Sitting of 8 July 1918

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
Rotherham Corporation Bill,
As amended, considered.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Sir Donald Maclean): I beg to move, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time."
Mr. BOOTH: May I ask what is the special reason for this Motion?
Sir D. MACLEAN: The reason for the Motion which I have just moved is that at this time of the Session it becomes rather difficult to get business through in the other House. The Motion is for the purpose of sending this Bill to the other House with rather more expedition than would otherwise be the case. It is a form of Motion which is quite usual at this time of the year.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed
Sheffield Corporation (Consolidation) Bill,
As amended, considered.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.
Bristol Corporation Bill [Lords],
Calthorpe Estate Bill [Lords],
Read a second time, and committed.
Scarisbrick Estate Bill [Lords],
To be read a second time To-morrow.

NEW WRIT.
For the Borough of Finsbury (East Division), in the room of Joseph Allen Baker, Esquire, deceased.—[Mr. Gulland.]
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.
Copy presented of Sixty-first Annual Report of the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, 1917–18 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS.
Copy presented of Regulations, dated 28th June, 1918, made by the Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Insurance Committees' Amendment) Regulations, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION (WALES) REGULATIONS.
Copy presented of Regulations, dated 28th June, 1918, made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee, acting jointly with the Welsh Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Inquiries as to Medical Practitioners and Chemists) Regulations (Wales), 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS.
Copy presented of Annual Statistical Report by the University Court of the University of St. Andrews for 1916–17 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1889 (ORDINANCE).
Copy presented of University Court Ordinance, No. 70 (Ordinance of the University Courts of the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, General, No. 3 (Regulations as to admission to the Scottish Universities for purposes of graduation) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 84.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    BRITISH DYES, LIMITED (CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government propose to compensate the widows
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    and orphans of the ten Irish workmen who were lost at sea by the sinking of the steamship "Fern" on 23rd April; and whether he is aware that these men were engaged by the Labour Exchange at Dublin on behalf of the British Dyes Company, Huddersfield, and that, although the facts have been brought to the notice of the company and the Board of Trade by the hon. Member for the Harbour Division, so far no compensation has been paid?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir A. Stanley): There is no Government, compensation scheme applicable to passengers in cases of the kind to which this question relates. I understand, however, that so far one claim under the Workmen's Compensation Act has been made to British Dyes, Limited, and is now being considered.
    Mr. KING: As this matter has been hanging over a very long time, and I put off this question by request for a fortnight, can we be assured that the Board of Trade is taking steps to get these men their rights?
    Sir A. STANLEY: The Board of Trade can take no steps of which I am aware. We have no jurisdiction in the matter whatever.
    Mr. KING: Does not the Government exercise a great deal of authority and power over British Dyes, Limited? Is it not a Government concern?
    Sir A. STANLEY: No. British Dyes, Limited, is not a Government concern. They may have a loan from the Government, but the latter have no control.
    Sir E. CARSON: Have these men, or the widows of these men, the same rights as Englishmen in similar circumstances?
    Sir A. STANLEY: Certainly.

    COAL PRICES.
    Sir ARTHUR FELLasked the President of the Board of Trade if the Order under which the retail price of coal is advanced 2s. 6d. a ton from the 24th June is to be enforced in the case of coal ordered by the consumer long prior to that date but not delivered by the coal merchant until after the 24th June?
    Sir A. STANLEY: The answer is in the affirmative.

    ENEMY SUBJECTS (PATENTS).
    Sir EDWARD CARSONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will say how many applications for the grant of patents have been received from enemy subjects since the outbreak of the War; and how many such applications have been accepted?
    Sir A. STANLEY: One thousand three hundred and ten applications for the grant of patents have been received from enemy subjects since the outbreak of the War, of which 944 have been accepted.

    TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT.
    Major NEWMANasked the President of the Hoard of Trade whether he will ascertain the actual purchasers of the business of Bruno Schulze and Sons, Sudbury, Suffolk, trading as the Sudbury Casings Company, and recently sold under the Trading With the Enemy Act to one J. T. Cant in trust for a third party; will he say what was the nature of the business carried out by the Sudbury Casings Company; and what business is carried out by its actual purchasers?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am informed that the business of Bruno Schulze and Sons, of Sudbury, Suffolk, was recently submitted for sale by auction and that the highest bidder was Mr. Cant, of Colchester, who, it has since been stated to the Controller, is the manager of a firm of gut manufacturers, Messrs. Wambach and Company, of Colchester. The sale has not been completed and further inquiry is being made. The business sold is described as the manufacture of sausage skins and the spinning of gut.

    COAL MINERS (WAGES).
    Major HENRY TERRELLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the circular letter issued by the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners' Association stating that in the South Wales coalfield the prevailing wages of different classes of underground labour, inclusive of war period house coal advantages, are between 74 per cent. and 170 per cent. higher than those ruling in July, 1914; and whether he has any official information supporting these figures, seeing that in the Report of the Departmental Committee
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    appointed by the Board of Trade (Cd. 9093), on page 8, it is stated that in some of the coalfields the wages are at least 40 per cent. higher than they were immediately before the War?
    Sir A. STANLEY: The statement made in the Departmental Committee's Report (Command 9093) refers to the time at which that Report was made, namely, April, 1917. At that time the increase in the general wages rates in South Wales collieries was about 46 per cent. above the rates in July, 1914. In September, 1917, a flat rate increase of 9s. per week was conceded by the Government to all colliery workers, which increased the percentage over pre-war wages to a figure which depends upon the actual rate of wages received by any class of worker, the percentage being greatest in the case of the lowest paid classes. In the case of no class of workers, however, have the percentage increases occasioned by general wages advances been anything approaching the higher figure given by the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners' Association. This figure is not typical of that or any other coalfield, and is based upon the wages of one small class of the lowest paid underground labour, and includes advances in the basis rate of this class and an estimated allowance representing the increased value of workmen's coal which is supplied at the pre-war price. It is believed that neither of the last two factors are taken into account in the figure given by the Departmental Committee.
    Major TERRELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what is the class to which he refers?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I cannot give the information myself, but I will make inquiries and let the hon. and gallant Member know.

    VON DER HEYDT AND COMPANY (WINDING UP).
    Mr. RONALD McNEILLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the firm of Von der Heydt and Company, of 6, Austin Friars, consisted, at the outbreak of war, of three Germans, two of whom returned to Germany and one, Von Andreae, was left to carry on the business; that the latter subsequently took into partnership an English clerk who was called up for military service last year; and that in consequence of

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    action in Parliament a controller was appointed, who is still keeping on the business; and if he will say why this small German bank has not been wound up long ago?
    Sir A. STANLEY: A winding-up order was made in this case on the 11th June, 1917, and the winding-up is now practically completed. Having regard to the complicated questions arising in the course of the winding-up, the matters that it has been necessary to submit to the Court for consideration, and the large number of securities that have had to be vested in the Public Trustee, I am of opinion that the winding-up has been conducted with due expedition.
    Mr. McNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the first two parts of the question with regard to the position of this firm at the time of the outbreak of War?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry I have not the official information. If the hon. Gentleman will put down a question I will answer it.
    Mr. WATT: Is Von Andreae still going about London?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I cannot say.
    Major NEWMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Von der Heydt is a well-known German spy?
    Sir A. STANLEY: No; I am not aware of that.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      FRESHWATER FISH COMMITTEE.
      Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the President of the Board of Agriculture what steps have been already taken to increase the available supply of freshwater fish and eels; and whether a further Report of the Committee on Freshwater Fish is shortly expected?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Richard Winfrey): The Freshwater Fish Committee has issued two Reports, the first in August, 1917, the second, on Eel Fisheries, in December last. The first Report contains certain suggestions for facilitating the capture of freshwater fish, such as the curtailment of close seasons and the removal of certain restrictions, all of which have been put into effect. In
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      addition, boards of conservators and other bodies have been urged, usually with success, themselves to undertake or to facilitate increased captures of coarse fish. Practical steps are being taken to give effect to recommendations of the Committee for the development of the stock of eels and the capture of a greater proportion of the available stock. The German-owned station at Epney on the River Severn for the capture of elvers was taken over and worked, and about 1,100,000 elvers were distributed from that source to suitable waters elsewhere. Active preparation is being made for the capture of migrating eels during the autumn run, in suitable waters, both inland and on the coast. Practical advice and assistance have been given to numerous persons desirous of making arrangements for the capture of eels in private waters. A leaflet on the capture of eels has been published, 2,000 copies of this leaflet have already been disposed of, and the demand still continues. Measures are now under discussion for the control and development of waste waters in various localities which are suitable for eel culture. A further Report will be issued by the Committee in due course, but it is not yet possible to suggest an approximate date for its publication.

      POTATOES.
      Major WOODasked the President of the Board of Agriculture what was the total acreage of land in Lancashire scheduled under the Wart Disease (Potato) Orders as infected prior to June, 1915; and, further, what additional acreage was scheduled in Lancashire in the years June, 1915, to June, 1916, June, 1916, to June, 1917, and June, 1917, to June, 1918?
      Sir R. WINFREY: The figures relating to the actual acreage of lands scheduled under the Wart Disease of Potatoes Orders in Lancashire cannot be readily stated. The spread of the disease is indicated by the fact that the number of individual premises scheduled has increased from 896 on the 1st June, 1915, to 2,235 on the 1st June, 1918, while during, the same period the number of infected areas declared under the Wart Disease of Potatoes (Infected Areas) Order of 1914 has increased from twenty-two to fifty-five.
      Mr. WATTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why his Department fixed so high a retail price

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      for new potatoes in Scotland as 2½d. per lb. during the first half of July, equal to £23 6s. 8d. per ton, in view of the fact that £6 to £6 10s. per ton. is considered a satisfactory price for late potatoes, which cost quite as much to grow and do not permit of a second crop on the land; and will he say whether his Department consulted only early potato growers in fixing these prices?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): I cannot usefully add anything to the answer given last Thursday to a similar question on this subject.
      Mr. WATT: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the most marked preference is given in Scotland to the grower of new potatoes over the grower of others?
      Mr. CLYNES: It is not that a preference is given to the grower of new potatoes as compared with the grower of other potatoes, but that quite different circumstances apply to the new potatoes.

      BEER.
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the present shortage of beer is in any way due to the refusal of brewers to brew the whole of the quantity permitted under the restrictions laid down by his Department, one of which is that the average gravity or strength of the beer shall not exceed 1,030 degrees in Great Britain and 1,045 degrees in Ireland; if so, whether he will take steps to ensure the full quantity being brewed in future?
      Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. Practically the whole of the permitted output is being produced, and the only known exception is due to shortage of labour. I may add that this denial equally applies to the suggestion that the charge for brewing for munition workers has affected the supply of beer in munition areas.

      MILK.
      Mr. WRIGHTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether it is his intention to appoint a small Committee to inquire into the financial questions raised by the recommendations of the Astor Committee in connection with the milk supply; and, if
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      so, whether the Treasury and the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries will be represented on the Committee?
      Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I have invited each of the Departments mentioned to nominate a member to serve on the Committee, and I have made a similar request to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Reconstruction.

      TEA.
      Mr. LOUGHasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (1) whether, in view of the fact that in the instructions issued (L.G. 5) for the guidance of licensees under the new Tea Distribution Order it is stated that buying indents are only to be accepted from retailers whom the licensee was supplying during the datum period, and that the tea available for any licensee in the period from the 14th July to the 28th December, 1918, will not exceed the quantity entered by the licensee on his return to the Tea Control Committee, in order that the distribution of tea shall be kept during the War in the existing channels, he will say whether the ballot that has now taken place has been carried out on these lines; if these arrangements are being set aside, in accordance with what principles will the distribution of tea take place in the future, and how the firms will be selected to whom any monopoly which may be created will be entrusted; (2) whether the supplementary instructions issued on the 25th June to licensees under the new Tea Distribution Order stating that each licensee will receive all the tea necessary to meet the requirements set out on indents which he has obtained irrespective of the quantity of tea he may have distributed during the datum period will be adhered to; whether his attention has been drawn to the method by which large indents for requirements have been obtained in many instances; whether the effect of carrying out this amended plan will be to establish a different principle in the distribution of tea from that which has been set up with regard to any other great commodity and to give advantages amounting to a substantial monopoly to firms, companies, and societies who have disregarded the Orders of the Ministry and to punish those who have endeavoured to adhere to them; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
      Mr. CLYNES: I can only repeat the answer which I sent the right hon. Gentle

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      man last Thursday. The ballot, which took place on the 28th June, was carried out in accordance with the supplemental instructions mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. The wholesale distribution was, and in future will be, based upon the indents received from retailers, which were in turn based upon the number of their registered customers. The restriction of retailers to not more than three wholesalers in any case for their supplies is due to exigencies of transport. I have no knowledge of any illegitimate methods by which large indents for requirements have been obtained, nor will the arrangements made give advantages amounting to a substantial monopoly to any firm. If the right hon. Gentleman has any knowledge of contravention of the Food Controller's Orders, I shall be glad to have particulars.
      Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the right hon. Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) has furnished a number of cases? Will he consider those cases?
      Mr. CLYNES: I saw that information, but I did not regard the information as being particulars of definite cases, but rather as illustrating the general complaint.

      FEEDING-STUFFS DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE.
      Mr. WRIGHTasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries is responsible for the production of home-grown food, he will consider the transference of the Feeding-stuffs Distribution Committee from the Ministry of Food to the Board?
      The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I am informed that every effort is being made to improve the method of distribution of feeding-stuffs, but the suggestion in the question is not, I think, practicable.

    MUNITIONS.

      HOUSING ACCOMMODATION, RUISLIP.
      Mr. PONSONBYasked the Minister of Munitions whether difficulty is being experienced by the workers at the Ruislip stores depot in finding suitable housing accommodation, many of them having to
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      travel long distances to their work; and what steps the Government propose to take to afford proper accommodation for the workers in this district?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the MINISTRY Of MUNITIONS (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): No complaints have been received indicating a shortage of housing accommodation for munition workers in the Ruislip district, but inquiries will be made if the hon. Member will send me particulars of the cases to which he refers.

      CHURCH GRANTS.
      Mr. GULLANDasked the Minister of Munitions why in Scotland money contributions towards the erection of churches have been given to the extent of £6,500 to the Episcopal Church, £5,500 to the Roman Catholic Church, and only £4,000 for the combined use of the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland; and for what purpose the unallocated balance of £1,500 is to be given?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The Grants to the various churches at Gretna and Eastriggs are as stated in the question. The lower Grant to the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church is explained by the fact that they have not built a church at Eastriggs. An application for an additional Grant will receive favourable consideration if and when they propose to build there.
      Mr. GULLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that for the churches at Gretna the Episcopal Church got £5,500, as compared with £4,000 for the Presbyterian Church?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Yes; I am aware of that.
      Mr. HOLT: On what authority is the Ministry spending money on churches?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Grants were made for these churches because a large new population was brought into this area, and it was thought to be desirable to attend to their spiritual needs.
      Sir H. CRAIK: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the largest Grants were made to the smaller churches?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The Grants were proportionate to the number of the people of the faith at the place, and

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      also proportionate to the amount of money that was to be provided from private sources for the churches.
      Mr. HOLT: Does this money come out of the Vote of Credit?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Yes.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand that the policy of concurrent endowment of all churches is part of the policy of the Ministry of Reconstruction?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: That question; must be addressed to the Minister of Reconstruction.
      Mr. KING: Was a spiritual or religious census taken before these Grants were allocated?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am not sure that I can answer that without notice.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Are these Grants absolute gifts or only loans?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: These are gifts.
      Mr. CHANCELLOR: That is endowment!

      MIDLAND FACTORY EXPLOSION.
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions whether steps are being taken to grant allowances to the wives and children of those who lost their lives and to those who were disabled in the recent explosion in a Midland munition manufactory?
      Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Immediate steps were taken to deal with the situation arising from the recent explosion. The funeral expenses will be paid by the Government. Advance payments are being made to relieve cases of immediate necessity. Compensation for loss of life and injury will be paid under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, to ensure prompt settlement of the claims. Mr. L. C. Turner, the managing director of the Essex and Suffolk Insurance Office, now on the finance staff of the Ministry, has visited the factory and set up the necessary organisation. In addition, in proper cases ex gratia Grants will be made to ensure the maintenance of the families of the dead and injured employés and the medical treatment of the injured and their care during convalescence.

    MILITARY SERVICE
      MEDICAL GRADING.

        STATEMENT BY SIR A. GEDDES.
        Mr. PRINGLEasked the Minister of National Service whether new instructions have yet been issued to medical boards with reference to the grading of men from forty-three to fifty-one years of age?
        The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): No instructions have yet been issued. My right hon. Friend is answering a Private Notice question on this subject this afternoon.
        Mr. PRINGLE: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me why an answer cannot be given to a question which has been on the Paper for some days?
        Mr. BECK: As my hon. Friend is aware, a conference has been taking place upstairs in accordance with the agreement entered into in this House, and it was thought a convenient method to have the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means ask a question of my right hon. Friend, who will give a reply.
        Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it customary to allow a Private Notice question on a subject upon which a question is already on the Paper?
        Mr. SPEAKER: If the information given in reply to the question upon the Paper is insufficient, it may be desirable to ask for further information. I do not know why a full answer was not given to this question.
        Mr. PRINGLE: Is it not the custom to disallow a Private Notice question except on a matter which is urgent and which has arisen at a time at which notice would not be given; and, if notice has been given, as in this case, ought not the Private Notice question to be disallowed?
        Mr. BECK: May I explain that the reason why this course was adopted was that an answer to this question in its present form would be very incomplete, and it was thought that it would be more convenient for the House to have a complete answer given, so as to announce to the House the decision arrived at by the conference upstairs, over which the President of the Local Government Board presided, and at which the chairmen of tribunals were present.
        Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would it not be more usual for the hon. Gentleman to have communicated that to my hon. Friend (Mr. Pringle), and to have asked him to withdraw his question in view of this Private Notice question; and, as this was not done, is not this step most irregular?
        Mr. BECK: I apologise for that.
        Sir CHARLES HENRYasked the Minister of National Service whether, of those who are within the new age limit as provided by the Military Service Act, 1918, who were medically examined up to 30th June, the percentage passed into Grade 1 and Grade 2 was in excess of or below the percentage that he anticipated when the measure was passed; and, if so, to what extent in percentage?
        Mr. BECK: Of the men medically examined up to the 29th June who were above the former military age, the percentage passed as Grade 1 and Grade 2 was about 12 per cent. less than anticipated. I must again point out to my hon. Friend that these percentages are based on a review at present necessarily incomplete and are liable to be misleading.
        Mr. BRUNNERasked the Minister of National Service whether he is aware that certain men in uniform who give the day's pay to men who have been examined for medical grading at Conduit Street volunteer false information as the men leave by asserting that there is nothing further to be done until the men receive their calling-up notice; and will he say what action he proposes to take to stop this practice?
        Mr. BECK: No, Sir; I am not aware that any information of the kind mentioned by my hon. Friend is volunteered by the pay officials at Conduit Street. It would be entirely outside their duty to do so, and, in order to prevent any possibility of misunderstanding, instructions have been issued forbidding them to answer any questions and directing them to refer all inquirers to their local National Service official, from whom all information can be obtained. I may add that there are also in attendance at the Board responsible officials who, if desired, will always advise examinees as to their military position; and posters are now conspicuously displayed explaining tribunal rights.
        Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALLasked the President of the Local Government
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        Board the grounds on which medical boards are requiring a less exacting standard of physical fitness in regard to men aged between forty-one and fifty years who are passed Grade 1 than in regard to men under forty-one; and if, as in the majority of cases, the calling up of the older men for military duties is likely to result in greater dislocation of business and family interests and less corresponding military benefit than in the case of the younger men, he will immediately have full inquiry made into the matter?
        Mr. BECK: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. I am unable to agree with the suggestion contained in the question of my hon. and gallant Friend. As has been explained in the House of Commons, the principle of medical grading is uniform for men of all ages.
        Sir F. HALL: Men of forty having been passed into Grade 1, will the same medical standard be for men of fifty?
        Mr. BECK: I do not think I had better deal with this question at this moment. There has been a very full discussion on it, and if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will refer to the Debate he will find that this question was argued at length.
        Sir F. HALL: Will the hon. Gentleman take notice of the question? Is he aware of the great discontent that exists amongst many men of from forty-five to fifty, that, although they were not able to pass Grade 1 or 2 before they are now passed Grade 1? I want to know if there is any difference in the medical category.
        Mr. BECK: I think the hon. Gentleman had better wait until the Minister of National Service has made his statement after questions.
        Sir DONALD MACLEAN(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of National Service whether he can make any statement relative to the conference which took place between him and other Members of the House and the Chairman of Tribunals with regard to the Military Service Act?
        The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir A. Geddes): Conferences have been held, with the President of the Local Government Board in the chair, between the Minister of National Service, Chairmen of Tribunals, and other Members of Parliament, with the following result:
        It was agreed that the following classifications should be introduced for men of

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        the new military age with regard to their fitness for military service. In future men of these ages passed by medical boards as fit for Grade 1 will be classified as Grade 1 (B1). Similarly, men of these ages passed as fit for Grade 2 will be classified-Grade 2 (B2), and those passed as fit for Grade 3 will be classified as Grade 3 (B3). These classifications will be distinctly marked on the grading cards.
        Instructions will be immediately issued by the Local Government Board to tribunals that, in considering the relative military value of Grade 1 (B1), they must assume these men are "not fit to be trained for first-line Infantry," and that in considering the relative military value of men in the new classifications, Grade 2 (B2) and Grade 2 (B3), they must assume that they are of substantially less military value than men under the previous Military Service Acts who were placed in Grade 2 or Grade 3 respectively.
        Instructions will be given to each National Service representative that if and when requested by a tribunal he shall state whether a man placed in Grade 3 has been found by the medical board to be fit only for sedentary work.
        Certain other points were discussed. The Minister of National Service informed the conference that he had already issued instructions that no notice calling up a man of the new ages for service was to give shorter notice than fourteen days nor was it to be issued until ten days after the date upon which the man was due to report for medical examination. He further informed the conference that he had instructed all directors of National Service to see that the unauthorised use of books which recruits were asked to sign at medical boards, stating that they were satisfied with their examination, was to be discontinued, and that he had prohibited the adoption of any practice of this nature.
        It was agreed that greater publicity should be given to the opportunity of every man to apply for a second examination by a National Service medical board if he were dissatisfied with his first examination, and, further, that attention should be drawn by means of a printed intimation enclosed with the notice to report himself for medical examination of the limit of five days to the time within which he may apply to an Appeal Tribunal for permission to be examined by the appeal medical assessors.
        Mr. PRINGLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give any of the older men who have already been passed in Grade 1 or 2 fresh cases before the tribunals, although those cases, in view of the decision, are not to come up?
        Sir A. GEDDES: Any case that is put forward will be favourably considered where it can be shown that any misunderstanding has existed in the minds of the tribunals.
        Mr. PRINGLE: Is the change in the arrangements not an indication that the misunderstanding was universal, and, in view of these circumstances, will people who can show that they have been unfairly treated or treated under a misapprehension, have their cases reopened?
        Sir A. GEDDES: I do not think it would be quite easy to say that every case should be reopened, because many of the oases the tribunals might not wish to hear further. But I imagine that in any case in which application is made for a rehearing, the application would be granted.
        Mr. A. RICHARDSON: May I ask whether it is not the fact that a man is entitled as a matter of right to obtain a rehearing of his case on the ground that a new and material fact has arisen since the case was last heard, namely, a change in the grading?
        Sir A. GEDDES: He has a right to apply, but the tribunal may refuse the application.
        Sir A. GEDDES: No; the number of doctors on the board considered at the conference, and the length of time to be given to the examination?
        Sir A. GEDDES: No. The number of doctors on the board was not discussed at the conference. I think it was referred to once, but it was not discussed or made an important point.

      ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.
      Major NEWMANasked the Minister of National Service whether he is aware of the work that is being done by the firm of Desouther Brothers, 51, Baker Street, W., in the manufacture of special artificial limbs; whether one of the brothers, who alone is able to actually manufacture the limbs, is under notice to join up; and whether, in view of the fact that the work the firm, is doing will

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      have to cease, he will, even having regard to the age and military fitness of the man, grant him a further period of exemption?
      Mr. BECK: My hon. and gallant Friend's question refers no doubt to the firm of Desoutter Brothers, of 51, Baker Street, who, I understand, are artificial limb makers. The industry is covered by the Schedule of Protected Occupations, and the release for military service of men engaged in it is controlled by the Ministry of Munitions. The Ministry of Munitions, after consultation with the National Health Insurance Commission, have decided that they are not justified in giving further protection to this young man.
      Major NEWMAN: What is to happen to all the officers who require artificial limbs?
      Mr. BECK: I do not think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is aware that this young man is only twenty-three.

      BOARD OF INLAND REVENUE.
      Major NEWMANasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the two members appointed by the Board of Inland Revenue as their representatives on the Military Service Committee to decide what officials of the Board shall be released for military service are themselves men of less than forty years of age; and will he say why these two officials are held to be exempt from military service and nominated to decide whether or no men older than themselves are or are not to be released for service?
      Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): My hon. and gallant Friend has been misinformed. Only one of the official representatives on this committee is under forty years of age, namely, the deputy-chairman of the Board, who by his position is obviously indicated as a suitable representative of the Department for this purpose.

      TRANSFERS TO CIVIL EMPLOYMENT,
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Undersecretary of State for War why Private F. Broadbent, No. 203327, Rifle Brigade, now transferred to the 3rd Air Mechanic, No. 143190, Royal Air Force, has not been transferred to the Reserve for employment as a substitute, seeing that the Director-General of National Service made an
      20
      application to the War Office in April last to this effect; and will he see that is done at once?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): The negotiations in this case have now been completed, and I understand that Private Broadbent has been released to take up civil employment.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why the application of Gunner Gubbins, No. 220719, R.A.C.D., Ripon, who is a skilled plumber by trade, made to his commanding officer for transfer to shipbuilding work some time ago has not been considered; and, in view of the declared need for more skilled labour in the shipyards, will he see that this man's application is immediately considered?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: This man's application is being considered with others. From his trade card it would appear that he has had no shipyard experience, in which case he would not be eligible for release.

      ARMY PAY CORPS, YORK.
      Mr. PRINGLEasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether 200 men in the Army Pay Corps at York were re-examined by a travelling medical board of 31st May; whether the examination in each case was performed by a single doctor; whether 30 per cent. were passed A or B1; whether before this examination the men had been examined by the medical officer of the corps, and none had been passed for a higher category than labour; whether in October a travelling medical board had classified all these men C3; and, if so, whether this change in classification indicates that there has been a lowering of the medical standards in the Army?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): I would refer the hon. Member to my reply on the 12th June to a question on this subject by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. I am, however, having inquiry made into the statements contained in the question, and will acquaint the hon. Member of the result in due course.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman elicit anything in addition to the answer given to my hon. Friend?
      Mr. FORSTER: That is just what I am trying to find out.

      SOLDIER LABOUR, AYRSHIRE.
      Mr. PRINGLEasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether Captain F. D. C. Shaw-Kennedy, of Kirkmichael, is employed on military duties at Ayr; if so, what is the nature of his employment; whether he is aware that Captain Shaw-Kennedy is occupier and proprietor of the farm at Aitkenhead, which consists of 70 acres; that in an action in the Ayr Sheriff Court on 19th June it was admitted that in addition to three civilians, two soldiers, Driver J. W. Potts and Private Monaghan, were employed on this farm last winter; and whether he can explain for what reasons, and by whose authority, the services of these soldiers were granted for the cultivation of this farm?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Captain Shaw-Kennedy is the officer commanding a Territorial Force depot at Ayr. I understand that he is the owner and occupier of Aitkenhead Farm. I am not aware of the action in the Sheriff's Court, but I am informed that two soldiers were employed on the farm during last winter, and are still working there. As regards the last part of the question, I would remind my hon. Friend that soldier agricultural labour is placed out on farms by the local agricultural committees.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can my right hon. Friend state what justification there is for giving two soldiers to a farm of 70 acres, where there are already three civilians employed?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: In the last part of the answer to the question it is stated that the giving of soldier labour to any particular farm is at the discretion of the local agricultural committees.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Is there anybody responsible for the action of those committees here?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: In this particular case it is the Secretary for Scotland.
      Mr. WATT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any influence was exercised by Captain Shaw-Kennedy on the local committees to get these men on to this 70-acre farm?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no knowledge of that.

      LOVAT'S SCOUTS.
      Mr. SMALLWOODasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether, in a
      22
      recent draft for overseas service made from Lovat's Scouts, there were men well over forty years of age, whilst in the same regiment there are men remaining at home whose age is under thirty years, and who have not yet been out in active service?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no information regarding the particular draft referred to, nor have I received any complaint.
      Mr. SMALLWOOD: If I send the right hon. Gentleman the names will he look into the matter?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Most certainly!

    NATIONAL SERVICE.

      LAND WORKERS.
      Sir J. SPEARasked the Minister of National Service if he is aware that 250 soldiers are required to take the place on the land of men taken for the quota in the western division of Devon; that recently application was made at Exeter for men, and only seven or eight were available for the whole county; and will he say what steps are being taken to remedy this state of things, in view of the near approach of harvest.
      Sir R. WINFREY: As regards the first part of the question, I am aware that, approximately, 250 men will be taken from the western division of Devon, and that it is necessary that these men should be replaced by some other form of labour. As regards the second part of the Question, owing to the needs of the Army, few men of low medical category can now be spared for transfer in agricultural companies; as regards the last part of the question, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture has already made a statement in the House as to the available supply of labour for the harvest.
      Sir J. SPEAR: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in this division there are some small farms without any men on them at all, very many without any able-bodied men, and that consequently the food supply is seriously menaced unless outside help is provided?
      Sir R. WINFREY: I can assure the hon. Gentleman we quite realise that. We are doing everything we possibly can to provide additional labour.
      Sir J. SPEAR: We should like to know what is being done.
      Sir R. WINFREY: I am afraid I cannot carry it any further to-day.
      Sir J. SPEARasked the Minister of National Service if he will postpone the date up to which men over forty-five can volunteer for work on the land from 6th July to 13th July; and if he is aware that many of these men do not yet know that they have the choice of work on the land or military service?
      Mr. BECK: My hon. Friend seems under a misapprehension. The date, the 6th July, applies merely to men actually under call at the time when the scheme was established, and gave them the same opportunity as those not then under call. Under the War Agricultural Volunteer scheme men over forty-five can apply for work on the land now or at any future date, provided they volunteer before they receive a calling-up notice and have not been finally refused exemption by a tribunal. Endeavours have been made to give full publicity to the scheme, both in this House and in the Press, but if my hon. Friend will let me know of any part of the country where information is not available, I shall be pleased immediately to take steps to have further publicity given in that area.

      MEDICAL SERVICE, DERBYSHIRE.
      Sir HENRY CRAIKasked the Minister of National Service if he is aware that the Ashbourne district of Derbyshire, with a population of 4,000, is served by three doctors, of whom one is under forty years of age and has a partner able to carry on the practice, while the Shire-brook district, with a population of 12,000, has only two doctors; and whether an arrangement will be made to bring about a better and fairer distribution of the medical service available?
      Mr. BECK: The number of doctors in the Ashbourne district is as stated by my right hon. Friend, but he is misinformed as to the age of the practitioner referred to, who is over forty and fit for home service only. For the reasons stated in the reply which I gave to my right hon. Friend on 24th June, the number of doctors in the Ashbourne district is considered to be no more than adequate, and it would not be wise to reduce it further. Endeavours will be made, so far as circumstances permit, to supplement the existing medical provision for Shirebrook.

      SHIPBUILDING AND ENGINEERING TRADES.
      Mr. HOLTasked the Minister of National Service how many men have been returned from the Army to the shipbuilding and engineering trades since 1st January, 1918; and how many men have been enlisted into the Army from the shipbuilding and engineering trades since that date?
      Mr. BECK: During the first half of this year approximately 12,000 men have been released from the Army for work in shipyards. It would not be in the public interest to give the information asked for in the second part of the question, but the hon. Members may rest assured that steps have been taken to give adequate protection to men engaged on essential work in the shipbuilding industry.
      Mr. HOLT: Is the number less than 12,000?
      Mr. BECK: I must have notice of that question.
      Mr. WATT: Is 12,000 anything near the promise made in this House of the number who will be returned?
      Mr. BECK: That question had better be addressed to the Under-Secretary of State for War.

      FIRE BRIGADES.
      Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Minister of National Service whether his attention has been called to the danger of loss of life and property by fire that will occur if the fire brigades in provincial cities and boroughs are left without sufficient staffs of skilled and experienced firemen; whether the tribunals have power to exempt men who are indispensable to the proper working of fire brigades; and, if not, whether instructions will be given that fire brigades are not to be entirely depleted of competent firemen?
      Mr. BECK: I would refer my hon, Friend to my answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Southwark on the 4th July on this subject. The Ministry of National Service is fully alive to the importance of maintaining the efficiency of fire brigades in provincial cities and boroughs, Tribunals have power to grant exemption to men employed by fire brigades if valid applications are made to them in accordance with the Regulations, and men solely employed in connected with public fire

      25
      brigades are, subject to certain conditions of age and fitness, included in the list of certified occupations.

      GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (STAFFING).
      Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service whether he carried out any special inquiries before stating, in the introductory note to the Return on the Civil Staffs employed by Government Departments on 19th June, that the number of persons now employed by Government Departments cannot be considered excessive; whether he was aware that a Treasury Committee was appointed at the beginning of the year to inquire into this particular matter, and that this Committee has not yet reported; and whether his statement in the introduction to the Return was made for the purpose of hastening the issue of the Report of the Treasury Committee?
      Mr. BECK: It is obvious from the White Paper that detailed inquiries were made as to the number of staff employed in each Department. As regards the expression of opinion mentioned, it does not refer to the staffing of particular offices, and thus does not anticipate in any way the findings of the Treasury Committee which is inquiring into this matter. It is the duty of the Ministry of National Service to review the distribution of man-power retained on civil work of national importance, and I was alluding to the fact that the figures do not suggest that an undue proportion of the males of the country are employed in the Civil Service as a whole, which is now employing 57,000 less men than it was before the War.
      Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he would add the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service to Sir John Bradbury's Committee on the Staffing of Government Departments, in view of the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary is already in possession of evidence which enables him to state a considered opinion on the subject which this Committee has been appointed to examine, as shown by the introduction to the Return on Civil Staffs employed by Government Departments dated 19th June.
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think there would be any advantage in adopting the hon. Member's suggestion.

    MERCANTILE MARINE (EMPLOYMENT UNDER AMERICAN FLAG).
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has received an application from the Mercantile Marine Service Association, dated the 22nd May last, inquiring if any obstacles are put in the way of British shipmasters or officers of the mercantile marine obtaining passports with a view to accepting positions on board vessels under the American flag for the duration of the War; and if any decision has yet been reached between the Foreign Office and the Admiralty, as the delay affects many mercantile officers whose ships have been torpedoed and who are consequently out of-employment?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. It is a fact that passports have been refused to a small number of officers of the British Mercantile Marine who desired to proceed to America for the purpose of obtaining employment in American ships. The decision to refuse such passports was reached in view of a statement by the American Government to the effect that they would not call upon British officers and engineers for service in American ships. It will be understood that with the prospective increase of British tonnage it is very undesirable that experienced British officers should leave this country, even to assist our Allies, if the latter are able to provide their own officers, as we are assured is the case.
    Colonel YATE: Is it not a fact that a large number of Scandinavian merchant officers are taking these vacant places in America, and will the hon. Gentleman consider the question of giving our merchantmen employment and so retaining their services?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I will certainly consider that suggestion. The hon. and gallant Member must realise that, in view of the prospective increase of tonnage which we anticipate will result, it is very undesirable to part with our officers at the present time. The position of the Scandinavian officers has no relevance to this matter.
    Colonel YATE: Will the officers have subsistence allowance in the meantime?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I will certainly consider that.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is this a sample of the emigration policy which is to be pursued by the Government after the War?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: It has no reference to any after-the-war policy. It simply has reference to the present time.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are these men free men?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Certainly, and we hope to give them honourable employment.

    ROYAL AIR FORCE.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Undersecretary of State to the Air Ministry what is the position of men who only recently were attached to the Royal Naval Air Service owing to the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service having been combined in the Royal Air Force, seeing that, according to the third Clause in the Royal Air Force handbook, the men may, within three months from the 1st April, give notice that they do not wish to be transferred to the Royal Air Force; what provision is there for men transferring from the Royal Naval Air Service remaining in the naval service; and whether men formerly attached to the Royal Naval Air Service can have provision made for them in the motor-boat or other branch of the Navy?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the AIR MINISTRY Major Baird): The position of such men is that if they give notice within a period of six months from 1st of April, 1918, by application to the officers commanding their respective units, that they do not wish to be transferred to the Royal Air Force they will cease to belong to that force. The question of their subsequent employment will then be a matter for the Admiralty to determine.

    SASINES OFFICE (TYPEWRITING).
    Mr. WATTasked the Secretary for Scotland whether any arrangement has yet been come to in the way of compensation or finding work for the engrossing clerks in the Sasines Office who are to be displaced by the introduction of typewriting in that office; how many of
    28
    these clerks have yet been dealt with, and in which of these two ways, compensating or finding other work for them, and how many still remain to be dealt with; and is it intended to utilise the saving effected by the typewriting method, amounting, as the saving does, to 58 per cent. of the former cost, in compensating those clerks displaced by the substitution?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): No engrossing clerks have yet been displaced. In any action which it may be possible to take for the introduction of typewriting due regard will be had to the interests of existing engrossers. There are practical difficulties which make any general change of system in the immediate future unlikely, and it would be premature to consider the adjustments which such a change would involve.
    Mr. WATT: Are we to understand that typewriting has not been introduced, notwithstanding the recommendations of several Committees?
    Mr. MUNRO: The matter is under consideration.

    REGISTRATION.
    Major ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the fact that a number of soldiers in proxy areas will not be on the register of voters now under preparation, he will publish a supplementary list of electors for proxy voters, so as to enable these soldiers to be represented at the next election?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): I think my hon. Friend is under some misapprehension. I know of no reason why a number of soldiers in proxy areas should be omitted from the register. Information as to the qualification of these men to be registered is supplied to registration officers direct from the Army Record Offices in this country.
    Major ASTOR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is still of opinion that it takes six months for these names to be put on the voters' lists?
    Mr. FISHER: The hon. Gentleman is totally mistaken in that view. He is confusing registration with voting.
    Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that, though 5th July was the last day for lodging claims, no forms for claiming had been

    29
    received on 3rd July by the authorities in Carlow and other places; whether he can explain the neglect to provide forms in sufficient time; and whether the period for claiming has been or will be extended?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Arthur Samuels): Claim forms for county Carlow were sent by post on 7th June. With respect to other counties, forms were dispatched on the same date as they were applied for, and this also applies to supplemental applications. With regard to the last part of the question, the Government have fixed the 1st October as the date for the first register, and it would be in the highest degree impracticable to alter any intermediate registration dates.
    Mr. GULLAND (by Private Notice)asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that in a large number of the new constituencies the lists of electors were not published on the 29th June and that in many places they are still not issued, and whether he will say what steps he intends to take to extend the period for lodging claims and objections.
    Mr. FISHER: I am not in possession of complete information, but I know that in some places, owing mainly to exceptional printing difficulties, full publication of the lists was not secured within the prescribed time, and I think there will have to be some latitude allowed in these cases. The matter is receiving my consideration.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that tens of thousands of names have been left out, probably, in London alone? And is anything to be done to see that those entitled to go on are put on?
    Mr. FISHER: Yes; I am well aware of that.
    Mr. GULLAND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the last day at present for lodging objections is on Wednesday, and will he, therefore, take care that quick notice is given?
    Mr. FISHER: I am aware of that, and that some action is urgently necessary.

    CHILDREN BOARDED OUT (POOR LAW).
    Sir J. SPEARasked the President of the Local Government Board the number
    30
    of children above five years of age who are placed by boards of guardians in cottage homes in England and Wales and the number of such children boarded out of the workhouse.
    Mr. FISHER: I regret that I am unable to give my hon. Friend the precise information which he desires, as the returns obtained by the Department distinguish between children below and above three, not five, years of age. At the end of last year the number of children above three years of age in separate Poor Law institutions for children (including cottage homes, scattered homes and schools) was 30,559. The total number of children boarded out was 10,570; of these the great majority would be over five years of age.

    DECEASED SOLDIERS AND SAILORS (FUNERAL EXPENSES).
    Sir HERBERT ROBERTSasked the Pensions Minister whether he has received representations as to the necessity of increasing the Grant allowed in respect of the funeral expenses of discharged disabled soldiers and sailors; and whether he can make a statement on the subject?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen): The question of increasing the Grant payable under the Special Grants Committee's Regulations is under consideration, and I hope to be in a position to announce the decision shortly.

    SCHOOL CHILDREN (MEDICAL TREATMENT).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has any estimate of the cost of providing for medical treatment for children educated in public elementary schools; if so, what is the amount of such estimate; and, if not, will he prepare such an estimate before making any proposal to Parliament in this behalf?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): In 1916–17 the total expenditure of local education authorities for the purposes of Section 13 (1) (b) of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, upon medical inspection and treatment of children in public elementary schools was about £420,000. It may be expected that

    31
    in any case this expenditure will increase after the War in response to the public demand for the improvement and development of the school medical service, but any estimate of the ultimate expenditure must be speculative.
    Sir J. D. REES: Am I to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is going to have an estimate made of the increased cost under the new Education Bill?
    Mr. FISHER: The last part of my answer was that any estimate of expenditure must be speculative.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what the cost to the nation would have been if these children had not received medical treatment?
    Mr. FISHER: No, Sir.
    Major WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House even a speculative estimate?
    Mr. FISHER: All I can say is that at the present moment £420,000 are being expended upon medical inspection and treatment of children in respect of 279 out of 318 local education authorities.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is it not clear that that figure must be very largely increased if the provision he is considering is passed? Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to ask the House to legislate on speculation?
    Mr. FISHER: It is quite obvious that the estimate must very largely depend upon the amount of treatment which the local education authorities are willing to provide.

    ENEMY MERCHANT TONNAGE.
    Mr. PETOasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government have decided to demand the surrender of enemy mercantile tonnage to the Entente Powers proportionate to the tonnage of their mercantile fleets sunk by enemy submarine; and whether this is now to be officially included in the war aims of the Entente Powers?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that in the present stage of the War any useful purpose can be served by discussing possible terms of peace.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether any decision to increase the allowances of dependants of apprentices has yet been reached?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope that a decision will be arrived at in the course of the next few days.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Undersecretary of State for War if the total weekly pay of married soldiers in the London area living at home with their families under the consolidated or family allowance system, including pay, family allowance, and London area allowance, is 35s. 8d., or with one child 41s. 8d.; if the corresponding amounts in the case of a soldier on the separation allowance system of payment are 42s. 3d. and 49s. 3d., respectively; and, if this difference does exist, whether the War Office will at once take steps to level up the pay of men receiving consolidated allowances at least to that of soldiers paid the separation allowance rates, having regard to the inadequacy of the weekly pay of 35s. 8d. to enable a soldier to reasonably maintain a home under the existing abnormal conditions.
    Mr. FORSTER: I am sorry to say I am still unable to make any definite announcement.
    Sir F. HALL: In view of the importance of this question and the high prices of food, will the right hon. Gentleman look into it, if I repeat the question again next week?
    Mr. FORSTER: It is not a question of failure to look into it, and the War Office is not the only Government Department concerned.
    Sir F. HALL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it has taken a very long time to decide this question?
    Mr. FORSTER: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that I have been doing everything I can think of to expedite the matter.

    SEPARATION ALLOWANCES (CABINET COMMITTEE).
    Mr. HOGGEasked when the Cabinet Committee on Separation Allowances is to report?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to the answer given to the hon. Member for Leicester on the 3rd instant, when I stated that the War Cabinet Committee hoped to report within a fortnight from that date.

    HOSPITAL SHIPS (SUBMARINE ATTACKS).
    Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Prime Minister whether adequate escort will be provided for all hospital ships in future?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: All possible means of safeguarding our hospital ships are at present under consideration in consultation with the Allies.
    Mr. TENNANT: Is it decided that hospital ships shall continue to carry lights?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: As the right hon. Gentleman will understand, that is one of the points we are now considering in consultation with our Allies.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that under the agreements come to at the Hague Conference a right was conferred upon belligerents to search hospital ships in order to see that no advantage was taken by them of carrying troops, munitions, or ammunition clandestinely on board; whether he is aware that officers commanding German submarines have made statements to the effect that they have sunk hospital ships in consequence of their contravention of Regulations which entitled them to protection; whether they have ever exercised such right of search; and, if so, whether they were able in any one single case to prove that this country or its Allies have been guilty of breaking such Regulations?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The right is conferred on belligerents by the Hague Convention to stop and search hospital ships in order to see that they are complying with the terms of the international agreement, and this right has on several occasions been exercised by German submarines. In no case has this country ever broken the letter or spirit of the Hague Convention regarding hospital ships, and the same statement is believed to be true as regards our Allies.
    Sir F. HALL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be good enough to ask the Leader of the House to have that information circulated to enemy, neutral, and Allied countries?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My right hon. Friend has heard the suggestion.

    MADAME GONNE M'BRIDE.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that in France surprise has been expressed at the internment of Madame Gonne M'Bride under colour of being guilty of plotting with Germans; and whether he will instruct the British Ambassador in Paris to make inquiries of the friends and associates of Madame M'Bride in that country with a view to consider her release?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative. The internment of the lady in question was the result of action by her in Ireland, and the Government are not prepared to take the course suggested in the last part of the question.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that during almost the whole period of this War, previous to her internment, she was in France, and was engaged in work for the French, and will he not consider the matter afresh in that light?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that is relevant. We have to deal with the situation in Ireland, which is created in Ireland.
    Mr. KING: Is it not relevant, seeing that she was there during almost the whole period of the story of the so-called German plot?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Almost does not cover the whole time.

    ENEMY ALIENS.
    Mr. RICHARD LAMBERTasked the Prime Minister whether he has appointed a Committee of five hon. Members to advise the War Cabinet as to proposed new measures against aliens; if so, on what basis were these hon. Members so appointed, especially whether as a judicial and impartial advisory body or as charged to devise new methods for severer measures against aliens; what was the reference to this Committee; whether

    35
    they have now reported; whether their Report will be made public; and whether the House will have any opportunity to discuss new methods proposed before they are enforced?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Prime Minister has invited five hon. Members who have taken considerable interest in this question to submit their views to him for consideration. There are, I am informed, no detailed terms of reference. The hon. Members have not yet forwarded their Report to the Prime Minister, who, however, expects to receive it to-day or to-morrow. There would appear to be no objection to the publication of the Report, and, as the hon. Member is aware, the whole question is to be debated on Thursday next.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say who the five Gentlemen are?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The names have been published. I do not remember them at the moment.
    Mr. PRINGLE: How many of the members of the Committee have made application to the War Office for the release from internment of naturalised or unnaturalised Germans?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: How could the hon. Member expect me to answer a question of that kind?
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Has the Committee been appointed to make inquiries or is the result a foregone conclusion?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: At present it is making inquiries. What it was asked to do was to make suggestions for the consideration of the Government.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Postmaster-General (1) whether an alien enemy of the name of Weise Brandt, employed as a foreman in the Holloway factory, was retired on a pension since the War began; if so, whether this pension is still being paid; whether the man is naturalised or not; and (2) whether he is aware that, shortly after the sinking of the "Lusitania," a petition was signed by nearly all the employés at the stores department and factory at Holloway requesting the removal from that factory of all alien enemies; that the comptroller of the stores department visited the factory and personally censured the foremen for
    36
    having taken part in the petition, expressing his indignation at their presumption; that he then addressed the employés in condemnatory terms, but finally agreed to forward the memorial to the Postmaster-General; whether such memorial has been received; if so, will he say what is the answer to it; and whether at least half a dozen aliens of enemy birth are still employed in the factory, where work is carried on of a confidental character relating to submarines?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): I am making inquiries, and will communicate with the hon. Member.

    ANGLO-AMERICAN UNITY.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme respecting Anglo-American unity; and whether he will under certain circumstances allow an opportunity for discussing the same—["That, in the opinion of this House, American citizens should henceforth enjoy in Great Britain and Ireland, and in all the British Colonies, Dominions, Protectorates, and Dependencies, all those rights, privileges, and immunities which are at present enjoyed by British citizens"]?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: While sympathising with the desire of my hon. Friend to strengthen in every possible way Anglo-American unity, I am not prepared to give the facilities asked for.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.

      PROPOSAL TO TURKISH GOVERNMENT.
      Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether the War Cabinet have yet considered the question whether fresh proposals shall be made to the Turkish Government for a general exchange of prisoners; and whether they are aware of the urgency of this question, seeing that the British prisoners are suffering privations?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: It has been thought best to await the return of the delegates from the Hague before taking further steps in this matter. I regret to add that, as my Noble Friend is aware,

      37
      owing to the dilatoriness of the Turkish Government, the Berne Agreement has not yet been put into operation.
      Sir F. HALL: Has the question of Turkish prisoners of war been discussed at the Hague?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: No; but our representatives at the Hague are gentlemen who are dealing with this question, and it is obvious that future agreement will be facilitated if agreement is once reached at the Hague with Germany.
      Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Is there any reason why the Government should not consider the question of a fresh agreement?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: Not at all; but, as I have indicated in answer to a supplementary question, the chances of reaching agreement with the Turks would be improved if an agreement has first been made at the Hague.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the question is not settled before next winter there may be another 25 per cent. casualties?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government are fully alive to all the evils which my hon. and gallant Friend has in view, and are doing what they can.
      Colonel YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question of appointing a fresh representative to conduct these negotiations with Turkey, now that the Home Secretary has come back?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: Negotiations have not been conducted with Turkey at the Hague at all.
      Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division) whether the Turkish Government returned 100 British prisoners many months ago; and will he say whether the British Government has yet returned a similar number of Turkish prisoners in exchange.
      Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury): I am informed by the military authorities that the one hundred Turkish prisoners referred to are at the moment in course of repatriation.
      Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is an unfortunate position that we should give to the Turkish Government a very bad example of dilatoriness?
      Mr. HOPE: I agree with nothing of the kind. What happened on this occasion was that the prisoners were detained mainly for reasons of quarantine, which were quite insuperable at the time.

      GERMAN OFFICERS.
      Sir F. HALLasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether German officers who are prisoners of war in this country have also had their ration of meat reduced to 4 ozs. on three days a week, and, if not, what is the quantity granted to them; and how much is allowed to English officers who are prisoners in Germany?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Officer prisoners of war in this country do not draw rations, but are allowed to purchase foodstuffs within certain limits, which have been fixed by the War Office with the approval of the Ministry of Food. The amount of meat purchased weekly must not exceed 16 ozs. of fresh meat (including bone), and 4 ozs. of preserved meat. As regards British officer prisoners of war in Germany, I regret that there is no detailed information, but I fear that, as in the case of the men, the food conditions leave much to be desired.
      Sir F. HALL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will call the attention of the Information Department to the last part of the question, so that our men who are prisoners in Germany may be better treated there than they are now?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: We are doing our level best to get all the information necessary.

    PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES (IRISH ADDRESS).
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been given to the publication in the Press of the Irish address to the President of the United States which the Lord Mayor of Dublin desired to tarry across the Atlantic in person; and whether it was by order of the War Cabinet that the Lord Mayor was refused a passport for this purpose?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The allegation that the Lord Mayor was refused a passport is unfounded.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Why was he not issued a passport?

    EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.
    Mr. BOOTHasked the Prime Minister if the Motion standing in the name of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury on emergency legislation is put down at the request of a Government Department; whether the Committee will consider the termination of the Defence of the Realm Acts with their Regulations, also the Government of Ireland and Welsh Church Acts, and 165 other measures; whether the Motion will be moved by a Minister who can speak of the matters concerned; and will he give a day for its discussion?
    The MINISTER of RECONSTRUCTION (Dr. Addison): I have been asked to reply to this question. The Motion referred to has been put down in pursuance of a decision of the War Cabinet. The scope of the proposed inquiry will, as indicated by the terms of the Motion, cover the first, but not the second and third, of the measures mentioned by the hon. Member. The answer to the third part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the fourth part, I must refer the hon. Member to the Leader of the House.
    Mr. BOOTH: May I point out that the question is not addressed to the Leader of the House?
    Mr. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that of the 165 measures some of them apply to Scotland especially, and will he see that a Scottish Minister is present to take part in the Debate?
    Dr. ADDISON: No doubt that will be done.
    Mr. BOOTH: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last clause of my question?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Certainly. I hope that no day will be necessary.

    LUXURY DUTY.
    Sir C. HENRYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is his intention to introduce the Bill to deal with the imposition of the Luxury Tax and to pass it through its different stages before the Adjournment?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot yet make any definite statement, but as I am anxious that the Recess should not be
    40
    unduly delayed I hardly think that it will be practicable to introduce the Bill before the Adjournment.

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked whether, in view of the fact that it is generally understood that the Bill for the Ministry of Health is already drafted, the Government will consider the advisability of introducing it at an early date for the First Reading in order that it may be printed and circulated for the consideration of the public generally, and in particular of the women of the country who are interested in the measure?
    Major ASTORasked the Minister for Reconstruction whether the introduction of the Bill establishing a Ministry of Health has been delayed through inability to get the Departments concerned to agree; and, if so, whether he is able to announce that the Government have settled these differences?
    Dr. ADDISON: As has been stated in reply to previous questions, a Bill is under the consideration of the Government and, in these circumstances, I am afraid that I cannot deal with the points raised in my hon. Friends' questions.
    Major ASTOR: In view of the announcement made in March that virtual agreement had been arrived at, can the right hon. Gentleman state the cause of the delay?
    Dr. ADDISON: War emergencies have intervened between then and now.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any estimate as to the increase in the number of officials of his Department?
    Dr. ADDISON: I think that there has been a diminution in the number of officials.
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Is there any prospect at all of this Bill being introduced?
    Dr. ADDISON: I can give no information beyond that which has already been given.
    Mr. FRANCE: Will it meet with the same fate as the Home Rule Bill?

    MEDICAL TREATMENT (ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Education whether local bodies have recommended that medical treatment should be afforded for children educated in public elementary schools; and, if not, whether he will consult with such bodies and communicate the result to Parliament before making any proposal in this behalf?
    Mr. FISHER: The desire of local education authorities, to whom I presume the hon. Member refers, that medical treatment for elementary school children should be provided is shown by the fact that in 1917–18 279 out of 318 authorities submitted to the Board proposals for its provision in the exercise of their existing powers. I am not aware of any general recommendations made by them.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is it proposed in the new Clause of the hon. Member for York to provide for an extension of medical treatment at an increased cost? If so, does the right hon. Gentleman propose to make any representations upon that point to the local authorities?
    Mr. FISHER: I gather that the proposal of the hon. Member for York was to make treatment compulsory—that is to say, that the thirty-nine local education authorities who up to the present have not seen their way to provide treatment will, under the provisions of the hon. Member's Amendment, be compelled to do so.
    Sir J. D. REES: Will those thirty-nine be invited to express their opinions before my right hon. Friend makes his announcement on the Report stage with regard to the new Clause?
    Sir H. CRAIK: Will not these questions be decided not entirely on the views of the local authorities, but according to the view which this House may take as to what is best in the interests of the community?
    Sir P. MAGNUS: Will the right hon. Gentleman, before deciding that medical treatment shall be obligatory on local authorities, indicate what precisely is meant by medical treatment?

    STONE POST OFFICE.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Postmaster-General whether he will reconsider the reduction of the status of the
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    Stone Post Office in view of the growing importance of the town both as a residential and political centre?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The alteration of the status of the Stone office has been made in the interests of administrative efficiency, and will not affect the public postal services in the town. I regret that I can see no ground for altering the decision.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does not it mean that new public servants employed at this post office will have to work on short pay?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: That does not arise out of the question.

    SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that Gunner H. E. Holledge, No. 20763, who joined the Royal Field Artillery in May, 1915, has seen service in France, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, has now been sent back to France and has had no leave since originally going overseas; and, if so, whether, considering that his mother is dangerously ill, instructions may be given for him to be sent home on leave immediately in order that he may-have an opportunity of visiting her?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I have to-day written to my hon. and gallant Friend about this case.

    REST CAMP, LE HAVRE.
    Mr. R. MCNEILLasked the Undersecretary of State for War if he is aware that officers who have recenty been quartered in No. 2 Rest Camp at Le Havre complain of the conditions of the officers' quarters there; whether the officers have to sleep in an old stable the roof of which is unlined corrugated iron and the floor of concrete, the malodorous character of which is not wholly cured by the use of disinfectants; whether there are ninety beds in this shed, but not a single table or chair or any furniture on which the officers can place their clothes or other belongings; whether the only washing accommodation consists of a few tin basins in an adjoining shod, with no means at any time of obtaining hot water; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that this rest camp is used to accommodate

    43
    officers returning ill from the East as well as from nearer battlefields, steps will be taken to provide more decent and comfortable quarters?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I am making inquiry, and will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

    WOOL PURCHASES, SCOTLAND.
    Mr. WATTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the arrangement with wool brokers in Scotland which held last year is to have effect again this season, that all wool declared by the brokers to be second rate or broken is to be in the option of these same brokers to purchase and make large profits on, or is a new arrangement to be made which will not offer an inducement to brokers to condemn wool to the detriment of farmers and advantage to themselves; and will the War Office purchase also the second-rate wool?
    Mr. FORSTER: All wool, with the sole exception of unwashed draggings or clarts, will be purchased this season by the authorised merchants and brokers-on behalf of the War Office.

    MALTON ARMY SACK DEPOT.
    Colonel W. THORNEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he is aware that a petition was sent to the manager of the Malton Army Sack Depot from the Leeds district of the National Union of General Workers as far back as February last for the increase of wages on behalf of the women working there; if he is aware of the discontent caused by the delay of the War Office in dealing with the question; and if the Department is willing to refer the whole question to the Committee on Production for them to deal with?
    Mr. FORSTER: An increase of 1d. an hour has recently been authorised to the women sack menders at Malton, making their pay 5½d. an hour, plus, when proficient, extra pay at 4d. a day.

    ENROLLED WOMEN (PAY AND DEDUCTIONS).
    Colonel THORNEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office what is
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    the rate of pay being paid to enrolled women in the Forage Department and the women working in stores and war work at the Malton Army Sack Depot, near Leeds; and what are the weekly deductions from their wages?
    Mr. FORSTER: The minimum rate of pay for enrolled women is 23s. 4d. per week for proficient workers, in addition to free uniform. The only deductions from their pay are for insurance, for billeting when they are billeted under the Army Act, and for rations when these are issued in kind.

    SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    Sir DANIEL GODDARD reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B: Mr. Robert Mason; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. James Mason.
    Report to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  THEIR MAJESTIES' SILVER WEDDING.

    ADDRESS OF CONGRATULATION.
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): I beg to move,
    "That an humble Address be presented to Their Majesties to congratulate Them on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Their Wedding, and to assure Their Majesties that this House, deeply interested in the personal well-being of the Sovereign and warmly appreciating Their Majesties' unfailing devotion to duty in this time of stress, profoundly shares the sentiments of loyal affection with which Their peoples throughout the world welcome the Anniversary of so felicitous a union; and joins with them in praying earnestly for the continuance during many years of Their Majesties' health and happiness."
    In moving that address, I feel that I am expressing the unanimous sentiment of the House of Commons and of the whole of the people whom we represent. Even in these grave times, we should not be representing the people of this country were we not to lay aside for a few minutes our preoccupation with grimmer events, in order to offer a loyal tribute of felicitation to Their Majesties on their silver wedding. We have used in this Motion the time-honoured phraseology that the House is "deeply interested in the personal well-being of the Sovereign." But that is no mere phrase.
    In a country possessing monarchical institutions, the success or failure of a royal marriage constitutes a matter not merely of national interest, but of deep national concern, because it is a fact which exercises a subtle and a permeating influence beyond measure on the life of the nation as a whole. Sovereigns govern the lives of their subjects less by edict than by example, and the King and Queen of this Realm—by the beauty, the simplicity, and the purity of their home life, by the kindliness and sympathy which they have invariably displayed towards all their subjects, by their unwearying devotion to all that duty exacts, have wielded an influence that cannot be assessed on the character of the hundreds of millions of the Empire who instinctively look up to the Throne for their pattern. For that reason, were it for no other, the success of the marriage whose twenty-fifth anniversary
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    we have been celebrating, the happiness of the royal home which that marriage consecrated, are gladdening facts which constitute a matter for congratulation and for rejoicing throughout the whole of the King's Dominions.
    No King was ever called upon to face graver issues or more shattering events. For generations the Empire had enjoyed a peace and a tranquillity unbroken except by incidents which barely disturbed the surface of the national current. Soon after the King ascended the Throne, there were signs of a coming storm. The Agadir episode was the first cloud that heralded the approaching break in the weather. At last the tempest burst in all its fury, and for four years the world has been devastated by the greatest hurricane that ever swept over the surface of the globe. There are no signs for the moment of it abating. The King has faced it all with the calmness of one trained in youth to encounter stormy seas.
    Those who, of all parties, have been privileged to serve as his Ministers during these four years can best testify to his undaunted courage under the most dismaying conditions—how in hours of arduous anxiety he has watched all the vicissitudes of this terrible conflict, and fulfilled in every sphere of counsel and action all the functions of a constitutional monarch in the hour of his country's peril. His constant thought for those who, on land and sea, are undergoing endless dangers for their country, his solicitude and that of the Queen for those who are suffering pain for their native land, their tenderness for those who are bearing the more poignant and enduring pangs of grief—all these have sunk deep into the hearts of the people, who will never forget.
    I feel, as one who has had a good deal to do with the munitions of this country, that I ought also to dwell for a moment on the help which the King gave by his visits to the yards and factories and workshops of the country, where men and women have been toiling hard to equip the nation's Armies and the nation's Navies for this great struggle. Wherever they went, they encouraged and inspired those who toiled, and when perplexities and misunderstandings threatened to weaken the arm of Britain, when all her might was needed, the King's and the Queen's presence invariably helped to smooth the difficulties.

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    They went there not merely to persuade and to encourage, but also to inquire. They helped to remove causes of irritation.
    4.0 P.M.
    In all these tasks the Queen has been the support and partner of our Sovereign. Truest and wisest of mothers in her home, she has displayed the same motherly care for the people over whom the King reigns. All this has strengthened the monarchy in times when systems of government have been put to the severest, sternest and most searching trial that the world has ever known. When thrones were tottering—some ancient thrones—when monarchs have been deprived of their sceptres in other lands, Britain's Throne became more firmly established than ever on the only foundation which is lasting—the affection and good will of the people. No King and Queen ever won a more sure place in the regard and loyalty of all classes of their subjects. The War, which has severed so many ties, has only strengthened the bonds which unite the Sovereign and his people.
    At a crisis in our fate, when the integrity of the Empire means more to civilisation than it has ever done in our past history, the position won by the occupants of the Throne in the minds of the people of the Empire is a matter of Imperial moment. The stability of the Throne is essential to the strength of the Empire, for it is not only a symbol of unity, it is in itself a bond of unity. It is, therefore, no mere traditional tribute of loyalty, but a heartfelt and spontaneous expression of a people's affection, esteem and good will which greets this anniversary of Their Majesties' wedding. We rejoice they have been given a wedded life of such unbroken prosperity. We rejoice they have been able to see their children grow up—all their children grow up—to bear a share in the national life. We pray that they may long continue to guide the destinies of this Empire, and, above all, we devoutly pray that a new lustre may be added to their felicity by the crowning, at no distant date, of the dark affliction and the great sacrifice of their people by a complete triumph that shall banish war and all its horrors from their horizon for ever and for ever.
    Mr. ASQUITH: I believe I am addressing few, if any, of those who were present twenty-five years ago at the marriage of
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    the Duke and Duchess of York, which I had the honour to attend in the capacity of Home Secretary to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. It does not seem to be a remote date as dates are counted in history, but it would be impossible to recall the names of some of those who were there without giving striking illustrations of the changes which in only a few years have been brought about by the march of time and by the mutability of human fortune. Happily, in one, and that I feel the most important, aspect, we can look back to that memorable ceremony with unmeasured and unchequered satisfaction. The hopes that were felt, the prayers that were breathed, that a union so momentous to so many millions of people might be crowned with both personal and national blessings—those hopes have been more than realised, those prayers have been fully and abundantly answered.
    One may say with confidence, and without a tinge of overstatement, that in the annals of our own, or, indeed, of any Royal House, there has been no instance of an apter and completer blending of all the qualities and conditions which make up domestic happiness. Theirs has been, as my right hon. Friend justly said, from the first, as it is to-day, an ideal English home, and their children, united in affection to their parents and to one another, as they grow up are showing one after another a determination to follow in the path of public duty the high example which has been set by their eldest brother, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
    Their Majesties' married life was just entering, I think, upon its seventeenth year when, by the lamented death of King Edward VII., they were suddenly called to the highest place in the Empire. That was a long apprenticeship, but its years had not been wasted in frivolity or idleness. It happened that when King George succeeded to the Throne I was at the head of the Government, and I continued to hold that position for nearly the whole of the first seven years of his eventful reign. No one, therefore, has had better opportunities of seeing at close quarters and of knowing at first hand the part which the King and his Consort have played during a series of varied and testing phases in the unfolding of our national history. If there be any people who are disposed to think that, apart from social and ceremonial duties,

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    the function of a constitutional sovereign is that of a benevolent cypher or detached looker-on, I can assure them they know very little of the truth.
    This is not an occasion on which it would be appropriate to define or defend the office of the monarchy in a democratic ago and country. What concerns us to-day are not the abstract merits or the practical utility of the institution, but the manner in which it has been worked, in times of almost unexampled difficulty, by our present King and Queen. The earlier years of their reign—I am speaking now of the epoch before the War—had more than their share of troubled and anxious times. But through them all, as I can testify, the King, with the ever-ready sympathy and co-operation of Her Majesty, never lost head, or heart, or nerve, always leaned towards policies of reconciliation and appeasement, diligently thought out day by day the problems whether of his own duty or of the nation's need; showed unfailing consideration for those who had the privilege to servo him; and, when he had accepted the final counsels of his constitutional advisers, adopted and acted on them with whole-hearted sympathy.
    It is four years ago this month since the King, with the object, if possible, of surmounting the most formidable of all our domestic difficulties brought together—unhappily without result—the Buckingham Palace Conference. The black clouds to which my right hon. Friend referred were already gathering on the international horizon. The first pre-occupation of the King, as of his Ministers, and as long as it could be done without breach of our national honour, was to avert the unimaginable calamities of European War. When the full history of the closing days of July, 1914, is unveiled it will be known—till then it cannot be known—with what unwearying tact and assiduity His Majesty strove for peace. But it was not to be; and, even with the incomplete evidence that has yet been given to the world, there is no longer any question at whose door lies the guilty responsibility for this War.
    There was a saying in the ancient world that "it is rule which tests the real quality of a man." Let me add to that, it is the experience of war, and of such a war as this that tests the real quality of a Democratic King. Few who have not seen it at first hand can realise the gravity of the burden which, from the first day of the War, has lain on the shoulders of the King
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    and Queen, or the extent to which they have voluntarily added to its weight by countless self-imposed tasks, duties, and cares. They have earned for themselves by the worthiest of all titles—a title which no pedigree can confer—by their daily share in the efforts, the sufferings, the sacrifices of their subjects, an impregnable place in the hearts of the people and an undying memory in its annals. It is fitting that this House should offer, as it is about to do to-day, a tribute of its gratitude and affection to their Majesties, and a heartfelt hope that their reign may be prolonged to witness the garnered fruits of an honourable peace.
    Question put, and agreed to, nemine contradicente.
    Address to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

  PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL ELECTIONS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  As the matter now stands, unless fresh legislation is carried, the present Parliament will come to an end on the last day of this month. In the present circumstances, I should be surprised if there is any single Member of this House who would not think it a misfortune to contemplate the idea of an election between now and the end of July. It seems to me, therefore, the only question is a question as to the length of time to which this new Parliament should extend. This Bill is in identical terms with other measures of the same kind which have been introduced. It is the fifth Bill and, if it becomes law, the present Parliament will have the right to continue until the end of January next year. That is to say, its life will then have consisted of eight full years. It is quite unnecessary for me to dwell on the considerations which come to all our minds in connection with this matter. Everyone knows, on the one hand, and feels how serious—and, if it is to be avoided, how undesirable—it is that at a time such as we are now going through, the energy of the nation should be directed to what might he more or less political objects. On the other hand, we cannot

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  disguise from ourselves that the longer the period continues beyond the ordinary life of a Parliament the further the Members are removed from the source of power which alone justifies them in speaking in this House. But hitherto it has also been true that, owing to the fact that the register was not continued, the lapse of time made it increasingly difficult by any means to obtain a correct view of the feeling of this country. The Bill I now propose to ask the House to read a second time will, as I say, make it possible for Parliament to continue till the end of January. Of course that does not mean that it must necessarily continue for that length of time. But this, I am sure, will be present to the mind of every Member of the House. It is a very invidious thing for anybody to prolong its own life. The Members of the House of Commons must feel that, and must therefore desire that the period should be of such a kind that there could be no suggestion that we are acting in our own interests in this matter.
  But there is more than that involved. After all, the House of Commons has the power at any time to terminate the existence of Parliament, but we ought not to be entirely judges in our own case, and it is for that reason that it must always be considered that, in asking the House of Commons to agree to a Bill extending its life, the period should be limited. On this occasion the period which I ask the House of Commons to agree to is six months. It is the shortest, I think, which has appeared in any of the previous Bills of this kind, and I feel sure that it will commend itself to the House as in all the circumstances reasonable. The House will understand that, in making this proposal, the Government are not in any way prejudging any question which may be involved by the passing of this Bill. We have never considered as a Government—and we are unlikely to consider it—whether or not an election might or might not be desirable. That must depend on circumstances beyond the control of the Government. All we are doing now is to ask the House to assent to the continuance of this Parliament for a further period, and the period which I suggest, and which I hope will meet with the approval of the House, is six months.
  Mr. ASQUITH: I only wish to say, in a sentence, that I think the course the Government has taken in introducing
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  the Bill is absolutely necessary. This Parliament was elected under the Septennial Act, and its term of existence, therefore, if not previously interrupted by the vicissitudes of political life, would have come to an end in January of the present year. This Parliament, which was elected for seven years, by an act of rare self-sacrifice, determined prematurely to terminate it at the end of five years. That would have happened naturally, no doubt, but for the War. The five years expired a long time ago. We, therefore, from time to time had these temporary extensions of the prolongation of our life, and this, I imagine, must be very nearly the last time. At any rate, the effect of this will be that Parliament will have exceeded by only one year the term fixed by the Septennial Act. That, of course, is open to the obvious objection to which my right hon. Friend has alluded. It may be said that it has exceeded its mandate, and is no longer in contact with the electorate, and that it is devoid of the authority which, under our Constitution, every House of Commons ought from time to time to have renewed. The answer to all that is the exigencies of the War. We are not our own masters in the matter. We are driven by the force of circumstances to a course which is repugnant to all of us; but in the circumstances I think His Majesty's Government has taken the only course open to it, and I hope it will be unanimously accepted.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I do not desire to eriticise the attitude taken up by either of the right hon. Gentlemen. I think, under present conditions, an extension of the life of Parliament is inevitable. At the same time, I think most people will now regret that the course was originally taken of extending the life of Parliament and of suspending registration. There is, however, one part of the Bill which is now before the House to which neither right hon. Gentleman made any reference, and that is the second Clause. Listening to the speech of the Leader of the House, one would have thought that this Bill had no effect on local elections at all. Now, the second Clause suspends local elections for a further year, and thereby extends the tenure of office of all the members of these local authorities by about a year. It has been indicated in both speeches that this is probably the last extension of the life of this Parliament. Consequently, we may take it for certain that this Parliament will either expire on 31st January

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  or in the month or two immediately preceding that date. If that be so, why should not a similar provision apply to the local authorities? If it is going to be possible to go through all the machinery of an election in the month of January at the latest for the purposes of this Parliament, why should it not be possible in the month of November, when the register is ready, to allow all the local authorities—certainly the municipal authorities—to have their members re-elected?
  I think the considerations which make it undesirable that this House should continue further apply with equal force to the local authorities. Not only have these local authorities the ordinary duties which fall to them in time of peace, but other functions have been devolved upon them in the course of the War, and you have this situation, that those very difficult and delicate functions are now being discharged by local authorities who have no representative character whatever, and who have no contact with the people whose administration their daily life constantly affects. I think, in view of the new situation indicated by the speech of the Leader of the House, that this House has no right for a further year to suspend local elections. I know that in many parts of the country there is a considerable feeling as to the desirability of fresh elections for all these local authorities. I wish to put it to the Leader of the House and to the Government that it is desirable to reconsider this matter. Certainly, when the Bill goes into Committee, I shall feel it my duty to move the rejection of this Clause, and to take a Division upon it, so that the feeling of the House may be tested. In the meantime I enter this caveat, and make an appeal to the Government in the hope that they will reconsider this important subject.
  Mr. GILBERT: I do not rise for the purpose of opposing the Second Heading of this Bill, but in view of questions which were asked to-day, and in view of the knowledge some of us have of the way in which the new register has been prepared, and as I see the name of my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board on the back of the Bill, I hope I shall not be out of order in asking him if he can give the House and the country some information as to what the Local Government Board propose to do as regards preparing a register if this Bill is carried, and the election is put off till next January. The qualifying
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  time for the present register was April last. If this Bill is carried, and the election is put off till next January, the qualifying time in the Representation of the People Bill will be October next. I do not want to labour the point, because the question was put to the right hon. Gentleman to-day by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries, but I think it is current knowledge, particularly at any rate in London, that a great many people have been left off the first register. I think it would be very helpful if the President of the Local Government Board would tell us if he proposes that between then and January the second register shall be prepared, and, if that is to be the position of the Local Government Board, can he give the House any information as to whether it will adopt a better method in preparing a second register to that in which the first has been prepared?
  He must know from information he has received that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way the register has been prepared, especially in London—I have only the right to speak for London. I would, therefore, respectfully suggest to him, and the Government, that if a second register is to be prepared, we should have some undertaking from the Government that they will make the rules for local registration officers much more stringent than the rules they have already put out, so that the house-to-house canvass which was promised when the Representation of the People Bill was before the House may be carried out. Those of us who take an interest in the matter understood that it was to be an effective house-to-house canvass, not to be simply a calling at the house and leaving forms for the people to fill up and send back. If the President of the Local Government Board will undertake that on the second register an effective house-to-house canvass shall be made in order to get everybody on the register who is entitled to be there, and in order that the people who should have been on the first register and were left off, put on, this would prove a very great source of satisfaction to the new electors.
  The second point I have been asked to put to the House on this Bill I do at the request of the London County Council, of which I am a member, and in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for South Paddington, who generally puts the case for the county council before this House.

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  It refers to a matter which somewhat differs from that in the speech to which we have just listened from my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lanarkshire. When the county council knew that this Bill was going to be brought in they held a meeting last week of the local government committee, which deals with these matters. This meeting was held on Friday. The local government committee passed several resolutions, which I will read—
  "(a) That, inasmuch as the Representation of the People Act, 1018, makes no special provision for enabling persons on war service or absent on war work to be registered as local government electors, or to vote at elections of local government authorities, and as there would be serious practical difficulties under prevailing conditions in holding such elections, and of inducing suitable persons to stand as candidates therefor, the County Council is of opinion that the statutory elections of county councillors and guardians due in March and April, 1919, respectively, should be further postponed for a year.
  (b) That the foregoing Resolution (a) be sent to the Local Government Board.
  (c) That the Parliamentary Committee be instructed to seek an Amendment of the Parliament and Local Elections Bill, 1918, to provide that the next statutory elections of county councillors and guardians in England and Wales, due in March and April, 1919, respectively, should be further postponed for a year.
  The London County Council does not meet until to-morrow, so that these resolutions which I have read will technically not be effective resolutions, seeing they will not be carried till to-morrow. But there has been a meeting to-day of the general purposes committee, which is one of the largest committees of the council, and they have unanimously adopted the resolutions, which, again, were unanimously adopted last Friday by the local government committee. The reason the county council put forward these resolutions is because of Clause 2, Sub-section (2), of the Bill. Here is a special proviso which says:
  "This proviso shall only apply where the next statutory election, whether a postponed election or not, would take place before the first day of March, 1919."
  Reading that in conjunction with a previous paragraph of Clause 1, it means that the borough council elections which would take place in November, the same as the municipal corporation elections in the country, are to be postponed under this Bill if passed in the way it has been drafted; but that the county council elections and the guardians' elections, which are local elections in a similar way to
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  borough council elections, and which are held after the 1st of March, will have to be held. Therefore, on behalf of the county council, I put these resolutions before the House on the Second Reading, and I have no doubt Amendments will be moved in Committee on behalf of the county council. May I also put before the House one other fact as regards county council elections? Last week I asked a question of the President of the Local Government Board in relation to a matter to which he has given some consideration. The question had relation to the great increase of the expenses of these local elections, especially in London. Under the Municipal Elections Act in every municipal election there was a limit of the amount that might be spent——
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that matter arises on this Bill.
  Mr. GILBERT: Well, Sir, if not out of order, I only desire to introduce what I have said as a further reason why the county council elections should not take place next March. I will put the point very briefly.
  Mr. SPEAKER: It does not matter how brief the hon. Member is if he is out of order.
  Mr. GILBERT: Very well, Sir, I will not pursue the matter further. I had to put it before the House in view of the resolutions passed by the London County Council which I have read to the House, and they do, I think, raise a good many points for the consideration of the House. I trust when the Bill is in Committee that the House will favourably consider any Amendments that may be put down in this connection.
  Mr. HOLT: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith) that this measure is necessary. It is necessary because the register is not in a sufficient state of forwardness to enable us to hold an election when this Parliament comes to an end. I would like, however, to remind the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board that on the Committee stage of the Bill, previous to this Bill extending the life of the Parliament, I asked him a question as to whether he thought the register would be ready in time—that is by 31st July—and he told me, while not giving me a definite assurance, that he hoped that that would be the

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  case. I venture to hope that we may have a very definite assurance from the Government this afternoon that the register will certainly be ready, and available, before the life of Parliament, as extended by this Act, expires. Though it may be necessary on this occasion to extend the life of Parliament, it is a very objectionable necessity. Under the new Act we have brought on to the register a very large number of persons who have never voted before. It does seem to me that those persons are entitled to have a voice in the election of Parliament at the earliest possible moment in which they can be allowed to record their votes. It is, of course, a very great inconvenience to have an election during the continuance of the War, but I submit to the House that there are very many almost as grave, or more grave, inconveniences arising from not having an election. Are not these new electors entitled, if possible, to have a voice in the return of Members? It appears to me that at a very early date it may be necessary to consider what are, or what ought to be, the terms of peace.
  Surely it we are doubling the electorate, and, it may be, by the Act that we have passed that millions of people who have never before been entitled to be electors are now entitled to a voice in the government of the country, we ought to give these people, at the earliest possible opportunity, the chance of expressing their views at the, possibly, most momentous election likely to happen in their lives, dealing with, as I say, the terms and conditions of peace, which we shall sooner or later have to make with our enemies! For these reasons, I submit that this ought really to be understood by everybody to be the final extension of the life of Parliament. I ask the Government to give us something like an undertaking to do their very best to hold a General Election before producing another Bill of this character, provided it is necessary so to do. I want to draw the attention of the President of the Local Government Board to another matter which it appears to me arises out of this Bill. What is the position of the local authorities—that is to say, of the authorities in the provinces instituted under the Muncipal Corporations Act, and who return one-third of their members every year? Is it possible for them to hold any election whatever? Is it not necessary to make some provision for
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  altering the character, at all events, of the first election after the Suspensory Act comes to an end? Is not that necessary in order to hold elections at all? Unless something of that kind is done to enable them to elect the whole authority en bloc, what is the position? Perhaps the President of the Local Government Board can tell us whether it is possible to have some further Act for these authorities to proceed to the re-election of their members. If it is not, will he give some assurance that at an early date a Bill will be introduced to make it possible to hold elections in the provincial boroughs?
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: I only wish to call attention to one point. At Question Time I asked a supplementary question as to whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that tens of thousands of people were being left off the register who were entitled to be on it in London? When the Representation of the People Act was before the House, hon. Members will remember we urged upon the President the desirability of having genuine house-to-house canvass, as in many of the boroughs of London the only house-to-house canvass we could hear of was merely leaving forms for those concerned to fill in and take back to the Town Hall. In many streets where investigation for the purpose of checking took place it was discovered that the officials left the voter off the list, though he was residing in the place. The Act was passed in order when the next election came the people who were enfranchised by it, and intended so to be, should have their say in the election of a new House of Commons. If the work of the registration has not been effectively done, then these people are being deprived of the right which the House of Commons intended should be conferred upon them. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour to accelerate the work in connection with the second register. I suppose the work of registration will be done, or commenced, in October, so that normally the new register would come into operation in January. There will be no need to go over the ground again, or over the whole of the ground, for the experience gained in the preparation of the first register should have its effect, so that we may have a genuine and not a bogus register on which to have an election at the end of the period which this Act will no doubt fix. I would urge upon the right hon.

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  Gentleman, if he wishes to remove the grave dissatisfaction felt by persons who expected to be enfranchised, and to have an election which will give a true expression of the voice of enfranchised persons throughout the country when the next election takes place, to do his very utmost to push forward the second register, so that we may have an effective one.
  Mr. SHERWELL: We are at some disadvantage in a Debate like this for several reasons. Opposition is necessarily discounted and handicapped owing to circumstances the importance of which we all recognise. But I must say that I cannot, within any near period of time, anticipate a set of circumstances which might not, on the face of them, appear as unanswerable against a General Election as are the circumstances at the present time. Incidentally I may say that one finds support for that from the statement made under a sense of grave responsibility by the Prime Minister this afternoon and by the Leader of the House a few nights ago. The only change in the circumstances that may be possible in six months is that you will have a new register. The absence of a satisfactory register is really due to the fault of the House of Commons. If we had not gone out of our way to interrupt the work of registration at an early day in the War we should have had a register which, although not as complete as the new register under the new Bill will be, would have been adequate for the purpose of a General Election. I have never altered my own view that the gravest possible injury to the House of Commons and the country was done when the first extension of the life of this Parliament was made. May I suggest that while I agree with the observation made by the Leader of the House that this House has grown remote from the mandate of its constituents, I would go further and say that not only is this House out-of-date with electors, but it is really an irresponsible House? The House to-day acts without responsibity; it almost automatically registers any decree or appeal from the members of the Government.
  May I suggest that while the right hon. Gentleman makes his appeal for the confidence and support of the House, he and his colleagues should accept the reciprocal obligation that while the House itself is
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  remote from the opinions of the country, it is obvious that the Government which leads and represents the House must itself be remote from the opinion of the country? What do we find? Week after week the Government, through its Ministers, commits itself and the country to declarations foreshadowing, or rather announcing, decisions on matters of policy not connected with war circumstances, but appropriate or inappropriate to conditions after the War. One could give numerous illustrations. I was startled when the President of the Board of Trade visited Manchester and announced to the dye users that the Government had decided that for ten years after the War there was to be prohibition of all imports of dyeing-stuffs except under licence.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That really has nothing whatever to do with this Bill. The hon. Member appears to be using this Bill as an instrument by which to chastise the Government for the policy which they have expressed in regard to imports after the War.
  Mr. SHERWELL: I was not going to commit myself in regard to the merits or the demerits of that question, but I wish to suggest to the Government that while they ask us to pass this Bill, acknowledging at the time that we have no mandate from the constituencies and that we are remote from the mandate which sent us here, they are equally remote.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The Government are proposing an extension of the life of Parliament, and I believe, with a general consensus of opinion, they have chosen the best date, namely, January 31st next year, as the time to which the life of this Parliament should be extended. I will give an assurance, so far as I can, that the new register will certainly be operative before the 31st January, 1919. I can give that assurance with the utmost readiness and a promise on behalf of my Department that we shall be able to fulfil it, and even if the hon. Member antedated his request by three months, I should be equally ready to give him that assurance. I have been asked whether this new register is going to be adequate, and the suggestion has been made that some thousands of persons will not find themselves on the register. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is the fault of the local authority!"] I do

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  not think there is any substance in that contention. So far as the information reaches me, although the lists have not been published by a date fixed, undoubtedly there are means now of getting voters upon the register if they can satisfy the Court. I have no patience at all with voters who will not take the slightest trouble of any sort or kind to get on the register. I am confident, however, that the register is going to be an immense one, and it will contain double the number that were on the last register. [HON. MEMBERS: "More than double!"] Very well, more than double. I believe it will contain most of the soldiers and sailors who ought to be on, but as to whether in the proxy areas the soldiers and sailors will be able to vote, that depends upon when the election is held. I believe, however, that most of the soldiers and sailors will be placed upon the register.
  With regard to those who have found fault with my Department as to registration, I ask hon. Members to recollect the great difficulties we have laboured under. Take the question of the soldiers and sailors. We fully expect that we shall be able to locate the voters by means of postcards sent to them on the battlefield in France. On the last occasion for registration purposes, when millions of postcards were issued, it happened to be the very moment when the great push took place, and the officers in charge said, "Really, our chief business now is fighting, and not bothering about elections. We must hold your postcards back and we cannot give them out now." The result was that a good deal of delay took place, and this caused a great deal of information to be withheld from the registration officers which would otherwise have reached them. How have we met the situation? We have issued an order that these postcards shall be regarded as claims, and if they arrive after the register is published they will be regarded as claims on the part of the soldiers. Every order and every suggestion we make is always in favour of giving the benefit of the doubt to the soldiers and the sailors, and not in favour of keeping them off the register. I believe it will be a very full and abundant register, very truly representative of the interests of the country, and, although I have not the slightest doubt at the second time of asking we shall be able to make a better register, yet,
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  considering all our difficulties with the printers, many of whose men went down with the "flu" at the last moment, I believe we shall be prepared to circulate by the middle of October a very full register of the people who ought to be on it.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: Would it not be possible to get a second register by January?
  Mr. FISHER: I think what I have already said shows that that is not necessary. Anybody who takes any trouble to get on this register will get on it with the exception of some soldiers in distant parts. With regard to the local elections, I quite understand that hon. Members may think that while we are extending the life of Parliament, we ought at the same time to consider the local elections for municipal boroughs and the Metropolitan boroughs. You will have your register ready, and there is not the same reason for this. On this matter, I think, we are entitled to ascertain the opinions of the local bodies themselves. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] There are various reasons to be adduced. The first reason is that the staffs of the borough councils are already working up to their very maximum capacity, and when every single new duty is to be put upon those staffs they naturally shrink from having an election put upon them as well. They also advance the argument that the local authorities are doing very valuable national work at the present time, and that you might dislocate those committees and break them up and remove from them men who have acquired very valuable experience. There are two other arguments that appear to me—the first is that some of us are not able to vote as absent voters at local elections, and the soldiers will not be able to take part in those local elections. As they will be elected for three years, it is obvious that the soldiers could not take any effective part in those elections.
  Mr. WATT: Does that not apply to next November?
  Mr. FISHER: It depends how long the War lasts.
  Colonel THORNE: Will there be any need for any alterations in the Municipal Corporations Act in consequence of the elections taking place on the 1st of November?
  Mr. FISHER: These local authorities say, "You have taken many of our representatives for military service." That will also apply to a great many local gentlemen who desire to stand as candidates, and they will naturally say that they have had no chance for three years, simply because they were away doing national duty.
  Mr. HOLT: That does not apply to municipal corporations.
  Mr. FISHER: Just now the hon. Member who has interrupted me was asking me to sweep away the one-third rule.
  Mr. HOLT: Only for the first election.
  Mr. FISHER: Those men look at the law as it stands. This would certainly be the case in the Metropolitan boroughs and many of the other boroughs, but not in those places where only one-third retire. I think I have now said enough to justify the postponement of the General Election. The county council elections will still take place next March, but all these matters we can discuss in Committee. I think I have now indicated the main reasons which have guided the Government in postponing the November elections in addition to the main Clause prolonging the life of Parliament until the 31st of January next year.
  5.0 P.M.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I am glad the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt) has raised the constitutional question, which apparently has been overlooked both by members of the Government and Members of the House. We are asked to prolong the life of a Parliament which was elected for seven years, which on its own accord reduced its life to five years, and we are now being asked to prolong its life by another six months, which makes altogether a prolongation of three years. We are told that this is necessary on account of the War. Supposing that that is so, is it necessary to bring in Reform Bills, and then deny to the new electors the right to say who are to represent them in Parliament? It has always been the custom, so far as I know, since this Parliament was created when there was a Reform Bill that the country should be at once consulted. Never has Parliament, not even in the days of the Long Parliament, brought in a Reform Bill followed by a measure prolonging the life of Parliament. There is only one other alternative, and that is to have no legislation except that
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  which is connected with the War until you get the authority of the new electorate. Supposing this House and another place agree to the prolongation of the life of the House for another six months, will the Government, in view of the fact that the electorate which elected this House Seven and a half years ago is no longer the electorate of the country, give an undertaking that they will not bring in any new legislation until a new House representing the new electorate has been returned—I mean no legislation except in the interests of the War—because otherwise we shall be doing a great injustice to the new electorate? What is the use of doubling the electorate if at the same time we deny the electors the right which we have given them? What is the use of having a new register if at the same time we prolong the life of Parliament and do not give the new electors an opportunity of expressing their wishes? If this Bill is introduced on account of the necessities of the War, then we ought to have an assurance from the Government that nothing will be done except the business of the War. I see a smile upon the face of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Hayes Fisher) which is not reflected upon the face of the Leader of the House, and the Leader of the House being unable, as I am sure he is, to answer my arguments, which are quite unanswerable, I hope that he will get up and say that as long as we agree to extend this Parliament he will see that no legislation not connected with the War is introduced.
  Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: I am sure that there is nobody in the House who is prepared to oppose this measure, but I confess that I feel rather puzzled, especially after the speech of the President of the Local Government Board. He said that it would be unfair to hold the local elections next November, because, presumably, there would be so many soldiers still abroad unable to vote. He, therefore, proposes to postpone those elections till at least next November twelve months, and I agree that is the proper thing to do. But what happens with regard to Parliamentary elections? The Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition seemed to imply that this would be the last extension of the life of this Parliament, and that, therefore, a General Election for the purposes of electing a new Parliament would take place next January. Are we then to suppose that our soldiers are to come back by

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  January? The President of the Local Government Board has implied that they will not be back by November.
  Mr. FISHER: There is no machinery by which soldiers can vote as absent voters at local elections. They will be able to vote at Parliamentary elections as absent voters, and, if they are in distant theatres of war, they will be able to vote by proxy.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Assuming that to be so, the right hon. Gentleman has said that one of the reasons of the delay in preparing the register is the difficulty of getting our soldiers at the front in a time of great stress to fill in the application for registration. If this tremendous delay has occurred, and quite properly occurred, because our soldiers have other work to do, is there not the same objection to a General Election? How can you set up machinery to enable these men who are now sacrificing their all for their country to elect a new Parliament? It has been tried, I know, in the case of Australia and Canada, but, after all, the Australians and Canadians only form a small part of an immense number of British troops, and it is conceivable that they might be able to have opportunities of voting which would be denied to the British soldier at an election next January. Supposing this is not the last prolongation of the life of Parliament and supposing next November we are asked again to postpone the General Election for another six months, in spite of the fact that by that time the new register will be complete, if there is a by-election in January, is that by-election to be fought on the new register or on the old register? I am uncertain which it will be. If it is fought on the new register, there will be some Members of Parliament elected upon a perfectly new register, three or four times as many in numbers as the old register. If it is fought on the old register, you will have the old evil of elections taking place on a stale register carried on for another six months.
  I do not wish in any way to appear to be in opposition to this Bill, because in the present circumstances of the War it is absolutely necessary, but I see great difficulties in the way of a General Election in January, and I also see great objections to postponing it further. On the whole, I hope that the Government
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  will adopt a policy which will give us the voice of the new electors properly represented at the next election. I do not think that the Government or anybody realised what the Reform Bill meant. In my Constituency, whereas the electors in the two towns that I represent numbered less than 8,000 at the last election, the total number of the electors in one town alone now, so I was told last week by a gentleman who is preparing the register, is 20,000. The accretion of electors is far greater than anybody anticipated when the Reform Bill was passed. It is therefore not only necessary to extend the life of Parliament, because of the difficulty of getting the new register, which is far greater than anybody anticipated, but I very much question whether the Government, with all the good will in the world, will be able to get that new register ready, as was intimated by the President of the Local Government Board, by the end of October, or, indeed, by the end of the year. I think it will, therefore, be necessary to ask for a further prolongation of the life of Parliament.
  Mr. PONSONBY: I quite recognise the inevitable character of this Bill, but, at the same time, I think we are slipping into the habit of prolonging our own lives too easily. I shall not be at all surprised if we have to do it again, and the frequency with which we do it is really no excuse for thinking the matter of small consequence. Each time that it is done it really becomes a graver matter. The Government are inclined to overestimate the dislocation which a General Election would cause. With the new legislation that has been passed, the General Election, in the first place, would not take so long, and the dislocation which would be caused would not be so great an evil as that in the greatest crisis that this country has ever been through the House of Commons should not adequately represent the country. Everybody will admit that the House of Commons is stale, is tired, and is, to a certain extent, stunned by the events of the last four years. You have only to turn to the gigantic Votes of Credit and note the attendance of Members during those Debates to realise not how apathetic, but how unable the House is to rouse itself, and very naturally, to the full height of the importance of the circumstances.

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  Another matter which is regrettable is the way in which the House has been rather got round by the Government. We were told the other day that 288 Members of this House, since 1910, have received office, or decoration, or promotion, or a place of some kind or other. That is a gradual corruption of the House, and the only way for the people of this country to feel that the grave situation in which we are placed—whether it is the issue of War or the issue of peace—is being adequately dealt with, is to have, as soon as possible, a fresh House of Commons really competent to deal with the business, and its competence rests not upon the character of the individuals, but upon its representative character. I agree that after the passing of a Reform Bill it is necessary to have an election at the earliest possible moment. If that has been true in the past, it is very much more urgent and important after the Reform Bill that has just been passed, because it is one of the greatest, most comprehensive, and far-reaching measures that has ever passed through this House. We have an entirely new electorate, and, although there are a good many people who indulge in prophecies with regard to certain seats and certain Members of this House, I think there are going to be a great many surprises. However that may be, I do not think the Government ought to dwell so much upon the dislocation that a General Election would cause. The country is anxious to have a new House of Commons to deal more competently with the present situation, and I should like to have an assurance from the Leader of the House that they do intend within the period fixed by this Bill to have an appeal to the country as soon as the lists are ready. I think that would satisfy people more than leaving the possibility of a further prolongation of our lives.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not know whether I might appeal to the House to let us come to a decision on the Second Reading now. I think we are all agreed about the necessity of doing something in this matter and such points as have been raised can be dealt with more easily in Committee. There is a great deal in what the hon. Member who has just spoken (Mr. Ponsonby) has said. I think it was
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  the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) who said that, seeing it is admitted that under existing circumstances the House of Commons is far from being in touch with the electorate, the Government ought to be humble. I am all in favour of humility, but, if that means that the Government ought to be timid, then nothing could be more fatal than that in a national crisis like this there should be a Government in such a position. With regard to what has been said about the Government giving an undertaking that there will be an appeal to the electorate, of course it would be quite wrong for the Government to prejudge a necessity of that kind. It must depend upon the circumstances at any given time, and you have to weigh the disadvantages of the political excitement which an election causes against the obvious disadvantages of a House of Commons not adequately representing the feeling of the country. There is one thing about which I am absolutely certain. A war like this could not be carried on for a week by a Government which did not have in all essential matters the complete support of the House of Commons. In the same way, I say it without the smallest hesitation, in a War like this it would be impossible to carry on for a single day unless it was quite evident that the people of this country were behind it. All that must weigh with the House of Commons and with the Government, and I am perfectly certain that if the circumstances seem to indicate that there is any doubt about the Government representing the people of this country in the policy which they carry out that must be set at rest in the only way possible, which is an appeal to the country.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: I have no wish to delay the Second Reading of this measure. While I am in agreement about the need for a new House of Commons, it seems to me that the point raised by the hon. Member for Islington with reference to the conditions of the new register which is being prepared, and by which the next House of Commons can be elected, is one of the utmost gravity. I think the right hon. Gentleman, in answering the point raised by my hon. Friend, brushed it aside rather lightly. The right hon. Gentleman, as we may well appreciate, stands out for the local

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  authorities when he declares that they have done everything that is possible to make this register a good one, that they have had many difficulties to contend with in the preparation of this gigantic register and that there are bound to be mistakes. But I venture to point out to him that the inequalities existing between the register in one division as compared with another is a very serious matter indeed. I appreciate, of course, that it is chiefly the duty of the local authority to control its own officers, but at the same time, from evidence which has been brought before me, I venture to think that if the right hon. Gentleman had laid down certain rules for the officers acting for the overseers in preparing these lists many of these discrepancies and mistakes would have been avoided. It is easy to say that the prospective voter has the matter in his own hands and that he has only to claim his vote. Surely that is exactly what the House of Commons was trying to avoid when it passed the Bill, namely, that the voter should be put to the trouble of claiming his vote and using the local machinery. Surely the average man or woman would in the long run have to take advantage of the local party agent, and that is exactly what we wish to avoid. It is the fashion nowadays to blame and cast aspersions upon the party agents.
  Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the time or the occasion for discussing the whole question of registration. That is within the administration of the Local Government Board, and the matter would come properly on the Local Government Board Vote.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: I will only say that, in comparing the new list by which the next election can be held, there is information in the hands of Members, which they receive from time to time, indicating very great inequalities in the majority of boroughs, and certainly in London. May I point out that as a test case in one borough, in comparing the new list, a canvass was made by a party organisation, and in three streets——
  Mr. SPEAKER: This is all matter which is not the least relevant to the Bill. All the matters which the hon. and gallant Gentleman is raising are quite relevant to a discussion of the method of administration on the Representation of the People Act, but they are not relevant to this Bill.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: I only wish to impress upon him the point raised by the hon. Member for Islington, to assure him that they are well supported in various parts of the House, and to urge upon him that this matter should be carefully considered before the new registers are finally printed.
  Mr. HANDEL BOOTH: I am afraid a wrong impression will go forward after the speech of the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs. He stated that a by-election taking place next Christmas would be under the new register; but I submit that this Bill makes no provision for that, and I do not see how it can be possible, even if there was a further prolongation of the life of this Parliament, to indicate that a by-election could be under the new Bill. I say this because the new Bill makes different constituencies, and one has only to think of the by-election proceeding in Finsbury to appreciate this, because if that by-election were going on under the new Bill there would not be any constituency in existence at all. I do not see how it would ever be possible for by-elections in connection with this Parliament, whether we extend it now or again, ever to take place under the new Bill or the new register, because there would be a vacancy, but in a great number of cases it would not fit in with the new Bill. I do ask, in view of the statement which was made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs, and which was not challenged by the Government, that the President of the Local Government Board will say at once that any by-election which takes place before the term of this Bill expires—that is to say, up to the 31st of January next—must be upon the old register.
  Mr. FISHER Mr. FISHER rose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: It is not necessary; it is so obvious.
  Mr. BOOTH: But the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs said exactly the opposite.
  Mr. SPEAKER: He spoke in his haste.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Pratt.]

  STATUTORY UNDERTAKINGS (TEMPORARY INCREASE OF CHARGES) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  This Bill has been framed to give effect to recommendations which have been made by Select Committees of this House appointed to consider the case of gas and tramway undertakings whose financial position has been adversely affected by circumstances arising out of the War. The Bill embodies these recommendations. It also applies the same provision to water and electricity undertakings, as the conditions are very similar in the case of these public utilities. All this class of undertaking is limited by Statute in the prices chargeable either under a sliding scale arrangement or a limitation of the maximum dividend payable to the shareholder or by maximum rates and charges fixed by Statute, and many have been very hardly hit as a consequence of the War. Wages have risen from 60 to 100 per cent. Materials have advanced in cost from 100 to 200 per cent. Various restrictions, especially in the case of gas, electricity, and tramways, have recently been rendered necessary, as have been explained to the House on several occasions. These are the main causes which have led to the present position and to the appointment of the Committees referred to. The Select Committee which dealt with the case of gas undertakings recommended that some provision should be made by public Bill for the temporary modification of statutory requirements with regard to price and dividend in the case of undertakings where the financial position is so seriously affected as to call for intervention. This intervention is not to take place until (1) the dividend of the ordinary stock or shares of the company have been reduced to one-half of the standard or maximum rate, or (2) to one-half of its average dividend calculated on the three years before the War, which ever be the smaller. Whenever these conditions prevail, then the sliding scale or maximum charge may be suspended and the company entitled to charge such price as may be held by the Board of Trade to be sufficient for the cost of manufacture, distribution or working, and for
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  a dividend at the rate of one-half the standard dividend or one-half the pre-war dividend, which ever may be the smaller.
  In the case of municipal authorities prices may only be allowed so as to secure the authority against loss, and no excess price over the statutory limit may exceed 50 per cent. The Tramway Committee made a somewhat similar report, and accordingly the Bill has been made applicable to all undertakings of this kind. It is proposed that the Bill shall have effect until the expiration of two years after the War. This is in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on tramway undertakings, and differs from the Gas Commission's Report, which recommended one year and such further period as the Board of Trade may, by Provisional Order, determine. It seemed to the Board of Trade not unreasonable to take the longer period but to make it a fixed one. Some complaint has been made by undertakings concerned that the relief proposed in this Bill is inadequate. I would, however, remind hon. Members that the Bill is based on the recommendations of the Select Committees to which I have referred, and the Board of Trade are of opinion that any alteration must depend upon the will of this House. We are prepared to consider the question of Amendments when the Bill reaches the Committee stage, but at the present moment they feel themselves bound by the recommendations made by the Select Committees appointed by the House of Commons. I would like to add that we do not propose to hurry the Committee stage.
  Sir DANIEL GODDARD: I do not rise for the purpose of moving the rejection of this Bill, but I think it is an occasion upon which a very strong protest should be made against the provisions of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill has said that he has heard of complaints that the Bill has not been considered adequate. I think it would be much more true to have said that they consider the relief proposed in this Bill is scarcely any relief at all, it is so little. Inadequate is not exactly the word to describe it. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman threw himself back on the Report of the Committee, as, of course, he was quite right to do. There is no doubt that the Bill is founded on the recommendations of the Committee. I have no word to say about the Committee. I know they gave long attention to the

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  subject, and no one can charge them with hastiness or with not going into the matter thoroughly. But the Report they have issued is a curious one. It is clear beyond doubt that they carne to the conclusion that some relief was necessary. One clause in the Report says:
  "Your Committee, however, are satisfied, from the evidence placed before them, that some temporary modification of statutory requirements is expedient, in some oases, but the varying conditions of the different gas undertakings render it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to lay down one general rule affecting price and dividends which would be equitable to all companies alike."
  That shows the Committee, having weighed the evidence put before them, thought that in some cases relief was necessary, although they laid it down that, owing to the conditions varying so much, one form of relief would not be appropriate or adequate. Yet this Bill is founded on the plan that they must all be treated in exactly the same way. While the Committee came to the conclusion that some relief was required, their recommendations for that relief fall very far short of the relief that is required or looked for, or was even forecasted by the first part of the Committee's Report. The fact of the matter is that there is not a single one of the twenty-four gas undertakings whose Bills came before the House, which were the cause of the Committee being set up, who, under this Bill, will get any present relief at all. However hard their cases are, the recommendations do not give them any relief. It has been said that the question has arisen on account of the principle of the sliding scale. I suppose that the sliding scale should be properly understood by everyone at this time, but it is an extraordinary thing that you can come across people who do not understand in the least what the sliding scale is. Judging from the reports in the papers, there is an extraordinary number of people who think the undertakings who have asked for relief have got that relief, which the undertakings themselves do not consider they have got at all. Perhaps I may be allowed to say what the sliding scale really means, because it is the basis of the whole thing. The sliding scale is a bargain—there is no doubt about that—between the local authorities and the undertakings. In the Bills which were agreed under that bargain a standard price for gas was fixed, and at the same time a standard rate of dividends was also
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  fixed. It was said to be an incentive to good management. Perhaps in this connection I might quote the words of the Chairman of the Select Committee of this House, the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, because they put the matter stronger than I can. He said
  "it was a fine if they charge a high price, and a reward if they charge a low one."
  It was really to be an incentive to good management. If, by good management and proper economy, they reduced the price of gas to their consumers, they were to be at liberty to increase the dividend above the standard rate. Of course, the opposite effect occurred if the price went above the standard price of gas. Then the dividend fell in the same ratio to what it was before. Under normal conditions of work, for many years this principle has produced very good results. No doubt the public have had the advantage of much cheaper gas, and investors in this kind of stock have received better dividends. But the circumstances of the War have completely changed all the conditions and upset all the calculations. As everybody knows, everything has gone up, and the result has been that gas has had to go up too. If the increased price of gas had been due in any sense whatever to the bad management of these undertakings, nothing could be said, because they must bear the results of their own faults. But that is not the case. These are circumstances over which the undertakings have no control, which have occurred simply on account of the War, and which have put them into a very difficult position indeed. Take, for instance, coal. In the first instance, the price of coal was raised at the pit's mouth by 4s. a ton—it may have been quite right, and I do not find fault with it—to meet the increased charges. The undertakings were very badly used, however, because about the middle of last October an announcement was made by the Coal Controller that the price of coal would go up 2s. 6d. a ton, which was to take effect as from 17th September. Everybody will see that, on the face of it, that was a most unfair arrangement. All the coal delivered between 17th September and October had to pay the extra 2s. 6d. per ton, although, perhaps, much of it had been used. It is clear that if anyone selling coal had the slightest idea that this rise would take place he would have delayed delivering coal in order to get the higher price for his article.

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  Only on 24th June last another 2s. 6d. per ton was added to the price of coal, and just recently another 1s. 6d. per ton has been added. No warning was given of these increases, and you could not make allowance for them.
  The House ought to understand the very difficult position in which these companies are put. The gas companies cannot increase their price until the next quarter, because the present quarter has already begun and will not expire until 30th September. Therefore, they must go on paying this extra price for coal without any possibility of raising the price of gas, for the time of giving notice has gone by. Then there is the question of freights. A great deal of the coal is brought to the Metropolis and certain Southern ports by ship, and freights have gone up enormously. The pre-war freight from the Tyne to London was about 3s. It has been as high as 20s., but it is now about 17s. From 3s. to 17s. is an enormous increase. It will be seen at once that there was no possibility of controlling that. We know the reason of it, and the reason is a good one. I am not finding fault with it, but simply pointing out that the effect is rather serious. Further, there is the question of labour. No doubt the cost of living has risen very largely, and it is right that workmen should be paid higher wages in consequence, but it has been a serious blow to the industry, because these wages have gone up enormously. As a result of the recent inquiry, 20s. was added above the pre-war rate of wages, and in addition to that there was the 12½ per cent., of which we have heard something in this House. That was a considerable charge. The prices of all the materials, as the hon. Gentleman said, have gone up enormously—in some cases 200 per cent. and in others 300 per cent. There are some of the charges which these undertakings have had to pay. It cannot be said that it is a question of new undertakings, because all these undertakings must provide for repairs and maintenance and must have materials for that purpose. In the case of oil, which is used largely by gas undertakings, the pre-war price was about 2½d. a gallon. The oil is now regulated by the Government and the present price—it has been higher—stands at 1s. 4d. a gallon. That is a considerable charge. All these things, taken together, have caused an enormous increase in the cost of producing gas.
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  There has not only been the increase in the cost, but, in addition, the Government has controlled the price of residuals. Although the price of coal has been increased, there has been no opportunity of recovering any part of it by an increased charge for residuals. I am told that if the residuals of gas companies had a free market and were sold at whatever they could fetch, it would make a difference of 5d. per 1,000 cubic feet of gas at the present time—that is to say, the price would be 5d. less than at present. All these things have meant a rise in the cost of gas, and, consequently, a serious falling off in the rate of dividend. On the top of all these things, we come to a Rationing Order. I am not going to discuss the Rationing Order, because I do not suppose it would be in order for me to go into it in detail, but I may say that the Rationing Order is designed to restrict and reduce the sale of gas. We are told that the use of gas must be restricted, which means that these undertakings are to produce a less quantity of the material on which they are able to make their profit. All the while their establishment charges cannot be reduced a single penny. They have to keep up the same staff and the same offices, and they have to make out the accounts whether they are all reduced or not. Neither can capital charges be reduced. They remain just as they were before. The Rationing Order therefore cuts against these undertakings. There is another quotation from the Report of this Committee to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. The words are worth attention. It says:
  "With the view of maintaining in the public interest the stability of gas undertakings, some provision should be made for the temporary modification of statutory requirements with regard to price and dividend in the case of gas undertakings whose financial circumstances have been injuriously affected by causes arising out of the War."
  The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Government have had to follow what the Committee have laid down. They have not followed that paragraph very much, neither do they follow very closely the recommendations of the Committee. I am very glad they did not in regard to the extension of time for one year. If they have broken away from the Report in one case, they have some right to break away in other cases. How can the financial stability of these gas undertakings be maintained? They are maintained under this Bill by giving no relief

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  until the dividends comes down to half the standard dividend set forth in the various Acts. That is a very serious thing. It means that the dividends of these undertakings will have to go down to 2 per cent., and in some cases to 1¾ per cent., before they can get the slightest relief. In the case of the Gas Light and Coke Company the standard rate of dividend is 4 per cent., and now the price of gas has risen and the dividend has fallen, until at present it is only £2 2s. 8d. per cent. The gas companies will get no relief at all until they can get down to 2 per cent., and in some cases as low as 1¾ per cent. Can anyone pretend that such a return on capital will maintain the stability of the undertakings? These undertakings have to be maintained. There is a good deal of money which must be kept floating for the purpose of maintaining them, and in many cases that floating balance has been depleted and they have had to go to their bankers for large overdrafts. Does that help the financial stability of these concerns? What will the investors in these things do in the future? What will they say about undertakings which only bring in a profit of 2 per cent. or 1¾ per cent.? It must be perfectly clear that it has a very bad effect upon the company. You may say, "Do not raise any capital now." But the banker to whom you owe a large sum of money says, "I must put a stop to this. You must issue some kind of mortgage debentures and pay off some of this overdraft." That has been done in some cases, and the result is that these debentures, which are terminable perhaps in a period of ten years, have to be issued at 6 per cent. interest. That is not keeping up the financial stability of these undertakings, if the debentures which are fully secured have to pay 6 per cent. I do not think anyone under these conditions would be willing to invest in these undertakings.
  I should like to put it in another way which will be quite convincing. We will say a gas undertaking has had its dividends reduced to 2 per cent.—that is to say, it will not get any relief. If capital were issued which had to pay 2 per cent., what would the investor give for that kind of stock? If you can only issue debentures at 6 per cent. he would certainly want as much as that as a return for his money, and the price in order to reach 6 per cent. would have to be 33 or 34. You have only to give £33 for £100
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  worth of stock. Carry this illustration a little further. When better times come after the War we hope things will improve, that coal, freights, and expenses will not be so high, and that gas companies may be able to lower the price of their gas, and so improve their dividends. Supposing this company, which has issued stock at 33 in order to enable the investor to get 6 per cent., is able in better times to get up to its normal statutory dividend of 4 per cent.—not a very large return—it means that it has to pay 12 per cent. on all that money which was issued at 33 or 34. Is that in the interests of the consumer of gas? Is it in the interest of the financial stability of these undertakings? It seems to me it is laying a charge for all time upon the consumer, and that it would be far wiser in the interest of the consumers themselves if a little extra dividend was allowed now, which would not cost much, but would avoid borrowing money, which would be a drag on the undertakings for all time.
  All who are interested in the industry are very dissatisfied with the Report and with the Bill which is founded upon it, and we really think these undertakings have deserved rather better treatment from the Government than they have got. Perhaps the House does not realise, certainly the public does not, what an important part the gas industry has played in the War. I should like to read a sentence from a speech by Lord Moulton, who, as Chairman of the Explosives Committee, has had immense opportunities of judging these things. He said:
  "Your industry, typically peaceful in character and aims, has furnished material for purely war purposes without which it would have been impossible to maintain the fight."
  These are no light words. They are very serious words. He goes on to say:
  "I have thus learnt as well the flexibility and resourcefulness of the industry, as the importance to the nation that all its varied capacities should have free scope. Not only have the benzol, toluol and ammonia produced by it furnished the materials for our high explosives, but in the direction of other needs, of very different nature, it has given promise of similar usefulness. Your future will depend on how serviceable you are to the public. My view of the gas industry is that its value to the country is incalculable. This is recognised at the present time."
  Having done all that, we might have expected rather more generous treatment in these dark and bad times. Some hold that these are companies of large capitalists and that what is proposed is simply

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  to put larger profits into the hands of those who have money invested in them. That is a mistake. Of all the industries in the nation I should think there is scarcely another which has so many comparatively small investors. It was given in evidence before the Committee which investigated this matter that out of fewer than 30,000 holders of stock in the Gas Light and Coke Company, 11,500 held £100 or less of stock. Therefore this is not really a matter of the large capitalists. Many a small man, many a trade union, and many an industrial insurance company, have put their savings into this industry. Taking all the circumstances into account, and remembering what services the industry has performed and how it has been crippled by the action of the Government, I cannot understand why it should have received less generous treatment than the railways. The railways have been taken under the care of the Government and have received their proper dividend—their guaranteed dividend. I am not making a complaint, but I want to know why that should be so with the railways and not with other industries. You may say, "We cannot do without the railways." I think, using the words of Lord Moulton, you cannot do without the gas industry at present, for if it were stopped all the supplies of explosives and material for the War would be at an end. It is a matter of national concern that these undertakings should not be hampered and that some fairer treatment should be meted out to them, and I hope when we get into Committee some Amendments may be accepted which will give real relief in place of what we consider is merely sham relief.
  Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I am extremely glad my right hon. Friend has contributed so comprehensive and so powerful a speech, because it would be a great pity if a Bill so important and far-reaching as this should be sent to a Committee without very adequate debate. The general idea amongst hon. Members, and many of the public, is that the gas industry is an industry of capitalists who are exploiting the gas consumer for their own financial benefit. But there is no industry which at present more closely affects industrial progress, as well as national defence, and there is no industry in which the welfare of the workers is more thoroughly wrapped up. I should like to call attention
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  to the remarkable way in which capital and labour have been welded together by the managers of the gas industry and to show the Government that the relief which they are having by the Bill is entirely inadequate, either from the point of view of the public generally or of the interests of labour. One word upon the basis of the Bill—what is known as the sliding scale. In 1876 the sliding scale was introduced, upon the principle that the lower the price of gas the greater the dividend which the gas companies could pay, provided they could earn it. It was not in any way a subsidy. It was simply permissive. They were restricted in the amount of dividends they could pay unless they had previously sold their gas cheap. I think no one will deny that that system was right in the interests of all concerned. A further provision was made in the interests of the workmen. It was the system of co-partnership. The workmen was to become a shareholder and his shares were purchased with the money which he earned in addition to the ordinary standard rate of wages. At the end of the year he receives a bonus proportionate to the prosperity of the whole industry, and he is expected, though not compelled, to reinvest it as a shareholder in the company for which he works. That is not all. The workman who is a shareholder is eligible for a seat on the board of directors, not by the election of the shareholders as a body but by the election of the other workmen in the same employment.
  Mr. GILBERT: In every company?
  6.0 P.M.
  Sir F. FLANNERY: In practically every gas company—in the great majority of these twenty-four. I was never more proud to say anything than I am to say that for a dozen years I have sat upon the Board of a gas company along with two of the workmen, who leave their work an hour or so before the meeting, come to the meeting and take part in the deliberations, not merely on behalf of the workmen, but on behalf of the whole undertaking, and take part in it with immense intelligence, without prejudice and with fairness to all concerned. That is the industry with which the House is dealing. One company has issued stock to 8,000 small investors, whose average holding is £135 each. It has also issued stock to 5,700 of its own workpeople, who, on an average, hold £75 of stock each. That is the class of stockholder

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  with whom my hon. Friend (Sir W. Middlebrook) and his Committee have been dealing, and dealing, I think, without full appreciation of the character of the investments with which they were dealing, as well as the general public utility of the gas industry. Another gas Company I have in mind has one single shareholder owning £250,000 worth of stock. Here is a great capitalist, somebody about whom those who are concerned with the welfare of the working man may be deeply interested. He happens to be the secretary of an industrial insurance society which has several hundred thousand working men and women members. These are only instances I am giving, and they might be multiplied. Through the co-partnership system in the gas trade there are more working men and working women financially interested in the prosperity of the gas trade, as well as workers as investors, than in any other trade in this country that could possibly be investigated. My right hon. Friend (Sir D. Goddard) has spoken of the services given by the gas companies to national defence. Lord Moulton is not the only public man who has made confession of the fact that but for the special services—the secret services as they were at that time—of the gas trade in finding material for explosives the War would have been brought to a premature conclusion. There is no harm in saying that now, because it is so long ago. It is a mere statement of the naked truth.
  This industry has been the victim of circumstances arising out of the War which have crippled the industry because of its statutory obligations and the sliding scale which I have endeavoured to describe, and it now asks for relief, not ad misericordiam, not as a matter of pity or consideration, but because it is in the public interests that we should have the relief that was recommended by the Committee and which is inadequately fulfilled by the conclusion at which the Committee arrived at and inadequately fulfilled by the provisions of the Bill. Everything that the companies require for the purpose of making gas, explosives, and by-products, which are used for fructifying the land, and which are used in the dye trade, in medicine, and in a hundred other industries, has increased enormously in price. Labour has gone up from 50 to 80 per cent. Coal has gone up 80 or 90 per cent. Freight—because coal is brought nearly always by sea to
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  the big companies in the South of England—600 per cent. and over, and oil has increased something like 700 per cent. Whilst all these expenditures have been increasing to the extent—I have not overstated one of them—we are the victims of a suggestion which is equal to no relief until the dividend has fallen to something like 2 per cent. That, if I may say so without offence, is an absurd suggestion. The companies cannot stop trading because they are statutory companies. They must continue to trade by Act of Parliament. They must supply the demand. They must supply the gas, and they must supply the by-products that are so useful in almost every industry. Before the War, the average dividend distributed by the gas companies was 5 per cent. or thereabouts—some less; very few more. Now the dividend has fallen so that the stocks are just about half the value that they were before the War. These thousands of small investors of whom I have spoken can now only realise about £50, or in some cases very little more, for each £100 they have put in. It is in their interest, it is in the interests of the workers generally, and it is in the interests of the trade and of the public service which the gas trade are rendering, that this Bill has been brought in, and I sincerely hope that the Government will see their way in Committee to increase the measure of relief which is proposed, not out of pity, not merely as an act of justice, but as an act of prudence and wisdom to save this trade from falling away, to give the trade the necessary amount of new plant, and new opportunities for developing scientific improvements which are absolutely necessary, not only for the success of the trade, but also for the advantage of the community at large.
  Sir W. MIDDLEBROOK: I happen to be chairman of the Committee which has inquired into the question whether any relief should be given to the gas companies under exceptional circumstances. With the statements that have been made by those who are supporting the claims of the gas undertakings I have no very serious objection to take upon the general aspect, though I differ in detail. I differ from the last speaker in regard to co-partnership being in any way general in the gas companies. It only applies at the most to three or four companies, according to the evidence given.
  Sir F. FLANNERY: I can give my hon. Friend the names of at least a dozen gas companies which have co-partnership.
  Sir W. MIDDLEBROOK: I am speaking of the evidence given before the Committee where this point was dealt with, and it was put definitely by the gas authorities that co-partnership related to a very few companies. I cannot remember the exact number. Those who are supporting the claims of the gas undertakings have failed in any way to touch upon the question of what relief they are entitled to or from what quarter that relief is to come. That is a most serious point, and it justifies, in my view, the attitude taken by the Committee. I would call the attention of the House to the reference to the Committee:
  "Whether it is expedient that some provision should be made for the temporary modification of Statutory Regulations, with regard to price and dividend, in the case of gas undertakings whose financial circumstances have been injuriously affected by causes arising out of the War."
  The Committee was appointed consisting of ten members, nine of whom were in constant attendance throughout the whole of the inquiry. Every section of the gas industry in every respect had full opportunity of representation and of placing their case before the Committee. Eight full days were given to the hearing, and subsequently the Committee met on five different occasions to consider the evidence that had been given, and the course they should take. The points that impressed the Committee mainly were that conditions had arisen which had prejudicially affected the gas companies, and that those conditions, taking them as a whole, were outside the scope of the most careful and judicious management. Therefore, for those conditions the gas undertakings were not entitled to blame or to carry responsibility. The evidence also showed that up to the middle of last year the effect of these changed conditions was not seriously felt by the gas undertakings. They had been able to continue, and had been able to maintain substantially the dividends which they had been paying before; but they pointed out very strongly to the Committee that from the autumn of last year the effect Would be felt in an increasing degree, and that, whilst it had lessened the dividends of some undertakings, the probability was that that result would continue until, in the opinion of some of the gas
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  authorities, the dividends would diminish very seriously and probably in many cases would be extinguished. The Committee, therefore, came to the conclusion that the undertakings had justified a claim requiring a measure of relief; but they had to bear in mind that the scope of their inquiry was limited to relief that would be secured solely by an increased price to the consumer, and they felt unanimously that it was not reasonable to maintain the dividends of the gas companies at their pre-war standard entirely at the expense of the consumer.
  Neither of the speakers on behalf of the gas undertakings to-day has dealt specifically with that point. Rather they have justified what amounts to a claim against the Government, because they have pointed out that these conditions were very largely due to the necessary intervention—I will not call it interference, because I do not want to convey a wrong impression—of the Government in the interests of the nation as a whole, and still they urge that relief ought to come in the only way that this Committee could give it, and that was by an increase in the price. So in their deliberations the Committee considered how the matter was to be adjusted, and whether the gas undertakings should be relieved entirely from the additional cost thrown upon them by war conditions, with the result that the cost should be placed upon the shoulders of the consumers as a whole. They realised that this was no question of seeking to maintain the interests of the larger capitalists. It was found that the capital of gas companies is very widely spread and that the greater part of it is in sums of £300 or below that amount. But the question was—and this was the crux of the whole matter—Are the gas undertakings to suffer themselves to some extent or be relieved entirely at the expense of the consumer, or are the gas companies and the consumers between them to bear the burden? The Committee, representing every section of this House, after the fullest consideration and after hearing the whole of the evidence, came unanimously to the conclusion that there should be a distribution of that burden as between the gas undertakings and the consumers. The Committee in their Report emphasise the fact that part of the hardship that has arisen was due to the intervention of the Government, but they were advised that it was entirely outside their province to deal with that aspect of the question, and

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  they could not make recommendations on that point. They contented themselves, therefore, by calling attention to the matter. In considering the question how the burden should be borne between the two parties, the Committee came to their conclusions. I frankly admit that there is room for some measure of difference of opinion among reasonable men as to the degree to which the gas companies should be helped, but I cannot see room for any difference of opinion as to the principle upon which it was decided that an unusual burden thrown upon an undertaking of this sort should be borne partially by those who produce and partially by those who consume, because they are in effect, by virtue of the sliding scale, co-partners in the undertaking, and it would not be reasonable to put the whole burden on the one shoulder or the other.
  Then the charge is made against the Committee that we have given a relief which is no relief at all. From that charge I absolutely dissent. Those who speak in favour of the gas undertakings have taken, as we are all apt to do, the strongest illustrations, for their own purposes, of the 4 per cent., of which only 2 or 1¾ per cent. is received. To my mind these speakers are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. I do not deny that gas undertakings will lose to a certain extent, but they will not be affected to more than a certain extent, where that extent is fair and satisfactory. I speak in no attitude of hostility to gas undertakings, but solely in defence of the Committee over which I had the honour to preside. The gas undertakings secure, by the Committee's recommendation, that they will be certain at least of interest on their debenture capital and of the full dividend on all preference capital, and the decision will also give them the certainty of half the standard pre-war dividend on an average of three years on their ordinary capital, and, looking at it from that point of view, those who say that they get no relief at all are using the hardest cases as an illustration and are not taking a general view. The Committee felt, first, that they should ascertain if there was hardship which would justify any relief at all. They came to an affirmative conclusion on that point. Then they took the second point as to how the relief was to be obtained, as between price and dividend, and they came unanimously to the conclusion, seeing they had no power to go outside the two parties interested, that the recommendation
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  winch I have detailed to the House was a substantial relief, especially in view of the evidence, upon which such great stress was laid by the gas undertakings, that the dividends were decreasing and would go on decreasing to the point of disappearing, and the Committee felt that they were giving them the full extent that in jusice to the whole community they were entitled to.
  Mr. GILBERT: I agree with what the Chairman of the Select Committee has said on this matter. We in London are particularly interested in this matter, and a committee of the county council reported on the subject to the council, who agreed with their report. We are quite willing to accept the recommendations of the Special Committee to which the Government is now endeavouring to give effect. I would emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Leeds that the gas company advocates are making a case for Government help and not for power to charge the consumers. The case which they quote of railway companies and other companies being assisted by the Government is a case for help in war conditions, but there is no case for putting the whole of the extra charge on the gas consumer, especially in London, where we have a great number of small gas consumers, particularly people who use penny-in-the-slot meters, who pay a very high price for their gas. The Chairman of the Special Committee was quite right when he said that this was a case in which the gas companies ought to make a claim upon the Government, and that they ought not to try to throw the whole of the charge upon the gas consumers. The sliding scale was a bargain made by the gas companies as far back as 1876. At that time the limit of the gas companies dividend was 10 per cent. As a result of the bargain the 10 per cent. limit applied no longer, and, as a result of the sliding scale, since 1876 the five London companies have distributed in extra dividends the sum of £6,500,000. If the gas companies have done so well since 1876, practically up to last year, out of the sliding scale, a bargain which was made between the consumers and themselves, I do not think that, because of war circumstances having gone against them, they should now want to throw the whole of the extra cost on the gas consumers. I hope that the House will accept the Bill which the Government has brought in, and that the Government will not accept the Amendments, which are going to

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  benefit the large gas companies, particularly in London. I speak purely as a London Member and in reference to London companies, because I think that circumstances possibly are different in the case of the London companies from what they are in the case of some of the country companies. Some of the country companies which have not a sliding scale may have a different case, but, on behalf of the London consumers, I strongly urge the Government to carry out the decision of the Committee, which is embodied in a unanimous Report, arrived at after a long and patient hearing and after hearing expert evidence upon both sides. I hope that the Government will stand firmly, on this Bill, and will not allow any Amendments in the interest of the companies.
  Mr. ALDEN: I desire to say a few words on behalf of the community as a whole. I desire to pay a tribute to the Report of the Committee. The Chairman, in speaking of that Report, has given a very fair account of what took place at the Committee. He has the reputation of being a very just man, and we are always glad to hear him in this House. We want cheap gas for many reasons, but we cannot get cheap gas unless we can get cheap coal and economic management of gas companies. The Government have placed the gas undertakings in a particularly difficult position. The price of coal has increased by something like 10s. 6d. per ton during the War, and that price is imposed upon gas companies. They are between two fires, and I am sorry for them. They have to pay more for their coal and materials and labour, and at the same time the Government pomes to them and says, "We want all your residual products, and we want them at a definite fixed price. We will not allow you to go into the open market, but will compel you to sell to us at so much." If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich is right when he said that if he had been allowed to sell the residual products in the open market he would have been able to lower the price of gas by 5d. a thousand feet, then it does seem to me that the gas companies are in a particularly unfortunate and unhappy position, and to that extent they do deserve some relief. The community could get cheap gas if the Government takes over the companies and says, "We will run these companies ourselves as we run the railway
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  companies. We will fix the price for gas, and we will bear the loss if necessary. We will sell gas at so much a thousand feet." In the interests of the consumers and the community as a whole, if the Government would say, "We will take over all the companies throughout the length and breadth of the country and sell gas at so much, and if there is any loss it shall fall upon the State"—that is an intelligible position. It does not seem to me that there is any alternative between that position, which is quite intelligible and quite possible, and seeing to it that the gas companies do get a fair profit.
  Otherwise, what is going to happen? I do not like to prophesy, but I think I can foretell what will happen, unless the Government intervenes in some way or other. The price of gas must inevitably go up. If you are going to so depreciate gas undertakings that nobody will put their money into them, the consumer is bound to suffer. Almost in the interests of the consumer, the value of the stocks should be kept up. If the stock is largely depreciated the consumer will be really compelled to pay more, unless the Government assume control of the whole business, as they have done in the case of the railway companies, by fixing a fair dividend and a fair rate of interest. But that is another matter altogether, though I am not sure that the Government will not have to do that in the end. If the Government will not do that, then I submit that the suggestion contained in the Report upon which this Bill is based should be accepted with such modifications as will give the gas companies a slightly larger return than they are likely to get at present. I submit that in the interests of the whole community and in the interests of the consumer. I do not represent the gas companies. I am not a director nor a shareholder. I have never received a penny, either directly or indirectly, from any gas company, so that I can speak with a clear conscience on this matter. Of course I represent shareholders in the gas companies; that is obvious, as some of them are my Constituents, and I have in my possession an illustration of what this proposal means to a comparatively small investor, if there is no further relief granted. This is a case of a, gas company in my own Constituency, where the price is now 3s. 4d. per 1,000, as against 2s. per 1,000 before the War. The dividend now is about 4 per cent., and the stock has depreciated from £116 before the War

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  to £63. In other words, £100 of stock provided £112 worth of working capital, and now it only provides £63 worth of working capital. The result is that the consumer must inevitably suffer an increase of price, not only now but after the War. It is not a question of gas companies; it is not a question of big shareholders, but it is a question of the consumer and of the community as a whole. If you can prove to me that the consumer is going to benefit by this Bill, then I am satisfied; but, as I read the Bill, and as I understand the Report, the benefit to the consumer is likely to be absolutely negligible, and it looks to me as if the stock will be so seriously depreciated that either gas must become dearer or the Government must in some way intervene. I am not at all sure whether the Government had not better take the bull by the horns and deal with the gas companies in the same way that they have dealt with the railways. But it may be said, "That is a big order." I do point out to the Government, however, that the gas companies are not trading on their own account wholly; they are not free agents, and it is not a question of buying and selling a product, because they are controlled by the Government to a very large extent, and, under these conditions, I think that a slight modification on this Bill, founded on the Report, should be made, unless the Government themselves are prepared to do something far more drastic.
  Commander BELLAIRS: Like the hon. Member who has just sat down, I approach this question as one who has no personal interest in the matter, except I represent a few shareholders in my Constituency. The hon. Member for Islington invites us to treat as something sacred the sliding scale of forty-two years ago. I beg to differ from him, and I submit that the real force competing with the sliding scale is the supply of electricity. That is the real cause. Two very significant statements fell from the Chairman of the Committee who made this Report. One was that the terms of the reference were limited, and the second that there was room for concession on the part of the Government. I wish to plead with the Government to make concessions, not on the basis of generous terms, but on the basis of fair terms to the companies, so that they may be able to raise capital from the public
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  in the future. I object altogether to treating the subject of a sliding scale as something sacred. We are in days of war, and, as Lord Salisbury said, in war the conditions are those of the "stricken field," which, to a great extent, makes an end of all things as they existed before the War. I think it would be quite right and proper, therefore, if the Government reconsidered the position from the point of view that we are in the midst of a great war. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade invites us to treat the Report of the Parliamentary Committee as something the Government were bound to accept; but I do not quite agree with him. I am quite sure the President of the Board of Trade must have an opinion as to what is fair to the gas companies. After all, this is only a one-Clause Bill, and I believe that both the hon. Members who spoke first, and so ably put the case for the gas companies, do not intend to oppose the Bill or divide against it; indeed, they want the measure but they do want a discussion on Clause 1, in order that the Government may make some concession which would be fair to the gas companies and to all companies concerned.
  Mr. HOHLER: Like the two preceding speakers, I also have no interest, direct or indirect, in the companies enumerated in this Bill, but I do consider that the relief given to the gas companies is not adequate. It is undoubtedly the case that if there were an open market for their residual products the gas companies would obtain afar higher figure for them than they do under the existing arrangement. I understand, indeed, that these residual products are a source of loss to the companies instead of profit. As I understand the sliding scale, if it goes up about 3d., the dividend comes down, and if it falls below that point, then the dividend goes up. With regard to the proposal now before the House, it seems to me that the terms of it are inadequate, having regard to the admitted increase in the price of coal. It has been stated that the price has gone up by 10s. 6d., but there are instances where the increase is nearly. £1, particularly in the case of gas companies on the East Coast, who have great difficulty in obtaining seaborne coal In view of this fact, I think the proposal is wholly inadequate. The hon. Gentleman, the Chairman of the Committee, has given great attention to

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  the subject, and he made an admirable and well-considered speech; but it struck me that the Committee have not given full consideration in what they are proposing the case of the local authorities. These authorities, it is true, have to make such a charge as will enable them to carry on without loss, which means that they have to provide for interest, not only in borrowed money, but also the interest on the sinking fund.
  Sir W. MIDDLEBROOK: The recommendations of the Committee cover both.
  Mr. HOHLER: All that the gas companies may do is to increase their charge, but in the case of the local authorities, who have to pay on borrowed money, they have to charge a much higher price than private companies. I do trust that the President of the Board of Trade or the Parliamentary Secretary, will see his way to deal more liberally with these private undertakings, who have these public burdens imposed upon them, though, as has been shown, if they had been free agents, they could have disposed of their residual products at higher prices and have actually been able to reduce the price of gas. I understand that the present position in which the gas companies find themselves is almost, if not entirely, due to the increased cost of coal. I think some consideration should be given to the gas companies in view of that circumstance. I think that increased price should fall on the consumer to some extent, and that the consumers should share the burden with the gas companies. After all, there is no particular reason that the person who lives in the town should have cheap gas for cooking or lighting, while the consumer who lives in the country has to pay a very high price for his coal. I hope there will be some Amendment of the Bill.
  Mr. NEVILLE: I am chairman of one of the gas companies in the neighbourhood of London, which serves an area of 90 odd square miles, with a population about the same as that of Birmingham, and I desire to associate myself with what has been said by the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Sir D. Goddard) and other speakers. I should like to say one word with regard to what fell from the Chairman of the Select Committee. He told us that we had received very
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  great benefits from the suggestions which his Committee had made. He frankly admitted that the industry deserved consideration, and he said that his Committee had provided for that by the provision which they had made with regard to no interference with our debenture capital or our preference capital. That question was not before that Committee, and has never been the subject of a sliding scale, and is unaffected by it, and under the Acts of Parliament which regulate all public undertakings, if we were, to fail to pay our debenture interest, we should find ourselves with a receiver at once. Therefore, the remarks which fell from the hon. and learned Member for South Leeds (Sir W. Middlebrook) were really beside the point in regard to debenture and preference capital. I have before me figures on nearly every one of the points which have been raised in the course of the Debate, figures which refer to my own company, and which I think are very significant. Before I leave the question with regard to capital, I should like to say that in my company the preference and debenture capital is about a third, and that therefore the sliding scale only relates to about two-thirds of the capital, and the average interest which has been obtained on the whole of the company's capital has been about 8 per cent. An hon. Member drew attention to the fact that the companies had paid a large sum in excess of their standard dividends, and no doubt it would prejudice a great many Members of this House to hear that over a period of forty-two years or more £6,500,000 have been paid in excess of the standard dividend. But it must be remembered that at the time when the sliding scale was introduced, Parliament considered that 10 per cent. was a fair price to be earned by industrial capital which was embarked in these undertakings.
  It was not the practice until about 1856 that gas companies paid any dividend worth looking at. In the year 1859 there was unlimited competition between the various gas companies in this country, and one of the objections which is continually taken to gas undertakings is that they possess in some shape or other a monopoly. That is a common prejudice which is continually trotted forth, if I may use an unparliamentary expression, for the purpose of prejudicing an industry to which this country owes a great deal more than people think, and when I allude to

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  the fact that it was the institution of gas in This country which really made police supervision of our towns efficient, and has saved ratepayers an enormous amount of money and of time, I think, perhaps, some of that prejudice may wear off. Up till about the year 1856 the gas industry was about as poor an earning proposition as you could get, owing to the unrestricted competition among the gas companies themselves. Gas companies only possess one monopoly, which is not really a monopoly, but it is a right to use the public streets for the purpose of laying their mains, and unless they had that right they could not, of course, supply. There was a period up till 1859 when there was unrestricted competition, but this House then put its foot down and said, "We will not allow this competition between the gas companies." And I believe the reason was that, owing to the competition between the gas companies in London, Piccadilly, the Haymarket, Pall Mall, and the other main streets were pulled up six or seven times in one year, and it became such an intolerable nuisance that the Government of the day said they would not allow any other company to compete within an area. The monopoly is not a real monopoly, because there is every sort of competition—with mineral oil, with electricity, with candles, with acetylene, and with other illuminants and with heating and fuel producers—so that when people talk about monopoly they are merely blinded by prejudice.
  One hon. Member said he thought the price of coal had risen 10s. 6d. I will show you what the figures are in the case of my own company. The pre-war price of coal was, I think, 15s. 1d. Owing to the very favourable contracts which, with great foresight on the part of my professional advisers, we were able to make, my company was the only company in London, I think, which did not raise the price of gas for nearly two years after the War began, and we should not have raised it now to the present extent if it had not been for the action of the Government in preventing us from getting the supplies for which we had contracted. It was not until the Government came down on our supplies and said we could not have them—although we had contracted for them at prices which were reasonable and moderate—until other gas companies had been supplied, that we charged 1d. more for the price of gas, but when we found ourselves reduced to a heap of coal which might last for six or seven
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  weeks and saw ourselves faced with the possibility of the works closing down in about a fortnight, we had to rush into the market, and the price of coal is now 37s. 10d. The increase in cost in my company, the capital of which is about £2,000,000, is £270,000 in coal alone. Oil is a very important matter in regard to the working of gas companies, and it is the only way in which most companies can fight with their most deadly enemy, namely, a great and prolonged fog. The gas companies must therefore have oil, and we had a very large purchase of oil. Before the War oil cost us 2¼d. per gallon, and it now costs us 1s. 4¼d. It has gone up 1s. 2d., or 615 per cent. I am dealing with figures that cover over £100,000 in regard to oil. We have an area of 90 square miles, reaching from Kensington to Windsor and Eton, and, of course, we have an enormous mileage of mains and an enormous amount of repairs to do. Our fireclay has gone up 118 per cent., our steel has gone up 80 per cent., and the increase in these three amounts, of coal, oil, and goods, comes to £480,000 per annum.
  7.0 P.M.
  In the meantime, since the War began, owing to the fact that in this district served by our company munition, aeroplane, and other such works have been set up by the Government, 33 per cent. has been the amount of our increase in output. In 1914, when we were before this House, we proved conclusively, and it has been the fact ever since, that we had not then got more than about 5 per cent. stand-by or surplus plant, and yet during the last four years we have had to make that plant carry on a business almost to bursting conditions, amounting to 33 per cent. Hon. Members will see, placed as we are at the present moment, with a necessary expansion and extension which must run to something like £220,000 or £300,000, why this little Bill, which is really a little gift-horse—it may or may not have teeth in the mouth, but I think possibly there are teeth—is a damper which will prevent us, or largely prevent us, from raising any capital to speak of, except at ruinous terms, from the public. That is how it affects not only the shareholders, but the consumers. The gas companies at the beginning of the War were approached by the Government to give them every possible help, and I do not think there is anybody who knows anything at all about it who will not say that the gas industry, from the shareholders to the humblest working man and woman,

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  has not done its very best to help the Government in every way. The ways in which the gas companies were asked to help the Government were various. One of the most important of them was that of washing their gas in order to produce a substance without which the War could not be carried on, for if you have not got toluol you cannot make high explosives, and without high explosives you cannot carry on a war like the present one. We had to erect enormously extended plant that runs into a large number of figures, and in the case of my company it amounted to £40,000. The result of procuring toluol is that you take something out of the gas, about 2,000 cubic feet per ton, and the result is that we send out 12,000 cubic feet instead of 14,000 cubic feet as we did before the War. Then the Government said they had got an enormous demand for aeroplanes, motor lorries, and so forth, that they must have spirit, and that the gas companies must therefore find them benzol. Again the gas companies were only too glad, and they did their best and arranged their gas, at great inconvenience, so as to provide the benzol. The result, of course, has been that more has been taken out of the gas. We have had our industry completely altered from every point of view. In addition to that, we have had our coal supply rationed. We are not able to say to a prospective consumer. "You shall not have any gas." The Act of Parliament under which we supply gas has laid it down that anybody within 300 yards of our mains has a statutory right to a supply of gas. We are, therefore, not in a position to say, "We cannot supply you." The man consequently gets the gas on his premises, and he may burn as much as he chooses. We cannot stop him; we are bound to supply him; we cannot check him in any way. We are practically controlled in everything we do with regard to coal. Not only are we restricted as to the quantity of coal we get, but we are more or less restricted as to how and where we shall get it, and in what quantities we take it. That naturally affects the economic working of the undertaking. There is a still more important point. You are not only controlling the means of transport and everything of that kind, but you are actually controlling us in regard to the quality of the coal, which is the most important factor in the manufacture of
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  gas. Nobody in their senses who knows anything about gas manufacturing would, if they could get any other, select coal of the kind which the Government forces us to take to-day. We have to take the coal from whatever sources the Government direct, and the article we are now receiving produces from 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. of utterly useless ash; yet we have to take that coal such as it is.
  Suppose, when the Government bad come to us and demanded that we should supply them with toluol, benzol, sulphate of ammonia, tar products, and dyes for the National Dye Company, with saccharine (because of the shortness of the sugar supply), and creosote, and other things, suppose we had replied, "You are interfering with the whole of our industry; you are turning it upside down. We cannot carry on our business, and we must ask you to take it over." What would the position then have been? I think any Member of this House, if such a question were put to him, would have replied that it was the duty of the Government to take over the business. We are now controlled in everything. We are controlled in what we get, in the sort of stuff we get, in what we pay for it, what we send out, to whom we sell it, and everything else. There is nothing left uncontrolled except the poor shareholder's dividend, which is left to the tender mercies of hon. Members who come here and talk about the producer getting 6,500,000 and the consumer 29,000,000. The Chairman of the Select Committee said, most rightly and properly, that there is a partnership between the consumer and the shareholder. It is believed that the partnership consists of this: that of every penny reduction in the price of gas the consumer's share is seven-eighths and the shareholder's share one-eighth. Suppose, for instance, the price is 3s. and it goes down to 2s. 11d., seven-eighths of the difference in price is obtained by the consumer, while the company gets the remaining eighth, but only if it earns it, and the difficulty is to earn that money; hardly any company ever does it, at any rate for the first year or two. That is a very different position to the one that is generally suggested. An hon. Member reminds me that when the hon. Member for West Newington talked about this 6,500,000 which the producer gets he forgot, possibly inadvertently, to state that the consumer gets the 29,500,000 benefit due to the reduction of price. That

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  is an omission which the House should bear in mind, but let me go back to my figures.
  The suggestion has been made, not I am glad to say by the representative of the Board of Trade, that the companies can recoup themselves out of the residual products. I have some figures as to that here. It will be remembered that just now I gave the extra cost of three items as £480,000 a year. Let us look at the other side of the account. The coke realised an extra £80,000, tar £18,000 more, and ammonia £12,000 more, making a total of £111,000 more than was obtained during the pre-war period, and the difference between the extra cost of the gas, coal, and other goods I have mentioned and the extra amount we got for our residual products amounts to £369,000, or more than £1,000 per day. Therefore, there is not much benefit in that way to the company. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich spoke about labour. It has been working exceptionally well in the gas world; it has worked under very great difficulties and with inferior strength. In fact, the best men have been combed out, and from my own company 700 men have gone to the front and have done gallant work there. Our labour bills have gone up enormously. The increase in our company has amounted to £129,000. The question is, What are the companies asking for? They have to face an enormous and stupendous increase in the cost of everything, and all they are asking for is consideration which will put them on some sort of a commercial level. They ask for nothing greater than that. What do the Government pay for money? With the finest security in the world, with the security of the United Kingdom taxpayers at their back, they pay 5¼ per cent. on War Loans and 5 per cent. on National War Bonds. But we who supply sulphate of ammonia, toluol, benzol, and the other things which they need for carrying on the War, are to be content with £1 17s. 6d. per cent. or 2 per cent. I do not think, when the House understands that it will agree that the situation is a proper one. The suggestion was made, I think, by the Chairman of the Select Committee in all sincerity, that it was unfair to take into consideration only the hardest cases. But I do not want to do anything of the kind. I do not know what was in his mind and whether he was referring to the companies which pay a maximum of 10 per cent. I
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  do not understand the working of this 10 per cent. In my own company we have two sorts of securities; one is the 4 per cent. security and the other is the 3¼ per cent. security, and the shareholders are going to get this magnificent relief for which they must consider themselves beholden to the generosity of Parliament—they are to be permitted to retain £1 17s. 6d. per cent. for their investments in such a stupid thing as gas stock, although the gas industry has been doing its best for the country ever since the War started. £1 17s. 6d. per cent. is good enough for the gas companies, but it is not good enough for the Government, which knows that when it wants to get money that it must pay a much higher price for it!
  The position is a very curious one indeed. The gas companies have to borrow money. My own company have had to get advances; we had to get a Bill in 1914 for the purpose of raising money, and we were able to raise some money, but it was nearly all absorbed in four or five months, as we had to meet a bank overdraft. Can the Chairman of the Select Committee or can anyone tell me where it is possible, in these days, to raise money at £1 17s. 6d. per cent.? If so, I am his man; or if it can be done at £2 per cent., or £2 5s., let him tell me. I am willing to give any fair price if I can only be informed where the money can be got. I am sure there are many Members of this House who would be only too glad to learn where to raise money at £1 17s. 6d. per cent. In view of all these facts, I think the House will agree that scant justice is being done to the companies in this matter. This reference to £6,500,000 which we are told has gone to the producer does not deal with the prejudicial work which the companies have been called upon to perform. The gas companies constitute the only industry in the whole of England which is limited by Statute in a way which lays it down that the more they charge the less they pay in interest. They are the only companies subject to a statutory prevention of profiteering. Nobody can accuse the gas companies of profiteering; it is an absolute impossibility in their case. [An HON. MEMBER: "Mutual agreement!"] Quite so, and a very proper thing, and the public have had the benefit of it. Gas companies are under a second disability—that is, the auction clause. There was a time when gas companies and water companies

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  became very prosperous. Water companies had only to sit and allow their assessment to increase naturally, as their arrangements for charging for water depend on the assessment of houses. Therefore water companies sit and do nothing, and their income goes up. Under the auction clause the position is this. They said it was a scandal—and it was a scandal—that companies should be enabled to issue stock at par to their shareholders when it was standing at very much more in the market—that is to say, that they should be enabled to hand over to the shareholders for £100 stock which they could rush into the market at £120 or £140. So long as we had a sliding scale for the benefit of the public we had the auction clause, and the auction clause is that no gas company under it can issue any stock to its shareholders except by tender at a price approved by the Board of Trade, or, if they do not like that, they must put it up to public auction.
  What is the result of the auction clause? My own company came under the auction clause and sliding scale in 1881. I have not the figures from the very beginning, but I have the figures for the last twenty-five years, which, I think, is long enough. We raised during that period £150,000 of capital liable to the sliding scale, and we paid in addition premiums to the extent of £136,000. When people talk about the inflated position of the gas companies paying 14, 12, 10, or whatever per cent. it may be, think what the shareholders paid for it! They did not pay £100, but in the case of my company they paid £191 on an average over this period for that stock, because the auction clause said you must not issue at £100, but must put the stock up to auction, with the result that £191 was received for every £100 worth of stock. The capital of the company, therefore, has been raised at a very low rate, and, as one of the speakers, who evidently knows about the business and is a thoroughly commercial man—I think it was the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Alden)—pointed out, capital is the very life-blood of economy.
  It is a question of what is your capital. With regard to my company, it works out at 6s. 4d. per 1,000 cubic feet. No other company comes within shillings of it, some being 12s. and 14s. The result is—it is hot my fault, because I was not chairman, but my predecessors, good men of business, arranged matters—that our
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  capital being 6s. 4d. per 1,000 cubic feet we can send out 3,000 cubic feet, where other people send out about 1,500, and sometimes less, at the same price. That is the chief reason why we can make our price of gas cheap. Now you are going to say to us, "You are going to get immense relief, £1 17s. 6d. is the splendid sum which you will be allowed to pay for your B stock, and the still more magnificent figure of £2 is going to attract the whole world in raising your capital." What is the result? People are not going to deal with our industry. No one who has lent to the Government at 5 per cent. is going to lend to a downtrodden gas company, which has made bloated profits in the past, at 2 per cent., and have it whittled away during the War, which may last five, six or seven years—I hope not, but it may last for an indefinite period, and even if it does not last long, the conditions with regard to coal and various other things will certainly last one, two or more years after the War.
  That is the position and this is the Bill. The very authors of it admit that they will accept Amendments which are reasonable and proper. I am, perhaps, putting it too strongly. They will consider Amendments with a care as to some slight soupçon of justice to the industry attacked in this way, and I have no doubt that when the House thoroughly understands how this matter—it is a complicated and intricate matter—affects an enormous number of people—because you must remember that gas is not the light of the high and mighty, is not the light of the men of means, but in my district, where we have from 70 to 80 per cent. of working men, and have gas in nine houses out of every ten, which I believe is a record for any gas company—that is to say, 90 per cent. in my district are supplied with my gas, and 70 per cent. at least are poor people whose cooking, whose comfort—you may say almost their houses depend upon it—the House will realise it is a serious matter when you are dealing with a large population. We who are trustees—for we are trustees as much for the public as for the shareholders—are bound to do our best to see that we get fair conditions of capital for our work, and, in order to be able to carry out a great public work which the whole country wants, I do think there are considerations in this matter which, when once they have been understood by the House, will lead

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  to a much more equitable arrangement than at present, and also to the removal of that kind of prejudice brought in this House, particularly against my company, without one word being said by me, so that they do not know my case. I do hope the House will take into consideration the position, and deal with us in a fair and equitable manner, as I am sure it will.
  Mr. BURNS: In his interesting, and, if I may say, diverting speech, the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down has communicated to the House a number of statements that cannot appropriately be challenged on the floor of the House. These were the subject of minute and close investigation by learned counsel, heard by Government officials and by all the parties interested for and against the gas companies for a considerable number of days upstairs, and, prepared as I am to disagree with some of the points put forward by the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down, I am not disposed to follow him, because up till his speech, both on the occasion when this Bill was discussed before and by other speakers who have spoken this afternoon, there was, in my judgment, no prejudice shown against the gas companies. On the contrary, the Committee upstairs, the Board of Trade by their treatment of this subject, and the decision the Committee, in my judgment, has wisely come to, show that beyond a doubt, taking all the circumstances into consideration, the gas companies have received fair, sympathetic, just, and equitable treatment by the only tribunal capable of discussing a technical matter like this, namely, the Select Committee, to whom the President of the Board of Trade wisely remitted the consideration of this problem.
  But there is one point of the hon. and learned Member's speech that one must in justice to the consumer deal with. My hon. and learned Friend spoke about the difference between the treatment meted out to the War Loan holders who receive 5 per cent. and the poor gas companies who receive £1 17s. 6d. and £2 per cent., and he might have quoted those—which he did not—that receive more. But he asked for privilege and preferential treatment as compared with other trades and industries that, not having the advantage of being statutory undertakings, have no such protection as the gas companies and the railway companies have
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  received, are receiving, and, in my judgment, will continue to receive. And in that aspect he made out a case, not for unloading on the poor gas consumer all the expenses and the extra charges to which they, like every other trade and industry, have been subjected during the War, but made out a case for shifting from the gas company not to the gas consumer but to the War Office, the Department of Munitions, the Government and the State, and for interference with their manufacture, the diminution in the price of the residuals, and that controllership of their industry for which the gas consumer is in no sense responsible, and for which the Government Departments alone ought to be blamed. It is to them that the hon. and learned Member as a gas director and chairman of a large gas company should go, and not to the poor consumer, for that sympathetic consideration, as I consider it would be markedly unjust to unload on the consumers only, which the gas companies in their Bill suggest.
  I did not hear any suggestion that the gas companies had not done their duty In the War. Not being a Government official and a Government Department, it stands to reason that they did very well during the War, and I am convinced that no one who knows, as I know, the wonderful qualities of the men engaged in the gas industry, not only in War but in their ordinary avocation, can say anything against either the capacity of the gas companies during the War, the ability of their staffs and the extraordinary courage and endurance on the battlefield of men who have enlisted in enormous numbers, and whose bravery in face of the foe is equal to their endurance and laborious qualities in face of the gas works and gas retorts in which these enduring, gallant fellows carry on their work. It is interesting to tell the House that in one gas works alone 1,000 men—equal to a battalion of the Foot Guards—have either been killed, wounded, missing or taken prisoner in the course of this War.
  My hon. Friend will pardon me if I tell him I have not heard a word against the gas companies on the managerial side, and no complaint has been made about the way in which they have carried on their business. Considering the difficulties under which they have laboured, the public are indebted to them and to their men for their contribution in carrying on

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  a great and indispensable industry under very difficult circumstances during the last four years.
  The next point I wish to deal with is a point which, in my judgment, disposes of the speeches that have been made on behalf of gas companies by directors, engineers, and chairmen, who, according to their lights, properly represent the rather narrow commercial interests of the gas companies whose case they have admirably served to-day. The speech which should dispose of all their claims was, if I may say so, the calm, public-spirited, and fair statement of the capable chairman of the Committee, who deserves the thanks of the House, as do also the members of this Committee, for the long, patient, and scientific hearing which the Committee has given to this important yet technical question. What did he say? In my judgment, the chairman of the Committee disposed of nearly all the gas companies' claims, nearly all their fears, while facts will dispose of most of the lugubrious predictions of these commercial Jeremiahs who are under the impression that when the War is over they are going to be faced financially, industrially, and prospectively with a condition of things that means that the brokers will be put in and the gas companies subjected to bankruptcy! What did the chairman say which has influenced the Members of the House? The decision of the Committee does not interfere with the dividends on the debentures, it does not interfere with the preference dividends. What the Committee decided in regard to the ordinary shares, which, of course, are the majority of the stock of the companies, is that they would be guaranteed that the dividend would not fall to less than a half of the normal pre-war figure. I would ask my hon. Friend to remember that, in the judgment of people who are not gas directors, that that is very reasonable treatment. The preference dividend is not to be interfered with, neither are the debentures; but for the rest of the War not less than half the normal pre-war dividend shall be paid.
  My hon. Friend, I thought, rather lightly—and I have never held an optimistic view of this War, as the House may gather—my hon. Friend suggests that the War may go on for six or seven years. If that were even partially true, it is a reason why, as compared with other
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  interests, the gas companies should not have preferential and generous treatment. According to the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman, a long while before the War is over, the treatment to be guaranteed to them is one that no other industry can hope to claim if the War goes on even for half the time he indicates. One of the strong points which has emerged from this Debate is that the Committee were unanimous in their decision. The Committee had before them expert witnesses like the comptroller to the county council; they had chemists, and engineers, and learned counsel to put their case. It, therefore, seems to me that in a country such as we are living in—and where I have never noticed any violent disposition on the part either of Parliament or of Committees of Parliament to interfere very seriously in matters of property—that all the suggestions that the companies have not been generously treated are disposed of by the facts and by considering how hitherto, in cases like this, Parliamentary Committees have acted fairly by the various interests that have appeared before them. To listen to one or two of the gas directors or engineers, one would have thought that the gas companies had been doing very badly during the War. I want, if I may, not with a view to imparting prejudice and, above all, heat into this Debate, for a moment, to give the other side. One would have thought that the gas was as good in quality as before the War. The short answer to that is that the incombustibles in gas—which means impurities—I am not saying that the gas companies can help it!—have increased from 10 per cent. to 22 per cent. during the War. The consumer did not ask for that. It has been to the interest of the gas companies that that should be done. It may have been put upon them by force of circumstances. But there is the fact! When we are told, as we were told by evidence given up-stairs and elsewhere, that whilst impurities in gas have increased from 10 per cent. to 22 per cent. since the beginning of the War, the price of gas over 1913 has gone up from 50 per cent. to 65 per cent., and the companies' proposals would add another £400,000 to the burden of consumers—the public. Here, I say, are two evidences that the companies have not been so badly treated either by the public, by the Board of Trade, or by the Committee upstairs.

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  What is the threat—for it almost amounted to a threat—at all events, there was a suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman which was also to some extent endorsed by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, that the future of the companies was rather doubtful unless they were generously treated. Anyone who knows the way in which gas has gone—for, notwithstanding the introduction of electricity, anyone who knows anything of the matter knows that in London alone the gas companies have received during the War £4,500,000 more in total income than they did five years ago—knows that there is proof positive that under the most depressing circumstances there is a very profitable present for gas, and, in my judgment, a future, which will be probably more assured to the gas industry than to any other industry I know. There is a reason for that. During the War new methods have been considered, old methods have more or less been discredited. Old things will have been scrapped and new ideas will gain force. If there is one industry more than another that will gain by the changes which the War has produced, and which will have emerged from the discussion of industrial, chemical, and other questions, it is the gas industry, which will probably have a greater future during the next quarter of a century than any other industry. It is not fair to suggest that it should be tenderly considered because it is in competition with electricity. Any engineer, any public man, any man municipally engaged, or any electrician who knows the facts of gas and electricity development during the last twenty years, knows that in that period, apart from the War period, gas has improved in purity and has been reduced in price, and electricity has enormously increased in use, and has diminished in price per unit. As a matter of fact, electricity and gas mutually react, improve, and stimulate each other to the advantage of both, and, incidentally, not to the detriment of the community. I believe that gas will be increasingly used for heating purposes and for small industrial and mechanical purposes, and will go hand in hand with electricity in taking the place of steam and water, and, above all, of the ordinary production of lighting and heating in the future at a disproportionately rapid rate as compared with what it has done during the last fifteen or twenty years.
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  I do not intend to discuss the intricacies, the witcheries, the mysteries, and the history of the sliding scale. There are three things in my lifetime as a public man of which I have never tried to probe the mystery. One of them is bimetallism, the second is the sliding scale in gas, and the third is perpetual motion. Any man who wastes his time and the time of the House of Commons in trying only to partially understand any of these things is wasting not only his own time but that of the public. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham has interjected that it is not necessary to discuss it here. It has been tried for forty years, and has worked on the whole extraordinarily well, particularly for the gas companies. It is true that they have got £6,500,000 in money. I should like the President of the Board of Trade to give heed to this point. It is true the gas companies have got £6,500,000 more since it was introduced above the standard price than they probably would have got without the sliding scale. It is also true—I will accept the figure of the hon. Gentleman—hat the public have gained £29,000,000 in the reduced price of gas, while the companies have got as their share £6,500,000 of benefit under the sliding scale. That is one of the facts of the sliding scale. It was introduced to help the public without damnifying the gas companies. It has given the gas companies a permanent incentive to improve their methods, to have larger concerns, to do away with smaller and old-fashioned and more or less obsolete methods, both of production and distribution, and on the whole it has helped the community, both the companies and the gas consumers, extraordinarily well.
  My last point is this: I would appeal to the President of the Board of Trade not to listen too much to the gas companies, but to be as fair and equitable as the Committee has been upstairs. It is not the fault of the consumer, who numbers probably 1,500,000 in London of small penny-in-the-slot gas meter users, that coal is dear, that oil has increased in price, and that everything connected with the manufacture of gas has increased from 40 per cent. to 200 per cent. War is a disturbing element. It is a deteriorating influence. It is a depreciating factor. That being so, every section of the community, in proportion to their means, their life, their property, and their stake in the affairs of the community, must bear

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  its own burdens without asking for privilege or preferential or exceptional treatment in a war which is not the act of the consumers but is a State affair, and a Governmental concern. If we are to give preferential consideration to gas companies because they are statutory undertakings, what about our soldiers who have given the only capital they have—namely, their lives. What about the wives who have lost their husbands? Above all, what about those who feel it particularly hard commercially, the one-man businesses, with no preferential treatment? The man, if killed, gives his life; if wounded, his limbs. His present has gone, and his prospect is very dark. If you are to begin compensating people for the disproportionate and unequal damage that the War inflicts upon the community, in my judgment the last you ought to choose for beginning with in the way of preferential treatment is either statutory companies, or preferential, or debenture shareholders. There are millions before those who have a stronger claim for the consideration of a Government Department or by the State. I have been in this House seven and twenty years, and in connection with the subject that has brought us here this afternoon I have this to say: I have never known a community or an industrial population who have behaved any better than the industrial community has behaved during the last four years. I have never known men who, speaking broadly and generally, have contributed their business, their capital, their money, their lives, their present and their future in such a magnanimous, disinterested, and public-spirited way as have the great bulk of the working classes to the stress, trouble, and burden of this War. If there is any money to spare, if generosity is to display itself in exceptional terms towards anybody or any section of the community, we must remember that this War is not yet over and its burdens cannot be accurately foretold. Without sharing any pessimistic view as to the length of years that will elapse before the War will be concluded, I say that, rich though we are, capable as I believe we are, and probably will be, of spending from £12,000,000,000 to £14,000,000,000 upon this War without financial disaster upon that great tragedy which afflicts mankind, we shall not have money to go
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  round to help all the claims if, before the War is over, the preferential shareholder is to get during the War all he has had before the War, and if the debenture shareholder is not to be touched and the ordinary shareholder is to be guaranteed not less than his normal dividend. If you give this generous treatment there will be millions of people with stronger claims who will ask for similar treatment to that which the gas companies are demanding, and if you do give those demands it will grow in the shape of pensions, soldiers' pay, more help for all the industries and undertakings not statutory which have not the advantage of a privilege plea for the exceptional treatment that is given under this Bill. This the country cannot bear.
  It is as an economist that I believe you have no right to stimulate incentives for further claims of this magnitude from every section of the community, but if you yield similar claims to others the result will be that financial, local and municipal and social burdens will grow to such an extent that you will be confronted with an extraordinarily grave difficulty that might affect ultimately the final issues of the War. I ask gas companies, railway companies, tramway companies, and statutory undertakings to take their example of public-spirited devotion and disinterested service for the community from the humbler members of that community, and I ask the Board of Trade, in the interests of common sense, and most of all in the interests of an equitable treatment of other interests, to brush aside this claim for preferential treatment on the part of gas companies, and give them no more than the Committee yielded to them. If you grant this demand it will be used as a precedent, and an incentive for interest after interest and trade after trade to knock at the door of Government Departments and to press you with claims for generous treatment on the scale that the gas companies are demanding. Therefore the gas companies have no right to ask for what you cannot give to every other section of the community. It is because I think the Committee have met the case very fairly under all the circumstances that I ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill, which I hope will not be divided against or challenged, and in Committee we must see that the Committee stage carries out in detail the principle and theory of the

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  Bill. For these reasons I ask the House to give a Second Reading to this measure.
  Sir R. BARRAN: If I were to judge by the peroration of the right hon. Gentleman, it is quite obvious that this Bill is not wanted at all. If, on the other hand, you are going to take the view that this is a commercial and a financial matter, and not to be dealt with by sentiment, then we must come back again to the sound argument as to whether it is in the interests of the whole community that this House should carry out the views of the Select Committee, or whether they should take a wider view and carry out the plan which is commercially and financially sound, and is in the interests not only of the manufacturer, but also in the interests of the consumer. The Committee has taken the view according to the reference that was given to them, but the Government had to do more than that. The Government had to consider, in addition to the general financial questions, how they have dealt with similar commercial and financial problems which have been before the House. There are two bodies dealt with under this Bill—he local authorities and the statutory companies. Now I want the House to look at the different way in which those two bodies are being treated, and then I want hon. Members to consider how, during the War, we have treated other financial interests that are similar. The gas interest, which is dealt with under the local authorities in this Bill, will pay interest on all its loans. What does that mean? There are two types of investors—one has invested money in local government stock, the other has invested in gas or other companies. Those who invested money in the loans of local authorities will get the same as they got before the War, excepting that they will have the difference which is represented by a 6s. Income Tax instead of a 1s. Income Tax—that is to say, they will get 75 per cent. of the amount of interest that they got before the War. Those who have invested their money under the statutory companies will get 50 per cent. of what they got before the War under this Bill, less 5s. that is, they will get 37½ per cent. of the interest they received before the War. I want to ask whether that is a proper way to deal with two different interests under this Bill. One gets 75 per cent. and the other gets 37½ per cent., and the two classes of investors are very similar.
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  The statutory companies are, as near as may be, under the same conditions as those who invest their money under the municipal authorities. In both cases the investors are in a very similar position. I do not think any attempt has been made to put forward a sound reason why they should be put at so much greater advantage. The House is bound to take into consideration, in dealing with the interest that the shareholders of the statutory companies get, that the Government are directly responsible for the curtailment of their profits. In ordinary business life the Government does not control profits. In ordinary commerce, while it fixes the purchase price of raw materials, it does not as a rule fix the selling price; therefore companies outside the statutory companies are at liberty to increase their prices in order to keep up their dividends. The same will apply after the War. The statutory company is unable to do so.
  There is another comparison I want to make, and that is how has the Government treated other concerns where they have put them under the same disadvantages or the same control as they have these statutory companies. Let us take the controlled companies of engineering firms. The whole of their works are taken over, the prices of raw materials are fixed, and to a large extent the prices at which they sell their goods. In those cases the companies are given and are allowed the privilege of making the full profit that they were making before the War, and they are allowed to make a profit even beyond that, provided only 20 per cent. of it is retained. Therefore you have had during the four years of this War a similar control in regard to a large number of the companies of this country, a control similar to that which is now affecting the statutory companies, and yet you have allowed them to pay their full dividend and something beyond.
  8.0 P.M.
  What is the reason why you are going to treat the gas and electric and other companies in a different manner than you have been treating during the War the whole of the controlled establishments in this country? Take the case of the railway companies. Their position is very much the same as I have referred to in the case of those who have placed their money in the loans of the local authorities. Those who have money in the shares of the railway companies still get 75 per cent. in almost every case, and sometimes more, of the interest that they

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  have received before the War. What reason is there that the gas companies and other statutory companies should only receive 75 per cent. of the interest that they received before the War? There is not any body of commercial men or companies whose income is absolutely controlled whose purchases and whose sales and the management of whose business is so completely controlled as these statutory companies—there is not a single instance in this country where they have been dealt with so hardly as it is proposed in this Bill to deal with these companies, and it lies with the Government to show why, at any rate, they should not be allowed to make their pre-war profit—that is, their average pre-war profit—less, of course, the Income Tax, which is applicable to us all. I want the Minister in charge of the Bill carefully to consider the influence on the commercial life of this country if you pick out one set of industries and treat them differently and adversely in comparison with all the other commercial interests with which you have dealt during the four years of the War. A great many hon. Members have spoken on behalf of gas companies or other undertakings. Some have spoken either as engineers, directors, or chairmen of gas companies. I have not the remotest interest in any company or any class of company that is touched by this Bill. I am speaking solely in the interests of commercial soundness, and, not only do I urge that it is to the credit of this House and to the interest of the community that we should treat these companies on the same level and on the same lines that we have dealt with other commercial interests during the War, but I ask the Government to consider very carefully those problems that have been put by hon. Members as to what is likely to be the influence after the War upon these companies and upon the price of gas if they take this thoroughly unsound financial course. It is not in the public interest that these companies should be dealt with in a way that is going to relieve the consumer temporarily. An hon. Member, after taking the same view as I take upon this Bill, said that eventually it would not be in the interest of the consumer of gas. He said that if it were in his interest he might take a different view. I was sorry that he spoiled an excellent speech by such an unsound
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  suggestion. It it were in the interest of the consumer, I hold that it would be unwise, because it would still be unsound. The hon. Member, however, very effectively brought out the point that eventually it would not be in the interest of the consumer, and I would impress upon the Minister in charge of the Bill that it is a very short-sighted policy to try and help the consumer to-day at the cost of the consumer for the next twenty years. If we depart from the sound principles of finance, from the principle of dealing with the man who has put his money in one investment the same as we deal with the man who has put his money in another investment, and from the principle of meting out the same treatment to one set of controlled establishments as we do to-another set of controlled establishments, we shall be doing a very much greater injury to the industries of this country than we shall benefit the consumers of gas during the next year or two.
  Mr. CURRIE: I do not wish to continue the Debate upon the figures, which has been carried as far as it usefully can be carried, but I want to draw the attention of the Board of Trade to a practical point which touches us in Scotland to which the Bill applies. We notice that the Committee recommend that special provisions should be made for regulating the price to be charged by municipalities which sell gas. In Scotland where a great deal of the gas trade has come under the control of the ratepayers we work under a special act, the Burgh Gas Supply Act, 1876. In that Act, unlike the Act regulating electrical enterprises, you give power to the ratepayers' representatives to levy a rate and to pledge the rates, but you limit the power in a rather curious way. You give power to pledge the rates for the payment of the interest, but you withhold their power for the purposes of a sinking fund or for the repayment of the capital. Before the War, when any properly-conducted municipal enterprise could raise money on terms which were not unreasonable, the difficulty, although it was there, did not operate hardly; but I have had a circular from the clerk of the Convention of Royal Burghs in Scotland, pointing out how desirable it is, if you allow ratepayers' concerns of this kind to borrow money, you should at least place them in the most favourable position to borrow money on the best terms that they can in the market. That appears to me

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  to be very reasonable, and I think the suggestion of the Convention of Royal Burghs might usefully be adopted by the Government. I would, therefore, ask the Board of Trade to consider the suggestion favourably and, perhaps, to accept it.
  Mr. PETO: Almost the whole of this Debate has been conducted from the point of view of gas undertakings. I wish to point out to the representative of the Board of Trade that this Bill includes other statutory companies, and particularly to put the objection to the Bill from the point of view of the water companies. I am Chairman of the Provincial Water Companies Association, and they ask me to point out, not so much their objection to the dividend on the ordinary stock being reduced to half the pre-war amount, although they are by no means satisfied with regard to that, as their objection that under Clause 1, Sub-section (1), paragraphs (a) and (b), they are not treated equitably in comparison with municipal water undertakings. Municipal waterworks, in view of the great increase in the cost of the production of water, are allowed to increase their charges at once by no more than 50 per cent. on their statutory maximum charge, whereas a statutory company, which in many cases is a near neighbour of municipal waterworks, is not allowed to make any increase in the charge for the water supplied to the consumer unless the dividend on the ordinary stock in the undertaking has fallen to half the standard or maximum rate. It does not seem to me that these companies are treated fairly as compared with municipal water undertakings. The hon. Member for North Leeds (Sir Rowland Barran) has pointed out how unreasonable it is that small shareholders in local government stock and other shareholders of exactly the same class in these statutory companies should be treated differently, the one receiving the full rate of dividend paid on their holdings before the War and the other receiving only half. I would like to ask the Government whether, apart from the question of the shareholders, although I think that they have a very strong case, it is fair as between one set of the community and another.
  Almost every hon. Member who has spoken has done so as if the consumer, particularly the penny-in-the-slot consumer, were a poor consumer. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea
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  (Mr. Burns) said that it was not reasonable to try and put it on to the consumer. The Government ought to bear the burden. There is also the poor shareholder. I suppose most Members have had letters from shareholders who are their constituents. I received one only just before coming to the House. It is the case of a widow. Most of her extremely small means are invested in one of these statutory undertakings. Surely it is a very great hardship that you should say that her dividends are to be reduced to half the pre-war scale before any relief is to be given under this Bill. I would ask the Government to remember this fact: The principal cause of the increased cost during the War is the increased cost of coal, and the principal factor in the increased cost of coal is the increase in wages. I do not think it is fair that you should be constantly raising the wages of those who produce the coal, and that the moment the coal is transferred into gas you should say that the small investor in the stock of these statutory companies should only receive half the dividends that they received before. While you give to the collier twice the wages which he received before, you reduce the dividend of the shareholder, a person of similar means with very little possibility of increasing his income, by half. The water companies ask that they should be allowed to pay 5 per cent. on their ordinary stock or the pre-war rate, whichever is the least. If that were the proposal of the Bill or if it were substituted for the one proposed it would offer a reasonable solution of the question. I would ask the Government not to listen entirely to those appeals that have been made to them to think of the poor consumer but to consider also the case of the small investor, and particularly to remember that there are other statutory companies than gas companies and to treat the provincial water companies on at least as fair and equitable lines as municipal water undertakings of which, in many cases, they are neighbours and competitors. With regard to the future effect of this Bill upon the issue of capital, the water companies view it with positive alarm. If the dividend that they are allowed to pay is to be reduced to half it is difficult to see how they will be able to issue any fresh capital at all or to maintain the supply of water which they are obliged by Statute to maintain. If the Bill is not modified materially in Committee, it really means that many of these comparatively

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  small provincial waterworks are practically finished. You are playing into the hands of municipal undertakings, saying that they shall be the only suppliers of water in the future, because you are practically making it impossible for the companies to raise any fresh capital. I therefore hope that the Government will see that the Bill requires amendment, before it is either equitable or fair as between the consumer and the shareholder and as between the Statutory company and the municipal undertaking.
  Colonel YATE: I have before me two representations from chairmen of gas companies as far apart as Torquay and Harrogate. One points out that the gas industries will be ruined before the time for the prescribed remedy, and the other says that if the recommendations of the Select Committee are adopted a real hardship will be inflicted upon statutory companies. On behalf of these two companies and others similarly interested, I do hope when we get into Committee that the President of the Board of Trade will agree to some modification of the Bill as at present drafted.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday.—[Mr. Towyn Jones.]

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Considered in Committee.
  Resolved, "That the Treasury may borrow in such manner as they think fit on the security of the Consolidated Fund, any sums required for raising the supply
  granted to His Majesty for the service of cue year ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and nineteen, and, in addition, a sum not exceeding two hundred and fifty million pounds, and that these shall be charged on the Consolidated Fund,

  (a) Any sum which may be required to be so charged in the exercise in connection with any money to be so borrowed of any powers which are given by the War Loan Acts, 1914 to 1917, any other enactment, in connection will money borrowed under the War Loan Acts, 1914 to 1917, or any other enactment; and

  (b) Any sums which may be required for the expenses of the redemption of any securities issued for the purpose of money to be so borrowed, and

  (c) Any sum which may be required for the remuneration of the banks of England and Ireland in connection with the management of any securities issued for the purpose of money to be so borrowed. And that it is expedient to amend the War Loan (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1915.—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

  Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen minutes after Eight o'clock.

WAR.
  PARTY ORGANISATIONS AND PENSIONS (DEBATE).
  PARTY ORGANISATIONS AND PENSIONS (DEBATE).
  HOSPITAL SHIPS (SUBMARINE ATTACKS).
  HOSPITAL SHIPS (SUBMARINE ATTACKS).
  CUSTOMS AND EXCISE OFFICERS (LEAVE).
  CUSTOMS AND EXCISE OFFICERS (LEAVE).
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  FOOD ORDERS.
  FOOD ORDERS.
  FRUIT IMPORTS.
  FRUIT IMPORTS.
  MINIMUM WAGE, SUSSEX.
  MINIMUM WAGE, SUSSEX.
  POLICE FORCES, IRELAND.
  POLICE FORCES, IRELAND.
MILITARY SERVICE.
  MEDICAL GRADING.
  MEDICAL GRADING.
  ARMY RESERVE, CLASS B.
  ARMY RESERVE, CLASS B.
  AGRICULTURISTS.
  AGRICULTURISTS.
  MEDICAL MEN (RAILWAY WARRANTS).
  MEDICAL MEN (RAILWAY WARRANTS).
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
  ONE-MAN BUSINESSES.
  ONE-MAN BUSINESSES.
  ARMY COMMISSIONS (RUSSIAN OFFICERS).
  ARMY COMMISSIONS (RUSSIAN OFFICERS).
  SOLDIERS IN HOSPITAL (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING).
  SOLDIERS IN HOSPITAL (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING).
  QUEEN MARY'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS (BELFAST HOSTEL).
  QUEEN MARY'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS (BELFAST HOSTEL).
  ARMY ANKLE BOOTS.
  ARMY ANKLE BOOTS.
  NORTHERN COMMAND BOOT DEPOT.
  NORTHERN COMMAND BOOT DEPOT.
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (SEARCHLIGHT WORK).
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (SEARCHLIGHT WORK).
  PRISONER'S HUNGER STRIKE, MANCHESTER.
  PRISONER'S HUNGER STRIKE, MANCHESTER.
  PRISON SERVICE (REST DAY).
  PRISON SERVICE (REST DAY).
  ENEMY ALIENS.
  ENEMY ALIENS.
  SUMMER TIME ACT.
  SUMMER TIME ACT.
  RAILWAY FACILITIES (EAST COAST).
  RAILWAY FACILITIES (EAST COAST).
  FUEL AND LIGHTING ORDER.
  FUEL AND LIGHTING ORDER.
  COTTON.
  COTTON.
  PETROL (GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS).
  PETROL (GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS).
  PROPERTY SALE, SUDBURY.
  PROPERTY SALE, SUDBURY.
  Prisons Service (Ireland).
  Prisons Service (Ireland).

THEIR MAJESTIES' SILVER WEDDING.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, I rise to move that the following Address be presented from your Lordships' House to Their Majesties the King and Queen—
"Most Gracious Sovereigns,
"We, Your Majesties' most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to congratulate Your Majesties on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Your Wedding, and to assure Your Majesties that this House, deeply interested in the personal well-being of the Sovereign, and warmly appreciating Your Majesties' unfailing devotion to duty in this time of stress, profoundly shares the sentiments of loyal affection with which Your peoples throughout the world welcome the anniversary of so felicitous a union; and joins with them in praying earnestly for the continuance during many years of Your Majesties' health and happiness."
There is no precedent in our Parliamentary history for the action which both branches of the Legislature are being invited to take this afternoon. When King Edward VII celebrated his silver wedding with the gracious lady who is still amongst us, beloved by all, he had not yet ascended the Throne. The gifted Consort of Queen Victoria did not live long enough to see the twenty-fifth anniversary of his wedding day. Neither did King William IV. The married life of his predecessor, King George IV, was already clouded before that epoch had been reached. When King George III, more than 130 years ago, had been married for twenty-five years to Queen Charlotte the idea of celebrating a silver wedding, so dear to the present generation, had not yet suggested itself to that more prosaic age.
This, then, is the first occasion on which the nation and Parliament have joined together in the public commemoration of so interesting and memorable an event. But the precedent that we are setting is not merely the result of accident. It has a deeper and a wider significance. For if the question be asked why it is that the nation and Parlia-
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ment, as the representatives of the nation, are taking this willing and joyous part in the celebration of an event the significance of which is primarily domestic, the answer, I think, lies in this—that in the later history of the British Monarchy the home of the Sovereign has been dear to the hearts of the people, who have seen in it a mirror of those qualities and excellences which they fondly believe to be one of the main sources of the national strength. There has never been an occasion in the long and illustrious history of the British Throne in which the life of the Monarch has been in closer harmony with those conceptions of simplicity, self-discipline, and devotion to duty which are among the most deeply cherished ideals of our race.
Many of us recall the summer's day, now twenty-five years ago, when the young couple, already destined in anticipation to a life of such high responsibility, drove through the streets of London to and from the wedding ceremony. We also recall the figures of the Royal grandmother, Queen Victoria, already bowed with age and fame, and of the Royal mother, Princess Mary, not the least beloved of British Princesses, as the carriage in which they rode together was delayed by the acclamations of the crowd. Neither of those Royal ladies could have wished for the wedded pair a happier future than that which lay before them. No one in that crowd, as he invoked the blessings of Providence upon them, could have desired a fuller response to the nation's prayer. For the nation, in regarding this union of now a quarter of a century, has seen a picture of domestic happiness, all but untinged by sickness or suffering; it has seen in the Palace a model of a British home; it has seen a family growing up around their parents each of whom, as he has approached the age of maturity, has been dedicated to some form of public service; while the eldest son is only absent from the side of his parents upon this memorable occasion because he is serving at the Front—"a veray parfit gentil knight," the standard-bearer among the Armies of our Allies of British chivalry and British attachment to the common cause.
But their Majesties in their married life have done much more than exhibit a pattern of domestic happiness or of the domestic virtues. Both before and after their Accession their manifold energies have taken them to remote parts of the

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Empire, where they have been seen and acclaimed by more millions of their subjects than have ever before set eyes upon a British King and Queen. There are few parts of their Dominions which they have not thus visited, identifying themselves everywhere with the interests and lives, the tastes and occupations, of a myriad races speaking many and diverse tongues. In this way the Sovereigns of the State have become the State's greatest public servants, and it is their service even more than their Royal station that has been their claim to the devotion of the Empire.
And, my Lords, what an impetus has been given to this familiarity of intercourse between the Monarchs and their people, what an opportunity for the vibration of the subtler chords of human sympathy and fellow feeling has been found, in the circumstances of the present war. The demands that are made by modern wars upon the services of the Head of the State are less perilous, but, perhaps, not less exacting, than in the struggles of old. The King is no longer called upon to lead his hosts to battle, or to win or lose a crown on the field of combat; but he is a very visible factor in the business and organisation of war. There are few accessible places on the war fronts, either by land or sea, which His Majesty has not visited in person, stimulating his soldiers and sailors by his presence, applauding and rewarding their valour, condoling with their sufferings, and commiserating their bereavement. Simultaneously, the wounded in the hospitals, the nurses in the wards, the workers of many classes and degrees behind the lines, have been cheered and consoled by the gracious presence and kindly words of Her Majesty the Queen.
But I think it is principally here at home that the King and Queen have been enabled to set a new and higher standard of active service during the war. Themselves the leading war workers of the nation, they have taken no holiday and allowed themselves no respite. In the shipyards, in the munition works, in the roaring factories, amid the training camps, they have shared and encouraged the exertions of their people. With their own eyes they have witnessed, and by their example they have fed, the furnace of national energy, still burning so fiercely at the opening of the fifth year of the war. And then, my Lords, think of the many heroes' breasts upon which the King has pinned the award of valour, and
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of the sorrowing widows and mothers to whom he has so often handed the records of a glory that survives the grave. In this way their Majesties have added both to the strength and purpose of the nation. For the nation has felt in these four years of a toil and agony almost without precedent that their King and Queen have trodden the same path as themselves, have incurred the same risks, have had their eyes fixed on the same goal, and await the same ultimate deliverance. These are the sentiments, I venture to say, that explain the close union between the Sovereigns and their people which has grown up in recent years, and which accounts for the peculiar interest that the celebration of this anniversary in their lives has aroused in the hearts of the nation.
May health and strength be vouchsafed to their Majesties to continue this beneficent work. May their home life be as free from sorrow as their public life has been free from reproach. May they, under the blessing of the Almighty, live to see the day, twenty-five years hence, when other speakers will rise from these benches to congratulate them and, the nation on yet another anniversary, not less splendid in example and even more rich in accomplishment. I beg to move.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, this Motion needs, in fact, no further commendation to the House than that which it has received in the felicitous phrases of the noble Earl the Lord President. But it is right that our unanimity should also be expressed from this side of the House, if with less eloquence, yet with equal sincerity and conviction. As the noble Earl reminded the House, it is upwards of 130 years since a King and Queen of England could have celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding; and this is, in fact, the first occasion on which such a celebration has taken place.
And it is permissible to-day to allow our thoughts to dwell for a moment on the historical grandeur of the English Monarchy through the long vistas of history; from the succession of the present Royal house, through the long roll of Stuart, Tudor, and Plantagenet Kings, up to the Norman Conquest, and, further still, in the same line of succession of blood, through the dim annals of the Saxon line up to the Sovereign who was the pattern of all his successors,

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the Great Alfred himself. As Mr. Gladstone once observed on a notable occasion, "The people have desired that their Sovereign should be the centre of a splendid Court;" and during the last three reigns the people have shared and appreciated, on all appropriate occasions, the stately pageants, and processions, and parades. But they would not have enjoyed these as they did were it not for the circumstances to which the noble Earl has alluded; they knew that behind all the magnificence and the glitter there existed the everyday life of the Royal House, framed on the same scheme as that of other pleasant and prosperous homes, given to a great deal of serious hard work and not a little tiresome drudgery, and varied by the same occupations and amusements as from time to time relieve the labours of other Englishmen and English women.
Such, my Lords, have been the lives of their Majesties during the twenty-five years of their happy union; with this conspicuous addition, to which the noble Earl also alluded, that they have enjoyed opportunities such as fell to none of their illustrious predecessors of not merely visiting but of studying to the greatest possible advantage the larger part of the wide Dominions over which they now hold sway. It is literally true that since His Majesty became a naval cadet forty-one years ago he has gained a closer first-hand knowledge of the Dominions and of India than any one of his subjects can possibly claim; and thus, my Lords, when the time of trouble and test for the Sovereigns and the nation came they enjoyed a double advantage which they had earned by all these previous years of work. At home the popularity which their Majesties had enjoyed from the days when they were so well known as the Duke and Duchess of York has become established as the years have gone on into a relation of intimacy, one might say of actual friendliness and affection, which has only increased as the years have passed. In the second place, the tens of thousands of His Majesty's subjects who have come from India and the Dominions to serve in the war have felt that home—as we know they delight to call it—is more like home from the intimate knowledge which the Sovereign possesses of his whole Empire. Thus, my Lords, those Royal expeditions to the Front and to the Fleet, of which the noble Earl spoke, those countless visits to the wards of hospitals, the conferment of decorations
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won at sea and in the field, those visits to munition factories and to other industrial centres scarcely less important for the conduct of the war—all these have gained an added value and an added meaning from the recollection which we all have of the twenty-five years of work which their Majesties have performed side by side, work for the country and for the Empire, and work done in the full light of public opinion.
Therefore, my Lords, in adding a word to ask your Lordships to vote this Address with enthusiasm, I will only add the humble hope that their Majesties may be granted many more happy years together; that they may find a new and added happiness in seeing His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who has already earned so much regard from his conduct in the war, and the rest of the Royal Family develop those useful energies, following in the steps of their Royal parents, and so winning an increasing measure of national respect and affection; and lastly, my Lords, when the clouds of war are dispersed, that in a time of unchallenged peace and of ever-increasing national development, both material and moral, their Majesties may bind yet more closely the links which unite them to their subjects all over the world.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, the Motion is that the following Address he presented to Their Majesties the King and Queen—
"Most Gracious Sovereigns,
"We, Your Majesties' most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to congratulate Your Majesties on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Your wedding; and to assure Your Majesties that this House, deeply interested in the personal well-being of the Sovereign, and warmly appreciating Your Majesties' unfailing devotion to duty in this time of stress, profoundly shares the sentiments of loyal affection with which Your peoples throughout the world welcome the anniversary of so felicitous a union; and joins with them in praying earnestly for the continuance during many years of Your Majesties' health and happiness."
On Question, Motion agreed to nemine dissentience, and Address ordered to be presented to Their Majesties by the Lords with White Staves.

ENEMY ALIENS.
LORD BERESFORD LORD BERESFORD had the following Notice on the Paper—
To call attention to the number of uninterned aliens in the country, and to ask whether a Return can be given of uninterned aliens; whether a Return can be given of the number of aliens who were naturalised since the war; if it can be stated how many naturalised aliens are employed in Government offices; whether particulars can be given of Mr. Wendt, at present serving under the Road Board; whether he is of German birth, what salary he is getting, and what work he is doing, and who were the persons who undertook to be sponsors for his loyalty; can a Return be given of the number of Germans who have changed their names during the last five years, and whether enemy aliens are now permitted to change their names; who is the official at the Home Office to whom the powers are entrusted for relaxing regulations laid down as regards visits to prisoners of war or interned aliens; to ask for particulars as to the storage of coal by Baron Schroeder; what amount of coal he had ordered during 1917–1918; what amount of coal was found to be in his possession; whether he got permission from the Coal Controller to buy the coal; has the coal been removed, and if not, can a reason be given; and to move for Papers.
The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords, the question which I wish to bring before your Lordships this afternoon is, I think I may say, predominant in the public mind at the present moment. There is considerable anxiety and great irritation in the country on this matter, and I am well aware that when there is irritation and anxiety people are very likely to exaggerate cases and make more of them than perhaps there is in them; but I think the Government are a great deal to blame for the present state of affairs. They have created suspicion and anxiety. They have never put forward a clear and definite policy with regard to these aliens, and they have certainly answered Questions both here and in the other House by most evasive replies.
Many people have taken up this subject since the war began, both in this House and in the other House. Personally I think
650
this is the fifth time on which I have brought it before Parliament—three times in the other House, and once before in this House. Towards the end of 1914, when I brought the matter before the House of Common, immediately after the loss of the "Aboukir," the "Cressy" and the "Hogue"—three cruisers which I have always been firmly of opinion were sunk through the action of spies—I had in one fortnight 3,026 letters. When I tell your Lordships this, I wonder what on earth the Prime Minister's letter bag must be like since he said he would look personally into this question. I have also had hundreds of letters since I placed this Motion on the Paper. I only mention these facts in order to show your Lordships how exercised the public mind is on the matter. The Government Press has now taken it up—even members of the Government who own newspapers. There are large meetings being held all over the country, and larger meetings are going to be held. I have received several resolutions passed by civic authorities without a single dissentient calling attention to the matter. I think that at last these facts have aroused the Government. I am firmly convinced that if the Prime Minister had not said he would look personally into the question the Government would have lost Clapham at the recent by-election. It is wonderful what effect the losing of votes or the thought of losing votes has upon a Government at all times.
I can assure your Lordships that the public are in grim earnest in this matter. They do not want any more compromises. They want to make the Government recognise that there is still an aliens danger in the country, whatever may have been done heretofore to remove it. The Government have shown that they are realising it to a certain extent, because they recalled the Home Secretary from The Hague and set up a Committee. I should like to ask the Government whether we are going to have the Report of that, Committee. I also want to know why they have a Committee. The Government ought to have known all about this subject for the last four years. They have all the facts, and all the means of getting the facts. A Committee only causes delay, and personally I very much dislike government by Committees. We have had government by Committees for too many things in this war. The duty of the Government is

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to govern and not to turn things over to Committees.
The official report of these aliens, as far as I understand, is this. There are 12,600 uninterned aliens, and 6,600 of these are Germans. It is of the Germans that I desire particularly to speak. I wish to be moderate and not to exaggerate. If I do exaggerate I shall be forgiven by the House for the simple reason that I am a British sailor, and I can never forget the inhuman atrocities that have been perpetrated upon my brothers of the sea, the men of the Mercantile Marine. The remainder of the 12,600 are Austrians, Turks, and Bulgarians. For the life of me I cannot understand why these people are loose now. We have no respect for the Turks. They murdered a whole nation. The Bulgarians are as brutal as the Germans, and the Austrians are very nearly as bad. The Return says that they have 3,000 British wives. I want to know how many Englishmen have German wives. That has not been stated in any Return. I see no return of women aliens, yet they are far more dangerous than men. In this sort of work they are far cleverer, much more energetic, and much more likely than men are to get and to give news. I remember my noble friend Lord Crawford telling me that he did not think I should get much out of this debate.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: When?
LORD BERESFORD: I do not say he said exactly that, but words to the same effect. He said he would not tell me anything with relation to policy.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: In consenting on Thursday last to the noble Lord's Motion, I merely said that I could not guarantee that the Government would be in a position to make a statement of policy to-day. That is all I said.
LORD BERESFORD: My noble friend has put it in much more Parliamentary language than I did. But that is what I understood him to say. What I ask him to do is to answer my Questions. That is not a declaration of policy. I agree with my noble friend so far as the declaration of policy is concerned. I know that there is going to be a debate in the other House, and certainly the proper person to answer these Questions is the Minister who is responsible—the Home Secretary. I agree
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with my noble friend that it would be better for a declaration of policy to be made in the other House than here, but I think I might ask very respectfully for an answer to my Questions which have been down on the Order Paper now for over three weeks. Germans are in every Department of the State. What I mean by "a German" is a German with a German father and a German mother. That is what I mean by a person of German origin. He is a German and always will be a German, whatever he professes. In addition, Germans are in every financial department, every industrial department, and every commercial department.
I have often wondered what on earth the Germans went to war for. Had they only waited another ten or twelve years they would have had the whole world in their hands, so far as industrial, commercial, and financial resources go. They would have been absolutely masters of the situation. Such control had they over our finances that, within a few days after war was declared, we had to naturalise a certain Baron Schroeder, an out-and-out German, to prevent a panic in the City in our own finance. I do not wish to give any further illustrations of my argument. Germans are doing important work in the gun factories, they have immense influence in Parliament and in society, and high social position gives a certain amount of power.
Look at the difference between this country and Germany. By November, 1914, there was not a single British subject free in Germany. I wish that there had been a parallel case in this country, and that no Germans had then been free here. What should we call Englishmen supposing they became naturalised Germans, loudly proclaimed their undying patriotism in Germany, and cited as proofs their subscription to war charities, and spoke of what they had done for Germany's interests financially, while casually omitting to say that they had benefited by the financial transactions? What should we call those Englishmen? We should call them traitors. They would be traitors to their own country, and I maintain that those Germans who came over here and have done these things are traitors to their own country. Personally, I have no use for any traitors, no matter whom they may be nor to what country they belong.
I will call your Lordships' attention to the different action taken here and in the

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United States. The German Americans have formed a brigade of Germans to go out and fight with America against the Germans. They have gone so far as to march under a banner which is emblazoned with a not too delicate phrase—"To Hell with the Kaiser." That is very pronounced, but I expect they mean what they say. They have denounced in the Press to the best of their ability the barbarities committed by the Germans, and particularly the cowardly atrocities on prisoners. As far as I know, not more than one single expostulation or letter has been written in this country by naturalised Germans against German barbarities in the treatment of our prisoners. I think there was one at the beginning of the war, but none since.
Then they went on the turf. Fancy a German going on the turf! There never was a sportsman in Germany yet. The German does not know a horse; he cannot ride. Why did he go on the turf? It was all part of German propaganda to get into our society, into our commercial interests and our financial interests before the war. I do not say these people did this with the object of beating us when they went to war. What they did was to get hold of power in all these ways in order to get the best of us in commercial and financial pursuits, which they would have done, but their having obtained that power was a frightful danger to us when we had to go to war. That is my argument; it is a perfectly sound one and cannot be upset. There are, I know, many people who support these Germans. I do not consider they are impartial. Some accept their hospitality, and think they are as honest as themselves. This I deny. I believe they are dangerous, and I think I can prove that they themselves are responsible for the anxiety which at present exists in the country.
It must be remembered that all these magnates are very rich and are all international financiers. This is one of the great difficulties—the power of the international financiers—that we shall have to meet after the war. Some of them have sons fighting for us in the Army, probably about 2,000, but some of the fathers are anti-British and have sons fighting against us. Those I respect; they are patriotic and honest. You cannot blame a man for fighting for his own country. I think if these magnates were to see the fitness of things they would intern themselves and stop all this bother. There is certainly
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one law for the rich German and another for the poor German. The Home Secretary says he knows them all, but I have a list here of twenty-five who have been arrested during 1918 for offences against the law, some of them dangerous offences. All these people have been loose since the war began. It is only in April last that the seamen of Cardiff held a meeting and insisted that the Deputy Superintendent, the Board of Trade official, should be superseded. I should like to know where that man has gone.
Why are the people excited? You have only to look back. I should like to know what the influence was which allowed German Reservists to go to Germany. The Fleet was stopped in its duty. Thousands and thousands of Germans were allowed to go from America to Germany when the war began. Was that in our interests, or in the interests of Germany? What influence prevented an effective blockade at the beginning of the war? It is not a difficult question to answer. What influence prevented cotton being made contraband until nine months after the war began? The American Government in 1914 warned the Southern States that we were certain to make cotton contraband, and advised them to put their ground under other crops. What influence allowed ships with German cargo to come into our ports, and then allowed them to proceed? No wonder the people became suspicious and thought that German influence was at the bottom of it. Nobody can deny that there has been the most extraordinary leniency shown to Germans, to the detriment of our own people.
I do not wish to do anything heroic, sudden, or unfair. I do not want to break a contract. I should like to keep honourable British obligations, and not treat them as "scraps of paper." What was the contract? The contract was that we should allow them privileges, and protection, and all the advantages of British subjects, provided that these Germans became naturalised. I maintain that the naturalised aliens have brought distrust on themselves. I have here a list of forty who have been interned since the war began for offences against the Defence of the Realm Act, and other crimes of that nature. It shows, therefore, that some of these naturalised Germans have broken the contract, and it naturally makes the

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British people suspicious as to whether they all would not break the contract if an opportunity offered. I have here a list of enemy aliens convicted in 1918—this year—and why should not their names be published as a warning to others, and in order to let the public know who they are? The way in which our hospitality and protection have been repaid has been scandalous in many cases. I do not want to do an injustice. There is bound to be some injustice done if a contract with a large number of the subjects of one nation is broken, as it has been, and we see the power and influence that people of German origin still have in this country. Let us remember this, that although we have given Germans these rights and privileges they still retain all their German privileges, and they cannot get rid of them. A German, if he returns to Germany, remains a German subject no matter what he has done over here, or what rights we have given him.
I should like also to refer to spies. I believe a large number of our ships have been and are still being put down by spies. A man who knows much more about it than myself, Sir Edward Nicholl, publicly stated that from his own knowledge he knew there were Germans working in the docks, on the quays, and going from port to port, in Swansea, Port Talbot, Cardiff, and Bristol. He said he could give the names, and perhaps he has, to the Government. Many of the missing ships which have been sunk "without trace" have been put down by spies. The most barbarous thing that has ever been done in any war is the sinking of ships without any trace. Several ships have gone out from Cardiff and Swansea and have been torpedoed, and it is going on still. The information about these ships must have come from somebody in Cardiff, Swansea and Port Talbot. Why cannot we do what Australia did? I read a speech of Mr. Hughes the other day, in which he spoke of "the garrison of caretakers" of the Germans. Australia removed all enemy influence. They have no Germans in any company, no German owns shares, or has securities; there is no ownership of any sort by Germans in the Australian Commonwealth at this moment. I am told that in proportion to population there were more Germans holding shares and securities in Australia than there were in this country. But in Australia its industries and banks are all permanently closed to enemy aliens of any sort.
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Now I come to the banks here. I remember that in August, 1916, I had the honour to bring this subject before the attention of your Lordships, and I pointed out that we should take possession of German securities here, which were far greater at that moment than our assets in Germany. If we were going to win the war and they touched our assets in Germany, we could make them repay. I do not think much has been done. The noble Earl the Leader of the House said he would inquire into it, but I do not remember that anything was ever done. That was in August, 1916, and some of the banks are still open. I believe the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank still remain open, and possess all their power of propaganda for ofter the war. I have asked the Government if they will give us a list of the names of those who have shares and stocks in these banks. Let us know who they are. If they are British, well and good. If they are Germans or naturalised Germans, I think it is very bad. If we had a list, it would perhaps remove the doubts and suspicions which exist in the country.
There is another power in Australia which we might very well adopt here. In Australia no naturalised or unnaturalised German can have a vote unless he has served as a soldier or a nurse. They have the women's vote there. I do not know whether that would quite meet with your Lordships' approval, but I should like to see something of that sort done here. Let us look after our own British interests and not pander to these Germans. I must admit that there are some signs of sanity in the Government on one point. The Board of Trade Committee has published an excellent suggestion on British shipping after the war. What I would like to know is, Are the Government going to act on it? The suggestion is sound common sense, and will show the Germans what they are going to suffer after the war.
Reverting to spies, there is no doubt that a great number of ships have been put down through the influence of spies, but I am happy to say that the spies are being beaten as far as the submarines are concerned. The Government will not publish the Returns that we have asked for of submarine losses. The Returns that they publish now are most misleading, and are much worse than the weekly Return was. I will, however, take the liberty of telling your Lordships how satisfactorily this danger is being dealt with, but we must

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not be too optimistic, for there are certain to be fluctuations. Five weeks ago we lost 13,900 tons a day, British, Allied, and neutral; four weeks ago we lost 12,800 tons a day, British, Allied, and neutral; two weeks ago we lost only 1,400 tons a day, British, Allied, and neutral; a week ago we lost 3,000 tons a day. These are very satisfactory figures, and I wish the Government would tell the people because such figures cheer up our seamen. There is no reason why the public should not be told. The news is very much better, and will get very much better still when the British and Americans get the large fleets of destroyers upon the water, for these are the real antidote to the submarine. It may be of course, that things will get worse; but at any rate they are very much better now than they were, and a statement to that effect should be made to encourage the seamen, many of whom have been torpedoed eight and nine times, and yet have never once refused to sign on again.
There is another point which I did not put on the Paper, but to which I would like to call attention. That is the question of the British Consuls. I hope that the Government will see the necessity of reviewing the whole procedure of the appointment of British Consuls abroad. They cannot do everything at once, but at any rate they should do this after the war. Before the war we had 1,200 British Consuls who were aliens, and of these 900 were Germans. A large number have been superseded, but I find that there are still fifty-seven Germans left. This is a very important matter affecting our commercial future, and it will be a predominating factor after the war.
A nether question I should like to ask. Is Mr. Morel still at large? I think that he was sentenced to three months imprisonment for some outrageous speech. I wrote to the Home Secretary and asked if this man was still at large. He very courteously replied that he was, and that there were no means under the law of locking him up again. If that be so, then for goodness sake let us alter the law and get people of that character locked up.
In regard to this question of the change of names and naturalisation, I ask your Lordships to reflect how dangerous it has been, and how dangerous it will be if we do not alter it. I would remind you of Trebitch Lincoln, who was a confessed
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spy, and one of the people who were doing their best to smash this country. He actually got into our Parliament; yet that law remains unchanged at this moment. Then there is a man called Oscar Guiseman, who is naturalised. A year ago he changed his name to Rutland. I do not know if my noble friend the Duke approves of that. I certainly should not like to see "Guiseman" changed to "Beresford." I should consider it an insult. Why should he not keep his own name and not interfere with these old British names? He and his wife are now on the Parliamentary list of electors, and there is no reason why this fellow should not get into Parliament the same as Lincoln did. Your Lordships laugh, but it is a serious thing. Lincoln did get into Parliament, and he went there to try and undermine British interests. Then there is a man called Weiss. He lives down at Oatlands Park, and he turned out his chauffeur and the chauffeur's wife and six children. He broke open the window and forced an entry. The public took the matter up, and compelled him to restore these people to their home, and to put back their windows. I have a letter on this matter from a gentleman who lives there. He says—
"I would like to tell you of an episode which took place a couple of hundred yards from my house on Friday last—"
This is dated June 24, and is from a gentleman who lives at Oatlands—
"The whole place was raised to a state of frenzy, not only on account of the man Weiss and of what he did, but on account of the extraordinary apathy and inaction of the Government. It was most disconcerting to see residents goaded into suggesting that a not should be organised in order to make the Government do their duty,"
He ends up by saying—
"Do the Government realise that their apathy is driving people to a stale of desperation at their inexplicable leniency to aliens?"
I have had very many letters of that sort. They show what the feeling in the public mind is upon this question, and they also show that the Government should act, and act very soon. Many of these things come out by accident. Your Lordships may remember that in the newspapers there was a description of a man called Drickel, who was captain of a tug. It was only after he stole somebody's boots and was brought before the Court that it was discovered he was a dangerous alien.

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I know that there are great difficulties in dealing with this matter, and I do not want to be unfair, or to add to the excitement in the country, for I do not think that would be wise. As to the difficulties that the Government have to face in dealing with neutrals, there are many German-Swiss, and many German-Belgians, and Many German-Danes. The German Danes are very dangerous. They come from Holstein. Holstein has been German since 1861, and I have been told by Danish gentlemen that the Danes would not have it back again if it was offered to them. These Holsteiners call themselves Danes, but they are German in heart and German in action. I should like to know whether the Government appreciate this difficulty, and what they are doing to meet it. I know that a Return has been given already of uninterned aliens, but I ask for a Return of those naturalised since the war. That has not been made public yet. The Government have been far too lax. It has been far too easy to arrange the naturalisation of a German, and British citizenship has been bought far too cheaply. Of course, many of these men who have come before the public, having been locked up, have had prominent men as sponsors for their honesty. What these sponsors think is that these men are as honest as themselves. I do not think they are. As far as Mr. Laszlo goes, he was perfectly honest—one of the few men who were—because he said he would never give up his affection for his own country. But, whoever the sponsors were, the Home Office had enough against him to keep him locked up, more particularly when he was bold enough to say that he liked his own country.
I ask for a Return of naturalised aliens serving in Government Offices. That, I know, will be difficult. There are a great number of them, and there are a great number of Government Offices, and I think I voice the sentiment of the public when I say that we object to anybody being employed by the Government who has a German mother and a German father. There you have a definite and straight line. We do not want to impugn their honesty; I do impugn their patriotism, because they are not patriotic to their own people. It is nothing to me to say they are patriotic to my country; I do not want them. Let them go to their own country and be patriotic there. Why should not the public know about these people? After all, we are
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taxed; the public pay for these people. Why should not they know the character and names of the people whom they employ? I think this is a very moderate demand, and a demand that should be acceded to.
I will give a few instances which I believe are bona fide. There is a Miss Wylie at the War Office. She is a Censor. She says she is a Dane. She is one of the Holstein Danes whom I have just spoken about. She is a known pacifist, she is pro-German, and the only excuse for keeping her is that she can write and read the Danish, Swedish, and Dutch languages. I am perfectly certain you could get some Englishwoman who would do exactly the same thing—good British blood—and thus not leave this pro-German in that position. There are certain clerks at the War Office. In the First Division there is a Wilhelm Hermann Schlick—certainly not a British name; and Bouenschen is also in the First Division. In the Second Division there is a clerk called Schneider. Surely, First and Second Division clerks need not be Germans. We have plenty of Englishmen, discharged soldiers, who have done their bit at the Front. Why should not they go into these offices? They will do the work just as well, and there will be no doubt as to their patriotism. There is a Mr. Wendt, whose name I have put down in my Question. I believe there are some Peers in this House who are on the Road Board. I hope that one of them will get up and explain how it is Mr. Wendt is on the Road Board. I have some particulars of his case. I may say that since my Question was put on the Paper I have had over thirty letters about this Mr. Wendt. One man tells me, "I punched his head well before the war for abusing King Edward and extolling the German Emperor"; so Mr. Wendt would know that man.
I want to know the number of Germans who have changed their names. Why should they change their names? Is it for our benefit, or for their own? Let them stick to their own names; and if the Government wish to let them change their names, let them put after their names what they were before and let the public know who they are. You gain an enormous advantage by having a good old honest English name—an advantage over some of our own people. I find that many of these Germans have changed their names several times, and I should like to have a list of

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those Germans. Further, a very large number of Germans since the war began have suddenly become Swiss; I should like to know the names of those. I have a list of fifty here who have changed their names since the war began. With the permission of your Lordships I will just read a few. Simon Bloomberg became Simon Barling; Joseph Dietrich became Joseph Martin; Oscar Dotzauer became Oscar Dodson; Henry Ginzburg became Henry Gledhill; Adolph Schineberg became Alfred Leslie—this man I particularly object to, because my mother's name was Leslie, and I hope he will change his name back again—James Schwarz became James Maddocks; Simha Seinbach became Samuel Stonebrook; Lionel Woolfson became Lionel Wilson. All these names that I have read out have been changed in the year 1918, and I want the men to change them back again.
I ask the Government, Who is the official at the Home Office who has power to relax the regulations on discipline concerning prisoners of war and interned aliens? This is a very serious matter. Who gives the money to all these escaped prisoners? How is it that they always come away with any amount of food, and in many cases with large sums of money? It may be these people who insist on changing their names, or it may be other aliens, but it makes the suspicion very grave, more particularly when you get a lot of what I may call silly women, with a morbid curiosity about these prisoners, who think the Germans have some characteristics better than the English, which I have never been able to discover. It ought to be stopped. They ought not to be allowed to visit them, and the people who gave permission for the regulations to be broken ought to be punished.
There was a Court-Martial on Lieut. Canning. I, as a Service man, know how very serious it must have been when a junior officer said something to his senior officer about his breaking the regulations, about the way in which these Germans were treated, and about Barons being able to get anything they liked. A junior officer who said that must have been under tremendous stress of duty. He was tried by Court-Martial—quite right—but he Was honourably acquitted. I think there are some very ugly and disquieting features about that case, and we ought to know more about it. As I have said before, a lot of these things come out by accident, and when they do come out it makes the public more suspicious and more anxious.
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I want to call attention once more to Baron Schroeder, the man who was made a naturalised Englishman in order to save the fortunes of this great country because the Germans had such a hold on it. What coal did he order in 1917 and 1918, why did he order it, who gave him permission, and what was it for? I know the neighbourhood and the people, and I know that a great number of people there cannot get a hundredweight of coal. I have a big house, and I am allowed only 15 tons in a year. I do not complain, but why is Schroeder allowed 646 tons? To grow his orchids, or anything else? It is absolutely wrong. That is the sort of thing for which there can be absolutely no excuse, and that is what is exasperating the public. The Government have been warned more than once that their present policy with regard to aliens has made the nation angry. It has exasperated the public. The Government will have to revise the naturalisation laws as soon as they can, and on the lines which the public demand.
I hope that all my Questions will be answered. I think that answers to some of of them may allay excitement and exaggeration; anyway, if they are answered it will show that the Government are in earnest at last. I claim that the- birthright of "British born" should not be jeopardised by the unwanted intrusion of people of enemy origin, many of whom have broken their contract. One of the saddest times in my life was some twenty years ago when I stood at the dock-head of a great ocean-going seaport whence great ships went to sea. There I saw two ships of heavy tonnage. One was taking abroad the finest specimens of British manhood—artisans, mechanics, and agricultural labourers; the other was discharging into our country the scum of Europe. It is from this that we have suffered. Therefore I hope that the naturalisation laws will be altered, and that we shall not in the future send our best away and receive in return such aliens as I have described.
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, the long public record of the noble and gallant Lord who has asked the Questions that stand in his name on the Paper is a sufficient guarantee that his action can be promoted only by a sincere desire to serve the public interest; yet I cannot help thinking

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that, when he reflects on some of the things that he has said, he will recognise that the state of public feeling, which he rightly regards as irritated and inflamed, can hardly be soothed and quieted by some of those statements. If, for instance, it were true that the action of our Foreign Office is, or ever had been, dictated or influenced in anyway by German influence; if it were true that our Civil Service was the home for a number of justly suspected people; if it were true that our gallant merchant seamen went to sea with their fate foredoomed by the operation of German spies—if these things were true, there certainly would be grave reason for uneasiness and apprehension among the people of this country. But although the noble and gallant Lord said that German influence permeated society and influenced Parliament, and although he made the other statements to which I have referred, I could not find one of the cases that he quoted which in the least degree justified any such statements being made. If, in fact, there be information in his possession which was his warrant for the extreme and grave utterances that he made, I think that it would have been well if some of it had been placed before your Lordships' House, and that he should have given us something more worthy of consideration than the references he gave to a man like Mr. Wendt, about whom I know nothing, or, still more, to a lady, whose case is probably utterly unknown to any member of the Government who will answer this Question, but who may, none the less, awake to-morrow to find herself pilloried before the public by a statement which she has never had an opportunity of examining or of answering.
The noble and gallant Admiral seemed to think that the action in this matter of both this Government and of the Government that preceded it is not only culpably lenient but that its culpability is the result of some unseen and hidden influence; and, indeed, I gather that his idea is that public safety can be obtained only by some drastic measure of wholesale internment of every person in this country who is of German origin. Let us look for a moment at what the true facts are. The noble and gallant Lord mentioned that 2,000 people, many of whom would be interned if his wishes were carried into effect, had sons serving in our Forces. Yes; and some of them, no doubt, were compelled to serve by the operation of the Military Service Acts, but many
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more served voluntarily—came willingly to the Colours to serve the country of their adoption—have died for us, and have earned our gratitude and respect no less than your own sons by whom they were led and by whose side they died. Does the noble and gallant Admiral suggest that we shall show our gratitude by incarcerating their fathers, by putting their wives into prison if they happen to be Germans, and by causing havoc and devastation among every one of their relations who cannot satisfy a criterion of British citizenship which may be so severe that few people can satisfy it? I myself speak without apprehension; I think the person would be clever who could find anywhere in my ancestry the faintest drop of foreign blood of any kind. But I think it is unfortunate that you should attempt to place a period within which a man is to cleanse himself of the taint and offence of foreign birth.
The real thing is this: Are these people who are here now, and who are uninterned, people whom our Intelligence Departments believe to be dangerous to the State? If they are, they should be shut up without delay. If they are not, what reason is there for taking them wholesale, away from their work and their families, and interning them? The only reason of which I can think is that which the noble and gallant Lord himself gave—namely, that he does not trust these people because of their names and their associations. But does he always know why these people came here? In many cases they came because they dislike the very system which this war intends to destroy; in many cases they came because they were not prepared to endure Germany tyranny any longer, and wanted to enjoy some of the privileges of British liberty. They came here, as thousands of people from all parts of Europe have come to this country during the whole of its history, because this is the place where a man may find freedom from oppression and redress for wrong. Are you then to say, "Oh, Yes; now that you are here and war has broken out, we will pay no attention whatever to your testimonials of good citizenship; we will pay no attention whatever to your history since you have been in this country; we will pay no regard to the sacrifices you have made to help us to continue the war; the mere fact that you have a name which I do not like and cannot pronounce is a sufficient reason why you should be taken away and interned"?

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That has never been the policy of this country in any one of it's great crises.
There are, after all, some things at stake in this country as big as the things for which we are fighting in France—that we should maintain unimpaired and unpolluted the great traditions of British justice; that we should measure a man according to his real worth; that we should not punish on the ground of suspicion, but only when guilt is proved, and not allow ourselves to be swept away by either clamour or noise into doing something which at the bottom of our hearts we know to be unjust. I suggest to the noble and gallant Admiral that he should remember a great utterance of one of our greatest writers: "We should not treat men according to their worth, but according to our own honour and our own dignity."
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, I listened with the deepest interest to the fine speech that has just been made by my noble and learned friend, and I wish with all my heart that his splendid language and the splendid quotations which he made had been able to alter my views, and that he could have got me over to his own side. I cannot say how much I regret it. It is only three weeks ago that another noble friend of mine, a great ornament of this House, who occupied the same high position as my noble and learned friend, said to me in the Princes' Chamber, "You may talk as you like but you have got this staring you in the face, that we have got to live with Germany." The answer to that was obvious and immediate, "You have got the thing upside down. We have not got to live with Germany; Germany has got to live with us—and that is the reason why we went to war." That is the reason, as I understand it, why we are fighting now for our lives. The reason was to prevent the bully of Europe being any longer allowed to try to dominate and to exploit the world by murder and rapine abroad, and, perhaps quite as important as that, to have a free hand for treachery and espionage and mischief in this country. That is the question. It is no good talking about Magna Charta and our own traditions and fine sentiment. Much mischief has already been done. Mischievous suspicions are abroad. How mischievous those suspicions are few people realise, or how widely they are spread, and the Government are
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blamed—I do not say whether rightly or wrongly, but they are blamed for their apathy and for their apparent indifference.
Now, my Lords, we have heard from my noble friend Lord Beresford what the difficulty is. It is quite true that any Government action which is taken would bring them at once into conflict with powerful alien vested interests—interests which some of us think in days gone by ought never to have been allowed to have been vested at all. But even supposing that that is the case. Grant for the sake of argument that is the case. What has the Government to fear? We all know perfectly well that on this question the overwhelming opinion of the public at large is sound, and that the Government, if they take action, can confidently rely on the support of the country.
May I, for one moment, be permitted to give one single instance within my own personal knowledge? Two years ago the Government sent a communication to the National Liberal Club to say that they would require the club premises in ten days. Of course, that great building was given up in a moment without a word or without a murmur, and 5,000 men—all poor men, no men of large fortunes—were for the benefit of their country, turned homeless and homeless into the streets of London. (Laughter.) I congratulate the right rev. Bench on their well-placed merriment. These men were deprived of house and home. Another habitation had to be found, and we were able to buy the acre of ground on which stood the Westminster Palace Hotel for £200,000. It is easy enough to find property in London, but the difficulty is to pay for it. The managers raised £100,000 on first mortgage, and the members of the Club were asked to give a second mortgage of another £100,000, with this one condition—that the money should be British money, that it should be paid for by British sovereigns, half-crowns, and shillings, and that not a single German should be asked to contribute. In spite of this stipulation—and I hope I am right in believing in consequence of this stipulation—that large sum of money was subscribed in three days in London. That shows the London spirit.
May I also say what I have seen in the country? I have the honour of being Lord Lieutenant of one of the Midland counties, and I have laid it down as an inflexible rule that nothing will induce me to

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occupy a platform with any German, naturalised or unnaturalised, wild or tame; consequently I deprecate any subscription from Germans residing in the county—there are several of them—because we thought that if we refused to have anything to do with certain people, we ought not to receive and still less to solicit their benevolence. This stipulation has had no effect upon the way in which the county has subscribed. This year £10,000 has already been sent by the county of Bucks to the Red Cross Fund, and I believe that in a very few days £15,000 more will be sent to the same splendid organisation. Some persons would not agree to this, and they say, as has been said in this House, that we must live amicably with the Germans, and that we must take things as we find them. These men, curiously enough, all seem to have some one particular favourite Bosche. They seem to have some particular nurse or governess or old servant or friend. They say, "We entirely agree with everything which is said about the Germans, we deplore their atrocities, the sinking of ships, the crucifying of Canadians, and all those unmentionable horrors which are committed, but we know of exceptions." There is "our particular old nurse," or "our particular old governess," or "Herr So-and-so," and "we gladly become sponsors for their loyalty and patriotism." They tell us, "These are men whose hospitality we have enjoyed, and some of us are under obligations to these people. We have been well served by some, and some of us are in the employ of these Germans. Therefore, although we are ready to do any possible thing to help the country, there is one thing we cannot do; there is one thing we will not do; we cannot be expected to throw over our German friends."
Well, men who become sponsors for the loyalty of people sometimes have a rude awakening. May I remind the House of a case that was in all the newspapers? In the household of the late Headmaster of Eton there was a German woman, of whom there was in the county and in Eton itself the very gravest suspicion. The headmaster absolutely refused to believe one word of it. He said he would resent very much any words that were said against this woman. By good luck we caught her; we had her brought before the Slough Bench, where she pleaded "Not guilty." The rev. gentleman went into the box and made a most spirited defence of this excellent woman. He said he would go bail
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for her, and would do anything. We handed in a letter that she had written herself in her own handwriting in which she sent news by a suspected dangerous person who was on her way home to Germany. She then pleaded "Guilty." She was fined £10 or a month's imprisonment. Thanks to the resolute action of my right hon. friend Mr. Samuel, this dangerous spy and alien was sent to her native country, where I believe she now is. That is what goes on in England.
We have been told by my noble friend what goes on in Germany. We have also been told by him what goes on in America. What happens in France? According to the Code Napoléon the moment war breaks out every alien is ipso facto interned at once. I shall be corrected if I am wrong. Then, of course, we have sympathetic people saying, "What a terrible thing it is; fancy the hardship it is for these German women who have married Frenchmen." The Code Napoléon takes their case as well. Any foreign woman who is married to a Frenchman becomes a Frenchwoman till her husband dies. She is a Frenchwoman and is under the protection of the French family who are responsible for her good conduct and her actions. The French go further than that. At this moment there is in France a distinguished statesman—we all know his name; he is a man who has been twice Prime Minister of the great Republic—who is suspected. Rightly or wrongly, he is under trial. He is suspected of treasonable conduct. What happened to him? He was put safely in gaol, under lock and key, where he is now. He will be tried and will have every opportunity of showing his innocence.
I should like to ask the House what happens in this country? We know perfectly well that a few days ago a man of German birth, who had attained a high position here and had received honours from this country, was, with two of his partners, brought up for trial for the same reason as M. Caillaux was brought to justice. What happened to him? He was brought before the magistrates and was at once released on bail. We are told to-day—we have been told in the Commons House of Parliament—that at this moment there are 12,000 uninterned alien enemies in this country. There are only 6,000 of these who are Prussians. Only 6,000 of them are Germans! The others, are, as we have been told, Austrians

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and Turks. The unspeakable Turks! If we only had Mr. Gladstone amongst us now. Here are these men who are at liberty in the country, and we are told, "There is no cause for fear. Really there is no reason for you to make any fuss about it."
I have only one word more to say. Do some of us realise what astonishment and resentment the French must feel at this kid-glove treatment of our suspect aliens? Have we any notion of the language that is being used in the East-end of London, and amongst our brave soldiers in the trenches with regard to the conduct of those whom they familiarly call—I will use no adjectives—the "German hand-waggers" at home. For weal or woe, Britain's existence lies in the hands of a, small Committee of 'Public Safety. They are responsible for the country. We may think what we like of the so-called chivalry that is shown by these statesmen, and of their desire (which we quite acknowledge) to prevent the slightest injustice and to live up to the highest possible moral standard which is laid down in this country. We may think what we like of all this, but when, in a crisis such as the present, with the fate of the Empire trembling in the balance, we see these men playing with fire, what, my Lords, oh! what are we to think of their sagacity, of their intellect, and of their understanding?
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I think it is well that a Liberal should protest against the speech of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Buckmaster) opposite. I do not want—I say it frankly—the Liberal Party to be tarred with the words of the noble and learned Lord, because I think very few of us agree with him. I hope very few of us agree with him. I think it is a pity that in this House, since the beginning of the war, two or three or four members of your Lordships' House holding these eccentric views very often speak and nobody answers them, and people out of doors very much misunderstand the attitude of the great bulk of the humble members of this House. The noble and learned Lord, made a pathetic appeal, which will read very well, for the Germans who have lost sons in the war. That is the one respect in which I agree with him. I have spoken since the first days of this war—when I had to oppose first of all the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, who took the same line as the noble and learned Lord opposite—but
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I have always excepted from other Germans those who had sons fighting alongside our sons. I say the naturalised German who has a son fighting for Great Britain may be a traitor, but I should want a lot of evidence of it. In the case of a man like that, I say that undoubtedly the presumption ought to be in his favour. The noble and learned Lord said there was suspicion. There is suspicion, and I will go further. I used to think that the soft way with which these Germans were handled in Great Britain was carelessness, that it was softness of heart, but, frankly, I am getting suspicious myself, very suspicious. I forget for the moment whether the noble and learned Lord was in the Government at the beginning of the war. I think he was.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I was Solicitor-General.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: Yes, he was in the Government, and it was in the first days of the war that Germans were naturalised. There were some gross cases. There was the grossest case of all of a man who is known to have a son fighting against this country, and I believe in justification of his naturalisation it was said that if he was not naturalised British credit would suffer. I do not know who said it; I do not know what argument he used; but it could not have been used, by any man who knew the City, in good faith. The Public Trustee might have been put in charge of that man's business, as he has been placed in charge of other businesses. He could have carried it on, and no business interest in this country would have suffered if that man had been put in prison with other Germans.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I should like to point out that I had nothing whatever to do with naturalisation, nor anything to do with any of the matters to which the noble Viscount is referring. He has no right to attack me.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: Somebody had; and surely I am in order in attacking the noble and learned Lord, who was a member of the then Government, and who is defending that line of action now.
LORD BUCKMASTER: Surely there is some little mistake. I do not think that anything I said could possibly be urged in defence of the hasty naturalization

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of any one. I do not think I referred to it at all. I do not think I mentioned naturalisation.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: The noble and learned Lord seems to take the view that we are going too far. Are we going too far? Here is a rich man, naturalised by the Government of which the noble and learned Lord was a member. I protested in this House at the time, but he did not protest in the other House. This man who was naturalised has a son fighting against us. No British interest was gained by his naturalisation—to say so was a lie. We want that naturalisation upset. Does the noble and learned Lord agree with us? He does not agree.
LORD BUCKMASTER: It is impossible to answer the question whether I agree with revoking the naturalisation of any particular person until I have all the facts to consider. I do not know anything about it.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: Then the noble and learned Lord is not going to oppose the cancellation of any naturalisation? He is going to take them case by case. I am glad I have got the noble and learned Lord as far as that. That is a gain, at any rate. The noble and learned Lord said there was suspicion. Can you wonder that there is suspicion? Here is the case that took place in the noble and learned Lord's own Government, which we all know about. We have protested about it; nobody can defend it, because it is indefensible; and the man is very rich, very rich, very rich. I dwell upon that because in these cases the men are very rich, very rich, and I am suspicious myself. In all these cases the men are very rich. There is no defence possible; and can you wonder there is suspicion? I used to think these cases were bona fide, but I have my doubts.
I want to allude to one particular case. The noble and gallant Lord (Lord Beresford) alluded to a case under the Road Board. I am a member of the Road Board myself, and I am sorry to say I did not know we had a German in our employ until a Question was asked in the House of Commons, and we were then told that this man was indispensable. Since the war began meetings of the Road Board have been very few; and of the five members of the Board, only the Chairman and one other were aware of this man's history. Immediately I knew of it, by the Question
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in the House of Commons, I asked for a meeting of the Road Board to be called. Lord Pirrie, who agreed with me, was unfortunately prevented by his other business from attending. I proposed that the man should be dismissed. I was outvoted, but the other members of the Board decided that he was no longer indispensable, and being of military age he goes to the Army. Is it not a funny position? If he is sound, he goes to the Army; if he is unsound, he comes back to the Road Board. If he is held by the Army not to be a fit man to fight, he comes back to the Road Board. I will tell you what this gentleman's antecedents are. I want to say, perfectly frankly, what is in his favour, that since the beginning of the war he volunteered to serve in the Army; at the same time he knew that the Chairman of the Road Board considered him indispensable, and that he would not have to fight. It is also in his favour that the Chairman, Sir George Gibb, who has known him ever since he came to this country seventeen years ago, considers him a perfectly loyal subject. On that I would only say that I have worked in intimate relations with a number of people in business, men in my own office, for many years. I have great confidence in them but, besides business, I do not know the views of many of them on politics, religion, or anything else in the world, and I do not value very much the opinion of a man who is over other men as to anything but their business ability and qualifications.
This man was born in Dresden, of a German father and an English mother. He was brought up in Dresden, but came to this country about eighteen years ago and worked here for nine years; eight of them in the employ of railways with which Sir George Gibb was connected. For nine years he worked in this country and did not take the trouble to be naturalised. Then Sir George Gibb went to the Road Board, and this man went with him. He had a chance of getting into the Civil Service and he thought that good enough to be naturalised, and he was naturalised in 1910 when the Road Board started. Those are his antecedents. You may say that the Road Board is not a very important matter; that it has to cut off the corners of village roads, and what harm can a German do in being connected with that? Since this war began the money of the Road Board has been taken by the Government. We have no money for taking off

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corners and improving roads. The Road Board, since the war began, has been doing a great deal of work in mending and making roads for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and this Mr. Wendt, from his position in the Road Board, must know every one of these roads, and must, from the nature of his work, know everything about every bit of work that is done for the Army, the Navy, or the Air Forces. He was naturalised in 1910, and until I called a meeting of the Board he was held to be indispensable. He will neither fight nor be interned nor go back to the Road. Board, and I am told that whatever happens—whether he is interned, or whether he is fighting, or whatever he is doing—if we do not consider him fit to work in a British office, as I do not myself, he is to have £500 a year from the British Government as long as he lives. My Lords, I say that is intolerable.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: These contracts for Germans in the Civil Service, and for naturalising foreigners, were made under different circumstances. I may illustrate it by putting the case of what might have happened to myself. Supposing I had gone as a young man to make my living in some foreign country, and had settled down there and married a foreign wife, and had meant to live there with my wife and children, I should very likely have been naturalised there. Supposing that then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a thing that I had never thought would happen occurred, and I found the country in which I was naturalised at war with Great Britain, I should then have been one of the most disloyal citizens that country could have, and I believe most of your Lordships would in the like circumstances have been the same. We should have been naturalised under an entire misapprehension of what was going to happen. That is what has occurred.
I do not say much about uninterned Germans and uninterned foreigners, because I believe most of those who are left out have been carefully sifted, and that a great many of them have been found to be merely nominal Germans. They are Alsatians, Lorrainers, Czechs, and Italians from Austria who hate our enemies worse than we do ourselves. What I do deal with are the aliens who have not been interned because they have been naturalised, these men who call themselves British
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citizens but the burden of the proof of whose loyalty ought to be cast upon them. The Government must take action. What we want is a change in the law. We want the law so altered that naturalisation of late years—10 or 20 years; I should like to look into the matter before I decided how long—should be revoked en masse, and the cases should then be taken one by one, and a list prepared and naturalisation granted when it was thought right. But before that happened the lists of the people who were to be naturalised should lie upon the table of the House of Commons and upon the Table of this House, and every Member of Parliament should have the right on a vote to say whether these people were in his judgment fit men to be British citizens like ourselves.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords I should like to say with what pleasure I listened to the refreshing and outspoken speech which we have just heard. If we had a few more speeches of that description and a little more direct action following upon them, I think that a great deal of the popular feeling which has arisen could be allayed. My reason for saying a few words is that I have been going about the country a great deal, and I have been receiving a large amount of correspondence, and have come up against much of this agitation which is undoubtedly becoming extremely serious. I sincerely hope that His Majesty's Government are at last beginning to realise the fact, and that we are going to see something done which will convince the public that the dangers that unquestionably exist as a result of the German penetration that has been going on for years is to be definitely tackled in one form or another. As to the exact method by which it can be done, there is no necessity at the moment to go into details. But I wish to emphasise in the strongest way possible that I am convinced that there is a very strong feeling of unrest everywhere, and that this is having a very bad effect upon the Army. Nothing could be more satisfactory to the enemy. I have no doubt whatever that there are enemy aliens in this country who are deliberately promoting this agitation simply and solely with the view of causing unrest and distrust between the people and the authorities. It is one of the well-known forms of German agitation to create distrust between the governing authorities and the people of the country.

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A great deal of this distrust has arisen through the half-hearted action that was taken at the beginning of the war. We have heard, instances of notorious cases of naturalisation. There was undoubtedly great apathy on the part of the Home Office and the Police authorities at the beginning of the war in making inquiry into most suspicious circumstances. I was told only a few days ago by a well-known public man, who I believe was speaking the absolute truth how, when he was soldiering at the beginning of the war at a well-known East Coast town, he was convinced that a considerable amount of signalling was going on from a particular house, but he could not get any action taken. Every time he brought the matter forward he was simply pooh-poohed by the authorities. He went away to other duties, and after that the house was raided. This, however, was a considerable time from the date at which the complaints were originally made. That is only one of the great many cases of which I have heard. The result is that this apathy has caused all this talk about the "Hidden Hand," which reflects on quarters that deserve nothing of the sort, and causes a great deal of harm in the country.
I heard only this morning of what happened at the recent by-election at Clapham. There a soldier got on to the platform and addressed the crowd. He was an old soldier and in uniform, and he said that so far as he could see the Army was fighting more for Germans than for England. This is a result of those cases—exaggerated, I think, as to the numbers—where aliens have come forward and taken over the businesses of men who have been called up. Nothing can be more irritating to the people living in a street than to see an alien come in and take over a shop or a house the owner of which has been obliged to go into the Army. Owing to the indecision of the Government and the half-hearted way in which this question has been tackled, and to the way in which apparently no notice has been taken of the continual warnings that have been given, this Government and the one before have only themselves to thank for the unrest which has now arisen.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I agree with what was said by the last speaker, that nothing could be more unfortunate than that this question should be left in a state of unrest and suspicion. If this is
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due to the inaction of the Government in not making proper inquiry when cases of suspicion are brought before them, then, for my part, I should blame the Government in most unmeasured terms. But having regard to what I am going to say by and by. I doubt myself whether the terms on which the noble Marquess's speech was based can really be sustained. And may I say this in reference to what was said by the noble Viscount (Lord St. Davids). I am sure every member of this House would reprobate in the same terms as he did the notion that a different treatment should be given to rich and poor aliens in matters of this kind.
LORD BERESFORD: It is given.
LORD PARMOOR: If it is true, I can only say that it is a disgraceful partiality which ought to be condemned from every possible point of view. The next point of the noble Viscount opposite was this, and here he came down to what I may call facts and realities. I understand that he is a member of the Road Board, and that it was the action of the Road Board in retaining Mr. Wendt as a high official that the noble and gallant Admiral (Lord Beresford) impugned. What was the answer? As I understand it, if any one is to blame it is not the Government but the Road Board, more especially the Chairman of the Road Board, whom many members of this House know to be an admirable business man, and who was at one time General Manager of the North Eastern Railway—I mean Sir George Gibb. Although I want to give no opinion whatever on a case of this kind, which I understand is going to be considered, surely one can imagine a case where the son of a German father and an English mother, naturalised in 1910, may have done his work so admirably, may have shown his patriotism in such certain and direct ways, that it would be really unfair and unjust to introduce some special treatment in order to deprive him of the benefit of the work he is doing in a patriotic and admirable spirit. I do not say it is so, but what I urge most strongly is that the spirit of justice, the spirit of right and fair play, should not be put on one side immediately it happens that a man in some part of his pedigree has what is called a foreign taint. I think it is grossly unjust and inconsistent with the whole spirit of liberty which is at the basis

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of the Constitution of this country. I call to mind a saying of Montesquieu, that the laws of this country which treat foreigners fairly are the very essence and basis of the national liberties which we enjoy ourselves. I think the saying of that great French philosopher is perfectly true.
May I say one word in reference to what was said by the noble Marquess (Lord Lincolnshire), whom I naturally, respect in an especial manner as the Lord Lieutenant of the county in which I live. It appeared to me that the illustration which he gave undermined the rhetoric of his argument. As a rhetorician he appealed to us very strongly with his references to German mothers on the one hand and patriotism on the other. Rhetoric of that kind is one of the easiest means by which you can seek popularity at the present day, although perchance you may cease to be just. I know nothing about the conditions of his club—I think it is the National Liberal Club—but he referred to matters in Buckinghamshire, and what was the result? That in spite of suspicions, in spite of what is called this German influence of the rich, he had no difficulty whatever when he appealed to English sentiment to get the funds which he required in the two instances to which he referred. In other words, the whole superstructure of suspicion fell away directly you came to the facts of the business in which the noble Marquess was directly interested. You have exactly the same story in the rather unfortunate case—as one must call it—of the head master of Eton. There was no harm done in this sense, that the very moment there was evidence which could bring home suspicion in a legal sense the lady in question was brought up before the proper tribunal and sentenced, as I understand, in a proper manner for the offence of which she was found guilty. That is, of course, the real difficulty in this matter.
We are always hearing of suspicion. What we want to know is whether these suspicions can be proved or not; and if it could be shown against the Government that, when matters of suspicion have been brought forward, they refused to take any proper steps or to make any proper inquiry I think they ought to be condemned, because I believe that to be one of the things which create suspicion. But I do not believe that it can be proved—
LORD BERESFORD: It has been proved.
LORD PARMOOR: Well, I do not believe that it can be proved. I want to say one or two words, in conclusion, in reference to what the noble and gallant Lord has said. I found myself in greater sympathy with him than he would, perhaps, think desirable on a point of this kind when he made two statements. He said he desired nothing to be done which would be inconsistent with our national honour. That, I think, is one of the chief things to be borne in mind in dealing with this question of aliens. He also said that he did not wish undertakings which we had given to be torn up as though they were "scraps of paper." I entirely agree with the noble and gallant Lord. Now let me apply that to the conditions. Let me first take the case of naturalised aliens, aliens naturalised under the law of this country and entitled to the benefit which naturalisation gives them. How call we, consistently with our national honour, turn round and imprison such a man if he is not guilty of any offence? Our national honour has been pledged to him, that as long as he observes the law of this country he shall enjoy the same conditions here as he would have enjoyed had he been born a British subject. Therefore I want to ask the noble and gallant Lord how he proposes to deal with naturalised aliens unless thay have been proved defaulters in some special manner—that is, if he desires to maintain our national honour, the national undertaking we gave them at the time they became naturalised civilians.
LORD BERESFORD: May I answer? There are many of these naturalised aliens who have been found out to be traitors by pure accident. We have to think of our own people first.
LORD PARMOOR: As soon as any one is found out to be a traitor, by all means—
THE EARL OF MEATH: Too late!
LORD PARMOOR: May I put this to the noble and gallant Lord? There are various crimes committed by British subjects which are discovered only by accident. Is that a reason for indicting every British subject in this country?
LORD BERESFORD: That is not a parallel.
LORD PARMOOR: It is exactly the same point as regards our national honour. Then let me say this with regard to the question of property. I understood the noble and gallant Lord to say that he desires some system by which the property of naturalised aliens should be confiscated. How can that be done? At the present time they have the same right to every piece of their property in this country as the noble and gallant Lord himself has to his. I entirely agree that if they were to do something to put themselves outside the laws of this country—if they became traitors or outlaws or something of that kind—the noble and gallant Lord would be quite entitled to claim the confiscation which he desires. But if, on the other hand, he is genuine in what he says about a "scrap of paper," why are we to tear up a scrap of paper merely on suspicion and in reference to which no legal proof has been brought forward? I want to say in the strongest manner possible that if any such legal proof were forthcoming I should not be prepared to defend aliens for one moment; but in the absence of such proof, while they have come here under the indemnity of a law which has promised them the same protection as is given to our own citizens, I say it would be a bad stain on our national honour, it would be a bad tearing up of a scrap of paper, if, on the mere ground of suspicion and without any proof, you either imprisoned these men and deprived them of the liberty to which they are entitled, or confiscated the property to which under the law of this country they are justly entitled.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, may I say a few words on the point about interning aliens? I agree with the noble Lord who has spoken in favour of the alteration of our laws of naturalisation, and also the Regulation about people assuming different names. But I think the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Denbigh, hit the nail on the head when he said that the excitement about the uninterned aliens was due to gross remissness on the part of the Government at the beginning of the war. I myself know what happened on the East Coast; the Government did nothing at all. I also agree with Lord St. Davids that the enemy aliens now uninterned in this country are so well
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watched that no danger is likely to accrue through their being at liberty. I think the noble and gallant Admiral who brought forward this question has himself said how many aliens have been interned in the course of the present year.
LORD BERESFORD: Naturalised.
LORD LAMINGTON: Therefore I think that is proof that the authorities are now fully alive, and that when any suspicion attaches to an individual or group of individuals they take the proper action. I think it would be unfortunate if the people became rattled because there were a great number of dangerous foes in our midst who ought to be shut up.
Lord Beresford referred to the prompt action which has been taken by Mr. Hughes in Australia; but I do not think Mr. Hughes said anything about interning alien enemies—in fact, it is obvious that he did nothing of the sort. When the question of civilian prisoners was mentioned in the House on the last occasion, we were told there were 31,000 interned Germans in the whole Empire as against 4,000 British interned in Germany. That means about 10,000 Germans interned outside the United Kingdom, including Australia, India, Canada, and the other Dominions and Colonies. I once had the honour of being Governor of Queensland, and I can remember going to one township which might as well have been Germany, for the whole population spoke German and ate German food. Half of the so-called "cockatoo farmers" in Australia are Germans.
But to return to my argument. It is impossible, therefore, that interning 10,000 alien enemies in the whole Empire would represent anything like the interning of the whole of the alien enemy population; consequently Mr. Hughes's action cannot have been in connection with interning these men. The noble and gallant Lord said that he would intern those with a German father or a German mother. In Australia there are thousands and thousands of them; and I think that if you examined the names of those gallant men who are fighting with the Australians you would find many German names amongst them, just as you see German names in our own causalty lists. I think, therefore, that the idea that you should have a wholesale internment of alien enemies ought to be laid aside. The question on the Paper has not even the word "enemy" before "aliens." It is

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impossible to think that you could take action against all the aliens in this country, because I do not know where you would stop.
From time to time when a question has been raised in your Lordships' House by a very strong party of Peers who wished to see an "all for all" exchange of prisoners, I have been the only Peer to get up and support the Government's action that we should not return 31,000 Germans for 4,000 British. If we interned the other 12,000, that would make 43,000 altogether; and those who are imbued with the idea of an "all for all" exchange evidently contemplate handing over something like 43,000 Germans for the sake of repatriating about 4,000 of our own kinsmen. I think this would be a monstrous proposition. From my point of view it would intensify the great evil of letting go back to Germany Germans who were hale and hearty through having been well looked after here, many of them deserters who would shortly be found fighting against us in the ranks of the Germans.
THE EARL OF MEATH: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, for his speech, because ever since the beginning of the war, and especially during the time when he was in the Government, I have been approached by people saying there is a "Hidden Hand," and that there was some influence working in favour of the Germans, otherwise the things which occurred would not occur. I myself have always thought this. I listened to the speech of the noble and learned Lord, and, however much he may say he did not say this and he did not say that, the purport of his speech was in sympathy with the Germans in this country; therefore I am not at all astonished at the popular feeling that there are influences in high places which have in the past, whatever they may do in the present, acted in the interests of Germans, and especially of rich Germans.
I do not suppose that there is anybody in your Lordships' House who has been so much in Germany as myself. I was educated there; I was a diplomatist there on two occasions; I have lived there a great deal otherwise, and many of my friends are Germans. The German has to do what he is told, and every German is more or less under the Government. Consequently he has his duty to do to his
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country which he must place before any other. Lord St. Davids, said that if he were a Briton in Germany and were naturalised he would do everything he possibly could to assist England. I agree. Consequently, why should we imagine for a moment that every German in this country is not as patriotic as we ourselves should be in similar circumstances, and not doing what he can for his own country; I do not blame the German; I think his attitude is absolutely correct.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, made a strong case about our national honour. His speech reminded me of a story about the Crimean war which I once read in Kinglake. Some British soldiers were in a battery, the rampart of which was so high that they could not fire over it. The Russians swarmed round and jumped down amidst our men. There was one private fighting at that moment with six Russians hanging on to him; he had two down, but they were clutching his legs, and he began kicking the Russians, on which the sergeant in the true British way, said, "Smith, don't kick a man when he is down."
Now, my Lords, you cannot have Queensberry rules if you meet an opponent who is fighting under ju-jitsu. Ju-jitsu has no rules except to disable and kill your opponent. Therefore, it would be ridiculous in that sergeant, and I say with all due respect to the noble Lord it is ridiculous to argue, that, when fighting a man who does not carry out any rules whatever you are to stick to certain rules. You cannot do it and win victory at the same time. The sooner we realise this the sooner we shall end the war. It is because we stick to the old Queensberry rules, as I shall call them, that the day will come when, if we go on in the same manner, we shall find that we are under the heel of our adversary. Therefore I urgently hope that we shall have no more temporising. It is now two years since I first raised this question, and I venture to say that we have been most patient, and the country has been most patient; but the country does not intend to be given any more of this soothing syrup. We feel that we are fighting for our lives, and we intend to win.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, may I detain you for a very few minutes and bring back the debate to the facts. There

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are three great German banks in the City of London which are not wound up yet, and it is the opinion of all the financiers to whom I have spoken in the City that those banks could have been wound up, or steps taken which did not involve the attendance of a great number of German clerks, many months ago. The managers, who are free to walk about London, are extremely able Germans who have a great deal of very secret knowledge. Two of them have found their way into the Policecourts—in one case without the smallest personal discredit to the manager—but it it very curious that in both cases the actual occupation of these managers was not allowed to be published in the Press reports. They were called "persons of great importance in the City," or some phrase of that kind. Why was there this reticence?
I could give a very large number of instances of apparent tenderness to Germans. I have had, my Lords, on three or four occasions to bring the cases of certain firms before you, and no doubt I have bored the House to distraction. I achieved some small success and got a firm stopped in its operation in India, but it is still in full operation in the City of London to-day. Meanwhile very often little consideration is shown to purely British people. There is a distinguished member of your Lordships' House whose residence was thoroughly searched for wireless apparatus, and I am sure that nothing was less likely to be found in that house. As your Lordships know, the offices of the National Party, which is not exactly a German party, were also thoroughly searched with a view to finding anonymous letters, which I think we generally agree are never of any use to anybody.
The Aliens Restriction Order published this year deals with the question of change of name, to which my noble and gallant friend referred. That Order seems to give very considerable powers. By Clause 25A (1)—
"An alien enemy shall not for any purpose assume or use, or purport to assume or use or continue the assumption or use of, any name other than that by which he was ordinarily known at the date of the commencement of the war."
This all seems very satisfactory; but there is a very large loophole. Clause 25A (4) says—
"A Secretary of State may, if it appear desirable in any particular case, grant an exemption from the provisions of this Article."
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Now, can there be any case in which, during this war at least, it can be "desirable" that a German should be allowed to change his name? and under this Clause it is only in cases where it seems to a Secretary of State that this course is desirable that the change can be allowed.
There is no doubt, as has been expressed by many of your Lordships in this debate, that very great resentment is felt throughout the country with regard to this tenderness for Germans, and it is generally believed, perhaps unjustifiably, that some of these persons are protected by some unknown agency. This may be an unfounded belief, but there are some circumstances which give at least some colour to it. It is believed by a very large number of people that an important clue to this protection is to be sought in the Marconi scandals, and this belief is supported by the fact, which cannot be denied, that there have been three attempts to get to the bottom of those scandals, and in every one of those cases inquiry has been shut down in circumstances which, if you look into them, seem to be extremely peculiar. There also would appear to be reluctance to carry out full investigations in the Courts of Law; and it may be a mere coincidence, but some honours were given to persons who have shown no alacrity about getting at the facts of that case. I think this has produced a very unfortunate and even painful impression.
If the Government will make it clear that all tenderness to Germans and German interests shall cease, and that they will court the fullest investigation into every suspicious case brought before them, then I am quite certain that they will strengthen their position in the country, secure a greater measure of confidence, and relieve a great public anxiety; and I am certain that they can do this without in the least tarnishing the honour of the country to which we are so deeply attached.
THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I was very much astonished by Lord Buck-master's speech. He evidently does not wish to interfere with the Germans now living in this country in any way whatsoever, and he only wishes to punish them when their guilt is proved. But what I wish to say—and I feel that I voice public opinion—is that we do not want these Germans in our businesses, we do not want them to carry on business in this country

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and make money out of Englishmen, and occupy positions which Englishmen ought to fill. Then Lord Buckmaster went on to say that Lord Beresford would not allay irritation by the speech which he had made. I do not think my noble and gallant friend wants to allay irritation in any way. He wants the truth to come out, and to let the public know what is the state of affairs with regard to Germans who live in this country—uninterned and lately naturalised Germans.
Lord Buckmaster also suggests that there are no spies. Surely we have spies in Germany, and does he mean to say that there are no German spies in this country? What we feel is that "once a German always a German," and that if he gets a chance of spying and giving information to Germany he will do it. As to suggesting that there are no spies in this country, the noble and learned Lord might just as well suggest that the sun is not going to shine to-morrow. Are these Germans dangerous to the State? Many people in this country believe they are. Then Lord Burkmaster said that they came to this country because they were oppressed in their own country; They came to this country not only for this reason but to live comfortably and make money out of Englishmen, and to control a great many of our businesses. They not only controlled a great many of our businesses in this country, but very nearly controlled the whole metal business of the world; and we want an end put to that.
The atmosphere of suspicion was spoken of by Lord Parmoor. I must say to him that all Germans are suspect, because they are German. How can we believe in Germans of any sort or kind after the way in which the Germans have behaved in this war? Treachery, murder, and every other crime have been committed by them, and they are quite prepared to go on with them. Why did they naturalise themselves, and why did they naturalise themselves when war broke out? They naturalised themselves in order to live in this country and to make money out of Englishmen. Let me give a case or two. There is one to which I should like to call the attention of the Government. There is a sub-Postmaster, who is a German, who keeps the Clifton-road Post Office in Maida Vale. The name is Prageser. His wife is a German, and his daughters are at school in Frankfort, or were until
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recently. Is it good that soldiers should have to go to this Post Office and get their pensions from a German? I wonder how the noble Lord, Lord Buckmaster, if he were a soldier, would like to draw his pension from a German.
A NOBLE LORD: He would not mind.
THE EARL OF MAYO: There are three or four bakers in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden who are Germans. I shall have a number of cases in a very short time to which I shall draw attention. The hour is late, and I am going to finish now with one particular case. There is a Dr. Wiensenground, managing director of the Power Plant Company at West Drayton. The company is now occupied in making turbine parts for the Admiralty. He states openly that he is a German. He has been in communication with Vogels, pump engineers, in Vienna. He had blue prints sent by a friend in America to this Viennese company before America came into the war. The friend's name is Rufener. If he did this there is no reason why he should not try, through friends of his to send to Germany blue prints of the turbine parts that are being made for the Admiralty. This matter was reported to the Home Office. Full proof was tendered, and is still available, that he communicated with the enemy. This man's brothers and nephews are fighting against us in the German army. No action has been taken by the Home Office. This is only one of the many cases which I intend to bring forward. In conclusion, I may say that the public are excessively irritated, and they will be more irritated when all these cases are brought before them.
LORD FORESTER: My Lords, the hour is late, and I will detain your Lordships only a few minutes in supporting my noble and gallant friend in front of me. I entirely endorse what he said, and I agree with the plan of the noble Viscount opposite—to intern every German and then let them out on their merits. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, talked about "right" and "justice" in this country. I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord whether he thinks it right that we should have thousands of uninterned enemy aliens or naturalised Englishmen—whatever you like to call them—wandering about this country, while our Allies, the French and Americans,

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are made to report themselves night and morning to various Police-stations?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Night and morning?
LORD FORESTER: Those who are not soldiers. That is my information. One word about the land. I think that some legislation should be brought in to prevent alien enemies from obtaining land, when our own soldiers who have fought for it cannot obtain land. There is also the question of selling businesses. I quote the case of a friend of mine, an officer in the regiment which I had the honour to command at the beginning of the war. He has been to the Front since, has done very well, and has received the Military Cross. He applied to the Board of Trade to buy a small business in connection with his own. The Board of Trade know all about it. It belonged to a German who was ordered to get rid of the business, because he had done something he ought not to have done and had been interned. He applied to my friend, who is in the same trade, to purchase the business from him, and the German agreed to let him have it because he understood that my friend would keep it warm for him during the war and let him have it afterwards. My friend applied to the Board of Trade. He also met the German at the Board of Trade and agreed that a stated price for the business should pass between them. When the German found that my friend would not do what he wanted, he sold it to another German (or a naturalised Englishman) in the country for a smaller sum than my friend was prepared to give for it. My friend does not suggest that this was any fault of the Board of Trade, but legislation ought to be introduced to give the Board of Trade power to deal with such cases.
As my noble and gallant friend has told you, there is—I have seen it myself—a very strong feeling in the country. The British public have been very patient. They have nobly responded, and will respond, to the calls made upon them by the Government. They are willing to shed their last drop of blood and spend their last penny to realise the consummation we all desire and to beat Germany in the field. But one thing they will not stand, and that is this growing feeling that we are being betrayed by Germans in our midst. I trust that the Government will appreciate this, and will
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bring in such legislation as will allow this feeling to die down again, so that we shall all feel we are all in together to win this war.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, perhaps it may be convenient if I reply now to the specific Questions which have been put on the Paper by my noble and gallant friend opposite. Before I do so, I can assure him that I truly appreciate the anxiety to which he and other noble Lords have given expression. I am aware also that there is unquestionably considerable feeling in the country on the matter. The Secretary of State is equally appreciative of the position, and is also perfectly aware of the anxiety, to which the noble and gallant Marquess gave expression, in the public mind.
As usually occurs in this House, the debate has ranged round a large variety of subjects. The Questions of the noble and gallant Lord, to which I shall refer in a moment, are clear enough, and I hope to give clear answers to them, but included in the speeches of various noble Lords have been references to a number of other matters, such as banks, consuls, the large question of naturalisation, the Marconi Inquiry, and so on. Whilst noble Lords are quite within their right—I beg them clearly to understand that I take no objection whatever—at the same time, having a large number of Questions on the Paper, they will forgive me if I am unable to follow them, or give them answers which they might or might not think satisfactory. My noble friend Lord Mayo mentioned the particular case of a man, I think at West Drayton, and said that the Government had possession of all the facts, but that no steps had been taken. I do not think that is quite the same thing as if he had been able to say that no investigation had been made. I can understand no steps being taken, but I can hardly believe that there should have been no investigation by the Home Office or the Admiralty. If noble Lords who have specific cases will be so good as to entrust them to me, or send them to the Secretary of State, I can assure them that they will receive the most prompt and fullest investigation.
A great deal of the debate has ranged around questions of policy. Noble Lords will remember that some little time ago, when questioned in another place, the

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Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the absence of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs said, it was quite impossible for him to enter into a general discussion of policy, as, the Secretary of State's presence for that purpose was indispensable. One of the aspects of the case was the matter alluded to, with some particulars, by the noble and gallant Lord in regard to the employment of aliens in Government Offices. As regards a statement of policy I am in the same position. I cannot enter into it, but I understand that the Secretary of State, who has now returned to this country, has had the whole subject under his closest consideration with advisers, and he hopes to be able to make a statement in another place on Thursday next. These questions deal not only with the Home Office but with the Board of Trade, and in one or two respects with the Treasury, and I am commissioned to answer for these three Departments.
LORD BERESFORD: And the War Office?
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I am not commissioned to answer for the War Office, but I think I have a reply for every item in the noble and gallant Lord's Questions. He first of all calls attention to the number of uninterned aliens in this country, and asks whether a Return can be given. I presume that the noble and gallant Lord means uninterned alien enemies. Aliens, as distinct from alien enemies, are not liable to internment unless they come within the Defence of the Realm Regulation 14B, which applies to persons of whatever nationality, whether British subjects or aliens. As to the numbers, the noble and gallant Lord gave them himself, and he was correct in saying that there were between 12,000 and 13,000 males, and 10,000 females. All these have been exempt from internment or repatriation on the recommendation of the Judicial Advisory Committee which was set, up in May, 1915, when the Government adopted the policy announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Asquith. This policy was to intern all adult male alien enemies, or, if over military age, repatriate them, and to repatriate alien enemy females; but there would be cases for exceptional treatment on grounds of justice or humanity, and these cases were to be dealt with by the Advisory Committee. Excluding those temporarily released from the camps on licence for employment on agriculture or
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other work of national importance, the number of male alien enemies who remain uninterned is approximately as follows: Germans, 6,000; Austrians, 5,500; Turks or Bulgarians, 1,100; total about 12,600. Of these, over 4,000 are of friendly race and only technically of enemy nationality, such as Czechs, Poles, and Alsatians, and over 3,000 are old men or invalids. Of the 6,000 Germans, over 3,500 are married to British wives, over 4,000 have British born children, and 2,400 have sons serving in His Majesty's Forces. This makes up the four different classes—alien enemies of friendly races, old men and invalids, persons, who, being free from all suspicion, are employed in specially important industries from which they could not be removed without detriment to this country, and persons, who, also free from suspicion, have lived here for many years and have married British wives and have British born children. All these cases are exempted cases, and are constantly reviewed by the Home Office.
My noble and gallant friend also wants a nominal return of alien enemies exempted from internment or repatriation. This would involve a great expenditure of time and labour, and I submit that it would hardly now be justifiable. As to the names and other particulars of persons to whom certificates of naturalisation are granted, they are published monthly in the London Gazette, and are given in the annual Return presented to Parliament. Excluding British born women re-admitted to British nationality, no Germans, Austrians, or Hungarians have been naturalised since November, 1916. The names of those naturalised before that date can be obtained from the monthly Gazette and the annual Return. The number naturalised between August 4, 1914, and November, 1916, was 146 Germans and 14 Austrians. The noble and gallant Admiral asks for a Return of Germans who have changed their names during the last five years, and inquires whether enemy aliens are now permitted to change their names. I have to reply that persons of enemy nationality have been prohibited from changing their names during the war under the provisions of Article 25A of the Aliens Restrictions Order. The Home Office has no information as to how many changed their names before the war.
LORD BERESFORD: What was the date of that Order?
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I think it was at the beginning of the war, but I am not quite sure. It has to do with the arrival and departure of aliens, and Section B has to do with their residence and employment. If my noble and gallant friend wishes, I will certainly ascertain and let him know. He also asks who is the official at the Home Office to whom the powers are entrusted for relaxing Regulations laid down as regards visits to German prisoners of war or interned aliens. Questions as to visits to persons are dealt with by the head of the Prisoners of War Branch of the Home Office. I understand that the official in charge of that is Mr. Maurice Waller, who has no power to alter the Regulations, but he may grant certain relaxations for certain reasons in individual cases.
LORD BERESFORD: Granting relaxations does not alter the Regulations laid down. It was because the young officer to whom I referred called attention to this that he was tried.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I can only say that on the occasion in question, which was referred to at the Court-Martial, the request was that a lady might be allowed to have an interview with a certain prisoner without the presence of an officer, but on the commandant giving reasons why there should be no departure from the ordinary rule in this particular case, Mr. Waller authorised the commandant to refuse the application; so that while he may have power to relax the regulation, I do not think it can be said that he did so.
LORD BERESFORD: Then what was the young officer tried for?
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: That belongs to another story, and I am afraid I could not give any answer.
LORD BERESFORD: Then I will bring it up again.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: Coming to the question of Mr. Wendt, the case has been stated by my noble friend behind me, Lord St. Davids, and I do not think that I need give details except to endorse his statement that when Sir George Gibb went from one line of business to another—from the North-Eastern Railway to the London Underground Railway, and then finally to
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the Road Board—he took this man with him. The man had attested under the Derby Scheme, and had made, I understand, three or four applications to be allowed to serve, but I presume that by the Board he was then considered indispensable. He has since, as we have heard from Lord St. Davids, been declared not to be indispensable, and the consequence is that the Treasury understand that the effect of the particular resolution referred to by Lord St. Davids, which was carried nem. con., will be that Mr. Wendt's certificate of exemption will be withdrawn, and that he will shortly be called up for that military service which he has so often wished to undertake.
I come now to the question of Baron Schroeder's coal. In 1917 he had 92 tons of household coal, and 374 tons of anthracite coal; in 1918 he had 7 tons of household coal, and 159 tons of anthracite coal. The amount of coal in stock at Baron Schroeder's premises at the end of May, 1918, was—household coal, 20 tons; anthracite coal, 300 tons. I may point out that no permission was required of the Coal Controller to purchase coal for consumption at that time at Englefield Green, that place being outside the metropolitan area. Twenty tons of household coal are not excessive for the two houses and the eleven cottages on the Baron's estate. All supplies of coal to Baron Schroeder had been stopped as from May 7, except a consignment of anthracite which was en route at the time. As regards the 300 tons of anthracite coal, under the new Household Fuel and Lighting Order which took effect on July 1 the Coal Controller is empowered to control the production, supply, and use of anthracite coal, and to apply any excess stocks above the ration allowed under the Order in such manner as may be desirable, and the Board of Trade are considering what steps should be taken in this case.
My noble and gallant friend referred to aliens at the ports, a subject which is not down in his Question. As regards aliens at the ports, since the beginning of the war special consideration has been given to this question, and stringent measures have long been in operation to prevent the possibility of leakage of information through aliens at the ports. That is done by restricting access to ships and docks, and by very strict control over alien seamen. The question is at present under consideration by a conference of all the Departments

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concerned, with a view to deciding whether any further measures can be taken in the interest of public security and the defence of the realm.
My noble and gallant friend also referred to the case of Mr. Drickel. Drickel was sentenced to two months imprisonment at a Police-court for stealing £2 worth of goods. The evidence showed that he was a German in charge of a tug boat on the river. This man is thirty-four years of age, and has been in this country since he was two years old. He is married to a British-born wife, and has three British children, and in consideration of these facts he was exempt from internment on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee. He is a tug engine-driver, and has been in the employment of William Cory & Sons, coal merchants, for seventeen years, and it is understood that his employers were completely satisfied as to his loyalty. He has no relations or friends in Germany. He will not be allowed to resume his employment, and will probably be interned at the end of his sentence.
A variety of matters have been touched upon in this debate, and I will make it my personal duty to put a copy of our OFFICIAL REPORT before the Secretary of State, and I have not the slightest doubt that, all the statements which have been made will receive his very careful consideration. As was my duty, I have endeavoured to give my noble and gallant friend a full and frank answer to the specific Questions that he has placed upon the Paper, and I can assure him that I have been in every way most anxious to fulfil that task.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend for his
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reply. It is true that he has given me answers to some questions, but not to all, so that I shall have to put the unanswered ones down again. I want to clear up the mystery of why the young officer was charged for breach of discipline at the Court-Martial and acquitted. As I said in my speech, it has a very ugly look. I am not clear either about Baron Schroeder's coal. I have had letters from Englefield complaining that the people there cannot get coal; yet this German Baron could get it, and did get it. As to the case of Drickel, my point about this is that it was only as a result of the accident of this man being charged with theft that it came out that he was a German. This German will be interned now, but he never ought to have been in command of the tug. It is facts like these that irritate the public so much, and it is this sort of thing that we want to stop. It is all very well for the employer to say, "We can trust him; we do not doubt him." I do not wish to intern everybody, but I desire that all naturalised aliens should have their naturalisation papers revoked, and that the papers should then be carefully examined by a competent Court, and given back only to those about whom there is no doubt. When the large number of naturalised aliens who have been locked up is pointed out, there arises a doubt in the public mind as to whether they should not all be locked up. I do not think the Government's reply is very satisfactory, but I am quite prepared to wait until I hear what the Secretary of State says in the House of Commons in making a declaration of policy before I bring the matter up again.
House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock.