was purchased at a toy shop for 2s. 6d.; whether Mr. Wickham was arrested for having this toy in his possession without a licence; whether he will state the justification for this action; and if he will see that an end will be put to such interference with innocent people, who cannot be charged with any criminal act?
    Mr. TENNANT: The facts as stated by my honourable Friend seem to warrant the release of Mr. Wickham. I was assured a day or two ago that inquiry was being made, and, if the facts are as stated by my hon. Friend, I think there can be little doubt that Mr. Wickham will be released forthwith.
    Mr. CREAN: Thank you.
    Mr. HEALY: This is a triumph!
    Mr. HAZLETONasked the Prime Minister whether an official list of the names and addresses of persons arrested in error in connection with the recent rebellion in Ireland, and since released on ascertaining that they had no connection therewith, will be published; and whether, in addition, a notice expressing regret for their inadvertent arrest will be forwarded to each of them with a view to enabling them to make their position clear to their friends and business connections?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I will arrange for the list asked for in the first part of the question and will consider the suggestion contained in the last part of the question.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether Mr. O'Leary Curtis, of Dublin, is still in prison without charge or trial; if so, where and to what treatment he is subject; and whether this citizen will, without further delay, be either released or given an opportunity of meeting in a Civil Court any charge that can be brought against him?
    Mr. TENNANT: I understand that Mr. O'Leary Curtis is in prison. I have received some information in connection with this case which I have forwarded to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Ireland. If he had no connection whatever with the rebellion or with the movement which fomented it, he will no doubt shortly be released.
    Mr. GINNELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this gentleman's health is in a critical condition?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, I am not aware of that. My informant, who went to see him yesterday, did not report that.
    The following question stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. HEALY: 73. To ask the Under-Secretary for War whether at 4.40 a.m. on Thursday week twenty armed police broke into the house of Mr. Darrell Figgis, in the Island of Achill, where he was residing with his wife, and, although he assured them when they knocked that no resistance would be offered, they broke the front door with a large stone and smashed the back door with a plank; whether his papers, historical manuscripts, and money were seized, and himself taken to Castlebar Gaol; whether he was imprisoned there from Thursday to Monday, denied letters or

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    visitors, and then removed to Richmond Barracks, where he now is a prisoner, without any charge being made against him; and whether, seeing that since the split in the Volunteers eighteen months ago Mr. Figgis has taken no part in the movement and severed himself at the time by a public declaration from either side, that no Volunteers of any kind were formed in Achill, and that no rising occurred in Mayo, to which county the island belongs, he will state what was the necessity for the manner in which the arrest was carried out, and how long will the military be occupied in obtaining evidence to justify it or, if they have evidence to warrant the same, why is Mr. Figgis not brought to trial?
    Mr. HEALY: I have been asked to postpone this question, but I desire to state that simply because I put it down they deported this absolutely innocent man to England, although he had made a formal declaration months ago that he had nothing to do with the Volunteers.
    The following questions stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. FLAVIN: 84. To ask the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that Joseph O'Leary, of 11, Tremadoc Road, Clapham, London, who is spending his holidays in Ireland, was arrested on Tuesday, 16th May, in Dublin, and detained since in the Bridewell; whether he will say why Joseph O'Leary was arrested and detained; what charge, if any, has been made against him; whether his release will be ordered immediately; and 85. To ask the Under-Secretary on what grounds James M'Elligott, clerk in the Local Government Board, Dublin, has been arrested and deported to England; whether he is aware that this young man has an unimpeachable character; whether he is aware that James M'Elligott's mother's health is in a precarious condition as a result of her son's arrest and deportation, and that she cannot get any information about her son; and whether his release will be ordered at once?
    Mr. FLAVIN: I have been requested to postpone these questions, but I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, in connection with the latter, whether he is aware that it has now been postponed for the ninth time at his request, that the man is now five weeks in gaol, that he is absolutely innocent, no charge is preferred against him, he has had no trial and his friends are denied the right to see him,
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    and is it not time for the military authorities and the right hon. Gentleman himself to move in the matter?
    Mr. TENNANT: I was not aware that the question had been postponed so often. I deeply regret it. I am communicating with the General Officer Commanding in Ireland, and will take care the case is brought to his notice. I may inform the hon. Member that we are getting through 150 cases a day. Yesterday fifty were released.
    Mr. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this young boy's mother is in a very delicate state of health?
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: How many men are there in gaol, and how long will it take at the rate of 150 a day to get through them?
    Mr. TENNANT: I should think another ten days.
    Mr. SCANLANasked the Under-Secretary, for War whether he is aware of the fact that fifteen natives of Cliffoney, county Sligo, were arrested and taken from their homes by the military without warrant and have now been lodged in a detention prison at Wandsworth; whether any and, if so, what charge has been made against them; whether they are to be put on trial forthwith or else liberated; whether he is aware that these men bear the character of being all of them respectable and law-abiding citizens, and that it is well known to the police and military that they were in no way connected with the recent disturbances in Dublin or anywhere else; and, seeing that such action as the imprisonment and deportation of those men is calculated to exasperate the feelings of the people in the district and bring the law and the Government into contempt, will he say what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. TENNANT: The procedure announced in the communiqué which has appeared in the Press covers, I think, the points raised by this question. The military authorities are most anxious that persons inadvertently arrested, who have had no connection whatever with the rebellion or with the movement which fomented it should be released forthwith, and printed forms on which release may be claimed and which are framed to facilitate rapid investigation, have been issued to commandants of places of detention. When these forms have been filled in the release

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    of persons concerned will, if the facts justify it, be immediately ordered, and they will be sent back to the place where they were arrested. I think my hon. Friend should advise the fifteen men referred to in the question, to follow the procedure I have indicated.
    The following question stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. T. M. HEALY: 89. To ask the Under-Secretary for War if, out of thirty-five young men arrested in Mitchelstown by the military on 8th May, five are detained, namely, W. Casey, J. Hannigan, D. Roche, and the brothers O'Sullivan; have these men been removed to Cork and then to Dublin in custody, although all arms were surrendered and no incriminating documents or matter were found upon them; are their relatives left without any knowledge of their whereabouts and denied the opportunity of procuring their defence; have any of them been deported to England; if not, are they to be tried, on what charge, and where; and is any opportunity to be afforded them of consulting a solicitor or making a defence?
    Mr. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman has asked me, for the fourth time, to postpone this question. It seems to me it is no use putting questions. It only makes the prisoner a marked man. I will not put the question again.

    EXECUTIONS.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister whether, in the case of William Pearse, summarily executed in Dublin, not being either a leader or a signatory of the republican proclamation, any evidence was produced differentiating him from those not executed other than his relationship to his executed brother P. H. Pearse?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir, ample evidence of this man's guilt was, of course, produced before the court-martial.
    Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman state any evidence but the fact of his relationship to his brother?

    SHOOTING PRISONERS.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the findings of the coroner's jury in Dublin on the death of Patrick Bealan and James Healy, that they had died from hæmorrhage resulting from bullet wounds
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    inflicted by a soldier or soldiers in whose custody they were unarmed and unoffending prisoners, and that the explanation given by the military authorities was very unsatisfactory; what action is to be taken towards those authorities or the men under them; whether the two barrack yards have yet been dug up in search for the bodies of the batch of prisoners which an officer boasted that he and others had potted that morning and that no more would be heard of them; and, if not, whether those yards will be dug up immediately in the presence of some civil witness of repute?
    The PRIME MINISTER: This verdict was given while I was in Ireland, and I had an opportunity of reading the evidence upon which it purported to be founded. No suggestion was made as to the identity of the soldier or soldiers referred to, but the military authorities at once instituted a careful inquiry, which I believe has so far been without result. The answer to the last two parts of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. GINNELL: Seeing that these men have been killed and that the military inquiry has been without result, will the right hon. Gentleman institute an impartial civil inquiry?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I hope the military inquiry may yet produce results.

    COURTS-MARTIAL.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister when and in what form the proceedings of the courts-martial in Ireland and the evidence in each case will be made available?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I must refer the hon. Member to the answer given him by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War on the 18th May.
    Mr. GINNELL: The answer referred to was indefinite. Will the Prime Minister inform the House whether or not these matters will be reported and submitted to the House or made available for Members?
    The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend answered that very question.
    Mr. GINNELL: No.

    GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
    Mr. JOHNasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the dfficulties which have arisen in Ireland, he will consider the advisability of creating forthwith an Irish

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    Parliament and Executive in accordance with the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act, so modified by mutual consent as to be consistent with that wider measure of federal devolution avowedly contemplated by the late Government, similarly entrusting the domestic affairs of England, Scotland, and Wales, respectively, to separate Legislatures, in each case effectively and indisputably reserving the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, thereby automatically satisfying all reasonable apprehensions entertained by North-East Ulster?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Well, Sir, I am afraid I cannot say more than that we shall not fail to keep in mind all considerations which are relevant to this problem.

    TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Under-Secretary for War whether the Irish prisoners of war will be allowed to receive tobacco, newspapers, and clean underclothing; if he will take the necessary steps to have instructions issued to that effect; if he is aware that they are in solitary confinement; if he will state whether solitary confinement is given to all German prisoners interned in Great Britain or British prisoners interned in Germany; if he will cause this punishment to be removed by allowing the Irish prisoners of war to converse at frequent intervals; and if he will make arrangements for each to attend their own church services on Sundays and other days recognised by the Church?
    Mr. TENNANT: My hon. Friend will no doubt be aware that I stated yesterday that I would have the matter of tobacco and cigarettes considered, but I have since been reminded that the published regulations state that parcels may be sent to prisoners either by post or by hand. I know of no reason for supposing that clean underclothing would not be welcomed by those in charge of the prisoners. My right hon. Friend stated yesterday that the prisoners, except in a very few cases, are allowed intercourse with one another, and I understand that they are also allowed the ordinary facilities extended to prisoners of war, which would include access to religious ministrations.

  BRITISH TRADE POLICY.
  Sir RICHARD COOPERasked if any of the Overseas Dominions have urged
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  upon him the importance to the Dominions of an early declaration of the trade policy of the British Government after the conclusion of the War; and, if so, can he say what reply has been given?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Bonar Law): No such representations have been made to me officially, but the whole subject is being carefully considered.
  Sir R. COOPERasked if the Commonwealth of Australia has communicated with his Department since the War began on the subject of German influence in British trade; if so, can he say what support he has offered the Commonwealth in their determination to eradicate such influence from the country under their jurisdiction; and can he lay the correspondence upon the Table of the House?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have been in constant communication with the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia on the subject of Australian metal contracts and other matters, and have been and am prepared to assist them in every way in my power. I do not propose to lay any Papers on the subject.
  Colonel NORTON-GRIFFITHSasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been called to the resolution passed by the Australian Chamber of Commerce advocating a preferential trading policy with the Dominions and our Allies; and whether the Government proposes to take any action in the matter with a view to such a policy being adopted before the termination of the War?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have seen Press reports of the resolution referred to, and the whole subject is now engaging the attention of the Government.
  Sir R. COOPER: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the great importance to the Empire of an early decision being come to by the Government as to what their trade policy is likely to be?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can assure my hon. Friend that I quite appreciate, and so do the Government, the importance of this question.

  GERMANS (CHANGING NAMES).
  Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to

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  a statement made by the Recorder at the Central Criminal Court, when charging the grand jury on 2nd May, stating that it was deeply to be regretted that the Government permitted Germans to change their names under deed poll during the War in order to conceal their identity when many of them were ready to betray this country; and whether, having regard to the experience of the Recorder in dealing with crimes committed by Germans, the Government purpose taking any steps to prevent naturalised Germans from changing their names during the War?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I stated, in answer to a question on the 10th instant, that the statements reported to have been made by the Recorder do not represent the facts. No Germans have been permitted by the Government to change their names since the War began, with the exception of twelve persons, almost all of whom were British born women, German by marriage only, and now widows or separated from their husbands. As regards change of name by British subjects, I have nothing to add to the answers already given by my predecessor, the Attorney-General and myself.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the German, Russian and French Governments refuse to allow any naturalised subjects to change their names unless they can show to a Court of Law that it is in the public interest to do so; and is he aware that a large number of naturalised Germans continue daily to change their names?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I was not aware of that fact in regard to the countries mentioned, but I will make inquiries.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that Germans are changing their names and that no action is being taken to stop it?
  Mr. SAMUEL: Not German. They are all British subjects of German origin. There is no restriction upon them, and no restrictions could be imposed under the Aliens Restriction Order, because they are exempt from its provisions.
  Mr. R. McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman not bring in legislation?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I am not convinced that any case has been made out for legislation.

  RACE MEETINGS (METROPOLITAN POLICE).
  Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of his statement that the Metropolitan Police would not be taken from their duties during a time when there is a shortage of men for the purposes of racecourse meetings, he will say if he is aware that the local police at Newmarket, Gatwick, and Windsor recently applied to the Commissioner for police to assist at these meetings, that police were sent, and were paid by the secretaries of these racecourse committees; and will he take steps to prevent any police being taken at the present time from their duties for these purposes?
  Mr. SAMUEL: No police have been sent to assist in maintaining order at these racecourses, but at the request of the local police a few officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, well acquainted with criminals frequenting racecourses, have been sent to Newmarket and Gatwick.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Does the Government consider it is in the public interest that police or detective officers should be taken during a period of great national war for the purpose of protecting people of this character who frequent racecourses?
  Mr. SAMUEL: My province is to see that the police protect people from criminals wherever they congregate, and naturally the police are sent to places where they are likely to be found.

  ALIEN ENEMIES.
  Major HUNTasked the Home Secretary whether he has received any communication from the Wandsworth tribunal to the effect that they had received a list of nine enemy aliens released from internment camps who were now working at their trade in or near London; and could he say whether any of these men, and, if so, how many were working for men of German, Austrian, or enemy origin?
  Mr. SAMUEL: Yes, Sir, I have received the list and have made inquiry into the nine cases. Six of the men are in the employ of British subjects, one is a master baker, and two are employed by German subjects. Four of the six British employers are British born, two are

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  naturalised men of German origin, while of the two German employers, one is interned and the other is a widow, who has been here since she was fourteen. Eight of the nine men were recommended for exemption by the Advisory Committee. They had all been resident in this country for thirty years or upwards except one, who had resided for twenty-eight years, having come to this country at the age of two. The ninth is not a German, but a Hungarian, who has been twenty years in this country.
  Major HUNT: Is the master baker of German or enemy origin?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I think my hon. and gallant Friend had better read my answer.
  Major HUNTasked the Home Secretary how many bakers of German, Austrian, or enemy origin there were in Wandsworth before the War began; and how many bakers of enemy origin there are in Wandsworth at the present time?
  Mr. SAMUEL: At the beginning of the War forty-three enemy alien bakers registered as being employed in the borough of Wandsworth; the present number is seventeen. There were, in addition on the outbreak of War seven enemy alien bakers residing in the borough but employed elsewhere. Of these three are still resident there. The information available only relates to enemy aliens.

  CITY AND METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  Mr. FLAVINasked the Home Secretary whether he can state the average amount in money or percentage of increase in pay and lodging allowance granted or given to the members of the City and Metropolitan Police since the outbreak of the War owing to the increased cost of food, clothing, and living for the men and their families?
  Mr. SAMUEL: A war allowance of 3s. a week has been given to the City and Metropolitan Police.
  Mr. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the average pay of the average constable having twenty years' service is about £2 per week, and that the 3s. war bonus represents an increase of 8 per cent. only, whereas the cost of living and food has increased by 50 per cent. since the War began, and does he expect that these men can live under these conditions?
  Mr. SAMUEL: Yes, Sir; the cost of living referred to does not cover the whole of a man's expenditure; it only covers that part which is devoted to food. A great many other costs of living have not increased, for instance, rent; and these men get their clothes from the State.
  Mr. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the allowance made to the average constable does not pay more than half the actual rent he has to pay for himself, his wife and family?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I would point out to my hon. Friend that the sum of 3s. was the sum awarded to Post Office servants by arbitration as the amount which should be given to them.
  Mr. CROOKS: Is there any possibility of the police getting arbitration on their question?
  Mr. SAMUEL: No request has been made for arbitration, and, if it were made, I do not think that it would be entertained.

  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (SCOTLAND).
  Mr. MORTONasked the Secretary for Scotland when the Board of Agriculture (Scotland) Report for last year will be presented?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I am in communication with the Board of Agriculture for Scotland with a view to expediting the publication of the Report.
  Mr. MORTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange with the Prime Minister to give this House an opportunity of discussing Scottish agricultural affairs as soon as we get the Report?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I will do my best.

  BRITISH RAILWAYS (RESTAURANT CARS).
  Mr. PARTINGTONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will consult the railway companies with a view to retaining the restaurant cars on the railways and the supplying of cold luncheons and dinners which could be served by women?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: The main object of withdrawing restaurant cars is to save

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  engine power and to reduce train mileage. I think the matter must be left to the discretion of the railway companies.
  Lord CLAUD HAMILTON: I suppose the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Great Eastern Railway Company do not intend to withdraw their restaurant cars, and passengers on that line can be served by women dressed in very attractive uniform.

  SHIPPING COMPANIES (FREIGHTS AND FOOD PRICES.)
  Colonel NORTON - GRIFFITHSasked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been drawn to the constant declaration of huge profits of shipping companies; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter with a view to allay public anxiety in connection with the continued increase in the cost of food, which it is suggested is mainly due to the high freights now ruling?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I am aware of the high profits made by many shipping companies. If the regulation of the freights of British ships would solve the tonnage difficulty, which is world wide, it would have been adopted long ago. Any regulation of freights to have an effective influence on prices must extend to neutral ships, which is impracticable without endangering the supply of neutral tonnage to bring necessaries to this country, and thus producing a shortage which would increase prices instead of diminishing them. We are doing our utmost to alleviate the tonnage situation by securing economy in the use of the ships we have and by bringing more ships into service, and in this we have had a fair measure of success, though much still remains to be done.

  NEUTRAL SHIPS.
  Sir R. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he has a guarantee from each of the neutral firms for whom ships are now building in this country that such ships shall not come under German control after the conclusion of the War; (2) if under the exceptional circumstances created by the War he will announce the names of the neutral firms for whom mercantile ships are now building in this country, so that
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  British shipowners may assist him in preventing these ships coming ultimately under German control; and (3) if he was consulted by the President of the Board of Trade before permission was given to British shipbuilders to build steamers for neutrals; if so, was this step taken with his consent and approval; and can he say that the building of steamers for neutrals is consistent with the deficiencies in certain kinds of ships which the Board of Admiralty was recently said to be most anxious to fill up?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty has asked me to reply to the question addressed to him, and I will answer the hon. Baronet's three questions together. No ship can be exported from the United Kingdom during the War without the consent of the Admiralty and Board of Trade. The Departments act together and obtain full guarantees as to the manner in which the ships will be employed during the War. The very few ships that are being allowed to be built for neutrals are tied down to British or Allied trade during the War at about half the market rates. The question of the position of these ships after the War is at present under careful consideration, and all steps necessary to protect British interests will be taken. There would be practical difficulties in enforcing a guarantee that any particular ship will not at any future time come under German control, but the point is not being overlooked, and such precautions as are possible will be adopted.
  Sir R. COOPER: May I ask if it is in the interests of this country that ships should be built at the present time for neutrals which obviously may come under the control of Germany when the War is over?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is asking the same question again.
  Commander BELLAIRS: Could the hon. Gentleman state whether any of these ships are being built for Sweden in view of the law passed by the Swedish Parliament rendering such agreements illegal?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I do not think so, but I cannot say without notice.
  Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: May I ask whether any new contracts for neutral ships are being made?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: Not, I believe, without consultation with us.
  Colonel YATE: Is it a fact that no less than eleven ships are being built for one neutral firm?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I cannot answer that question without notice.
  Mr. G. D. FABER: Could the hon. Gentleman give the name of the neutral firm asked for in Question No. 26?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: Not without notice.
  Mr. G. D. FABER: It is in the question.

  MILK SUPPLY.
  Sir R. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade if the recent increase in the price of milk is caused by any increase in the cost of production or by a shortage in supply; and, if not, can he say what is the cause of the recent increase, and does he propose to take steps to fix a reasonable price to the consumer?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I discussed the question yesterday with representatives of the London milk trade. I understand from them that the rise in price is partly due to increased cost of distribution, but mainly to the high price of all agricultural produce, and particularly of meat and cheese. If farmers cannot obtain anything like a proportionate price for milk, there is a tendency to sell cows and heifers to the butcher, and this is accentuated by the withdrawal of milkers for military service. If, owing to the disproportion of price, the production of milk were reduced, a shortage would result, which would have far more serious consequences than the present rise in price. There is no evidence of any shortage of supply at present.
  Sir S. COLLINS: Why is it then that in many districts the prices have not risen?
  Sir R. COOPER: Is it not a fact that the large proportion of farmers in this country are obtaining little, if any, increase on the prices they were getting months ago?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: No. This question and my answer refers to London milk only, and it was with the London milk purveyors that I had my conference. I am not prepared, at present, to give any definite facts with regard to other parts of the country. The statement made is that the prices the London purveyors are paying are from 5d. to 6d. per gallon more than pre-war prices.
  Mr. WARDLE: May I ask whether there is any intention of putting the Milk Act, 1914, into operation in order to give the municipalities the power to supply milk?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: If my hon. Friend will look at the answer, he will see that there would be danger in any action which tended to reduce the price of milk unless other agricultural products, at the same time, were taken into consideration.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the price of milk delivered in London to-day is 1s. per gallon at the stations? And why did the hon. Gentleman only meet the representatives of the purveyors after an agitation started by the Press?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: The milk at the station sold at this price is surplus milk which, particularly in the month of May, can be got cheaply at the stations.

  CEDAR-WOOD SLATS (IMPORTS).
  Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade if the importation is prohibited of cedar-wood slats, required by our British pencil manufacturers, while the import of cedar-wood pencils is permitted; and, if this is the case, will the Government consider the advisability of allowing our pencil manufacturers to import sufficient cedar-wood slats to keep their industry running, and of reducing proportionately, if found necessary, the quantity imported of finished pencils?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: Licences will be given for the present for the importation of cedar slats.

  BEER OUTPUT.
  Mr. GRETTONasked the President of the Board of Trade what quantity of foreign ale and beer was imported into the United Kingdom during the year 1914–15, and also during the first two quarters of 1915–16?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: The numbers of barrels (of 36 gallons) of foreign ale and beer imported into the United Kingdom during the two periods specified by the hon. Member were 52,000 and 13,000 respectively.
  Mr. WING: Would it not be wiser to use our shipping to more profitable purposes, in view of the scarcity of food?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That scarcely arises out of the question on the Paper.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether on-licence holders who have obtained their supplies from beer dealers, and not directly from brewers, will be entitled to proportionate supplies under Clause 5 of the Output of Beer (Restriction) Bill; and, if not, whether he will amend the Bill so as to include beer dealers and their customers within the operation of that Clause?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: The Clause referred to is only intended to prevent brewers from differentiating against on-licence holders in the matter of the supply of beer. I do not think it would be possible to guarantee supplies to licence holders who did not obtain their beer direct.

  COMMITTEE ON TRADE POLICY.
  Colonel NORTON - GRIFFITHSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Committee appointed by him to consider a trade policy after the War has met; whether it has taken evidence; and when it is likely to report?
  Mr. PRETYMAN: I must refer the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the reply which my right hon. Friend returned to the hon. Member for Walsall on 19th April, of which I am sending him a copy.

  HOUSE PROPERTY (STATUTORY OBLIGATIONS TO PAINT).
  Colonel NORTON-GRIFFITHSasked the Solicitor-General if he is aware that in important and numerous districts in London, Brighton, and Hove a number of houses were erected during the Regency and before the accession of William IV., which are governed by special Statutes whereby it is provided that, whether held under lease or freehold, they shall be painted externally in uniform and special tints, and shall be repaired under stringent regulations at stated periods; whether the Government has taken any action in regard to the request made by the Hove Town Council to the President of the Local Government Board for authority to postpone such work; is he
  2276
  aware that this and other public bodies look to the Government for assistance in the direction desired; and whether he will indicate what action is necessary to give municipalities the power to postpone such work?
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir G. Cave): I am aware that there is a special statutory provision of the nature referred to in the question affecting certain houses in Hove, and that the Hove Town Council have communicated with the Local Government Board with a view to the extension of the time limited by the Statute, but as to the other places mentioned I have no information. Under the Special Acts (Extension of Time) Act, 1915, where the time within which a duty is to be performed under any special Act is limited, an application may be made to the appropriate Government Department for an order extending that time, but in all cases such an application should be made before the time limited by the special Act expires. I understand that the time limited by the Hove Statute has already expired, and in regard to that case I cannot add anything to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board on the 15th May.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS (AGREEMENTS).
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Solicitor-General if his attention has been drawn to the position of commercial travellers of military age who, at present, hold appointments in civil life under time agreements with respect to their liability to be called up under the Military Service Bill, having regard to the fact that when the War is over their agreements will have become null and void by the efflux of time; and whether, in view of the hardship and loss which will be imposed upon them in that event, he will endeavour to meet their case by promoting legislation which will have the effect of suspending their agreements during the period of their service in the Army instead of allowing their agreements to lapse?
    Sir G. CAVE: The question of promoting legislation for the purpose of suspending the time agreements of travellers who are on active service has received consideration, but it has been found impossible to propose a general suspension of

    2277
    these agreements for the benefit of travellers without incurring the risk of causing serious hardship to the other parties to the agreements, whose position may be entirely changed during the War, and it is therefore not intended to propose the legislation suggested. It cannot be doubted that employers generally will act with consideration towards their travellers who offer themselves or are called up for military service.

    LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
    Mr. YEOasked the President of the Local Government Board if the regulations and instructions have yet been issued to the tribunals; and, if not, will he at once take steps to see that the same are put before them and the general public, as the delay is causing much anxiety?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Long): A revised set of regulations and instructions containing various amendments consequent upon the passing of the new Act is in preparation and will be circulated to the tribunals as early as practicable.
    Mr. MORRELL: Will copies be sent to Members of this House?
    Mr. LONG: If they desire, yes.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the President of the Local Government Board if he has received representations from all the labour organisations in Kettering protesting against the inadequate representation of labour on the local tribunal; and will he point out to the local authority that one Labour member on a tribunal of seven is not adequate representation and is not in accordance with his instructions?
    Mr. LONG: I have within the last few days received some representations on this subject, and I am communicating with the local authority.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that Mr. Frank Bibby, who was appointed by him to be chairman of the Appeal Tribunal for Salop, has had all his gamekeepers of military age, of whom he kept some fourteen, transferred to the Remount depot near his place, that he has four motor drivers who are badged, that all his house and farm servants are badged, and that as Mr. Bibby is refusing exemption to men farming their own land considerable local feeling has been
    2278
    aroused at his conduct; and, with the object of giving appellants before the Appeal Tribunal some confidence that their cases will be fairly and judicially considered, will he revoke the appointment of the present chairman?
    Mr. LONG: Mr. Bibby was not appointed by me as chairman of the Shropshire and Herefordshire Appeal Tribunal, but was elected unanimously by the tribunal. As the question contains a series of charges against Mr. Bibby, who has rendered the country invaluable services in more than one direction, I think it right to state that since the commencement of the War he has been superintendent of a Remount depot for Artillery horses under the War Office, at which not less than 500 horses have been under training at any time. The additional stabling necessary for over 300 horses was erected free of expense to the Government. No rent or maintenance charges are paid by them. Owing to the difficulty of procuring suitable men for this work, six (not fourteen) gamekeepers, with previous knowledge of horses, were transferred to and are exclusively employed in remount work; five of the six are married men with families and the other is medically unfit for active service. In addition, three married men, previously stable men, who hold motor-driving licences, are practically entirely employed on remount work. The wages of these three men and of seven others engaged at the depât are paid by Mr. Bibby, and not by the Government. None of Mr. Bibby's house and farm-servants are badged. I may add that besides the men employed in the depot more than 100 men from Mr. Bibby's estates have joined the Army.
    Mr. ASHLEY: Are we to expect an apology from the hon. Member?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: What has the right hon. Gentleman's reply to do with the facts stated in the question?
    Mr. LONG: They are not facts.

    AGE REGULATIONS (VOLUNTEERS OF FORTY-ONE).
    Mr. GEORGE FABERasked the President of the Local Government Board whether a voluntarily attested man who has attained the age of forty-one years since his attestation, but before he has been called up for service, is eligible or not?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir. Under the present age limits, a voluntarily attested

    2279
    man who attains the age of forty-one years before he is called up for service is not retained with the Colours, but is passed to the Reserve, and would not be called up unless the age limit were extended.

    DOMICILED BRITISH SUBJECTS.
    Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government propose to introduce legislation to deal with men domiciled in this country of military age who have gone abroad or to Ireland to escape military service?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think this is a matter which can be dealt with by legislation, but all possible administrative steps have been taken, and are being taken, to prevent men of military age from leaving this country without the permission of the Government, and to recall those who went abroad before the War or during its earliest stages.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: If a man is a British subject domiciled in this country and is at present abroad, is it a fact that he will be under no disabilities if he returns to this country after the War, and is it not a fact that in all Continental countries a man who does not join loses all his civil rights?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I will inquire.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Prime Minister if he has received from the International Bible Students' Association a list of their members who are now undergoing imprisonment for resistance to military orders on conscientious grounds, together with a request that these men should be put to some work of a useful nature under civil authority, which the men are willing to undertake; and what reply has been sent to this request.
    The PRIME MINISTER: I have received various communications from this association, though I cannot trace the list to which my hon. Friend refers. These communications have been duly acknowledged, but I saw no reason to enter into correspondence with one particular association on this question.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary for War if his attention has been called to the action of Lieut.-Colonel Reginald Brooke, commandant Wands-worth barracks, who, on the 19th instant,
    2280
    opened a letter addressed to Mr. H. Goitein, a conscientious objector, and returned to the sender with the inscription: Letter returned. Not of a sort I will pass. If your news re Private Rendall Wyatt is true I am very delighted to hear, and sincerely hope the whole lot of c.o.'s will be treated the same; and will he say-what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir. My attention has not been called to any such action on the part of the officer named.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Has not the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the matter by this question on the Paper, and why has he not inquired into it?
    Mr. TENNANT: I understand that the letter was not returned in this form.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: It was.
    Mr. E. HARVEY(by Private Notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether conscientious objectors who have been drafted into the Army may legally be placed in irons for disobedience to orders; whether it is the intention of the War Office to review the sentences passed on such men; whether the death sentence will be inflicted on such men for disobedience to orders at the front; and whether the treatment of such men is severer than that meted out to other soldiers?
    Mr. TENNANT: If men have been placed in irons in regimental cells, except for extreme violence or destroying their clothing and equipment, the action taken is illegal, and those responsible would be held accountable for their actions. Men who may have been committed to prison or detention barracks are subject to confinement in cells, and are liable to be placed in irons for certain offences laid down in the rules for military prisons and detention barracks, which have been approved by Parliament. One case has been reported where a man who, it is believed, stated that he was a conscientious objector, was handcuffed for a short time in a regimental cell.
    Arrangements were made by the War Office to review all sentences passed on alleged conscientious objectors by courts-martial. In certain cases, courts awarded a sentence of two years' imprisonment, but on review by the War Office such sentences have invariably been commuted

    2281
    to 112 days' detention, which is the punishment laid down by the King's Regulations as suitable for a man's first offence of disobedience of orders brought before a court-martial.
    The companies of the Non-Combatant Corps, numbering 341, which are now in France, are rendering useful service behind the front. No trouble has been experienced with any of the men in France. Continued refusal to obey orders there would not involve the penalty of death. The treatment of such men is neither more nor less severe than that of other soldiers who commit similar offences.
    Lieutenant-Colonel NORTON GRIFFITHS: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that there will be no distinction between conscientious objectors and other men in the ranks in regard to punishment for disobedience of orders?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir. If my hon. and gallant Friend will refer to the last part of my answer he will see that I state, "the treatment of such men is not more nor less severe than that of other soldiers."

    TREATMENT OF RECRUITS (NORWICH).
    Mr. INGLEBYasked the Under-Secretary for War if he is aware that on Friday, 12th May, some fifty recruits from King's Lynn were ordered to attend at the Britannia Barracks, Norwich; that they were kept waiting in the rain from 2 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., and were then informed that they would not be examined till the next day; that they were given plank beds to sleep on, but some of them having no money were obliged to go without food till after their postponed examination, and that one of them contracted bronchitis as a result of the treatment received; and will he take steps to ensure more satisfactory arrangements in the future?
    Mr. TENNANT: I have called for a report.

    MARRIED MEN.
    Mr. PERCY HARRISasked the Under-Secretary for War whether the Army Council will consider the possibility of making arrangements for the older married men when called up being stationed for their preliminary training as near their homes
    2282
    as possible, so that in their spare time they can keep in touch with their business and be enabled to supervise the adjustment of their affairs?
    Mr. TENNANT: I sympathise with the object the hon. Member has in view, but I am informed that this proposal is not practicable.

    RECRUITING MEDICAL BOARD, EAST SUFFOLK.
    Sir DANIEL GODDARDasked the Under-Secretary for War why the recruiting medical board for East Suffolk is at Bury St. Edmunds, which is in West Suffolk, instead of in Ipswich; whether he is aware that Bury St. Edmunds is very difficult to reach by railway from towns in the East of Suffolk; whether he is aware that the Appeal Tribunal for East Suffolk and the Ipswich local tribunal have asked that a medical board might be set up in Ipswich on account of the inconvenience and expense of sending men to Bury St. Edmunds; whether the Director of Recruiting has recommended that a more central place should be chosen; and whether he proposes to establish a medical board in Ipswich?
    Sir EDWARD BEAUCHAMPasked the Under-Secretary for War why the recruiting medical board sits at Bury St. Edmunds, in the area of West Suffolk, the population of which at the last Census was 116,905, instead of at Ipswich, in the area of East Suffolk, with a population of 277,155; and whether, as the railway communication with Bury St. Edmunds does not compare with that of Ipswich, he will arrange for the transfer of the board to the latter town or the establishment there of a separate board?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir. Arrangements have been made for a recruiting medical board to assemble at Ipswich and to commence work there on the 29th May. It will sit daily on and after that date.

    ENLISTMENT OF BOYS
    Mr. THOMASasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that a recruiting officer at Hove informed a boy on the 18th May, when reporting himself for service, that youths of eighteen years of age all over the country are to be compelled to sign on for not less than seven years; will he say whether this is compulsory and whether any official countenance is given to pressure being applied to boys in order to induce them to enlist for long

    2283
    service; and whether their parents are consulted in the matter in cases where the engagement extends beyond the period contemplated under the Derby recruiting scheme or the Military Service Act, 1916?
    Mr. TENNANT: Enlistment under the Military Service Act, 1916, is for the period of the War. If any such statement as is reproduced in the first part of my hon. Friend's question was made, it was manifestly incorrect, and no recruiting officer had any right to make it.

    TIME-EXPIRED MEN.
    Mr. CROOKSasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether men whose period of service has already expired and who have voluntarily reengaged for service are to be entitled to the scale of bounties announced?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): I would refer my right hon. Friend to the Written Answer, which appeared in yesterday's OFFICIAL REPORT, to a similar question by my right hon. Friend the Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield.

  MUNITIONS.

    MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (STAFF).
    Sir COURTENAY WARNERasked the Minister of Munitions how many men of military age are now employed on the staff of the Ministry; how many of these are single men; and what proportion of them are regarded as indispensable?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MUNITIONS DEPARTMENT (Dr. Addison): On the 19th May the number of men of military age on the staff of the Ministry of Munitions was 1,213, of whom 492 were single men. Out of these 492, 195 have been medically rejected. Of the remainder, 38 will be allowed to go so soon as they are called up. The balance (259) are at this moment regarded as indispensable to the Ministry, but their cases are kept under consideration, and it will no doubt be possible to release some of them as time goes on. Many of them, however, possess engineering, chemical or other technical qualifications which it has not been possible to obtain in men not qualified for military service.

    CONTROLLED ESTABLISHMENTS (QUESTIONS TO WORKMEN).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of Munitions if he is aware that employers in controlled establishments are requiring from workmen particulars as to their age and if they are attested; if these questions are asked with his sanction; and, if not, whether he will take any action in the matter?
    Dr. ADDISON: I think that my hon. Friend must refer to inquiries made with a view to the completion of a special register of male employés which firms are now obliged to keep. Under Regulation 41 A of the Defence of the Realm Regulations there is an obligation upon such employés to supply on request the information necessary to enable the employer to make and revise this register.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Why should it be necessary to ask if the men have been attested?
    Dr. ADDISON: I do not know if they have been asked.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: If I supply the hon. Gentleman with a copy of the form will he inquire?
    Dr. ADDISON: Certainly.

    SUMNER STREET FILLING FACTORY (LABOUR DISPUTE).
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware of the conditions under which girls are employed at Sumner Street Filling Factory, Southwark; whether he is aware that the manager, named Johnson, from time to time lectures the girls on German atrocities and informs the girls that if they do not do their uttermost the deaths of the soldiers who are killed will be put at their door; whether he is aware that many of the girls have become hysterical as the result of such statements; that owing to the dismissal of a forewoman named Miss Cole the girls refused to work until the reason for her dismissal was given; that the manager gave instructions to the police at 11 p.m. to eject the girls from the factory, and that as a result a number of them had to walk the streets all night through not having enough money to get home; that several disputes have already occurred at these works and that the union concerned has used all its influence in the direction of peace; that, despite the fact

    2285
    that the representative of the Ministry of Munitions gave an undertaking that no dismissals should take place as the result of the stoppage of work, already the manager, since the resumption of work, has dismissed one of the girls, and that the manager has made the statement to the girls at a shop meeting that all who are members of the union would be got rid of one by one; and whether he will make a really searching inquiry into this matter?
    Dr. ADDISON: My attention had not previously been drawn to the statements referred to in the first part of this question as having been made by the manager of the factory. I am informed that, owing to the dismissal of Miss Cole, some of the girls who were employed on urgent munition work refused either to work or to leave the factory, thus committing a serious breach of the Munitions Act. The assistance of the police was obtained to secure their departure, but I do not understand how this could have deprived them of their means of getting home. No under-taking was given by the Ministry of Munitions in regard to dismissals, but the union officials were asked to use their influence to secure a resumption of work, and were informed that on receipt of a written complaint the matter would be inquired into. I am informed that the manager, so far from seeking to get rid of members of the union, has given special instructions that applicants for employment should not in any case be asked whether they belong to a union or not.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS ACT.

    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL SCHEME.
    Mr. CROOKSasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the action of the Statutory Committee under the Naval and Military War Pensions Act in approving the scheme framed by the London County Council for the administration of the Act in the County of London; whether he is aware that this scheme does not conform to the provisions in Section 2 (4) of the Act; whether he will consult the Law Officers of the Crown as to whether the Statutory Committee were acting ultra vires in approving the scheme; and whether steps will be taken to give effect to the provisions of the Act?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The scheme framed by the London County Council is, I believe, in conformity with the provisions of the Naval and Military War Pensions Act, and I see nothing on which I need consult the Law Officers of the Crown. Section 2 (4) deals with the division of a county into permanent districts, and enables but does not require such a division to be made.
    Mr. CROOKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider an appeal by the local authorities in London? They are up in arms against this suggestion of the London County Council.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: The Statutory Committee will consider any representations made to them by the borough councils.

  JUDICIAL AIR COMMITTEE.
  Sir A. MARKHAMasked the Prime Minister whether two Privy Councillors, Members of this House, have been summoned to attend before the Judicial Air Committee in order that the charges made by them in this House of the criminal neglect on the part of the Government in respect to the Air Service can be investigated; whether, following this precedent, he will now appoint a judicial munitions committee to report to this House whether the charges made by Members of this House that thousands of lives have been lost owing to His Majesty's Government having failed to order munitions early last year is true or untrue?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I understand the Committee have invited the two hon. Members referred to in the first part of the question. I do not propose to adopt the suggestion contained in the last part of the question.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Why not?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The two cases are not analogous.
  Sir A MARKHAM: Is it not a fact that owing to a statement made by a new Member in this House the Prime Minister thought it necessary to set up a Judicial Committee, and why should the views of Privy Councillors and old Members of this House be ignored?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have said that the two cases are not analogous.

  FOOD SUPPLY.
  Mr. GEORGE FABERasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the possibility of a shortage of food supplies arising in this country, he can state whether the Government have prepared any plan for dealing with such an emergency or whether it is proposed to defer any plan until the emergency has occurred?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Acland): The principle upon which the Government is acting with regard to a possible emergency as to food supplies is that prevention is better than cure. If my hon. Friend will be so kind as to refer to columns 1837, 1850, and 1851 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of last Monday, he will see that the Board of Agriculture has the necessary machinery and powers for dealing with the matter.

  PHOTOGRAPHS OF GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.
  Mr. ASHLEYasked the Prime Minister whether under the Defence of the Realm Regulations no Government Department is allowed to have photographs taken of buildings being erected by that Department without permission of the War Office; whether early this spring it took the Admiralty nearly five weeks to secure such permission from the War Office; that this month a fine of £5 was imposed on a photographer for a breach of these Regulations who had been instructed by the Minister of Munitions to photograph a factory under his Department in Flintshire; and why a Government Department is not considered sufficiently responsible to be permitted to issue such permits in matters connected with its own activities?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have ascertained from the Departments concerned that they have no complaint to make of the existing arrangements, and I can assure my hon. Friend that their representatives in the Government are fully capable of looking after their interests.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that there is considerable delay in getting this permission from the War Office?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Departments do not complain.

  PARIS CONFERENCE (MR HUGHES).
  Colonel NORTON - GRIFFITHSasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the suggested postponement of the Paris Conference, he proposes to ask the Australian Commonwealth Government to grant an extension of leave to Mr. Hughes?
  The PRIME MINISTER: We still hope to be able to arrange the Conference at a date which will be convenient to Mr. Hughes.

  NAVAL OFFICERS (INCOME TAX).
  Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will give further consideration to the question of the extent to which naval officers have been forced to curtail by a serious proportion the amount of pay allotted to their wives and families in consequence of the imposition of increased Income Tax upon salaries of £300 per annum and upwards; whether he has since been made aware that there is a number of cases of officers in His Majesty's Fleet whose financial position has been made difficult in consequence of the increased cost of living of their families ashore and as a result of the imposition of the increased taxation; and whether, in view of the services of naval officers and the fact that prize money and prize bounty are still withheld from the Fleet for the first time for 400 years, he will take steps, in the interests of the Service, to secure that the minimum salary upon which war taxation should be charged for the current financial year shall be £500?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): As regards the first part of the question, the further ledgers received since the reply to my hon. Friend's question of the 8th May show that in no single case has the rate of allotment been reduced. All the evidence, therefore, at present available is in direct opposition to the suggestion that naval officers have been forced to curtail by a serious proportion the amount of pay allotted to their wives and families, owing to increased taxation. The suggestion in the final part of the question is one entirely for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I take occasion to say that my hon. Friend's reference to prize money and prize bounty is, to say the least of it, somewhat misleading. I have frequently explained to the House the difficulty under new conditions of making payments of prize money

  2289
  until the close of hostilities, and, as regards prize bounty, one award has already been sanctioned and is now in course of distribution, and others will immediately follow.
  Mr. S. BENNasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that hardship has been inflicted upon a number of naval officers owing to the liability for the payment of increased Income Tax upon salaries of £300 per annum and upwards; and whether, in view of the additional cost of living and the fact that numbers of naval officers are wholly dependent upon their pay, and that prize money and prize bounty are still withheld from the Fleet for the first time for 400 years, he will consider the desirability of raising the salary limit liable to the war levy to a minimum of £500 as a recognition of the services of naval officers to the country, which will give satisfaction throughout His Majesty's Fleet?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. McKenna): I may refer the hon. Member to Clause 20 of the finance Bill.

  SHIPS' CREWS (BONUS).
  Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether at Liverpool the transport officer has informed the Seamen's and Firemen's Union and the National Union of Ship Stewards that the £1 extra bonus to members of crews was to be discontinued; whether this was done with the sanction of the Admiralty, in view of the agreement entered into with the unions so recently as the 1st of May; whether a crew was signed on for the steamship "Netherlee" at the rates hid down in the agreement, and that six lays afterwards, the vessel being still in port, the local transport officer issued orders that the crew should be signed off; that this was done on the 12th of May, the crew receiving fifteen days' pay; that the following day they were invited to sign of again at the reduced rate; that the men declined; that the next day a crew, the salors and firemen of which were all Chines, was signed on at rates of £2 and £2 10s. under the port rate; and whether he will stat the reason for this action on the part of the Admiralty in violating their own agreement?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: At the beginning of the War the Admiralty undertook to pay the sum of £1 per month over he then
  2290
  port rates, in consideration mainly of the nature of Admiralty service. That is the only agreement entered into by the Admiralty. It has never been violated in any way Recently the Liverpool Employers' Association, the Seamen's and Firemen's Union, and the National Union of Ships' Stewards, entered into an agreement under which wages in merchant ships engaged on commercial work sailing from that port were to be raised to the level which would cover the £1 extra being paid in Admiralty requisitioned steamers. The unions now ask that we should add a further £1, so far as Liverpool is concerned, to the commercial rates now secured, irrespective of the fact that those rates have reached a level considerably beyond the level at which they were when our agreement was entered into. This we have refused to do. As regards the "Netherlee," mention was made of the matter to me on the 15th May by Liverpool representatives of the unions, who promised me the facts in order that I might investigate them. I have not yet received the information.

  INTERNED ALIENS (GRANTS FOR CHILDREN).
  Mr. MALCOLMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Treasury, before it sanctions the application of the Local Government Board for increased grants by boards of guardians for the nourishment of the children of interned aliens, will give due consideration to the increasingly bad conditions under which British civilians are now forced to live at Ruhleben; and will he give preferential treatment to the children of soldiers and sailors serving in His Majesty's Forces over those of His Majesty's enemies?
  Mr. McKENNA: The proposals of the Local Government Board have already been approved. In its treatment of prisoners and other enemy aliens in this country His Majesty's Government is guided by the dictates of humanity and the principles of The Hague Convention. The rates paid in respect of the children of soldiers and sailors are higher than those paid on account of the children of interned aliens.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Before he sanctions an increase, will the right hon. Gentleman

  2291
  ascertain what grants are being given to the children of interned English prisoners in Ruhleben?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not think the two cases can be weighed one against the other. No matter what other Governments may do, this Government will continue to be actuated by the principles of humanity.
  Mr. MALCOLM: How does the right hon. Gentleman expect to get better treatment for our prisoners at Ruhleben if he gives everything with both hands to the children of interned Germans here?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not think my hon. Friend has stated the case quite fairly. We believe ourselves to be bound by the rules of The Hague Convention. We have acted honestly and fearlessly in accordance with those rules, and I hope the House will support the Government in so doing.
  Mr. G. D. FABER: Is it not the fact that the French have secured much better treatment for their prisoners by adopting the rule of like for like?
  Mr. McKENNA: If the hon. Member will give me any information on the subject I shall be very glad to receive it.
  Mr. R McNEILL: Does the action of the Government in this respect justify the statement of the American Ambassador, with regard to the starving of British prisoners, that they have only their own Government to thank?
  Mr. McKENNA: No.

  FINANCE BILL.

    EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
    Mr. TICKLERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the circular issued by the directors of the Northern Co-operative Society, Limited, drawing attention to the arrangement which has been made of giving a discount on purchases effected without checks, which method is recommended in order to avoid the War Profits Duty which is exacted by the Government, and hoping that it will be largely taken advantage of by customers; and will he say if he intends taking any action to stop such evasion of the Excess War Profits Tax?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have received no information in regard to this matter, but I will cause due inquiry to be made. As the hon. Member is no doubt aware, the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, specifically provides that no deduction shall be allowed in respect of any transaction or operation which artifically reduces the amount to be taken as the profits of a trade.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).
  Mr. CRUMLEYasked the Under-Secretary for War if he can state why the pension granted to Private Peter O'Neill, late of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, No. 5,395, has now been reduced by half to 12s. 6d. per week for himself and 1s. 3d. per week for each of his two children; whether O'Neill was so seriously wounded at Messines on 31st October, 1914, that one of his ribs had to be cut away, three of his ribs being still fractured near the spine, the bottom part of his shoulder blade splintered and taken away, his right lung torn, and two pieces of shell being still in his side which the surgeons were unable to extract; whether he was discharged on 22nd May, 1915, as totally unfit for further service and is now pronounced totally unfit for work by his medical attendant, Dr. Petty; and, having regard to these facts and to the price of provisions, the pension will be increased so as to enable him to support himself, his wife, and two children?
  Mr FORSTER: The Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital found that this man's earning capacity had considerably improved, and his pension was, therefore, reassessed, in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee of this House.
  Mr. PATRICK MEEHANasked the Under-Secretary for War if a pension will be granted to Corporal Martin Bennett, No. 3,121, 4th Leinster Regiment, who was discharged on the 5th May, 1916, after having been invalided home from France on 16th September 1915; if he is aware that Bennett served in all seventeen years, with the Colours, took part in the Boer War, and holds the Queen's South African Medal (four clasps); and whether his claim to a pension will be considered without delay as he has no means of supporting his wife and child?
  Mr. FORSTER: This case is being considered by the Chelsea Commissioners, and I will let my hon. Friend know the result in due course.

  PREES HEATH CAMP, SALOP.
  Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary for War if he can state the number of deaths which have taken place at the Prees Heath Camp, Salop, during the last three months; if he is aware that the soldiers encamped there complain of its unhealthy condition and the unsuitability of the site for an encampment; and what action is being taken to remedy the existing state of things?
  Mr. TENNANT: The number of deaths during the last three months is thirty-eight. The condition of this camp has been specially reported on and it is stated to be good.

  REGIMENTAL SERGEANT-MAJORS (TERRITORIAL FORCE).
  Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary for War whether, when a Territorial regiment goes abroad, all acting appointments are automatically confirmed with the exception of that of regimental sergeant-major; and, if this is so, will he have this Regulation altered, so that these warrant officers may receive substantive rank and their widows and dependants the pension payable to such rank in case of the men's death?
  Mr. TENNANT: The suggestion made by my hon. and gallant Friend in the last three lines of the question is based on wrong information. A regimental sergeant-major of a Territorial Force battalion suffers no financial disability from the fact that he holds acting instead of substantive rank. His widow or dependants would not so suffer either in the event of his death.
  Colonel YATE: Will regimental sergeant-majors be given such rank? Is there any reason why he should not?
  Mr. TENNANT: Yes, there is every reason why he should not. It is a mere question of name. He gets all the emoluments.
  Colonel YATE: What is the reason?
  Mr. TENNANT: I will tell the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

  INCOME TAX.
  Mr. McKENNA: With the leave of the House, I desire to state that in Committee of Ways and Means on Monday next I shall move that there shall be charged for the year beginning the 6th day of April, 1916, and for any subsequent year in which Income Tax is charged on the income derived from any stocks, shares, or other securities which the Treasury is willing to purchase in connection with any arrangement for the regulation and maintenance of foreign exchanges, an additional duty of Income Tax at the rate of 2s. in the £, and that no exemption, abatement, or relief under the Income Tax Acts shall be given in respect of such additional duty. I shall propose also that exceptions shall be made in favour of the income from any securities for the time being deposited with the Treasury under any scheme for the regulation or maintenance of foreign exchanges; and, secondly, of the income from any securities belonging to institutions trading in foreign countries which are for the time being required to be held in such countries under any requirements of local law.

  Great Southern and Western Railway.
  Mr. FITZPATRICKasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that the Great Southern and Western Railway Company have served the Abbeyleix District Council with notice to claim £3,000 damages for injury done to the company's line of rails between Abbeyleix and Maryborough, Queen's County, on the morning of the 24th April, by which one locomotive engine and one bogie brake carriage were injured; and whether, in view of the fact that the ratepayers of the district, who had no part in this act, would be unable to pay this amount of compensation, he will consider the question of providing compensation out of public funds to meet this claim?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I understand that the Great Southern and Western Railway Company have served the Abbeyleix Rural District Council with a claim for malicious injuries for damage done to the company's line near Abbeyleix during the rebellion. The County Court judge will have power to assess the damage on any area he thinks fit, but assuming that it is levied

  2295
  over Abbeyleix rural district, it would come to about 9d. in the £. The rates in the district are only about 4s. in the £, and I am unable to hold out any hope that compensation can be provided in this case from public funds.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. FITZPATRICKasked what steps the Estates Commissioners have taken to acquire the Scott estate at Killeany, Mountrath, Queen's County, which was offered for sale to them by the owner some years ago?
  Mr. SAMUEL: It is presumed that the hon. Member refers to the estate of R. M. Marsh, at Killeany, Queen's County, the owner of which wrote to the Estates Commissioners shortly before the outbreak of war expressing his willingness to sell the property under the Land Purchase Acts. The Commissioners furnished him with an estimate of the price, but as the purchase money would, under the Act of 1909, be payable in Guaranteed 3 per Cent. Stock, which, in existing financial conditions, cannot be realised for the purpose of redeeming superior and other interests, the question of the sale has been deferred.

  Ceylon (Temperance Movement).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether anything is being done to restrain minor English officials in Ceylon from active hostility to the temperance movement, temperance societies, and advocates of temperance; whether the houses of temperance workers are still being searched by military and police; whether temperance workers are still being imprisoned without charge, released without trial, and given no rest until they cease temperance work; whether this policy has completely destroyed the temperance movement in Ceylon; and, seeing that the best and most educated Sinhalese resent this demoralisation of their people in the interest of an English trade, whether the connection between that trade and the Government of Ceylon can be diminished or rendered less obvious?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am satisfied that there is no ground for the suggestion that the Government of Ceylon is in any way hostile to legitimate temperance work, or that action has been taken against any individuals in consequence of their connection with the temperance movement.
  Mr. GINNELL: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Cabinet are unanimous in denying these charges instead of granting an impartial inquiry for which the Sinhalese people have petitioned?
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: As there appears to be a good deal of unrest, will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether an inquiry is desirable?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have already explained that my view and the view of the Government is that to raise this question now might cause a great deal of trouble.
  Mr. GINNELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the Sinhalese people have any right to a view of their own in this matter?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, I do not.
  Mr. GINNELLasked what explanation he can give of the shooting, on 5th June, 1915, at Palankade, Ceylon, by direction of an English officer, of the man Mahagamage Singho Appu, without charge or trial; whether he disputes the affidavit of this man's widow, sworn before a magistrate at Colombo last September, that no inquiry whatever was addressed to either her husband or herself or anybody else before the shooting; that she was never told why her husband was shot, and that the shooting of him left her a destitute widow with seven children, the youngest of them about one year old; and whether Sir Robert Chalmers, then Governor of Ceylon, now Under-Secretary for Ireland, still holds that no inquiry ought to be made and no redress given in this case?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have no reason to believe that there is any foundation for the allegations contained in this question.
  Mr. GINNELL: I have not asked if the right hon. Gentleman has any reason to believe. I asked if the right hon. Gentleman can deny the question on the Paper?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do.

  River Shannon.
  Mr. REDDYasked the Secretary to the Treasury why there is a notice on both sides of the swivel bridge over the Shannon at Shannonbridge stating in large letters that the bridge is only to carry three tons if the statement of the Board of Works is correct that it is capable of bearing twelve tons; whether

  2297
  the bridge as repaired fails to close properly; and whether boards and a chain and lock and key have to be employed to cover this defect?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): I am informed that there were notices on the bridge over the River Shannon at Shannonbridge limiting the weight of traffic passing over it to three tons, but that they have recently been removed, and that there is now no notice on the bridge. On completion of the strengthening of the bridge, the Board of Works received a report that it closed with perfect satisfaction, in fact, better than it did before it was strengthened. They are not aware of any change having since occurred in its working, but they are having inquiries made on the point.
  Mr. REDDY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why it took twelve months to finish the bridge and why people were prevented from crossing the bridge all last winter?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot say. I have very little knowledge of this bridge myself. If the hon. Member will disclose to me the object he has in view in putting these questions, I will try to get a comprehensive amount of information for him from Ireland.
  Mr. REDDY: Thank you.

  Colonial Investments (Income Tax).
  Colonel NORTON - GRIFFITHSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether representations have been made to him with regard to double Income Tax payable by persons resident in this country on their Dominion and Colonial investments; and whether this hindrance to the development of the British Empire will be removed?
  Mr. McKENNA: I may refer the hon. and gallant Member to Clause 28 of the Finance Bill.

BILLS REPORTED.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 6) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
Halifax Corporation Provisional Order Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
Marriages Provisional Order Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (Gas) Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE.
First Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 83.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a scheme made by a Committee of the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council under the Municipal Corporation Acts, 1882 and 1885, relating to Buxton." [Municipal Corporations (Buxton Scheme Confirmation) Bill [Lords.]
And also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve the marriage of the Honourable Flora Fitzmaurice Irvine with Edward St. George Tottenham Irvine, her now

2299
husband, and to enable her to marry again; and for other purposes." [Irvine's Divorce Bill [Lords.]

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (BUXTON SCHEME CONFIRMATION) BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 50].
IRVINE'S DIVORCE BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; to be read a second time.
BILL PRESENTED.
Courts (Emergency Powers) (Amendment—No. 2) Bill,—"to give to Courts in connection with the present War further powers of granting relief," presented by Sir GEORGE CAVE; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: Will the Prime Minister state the arrangements for business next week, and is he able to make any announcement as to any recess?
  The PRIME MINISTER: On Monday, we shall take the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill, Committee of Ways and Means, the Second Readings of the Naval Discipline Bill, the Output of Beer (Restriction) Bill, the Anglo-Portuguese Commercial Treaty Bill, the Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill, and stages of other Bills on the Paper;
  On Tuesday, the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill;
  On Wednesday, Supply (the Vote for the Salary of the Secretary of State for War);
  And on Thursday, we hope to take the Adjournment Motion over the Whitsuntide holidays.
  Sir F. BANBURY: The Courts (Emergency Powers) (Amendment) Bill has not yet been printed. It is rather too soon to take it on Monday, when we have only known to-day that it is going to be introduced. If several other Bills are to be taken on that day, this Bill could be taken on Tuesday.
  The PRIME MINISTER: It will be printed to-night and circulated to-morrow morning. That gives Friday and Saturday for hon. Members to consider it.
  An HON. MEMBER: And Sunday.
  Mr. LOUGH: Can the right hon. Gentleman, for the convenience of Members, indicate the length of the Recess?
  The PRIME MINISTER: We have not decided yet, but I hope it will be fairly long.
  Ordered, "That the Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply."—[The Prime Minister.]

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
  CONFERENCE OF PARTIES.

    PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT.
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): It has been indicated more than once during this week that to-day, on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill, which stands first in the Orders of the Day, I hoped to say something on behalf of the Government in regard to recent events and the present situation in Ireland. The appropriations made by the Consolidated Fund Bill, which gives effect to the Vote of Credit passed during this week by the House, are confined entirely to the military, naval and ancillary war services, and I find, after consulting and taking the judgment of Mr. Speaker, that the Rules of Order will prevent anything in the nature of a general Debate and review of what has taken place during the last month in Ireland. The purview of the Bill—the Consolidated Fund Bill—does not concern and, so we are advised, cannot be stretched to include any criticism or defence of the Civil Executive, which comprises the action of the police, and for this reason alone no discussion of the general situation on the Second Reading of that Bill would be possible on the present occasion. I must, therefore, appeal to the indulgence of the House to allow me, before the Orders of the Day are reached, to say a few words.
    HON. MEMBERS: Move the Adjournment!
    Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Will there be any opportunity of debating what the right hon. Gentleman says?
    Mr. SPEAKER: There will be no opportunity of debate on that part of the statement which relates to the civil Government of Ireland. There will be such opportunity in regard to the military.
    HON. MEMBERS: Move the Adjournment!
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am not altogether sorry that is the case. It is not the desire of the Government to burke any general discussion. On the contrary, they are most anxious that it should take place.
    Mr. O'BRIEN: When?
    The PRIME MINISTER: But I am certain that such a discussion, even under untrammelled conditions, would not be effectual or fruitful until the inquiries which are now going on—and which I can assure hon. Members are as searching and impartial as it is possible to be—have been concluded In the meantime our primary duty as the Government in Ireland is to restore order and to prevent the possibility of a recurrence of disorder. We rejoice, as the whole of the country rejoices, in the overwhelming evidence that the great bulk of Irish opinion, of all creeds and parties, have no sympathy of any sort or kind with the recent ill-advised undertaking.
    Mr. GINNELL: Quite untrue!
    The PRIME MINISTER: As I have said, order and peace must be restored, and that task is for the moment the main preoccupation of the Irish Executive. Martial law is continued as a precautionary measure. We hope that its disappearance will be speedy and complete.
    Mr. GINNELL: How soon?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The composition of the Irish Executive itself must, for the time being, be of a provisional character. I have another reason for appealing for the indulgence of the House to allow me to intervene now. I fear that general Debate at this moment might tend to create an atmosphere unfavourable to appeals which my colleagues and I unitedly feel it our duty to make without any delay. I thought it my duty more than a week ago to go myself to Ireland to get what I may call a first-hand view of the whole situation. I saw with my own eyes the heartrending desolation which unhappy and misguided men wrought over a large area of the City of Dublin. I visited, and talked with the utmost freedom to, a large number of those who have been arrested and detained. I put myself in direct communication with all such representative exponents as I could meet of the various shades and schools of Irish opinion. I kept, I hope, not only my eyes and ears but my mind open, without any cloud of prepossession or prejudice, with the single desire to get at the truth. There were two main dominant impressions which were left on my mind. The first was the breakdown of the existing machinery of Irish Government; and the next was the strength and depth, and I
    2310
    might almost say I think without exaggeration the universality, of the feeling in Ireland that we have now a unique opportunity for a new departure for the settlement of outstanding problems, and for a joint and combined effort to obtain agreement as to the way in which the government of Ireland is for the future to be carried on.
    As I said, and I repeat, the moment is felt in Ireland to be peculiarly opportune, and one great reason that has led to that opinion both there and here is our experience in the War. Irishmen of all creeds and classes, north, south, east, and west, have responded with alacrity and with self-devotion to the demands of the cause which appeals to them. They have shed, they are shedding to-day, their blood; giving the best of all they had, sacrificing what they prized most, without stint and without reserve, in the trenches and on the battlefields, which will be for ever consecrated to the memory of Ireland, as of Great Britain and of the Empire at large. Sir, can we who represent Great Britain, can they who represent Ireland, tolerate the prospect that when this War is over, when we have by our joint efforts and sacrifices, as we hope and believe we shall, achieved our end, here at home Irishmen should be arrayed against one another in the most tragic and the most debasing of all conflicts—internecine domestic strife? I say to the House of Commons and to the country and to the Empire that the thought is inconceivable. That can never be. It would be a confession of bankruptcy, not only of statesmanship, but of patriotism.
    4.0 P.M.
    I venture now to make an appeal to the House. The Government of Ireland Act is on the Statute Book. No one, so far as I know—I have said so repeatedly myself in the past—no one has ever desired or contemplated its coercive application by one set of Irishmen to another. What is now in this great domestic and Imperial emergency of paramount importance is that if it be possible—and I hope it is possible—that an agreement such as we sought, and sought in vain, before the War should be arrived at between those representing different interests and parties in Ireland. I believe, as I have already said, that in Ireland itself there is a deep and genuine desire to obtain such an agreement. The Government—I speak for all my colleagues—some of us in the past have taken the most diverse possible views in regard to questions of

    2311
    Irish government — the Government are anxious and more than anxious to do everything in their power to facilitate such a happy result. At the unanimous request of his colleagues my right hon. Friend who sits beside me, the Minister of Munitions (Mr. Lloyd George), has undertaken to devote his time and his energies and his power to the promotion of that result. He has already put himself in communication with the authorised representatives and exponents of the views of the different Irish parties. And if there be, as I believe there is—I do not underrate the difficulties in the least degree—if there be, as I believe there is, among Irishmen, no less than among the people of Great Britain, an honest and resolute desire to take advantage of this opportunity for the obtainment of that which, to us as a nation and an Empire I do not hesitate to say is the greatest boon that could possibly be achieved, I cannot but hope that my right hon. Friend in his mission of peace and reconciliation and of possible unity will not only carry with it the good wishes, the ardent hopes, of all Members in every quarter of this House, but something more—I believe that such a result can and ought to be attained. I venture to make this appeal to all sections of the House to abstain, even under the limited and fettered conditions which the Consolidated Fund Bill will afford us, from any immediate discussion of the Irish situation, and from the use of any language, in any quarter, calculated to increase the difficulties—serious, but, in our hope and in our belief, not insurmountable—in the way of a great and lasting settlement.
    Mr. JOHN REDMOND: May I, with the indulgence of the House, say two or three brief words. The Prime Minister has made a very serious and a very solemn appeal to this House. The net effect of his appeal is that, even on the Consolidated Fund Bill, upon which it would be possible to discuss military affairs in Ireland, Members should remain silent for the moment. That is applying, to my colleagues and myself, a very severe test. There are things going on in Ireland that we think, under ordinary circumstances, ought to be discussed at the earliest possible moment. But I regard the appeal of the Prime Minister as
    2312
    a test of the genuineness of our desire for a settlement now of this great problem, and for my part I could not for a moment take the responsibility of not responding to that appeal. Further than that I say nothing, except that if this new effort on the part of the Government, placed as it now is in such able and energetic hands, fails, as I hope and pray it may not fail, the fault will not lie on unreasonable conduct or action of my colleagues or myself.
    Mr. O'BRIEN: Perhaps I may be allowed to say one or two words on the subject. We are prepared to avoid any one word that would discourage any effort to save the situation, no matter from what quarter it came. We are not going now to debate the question within the limits within which I hold it is right to have it discussed. I say at once that I will bow, that I must bow, to the appeal for silence which the Prime Minister has made. But I feel bound to say that what has happened here to-night will be received with profound disappointment in Ireland, as a proof of the continuance of the policy of organised suppression of free speech which is responsible for three-fourths of the guilt of the recent rebellion in Ireland.
    Sir EDWARD CARSON: I only desire to say one word, and it is that I willingly adopt the suggestion of the Prime Minister that we should not enter into any discussion which might lead to anything of a provocative nature. Indeed, if you enter into these discussions at all, it is very hard to draw the line, the border line, as to where a provocative speech commences and ends. May I say this, if the House will allow me, that I think the Press do a very ill-service to the cause that the Prime Minister has in view in trying to raise provocative questions in relation to Ireland at the present moment. Since this terrible calamity came upon Ireland I have found great difficulty myself in restraining my own feelings as regards attacks that are daily made, and challenges that are daily made, in the Press, and, whenever I have felt inclined to answer them, I have always said to myself, "Remember that there is a War going on, in which your country is involved."
    Mr. GINNELLrose— [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"] May I ask, Mr.

    2313
    Speaker, whether you expect the House and the public to consider your action impartial?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think they will consider it wise.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. HOGGE: There are some subjects which can be raised on the Second Reading of this Bill which I hope the House will take an opportunity of debating, now that we cannot discuss the question of Ireland. The House probably, after the statement of the Prime Minister, is not in the kind of humour which will enable all Members to discuss questions which, after all, are vital to a great many people in the country. But there is one question which might be discussed now—I refer to the treatment of our soldiers and sailors by the Charity Commissioners acting under the Statutory Committee of the Naval and Military Army Act. We have tried, a number of us, in this House from time to time to secure the discussion of this important topic at a time when public attention could be called to it. I see on the Front Bench the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who is acquainted with all these problems, and I hope he may be able to reply to the few questions which I propose to address to him. The House will remember that some very considerable time ago the question arose as to what pension ought to be payable to a soldier or sailor who was discharged from the Service on account of disease contracted in the Service, or aggravated by the Service, and it was felt that the full pension could not be paid to that soldier or that sailor. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary then stated that the Government had agreed, in those cases, that a pension equivalent to four-fifths of the full pension should be paid to these men. Several of us asked questions as to whether, in the event of the death of the soldier or sailor, the pension would be payable to the widow or other dependants of the man. The reply of the Financial Secretary to the War
  2314
  Office at that time was that we would not know the details until the issue of the new Royal Warrant.
  For the last month or six weeks questions have been put on the Paper to my hon. Friend asking him when the Royal Warrant would be published, and up to to-day, within four days of the Whitsuntide Recess, the Royal Warrant has not seen the light of day. In a conversation my hon. Friend gave some reasons why up to the present moment it had been impossible to issue the Royal Warrant, and at the same time he informed me that he could not give me any hope that the Royal Warrant would be issued before Thursday to enable us to discuss this matter before the Whitsuntide Recess. I would not labour this so continuously and so persistently if it were not for the fact that there is a large number of people suffering from lack of information with regard to this important question. In last night's Debate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board complained, and I think complained unjustly, that we did not give the Government credit for the amount of pension payable to our discharged soldiers and sailors. Let me assure my hon. Friend at once that we agree that the pensions are not only substantial and generous, but are higher than the pensions given in any part of the civilised world. What we do complain about is not the amount of the pensions, but the niggardly administration of those pensions by the Chelsea Commissioners. For instance, I want to know how the Chelsea Commissioners settle these points. We in the House have determined that a soldier discharged from the Army totally disabled is entitled, on certain grounds, to 25s. per week, with 2s. 6d. for each child, and in the case of a partially disabled soldier to the difference between 25s. per week, and what he can make, and there is as well a discretionary allowance of 2s. 6d. for each child. On that assumption the feeling that is left in the mind of the House and the country is that those men are going to get the substantial part of £1 or 25s. What do we find in practice? When those men's cases are laid before the Chelsea Commissioners, they get pensions amounting to as low a sum as 8d. per day, or 4s. 8d. per week.
  Last night I produced a case in which a man discharged from the Army, after months of service, with chronic bronchitis, and who is now a consumptive

  2315
  patient, and who is a widower with one child, and who is in receipt of a pension of 4s. 8d. per week That man has since been discharged incurable from the sanatorium to which he found access. He is living in lodgings, and is responsible for the upkeep and upbringing of his girl of eight years of age. This House, by its Pension Committee, stated that the scale for a man of that kind was to be 25s. per week if totally disabled, and 2s. 6d. for each child, but instead of 27s. 6d. per week he is in receipt of 4s. 8d. There may be good reasons why he is only getting that amount, but all I am ever told when I address myself to the Chelsea Commissioners is that they have considered all the circumstances, and that they find that this man did not contract this disease in the Army, or that it was not aggravated in the Army, and that, therefore, that it is all the pension they can give him. I imagine that the average Member of this House is able to ascertain whether the man did or did not acquire his disease in the Service. The datum line in all these cases is this. Take the case I have just mentioned. The man was accepted by the military as medically fit. They used his services for months in the Army, and he was then discharged suffering from chronic bronchitis. The medical officer must have been deficient in his ability to discover what this particular man was suffering from. If they said he was suffering from bronchitis, I could understand, but they discharge him as suffering from chronic bronchitis, which means that the disease must have existed for some time. Therefore, the medical officer was no use when he passed that man into the Army fit, but when he did pass him as fit, and after using him for all these months, I say it is a shame that the man should be scrapped, and should be left in a condition where he possibly cannot recover his health, and given a pension of 4s. 8d. per week. The House never meant that and the nation never meant that. If that is the generosity of administration typical of the Chelsea Commissioners, the sooner they are abolished root and branch, and the administration of these pensions put in the hands of some Department at which we can get more easily in this House, the better. It is absurd after this House has come to generous conclusions that the administration of these pensions should be so far
  2316
  removed from the House as the Chelsea Commissioners, and that the only way we can get at the administration of the Chelsea Commissioners is through the Under-Secretary, who has himself to get his information from the very people whose administration we are seeking to criticise.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): I am one of them.
  Mr. HOGGE: I would scarcely have credited that, knowing the generosity of the hon. Gentleman and his sympathetic treatment of all cases that are brought to his notice. Take this point a step further. In the case of the soldier who is discharged on account of disease contracted in the Army, I asked, supposing that man dies as a result of that disease, what will his wife and children get? At the present moment they are not entitled to a single penny. The man himself may get four-fifths of the maximum pension, although we know that in practice he gets very much less. I asked my hon. Friend, and he received the suggestion quite sympathetically, would it not be possible in a case of that kind to secure that the widow and the children should get the four-fifths pension rate that was being given to the man who was discharged because he had contracted the disease? They seemed to me to be fair. The widow and the children of a man who is killed in battle get the scale which we have laid down in this House. My hon. Friend and the Government suggested that they could not be so generous where a man was discharged on account of disease. I gave them that point, but I asked that the dependants should get the benefit of the four-fifths rate. I feel so keenly about this question that I seized the opportunity just now when the House was disturbed over the Irish question, seeing we could not discuss it, because I feel perfectly certain that this is a problem which touches everybody so intimately that it is worth while for the House of Commons to devote an hour or two to its discussion in the early part of the sitting. I am very glad to see in the House some Members who have before contributed to Debates of this kind, and who have knowledge of their own of these problems, and who will welcome, I hope, the opportunity of raising this question at this time.
  There are a great many other points which one could address to the Financial

  2317
  Secretary, and about which one is continually talking to him in conversation. I think the most urgent case at the moment is this: How far has he got this Royal Warrant? Has he succeeded in the Royal Warrant in translating into scale payments the promise of the four-fifths pension? Can he tell us how the Chelsea Commissioners do arrive at those conclusions in face of the facts which are supplied to them, and will he, despite the fact that he may think it is done quite properly, extend even yet further the sympathetic treatment which he has previously extended to many cases? There are the dire cases of many of these soldiers, which arises from the fact that they are discharged with a very small pension, with no hope of getting any kind of work, with small families to bring up, and with no outlook at all. I am perfectly certain that the Financial Secretary and the House want those men to have some outlook, and I think, either for the service which they have offered or rendered, or which they would have rendered if their health had held out, that the House will in the end, as a result of these discussions, arrive at a point when we shall get some satisfactory settlement of this big question.
  Sir CHARLES HENRY: I fully agree with the greater part of the appeal which the hon. Member for East Edinburgh has made, and I am sure the general desire is that these disabled men should be treated with generosity. I desire to raise another point, and that is the position of soldiers who are discharged from the Army either on account of illness or from the strain of active service, and who return to civil life without any evidence that they have served in the Army in this War.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): They have got uniforms.
  Sir C. HENRY: When a man is discharged the uniform is taken away. The matter is of some importance, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give it his consideration. I have come across men who were to all appearance quite fit, and I put the question to them why they were not in uniform. In a case of that kind quite recently the man told me he had been in the Army, although he had not seen service in the War, and that he had been invalided out of the Army on account of rheumatism. There was no sign or indication by which anyone could know that that
  2318
  man had served his country during the present crisis. If something is not done by the giving of some distinctive badge or ribbon to these men you are, I submit, doing them a great injustice. I have no doubt the Financial Secretary will reply on the subject of pensions, and I would urge this matter on the attention of the Under-Secretary. I think that when these men who have given service are discharged on account of illness that they should receive a medal which would be accompanied by a ribbon. If that were done it would be open to all to see that they had served their country. I think this recognition has been too long delayed, and I hope the omission will soon be remedied.
  Mr. WING: I desire to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) and of the hon Member who has just spoken. I think we should do all we can to let the men who have served us see that we recognise not only in a national sense what they have done, but also that we give them some evidence to show that they have served their country. I desire to call attention also to the Chelsea Commissioners. I was rather surprised to find that the Financial Secretary is one of them, and, judging from his personal generosity—
  Mr. TENNANT: Both of us are members.
  Mr. WING: Judging from the personal generosity of the Financial Secretary and the Under-Secretary, and the general meanness of the Chelsea Commissioners, I hope that the Financial Secretary and the Under-Secretary are often in a minority, becuse there are very few indications of generosity in the amounts granted by the Commissioners. I find that in my Constituency the sum of 9d. per day is a popular figure, and, being less than an old age pension, it does not seem satisfactory to the people who receive it. Another subject to which I wish to refer is that of men who are sent from the Army and supposed to be discharged, but are forced to walk about the streets for weeks before they get their discharge papers. They are unable to commence work until they have their discharge, but their discharge is delayed. Is it not possible to devise some means whereby that can be remedied? The pay of these men is stopped when they leave the Army, but until they receive their discharge they are unable to go to work, or to receive their usual allowances.

  2319
  If the War Office are unable to discharge these men more readily, can they not pay them until they are discharged? Surely, if you hold these men to their agreement with the Army, they should receive their money until they are discharged. I have been informed by men who came out of the Army only last week that their allowances have been stopped and they have not received their discharge. I have also received a number of complaints with regard to the giving of no definite news of a soldier who may be a prisoner of war, or missing, or dead. A notice is sent to the wife stating that her money is reduced to the amount that it would be if she were a widow. This is rather unpleasant, because the woman does not know whether she is a widow. She is loath to believe that she is, and it seems rather mean on the part of the War Office to reduce the allowance until they are in a position to certify that the soldier has actually been killed. There is a feeling of resentment on the part of the women that you should reduce their pay before you are able to give them definite news. I press these matters with confidence on the representatives of the War Office, because in my personal relations with them I have always received great courtesy, which I have pleasure in acknowledging, and I have every reason to believe that when these cases are brought before them they will give them their usual generous attention.
  Major NEWMAN: I agree that something ought to be done with regard to men who have served in the Army and been discharged as unfit for further service. I think that something in the nature of a badge should be given them to show that they have been so discharged. Only today, on the Underground Railway, I heard a conversation between two men. One asked his friend, "What happens to man who has served and been discharged as medically unfit? What has he to show for it?" His friend said, "He can put on an armlet." That is quite wrong, but it shows that the public are thinking about the matter. Something in the nature of a badge or armlet should be given to these men for their protection. I wish also to put the case of a young fellow who joins the Army while his father and mother are alive, and perhaps in good circumstances. When he enlists he states that he has not been in the habit of making them any allowance, so that he makes no allotment and gets his full pay. In process of time
  2320
  the father dies and the mother is left very badly off. The son then wants to make an allotment of 3s. 6d. per week in order that his mother may get the Government grant, but at present he is precluded from doing so. That ought not to be the case. If circumstances change, it ought to be possible for a man to go to his quartermaster and say, "I wish to make an allotment in favour of my dependants." I should like the Under-Secretary of State to consider that point.
  Mr. TENNANT: I understood that it could be done.
  Major NEWMAN: No.
  Mr. MORTON: I hope the Financial Secretary will be able to tell us to-day that the matter of the Royal Warrant is going to be settled at once. When we discussed the matter about a month ago, we were distinctly told that nothing could be done without a new Royal Warrant, or some such document. On that occasion, amongst other cases, attention was called to the case of a widow in Brora, Sutherlandshire. We understood then—and, as far as I know, it is the same now—that the auhorities could not grant any pension or allowance to the widow and children if a man was discharged before he died. That seems to me an extraordinary state of affairs. If a man dies while in the Service, his widow gets an allowance, but if the authorities choose to discharge him, then when he dies his widow is entitled to no allowance whatever. I understood that the new Royal Warrant was to cover such cases as that, and I hope we shall get an assurance to-day that that promise is to be carried out. No doubt in some cases pensions have been awarded very favourably, but undoubtedly the policy of the country practically up to the present has not been to award pensions and allowances sufficient to keep these people out of the workhouse. I hope that in future we shall do something to relieve the strain upon these people who are suffering from the War. It has been laid down by some countries that if a man serves his country, if he is not killed, something ought to be done to ensure a decent living for him, while if he is killed, his widow and children, if any, shall receive from the State an allowance to keep them out of the workhouse. This matter has been discussed several times, and at last we thought we had a definite promise from the War Office that the matter would be settled. As far as I know it may be settled, but not yet issued. I

  2321
  hope the Financial Secretary will be able to give us an assurance on that point. I trust, too, that he will be able to tell us that the four-fifths pension will be allowed to the widow and children of a man who dies after his discharge, as is done in other cases. One is as much entitled to it as another. In the case of which I have spoken the matter was made worse because two medical officers had actually certified that there was nothing the matter with the man when he entered the service. In many cases, whereas a man's life and health might be endangered by war service, in his ordinary occupation he might, by taking care of himself, live for many years without any difficulty whatever. War service undoubtedly makes a great difference, and that ought to be taken into consideration. Although disease may not be brought about by war service, it is often accelerated thereby. These are matters in which the House will be bound to take more interest in the future than it has done in the past. We have no right to drive these people to the workhouse. I believe that the nation will be quite willing to provide the necessary funds and to see that they are administered in a proper manner, and not by the granting of 4s. 8d. a week, as in the case referred to by my hon. Friend. It seems ridiculous that there should be so absurd an allowance. I have great faith in the representatives of the War Office on the Treasury Bench, and I hope that they will assure the House and the country that something is going to be done in this matter in the near future.
  Sir JOHN SPEAR: I desire to support the appeal with reference to men whose health has broken down under training. I believe the Government have done their best to make arrangements for fair treatment in the matter of separation allowances and pensions in the case of men who are injured in actual warfare, or of their dependants if the men are killed. In the case of men whose health breaks down, perhaps owing to the rigour of training, and who are thereby rendered unfit to earn their living, not only should a fair pension be given, but in the case of their death their dependants ought to receive at the hands of the State some compensation for the loss of the breadwinner, because, although he has not been killed on the battlefield, he has nevertheless sacrificed his life in the service of the country. Surely in such cases a responsibility rests on the Government.
  2322
  If their agents, the medical men, pass into the Army a man who may have some incipient disease, or in regard to whom they make a mistake, as doctors, like other people, occasionally do, surely the State is responsible and should pay. I know that the Government have promised consideration with regard to the man himself, but I would ask the Under-Secretary to consider whether something could not be done for the dependants of such a man if he dies, so that a means of livelihood may be assured to them after the loss of the breadwinner. I venture to urge that in view of the Military Service Bill, which is now in process of becoming law, that the claim is all the more important and real. Under that measure, of course, a large number of men will join the Army, not always of their own choice, but, in my opinion, rightly from the call of the country and the necessities of the situation. Surely, therefore, if in the training of the fellows who are compulsorily put into the Army their health breaks down they are entitled not only to consideration from the personal point of view, but also from the claim of those who are dependent upon them? I press this matter on the hon. Gentleman, I have had to go before him with cases of hardship of disabled soldiers, and I am bound to say that he has always shown a desire to meet such cases fairly. But this is a new kind of case, which is becoming more prominent and more general through the new Bill.
  There is a very strong feeling, I believe, among all sections of the people that we must deal very differently with the brave fellows, both soldiers and sailors, who are fighting our battle on this occasion to that which has unhappily been the case at the end of previous wars. I believe that the desire of the people is that each and all who are making this self-sacrifice shall be cared for in the proper manner. Just one point more, and that is in reference to separation allowances. There are many cases in which a son has joined the Army who, before he was a soldier, handed over his wages to a common family fund, though it could scarcely be said that he made any direct allowance of a specified amount. Surely the fact that a portion of his earnings was not specifically handed over to his parents towards their assistance should not debar those parents from receiving separation allowance? A common-sense calculation would easily make manifest how much of the total of the wages devoted to the maintenance of the

  2323
  common household was really his contribution, and it ought to represent a sum that should be granted as separation allowance. I mention these matters to the hon. Gentleman, knowing how anxious he is to deal justly with our soldiers and sailors, and I speak with confidence, because a case has been made out for the dependants of the men who lose their lives through disease contracted in the Army. Care should be taken that these men have not to resort to the workhouse for maintenance. I believe the hon. Gentleman will be interpreting the wishes of the people generally if he does something substantial to meet the cases put before him.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I desire to join in this appeal for more generous treatment—no, not for more generous treatment, but for more just and equitable treatment—for these men. The proverb has it that we ought "to be just before we are generous." This is a case in which I am convinced that we are neither just nor generous in the treatment that is being meted out. The appeal is directed, not to the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the War Office, but through him to the Government. The general tone of the discussion, so far, has not involved any criticism at all of the attitude of the hon. Gentleman. I have brought many cases of various kinds before him, and I have always found that they have received prompt and detailed investigation. I have no complaint whatever to make in regard to the manner in which these cases have been handled. The appeal is made on behalf, not of those men who have been wounded, or those men who have been injured as the result of some accident in the course of their military employment. It is made on behalf of men whose health has been broken in the course of their military service. It is often difficult to trace the exact cause of this breakdown in health. It may be vague and general. These are men who were fulfilling their daily occupations before the War, and found no difficulty in doing so. They were earning good wages. In the Army they have been living under completely different conditions. They have been subject to training—which is a severe test for a man if there are any latent weaknesses in his constitution. They have also been subject to an exposure to which they are not subjected in their daily life, and in
  2324
  their daily occupation in civil life. No one can deny that even in the summer, even in good weather, living in a tent pitched in the fields is very different from living in the house to which one has been accustomed.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Not always!
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: It depends on whether the conditions of the tent were comfortable or otherwise. If the hon. Gentleman had had his tent pitched on ground where it was damp, even if it was not very rainy weather, he might suffer severe consequences from living under these damp conditions.
  Mr. ASHLEY: I have slept very many months in a tent, on not at all dry ground.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Then my hon. Friend has a sound constitution. Supposing that he had been liable to rheumatism he would very probably have developed severe rheumatism, which he would never have developed if he had been living in a house and pursuing his own work. That is just our case. The appeal is on behalf of men whose health has broken down in the course of their military service. For long I have had cases of this kind before me. I have often been very much tempted to raise them in the House, but I have refrained from the thought that a public discussion of these matters was not for some reasons to be desired; and because of the effect it might have upon recruiting at the time when our utmost need was for more men. That reason does not exist now. Men are enlisted compulsorily; therefore one can now speak more freely on this subject.
  I want to take one particular case to which my attention has been specially directed, and in connection with which I have had a long correspondence with the hon. Gentleman. The case, I think, is typical, and it illustrates a class of cases. The case is that of Driver John Dickson, R.F.A., of Glasgow, who enlisted at the beginning of August and was discharged in April, after eight months' service. The discharge was on account of rheumatic heart. He alleged that he had slept for some weeks in a damp tent. He was seriously ill prior to his discharge. After his discharge he returned to his civil work as a holder-on at the shipyard, but he was only able to work for two days, when he collapsed. He has since for a considerable time been in hospital, and he is still unable to work.

  2325
  I have thoroughly investigated this case. I have consulted the man's insurance doctor, who says that he had no previous evidence of any disease of this kind, and that the disease in its present phase is thoroughly compatible with the man's statement of having been incurred during his military service and through the cause stated. The doctor further certifies—and is very emphatic about it—that this man is not shamming, that he is in a very serious condition now, and that he is incapable of carrying on the work which he previously carried on—or, indeed, any work. What are the grounds upon which this man has been refused a pension. It was refused, in the first place, on the ground that there was no evidence that his injury was due to military service. When I called attention to the report of the local medical man, I received a reply. Here is a sentence from the reply of the hon. Gentleman. Mark, I am not complaining in the very slightest about the attitude of the hon. Gentleman! He said:
  "I have consulted the commanding officer as to whether Dickson hart been subjected to any exceptional exposure."
  5.0 P.M.
  Now that seems to be the wrong attitude. It is not whether or not the man was subjected to exceptional exposure. Quite ordinary exposure, living under conditions different from his usual conditions, living in a tent, living subject to continued and severe military training—these were probably the ostensible causes of his collapse so far as anyone can see. That was the objection I raised to that representation. After some months—for it took some time naturally to consult his commanding officer, who is at the front now—it was reported that the brigade were in tents for some time at the end of September and the beginning of October, 1914. The weather, it appears, was fine during this period, and there were no special hardships. On these grounds the man was refused any pension. He is now completely destitute. His family is destitute. He has come from hospital, is not able to work, and he has applied for poor relief. The Poor Law authorities have delayed week after week in the hope that some pension might be given by the Government. I am convinced from the previous history of this case, and also from the man's previous records, from the fact that he conducted his work without any difficulty — and the work of a holder-on in a shipyard is arduous work—that there was no evidence of this disease before, and that he has broken
  2326
  down in the Service, that he is now absolutely incapable of carrying on any work, that he is destitute, and that his family are destitute. I am convinced that this is a case in which the man ought to be compensated. That man has been broken in our wars. He has given his body for us. Although it is possible that under the stress of the War, and while it is going on, we may not be able to secure adequate compensation for this man, yet there are such a number of these cases that, as soon as the immediate preoccupation of the War is disposed of, the Government will be forced, by the pressure of public opinion, to make some concession in this matter. I would point out that there are many cases just now occurring in which men who are notoriously medically unfit are being taken into the Army for service of some kind. I have two cases of men passed by the medical board or medical officer. In both of those cases I have medical officers' certificates that those men were incapable of military service, and, if forced to undergo it, within a few weeks or a few months they would break down. I took what steps seemed to me justified in the circumstances. In both cases immediately I lodged a claim for pension before they had suffered, on the ground that it was certified by the medical officers that those men would break down under the strain even of service in the third class I am happy to say that that claim being made, further attention was directed to it, and both men have been released from the Army as medically unfit. I think in the past there were many cases which ought to have been released if there had been fuller inspection. These men were quite fit for ordinary avocations and employment where they can take care, and they might still be able to carry on the work, if they had not been subjected to the strain of military service.
  Mr. ASHLEY: I notice that the hon. Member who has just spoken put forward a claim on behalf of his friend for a pension before there was any damage done at all, and I must congratulate him on the foresight, which is notoriously characteristic of those who live North of the Tweed. Now, may I join in thanking the Financial Secretary to the War Office for the very courteous treatment he has always given us when we have come to him for consideration of cases, and also for, if I may say so, even straining the Regulations in order to

  2327
  give as much as possible to these men? We all know that, if it were left to him, the scale of pensions would be considerably higher, and that it is only because the Treasury bars the way that a larger amount of money does not flow out to these men. In one sentence, may I support the plea put forward by the hon. Gentleman in reference to the allowances to these men and their families? I do so for one simple reason. I think that now you have general compulsion the State is bound, when you oblige men to come in in large numbers to the Army, and not of their own free will, to be still more generous in its allowances. Of course, if you compel a man to do a thing, you are bound to see that if he does suffer he will be rewarded and his relatives shall be properly looked after.
  Very briefly may I ask the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for War to a matter which I have brought to his notice during Question Time lately—namely, the cessation of medical examination of recruits who have joined second-line units? If I understand the position correctly, certainly in the Southern Command, and I believe all over England, the custom was, up to about a fortnight or three weeks ago, that on joining the second-line units all recruits were medically examined by the medical officer in charge of the unit, and that seems to me a very sensible and businesslike procedure. They were no doubt passed by the medical officer when they attested, or the medical board, as the case may be, but medical boards and medical officers are human, like other people, and undoubtedly many men were passed into the Army who were not medically fit, and certainly not fit for general service. That is a matter of common knowledge. We are paying for a great number of men in the Army who will never be any use to the Army, and the only use they could possibly be to the nation would be to send them back to civil life as soon as possible, where they could make some money. We had this second line of defence for the taxpayer, if I may put it in that way, in the second medical inspection of the medical officer of the unit, and undoubtedly this did increase the meshes of the sieve, and prevented many unfit men being taken for the second-line units, or rather, I should say, when taken in they were turned out again as soon as allowed, because it is notorious that many
  2328
  medical men of units are applying to the War Office to get their unfit discharged; but they cannot, because, for some inscrutable reason, some people at the War Office, whoever they are, have a great love for inflated numbers on paper, and they think the defence of England is easier if they have this number of unfit men, and they will not allow these men, who are costing thousands of pounds daily, to be discharged.
  With reference to the particular form of medical examination for Second Line units, I am informed by an hon. Friend in this House, who is also a soldier, that about three weeks ago an officer very high in the medical hierarchy at the War Office came down to the Southern Command at Winchester, assembled all the doctors belonging to the Second Line units, asked them why they were examining these recruits when they had been examined by a medical board, considered the medical board was quite sufficient, and that they were interfering with business which was not theirs, and he ordered them as their superior officer in the medical profession to cease those examinations at once. Within a week an order was issued by the War Office which came down to the Southern Command that on no account was any medical examination of recruits to take place by the medical officers in charge of units, because the War Office considered it unnecessary. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman as a business man, as a man of the world, to put it to himself what possible advantage to the nation can there be by this order? The medical officer is attached to a unit; he is paid, he is fed, and he is not in these times greatly overworked in these Second Line units. As he is there and is being paid, and must be paid, whether examining recruits or not, why, in the name of common sense, do you not allow him to go on in the old practice of examining those men when they come up, and to make a report on his own ipse dixit, and, if you like, report at once to the War Office that in his opinion certain men who have been passed by a board, by mistake, no doubt, are unfit, and get rid of them as soon as possible? Is a man to be dragged through three or four months of military training, then sent to hospital, and then medically examined, when the medical officer may make a report with a view, not of having the man discharged, but to wait until one of those travelling medical boards chooses to come round in a leisurely way and release the man?

  2329
  I am not arguing this from the man's point of view, though I think there is a great deal to be said from that point of view, but I am arguing it from the national point of view, and I do strongly object, and I believe many hon. Members also object, to this waste of public money, which is entirely unnecessary. The man can be no good to the nation, and it is simply because the War Office chooses to procrastinate, and certain high medical officers there consider their dignity is lowered by anyone thinking to question for a moment the verdict of their own medical board. I will not bother the House with examples. I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman has a letter I sent him, giving several examples, but two examples came under my notice only yesterday. One was the case of a man, who is a cripple, in Sussex. He has to join next week. He has one leg shorter than the other, and he cannot walk more than a hundred yards without a stick. He has been passed for general service—that is to say, in France. An hon. Member says there are lots of cases like that. The board may have made a mistake—I dare say they did—but I say if you allow the medical officer of the unit to re-examine, mistakes will be rectified, and the man will not have to spend four or five months in training and be a great cost to the nation for no purpose. Therefore, I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not bring this matter forward in criticism. The right hon. Gentleman cannot know everything, but do let him see if the old and much better practice cannot be revived.
  Mr. NEEDHAM: I should like to support the observations of the hon. Member. I have had very many cases of the same kind which I have brought before the Under-Secretary, and I am bound to say he has always treated them with the greatest consideration and me with the greatest courtesy. But, from the national point of view, it is of the greatest disservice to the country. These men are kept in the Army medically unfit in many cases, when they could be of great use to the productive power of the country. As it is, we are spending our money upon them when they know themselves that it is wasting the country's money—many a man has written to that effect—and he is not a productive unit at a time when there is such a scarcity of labour. The Army cannot be bettered by having such men within it, and I do hope the observations
  2330
  made by the hon. Gentleman opposite will have the very careful consideration of the Under-Secretary.
  Another question I wish to bring before the right hon. Gentleman is of rather a special character, where young men joined the Army who were sons of parents in quite good circumstances, but since the son has joined the Army the father may have died, and indeed in some cases, of which one knows, he has died, and the whole circumstances of the family may have changed. Under the present system—of course, the boy did not make an allotment prior to joining the Army—he is now not able to make an allotment, although the family circumstances may be changed,, and therefore the family is suffering very severely for want of funds. I think this is a case which the War Office might very well meet, but if, owing to their regulations, it is impossible for them to meet it, the Chelsea Commissioners or the Statutory Committee ought to deal with it in a generous and liberal manner. At any rate, provision should be made by the Government, because if there is one thing on which the country is determined more than another it is that our soldiers and their dependants shall have support during this War.
  The last matter I wish to make an observation upon is that some medal or ribbon or other kind of reward should be given to soldiers who have passed out of the Army. This War is different from all other wars of which we have had any cognisance personally. In the South African War all medals were distributed after the war was over, but the numbers engaged were not so great as in the present War, and, now that we have compulsion, I think it is more than ever necessary that some consideration should be given to those men who have passed through the War and are now back in civil life. I beg the Under-Secretary of State for War to consider this matter and to consider it favourably.

  MEN CALLED TO COLOURS (CIVIL LIABILITIES).
  Mr. TYSON WILSON: I wish to join in the appeal that has been made by other Members of the House to the Government to give fair, good, and generous consideration to the claims of men who have broken down in the Service, and I am going to ask the Financial Secretary to take to heart what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board said last night. He said last night, in dealing with the claims of men who may join the

  2331
  Army and ask for assistance for rent, school fees, and other things, it is suggested that the Commissioners are going to consider those cases, and that if there is a doubt they are going to give the claimant the benefit of it. In connection with these people who break down in health in the Army and who are discharged from the Army, we should also give them the benefit of the doubt. Do not compel them to prove that their health broke down owing to being in the Army. I wish to join in what has been said about the careful and very considerate manner in which the Under-Secretary for War and the Financial Secretary have gone into every case which I have brought before their notice. But I would like to point out that there might be some attempt made to prevent anomalies in regard to the amount of the pensions granted. I have had cases where mothers have lost sons under exactly the same circumstances, and yet the pensions have been different. I think there ought to be some uniformity in connection with the amount granted to the mothers whose sons have been killed in the War. I know it is difficult to have absolute equity in these matters, but I suggest that some handbook or circular laying down the conditions under which pensions are granted should be issued. A friend of mine who was making an application said he had found that the circulars dealing with pensions referred him to Order So-and-so, and he found that what was stated in the Order contradicted the information given in the circular. If some common-sense circular could be issued it would be a guide to everybody, and it would be of immense benefit, not only to the applicant, but to the Government as well.
  I also wish to support the remarks made with regard to the taking into the Army of men medically unfit. I had two cases sent to me this morning, and the examination of these men took place on Tuesday last. In one of them the man had been suffering for eight or nine years from double hernia. He was examined by the medical board in Battersea, and they said that if he underwent an operation he would be fit for service, and they have actually passed him for foreign garrison duty. Another man who was examined at the same time by the same medical board, and was suffering from a bad single hernia, has also been passed for garrison duty. Doctors who will pass men of this
  2332
  kind are not fit for their position, and they ought not to be paid for such cases. I think the Government should put their foot down on examinations of this kind, and declare that doctors must not pass such men into the Army. It only means that these men will undoubtedly break down abroad, and will become a source of unnecessary expense, and they will require attention when they are discharged from the Army. I have had a large number of complaints regarding the period which elapses between a man being discharged and actually getting his discharge, or his insurance book, and in this way he is prevented from getting employment. Something ought to be done to expedite the handing over to these men of their insurance books.
  There is another matter in regard to which I have already had a chat with the Financial Secretary, and it applies to the different rates of pay that obtain at the present time in the rural districts in regard to the manufacture of aeroplanes and the parts of aeroplanes. There are firms manufacturing aeroplanes and parts, and they pay from 11½d. per hour to the men doing the woodwork. We must remember that the woodwork, or some of it, is of a very delicate nature, and it has to be very carefully balanced, or the machine is soon out of order or will not work at all. Other firms manufacturing aeroplanes for the Government and parts are paid from 1d. to 2½d. per hour less than the men who are doing the same kind of work for the Government. I am told that the Government is paying a fixed scheduled price, and if that is so then the firms I refer to are either robbing the workmen or the nation. What I am insisting upon is only in accordance with the Fair Wages Clause. This is a new industry in the course of development and there is no rate fixed, but they should take the Fair Wages Clause and see that the wages paid are those paid by the best firms. If that course were adopted we should have a great deal more contentment and satisfaction amongst the men engaged in the manufacture of aeroplanes and aeroplane parts at the present time. I may point out that it is taking the officials of the trade unions all their time to keep their men at work on account of dissatisfaction, and unless something is done very soon the War Office can rest satisfied that there is going to be trouble of some kind or another with regard to this matter. I hope that this question of

  2333
  equality of wages in doing Government work will receive the careful and best attention of the Financial Secretary to the War Office.
  Colonel YATE: I wish to ask the Under-Secretary for War if he can tell us, when he rises to reply to this Debate, what is the meaning of the retention of so many unfit men in the service. If any reason can be given for it then we can realise what is the necessity for it. We hear on all sides about these unfit men. Only the other day an hon. Member stated that in the drafting battalion to which he belonged they were dealing with many men who had been rejected for service abroad. We want a number of drafts to keep up our battalions abroad, but we do not want unfit men. I heard of a division which was preparing to go abroad, and I heard it stated that only 35 per cent. of the men were fit to be trained, 35 per cent. will require three months' nursing and careful handling before they are fit to be trained, and the remaining 30 per cent. will have to be discharged altogether. Now is it not better to discharge that 30 per cent. and not keep them on? Now that the Military Service Bill has been passed I see no necessity for having an abnormal number of unfit men in the Army. We only need a sufficient number of these men to keep up our garrison strength, and all the rest are better in civil employment. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us is there any special reason why these men should be kept, and, if not, will he try to bring in some measure to keep them out of the Service and replace them by fit men?
  Mr. TENNANT: My hon. Friend the Member for the Wellington Division (Sir C. Henry) raised a point of great interest to the House in regard to giving some mark of distinction to those soldiers who have been dismissed the Service owing to illness, or wounds, or some other cause of disability. I suggested that it might be possible for the brassard to be granted to these men, but my hon. Friend did not seem to think that that would be a sufficient mark of distinction for them, and he suggested a medal. As the House is aware, a medal is given for special service, and I could not possibly give an answer to that point committing the Government in any way in that direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) has asked me several questions about granting medals
  2334
  in this war, and I can assure him that the matter is engaging the careful attention of the Government. I understand that the Prime Minister is going to make a statement conveying the decision of the Government in the usual manner on that subject. With regard to the men who have been invalided out of the Service who joined the Service at the beginning of the War and who gave no service and have been in hospital ever since they enlisted in August, 1914, when they joined in considerable numbers, and who really have rendered no service to the State, I think it would be a prostitution of the medal to give such men this decoration. If we did this we should be granting a decoration to men who have not really done the service which the medal would lead people to suppose they had done. I should have thought that a brassard was not an unsuitable decoration for men in the Service if they have not really been the heroes that some of our men have been. The matter is now under discussion, and I do not think that I can say more than that it is engaging the attention of the Government as a whole.
  The hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) has brought to the attention of the House a certain change of procedure in the medical examination of recruits after they have been brought into the Service. I think he directed my attention to this matter at Question time. I am not really able to give any further reason for the alteration than I have already given. The medical board which has been set up, I am assured, is a more efficient body than the body which originally passed recruits into the Army. The standard for general service is as high as it was at the beginning of the War and in peace time. It has not been lowered, which I know is universally disbelieved and particularly by hon. Gentlemen in this House. I will give my hon. Friend an illustration. My Noble Friend the Secretary of State for War received a complaint from the lord-lieutenant of a county that considerable numbers of unfit men had been drafted into two certain battalions in that county. Lord Kitchener sent down, first of all, the surgeon-general, and then another general officer, to inquire into this particular case, and the answer came back from both of those officers that the lord-lieutenant had got hold of a mare's nest. I do not know whether that is typical of all the cases which have been brought to my notice. I

  2335
  am bound to say that they come from so many and from such diverse sources and from so many quarters that I am constrained to believe there may be something in them. The reason for not considering it essential in all cases that a recruit should be examined by the battalion medical officer as well as the medical board is to save time, to economise, and also to demonstrate that the Army believes in its medical board. If you do not believe in the medical board, then get one in which you do believe. I would say, further, that if a recruit is discovered not to be up to the standard which is considered proper for general service, then he ought to be examined. If there is anything wrong he ought to be examined. I suppose my hon. Friend would say that he ought never to be put into the Army.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Could not we compromise? Supposing a company officer discovers a man in his draft not able to under go the training, could he not bring it to the notice of the medical officer with a view to his being examined?
  Mr. TENNANT: I can certainly promise, where the medical officer of a battalion notices that any particular recruit is unable to undergo the strain of training for foreign service that the man will be examined by the medical officer. That, indeed, is the constant and continual practice. The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Tyson Wilson) announced that a medical officer, forsooth, has been rash enough to pass into the Army for garrison duty two men who had hernia. It has been decided by the military medical authorities, after taking counsel with the greatest civilian doctors in this city, that men with hernia, properly supplied with trusses, are perfectly able to undertake garrison duty abroad, and anybody who is acquainted with friends suffering from that disability knows that they are perfectly able to undertake that duty. I have had servants of mine who have been able to do a very fine day's work although suffering from hernia, and it would be a mistake to reject at sight everybody who has hernia. I know many such men who have been rejected on account of that fact, but who would be very anxious to undertake military service.
  I should like to disabuse the minds of hon. Gentlemen who consider that the Army has been taking in the maimed, the halt, and the blind in order to swell the
  2336
  numbers of the Army. There never was a greater mistake made. There is absolutely no desire to take men who are not fit, and, as I have explained before, you now have your men graded for certain classes of work, and garrison duty abroad is the lowest but two. Clerical work at home is the first, garrison duty at home is the second, and garrison duty abroad is the third. Then you come to certain forms of work and labour, and finally to general service, as requiring the most efficient physique. It really would be a mistake if the House were not to encourage the Army Council in that policy. It is the greatest saving of man power; it is the most economical manner in which we can employ the man power of the Army; and because we pass into the Army for garrison duty abroad men with hernia, I do not think we ought to be charged with the folly in which my hon. Friend tried to make the House believe we were indulging. The proper perspective in which to view this particular question is to look at it from the national standpoint, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool looks at it. I am glad that he adopts that view, and I shall certainly do all that I can to uphold the view he takes. It is highly undesirable that we should have in the Army men who are unfit for the service to which they are to be allotted, and I can assure the House that the Army Council have no desire to pass into the ranks men unfitted for the duties they will be called upon to perform.
  Mr. S. WALSH: May I ask whether the Army Council is prepared to take one-eyed men for rifle practice and for fighting in the trenches at the front, because there are cases within my own knowledge where such men are being taken. The man suffers very severely because of the conditions of his service, and one does feel inclined to doubt whether this kind of man can be made an efficient fighter.
  Mr. TENNANT: If my hon. Friend puts that question to me, I should say: Yes, it is perfectly possible, and I have known cases myself. The hon. Member for Lewisham, the late Mr. Penn, was one of the most efficient men behind the gun I ever saw in my life, and he had only one eye. He was a most beautiful shot. I have known another man. The Army are not refusing to take men because they have only got one eye.
  Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: I rise to make an appeal to the Financial Secretary to the War Office which I have made to

  2337
  him on more than one occasion before. I do not know that I should have risen on this occasion, but I have been moved to do so by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Manchester (Mr. Needham), who called attention to a particular case bearing on the general case that I have raised in this House. He pointed out that there was a lad whose father, when he went into the Army, was quite able to take care of the family. The father then died, and the family was no longer provided for. The lad, however, was not able to secure, separation allowance for his mother, because it was said that she had not been dependent upon him. The reason for that was that she did not need his support at that time. There are cases where the family circumstances have changed in a similar way without the death of the father. There are cases, for instance, where the son of a widow did not support his mother before, but where after he had been a certain number of months in the Army the circumstances changed, and she needed support from him, but he was not able to get separation allowance for her. He might, indeed, make her an allotment of 3s. 6d., but that was the extent of the support he could give her. Then there was the case of the apprentice, where the lad was learning his business, and where the mother was supporting him until such time as he would be out of his time. Afterwards, perhaps, she was unable to support herself any longer, but she was not able to get any separation allowance, because she had not been actually dependent upon the lad before he went into the Army. This is really a very great hardship. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to put the matter right. You have at present two lads serving side by side whose family circumstances at home are very much the same. One lad, besides his pay, is getting dependant's allowance for his mother, but the other, whose mother needs it just as much, is quite unable to get dependant's allowance, because of this principle of pre-enlistment dependence. I know the right hon. Gentleman has told us several times that it does not rest with him to change this principle, but private Members, especially in these times, have very limited powers, and I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, who I am perfectly certain deals with all these questions fairly and in a most courteous
  2338
  manner, to use his influence and to have this wrong principle altered. I do not suggest that anything indiscriminate should be done, or that every soldier who did not secure a separation allowance when he first joined the Army should be at liberty subsequently to secure a separation allowance without inquiry into his case, but I do suggest that there should be some special committee to inquire into applications of this sort, and that where good cause can be shown for a departure from this principle, special permission should be granted for a separation allowance on the same basis as if there had been actual dependence before the lad enlisted. If the right hon. Gentleman will give his attention to the question, I am sure that he will be conferring a great boon upon many suffering people whose young folk have given themselves to the service of the country.
  Mr. FORSTER: I make no complaint at all, of course, that the subject has been raised to-day, because I know it is one which engages the attention of hon. Members to a very special degree, but with the exception of one or two matters the ground which has been traversed is very familiar. I have listened to a great number of speeches in the course of the last twelve months on the questions which have been touched upon, and I have endeavoured to make quite clear what we do, why we do it, and the reason why we cannot do more. The hon. Gentleman has raised the question of pre-war dependence. I admit that hardship is occasioned to many families by reason of the fact that the assessment of the separation allowances must depend upon pre-enlistment dependence. My hon. Friend said, in view of that hardship I ought to have appointed a committee to examine into those cases and, in cases where hardship is proved, to make some additional allowance. I would remind my hon. Friend that that is exactly what the Government have done. We must adhere, for the purposes of the general issue of separation allowances, to the customary criterion of pre-war dependence, but in order to meet hard cases the Government have called into consultation the Statutory Committee of the Royal Patriotic Fund to deal with them and to give extra allowances where the hardship is proved.
  Mr. WALSH: But not a single shilling has been paid yet.
  Mr. FORSTER: My hon. Friend is aware of the difficulties which have caused the delay that has taken place—first, in the appointment of the Committee, and, secondly, in its getting to work. The delay, I hope, will vanish shortly. I was only calling these things to the recollection of my hon. Friend in order to show that the course that he recommended had been taken. Among the points which break rather fresh ground are, first of all, the question of the widow of a man who has died of disease aggravated, though not caused, by service. My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) has commented on the long delay which has taken place in the publication of the Royal Warrant dealing with these pensions, which both he and I had hoped would have been published long ago. I should like to take the House into my confidence about what has happened, and how the matter rests. When we were discussing this question, some time ago, I expressed my opinion, for what it was worth, that the grant of the aggravated pension — the four-fifth's scale pensions in cases where the disease had been aggravated by service—must carry with it some corresponding pension to dependants when the man died. When we came to translating the promise into performance, it seemed to me, at any rate, that, although we might, without any great difficulty, give four-fifths of the appropriate pension, there was another aspect of the question that ought fairly to be considered.
  There are two categories of aggravation to be borne in mind when we are dealing with diseases that cause death. First, there is the disease which would have been fatal in any case, but the fatal termination of which has been accelerated by service. There is, on the other hand, disease which might not necessarily have been fatal, but has been made fatal by service. It seemed to me that the second category has a stronger claim on the State than the first. Let me give an illustration. Take the case of a man suffering from disease which in any case would have killed him in a couple of years. Owing to the hardships he endured in the course of service he dies within twelve months, and his death has been accelerated by twelve months. On the other hand, you have another man suffering from disease who might have lived another ten or twenty years, but who, owing to the hardships
  2340
  he endured, died within one year. The loss to the dependants is clearly greater in the second case than in the first.
  I wanted to see whether we could not, instead of adopting a rigid four-fifths pension, introduce a system of gratuities which might be of greater value to the dependants. Here is where the delay in the publication of the Warrant has been caused. Of course the House will readily understand it does not rest with the War Office. When settling a thing of this kind it has to be discussed with the Treasury, and we have to act, as far as we can possibly, with the Admiralty, and so forth. Delay, therefore, is almost inevitable. We looked closely into the question of gratuities, and it became obvious that the system would necessarily involve most careful reports from various localities on the circumstances of the widow and dependants, and so forth, and it was specially desirable that we should have some careful local body on whose report we could place very great reliance. The matter was referred at once to the new Statutory Committee, and I do not think I am improperly betraying any secrets when I say that this matter is being discussed with great care by the Department, and that the delay which has occurred has been occasioned solely by a desire to do what is really the best and to give the most generous and appropriate treatment to the dependants of these men. We have not come to any definite agreement upon this question, but I am in hope daily we shall reach it, and as soon as we do we shall be able to proceed forthwith with the publication of the Warrant.
  Mr. MORTON: Does that apply to cases where a man dies after his discharge?
  Mr. FORSTER: Yes, it applies to all cases. I hope what I have said will make it quite clear to my hon. Friend that it is not owing to any wilful neglect on our part that the Warrant has not been published. I hope we shall be able to make some useful Amendment in it. If the House will allow me I will pass over the criticisms levied against the Chelsea Commissioners, of whom I am one, on the ground that their administration of things has been the negative of generous. That complaint has been made before. I have endeavoured to meet it on previous occasions, and if I have not convinced my hon. Friend by the many

  2341
  speeches I have made, I am afraid that I am not warranted in hoping for success now.
  Mr. HOGGE: Our experience does not square with your statements.
  Mr. FORSTER: I come next to the point raised by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Wing). He raised a question with which I dealt some little time ago—at the beginning of the month—as to the dire straits in which men are placed after their discharge and before their pension is fixed. It was in the first week of this month that I promised we would issue allowances to men pending the fixing of their pensions. It was on the 4th May I made the promise, and already we are making payments in no fewer than 10,000 cases a week. The House will remember that what I promised was that the single men should get 10s. a week and the married men 20s.; that where the pension is greater than the allowance, the allowance shall count toward the pension, that where it is less, the difference shall be written off at the expense of the State, and in the cases where on inquiry no pension is granted we will not endeavour to make any recovery on account of the allowance which has been made. Ten thousand of these allowances are being paid per week. I think the House will see that I have not wasted time in redeeming my promise.
  Then the same hon. Member commented on the difficulties which are experienced by the wives of missing men. He said they suddenly found their separation allowances stopped and widows' pensions issued in their place. But I would like to remind my hon. Friend what happens in these cases. When a man is reported missing he is treated as still alive—we hope for the best—for a period of four weeks. At the end of the four weeks for the purposes of his pay and so forth we presume his death, and then for twenty-six weeks from that date the full separation allowance is continued to the wife, as if her widowhood was already an ascertained fact. It is only therefore after the expiration of thirty weeks from the date on which the man is reported missing that the separation allowance comes down to the pension scale. I do not think that is really ungenerous treatment on the part of the State, and possibly my hon. Friend had rather forgotten the full circumstances when he commented on the matter in the way he did.
  2342
  6.0 P.M.
  The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Tyson Wilson) asked that in dealing with pensions we should give the soldiers the benefit of the doubt. That is exactly what we do in every case. We do give the soldier the benefit of the doubt, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital are always ready to do that. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutherlandshire (Mr. Morton) asked if the widows of men who died after their discharge will get a pension. Yes, they do get pensions in cases where the man dies from wounds received in action, or from disease commencing during or caused by service. The hon. Member mentioned the Brora case. My hon. Friend will remember the reason why the widow in this case has got no pension hitherto has been owing to the fact that it was certified the disease was not caused by service. Whether or not the case will come under the new Warrant which I hope will be published in a few days—whether or not it will be found that the man's disease was aggravated by service I cannot say, but if it can be, the widow will get her four-fifth's pension if that is the form of award ultimately decided upon, and I hope she will be one of the first to receive the benefit of the new and extended scheme. I should like to say one word of comment upon the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) the day before yesterday. I am sorry I was not here when he spoke, and I am sorry he is not here while I am speaking. The fact was that I was busy at the War Office at the time he spoke, and as soon as I heard that the speech was being made I came down to the House, but arrived just too late. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that in the early days of the War the Government had requisitioned
  "Hundreds, and, I think thousands, of omnibuses belonging to the London General Omnibus Company and they had to pay a pretty smart price for them."
  He went on to say that if the War Office had had a little greater wisdom than they possessed at the time—I may mention that this was before I became Financial Secretary—they would have made an arrangement for taking over the London General Omnibus Company in the same way that they had taken control of the railways. My hon. Friend said that if we had done that we could have made a very much wiser bargain, but that we had not done so. He said:
  "What has been the result? If the proposition made by the company when they were in a hole at the beginning of the War had been accepted, in 1914 no

  2343
  money would have been paid to the company; in 1915, I am informed, some £30,000 would have been paid; and this year, as far as one can judge, very little more on the average would be paid; whereas, if my information is correct, we have already paid the company for vehicles requisitioned £430,000, and more is still due."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, May, 1916, cols. 2041–2.]
  I have only one or two observations to make upon that speech. There is really no analogy whatever between the London General Omnibus Company and the railway companies. When we took over the railway companies we did so in order that we might control the traffic. What we wanted from the London General Omnibus Company was not the control of the traffic. We wanted the vehicles they possessed, and we wanted to take those vehicles for service in France. To say that the London General Omnibus Company
  "came to the War Office and begged that some arrangement might be made similar to that which was made with the railways"
  is to show a complete ignorance of the draft proposals which the company made to the War Office. If my hon. Friend had had any idea of the proposals that were made, he would have seen that his statement was entirely unfounded. With regard to price, he said that we should have had to pay £30,000 last year, nothing in 1914, whereas we have paid £430,000 now. My hon. Friend does not suppose that if we had only paid £30,000 last year that we should have been left in possession of all these vehicles. We should have had to pay for them in the end. Whether we paid this year, next year, or whenever we ceased using the vehicles, we should have had either to hand them back to the company and to have borne the cost of reinstating them in a condition in which they could earn money on the London streets, or else we should have had to pay the purchase price. I went into this matter most carefully myself. The negotiations, which took months, ensued between me and the London General Omnibus Company with regard to the price that was proper to be paid. I do not doubt it is a matter which will come under the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee, and, when it does, and if the proposals which were made by the London General Omnibus Company in the early days of the War are laid at the same time, it will be seen that what has actually taken place has been a good bargain for the State.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: What was the sum?
  Mr. FORSTER: I would rather not say at the moment. That is all I wish to say on the matter. I regret I was not able to
  2344
  deal with my hon. Friend's speech the moment it was made, but I thought it was desirable to say these few words with reference to it lest the House and the country should be left under a misapprehension as to the facts.
  Mr. W. THORNE: There are three points to which I should like to refer. In the speech just delivered by the Financial Secretary to the War Office he made no reference to the allowances in regard to pensions that are to be given to disabled soldiers. I was informed this afternoon by Mr. Pearson, who is dealing with the question of the blind people, that where a disabled soldier receives a pension of 25s., or less or more, the Government only allow 2s. 6d. per child, whereas, on the other hand, in regard to separation allowances they allow 5s. per child. I should like to know why it is that when under the separation allowance 5s. per child is allowed, but that when a man is put out of action and receives a pension you only allow 2s. 6d.? It is evident to everybody that no mother living can keep a child upon the sum of 2s. 6d. per week. I understand that Mr. Pearson and other people are trying to get sufficient money by public contributions to make up the difference between the 2s. 6d. allowed by the Government and the 5s. allowed under the separation allowance. This is a great grievance and one that requires rectifying at the earliest opportunity. The second point is with regard to the married men who are to be called up under the Military Service Act and who have no children at all. It appears that there is going to be great hardship inflicted upon that household, for if a married man who is called to the Colours, which he will be, all the money the wife will receive will be 12s. 6d. a week, in consequence of her having no children. Everyone knows that at least six or seven shillings will have to be paid in the shape of rent, and the wife will be left with 5s. 6d., or 6s. at the outside, for the purpose of maintaining herself. There is also a genuine grievance there that requires rectifying.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury may say, perhaps, in reply, that that is a hardship which will be dealt with by means of the special allowance for school fees and so forth. In that case all the married men with no children will have to make special application. I think something ought to be done to meet the differentiation between the married men with no children and the married men with

  2345
  children. My third point is with regard to the extra 3s. 6d. allowed for rent in certain parts of the London area. People who are living in certain parts of London are allowed 3s. 6d. over and above the ordinary separation allowance, in consequence of the high rent they have to pay. If you take the Borough of West Ham, one-half of which comes within the extra allowance, you find that one man will get the 3s. 6d., while another man who lives on the other side of the road will not have the 3s. 6d. I would ask the Financial Secretary whether it is not possible to extend the 3s. 6d. allowance to what is known as the London Metropolitan area. That would meet a genuine grievance, and would to a great extent relieve some of the hardships which are bound to be incurred by men coming within the Military Service Act.

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message received to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went, and, having returned,
  Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

  1. Military Service Act, 1916 (Session 2).

  2. Colonial Bank Act, 1916.

  3. Swansea Harbour Act, 1916.

  4. City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's Act, 1916.

  5. Cardiff Railway Act, 1916.

  Private.
  6. An Act for the restitution in blood of the heirs of the late Reginald Gervase Alexander so far as relates to the Honour and Dignity of the Barony of Cobham.
  Mr. WALSH Mr. WALSH rose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member, I think, has already addressed the House.
  Mr. WALSH: No, Sir. I only asked a question of the Under-Secretary for War.
  Mr. SPEAKER: A very long question. It contained two or three sentences. I daresay the House will give the hon. Member permission to speak.
  Mr. WALSH: The points I wish to bring before the attention of the hon. Gentleman are really points which I brought before his attention about three months
  2346
  ago, and I do not think he himself is in any way directly responsible for the matters about which we now make complaint. In fact, one of the greatest difficulties is the extremely good-tempered and very generous way in which he treats these questions. It makes it extremely difficult when we know that behind him there are Departmental officers who are not at all construing the administration of these allowances in anything like the spirit that he displays in this House. I brought up, three months ago, the fact that when we were endeavouring to rally the fighting strength of the nation to the Army we pointed out, in circulars issued from the War Office, that the dependants of the soldiers would be provided for, and that, not only would this apply to the case of a wife or a father or a mother, but it would apply in those cases where a sister or a brother or other dependant had been the recipient of support at the expense of the soldier who had joined the Colours. That particular circular was sent out on 11th November, 1914, and for a long time the spirit of that circular was nobly carried out, and there are to-day hundreds of thousands of dependants in that category who are receiving payment from War Office funds. But within the last eight or nine months there can be no doubt at all that quite a change has taken place in the spirit of the administration, and exactly the same kind of people are being refused any allowance at all. A young man makes an allotment in favour, say, of his sister, who has been entirely dependent upon the funds coming into the general household. She herself is wholly unable to earn her living. I have cases, which I have sent to the right hon Gentleman, where the woman is unable to work at all. The interpretation placed upon these by the regimental paymasters and supported from Whitehall, is that unless the payment was made for the personal benefit of the particular dependant, no dependancy allowance can be granted. That is a hopelessly unfair interpretation of the circular, and it is a hopelessly strained interpretation of the conditions that were presented to the people at the beginning. I have case after case that I have written to the right hon. Gentleman himself about, and case after case that I have written to the regimental paymasters about, and in every case these poor people, who were supported partly by the funds of the father and partly from the funds of the son and brother, although they are

  2347
  receiving an allotment on their brother, are cut out of all dependancy allowance, and whereas we are told from the very beginning that the object of these allowances was to keep the household in a state of comfort similar to that which existed before the father and the son enlisted, now they are at a very much lower standard of comfort. Indeed, in many homes penury and something very akin to starvation prevail.
  I speak of that which I know, and this helps to lower and indeed to kill something of the fighting spirit of the people. When a young soldier comes back to his home that he did so much to protect and to support before he went into the Army, and sees the scale of living distinctly lowered, how can he go back with anything like the fighting spirit that he went at the first? The whole thing circulates, and the temperature of the whole countryside goes down because of this treatment of those to whom we ought to be most generous I gave the hon. Gentleman a particular case three months ago. I could give a hundred, but I gave him one, and he promised me, in correspondence, that if I would give him the definite details of that case he would see that it was attended to, but he wrote me a letter saying that the arrangements or regulations of the War Office prevented any further payment. I will state the case. All the male members of the family of fighting age went to the War. The father was earning 36s. a week, the two sons were earning about 30s. a week each, and altogether there was about £4 16s. coming into that family. The three of them—three of the best-known men in the district, living within a mile of my own home—went to the War at the very beginning. The father made an allotment, and a proper allowance was paid upon it. The second son made an allotment in favour of his sister, a woman of twenty-one years of age. She never at the most earned more than 10s. a week. She is working in a factory when she works at all, but the cotton industry was in a most depressed condition, and at the best she could never keep herself, and, of course, the two sons pooled their money and a dependancy allowance was actually granted. The pension officer and the Pension Committee inquired into the case. They said it was a proper case, and they reported it to the regimental paymaster, who, however, refused to pay on the
  2348
  ground that the money paid by John was not paid for the personal benefit of this woman. To say that money shall be paid for the personal benefit of any particular member of the household is to go dead against the working arrangement of working class families.
  We want the right hon. Gentleman to bring into the departmental affairs of the War Office something of the generous spirit that he himself shows, very properly, in the House—we know perfectly well that he feels it, but we would really like him to put something of his own spirit into those folks who are simply performing their duties in an ordinary departmental and routine way. After all, that is really what we desire. Take the case of the apprentice. I have in my locker in this House the cases of twenty apprentices at the very least. In one case, from Rochdale, the father had paid a bounty of £60 so that his lad could be trained in his craft. The young fellow very properly entered the Army almost as soon as the War broke out. It may be and has been said that there is no pre-war dependancy. Is that the spirit in which we should treat him? The young man suffers a great loss, and the family suffers a great loss, and we are told by the hon. Gentleman—he can hardly help himself, one must admit—that we must wait until the Statutory Committee has made its arrangements, and some payments have been made. This took place in the middle of 1914, and not a single halfpenny has been paid from then until now. Surely we are entitled to say that some intermediate steps should be taken, and that the local committees to be formed in connection with the Statutory Committee might be authorised to take special cases of this kind into consideration, and to give assistance accordingly. Such assistance could be debited against the payments later to be made. These families in many cases are in a serious state. I will not say they are in a state of destitution, because they have not reached that stage, but they are in a state very seriously lower than the standard of comfort that existed before the War broke out.
  There is another point. We were told at the beginning of the War, by a circular issued in November, 1914, that if a soldier made his allotment, that allotment would automatically carry a dependancy allowance subject to dependancy on the part of the recipient being proved. We are told now that unless the person nominates

  2349
  the recipient within four weeks that no allowance will be made at all. I have case after case which I have sent to the War Office where they are refusing altogether to give dependancy allowances because, forsooth, four weeks have elapsed. Is that generosity? The hon. Gentleman appealed to the House, and said he thought that, taking a broad view of the whole position, the War Office treated these matters generously. That is a rigid, strained, and unfair interpretation. A young soldier joins the Army. He is told he must make an allotment, and he does so. He is drilling in the early morning, all the day, and late at night. He has taken up the full performance of his military duties, yet if by any chance the correspondence is not properly attended to, even where the correspondence has taken place—and there is case after case where there is proof that no letter has been sent from the regimental authorities—how can the burden be placed upon the people at home or upon the soldier himself to prove that he has properly attended to the correspondence? If he has not properly attended to it, there is no dependancy allowance for the people at home. Where the fact is genuinely proved that there was dependancy, surely the fact that the man makes an allotment and the fact that these people were depending upon him before he joined the Army should be taken into consideration, and the payments should be made. It is said that the Chelsea Commissioners deal generously with these matters. In my writing to the Chelsea Commissioners on behalf of men who have come into my home disabled and ill I have not been able, except in one instance, to get them to acknowledge any case. Whether that is generous treatment or not I am not prepared to say.
  There is another important point. In the fixing of the four-fifths allowance, why should a discrimination be made between a case of acceleration and a case of causation. I understood the hon. Gentleman to say there were two categories—one where the case was caused by military service, and the other where it was accelerated by military service. What has the State done under the Workmen's Compensation Act? It is important to note that, because, after all, we as a State employ these men. The State laid it down, in 1897, that when an employer of labour employed a person for profit, if that person died and it was found as a fact that, although he was suffering from a bad state
  2350
  of health, a particular accident accelerated his death, full compensation was to be paid. The moment you begin to try to discriminate between cases of that character you will get into endless trouble. You will not only have tremendous trouble at this end, but you will inflict an awful sense of injustice upon the family, the children, the widow, and others, in the case where you are giving a lesser amount because you say he was suffering from a particular complaint at the first, and that the military service only accelerated his death. These people will feel a keen sense of injustice and hardship, because their breadwinner will have departed, and they will not be content with the niceties of acceleration or of first causation that you will inquire into at this end. The proper thing to do—and I am sure the nation is in the mood to do it—is to follow the example the State set in 1897, which was developed in 1906, and where as a fact the death was either accelerated or caused by military service in which the State has employed the man, make no discrimination, but treat everybody alike. I think you will find that that is the proper way in which business of this kind should be carried out.
  Mr. RAFFAN: I desire to raise two points. The first I wish to address to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, and I think he will agree that it is a matter of some importance. As he knows, at present the system under which separation allowances are augmented, or under which they are paid in advance, when the scheme has not gone through properly, is by payment through the Prince of Wales' Fund. That system of payment is to come to an end at the end of June, and the work is to be taken up under the new Committees formed in connection with the Naval and Military War Pensions Act. I should like an assurance that these Committees are ready in every district in the country to undertake that work. I should be very glad if the right hon. Gentleman could give me that assurance, because I am quite sure everybody will agree that if there is any hiatus during which these people cannot get payment, if the Prince of Wales' Fund has ceased to make these payments, and if the new body is not ready to make these payments, very grave injustice and wrong will be done. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can tell me in what position the various schemes are. I assume that most of the County Council's first schemes are through. He asked the

  2351
  County Council to defer making schemes relating to setting up district sub-committees, because that is to be done by supplementary schemes. What I would like an assurance about is that all these supplementary schemes are in hand, and that we can rely upon them being ready by the 30th of June. If he is unable to give us that assurance I trust he will see that some arrangement is made through the Prince of Wales' Fund and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association that these allowances are continued until new machinery is set up.
  The other point I wish to address to the Financial Secretary to the War Office, and it is in reference to the action of the Chelsea Commissioners when application is made for pensions in the case of men whose illness is held not to be directly traceable to Army service but accelerated by Army service. The Financial Secretary stated, in answer to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), that if all his past speeches have not convinced the House as to the generosity of the action of the Chelsea Commissioners, he was afraid he could not do so in his speech to-day. It was only on the last occasion when this item was debated here that we had an assurance that pensions would be paid in cases where illness was accelerated by Army service and not directly due to it. I do not carry my complaint to the full length that the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) carried it. I am not complaining against that discrimination, although there is a great deal in what he says. The grievance is much stronger than the grievance he put. We had a definite assurance in this House that in these cases, while the Chelsea Commissioners were not prepared to pay the full pension, they would pay four-fifths in cases of acceleration. In the case of complete disability, the pension is 25s. for a man whose disease can be directly attributed to his Army service, and in a case of acceleration it should be £1 a week. Case after case could be given where they are getting only 8d. a day or 5s. a week, and where the men are unable to earn a single penny. I believe we are entitled to a much fuller explanation than has been given, how it is that the Chelsea Commissioners are not carrying out the promise that was given in this House. Apparently they are not doing so. Of course we must leave to their medical advisers the decision whether a man is only partially disabled, and in that
  2352
  case they must decide what pension should be given, but where there is complete disability, I think we are entitled to an explanation why £1 a week is not paid, instead of these small sums of 5s. a week or 8d. a day. If we can have an assurance on these two points, I am sure there would be great satisfaction not only in this. House, but in the country.
  Mr. SAMUEL SAMUEL: I notice that in this Bill there is provision for the issue of Treasury Bills. There is great anxiety in the commercial world on this matter. We have the gigantic sum of a floating debt amounting to £700,000,000 at the present time in Treasury bills, which have been issued in twelve months, and which are falling due now almost every day. The Government takes powers by this Bill to issue a further sum of £300,000,000, making, if they succeed, a gross floating debt—a liability which they may be called upon from day to day to meet—of the vast sum of £1,000,000,000. We knew perfectly well, or at any rate business men knew perfectly well, twelve months ago, that an enormous amount of money would be required for the conduct of the War. At the beginning of the War we understood that it was necessary to have a certain amount of Treasury Bills in circulation. The original use of Treasury Bills was to enable the Government to tide over temporarily the collection of taxes, and, where necessary, where the taxes were not sufficient, to issue loans. It was never intended that such vast amounts as £1,000,000,000 of Treasury Bills should be issued to pay for the conduct of the War. I am sure that the Treasury themselves do not realise what the meaning of this is. They do not realise what they have hanging over their heads, which they may be called upon to meet at any moment if any accident were to happen.
  They commenced the War by borrowing on Treasury Bills at 3½ per cent. The first Loan was issued at 3½ per cent. Without any apparent reason the rate for Treasury Bills was increased to 4½ per cent. and, as they were selling Treasury Bills over the counter at that rate, they had to issue their second Loan at 4½ per cent. We have become alarmed in the City and in other financial centres in the country because, without any warning to the market, the Treasury allowed the bankers and the brokers in the money market to go to the Bank of England and buy the Treasury Bills at 4½ per cent., and in the afternoon the market found suddenly

  2353
  that, without any excuse, the Treasury had put up the rate for the bills to 4¾ per cent., inflicting a heavy loss on the banks and the money market. Within a week, without any reason and without any excuse, the money was put up by the Treasury from 4¾ per cent. to 5 per cent. There was an enormous floating surplus of money on the market, and we could only come to the conclusion that the Government were gambling in money. We found that they were offering their Exchequer Bills at 5 per cent., and that everything was being done to take into the Bank of England every available centime that could be collected in our money market. We found also that agents of the Government were actually going into the joint stock banks and telling them not to lend their money on the market below 4 per cent. We found agents of the Government going round the market and telling the bill brokers that if they dared to discount bills under 5 per cent., they would have the bank rate put up on them to 6 per cent.
  The Government must have known that they required some thousands of millions of borrowing on the market, and we were astonished and alarmed to find that they themselves, knowing their requirements, were actually doing everything they could to make the taxpayer pay more than was absolutely necessary for the financing of this war. I consider that the manner in which the financial situation has been handled will cost the country millions of money, because by this temporary borrowing, by allowing this accumulation of Treasury Bills to come into existence, it would be utterly impossible for the Government at the present time to contract a loan, at any rate under the rate at which they are prepared to sell the Treasury Bills over the counter. We know perfectly well that you can go with your money to-day and you can buy bills just issued. You can buy Exchequer Bonds for 1920 and 1921 to pay you 5 per cent. You can buy Treasury Bills to pay you 5 per cent. Do the Government expect that they will be able to induce the public to subscribe to a loan for ten or twenty years below the rate at which they can invest their money, the rate which has been fixed by the Government themselves on the value of the money in the market? We have seen the way in which the finance has been handled, and the immense—we can only call it—speculation in that Department. We know per-
  2354
  fectly well that we are the wealthiest country in the world, and if the Government had been able to make up their mind, or what they were pleased to call their mind, at the beginning of the War, and as it went on to raise the funds necessary and to utilise the issue of Treasury Bills to tide them over from time to time instead of seeing the rate of money at the present time 5 per cent. and over, you would have seen an enormous plethora of money in the market, and the Government would have had no difficulty at all in borrowing at least at the rate at which they issued their last Loan.
  We know perfectly well that so long as you can buy these Treasury Bills it is absolutely hopeless for the Government to attempt to issue a Loan under 5 per cent. If the Government were to utilise these Treasury Bills for the purposes of temporary accommodation you would have had such a plethora on the money market that, instead of the old 4½ per cent. Loan being as it is at a discount of 95, you would have had that money going into those bonds which are coming on the market daily, and you would have had the value maintained, which they are fully worth, at par value. I feel absolutely certain that the condition if taken in time can be altered to the benefit of the taxpayer in this country, but I feel absolutely certain that if this policy of drift is allowed to continue, it means disaster to the finances of this country. The Government do not realise what they are doing. It is absolutely certain that if they were to examine from every possible point of view the manner in which they are utilising the strength of the financial position of this country they would be appalled if they looked to the future consequences of their action. I hope that before it is too late they will at least make up their minds and decide positively how they are going to carry on the finances of this War so that we shall come out successfully, and not be compelled, as we heard that we shall have to do, to issue forced Loans. There is no necessity for forced Loans. Everybody is absolutely convinced of the necessity of carrying on the War to the end, and providing all the money that is necessary, but it is necessary for the Government to do something, so as not to compel the taxpayers to have to pay in the future millions a year more than is necessary.
  Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: I would like to bring the House back to the point

  2355
  raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge). I think that the country is indebted to him for his persistence in raising these points with regard to the pensions to the disabled soldiers and sailors. I did not hear the reply of the Financial Secretary, but I am told that it was not at all satisfactory, and that no promise of reform was made by him for the future. Complaints with regard to separation allowances have been made by several speakers. My experience is that there is a vast improvement in the prompt payment of separation allowances to the parties, because since the man who is enlisting makes his declaration on the day that he does enlist whether or not he is prepared to make an allotment to his parents, or sisters, or his wife, there is a vast improvement, and so far as I can learn we are getting very few complaints now as to the payment of separation allowance. But with regard to pensions, there is a vast number of complaints coming in, and I would like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Hayes Fisher) when we may expect the reform promised by the Chancellor of Exchequer last year that there was to be a Bill brought in this year to establish one Pensions Committee to deal with the whole question, so that the Chelsea Commissioners and the Greenwich Hospital should all be merged in one vast Pensions Committee. We have not heard anything about that this year. It seems to me that there is plenty of time. The Bill, I am certain, would not be opposed in this House, and it is the duty of the Government to carry out the promise which they made last year.
  On 30th January, 1915, we had the scale published with regard to pensions: Widows without children 10s. and 12s. 6d. Widows with two children 18s. 6d., with three children 20s. 6d., with four children 22s. 6d. Motherless children 5s. each. Disablement benefit went up to 25s. for total disablement. What we find is that this scale is reviewed by the Chelsea Commissioners, and reviewed disadvantageously to the man who is entitled to the pension. I am quite certain that, so far as the Chelsea Commissioners are concerned, looking at this question from the point of view of the old system which was in vogue before these improvements in the scale of pensions were brought into being, it is most essential that the Government
  2356
  should establish one central body to deal with the question in a more humane spirit, so that the conservatism, if I may use the term, of these Commissioners should be dispensed with. Therefore, I hope that we may hear something from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, who seems to me to take charge of the whole of this question as to the intentions of the Government in dealing with this point. Up till last year, when he sat on the other side of the House, he was one of the men who pleaded for the reform which I am demanding now. He said that we should have one Board—I believe that he said that in his evidence before the Pensions Committee—to deal with this whole question, but we are not obtaining that reform, and I think that he should impress upon the Government the necessity of carrying it into effect.
  7.0 P.M.
  There is another question. Personally, I was very much displeased with this new scheme, that was more or less debated last night upon the Report stage, of sending Commissioners round the country to award these supplementary grants for rent, insurance premiums, and other things to the men who go to the front. I am quite certain that what we are doing is absolutely illegal. There is no statutory power for the creation of this body of Commissioners. There is nothing in any Act of Parliament to entitle these Commissioners to make these recommendations. Last year we had passed through this House a very important Act of Parliament called the Naval and Military War Pensions Act. Section 3 of that Act, on the recommendation of the Pensions Committee, placed upon the new Statutory Committee the power of paying supplementary grants where the separation allowances were inadequate. In my opinion the duty of finding out what these men are entitled to in the way of supplementary grants is now devolved upon the Statutory Committee, and also upon the local committees, who can work through the Statutory Committee. But, instead of that, the Government, or the right hon. Gentleman, has created a new Committee without any statutory powers, and he has actually created Commissioners, who are lawyers or barristers, and who are to go round the country to ascertain to what these men are entitled. I disagree entirely with what the right hon. Gentleman said last night, and I think it

  2357
  was a reflection upon the public spirit and action of the men who form our local committees. I have taken part in some of those local committees, and I may tell the right hon. Gentleman in regard, that the money they have distributed from the Prince of Wales' Fund for distress has been very carefully administered. In the county of Durham committees were formed, and these committees have investigated every case most carefully, and have distributed the money in a most careful manner. I say it is a reflection upon these men to say, when they have had the power of investigating "what a man is entitled to under this new scheme up to £2 a week, that they would give money where they were not entitled to give it.
  Sir JOSEPH WALTON: They have local knowledge.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: As my hon. Friend reminds me, these local committees are familiar with the districts, and possess a knowledge of its requirements and of the people who live there, which barristers who are not local men, cannot have. Did not the Government ask the Statutory Committee to work this scheme; did it not come before the Statutory Committee, and did not that Committee consider it and decline to work out this new scheme of supplementary grants to the married men? I say it is their duty to work it out, and no other body should work it out. I say, further, that the new scheme is practically unworkable for the reason that you send one Commissioner down to, say, for example, the county of Durham, where I live, and where we have something like twenty populous districts. How is one barrister going to deal with thousands of applications which may be made in that county? Where is he going to sit? Is he going to sit in Durham, the capital of the county, and are men living sixty miles away from that capital city to travel that distance to place their cases before this barrister? The whole thing is impracticable and unworkable. What you want is the appointment of local committees who would investigate every case. In each case they would know the man, would know his earnings and position, and they could report to the Statutory Committee what the man was entitled to. I say, advisedly, that there is not even a Member of Parliament, let alone the poor men who are enlisting, who could answer the questions contained in these Regulations. Why, the Income Tax return is nothing to it. As my hon. Friend says, that is child's play compared
  2358
  with this. Let us examine this schedule. A man has to state in detail his income, his expenditure, and his future prospects if he goes to the War. There is not a single man who can answer these questions. I contend that if I put this form to my right hon. Friend himself he would not be able to fill it up accurately. Yet the man who enlists is expected to fill up this paper, though he may know nothing about the trade of the district and may be unable to say what his prospects were. I repeat that the scheme is unworkable, and I am certain that it will break down, whatever may be the instructions.
  If this scheme is to go on, if it is to be made workable, then you propose to pay the money every quarter. It has been shown from practical experience in the past that to pay money in lump sums is a very dangerous practice, and the Government has found it to be essential and imperative that they must pay money weekly, and now all supplementary grants and all allowances are paid weekly; yet it is now proposed to pay this money in the form of a grant every quarter. There may be a very considerable accumulation of money, perhaps from £20 to £30 in some instances, to be paid out at the end of the quarter. I would point out that under paragraph 11 there is nothing definite as to how the money is to be paid. Is it to be paid through some association, or through these local committees, or through the Post Office? There is no indication, but it is left to this Committee, which is self-appointed, and which is without any statutory power, to decide the manner in which this money is to be paid in future. That is in itself totally irregular, because we are now paying this money through the Post Office; we are paying separation allowances through the Post Office, and supplementary grants are paid through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association out of the Prince of Wales' Fund. Let me point out what would take place. I believe something like £3,000,000 has been spent in the way of supplementary grants out of the Prince of Wales' Fund through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. That comes to an end on the 30th June. The local committees then take it over. These committees will not distribute the money out of the Prince of Wales' Fund in future; they will distribute the money out of the £1,000,000 voted by this House and handed over to the Statutory Committee, who will pay it through the local

  2359
  committees. What would be the position? The position will be that the local committees will be paying these supplementary grants from 6d. per week up to 8s. per week in certain cases, and you will have this other committee, working through the barristers, that may pay sums up to £2 a week. They will be paying out Parliamentary money also, that is, the money voted by Parliament for this scheme. I say that it is a waste of energy; it is overlapping, and the whole thing ought to be concentrated, as we understood it was going to be concentrated, in one central committee, working through local committees. Unless we can get that scheme into operation, unless we can get the whole of the power of distributing this money in the hands of one central body, permeating the whole country through local committees, established by our public authorities, there will never be satisfaction in this country. Some of us in this House are determined that we shall fight this question until we bring all these schemes into one harmonious body, so that no person shall have an advantage over another in the distribution of this money.
  I quite agree with the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Raffan), who asked for the formation of local committees. Personally, I am not satisfied with the progress made. I know my right hon. Friend will say that they are doing their best, and that they are working very hard. I do not dispute it. But there is a want of practical knowledge on that committee; I am certain there is, and I will give an illustration, with which I think my hon. Friend will agree, as a member of a county council. This does not apply to borough councils in regard to the formation of committees, because borough councils are self-contained—each forms one committee. Instructions have already been sent out to county councils. I have seen in my own county council a circular containing instructions asking the county council to form a scheme under the new Act not to contain sub-committees or district committees. How are you going to get all of these committees into working operation by the end of June if you stop the county councils from doing it? How can a county council go about the county distributing supplementary grants out of the million pounds at the end of June, or the 1st of July, unless these committees are formed? The Statutory Committee, so far as I can understand, cannot be composed of prac-
  2360
  tical men, at least on the Sub-committee who have the drafting of these scheme; otherwise, they would not have stopped the county councils from forming these committees. It is impossible for these committees to be brought into existence by the 1st July, to be ready to distribute this money, as they could have been, if this Committee had worked in the spirit in which they ought to have worked is carrying this Act into operation. And we shall find ourselves in this position on the 1st July, that the Prince of Wales' Fund will stop their grants to the soldiers and sailors, and unless the Government can carry on some organisation, quite apart from these local committees, there will be no committees throughout the country—save the borough councils—that are prepared to make these grants to the intended recipients as they have been made in the past. That would be a great disaster, and would cause great dissatisfaction.
  There is another point about which I am bound to say I am alarmed—a matter which is absolutely illegal. I have seen Circular 4, not Form 4, but Circular 4; indeed, all these dangerous circulars or forms are called either Circular 4, or Form 4, and this Circular 4 is not only a very dangerous one, but absolutely illegal. I say that advisedly. You have no right to ask the local committee to distribute this money through another organisation. The duty is devolved upon these local committees; it is one of their functions. Clause 4, paragraph (e), enacts that they are appointed to distribute any supplementary grants made by the Statutory Committee, the distribution of which has been delegated to the local committee by the Statutory Committee. I say there is no power under the Act to delegate any of that power to an outside body. When the Bill came down from the Lords there was a Clause carried there giving power-to the local authorities to hand money over to outside bodies, but it was withdrawn in this House. They are now actually asking these local committees to nominate so many of their members to this outside body. I say that the Statutory Committee is going outside of its powers absolutely, and if this thing is going on we are going to cause some trouble and try and prevent it. In the intervening time between completing the work of the committees these organisations must continue to distribute the money where they exist. It is the duty

  2361
  of the Statutory Committee to work night and day, and if they will instruct the local authorities and ask them to set up those committees and accelerate the speed, then I am quite certain that you will get all those local authorities keen to respond to that appeal. Circulars are going out about the appointment of the district committees, but if they are not appointed you cannot have this money distributed by the county council. I am not making this speech in any adverse spirit. I have felt it my duty to sound an alarm, because this House passed the Act unanimously. It came with the recommendation of the Pensions Committee, which was composed of the Colonial Secretary, the Secretary of State for India, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Munitions and others, that this money should be distributed through the Statutory Committee and then through these local committees. I say it is the duty of the Statutory Committee to carry out the Act in the spirit in which it was passed through the House, and not to tamper with the main principles upon which it was passed.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken told us that he sounded an alarm. Every sentence of his speech was an alarm, and almost every sentence of his speech accused either the Government, or some member of the Government, of gross illegality. The scheme which has just been set on foot to alleviate the serious hardships which might ensue in calling up men for military service who are faced with civil liabilities, and to relieve them to the extent of as much as £104 per year, that, according to the hon. Gentleman, is illegal.
  Mr. SAMUEL: I say that the way you are doing it is illegal. You should do it through the Statutory Committee.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: That is the way the Government have instructed it to be done, and if the hon. Gentleman thinks it is illegal he had better put that question to the Attorney-General. When the hon. Gentleman calls this Committee a self-constituted Committee, of which I am Chairman, I may tell him that I am appointed as Chairman by the Prime Minister, and that the Committee is not appointed by me, but appointed by the Government. I am charged with the very
  2362
  onerous duties, very onerous, which require a great deal of my time, to carry out this scheme, which is not a scheme of mine or of the Committee, but a Cabinet scheme, and which at all events finds favour with the Prime Minister and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, inasmuch as he is expecting to have to find millions of money with which to finance the scheme. The hon. Gentleman says it is impracticable and unworkable. We will see about that. I am perfectly certain of this: my horse will canter over the course much quicker than any horse he will ever start. That money is much more likely to reach the recipients of these funds by the process we are setting up than by any process which the hon. Gentleman thinks of setting up. We argued this case last night, and had quite a long debate upon it. I will only refer to one of the arguments. The hon. Gentleman still sticks to it that the local tribunals would be the proper people.
  Mr. SAMUEL: I said the local committees, not the local tribunals—the local committees appointed under the Naval and Military Pensions Act.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: Those local committees to which the hon. Gentleman wants to give the administration do not exist, and are not likely to exist until the end of next month. I thought it was of supreme importance that this relief should be given at once, without delay, yet the hon. Gentleman says leave it to the local committees who, some day or another, are to come into existence. It was absolutely necessary to set up machinery which would revolve rapidly, turn out this money rapidly, and transfer it rapidly to the pockets of those who are worthy applicants for such sums of money as are to be given. No Chancellor of the Exchequer could possibly consent that millions of money should be given out to over 2,000 tribunals all over the country unless he had at least some representative on those tribunals. Therefore, we had to devise some other machinery, and we have devised these Commissioner Barristers. If it be found that sixty or eighty of them are not enough, we will appoint sixty or eighty more. We will double or treble, or even quadruple, the machinery sooner than have any serious delay or breakdown in the giving of this money where it is so much needed to meet extra rents, rates, premiums on policies, and matters of that kind.

  2363
  The hon. Gentleman made a very violent attack upon the Statutory Body, and said that that Committee acted illegally in almost every action. I should advise him to put a question about that to the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General as to whether or not the Statutory Body is acting illegally. I am one of the culprits. I cannot be expected to take that view of the case, or to put my head into the noose which the hon. Gentleman prepares. I should be anxious to see him put the question down for Tuesday next, or as early a day as possible. I am quite certain he will get the answer that again he is living in a world of scares and alarms. He is really unnecessarily troubling himself about all these matters where not an act of illegality has been committed. Some of the acts may not have been wise, according to him, but they are certainly not illegal. So far as the Statutory Committee is concerned there has been undoubtedly more delay than was anticipated in setting up these local committees. Why? First of all, the Act ordains that the Statutory Committee must lay down model schemes to the county councils. The county councils say very naturally, "If you insist that we must have one-fifth labour and one-fifth women in the scheme, we want to have something to say to it." Some county councils say, "We cannot find labour representatives, and will you modify your scheme in this direction or in that?" It is very seldom they meet. You begin to see what difficulties there are. The delay has not been altogether at our hands. We have worked hard morning, noon, and night, but there will be delay, particularly as regards the schemes of county councils. They do have difficulties in the counties of finding one-fifth of the representatives of organised labour. In the boroughs it is not so, and there most of the schemes have been agreed to. Now they have got to choose the personnel and to find out the proper persons who will be designated as persons under the scheme. All that has got to be done. We had a Statutory Committee meeting to-day, and undoubtedly many of those local committees will not have been formed by the 30th June.
  The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Raffan) asked me, very properly, where those local committees have not been formed on the 30th June, what machinery will carry on the grants which are now
  2364
  given, and the advances which are made in the way of extra rent allowances and all kinds of emergency allowances? Will those, asked the hon. Member, come to an end, or will you set up some machinery by which all those grants shall continue to be made on the present scale? The Statutory Committee have come to the conclusion that they must ask the present organisation to carry on the work where the local committees cannot come upon the ground in time. We issued a special circular to all the borough councils and county councils asking them whether they will be prepared to take over the work from the 30th June. Where they cannot take over the work from the 30th June, we shall then ask the present organisation, whatever that may be, whether the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association or local committee, or a hybrid of the two, which is now finding the advances, extra rent, and emergency allowances, to carry on the work, which they have done most of them so well, until the local committee can be actually formed, come into operation and be ready to take over the work under the Statute as we passed it.
  I do not think my hon. Friend need be under the least fear that any of those allowances will be dropped. It is our policy to carry on those allowances on the same scale on which they are paid now, at all events, till the end of October, when we shall all have more time to review all these somewhat delicate and complicated matters. Perhaps by that time, too, we shall receive a good deal of local advice from local committees which have been formed, and we may possibly be able to alter our system in many respects and make several changes in the policy adopted in the first two years of war which may cover many of the hard cases which have been alluded to so often in this House. My hon. Friend asked me whether I can say if the Government will introduce a Bill to set up one pensions body in one pensions building. That is a question he must address to the Prime Minister. I am only an Under-Secretary. I cannot be expected to say what Cabinet policy may be, or when time will be found for Bills and matters of that kind. I have stated my opinion when sitting on the side opposite, and I have done so on this side, and I have stated my opinions before the Committee. I have never altered my opinions in this matter. I am, I suppose, the originator of the

  2365
  proposal that there ought to be one pensions board or body in one pensions building to supervise all these matters of pensions, whether they be State pensions or supplementary pensions, whether they be flat rate or differentiated pensions.
  The whole question is becoming so vast and so complex that I am perfectly certain, if you want real justice done, and if you want economy and a body to which can be addressed all the numerous questions that will be addressed to some such body for years to come, you need one body, controlled by one head, and responsible through that one head to the House of Commons. That is the policy I have always advocated. I advocate it just as strenuously now as ever, but being a minor Member of the Government I cannot be expected to say when a Bill will be introduced, and when the Prime Minister will give time for the discussion of matters of this importance.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I want to say just one word with regard to the matter raised by the hon. Member for Wansworth (Mr. S. Samuel). I quite understand there not being any representative here of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with this point, but it does certainly sound astonishing when the right hon. Gentleman tells us that there are £700,000,000 of Treasury Bills—that is, temporary loans—at the present time, and that this Bill, under Clause 2, gives power to add £300,000,000 to these Treasury Bills, making a total of £1,000,000,000 of Treasury Bills. I only rose to say that that is a very startling proposition, and that the right hon. Gentleman's speech is of a very startling nature, and I do hope the Government will see their way to allow it to be discussed in the Committee stage of this Bill. My hon. Friend will probably put down an Amendment to Clause 2, and I hope there may be a reply to his speech, as no reference has been made to it by any member of the Government on that Bench to-day. In
  2366
  the ordinary way it would be discussed on the Second Reading, but as there is no member of the Government present who can discuss it, or give any assurance, I hope they will see their way to discussing it on the Committee stage, if my hon. Friend puts down an Amendment to the Clause, because it is a matter of the greatest importance.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next (29th May).
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 22nd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes before Eight o'clock, till Monday next, 29th May, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 22nd February last.

PETITIONS PRESENTED.
The following Petitions were presented during the week, and ordered to lie upon, the Table:—
TUESDAY.
Sale of Intoxicating Liquors during the War — Petitions for prohibition, from Annandale, and Beith.
THURSDAY.
Sale of Intoxicating Liquors during the War—Petition from Fauldhouse, for prohibition.
WAR.
  DISTURBANCES IN IRELAND.
    MEMBERS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES.
    MEMBERS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES.
    ARREST OF MISS ROSE TIMMONS.
    ARREST OF MISS ROSE TIMMONS.
    COURT OF INQUIRY.
    COURT OF INQUIRY.
    ARRESTS.
    ARRESTS.
  CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS (SUNDAY).
  CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS (SUNDAY).
FINANCE BILL.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
MILITARY SERVICE.
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
  LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
  LOCAL TRIBUNALS.
  TAXI-CAB DRIVERS.
  TAXI-CAB DRIVERS.
  SIGHT TEST.
  SIGHT TEST.
  MEN TRANSFERRED.
  MEN TRANSFERRED.
  DISABLED BRITISH PRISONERS IN TURKEY.
  DISABLED BRITISH PRISONERS IN TURKEY.
  ARMY VETERINARY AND ORDNANCE CORPS (RECORDS).
  ARMY VETERINARY AND ORDNANCE CORPS (RECORDS).
  MEN CALLED TO COLOURS (CIVIL LIABILITIES).
  MEN CALLED TO COLOURS (CIVIL LIABILITIES).
  SUMMER TIME ACT (POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS).
  SUMMER TIME ACT (POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS).
  MAIZE (FREIGHT RATES).
  MAIZE (FREIGHT RATES).
  INTERNMENT OF SUBMARINE CREW.
  INTERNMENT OF SUBMARINE CREW.
  Postal Deliveries, Manorhamilton.
  Postal Deliveries, Manorhamilton.
  Mexico.
  Mexico.
LECKY'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read: Counsel called in: Witnesses examined: Moved that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to: Bill read 2aaccordingly.

LORD BURGH.
The House being informed that his Lordship was attending with his writ of summons, the Lord Chancellor explained to the House his Lordship's descent: Then his Lordship was called in and took the Oath and then took his place on the Baron's Bench.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

RHODES ESTATE.
Petition of the Earl of Rosebery, the Earl Grey, the Viscount Milner, and Sir Leander Starr Jameson, on behalf of themselves and other the trustees of the will of the Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes, deceased, praying for leave to introduce a Bill to revoke a codicil to the will of the late Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes, and for other purposes; together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
India (Military)—Papers relating to Major-General C. V. F. Townshend's appreciation of the position after the battle of Kut-el-Amara:
Board of Agriculture and Fisheries—Annual Report of the Chief Veterinary Officer for the year 1915:
Presented (by command) and ordered to lie on the Table.
Public Accounts and Charges Act, 1891—Treasury Minute, dated 5th January 1916, directing that fees, &c., payable to the Registry of Friendly Societies shall be applied as Appropriations in Aid of the Vote for that Department:
National Insurance Act, 1911 (Part II) Account—Account showing the nature and amount of the Securities held by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt at 31st March, 1916 as Investments for Moneys, forming part of the Unemployment Fund paid over to them by the Board of Trade under section 92 (3) of the National Insurance Act, 1911:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday next (The Lord Islington). (No. 43.)
NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
JOURNAL COMMITTEE.
Report from, that the One hundred and forty-seventh Volume of the Journals (5th and 6th George V, 1914–1916), with an Index, was ready for delivery; read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and the said Volume ordered to be delivered in the same manner as the preceding Volumes of the Journal have been delivered.
REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL. [H.L.]
The evidence taken before the Select Committee from time to time to be printed, but no copies to be delivered except to Members of the Committee, and such other persons as the Committee shall think fit, until further order. (No. 44.)
CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Leave given to the Joint Committee to report from time to time. The evidence taken before the Joint Committee from time to time to be printed, but no copies to be delivered except to Members of the Committee and to such other persons as the Committee shall think fit, until further order. (No. 45.)
MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (BUXTON SCHEME CONFIRMATION) BILL. [H.L.]
  IRVINE'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 3a(according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SMALL HOLDING COLONIES BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for Second Reading read.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF SELBORNE): My Lords, I wish first to express to your Lordships my regret that this Bill was so late in being circulated. I assure yon that the delay was as great an annoyance to myself as it could have been to your Lordships, and I know that it has caused inconvenience, but I hope you will accept my apology. This Bill is based on the Report of a Committee which was presided over by Sir Harry Verney, to whom Mr. Henry Hobhouse succeeded when Sir Harry Verney took upon himself military service. When I accepted the office which I now have the honour to occupy just a year ago I found this Committee almost completed, and in appointing it I really did no more than complete the work begun by my predecessor. I want to take this opportunity of expressing my great appreciation of the way in which Sir Harry Verney and Mr. Henry Hobhouse and their colleagues conducted their labours, and I cannot but think that their Report, upon which, as I have said, this Bill is founded, is a real contribution to the study of the question of small holdings, which interests so many of your Lordships and others of the public.
I wish to make certain preliminary points quite clear before I proceed to describe the Bill and its object. In the first place let me say, although I admit that it is not expressed in the terms of the Bill, that the object of this Bill is to help a certain number of discharged and disabled soldiers and sailors. It does not profess to be a large contribution to the very serious problem of demobilisation, though we hope that the experience gained in these colonies—if Parliament is good enough to give, us the powers—may be of real assistance in dealing with the problem of demobilisation. Nor does the Bill profess in any way to hold out an offer to every discharged soldier and sailor of a right of accommodation by the State upon the land. It is a limited
174
experimental Bill, but its object is in making this experiment to benefit a certain though a small number of the men who have fought for us by sea and by land, and if possible we hope that disabled seamen and soldiers will be included in that number. There are degrees of disablement which would obviously incapacitate a man for any kind of work upon the land, but there are other degrees of disablement which would not necessarily so incapacitate him. Your Lordships know that Parliament has put on the Statutory Pensions Committee presided over by Mr. Cyril Jackson the duty of looking after these disabled soldiers and sailors, and, so far as they are concerned, if Parliament gives the Board of Agriculture the powers for which we ask we shall endeavour to act as the agents of that Committee in accommodating a certain number of disabled men in these colonies.
I have said, and I wish to lay special stress on the fact, that this is an experiment. What the nature of the experiment is I will describe presently. But let me clear away one controversy which divides Parties in respect of small holdings. The Party to which I belong has always believed in ownership as the basis of small holdings. The other great Party in the State has, on the whole, pinned its faith to the system of tenancies. The Committee to whose Report I have referred deal with this question, but I am authorised by them to say that in dealing with it they were not intending to lay down opinions on the general question of the merits of ownership or of tenancy, but they did mean to point out, owing to the special character of the pioneer colonies which they were proposing, that tenancy must be the basis. There is no wavering, my Lords, in my personal allegiance to the principle of ownership. I have not changed my opinion in any degree that Mr. Jesse Collings was perfectly right in making ownership the basis of his policy of small holdings; but I am, notwithstanding, prepared to advocate the arguments of the Committee in respect of the three pioneer colonies which I ask your Lordships to authorise—and for this reason. In finding men suitable to occupy this land among discharged sailors and soldiers there must necessarily be a period of trial; very little will be known about many of these men beforehand, and their suitability for this purpose must be tested. Again, some of them at any rate will not have had previous

175
experience on the land and will have to be trained; and the whole operation, as I have already stated, is of an experimental character. It seems to me obvious for these reasons that during the experimental period, at all events, the State must keep the control of the land in its own hands. If the experiment is a success, I sincerely hope that the day will come when the holders will become the owners of their holdings; but at the present moment I am convinced that they must be admitted, if at all, on the basis of tenancy.
Your Lordships will ask me what has been the experience so far of small holdings initiated or encouraged, either directly or indirectly, by the action of the State. First of all, there was the Bill passed by the Unionist Government of which Lord Salisbury was the head. That measure owed its inspiration very largely to Mr. Jesse Collings. Then there was the Bill passed by the late Government in the year 1908. In both cases the action of the State was indirect—that is to say, the executive action was taken by the county councils and not directly by the Board of Agriculture. In round figures, the result of those Acts has been to place 15,000 small-holders on 200,000 acres, at a cost of £6,000,000. And, in passing, let me say that the estimate of Sir Harry Verney's Committee as to the cost of the scheme which I am going to commend to your Lordships is based on the experience of the working of those Acts. But do not suppose that these 15,000 small holdings are all exactly of the same character. On the contrary, some of them are new holdings altogether, which have had to be equipped with houses and buildings appropriate to their size. Others are additions to existing holdings, which have been allowed on the principle that it was very wise to turn an uneconomic into an economic small holding by increasing its size. Lastly there has been the provision of what I should describe as accommodation land, where there has been no existing holding and no provision of house or building, but where a tradesman, or a blacksmith, or a publican, or a labourer living in a cottage and having other occupation has been provided with a small plot of ground on which he could turn out a horse or a cow, or which he could cultivate. Therefore your Lordships will notice that it would be most misleading to divide £6,000,000 by 15,000 small holdings and say that an average small holding costs a
176
certain sum. If you want to arrive at the cost of a fully equipped new small holding you would have to take into calculation only those which have been provided of that class, and divide their total cost by their total number, excluding from the calculation the provision of accommodation land or the increase of previously uneconomic small holdings.
I may be asked what has been the financial effect of this large operation—because I may use that term in respect of the money involved, though not, perhaps, strictly in respect of the number of men actually put upon the land. The financial aspect of the case is distinctly satisfactory. I can say that the losses to the county councils have been absolutely negligible. Out of all the counties—and every county has had a scheme of one kind or another, more or less—of England and Wales, in only six counties has there been any loss on a scheme, and, of those six, four of the losses are of a trivial character, and the other two have been due to causes which were not within the control of the county council or of the small-holder. For instance, in my own county of Hampshire there was a waterspout on the shores of Porchester Creek which absolutely swept all the cultivated land within the area visited by the waterspout into the sea; and in Norfolk there were most devastating floods owing to breaches in the barriers of the rivers which laid many thousands of acres under water and kept them in that condition for many weeks. With those two exceptions, where there were calamities of nature which visited farms as well as small holdings, the only losses on schemes have been in the case of four counties, and those were of an unimportant character.
But all the schemes of small holdings instituted by county councils have been of an individual character—that is to say, whenever an individual person wanted land the county council endeavoured to provide it for that man in the area of the county in which he wished to have it, and each individual holder has been left to his individual resources. There has been no attempt on the part of county councils to establish anything in the nature of a colony, nor to select a particularly suitable area of land and try to form a colony of holders on that land. In fact, there has been no attempt to bring the holder to the land, but always an effort to bring the land to the individual holder. So much for the

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action of the county councils. But there have been attempts by various persons at one time or another to introduce the colony system of small holdings. It would take up too much of your Lordships' time were I to try and give you a full account of them. I can only say that some of them have been successful and some have been unsuccessful.
I will now describe to your Lordships what the plan of the Committee is which the Government have adopted in the case of these three experimental and pioneer colonies. It is proposed to take an area of land, in the case of a fruit or market garden colony, of not more than 1,000 acres; in the case of a dairy and pig and poultry colony, of not more than 2,500 acres; and to settle on each of those areas, roughly speaking, 100 small-holders. The holdings would be grouped round a central farm, which at the commencement of the colony would be at its maximum, and when the colony was in full swing and complete in its number of selected settlers would be at its minimum, but which would never pass out of existence. The central farm would be managed by a director, and in connection with its buildings would be offices and depôts for the purposes which I am going to describe. The whole object of the colony system is that co-operation—free co-operation, not enforced co-operation—should prevail from the commencement. As it would be beyond the means of a smallholder to purchase many instruments for which he has only occasional use but which are necessary to him on occasion, such instruments would be kept at the central depôt and let out to him on strictly economic terms when he required them. In the same way, in connection with a small fruit holding, the small-holders will have only occasional use for a horse; therefore the horses would be kept at the central depôt and let out. Generally speaking, the central depôt would be responsible for all the transport of the colony. The central depôt would also be the agency to buy at wholesale prices the requirements of the settlers for the purpose of their agriculture, and it would also be the agency which would dispose of, in the best market available, the produce of the colonists. Your Lordships will see that the central depôt would be the agency for the hire to colonists of instruments which they require, the agency for transport, and also the agency for
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purchase and sale, but all done on a strictly commercial basis and with no element of philanthropy whatever.
In addition the central farm would be always an example to the colonists of what might be done under this particular system of agriculture, and it would afford the opportunity for small experiments necessary for the particular purposes of the colony. The director and those working under him on the farm would be the experts to whom the small-holders might always look for advice and assistance; and, in the beginning, on this farm would be trained those ex-sailors and ex-soldiers who had been selected as holders, yet lacked that agricultural experience which is necessary to success. They would be placed in the houses that they would eventually occupy, and, according to the discretion of the director, they would be furnished with the land adjoining their houses necessary for their holding. They would begin with a small portion of land according to their experience and their capital and work up to a larger amount, with a fixed maximum, which would be taken as required from the farm; so that, as I endeavoured to describe to your Lordships at the beginning of my statement, the farm would start at its maximum size and dwindle to its minimum as the holdings were gradually taken up and reached each its maximum.
It is not proposed that the houses of the colonists should be scattered at random; on the contrary, we hope to benefit by the study and the experience which has been acquired in recent years in the matter of town planning. We hope to give the colony the advantage of the experience gained, and, so far as is possible with a strict view to business and not to philanthropy, we propose from the beginning to encourage the amenities of a settlement of this kind. It must have its school, of course. It must have places of worship, if they are not already near enough at hand; and we should hope it would have its parish hall. In the case of a fruit colony, there would be a jam factory in connection with the central depôt; and in connection with a dairy colony, there would be a creamery. We should also keep in view one of the strong recommendations of the Committee so far as possible to combine with the agricultural work of the colony some form of rural industry. If the colony is near a woodland area, that, of course, would be comparatively a simple

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matter. But that is not the only form in which we hope that additional rural industry may be introduced into such a colony. I have already stated that the conception of the colony is that of co-operation from the commencement, though not of enforced co-operation. We believe that the advantages offered will be so obvious that the small-holder will not hesitate to take advantage of them; but if he thought he could do better by buying for himself and selling for himself, he would be perfectly free to do so. Then we hope in time to graft on this co-operative system a System of credit, so as to give the small-holders the advantages of credit which are only afforded in this country by the ordinary joint stock banks or local banks, but which in almost every country on the Continent are afforded in some form or another by specially devised credit banks or credit societies.
If I have succeeded in giving your Lordships a general picture of the scheme, let me say at once that the rents to be charged to these colonists are to be strictly economic. The rents charged are to cover all the costs of the enterprise, except the cost of the training of men who require training. That is the scheme. I quite admit that it will require extreme care in detail and in administration to give effect to the intention; but obviously the experiment will be a failure unless it is an economic success. Therefore personally I express my very clear sense of the necessity of seeing that the rents charged do cover all the costs of the operation. Opinions, of course, will differ as to whether or not there is any chance of success for an experiment of this kind. I have no doubt that experienced men in agriculture can be found who will shake their heads and say that the experiment is bound to fail; but I can certainly cite others, commanding the highest authority in agriculture, who believe that with good management this experiment ought to succeed, who believe that small holdings have hitherto been tried under the most unfavourable conditions, and that this for the first time will be trying them under the most favourable conditions. They have been tried under most unfavourable conditions in the past because each holder has been isolated; he has had no general guidance, no assistance in his marketing or in his purchasing, no expert to whom to go for advice in an emergency, and he
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has in my opinion too often only imitated the big farmer by his side. I do not believe, except in rare instances, in the success of a small-holder who conducts his business simply as a microcosm of a big farm near at hand. I believe that small holdings may be and ought to be a great success in this country in the proper localities and under suitable conditions. The general system of the farming of the small-holder ought to be of a distinctive nature, and not a mere imitation of the capitalist who lives near by.
Were your Lordships to ask me the conditions which I think essential to the success of this experiment I would name them thus. I would say that a great deal will depend on the right selection of the men. From all the demobilised Armies and Fleets there ought to be a large selection of men. Your Lordships may ask me how many men out of these demobilised Fleets and Armies do I think would wish to settle on the land. That is a question which I admit I cannot answer. My friends offer me suggestions and opinions which vary from the view that almost every man in the Army will want to settle upon the land to the opinion that all soldiers will have had enough of digging and of the soil to last them for the rest of their lives, and that therefore there is no good expecting to find recruits for the land out of the Army. There is no material by which any of us can form an opinion. Will a great number of men refuse to return to the indoor occupation which they left or to the office stool which they had previously occupied, or will they hanker after the sociability of the town and refuse to do anything more in the nature of trench digging? No one can say. I am taking what steps I can, through the kindness of Sir Douglas Haig, to find out what the general temper of the men is in this matter and whether they have thought of it at all, but I have not yet had any figures or information from him which I can quote. But here comes in the wisdom of the caution of this small experiment. It is inconceivable to my mind that we shall not be able to find three hundred really suitable men out of all the demobilised Armies and Fleets for settlement in these colonies. And when I say "suitable," I mean by character and temperament and the industry of habit that is essential to a successful small-holder. But, of course, we will always give the preference, other things being equal, to the man who has had

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previous agricultural experience, to the man who has a little capital of his own, and to the man whose wife, in his absence, has been helping us on the land in this time of emergency, The task of selection will be a difficult one, but therein comes the necessity for what I call the period of sifting and of training.
The next condition of success is in the right selection of the land. The greatest stress must be laid upon that. Certainly I am not prepared to take upon myself the responsibility of putting a settlement down upon any land as to which I have no definite and clear advice from the highest authorities that it is suitable for the purpose. I should like to take this opportunity of alluding to the munificent offer which a member of your Lordships' House and my immediate predecessor in the office I hold—Lord Lucas—has made in this connection. I do not know yet whether we shall be able to avail ourselves of his offer, because, of course, the land which Lord Lucas has been good enough to offer us must be judged on exactly the same basis as all other land; it must be subjected to the same opinion, and can only be utilised if it is clearly exactly what we require for the purpose. Whether or not we are able to put a colony on this estate, I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to Lord Lucas for the, example and lead he has given in putting his property at our disposal for this purpose. As soon as he heard of the Report of this Committee—he was then in Egypt—he communicated with me and made the offer, in the first place, of his house and garden for the permanent use of disabled seamen and soldiers, if it could be utilised for that purpose. That aspect of his offer does not come within the purview of my responsibility. That concerns Mr. Cyril Jackson and the Statutory Pensions Committee. But he went beyond that and said that out of the whole of his property we might select any area that we thought suitable for one of these colonies, and that he was prepared to sell that area or to lease it on a long lease at the valuation of anybody appointed by the Government. I hope your Lordships will recognise the generosity and patriotism of that offer. I may say that his example has already been followed. I have had similar offers from other gentlemen, and it is for those reasons that I look forward with much hope to being able to find the exactly suitable sites that we require for this purpose.
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Then the next element of success will be the right selection of the directors of these colonies. Given the right land and the right settlers, everything will still depend on getting the right men to direct the colonies and to manage them. Lastly it is necessary that care should be exercised to see that every detail is worked out with systematic regard for economy, and that no money is wasted owing to carelessness or a desire for what may be described as show. I should mention, in connection with the estimates which your Lordships will find in the Report of the Committee—and this is another reason why great care must be shown in working out the details of these colonies—that the prices of the houses there given were based on the prices at the time. Undoubtedly if we were to build now those houses would cost more. The Government decided to adopt the Report of the Committee to the extent of forming these three pioneer colonies at a moment when the Board of Agriculture had already been depleted by the departure of every officer who could possibly be spared to the war, when the, war work of the Office was becoming heavier and heavier, and I was living in daily anxiety as to whether my officers would not break down under the strain; and here was a new piece of work of great importance and requiring special skill, special knowledge, and special discretion in dealing with it successfully. I was indeed fortunate in those circumstances. I had a generous offer from Captain Bathurst, a member of the House of Commons, that he was willing, as his war work, to come and help me in this matter; and I am quite sure that the general superintendence and organisation of this scheme could not be in better hands. I have also had the advantage of having the advice of another distinguished Member of Parliament, Mr. Prothero, which he has given to us whenever we required it.
Having given your Lordships this perfunctory, though I am afraid rather tedious, account of the intention of the Bill and of this scheme, I think you would wish me to go shortly through the clauses and explain their intention. Clause 1, subsection (1), gives power to the Board of Agriculture to acquire land by agreement. There is no compulsory clause in this Bill, although I should have thought, myself perfectly justified in asking for compulsory powers for this purpose had those powers been necessary; but as I knew that I should have all the land I required, and more, put at

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my disposal by agreement without compulsion, there was no necessity for the incorporation of a compulsory clause. As I have said, there is power to acquire land by agreement. The Bill is limited in its duration to the period of the war and a year after, therefore showing its intention of being connected with discharged sailors and soldiers. There is a maximum limit of 6,000 acres which may be taken, again showing the strictly experimental character of the proposal. And, of course, there is the usual provision for the consent of the Treasury. I may say that it is my great hope not to have to buy any land at all. I hope to get the land on long lease; and in the case of Crown properties, some of which are certainly quite suitable for the purpose, that can be easily arranged, because I happen to fill the office not only of President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries but I am also one of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. I have also received private offers—of which I have given your Lordships already an example in Lord Lucas's case—of land to be let on long periods; and, of course, your Lordships see the great importance, in the state of our finances, that the Treasury should not be asked to find a large sum of money for purchase if an annual Tent will settle the matter. Subsection (2) of Clause 1 is the usual provision in the circumstances of a Bill like this. This incorporation of the Lands Clauses Acts is customary in these cases, as they include various useful provisions.
I come to Clause 2, and I would briefly explain the object of that clause to be, with the consent of the Treasury, to carry out the recommendations of the Committee for the establishment of small co-operative credit societies. Do not think, my Lords, that I imagine that we can start a credit system immediately with a number of small-holders who are to a large extent untried and who do not know each other. The credit system must be a growth of mutual knowledge and of previous co-operation, but it is necessary to make provision for it in this Bill.
Clause 3 deals with another matter altogether. It has nothing whatever to do with the institution of these three pioneer colonies, and that is why the Title of the Bill is of a composite character. Your Lordships will see that the description of the Bill is—
"An Act to provide for the acquisition and management of land by the State for experimental
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small holding colonies, and to extend the powers of acquisition and management of land by certain Government Departments under the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909."
The explanation of that is this. One of the problems which was confronting the Board of Agriculture before the war, and which will be of the most urgent character after the war, is the question of afforestation. By the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909, the Board of Agriculture has power to purchase land for the purpose of forestry demonstration areas, but it has no power to hire the land by agreement or to get an option on the land to purchase it. This clause merely gives the Board of Agriculture power to take land by agreement on lease, or to acquire an option of purchasing the land or of taking the land on lease, in addition to its existing power of buying the land. Clause 4 contains the necessary powers of management, which I do not think require any detailed explanation. Clause 5 has to do with the financial management. Clause 6 deals with the power of landowners to grant long leases. Clause 7 is the interpretation clause.
Clause 8, which I dare say appears rather mysterious, is susceptible of an innocent explanation. The proceedings of the Board under the Bill would involve some work for which a solicitor would be required, and Clause 8 is intended to enable this work to be done by the present legal adviser of the Board, who has been appointed to act also as solicitor to the Woods and Forests Department and can utilise the solicitor's staff of that Department for the work. Being a barrister and not a solicitor he could not act formally as solicitor unless these sections are applied to the post. So that this is a perfectly innocent proposal connected with the machinery of the office of the Board of Agriculture which happens to be necessary under the peculiar circumstances of the ease. Clause 9 applies the Bill to Scotland, and provides that the maximum number of acres to be used for this purpose in Scotland shall be 2,000, as distinct from the 6,000 that are permitted for England and Wales. I hope I have succeeded in giving a fairly clear idea of the special, though strictly limited, objects of this Bill, of the nature of the scheme which is proposed, and of the provisions by which it is hoped to give effect to that scheme. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Selborne.)
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I have listened with deep attention to the interesting speech of the noble Earl in explaining his Bill. It was the more interesting because it contained a great many details and certain modifications which did not appear in the body of the Bill itself. We have, however, had very short notice of the Bill. We received it only two days ago, and there are some noble Lords anxious to take part in the discussion of the Bill who are not able to be present to-day. Further than that, what the noble Earl has just said seems to me to require some time for consideration and thought. Therefore I would ask him to recognise that this is perhaps not the best moment to proceed to discuss the Bill, and to consent to the debate being adjourned to some more convenient day.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I am quite aware that my noble friend and others of your Lordships have been placed at an inconvenience by the late delivery of the copies of this Bill, and as I wish to consult the convenience of your Lordships' House in general I am quite prepared, as you have been good enough to listen to my exposition of the Bill, to consent to the adjournment of the debate. I suggest, if that date will be convenient, that the resumed discussion should be taken on Thursday next.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Hear, hear.
On Question, the further debate adjourned until Thursday next.

EXCHANGE OF INTERNED CIVILIANS.
LORD BERESFORD LORD BERESFORD had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government how many interned British and German civilians have been exchanged since the beginning of the war; whether any alteration or extension of the present system of exchange, is contemplated; whether a statement can be made with regard to the agreement concluded with the German Government for the transfer to Switzerland of British and German wounded and invalid combatant prisoners of war; whether the number can be given; and whether the agreement will allow of repatriation.
The noble and gallant Lord said: Before my noble friend answers this Question, I should like to call attention to the fact that there is growing anxiety and distress in the minds of the relatives of those who are prisoners in Germany at the brutality of treatment to which they are being subjected. I now have the honour to ask the Question standing in my name.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, the number of British subjects who have been repatriated since December, 1914, is 628, and the number of Germans who have been repatriated is 1,160. As I informed the House the other day there are, roughly speaking, about 27,000 German civilians interned in this country, and that number tends to remain unchanged, because although a certain number are being continually repatriated the numbers are again filled up by fresh arrests either in this country or of men who have been taken off ships at sea. As against the 27,000 Germans in this country there are 4,000 British civilians in Germany, who are all interned at the well-known Ruhleben Camp. In view of these figures, I am reluctantly compelled to admit that the number of repatriations seems to me upon the whole to be thoroughly and distinctly unsatisfactory.
I do not know whether the House agrees with me, but it certainly appears to me that the lot of the interned British civilians in Germany is an especially hard one. In fact, I am disposed to state—at all events it is my opinion—that the case of these men is really harder than the case of the military; because, after all, when a man enlists in an Army and takes part in war imprisonment is part of the fortune of war. But these civilians in many cases have not committed any action at all. They were living peaceably in one of the two countries concerned; they were taken up, and many of them have been in these camps for something like two years. Therefore it seems to me most desirable, if only in the interests of humanity, that every effort should be made upon our part in this country to liberate these 4,000 unfortunate men now at Ruhleben. The condition of these men is so unfortunate that I am given to understand, on the best authority, that many of them are in process of losing their reason; and it may not have escaped

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notice that of the nine civilians who were repatriated from Ruhleben a few days ago three were described as insane.
It may be rejoined that if the case of the British civilians interned at Ruhleben is hard, the case of the Germans interned in this country is equally hard. I am not disposed altogether to dispute that assertion. But the cases are not altogether upon a par, because—I state this most emphatically—the lot of the German civilians interned in this country is appreciably better than the lot of the British civilians interned at Ruhleben. I have it on the first-hand authority of men who have come back from Ruhleben and who have visited some of our civilian internment camps, that the interned German civilians here are treated in a more humane and more kindly manner, that they are better fed and better clothed, and that they enjoy privileges which are not enjoyed by the unfortunate British prisoners at Ruhleben.
My noble and gallant friend asks me in his Question whether any extension or alteration of the present system is contemplated. My reply is that an extension is contemplated, and has already been proposed. We proposed to the German Government a short time ago that the age, which is now placed at 55, should be lowered to 50, and that in the case of men who were unfit for active service in the field the age limit should be reduced to 45. We made this proposal some weeks ago, but have not yet elicited a reply although several efforts have been made to obtain it. But I would like to point out that even supposing this proposal is accepted there will be, in effect, no considerable change in the rate of the rapidity of exchange, for this reason. Everybody must have realised by this time that the ultimate decision in regard to the exchange of prisoners, whether civilian or military, rests with the naval and military authorities, and whatever agreement may be come to with respect to the age, experience shows that the naval and military authorities, not only on one side but on both sides, will discover all sorts of reasons why these men should not go back to their own country. The naval and the military authorities are prone to regard every interned civilian as possessing some potential naval or military capacity; and if he is physically unfit, they frequently discover other reasons which in their opinion are excellent and adequate for keeping that man under restraint. Therefore if we do
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succeed in lowering the age limit, as we have proposed, I am afraid that the rate of exchange will not be very largely accelerated. To show the length to which the restrictions are pushed by the naval and military authorities upon both sides, I need only point to the fact that at this moment there are confined here and in Germany not only men of 50, but men of 60 and men of 70; and there is at this moment, if I am not mistaken, a retired military man interned in Germany who is actually 80 years of age.
While there are obviously distinct advantages in a policy of general internment, there are at the same time obvious disadvantages: One obvious disadvantage from the point of view of the Government is that these interned aliens cost a great deal of money, and they also require a great-amount of guarding. On the other hand, take the case of the interned civilian himself. It is highly probable that when you intern him you ruin him commercially; it is quite possible that you may ruin his health, too. But what is, perhaps, even more important is that by adopting this process you turn men who were originally friendly into most determined enemies. You take a man who has lived for a long time in one of these two countries, either in England or in Germany, a man who in all probability was extremely friendly to the Government under which he lived, and you convert him into a man who becomes animated with the bitterest spirit of hostility against the Government which has imprisoned him. We shall be confronted with this problem unless the rate of exchange is accelerated, that at the end of the war there will be thousands of men in this country who will be liberated, and who, in consequence of the change I have described, will form a most undesirable element in the population. I think any thoughtful person who has given consideration to this matter must have realised that this is an extremely grave problem. It is certainly open to argument whether the present principles upon which both countries act ought not to be modified or changed to a considerable extent.
The noble and gallant Lord also asks me whether any alteration is contemplated with regard to the system of exchange. I am glad to have this opportunity of stating that there is one—I do not know whether it would be correct to describe it as an alteration—but one principle upon which

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we are all agreed at the present moment. When I say "all," I am alluding to the four Departments more immediately concerned with prisoners—namely, the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Admiralty, and the War Office. All these Departments have come to the conclusion that the principle of what is known as individual exchange is thoroughly unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory for various reasons. In the first place it involves, as experience has shown, very long preliminary negotiations which lead in most cases to very inadequate results. In the second place it creates, and must inevitably create, the strongest feeling of dissatisfaction and discontent on the part of the unfortunate people who are, unable to command any influence upon their behalf; because it is undoubtedly the case that many of these proposals for individual exchange are the result of political or of social influence, or, if they are not really the result of that, the general belief is that they are caused by the exercise of influence of that kind.
Then it is also evident that a process of individual exchange takes the form of a bargain, and each Government is perpetually trying to get the better over the other, with the result that it develops into little better than a kind of blackmail. I will give the House an instance in point. Everybody knows the case of Lord De Ramsey. Lord De Ramsey suffers from an unfortunate physical infirmity which naturally prevents him from being of the slightest military value. Yet in spite of this the German Government detained him for something like a year upon the pretext that he had at one time in the course of his life been a soldier. Of course, the obvious reason why they detained him was in order to get somebody back from this country whom they considered of particular value to them. But the strongest condemnation of this system of individual exchange is to be found in the fact that scarcely any individual exchanges have been effected under it at all; and it is also a melancholy and painful fact—it has been brought to my notice frequently—that there have been many cases in which elaborate efforts have been made to procure the liberation of British officers and civilians by means of individual exchange, and these unfortunate men are now no nearer liberation than they were months or even a year ago. That alone is sufficient to condemn the whole system of individual exchange.
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In my opinion, and I believe it is the opinion of everybody who has had anything to do with this question, there is only one fair basis of exchange, and that is that the question should be decided solely by the man's age and physical condition. That is a principle which I think I may say will be adopted in future, and it will not be departed from unless it can be shown conclusively that the exchange of a particular individual will be one of definite public advantage.
With regard to the latter portion of my noble and gallant friend's Question, he is probably aware that the arrangement with regard to the transfer of British and German incapacitated soldiers to Switzerland has been agreed to. The Swiss Commission have already arrived in this country. They are in process of visiting the various camps, and have already, I believe, examined a certain number of men. It is hoped that by the end of the month sufficient progress will have been made to permit of the actual transfer of some of these men on both sides. I am unable at this stage to give the noble and gallant Lord any figures, because, of course, the figures depend upon the result of the examination. We have heard in a somewhat vague and indefinite manner from Switzerland—not from Germany—that the number of British prisoners expected there amounts to something like 1,200, but whether there is any foundation for this assumption I am not in a position to say. All I can say is that every effort will be made to carry out the arrangement as quickly as possible, and it is to be hoped, in the interests of all concerned, that a large number of these unfortunate men in both countries will find their way to Switzerland.

PRIZE MONEY.
LORD BERESFORD LORD BERESFORD had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government the total amount of prize money in their hands up to date; how much of it is in the hands of the Prize Court; how much is in the hands of any other officials; if so, what officials; why it has not been paid into the Exchequer; how many enemy ships have been detained in British and Dominion ports since the beginning of the war; whether His Majesty's Government have applied to the Prize Court for their confiscation and condemnation; by virtue of what

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authority have His Majesty's Government taken possession of some or all of these vessels and employed them in carrying freight; whether it is intended at the end of the war to return them to the enemy; if so, will the enemy also be paid the freight these ships have earned while employed by the British Government.
The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords, I apologise for intruding on the House twice on one afternoon, but the matter which I wish to bring before your Lordships is very important. It is impossible to overrate what we owe to the British Navy during this war. Without the Fleet we could not have continued the war, and we and our Allies could not have had any hope of success in the war. Therefore anything connected with what the officers and men of the Fleet may consider as justice to themselves should be carefully considered; and I know it will have a very sympathetic hearing in this House. I do not intend to discuss prize bounty, because that has been settled more or less under the new Order in Council of February 29 last and is being paid to officers and men. But I should like to touch on the question of prize money. I believe that up to date there must be considerably over £4,000,000 of prize money which should be paid to the Fleet. That sum entirely escapes the control of Parliament, as it is under the control of the Paymaster-General and is not paid into the Exchequer. I should like to ask my noble friend by what authority that is being carried out. The Government have never given any sound reason why this has been done. They have abolished the old scheme, but have established no new scheme and are not going to do so until the end of the war.
The present position is very unsatisfactory for the officers and men of the Fleet. They are a poor Service; the officers particularly can barely live on their pay. Seeing the extraordinarily arduous work they have been carrying out in the North Sea and elsewhere, I think some effort should be made to let them know the nature of the new scheme to be proposed by the Government. The Government may have a very good scheme. It may be better to have the new plan instead of the old one, but I think we should know what it is. Certainly the interest in the Fleet on this question is very keen. I quite agree with the new idea of the, distribution of prize
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money, having regard to the new necessities of the case. In the old days it was the smart frigates which made all the prize money; they captured the vessels, particularly the merchant vessels, which returned most of the prize. It would be very unfair in these days if we gave the whole of the large sums of money taken in that way to the cruisers, and forgot the patrols and the destroyers and the small cruisers who have been doing superhuman work in the North Sea ever since the war began. Nobody will appreciate the fairness of that more than the officers and men of the Fleet themselves.
I would like to ask my noble friend who represents the Admiralty a further question. The Order in Council of August 28, 1914, did away entirely with the authority of the Prize Court and delegated the authority to the Prize Claims Committee at the Foreign Office. Why and by what authority was that done? Another question. Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1900 was in force from August 4 to August 28, 1914. A number of vessels were taken and a good deal of prize money paid in during that period, and I should like to know why that has not been paid. The succeeding Order in Council nullified the payment of those moneys until such a time as the Government should fix after the war. It is only fair that the money gained between August 4 and August 28 should be paid to the officers and men, because there is no authority by which they should not be paid. I make out that there is a sum of £2,819,060 received from the sale of condemned vessels, out of which, according to the White Paper, there were "Proceeds to claimants, £637,047." I should like to know who these claimants were, and why, if money could be paid to claimants, it could not be paid to the Fleet.
The Government refuse to give the prize money to the officers and men of the Fleet at present, but they are going to pay, or have paid, a large sum to a certain Baron Schroeder, a German, because he either mortgaged or owned the cargo of a ship that was taken. That is not very satisfactory to the men of the Fleet, who certainly will ask why certain sums should be paid to this German while they have not received what is their due. Again, the Government Prize Claims Committee decide compensation to be given for claims not recognised by the Prize Law. That appears to me very confusing, and I should

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like an explanation. Dr. Macnamara, who is always very sympathetic with regard to this matter, said in the other House that the prize money is to be paid after the war on a new system of pooling. Well, the war has lasted nearly two years now, and the Government are unable to produce a system of distribution. There are apparently two sets of Regulations, one relating to armed ships and another to merchant ships. Perhaps that could be explained to us. In addition to the £4,000,000 in the hands of the Paymaster-General, there are about 93 ships retained in our ports. I want to know why they were not brought to the Prize Court for condemnation and confiscation. I believe that if those ships were adjudicated upon by the Prize Court a further £5,000,000 would be added to the money which will eventually fall to the Fleet. Why are these ships not placed in the hands of the Marshal of the Prize Court? That is the law. Why has it not been carried out as before? The Government are running the ships as if they were Government property. They requisitioned them without their being condemned by a Prize Court, and are now using them for freight. I want to know whether these ships are going to be returned to the enemy after the war, and what is going to be done with regard to the freight they have earned.
The attitude of the Government has not been explained. I know they are just as sympathetic as myself to the officers and men of the Fleet, but they should relieve the anxiety that exists as to these matters. The position is not clear in the Orders in Council and White Papers. In one it would appear that the Government are going back to the Proclamation of Queen Victoria of 1900. Is that so? Anyway, since the cancellation of the Proclamation of 1900 the allocation of the money is determined by the sole will and caprice of the Government, as is evinced by the Baron Schroeder instance. I have asked my noble friend a number of questions. It may be that he is not prepared to deal with all of them now. If there are any which he cannot answer at the moment, I shall be pleased to put them down again, perhaps after the Whitsuntide recess, so that a full reply may be given.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I am obliged to my noble and gallant friend
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for his last observation, for, as he knows, this question is a complicated one. The Question on the Paper does not err on the side of brevity, and it has been supplemented by a number of other inquiries. I have done my best to prepare answers to the questions on the Paper, but I hope my noble and gallant friend will not expect me, without notice, to deal with the other complicated and technical matters to which he has referred.
The Question as it appears on the Paper relates, I presume, to what are technically known as droits of the Crown, and does not deal with droits of Admiralty. As many of your Lordships are aware, the broad distinction is that enemy vessels detained as prizes by port authorities are known as droits of Admiralty, and, as such, are claimed by the Exchequer. On the other hand, vessels captured at sea are known as droits of the Crown, and according to ancient practice the prize money was awarded to the, captors. My noble friend has referred to the distribution of prize money and the change which we contemplate making. Instead of, as in the past, making the award of the prize money to the actual captors, the money is to be pooled and distributed among the whole of the Fleet at the close of hostilities. I think that when the circumstances of modern naval warfare are borne in mind this will be considered the fairest course that could be proposed. There are a number of points even in connection with the Question on the Paper which I am not able fully to answer at this moment as they have to be still further considered, and to that extent I hope that your Lordships will not regard my answer as final. But I should like generally to assure my noble and gallant friend and your Lordships that the policy of the Board of Admiralty is to treat the Naval Prize Fund in the manner which will produce the most favourable result to the Navy as a whole. We fully recognise the work which the Fleet has done, and we quite see that their ancient rights should be fully maintained.
I will now answer the various heads of the Question seriatim. The total amount of prize money held by the Paymaster-General under the Supreme Court Prize Deposit Account was on May 10 of this year £4,420,372. In addition to this sum there would be the moneys in the custody of Indian and Colonial Courts and the proceeds of certain vessels condemned in

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such Courts. A part of these funds is in the charge of the Overseas Prize Disposal Committee, for whom a special account is kept by the Paymaster-General. As various claims have to be met out of the fund the money has not been paid into the Exchequer, but in the meantime the Government have had full use of the money, and the best use that can be made by the Government of the money is made. The number of enemy ships detained in the United Kingdom ports, Oversea British ports, and Egyptian ports, or seized on entering these ports, is rather more than 200. I believe that in all cases these vessels have been or are being dealt with by the various Prize Courts concerned. Under the Prize Courts Rules and by the provisions of The Hague Convention the Government have power to requisition ships which are ill the charge of the Prize Courts, and I believe that every one of them which could be economically and usefully employed has been so employed. Many questions relating to the status of these ships are engaging the consideration of the Government, and I am unable at present to deal fully with this subject; but I do not think that the noble Lord need fear that any money will be paid to the enemy on account of any freight which may have been earned by these vessels while employed by the British Government.
My noble and gallant friend raised a point as to why this money should not be distributed to the Fleet. There are certain technical and practical difficulties in the way of immediate distribution. It would be difficult to ascertain the sum which would be available for distribution, as that would entail the establishment of a Central Fund into which receipts from the Prize Courts throughout the Empire would have to be collected. Another difficulty is that of the realisation of the value of the many vessels which, instead of being handed over to the Prize Court, have been requisitioned by the Crown. For instance, some people claim that the value of a ship is the value on the day on which the ship was seized. From the point of view of the Navy, I should rather have as its value the value at which it might stand now, which, as my noble friend knows, is probably greater than it was when the ship was seized. Therefore from that point of view I think it would be wiser that the value of the ships should not be determined at the present moment. In the final adjustment
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all the various interests and claims to which the proceeds are subject will receive attention. There is also the question of the number of individuals who may be eventually employed by the Navy.
On the whole the Government think it would be advisable that before any distribution is made we should await the conclusion of hostilities, when we shall be able to ascertain fully what is due to the Navy and the number among whom it would have to be distributed. The change of method which has been suggested, and which I think generally has met with approval, will need legislation to give it effect. A Bill will accordingly be introduced into Parliament, and these matters will no doubt then be raised. In the meantime, as I have said, it is from many points of view advisable not to make this distribution until the conclusion of hostilities. As to the case of a man who is killed, and who, had he lived, would have been entitled to a share of the money to be distributed, I understand that there is no difficulty in providing for its payment to his representative or dependant.
LORD BERESFORD: Can my noble friend tell the House what becomes of the interest on this vast sum of money? Will it eventually go to the officers and seamen?
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: I believe that has not yet been settled. Personally I hold a very strong view upon the matter. If money to which the Navy are entitled earns interest in the meantime, that interest ought to follow the capital. That is my opinion for what it is worth.

SOLDIERS' DEPENDANTS.
LORD HARRIS LORD HARRIS rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is the case that Army Order I of 1916 has deprived certain soldiers of the privilege of claiming from Government an allowance—in addition to their own contributions—for their dependants; and, if so, whether this is not in contravention of the intentions of Parliament.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, a case which attracted my attention at a Tribunal meeting recently has caused me to put this Question. A Territorial soldier stated that whilst he was contributing something to his mother as a dependant she was getting nothing at all from the Government, I

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therefore wrote to the Territorial Association concerned, and received this reply—
"It is regretted that no claim for Government allowance in respect of this man can now be admitted, as under the provisions of Army Order I of 1916 the claim had to be made on or before December 10 last. The soldier completed Army Form O. 1796, making his mother a voluntary allotment of 6d. a day, but no claim for Government allowance was made."
That answer led me to suppose that the reason why the mother was getting nothing from the Government was, in the first place, that the soldier had omitted to make a claim, which might have been due to his own ignorance; but, in the second place, that the Government had passed an Order which absolutely prevented him, unless he claimed before December 10, from getting the Government contribution although he was contributing himself.
It was obviously the intention of Parliament that the dependants of soldiers should be assisted reasonably by a contribution from the Government, the amount depending upon the soldier's own contribution and the extent to which he had been assisting the dependant before he joined the Army. In the face of that which I fancy was unquestionably the intention of Parliament, the War Office pass an Order which, as far as I can see, deprives the man of what was given him as a right. It seems to me questionable whether a Government Department is entitled to do that. Therefore I have taken the liberty of putting this Question. I dare say my noble friend will be able to give a satisfactory reply and explain the circumstances, but I thought it as well that we should have the explanation publicly. This cannot be an isolated case. In all probability there are many others like it, and it would be as well if the men in the Army thoroughly understood why they are deprived of this advantage. The man in question could not understand it. I questioned him closely as to why his mother was only getting 3s. 6d., and all he could say was that he could not get any answer to his requests that she should get a Government contribution as well as his own.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, if my noble friend has a case in which he thinks that hardship has occurred and he will forward it to me, I will make investigation into it and communicate with him. The War Office do not consider that they have acted in contravention of any intention of
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Parliament. This new Army Order I of 1916 is a modification with relaxation of a former Army Order of 1915. The reason that the War Office had to set a limit for these applications was that there was such an enormous number of fraudulent claims. Where the claim was very belated it was almost impossible to trace what was a proper application and what was a fraudulent one, and very reluctantly the War Office had to institute a large number of legal prosecutions, with the result that they succeeded in getting a great number of convictions for fraud. I can assure my noble friend that the Rules are not harshly interpreted. That is naturally the very last thing that the authorities at the War Office would wish. I may add—and this would apply to the case he has in mind—that many claims are admitted for consideration if it is shown that through ignorance, or genuine misunderstanding, or for some other good reason the claim has not been received within the proper time. When a man enlists or joins from the Reserve he is required to sign one of the following sections of a form—

"(a) I do not wish to make any allotment from my pay or to make a claim to separation allowance.

(b) I wish to make an allotment from my pay as stated below, but I make no claim to separation allowance.

(c) Declaration by a recruit who wishes to claim separation allowance for a dependant."

And a leaflet is handed to soldiers emphasising those alternatives. But even supposing the soldier, after signing (a) or (b), changes his mind, he can make a claim on a form which is obtainable from the Commanding Officer provided that if he changes his mind he does so within one month. I again assure the noble Lord that there is no intention of being harsh with regard to these cases, and, as I have said, if he will be good enough to forward particulars of any case to me I will make it my duty to investigate it.
LORD HARRIS: Am I to understand that any sufferers are not entirely barred by Army Order I of 1916?
LORD SANDHURST: If a good reason can be shown why they did not make their application, further investigation will ensue.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following six Bills received the Royal Assent—

Military Service.

Colonial Bank.

Swansea Harbour.

City of Dublin Steam Packet Company.

Cardiff Railway.

Alexander's Restitution.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD FARQUHAR: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do adjourn, except for Judicial business, until Tuesday, May 30.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty minutes past Six o'clock, till To-morrow half-past Ten o'clock.