Sitting of 24 January 1918

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Port Glasgow Water Order Confirmation Bill.
Read a second time; and ordered to be considered upon Monday next.

COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copies presented of Colonial Reports, Nos. 947 (Basutoland, Report for 1916–17), 948 (Gold Coast, Report for 1916), 949 (Ashanti, Report for 1916) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copy presented of Order made by the Council of the undermentioned local authority, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department:—
City of Liverpool
[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

MINISTRY OF FOOD.
Copies presented of Ice Cream (Restriction) Order, 1917, Sugar (Rationing) Order, 1918, Ice Cream (Restriction) Order, 1917, General Licence, Butter (Ireland) Order, 1918, Rabbits (Prices) Order, 1918, and Whisky (Restriction on Sales) Order, 918, made by the Food Controller under the Defence of the Realm Regulations [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
SUPREME COURT; PRIZE, ETC., DEPOSIT ACCOUNT, 1916–17.
Copy ordered "of the Account of the Receipts and Payments of the Assistant Paymaster-z45General for Supreme Court business on behalf of the Admiralty Division in Prize for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1917, and for the period 4th day of August, 1914, to 31st day of March, 1917, together with Copy of the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon." — [Mr. Baldwin.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR

    BRITISH EMBASSIES (COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS).
    Mr. WINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in the reconstruction of Embassies, he will consider the advisability of securing among the attachés experienced commercial travellers, with a view of associating our Embassies with British trade as well as other aspects of British policy?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND (Department of Overseas Trade): A Selection Committee has been appointed, containing business men among its members, to consider appointments to posts in our Embassies and Legations on the commercial side of the Diplomatic and Consular Services. Capacity to deal with business matters and trade considerations will, of course, be one of the principal qualifications in determining the selection of any candidate.
    Mr. WING: May I take it that commercial travellers as a class will be represented on that body?
    Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I can give no undertaking as to who will be represented, but in the selection of candidates for this or any other class their business qualifications will be a very important consideration.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Sir George Buchanan and the British Embassy in Petrograd were subject to any threats, insults, dangers, or other indignities during the last two months of his stay in Petrograd; and whether he can make a reassuring statement on the subject?
    The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord R. Cecil): Though neither the Ambassador nor Embassy have been subject to any direct threats or insults, it would certainly not be true to say that their position has been free from danger. I do not think that it would serve any useful purpose to go into further detail on the subject at present.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    TILLAGE, IRELAND (WIRE FENCING).
    Mr. TURTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the compulsory Order to plough up demesne lands involves a considerable amount of fencing and that the price for barbed-wire fencing is now 66s. per cwt.; and whether he will arrange that controlled fencing wire at a reasonable price shall be placed at the disposal of landowners who, under the Tillage Orders, are compelled to put up fencing?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): While fencing may be necessary in some cases of the breaking up of demesne lands, if the portion of land to be tilled is selected with a view to availing of existing fences as far as possible, and if the unploughed land adjoining the tillage is meadowed, the need for additional fencing could be considerably reduced, and perhaps obviated altogether. The existing price of barbed wire is approximately as stated in the question. The Department of Agriculture will be prepared to make representations to the Ministry of Munitions in favour of the granting of permits to purchase barbed wire by owners of demesnes where necessity is shown to exist.

    FOOD DISTRIBUTION (IRELAND).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland what steps he proposes to take to prevent a repetition of the famine years of 1846–8; if during that time over 1,000,000 persons died of starvation in Ireland, whilst all the time plenteous crops of grain and herds of cattle were being exported to Great Britain; and if he will see that those with the most money will not be allowed to purchase the food supply of the Irish people?
    Mr. DUKE: The information which reaches me does not suggest that there is any reason to anticipate a general shortage of food in Ireland. The Food Control Committee are in communication with the Department of Agriculture and other Irish Departments as regards food supplies, and are taking steps to secure equitable distribution. Any prospect of shortage in a particular district will be dealt with when it arises.

    PORK AND BACON (IRELAND).
    Mr. ARCHDALEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he is aware of the
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    danger of the five largest pork-curing establishments in Ulster closing down and hundreds of men being thrown idle owing to the neglect of the Government to enforce their Orders as to the maximum price and ordering prosecutions for payment of bonus; if so, what action he will take in the matter; and if he is aware that, owing to the system of bonus paid by some buyers, the five largest bacon-curing firms in Ulster, who purchased 17,103 pigs in 433 markets during the four weeks ending 21st December, 1916, were only able to buy 457 in the four weeks ending 21st December, 1917, or 2½ per cent. of their 1916 purchase?
    Mr. DUKE: The Food Control Committee for Ireland are fully alive to the position in the pork trade, to which the hon. Member refers. A scheme has been sanctioned, and will be brought into operation forthwith, which it is hoped will put an end to the evils complained of.
    Mr. ARCHDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the advisability of ordering prosecutions either before the resident magistrate or the High Court? Local benches of magistrates do not give any adequate fines.
    Mr. DUKE: I am not surprised at the suggestion my hon. Friend makes in the latter part of the question. These prosecutions are made under the Defence of the Realm Act and Regulations, and the tribunal is there specified. I do not think that the provisions quite admit such a course as my hon. Friend suggests.
    Mr. LOUGH: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the question of maximum prices referred to in the question ought to be considered in connection with these prosecutions, having regard to the great cost of feeding stuffs in Ireland?
    Mr. DUKE: The question has been dealt with by the scheme that I mentioned in answer to the hon. Member for Fermanagh. There has been a good deal of difficulty in dealing with the matter, but I hope that the scheme arranged will be satisfactory.
    Brigadier-General M'CALMONT: May I ask whether the attention of the benches has been called to the inadequacy of the penalties that they are at present applying in food control prosecutions?
    Mr. DUKE: Attention has been called to the matter by answers to questions in this House. I am not sure whether a

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    circular has been issued, but the question has been under consideration. I must say that in the particular interests of Ireland, as well as in the common and general interests, it is desirable that magistrates should have proper regard to the extreme gravity of offences which prevent the proper distribution of food.

    IRISH EGG INDUSTRY.
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) what steps he has taken to safeguard the interests of the Irish egg export industry, in view of the terms of the recent notice issued by the railway companies, and of the impression thereby created that after 1st March eggs will only be carried at owner's risk?
    Mr. DUKE: The Department of Agriculture have made representations to the railway authorities with a view to the introduction of certain modifications in the notice recently issued by the railway companies, and the matter is at present receiving consideration.
    Mr. BOLAND: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that for many years past the Department has had a regular standard type of case, and that now the railway companies of England, in order to avoid liability, say they will accept only another form of case which has been approved by a Government Department?
    Mr. DUKE: I am not able, without notice, to answer that question. As I say, the matter is being dealt with between the Department and the railway companies at the present time. If it is not satisfactorily disposed of, perhaps my hon. Friend will bring it to my notice again.

    IMPORT AND EXPORT TRADE, IRELAND (ANNUAL REPORT).
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) the probable date of publication of the annual Report on the import and export trade of Ireland?
    Mr. DUKE: The Report. on the trade in imports and exports at Irish ports for the year 1916 will, I hope, be published early in April.

    OATS (IRELAND).
    General M'CALMONTasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether, in accordance
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    with the compulsory Tillage Orders, many small farmers throughout Ireland have small stacks of oats on their farms without the necessary means for their proper preservation; and whether he proposes to take any action to assist these men either to dispose of or preserve these crops, which have been grown in the public interest?
    Mr. DUKE: The Department of Agriculture have no information to the effect that farmers in Ireland have stacks of oats which they are unable to preserve. I am informed that at present there appears to be no difficulty in disposing of oats, and that oats properly stacked should keep for a considerable period. I believe a brisk demand for oats is inevitable.
    General M'CALMONT: If I bring to the right hon. Gentleman's notice districts in which there are such stacks, will he take steps to see that the crops are not lost?
    Mr. DUKE: It is very desirable that not an ounce of food should be lost. The best advantage shall be taken of any information which my hon. and gallant Friend may give me.

    BUTTER.
    General M'CALMONTasked (1) the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture. (Ireland) whether he has represented to the Ministry of Food that the prohibition of the export of Irish butter will seriously affect the production of butter in the country, and that exporters who have to abandon their trade will find serious difficulty in regaining it; (2) the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the Irish demand for the prohibition of the export of Irish butter was made by representatives from many parts of the country; whether he is satisfied that the amount of butter being produced at the time of the issue of the Order will be not more than sufficient for the needs of the country; whether the poorer classes in Ireland can afford to pay for butter instead of margarine; and whether he will consider the advisability, in the interests of maximum production, of allowing bonâ fide export firms to continue a proportion of their former trade under carefully controlled licences?
    Mr. PARKER (Lord of the Treasury): The export of Irish butter was prohibited after consultation with the Irish Department of Agriculture and in accordance

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    with representations from many parts of the country. It has become necessary, in order to effect economies in transport, to arrange that Ireland should rely upon her own production of butter and margarine. It is, moreover, clear that the amount of butter being produced there at the present time will not do more than suffice for the needs of the country. So soon as any surplus becomes available those producers and merchants who in 1916 exported butter to Great Britain will be allowed to resume their export trade, subject to the necessary control of distribution by the Ministry of Food.
    General M'CALMONT: Will the hon. Gentleman answer that part of question 61 which asks whether he is satisfied that the poorer classes in Ireland are capable of paying the price for good Irish butter?
    Mr. PARKER: I understand that there is a certain amount of margarine produced in Ireland which will be at their disposal and which was formerly taken by the Army.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand that Ireland is to retain butter on the prewar basis of consumption, while butter is unobtainable in many parts of this country?
    Mr. PARKER: I cannot answer the question beyond saying that this action has been taken in close consultation with the Department of Agriculture in Ireland, which knows all about the conditions.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is this action taken by the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland, in order that he may ultimately become a member of the Sinn Fein Government?
    Mr. PARKER: Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a question on that.
    Mr. BOLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that for a great number of years past the winter production of butter in Ireland has never been sufficient for the needs of the Irish people, and that they have always had in years past to import Colonial or other butter in order to make up the deficit?
    Mr. PARKER: The hon. Member knows more about these questions than I do. This action has been taken because the export of butter into Ireland has been stopped.
    Sir A. YEOasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he can see his way to distribute butter and its substitutes to retailers and institute a Regulation, with fines for evading the Regulation, that all such retailers open their shops for the sale of these articles at one and the same hour and thus avoid to a great extent the formation of queues and prevent purchasers obtaining double quantities of these articles?
    Mr. PARKER: Butter and its substitutes are at present distributed to retailers, and local food control committees have been given powers enabling them to adjust any existing inequalities in this respect. It would be within the power of a committee, under the Local Distribution Order of 22nd December, to apply within their area, with the consent of the Food Controller, the suggestions contained in the second part of the question, but. I am not satisfied that they would have the effect desired.

    POTATOES.
    General M'CALMONTasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that many small farmers in Ireland still have large stocks of potatoes in small lots on their hands which were produced in accordance with the wishes of the Government and in the interests of the food supply of the country; and whether he will state what steps he proposes to take to ensure that these potatoes are made use of?
    Mr. DUKE: In view of the present position as regards food supplies, the Department of Agriculture consider that except in certain districts, the stocks of potatoes held by small farmers in Ireland are not in excess of local requirements. So far as there are surplus stocks arrangements have been made which, it is believed, will enable them to be disposed of for Army and Navy purposes and to the trade in Great Britain.
    General M'CALMONT: Will that include even small amounts, or will it only apply to farmers who have large lots to dispose of?
    Mr. DUKE: Small lots will be included, of course. There is no prohibition.
    Sir B. FALLEasked the Prime Minister if he will give any guarantee or make any statement of a kindred nature that the farmers of Jersey and Guernsey

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    who are now about to plant early potatoes should not be limited as to selling price and should not have their produce commandeered, and that all possible provision in the way of transport shall be granted them?
    Mr. PARKER: I have been asked to reply. The Food Controller's powers do not extend to the Channel Isles, and there is accordingly no question of his commandeering potato stocks or fixing prices in Jersey or Guernsey. I may add that the Ministry of Food is in communication with the Ministry of Shipping with regard to the question of the provision of shipping for potatoes from the Channel Islands, and it is hoped that adequate facilities will be provided for this service.
    Mr. H. LAWasked why small farmers in Ireland who increased their growth of potatoes last year in response to the appeals of the Government, and relying upon the promise of a guaranteed minimum price made by the Prime Minister on the 23rd February, have been excluded from benefit unless they are individually in a position to sell in lots of 4 tons or over, seeing that no such condition was attached to this promise; and why the Ministry of Food refuse to allow such growers to pool their surplus stocks of potatoes and to sell them in bulk through their co-operative societies or other dealers?
    Mr. PARKER: I must refer the hon. Member to the answers given on, 26th and 29th November to the hon. Members for Ossory and North Sligo respectively. I have nothing to add to those replies.
    Mr. LAW: The answers referred to did not include the last part of this question, as to the refusal to allow small farmers to pool their stocks and sell them through co-operative societies?
    Mr. PARKER: It is a long story to give in reply to a supplementary question, but I shall be glad to have a conversation with the hon. Member on the subject. I think that there must be a misunderstanding as to the actual guarantee which was given. The guarantee given, as was stated from the very beginning, was for 6 tons, which was reduced to 4 tons.
    Mr. LAW: Where in the promise given by the Prime Minister was there any such limitation?
    Mr. PARKER: The fact is as I say.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Can you give the date of any statement by any Minister to the effect, that this was limited to growers of 4 tons?
    Mr. PARKER: I shall be pleased to give the hon. Member whatever information I have with regard to it.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: You cannot give what I ask for because you have not got it.

    SUGAR-BEET.
    Sir ARTHUR FELLasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), if he has provided sugar-beet seed for growth in suitable counties of Ireland to enable syrup to be made by small holders to alleviate in some degree the shortage of sugar?
    Mr. DUKE: No, Sir. The Department of Agriculture are of opinion that the proposition is not practicable. Attempts to substitute beet syrup for sugar in jam-making have, I believe, not been attended with success. I am told, also, that it would be difficult to secure a quantity of beet seed of the kind required.
    Sir A. FELL: Has the right hon. Gentleman conferred with the Minister of Agriculture in England on this matter?
    Mr. DUKE: I am not sure. If my hon. Friend will repeat the question later, I will have inquiries made.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: Which counties of Ireland are suitable for sugar-beet?
    Mr. DUKE: I could not say offhand.

    CONDENSED MILK.
    Sir ALFRED YEOasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware of the shortage of condensed milk for children; and, seeing that in November, 1917, either condensed or preserved milk to the value of over £2,000 was delivered by one wholesale firm in London alone to the alien concentration camp at Knockaloe, Isle of Man, and on 6th January, 1918, by the same firm condensed or preserved milk to the value of £8,600, he will say what steps he proposes to take to provide a further supply for children?
    Mr. PARKER: I am informed that the payments referred to in the question are on account of a contract made last autumn for condensed milk for Knockaloe Camp, which on the ration prescribed in the dietary will cover a population of 20,000

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    men for a period of some thirty-four weeks. I may add that it is not proposed to make any further contracts of this nature for the present. The Food Controller is taking steps to provide a further supply of condensed milk for children.
    Sir A. YEO: Will the Food Controller not consider the advisability of stopping the supply of condensed milk to these prisoners altogether and give it to the children?
    Mr. PARKER: The amount of milk that they get now is a little over half an ounce a day, I suppose. I understand there is some difficulty in getting the necessary food quality in the dietary. After what I have said in my first reply, that provision is going to be made for a further supply for children, and that this kind of contract is not likely to be renewed, I hope the hon. Member will not press his point.

    MARGARINE.
    Mr. HOUSTONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of food whether he is aware of the shortage of margarine in this country; whether he is aware of the quantity of premier jus, i.e., refined animal fat, one of the best materials or constituents for the making of margarine, and oleo oil that has accumulated and is awaiting shipment in the Argentine, and that about 8,000 tons per month of these materials could be shipped from the Argentine if shipping facilities were provided; whether he is aware that, by orders from one or other of the various Government Controllers, Directors, Commissions, or Committees, preference has been given to the shipment of cereals, cargoes of which have been sent to France; whether he is aware that protests and representations have been made for a considerable time past to the Board of Trade, to the Director of Oils and Fats, to the Shipping Controller, and to other Government Departments, with a view to permission being granted for shipment of this foodstuff, and that it was only on the 17th instant that permission was given to ship 3,000 tons of premier jus and oleo oil from Buenos Ayres to this country; and whether he can state which of these Government Departments, Commissions, or Controllers is responsible for the holding up of this article of food at a time when the country is short of it?
    Mr. PARKER: The answer to the first four parts of the question is in the affirma-
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    tive. The temporary cessation of imports of premier jus, to which the hon. Member refers, is due to the necessity of reserving freight space for other even more important commodities. I am not aware that any restriction has been placed by any other Government Department on the importation of foodstuffs for which priority has been granted to the Ministry of Food.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some portions of his reply are incorrect? Is he also aware that the real responsibility for the shortage of margarine in this country lies with the Ministry of Shipping through want of foresight?
    Mr. PARKER: I cannot reply for the Ministry of Shipping, but I will convey what the hon. Member says.
    Mr. HOUSTON: I will put down a question.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Can the hon. Gentleman say who decides the priority in respect of these shipments of different foodstuffs?
    Mr. HOUSTON: The Ministry of Shipping.
    Mr. PARKER: The Food Controller decides the priority in relation to the circumstances. I was assured this morning from the Food Controller's Department that in this particular matter they were obliged to give priority to linseed. Priority has been granted, however, for 14,000 tons of this particular commodity.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is this the decision of the Food Controller or of the War Cabinet, and is this War Cabinet decision owing to local representations affecting particular industries which are strongly represented here?
    Mr. PARKER: I can assure the hon. Member it is the decision of the Food Controller.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Has he anything to do with linseed?

    SUGAR.
    Mr. ROBINSONasked whether, in view of the loss of fruit bound to occur during the coming season owing to the scarcity of sugar, he will divert some of the 60,000 tons of sugar and glucose assigned during 1918 to brewery purposes to the use of the home jam makers?
    Mr. PARKER: The invert and solid glucose which are permitted to be used for brewing purposes are unsuitable for use in the making of jam.
    Mr. ROBINSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that large quantities of this glucose could be used for making jam?
    Mr. PARKER: I think my hon. Friend will find on inquiry that he is wrong, and that the sugar which has been used for brewing purposes cannot be used for the purposes which he suggests.
    Mr. ROBINSON: I am asking about glucose. I know it has been used.
    Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if there has recently been a further reduction in the allowance of sugar for confectioners; if so, will he state the extent of this reduction and the length of time which it is expected that this rate of allowance will continue; and whether he will bear in mind the fact that this reduction of the sugar allowance is driving many small traders out of employment and causing much hardship?
    Mr. PARKER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The rest of the question does not, therefore, arise.

    MILK.
    Mr. LOUGHasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether a maximum price to the producers ranging from 1s. 8d. in Ireland to 2s. per gallon in Great Britain has been fixed for milk; whether he is aware that it requires 2½ gallons of milk to make 1 lb. of butter, so that on this basis the cost per lb to produce butter ranges from 4s. 2d. to 5s.; whether the Food Controller still maintains a price of 2s. per lb. fixed in the summer or autumn; whether he has considered the effect of this in discouraging the producers of butter and in accounting for the famine in that article of produce which at present exists; and whether he intends to take steps to deal with the matter?
    Mr. PARKER: The maximum wholesale price for milk to producers in Ireland is fixed by the Milk (Ireland) Order at 1s. 4d. per gallon; the corresponding price in England is 1s. 9d. per gallon from December, 1917, to March, 1918, inclusive. The price fixed to the producer for Irish creamery butter is 224s. per cwt.; the corresponding price for British made
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    butter is 230s. per cwt. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative, so far as quantity is concerned, but the hon. Member has not taken into account the value of separated milk. The maximum prices for butter and milk were fixed by the Food Controller in order to ensure the fullest possible supply of fresh milk for infants and nursing mothers. It is not considered to be in the public interest to encourage the home production of butter at the expense of the milk supply.
    Mr. LOUGH: Will the hon. Gentleman admit that the cost of production now is double as much as when these maximum prices were fixed, and that that ought to be taken into account in maintaining and prosecuting this industry?
    Mr. PARKER: I am not sure whether the figures are correct, but I will convey the right hon. Gentleman's remarks to the authorities.
    Mr. R. GWYNNE: Will the hon. Gentleman say what it is proposed to do with milk which is only left over in small quantities? If it is not to be made into butter, how is it proposed to deal with it?
    Mr. PARKER: I cannot answer that, but I presume you can make butter from milk left over.
    Mr. GWYNNE: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that butter making is discouraged?
    Mr. PARKER: So it is, in order that milk may be used for the purpose for which it is needed—for children and the mothers of young children.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is not butter of importance for young children?

    MEAT SHORTAGE.
    Mr. LOUGHasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the Food Controller is now satisfied that the low prices for British beef fixed by him in the summer and autumn to take effect during the month of January, followed by his orders to kill immature beef and the introduction of an unworkable system of grading cattle, entirely accounts for the meat famine now prevailing; and whether he will take immediate steps to abolish these various restrictions, to relieve the difficulties, and to encourage producers again to place a sufficient supply for the wants of the people upon the market?
    Mr. PARKER: The Food Controller is taking all possible steps to alleviate the present shortage of meat, which does not appear to be due to any of the reasons suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he will state what the daily meat ration of a member of the Home Forces is; whether many of them have expressed a desire that this should be decreased by at least 2 ozs. Daily and other less scarce foods, such as vegetables, substituted; whether this wish arises from the soldiers' desire that their fathers, mothers, wives and children shall have a fair chance of getting meat; whether the reduction of 2 ozs. daily from the ration of 2,000,000 Home Forces would result in a saving of 1,750,000 lbs. of meat weekly; and, if so, whether he will consider -whether along these lines the present meat shortage might be materially reduced?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The daily meat ration at home is 12 ozs. The question of reduction is under consideration, as I stated in reply to a question yesterday. My hon. Friend's arithmetic is correct, but he has based his calculation upon wrong figures.
    Mr. RENDALL: Will the hon. Gentleman kindly supply me with the figures to enable me to make the right calculation?
    Mr. FORSTER: No; I do not think it desirable to give the total number of the Home forces.

    FISH.
    Captain CARR-GOMMasked what proportion of the prices fixed for sea fish will be received by the fishermen, on whose behalf, as it is stated, the prices have been fixed at their present rate?
    Mr. PARKER: The prices received by fishermen vary in accordance with a number of factors; including the cost of transport and the variety of fish. In some of the largest fishing ports fish are not sold by weight, and it is not practicable to establish a fixed relation between the landing and retail prices.
    Mr. WATTasked how many barrels of salt or pickled herrings of last year's cure are still in stock in Scotland; have prices been fixed by the Controller for these fish; if so, what are these prices,
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    wholesale and retail; and have any steps been taken by any Government Department, and, if so, what steps and by what Department, to bring the food value of such herrings to the notice of the public?
    Mr. PARKER: The stocks of pickled herrings of 1917 cure still on hand in Scotland amounts to about 30,000 barrels. The maximum wholesale prices vary, according to grade, from 28s. to 50s. per whole barrel to the wholesaler, and from 30s. 9d. to 55s. to the retailer, to which may be added the cost of transport. The maximum retail price fixed for pickled herrings is 6d. per lb. The Ministry of Food have taken active measures, with the assistance of the fish trade, by means of propaganda and otherwise, to stimulate the public demand for pickled herrings, and these measures have been so successful that no difficulty is anticipated in disposing readily of actual and prospective. supplies.

    ENGLAND AND IRELAND (RESOURCES).
    Major NEWMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the Irish Food Control Committee and the Food Controller are agreed as to the necessity of pooling the food resources of the two Islands; is he aware that meat is plentiful and flour scarce in one Island and the reverse the case in the other; and what immediate steps does he propose to equalise the supplies of meat and flour among the two populations?
    Mr. PARKER: The reply to this question was printed in Wednesday's OFFICIAL REPORT.

  GREAT SOUTHERN AND WESTERN RAILWAY, IRELAND.
  Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will cause inquiry to be made into the case of James Reen; if this man had twenty-three years' service in the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, Ireland, and never during his time had a complaint against him; if on 3rd February, 1915, another person, knowing Reen was an Irish speaker, made an unprovoked attack on him and the Irish language, which was resented by Reen, who forcibly removed him from the railway premises, where he had no right to be; if, owing to statements made to the military authorities by this man, Reen on 18th February received a deportment

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  order to leave the town and his employment within forty-eight hours; if he got no trial of any sort to defend himself, and had to leave his employment, leaving his wife and seven small children unprovided for; if Reen had on two occasions to report the man for stealing, and that he has since been dismissed for robbery; if malice was shown to Reen by this man; whether the Government were satisfied with the evidence of a man of such character; and if he will give Reen a judicial trial or court-martial, which he is willing to take, in order to refute the evidence of his opponent, and thus clear his character and be reinstated in his employment?
  Mr. DUKE: I am informed that there was a dispute between the head porter at Clonmel Railway Station and a carrier in the early part of 1915, and that shortly afterwards the head porter was ordered to leave Clonmel by the competent military authority. I am not aware that he has made any application for revision of this direction
  Mr. LYNCH: Has my right hon. Friend looked into the question from the point of view of getting to know whether it was on account of his having spoken in Irish that he was treated in this manner?
  Mr. DUKE: I think it is quite impossible that anybody in authority in Ireland would snake such a ridiculous suggestion.

  RICHMOND DISTRICT LUNATIC ASYLUM, DUBLIN.
  Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that, in dealing with the financial position of the Richmond District Lunatic Asylum, Dublin, on 31st March, 1917, the Local Government Board auditor reported that it could not be deemed satisfactory and that this was attributable to the increase in the prices of commodities to an extent which it was not possible to foresee when the estimates for the year were prepared; that during the current year, 1917–18, there has been a further increase in those prices and that the tendency is still upwards; and that the taxation of the contributory districts for the maintenance of pauper lunatics in the Richmond Asylum, Dublin, and its branch asylum at Portrane, county Dublin, has already been increased by £38,000 since the outbreak of the War and that it is estimated to be
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  increased to an, amount £60,000 in excess of the pre-war figure in the coming year, 1918–19; and Whether, seeing that the maintenance of lunatics is partly defrayed by means of a Government grant not exceeding a maximum of 4s: per head per week, which was fixed by Parliament in the year 1874 and based on the cost of maintenance of lunatics at that period; that, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the maintenance of lunatics since the outbreak of war, there has been no increase in the rate of the Government contribution; that the income of the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account has been insufficient during the last eight years to allow of the payment in full of the audited and certified claims for grants in respect of the maintenance of lunatics in the Irish district asylums and that the payments have in consequence been abated by an average of 13 per cent.; and that, in the case of the Richmond Asylum patients, the accumulated deficiencies in these payments to the contributing authorities already amount to a total of £32,000; and whether, seeing that the Government have recognised the principle of increasing the capitation grant to other public institutions supported by joint contributions from the Treasury and from local authorities, the Government will recognise the necessity of increasing the capitation grant for the maintenance of lunatics on the basis of existing prices?
  Mr. DUKE: I cannot add anything to the answer which I gave to a question by the hon. Member for North County Dublin last Monday.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
  Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has been served with a notice by the Ard Choir of Sinn Fein that they have decided to have a petition signed by the people of Ireland, asking the nations of the world to establish Ireland as an independent State; and,, if so, what action he intends to take?
  Mr. DUKE: No, Sir.
  Major NEWMAN: May I give the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the notice?
  Mr. DUKE: I have no objection in the world, but I should not take any account of it.

  IRISH SPINNING AND WEAVING TRADES (UNEMPLOYMENT).
  Mr. MacCAWasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed by the Irish Sub-committee of the Flax Control Board on the 10th January to the effect that, in view of the probability of a great reduction having to be effected in working hours in the spinning and weaving trades in the North of Ireland owing to the failure of the supply of flax from Russia and the consequent hardships to workers, at least 80 per cent. of whom are females, the meeting urged on the Government the necessity of providing munitions or other work to keep workers employed; and, if so, what action he proposes to take in the matter?
  General M'CALMONTasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware of the large surplus of labour that must arise from the shortage of flax in Ireland in the future; and whether he is taking any steps to deal with the situation?
  Mr. DUKE: I am in communication with the Ministry of Munitions and other Departments with a view to minimising unemployment likely to be caused by a shortage of flax.

  JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS (IRELAND).
  Mr. M'KEANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can furnish statistics as to the number of cases tried in the Superior Courts, Dublin, during the past five years; and whether, having regard to the shrinkage in the number of lawsuits entered for hearing in the Four Courts within the period specified, he will advise His Majesty's Government, as a measure of war economy, not to fill the judicial vacancy created by the recent retirement of Sir Plunket Barton from the bench?
  Mr. DUKE: The hon. Member will find portion of the particulars he requires in the volumes of the Judicial Statistics (Ireland) for the years 1913–15. The statistics for 1916 have not yet been published, and the statistics for 1917 have not been compiled. No steps have at present been taken for filling the vacancy. The considerations suggested in the question will be borne in mind when that matter comes to be dealt with.
  Mr. M'KEANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will give particulars as to the following matters: The number of County Court judges in Ireland, what their average salaries are, and for what periods of the year they are actually employed in the duties of their office; and if he will consider the desirability, according as vacancies occur in the judgeships referred to, of amalgamating the areas of jurisdiction without any loss to the public welfare and convenience?
  Mr. DUKE: There arc five recorders in Ireland with salaries varying from £1,500 to £2,400 a year, and sixteen County Court judges, with salaries of £1,400 a year each. Sessions and Civil Bill Courts are held four times a year, and the number of days on which the judges are actually employed depends upon the amount of business at the different Sessions, and varies considerably in each county. The number of days on which the County Court judges are actually employed is not recorded. Legislation would be necessary to make any change in the number of judges and the areas over which they have jurisdiction, and it is not proposed to introduce such legislation at present.
  Mr. M'KEAN: Could the right hon. Gentleman say what cases there are in which County Court judges have jurisdiction over several counties—I would like an example?
  Mr. DUKE: There are sixteen County Court judges and thirty-two counties in Ireland.
  Mr. M'KEAN: Two counties do not constitute several.

  IRISH CONVENTION (PRESS CENSORSHIP).
  Mr. M'KEANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if his attention has been drawn to the diversity of practice as between the Press of Ireland and that of Great Britain with which the Irish Censor has applied the Defence of the Realm Regulation prohibiting reports of or comments on the proceedings of the Irish. Convention; whether he will advise the Irish Censor to assimilate his practice in the two cases mentioned for the remaining stages of the Convention; and whether, having regard to the diversity of the reports of what has transpired at the Convention, and in order to relieve

  1133
  the tension of the public mind on this important matter, he will advise His Majesty's Government to remove the ban on publication of the proceedings of the Convention from the present time till their conclusion?
  Mr. DUKE: The Regulations as to reports relating to the Convention are identical in Great Britain and Ireland, but the editors of Irish newspapers appear generally to have appreciated the situation better than some of the English editors. Many of the statements lately published have, I believe, been very misleading. The Regulation is, in my judgment, necessary for the freedom of the Convention from interference, and the hon. Member will have learned from a reply given yesterday by the Leader of the House that the Government intend to enforce it.
  Mr. BYRNEasked the Prime Minister if he can make any announcement regarding the Irish Convention?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I cannot make any statement at present.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM REGULATIONS.

    ABERYSTWYTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, in the Aberystwyth College Magazine, called "Y Wawr," seditious articles are published in the Welsh language such as are calculated, if not intended, to debauch the loyalty of the students and to impede the prosecution of the War; whether this college receives any Grant from public funds; and whether he will inquire into this matter, in view of stopping the publication of such articles and suitably punishing those responsible for their publication?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): I have made inquiry of the authorities of the college, and I find that no article answering to the description in the hon. Member's question or to that in the newspaper article on which the question was founded has appeared in the college magazine. There can, I am satisfied, be no question of the patriotism of the teaching staff of the college or of its students, the majority of whom are now training
    1134
    for military service, while a large number of the remainder are men who have been invalided from the Army.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is not the right hon. Gentleman mistaken? Was not this allegation made publicly in the Press, and not refuted by the college authorities?
    Sir G. CAVE: It is for that reason that I have had inquiries made, and I am informed that the article did not appear in the college magazine.

    CHRISTIAN PEACE CRUSADE.
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether the books, leaflets, pamphlets, etc., taken during the recent police raid on the offices of the Christian Peace Crusade, 39, Doughty Street, Gray's Inn Road, have been returned; if not, why they are being retained?
    Sir G. CAVE: The documents seized and retained will be submitted to the Committee recently appointed, who will advise me whether they should be destroyed or returned to their owners.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these documents were originally sent over two months ago, and can he not make arrangements to come to a quicker decision in these cases, either one way or the other?
    Sir G. CAVE: The Committee has only recently been appointed. A decision, I am informed, will be reached very shortly.

    PAMPHLETS (CENSORSHIP).
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether the new Advisory Committee appointed to report whether pamphlets, leaflets, etc., should be destroyed under Regulation 51 of the Defence of the Realm Acts will be required to deal with any cases of pamphlets, leaflets, etc., which have not been made the subject of a prosecution?
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Are we to understand that on the advice of this Committee the right hon. Gentleman is going to destroy pamphlets and leaflets which do not contain a single illegal sentence, and which he does not dare to prosecute before a Court of law?
    Sir G. CAVE: No, Sir; the hon. Member has no right to assume that. The Committee will act, I have no doubt, according to the Regulations.

    LABOUR PARTY (WAR AIMS MEMORANDUM).
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the decision of the Government to take no action against the Labour party for its refusal to obey the new Regulation 27c of the Defence of the Realm Act Regulations and to submit its memorandum on war aims to the Censor, the same policy will be followed in the case of other organisations which refuse to obey this part of the Regulation?
    Sir G. CAVE: No, Sir. The question is one to be determined in each instance according to the merits of the case.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Labour party refused to obey this Regulation as a challenge to him, in order to show that he would only carry it out against small and weak organisations; and will he either accept that challenge or withdraw the Regulation?
    Sir G. CAVE: I am certainly not aware of that. I understood that the omission was inadvertent. If I had understood that it was a challenge to me, I should have taken a different course.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Home Secretary whether the Order allowing conscientious objectors in prison their own books subject to the approval of the governor of the prison is, in fact, not being carried out by certain governors; whether the governor of the Newcastle Prison recently told one prisoner to whom his wife had sent books which were held back that it would he Easter or Whitsuntide before he, the governor, had time to look through them; and, if this governor's time or literary capacity is so limited, can he arrange for a substitute to undertake the duty of approving literature given to the prisoners?
    Sir G. CAVE: I have been unable to discover any foundation whatever for the allegations made. In one case at Newcastle Prison two of the books sent in to a prisoner by his wife were not delivered to him till three weeks after they were received, but this was by his own request, because he preferred the books supplied
    1136
    from the prison library. Other books supplied by prisoners' friends for their benefit have been delivered without delay.
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the condition of a conscientious objector, Joseph C. S. Elliott, in Liverpool Prison; whether he is aware that Elliott has lost 4 stone in weight while in prison, and that the governor of the Liverpool Prison has refused to allow him the relaxation recently ordered for conscientious objectors; whether, being declared unfit for punishment, he is in hospital; and whether immediate steps will be taken to prevent a fatal termination of his imprisonment?
    Sir G. CAVE: Inquiry is being made in this case, and I will inform the hon. Member of the result.

    FARM HANDS.
    Mr. WATTasked the Minister of National Service whether he has proposed to the War Office at any time to man the farms of the country with soldiers of agricultural experience who have served abroad for two or three years or who have been wounded or gassed but are still fairly fit physically, and substitute there for farmers' sons and others on the land who have up till now done nothing in the way of fighting but who are physically fit for military service?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): As stated by the Minister of National Service in his speech in this House on the 14th January, it is the desire and intention of the Government, provided the recruiting situation permits, to give special consideration to men who have been severely wounded more than once. This will apply, of course, to any such men with agricultural experience. The vital need for increased food production does not permit the hope that even if all soldiers now unfit for active service who were agriculturists prior to enlistment be returned to the farms there will be any possibility in the immediate future of withdrawing any highly skilled men from the land.

    MARK KRAVETZ.
    Mr. KINGasked the Minister of National Service whether he is aware that a Russian subject., Mark Kravetz, has been called up for military service and sent to Maidstone, though he had his left

    1137
    leg amputated nineteen years ago and has only one leg and a wooden stump to walk upon; and whether it is intended to discharge this man or send him to a line regiment?
    Mr. BECK: This case had already been reported to the Ministry of National Service, and from inquiries which have been made it appears that Kravetz, who was anxious to join the Army, was placed in Grade 3 at his own request, as it was considered that he could perform sedentary work, notwithstanding the fact that his left leg had been amputated. As Kravetz has passed out of the jurisdiction of the recruiting authorities, the question of his discharge is a matter for the War Office.

    ANGUS CHASSELS.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Minister of National Service whether his attention has been called to the decision of the Central Appeal Tribunal in the case of Angus M'Nab Chassels, Coatbridge; what was the constitution of the tribunal which gave the decision; whether this decision reversed the unanimous findings of the local and county appeal tribunals; whether the case put before the Central Tribunal by the military representative contained statements which had been disproved in evidence at former hearings; whether the local tribunal has protested against the decision of the Central Tribunal; whether the treatment given to Mr. Chassels, as compared with other men in the same trade in Coatbridge, has given rise to general dissatisfaction; and whether, in these circumstances, the case of Mr. Chassels will be reopened by the Central Appeal Tribunal so that he may have an opportunity of being legally represented, and thus disproving the untrue statements put forward as the basis of the appeal by the military representative?
    Mr. BECK: Inquiries are being made so far as the question relates to the action alleged to have been taken by the National Service representative. The questions as to the constitution of the Central Tribunal and its relations with the local and Appeal Tribunals are not matters within the scope of the Ministry of National Service.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is the Minister of National Service not informed as to the constitution of the tribunal which gives the ultimate decision in these cases?
    Mr. BECK: No; we have nothing to do with the tribunal at all
    Mr. WATT: Will my hon. Friend make inquiries as to how many men of military age and fitness are provided with employment?
    Mr. BECK: I will consider that.

    NON-ESSENTIAL TRADES.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLARasked the Minister of National Service if he can state approximately the proportion of men engaged in luxury or non-essential trades who at present hold exemption certificates, and the number of men he expects to obtain from this source under the Military Service Bill?
    Mr. BECK: The number of men of military age who are engaged in non-essential trades is under half a million. This figure includes a large number of men who are not fit for general service. It is hoped, however, to recruit from this section of men, before the end of September this year, considerably over 100,000 men of all categories. The total number of men of all ages in Great Britain engaged in non-essential trades is approximately 2,000,000. It cannot, however, be said that these are all engaged in luxury trades. It must be remembered, too, that many trades which are, as a whole, rightly described as non-essentail may be in part essential.
    Mr. G. FABER: Why cannot it be done before the end of September?
    Mr. BECK: We take them as we want them.
    Mr. FABER: Do we not want them now?
    Sir CHARLES HENRY: Can the hon. Gentleman give any examples?
    Mr. BECK: The best examples may be found in the Scnedule to the Restricted Occupations Order. I would point out to my hon. Friend that most of these men are not fit for general service.
    Mr. FABER: Did not the hon. Gentleman say that 100,000 were fit?
    Mr. BECK: No; I said of all categories.
    Major HUNT: May I ask whether this includes all the men in the Government Departments?

  NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT (MR. UNGEBAUER).
  Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to make a further statement with regard to the question of revoking the certificate of naturalisation granted by the Nigerian Government to Mr. Ungebauer?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): The certificate was one of local naturalisation only, and was granted under a misapprehension as to the period of Mr. Ungebauer's residence in the Colony immediately preceding the grant. There was no misrepresentation or fraud on his part inducing such misapprehension which would have enabled the certificate to be revoked under the Nigerian law as it now stands. Steps are, however, being taken to amend that law so as to extend the power of revoking certificates of local naturalisation, and if the allegations which have been made as to Mr. Ungebauer's disloyalty to His Majesty are substantiated, his certificate will be revoked under the law as amended.
  Mr. STEWART: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure himself that the sudden transfer of this gentleman's allegiance from the Kaiser to the King is a real and not a bogus transfer, in order to suit his business convenience, in view of the fact that he acted as German Consul in Dahomey right up to the declaration of war?
  Mr. HEWINS: I think my reply exactly explains the position. If my hon. Friend reads it, he will see that all the steps are being taken which are necessary.

  BRITISH MUSEUM.
  Mr. BUTCHERasked the First Commissioner of Works under what authority and in what capacity he proposed to take possession of the British Museum for accommodating the Air Council, and when and at whose request Lord Rothermere agreed to reduce his demands for space so as to render the taking possession of the British Museum unnecessary?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): As to the first part of the hon. Member's ques-
  1140
  tion, I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave last week to the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark. I am not in a position to answer the latter part of the question, which should be addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Air Council.
  Mr. BUTCHER: By whose authority was this act done of seeking to take over the British Museum?
  Sir A. MOND: The authority of the War Cabinet.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Was it done under the Defence of the Realm Regulations?
  Sir A. MOND: Had it been proceeded with, no doubt it would have been.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Was it considered that it was necessary either for the public safety or for the defence of the Realm to commandeer the British Museum?
  Sir A. MOND: So far as I know, that point was never considered. There was no occasion for it to be considered.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Would it have been possible to commandeer the British Museum under the Defence of the Realm Act except for those reasons?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Gentleman is not in Court.
  Mr. BUTCHERasked the First Commissioner of Works whether his attention has been called to the various Acts of Parliament providing for the purchase of lands and the erection of buildings by the trustees of the British Museum, and for the vesting of such lands and buildings in the trustees for the use of the public; whether there is any ground for the statement that the building of the British Museum is a Government building, and is not vested in the trustees of the British Museum; and if there is any ground whether he will state it?
  Sir A. MOND: Since my answer to the supplementary question of the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark my attention has been called to the various Acts of Parliament referred to by the hon. Member in this question, and I find that the building, as well as the contents, of the British Museum are vested in the trustees, but the property is administered by my Department in consultation with them. It was the latter fact which, for the moment, misled me into giving an incorrect reply, for which I express regret.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Has the right hon. Gentleman anything to do with the British Museum except to keep the structure in repair? Has he any control over the works of art and other valuable articles in the museum?
  Sir A. MOND: No. If the hon. and learned Gentleman reads my answer he will see that I do not say I have.

  DISCHARGED DISABLED SOLDIERS (MEDICAL TREATMENT).
  Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Pensions Minister whether he is aware that the War Office has refused to continue the arrangement arrived at whereby surgical and medical treatment have been hitherto provided for discharged and disabled soldiers; and, seeing that in consequence of this refusal the number of discharged soldiers who require further treatment but who cannot obtain it is large, will he say what steps he proposes to take?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen): I am quite aware of the action of the War Office, which has resulted in a shortage of beds for discharged soldiers, especially for those suffering from the results of wounds and injuries, owing to the closing of the military orthopædic centres.
  The Minister of Pensions has been in communication with the War Office on the subject, and, as a result, the latter have agreed (1) not to acquire any further accommodation in civil hospitals for serving soldiers; and (2) gradually to release for the use of the Ministry of Pensions a number of beds in civil hospitals now reserved for serving soldiers. The necessary instructions to this effect have been issued to local military authorities. In addition to this, the Minister of Pensions is taking steps to provide institutions himself. A large number of beds have already been provided for neurasthenic, epileptic, paraplegia and advanced cases of tuberculosis, and three orthopedic clinics have been opened in Scotland for out-patients. A large number of similar institutions are now in course of provision in all parts of the country.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  Mr. WINGasked the Pensions Minister if the Sunderland Rural District Council Naval and Military Pensions Committee is unrepresentative; if the populous districts of Bishopwearmouth, Ford, Hylton, and Fulwell are without any representative; and, if so, will he see that this state of affairs is rectified?
  Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The committee referred to by the hon. Member is unrepresentative in the sense that no. members are resident of the three most important of the districts named. I am informed that the local committee for the county within whose discretion are the appointment and constitution of subcommittees are about to remedy this.
  Mr. WING: Will the hon. Gentleman see that it is made representative of the people affected?
  Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The committee has undertaken to do it. If it does not do it we will take the necessary steps.

  MUNITIONS.

    OLD METALS FOR SALE.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked (1) the First Commissioner of Works whether his. attention has been called to the fact that his Department are offering for sale old materials, including brass, copper, zinc, and which are now lying in the various depots of the Office of Works in and around London; why these metals cannot be transferred direct to the Ministry of Munitions instead of being sold first to a contractor, who melts them down and eventually resells them to the Ministry of Munitions, seeing that in this way the Government would avoid the profit of at least one dealer and unnecessary labour in advertising and disposing of the goods;. (2) the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware that the Office of Works are inviting tenders from dealers and others for the purchase of old metals, including brass, copper, zinc, and iron, which they have in the depots in and around London; and if he can arrange to purchase these direct instead of waiting till they have passed through the hands of one or more dealers?
    Sir WORTHINGTON EVANS (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions): I am aware that sales of scrap are being made from depots under the control of the First Commissioner of Works. As regards scrap iron, it has not been found desirable to purchase, but only to stimulate removal to scrap yards. Scrap iron has to be sorted as to quality and, when necessary, broken to furnace sizes before it is useful either in steel furnaces or in foundries. The quantities of non-ferrous scrap offered are small, and generally require sorting, grading, and cutting up. It is considered that the best results are obtained by controlling prices and employing experts to supervise general arrangements. The trade organisations are in a position to tap sources of supply and to undertake sorting, etc., in a more satisfactory way than a new,organisation could do, and it appears better, therefore, to allow such trade to follow normal channels.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Is my hon. Friend going to adopt the same procedure whether -those supplies be large or small? Cannot he say that the Government will save the middleman's profits?
    Sir W. EVANS: The only way to save the middleman's profits is to do the work departmentally, and that would probably cost a great deal more than the middleman's profits, and probably not be as efficient.

    EJECTMENT ORDERS (DARTFORD).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Minister 'of Munitions whether he is aware that a number of ejectment orders are being granted in the Dartford area, mostly against tenants who are munition workers; and whether it is intended to make an Order under Regulation 2 A. of the Defence of the Realm Regulations to apply to the district?
    Mr. KELLAWAY (Joint Parliamentary 'Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions): An inquiry by the Central Billeting Board into housing conditions in the Dartford and neighbouring districts is now in progress, and a decision as to the application of Regulation 2 A of the Defence of the Realm Regulations will be given on completion of the inquiry.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Will the hon. Gentleman hurry the investigation, on account of the applications now coming before the
    1144
    County Court, numbers at present being in existence in regard to munition workers?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: I hope that the inquiry will be completed at the end of next week.

    WOMEN TIME-WORKERS.
    Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALLasked the Minister of Munitions whether it is intended under the Munitions Act, 1917, to increase the remuneration of women time-workers?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: An advance in wages for women oh munitions work has recently been authorised, with effect from the first full pay after December 15th. The amount is 3s. 6d. per week for women and 1s. 9d. per week for girls. No distinction is made between time- and piece-workers. The advance will apply to the same establishments as previous advances.
    Sir F. HALL: Are we to understand that the arrangement come to by which the increase is limited to 900,000 men has now ceased to exist and that the increase of 12½ per cent. is to be given to all classes of munition workers?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: My hon. and gallant Friend is under a misapprehension in relation to the 12½ per cent. That has nothing to do with this question, which has reference to periodic advances.
    Sir F. HALL: Can the hon. Gentleman state what amount, in excesses of the £14,000,000, the increase will cost the country?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: I have stated that this has no relation to the 12½ per cent. bonus.

  ALSACE AND LORRAINE.
  Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether, in regard to the question of Alsace and Lorraine, he will explain his statement that the people of France are the people who have to determine what is fair, and that the Government will stand by the democracy of France in their struggles; and whether he will say in unambiguous terms that the policy of the French Government on this matter is endorsed to the full, and will be supported without reservation by the British Government?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on the 17th of this month.
  Mr. LYNCH: Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman remove all possibility of ambiguity by giving a definite answer to this question?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not know to what ambiguity the hon. Gentleman refers. If he alludes to any discontent in France, I have already told him that the Prime Minister has received from the highest sources proof that his statement has given the utmost satisfaction.
  Mr. LYNCH: That does not satisfy me.

  PREROGATIVES AND PRIVILEGES.
  Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of his statement to the Conference of Trade Unions on 18th January, he will take steps to abolish all prerogatives and privileges in this country that do not arise by way of direct election based alternately on the exercise of equal rights of all citizens?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative.

  BRITISH ARMY COMMAND.

    NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.
    Mr. G. LAMBERTasked the Prime Minister whether Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig are considered the best men for their respective positions by the War Cabinet; if he is aware that attacks on these officers have appeared in the Press; and if he will prevent, in the interest of fair play and discipline, attacks being made on soldiers who have no opportunity of replying?
    Admiral of the Fleet Sir HEDWORTH MEUXasked whether, in view of the fact that much public uneasiness is being caused by the attacks made from time to time by a certain section of the Press upon high naval and military officers who are precluded by the rules of the Services from defending themselves, any steps can be taken by the Government to prevent the continuance of these attacks?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: As long as generals or officers hold high positions under the Government it must he assumed that they
    1146
    retain the confidence of the Government, and the distinguished instances referred' to is these questions certainly form no exception to the rule.
    As to the Press comments, I should like to take this opportunity of deprecating in the strongest possible manner discussions which have proceeded in the Press for some time past on questions of strategy and of the qualifications of individual officers, both of them questions unsuited' for public discussion, and very embarrassing to the Government in the discharge of very anxious and difficult duties.
    Once these discussions begin, it is obvious that they can never be confined to one point of view, for, as the House knows, the criticism has not only taken the form indicated in these questions, but there has, on the contrary, been quite as much criticism of politicians for interfering with soldiers as of soldiers for the way in which they have carried out their duties.
    The responsibility in these matters must rest with the Government for the time being, and they alone are in possession of the facts They cannot disclose them in answer to any criticism without injury to the public interest, and I would appeal to the Press on both sides to refrain from criticisms of this character, which are not merely unfair to public servants, but detrimental to the national interest.
    Sir H. MEUX: Will the right hon. Gentleman state if he means that Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and General Sir William Robertson possesses the full confidence of His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer which I. have given stated that most specifically.
    Sir H. CRAIK: If the appeal to the Press is not complied with, will the right hon. Gentleman instruct the Censor of the Press to take severe steps?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: That is a suggestion which is more easily made than carried out. I do not think that it would be any easier for the Government to deal with discussion of that kind in the Press than to deal with it in the House of Commons.
    Mr. FABER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, as far as he is aware, any member of the present Government is behind these Press attacks?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: So far as I am aware, no member of the Government is.
    Mr. G. LAMBERT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why no member of the War Cabinet was here to defend Sir Douglas Haig last night?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is very easy to answer that question. I stated publicly that, in my opinion, the discussion of this matter was not desirable. I do not see, therefore, why I should be called upon to listen.
    Mr. PRINGLE: In view of the fact that a discussion was to take place, was it not necessary for a member of the War Cabinet to be here to state publicly the view of the War Cabinet, so that the public might be reassured as to the position, particularly in view of the present campaign, which is believed to be stimulated from 10, Downing Street?
    Mr. BONAR LAW:I have already given a complete answer. I have stated the view of the War Cabinet on the subject, and part of that view was that a discussion was not desirable. That is all I say now.
    Mr. KENNEDY JONES: Since the right hon. Gentleman has explained that Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig has the entire confidence of the War Cabinet, will he inform the House what has happened since 1917 to bring that about, seeing that in January last he was made, by the order of the War Cabinet, subordinate to General Nivelle?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not admit the accuracy of the hon. Member's statement. Personally I deprecate in the strongest way the idea that it is necessary for the Government continually to give testimony as to the character of its servants.
    Mr. RONALD McNEILL (by Private Notice)asked the Leader of the House if he will provide an early opportunity for the discussion of a Motion in the. following terms:
    "That this House has confidence in the ability and competence of the General Staff and the Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France. and disapproves of attacks on those officers in Parliament and the Press, which, being based on unsubstantial rumour and ill-informed criticism, are calculated to undermine discipline in the Army and the public confidence in those responsible for the conduct of military operations?"
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I really do not think I can acid anything to the very full statement I have already given on this subject.
    Mr. McNEILL: Does my right hon. Friend not think, in spite of the soundness of the general principle which he has expressed, that in view of the deplorable events of last night the House should have an opportunity of showing its real sense of this matter?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think the House ought to realise the difficulty of this kind of procedure, which all arises from the kind of Press criticism which has taken place. It is quite obvious, I think—in the view of the Government, at all events—that discussion of these incidents is not desirable; and, further, although, of course, I have had no opportunity of consulting the Prime Minister, as I only received this notice when I came down, I think it would be very undesirable, and a very bad precedent, that the House should take into its awn hands the declaration of whether or not particular officers should be retained. That must be the responsibility of the Government.

    YACHT LOST (SEAMAN'S MONEY).
    Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that James Horner, of 48, Meyrick Road, Portsmouth, signed on as A.B. in one of His Majesty s yachts in July, 1915, and was with the yacht when she was sunk on 16th April, and that he had shortly before handed to his officer the sum of £28, which sum was lost with the ship, the fact of which is acknowledged in writing by the officer, and that the Admiralty, Foreign Office, and Treasury decline to assist Mr. Homer or to repay the money; that Mr. Horner is now sixty-eight years of age; and if he will have the matter inquired into and compensation paid to Mr. Horner?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My hon. and gallant Friend brought this case to my notice in October last, and I informed him, after inquiry, that as the money lost was in the form of Treasury notes the question of allowing compensation for the loss should be addressed to the Postmaster-General, whose Department deals with compensation in such cases. The matter is now under the consideration of the Postmaster-General, to whom evidence in support of the loss is being furnished by the Admiralty from the reports of the officers under whom Mr. Horner served.

    SOLICITORS (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
    Mr. LEIF JONESasked whether the Government will this Session proceed with the Solicitors (Qualification of Women) Bill, which was brought from the House of Lords in March, 1917?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It will not he possible to give facilities for this Bill during the present Session.

    MUNITION WORKERS (DEMOBILISATION).
    Mr. G. TERRELLasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Minister of Reconstruction has appointed a Committee, under the title of the Civil War-workers Committee, to advise upon the demobilisation of all men and women engaged in the manufacture of munitions of war, consisting of eighteen persons, of whom seven are representative of trade unions, seven are Government officials, and only two can be said to be representative of employers; whether he is aware that manufacturers, though concerned and interested in the work of this Committee, have not been consulted as to its constitution; and whether he will arrange that in this and all similar committees the representatives of employers are equally balanced with the representatives of labour?
    The MINISTER of RECONSTRUCTION (Dr. Addison): The Committee which was originally nominated by the late Reconstruction Committee contains five employers and four trade unionists (one a woman), in addition to two other representatives of women's interests. The importance of securing a fair representation of the interests affected is always carefully borne in mind.
    Mr. TERRELL: Will my right hon. Friend state the names of the five employers? Is he aware that the list of members of the Committee which he furnished contains the names of only four employers, and that two of these are not employers who would be accepted by employers as representative of their interests?
    Dr. ADDISON: We had better see the list. I shall be glad to confer with my hon. Friend.
    Colonel Sir F. HALL: In view of the enormous number of questions that are bound to arise on demobilisation, will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the necessity of increasing the number of members of the Committee by placing a larger number of employers on that Committee?
    Dr. ADDISON: As I have pointed out, I arr. perfectly open to add to the Committee if that is going to increase its efficiency.
    Mr. TERRELL: In view of the great importance of this matter, I will put a question next week to the Prime Minister.

    INCOME TAX.
    Sir A. YEOasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in cases where Income Tax has been deducted at the source at the rate of 5s. in the £on unearned income from a person whose total income is under £500 per annum, he will arrange to set the Overpayment against claims under Schedule A?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: An arrangement such as the hon. Member suggests is already in force. I am sending him a copy of an explanatory paper which is issued to the public by the Board of Inland Revenue.

    INDOOR DOMESTIC SERVANTS.
    Mr. MILLARasked the Minister of National Service whether he is satisfied with the response made to his appeal to householders to limit the number of indoor servants employed by them during the War; and whether he proposes to take any steps in cases where it can be shown that the number of servants employed exceeds the reasonable requirements of the. House-hold?
    Mr. BECK: I am glad to state that the number of women with experience of domestic service who have volunteered for enrolment in the Women's Corps since the appeal to which the hon. Member has referred, has shown a marked increase, and the number of women now offering themselves for enrolment is sufficient to render any direct action by the Government unnecessary at present.

    PETROL SUPPLIES.
    Mr. M'KEANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, under the Spirit Restriction Order (No. 2), 1917, owners of motor cars are prevented from using them for the purpose of attending divine worship on Sundays, even where the owners are invalids and no other means of conveyance are available; whether he is aware that many such persons were prevented on Intercession Sunday from complying with the King's request to pray for a blessing on the military efforts of this country and those of the Allied Powers; and whether, having regard to the fact that the use of motor spirit is allowed in many other cases, apparently unnecessary, he will consider whether the Order above quoted should be abolished or at least modified so as to meet the requirements of such persons as can show that they have no other alternative to using their cars than being debarred from attending divine worship or the public performance of the sacred work in question?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Albert Stanley): The question of the use of motor cars for the purpose of attending divine service has received full consideration, and I much regret that I cannot see my way to add anything to the reply given to the hon. Member for West Cavan on the 6th December.
    Sir J. D. REES: Has my right hon. Friend considered the case of the Catholics, who are under an obligation to attend divine service on Sundays?
    Sir A. STANLEY: Very careful consideration has been given to all aspects of this question. I can only say that I am exceedingly sorry it is necessary that these restricitions should be imposed.
    Mr. GULLAND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the High Court in Scotland held that attendance at divine worship was a national duty, and that therefore petrol might be used?

    SCOTTISH EDUCATION BILL.
    Mr. SHAWasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware of the hostility expressed throughout Scotland to certain provisions of the Scottish Education Bill, such as those which elimi-
    1152
    nate direct popular control, and set up a. system of co-option; and whether he will withdraw the present Bill and introduce another providing, inter alia, for the control and management of Scottish education by an ad hoc authority directly elected by, and responsible to, the people?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I am not prepared to admit the implications of the question either as to the prevalence throughout Scotland of hostility to certain provisions of the Bill or as to the real effect of these provisions. On the contrary, I believe that the provisions of the Bill are being viewed with growing favour as their true character and effect are realised. The matter, however, does not admit of discussion by way of question and answer. I propose to submit the Bill to the judgment of the House as soon as opportunity can be given for its discussion.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that instead of a growing favour in relation to this new authority, there is actually a growing opposition to the new authority?
    Mr. MUNRO: I think it is quite the other way.

  MAN-POWER.
    AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS.

      STATEMENT BY SIR A. GEDDES.
      Mr. WATT (by Private Notice)asked the Minister of National Service whether the Government have consulted the Amalgamated Society of Engineers on the proposal to depart from the agreement as to the recruiting of skilled men and apprentices made last year, and whether it is intended to abrogate the pledges then given without full consultation with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers?
      The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir Auckland Geddes): The short answer is that the Government has invited the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to meet them in consultation, with the other trade unions affected, to discuss the revision of the Schedule of Protected Occupations, and the agreements governing its administration, but that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has declined to meet the Government in con-

      1153
      ference with the other societies, except on the terms that those societies shall take no part in the deliberations
      I think, however, the House will desire that I should make a fuller reply as to the position taken up by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in connection with the proposals to revise the Schedule and agreements as to the recruitment of skilled men and apprentices made last year.
      In May last year, the trade card arrangement was superseded by the Schedule of Protected Occupations. Before the Schedule came into operation, conferences were held with representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and also with other trade unions. The Schedule itself provided that for the present it was not intended to enlist from Admiralty, War Office, or munitions work in the industries dealt with in the Schedule men who had attained the age of thirty-two by the 1st January, 1917.
      As the result of an undertaking given at a conference with representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Government issued the following instruction governing the administration of the Schedule:
      Before any skilled man or apprentice who is not covered. owing to age, by the Schedule of Protected 'Occupations is taken for military service all male diluted labour liable and fit for General Military service in that occupation in the munitions area in which he is employed shall first be withdrawn."
      It was made clear that this arrangement did not apply exclusively to members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, but applied to men in any scheduled occupation irrespective of trade union membership; and it has throughout been applied to men entirely irrespective of Whether they belong to any particular trade union or, indeed, to any trade union at all.
      At a meeting with representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, on 26th April, a representative asked:
      "What guarantee have we got, if we come to an agreement, that the Government will keep it?"
      The right hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson) replied:
      "You have no guarantee at all, and you cannot get any guarantee at all, in view of the changing circumstances of a great war like this. What we will do, if we are compelled by the necessities of the War (which must always be paramount) again to depart from the Schedule…is we will ask you to come and,meet us before we do it."
      At a similar meeting, on 2nd May, the following question was put:
      "I ask yon, Mr. Henderson, to (rive us a promise Or pledge that. should it be necessary for the Government
      1154
      to modify Schedule MM. 130, you will consult trade mines before issuing any definite instructions."
      The right hon. Member for Barnard Castle replied:
      "I have no besitation in saying that, if material or substantial alteration has to he made to the Schedule, it will be our business to call representatives of all organised workers, with whom we hare arranged the Schedule, into consultation and conference, even if we cannot give them all they want when we get them here."
      It was thus made clear to the delegates of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers:

      1. That the agreement thus made would not necessarily last for ever, but might have to be changed to meet the needs of the War.

      2. That before it was changed the Government would summon the trade unions and confer with them.

      3. That this conference would be with representatives of all the unions concerned.

      In this connection I may add that the number of men affected is very large, upwards of 1,200,000, who belong to a great variety of trade unions.
      The Government has completely fulfilled its Fledge by holding the series of conferences which have taken place during the last three weeks.
      I invited representatives of all the unions concerned, including the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, to a general conference, at which a full explanation was given of the circumstances which made it necessary to depart from the May agreement, and to vary the Schedule, by calling up for service not only the older dilutees fit for general service in the great majority of occupations, but also a large number of young men in scheduled occupations.
      The Amalgamated Society of Engineers were represented at this conference on the first day (3rd January). On this occasion the proposal was made to hold a series of group conferences to deal with questions of detail. This proposal apparently, at first, found favour with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
      Mr. Brownlie stated:
      "The organisation which I have the honour to represent accepts the proposal put forward by Sir Auckland Geddes to meet in groups with regard to his proposal as to a clean-cut with reference to occupations."
      The general conference adjourned until the next day. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers were not present on the second day of the general conference. At

      1155
      this meeting the groups were settled, the constitution of the groups being that approved by the conference itself.
      An invitation was issued to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to attend a conference of the engineering group on the 11th instant. On the 9th January they wrote stating that they desired to have a conference apart from the other members of the engineering group. They repeated this request to the Prime Minister and to myself.
      The Amalgamated Society of Engineers were invited to attend the final general conference, but did not do so.
      At the final meeting, I proposed to the conference that a further opportunity should be afforded to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to join in a meeting of the engineering group. The conference, after discussion. endorsed this proposal, and expressed the desire that, as the general conference would not reassemble, two representatives should also be present from each of the other groups. This decision and invitation were communicated to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and declined by them in letters which have already been made public.
      I would call the particular attention of the House to the decision arrived at by the delegates of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and communicated to me on the 18th instant. The decision was as follows:
      "That the Minister of National Service be informed that the delegates of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers are favourable to, accept the basis of the conference as suggested on the understanding tint the other trade union represent Lives take no part in the deliberations of the conference."
      In reply to that letter, I renewed the invitation to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to meet me together with other members of the engineering group, and together with two representatives from each of the other groups; and I told the Amalgamated Society of Engineers that it would be impossible, in my opinion, to exclude the other representatives who would be present from taking part in the discussion, and expressed the hope that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers would accept my invitation on the terms proposed by the conference. That invitation was again declined on the 19th instant by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and yesterday a telegram was addressed to the Prime Minister, and also to myself, in the following terms:
      1156
      "I am instructed by the delegate meeting of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to in form you that a special conference of representatives from all district & in Great Britain and Ireland was held on the 22nd instant; the meeting confirmed the position taken up by the delegate meeting that the new man-power proposals are a violation of the May agreement, and that, unless the Government meet the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in consultation, they are determined to resist any action on the part of the Government to take skilled men before the terms of the said agreement have been carried out."
      It will be seen that repeated opportunities of consultation with the Government have been afforded to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, but have been declined by that society, who have taken up the attitude that they must be consulted alone or that, if representatives of other unions are present, that those representatives shall not take any part in the deliberations, in. which all have a common interest.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether at the meeting at which the statements he has quoted from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson) were made, the only trade union represented was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers?
      Sir A. GEDDES: I cannot state positively with regard to the first meeting, but my impression is that at that meeting representatives of all the engineering group were present. With regard to the second meeting, that held on May 2nd, I am in a position to say that was a statement made to the delegates of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, who on that occasion were met alone.
      Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: May I ask whether there is any objection in principle to meeting them alone? Would the representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers require not only that the Department shall meet them alone, but that the Department should not meet any other trade union representatives separately; and, seeing that they have been met alone in the past, is there any objection in principle by the Government to meeting them alone and explaining to them the Government position?
      Sir A. GEDDES: There is this difficulty. In conformity with the pledge given on behalf of the Government in the spring of last year a general meeting of the representatives of all the unions concerned was held. At that meeting, held on 3rd January of this year, we discussed the procedure which should be followed. All the unions present were

      1157
      convinced that the only way of avoiding suspicion of special sectional treatment was that there should be public meetings between the Government and the representatives of the groups of unions—public in the sense that representatives of other unions were present—and that the Government should not meet separately and privately any single union. That position was accepted by the representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, as I have just stated. Mr. Brownlie said:
      "The organisation which I have the honour to represent accepts the proposal put forward by Sir Auckland Geddes to meet in groups with regurd to his proposal as to a 'clean-cut' with reference to occupations."
      From that time forward the Government has been in this position, that it accepted the wish of the representatives of organised Labour to meet in a certain way. Speaking on behalf of the Government, I said that we would follow the procedure which the conference decided upon as being satisfactory to secure perfectly fair treatment, and to prevent what they feared, and what they called, namely, hole-and-corner negotiations. Therefore, I think it is impossible, in view of the undertaking which we gave to the representatives of organised Labour for us to depart from that position and to meet now in private session one of the organisations with which we have been holding conferences.
      Mr. PRINGLE: In view of the fact that the undertaking, which the Government now seek to modify and revise, was made with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers alone, does the Government not think it advisable to treat with that body, and not to break off the negotiation, which is of such an important character, on a mere point of form, and also in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has met other organisations privately, such as the Comrades of the Great War and the National Federation of Discharged Soldiers?
      Sir A. GEDDES: I must really try to get this point clear. There are a group of unions which entered last year into an arrangement with the Government as to the operation of an administrative system of protection, which is usually referred to as the Schedule of Protected Occupations. With that Schedule neither the Comrades of the Great War nor the Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers had anything whatever to do. Neither had such a great and an important trade union as the
      1158
      Miners' Federation of Great Britain anything whatever to do with that Schedule. A perfectly separate arrangement existed with regard to them.
      It has been repeatedly stated that the Government entered into a special arrangement with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. That statement must be made in ignorance of the facts. There was one agreement between the Government and all the unions which were affected by the Schedule of Protected Occupations, as I have said. At certain of the meetings in the spring of last year—in May, and possibly also in April—the Amalgamated Society of Engineers were met alone, but the agreement arrived at was not different from that which was made with all the other unions, and it was made plain to them at the time that if there were any further negotiations, those negotiations would take place with representatives of all organised workers with whom we had arranged. That is the Government pledge. That is the pledge which we have carried out, and the procedure which we have adopted has been adopted as the result of a decision of a conference of organised labour at which the Amalgamated Society was present, and in which decision the representatives of the Amalgamated Society concurred.
      Mr. WATT: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not, the case that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers are quite willing to meet him along with other groups, as long as those other groups do not take part in the discussion? So that it narrows down to this: that it is a question of silence or otherwise on the part of those other unions?
      Mr. GEORGE TERRELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what is the membership of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and how many of its members are under the age of twenty-four years?
      Mr. P. A. HARRIS: Do the other trade unions object to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers being met separately?
      Sir A. GEDDES: The other trade unions object so strongly to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, or any other single union of the group concerned, being met separately, that if we were to meet one of those unions separately, the others

      1159
      would feel that they were entirely released from any obligation into which they had entered.
      Mr. C. EDWARDS: As a matter of fact, can the least little bit of harm be done to any of the other trade unions by a perfectly frank discussion with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers? it is not a question of whether they object, but whether, in fact, a. conference cannot take place where it can be explained to them exactly what the position is, so that their faces can be saved by having a separate conference. That is No. 1. No. 2 is this: If that cannot be done, and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers threaten on the one side, and the other unions threaten on the other side, what steps do the Government propose to take with regard to those threats to interfere with getting man-power for the Army?
      Sir A. GEDDES: The Government propose to go on with the Bill. With regard to the other points raised, there is not, and there never has been, any objection on the part of the Government to explain to any body of British citizens who are interested in the matter what are their proposals. We have been explaining them at one meeting after another for some weeks, but to negotiate separately with one of the trade unions in the groups — no.
      Mr. PRINGLE: I think it is very important to have this cleared up. Is it not possible for the Government to devise a means whereby those negotiations shall not break down on a mere matter of form?
      Sir C. SEELY: Might I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—might I ask him whether he would not consider a suggestion that he should meet the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to discuss the matter with them without prejudice, and then meet the other unions, with or without them, and tell the other unions what he has done? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] As I understand him, he is quarrelling with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers on a question of procedure, which, in the present condition of affairs, is somewhat unfortunate.
      Sir A. GEDDES: I am afraid that the procedure which is suggested by the hon. Member does not hold out any hope of a solution of the difficulty which exists. On
      1160
      the point of procedure, I have seen members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and, as I said in the reply which I have read, at the last general meeting of all the trade unions I put forward a series of suggestions, in which that meeting concurred; and, under the arrangement then made, the invitation to the Amalgamated Society of Engineers was renewed only to meet with refusal on the part of that society to attend such a meeting, unless it was definitely undertaken that no member of any other section of organised labour should speak.

      Metropolitan Police (Constable's Death).
      Mr. WILESasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the sudden death of Ernest Robert Davis, Metropolitan Police constable 168, F Division, and the verdict returned by the jury at the coroner's inquest, which stated "death from natural causes," and added a rider that. Dr. Townsend ought to have gone when called the second time; and, if so, whether he has satisfied himself that there was no neglect on the part of the divisional police surgeon?
      Sir G. CAVE: The circumstances of the case referred to are under the consideration of the Commissioner.

      MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
      That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the law with respect to testamentary dispositions by soldiers and sailors." [Wills (Soldiers and Sailors) [Lords.]
      WILLS (SOLDIERS AND SAILORS) BILL [Lords].
      Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 126.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. McKENNA: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what will be the business for next week?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: On Monday, we shall take the National Registration Bill (Report and Third Reading), and, if there be time, the Irish Redistribution Bill.
  On Tuesday, the discussion on the Report of the National Expenditure (Committee).
  On Wednesday and Thursday, if, as I hope, the Bill has by that time come from the House of Lords, the Representation of the People Bill.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right non. Gentleman give any indication when he expects this Session to come to an end?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It must depend not only on when we get the Bill from another place, but on the view taken by this House as to the Amendments made.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Is this House to meet to-morrow?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: My Noble Friend explained last night that it would not be necessary to meet on Friday.
  Ordered, "That the Proceedings on the Military Service Bill, if under discussion at Eleven of the clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."

  MILITARY SERVICE BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  MILITARY SERVICE BILL.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Power of Director-General of National Service to Withdraw Exemptions.)
    (1) The Director-General of National Service may at any time by Order withdraw any certificate of exemption from military service to which this Section applies as from such date, not being less than fourteen days after the date of the Order, as may be specified in the Order, and as from that date any certificate to which the Order applies shall cease to be in force.
    (2) This Section applies to any certificate of exemption from the provisions of the Military Service Acts, 1916 and 1917, whether granted before or after the passing of this Act, and whether granted by a tribunal or by or under the authority of a Government Department, where the certificate was granted on occupational grounds, and also applies to any certificate so granted on such grounds to a man who has voluntarily attested, notwithstanding that the certificate has not statutory force.
    (3) An Order under this Section may be made applicable either to individual certificates granted by Government Departments or to certificates granted to any class or body of men specified in the Order (whether or not dependent on the obtaining by those men of individual certificates), or to certificates granted to men of any class or description specified in the Order. and as respects any class or body of men may be made applicable only to men falling within such limits of age or fulfilling such other conditions as may be specified in the Order, and may contain such exceptions and supplemental provisions as the Director-General thinks fit.
    An Order under this Section may be revoked, extended, or varied, by a further Order of the Director-General, as occasion requires.
    (4) Where and so long as an Order under this Section is in force, then

    (a) no application shall be entertained for the grant or renewal of a certificate, and no certificate shall be granted or renewed where the certificate, if it had been operative at the time at which the Order was made, would have come within the terms of the Order; and

    (b) no application shall be made by or in respect of a man whose certificate comes within the terms of the Order for the renewal of the certificate except on grounds which are not occupational. or fur the grant of any certificate on occupational grounds, and no such application if already made shall be proceeded with, and no certificate shall be granted on any such application.

    (5) An Order under this Section (other than an Order applicable to an individual certificate) shall be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament as soon as may he after it is made, and if either of

    1189
    those Houses within fourteen days after the Order has been so laid presents an Address to His Majesty praying that the Order, or any part thereof, should be annulled, his Majesty in Council may annul the Order or such part thereof, and it shall thenceforth be void without prejudice to the validity of anything done in pursuance thereof: Provided that Section one of the Rules Publication Act, 1893, shall not apply to an Order made under this Section.
    (6) For the purposes of this Section a certificate shall be deemed to have been granted on occupational grounds which was granted wholly or partly on any of the grounds specified in paragraph (a) of Sub-section (1) of Section' two of the Military Service Act, 1916, or (in the case of voluntarily attested men) on any similar grounds or which in either case was granted by or under the authority of any Government Department; and if any question arises whether a certificate was granted on occupational grounds, the question shall be referred to the Director General, whose decision thereon shall he final.
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "applies" ["to which this Section applies as from such date"], to insert the words "except a certificate granted by a tribunal."
    I move this Amendment in no unfriendly spirit to the general objects of the Bill. I am perfectly satisfied, and I think the House as a whole and the nation as a whole are satisfied, that it is necessary to have a measure of this kind, but a more careful study of the Bill than I had at first an opportunity to give has shown to me, and I believe to a large number of Members, that the scope of the Bill is very much larger than is generally understood by the House. Now, the foundation of the original Military Service Acts, as originally introduced by the right hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith) when Prime Minister, was the right of every citizen who came within its Scope to have his case considered by a tribunal of his countrymen in the locality where he worked and lived. Now, the right to go before a tribunal was laid down on four grounds. Three of those still remain. A man still has a right, as I understand it—and I think the Minister of National Service will do a great service to the country if he makes the position perfectly clear—to go
    1190
    before a tribunal on family or persona grounds, on grounds of ill health and also on conscientious grounds. The first and primary ground laid down were for occupational reasons or that his work was of national importance. That, I understand, is now taken away by the Bill before the House. That is a very important matter affecting tens of thousands of individuals and hundreds and hundreds of businesses. It sweeps away, as I take it, the whole machinery of the tribunals in deciding whether a man is better employed at an industry or trade in preference to being taken into the Army.
    The present system is a very elaborate one. It has been carefully built up by the devoted work of hundreds of men who have given their time to the State. As I take it, not only the work of the local tribunals is to be swept away. but that of the Appeal and Central Tribunals, and, I assume from the wording of the Act, that the system will be swept away not only in regard to future cases, but that the action will be retrospective. In other words, the decision of the tribunals in respect to a man and his exemption, on the ground of his occupation, from the Army is now swept right out of the way, and the decision is transferred to the National Service Department. If that is understood—and I think it is the fact that most cases that have gone through the tribunals are composite cases—that is to say, most appeals have been not only that the man is valuable to the particular business or trade, but that to take him would be a severe financial loss—if it is realised that that is the case—it will he seen that the vast majority of decisions—and I have taken the trouble to consult chairmen of tribunals before making this statement—will be cancelled and annulled if this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament in its present form.
    I know there has been considerable criticism of the work of the tribunals. Some of them have undoubtedly been far from efficient. If, however, you take them as a whole, if you take their average work, especially their work in the big towns, I think the Minister of National Service, from his experience, will admit that they have been efficient. Certainly the members have given a large amount of time and a large amount of work to their duties. and after two years' experience they have become very much more efficient.

    1191
    In the early days they did not quite appreciate, or perhaps realise, the importance of their duties. They did not know how to give decisions, but with experience their efficiency has very largely increased, and at the present time, I think it will be admitted, that on the whole they are doing their work fairly and justly, and trying to administer justice without fear and without favour. It might be urged that this applies almost to any Court, that it can only aim at giving very rough and ready justice; but these Courts have had one great advantage over a centralised system like the National Service Department—they have local knowledge, they know the conditions of the trade in their district, and they are conversant with all the ramifications of the particular trades.
    For instance, in the Leicester district they know all the peculiarities of the hosiery trade, the classes of men wanted in a particular factory, the class of men who are indispensable. In the potteries district you have men who are familiar with the pottery trade. So in the cotton trade. So in the steel industry. So in the hundred-and-one industries that make up our whole industrial system. They are, therefore, more likely to be right in their decision than any other Government Department, however efficient it may be, however much their information, or however willing they may be to do what is right. More than that, it must not be forgotten by the House that if a tribunal has proved to be too lenient the Government Department, first in the old days of the War Office and now in the National Service Department as it is represented there, can take action. Previously the military representative, and now the National Service Department, if it is not satisfied with the decision, can always appeal to the Appeal Tribunal. If it believes a decision has been arrived at by the Appeal Tribunal on wrong principles, it can take its case to the Central Tribunal. I am bound to say, and I do so without fear of contradiction, that the representatives of the War Office have never been bashful in appealing against a decision of the local tribunal. When a tribunal has given an exemption that they have thought ought not to have been given, they have never hesitated to take the case further. After all this excellent work of the tribunals, the whole
    1192
    machinery is to be destroyed. In view of that, one cannot help asking who is to have this power in future? That ought to be made clear by the Minister before we reach the Third Reading. Who is to have the power now in the hands of the various tribunals? I cannot but assume that the Department itself will not attempt to adjudicate in these cases at the Windsor Hotel. I must assume it will have to be decided before the local representatives. I think the Minister ought to make that quite clear, and, if it is not going to be the local military representative, to tell the House who is going to have the power to decide whether a man should remain in his present occupation or whether he should be transferred to the Army.
    There is another point which, I think, the Minister ought to make clear. It is a very common thing to have appeals for men on business grounds. I think I am right in saying that a minority of the appeals on occupational or business grounds are made, not by the men affected, but by their employers. The employers appeal to the tribunals. It should be made clear to the nation, through this House, what remedy an employer has who finds himself deprived of a large number of his staff. As I came down to the House this afternoon I was talking to the head of a very large business firm at Lloyd's. This gentleman has given me full permission to use his name. I do not want to mention it in the House, but I shall be very glad to give the name of the firm and of the gentleman to the Minister, if he desires to have it. Before the War the staff of this business consisted of 239 men and no women. As a result of the War, 226 members of that original staff are in the Army, and the firm has had to employ 124 women. There are seven men of the original staff left. These seven men are either classed C3 or B3. They have been exempted before the local tribunal at the Guildhall, which is fully familiar with the capacities and difficulties of this particular business. The exemption certificates of these men expire at the end of January. They have received calling-up notices as from the beginning of February. Claims have been lodged with the local tribunal, and the firm is satisfied, if they come before the local tribunal, that these men will get exemption. The turnover of this particular business, which is of national importance, runs into millions. During

    1193
    the War, on purely war work, their business has doubled. What my friend pointed out to me was that a Government Department, say, the National Service Department, did not understand the complexities of their trade, and they are afraid, without the knowledge that only a business tribunal can have, they are not likely to get justice, their business will be seriously disorganised, and the trade of the country affected. That is one of the many examples. Doubtless Members of this House have had letters from firms and businesses in their constituencies, pointing out how likely all this is to jeopardise the carrying on of their trade?
    Personally, I have great faith in the Minister who is in charge of this Department. I believe he is a man of tine intellectual training and sound judgment. I am quite certain the country could not have a better man to carry out the work of the Department. But, after all, it is impossible for any one man, however able or competent, however experienced he may be, to understand all the ramifications of an industrial system like that which has been built up by years of commercial prosperity in this country. Besides, I think the right hon. Gentleman will he the first to admit that he has very little business experience. From what I have heard of his assistants, all very capable and fair-minded men, none of them have had very much business experience or know much about trade or the industries of the country. It is a very serious thing for this House to hand over the whole industrial system of the country to one Minister, assisted by officials who, though they may be efficient officials, though they may be competent and capable officials, after all, have very little knowledge of business and trade, and do not understand the whole complex industrial system. So I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the House, that we ought to have some safeguard, seeing that the tribunal system as a whole has, with all its faults, worked so well, that its work shall not be swept away and transferred to a Government Department. Besides, I am afraid it will convey a sense of injustice to the men who are affected. These tribunals have been regarded by the men who came before them as in the nature of a Court of Law. Many of the men have gone to the expense to be represented by counsel, after having strongly objected to go before these
    1194
    Courts. Now, having had their case fairly tried, for a Government Department to sweep aside the decision of the Court, will make them feel that they have not been fairly treated. Again, it will cause great uncertainty in the minds of men who have exemption certificates from the tribunals.
    I believe the Minister intends to use his powers with discretion. I am satisfied that he will do everything in his power to prevent old-established trades and industries being destroyed, but the difficulty will be, in the minds of many business men, and thousands of working men, the uncertainty as to what their position is, when they will be called up, and whether or not they are liable to have their certificates annulled. Under this new machinery there will be no power to appeal to any independent tribunal, and the only right of appeal will be to a Government Department. The right of appeal on business grounds will be entirely taken away. I know the difficulties of the, task that the Minister of National Service has so bravely undertaken. I know that he is faced with difficulties, some of them of an almost insuperable character, and I should be the last person to try and embarrass him in a at task. I think, however, that it is unwise to add an additional cause to the prevailing unrest and to alienate business men and large employers of induetry by a measure drafted in this high-handed manner. Therefore I think before this Bill reaches its Third Reading the Minister ought by putting words into the Bill, and not simply by assurances, make it clear to all the men affected that they have some security that the exemptions given to them by tribunals will be be secured, because, unfortunately, the actions, not of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, but of other Departments, have caused a feeling throughout the country of distrust in the administrative machinery. The War Office, owing to the size of its task, had to take actions which caused great distrust and bad feeling against the decisions and machinery of Government Departments. Much of that feeling, unfortunately, will be transferred to the right hon. Gentleman's Department, and therefore I would say, if' he wants this Bill to be a success and to work smoothly, and if he wants to get the full quota of men required to keep up the necessary supplies for the Army,

    1195
    he should either accept the Amendment in my name or add words to the Bill that will achieve the same purpose.
    Sir RYLAND ADKINS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    I think we ought to receive some more explanation, and we ought to have a clear statement of what is really intended by this Bill, and what machinery is going to be put into force. I am not going to praise tribunals or attack Government Departments, but I want to know exactly where we are and what are the reasons for the change which is proposed, which I am sure will be very difficult to work with satisfaction and fairness. I can well understand that during an earlier period of the Military Service Acts, when a large number of the cases were essentially individual cases, it might well be argued that they could have been dealt with by a Government Department, and not by tribunals or Appeal Tribunals. As my right hon. Friend knows, and as lion Members realise, the bulk of those cases which have been decided on the grounds of occupation in the last few months have been dealt with by tribunals, both local and appeal, with a special view to the general needs of that particular occupation in the locality, and after a wide survey over a large area. If A. or B. applied within the last six months the chances are that the tribunals had to consider not only A. or B.'s category and efficiency, and what firm they were working for, but also whether there were or were not enough persons from that industry already in the Army. In other words, the problem of the trade as a trade has come up in nearly every case in the last few months.
    It is alleged that local tribunals and even Appeal Tribunals have not dealt with particular trades in their district as a whole. We have done it in many cases after most prolonged and helpful conference with the. officials of the National Service Department, and the result has been that the decisions are decisions which have been arrived at after considering on the one side the question of National Service, and on the other side the needs of that particular trade, and again and again a man has been left in his trade only on condition that other men in that employment have gone into the Army. Some men have been kept back as substitutes in order that other men might go, and
    1196
    some men have been kept out of the Army because they have been considered of special importance for the whole of the industry in the neighbourhood. To deal with such cases requires a great deal of local knowledge and a good deal of care, and to deal with it fairly requires the judicial faculty which only the members of those tribunals possess. If this Bill means that the Director-General of National Service can come and take any man he likes at any moment. in any district, who has got exemption on occupational grounds, although I am sure there would be some risk, he is interfering in a very complex state of things, and a very difficult balance may be disturbed thereby, and there will be beliefs, if not convictions, of bad faith, and persons who have concurred in what has been done before will feel that they are now being left without any remedy, and public confidence runs a great risk of being impaired.
    We hear about some section being told off to deal with particular trades, and I am sure that something of that sort will have to come. I would, however, point out to the Government that it is one thing to have Government officials ticking off how many men should be left in each trade, but there ought to be some proof that the ultimate decision taken is not arrived at by an official sent down for that purpose, but that the decision is really taken not at the instance of the local National Service representative, but by a judicial authority after weighing one side with the other. If my right hon. Friend is going to take this responsibility, is there to be nothing in the Bill to say that the tribunals responsible for keeping some men back should be consulted before their decisions are altered to any large extent? Even if my right hon. Friend conceives it to be imperative that the final word should rest with him and his Department, I would impress upon him the importance of not throwing away all the local knowledge and work which has been done in these matters, and not starting de novo from headquarters. I am not saying this in any spirit of hostility to the local representatives, but I am sure they will feel the appalling responsibility which will rest upon them if they have to alter many of the decisions which have been come to without the Department knowing why they were come to and how far they are interdependent on other decisions.

    1197
    You have not only large organised trades in which there have been prolonged negotiations and very happy and friendly negotiations with the Ministry, but you have cases in small villages of two or three bakers and one or two butchers in each community. The Appeal Tribunal of which I am a member has decided many such cases. They say, "Very well, we will send two out of the three of these men to the Army on condition that the one we do not send does the work of the others, or part of it, and pays so much, or in some way helps the others." There are cases where men on the face of it had to go in the Army where an official, after looking round, had said that on the whole there were too many bakers or butchers. He might say, "Here is a healthy young man, let us take him into the Army." A man may have been kept back for some special reason on which others have been sent to the Army who would not otherwise. have been sent, and if you go behind all that I am sure that by getting men into the Army by those methods you are running the risk of fomenting public opinion which will injure recruiting. It may well happen that the War may require more men than the right hon. Gentleman is likely to get by these means, and it is important that we should keep public feeling in such a state that it will do everything that it can to encourage recruiting for the Army as long as more men are wanted.
    If it is to be a question between this Amendment and the Bill as it stands, one may well endorse one's views by his vote. I am here to support the Government and do my best to help to get into the Army all the men which the country requires, and I ask my right hon. Friend whether he has no other method and no other device by which he can secure at any rate consultation with those who have had all the intricate network of decision, and who are responsible for these exemptions. I want to know whether there is no way of dealing with them in order to have some judicial decision brought to bear on these matters. I should listen in the most sympathetic spirit to the right hon. Gentleman if he is prepared to meet what I think is a substantial grievance in this matter. I recognise that in many individual cases swift and prompt action should be taken. I recognise that some tribunals have been too lax, but where you are dealing with trades as a whole the knowledge of those who have dealt with them before should be made available when
    1198
    you are dealing with such people as village tradesmen, and such decisions should not be lightly overruled. Finally, I would ask, is it in the public interest that the National Service local representatives should be able to override the local tribunal before which he has hitherto appeared as the representative of one side only? It is a very different thing for my right hon. Friend himself to intervene, but I ask him so to frame his Bill as to prevent the men being put into that invidious position who are doing most excellent work, and I ask him to try and conserve that knowledge and experience of the tribunals which it appears to me will be wasted if this Bill passes in its present form.
    Mr. LOUGH: I was unable to be present in the earlier stages of this Bill, and I should, perhaps, apologise to my right hon. Friend for intervening now, but from the reports I have read of the previous proceedings I can hardly believe that the apprehensions expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Ryland Adkins), who last spoke, and who has done most valuable -work in connection with the existing tribunals in the country, are well founded. Surely there is not to be such a sweeping change of procedure as the Mover of the Amendment (Mr. Harris) has indicated! I understand the matter has been already dealt with to some extent during the Committee stage, and I am glad to have the assent of the Minister of National Service to that statement. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to make it clear early in the present Debate, so that we may quickly proceed to the realities of the Bill. If the decisions of the tribunals themselves were to be swept away, as seems to be indicated in the speeches we have just listened to, this House will be faced with a difficulty of the gravest character. I always understood that the Bill was aimed at large classes or bodies of men specially exempted, perhaps by some Government Department—at bodies of men like miners and members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of whom we have heard so much. Its object is to do away with Government Department exemptions and other exemptions which have protected large classes from military service, but there is no idea of sweeping away exemptions in individual cases, which have been already thoroughly examined into before a tribunal, and fought out, perhaps,

    1199
    before an Appeal Tribunal. The men in those cases have been recognised as essential to their particular business, which itself is essential for the business of the country to be carried on.
    My hon. Friend seemed to fear that all these exemptions are to be swept away at one fell swoop. and that those who are anxious as to the conduct of the business of the country will in future be referred to an ·adamantine Department which, so far as its procedure is concerned, appears to offer no facility for going into cases, and it is suggested that, on the ipse, dixit of a body like that, the work of the tribunals is to he swept away. I cannot believe that that is the correct interpretation of the Bill. A great deal of the work accomplished by these tribunals has been very well done. It cannot be said that their decisions have been in favour of the trades or classes which came before it. The complaints made on the Second Reading of the Bill, and on other occasions when this question has been discussed, were that the tribunals had been too exacting and had combed men out from small businesses too freely. There was always a military representative at their sittings who was prepared to appeal against an adverse decision. There is ono case many of us are familiar with, that of a business where thirty-three men of military age were employed at the beginning of the War. Of these thirty had been taken away and were serving the country in some way or other. Three only remained, and to these but three months' exemption was given. Their case had to be brought forward every three months, and considered in the light of the increasing needs of the country and the necessities of the business. My hon. Friend appears to think that, in the case of those men, an edict may be issued by the Board of National Service that these men must now be called up irrespective of what may happen to the business. I cannot believe that that is intended.
    Mr. D. MASON: But the Bill says so.
    Mr. LOUGH: No; I think it does not. The position set up by the Bill has not been quite accurately described either by the Amendment or by the speeches delivered in support of it and it would be a great pity that this Debate should go on on altogether wrong lines. The matter ought to be cleared up at once. If anything of the kind is intended it will be absolutely necessary for us to make every
    1200
    effort we can, in the interests of the business of the country, to secure proper treatment in these cases. But I repeat that I do not think that the Department to be set up will have power to overrule the decisions of statutory tribunals to this extent. I cannot believe the strong statements which have been made by the supporters of this Amendment are really necessary, or that they represent the intentions of the Government.
    The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir A. Geddes): I fear there is a complete misunderstanding as to what are the provisions of this Bill. There is no suggestion in it of taking power for the cancellation of individual certificates of exemption granted by the tribunal on occupational grounds, so that the dreadful picture that was conjured up of a National Service representative finding himself placed in the position of a super-judge to consider the decisions of the Appeal Tribunal cannot in practice be realised at all. It is clear in the Bill as it stands at present that the Cancellation Order may be made either as to individual certificates granted by Government Departments or as to certificates granted to any class or body of men Therefore, if the Bill as it. stands passes into law, there will be no. such thing as an individual case where the exemption has been granted by a tribunal being considered either by the local National Service representatives, or by the Minister, or by an official of the Department. Let us get rid of that dreadful fear, then, that we are going to have individual cases reconsidered.
    Mr. HARRIS: May I refer the right hon. Gentleman to Sub-section (2) of Clause 2. which defines the powers to be conferred under the Bill, and which says that this Section applies to any certificate of exemption
    "whether granted by a tribunal by or under the authority of a Government Department where the certificate was granted on occupational grounds,"
    and also
    "to any certificate so granted on such: grounds to a man who has voluntarily attested"?
    Sir A. GEDDES: Yes; and Sub-section (3) of the same Clause defines those powers rather more closely. It says:
    "An Order under this Section may be made applicable either to individual cer-

    1201
    tificates granted by Government Departments or to certificates granted to any class or body of men"
    We have got, as every Member of this House must know, a perfect maze of exemptions at the present time covering men doing similar work. We have, perhaps, one man who is engaged in occupation A exempted by a tribunal, another man engaged in the same occupation exempted by a Government Department, and still another man in the same occupation exempted under seine local agreement, such, for example, as the chambers of commerce scheme which worked so successfully in the earlier stages of the War.
    Sir R. ADKINS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what really the words of the Sub-section actually mean?
    5.0 P.M.
    Sir A. GEDDES: There are a good many points on which hon. Members do not seem to be very clear, and perhaps we shall arrive at a clearer understanding if I am allowed to take them in the order I have them here. I am sorry not to answer the hon. and learned Gentleman at once. My next point is this. What certificates come under the purview of this Bill? What certificates will be affected by it if it becomes law? We have had certain hypothetical cases put forward by the Moyer of the Amendment. This Bill is directed to occupational certificates, and the definition of those certificates will be found in Clause 2, Sub-section (6), which gives us a reference to the first Military Service Act. The class of certificate of exemption which is affected by this proposal is very clearly laid down. It is the certificate granted on the ground that it is expedient in the national interests—not in the interests of the business—that the man should be employed in that work instead of being on military service, or if the man is being educated or trained for any particular work he may continue to be so educated or trained. That is the only class of certificate which is affected by this Bill. Certificates granted on the ground of serious hardship—business or domestic—are not affected. Nor are those granted on grounds of ill-health or infirmity or those issued to conscientious objectors. It is but one class of certificate of exemption that can be dealt with. It is the certificate granted on the ground that the holder is engaged in some work which it is in the national interest that he should be continued to be engaged in. Having got that clear and definite, let us consider how
    1202
    the power conferred by this Bill is going to be made effective. We have got as one of the duties of the Recruiting Department the task of reducing the inequalities of our present recruiting system. I hope that nothing I say will appear in any way to reflect upon the tribunal system, which, speaking almost without a single exception, has done its work in all its parts conscientiously and well; but simply because there are a large number of bodies, many of them representing comparatively small districts, many of them without very close contact with a centre, we have certain erratic grantings of exemption on the ground that the man is engaged in work of national importance. What is desired is that there should be power to level up the treatment of men throughout the country so far as is possible. We are now proposing in the great essential industries to effect clean-cuts of the men by age, by occupation, and we desire to have the power of limiting by age, by occupation, the holding of certificates of the one class to which I have referred, regardless of the authority which has granted them. Let us take, as an example, the fur trade. Suppose there is a trade which is essentially a luxury trade over the great part of its extent. It is true that for Army purposes there is a certain amount of fur sold, but let us ignore that for the moment, because it is dealt with in quite a different way. We will say we have a luxury trade. We desire to bring about a position that shall lay down as a broad, general rule that no man fit for military service in a case like that of military age should have exemption on occupational grounds—that is, in the national interest—because we believe it is not in the national interest that men—fit to fight should stay in such a trade. Supposing we take the jewellery trade, where men are still actually engaged. I do not refer to jewellers engaged on fuses, but those-engaged on ordinary trade work.. There, again, we are dealing with a luxury trade. It seems to me to be right and proper that the power should exist for the Government to lay down the broad, general proposition and say that no man who is fit for general service and is of military age shall be exempted on the ground of his occupation if he is a jeweller. We might take some other trades, but we should soon get into difficulties because we should be speaking without all the facts:before us. Let us take a trade which

    1203
    is, broadly speaking, non-essential but which it is partly essential should be kept going. There it might be right and proper to lay down a broad, general proposition that no man fit for general service under thirty-two years of age shall receive exemption on occupational grounds if he is engaged in that particular trade because it is not in the national interest that he should be so engaged. That is the proposal which is before us.
    There are safeguards in the Bill which, so far as I was able to follow the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment, they had overlooked. It is not competent for the Director-General of National Service under the provisions of this Bill simply to issue an Order saying that everybody in occupation so-and-so loses his exemption. He has to prepare an Order, and that Order has to be laid before this House and the other House. It has to lie here for a period of fourteen -days, during which time it is public property. During that time there would be ample opportunity for any Member of this House who is interested to bring forward suggestions, to make representations that the Order is ill-advised, or whatever it may be. It is not a hole-and corner action that is suggested. It is action in the full light of day, and with the full knowledge of this House. The Order has to lie here for fourteen days before it can become operative, and even then a man cannot be called upon at once to join for military service. Even then, -after the fourteen days, there will be a period of seven days at least before the man joins the Army or the Air Force, during which time he has his tribunal rights preserved to him under the Bill as it is. [AN HON. MEMBER: "The right of appeal!"] No; application for renewal on the ground that serious personal hardship would result. If, therefore, it is going to affect him as an individual he has still his rights of appeal. Far from there being this broad, sweeping power to take people without anybody being allowed to speak or apply for reconsideration, it will be quite the contrary. We have the safeguard of knowledge, and the safeguard for the individual man if he is going to suffer hardship, for he still has his tribunal rights. It does seem to me, therefore, that in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment we had these very important considerations rather overlooked. All that this
    1204
    Bill will give the Government Department concerned the power to do will be to lay down broad, general propositions that within certain age blocks, in certain occupations, and in certain physical categories within those blocks, men cannot be exempted on that one ground of occupation. That seems to me to be right and fair, because his exemption is in the national interest—not given in the man's interest, which is under a separate head altogether; and therefore I think we have a misunderstanding.
    What is the present procedure? We are in this Bill trying to equalise treatment. Suppose you take the present state of affairs in connection with tribunal exemptions on the ground of occupation wider the Reserved Occupations List. If the Reserved Occupations Committee, which is simply another name for the Trade Exemptions Department of the Ministry of National Service—for it is composed of the same people, Mr. McLeod is Chief Commissioner and Mr. Graves Deputy Commissioner—raises the age in the Reserved Occupations List, it automatically cancels by that action the certificate of exemption held by every man under any class and head of that list within the age block which has been uncovered. If this were something quite new and something which did not exist under our working generally we might fear it, but it is part of the normal procedure which has been going on since the very beginning of the tribunal system. It is going to be worked by precisely the same body that has been working the Reserved Occupations List., but we are asking to make the power general so that there shall be equality of treatment between all classes. At the present time we have an extraordinary and really absurd position existing. The men in the most essential occupations, such as shipbuilding, aeroplane manufacture, and the engineering shops, have no protection at all. Really all they have is a decision of the Director-General of National Service that they shall not be called to the Colours, and they get a certificate stating that. That certificate is automatically cancelled on the receipt of a calling-up notice—the least form of protection that exists. In those industries which are intermediate, those which stand between the absolutely essential on the one hand and the luxury on the other, we have the Reserved Occupations List, where, again, every exemption granted on the ground of occupation can be cancelled by the

    1205
    action of the Reserved Occupations Committee, which, as I have explained, is another name for the Trade Exemptions Department of the Ministry of National Service. Now we are proposing that some similar treatment should be extended over the luxury trades, over absolutely nonessential trades, which are not, and never have been, covered by the Certified Occupations List or by the system of protected occupations which we work in the most essential trades. The whole policy embodied in this Bill is to get equality of treatment, equality and fairness. There is no new proposal being introduced with regard to these exemptions. It is a system which already applies to that block of more or less essential industries covered by the Reserved Occupations Committee, and all we want is to move on the power a further block than that, so that the powers we already have for the vital and, as we call them, essential industries, and for those industries which, while not being absolutely essential are not non-essential, may be extended over the luxury trades. It is an extremely anomalous position that we have less control over the luxury trades than over any others. That is really, when one looks at it, almost grotesque, and it is only to remove that inequality that this power is asked for with regard to the tribunal exemptions.
    Mr. PRINGLE: The right hon. Gentleman has put forward a very strong case for the general treatment of all these occupational exemptions on lines laid down by the Department, and for removing the authority of tribunals in all these cases, and I am sure the House has been strongly impressed by the arguments that he has advanced. On the other hand, there are elements in the case which I think he has overlooked, and which make it desirable that in certain trades at least the exemptions should not be dealt with on hard and fast lines all over the country, but that there is a necessity for allowing a discretion to tribunals in accordance with local conditions. Let us take, for example, the trade of a baker. The National Service Department might decide that bakers up to the age of thirty-one—I am taking an arbitrary age—should be liable to service. They might issue an order to that effect which would go through the procedure provided in this Bill and be laid on the Tables of both Houses. You may have, however,
    1206
    in many localities conditions like these: that the only baker remaining in the locality happens-to be a man under thirty-one years of age, and that it is altogether impossible to obtain a substitute for that man over the age which is fixed in the Order. If such a situation arose it would be obviously highly inconvenient, and surely in circumstances of that kind it is advisable that the discretion should still remain in the hands of the tribunals. You might have a somewhat different case. There might, for example, be a local industry which was necessary from the national point of view. I am not going into the interesting definition of what is a luxury trade and what is an essential trade, but it seems to me that the borderline between the two classes of trade is a rather shadowy one and changes from time to time in the progress of the War. This undertaking might be of national importance and still an Order might be issued affecting all the men employed in similar businesses throughout the country. In this particular business the one man essential to its continuance might be within the age fixed in the Order. Yet, if hard and fast lines arc pursued as suggested in the speech of the right lion. Gentleman, that particular locality would be robbed of this essential National Service. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to suggest a means of meeting this point. It may be advisable to issue a general Order, but at the same time I think he is going too far in taking away altogether the disoretion of the tribunals. I would also point this out: When you come to the later Clauses, you find a very wide definition of occupational certificates. In Subsection (6) of Clause 2 the definition of an occupational certificate is
    "For the purposes of this Section a certificate shall be deemed to have been granted on occupational grounds which was granted wholly or partly on any of the grounds specified in paragraph (a) of Sub-section (1) of Section 2 of the Military Service Act, 1916."
    Therefore an occupational certificate is not a certificate solely granted on the ground of the occupation of the man exempted, but is a certificate which has been granted partly on the ground of his occupation, and it may also be partly on the ground of his domestic or personal position. In these circumstances you are, by a general Order, not only sweeping away all the exemptions granted strictly on occupational grounds, but also exemp-

    1207
    tions granted on mixed grounds, partly occupational, partly personal, or partly medical. I hope my right lion. Friend, in view of the possibility of the inconveniences arising which I have endeavoured to describe, will suggest some means of meeting this case. There will still be an appeal to the tribunal, but it will be an appeal solely on the other grounds mentioned in Sub-section (1) of Section 2 of the Military Service Act. Would it not be possible to allow an appeal to the tribunal on mixed grounds, so that where there was an appeal, say, on domestic or on medical grounds, the business ground would also be taken into account? If such an appeal were allowed, it would do a great deal to remove the apprehension of inconvenience which at present exists. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman who assists the Minister as Parliamentary Secretary will be able to make any concession in the matter, but I am quite sure, if the Government could announce some concession, that it would do a great deal to accelerate the smooth working of the Bill and to remove apprehensions which are entertained in many quarters.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: The criticisms of the lion. Member who moved and the hon. Member who seconded this Amendment were entirely well-founded as directed against the Bill as introduced; indeed, some of us made criticisms on precisely the same lines in the Committee stage, and in order to meet them the Minister in charge of the Bill made Amendments to which he has referred to-day, and which I think to a very great extent dispose of those objections. The Bill as introduced wave power to the Director-General of National Service to cancel individual certificates granted by the tribunal. An Amendment was inserted in Committee at our request omitting that power. Consequently, there is no authority to override individual exemptions granted by tribunals. but there is a general power retained to override all certificates of a particular class, whether granted by tribunals or by others. If there is to be any general authority in the Ministry of National Service at all, I submit that it is essential that it should apply to tribunal certificates as well as to certificates of Government Departments. I would like the Minister in charge of the Bill to answer this question: Is it intended that these general rules shall be quite rigid, and shall allow of no elasticity at all,
    1208
    or is it intended that exception shall be made in particular cases, and, if so, by what machinery and procedure? There is the case to which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Pringle) has just referred. You may make a general Order applying to all men in a particular occupation up to a particular age, and you may find that by applying it in one small locality where the number of persons engaged in that occupation may be only two or three, or, indeed, only one, you deprive that locality of all persons in that occupation. That would not be intended or desired. There is, again, the case of a man whose employment is necessary because he is the pivot on which turns the employment of a very large number of others. You may have a factory with fifty or sixty persons, women or unskilled labourers, or persons over the military age, whose continued occupation depends entirely upon the retention in that employment of one or two skilled artisans, or, perhaps, of a manager whose presence is quite indispensable. It is desirable from the point of view of national importance that the factory should not be entirely stopped, and a large number of people thereby thrown out of employment If the pivotal employé is of the age of thirty-two the question will not arise, but if he is twenty-nine—and this rule is to be made rigid—he will be swept away under the right lion. Gentleman's Order, if that, for example, fixes the age as thirty. Does the right lion Gentleman intend to use the power conferred upon him to deal with cases such as that?
    "The Order may contain such exceptions and supplemental provisions as the Director-General thinks fit."
    If he does intend to use his powers conferred by those words in that direction, can he tell us by what method they will be made effective and how his general Order will work in cases of individual exemptions granted in such circumstances by the local tribunals?
    Mr. C. EDWARDS: I rose some time ago to oppose this Amendment, understanding the interpretation of the Bill in precisely the same way as the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. I have listened with very great care to what the right lion. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has said as to what is intended, and I venture to suggest that, by every canon of construction, it is impossible to shut out from the Bill the appli-

    1209
    cation of its provisions to the individual certificate that may be granted by the tribunal. If he is going on with the scheme on the interpretation that he has placed on the Bill, then there will be confusion worse confounded in the Ministry of National Service. I certainly understood that the Ministry were seeking to take the power, absolutely and supremely above and beyond all question, from the tribunal, so far as the exemption had been granted on occupational grounds. Personally, I have no great alarm as to that power being vested in a composite body, the nature of the National Service Department, seeing that it has the responsibility not only to find men to recruit the Army, but also to find men for the maintenance of the industries of the country. It is because I understood that and because I had no misgiving as to that power being exercised, that I rose to oppose this Amendment, and still oppose it.
    May I elaborate to show why I think the construction which has been placed upon this Bill by my hon. and learned Friend must be the right one. There is nothing to prevent the right hon. Gentleman under the Bill, making an Order under which he can review, say, all the cases of farmers' sons, and delegate that review to his local representative. Is there anything to prevent him taking power to himself to deal with the very cases that the hon. Member for Leicestershire (Mr. Harris) mentioned, the case of the clerks employed at Lloyd's, and delegating the power to his local representative? I have no alarm with regard to the question of carrying on Lloyd's, important though it may be. I do not regard the hosiery trade in Leicestershire, important though it may be, or a great number of the other trades enumerated by the hon. Member the Seconder, important though they all are, as of fractional importance compared with the imperative and clamant need to get men to fit the ranks in the Army. There have been very nice things said this afternoon by nearly every speaker as to the perfectly admirable work that has been done by the tribunals. I have no doubt that there have been, and that they rather thought that their function was to interpret the Act in the spirit of the cry early in the War, "Carry on as usual," but the fact remains that there have been a great many men exempted on mixed grounds, mainly occupational, who
    1210
    ought not to have been exempted by every single criterion of national necessity or of the importance of particular trades. If it is still to be left, as would be the case if this Amendment were carried, to the tribunal to say that these men can remain, and if it is still left to them, if the Amendment were carried, to say what is a matter of national necessity and what is the imperative occupational ground for exemption, I venture to say to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that he might as well leave the Bill alone. I have welcomed the Bill as a real, earnest, and definite effort to get men for the Army in spite of compacts with the Government, in spite of pledges to trade union delegates, and in spite of slack-nesses on the part of tribunals, and to supply the great and overwhelming need of recruits for the Army. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will stick to his guns and get the Bill through as a dead-straight measure for getting these men
    Mr. HINDS: I feel very grateful that the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken is not the Director-General, for he would have swept everybody into the Army. I realise that it is essential that the Director-General should have certain powers, but there is suspicion in the country that under this Bill he is taking very wide powers to himself. The suggestion has been thrown out that he should take a straight-cut in regard to men of certain ages. That would apply to men who are of certain age who are the pivotal men of businesses. I hope that we shall have an elastic system by which these men might be left in the employment of a business employing perhaps only two or three men. The right hon. Gentleman said that the non-essential trades are at the present time less under his control than any other trades. With reference to the tribunals, he must remember that these men have gone through very searching inquiries before getting exemption. In my experience, these tribunals have all along been anxious to get men to go into the Army, because they felt it was essential to get them there. We all feel that it is essential that as many men as possible should become soldiers, but, on the other hand, we have to do justice. There are huge businesses making a large amount of money and paying a large amount of Income Tax and all that kind of thing, and it is essential to the success of the business that one or two men should be left

    1211
    with them, because they are doing work of national importance and maintaining business, even in non-essential trades.
    So far as I can see, this Bill transfers the power with regard to men holding these certificates from the tribunals to the Director-General of National Service, without the tribunals having the power to cancel the certificates and without giving the man an opportunity of appealing against an Order. Perhaps at the present time there is only one man remaining, and the employer would want to appeal for that man for the sake of keeping the business intact. Under this Bill he has not the right to do so. The Minister of National Service alone has the power of freeing that man, whatever the business may be. I know very well that, according to his speech this afternoon and all his speeches, the right hon. Gentleman wants to act fairly and does not want to use any despotic methods in the matter, but he cannot go into all the individual cases. They will come under his staff. We want to lay down in this Bill something that is understood by the country, and that if a man has built up a business which it is essential to the country that it should be maintained, there should not be a drastic power to take away the one man who is the pivotal man for that business. We ought to allow some licence to tribunals or some body which actually has some evidence in order that all the work that has been done should not be destroyed. We are all prepared to support the Bill because we know that the one great thing at the present time is to carry on the War with all possible vigour, and that, in order to do so, we must get all the men possible into the Army. On the other hand, due consideration should be given to matters of this kind, so that businesses should not be closed down and destroyed after having taken a number of years to build up. I know of one business where at the present time there are fifty-eight young people employed. There is only one man in that business who is over twenty-eight years of age. That business will have to be closed down if that one man is taken. There are cases of that kind up and down the country. The right hon. Gentleman should give us some sort of assurance so that cases of that kind, whatever the man's category might be, will be considered before the business is injured to the extent it would be if he were taken.
    Mr. ROTHSCHILD: More than once to-night hon. Members have quoted the cases dealt with by the National Service representative in the City of London Tribunal. I may perhaps be allowed to point out that under this Bill exactly the same procedure will be followed as has been followed in the past. The case of a firm at Lloyd's has been cited. Lloyd's have been dealt with from the beginning under arrangements made by the Certified Occupations Committee. Gradually the age limit has been raised, and upon the age limit being raised individuals working for Lloyd's have had to go into the Army, but in nearly every case after agreement. It was only when the firm of Lloyd's have not agreed with the Certified Occupations Committee that it has been necessary to take the matter before the tribunal, and in those cases the tribunal has backed up the decision. What is going to happen to this firm at Lloyd's? It is a firm which has a splendid record, because there are only three or four men left, who are in category A. Lloyd's is an essential industry and a certified occupation. At the present time arrangements have been made with the Certified Occupations Committee that all the employés of Lloyd's now working there shall remain until July next, with the exception of a certain percentage whom the chairman of Lloyd's himself has agreed should be released. That is the way the essential trades have been dealt with by means of the Trades-Protection Department of the Ministry of National Service through the local representative in a friendly manner, by giving a certain percentage of men to the Army and only bringing in the tribunals to force the men where the firm are unwilling to release them. To switch off from Lloyd's—which we all know is an essential occupation and where obviously these men will be left as long as any shipping comes to this country—and to take, say, a luxury occupation, such as commercial travellers, the City Tribunal has laid it down that the internal commercial traveller is a luxury at the present time that is travelling in this country and not abroad. A traveller who goes abroad does so in the national interest.
    Mr. HOGGE: If he is in business here is it not in the national interest?
    Mr. ROTHSCHILD: He is not exempted in this country, and is treated at the

    1213
    present time as a man who is not in an essential industry. The City, as a whole, has accepted that finding, but it has not been accepted by certain tribunals in the North of England and Scotland.
    Mr. HOGGE: They have more sense.
    Mr. ROTHSCHILD: Why should a firm which loyally accepts that dictum be put under a handicap because some other section of Englishmen or Scotsmen wish to protect their own trade?
    Mr. HOGGE: It is a stupid dictum.
    Mr. ROTHSCHILD: I ant simply showing the way in which it will be possible to keep together what is a luxury trade if everybody is treated fairly. That point could be elaborated. There is no doubt that the Reserved Occupations Committee, which has gone into all these questions and which has representatives of every section of the trade upon it., and which has made careful inquiry, will go into all these cases. In this way it will be possible to treat the whole country fairly and make no exceptions, but let all suffer alike.
    Mr. BRUNNER: This is a very large power to put upon officials. I would like to put this point to the Minister in charge: In a very large number of cases which have come within my personal knowledge the man and his employer have both applied for the exemption. The man frequently has applied for exemption on several grounds—hardship, ill-health, or conscientious objection, or a combination of those grounds. If the tribunal has found that a man by virtue of his occupation is on the Certified Occupations List they have extremely frequently decided the case upon that ground only. They have given him occupational exemption because he was on the List of Certified Occupations. The other cases of hardship, ill-health, and conscientious objection were never considered by the tribunals. That was because the tribunals, certainly for a large part of the time that they have been in existence, could not possibly get through the work which they had. The result has been that the papers have come up to the Central Tribunal, of which I am a member, the decision has been frequently upon one ground only, and Appeal Tribunals have never considered the other. What is to he the case if this Bill goes through? As I conceive it, the exemption being upon occupational grounds only, the man's other case will never have been heard. He is
    1214
    now out of time, and it does not seem to me that lie will have any chance whatever of getting the other grounds considered. I hope the Minister will take such cases into consideration, because it seems to me manifestly unfair that when a man has a very good case upon other than occupationa1 grounds it should not he considered.
    Mr. T. DAVIES: When I heard the speech of the Mover of this Amendment I became rather suspicious of the effect of the and I thought I had quite misunderstood it, but I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Geddes) say the intentions of the Bill were the same to-day as he said they were in introducing it, and it was quite clear to my mind that the Amendment wits not necessary if that was so. We have had a discussion with regard to the hardships which will be imposed on some of these men-who are in certified occupations, and we have heard the right lion. Gentleman say that though their certificates may be withdrawn on occupational grounds; they will still be exactly on the same basis as anyone else in appealing to tribunals on personal grounds. In introducing the Bill he said:
    The intention is to assimilate the position of all other men who have hell exemption certificates on occupational grounds to that of the men holding protection certificates. It is necessary that I should at this point make it plain that mere is no intention to ask fur powers to cancel certificates of exemption granted on personal grounds or on grounds of conscientious objection, or on any other ground except that of occupation."
    On that score I have supported the Bill right through, because I thought it was framed on a sound basis. Now I want to understand, if a man's certificate is withdrawn on occupational grounds, does he have fourteen days and seven days, and during those seven days can lie make an appeal on personal grounds or grounds of Hardship to the tribunal, as he would have done in any other case?
    Sir A. GEDDESindicated assent.
    Mr. DAVIES: I am perfectly satisfied. I feel quite confident, now that the point is cleared up, that this is the right way to go about getting more men for the Army. With regard to the limitation of age it is right that men of lower age should be taken first, provided they are in Grade A, because we are told that men between twenty-five and thirty are much more useful than men between thirty and forty. If I thought the Amendment was required I should support it, but I do not think it is required when we have the

    1215
    Ministerial assurance that men will be in the same position with regard to application on personal grounds as hitherto.
    Mr. CARADOC REES: I think I have got it right. I have varied in my opinion from side to side as the Debate has gone along, but is it not something like this, that an Order will be issued to say which trades really are of national importance? One tribunal thinks one trade is and another tribunal thinks it is not, and things have got mixed up, so we want a central authority to say which really are trades of national importance. I cannot conceive of any Minister holding that a baker or a butcher or a shoemaker does not, belong to a trade of national importance, but there are borderline trades as to which opinions may differ, and in order to have all the tribunals working on the same lines a central authority will say which are the trades of national importance. If a man has exemption at present on the ground that he is working in a trade of national importance, and that exemption is taken away, he has a right to go to the tribunal on grounds of hardship to get exemption if he is entitled to it. Therefore I withdraw any opposition I may have felt when the Amendment was introduced.
    Mr. D. MASON: The right hon. Gentleman said there was a misunderstanding, and he endeavoured to remove it. I have listened very carefully to all he has said, but I do not think there was any misunderstanding. As I understand it, the application for exemption is not to apply where it is expedient in the national interests that he should be engaged on work other than National Service, on which he is habitually engaged. The other qualifications, such as conscientious objection, ill-health, and so on, still remain, but that, I think, is the basis on which my hon. Friend moves his Amendment, because this qualification of occupation is in the main the great source of all applications for exemption, and it is because my hon. Friend believes that that power should still remain with the tribunals that he has moved his Amendment. The fact that the Director-General says that this question of occupation is to be eliminated is the very reason for my hon. Friend's Amendment. That is the most important of all qualifications for applications for exemption, and I do not think there is any reflection upon the Director-General made
    1216
    either by my hon. Friend or by the hon. and learned Gentleman who supported the Amendment, that he does not claim to be as impartial as he possibly can in deciding upon these occupations. His argument, a very reasonable one, was that it is impossible for any Director-General, however eminent, to know what is, after all, work of national importance, and the machinery of the tribunals, which he now proposes to override, was created for the purpose of helping him. It is true that the Order, if it is passed, has to lie upon the Table for fourteen days, but I doubt very much whether anyone will present an Address. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the fur trade, and said it was a luxury trade. While fur in itself may very properly be described as a luxury, many people are of opinion that it is very important to maintain our export trade. The figures for the last year show that we have £1,000,000,000 of imports, against £500,000,000 of exports, and if we allow £150,000,000 to £200,000,000 for munitions, that is in excess of £700,000,000. If certain trades in certain parts of the country are turning out what you might term luxuries, which, however, may enter into your export trade, and if it is explained before the local tribunals that certain men are necessary for the purposes of the trade, how is any Director-General to know what men are necessary for the maintenance of the trade? It is a physical impossibility. This Amendment will help the Director-General. I am sure he does not desire to handicap or to cripple the economic position of this country, which is as important as the supply of men for the Army, and for agriculture. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the matter. The tribunals have kept minutes of their proceedings, and the most valuable information is available.
    Sir H. NIELD: This Amendment is an illustration of the mischief of our Parliamentary system. In order to get a discussion early in the day hon. Members have run away to get the first place, whether it is an appropriate place or not, to raise this Amendment. The Clause which it is proposed to amend says
    "The Director-General of National Service may at any time by Order withdraw any certificate of exemption from military service to which this Section applies."
    They propose this Amendment instead of waiting for a later Clause to see what

    1217
    are the Orders to which the Bill is to apply, because the third Sub-section says
    "An Order under this Section may be made applicable either to individual certificates," and so on.
    6.0 P.M.
    As the result of an Amendment moved by the hon. Member (Mr. King) in Committee, the words "granted by a Government Department" have been introduced in the definition of the certificates which they may withdraw. What are the Orders to be made under this Bill as a necessary corollary to the first part of Clause 2? Part III. of Clause 2 defines an Order:
    An Order under this Section may be made applicable either to individual certificates granted by Government Departments or to certificates granted to any class or body of men specified in the Order (whether or not dependent on the obtaining by those men of individual certificates), or to certificates granted to men of any class or description specified in the Order, and as respects any class or body of men.
    That concession was made as a result of the words uttered by the Director-General of National Service on Monday night, when he said:
    I feel that there is a very great deal to be said for the question raised by the hon. Member for Somerset in this matter. There is no desire or intention, as has been pointed out on several occasions from this box this afternoon, to deal with this power in a harsh or discriminating manner; and if the hon. Member will be prepared to withdraw, his Amendment, I will be prepared to move the insertion, after the words individual certificates,' the following words, 'granted by Government Departments,' because I think we should retain the right of dealing with individual cases where a certificate has been granted by a Government Department."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1918, col. 773.]
    Therefore, the Bill as it stands is carrying out the pledge which was given by the Minister of National Service. Now certain hon. Members who were not here to deal with it on Monday have suddenly found an opportunity of raising this point on the first Sub-Clause, instead of waiting to see what the Order was, and what it was that he had the power to withdraw. When we come to Sub-Clause (3), we find that it deals with certificates which have been granted by Government Departments. This Amendment is wholly unnecessary. I am most jealous of the powers of tribunals, and if I thought that a Government Department by a stroke of the pen was going to interfere in the way suggested, I should support this Amendment. I have an Amendment on the Panes which makes it, clear that those who
    1218
    have had their certificates granted withdrawn by an Order shall have the right to go before the tribunals and put forward any grounds other than occupational. Under the circumstances, the Amendment is wholly unnecessary.
    Mr. KILEY: If the hon. Member is right and no certificate granted by a tribunal cornea under this Act, that will be quite satisfactory to the Mover of the Amendment and also to those who are interested. I would like to call attention to a question which I raised the other day as to a certain factory which employs 350 females, and which has two engineers responsible for the plant. One of the men exempted by the tribunal was a discharged soldier. He was in Grade 3, and he was engaged in work of national importance, and it was in the national interest that he should remain in his occupation as engineer in order to keep this business going. We granted a renewal of his certificate. When we granted the exemption the National Service representative was not satisfied and took it to the Appeal Court. That man has been before the local tribunal and the Appeal Court, although he is a discharged soldier of low category engaged in maintaining a plant at a factory employ-hag 350 females. The tribunal in the full knowledge, and the Appeal Tribunal in the full knowledge, of the circumstances have granted this man an exemption Aar three months. I want to know whether the Minister of National Service can cancel that man's certificate? We dismissed the grounds that he has already served this country and that he was of low medical category; therefore his only ground is that it is in the national interest that he should remain in his present employment. If the Minister of National Service can take that remaining ground away the man will have no right to come before us again, because we have refused his other grounds. If the Minister of National Service desires to have this man he can, by giving three days' notice, have the case brought before the tribunal for review. If it is essential on the ground that this man should go they can bring it before the tribunal, and, if necessary, take it to the Appeal Court. I would like to have the point cleared up.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): I am a little embarrassed in speaking after the very

    1219
    full explanation of my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service and the right hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. H. Samuel), but I had better try to the best of my ability to clear up this matter, though I think the majority of hon. Members are already possessed of the fact. As regard the cases mentioned by the hon. Member (Mr. Kiley), the only way in which we could touch the case of the engineer who has been exempted would be if he came within a class which we were calling up.
    Mr. KILEY: He is an engineer, twenty-five years of age, and a discharged soldier.
    Mr. BECK: That is a different point. If we were calling up men engaged in this particular occupation up to the age of twenty-eight, then his tribunal certificate would not protect him. Unless he was within that class it would protect him. That is where I think, with due respect, the hon. and learned Member for Ealing stretched a little the concession which the Government gave on the Committee stage. Turning to the more general point, I think the most specific criticism was that of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Samuel), who wanted to know whether there was any elasticity in the working of these Orders over what we call the clean-cut. Take the case of an Order that all bakers under thirty-five years of age should not be protected on occupational grounds. My learned Friend the Member for Lanarkshire asked, supposing there was a village where there was only one baker left, and he was thirty-one, what would happen? In all these cases the Ministry of National Service has the absolute right to be elastic in its administration. In practice we are elastic. We work very largely in all these matters through the Trade Exemptions Department, which is in the closest contact with the traders of the country, and we have a statistical department which becomes more complete and elaborate each day. We have in our hands an entire catalogue of the occupations and trades of the country, and I can assure hon. Members that it is within this Bill and within our administrative powers to exercise the fullest power to exempt not only individuals, but even whole districts, if it is brought to our notice that in such dis-
    1220
    tricts extraordinary circumstances prevail which would cause dislocation of some vital sort.
    Mr. D. MASON: Brought to your notice by whom?
    Mr. BECK: I thought the hon. Member would have followed that point. The contention which my right hon. Friend gave was that before these clean-cuts could be made an Order should lie on the Table for fourteen days. That was purposely put in on the suggestion of my right hon. Friend (Mr. H. Samuel) in order to give trades, districts, and even individuals, and certainly Members of this House, the right to represent that great hardships would be caused by these Orders. There is no difficulty in a Government Department knowing when any particular hardship is being inflicted by the working of any particular Order.
    Mr. P. HARRIS: The hon. Member referred to the case of a baker. Would not that baker, if he was the only baker in the district, have the right to appeal to the tribunal on the ground that he was essential to provide bread for the neigh-bourhood?
    Mr. BECK: No. He would have the right to appeal on the ground that serious hardship would ensue if he were called up for Army service, owing to his exceptional financial or business occupation, or domestic position or on the ground of ill-health or infirmity, or on the ground of conscientious objection to combatant service.
    Sir R. ADKINS: Only the first part of that is relevant, and that only applies to the man himself. It would not apply to the case where the employer was put in a most appalling difficulty by the Ministry of National Service taking away perhaps the only employé he has got to enable him to carry on that business. Whatever the hardship be to the employer or to the public, the Clause does not cover it, and we are left to the mercy of the Minister of National Service.
    Mr. BECK: It is difficult to argue with one learned in the law, but I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not know what business obligations a man has if it does not mean what I have said it would mean. I want to make this point clear, and it is a point which the

    1221
    Committee will face, that the most vital industries of this country, with hundreds of thousands of men, are protected by a mere stroke of the pen, which can be cancelled to-morrow by the Ministry of National Service, and I do, without presumption, say, that in view of the labour situation. and in view of the recruiting position for the Army, that the Ministry would put itself in a false position by suggesting that, while the men who are engaged in shipbuilding, agriculture, and other industries on which our very life depends, are only protected by a stroke of the pen, that men, who my right hon. Friend explains are necessary in industries, should have this additional right, which we are now trying to cancel, of exemption by tribunals on occupational grounds. My right hon. Friend has gone out of his way to try to meet, to the very fullest limit, every possible objection as regards individual hardships. He has done his best to remove individual tribunal exemptions altogether from his purview. But I do suggest that it is an impossible case that, while these men, in whose hands are the very essence of defeat or victory, have worked for three years under the protection of that age Schedule, which is merely composed by writing out the occupations, now, when this Bill, which is an attempt to do justice between man and man, and to bring order out of that chaos into which our various Military Service Acts have landed us, is brought forward, that this straining of the protection of individuals should be forced too far. I do not believe that the House desires to do it. I believe that the arguments put forward by my right hon. Friend and the explanation made by my right hon. Friend opposite, and others who have spoken, will satisfy all Members who desire to see fair dealing and a fair system of legislation, that every reasonable precaution is taken as regards the men taken, and that this Amendment, however well meaning it may be, does go much further than either the Mover or the Seconder really desires, that it would, in effect, destroy almost the entire purpose of the Bill and introduce that entanglement of exemption, differing extraordinarily in different parts of the country, which has caused such endless heartburnings in the administration of these Military Service Acts.
    Amendment negatived
    Amendment made: In Sub-section (3), after the word "men" ["body of men"], insert the words, "or men of any class or description."—[Mr. Beck.]
    Sir R. ADKINS: I beg to move, alter the word "fit," to insert the words "including giving the right of making application to a tribunal in exceptional cases."
    All I ask is: that powers should be taken in these Orders, in which the right hon. Gentleman is making a category of a particular class or group of persons, to say that in exceptional cases, which I dare say will be defined in the Order, the individual may go to a tribunal on the merits. I would commend that to my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: I beg formally to second the Amendment.
    I did not press my Amendment to a Division as I was anxious that the House should not divide on these proposals at this very critical juncture in the labour problem, but I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will accept this very reasonable Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend.
    Sir A. GEDDES: I cannot see that these words add anything to the powers which the Clause would otherwise give, but if the hon. Members who moved and seconded it feel that they would be safer with such a provision I would be very willing to accept it.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: It is not only a question of what is inserted in the Bill. It is also a question of the use that will be made of the power by the Department in the administration of the Bill, and I feel that we are not quite clear how the Director-General of National Service is going to deal with the particular cases to which reference has been made in the previous Debate. I put a question, which was quite specific, but did not receive a reply from the Secretary of the Department. With regard to these individual cases where on exceptional grounds tribunals give exemptions to individuals, and those individuals come within a class which is going to be subject to the clean cut, what is going to be done in those cases by the Department? Is the Department going to take them into consideration and make special provision or not? The Secretary to the Department said, first, that it was very unreasonable to raise points of the kind, and that when

    1223
    the protection of a great many men engaged in essential industry depended on a mere stroke of the pen why should others be so protected; and, second, that the Order would have to be laid on the Table in the House of Commons for fourteen days, which would be very small satisfaction to a population depending on a particular baker, from whom exemption was going to be withdrawn, and he said, third, that the baker might apply to the tribunal on grounds of hardship to himself, conscientious objection or ill health. This does not touch the point of men who are in this position that they cannot appeal on any of these grounds, where there is no special injury to them, but where the injury is to the public in the locality or to fellow-workmen employed in a particular factory or industry. What is the Director-General of National Service going to do in these cases? Is he going by this departmental machinery to review them all, to send down an inspector and go into each case? The vast majority of the people of military age who have been exempted by tribunals have been so exempted because those tribunals considered that there were very special circumstances in those individual cases. Now that exemptions are going to be swept away by the clean cut you will have applications made on behalf of a very considerable proportion of the men affected. What is it going to do with those applications? It is no answer merely to put into the Bill the words which my hon. and learned Friend has suggested, useful as those are, unless we understand that the acceptance of those words means that in his administration the Director-General of National Service will in fact bring in the tribunals in some way or another to judge once more these particular cases. Perhaps my right hon. Friend would, by leave of the House, which I am sure it would give him to speak a second time, tell us how these words would be applied in practice?
    Sir H. NIELD: I think that the right hon. Gentleman forgets the powers which exist with respect to advancing the age. You have simply got to advance the age in the Reserved Trade Certified Occupations List and you have in effect the very thing desired, which can be done without any of the objection suggested by these words. If the Department has these powers it will not wantonly prevent cases of individual hardship being dealt with, because it will not wantonly increase the
    1224
    age to such an extent as to make it possible to take away the last baker from a district, but it must be remembered that time is of great consequence, and common sense will show that the Minister will not want to take men in such trades as the bakery and slaughtering businesses without being very careful as to what limits are put upon them so as to make it impossible to inflict upon the neighbourhood the hardship which my right hon. Friend suggested. I cannot believe this possible having regard to the powers which the right hon. Gentleman already possesses.
    Sir R. COOPER: The hon. Member for Ealing has not covered the whole facts of the case. The whole purpose of the Bill is to cancel all certificates of exemption on occupational grounds. Up to the present moment there are, to my knowledge, many industries not primarily of national importance, but of enormous importance to this country when the War is over, in which the tribunals have considered the individual cases, and the military representative has gone into these cases and has practically said, "Here are two men, and you cannot carry on your business without them, but I am going to take those other seventeen." Under the present Bill, by the stroke of the pen to which the Parliamentary Secretary has referred, we shall, as I understand, lose all power practically of keeping any men who may be essential to retain a business, which is of very great national importance, but which, taken by itself, might not be so favourably considered by the right hon. Gentleman. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, if not in the actual wording of the Bill, at any ratewhen he comes to the administration c f it, will take care that there is some reasonable protection in cases where it would really be desirable to retain one or two particular men who, otherwise, would be taken for military service.
    Sir A. GEDDES: I believe the House would like me to make some statement on this question which has been raised by the Amendment, and with the permission of the House I will do so. We have to remember that the Army has to be maintained, and if the Army is to be maintained it will require category A men. In civil lifer at the present time there is left only a small fraction of the total number of menof military age in category A that can be taken. That is the first point for consideration in connection with this

    1225
    problem to be borne in mind. In the best of our industries, as they exist to-day, only one man in two is fit for category A or for general service. In the average of the industries which hold most of the young fit men there is only one man in three fit for general service. As you come to the less important trades you find a smaller and smaller proportion of men fit for general service. Therefore the clean-cut, which will, so far as one can foresee, apply only to the men of the highest physical capacity available, will in no case remove all the men who are of military age required from the occupation to which the clean-cut is applied. There are other trades in which the number of men will be as low as one in five fit for general service. Therefore, when we speak of all the men of military age being taken, that is not really what will happen. It will be the men who are fit to go and fight that will be taken.
    The next point I would ask the House to remember is this: The Ministry of National Service has no greater interest in the Army, or in the Navy, or in the Air Force, than they have in the question of finance, the provision of revenue, or any other aspect of national work. Certainly it has no greater interest in the Army than it has in the keeping together of the country's industries, so that expansion may take place after the War. Therefore, I would ask you to approach this question from the point of view of the action of a Department which is strictly neutral. I do not think that is too strong an expression to apply to the definite attitude of the Ministry of National Service as it now exists. I know that the National Service representatives who appear before the tribunals are given a task which is only one branch of our administrative work. They are told to see how many men they can persuade the tribunal to give them for military service. We often find that the National Service representatives are too good, and that they over-persuade the tribunals. Then the Trade Exemption Department sets to work to restore the balance by saying that such-and-such men must not be called up. There is no other way really in-which you can work. If you have a man selected as an advocate to appear before a tribunal you cannot interfere with him, otherwise you would not get the men out that you might get; so that we put before the tribunals the representatives of the Ministry of National Service, whose func-
    1226
    tion is to advocate a man being freed and taken for the Army. But the balance machine is brought into work, not once a day, but I am not exaggerating when say a hundred times; it may be much more—I really do not know, but a tremendous number of cases go through every day. Sometimes it is a direct representation that is put forward by an Advisory Committee, and sometimes, more often now than in the past, it is a representation from some other Government Department. As the activities of the Government extend more and more into civil life, we get more and more representations from the Government Departments. More and more representations from the Ministry of Food, Ministry of Munitions, the Admiralty, and all sorts of Government Departments. That is another way in which the balancing of the machine comes in. Then we get direct representations from the citizens of various towns, where a discussion may be started with regard to such-and-such a man, and where it is said such-and-such a result would follow. The case of the baker is not a hypothetical case. It has occurred, and will occur, but you will find that the single baker case is dealt with by investigation.
    When the right hon. Gentleman asks me what:particular methods will be adopted to determine what men are to be taken, I can only reply every method that is now used from day to day and from hour to hour. I am perfectly prepared, in certain cases of grave doubt, as I frequently do now, to refer a specially represented case to an Appeal Tribunal. We ask the Appeal Tribunal to rehear, we give permission to rehear, and that is what I precisely understood was meant by my hon. Friend when he suggested that these words should be put in. That is part of the machinery that is working from day to day throughout the country. Further, a number of cases are being dealt with by our regional headquartes, and the regional Directors of National Service are charged to watch single cases. We have special trade advisers in various districts to look after this very class of case and to see that we do not make these dreadful mistakes which we might easily make, and which we sometimes do make, but which we are trying to avoid by using the balance machine.
    But let us remember all the time that the urgent need is to get category A men for the Army, and let us keep that steadily in view. The other urgent need is to get the

    1227
    men who have been wounded, and who have suffered in health in the Army, back into civil life, and you cannot do that until you get the category A men out. In the early part of last year this machinery of the Ministry of National Service was blocked, because the tribunals were holding men who could be replaced—young men fit for general service. What we require is to get a circulation of men back from the Army, and of men out from civil life, in which some of them are firmly rooted. I would ask the House to realise that at the present moment all these things which they fear might happen, would happen, if we had not built a machine which, with all its imperfections, is steadily improving, and is removing the difficulties to which reference has been made. These difficulties are being met, and I am sure, if Members of the House will take cases within their own knowledge, they will see that they are being met every day satisfactorily.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I think the House must have listened with great satisfaction to the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of the machinery by which his Department proposes to deal with the exceptional cases which have been under discussion for some nights during this past week. Had the House been aware at an earlier stage that this machinery was in existence, I think a large part of the discussion which has taken place would have been avoided. The only thing that need now be said is that it is desirable, where these exceptional cases occur, that the Ministry should make it clear to the locality what machinery is available, and that it may call attention to these exceptional eases, and know that there is a remedy provided. The number of these cases is comparatively small, and they only arise in very isolated cases; but though they are small in number, the amount of public inconvenience that may be caused through rashly dealing with them is far out of proportion to their number.
    Amendment agreed to.
    The following Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of Sir H. NIELD:
    In Sub-section (2), after the word "fit" ["Director-General thinks fit"], to insert the words, "A notice of any Order made under this Section and intended to affect individual certificates shall be forthwith sent by the Director-General to every man whose certificate is intended to be withdrawn by such Order."
    Sir H. NIELD: Notice of an Amendment dealing with the point of my Amendment has been given by the Government, and although I prefer my own I am willing to withdraw mine on the understanding that the Government proceed with theirs.
    Amendment made: In Sub-section (4), after the word "then" ["is in forced. then"], insert the words "except as otherwise expressly provided by the Order."—[Mr. Beck.]
    Sir H. NIELD: I beg to move, after Sub section (4, b), to insert the words,
    "Any man, whether he has or has not attested, whose certificate of exemption is withdrawn by an Order under this Section shall be entitled to make an application to the appropriate tribunal for exemption on any of the grounds mentioned in Section 2, Sub-section (1), of the Military Service Act, 1916, other than an occupational ground, provided that the application is lodged with the tribunal within fourteen days of the date of the notice withdrawing his certificate or within such extended time as the tribunal may allow, and the Regulations or instructions relating to procedure of tribunals in force for the time being shall, so far as circumstances permit, apply to any such application, but except as aforesaid."
    This is an Amendment to which I attach much importance. I think it is necessary to have an affirmative statement on the point. The Lord Advocate said in Committee that I desire to have both negative and affirmative statements. What I want is to get justice for the attested man. The attested man has suffered great injustice all the way through since the passing of this Act. When he was invited in December, 1915, by Lord Derby in the celebrated campaign he was told, "Do not wait to ask questions, attest now, and any objection you may have will be fully heard, and you shall be in no worse position than the conscript if we do happen to pass Conscription." Upon the faith of that the attested man came forward and voluntarily attested, and he has found in practice ever since that he has been at a disadvantage. I grant that here and there the Ministry of National Service since it acquired power has endeavoured to mitigate the hardships, but they are not removed, and on the Third Reading I hope to have something to say on this subject, as I do not wish to prolong the discussion now. I do assure the House that it is

    1229
    necessary specifically to mention the attested man as I have done. May I further point out that the instructions are purely permissive which are issued to tribunals for dealing with attested men. They are not really effectual, and I want to make them so. The conscript has power to enforce Regulations which are issued by Order in Council, and I submit that the attested man should be given in the same way power to enforce the instructions. My Amendment states:
    "Any man, whether he has or has not attested, whose certificate of exemption is withdrawn by an Order under this Section shall be entitled to make an application to the appropriate tribunal for exemption on any of the grounds mentioned in Section 2, Sub-section (1), of the Military Service Act, 1916, other than occupational ground, provided that the application is lodged with the tribunal within fourteen days of the date of the notice withdrawing his certificate."
    This last provision as to a period is important, because otherwise the man might be told that he was out of time. My Amendment continues, "or within such extended time as the tribunal may allow and the Regulations or instructions relating to procedure of tribunals in force for the time being shall so far as circumstances permit apply to any such application but except as aforesaid." Those words are pretty clear and are absolutely necessary to preserve the rights of attested men, and I beg that the Government may accept them. The perfunctory words which they propose subsequently are likely to give rise -to all sorts of difficulties.
    Sir R. ADKINS: I beg to second the Amendment.
    I think it is very important that the rights and position of attested men should be set out as specifically as possible, because in the very best interests of recruiting grievances, real or imagined, and I think real in many instances, are very unfortunate circumstances, and the more they can be assuaged by making the position clear the better.
    Sir A. GEDDES: In Committee a promise was given by the Lord Advocate to consider this matter as to the need for putting in some words. After mature consideration it has appeared to those responsible for the Bill that the case is fully met and more conveniently met by a
    1230
    subsequent Amendment which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. That seems to me to cover fully the case of attested and unattested men and in a better and possibly clearer form than this.
    Amendment negatived.
    Further Amendment made: In Subsection (4, b), after the word "be" ["shall be granted"], insert the words "renewed or."—[Mr. Beck.]
    Mr. BECK: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (4), to insert the words and any certificate granted or renewed in contravention of the foregoing provisions shall be invalid, but save as aforesaid nothing in this Section shall affect any right of a man, whether unattested or attested, whose certificate has been withdrawr. under this Act to apply for a renewal of his certificate which he would have Fad if this Act had not been passed."
    Sir H. NIELD: I suggest that words should. be inserted giving a time during which application should be made, as otherwise objection might be made that the application not being a new one that the man was out of time unless the Regulations deal with it. This is a point of substance which I think ought to be met.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: The point mentioned by the hon. Member is one of some importance.
    Sir A. GEDDES: It is a point which can be dealt with in the Regulations, and I will undertake to see that the Regulations deal with it.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: At the end of Sub-section (3), insert the following new Sub-section:—
    "(6) Where an Order under this Section applicable to an individual certificate is made notice thereof shall be served on the man affected thereby and may be served by sending it to him by registered post to his last known address."
    In Sub-section (6), after the word "granted" ["granted on occupational grounds"], insert the words "or renewed."
    After the word "granted" ["granted wholly"], insert the words "or renewed."
    After the word "granted" ["case was granted"] insert the words "or renewed."
    After the word "granted" ["a certificate was granted"], insert the words "or renewed."—[Mr. Beck.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
    Mr. J. MASON: I should like to assure the Minister of National Service that I most heartily support him in this very necessary Bill, and that any remarks I have to make now are intended merely to be suggestions to help him in his work rather than criticism. If I have any criticism to make on the Bill as a whole it is that the estimate of figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave in his opening speech seem to me to be very much on the low side, because the right hon. Gentleman then caused a considerable amount of anxiety in every quarter of the House by telling us very frankly the estimates of what we possibly had to face in the field. He mentioned to us the possibility of having something like 1,600,000 men brought from one front to the other. But the right hon. Gentleman did not mention the question of the number of prisoners who, in the event of peace being definitely signed between the Central Powers and Russia, might be released also for service in the field. That question of the release of prisoners has, unfortunately, been exaggerated in the public mind, and I think if he can say anything to reassure us on the subject it is certainly desirable that that should be done. I do not wish to say anything further on the general Bill because the point I wish to make is confined entirely to the question of the Bill as it affects agriculture and agricultural labour. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman realises as much as anyone does the necessity of helping to the greatest possible degree in seeing that agriculture will have the labour that it requires in the very difficult and important task that lies before it. I am not one of those who has thought that agriculture has been so very hardly treated as a good many of my friends have thought. I myself am an agriculturist to a certain extent, and I find and still believe that agriculture can do a great deal to help itself if it will face a certain amount of alteration in method. I think we have as agriculturists been enormously helped and most successfully helped by the assistance of soldiers. I have considerable experience of the soldier
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    labour, and I must say that, personally and in all cases where I have known it, I found that it has been most satisfactory.
    7.0 P.M.
    Unfortunately, I think, there is a feeling of some uncertainty about the supply of soldiers. Of course, agriculture is one of those industries which is seasonal, and at certain moments a very considerable amount of extra labour is required. Of course, a soldier's first duties are military, and military exigencies must always stand in front of everything else; but is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to make some arrangement with the military authorities, by which some assurance can be given that, subject to military exigencies, a sufficient supply of labour will be forthcoming at the critical time of the harvest? For myself, I am acting on the belief that sufficient labour will be forthcoming. I am ploughing up every acre of grass I can, and I feel perfectly satisfied that when the critical time comes I shall be able to get soldier labour or a certain amount of other labour to meet the difficulty. But of course I am, admittedly, running a certain amount of risk of not being able to get the labour I require, and I think there is a. little nervousness on the part of farmers, that when they want this labour it will not be forthcoming. If an assurance can be given that, subject to military exigencies, a further amount of labour can be found, a very great deal will be done to allay an anxiety which, after all, is reasonable. I must say I think this system of employing the soldiers in the Home Army for work of this kind is a most reasonable and a most excellent way out of a very difficult position, because, after all, the soldier has been through his training, and, so long as he is not required for active military service, it is far better to keep him employed in this way than that we should rely on a large number of men in purely civil employment. occupying their spare time in trying to make themselves volunteer soldiers.
    There is one other way in which, I think, the right hon. Gentleman might do a great deal to assist us in agriculture. At the beginning of the War there was a rivalry between the agriculturist and the recruiting sergeant. The agricultural labour was taken away by the Army, but, after all, it was confined entirely to the young men of a certain physical standard. But now, unfortunately, the difficulty has arisen, not between agriculture and the Army, but between agriculture and various Govern-

    1233
    ment Departments who are carrying on work throughout the country and who not only allow the contractors who are working for them to take the young and fit men, but to take men of all ages and all fitness, and in some cases to create a very undesirable sweep of the labour off the land. One of my hon. and gallant Friends the other evening called attention to this particular grievance, and I think he had a very vivid experience in the matter. Apparently he lived between two aerodromes which were being erected, one on each side of him, which apparently left him very little labour when they had had their pull. I think in the case of work of that kind, and also in the case of timber-cutting, the right hon. Gentleman might be able to do something to ensure, not that the War Offico and the other Government Department should forbid the drawing away of agricultural labour, because I think they probably do that, but that they should take some precaution against the contractors doing it against their orders, which I think is what is actually happening. But even now, if to a great extent the damage cannot be repaired, I think it might still be possible to ensure that work of that nature should be either stopped, or very largely diminished, during the very important time such as harvest. There is no doubt whatever that in the case of timber-cutting nothing would be lost if wholly, or a great deal, stopped during the harvest. Of course, so far as it is done by -special men who are not agriculturists, there is no reason why it should not be continued. But I think the agricultural part of the labour employed in that way might very well be released for that particular time.
    Another question on which I think it would be of interest to have information is as to those agricultural men who are taken away on work of that kind, and who have hitherto been protected, and not taken for the Army—I am speaking now of the young and fit men—on the ground that they are agriculturists, when really they are doing work of a different kind and not of an agricultural nature. I think if the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to make arrangements with these Government Departments in the directions I have indicated, a great deal might be done to assist agriculture in meeting a difficult position, because, in the interest of the supply of food, what is commonly called the plough policy must be supported with
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    the greatest energy and with all our strength, if we are to get through the very difficult period which lies before us.
    General Sir AYLMER HUNTER-WESTON: It is with great diffidence that I rise to make my first speech in this House. I am a plain, blunt soldier, more accustomed to the ways of war than the eloquence of Parliament. But from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketli, and the question of man-power, with which this Bill is concerned, is of such vital importance to us who are fighting your battles at the front that, as a serving soldier at present commanding an Army Corps in Flanders, I cannot refrain from giving you the thoughts and feelings of my comrades of all ranks at the front. I speak not as a general only. Among the many true friends and trusty comrades I have among those who are risking their lives, and more than their lives, none are truer or more valued by me than my friends and comrades in the ranks. And it is as one who has Lad the privilege of sharing with his men danger, sickness, and privation that I verture to speak haltingly and feebly, but from a full heart, in their name to-night.
    Ow Army, your Army, the flower of the manhood of these Islands and of the great self-governing Dominions across the seas, is in magnificent fettle, full of courage and confidence and unconquerable cheeriness, imbued with a magnificent spirit of selfsacrifice and devotion to duty, determined to "stick it out" doggedly when it is a, question of defence, and ready to strike, and strike hard, when the time comes for attack or counter-attack. But we need men, and, above all, we need the confidence and co-operation of the nation. We need that every man and woman at home, and everyone in the Army abroad, should have confidence in each other, and that each and all should exert all their strength, physical, mental, and moral, to help to win the War.
    Let there be no mistake. We are fighting for our national existence; we are fighting for our lives, and for the lives and honour of our women and children. If we do not now beat Germany and make her people feel that militarism does not pay, she will attack us again when we have not so many Allies, and if she does, and if she wins, she will do to us all and more than Hall that site has done to Serbia, to Belgium, and to Northern

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    France—she will destroy us utterly. She has chastised the small nations with whips. If she were to succeed in a second campaign against us she would chastise us with scorpions.
    Germany is waging war not for military supremacy only, but also for commercial supremacy, and to attain this commercial supremacy she undoubtedly desires to destroy the productivity of the working classes of the United Kingdom. I am 110 believer in distinction of classes. We as a nation stand or fall together, and what affects one part of the nation affects all; but undoubtedly those who would suffer most by a German victory would be the workers, the producers in this country. See how Germany has removed all machinery from Belgium and Northern France. See how she has forced the workmen of Belgium to work as quasi-slaves for German taskmasters. See how she has torn the young women of Northern France from their homes and sent them to a fate their parents know not what. It is the working men and women of the conquered territories that have suffered most at German hands. I hope that hon. Members will make this great fact known to the people of this country. If she got the chance she would do the same by us. She would destroy our factories and shipbuilding yards, remove our machinery, injure our wharves and harbours, and, by thus destroying our means of production, would leave our people to starve. To realise what a fate you would lay up for your children and for your old age, if you leave Germany free to attack us at her pleasure, come and see the reconquered territory: that land of desolation, of destruction, and of death.
    Of German atrocities you have incontrovertible evidence in the Report of Lord Bryce's Commission,but as the spoken word is worth a wilderness of paper, I will ask you to pardon me if I give you an example from my own experience. My advanced troops had entered a certain town in Northern France, from which they had driven the Germans. The women of the town came to us scattering flowers and greeting us with cries of "Nous sommes sauvées:" A sturdy peasant woman of France cried to me, as commander of the advanced guard, to press on my already quickly-moving troops to "Kill, Kill, Kill!" the retreating fiends who had raped haf,r daughter publicly before her very eyes.
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    Can you wonder, then, that I appeal, through you, to the men and women of Great Britain and Ireland to support the Government in their determination to give the Army the young men it needs to carry this War through to victory?
    Objection has been taken that there are still many men capable of being combed out in France. If steps were not being taken to comb out in France at the same time as in England I think this would be a fair and valid criticism. From my own experience and knowledge, however—and I speak, I may say, from the standpoint of one who is sufficiently high in the scale to be able to get a general view, while not so high up that I am in any way responsible either for policy or for strategy—I know that within recent times the harrow has been passed over the men behind the line in France, and with very considerable success. Now again the process of combing out is being gone through, not with a harrow but with a small -tooth comb. But when every man has been combed out in France, and when as many as possible have been replaced by women of the -Women's Army Auxiliary Corps—and in this connection I may say that the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps are doing a most admirable work, and we soldiers owe and pay a great tribute of admiration and gratitude to these women for what they are doing—I say that when every man has been combed out, and when every man has been replaced who can be replaced by a woman, there will still be need, and urgent need, for young men from this country.
    Objection has furthermore been made that sufficient use has not been made of the best brains, and that there is a prejudice against the Territorials and the New Army men. Nothing could be further from the truth. When men are fighting for their lives and honour, as we are out there, they do their utmost to get hold of the men who will help them best. They do not ask whether an officer was a Territorial, a Regular, or a New Army man in the past when choosing an assistant for the present. They ask who is the best man to be got now. We want to get the best assistance to help us to win the War. A man at the front is taken for what he is, and not for what he was.
    The Army does not resent criticism. It welcomes it. It welcomes constructive and well-informed criticism, but destructive and ill-informed criticism

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    is good for no portion of the nation at any time, It is especially bad in war, for it tends to reduce the morale and confidence, not only of the Army but of the nation. There are many points which may justly be criticised. Thera are faults. But I may say, from what I have seen out there, that every man in authority is honestly, constantly, and earnestly doing his best to minimise those faults and to overcome them.
    Let us have co-operation and mutual confidence — soldiers and politicians, civilian and military, trusting each other and working hand-in-hand. Both are needed. We at the front feel that the Army is but the point of the spear, of which the shaft is shipbuilding and the many other industries necessary for the successful prosecution of the War; the driving power being the determination of the nation as a whole to co-operate with us, to stick it out, and to drive the spear home to victory. What most strikes an observant but at the present time a somewhat infrequent visitor to England and Scotland is the immense amount of courage, resolution, and self-sacrifice of the majority of the nation. But there is a minority whose selfishness, ignorance, and self-complacency are but too apparent. And there are a noisy and vociferous few—some of whom are honest, though mistaken—who do infinite harm to our cause.
    May I, as a representative of those at the front, appeal to those who are selfish from ignorance of the facts of the situation, and to the honest, though vociferous few, to do what they can to help us—by helping the cause of Victory by every means in their power?
    Among the soldiers serving at the front there is a very strong feeling of resentment against the young able-bodied men who are staying at home in comfort and safety, and drawing large pay while better men than they are doing not only their own share in the mud, discomfort and danger of the trenches, but also the share that should be borne by these young "stay-at-homes," who claim privileges denied to the rest of the nation. This feeling of resentment is so strong that it will, I fear, last beyond the War. It may also—this, I think, is an important point—cause a line of cleavage in the nation which will be very deplorable. But I defy any man with ordinary human feelings not to feel in sympathy with a gallant soldier when, speaking of these young "stay-at-homes," be says, with ill-concealed resentment and
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    heat in his tone, that he and his mates who have "done their bit" "will take good care to get even with those blessed skulkers"—as he calls them, using another adjective!
    Those of us who have had the privilege of serving with Irishmen and Irish regiments know the charm of that most lovable race, so unaccountable and difficult if badly led, so glorious in heroism, so easily led to almost unbelievable flights of heroism, loyalty and devotion to duty—if only they are led by a strong, just, fearless iman, who has great courage, not only physical but moral,. and who adds to that courage human sympathy allied with well-balanced judgment and iron inflexibility of will. Are we men of action at the front guilty of too great idealism, too great optimism, if we still hope that among the great men of Ireland there will arise such a leader, be he known or unknown now, who will cause Ireland to join Amorica, France, and the great Dominions across the seas in fighting this great fight for liberty, justice, and right? Through the poor agency, therefore, of the voice of one who has borne the burden of the War from the beginning, fighting alongside Irishmen and Irish regiments, may I say that your brother Irishmen and their true comrades in the Allied Armies, who are fighting with them on the other side of the water, appeal to their comrades in Ireland who are young and who are still in Ireland, both North and South, to be true to the glorious traditions and history of Ireland, and to come in full strength to take their rightful place alongside us.
    The future of these Islands, of the Empire, and of the world lies in the hands of the men who have fought and who are fighting. It is they who will undoubtedly mould and shape the world. The great majority out there have given up all voluntarily at the call of duty and have been fighting with the greatest devotion, gallantry, and self-sacrifice. It is those qualities, that self-sacrifice, devotion and resolution which, applied hereafter, will have the effect, as I believe, in making these Islands better and brighter places than ever they have been before. May I, through this House, appeal to every man who is under twenty-five, and who is, therefore, more indispensable in the front line than anywhere else, to come willingly to join the men in whose hands the future of this country lies, and with them safeguard the noble heritage which our forefathers have bequeathed to us.

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    Above all, let the men of England realise that they are directly and personally responsible for the lives of their fellow countrymen at the front, if by any action of theirs or their friends they restrict or retard in any way the necessary output of munitions of war, ships, aeroplanes, guns, ammunition—munitions of every kind. These are the necessities of the situation out there. Guns, aeroplanes, munitions, are our lifesavers. Without them our men suffer heavy casualties. With them, we can so deal with the enemy that our losses are reduced to a minimum. Therefore, I would beg them to remember that any interruption or cessation of work means wounds and death to the brave lads who are fighting for you. A local defeat by the enemy has often much less serious military consequences than the stoppage of work by our fellow workers at home. It is only by the whole-hearted co-operation of the men and women at home with us who are fighting at the front that we can carry our cause to victory. In this, as in everything else, we require solidarity in the nation—between the nation which is the Army at home, and the Army which is the nation at the front. We need men. We specially need young men. We need men to hold and work and fight on our front Lee. We need men to continue working on our many defensive lines. We need men to continue to improve the communications, on which so enormous an amount of work has been done during this past year. Above all, we need men to train for offensive and counter-offensive action, so that we may have strong, well-trained divisions with which to meet and defeat the enemy.
    In this connection it is necessary for us all to face the facts and to preserve our sense of perspective and proportion. From a review of the general military situation, we know that whatever the available force the enemy may bring against us on the Western Front, there is no cause for despondency. The military situation is good, and when America comes in, it will be overwhelming. But until America is able to make her full strength felt we must expect heavy fighting if the enemy choose to attack. We hope they will attack, for if they do attack we shall undoubtedly defeat them, and they will suffer very heavy losses. In the sway of battle, however, we are sure to suffer
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    local and temporary reverses, and it would be well for the British public to face this fact.
    I say, therefore, to all: Have Oourage, Confidence, and Resolution ! Do not fear to face facts. We are sure to have difficulties both at home and at the front, but the difficulties of the future are as nothing to the difficulties we have surmounted in the past. Our position and resources are such that, if only the nation will stick it out, we are certain to win through. Germany is hard pressed. Her men are hungry and in distress. Her allies are in even a worse plight. We are in every respect better off than she is. But her Army is still intact. Her leaders understand the merit and necessity of resolution. It is on our resolution, our determination, and our grit that the immense issues of the future now depend.
    A great flood of liberty and justice has been surging against the great dam, formed by the Prussian desire to attain a world domination, based on might and long-prepared military force. To the superficial observer that dam still seems to stand fast. But under the dam a steady, if unseen, process of disintegration has been going on, and some day the dam of might will burst, and the great flood of right will carry all before it.
    If only the Empire will but to herself be true; if all individuals and classes in the nation, which is the Army at home, will co-operate loyally with each other and with the Army, which is the nation at the front, standing resolutely shoulder to shoulder, calmly, confidently, and courageously, we are certain of ultimate victory and of the only peace which would be a lasting peace—the only peace which would not be treason to the heroes, your sons and brothers, who have passed before us over the Great Divide to safeguard our honour and the prosperity of our people, and to ensure the triumph of right, liberty, and justice.
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The House in every quarter will desire to express to the hon. and gallant Gentleman its cordial congratulations upon the admirable speech which he has just delivered, and its thanks for the observations he has made. Forcible, eloquent, and vivid, the hon. and gallant Gentleman has admirably fulfilled the function which I may describe as liaison officer between the Army and Parliament. We can assure him that the same

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    spirit of resolute determination which he breathed throughout his speech animates this House. Let him and those from whom he comes not attach too much importance to the declarations of a minority, who perhaps attract an amount of attention which is out of proportion to their arguments or their importance. I am sure the House now is as resolute in the prosecution of this War as it has ever been during the long history of the conflict. We all realise, as the hon. and gallant Member does, that the whole of this country is nothing more nor less than a base for the Army and Fleet, but I trust we shall not forget that the economic strength of this country is also part of its fighting strength, and in dealing with questions of manpower a proper balance must always be preserved between the two.
    I think this House has shown how fully it sympathises with the main ideas that have been expressed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman in his speech by its handling of this Bill now before us. The Government has asked Parliament for large and unprecedented powers. They have been readily granted, and this Bill has reached its final stage without a single Division having taken place on any occasion. This Bill, although it may pass without controversy, has not passed without Amendments. There have been important Amendments made with the full consent of the Government in regard to some of its provisions. The ultimate control of Parliament has been safeguarded by the provision that all Orders to be made under this measure are to be laid before Parliament and subjected to its deliberation in necessary cases, and to its ultimate control. We have also safeguarded the authority of the local and Appeal Tribunals so far as individual certificates of exemption granted by them are concerned. The smooth passage of the Bill and the adoption of these Amendments without controversy have been largely due to the methods adopted in its conduct by the right hon. Gentleman the DirectorGeneral of National Service, and it is only right at this last stage that the House should express its appreciation of the conciliatory method which the right hon. Gentleman has adopted of conducting his first Bill through Parliament, methods which I can assure him have been responsible in a large degree for the smooth and speedy passage of this measure on to the Statute Book.
    Colonel C. LOWTHER: It is not my intention to move theAmendment standing in my name, as I do not wish to prolong the Debate and I know other hon. Members wish to speak. I hope, however, that the Government will pay serious consideration to the scheme which my Amendment embodies, because I think it is one which might be of great value to our standing Army. What I mean is to add a Clause to this Bill making it possible to raise an Army of veterans who are past military age, but who are still fit for military service. I know that it is almost an incontrovertible fact that the vast majority of men above forty-one deteriorate very quickly, but there are very many abnormal exceptions to the rule. There are many cases where age is no index whatever of a man's adaptability, energy, or strength.
    I do not care in what town or village you may go, you will find men by the score who are generally recruited from old athletes, ex-cricketers, football players, policemen and blacksmiths, who can lift a bigger weight and do a harder day's work than the average conscript soldier of to-day. The fact that the great majority of these men are above military age and that they are unable to fight for their country is to them the tragedy of their lives. They know their own powers and energy, adaptability and strength and endurance; they are imbued with patriotism, and they are anxious only for one thing and that is to fight for their country, but they are prevented from the fulfilment of what. I think the House will agree are praiseworthy aspirations merely by the asininity and small-mindedness of shortsighted officials. I do not advocate the raising of the age limit, but what I do advocate is the destruction of the barrier which prevents men who are capable of military service from serving their coun try.
    Sir A. GEDDES: There is no barrier.
    Colonel LOWTHER: I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman fails to understand my point. I recognise that a man of fifty six or forty-six might, by disguising his age, slip into the Army, or might go into a Labour battalion, hut that is not what I advocate. I have made very careful researches into this question, and I urge the employing as a unit of an army of veterans. I calculate that there are certainly half a million men past military age fit for military service, and I think a quarter of them, or at any rate, at least 100,000,

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    would be anxious to serve their country if you gave them certain privileges. I know that it will immediately be objected that a man past military age is of very little use in the field. It may be said by doctors that he is an encumbrance rather than of any service for trench warfare. But why use them for trench warfare? I do not want these men to be used in the trenches. I would suggest that they should be raised and kept as a distinct unit outside the front line, that they should be held in the vicinity of the divisions in reserve, and that they should be held in readiness to hurl themselves at any moment upon a threatened point, or take part in any Infantry operations requiring special dash and daring.
    If, as I suggested, you allocate these men to certain distinct duties, it is only fair to give them certain privileges and certain distinctions in the way of pay as well as certain advantages. I would suggest that this force should serve together, and train and fight together. I would also suggest that you should give them a higher rate of pay than the ordinary soldier, and I do not think the younger men would grumble, because the British Tommy is a sportsman and he knows what is meant by weight for age. When we are scorning the highways and the byeways to discover the whitelivered creatures with camouflaged consciences, when a blind officialism is endeavouring to do this and to rope such men in, I think it is little short of criminal not to take advantage of a body of 100,000 men whom you could get for the asking. I know certain officials at the War Office would be inclined to call this irregular, and that is a word which officials on the Treasury Bench always use when they are on the horns of a dilemma. I think it would be little short of criminal if we did not endeavour to rope these men in, especially when we remember the seven divisions of that glorious army of "contemptibles" who saved France, and through France the world. I sincerely hope the right hon. Gentleman and the Government will seriously consider this proposition which is not proposed in any spirit of obstruction, but with the very best intintion of serving my country.
    Sir H. NIELD: I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to draw attention to some matters which are of vital moment, and which at the present time are creating a great amount `of dissatisfaction outside this House.
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    There are, of course, rules of Parliament which necessarily curtail Amendments on Debate, and I can well understand that at this moment, with their past experience, the Government were very anxious to limit discussion on this Bill, and consequently the wording is so arranged as to make it almost impossible for any Amendment to be made outside the four corners of Section 3, Sub-section (2), of the original Act. I take the opportunity, while thanking the Government for the consideration that they have shown on this matter in relation to Amendments which are certainly valuable, to point out to the Minister of National Service that there are still serious anomalies needing to be dealt with—anomalies which are breaches of the undertakings given by the Government in the country and sometimes in this House with regard to the position of the men who attested.
    One of the most glaring I will proceed to deal with at once. On the Second Reading of the Bill I made observations on the administration of the War Office, and called attention to specific instances to show how absurd is the official mind at Whitehall. The Minister for National Service has nothing to do with the attested man, and it is in that connection that these hardships arise. In regard to them, complaints have been made again and again without obtaining redress. A man comes forward and says, "I attested because I was invited to attest under the promise that I should have all the advantages which might be given to the conscripted men, but now I find that because I am in the Army by virtue of having attested I have no right to the consideration which is extended to the conscript." I appeal to the War Office to be more reasonable in dealing with these men, and to let the National Service Ministry deal with all men, whether attested or not, until they actually enter the ranks of the Army and are absolutely enrolled as soldiers. If that were done I would be content to leave matters as they are.. It has been decided that, on the grounds of ill-health, an attested man has no right to ask for a re-examination; he must put up with the most perfunctory examination which takes place at the time of his attestation. He has to go into the Army. He has to relinquish his civil employment. He has to give up his home and to make many sacrifices, and then, peradventure, when he gets into the Army the medical officer attached to his battalion

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    may turn him down on the ground of illhealth. But then the mischief has been done. He has given up his situation in civil employment, and probably it has been filled by someone else. He may have broken up his home. But if he had had an opportunity of re-examination all that might have been avoided. It is said he could have appealed, but how often has it been urged before the Court by the military representative that the man who has attested has gone into the Army and has no such right. There is in fact no legal right except under the Review of Exceptions Act which applies to only a limited number of men. The vast majority of the men who attested went on with their civil employment and waited until their class were called up. They were never turned down; they were never subject to the Review of Exceptions Act, and could not take advantage of that Act which was literally wrung from the Government. It is what I call a cruel scandal, and I sincerely hope it may be promptly remedied.
    It is impossible to prevent tribunals from acting captiously. It is not at all infrequent for a tribunal to take it into its head to refuse a hearing to a man who makes an unfortunate beginning, or says something which inspires the tribunal with a certain amount of suspicion. What happens? The conscript may forthwith go to the Court of Appeal and obtain a rule nisi on an affidavit that his case has not been heard, and the tribunal is called upon to show cause why it should not hear his application. The attested man may have been treated in precisely the same way as the conscript, but he has no remedy, and although it is said that the law of England is just and equitable to all persons, the fact remains that the attested man is refused the right of appeal on the ground that he is in the Army. Although instructions which were issued by the Local Government Board for the guidance of the tribunals in relation to attested men are substantially the same as those Regulations which have been embodied in the Order in Council and become part of the law of the land as regards conscripts, although they are identical, yet in the one case it is permissive, in the other case compulsory. In the case of the conscript it is compulsory to grant him a rule absolute; in the case of the attested man it is not. And what is the most scandalous point about it is this,
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    that the Local Government Board has power in this matter, as is shown by a question put in this House in the month of July last, which called attention to this state of things. The reply was that there was no desire on the part of the War Office to differentiate the cases to the disadvantage of the attested man. The Minister who answered made the farther statement that cases had been investigated and that the Board, in cases where the man had not been properly heard, had approached the War Office and secured a rehearing. That is, of course, one Of those official perfunctory answers to which we are accustomed. I happen to know that one of the objections put forward in these cases is that the attested man has no right of audience in the Court of King's Bench, and that has been urged through the mouth of the Treasury Council on the instructions of the Local Government Board, without reference to the merits of the case, and the unfortunate applicant has further been let in for the heavy bill of costs taxed against him by the authorities, while, at the same time he has been unable to get his case before the tribunal and has not obtained a hearing. That state of things ought to be remedied, and the rule which the conscript is able to obtain ought to be equally obtainable by the attested man, if he is prepared to take upon himself to make an affidavit to the effect that the tribunal has not properly heard his case. Until that hardship has been removed there will be a considerable amount of dissatisfaction in the country, because one man is treated on one basis and another man on an entirely different basis.
    There is another matter I want to draw attention to. When the Military Service Act was before this House there was a great outcry in various parts of the House, and especially among hon. Members below the Gangway, in favour of having questions in connection with Conscription for the Army dealt with by the civil rather than by the military power.. There was a great prejudice against courts-martial. Here we have another instance of legislation by reference, that most unsatisfactory way of legislating which has grown up in modern times. The result of it has been that a certain Section of the Act lays it down that if any offence or crime is committed under the Army Act it should be dealt with by a civil Court and that

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    the civil Court should be a Court of Summary Jurisdiction. You thus have the extraordinary result that the question, whether or not men or bodies of men are within the purview of the Military Service Acts, and whether or not they are entitled to the benefit of the exceptions in the First Schedule of that Act, has to be decided either by a Petty sessional Bench or by a stipendiary. A more unsatisfactory body to try such questions could not be imagined. The learned gentlemen who administer the law in Courts of Summary Jurisdiction, who exercise their judicial capacity in such things as questions arising under the Food and Drugs Act, and similar matters, are also to deal with matters which have puzzled the judicature from time to time. They may be called upon to deal with questions of constitutional and international law in relation, for instance, to the Convention passed recently to bring the subjects of Russia into our Army. This House never intended for a moment that the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction should be the only persons to investigate such matters. But that effect has been produced. It was never intended that questions such as those affecting these attested men should be considered by the same tribunal as deals with "drunks" and other street offences, and matters of that sort. I am not for a moment belittling the functions of the stipendiary, but I do suggest that this is not the way to get matters of difficult construction dealt with.
    8.0 P.M.
    There is another point in connection with this. In ordinary cases which come before him the magistrate in the event of an appeal not infrequently admits the accused person to bail—or releases him on his own recognisances. But that is not the case of the unfortunate man under the Military Service Act, because he has to be handed over to the military authorities to be held by them until his case is settled, whatever may be the result of his appeal. Again, there is some doubt as to whether he has the full rights of appeal, because cases as a rule from the stipendiary have to stop at the first stage in the High Court. There are constitutional questions involved in this with regard to the subjects of Russia which are as important as any questions that can be raised, involving, as they do, matters of international law of the highest
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    importance, and. which ought certainly to be allowed to go before the highest tribunals in the realm; yet, because of the clumsy way in which the original Act was introduced and passed—because of the adoption of the plan of legislation by reference, that is not possible. I do say it constitutes a very serious thing that whereas in every other form of litigation a man may obtain an arrest of judgment until the matter is finally disposed of, yet any man who comes within the purview of this Act is to be handed over to the military; in other words, he is to be sentenced, although it may be proved afterwards—when his business is wrecked, his home destroyed, and everything has gone from him—that he was perfectly right in his construction of the matter, but that inasmuch as the magistrates had no power to admit him to bail the mischief has been done in the meantime. I think these are matters which cannot be dealt with now but which ought to engage, and I hope will engage, the serious consideration of my right hon. Friend. It is most desirable that we should promote among every section of the people of this country an impression that they are being fairly dealt with. Let us continue to be able to say, as we have hitherto been able to say, that English justice is impartial and that the same justice is meted out to every class of person. That is the most valuable thing that could be said of England in the past, and do not let us even in this moment for the sake of getting this or that man or class of men jeopardise that claim which has been the proud boast of our people now certainly for a couple of centuries past. I do not suppose that since the latter part of the seventeenth century there has been any justifiable reason to complain of that which is in jeopardy now, and I do invite the right hon. Gentleman, if he ever has a moment of leisure, to turn this over in his mind and to ask himself whether or not the condition of things is such that it ought to be made so that any body of persons should be entitled to put forward a grievance in relation to the matter. I hope the earliest possible opportunity may be taken by administrative action, because I cannot imagine that the Government can view with any satisfaction the introduction of further Bills—they have ample powers—to see that the attested man shall not suffer as he has done in the past, and that his access to the Courts should not rest on the Local

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    Government Board, but shall be open to him, if he takes the responsibility, of Making an affidavit that he has not been heard by the tribunal.
    Major HAYWARD: I do not wish to detain the House, but there is one aspect of the question raised by an hon. Gentleman opposite who spoke just now which is well worthy of the consideration of the Government. During -the Debate on the Second Reading some apprehension was felt by several speakers as to whether the best use was being made of the men already in the Army. That problem can be looked at from one or two points of view, but there was a feeling that there were a great many men of military age, of military capacity, in the Army who are engaged on non-combatant work. The Minister told us that there had been a great combing-out in France. I know a great deal has been done, and that was confirmed again by the hon. and gallant Mamber who made his maiden speech tonight, but, so far as I gather, the combingout in France is limited to combing-out behind the lines, and the Minister did not say in his speech whether a similar process had taken place in this country.
    The point to which I want to direct the attention of the Government and of this House for the moment is the position of the employed men in the fighting units themselves. In the fighting units every man is a man passed for combatant service. He is a fit man—Grade 1—and yet in every unit there are a large number of men, a very considerable number indeed, who are what might be called permanently employed men, men engaged on sanitary services, as grooms, police, and on all kinds of services connected with the interior economy of the unit. These services are of the utmost importance for the comfort and the health of the battalion. It is of the first importance that these. ser-vices should be efficienly and properly carried out, and it is infinitely preferable that they should be performed by fit—Grade 1—men than that they should not be performed properly and adequately. I think, however, that the time may come when the problem will have to be considered as to whether these men may nct be substituted by men of another category. I do not think that these duties could be adequately and properly performed by men of a much lower category, because the men who perform them must be physically fit. It would not do to have men who would crack up under the
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    rigours of the campaign, but I do think that the question of using older and fit men above military age might have the consideration of the Government, and I believe that if that were done it would release for service in the trenches, for combatant service, a very large number of men who are at present in the Army doing splendid work, but who are fit for combatant work, and are at present only engaged on those other services which might be just as well performed by older men who are fit.
    Mr. KILEY (indistinctly heard): I think that after these powers have been granted it will be necessary to watch whether they are being wisely used, and in that respect I would like to ask for an assurance from the Director-General of National Service that when attention is called, by Members of this House especially, to various matters that will not be taken by him as an attack by Members on himself and staff, which is what has hitherto been the idea possessed by the War Office. I looked to the right hon. Gentleman's statement with a good deal of interest, especially to that part which refers to medical examination. Some months ago attention was called to the procedure of some medical boards, and the Under-Secretary of State for War came down with a number of figures and proved, to his own satisfaction at any rate, that a percentage of the medical boards were doing wonderful work. Not many weeks later a storm arose that swept those medical boards out of existence. I want to give one or two instances of the system under which recruits are now examined. A case came under my notice a few days ago where a man was sent to the Stratford Medical Board to be examined. He was in possession of four certificates, including one from the Medical Officer of Health, stating that he was suffering from tuberculosis. The first doctor who examined him was satisfied. He said, "Tuberculosis; no use." The man was then taken to the president of the board, who had two of the four medical papers before him, and who said, "That will do." The man was told to'dress, and on leaving the building was given a card marked "Grade 3." The man came immediately from the medical board to my office and presented himself and his certificates. I gave him a note to take to the president of the board, and said that if he had read only two out of the four certificates he had evidently overlooked the chief One. I told the man

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    to go back to the board with this letter from myself. He went back, and after some difficulty saw the president, who looked at the paper and said, "I think you are graded in your proper grade." I cannot understand a thing of that kind. If a, man is certified by the medical officer of his district as tuberculous, why should lie be passed and classified for Grade 3? I can understand that the president of the board might not have been satisfied, might have desired to make further investigations, to test the man, or to postpone the case; but when without practically any examination himself, without sending the man for any test, he passes him as fit for the Army, I am sure the Director-General of National Service will forgive me if I say that I fail to see any considerable improvement in the examinations now on what they were before, if this case represents any number.
    I would in this matter call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to a number of complaints which come before me of men who, having been passed by one medical board find, when they come up again, that they are brought before the same men. Only this very day I have received a case of a man twice rejected. He was then put into C3, then in C1, and on going up to be graded under these new powers a few days ago was confronted by the same doctor. I think in a case where the same doctors have to be retained it is advisable that they should be transferred to some other district where they would not be called upon to condemn their own examinations of a few weeks back. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to make effective the improvements in the system of medical examination which he assured us was taking place, I trust he will consider my suggestion that where these medical officers are retained they should not be kept in the same district, but taken to others. That would remove a certain amount of discontent in the minds of the men who after a previous examination have now to pass the same medical man again. There are one or two other matters to which I should like to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention, and in regard to one I should like to inquire as to the supervision which is exercised over the local National Service representatives. I have a case before me of a man who made an application to a local tribunal. After fully considering his case it gave him exemption. The National Service repre-
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    sentative was dissatisfied, took him to the Appeal Tribunal, and the appeal was dismissed. The man came up again a few weeks later. There had been no alteration, in the circumstances, and the man was again granted three months' exemption. The National Service representative took it again to the Appeal Court, where it was confirmed. A few weeks later the man came back to the local Court. He again went into the circumstances, and after he had been given three months the National Service representative took it for the third time to the Appeal Court. This man, at the head of a business and with all his obligations, was taken every three months to the Appeal Court. Ever since he got his exemption from the local tribunal he has been persecuted. Everyone would have expected that the National Service representative would have been satisfied, or at any rate that he would have allowed a reasonable interval to elapse if he could not show some new circumstances. There was no new circumstance, and only a few weeks were allowed to elapse.
    There is another very similar case which. I think would interest the DirectorGeneral. I called his attention to it previous to the third appeal, and I told him that it had been heard three times locally and twice on appeal. There was a third appeal pending, and my conversation with him was hardly at an end before it had been decided. This particular man got exemption from the local tribunal, and he was taken to the Appeal Court. The Appeal Court dismissed the application of the National Service representative, and two days afterwards an individual waited upon him and wanted to see his pass-book and his balance-sheet. He naturally resented this, asked where theindividual came from, and said that he would not give him any information. The individual said he came from the National Service representative. The man, because he did not answer these questions, was served with notice of application to have his case re-heard. Naturally, he wasaggravated, and he went to see the representative. He was refused an audience, but, being persistent, he eventually got through. He persuaded the representative to go with him—he had a taxi outside—to the factory to see his balancesheet, and the representative expressed himself satisfied and withdrew his application for the re-hearing of the case. If the representative had known his business he

    1253
    would have made his investigations first. He would not have persecuted this man by taking him to the Appeal Court and challenging him to have his case reviewed, and then afterwards investigating and finding everything satisfactory and withdrawing the application. These cases are occurring at the present time. I know it is not the desire of the Director-General that this sort of thing should go on. I have absolute confidence in him personally but it is a question of his staff. It is in their interest just as much as it is in the interest of those who call attention to these cases that good will should prevail amongst all concerned.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will let me know the dates of these cases. He speaks of the National Service representative, but they seem to resemble cases of which I heard last July, when they were under the War Office.
    Mr. KILEY: They were in last July, and I called the attention of the War Office to them. I called the DirectorGeneral's attention to the case a few weeks back, and the appeal was eventually dealt with a few days ago. That is the case in which there were three local appeals and three applications to the Appeal Court, with all the attendant expenses. We were told that the National Service representatives as far as possible would be men of tact, discretion, and above all humane, and that in industrial districts they would preferably be discharged soldiers with experience. A few days ago a man of forty-one or forty-two, the father of six children, in category C 2, which is almost the last stage, came before the tribunal and wanted exemption, first, on the ground that he was no use for health reasons, and, secondly, on the ground that he had a very delicate wife and six children, the eldest of whom had just come of age and was serving in the Army. After careful investigation the tribunal came to the conclusion that although he might be suitable for sedentary work he had better remain at home and look after the other five children. The National Service representative took the case to the Appeal Court. We get more appeals in that part of London than in any other. They may be justified or they may not, but I want to know what supervision, if any, is exercised over these individual appeals. Is it left entirely to the discretion of the individual, whether he is in a good or a bad temper, as to
    1254
    how many appeals he shall make? If he has unlimited powers, has not the time arrived when there should be some supervision exercised over him? Otherwise, I fail to see the good of having a tribunal. I would press that no appeals should be lodged a second time by any National Service representative without some authority from headquarters. The DirectorGeneral this afternoon asked the Committee to place confidence in him, and I am sure that we are all anxious to do so.
    We all realise, especially those who have had anything to do with these matters, what a painful and harassing task it is to be called upon to say whether a man shall serve in the Army or not. It is a small matter to me, serving on the tribunal, whether the man who comes before me goes into the Army or not. I know that I am going home to a comfortable lunch and am going to have a comfortable chair, but if I have to send a man into the Army and to break up his family and business, I want to feel that I am doing what is right and just. Therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman asks me to place greater powers in his hands I want him to give me an assurance that he is going to see that his staff carries out his intentions, and that he will exercise a proper amount of supervision to see that his intentions are carried out. I would like to ask whether it would not be possible for him to set up at his own office a complaints committee to arbitrate between some of his overzealous staff and the appellants, whose circumstances are often of a most painful character If he could consider a proposition of that kind it would do a great deal to reassure many, like myself, who, after two years' experience of some of his staff, feel constrained to ask that we should have some measure of security against actions of this very drastic nature. I do urge the Director-General to follow out the spirit with which he took up his office, and in which the other day he announced his desire to work in friendliness and harmony with all possible sections of the community in this very difficult task, and to do everything that he possibly can to prevent friction arising.
    Sir RICHARD COOPER: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Cleveland Division (Mr. H. Samuel) was not quite correct when he said a little while ago that this Pill had passed through the House without a Division. We did have a Division last Monday night on the subject of the exclusion of Ireland. I agree with

    1255
    him, however, that we are all indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the tact and consideration which he has shown to all those who have raised points against the Bill or have offered criticisms. I understand that the fundamental task of the right hon. Gentleman is to provide schemes under which the man-power and the woman-power of this country can be used in the most advantageous manner—on the one hand for the provision of men for the Army, Navy, and the Air Services, and, on the other, for our industries and economic services at home, which are equally vital to the carrying on of the War. I want to say a word or two on what was said a little while ago by the hon. and gallant Member for North Cumberland (Colonel C. Lowther). I do not myself believe that this Bill yet exhausts the resources of man-power, particularly for the Army. I know from experience that it is true that· if the Government will seriously take in hand from the War Office the creation of a real, live, and serious Volunteer Force in this country, trained with the special object of being available in case of invasion, a very large number of fit, fully-trained men now maintained in this country in case of invasion could be freed for service overseas. It is difficult to know what will be the situation when the right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity of putting this Bill into operation. Quite apart from the fact that there are available to-day men who would gladly go into a really serious Volunteer Force, created not to act as special constables, but created and well trained to serve for the purposes of defence, besides those men over military age woo would be fit and suitable for that work there is a number of men who have been exempted up to the present by tribunals, I believe on good ground—I know individual cases where men have been vital to the carrying on of an industry—and if some of those men were exempted on the condition that they gave their morning to the business, because of their special intimate knowledge, they might very well give up four, five, or six hours every day to what I would call an improved Volunteer Force, which could be made of great service to the country and free men for the Army abroad. I only throw out that suggestion because I believe there is something in it. Whilst naturally any one associated with the Government would be in duty bound to defend the Volunteer Corps throughout
    1256
    the country which arc composed mainly of men who are very earnest, who want to do the utmost them can and who make their ten miles' route marches on Sunday, although in many cases they are sixtyfive years of age, the Volunteer Corps arc not, in my opinion, as effective and efficient as they might be made, because they are not and never have been taken seriously by the authorities at the War Office or by the Government.
    I must make a reference to that other source from which hundreds of thousands of the finest, strongest and healthiest fighting men in the whole of the United Kingdom could be obtained, but which is not to be tapped to assist this country and her Allies in this great conflict. My friends and I have not put down a Motion to reject the Bill on Third Reading because we had a Division on Monday night on that question, and we are just as anxious as is the right hon. Gentleman first, not to stand in the way of the Government getting at least all they can have, even if they do not get as much as we think they ought to, and, secondly, we do not desire to create any possible misunderstanding outside the House as to why there should be a Division on the Third Reading. The point I want to make on this subject is this: We have heard from the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon in unmistakable words that the available resources in this country of fit A men for the Army are, when all is said and done, fairly limited. Anybody who w as not sympathetic to this country and her Allies, listening to what has taken place in this House this afternoon, might, with fair justice, go away and say that Great Britain was getting close to the end of her tether for the carrying on of the War. That being more or less true, I cannot help thinking that in spite of all the difficulties which I know the right hon. Gentleman or any other member of the Government would have to stand up at that box and put before us, I feel that the Government has got to tackle Ireland sooner or later. They are only putting off the evil day. When I have discussed the matter with those associated with the administration, I have been told quite frankly and privately, "The mistake was in the early days. They did not tackle Ireland seriously originally, and the Government have got into such a mess that now it dare not do it." The right hon. Gentleman himself told us on Monday What is perfectly true, that the Govern-

    1257
    ment have excluded Ireland from this Bill because to their knowledge or in their judgment it is not expedient to try to bring her in. In Ireland we have got the King's enemies. We have hundreds of thousands or rather I would say a very large number—I do not know the exact number—several divisions of fit A trained men, the finest men to send over to France, to keep us in that country at present.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Oh, no!
    Sir R. COOPER: May I put it this way to the right hon. Gentleman, because he knows the exact number. I will put it on more moderate lines—it really does not alter my argument. We are maintaining in Ireland at the present moment a considerable force of Regular troops which are badly wanted on the Western Front. Our enemies in Ireland to-day I do not believe are very numerous when all told. Even after the War ends you will have them there. Whatever the finding of the Convention is, you will have them there. They are out for the destruction of Britain, and the time will come when you will have to deal with them. To put it in its very worst phase, if it means shooting, if it means fighting, you will have to fight, unless you give Ireland bodily over to the King's enemies. Therefore, on these grounds I feel very strongly with regard to the assurance which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Cleveland Division gave to the hon. and gallant Member for North Ayrshire (General Sir A. Hunter-Weston) in reply to his very admirable maiden speech, when he assured him that the Government and this House is full of resolution and determination and grit to win this War. I say that this House is nothing of the sort so long as it leaves Ireland in its present. unsatisfactory condition. This matter is being felt very strongly outside the House. The right hon. Gentleman when he first spoke this afternoon on the Report stage of the Bill, said
    "The whole object of this Bill is to get equality of treatment."
    Later he said that it was to remove inequalities. That is admirable so far as it goes, but it is grossly inequitable to the masses of the people of this country, whom you admit you are draining down to the very bottom in order to get your men for the Army, that there should be these hundreds of thousands of burly Irishmen who are the best of the fighting strength of this country, somc of whom would give
    1258
    us a lot of trouble, some of whom are determined enemies of the King and the country, but the vast majority of whom, I believe, if tackled with sympathy, with firmness and with purpose, are really with us, would be all right, and would be extremely valuable. This matter is felt verystrongly outside the House by the public at large. I should like to mention a small fact which justifies my making this remark. As the House probably knows, my friends and I recently put an advertisemen; in two London papers asking people to sign a petition to the Government to bring in another Bill after this to include Ireland. From these two advertisements alone appearing on one day we had close on 20,000 applications for petition forms for people to sign—a very small matter in itself, but does it or does it not indicate what. the strength of the feeling outside is? Far be it from me to take any action or to say more than I feel bound to say at present, when we have to be thankful that we can get at any rate what this Bill gives us. Those who feel strongly on the subject of Ireland would do anything in their power to help the right hon. Gentleman in his very difficult task. I have served in his Department, and have some knowledge of the enormous difficulty of the task that he is coping with. I can only hope that the Bill will provide all that he is hoping from it, and that it will carry him through victoriously in the very difficult task which he has undertaken.
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: I would remind the hon. Baronet that the right hon.Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) was a member of the War Cabinet when this Bill was introduced into Parliament, and he must assume that there was good reason for not including Ireland. However, I do not intend to discuss that question, but to reply to some remarks which he made about the Volunteer Force. I am glad he referred to it, and suggested that it should form part of a scheme of national mobilisation, but I take exception to his suggestion that the military authorities are not taking this force seriously, and that it is not effective. The exact contrary is the ease. Both Field-Marshal Lord French and his training staff, and also all the district commands and the Department at the War Office which. is directly concerned, have given a tremendous amount of attention to the force, and are showing every sympathy with its organisation, with a view to making it efficient, so that if ever it is called upon to defend these shores it would

    1259
    be equal to any battalions that it would have to face. I can say, without fear of contradiction from any man who has seen these battalions in the field, that they are really far more efficient, far more effective, and better trained than the Territorials were before the outbreak of hostilities. I remember the hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Croft) raising the whole question some months ago. In those days the force was not clothed, was not equipped and was trained almost entirely by amateurs. All that is changed now. Every Volunteer who has accepted the definite obligation under the Volunteer Act, 1916, has a modern service rifle and complete equipment, and as soon as he becomes efficient is provided with proper uniform, overcoat, and everything necessary to enable him to take the field. Every battalion, too, has now been provided with machine guns, and opportunities are given by means of free railway travelling for the battalions to be trained in field work and to have experience in bomb throwing, trench digging, and trench warfare. They also have the advantage of the facilities at the disposal of the various commands for training schools. Every Volunteer Officer can go to the training schools in the various commands, and extra officers are sent down by the generals to inspect the battalions and to see the training, which is now under paid adjutants, and to give advice.
    I am very glad the lion. Baronet raised this question, because I hope the Minister of National Service will make some reference to the force. Many of the battalions are still under strength, and a recruiting campaign is going on in different parts of the country to get every able-bodied man who is physically fit and has reached the required standard for enlistment to join, so that all the battalions shall be fully up to bayonet strength and shall meet the requirements for Home defence. There is an impression among the outside public, and also, I believe, among many of the Volunteers, that the Government does not appreciate their service. There is an idea that it is not of very great practical value and does not do much to solve the manpower problem. Everyone at present is very busy and mcst men are working overtime. The pressure of the War for three years has been a great strain on the working classes and they are not inclined to give up their leisure and their amusements to go out on a Sunday, very often on a wet
    1260
    day, unless they are quite certain they are doing something serious to help the country. If the Minister of National Service will say it is helping to ease his problem if men join the Volunteers and train in their spare time, he will make our task easier in getting the necessary recruits. I have always contended that the Volunteer Force provides one of the very practical methods of easing the pressure on the manhood of the nation, because, after all, every Volunteer remains both a producer and a wage earner. He remains part of the economic machinery of the country. At the same time, as he is trained as an efficient soldier, he helps to free a whole-time soldier to go to the front. Every efficient. Volunteer Battalion will help the Minister of National Service to provide a full-time battalion for service overseas or a Labour battalion for agricultural or other industry. If he made that clear he would be not only making his own task easier, but would be doing much to help to make the Volunteer Force really efficient and bring it up to strength.
    Sir A. GEDDES: I should like to express my thanks to the House for the very kind way in which everyone has helped to get this Bill through. It has really been a pleasure to have anything to do with a Bill of this nature, where one has felt throughout that there was nothing, even most remotely, resembling obstruction. The criticisms were real criticisms, and as a result of them we have improved the measure very much. I should like to place on record my thanks for the way in which the House has dealt with the Bill from the First Reading right through to this moment. There are one or two points to which I might refer which have been raised, and I should like to group certain of them together. There is, first, the general question of the use which could be made of soldiers in connection with civil work. Of course, the employment of soldiers as such lies outside the scope of the Department for which I am responsible, but the general principle on which they are employed is a matter in which my Department is profoundly interested. As the House is aware, there is very considerable reorganisation of the forces at home either completed or in process of completion, and there is a very definite intention to make the fullest possible use of the men who are in the Home forces, for such important work as agriculture, and so on. If I may put it in this way, they will reverse the Territorial type of

    1261
    training which the members of the Territorial force had before the War. Now, these Home defence soldiers should be soldiers for the major part of their time and do a certain amount of civil work for a smaller part of their time, just as in pre-war days the reverse was true in regard to the Territorial soldiers. That is being developed, and we hope to get a very great amount of assistance in that way from the Army which it is necessary to keep at home for Home defence. We want assistance in connection with agriculture, and possibly in connection with some of those very difficult transport problems that are such a great difficulty at the present time. There were a few other points raised in connection with the Home forces as regards the Volunteers. That again is a matter which is outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Service, but I personally have not the slightest doubt that when the reorganisation and readjustment of the Home forces to which I have just referred is completed, the Volunteers will play a very much larger and very much more important rôle than has fallen to their lot in the past. It was necessary in their earlier days to see what was going to become of them and to what degree of efficiency they would attain. Now they have become settled down upon their foundations, and it is possible to appreciate their real value. The other point was raised by the hon. Member for the Eskdale Division (Colonel C. Lowther) in regard to taking older men for service overseas. There seems to be some impression that there is at the present moment some insuperable barrier to such men being enlisted. Far from it. We are enlisting, and have been enlisting for many months, thousands of these older men, and we are employing them in all sorts of ways where men who are organically sound, but who are older than the average soldier, are most useful—in transport work, in the Army Service Corps, on railways, and in other ways as attendants and workers for the fighting battalions. With reference to certain remarks made by the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Kiley), I may say that, so far as I have been able to gather since he spoke, one of the cases to which he referred was dealt with in April of last year, and therefore did not belong to the Ministry of National Service. Another was dealt with in July, and that had nothing to do with the Ministry of National Service.
    Mr. KILEY: One of the cases related to the 12th January this year.
    Sir A. GEDDES: The dates of the other cases I will discover shortly. I am extremely sorry the hon. Member should think that there has been animus, as he described it, directed against his tribunal. I can assure him that that is not the case so far as the Ministry of National Service is concerned. With respect to the individual who is said to have tuberculosis, if he will let me have the name of the individual, so that the case may be traced, I will have full investigations made. I can hardly believe that the hon. Member has not been in some way misled, because the method of dealing with these cases is generally very fair, and I do not think that a case such as he has described could have occurred recently. With regard to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nie1d), I am afraid that I cannot agree with him that attested men are worse off than unattested men with regard to medical examination and the right of being re-examined. There is absolutely no difference in the administrative procedure with regard to the treatment of these two classes of men. They have exactly the same rights in regard to application for re-examination and exactly the same rights as to application for re-examination by the medical assessors who are attached to the Appeal Tribunal. So far as I am aware, there is neither jot nor tittle of difference in the Regulation affecting one or the other class of men. The hon. Gentleman raised rather difficult legal points, which I will have fully considered, and I will see if any steps can be taken to meet any difficulties which he has indicated.
    In conclusion, may I say to the House, and perhaps to some people outside, that it is very easy at the present moment to say that men are not forthhcoming in sufficient numbers for this, that, or the other Service. Our real difficulty at the present time is to maintain a straight, well-thought-out, well-reasoned course, through all the difficulties and amid all the various pools and currents that are directed against us in regard to this question of man-power distribution. It is not a thing that it is easy to explain to the public. One could only wish that it was much more easy. It is not that a good deal of it is secret and that it should be secret, but because it is so frightfully intricate and takes such a long time to do and is subject to such rapid changes. There is

    1263
    at the present time a very carefully considered line of policy being followed, and when one sees, as one so often does at the present time, criticism as to why this supply of men does not suddenly decrease or that supply suddenly increase, the answer is because in accordance with the carefully determined policy arrived at after the fullest consideration of all the known facts that would not be the best way to distribute the men. At the present time our most anxious man-power problems are not in connection with the supply of men for the Army. They are in connection with the production of tonnage, with transport, with the distribution of rood, and with agriculture, and after these we have the extraordinary difficult problem of supplying men for the armed forces of the Crown. Various figures have been made out which are alleged to represent the position of our forces. I can only say that I have seen no set of figures published that is correct. There are many very misleading sets of figures that. have been published. In the long statement in which I introduced the First. Heading of this Bill I gave, as fully as Possible, a fair, I hope a balanced, I hope a sane statement. of what I believe to be the position, and, on reading over what I then said, I do not think that on that. particular point, as to the question of the balance of man-power between the nations, it would be possible, without entering into an enormous mass of figures, to give a fairer general indication of the relative position in reference to man-power.
    Mr. PETO: I do not rise to complain of anything which the right hon. Gentleman has said or to disagree with any part of his statements, but to draw attention to an omission which I would have done earlier, but that I did not think he was going to reply quite so early. I desire to put briefly two or three points for the serious consideration of the Department, although perhaps his Department is not primarily so much concerned with them as are others. I refer to the use of the manpower when he has got it, which is involved in the medical side of the question. When we have enlisted in the military service the force which this Bill asks for, men who can be transferred from those other essential protected trades to which he has just referred, and when finally we send them trained overseas, vast numbers, running into many thousands, for one
    1264
    cause alone, are inefficient members of the Army. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman wants to stop this if he can. There is nothing standing in the way except certain conceptions of morality on the part of our population, that may apply to peace times and conditions. I refer to the question of preventive measures in the early stages of venereal poisoning that disable thousands of our troops, and I say that we can leave all these controversies on these moral questions aside at the present moment as far as our Army is concerned, when we realise that there have not been given to these higher officers in the medical service those definite instructions on questions of such vital importance as the proper utilisation of the men when the right hon. Gentleman secures them. God knows they are hard enough to find at the present moment, without squandering these young fellows when they do get out to France and are ready to fight.
    9.0 P. M.
    Another aspect of the same question is that there have been thousands of men—I cannot give an authoritative figure—discharged from the Army owing to wrong diagnosis of kidney disease and other things of that. kind, which, it has been found out ultimately, they have not got. And I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has taken any step to see that he is not in that direction deprived of the man-power for which he is asking the House. The third question, which is only connected through this question of supply of man-power with the right hon. Gentleman's Department, is the refusal of the medical profession to render available for specific forms of injuries to the joints the services of what are known as bonesetters, although civilians, Members of this House. members of the medical profession themselves, and their families, are constantly availing themselves of these services. I do not want to go into this matter. It has been thrashed out in the medical press. But I can show that a mere driblet of the men conic into the hands of these skilled manipulative surgeons, from medical men who are now Army medical officers, who, acting from a sense of their great duty to the men who are put into their charge, send here and there appropriate cases to. the manipulative surgeons for prompt and quick treatment, because they know that that is the way to get them cured quickly.

    1265
    I could give the right hon. Gentleman here the buff form with this brief note:
    "Dear Mr. Barker, — Would you mind having klook at Private E.'s knee? The last trvo cases were quite successful. This soldier is not quite so impecunious as the others, but treat him kindly"
    Wild horses would not induce me to give the name of that enlightened medical officer. I do not want him to be treated as some other medical men have been in this matter. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he will not allow the prejudice of any profession or any school of morality in this country to stand in the way of the utilisation of the. known discoveries of science or to allow prejudices and preconceived notions of what is orthodox stand in the. way of the efficient utilisation of the man-power which he is asking us to entrust to him? I am certain he can do a great deal. He has great scientific knowledge himself. He is perfectly familiar with those questions, and I am quite sure that if he were to say to the General Medical Council, on the one hand, and the Army Council on the other, "What you are doing—"
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir D. Maclean): The Minister in charge of this Bill does not sit on the Army Council. All these questions are for the Army Council.
    Mr. PETO: All I desire is to enlist his sympathies for the proper utilisation of the man-power for which he is responsible. I have put my points before him as briefly as I can, and I only hope that he will do his best to carry them into effect.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read the third time, and passed.

  MIDWIVES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.—[Progress, 22nd January.]
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

  MIDWIVES (IRELAND) BILL.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Constitution of the Central Midwives Board for Ireland.)
    On the passing -of this Act the Lord President of the Council shall take steps to secure the formation of a Central Midwives Board for Ireland (hereafter in this Act termed the Board), which shall consist of—

    (1) Four persons to be appointed by the Local Government Board of whom two shall be appointed after communication with the county councils and county borough coun-
    1266
    cils to represent those bodies respectively on the Board;

    (2) Eight registered medical practitioners to be appointed, one by the Senate of Dublin University, one by the Senate of the National University of Ireland, one by the. Senate of the Queen's University of Belfast, one by the Governing Body of University College, Cork, one by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, one by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, one by the Irish Committee of the British. Medical Association, and one by the Council of the Irish Medical Association;

    (3) One certified midwife practising in Ireland, to be appointed by the Lord President of the Council, when, in his opinion, midwives so qualified are available in numbers sufficient to warrant the appointment.

    On the first day of February, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, and on the first day of February in every fifth year thereafter, all the members of the Board shall retire from office altogether, but shall be eligible for reappointment, and their places shall be filled by the appointment, by the same person and bodies respectively, of a like number of members possessing, where any qualification is prescribed, the same qualifications as aforesaid.
    Any vacancy occurring by death or resignation or any cause other than retirement in ordinary course shall be filled by a member appointed by the person or body by whom the member whose office is vacated was appointed, and possessing, where any qualification is prescribed, the same qualification.
    The Board may act notwithstanding a. vacancy or vacancies in their number.
    The Board shall elect a chairman from. their own number.
    The meetings of the Board shall be held in the city of Dublin, and the members shall be paid in respect of their attendance thereat reasonable expenses on a scale approved by the Privy Council.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Arthur Samuels): I beg to move, after the word "of" ["which shall consist of"], to leave out all the words, down to the word "qualification." ["prescribed, the same qualification"], and to insert, instead thereof the words:

    1267

    (a) Three persons to be appointed by the Local Government Board, of whom one shall be a registered medical practitioner and two shall be persons appointed after consultation with the county councils and county borough councils, to represent those bodies respectively on the Central Midwives' Board;

    (b) Four registered medical practitioners to be elected by the registered medical practitioners resident in Ireland;

    (c) Four women (in this Act referred to as midwives' representatives) to be appointed by the Local Government Board, of whom three shall be appointed after consultation with recognised nursing associations in Ireland.

    (2) On the first day of February, nineteen hundred and twenty-three, and on the first day of February in every fifth year thereafter, all the appointed and elected members of the Board shall go out of office, and their places shall be filled by new elections and new appointments, but a person going out of office may, if otherwise qualified, be re-elected or re-appointed.
    (3) A woman shall not be qualified for appointment as a midwives' representative unless at the time of appointment she is resident in Ireland; and

    (a) in the case of appointments made on or after the first day of February, nineteen hundred and twenty-three, is a certified midwife; and

    (b) in the case of appointments made prior to that date possesses a qualification specified in paragraph (a), (b), or (d) of Sub-section (1) of Section two of this Act.

    (4) Any vacancy occurring by death or resignation or any cause other than retirement in the ordinary course shall be filled—

    (a) in the case of an elected registered medical practitioner, by a member co-opted by the remaining members who are elected registered medical practitioners; and

    (b) in the case of an appointed member, by a member appointed in the like manner by the authority by whom the member whose place is vacant was appointed;
    1268
    and the person so co-opted or appointed shall hold office until the time when the person in whose place he is co-opted or appointed would have regularly gone out of office and shall then go out of office.

    (5) The elections of elected members and the consultations with bodies to be consulted in connection with the appointment of appointed members shall be conducted and arranged in accordance with regulations to be made by the Local Government Board. The returning officer at the first election of registered medical practitioners shall be the Vice-President of the Local Government Board or a person nominated by him, and at any subsequent election shall be the chairman of the Central Midwives' Board or a person nominated by him.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 4 to 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 16.—(Local Supervision of Midwives.)
    Every council of a county or county borough shall be the local supervising authority over midwives within the area of the county or county borough. It shall be the duty of the local supervising authority, by themselves, or by their medical officer acting under their instruction—

    (1) to exercise general supervision over all midwives practising within their district in accordance with the rules to be laid down under this Act;

    (2) to investigate charges of malpractice, negligence, or misconduct, on the part of any midwife practising within their district, and, should a primâ facie case be established, to report the same to the Board;

    (3) to suspend any midwife from practice, in accordance with the rules under this Act, if such suspension appears necessary in order to prevent the spread of infection;

    (4) to report at once to the Board the name of any midwife practising in their district convicted of an offence under this Act;

    (5) to report at once to the Board the death of any midwife or any change

    1269
    in the name and address of any midwife in their district, so that the necessary alteration may be made in the roll;

    (6) to supply to the secretary of the Board, during the month of January of each year, the names and addresses of all midwives who during the preceding year have notified their intention to practise within their district, and to keep a current copy of the roll of midwives, accessible at all reasonable times for public inspection;

    (7) to give due notice to the effect of the Act, so far as practicable, to persons at the commencement of this Act using the title of midwife, within their district.

    The local supervision authority may delegate, with or without any instructions or conditions as they may think fit, any powers or duties conferred or imposed upon them by or in pursuance of this Act, to a committee appointed by them, and consisting, either wholly or to the extent of two-thirds or more, of members of the authority, and women shall be eligible to serve on any such committees.
    Mr. SAMUELS: I beg to move to leave out the words "women shall be eligible to serve on any such committees," and to insert instead thereof the words "including at least two women."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 17 to 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 29.—(Short Title, Extent and Commencement.)
    This Act may be cited as the Midwives (Ireland) Act, 1915, and shall apply to Ireland only. It shall, except as otherwise provided by this Act, come into operation on the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen.
    Mr. SAMUELS: I beg to move to leave out "1915," and to insert instead thereof "1918."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: Leave out the words "on the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen," and insert instead thereof the words "its passing."—[Mr. A. Samuels.]

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Certification of Midwives under Local Act.)
    As from the first day of January, nine-teen hundred and nineteen, Part VIII. of the Belfast Corporation Act, 1911 (which provides for the certification and enrolment of midwives cractising in the city of Belfast) shall be repealed, and any woman who on that day is certified under that Pant of that Act shall be certified under Section two of this Act if she claims to be so certified before the expiration of the period specified in that Section or such extension of that period as may be granted by the Central Midwives Board, and any woman who on the day aforesaid would have been certified under the said Part of the said Act, had not her certificate been temporarily withdrawn, shall, on the expiration of the period of withdrawal, be entitled to be certified under this Act in like manner.
    Brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    General M'CALMONT: Can my hon. Friend give an assurance that the Belfast Corporation approve of this Clause?
    Mr. SAMUELS: I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the Belfast Corporation Were communicated with, and they proposed a Clause practically identical.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill.
    Bill reported; as amended, considered. Read the third time, and passed.

  BISHOPRICS OF BRADFORD AND COVENTRY BILL [Lords].
  Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next..—[Sir G. Care.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEARER (Mr. Whitley) pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Ten minutes after Nine o'clock till Monday next, pursuant to the Order of the Honse of the 12th February.

WAR.
  COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES.
  COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES.
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  CO-ORDINAT1ON D1RECTORATE.
  CO-ORDINAT1ON D1RECTORATE.
  FEEDING STUFFS.
  FEEDING STUFFS.
  INTERNMENT CAMPS (RATIONS).
  INTERNMENT CAMPS (RATIONS).
  SUGAR-BEET.
  SUGAR-BEET.
  MILK.
  MILK.
  WOUNDED SOLDIERS (RELATIVES' VISITS).
  WOUNDED SOLDIERS (RELATIVES' VISITS).
  ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS (MESSRS. EASTON, GIBBS AND COMPANY.)
  ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS (MESSRS. EASTON, GIBBS AND COMPANY.)
  NERVE-STRAINED SOLDIERS.
  NERVE-STRAINED SOLDIERS.
  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MONTEAGLE BROWNE.
  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MONTEAGLE BROWNE.
  SOLDIERS LEAVE.
  SOLDIERS LEAVE.
  POLICE DISGUISES (ARMY UNIFORMS).
  POLICE DISGUISES (ARMY UNIFORMS).
  WAR SERVICES (RECOGNITION).
  WAR SERVICES (RECOGNITION).
  BRIGADIER-GENERAL ELIOTT.
  BRIGADIER-GENERAL ELIOTT.
  CAMBRAI.
  CAMBRAI.
  RUSSIAN ARMY.
  RUSSIAN ARMY.
  AIR RAIDS (DEFENCE OF LONDON).
  AIR RAIDS (DEFENCE OF LONDON).
  ARMY ORDER (OFFICERS' PAY).
  ARMY ORDER (OFFICERS' PAY).
  MILITARY HOSPITALS.
  MILITARY HOSPITALS.
  ARMY RATIONS (PACKING).
  ARMY RATIONS (PACKING).
  TOBACCO (ISSUE TO TROOPS).
  TOBACCO (ISSUE TO TROOPS).
  EX-SOLDIERS IN INDIA (REPATRIATION).
  EX-SOLDIERS IN INDIA (REPATRIATION).
  SOLDIERS ON LEAVE (PAY).
  SOLDIERS ON LEAVE (PAY).
  NOTTINGHAM PREMISES (MILITARY OCCUPATION).
  NOTTINGHAM PREMISES (MILITARY OCCUPATION).
  WOUNDED SOLDIERS (RELATIVES' VISITS).
  WOUNDED SOLDIERS (RELATIVES' VISITS).
MILITARY SERVICE.
  NON-COMBATANT CORPS (PAY).
  NON-COMBATANT CORPS (PAY).
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  MUNITIONS (CORK SHELL FACTORY).
  MUNITIONS (CORK SHELL FACTORY).
  AIR SERVICES (UNFIT OFFICERS).
  AIR SERVICES (UNFIT OFFICERS).
  CHINA (OPIUM CULTIVATION).
  CHINA (OPIUM CULTIVATION).
  CALCUTTA HIDES COMMITTEE.
  CALCUTTA HIDES COMMITTEE.
  UNIVERSITY DEGREES (WOMEN).
  UNIVERSITY DEGREES (WOMEN).
  POLICE PENSIONERS (WAR BONUS).
  POLICE PENSIONERS (WAR BONUS).
  EJECTMENT ORDERS.
  EJECTMENT ORDERS.
  REPATRIATED RUSSIANS (DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCE).
  REPATRIATED RUSSIANS (DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCE).
  RURAL RECONSTRUCTION (ADVISORS).
  RURAL RECONSTRUCTION (ADVISORS).
  MILK SUPPLY (POST-WAR POLICY).
  MILK SUPPLY (POST-WAR POLICY).
  EXPORT RESTRICTIONS.
  EXPORT RESTRICTIONS.
  RUSSIA.
  RUSSIA.
  GIN SHIPMENTS.
  GIN SHIPMENTS.
  TELEGRAM DELAYED.
  TELEGRAM DELAYED.
  PALESTINE FORCES (MAILS).
  PALESTINE FORCES (MAILS).
  NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.
  NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.
  Prisons Service (Ireland).
  Prisons Service (Ireland).
  Ex-Soldiers (Badges).
  Ex-Soldiers (Badges).
  India (Government).
  India (Government).
LORD ARMAGHDALE.
Sir John Brownlee Lonsdale, Baronet, having been created Baron Armaghdale of Armagh, in the County of Armagh—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
LORD QUEENBOROUGH.
Almeric Hugh Paget, Esquire, having been created Baron Queenborough of Queenborough, in the County of Kent—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

WILLS (SOLDIERS AND SAILORS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. Your Lordships will recollect that the Bill was postponed from last week in order that the best method of dealing with the difficulty which has arisen, having regard to some views expressed by Mr. Justice Younger in the High Court in a case which came before him, might be considered. Since 1837 the view has been held that a will made by a soldier on active service or by a sailor at sea was good although the testator might be under age; but the point has recently arisen as to whether that view, which has been acted upon since 1837, was correct. I have consulted some of my noble and learned friends, and have placed on the Paper a new clause—the insertion of which I will move after Third Reading—dealing with the point. The new clause runs: "In order to remove doubts as to the construction of the Wills Act, 1837, it is hereby declared and enacted that Section 11 of that Act authorises and always has authorised any soldier being in actual military service, or any mariner or seaman being at sea, to dispose of his personal estate as he might have done before the passing of that Act, although under the age of twenty-one years." I think that will meet the case. It would be very unfortunate if there was any doubt on the matter, as so many wills have been made by soldiers and sailors since the commencement of the war. Without further preface, I move the Third Reading of the Bill which is now before your Lordships House.
Moved, That the Bill be read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved the insertion before Clause 1 of a new clause. The noble and learned Lord said: The object of this now clause is, as I have explained, to remove doubts as to the construction of the Wills Act, 1837.
Amendment moved—
Insert the following new clause:
"Explanation of s. 11 of 7 Will. 4, & 1 Vict. c. 26.
".In order to remove doubts as to the construction of the Wills Act, 1837, it is hereby declared and enacted that section eleven of that Act authorises and always has authorised any soldier being in actual military service, or any mariner or seaman being at sea, to dispose of his personal estate as he might have done before the passing of that Act, though under the age of twenty-one years."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2:
Validity of testamentary dispositions of real property made by soldiers and sailors.
2.—(1) A testamentary disposition of any rea estate in England or Ireland made by a person to whom section eleven of the Wills Act, 1837, applies, and who dies after the passing of this Act, shall, notwithstanding that the person making the disposition was at the time of making it under twenty-one years of age or that the disposition has not been made in such manner or form as was at the passing of this Act required by law, be valid in any case where the person making the disposition was of such age and the disposition has been made in such manner and form that if the disposition had been a disposition of personal estate made by such a soldier, mariner, or seaman domiciled in England or Ireland it would have been valid.
(2) A testamentary disposition of any heritable property in Scotland made after the passing of this Act by a person to whom section eleven of the Wills Act, 1837, applies or to whom it would apply if he were domiciled in England, shall not be invalid by reason only of the fact that such person is under twenty-one years of age, provided always that he is of such age that he could, if domiciled in Scotland, have made a valid testamentary disposition of moveable property.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved to omit from subsection (1) the words "soldier, mariner, or seaman," and to insert "person." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is not much more than a drafting Amendment, and I believe that the noble and learned Lord thinks it would be right to put it in.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, leave out ("soldier, mariner, or seaman") and insert ("person").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think this is an improvement in regard to drafting, and it does not alter the meaning. I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3:
Power to grant probate to universal legatees.
3. Where by a will which is rendered valid by section eleven of the Wills Act, 1837, or by this Act all the property of the deceased is bequeathed or devised to one person or to two or more persons jointly, or in common, but no executor is appointed by the will, probate of the will may be granted to that person or those persons as if he or they had been appointed to be executor or executors by the will.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit Clause 3. The noble and learned Lord said: This clause was introduced for the purpose of avoiding the expense of administration. I find on inquiry, however, that the expense of administration is very slight in the case of small property, and that there might be some inconvenience caused by removing the security which is afforded to creditors. In these circumstances, and having regard to some possible questions that may arise upon the construction of the clause, I think that it would be better if it were removed altogether.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 3.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: The next clause after Clause 3 which stands in my name is already covered by the Amendment passed upon the initiative of the Lord Chancellor, and therefore I do not move it.
Clause 4:
Power to appoint testamentary guardians.
4. Where any person dies after the passing of this Act having made a will which is rendered valid by section eleven of the Wills Act, 1837, any appointment contained in that will of any person as guardian of the infant children of the testator shall be of full force and effect.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Clause 4 is for the purpose of dealing with the case of wills appointing a testamentary guardian for children. The Amendment that I pro-
1152
pose is this. The clause runs: "Where any person dies after the passing of this Act having made a will which is rendered valid by section 11 of the Wills Act, 1837, any appointment contained in that will of any person as guardian of the infant children of the testator shall be of full force and effect." I propose to insert, after the word "is" the words "or which, if it had been a disposition of property would have been" rendered valid by section 11 of the Wills Act.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, after ("is") insert ("or which, if it had been a disposition of property would have been").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5:
Short title and interpretation.
5.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Wills (Soldiers and Sailors) Act, 1918.
(2) For the purposes of section eleven of he Wills Act, 1837, and this Act the expression "soldier" includes a member of the Air Force, and references in this Act to the said section eleven include a reference to that section as extended by this Act.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after "as" ["reference to that section as"] to insert "explained and." The noble and learned Lord said: This small Amendment provides that the reference of this Act shall include the reference to that section as it is intended by this Act. It is desirable to insert these words so that the clause will read "as explained and extended by this Act."
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 20, after ("as") insert ("explained and").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move that the Bill do pass.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.
Order of the Day for receiving the Report of Amendments, read.
Moved, That this Report be now received.—(Viscount Peel.)
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I understand from the statement which the noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal made last night that this Motion was placed upon the

1153
Paper not so much with a desire of proceeding with the Report stage, of the measure to-day as with the object of granting further discussion upon the points which were raised in the first instance by myself, and afterwards pressed more strongly by my noble friend Lord Salisbury, as to the days on which the further discussion should be taken. We pointed out that the day—Monday next—which was proposed by His Majesty's Government appeared to offer a somewhat brief interval for the consideration of the considerable changes which affect the Bill before it can be considered at its next stage. The noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal, in a powerful reply, combatted the arguments of the noble Marquess behind me, and endeavoured to prove that as a matter of fact the discussion would not be concerned with matters of great moment, but that, although certain comparatively important points had been allowed to stand over, there was no reason why the interval to Monday should not be quite adequate for the necessary preparation. I do not think that my noble friend Lord Salisbury was in any way convinced by the arguments of the noble Earl, and I should be glad to know what the intentions of His Majesty's Government are. No doubt the Lord President will inform us with regard to the general business of the House in the early days of next week. The only fact which I lake to be established was a definite statement by the noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal that the Non-ferrous Metals Bill would be taken on Tuesday.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): Put down.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Put down for Tuesday. The remaining course of business was left in a somewhat fluid condition, and I have no doubt that the noble Earl the Lord President will be able to solidify it to some extent.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition has referred to what passed at the close of our proceedings last night. I had not myself the good fortune to be here, but I have no doubt that the summary he has given of what passed describes what then took place. My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal on that occasion proposed to
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your Lordships that you should take the Report stage of this Bill upon Monday, and to that serious objection was offered by more than one noble Lord who has taken an active part in this debate from that [the Opposition] side of the House. The matter has been under the careful consideration of my colleagues and myself this morning, and I will give to the House some further reasons for thinking my noble friend was justified in the line that he took.
In the first place, may I briefly summarise to your Lordships what have been the successive stages of this Bill, and the time that has been devoted to them. I do so, not because it directly affects the point of the day on which we take the Report stage, but because I think it will demonstrate to your Lordships and to the public that every desire has been shown to meet your wishes and your convenience in the matter, and that in no respect, and at no stage, have you been at all hurried in the discussion of this important Bill. The first Reading of the Bill was taken on December 11. I then, at the special request of several noble Lords, postponed the Second Heading for the best part of a week, until December 17. We discussed it on Second Reading for three days December 17, 18, and 19. Then, again at the request of noble Lords who wished for a sufficiently long interval in the period of the vacation to consider what Amendments they might move. I gave the best part of three weeks between Second Reading and Committee, which began on January 8. Your Lordships have devoted ten days in Committee to the consideration of this measure. I have not one word to say about, and still less against, the strictly business-like and fair-minded way in which you conducted the discussion of this measure at that stage. But I do not think it can be said that our proceedings have been characterised by any excessive speed. Indeed, your Lordships may perhaps be aware that comments, not altogether favourable, have been passed outside upon the rather leisurely way in which we are thought to have proceeded. I am not quite certain that there is not some slight foundation for that suspicion, because I find, on looking at the reports of our proceedings, that on several days in the earlier stages of the Committee we did not sit for much more than four hours in the afternoon, while later on, when we sat after dinner, I do not think that on any occasion your Lordships devoted more than six hours to the discussion of this measure.

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We now propose an interval of four days between the completion of the Committee stage last night and the taking of Report, if you are willing to agree to our proposals upon Monday. The question is whether that interval is enough. What are the subjects which remain to be considered in the interval, and which we shall be invited to take in hand on Monday afternoon? As I understand, they fall into the following categories. There are, first, a number of Amendments which my noble friend Lord Peel, who is in charge of the Bill, agreed himself to introduce on Report, in order to meet representations that were addressed to him from different quarters of the House. I do not imagine that there will either be any great trouble in preparing them, or time consumed at a later stage in discussing them. Then there were two points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, yesterday evening relating to Scotland, which were postponed to the Report stage, and upon which, again, I am told by my noble friend that he does not think any prolonged discussion to be necessary. Then there was the Amendment of my noble and gallant friend Lord Beresford, proposing the exclusion of Ireland—a matter which he patriotically was willing to postpone, both because he did not want to have anything said on the matter here while the Irish Convention was still sitting, and because only a small number of Irish Peers were present. Fourthly, there was the Schedule promised by my noble friend Lord Selborne, I understand that that Schedule, which I have not myself seen, has already been handed in, and that it will be ready to be circulated to your Lordships with the Papers to-morrow. No more time, therefore, will be required for the preparation of that document. As regards its consideration upon Monday, I hardly think it will be necessary to have a long debate upon the matter, or indeed much debate at all. The Schedule seems to me to be consequential upon the Amendment of Lord Selborne to which your Lordships gave your adhesion. I am not aware that we shall desire to discuss it at all on this side of the House.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Half the schedule is in, and the other half will be in this evening.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am obliged to the noble Earl for correcting
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me; but the whole, I understand, will be ready to be circulated to-morrow. I was saying that we on this side will have little, if anything at all, to say about the Schedule, and I do not imagine that he, after he gained his principal point the other day, will have very much to say on the matter himself. Lastly there is the Motion of which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, gave notice yesterday afternoon, and which will come up for discussion. That is already upon the Paper, and therefore, as regards that, there is ample time for your Lordships to consider it before the beginning of next week.
It appears to me, if my list is correct, and if, as I think, it is exhaustive, that really no prolonged preparation or consideration is required before your Lordships proceed to discuss upon Report all of these matters. I think Lord Crawford must have been quite right if he argued—as the noble Marquess said he did—that the big questions of principle have already been disposed of, and that there is no reason why your Lordships should not proceed with the remainder on Monday.
But there is a further, and, I think, a stronger reason for adhering to the proposed arrangement which I should like to put before you, which was not mentioned yesterday evening, and that arises out of the necessary stages of business in another place. I will endeavour as clearly as I can to put before you how matters there stand. It had been hoped, after a short interval for a holiday, to open the new session of Parliament on February 5, in order to give time for the necessary despatch of business, financial and other, before Easter. But I fear that the action which your Lordships have taken in the last few days of this Bill will in any case mean that next week will be devoted in both Houses of Parliament to a large extent to the consideration of this measure. There are the Report stage and Third Reading to be taken here; there will then be the discussion in another place upon the Amendments that you have thought fit, or that you propose, to introduce. It seems unlikely in these circumstances that even this session will be terminated at the date I named—namely, February 5.
I invite your Lordships to consider what will happen if the opening of the next session is thereby postponed until the Tuesday following—the date on which Parliament usually reopens—namely, Feb-

1157
ruary 12. The governing date in this matter is March 15. By that time, the Consolidated Fund Bill must become law, because the money at the disposal of the Government lasts out only until that day. Now, between February 12 and March 15 there are in the other House only nineteen Parliamentary days, exclusive of Fridays. If we allow in the House of Commons three days for the debate on the Address, and fifteen days for the Supply Services discussed in that House—and, as your Lordships know very well, the number of days allotted to that matter is fixed by rule and cannot be departed from—there will be one day only between February 12 and March 15, exclusive of Fridays, which it will be in the power of the House of Commons to devote to the discussion of any of those extraneous subjects, even of the highest importance, which are liable to be raised in connection with the war, or otherwise, at any moment.
If this time-table is to be imposed upon the House of Commons, I think the members of that House will feel that they are being driven very hard. I doubt whether they will altogether like it; and I am not clear that it will predispose them to a very favourable attitude towards the important proposals that are coming to them from your Lordships' House I hope, therefore, in connection both with this House and with the other House, that I have given your Lordships sufficient reasons for thinking that it would be wise on your part if you did not decide to interpose any further delay at this stage. I think it might be said, if we sought for a longer interval than four days between Committee and Report, that we were unduly solicitous about our own convenience, and that we paid an insufficient regard to the prosecution of public business. In these circumstances, I trust that your Lordships will agree to allow the Report Stage to be taken on Monday.
I ought to add to what I have said that there will be in all probability no sitting to-morrow. We had contemplated taking the Military Service Bill then, but I understand that it has not made sufficient progress in the House of Commons to enable us to do so. I assume that we shall put that Bill down for First Reading on Monday, and take the further stages during the course of that week.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the noble Earl the Leader of the
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House has given a full account of the reasons why he presses upon your Lordships that we should take the Report stage of the Representation of the People Bill on Monday. He spoke of the leisurely proceedings of your Lordships' House. I cannot think that we are open to any animadversion which may be contained in that word. We have worked really very hard, and the fact that we have not sat very late every day is not the proper criterion. As your Lordships know, the debates in this House are of a much more substantial kind than the debates in the other House. A close attention to the subject in hand is perpetually practised in this House, and if is necessary to attend to every word that is said. This throws a very much heavier burden, not only upon the listeners, but upon those who are taking part in the debate.
But I must say this—I hope the Government will not think it unfair of me—a great deal of time might have been saved if it had not been thought to be the duty of the Government to take what they called a neutral attitude on a considerable number of clauses. I am not criticising them for taking a neutral attitude if that is their duty. Anybody who has the least familiarity with Parliamentary proceedings knows that, unless a Legislative Assembly has a lead in its debates, a great deal of unnecessary time is always consumed; and I think that any of your Lordships who watched the proceedings on the woman suffrage clause, on the conscientious objector clause, and on the proportional representation clause, must have been aware that, if the Government had thought it their duty to make up their minds, it would have shortened the proceedings.
Apart from all that, however, may I say to the Government that I think they underrated from the very beginning the importance with which the country and your Lordships' House regarded this Bill; because in the early stages of the Bill in this House I think it was at one time gravely proposed that we should begin the Committee stage before Christmas. In those days, noble Lords sitting on the Front Bench opposite thought this Bill was very much like one of the ordinary Bills we discuss, of the Second Reading of which you could dispose in a day, and on which it would not be unreasonable if the Committee stage lasted only three days. But if you take the constitution of the House of Commons to pieces, and the method

1159
by which it is elected, and roll two or three Bills into one, and then produce that Bill for discussion, that is a very considerable matter, and one which requires a great deal of discussion. I do not think that your Lordships have taken ten minutes too long over the discussion of this Bill. I am sure that I command the assent, of everybody, including my noble friend the Leader of the House, when I say that the discussion (except in the one particular to which I have referred) has been a strictly businesslike one all through, and we could not have been shorter than we have been.
VISCOUNT MILNER: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: In those circumstances I do not think that there is any blame to be attached to your Lordships' House in regard to their conduct in connection with the Bill. The Government then say that we ought not to take more than four days between Committee and Report. My noble friend enumerated the sort of questions that we should have to discuss on Report, but I observed that he left out all mention of the soldiers' vote, which was the genesis of this Bill and the only tiling upon which it was really founded. That matter was not satisfactorily settled at the Committee stage but was left over for consideration on Report. There was also the very important question as to the Authority of your Lordships' House with reference to the approval or non-approval of the Orders in Council under the Bill. That also was left over until Report. I think there will be found to be many other questions to be dealt with. Then there are certain points as to the interval of days the days which are left between the nomination and the polling—which subject we did not discuss at all, because it would have been impossible to ask your Lordships to pay attention to it in the course of the voluminous matter which we had to discuss in Committee.
I should like to ask my noble friend the Leader of the House how long the House of Commons took between the Committee stage and the Report stage. I will venture to say that they took a great deal more than, four days. Why should we be considered, to be so very unfair if we want a little more time? What is there in the House of Lords that should lead my noble friend to think that we require less time to
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discuss a very difficult Bill than the House of Commons? Let us take the particular four days which my noble friend allots to us. He says that this important Schedule of my noble friend Lord Selborne will be handed in to-night. I believe it will, with a great deal of difficulty; but I am not sure whether it will be circulated to-morrow morning, and it has to reach noble Lords in the country. There is also the new print of the Bill. Your Lordships know the present condition of the post. I should think that it is doubtful whether most noble Lords will see the Amendments for Report stage until Monday morning. Are we to be asked to consider important Amendments in a few hours? I am sure my noble friend will agree that, if he could have arranged it otherwise, he would have done so. It is unreasonable on the face of it that your Lordships should be asked within the space of a few hours to go through a most complicated Bill, which has been immensely changed in the course of its passage through Committee, together with new Amendments. I think that the case for a little more time is very strong indeed; and I believe that my noble friend—who I know has at heart the dignity of your Lordships' House, and a desire to make its debates effective—will see that we are entitled to that for which we respectfully ask—namely, a little more time. I leave it confidently to his conscience
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, this seems to me to be a question which must appeal to individual opinions in this House, and one upon which individual opinions may well vary: therefore I trust that your Lordships will forgive me if I intrude upon you what is nothing but my own personal opinion upon this question. I do not propose for a moment to investigate whether too much time was taken in the Committee Stage of this Bill or not. I agree with the noble Marquess that upon the whole the business was expeditiously, and, if you will forgive me for saying so, most efficiently conducted. Nor am I prepared to agree with the criticisms that the neutral attitude of the Government prolonged the debate. It might have done so, but it was a result inseparable from the conditions under which the Bill was introduced. It is idle for us to assume that this Bill comes before your Lordships for consideration in the ordinary form of a Government measure. It is indeed a Government Bill, but it is the Bill of a Government in which opinions

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must necessarily have been widely different upon many of its essential provisions and I think it would have been asking too much of the Government, and would have required of their members too great a sacrifice of individual opinion, to have asked them on every Amendment to throw the shield of their authority in front of the Bill and to say, By this Clause we stand, and we ask the House to follow us.
Therefore I do not think that for present purposes it is profitable to consider what it was that caused us to occupy the time already taken over this Bill. The real question is this, Is the time proposed by the noble Earl the Leader of the House as that which is to elapse between now and the date fixed for the Report Stage sufficient to enable people, who are anxious to see the Bill leave this House in the best possible form, to formulate their views and consider the arguments by which they are to be advanced? I am not for the moment saying that longer time might not be convenient. The noble Earl never suggested anything of the kind. I feel sure that were he unfettered by the exigencies of the case he would have been prepared to grant a far more abundant period; but in truth we are constrained by circumstances that we cannot control. It is obvious to any one, and becomes more obvious to a person like myself who has only recently had the honour of joining in your Lordships' debates, that the conditions under which Bills are brought before you for consideration are conditions that throw a very great strain upon your Lordships as a body. It may be impossible to avoid it, having regard to the ways in which the two Houses sit, but the fact is so, and we have to accommodate ourselves to it.
What has happened in the course of this Committee is this, that a most important Amendment has been introduced which cannot fail to impede the progress of the Bill. It must render the further progress of the Bill a more protracted and difficult thing than it would otherwise have been. It has been introduced by a very large majority of your Lordships' House, who are convinced that it is an important and essential condition; but even that action on the part of your Lordships is liable to misinterpretation, and the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, found it necessary to send a telegram to the Labour Conference to impress upon them the fact that the inclusion of this clause would not unduly
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impede, and certainly was not intended to impede, the further progress of this Bill. But the very fact that he found it necessary to explain his attitude to that large gathering of Labour people in those terms is a most convincing and cogent reason why nobody should be able to say that your Lordships have not made every sacrifice to expedite the remaining stages of the Bill. If it could be said that the time reserved was wholly insufficient, and that it was impossible for any who had attended to the progress of the Bill with the same unvarying diligence as the noble Earl (Lord Selborne) who sits behind me and the noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury) who has just spoken, to prepare their Amendments, then of course the time must be extended. Is it so?
Every single Amendment that comes up on Report may be assumed to deal with a subject that has already been, in part at least, considered. One or two things have been reserved for Report for more abundant consideration, but they are before the mind and eves of everybody who has followed the Bill. What is left? It may be the necessity of formulating in writing the actual Amendments which it is desired to move. Much of that has already been done; and for the rest I am quite satisfied—and on this I speak with some little experience that any one who has been engaged in the discussion of this Bill and who has taken the Bill home and examined it with the Amendments diligently could in the course of twenty-four hours produce in writing any Amendment which it is desired to submit. I do not say that there will not be some personal inconvenience and strain put upon noble Lords, but it is an inconvenience and a strain which in the circumstances in which we stand ought in my humble judgment to be accepted, and nothing should be done for which this House could possibly be accused of delaying by a single hour the passage of this measure.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I want to say one word in reference to the speech of the noble Earl who leads the House; but so far as the date for taking the subsequent stage of the Bill is concerned, I am neutral. I am quite prepared to take the Report Stage on Monday, if necessary, and the noble Earl produced some very convincing dates and figures which show that we should press on as much as we can. I hope that the

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Government will understand that the action which I took in producing my Amendment last night was, although not altogether regular, due to a genuine desire to minimise the difficulty.
One comment I want to make upon the noble Earl's review of the dates, which did not seem to me to be quite fair to this House. He spoke rather as if he thought we had been unduly long in considering this Bill. The dates, of course, which he gave were perfectly correct—December 11 for the First Reading, December 17, 18, and 19 for the Second Reading, and then he said there was an interval of three weeks before we took Committee. But those were not three weeks of Parliamentary time, but were the three weeks of the whole year when, perhaps, it was most difficult to get any conference between those who were going to move Amendments. The period included the whole of the Christmas and New Year holidays, which took up from twelve to fourteen days. This Bill, of enormous importance—I need not magnify its importance—was introduced here on December 11, and we are now on the 24th of January, an interval of at the most about six weeks, with the Christmas holidays intervening. The other House of Parliament took eight months, because the Bill was first before them in April or May. As between the two Houses, one took eight months and the other six weeks, with the Christmas holidays intervening; and it does not seem altogether fair that we should be regarded as having taken too long over the passage of the Bill. I hope it will be understood that we are not responsible, but another place, for the length of time which has elapsed since the main provisions of the Bill were known. It does seem to me, even allowing the utmost consideration for the much greater concern of the other House in this Bill, that the treatment of the two Houses has been very different in regard to it.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: My Lords, I am reluctant even to add a single word to this debate, but I venture to put one or two considerations before the noble Earl which he may not have taken into account. In the first place, I think it very undesirable that any blame should be attempted to be thrown either upon this House or upon the Government for the time occupied by the discussion of this Bill. It appears to me, if I may venture to add to what has been already said, that
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the House has shown remarkable power and remarkable assiduity and compression in dealing with the several issues which have been raised in the course of the discussion at the different stages of the Bill, and that no blame whatever can be thrown upon this House for the way in which the conduct of the Bill has been undertaken and carried through. Indeed, I have not seen or heard, I must confess—it may be found in some pages or may have been heard from some lips—any comment critically of the time which has been taken by this House in consideration of the Bill.
I may say, with respect to the period that intervened between the Second Reading and the Committee, that that period, as my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh has just said, was the Christmas time, when work was quite impossible. But the noble Earl who leads the House will bear me out when I say that, even in the midst of Christmas, I troubled him with a suggestion as to a step that I thought might be taken which would help forward the progress of the Bill after the House reassembled. I only point that out to show the way in which at all stages, I think, every attempt was made to facilitate the progress of the Bill.
I recognise the cogency of the time limit of March 15. I know all that must be done before that period pretty well; but it is not necessary that every day of that time, although nominally occupied by the different stages of the Consolidated Fund Bill and the first Votes necessary for embodiment in that Bill, shall be wholly occupied by financial business. On the contrary, I venture to think that some of the days will be only slightly occupied by financial business, and that there will be scope left in the remainder of the sitting for other business to be taken up and discussed in another place. The real question is that put by my noble friend Lord Buckmaster, as to whether the period between this and Monday is enough for the formulation and consideration of the Amendments which must be considered on the Report stage. I admit the help that has been given by printing the Bill as it has passed from time to time, but we shall not see the Bill reprinted in its entirety before to-morrow, if to-morrow; and, as Lord Salisbury has observed, members of the House going into the country—
VISCOUNT PEEL: The Bill is on the Table, reprinted, at the present moment.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: It has not been circulated, and it will not reach us under conditions fit for study and consideration until to-morrow, or Peers in the country before a later date. I confess I should have hoped that another day might have been given us, and that we should not he called upon on Monday to give a close consideration to the Report stage of the Bill. We, are necessarily in the hands of the Government, and we shall probably have to bow to their decision, but there are real points of consideration as to what will follow from the Amendments already formulated even, and already made known to your Lordships, which it is very difficult to take up until we have got them before us in print and in our own homes. I am unwilling to refer in present circumstances to any special difficulties which I have on my own part, but everybody knows what difficulties there must be besetting the consideration of the different Amendments, even limited as they may be in the opinion of the noble Earl who leads the House, in the course of Monday so as to be ready for discussion on Monday evening.
LORD ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, the noble Lord opposite said that the Bill had been before this House for only six weeks and was before the House of Commons for eight months, and he therefore rather argued that six weeks was too short a time for us; but I think we must all realise that the conditions are entirely different. When a Bill comes before the other House nobody knows anything about it. A Bill of this importance takes a long time to explain, and the public have to get to know about it. What have we been debating during the last week? Proportional representation. And why? Because that has been taken up by people outside, because it has been taken up by the agricultural classes, and because they have instigated noble Lords here to act for them and represent them. We have had the benefit of the eight months in which the House of Commons have been considering it. The Bill comes to us not as a new thing. We have read the debates in another place, we know all about the measure, and we are able to concentrate on some of the points which are highly debatable. I think it is not a fair proceeding to compare the six weeks in this House with the eight months in the House of Commons. The six weeks are not in substitution for the eight months,
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but are a sequel and addition to them. I hope the Government will stick to their resolution and go on.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I own that I am a little surprised to hear from the noble Lord who has just sat down that we have all read the debates in the House of Commons on the Representation of the People Bill. I own I have made it a practice to try and read something of those debates. In my long experience in the House of Commons, that was one of the habits I acquired; but I do not find, in trying to read those debates, or as much of them as I can give the time and labour to, that I acquire all the valuable information which the noble Lord seems to think must necessarily follow from perusing documents regarding the House of Commons.
I am amazed, I confess, remembering what happened always in the House of Commons all through my long experience there, that any one should think we are treating this subject in a leisurely manner, as the noble Earl seems to think, because we have occupied the time we have already taken in the consideration of this question. In the whole course of my political career, beyond all possible question this has been the gravest and most important subject that has ever been submitted to either House of Parliament, certainly in my time. If ever there was a Bill that demanded the most careful and thorough consideration that ever was given to any Parliamentary measure, I should say that this is the one.
I do not want to delay the House. I am still one of those who think that this Government had no business whatever, having regard to their statements on other occasions, to have introduced this Bill at all; but I am not going again into that. We should bear in mind, I think, that if they do find themselves in difficulties with regard to time they have no one else but themselves to blame. What I should like to do, and I shall limit myself to that, is to reinforce, if I can, the appeal that has been made. I cannot conceive why, in all these circumstances, we should not be permitted to have another day of consideration before we are asked to go on with the Report stage. We are told—I have not seen them myself—that the very important Amendments to be moved by my noble friend Lord Selborne will not in all probability be in our hands to-morrow, and that many

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noble Peers will not have the opportunity of seeing them until next week. I had been hoping for a long time to get a day or two's holiday, but owing to some unfortunate accident I have not had one, and I should be glad to get a quiet Sunday elsewhere. If I cannot get the concession suggested by my noble friend sitting on the Cross Benches, I shall not be satisfied unless I am content not to be acquainted with the various matters we shall have to discuss. I hope that I am not making what is in the least an extravagant demand when I say that the noble Earl might at least make this concession.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I do not propose further to prolong the discussion. Greatly as I should like to give to the noble Viscount who has just addressed us that period of repose for which he yearns. I am afraid I cannot on that ground depart from the attitude which I before took up. This question has, I think, been very fairly debated on both sides, and the only remark I would like to add is this, that in so far as I referred to comments that have been made from the outside as to what have been described as our rather leisurely proceedings—comments which I do not endorse myself in the smallest degree that charge related not to the manner in which your Lordships have dealt with the Bill, than which nothing could have been more businesslike, industrious, or capable; neither did it relate to the amount of time, be it large or small, which you have devoted to the Bill. It sprung merely from the fact, as has been known to the outside public, that we have devoted in the various debates in Committee not always a great many hours to the Bill itself. That is a criticism to which I do not think we need attach much importance, and upon which I certainly myself desire to lay no emphasis. My Lords, I hope, as a general result of the discussion, I am justified in concluding that your Lordships—a great majority of your Lordships—will not dissent if the Government carry out their desire to put down the, Report stage upon Monday next. May I say, in view of the great importance of the subjects that will come up for discussion then, on which so much stress has naturally been laid, that your Lordships will, I am sure, agree to sit after dinner on that day, the House meeting at the usual hour.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned until Monday.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Debate adjourned until Monday.

METROPOLITAN POLICE BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, this is a very simple Bill for increasing the Police rate. As is stated in the Memorandum, the present amount of the Metropolitan Police rate is fixed by the Act of 1912 at 11 d. in the £, of which 4d. is payable by the Exchequer Contribution Account. The increase is necessary in view of the amount of bonuses paid to the Police, amounting to 12 s. a week, with 2s. 6d. for each child. During the present financial year the full amount of the remaining 7d. has been raised by the rate. The amount required for the coming financial year cannot be stated with absolute certainty, but it is estimated that a rate of 8d. will be required. If the men now serving with the Forces and those employed at the Admiralty and War Office should return to the Police force while the economic conditions are the same, and therefore still necessitating the war bonus, the sum required might be increased. It is therefore proposed to raise the limit of the rate from 11 d. to 1s. 1d., but if the rate is to be raised beyond 1s. a Minute will be laid before Parliament giving the reasons. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, this is a Bill which is interesting from the point of view of the London County Council, and it is from that point of view that I desire to say a few words upon it. It is also of interest to many of your Lordships other than those who are now adorning these Benches, because the larger proportion of the members of this House are ratepayers in London, and the position of the Police rate and the relation to that rate of the Imperial contribution are facts which might, I think, have attracted a larger

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number than at this moment is to be found here.
The facts are these. The noble Viscount opposite has stated that, in lieu of an 11 d. maximum, a 1s. 1d. maximum is now to be provided; and for 10 d., which formerly was the limit which did not require a statement to be laid before Parliament, 1s is now substituted. My Lords, that is a considerable increase, and I may remind the House that the Police rate has been steadily rising for a number of years. In the year 1908–9 the Police rate was 6¾d. In 1912–13 it was 8¼ d. That increase was not regular or progressive because in one year it somewhat fell but the increase, although not regular by years, was substantial, over the term of years, as your Lordships see; or, to put the tiling in another way, the Police rate in ten years increased by 3¼ d., meaning an addition of £830,000 a year to the rates of which most of us pay our share a sum which will be increased to a considerable amount if the Bill of the noble Lord is carried. The Exchequer contributed about £110,000 a year of the increase. In the year 1908, with a sort of splendid gesture, the Government decided that it would pay £100,000 to the London Police in consideration of the Imperial character of that force. Lump grants of that kind sound very well, but of course their relative value greatly diminishes as the total charge continues to increase, and the general effect is that the London Police Force, over which the ratepayers have no control whatever, is paid for by the ratepayers to the extent of two-thirds. My Lords, that is a significant state of things.
We all know the arguments which have prevailed for making the Police force of London not a municipal but an Imperial force. It is generally assumed, where control is exercised, that at any rate a considerable part of the cost of the service is payable by those who have to exercise control. That salutary rule is entirely departed from in the instance of the London Police. A Departmental Committee on Local Taxation, which reported in 1914, recommended that one half of the cost of the London Police service should be borne by the Exchequer. That proposal was adopted by the Government, of which I was a member, and was inserted in the Finance Bill of 1914, which your Lordships will remember was afterwards withdrawn. If we had proceeded with that Bill, and it
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had been passed when the present Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, half of the increased expenditure of late years would have been borne by Imperial funds, and the rate during the last few years, instead of being 8¼d., would have been just over 6d., with a saving of something like £600,000 a year to London.
I really do not know what case the Government can make out for imposing this new extra charge on the rates of London. It cannot be said that the extra payments of a war bonus, and so on, which add to the cost of Police, are in any sense due to municipal action, or to any increase in the cost of municipal services. They form, as I should have thought only natural, part of the burden placed upon the country generally by the war. The war allowances are only paid to the Metropolitan Police as to other public servants, and in considering how much of the share of the Police work is to be regarded as national and not merely local, I confess we should have thought and it is a grievance that is deeply felt by Londoners—that the Government might have done somewhat more towards meeting the large burdens placed upon us locally. The London rates, as your Lordships know, are no small matter, and an addition of this kind, which appears to us to be gratitutious, is deeply felt by those who speak for London on the County Council. I wish there was some possibility of the Government taking this case into consideration with a view to further action.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I have just one or two words to say, in reply to the noble Marquess. I have followed his résumé with great interest and sympathy, because it so happens that, being a Londoner and my only place of residence being in London, I know something of the weight of the London rates. The noble Marquess will see in the Memorandum that the bonuses, which he mentioned, do account for a large, sum of money. I quite agree with what he said upon that. It is about £580,000 a year, or equal to a rate of 2½d. Whether, of course, that should be placed on the rates or should be a national burden is rather a larger question. But in regard to his hope that the Government would take into consideration the whole incidence of this taxation, may I point out that it was stated last night by the Secretary of State for the Home Department that he

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was willing to consider the matter in the future, but, of course, before the end of the war he was unable to take any practical steps.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Moved, That the House do adjourn, except for Judicial business, until Monday next.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at fifteen minutes before six o'clock.