Sitting of 20 June 1918

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
London County Council (Money) Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Pontypool Gas and Water Bill [Lords].
Red Cross and Order of St. John Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Chepstow Gas Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill (by Order),
Third Reading deferred till To-morrow.

CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.
Copy presented of List of all Pensions granted during the year ended 31st March, 1918, and payable under the provisions of Section 9 (1) of the Civil List Act, 1910 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 52.]
SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
Copy presented of Treasury Minute, dated 12th June, 1918, granting a Retired Allowance to Mr. Benjamin Bramble and Mr. Frederick W. Hunt, Staff Clerks in the Accountant and Comptroller-General's Office, Inland Revenue Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR).
Copy presented of Report by the Board of Trade of their proceedings under the Railway Regulation Act, 1893, during the year ended 27th July, 1916 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    ROUMANIA (SECRET TREATY).
    Mr. RICHARD LAMBERTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs-whether he is aware that an official of the Foreign Office, under his own signature, has recently been writing in a weekly newspaper on the treaty with Roumania, dated 18th August, 1916, which is a secret treaty, and that this official has used inside knowledge in his public writings; whether this official wrote for the newspaper under the authority, or with the approval, of the Foreign Office; and whether the treaty will now be published, so that both sides to a public controversy may be fully informed?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): The writer referred to in the question is a member of one of the special organisations forming part of the Foreign Office that have been created during the War with a view to meeting special needs, and he is not a member of the permanent staff of the Foreign Office. It has been ascertained that the information contained in the letter was not derived from official, but from private and other sources, and was in the writer's possession for some considerable time before his services were utilised by the Foreign Office. The official in question is permitted to write for publication in the Press on condition that his writings are submitted to control in the Foregn Office before publication, as was done in the present instance. There can be no question of the publication of the treaty.
    Mr. KING: Is it not rather remarkable that persons in the Foreign Office are allowed to write in the papers, and then the Foreign Office repudiate responsibility for their opinions, views, or information?
    Mr. BALFOUR: I have explained the circumstances.
    Mr. D. MASON: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the promise of the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) that he might consider the publication of this treaty, and will he see that it is published as a White Paper?
    Mr. BALFOUR: I do not think the treaty can be published. It is one of the secret treaties, if I remember rightly. I will see about that.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    CONVENTION WITH UNITED STATES.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is intended in the new Military Convention with the United States to exempt entirely British subjects of Irish and Australian birth and parentage from military service in America; whether Americans above the age of thirty-one will be exempted in this country, or whether the same age limit for compulsory military service will apply to British and American subjects here; and when he expects to present to Parliament the full text of the Convention?
    Mr. BALFOUR: The hon. Member will be able to judge of the effect of the Convention when it is laid before the House. At present it has not been approved by the Senate, and I do not consider it desirable to deal with its terms by way of question and answer before it has been so approved and ratified. The date on which the Convention will be laid before the House depends on the date on which it is ratified.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that public discussion of this subject is going on in America, whereas we, who are equally interested, are debarred from having any information, even by question and answer in this House?
    Mr. BALFOUR: I am not aware that this subject is being discussed by question and answer in America. All I say is that while it is before the American Senate and American Government I do not think we had better discuss it.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received applications from conscientious objectors qualified for exceptional employment to be allowed to undertake educational work; if so, from how many persons; and what number have been, or will be, allowed to undertake such work?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): A certain number of the men employed under the Committee on the Employment of Conscientious Objectors who have been qualified for exceptional employment have applied to be authorised to take up educational work. No such application has been or will be granted, and no record has been kept of the number of such applications.
    Mr. KING: Has the opinion of the Board of Education, or of the President of the Board of Education, been taken on this matter; if so, what is that opinion?
    Mr. BRACE: No, Sir; the Committee have acted according to their own discretion.
    Mr. KING: Has the Home Office received any representation on this matter from the Board of Education, even if it-has not been consulted?
    Mr. BRACE: I could not say.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Before any concession of this sort is made, will the parents of scholars attending any school where it is proposed that these people shall be engaged be consulted?
    Mr. BRACE: The Committee have decided as a policy and a principle that educational work is not suitable work for conscientious objectors to be released to go to.
    Mr. KINGrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: I would ask the hon. Member to proceed with the next question [No. 19].
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Home Secretary if he will have an inquiry made into the condition of J. Sumner, No. 456, Northallerton Prison, who is serving his fourth sentence of two years' hard labour; and whether, in view of the state of his health, the imprisonment he has already endured, and the treatment meted out to him by the military service tribunals, he will order the man's discharge?
    Mr. BRACE: I find on inquiry that this prisoner is in good health mentally and physically, and that there is no ground on which the Home Secretary could advise interference with his sentence.

    CONSCRIPTION (IRELAND).
    Major NEWMANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is

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    aware that a weekly levy, the proceeds of which are sent to the clerical and republican fund to resist the extension of the Military Service Act to the South and West of Ireland, is being imposed by certain trade unions in Ireland; whether he is aware that loyal working men are compelled to subscribe under threats to this levy; is it in his power to take any action in this matter; and, if so, will he take such action without delay?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Shortt): The reports which have reached me indicate that in the case of some unions a levy to resist Conscription has been imposed. There appears to be no evidence of threats to enforce the subscription. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
    Major NEWMAN: Is it legal for trade unions to impose a levy of this sort?
    Mr. SHORTT: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should put that question to the Law Officers.
    Major NEWMAN: Could I send the right hon. Gentleman correspondence dealing with the matter?
    Mr. SHORTT: Certainly.
    Major NEWMAN: Will he return it?
    Mr. SHORTT: I cannot promise that.

    VOLUNTEERS (COMPULSORY DRILL).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Prime Minister whether men between the ages of forty-one and fifty-one who are exempted by tribunals for business reasons are, after a long day's work, compelled to drill as Volunteers; whether embusqués in Government Departments, however young they may be, are exempted from such volunteering; and whether he proposes to continue this treatment of the older men?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. In the case of any person to whom a certificate of exemption has been granted by a tribunal since 30th April, 1918, it is competent to the tribunal to direct that the liability to service in-the Volunteer force imposed by Section 4, Sub-section (6) of the Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918, shall not apply. With regard to the second part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply
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    given to the hon. and gallant Member for Christchurch by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War on Tuesday. I would add, moreover, that any Department whose staff could spare the time for work in the Volunteer force would be making a contribution more helpful to our military effort by releasing a larger proportion of its men for whole-time service.

    QUALIFIED ACCOUNTANTS.
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Minister of National Service what steps are being taken under the new Military Service Act to render available for public service qualified accountants within the new age limits; what results these steps have had; and how many of such cases remain to be considered by tribunals?
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of National Service if he is aware that the Ministry of Munitions (Accountants Department) has issued a call upon accountants to make an immediate return of all qualified accountants at the front with a view to their being brought back here for national service; will he explain at the same time why the National Service officials are daily serving notices upon chartered accountants and incorporated accountants calling them up for military service; is he aware that on Friday next thirty qualified accountants come before the Manchester Tribunal upon an adjourned hearing, and unless something is done in the meantime these men will go into the Army and the State will be deprived of their training and experience at a time when their services are needed for civil and Government work; and will he try to secure something like consistency of policy in this matter between the Government Departments?
    Mr. NEEDHAMasked the Minister of National Service whether, in view of the fact that the Controller of Munition Accounts, Ministry of Munitions of War, has issued a circular, dated 1st May, 1918, to practising accountants asking for assistance and for a list of the names of chartered and incorporated accountants now serving; and whether, in view of the number of accountants who have already joined up and of the necessity of maintaining here accountants in practice and their principal clerks, he will arrange that the certified occupations list shall continue to apply to chartered and incorporated accountants to exempt them from military service?
    Mr. BECK: The whole question of the supply of accountants for the public service and other indispensable Civil work has been under consideration, and it is proposed to establish a committee of professional accountants to consider the need and to advise the Ministry of National Service on the best means of meeting it.
    Instructions have accordingly been given to arrange for the adjournment of all cases of accountants pending before tribunals, including, of course, those at Manchester referred to by the hon. Member for Blackburn.
    Mr. CURRIE: When will the committee hold the first meeting?
    Mr. BECK: I must have notice of that.
    Mr. WATT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in many cases applications for service have been turned down by the hon. Member for Leith Burghs.
    Mr. BECK: That is a question which should be addressed to the hon. Member.

    MEDICAL GRADING.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Minister of National Service how many Grade 1 and Grade 2 men are employed at the White City?
    Mr. BECK: There are no Grade 1 men, and there is only one Grade 2 man, employed by the Ministry of National Service at the White City, and he is forty-four years of age.

    ANALYTICAL CHEMIST (CLAIM FOR EXEMPTION).
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Minister of National Service (l) whether he is aware that Mr. Norman Strafford, of 95, Tonbridge Street, Leeds, an analytical chemist, has been called to the Colours, and is now serving; that this man, after a brilliant academic career, has been employed in work of national importance, i.e., the manufacture of T.N.T. and carbolic, particularly the preparation of meta and para cresols; that he was formerly graded as C1, but has now been placed in Grade 1, notwithstanding the fact that careful medical examination has shown a marked antero posterin curvature of the spine; whether, in view of this man's qualifications, his usefulness to his country as a chemist, and his state of health, certificates as to which have been sent to his Department, he will take steps to employ this man in such a capacity
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    as will enable him to do real service in his country's interests; (2) whether he is aware that Mr. Norman Strafford, of 95, Tonbridge Street, Leeds, aged twenty-one years and ten months, was attested at Manchester on the 8th December, 1915, and placed in category C1; that he was placed in this category owing to curvature of the spine; that on Monday, 14th May, 1918, he was medically examined at Leeds and placed in category Grade 1; that he was subsequently carefully examined by two medical men who agreed that he was not fit for Grade 1; that he received his calling up notice to attend at Harewood Barracks on 28th May; that he was subsequently examined at York by the military doctor there, who admitted that his back was not fit for Grade 1; that, notwithstanding, he was posted to a regiment and sent to a camp at Rugeley, Staffordshire; and whether, in view of this man's physical condition and his unfitness for military service, he will take steps to have him released from military service; and have him returned to his civil employment where he can perform work of national importance?
    Mr. BECK: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. As stated, Mr. Norman Strafford is an attested man aged twenty-one years and ten months, and was placed in Grade 1 on 14th May. I understand that Mr. Strafford made an application to the Appeal Tribunal for medical re-examination. This application appears to have been refused by the Appeal Tribunal as having reached them later than the prescribed date. This Ministry has no control over this decision. I am, however, having inquiries made as to the allegation against the National Service Medical Board contained in the question. I have examined the papers sent to me in regard to the technical qualifications of Mr. Strafford, but these do not appear in themselves to afford any grounds for the very exceptional action suggested by my hon. and gallant. Friend.

  RUSSIA.

    ALLIED INTERVENTION.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Japanese intervention in Siberia has been sought by any persons in Russia who can claim to represent the public sentiment of that country?
    Mr. BALFOUR: Intervention by the Allies (including, of course, Japan) has been sought by many persons in Russia. All of them, I believe, claim that, in varying measures, they represent the public sentiments of that country. It is, I presume, unnecessary to add that those who recommend the opposite course make the same claim.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information as to who are the persons who desire Japanese intervention in Russia, particularly as it is believed that they are those who are called pro-German?
    Mr. BALFOUR: No; that is not my information.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: In view of the agitation in a certain part of the Press, will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that the British Government will not be a party to any armed intervention?
    Mr. BALFOUR: Certainly not.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that this country will stand by the policy of the President of the United States in preventing Japanese intervention?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We are getting a very long way from the question on the Paper.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Shall we have an opportunity of hearing the Prime Minister on this subject on Monday?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is even further still.

  ALLIED WAR AIMS.

    BELGIAN GOVERNMENT.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the public support for this country's declaration of war on Germany was secured on behalf of the Belgian people, he can state whether the Belgian Government has been associated with the territorial aims of the Allies as set out in what are known as the secret treaties?
    Mr. BALFOUR: I see no connection between the two clauses of the hon. Member's question. The Belgian Government are not parties to the treaties to which he refers.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is it not a fact that the territorial aims of the secret treaties are opposed to the interests of Belgium, as making for the prolongation of the War, and are not the interests of Belgium being disregarded?
    Mr. BALFOUR: I dissent from the view of the hon. Gentleman; but we cannot discuss it by question and answer.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Why is the Belgian Government not consulted in these matters, as we went to war on behalf of Belgium?
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that this country declared war on Germany on behalf of the Belgian people, he will invite the Belgian Government to express its opinion as to whether the interests of Belgium can be best served by a policy of negotiation for peace, or by one that seeks to secure redress by the prolongation of the War until a victorious military decision has been achieved by the Allies?
    Mr. BALFOUR: Our Belgian Allies are always at liberty to express their opinion on matters of common interest.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Have the views of the Belgian Government been sought in this matter of the question of entering into negotiations or the prolongation of the War for military victory?
    Mr. BALFOUR: We are in constant communication with the Belgian Government. Whether we begin a conversation with them or they begin a conversation with us is quite immaterial. They are perfectly at liberty to discuss any question of common interest with us. Perhaps that will satisfy even the hon. Gentleman.

  IRELAND.

    ALLOCATION OF LAND.
    Colonel YATEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how much land has been allotted by the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners since the commencement of the War up to date to men who were serving or have served in the War or had members of their families so serving; and how much has been allotted to men who had not so served respectively?
    Mr. SHORTT: It is impossible to answer the first two parts of the question

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    with accuracy. Both the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners make it a rule, when dealing with applications for untenanted land, to consider most favourably applications from eligible persons who have themselves served in the Army or Navy or who have or had sons so serving, but they are confined to the applications of eligible persons. On an estimate about 1,050 acres have been so allotted—200 acres by the Congested Districts Board and 850 acres by the Estates Commissioners. In addition the Congested Districts Board have allotted 90,000 acres and the Estates Commissioners 35,300 acres.
    Colonel YATE: Why is it impossible to give this information? When I asked two or three days ago I was given the information of the amount allotted to soldiers, and was told that the information regarding the amount allotted to non-soldiers would be obtained. Now the hon. Gentleman comes back and says he cannot get it.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is arguing.
    Major NEWMAN: What is an "eligible person"?
    Mr. SHORTT: An "eligible person" is defined by Statute, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman can read it in the Statute?
    Major NEWMAN: Which Statute?
    Mr. SHORTT: The various Land Acts.

    ANTI-CONSCRIPTION DISTURBANCE (TOBERMORE).
    Mr. ARCHDALEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Thursday, 9th May, a party of men returning from an anti-Conscription meeting in Magherafelt in brakes and other vehicles carrying disloyal emblems, instead of returning by the road on which they went to the meeting, attempted to pass through the village of Tobermore and made use of provocative language and abuse of soldiers serving with the British Forces; and, seeing that Tobermore has a large proportion of men now serving, and is known as a peacable village, no serious disturbance having ever before occurred in it, will he say how many, if any, of the proecssionists have been made amenable?
    Mr. DENIS HENRYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
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    whether he is aware that on Thursday, the 9th May, a procession of anti-Conscriptionists attempted to pass through the village of Tobermore, county Derry, carrying disloyal emblems and anti-Conscription flags and using expressions abusing our troops in the trenches; whether he is aware that a large proportion of the inhabitants of the village are serving at the front, and that a disturbance was caused; whether he is aware that three weeks afterwards, on the morning of the 30th May, at 3 a.m., a party of police arrested six inhabitants of the village, including two wounded soldiers, and brought them before the resident magistrate some miles off at 9 a.m., when, without having an opportunity of producing evidence or procuring legal assistance, they were bound over to keep the peace; and if he will say how many members of the procession were prosecuted, and why, after the lapse of three weeks, the parties were not summoned instead of being arrested in the middle of the night?
    Mr. SHORTT: I have received a report as to this matter and am making further inquiries.

    INTERNED PERSONS.
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether an Irish widow, Mrs. Clarke, of Dublin, is now interned at Holloway; whether she is in good health; whether she has been allowed to see or communicate with her young children; and whether any application to visit her has been received, refused, or granted?
    Mr. BRACE: Mrs. Clarke is interned in Holloway Prison. She refuses to be medically examined, but, though she is not strong, her health does not appear to have deteriorated since her reception. She is allowed to communicate with her children if she wishes, and has written to and received letters from friends. One application for permission to visit her has been received, but the visit has not been allowed.
    Mr. KING: If someone could represent that he wants to make her more reasonable and amenable, will that person be allowed to visit her?
    HON. MEMBERS: "Name!"
    Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has now been able to allow any of the Irish interned persons to see their friends, relatives, or legal

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    advisers; if so, in how many cases; whether there have been any of these persons allowed to come before the Advisory Committee set up in accordance with Regulation 14 B; if so, how many; and whether any artists or literary authors among these prisoners have been or will be allowed artists' materials or other necessities for the practice of their arts?
    Mr. SHORTT: Three visits have been allowed, two in the case of legal advisers, and one under special conditions. No interned person gave notice of appeal to the Advisory Committee within the time allowed. The answer to the last part of the question is in the affirmative if the persons concerned make the necessary application.
    Mr. KING: Will these persons, like literary men, who are interned, be apprised of this kind of concession, or are they to be told from outside, or how are they to know that they can have such concessions?
    Mr. SHORTT: Now, as always, they have immediate notice, but they do not always choose to take advantage of it, hence the rumour that they are not allowed.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has now secured sufficient evidence to enable a prosecution for treason to be brought against the Irish men and women who have been deported and imprisoned?
    Mr. SHORTT: There is sufficient evidence, but no prosecutions for treason are considered necessary or advisable.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the reason why he does not proceed against these persons, particularly in view of the belief held in Ireland that this action of the Government is simply taken to suppress a political movement and that the whole charge is faked up—a view expressed, I see, by a Bishop in Ireland last week?
    Mr. SHORTT: I should have thought that the reasons were obvious. There is certainly no such belief held at all widely.
    Mr. KING: Is not the reason because the evidence is mostly collected by agents provocateurs?
    Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir; certainly not.

    ATTACKS ON CONSTABULARY.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he can give any information as to the recent shooting at and wounding of members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in the Western part of the country; and if the assailants have been identified?
    Mr. SHORTT: Two sergeants of the Royal Irish Constabulary were fired at on the public street in Tralee on 14th June, and one of them was wounded. He is now in hospital, and is progressing favourably. Two arrests have been made.
    Major NEWMAN: Does the Chief Secretary mean that this was the only case of firing at the constabulary in the West?
    Mr. SHORTT: It is the only case of which I have information.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what instructions are issued to the constabulary about the carrying of arms?
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, as a preliminary to an attack on members of the Royal Irish Constabulary on the 15th instant by a crowd of persons at Ballycar, county Galway, a body of men barricaded the roads by felling trees, erected barbed wire entanglements, and cut the telegraph and telephone wires; and why no military were available to aid the small force of constabulary in dealing with organised resistance on the scale described?
    Mr. SHORTT: I am aware that conduct similar to that described in the question took place, but a force of police was assembled at Ballycar sufficient to deal with the disturbance, and they did deal with it effectively.

    BOYCOTTING AND INTIMIDATION.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the organised boycotting and intimidation used against Protestants who have had the courage to refuse to sign the pledge to prevent the application of the Military Service Act, 1918, to the South and West of Ireland; whether on the 11th ultimo the Callan Town Commissioners at their monthly meeting threatened one of their members, Patrick Joyce, J.P., if he refused to sign and endeavoured to take his seat at the council table; whether six Protestant

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    members of the Wicklow Urban Council were similarly theatened, and persisting in their refusal are now boycotted, with the result that one of them has been obliged to close down and endeavour to sell his business, and another has been forced to leave the town and go to England to obtain employment; the name of the person who wrote to the Irish Food Control Committee to have the sugar cards that had been placed by his customers with another of the victims removed from him and given to another business man; and what action does he propose to take?
    Mr. SHORTT: My attention has been called to cases of boycotting and intimidation. The Callan Town Council passed a resolution disapproving of Mr. Joyce's action, but I am not aware that he has been threatened or interfered with.
    I am aware of the boycotting of the members of the Wicklow Urban District Council, but the boycott is entirely anti-Conscription, and has nothing to do with religion.
    With the assistance of the Irish Food Control Committee, I am taking what steps I have power to take, and am considering what, if any, further powers are necessary for the protection of those who are so attacked.
    Major NEWMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman give me the name of the person who wrote to the Irish Food Control Committee?
    Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir, I cannot.
    Major NEWMAN: Is it not a fact that it was a Member of this House?
    Mr. SHORTT: I prefer not to answer.

    VENEREAL DISEASE.
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether at Grimsby recently women have been charged under the new Regulation 40D of the Defence of the Realm Act for soliciting a soldier while having venereal disease, and have been sent to prison without the soldier alleged to have been solicited appearing to give evidence; and what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. BRACE: I find on inquiry that the only cases which have been taken at Great Grimsby are cases where the persons solicited belonged to the Navy. As
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    regards the evidence of persons solicited, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply on this subject given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 9th May.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in this House assurances have been given frequently that women will not be convicted under this Act unless the soldier concerned gives evidence, and that those assurances have been habitually broken in all the cases?
    Mr. BRACE: That is not the question put by my hon. Friend.

    BRITISH EMPIRE ORDER.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Home Secretary how many persons who were invited to allow their names to be submitted for the bestowal of the Order of the British Empire declined the invitation?
    Mr. BRACE: I regret this question should have been asked, and I doubt if I ought to answer it, but, in order to prevent misunderstanding, I will say that the proportion who asked that their names should not be submitted was very small.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Can we have the names of those who most deserved to be honoured?
    Mr. BRACE: No, Sir.

    ZINC CONCENTRATES.
    Mr. HOLTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any contract has been made between the Government of Australia and the Zinc Corporation in respect of the smelting of zinc concentrates; and, if so, what are the terms of such contract?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): I have no information on this subject.

    RAILWAY TRAVELLING FACILITIES.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now able to give his promised definite answer to questions previously put down asking that representations should be made to the Great Western Railway Company and the London and South-Western Railway

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    Company to secure the interavailability of season tickets issued by these companies between the same stations on their lines?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Albert Stanley): This matter has now been fully considered, but I regret that I do not see my way to recommend the grant of the concession desired. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, season tickets available on the two railway systems can be obtained on payment of an extra charge, and there are, in present circumstances, specially strong objections to the extension of travelling facilities.
    Mr. RENDALL: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, seeing that now the dividends of these companies are guaranteed by the nation, business men who happen to live in the West of England and who want to come to London should not be allowed to use trains actually going to Paddington or Waterloo with the same season ticket; and what disadvantage can there be to the nation in allowing them to do so?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I tried to indicate in my reply the difficulty of extending travelling facilities of this kind. I can assure the hon. Member that nobody would be more pleased than myself if I were able to take a different point of view on this matter, but in the present circumstances I have no alternative.
    Mr. RENDALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that practically this is the only case in England at the present time where season tickets are not inter-available for long-distance travelling?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I would remind the hon. Member that there are many other places similarly affected.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Is the only result of this decision that those unfortunate business men will have to return to their station by a later train?
    Sir A. STANLEY: If that was the only reason obviously my answer would not be adequate, but that is not the only reason.
    Mr. RENDALL: How can it increase the amount of travel if a man travels on one line instead of another?
    Sir A. STANLEY: With increased facilities for travelling he will ride more frequently.
    Mr. GILBERT: Would it not enable a certain number of unnecessary trains to be taken off if it were possible to travel by alternative lines?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I do not think it would be true to say it would reduce the number of trains now being run. It might have the effect of adding to the number of trains we are working.
    Sir COURTENAY WARNERasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make Regulations to prevent saloon carriages being reserved by the directors and officials of railway companies on crowded trains, and also to give wounded officers, and officers, Government officials, and Members of Parliament, when travelling on national business, the right to occupy any vacant seat in spite of the carriage being reserved?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am making inquiry into this matter, and will inform the hon. Baronet of the result.

  GERMAN INDUSTRIES.

    STORES IN NEUTRAL COUNTRIES.
    Brigadier-General CROFTasked (1) the President of the Board of Trade whether he has official information showing that German industries supported by the German Government have secured large stores of leather, wool, copra, jute, coffee, and other raw materials and commodities which are stored and held on neutral account in the United States of America awaiting shipment on the conclusion of peace; whether the United States has taken steps to requisition these supplies; if so, what steps His Majesty's Government have taken to similarly secure the future of British industry; (2) the Minister of Labour whether he has any official information showing that Germany is having goods manufactured in neutral countries with a view to exporting them to the United Kingdom as neutral goods at the conclusion of the War, and that large quantities of raw materials are actually held in England to-day, occupying store space and ready to be shipped to neutral countries for manufacture directly there is a chance of export; and, if so, whether any of these goods are German owned and were transferred to neutral nominees at the commencement of the War?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I have no official information to the effect stated, but I shall be glad to consider any evidence which the hon. and gallant Gentleman can produce as to the storage of goods on foreign account in this country, with a view to pursuing further inquiries. I may point out that the Imports and Exports (Temporary Control) Bill, when it becomes law, will provide the necessary machinery for carrying out, after the War, any policy regarding the control of imports and exports which maybe decided upon.
    General CROFT: Are there any large stores of goods held to neutral account in this country which might be of German origin?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am not aware.
    General CROFT: Are there any supplies of neutral goods stored in this country?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I believe there are some manufacturers with stores in this country on behalf of neutral nations.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
    Colonel YATEasked the Pensions Minister when there will be a new Royal Warrant dealing with and increasing the pensions of officers and their families in the same manner as the Royal Warrant dealing with the pensions of soldiers and their families which came into operation on 1st May of this year?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen): The Royal Warrants for officers and men are still, by reason of the proper reservation of the various rights of the former, on very different lines, and except in one important particular, which I have under my consideration, the changes introduced by the Warrant of the 17th April, 1918, applying to men, do not require a revision of the Warrant of the 1st August, 1917, which applies to officers.
    Colonel YATE: When dealing with soldiers' pensions, should not all soldiers be treated on an equal footing, and when an increase is granted to one rank should it not be granted to another?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The conditions under which pensions are
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    granted to officers has always been quite different from those under which they are granted to men, and some of the changes made recently in the men's Warrant are really not applicable to officers, but we are considering at all events one important change.
    Colonel YATE: Will that change benefit the officers?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Certainly.
    Colonel YATEasked the Pensions Minister whether there is to be any differentiation between the treatment of officers and men as regards the amount of pension to be awarded being dependent on what the pensioner may be able to earn?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The ordinary rates of pension for disability laid down in the Schedules of the Royal Warrants, both for officers and men, depend not on earnings but on degree of physical disablement. As regards alternative pensions, the average earnings of which the pensioner is judged capable are equally a factor in all eases, whether the pensioner is an officer or soldier.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether he received an appeal on 6th March from the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers on behalf of T. R. Mann; whether a reply was sent on 8th June, three months later, stating that application should be made through the local war pensions committee, who would inquire into the case (Reference No. 3,813 P); whether this means that if the appeal is successful the man may lose three months' increase of pension; whether there are now over 1,000 similar appeals pending from the same organisation; and whether he proposes to deal with those in a similar way?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I have not been able to identify the particular case referred to, as the rank and regiment are not stated, and there appears to be no such reference number at Chelsea as that which is quoted. I may, however, explain that if an appeal for increase of pension is successful, the increase is dated back to the time of the first application, whether it be addressed to the local committee or to the Ministry direct. With regard to the latter part of the question, I would remind my hon. Friend that a local committee now has power to increase

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    a pension provisionally, if, in the opinion of the medical referee, the man's condition has become worse, so that the pension he receives no longer accords with the extent of the disablement. I would therefore suggest that, in the interests of the men, my hon. Friend should at once send the 1,000 cases he mentions to the appropriate local committees.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that what he says about local war pension committees being able to do that is altogether destroyed by the circular issued from his Department saying that they only do it in very exceptional cases? Will he also inform the House how many applications for pensions have been paid back to the date of application, and explain how people who have made application through the ordinary channels are to get the money to which they are entitled?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: With regard to the first question, if the hon. Member and his supporters continue to send cases direct to the Ministry instead of to the local committees they are merely delaying the advantage which would otherwise accrue to the men. In regard to the second question, in all cases where an increased pension is granted the increase dates from the time of the first application, if it is conceded that the pension should have been higher.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he and his Ministry have had to appoint a system of inspectors in order to enable the local war pensions committees to do the work, and are we who represent our constituents to be deprived of the opportunity of advocating their claims because his committees cannot do their work?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is wide of the question on the Paper.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Pensions Minister whether, in view of the privilege extended to soldiers whose claim for a disability pension is refused, on the ground that their disability is not attributable to military service, of appealing to a Special Tribunal, he will consider the advisability of setting up a similar Appeal Tribunal for the purpose of dealing with the case of officers who claim that their disability is owing to or was aggravated by military service but who have been unsuccessful in obtaining pensions?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: As I informed the House in reply to a question on the 15th May last, such a tribunal as is now asked for by the hon. and gallant Member is already in existence.
    Mr. WATTasked the Pensions Minister whether his attention has been called to advertisements recently appearing for divisional officers (men) for local pensions committees in Scotland; whether outsiders with no knowledge of the work were appointed to such posts at salaries averaging £200 a year; whether he is aware that in each of the local pensions committee's employment there were men well qualified for such posts who had been some time in the committees' service and that these men, at half the salaries of the new appointees, are now fully occupied teaching the new men the details of their duties; and, if so, will he say why, having regard to economy, these appointments have been made?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Although the question refers generally to Scotland, I think I may safely assume that it is the Glasgow local committee which the hon. Member has in mind. As I in-formed him in reply to a question put to me on 11th March, the Glasgow Committee have lately been reorganised under the direction of an experienced officer of the Ministry. Part of the scheme of reorganisation consisted in decentralising the work by the setting up of ten district committees, each with its own offices and each under the administrative control of a paid male officer. In view of the existing circumstances it was thought advisable to invite applications for these new posts by public advertisement. With regard to the second part of the question, it is only reasonable to expect that the newly-appointed officers, however competent, can profitably be instructed in the details of the work by experienced members of the staff.
    Mr. WATT: Was not this reorganisation carried out because the local committees did not do their work?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I am not prepared to say that the local committees do not do this work, but we thought that if it was reorganised on these lines they would do the work better, and I think that will be the result.
    Mr. PRINGLE: How long is it estimated it will take before these inexperienced people will know what the job is?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: They are not inexperienced people. They are men thoroughly qualified for the work.
    Mr. STANTONasked the Pensions Minister if his Department will see that full-time secretaries are employed by local pension committees; is he aware that much time and loss could be saved to the committees and departments if active full-time secretaries were employed; and will his Department see that the applicants are treated with consideration?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: It is my view that a local committee ordinarily requires the whole-time services of at least one chief officer responsible for the administrative business of the committee, and I have impressed this on local committees in official circulars and correspondence. With regard to the last part of the question, my Department always investigate, through the agency of their inspectorate, any charges of inconsiderate treatment on the part of local committees, such treatment being, of course, totally at variance with all the principles on which the Department is administered.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many complaints of this kind he gets on an average per day?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: My hon. Friend must give me notice of that question.
    Mr. STANTON: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many of these appointments have been made where the local committees have fixed up people who are already in possession of a decent salary and really have no time to do this work; whereas for £200 a year many people would be willing to do the work effectively and well?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The majority of the committees already have these whole-time officials, and in other cases we are impressing upon them the necessity of doing so wherever there is a large volume of work.
    Mr. STANTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the large number of complaints we get, and that we are only anxious to see that this work is carried out successfully?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I am quite aware of that, and we are most anxious that the work should be carried
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    on successfully. I am glad to say that the number of complaints we receive is constantly diminishing.
    Mr. HOGGE: Four thousand a week!
    Mr. STANTON: They come to us!
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether, in view of the fact that young lads under nineteen are now being used in the firing line and that there are numerous casualties, the Government propose to allow any special compensation to dependants in view of the promise given earlier that they were not to be put in the firing line until they were nineteen?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The Government do not see their way to adopt this suggestion. The basis of compensation paid to dependants is loss of support, and it would not be practicable to modify this basis by taking into account the age at which the soldier is put into the firing line.
    Mr. HOGGE: As this is a question of policy, does the right hon. Gentleman not see that a new situation arises if boys under nineteen are killed, seeing that in ordinary circumstances the pension or gratuity to parents depends on the separation allowances, and in the circumstances is it not right to make a special arrangement?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Was not the assurance referred to in the last part of the question given, and if so, is it not possible to make a special arrangement?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I do not agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh that this is a question of policy. It is a question of administration, and the answer must be given by the Departments concerned. As regards the promise, the House is well aware that what was stated was that they would not be taken unless a national emergency rendered it necessary.
    Sir E. CARSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether dependants in these circumstances might not be given: a grant of land?
    Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the numerous resolutions which have been passed by public and other bodies throughout the country demanding an increased allowance for the wives and

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    children of serving soldiers and sailors; and will he say what action he proposes to take thereon?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to what I said on this subject in Debate on the 18th instant, to which I would refer my hon. and learned Friend.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Do I understand my Tight hon. Friend to say that he is considering the subject with a view to a speedy decision?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes. I gave that undertaking.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    WOMEN'S SUPPLEMENTARY RATION.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether women doing men's work will be placed in the same position as men in regard to food rations?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): The claims of women to a supplementary ration are considered on their merits, having regard to the severity of the work to be performed, and any women doing really heavy work receive supplements. The larger general ration now provided is sufficient for the great bulk of women without any supplement.

    DISTRIBUTION OFFICERS.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food how many distribution officers and assistants have been appointed in the country, and at what annual cost; whether they are necessary; and whether the work could equally well be done by existing firms?
    Mr. CLYNES: Seventy-two distribution officers, including assistants, have been appointed in the country. The annual cost of their salaries is £21,204. These officers undertake a wide variety of work in connection with national rationing and superintend the distribution of food under the general supervision of the Food Commissioners in each district. I am satisfied in the circumstances that their special appointment was necessary.

    TEA.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether a firm was recently fined
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    for selling tea at less than the controlled price; and can he state what is the policy involved in the creation of this offence?
    Mr. CLYNES: Yes, Sir. The maximum retail price of tea was made a fixed price in order to prevent traders in a large way of business from selling at cost price, or even at a loss, for the purpose of gaining custom at the expense of small retailers, who have at once a right to live and a distinct value for purposes of distribution.

    STRAWBERRIES.
    Mr. MARRIOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that, in consequence of the Strawberries Order, tons of ripe strawberries are at present rotting on the ground, and the growers refuse to gather them?
    Mr. CLYNES: It is of vital importance that the utmost possible quantity of fruit should be made into jam. The prices for fruit have been fixed with the concurrence of the Board of Agriculture, with a view to enabling the growers to perform a patriotic duty without loss. They are considerably higher than any recent prices for fruit for jam making. I can hardly believe that the facts are as stated by the hon. Member, but if he will let me have particulars of the cases he has in mind, I will see that steps are taken immediately to deal with the situation.
    Sir FRANCIS LOWE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is entirely the wrong kind of strawberry which is being held up by this Order, and that the largo strawberry is suitable only for eating, and not at all suitable for jam-making?
    Mr. CLYNES: That is a side of the question as to which we are considering whether anything can be done.
    Mr. LOUGH: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that the fruit may be all wasted while this consideration is going on, and would it not be worth while to fix prices which, if left to operate, would be likely to prevent this fruit from being condemned to be destroyed?
    Mr. CLYNES: Certainly, if it be true that people will not gather the fruit at a price which is higher than that of last week, and let the fruit go to waste.
    Mr. ALDEN: Has the right hon. Gentleman consulted the Board of Agriculture, as there are plenty of men who can give information on this subject?
    Mr. CLYNES: Yes; and various agricultural committees in addition.
    Mr. ALDEN: In regard to the fact that there are large quantities of strawberries left ungathered, will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Board of Agriculture on that subject?
    Mr. CLYNES: I propose to do that now.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information of his own on the question?
    Mr. CLYNES: In this, as in the case of many other articles, there are very general charges made and rumours circulated, and we desire to locate the beds of strawberries.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large strawberries remain good for only three or four days, and that before long there will be no large strawberries left?

    RAW MATERIALS (BRITISH INDUSTRIES).
    General CROFTasked the Minister of Reconstruction what steps have been taken by his Department to secure raw materials for trade on the conclusion of the War; and whether facilities are being granted to British industries to secure raw materials in neutral countries?
    The MINISTER of RECONSTRUCTION (Dr. Addison): The steps necessary to secure an adequate supply of raw materials after the War are being dealt with by different groups of experts, who are reporting to me in respect of individual materials or groups of materials. Action has already been taken in different directions, and many of the issues involved will be submitted by my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary to the Imperial Conference for consideration. Regard is, of course, had to the available sources of supply in neutral countries.
    General CROFT: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the fact of the enormous supplies of raw material that the Germanic Powers are supposed to have accumulated, and can he say whether any large amount of raw materials have been provisionally provided for?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That forms a separate question.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    OFFICERS' UNIFORM.
    Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether the officers of the Royal Air Force are about to be ordered to provide themselves forthwith with light blue uniforms instead of continuing to wear the recently introduced khaki Royal Air Force uniform until the end of the War, as had been hitherto understood; and, if so, considering the expense that will be inflicted on all young officers who have provided themselves with the khaki uniform, the Air Board will consider the advisability of postponing the issue of the proposed orders?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the AIR MINISTRY (Major Baird): This matter is under consideration. If the change be decided upon, officers will not be ordered to provide themselves with the new uniform until their present uniform is worn out.
    Colonel YATE: Is it not the case that this new khaki uniform was only brought out in March last, and officers were then told that it would last for the time of the War; and will it not be unfair to bring in another new uniform before the end of the War?
    Major BAIRD: Whatever new uniform is brought in—if one be brought in—it will not change the fact that their present uniform, whatever it is, will be worn out before they get a new one.
    Mr. HARCOURT: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the point that naval officers in large numbers have already got uniform of military khaki, Royal Air Force uniform, and naval dark blue uniform; and has he considered whether the introduction of another uniform is justified on public grounds?
    Major BAIRD: The whole of this question has been gone into. It is very important from the point of view of the moral and esprit de corps of the force, and if it turns out to be necessary and desirable that a new uniform should be decided upon for the corps as a whole, these officers will not be called upon to incur expense in buying the new uniform until they have worn out the old uniform.
    Mr. HARCOURT: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the point of public expenditure before any further change is brought into force?
    Major BAIRD: That point is being considered. Expenditure does not arise. It does not cost more to clothe a man in blue than it does to clothe him in khaki. As regards the officers, they will not be called upon to get new uniform until their old uniform is worn out.
    General Sir IVOR PHILIPPS: If the suggestion of the new uniform is brought into force, will not the charge fall upon the officers? Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that officers like, naturally, to be smart, and, in order to uphold the reputation of the force, they will have to buy the new uniform—therefore, they will be put to the extra charge?
    Major BAIRD: I am afraid I cannot add anything to the answer I have given. The whole question arises out of the need in creating a new force of establishing an esprit de corps suitable to that force. That cannot be done unless they have suitable uniform.
    Sir I. PHILIPPS: Will the hon. Gentleman see that this is done at the expense of the State and not at the expense of the officer?
    Colonel ASHLEY: Has the hon. Gentleman considered whether a light blue uniform will fade at once? Why is it necessary to have expensive gold braid instead of cord?
    Major BAIRD: Though gold braid may sound expensive, it does not turn out so in practice.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Has the Department given evidence before the Luxury Committee?
    Major BAIRD: I do not think that is a fair question to put. It is not a question of luxury, but a question of the fighting efficiency of the force.

    ENGINES (NUMBER OF TYPES).
    The following question stood on the Paper in the name of Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON:
    42. To ask the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry if he will say how many types of engines are now on charge in the Royal Air Force; and of that number how many types are in France, the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and in the anti-submarine campaign, respectively?
    Questions relating to the Royal Air Force also appeared in the names of Major BURGOYNE, Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY, Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS, and Mr. PETO.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have been asked to postpone Question 42, and a question standing in my own name. The Under-Secretary has also asked that other questions standing in the names of the hon. Members for Kensington, Essex, and Wiltshire should be postponed on the ground that they will be dealt with by the Secretary of State (Lord Weir) at a meeting upstairs this afternoon. We are quite willing.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must either ask the question or postpone it.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: If you force me to do it, I will put the question, and leave my hon. Friend to take objection.
    Major BAIRD: I have asked the hon. Member to postpone this question until he has heard what my right hon. Friend has to say upstairs. I am not in a position to answer.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: On a point of Order. In regard to the procedure of this House, I should like to say that my hon. Friend appealed to me yesterday in regard to this matter. I replied that, as a matter of courtesy, and subject to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I should be prepared to take this course of postponing the question, and I ask for your ruling and guidance. Private meetings held between Ministers and Members are not official, and though on this occasion I have postponed the question I shall reserve the whole of my rights and my colleagues' rights as Members of this House to put the questions again.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is making a mountain out of a molehill. He was asked to postpone a question, and he agreed. He rose and said he was willing to postpone it, but he tried to interpolate a speech. I rose to say that this was not the time for talking, and that he had either to put his question or to postpone it. That is all. The question about the meeting upstairs does not concern me. The only question that concerns me is to get through the questions.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Then I will put my question.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member (Major Baird) has replied, and asked the hon. Member to postpone it.

    MOSLEM MOSQUE, LONDON.
    Major Earl WINTERTONasked the First Lord of the Treasury if the Government will consider whether, as a tribute to the loyal support and assistance in every respect of Moslems, irrespective of race, throughout the British Empire during the War, financial assistance will be given for the erection of a mosque to serve the interests of the Indian Moslem community in London?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government gratefully recognise the conspicuous services rendered by our Mahomedan fellow-subjects, but I am not aware of any reason why our appreciation should take the form suggested. I shall, however, be glad to receive any information on this proposal that my Noble Friend may care to give me.
    Earl WINTERTON: Is it not a fact that Moslems have decided, as a memorial to those of their persuasion who have fallen in the War, to erect a mosque in London?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I was not aware of that. I shall be glad to have details from my hon. and gallant Friend.

    LUXURY DUTY.
    General CROFTasked the Prime Minister whether, in imposing a Luxury Tax, it is the intention of the Government to impose an equivalent duty on similar articles imported from foreign countries?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the affirmative.

    ALLIED POWERS AND GERMAN TRADE (EXCLUSION).
    General CROFTasked the Prime Minister whether he can now make a statement as to whether any arrangement has been come to between the Allies with a view to excluding German ships and German goods from Allied ports and territories for progressive periods after the War the longer the Germanic Powers refuse to accept the terms of the Allies; and whether similar arrangements have
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    been made between the Allies to place a progressive restriction on the export of raw materials to the German Empire?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not in a position to make any statement at present.
    General CROFT: Is the Government in communication with the United States on this subject, as to which there is a very strong feeling?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: My hon. and gallant Friend knows, I am sure, that this matter has been the source of constant communication between this Government and our Allies, including the United States.
    General CROFT: May we take it that some sort of agreement has been arrived at, as the matter has been in progress for a very long time?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: If my hon. Friend will consider the question carefully he will see that it is a very delicate one. Even if anything had been decided, it would be impossible to make any statement to the House.

    WOMEN (ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT).
    Mr. WHITEHOUSEasked the Prime Minister if he has now completed his inquiry into the question of the position of women with regard to election to this House?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative, as the inquiry must await the return of the Home Secretary.

    BRITISH SHIPPING (SOUTH AMERICAN TRADE).
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, owing to the requirements of the War, British ships for a long time past have been almost entirely withdrawn by the British Government from the trade between North and South America for the purpose of supplying the requirements of the Allies, and that recently neutral ships, chartered by British shipowners under the control of the British Government to replace the British ships so withdrawn, have also been withdrawn by the British Government from this trade to supply the requirements of the Allies; whether he is aware

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    that now these latter steamers are withdrawn the United States Shipping Control Board have allocated to American firms ten steamers for this trade to sail during the present month of June; that of the eight American firms to whom these steamers have been allotted seven firms have not previously loaded steamers from New York to South American ports; and that the United States Shipping Control Board refused to allocate any steamers under their control to the British lines established in New York which built up this trade, and which, prior to the War, was mainly conducted by them; whether he is aware that the great bulk of the American troops as well as supplies for the Allies in France are being carried in British ships while ships controlled by the American Government are being employed trading in directions such as the North and South American trade; and whether he can state what immediate action he proposes to take to protect British interests in this trade, which otherwise will be lost to British shipowners?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): I have been asked to reply to this question. I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer on this subject given to the hon. Member for the West Toxteth Division of Liverpool on the 14th May. The facts are generally as stated so far as regard the withdrawal of ships from British shipowners. The situation of these shipowners is having the continuous and sympathetic attention of the Shipping Controller, with a view to finding, if possible, means to enable them to maintain the goodwill of their trades. As the question indicates, the matter is one in which the American Government are closely concerned, and I can assure my hon. Friend that it is not being overlooked in the discussions which are constantly proceeding between the two Governments.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand that our Government has made definite representations to the Government of the United States on the subject?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to the answer which I have given.
    Mr. HOLT: While the Government have been taking British ships, have American
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    ships been free to take this trade which hitherto has been carried on by British ships?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I must deprecate these comparisons between the comparative services which are rendered at any particular moment to the common cause by different Allies.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Has the hon. Gentleman not admitted that to be the fact in his reply to the principal question?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: If my hon. Friend will read carefully the answer which I have given he will see that the Shipping Controller recognises that the shipowners engaged in this particular trade deserve sympathetic consideration in this matter, which they are receiving, and that we are in correspondence with the Government of the United States on this matter.

    RUBBER CONTROL.
    Sir I. PHILIPPSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to appoint a Rubber Controller, and, if so, whether the official appointed will control the production of rubber within the Empire or only the import, manufacture, and purchase and sale of rubber; and if he can state the name of the gentleman to be appointed?
    Sir A. STANLEY: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. No decision has been taken to appoint a Rubber Controller, but the situation in respect of rubber is being carefully watched in case some measure of control should become necessary.
    Sir I. PHILIPPS: If it is decided to appoint a Controller of Rubber will he control production?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I think that that will be extremely unlikely.

    MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (SUBSISTENCE MONEY).
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Members of the House are being paid subsistence money out of public funds in addition to their salaries as Members; and will he give a list of them, stating the amounts, and in respect of what services these subsistence moneys are paid?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am having the necessary inquiries made, and will circulate the information asked for as soon as it is available.

    INCOME TAX (FARMERS).
    Mr. WATTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that forms under Schedule D are being issued to farmers by his Department asking them to give a statement of their profits or gains for the year ending 5th April, 1919; and, if so, will he say how this form can be satisfactorily filled up nine months before the end of the year for which a statement of the profits is demanded?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: A form of return for assessment under Schedule D is issued to a farmer only when he elects to be assessed under that Schedule.

    GERMAN BANKS.
    Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSasked to what extent, if any, German banks are indebted to British or British-Colonial stock banks?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Nothing is admitted as being due by the London agencies of the German banks to British or Colonial joint stock banks, though a large claim has been put forward, and is under consideration, in which English banks are interested.

    TEMPORARY HIGHER-GRADE WOMEN CLERKS.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to introduce a new grade of temporary women clerks at a salary of £140–£180 per annum; and, if so, if he will be prepared to consider the removal of second-class clerks, at present receiving a salary of £110, from the Savings Bank Department, with little prospect of advancement, to some of the better-paid posts to be created for the temporary women clerks?
    Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I presume that the hon. Member is referring to the temporary higher-grade women clerks, whose scale, as recently revised, falls approximately within the limits stated. With reference
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    to the hon. Member's suggestion, I understand that, in the opinion of the Postmaster-General, the pressure of work in the Savings Bank Department renders it difficult to arrange for any further transfers of the kind suggested.

    AERODROME CONSTRUCTION (WAGES).
    Mr. PETOasked if any steps are being taken to obtain an adequate return in labour for the high wages paid to men engaged in the construction of aerodromes?
    Major BAIRD: Everything possible is being done to make the best use of the labour available.

    AIR MINISTRY (WOMEN EMPLOYES).
    Mr. DUNCANasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether he is aware that the lady supervisor over the women cleaners employed at the Air Board, Hotel Cecil, Strand, has threatened these women with dismissal if they become members of a trade union; and whether he will take steps to see that this practice is ended as speedily as possible?
    Major BAIRD: I regret to say that the facts are substantially as stated in the question. The action referred to was due to a misapprehension on the part of a subordinate official, and the necessary instructions are being issued to put the matter right.
    Mr. DUNCANasked the Under Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether he is aware that the women employed at No. 1 Stores, Royal Air Force, Greenwich, S.E. 13, have been informed by the officer in command that unless they join either the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps or the Women's Royal Naval Service no increases in wages will be given them; whether he is aware that in most cases these women are married and that either their husbands or sons are at present serving with the Colours; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made with a view to the prevention of a repetition of this kind of thing?
    Major BAIRD: Women employed as civilian subordinates by all Royal Air Force units have been invited to join the Women's Royal Air Force, the advantages

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    of which have been fully explained to them. Enrolment in the Women's Royal Air Force is entirely voluntary, and civilian subordinates at present employed have complete freedom to join at any time, subject to passing the necessary medical examination. Women who do not wish to join are retained in their employment at existing rates of pay, which in some cases are higher than those paid to members of the Women's Royal Air Force for similar employment. Any increases of pay by way of war bonus officially authorised for civilian subordinates are payable to women who elect to remain in the employment of units of the Royal Air Force as civilian subordinates.

  MUNITIONS.

    GLENDOWER AIRCRAFT FACTORY.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether the recent requisitioning of 10 acres of land in the parish of Barnes for the purpose of erecting workshops for the Glendower Aircraft Company was done by the Air Minister or with his sanction; whether he is aware that the land requisitioned was highly cultivated and produced three crops per annum, and that the spring crops were destroyed, and an orchard of plum trees in their prime was cut down; whether another 5 acres of similar land in the same locality have now been requisitioned for the same purpose; whether he is aware that, although the workshops on this land have been completed for a considerable time, no machinery has yet been erected; and if he will say whether this transaction was carried out after consultation with the Board of Agriculture?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): I have been asked to reply to this question, and am obliged to my hon. Friend for having postponed it. The 10 acres of land in question was not requisitioned, but was purchased by the company for the purpose of erecting workshops. Owing to the extreme urgency, new facilities were required at that time for the building of complete aeroplanes. The firm was doing extremely good work with very limited facilities, and the extension was strongly recommended by the then Director of Aircraft Production. The land contained some very old plum trees, some
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    of which were cut down; others are still standing. On the rest of the land that has been disturbed were some spring onions and cabbages, none of which were destroyed, the tenant being able to remove the whole of the crop in April and May for transplantation. The tenant removed everything of any value, and the total compensation paid under the Agricultural Holdings Act was £260.
    The company bought another 5 acres of similar land in the same locality. This land is under cultivation, and will not be interfered with until after the War. The workshops were completed two months ago. Machinery is in the workshops, but production has not begun owing to the difficulty of obtaining material to put the machinery into running. This difficulty has now been overcome, and the factory will soon be producing. The Board of Agriculture was not consulted by the Aircraft Production Department.

    ENEMY AND NEUTRAL TRADERS.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Minister of National Service whether he is aware of the dissatisfaction that exists amongst traders, especially in view of the extension of the military age, at the number of aliens, both enemy and neutral, who are still at large and who are seizing the opportunity to increase their business at the expense of British traders who are being called up; and, seeing that the Government have stated that steps should be taken to see that neutral alien traders of military age should be required to take up work of national importance, will he say what steps, if any, have been taken to carry out this undertaking?
    Mr. BECK: I have observed that the question of the status of aliens in this country has been the subject of criticism from various points of view. With regard to enemy alien traders, I cannot do better than refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 13th May last.
    With regard to neutral traders, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Ludlow on 2nd May and to that given by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to the hon. Member for South Manchester on Tuesday last;

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    and I might remind him that my Department has recently been enabled, by means of the Retail Business (Licensing) Order, 1918, to control the commencement of new businesses, and thus to afford considerable protection against any attempts to annex the businesses of men called up.
    I am not aware of the statement referred to in the last part of the question, and the hon. Member will appreciate the obvious difficulties and risks which the course suggested would involve; but with regard to alien workmen, I would draw his attention to the provisions of Article 22C of the Aliens Restriction (Consolidation) Order, which enables the Minister of National Service to exercise control over the employment of aliens in the less essential industries and to the Schedule of which additions have recently been made. With regard to enemy aliens, arrangements have been put into operation under which, so far as possible, any who are physically capable of undertaking work of national importance, must cither undertake such work or be interned. It is, however, difficult to persuade employers to make use of these men's services for reasons which are obvious.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Have any of these aliens been put to national work, and, if not, how many have been interned?
    Mr. BECK: I must have notice of that question. It is extremely difficult to obtain employment for aliens, as employers do not like them; and if we take any action which results in their being employed, then we are asked why do we employ aliens.
    Sir R. COOPER: Is it the fact that the Department have done nothing whatever to tackle this subject?
    Mr. BECK: The answer is very much in the negative.

    Under-Sheriffs.
    Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if on the 6th December, 1917, a definite promise was given by his predecessor to the under-sheriffs of Ireland that an immediate inquiry should be held into the circumstances and conditions of their office, to be conducted by one of the Irish judges sitting with a representative of Dublin Castle and a third person to be named by
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    the under-sheriffs; whether he is aware from the records in the Irish Office that the existing position of the sheriffs' office in Ireland is an unsatisfactory one; and whether, in the public interest, he will take immediate steps to redeem the promise given to the under-sheriffs?
    Mr. SHORTT: I am aware of the promise given by my predecessor. There has been some delay in appointing a Committee, but steps are now being taken.

    NEW MEMBER SWORN.
    Oswald Cawley, Esquire, commonly called the Hon. Oswald Cawley, for South-East Lancashire (Prestwich Division).

    PRIVATE BUSINESS.
    County of London Electric Supply Bill [Lords],
    Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
    Harrods Stores Bill [Lords],
    Reported, without amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
    Bill to be read the third time.
    Belfast Harbour Bill,
    Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
    West Bromwich Corporation Bill [Lords],
    Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An act to remove disqualifications on the ground of sex or marriage for the admission of persons as law agents and their acting and practising as law agents under the Law Agents (Scotland) Acts." [Law Agents (Qualification of Women) (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]
    And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the provisions for the local management of the borough of Sligo, and to extend the rating powers of the Corporation of the borough, and to extend the power of the Corporation to borrow and reborrow moneys, and to provide for the payment by the Corporation of the expenses incurred in meeting the demands

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    of the County Council of the County of Sligo, and to confer on the Local Government Board for Ireland further powers of control in regard to the performance of their respective duties by the Corporation and the officers thereof and to amend the provisions relating to the election and duration in office of the aldermen and councillors of the borough; and for other purposes." [Sligo Corporation Bill [Lords.]

    SLIGO CORPORATION BILL [Lords].
    Real the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House state the business for next week?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: On Monday, Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill—Third Reading.
  Tuesday, Motion for Adjournment, in order to discuss Irish recruiting.
  Wednesday, Scotch Education Bill—Second Reading.
  If time permit on any of the above three days, Juries Bill, Workmen's Compensation (Silicosis) Bill, Maternity and Child Welfare Bill.
  Thursday, Supply. The particular Vote will be mentioned on Monday.
  Mr. LOUGH: I ask whether the discussion on Tuesday will be confined to recruiting, or will it include the general Irish policy of the Government?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot answer that question. The Motion for the Adjournment would, of course, allow a considerable degree of latitude, but that is a subject which I cannot regulate.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to make an announcement about the introduction of the Home Rule Bill on Tuesday?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not anticipate it.
  Mr. R. McNEILL: May I ask whether the Naturalisation Bill will have to await the return of the Home Secretary or whether the Government intend to proceed with it before that measure?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The probability is that it will be an advantage, from the point of view of getting it done, that it should wait for the return of the head of the Department, which I hope will not be very long delayed.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: May I ask whether the Prime Minister has taken the question of aliens into consideration, in accordance with what has appeared in the Press?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not know to what the hon. Member refers.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman not seen a notice that the Prime Minister is taking into consideration the whole question of the dealings of the various Departments with aliens?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I was not aware that such a notice is being issued, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend is interested in this question.
  Ordered, That the Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—[Mr. Bonar Law.]
  Resolved, That this House do sit To-morrow.—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time"

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.

    PEACE BY NEGOTIATION.
    Mr. MORRELL: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to insert instead thereof the words,
    "this House desires an assurance that the Government will lose no diplomatic opportunity to settle the problems of the War by agreement; and to that end expresses its opinion that the secret treaties with the Allied Governments should be revised, since in their present form they are inconsistent with the objects for which this country entered the War and are therefore a barrier to a democratic peace."
    In the course of the last three years there have been, as the House will remember, several Resolutions not unlike this in character moved from this side of the House, and on every occasion, I think it is not too much to say, the charge has been made against those who moved the Resolution, whatever the merits or demerits of the particular proposition might be, that the time at which it was moved made it extremely inappropriate that it should be moved. I do not suppose that my hon. Friends and myself will be any more fortunate to-day in escaping that charge. I can well understand that at a time like this, when the Germans are thundering almost at the gates at Paris and the Austrians are approaching Venice, or are not very far from it, and the situation, as the Prime Minister said, is a grave and menacing one, there are many people in this House who will think

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    that no word with regard to peace ought to be uttered. For my own part, I think this House would be failing lamentably in its duty if it did not at a time like this, when we are voting an enormous sum of money and another enormous war credit, when everyone must feel anxious as to the progress of events, ask once more His Majesty's Government for a statement of their policy, for a re-statement of their war aims, and for some expression of opinion as to the prospect of achieving them. There is another consideration which seems to me to make this Motion appropriate to-day. To-day, as never before, we realise all the blackness and the horror of this War, and there is a movement going on in men's minds, not only in this country, but in all the countries which are at war, a movement stronger than ever, desiring that this War should, if possible, on any-reasonable terms be brought to an end. Never before, I believe, was the desire for peace so deep, so widespread, so passionate, as it is to-day, I am not saying in the minds of the governing classes, but in the minds of the people in all the warring countries of Europe. I do not believe that this is a mere matter of war weariness. I do not believe there is any such unworthy feeling as this, though at the end of three and a half years of war it would not be unnatural that people should feel Weary of this War. I believe that to-day people stand aghast at the terrible sacrifices in life and treasure which modern war implies.
    4.0 P.M.
    I will deal only for one moment with the losses as published by our own British Forces in recent weeks. In the week ending June 9th the looses in killed alone amongst officers and men amounted to no fewer than 4,900, an average of 700 men killed every day, and, though it was no doubt a week of high losses, it was not, I believe, an exceptional week, while the wounded and missing during that week amounted to 30,000. In the five months from the beginning of January to the beginning of June the losses in killed alone amounted to 71,000, while the losses in wounded and missing amounted to 300,000. These are appalling figures. The losses amongst our enemies, who have been making these great offensives, are infinitely more severe and more terrible. There is, therefore, no wonder that there
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    is this tremendous feeling arising among all nations in favour of an early settlement. I believe you may trace it in Germany to-day, although no doubt the successes which they claim to have obtained have made the War party in Germany more clamorous than before. All the same, those who follow German opinion, those who read the German newspapers, which I am unable to do, are able to assure us that underneath it all there is a tremendous desire among the ordinary German people to get peace. These victories, which cost so much, which seem to bring peace no nearer, have a sound of mockery in their ears. Some of the German papers reproach the people of Germany because they are so indifferent to the victories which the German troops are winning. In Austria we know there are riots. There are "Stop-the-War" meetings, and Austrian statesmen make no sort of concealment of their desire to see the end of this War. In France we have papers, such as "Le Gaulois" and "Le Journal des Debats." asking that some statement shall be made, and even "L'homme Libre," M. Clemenceau's own paper, the other day said that if the Germans would make a fair offer of peace they were willing and anxious to consider it. In this country it is significant there is a great shifting of public opinion. I do not suggest for a moment that our people do not want to see our original war aims secured, provided that this country can emerge with honour from the War. But there is a widespread feeling in favour of peace. I was speaking the other day to an old man who had lost several sons in the War, and he said to me, in tones which I shall not easily forget, "It is not war; it is murder!" That is the feeling which is growing in this country.
    Cannot something be done to bring to an end this terrific, this awful, slaughter? A century and a half ago one of the most famous of French writers began the most famous of his treatises with a paradox which echoed through France and through Europe, and which was, in the opinion of many people, one of the contributory causes of the French Revolution. Rousseau, in "Le Contrat Social," wrote "L'homme est né libre et partout il est dans les fers"—"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." I think we are faced with another paradox, not less tragic, not less significant, and perhaps not less far-reaching in its consequences.

    541
    All the nations of Europe are yearning for peace; everywhere they are at war. There are, I know, many people in this country and in this House, such as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Christchurch (General Croft) and others, whom I am sorry not to see here, who would give a very simple explanation of that paradox. They would say, "Yes, it is quite true that all Europe desires peace, but the Kaiser and the military party in Germany desire war, and as long as they desire war Europe must continue to have it." Those who say that do no, I think, recognise the strength that public opinion even in Germany must have. I believe there is no Government, however autocratic, however powerful—I am far from denying the power of the Kaiser or seeking to defend or in any way excuse his conduct during this War—I say there is no Government who can afford to despise or to disregard public opinion. Kaiserism would not have the strength which it has to-day in Germany unless the Kaiser were able to say, if not with truth, at any rate with plausibility, that Kaiserism alone stands between Germany and national disaster and the crushing out of German national life. It is by the unwisdom of our diplomacy, by the folly of the statements which have been made on behalf of the Allies and of this country, that Kaiserism has been buttressed up and has behind it the strength, so far as it has any strength, of public opinion.
    I do not deny for a moment that in Germany there is a passionate desire for peace if it can be got, but there is an idea there to-day that the Allies are unwilling to listen to any reasonable terms. They have not forgotten the pronouncement of the Versailles Conference, and, therefore, they believe that it is only by supporting the Kaiser and the military party in Germany that they will be able ultimately to secure the peace which they as much as we desire. I regret that our statesmen in this country appear to have forgotten that there are, after all, two weapons which we ought to use, not merely the weapon of force but also the weapon of diplomacy. This proposition was so well expressed in a recent Debate by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Somerset (Colonel Herbert) that I venture to read to the House what he said on that occasion. These were his words:
    "Those of us who criticise (the Government) do so because we realise that in every war in
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    the past you have fought with two weapons, with the sword in one hand and with terms in the other. Those two weapons are each the auxiliary of the other, and when we see a Declaration like the Declaration of Versailles, which throws away one of our most important weapons, then at whatever cost we hold it is-our duty to criticise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1918, Vol. 103, col. 162.]
    These are remarkable and eminently reasonable words, and I associate myself with what the hon. and gallant Member-said on that occasion. It seems to me it is-lamentable now, after nearly four years of war, that we have still no declaration, with one possible exception, to which we can refer binding on all the Allies and expressing the terms on which peace-would, in our opinion, be possible. The exception to which I refer was the Note-of President Wilson, which is now long ago out of date. Except for that one-possible exception, we have had no declaration of terms whatever. Appeal after appeal has been made to the Government in these Debates to make a declaration, and the responses have either been vague excuses or blank refusals. We have had plenty of declarations of a sort. We have had plenty of statements by different Ministers, very often inconsistent with each other, and sometimes inconsistent with themselves. We have had from time to time spasmodic and almost incoherent utterances from the Council at Versailles, but on such great matters as the policy of the Alliance with regard to a League of Nations—a question which has, I think very fortunately, been brought into prominence by the pamphlet of Lord Grey—on such a great question as that of disarmament, on the question of what is called the War after the War, the economic policy of the Allies, and on the limitation, the reasonable limitation, of our War aims which I believe to be necessary in view of misleading statements made on this question—on all these questions we have not yet had any official declaration binding on the Allies to which we cart refer if we wish to ascertain what are the real objects with which the War is being pursued. Not only have we not had any declaration, but I cannot help thinking that with regard to the peace proposals, the peace openings—sometimes they are called the peace offensives and peace traps—made from time to time by our enemies, the diplomacy both of this country and of the Allies has not been satisfactory. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I do not bring

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    forward these matters with any idea of desire to incriminate or to score a point against the Government. I have no interest in doing that at all. My sole object in referring to these old topics which are past is because it affords the only way of getting any guidance as to what will be our policy if any proposals are made.
    In the course of 1917, the House will remember, there was a whole series of peace proposals—peace overtures—made from different quarters, but chiefly from the enemy to the Allies. Most of them were the subjects of debate in this House. I would like to recall them. There were the negotiations with regard to the Stockholm Conference, negotiations in which I do not think this Government played a very happy part. I will not say more than that. I think myself it was a great pity that the Stockholm Conference was not held, as it might have done something towards removing misunderstanding and bringing understanding nearer by explaining the different points of view. Then there were the negotiations, still wrapped in mystery and obscurity, connected with the letter of Emperor Karl to Prince Sixte of Bourbon. There, again, there seemed to be an opportunity, which was not taken, of approaching towards a settlement. Then there was the Reichstag Resolution of July. Then there was also the Pope's Note, to which no reply whatever was sent by this country—an omission which has often been severely commented upon. Finally, there were the speech of Count Hertling and the important speech of Count Czernin, which was the subject of a debate in this House only recently, and to which the final reply was given in what, I think, was that unfortunate declaration of the Council of Versailles, to which I have already referred. There you have a whole series of proposals, some of them connected with each other. All of them have shown that during the last year or two there was a strong desire, if possible, on reasonable terms as I think, to bring this great War to an end. I am not prepared to say that on this or that point it would have been possible to enter into such negotiations that peace might have been secured. I do not say that, but I say you should take the cumulative effect of the response given to all those proposals. Then, I think, you are driven to say either this country did not desire
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    peace—which I, for one, would never believe, for I believe there is a strong desire by the Government to secure peace on reasonable terms—or else to say there were malign influences at work which prevented those openings reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
    I believe there were two very malign influences at work in this matter. One was the pernicious theory, as I think it was, which one connects with the phrase of "the knock-out blow"—the theory that no permanent peace, no secure peace, is possible in Europe until we have by force given such a blow to Prussian militarism that it can ever again recover. I think those who invented that phrase were setting the Alliance an impossible task. It has been well said by a great contemporary speaker that you cannot destroy the Prussian Army, and even if you were to destroy the Prussian Army, you would not have destroyed Prussian militarism, because no one from outside can destroy that, but only the Germans themselves can destroy it. We, by our diplomacy, are doing much to buttress up German militarism. There has been, as I think, another malign influence that has got in the way of any possibility of peace, and that is the secret treaties, whose publication did so much to discredit the good name of this country and of the Allies. Those treaties now are a very old story. A good many of them have died—and we do not regret it—a natural death. A regards the survivors of them, I do think we have a strong case for asking the Government that the terms of those unfortunate treaties should be revised. I do not want now to criticise or to recall the conditions under which they were made. I am sure those who had anything to do with them thought that the considerations for making those treaties were so strong that they were justified in doing so. I do not believe for a moment the Government wished really to betray the country, or to do anything inconsistent with the mind of the country in making those treaties. But I say those treaties are utterly inconsistent with the previous aims for which this country went into the War. Not only are they utterly inconsistent, but they have become a useless encumbrance to us. They are mere material for propaganda in the hands of the enemy with which to reproach us.
    Let me recall what those treaties were. First of all, there was the treaty between this country and Russia with regard to

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    Constantinople. That, of course, has come to an end with the old Government of Russia. That was in March, 1915. Then, in April 1915, came the Treaty of London between Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy—a treaty which still exists—a treaty the provisions of which, I think, would be condemned if they were read out fairly in any public meeting held in this country to-day, being absolutely contrary to the feelings, wishes and beliefs of the ordinary people of this country. Next came the Agreement made in the Spring of 1916 between the three Entente Powers as to their spheres of influence and territory in Asia. Fourthly came the treaty between the Allies and Roumania; and, fifthly, the secret treaty in March, 1917, just on the eve of the Russian Revolution, between the old Government of Russia and France—one of the worst of all treaties. And I suppose there is another one. Having regard to the fact that there is a treaty between this country and Russia, and between Russia and France, I presume there is another treaty, not divulged, between this country and France.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): About what?
    Mr. MORRELL: As to the terms on which we carry on the war. I do not know. At any rate, there were five, of which two are still operative. As regards all those five treaties, they dealt, roughly speaking, with the prospective spoils of war. They were matters of indemnity and annexation—indemnities originally in proportion to the making of sacrifices. The spirit of all those treaties, when you come to examine them, is absolutely contrary to the spirit with which this country entered into the War, and has been one of the most potent factors in preventing a satisfactory solution of this War. There is often dispute as regards what were the original objects with which we entered into the War. Nothing, I believe, was ever nobler or more disinterested than the spirit which led thousands of youths in this country to volunteer their service to go to the help of Belgium and France. They never thought the War was going to be carried on for the purposes which are divulged in the secret treaties. I do not wish to have any dispute as to what were the objects with which we went to war, and I therefore took the trouble to refer to a speech of the
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    right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary to see what he had to say upon the subject, and I find that, speaking on 30th July last year, he said:
    "We entered this War in the early days, as everybody in this House knows, with little in our minds besides the necessity of defending Belgium and the necessity of preventing France from being crushed before our eyes. Those were the two motives that brought us into the War."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1917, col. 1849, Vol. 96.]
    That, I am sure, is a statement of the original policy which everyone in this House will accept, and I will ask the House to see the limitations of that statement. There is nothing there about the crushing or the destruction of Prussian militarism. There is nothing there about Alsace-Lorraine, about the Trentino, about Dalmatia, about the German colonies, about all the other objects which have since come on. I quite agree that, in carrying on a war like this, certain problems are bound to arise which must be adjusted whenever the settlement comes. Everyone must see that. All I want to insist is that those are absolutely on a different plane from the two main objects with which this country went to war in the early days. I venture to think, if those objects had not been enlarged, as they have been, a satisfactory peace might very likely have been secured. I am certain it is only in the spirit of the declaration made by the right hon. Gentleman, and not in the spirit of the secret treaties, or the declaration of a knock-out blow and other declarations of policy we have had—it is only in the earlier and better spirit that we shall ever get to a satisfactory and lasting peace.
    It is sometimes said that if peace were to come now, it would be a mere breathing space like the peace of Amiens, and that it would be a mere prelude to fresh hostilities, which would perhaps break out with renewed vigour. I do not say in the immediate future, until this offensive is over, until we know how we stand, that any peace can be negotiated, but I say it is desirable that we should know precisely in what spirit and upon, what terms the Government are prepared to enter into negotiations when the opportunity occurs for dealing with them. Those people who think that an early peace would mean a renewal of hostilities forget the sacrifices, forget the awful loss and destruction, which this War has involved. We are nearly at the close of the fourth year of this great conflict. In duration, in

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    magnitude, in the destruction of life and property, in the hideous consequences which it has entailed in every direction, in the loss of life of innocent men outside the quarrel, in every respect, this War has far exceeded in horror the predictions of even the most pessimistic prophets. It has surpassed all that mankind has ever known in terror, and, if peace can be secured soon, I do not believe that there is any Government or any people who would be so mad or so wicked as to take any step that would lead within a generation, perhaps ever, to a renewal of this great War.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    My hon. Friend who moved this Amendment has covered the ground so well that I am afraid there remains little for me to add, beyond amplifying and emphasising some of the points he has put before the House. It is now eighteen months since that memorable day when the present Prime Minister, no longer able to resist the insistent call of the vast majority of his fellow-countrymen, overthrew his political leader, and himself accepted responsibility for the direction and prosecution of the War. We all remember the general expectations which were aroused by the advent of the Prime Minister to that responsible position. The history of this country, I think, affords no similar example of how high expectations have ended in the gravest disappointment. We are not this afternoon concerned with a review of the military situation; indeed, nothing said on the military position from these benches could be more grave than the statement made a couple of days ago by the Leader of the House and the late Prime Minister. In the sphere of diplomacy the Government have, if possible, been a more disastrous failure than they have been in realising those expectations of victory which they excited eighteen months ago. We have had during those eighteen months many Debates of this character in the House. On not one occasion has the Prime Minister considered it even a duty he owed to his position, or to the House of Commons, to make his appearance. The answer of the Government has been left to the Foreign Secretary, and, on some occasions, to the Under Foreign Secretary. On every occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Balfour) has assumed
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    to reply on behalf of the Government he has left a painful impression upon the minds of his auditors that he knew very little indeed about the work with which his Department is supposed to be specially occupied. In no other Parliament of the Allied countries has the Prime Minister been absent on an occasion like this. Interpellations are frequently being made in the French Chamber and in the Italian Parliament; on every occasion the Prime Ministers are present, and reply on behalf of the Government.
    In commencing his speech, my hon. Friend referred to the criticism which is brought against those who bring forward proposals in favour of peace by negotiation, namely, that the time is not favourable or is not suitable. I remember on one occasion the late Mr. Chamberlain replied to criticism of that character by inquiring, "When is it convenient to discuss questions of foreign policy?" If you discussed questions of foreign policy before the War you were probably interfering with very delicate international negotiations. If you seek to discuss foreign policy during the War you are hindering the prosecution of the War, and helping the enemy. If you wait till after the War, then you will be reminded that you are late, and that no useful purpose can then be served by talking. We have, as I reminded the House a while ago, for more than two years raised Debates of this character in various circumstances from a military point of view. We have had debates when the position of the Allied Armies appeared to be more than usually favourable. We have had debates under conditions of stalemate. We are having this Debate to-day under circumstances with which we are all painfully familiar. On each and all of these varied occasions, however, we have been told that the time was not suitable. When is it going to be appropriate to emphasise the question of trying to substitute reason for brute force in the settlement of these international questions?
    The Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend divides itself into two parts. It asks the House of Commons to demand that diplomacy should be one of the weapons by which the Government should seek to attain the objects for which they profess to be at war. The Amendment goes on to point out what we believe to be the real responsibility for the grave

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    and difficult obstacles in the way of securing those aims. No doubt we shall be told by the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have always been ready to listen to peace offers. We shall be told, as indeed we were told by the right hon. Gentleman in the last Debate that we had upon this subject, that no reasonable peace offer had ever been made. If the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs were here we might have had repeated by him this afternoon the distinction he drew on a previous occasion between a "peace offer" and a "peace offensive." I do not profess to possess the powers of discrimination of the Noble Lord. My mind is not sufficiently penetrating and subtle to see the distinction between a "peace offer" and a "peace offensive." Within the last few months, at any rate within the last eighteen months, there have been many occasions on which offers of a more or less definite character have been put forward either by, or on behalf of the Central Powers, or where neutrals have offered their services to try to bring together the belligerents. It is interesting to note that during the four years we have been at war, on not one occasion has any offer of negotiation come either from the Allies collectively or from any of the Allies separately—with the exception of Russia, who is now out of the War. You will search in vain through the speeches of the statesmen who, in the Allied countries, have been responsible for the conduct of the War for a single indication of their willingness to consider an offer of peace. No doubt when this question has been raised statements have been made to the effect that the Government would not deliberately reject such an offer. But I repeat that you may search through the speeches of Entente statesmen in vain to find any approach to an invitation to the enemy to submit terms of peace. There have been, as my hon. Friend pointed out, ten or a dozen peace offers made during the last eighteen months. Each and all of those offers have been rejected. With the single exception of the offer made by the Austrian Emperor, they have been rejected with scorn, contempt, and insult, or they have been ignored altogether.
    The advent of the present Government synchronised with the publication of the first official offer made by the Central Powers to enter into negotiations. In view of the reply that was given to that offer by the Allied Governments, it is well
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    worth while to call to mind that about two months before the present Prime Minister assumed his present office he had given his notorious "knock-out blow" interview to an American journalist. I refer to the interview in which, amongst other things, he warned America, which was then neutral, that the Allies neither wanted nor would they tolerate the interference of outsiders. The references in that interview read strangely to-day when placed side by side with the signals of distress the Prime Minister has sent to America within the last two months. It is important to remember the Prime Minister's "knock-out" blow interview was given in September or October, 1916, because it indicated the state of mind of the Prime Minister. It indicated his view of the War. It expressed his attitude as to the possibility or otherwise of ending the War by negotiation. It is important to remember that fact, because, knowing the Prime Minister's views upon these matters, we are not surprised at the Allied reply which was sent to the German offer to enter into conference for the purpose of discussing peace terms. That German offer had been preceded in the early days of December, 1916, by two or three rather remarkable speeches delivered in the German Reichstag by the then German Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg. In those speeches the German Chancellor laid down in general terms the conditions Germany would be willing to accept. Those conditions were these: It was a declaration that Germany had no intention of retaining Belgium, and that they had no intention of impairing the integrity of France. They associated themselves with the demand for an international system, and they declared that Germany would come into that international system. My hon. Friend reminded the Foreign Secretary that, twelve months ago, he stated that the motive which brought this country into the War was the restoration of Belgium and the protection of the integrity of France. In December, 1916, before the first formal offer of peace was made by the German Government, the German Chancellor specially conceded both these objects, the restoration of the independence of Belgium and declared that they had no intention of impairing the integrity of France. How was that offer received? How was it received by the British Press? I know the Government is not

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    responsible for what the British Press says. I know that the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, shun the Press, and they have no association with it. But still it has a bearing upon this question to remind the House of the way in which the first German offer was received by the British Press. There were large-type headings across the page describing it as a snare and a trap, and an insult, and as whining and whimpering, and squealing, on the part of the enemy for peace, and an appeal was made to the British people that this offer of the Central Powers must be made the stimulus to prosecute the War with greater energy and vigour.
    What was the reply of the Governments of the Allied Powers? A few days after the German Note had been received the Prime Minister made his first speech in this House in his new capacity. This is what he said, and his statement would not be open to criticism if it were not for the fact I have just mentioned as to the declaration made by the German Chancellor previous to the issue of this formal offer of peace. What did the Prime Minister of this country say in this House before the Allies had had an opportunity of collectively considering the Note? He declared:
    "That to negotiate without knowing beforehand the proposals which the enemy intends to bring forward would be to put our heads into a nooze with the rope-end in the hands of Germany."
    That is quite true. I said if we had nothing beyond vague and indefinite statements to go upon that assertion might have been beyond criticism, but Germany had already stated in general terms her own idea of the basis of a satisfactory peace. It is quite true there were no details about territorial rearrangements and concessions except in regard to Belgium. I remember a speech made by Lord Milner at Plymouth in which he made an observation deprecating at this stage elaborate and detailed peace proposals. He was trying to get an agreement upon fundamental conditions, and there were fundamental principles conceded in the document issued by Bethmann von Hollweg. He associated himself with the demand for international peace and he declared that Germany would come into an international system. I have referred to what the Prime Minister said about the German offer." How was it received by other
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    members of the Entente? The Tsar, without waiting for a collective reply to the German Note, issued his own reply, at the time, when according to later information he and his associates were on the point, if rumour be true, of making a separate peace with Germany. This is what be said: He described the German offer as a confession of weakness, and as an indication of the approaching complete defeat of Germany, and he announced his intention of going on with the War until Russia had obtained Constantinople and the Dardanelles. A little later we had the collective reply of the Allies, and it took the form of a summary rejection of the offer. The German offer was described as a "sham proposal," a "war manoeuvre," and an attempt to "create dissension in Allied countries," to "deceive and intimidate public opinion in neutral countries," "justify in advance in the eyes of the world a new series of crimes," and "refuse to consider a proposal which is empty and insincere." When the right hon. Gentleman replies I hope he will tell us what he would regard as a peace offer as distinct from a peace offensive. I would ask him to tell us, for instance, what there was in this first formal offer of peace negotiations made by the Central Powers which justified the Allied Governments in describing it in the language which I have just quoted. I am particularly anxious to hear what we are to regard as a genuine peace offer and one which this Government and the Allies would regard as justifying themselves in accepting for the purposes of negotiation. What was the effect of the Allied reply? Its effect in Germany on the Allied cause was most disastrous. It strengthened the military party and it subdued even the minority Socialists for a short time. Recently a neutral met Herr Haase, the leader of the German Socialists in Berlin, and he asked him if he had any message he would like to indicate to the English Socialists, and he said
    "Yes, I would like you to tell them that the best friends the German Junkers have are the Governments of the Entente Powers."
    All through the War Allied diplomacy has been an invaluable asset to the German military party. Over and over again when the civil and liberal forces in Germany were on the point of subduing the military party some insane act on the part of one or other of the Allied Governments has been committed which has

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    thrown the military party into the saddle once more. Notwithstanding the immediate disastrous consequences of the Allied reply to the first German offer peace negotiations and the attempt to secure them were not altogether stopped. During the year 1917 a number of such offers were made. The last time we discussed the question of peace in the House it was confined to the Austrian Emperor's endeavours made in 1917, the consideration of which we believe extended over a period of many months. These were followed by other attempts made either by or on behalf of Austria to secure a meeting of the belligerent Governments for the purpose of discussing peace.
    There was the offer made to M. Briand, the terms of which appear to be very similar to those embodied in the Emperor Karl's Note to Prince Sixte. The reply of the Foreign Secretary some six weeks ago in which he attempted to explain the reasons for the failure of those negotiations was altogether unsatisfactory. It was unsatisfactory that the reply should have been left to the right hon. Gentleman because he admitted that he knew little about it; in fact, he stated that he was in America at the time the offer was made, and yet he confessed that he, the Foreign Secretary, was not considered by the Prime Minister to be of sufficient importance to receive information about this most vital matter until the negotiations had been rejected. The Prime Minister is the only person who can give the House of Commons information on this matter. It was discussed in the French Chamber, where it was remitted to a Committee. All the papers connected with it were submitted to that Committee, and we, the mother of parliaments, are kept in ignorance upon matters of such vital importance as this. Why did these negotiations fall through? There were the secret treaties and there were the commitments of those secret treaties. A good offer was made to France, but Italy was not satisfied, and the French President appears not to have been satisfied with the very generous offer that was made. Italy remains unsatisfied and, Shylock-like, she held to the terms of her bond as embodied in the secret treaty.
    5.0 P.M.
    But there are other opportunities which might have led to peace of which the Allied Governments gravely neglected to take advantage. A few days after the publication of the first German offer
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    President Wilson intervened and invited both the Allies and the Central Powers to state their peace terms. Both replied, and the Allied Note, like the collective reply of the Allies to Germany, was of a most unfortunate character, and it did not conform to Lord Milner's idea of what the first offer of peace negotiations should be. It rejected the suggestion of peace negotiations. It stated terms which were impossible and to which no nation for a moment would listen unless it were lying helpless at the feet of a conqueror. The Allied Note to President Wilson concluded by saying that the Allies were determined to press on this War to a victorious conclusion. In other words, they threw away one of the most important and powerful weapons by which they might have hoped to attain the motives which prompted them to enter this War. In the middle of last year we had the Reichstag Resolution, to which my hon. Friend referred. By a majority of two to one they accepted the principle of "no annexation and no indemnities." A few weeks later we who sit on these benches, and who form the Pacifist group, as it was called by the right hon. Gentleman on the last occasion, asked the House of Commons to pass a similar Resolution. The House of Commons declined to do so. We secured in the Division Lobby nineteen votes. Two-thirds of the German Reichstag, which, according to statements made by British Ministers and the literature of the War Aims Committee, is a subservient tool of the Kaiser and is controlled by the military class, voted in favour of such a peace resolution. Only nineteen of the Members of the House of Commons did so. The rest, either by actual vote or by abstention, declined to respond and to send that reply to Russia, the fate of which at that time was standing in the balance. They did not believe in a peace on the basis of the rights of small nations, no indemnities, and no annexation. Again, the policy of the House of Commons and the policy of the Government has always been to play into the hands of the militarist party in Germany. I confess that actions like these on the part of the British Parliament and on the part of the Allies make me feel how difficult and how almost impossible it would be if I were among the German minority Socialists to continue their magnificent

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    and active demand for peace in face of the attitude of the Entente Parliaments on the question.
    We now come to the opportunities which the situation in Russia provided last year. A diplomatic effort might have led to a settlement of this War. On the advent of the first Russian Revolutionary Government they discovered the secret treaties in the Foreign Office archives. The existence of these treaties was more or less known. Their terms were unknown. They were unknown to important members of the Entente Governments. M. Albert Thomas, who was a member in France of what corresponds to the War Cabinet in this country, when he went to Petrograd shortly after the outbreak of the Revolution, learned for the first time of the existence of the secret treaty between France and Russia conforming to the French demand for the old frontier of 1814, and it is said that he was so indignant because he had been kept in ignorance of this important matter by his colleagues that he wired his resignation to Paris. I believe the right hon. Gentleman has never spoken in this House without making it an excuse for refusing to make a declaration of policy that we are one of a number of Allies, and that the Allies must act in concert. But it is one of our complaints that they do not do that. A number of these secret treaties which were exposed were made by particular Allies behind the backs and without the knowledge of others. Each of the Allies seem to regard this simply as a game of grab, trying to get what they can regardless of the cost and the expense to others. The first Revolutionary Government in Russia, when they discovered the existence of these secret treaties, realised that the conditions embodied in them made a democratic peace impossible. Their first act was to appeal to the Allies for a conference for the revision of war aims. How was their request received by the Allied Governments? The Allied Governments dallied, promised, hesitated, and then, when the Russian Foreign Minister's bag was packed for Paris to attend such a conference which had been promised, the Allied Governments rejected the proposal altogether. That, more than anything else, was responsible for the overthrow of the first Revolutionary Government. It was responsible for the Bolsheviks coming into power later.
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    What did the Bolsheviks do? They did not want a separate peace any more than the first Revolutionary or the Kerensky Government wanted a separate peace. But Russia must have peace. Russia could not continue to fight. The action of the Allies, in forcing upon Russia the impossible task of renewing the offensive was another contributory cause responsible for the overthrow of Kerensky and the coming into power of the Bolsheviks. Russia must have peace. She did not want a separate peace, but peace she must have. Therefore she tried to get a general peace. She made an appeal to the Allies to join in negotiations for a general peace, and the Allies, as is their custom, apparently not only with the enemy but with Allies too, treated the offer with contempt. The Bolsheviks met the Germans, and they succeeded in getting the conference adjourned for ten days. Again they appealed to the Allies, and again the Allies made no response. Then the Bolshevik Government appealed to the peoples of the Allied countries over the heads of their Governments. The Germans and the Austrians responded by strikes and labour disputes and great peace demonstrations. The negotiations at Brest-Litovsk were resumed. I saw the Russian Minister who went through all these negotiations both before and after the adjournment at Brest-Litovsk, and he told me that the change in the attitude of the representatives of the Central Powers after the resumption was very remarkable indeed. He attributed it to two or three things. One thing was the refusal of the Allied Governments to enter into the conference for the purpose of securing a general peace. Our Prime Minister in his speech to the Trade Union Conference here in London said, not in words, but in effect, "Russia has made her bed; she must lie upon it, as she has made it." I was told by this Russian delegate present at these conferences that the German representatives interpreted that to mean practically an encouragement to them to make the hardest terms that they could with the Russion Revolutionary Government. Another reason said to be responsible for it, although a minor one, was the frank revolutionary character of the speeches of Trotsky, and his appeals to the revolutionary elements in other countries to overthrow their Governments as the Russian democracy had done.
    The situation in Russia, deplorable as it is, is in the main due to the lack of sympathy shown to Russia in her difficult

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    situation by the Allied Governments. Judged by the cheers which greeted the reply to a question given by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to-day, it appears that there are Members in this House who still so little appreciate the gravity of the situation in Russia that they not only approve, but encourage, the armed invasion of Russia by Japanese forces. What the Allies have done, or, perhaps, more particularly, what they have failed to do, in regard to Russia has placed Russia under the economic domination of Germany. It could not have been otherwise. The peace of Brest-Litovsk is not a peace settlement. May I tell the right hon. Gentleman what it is, although it would be more appropriate to give that information to his colleague the Under-Secretary. It is a peace offensive. It is not a peace settlement. It is a settlement made in the interests of the prosecution of the War, and, from the point of view of the military party in Germany, the Germans, in view of the declaration of the Allies of their determination to carry on this War, if need be, for two, three, four, and five years, would have been fools and it would have been madness on their part not to take advantage of the opportunity which presented itself for strengthening their economic position in the East. The Allied Governments must take the responsibility for that. To pass away from Russia and to come to the last opportunities which were missed by this Government and the Allied Powers in 1917. Hope appears to spring eternal in the breast of President Wilson, whether he be neutral or Ally, and about the beginning of this year he made another attempt to see whether it were possible to bring the belligerents together in a conference. He laid down fourteen propositions and invited the statesmen of the Central Powers to express their views on them. They responded. It was some time before the right hon. Gentleman read their speeches, but I gather from the speech he made later in the House that after the Debate we had specially devoted to the matter he found an opportunity to read them. The right hon. Gentleman is therefore well aware of the nature of the replies received.
    President Wilson was apparently so well satisfied with those replies that he pursued the matter further. In his Message to Congress he referred to this question. He spoke in terms of the warmest approbation
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    of the reply which had been given by Count Czernin and in very courteous terms, but in terms not so approving, to the reply made by the German Chancellor. On that occasion President Wilson reduced his fourteen points to four and again invited the views of the Ministers of the Central Powers. They replied. They practically accepted President Wilson's four points. What was the reply of the Allies to this? It was given in the famous Versailles declaration. It was a version of the late Prime Minister's oft-repeated rhetorical declaration, that they will never sheathe the sword until—and so on. I come now to a count in the indictment against the Government which is perhaps the most serious of all that we lay to their charge. The Prime Minister received the freedom of the ancient, historic, and beautiful city of Edinburgh a few weeks ago. The Prime Minister made this statement:
    "There are two circumstances which have served to persuade the most inveterate pacifists that their idea is wrong. The first is that the Government of this country and President Wilson at the beginning of the year made simultaneous announcements in regard to the peace terms of the Allies, which were so temperate, so moderate, so restrained that even the most pronounced pacifist could not challenge them."
    Then he goes on:
    "How were those declarations received by Germany? The first reply that either President Wilson or the British Government received was the most violent offensive ever launched against the British Army. They launched it with the avowed intention to annihilate it. That is the answer made on the part of Germany to a moderate peace pronouncement."
    One can only stand aghast at the audacity of a statement like that. I venture to say you will search through the political records of this country without finding such a case of wicked and gross misrepresentation. What are the facts? The Prime Minister said the first reply President Wilson or the British Government received was this offensive. The offensive was launched on 21st March, the Prime Minister's announcement was made on 5th January. He refers to that as a declaration of the British Government. President Wilson made his statement on 8th January. Czernin replied to Wilson on 23rd January. Hertling replied to Wilson on 24th January. Those speeches were reported in the British Press at great length, which occupied a page in the "Times" newspaper. The "Times" newspaper had half a page summary of the replies of Czernin and Hertling. They

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    dealt seriatim with all the fourteen points of Wilson's statement. President Wilson acknowledged those replies in a speech on 11th February. He approves, as I have said, the Austrian reply, but criticises Hertling, and reduces his fourteen points to four. Then, a fortnight later, on the 25th of February, Hertling responded to President Wilson's further appeal, and gave unconditional assent to three of the four points laid down, and of the fourth he said, I do not know of any objection, and I agree therefore with President Wilson that general peace on such terms is desirable. The offensive began on 21st March, and the Prime Minister says that the only reply given to President Wilson and himself was that offensive of 21st March. But the Prime Minister is convicted out of his own mouth. He was at Versailles, was a party to the Versailles declaration. What did that declaration say?
    "The Supreme War Council gave the most careful consideration to the recent utterances of the German Chancellor and the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs."
    Yet he goes down to Edinburgh and tells the people whom he evidently regards as belonging to the class described by the late Prime Minister as people with low intelligence and high credulity, that the only reply, or the first reply, given to himself and President Wilson was the offensive on 21st March. And yet he, at Versailles, two months before, said he had given the most careful consideration to the recent utterances of the German Chancellor and the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and was unable to find in them any approximation to the moderate conditions laid down by the Allied Governments. This is the way in which war diplomacy is being conducted. A Prime Minister who makes a statement like that he made at Edinburgh at a grave and critical time like this, so utterly at variance with the truth, is still Prime Minister. He has not been impeached, he can still command a majority of votes in this House; there are still cities in the country anxious to confer on him the dignity of the freedom. It has been said that people get the Government they deserve, and a people who would tolerate the Government of a Minister like that deserves any fate that may fall upon it.
    This is the sordid story of Allied diplomacy in the last eighteen months. Its failures have added a million and a half
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    to our total casualties, and it is still to go on. The Allied Governments have apparently never yet appreciated that the purpose of war is not war itself, but the attainment of certain political objects, and that diplomacy may be far more usefully employed for that purpose than the force of arms. It has always been so in war. There has not been an important war in the last 200 years where many opportunities for bringing the war to an end on terms more favourable than those ultimately made were not neglected. It was so in the Austrian War of Succession, the Spanish War of Succession, and the French Revolutionary Wars. The Crimean War could have been brought to an end long before peace was signed on better terms. It was so in the South African War, and it is so in this War. What is the reason for this? I do not contend, and I do not believe, the members of the Government are callous about the sacrifice of human life. I believe the Prime Minister spoke the truth once from that bench when he said that any man who prolonged this War unnecessarily would have a crime on his soul which oceans would not wash out. Why then do they appear to be so impotent? My hon. Friend who moved this Amendment gave the explanation. They are bound and shackled by the terms of these secret treaties, and until they are denounced any-kind of peace, let alone a democratic peace, is an impossibility. These secret treaties violate every one of the professions of Ministers in regard to our War aims. They propose the destruction of the independence of small nations, they tear up sacred treaties, they make a permanent peace impossible, because such a Europe as would arise from the carrying out of these secret treaties, especially the Italian Treaty made during the Premiership of the right hon. Member for East Fife, will create such a Europe that it will be necessary to maintain far larger armed camps than ever. They would make the realisation of the ideal of a League of Peace impossible, and therefore the first step towards the possibility of negotiations, the first step to the possibility of a democratic peace, the first condition of realising those war aims so magnificently uttered by the right hon. Gentleman the late Prime Minister in two or three speeches in the early days of the War, depends on the complete denunciation of these secret treaties.

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    What is the country thinking about these treaties? My hon. Friend who moved this Amendment said you could not get an audience in the country who on hearing an explanation of these treaties would approve them. The country is spending hundreds of thousands, it may be millions of money, in a useless campaign to inform people about our war aims. But they have no leaflets explaining the terms of those secret treaties or any leaflets which tell us about the division of Asia Minor between the Allied Powers, about Italy's ambitions in the Adriatic, about war indemnities, or about the further division of Africa. These things are not mentioned, but they are war aims; they are embodied in secret commitments. The Government still hold to them. I put a question to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the other day based upon a report which appeared in a newspaper that the treaty with Italy had been denounced, and he indignantly denied the statement. The treaty stands. Italy still demands her terms. These are the obstacles to peace. Sweep them away, get back to the honest declaration of war aims, the honest motives of this country which induced those millions to whom my hon. Friend referred to volunteer early in this War, and on that day the difficulties in the way of peace will be found to be small indeed. What does the country think about it? I had sent to me this morning a resolution passed by the largest local Labour party, the Birmingham Labour party. This resolution is all the more remarkable because this Labour party in Birmingham has been almost alone among the local Labour parties in the country in having maintained throughout the War the attitude of strong support of the War. The resolution sent to me reads as follows:
    "The Birmingham Labour party has learned of the contents of the secret treaties entered into by the Allied Governments with the utmost dismay and indignation. It recalls the fact that this party almost unanimously consented, jointly with the Birmingham Trades Council, to participate in the recruiting campaign early in the War because it was led to believe that the War was being fought for the freedom of small nations and the sanctity of international law. The Labour party now discovers that it has been utterly deceived and that even whilst the above-mentioned recruiting campaign was proceeding the Allied Governments commenced a series of secret conferences at which secret treaties were formulated. In the opinion of the party those treaties flagrantly violate every reason put forward by British statesmen in
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    justification for the War and embody precisely those obnoxious and immoral principles of Junker Imperialism which they were led to believe they were fighting against. We believe the absolute repudiation of these treaties to be essential to a democratic peace and hereby instruct our executive council to convene a large and widely representative Midland Conference at as early a date as possible for the purpose of considering these important documents."
    That resolution was passed unanimously. There is not a labour organisation in the country which would not endorse that resolution. There is not a meeting that could be called together which, after hearing an impartial and accurate account of the character of these secret treaties, would not endorse a resolution condemning and repudiating them. These are the obstacles to peace. That is why the British Government and the Allied Governments are compelled to reject every offer of peace, however promising it may be. May I refer for one moment to the point with which the Mover of the Amendment began his speech, namely, that this is not a suitable time for raising a question like this. Why not? The French people evidently consider it to be a very suitable time. There has been within the last few weeks the strongest outbreak of peace activity in France which has been witnessed since the beginning of the War, and that from the most unexpected quarters. It began in the Journal des Débats and was taken up by M. Clemenceau's paper. Many of the reactionary journals joined in the demand that if an offer of peace came it should not be, as previous offers had been, contemptuously rejected or ignored. There was a meeting in the French Chamber called a week ago by the Federation of Trade Unions, at which half the Deputies were present, including three ex-Primo Ministers, to deal with the grave industrial situation which exists in France because of the prolongation of the War. Not a single London daily newspaper had a line about that meeting. The Allied Governments, by their diplomatic policy, have lost one Ally, and may I say in all seriousness' there is more than a likelihood that they may lose another unless they change their policy. The hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Outhwaite) had two or three questions on the Paper this afternoon with regard to Belgium. I gathered from the replies given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that Belgium, for whose interests we primarily entered this War, was not regarded as being on a footing

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    of equality or of the same standing as the other members of the Allied combination. The right hon. Gentleman said that this Government had communications with representatives of the Belgian Government sometimes. But is the Belgian Government in agreement with the policy of Great Britain, France, and Italy in rejecting the peace overtures and relying wholly on military effort to secure the desired ends? That is a question for the right hon. Gentleman, and I should like an answer to it. I know what the answer is. I know that the Belgian Government are not in agreement with that policy. I know that the Belgian Government, representing the Belgian people, want peace. The change in that direction among them has been most remarkable during the last six months.
    The first condition of successful peace negotiations is a repudiation of the secret treaties; and the second is the putting on the shelf of all that ordinary stock-in-trade which serves to delude the people during a period of war. I am sick and tired of hearing all these musty platitudes which you can find in every speech in every newspaper article written during every war that has taken place since speeches were made and newspapers printed, namely, that the enemy was the concentrated embodiment of all the vices ever known to exist, and that the aim of the enemy was the domination of the world. It is rather singular that we never heard anything about this when we entered the War. I read a little while ago the two speeches which were delivered by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, then Sir Edward Grey, explaining the reasons why the Government considered itself in honour bound to enter the War. There is not a word there about the destruction of Prussian militarism. That was an afterthought. But it is following the precedents of all wars. If I cared to delay the House at inordinate length, I could produce extracts from the "Times" newspaper, say, at the time of the Crimean War, in which every phrase that is now being used about Germany's lust for universal power is applied to Russia, word for word. It was so in the time of Napoleon, when it was applied to France. You get the same platitudes that "this is not the time for peace; that you must crush the enemy or you will have to fight it out all over again in ten, twenty, or thirty years' time." The best, the surest
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    means of having to fight it out over again would be to try to pursue the War to a military conclusion. You cannot destroy militarism by militarism.
    I have regretted to see certain statements made within the last few weeks by our Prime Minister and by M. Clemenceau in which there has been, I was going to say, a virtual admission—nay, indeed, a frank admission—that the Allies were beaten but for the intervention of America. Surely statements like that will not be forgotten in Germany. Suppose that the Allies, with the help of America—I do not believe it is possible for a single moment—but suppose that, with the 10,000,000 men America is going to transport across the Atlantic, the Allies succeed in inflicting a complete military defeat upon Germany. What is going to be the effect on the German mind? It is going to have the same effect as the defeat of Prussia at the beginning of the eighteenth century had; it is going to have the same effect which the defeat of France by Prussia had fifty years ago—it is going to teach them that military power can be a means for effectively serving national aims. Instead of defeating militarism, it will give militarism its greatest justification. I have regretted to see within the last few weeks a revival of the talk about economic warfare. Take, for instance, some of the recommendations made in the Reports of the Board of Trade Committees which were published a few days ago. One of our leading newspapers, in an article upon those recommendations, said that those Reports ought to be impounded under some Defence of the Realm Act Regulation, or at any rate they ought to be prevented from being known in. Germany. It is a far more important matter to Germany to get fair treatment and equality of economic opportunity after the War than territorial power. If there are to be these constant threats that Germany is to be deprived of the opportunity of commercial expansion and development after the War, then the War will go on until the lust for blood of those who are talking of a five years' war has been more than satisfied. For Heaven's sake, I say to the Government, if they do want peace, if they want a permanent peace, if they want conditions of permanence, let them stop all this provocative talk about economic warfare after the military war! Negotiations must come at some time. Every delay lessens the possibility of a satisfactory peace. It

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    will not be denied that a far better peace could have been made two years ago. I doubt if an equally good peace could be made six months hence as to-day. This War will never be settled between victor and vanquished. It will be settled round a table by men who are the representatives of people who out of bitter experience, out of travail and pain, have come to the conclusion that militarism is an enemy which must be uprooted, and that military power is futile to serve any reasonable and honourable human purpose. This War will be settled round a table by men who are imbued with that conviction and have that aim. There is a terrible responsibility resting upon those who delay the assembling of that conference by a single day.
    Mr. BALFOUR: The hon. Member (Mr. Snowden) threw out a challenge earlier in his speech, and asked me to define what was meant by a "peace offensive." I will tell him what I mean by a peace offensive. I mean any effort by speech or otherwise, under the disguise of asking for an honourable termination of the present unhappy War, to divide the Allies, who, as I believe, are now fighting for the great cause of liberty, and to discourage individual members of the Alliance. If anyone asks me to give an example of what is indicated by that definition, I should say that the speech to which we have just listened is one of the most perfect examples of a peace offensive that has ever been made in or out of this House. Part of the hon. Member's speech—the less earnest and serious part—was distinguished by a tone of petulance which I thought contrasted very ill with the speech that preceded it; a speech which, indeed, I differed from profoundly in its conclusions, but which was animated throughout by an obviously sincere desire to see this War brought to an end in an honourable manner. That desire, of course, is shared by His Majesty's Government, by every man in this House, and by every man, woman, and child in this country, in France, in Italy, and in America. No one wants to go on with the War for the sake of fighting. No one wants to go on with it, so far as I know, for any of those petty motives of international spite of which the hon. Member speaks. We want to go on with it, and we mean to go on with it, for great ends and great motives; and when the hon. Member makes a speech like that to which we have just listened
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    it appears to me that he is doing his very best to bring that policy to an unhappy conclusion. Anyone listening to that speech would really have supposed that, after he has taken a survey of the motives animating the combatants on the two sides, he deliberately comes to the con elusion that the people who initiated this War and are continuing it, the people who provoked it, are comparatively innocent people, not animated by the mean ambitions which unhappily, according to him, have moved our Italian and our French Allies, but whose thoughts move upon a higher plane, who have none of these ambitious designs which he sees in his own country and in the Allies of his own country, but that they really give us a model of what reasonable combatants should be and should desire. Is the hon. Member aware of the monstrous folly and ignorance shown by such suggestions as that? He says, truly enough, that in previous wars we have denounced those with whom we fought, in the great Napoleonic Wars in particular, with a desire for universal domination. We have done so; and I am clearly of opinion that in doing so history has proved that we were right. But while no one who knows history will dispute that Napoleon was animated by this lust for universal domination, no one who has studied the literature or weighed the actions of Germany during the last forty years and more will doubt that she is pursuing that aim of universal domination with a persistence, with an elaborate care, with a forethought, with a ruthless and cold-blooded determination which leaves Napoleonic ambitions far behind. To listen to the hon. Member, you would suppose that the picture I have just drawn, which is not an exaggerated picture, has no resemblance to the truth at all, that Germany is not animated by this desire for domination, that Germany has not gradually built up her strength in order to carry out a policy of domination, that Germany has not co-ordinated her military and commercial efforts, in spite of what the hon. Member has said, in order to make the civilised world fall like ripe fruit into her lap. The hon. Member says that when the War broke out we heard nothing in Lord Grey's speech on that fateful Monday, the 3rd August, of German desire for general domination It is perfectly true that what filled all our minds at the moment was the outrage on Belgium and the attack on France—
    Mr. SNOWDEN: It had not taken place then.
    Mr. BALFOUR: The hon. Member himself stated the enemy motive.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: As a matter of fact, they had not declared war on France on that date.
    Mr. BALFOUR: Does not the hon. Member really forget the central point of Sir Edward Grey's speech? Let me refresh his memory, and he will see what I thought was one of the main points of a large part of his speech, and the main point of the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Morrell), that when the War began it was the Belgian case that moved us! What does the hon. Member means by so irrelevant a contradiction as that which he has been good enough to make?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I will answer the right hon. Gentleman in the words of the Prime Minister, who, in an interview which he gave to a magazine shortly after the outbreak of war, said that on the Saturday before the War 99 per cent. of the people of this country were against going into the War for what they imagined to be the support of France, but that after the invasion of Belgium the proportions turned round, and he said it was the invasion of Belgium which induced us to give our support.
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. BALFOUR: The whole point of the two speeches we have heard was that whereas our motives were high and lofty at the beginning of the War, because we went into the War to help Belgium and France, now we have sunk to a lower moral plane and become, to use the cant phrase which is current in Russia, "Imperialists in disguise". I am unable to understand why the hon. Member thought it worth while to interrupt me. But there is no contradiction, and there is no change of view, so far as I know, beween those early days in August, 1914, and the present moment. From beginning to end the animating motives of this country, and of the Governments in which from time to time this country has placed its trust, have been to carry out those general principles, one application of which moved us in the first days and hours of the War. If the hon. Member goes further and says, had the nation at large realised in 1914 what the German passion for domination meant, had they studied German utterances, then I go some distance with him. There were,
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    indeed, people in this country who had warned the country of what the desire for expansion really meant. But we are, as a nation, slow to believe that other nations can be animated by motives which are so widely separated from those which move our own people. Those writings were known, no doubt, to a few, but they were not even by those few regarded as always representative; and it is not until the matter has been studied in the light of events, and with a care which it was never thought worth while to give it before, that it has been brought home to the conviction of every student, except the hon. Member and those who sit beside him, that this War is no accidental and unhappy episode, that it was an inevitable, or an almost inevitable, result of German ambitions, and that it was absolutely inevitable unless the development, economic and military, of Germany in the course of years did not enable her to get all the fruits of victory without the loss of bloodshed and of going to war. And it is perfectly clear to anyone who looks back on the history of the last thirty or forty years, that the ambitions of the whole of the intelligent and the military and governing classes in Germany were of a kind which were directed to world domination, and that if the world domination could not be got by peaceful means, it must be got by war, and in utter indifference to all the horrors which war would produce. Of course, they made, and we all know that they made, in some respects a gross—I will not say a gross, but a great miscalculation. They thought that the objects of the War, this European domination, which was to carry with it other dominations, could be obtained after a struggle which, at the most, would last a year. It might easily have been so, but, happily for mankind, it has not been so. How anybody can come forward and make the speech that the hon. Member has made this afternoon, and suggest that it is we who sit on this bench and those Gentlemen who sit on the opposite bench who have by our stupidity, our blindness, our indifference to human suffering, and our Imperialistic ambitions, been the people who, if we did not start the contest, have, at all events, continued it, and are now responsible for its continuance—utterly passes my comprehension. The hon. Member has made his usual survey of the suggestions of peace which have from time to time been made by the Central Powers. Is there one of those cases in which the

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    sober historian would ever see the basis of a possible peace? Is there any evidence at all that any of those suggestions, such as the Emperor of Austria's letter, and the other transactions to which the hon. Member referred—is there any likelihood at all that any one of those proposals were made with a view to obtaining that sort of peace which even the hon. Gentleman himself could regard as a reasonable peace, carrying with it some prospect of security for the future liberties of the world?
    We have never rejected any proposals which we thought had the slightest probability of producing the sort of peace which most of us—and, I hope, all of us—desire. There is no evidence whatever that the German Government have ever been serious in making such offers of peace. I have more than once referred to Belgium, though I always do so with some hesitation, lest hon. Gentlemen should run away with the idea that, in my judgment, the restoration of Belgium would by itself give all that we ought properly to ask for as a result of the War. The case for Belgium is merely an example. It is a good example of German methods; because Belgium, as the hon. Member has pointed out, was the occasion of the War. I am not sure whether the hon. Member would admit that; but at any rate it was intimately connected with the opening phases of the War. The treatment of Belgium is, and remains, the greatest blot upon German honour and German humanity. German honour and German humanity, I think, have been violated in many parts of the world; but Belgium stands out as the great and unanswerable proof of what it is that the German Government will do if they think that any military advantage is to be got by it.
    Have the German Government ever openly and plainly said, in any document, or in any speech, that Belgium is to be given up, that Belgium is to be restored, that Belgium is to be placed in a position of absolute economic as well as political independence? I know of no such statement. It has been suggested that Belgian territory should be restored, and there have been other suggestions of one kind or another; but you will never find any frank avowal that Belgium, having been taken by one of the most iniquitous acts of which history has record, is to be put back, so far as the perpetrator of the
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    crime is concerned, as far as possible in the position in, which she was before the crime was committed.
    Does not the hon. Gentleman think that perhaps when he is discussing the reasonableness of terms he might have reminded the House of that fact? What he does is to point to ambiguous speeches and doubtful resolutions; he turns his eyes resolutely away from the clear-cut and unmistakable statements on the other side, made by German writers of repute and German politicians of position—he turns his eyes resolutely away from what Germans write and what Germans say, and still more resolutely away from what Germans do both in the East and the West. Then he presents a picture of German statesmen on that side offering reasonable terms of peace to the English statesmen on this side, and the English statesmen obstinately shutting their ears, and insisting on going on with the War and determinedly forcing this country and its Allies to go on with the expenditure of blood and of treasure; and he expects us to listen to him patiently and not to say that, whatever his intention may be, his acts in this House have the effect of doing everything that can be done by a speech in this House to discourage the Allies and their friends and to encourage the Central Powers and their friends. I must honestly say that I think that is a lamentable performance. If I understood one part of his speech aright—I may have failed to get the clear meaning—he seemed to think that we differ from President Wilson upon these points. So far as I know, there is no difference between the Allies and President Wilson upon war aims. I believe that we cherish the same ideals, we are fighting for the same purpose on the same fields of battle, we are making similar sacrifices, and we are working towards the same end.
    I cannot conceive why the hon. Gentleman, animated as I am bound to suppose he is by a public-spirited policy, suggests that there should be in this matter of war aims the smallest difference between us and our American Allies. There is no such difference. Neither is the hon. Gentleman right when he supposes that these secret treaties are an obstacle to peace. The notion is fantastic. I am not going to discuss the secret treaties. I have often explained to the House that these treaties were made not by me, not by the party to which I belong, not by the

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    present Government; they were made in obedience to motives which I believe would have moved any Government in power at the time to make the same or similar arrangements. It is very easy for the hon. Gentleman to say that if the treaty with Italy to which he referred—I am not going to discuss it—were discussed, it would be disapproved of in this meeting or that meeting throughout the country. If you want to judge the treaty rightly, remember the circumstances under which it was made, and ask the people whether, if they had been responsible for the conduct of affairs, they would have hesitated to come to arrangements of that kind. Even if the treaty is open to criticism, even granting—and I am not going to make any admissions about it, that it was open to this criticism—it is a mistake to suppose that it stands in the way of peace.
    The Allies are prepared to listen collectively to all reasonable arrangements. Certainly His Majesty's Government are not going to shut their ears to anything that can be called a reasonable suggestion. If such a suggestion were made, and it met with the approval of the Allies collectively, does the hon. Gentleman really suppose that the fact that three years ago, or whenever it may have been, they took a different view, that would stand in the way of accepting this reasonable suggestion? Of course it would not! Any proposal to the Allies will be considered by the Allies on its merits. These treaties were entered into by this country with other members of the Alliance, and to these treaties we stand. The national honour is bound up with them, and I really cannot conceive a more unfortunate moment in which the hon. Gentleman should criticise our Italian Allies than at the very moment when those very Allies are fighting with heroic courage in the battles which they are now carrying out against their Austrian enemy.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I have never criticised our Italian Allies; never a word!
    HON. MEMBERS: Shylock! Who is Shylock?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: It is not the Italian Government who are making the magnificent stand in Italy now. It is not the men who made these secret treaties.
    Mr. BALFOUR: It is a crude device to distinguish between the men who made
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    the Government—the men who, remember, are dependent upon their Parliamentary system—and the nation who supports them. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we sometimes draw too sharp a distinction between the military and the ruling classes in Prussia and Germany and other citizens of the German Empire; but, at all events, that is reasonable compared with the distinction he is now trying to draw between the Government of Italy, supported by the Italian Parliament, freely elected by the Italian people, and the people themselves. No such distinction is to be drawn. The attack he made was an attack upon the Italian people, and had no other meaning whatsoever. As far as we are concerned we are bound by that treaty, and we mean to hold by it. But it is a profound error to suppose that the time will come when the British Government, surveying the whole situation, and the Italian Government surveying the whole situation, will find themselves in this position—the British Government saying, "I think you ought to make peace, in spite of this treaty," and the Italian Government saying, "There is the treaty, and we mean to hold to every word of it." When the time comes, the treaty may be a proper instrument to carry out in every detail. I do not argue that; but what I say is that whatever judgment may be come to, when the time comes, by the British Government is probably the judgment which the Italian Government would share to the full; and the judgment made by the Italian Government is the judgment in which the English Government would share to the full. I have no reason to think that in the future, any more than in the past, there will be any divergence between the Allies who are carrying on this War. If it should turn out that, in the common interests of the Allies as a whole, treaties made some years ago should require modification, I do not doubt that a modification will be made by the Italians themselves. It rests with them. They are our Ally; we are bound to them, and we mean to keep to the full to the bargain we have made.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: Is it not the fact that the recent Conference in Rome between the Jugo-Slavs and the Italian Government showed that Italy is very much inclined to modify the policy embodied in that treaty?
    Mr. BALFOUR: The Jugo-Slav meeting in Rome, to which my hon. Friend refers,

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    was one of the very greatest interest and significance, and I think did show a certain change, I will not say of view, but of mood, of temper, in connection with that particular question. That may be so, but I do not propose to discuss or to suggest any discussions upon topics like that. I think that it would be quite inexpedient. I content myself with the broad statement, which I believe to be true, that these treaties, whether they be carried out to the letter or whether they be modified in practice, are no obstacle to the conclusion of a reasonable peace, and will not form any ground of discord between us and our Italian. Allies; and I cannot conceive a greater folly at this moment than entering formally and ostentatiously into any reconsideration of the instruments which have regulated now for two or three years the relations of the Allies.
    We have a more important and immediate task before us. We have the task, now that Russia has fallen out of the War, of resisting the Austrian and German effort on the West. We have the task before us of doing all we can to restore Russia to full national patriotic self-consciousness. Russia is going through a time of profound trial. Everybody sympathises with the difficulties in which that vast population finds itself. Its sufferings have been little alleviated by the normal peace which has been forced upon it by Germany, and I do not despair of our being able even now to do something material to restore the economic and political unity and nationality of that great country. That is a question that rests in the future and not in the past, and I can do no more than say that our good wishes for Russia, her freedom, her prosperity, her integrity remain quite un-diminished by recent events. But the fact that she did fall out of the War, as, of course, everybody knows, has thrown a very great strain on the Western Allies. I believe that that strain is one which we shall sustain; but we shall require, as is commonly admitted, all our patriotism, all our energy to sustain it with a full measure of success. And I cannot imagine anything more idiotic than, at this very critical moment and real time of stress, to bring our attention to problems which may come up, and I hope they will come up, at no very distant date, but which, even in the view of the hon. Gentleman himself who moved this Amendment, are not appropriate at the present time. The hon.
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    Gentleman who has just sat down declared that we always meet Motions of this kind by the statement that they are inappropriate to the occasion. I do not know that I have used that argument before, though I dare say that I have. What I have usually felt is not that they were inappropriate to the occasion, but that they were inappropriate to any occasion. I understood the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment to admit that this was an inappropriate time to discuss peace terms.
    Mr. MORRELL: I said that in the view of some Members it was.
    Mr. BALFOUR: I may have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. If so, I apologise. I certainly thought he said that in the middle of this offensive it would be impossible.
    Mr. MORRELL Mr. MORRELL dissented.
    Mr. BALFOUR: I do not press it now, nor is the matter very important, but I thought that the hon. Gentleman said that or something equivalent. At all events, it is obvious to everybody, whether he said it or not, that it is true. This is the very last moment in which we are likely to make peace proposals to the Central Powers, or, as far as I can judge in which the Central Powers are likely to make proposals to us except for one purpose—the purpose of a peace offensive. What I believe, as far as I am able to judge, the Central Powers mean to do in the way of peace is not to propose reasonable terms to the Alliance as a whole, but to select some member of the Alliance to which to offer terms that may prove extremely temptive to that member of the Alliance, if it consider only its own obvious and immediate interests, and not the Alliance as a whole; and in that way to disintegrate the members of the Alliance, some of whom would, of course, be perfectly helpless, taken in isolation, but would be quite strong as long as they are united. I do not blame the Central Powers for making such attempts. The people I blame are those who fall into the trap; and the people I blame most of all are those who, like the hon. Gentleman opposite, appear to think it almost criminal not to fall into the trap. As far as I can make it out, his criticism is that we went to war for Belgium and France, and, if Belgium and France are satisfied, why should we think of Italy? That spirit is a fata' spirit, because

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    you might change it round, and say to Italy, "You are bound by the Alliance. Very good terms are offered to Italy. Why do you bother about anything else?" You cannot work an Alliance on those terms. The only terms on which you can work an Alliance are those of mutual confidence and mutual trust, and the only way you can have mutual confidence and mutual trust is by being open and above board with those with whom you are working.
    The hon. Member suggested, and he did more than suggest, in his speech that we have not been open and above board with the Belgian Government. He is quite mistaken. The Belgian Government have our full confidence, and I believe that we have their full confidence. There is no attempt, and there never has been any attempt, to keep back from any of those with whom we are working anything which is really material to the common purpose which they should know. I think that it is my predecessor in office who comes in for most of the blame—the worst charge against me, as far as I know, is that I know nothing about my office—for the actual treaties which are denounced were not made by me, but were made sometimes by my colleagues in this Government and sometimes by my late colleageues in the last Government.
    But all this sort of petty criticism is really out of place. Whether it is directed against me or Lord Grey, or the late Prime Minister, or the present Prime Minister, it is out of place. All of us—and I speak with confidence for those who sit on that bench as well as those who sit on this bench—are desirous of seeing this War brought to an honourable conclusion. All of us think that no conclusion can be honourable or satisfactory which makes it perfectly plain that the peace is only a truce. All of us are desirous of seeing, so far as may be, that the wishes of the populations of the world shall meet with their due satisfaction. All of us are anxious to see that, whatever arrangements may be come to at the Peace Conference, whenever the Peace Conference takes place, shall be of such a kind as to leave as few as possible of those eternal causes of friction and jealousy which divide email nations even more than they divide big nations, and shall, by removing those causes of jealousy, be greater security for the future peace of the world than any real treaties can ever give.
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    To that rearrangement of territory or of constitutions, supplemented, as I hope it will be, by a League of Nations for the enforcement of peace—to those two changes in the international constitution of the world I look forward as the real security of peace. We shall never get that peace, and we shall never deserve to get that peace, if we listen to the counsel given to us by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, if we fail to look facts in the face, if we fail to see what German ambitions really mean, what German statesmen are really driving at, and what it is they are determined to have. Unless we face these facts we are only deceiving ourselves, and heaping up, if not for ourselves, at least for our immediate successors, a repetition of horrors unequalled in the history of the world, felt I believe, I quite admit, as much by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment as by us, but, believe me, felt by us quite as much as by him. For who feels the horrors of war more than those who are responsible for its conduct? On whom does the burden of this dreadful expenditure of blood and treasure weigh most heavily? How can it weigh more heavily on any man or set of men than those on this bench? No; we desire, and we passionately desire, an honourable peace; but as time goes on we are more and more convinced that that peace can only be attained by struggling to the end to see that we do not leave it in the power of any nation such as Germany to cause a repetition of the evils under which the whole civilised community of nations, whether in the Old World or in the New, is at present helplessly groaning.
    Sir T. WHITTAKER: The impression made on my mind by the speeches of my two hon. Friends, the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, was that they contained two dominant ideas. The first, in the case of the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, was that it is really our desire that this War should still continue, that it is all our fault that peace has not been arranged, that Germany is anxious for peace on the most reasonable terms, and that it is all our fault that the War has not been brought to an end. He also told us that the position as it is now in Russia is alt our fault. Somehow or other both hon. Gentlemen appear to have in their minds the belief that a very considerable number of people desire that this War should continue. The hon. Gentleman who seconded

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    the Amendment disavowed that view, but I notice that later he spoke of the lust of blood in this country. That was the expression used, and their impression is that there is a desire among some people for the continuance of this War. As the right hon. Gentleman has just explained, it is absurd to think that we are not all anxious and earnestly anxious for peace, as anxious as anyone possible can be; but it must be a satisfactory peace, and the hon. Members themselves admit that it must be a satisfactory peace. The real difference, however, is as to what would be satisfactory. According to the terms of the Amendment it is to be a settlement by agreement, but when have the German people given any indication that they will agree to anything that we should regard as reasonable? The right hon. Gentleman has pointed out that they have never specifically and definitely stated that they will even evacuate Belgium, and restore its political independence. Important officials in connection with the German Government have again and again declared that they mean it to be economically, politically, and militarily practically under the control of Germany.
    Have they ever indicated that they are prepared to evacuate the whole of Northern France? Have they given any indication whatever that they will hand back to Russia the Baltic provinces, or the Southern provinces of Russia? Not at all. Have they given any indication of their being prepared to give freedom to Finland and Poland? Nothing of the kind. Will they release Serbia and Roumania? There is not an indication. Will Austria clear out of Northern Italy, and will they return the property that they have stolen from Belgium and France? Will they return Alsace-Lorraine? And what about Armenia? There is no indication there. As to the German colonies, are we to return them? Were that told to the Imperial Conference now sitting it would shake the Empire to its foundations. Germany will agree to none of these things until they are compelled to do it and until they realise that they cannot help themselves or do otherwise. It may not be necessary that they should be driven by military force out of the territories they occupy, but that under the combined pressure of war and domestic circumstances they should be made to see that their effort has been a failure. Until they do realise that, in my judgment it is a waste of breath to talk,
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    as my hon. Friends have done, about peace. At the present time, so far as we can gather, the only terms on which agreement could be effected with Germany would be terms of humiliation and defeat and future subservience for this country, and treachery by us to our Allies. The acceptance of the German terms would involve acceptance of a position which would leave Egypt and India at Germany's mercy and would be the commencement of the breaking up of the British Empire and the death knell of justice and freedom and national independence in Europe. The simple fact, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, is that Germany is out for world-power and world-domination. It is for that that it determined upon, and provoked, and commenced this War. The German people are possessed of the triple devils of militarism, race conceit, and commercial greed. What did the Kaiser say on Saturday?
    "It was not a matter of a strategic campaign, but a struggle of two world views which were wrestling with one another."
    Two world views, two principles, two different ideals struggling, and one or other of us must go under. We will not, and they will not, until they are made. It is sheer folly at present to ask for anything like an agreement. There can be no agreement until the German people learn by experience that their policy is a failure. They must realise that this policy does not pay, and until they know this, and until they know that in seeking to impose this cruel and disastrous policy they are engaged in an impossible task. Negotiate by all means, as soon as ever there is an indication of returning sanity on their part. In my judgment, there is none whatever at present. I suggest that there is danger in making peace too soon. The enemy will begin to realise that defeat is in front of them, and they will endeavour to settle terms before all is lost. A patched-up and inconclusive peace would be worse than no peace at all.
    Reference has been made during the Debate to the great French War in which we were engaged at the beginning of the last century. It is curious how history repeats itself. It is not only interesting but instructive to recall some of the incidents of those great campaigns—that early in last century and the present one in which we are engaged. In 1801 we had been at war, more or less, for

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    fifteen years, and had lost almost all our Allies. Napoleon had consolidated his power in France, and had a strong position abroad. There was great distress in this country. In 1800 wheat was 112s. 8d. a quarter; in March, 1801, the quartern loaf cost 1s. 10½d. Napoleon was threatening invasion; Pitt resigned because the King would not allow Catholic emancipation; and shortly afterwards we had the rising in Ireland under Robert Emmett. It is extraordinary how similar is the position. Addington became Prime Minister, and Hawkesbury, the Foreign Minister, was to make overtures for peace in 1801. It took twelve months to make anything like an arrangement, and in 1802 we had the peace of Amiens. That peace left Napoleon in power, with all his ambition undiminished and unrestrained, and with time for further preparations. And what was the result? We were at war again within fourteen months, and Pitt returned to power in 1804. We had then what we might have now if we concluded peace. In 1805 Napoleon wrote to George III. proposing peace, but on his own terms, and then the Government of that day took the only proper attitude that they could take, and which the Government now take, that was to decline negotiations as an individual Power and without the Allies. What Napoleon was doing then the Kaiser is doing now—trying to divide the Allies by separate negotiation. In that very year Napoleon became absolute ruler of France, and France then included all Belgium up to the left bank of the Rhine, and he was practically ruler of Holland, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. In that year he crushed Austria and Prussia, and Pitt died in January, 1806. It was in 1805 that we won the Battle of Trafalgar. What was the result? Napoleon determined to seize and get hold of the fleets of some of the neutral maritime nations, and he threatened Denmark and Norway, and occupied Portugal and Spain. What are the Germans doing now? They are making their princes monarchs in Lithuania, Courland, Esthonia, and Poland, and trying in Finland.
    Precisely the same thing was done by Napoleon. In 1806 he made his brother Louis King of Holland, his brother Jerome King of Westphalia. He made the Elector of Saxony King of Saxony, and he added to his territory and formed
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    a subservient confederation of the whole of Germany other than Prussia and Austria. In May, 1805, he crowned himself King of Italy and made his son-in-law Viceroy, and after that, when he held that power and all that territory, Talleyrand wrote to Fox suggesting peace negotiations. Fox again, as his predecessors in the Government, refused to have anything to do with it except in conjunction with the Allies. In 1808 Napoleon made his brother Joseph King of Spain and his brother-in-law King of Naples, and then again in 1808 he made another approach. Napoleon and the Tsar wrote to George III. begging him to give peace to the world—blaming us again—and to guarantee all the powers then existing, that was, to confirm him in his hold upon Europe, and we again would not have it. From 1805 to 1810 Napoleon was making himself year after year the master of Europe, and then under the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 Russia turned against us. That arrangement broke down, but for the time it was serious, and the only important neutral country in the world, the United States, was unfriendly and went to war with us in 1812. In 1810 the British people alone were undefeated, but they held on, though solely tried. They held the seas, and during the next five years the tide turned. The great military despotism which had been set up gradually crumbled away, all Europe gradually rose against it, and I do not despair of Russia rising now and again coming in. The resurrection of Prussia and of Austria, the retreat from Moscow, and the Peninsula campaign prepared the way for the culminating blow at Waterloo, and Europe was saved and Napoleon was sent to St. Helena. Viscount Grey in that pamphlet which is reviewed in the papers this morning says:
    "There is more at stake in this War than the existence of individual States or Empires or the fate of a Continent; the whole of modern civilisation is at stake."
    We must endeavour so to end this War as to render a repetition of this crime against humanity practically impossible in the future. Unless we do so, civilisation will be submerged under militarism, which will spread all over the world and hold the whole world in bondage. We shall not do this, in my judgment, until the German rulers and the German people—I do not discriminate between the two—alike learn, by the hard facts of experience, that brutal

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    onslaughts on unoffending peoples do not pay. Agreements that left them with extended territories after this War and with increased prestige would be a defeat for us and a victory for them, and that result would stimulate them to further effort in the future. The whole world would remain an armed camp waiting and watching for a renewal of the struggle. We owe it to those who have fallen, we owe it to those who have been bereaved, and we owe it to ourselves and those who are coming after us that this shall not be, and we must not break our faith with our Allies. Revision and readjustment of the treaties with them, no doubt, there will have to be. That must be arranged by mutual consent and at Allied Conferences. Good faith with Allies is essential to the successful establishment of the League of Nations to which we are looking forward, and if that League of Nations can be successfully established it can only be maintained and be operative on the basis of good faith between Allies, and one of the proposals of this Amendment is that we should break faith with our Allies, throwing aside the treaties into which we have entered with them. It seems to me that that is one of the least creditable parts of that Amendment, and, therefore, I hope the House will reject it by a very large majority.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the somewhat unusual excursion upon which he has taken the House. It is a great pleasure to find one who has been taught nothing by the last four years' experience, and who for the purpose of throwing light upon the most difficult situation in which Europe has found itself goes back to a somewhat superficial record of the wars with Napoleon. I hope when my right hon. Friend returns to his study he will go a little bit deeper than the phrases of popular history and the compilations of a dictionary of dates. He will also, I hope, remember that it would be profitable for him to pursue his studies a little bit further in time, and to remember that that magnificent record of national resistance, national heroism, and national expenditure was finished by the treaty and the congresses of Vienna. So much for my right hon. Friend's history and the deductions he draws from it. We will return to the speech the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary made on the subject before us. It is very remarkable that
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    when we come to general phrases we all use the same. My hon. Friend behind me the Member for Burnley (Mr. Snowden) professed, and I think showed by his speech, a most profound desire to end the War, not to end the War anyhow or at any time, but to end the War honourably and successfully from a democratic point of view. When the right hon. Gentleman replied he also used the same expression. There is no difference between us then so far as intention is concerned, but I resent most strongly that every time that the right hon. Gentleman speaks from that bench he has got to say, regarding my hon. Friend or anybody else who criticises his or his Government's policy or any Government's policy, that their speeches are in favour of the Central Powers. I hoped we had got a little bit beyond that, and that the desire of all of us to try and discover the right way to this satisfactory peace would make it impossible for us to, make these foolish charges. As a matter of fact, if we wanted to encourage and cement the Central Powers, to stop the strikes that are now going on in Austria, nothing would do it better than certain extracts from the right hon. Gentleman's speech this afternoon. The way that he talked about the secret treaties is precisely the thing that the Central Powers want in order to convince their people that whatever we may say sometimes, and whatever we may do sometimes, the real intention of this country, in conjunction with its Allies, is to inflict a defeat on Germany, not for the purpose of liberating Europe but for the purpose of humiliating Germany as an end in itself. I do not believe for a single moment that that is the intention of this country.
    The right hon. Gentleman who gave us the historical excursion (Sir T. Whittaker) did not give us any idea as to why the War lasted so long and why he had so many dates to manipulate. I believe he is a devoted follower not only of the political faith, but a great admirer of the intellectual capacity of one who used to be his leader, Lord Rosebery. I might remind my right hon. Friend that Lord Rosebery has also written about that period and those negotiations, and what Lord Rosebery has said about them is this, and it is very germane to the Debate in which we are engaged. Referring to the offer of peace Buonaparte made on the last day of December, 1799, Lord Rosebery says:
    "If Buonaparte was insincere, as was said, wad only wished to make the French believe that

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    the wish for peace was on his side and not on ours, the negative of foreign negotiations was playing Buonaparte's game. If he were sincere, the responsibility of the Government was unbounded."
    7.0 P.M.
    I commend my right hon. Friend to those pages in Lord Rosebery's book, where he will find great illumination regarding the long string of dates that he recited with so much pleasure and delight to the House this afternoon. But we will leave these somewhat scattered and pettifogging points which have been raised on one side. I always listen to the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary with great intellectual pleasure. I do not always listen to him with the same political profit, and I must confess I came here this afternoon to get political profit and not intellectual pleasure. I got the latter, as I always do, but I am sorry I did not get the former. What divides us? Does he really mean to say, does any member of that Government mean to say, that we are sitting here to-day doing this somewhat thankless work, laying ourselves open to his gibes and to his misrepresentations—because I think he did misrepresent my hon. Friend—does he mean to say that we are doing that because we want our country to be defeated or because we want its cause to be worsted in the present War? I do not believe it for a single moment. He is there and we are here, not because we do not want to face those facts about German intentions and German aims about which he spoke, because we do. As a matter of fact, I think we may say we faced them before he did. He is there and we are here because he believes in a method of remedy which we distrust. After four years of war, swaying up and down, backwards and forwards, of hopes deferred that make the heart sick, with ever-increasing losses of life and treasure, it is surely time seriously to consider the conditions of that method. What do we say about this policy in this Resolution? We lay down once more—it has been stated to-day already, but I wish to restate it, and to get a reply from the right hon. Gentleman in regard to it—that when you say "Go on with the War" that does not mean go on with fighting. If you mean simply that we sit here to vote money and to listen to speeches and historical essays, such as we have just been favoured with, while the men at the front are fighting, killing and being killed, if that is our duty, then "go on with the
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    War" is a phrase and an idea which we do not agree with. But if the War is something which is not merely fighting, if it is not merely a military expression, if it does not mean that we are to go on so long as there is a man left in the field to kill another man, so long as the nation is prepared to supply an army, if war is a political institution, if it serves precisely the same purpose as a Division in this House, or a Resolution of this House, or a decision of the Cabinet, or a dispatch to a foreign Government, if that is war, then going on with the War is being served equally by the speeches which we are delivering here this afternoon, in trying to throw some new light on the European situation. That is as much going on with the War as supplying thousands of bayonets, although that may be the more pressing need of the moment. If war is a means to a political end, that political end must always be present in the minds of those responsible for the War. I do not want to quote a German critic—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, do!"]—but I will do so in order to give pleasure to some hon. Members opposite. I do not know whether they have ever heard of Clausewitz, who happens to be an authority on military affairs. His view of war is this:
    "War can never be separated from political intercourse, and if in the consideration of the matter this is done in any way, and the threads of its relations are to a certain extent broken, we have before us a senseless thing."
    That is perfectly sound, and, if it is sound, then it is not enough for Ministers to say "we are simply going to fight until we get an absolute military victory, and until we seat ourselves on the throne of justice and show how we, in the plenitude of our power and of our own will, are going to settle affairs, so that war may never break out again." That is a nursery view of their responsibility, of our national pride, and of human nature. I do not say that that is the view held by the Government, but undoubtedly it is the view being preached ignorantly on thousands of platforms at the present time. But if the view of Clausewitz is the right one, what it means is this: That every military event ought to be studied by the Government for the purpose of translating it into its political end, and device of the devil, or a noose thrown back as though it were a trap, or a device of the devil, or a noose thrown around the necks of innocent Ministers. Every time a word is spoken it ought to be weighed, valued, and answered, and

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    the answer should be given in such a way as if you were fighting the fight with your brains. If the Germans have laid snares, do not, therefore, act like a man who refuses to take his food and dies because he is afraid that the food is poison. But that is what is happening at the present time. Every move that is made, as Lord Rosebery tells us, it is necessary that a reply should be given to it, and all the more necessary if it is deceitful than if it is honest, because the deceit consists in the offer being made for the purpose of getting such a reply from the Government or from the Allies as will enable these designing, wicked enemies of ours to turn round and say to the people, "We told you so. We have made an offer. Look at the reply! The only answer we can get is an answer at the point of the bayonet."
    For years the Government has been pursuing that policy. On nine occasions during the last eighteen months opportunities for replies have been offered and no replies have been given. I am not going to weary the House with details. My hon. Friend (Mr. Morrell) has already supplied some. I am trying to summarise the general principles which divide us and to state the methods which we, on the one hand, hold to be the true methods, but which the Government, on the other hand, hold not to be the true methods. We believe that up till now the true methods have not been properly resorted to. We believe that every one of these offers, quite irrespective of the value which attaches to them, ought to be taken by His Majesty's Government and to be analysed, not in a pettifogging way, not by way of a small incident in Debate, but so that the whole field may be cleared. If that is done then our enemies will discover that peace offensives, instead of bringing about disruption among the Allies, would lead to their own disruption and their own undoing, that is, of course, assuming that they are dishonest. But if, on the other hand, they are honest, then they may lead to something on which peace can find a secure basis. I once said, and I repeat it now, that no offer the Germans have yet made would be satisfactory as a peace. Is the right hon. Gentleman living in the hope that he is going to get an offer at some time from the Germans that he can accept all round, without any amendment, without any negotiation, without any bargaining, without any taking away, or any
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    building up? I am perfectly certain he is not. He knows perfectly well that when the time comes, and God will it come soon, when that statement, whatever it is to be and however it is to be made, either by the Allies or from the Central Powers, when that statement is made which at last is to be seized upon as an opportunity for discussing peace, he knows I say that that statement is not going to be the final form of the peace. The only quality that that statement will have is that it will be a promising one which will justify both sides in going on and exploring the matter further. Nine times that has happened. Nine times answers ought to have been given and were not given. I am not going to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman he could have made peace on any occasion. That is not my argument at all. But I say this. It is his responsibility to the nation and to Europe. It is a responsibility to the Allies I am not going to confine myself to that. It is a responsibility to Count Hertling, and to the Central Powers. It is a responsibility to the Government to take every opportunity, and to see that no opportunity is missed for examining and exploring every one of these statements, every one of these offers, to see whether they are sound or not. No single one ought to be rejected until it has been proved to be dishonest, and it cannot be proved to be dishonest until replies have been given.
    The second part of the Resolution declares that the original objects for which we entered on the War are not being carried out by the secret treaties; Here, again, the right hon. Gentleman went back to an old point, and asked what Count Hertling had said about Belgium. The right hon. Gentleman says that no definite statement has yet been made. But has he ever tried to get a definite statement? It is his responsibility, as well as Count Hertling's. If the right hon. Gentleman were in Count Hertling's position at the present moment what would he do? Assume for a moment that Count Hertling was Prime Minister of this country, and that the right hon. Gentleman had changed positions with him. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us quite honestly what position he would consider himself in at the present time in making a statement about Belgium? Would he, in making such a statement, say all that he meant to say? Would he give the whole of it, or would he merely say, "I am only going to give enough to

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    indicate something which may be done," but which would not be completely satisfactory? The right hon. Gentleman has said as we have said, and there is no division of opinion about it, therefore, that Belgium must be restored. We have all said that a patched-up peace, that a peace which left Belgium un-restored, which would leave a big Power in possession of that corner of Europe, would be a peace which could not be acceptable. And, having said that, we have gone further, and asserted that an investigation ought to be made as to the qualified statement which Count Hertling did make with regard to Belgium. We know that the great organs of German democracy, the "Vorwaerts" and the "Leipzig Volkszeitung," have said plainly that Belgium is to be restored. Those great organs of German democracy have said that quite definitely, and there is an organisation with that object. I do not want to exaggerate its importance. It is an unknown quantity, but I believe the force of it is very much greater than the right hon. Gentleman imagines, and, from what knowledge I have of the movement, I think we may assume that its power is not exagerated. I believe the attitude of the Government is preventing that movement from fructifying in a real peace movement in Europe. It is really demanding that the German Government shall abandon its present position. It is demanding, further, that the German Government, in the form in which it is to-day, shall cease to exist, and that it shall abandon its present purposes.
    However, that is leading astray. I want to confine myself to this argument. The Government did not enter this War on account of Belgium. The Government entered this War on account of European obligations. The people accepted the War on account of Belgium. Belgium was not the cause of the War on 3rd August; it was the cause of the War on the 5th. The people of our country, the men who flocked to the Colours, accepted this War because Belgium was invaded, and because, thank God, it was their decision to stand by small and oppressed nationalities. What happens with these secret treaties? You are not vindicating the right of Belgium at all. You are putting Belgium in a pool, and, by starting new issues, by widening the scope of the War, you are weakening
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    the Belgian chance of final restoration. As a matter of fact, you are doing what Lord Bolingbroke described this country as having done in connection with the War of the Spanish Succession, that, in order to keep our Allies, we had to make treaties which made victory impossible. History may repeat itself. I hope it will not. There were two natural consequences of the War which were not involved in the opening of the War. First of all we want security. We cannot live in Europe without some security. How are we going to get it? It is said, by a League of Nations. Yes, but a League of Nations is not going to be established in the frame of mind in which so many of our people are living at the present moment, and I, for one, heartily welcome the statement made by Lord Grey and published to-day, although some parts of it may not be very welcome to those who imagine we are going to end this War by a great Waterloo, Paris resolutions put in full force, and so on. The great sanity in that statement is the one guarantee of a real security for Europe.
    It is a profound mistake to imagine we are going to solve all European difficulties by this War. It is very easy to try to draw up a war programme. It is a very delightful thing for anyone not fighting to sit down by his own fireside and say what he would remedy as a result of this War. Some of us would make a clean sweep of Europe if we could, but it will never be got by fighting. One thing we hope will happen as a result of this War is that the moment a truce comes, the moment that this tremendous war momentum, that is pushing us ahead against our own will, has stopped, and we can face the problems about us, at that moment the peoples of Europe will come together, and in their enthusiasm and their sorrow and pain and suffering will there and then on the spot, before the experience has gone out of their minds, create something which will make it impossible for such a state of things ever to take place again. Therefore, to do that we must have liberation, but it is not coming from the battles. There may be some battles to give the opportunity for liberation, but the liberation is only going to come at the peace table. Again, if we take Belgium in relation to the secret treaties, we are only jeopardising her by raising useless issues. If we take security and say we are aiming at this, again we are destroying it, because the spirit of the

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    secret treaties was precisely the spirit in which the Franco-GermanWar was treated, and that destroyed the peace of Europe. This is the Franco-German War started afresh. A patched-up treaty is a patched-up treaty, no matter what period it lasts—it may be a month, six months, six years, or twenty years. The Treaty of Frankfurt was as much a patched-up treaty and a military peace as the Treaty of Amiens. One went for forty years and the other for only a month, but the features were essentially the same. And in these secret treaties you have the spirit, you have the programme, you have the intention, and you have the method which was embodied at the end of the Franco-German War. Whatever the right hon. Gentleman's intentions may be, what I say is true. Make peace in that way and you have destroyed the security of Europe for the next forty years. Liberation is not the object that is being pursued.
    I would like to make my third point. It is that this is a barrier to democratic peace. It is a barrier to democratic peace because democratic peace must have all the qualifications which I have just shown are violated by the secret treaty documents. It is also a barrier to democratic peace for the reason that I have already given. This thing is the most valuable propaganda that can be circulated in Berlin and Vienna. There is nothing better for the purposes of the Central Powers at the present moment. The Poles first of all honestly believed in Germany and that Austria was going to liberate Poland. In the end they discovered they had made a mistake. Of all the revelations that have been disclosed dividing these people into separate camps, exposing all the games that have been going on, we could not take advantage. It is pitiable, it is heartbreaking, that this sort of thing should go on month by month and year by year. If this country, and particularly the Press of this country, could make up its mind that this matter has to be settled round a table, then, although the War might have to go on, because you could not stop the momentum altogether, at any rate that is the first step to salvation, the first step to peace, and, what is much more, the first step for the victory of our moral aims. There was one thing I was very glad to read in a speech the right hon. Gentleman made in the Mansion House, as reported in the "Times" of 8th April, 1918:
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    "The gains of territory they have made against efficient Armies, prepared as they were prepared in the field, have not been great. But I would remind our German friends,—"
    I have been accused very much for having used that expression. The right hon. Gentleman used it, and I do not think any person who understands the problem that faces this country will blame him for using it—
    "if they have gained, as they suggest, they have also lost a great deal of territory to ourselves or to our Allies."
    In that generous language which he used he did have in his mind that this thing must be settled by negotiation. Then why does he not take his opportunity? Why does he not see that the military side, the War Office, is essential on one side of the room and that the Foreign Office and the diplomatic staff is essential on the other side of the room; that the War Office cannot move an inch either in advance or in retreat, but that that inch provides some problem for the Foreign Office to settle; that not a breath should come over the sea from Berlin or Vienna, whether it is an Emperor's letter or a speech or resolution in the Reichstag, without being answered; that this idea of the knock-out blow, that this idea of clearing the whole decks merely for military purposes, whilst diplomatists stand in the background doing nothing, waiting for the time when peace will be declared, is a mere childish dream of the impossible? Just as the military must be vigilant and sleepless in their work, so the diplomatists must be vigilant and sleepless in their work. On this occasion, with the military situation as it is, seizing that situation as an opportunity for making the appeal, rather than for being faint-hearted and allowing the old policy to be pursued to its impossible end—seizing that opportunity, I appeal to this House, and I appeal to the Government, to bring fresh minds to bear upon this terrible problem that Europe is groaning under, for, as Walpole says in one of his letters, this War is "dozing into peace." It is settling into habit. We are beginning to get so much in the rut that we cannot use a nimble and fresh intelligence to lift us out of it. Diplomacy, negotiation, the round table, the possibility of settlement, every opportunity, however apparently profitless, however apparently dishonest, however apparently dangerous—let nothing be thrown away as useless, no scrap thrown away as rubbish. They say some of us are

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    defeatists. Neither defeat nor surrender is in my vocabulary. The real defeatists are the people who are pursuing that which every war has shown to be illusory. They, not we, trust in the old policy which is going to make war in Europe ceaseless by this War ending in a heritage of war. That is defeat! If the hon. and gallant Member for Christchurch holds the views he suggests he ought to publish them, and not profess something different. Let us in these matters be perfectly candid. If the policy certain hon. Members are pursuing is followed Europe will never be free from war, and when you end a war, whether it be Germany against France or whatever the war may be, and if five days after you begin to arm again for the next struggle, then I say, tell that honestly to the people and do not allow the people to believe that we are engaged in a war for the purpose of ending all war. I am in the War for the purpose of ending all war. Because that is so I say that you will have to adopt a method which the history of Europe shows has never been adopted before, because if you go upon the old lines they will fulfil the old ends and nothing else. Therefore I appeal to the Government to bring freshness of mind to the problem, to these problems of diplomacy. I appeal to the Government to see that war is a political institution justified by its political ends and not by its military ends: that the old policy of military ends, if pursued, leads to further wars, and cannot secure peace.
    Mr. BONAR LAW Mr. BONAR LAW rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Main Question again proposed.

    MADSEN GUN.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I meant, at a later stage of these proceedings, to raise a question of which I had given notice to the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for War, namely, the inquiry which was recently held into the merits or the demerits of what is known as the Madsen gun, and to make some further inquiry as to the conditions under which the trial took place, and the reasons for the adverse
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    reports which were issued. I wish, in the first place, to make it quite clear that any arguments I may address to the House are not intended to have the effect that has been suggested, that the present Lewis gun is not a good gun. From such information as reaches me from those I know in the Army I can state the opinion that the gun is a good gun, and that the warning which was conveyed at the end of my right hon. Friend's answer yesterday was really not in point. Because, however, a weapon is a good weapon, it by no means follows that it is the best one, and, indeed, there was a hint, I believe, in the statement made by Lord Elphinstone in another place, that part of the official reluctance to accept the Madsen gun and to cease or to slow down the manufacture of the Lewis gun was due to the fact that they themselves had something better in mind. However that may be, I desire to ask for the conditions under which this particular gun was tried the other day. There are certain attributes, if I may use that word, which I imagine every mechanical gun should possess. I want to draw a very clear distinction between a machine gun and a mechanical gun, which is the kind of gun used by the Infantry or the Cavalry from the shoulder. The Madsen gun is used almost, if not absolutely, entirely for the purposes of defence. The two weapons are designed for different purposes, and do not enter into competition with each other.
    There are certain attributes which every mechanical gun ought to possess. They are rapidity of fire, reliability, freedom from jamming, accuracy of range, invisibility of discharge, lightness or small weight, the capability of being handled by a small crew, and simplicity of mechanism. From the information which reaches me it is possible to demonstrate that this particular Madsen gun is superior in all these respects, except one perhaps, and in a minor point, to all other mechanical guns with which it has been put in contrast. Take the question of weight. Weight at a time when man-power is short is of extraordinary importance. The Lewis gun in use at the present moment weighs 28lbs., and requires two men to transport it and two men to work it. The Hotchkiss gun again weighs 28lbs., and requires, I am told, two men to transport it and two men to work it. On the other hand, the Madsen gun, with its spare barrel—and I might remind the right hon.

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    Gentleman that the spare barrel of the Lewis gun is not brought into action at first, but is carried on transport—the Madsen gun with its barrel weighs only 20 lbs., which is a clear gain on every gun, a point of considerable importance when large numbers are in use in the Army. When you come to the question of the magazine of the respective guns there is a clear gain of 80 lbs., showing a superiority in a matter of transport of the Madsen gun over the Lewis and Hotchkiss guns. That saving of 80 lbs. per gun is of enormous importance to an army where the transport is one of first importance. I come to the question of reliability. I am sorry the Under-Secretary is not here because these are questions on which I should like answers from the War Office, and the War Office for the technical purpose of answering is—I believe I am right in saying—not here. I hope, however, I may take it that the Financial Secretary will reply?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the War OFFICE (Mr. Forster): Oh, yes!
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I know the difficulty. The Debate has come on quite suddenly, but I trust, nevertheless, I may get an answer upon the points I put because they are of first importance. Take the matter of reliability. It is well known to everyone in this House that one of the greatest difficulties of the war in Flanders has been the extraordinary conditions—the mud and the water. Therefore, at this trial on Friday, there was a trial made as between five different guns, the Madsen gun, the Lewis, the two Hotchkiss guns (light and heavy), and the Berthier. There was a trial of reliability. All these guns were immersed in an equal mixture of mud and water—that is to say an attempt had been made to reproduce the trench conditions of warfare. In what degree of efficiency did these guns respectively come out of this test? I am told—and I believe my information to be absolutely correct—that at the end of the trial the condition of the guns was this: that the light Hotchkiss gun, namely, that which is now used by the Cavalry, would not fire at all; that the Lewis gun, which is of a quick-firing character, would only fire single shots—that is to say, would only fire when the trigger was pressed by the finger and would not lire continuously at all; and that the Madsen gun fired continuously—as it normally does—without any hitch of any sort or
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    kind. If that statement, which was made to me, is an accurate account of what took place upon this, which is a vital point in the use of these guns, namely, successfully repulsing an attack of the enemy, the Madsen gun had an enormous advantage over its competitors, and the reasons for this advantage is that the mechanism of discharge in the Madsen gun is by recoil and not by the operation of gas. The consequence is that there is nothing to clog, there is no particular need of cleaning, and this is not an incidental but an inherent superiority of the one method of construction over the other. That is the explanation given to me upon this point.
    I was told yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for War (Mr. Macpherson), who has just come in, that one of the tests was what he called, I think, the 1,200-rounds test. This test, so I am informed, was made not in respect of the rapidity of the time occupied in the discharge of the shots. The various guns got off their 1,200 shots as leisurely as the persons working the guns chose to discharge them. Each gun, at the end of that test, was to emerge in the best and most efficient condition. That is what I am informed took place. It is represented to me that the Lewis gun fired its first 900 shots quite easily and then jammed, and fired its last 300 shots with considerable difficulty. They were fired in batches of fifty apiece, and it took from fifteen to eighteen minutes to discharge these shots in the Lewis gun, whereas the Madsen gun fired the whole of 1,200 shots without any hitch or difficulty in a period of from eight to ten minutes. If that is accurate it shows, so far as these particular trials were concerned, the superiority of the Madsen gun over the Lewis gun.
    Another important attribute of this mechanical contrivance is accuracy. Upon what conditions were these tests decided? I understand that in the case of the Madsen gun it was put into the hands of a musketry instructor who had certainly not more than once handled the gun, and that the ordinary Lewis gun was put into the hands of a crew, I do not know of how many, brought over from headquarters who had been accustomed to handle the gun, and had fired many hundreds of thousands of shots from it. If those were the conditions they were not fair as between the two guns, and I daresay my right hon. Friend opposite will

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    either be able to confirm or deny the accuracy of the statement I have made, which is what actually was reported to me. I understand that under these conditions the accuracy of the Lewis gun was found to be much greater than the Madsen gun. If the conditions were uniform and the accuracy of one was greater than the other, that would make all the difference, but if the conditions were not uniform then that superiority in accuracy ought not to count for very much.
    Now I come to a very important point upon which, I believe, there is in the minds of those who actually handle constantly the Madsen gun no doubt whatever. I pointed out before that the Madsen gun is carried by one man, while the Lewis gun and the Hotchkiss gun require two men, and this one man also carries the spare barrel which is to be used when the Madsen gets too hot by continuous firing, when you have to change the barrel before you can bring the gun into action again. Now, because it is carried by one man, and because it is easily and conveniently carried by Cavalry and by Infantry, because it comes into action sooner than any other mechanical gun, and because to change the barrel of the Madsen gun takes only fifteen seconds, whereas to change the barrel of the Lewis gun takes twenty minutes, there is an enormous difference between the value of the two guns when repulsing attacking Infantry. I am told, but of course I cannot vouch for it because I have no personal experience, that when the German Infantry advance they come forward in successive waves, but they so time their action that the first two waves follow closely after each other, and the time occupied in repulsing those two waves occupies three or four minutes of intense rapid mechanical gun firing. The Lewis gun goes out of action because it gets so hot and it takes twenty minutes to cool, and a fresh barrel has to be got, and that takes something like fifteen to twenty minutes to change. If that statement is true, and that is what is represented to me, the use of a gun with a barrel which can be changed in fifteen seconds, and which can be brought into action again at the end of fifteen seconds, must be an immense advantage to the troops using it in preference to the one that takes so long to change and so long to cool. I am told that it takes not more than two days to learn the use of and to take to pieces the
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    parts of the Madsen gun. Therefore, if you begin absolutely de novo with both guns simultaneously you can learn the use of the Madsen gun in a couple of days, whereas to learn the use and the piecing together and taking apart of a Lewis gun takes at least a fortnight. I do not know if these figures are inaccurate, but I daresay my right hon. Friend opposite will put me right if I am wrong.
    I come now to the mechanism. The simplicity of a gun of this sort must be of the first importance in considering its use in the field. I am told that the Madsen consists of forty-one component parts. The Lewis guns consist of 114 to 125 component parts, but when you come to the working of the parts I am told that the Madsen gun consists of sixteen, only nine of which need to be taken to pieces when dismantled, and only nine are required to be put together again to put the gun into working order, whereas the Lewis gun has eleven working parts. I am not a mechanic, and I have no practical knowledge of the working of either of these guns, and I cannot say what the balance of advantages is on figures like those I have given, but I cannot imagine that there is any disadvantage in them against the Madsen and in favour of the Lewis gun in a statement of that sort. I am told that at this trial, when certain points were allotted to these two guns, one against the other, fault was found with a number of component parts in the Madsen gun, but I may point out that while the Madsen gun was entirely stripped of all its parts and taken to pieces, the Lewis gun was only partially stripped. If that is so, I think there ought to be reconsideration of the question from that point of view alone.
    I come next to what are made distinct and admitted drawbacks of the Madsen gun. I may say that I have no interest whatever in this matter except to see that this gun has a fair trial. There are two admitted drawbacks to the gun, and one is the visibility of the drum, which projects 8 ins. or 9 ins. above the level of the gun, whereas all these other mechanical guns have nothing projecting above the surface. The other drawback is the flash. I understand that it would be most difficult to make any change in the visibility of the drum. I cannot imagine that the visibility of an object 9 ins. high, which has certain very valuable qualities, would necessarily so

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    attract the eye at a distance of some hundreds of yards as to make that gun for that reason not a desirable one to use. When you come to the flash, I know that that has been held to be almost a fatal objection. But the flash of the Madsen gun is no greater than that of the Hotchkiss gun. Other things being equal, it is quite fair to say that the gun which has a great flash visibility is not so good as one with a low flash visibility. I understand you can, by a simple contrivance, reduce this great visibility of the flash to an almost negligible quantity; indeed, that was admitted by the spokesman of the Government when this matter was discussed in another place a month or two ago.
    My right hon. Friend opposite laid great stress, in his answer to me the other day, on the fact that the competitors had expressed themselves satisfied with the conditions laid down. I dare say they were satisfied with the way in which the conditions were carried out, but the right hon. Gentleman said they were satisfied with the conditions laid down. I am told that there was one condition laid down which was never carried out, and this condition, I am informed, was that there was to be, at the end of all the other trials, a trial of a continuous discharge of 5,000 rounds. That test was never carried out, and I do not know why. I think it ought to have been carried out if it was one of the conditions laid down. The suggestion made by the friends of the Madsen gun is that 1,200 rounds disposes of the ability of the Lewis gun to fire a greater number continuously and rapidly, and they put that forward as a reason why the authorities were not disposed to put the Lewis gun to the test, which they knew it would not stand. That may be an exaggerated statement, and there may be something of that sort underlying what was in the minds of the Artillery authorities. At any rate, that was the suggestion made to me.
    8.0 P.M.
    I am also told that the corps commander who came to superintend these trials laid it down that no mechanical gun would be expected to fire more than fifty rounds per second. I can hardly believe that such a statement was made, but I am told that that is the fact. That may be prejudice, and, if so, that would dispose of it, but I hope that that is not the reason why the 5,000-rounds test was dispensed with. One of the reasons why I brought this matter again before the House was
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    that every previous trial which had been made with this gun had resulted in a favourable report being given of it. It was tried first on His Majesty's ship "Excellent." It was then tried at Hythe at the beginning of this year by the Small Arms Committee, and again a favourable report was made. It was tried, I think, somewhere in this country in May, 1918, by a body of machine-gun experts, who reported favourably upon it. I understand that the Ministry of Munitions also reported favourably upon it. The chief opponent, if I may use that word—the chief critic; I will not put it stronger than that—is the Ordnance Department of the War Office. The Ordnance Department of the War Office during the course of this War have opposed the introduction of several weapons which have been of the highest importance. They opposed the introduction of the high explosive shell, and they opposed the introduction of the Stokes gun, both of which have been found absolutely essential for the successful prosecution of the War. Do not let that Department prevent the War Office taking advantage of another invention, which, if all the accounts which reach one are sound, may really have a determining effect in one or other of these battles which are still in front of us. It has also been suggested to me that one of the reasons why the War Office may be loth to embark upon the manufacture of this gun is the question of price, because the patentee is over-greedy, and, to use a colloquialism, "opens his mouth too wide." I do not desire that any person should be overpaid, but, after all, within limits, we ought not to stint expenditure in a matter of this kind. Therefore, I hope that one reason may not be the cause why this weapon has been rejected.
    It has also been said that to set up a factory for the manufacture of the gun would be difficult, and that the output at first would be small; but I understand that it would not be very difficult to use the machinery and factory now being employed in the manufacture of the Lewis gun, with certain adaptations, which would not take a very long time. I will not dwell upon the possibility of bringing machinery to this country, but that is a course which I fancy the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Kellaway), responsible for the Munitions Department, knows it is

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    not impossible to pursue and it has been suggested. I do say, even if it is not possible to put up factories and machinery sufficient to manufacture the Madsen gun for the Infantry, that it would be possible to do so for the Cavalry, who, it has been represented to me, having tried the gun, ardently desire to use it, because it is convenient and they can come into action with it quicker than with the gun which they at present use, and because it would give the soldiers—I will not say that confidence is or ought to be lacking in their present weapon—something in which they had greater confidence. For these reasons, I desire to press upon my right hon. Friend a reconsideration of this matter, to which many of us attach very great importance.
    General Sir IVOR PHILIPPS: The history of the Madsen gun is a very remarkable one. When the present Minister of Munitions was First Lord of the Admiralty he ordered a large number of these guns for the Admiralty, but they were unable to be delivered, because under Danish law it was impossible to export them from that country. When the present Prime Minister was Minister of Munitions, he placed a large order for these guns, and arrangements were made to manufacture them in this country, a well-known engineering firm being commissioned to carry out the work. The factory, I believe, was nearly completed—this was in 1915—when the more urgent demands for aircraft engines decided the Government, and I have not the slightest doubt very properly decided them, to transfer this factory into an aircraft factory, and nothing more seems to have been done about this gun. It was, dropped from that time. There was one rather unfortunate condition which resulted from the dropping of the gun. Those people who had taken a good deal of trouble to introduce it to the Government, and who to a considerable degree had helped in starting this factory, were never able to get any compensation for the work that they had done. The Government refused to accept any liability for the work, and said it was part of the business of the firm concerned. The firm denied any liability, because they said they had undertaken it on behalf of the Government. From that moment the Madsen gun was dropped. There were still many people, however, who believed that it was the finest machine-
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    gun in the world, and recently it has come prominently before the public of this country.
    There is no doubt that the Government have had it before them too, because there are various letters in existence showing that negotiations from time to time have been going on between the owners of the rights of this gun and the Government Departments concerned. The last letter that I have seen on this subject was dated 8th April this year, when the Government were so far satisfied as to the merits of this weapon that they made a definite offer to the owners to purchase the rights. Therefore, a little over two months ago, the Government had decided to purchase this gun. I did not know that this offer had been made by the Government, and unfortunately I raised the question in this House and was told by the Minister of Munitions that the Government did not intend to do anything in the matter, although at that time the offer of the Government was actually still in existence. That offer was withdrawn two days after I raised the question in this House. A few days after I raised the question in this House and received the reply from the Minister of Munitions that nothing was to be done, the question was raised by a Noble Lord in another place. He was told that a further trial would be given, and I welcomed that reply of the Government because I thought that at last there would be a real trial and that we should know whether this gun really was the satisfactory weapon that we who had supported this latest introduction believed. I may say at once that if I and those hon. Members who have been working with me in this matter thought that this was not as good a gun as the present gun with which the troops are armed we should at once withdraw any pressure on the Government to introduce it. The trial took place, and I am satisfied, from all that I have heard, that it was in every respect a very unsatisfactory trial. There are many points on which faults may be found with it, but the chief fault is a matter of great principle. The Madsen gun was asked to show how it would compare with the Lewis gun. The Lewis gun was given the lead and the Madsen gun had to follow. If you really want to find out what the new gun can do, you ought to let the Madsen gun set the pace and let the Lewis gun follow it. That was not done.
    I feel very acutely that this matter has not been treated in a proper manner by

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    the Government Departments concerned. I must say, however, that I and those who are working with me have been received in a most courteous manner by the Minister of Munitions, who entered into a long discussion on the weapon. Yesterday also we were privileged to have a long conversation on the matter with the Prime Minister, and the reply he gave to us, though not, of course, all that we could have wished, was something gained. We were told that if certain objections to the gun could be remedied, then there would be another trial. That is satisfactory as far as it goes, and therefore I, for one, do not wish to press my right hon. Friend to-day. We are satisfied with the way in which the Prime Minister has met us, and we hope to have those objections which were raised at the last trial remedied very shortly. Then we shall look forward with confidence to a further trial. We appreciate the way in which we have been met in the matter, and nothing further is to be said except to prepare for that further trial. I feel, after the question has been raised, that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Macpherson) will do everything possible to make that trial a really effective one. The matter has aroused a great deal of interest throughout the country. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, the whole House, and the country, are determined that nothing shall be put in the way of supplying our troops with the very finest machine gun that can be made. This War has shown itself throughout to be a machine-gun war. In the early days it was the German machine guns, carried in any kind of motor car, taxi-cabs taken from the streets of Brussels and motor cycles, which drove our troops through the plains of Flanders and France back to the Marne. Again to-day we hear that it is the skilful use of the machine guns by the Germans that has had such serious effect on our line in France. Anything that we can do in improving the present machine-guns and making them even still more effective than they are—though I do not say a word against the Lewis gun, because we all know its great capacities and the great benefit the Army has received from its introduction—if we can get a better gun I am sure the whole country will welcome this movement on our part. I have nothing more to say except to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the courtesy with which all members of the Government have received the hon. Members who are working with me in this matter.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): I would like, first of all, to apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol (Sir C. Hobhouse) for not being in my place when he introduced the discussion. The course of public business altered during the evening, and I understood this particular point was not to be raised until after the discussion on recruiting. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Southampton (General Sir I. Philipps) have quite properly, I think, raised this very vexed question on this occasion, and I think the House must think, as I think, that there is nothing in their minds other than this, that they are supremely anxious in this great crisis in the nation's history that our men should have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, and of having, the very best available gun that this country can produce. I am able to state that meanwhile, in any case, our gallant troops at the front have had the advantage of the best available gun, the Lewis gun. The one great remarkable thing about that gun is this, that nobody who has criticised other guns has ever criticised that gun as a defective weapon, and there is this additional advantage—and this is a matter of great comfort to the people of this country—that everyone who has used it at the front still believes in it. But it does not follow that though this may be so we should remain content with any gun we have, if at any moment we are convinced that there is a better gun on the market. I can reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol that the question of price has not affected us in the very slightest. The lives of our men are priceless, and I am quite convinced of this—that the spirit of this country would not tolerate anything that discarded the best weapon available merely because it was expensive. As a matter of fact, every patent has a certain condition attaching to it. The War Office have the power, without mentioning terms or price at all to the patentee, to use the invention of any patentee without first of all waiting for any terms. I would like also to reassure the House that the Master-General of Ordnance, General Sir William Furse, has not really been the severe critic of this weapon that the public has been led to believe he has been. I know as a fact that General Sir William Furse was prejudiced in favour of this

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    particular gun, and it was only a question of the difficulty of securing labour, and another consideration of that sort, that persuaded him to go no further in his attempts to procure this gun for the nation. It was found impracticable to have an output in the near future of Madsen guns equal to the output at the present time of the Lewis gun. But that difficulty is got over by the broad-minded view of my hon. and gallant Friend. If I understand his contention aright, it is that he does not wish us for a single moment to hesitate in producing Lewis guns. Let us go on producing Lewis guns—
    Sir I. PHILIPPS Sir I. PHILIPPS indicated assent.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: —but at the same time we ought, so far as our labour allows us to do so, to supplement the output of the Lewis gun by the Madsen gun if it attains the perfection which we trust it will attain. That, to my mind, is a very sensible conclusion. There is no doubt about it that the Madsen gun at the present time is not up to the standard of perfection that we should like it to be. It is certainly not the best available gun at the present moment, and I say that for two distinct reasons. First of all, the object, the first object, of the best gun is to be accurate, and at the present moment the Madsen gun has not attained the standard of accuracy of the Lewis gun.
    Sir I. PHILIPPSrose—
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I know what the point is. The point which was put with regard to this particular test of accuracy by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol is this: that the men who fired the Lewis gun were the best men you could produce in France. It is true, we took from France a first class team, men who have fired that gun in season and out of season, in mud and on dry land, men who know the weapon through and through; and the extremely fine marksmanship of those men showed that they knew their weapon through and through. What happened with the Madsen? My right hon. Friend's contention is this: that the Madsen gun had not the same type of expert to fire it. My information may be wrong, but it is this: that the Danish officer who took charge of that gun has fired that gun in various parts of London, and it was left to him to choose the men he would like to fire that gun at the trial
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    at Bisley. He got experts from the Guards' machine gun corps of his own choosing. I do not think my right hon. Friend would suggest that we could go any further. We allowed him to choose his own experts from the men who had fired that gun when it gave such excellent exhibitions throughout the City of London.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: The information which has reached me was this. It is quite definite information; I could give the name and rank and so on of the man who fired the gun. The information was that that man had not fired that particular gun more than once previous to the trial. That is the definite information that reaches me.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I was not aware of that. Of course, it that is true, it does alter my contention a little, but I will make inquiries into that particular point, and I will let my right hon. Friend know, because I should not like to make a point on a matter of that sort unless I had been assured beforehand that what I said was strictly accurate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol made a further point of the fact that there was a condition that it was necessary to fire 5,000 rounds at the end. I believe there was such a condition in the fact that I saw the conditions of the trial, and one of the conditions was that if there were time at the end, or if it were possible at the end, they would fire at a distance of 400 yards some 5,000 rounds. The Committee was presided over by a very distinguished corps commander who has seen as much fighting as, I should think, any other corps commander in the field. He is appointed now Inspector-General of Training, so that from our point of view we could not possibly have got a better man for these trials. He was assisted by a very brilliant Staff officer who has seen the machine-gun in every kind of action, who has seen it in the battalion, in the brigade, in the division, and in the Army, and has seen it under every kind of condition. The third member of the Committee was a brilliant officer who had been before the War the chief inspector of machine-gun training in the Army. I think he was known to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Southampton. I am sorry it should be thought that the trials were unsatisfactory. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend does not impute that these distinguished and gallant members

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    of the Committee intended to make the trials unsatisfactory. I gathered from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Bristol that he has come to his view that the trials were unsatisfactory because the condition was not fulfilled that the Madsen gun should fire 5,000 rounds.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Not only that. I am not quite sure that my right hon. Friend was in the House when I alluded to what I called the mud-and-water test. It was reported to me that in that particular test the Madsen gun gave a better result, and that one particular test—the 5,000-round test—in which it expected to come out far better than any other, was not applied. That is the position that was presented to me.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Let me take the 5,000-rounds test first. The answer, and I understand it is the only answer, to that is that these guns were to be fired under service conditions, and those distinguished members of the Committee came to the conclusion that it was not humanly posible for any machine gun to have an opportunity of firing 5,000 rounds in a day in any part of the battlefield, but that it was quite a common thing for the Lewis gun to go forward with 1,200 rounds, which was the normal amount of ammunition expended so far as that particular gun was concerned on any one day. That is my information. As to the further point that my right hon. Friend made, namely, that the Lewis gun could not fire consecutively the same number of rounds as the Madsen gun because of the heat engendered in its barrel, I think that point has come to his mind because he thinks that the Lewis gun fires without any interruption 1,080 rounds. It does not. The idea that any machine gun fires consecutively at any given moment, without any interruption, that number of rounds is not correct. There is no such interruption in the attack by the Germans as my right hon. Friend suggests. They do not know whether our machine guns are going to desist for three, twelve, or twenty minutes, or at what range. As a matter of fact they do not know where the machine guns are situated. They do not know where the shots come from, because there are machine guns all along the line. My right hon. Friend must be misinformed about this point.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Is it not a fact that the barrel gets hot after firing 500 rounds? Does not that occur with nearly all these guns?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I believe it would get pretty hot if you fired those 500 rounds consecutively without interruption, but I am told that it is not done. It takes a good long while for the barrel to get heated if the shots are fired intermittently. Another point raised by my right hon. Friend before I came in was—if I am wrong he will correct me—that there was no comparison between the guns in the mud test. I am quite willing to admit that the best gun so far as the mud test is concerned was the Madsen gun. But there is a story going about that when the Lewis gun was about to be tried an attempt was made to thrust a piece of rag into the gun to keep out the mud. I need hardly tell my hon. and gallant Friend, who knows the conditions under which that gun may at any time have to be fired, that it is the custom for the skilled firer of the Lewis gun to have in his pocket the moment the gun is going through mud or water a piece of canvas, which he thrusts in to preserve in a dry state the part which contains the gas necessary to fire the gun.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I believe the gun becomes wet.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The experts with the gun came from France, and when the gun was about to be thrown into the mud they instinctively took this piece of canvas out of their pockets and began to put it in. The Inspector-General of Training instantly told them not to do it, and they did not. When the gun came out, it could not fire nearly as well as the Madsen gun. My authorities tell me that had the men been allowed to insert the piece of canvas the difference in excellence would not have been nearly so great. It is quite clear that no General Officer Commanding would allow his troops to go into action with the Madsen gun as it stands, because of the flash, even with the absorber on it. I saw it with and without the absorber, and I can assure the House and my right hon. Friend that you could see the flash hundreds of yards away. What would be the result if that gun were fired in the daylight, let alone at night-time? The machine gun and the gun team would have been wiped out in a quarter of an hour. One secret of the success of the machine gun is that it is quick, accurate, and able to be concealed. I am quite convinced that it would be sheer murder upon our part to ask our soldiers at the present moment to go into action with this gun as it is. But we are not deterred from going a

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    step further because of this fault. As my hon. and gallant Friend said, the Prime Minister has given instructions that the barrel of the gun should be lengthened, because experts tell us that in proportion as the barrel is lengthened so the liability to flash decreases. If, however, the barrel is to be lengthened for the sake of the balance of the gun you have also to lengthen the support beneath it, and it may be a considerable time before this addition or attempt at perfection has been carried through. I can assure the House, on behalf of the Government, that we will see what the result of this addition to the gun will mean. I can go a step further. I will say that the moment this gun has had its barrel lengthened and its proper support placed there, with any new addition made to it that will make it more perfect, it will nave a trial under real service conditions. I myself believe that a trial on a range, such as we had the other day, is not a complete or adequate trial for a gun of this sort. The only people who can judge the value of a gun are the man who has to fire it and the man who has to face it. I hope that the question of this gun will not be raised in discussion for some time, at any rate until such time as we have been able to fulfil our part of the contract. I have no reason at all—far from it—to complain of the speeches which have been delivered to-night. I have endeavoured as well as I could, not being an expert, to meet the points that have been raised. May I also express the hope that we may live to see the day when, if this is the best gun in the market, it shall be a British gun, used for British troops and by, British troops.

    MILITARY SERVICE (MEDICAL GRADING).
    Sir H. NIELD: I wish to raise the question of the inadequacy of the system of medical grading. I make these observations with a strong sense of duty, in order to prevent the multiplication, especially among the older men, of those tragedies with which those of us who are identified with tribunals are now becoming daily familiar. At the time of the National Service Act we had a great number of very difficult cases to deal with where it was absolutely necessary that the proper medical grading of the men should be ascertained without any doubt. It was difficult enough then for tribunals to determine what should be done with the
    608
    men under these conditions when they could absolutely rely upon the grading which the card disclosed. How much more so is it when we are dealing with men who, by reason of the extension of the age to fifty, are in a totally different class with regard to their commercial activity, with both domestic and business ramifications which make it absolutely necessary for us to be assured as to the genuineness and the completeness of the grading? I say with a full sense of my responsibility that unless something is done to put an end to the dissatisfaction which is daily growing a tide of discontent is rising throughout the country, and particularly in the southern part of the country, with which it will be very difficult to deal. I have watched the men who come before us, and I have been able, as I am quite sure other chairmen of tribunals have, who are giving up time which is generally valuable, and doing it continuously, to obtain after two years and three months some amount of experience and judgment, and one's own judgment in looking at some of these physical wrecks who come before you with grading cards marked 1 is that there cannot be a proper medical record of their fitness. In the hook issued in August, 1916, by the War Office, which is called Registration and Recruiting, the categories of medical fitness are set out, and on page 59 this is said:
    "Category A men should be able to march, to see to shoot, and hear well and to stand active service conditions."
    What is the meaning of active service conditions if it does not mean that they are physically fit for any military duty at the front and in the firing line which a man could possibly be called upon to undergo in this War?
    "Category B, free from serious organic disease, able to stand service conditions on the lines of communication in France or in garrisons in the tropics and in addition, if classified under B1. able to march at least five miles, to see to shoot with glasses, and to hear well. If B2, able to walk to and from work, a distance not exceeding five miles, and see and hear sufficiently well for ordinary purposes. B3, only suitable for sedentary work. Category C, free from serious organic disease, able to stand service conditions in garrisons at home, and, in addition, if classified under C1, able to march at least five miles, to shoot with glasses, and to hear well. Category C2, able to walk to and from work a distance not exceeding five miles and hear sufficiently well for ordinary purposes. C3 only suitable for sedentary work."
    It has been said again and again, in answer to questions within the last fourteen days, that there has been no

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    alteration in the system of grading. I turn, therefore, to the memorandum which is lettered MNSR, 24, issued by the Ministry of National Service. I do not see a date to it, but it was about the time when the alteration was made, therefore, we may presume, in November last year. I turn to what is defined there to constitute the new grading. I find on page 1 of that circular letter:
    "Grade 1 will comprise those who attain a normal standard of health and are capable of enduring physical exercise suitable to their age. Men must not suffer from organic disease with certain exceptions specified hereafter. Minor defects, such as teeth and eyesight, which can be removed or compensated for by artificial means, will not be regarded as a disqualification. Men who fulfil the conditions of Grade 1 will also be fit for general service in the Army."
    I turn to a memorandum which was issued by the Ministry of National Service, No. 13 of 1917, which is signed E. A. Sandford Fawcett, secretary of the Ministry, a definite statement of the medical grades of the National Service medical boards—
    "The MINISTER of National Service hereby directs as follows. These grades are four in number. Grade 1 is generally equivalent to category A."
    I have shown that Category A men are able to perform any service in the Army—
    "General service is the old classification. It includes those who attain a normal standard of health and strength and are capable of enduring an amount of physical exertion suitable to their age. They must be free from any serious organic disease or infirmity. Grade 2 is generally equivalent to Category B1 and C1, namely, garrison service abroad and garrison service at home in the old classification."
    The old classification also comprises lines of communication and service in the Tropics—
    "It includes those who, while not attaining the standard of Grade 1, are nevertheless able to stand a fair amount of physical strain and are likely to improve with training. Men in this grade should be able to march six miles with ease. They must have fair sight and hearing and must be of average muscular development Grade 3 is generally equivalent to the old categories B2 and C2 and B3 and C3. It includes those men who from any cause are not likely to be suitable to undergo military training for combatant service. As a general indication of the service for which they are required in the Army the following notes are published."
    They give certain positions in which they may be occupied either in auxiliary service or labour or sedentary occupations, and there are in the memorandum M.N.S.R. 24 specific directions that the medical board in grading men shall,
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    under the head of Grade 3, subdivide A, B, and C, so as to indicate whether a man should be put to auxiliary service or labour or sedentary occupations. It is the suppression of that fact by order, so I am informed, by the military representatives at tribunals that very considerably hampers the tribunals in determining whether Grade 3 men whose obligations in civil life are not very onerous, ought to be put in the Army as Grade 3 men. If we knew under which of the three sub-heads he would be found and we could safely assume that he would be kept there many Grade 3 men whose other circumstances would not keep them necessarily in civil life would be sent into the Army. It is the absence of that that very considerably makes difficulties in the tribunals. That is the position in which we stand to-day.
    It is said that there has been no alteration in the grading. Grade 1 does mean and is in every respect equivalent to Class A. The Minister of National Service shakes his head. I cannot for the life of me understand after having read these two documents how it can possibly be contended that Grade 1 of to-day is not Class A. Merely saying it is not does not make it so. That is the reasonable interpretation of the language as printed in the books. It is said that our criticisms are unjustified. It is said that general figures have been given. I would like before passing from consideration of that to call attention to the Debates which took place in this House when the new Bill was introduced. It will be remembered that the Prime Minister made a statement distinctly saying that only 7 per cent. of these older men would find their way into the firing line. In other words, only 7 per cent. of them would be Class A men. There is no guarantee—and I hope the House will realise this—that once a man-is in the Army he will not be put to all the complete duties which fall upon the Service. There is no matter upon which there is a greater burden of complaint against the Army authorities to-day than this, that no matter what may be the category of the man when he is sent into the Army he can never be sure to retain that category for two days together. I know of my own knowledge that that is so. I have received letters so numerous that I think they would startle the National Service Ministry, though it has nothing to do with them, because the man leaves them the moment he is put into the Army.

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    I have evidence again and again of men who have been sent into the Army as C3 men, who have been posted to a battalion, and have been seen by the medical officer, who have had their categories altered. I know in many cases, from correspondence that has been sent to me for months past, that men who have been examined and who have broken down in service on the other side as well as here, have been before the medical travelling boards who should have been removed from Categories 2 and 3 in which the medical officers have placed them and have been put in Categoy A. That has happened again and again. I have known of cases, and I could turn up the whole correspondence which shows that there has actually been a conflict between the medical officer of the battalion and the travelling board, and the man has been treated as a kind of shuttlecock between them as to whether he should be Grade I, 2, or 3. If this uncertainty prevails when a man gets into the Army, then for Heaven's sake let us make sure what his category is before he gets into the Army! Seven per cent. was given to us as being the proper proportion of men between forty-two and fifty-one who would be going into the Army. The Minister of National Service, in the Debate on the 11th April, said:
    "I cannot say the exact number of medical examinations that will be carried out on any one day, but we are arranging for a total number of medical examinations somewhere in the neighbourhood of 25,000 to be carried out daily. That is about the limit we can go to with the medical boards."
    Then he said:
    "I will undertake that there shall be no delay in getting the medical examinations of these men pushed on, and we will get it going as rapidly as we can to got a medical examination satisfactory to ourselves."
    The burden of the complaint which we are hearing to-day is in respect of a district in London, where most certainly the examination has been speeded up under pressure, and that pressure is what I think this House will resent after the specific assurances that were given from time to time during the earlier Debate. During that Debate there was another speech to which I must call attention by the right hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones). He said:
    "The right hon. Gentleman spoke of 35,000 eases a day. Therefore, however careful medical boards are, the weaknesses that find us out in our years after forty-five are not observable at once by a board which is a stranger to
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    the man who comes before it for medical examination. They want to get the work done. They are being urged by the military authorities. I do not know what experience the right hon. Gentleman has had as yet of the hustling processes of the military authorities, who are anxious for men. The result will be that many men will be passed into the Army who ought not to be passed in. They will be in too high a grade and that will apply more and more as the age gets higher, for every year you go up the greater the danger is that more unfit men will be passed into the Army, and the greater will be the number of your breakdowns, and, therefore, the greater the burden which will have to be borne on your pension lists."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1918, Vol. 104, col. 1760.]
    Those were pregnant words, which ought to have been sufficient to ensure that the medical examination, especially after the Select Committee had made its Report and caused the whole system to be changed, and taken out of the hands of the War Office and put into the hands of the Minister of National Service, would be more satisfactory. We had every right to expect that, under these circumstances, and after this warning, they would have been most careful in what was done. I will not go further into details of the Debate at that time. The Minister of National Service stated the other day that the complaints only amounted to something less than 1 per cent., but it is no use dealing with percentages. We have no date with which to test them. We have not the period which they cover. One of my hon. Friends asked for data, but it was admitted that there was none. Therefore, there is no means of checking the percentage. What I do say is that in the course of something like three weeks—or, to be on the safe side, I will say four—no less than 400 applications have come up in the county of Middlesex alone to go from the medical boards to the medical assessors. I have a table showing the numbers received day by day for a certain period, which may possibly carry conviction if my general statement does not. On 30th May there were 12; on the 31st, 3; on 1st June, 11; Monday, the 3rd, 25; on the 4th, 21; on the 5th, 24; on the 6th, 44; on the 7th, 30; on the 8th, 29; on the 10th, 35, the day on which the question was raised in this House; on Wednesday, 11th, 28; on Thursday, 16; and on Friday, 17. Last Saturday it was 18, and Monday of this week, 12; and I am told that the tendency is an upward one now. I will show presently whether or not these applications are justified by the facts. I will deal with the cases which have come before the medical assessors, and which

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    have been sent by the Appeal Tribunal. Since November, 1917, no less than 30.4 per cent. of those applications in Middlesex have resulted in reduction of the grading. That is a very serious state of things, having regard to the assurances that were given. I may refer briefly to some of the cases that have been so reduced. I am perfectly willing that the particulars should be put at the disposal of the Minister of National Service. They are put forward for the purpose of showing the cause of the rising indignation of the public outside, so that the matter may be put promptly in hand. I will give some of the cases, so that it may be seen how7 things have worked. A man of thirty-nine was examined and put in Grade 2, and was reduced to Grade 3. One of twenty-seven was reduced from Grade 1 to 2. A man of twenty-five examined at Watford was passed Grade 1, and on being sent to the medical assessors was rejected altogether. The next reductions are from 2 to 3, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 2 to 3, 2 to 3, 2 to 3. Here is one who was put into Grade 2 with latent tuberculosis. Grade 2 was to include lines of communication, service in the tropics, and garrison duty abroad or at home. He was rejected entirely by the medical assessors. Another with a chronic deafness was put into Grade 3 and then totally rejected. These are illustrations of what is occurring.
    9.0 P.M.
    I pass now to give a few cases of men who have been had up again, who have been examined by the medical board, and whose cases are now waiting the decision of the assessors. There is a great number of these men. I take typical cases again. A man aged twenty-nine was put into Grade 1 by the City of London No. 2 Medical Board. He had been rejected. Then he was put in B1 by the Millhill people. Then he was rejected again by the medical board at Hampstead. Finally he was put into Grade 1 by the City of London Board. Here is another case. The man was put into Grade 2 by the City of London Medical Board. He served two years in the Army, until the 29th May, 1916, when he was discharged suffering from neurasthenia, insomnia, and gastritis. He had had trench fever and rheumatism, and yet he was regarded as being good enough for garrison duty and for lines of communication. Then there is a Grade 2 man with chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. What has become of all the directions that no man who a any time was suffering from tuberculosis
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    should be allowed to go into the Army? I know that that was subsequently modified into the direction that the answers were to be scrutinised more carefully, and inquiries were to be made before rejection. How comes it that over and over again we find cases of tuberculosis passed by the medical board? It is a common thing for me to have to direct that the applicant for exemption should go in the first instance to the county tuberculosis officer, in order to save time, because I am only anxious to further the duties of my right hon. Friend, and think it best to have this question first definitely disposed of. Then there is the case of a man of thirty who was put into Grade 1 by a West London board. He was twice discharged from the Army for valvular disease of the heart, and he was afterwards rejected. He was X-rayed, and this showed that he had an enlarged heart, which was greatly displaced downwards, and was suffering from valvular disease of the heart, and had general symptoms of tuberculosis, which conceivably were still quiescent but might at any time become active. Yet this man was passed into Grade 1 for full medical service. It is almost incredible.
    Another man of forty-four put into Grade 1 was suffering from cardiac degeneration and valvular disease, which was certified by an eminent physician of King's College Hospital. Then there is a case of a man with chronic gastritis, weak heart, lumbago, and sciatica. For some reason very little attention is paid to chronic gastritis and duodenal ulcer. Then there are two cases which I put in this House within the last few days. One is that of an excessively bad tumour extending from the neck to the shoulder, and when attention was called to it the man was told, "Oh, that does not matter. We will soon cut that out of you when we get you into the Army." That, surely, is not the way to recruit! That is not the sort of thing to bring before tribunals who are given the statutory duty of excusing a man on the ground of ill-health. Those are some of the cases which occur. I have also some special cases in which I have copies of the certificates. Here is a man put in Grade 2. He was a jobbing gardener, aged forty-four, and was examined by the medical board in Conduit Street. Seven years of all the directions that no man who at any time was suffering from tuberculosis

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    since then, while cutting with a chaff machine. Five years ago he broke two of his ribs. In 1917 he had an epileptic fit and fell down in the garden, and since then he cannot move his wrist. Later on he had a second epileptic fit. That is certified by two of the doctors. Yet that man is put into the category for lines of communication and garrison duty abroad. Both his limbs are stiff and can only be moved with great difficulty. Then there is a Grade 2 man who is suffering from epileptic fits which are most severe and are recurrent every three weeks. The medical certificates go to prove that.
    Then there is the question as to the meaning of the dissatisfaction which has arisen with regard to the categories. There was issued by the Director-General for the London region a circular letter, I think on the 3rd May. The writer states the conditions under which examinations were to be conducted by the medical board, consisting of four medical men and the president, and he describes the method of examination to be adopted. The number of the board was cut down to two members and the president, and the recruits were to be examined by one examiner, who was to refer all questions of doubt to his colleagues in order to avoid complaint that recruits were only examined by one doctor. The boards were to have five clerks each, and extra equipment that might be necessary was to be arranged. Anybody would think that these arrangements expressed on paper would at any rate be carried out, but I have in my hand a sheaf of letters which show that they have not been carried out. I have a letter from one of the examiners who was a member of two different boards and who was so disgusted at what was being done that he resigned and declined to take any further action. He states that when he was member of a board of medical examiners consisting of four and the president, different diseases were assigned to the various examiners, and after the recruit had passed from one to the other, cases of doubt were brought before the president, between whom and the examiners concerned there was a consultation. In this way a procession of recruits passed the examiners, each recruit taking one examiner about four or five minutes, and each was actually under investigation from fifteen to twenty minutes, which was ample time to find out his fitness for service in the Army. It was possible under this method, he says, to
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    examine twelve to fifteen recruits an hour, and in his opinion that system was efficient and reduced the possibility of mistake; it worked as smoothly and rapidly as was compatible with a fairly exhaustive examination. About the middle of May that system was replaced by the present system of examination, when the board was reduced to the president and two examiners. The examinations were expedited and from thirty to forty recruits were examined in two and a half hours, each examination of a recruit taking from four to five minutes. On this change being made the writer declined to go on, and has not since been a member of any board. He was a man fully qualified and had large experience in these matters, and it was only from a strong sense of duty that he wrote me as to this system, to which he declined to be a party. I have a letter of the 12th June relating to a man who was examined on the 27th May, who had previously been graded, and he was asked to produce his grade card, which mentioned the complaints from which he suffered. He was graded though he had certificates from other doctors showing that his pulse was 120, that he suffered from enlarged heart, hernia, and rheumatoid arthritis in the knees. The man was in weak health and was unable to undergo exertion, yet he was put in Grade 2. Another man writes me and states that when he was examined he entered the building at two o'clock and was out again at 2.25. He had previously been examined three times by four doctors and rejected, suffering from disease of the heart. Ha was examined last Saturday and he was put into Grade 1. The next letter comes from a professional gentleman living in my own Constituency, but writing from his office. He says:
    "I am forty-four. I was examined on Wednesday last, notwithstanding the fact that I have an affection of the heart which causes extreme faintness when I exert myself above normal; I can hardly see at all with my left eye. I have been graded 1. On my papers the affection of my heart was mentioned and also that I had a tendency to hernia…. I am willing to do my bit, but I do not think it is in the interests of the country that men who are likely to collapse under strain should be graded in the first-class—that is, men who under the previous grading would have been B2 or C3."
    In a second letter to me he says:
    "At Conduit Street I was examined by one doctor and partly by another, who devoted attention to my heart only."
    Another man writes to me from Soho:
    "I was called up for another examination at Camberwell on 29th May and after a brief

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    examination by only one doctor I was put in Grade 1 (he was previously Grade 3). I have sent two letters to the Minister of National Service, asking if I will be accorded the privilege which I would have had if I had been in Grade 1 or Grade 2 on the occasion of my first medical examination, but I have failed to get any reply."
    I may say that men who have been rejected or graded low and allowed to remain in civil employment and who have been brought up afresh and put in Grade 1 are now unable to obtain the position in the Army which they would have obtained if they had been passed Grade 1 before. They are now sent into the ranks as ordinary members of the military system. And so these letters continue. It is my duty to make it perfectly clear that these examinations are not now what they ought to be, and that it is mainly due to this attempt on the part of the authorities to speed up. I have not the least doubt that the Ministry of National Service has a tremendous task to deal with the number of recruits wanted by the Army, but at the same time I am sure that nobody could justify that the work should be done badly because of that. I saw it stated in the "Morning Post" of this week that a letter had been sent by the right hon. Gentleman to the Wallasey Tribunal, saying that the demand for men of the higher grades was so insistent that they must send every man they possibly could. That operates in the minds of some tribunals as being tantamount to an instruction, but other tribunals resent dictation of that sort and intend to go on the same as hitherto, ensuring, at any rate, that these men should have the same attention in the matter of their grading as had many of their sons, because that is what it comes to. Many of these men who are now being graded are the fathers of younger ones who have been taken under the old system. I hope the Minister will understand that I am making these criticisms upon facts which I can supply him with if necessary, and that they all come from one county. The figures reveal the extraordinary state of things that 34 per cent. show alterations in gradings, and that there are enormous numbers waiting and enormous numbers still to come in. This must show that there is something wrong, and I venture to think that no precaution is too great to take in order to restore the confidence of the public in the examination of these men, because everything depends upon these examinations. Only this very day have I written to the War Office about a man in
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    the Army who has spent three years in hospital, and who again and again has implored the military authorities to send him back to civil life. I, therefore, hope the House will take note that matters are not as they should be.
    Sir DONALD MACLEAN: I think the whole House will agree that it is very unfortunate that these repeated discussions should have to take place on the question of medical grading, especially after the Committee which sat some time late in the autumn. That Committee presented a most valuable Report, which was almost immediately acted upon by the War Office, and a new system of medical examination and appeal was set up which, on the whole, I most gladly acknowledge, effected a very great improvement in the medical examinations. I do not think I am at all exaggerating when I say that at the time of the introduction of the last Military Service Bill criticism of the medical examinations and complaints from the general public had sunk to a very low ebb. In the tribunal over which I have the honour to preside so much confidence had we in the medical board which was then sitting at Whitehall that often, instead of sending men to the special medical board, we sent them there for examination. In the course of twenty-four hours, often by the afternoon, they came back, and we were able to deal with them at once. That was the result of the new arrangements which were made, and undoubtedly they were acting on an established standard of medical fitness—A, B, or C, which subsequently became Grades 1, 2, and 3 which was roughly absolute; at any rate, it was quite stabular. I think it is not unimportant to go back to the condition of things which obtained when the last Military Service Act was before the House. I do not like to do it, but I feel that I must make some reference to a statement which I then made and questions I put to the Minister of National Service. We were discussing the question whether it was worth while to extend the age to fifty-one or fifty-six, and this was what I then said:
    "That leads me to ask a question of my right hon. Friend who is responsible for the National Service Department, and it is this: 'Is it or is it not intended to lower the medical standard?'"
    Then I paused, and as there was no response I went on:
    "I assume that it is not so intended. After what happened with regard to the medical

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    seandais, which revealed a condition of gross incompetence on the part of those responsible for them, I do not suppose that the Government would dream in the interests of the nation of reducing the medical standard."
    I went on to say that that being granted, what did my experience justify me in suggesting that they could get out of the new class? They said they expected to get about 7 per cent., and I suggested, from my experience of the then existing medical standard, with which we were so satisfied by our continuous experience of some months, that they would not get more than 3 or 4 per cent., taking in, of course, the necessary exemptions for serious hardship and the claim of national necessity. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Geddes) said he would get 7 per cent. But obviously the whole of our argument was based on the stabilisation of the then medical standard. Now it has been altered, and as a result you can get any proportion you like—7 per cent., 70 per cent., or 100 per cent., if you are going to juggle with your medical standards in this way; in fact, you will have your millions rolling in as a result. But I say here and now that if this House had had the slightest idea that the then accepted medical standard was going to be altered, it would never have passed that Act. It was on the assumption, of course, that the older men were going to be at least as fairly treated as the men of younger age that Parliament granted power to take men up to fifty-one. I think I may say I am speaking for the whole of the Members of this House when I assert it was on the understanding that there was to be no juggling with the medical standard, and that the old men were to be treated at least as fairly as the younger ones.
    Having cleared the ground to that extent, I want now to say a word or two about a reply given in the House of Commons a couple of days ago. Again, I must trouble the House with what was said on that occasion, because it is important, and goes to the whole root of the matter. In reply to a question by the hon. Member for the Edgbaston Division (Sir Francis Lowe), with regard to the standard for Grade 1, the Minister of National Service said:
    "I am glad to have this opportunity of stating that there has been no change in the standards of medical fitness required for classification in Grades 1 and 2. When introduced in October last the term 'Grade 1' was defined as meaning
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    men 'who attain the normal standard of health and strength and are capable of enduring physical exertion suitable to their age.' This definition was at that time placed in the Library of the House. It has never been varied. Current statistics covering large numbers of examinations show that there is no increase in the proportion of men placed in Grades 1 and 2. I would add that there is no difference in principle in the grading of men above and below forty-three years of age."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th June, 1918, col. 145.]
    The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that there had been no alteration in the policy of the Government Department in this matter. This was challenged by a further question, and then the right hon. Gentleman said, with regard to a statement I made as Chairman of the House of Commons Tribunal, that I did not know what the meaning of Grade 1 was when I made that statement. He added:
    "In view of the fact that Grade 1 is defined as meaning 'a man who attains the normal standard of health and strength and is capable of enduring physical exertion suitable to his age' that statement of the Chairman of the House of Commons Appeal Tribunal can have no meaning."
    It does not matter whether I know anything about grading or not. The real point is, Has there or has there not been any change in the standardisation of the medical tests? In passing, it might be useful to say that I have some knowledge on this matter obtained as a result of two-and a-half years of hard work. The right hon. Gentleman referred to what was placed in the Library. Let me read to the House what was placed there:
    "Grade 1 is generally equivalent to category A, general service, of the old classification."
    Those words are from their own circular. The Minister of National Service when he gave his answer in the House omitted to quote this, the governing sentence—
    "Grade 1 is generally equivalent to category A, general service, of the old classification."
    That is just what it really amounts to. What it means is, You are going to have a classification of men in the age in which they are—thirty to forty, forty to fifty, or fifty to sixty. You are not testing them as to their physical fitness for the work of the Army. You are applying a physical test to ascertain whether they are in Grade 1 of, their particular range of ages. I am quite certain that is not what the Army wants. The whole thing is easily reduced to an absurdity. You will find the genial octogenarian coming up. You will have men of sixty-five, of seventy-five, and of over eighty, all graded according to their standing in

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    those particular ranges. They will be wonderful old men for their age. That, I submit, is a new test for Grade 1. The proper test is the old A classification, which worked so admirably up to the passing of the last Act. It worked so admirably that we sent down without the slightest fear any number of cases to the ordinary medical board, and what really happened was this. In a period of about three months we sent down for re-examination from our Appeal Tribunal from 1,000 to 1,500 cases, and in no fewer than 70 per cent. of those cases the standard was either lowered, or the man was rejected altogather. I think I may say in 13 per cent. of the 70 per cent. the men were totally rejected. Let the House make no mistake. That was the standard for Class A, Grade 1, up to January last. It was the standard under which the whole of the tribunals of the country were working. Something must have happened since. We now know what it was. Grade 1 is not to be Grade 1, according to physical fitness, but it is to be Grade 1 of the age. I say that is trifling with the House of Commons. Is it any amusement to my hon. and learned Friend opposite (Sir H. Nield), to my hon. Friends here, or myself or others to be engaged in this constant strife on this question? Why, we want to work with the medical boards, not against them. But here this whole question is up again, and in a most acute form.
    Let me carry the thing a little further. I say Grade 1 test was "fit for the firing line." It would be impossible for tribunals to work fairly, and with the rough justice which alone we can use unless you have what you may substantially term the rough, absolute, physical medical test. Of course, the other standards are varying in other things. I wish to show how this will operate between the two different classes of men—the young men up to forty-one, and the older men afterwards. Serious hardship is constantly arising against the appellant, and so is the measure of proof which is put upon him to prove the national interest which will justify him in remaining out of the Army. What was serious hardship and national interest sufficient to keep him out of the Army a year ago is no argument to-day. What was sufficient six months ago is not sufficient to-day. It is going up always against the appellant. What has happened has been this: We
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    have been applying these standards of serious hardship and the weight of evidence of national interest to men up to forty-one, and in Grade 3, and we have been handing out to them almost automatically, when they have been usefully engaged, no matter what their age, for the last three or four months, exemptions for six months, with liberty to come again.
    See what is going to happen with regard to men of the older age. A Grade 1 man, as he is at present being passed, I say, is purely a Grade 2 man of the old and proper standard, and a Grade 2 man of the new standard approaches nearly every time to a Grade 3 of the old one. If we are going to be forced to deal with a man of Grade 2 of forty-four, we shall be passing him into the Army because his standards of domestic hardship and national interest have been rising steadily against him. A man of thirty-four, Grade 3, would get his six months; a man of forty-four, nominally Grade 2, is sent into the Army. [An HON. MEMBER: "No!" That is what is happening all over the country to-day. We happen to know what we are talking about. We are in it. A most unfair differentiation is being made, and cannot help being made, by lots of tribunals. Perhaps they do not care to take the strong line which some of us feel bound to do in the national interest and in the interest of fairplay. That is what has happened. I say the only safe way to give us a chance to discharge our very difficult duties is to maintain the old standard. That is what the Army wants, anyhow. There can be no doubt about that—none whatever. To deal fairly between the older men and the young men—if we are going to be forced to deal with those men on these lines of Grade 1 and Grade 2, when we know they are really not Grade 1 and Grade 2—you must re-examine all the men of the other class, so that then we should be able to deal with them on a fair basis, and send them into the Army as well as men of forty-four, forty-six, and forty-eight. That is the fair thing to do. I do not suppose that it is at all likely to happen.
    I want to draw attention for a moment to what happened to-day in the Tribunal sitting in the Committee-room upstairs. I do not hesitate to say it was a shocking and an appalling experience.

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    My hon. Friend (Sir Charles Nicholson) came at my quite casual invitation yesterday. I said, "Well, come up and see for yourself," and he endorses what I say. A shocking and an appalling experience took place there to-day. We dealt with thirty-two appeals from men to go to the medical service. We granted twenty-four of them; we refused application in the case of five; and three were not entitled. What has happened? One hates to over-elaborate these examples, but it is the only way to show what is going on. I will be as brief as I can. A man for forty-four is passed in Grade 1. And this was the undoubted medical testimony from men not only of standing in general practice, but men who are well-known in Harley Street and in Cavendish Square. This man had double stricture of the uretha, was venereal, and he had to get the passage opened at regular intervals. This man also had acute sciatica. A man of forty-two had epilepsy, hernia, and middle-ear suppuration. Anyone with medical knowledge here knows what a terribly serious matter that is. He was passed in Grade 2. He had two seizures of epilepsy during eighteen months, the last seizure being about a month ago! And here was the evidence of a doctor testifying to this. A doctor at Charing Cross Hospital sent a certificate saying that the man had been admitted to the hospital and detained there four hours after the seizure in the street. Then there was the case of another man, aged thirty-seven, who had valvular disease of the heart, formerly C3, now passed into Grade 2!
    I will take just one other case in eon-elusion. This man was forty-four. He had a very bad history of consumption. His father and two brothers died of it, and a very long and most careful examination by one of the senior physicians at the hospital says, "This man has active pulmonary tuberculosis." He was passed in Grade 2! That was the appalling spirit in which we passed men, and it was duplicated, I believe, all over the country. Some of these were men who were able to obtain either expert or professional assistance. Not only could they give the evidence of their own regular medical attendant, but a large portion of them went to specialists whose names are known all over the country. These specialists, naturally, do not work for nothing. I do
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    not know to what expense these men I have mentioned must have been put. But there are thousands and tens of thousands of working men all over the country who had to fill up the form within five days—and it wants a bit of filling up—and who gave up the struggle. That, Sir, is the reason of the low percentage of appeals. Only men who have strength and wealth and opportunity to take these steps can protect themselves. The others have just given up the struggle all over the country—thousands of them, and have been passed into the Army. What can you do with Grade 1 or 2? The call upon the country-is so great that the men of forty-four, Grade 1, have to prove a very strong case to keep out of the Army. These are the sort of things which some of us, very regretfully, have felt it necessary again to bring before Parliament.
    There are one or two matters about which I feel very strongly in regard to what has happened since the passing of this Act. I will not say more about the matter than this: There have been two attempts made to reduce the rights of appellants. We only found them out after the Bill was on the Statute Book, after we knew what the Regulations were; and it required a very heated Debate in this House to get back to appellants the right of professional representation and an unclogged and unfettered right of appeal. Now we have the latest attempt, which is this alteration in the medical grading. I cannot see any answer to it. It is bad for the Army; it is bad for the State; it is unjust to the individual. My hon. Friend who sat with me to-day (Sir Charles Nicholson) has let me have a glance at some of the things with which he has had to deal with on the London War Pensions Committee.
    I hold here the ghastly list of applications with which he has had to deal. The question was as to whether the men who made application for these pensions had their disease either caused or aggravated in the Army. Here are the figures. Out of 132 applications, in no fewer than 87 the reason for their discharge—sickness or physical disability—was not caused by or aggravated by the Army at all. They have no sort of appeal to the Government for any kind of monetary assistance, and they have no right to any pension. They ought never to have been in the Army. The Army has discharged them, and discharged them without any sort of claim, because their

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    disease was not caused or aggravated by military service. Let me mention a few of the complaints from which they were suffering: Chronic bronchitis, deformed ankle, deformed foot, hernia, phthisis, tuberculosis, chronic suppuration of the ear, and so on through all the ghastliness of it! And all this is very largely preventable! That is the trouble.
    I warn my right hon. Friend that if he persists in grading men according to the new standard—the standard of their age and not of their physical fitness in comparison with other men in the Army and with what the Army really wants—he is setting up a feeling of growing unrest in this country which is impairing the moral of tens of thousands of men who are the backbone of those who are fighting for freedom. Someone, it is said, must make the sacrifice. It is so easy to shed some body else's last drop of blood, or to spend somebody else's last shilling! How easy it is for us to talk about it here! What we want is not a card index system. What we want is more humanity in the machine. This must be attained. I say, in the interests of the country, in the interests of the State, and in the interests of the individual—which I put last of all—this medical grading must be done in accordance with the rules of ordinary common sense and simple fairness.
    The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir Auckland Geddes): There are several points raised in the speeches which have been delivered which, really, are quite separate from one another. There is first of all the general principle which underlies the grading. That is a very difficult and intricate thing to discuss at such a time as this, because it is inevitably closely bound up with many technical and medical considerations. It is within the recollection of the House that the old system of categorisation was very unsatisfactory. I would like to explain to the House what, at all events, would have been one of the reasons for the great doubt which undoubtedly occurred in that old system. It was this: there was linked with the estimation of every man's physical fitness a strategic conception as to how he ought to be employed. That would have been all right with Royal Army Medical Corps officers, with real knowledge of the various classes of work required on service—I mean if the Regular Army were doing the grading. That categorisation might have been
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    all right under those circumstances. It certainly was not all right when it became necessary to employ large numbers of medical men who knew nothing of the Army or of the type of work that various Army Departments were called upon to perform.
    Sir R. ADKINS: Are not the chairmen of these medical boards still Royal Army Medical Corps men?
    Sir A. GEDDES: The vast majority, I think, are not. Some are naval; most, I think, are civilians. They are all in plain clothes. I doubt if there are any Royal Army Medical Corps men regularly serving and acting as chairmen of the boards anywhere under the Ministry of National Service; my impression is that there are not. Anyhow, the old system of categorisation became impossible to work with civilian doctors. It will be remembered that A meant a man to do certain things, B meant a man to do something else, and C something else; and therefore the whole of that conception was swept away in order that we might present to the civilian medical men who were to do the work a problem which was really medical. That was the first general principle which was approved by the Medical Advisory Committee which is attached to the Ministry of National Service. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that there is no part of the work of the Ministry which has received greater care and greater thought than this very question of medical grading and of the principles which should underlie it. That principle, which I have just enunciated, and which I will repeat, that the problem presented to the medical board should be a purely medical problem, was the very first principle adopted, and from the moment of the adoption of that principle the whole of our work on the medical side has been looked at in relation to it. That principle was embodied and turned into a form which could be used by the medical boards in the various publications issued by the Ministry for the guidance of the medical boards.
    The first instruction issued was National Service Instruction No. 3, of 1917, and that is the basis of the whole question of grading, and in that instruction the terms Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3 are first introduced. They were introduced to convey a different meaning

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    from categories A, B, and C, and they are defined absolutely different, but in order that during the period of transition there might be some linking up between the old system and the new, general equivalents were stated for the men of the ages then under consideration. This was last autumn. Those general equivalents have no bearing, and can have no bearing, in the case of men who have never been categorised. Men who have been graded are graded in accordance with the principles laid down, and the definitions of these grades have been most carefully drawn up and elaborated, and it takes no less than twenty-eight pages of instructions to give all the conditions which should exclude and what conditions should allow a man to be included in any grade. Whether those instructions are followed out or not is a separate question which we will come to in a moment, but for the moment the point is that the term Grade 1 was introduced with a definite meaning, and that meaning has never been changed. It was defined on its introduction as:
    "This grade will comprise those who attain the normal standard of health and strength and are capable of enduring physical exertion suitable to their age."
    Then it goes on as was read out to the House by the hon. Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield). The men must not suffer from any organic disease with certain exceptions specified here.
    Sir H. NIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman read on in that paragraph, which reads, "Men who fulfil these conditions to be fit for general service in the Army"?
    10.0 P.M.
    Sir A. GEDDES: That is quite true, and if we were merely trying to score debating points—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—and not dealing with a matter of the very gravest importance at the present moment, I might accept that argument, but the whole House knows that the instruction which governs the actual grading of the elder men carries out the principles, but excludes that last Clause, and puts in its place that the physical training of the men will be carried out under medical supervision.
    Mr. PRINGLE: But your Department has nothing to do with that.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Many hon. Members have misunderstood how the system is
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    really working. Every man requires two indices to place him in the proper place on the posting chart. He requires his grade and then his age, and it is the combination of grade and age which settles a man's place in the square and the service he is to render. The actual posting charts are drawn up in such a form that that is visible to anyone who looks at it. The grades are along the top, the arms come up the side, and then the ages are placed in.
    Mr. ALBION RICHARDSON: Who posts them?
    Sir A. GEDDES: The actual posting of the arms must be a matter for the War Office, but the two Departments in this matter work closely together, and always have done. There is in every case the double consideration—what is the man's grade and what is his age? I cannot conceive of any system which civilian doctors could work which would be very different from that May I say, and on this point I am speaking with professional knowledge, that you cannot possibly take a great block of ages extending from 18 to 50, and pick out of them the men who are going to be suitable for Infantry in the trenches over the whole range. That is an impossible thing medically, and it is not intended. The only thing that medical men can do in the way of settling what is a man's physique is to judge upon the physical signs of disease and see whether he is reasonably fit for his age. It is exactly the same idea that underlies an examination for life insurance. I do not believe that you can get any other conception of medical grading when you are dealing with civil boards, because they have not got strategical knowledge, and, therefore, it is not attempted. I would like to assure the House that the cutting out of the strategical conception which underlay the old categories was done deliberately and after the most careful thought, for the very reason that it was far fairer to the men that they should be dealt with in relation to the physical fitness which they ought to have if they were properly fit for their years, and that the posting should be done on an age basis. That is the system which has been working since last autumn, and through all those months which the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means has told us were months when the medical arrangements were almost ideal, I think he said.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: I said that they were really satisfactory. Nothing is ideal in this world. I said that these medical arrangements were really satisfactory and that if that basis were continued there would be no cause of complaint.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Those were months during which this system was in operation. This system was introduced last autumn, and it has been in operation ever since. There has been no change in this system of double indexing in order to determine the man's posting. That is a system which, on the authority of the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, has worked satisfactorily and that is the system which is in force now. I do not think it is that system of grading that is wrong. I admit freely that the results of the medical boards of the last few weeks have given grave cause for anxiety. I am not here to say that all is well in regard to everything that has been discussed. That would be foolish, and I will tell the House in a moment the action that has been taken, but I really cannot believe that a system which has worked thoroughly satisfactorily for months has suddenly gone wrong by itself, that the underlying principles have broken down or vanished and that the whole thing has become chaos as has been suggested. It would be absolutely fatal to satisfactory medical examination to go back to the old idea of categories A, B, and so on. It is not possible for any doctor to place a man absolutely into a pigeon-hole. All you can say is that a man is fit for his age or not fit for his age. That is the meaning which was attached by definition at the time of their introduction to the terms Grades 1, 2 and 3, and really it is far too serious for one to allow the accusation that there has been a breach of faith in this matter to pass unanswered. I can assure the House that we have not changed the meaning of those terms, and that we have not changed the principle upon which we are working. That is a fact. There has evidently been misunderstanding. This very night, speaking here, the Deputy-Chair man of Ways and Means has indicated—I think I may say it fairly—that he did not understand this double system which is in force, and which has been in force.
    Sir D. MACLEAN Sir D. MACLEAN indicated dissent.
    Sir A. GEDDES: It is evident that there has been complete misunderstanding, and I welcome this opportunity of giving an explanation, which I hope will
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    lead to complete understanding. We are not trying to conceal anything. We have nothing to conceal. I would not attempt to conceal anything in connection with this matter. That is the principle which is at work—that a man's physical fitness should be determined in respect of his age, that his age should be considered, and that the whole of his employment in the Army should be determined by the consideration of these two facts. The next point that I would like to refer to is the question of the medical boards throughout the country. As the House is aware, there are a very great number of medical examinations being carried out at the present time. I may say that the estimate which I gave to the House in the month of April that we would do 35,000 medical examinations a day has proved a wrong estimate. We have never been able to work up to anything like that number. We are at present employing a very large number of medical men—the figure runs into thousands—and we are allowing a quarter of an hour of medical time for every examination.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Where is that Regulation?
    Sir A. GEDDES: We are now allowing a quarter of an hour of medical time for every recruit that is examined.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Since when has that been in operation?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think the House is not treating the Minister quite fairly. He should be allowed to make his statements without so many interruptions.
    Sir A. GEDDES: We are allowing a quarter of an hour of medical time for every man examined, and the House ought to consider that the medical examination of every man costs for medical time alone 4s. 2d. It is not possible to complete every man's examination in a quarter of an hour, nor is it necessary to examine every man for a quarter of an hour. There are many cases which are dealt with in two or three minutes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, and rightly so, because the man is either rejected or is obviously, for some reason or other, of the lowest grade which can become available for service. We are not calling up Grade 3 men of the new age period, and therefore it is not necessary to complete a very elaborate examination if the man is obviously not fit for one of the higher grades. In that

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    way time is saved and longer time is obtained for the examination of men who require greater care. I do not think it is possible to obtain the services of more medical men than those now employed. They are about the maximum that we can obtain without serious detriment to the medical care of the civil community. Yet the demands for men for the force—Navy, Air Force, and Army—are so insistent that we cannot let down the number of examinations being performed daily. We, therefore, have to face the fact that about a quarter of an hour of medical time is all that we can afford nationally to provide for the medical examination of these men who are coming forward. We have, therefore, instructed them that they are, where the case is obvious, to push through the examination if the man is not going to be taken for service at all. It is now six or seven weeks since I first became alarmed as to what was happening at some of the medical boards. I would not like this House to consider that it has required stimulation from Members of this House before the Department took action. I myself have visited in the last few weeks no less than twenty-four places in different parts of the country, so that I could be absolutely certain that I knew what was going on, and I think I can say this: that throughout the country—as a whole the work that is being done is eminently satisfactory—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—throughout the country as a whole; and we have had since this criticism of the medical boards began to appear very much in the Press the most extraordinary phenomena. We have received hundreds and hundreds of letters of thanks, of appreciation of medical examinations—literally hundreds; we have hundreds of them.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: From rejected men?
    Sir A. GEDDES: From men passed in Grade 1 and Grade 2, thanking us and saying that they consider the attacks unjust. These are men who are satisfied with their examination, and I would like to express here my deep and heartfelt thanks to the medical profession for the work they have done under enormous difficulties and pressure at the present time, on very inadequate remuneration. They are working under great strain in civil practice, and are helping us by taking
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    two hours and a half, and perhaps five hours, in the course of the day examining recruits. The work that is being done on the whole is, to my certain knowledge, and from personal observation of hundreds of records, most satisfactory. On the other hand, I would be doing less than my duty if I did not admit that at certain places there have been breakdowns. I admit fully that the circular letter which was read by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield) was a most unfortunate letter—the one issued on the 3rd of May. But the story was not quite completed by my hon. Friend. That letter was issued from the regional headquarters, and a copy of it was sent to the Ministry, where it reached in the ordinary routine—because we have a check on these regional districts—the Chief Commissioner, who at once had it cancelled, and interviewed the Commissioner for London, who was instructed to summon, and did summon at once, the whole of the chairmen of the medical boards, got them together, and explained that a mistake had been made, that the instruction issued was cancelled, and reported within a week that that had been done. I know for a fact that it was done.
    Mr. TENNANT: Was cancelled?
    Sir A. GEDDES: It was cancelled at once as soon as it was found. There was no instruction permitting second examination subsequently at all. This is the Report, but I will not read it as, if the hon. Members wishes to see it, it is in the Library in a similar binding to this one and has been placed there for the information of any Member who wishes to see it. The letter, which was an unfortunate letter, one which might quite easily be issued by any Government Department working under considerable pressure, was cancelled at once. One cannot do more than that. I have myself been to see these London boards at Conduit Street, and I would like to tell the House that the personnel of those boards is in large measure the same personnel that formed the eminently satisfactory Whitehall board. It was the Scotland Yard board, which the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means said was the board to which he used to send his cases. It is a most extraordinary-thing that that same personnel, reinforced, should be giving different results. [HON. MEMBERS: "Owing to the change in the instructions!"] That is exactly what I expected would be said. The reason is

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    not a change of instructions. The reason is that here in London everyone has felt the pressure of the German offensive. Everyone here in London has felt acutely the need of the forces for men. It is all unconscious reaction of the pressure of the German offensive that is making these boards pass men who, under less pressure, they would not pass. They have received precisely the same instructions as other boards throughout the country. There is no other difference between the two. We have found it necessary to slow down the London board. There is no vice about these boards. They are not trying to push men through who are unfit; they are trying to do their work absolutely solidly, soundly, and well.
    Another thing I would like to impress upon the House is that there is a great deal in this criticism of the boards which is not fair. It is not real. These things come in waves. Once criticism starts, criticism grows. Even if there is nothing to complain of, the neurotic complains. It will be within the recollection of the House that two nights ago the right hon. Baronet the Junior Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who I am sorry is not in his place, raised a case about an individual, a bleeder, who was examined at the Camberwell Baths. It is recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT that the man complained that he was placed in a bath and made to go through the motion of swimming. That is a sheer bit of hallucination. The baths are floored over, there is no water in them. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry went down there the next morning, and I saw the chairman of the board. That was solemnly read out in this House, and there is not a shadow of foundation for it.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Was he passed Grade 1?
    Sir A. GEDDES: He was passed Grade 3.
    Mr. PRINGLE: With hallucinations!
    Sir A. GEDDES: It was unknown at the time that he suffered from hallucinations. That has since appeared. That is an example of a not infrequent type of complaint. I have here another rather extraordinary case, of a letter, written to a Member of this House who, very courteously sent it on to me, in which bitter complaint was made about the medical boards and about the inferior standard of work, giving actual cases. I wrote back to
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    my hon. Friend in the House, and he sent the letter on to his correspondent, who wrote back and said:
    "It did not occur to me when I wrote you that my letter would be passed on to Sir Auckland Geddes; otherwise I would have endeavoured to make myself more clear. I should not like it to be thought that there was any complaint as to the treatment of the men (hiring examination."
    Which was what the whole letter was about, so I sent off the Deputy-Commissioner of the Medical Service concerned to go and see this gentleman, who is a responsible citizen and a prominent man. He now writes that he is sorry that he wrote that letter. He was suffering from neuralgia, and it was written on the spur of the moment without due consideration. You cannot take all these complaints at full face value. Listen to this. The hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Nield) put down yesterday or the day before a question to ask me whether I was aware that a man who is blind in one eye, partially paralysed, and suffering from hæmorrhage of the lungs, on 5th June, was placed in Grade 1 by the medical board in Northampton Street, W.; whether such a decision is in accordance with the instructions issued to medical boards by the Department; and whether it is proposed that a man suffering from those disabilities should be taken in the Army in Grade 1 or in any capacity? This case caused me, as many cases do, a feeling of sinking, wondering what the medical board would do next; so the Parliamentary Secretary wrote to my hon. Friend and asked him if he could give any information about the case. The reply struck me as most extraordinary. It was received to-day:
    "Dear Sir,—I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 15th June to Sir H. Nield, K.C., M.P., and to say that the information was furnished by a man who was examined at the same time as the man in question, but unfortunately he was unable to obtain the man's name and address."
    Sir H. NIELD: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the information was sent officially to the office of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal by a man who claimed to have been in the examination room at the moment that man was passed by the doctor?
    Sir A. GEDDES: I say there had been no communication to the Department in this case. Here is a case, for which I do not think there is any evidence, brought

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    forward, discussed, and brought out in evidence against the Department because a man said to someone at the tribunal—
    Sir H. NIELD: No, no!
    Sir A. GEDDES: No address, no name. Someone saw a man with one eye who was passed medically fit. Really if that is the sort of stuff that is going to be brought forward it is perfectly hopeless. I am now, and always have been, absolutely willing and anxious to receive every bit of assistance I can from every Member of this House who will help us to get this difficult, unpleasant and very important work done properly, but really we do not get much help. In one region I asked the regional director to issue invitations to every Member of Parliament for a constituency in that region to come and see the work of the Recruiting Department at any time he liked. Fifty-one invitations were issued. Forty Members have not replied. Ten have acknowledged and have done nothing. One only has come. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Samuel) came and saw the medical board, and said it was satisfactory. He is, so far as I can gather, the only Member of the House out of that fifty-one who has done anything in the way of satisfying himself that our actions are either wrong or right by direct observation. At a time like this, if hon. Members feel that we who are trying under great pressure to meet the demands of the Army and Navy and the Air Force for men are doing wrong, would it not be better in the country's interests and in the interests of confidence throughout the country if they came to me, or wrote to me, or spoke to the Parliamentary Secretary any time he is here, and said, "Look here; we think you are making an awful mess of this. We are sure you are. What are you doing it for?" Then we could explain. It would be so much better. Would it not be much better to assume that we really are trying to do this thing right than that we are trying to go wrong through some sheer natural inborn vice? For months I have been working at these medical boards, and yet the sort of case I have referred to is put down as a question here without any evidence at all. It really is hardly fair to the country. I do not mind a bit for myself. I do not mind for the Department, although they are working absolutely up to the hilt. The
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    staff has worked splendidly. It has stood up to the pressure of the German offensive in a way that is absolutely first class. No Department in this country has had to bear the load that the National Service Department has had to bear recently. The way the staff has stood up to the strain is absolutely magnificent; but, naturally, with the new classes of men coming in, there are difficulties. We cannot avoid them. We had a mistake made in London, but we cancelled the bad order at once. You cannot do more than that. You cannot stand over every official's shoulder day and night and see what he is writing. These things will happen.
    We had a few bad cases at Conduit Street. I quite admit that. We then got a wave of criticism which has carried the neurotic along with it, and we have got now a big volume of neurotic criticism added to the real criticism. I know perfectly well the class of case that were up before the House of Commons Tribunal to-day. They are a small group of cases; at any rate, I hope they are a small group, which got through during that time, when there was, I will not say a breakdown, but a wobble, in the organisation. The machine as a whole is the same machine that gave satisfaction throughout all the winter months. It has been described by our most severe critic, the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir D. Maclean) as having been satisfactory during the winter months. It is the same machine working on the same principle. The whole of the arrangements for grading men are exactly the same as they were. The whole thing is the same, but criticism has started. No recognition has been made of the amount of work that has been done to put the break right, and it is now, I think, completely right. It was not a real break, it was only a wobble. The results did not show themselves at the moment, but they showed themselves weeks afterwards, and once they start then the same case comes up and up.
    I would appeal to this House at this time when we have the greatest possible difficulty in maintaining the supply of men for the forces that we should receive all the help of private criticism sent to us, and we will always pay attention to it, before the questions are put down in the House and before statements are made in public, which will be recorded and published throughout the whole country as statements of policy when the statements are

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    in fact based, as we now know for certain, upon a misunderstanding. We have had these statements, and I can assure the House that there are at the present moment an enormous number of men held up from getting into the forces as a result of the statements that have been made. I would like to appeal to the House to try to understand the policy which is being followed in regard to taking men for the Army. It would be absolutely unsound in the national interest to take all young men together. You would disorganise everything. If you take all the young men now, where will the recruits come from months hence? Where is your money going to come from to keep things going if you take all the men engaged in production? [An HON. MEMBER: "You are taking the men of business!"] The older men who are being taken into the Army are a mere handful. How many men of the new military age who have already joined up—I am not talking about being called to join up, or be medically examined, but who have already joined up—are known to any individual Member of this House? Not many. It is one thing to have a lot of talk about the people who are called up; it is another thing to watch the figures of the men who are joining. There is many a ditch and many a fence for the man to be stopped by before he joins the Service after he is made liable under the Military Service Acts; and the numbers of men of the older age that are being taken into the Army in the main are the men who can be better spared than their juniors. There have been one or two exceptions, but in the main I am convinced that this policy which we are following is absolutely sound. There are definite needs at this present moment in the Army for men who for that age are physically fit, who will not in all probability—I can give no guarantee, obviously, with regard to a soldier—will not be required actively to fight. There must be units, there must be forces present in certain distant theatres throughout the months to come, and really at the present time anything that delays the legitimate flow of the older men to the Colours is hampering our forces in France.
    He would be a brave man who, because of some personal disagreement with the policy that has been followed, would say that he would not allow these men to pass through to the Forces. They are required and urgently required. It was announced
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    to the House two months ago that 7 per cent. of the total block of men of the new age were going to be required to be posted this year. That has been twisted and turned as if it meant that only 7 per cent. of them will be fit for service. The statement stands—I have repeated it on many occasions in the House—as true to-day as it was then, that it is absolutely necessary, if we are not to dislocate our arrangements for maintaining the forces in the field, that we should have 7 per cent. of the total number of men of the new age before the end of this year and that they should come in a steady flow. It is a fact that at the present rate we shall not get them. It is absolutely necessary, therefore—and I wish to be quite clear on this—that we should increase the pressure of the call for these men, and instructions will be issued to the tribunals that it is important that more men of these ages should be obtained. That is absolutely necessary if we are not to disorganise the arrangements for maintaining our forces in the field. That is all I wish to say on that subject. But there were some points raised to which I might possibly be permitted to refer for a moment. There was a definite statement made by the right hon. Member for Dewsbury, about the swollen staff, and the gigantic organisation, priding itself on its own size, I would like to take this opportunity of telling the House that we are now so administering the recruiting service that recruits are costing less each month than the month before, and that the staff engaged in the work is being steadily reduced, in spite of the fact that the cost of the medical examination is going steadily up, and we are paying more money for the medical examinations. It is only just to the staff at this time to say that, in view of the work they have been doing and the hours and hours of overtime they have worked. Many of them are volunteers without pay or reward, and yet they hear a lot of criticism hurled at them, and it is only right to remember that they are volunteers who in many cases are giving their services free to the State.
    Mr. TENNANT: The right hon. Gentleman stands up in defence of the War Office and recruiting, and I can sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman in the position in which he finds himself to-day. I can assure him that the appeal he has made to us to do nothing to stop the flow of

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    recruits to the forces does not fall, in my case, on deaf ears. I came down to the House endeavouring to put myself in the place of the right hon. Gentleman, and I can assure him that his position is one with which I have great sympathy. Toward the end of my authority at the War Office it had been decided that the business of getting recruits for the Army was a business which ought not to be any longer in the hands of the War Office, and ought to be the business of a civil Department, and accordingly a Civil Department was set up for that purpose, and the right hon. Gentleman was appointed to his present office. The Army Council and the military authorities ought to have time in which they can use their energies for the conduct of the War, and they ought not to be embarrassed with the trouble and difficulty of securing troops. And when that decision was taken it was undoubtedly equally decided that after a recruit had been obtained it was not the business of the Civil Department to place him in the Army but the business of the Army to put him in the position and unit in the manner they thought best. I do not think the Minister of National Service has sufficiently fully appreciated that. My right hon. Friend the Deputy-Chairman has been told by the Minister of National Service that he did not understand the situation. I cannot help thinking that the Minister of National Service has made a muddle in that matter. At any rate, my right hon. Friend the Deputy-Chairman knows the practice pursued in consequence of the instructions given, and he knows the results. My right hon. Friend the Deputy-Chairman gave some extraordinary illustrations, and I thought the fact which emerged most strongly from them was how exceedingly unfair it is that in order that a man should be able to obtain redress for being wrongly graded he should have to consult privately a medical practitioner. How many of these men are there who can afford that amount of money? It is a very infinitesimal proportion. The right hon. Gentleman said that the change in the name of the grades was intended to convey a different meaning, and yet the actual leaflet itself says, "Grade 1 is generally equivalent to category A."
    Sir A. GEDDES: That is not the leaflet which officially gave the definition of the new grades.
    Mr. TENNANT: It is a leaflet issued from his Department, and it explains what Grade 1 is. I do not know why on earth there was any alteration made. It is true we had our difficulties in the old War Office days, when I worked in conjunction with the right hon. Gentleman when he was Director of Recruiting. Our difficulties were mainly due to medical boards, due to the fact that the majority of doctors at that time had been sent out of the country and were serving with the forces in France. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has not had those difficulties with the medical boards except in one or two instances, such as the Conduit Street Board, where there was, he said, not a breakdown, but a wobble in the machinery. It is quite true that he has to get recruits for the Army, and we greatly sympathise with him in that most difficult and onerous task, but it is no use getting recruits for the Army that are not going to be of value to the Army, and that is the main proposition which my right hon. Friend brought before this House, and that is really the fact of which the House is most seised. It is not a single, a double, or even a treble disadvantage to the country to take bad recruits, but it is a quadruple disadvantage. You not only do a grave injustice to the man himself, but you take him away from work which may be of great national importance, and you deprive the nation of that work; you increase the charge to the Army for hospital accommodation and treatment; and you increase the charge for pensions. The right hon. Gentleman told us that everything had worked well until quite recently, when his attention had been called to certain breakdowns by medical boards, and he said he thought, in part at any rate, this was due to a sort of subconscious action on the part of doctors who were speeding up the flow of recruits to the Army owing to the pressure on the Western Front. It is a most mysterious suggestion that doctors should so lose their balance of judgment as to place a man in a group for which he is wholly unfit, and I hope that that particular medical board which the right hon. Gentleman has in his mind's eye will at any rate be informed that they must not pursue that course any further. It is impossible for the Minister of National Service to direct on what particular duties a man shall be employed once he gets into the Army. The right hon. Gentleman will

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    admit that. He cannot issue instructions to the military authorities to say that A. B. is a person who shall only be employed on a particular duty. Once a man is put into the Army it is the business of the Army to use him in the way that they think best. We cannot clearly interfere with the military authorities in that matter. It must be within their discretion to utilise the men in the best possible way. That being so, surely an instruction ought to be issued to these medical boards to exercise the greatest care, so that these terrible mistakes which have been brought to the notice of the House by the Deputy-Chairman shall be avoided in the future. I hope I have said nothing which will do anything to make it more difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to carry on his most difficult task. I fully appreciate the great difficulty he has to face. When he made the alteration in Grade 1 a, b, c, and d, he did so, as he informed the House, because categorising was not a desirable policy to pursue. Indeed, we did find in the days I was at the War Office that this policy failed because the Army invariably put a man in another category. I do not blame the Army, but, that being the case, surely it is imperative that the medical boards and the National Service Ministry should only choose men who are fit for positive duties in any part of the field in France, unless they are specially car-marked for work behind the lines or are not allowed to go to the front at all. I imagine from what the right hon. Gentleman said that he has been working in great cordiality with the War Office. No doubt there are certain grades in the Army—those for butchers, dispensers, and so on—which do not require men to be in Grade 1, and he might ask the Army in such cases to be content with men from Grade 2. I know the right hon. Gentleman cannot, of course, issue any such instructions to the military authority. Having been at General Headquarters in the Adjutant-General's Department, he knows that very well; therefore, it behoves him, as the head of the National Service Ministry, to issue instructions to the medical boards to exercise the utmost care not to pass men who are unfitted for the duties to which they are likely to be put, because it is encumbering the Army with sick men, it is encumbering the pension service, and at the same time it is
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    taking away a source of national wealth, none of which things we can afford now.
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I rise to make a suggestion, if I may, to the Government. This is a matter in which the House takes a very great deal of interest. The explanation of the Minister of National Service, I think, has not been regarded in all quarters with satisfaction, and I understand that there are several Members who desire to take part in this Debate. The Debate only began at nine o'clock, and it is now a few minutes to eleven. Supply for next Thursday has not been fixed, and the Vote for the Ministry of National Service has not yet been taken this Session. I would suggest, if agreeable to the House and acceptable to the Government, that this Debate should now be discontinued for the time being, that the Vote for the Ministry of National Service should be put down for Thursday next, and that then there should be a full opportunity for discussion.
    Sir A. GEDDES: I think there is no doubt whatever that it can be arranged to take the Vote next Thursday, and I hope the House, therefore, will now take the Second Reading.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow (Friday).

  TRADE BOARDS [EXPENSES].
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. J. W. WILSON in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of such further expenses as the Minister of Labour may be authorised to incur under any Act of the present Session to amend the Trade Boards Act, 1909."
  The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. George Roberts): Might I just offer a word of explanation? The only expense involved in this Bill if passed into law arises out of holding an inquiry, which may be necessary. Of course, we have to provide for all contingencies, and I am advised that the expenditure in any one year is not likely to exceed £500.
  Mr. BOOTH: I beg to move, to add the words, "not exceeding the sum of £1,000 in any one year."
  I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for being frank, but this is a matter in which the Leader of the House has laid down the policy of the Government. It is not for a back-bencher to suggest or deal with these things. I hope the various Ministers will take the trouble if they were not present in the House, to read exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. The last time this question was up, I put a specific question, and on the Report stage of the Emigration Expenses Resolution. A limit was subsequently put in, which I myself offered to that Minister a few minutes before eleven o'clock, nearly a fortnight before. If he had taken my offer then we should have saved much time. The Leader of the House said, in answer to my question, that where possible the Government would put a figure in, and where not, the Minister would attend and explain why it was impossible.
  11.0 P.M.
  My right hon. Friend had the courtesy to come and explain this matter, and has made a record for the first time by a Minister, for in producing this Resolution he has made this declaration to the House. In doing so he has rather convinced us that this case is a very suitable one for the observations I am making. Therefore I trust when he puts his Resolution on the Paper to-morrow that he will put in, say,
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  £1,000—he suggests £500. If he had said £1,000 or £2,000 it would have been better, for there would be no dubiety about it.
  It being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Mr. BOOTH: May I take it we shall be able to get a copy of Mr. Justice Atkin's Report? May I suggest that if the copy only comes to-morrow that the Bill should not be taken to-morrow, which is a short day?
  Lord EDMUND TALBOT (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): We are postponing it till Monday.
  Mr. BOOTH: I thank the Noble Lord. It is a matter, I know, of delivery from the printers. I have little doubt but that we shall have the copies to-morrow, and that it will be reasonable to take the matter on Monday.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Two after Eleven o'clock till To-morrow, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.

WAR.
  STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
  STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
  BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.
  BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.
  COLLECTION OF TAXES, GREENOCK.
  COLLECTION OF TAXES, GREENOCK.
  CIVIL SERVICE (WOMEN CLERKS).
  CIVIL SERVICE (WOMEN CLERKS).
  WAR AIMS MEETING, MANCHESTER.
  WAR AIMS MEETING, MANCHESTER.
IRELAND.
  COMPULSORY RECRUITING.
  COMPULSORY RECRUITING.
  PRISON OFFICERS (HOUSING).
  PRISON OFFICERS (HOUSING).
  ARIGNA MINERAL AREA (TRANSPORT FACILITIES).
  ARIGNA MINERAL AREA (TRANSPORT FACILITIES).
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
MILITARY SERVICE.
  CASES UNDER INQUIRY.
  CASES UNDER INQUIRY.
  OLDER MEN (OVERSEAS SERVICE).
  OLDER MEN (OVERSEAS SERVICE).
  INLAND REVENUE DEPARTMENT.
  INLAND REVENUE DEPARTMENT.
  YOUNG SOLDIERS.
  YOUNG SOLDIERS.
  WIDOW'S SON.
  WIDOW'S SON.
  TRIBUNALS (NATIONAL SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES).
  TRIBUNALS (NATIONAL SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES).
  APPEALS (PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE).
  APPEALS (PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE).
  THRICE-WOUNDED SOLDIERS.
  THRICE-WOUNDED SOLDIERS.
  WOOL
  WOOL
  ROYAL DEFENCE CORPS.
  ROYAL DEFENCE CORPS.
  WAR SERVICE (CHEVRONS).
  WAR SERVICE (CHEVRONS).
  LONDON PARLIAMENTARY DIVISIONS (ELECTORS).
  LONDON PARLIAMENTARY DIVISIONS (ELECTORS).
REGISTRATION.
  CENTRAL TRIBUNAL (CERTIFICATES),
  CENTRAL TRIBUNAL (CERTIFICATES),
  LISTS AND REGISTERS (FEES).
  LISTS AND REGISTERS (FEES).
  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (LETTERS).
  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (LETTERS).
  RAILWAY SEASON TICKETS.
  RAILWAY SEASON TICKETS.
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  GOLF COURSES (PLOUGHING).
  GOLF COURSES (PLOUGHING).
  SHERIFF-PRINCTPALSHIP, RENFREW.
  SHERIFF-PRINCTPALSHIP, RENFREW.
PRISONERS OF WAR.
  COST OF LIVING (TURKEY).
  COST OF LIVING (TURKEY).
  REPATRIATION.
  REPATRIATION.
  TABRIZ.
  TABRIZ.
  Labourers' Cottages, Ireland.
  Labourers' Cottages, Ireland.
  National School Inspectors (Ireland).
  National School Inspectors (Ireland).
  County Court Judge, Cavan.
  County Court Judge, Cavan.
  Opium.
  Opium.
  River Transport, India.
  River Transport, India.
  Infant Welfare Centre, Sydenham.
  Infant Welfare Centre, Sydenham.
  Poor Law Children.
  Poor Law Children.
  Post Office Cloak Rooms (Thefts).
  Post Office Cloak Rooms (Thefts).
  Irish Harbours (Dredging).
  Irish Harbours (Dredging).
MARRIAGES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
LAW AGENTS (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed, and sent to the Commons.

IRELAND.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY had the following Notice on the Paper—
To call attention to the policy of His Majesty's Government in Ireland; and to move for Papers.
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, it is with great diffidence that I rise to address your Lordships this afternoon on a subject which naturally excites so much controversy, for I feel that on occasions of this description, and at a time when we are engaged in matters of such vital importance, all subjects of controversy should be left in abeyance and should not be considered. But this question is one of such supreme importance, and one on which I have so many misgivings, that I feel it my duty to bring it before your Lordships, and to ask the Government whether they are willing to give us some indication as to the nature of the policy which they propose to pursue in regard to Ireland. I would say at the outset—though I think that this declaration is superfluous and that your Lordships will allow that it is superfluous—I have no desire whatsoever to hamper the Government. My desire is not to ask them definitely to answer questions; but I would earnestly invite the noble Earl who leads the House to do what lies in his power towards giving us some indication of the nature of the policy which the Government propose to pursue in respect to Ireland.
There is one matter to which I should like to allude first of all, and I am sure that the noble Earl will acquit me of presumption if I touch one personal note. I cannot regret bringing forward this subject on public grounds, but on personal grounds I regret it very much indeed.
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I know perfectly well the burdens which are on the noble Earl's shoulders; I know well the work which he has to do, the multitude and the variety of questions which come before him every day; and that at this moment I should ask him, in the midst of all his duties, to give us an answer, is, I know, making a great inroad on his patience and on his good nature. I am aware that his mind is occupied with immense and vital problems of State which extend far beyond the shores of this kingdom; but I feel that this is a question which is certainly domestic in its character and ought to be considered domestic at this moment, and that if a considered policy is not adopted with regard to it the free action of His Majesty's Government will be retarded in those great matters of international importance. I believe that in this connection there is a certain amount of difficulty because we are governed by a Coalition Government; and while we subscribe to the principle of a Coalition, and know that the co-operation of those Party elements which exist in peace time is necessary to the great and vital object which we have in view, still the fact of a Coalition being in existence destroys that element of helpful criticism without which I believe it is impossible for any Government really to carry on effectively and efficiently in the name of the country.
The war has continued far longer than any of us expected, and none of us can prophesy when the end will come. We feel that during this time all these matters of domestic legislation should be in abeyance, and I wish that this question of Ireland could be placed entirely on one side until such time as the best intellects in the country could be concentrated on the most effective and best solution of the problem. In connection with the Coalition—I know that this is an indictment which will be thrown out by both sides—the elements of the Coalition who in pre-war days professed their opinions are inclined to lose their individuality and to accept doctrines which in pre-war times they were disposed to oppose. I cannot help thinking that those under whom I have had the honour to serve have somewhat lost their sense of proportion in regard to Ireland. We have see a policy pursued which we have all condemned. We have seen Ireland cajoled at one moment, dragooned at another; and we must remember that the larger element in the Coalition, or rather, the

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element in the Coalition which has the supremacy, belongs to the Party which in the past has looked upon Ireland in the terms of seventy votes in the House of Commons. In my view that is the root of the reason which has caused us to be in so much difficulty in regard to Irish questions at this moment.
May I say that I think a great duty and responsibility is imposed upon your Lordships' House—more at this time than, perhaps, at any other time in our history. I naturally regret the episode which resulted in removing from your Lordships those powers which inherently belong to you, which loss of power has had the effect of destroying a great deal of your Lordships' authority throughout the country. Nevertheless, it is our duty to do what we can to make our opinions known, to assist the Government with helpful and consistent criticism, and to insist that those views which we believe to be right and in the interests of the community should be carried through to the best of our ability. There is a further consideration. Nobody can assert that the House of Commons is representative of the democracy of this country in the way that the House of Commons should be. There are many reasons why it is impossible that it should have that representative character. And there is another feature. There is, I would say, almost daily an increasing number of Government officials in the House of Commons, which fact must to a certain extent preclude the free action of those Members and so deprive the Government of that element of helpful criticism which is so important, and which was never more important than at the present moment.
Now, my Lords, in connection with the great question which I am endeavouring to bring before you to-day I would like to say, with regard to the new Administration in Ireland, that it is a change which we must all of us welcome. There are many elements in it which are pleasing to us, and which are, I believe, helpful for the future. Perhaps the first and foremost is that you have established a Lord Lieutenant as the Governor of Ireland. It always has been a difficult task, but I believe you will render your task easier and more in accordance with the sentiments of the Irish people when you make the Lord Lieutenant your responsible Governor of Ireland; and I can assure you, my Lords, that it is not my intention in what I pro-
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pose to say this afternoon to do anything I to make the task which is now laid upon Lord French's shoulders any harder than I it is—and it is, I think all will agree, perhaps the most difficult task which he has ever been asked to undertake. I sincerely hope that Lord French will be allowed to carry out his work with as little interference as possible from this side of the water in those efforts which he is certainly putting forward, and in which I myself believe he will be successful—namely, the re-establishment of law and order in the country. I would venture to congratulate the Government upon having appointed Lord French, and I believe that we one and all owe hint a debt of gratitude for his patriotic acceptance of a very difficult post. Lord French has behind him a record of brilliant achievement, and I hardly think I am exaggerating when I say that our position in the war at the present moment—in which we see before us that we will achieve a victory, I hope at no distant date—is due entirely to Lord French, by reason of the foundation which he laid at the beginning of the war. I am bound to say, however, that there is somewhat of an analogy between the position which he undertook at the outset of the war and the position which he is undertaking at the present moment. He set out then with a handful of ill-equipped men, and he had to retrieve the policy of a Government who were entirely unalive to the grave situation which was hanging over us at that moment. Lord French now goes to Ireland, and it is his duty to retrieve the misdoings and to make up for the misdeeds which have placed Ireland in the position which she is in at tire present moment. I feel that he is entitled to the whole-hearted assistance of every right-thinking man in the United Kingdom.
In the same connection I would like, if I may, to ask the Government a question in regard to the appointment of Mr. Shortt and I say at once that I have nothing whatever against Mr. Shortt on personal grounds. I am not familiar with Mr. Shortt's record, but I viewed his appointment with amazement. I regret that it was found necessary by the Government to appoint a man who is an Englishman. I venture to appeal to your Lordships who come from Scotland, and to ask you whether you will not realise in all matters of the government of Scotland or of Ireland how important and essential it is, having regard to the sentiments of the

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country, that those officials who are called upon to undertake these important duties should belong to the country in which their duties lie. It did seem to me a most extraordinary proceeding that a Chief Secretary should be appointed for Ireland who was obviously not in sympathy with the avowed policy of the Government. My experience in your Lordships' House is not a very long one, and my knowledge of history is not very perfect, but I am firmly convinced that in years gone by such an appointment would have been impossible, and that the Government would certainly not have asked some one to undertake the duty of carrying out their policy who had shown himself to be out of sympathy with that policy when voting in the House of Commons.
This brings me to the question of Conscription, and I have before me the Prime Minister's words. The Prime Minister said in. another place—
"I am perfectly certain that it is not possible to justify any longer the exclusion of Ireland."
My Lords, those are most significant words, and they carry with them the acknowledged urgent need for men. But when I turn to the Proclamations which have been issued in Lord French's name and consequently in the name of the Government—while I am bound to say and am glad to say that with the majority of the sentiments therein contained I am in hearty agreement—I would venture to ask the noble Earl, though I have no desire to press him to answer any question to-day, to explain to us the policy of the Government with regard to this vexed question of gaining men to assist us in carrying out the great task with which we are faced at the present moment.
I feel somehow unwilling to go deeply into the phraseology or into the meaning of the Proclamation which was published in the name of the Government; but there are one or two question which I should like to ask and which I ask with the greatest respect and diffidence. I note that an equitable ratio is put down as 50,000 recruits from Ireland. The contribution of Ireland to this war since the beginning has been 170,000 recruits; the contribution of Scotland has been over 600,000–620,000 I think is the actual number—and so I am bound to say that I cannot understand how a contribution of 50,000 recruits can in any circumstances be considered an equitable ratio as coming from Ireland. There are
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many arguments which are put forward and which are apt to be passed over on other occasions as conclusive. There is one argument which I have often heard put forward and which I have taken steps to verify, and that is the alleged preponderance of old men in Ireland. The figures in that connection which I have are that in Ireland, of the fighting ages up to forty-one, there are 14.6 of the population, in Scotland 14.7, and in England and Wales 15.5. If those figures are correct, the argument that there is such a preponderance of old men in Ireland falls at once to the ground.
There is another portion of that Proclamation about which I will venture to say a word, and that is the appeal which it makes to young men in the towns. I have the figures of the agricultural population and the proportion of fighting men, but I will not weary you with them, beyond saying that there are a great many more men in Ireland in proportion to acreage of crops than there are in England and Scotland at the present moment, and consequently there should be an appeal to those men as well as to the men in the towns.
The inducement which I saw in the Proclamation has a peculiar ring about it, if I may use that expression. There is an inducement of the grant of land to those who are willing to join His Majesty's Forces at this moment. I do not desire to enter deeply into that question. It seems to me that there is a certain amount of confusion of thought on that point on its merits. While you are inducing young men to come from the town you are offering them land in the country. We know perfectly well that where we are brought up there we are to a great extent inclined to stay. Consequently when these young men have received this problematical grant of land it will hardly be wondered at if they promptly place that land in the market and return to the towns with the money they have gained by the sale.
There is one word I would venture to say to your Lordships in respect to this appeal to voluntary effort, and I would say at once that I would place no obstacle whatsoever in the way of any means the Government thought best in order to obtain the men to assist our Army in the field. But there is an element of differential treatment between Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom which in my mind touches closely that problem of how to govern Ireland about

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which I may have something to say to your Lordships in a few moments. The time has gone by when any but the most violent anti-militarists are prepared to assert that we can achieve our object in the war by voluntary effort. There is no doubt that our voluntary effort at the beginning of this war is what I may perhaps call the brightest jewel in the imperial Crown. The fact that volunteers flocked from all parts of our Dominions to carry on this great international struggle is something of which, I believe, no other race in the world would have been capable, and it is something of which we have every reason to be most justly proud. But we must remember that we are engaged at this moment in a great international struggle. This war is not going to be won by the Armies in the field alone. We are faced by an Empire which is drawing from every one of its citizens every measure of his strength and capacity, and it seems to me that if we even speak of voluntary effort at this moment we are employing a system which is hindering our path and making it more difficult to achieve that victory to which we all look.
It seems to me so obvious that if you appeal to sentiment and if you call upon those families who have assisted us in the past, who have given of their best, and who are watching members of those families now fighting for this country—if you make deeper inroads into that magnificent patriotic and voluntary effort, then you are dislocating the framework of the method in which you propose to carry on the war. You are taking from this industry a man who is necessary—you are taking from that portion of work somebody who ought to be there—and you have then to take steps to replace him by finding some one who will undertake his duties. We have realised it here that in this warfare of nations voluntary effort is a thing of the past. Your Lordships will remember well the Derby Scheme. We cannot, any of us, say that that scheme was a success. It was the forerunner to compulsory military service in this country, and I venture to say that the difficulties of the Government would have been minimised to a very large extent had they not put off Conscription until they had tried a system which was doomed to failure.
We tried that same system in Ireland. I well remember attending a Conference in October, 1916, presided over by the Lord
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Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Wimborne, and at that Conference, besides Mr. Redmond, there were many influential and representative men in Ireland, every one of whom was determined to do his utmost, to do everything that lay in his power, to make the voluntary recruiting scheme a success in Ireland. What was the result? Even though you had Mr. Redmond's strong influence whole-heartedly in the war—as he showed afterwards, and as his family showed also—the result was 11,0000 recruits. I think that was the exact figure; and so, while I need hardly say that whatever influence and whatever power I have in Ireland will be willingly given to support any scheme which the Government think right and which they believe will be helpful towards winning the war, I am bound to say that I think there are immense difficulties in the path they are proposing to follow.
In regard to compulsory military service there is a higher consideration, at least from my personal point of view, and I would venture to put it before your Lordships this afternoon with the greatest possible diffidence. It is that there is a responsibility which rests on the British Government, there is a duty which the British Government owes to Ireland, and that duty is to remove for ever from the name of Ireland the stigma which will attach to its people if they do not take their proper place in this struggle, and do not undergo the trials, privations, and sacrifices which are being undertaken by the people of England Scotland, and Wales. I view with sorrow the rising spirit of antagonism which I see in all parts of this country owing to the differential treatment with which your policy in Ireland is connected; and looking to the future—and I know that it is our duty now, and it will become more so, to do what we can to solve this problem of Irish government—I say that in this growing spirit of antagonism there are the seeds of difficulties which you can remove now by placing Ireland in a similar position to England and Scotland and Wales.
What has been (I do not like to call it) the controlling force, one of the dominating factors which has made you pause in your policy, and which has caused you to ponder and wonder whether the course you are pursuing is a right one? This influence is known by that sinister sounding name at the present moment of Sinn Fein. What is

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Sinn Fein? In the early days before the war Sinn Fein was an organisation of visionaries, dreamers, and idealists of a wholly impracticable character, and recognised as impracticable by all reasonable and thinking men in all parts of the country. In these last few years we have seen the disloyal, the traitor, and the man of alien origin fastening their tentacles upon it and turning it into the ominous organisation which it is at this moment. I am bound to say that in my opinion it is the weak and vacillating policy which the Government have pursued for the last twelve years that has entrenched Sian Fein in present position. Your policy and the policy of your predecessors has been to conciliate traitors, and to take no steps to prevent the destruction of the fabric of law and order in the country. I congratulate Lord French on the step he has taken in placing under restraint those traitors, men of alien origin, and disloyal men who have brought Ireland to the condition in which she is at the present moment. But, while I congratulate Lord French, there is one thing I should like to say. While this step was taken at a very late stage in our history I could not help feeling, when I saw the manner in which it was carried out, that the mechanism for it had been in existence for a somewhat long time. I think our thanks are due to the previous Administration in Ireland, or those who were connected with the machinery for carrying out that work, for the excellent arrangements which resulted in such a high measure of success.
It is the British Government who have permitted Sinn Fein. They have stood by and watched its growth, until the organisation has reached a position in which it thought itself capable of challenging your supremacy. When I indict the leaders of Sinn Fein I am making no indictment against the whole of Ireland. I dissociate entirely the leaders of Sinn Fein from the great body of Irishmen; and having seen in the Lord Lieutenant's Proclamation the reference to a German conspiracy, I am prepared, on behalf of the Irish people, to repudiate a German conspiracy. That those traitors who place themselves in a position of notoriety and power, owing to your negligence in this country, are in league with Germany, I have no sort of doubt. I am certain that they are, and they should not have been at liberty for so long in order to carry on their
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nefarious dealings with the enemies of His Majesty'. With all the knowledge in your possession which leaders of Sinn Fein were not unwilling to give in their speeches in all parts of the country, which did not pass the Censor but which did not fail to reach the Government, you allowed the release of these prisoners. While we were sitting on the Irish Convention, and you were urging us to bring about a settlement, you knew that the flouting of the British policy by the Sinn Fein leaders and its effect on the impressionable character of the Irish people would bring about a majority professing Sinn Fein in Irish Parliament. At the same time you were calling upon us to bring about a settlement, forsooth, in order to satisfy American opinion! I have a much higher opinion of our American Allies than to think that in this great cause of humanity they would be turned aside by any such subject as the settlement of the Irish question.
I am bound to say one word in connection with the Home Rule Bill which I understand an influential Committee is engaged at this moment in drafting. I am inclined to imagine their difficulties. I think they are oscillating between the policy of what we may call the majority of the Convention, which was Dominion Home Rule, and the policy which we know as the Unionist policy. So long as the British Empire exists, and so long as the United Kingdom is the heart of the British Empire, so necessarily must Ireland be a part of the United Kingdom. This is not the occasion on which I would trespass on your Lordships' indulgence, and I would only express the hope that the Government will consider that all changes of this description are matters which should be left for consideration after the war, and that this problem should be left in abeyance until then.
In that connection I would only say this one word. The Government of Ireland is only a portion of an immense problem which another place and your Lordships' house will have to consider at no very distant date, I hope—that is, the Government of the whole of the United Kingdom and the whole of the Empire. When you realise that our present institutions are incapable of discharging those duties which Committees of Reconstruction are telling us ought to be done after the war, and your Lordships consider Ireland in that connection, you will see that the future government of Ireland is a question which

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affects the whole of the United Kingdom in exactly the same way. My last word on this occasion is to urge on the Government, with all the vehemence of which I am capable, to do their utmost to assist Lord French in establishing law and order, and when you have settled Ireland in that way you will find Ireland a fertile ground for sowing the seed for changes which may have to come about when the war is at an end.
LORD ARMAGHDALE: My Lords, after the able and eloquent speech of my noble friend I feel sure your Lordships will agree that the time has come when we should have from the Government a clear and definite statement of their intentions in regard to Ireland. It appears to me that we are entitled to demand an answer to three specific questions. In the first place, we want to know what course they are going to take in regard to the Sinn Fein organisation—an organisation which, in spite of the arrest of its leaders, is still carrying on a campaign of sedition and crime and open resistance to the law. During the last few weeks, even in the last few days, there have appeared in the Press many reports of raids for arms, and even graver outrages, all of which prove that the rank and file of Sinn Fein have, I am afraid, a very poor opinion of the courage and determination of the Government. They evidently think that they can carry on their lawless practices with impunity, and so far as I can see the Irish Executive have, as yet, given very little evidence of a determination to enforce obedience to the law.
The recent arrest of the Sinn Fein leaders was on the face of it a strong step to take, but having regard to the information the Government had in their possession, if they had failed to take this action they would have been guilty of a criminal neglect of duty. Having taken these men into custody the Government proceeded to treat them with extraordinary leniency. They have simply been removed from Ireland and placed in internment, under, no doubt, the most comfortable circumstances, in various English prisons. The Prime Minister, speaking I think at Edinburgh in justification of the arrest of these men, said—
"If we had shirked action, stern action, without delay, we should have deserved impeachment for betraying not merely the cause of our country but the cause of freedom."
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Stern action was undoubtedly demanded, but the Government have not been as stern as they should have been. If they have evidence to warrant the arrest of these men they must have proof against some of them at all events which would justify their being placed upon trial for their lives. Apparently they are not to be brought to trial, and the Sinn Fein organisation is not to be suppressed. I submit that in the circumstances which they have themselves revealed the Government would be failing in their duty if they did not take immediate measures to root out and destroy this seditious movement which has brought about one rebellion and was organising another at the most critical and dangerous period of the war.
It is impossible to absolve the Government from responsibility for the events which have led up to the present situation. Their misplaced leniency in granting a general amnesty to all who were concerned in the Rebellion of 1916 is really inexplicable having regard to the fact. which we have on their own confession, that at that very time they knew there was a plot to bring about another rising, and that that plot was being concocted between the Sinn Fein leaders and the Germans. It really passes comprehension how responsible Ministers, with that knowledge in their possession, could bring themselves to release the ringleaders of the Rebellion and allow them to resume their seditious activities. It is even more difficult to understand the weakness and the irresolution of the late Chief Secretary in the face of these perils and in this critical state of affairs. I wish that I was able to feel confidence that the changes which have been made in the Irish Executive indicate that the Government have determined upon a more resolute policy. Unfortunately there is so far, in my opinion, very little in the conduct of the new Irish Government to encourage much hope of improvement.
This leads me to the second question which, I think, is entitled to receive a plain answer from the Government. What are their real intentions regarding the enforcement of the Military Service Act in Ireland? I may remind your Lordships of the Prime Minister's declaration when he was introducing the Bill into the other House. The Prime Minister then stated that "it would take some weeks to set up the necessary machinery"—I am quoting his own words—"but as soon as arrangements are com-

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plete the Government will, by Order in Connell, put the Act into immediate operation." Nothing could be clearer than that declaration. That pledge was given two months ago, and I think that we are entitled to ask whether any steps have been taken towards setting up the machinery for bringing the Act into operation. The Government have really only themselves to blame if doubts are entertained of their sincerity in this matter. The recent Proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant, which has been referred to by my noble friend, appealing for 50,000 volunteer recruits does not indicate that the Government have any immediate intention of carrying out the promise which they gave in April last. The promise was in these words, that "the obligations of military service should be extended to Ireland under the same conditions as in Great Britain." In fact this Proclamation gives the impression that the Government have abandoned all idea of compulsion for Ireland. Even Mr. Dillon has congratulated his followers upon the success of their campaign of resistance. The Proclamation, in my opinion, is one of the weakest appeals that could possibly be conceived. I do not know who is responsible for it, but certainly it reflects no credit upon its author. From first to last it does not afford the slightest prospect of obtaining recruits for the Army. It makes no attempt to remind Irishmen of their duty to defend their country in this hour of extreme peril. It tells them, in so many words, that if Ireland will produce 50,000 recruits by October next she will, in the words of the Proclamation, be "playing her part fully and freely in the world struggle for liberty." It appears to me that such a statement is entirely fallacious.
When the Military Service Act was before Parliament it was stated that Ireland might be expected to furnish at least ten divisions of Infantry. That, I venture to say, is a very moderate estimate of Ireland's capacity. I think that if Ireland did her duty in proportion to other parts of the Empire she ought to put into the field at least twenty divisions. We have, had from time to time many estimates of the number of men in Ireland available for military service. Those estimates, which have been put forward by the Government, have always appeared to me to be framed with the idea of minimising the number of men which Ireland should be expected to contribute, but it was never suggested that the limit of Ireland's capacity is
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50,000 men, which really is a preposterous suggestion. Two years ago it was stated officially that there were in Ireland over 160,000 men who could be spared for military service. That was after making the fullest and even exaggerated allowances for those who were indispensable and those who were unfit. I believe the number arrived at at that time was, as I stated then in the House of Commons, grossly under-estimated, and I know that the number to-day must be largely in excess of that figure, having regard especially to the fact that there has been no emigration and that the age for military service has been raised. I find it, therefore, difficult to understand what could have induced the Government to put their demand for recruits at so low a figure as 50,000.
It is even more difficult to appreciate the reasons for limiting their appeal to young men in the towns. The Proclamation says that it is not expected that many of the rural population will be available for military service. Why not, my Lords? The idea that there are no young men in the country districts who can be spared from agriculture is absurd. As any one who has acquaintance with Ireland knows perfectly well, there are thousands of young men in the rural parts of Ireland who could be taken into the Army without the slightest detriment to the work of food production. Many of these young men have in the past found, and are now finding, plenty of time to serve in the Sinn Fein ranks, and I venture to say that the largest proportion of the 500,000 volunteers by whom we were threatened by Mr. de Valera were young men from the countryside. These men are practically told by the Government that they are not wanted in the Army. It seems to me an extraordinry and incomprehensible proceeding, especially when the appeal for voluntary recruits is accompanied by an offer of land for those who are prepared to come forward and fight for their country. It is unfortunate that the Government have found it necessary to explain that this part of their Proclamation does not mean all that its words seem to imply. It was a mistake to attempt to bribe men to do their duty, but it was an even greater error to hold out inducements which turn out to be worthless.
The most astonishing part of this Proclamation is that it proposes to allow a period of four months for a trial of voluntary recruiting on these limited lines. The whole case for the Military Service Act

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was that men were needed at once and in large numbers. Yet here we have a large number of fit young men in Ireland, and the Government proposes to allow another four months to pass by without making any real attempt to bring them into the ranks. We have certainly every right to demand an explanation of the strange and serious discrepancies between the declarations of urgency in April and the weak and ineffective policy which the Government are pursuing to-day.
The third point upon which I think we are entitled to have some information is the present position of the Government in regard to Home Rule. I do not propose to say very much on this question, but I think the Government must by this time be convinced of the grave mistake that they made in linking up the two subjects of Home Rule and Conscription. The offer of self-government has had no effect whatever in removing the hostility to Conscription. On the contrary, the Nationalist Party, in close alliance with the Sinn Feiners and the Bishops of their Church, have made it quite clear that, Home Rule or no Home Rule, they will resist the enforcement upon Irishmen of a duty which every other citizen of the United Kingdom is ready and willing to undertake. They have even gone farther than this and have said that, if they get Home Rule, they will use it to guarantee Ireland against Military Service.
I ask the Government what they are going to do in these circumstances. They are perfectly well aware that the raising of this controversy has awakened the gravest apprehensions in Ulster, and I put it seriously to them whether it is worth while, to risk any disturbance of the splendid efforts which Ulster has made throughout the whole of this war by threatening her now with Home Rule. It is to the credit of Ulster, as I think your Lordships will agree, that notwithstanding the fears of betrayal which have been aroused there has been no slackening in the efforts of Ulster, there has been no weakening in her loyalty to the Empire. But let the Government make no mistake. The determination of the Unionists of Ulster never to submit to a Home Rule Parliament has been strengthened rather than weakened by the events of the past two years. They realise—what apparently the Government are determined to ignore—that whilst English politicians are talking of Federalism, Irish
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Nationalists are determined to accept nothing less than full colonial Home Rule, which they know, and we know, would be a convenient stepping-stone to complete separation. It is, I think, well that the Government should understand that, whilst Ulster is prepared to go on rendering the same loyal service that she has done throughout this war, she is not prepared to advance one step along a road which she believes, and I believe, can lead only to disunion and disaster.
I therefore join in the appeal of my noble friend, and urge the Government to give up all idea of introducing great constitutional changes at the present time—changes which can lead only to bitter controversy—and to concentrate all their energies upon the duty of getting from Ireland, as well as from Great Britain, the men who are absolutely necessary if we are to win the war.
VISCOUNT WIMBORNE: My Lords, I should not have intervened in the present discussion had it been confined to the consideration of a purely domestic controversy. In the present grave state of our national fortunes when unity of purpose is so necessary, and indeed imperative, I do not think we should be right in doing anything to embarrass His Majesty's Government, or to hinder them in the prosecution of the war. Therefore it is only in so far as the Irish question is, as it has been repeatedly declared to be, a vital war issue that I think we are entitled to ask for information and to make certain suggestions. If I intend to eschew controversy as far as I can, I certainly propose to eschew any personal matter, and I shall not follow the usual practice of a retiring Minister and offer your Lordships any explanation of the circumstances in which my connection with the Irish Government was terminated.
Amid much that is obscure in the present Irish situation, one new fact stands out in the public eye. The innovation to which I refer is the change in the personnel of the Irish Executive. This change is not confined to the office of Lord Lieutenant or Chief Secretary, but extends to other functionaries as well. It includes the high offices of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, and its ramifications go further, into offices both great and small, even down to simple colonels and private

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secretaries. And it is to be remarked—think it is, if I may say so, somewhat unfortamate—that this new change has had the effect of removing from the Irish Government all, or nearly all, of those of professed sympathy with the cause of Irish nationality and most of those, I believe, who profess the Catholic faith. In fact, the change in the personnel has been of so sweeping aid dramatic a character that I think we are entitled to ask His Majesty's Government what this change portends.
For what purpose have you fashioned this new Executive instrument? It is true that in partial explanation, at any rate, the Government have alleged the existence of a German plot in Ireland. One would like to know a little more about it. It is somewhat strange, in view of the highly specialised means of obtaining information which have recently existed in Ireland, that neither I, nor, as far as I am aware, any other member of the late Irish Executive, was aware of the existence of this plot until it was discovered by the British government. Of course, I know that the extreme section of Sinn Feiners is willing to avail itself of German or any other assistance to accomplish what it believes itself entitled to achieve in the prosecution of its National aspirations. Germany doubtless has agents in Ireland. There is no evidence to my knowledge, but I think it is not at all improbable that Germany may be supplementing anti-British activities with money. Submarines are skulking round the coast in order to see to what extent our preparations will admit of the landing of arms. There are, too, rumours of attempts on the part of Germany to land not only arms but men. To that extent I believe that there was a German plot; but to that extent there has been a plot ever since the war began. If, therefore, the case of the Government is, as I understand it to be at present, that there was hostile association, then this condition was every bit as true—as Lord Armaghdale pointed out—in July, 1917, when the Government amnesty to rebel prisoners was granted, as I dare say it was true when they re-imprisoned the prisoners last May. In this respect I think, perhaps, it is better to regard the German plot, and what has happened in connection with it, as evincing more the zeal of the new broom than as revealing any fundamental change in the internal situation of Ireland itself.
If, then, as I suspect, Ireland is much the same to-day as it has been during the whole
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period of the war, what I would like to know is, What is British policy with regard to it? I think it is pertinent to ask this, because if we are to get Ireland to help us in the war—and that is our main concern—we must do one of two things. We must either exorcise, or, as an alternative, stamp out, that spirit which keeps one half of the people of Irland neutral if not hostile, and the other half, the minority, not unwilling it is true but in practice unavailable for Our purpose. How, in fact, do you propose to tap the man-power of Irland of which you say, and rightly say, you have such need? There is, too, a further consideration, of different order but I think of equal importance. I myself am not much in love with either the term or the connotation of the term "self-determination," But if we are to adhere to something of the kind as our war aim for others we cannot afford to be taunted with the failure to apply the term, and allow the echo of dissatisfaction on that head to be heard all over the world.
When I was in office I repeatedly urged the desirability of a settlement, not only for the sake of harmony and reconcilation between us and the Irish people, but also as an essential preliminary to national service; because its accomplishment would have undermined, if not entirely removed, that conscientious objection on the part of the majority, involving, as I have said, the practical exclusion of the minority, and would have rendered the task of national service feasible, and perhaps even easy. But the inclusion of Ireland in the Man-Power Act last April shows how little the opinion of the last Executive prevailed, What has happened since? Conscription, apparently, as far as one can judge, is now seen by those on the spot—not, perhaps, by all your Lordships, but as far as one can tell by the new Irish Government—to be a physical impossibility in the present temper of the country; and, further, that the men so obtained, if they can be obtained, would be worse than useless for our purpose in their present frame of mind.
We have now an appeal for 50,000 volunteers. I agree with previous speakers that it is extremely difficult to see why the figure of 50,000 has been taken; for, as my noble friend Lord Londonderry said, it does not represent anything like an equitable contribution from Ireland to the common fund. But that figure has been taken. Now this appeal is coupled

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with a promise of land for those who come forward. I do not know how many may be forthcoming; perhaps not enough seriously to embarrass the Government in the redemption of their pledge. But be it remembered that 125,000 recruits have already joined the Colours in Ireland since the beginning of the war. Are those men to be treated differently from the recruits for whom you are now asking? And that is Ireland alone. Many Irishmen have joined the Colours in England. Then supposing that ten acres be taken as an economic holding—and surely we cannot consider a smaller area than that—the Government even to-day may be confronted with a demand for anything up to 1,250,000 acres of land. How can this demand be satisfied? I think that most of your Lordships are aware—I do not know whether it is known outside this House—that it is idle to look to the congested districts of the South and West of Ireland, where already it is difficult enough to provide economic holdings for the existing peasantry. It is only in the grass lands of Leinster, and perhaps Roscommon, that any land exists which is not actually hypothecated to the peasantry of the districts. But to break up the grass land of the central and eastern counties would destroy the cattle industry of Ireland on which the small breeders, and, indeed, every Irish farmer, to a large extent depends. In fact, it would he a most serious blow to the prosperity of the whole country. That is surely a serious matter.
But to go back. I admit that, besides military service—whatever form it takes, whether by force or by cajolery—we have been allowed to expect the introduction of a Home Rule Bill. Home Rule and Conscription were to be introduced simultaneously; they were to proceed side by side; independent but vaguely related; keeping step, as it were, in their progress, and neutralising one another's defects to the common advantage. Well, that was a tenable policy; perhaps the only one, as far as I am aware, and as far as many members of this House are aware, which, in all the circumstances, afforded a possible solution of the complicated situation. It was a difficult policy. It was delicate. From the point of view of statesmanship it might well have been defined as heroic in every sense of the word, good and bad; but at any rate it could claim to be impartial, and it might have succeeded. What has become of that policy? Does
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it still hold the field; and can it, after what has happened, be successfully pursued?
I am prepared to admit that the government of Ireland is full of difficulty. Whichever way you turn you are confronted with formidable obstacles; some inherent in the moral and material conditions of Ireland itself, others super-imposed by those baleful Party traditions to which we are all of us heir. Success or failure in this province of administration cannot be judged by the same standards which would be applicable elsewhere. I am far from withholding a full recognition of this fact. But, if so, I suggest that it would have been wiser to have been content with a less ambitious, perhaps I might say a less spectacular, policy. If the possibility of Home Rule were in doubt it would have been more prudent not to have raised the Conscription issue. By that injudicious act the Government have enormously increased their difficulties, and they have succeeded (as has been wittily said) in accomplishing what was believed to be impossible—they have united all Ireland, but against themselves. Moreover, a serious dilemma has been created. For if to drop Home Rule—which the Government has declared in any circumstances it was encumbent upon them to introduce—would be to betray Ireland, to drop Conscription now, after having made it an essential part of the raising of the age limit at home, would go perilously near to betraying England.
My Lords, the position is lamentable, but I earnestly hope that we shall not in consequence slide into doing nothing. If we retrace our steps it must be in the direction of the spirit which called into existence the Irish Convention. That body succeeded in affirming that Ireland could be united and could be united only on the basis of political equality for the two peoples and the two religions of which its inhabitants are composed. That principle was advanced by Southern Unionists, and my noble friend Lord Midleton was largely responsible for its introduction. It was accepted by the Nationalists in the main, and, as my noble friend knows, more than perhaps does appear, if it had been allowed to materialise it would have appealed, I know, to 80 per cent. of the Sinn Feiners; and further, my Lords, to my certain knowedge, whatever may be said, it attracted powerful support among Ulster Unionists themselves. Here we had some-

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thing to build upon. I cannot agree, even in spite of what has been said by Lord Londonderry, that we can afford to stand still. It would be a confession of utter bankruptcy to do so. Moreover, Ireland does not stand still. You have set up in Ireland a military régime supported by 80,000 British troops, half of whom are fit to be in France. It has not succeeded in intimidating the disaffected in the country, and the condition of Ireland, in the opinion of many good judges, as is supported by Lord Armaghdale, is worse than it ever was.
In view of these facts I think we have a right to know what the policy of the Government is and how they propose to achieve it. I can conceive that you may have two policies in regard to Ireland. You may have a policy of conciliation, which I certainly favour, and you may have a policy of coercion, which carries a good deal of support in some quarters; but I contend that you must have some policy in Ireland. If you find conciliation is impossible and are disappointed as to its results, then you must adopt the other policy, perhaps; but whatever policy you adopt, I think you must be consistent and carry it out to the end and not halt between the two. I earnestly hope that we shall have some information to-day as to the view of the Government with regard to the present condition of Ireland, and as to how they propose to render available for our assistance in the present struggle such forces as are latent in Ireland and ought to be made available for the purpose.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I think when my noble friend behind me put the Motion on the Paper which he has sustained, if I may venture to say so, in so admirable a speech to-day, there was an intimation to us on the part of the Government that they considered the discussion premature; but I think your Lordships will admit that the three speeches to which we have listened have made it quite clear that if the Government were to make up their minds as to the policy on which they were going to act they would be doing so, certainly on the present lines, against the advice of all the noble Lords who have spoken. I need hardly point out to your Lordships that in their different capacities my noble friend behind me, Lord Armaghdale, whom we have heard for the first time but who has long been Chairman of the Ulster Unionists in the House of
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Commons, and my noble friend the late Viceroy, have had exceptional opportunities of forming a judgment as to the policy which should be or which could be pursued at this moment with advantage. I can conceive that if I were a member of the Government at this moment. I should certainly be inclined to ask myself, after those speeches, whether the accepted and authorised programme laid down by the Government for the future is likely to be more successful than the policy which they have pursued for the last year and a-half.
It would weary your Lordships were I to read out one by one the protests which at different times some of us who are acting together for the Unionist Party in the South and West of Ireland have addressed to the Government, and the warnings which we have laid before them, as to the effect of the policy of ignoring the progress of Sinn Fein doctrines, on which my noble friend Lord Londonderry addressed so serious a protest. In February of 1917, in June, and again in October, and still more recently, we endeavoured to persuade the Government that they must, as Lord Wimborne has said, act upon some policy. It might be a policy of conciliation or it might be one of coercion, but it must be some policy; and the greatest impolicy in Ireland is. I venture to say, that you should be misunderstood or supposed to be vacillating.
Let me point out what this vacillation has amounted to in my own personal experience. On June 1 of last year the Southern Unionists met in Dublin to decide whether they should or should not enter the Convention. I had a telegram from the Chief Secretary asking me to see him in Dublin and tell him the result of our deliberations. I attended on the following day, with the vice-chairman. We told Mr. Duke that there were two points on which we required assurances before we could enter the Convention. The first was that the discussion should be confined to the establishment of a Constitution within the Empire, on which there had been doubts. We were not prepared to discuss Sinn Fein doctrines or revolutionary doctrines. If Sinn Feiners did not agree to come into the Convention on that basis, we thought the Convention had better not be held. The other point was that there should be no further release of Sinn Fein prisoners before the Convention. We had the assurance of the Chief Secre-

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tary that there would be no question of such a release; yet ten days later the release was ordered, and I was assured on the highest evidence that this step was taken at the motion and on the advice of the Chief Secretary. I believe Mr. Duke to be an honest man, but I venture to say that if you attempt to govern a country like Ireland and your spirit is so vacillating that you give an assurance on Saturday and on the following Wednesday week advise the Cabinet in direct opposition to that assurance, you are following a policy which leads to perdition.
Immediately the Shin Fein prisoners were released they commenced to run riot throughout Ireland, harassing law-abiding citizens, making seditious speeches, and inciting in every way to the breaking of the law and to any operation which would paralyse the Government in carrying on the war. Many of them were taken up. They commenced a hunger strike. Under the Chief Secretary's authority 200 hunger strikers were let loose on Ireland in the months of October and November of last year. I believe I am correct in those figures, and they include not merely Sinn Fein prisoners, but criminals, some of them of the deepest dye, who as soon as they saw how lax the Government was, and how afraid of the contest, took advantage of the fact to emancipate themselves from their sentences. The sentences of magistrates and Judges became a farce. In some eases the Chief Secretary released men who had been returned for trial before even they had been tried. The whole thing became ridiculous. We protested against it. I am not now violating the secrecy of the Convention—I believe I have, if I choose, the right to violate it now—when I say that at the first meeting in the month of January the whole of the Unionists in the Convention passed a resolution to be sent to the Government, and went to a division upon it, to the effect that they saw no advantage in the Convention continuing to sit if this contempt for the law was to be allowed to go on.
My point is that the whole of this was perfectly futile. As soon as the Government—I am not talking of the War Cabinet; how can the War Cabinet, as I pointed out yesterday, supervise all the details of administration throughout the country?—as soon as Mr. Duke took his courage in both hands and stopped this absurd rot
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—by "rot" I mean the general putting aside of all ordinary rules—the moment he said that he was not prepared to release men, the whole thing collapsed like a pricked bubble. They were "trying it on," and every one knows that the man in Ireland with whom a thing is tried on who does not stand for his own rights does not get very much quarter. That was the second phase, and I mention it only because the result of that phase was absolutely to spoil every chance of success for the Convention.
The noble Lord who has just sat down paid us a high compliment for the attempts that we had made. I say that while these men were loose in Ireland all extreme passions which had been dormant were re-aroused, and thousands of quiet Nationalists became Sinn Feiners, not from conviction but because it was the thing which was easiest to do in order to escape persecution and annoyance. Every effort was made to treat all persons who were of low intelligence and high credulity so as to induce them to join an organisation which was thoroughly disloyal and for which they had not in reality the smallest sympathy. Mr. Duke acted honestly, I believe, and in the conviction that he was creating an "atmosphere" for the Convention. The atmosphere proved to be one of so poisonous a description that it was fatal to the assembly in Trinity College.
The first thing that Lord French did was to arrest a large number of those who had been emancipated by Mr. Duke nearly a year before. I want to ask this question. Do your Lordships really think that the indictment which it is in the power of the Government to make against these men suddenly arose in a few days after Lord French had taken office? The misdeeds were there; the facts were there; the ill effects were there; but the man was not the man to deal with them. After this stupendous miscalculation, after Mr. Duke had allowed a foreign danger to grow under his eyes, when the enemy was actually at the gate and his successor had to deal with him in the first few days of his office; after he had exposed the British Government to the ridicule of every party in Ireland, what was the result? Mr. Duke was raised to one of those high posts in the law which are usually reserved for men who have given efficient and successful public service. If your Lordships think these facts are not noted in Ireland. I would only remind you that, although in recent

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times the chapters of Irish history have been short, Irish memories are very long.
Now we come to what is to be done under present conditions. The noble Earl last night took me to task for what he considered to be a caricature of the War Cabinet and its superintendence of all these matters. I cannot help feeing that if I had wished for repartee the debate to which your Lordships have listened has furnished me with the most effective one I could have had. In the absence of the noble Earl I said that I did not charge these things to the War Cabinet. I say that with all the War Cabinet have to do the man on the spot is bound to deal with these matters, and if the man on the spot is not supported he has his remedy. He can go. What happened? I believe that whenever the Cabinet gave their minds to Ireland they gave as careful and as assiduous a consideration to Irish affairs as they did to any other. But you cannot carry on Irish business or any other, if I may venture to say so, by taking a snapshot from time to time and then expecting, when you take the matter up two or three months afterwards, after you have been immersed in other affairs, that the picture will remain the same or that the facts with which you deal will not have altered. The result is you have had no consistent policy.
I assure your Lordships that the one reason I have risen this afternoon is to ask whether we cannot get the Government now—it is not too late—to begin upon some permanent and consistent policy. I will put into the shortest sentences what I think ought to be done. At this moment you are in the position that Lord French has brought a certain number of the worst offenders under lock and key. Why has not the association of which they are members been proclaimed as an illegal association? Mr. Asquith told us after the Rebellion that it was an illegal association, and that it would be treated as such. The men who are still at large, the ardent Sinn Feiners, are allowed to make revolutionary seditious speeches, and speeches against the British Government and the British Army; they are allowed to boycott the quiet Nationalists; they are urgent in turning all loyal men and men who voted for Conscription out of every public post. That is not an atmosphere in which you can improve the condition of Ireland. I ask the Governrhont—and I beg that we may have an answer before the debate closes—Will they
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or will they not undertake to proclaim Sinn Fein as an illegal association and to suppress efforts which are doing more to stop any possible settlement in Ireland than all the worst evils with which we had to deal twenty years ago? Unless this is done, they will be playing into the hands of those who believe that Lord French will be allowed only a spasmodic exercise of authority. I entirely concur with my noble friend behind me in the feeling he has expressed in regard to Lord French's tenure of office. Three out of four Irishmen at this moment believe that Lord French has been placed there for a short period, like General Maxwell, and that he may be removed when the next turn of the wheel comes. I hope the Government have made up their minds to support a policy, and the only way they can do that, and make their policy effective, is by proclaiming this organisation.
The second point I would put most earnestly is that the Government will consider whether they cannot avoid taking any step which will at this moment prejudice a settlement of the Irish question. For months many of my noble friends and myself did our very best to secure a settlement. We spared neither time nor influence in trying to see if there were any means by which some fresh arrangement could be arrived at. The future of Ireland depends on the union of loyal Nationalists with other loyal men, moderate men and business men, in order to set up some Government which may be strong, moderate, and lasting. You will never settle the Irish question by a measure like the Act of 1914, which gave a complete superiority to one class in politics and left the loyal elements, and the business elements, at the mercy of men who had not the training to enable them to make an effective Government. Does anybody in this House, after the three speeches we have heard, think that the moment for such an accommodation, and such a sinking of past differences, is the present moment? Do you really think that even we who were in conference so short a time ago with men like the late Mr. John Redmond—a great loss to his country—can at this moment be expected to meet on the same terms his successors who are sitting every day in conference with the avowed enemies of this country, and who are, by the common link of No Conscription, taking part with men who, if the Government have the evidence

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against them which they profess to have, and which I believe they have, ought to be shot as traitors? Can you expect us, the Unionist and loyal members, to go into conference in College Green with men who are at the same time sitting in conference at the Mansion House in Dublin with those who are doing their utmost to prevent Ireland taking any part in the war, and avow that they prefer German to British rule in Ireland? I say with all sense of responsibility that I do not believe there is one Unionist in Ireland at this moment who will sit in a Dublin Parliament if you could form one. I say this with all the more feeling because I have a great desire that we may still find a way out of these difficulties, and because I apprehend that if you press through a measure at this moment you will do more to create discord than yon could ever repair.
The last point I wish to put before the Government is the way in which the proposal for voluntary recruiting has been received. A few months ago you would have had great support. I deeply regret that no Catholic Bishop, nor, so far as I know, any leading Nationalist Members of Parliament, have said a single word in support of it. It was a great opportunity. I am going so far as to say that I think the offer of land was wise; but at all events for a Government, who only two months before had tied themselves to Conscription, to say "We will give you the fullest range of voluntary effort" was an olive branch which, if they had desired the arrangement, the Nationalist leaders might have seized. They will have none of it; and cannot you judge what will be the effect of any Home Rule Bill you may produce at the present moment? I urge the Government not to make this already difficult position still more tangled by attempting to drive a Home Rule Bill through during the war.
I also ask them, Will they not consider the experience of the last few years and take a little more counsel with those who have at heart the future of the country? You have rejected our advice time after time in regard to the government of Ireland. We have wearied you, and importuned you, Government after Government (Mr. Asquith's Government, the Coalition Government, and Mr. Lloyd George's Government), and every time you have rejected our counsels. When we asked you to take action you refused to do so. You started another Dardanelles in Ireland; you waited until
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the enemy had entrenched himself, until everything had been done which would make the difficulties greater. Then you said you would go ahead. I do not believe at this moment, with the general policy you have laid down, you find any authority, Unionist or Nationalist, Catholic or Protestant, official or non-official, in Ireland, who will give you support, or advise you to take it.
As was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Londonderry, the last twelve years have been a downward course. There was sunlight in Ireland when Mr. Birrell took office. He bore witness to that, and said that never in the whole history of 600 years had Ireland been more prosperous. That sunlight had become twilight before Mr. Birrell left Dublin, and the twilight has become darkness in the last few years, despite all the efforts of loyal men to find a settlement. I implore the Government to give us a chance of coming back to the sunlight. The only way they can do it is by reconsidering the policy they have laid down, by taking the advice of those who desire nothing so much as quietness and order in Ireland, and by adhering to the policy until the end.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the noble Marquess opposite framed his Notice in comprehensive terms, and the discussion which has taken place has travelled over a good deal of ground. The policy of His Majesty's Government, to which he has called attention, is expressed in more directions than one, and a good deal has been said about the different parts of that policy. I do not propose to dwell long upon that portion of it which finds expression in the appointment of Lord French to the Irish Viceroyalty, and in the vigorous measures which he has been authorised to take. With regard to Lord French, I should like to associate myself with what has been said by one or two of the speakers who have addressed your Lordships as to the debt of gratitude we owe him for undertaking a very difficult and thankless task, and hoping that in the performance of his duties he will show the same quiet and unostentatious persistence which has more than once stood the Empire in good stead under very different conditions, in other parts of the world.
With regard to the measures which Lord French is taking for the restoration of law and order and of public confidence, I do not think that it is too much to say that

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those measures have been long overdue. That, indeed, was the case made by my noble friend who has just sat down. One document is conclusive upon that point. I think that most of your Lordships are able to recall the contents of Lord Hardinge's Report on the state of Ireland it the spring of the year 1916. What was it that Lord Harding had to report, even in those dos? That the country was out of hand, was honeycombed with sedition, that you could not trust juries or magistrates to do their duty even when there was overwhelming evidence to support the case brought against the persons tried. The Report pointed out that there were legal powers ready to hand, but it went on to say that no legal powers could be of any avail if the Government did not put them in force, and if you could tot trust the tribunals to do their duty in dealing with the cases brought before them for trial. The conclusion that Lord Hardinge's Commission came to was that one of the reasons why this state of things had come to pass was that in both Houses of Parliament no sufficient attention had been paid to the condition of Ireland. In the present year things are very much worse than they were in 1916. I will only say, with regard to the steps that are being taken in order to restore public confidence, that they are steps which involve no hardship to any law-abiding citizen, and that all that the people of Ireland are asked to do is to desist from conduct in time of war which would be intolerable in time of peace in any civilised community.
I pass from that to what I suppose may be called the constructive part of the policy of His Majesty's Government. It is a two-fold policy, and was described by the Prime Minister in the month of April last as implying in the first place the extension of the Military Service Act to Ireland. He explained that the preparations for putting it into force did not exist, and that there might consequently be an interval of some weeks before the Act could be applied, but he said there was to be "no delay." Meanwhile, during this interval of some weeks, tire Government pledged themselves to pass a Bill giving self-government to Ireland. The Prime Minister went out of his way to explain that these questions would not hang together, and that each must be taken on its own merits. I venture respectfully to dissent from the statement that these two measures do not hang together. I think, on the contrary, that everything
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that has happened goes to show that the two measures are part of one and the same policy, and are intimately connected. What is the history of the facts? We required more recruits. We therefore decided to make a great appeal to the people of this country. We had excellent reasons for knowing that the people of England and Scotland would greatly resent being called upon to submit to larger sacrifices if the people of Ireland were allowed to go on escaping their responsibility as citizens. Accordingly it was decided that it was necessary to apply compulsion to Ireland. But it was believed that the chance of obtaining the acceptance of compulsion by Ireland was a very indifferent one unless at the same time you were able to produce a measure of Home Rule. A Home Rule Bill was therefore to be hurried through Parliament without loss of time. I therefore insist upon it that the two measures are intimately connected, and must be regarded as two limbs of one and the same policy.
I want your Lordships to consider for one moment how these two limbs stand at the present time. Both of them are in an extremely unsound condition. I believe that we are farther than ever from agreement as to the measure of Home Rule which might be offered to Ireland, and I believe that the prospects of obtaining the acceptance of compulsion by Ireland is at this moment—perhaps only for a time—more remote than it has been for many a day. That is, I believe, the naked truth, and it seems to me that we are bound to look it fairly in the face. I dare say it is true that our ingenuity is not exhausted, and that we may possibly be able to discover some new means of dealing with the situation, but the point which I want to make is that the reasons for a post haste settlement of the Home Rule question have for the moment passed into the background.
I should like to take stock first with regard to compulsion and next to Home Rule. As to compulsion, as your Lordships know, I always put rather higher than His Majesty's Government the great difficulty of enforcing compulsion on Ireland, not so much because I wish to impute to the people of Ireland a general condition of disloyalty or disaffection, but because I believe that there is ingrained in the heart of the Irish peasantry a profound dislike to compulsory service. After all, we have seen something of the same kind in this country. In the early days of the war we proceeded by slow and very

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cautious steps, and eventually we had great success in coaxing the people of this country to accept compulsion. But it is very often said that Ireland is 200 years behind this country, and I think we cannot be greatly surprised if on this particular point she has somewhat lagged behind us. But at this moment, whatever the difficulties may have been before, now that you have arrayed against you the whole of the Sinn Fein party, the whole of the Nationalist party, and the whole of the Irish hierarchy, it seems to me that the prospect is about as bad as it could possibly be. Your Lordships are aware that there is at this moment going on an absolutely remorseless propaganda against compulsory service in Ireland. Men are being dissuaded by their spiritual advisers from joining, and they are being told that if they are enrolled they ought to shirk their duty as soldiers. They are being told that the women are not to accept substitution in the way in which they have accepted it in this country. All these things are happening, and it seems to me that the difficulty is a very serious one and that the compulsion limb of the Government policy is in rather a bad way.
What then is the attitude of the Government towards the question of compulsion? It is, I presume, exposed in Lord French's Proclamation, to which reference has been made by several speakers. Does the issue of that Proclamation mean that His Majesty's Government realise that, for the moment at any rate, they have come up against an impasse in the matter of Conscription in Ireland. Is that what it means? In this country we began by the famous Derby appeal, which was renewed, I think at least once, if not more than once. I do not know whether that is in the mind of His Majesty's Ministers. Lord French asks in this Proclamation for a total number of recruits which strikes most of us as being a very modest one compared with the number which it was thought Ireland ought to produce. I have not attempted to make any calculation to see how the figure is arrived at, but I confess that I am quite unable to reconcile it with any previous demands which have been made upon Ireland.
One would rather like to know what is at the back of this. Is it intended, supposing that the quota of 50,000 men is produced by the month of October, that we shall hear no more about Conscription? Is it, on the contrary, proposed that, if that
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number is not forthcoming, then we are to have Conscription put in force at once? At any rate, whether that is a question which can be answered or not, we shall not really know where we stand until we get to the autumn of the present year. The appeal which I venture to make to His Majesty's Government is this—that that being so, they will not attempt in the interval between the present time and that date to force through a measure of Home Rule. Surely there could be no justification until we know whether Ireland is prepared to produce the desired number of recruits. Surely there could be no justification for rushing through a great constitutional measure of reform until we know whether we are going to get the goods for which it is proposed to pay the price.
I pass from that for a moment to the other limb of the Government policy—I mean the Home Rule limb. I imagine that most of your Lordships are familiar with the contents of the Blue Book which embodies the proceedings of the Irish Convention. This Blue Book affords some of the most tragic and disappointing reading that I have ever encountered in a document of the kind. The Convention started out with high hopes and great aspirations. The Irish people, Irishmen of all creeds and parties, were to meet together and draft a Constitution for their own country; and the Government were, we were told, prepared to accept almost any proposal with regard to which a measure of substantial agreement could be reached by the Convention. I search in vain for any trace or fragment of substantial agreement. You may read Sir Horace Plunkett's covering letter; you may read the Report of the Majority, the Ulster Report, the Nationalist Report, or again, the remarkable letter which the Prime Minister addressed to the Convention in the hope of inducing them to come to terms; you may read any of those documents and you will find, I think, in none of them any trace of a real substantial agreement with regard to any of the fundamental questions which lie at the bottom of the controversy. Where there is a semblance of agreement it seems to have been purchased either by illogical concession or by what seems to me the most dangerous of all proceedings—the postponement of questions of crucial importance, to be dealt with at some future date.
The Report is bad enough. It shows that Ulster is as adamant as ever upon the

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question of partition, and those of us who have had the advantage of hearing the able speech of the noble Lord on the second bench (Lord Armaghdale) must be aware that that attitude does not show any signs of relenting. For the Nationalists partition is evidently unthinkable; and they claim, and claim obstinately, control over the Customs and Excise. The Southern Unionists, ably captained by my noble friend opposite (Viscount Midleton), are also opposed to partition and to the surrender of Customs. Then you have the great body of opinion represented by Sinn Fein, which began by boycotting the Convention altogether, and evidently will be content with nothing short of the complete independence of the country. On the top of that you have had the Mansion House Conference in Dublin, and the Maynooth Proclamation, to which I referred a moment ago. I can only say that it seems to me that the other limb of the Government policy—the Home Rule limb—is at this moment as rickety as the compulsion limb.
When I make these remarks I desire particularly not to be understood as suggesting to the House that we should allow councils of despair to prevail. There may be other ways of getting out of the Irish difficulty, and at this moment there are many people who look for the solution in the direction of what they speak of as Federation. I am not going to say a word disrespectful of these proposals; but I should like to say this much. I believe that people who talk so glibly about a Federal solution of the Irish question are rather apt to make use of what I conceive to be a misnomer. There are many kinds of Federation, and much has been said and written about them; but to my mind what is essential in a Federation is that it should represent a coming together, an approximation, of the parts to the whole, and a surrender by the parts to the whole of some of the rights which they have hitherto claimed. The leading case in Federation is the Canadian Federation of 1867. Your Lordships may remember how the great Act of that year begins. It commences in these words—
"Whereas the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—"
and then the Act goes on. But what is suggested in this case is not a bringing together of different sections of the Empire.
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On the contrary, a measure of disintegration is suggested under which the supreme power will surrender to certain of the parts privileges and rights which they do not enjoy at the present time.
But, after all, names do not greatly matter, and I do not very much care what the measure is called. I should welcome it if it would do certain things. The things that I want to have done are these. I want to see a change in the Constitution which will give greater efficiency to the supreme Government by emancipating it from some of the drudgery of domestic details with which it is now over-burdened—a burden which is becoming heavier with every year that passes. In the next place, I wish to see some change which will have the effort extricating us from the Irish imbroglio; and, in the third place, I should like to see a change made which would have the effect of doing something to set the Imperial house in order. I do not mean for a moment to suggest by this that I am asking for the early production of some great measure by which the whole of the Dominions would be united in a colossal Federal group. But what I do think would be greatly to the good would be some change which, by relieving the supreme Parliament of this country of a good deal of its domestic work, would convince the Dominions beyond the seas that we were able to bestow sufficient time and attention upon the great Imperial problems in which we and they are alike concerned. I believe that these objects could be attained under some measure of devolution; but I do not for an instant believe that the kind of measure which might find acceptance would have the effect of shutting the mouth of the Irish agitator. It might, incidentally, gratify Ireland; if so, so much the better.
I should like, before I sit down, to utter a word of warning against the idea that in any scheme of Federation you will find a short cut across the Irish morass. I do not believe it. Nobody wants it in Ireland, as far as I can make out. The Nationalists insist upon conditions which no Federation would tolerate for a moment; and they have notified us in the Blue Book to which I referred a moment ago that in their opinion Federation is not in view, and that, even if it were, Ireland would certainly insist upon treatment different; from that accorded to the rest of the United Kingdom. The other fallacy against which I should like to utter a word of warning is the fallacy

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that you will find anything in the Act of 1914 which you can really regard as a stepping-stone towards Federation. I believe, on the contrary, that the Act of 1914 is an obstacle in the way of Federation. I am of opinion that its financial arrangements are inconsistent with a Federal arrangement; I believe the arrangements which it provides for the representation of Ireland at the Parliament in Westminster are inconsistent with a Federal arrangement. And I would say, in conclusion, in considering this question of Federation—let us beware of affixing to our proposals what I should call dishonest labels. It is no use taking the Act of 1914, or any Act, and saying, "This is a Federal Act"; putting something into the Preamble, putting in some stray clause which might or might not fit into a Federal scheme. I believe that is misleading and most dangerous; and I confess that I rather regret that the Prime Minister, in the famous letter which he addressed to my noble friend Lord Midleton and his colleagues, should have, as he did, adjured the Convention to "agree at once to a scheme which would realise the hopes of Ireland without prejudice to the future consideration of questions affecting every part of the United Kingdom." It is idle to think that you can do these things without prejudicing questions which affect other parts of the United Kingdom.
My last word with regard to Federation then, is this. If we entertain the idea at all, let us see the whole scheme before we give it any encouragement; and, in the next place, let us be extremely careful not to give Ireland in advance anything which we are not prepared to extend to other parts of the United Kingdom—England, Scotland, and Wales.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, no man in this House has a greater right, by family tradition and by personal service, to bring the subject of Ireland before your Lordships than the noble Marquess who inaugurated this debate; and the cheers with which you greeted the end 'of his speech showed that, in your opinion, the noble Marquess acquitted himself in a manner worthy in both respects of his claims upon the attention of your Lordships' House.
The debate which he initiated, and which has now extended over some space of time, has covered, as has been remarked,
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a very wide field indeed. Large questions of policy have been raised. A direct challenge has been given by more than one speaker to His Majesty's Government—a challenge of which I do not for a moment complain. In addition to that, a large number of questions, also quite natural and fair questions, have been put to me upon questions of administration, of persons, and of detail. These questions have, in the case of one or two speakers, been punctuated by the use of adjectives which have not on the whole been very complimentary to His Majesty's Government. I do not complain of that. I only hope that when I have made the observations which I am about to address to your Lordships, the suspicious of some of my noble friends may in some respects be removed.
The noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, referring to what passed in the debate of yesterday as to the procedure under the present system of government, ventured upon the suspicion that we only look at Ireland or deal with Ireland in a series of snapshots. Alas! that is not the case. The case of Ireland is a continuous film being unrolled before our eyes. We may not understand Ireland. We may mishandle her. That has been the common experience of all British Governments for some hundreds of years, and is certainly not peculiar to this Government. The noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury) shakes his head, no doubt referring to the famous aphorism and the successful rule of his illustrious father. I am quite ready to make that exception; but, broadly speaking, British Governments have not understood and have not been able successfully to handle Ireland, and if in any respect we share that misfortune we share it with the majority of our predecessors. We cannot, at any rate, ignore her. She is always with us, and I can assure my noble friend Lord Midleton that if he thinks that this tragic figure has been absent for many weeks or many days from our notice he is gravely ignorant of the experience we have had to endure.
Now, my Lords, with regard to the question of policy. I do not think your Lordships will expect me, nor is it necessary, to go far into the past. The worst of Irish politics is that Ireland herself always insists upon living in the past, and that our attitude and our policy are so much

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tinctured by associations and events that are inseparably connected with the past. I therefore shall not say one word about distant history. Let me take the question of the policy of the Government at the point where my noble friend who has just sat down began his remarks. He alluded to the Convention of last year. It was in the month of May that I was standing at this Table to announce to your Lordships the proposal on the part of His Majesty's Government to set up that Convention. It was warmly welcomed by every speaker, both from Ireland and from England. There was a general feeling that the problem of Irish Government having so signally failed in the hands of Englishmen, the best possible solution would be to allow Irishmen themselves to work out the destinies of their country. The Convention, therefore, started with general good will and under favourable auspices. It sat for eight months. So far as I was able to follow its procedure—several of its members sat in your Lordships' House—noble Lords, members of Parliament, and Irishmen of all classes who belonged to it approached their task with genuine good will, harmony of feeling and an earnest desire to arrive at a solution. In the early days we were told that the omens were hopeful. Latterly the skies became somewhat clouded, and towards the end most of us were apprehensive as to the result. The result came in the form of a Report to which the noble Marquess has alluded in language which I do not dispute. I need not allude to the various divisions of varying figures upon the different proposals before the Convention. The Report itself as a whole was finally adopted by a majority, I think, of forty-four to twenty-nine.
One speaker has alluded to what was said in both Houses of Parliament in the summer of last year as to the intention of the Government should the Convention arrive at an agreement. The engagement we gave at that time was that if there was substantial agreement the Government would take legislative action and would use their influence to carry such a measure into law. I agree with Lord Lansdowne that there was not substantial agreement in the sense in which we used the term. We had hoped for better things, and we were disappointed. But although there was not substantial agreement in that sense there was a considerable measure of agreement among the different sections of Irishmen,
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as the figures of the majority to which I have alluded show, and for the first time in history a Constitution for the future government of Ireland had been worked out and carried by a considerable majority of Irishmen. That was a fact not to be ignored, and the Government deliberately arrived at the conclusion that they ought not to allow the labours of those eight months to be wasted; that they ought not to allow Ireland to drift back into the condition of chaos and disorder from which the Convention was intended to recover her; and that the responsibility was one which they were net only entitled but bound to assume.
Those were the conditions under which His Majesty's Government in the spring of this year announced their intention to prepare and to introduce a Bill. There was no concealment about the lines upon which we proposed to proceed. The Bill, broadly speaking, was to follow, so far as that was desirable and possible, the lines of the Report, subject to such modifications or conditions as were, for instance, suggested in the famous letter of the Prime Minister to the Chairman of the Convention. The Committee to which reference has been made was appointed for that purpose and commenced its task. Meanwhile, my Lords, great events had happened in another part of the world. I took last night the case of Ireland as an illustration of the way in which domestic issues and domestic policy are constantly switched aside and diverted by the compelling events of this world-wide was, and here, if anywhere, was a case in point. Just at the time—in fact, a few days before the Convention's Report reached us and the Government had arrived at this decision—occurred the great attach in France. It began, as your Lordships will remember, on March 21. I need not recapitulate the events of the succeeding days. Suffice it to say that the arms of Great Britain were in dire peril upon the Continent, that the position of the whole Allied cause was at stake, that the danger was imminent and staring us in the face. Those were the circumstances, as you know, in which the Government decided that it was incumbent upon them to make an additional appeal for support and for sacrifices to the people of this country. We felt that we could neglect no means by which it would be in our power to reinforce our soldiers at the Front.
Then came the question of the treatment of Ireland. I think the noble Marquess

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Lord Londonderry, put the thing quite fairly. Broadly speaking, his contention was that there was no ground in logic, equity, or justice why Ireland should not be called upon to bear her share of the sacrifices which the inhabitants of the other parts of the United Kingdom were asked to assume. We felt that we could not, in honour or fairness, leave her out in the further appeal that we were about to make. This might have been a miscalculation, but we could hardly believe that in this crisis in the history of our country the people of Ireland, so passionately addicted to freedom themselves, would decline to strike a blow, not merely for the continued existence of their own freedom, but for that of the freedom of the world. These were, at any rate, the grounds upon which we proceeded; and I would say that this reasoning was supported, I believe, by the unanimous sentiment of every part of England, Scotland, and Wales, and, outside England, of our Dominions across the seas, and, further, of the United States of America, where at the very same time Irishmen living in that country were being conscribed to join the American Armies to fight on the side of the Allied cause in France. Accordingly, Ireland was included in the Bill. We have been told since that that was a wrong decision. I do not agree with that criticism myself—I do not think your Lordships agree with it—but whether it was right or wrong, in the circumstances of the case I doubt if any other decision could or ought to have been taken.
I have referred to the decision about Home Rule; I have referred to the decision about the introduction of Conscription. It was accident that made these two proposals so nearly synchronous in time. We were prepared to advocate and press each upon its merits, and that was the meaning of the phrase of the Prime Minister to which the noble Marquess referred. We were anxious to repudiate the idea, for which there was no foundation, that there was any element of bargaining in the matter. No such idea entered into our mind. There was no bargain. There was no understanding between the different Parties. We did not say to the Irish, "We will give you, or try to give you, Home Rule, but you must give us Conscription." There was nothing of that sort. But, apart from that, I do agree with the noble Marquess; I believe these were inseparable parts of the same problem—I think I should have said two facets of the same
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problem. The noble Marquess used another metaphor. He said "two limbs of the same policy." I think that is quite true, and His Majesty's Government did realise—we have all the way through—that we could not proceed with either alone. Those who wanted Home Rule knew quite well that they could not get it unless Ireland bore her part in the national struggle. Those who wanted Conscription were willing, however reluctantly—and many of them were reluctant—to consider the grant of Home Rule if only Ireland was willing to bear her share in the great struggle of the nations. This was our policy, and I noted with interest that the noble Viscount, Lord Wimborne, although in some respects he was very critical of the Government, admitted quite frankly that in his judgment it was a right and a wise policy and the only possible policy—I think these were the words he used—to pursue at that moment.
After the policy had been decided upon two events happened, neither of them anticipated by us. The first was the discovery, in the course of the month of May, that there was a sinister and formidable conspiracy of the leaders of the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland with the enemy of this country, and that the leaders of that association in Ireland were involved in a plot which was to mature at the very moment when, and designedly in cooperation with the effort by which, the Germans were seeking to annihilate our Forces across the seas. Several noble Lords have spoken as if the information to which I am referring, and upon which we then acted, had been in our possession all the time. Nothing of the sort; it was absolutely new. The revelations—unknown to a greater part of your Lordships' House—to which I refer, the grounds upon which we acted, were placed before the Cabinet for the first time in the month of May. They occasioned in us a surprise and a consternation equal to that which, I think, they must have produced in the minds of every one of your Lordships. That was the first great event that happened. We had reason to believe that the ramifications of this plot were widespread, that the party generally claiming to be the popular party in Ireland was in sympathy with its leaders, and that this grave turn of events had been reached. I point to this as marking a great change in the situation. May I put it in this way? Agitation in Ireland is one thing; crime in Ireland is

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one thing; lawlessness in Ireland is one thing; the attempt to set up an independent Republic in Ireland is one thing—but treason is absolutely another.
VISCOUNT WIMBORNE: Do you propose to bring these men to trial for treason?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I will answer the question of the noble Viscount a little later on. That was the situation. It was a new situation, and it was obvious that with the evidence to which I referred—that the party in Ireland which, as we were told just now, if a Home Rule Parliament were set up, would be likely to exercise a preponderant influence in its councils—with the evidence that this party was acting through its leaders in the manner I have described, a complete change in the situation had been introduced, and that it would be impossible, at any rate for the time being, to pursue our plan. That was accentuated by the fact, known to every member of your Lordships, House, that largely because of these discoveries, assisted by other contemporary events, the attitude of every section of opinion was changing about Home Rule. The favourable attitude which existed in the time of the Convention—which, if I may say so, my noble friend Lord Midleton did so much to promote—had vanished. The attitude of Ulster was now hardening towards Home Rule. You heard the kind of speech which my noble friend Lord Armaghdale made. If I may say so, it was a very successful speech, though very critical of His Majesty's Government; anyhow, it was typical of the attitude of the Ulster Party. Their feelings about Home Rule were visibly stiffening. At the same time the Southern Unionists of Ireland, I believe, dissociated themselves from and threw over the noble Viscount opposite, who had fought so good a battle in what he rightly conceived to be the interests of his country. Public opinion in this country was also changing, and in the Dominions across the seas. And in these circumstances to proceed with Home Rule, to prepare and lay a Home Rule Bill upon the Table of the House of Commons which there was not the ghost of a chance that anybody in the circumstances would accept, was out of the question. To proceed with the preparation of the measure and its introduction to Parliament in the circumstances I have described would not be wisdom; it would be folly. It would
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not be statesmanship; it would almost amount to a crime. So much for that aspect of the case.
Then, following the argument of my noble friend Lord Lansdowne about the close connection of these two limbs of our policy, you will see at once how this situation reacted upon the other position. If you could not have Home Rule you could not also have Conscription, or at any rate if you persisted at the moment in your effort to secure Conscription you could only do it at wholly disproportionate cost. I had said a little earlier that two great events happened to change the situation. I have alluded to one—namely, the discovery of the Sinn Fein conspiracy. The other, which, strange to say, has not been mentioned at all daring the debate, was the action of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I mentioned it.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I beg pardon; I did not hear the reference. I would ask your Lordships to note this, that the Roman Catholic clergy, when they acted as they did, threw down a challenge not only to obedience to the law (which I think everybody must have deeply deplored), but a direct challenge to Imperial supremacy on a matter which it never has been disputed lies within the scope of the Imperial Parliament—that is, to raise forces for the defence of the kingdom and the Empire. They advised their flocks, I think I am correct in my quotation, under "penalties of eternal damnation" to resist Conscription to the uttermost. That was the second great change in the situation; and just as I have argued that the first change affected, inevitably affected, the attitude of parties to Home Rule, so the second gravely affected the attitude of the people, and completely transformed the situation as regards Conscription. In these circumstances it was necessary in both respects, I will not say to abandon the policy—that would be a most unfair description of our position; I will not say to change the front—but it was our duty to a recognise the facts of the case as they were before us and adjust our policy to them. So much for the policy.
Now I pass to a question to which a good deal of attention has naturally been devoted—namely, the position in Ireland

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itself, and the circumstances under which the new Government came into office. Apart from the obligation imposed upon us as regards the two limbs of our policy, we thought that for the time being at any rate, another and superior duty lay before the Government in Ireland itself, and that was to restore the conditions which had been so gravely disturbed by the events to which I have referred. The new Government went to Ireland; and scarcely a speaker this evening has failed to extend a warm and generous welcome to Lord French in assuming these onerous duties with that public spirit and patriotism with which all credit him. If I may say so, I do not think my noble friend Lord Londonderry was quite equally generous or just to the distinguished civilian colleague who has taken up the burden along with Lord French. Lord Londonderry said he regarded this appointment to the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland with amazement, and I waited to hear what were the grounds for this unexpected surprise. They were two-fold. The first was that Mr. Shortt is not an Irishman. The noble Marquess himself, if I may remind him of his illustrious ancestry, is half an Irishman and half an Englishman, but the English half of him has not disqualified him in the last year from rendering substantial service to Ireland, and the Irish half, I hope, will not prevent him from rising to high distinction in your Lordships' House and in this country. Why, because the Chief Secretary for Ireland has not Irish blood in his veins, he should be considered to be disqualified from administering the affairs of Ireland, I am at a loss to understand. This unfortunate disqualification my right hon. friend Mr. Shortt shares with every Chief Secretary for Ireland during the last thirty years. I have been making out the list. There have been in the last thirty years ten Chief Secretaries for Ireland, of whom seven are now living, and not one of them has been an Irishman.
THE EARL OF MEATH: That is one of our grievances.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: If the noble Earl feels this grievance so strongly, and if he will privately present me with the name of an Irishman who is both qualified and willing to undertake the task, I can assure him that, if the present Government are in office when the next vacancy occurs, they will warmly and
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gratefully consider the suggestion. The second point which my noble friend Lord Londonderry made was that Mr. Shortt was an avowed opponent of the policy of His Majesty's Government. That is not in the least the case. Mr. Shortt did, I believe, give a vote against Conscription, but you may rely upon it that a man of honour, when he accepts office, accepts office in order to carry out the policy of the Government. I altogether deprecate the language that my noble friend employed, just as I deprecate the language that my noble friend Lord Midleton employed about Mr. Duke. I am not going to repeat here what I said before in this House about Mr. Duke. I thought it unnecessary that the noble Viscount should have repeated his strictures this evening, and quite uncalled for that he should have said anything about Mr. Duke's thoroughly merited elevation to the Bench. However, I pass away from that.
In the combination in the Executive of Ireland of the strong and able soldier and the vigorous and capable civil administrator, who has already in the short time he has held office, as many of your Lordships know, earned great confidence in Ireland from the classes from which your Lordships are drawn, His Majesty's Government find great hopes for a successful administration of that country. Questions have been asked about the conditions under which this Executive was sent out. It must be remembered that the Chief Secretary for Ireland is likely to be in Ireland, in the performance of his duties, much more than any of his predecessors, who have been drawn by Parliamentary obligations to London. Lord French and Mr. Shortt went there not only with the entire confidence of the Government, but with the fullest powers to stamp out the roots of this conspiracy, and to restore law and order. At the same time, when they went out, they pressed His Majesty's Government to sanction their initiation of a scheme for voluntary recruitment. I am rather surprised at the criticisms which have been passed upon that this evening.
The case was argued to us in this way. The language of the Prime Minister has been quoted this evening in which he said that tine Military Service Act was to be applied to Ireland under the same conditions as it had been to England. Yes, but those conditions in the case of England had involved a preliminary recourse to a

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voluntary appeal. This was an attempt to do for Ireland exactly what Lord Derby had so successfully done in this country. I quite dispute what was said this evening by some speaker as to the failure of that experiment. This was the policy which these two administrators went to Ireland to carry out. Some questions have been asked with reference to the Proclamation that was issued. I allude, of course, to Lord French's appeal. One noble Lord described it as an act of "weakness and concession." Why should it be an act of weakness to appeal to your fellow-countrymen to come voluntarily to your aid rather than compel them to do so? It is what we ourselves did here. Let me give another illustration. It is what our vigorous and wonderful fellow-subject in another part of the world has done. In Australia, Mr. Hughes, hampered in his desire to obtain men by compulsory service, did not hesitate to issue an appeal to his countrymen to join voluntarily, and great and wonderful has been the success which has attended that appeal. That is precisely what we are doing in this case.
A great deal has been said in this debate about the number of 50,000. This matter has very frequently been discussed by the Government. The large numbers which have at different times been given—I think 161,000 was mentioned this evening—so far as I can understand, rest upon no secure basis. The noble Lord behind me (Lord Armaghdale) argued that, owing to the fact that in consequence of the war emigration from Ireland has been to a large extent stopped, there must be a great surplus of young men drifting about and idling in that country. I doubt very much whether that is the case. I think it is only fair for your Lordships to bear these points in mind. In the first place, a great deal of the land of Ireland is occupied by men who either cultivate it themselves or cultivate it along with their sons. Do not forget that during the last year or more we have ploughed up in Ireland a million and a-half acres, all of which has to be cleaned and cultivated and the harvest reaped from it by active young men. Then, again, there have been opened in Ireland, and there are continuously being opened, great munition works and factories which occupy a very large number of the youth of the country; and when your Lordships ridicule or disparage the number of 50,000 for whom the appeal was made, I should like to mention to you that that number
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is in excess of those whom the Irish advisers of the Government thought at the time it was desirable to name as the subject of appeal.
As to the prospect of obtaining these men, steps are being taken in Ireland, and will shortly be announced, regarding the machinery which is to be set up for launching this voluntary appeal. Committees will be formed, and your Lordships will presently hear more about the matter. Shal we succeed? One speaker very rightly remarked that success will depend largely upon two factors—the attitude of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the attitude of the Nationalist party—and he seemed to assume that from neither quarter could any assistance be received. I cannot, of course, speak for the clergy. I am not aware that they have themselves pronounced upon the point, but I should be somewhat surprised if the clergy—as to whom I remember arguing only a few months ago that they had in the conditions then prevailing exercised so pacifying an influence in Ireland—were not found, at any rate in many cases, to come out on the side of the country in this crisis. As regards the Nationalists, was my noble friend opposite quite fair? Is it not now well known that two or three—I think it is three or four—Nationalist Members of Parliament have signified the warmest sympathy with the scheme, and have offered not only to raise forces but to serve themselves? I think your Lordships will very likely find before long that steps will he taken by them to give public and active form to their enterprise in the matter. I do not, of course, like to be too sanguine, but I think that I am speaking the mind of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and of the Lord Lieutenant when I say that they are hopeful in the matter. The scheme will be pursued with all the energy at their disposal. And whatever the result may be, your Lordships must acknowledge this fact, which has been present in the minds of the Cabinet all the way through, that it is better to get 50,000—if that is the number; I think I might even say a smaller number—voluntary soldiers from Ireland, than to secure, even if you are able to do it, which is not certain, a much larger number at the cost of the dislocation, the strife, the bloodshed, and very likely the civil war that might conceivably be entailed. I do not think that I put it unfairly by stating it in that way. I believe there is not one of us who at the

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bottom of his heart would not sooner take the smaller contribution voluntarily than the larger one purchased at the price that I have ventured to name.
One other point has been raised in connection with this Proclamation, and that is the question of the land. I need not read out the terms of Lord French's Proclamation, for they are no doubt familiar to your Lordships. Here, again, I think that the policy has been unfairly judged. It is no new policy at all; still less was it—I must emphatically repudiate this—a bribe to tempt people to enlist. I am sorry not to see my noble friend Lord Selborne here, but it is exactly the same policy that has been pursued in England during the last two or three years, and for which he himself was largely responsible in the Smell Holding Colonies Act which we were discussing a few nights ago, and which was passed, I think, in 1915. The same treatment has always been contemplated for Ireland. The Irish authorities had, before Lord French was appointed, and before his appeal was issued, advised that it should be done by the Estates Commissioners in Ireland. A Bill was already drawn up and would have been introduced in any case, whether recruiting was voluntary or by compulsion. Therefore the charge that this was introduced as a bribe falls absolutely to the ground.
THE EARL OF MAYO: Was that for the soldiers who had already joined the Army from Ireland?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: No, for all soldiers. And what is it that is actually proposed? The noble Lord knows very well that the Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners in Ireland have powers under the existing law to acquire land and to sell it to certain "eligible classes"—that is the phrase. What will be the proposal of this appeal? It will be a proposal to extend to soldiers and to sailors the advantages of the eligible classes. This means that, given a number of eligible occupants for these lands, cœteris paribus the preference will be given to soldiers or sailors. I do not know whether any noble Lord objects to that policy.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The difficulty is this. The noble Earl just now said that all that is contemplated is to give a preference to Irish soldiers, but, as
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I understand the Proclamation, it lays it down in absolute terms that every one—that is, every Irish soldier—shall receive land.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I have not the terms of the Proclamation in my memory, but that certainly is not the intention. The intention is to include the soldiers in the eligible classes, in which they have not hitherto been included. Having found their way into the eligible classes, I say that when the distribution of land takes place the intention is, cœteris paribus, to give the chance to the soldier or sailor.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: Could the noble Earl tell the House how much land is available for this purpose after the claims of existing tenants are satisfied?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: No, I am not familiar with the details. I cannot give that information, but I should like to say one word in reference to what the noble Lord has said as to the number of people to whom it will apply. If we may take the proportion of agriculturists among the soldiers as the same as it is among the population at large, there would be some 70,000 to 75,000 Irish agriculturist soldiers, including, as I remarked just now, both old and new. The proportion, actually, is not so great. Let us suppose that there are 50,000 to 60,000 men with agricultural experience who have been in the Army. From that, of course, you would have to deduct casualties; you would have to deduct the men who do not want to settle on the land, and those who are already eligible. It is the balance that remain, when these deductions have been made, who will be affected by the Bill when it is introduced. I hope I make myself fairly clear upon that point. Any further information that your Lordships may desire I will endeavour, of course, to procure for you.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I hope the noble Earl, before he sits down, will deal with the question of proclaiming Sinn Fein as an illegal association.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I was coming to the question of Sinn Fein. As regards the Sinn Fein prisoners, what are the criticisms or remarks to which

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I have to reply? I think it was the noble Viscount, Lord Wimborne—I am not quite certain—who congratulated Lord French upon the policy of arresting—
VISCOUNT WIMBORNE: No, I did not.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Some noble Lord congratulated Lord French upon the policy of arresting and deporting these men. I am very glad that Lord French received all the credit, but it is fair to remember that it was the policy of His Majesty's Government which Lord French undertook to carry out. As to the manner in which it was carried out, I believe that the praise that was given by some speaker before me to the mechanism that was adopted, to the admirable manner in which the Police discharged in different parts of Ireland their very delicate and difficult task, was thoroughly deserved. One noble Lord asked why these Sinn Fein prisoners, of whom there are eighty or ninety who have been deported and interned in this country, were not brought to trial. The answer is very simple and very satisfactory. You could not bring them to trial without disclosing to the enemy the means by which we have been able to detect their criminal conspiracy with the Germans. That answer, I think, is quite sufficient for the purpose.
As to their guilt, they were arrested as persons "suspected of acting contrary to the safety of the Realm"—those are the terms. Under that provision no trial is necessary. But if there is any doubt as to the innocence of those persons, why has not one of them exercised the right of appeal to a tribunal presided over by a Judge, to which he is entitled? All he has to do within seven days of his case being dealt with is to appeal to this Advisory Committee consisting of two Judges of the High Court, and his case is then heard. In not one single case has that appeal been made. And I think myself, if you ask me, that it is unlikely that it will be made, because the appeal would lead to an inquiry; the inquiry would result in the production of evidence; and the production of evidence would, I suspect, have very uncomfortable results for the individual concerned. A further question was asked me as to the treatment of these persons. Remember that these prisoners have not been tried, and are there not as convicted persons.
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They are therefore subject to prison conditions usually applied to those who are detained as suspected persons. I do not think that the privileges which they enjoy in those circumstances are very great. They merely consist in the right to wear their own clothes, the right to buy their own food, and to smoke and to have books.
Then I come to the question of the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, who asked me whether the Government intend to proclaim the Sinn Fein Association. I am not quite certain how far the Sinn Fein society or organisation assumes or wears a form which renders it capable of being proclaimed as such, in the same way as the Catholic Association and other bodies have been proclaimed in the past. I should not like to answer that question without; a further reference. But, in any case, is not the right thing to do to scotch the power for mischief of the association, whether or not it be wise or necessary to proclaim it? Now what do we do? We have already arrested and taken out of the country the whole of the leaders, eighty or ninety in number. They are in confinement in this country, and any of those who pursue their tactics in Ireland can be, and will be, apprehended without any necessity for proclaiming the association itself. One noble Lord pressed me very strongly upon the point of the administrative policy of the Government in Ireland. Upon that, let me be perfectly clear. The illegal acts of which complaint is made—illegal drilling, seditious speeches, the circulation of seditious literature—are being and will continue to be suppressed.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: Boycotting?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Boycotting is a matter which the Government are firmly resolved to put down. I believe that my noble friend Lord Desart is going to raise a case, a very bad case, of boycotting. I was prepared to answer him had I had the good fortune to be preceded by him in the debate. If I am unable to do so, some other speaker will. But in the case to which he wishes to refer, the case of a man named Haskins, which has happened, I believe, in Wicklow, and which is a very bad case indeed, he may rely upon the Government absolutely to stand behind this persecuted man, and to see that the kind of treatment of which the noble Earl intends to complain shall not

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be continued to his detriment. That is the case as regards boycotting. Then as to meetings. Any meetings will be prohibited that are likely to lead to a breach of the peace; and I may mention, in passing, that a meeting at Cork, which had been announced in order to protest against the deportation of Sinn Fein prisoners, has been prohibited.
Finally, you will have seen, I dare say, in the Press that a number of counties and cities—sixteen, I think, in number—were proclaimed a little while ago under Sections 3 and 4 of the Crimes Act of 1887, the object of which is familiar to those of your Lordships who come from Ireland. Those sections provide for change of venue where a local jury cannot be trusted, and for trial by a special, in preference to a common, jury, in order to get a better type of juror. These precautions have been taken in the places to which I have referred; they may be necessary in a few other cases where common crime is rampant, or where the actions of gangs of lawless men may be expected.
I have now, to the best of my ability, answered all the questions that were put to me this evening; and I will only say, in conclusion, that I cordially concur with the concluding appeal made by my noble friend Lord Midleton. I do not think that I have extenuated or concealed anything in what I have said this afternoon. I have tried to be perfectly frank with your Lordships. I have not concealed from you that Ireland is in a grave condition; but already the arrest and deportation of the Sinn Feiners have produced a feeling of sensible relief; and, I believe, by no class is that relief more widely or genuinely felt than by the Nationalist leaders themselves. That feeling of relief has been produced, and we have to encourage it. There is not one of us who, after the experiences of the past year, can wish to plunge Ireland again into the seething cauldron of strife and suffering of which she has so often been the victim. She is enjoying, I believe, great and exceptional material prosperity. We want two things. We want to provide for her citizens of all parties and of all classes those means of accommodation, of union, and of common action for which my noble friend Lord Midleton pleaded; and we want to give to Ireland herself not merely material prosperity but a prospect of peace.
LORD ST. LEVAN: My Lords, I will detain you for a few minutes only. I rise because I desire to support a point made by Lord Londonderry in his speech, which point has been partially answered by the noble Earl, though in a manner which I do not think will be at all satisfactory to the people concerned. It has been said over and over again of the English people as a whole that they do not understand Ireland and the motives and feelings of Irishmen. This has been true in the past, but I think it has never been more tine than at the present moment. The English people do not understand the attitude of the Irish people in not coming forward and taking their share in defending the country—I mean Ireland as well as England. It is obvious that, if Germany had the power to do so, she would turn Ireland into the same hell as she would England, and as she has Belgium, Serbia, and Roumania.
What I want to call attention to is that the feeling on the subject in this country is no longer limited to surprise; it has been succeeded by a feeling of discontent. When people are doing their utmost to respond to the demands of the Government and making every effort to carry out the duties imposed upon them by sending every available man to join the Forces; when they are not only losing their relatives but are put to very serious inconvenience, and, in many cases to great hardship, in order to do their part in carrying out the defence of the country, it cannot be wondered at that they complain of the inadequate quota of men raised in Ireland. I am speaking now more particularly of the agricultural community. Everybody knows the response which the agricultural community has made to the calls put before it. Lord Curzon said last night, I think, that something like 4,000,000 acres extra had been cultivated throughout the country. I know of many cases where farmers have cultivated more than they have been asked to. The noble Earl said to-night on that point that we must consider the conditions of Ireland; that it is an agricultural country, and that the agriculture of the country has to be carried out by small holders and by young men; that we must consider this when we ask for a number of men to be obtained from Ireland. But that is the very thing that has been going on in England. In my own county the farmers and their sons have been carrying out the cultivation of the land, and they say that as their sons and their young farm

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hands are being taken away it is only fair that the Irish should also bear their part. Speaking with regard to agriculturists, I am sure that they will not regard the answer of the noble Earl as satisfactory.
One may suppose that the other classes of the community also feel discontented at being called upon to do more than the Irish people. There is a danger that this feeling of discontent may develop into resentment. Lord Londonderry spoke of the matter in stronger terms; I think he used the word "antagonism." I do non think it has come to that point yet, but if it does it will be a calamity. We all hope that it may not reach that point. We have no wish to find fault with Irishmen on such a subject, but we do ask and expect that they will take their share in the difficulties and hardships—whether they are farmers, or whatever their position may be—which must necessarily be incurred to provide for the adequate defence of England, of Ireland, and of the Allied countries.
In what I have said I have not meant to add to the difficulties of the Government. They have enough to contend with as it is, and. I believe it is the general wish of the country to support them. I desire, however, to call attention to the danger of the present situation and to remind the Government that the country looks to them to see that fair play is granted all round, to England as well as Ireland, and to find means for making use of the full man power of the kingdom. That the Government may be able to do this is the hope of us all—a hope which, I am sure, will be shared by our Allies.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be adjourned until Thursday next.
Moved accordingly, and, on question, debate adjourned until June 27.

PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of June 19.]
MARRIAGES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Reported without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
HAMILTON ESTATES BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petitions for additional provision in the Lancaster Corporation Bill ought to be dispensed with and leave given to the Committee on the Bill to insert the additional provision.
Read, and agreed to.

YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, under the Act, that the Provisional Orders be allowed to proceed, subject to such recommendations as may hereafter be made with respect to the several Order:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.