Sitting of 22 November 1917

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS AND PESTS ACTS.
Copies presented of Orders numbered D.I.P. 465, 475. and 506 to 509, declaring the respective areas described in the Schedules thereto to be infected with Wart Disease and infected areas for the purposes of the Wart Disease of Potatoes (Infected Areas) Order of 1914 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
POLICE (METROPOLIS).
Copy presented of Report of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis for the year 1916 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MINISTRY OF FOOD
Copy presented of sugar Order, 1917 (General Licence), and Seed Potatoes (1917 Crop) Order, 1917, made by the Food Controller under the Defence of the Realm Regulations (by Command); to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    MONTENEGRO (SUBSIDY)
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an arrangement was made early in 1916 by which a subsidy of 400,000 francs a month should be paid by the British and French Governments in equal moieties to the exiled King and Government of Montenegro to enable them to minister to the needs of their people who had been overwhelmed by invasion in consequence of their adherence to the cause of the Allies; if he is aware that no payment was made by the British Government in pursuance of this arrangement from May, 1916, until
    1328
    April, 1917, while throughout that period the French Government fulfilled their obligation; that in April, May, and June, 1917, the subsidy was reduced to one-half of the amount previously arranged, the sum of 100,000 francs a month being paid by each of the said Governments, and that since the last-mentioned date the French Government has ceased paying any part of the agreed subsidy while the British Government has paid no more than 100,000 francs a month; if he is aware that, in consequence of the failure of the Allied Governments to fulfil their engagements in this matter, the Montenegrin Government is unable any longer to give assistance to many thousands of Montenegrins who are prisoners or refugees and are reduced to extremities of starvation and misery; and whether, in order to enable the Montenegrin Government to carry on the relief it has hitherto been able to give to its people in distress, he will take immediate steps to concert with the French Government to restore the subsidy to the amount arranged in 1916, and to see that it is regularly and punctually paid?
    The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): The answer to the first branch of the question is in the affirmative.
    The suspension of certain monthly payments referred to in the second branch was due to the necessity of equalising the advances made by the two lending Governments, having regard to the cost of supplies in kind provided by each Government, and this adjustment is still subject to revision.
    As regards the third and fourth branches, the reduction referred to was only made after a careful and expert investigation, and due regard was, and is, given to the question of Montenegrin refugees.
    As regards the last branch of the question, His Majesty's Government are not of opinion that any return to the previous rate of subsidy is necessary.

    PETROGRAD (SIR G BUCHANAN).
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the need for fresh and more forceful diplomatic representation in Petrograd; and whether, in order to meet the new situation, he has considered the appointment of a special mission to Russia?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative. I have more than once expressed in this House the complete confidence which His Majesty's Government have in the ability, courage, and discretion of Sir George Buchanan.
    Mr. KING: Is the Noble Lord not aware that the Prime Minister has recently received a Memorandum on the lines suggested by my question?
    Lord R. CECIL: No; I am not aware of that.
    Mr. KING: Will the Noble Lord inquire of the Prime Minister?
    Lord R. CECIL: If the Prime Minister had any information, I really think he would communicate anything of that kind to a subordinate Minister if he thought it right.
    Mr. KING: I will ask a question of the Prime Minister on the subject.

    BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, by a recent secret treaty made by the Czarist Government between Russia and France, certain compensations after the War are to be made to Belgium at the expense of Holland; and whether he can allay neutral suspicion by an emphatic declaration that this country has not been informed of, and will in no event tolerate, such a proceeding?
    Lord R. CECIL: So far as I know, there is no foundation whatever for the suggestion that any such treaty has been made, and I believe it to be an invention of the enemy. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.
    Mr. KING: If there is no treaty, is the Foreign Office cognisant of an arrangement or understanding on these lines short of a treaty, but definitely understood between the two parties?
    Lord R. CECIL: No, Sir.

  FOOD SUPPLIES

    TILLAGE ORDER (IRELAND).
    Mr.FITZPATRICKasked the Vice president of the of Agricul-
    1330
    ture (Ireland), if the Tillage Order has been carried out on the farm held by Mr. Michael Hackett at Streamstown, Birr; and, if not, what steps the Department intend taking to enforce the Order?
    Sir THOMAS RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): The Department, as intimated in reply to previous similar questions by other hon. Members, do not consider that it would he in the public interest to furnish details of individual cases in connection with the enforcement of the compulsory food production provisions of the Defence of the Realm Regulations. The hon. Member may rely upon it that all necessary steps will be taken by the Department to secure compliance with these provisions in cases of default.

    FLOODS (IRELAND).
    Mr. FITZPATRICKasked the Chief Secretary whether, in view of the loss and damage caused to live stock and growing crops by the periodical flooding of the River Barrow, he will introduce a Bill for the drainage of that river on similar lines as the Bill introduced by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): As I informed the hon. Member for the Leix Division of Queen's County on the 30th November, 1916, the provision of a remedy against natural forces, such as those which cause periodical flooding in a country like that traversed by the River Barrow, is a work of such magnitude as prevents its being undertaken in time of war.
    Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that, owing to the stoppage of the drainage works on the Owenmore river, county Sligo, hundreds of tons of valuable crops, as well as the peat fields on which the people of Ballymote and its vicinity have had to depend for fuel, have been destroyed; and, if so, can he say what steps, if any, the Government propose to take in the matter of resuming drainage operations so as to prevent the recurrence of similar losses?
    Mr. DUKE: I have not received information of the flooding mentioned by
    Member. New drainage operations, which have been under considera-
    tion, involve a large capital outlay which could not be provided at this time.
    Mr. O'DOWD: When will the drainage operations be resufned?
    Mr. DUKE: I am afraid I could not undertake to prophesy.

    SCHOOL GARDENS.
    Mr. BUTCHERasked whether the majority of rural schools and urban schools in rural surroundings throughout the country are adequately provided with school gardens or allotments; if not, whether the deficiency is due to lack of instructors or of tools, or of local interest and initiative, or to difficulties in procuring land; and what steps are being taken to make good the deficiency?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): Owing to the reduction of statistical work, I am unable to give the present number of school gardens, but many new gardens have been started during the War. The difficulties of extending the provision differ in different places, and include those mentioned in the question. The board have recently issued a circular urging local education authorities to provide a greatly increased number of classes for the instruction of teachers in gardening.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Will the lion. Gentleman take care that not only are classes provided, but that there are allotments for practical purposes provided by the Department?
    Mr. H. LEWIS: The Board of Education have done their best to encourage the prevision of school gardens.

    Plus (MAXIMUM PRICES, IRELAND).
    Mr. LINDSAYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that the Order fixing the price of pigs has been largely disregarded in certain parts of Ireland, and that persons who have observed it have been unable to make purchases while other persons who have evidently infringed it have been able to make purchases; if, consequently, a large firm of bacon curers in Belfast have been compelled recently to dismiss a considerable number of workmen; and if he proposes to take any action?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): As I informed the hon. Member for West Cavan Monday, the Food Controller is
    1332
    aware of the difficulties caused in some parts of Ireland by the contraventions on the part of pig-buyers of the Order fixing a maximum price for pork. Prosecutions have been instituted in several cases, and Lord Rhondda has no doubt that every effort will be made by the authorities in Ireland to enforce the Order. The recent Orders fixing respectively a live weight maximum price for pigs and wholesale and retail prices for bacon will, it is hoped, considerably improve the position as regards pork and bacon supplies in the North of Ireland and elsewhere.
    Mr. LINDSAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that about two weeks ago a man was convicted at Castlewellan for infringing the Order and was fined only 5s., which is much less than the amount of profit that he made?
    Mr. CLYNES: I have no information as to that particular case, but the Minister has drawn attention to the leniency of the penalties imposed.

    BARLEY.
    Mr. FERENSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that, owing to the priority given to brewers and maltsters in the purchase of barley, millers frequently are unable to buy home-grown barley to mix with wheat to keep their mills running and are obliged to buy Californian barley from the Wheat Commission at 88s. to 90s. per quarter against 68s. to 70s. per quarter at which the maltsters are allowed to buy, and that maltsters are thus subsidised at the expense of the 9d. loaf and the tax-payer; and will he take steps to remedy this grievance?
    Mr. GLYNES: I am informed that, as threshing has become. more general, the difficulty experienced by millers is tending to disappear. It does not, therefore, seem desirable to change a policy which was adopted for the express purpose of encouraging farmers to continue to grow the types of barley which, under normal conditions, have always fetched the highest prices.
    Mr. MILLAR: Why should the flour millers be faced with this difficulty in conducting their business?
    Mr. CLYNES: Flour millers in this regard are only just like every other section of the community.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Why should the difficulties be created by the Government giving preference to the brewer?

    TEA.
    Mr. LOUGHasked whether a Committee of the Cabinet was appointed in January this year to report on the stock of commodities in the country, it being understood that their recommendations would form the basis of the Prime Minister's prohibitions of imports afterwards made on the 24th February; and, if so, what this Committee reported to be the stock of tea in the country on the date of their report?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Committee referred to. however, was not a Cabinet Committee. but an Inter-departmental Committee. As regards the last part of the question, no figure was given of the stocks of tea in this country on the actual date that the Committee reported. It was stated, however, that on the 31st of December, 1916, there was between 56,000 and 58,000 tons of tea stocked in this country.
    Mr. LOUGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it was stated by a Member of the Committee that there was a nine months stock of tea in the country whereas there was only four months stock, and whether it was that statement which was the cause of the Government prohibition of tea imports that brought about the tea famine?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is obvious that I cannot answer a question as to facts without notice.
    Mr. LOUGHasked the Prime Minister whether he has noticed that the Food Controller has announced his intention of buying up all the stocks of tea in India and Ceylon and selling them at cost price; whether the Army and the Navy are also making large purchases of tea in these two countries in advance of their requirements and of shipping facilities; whether any of these Departments are equipped with the necessary knowledge and machinery for buying, importing, and distributing teas; whether they will compete with one another in the purchase; whether he is aware that other Departments of the Government bought large quantities of potatoes in Holland and in Spain, allowing them to rot in those countries before they were shipped, and
    1334
    that the Shipping Controller afterwards provided freight to bring these diseased potatoes, instead of useful commodities, into this country, where they were immediately destroyed; whether he is aware that wheat, valued at over £20,000,000, paid for by the Government, is now lying in Australia, in bad or doubtful condition, for which transit cannot be arranged; and whether, with a view of stopping these proceedings, he will give instructions that no Department of the Government shall be allowed to purchase any, commodity abroad except through the ordinary channels of business in London or other trade centres throughout the Kingdom?
    Mr. CLYNES: The Food Controller proposes to buy in India and Ceylon such quantites of tea as are required for the civilian population of the United Kingdom, and for the Army and Navy, having regard to the amount of tonnage which it is estimated will be available, and to sell to the trade at such prices as will cover the expenses involved. Lord Rhondda is satisfied that he has at his disposal the necessary knowledge and machinery for buying, importing, and distributing tea. The Ministry of Food and the Army and Navy will not compete with one another in making these purchases.
    The explanation already given with reference to Spanish and Dutch potatoes will be within the recollection of my right hon. Friend; the circumstances attending the purchase of Australian wheat are reviewed in the first Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure.
    The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

    IRISH BUTTER.
    Mr. BYRNE (by Private Notice)asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that Irish traders are unable, for the past week, to obtain supplies of butter in Ireland at price fixed by Food Controller, if he is aware that the reason stated is that cross-channel buyers are paying more than the permitted price; if he will state what steps his Department propose to take to deal with the giver and receiver of illegal prices for food supplies?
    Mr. CLYN ES: No shortage of butter in Ireland has been reported to the Food Controller. Prosecutions have already been instituted for infringement of the Butter Orders in Ireland and in Great Britain; other prosecutions are pending. Every

    1335
    effort is being made to ensure compliance with the terms of the Order both in Ireland and in Great Britain.
    Mr. BYRNE: Will the hon. Gentleman's Department make inquiries as to those who bought the butter this week, and find out the price they paid for it?
    Mr. CLYNES: The Department could hardly undertake to find out who bought butter in particular districts. What we desire in the Department is that where infringements of the Order are suspected, those who have information should at once apply to the Department, and we will act upon it.
    Mr. NUGENT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a deputation from Ireland waited upon the Food Controller over three weeks ago, and pointed out that there was a complete scarcity in Ireland; and if he is unaware of that, will he make inquiries?
    Mr. CLYNES: The question of scarcity is a different matter from the subject covered by the question, which is one of alleged selling of the article above the price fixed by the Food Controller.

    MOUNTJOY PRISON.
    Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether any prisoners in Mountjoy Prison are still being forcibly fed; if so, how many; and whether any mitigation of their treatment is proposed?
    Mr. DUKE: No prisoners in Mountjoy Prison are at present being forcibly fed.
    Mr. KING: Would that have been a correct answer at the time this question was put down a week ago?
    Mr. DUKE: If the hon. Member will put that down, I will ascertain.
    Mr. KING: Why cannot a straight answer be given to a straight question?
    Major NEWMAN: How many prisoners have been released from Mountjoy in the last fortnight?
    Mr. DUKE: If my hon. and gallant Friend will put that down, I will answer it.

    WRECKAGE (IRISH COAST).
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Chief Secretary what steps are being taken for
    1336
    recovering for the use of the Crown the valuable wreckage which is now frequently washed ashore on the West Coast of Ireland; whether the duties of recovering this wreckage are, in the absence of the Coast Guard men, thrown upon the Royal Irish Constabulary; whether they are given any increase of pay or other remuneration for the discharge of these duties; whether there is reason to believe that portions of this wreckage are seized by private persons living on the western seaboard of Ireland and are sold by them for considerable sums; and whether the Government will take steps to put an end to these practices and secure this wreckage for the use of the Crown?
    Mr. DUKE: In places where there are no coast guards the police perform the duty of looking after wrecked property, and they report each case to the Receiver of Wrecks. In localities where there are coast guards the police work in co-operation with them. On the police devolves the duty of ascertaining whether any non-reported wreckage has been salved, and of making reports to the Receiver with a view to prosecutions. The police do not receive an increase of pay for this work, but they are entitled to rewards in cases where they bring persons to justice for illicit dealing with wrecked property and when they are actually employed in protecting wrecks they are entitled to certain rates of extra pay varying with the period for which they are so employed. In remote places wrecked property is, no doubt, subject to misappropriation, but the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary does not think that this occurs on an extensive scale at the present time. It is being recognised in most places that it is better to report the salving of such property and so secure the reward for salvage.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Has there been a. substantial amount of wreckage recovered for the use of the Crown in this way?
    Mr.DUKE: That is a large question. I think my hon. and learned Friend had better put a question down.
    Colonel YATE: Is there any truth in the statement that the coastguards are provided with special screws for opening tins of petrol which have been washed ashore and running them into the sea?
    Mr. DUKE: If my hon. and gallant Friend will ask me a question with notice, I may be able to answer.

    VOLUNTEER AND REGULAR. FORCES (IRELAND).
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that, in the course of the weekly parade and field exercises carried out by the Republican Volunteer Force in the vicinity of Cork on Sunday last a soldier of the Regular Forces had his head broken open by a hurley; and what steps are taken by the responsible authorities to prevent such collisions between men of the Volunteer and Regular Forces?
    Mr. DUKE: While a band of Irish pipers was returning from Riverstown to Cork on Sunday night last a man from the crowd struck a soldier on the head with a hurley. It was dark, and although police were on duty identification was impossible. Absolute security against cowardly attacks on individuals under cover of darkness is obviously impossible, but the Royal Irish Constabulary take effectual precautions for public safety.

    IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary whether by arrangements between Irish political prisoners of war and the Irish Government the following scale of dietary has been adopted while they remain in confinement: breakfast 1 pint of tea, 1 egg, -pint of milk, 1 pint of porridge, and 8 ozs. of bread; dinner, 10 ozs. of meat, 16 ozs. of potatoes, 1 pint of milk, and 8 ozs. of bread; and supper, 1 pint of tea, 8 ozs. of bread, 1 pint of milk, and butter; and, if so, whether, in view of the very real shortage of eggs for wounded and convalescent soldiers and of milk for the children of the poor, the Government will ask the prisoners of war if they would accept 4 ozs. of meat in lieu of an egg and wine or beer instead of milk at dinner and tea?
    Mr. DUKE: No, Sir.
    Major NEWMAN: Has there been no scale of dietary agreed on for Mountjoy Prison between the Government and these prisoners?
    Mr. DUKE: Certainly not.

    ARIGNA COALFIELDS.
    Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been directed to the address of Judge Brown
    1338
    to the grand jury at Manorhamilton, county Leitrim, on the 12th instant, in which he pointed out the urgent need that exists for the development of the coalfields at Arigna and the great boon which such development would confer on the people of the counties of Sligo, Leitrim, and Roscommon and of other parts of the West and North of Ireland; whether he can say if, in view of all the representations made to him in and out of this House, he can now promise that the Government will take immediate steps to assist in this development; and whether he can promise, as a necessary preliminary to such development, to have a line of railway constructed from Arigna to Collooney for the distribution and sale of the coal got in this region?
    Mr. DUKE: I have seen a report in the Press of the County Court judge's observations. As to the rest of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to a previous question on this subject in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the 29th October.

    PUNJABI SOLDIERS (SINHALESE.REPORT).
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the evidence in the Sinhalese Report discloses many allegations of robbery by Punjabi soldiers under white commands; if he can say whether these alleged robberies have been investigated; and whether any and, if so, what amount of valuables have been restored to their owners?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): I presume that the hon. Gentleman refers to a memorial addressed to my predecessor by a committee of Sinhalese. That memorial alleges three trifling instances of misconduct by Punjabi soldiers, but I am not aware that any of the allegations have been substantiated. If any complaints of this nature have been made for Sir John Anderson, I have no doubt that he has investigated them.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Do I understand that robbery is trifling misconduct?

    CEYLON DISTURBANCES.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies

    1339
    whether he has considered the evidence of the Inspector-General of Police and the instructions issued by him on 5th July, 1915; whether this official still retains his position; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take with regard to this officer?
    Mr. HEWINS: If the hon. Gentleman refers to the instructions issued by the Inspector-General of Police in Ceylon, and dated the 5th June, 1915, the local Commission of Inquiry expressed their opinion that these instructions contained a clear and admirable statement of the steps to be taken in dealing with disturbances; and I see no reason arising out of these instructions to take any steps with regard to the Inspector-General, who retains his position.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Am I to understand that the hon. Gentleman agrees with the instructions issued by this Gentleman to shoot at sight, to hold no inquests, and to shoot people who run away?
    Mr. HEWINS: The hon. Gentleman is not supposed to put a gloss on my answer. He is supposed to understand what I say.

    EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN. TREATMENT OF BRITISH PRISONERS.
    Major NEWMANasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, having regard to the atrocities and indignities perpetrated by Germans and German natives on British men and women and British natives during the earlier stages of the campaign in East Africa, steps will be taken to ascertain if any of the 1,000 white persons recently captured by us in East Africa include men guilty of the conduct proved against British prisoners; and, if so, will such Germans or natives be dealt with in an exemplary manner?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): The military authorities in East Africa have always taken steps to inquire into the commission of such atrocities by prisoners of war who fall into their hands with a view to bringing to trial any against whom satisfactory evidence can be obtained?
    Mr. REDDY: Has the hon. Gentleman offered his services in any way?
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman consider whether it would be possible to instruct civil authorities in East Africa to hold inquiries into these complaints, so that there may be a definite report on which action may be taken?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I will look into that.

    SCIENCE AND MODERN LANGUAGES.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Board of Education if two Committees were appointed more than a year ago, one to inquire into the teaching of science and the other to inquire into the teaching of modern languages; how often each of these Committees has met; if they are still sitting; when their Reports will be available; and what is the amount of travelling and other expenses of each of the Committees?
    Mr. H. LEWIS: The two Committees in question were appointed by the Prime Minister in August, 1916. The Committee on the teaching of science has met on forty-two days, and its Sub-committees on twenty-five days. The Committee on the teaching of modern languages has met on thirty-eight days, and in addition its Subcommittees on twenty days. It is hoped that the reports of the Committees will be ready in the early part of next year. The expenses of the Committees have been:

    £

    s.

    d.

    Science Committee

    896

    13

    6

    Modern Language Committee

    716

    12

    0

  COAL (SHORTAGE OF TONNAGE).

    DURHAM COLLIERIES.
    Mr. WINGasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the serious conditions in various districts in Durham arising from unequal distribution of orders for coal; and what steps has he taken to fulfil his promise to the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring re adaptation of orders and transport?
    Mr. A. WILLIAMSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that pits in the county of Durham are still working only two or three days per week; whether he is aware that the wages to be

    1341
    earned for such short time are wholly inadequate for the support of a family and that considerable suffering is resulting; whether the arrangement recently made for a bonus of ls. 6d. per shift has proved to be no remedy for the above state of affairs; and, consequently, whether he is now prepared to guarantee to men working in controlled coal mines either a full week's work or a minimum weekly wage?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): The situation which has been created in Durham, as in certain other districts, by the shortage of tonnage, has been the subject of close consideration by the Controller of Coal Mines. It does not appear to the Government that the guarantee of a minimum wage is necessary in the circumstances. The best method of alleviating the immediate difficulties of the situation is that of distributing the demand for coal more equally among the collieries in the district. Steps have already been taken in this direction, with the assistance of the Shipping Controller and the Coal Exports Committee, and a Commission of Inquiry, consisting of two local officers of the Coal Mines Department, the Secretary of the District Coal and Coke Supplies Committee, and representatives of the miners is at present investigating the situation in Northumberland and Durham, with instructions to recomend to the Controller a scheme for the better distribution of the available orders.
    Mr. WING: May 1 take it that there will be continued investigation until you have found a remedy?
    Mr. WARDLE: There will be.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is a similar inquiry taking place in regard to Scotland
    Mr. WARDLE: I do not think it applies to Scotland.
    Mr. PRINGLE: We understood that inquiries would be made.
    Mr. WATT: As it is only a short time since the Coal Controller took charge, is this an indication of the success of his management?

    DECIMAL COINAGE.
    Mr. BOLANDasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state what steps have been taken to secure agreement
    1342
    on the subject of decimal coinage; whether it is proposed to give legislative effect to the agreement come to between the Institute of Bankers, the Association of Chambers of Commerce, and the Decimal Association, whereby the existing gold and silver coins down to and including the 6d. piece would be retained without any-alteration in their respective values, and the pound sterling would be retained as the monetary unit and be divided into 1,000 parts or mils; whether any progress has been made with regard to the institution of a metric system for weights and measures; and whether steps will be taken before the end of the War to carry out these necessary reforms?
    Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury):These matters are under the consideration of Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy after the War, and I understand that the Committee will report upon them shortly.

    LONDON TRAFFIC FACILITIES.
    Mr. HARCOURTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is satisfied that the curtailment of London traffic facilities is wholly conditioned by war necessities; and whether he has made full inquiry into repeated complaints on the subject?
    Mr. WARDLE: So far as railways and tramways are concerned, I am not aware of curtailments of London traffic facilities other than those arising from conditions due to the War. Specific complaints on the subject always receive careful consideration, and inquiry is made when necessary, but I am afraid that in present circumstances inconvenience to the public cannot be avoided.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any effort is being made to deal with the dispute between the taxi-drivers and the employers, and whether anything can be done as regards the difficulty of cabs going into railway stations
    Mr. WARDLE: I replied yesterday in regard to the question of cabs going into stations. The other matter is one for the Home Secretary.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Is there not a branch of the hon. Gentleman's Department which deals with labour disputes?
    Mr. WARDLE: No.

    CHEMICAL WOOD PULP.
    Major HUNTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that on 21st January, 1916, Sweden declared an embargo on the export of chemical wood pulp to all Allied nations, and in consequence British imports of this kind of pulp from Sweden declined from 291,000 tons to 23,000 tons; and whether he can state the amount of chemical as distinguished from mechanical wood pulp exported by Sweden to Germany and Denmark, respectively, during 1915, 1916 and the first half of 1917?
    Mr. WARDLE: The prohibition referred to applied nominally to Swedish exports to all destinations, but until recently no licences have been granted for exports to this country. Imports into the United Kingdom of chemical pulp from Sweden have declined approximately as stated in the question. No official Swedish trade returns have been published since those relating to 7914 were issued, so that I am unable to give the information asked for in the last part of the question.

    MATCHES.
    Mr. G ILBERTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the shortage of matches amongst retail shopkeepers in London, and if he will state what Orders or Regulations his Department have made as regards the present supply of matches by manufacturers to ordinary retailers; are they allowed a full supply on their previous year's trade or only a percentage of previous supplies; and, if so, will he state what the percentage is?
    Mr. WARDLE: I am aware of the situation to which the hon. Member calls attention. The entire supplies of matches are pooled, and an administrative committee of manufacturers, acting under the instructions of the Control Board, is charged with their distribution to wholesalers at the rate of approximately 50 per cent. of each firm's total purchases last year. Owing to the fact that previously the matches used in London districts were mainly imported, some little time is required to make completely effective in all areas the organisation for distributing the British-made matches which alone are now available.

    INSURANCE COMPANIES (EMPLOYES' SALARIES).
    37, 39, and 40. The following question stood on the Paper in the names of Mr. BYRNE, Mr. GALBRAITH and Mr. T. RICHARDSON: To ask the Minister of Labour if he will state the result of his interview with the representatives of the insurance companies; if he will state whether his efforts to persuade the companies to pay their agents a living wage has been successful; and if steps are being taken to carry out the recommendations of the Industrial Unrest Committee?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Bridgeman): My right hon. Friend has interviewed representatives of both the companies and the agents, but he is not yet in a position to make a definite statement in regard to the matter. As soon as a decision is reached he will inform the hon. Members.
    Mr. LYNCH: Has the hon. Gentleman considered that the working of the Act in Ireland is rendered difficult by the fact that the agents are not properly paid?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend is considering all the points raised in the question.

    DISABLED SOLDIERS (EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. WINGasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the increasing difficulty of finding employment for disabled men, as testified by the reports of local pensions committees and by the support given by those committees to the Rothband scheme for the formation of a nation roll of employers willing to employ disabled men; and whether he will consider if the time has arrived for a mobilisation of employers willing to guarantee employment to a certain number of disabled men, apart from, or in addition to, those of their own employes who were promised reinstatement when they joined the Colours?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN:I am not aware that increased difficulty in finding employment for disabled men is being experienced to any substantial extent. The proposal to form a national roll of employers willing to employ disabled men is not free from difficulty, and has, I understand, been

    1345
    under consideration by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions, with whom the Minister of Labour proposes to confer on the subject.
    Mr. WING: Is it not a fact that the number of such soldiers who are unable to find employment is increasing?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My information is that if they are increasing at all it is to a very limited extent.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is it not a fact that various pensions committees are in a difficulty in dealing with this matter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: There is always a certain amount of difficulty in dealing with matters like that, but my information is that it is not increasing to any great extent.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is it a fact that the only provision for the employment of discharged and disabled men is through the Labour Exchanges, which are not finding them any work?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I do not know about the first part of the question, but the statement contained in the second part of the question is not correct.

    SPIRITS IN BOND.
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food when additional supplies of spirits will be allowed out of bond in Ireland; and if he is aware that, owing to the Government's action withholding the stock in bond, whisky has been sold by public auction in Dublin for four times its usual price, to the detriment of licensed traders?
    Mr. G. TERRELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he can now state the intentions of the Government in relation to the release of further supplies of spirits from bond; and whether the refusal of the Government to restrict profiteering in whisky is in any way part of a policy to enforce total abstinence among the working classes
    Mr. CLYNES: The Government have decided not to allow an increase in the amount of spirits to be released from bond. This decision is not part of any policy of enforcing total abstinence from intoxicating liquors. I am aware that during the present shortage the price of whisky has increased.
    Mr. FABER: What is the policy under which immense stocks of whisky are being held in bond?
    Mr. CLYNES: As stated in the answer, it is not the policy in any way to enforce total abstinence.
    Mr. FABER: What is the policy?
    Mr. CLYNES: That may be deduced from the answer.
    Mr. FABER: No; it cannot.
    Mr. TERRELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can give the reasons for the restrictions as to the release of spirits from bond; whether they are in consequence of protests or representations from brewers; and whether there is a fear that the free release of spirits would lead to an increase of consumption of whisky in place of beer?
    Mr. CLYNES: The object of the restriction is to avoid the risk of transferring consumption from beer to spirits. The output of beer, as the hon. Member is no doubt aware, was restricted in order to secure the more economic use of grain.
    Mr. TERRELL: May I ask whether these restrictions are in any way due to shortage of spirits, or whether there is an ample supply of spirits in bond for eight or ten years?
    Mr. CLYNES: I understand that there is a considerable quantity in bond, but I think the reply which I have given is a full answer to the point of this question.
    Mr. TERRELL: Will the hon. Gentleman explain what relation the consumption of beer has to that of spirits-people who want spirits may not want beer?
    Mr. CLYNES: I dealt fully with the matter.
    Mr. FABER: Is it not a very unfortunate result, at any rate, of this policy, that the people should be charged at the rate of £1 per bottle for whisky in the country?

    GERMAN KAISER (RELATIVES).
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether there are in this country any relatives of the German Kaiser who are not bound to any allegiance to this country or to the cause of the Allies; and,

    1347
    if so, whether any such person, or persons, enjoy privileges not accorded to the ordinary citizen
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I do not know to whom the hon. Member refers, but, so far as I am aware, there is no such person in this country enjoying privileges not accorded to the ordinary citizen.
    Mr. LYNCH: Why do the public spirit and virtue of the right hon. Gentleman evaporate at a certain grade of society?

    SALONIKA EXPEDITION.
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the revelations in Athens of the part played by the Court- in interfering with the Salonika Expedition and the negative results obtained at the cost of such expenditure of men and treasure, he will set up a small Commission, sitting in secret if necessary, but provided with the fullest possible powers, to investigate the whole affair thoroughly and report the origin and the character of faults, diplomatic or military, committed, and especially to advise, by interim reports in cases of urgency, on the main sources of faults or dangers that still remain?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. LYNCH: I beg to give notice that
    I will raise this question on the Adjournment. I will show the House who are the Bolos, and who are their protectors.

    SILVER PURCHASES (UNITED STATES)
    Mr. R. GWYNNEasked the Prime Minister whether the Lord Chief Justice has negotiated, on behalf of the Government, the joint purchase, with the Government of the United States, of 100,000,000 ounces of silver in instalments over a period; and, if so, will he state the price agreed to be paid, the amount of the instalments, and the period over which the transactions are to continue?
    Mr. BALDWIN: Discussions are now in progress with the United States Govern-
    1348
    ment with the object of the acquisition by them of silver produced in the United States of America, of which a portion would be placed at the disposal of the Government of India, largely to pay for Indian produce required in America. A settlement has not yet been reached.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Seeing the great financial importance of this matter, will the House have an opportunity of discussing it before the settlement is finally agreed upon?

    OLD AGE PENSIONS.
    Captain WATSONasked whether the Government is aware of the feeling amongst friendly societies and trade unions that, owing to the present system of calculating incomes for the purposes of old age pensions, thrift and frugality are penalised; and whether the Government is prepared to recommend that the income limit, to include the old age pension, be raised to £1 a week?
    Mr. BALDWIN: A number of Resolutions on the subject referred to have been received. The exising income limit is fixed by law, and could not be raised without an alteration of the Old Age Pensions Acts. Important concessions, as doubtless the hon. Member is aware, have already been granted to old age pensioners under the administrative concessions set out in Cd. 8320. Pensioners generally are also in receipt of the additional old age pension allowance of 2s. 6d. per week.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM REGULATIONS.

    INDIA HOME RULE LEAGUE.
    Commander WEDGWOODasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that charges have been made by the Home Secretary against an hon. Member of this House of supporting a publication which advocates assassination as a political weapon in India; whether he is aware that the charge is unsupported by any evidence but is made to discredit the Indian home-rule movement in the interest of the Anglo-Indian irreconcilables, contrary to the wishes of the India Office, by a Home Secretary insufficiently acquainted with the gravity of Indian politics; and whether ho will allot time to have this charge against the honour of a Member of this House discussed?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot agree with the suggestions contained in this question, nor do I think it necessary to give a special opportunity for the discussion of the subject
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Am I to understand that a charge of such gravity can be made against a Member of this House by the Home Secretary without any further proceedings being taken and without any opportunity being given of showing that it was without a shadow of foundation?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have read the question and the answer, and I have not drawn that inference from it. After the answer which I have given, perhaps the hon. Member would address his question to the Home Secretary?
    Commander WEDGWOOD: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment to-morrow.
    75, 76, 77, 135, and 136. Commander WEDGWOOD asked the Home Secretary
    (1) if he will state on what date the Home Office or police intimated to the India Office their desire to have the office of the India Home Rule League raided; whether the India Office concurred verbally or in writing; in view of his accusation against a Member of this House, will he lay Papers showing the responsibility of both the India Office and the police for the raid and for the assassin charge;(2) whether he will indicate the passages in the book "Young India," by Lajpat Rai, with an introduction by the hon. Member for Newcastle, which he holds to advocate assassination; whether he read these passages before making the charge or whether he was merely stating the opinion of Sir Archibald Bodkin;(3) whether the idea of the raid on the Indian Home Rule League originated with the Home Office, the police, or the India Office; (4) whether the India Office recommended the Home Office or the police to raid the offices of the Home Rule for India League; whether he was cognisant and approving of the raid before it took place; (5) whether he will indicate the passages in the book "Young India," by Lajpat Rai, and having an introduction written by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, which recommends assassination?
    Sir G. CAVE: On the .1st October the India Office notified my Department that the British branch of the Home Rule for
    1350
    India League were publishing a, reprint of a book called " Young India," by one Lajpat Rai. The India Office pointed out that this book had been prohibited in India, and that its importation in this country had also been prohibited, and expressed the view that its circulation was undesirable. I personally examined the book, and came to the conclusion that it contravened the Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act and contained passages sympathising with extreme revolutionary methods (including the use of the bomb and the revolver) and condoning crimes of assassination which had been committed in India. I will give the hon. and gallant Member a note of some of the passages upon which my opinion was formed. The decision to have the premises searched and the book seized was thereupon taken with the concurrence of the India Office. I may add that there is (as I am informed) cause to suspect that the author is subsidised by German agents in the United States of America, and it is certain that he uses language regarding British rule in India which is indistinguishable from that found in enemy propaganda.
    The hon. and gallant Member will perhaps allow me to add that I have never suggested or for a moment believed that he would give his countenance to a publication which he knew to be of the character which I have described, and I am confident that when he expressed his approval of the book in question he had not realised the nature and tendency of some of the passages contained in the book.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman read the book or whether it was read by Sir Archibald Bodkin?
    Sir G. CAVE: I read the book from cover to cover.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 1,000 copies of the book were printed, and that they were sent to the Members of this House and to Members of the House of Lords?
    Sir G. CAVE: I am aware that the edition published in this country was a small one-1,000 was given to me as the number-but you could not pass over even this small edition without it being said you could not suppress the rest.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Is it worth while, in order to show the powers of the Home Office under the Defence of the Realm Act, to antagonise all these people in India who are pressing for home rule, and at a time when the Secretary of State for India is about there for this country?
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is it not the fact that Lajpat Rai was himself about ten years ago dealt with for seditious conduct in this country?
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Is he not at the present moment free in India?
    Sir G. CAVE: I believe not.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Are any steps to be taken against the publisher, so that he may bring the matter before a Court-is he to be prosecuted?
    Sir G. CAVE: That is not in my province.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Were those steps taken in order to make the world free for democracy?
    Mr. FABER: Free from assassination!
    Commander WEDGWOOD: If you read the book, you would not talk rot like that.

    WAR BONDS
    Mr. G. FABERasked the Prime Minister whether a large reward will at once be offered by the Government for the discovery and bringing to justice of the person, or persons, who recently issued and secretly circulated a leaflet urging the public not to buy War Bonds?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative. It has been the general rule for many years not to offer a Government reward for the detection of crime, as it was found that the practice of offering rewards led, in some cases, to the production of false evidence, and in others to the holding back of evidence in the hope that a reward would be offered. Every effort is, however, being made to trace it.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Has the Government any evidence at all that this leaflet has been distributed?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have the best evidence; I have seen it.
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that newspapers have a wider circulation
    1352
    than leaflets, it is his intention to follow up the Regulation that no leaflet relating to the present War can be issued without the approval of the Press Bureau by making a similar Regulation for articles in the Press?
    Sir G. CAVE: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home-Secretary whether, under the new Regulation requiring leaflets dealing with the War to be submitted to the Press Bureau for approval, the Government will be able to suppress criticism of itself without, as heretofore, being liable to answer for its action before a Court of Law?
    Sir G. CAVE: The object of the new Regulation is to deal effectively with propaganda in the interests of the enemy. It will not be used in any way to suppress criticism of the Government.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: May I ask whether the new Regulation, requiring leaflets dealing with the War to have the approval of the Censorship, will apply to leaflets published in connection with any by-election. or with a General Election, and will the Regulation be enforced in those cases?
    Sir G.CAVE: My right hon. Friend is as good a judge as I am of the effect of the Regulation. It is not, of course, in the least desired to use it to hamper the issue of election literature.
    Mr. TREVELYAN (by Private Notice)asked the Home Secretary whether the new Regulation under the Defence of the Realm Act is applicable to leaflets which have been published prior to its issue, and which, in many cases, have been distributed for months and even years without any objection being raised to them by this or any preceding Government?
    Sir G. CAVE: The new Regulation applies to the distribution of leaflets printed before its issue, but I propose to instruct the police to give time for the submission to the Press Bureau of any leaflets already published other than those which are clearly illegal under previous Regulations; and if such leaflets are passed by the Press Bureau, not to insist on the addition of the name and address of the author until existing stocks are exhausted.

    POLICE RAIDS (LONDON).
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether the right hon. Member for Trinity

    1353
    College has undertaken the supervision of the investigation of cases in which houses and offices are raided, or literature is seized, or prosecutions are undertaken for pacifist or other anti-Government propaganda; if so, what number of persons are associated with him as staff and assistants in this work; and what is the estimated annual cost of this new Department?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. KING: Can we take it that the right hon. Member for Trinity College has nothing whatever to do with the policy for. which the Home Secretary' is responsible?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Certainly; it is hardly necessary to put the question.
    Mr. HOGGE: In view of the great experience which the right hon. Gentleman has of rebellion would it not be wise to put him on this Committee?

    AIR SERVICE (UNIFORMS).
    Mr. HARCOURTasked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed that the Air Force shall have uniforms of a different colour to that previously adopted for naval or military purposes; whether such uniforms will at once become compulsory for all ranks and will involve the scrapping of existing uniforms; and, if so, what is the objection to khaki?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the AIR BOARD (Major Baird): It is proposed to adopt a distinctive uniform for the Air Force, but this uniform will not become compulsory until sufficient time has elapsed for the old uniforms to be worn out. It is not yet decided whether the new uniforms will include a change of colour.

    EDUCATION BILL.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Prime Minister how many resolutions he has received deploring the postponement of the Education Bill and urging that it should be pressed forward with all possible speed; how many of these resolutions came from labour organisations; and whether he has any further statement to make on this matter?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: There have been 331 resolutions received, of which fifty-six
    1354
    are from labour organisations. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

    BOLOISM.
    Mr. GEORGE FABERasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the effects of Boloism in Russia and Italy, and of the steps now being taken in France and America to deal with it, he can assure this House that all possible steps are being taken by the Government in this country in the same direction?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the affirmative.
    Mr. FABER: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether success has attended the efforts of the Government in this direction?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am sure my hon. Friend will quite understand that it would be impossible, without making reservations, to answer that question.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Has not this search for Boloism resulted in the seizure of some copies of Mill's " Essay on Liberty "

    NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL.
    Mr. T. C. TAYLORasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether representations were made to the Cabinet that the National Health Insurance Bill now before the House is an agreed measure; if so, whether such representations were made before or after Clauses were inserted in the Bill which solvent societies regard as highly controversial and as calculated to endanger their expected benefits to their members; and whether, in view of the oposition to the special risks fund, the Government will eliminate it from the Bill and proceed with the uncontentious provisions which it contains
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to my reply of yesterday on the same subject.
    Mr. CURRIE: Has not the right hon. Gentleman seen the Comptroller of the Household, who pointed out that the Bill was practically agreed upon, and that he hopes to pass it?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: That was the answer I gave yesterday, and that is my information.

    RUSSIA
    Mr. TREVELYANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the information published from Russia that the decision of the Bolsheviks to start an armed rebellion was taken as a result of his statement that the Paris Conference was only for military purposes, and not to decide war-aims; and whether the Government is now prepared to reconsider its decision?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: As regards the first part of the question, I have seen the Press cutting which the hon. Member has sent me. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that at the All-Russia Congress, on 26th June, M. Lenin said to M. Kerensky that he would fail to induce the Allies to state their war aims when he and the Bolsheviks took control, and is it not the fact that the Government have done exactly what M. Lenin counted upon?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: My attention has not been called to what M. Lenin said, but if it had been I should not have attached the same importance to it as the hon. Member does.

    SHIPPING (REQUISITION OF LINERS)
    Mr. RUNCIMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the new situation reached as a result of the recent action, China Mutual Steam Navigation Company versus Maclay, he can now state what policy the Government propose to adopt with regard to the requisition of liners and other merchant ships for trading purposes, and in particular who is to fix the rates of freights charged to importers and exporters; and on what basis these rates are to be calculated?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): I have been asked to reply to this question. The policy of the Shipping Controller is governed by national requirements and has, therefore, undergone no change as a result of the decision referred to. The scheme of liner requisition, in which, I am glad to say, shipowners almost without exception were and are co-operating most loyally, will, therefore, be carried out in accordance
    1356
    with the principles fully explained by me in the House.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw the imputation made on a Member of the House, seeing that the judge has decided that he was right?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I do not remember any such imputation.
    Mr. PRINGLE: You did.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask whether any change is to be made in the methods of the Ministry of Shipping in consequence of this action, or whether it is intended in future to take the steps which are necessary for the carrying out of that policy, in spite of the decision of the Court?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: As I understand it, the learned judge expressed the hope that there should be amicable negotiations, and, as a matter of fact, almost without exception, the shipowners approved of the agreement with the Government.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Will it be the policy of the Shipping Controller to proceed by way of agreement, and, in the event of a failure, will he attempt to exercise powers which the Court says he does not possess?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: The Shipping Controller pursued the course of amicable agreement, and before the trial of the action almost without exception every shipowner agreed.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the hon. Member not aware that the learned judge decided that the letter of requisition of March last was ultra vices, and that the Shipping Controller had no right or power to requisition the services of shipowners; and, furthermore, is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, since that decision, the shipowners throughout the country are reviewing the arrangements made with the Ministry of Shipping?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am glad to say that, since the trial of that action, the Shipping Controller has received from the liner owners, very widely indeed, assurances that the former undertaking they arrived at with him will be adhered to, and there will be therefore no difficulty in carrying on the very important business of running ships in the national interest.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Will the hon. Gentleman say who is to fix the rates of freight charged to exporters and importers?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: The general policy pursued by the Shipping Controller is to make the freights cover the cost of running the ships. So far as the Department is concerned, it has endeavoured to fix such freights as will cover the cost, and nothing more.
    Mr HOLT: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that the Ministry of Shipping will not put the rate of freight above the figure agreed by the shipowners, as are likely to cover expenses without giving a profit?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I have already given the House a most complete assurance that the Shipping Controller desires to do nothing more than to carry the goods required by this country at cost price.

    COMMODITIES PURCHASED ABROAD.
    Mr. LOUGHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount now outstanding for commodities purchased abroad on behalf of the Government which have not yet been received in this country?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: This information is not available in the Treasury, and could only be obtained by reference to the several Departments concerned. I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to undertake the labour of compiling a return.
    Mr. LOUGH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the amount was more or less than seventy-four millions in respect of these purchases, and will he consider the policy of bringing the trade into the ordinary channels?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think it would be reasonable to expect a review of that kind, and I am rather surprised at my right hon. Friend, who, with his experience, should know that exceptional steps have to be taken in dealing with matters of this sort.

    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (WAR ADDITION) ACT.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether workmen employed in the service of the Crown receive compensation in the case of acci
    1358
    dent under a scheme which, certified by the Registrar of Friendly Societies in August, 1913, provided that half-pay or the sum of £1 a week, whichever is the least, should be paid during disablement; whether under the Workmen's Compensation (War Addition) Act, 1917, the amount to be paid by private employers has been increased by 25 per cent.; whether he can state for what reason no addition has been made in the amount of compensation payable to workmen in the employment of the Crown; and what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Workmen whose compensation claims fall to be dealt with under the schemes certified by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, are entitled to receive and do receive the same additional payments as those received by workmen whose claims fall to be dealt with under the Act of 1906.

    LAND VALUES.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a deputation recently presented to him a resolution of the Labour Congress demanding the imposition of a tax upon land values; and, if so, can he state the purport of his reply?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As I stated yesterday, the deputation in question was not open to the Press, and I cannot undertake to give an account of it by way of question and answer.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is it not customary for Ministerial replies to be reported to the Labour organisations, and can the right hon. Gentleman say why they should not be. reported to Members of the House?
    Mr. BON AR LAW: It has always been the habit of Ministers to receive deputations openly or privately, and there has been no new departure.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration what is done in Australia in regard to this matter.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Member is asking me to do what I said I would not do—that is, to give an account of the deputation.

    AUSTRALIAN WAR CENSUS ACT.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will have placed in the Library a copy of the Australian War Census Act?
    Mr. HEWINS: Under standing Instructions, copies of Acts passed by the Legislatures of the Dominions and Colonies are sent to the Library of the House of Commons, and, had the hon. Member inquired he would have found that the legislation to which he refers is in the Library already.

    ITALY (GERMAN ANTI-BRITISH PROPAGANDA).
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether steps have been taken to counteract the German anti-British propaganda in Italy and to bring home to the masses of the Italian populace the real truth in regard to any matters which are misrepresented?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the affirmative, and the Director of the Department of Information will be glad to inform the hon. Member privately of what is being done
    Mr. PRINGLE: Are steps being taken by this Department to see that the truth is told about the coal industry?

    GREECE.
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Prince Nicholas of Greece is now in this country?
    Sir G CAVE: The records of my Department show that Prince Nicholas left this country on the 25th October, 1916, and that he has not since returned.

    ALIENS INTERNED.
    Major NEWMANasked the Home Secretary whether he will give the scale of dietary enjoyed by an enemy subject interned in this country and not asked to perform any manual or outdoor labour?
    Sir G. CAVE: The scale has been laid down in Army Council Instructions, following closely the lines recommended by the Food Controller; and it is, I understand, at present under revision.

    SOUTHAMPTON TRADES COUNCIL.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Home Secretary if he will make further inquiries into the fact that, at a meeting of the Southampton Joint Trades Council, held at the Empire Theatre on Sunday, 11th November, called for the purpose of discussing a local labour dispute, to which meeting admission was obtained by the production of a, trade union card, when near the end of the proceedings two persons were discovered in hiding beneath a grand piano in the balcony, and, on these men being taken to the platform, they admitted that they were police detectives, one named Detective-Sergeant Pugh; and will he say by whose instructions these policemen secretly hid in the hall and what was their purpose?
    Sir G. CAVE: I have made further inquiry, and am informed that the two police officers in question were in a box at the theatre in which there was a piano, but were not (as alleged) hiding beneath the piano. They were acting on a general instruction to report any local movement of interest, and were not specifically ordered to attend this particular meeting. I may add that when they were noticed they came voluntarily on to the platform, and their presence there was taken in good part by those present at the meeting.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Seeing that the Home Secretary has admitted the truth of the facts that have been stated several times in questions, will he now say upon what authority he based his previous answers to questions of this kind?
    Sir G. CAVE: I have, on the contrary, reaffirmed my previous answers.
    Mr. ANDERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this meeting was called by the workmen to discuss piece rates. and it was assumed by the intelligent local police that it had something to do with peace propaganda?
    Sir G. CAVE: I am not aware of that. Perhaps I may say that the police have strict instructions not to interfere with meetings connected with trade unions.

    KELLNER-PARTINGTON PAPER PULP COMPANY.
    86, 87, and 88. Major HUNT asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that three months after cotton was

    1361
    declared contraband by Great Britain and her Allies an embargo was placed by Sweden on the export of chemical wood pulp to the Allied nations; whether this embargo was followed by extensive exports of this product at remunerative prices to the munition works of Germany; whether it was there used for manufacturing explosives, for transmission into celluloid for building Zeppelins, for the creation of a product known as wood-flour used in the preparation of high explosives, and for the production of aeroplane cloth and synthetic rubber for the aerial and transport operations of the German Army; whether he has considered that the sum offered by the buying syndicate for the acquisition of the Kellner - Partington Paper Pulp Company can only be made remunerative by extensive trade with our enemies; what steps he proposes to take in this matter; (2) whether the transfer of the Kellner-Partington Paper Pulp Company to one Jans Fredericksen, a barrister, of 46, Kingsway, acting on behalf of certain undiscovered Norwegian and Swedish interests, has in any manner come under his review; whether he can state the total output of chemical wood pulp in 1915 and 1916 respectively from the mills owned and controlled by this company at Klarafors, Deje, Forshaga, and at other places in Sweden and at Borregaard in Norway; and (3) whether he can state who are the persons on whose behalf a Mr. Jans Fredericksen is proposing to acquire a controlling interest in the Kellner-Partington Paper Pulp Company?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I will answer these questions by referring my hon. Friend to the replies given to the hon. Members for South-West Ham and Merthyr Tydvil on Monday and Tuesday last. I have no information regarding the total output of chemical wood pulp in 1915 and 1916, respectively, from the mills which he mentions.
    Major HUNT: Would the hon. Member say whether Fredericksen is of enemy origin, and, in view of the great interest taken in this question, will the Government give an opportunity for discussing it?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I understand that the gentleman in question is a Norwegian subject who has acted for the Norwegian Government. I would remind the hon. Member that there is a balance of national advantage, and it is a great deal more important to the Government at the present time to
    1362
    secure a supply of kroner than that these people should continue to hold this property,
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Can the hon. Gentleman say who was personally responsible for the string of questions opposing this sale?
    Mr.PRINGLE: Was not the British Workers' League, of which the Minister of Pensions is President?
    Mr.BALDWIN: I will ask him.
    Mr.BUTCHER: Who are the persons on whose behalf this man Fredericksen is purchasing these properties
    Mr. STANTON (replying to an interruption): You shut up, you have too much to say'.
    Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members ought not to intervene in the manner of the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. STANTON: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I can overhear these people, if you cannot, and I know what they are saying.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not make disorderly interruptions.
    Mr. BALDWIN: We have been assured by the Norwegian Government that the purchase was made on their behalf.

  NATIONAL SERVICE

    MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. TIMOTHY DAVIESasked the Minister of National Service the number of men of military age employed in his Department; whether he will state the number employed, respectively, on secretarial, clerical, technical, and general work; and whether he has satisfied himself that some of those men would not be more successfully employed with His Majesty's military or naval forces?
    The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir Auckland Geddes): The number of men of military age employed at the Ministry of National Service is 133, of whom ninety-five have either served in the Army in this War, or have been rejected and discharged from the Reserve as totally and permanently unfit. Three of the staff, although of military age, are excepted from the provisions of the Military Service Acts. Of the remaining thirty-five, only

    1363
    three are physically fit, and these are permanent civil servants of senior grade, whose services I propose to retain. The remainder without exception are of lower category.

    WESTERN FRONT (BRITISH ADVANCE)
    Mr. KENNEDY JONES (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether the Government, as representing the House of Commons, intend to send a message to Sir Douglas Haig, congratulating him and the officers and men of His Majesty's Forces on their splendid achievement in the most recent offensive on the Western Front?
    Mr. BONAR LAW:I received notice, by telephone, of my hon. Friend's intention to put this question. I understood the meaning to be that the House should pass a. Resolution, which I should not have thought was wise, in the circumstances. There is, however, very little doubt that the Cabinet will send such a message as is suggested, though I really am quite sure that neither Sir Douglas Haig nor Sir Julian Byng need Resolutions to assure them of the admiration of this country for their gallant deeds.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Prime Minister is being kept informed of these happenings on the " impenetrable barrier of the Western Front?

    COAL MINES.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLARasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department the number of collieries in Scotland in which committees of miners have been formed to assist in the better working of the mines during the war, and also in the enlistment of miners; and if he can state the results obtained in Scotland through the action of these committees?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): I am informed that very few committees of this kind were formed in Scotland-where the record in respect of absenteeism was particularly good-and that any which have been set up have for some time past suspended action. As the hon. Member is aware, a good deal of short time is being worked.
    Mr. MILLARasked whether any arrangements have been made for the provision of baths for miners at the pit-head under the provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1911; and in how many districts such baths have been provided?
    Mr. BRACE: I am not aware of any cases where baths have been installed under the provisions of the Act, but several instances have been reported where baths have been provided under other arrangements.

    WAR CABINET (SECRETARIAT).
    Mr. T. DAVIESasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the number of men of military age who are employed as secretaries or clerks to the War Cabinet; and whether he will give their names and salaries, also the names and salaries of personal secretaries of each member of the War Cabinet who are of military age?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to the first part of the question is eighteen, of whom nine are fit for general service. Of these nine, six are officers on the Active List who have been lent to the War Cabinet Secretariat for special duties. The decision whether Government servants should remain in their present employment or be called up for military service rests in these, as in other cases, with the
    Minister of National Service, and I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by giving the information asked for in the second part of the question. As the gentlemen referred to are retained in their positions in many cases much against their own wishes, nothing, I think, would be more unfair than to publish their names.
    Mr. HOGGE: In view of the fact that there are these men in this Department, and in other Departments, will the Government give over recalling, under the Review of Exemptions Act, disabled men who have already served, until some of these other men have served once?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Gentleman ignores the whole question. These men are kept, not by reason of any favour to them, but because it is thought that they will be more useful where they are. [HON. MEMBERS " Question ! " and " Tell that to the Marines!"] I may add that the

    1365
    scarcity of experienced Civil servants is so great that the Departments are now pressing the War Office to return some of them.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Can the Prime Minister not get a secretary capable of running the Press who is over military age?

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (DIVISION).
    Mr. GERSHOM STEWART: May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that in the Parliamentary Papers of to-day the Division List gives 208 names as voting in the " Aye " lobby, whereas the return given by the Tellers was 209? I find my name omitted, and may I appeal to you to have the record amended. I voted in the " Aye " lobby.
    Mr.SPEAKER: If the hon. Member will communicate with the Clerks of the Table, the correction will be made.

    National School Teachers (Ireland)
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary whether, as the assistant teachers in Dublin national schools have at present full capitation of £8 15s. and bonus of £9 in addition to their grade salary, and as it was bound to become the established rule of the Commissioners of Irish National Education, who know the needs of Irish elementary education, that Grade 2 should be thrown open to assistants, thus bringing their total earnings to £131 per annum in the near future, he will explain in what way the new Grant is of any material advantage, either at present or in the future, to those teachers?
    Mr. DUKE: I would refer the hon. Member to my replies to his questions on the 23rd October and the 8th November.
    Mr. DILLONasked the Chief Secretary how many teachers have been specially promoted to first-of-first grade since the increase in standard numbers in 1913; how many of these were of the paper-promoted teachers of the previous years; how many claims for special promotion to first-of-first grade were left in abeyance in 1915 because the standard numbers in the grade were again almost filled; how many paper-promoted were among this number; will the claims of such teachers owing to
    1366
    loss of service be considered under the forthcoming new rules; and will he also state whether any Irish teachers, other than the paper-promoted, have suffered loss of salary or service either before or since the period of paper-promotion through the operation of the standard numbers rule?
    Mr. DUKE: I am informed that 105 teachers have been specially promoted to first-of-first grade since the increase in the standard numbers in 1913; that 14 of these teachers were among the paper-promoted teachers of previous years; that 29 claims for special promotion to first-of-first grade were left in abeyance in 1915, including six paper-promoted teachers. It is not proposed to make any exception in favour of the paper-promoted teachers under the new proposals. It is a fact that some teachers would have received special promotion to the first grade but for the restriction with regard to the standard numbers.
    Mr. SCANLAN: Why are these teachers, the most efficient in Ireland, whose agitation gained an extension of the standard numbers, penalised because their efficiency and length of service have brought them to a certain point in their professional careers? Why are they not given an increase?
    Mr. DUKE: They are not given an increase because the conditions of their service at the time in question do not admit of it.
    Mr. SCANLAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to penalise them by depriving them of the increase to which their qualifications and length of service entitle them?
    Mr. DUKE: No. You penalise person when you deprive him of something to which he is entitled, as I understand it. Under the conditions of service on which the Board of Education engaged these teachers they were not entitled to certain payments which have been claimed on their behalf. We do not penalise them by not giving them those payments.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. FitzPATRICKasked the Chief Secretary on what ground the Local Government Board have disallowed an old age pension granted by the local pension committee to John Byrne, of Colt, Abbeyleix?
    Mr. DUKE: This claim is at present being investigated.

    Houses of Parliament Employes(Uniform).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the First Commissioner of Works whether it is the usual practice to supply uniforms to the men working about the Houses of Parliament free; is he aware that one man classed as a gatekeeper is being stopped Is. a week to pay for his uniform; and why an exception is being made in this case?
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): The answer to the first question is in the affirmative. It is not correct to say that ls. a week is being stopped from the gatekeeper's wages to pay for his uniform. Under the terms of the award of the Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the war bonus must be based on the ordinary remuneration, which is deemed to include the value of uniform. The value of the gatekeeper's uniform is estimated at ls. a week, and this brought his total emoluments up to 31s. a week. His bonus under the award was therefore 4s. a week instead of 5s., at which amount it would have been granted had his total emoluments not exceeded 30s. a week.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Is the same sytem of calculation adopted with regard to the other members of the staff?
    Sir A. MOND: Yes, I believe so.

    Prison Administration (Progressive Stage System)
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the value attributed by the governor of Portland Prison to the effects of the progressive stage system in promoting good conduct and industry, and relieving the oppression and discontent which was formerly noticeable as the result of a long and monotonous sentence unrelieved by change of treatment; and whether, in view of this fact, steps will be taken by the Prison Commissioners to introduce any similar system into ordinary prisons, especially in the case of prisoners sentenced to one or two years' hard labour?
    Sir G. CAVE: There is already in force in local prisons a progressive stage system which covers the first four months of the sentence. It is not carried further because
    1368
    of the shortness of the sentences, the average sentence being less than six weeks. Less than 1 per cent. of the prisoners are detained for more than twelve months, and in those cases the monotony of the sentence is varied for those whose conduct is good by the employment assigned to them, by relief from supervision, and in other ways.
    Mr. HARVEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the carrying of the system further in the case of one- and two-year sentences, since, although they may not be numerous, the matter is a very serious thing for the prisoners?
    Sir G.CAVE: As I have stated in my answer, some alienation is already given in these cases, and I do not think it is necessary to go further.

    Serum Laboratory, Dublin.
    Mr. FIELDasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Grant passed for the establishment of a serum laboratory in Dublin has not been paid; whether he is aware that the delay in advancing the money has delayed the application of a preventive which, judging from results elsewhere, would have saved loss from swine fever, a contributory cause to the high price of pork and bacon; and whether he is prepared to take action in the matter?
    Mr. DUKE: I have been asked to reply, and I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to his question on the subject on the 29th October.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

    SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.
    That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolutions to which they desire the concurrence of the Commons:

    1. That, in order that each House of Parliament may have immediate knowledge at first hand of statements made in the other House in times of national emergency, it is desirable that the privilege of being present at Debates. by long custom accorded by each House of Parliament to the Members of the other House, should not be withdrawn on the occasion of any Secret Sitting.

    1369

    2. That, when an Order is made in this House for a Secret Sitting, notice thereof shall be sent to the other House, and that any Member of the House of Commons present in this House when a Secret Sitting is about to begin, or seeking admission during the sitting, shall, notwithstanding any Order for the withdrawal of strangers, be invited to remain so long as he shall think fit during the sitting.

    3. That a Message be sent to the House of Commons communicating the foregoing Resolutions, and recommending that, if that House shall concur in the first of these Resolutions, an Order of that House, in terms similar to those of the foregoing second Resolution, might be made.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask the Leader of the House what business will be taken next week?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: On Monday, Wednesday, and, if necessary, Thursday, we propose to take the Representation of the People Bill;
  On Tuesday, the Coal Bill.
  Mr. KING: When will the Report stage of the War Aims Committee be taken?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot give any day.
  Mr. KING: It will not be next week then, will it?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope it may.
  FRIDAY SITTING.—Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do sit To-morrow." —[.Mr. Bonar Law.]
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I understand that the House is to be asked to sit to-morrow in order to consider the National Health Insurance Bill. This is an extremely important Bill which, amongst other things, adds considerably to the charges on the National Fund. A considerable sum of money is involved, but it is impossible to ascertain what the exact sum may be. Therefore, in those circumstances, I would ask the Leader of the House whether he does not consider that Friday is not an opportune day to discuss a measure of such magnitude and one involving large financial considerations; and whether he will not reconsider his determination, and take the Bill upon a day when the majority of Members can more conveniently be present? Friday is a very inconvenient day for a very large number of Members when the House is not sitting regularly on Friday. If the House always sat on Friday, I quite admit Members ought to make their arrangements to fit in with the sitting of the House, but if the House does not sit regularly on Friday it is very difficult for Members to arrange their ordinary affairs accordingly. When a Bill is not of very great importance there might be something to be said for meeting on a Friday, but as this Bill is of very considerable importance, and also in view of the fact that at the pre-
  1406
  sent moment there ought to be a proper and due consideration of every measure which deals with finance, and as this adds considerably to the financial burdens of the country, I hope the Leader of the House will kindly reconsider his determination and not take the Bill to-morrow.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am afraid it is impossible for me to do that. I do not think there is anything in a Friday which makes it more unsuitable for the discussion of financial questions than any other question, but I do recognise in the speech of my right hon. Friend that he probably will not be able to attend. That I greatly regret, but I do not think that in itself s enough to make it necessary to upset all the arrangements.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.
  As amended, further considered.
  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.

    CLAUSE 17.—(Modification of Method of Voting in Certain Constituencies.)
    (1) If at an election for one Member of Parliament there are more than two candidates, the election shall be according to the principle of the alternative vote as defined by this Act.

    (2) At a contested election for a university constituency, where there are two or more members to be elected, any election of the full number of members shall be according to the principle of proportional representation, each elector having one transferable vote as defined by this Act.

    (3) His Majesty may by Order in Council frame Regulations prescribing the methods of voting, and transferring and counting votes. at any election, according to the principle of the transferable or of the alternative vote and for adapting the provisions of the Ballot Act, 1872, and any other Act relating to Parliamentary elections thereto, and with respect to the duties of returning officers in connection therewith; and any such Regulations shall have effect as if they were enacted in this Act.

    (4) Nothing contained in this Act shall, except as expressly provided herein, affect the method of conducting Parliamentary elections in force at the time of the passing of this Act.

    Adjourned Debate resumed on Amendment proposed [21 st November]: At the beginning of the Clause, to insert, "(1) In a constituency returning three or more members any election of the full number of members shall be according to the principle of proportional representation, each elector having one transferable vote, as defined by this Act."—[Mr. Aneurin Williams.]
    Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    4.0 P.M.
    Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS: I am very sorry to have to claim further the indulgence of the House in order to complete the case that I was putting forward against this ill-timed Amendment. I have dealt with the point as to the wastage of the large and complicated work done by the Boundary Commissioners, and the new work that will be put upon them, which was cheerfully outlined last night by the hon. Member who, moved this Amendment. I also dealt with the case of London, which a former Amendment excluded, and which is now to be included as to certain portions of it which are intertwined with other portions of London which are to vote under a different system. But the result, which illustrates better than anything the unhappy position in which the promoters of this Amendment are placed, is that by drafting necessities they have had to confine themselves almost entirely to three-member and four-member constituencies—a class of constituency to which all students of proportional representation know that the system is least applicable. With regard to three-member constituencies, I should very much like to come to grips with that particular question, but I cannot trespass upon the House to the extent of really doing so, and therefore I must confine myself to saying that it will be found that the operation of the single transferable vote in three-member constituencies will be almost exactly the same as the operation of the minority vote under the Bill of 1867, and will involve the same difficulties and objections. The main objection, which was illustrated by that minority system, is that this scheme will undoubtedly open up a tremendous field for the active operations of the caucus.
    I remember when I first came to this House in 1885 that the Birmingham
    1408
    Caucus was a favourite subject of denunciation by my party on public platforms, and it was pointed out how the caucus in Birmingham, and also in Glasgow, 'exercised a rigorous and drastic control over the voters before the election came on, and that only by that means could the Liberal party in Birmingham secure, as they did for many years, the complete representation. It is bound to be so when a party can gain its ends by preparing these preferences and by a careful calculation before the election by a corporate and more or less scientific body which will be the party organisation; and that when that is turned into a weapon to control the freedom of the elector it is rightly called by the opprobrious name of caucus. I think there are eleven three-member constituencies which have been chosen by the promoters of this Bill. With regard to four-member constituencies the case is much clearer, because the operation of this system in those constituencies will result in one of two things— there will be two members on each side, in which case the voice of the constituency will be silent for years in this House, or it will result in three members to one, which is not proportional representation. Those are the prospects which await the three and four-member constituencies.
    I will venture, on the question of three and four-member constituencies, to read to the House a single sentence from a letter I received two days ago from one who has certainly been one of the deepest students of this subject for fifty years—I mean Lord Eversley. I sent him a list of the constituencies affected with the number of members that each will have under the Bill, and he writes me in reply as follows:
    "The case against it for three- and four-member electoral divisions is overwhelming, and I am quite certain that if the promoters were giving evidence on the subject before a Commission or Committee they would be compelled on cross-examination to admit that the scheme cannot even be fairly tried otherwise than in constituencies returning at least five members."
    There remains, therefore, only three constituencies of the twenty-two chosen by the supporters of this Amendment. The main objections I have raised with regard to the caucus apply to these constituencies, and there are many other objections which I cannot take now. I would prefer to turn to the most remarkable feature
    in this Amendment, or rather in the subsequent

    1409
    Amendments to the Schedule, because no mention of it is made in the main Amendment. That is, the failure of the promoters to touch the larger constituencies, which are the very ones to which the advocates of proportional representation have always considered the system most applicable. Lord Courtney — the chivalrous and indefatigable champion of lost causes, and therefore the leading advocate of proportional representation—is, by his evidence before the Royal Commission, in favour of applying it to very large constituencies. He says a three-member constituency would be the minimum; but he would like to create fifteen-member constituencies. Yet that is the very class of constituency which the supporters of this Amendment do not touch. If you look at the consequential Amendments to the Schedule applying the principle, you will see that they carefully avoid such constituencies as Leeds with six members, Sheffield with seven, Manchester with ten, Liverpool with eleven, and Glasgow with fifteen (Lord Courtney's ideal number), which are not touched.
    Then there is the question of the landed interest and farming. That is one more striking omission. I have actually heard it said during the last few days, that this Amendment will help the landed interest and the farmers' industry. But the Amendments do not include county representation. Not a single county is touched. It was a complaint made during the progress of the Bill by many county members that these interests were prejudiced by the Bill, and their representation in this House diminished; yet it is not proposed that proportional representation should come to their assistance, because counties are excluded, and it would be impossible now to include them. I do not for a moment grant that if proportional representation were applied to the counties, it would secure a special representation of those interests. Under the party system the fight will always be between two political parties, and with regard to an odd member party considerations are certain—from past experience—to dominate all others.
    It is obvious then for all these reasons this Amendment embodies a maimed and ill-advised experiment even from the promoters point of view. Moreover, being partial in its application, it is unjust to the electors. It discriminates between different portions of the electorate in a matter in which every elector throughout
    1410
    the country should be on an equality. In a self-governing country, under a Parliamentary system, a man's vote is his most sacred possession. You have no right to tamper with it in this way or to divide up the people and attach to the vote of some quite different powers from those that you give to others.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Marriott) who so ably seconded this Amendment, made many appeals on behalf of proportional representation. He opened his arms very wide and enumerated in turn every party and every section of opinion, and said that each and every one of them is likely to be benefitted by this change. Surely, a miraculous result, as many of those parties are diametrically opposed to each other. I am going to be less particular, but not I hope less comprehensive. I am only going to make two appeals. One, on behalf of the people, to whom we in this House, although our title is long since extinguished by effluxion of time, are still responsible, and who know nothing of all this complicated machinery, have never been consulted about it, and have never given a vestige of opinion with regard to it, but upon masses of whom—arbitrarily selected—we are asked to inflict for no one knows how long, this Chimaera of proportional representation. I spell it with a big C in order to get the accurate definition of the word. The first definition is "a she monster represented as vomiting flames and usually having a lion's head, goat's body and dragon's or serpent's tail."
    The second definition, in painting, is "a representation of a monster with incongruous parts"; and thirdly, "a frightful, vain, foolish, or incongruous fancy, or creature of the imagination."
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: May I ask if the hon. Member is applying that definition to me?
    Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS: To proportional representation, but if the hon. Member desires to give it a personal application, that is his own affair. I appeal also to this House, which is still jealous of its credit and sense of fair play. In the progress of this Bill many of us have had to surrender deep and sincere convictions which we have held for a lifetime. And when we make, or have imposed upon us, a sacrifice of that kind, we want to feel and be sure that something good and wholesome, something

    1411
    fair and just, is coming in return to the country we serve and love. Can that be said to this democracy of ours at home? Can it be said—as my hon. Friend referred to them—to the great democracies of the Dominions who, framing into their new Constitutions the birthright of freedom and self-government that belongs to all men of our race, are still watching and listening to us in this historic Chamber, and who look to the Mother of Parliaments as the model of fair and equal treatment to all. I do not think so. If this great Reform Bill goes forth from this House with this partial and unfair addition to it, it places a blot upon the measure which will remain, no one knows how long, and it will impair the reputation of this House for evenhanded justice and for fair and equitable treatment of the people.
    Colonel Sir MARK SYKES: The House will realise the extraordinary divergence of view that there is upon this particular Amendment, but one of the reasons why I must strongly support it is that I believe it is only if this principle of proportional representation is ultimately carried that there will still be returned to this House persons like my hon. Friend, who has just sat down after pouring such withering scorn upon those who uphold the idea of proportional representation. I should like to submit that in considering the question of introducing proportional representation into this Bill there are two points of view from which we may regard it, namely, either the point of view of past experience of politics in this country, or the point of view of our anticipations of what future politics in England will be like after the War. I know that this is condemned as unnecessary, experimental, rash and complicated. Those are the objections. Of course, all that might be objected to many other points in this Bill, and if the political fabric of this country upon which politics is based—I speak only of politics—were going to be the same in the future as in the past, then one might agree with that. If that great cathedral structure of party politics as it exists now in this country—that magnificent thing, The Carlton Club, the Reform Club, the small Navy party, the compact Irish party, in the constituencies the plural and absentee voter voting either way, and that admirable system which we have had up to now whereby, when
    1412
    distribution Bills begin to get exhausted, one may have a hundred majority in the House and hardly anything like a majority in the country at all—if all that delightful state of affairs were going to continue, well, I am a Conservative, why should I venture to suggest that it should be changed?
    But I do not believe that it is going to continue. I do not believe that the traditional cohorts of Blue and Buff are going to vote Blue and Buff, after this Bill, just as their forefathers voted. I do not think that at all, or that really any Member of this House believes that, in the future, elections—by-elections or general elections—are going to be fought on Eatans-will methods. I do not think that prewar cries are going to be revived. They are as dead as the Dodo. They are gone. This particular Bill, whether with proportional representation or not, has shattered the fabric on which all those cries and ideas were based. Does any Liberal or Conservative imagine, when peace comes. that this country is going to divide itself automatically into two parties, one under the Vicar, the Squire, and Moderate Alcoholic Refreshment, and the other under Reduced Naval Estimates and a Half-way House to Home Rule? All that lumber has been burned in the fire of Armageddon long ago. That being so, we have to consider that we have before us reconstruction, looming vast, immense debts, tremendous dislocation—because one feels that the demobilisation of the Army will be nothing to the demobilisation of the munition workers—women enfranchised on a very large scale, a large number of voters who, perhaps, have not been in this country for a period of months or years, and two moribund political party machines quite incapable of grappling with the situation at all. When this Bill gets the Royal Assent—if it does—we shall pass in a night from Lilliput to Brobdingnag. Therefore, as the change is going to be so gigantic, it is useless to consider past politics. It is in relation to the probable developments of the future that we ought to test whether we are going to support this Amendment or not.
    I want to give two reasons why I personally support it with all the strength of which I am capable. First of all, I feel that proportional representation is the only sure and certain guarantee of a certain propertied element obtaining representation in this House. It is the

    1413
    only honest way in which it can get representation in this House, and it is the only safe way. Anyone who has had experience of elections knows how much the plural voter has counted against those whom he has supported. The plural voter was always a gibe, an injustice, and a grievance. Indeed, every franchise Bill has contained some trick or other to give one class, a certain propertied class, a little pull over the immense and growing mass below. Even in this Bill we have a suggestion of it. There are the cities and the universities. Sooner or later they will become a grievance, and I am sure, if this Bill becomes law, that sooner or later they will go. It may take four, five, or ten years, but sooner or later they will go, and I think the city vote will go first.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I hope not.
    Sir M. SYKES: Indeed, I fervently trust not. It is only my dreadful anticipation. I think also on the new franchise that the small propertied class will be proportionately even smaller that it was in the past, and that in very few constituencies will it be found that they will be able to carry the day. The most advanced democrats will admit, however, that really useful discussion and debate in this House cannot be properly carried on unless that element is properly and proportionally represented. May I put it in this way? Just as in the old pre-war propertied Parliaments the mass of the members represented the propertied classes, and the small block of Labour Members exerted in them influence salutary to the labour world, so in what I anticipate will be the labour post-war Parliaments will the contrary block which will survive under proportional representation exert a similar salutary influence in the opposite direction. I therefore hope that Conservatives particularly will support this Amendment, because I feel, if proportional representation is not included in this Bill, a great deal of water will pass under London Bridge before it is brought up again. I am certain of that, and by that time there will be nothing to replace. There will have been a vacuum which will have been replaced by other elements altogether. I hope, therefore, that Conservative members will not turn this down. I am certain that no Conservative party will ever come, as the Conservative party in Lord Salisbury's days, to unfettered government in this country, but if there is proportional representation, the Conservative forces
    1414
    and mind will have a certain influence in the destinies of this country in every Parliament that is elected afterwards. I put that reason from the party point of view.
    I have one other reason. It is only proposed to apply proportional representation for the moment to cities, though I hope it will be extended right through the country. Education is at its highest in the cities, and civic vitality and self-consciousness are also strongest in the cities. I cannot help feeling that in all great cities—I speak of Liverpool, Hull, and cities that I know—there is a strong city sense of belonging to the city as a whole. Nobody who represents seats in those cities can fail to feel that there is a strong city sense which makes it additionally desirable. There is another reason. In a great city a man unknown to politics—the leader and the thinker—can make himself strongly felt, irrespective of the party machine. Owing to the existence of that city sense he can make himself felt in a city in a way that he cannot elsewhere, and though I said earlier that the party machines were moribund, I think in their place will grow up stronger ones than before. In that case I hope there will be a safeguard, so that the non-party man who impresses himself as a leader of the people may be able to get into this House. That was the old excuse for the party funds. They enabled people to put good men into the House of Commons. There may have been a grain of truth in that. At any rate, under the stress of war we have fallen back on the pocket-borough system in order to get persons like my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Eric Geddes), who in normal times could not bother with the subscriptions, the cajolery, and the general business that candidates have to go through in order to get into this House. Possibly he did not wish to dip his hand so deeply either into his own or the party purse in order to cultivate the tedious social acts and defray the expenses which one has to cultivate and incur in his first apprenticeship to get here.
    But those arts and those expenses will, I believe, count for nothing under proportional representation in large cities. I believe those social arts and the capacity for spending a lot of money in a given district will not count for anything when you come to a city as a whole. No purse is deep enough to warm 500,000 firesides and no mouth is large enough to kiss 30,000

    1415
    [Colonel Sir M. Sykes.]
    babies. It cannot be done. In fact, under proportional representation, Napoleon will beat Mantalini in the cities every time, whereas with a strong party machine behind him and a good manner, rather harsh, brusque, poor and youthful Napoleon, Mr. Mantalini may get in with a very fair majority. To sum up briefly, I would suggest that if the House of Commons in the future is to voice minorities and important minorities, if the House is to be open to independent men who are not particularly tied down to party machines, and if consequently Cabinets are to be open to men of every class in the country, then this Amendment should be supported. On the other hand. to turn it down would be to rivet the chains of the new party machinery that is coming round the necks of the people tighter than ever and would eventually exclude all but professional politicians and leave a valuable, important, and useful portion of the country eventually entirely unrepresented.
    Mr. GILBERT: I rise to oppose the Amendment, and should like to ask the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Mr. A. Williams), the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Marriott), and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who spoke last, why, if they believe that proportional representation is such a wonderful thing and is going to do all they say it will, they do not put down an Amendment which will apply proportional representation to every constituency in the country? This Amendment is one of a series of Amendments put down by the same hon. Members, and, if they are carried, the scheme of proportional representation will be applied only to certain constituencies in London and to certain constituencies in the country. The six hon. Members who are in charge of this particular set of Amendments are the hon. Member for North-West Durham, the hon. and gallant Member for South Birmingham (Captain Amery), the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division (Mr. Anderson), the hon. Member for Haggerston (Mr. Chancellor), the hon. Member for East Denbighshire (Mr. John), and the hon. Member for the Camlachie Division of Glasgow (Mr. Mackinder). These Amendments do not apply to any of the constituencies which they themselves represent. It is the most extraordinary doctrine I have ever heard inside this House or outside it. They come here and tell us all the wonderful things that proportional
    1416
    representation is going to do as regards the constitution of this house in the future. if they are correct, one would have thought that the first thing they would do would be to apply this new scheme to their own constituencies.
    We were told in the Debate last night by the hon. Member for Oxford why we need not circulate the White Paper, which has been issued by the Government and which explains this wonderful scheme, to the electors. His argument seemed a very weak one. If we are going to seek the votes of the electors of this country, at any rate we are entitled to tell them the way in which the votes recorded are going to be counted. I do not think I am misrepresenting the Seconder of the Amendment in saying he admitted last night that the White Paper was a very difficult thing to explain to the electors. I would ask hon. Members to turn to pages 8 and 9 and 10 and 11 of the White Paper. I am. only an ordinary commercial or business man, but I have taken a great deal of interest in politics for a great many years. I thought I understood ordinary electioneering, but I do not think there is anybody in the House who has read pages 8 and 9 and the wonderful mathematical calculations worked out there who. will venture to go down and explain this. system to ordinary working-class electors. so that they can understand it. I can best put that point to the House by giving them the opinion of an hon. Friend of mine. I. asked him what he was going to do on this particular question. He had voted against proportional representation on the first occasion. He told me he was now going to vote for it, because he had had it explained to him, and he now understood what it was. I said, "Will you kindly explain it to me?" He said, "Old chap, I cannot."
    The White Paper contains, in the First Schedule, a facsimile election for a constituency returning five members. There are ten candidates lettered from A. to K. On page 7 they give the result of the election on the first voting, according to which, the candidates returned are A., B., C., D. and E. After eight pages of explanation, calculations, minuses and pluses we come to page 14, at the bottom of which they give the result of this wonderful system of calculating the results of the voting. It is a calculation which, in any ordinary election, where thousands of votes are polled, would delay the announcing of the result by at least two days. At the bottom of

    1417
    page 14, A., B., C. and D. are returned in the final result. They were the four candidates returned at the top of the poll on the first vote. E the last candidate, is not returned, but G., who was seventh on the list, is returned. If that is a fair sample of an election under proportional representation, I would ask the House is it worth while to go to all this trouble in order to muddle the electors of this country? I have supported this Bill loyally all the way through, although it is true I have moved some Amendments with a view to improving it. One of my main reasons for supporting this Bill is that, because of my experience in elections for a good many years, I am a great believer in simplicity of elections. Our present system, under which we put a single X, is very complicated, but I believe that this Bill is going to make our elections very much simpler and easier for the electors to follow. It is because I am strongly opposed to making our elections much more difficult for the ordinary elector, and making it practically impossible for him to follow them, as I believe would be the case if you adopted proportional representation, that I am opposed to this system.
    I have been through a good many elections, both Parliamentary and local, and know the difficulty in large constituencies, even now with the simple method of putting a X, of getting people to vote on the ticket as their particular party wants them to. If we are going to complicate elections by having a series of numbers, as suggested by proportional representation, you will get a good many of the electors in a most awful tangle, and they will not know how to vote at all. Take a constituency returning five members. The probability is that in the future, if the three existing parties still fight, there will be five candidates from each of those parties—that is, fifteen strong party candidates. Then our Friends who are in favour of proportional representation are very keen on getting all kinds of minorities represented in this House. That means that at this election you are going to invite all kinds of minorities, with their particular cries, to put forward a candidate. You may have five candidates representing various classes of minorities. That means that there will be at least twenty candidates, and the ordinary elector will have to go into the polling booth and mark his preferences, 1, 2, 3, 4,
    1418
    and 5. I do not know whether hon. Members have had anything to do with local elections in wards where six, seven, or eight candidates have been run, and two or three parties have been fighting the election, and have seen the voting paper containing eighteen to twenty candidates. If so, I am sure they will agree with me that if you have a long list like that you will have the uttermost confusion in voting at any future election.
    I am a London Member and am particularly interested in this question from the London point of view, therefore I hope the House will permit me to put the London case on this Amendment. This Amendment and the other consequent Amendment deal with eight London boroughs, or twenty nine London divisions. We have sixty-one London divisions under the Bill, sixty returning single members and the City returning two members The supporters of the Amendment pick out two or three parts of London, representing twenty-nine divisions, to which they propose to apply proportional representation. On behalf of London—I certainly speak for the great majority of my own party in London and I think I am voicing also the views of the opposite party in London— I say we are bitterly opposed to this piecemeal system of dealing with London. May I give an example? One of the divisions with which they propose to deal is the borough of Camberwell, which will return four members. Surrounding Camberwell are three divisions, Bermondsey, Deptford, and Lewisham, where proportional representation will not apply. Hackney is one of the divisions to which they propose to apply proportional representation. Surrounding Hackney are Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and Bow, in none of which proportional representation will apply. In St. Pancras they propose to have proportional representation; in Hampstead, Marylebone, Finsbury, and Holborn, which surround it, they do not propose to have that system applied. In Stepney they propose to apply it, but at Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Bow and Bromley it is not to be applied. I ask this House to deal with this question on a businesslike footing, and I suggest most respectfully that to apply this system to a county like London, where you have divisions next door to one another—where you have constituencies next door to each other, it is ridiculous, it is even worse than that, because you are going to have one form of election in one particular

    1419
    patch of London and another form of election in the divisions immediately surrounding that patch. The hon. Member who proposed this Amendment last night (Mr. A. Williams) stated that they were trying to carry out the original resolutions of Mr. Speaker's Conference. But to my mind their Amendment does nothing of the kind. I will read paragraph 16 of the Report of the Conference. It is as follows
    "Where there are contiguous boroughs which, if formed into a single constituency, will be entitled to return not less than three or more than five members, it shall be an instruction to the Boundary Commissioners to unite such borough in a single constituency."
    But this Amendment and the subsequent one say nothing of that kind. On the previous occasion on which we discussed proportional representation, it was quite understood that, so far as London was concerned, these one and two-member boroughs, if proportional representation .was carried, were to be joined together in order to make, three, four, or five-member constituencies. As, however, the promoters of this movement propose nothing like that, I want to suggest to the House that they are not carrying out the suggestion of Mr. Speaker's Conference, and to apply this patchwork system of election to the great county of London is a very wrong thing to do. May I put it in quite another way? In London we have other elections besides Parliamentary elections, and one of the points we are fighting for, as far as London is concerned, in this Bill is that all electoral divisions should be the same for local as well as for Parliamentary elections. We had in London before the War every three years a county council election, and in many of those county council elections the interest was second only to that which was taken in Parliamentary elections. But it is not proposed to apply this proportional representation scheme to county council elections; neither are you proposing to apply it to borough council elections or to elections of Poor Law guardians. It is only to be applied to certain parts of London for Parliamentary elections, and I suggest that nothing could be more absurd if you want to simplify voting and get the voter to understand who and what he is voting for. Nothing could be worse if you want to get him interested in all elections, and you will only prevent him voting if you are going to have this farcial system of elections in this great county of London.
    1420
    I hope the House will agree that, as far as London is concerned, it shall not be experimented upon in this patchwork way proposed in the Amendment before the House
    The objection applies not merely to London. There are surrounding it various county divisions; some are quite urban in their character, and with the exception of West Ham, there is not a single proposal in this Amendment that they are to come under this scheme. Again I suggest to the House, it is quite absurd, where you get divisions so contiguous to each other in London itself, and such a close connection between London and the county divisions in the Home counties that you should apply proportional representation to certain divisions and retain the old system of elections in the other divisions. I am not, of course, entitled to speak for provincial members. But if one looks at the series of Amendments on the Paper, it seems that the Movers have adopted the same policy with regard to provincial towns as they have for London. They propose to apply proportional representation to Bradford and not to Leeds.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: I am sure my hon. Friend would not wish to misrepresent us. I explained very fully last night—I do not know whether he heard my speech —that we had no desire whatever to exclude Leeds, but we could not put Leeds in the Schedule because we had not the required materials, and it would be for the Boundary Commissioners to supply them. We ask for proportional representation as recommended by Mr. Speaker's Conference, and to carry that out we put down such Amendments as were in our power.
    Mr. GILBERT: I am a new Member of this House, but I am informed that the right way, if our hon. Friends are keen on getting proportional representation for these various divisions, would have been to have moved the Bill be recommitted, in order to deal with the matter. I think I am not unfair when I say I can only deal with the Amendments which appear upon the Paper. I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's interruption. The hon. Member for North-West Durham, perhaps, will tell us how he proposes to deal with these questions? His Amendment deals with Bradford, but there is nothing affecting Leeds, and he did not tell the House last night how

    1421
    he proposed to deal either with Leeds or Liverpool or Manchester or Sheffield or Glasgow. There is no Amendment down on the Paper dealing with these large towns, and I am not unfair or unjust in only dealing with what appears on the Paper. Perhaps subsequent speakers will tell us why, if it is proposed to deal with Edinburgh, it is not proposed to deal with Glasgow: why the system is to apply to Salford and not to Manchester? There is no Amendment on the Paper dealing with Manchester or Liverpool, but there are Amendments dealing with Bradford, Bristol, Hull, Leicester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Salford, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, Cardiff, and Edinburgh. There are none on the Paper dealing with Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield or Glasgow, and I fail to understand how it is proposed to deal with those places when there is no Amendment on the Paper at the present time enabling that to be done.
    We heard last night a very strong appeal that this system of proportional representation should be carried out. The hon. Members who spoke in favour of it were very anxious we should have a proper Parliament, and they suggested that in order to get a proper Parliament minorities ought to be represented in this House. I am only a new Member of this House. Before I came here I was a strong believer in party government. I am now a still stronger believer in it than I was before. As far as the country is concerned, I do not believe you are going to benefit it by cutting up the membership of this House into a number of groups as is done in the French Parliament, or as was the case in the German Reichstag before the War. Such a thing does not make for a strong and stable Government. I am a believer in strong party Government, and that is one of the reasons I have for opposing proportional representation.
    As far as London is concerned, we are strongly opposed to the application of proportional representation to it, and we shall fight strongly to have London excluded from the scheme if it is carried by the House. We believe that if it is applied to London you are going to create huge and unwieldy boroughs, which will be so enormously expensive for candidates to fight that it will result in voters voting blindly for a number of
    1422
    candidates who, in consequence of the size of the constituency, it will be quite impossible for them to know. We believe it would make it impossible for a Member to know his own constituents or even a small part of them. We believe that by destroying that feeling it will cause a lack of interest and enthusiasm among the electors. We believe that it will encourage street candidatures. We believe it will involve so very large an expenditure in the candidature for five-member constituencies that no man of moderate means, unless he is run with a number of colleagues, will be able to bear the burden. We believe it is so involved that it has been necessary to issue a White Paper of twenty pages in order to explain the system to the Members of this House. For all these reasons, I strongly oppose the Amendment. I shall vote against it, and shall do all I can to prevent the system, if it is adopted, being applied to London.
    5.0 P.M.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Frederick Smith): The House has been kind enough to listen to me on more than one occasion when I have endeavoured to present my views on this question, and 1 therefore shall not trespass on its indulgence for more than a very few moments to-night. The arguments which are used against this proposal always seem to me to bear a very close resemblance to those which in the old days were used against the Daylight Saving Bill. In the early stages of that movement, when the late Mr. Willet, who rendered incomparable services, with very little recognition, brought his proposal before the House, I was one of the first to support it. It was never debated in this House without forty or fifty most ingenious Members being able to demonstrate by far more than ,forty or fifty arguments, that the whole thing was unworkable, that it could not be understood, and that if it were adopted it would be a great national misfortune. Nevertheless, it has been adopted without the slightest friction or difficulty.
    When we come to deal with the question of proportional representation, it is assailed, as it has been by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, with a great variety of arguments. In fact, I think I counted no fewer than fourteen distinct arguments in the creed which he recited before he sat down, every sentence

    1423
    of which began with the words, "we believe." I do not propose, however, to analyse those sentences, or go into any detail at all. I shall address myself in the very few words I have to say to the questions which the hon. Member addressed to the supporters of this proposal. More than once in his speech he asked how it was possible to justify the present artificial limitation of our proposal. He asked how it could be said to be right to select certain boroughs and to leave out other boroughs. He asked us to explain why it was to be applied only to five-member constituencies, and why in London an arbitrary selection was being made of twenty-nine divisions for the experiment, while others were to be kept out. My hon. Friend appeared to think that this was a legitimate kind of argument to put forward. He further asked: "Why don't you recommit the Bill?" I think that those in favour of proportional representation are entitled to make this reply:" We must deal with the practical situation as it exists." No one can ask at this stage that this Bill should be recommitted, and I can imagine what the hon. Member would have said if we had come forward with such a proposal. My hon. Friend knows, as I think everybody in the House knows, that if those who are in favour of proportional representation could have their way they would sweep away the old system altogether. I do not believe there is a single supporter or proportional representation in this House who, if he could have autocratic power in this country, would not make a clean sweep of the old system of election and substitute for it proportional representation, and it is only because we desire to be in accord with the recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Conference, and because we see that therein lies our only chance of success here, that we have put our proposal in the form we have done. Yet we are told we are illogical, because we do not go further. I say, with great respect, that it is a grossly unfair argument to address to those in favour of proportional representation, and if he puts in, or in another place they put in, Amendments which go very much further, the opposition to those Amendments will not come from the supporters of proportional representation. I can imagine the attitude of our opponents if we had come
    1424
    and introduced Amendments which would have had the result of introducing proportional representation into every great borough in this country, and what would have been their speeches. They would have been the same. They would have said: "You are attempting a most gigantic experiment on a scale which, if it fails, will fling the whole of our electioneering machinery into confusion, the disastrous results of which no man can foretell." If you bring forward a small measure you are illogical, because you do not extend it, and if you bring forward a large measure you are rash, because you have not, in the first instance, tested it on a small scale. Let us at least get sincerity of argument on merits, and not arguments of that kind.
    The hon. Gentleman dwelt largely upon the supposed inability of the opponents of proportional representation to understand it. I think they do their intelligence grave injustice. I have never been greatly impressed by the difficulties which are put forward, and I would point this out to the hon. Gentleman. He has told us—and I have no doubt with complete truth, in fact, I have every reason to suppose it to be the case—that he has studied electioneering matters for many years, and I understand that on the London County Council he has had long experience of such matters, and of public and administrative affairs generally. I know, at least, that he has had recent Parliamentary experience, that he has very rapidly arquired familiarity with our customs and rules here, and therefore I may take it that he is more than an average intelligent Member of this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am sure he will not dispute it; and it is really to be put forward with gravity that a Member of this House of more than the average intelligence of Members of this House is incapable of understanding a system under which the peasants of Sweden have successfully and intelligently voted in the past few weeks, and as a result of that election have arrived, by universal admission, at a far more exact expression of the Swedish national will than the Swedish nation has ever given in the whole course of its existence? I will not do the hon. Gentleman the injustice of believing that the Australian squatter and the Swedish fisherman are capable of understanding and voting under a system which he, with that long experience of which he has told us this afternoon, is wholly

    1425
    incapable of grasping. The argument is unworthy. It might he worthy of the attention of intelligent men, or it might be capable of imposing on intelligent men, if it had the advantage which the opponents of dayight saving had. They had the great advantage that daylight saving had never been tried, and therefore their abstract, dogmatic, and speculative arguments had some force; but here it has been tried, and the onus is imposed on those who tell us it cannot be understood, and that it is impracticable to explain to us how it is that it has been understood and carried out in the ever-increasing area in which it is operating to-day. The hon. Gentleman made some great complaint as if London suffered under some special hardship. London is in exactly the same position as any other part of the country. It is being proposed in this Amendment that London should be exposed to a partial experiment, partial not at the desire, as I have explained, of the supporters of proportional representation, but partial because of the opposition which has been put up to any wider proposal. What would be the result upon London supposing proportional representation were supplied as a whole—because I would always rather discuss it on the wider basis? It is sometimes said that you will disfranchise these places because half the Members of Parliament who will be returned will represent one party and nearly a half will be returned representing another party. What is important is that you should have in this House as the voice of London an accurate expression of the views of London. That is far more important than anything else. I can understand the merits of representative systems. There is much to be said for a system that is neither representative nor democratic, there is far more to be said for a system that is both representative and democratic, but there is nothing at all to be said for a representative system that does not represent; and that is the system under which we are living.
    Sir F. LOWE: May I point out that London is now very adequately represented, and that there are sixty-one memers altogether, thirty-two Unionists and twenty-nine Liberals and Labour?
    Sir F. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right, but will he carry his historical research back a little and inform me how many Unionist Members there were in London in 1906, and what the membership in this House was compared
    1426
    with the admitted Unionist vote for the whole of London? You must not take exceptional periods to test these matters. The truth of the case is that where there are great upheavals of public opinion those upheavals are generally about three times more violent than they ought to be in representation in this House. That is undisputed, and no one has ever attempted to deal with that point. I have listened to this Debate for a considerable period, and have never heard one Member contend by argument that any argument could be brought forward to justify the fact that Wales should not have a single Unionist member. There is an immense Unionist electorate and population in Wales.
    Sir F. LOWE: Apply it to Wales.
    Sir F. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman there uses an argument which, if I may say so, is really typical of the attention which is paid to this proposal by those who oppose it. If what he says means anything it means that he admits that there are many parts of the country in which you cannot secure accurate representation unless you adopt proportional representation, and because he does not live there he says, "apply it to Wales" We want to apply it in every part of the country where it ought to be applied. The invitation to apply it to Wales carries with it the admission that it ought to be applied to all parts of these Islands. Let me add that I have always taken the strongest possible view that the immensely valuable proposals of Mr. Speaker's Conference depended upon a delicate equipoise, very easily upset. I attempted, on the Committee stage of this Bill, to persuade the House that they run a great risk if, when a matter of this importance has received the same care and the same deliberate examination as the other proposals which were considered by Mr. Speaker and his Conference, they arbitrarily select one subject included in those recommendations and pass it by while retaining the rest; and I have never concealed my view that a mistake was made when this subject was removed from the class of subjects which the Government as a whole invited the House to accept. The view which I then expressed, and the apprehensions I expressed, received a very striking illustration last night. What happened? A number of my hon. Friends, apprehensive that the area in which the plural vote

    1427
    would make itself effective was largely increased by the refusal of the Government to adopt proportional representation, made a most resolute attempt to defeat that part of the Bill by an Amendment; and let me remind the House that it was not only a resolute attempt but very nearly a successful attempt. The Government Whips were applied, and the Government as a Government of course voted in the Lobby on behalf of their own decision. Even so, the Amendment was only defeated by a majority, I think, of some twenty or thirty. What the result would have been to the Bill if that Amendment had been carried against the Government I do not know or pretend to know, but no one would deny that if the Amendment had been carried it would have greatly endangered the fortunes of the Bill. The truth of the matter is that when you are adopting proposals with one of which every one of us quarrels, and with more of which many of us quarrel, and when it is put forward and recommended as the decision of a compromise, you are running most incalculable risks the moment you separate from the composite scheme one part in regard to which many have surrendered their objections because they want another part. I have supported this proposal for years, and I shall do so whenever I have the opportunity upon this broad ground. I do not know, nobody knows, what will be the nature of the politics which will follow the conclusion of peace. No one knows what formidable proposals will be put forward by the electors, and how wild will be the reaction of the War. We cannot to-day in any way measure or calculate it. All I know is that we shall need all the sobriety and sanity of which we are capable in the immense devastations of treasure and economic wastage which will follow this War, and in the revolutionary demands that may be made in all ranks of life. Of this I am sure, that we shall deal with the situation which will be created better, and in a way more worthy of the intelligence of the nation as a whole, if we have a House of Commons that exactly represents, not this section or that section, but the sense, numerically measured, of the nation and community as a whole.
    Sir THOMAS WHITTAKER: I venture to say that it is too late to-day to claim in support of this Amendment the recom-
    1428
    mendations of the Speaker's Conference. They have been varied far too often and too much, and I would remind hon. Members that the Second Reading of this Bill was adopted on the distinct understanding that this question and one other were to be left to the House. To attempt to press the Conference in view of that arrangement of the Government is really not quite fair. In the, concluding words of his speech the Attorney-General really covered ground similar to that which was covered by the hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Colonel Sir Mark Sykes), and that is that fear is one of the reasons why whenever we have an extension of the franchise there are schemes proposed for securing the representation of minorities. It simply means that Members on various sides desire to devise schemes by which they can get stronger representation of their views and weaker representation of their opponents views by some other method than the ordinary rule of the majority. My view is that as a rule they will be disappointed in their schemes. These devices, practically gerrymandering devices, as a rule fail. The real truth is that proportional representation is a scheme for hamstringing majorities. We have been asked how we are going to embark upon an uncharted sea. I hope we shall embark on that uncharted sea with strong Governments, with substantial majorities behind them, capable of giving effect to their view, and shall not have our legislation so chopped about and so milk and watered, whichever way it goes, as to be practically of no value. We shall want stable Governments. We are told by the advocates of proportional representation that in 1895 and in 1900 if there had been proportional representation the Government majority would have been two. Fancy Governments with a majority of two talking about stability! That is not the kind of Government with which you want to embark on an uncharted sea, and it seems to me it would be most unfortunate and most dangerous if, in the times before us, we were to have weak Governments, continually liable to be displaced, and all the uncertainties that result therefrom. The fact is that proportional representation means negative results. It means second best opinions and not the best. It glorifies the wobbler, the nondescript and the flabby, and the milk-and-water politician.

    1429
    What about this Motion that we have before us? I notice that the Mover is not one of those who has put forward the schemes which are down as Amendments. He puts forward no scheme. He asks us to buy a pig in a poke, to give a general vote in favour of proportional representation without any idea of what it is going to be. We had a scheme in the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference and the House rejected it. Now they are trying it without a scheme, to catch all stray votes of all kinds, which they know they must lose if they put a definite scheme upon the Paper. Surely it is in vain that the net is spread in sight of the bird. But some of my hon. Friend's colleagues have been rash enough to put a scheme down. It is very possible, and I will assume that it is unintentional, but that scheme is the grossest bit of party gerrymandering that has ever been attempted in this House, and I will prove it. I will assume that it was unintentional, and I am not sure it is not, because it is one of the results of the difficulties in which the advocates of this scheme are placed when they attempt to table a scheme here. And although it may not have been intended, it is none the less unjust and intolerable that a scheme of political gerrymandering like that should be put on the Table of this House. The hon. Member (Mr. Burdett-Coutts) has pointed out that even if you got your scheme you would not get from it the results that you anticipate. No scheme of proportional representation in a constituency of three members can give you the kind of representation of minorities that you talk about. It would certainly be two members of one kind and one of the other at the very best, and in a well organised constituency with a strong vote a strong majority would secure all three, as Glasgow and Birmingham used to do in the old days; and to get two members out of three of one phase of political thought and one of. the other you need not have this complicated system. The old minority vote would give you that, but experience was against it. The same with four-member constituencies. There will be two and two. You will not get the minority represented there beyond the first minority—that is to say, as between Liberal and Conservative the Labour man will be out of it. You have to have five at least if you want to accomplish anything, and there are only two constituencies in which you are to have five members. Talk
    1430
    about getting in the Independent member—you would not get him in. Look at the experience in Tasmania. They got an Independent member in once, and the result was that when they elected the Speaker of the House the two parties were exactly equal, and the Independent member ruled the roost. That is a nice position to be in—for a stable Government to embark upon an uncharted sea! They turned him out the next time, and there was not an Independent member, and for three elections they only got one Independent member in. If we are to have this method we must have it everywhere.
    It may not be an objection that it is partial. It would not be an objection if that partial method proposed were decently fair and just, but it is not. Look at the facts. In England alone we have twenty-nine counties and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, which you may for this purpose count as two more counties—thirty-one—in which there is not a single Labour Member for a single county division, and there is no proposal to apply proportional representation to a single constituency in those thirty-one county divisions. That is the place where you want some if you are to get a representation of the minority. There are twenty-six counties in which there is no Labour Member elected for either a county or a borough. You are not going to give them a chance. It is a most one-sided affair. What is the fact? This is a scheme of gerrymandering, intentional or not. In those twenty-six counties there are 126 Unionists returned, fifty-four Liberals, and no Labour men. In a House where the majority is against the Unionists they have got in twenty-six counties a majority of seventy-two, and there is not a single proposal in this Bill to give minority representation there, where surely it is wanted, if it is wanted anywhere! You are going to apply it to the great industrial districts, the great manufacturing towns; but, curiously enough, it is there where there is the fairest representation now. Take Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. As the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Chamberlain) said when he last spoke, the position of Birmingham was due to a very specially powerful and able man. That position will not always endure. But take Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, two great manufacturing and industrial counties. They return ninety-three

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    Members—forty-five Liberals, thirty-one Unionists, sixteen Labour, and one Nationalist. There is something like a fair distribution there, and it is to those districts that you are going to apply this proportional representation, and not to those twenty-six counties, where there is not a single Labour Member, and where the Unionists are a majority of seventy-two Where it is needed you are not going to apply it, and where it is not needed you are going to apply it. If you want to get representation of the minority it is in these twenty-six counties that you need it. They have indicated that they are willing to omit London. You have a majority in London. In the scheme that they have tabled—and the excuse given for it is a very poor one—they omit Birmingham. Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, and Glasgow. Those cities return eleven Liberals, twenty-two Unionists, five Labour, and one Nationalist. It may not be intentional, but all through this scheme the cities and counties which they omit have large Unionist majorities. The cities which they include, taking them as a whole, have very considerable representation the other way. There are twice as many Unionists as Liberals returned for the cities they omit. The towns they take return twenty Liberal and Labour men against twelve Unionists. Where they stand to win they want proportional representation. Where they stand to lose they do not want it.
    Mr. MACKINDER: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent us, but it has been explained again and again that we could not put down these Amendments in the case of these particular cities because questions were involved which might bring in the Boundary Commissioners. In the other cases there was no such question, and they could be put down.
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: That is a very naïve excuse. The proper way was to move to recommit the Bill; then you could have put them down. I have been giving the figures of the old scheme, which came from the Speaker's Conference and was equally unfair from the party point of view.
    Sir R. ADKINS: Does my right hon Friend mean that they are unfair with
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    regard to the cities or merely because they are not extended to rural England owing to obvious practical difficulties?
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: It means that you are to select for this experiment those particular parts of the country where the representation is least uneven now and where one particular party is in a majority. You are to select those portions and you leave out the similar counties where the other party is in the majority and you do not touch the counties where the inequality is far greater than it is here I do not say it is intentional, but the very difficulty in which the system involves you puts you into that position, and it involves an intolerable injustice and party unfairness. Then the labour and expense of these contests means that the arrangement would be again to the disadvantage of the poor candidate, and this means an increase in the power of the caucus. It means less freedom of free choice for the constituencies. You must have men with money or men who can get money from the caucus. It puts the whole power far more into the party organisation and gives the independent man less chance. Those who have lived any length of time and taken an active part in politics know that minority representation was the mother of the caucus. The caucus came into existence to grapple with the three-member constituency, and it was strengthened again to grapple with the school board difficulty—that is, to engineer the constituencies and to arrange the voting in order to overcome the difficulty of this minority representation. Any such scheme as this which is proposed here would intensify the evil, as I consider it, of the extension of plural voting. Plural voting is to the advantage of one particular party in this country. Either scheme of proportional representation—either the one which was in the original proposal or this one—will intensify that evil by giving to that party a further political advantage. It is unjust and unfair, and, being unjust and unfair, it ought not to be tolerated.
    Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: I think the House may now feel that it has got all the main lines of the argument before it. I do not mean to say that the Debate ought to come to an end, but we have had a comprehensive view of the nature of the arguments on both sides. I think it is a misfortune that my right hon. Friend (Sir T. Whittaker) should really ground himself on what we may call a kind of dialectic

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    and that he should have reverted to the taunt used by the hon. Member for West Newington, which had been so fully exposed by the Attorney-General. That line of argument is that the supporters of proportional representation are not consistent or honest, seeing that they do not dare to apply their scheme to the whole country, but only to selected places. The answer to that has been given twenty times over. We are loyal to the Speaker's Conference. We never dreamed of upsetting the Conference. The hon. Member claimed that he has been a loyal supporter of the Bill. He has not. The opponents of proportional representation have not been loyal supporters of the original Bill. They decided they would accept the Bill, but they determined to upset it in this respect beccause they do not like proportional representation. If we had adopted that plan the Bill would have been wrecked. Suppose we said, "We decline to accept the plural voting arrangement, and we decline to accept the university vote. We will take what we like and we will not take what you want." What answer should we have got? That we were blackmailing. Nothing could be more disloyal to the Speaker's Conference than to say that you will not accept things you do not like and that other people should accept things they do not like.
    It is perfectly certain that if the advocates of proportional representation had proposed at any stage to make the scheme consistent, from their point of view, by making it general, my right hon. Friend would have been among the most violent in denunciation of such a proposal. We accepted what we knew was an inconsistent position. It was forced upon us, but we justified it to ourselves on this view: proportional representation is a great conception, the application of which will be a great change. We can hardly hope in a practical way that the country will come to that view finally, unless it goes a few steps at a time. That is the usual mode of advance in this country with our politics; and yet when we propose to go forward in this guarded and careful way we are told we are inconsistent. I will deal with one or two of the dialectic points raised by my right hon. Friend before I come to the real ground of his opposition, which he shares with the hon. Member for Westminster. The right hon. Gentleman has suggested that this scheme is a first step in a gross measure of gerrymandering,
    1434
    which nevertheless he thought might not be intentional. Then if it is not intentional there is no gerrymandering.
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: Oh, yes.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Does he say that this is gerrymandering?
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: Yes, I do.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Gerrymandering is intentional. Any process that is not intentional cannot be gerrymandering. He might as well tell me that if I jostle against a Member in the Lobby I must have intended to insult him, though it was the purest accident in the world. I repeat, there cannot be gerrymandering if it is not intentional. He says that we are proposing to apply the system to parts of the country in which the Unionists are not in a majority. Therefore, he says, "You are applying it to the advantage of the Unionists."
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: I said you are applying it where Liberals are in the majority and not applying it where Conservatives are in the majority.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: He pointed out that we were willing to give up London. Are the Liberals in the majority there? From the point of view of the advocates of proportional representation, you get under this scheme a more just result in any region you like to take. It does not matter who is in the majority at the time, and there can be no greater proof of our disinterestedness than our willingness to apply it in any district. If the House will only accept the principle we will agree to the selection of any districts in which as nearly as possible you get in one case a majority of one side and in the other case a majority on the other side. There can be no better test of our good faith than that. I think the argument of the hon. Member for West Newington was rather disingenuous. He knows perfectly well that the supporters of proportional representation are trying to be loyal to the lines laid down by the Speaker's Conference, and that we are only seeking to get from the House the minimum which the House ought decently to give us. Let us take another argument from the right hon. Gentleman. He says that the caucus grew out of minority representation; that it grew up in Birmingham in connection, with the system of the minority vote. The minority vote was not proportional representation. It may have

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    been intended to go in in the same direction, but it was a very bad and unscientific attempt. Will the right hon. Gentleman assert that the caucus which began there has not enormously developed since the minority vote system has been thrown aside? The caucus system has grown up all over the country in a far greater degree than it existed under the minority vote system, which in any ease has no element of proportional representation in it. What ground, then, can he have for arguing that the caucus will be made worse by proportional representation?
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: Your side say, "It will destroy and weaken the power of the caucus." I deny that.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Quite so. We do maintain that, and we have given a dozen reasons for thinking so. Is it not one of the best reasons that the party machine on both sides is to a large extent opposed to proportional representation? That was the real reason, as regards London, why the proportional representation advocates were willing to give up London. They were sorry to do so, but they knew that the party machines on both sides in London were against it. Surely the presumption is that if the caucus does not like proportional representation it is not good for the caucus. There may be various reasons, but I can see no ground for drawing the inference that under proportional representation you will have more caucus management when we know that the caucus has spread in a far greater degree than it ever existed when there was a majority vote to manage.
    I will now deal with the right hon. Gentleman's real grounds of opposition. I am sure that the strenuous opposition which he gives is not grounded merely on dialectics about the inconsistency of the supporters of proportional representation. He has a real fear of the results of proportional representation. He thinks they will be bad, and he agrees with the hon. Member for Westminster who last night elaborated the same plea, that if you have proportional representation you will have Governments with no working majorities. Why is he so afraid of it? He told us that is an impossible monster, but his real argument is that it would work in a certain way. He says, "You will have Governments in power with majorities too small for effective legislation." Take the
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    strongest form in which that case might be put. You might get a Parliament elected in which the Government has only a majority of five or ten, a mere handful. As a matter of fact, we have had Governments in power with very small majorities as compared with what we think necessary to-day. We would call a majority of forty-five to-day very inadequate, although a Government with that majority did very important and very valuable legislative work in this country. Let us suppose the worst case, of a Government with a majority of five or six. The right hon. Gentleman would say that that Government came without any adequate backing. If he will grant me that the proportional results would be a truer reflection of the feeling in the country at the given time—
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: No.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: If he does not grant me that, how can he arrive at the conclusion that you will only get small majorities? He got that conclusion by counting actual votes polled. Now he seems to say that he is not even sure that proportional representation will give the result of a Government with a small majority.
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: You will get elections by the second, third, or fourth vote, which does not express the real opinion.
    Mr. ROBERTSON: That is a totally arbitrary assumption. There is no ground for saying that that would not represent the real opinion of the voters. These are devices by my right hon. Friend to get away from the fact that he is afraid of Governments being here with small majorities. He says that what is wanted is stability. I cannot imagine a greater guarantee of stability than that a Government has too small a majority to do any harm. Supposing that did happen once, and you got returned to this House a Government with a majority so small that while it might do very useful administrative work and carry on the ordinary business of the country, it could not initiate schemes of revolutionary legislation either of a destructive kind such as we get from a Conservative Government, or of a constructive kind such as we get from a Liberal Government. Surely that is not a dangerous thing. If the country is not really convinced of the need for vital change, you do not get your majority, and you have to postpone legislation.

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    Take the case of a Liberal Government with a small majority wishing to carry Home Rule: What would happen under proportional representation would be that if the majority were not adequate you would have to let the legislation stand over. The right hon. Gentleman seems to assume that in all these cases the worst of evils will have happened. Does he believe that from the point of view of national stability it is a good thing that legislation should be carried by majorities which do not represent the real feeling of the country? He is determined to have a House of Commons where there will be swings of the pendulum; great majorities which are not represented in the country outside. But one of the incidental results of the view which he takes up is a desire for a second Chamber to prevent the first Chamber from doing the very dangerous things which he insists upon giving them the power to do. He has no real faith in the decisions of democracy. I am willing to stand by them provided only that we test the majority in the fairest and the justest way. The beginning and end of the principle of proportional representation is one of simple political justice.
    I hope that one effect of this War will be to bring home to Members in regard to all questions the profound importance of having some principle of justice as their guide. We are all strong on that subject in regard to the War, Is it not possible to apply the lesson to our home affairs, as well as to our foreign affairs? Is not the nation best founded and most truly progressive that proceeds on the principle of political justice in every act? If my right hon. Friend says that proportional representation is less of a systematic attempt to secure political justice than a system which he avows gives majorities that are not truly representative, then I do not know what he means by political justice. Proportional representation means creating a representative system under which you will have majorities of a strength as nearly as you can get it corresponding with the balance of opinion outside. There could be no better demonstration of political justice under representative machinery than that. My right hon. Friend thinks that you will get political justice by first creating an unreal majority in this House and then having a second chamber to prevent that majority carrying out its wishes. Then you have other devices to guard
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    against the second chamber, and you have many revolutionary schemes to guard against these devices. There is no end to the checks and counter-checks
    Once you get proportional representation on a broad basis applied to elections to this House, this House will become a more stable political institution than it has ever been, and under such a system a great many of the difficulties that have arisen in the past could hardly have occurred. If this House does not represent the country, then it is our bounden duty to make it representative. If you say that the Amendment does not do that, and refuse to give way to that which is an experimental step—a step recommended by the Speaker's Conference, but we know very well that if you begin to work it it will make way—and if you refuse to give way to any of these straightforward, truthful arguments in justification of the Amendment, it seems to me to be resorting to what looks like political chicanery, since it amounts to saying that a system which is ideally just is never to be applied to this country because the country will not take it as a whole, and you will never allow it to be taken step by step. Such a decision would be most unfortunate for this House. After the decision taken last night, I am not very confident of seeing the House guided by the balance of argument or justice. Last night's decision was deplorable under both these heads, but we are not going to mend matters if an equally deplorable decision is taken on this matter of proportional representation.
    Mr. MACKINDER: In reply to remarks made by the hon. Member who spoke on behalf of London, and I think also by an hon. Member opposite, I would like to explain why it is that we have not put down certain consequential Amendments. If this Amendment is carried it should apply to the great cities that have been named, but it would have been improper, even if it had been in order, for us to put down Amendments to affect them at this stage and for this reason. This House has most carefully left the question of boundaries to the Boundary Commissioners. If we had put down Amendments with reference to those great cities, we should have had to group proposed single-member constituencies. In other words, we should then have left ourselves open to the very charge which the right hon. Gentleman endeavours to bring, namely, the charge of gerrymandering. This House has expressly

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    left this matter to the Boundary Commissioners, and even if we had been in order it would have been highly improper on our part to have attempted to get a decision on that matter by putting down a grouping, which we might agree on, of the single-member constituencies. That was the sole reason why they were not put down at this stage. We thought it more respectful to leave the matter for the House to send to the Boundaries Commissioners. I desire also to refer to what is a small matter, but it has a bearing on the larger question. This Horse likes to have practical experience to guide it, and therefore the small case of Tasmania, which has been referred to several times, does become of importance.
    My hon. Friend the Member for the City of Westminster taunted the advocates of proportional representation by saying that they had made use of this case of Tasmania up to a certain point and then they were anxious to drop it. Tasmania has been mentioned several times in the speeches. It appears very frequently in literature which has been circulated to Members of the House on both sides of the question. It seemed to me, after what happened last night, that it was desirable to obtain first-hand information. Therefore I obtained from the Agent-General of Tasmania, Sir John McCall, the facts of the case. I may say that Sir John McCall gave evidence before on this question as to electoral methods, and therefore I feel that it is strictly pertinent to bring that evidence up to date, obtain his present view, and inform the House of the facts as he tells them in regard to Tasmania. In passing I may say that a certain amount of prejudice has been aimed at Sir John McCall on the ground that he was the parent of the Bill of 1907 which gave proportional representation to Tasmania. He informs me that he was not the author of the Bill and did not carry it, and therefore his evidence is not tainted in that particular matter. There have been four General Elections in Tasmania since the Bill was carried. Those four General Elections have given a Chamber representing very closely the actual proportion of votes cast by the electors.
    There are two things in regard to that. First, if your aim is to obtain a Legislature which really represents the people, then on four different occasions that has been accomplished in Tasmania. The second
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    thing is this: If you say that you would have confusion produced in the minus of your electors, then you are saying that a community similar to our own, an Anglo-Saxon community that has gone forth from our own body, is a far more intelligent body than the average of the electors in this country. I do not believe it. I believe that this country has stood most magnificently the tests of recent years, not merely because we have plenty of courage among us, but also because we have plenty of intelligence. At any rate the case of Tasmania is strictly pertinent. It is the case of a community of our own race which has on four successive occasions worked this principle and worked it successfully. On the other hand, we have the fact that on the occasion of the elections to the Federal Parliament there is a system of single-member constituencies. That system is imposed upon Tasmania for the purpose of the Federal election. At the last election, in 1913, the result of working by single-member constituencies in Tasmania, upon which the system is imposed against its will, was that there was a majority of Liberal votes and there was a minority of Labour votes, but the Labour party obtained three seats out of the five, while the Liberal party only obtained two. Forty thousand Liberal votes were cast and won two seats and 37,000 Labour votes were cast and they won three seats. If you could have a more striking object-lesson than the decision in that particular case I find it difficult to imagine it.
    The other argument advanced against proportional representation is that you will obtain weak Governments. I want to bring the test of Tasmania to that argument. The test of a weak Government is that it does weak things. I know no other test of a strong Government than that it does strong things. You may have a Government consisting of very strong men, and it may be weak because it does weak things. My test of a strong Government is a Government that does strong things—accomplishes things which the community wants. What kind of things can the Tasmanian Parliament do? The population of Tasmania is a couple of hundred thousand. That is to say, it is not that of a first-class and hardly that of a second-class city in this country. Moreover, the Tasmanian Parliament is of the third rank of Parliaments in this Empire. Here is the supreme Parliament, but between this Parliament and the Tasmanian Parliament stands the Commonwealth Parliament.

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    All questions of defence and external policy are taken away from the Tasmanian Parliament. The Tasmanian Parliament can only do very limited things. But, testing it by what it has accomplished under those limits, the Tasmanian Parliament, in which the two sides are very evenly balanced, and in which, presumably, you would have a weak Government, has permitted its Government to carry out things that would be considered evidence of very great strength in the case of a municipality of 200,000 inhabitants. For one thing, it has harnessed the water-power of the central mountains of the island with the idea of working the whole railway system, which belongs to the State, by means of water power. Within its limits I say that that was a strong thing and a great thing for the Parliament and Government of a country like that to accomplish, and if you say that it had control of the railways I have only to say this, that a city like Glasgow, which has control of its tramways, has control of a system practically the equivalent of the whole railway system of Tasmania. The facts when I heard them appeared to me to render the case of Tasmania one to which we who advocate proportional representation could point as an instance of what proportional representation has accomplished within the limits under which that country must work. Sir John McCall put this further point. He says that though a majority under proportional representation be small—
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Could the hon. Gentleman give the reference to Sir John McCall's statement?
    Mr. MACKINDER: If the hon. Member wishes, though I do not think that the House would ask it from me, I will read the statement which I hold in my hand, which is signed by Sir John McCall, and is dated to-day. That is my reference. The hon. Member has asked me for it, and I give it.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman in order in reading from something which he pulls out of his pocket, and which he tells us is a statement made by someone else, without producing and reading the document?
    Mr. MACKINDER: I believe that amongst the—
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: On the point of Order, Sir—
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER(Sir Donald Maclean): If he makes a quotation he does so on his own responsibility.
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. MACKINDER: I have made the statement, and I affirm it on my own responsibility. The hon. Member challenged me, and I told him that my responsibility was backed up by this paper in my pocket, signed by Sir John McCall himself, and dated to-day. I may say, further, that this evidence is pertinent, because again and again Tasmania has been cited in Debate, both yesterday and to-day, and again and again Sir John McCall's name has been referred to, as well as his evidence before the Royal Commission on electoral methods. He has watched what has been happening in Australia, and he holds that though you may have a smaller majority given you by proportional representation, yet it is apt to be a more stable one. He goes further, and he says that in regard to the elections which took place before proportional representation was introduced, in the year. 1903, he and his own party won, and the whole of the Ministers on the other side failed to regain their seats, with the result that the House was deprived of their valuable experience in the Opposition. One of the main arguments put forward with regard to the future is that this House will want all the wisdom, wheher in the majority or the minority, that it can possibly have to guide it through the difficulties that are coming upon us. Anyone who looks back to the election of 1906—I was not in the House at that time, but there are many here who were—and who bears in mind what was the position of the Leader of the Unionist party when he first came back into this House in 1906, will recall how he was treated in this House by some elements, at any rate, of the great majority that stood against him, and how his wisdom, experience, and statesmanship won its way in a few months, until the whole House, including those very elements to which I have referred, heard him with respect, and recognised his wisdom. I trust, therefore, that you will recognise the value of a system which would return to this House men of experience, of true wisdom, and statesmanship, but who might, under our present system, lose their seats by pure electoral accident.
    One point was put very strongly by the Member for Oxford City last night,

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    when he quoted some recent words of the late Lord Grey, to the effect that unless some system of proportional representation were adopted in Canada the country would suffer greatly from corruption. Where you have single-member constituencies in a new country, you know that you do get, before the election, promises which, in the case of men who become Ministers, amount to corruption. Let us not forget what we may be liable to in this country. This is not a new country, I recognise, but we are liable to the difficulties of old countries, and there is the difficulty in this old country that we have now a very large number of Civil servants. That number is steadily increasing; it is an appreciable portion of the electorate, and many hon. Members know by experience that they can bring very heavy pressure to bear upon candidates where you have two parties not very different in number and where a few votes will turn the election. There the temptation is great, I will not say to sell the seat, but, at any rate, to modify the education of the constituency in speeches which are given from the platform. That is a growing, and I venture to say in the future will be a great, menace to honest government in this country; and any system which will remove candidates from the necessity of buying—I use the word, I know, brutally—those odd votes that will turn the election will, in my opinion, do an immense amount for the protection of the future of this country.
    We are told that this is a complex system, and the White Paper is held up as evidence. I imagine that a very large number of Members of this House have received part of their education at the hands of Euclid. There is an attempt in Euclid, in words, to deal with things which are best expressed in numbers and in figures, and the complexity of Euclid is recognised as an attempt to put into words what can be conveyed more quickly and more simply if you take a sheet of paper, a ruler, a pair of compasses, and pencil. What is true of the complexity of Euclid may be said of the complexity of the White Paper, which is due to the fact that you set lawyers, in longhand and in words, to attempt to express what could best be conveyed by simple sums—a few simple sums of rule of three. Hon. Members know that in our factories and workshops there are men who are working on piece rates, a system which inolves the doing of
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    sums of a complexity far greater than those few simple sums which lawyers have attempted to make appear so complicated in connection with proportional representation. But there is no suspicion all through these works and factories that the sums relating to piece work are being muddled, addled, and gerrymandered. This system is being worked week by week, fortnight by fortnight in thousands of factories and workshops all over this country, and is accepted by millions of men. If that be the case, if these very people accept the result of sums which they do not work themselves, but whose general character they recognise, then I say it should be possible for them to accept this system of election. The whole argument, as the Attorney-General has said, is reminiscent of the Debates which took place in regard to the Daylight Saving Bill. That is the real difficulty, and I recognise it. Political problems are not in black and white, and we have to deal with various parties. Reference has been made to by-election difficulties and cost. All I have to say on that is that if you are standing as a single candidate, in a constituency where other members are to be elected, then the cost will be slightly more than if you stand as one of a group. But in that case an appeal could be made for funds. Hitherto money has been found for people to fight elections, often by great organisations, and is it too much to ask people, who have so much faith in their views that they want their own member to go to Parliament to represent those views, to distribute the cost among themselves? for it would not amount to very much per head. If you got a Roman Catholic Irishman or a Labour candidate to stand in a great constituency in this country, in that ease he need not incur the full expenses; he would be foolish if he did, because he has an organisation which tells him that there are people who are going to support him, and he need only trouble himself to address and work among them. I associate myself with what has been said as to the tremendous importance at the present moment of looking to and preparing for what is to come in the future. Look at Russia, and see what is the position between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Parties in this country work together simply because they are two schools of a ruling class; but if you are going to get differences between classes, as you have in some countries at the, present moment, then the danger will become very great

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    indeed, and you might have the chance of a tyranny, on the part of a great and accidental majority, over the minority underrepresented.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I hope the House will permit me to add a few words to the discussion, because up to the present time I have voted on every occasion for proportional representation, and I have done so against my own convictions; because, being a Member of the Speaker's Conference, I felt bound to stand by that Conference and all its recommendations. But I think I am free now, as this question, in my opinion, has been already settled, to express my views upon the subject, because they are views which I pressed very strongly upon the Conference, being convinced—not by a short study, but by a study extending over several years—that the disadvantages of proportional. representation would far outweigh any possible advantage. I have listened this afternoon to three most able speeches from the Attorney-General, from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, and my hon. Friend below me who has just spoken. The hon. Member (Mr. Mackinder) began by taking exception to the objections raised by certain opponents to the procedure which has been adopted by the advocates of proportional representation in putting down Amendments which would only apply to a limited number of places. I quite agree that there is not much in that as a matter of procedure. I understand it has been done because it was impossible for the advocates of proportional representation to specify more than a limited number of places to which to have the system of proportional representation applied. If this Debate results in the acceptance of proportional representation, then they will undoubtedly add to the Schedule to bring it up to the number of places, at any rate, which were proposed by the Speaker's Conference. The Attorney-General argued very strongly in favour of it because it was, he said, an experiment and a test. I ask what will it be a test of? If you want to test the intelligence of the people as to whether they can vote equally intelligently under a system of proportional representation as they do at present, I have no doubt they can do so, and there is nothing so complicated in the method of voting as to require a test in order to prove that it can be done, and if you want the test in order to say when those votes
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    are counted that they do represent the various sections of opinion in the places in which they have been recorded we will grant that at once. They do undoubtedly, and the system of proportional representation undoubtedly does that.
    But the test that we want to apply is whether proportional representation substituted for the present existing system will bring about a better form of government all over this country. I venture to submit seriously to the House that that test can never be applied with satisfaction unless you had proportional representation all over the country. What would be the good from that point of view of a few constituencies in London, or, indeed, if all London, were represented by a few less Conservatives or a few more Liberals than otherwise might have been the case if the rest of the country is left under the old system? The fact is that you cannot apply satisfactorily a system of proportional representation to prove really effective unless you apply it all over the country, and that is really why the proposal failed at the Speaker's Conference. The further fact is this, that when you come to the question of applying it to every part of the country you find yourself faced with the practical impossibility of space and of population. For instance, to introduce proportional representation in Scotland you are faced with the fact that you have got to institute constituencies of such enormous size in order to get a proper population that you cannot venture to adopt it. I do not believe that even the strongest representatives of proportional representation would face with equanimity the idea of suddenly setting up constituencies stretching from one side of Scotland to the other and thinking that that would be a satisfactory solution of our electoral system. This point lies at the basis of the whole question. There is also this other question. Proportional representation must be some system whereby you can get small minorities represented. It is no good if you do not get that. You cannot get small minorities represented unless you have constituencies of at least five members. That stands to reason. If you have only three members you must have a very considerable minority to get representation. If you have four members a smaller group of people can get representation, but it is not until you accept proportional representation in its full bearing as put forward

    1447
    by the proportional representation society, namely, to have constituencies of six or seven or nine members that you will have small groups of people represented fully in this House. That is the proposition which we are up against. The present system of Government in this country may not be a perfect system at present, but I venture to think that this proposal is a dangerous experiment and an experiment which, from the point of view of those who propose it, will not succeed, and that it is one we ought to avoid at all costs.
    My objections are both on detail and on principle. One objection I have on detail is the necessity of having large constituencies. I have pointed out that to properly carry the system out you would require a constituency of at least five members, but even with the constituency of three members it would still be very large. I suppose the present average of electors is about 10,000, and when this Bill goes through will probably be 18,000, so that with a three-member seat under proportional representation you would have an electorate. approaching 60,000, and in a five-member seat an electorate approaching 100,000. That is a very serious consideration, especially from the point of view of the individual. Proportional representation is put forward with the idea that it will afford opportunities for men of independent thought who are not backed up by caucus funds or anything of that kind, and that the independent man will get in, but the cost of running in those large constituencies will be almost prohibitive to the single man. It will be possible for the five party men to run together and divide the costs which on them will be comparatively small. The single independent candidate will be handicapped seriously in this respect. My hon. Friend (Mr. Mackinder) tackled that point just now and said that such a candidate would approach no other than his own supporters. The hon. Member, I am sure, has a good deal of experience of elections, and though I think not so long as mine, but is it conceivable when you are sending out your election address that you are able to pick out the men who are going to vote for you? You are bound to appeal to the whole constituency and to incur expenditure, by reason of the fact that you are dealing with sixty or seventy or possibly 100,000 electors, and it seems to me that the cost of that, on the single individual, would be almost prohibitive.
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    There is a second objection as to detail. It has been argued during the course of the Debate that the institution of proportional representation will do away with the caucus or party system, and I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyneside (Mr. Robertson) said that the reason why objections had been taken to it by certain party organisations, especially in London, was because those party organisations thought that proportional representation would affect their own interests. I am chairman of one of those party organisations, but I can assure the House that I have taken no step in connection with that organisation, because of the fact of my connection with the Speaker s Conference. But I know for certain that the view that that organisation took was on broad grounds of principle, and I have a sufficient belief in the existing party organisations to think that they do base their decisions on broad grounds of politics rather than on mere questions of personal politics. I think that the institution of proportional representation is more likely to bring about undue power to the party caucus than the present system, and I will give my reasons. We have had experience of how you can work elections with a minority vote. One of the most striking was that which took place in 1868, in connection with the election in the City of London, where there were four seats, and where, in order to ensure the minority being represented, no one was allowed to vote for more than three candidates. Nevertheless, for a long time those four seats were filled by Liberal or Whig candidates, and the Tory interest in London could not get in one. How was that done? I happened to know one of the individuals actually engaged in that historic election. It was done with the expenditure of about £20,000 on each side of party funds, and it was done by a most careful and elaborate calculation of all the electors. The great problem there was to get the voter not to waste his vote, and if you could get every vote carefully placed in the right box you could win, while if you left the thing alone probably one of the minority would get in. For weeks before the election there was a system of coloured cards by which each individual elector was to be told exactly how he was to vote; he was not to exercise free discretion, because if he did he would find one of the opposite party would get in. The only way by which they could

    1449
    succeed in getting four members was by carefully going through every individual elector, ticketing him off and ordering how he was to vote.
    That was done by the party caucus. I submit to my right hon. Friend that precisely the same thing would be done in the future. What will be the problem? Let us remember we are taking part in a very important process, namely, deciding who are to be the executive Government of a great Empire, and whatever you do you are going to have your parties. The parties will exist, and whether there are two big or three big parties as hitherto I do not know, but there will be parties, and on the victory of one party over another will depend the future executive Government of this country. You cannot get over that fact. What is going to happen? You have got your constituency with five or three members. We will take it that it is an ordinary constituency with one of the candidates under proportional representation, with enough of a minority to carry him in; one seat, say, is Liberal and the other is Tory. The problem will be, Who is going to be the third member? It is on that particular seat that all the wit and money and energy of the party caucus will be set. The problem will be how to get that third man in, because upon that man, in every constituency in the country, will depend the executive Government of the day.
    I submit to this House, with a pretty good knowledge of what goes on in caucus meetings and political organisations, that, leaving on one side one man or the other, we shall have to go through a process of manœuvring, of making terms with opponents, of instructing the electorate, and all that caucus business which we know pretty well, in order to win this one seat upon which the whole future of the Empire for the next five or six years will depend. I venture, with great submission to the hon. Gentleman who took up this matter from another point of view, to urge that there will be much more danger of caucus-mongering than in the ordinary system of the single-member vote. Those are two points of what I call detail on which I have always opposed the supporters of proportional representation. There are two other points, I think, of great national principle. The first is this: Proportional representation means that you do away with the single-member constituency. I believe in the single-member constituency, and for this reason, that it places a sense
    1450
    of responsibility on the individual man who represents the constituency. He knows that it will depend upon the attitude of his party and on his own political work as to whether or not he will be returned at the next election. If you are going to have large constituencies all thought of direct responsibility and of the time arriving at which you have to fight for your seat and make good your work in politics, and so forth, will disappear, and you have lost a very great asset in political life. My feeling has always been that with all its defects—and we grant that the party system has many defects—it is better that we Members of Parliament should have a direct responsibility in our individual positions to our constituencies than that we should be able to ride off and come back again as representing the minority.
    Speaking for myself, it is quite possible I may be turned out at the next election. Honestly, I say I would rather be turned out because I have not been able to justify my position to a majority of my constituents than come in, simply because there are enough people of my colour in a large constituency to send me in as their representative. With great respect, I submit to the House that this is a very broad and far-reaching principle of political life. I do not believe, with all its faults, that our party system has been a failure. I believe that for this country the party system, with its swing of the pendulum effects, has been a great advantage. That leads me to the second great point. Is it not much better that the Government of the day shall know that it has either got to fall or live up to the result of an election? If you always know that you always may be in with a small majority your feeling of responsibility to the country is not the same. I believe it is a great safeguard to this country that we have always before our eyes the next election, and that it may be an election at which everyone of us may fall if the Government that we are supporting does wrong. I believe that is really a sound principle in our political system. I should not like to abandon it. I do not want to get into this position, of this House being merely a mirror—what you call a mirror—of the political sentiment in the country generally. It may be a great disadvantage that you have the elections all on one side, and that one side should have more power than really they are entitled to. I think sometimes it is an advantage. I am perfectly certain

    1451
    that if you really want progress you had better fight until you get a big majority in this House, and then you can carry it through better than upon simply a small majority in the House elected under a different system. At any rate, what we want to have is a deep sense of responsibility in this House, especially in the Government of the day, that if they do wrong the whole of their party is sent to the winds, which they ought to be! That is one of the great advantages of our present system of single-member constituencies.
    Although I think I have studied proportional representation even to have the egotism which enables me to stand up in this House and say I understand—I believe I do understand it, although there is a great deal in it to understand—I still say that the disadvantages that attend it are far greater than the probable advantages that may arise if we adopt it. They certainly are greater if we adopt it merely as a partial system as proposed at the present time. Therefore, I say although I have had always to vote against my own convictions in favour of proportional representation, I shall on this occasion vote in accordance with my own opinions.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: The opposition to proportional representation has emanated from the London Members. A large number of them have spoken against the principle in the three Debates which have taken place in this House. I am the first one who has had the privilege of saying something on the other side from the point of view of the London Member. I have a great horror of wasting the time of the House, and I shall not endeavour to cover a great number of the arguments used. My right hon. Friend who has just spoken, it is true, is at the head of one of the caucases in London. It is true also that both the caucases have fought bitterly and strongly and have brought every possible effort to bear to prevent even the discussion amongst their own members of this principle. [An HON. MEMBER: "No!"] In a former Debate the hon. Member for West Newington (Mr. Gilbert) said the Liberals were unanimous on this question. It is true that inside the London Liberal Federation the executive committee are practically unanimous against this proposal. It is quite true that the council which represents the electors have never been consulted. It is also quite true that since the speech to which I have re-
    1452
    ferred was made the only local association which has discussed this matter has passed a resolution in its favour. I do not want to deal with the different points brought up by my right hon. Friend opposite, but may I remind him that he himself voted for that proposal in the Home Rule Bill which constituted a whole province in Ireland a constituency?
    If it were possible for him to support a proposal of that kind I do not think it would be impossible for him to bring himself to support a proposal for the creation of large constituencies in this country. After all, is a large constituency so great a disadvantage? Is it absolutely necessary that the present methods of election should be adopted for the purposes of getting into this House? The right hon. Gentleman who sits for the City of London said in a previous Debate that in order to get into this House for the constituency of Peckham he himself personally had canvassed, I think he said, 7,000 electors. The personal canvass of the electors is a degradation to the candidate and a degradation to the electors. The most corrupt of the old constituencies were little ones; they were most liable to corruption. The larger constituencies have been made, and the more numerous the electors, and the more impossible to get into personal touch with the electors individually—in other words, the weaker the personal touch, which has been spoken of with so much admiration by so many Members of this House, the better for the public life of this country. In a large constituency where a man has simply to make known his views, knowing that it is impossible to conduct a house-to-house canvass, knowing that his only chance is to make himself and his views known, and to be elected on the strength of the faith and the views he holds and expounds—that is the best way to get public policy represented in this House.
    I do not want to deal with the general arguments which have been put forward. I want to speak primarily as a London Member. There can be no justification for an alternative if our existing system is a just and fair one. I want to tell the House some facts in regard to London. I want to assert that the present system of election, whether it be by the ticket system, which exists in the local bodies and in the county councils, or the single-member system, as represented in Parliament, is grossly unjust, as misrepresenting at the present time public opinion

    1453
    throughout London. I assert that the representation of London on scarcely any occasion has been just or fair to the different parties in this House, and that so far as the local bodies are concerned the representation is misrepresentation. I desire to put in one or two facts in regard to that statement, because I was one of those who protested rather against the exclusion of London when this matter came up before in the House. I have been living in London for a great number of years. I have taken part in practically all elections since 1886. During that period there have been, I think, eight General Elections, and only in 1910 did the representation approximate to anything like justice towards the parties in London. Look at the representation on the local bodies at present! We have a ticket system. We have elections by wards, and in those wards you vote by ticket. Each elector has one vote for every seat. The result of that has been to produce a condition of affairs which has practically killed public interest in many boroughs in London, and public interest is vital to an enlightened or just administration. Unless you have in these local bodies an effective opposition which is capable of criticising and pointing out mistakes in policy and other cognate matters, you kill public interest altogether. That is also true in regard to Parliamentary seats. Let me quote Lord Eversley—although I am afraid he has been quoted very many times—where he says that where there wag an established majority in a division, and where there was little hope of displacing the sitting member, that there public interest died out altogether. And, of course, we have numbers of instances in different parts of the country where a walk-over takes place from time to time.
    Look at the position in London! We have six boroughs in London in which there is no single Progressive sitting. The Moderates sit there and administer local affairs without any criticism except from within their own ranks. They dominate the whole affair, and the domination of a party is as objectionable as the domination of an autocracy. In two of these boroughs there are only two Progressives out of sixty members. In one of them there are only five. In another there are only six, and in another only seven out of sixty members. That is to say, that in all those eleven boroughs in London at the present time one side of municipal poli-
    1454
    tics has practically no existence; the other party is in complete control of the affairs of these boroughs. There are three boroughs in which there has been no Progressive for eleven years, and in one of them, represented in this House by my right hon. Friend, there was no single Progressive elected on the local borough council between 1906 and 1912. What is the result? The result is, as the elections come on, an increasing number of uncontested seats. The result is that in the election in the borough which ought to create interest and discussion in order that matters might be effectively carried out, policy is not discussed; interest practically disappears, and the conclusion enters the minds of the local electors that it is no use doing anything. The system is one which perpetuates that kind of thing, and the gradual killing of the one element of value in the pubic life of London at the present time. Supposing you substitute for that a system whereby that would be impossible, a system which would ensure that considerable minorities in the country would be able to get representation on these bodies, it would mean that no election would go without a contest; it would mean that in every county, in every one of these boroughs, a certain number on both sides, or all sides, of politics would put up for election with the certainty that a proportion of them would get in, and that there would be effective opposition, effective government, and effective criticism.
    No one who has watched the politics of London, as I have for the last thirty years, would contend that these local bodies do carry out the wishes of the local electors, at any rate during recent years, and the same injustice also exists in regard to the county council. In the county council we have two votes in each constituency which we give to the two members of our own party. If a majority of one on a party vote in the constituency is thrown in on behalf of two candidates, the two candidates sit for that constituency, and the other party is unrepresented, or rather misrepresented altogether. There are a number of seats which are represented in this House at the present time the members for which must realise that they sit here in spite of the mistrust and opposition of practically one-half of their constituents. The Member for West Bromwich sits here with a majority of two, the Member for Gloucester with a majority of four, the Member for Denbigh

    1455
    with a majority of nine, and the Member for Southwark, on the other side of politics, with a majority of eighteen. In the case of West Bromwich it means that, with the exception of two, half of the voters who polled desired that the member who now sits should not sit, and that half of the constituency therefore is not represented at all. So far as this House is concerned, London has been represented in different proportions in the different elections that have taker place. In 1895 and 1900 only eight Liberals sat for the whole of London. According to the number of votes which were actually recorded in favour of Liberals they ought to have had twenty-four members. Who can say that the representation of London on those two occasions was just to the people of London, or that the votes of the members given in connection with great national questions were just to the people, or that London itself gave its decision in favour of those votes?
    Most of the discussions on this matter have centred in the convenience of candidates and members. It has been said that proportional representation is inconvenient, complicated, and expensive. A variety of criticisms have been discharged against it, but the one question that has not been faced is whether it is just or not. If the existing system is unjust, surely now, of all times, is the time to substitute for it a just system. Reference has been made to other attempts to get minorities represented in this House, for instance, the election in the City of London. That was altogether different from the system which we suggest under proportional representation. There you had three votes where there were four members. There you had gerrymandering of all kinds. You had machinery set to work in the caucus offices instructing the voters how to vote in order that the three members might be captured for the one party. That would be impossible under this system. Under this system, no man could have more than one vote, and only when the votes given for one candidate exceeded those necessary to elect him to this House would the alternative come into operation, and even then only one vote could be given to any candidate, and it would be practically impossible to carry out arrangements such as were so popular in Birmingham many years ago and the City of London. A single-member constituency means
    1456
    disfranchisement of half, or nearly half, of the voters in that constituency. The fact that in one part of the country an injustice is inflicted on a political opponent of mine is no gratification to me. I am not at all satisfied that, because I suffer from an injustice here, that is put right by an injustice being inflicted on someone else in another part of the country.
    Our contention is that if you had large constituencies with a large number of electors you would collect opinion over a large area, you would prevent people coming here representing bodies too small, you would get in this House representation which would be something like a mirror of the public opinion of the country, and any legislation of a representative chamber built up in that way would be accepted by the country, whether passed by a large majority or a small one. There would be no temptation, or rather less temptation than in times past, for big majorities to tyrannise over small minorities. There would be less inclination on the part of one Parliament to try to upset legislation of a previous Parliament, and less of the bitterness in elections, because each elector would realise that he himself was represented in the House and that his vote had really told in the election of a member. The 1900 Parliament was elected to end the South African War. That Parliament had a big Conservative majority. It was elected on practically a pledge that domestic legislation should not be touched. It proceeded to deal with education and the liquor traffic in a way which made the 1906 election a test of opposition to that legislation. The 1906 election returned a huge majority on the other side, pledged to undo the legislation carried through by the 1900 Parliament. That kind of thing would disappear if you had a Parliament representing the country, and although there would be changes in opinion and in majorities and in Governments from time to time, I feel certain that the legislation arising from a system like that would be so devised as to meet with the general consensus of opinion throughout the country, that it would be accepted, that it would be loyally obeyed, that it would get rid of a great deal of party bitterness in our elections, that it would build up a citizenship far higher than that we now possess, and that the introduction of this principle, by making the

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    representation just, would make legislation just, and would lead to a great improvement throughout the country.
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): This has been a Debate of a very comprehensive character, in which probably all the arguments for and against proportional representation have been stated with great lucidity, power and illustration. I have observed that of all the speakers who have advocated this partial measure of proportional representation, there is only one who sits for a city to which this analytical process will be applied, and that was my hon. and gallant Friend—always honourable and always exceedingly gallant—the Member for Central Hull (Sir M. Sykes), who made a most interesting speech. But, with that single exception, the speeches in favour of imposing this new electoral system of proportional representation upon unwilling constituencies has been made by those who are not returned by those particular constituencies, and who will not be affected by the vote to-night. I rise, not so much to put before this House my own individual opinion—because I speak to-night, not as a, member of the Government, not as one more or less in charge of this Bill, but I speak with that freedom which has been accorded to every member of the Government and of the House—but I do rise, however, to ask this House very seriously to consider the effect of the vote, which they are going to give to night, upon the fortunes of this Bill. I believe that the House generally—I know there is a small minority in this House, or I think small—but the House generally wants to see this measure pass by all the shoals and the rocks, and brought safely into pert. I believe, on the whole, they share the opinion I hold, that one of the best things this House can do during the War is to remove from the area of controversy the whole of this great question of what is, after all, machinery, so that the country may have, when this War is ended, the fullest possible opportunities, entirely free from all this machinery, of dealing with the work of reconstruction, and that the very best thing we can do is to pass this Bill and get that question out of the way.
    I am going to ask hon. Members to consider the effect of the vote they give to-night on this Bill. If we do not operate at all upon the Schedule, the only effect of passing this Amendment will be to apply
    1458
    it to one set of constituencies only, and that is the grouped new universities. That is the only effect it will have; but I am bound to direct the attention of the Mover of this Amendment, and all those who vote for it, not merely to the words of the Amendment, but to different Amendments which they have put down to the Schedules. If I may judge the motive and intention of my hon. Friends who support proportional representation, it is that they intend to apply this Amendment, if passed, to something like twenty-two constituencies The Mover of this Amendment shakes his head.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: I have explained several times that our intention is that it should apply wherever the Speaker's Conference recommended that it should apply. We only put down Amendments to the boroughs entitled to three, four or five members, because that is all to which we could put down Amendments, as we are not Boundary Commissioners. To have put down Amendments to Glasgow, or for the linking-up of small boroughs, would have been to do the work of the Boundary Commissioners, which we could not do, and I explained that from the first.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. FISHER: That is exactly the answer. I wanted to draw from the hon. Gentleman. We have already had that from the hon. Member for the Camlachie Division of Glasgow (Mr. Mackinder), who said that, so far as he was concerned, it was his intention later on to apply this system of proportional representation to the great towns, such as Glasgow, Birmingham, and Leeds, and to all constituencies, indeed, that have more than five members That I admit, is carrying out not the principle, but the actual rule laid down by the Speaker's Conference. The Attorney-General says that he intends to concentrate on the Speaker's Conference, but the Mover of this Amendment says that when we come to the Schedule his supporters intend to apply this very harmless Amendment, which now only relates to one constituency under the Bill, to great constituencies like Liverpool with eleven members, Manchester with ten, Glasgow with fifteen, and Leeds with six. I desire to call the attention of the House to this fact. If that is so, and if in voting for this Amendment those who do so intend to apply it to all these great cities, let me tell the House that this must be result. The Boundary Commissioners have finished their task

    1459
    and do not exist, and we shall have to call them into being again and ask them to divide up all these great industrial areas. To divide Glasgow up into three constituencies with five members each—[An HON. MEMBER: "A very easy thing to do."] I do not think it is an easy thing to do. When we come to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birmingham, and all these great towns, and attempt to divide them into three or five constituencies with three or five members each, the task will not be an easy one.
    Here we are now towards the end of November, and with real good luck and good will we may be able, if we can agree—and we have agreed so far—to send this Bill to the other House in the first week in December, and if we can do that we shall allow the House of Lords three weeks to consider this measure, and I think that is the period they ought to have. In that case we may hope to see this measure become law possibly before Christmas, but certainly before the end of the year On the other hand, if we are to resurrect the Boundary Commissioners, and if we are to go into all these great schemes for dividing up all these great cities under a system the operation of which they have never heard of, it will necessitate local inquiries and it will lead to much bitter opposition when for the first time the citizens of these great towns realise that an entirely new electoral system is to be applied to them of which they have never heard, and upon which not one of their representatives has ever addressed them. In such circumstances I say that we should be face to face with a delay with regard to this Bill not of days, but of weeks, and possibly months. If the House decides to adopt this Amendment, and later on applies it to these great constituencies, hon. Members must be prepared for the position that this Bill cannot become law before Christmas, or the end of the year, and if anything of this kind is done I think it will seriously jeopardise and imperil the passage of this measure into law.
    Up to the present I have sunk all my own individual opinions when I have been in charge of this Bill, and I would prefer to continue to sink my individual views rather than run any risk of losing this Bill. I have separated from Members of my own party on some questions, and I have supported proposals which make for the fuller representation of the people. For
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    the safety of the country I think it is best to get this Bill out of the way, and not run the risk of Government after Government having to deal with these questions when the entire energies of the country ought to be concentrated on economic and industrial reconstruction. I ask those who support proportional representation, is it really worth while to establish that principle in this Bill? Surely we ought to take a longer time to consider in what way we should apply proportional representation in this country. This new system—unless you have to avoid the dangers I have pointed out—will only, after all, be applied to a very few constituencies.
    It is argued that the present system only allows the hard and fast party man to be returned, and that there is no room for the independent man. I have been in this House seven years now, and I think the, present system brings here a great variety of men. Time after time hon. Members have come to me and have said: "Look here, I am not going into that lobby; I have heard the arguments, and I am going to vote the other way." I have often been influenced by very powerful speeches, and I believe there is an independence of thought amongst hon. Members of this House which is not realised outside in the very least degree. I do not believe that men lose their independence because they take the name of Unionists, Liberals, or Labour representatives, for they are constantly asserting their individual opinions in regard to legislation in this House. If you are going to change your system, what are you going to change it for? I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson), who said that under this new system we are going to be more caucus-driven than ever, because under it the only chance of getting elected in one of these three or five-member constituencies is to join the caucus in which case you have your election address written for you as well as your speeches.
    I was not always willing to toe the party line, but I got in. Often you are able to get elected by your own individual character. Sometimes you may do a thing which is unpopular with your own party but you can preserve your seat. I do not believe that you will be allowed any independent opinion under proportional representation and under the caucus, for your addresses will be written for you. If a candidate does not elect to go in with the party and decides to stand by himself, write his own election address, and engage

    1461
    his own hall, look at the expense, it will be to him. Has anybody thought about the expense of an individual in such circumstances? No man will be able to contest any of these seats under £2,000 unless you alter the other Clauses in this Bill. If you pass proportional representation we shall have to look through the whole of this Bill to seee how it affects the other Clauses. Take, for example, a three-member constituency with a population of 190,250, which will be about the average of a three-seat constituency. About one-third of that total will be electors and calculated on the basis of 5d. per elector the individual candidate's personal expenses will come to about £2,000.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: May I point out that the Speaker's Conference said 4d. and not 5d.?
    Mr. FISHER: The House has put it at 5d.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: The 5d. was a mere mistake, and there was a Government Amendment to put it right.
    Mr. FISHER: If the hon. Member will turn to Schedule 4 of the Bill he will see that it provides that the expenses to be incurred in the case of an election for a borough is 5d. for each elector on the register.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: As the Bill was introduced there was a distinct Clause for boroughs with three, four or five members, and that was struck out because the proposal for three, four or five members was struck out. Now the hon. Member is applying that provision to something which concerns only single-member constituencies.
    Mr. FISHER: I say that 5d. is allowed for every one of these constituencies. If we are going to reconsider these proposals you may put it at 1d., and if you pass this Amendment then we must review the whole Bill. See how far this Amendment relating to proportional representation affects the whole story. I maintain that you have so provided that not one of these individual candidates, who are to be free from all party Whips, and who are never to take instructions from anyone except themselves, can get in for any one of these seats unless he is willing to spend something like £2,000. My hon. Friend is himself conscious that he has to do something in connection with the expenses, and he and his friends have actually put down an
    1462
    Amendment Which says that if proportional representation is adopted all these candidates who contest any one of these three-seater constituencies may claim, not one free postage, but two free postages. What is that going to cost the State? One free postage would cost £375 each candidate, and two free postages would be £750 for each candidate. If you are going to allow each candidate £750 for free postage over all these seats, there will be a good many tradesmen who will be willing to advertise their affairs at the expense of a little trouble in contesting these seats. There will be at least twenty candidates for all these places, and that will mean something like a cost of £7,000 to the State for free postage.
    This all goes to show that the House must really be prepared to review the Bill from many points of view, even at this late hour, if they put in proportional representation. There are other little matters over which the friends of this Amendment skate very lightly. If we adopt this principle there are other provisions which we ought to put in. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment would say at once that the House ought to do something to provide for by-elections. The minority member, if he is to contest the whole seat by himself, will have to face an enormous expenditure. It is not, however, only the expense. Let us say that a Government is about to be formed, and that there is a good deal of talent amongst the minority representatives. Under the law at present you have to seek re-election on taking office, but the minority member, if he got a place in the Government, unfortunately would have to say, "It is quite impossible that I should seek re-election." All minority representatives therefore would be ruled out from having any share in the emoluments of office. By-elections are not only created by Members joining the Government. There are Members in this House who sometimes receive very well-merited reward on the judicial bench. Often a Member of this House has a very good claim to be promoted—and, indeed, he ought to be promoted. Fancy any Government promoting any minority Member to the bench when that Government was unpopular in the country I Obviously, they could not do so, because they would lose the seat. Anybody who took the Chiltern Hundreds would have the Government of the day in his power. He

    1463
    might inflict a heavy blow upon the Government by taking the Chiltern Hundreds. The Government might be absolutely certain to lose the seat. These are little practical difficulties to which almost every advocate of proportional representation gives the go-by.
    This is a great enfranchising measure as it stands, but pass proportional representation, with all its difficulties to the elector of putting his 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 against the five candidates of his choice out of a long list of fifteen or twenty candidates, and it becomes a disfranchising Bill. There must be many Members who, like myself, have visited a heavy polling station of their constituency between seven and eight o'clock at night. I have seen the rush of labour men, after their day's work, to record their vote, and even with the task of merely putting their X against one or two candidates, I have seen hundreds of them left outside. But if they have to go through this process of putting their 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 against five candidates out of a long list of twenty, particularly in Wales, where they may be all David Lloyd George's, it will take a very long time and hundreds of electors will be disfranchised because they will not be able to get into the polling booth in sufficient time to make this very elaborate choice. It may, perhaps, be said these are all small matters, though I do not regard them so. They are very mundane and very practical. They are not in the clouds. They are actual objections from men who have gone through many an election and from men who earnestly desire that the best opportunity shall be given to all men who have the franchise to exercise it in the fullest possible way.
    I know that up to the present it is not proposed by the advocates of proportional representation to apply it to all the London constituencies. They have picked out seven large constituencies in London to which they mean to apply it as an experiment. I hope that the House will not allow London to be experimented upon in this way. It really is not right or fair that we should have one system of election in some large groups of constituencies in London and an entirely different system in other parts of London, It is not fair that the electors should be asked to vote for a list of candidates for Parliament on the proportional representation system when they have to vote for candidates for the London County
    1464
    Council on an entirely different system. I have already said that it this Amendment is passed and applied to the big cities the Boundary Commissions will have to be revised, and some long time will elapse before we can hope to get their Report. If this is applied to London another Act of Parliament must follow, because, with great respect to the Attorney-General, I must convict him of amazing ignorance. This afternoon he said that London, after all, was only like any other great borough—Liverpool or Manchester. It is not. It differs entirely, because the representatives on the London County Council are elected on a system under which there are two members elected for every Member of Parliament. That is absolutely different from anything that is done in Liverpool, Manchester, or anywhere else. We have our own system. If the House accepts this Amendment, which is going to apply proportional representation to Wandsworth with five members, then Wandsworth, which is now entitled to two members on the London County Council, because at present it has only one Parliamentary representative, will be entitled to ten members. You will, therefore, have five members elected to Parliament under proportional representation, and you will have to elect ten members on the London County Council. How are they going to be elected? For what part of Wandsworth are they going to be elected? Wandsworth is not broken up into divisions. You are going to produce chaos in local government in London. The House has not adequately thought what it is really going to do. This is not the time to introduce this particular application of a new electoral system, and it is not fair to impose it on unwilling constituencies who have never heard of it. Neither Press nor platform has ever resounded with any arguments either for or against it, and those who like it ought to keep it for some future time when the House will be able to consider it freely and fully, without jeopardising a great measure which I believe the House, with almost one accord, desires to pass into law.
    Colonel Sir HERBERT JESSELrose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
    Mr. ANDERSON: I have listened to a very remarkable line of argument from the right hon. Gentleman, who has always

    1465
    opposed proportional representation, has voted against it, and has used his own influence in the House to have it beaten. It was beaten on the Committee stage, and to-night he comes, and almost with tears in his eyes, says that if we do anything to push this proposal forward, we are endangering the whole structure of the Bill and all sorts of disaster may come upon us.
    Mr. FISHER: I did not say that this particular Amendment would imperil the Bill, but the Amendment in the Schedule applying it and necessitating the revival of the Boundary Commissioners.
    Mr. ANDERSON: The right hon. Gentleman grossly exaggerates the difficulties that there would be in bringing about the necessary changes. If it is a question of choice between the best system of representation and a system of representation that thwarts democracy at so many points, it may well be worth delaying the matter for a few weeks in order to put it on a proper basis. These are matters of very great importance indeed. Many speakers who have opposed this Amendment believe that after this War we are going back to the old parties and old political strategy, and so on. I am convinced that we are going to do nothing of the kind, and that some of those who are now opposing this Amendment, and who will vote against, may live to regret what they are doing. There is no doubt that we are going to have difficult and troublesome times after the War, and the more we deepen our political channels, and the more we try to make this House a real reflex of the people outside, the more we shall safeguard the best interests of the country. This House is wrong if it hopes to perpetuate the old party system, with the old tyrannies and inequalities of that system without modification or change. I therefore hope that the House will press forward this change, which I believe to be essential to the principle of democratic government, to the principle of representative government, and to the strength and dignity of this House itself. Unless that is done, very real difficulties will certainly arise. I do not believe that it is a wise thing to trample upon or try to steam-roller minorities. The best thing that can happen with regard to large responsible minorities is to give them representation in proportion to their numbers and their strength. Let the majority rule by all
    1466
    means, but bring in all the large responsible elements of the country and give them a sense of responsibility. If you are not going to do that, if you are not going to bring in many of these elements, you are going to drive them into far more insurrectionary channels than would otherwise be the case, and there will be many difficult times to overcome and difficult points to get past.
    One sees on every hand the forces that are now gathering. I am convinced that if this change had been adopted by Parliament it would have gone far to bring into the reconstruction that must come after the War every considerable section of opinion. Let it be represented here, let it put forward its views here and let its opinions be heard here. That would be in the best interests of the country. This matter must, therefore, go to the vote. I do not hesitate to say that I am as certain as I am standing here that some of those who are now going to vote against this change will live to regret what they have done. One thing we may have after the War is a sort of flood or spate politics, either from the standpoint of reaction or from the standpoint of revolutionary fervour and zeal. I want to see big changes come. I want to see them come as the considered will and desire of the people of this country. I believe it is only on those lines that changes are safe. This Bill brings in an enormously large electorate, but it does not give them the safeguards that ought to be found in a measure of this kind. It does not provide the channels through which the river can flow, and because of that I fear you will have wreckage and damage upon an extensive scale. Hon. Members ought to take that point of view into account when they cast their votes. By voting for a measure of real justice and by making this House a true mirror of the life and opinion of the people of this country, you are likely to go forward in the future with less damage and hurt.
    Sir H. JESSELrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 126; Noes, 202.

    Division No. 117.]

    AYES.

    align="right">[7.32 p.m.

    Adamson, William

    Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.)

    Pratt, J. W.

    Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

    Hemmerde, Edward George

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Agnew, Sir George William

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Durham)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel Edward

    Ainsworth, Sir John Stirling

    Hodge, J. M.

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    Anderson, W. C.

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Reddy, Michael

    Armitage, R.

    Hope, Lt.-Col J. A. (Edin., Midlothian)

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. George H. (Norwich)

    Arnold, Sydney

    John, Edward Thomas

    Roberts, Sir H. (Denbighs)

    Astor, Major Hon. Waldorf

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Robinson, Sidney

    Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.)

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Russell, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

    Joyce, Michael

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Bathurst, Capt. C. (Wilts, Wilton)

    Keating, Matthew

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Scott, Leslie (Liverpool Exchange)

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

    King, Joseph

    Sherwell, Arthur James

    Billing, N. Pemberton

    Lamb, Sir Ernest Henry

    Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir F. E. (Liverpool)

    Black, Sir Arthur W.

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Boland, John Pius

    Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Snowden, Philip

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Bryce, John Annan

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. Herbert

    Swift, Rigby

    Buxton, Noel

    London, Thomas

    Sykes, Col. Sir Mark (Hull, Central)

    Byrne, Alfred

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Harts, Hitchin)

    McMicking, Major Gilbert

    Tennant, Rt. Hun. Harold John

    Chancellor, Henry George

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Thomas, Sir A. G. (Monmouth, S.)

    Chapple, Major William Allen,

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

    Mason, David M. (Coventry)

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Collins, Sir W. (Derby)

    Millar, James Duncan

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Crumley, Patrick

    Molloy, Michael

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Currie, George W.

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

    Wardle, George J.

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Needham, Christopher T.

    Watson, John Bertrand (Stockton)

    Denniss, E. R. B.

    Newman, Major John R. P.

    Watt, Henry A.

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

    Nolan, Joseph

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Field, William

    Nugent J. D. (College Green)

    Williams, John (Glamorgan)

    Finney, Samuel

    Nugent, Sir W. R. (Westmeath, S.)

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

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Wing, Thomas Edward

    Fitzpatrick, John Lalor

    O'Dowd, John

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Galbraith, Samuel

    O'Malley, William

    Wired, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks., Ripon)

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

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

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

    Hackett, John

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Worthington Evans, Major Sir L.

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Pete, Basil Edward

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

    Healy, Maurice (Cork)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    A. Williams and Mr. Marriott,

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Hambro, Angus Valdemar

    Archdale, Lieut. Edward M.

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. I

    Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J.

    Ashley, Wilfred W.

    Cory, James Herbert (Cardiff)

    Hanson, Charles Augustin

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Craig, Col. James (Down, E.)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Barnett, Captain R. W.

    Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence (Ashford)

    Barran, Sir Row. Hurst (Leeds, North)

    Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

    Harris, H. P. (Paddington, S.)

    Bathurst, Col. Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.)

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, S.)

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

    Haslam, Lewis

    Bellairs, Commander C. W.

    Denison-Pender, Capt. J. C.

    Henry, Sir Charles (Shropshire)

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Hermon-Hedge, Sir R. T.

    Bethell, Sir John Henry

    Duke, Rt. Hon. Henry Edward

    Hewins, William Albert Samuel

    Bird, Alfred

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Higham, John Sharp

    Blair, Reginald

    Edge, Captain William

    Hills, Major John Waller

    Bliss, Joseph

    Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

    Hinds, John

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith

    Falconer. James

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. H.

    Bowden, Major G. R. Harland

    Fell, Arthur

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

    Hohler, G. F.

    Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid.)

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Boyton, James

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

    Horne, Edgar

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Fleming, Sir J. (Aberdeen, S.)

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Brookes, Warwick

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Foster. Philip Staveley

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Bull, Sir William James

    Ganzoni, Francis John C.

    Hume-Williams, William Ellis

    Burdett-Coutts, W.

    Gardner, Ernest

    Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Butcher, John George

    Gilbert. J. D.

    Jackson, Lt.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)

    Carew, C. R. S.

    Glanville, H. J.

    Jackson, Sir John (Devonport)

    Carson. Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

    Goldman, C. S.

    Jessel, Colonel Sir H. M.

    Cater John

    Goldsmith, Frank

    Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Greene, Lieut.-Colonel Walter Raymond

    Jones, W. Kennedy (Hornsey)

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough)

    Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)

    Clough, William

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham

    Guest, Capt. Hon. F. E. (Dorset, E.)

    Kerr-Smiley, Major Peter Kerr

    Cochrane, Cecil Algernon

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Kiley, James Daniel

    Colvin, Col. Richard Beale

    Hall, Lieut.-Col. Frederick (Dulwich)

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    1468

    1469

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Sykes, Col. Sir A..J. (Ches., Knutsford)

    Lindsay, William Arthur

    Philipps, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ivor (S'ampton)

    Talbot, Lord Edmund

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Philipps, Sir Owen (Chester)

    Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Terrell, Major Henry (Gloucester)

    Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

    Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest George

    Tillett, B.

    Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Tickler, T. G.

    McCalmont, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. A.

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

    Touche, Sir George Alexander

    MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

    Bandies, Sir John S.

    Tryon, Captain George Clement

    Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk,B'ghs)

    Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

    Walker, Colonel William Hall

    Macmaster, Donald

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

    McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)

    Remnant, Col. Sir James Farquharson

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Warde, Colonel C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

    Malcolm, Ian

    Rowlands, James

    Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

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

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    Samuels, Arthur W.

    Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

    Meux, Adml. Hon. Sir Hedworth

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Weigall, Lieut.-Col. W. E. G. A.

    Molteno, Percy Alpert

    Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

    Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Seely, Lt.-Col. Sir C. H. (Mansfield)

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

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Smallwood, Edward

    Whiteley, Herbert James

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Wiles, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

    Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.)

    Nield, Herbert

    Stanley, Rt. Hon. Sir A.H.(Asht'n-u-Lyne)

    Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)

    Norman, Sir Henry

    Stanley, Major Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    O'Grady, James

    Stanley, Capt. Lord (Abercromby)

    Wilson-Fox, Henry

    O'Neill, Capt. Hon. H. (Antrim, Mid.)

    Starkey, Captain John R.

    Winfrey, Sir Richard

    Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

    Staveley-Hill Lieut.-Col. H.

    Yate, Colonel C. E.

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Stewart, Gershon

    Yed, Alfred William

    Parrott, Sir Edward

    Stirling, Lieut-Col. Archibald

    Young, William (Perthshire, East)

    Partington, Hon. Oswald.

    Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

    Younger, Sir George

    Pearce, Sir Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Pearce, Sir William (Limehouse)

    Sutherland, John E.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike (Darlingt'n)

    Sutton, John E.

    T. Whittaker and Sir F. Lowe,

    Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding)

    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (1).
    This Sub-section provides that in the case of any election at which more than two candidates stand for one seat, the voting shall be by what is called in the Bill the alternative vote. I personally think that this is the very worst Clause in the Bill. It is going to give an opportunity for logrolling of a most pernicious kind. It could be worked so that two parties who could not privately agree among themselves could combine, and by a very pernicious and unfair arrangement make certain that the third party should not be successful. In every constituency where there is anything like a narrow majority there will always be a third candidate, and I do not think that that is a situation to be desired or encouraged. If any system of voting otherwise than the ordinary system is to be adopted in this Bill it certainly ought to be the system which has just been rejected by the House, and not the system of the alternative vote. The alternative vote is designed, I think, to make sure that the majority is not represented in this House. I have some simple figures here to show how this vote may work in cases where there are three candidates standing, one a Unionist, one a Radical, and the other a Labour candidate. Assuming that 5,000 first preferences are given to the Unionist, 4,000 to the Radical, and 2,000 to the Labour.
    1470
    you then, according to the draft rules, eliminate the third candidate and transfer his second choices to A. and B. The result of the figures I have here—they are, f course, only token figures—would be that the man who had 5,000 first preferences would at the end find he was not elected. Assuming the C. candidate gave 100 votes to A. and 1,101 votes to B., the Radical candidate would win, although he had only received 4,000 first choices against 5,000 given to the Unionist candidate. That result would be obtained by some corrupt understanding between the Liberals and the Labour party or the Unionist and the Labour party.
    Mr. HEMMERDE: Why corrupt?
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I will deal with that presently. These who voted a few minutes ago for proportional representation were seeking to protect the minority. If they now vote for the alternative vote they will be destroying minorities, and their action will be most inconsistent. Curious results would arise from the figures I have in connection with this supposed contest. B., having a majority of one over A., is declared elected, notwithstanding these striking facts. First, A. has received more first votes than any other candidate. Second, B., with his own first preferences and his share of C.'s second preferences, has polled 1,899 less than A.'s and C.'s first preferences combined. Third, that had the

    1471
    second preference of all the voters been counted instead of only C.'s 2,000, B. would have polled 699 less than C. That is the result of the arbitrary system of voting provided in these rules. If the alternative vote is in force, every single-member seat will probably be contested by candidates representing each of the three main parties, and two of the parties may at any time combine privately in order to secure the defeat of the third party. In the ordinary way if they desired to do that they would settle their differences privately and put up only one candidate, and that would be a reasonable thing to do, but that result is not likely to be obtained if we carry this alternative vote; and having come to an agreement privately the two parties who will combine will take very good care, no matter what happens, that the third candidate is not elected. The actual result of the whole thing will be that the man who has the smallest number of first preferences at the election will actually be returned. This is perfectly absurd and unreasonable. We had a Royal Commisson on the subject, and in its Report it said:
    "We are bound to draw attention to the fact that in Australia the opportunities for party intrigue and the gratification of personal ill-feeling which are conferred, both by the power of using and by that of withholding preferences, have been found to produce regrettable results."
    I said just now that it would be inconsistent for those who supported proportional representation to give their adhesion to the alternative vote. I have here some figures to show what would have been the result in the case of the three-cornered contests in England, Wales, and Scotland in January and December, 1910, excluding seats when an independent candidate of the same political faith as one of the other two candidates stood. The actual result was as follows: There were seven Unionist candidates returned, thirty-one Radical members, and no Labour candidates. If the alternative vote had been in force and there had been a compact between the Liberals and the Labour party, only one Unionist instead of seven would have been returned, thirty-six Radicals instead of thirty-one, and one Labour candidate. If the compact had been between the Unionists and the Labour party, instead of seven Unionists there would have been twenty-four; instead of thirty-one Liberals there would have been eleven; and instead of no Labour candidate being returned there would have been three. That was in the
    1472
    January election. In the December election the result in the same constituencies were: two Unionists, thirteen Radicals, and no Labour. Had there been a compact between the Liberals and the Labour party there would have been one Unionist instead of two, fourteen Radicals instead of thirteen, and no Labour candidate returned. Had the compact been between the Unionists and the Labour party, eleven instead of two Unionists would have been returned, three instead of thirteen Radicals, and one Labour candidate instead of none. An even greater disproportion would have been found from a study of the by-elections between the General Elections of 1910 and the outbreak of war in 1914. There were twenty-four such contests actually, resulting in the return of ten Unionists and fourteen Radicals. Had the Unionist and Labour party had a conpact the result would have been the return of twenty Unionists and four Radicals, and had the Radicals and Labour party made the arrangement the result would have been the return of two Unionists and twenty-two Radicals. I think, in view of these facts, I am entitle' to ask the House whether it can be argued with any degree of truth that the results of these elections would have afforded a fair indication of the state of parties in the country. I certainly do not think it would. Assuming there had been a Labour-Radical combination at the time, what would have been the result? At that time feeling was distinctly against the party in power. That, I think, will be admitted. They had been a long time in office and had exhausted their mandate. But by the use of the alternative vote the result of the by-elections would have shown the reverse, and it would have disclosed the somewhat extraordinary fact that whereas the Government were steadily losing support in the country it was winning by-elections and keeping its majority in the House of Commons. Such a position would have been very unreal, and it would not have shown the actual state of opinion, assuming that a bargain of this kind had been carried out.
    This measure which we have been dealing with now for a considerable time is sufficiently far-reaching in its effects without introducing an element of this kind. The extension of the franchise is so great that no man can tell what the effect will be. I heard one of the hon. Members for Sheffield speaking to-night on this particular subject, and I agree with

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    him. I do not think for a single moment there can be any return to the old Parliamentary divisions and the old party politics of the past few years. There will be a wholly new situation to be dealt with, and no one can tell how it will shape itself or what the result will be. But we ought certainly not to aggravate the situation. We ought not to increase the danger—and there are dangers—by importing into the measure a proposal of this kind which directly encourages bargains of the nature I have spoken of. We should try to keep our elections as pure as we possibly can. We should try and see that we get the right type of man returned to the House of Commons, and you will not find men so ready to stand and serve their country in the future as they have been in the past if there is any danger of their being subjected to this kind of combination which would crush out individuals who happen to belong to a party antagonistic to the combination. I hope that this House which, by a majority of one only, retained this in the Bill in the Committee stage, will now unhesitatingly knock it. out.
    8.0 P.M.
    Captain BARNETT: In rising to second this Amendment, I wish, first of all, to emphasise the point that has been made by the hon. Baronet who represents Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) that only by a majority of one was this alternative vote carried in Committee. The Division—I will not call it a snap vote—was taken, if I remember rightly, at the dinner hour, and the figures were 125 against 124. As one of the 124 I should like to refer to something that was said in the course of that Debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson). He stated that on the Conference itself they had had a very close division on this subject. A close division in the Conference itself, and the closest possible Division in Committee of this House! I desire to support this Amendment for the removal of the Subsection from the Bill on two grounds: one, that the alternative vote is as undemocratic as any method of voting can possibly be; and the other, that it introduces quite unnecessarily into our politics the higher mathematics. Since this matter was considered in Committee a copy of draft rules has been circulated as a White Paper. I do not know who is the author of them, but I should very much like to know, because I believe him to be one of the greatest humorists in England. We have
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    not many humorists, but a careful study of this White Paper has led me to think that the gentleman who prepared these rules wished to prepare an elaborate reductio ad absurdum both of proportional representation and of the alternative vote. I personally studied this document for one whole day, and at the end of it I had a sort of hazy idea of what it all meant. I venture to think that the average elector, if you gave him that document and asked him to master it, would have very considerable difficulty in doing so. We shall be told, no doubt, in the course of the Debate, that the returning officer is the man who has to understand these elaborate rules, and that, so long as the returning officer knows about it, it does not matter about the elector. I demur to that proposition. I do not think we ought to put ourselves in the hands of returning officers. I may say that I have had the advantage, or disadvantage, of a classical education, and only a bowing acquaintance with permutations, combinations and the binomial theorem, but none of my mathematics were sufficient to enable me to master the rules set forth here.
    I will give an illustration. When this matter came up in Committee, the hon. Member for Westminster made a very closely reasoned speech in favour of leaving the alternative vote out of the Bill, and one point he made was this. He said there might be a tie, and he asked: Supposing B. and C. tie with one another, with 1,300 votes each, to which of them is the second choice of the other to be transferred? He went on to say that there was nothing in the Bill about it, and that it was not explained in the least. The draft rules answer that question, and they answer it in a way which, I venture to think, will excite the amazement of this House. I would ask the House to refer to Rule 5 of the Draft Rules, Parliamentary Elections, Alternative Vote. It runs as follows:
    "If at any time two or more candidates, one of whom ought to be excluded, have an equal number of votes, that candidate shall be excluded the greater number of whose votes are transferred votes. But if there is no difference between the candidates, or if none of the votes of either of the candidates are transferred votes, the returning officer shall determine which of the candidates is to be excluded."
    It is really impossible to imagine a more remarkable proposition than that. Here is a tie arrived at between two men in the course of the counting, and the way to decide it is to see which has the fewer transferred votes. The man who has more transferred votes is the man who is excluded. But, say they have the same

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    number of transferred votes. The answer is that there is no difference in this respect—or if none of the votes of either of the candidates are transferred votes—the returning officer shall determine which of the candidates is to be excluded. I have the honour to represent a constituency which has hitherto been rather "on the knife-edge." In the last two General Elections there was a majority of ten votes one way in January, and a majority of eight votes—increased afterwards to nine—the other way in the following December, and therefore I feel, if I may say so, a personal interest in the matter. A tie is not an impossible contingency in a constituency like that.
    Mr. HEMMERDE: The returning officer has the deciding vote now.
    Captain BARNETT: Yes, but he is given, under this beautiful system which is to give the fullest representation, the power to say who is to be excluded, who is to be cut out, and his votes transferred to others. You say you do it now, but you have a great complication to which I want the House to give its attention. When you exclude a candidate you are giving his second preferences to the other people who are in front of him. It is of vital importance to those people in front who the man is who is going to be excluded. It is not a mere question of the returning officer thinking that Jones is a better man to go to Parliament than Robinson. It is a question of the returning officer having to consider what will be the effect of giving the deciding vote to Jones rather than to Robinson, because it will mean so many votes transferred to Smith or to Fletcher. That is what I say vitiates the proposed system. I suggest that if we are going to depart from our present electoral system—which is rough and ready, if you like, but which I think has worked fairly on the whole—and if we are going to substitute something for it, let us have something that will not give anomalies like this. I have tried to make it clear that the decision that the returning officer will have to arrive at in these cases is not only one that directly affects the man excluded, but one which affects the candidates higher up whose position in the vote is to be decided by the transference of the second preferences.
    There is another point with regard to the transfer of the second preferences to
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    which I think the House ought to give serious consideration. Why should the second preferences of the man at the bottom of the poll be taken into account and not the second preferences higher up? The hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs has given us a case with some figures which I admit are imaginary but which might happen. In the case which he has imagined there are 5,000 first preference votes given to A, 4,000 to B, and 2,000 to C. Under our present system A would be very comfortably elected with a substantial majority of 1,000 votes over B, and 3,000 votes over C, and, as the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Butcher) remarked in Committee, why should he not be elected? He has a handsome majority over each of the other candidates. Very well; the answer to that question is that most of his people dislike the other two candidates so much that they have not used their second preference. There is the problem, and one quite understands that the 5,000 voters for A. might for the most part have nothing to choose between the other two candidates, and might not care to give a second preference vote at all. They have satisfied themselves by giving 200 votes to B., while 300 give a transferred vote to C., and 4,500 do not exercise the second preference at all. The House may say that that is an extreme case, but it may quite readily happen. Now you come to the second man, with 4,000 votes. One hundred go to A., 3,500 go to C., and only 400 of second preferences are wasted. You come to the third man, C., with 2,000 first preferences. He has 100 second preferences for A., 1,101 second preferences for B., and wastes 799 votes. What possible reason in equity, sense or logic can there be for taking the second preferences of C. into account when you are not taking the second preferences of B. into account. I have studied this thing with what care I can give to it, and I am utterly unable to find any fair answer to that question.
    In the case stated by the hon. Baronet he rather imagines three parties, each nominating candidates. No doubt we have three parties in this country now, and perhaps, indeed, I ought to say four. As a rule, however, it will happen that there are only two party candidates, and that the third is a faddist or a crank. Let us say that he is against inoculation for typhoid, or believes the world is flat, or something of that kind. He has a certain body of out-and-out supporters in the

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    constituency, and they vote for him, perhaps to advertise their fad. They give their second preference to one of the other people, that is to say, to A. or B. The question I ask, and which I think has never been answered in any Debate yet, is why you should take the second preferences of the votes given to the faddist or crank at the bottom of the poll and say that these second preferences of people who have voted in the first instance for a man who has no earthly chance of being elected should have more weight than the second preferences given to B., who is second on the poll. That question has not been answered because it cannot be answered, and I hope those who follow me will take up the challenge and give the answer if they see one. In the case stated by the hon. Baronet, if you had taken the second preferences given to A., B. and C. the extraordinary result would have happened that neither A. nor B. would have been elected. C., the man at the bottom of the poll, who had 2,000 direct votes and no more, would come out at the top. That is another comical result. This thing fairly bristles with comical results. If we are foolish enough to keep this Sub-section in the Bill our politics will become comic politics. You will have the most surprising results happening in every constituency. It will pass the wit of man to prophesy what will happen in any Division because it all depends upon this wonderful taking away the number you first thought of and saying someone does not exist and taking his votes and giving them to someone else. It is all wrong.
    We have a perfectly plain instance here of 11,000 voters going to the poll, 5,000 of them had given their first vote to one man, 4,000 to another and 2,000 to a third, and again I ask, why should not that first man be elected? To resort to this ridiculous hocus pocus of taking some votes from this man and some from another and gradually building up a majority and in certain contingencies leaving the whole thing to the returning officer to decide whose votes shall be taken is perfectly laughable. We shall be told it is done in Tasmania or Finland or somewhere else. No doubt it is. No doubt hon. Members will be able to give us chapter and verse for Nova Zembla or Lapland or some other country where this is an unqualified success, but in this oldest of Parliaments, whose electoral system may involve some anomalies, as what electoral system does not, but which is the glory and admiration of the world, I
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    hope the House will think twice and thrice before it introduces, without a great deal more argument than has been adduced here, this absurd scheme instead of the plain straightforward system that we have at present. This method of electing members to the Imperial Parliament is undemocratic. The real democratic thing is to elect the man who represents the greatest number of the electors. It is perfectly true it may not be a majority really, but if it represents more first votes for one candidate than any other person who has solicited the votes of that electorate he is entitled to be returned.
    There is another point which was made by my hon. Friend (Mr. Burdett-Coutts) which was unanswered and, as far as know, remains unanswered to this day. He asked if the Sub-section applied to other than single-member constituencies. I have read the rules very closely, and I cannot see that that question is answered. My hon. Friend said:
    " When I turn to the Sub-section the first question I have to ask myself, and which is unanswered, is whether the Sub-section applies only to single-member constituencies? "
    The words of the Sub-section are:
    " If at an election for one Member of Parliament there are more than two candidates."
    On the face of it that would apply to a two-member division. If there were a vacancy in the City of London, the election would be for one Member of Parliament. My hon. Friend resumed his argument:
    "I gather that the answer is not, and that it also applies to by-elections in constituencies with more than one member—"
    There is nothing to settle that in the Bill.
    "If that is so we are at once face to face with this position, that a totally different process is applied to the same constituency in a by-election from what is applied in a General Election. That to my mind is one of the first and strongest objections to this Sub-section. An obvious instance which may interest the right hon. Member for the City of London is the case of the City of London itself. If there was a by-election in the City it would be held on the principle of the alternative vote. I will give an illustration which will show how even such a popular Member as the right hon. Baronet might be placed under these circumstances."
    There is a criticism of a vital and searching character going to the very heart of this question. You may have in a two-member constituency two totally different methods of election dependent entirely upon whether there is one vacancy or two, as you have at a General Election. The whole thing bristles with difficulties of that kind and with unanswered problems. My hon. Friend laid stress upon this point, that

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    there was nothing to compel the voter to cover all the candidates with his preferences. The converse would obviously be absurd. To tell a man that unless he put down 1, 2, 3, or 4 against one, two, three, or four names he was going to lose his vote for 1 would be something which not even the ingenuity of the framer of these rules could conceive. Look at the other alternative, which is revealed in the fears which my hon. Friend (Sir G. Younger) has expressed. The alternative is a perfectly clear one, and it seems to me that the system of second preferences set out there —in one case 4,500 people not marking their papers at all—destroys the whole value of the thing. Surely the fact that 4,500 out of the 5,000 electors who voted for A. dislike the other two candidates so much that they would not give any choice at all between them ought not to decide the election. That appears to me to be a preposterous position, and yet it is the position as the thing stands in this Memorandum. The alternative vote is, in fact, a scheme whereby you make a series of efforts to prevent the views of the majority being registered in the election of the candidate of their choice. That is what it is if you reduce it to its lowest common denominator.
    But there is one point which is very important at the present juncture. Many of our voters at present are away fighting for their country abroad. In the ordinary course, if they were at home, they might know something as to the comparative merits of the candidates. I dare say a very large proportion of the voters in this country vote on the party ticket, but personal considerations come in to a certain extent as well. The alternative vote most certainly calls for personal knowledge of the candidates. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Hemmerde) shakes his head. I cannot conceive how a proper choice can be made unless the man does know the candidates. I suppose my hon. and learned Friend's reply would be that he would still vote for party or for the great principles represented by Brown, Jones, or Robinson. How is Private Smith, who is in Mesopotamia at the present moment, and who has got a vote, say, in North-East Hackney, and who has hitherto voted Conservative, to know anything of the comparative merits of those who are representing the Liberal party, the Labour party, the anti-Vaccinationists, or any other party? The fact of his being away
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    from the country when the next election takes place seems to me to indicate that even if this new system was suited to the conditions of our electoral life, which I strongly deny, it would be singularly unsuited for the next election. The absence of many voters from this country when the next election takes place, will prevent those voters learning anything about the different candidates and giving a considered alternative vote. I have no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman will disagree with me about the word " considered." If they give a vote, so long as it is marked 1, 2, or 3, he will be quite happy to play with it.
    I suggest that this proposed system is vitally and radically unsound, and that it is unconstitutional and undemocratic. It does not enable you to get the real views of the electors. It does not enable you to send to Westminster the man who commands the sympathy of the majority of the voters. Under our present system a man may not represent the majority of the electors, but he represents more than would be the case under under this system. You get a straight mandate which you do not get under this wretched, complicated scheme of arbitrarily transferring votes from one man to another. Under a system like this, which depends upon complications, such as are set out in these extraordinary rules, there is no equity. I do not think it would satisfy the desire of the British people for a straight issue in politics. I think it will tend to the caucus. I think it will tend, I will not say to wilfully corrupt politics, but to more subtly corrupt politics, in which an agent might go behind the back of the candidate and say, " I will give you so-and-so if you do so-and-so for somebody else in the next division." The more difficult you make it for the ordinary man to understand the system of voting the more power you put into the hands of the caucus, and into the hands of the returning officer. I hope most strongly that the House, before it abandons a system which, with all its anomalies, has given good results, will very carefully weigh what has been put before it. I submit that the scheme which we have here put before us is crude and badly thought out, that the questions which have arisen in regard to it have not been properly answered, and that we had far better adhere to the system which we have at the present time, until we can put something better in its place.
    Mr. SHERWELL: It appears to me to be somewhat unfortunate that the Proposer and Seconder of the Amendment, which really indicts the general principle which is embodied in this Sub-section, should have devoted in the main their discussion of that general principle to a somewhat detailed criticism of the machinery devised in the Schedule of the Bill. At this stage of the discussion we are really concerned with the general principle as to whether the alternative vote, whatever the details of its machinery, would remedy the defects in our existing arrangements which are not merely notorious but the evil results of which must be apparent to anyone who has had observation or experience of them. The general principle involved in this Sub-section, as I understand it, is that it turns upon the question whether this House ought lightly to continue the machinery or the principle which does, as a matter of experience, lead to this result, that many constituencies must of necessity be represented in this House by a representative elected on a minority vote. I happen to have sat in this House for a number of years as the representative of a constituency in connection with which no conceivable candidate could ever hope to be elected except upon a minority vote. In my Constituency there are three elaborately, carefully, and skilfully organised separate political parties, and for many years past it has been the practice of those parties to put up their own candidate at every election. So far as I can foresee that condition of things will remain to the end of the chapter, and I believe it is impossible to conceive any occasion in the future when there will not be a three-cornered fight for the election of one member to represent that particular constituency.
    As far as I can gather the objection of the Mover of this Amendment, he dwelt with some emphasis upon the danger lurking in the principle of the alternative vote, and said that it would be possible by a combination on the part of two political parties to elect a man, one half of whose supporters would not really believe him to be the best representative of their own views or an accurate or true representative of their own views. No doubt this danger does lurk in the system of the alternative vote, but had my hon. Friend (Sir G Younger) been present, I would have reminded him that this possibility
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    of collusion and combination, although theoretically possible, is in practice one of the most difficult things to engineer or bring about. I do not speak without some knowledge and experience. It so happens that in connection with one of my elections a few years ago there was a deliberately organised attempt made by two parties in that constituency, both of whom are irreconcilably opposed to me, to bring about by conference a combination of forces for that occasion only which would have had the effect of unseating me, as it was hoped, and of breaking the continuity of representation in that particular borough. It happens to be a borough which under this Bill will be one of the largest single-member constituencies in the whole of the United Kingdom. The vice-chairman of one of those parties told me quite plainly in the Town Hall, at the time of the counting of the votes, that whilst that attempt was made both parties retired from the negotiations and from the conference at a certain period for the same reason. They were both convinced in their own minds that whilst they might succeed in bringing about the desired result for that particular election, they were debarred from proceeding to the conclusion of their agreement by the fear shared by both that if they once diverted the allegiance of their supporters they might find it difficult or impossible to restore that allegiance on a subsequent occasion.
    After all, the question, so far as it has any substance, is really an indictment of the motives upon which votes may be given or are given in connection with Parliamentary elections. The objection of the danger of the combination rests on the assumption of an impropriety of motive governing the electoral result in the constituency. But the moment we enter upon that consideration we are plunged into an endless sea of difficulties. Is it really to be laid down that we are to reckon not merely the electoral result as measured by the aggregate of votes, but that we are actually to carry our scrutiny underneath the votes themselves to investigate the motives governing the distribution of those votes? That would lead to a very extraordinary result, if we had to ascertain why it was that a particular group of electors voted for us individually in a particular constituency. Electoral machinery is purely a practical matter. You cannot possibly go beyond the votes themselves to the underlying motives which may have

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    determined their distribution. So I fancy that the hon. Baronet had not quite understood the wholly new sphere of difficulty upon which he was entering when he really, as he did in his speech, doubted the motive which under an alternative vote system might govern the distribution of the vote. The only thing that counts is the vote. If I am to go as the representative of a constituency into this House as having the largest total of votes, I am not prepared to question the motive which governs the distribution of those votes. You must assume that the votes cast for a particular candidate are an expression of the desire of the electors who have passed those votes that that candidate should be elected to Parliament.
    Consider the objections to the present system. Suppose the Amendment is carried, and let us assume that in the coming elections the present system is to prevail, and that we are to have this competition among the candidates of several parties. We all know that efforts are now being made by different parties, and particularly by the Labour party, to revise and to enlarge their constitution, and to try to gain such additional adherents as to enable them to contest a much larger number of constituencies than they have so far ventured to contest. I, as one who always fought straightforwardly against them, have not the smallest objection to the number of candidates. The number of candidates that may be nominated is a matter of indifference to me. I am only concerned that men should be elected who in the main result really represent a majority vote in the constituency. In the present circumstances do you get rid of these dangers and difficulties? It is a notorious fact that in recent years Labour, so called, has received in this House a representation out of all proportion to the actual electoral strength behind it. It is a notorious fact that at recent elections Liberal party organisers on the one hand and Labour party organisations on the other have entered into a mutual arrangement under which they have by anticipation allocated the representation of certain constituencies to either Liberal or Labour candidates, without any regard to the needs or desires of the electorates in those constituencies. Lord Gladstone, when he was chief Liberal Whip, I believe introduced that compact. That arrangement has been repeated on subsequent occasions, and the possibility of such an
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    arrangement seems to me far more mischievous and far more immoral than any of the anomalies that have been pointed out in connection with the practice of the alternative vote. I am certainly an unswerving opponent of any system which would gerrymander the representation of the people in this House by any compact between chief Whips of opposite parties, without regard to the merits of the question or the principles for which each of the candidates stands. That seems to me, on all grounds, to be a vicious system. It embodies a thoroughly immoral and undemocratic principle. I most gladly welcome the proposal of the alternative vote in the hope that it will give to that vicious method its death blow.
    9.0 P.M.
    Mr. HEMMERDE: I have never been able to understand the argument by which all attempts to make our electoral system a fair system seem to me to be opposed. I have read all the documents I think issued upon this question by the Government, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman who seconded this Amendment that our constituents will be able to understand the alternative vote perfectly easily, and the returning officers will be able to do what they have done for many years—to decide in case of a tie. It does not matter to anyone whether the tie is caused directly or indirectly. A tie is always bound to cause difficulty in elections. Whenever there has been any necessity to decide ties, they have always been decided by the returning officer in the very few cases where such things have occurred, and I do not doubt that they always will be under this Act. A point like that seems to me to be as irrelevant to the issue as is the point which I think the hon. Member for Westminster attempted to make on the last occasion, and it was repeated to-day, the point as to whether this system was going to apply to double-member constituencies. If one reads the Sub-section in question it is quite clear that it only applies to the election of one member to Parliament, and it certainly does not apply in double-member constituencies, except at by-elections when there is an election for a single member. And if the hon. Member will follow what I am going to say he will realise that there is a great distinction between a single-member and a double-member constituency, because if it is a double-member constituency it is a great deal easier for the different parties to get represented—whether by arrangement or not I do not mind, because ninny of those arrangements

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    are entirely honourable and above board—and there is not anything like the same choice of two parties almost alike in policy quarrelling over a seat, and another party getting the advantage of their quarrel.
    It is all very well for the hon. Baronet who proposed this Amendment to say that parties who are opposed to one another ought to arrange their differences, and then to talk to us about log rolling. Apparenly with him it is only a question of when the log rolling takes place. You are quite at liberty before the candidate is chosen to try to agree upon somebody by methods which are exactly the same, but it is something altogether indefensible if you do it later on in the full light of day before the electorate. To me this Clause appears almost the most important in the Bill. It is not in any way deserving the description " comic opera," because, to persons who do not understand, anything will appear comic. It is a very simple matter. I am one of the few Members of this House who have gone through an election under the second ballot. When I was first returned to this House the method by which the Liberal candidate was adopted was by polling the whole division three times to decide who it was that should be returned, and I had three separate ballots before I was elected. Still, that never struck me as unfair, though I regarded it as an annoyance. On the second ballot I polled almost as many as my second and third opponent, and I had to fight it out with the opponent next to me. This system of the alternative vote is perfectly simple as simple as the second ballot. The second ballot has been tried in some countries, but the people came to the conclusion that there were some very great objections to it—that something should be done to avoid it—and that it was not fair to hold an election again, because the tendency, after the first ballot, was that there should be a combination—not altogether a very proper combination—between the second and third parties to get rid of the man at the top of the poll.
    These questions of the second ballot have been considered by a Royal Commission; it has been spoken of again and again, and, after all, it is no new question, for during the last ten years it has been constantly coming before Parliament, the whole question being, Which is the better system—the second ballot or the alternative vote? The alternative vote is not a matter which requires a nice mathematical calculation, and I look upon it is a simple
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    method of getting the advantage of the second ballot without a second election. It is a perfectly practicable and simple measure. If there are three candidates, and if in the second ballot the one last is ruled out, and the second or third tied, then the returning officer would have to decide between them. If you start from the idea that this is merely an ingenious method of getting out of the turmoil of a second election, then I think all these difficulties vanish at once into thin air. Something was said about this question only being carried on the last occasion by a majority of one. have never been able to understand why it was never mentioned by the Prime Minister that the question was going to be left to the free vote of the House. I have never been able to understand why it was to be left to the House. A number of us imagined that this proposal would go through as a matter of course, and, frankly, I think it is the only part of the Bill I would now wish to have, all the other parts of the Bill relating to the great number who are to come on the register, to women's suffrage, anti to other matters, having been practically agreed upon and settled. But this is a question on which we ought to have had our full power brought to this House; but, as a matter of fact, many thought that it was in the hands of the Government, and therefore they have not taken the trouble to come down. We will see what happens to-night. I want to say why I think this is an absolutely vital and important part of the Bill.
    In every country it has always been the same, namely, that the people who want a change have to adopt many different methods to achieve it. In single-member constituencies, without any method such as this now proposed, the tendency is to give the advantage to the people who do not want change. You have only to look at the history of the last twenty years in this country to become aware of that. I do not believe in the view of people who say that there will be no party politics after the War, and I do not believe that the people who express that view or sentiment believe in it either. I believe it is a rather unpleasant form of political cant, and that party politics after the War will be pretty much as they are now. I approach this question from the human point of view, and I think that things politically are going to be very much the same after the War, in many ways,

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    as they were before; but we are now threatened with a state of things that might make the present system not only an intolerable injustice to certain parties in the State, but might make it a matter of absolute national danger. The righ hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, said he regarded this Bill as a great safety valve. So it is, provided nobody sits upon it; and if it is going to be used in the way supposed at the end of this War, we should be very much as we were before in our political divisions, except in this particular, that the Labour party will claim that they ought to have had years ago very much greater representation. This absence of the alternative vote has had the result of keeping the Labour men out of Parliament. Again and again, I have seen a man persuaded to stand aside on the ground that he would give the election to a representative of the party that neither Labour nor the Liberal party wanted. That has worked very much against the Labour party. The Labour party now say that after the War they intend to fight a very large number of seats. Nobody can question their right to do it, and as a matter of fact anyone who has followed the history of the last twenty years will be surprised that they have not done it before. Supposing that after the War you have 200 Labour candidates fighting, and you have Liberals and Conservatives to contest the seats. What will be the result? I submit that this is a perfectly fair instance to take, if you look down the list of all the double-member constituencies where you find Liberal and Labour candidates fighting against two Conservatives, you will find that in almost every case, whether it is Newcastle, Blackburn, or Leicester, the Liberal and Labour candidates poll almost exactly the same. It shows there is a very great similarity of views. In other words, when you have, say, 10,000 people who vote for the Liberal and Labour candidates you may be perfectly certain that there is not very great difference in the minds of the ordinary elector as compared, at any rate, with their opponents between the views of those two men. What could be more indecent than to find, say, at the next election those two, who in double-member constituencies are treated almost by the electors as members of the same party, fighting one another in constituency after constituency
    1488
    with the result that the opponents of those parties may win 100 minority seats? Is that a safety valve?
    You might get a case where there was an overwhelming majority of the country against the Conservative party but owing to these splits between the Liberal and Labour parties the Conservatives come into power. Do you think in the present temper of the working classes that they will stand a Government like that for six months? I say that if you are going to prevent fair election after this War you will not only deserve labour trouble and perhaps worse, but in my opinion you will get it. I regard this just as important as the whole of the Bill. I regard it as absolutely vital to free institutions in this country that we shall have no large number of minority candidates returned at the next election representing one party, and that we should endeavour so far as is possible in every division to scrutinise the votes carefully and to find out who it is who really represents the opinion of the country. I believe that anything else is going to be a matter of grave national danger. I do not believe you are ever going to have anything like revolution in a country where you have the best part of adult suffrage and where you have a free system of election. But if you once get in the course of these next ten difficult years a Parliament returned which owing to faults in your system is unrepresentative, and if you are going to drive out of Parliament men who are the real choice of the constituency by keeping a system which will work, and works in every country always in favour of one party, then you are going to turn a most dangerous weapon against the institutions of this country. So much for the reasons why I regard this as being a matter of overwhelming importance to keep in this Bill. I regard it as one of the ways and the only fair way in which we can really see that our institutions go on in an orderly manner after the War.
    I am not only talking about the Labour party. What about the new parties? I should like to know which way the National party are going to regard this question. How are they going to get the representation that they claim they ought to have? I suppose they do not claim that they are to get seats only by arrangement with one party or another. I should have thought no young party could support a scheme like that. It seems to me, apart from that, that every new party

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    has got to share the fate of the Labour party in the past owing to the splitting of the votes. We are told we are going to have no party politics after the War, and that things are going to 'be different. I say that they cannot unless you give free play to the parties. I do not believe that you are going to see anything like a National party rising. I believe that the parties will go on substantially on the lines on which they go now and under the same name. I am quite confident you are going to give no chance to any young party or any party to get anything like a working majority in the House for twenty years unless you have some system like this by which the second choice can be taken into consideration. The whole weight of the party caucus will be against any such party. The whole weight of both the great party caucuses will be so. I have taken the matter at present from the point of view of what has been happening. There is an argument sometimes put forward by people who are not members of either the Liberal or Conservative parties, but by members of the Socialist party, which I shall endeavour to answer. They say if you have a system like the alternative vote we shall have a combination between the two capitalist parties against it. I think that is an argument that has to be met. Then, again, you get a Liberal saying, if you had this system, we as a party would very greatly suffer, since there would be more Labour men returned. I think that is true, and yet I support it. The two capitalist parties, if you call them so, have a perfect right to combine, and I am sure no Socialist or Labour man wants to rule or control the government of the country unless he has a majority behind him. No sort of combination can put the party in the majority in the minority. I say they are at liberty to combine.
    Then there is all this talk about a corrupt bargain. What is there corrupt in the bargain? I represent an agricultural constituency composed largely of agricultural labourers. I am not an agricultural labourer myself. They may say, and I have often suggested it to them, that the time might arrive when they would prefer to go back and be represented, as in the past, by one of themselves. Supposing that they put up a man under those circumstances, I should tell everybody to give their second vote to him, and he would certainly do exactly the same for me, and we should be fight
    1490
    ing on the same principles. The whole question would be that the electors might like to decide for themselves whether they would have a direct Labour representative or somebody who said he was doing as good work as the Labour man. That is a perfectly simple case, and that is going to happen all over the country. What is there corrupt about it? Why should not I make that arrangement either publicly or privately? It will be done, and I do not understand. where the corruption comes in. The hon. Baronet said if we carried this system it would mean three-corner fights in every constituency or in every place where there is a small majority. I can see what may happen under the present system. Under the existing system, which some hon. Members have been lauding as though it were as perfect as it is possible to have, you get occasionally an attempt, and I have known of a case and can bring forward the evidence, to run a third candidate with a view to wrecking the possibility of a man being elected. I have known the attempt made with money not of the party which the third candidate represented, but with money from the party of one of the other candidates, but in that instance of which I am aware the man was too honest and refused. But it happened, and that may often happen now. But you would have a much less chance with that plan, when you have got that system in vogue—a far less chance. It seems to me that all your corruption is much more likely to happen under the present system of log-rolling— it only happens at a somewhat different time ! As a matter of fact, this question has been prejudiced by all sorts of remarks about the British public's desire for a straight issue, and fair play, and one thing and another. We were solemnly told on the last occasion when this was debated that there is something un-English in not letting the man who had the largest number of first preference votes be returned. They said it was even unsportsmanlike. It seems to be a most curious idea of supporting this proposal. It is the same as saying that if there were three heats to be won in a 100 yards handicap that you should give the race to the winner of the first heat. The whole thing is perfectly absurd. It is merely bringing in the name of sport and national character to support a system that cannot be supported by argument, and can only be supported by prejudice.

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    As a matter of fact, the British public will be perfectly able to understand a thing like this. The result of the election would never, as a fact, be announced in any way till after it had been known, first of all, who the person was who had got first place. That would all be decided in the counting room, and subsequently announced to the public, and they would thus know who was the winner by a system that Parliament had devised. All this talk about the British public wanting a fair issue, and thinking it unsportsmanlike not to give us the man who had a minority of votes, really, if I may use an Americanism, leaves me quite cold. All this talk about log-rolling and corruption of parties does seem to me as solely put forth to cloak the fact that for years and years a particular system has been for the benefit of one party, and that party does not want it changed now. We know perfectly well that at the Speaker's Conference it was only carried by a bare majority. We know perfectly well that there was also a straight party vote on the last occasion. I appeal on this occasion—though there are dangers in plenty to the party—and this is not the appeal of the man who says, "This will hurt the Progressive party with whom I am identified, therefore it ought to be put right "—this is an appeal by one who sees in every country it has always been the fact that this system has always prejudiced the Progressive forces—and must do so—I appeal to those moderate Conservatives, some of whom I know will support and others whom I hope will, to say that the next election shall be based simply upon the principles of fair play. The time may come in the future when even they may be very glad indeed that they put this thing right. For the moment it helps them, or it has helped them. Some time in the future they may find it exactly contrary, and they may find themselves clamouring for this change. I am not making a party appeal at all. I believe it is an appeal for fair play. I know there are many of our opponents who hold exactly the same view. I appeal to every one of them who values fair play in electioneering and values particularly this Bill as really a safety valve for letting the feelings of the electors manifest themselves, not to vote for this, but to throw it out by an overwhelming majority.
    Sir J. LARMOR: Since this question came up at the Speaker's Conference, I have done my best to make up my mind. I feel very strongly that this plan of the alternative vote is not a feasible plan ascertain the true sense of the electorate, and I wish to express that opinion now. The hon. and learned Gentleman for Norfolk began by complaining that the Government had not made this an ntegral part of their proposal and put on the Government Whips. The reason he gave at the end of his speech was that this is one of the most controversial matters in the whole subject of the franchise. The Speaker's Conference thought so little of the chance of coming to an agreement about it that, to my mind, the question of the alternative vote was barely considered at all. The point, has been taken by the hon. Member opposite that there has been too much of the higher mathematics in the Schedule of the Bill. I should like to take the point that mathematical and logical considerations have hitherto been entirely absent in the consideration of this matter. If I may say so, I would prefer the Amendment on the Paper by the hon. Member for Stirling, who is opposite, proposing a totally different Schedule from the one which is contained in this Bill. The example which the hon. Member gives in his Schedule to me demonstrates conclusively how absurd results might be obtained by the Schedule in this Bill, and how distinctly better and more satisfactory results can be obtained by the Schedule that he has proposed. As a matter of fact, all these problems were discussed 120 years ago at the time of the French Revolution. In the electoral systems, which were then plentiful, the abilities of the greatest mathematicians of France—and that period was amongst the greatest of all periods—were enlisted, and in the Report of the Royal Commission of 1906 on the electoral systems in other countries there is a very valuable discussion on the possible methods of alternative votes by Professor Nanson, of Melbourne, who is a mathematician of the first rank. The system which he adopted, I think, is the best, and it is the one adopted by the lion. Member for Stirling. He condemns the plan in the Schedule for the same reasons which I condemn it. If I may say so, irrespective of these technicalities, my main objection to this system is that it attempts to mix up two elections in one.
    Under the present system there is a straight vote on the principles which the

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    different candidates put forward. Under the new system the election will, in many cases, be determined by indirect considerations, by bargaining, by caucuses or other bodies over the course of second preferences. The incidental circumstances of how the second preferences are to be cast will be the controlling feature in the election, instead of the principles which are at stake in the addresses of the candidates. I think that will create an amount of confusion that would far more than countervail any possible result in the way of diminishing grievances, for I do not believe grievances would be diminished. At present there is, I admit, often a grievance, when in a three-cornered fight the candidate gets in who has distinctly fewer votes than the other two candidates combined. I think there would be a much greater grievance if, under this system of preference voting, the candidate was kept out who represented a strong and compact body of opinion, but was objected to, not on the ground of principle, but on the ground or prejudice by the two other candidates who had no agreement amongst themselves. That would be a case in which the prevailing opinion of the constituency was disjointed by two minor conflicting feelings when they might have very little in common. It is on the ground that the decision of the election would be transferred from the main issue to a matter of arrangement about the second preference, that, I think, the proposal would not improve, but would deteriorate the representation in this House.
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I have listened with some surprise to the speech which we have just heard. My hon. Friend began with the observation that this was not a feasible system. Not only is it feasible, but it seems a system which can be very easily worked, the only requirement in fact being that the elector should be able to put a number after the name of each candidate in the order that he prefers. There is none of the complication which, in another case we have been discussing lately, might be involved in the enumerating, because there is no question of a quota. As my hon. and learned Friend said, the object and the result of this is to give us the advantages of the second ballot at one single voting, and no one who appreciates the need, or desires the application, of the principle of the second ballot can possibly disagree with this proposal. I object strongly to minority rule.
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    We want to know what the feeling of a constituency really is. It is very important, not only from the point of view of actual returning, but from the point of view of enabling various sections in the country to try their strength without endangering certain principles which they hold in common with other sections. For instance, assume a new party or new movement is gaining ground. They naturally desire to test their position by contesting a seat. If we do not have anything of this sort, then the candidate who gets the greatest number of votes will be elected, even though some of the votes given, say, to two other candidates are considerably greater than those which he gets. Therefore, if a new party is coming into a constituency and is desiring to test their position, they may be faced with this, that by voting for their own man they may really be assisting in the return of one other of the two candidates for whom they have the least sympathy. That state of things is not a state of things that ought to be allowed to continue any longer.
    What we want in every case is that, so far as possible, this House should be a true mirror of the country, and in each particular constituency the majority in that constituency returning a single member should represent the views of that constituency as far as can possibly be done. I venture to put it to the House that if that is not done you give cause not only of great discontent and disquiet, but also of political unrest, because it may be, and will be. in such cases that the majority are unrepresented and the minority carry the day. That is quite inconsistent with any idea of true representation. This scheme involves no practical difficulty either to the voters or to those who have to do with the counting of the votes. It is by no means a new scheme; it has been put forward again and again. It would, indeed, have become law some years back if it had not been for an accident.
    Sir F. BANBURY: What was the accident?
    Mr. WHITE: The accident was that the Bill which proposed it did not succeed in getting to the Statute Book, owing to certain circumstances with which the right hon. Baronet is familiar. There is absolutely no difficulty about this. It is absolutely essential, and it has become more necessary than ever, seeing that the House

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    has now decided against proportional representation. The attitude of the majority of the House was to bank—if I may use rather a slang phrase—on the single-member constituency. Now that the single-member constituency is to be the general rule, it becomes more important than ever that in a single-member constituency there should not be the risk of minority representation, but that every step should be taken to secure majority representation in every case. I do not know whether those who oppose this proposal are prepared to put forward a proposal for the second ballot. I venture to think that some of them will deal with that, but, unless they can propose a scheme for the second ballot which can work out simpler than the present scheme, then I respectfully submit to this House that support ought to be given to this scheme, which can be understood by a child, and secures all the advantages of the second ballot at a single voting.
    Major CHAPPLE: The hon. Member who has just addressed the House asked whether anyone was prepared to put forward a scheme of second ballot. We have had sufficient experience of a second ballot in other parts of the world to lead us to the conclusion that that system is utterly and finally discredited. I think, then, we must dismiss that entirely from our minds. I agree with my hon. Friend that the alternative vote is a system by which you hold a second ballot in the returning officer's room by the returning officer, without calling the electors together again. Because it does that, it is, as he says, simple, and does away with all the expense of the second ballot, with all the log-rolling, and with all the intrigue. The hon. Member who seconded this Amendment said the alternative vote was undemocratic. I understand by democracy that all the people have the right to vote, and that the majority are represented in this House. The present system is not democratic. In many cases it gives you minority rule. Proportional representation aims at giving minority representation. I notice the hon. Member who has just addressed the House used the term "minority representation" in reference to this alternative vote. Proportional representation demands minority representation with the intention of giving the minority a voice, not of giving minority rule.
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    We have now put that aside, and in future the minority is not to have a voice. The alternative vote ensures, if we accept it and have the scheme of counting I suggest, that minority rule will be entirely absent. We have many hon. Members here who represent a minority, and in those particular constituencies the minority rules in this House. This is undemocratic. You can ensure by the alternative vote that none but the majority sends a representative here. The hon. Baronet who moved this Amendment called it a great injustice if at an election where a candidate secured 5,000 votes, the next on the list 4,000, while the man at the bottom got 2,000, the 4,000 man should be able to add the 2,000 votes, making 6,000 and giving him the seat. The hon. Member who seconded the Amendment agreed with that proposition, but I am sorry he fails to see the essential factor in this alternative vote which is that these 2,000 electors should not be disfranchised in the election because they choose a man out of three who could not command a majority.
    The hon. Baronet said there were different values in preference votes, but that is not so. The vote is of the same value. As a matter of fact it is the same voter and the same vote. The simple fact is, he says to the returning officer, " If my vote is given to a man who cannot win, I ask you to transfer it to one of the other candidates." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker) made the same mistake. He referred to the different values in the vote, and said that a man who got second preference votes had votes not as valuable as first preference. I hope that claim will not be made in the future. I think it is now recognised that the second preference votes are of the same value when transferred from one candidate to another because they were in the first instance given to a candidate who could not secure a majority of the electors. The Mover of the Amendment said that the alternative vote would open up opportunities for party intrigue, and he suggested that candidates should try and compose their differences by intrigue between one party and the other. I think a constituency should hear all candidates and decide upon them. It is an incursion upon the rights of a constituency for a few men to get together and say, " We will allow only this or that man to stand." It is a great advantage to have as many candidates as care to

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    stand. The present system keeps eliminating men by private caucus until you reduce them to two. We ought to know what are the views of the third and the fourth and the fifth men. Why should constituents not hear their views?
    Often we have a conflict between the Press and the platform. Personally I believe that the educative power of the platform is greater than the educative power of the Press. During the War the Press has been vocal and the platform silent, and you see the result. If you have the alternative vote you invite more candidates to stand, and you do not eliminate anybody. You also train young and prospective members, and that is a very great advantage. Another advantage is that men can stand as candidates without being accused of vote splitting. That keeps a great many candidates out of an election. This is a loss not only to the candidates but to the whole community. We invite a large number of men to stand on the promise that there will be no vote splitting, and we want to be able to fulfil that promise. Under the draft regulations of the Government we cannot fulfil that promise, and if these regulations are going to be part of the Bill I shall vote against the alternative vote.
    The alternative vote says to all prospective candidates, " Come one, come all." Two Liberals, two Conservatives, and two Labour candidates can stand under this proposal. We shall in future have a larger number of candidates, because the expenses are going to be smaller and the returning officer's expenses will be paid by the State. For that reason alone we are going to have a multiplicity of candidates, but there will be more because of the promise the alternate vote gives to prospective candidates, that if three, four, or five men stand for one seat they will not split the vote, but the man who has the majority of the votes will be elected. That is not so under the draft regulations which will split votes in many instances. There are two Colonies where they have adopted the alternative vote. The system of voting is the same everywhere, but the method of counting may be entirely different. The draft regulations which accompany this Sub-section are copied from the West Australian alternative or contingent vote, and under these regulations the bottom candidate is cut out.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): I must point out that the hon. and gallant Member has an Amendment on the Paper
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    dealing with the subject he is now discussing, and we cannot have the Debate twice over. I put the question to the House so as to permit the method of counting to be dealt with after the principle had been disposed of. If the hon. Member wishes to take his opportunity now instead of on his Amendment, I have nothing further to say.
    Major CHAPPLE: I certainly shall not trench upon my own Amendment now or on the speech I hope to make upon my own Amendment. I may say that the draft regulations as printed are very defective. Under the Government system you will be inviting at the next election a multiplicity of candidates but the caucus would continue to try and eliminate independent candidates, and only have two candidates for every seat. If the alternative vote passes you will have so many standing that you will require a perfect system of counting. The system of the alternative vote is to my mind absolutely democratic. It will certainly increase the number of candidates who will stand. It will train new men and prospective candidates for subsequent elections, and on the whole will give us majority rule in every case in which a majority is not shown on the first preference. For that reason, I am quite prepared to oppose the Amendment and to support the alternative vote.
    Colonel GRETTON: The whole of our Parliamentary institutions, so far as the representation of the people goes, are built on the attempt to arrive at the majority, and this proposal stands or falls by its success or failure in achieving that result. The smallest examination of all these proposals for the alternative vote must reveal the fact that the majority is not going to be arrived at. It is an attempt to find the majority by taking a certain number of the electors' second choice. The alternative vote is going to be a failure, because it is going to be the second best thing, and you are not going to arrive at the real majority or the real choice of the electors. The hon. and gallant Member opposite (Major Chapple) dismissed very lightly the alternative of a second ballot, and the hon. Member who addressed the House before him (Mr. D. White) challenged anyone to say he would support the principle of the second ballot. There is a good deal to be said for the second ballot, and, if a definite, working proposal for the second ballot were put forward, I, for one, would consider it very carefully, and I

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    should be inclined to adopt it in cases where there was a multiplicity of candidates. This is really a very ingenious device for taking a second ballot on the first occasion, and it is believed by those who support it that by this device political manœuvring or bargaining may be avoided, The general complexion of a constituency is usually perfectly well known. There are occasions when there is a political landslide and when the opinion of the electors defies the prescience or the prophesy of those most experienced in elections, but those occasions are very rare, and mostly the opinion of a constituency can be gauged, within a certain margin, with very considerable accuracy. Where it is quite clear or probable that any one of the candidates standing will get an absolute majority the agent or the candidate who is working for a particular cause will, of course, in the first place, make every possible endeavour to secure an absolute majority of votes and the whole election will depend upon the second preference. Does anyone contend that there will not be log-rolling and bargaining? If you are going to have a second ballot, it is very much better to take it openly, and to let the electors come to the poll and openly vote the second time. There is no device which will get over the advantages of that method.
    We have had some interesting revelations in the speeches which have been addressed to the House to-night. The hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Hemmerde) and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) declare, quite openly, what many of us have suspected, that there has been log-rolling and bargaining between two parties in this House, greatly to the disadvantage of the third party. The party system has been challenged. If the nation does not want these parties any longer, they will fall, and new parties will be formed. There must be general tendencies or movements in one direction or another, and those movements will form themselves into parties, in order to give adequate expression to the views the Members who are sent here to voice them represent. That is quite certain. You cannot get rid of parties. There must be organisation of opinion, in order that opinion may make its weight felt. I take leave to doubt whether the parties will remain in the particular form that they are now; but if we are going to raise the party issue I will hazard the opinion that this alternative vote is a
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    device intended to save a certain number of seats. That is the real purpose behind it. I would suggest that all these devices can easily be upset, and will be upset, by electors refusing to give the alternative vote. Many electors, when they have voted for their first preference, may refuse to vote for any other candidate, on the ground that no one else represents their opinion. In that way, it may easily happen that, with all these devices, you do not get an absolute majority at all. I think the electors outside this House will resent these ingenious methods, prefering the straight issue, and voting again if there is no majority. This Bill is designed to make it easier for candidates to appear before the electors; but any tendency to the multiplicity of candidates and the confusion of issues will surely cure itself; because after one or two trials the opinions of the electors will be fairly definitely ascertained, and candidates will not come forward except from some motive of vanity, or reasons of that kind. Elections, therefore, will practically be confined to serious candidates, who represent a body of opinion in the electorate. That has been the experience in the past, and it is a good experience. We do not want frivolous candidates confusing the issues. We want a plain issue on the broad grounds of national opinion and to let the nation decide in a clear and open manner by a vote taken at the poll. It is because I believe this device is futile, and must fail, and it is because I believe it is a device which the electors will not understand and a very large number of them will not use, that I for one intend to vote against the inclusion of a Clause which was added to the Bill by a majority of one vote only.
    10.0 P.M.
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The hon. Member who has just spoken appears to think that the only purpose of seeking to retain in the Bill the provision now under discussion is that of saving a few seats belonging to one political party. I take leave to differ from him on that point. There is raised here an issue of much greater importance than many hon. Members have up to the present realised. What is the real object of the Bill now under discussion? I understand it is to secure the fullest and fairest measure of representation of the people in the Legislature. We have very widely extended the franchise. We are bringing in, as the House well knows, some 8,000,000 new electors. Having given the vote to some

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    16,000,000 electors instead of 8,000,000, we desire them to exercise the vote in such a way as will make the House of Commons the truest possible mirror of the will of the people who have been enfranchised. Much of the Debate with regard to this issue and much of the Debate on the Committee stage ran on the assumption that we were going to continue in this country the old two-party system. There could not be a greater mistake. My opinion is that when this measure becomes law and becomes operative there is a much greater likelihood of our reverting in this country to the Continental system of a considerable number of groups in politics. It may be the desire of some Members of the House to avoid that as far as possible. My opinion is that it cannot be avoided.
    It is quite true that we have imposed a sort of penal Clause that if a candidate does not obtain one-eighth of the votes polled he forfeits the sum of £150, which he is compelled to deposit before his nomination can be accepted. Even with the risk there imposed, I believe we are going to have a larger number of candidates than ever before, because I believe that politicians in this country are going to divide themselves up into groups more than they have ever done in the history of politics in this country. Already we see striking indications of what is going to take place. We have the announcement that there is a National party, we have the announcement that there is going to be a Woman's party, we have already intimations that one of the old political parties in this House, which has so often formed the Government of the country, is going to be divided under this leader and the other leader. All this goes to prove what I have already said, that we are going to have an increase in the number of groups. If I am correct in this assumption, and if the giving of the votes means that we ought to do everything in our power to make the House of Commons the truest possible mirror of the opinion of the electors of the country, we have only to ask ourselves this question: Whether the taking out of the Bill is a proposal which, as we were twice reminded by the last speaker, was only left in the Bill by a majority of one—I will refer to that in a moment—and leaving ourselves exposed to the old system of elections, we can possibly make the House of Commons anything like an accurate mirror of the opinion of the country? The hon. Member who has just spoken put as
    1502
    an argument against retaining this proposal that it was carried by only one vote. May I remind the House that many of us thought that this was a compromise which had been arranged either unanimously or by a majority vote in the Conference over which you, Sir, presided? There has not been a disposition on the part of many Members to attend when certain questions were under consideration, because they felt that in fairness to all the parties concerned the Bill should, as far as possible, pass from the House in a form consistent with the principles that had been accepted either unanimously or by a majority in the Conference that brought forward these proposals. I do not consider it an argument at all that any question was settled during the Committee stage by the small majority of one or, it may be, even a larger majority than that, and that on that ground it can still be called in question.
    I want to get back to the point that we cannot get by our present system of elections, especially if the group system should obtain in this country, anything like a true mirror of the opinion of the country in this House. I have been associated for a considerable number of years with the by-elections that have taken place in this country. Fourteen years ago I came into the House as the representative of a minority. I came into the House as the result of a three-cornered contest, in which I had pitted against me the candidates of both the old political parties. I came in with a very small majority over the second candidate, who was the candidate of the Unionist party. For some two or three years I took part in the work of the House not representing the will of the constituency? How could I? I came in representing a clear minority, because the votes of the three candidates were so near to each other that if the second and third candidates had combined their votes I should have been in a hopeless minority. I ant not sure—I am making this probably as a point against myself—that if there had been an alternative vote in those days or if the electors could have been called together under the system of the second ballot, which has been described by the last speaker, I should never have been permitted to come to this House. I have a very shrewd notion, such was the temper arising out of that particular election, that there would have been a tendency, temporarily, no doubt, for a number of the voters belonging to the old political parties to have combined against me and

    1503
    to have secured my defeat. Whether that was the case or not, it would not alter my view that if you are going to have a true reflex of the opinion of the electorate in this House, if it is possible to devise means, whether it be by the second ballot or the alternative vote, you ought to have some means by which you will not have a number of candidates returned representing, as I did for the first two or three years I was here, a clear minority of the electors of any constituency.
    What has been my experience in the number of by-elections with which I have been associated? Let me tell the House. I have been engaged in a contest in Lancashire. What did I find? I found that we could get the most enthusiastic meetings of all the three candidates. Our people cheered themselves almost hoarse, they were simply carried away with enthusiasm, but when the shouting was over and the votes came to be recorded, what did we find in these Lancashire constituencies? We heard what we used to call the Lancashire Tory working man say, "I am with you, but I am so awfully afraid that if I vote for the Labour candidate I am going to let the Liberal in." And when we got across the Border into Yorkshire, in constituencies which I could name, and went through the election there, the position was reversed to this extent, that the working-class voter said, " We are with you; we like your programme; we think what you are aiming at is correct, but if we vote for the Labour candidate we are going to let the Tory in." I hope now we have got sufficiently far, especially during the period of this War, to recognise that we are no longer in the old days, we no longer have only the two orthodox political parties, and the mere fact that we have Members sitting on these benches, the mere fact that our people have given such clear, definite, and patriotic assistance during this War, ought to lead all politicians to recognise we have got more than the two parties, that we have now got three distinct parties. Putting aside for a moment the possible increase in the number of groups, let us recognise that we have three political parties in this country. Does anyone hold for a single moment that if we retained this system of having no method, whereby we can take something like an exhaustive vote, if we have neither the second ballot nor the alternative vote, it is going to be fair to the Labour party,
    1504
    who, as everybody knows, intend to put candidates into the field on a scale never before contemplated in the politics of this country? There are to be 8,000,000 new electors, and we intend to give these new electors in as many
    constituencies as possible the choice as between the Unionist, the Liberal, and the Labour candidate. But we can only do that when we have adapted our electoral machinery to the other parts of the Bill. What is the use of conferring a vote on tnese 8,000,000 people if you are going to deny them the right of giving that vote not only for one candidate but for two, when, if there happens to be three, and out of the three two are nearer to their ideals than the third, and a second may be not so near to them as the first preference candidate would be. It seems to me that the majority at Mr. Speaker's Conference was perfectly right, as was the Royal Commission which considered this subject some years ago, and laid it down quite definitely that the alternative vote did seem to afford a very satisfactory method of ridding ourselves of what has been becoming during the last few years a very serious position so far as a number of the Members of this House are concerned. In the fourteen years I have been here I have seen quite a number of men returned who, like myself, have represented only a minority of the constituency with which their name is associated. Therefore, I hope in all fairness—I do not want to press the party issue too far—I heard the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs say yesterday that his party had got nothing out of this Bill, or practically nothing, and he was making a very strong plea for an Amendment that was carried. I am not going to press the party advantage—
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I think the right hon. Gentleman has rather misunderstood me. What I said was we had got only small concessions.
    Mr. HENDERSON:I am quite prepared to accept the hon. Baronet's words, and to say " concessions " instead of "party advantage." I do not want to press for a party concession, but I do suggest that when we are revising our machinery we should do it in such a way as to get rid of the serious disadvantage under which one party now labours as against the other two parties. We are surely entitled to claim that that party should have this concession to the same extent as all other

    1505
    parties, and that is all I am asking for. I want the three parties to be placed on an equality, and then in Lancashire, where, as I have tried to illustrate, there are three candidates, the Unionist candidate will be able to get the advantage in a three-cornered contest. In Yorkshire the Liberal candidate may be able to get the advantage, and we shall go along to our own constituencies, and we shall say to the Lancashire Tory working man, or to the Yorkshire Liberal working man, " You will have your choice; you can give your first preference to the candidate who comes nearest to your own political ideal, but you can also have your second choice, and it will be for you to use your own judgment." Then when the votes have been finally exhausted that candidate will come to this House, whether he be Unionist, Liberal, or Labour, who has behind him a majority of the vote in the constituency, be they first or second preference. I sincerely trust that the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs will assist us to get the concession of the establishment of a position of electoral equality between the three parties.
    Sir G. CAVE: I rise not for the purpose of taking any part in the arguments, because I have already had an opportunity of giving this House my opinion on this question, but for the purpose of indicating what course the Government propose to take in this matter. Throughout the Committee on this Bill we went on the principle that it was our duty to press on the House with all the power we could command all the unanimous recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Conference with a single exception, which was laid down before the Bill was introduced, and as a condition of its being introduced, that exception being the question of proportional representation. That course we have taken throughout the discussions on Amendments. With regard to the majority recommendations we took the view that any compromise must be unanimous, and the Clauses which were inserted in the Report only by the vote of the majority, and against the wish of some of the members of the Conference could not be binding, but could only be treated as recommendations for favourable consideration, and as matters to be determined by the House itself. One was the case of women, another was the case of the absent voter, on which there appeared to be no difference whatever in this House
    1506
    The third referred to the disqualification in respect of over thirty days' Poor Law relief, upon which the House reversed the decision of the Conference, and the fourth was the one now under discussion. We took the view in Committee that we would leave this matter to the free judgment of the House. We take the same view to-day, and do not propose to put on the Government Whips.
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Before this Amendment goes to a Division I should like to make a few observations on this proposal and on the Debate which has taken place. I do not quarrel with the decision of the right hon. Gentleman to leave this matter to the free vote of the House because it was undoubtedly a point on which the members of the Speaker's Conference found themselves in great disagreement, and in Committee no protest was raised against the course suggested. I do, however, hope the House when considering this exceedingly important proposed change in our electoral system will view it not merely from the narrow point of view of party, to whatever party they may happen to belong, but will view it with the desire to achieve what is, or what should be, the object of this Bill, namely, to select the best method of enabling the people to secure a true reflection of the opinion of the nation in this Commons House of Parliament. Our whole political system proceeds on the basis of a majority rule. There is much that may be said against Government by majority. Philosophers from time immemorial have criticised, and sometimes ridiculed it, declaring that you can have no guarantee that it will ensure the predominence of wisdom; but at all events it is the best system that has yet been devised for governing a democracy. The proposal of proportional representation, which has been rejected this afternoon, has been advocated on the ground that it will enable not only majorities to rule but also that it will enable minorities to be represented in proportion to their members. For that, of course, there is very much to be said, but I do not think that anyone in any quarter would seriously urge as a sound basis of Government that minorities should rule. Yet that is now, under our existing political arrangements, precisely what does in many cases occur. We are not considering some hypothetical state of things that may exist at a future date. We all know, who are students of our political system and of our political life, that again

    1507
    and again at an election where three candidates stand for one seat a
    representative is returned to Parliament who notoriously represents on the main questions of the day the opinions of only a minority of the electorate. We see a member arrive here and walk up the Floor of the House, with only qualified satisfaction because he knows, and we all know, that when he goes to give his vote in the Division Lobby oh the main questions of the day he will represent not the majority, but the minority of the inhabitants of the place which he is supposed to represent.
    That is a plain evil. It is impossible to gainsay it. It is a clear and obvious defect in our electoral system, but there is, in addition, in consequence of this, a concealed evil to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Henderson) referred just now. The elector in this case is deterred from casting his vote for the candidate whom he would desire to see elected. He may say, " Of A., B., and C., I greatly prefer C., but I detest above all things A.; and dare I vote for C., if the result is that A. will be returned? 1 think B. has a better chance of beating A. than C." The elector, therefore, has to weigh in his mind as best he can which of the two, B. or C., has the best chance of beating A. He will not vote for C., because, above all, he desires to prevent the return of A., and that is what happens again and again, indeed, one might almost say invariably, with three-cornered contests. I suggest that we ought not to put intelligent and patriotic citizens who only desire to do the best for their country, and who want to see elected the man who will best serve the interests of the nation in their opinion, in the dilemma of either voting for a man they do not like or voting for persons whom they do not wish to be elected, because it is the only means of preventing the return of those whom they do not desire to see returned. These defects in our constitutional system will increase in the future. They have been bad enough in the past. As a consequence, partly of this Bill, they are likely to increase, because the number of three-cornered contests are likely to increase. Do not let us delude ourselves with the fond idea that as a consequence of this War all party controversies are likely to end in this country. Happily, they are now, for the most part, in abeyance, but they have existed all through the centuries of our history, and are likely to return
    1508
    when the War is over. Possibly parties, may not exist in the same shape as they did before, and almost certainly they will not have the same programmes, but parties of some kind there will most certainly be, and after all political controversy, if it turns upon matters which are legitimate and proceeds by propaganda which are fair, is not a sign of decadence in the country, but is a sign of healthy vigorous national life.
    I have suggested to the House that in all probability there will be more contests in future than in the past in which more-than two candidates will present themselves; and the reasons are pretty obvious. In the first place, we have made it our deliberate object in this Parliament to throw open access to the House to more and more persons. We have established payment of Members in order to remove the barrier which prevented men of small means obtaining membership of this House. We have in this very Bill largely restricted election expenses, which again will facilitate the multiplicity of candidatures. From time to time as democracy develops and as self-government becomes-more elaborate it becomes more complex. Certainly in political life all the work of democracy becomes as time goes on more and more complex, and we are never likely to go back to the sweet simplicity of the two-party system. The effect will be that three-cornered contests are likely, to become far more numerous than they have been in the past, and what will be the result to the moral authority of this House if after the War it is found that a considerable proportion, fifty or a hundred Members of this House were notoriously and indeed avowedly here, against the will of the majority of the constituents in the locality from which they come? The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Hemmerde), in a very much smaller House than there is now, put that point with great cogency and force. We may be living in times when it is of essential importance to maintain the authority of our constitutional system: There will probably be many subversive influences at work, and if the House of Commons on the great questions of the day notoriously does not represent the opinions of the nation, because it contains a large number of members who are minority representatives, then I would appeal to hon. Members who take the Conservative standpoint in matters of politics to consider whether that will not be the very greatest national danger.

    1509
    Let me deal with the objections which are raised to the proposal before the House. In the first place it is said the voters will not understand this. It is too complicated. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Barnett) said how could you expect an elector to master this complicated document, giving the methods of calculation for working the alternative vote. But as he himself proceeded to show, no elector will ever be required to do anything of the kind. All he will be asked to do is to put a 1 against the name of the candidate he likes best, and 2 against the name of the person he likes next best. There is surely no deep mathematical problem in that. If he is accustomed to vote by putting a cross against one name and still, not fully realising the new system, put a cross against one name, I hope the rules will make it quite clear that the cross will be counted as his vote.
    Sir G. CAVEindicated assent.
    Mr. SAMUEL: Secondly, it is said this system is illogical because you count a second preference as though it were of the same value as the first and members will come to the House who are elected not only by the voters who really wish them to be elected, but also by the voters who really wished some other person, if possible. to attend on their behalf in Parliament. But is there really anything illogical in saying to the voter, Tell us whom you would like to be elected and tell us also, if you cannot get him elected, whom you would prefer of the remaining candidates? It seems to me in the highest degree reasonable not to leave him simply one choice among the three. The voter states his first preference and his second, and the count is taken accordingly.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: The person so elected is quite as much a representative of the minority.
    Mr. SAMUEL: Not at all. Under the existing system you have a person elected against whom the majority have voted. They have definitely declared that they do not want him. There is a majority of votes for B. and C. and against A., yet A. is elected. Under the new system the man who is elected must have either the first support or the second support of the majority of the electorate.
    Mr. McNEILL: Those who put the second preference opposite that Member's name quite as clearly show that they do not want him.
    Mr. SAMUEL: No; indeed not. If they did not want him, why did they vote for him? They do vote for him. That is the whole point. Surely if a person says, " I want A., and if I cannot get him I will have B.," you cannot say he does not want B. Failing A., he does want B., and as it is plain from the first count that A. cannot be elected, he then wants B. in preference to C., and if he did not want him he would not vote for him.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Can the right hon. Gentleman defend the fact that the second choice of the lowest in the poll settles the election?
    Mr. SAMUEL: It will not settle the election. They settle the election in conjunction with the first choice of the other candidates. Then hon. Members have said, " Suppose he does not really want a second man at all. Suppose he has his own choice, but hates the other two with an equal hatred—despises them with an equal contempt. What is he to do then? " That question is easy to answer. He does not give a second preference. If his own man is not elected, he leaves it to the remainder of the voters to say which of them is to be elected. The last argument is that there will be corrupt bargains. The hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) says there will be a corrupt bargain, and that parties will agree to co-operate, and will say, "If you vote for our candidate as a second preference, we will vote for your candidate as a second preference." What is meant by a corrupt bargain? Where is the corruption in that? Advice is given by party leaders to the electorate to take a certain course. The hon. Baronet scoffs at that. What more can be done? The voters are not automata. They have wills of their own. if the people think that their leaders have given them wrong advice or corrupt advice, they will not follow it, and I do not, for my own part, see any disadvantage at all, or anything that is in the least degree wrong in any leader of a party saying: " I advise you to support the candidate whom I am myself supporting, and if he is not elected I advise you to support the candidate whose views approximate more nearly to my own." It is perfectly free for each elector to follow that advice or not to follow it. What is the alternative to this

    1511
    so-called corrupt bargain? The hon. Baronet has told us himself. He says that the right remedy for the existing state of things is that the parties nearest one another should arrange their differences privately, and should arrange to run only one candidate.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Why not?
    Mr. SAMUEL: Then the hon. Baronet talks about corrupt bargains. He suggests that half-a-dozen men should get into a room together before the election and behind the backs of the electors, instead of straightforwardly running their candidates, should say to each other: " You run your candidates in so many seats and we will run our candidates in so many seats. The voters will not have the chance of declaring their preference, and we shall be able to defeat the other party." That is what he says is the right method of settling this question, and then, forsooth, he says that by going to the electors and advising them how to cast their votes we are engaging in a corrupt bargain. The other possible alternative which has been presented to the House is the system of proportional representation which has been rejected. I am not concerned now whether it has been rejected rightly or wrongly. The fact remains that it has been eliminated from the Bill, and we cannot regard it, therefore, as a possible alternative. In any case, it did not apply to single-member constituencies, and what the House has now to decide is whether it wishes a system to continue under which, in many cases, members can be returned who are simply representatives of minorities, and, if not, whether it will accept the only possible alternative. A Royal Commission went into the whole of this matter a few years ago and made its report. It was a Commission representing all parties, and its report was unanimous. That Commission consisted of Lord Richard Cavendish, chairman, Lord Lochee, for many years a prominent Member of this House, the present Secretary of State for India, Sir Francis Hopwood, now Lord Southborough, Sir Courtenay Ilbert, the respected Clerk to this House, Sir Charles Elliott, Mr. Pember Reeves, now the head of the London School of Economics, and the hon. Member for Durham representing the Unionist Party. That Commission went laboriously into all these
    1512
    questions and studied the various systems adopted in the different counties of the world, and presented unanimously a report which set out in full the pros and cons of the alternative vote. They end with this brief paragraph:
    " We have entered into this question rather fully, if not at undue length. Still, it is desirable that no more should be expected from the system than it is able to give. But when all due weight has been given to it the alternative vote remains the best method of removing the most serious defect which a single-member system can possess—the return of minority candidates, and accordingly we recommend its adoption in single-member constituencies."
    Relying upon this Report, relying also on the recommendations of the majority of the Speaker's Conference, I urge the House to reject this Amendment and to retain in the Bill the only practicable method of removing a plain defect in the existing system.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I listened with great attention to the speeches of my right hon. Friend who has just sat down and of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henderson). I am sorry to say that they have not converted me by their arguments. My right hon. Friend voted with me a short time ago in favour of giving to minorities representation in this House, but he now says that majorities must always rule. That does not seem to me to be quite as consistent as my right hon. Friend has always represented himself to be. One of the arguments also advanced was that when a member was returned, as the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henderson) himself admitted that he was returned, by what he calls a minority vote, when he comes into this House to be introduced he does so with a qualified smile. I remember the right hon. Gentleman being introduced into this House, and I saw no qualification in his smile. I thought that he was peculiarly pleased with himself when he came to that Table to sign the Roll of Members of this House. There are some things in which I am able to agree with my right hon. Friend. He says that in the future there will be perils and strife. With that I am in absolute agreement. I am not at all sure that some of the disabilities under which we are labouring at present have not arisen because there is no political strife, and that we should not be doing better if we had the old party system prevailing at the moment. My right hon. Friend says that we put the intelligent, patriotic citizen in a difficulty. I do not see why. The intelligent patriotic citizen ought to be able to make up his mind whether he is, going to vote

    1513
    for me or for the right hon. Gentleman or for my right hon. Friend. Where is the difficulty? The two right hon. Gentlemen have expressed their views with a clearness which enables anyone to understand what they mean. As far as I am concerned, perhaps I am not able to express my views equally well, but at all events I stand for the old Tory principle, to which I am happy to say many people in this realm still adhere. There is no difficulty. The voters have only to make up their minds as to whom they will vote for. The right hon. Gentleman brought forward as an argument against the proposal of the hon. Baronet that this proposal had been recommended by a majority of the Speaker's Conference. I understood him to say that it was necessary that we should carry out the wishes of the Conference, even if those wishes were carried by a majority. The wishes of the Conference were not carried by a majority; they were the unanimous wishes of the Conference, but those wishes have been disregarded in three instances. As to women on the local government register, the recommendation of the Conference was that the women should not be registered with the same qualification as that of her husband. Nothing could be clearer and more distinct than that, yet it was carried against their wish and in face of the unanimous decision of the Conference. Then there was proportional representation, and, unless I am very much mistaken, that was the unanimous recommendation of the Conference.
    Then came the question of votes for soldiers at the age of nineteen. The Conference certainly said nothing about that, and all the way through it was not mentioned. Therefore, I think, I am right in saying that the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, that we should support the wishes of the Conference carried by a majority, falls to the ground. The right
    hon. Gentleman said that there are going to be very many groups in future. 1 think that is right, but that seems to me an argument against this proposal. Of course, if there are going to be a great many groups, there must be a great number of people who are not decided to accept any one candidate except the one who represents the view of their group, and who, they believe, is right. The result will be that these people will vote, for instance, for the man entirely in favour of their view in support of women's suffrage. But there are many other things on which they are not decided, but which will cause them to give a second vote to somebody, because they do not wish to lose the advantage of what they think they have a right to do. A man will put down a second vote against somebody, and that somebody may not represent him in any kind of way. If we are going to adhere to the system, of single-member constituencies, we ought to adhere to the present arrangement by which an elector has to make up his mind. Surely there can be no difficulty as to which of the numerous candidates—if there are numerous candidates, and 1 think there will be—he is going to vote for. If this proposal is carried, it opens the door to a number of people conspiring to put forward certain candidates, knowing perfectly well that they will not get in, but that they will put their second vote against the name of some other candidate, and by that means put out the third or fourth party, as the case may be, though he is the candidate who really represents the majority. For these reasons, I sincerely hope the Amendment will be rejected
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word ' by' [" by this Act "], stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 150; Noes, 121—

    Division No. 1 8.]

    AYES.

    [10.34 p.m.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke

    Bliss, Joseph

    Crumley, Patrick

    Adamson, William

    Boland, John Pius

    Currie, George W.

    Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

    Brace, Rt. Hon william

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    Agnew, Sir George William

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Ainsworth, Sir John Stirling

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Alden, Percy

    Buxton, Noel

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

    Anderson, W. C.

    Byrce, J. Annan

    Du 'can, C. (Barrow-In-Furness)

    Armitage, Robert

    Cawley, Rt. Hon. Sir Frdk. (Prestwich)

    Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

    Arnold, Sydney

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Falconer, James

    Barnes, Rt. Hon. George N.

    Chapple, Major William Allen

    Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

    Barran, Sir R. Hurst (Leeds, North)

    Clough, William

    Fitzpatrick, John Lalor

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Collins, Sir W. (Derby)

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Gilbert, J. D.

    Bethell, Sir J. H.

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Glanville, Harold James

    Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

    Crooks, Rt. Hon. William

    Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough)

    Greenwood, Sir Hamar (Sunderland)

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Sherwell, Arthur James

    Hackett, John

    Mellalieu, Frederick William

    Smallwood, Edward

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Mason, David (Coventry)

    Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    Millar, James Duncan

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

    Molloy, Michael

    Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

    Harris, Percy A. (Leicester. S.)

    Molteno Percy Alport

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Mortonm, Alpheus Cleophas

    Sutherland, John E.

    Haslam, Lewis

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Sutton, John E.

    Healy, Maurice (Cork)

    Needham, Christopher T.

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Healy, Timothy Michael(Cork, N.E.)

    Nolan, Joseph

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Hemmerde, Edward George

    Norman, Sir Henry

    Thomas, Sir A. G. (Monmouth, S.)

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Durham)

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Thorne. G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Henry, Sir Charles (Shropshire)

    O'Dowd, John

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Higham, John Sharp

    O'Grady, James

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Hinds, John

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

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Hogge, James Myles

    Outhwaite, R. L.

    Tillett, B.

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Parker, James(Halifax)

    Wardle, George J.

    John, Edward Thomas

    Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding)

    Watson, John B.(Stockton)

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Philipps, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ivor (S'ampton)

    Watt, Henry A.

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Traedston)

    Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)

    Pratt, J. W.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Jewett, F. W.

    Price, C. E.(Edinburgh, Central)

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N.W.)

    Joyce, Michael

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Williams, John(Glamorgan)

    Keating, Matthew

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

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

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Kiley, James Daniel

    Reddy, Michael

    Wing, Thomas Edward

    King, J.

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

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

    Lambert, Richard(Wilts, Cricklade)

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Yeo, Alfred William

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. George H. (Norwich)

    Young, William (Perthshire, E.

    Lewis,Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Tyneside)

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Rowlands, James

    M'Curdy, C. A.

    Russell, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W.

    TELLERS FORTHE AYES. —Sir R.

    Macdonald. Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk.B'ghs)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Adkins and Mr. Bowerman.

    McMicking, Major Gilbert

    Scanlan, Thomas

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Goldsmith, Frank

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Archdale, Lieut. E. M.

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Pease, Rt. Hon. H. Pike (Darlington)

    Ashley, Wilfred W.

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Pennefather, De Fonblangue

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Hambro, Angus Valdemar

    Parkins, Walter Frank

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J.

    Pets, Basil Edward

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

    Hanson, Charles Augustin

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest George

    Bathurst Capt. Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Harris, Henry Percy (Paddington, S.)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Bellairs, Commander C. W.

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir R. T.

    Handles, Sir John S.

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Hewins, William Albert Samuel

    Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

    Bird, Alfred

    Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Blair, Reginald

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

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

    Bowden, Major G. R. Harland

    Hope, Lieut.-Col. J. A.(Midlothian)

    Samuels, Arthur W.

    Boyton, James

    Horne, Edgar

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Hume-Williams, W. E.

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Brookes, Warwick

    irgieby, Holcombe

    Stanley, Capt. Lord (Abercromby)

    Bull, Sir William James

    Jackson, Lt.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)

    Starkey, Captain John Ralph

    Burdett-Coutts, W.

    Jackson, Sir John (Devonport)

    'Staveley-Hill, Lieut.-Col. Henry

    Butcher, John George

    Jessel, Colonel Sir H. M.

    Stewart, Gershom

    Carew, C. R. S.

    Kerr-Smiley, Major Peter Kerr

    Stirling, Lieut.-Col. Archibald

    Cator, John

    Kerry, Lieut.-Col. Earl of

    Sykes, Col. Sir Alan John (Knutsford)

    Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Talbot, Lord Edmund

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn(Aston Manor)

    Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

    Terrell, George(Wilts, N.W.)

    Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Terrell, Major Henry (Gloucester)

    Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar(Bootle)

    Tickler, T. G.

    Colvin, Col. Richard Beale

    Lloyd, George Butler(Shrewsbury)

    Touche, Sir George Alexander

    Cory, James Herbert (Cardiff)

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Tryon, Captain George Clement

    Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

    Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

    Walker, Colonel William Hall

    Craik, Sir Henry

    Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

    Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

    Dalrymple, Hon. H. H.

    McCalmont, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. A.

    Warde, Colonel C. E. (Kent, Mid)

    Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

    McCaw, William J. MacGeagh

    Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

    Denison-Pender, Capt. J. C.

    Mackinder, Halford .J.

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

    Denniss, E. R. B.

    Macmaster, Donald

    Whiteley, Herbert. James

    Duke, Rt. Hon. Henry Edward

    McNeill, Ronald (Kent., St. Augustine's)

    Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.)

    Fell, Arthur

    Malcolm, Ian

    Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

    Meux, Adml, Hon. Sir Hedworth

    Worthington Evans, Major Sir L.

    Fleming, Sir John

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Yate, Colonel C. E.

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    Foster, Philip Staveley

    Nield, Herbert

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES. —Sir G.

    Ganzoni, Francis John C.

    O'Neill, Capt. Hon. H. (Antrim, Mid)

    Younger and Captain Barnett,

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    Question put, and agreed to.

    Major CHAPPLE: I beg to move, M Sub-section (1), to leave out the word " by " ["as defined by this Act "], and to insert instead thereof the words "in the Eighth and Ninth Schedules of."
    The object of this Amendment is to substitute for the draft rules issued by the 'Government—the West Australia system—another system of counting by the returning officer. The Government system has been in operation in West Australia since 1909, and many elections have been held under it. I want to appeal to the Home Secretary to substitute the system of counting set out in the two Schedules of my Amendment. My reasons for asking this are these: If the present draft rules issued by the Government are to be the Instructions given to the returning officer as to how he is to count the votes, the aim of the alternative vote will in many cases be defeated because the man at the bottom of the poll on the first count may very likely be the man who could defeat all his rivals in single combat. The Schedules I propose are based on a system set out by Professor Nanson, which has been carefully tested and found to fulfil the purpose of the alternative vote. Professor Nanson says—(Cd. 3501 of 1907, p. 130):
    The method which is proposed has, I think, strong claims. It is not at all difficult to carry out. The result will, as often as not, he decided on the first scrutiny. We simply require each elector to put down the names of two of the three candidates in order of preference. Then for each first name two votes are counted, and for each second name one vote is counted. The number of votes for each candidate is then found. The third part of the sum total may be called the average; then all candidates who are not above the average are at once rejected. The lowest candidates must, of course, be below the average. The second is just as likely to be below as above the average. If he is below, the election is settled: but if he is above the average, a second scrutiny is necessary to decide between him and the highest candidate."
    That is the method which I have set out in these Schedules. After examining various methods, this is the conclusion a number of high authorities have come to:
    " We have examined several methods, and all but the one now proposed have been shown to lead to erroneous results in certain cases. It may fairly be urged, then, that that method which cannot be shown to be erroneous in any case has a greater claim to our consideration than any of the other methods which can be shown to be erroneous. On this ground alone I think the method proposed ought to be adopted for all ,cases."
    That is the method I propose, and have set out in Schedules. I myself have examined it frequently and tested it at many elections. I can find no error whatever. It does not matter how many candidates you have, or how many first,
    1518
    second and third preference votes there are; you can invariably pick out the man who has the absolute majority of votes in that particular counting; in other words, you fulfil what the alternative vote proposes to do, and the man is selected who has an absolute majority, no matter what candidates stand. You cannot do that under the draft rules. I have here the opinion of an author in Australia who writes upon the West Australian system, which is the system adopted by my right hon. Friend. He says:
    "Several instances are already on record in this State (West Australia) of candidates having been elected under this system, upon a 'relative majority' only, on account of a comparatively large number of electors having recorded first preferences only. The experience of this State has proved that on an average about one third of the electors who vote refrain from exercising their privilege of marking their ballot papers beyond he numeral I. … The alternative vote does not necessarily ensure the selection of the 'most popular' (candidates), a result that may be attributed to the insincerity of many electors in the marking of their preferences, and to other causes."
    The other Clause to which he referred is that which deals under the system of the Government with the man at the bottom of the poll who, although he may be able to command an absolute majority; would be struck out on the first count. The Seconder of the Amendment pointed out this objection to the alternative vote, and it is a very serious objection, but it is not difficult if you adopt the method I have set out in the Schedules of counting the votes. The only difference between my system and that of the right hon. Gentleman is that he counts the preference votes of the last man on the poll and I count the preference votes of all at the first count. You have promised the candidates that the votes shall not be split, and if the preferences are really recorded you can fulfil the wishes of every elector. Mathematicians have examined the system I suggest over and over again, and have recommended it as reliable. I am aware that it is not in actual operation anywhere, but it has been tested at elections at which it was demonstrated that we can do what the alternative vote promises to do, namely, to elect the man who has an absolute majority of the votes.
    Then there is the danger of plumping, cases where electors give their first preference votes and no other. If that took place I admit that we should be no further on because the second preference votes would not be recorded. The method I have adopted of defeating plumping is that an instruction should be given to the

    1519
    returning officer that all unrecorded preference votes should be divided equally amongst the other candidates. The unrecorded second preferences would be divided equally amongst the remaining candidates. Consequently, if there were 1,000 electors who gave first preference votes only, their second preferences would be divided equally amongst the other candidates. When an elector does not put anything opposite B. or C. he does not care whether B. or C. gets in or not, and so you divide his votes equally between these two. Mathematically, it works out exactly the same. It makes no difference to the result, but it encourages the elector to give a second and a third preference. The electors in Western Australia and electors in Queensland, where this system is in operation, sometimes think that by casting a second vote for anyone they diminish the chances of their first-vote man getting in. That is not so. It is a fallacy. They are under a complete misapprehension. But if you tell two electors casting their votes for A. that one of their preferences will be given to B. and the other to C., they know that their abstention will make no difference to the result. Then, if they have a second preference, they will record it. That, however, is not an essential part of my Amendment. It has nothing to do with the point which I have already urged, but it has a great deal to do with the danger of a very large number of electors plumping, giving their first preference and not their second preference. So great has this evil appeared in many elections in Western Australia that a Bill was introduced in that Parliament to make the recording of a second preference compulsory by invalidating a ballot paper unless it had at least one other preference. I am not sure whether it passed into law, but it was before the West Australian Parliament, and its object was to meet the evil that had arisen from this system of plumping. I would strongly urge my right hon. Friend, if he does not accept my Amendment, at least to consider a modification of the draft regulations he has issued along these lines.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to second the Amendment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is the only one who so far has made any attempt to deal with the point I made of elections in future, where A., B. and C. are candidates, being decided by the second choice of the candidate lowest
    1520
    on the list. The hon. Member has at least the common sense to suggest that the second choice of B. is or ought to be of more value than that of C. I have not read the hon. Member's Schedule—I know nothing about it—and I do not suppose that I should understand it if I did read it. His first Schedule brought forward in Committee was one of great complexity and difficulty. But I can see common sense and fairness in the suggestion that he has. made, and I would recommend my right, hon. Friend, at all events, to give consideration to it. I am not in a position to say whether his suggestion of an equal division is correct or not. So far as that is concerned, my mind is left in a complete fog. But I do understand the claim that the second preference of B. ought to be considered more than the second preference of C., and under these circumstances. I desire to second the Amendment.
    Sir J. LARMOR: I rise to support the Amendment as against the proposal in the Schedule of the Bill, but they are both bad. I have spent two or three hours reading it through with the Report presented by the Royal Commission, which contains a reasoned document by Professor Nanson, whose authority, mathematically, ought to. carry some weight—
    It being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood Adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  GREECE.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House, of the 12th February, proposed the Question, " That this House do now Adjourn."
  Mr. LYNCH: The great international Bolos are the members of the Court of Athens. The protectors of those Bolos are the men who sit on the Treasury Bench as members of the Government. Those words I wish to go out from this House till they sink into the minds of the public and produce there a salutary reaction. I advance them thus early, because if I am counted out to-night the public will know that the Government does not dare face that accusation.
  Mr. WATT: Except one of them.
  Mr. LYNCH: If I am not counted out, I will proceed to develop my theme and establish the truth of what I say. On the 21st January, 1916, a compact was entered into between the Kaiser on the one hand and King Constantine of Greece on the other. It was a solemn compact, drawn up in set terms, by which on his part the King of Greece agreed that the armies of Greece would not at any time be used to support the cause of the Allies, and that he himself would remain faithful to his friendship for the Kaiser; and, on the other side, that the Kaiser would support him by force of arms when necessary. On the 5th May, 1916, matters had so far progressed that General Mackensen, the great general of the Germans, who is now the leading spirit of this immense drive in Italy, was, at the instigation of the Kaiser and with the connivance and support of the King of Greece, examining minutely the whole of the military situation in the Balkans, and especially in Greece, to know in what way the Grecian forces could co-operate with the forces of Germany for the destruction of the Allies.
  On the 23rd June of the same year Prince Nicholas and Prince Andrew of Greece came on a mission to this country—a mission embracing Russia and this country. That was no ordinary visit of distinguished strangers. That was a visit which had been arranged minutely, carefully, in the Court of Berlin by the Kaiser himself, and with the exultant approval of the German Chancellor. In speaking thus, I might quote—I will produce all the documents, if necessary—from two Parisian papers, both of a warlike tendency, one the "Echo de Paris," and the other " L'Homme Euchainé," the organ of no less a man than the present Prime Minister of France. According to these organs, the Greek Minister at Berlin, M. Thiotokis, who was entirely friendly to the German nation even as against his own country, communicated to King Constantine this message, that the mission had been carefully prepared, that the German Chancellor was highly delighted, and gave his warmest approval to the mission. The object of this mission was to explain to the sovereigns of Russia and England the policy of King Constantine, and to make them understand that the policy pursued by their Governments tended to the undermining of the dynasty and would accomplish no useful purpose.
  We have heard a great deal during these days of the mischievous activities of
  1522
  Boloism. I ask seriously whether, in the whole round of recent history, you could find one example more dangerous or more perfidious than the activities of these two Princes, coming direct as emissaries from the German Court, knowing the secrets of the German Court, but preserving those secrets, and giving counsel to the Allied countries of Russia and England, not in any friendly or neutral way, but with the determination to press home on the Courts of these countries the views of the German Kaiser and his Chancellor Bethmann-Holl-weg. The Bolos were not regarded with suspicion or harried or persecuted; they were received in this country with open arms; their mission was facilitated, and having left this country when they had access to many secrets denied to citizens of this country.
  Mr. OUTHWAITE: To Members of this, House—
  Mr. LYNCH: These emissaries of the enemy went straight to Berlin, were received with Royal honours, and were no doubt responsible for the defeat of the designs of the Allies. That brings us down to the 23rd June, 1916. On the 2nd December, in the same year, the Consort of King Constantine, who is, I believe, a sister of the German Kaiser, was screaming for an attack on the Allies, with the co-operation of the Greek Forces. There is something about this lady which really compels my admiration. She reminds me of what Napoleon said of the Duchesse d'Angoulême—that she was the only man, in the family. She was a woman of action;. she knew the time had come to strike, and therefore from her palace she was screaming for action to be taken. On the 2nd December, Theotokis, the infidel representative of Greece at the Court of Berlin, was—three weeks later—calling out for an attack, but the time was evidently thought to be inopportune. On the 5th January this year we have the demand for the destruction of all the Greek guns that could be used on the side of the Allies. On the 10th January of this year we find Queen Sophia again screaming with rage and despair at the opportunity missed to strike, and crying about the state of Greece, which had been brought about by the blockade on the part of the Allies, and using this phrase, which deserves to become historic, in the description of the Allies, when she called them " infamous swine." Perhaps the words, severe as

  1523
  they are, had been suggested to her by the manner in which the representatives of the Allies had grovelled at her feet. Here, again, is a pleasant touch which gives me a certain sympathy with the lady. Not being a frequenter of Courts, I had, in my own imagination, placed these people so high that I was disinclined to think that they used words that were familar here; I had believed that they spoke in the high diplomatic terms that we are accustomed to read in Blue Books and diplomatic papers. There is that "touch of Nature that makes the whole world kin " in this description where she designated the Allies as " infamous swine."
  Remember that in this brief narration I have taken you over twelve months of recent Grecian history. Remember that many of these facts which have now been divulged were patent to Members of this House, and that some Members of this House endeavoured to force them upon the attention of the representatives of the Government who held the very destiny of this country in their hands. They, however, remained deaf to the warnings or insolent to the demand that they should hear. What was their reply; and what was the communication of their representative in Athens during all this time? There was a Minister there. Was he alone in all the world blind to the machinations of Constantine, or did he report them to his Government? He did report them, somewhat tardily, to his Government, and even then that Government was blind and deaf. I want to say this, and I want that it should go forth, not only in this country but throughout all the Dominions, that this terrible disaster to Italy had its roots in this inaction, an inaction so extraordinary, and of which the evil effects could not be paralleled by the worst example of perfidy. I will say to this House; I will say to the men of this country, and I will say to the women of this country who have sent their sons and husbands to fight the battle of freedom, that the chances of this country have been jeopardised, and in part thrown away, because in the Balkans the Allies were not fighting the battle of freedom which they blazon on their banners. They were using their force and their diplomacy not to fight and win, but to conserve this enemy dynasty which has dealt to their cause the deepest and perhaps the most irreparable blow during these whole three years of war.
  1524
  There is no representative of the Government to answer. Why? Because no answer can be given, and they know it. In any other country in the world if such an act of negligence were brought home to the representative of the Government that representative would go. Or if the Government showed any inclination to defend him that Government would go. It is a wrong and a mischievous system that a man on whose shoulders rests the responsibility for this terrible blunder, worse than many crimes, should still sit there perhaps to blunder again in the same way—to throw away what chances still remain of the victory of the Allies in this terrible War. We have become accustomed to the terrible toll of death. I am not speaking of the waste of treasure. Let me picture one individual soldier, a young man as the world may call him, the hope and pride of his father and mother, of his brothers and his sisters. He goes forth like a hero, willing to give all that a man can give; his life itself, for the cause of his country, for the whole ideal which the Allies have set upon their flags. That man is stricken down by an enemy bullet in Serbia. His blood is ebbing fast away, his lips are growing pale, his eyes are glaring. He thinks of his home, he thinks of the misery his death will cause. He knows that his people will be uplifted by the thought that he died for a great cause. if in the dying moments of that hero it could be whispered in his ear, " No, you have not died for a great cause, you have not died in defence of your country, you have not died for democracy, you have died to save a dynasty, that dynasty the representative of the worst enemies of your country." The responsibility of having to hear those words, and know that they are true rests with the men who are still guiding the destinies of this country, and having thrown away its chances can say, " We have lost the War in the Balkans, but we have saved the dynasty of an enemy."
  Mr. KING: I hoped someone else would have risen from the opposite benches. There are two members of the Government here, both admirably qualified to speak on this or any other subject. In fact, I would consider them both as to ability, to honesty, and to eloquence superior to the great majority of their colleagues. But they have thought it well to-night to hide their talents under a bushel, and they have not replied to the eloquent and moving speech that, we

  1525
  heard. The House ought to congratulate my hon. Friend that at the third time of asking the Government has not put someone up to count him out. We may also congratulate him that they have not attempted to reply, because no adequate defence of the Government on Greek diplomacy and this Greek fiasco could have been attempted with success. Where no defence was possible I am sure that it was the wisest course to leave the matter where it was. I should like to pay my tribute to the most powerful indictment and the very moving appeal to which we have just listened. But that is not the whole story of the incapacity and weakness of our diplomacy in the Balkans, or even of our diplomacy in Greece. Let it be remembered—and I am sure that my hon. Friend will excuse my reminding him—that he began his story in January, 1916. Let him go back to a year earlier. In January, 1915, we could have had Constantine on our side. If you have got a man who is unreliable and treacherous by nature, let us have him on our side
  1526
  rather than leave him to do what he likes against us as a neutral. If our policy at the beginning of 1915 had been straightforward, sensible, consistent, and courageous, and had not been dominated by Russian diplomacy and by that false line of foreign policy for which we have greatly, perhaps chiefly, to blame Lord Hardinge, this miserable story of Constantine's treachery, and of his collapse, followed by the appointment of his son as successor, would not have occurred. I will not develop the story at this late hour, but I would like to say how much we who love the truth, and who are upholders of consistent policy, and who desire to get from the Government more information than they naturally care to give, have to thank the hon. Member for his consistency in this matter and his eloquent words to-night.
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-three minutes after Eleven o'clock till Tomorrow, pursuant to the Resolution of the Rouse of this day.

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  Skerries Isles (Communication with Mainland).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether he is able now to give us any information as to the course of business for the remainder of the session. We are now within a month of the time at which, in ordinary circumstances, we should be taking an adjournment. The measure which naturally interests us most in this regard is the Representation of the People Bill, which is pursuing its course in another place, but has still a stage or two to go through before its completion there. This measure will naturally demand the closest examination by your Lordships' House, and I have no doubt there are many noble Lords who will desire to take part in the discussions upon it. I am certain His Majesty's Government will agree that it is not a Bill which it would be reasonable to hurry through this House. In these circumstances we should be grateful if the noble Earl could give us some general indications, even if they cannot be absolutely definite in point of fixed dates, as to what the course of business is likely to be before Christmas.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, I will endeavour to the best of my ability to answer the question which has been put to me by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, although I cannot, owing to the still prevailing uncertainty as to the exact proceedings of another place, be very precise as to dates. No Bills, I understand, are likely to come up from another place to your Lordships' House next week. The Bill in which the noble Marquess pointed out your Lordships would be chiefly interested—the Representation of the People Bill—has been, as he hinted, somewhat delayed in its later stages of progress through the House of Commons, and I am informed that on the whole it is unlikely that it will be in your Lordships' House for another fortnight. This seems to be the most reasonable forecast that I can offer. I quite agree with the general proposition put forward by the noble Marquess, that a Bill of that character will require very careful and thorough
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examination in your Lordships' House, and I shall endeavour to secure for you the means to give it the full scrutiny you desire. There is another Bill, the Coal Mines Agreement Bill, that ought to come up to us about the same time. There is a second category of Bills of, perhaps, minor importance which will come up to us at a later date, although the date itself I cannot fix. They are the National Health Insurance Bill, the Non-ferrous Metal Industry Bill, the Imports and Exports Bill, and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. There are two other Bills on the programme of the Government which I am afraid we shall not be able to proceed with this session. One of these is the Midwives (Ireland) Bill and the other the immensely important Educational Reform Bill introduced by my right hon. friend Mr. Fisher in the other House. Your Lordships will have seen the statement made there to the effect that the Government, having regard to the conditions of time, have no hope of proceeding with that Bill this session, but that it is intended to give it a very prominent place in the next session of Parliament. That, I think, is all that I can at present say about the date at which Bills will reach us, but I shall be quite ready to supplement this limited information at a later date as soon as fuller information is in my possession.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: May I ask the noble Earl whether he thinks it possible to pass these Bills through all their stages in this House before the end of the year?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I hesitate to express any definite opinion on that matter; but if the noble Lord asks my private opinion, I should think it is doubtful whether we shall be able to complete that programme before Christmas, and an adjournment may conceivably be necessary in order to take some of it at a later stage.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think, my Lords, you will have heard with great satisfaction the last remark of my noble friend opposite in reply to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh. Some of us are apt to be frightened at the weight of business which might be expected of us before Christmas, and indeed it is very difficult to believe that we could by then

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get through all the Bills which my noble friend has mentioned, if we are to do justice to them. I earnestly hope that we shall be asked to do justice to these Bills, and especially is that the case with the Reform Bill, which is a measure of the first importance. I understand that the Reform Bill is not likely to reach your Lordships' House until December 4 a bare three weeks before Christmas Day. I am sure my noble friend and the Government are aware of the very large number of topics of importance which are included in that Bill. It is almost impossible to believe that we shall get through that Bill rapidly. There are the great questions of proportional representation, woman suffrage, and redistribution, and any number of details as to the machinery of the Bill which your Lordships are probably familiar with and will be more familiar. I am very glad, indeed, that my noble friend has hinted that it may be necessary, instead of proroguing at Christmas, to have an adjournment; and in that case a great weight will be taken off the minds of many of us.
LORD PARMOOR: I should like to submit to the noble Earl that ample time should be given to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. It is a Bill which may well be very carefully considered in your Lordships' House.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I hope that adequate time will be given to the consideration of all these Bills; and I quite agree, with regard to the particular one mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, who is a great authority on the question, that the fullest opportunity should be given to consider it in detail.
LORD PARMOOR: I am much obliged.

NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS, & c. (LOCAL COMMITTEES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, this is a Bill of one clause, the object of which is to strengthen committees now established all over the country in dealing with the
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administrative side of pensions. Your Lordships will remember that the organisation which is responsible for local committee work is divided into three broad categories. At the head are twenty so-called joint committees, which either cover a single large county or certain less populous counties aggregated together. Yorkshire, for instance, has a general committee of its own; Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are combined under a joint committee. They have to deal with treatment and training. Below the joint committees is a group of local committees, for areas of upwards of 20,000 inhabitants. Birmingham and Liverpool has its own local committee. Of these committees there are 300 in the British Isles. Finally, the smallest unit in pension administration is what is called the sub-committee or district, committee, of which there are, I think, about a couple of thousand. The object of this Bill is that the local committees and the subcommittees or district committees shall be strengthened by adding to their personnel, where such persons do not at present exist, two discharged soldiers, and a woman, who must be the widow or the dependant of a man in the Naval or Military Forces who has died from causes arising out of his services during the present war. That is all that the Bill does. The first subsection states that this shall be done, and the second subsection provides the machinery for the supplemental schemes under which these additions to the personnel will be made. The last subsection is purely consequential. The duty of the committees to which the soldiers will be added are, briefly, to look after and to investigate all questions of supplemental pensions. They deal with separation allowances, and, what is very important, with emergency grants. Under the Act that this Bill supplements these committees will exist for three years from the date of their establishment, by which time it will be possible to review the whole situation from a rather lengthier perspective, and in a couple of years' time no doubt it will be necessary to have a general amendment of the whole system; at any rate, it will be possible after three years to review it.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Wednesday next.

PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL ELECTIONS (No. 2) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I rise to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill, the title of which has just been announced at the Table. This is the fourth Bill which has been introduced to Parliament in the last two years for the prolongation of its existence. On the three previous occasions the extension asked for and given was, in the first case, eight months; in the second case, seven months; and, in the third case, seven months; and it is the last of those periods which expires in eight days' time. That is the reason why the Government are obliged to come again to Parliament at this juncture and ask them to give their assent to the passage of this Bill.
On the last occasion—in April this year—when I introduced the third of these Bills to your Lordships' House, I stated at some length the considerations which rendered such an extension of the life of Parliament not only desirable but inevitable. I really might repeat what I said on that occasion almost verbatim this afternoon, but it seems to me unnecessary to do so, for this reason. The case is so familiar, and the arguments in favour of a further prolongation are so overwhelming, that it is unnecessary for me to recapitulate a position with which all your Lordships must be thoroughly acquainted.
The reasons why public opinion in both Houses of Parliament and in the country at large is convinced that this fourth extension of the life of Parliament is necessary—foreign though such an innovation is to all constitutional precedent, and, I will admit, to all ordinary propriety—are, it seems to me, four in number, which can be stated in a sentence in each case. In the first place, it is as undesirable now as it was in April last to contemplate a General Election, which in existing circumstances could only be an imperfect, even if it were in substance a faithful, expression of the opinion of the country. Secondly, it will be universally recognised that the sole preoccupation, not merely of politicians and of public men but of the community at large in this stage of affairs, ought not to be in fighting each other—and in any case and at any time a General Election does involve some element of conflict—but ought to be in fighting the enemy. Thirdly,
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there is the Bill, mentioned by the noble Marquess and myself just now, passing through its later stages in the other House and almost on the threshold of your Lordships' House. That Bill provides for a very large extension of the suffrage, and it would seem to be an absurd and an indefensible thing not to wait for a few months longer until these new voters, who are likely to number several millions, are able to exercise the privilege which Parliament seems likely to confer upon them. And the fourth reason is this—that if this Reform Bill passes through both Houses of Parliament and becomes law, it will be immediately followed by the creation of a Register. This Register, it is contemplated, although it is impossible to predict with any definiteness, will take about seven months to compile. If that be correct, we shall be taken on until the end of next summer, and it is for that reason that the period named in this Bill for the fourth extension of Parliament is eight months instead of seven, as was the case in the last two Bills to which I have referred. Should this expectation not be fulfilled, it is clear that both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity at the end of July next, when this Bill comes to an end, of reconsidering the matter and of making such dispositions as they think fit. With these few words I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Curzon of Kedleslon.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I, in the first place, express my grateful thanks to my noble friend for his courtesy yesterday in postponing this Bill? He has advanced this evening some very cogent arguments in favour of the Second Reading, so cogent that I am sure your Lordships will not desire in any part of the House to resist it. But there are one or two observations that I shall venture, with your Lordships' permission, to make upon the Second Reading. I understand that the prolongation of Parliament is until July 30 next.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: This illustrates the difficulty of modern legislation. After all our investigations yesterday we came to the conclusion that the date was June 30, but I dare say we were wrong.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Eight months from November 30 takes us, does it not, to the end of July?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is quite true, and if the drafting of the Bill had been that Parliament was to be prolonged for eight months the plain man would have understood it. But what the Bill does is to say that there shall be a particular change in another Act of Parliament to which you have to refer, and when you refer to that other Act you find that it only has a meaning if you refer back to a third Act of Parliament, and it is only by a combination of the three that you can arrive at a conclusion. We arrived at the wrong conclusion. Put the matter is of no importance except to show how difficult it is for the plain layman, let alone the trained lawyer, to understand Bills drafted in this way. I do not, of course, say this by way of criticism of my noble friend, who is not in the least responsible for the drafting of the Pill, but in order to justify something which I ventured to say to your Lordships yesterday.
Parliament is to be prolonged under this Bill until July 30, and the first question that I should like to ask my noble friend is, Upon what principle has that date been fixed? Has he a confident hope that the Reform Bill and the Register which will follow its passage into law will be complete in time for a General Election to take place on or about July 30, if it be to the interest of the country to have one at that time? I think we ought not to play about, with this question. If the object is to keep this Parliament in being until the arrangements under the new Reform Pill can take effect, then let us be told at the very outset when that date is likely to be. If the two things hang together, let us understand the method by which the Government have arrived at the calculation which they have now given to your Lordships.
I make no complaint of it, but my noble friend spoke of this Pill as if it were no more than a repetition of the Bill which had gone before it. In one sense he is perfectly right. But there is one particular in which it differs from the previous Bills. This Bill will prolong the existing Parliament to the limit of seven and a-half years. Now, this Parliament was fixed by Statute at five years. It is a considerable thing that it should have been prolonged beyond that time. But it has not only been prolonged
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beyond that time; it is now proposed to prolong it for a longer period than any Parliament has sat since the beginning of the eighteenth century. That is a very considerable step to take. Broadly speaking, ever since the passage of the Septennial Act in 1715—though I am not historian enough to say whether there may not have been some exceptions—no Parliament has lasted longer than seven years.
While recognising the cogency of the arguments which my noble friend has addressed to your Lordships, one cannot but remark upon the moral authority which attaches to a House of Commons serving under such circumstances as those which I have described; because the moral authority of the House of Commons depends upon the authority given to it by the electorate, and that electorate certainly did not give it for more than seven years. The seven years, I take it, will come to an end about the beginning of February next year. I must say that I draw from that an inference that the legislation which takes place in the period after what I may call the full moral authority of the House of Commons has expired ought to be very carefully scanned by your Lordships. Under the Constitution, if there is one special obligation which rests upon this House, so long as it is allowed to exist, it is to protect the Septennial Act, or whatever Act takes its place. Because it is in the absolute power of any House of Commons to prolong its existence indefinitely. It has merely to pass a Bill to that effect. Of course, I am not desiring to say that the present House of Commons is so perverted that it would wish to do such a thing. But it is in its power, and the only precaution and protection in the Constitution to prevent such a tiling happening is the existence of your Lordships' House. Therefore when we are asked by my noble friend not only to vary the prescribed period laid down by the Parliament Act, but also to vary the period which has been in existence for nearly two centuries, then I submit that it is not quite accurate to say that this Bill is merely a repetition of the Bills which have gone before.
If then we are to look upon this, as I think we ought to, as an innovation of a very serious kind, dictated, it is true, by the emergency of the times and by the necessities in which we stand, we ought to scan very narrowly the legislation which is proposed to us during the period of prolongation beyond the Septennial Act.

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Now may I say one word about that? What legislation ought we to let pass? That is a very big question, and I do not propose to answer it. But I will make this comment. All war legislation, all legislation, that is to say, which is necessary for the carrying on of the war, evidently ought to be passed. All legislation which arises out of the emergencies of the war ought to be passed. But when we come to other totally new legislation, legislation upon which the country has not been consulted, then I say, though I am not ruling it out, that this class of legislation ought to be approached with the greatest caution. I do not say that I refer to any Bill which is in a forward state at the present time. The Reform Bill has been before the country for a long time, and I am not in the least saying that that is not legislation which in the circumstances your Lordships ought to consider.
But this appears to be true. If we are to pass legislation so important as the Reform Bill, then we ought to pass legislation which is a necessary consequence of the Reform Bill. It certainly would not be fair upon the electorate to pass a Reform Bill in such circumstances and to leave out what is necessary to complete it. Now, my Lords, there is a measure which is necessary to complete it, and that is the reform of your Lordships' House. I should like to ask the Government to give their special consideration to the necessity for dealing with it. If there had been no reform of Parliament at all, there was something to be said for leaving the reform of your Lordships' House alone. But if there is to be this tremendous change in the suffrage, for which there is a great deal to be said, then I submit that the legislation necessary for the reform of your Lordships' House earnestly calls for consideration and attention. We all know the famous Preamble to the Parliament Act. We all know the hopes—they were rather more than hopes—which wore held out by the late Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith. I forget his phrase; I think it was that the reform of the House of Lords "did not brook delay." How many years ago was that statement made? That pledge—for it almost amounted to a pledge—still remains unredeemed, and the famous Preamble of the Parliament Act has never been fulfilled.
I earnestly hope that if, as is to be anticipated, the Conference which is now sitting on the reform of the House of
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Lords comes to a conclusion, the Government will consider it a matter of high obligation to bring that conclusion before Parliament. I am not, of course, asking His Majesty's Government to pledge themselves to pass any particular Report which may be submitted to them. I do not like these blank cheques to Conferences. I do not believe in them. But I do think that, if something like a unanimous conclusion is arrived at by the Lords Conference, and if the Government do not see any reason to I disapprove of such a Report, and if public opinion is favourable to it, no plea of "other business" should be allowed to stand in its way. It would not be fair to the country to disappoint a fulfilment of Mr. Asquith's pledge. It would not be fair to the country that a great change in the constitution of the Lower House should take place but that the powers of the Upper House should still remain in their present truncated condition. I earnestly hope that to this matter the Government will give their most careful consideration. For the rest—I speak only as a humble member of your Lordships' House—I trust that the passage of this particular Bill which we have upon the Table will be made easy. I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me the opportunity of making these observations, and I commend them to his attention.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, when the first Bill for the extension of the life of Parliament was introduced I am bound to I say that I took the same view as was expressed by Lord St. Aldwyn in those days—namely, that no such Bill ought to have been introduced. I think that subsequent history has more than confirmed the opinion which Lord St. Aldwyn then expressed, because the misfortune has been that since that date there has been no Register provided by which, in the ordinary constitutional way, a representative Assembly could properly be elected.
I recollect asking the noble Earl not long ago when some Register would be provided in order that an election might be possible should it be rendered necessary by the course of public events. The noble Earl did not say much in the way of promise then, because he pointed out that if the Electoral Reform Bill were to become law I the Register would have to be taken under that Bill and not under the present existing Acts. A little later I will deal with what the noble Earl said to-day upon that point. But before I do so I should like to emphasise

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what was said by the noble Marquess who has just sat down with regard to the distinction between this Bill and the Bills which have preceded it. I hope the noble Marquess will not mind if. I endeavour to add a little to the history which he sketched out.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Correct it, please.
LORD PARMOOR: I do not wish at all to correct it. But in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the Septennial Act was introduced, the time for which Parliaments endured under the then existing law was three years. What was done by way of alteration was not to extend the time of a particular Parliament but to introduce a new law which gave a septennial period as against the triennial period. The noble Marquess is undoubtedly right in saying that from that time to this there has been no interference with the septennial period, except the five years period introduced under what is known as the Parliament Act. But when that five years period was introduced into the Parliament Act it was brought in with this reservation—namely, that the House of Commons itself was not to have the same power as regards the extension or alteration of that time as it had with regard to other matters of legislation. In other words, if that House sought to alter the period of time fixed in the Parliament Act, your Lordships' House had its full power as a Second Chamber. That was intended—I think properly intended—to prevent the one House prolonging its own existence whatever the circumstances might be.
It is clear that when we get beyond the seven years period new considerations arise. I think that during the last three extensions the House of Commons has ceased to exist as a representative body. It is nothing more than a statutory body, constituted, of course, by the joint act of Parliament in this House and in the House of Commons. I agree with all that the noble Marquess has said, but I should like to emphasise it a little further. Not only has the present House of Commons none of the prestige and position which attach to new representative bodies, but I think that in times of stress and crisis it is above all other times important that it should have that prestige which it has not under existing conditions. I feel very strongly
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that the greater the crisis—I have indicated this opinion more than once—the more important it is to preserve all our constitutional guarantees; in fact, to preserve all the constitutional guarantees which have made the character, the courage, and the power of this country what they are. Therefore, although I know that it is no good opposing the passage of this Bill. I intensely regret on constitutional grounds that it should have been introduced, and I fear that it may possibly create a bad precedent for the future.
If the House of Commons is constituted as a statutory body in order that war matters may be carried through in the best form, and if we accept that position, then that House ought not to seek to carry any legislation other than that which is strictly applicable to war purposes. Directly you attempt to carry such other legislation, you strike at the whole principle and root of constitutional representative government. I do not say this on merely theoretical grounds. I believe that in some directions at present the House of Commons is causing intense dissatisfaction in certain regions of public opinion; and when the noble Earl says that public opinion in the country is in agreement with the extension of the life of the present House of Commons, I wish to reply that in my view he is quite unable to ascertain whether that is or is not the fact. The only way of ascertaining what public opinion really is must be by the constitutional method of a General Election. What I am afraid of is that, by the constant suppression of the ordinary method by which in a representative Government people can express their opinions, and by suppressing that expression of opinion for too long a time, you may have tied up your safety valve, and you may wonder, perhaps, when the time comes what the results may be. Still more do I think that is the case if you are going to have the first Election on not only new constituencies and under a Redistribution Bill but on an electorate greater in numbers than the existing electorate itself; and you are going to do all that under the supervision of a statutory body when you cannot say for a moment one way or the other what real public opinion is upon this question.
I should now like to say a word or two on the points to which the noble Earl referred. He says that the conditions are as they were in April last. As I opposed the extension in April last, that would not, of course,

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affect my own opinion. Then the noble Earl said that our sole pre-occupation should be fighting the enemy and not fighting one another. On the whole I entirely agree with that; but I say that the way you get real and true unity is by the constitutional method of allowing public opinion to have its representative expression. That is, naturally, a matter of principle, but, I think, one of extreme importance. We do want unity. I believe we have unity. But you never have stronger unity than when all classes of opinion have had their opportunity of expression; they may approach national questions from different standpoints, but they have, nevertheless, had their opportunity in a public and constitutional manner.
The noble Earl claimed that the Electoral Reform Bill would be followed immediately by a Register. I want to ask this question. Do the Government intend, if the Electoral Reform Bill becomes an Act, as I suppose it will, that steps shall at once be taken to form a Register in order that the electorate may exercise their vote within the earliest reasonable opportunity? What I mean is this. Are you going under the Electoral Reform Act, as under the old Parliament Act, to make an Election impossible because the Register is neglected? The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, once introduced a very important measure for the reform of the Register in order that we might have a Register on which an Election would be possible. I want to ask the noble Earl, if he will, to say a further word upon this subject—namely, whether it is the intention of the Government, if the Electoral Reform Bill becomes an Act, at once to take steps to make a practical Register on winch, if necessary, an Election can be held? I only enter my own protest. I think it is contrary to all constitutional principles to have a mere statutory body—a mere official body, I should call it—as against a really representative House of Commons.
EARL LOREBURN: My Lords, I should like to say a word or two upon this subject, not in the least with a view of opposing this Bill, for I recognise that it has become, an unfortunate necessity, but because I wish the House to recall what has happened. On the first occasion when the life of the House of Commons was protracted an assurance was given that no controversial legislation would be undertaken. The next
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thing that was done was to destroy the Register, so that it would be impossible to ask the opinion of any House of Commons except that of a House which was elected I some four years before, upon a then four years old Register and upon a perfectly different issue, and of an electorate which was merely a ghost of what it had been before, to say nothing of the absence of so many of our men in foreign climates. In those circumstances I should have thought it was the most absolute duty in honour and in good faith on the part of the Government towards the country and towards us, as individuals in the country, to abstain from controversial legislation, and to restrict the operations of this truncated Parliament to such measures as were necessary for the present emergency. I am not going to reason for a moment upon the merits of some of the changes that have been made. I take one in particular merely as an illustration. It is the introduction of woman franchise. Now, that is one of the most acute subjects of controversy that you can imagine. That subject has never been before any General Election. It has never affected the return of a single member of the present or of any other House of Parliament. It is resisted upon grounds which may be completely erroneous but which are in accordance with the whole history of this country. Yet it has been introduced into a Bill which it is almost impossible for us to refuse, under circumstances in which the most keen resentment would be created, if we were to refuse to accept it, on the part of a good many people, although I believe by no means the majority of the country. I do not know what is the substantive or the adjective that would be appropriate to express the feeling that must be aroused by treatment of this kind in the minds of men who, like myself, entertain strong objection on principle to that measure. That is by way of illustration. The House is well aware that not only upon that occasion but upon others controversial measures have been introduced, and I am afraid we are in danger of more being introduced. Therefore what I would venture to ask the noble Earl is this—whether we may have some assurance that we shall not be asked to make the sacrifice of our convictions upon highly important subjects during the period that Parliament cannot be said to exercise a moral authority which alone justifies it in introducing great changes in the Constitution.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I will endeavour to answer the questions which have been addressed to me. The first was put in rather different forms, in the first place by my noble friend Lord Salisbury, and, in the second place, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor. It was as to the principle upon which the date that appears in this Bill had been fixed, and as to the intentions of the Government with regard to the creation of a Register. I thought I had, if not directly at any rate by implication, answered both questions in the speech which I delivered just now, but if I did not make myself clear I will repeat in rather more detail what I there endeavoured to say.
I think I mentioned that the periods named in the previous prolongations of the life of this Parliament have been respectively eight months, seven months, and seven months. Following precedent, we should therefore naturally have been disposed to make this fourth extension one for seven months also. Why, then, did we put in eight months rather than seven months? The reason was this, that we were informed by the Home Office that the period that would be likely to be occupied in the drawing up of a Register, following upon the passage of the Representation of the People Bill, would be approximately seven months—anyhow, something between seven and eight months—and therefore we desired to provide for a period during which the Register could be drawn up, and after it possibly to take an Election on the new franchise if created.
This enables me to give a reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor. The Government have the firmest intention when the Bill passes into law, if it does, of proceeding at once with the drawing up of the Register, and it will therefore be possible within a period of seven or eight months—it might even be longer—to hold a General Election on the new franchise. But I did point out in my previous remarks that supposing there is any delay, for a reason which we cannot anticipate, both Houses of Parliament hold us in their hands, because we should then be compelled towards the next to come for a renewed extension, and it would then be for Parliament to say whether it end of July desired to grant a further extension for a limited period or to go to the country at once.
The next question was put by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Loreburn. He
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entered upon a rather stricken field when he raised the question as to the controversial legislation which in his opinion has been introduced more than once by His Majesty's Government. I would like to make two observations upon that. The first is not at all in the nature of an excuse, but is, I think, a statement of fact. When the undertaking was first given I do not imagine that anybody contemplated for a moment that the war would last into the fourth year; and at that date—I do not remember exactly by whom the undertaking was given; I think it was a kind of understanding between the Government of Mr. Asquith and the Opposition (if it could be so called) which was at that time led by Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar Law—on both sides an admission, I am sure, would be readily forthcoming that we were thinking of a war that might last a year or possibly into the second year, but certainly not a war that has lasted as long as this.
The second observation I would make is this. If you examine the so-called controversial legislation to which my noble and learned friend refers, you will find that in each case it has flowed in some form or another out of the war itself. Take, for instance, this question of the extension of the franchise. I suppose if any one had asked me or anybody else at the beginning of the war whether the Government were likely to introduce a, great Reform Bill, the answer would have been in the negative. But as the war proceeded two things happened. In the first place, it became more and more apparent that the old Register was obsolete and hopeless, and, as the House will remember, our attempts to create a new one were not favourably received. The second thing that emerged was this—that more and more, as the years went by, were millions of our people being engaged not only in fighting in the trenches or in different theatres of war abroad, but in providing the materials for war at home. There thus grew up an enormous new class of the community demanding and qualified for the vote whom it was impossible to exclude from the idea of having the vote when next a General Election should take place. In this way this great Reform Bill—it is a great Bill, and it will be more far-reaching in its consequences than any of its predecessors—has sprung out of the war. I do not, speaking as a member of the last two Governments, feel that in this case

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there has been any violation of the pledge about non-controversial legislation to which the noble and learned Earl has referred.
Let me take his other illustration. He says, Why then are you legislating about so profoundly controversial a subject as woman suffrage? Now, my Lords, the noble and learned Earl knows that on the principle of that matter I am in entire agreement with him. I have never changed my opinions. I have not changed them now, and I dare say I shall have an opportunity in your Lordships' House a little later on upon that point of crossing swords with some of my noble friends who sit opposite. But why was it necessary to deal with woman suffrage at all? That, my Lords, sprang in the same natural way out of the results of the Speaker's Conference. None of us outside had the slightest idea of what was going on inside that Conference, and when it reported it was found to have dealt with the question of female suffrage as well as with the larger issues of the extension of the male suffrage and electoral reform in all its various aspects. What were the Government to do? Is it seriously contended that, the Conference having reported, we were to present in the form of a Bill to Parliament those portions of the Report about which there was no disagreement at all, and that those of us who felt strongly against female suffrage, of whom I was one, should have used our influence to cast that out of the Bill? That would have been an impossible position to take up.
Very well, then. What was the course of action that was naturally prescribed to people who held the views that I did? What did we fight for, those of us who remembered that female suffrage was not a unanimous Report of the Conference but only a majority Report, and who held strong convictions on the matter? It was to see that, while it was necessary that a Bill should be introduced giving Parliament an opportunity of canvassing every aspect of the question, this matter should be left open to Parliament, and that in either House of Parliament any one of us—and it applied to myself as a Minister as to any private member—should be at liberty to speak and vote as he liked. I think I have shown, therefore, that it was inevitable. It was certainly due to no act of deliberate intent or a desire to escape from
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an undertaking on the part of the Government. It was inevitable that the Reform Bill introduced in these circumstances should contain, for the consideration and decision of Parliament, provisions as regards suffrage for women.
I could not help being struck by a certain contrast between the positions taken up by the noble and learned Earl and the noble Marquess who preceded him a little earlier this afternoon. The noble and learned Earl (Lord Loreburn) wanted me very much to reassure the House that there would be no more controversial legislation. A little earlier the noble Marquess had asked me to give a pledge that under conditions prescribed by himself, to which I shall presently allude, the Government would pledge themselves to add to their programme some vast measure for the reform of your Lordships' House in the course of next year. I notice with interest that the noble Marquess has a little changed his attitude from that adopted earlier in the year. It fell to my lot, in connection with the speech that I made earlier in the afternoon, to look up the debate which took place when I introduced the last Bill for the extension of the life of Parliament in April this year, and I came across a little gem associated with the name of the noble Marquess. On that occasion he said that anybody who threw an extra burden on His Majesty's Government by asking them to consider subjects not arising out of the war "would be guilty of high treason." Well, my Lords, had the I noble Marquess lived in earlier days, and had he been guilty of the kind of pressure that he has put upon me to-night, I tremble to think how near he would have been to the block and in what perilous danger we should have stood in this House of losing one of its chief ornaments.
To-night the noble Marquess adopted a different attitude. Instead of saying that any one who introduces legislation of this sort is guilty of high treason, he said—bearing in mind what he was asking us to do at a later date—that we, ought in the case of legislation not directly arising out of the war to approach the matter with great caution. Well, my Lords, I propose to approach with great caution the question to which the noble Marquess referred. What did he say? He developed a long, and if I may say so a forcible, argument

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about the connection of the reform of your Lordships' House with the passage of a Bill for the wide extension of the franchise and great changes in the constitution of the other House of Parliament. I do not think I would go quite so far with him as Co say that one was the direct and necessary consequence of the other, but I do admit a very close connection between the two. The noble Marquess went on to say that he hoped that, should the Conference which is now sitting on the subject of House of Lords reform have certain results, the Government would regard it as a matter of high obligation to bring those results before Parliament. My Lords, I do not think I should like to give or that the noble Marquees could reasonably press me to give anything in the nature of a pledge when matters are as indeterminate as they are on the present occasion. How indeterminate they are was perfectly fairly indicated by himself. He said, This Conference is sitting; how far it has gone and what measure of agreement has been arrived at he had not the slightest idea; he had no means of knowing."But" (said Lord Salisbury) "supposing this Conference comes to something like a unanimous conclusion" I think those were his words—" and supposing the Government approve of that conclusion, and supposing, again, that public opinion outside is favourable to the conclusion so arrived at and so approved by the Government, I hope that the Government will give some undertaking to bring the matter before Parliament." Well, my Lords, all these are very contingent probabilities or possibilities. I hope myself that they will all be realised. I should like to make it quite clear that the Government did not set up this Conference about House of Lords reform without the strongest possible desire that it should produce a scheme, and without the most earnest intention, if such a scheme is produced and it satisfies the noble Marquess's conditions, to proceed with the matter. Further than that I do not think he would ask me at the present moment to go, and less than that I should not like to say. I think, my Lords, I have now answered all the questions which noble Lords have addressed to me, and I hope you will now be good enough to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

SHIPS SUNK WITHOUT TRACE.
LORD BERESFORD LORD BERESFORD had the following Notice on the Paper—
To draw attention to the increase in the number of ships missing without trace, and the disclosure of German plans to cause ships to be destroyed without trace; and to ask whether His Majesty's Government will consider the necessity of putting such a limitation on all mails as may preclude their being used for such purposes; and to move for Papers.
The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords. I should like to bring before your Lordships the important question of the great number of ships which have been missing without trace during this war. The number has increased lately. From August, 1914, to the end of October, 1917, there were posted as missing 180 ships of 260,000 tons, 100 of which were British, aggregating 160,000 tons. These ships are classed as missing, generally their category is "last spoken" or "last seen"; but in addition there are over 50 vessels that are classed as missing without trace. There are some ships that will be in that category finally, but the information has not yet come to the authorities.
We remember the breach of neutrality of Germany and another country when a foreign Legation in the Argentine permitted secret means of communication between the Chargé d'Affaires at Buenos Aires and the Berlin Foreign Office. The neutral Power actually allowed the German code to be used in a letter or message sent by the neutral Power, the information then being sent on to Germany. The Argentine Republic had received a pledge from the German Government that their ships would be respected, but in May, 1917, one of the messages sent said that a certain ship was to be destroyed "leaving no trace." This was sent by means of the neutral Minister to Germany. There was another occasion in July when vessels were ordered to be sunk without any trace, and several messages in which the sailings of Argentine ships were mentioned in this code forwarded to Germany by the neutral country. I think the British Government, two years ago, called the attention of this neutral country to the fact that they were using code, and objected to it. The neutral country said it should cease. Since then brutalities have occurred through the

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aid of this neutral country to which I refer. The Secretary of State at Washington published the whole case, and your Lordships will probably have read it in the Press.
I should like to know what steps the Government have taken to prevent this, because it is perfectly possible that a very large number of our ships which have been sunk without leaving any trace may come under the same category as those unfortunate ships which belong to the Argentine Republic. We know very well that in several cases a few lives were saved. There is the case of the "Belgian Prince," which will be known to your Lordships, where the enemy took the crew of a merchant ship on to the upper deck of a submarine, divested them of their life-belts, and then submerged, taking the whole of the crew to the bottom. All but one of the crew were drowned. In two other cases they towed the boats, assuring the crew that they would tow them until they were in sight of land, but after going a short distance they submerged and towed them to the bottom. In these two cases the intention evidently was to sink without leaving any trace. I want to ask what steps have been taken with regard to this neutral country and other neutral countries to prevent such diabolical proceedings as have occurred between the, Argentine Republic and Germany. If mailbags have been vised it does not concern me much. I am not concerned with the forms of etiquette as between foreign countries. What concerns me is that our men, the finest men in the world, should be subject to these brutal murders. Probably many of the ships that we have lost without trace have been lost in the same way as those which the Argentine Republic have lost without trace. I hope that I have made myself quite clear, and that the noble Earl will reply to the points I have raised.
THE ADDITIONAL PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF LYTTON): My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord has argued to your Lordships that there is a large and growing increase of ships missing without any trace. He referred to what is known as the "Luxburg question," and suggested that the loss of these ships was possibly, and indeed probably, due to a misuse of the rights accorded to neutral countries—such as the misuse made in the Luxburg case—and asked me, finally, what steps the Government have taken or propose to take to deal with the matter.
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Let me first of all take the first part of his Question. The noble Lord quoted some figures which I am not prepared altogether to accept. He said that 180 vessels had been posted as missing since the beginning of the war, to which a further number—50, I think he suggested—ought to be added. I will give your Lordships the exact figures so far as I am able to obtain them with regard to ships coming under this category. I understand that in three years up to October last the number of vessels missing without trace is 122. The number of vessels missing without trace in peace time is, on an average, 15 per annum, or 45 in three years. Therefore if you deduct what I may call the peace rate of 45 ships from the 122 it leaves a total of 77 ships for the last three years, or a yearly increase of 26 ships missing without trace during the period of the war. That is, of course, a very considerable I increase over the rate prevailing in times of peace; but when we consider that the seas are infested with submarines and with mines, and, in the distant seas, occasionally with raiders, it is inevitable that there would be an increase over the number of ships missing without trace in times of peace. I have made inquiry as to whether there is any reason for thinking that the number of ships so missing is increasing, and I am told that this is not the case.
With regard to the second part of the Question, the noble and gallant Lord is quite right in reminding your Lordships that in the case to which he has referred a neutral Power did allow communications to pass in its own code from German diplomatic agents abroad to the German Government in Germany, which was, of course, a gross breach of neutrality and a distinct violation of the privilege granted to that neutral country in the use of British cables for its diplomatic correspondence. When it was pointed out to us that this was being I done and evidence was brought to our knowledge of this breach of neutrality, we at once denied to that neutral Power any further privileges in that direction—that is to say, we refused to allow them any longer to use our cables.
LORD BERESFORD: Can the noble Earl say what the date of that was?
THE EARL OF LYTTON: I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord the date, but he will remember when the correspondence

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was published owing to the action of the United States of America, and it was after that that the prohibition was carried out. With regard to other neutral countries, I may say that we have no reason whatever to suspect either improperly accredited diplomatic bags or that any cipher codes pass over the cables on the part of neutral Governments, or that any single breach of neutrality is being committed; and with out evidence that such a breach of neutrality is being committed we have no intention of withdrawing from other neutrals such rights as they at present enjoy. But I can assure the noble and gallant Lord and your Lordships that if at any time we have reason to suspect or to believe that a similar breach of neutrality is being committed by any other country, we shall certainly take similar steps to prevent the practice, from being continued.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply, which I think is satisfactory. It was unintentional on my part to infer that more ships were lost than would appear. I ought to have allowed for the normal losses. I had them down, but I forgot about them. The noble Earl is quite correct in what he stated, but I do not think that he is altogether right in his statement that the number of ships lost without trace is not increasing. At all events, my information is that they are increasing and have increased during the last month, which is later than the period that I gave. However, I thank the noble Earl for his information, and I am glad to be assured that the Foreign Office are guarding against this danger in the interests of our seamen.
House adjourned at fifteen minutes before six o'clock.