Sitting of 15 October 1918

Preamble
The House—resuming after the Adjournment on Thursday, 8th August, for the Autumn Recess—met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Rhymney and Aber Valleys Gas and Water Bill (by Order),
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.
Ipswich Dock Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.

DEFENCE OF THE REALM LOSSES (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Copy presented of Third Report of the Royal Commission appointed to consider and report what compensation should be paid in respect of losses incurred through the exercise by the Crown of its rights and duties in the Defence of the Realm [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
INEBRIATES ACTS, 1879 TO 1900.
Copy presented of Report of the Inspector under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900, for the year 1917 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
Copy presented of Licences granted to three Convicts discharging them from Aylesbury Convict Prison on condition that they enter a home [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of a Licence granted to George Knee to which is annexed a condition other than those contained in Schedule A of the Penal Servitude Act, 1864 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders (Three) made by the Council of the undermentioned local authority, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department:
County of Cumberland (district of Longtown)
[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

NAVAL PRIZE MONEY.
Copy presented of Account showing the Receipt and Expenditure of Naval Prize,

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Bounty, Salvage, and other Moneys between 1st April, 1917, and 31 st March, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

ARMY (SPECIAL PENSIONS).
Copy presented of Return for the year ended 31st March, 1918, of pensions specially granted under Article 1201 of the Pay Warrant [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ARMY (EXCESSES), 1916–17.
Copy presented of Statement of the Sum required to be voted in order to make good Excesses of Army Expenditure beyond the Grants for the year ended 31st March, 1917 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 113.]
EAST INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN ENGLAND).
Copy presented of Return of all Loans raised in England, chargeable on the Revenues of India, outstanding at the commencement of the half-year ending on the 30th September, 1918, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table; and to be printed. [No. 114.]
EAST INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN INDIA).
Copy presented of Return of all Loans raised in India, chargeable on the Revenues of India, outstanding at the commencement of the half-year ending on the 31st March, 1918, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 115.]
EAST INDIA (CIVIL SERVICE).
Copy presented of Amendment of Rule XI. of Regulations for the Admission of Candidates to the Indian Civil Service [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
IMPERIAL WAR CONFERENCE, 1918.
Copy presented of Extracts from the Minutes of Proceedings and Papers laid before the Conference [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
CORN PRODUCTION ACT, 1917.
Copies presented of Draft Regulations under Part IV. of the Corn Production Act, 1917, dated, respectively, the 10th and 20th September, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
PORT OF LONDON AUTHORITY.
Copy presented of Ninth Annual Report, with Accounts, of the Port of London Authority, for the year ended 31st March, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS.
Account presented of all Deposits received and repaid by the Board of Trade on account of Seamen's Savings Banks under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, during the year ended 20th November, 1916, and of the interest thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
BUILDING CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS.
Copy presented of First Report of the Treasury Standing Committee on Coordination of Departmental Action in regard to Contracts [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1918–19).
Estimate presented of the further Sum required to be voted for the service of the year ending 31st March, 1919 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 116.]
COUNTY OFFICERS AND COURTS (IRELAND) ACT, 1877.
Account presented of Receipts and Payments under the Act during the year ended 31st March, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE.
Account presented of Receipts and Expenditure of the Paymaster-General on behalf of the Supreme Court of Judicature

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in respect of the Funds of Suitors of the Court in the year ended 28th February, 1918, and Account of the National Debt Commissioners for the same period in respect of Funds held by them on behalf of the Supreme Court of Judicature, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 117.]

SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
Copy presented of Treasury Minute, dated 14th August, 1918, granting a Retired Allowance to Mr. Bertram P. Wye, Accountant and Comptroller-General's Office, Customs and Excise Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION,
Copy presented of Eighth Report of the Development Commissioners, being for the year 1917–18 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 118.]

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
Copy presented of Regulations made by the Treasury, dated 13th August, 1918, entitled the National Insurance (Joint Committee) Regulations, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Regulations, dated 28th June, 1918, made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee and the Scottish Insurance Commissioners, acting jointly, entitled the National Health Insurance (Collection of Contributions) Consolidated Regulations (Scotland), 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Order, dated 18th September, 1918, made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee and by the Scottish Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Teachers) Exclusion Order (Scotland), 1918.
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations, dated 28th June, 1918, made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee acting jointly with the Irish Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Collection of Contributions) Consolidated Regulations (Ireland), 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations, dated 16th September, 1918, made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee acting jointly with the Scottish, the Irish, and the Welsh Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Irish Migratory Labourers Benefits) Regulations, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders made by the Council of the undermentioned local authorities, and confirmed by the Secretary for Scotland:
Burgh of Leith;
confirmed with Amendment—
Burgh of Hawick
[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS AND PESTS ACTS.
Copy presented of the Wart Disease of Potatoes (Scotland) Order, 1918, made under the Destructive Insects and Pests Acts [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
CORN PRODUCTION ACTS.
Copies presented of Regulation, dated 13th September, 1918, made by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland with respect to the time within which questions of cultivation may be referred to arbitration, and of Regulation, dated 27th September, 1918, amending the Regulations dated 23rd April, 1918, with respect to the Tenure of Office and Procedure of District Wages Committees [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
AIR FORCE (CONSTITUTION) ACT, 1917.
Copies presented of two final Orders in Council, dated 15th August, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
BISHOPRICS ACT, 1878, AND BISHOPRICS OF BRADFORD AND COVENTRY ACT, 1918.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 4th September, 1918, founding the Bishopric of Coventry [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
DOCKYARD PORTS REGULATION ACT, 1865.
Copies presented of six Orders in Council, dated 4th September, 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
NAVAL AND MARINE PAY AND PENSIONS ACT, 1865.
Copies presented of Order in Council, dated 2nd August, 1918, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty praying a sanction to the grant of Temporary Commissioners as acting Chaplains R.N., to Ministers of Religious Bodies not in conformity with the Church of England, two Orders in Council, dated 15th August, 1918, approving Memorials of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty under the Act, three Orders in Council, dated 4th September, 1918, approving Memorials of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty under the Act, three Orders in Council, dated 27th September, 1918, made under the Act, and two Orders in Council, dated 27th September, 1918, relating to the Dockyard Ports of (1) Deptford and (2) Woolwich [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, 1913.
Copies presented of two Orders in Council, dated 4th September, 1918, made under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE, ACT, 1875.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 2nd August, 1918, respecting the Autumn and Winter Assizes for the county of Somerset during the War and for six months thereafter [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
TITLES DEPRIVATION ACT, 1917.
Copy presented of Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, with Copies of the Affidavits therein mentioned [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877 (CAMBRIDGE).
Copies presented of Statutes made by the Governing Body of Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 4th May, 1918, and sealed on the 15th June, 1918, amending certain sections of Chapter 3 of the Statutes of the College [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copies presented of Statutes made by the Governing Body of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 8th June, 1918, and sealed on the 18th day of the same month, amending Statutes VIA., XXI. 1, and L., and adding a new Statute XVA. to the Statutes of the College [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copies presented of Statutes made by the University of Cambridge, and sealed on 2nd June 1918, amending Statute A, Chapters I. and IV. of the Statutes of the University [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Statute made by the Governing Body of Lincoln College, Oxford, on 22nd May, 1918, and sealed on the same day, amending Chapter 2, Section 1, and Chapter 6, Section 5, of the Statutes of the College [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Papers laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:

1. Friendly Societies, Industrial and Provident Societies, Building Societies, Trade Unions, etc.—Reports of the Chief Registrar for the year 1917. Part A [by Act]; to be printed [No. 119];

2. Supreme Court Rules.—Copy of Rules, dated 11th October, 1918, entitled The Rules of the Supreme Court (Juries) Act, 1918 [by Act];

3. County Court (England) (Rules).—Copy of Rule, dated 11th October, 1918, under the Juries Act, 1918 [by Act];

4. Juries Act, 1918.—Copy of Form of Inquisition on an Inquest which, or any part of which, is held without a Jury [by Act];

5. Union of Benefices Act.—Copy of Scheme under the Union of Benefices Acts, 1860 and 1898, for effecting a union of the Benefices of Saint Michael and All Angels, Paddington, and All Saints, Paddington [by Act].

WRITS ISSUED DURING AUTUMN RECESS.
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House that he had issued, during the Recess, Warrants for New Writs, namely:
For the County of Oxford (Northern or Banbury Division), in the room of Major the Hon. Sir Eustace Edward Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, Baronet, who has accepted office of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Seychelles.
For the Borough of Saint George, Hanover Square, in the room of the Right Hon. Sir George Houston Reid, G.C.M.G., deceased.
For the Borough of Bath, in the room of Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander George Boteville Thynne, D.S.O. (commonly called Lord Alexander Thynne), killed in action.

SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.
Mr. HOGGE: I beg to present a Petition from women electors of Wimbledon, stating that, while the Government allow profiteering, the separation allowances are insufficient to properly clothe themselves and their children, and praying that those allowances should be largely increased, dating from 1st July last.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether during the past ten weeks the questions arising in connection with a League of Nations have been explored; whether this has been done with our Allies or with any neutral Powers; and whether he can state any results which have been achieved?
    The ASSISTANT SECRETARY Of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord Robert Cecil): The answer to the first
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    part of the question is in the affirmative. We are in consultation with our Allies. The time for consultation with neutral Governments has not yet arrived. I do not think I can make any detailed statement on this subject at the present moment.

    IMPERIAL CONFERENCE (BLUE BOOK).
    Mr. MACMASTERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the Report of the proceedings of the Imperial Conference will be published?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): The Blue Book will be published next week.

    GENERAL ELECTION.

      SOLDIERS' VOTES.
      Mr. TREVELYANasked the President of the Local Government Board whether plans have now been made to secure that, in the event of a General Election, the ballot papers marked by soldiers away from home cannot be opened until they reach the returning officer of the constituency in respect of which the votes are cast?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Walsh): The Army Council have agreed that the ballot papers of soldiers in France and Belgium shall not be censored. They will be enclosed in official envelopes addressed to the returning officers here, and, when received, will be opened in the presence of the election agents of the candidates.

      NUMBER OF ELECTORS.
      Mr. MACMASTERasked the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the total number of electors in the United Kingdom; and what are the numbers of women and men, respectively?
      Mr. WALSH: Particulars derived from the registers which have just come into force are now being collected, and a Return will be presented as soon as possible.

    BELFAST GAOL (JUDICIAL INQUIRY).
    Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has now had a report on the allegations made on oath by Charles Kenny about irregularities in Belfast Gaol; and what action he proposes to take.
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Shortt): I have had reports upon these allegations, and as the hon. Member is aware, I have presented a Bill in this House "to constitute a Special Commission to inquire into certain complaints as to the treatment of prisoners in Belfast Prison."
    Mr. KING: Will this Bill be proceeded with in any event and at the earliest possible date?
    Mr. SHORTT: Yes, Sir; and I can inform the hon. Member that I have secured Mr. Justice Dodd to act as Commissioner.
    Mr. BYRNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether the evidence taken in this case will be on oath?
    Mr. SHORTT: Oh, yes; that is all provided for.
    Mr. WATT: If this measure does not pass the House of Lords, will the Government resign?
    Mr. KING: Will the Bill provide for the inquiry being in public?
    Mr. SHORTT: Yes. Sir; it will be like an ordinary Court of Justice.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      RECRUITING (IRELAND).
      Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he can state the results of the voluntary recruiting campaign in Ireland, and whether the Government has now definitely abandoned the proposal to introduce military conscription into Ireland?
      Mr. SHORTT: Up to yesterday the number of persons who voluntarily recruited was 9,629. I am not in a position to make any statement with regard to the latter part of the question.
      Mr. KING: Does the second part of this answer mean that the Government is still quite without a policy on this subject?
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Government are likely to be in a position to make a statement on military conscription in Ireland?
      Mr. KING: Arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's silence, is he aware of the great confusion caused in all questions by the inability of the Government to announce any definite, clear policy?
      Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir.
      Mr. HAZLETON: Arising out of this matter, if the Chief Secretary is not in a position to answer this question, perhaps the Leader of the House might?
      Mr. PRINGLE: Is he not in a position either?

    ARMS SURRENDERED (ULSTER).
    Mr. NUGENTasked the Chief Secretary whether he has now been handed over all or in part the 50,000 rifles and the eleven machine guns which were in the possession of the Ulster Volunteers?
    Mr. SHORTT: The precise figures are not available, but a very substantial number of rifles have been handed voluntarily to the military, and are under their absolute control. An Order has now been issued making it illegal to have arms without a permit, and this Order applies to the whole of Ireland. For all arms handed over voluntarily a receipt is given, and they will be returned when the Regulation forbidding the having of arms without a permit is revoked For military reasons, I cannot state where the arms are now kept.
    Mr. BOLAND: Can the right hon. Gentleman say, therefore, whether all the German rifles landed have now been taken over by the Government?
    Mr. SHORTT: I do not know about German rifles, but substantially all the rifles have loyally been handed in.
    Mr. HAZLETON: Is it the fact that the rifles are so numerous that the hon. Gentleman's authorities are not able to count them?
    Mr. KING: Can we have any information about the eleven machine guns?
    Mr. SHORTT: They are included, I understand.
    Mr. DILLON (by Private Notice): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Irish Government have yet taken up the arms of the Ulster Volunteers stated by him?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question was asked before the hon. Member came into the House, and was replied to.
    Mr. DILLON: But it was only partly asked. I ask whether, if these guns were taken up, in whose custody they now are and where, and whether they were handed in subject to any conditions, and if so what the conditions are?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Those questions were answered.

    MURMAN COAST OPERATIONS.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether he can make a statement concerning the operations undertaken by any of the Allied forces during the past two or three months on the Murman coast, at or near Archangel, and in the Vladivostock sphere of operations?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. As regards North Russia, there is nothing to add to the Communiqués which have been published from time to time by us. As regards operations in the Vladivostock sphere of operations, similar Communiqués have been issued by the Japanese General Staff and have been published in the British Press.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask whether any steps are being taken to see that Russians who go to Archangel do not seek to overthrow or influence in any way the local political conditions?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Notice should be given of that question.
    Mr. KING: May I ask if any information can be given of the forces that went to Baku?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot enter into that subject, as it does not arise out of this question.

    COAL SUPPLY.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister what steps have been taken during recent
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    weeks to restore the position of coal supply; whether miners have been withdrawn from the Army to serve in the mines; and whether he can make a reassuring statement on the outlook?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Albert Stanley): The progress of the release of coal miners from the Army has been substantially accelerated during the past two months. Up to the 12th October the number was 25,899. The majority are men of B2 and B3 category, but the scope of the release scheme was extended at the beginning of September to include men of B1 category (who may for coal mining purposes be regarded as equivalent to A men), and a substantial proportion of B1 men are included amongst the numbers recently released. I am hopeful that, as a result of appeals which are being made to the coal owners and miners, the output of coal will be improved; but the situation is serious and demands the most rigorous economy in consumption.
    Mr. FIELD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether some of this increased supply will go to Ireland to meet requirements there?
    Sir A. STANLEY: If I remember rightly Ireland is receiving now more than its fair share.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of men of low category who applied to be sent back to the coal mines are at once sent before a medical board and put up to A 1, and are stopped from going back?
    Sir A. STANLEY: No; I am not aware of that.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: If I send the right hon. Gentleman cases will he have them considered?
    Mr. ALDEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this policy of withdrawing men from the Colours and putting them back to the mines will be continued?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am not in a position to give any answer to that.
    Mr. BYRNE: Where does the right hon. Gentleman receive the information that Ireland is getting a fair share of coal? [HON. MEMBERS: "More!"] Is he aware that it is only going to one favoured spot of Ireland?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I base my statements on the figures.
    Colonel WHELER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what number of men have come back and how many are working at the coal face?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I cannot give the exact figures. I think under one-half.
    Colonel Sir H. GREENWOOD: Has the right hon. Gentleman got out of the Army all the miners asked for in order to stave off the coal famine?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I have not received the full returns.

    RUSSIAN MILITARY CONVENTION.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether, since the initiation of military operations in August on Russian soil, the policy of conscripting Russians into the British Army under the Russian military convention has been reconsidered; whether the practice till then prevailing has been modified or abandoned; if so, in what respect; and whether he can state the number of Russians who have joined the British Army under the Russian military convention?
    The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir Auckland Geddes): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the negative. As regards the third part of the question, the returns showing these figures as at 30th September, 1918, are not yet to hand, but it may be assumed that the total is approximately 5,600.

    WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Prime Minister whether the Government has considered the initiation of legislation to allow women to stand for Parliament; and whether he will give time for debate on a private Member's Motion on which the House might record its wishes in this matter?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): In the opinion of the Government this, like similar questions which arise in connection with the Franchise Bill, is one which ought to be left to the House, and I shall arrange to give an opportunity for its discussion.

    WAR AND NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the daily amounts of the war expenditure and of the total national expenditure over the period since the last Vote of Credit?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: My speech on the last Vote of Credit on 1st August dealt with the period to 14th July, in the period from 14th July to 5th October the daily average Exchequer issues for all purposes has been £6,979,000 and the daily average Vote of Credit expenditure has been approximately £6,273,000.

    SERVICE IN TRENCHES.
    Mr. J. O'CONNORasked the Under-Secretary of State for War what is the normal term of duty of an Infantry brigade in the trenches; whether in February and March, 1918, an Infantry brigade was kept in the trenches for forty days without relief; under whose command the division was at the time: and by whose order the brigade referred to was kept in the trenches for such an unprecedented period?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: There is no normal term of duty for an Infantry brigade in the trenches. It depends on the front held by the brigade, the front held by the division, the number of troops in reserve available for relief, and the activity or otherwise of the sector. As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, during the period in question the British Army was holding a long front.

    FIFTH ARMY (IRISH DIVISION).
    Mr. J. O'CONNORasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether at the time of the enemy offensive on 21st March an Irish division formed part of the Fifth Army under the command of General Gough; whether during the course of the offensive on the 22nd and 23rd of March this Irish division held the front between Epehy and Roisel and Tincourt; whether, as stated in the German official communiqué of the 23rd March, the troops holding this front put up a valiant resistance and vigorously counter-attacked the enemy, and in particular fought bitterly at

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    Epehy until they were finally compelled to abandon the heights in order to avoid being encircled by reason of the retirement of the forces on their flanks, and, if so, if he will explain why there has not been any official mention of the valour of this division or any public recognition of their services other than the anonymous tribute contained in the communiqué of the enemy?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The answer to the first three parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the fourth part, no official mention of the valour of this division has been made so far, for the reason that, owing to the severity of the fighting, and conflicting reports, added to the fact that a large proportion of this division was cut off, evidence of the behaviour of the division as a whole has been impossible to obtain. News, however, of gallant behaviour of a battalion of Minister Fusiliers of this division has been received, and an article describing the conduct of this unit will shortly be submitted to the Press for publication.

    CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has seen the Report of the Debate in the Canadian Parliament concerning irregularities and doubts which arose in connection with the votes cast by Canadian soldiers abroad in the Canadian Parliamentary election; and whether he is prepared to take steps against the possibility of similar complaints arising if British soldiers are called on to vote in similar circumstances?
    Mr. S. WALSH: My right hon. Friend has seen the Report referred to. The system of absent voting in this country is very different from that under the Canadian Act, and does not lend itself to irregularities such as were alleged to have occurred in the Canadian election. Under the Canadian system the voter was allowed a discretion as to the constituency for which he voted, and many false declarations are alleged to have been made. It is alleged that persons other than the elector were allowed to fill in the name of the constituency, and even after the elector had voted the name of the constituency was altered upon the ballot envelope. Under
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    our own method of voting the elector is entitled only because he is on the register of a particular constituency, and his vote cannot be recorded in any other constituency. Under these conditions the abuses alleged to have occurred in the Canadian election are not likely to arise.

    GERMAN TORPEDO WARFARE.

      SINKING OF STEAMSHIP "LEINSTER."
      Mr. DILLON (by Private Notice)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland whether an immediate and searching inquiry will be held into all the circumstances connected with the sinking of the city of Dublin mail boat "Leinster" whether the reference will be so drawn as to permit of a full investigation into the communications which have passed during the last year between the City of Dublin Company and the Admiralty, in regard to the necessity for protecting the Holyhead mail packets, and the representations which have reached the Admiralty from other quarters on this matter?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply, and, in doing so, I desire to say that the Board of Admiralty associates itself with the sympathy with the sufferers which has been so universally expressed.
      It is the policy on all occasions of vessels being torpedoed, sunk, or suffering damage, for full reports from the Senior Naval Officer, ships concerned, patrol or escort vessels, or any person who can give any information attending the circumstances of the case to be forwarded. These reports are thoroughly scrutinised, including the circumstances which led up to the casualty. This procedure is being followed in the case of the "Leinster."
      As regards the last part of my hon. Friend's question, I have no doubt I interpret him rightly when I surmise that his purpose is to ascertain whether the Admiralty has given due consideration to the representations made to it. On that I can assure him that we have here, as elsewhere, given all the protection possible within the means at our disposal; that, as a result, notwithstanding the deeply deplored losses here involved, the Irish Sea has been rendered at least as immune as

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      any of the waters around the United Kingdom; and, further, were it not that an inquiry, such as my hon. Friend no doubt has in mind, would involve the time and attention of those wholly occupied with work of protecting the Mercantile Marine, the Board of Admiralty would wish nothing better than that the carrying out of its duty should be investigated in the most minute manner.
      Mr. DILLON: Am I to understand, from that reply, that the Board of Admiralty now decline to have a public investigation into this case? The feeling in Dublin and throughout Ireland is intense on this matter, and it is desirable to have it in public.
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The reason I have given, I think, is a very sufficient reason.
      Mr. LOUGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of officers and men are carried on these boats, and will he not promise to extend the same care with regard to the convoying of these troops as is given in other spheres of the War?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The hon. Member for the Toxteth Division has given private notice of a question which I am prepared to answer.
      Mr. HOUSTON (by Private Notice)asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Irish mail boat "Leinster," which was torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life on Thursday last, 10th instant, shortly after leaving Kingstown, was provided with any escort, and, if not, why not; and can he state who, or which Government Department, is responsible for the safety of cross-Channel boats carrying large numbers of passengers?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The "Leinster" was not provided with an escort, nor have the Admiralty any escort forces capable of escorting a vessel whose speed by Lloyd's is 23i knots in the weather and the high sea that prevailed at the time.
      At the time of the accident the faster of the escort craft were patrolling the mail route, and, on the distress signal being given, one of the destroyers, patrolling in close proximity, whilst proceeding with all dispatch to the scene, had her forebridge wrecked when attempting to steam between 19 and 20 knots.
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      The view of the Admiralty is, and always has been, that in the case of such fast vessels as the "Leinster," the usual submarine precautions render them infinitely safer proceeding independently on a patrolled route at this high speed than when being escorted by vessels whose speed, when not in the calmest of waters, must inevitably reduce that of the ship escorted. This policy is carried out not only in the Irish Sea, but in all waters surrounding the United Kingdom.
      The House might well be reminded that an escort does not ensure the vessel's immunity. As an instance, the "Justicia" when sunk was surrounded by a considerable number of craft, of which many were high-speed vessels.
      As regards the last part of the question, the Admiralty are entirely responsible.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the speed of this vessel since 1917 has been reduced from 23½ knots to 22½ knots, and will he now admit the argument which I put forward that speed alone is no security against enemy submarines?
      Mr. DILLON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, arising out of the answer he has just given, whether he is aware of the fact that it was one hour and twenty-five minutes from the sinking of the "Leinster" when the first rescue boat appeared on the scene?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that, and if I may repeat part of my original answer, "on the distress signal being given one of the destroyers patrolling in close proximity, whilst proceeding with all dispatch to the scene, had her forebridge wrecked when attempting to steam between 19 and 20 knots."
      Mr. DILLON: How could she be in close proximity if it took an hour and twenty-five minutes before any rescue vessel appeared on the scene?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Was it not within 16 miles of Kingstown?
      Mr. CLANCY: With reference to the statement that sufficient protection has always been given by the Admiralty to these mail boats, does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that there was any protection given to any of these boats during nine-tenths of all the journeys they have made during the last three years?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I tried to explain in my answer that a vessel of this speed is not provided with an escort. Our view is, and always has been, that she is infinitely safer proceeding independently than with an escort, which in heavy weather is bound to reduce her speed.
      Colonel LOWTHER: Was the "Leinster" convoyed in fine weather?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that.
      Mr. CLANCY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday the Admiralty refused for four hours to provide an escort for the boat travelling across from Kingstown to Holyhead, and that it required a strike of the seamen to procure an escort?
      Mr. DILLON: The seamen and firemen refused to take her out!
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it not a fact that for four years these boats have crossed without being torpedoed?
      Mr. HOUSTON: Does he realise that the best security for these fast boats is aircraft?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: That has not been lost sight of.
      Mr. BYRNE: May I ask whether the Admiralty were aware that twenty-four hours previous to the "Leinster" being sunk two coal boats had been sunk in the Irish Sea, and that within three days before that six coal boats were sunk? Why did they let the mail boat out without an escort, knowing that?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that, and I can only repeat that the Department responsible for the protection of these boats within the means at its disposal does give infinite pains to these matters, and that is witnessed by the immunity which this sea has enjoyed compared with other parts of the sea round the United Kingdom.
      Mr. BYRNE: Will he take steps to find out—
      Mr. SPEAKER: Further questions must be put on the Notice Paper.

    JAPANESE STEAMER "HIRANO MARU."
    Mr. HOUSTON (by Private Notice)asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Japanese steamer
    22
    "Hirano Mara" was torpedoed and sunk, with great loss of life, in the Irish Sea prior to 5th October, and can he state why the public was not informed of this outrage until Friday, 11th instant?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The "Hirano Maru" was torpedoed and sunk on 4th October, well outside the Irish Sea. As the vessel was conveying a number of South African passengers, and in order to prevent unnecessary anxiety in South African circles, details of the outrage were not released for publication until the escort vessels had returned to port and accurate details of the losses were available.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS (by Private Notice): To ask the Prime Minister whether, and, if so, when he is prepared to make a full statement with regard to the position of prisoners of war and the steps to be taken by the Government to enforce better treatment of those of our men who are still being treated with brutality by the Germans?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the statement which has appeared in the Press and which I am sure my hon. Friend has seen.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does my right hon. Friend not see that that leaves our unfortunate men to another month of the brutalities of the Germans, and will he consider the possibility, in any negotiations for an armistice, to make it a condition precedent that the Hague Agreement be carried out forthwith?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I believe a question on that point is being put to my right hon. Friend. But it does not follow, I hope, that it means a delay of a month, because we hope our action will produce the desired results. A month is required by the conditions of the Hague Convention.
    Colonel Sir F. HALL (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether the Note which has been addressed through the Netherlands Government to Germany as to the steps which will be taken unless the ill-treatment and torture of British prisoners of war is discontinued, provides for the period of four weeks to elapse before such steps are taken; whether, in the event of Germany waiting until near the expiration of this period of grace

    23
    before giving the guarantees demanded, she will be considered to have complied with the British Note; and if he will indicate, in view of the fact that the ill-treatment of British prisoners has been known to be going on since the War commenced, and for a long period after the testimony on the subject by released prisoners was available, why these representations have been delayed so long, and what is the necessity of imposing on our prisoners another four weeks of this inhuman treatment?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am sorry I have not received any notice of that question, but the last part was already answered by my reply to my hon. Friend—the four weeks are a necessity of the Hague Convention.
    Sir F. HALL: I sent the question to the Prime Minister yesterday at the same time as I addressed it to Mr. Speaker.
    Brigadier-General CROFT: As the whole of this action on the part of our enemies is contrary to the Hague Convention, will he, if any evidence comes to him in the meantime of further brutalities, take instant reprisals against German prisoners here on the question of rations and other comforts?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Obviously—and I think my hon. and gallant Friend will agree—specific questions of that kind should be put on the Notice Paper.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: May I ask whether the French prisoners in German hands are now being returned—has the exchange been completed?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think notice should be given of that question, but I believe that after having been stopped for a time it is now resumed.
    Sir E. HUME-WILLIAMS (by Private Notice)asked the Home Secretary if he can state when the Government were first made aware that the Hague Agreement with reference to prisoners would not be ratified by Germany; whether Germany has yet sent a reply to the recent "requirements" on the subject of prisoners recently addressed to her by England; whether any agreement has yet been reached with our Allies as to the nature of the reprisals to be enforced if Germany persists in her brutal treatment of the prisoners whom she holds; and
    24
    whether the Government will give an assurance that in any peace negotiations they may undertake with any Power, the immediate and unconditional return of prisoners shall be among the first conditions to be considered?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): The date when the Government were first made aware of the refusal of Germany to ratify the Hague Agreement except upon conditions which could not be accepted is the 5th October. Germany has not yet sent a reply to the requirements on the subject of prisoners recently addressed to her by this country. The nature of the reprisals to be taken in the event of Germany not complying with those requirements has not yet been agreed with our Allies, but arrangements are being made for an early discussion on the subject, and a conclusion will undoubtedly be reached before the date when reprisals can be taken. As to the last part of the question, it has already been announced that instructions have been given that in the event of an armistice being concluded with Turkey the immediate and unconditional release of the British prisoners in Turkish hands shall be made a condition of such armistice. In the case of the Central Powers it is thought undesirable that the conditions on which alone a cessation of hostilities would be agreed to should be discussed piecemeal, but I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that the question which he raises has been and will be borne constantly in mind.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Did not the President in his late Note say that atrocities must cease, and ought not brutalities to prisoners be treated as atrocities within the terms of the President's dispatch.?
    Sir G. CAVE: Undoubtedly they deserve that description.
    Colonel C. LOWTHER: Could not the German Government be informed that any German officer responsible for any brutality to British prisoners in the future will be immediately shot at the end of hostilities?
    Sir G. CAVE: They have been informed that we shall do our utmost to exact punishment.
    Sir F. HALL: And shall we exact it at the close of hostilities?

    LONDON NEWSPAPERS (PURCHASE).
    Mr. PRINGLE (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the recent purchase of London newspapers for the purpose of changing their political policy; whether the Government will set up a Committee to inquire into the tendencies towards the monopolistic control of the Press on the lines of the inquiry into banking amalgamations; and whether a supply of paper will be granted by the Government to a company formed for the purpose of starting new newspapers whose object would be to promote the former policy of the newspapers recently purchased?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: My attention has been called to the recent sale of London newspapers, but I am informed that their political policy has not been changed. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative, and to the third part that any request for paper will be considered on its merits by the Paper Controller.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I desire to give notice that I will raise this question on the Adjournment to-night.

    NAVY AND ARMY.

      CONGRATULATIONS OF PARLIAMENT.
      General CROFT (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister if he will give an early opportunity to Parliament to express its congratulations to the Navy and Army on the recent series of brilliant victories?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: No formal Resolution is needed to give expression to the admiration and gratitude which is felt by the House of Commons and the country for the men who on every front are so nobly fighting our battles on land and sea. It would, however, I am sure, be a satisfaction to the House of Commons to pass such a Resolution; but, as the battle is still raging, I do not think that the present time would be the most suitable occasion for it.

    ARMISTICE WITH GERMANY.
    Mr. HOUSTON: May I ask the Prime Minister a question of which I gave him private notice as far back as Sunday,
    26
    namely, whether he is in a position to state the terms and conditions that will be imposed upon Germany before any armistice is granted or peace negotiations are entered upon, and if those terms and conditions are—immediate withdrawal from all territory occupied by the enemy, immediate cessation of all submarine operations, unconditional surrender, reparation in full for all injuries inflicted or caused by Germany and her Allies, strict justice meted out to those responsible for the outrages and atrocities committed by the enemy?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am sure my hon. Friend and the House will feel that it would be very unwise for any one of the Allied Governments to make any statement at the moment.

    Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether it is intended to pass the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill [Lords] this Session; and whether it is the policy of the Government to maintain Regulation 40D till this or some similar Bill becomes law?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Bill and Regulation are now being considered by Committees, and it is obvious that no announcement as to the policy of the Government can be made until those Committees have reported.
    Mr. KING: May I ask if any announcement cannot be made as to when a decision will be taken?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I stated that an announcement could not be made as to a decision until the Committee has reported.

    NEW MEMBER SWORN.
    George Knox Anderson, Esquire, for the Borough of Canterbury.
    LOANS (INCUMBENTS OF BENEFICES) AMENDMENT BILL [Lords].
    Read the first time; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 95.]

    NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS.
    Bill to make provision for the better administration of the enactments relating to Naval, Military, and Air Force war pensions, grants, and allowances, and for certain other purposes connected with such pensions, grants, and allowances, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hodge, Mr. Hayes Fisher, Mr. Munro, Mr. Shortt, and Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen.
    NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS BILL,—"to make provision for the better administration of the enactments relating to Naval, Military, and Air Force war pensions, grants, and allowances, and for certain other purposes connected with such pensions, grants, and allowances," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 96.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask if my right hon. Friend can make any statement to the House with regard to the improved military situation since the House last met, and, if it is not convenient at the present moment to make any statement with regard to communications that have passed between the German Government and the President of the United States of America, when he expects he will be able to make some communication on that subject to the House?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Nobody understands better than my right hon. Friend how careful every Power must be at a time like this, and my own view is that probably the only time when any question of this kind should be made public is after a definite decision has been taken, and not when negotiations are going forward. It is, therefore, not possible to name a time. As regards the military situation, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would himself desire to make a statement on this subject to the House, but that must, I think, depend not only on calls upon his lime, but on the nature of the operations. I do not think it would be the best opportunity to do it just now while the battle is still raging.
  Mr. HOGGE: Is my right hon. Friend in a position now to state when he will be able to give a day for the consideration of the recent increased separation allowances and hear the views of the House?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: As a matter of fact, during the Recess a Committee was appointed by the Cabinet to consider this subject. It has given its Report, and it has been considered by the Cabinet to-day. I hope, therefore, in a day or two to circulate our decision, and then, if a discussion is still desired, it will be granted.
  Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say in anticipation whether the result of the Cabinet decision is an increase in the sums recently awarded?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think my hon. Friend may assume that if there is any change it can only be an increase. I think it would be better to leave it until the decision is circulated.
  Mr. HOGGE: I will ask my right hon. Friend again on Thursday.
  Mr. BOOTH: Is it the intention of the Government to bring in a Ministry of Health (Local Government) Bill this Session, and is my right hon. Friend aware of the great concern with which the proposal is viewed by the friendly societies!
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I should like to have notice of the question.
  Mr. OUTHWAITE: Has a date yet been fixed for the holding of a General Election?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: In view of the uncertainly of a large number of important questions being answered on Thursday, would it be possible to give a little more time for questions on that day?
  HON. MEMBERS: No!
  Mr. SPEAKER: That would require an alteration of the Rides.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask which of the Orders on the Paper the Leader of the House wishes to take to-day?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The Midwives Bill, the Tithe Bill, the Isle of Man (Customs) Bill, and School Teachers (Superannuation) Report.
  Mr. HOUSTON: Will there be a Friday sitting?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think it will be necessary.

  MIDWIVES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): I beg to move "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  I can perform this duty in a very few sentences. The Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, on behalf of the Privy Council, early in the Session, and passed that House with only one important Amendment. When it came to the House of Commons someone with a lynx-eye detected in some of its Clauses an infringement of the privileges of the House of Commons. These Clauses were held to contain a public charge. That being so, according to our usages, the Bill should have been introduced into the House of Commons

  31
  instead of in the House of Lords. Therefore it had to be laid by. Three courses were open to the Government. One was to introduce the Bill into the House of Commons in the terms in which the former Bill left the House of Lords; the second to introduce the Bill into the House of Lords in an amended form; whilst the third was to drop the Bill. The discovery of the tiny though damaging flaw in this otherwise spotless Bill was made very late in the Session, some time in July, and about the time of the "slaughter of the innocents." Those who were responsible for the conduct of business in the House felt themselves unable to find a place in their time-table for this Bill before the House rose for the summer holidays. The Bill was accordingly dropped, and I gave notice to introduce it into this House on the reassembling of Parliament. I consequently introduce it precisely in the form in winch it passed the House of Lords.
  The basis of all legislation relating to midwives is the Midwives Act of 1902, which set up a Central Midwives Board, and required that after a certain interval women should not act as midwives unless they were duly certified by the Central Midwives Board. This Act applied to England and Wales only. After some years', experience of its operation a Departmental Committee was appointed, in 1909, to consider its working. This Committee made certain valuable recommendations as to Amendments which might very fittingly be brought into the Act by some subsequent legislation. Subsequently, when Scotland, and later Ireland, obtained the benefits of a Mid-wives Act, the principal recommendations of the Departmental Committee were incorporated in those Acts; and so it came about that England and Wales became, as it were, the Cinderella of midwifery legislation. The whole object of the present Bill is to assimilate the law relating to the midwives of England and Wales to that which obtains in Scotland and Ireland—to make the whole of the legislation relating to midwives in the United Kingdom in harmony in every possible respect. I would like to make one or two observations in view of the importance of the Clauses.
  Clause 1 provides simple and convenient machinery by which the constitution of the Central Midwives Bill can be altered at times, with proper safeguards, by an
  32
  Order in Council. Clause 2 endeavours to make an equitable apportionment of any deficit that may be shown in the case of the local supervision authorities against the Central Board—apportionment on the basis of population, and not on the basis of the number of midwives who have taken out certificates. The present system is more cumbersome and less equitable and appears, to a certain extent, to penalise the more active authorities as against the negligent ones. Clause 6 amplifies the provisions relating to suspension; in this Clause Sub-section (2) introduces, for the first time, the principle of compensation. Clause 7 allows the Central Midwives Board, if they think fit, to pay the expenses of any midwife who may be required to appear before them to defend herself; whilst Clause 8 empowers the Central Board in removing from the roll the name of any midwife, also to prohibit her from attending maternity cases in any other capacity.
  Clause 10 introduces provision for the reciprocal recognition of certificates granted by the Central Midwives Board in this country and of midwives certified granted by similar bodies in other parts of His Majesty's Dominions. There is a condition that the training must be equivalent in each case. It this Bill is passed there will be reciprocal arrangements between all parts of the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Dominions. Clause 11 empowers the local supervising authorities to contribute to the training of midwives in conformity with the resolution passed by the County Councils Association. Clause 12 repeals Section 9 of the principal Act. This proposal gave rise to a division of opinion in another place, and I think it is probable that in the Committee stage some objection may be taken. I do not propose to argue the case now, but if there be a division of opinion in the House during the Committee stage, I shall be only too glad to listen to all those who are capable of advising me as to the best form this proposal ought to take. Clause 14 provides a simple machinery for the payment of medical assistance summoned by midwives in cases of emergency, and it makes it obligatory to summon a doctor in typical cases of emergency. Although it is obligatory on the local authority to pay the fee of the doctor, half that fee will be paid back under certain regulations issued by the Treasury. Therefore any payments the local authorities may make for this act of

  33
  welfare and mercy will be recouped to the extent of 50 per cent. by Grants made under the advice of the Treasury and administered by the Local Government Board.
  It only remains to be said that the Bill embodies the principal recommendations of the Departmental Committee, and that it brings the whole of our legislation connected with midwives in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland all on the same footing. We are all most anxious to do everything we can to promote maternity and anything Chat relates to child welfare. If we can pass such a Bill as this, which improves the status of midwives and removes some of the difficulties under which they suffer, I feel that we shall have done something to diminish the suffering of motherhood and we shall have done something to attract more women and possibly a better class of women to that ancient and honourable profession. By this Bill we shall take an important step forward in one branch of the public health which endeavours to see that everything is done for the strengthening of the health and the general improvement of the vitality of both mother and child.
  Mr. GEORGE THORNE: With the concluding remarks of the right hon. Gentleman I entirely agree. I rise to refer to one point relating to Clause 12, to which reference has already been made. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman does not desire any discussion on that point, as he wishes to reserve it for the Committee stage, but if he were able to make any statement at this stage it might very considerably reduce the time required for the Committee stage. The memorandum of the Bill distinctly indicates that this measure is proposed in such a way that all contentious matter is avoided. As the right hon. Gentleman no doubt recognises, the question raised in Clause 12 is a distinctly contentious matter. The county councils very strongly object to Clause 12, which robs them of the power they at present possess of delegating their powers to district councils, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to indicate that he does not intend to proceed with that Clause, and so avoid discussion on the Committee stage.
  Sir JOHN HARMOOD-BANNER: I wish to endorse what the last speaker has said. The Memorandum says that all contentious matter is avoided, and yet Clause 12 is contrary to the very strongly
  34
  expressed opinion of the municipal and county council associations of the kingdom. It is rather curious to call this measure non-contentious when that is the position. These associations have already written to the right hon. Gentleman and have had no reply, and they have had no opportunity of discussing the matter. They feel very strongly that it is proposed that populations of 170,000, 150,000, and 140,000 are being deprived of their right to deal through their medical officer of health with this very important subject. It is perfectly true, as the President of the Local Government Board says, Clause 12 appears in the Bill because the House of Lords has put it in, but that is a very poor reason. The representatives of the county councils and municipal associations have a strong view upon this question, and they do not like to have the opinion of the House of Lords foisted upon them by stating that this is a non-contentious question when, as a matter of fact, these associations all disapprove of it.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I had hoped that I should have been able to congratulate my right hon. Friend upon bringing in a Bill which was non-contentious and to suggest that this example might very well be followed by other right hon. Gentlemen; but, to my great sorrow, I gather from the speeches which I have just heard that there are contentious matters in this particular Bill. I hope that that is not really the case, and that this new procedure of bringing in Bills which are not contentious will prove to be a reality.
  Mr. BOOTH: On behalf of the local authorities I wish to give my support to the view expressed by the two hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate. I desire to draw attention to Clause 1 and to have it clearly understood that the word "person" in Clause 1 includes women. It may be a technical point, but the Law Courts have held that the word "person" does not in certain circumstances include a woman. If this Clause includes the appointment of women, it will enable the Government to increase the number of women upon the Central Midwives Board. As things are developing now, there is, I think, a general recognition that women must more and more be called into the counsels of the nation, and this is peculiarly a province in which it is natural that women should be asked to assist. If we could have an assurance from the Government that they contemplate under

  35
  Clause 1 having the freedom to appoint more women—I suggest, possibly, a midwife, providing a suitable candidate came forward—on to the Central Midwives' Board, I think the House would regard it as a distinct step in advance.
  Major HILLS: I do not wish now to argue the rather thorny question of Clause 12, but there is another side of the case, and the House must not assume that all the arguments are on the side of my hon. Friends who have spoken. There is a very strong case the other way, which I and other Members of the House are prepared to make at the proper time. Since the Memorandum has been referred to and since stress has been laid upon the fact that it states that the contentious matter has been withdrawn from the Bill, may I direct the attention of the House to the fact that the Memorandum also says that this Bill brings the law of England and Wales into line with the law at present in force in Scotland and Ireland and that that uniformity cannot be effected unless Clause 12 remains in its present form?
  Mr. FISHER: My hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) asked whether it would be possible under Clause 1 to increase the number of women now on the Central Midwives' Board. Yes, that will be possible, and I entirely share his view that in all this maternity and child welfare legislation we shall need more and more the services and the special knowledge of women. It will be possible, if it is thought desirable, to give the midwives themselves direct representation upon that board. The questions have all ranged round Clause 12. We thought it better, upon the whole, to bring in the Bill as it left the House of Lords, but, as I have said, when we come to Clause 12, which will probably be the only Clause which will require any debate or Division, I shall certainly listen with a very open mind to the arguments that will be brought forward as to whether or not there should be any power on the part of the county councils to delegate to the district councils. I will only indicate a certain preference in my own mind not upon this subject only, but upon many other subjects. I think generally it is wise to give a discretionary power subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board. I do not think it is wise to close the door altogether upon the power of delegation by these local bodies. It is
  36
  best to leave them with that power subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board. That is the only indication of opinion that I will give. I can assure the House that I have a very open mind upon this question, and that I have purposely kept it open until we debate the whole matter in Committee.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday—[Mr. Hayes Fisher].

  TITHE BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Prothero): I beg to move, "That the Bill now be read a second time."
  This Bill was read a first time on 24th July, and, in asking the House to read it a second time, perhaps some further explanation is needed. The proposals, as I explained when introducing the Bill, are mainly these: On the one hand, to impose a temporary limit to the value of the tithe rent-charge; and, on the other hand, to increase the facilities for its redemption. Both proposals, I am afraid, are difficult to follow, unless we know how tithe rent-charges are at the present time annually adjusted. The value of tithe in produce in 1835 was ascertained in its money equivalent, but in order to preserve the real value of those payments and to maintain its purchasing power the sum payable in each year varies with the fluctuating prices of fixed quantities of grain. In the seven years preceding 1836 and ending at Christmas, 1835, the prices of a bushel of wheat, of a bushel of barley, and of a bushel of oats, respectively, were 7s. 0¼d., 3s. 11½d and 2s. 9d. The next step was to ascertain how many bushels at those prices the money equivalents would purchase. Dividing £100 of tithe rent-charge into three equal parts, it was found that one-third would buy 95 bushels of wheat, another third 168 bushels of barley, and the remaining third 242 bushels of oats. Those three figures, 95, 168, and 242, are the fixed figures by which in each year the septennial average prices of wheat, barley, and oats, respectively, are multiplied. The aggregate is the tithe rent-charge for the year. Let me illustrate it. Assume that the average prices for the

  37
  seven years ending Christmas, 1925, are 72s. per quarter for wheat, 64s. per quarter for barley, and 48s. per quarter for oats, then a bushel of wheat is worth 9s., of barley 8s., and of oats 6s. Multiplying those three figures by the fixed numbers, you get the following results: 95 bushels of wheat at 9s. are worth £42 15s., 168 bushels of barley at 8s. are worth £67 4s., and 242 bushels of oats at 6s. are worth £72 12s. Adding those figures together, you get the value of £100 of tithe rent-charge in 1926 as £182 11s. That is an illustration of how the average is worked. Of course, that illustration is only an imaginary one. The increase may be greater or it may be less. In any case its magnitude, and still more its uncertainty is somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, it must be remembered that when the tithe rent-charge rises, even if it rises to £182 11s., the tithe owner only gets that which the Tithe Computation Act intended him to get. The real value of the charge is preserved, its purchasing power is maintained, and the tithe owner only receives that which the Act was designed to give him.
  4.0 P.M.
  On the oilier hand, I do not think it will be contended that the Act of 1836 ever contemplated the present war conditions. Nothing is normal; everything is artificial—the State controls not only the prices of agricultural produce, but to a great extent also the cost of agricultural production. And the difficulty is increased in another way. So long as the burden fell upon the occupier he derived some corresponding benefit from the rise in the prices of produce upon which the increase of tithe rent-charge was based. But the Tithe Act of 1891 transferred the burden of the charge from the occupation to the ownership of land, and the result is that the owner, if he is not himself the occupier, derives no benefit from the rise in the value of the produce, while at the same time he has to bear the burden of the increased tithe rent-charge unless he can raise his rents. Apart from the fact that many landowners are unwilling to raise the rents of their tenants, there are many cases to-day where the farmers could not stand a rise in the rent. In these circumstances I believe there is a pretty general opinion that some reasonable adjustment of the burden of tithe rent-charge would be acceptable, not only to tithe owners but to tithe payers, and, at all events, I claim for this Bill that it is an honest attempt to be fair
  38
  to the interests of both sides. Of course, there is a great deal to be said from the point of view of the tithe payer as well as from the point of view of the tithe owner, and in the discussions in Committee many points may be raised. I am sure that the Government will receive all suggestions sympathetically and will desire to make the Bill, if possible, fairer and more acceptable.
  The first Clause in the Bill deals with this abnormal and artificial rise. It fixes the tithe rent-charge for seven years at £109 3s. 11d., which is its figure to-day. For the next seven years it will neither rise nor fall; it will stand where it is. Many tithe owners have expressed their willingness to accept some such temporary limitation as that, but that willingness has been coupled with the suggestion that if they give up their prospective rise they ought to be in some way protected against an undue fall. I should like to say at once that if that suggestion is presented in the concrete form of an amendment it will receive our very careful consideration. The second change made by the Bill is with regard to compulsory redemption. The tithe payer may compel the owner to redeem under this Bill, but the tithe owner cannot compel the tithe payer. Universal redemption is what we should like to have, but the position of the two parties interested is so different that it is very difficult to apply it. I imagine very few tithe owners would be reluctant to exchange their present tithe rent-charge for the same net income payable with punctuality, free from cost of collection and independent of the prosperity of agriculture or the burden of the rates. But, on the other hand, tithe payers have got to consider, even if they are willing to redeem, whether it is wise to risk more of their capital by buying up further interests in the land in which they may already have too much. Many of them may be afraid to put all their eggs in one single basket, and therefore, on the whole, a one-sided form of compulsion seems to be fair. It is always easier to compel men to receive cash than it is to compel them to pay it. That seems to me to be the governing principle here.
  The next change made is the consideration to be paid for redemption. As the law now stands, when the tithe is over the value of 20s. it can only be redeemed at a sum which is not less than twenty-five times the original commuted figure—that is to say, where tithe stands at 66, as it

  39
  did in 1901, or at 92, as it did in 1917, if you want to redeem it you have to pay £2,500. That is a figure at which the tithe payer cannot afford to redeem, and so from the very moment that that redemption Clause was passed it practically became a dead letter. The proof of that lies in this, that though the Act has been in existence for eighty-two years, only £73,000 worth of tithe has been redeemed. That is a warning against putting in any fixed figure. What is fair compensation depends upon three figures which you cannot calculate beforehand; one is the rate at which the Government can borrow; the second is the average price of corn, and the third the burden of rates. If you once ascertain these three figures the calculation of what is fair compensation is easy, and by that I mean the net income derived from the sum invested in good Government securities, which is equivalent to the net income the tithe owner would have received. That is a simple actuarial calculation if once you get these three figures. Without them it is mere guesswork. We have been pressed a good deal to put in some fixed figure. I must say that experience of the Act of 1836 made me feel quite strongly that that would be inadvisable.
  Section 3, Sub-section (2), deals with the consents that are required. As the law stands a clerical tithe rent-charge exceeding 20s. can only be redeemed with the con-sent of the bishop and of the patron of the benefice or cure. Both of them have to consent. That consent is somewhat difficult to obtain, sometimes expensive, and sometimes it is a rather long proceeding. There have been oases where bishops have refused redemption unless thirty years' purchase was given for the tithe. In this case we propose to do away with the consent of the bishop or patron in the case of clerical tithe and substitute the consent of Queen Anne's Bounty, which is the official custodian and trustee of all redemption moneys paid over for the redemption of clerical tithe rent-charge. I think we have omitted in this Bill the Welsh Church Commissioners, but we propose to associate their consent with that of Queen Anne's Bounty where it relates to tithe in Wales. Section 4 deals with facilitating the landlord raising money to redeem tithe rent-charge. Section 5 deals with the very rare cases where the landowner, having agreed to redeem at a certain figure, neglects to pay the money. Section 5
  40
  provides means by which the redemption money is no longer treated as tithe but as a charge on the land. Section 6 refers to corn rents, which are not included in Section 1. I am sure the House will not wish me to embark on a technical description of the difference between corn rents and tithe rent-charge Practically the difference lies in this, that instead of being annually adjusted they are adjusted at different intervals according to the local Act under which they were created—whether seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. We propose under this Bill to facilitate their conversion into tithe rent-charge and in that way to facilitate their redemption. I do not think there are any other Clauses which I need explain, but I would like, in conclusion, to say that Tithe Bills, I am told, have always been somewhat bitterly discussed in this House. I hope that this Bill at all events will be regarded as an honest attempt to solve the difficulties created by war conditions, and that as it leaves the House it will have the approval not only of those who pay but of those who receive tithe rent-charge.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I do not wish for one moment to delay the passage of this Bill through the House, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on its introduction. It is a most necessary measure. There are, however, one or two points on which I should like his attention, in order that when we come to the Committee stage those points may be cleared up. In the first instance, I should like to ask him why the year 1926 has been taken as the period after which the present system may continue, as I understand it, and the tithe rent-charge continue to increase in amount and in value? Whatever may be said for the proposal from the point of view of the clergy, who for many years past, I should think for forty years past—up to four or five years ago—have seen the tithe diminishing in value, and their incomes growing less rather than greater, there is nothing whatever to be said for the tithe owners, who have rendered no service to the community, but who take away from the landowning and land-cultivating classes an increased income at a time when every other class has been under the necessity of facing a diminished income and an increased expenditure. I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman is not able to extend this year 1926, as against the clergy of the Established Church, he, at all events, may be willing to accept an Amendment which will put an

  41
  end for ever to increased tithe being paid to the owners of what are commonly called tithes, who have rendered no service to the people from whom they extract a considerable portion of the income of the locality. So much for that point. There is one other point in connection with Clause 1 to which I would ask the right hon. Gentlemen's attention. Why does he fix
  "The yearly sum which, on or before the first day of January."
  I gather that in the great majority of parishes in this country the day on which tithes are demanded is either the 25th March or 29th September, Lady-Pay or Michaelmas, while in a number of parishes the 1st January is the statutory day. In the far greater number of cases it is either Lady-Day or Michaelmas. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us why the 1st January is fixed, which is rarer than the almost universal days to which I have drawn his attention? Let me draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to one point in Clause 2, which is one of importance. It is the use of the word "may." There is always a Parliamentary wrangle over the words "may" and "shall." I do not wish to embark upon a contention of that sort now. Is it the fact that under Clause 2 the power of redemption is an optional power, which is only to be granted if the Board of Agriculture so think fit, or will there be an inherent right in the owner of land to go to the Board of Agriculture and say, "I demand redemption of tithe; I am in a position to pay the lump sum required; you must fix the amount at which that redemption is to take place"? The use of the word "may" there causes a certain amount of ambiguity which, personally, I should be very sorry to see introduced into this matter. The right hon. gentleman said something about an alteration in Clause 3 from a fixed number of years to an indefinite period, and therefore an indeterminate amount for which the tithe should be redeemed. He spoke of the period as one of twenty-five years, but I think that he will remember that twenty-four years is also a statutory period during which tithe may be redeemed. Under the Tithe Act, 1846, Section 5, if the total amount does not exceed 20s.—
  Mr. PROTHERO: I did deal with the matter.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Where it does not exceed 20s. the number of years is twenty-four?
  Mr. PROTHERO: Yes.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I suppose that, too, may be varied like 125. in connection with this the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that he wished the redemption of tithe was universally compulsory. For many reasons I should like to see that too, but it all depends on the basis on which the tithe is redeemed whether it is a desirable redemption or not. I should like to know, now that the tithe is being fixed for seven years, whether the Board of Agriculture's view is that the period of twenty-four or twenty-five years is to be increased up to thirty, as apparently some people desire, or whether it should be reduced to something like nineteen or twenty, which is the figure which the payer of tithe thinks is very much more fair. Perhaps, when we come to the Clause in Committee, my right hon. Friend may think it worth while to make some explanation of that matter. The right hon. Gentleman has dealt with the alteration as to the payment into Queen Anne's Bounty. Will he tell me why, in the future, a person who redeems the tithe is not required, as he has been in the past, to make the reduction of one-twentieth of the capital sum which has been paid and charged upon the land in order to reduce and eventually to extinguish the charges upon the land?
  Clause 4 says:
  "So much of Section 11 of the Tithe Act, 1846…. as fixes the rate of interest on the charge or requires an annual reduction of the charge shall cease to have effect."
  What is the idea of that? The idea was that a person who raises a sum of money on a property in order to redeem the tithe rent-charge, and having raised that money and not burdened the future owner of the land with a fixed annual sum arising from the interest on the money so borrowed, instead of the fluctuating charge dependent upon the value of the tithe rent-charge, therefore the sum so raised was to be reduced by one-twentieth every year. That provision is abolished. I have no doubt there may be excellent reasons for that, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear in mind that some of us are rather curious to know what those reasons are. I should also like him to tell us how under Section 5, when he

  43
  has to get a lump sum which a recalcitrant owner fails to find, he intends to proceed? I do not quite understand how he is going to make a charge on the property or satisfy Queen Anne's Bounty with the other recipients. On Clause 6 I do not think my right hon. Friend pointed out that the governing words in that Clause are in the third line
  "The powers of the Board of Agriculture to convert corn rents into tithe rent-charges may be exercised at any time."
  Those words "at any time" are really the cause of the variation. All the powers which are in Clause 6 are at present enjoyed by the Board of Agriculture, but they may exercise them only at certain statutory times, when the value of the corn rent is varied or altered. Now I understand they take power to do it at any time. That is the alteration the Board makes. I think it is a very good power to take. I have only one further question. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether in Clause 6, Sub-section (2), there will be redemption for the tithe rent-charge which is to be awarded, as there is exemption at this time for many corn rents and rent-charges? My right hon. Friend will, no doubt, in due course give us an answer to these questions. They are points which are interesting and of importance. Finally, I ask him, with regard to what he has just said, is it the case that he will entertain an Amendment which, instead of allowing some determinate period to be substituted for the twenty-four or twenty-five years, an Amendment fixing an arrangement under which the Board of Agriculture would name a sum as the tithe value which will tell us from year to year at what rate during that twelve months the tithe may be redeemed which the landowner or the tithe owner desires to redeem? I hope that my right hon. Friend will find occasion in Committee to answer the points I have put to him.
  Mr. L. HARDY: We shall all feel glad that the right hon. Gentleman has brought in a Bill dealing with this really very urgent matter. I do not wish to say anything to stop the easy passage of the Bill. Of course it is a Bill, like all other Bills at this time, brought in in a spirit of compromise. I was a little disappointed, when the right hon. Gentleman was making his speech, that he did not refer to many matters which require consideration before we arrive at the Committee
  44
  stage. In the first place, I am extremely glad he acquitted the clergy of the accusation brought against them in some quarters that they have been profiteering in this matter. That, of course, is a perfectly groundless charge. The amount they have received has been in strict accordance with the amount the Act allowed them, and at the present time they are perfectly entitled to receive any increased tithe which may come in under ordinary circumstances. Anyone who has studied the Report of the Lower House of Convocation will see that they do desire that this matter should be taken in hand. It is quite as much in the interest of the tithe owners as of the tithe payers that there should be some terms found, and, if possible, the old debatable question of tithe removed from political controversy. Therefore I fully welcome this Bill as it is framed, although I think it may be improved. I do not think there is any doubt about the second Clause, but with my right hon. Friend below me (Sir C. Hobhouse) I feel a little doubtful with regard to the words "may be directed." If it had been "may be redeemed" I could understand it, but to give some authority to someone to exercise an option in the matter I do not think ought to be done, and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman intends it should be done. He is very wise in making it compulsory on one interest. Much as we should like to get rid of tithe altogether, it is practically impossible, owing to the enormous charge on the tithe payer involved in the abolition of tithe interests. As to Clause 3, I do not quite follow the suggestion of the President that the Board of Agriculture may fix some sum each year. He mentioned three instances, mainly rates and the price of corn. Of course, if he is willing to introduce something of that sort, it might take away some of the objections I have to this Clause. At present the power is indefinite. It will involve some to the tithe owners, the tithe payers, and the Board of Agriculture, which might be avoided very largely if you adopted some definite number of years. The clergy, through Convocation, had suggested twenty, the House of Laymen have suggested twenty, and other authorities have suggested twenty years. It is a very simple sum by which we see that the present rate—twenty years—means that the tithe owner practically gets his par value back.

  45
  I rather hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would explain his position with regard to rates, because the rate question is a serious one from the agricultural point of view. When we are dealing with tithe we come upon several conditions of things in connection with rates. Where the tithe is attached to a benefice, owing to an Act passed not long ago, the tithe owner is relieved of half the rates, and he is in a great deal better position than the ordinary occupier, because under the Agricultural Rating Act the relief is based on rates which were fixed a very long time ago, amounting to a sum which is very much less than half the present rate. The clerical owner has the advantage of geting half the rates at the present time, and so he is benefiting considerably more than the other. Is that ever going to be transferred to the occupier, when he comes to arrange his terms subject to the assent of the Board of Agriculture? The other two descriptions of tithe are in a different position. The tithe belonging to cathedrals or capitular bodies and the tithe in the hands of the laity is not given any advantage in connection with the reduction of rates. Is the Board going to take that into consideration when lay tithe or cathedral tithe is being dealt with, and allow a better bargain to be made in those cases than in the other? It ought to be made quite clear how these different matters are going to be dealt with, and under the Bill it is certainly left in such a very vague and indefinite position that I think it will create difficulty throughout the country. No doubt the right. hon. Gentleman has thought the matter out, and I shall be very grateful if he will explain it a little more clearly. Knowing the very heavy incidence of tithe at present, it is almost inevitable that if you really wish the redemption scheme to work, you must have some means of enabling this to be dealt with, not only by one payment but by payment over a series of years. It will be impossible for the tithe payer in many instances to find the money. He may be unwilling to put at once such a very large sum into land at a moment when it is extremely difficult to borrow except at a very high rate of interest, and there should be in connection with this redemption, if you really wish it to work, some scheme for securing that it may be dealt with by either of two ways, either by payment
  46
  down or by payment over a series of years, and that should have the authority of the Board of Agriculture.
  Major COURTHOPE: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon his motives in introducing this Bill, but I am disappointed with the method by which he proposes to carry out his own and, I think, all our desires. He said just now "universal redemption is what we should like." That is a phrase with which everyone who is concerned with tithe will agree. I am certain both tithe owners and tithe payers would echo that. The ecclesiastical bodies, in different phraseology, express the same idea. Surely if we are all agreed in desiring that, the method of the Bill is the very last to bring it about! The principal motive which would have produced universal redemption is the comparative certainty that for the next two or three years the annual value of tithes is going to rise enormously. The right hon. Gentleman is doing away with the incentive towards redemption by saying it shall not rise any higher. For many years past redemption on a large scale has been impossible, because while the annual value of tithe was standing somewhere in the 'sixties—it did not rise to £70 until nine or ten years ago—the minimum figure of redemption was twenty-five years' purchase at par value. I am ignoring subsidiary cases, where the erection of churches and chapels is required, and things like that. I am dealing with the ordinary case of a tithe over 20s. attaching to land, and in those cases redemption was impossible, because while the tithe was between £60 and £70 a minimum of £2,500 was necessary for the redemption of £100 nominal tithe, and on the top of that were the not inconsiderable expenses of the Board of Agriculture in dealing with the matter. But now a unique opportunity has arisen. Tithe this year is at £100 odd and that figure, taken in conjunction with the rate of interest at which the Government can borrow money, makes it possible for redemption to take place, roughly speaking, on the basis of the tithe payer paying £2,000 for every £100 nominal, while the tithe owner would receive an income on the par value of his tithe in Government securities, and with the prospect of tithe approaching £140 next year and £150 or £160 in the following year, it is almost certain that every tithe payer who could

  47
  conceivably find means to do it would redeem his tithe this autumn and winter. If a different method was adopted in the Bill there would be almost universal redemption of tithe during the next three or four months, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman, before the Bill gets into Committee, to consider very seriously whether he would take that view. The whole thing was very carefully worked out originally by a great authority on these matters. It was adopted, first of all, by the Committee of the Central Land Association, and it was submitted by them to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to Queen Anne's Bounty, to the Archbishops and to many other interested bodies, and approved by them all. It was submitted to the right hon. Gentleman himself, and received by him with considerable approbation. Why should not a scheme of that kind, which would enable tithe, on the one hand, to be redeemed for payment in cash or in War Bonds at £2,000 per £100 nominal value, or, on the other hand, to be redeemed over a period of fifty years by an annual payment secured by a rent charge of £113 2s. per annum, which would still provide the tithe owner with £100, his par value, from Government securities, be rejected and this Bill be introduced, which, I think, will be a deterrent to tithe redemption?
  In case I am challenged on that statement, that it would be a deterrent, let me put the point of view of a tithe payer. I take my own case merely as an illustration, and not because I have any complaint to make. I am one of many rural land owners who at present find their financial position crippled by the rise in tithe. I am one of many who were making arrangements, in anticipation of some steps being taken to facilitate redemption this autumn and winter, to redeem. Do you think I shall redeem under this Bill? Not a bit of it. I can do much better with my money. I know that for the next few years, the years I was afraid of as a tithe payer, tithe will not rise above £109, the present figure. At the end of eight years it may fall, in which case I shall score by not having redeemed. If, on the other hand, it rises, I can redeem then. I am certainly not going to redeem now, as I should have done. I can do better than about four and five-eighths per cent. interest on my money, which is what it would mean after paying expenses. On the other hand, if there is a prospect
  48
  of tithe rising to £140, £150 or £l60 in the next few years and we could do it at twenty years' purchase of something like par value, we should certainly redeem.
  There is another reason, which is important from the point of view not only of the tithe payer, but of the tithe owner, particularly the ecclesiastical tithe owner, and still more the Board of Agriculture, why redemption should be made as nearly as possible universal at present. One of the principal motives that Parliament had when it passed the Tithe Acts which are now in force was the removal of the growing friction between the rural community and the ecclesiastical authorities and the other tithe owners. That friction was removed by putting the burden of tithe upon the owner instead of upon the occupier. But now the position is this: The annual value of tithe has risen so enormously since the period when many of the current rents were fixed that the owners find themselves under the necessary obligation of raising their rents against the increase of tithe or else running their rural estates at a loss. You cannot raise your rent year by year against the tithe. The owner of a rural estate whose farms are let on a Michaelmas tenancy finds himself, at the beginning of the year, faced with a tithe of £109. The step he can take to raise his rents in order to recover that tithe from the farmers upon the basis of their receipts when the value of the tithe is fixed is this: He gives notice before Michaelmas of his intention to terminate his existing tenancies at the existing rents at Michaelmas next year, and it will be Michaelmas two years hence before he receives the increased rout to cover the increase in tithe. Therefore he has to put his rent up, not to meet the tithe of this year, but the estimated tithe of two or three years hence. That mere fact, which is quite a common fact in these days, is reintrodueing friction between the rural community and the tithe owner, which it was the whole purpose of the Tithe Acts to remove. There is a great opportunity of securing almost if not quite universal redemption of tithe now without the reintroduction of friction, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will seriously consider whether he cannot alter his Bill altogether in Committee, and whether he could not give the right to the tithe payer to redeem his tithe at a fixed number of years' purchase, so that if he

  49
  does it now there will be a par value to the tithe owner, while if he waits a year hence he will have to pay 20 per cent. more, and two years hence, or whatever it may be, he will have to pay 40 per cent. more, and so on. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to do that, so that the real incentive towards universal redemption may be introduced rather than abolished by this Bill.
  Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: It is far from my intention to rekindle the embers of old controversies in this House, but I feel constrained to move on the Second Reading of this Bill that it shall not apply to Wales and Monmouthshire.
  Mr. SPEAKER: It would not be in order for the hon. Member to move that now. That would mean moving the rejection of the Bill. He can move an Amendment in Committee to strike out any reference to Wales or Monmouthshire, or to limit the Bill to other parts of the Kingdom.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: If I am out of order in moving that Amendment, I shall reserve it for the Committee stage. I wish to draw attention at the first possible moment to the great grievance which Wales will suffer if this Bill becomes law without some such limitation as I have suggested. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who reads this Bill, or indeed, to anyone who has heard the eminently reasonable speech of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, and the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down, that it never was in the contemplation of the framers of this Bill that the case of Wales was different to that of England in the matter of tithes. You have only to look at Section 3, Sub-section (2), in order to see that the case of Wales was never present to the right hon. Gentleman's mind when he was framing this Bill. It was only in the course of his speech to-day that he said that after the words "with the consent of Queen Anne's Bounty," in line 9, he proposes to add the words "the Welsh Church Commissioners." Why has he to put in "the Welsh Church Commissioners"? Because he had forgotten entirely there was such a thing as the Welsh Church Act on the Statute Book, and that the Welsh tithe will have to be redeemed by the Welsh county councils when the Welsh Church Act comes into operation after the conclusion of the War. If the tithe had been redeemed before it could only be with the consent of the Welsh Church Commissioners.
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  I appeal to the sense of fairness in this case, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the position of Wales. As I have said, I am not going to revive old controversies. I take it for granted that the Welsh Church Act, which is on the Statute Book, is to be put into operation at the conclusion of the War. The Welsh Church authorities themselves have long ago accepted that position. They have framed their constitution, they have taken steps to elect a representative body, and they have already said that they will accept commutation. Everything is in readiness for Disestablishment and Disendowment at the conclusion of the War, and yet this Bill has been introduced as if the position in Wales was entirely the same as the position in England.
  The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech, with reference to Section 2, that it was one thing to compel people to accept money, but quite another thing to compel people to pay money. On that I pass no opinion. Section 2 gives the tithe payer the option of compelling a tithe owner to redeem, but it does not give the tithe owner the option of compelling the tithe payer to redeem. The hon. Member who spoke last, and who spoke as a rural landowner, said there was no inducement held out to him in this Bill to redeem, because, he said, he would have to pay 109, or nine over par for the redemption of the tithe, and he was cut off entirely from any possibility of recouping himself by an increase in the value of the tithe rent-charge or seven years, which, he said, might rise to 140 next year or 160 the year after that. The right hon. Gentleman also said that in 1926 it might be—
  Mr. PROTHERO: I gave it only as an illustration.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I will use it as an illustration. The right hon. Gentleman said it might be possible that in 1926 the value of the tithe would be £182 10s. If that be the position of the rural landowner in England, it is a very unfair position if he wants to redeem, because, as the hon. Gentleman said, no one will redeem at 109 unless he can see some prospect of recouping himself by an increase in the value of the tithe rent-charge. What about the Welsh county councils? What are you going to do with them? The commutation proposals in the Welsh Church Act compel the Welsh

  51
  county councils at the conclusion of the War to buy up the life interests of the clergy in these tithes at the figure which the Bill now proposes to fix; that is, at 109. They will not get the benefit from the inevitable increase in the value of tithe during the next seven years, and when the normal operations come into being again in 1926 it may well be, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that the value of the tithe will have sunk, not to 109, but perhaps to 100 or 95. May I ask the House, which is a very fair assembly, to view this matter fairly as a pure business proposition? May I ask hon. Members to consider what would be said in England if instead of Clause 2 in this Bill there was a Clause introduced compelling every tithe payer to redeem tithe next year at 109 and that this Bill should remain exactly the same in other respects? The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was a controversialist in the old days and did yeoman service to his party. What would he say as a fair man if this Bill compelled him next year to redeem his tithe at 109 and took away from him the prospect for seven years of any increase in the value of tithe, but left him with the prospect, if not the certainty, that six or seven years after the War the value of the tithe would decrease, as it always has decreased six or seven years after every war, below par again. Would he not say it was a crying injustice? Would he divide the House on every possible occasion against it? He shakes his head. I am perfectly certain, after his speech, that if the same measure was meted out to him as it will be meted out to the Welsh county councils under this Bill, he would be a very vehement opponent.
  Major COURTHOPE: The hon. Member asks me a question. One of the complaints I make against the right hon. Gentleman is that he has removed from the Bill the incentive which would, in fact, have compelled me or forced me to redeem this year at 109, for fear of having to pay 140 or 160.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: That is the point I am making. Here you compel Welsh county councils to redeem at 109. Do you take away from them the inducement? They have no option. They are compelled to redeem under the Welsh Church Acts. They are not in the same happy position as the hon. Gentleman, who can do as he
  52
  likes. He need not redeem unless he likes. If he thinks this Bill gives him a bad bargain he need not redeem, and he will not redeem because he has told us so. The Welsh county councils are not in that happy condition. Poor creatures, they are placed in the unhappy position of having to redeem. They were in a very unhappy position before. Through the operations of the War the value of tithe, which was only 77 in 1915, when the commutation proposals were passed, have risen now to 109. It is bad enough prospect that they are to pay 9 over par in order to buy up the life interests of the clergy, and now this Bill adds another injury to the accidental injury caused by the War, namely, that it takes away from them the chance of recouping themselves for the losses they have already suffered, by having to redeem at 109, and it does it by taking away from them any prospect of increase in the value of the tithe in future.
  5.0 P.M.
  I do not wish in any way to revive the old controversy. It would be easy for me and my Welsh colleague to speak of the inequity under which we are suffering. The Welsh Church Act was put on the Statute Book in September, 1914, and but for the accident of the War breaking out in August it would have been in operation at least in March, 1915. We should then have been able to commute the life interests of the clergy at the then price of tithe, but because of the accident of the War breaking out in August and not in October, 1914, when the Welsh Church Act would have been in operation—that is, if the Welsh Church Act could have been got on the Statute Book before the War broke out—we should have redeemed the tithe at something like 77. Now the Welsh county councils will have to buy out the life interests of the clergy at 109 at least. We could easily make that a grievance. It means adding at least £400,000 to the coffers of the Church. I make no complaint about that. I have never complained, and I do not complain now, that through that accident the Church has benefited to that extent, but I do say that you have no right in justice or in equity to compel the Welsh county councils, or any other public body, to buy at a fixed figure which will mean, and must mean, inevitable loss to them. I put this question, quite apart from the old controversy of Disestablishment and Disendowment, and I put it as a business proposition. We were told that commutation

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  only meant an actuarial calculation as to what the real value of the life interest of the clergy was, and that when an actuary had found out what a fair figure was on an actuarial basis, then that sum should be paid to the clergy or the representative body without their benefiting a penny or the Welsh county councils losing a penny by the transaction. You are intervening now and say, "You shall buy next year, when we all hope the War will be over. You have no option. You must buy the life interest of the clergy next year, and must give 109 for it, because that is the value of the tithe on 1st January next year." My right hon. Friend here asked, Why fix 1st January? Why not fix 25th March this year? I will tell you why, because the value of tithe on 25th March this year was only 92, and the value of tithe, I have no doubt, on 1st January will be 109; so you compel the Welsh county councils to buy at 109 and you give them no guarantee whatever, so far as this Bill is concerned, that they will not make a ruinous bargain.
  You say that for seven years they shall receive no more than 109, and at the end of seven years tithe will be assessed under the old Act, and so on, and it may very well be that tithe will be then below par. The value of tithe went up during the Napoleonic Wars, and continued to rise steadily for some years after until 1821 or 1822, when it was something like 121 or 122, that is to say, it continued to rise for more than six years after the Battle of Waterloo. The same thing happened in the case of the Crimean War. Tithe rose during the War and went up for some years afterwards, but in normal times the abnormal conditions created by the War disappeared, and the value of tithe came to be fixed by the ordinary rules again, and there was consequently a depreciation. The same thing occurred in the case of the Franco-German War in 1871. The value of tithe went up, and then it went down gradually to 62 or 63, and in 1915, when the Welsh Church Act was passed, the value was only 77, so we may expect that in all probability the same sort of thing will happen after this War. It is true that the increase during this War has been abnormal. For instance, in March this year, the value was 92, and the right hon. Gentleman has told us that the value of tithe on 1st January next year will be 109.
  Major COURTHOPE: It is 109 now.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: In March this year it was 92. If I am wrong I can be corrected. At all events it is perfectly certain that in 1915 the value was 77 and the value to-day, we are told, is 109, and therefore you have an increase in the course of three years of 32. That is an abnormal increase which has never been known in the history of tithe before, and it is because this War is a war without precedent; and if the hon. Gentleman who spoke last is correct, and that next year the value will be 140 and the year after it will be 160, and that in 1926 it will be 182, then the increase will be very abnormal, but as the increase has been abnormal so the decrease, I believe, will be abnormal too, and it is very probable that by 1926–7 the value may have decreased under par again and there will be a dead loss to the Welsh county councils. No one in this House can defend that position. If you want to abolish the Welsh Church Act do so honestly. We shall fight you. We shall do our best to prevent you. But at all events be honest and straightforward in the matter. The Welsh Church Act was passed in three Sessions of Parliament, and was placed on the Statute Book, and it compels the Welsh county councils to buy tithe at the current rate without seeing that they are safeguarded and that they are not to make a ruinous bargain, as they will if this Bill passes. Do one of two things. Either exclude Wales from the Bill altogether, because of the abnormal conditions of things—I do not think that the clergy will suffer. They will get the full value of the tithe, and I do not grudge it. That is the fortune of war. I do not want to reopen old controversies. I am quite willing to forget the past and to live in amity with our Church friends, but I wish to have fair play for the Welsh county councils, and if you exclude Wales from the Bill we will take our chance of recouping ourselves by the increase in value during the next six or seven years; or we say that since you compel the Welsh county councils to buy tithe next year, when the Welsh Church Act comes into operation, let them redeem it at par. It is not as if you were asking them to pay so much per year, taking their chance whether it is 109 this year or 99 the following year, or 89 the following year, but you are asking them to buy, to redeem, tithe. Therefore why should they be asked to pay more than the par value?
  That is a perfectly fair proposition. I would urge it on my hon. Friends the

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  Members for Wales who are in the Ministry—I think that there are five or six of them—men who fought hard in the past for Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment. I would appeal to my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint (Mr. Herbert Lewis). No one has done greater service in the matter of Disestablishment and Disendowment than he. Will he stand by and see the Welsh county councils being led into a ruinous position 8 The hon. Member for East Carmarthen (Mr. Towyn Jones) is one of the junior Whips of the Treasury. He was sent here specially in the old days in order to keep Welsh Members up to the mark on Disestablishment, and he was the most against any concession given by the then Home Secretary. Indeed, I believe that he has even denounced me, who am supposed to be rather extreme, because I was not half extreme enough for my hon. Friend. Here is a Bill which torpedoes the Welsh Church Act, which makes it impossible to bring it into operation with any chance of success, which not only allows the county councils to give at least another £400,000 to the Church, but makes it impossible for them to make it a good bargain. This is the Bill which is introduced by the Government, at the head of which is a Welsh Member who won his spurs by being an exponent of Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment, and four or five of whose colleagues are equally committed on the Welsh Church Act. I have sufficient confidence in the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill to feel that he will see to it that the Welsh county councils shall have fair play in this matter. The character of the Bill, the fact that it never mentioned Wales, and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman show that he has erred in this matter, so far as Wales is concerned, simply because he has never considered it, and I appeal to him, as a man of fairness, who loves justice, to see to it that this blot on his Bill shall be removed. The question of English tithe is a domestic question. I leave him to settle with his English supporters the character of the Bill so far as England is concerned, but I do ask him, in all earnestness and sincerity, to consider the special case of Wales and to do all in his power to meet it.
  Sir W. RUTHERFORD: I do not desire to deal with any particular part of the United Kingdom nor to discuss to-day any
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  details in connection with this matter, but I would like to say a word or two upon the principle of it. I think that the whole House of Commons, in touching this very-difficult question of tithe, does desire to avoid doing any injustice either to Wales or the Welsh county councils, or the clergy, or cathedrals, or the lay people who happen to own certain of the tithes. I was rather hoping, when the Government took up the question of tithe in this Bill, that they were going to give facilities for universal redemption in order to get rid of tithe altogether, so far as it affects portions of land. There are five or six different kinds of tithe; and in some cases lands are subject to two or three of those. Everyone who has got anything to do with the ownership of land knows that these sometimes small and sometimes large impositions are very annoying, and cause an amount of trouble and inconvenience quite out of all proportion to the matter involved. The whole tendency to-day is to simplify the ownership and occupation of land and to get rid of impediments and obstacles which practically are nothing but a nuisance. We were told by the right hon. Gentleman that Clause 5, I think, contains a provision that where a landowner has given notice of redemption but does not go on with it there is machinery there to carry it out. I am one of those who could have wished that the whole of this Bill was an enlarged Clause 5 with machinery to carry out redemption over the whole country in respect of this matter.
  There is one simple way in which, without very much difficulty and without any comparative hardship, tithes could be got rid of. I understand that if an addition were made to the annual amount of tithe of about 11 per cent. of the amount that in a period of years, which I believe would not exceed forty, the tithe would automatically disappear, because that small addition would enable a sinking fund to be set up which would wipe it out. I do not say that that is an altogether desirable method of doing it, because one does not like to add 10 or 11 per cent. to a charge which in itself is a, nuisance. But if you have a number of cases in which landowners find it difficult to raise the amount of capital to enable them to get rid of the tithe at once, surely they might be willing to agree to some small addition if that had the effect of completely wiping out the tithe in a given

  57
  number of years. It is quite true that forty years is a long period, but still it is a period that comes to an end. If it is desirable to get rid of a thing, then surely even forty years is better than never. I do not believe, of course, in extending anything to forty years if there is any quicker or more reasonable way of doing it. I think it would be a good thing if this Bill contained provisions under which landowners could go to the Treasury and get the necessary amount on the same terms as, say, local loans which would automatically free them from these tithe charges. I think, too, it would be an excellent idea if there was a system under which, with a Small edition, say, of one-fifth, they could get rid of the charge in fifteen or sixteen years. In the case where the tithe was, say, £10, an addition would make it £11 4s., and which would enable the landowner in a number of years to get rid of it, would, I am sure, not be objected to. I think it is a pity that the Bill does not provide machinery to enable the man who wanted accommodation for this purpose to get it. I am sorry to see that the Bill as a matter of form and as a matter of essential expenditure does not seem to me to initiate any idea of enabling these tithes to be more advantageously got rid of and wiped out. At the present moment the burden is a particularly serious one, because, with the great rise in the price of grain, you have got a great rise in the annual amount payable as tithe. I can see that in the next few years there will be an outcry with regard to the amount of tithes to be paid. Under this Bill that amount is going to be restricted, and is not to be increased after a certain date, but there, again, it may be said that you are depriving the owners of tithes of the right to be paid at some future date on the same basis as regards price as the system now provides. I regret very much that this Bill fails in my judgment hopelessly to provide machinery to give facilities for wiping out and getting rid of one of the incidents to land tenure in this country which for many years has been a source of annoyance and of grievous wrong to a large number of people.
  Captain Sir OWEN PHILIPPS: The hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen District (Mr. L. Williams), when dealing with this question, endeavoured to introduce into it a number of old controversies. I will not follow his example, nor will I take up the time of the House
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  in showing the numerous inaccuracies in his speech, but I would like to draw attention to the principal inaccuracy which he mentioned, and not for the first time. The hon. Member stated that the effect of this Bill was to hand over a large sum to the Church in Wales. In that statement he is absolutely inaccurate. The mere fact of whether the tithe rises or whether the value of the tithe increases or decreases does not in any way affect the Church in Wales if the Welsh Church Act comes into force at the end of the War. That is so for this reason, that the present incumbents take a life interest in the tithe, and if the Church receives a larger sum in commutation because the value of the tithe is increased then exactly in the same proportion have they to pay a larger sum every year to the incumbents to pay off their life interest which is secured to them under the Act. Therefore for the hon. Member to say that this Bill hands over £400,000 to the Church of Wales is, I contend, absolutely inaccurate and it was simply in order to correct that statement that I rose.
  Mr. L. WILLIAMS: The hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken. I never said that this Bill did anything of the kind. What I did say was that by the operation of the War and the fortune of the War the Church had got in effect £400,000 more than we thought she would have got when the Welsh Church Act was passed. I never said a word about this Bill giving 1d. to the Church, and I repudiate the suggestion.
  Sir O. PHILIPPS: I have listened to the explanation of the hon. and learned Gentleman and I still understand that he informs the House that the fact that the tithe has risen from the value of 77 in 1913 to 109, mentioned in this Bill, is giving £400,000 more to the Church in Wales. That, I contend, is absolutely inaccurate, and for this reason: The matter is a business proposition and one about which I think I know something. Under the Act, if the tithe is commuted at, say, at 109 as against 77, there will certainly be a larger sum of commutation, but the receivers of the benefit who have the life interest in the tithe—that is the incumbents—take every penny and get a larger sum in exactly the same proportion for their life interest. Therefore I think I am quite correct in my contention that the Church in Wales does not benefit by the rise in price.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I think it is clear that the abnormal rise in tithe rent-charge due to the abnormal rise in current prices necessitated some measure of this kind. My only regret is that the right hon. Gentleman did not see his way to bring in a Bill of this sort last year before tithe had risen so much above par and when its future rise was for all practical purposes certain. I suppose, however, we must deal with matters as they stand and possibly on the basis of tithe rent-charge being, as it is for the present year, £109 3s. 11d. for every £100. I, however, would have liked, if it had been possible, to fix the par value as the value for the next seven years, and I think, for reasons which I may mention, that it would have been fairer all round. One fully appreciates the importance of the question, because, as I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree, tithe rent-charge, like the tithe which it represents, is a larger proportion of the value of the property than it at first sight appears, because of course, like tithe, it is ultimately based not on the value of the profits but on the value of the produce. That proportion increased steadily during the fall in prices, because when prices fell the cost of production did not fall in the same way, the result being that tithe rent-charge eat further into the profits of those who had to deal with the land. The Tithe Act of 1891, which made tithe rent-charge payable by the owner instead of the occupier of the land, contained the very necessary provision that where tithe rent-charge exceeded two-thirds of the annual value of the land under Schedule B, the excess should be remitted. The mere fact of such a provision showed how enormously tithe had eaten into the profits of those interested in production, and if it had not been for that provision in many cases tithe rent-charge would have swallowed not only more than two-thirds but the whole of the profits. My right hon. Friend very kindly supplemented the previous figures as to tithe rent-charge with some that he was good enough to give me shortly before the House rose. At the time of the commutation the total amount of tithe rent-charge in 1836 was slightly over £4,000,000, of which nearly two and a half millions was payable to the parochial incumbents and the remainder to other tithe-owning interests. The reduction by redemption, merger and exchange has exceeded the additions due to conversion of corn-rents into tithe rent-charges, with the general
  60
  result that the variable tithe rent-charge is now about £3,678,000, and taking the present value of £109 it is about £4,016,000.
  Some reference has been made to the amounts of tithe rent-charges in preceding years, and as to what may be possible in future years. I will venture, if I may, to call the attention of the House to what has been the rise in tithe rent-charge in more recent years. The value of £100 tithe rent-charge readied its lowest figure of slightly under £66 11s. in 1901; next year it was slightly over £67, and from 1903 to 1909 it was between £69 and £70. Then it rose very steadily even before the War, and reached £75 16s. 4d. for 1914. That was the last year on which it was calculated on the pre-war prices. Then for 1015—when war prices first began to tell—the value of £100 tithe rent was over £77, for 1916 it was over £83, for 1917 was over £92, and for the present year it is over £109, while there is every possibility it will continue to increase rapidly in value. This increase is a very serious thing for agriculture and for those who put money into the land. It must be remembered that while the landowner may put capital into the land and the tenant his labour, the tithe owner does nothing whatever towards increased production. I draw no distinction whatever between the clerical and the Jay tithe owner in this respect; the tithe owner, as tithe owner, in no way contributes towards production; he, in fact, takes a toll on the production of other people, and it is very important that the House should take care that this toll is not too heavy or too crushing. In considering this tithe question, I would point out that the tithe owner has always been the spoiled child of legislation. We all know what was done. As in the Agricultural Bates Act, the Tithe Rent-Charge (Rates) Act of 1899 similarly provided that half the rates on tithe rent-charge attached to benefices were to be paid by the taxpayer, and the remarkable circumstance is that as tithe increases in value so the amount the taxpayer has to pay in respect of rates on tithe also increases. The value of the tithe rent-charge when the Act was passed was very low, but it has steadily increased, and last year the amount paid under that Act for rates on tithe rent-charge attached to benefices was £193,000, more than had been paid in any other preceding year.
  I think it would have been well, in view of that enormous rise of tithe rent-charge, by which all tithe-owners benefited, that in respect of this subvention from the

  61
  heavily burdened taxpayer this Bill should have been of rather wider scope, and that the Tithe Rents-Charge (Rates) Act ought to have been repealed, and prevented from operating when this new measure comes into operation. I think that should have been dealt with, and I would remind the House that it would be very difficult to deal with it in the ordinary way, because, though it is annually renewed under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, it does not appear in that Act, but in the renewal of the Agricultural Rates Act, which automatically operates the renewal of the Tithe Rent-Charge (Rates) Act, because of the very ingenious provision which was put into the latter measure. I submit that when this Bill was brought before this House, it would have been a very good thing, in view of the enormous rise in tithe rent-charge, if the subvention from the taxpayer had been stopped. I hope that my right hon. Friend, if the Bill becomes law, will see that very careful statistics are obtained as to the amount of tithe in the various counties, and to whom that tithe belongs, I have received information as to the total amount, but there seems to be a want of exact statistical information, which certainly ought to exist, not only as to the numbers but also as to the subventions from the taxpayers in payment of the tithe rent-charge rates. The suggestion has been made that as the tithe rent-charge will not be raised above £109 during the next seven years, so there should similarly be some provision against its fall in the future. I submit that in view of the tithe owner's position who does nothing towards production, such a provision would certainly give a guarantee as to the minimum. If anything is done along these lines, it should be, as now, a matter simply and solely between the tithe owner and the tithe payer, and the taxpayer should not be brought directly or indirectly into the transaction.
  I venture to make a suggestion on another point which has been raised. It has been said with some justice that in the redemption provision it is rather a pity that the right hon. Gentleman has provided only for redemption by capital payments, and has not provided an alternative form of redemption of payment by instalments, but whatever facilities may be given for redemption, I am sure that the House feels that at a time like this the redemption should be carried out as between the interests concerned alone,
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  and that the taxpayer should not be brought in any way to finance, still less to endow the transaction.
  Some suggestion of that sort has been made by an hon. Friend of mine behind me, and I venture to put to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, that whatever arrangements may be made for redemption, and however much it will expand, he will leave the matter to be arranged simply and solely between the tithe owner and the tithe payer, because if the taxpayer is brought at all into these arrangements, the Bill will become controversial, and there will be grave danger of its being lost. I say frankly, and I believe I speak for other Members better qualified to judge than I am, that many will be strongly adverse to bringing the taxpayer into these matters at all. Whatever arrangements may be made for commutation or redemption, they ought to be made directly between the parties concerned. It is a pity, I think, that this Bill has been delayed until the tithe rent has gone up to over £109, and I submit that it is a matter for consideration whether, for the seven years, the amount ought not to be fixed at par instead of £109. The whole question is one of very great importance. I see from what some of my hon. Friends have said that there may be difficulties about the redemption provision, I hope, however, that it may be satisfactorily arranged, and, in any case, whether the redemption provisions are carried or not, I think the House will recognise the need of some measure of this kind which is designed, at least, to prevent tithe rent-charge going higher than the high figure it has reached, and to prevent the tithe owner, who does nothing towards production, from getting still more than he has already obtained from the conditions arising out of the War.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I differ very much from the hon. Member who has just sat down. I hope very much that the Bill will be looked at from the point of view of the tithe owner before the Committee stage on the question. I trust also that Members will carefully read the admirable speech which was made by the right hon. Gentleman. I never heard a clearer exposition of this most difficult problem of the tithe rent-charge. It should be remembered that the tithe owner is giving up a very great deal. He is giving up practically a certain rise of tithe during the next four or five years, and he is

  63
  willing to take the sum that has been fixed on what it was last January. He is not getting very much back in redemption if he is liable to be bought out by the tithe payer. While he cannot insist upon being bought out the tithe payer can insist, and the terms are to be such as the Board of Agriculture decides. That is not satisfactory from the point of view of the tithe owner. I say that in no spirit of hostility to the Bill. It does not seem to me to be a very satisfactory proposition, and I do not think the matter ought to be left to the absolute determination of the Board of Agriculture. The last speaker said that the tithe owner is the spoilt child of the Legislature, and suggested that he was getting too much under this Bill, but in contrast to that the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs put forward the grievance that under the Welsh Church Bill the county councils in Wales will become tithe owners, because they have to buy out existing tithe owners. It is in that way only that this Bill will affect them, because until they become tithe owners they are not touched at all. He certainly spoke with a strength and vehemence on the point that did not lead us to suppose that he thought the tithe owner, under this Bill, was the spoilt child of the Legislature, because he said it was the most monstrous injustice. I submit that the tithe owner should look carefully into this Bill before the Committee stage, and, as far as I can judge, looking at it perfectly impartially, being neither a tithe owner nor a tithe payer, I think he is not getting quite the same advantage that the tithe payer is, and that compensation ought rather to be given him when we come to the Committee stage.
  Mr. PROTHERO: I do not intend to answer in detail the questions that have been raised, because, I think, on the whole, they are best dealt with in Committee, but there was a question which I was asked by the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to the reason why the rent-charge is fixed on the 1st January, 1026. Under Section 20 of the Tithe Act of 1840 the tithe for every year is announced on the 1st of January, and begins to take effect at the first half-yearly payment on the 1st of April in the same year. That is the explanation of the form in which the first Clause is drawn. It looks as if we were fixing it for eight years, but if you remember
  64
  that the first tithe, when it comes into effect, is on the payment on the 1st of April, the mystery is explained. As to the question of redemption, what I would say about that is shortly this. We have always considered that the net income which would have been obtained by the tithe owner is the amount that ought to be securable, and when I say net income, of course I mean the net income subject to the deduction of the rates, and in certain cases Land Tax, where the tithe owner is subject to that, and that the remaining net income we have to secure him is such a sum of money as will maintain that income if invested in Government securities. That, as a matter of fact, at the present moment amounts to about twenty years' purchase, and that is the amount at which clerical Lithe now will be able to be redeemed under this Bill. Therefore, when the hon. and gallant Member behind me said he had no inducement whatever now to redeem the tithe, I hope he will think better of it, and remember that in all probability if he does not redeem it until 1926 he may have to redeem the tithe which then may be at something between 160 and 170, and he may not benefit by having waited so long. I beg to move the Second Beading of the Bill.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time.
  Mr. PROTHERO: I beg to move, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us when the Committee stage will be likely to come on?
  Mr. PROTHERO: I really do not know what the business of the House is going to be. As long as we get the Bill through this Session it will do.
  Mr. G. LAMBERT: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us adequate notice of the time when he proposes to take the Bill again?
  Mr. PROTHERO: I will take care that that is done.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Prothero.]

  ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—[Mr. Baldwin.]
  Mr. BOOTH: This is the only occasion on which we can ask the Government with regard to the connection between this delightful island and the United Kingdom. The Channel Islands do not send a Bill like this forward, and it has never been explained to the House why, and I propose to ask again if any explanation can be given, but I would first like to ask the Minister in charge of the Bill whether he can take this opportunity of informing us whether the Isle of Man has contributed financially to the burden of this War. I take it the Government answers were quite complete and satisfactory in regard to Jersey and Guernsey, but no statement, I believe, has been made as to what part the Isle of Man has taken, and we should like to know what the response has been from the loyal Manx people to the financial need of the country during the War. Secondly, I want to ask the Government if they can now make a statement why this Bill is constitutionally necessary. I have asked now for seven years, and this is the eighth year on which I have raised this question, and I am told by an hon. Member, who is well up in these matters, that it is the only autocracy in the British Dominions. I do not think that is a correct description, but there is no doubt it is in a very unique position. I have thought sometimes whether it would not be an appropriate time for the Government to review in some way by an inquiry the position of all these islands. We have a Bill later dealing with education, and the Island of Jersey is in a unique position in regard to education, but with regard to Customs the Isle of Man is in the same unique position. Jersey and Guernsey do not send a Bill like this; and they have Houses of Parliament. The Isle of Man has its House of Keys, but it does send this Bill here. I have no doubt the Treasury simply preserve the ancient form. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend can make a statement upon the constitutional position, but I was told that the Law Officers of the Crown would give their attention to this subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) assured me that there
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  is filed somewhere a special document, which he took great pains in preparing, to make plain to the Government and to the House what the position is between this country and this House and the Isle of Man. I have mentioned this for the well-known reason that when the Insurance Bill was before the House I put an Amendment on the Paper to make that Bill apply to the Isle of Man, because of its contiguity to the Lancashire coast. The Chair ruled that that Amendment could not be put, but at that time, in my youthful innocence as a new Member, I thought the Chair was in error, but I am bound to say that I now think the Chair was quite right and that I ought not to have been allowed to move to extend the Insurance Act to the Isle of Man on the well-known ground that they have no representatives here. At that time, though, a reason was given that was not quite correct—namely, that we were not entitled to legislate at all for the Isle of Man. We are doing that to-day; but why, this House has never had properly explained. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has distinguished himself with a desire to inform the House on many points that have come up. He has multifarious duties and is practically the maid of all work of the Government, and if he could explain to the House the constitutional position of this island I should be deeply obliged. With these inquiries, I offer no opposition to the Second Reading.
  Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I think, perhaps, it would be travelling rather outside the confines of this Bill if I attempted to go into the constitutional position of the Isle of Man in relation to the United Kingdom; but I think it is a perfectly fair request and one to which I will endeavour to reply—that I should try and explain what is the constitutional position in regard to the matter contained in the Bill, namely, the Customs of the Isle of Man. The governing Act is the Isle of Man (Customs) Act of the year 1887, and by that Act such Customs as are imposed in the island by their own Legislature have force without further authority from the Parliament of the United Kingdom for six months, or until the end of the Parliamentary Session, but they then lapse unless confirmed by such an Act of Parliament as the one which I am presenting this evening as a Bill to the House. The island has complete power to vote its own Customs. It may select the same articles for taxation

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  as we do in the United Kingdom, or it may select other articles. It may have the same duties as we have, it may have other duties, or it may, if it so elect, fix its duties on a different basis. This Bill which we have before us this evening is in common form a ratifying of the action of the Manx Parliament, and will give when it passes through Parliament statutory effect for the whole financial year to the duties that have been proposed.
  6.0 P.M.
  But I should like at this stage—because I shall ask the House for permission to take the Bill this evening in its stages unless there be any objection—to call the attention of the House to the fact that we have introduced a new Clause this year, namely, Clause 3, and to explain to the House why we have had to introduce it. The Isle of Man have raised their duties considerably on various articles about which I shall say a word in a minute or two in answering the first part of the question put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth). The Act of 1874 referred to in the third Clause of this Bill stipulates that when beer is imported into the Isle of Man the gravity of that beer must be declared, and if it be not declared it becomes subject to the highest rate of duty, which at that time was 11s. a barrel. The rate of duty has now been raised this year to 44s., which brings it much nearer to the rate in force in England, and the legal advisers of the Board- of Customs have informed them now, in the absence of any evidence as to the gravity of imported beer, that such imported beer is liable to this high duty of 44s., a figure which was never contemplated in addition to the duty that has been paid in this country, and have advised that the time had come when this Regulation of 1874 should be withdrawn. At the same time, they called the attention of the Board of Customs to a phrase which appeared in the same Act, where the words "and not drawn back" occur. Those words, as they appeared in the Act of 1874, limited the Excise duties payable to British goods and not foreign goods, and if those words are still allowed to stand it would mean that imported foreign goods which, in normal times, consist mainly of imported liquor, would be subject to both the duty in the United Kingdom and the duty in the Isle of Man. It is for those reasons that these two small alterations,
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  which have been suggested by the legal advisers of the Board of Customs, have been inserted.
  I should like to say, although I do not know it is strictly within the purview of this Bill, a word or two in answer to my hon. Friend's first question, as to what the Isle of Man has done since the beginning of the War. I think I should say in preface that the island is not a wealthy community and we must bear that in mind. It depends very largely on what I believe is known as "tripper traffic."
  That traffic, of course, during the War has been reduced to a minimum, and in its place there are a large number of interned German prisoners. The result on the social life of the island has been that while those engaged in agricultural pursuits have probably clone very well, those in the urban areas have suffered a good deal; and when I remind the House that the island has contributed, as a gift, a sum of £10,000 in cash, that they have paid out of their revenue grants in aid of rates for distressed persons to local authorities, and have also made arrangements, by the imposition of an Income Tax for the first time, this year to meet the rent subsidy in the island, I think the House will see that they have made an effort not incommensurate with their needs. But, to my mind, more important than that, I think the House must recognise that the island has played its part with the United Kingdom in that it has given its full toll of manhood, and that, of course, is a far greater sacrifice than any pecuniary sacrifice which they might make.
  I hope these few words of mine have explained satisfactorily the object of this Bill, and that what I have said will convince the House that the island has made an effort to stand in with the United Kingdom to carry out the objects of the war in which we are all engaged. I might mention, before I sit down, that, just as hon. Members know, we in this country have increased our taxation to an enormous extent, so in the island they have, in a great degree for them, followed suit, for if I take two or three articles of common consumption, I find on beer the duty was only 5s. 6d. a barrel in 1914, and it has now been raised to 44s; on sugar they have raised the duty front 1s. 10d. a cwt. to 9s. 4d.; on unmanufactured tobacco from 3s. 8d. a lb. to 8s. 2d.; and on the proof gallon of spirits from 13s. 9d. to 27s. 6d. When you add these increases

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  to the imposition of the Income Tax, I think that the House may feel satisfied with the efforts which the island is making.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time.
  Resolved, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee on the Bill."—[Mr. Baldwin.]
  Bill accordingly considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.

  SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION).
  Resolution reported:
  "That it is expedient to make provision, out of the moneys to be provided by Parliament, for the grant of Superannuation Allowances and Gratuities to Teachers and of Gratuities to legal personal representatives of deceased Teachers, of charging deferred annuities under the Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Acts, 1896 to 1912, on the Consolidated Fund, and of otherwise amending these Acts."
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  Sir H. CRAIK: It is far from my wish to do anything to retard the progress of a Bill for the advantage of teachers. At the same time, I am bound to say, from the Paper that has been placed in our hands containing the main headings of the Superannuation Bill, which is not yet in our hands, that I regard it with some—I will not say trepidation—but considerable doubt, and I feel that the principles embodied in the Bill are very large, and, I would say, of an almost revolutionary character. The Bill proposes to abolish, practically for the whole of the teaching profession, the contributory pension system, and to abolish that not only as established by Parliament, but also all local systems of contributory pensions for the profession. In place of that it proposes to establish a system for the pensioning of teachers in aided schools on a non-contributory system at special rates, and, as we are told, as nearly as possible on the model of the Civil Service. This really means that, if we pass this Bill, we are going to transform the teaching
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  profession very largely into a branch of the Civil Service. I am not perfectly certain that that would be in the long run for the advantage of the teaching profession. I gravely doubt whether the same good work, the same freedom, the same elasticity of that profession will prevail when you go so far as you do in this Bill, by means of an entirely new system of pensioning, to transform them into a branch of the Civil Service.
  I want to point out that there are other schools than aided schools in the country. There are a very large number of endowed schools and private schools. I have suspicions that in the administration of the Board of Education there is a little too much desire to make all our schools of a uniform type, and to crush, if possible, all private schools, all independent schools, all those who do not come within the State system and receive Grants under that system. I am quite certain that that is a system which will not suit this country. We shall not preserve the elasticity and force of our education if we turn it altogether into a State machine. Remember, if we establish this wide scheme of non-contributory pensions for all teachers, certificated and uncertificated, so long only as they are in State-aided schools, we put a very severe penalty and a very severe drag upon all schools outside that system. We add difficulty to the managers of those schools in maintaining themselves against the powerful competition of the State system. If we pass this Bill, it will undoubtedly be a very long step towards discouraging all outside influences and all outside organisations, and bringing the whole of our education and the whole system under the Civil Service system, and making them conform in their curriculum to one model. I should be false to the whole work of my life if I did anything which would delay and hinder a real benefit to the teacher. As I have urged over and over again, be liberal in your salaries and pensions; but I am not quite sure that this benefit, accompanied as it is by a transformation of the whole profession into what will come very nearly to a Civil Service system, will be in the long run for the real advantage of that profession or for the advantage of education. I raise this doubt because I wish my right hon. Friend to recognise that there are questions that must be raised when this Bill comes before the House, and that

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  although we may pass this Resolution just now it is with certain reservations on my part which may or may not subsequently be put forward by me.
  Mr. KING: I think first of all everybody must congratulate the President of the Board of Education on the simply magnificent sweep and grandeur of this scheme. Not content with having passed a Bill which is going to transform and enlarge the education of the Kingdom, he at this time introduces a scheme—for the Bill is not yet introduced, this being simply a Money Resolution previous to introducing the Bill—which is going to give every teacher in the country a pension at the age of sixty.
  Sir H. CRAIK: It is not every teacher in the country, but only the teachers in aided schools.
  Mr. KING: Yes, of course, I am coming to that. As a matter of fact the offer of this pension and the other facilities will bring all teachers who are not in aided schools into aided schools. There is such a deficiency of teachers in aided schools that one result I foresee from this scheme is that there will be a great rush from the private schools into the public schools and the aided schools, and it will practically mean all, for this scheme will have to be extended until it does mean a pension for every teacher in the land. We ought, I say, first to congratulate the President on this scheme—a scheme which has magnificent objects and a great many useful and admirable provisions. I wish the right hon. Gentleman had in Committee said a word or two about this Resolution. There were then only a few present, and I was pressed not to say anything because it was desired to get on with the business. I think he should have risen at the very opening of the proceedings and explained a little more about this scheme. I suppose the President will answer questions that are raised, and therefore I should like to ask, "How much does he expect this scheme will cost the country in two years, in ten years, and in twenty years?" It looks like being a matter of many million pounds per year. Unless it is many millions it will not be effective. In any case I congratulate him on having got the consent of the Treasury to this really immense scheme. It shows his desire to make the education of this country something bigger than it has ever been before.
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  To come to the details of the scheme, there are, I think, one or two fundamental conditions which are imposed as set out in the White Paper—a sheet of notepaper—which has been circulated. There are certain provisions which to my mind are very difficult and objectionable. It is going to sweep away all local pensions schemes; not entirely, and not at once, but the result of this scheme will sooner or later be that there will be one great national scheme of pensions for teachers, and all local schemes which have been in operation, and are still operating, will gradually cease to operate. That being so, I conceive it to be a great disadvantage that under this scheme no teacher is to get a pension until he or she is sixty years of age. I venture to suggest that there are many teachers, a majority of teachers, especially in the elementary schools where they have to teach small boys and girls, who are past being effective teachers when they have got, certainly, say, to fifty, and in cases of the sort the scheme, if carried out in the form in which it is at present, will mean that it will keep a number of worn-out teachers working on until they are sixty, when they ought to retire at forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, at a time when they are still able to take up some other work. I suspect the President will say that thirty-years of service will be sufficient to qualify for a pension, and that with many teachers beginning to teach before they are twenty it will mean with thirty years service they will be qualified, by length of service, before they are fifty. As I understand the Bill which is to be introduced, though the point is not quite clear, they will be able to leave their teaching at forty-eight, say, after thirty years' service, and so will be qualified for a pension when they reach the age of sixty.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): The Bill says so.
  Mr. KING: Very good. But what have they to do between the age of forty-eight and sixty? They have to live, I suppose, on the prospect of getting a pension in twelve years time! If I have the chance when the Bill is in Committee, I shall attempt to alter the provisions so that a reduced pension may be granted at an earlier age after thirty years' service. Any teacher, especially those in elementary schools, ought to be qualified for some pension or other after thirty years' service. Give them the full pension if you

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  like when they attain sixty, or allow them to contribute in some way or other; but in justice to the teacher you must give an option before sixty years of age. After all, we are not dealing with old age pensioners. I suppose that is the analogy that has been followed—that if the average man gets a pension at seventy, teachers who may be worn out should be given one ten years earlier. My opinion is that teachers are often worn out twenty years earlier—at any rate, if they have special duties and responsibilities. These points, I hope, will receive the attention of the President, and I trust we shall have some discussion when the Bill is brought in, and some opportunity, even this Session and in a dying Parliament, to pass this Bill in a thoroughly considered, fair, and practical form.
  May I call attention to the fact that time and consideration is necessary, because we are told in this White Paper that besides the matter of pensions there are about ten or twelve other large subjects which will be dealt with in the Bill. For instance, there is the extension of the Bill to the Isle of Man, to the Channel Islands, its application to industrial schools, and so forth. The Bill, therefore, I take it must to a large extent be detailed and comprehensive, and possibly fairly lengthy. We shall see when it is brought in. I wish, however, to conclude by asking the President to elucidate the scheme a little further, and especially to tell us how much the scheme is going to cost the country. I want to press, perhaps most earnestly of all, upon him that there should be some alternative pensions with the object of giving either a reduced pension or one under different conditions to those teachers who before sixty years of age wish to retire, having done the full thirty years' service, and who are not eligible to receive the full pension granted till sixty. This scheme and these proposals are to be welcomed. They do show a very real grasp and intent to tackle a very big subject. Passed in some more satisfactory form than this White Paper suggests they will do a very great deal to make possible all the provisions of the great Education Bill which we passed a few months ago.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: I should like to say-that I agree to a very large extent with the remarks which have been made by my hon. Friend opposite as regards the importance of the measure which the President of the Board of Education proposes
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  to introduce. I have always thought that it was absolutely essential, if our teachers are to do their work satisfactorily, that they shall be free from those monetary anxieties which for many years have oppressed them. It has been my privilege to call attention on more than one occasion to the very small salaries received by the teachers in our elementary and secondary schools and to take such steps as I was able to take to have those salaries increased. It is very desirable, in addition to increasing the salaries of the teachers, that provision should be made for their receiving some pension in comparative old age which shall diminish the anxieties from which they suffer. I must, however, at the same time say that I have very full sympathy with a good many of the remarks which have fallen from my right hon. Friend on my right (Sir H. Craik). The Bill does a great deal to remove what I call the disabilities under which the members of the teaching profession have existed for many years; in some respects it does not go far enough. I take it, however, and I hope, that when the Bill is introduced and goes to Committee that the President will again be as willing to accept Amendments which are likely to improve the Bill as he was in the case of the great Education Bill which is now an Act of Parliament.
  I feel very strongly indeed that these pensions should not be restricted to teachers engaged in State-aided schools. I agree very much indeed with what my right hon. Friend has said that the tendency of a Bill framed on the lines indicated in this White Paper will be to bring all our schools under the practical control of the Board of Education, and will destroy that variety and elasticity which previously has existed in our schools and that freedom which teachers have enjoyed, very much to the advantage of education in this country. This is not a time to bureaucratise too strongly the schools of this country. We have the awful example of Germany before us. That example ought to induce us to retain, as far as we possibly can, the freedom of our schools and the individuality of the teaching. I feel very strongly indeed that to exclude from the provision of this Bill a large number of our very best schools, schools of a quasi-public character, schools belonging, not to the different religious denominations, but schools like the Lancing School, Dulwich, Mill Hill, and a great many others of the same description—to exclude from the privilege of pensions teachers

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  in schools like these seems to me a great defect of the Bill if the latter is founded on the conditions here laid down. I need scarcely say that I do not intend to vote against the proposal which has been made by the President of the Board of Education to obtain from the Treasury Grants for pensions. I think it is so desirable that I should be one of the first to support a proposal of that kind, but I do take it that in supporting this proposal we are not committing ourselves definitely to all the provisions laid down in this White Paper, nor are we committing ourselves to a scheme of pensions, which will necessarily exclude such public schools as those which were referred to by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I think it would be desirable if the President, in speaking to this Resolution, would give us some idea of the probable cost of the scheme, and I hope, at the same time, he will tell us that when the Bill is introduced he will be prepared to consider very carefully in the interests of education generally, Amendments which I feel it will be the duty of many hon. Gentlemen of this House to propose.
  Mr. FISHER: Perhaps the House will hardly expect me to follow hon. members in all the points which they have raised with respect to this Resolution. I do not propose to reply to them now, not because I have any doubt as to the importance or the interests of the points which have been raised, but because they seem to me to be more appropriate to a Second Reading discussion on the Bill. Upon that occasion I shall endeavour to deal with the points which have been raised, and I can assure the hon. Baronet, who has just spoken, that I should be very willing to give careful consideration to any Amendments which he or any other hon. Members may choose to suggest. There is, however, one question which has been asked by the hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King), which is germane to the financial resolution which we are now discussing. I have been asked to furnish an estimate of the cost. Of course hon. Members will realise that the cost of the Pensions Bill, or any system of pensions, cannot be very accurately estimated. There are a number of uncertain factors in any preliminary calculation, but I will, however, offer the House an estimate which will, I think, be as good as can be provided at the present juncture.
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  There are at present about 100,000 teachers serving the State under the existing law, and this Bill will increase that number by about 70,000, and it will also increase the amounts of the pensions to be granted in the future, besides giving other benefits in addition. The existing Pensions Scheme now costs us £256,000 yearly, and would probably cost in ten years' time, if left undisturbed, about £428,000. The Pensions Scheme now pro-posed will probably, in ten years' time, cost about £2,000,000 per annum more than this. I ought to add that, in giving this estimate, I make no attempt to forecast the rise in salaries which may take place in ten years' time. I have endeavoured to take account of the rise which has been going on through this year but not beyond that. Any further increase in salaries will ultimately bring with it a corresponding increase in pensions.
  I have taken account of the increase in the number of pensionable teachers which will immediately result from the inclusion within the pensions system of 70,000 teachers who are now outside the system, but I have not attempted to forecast what may be the increase in the number of teachers in this country due to the extension of our educational system. As that grows so must also the expenditure grow, both on salaries and on pensions. To carry the forecast beyond ten years would involve too many problematical results. My hon. Friend asked me for an estimate twenty years hence, but that would be very difficult to give. On the whole the best indication I can give of the expected cost of the present measure is to say that at the present moment the salaries of teachers granted in schools amount to something over £20,000,000 a year, and on those teachers and those salaries we expect the pension system ten years from now to cost something like £2,500,000 per annum, of which £2,000,000 will be new money, and the remainder is what the present system would cost if left unaltered. That is as far as I can go at the present moment, and I hope that indication will satisfy my hon. Friend opposite.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I desire to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the successful way in which he has been able to deal with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have spent some ten or twelve years in this House knocking at the door of successive Presidents of the Board of

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  Education. I have introduced deputations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the figures we have been allowed to work upon have been meagre in the extreme. I have complained, not once, but frequently of the niggardliness of successive administration, and the right hon. Gentleman's figures really made my mouth water. I never for one moment anticipated that any such rise could have been got by any President of the Board of Education, and I think the amount which has been announced reflects very great credit upon the right hon. Gentleman. This means £2,000,000 a year on existing salaries ten years hence, when the real expenditure on a pensions system will not come into full swing for long after the ten years, and consequently these figures are most satisfactory. Although I am glad that we have got, this money for pensions, I think we might make better use of it than has been done in the scheme put before us. The White Paper which was circulated on the 8th of August sets out the Bill in advance. I am not going to discuss the details, but I notice many of the recommendations made by various Committees, including those made by some Committees on which I sat, have been adopted.
  One of these points is that pensionable service should continue until sixty-five. There is one point which the right hon. Gentleman has not dealt with, and that is the extension of the scheme to those public schools which were mentioned by the hon. Member for the London University (Sir P. Magnus). Schools which are not under State aid are placed under an enormous disadvantage under this new scheme, and I hope this point will be borne in mind and generously dealt with. The scheme is not sufficiently generous to such schools as Harrow, Mill Hill, and others, some of which are under Government inspection. I am aware that Harrow is in a somewhat unique position, but I think the position of all these schools should certainly be considered, otherwise they are placed at a great disadvantage. I might make many other criticisms, but I hope the points which I have mentioned will be considered between now and the time the Bill is brought in. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider the effect of his proposal upon our national system of education, and consider whether you are not unintentionally doing a certain injustice to all those schools which do not come under
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  State provision. I hope the Bill will go a step further, so as not to operate unequaliy on those schools which are not receiving State aid. Apart from this injustice, I believe you will do a disservice to education if you hamper the schools which are outside your ordinary school system.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by Mr. Herbert Fisher, Mr. Baldwin, and Mr. Herbert Lewis.
  SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) BILL,—"to make provision with respect to the Grant of Superannuation Allowances to Teachers and of Gratuities to their legal personal representatives, and to amend the Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Acts, 1898 to 1912,"—presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second tïme To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 97.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

LONDON NEWSPAPERS (PURCHASE).
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. PRINGLE: This afternoon I put a question to the Prime Minister with reference to the recent sale and purchase of a group of London newspapers, and in that question I addressed a number of inquiries to the Government which naturally arise out of such a sale under present conditions. The reply to the question was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was informed that there was to be no change in the political policy of the papers affected. With that point I will deal later, but as to the two questions which arose out of the original question the right hon Gentleman replied that the Government intended to set up no inquiry into the present tendency to the monopolistic control of the Press, and he said that if an application were made for paper on behalf of new newspapers whose object was to promote the former policy of the papers recently purchased, that such an application would be dealt with on its merits by the Paper Commission. These subsidiary questions

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indicate generally the questions of public policy which I think require the attention of the House and of the country.
Recently, as everybody is aware, there has been a growth of group interests in newspapers, until now it may be said that with few notable exceptions nearly all the newspapers in this country with large circulations are in the hands of a few groups, and that these groups with a single exception are in intimate association with the Government, if not really subservient to it. The recent change affects a group of newspapers which certainly were formerly independent. It is somewhat doubtful whether the former independence of this group will be continued under the new system. It certainly means that there is an increase in the aggregation of newspapers, for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir H. Dalziel), who I am delighted to see here, is associated with the new management and control of the group formerly known as the "Lloyd's group," and we know that he already holds a similar position in regard to the "Pall Mall Gazette," and that he has long been associated in the same capacity with that well-known democratic organ, "Reynolds's Newspaper." My right hon. Friend, I think, deserves to be congratulated upon his recent successes in journalism. When the War broke out his sole ewe lamb was "Reynolds's Newspaper."
Sir H. DALZIEL Sir H. DALZIEL indicated dissent.
Mr. PR INGLE: Well, in the political sphere. If my right hon. Friend had other honours to his credit, they were unknown to the general public. During the War he has increased his flock to the extent that I have mentioned, and I believe to a somewhat greater extent. All this shows that the present transaction has increased the number of newspapers under a single control, undoubtedly aggravating the monopolist tendencies to which I have referred, and which, I think, require public attention and deserve public inquiry. As I pointed out in my question, the Government were greatly moved by a recent movement in the banking world towards amalgamation, and, as a result of the general unrest and suspicion which arose out of these amalgamations, the Government set up a Committee to inquire into them and into their effects upon the money market and upon our financial system
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generally. It is equally important to the public who control the sources of information to the country. My right hon. Friend will have an opportunity of dealing with my points. I am merely arguing by analogy. It may not be a formidable argument. My right hon. Friend is at the head, in a managing capacity, of all the newspapers which I have mentioned, and the fact that he is now managing director or political director of the group recently acquired undoubtedly increases his powers as a newspaper potentate. I have shown what promoted the inquiry into the bank amalgamations. That related to finance. Why should it not equally apply to the sources of information, which are of vital interest to any democratic community; because, if the springs of public information come into the hands of a few groups or of one group, you really have a travesty of genuine democratic conditions? I therefore urge that the Government ought to set up some inquiry into these tendencies, so that if there be any mischievous influences at work those influences may in the public interest be checked.
There is another reason why the recent transaction deserves attention, and it arises out of the peculiar conditions relating to the paper market at the present time. There have been sales and changes of individual newspapers in the past—indeed, the "Pall Mall Gazette," to which I have referred, has passed through the hands, I think, of more than half a dozen proprietors—but it was possible on former occasions, when a paper like the "Pall Mall Gazette" was transferred for the purpose of changing its policy, for those who were interested in the former policy of the paper to start a new paper advocating the old policy, and to transfer the whole of the old staff to it. There was then a free market in paper. Now there is no free market in paper. Paper now can only be had from the Government. Consequently it is entirely at the discretion of the Government whether any new organisation can get the raw material necessary for the purpose of advocating the views which were formerly the policy of the "Daily Chronicle" and the allied newspapers. We are told that the Paper Controller would consider any such application on its merits. That is a somewhat evasive and ambiguous answer, because, if it be the case, as I propose to show, that this group is now really under Government control, it will surely affect the Paper Controller's view of the merits of the new application.
Mr. P. A. HARRIS: The Government will not permit new papers to be published or obtain paper.
Mr. PRINGLE: Yes, new papers may come into existence under licence. I think new papers have come into existence during the War, but under licence from the Government. Indeed, the Government have published certain new newspapers. We want to know whether under the circumstances which I have put forward the Government would assent to such an application. It is not a matter which should be allowed to rest in the vague form in which the answer has been given. I have said that under the new system the "Daily Chronicle" and the other papers are really under the control of the Government, and, if that be so, it strengthens the case, especially in relation to the last proposition with which I was dealing.
It is an open secret now that for a long time negotiations have been going on for the purchase of these papers. I quite agree that in every case the negotiations have not been carried on on behalf of the Government. There have been various groups anxious to obtain control of these newspapers. I have not been associated with any of them. Undoubtedly, however, the main efforts from beginning to end have been made on behalf of the present Government. They began early in 1917. The matter, I believe, was mentioned by the Prime Minister himself to the late managing director of the "Daily Chronicle" in the early part of 1917. In those days the names of the purchasers held out for these papers were Lord Leverhulme and Lord Colwyn, both the recipients of honours from the present Government. When the first negotiations reached an advanced stage it was said that the main purchaser was to be Lord Leverhulme. I think my hon. and gallant Friend the Patronage Secretary (Captain Guest) was associated with these negotiations. If I happen to go wrong upon any points of detail, I have no doubt that he will be able to correct me. I think he will agree with me that at that time he had negotiations with the late managing director of the "Daily Chronicle," in which he held himself out as acting for Lord Leverhulme. The matter advanced so far that an accountant made an inquiry into the figures relating to the businesses, and reported to my hon. and gallant Friend
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as to the price—something in the region of £500,000. After this report was received it turned out that Lord Leverhulme was not the real person involved, but that behind the rays of sunlight soap there was the interesting and significant figure of Lord Beaverbrook. That was at a time when Lord Beaverbrook was Minister of Information. It is a matter which, I think, concerns this House that the Minister of Information, a member of the Government and a responsible Minister, should have been negotiating for the purchase of a newspaper at a time when he was advertising himself as having divested himself of all control in another newspaper which he had previously owned. That negotiation broke down on two grounds; first, the price; and, secondly, the personality of Lord Beaverbrook. Lord Beaverbrook objected to the price that the proprietors of the "Daily Chronicle" desired. He said that if the price was to be £900,000 it was "not his baby any more." He said it was therefore a matter for the party funds. On the other hand, he admitted that if the deal had gone through he would have been prepared to enter into a bargain to support the present Prime Minister for a period of five years, a bargain, by the way, which did not apply to the "Daily Express."
7.0 P.M.
The negotiations broke down partly on price and partly on the personality of Lord Beaverbrook. The late proprietor of the "Daily Chronicle" declined to sell his newspaper to a Tory partisan. So an attempt was made by the Patronage Secretary to assure him that Lord Beaverbrook was not a Tory at all. That negotiation came to an end in the month of May. But, as showing that the Prime Minister was taking an interest in the matter, and that the Government were concerned in the business, I may add that the Prime Minister saw the late managing director by appointment in regard to the negotiations on the 21st of March—the date on which the German offensive started. Apparently there were other individuals and other groups endeavouring to negotiate on the basis of the price of £900,000, which was placed on the property by the late proprietor.
This was the situation until the month of July last, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir H. Dalziel) appeared for the first time on the scene with the powerful aid of the Prime Minister. The negotiations were kept

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secret, and no indication was given to anybody that anything had taken place until the 3rd of October, when the late editor of the "Daily Chronicle" was informed by his proprietor that the property had changed hands, and that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs was to enter upon his duties as political director of the paper on the following evening. In order to account for the secrecy with which this transaction was carried out—a secrecy which was undoubtedly somewhat strange in view of the late editor's long connection with the paper—the proprietor informed him that he had been bound to secrecy, and that at an interview he had had with the Prime Minister and with my hon. and gallant Friend the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury he was pledged to make no disclosure of what was going on, in particular to the editor, because the editor had recently criticised the Government and had published an article in which he said that the Prime Minister "had a small mind." This, it seems to me, disclosed the real object of the transfer. It meant that this paper, which, although it had been a supporter of the past and present Government in relation to the prosecution of the War, had nevertheless criticised it on a number of questions of domestic policy in which it believed that the Government had erred. For example, the "Daily Chronicle" criticised the Government because it had failed in relation to the question of man-power, and because it believed it had failed in relation to Ireland. And, I think, on certain other questions it had exposed either the failure or the blunders of the Government, and had made some reference to a noted scandal now under investigation—apparently this independent action on the part of this newspaper was to come to an end, and, instead of continuing as it had been—
Sir H. DALZIEL: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that anyone connected with these negotiations had anything to do with cellulose? If he has no evidence, he ought not to make such an unfair suggestion.
Mr. PR INGLE: I made no suggestion; I alluded to certain activities on the part of the "Daily Chronicle," and I am very sorry my right hon. Friend should have regarded my remarks as conveying any such suggestion. I am endeavouring to
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deal with this question entirely apart from personalities, and I hope to keep my remarks on that level until the end. What I want to point out is that these papers are now in fact "tied" papers; there can be no doubt about that. My right hon. Friend is well known as a supporter of the present Coalition, and his close association with and constant devotion to the Prime Minister are equally honourable to them both. We can be assured therefore that my right hon. Friend will not be at all deficient in his advocacy of the Government or in his enthusiasm for the Prime Minister personally.
But three of the gentlemen who are now known to be associated with the undertaking in some capacity, either financial or in respect of management, are men who are really officials of the Government. We understand that Sir A. Weir is interested to a large extent in the direction of contracts by the War Office. Sir Howard Spicer is associated with the Government in relation to paper, and Sir Charles Sykes is a buyer of wool for the Government. So that, as far as the names of those associated with the new undertaking have been divulged, they are one and all closely associated with the present Government—that is, from the point of view of policy. And if it be true that it is really a Government paper, is it not contrary not only to the policy which the Government officially put before the country, but to the basis of the appeals which they are making to the public in regard to investments in War Loan at the present time? We know that the Government has a Treasury Committee, which is able to place a ban upon new issues of capital. That is another matter in which they have a hold upon any new company that seeks to promote a newspaper. While they are able to prevent any new issue of capital, they themselves apparently encourage the investment of capital in this way. They are calling upon the general public to invest all their savings in War Bonds. Yet these members of the Government are apparently investing their savings in newspapers. Both in a sense are investments in paper, but one is to win the War, and the other to win the General Election—one is to feed the guns, the other to falsify the ballot box. It is, under these conditions, desirable that we in this House should look upon negotiations of this kind in a very questioning spirit. We should see, first of all, that

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the Government dissociates itself from all speculation in newspapers at the present time, and this is really a speculation, although it did not so appeal to Lord Beaverbrook, who rather thought it was a proper object for the application of party funds.
But, apart from the conduct of the Government and the question of Government control of the paper, we should have also, I think, an assurance from the Government that they are considering this question of the capitalistic control of the Press of this country. I do not expect that the Government themselves at the present time will be inclined to give that assurance, but I hold that it is the duty of the House of Commons to press for it. It should be the duty of the House of Commons, as far as it possibly can, to preserve and maintain an independent Press in this country; and when we view the existing situation and still more recent tendencies, I think the House must be impressed with the probability of an early extinction altogether of the independent Press in this country.
This is not, an isolated transaction. I have got evidence that persons acting for the Government have been recently endeavouring to acquire independent newspapers in other parts of the country. On no fewer than three occasions a Scottish evening paper which has a long record for independence in politics has been approached on behalf of the Government with a view to its purchase; and this propaganda of newspaper purchase is going on all over the country in a secret and clandestine way. The result is that these papers may have their character fundamentally altered without their readers knowing of any change taking place in the ownership. That is part of the danger of the whole thing. A change of policy and of character should not be allowed to be carried out in this subtle way, so as to entirely deceive the readers of the newspapers into believing that the papers are still maintaining the old policy and the old ideas.
I think it is undoubtedly the duty of the House of Commons to press for some form of reply, as clean public opinion is of as much importance as the finances of the county. And in addition to that we should have an assurance from His Majesty's Government that so long as the restrictions upon paper
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continue, no invidious and no partisan distinctions whatever should be drawn in any applications for paper on behalf of those who wish to start newspapers, or in the distribution of the available supplies to any newspapers at present in existence. I hope, therefore, that His Majesty's Government will see fit to reconsider its decision in these matters. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been misinformed on this question as to the policy of the paper. I have brought forward evidence to indicate that this paper is no longer exercising the independence, or is no longer intended to exercise the independence which it displayed under the old direction, and that one of the objects of the purchase is to put an end to the exercise of that independence. I have also, I think, been able to point out the dangers of these great newspaper aggregations in relation to the Government, and it is mainly on account of these considerations that I ask the Government to reconsider its decision and, if possible, to set up at an early date a Committee of Inquiry such as I have asked for.
Sir H. DALZIEL: It is with the greatest reluctance that I take any part whatever in this Debate. I have had the honour of sitting continuously for twenty-seven years in this House, and I have never before been called upon to take any part in a debate on a personal matter. I would gladly remain silent even now, but I think my silence would be misunderstood. I have remained silent up to the present time in regard to the matter to which my hon. and learned Friend has referred, although I have had every provocation to say a very great deal. There has been base agitation, provoked and encouraged by competitors employing every weapon, some of them very foul, to try and injure the property with which I have recently become associated. I do not say that this is part of that campaign organised by a committee of three liberal editors, but I think my hon. and learned Friend will agree that he has been in communication with Mr. Donald.
Mr. PRINGLE: I admitted that.
Sir H. DALZIEL: Mr. Donald has been saying this morning that the great world debate is going to take place to-night on his resignation. I cannot but regret that at a time like this, when great world events-are taking place, and men are suffering and dying close to this place, that my hon.

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and learned Friend could not find any other subject to occupy the attention of the House of Commons, save what I maintain is purely a personal and domestic matter. What have I to answer in reply to my hon. and learned Friend? He has made a series of insinuations and suggestions.
Mr. PRINGLE: No!
Sir H. DALZIEL: He has repeated a foul suggestion of the "Westminster Gazette," that Mr. Grant Morden had some association with me.
Mr. PRINGLE: I think it is unfair to me to say that I repeated any foul suggestion. When my right hon. Friend pointed out that there was any possibility of my words bearing that construction I at once indicated to him that nothing was further from my mind.
Sir H. DALZIEL: Of course I accept the hon. and learned Member's statement, but I think the House will agree that suggestions of that kind, that because the "Daily Chronicle" was attacking some particular interest that I came forward and tried to muzzle its independence—I say that to say that to a pressman is to charge him with being guilty of the most heinous crime he could commit. Thank God my public record has been clean in regard to anything of that kind, and it is not fair to a competitor; and I am taking an opinion whether it is not libellous for papers to insinuate and suggest that there was some kind of connection between the "Daily Chronicle's" conduct and its attack against certain interests, and that that must be the explanation of the carrying through of the transaction. It is untrue as well as other suggestions that have been made. My hon. and learned Friend complained that there had been amalgamation. I know nothing of an amalgamation. I have taken no part in any amalgamation. At the present moment I have no intention of doing so. My hon. and learned Friend seemed to think that I was associated with other great newspapers. There is nothing of the kind, nor is there likely to be. I control my papers; it is not a matter for the House of Commons. I control my papers, and nobody on earth controls me or is going to control me. And really, is it a matter for the House of Commons that they should sit down seriously and discuss my
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business operations? This is a business transaction, and why should not I be allowed to carry through a business transaction without bothering the House of Commons about it? It was a good business transaction, and I do not mind saying that I could have made a very substantial profit during the last few days if I had been disposed to get rid of my property. My hon. Friend made a very great deal—this, of course, is where the mischief comes in, because it will be reported by all my competitors, and not in every case, I am afraid, will my reply be made public. I will tell the House in a very few sentences what happened. I do not want to take up the time of the House with regard to it. I do not want to discuss it here, and I refused to do so outside. The facts are that one of the proprietors of the "Daily Chronicle," through failing health, decided at the beginning of this year that he would have to release himself from the vast responsibility of carrying on that large undertaking Three different groups of Liberals from time to time were in negotiation with a view to purchasing that property. There was what is known—it has been referred to by my hon. Friend, but I know nothing of that group—Lord Leverhulme's name was mentioned. It may be that he was interested.
Mr. PRINGLE: What about Lord Beaverbrook?
Sir H. DALZIEL: Surely the hon. and learned Member does not make it a complaint against me that I prevented Lord Beaverbrook from getting it. I know nothing about the suggestion of Lord Beaverbrook being connected with it, and I am not going to accept the responsibility. But I understand—my hon. and learned Friend has told us—that there were active negotiations, and that Lord Beaverbrook's name was mentioned. These negotiations failed. Then another group came into existence associated with another eminent peer, more intimately associated with my hon. and learned Friend than possibly Lord Beaverbrook.
HON. MEMBERS: Who?
Sir H. DALZIEL: In connection with that group the late editor was particularly active; there was another group represented by an hon. Friend—I saw him in the smoking room a few minutes ago, but I do not see him here now.
HON. MEMBERS: Name!
Sir H. DALZIEL: The hon. Member for the Shipley Division of Yorkshire (Mr. Oswald Partington) was introduced to Mr. Lloyd as a possible purchaser. Nothing came of either of these negotiations. I appeared on the scene only after all these groups had failed. They had failed, and there was no business likely to be done. At the moment, I heard and I confirmed it, that there was a group of men, who were not avowed Liberals, who had placed over £1,000,000 at the credit of a Conservative editor in London to purchase the "Daily Chronicle." I appeared by a curious coincidence—or the other competitors rather—on the very day that I went in July to settle the terms that were to be carried out on the 1st of October. On that very day, this non-Liberal group appeared on the scene, and while assurances would have been given doubtless as to the future policy of the paper, the fact remained that in my opinion the only way to control the paper was to have men with you to some extent in sympathy and, as Mr. Lloyd himself expressed a desire and said it would be to his satisfaction and peace of mind if I were in control and accepted the situation.
The House must remember that I have been doing business for Mr. Lloyd for thirty years. I spend large sums of money with him, and we are in daily, almost hourly, communication. He knows me, and I know him, and therefore it was a consideration to Mr. Lloyd that the paper should pass into the hands of someone in whom he would have confidence. I came in July, and it was settled in July, and that is where my hon. Friend really does me an injustice. The article to which he referred about the small-minded Prime Minister appeared before I took possession. All this took place in July—it was about a week before. The suggestion was that because the "Daily Chronicle" appeared to criticise the Prime Minister therefore I rushed in—months after the whole deal was done—and bought it. There has been a suggestion about this change of policy. It is entirely incorrect. The statement was made outside, and was made for the purpose of injuring my property to some extent, but I will let the hon. Member into a secret. The announcement that I had taken over the "Daily Chronicle" sent it up very much indeed in circulation, on no day by less than 60,000 copies. I would say to the hon. and learned Member that the public must not be treated as children. The hon. and
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learned Member complains that these papers have large circulations; that is a matter for the public and for the enterprise of the people who are running them. Why should these people criticise me—with small circulations, evening newspapers, whilst I have multiplied my circulation six or ten times since I took over my evening paper—now that they are feeling the draught, if I may say so; why should they complain because these circulations are gone? The British public has a right to buy the papers it chooses, and who is the man who is going to say that I am subservient to anybody? Have I over been subservient to any statesman in this House? I have criticised the late Government; I have criticised in my present papers the present Government, and I intend to do so. I am absolutely independent. I support them when I think they are right, and I blame them when I think they are wrong. Why should the hon. and learned Member dare to suggest that any paper with which I am connected is of a servile character? I claim that I have a right to deal with my own property as I please. The British public has the right to buy the papers it pleases. If it happens to be that their choice falls upon my newspapers, that is their good judgment and not my fault. One word more. It has been complained—I have seen it in many newspapers—that this operation was kept secret. Would any business man blame me for carrying through an operation of a very considerable extent when I knew that there were three other groups ready to make another offer, and when I knew that the late editor was himself bringing men to the office and really succeeded to a large extent in putting up the necessary money? He made one condition, I understand, which did not operate for success, and that was that he was to have complete and absolute control—a most desirable thing, but I succeeded in getting it and he did not. The arrangement which I made, as far back as July, contained one clause, and it was this, that if the matter of the negotiation was made public the vendor had the right to declare the deal off. That was a necessary consideration for the property. The whole of the papers had been discussing it. All over the country it had been said these negotiations were taking place, and, quite rightly, Mr. Lloyd, than whom there is no man who occupies a higher position in British commerce to-day, said, "If I am going to

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carry through the operation now I cannot have my business discussed all over the country, because it will hurt the newspaper and create unrest among my staff." I knew perfectly well that if it was known outside that I was negotiating those who had made the conditions before when the money was available for it would very soon have waived those conditions, and probably been powerful competitors against me. Not only that, but it would have raised the price against me—a very sore point. Therefore it was essential that the negotiations should be kept secret.
I am told I treated the late editor unfairly. These attacks have been organised outside. Men are going from newspaper to newspaper inventing all sorts of things and making all sorts of base insinuations. They have been organised, I am sorry to say, by men whose previous careers I have honoured, and who, in my opinion, have always acted with fairness. The feeling which has created that mortification is that they failed and I succeeded. I did not treat the late editor unfairly. It was not my business to go and tell an opponent what I was doing. That was a matter entirely for the discretion of the proprietor. But the late editor has not suffered so very much. He has taken £70,000 of my money for an interest which probably cost him a nominal amount. So therefore he has not done so badly. He has two years' salary in addition. The late editor is a friend of mine and I hope will long continue to be a friend, though I wish he would go away for a holiday at present. My task would be very much easier than it is. This I contend, is a domestic matter. Those who failed in carrying out the operation felt very keenly about it. My competitors also, for some reason, feel very much interested. Honest men may be exploited quite unintentionally in the game that has been played against me. The suggestion that I am in some way going to go against the principles and the policy which I have stood for all my life is a base, unworthy, and cowardly suggestion. My record is here in the House and before my Constituency. I have been elected by them seven times with a majority increased every time, and the last time without any opposition whatever. My public life is an open book to be examined in the library of this House. I have supported democratic opinion through all these years. I never gave one
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vote in the House against a Labour or democratic proposal or against Ireland. I have given many votes to all the Home Rule Bills which were ever introduced, and the combination of men who have been utilised by commercial people to injure me and my property is unfair. They have no right to bring their grievances to the House of Commons. Let us fight the battle outside and I will accept the public's judgment.
Mr. HUGHES: We have had two speeches to-night, one from an hon. and learned Gentleman, a lawyer, and the other from a right hon. Baronet, a newspaper proprietor. I belong to neither of these parties. I pose as being simply an honest man, and I say what I think. According to the hon. and learned Gentleman who introduced this Debate, there is something not only wicked but rather new about papers or groups of papers being bought. The hon. and learned Gentleman shows surprise at the idea. Of course there is nothing whatever new in buying newspapers in that sense. I do not know very much about the proprietorial side of journalism. Fleet Street has been said to be a land flowing with ink and money. I have had a great deal more to do with the ink than the money. There is nothing new in papers being bought. I noticed the other day an advertisement in the "Daily News" in which it bragged, "This is the paper which cannot be bought!" I do not know whether it meant that it could not be bought by readers or could not be bought in a proprietorial sense. But it is not very long since the "Daily News" was bought. It was bought in the middle of a war too, and it was bought in order to alter its policy in regard to that war—the Boer War. I was then, and still am, if I remember the times clearly enough, a pro-Boer, unashamed and unrepentant. But there was that paper bought at that time in order to alter its views on that particular war, so it need not give itself any airs in regard to that. That cannot be said about the "Daily Chronicle." It may have been bought while a war is lasting, but it has not been bought in order to alter its policy in regard to that war. So far as I have been able to follow it, it is still, as every sane man, I hope, in this country is, of opinion that we must follow that war out to a successful military result, inflicting an obvious defeat on the enemy before we really make terms.

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I am not much mixed up with these proprietorial concerns in journalism, but I think there have been other attempts to get hold of the "Chronicle." I have heard the name, I think, of Lord Cowdray mentioned in connection with a previous attempt, and a right hon. Gentleman who was once Chancellor of the Exchequer, and also other great men. That attempt failed. I wonder if we should have had such an outburst of virtuous indignation if that attempt had succeeded. It just happened that one side was up against the other and one brought it off. As to the "Chronicle" as a paper, I say nothing. I speak quite independently. I have written for it. It has published some of my articles, but, looking back, I regret to say I think it has had the bad taste and the bad sense to reject more than it has accepted. I am not in their pay at all. I hold no brief for them. But when it is said that it has been bought to back up the present Prime Minister, and also to prevent hostile criticism against the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith), for whom I have, and shall always continue to have, the greatest regard and the highest admiration, I cannot help remembering that the late editor of the "Daily Chronicle," Mr. Robert Donald, has bragged again and again and again in public that he and his paper
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had more to do with leading to the resignation of the right hon. Gentleman than had anyone else in the country. He took that to his credit, if it be to his credit. It is arrant hypocrisy for anyone to brag that he has brought a man down and then, when circumstances change, to pretend that he has been sacrificed because of his loyalty to that man. The less we hear about that the better. As for newspapers and their proprietors and the Government being asked to intervene, I do not want the Government to intervene in newspaper affairs at all. If they have done it at all in the way of censorship it may have been desirable or even necessary, though I have always disliked it. But if it comes to the Government of the day being asked to intervene and say that this man shall not buy a paper or the other man shall, much as I desire to back the present Government so long as it goes right, I for one shall vote against any such suggestion. They must have nothing to do with the Press beyond that interference which is necessary, in the sense of censorship, to winning the War. Beyond that they should not go.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Eighteen minutes before Eight o'clock.

WAR.
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (UNITED STATES).
  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS (UNITED STATES).
  FOREIGN OFFICE (ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS).
  FOREIGN OFFICE (ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS).
  Rhodesian Land Case.
  Rhodesian Land Case.

TITHE RENTCHARGE REDEMPTION BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, this Bill is very modest in form, but it deals with rather a complicated matter, and one which I think it is quite time should be put on a more satisfactory basis. To a certain extent the introduction of the Bill in your Lordships' House has had its effect, because after the Bill was put down here the Government introduced a Tithe Bill in another place. I sincerely hope that that Bill will be pushed forward, and that we shall find a satisfactory solution of this question within the terms of the Bill about which I am going to say a word or two, and of the Government Bill.
I did not introduce this Bill on my own authority. It is in the terms of what has been accepted by the House of Laymen of the Province of Canterbury (whose members are very interested in this kind of question) and also by the Lower House of Convocation. Your Lordships had the advantage a short time ago of hearing a statement in this House by the Lord Bishop of Norwich. So that I believe I may say that the policy contained in my Bill is not only in accordance with that of the House of Laymen, which is specially cognisant of matters of this kind, but also of the Lower and Upper Houses of Convocation. Therefore there is no difference as regards the main point—that it is advisable, and a matter of good policy, to encourage the redemption of tithe rent-charge. I think that is common ground upon which every one approaches this question, and it reduces any proposal to one concerning the best method in which that general policy can be carried out.
Since 1891 there has been a constant expectation and hope among those who thought over the matter that some proposal would be brought forward and passed. It was in 1891 that the late Marquess of Salisbury introduced a Bill in your Lordships' House which, although it did not make any alteration in the incidence of tithe—because tithe was always a charge
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on the owner and not on the occupier of the land—yet it did, in effect, make a great difference in this respect. It prevented contracting out between the owner and the occupier, which had been the ordinary course in which these matters had been dealt with for a long time, and threw the charge directly upon the owner, who was not allowed to pass it on. But there is still an element of friction left as regards collection of the tithe, and I think it is in the interests of every one that this friction should be removed as far as possible.
I need not trouble your Lordships with anything like an historical narrative. If we were to take merely the views of the late Lord Selborne, who dealt so frequently with the matter, tithe has its origin in private gift. It has been a trust property for religious purposes for about 700 years, and it is impossible to imagine that any trust property or any property is more securely maintained or is held by a stronger title. There is one matter on which I wish to say a word, as to an omission from the Bill which I propose; and it is also, I think, an omission from the Government Bill. Lord Clinton, who represents the Board of Agriculture, will tell me if I am wrong. When the rentcharge was settled in 1836 it included a sum for rates. Of course, the amount of rates included in those days would be very different from the amount included now; and as regards the various Acts of Redemption of Tithe no special provision was made, because it was probably considered that the redemption would be carried out only in certain particular cases.
Since that date a Tithe Act has been passed which dealt with the question of the rates paid by tithe-owners. It was passed after a report from a Royal Commission, of which I had the honour to be one of the members. That Commission was presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The result of the recommendations of that Commission, carried into effect by Act of Parliament, is that the tithe-owner pays only one-half of the tithe to which he would have been subjected if that Act had not introduced this measure of alleviation. I think the result could be stated in this way, that at present about £150,000 a year, as nearly as I can get the calculation—
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Half the rates.
LORD PARMOOR: I am obliged to your Grace—half the rates. The result is that at the present time a sum of nearly £150,000 a year is being paid in rates by the tithe-owners. I think that is the sum. One of the questions which will be involved when the matter is considered in greater detail is how this rating question shall be dealt with. Of course, there are two ways of dealing with it. You may either leave it as it was left in the old Acts which deal with the question of tithe redemption, as a matter which is practically settled by the terms of the redemption itself, or you may have to introduce some special provision in order that other ratepayers may not be penalised because the tithe-owner gets rid of his tithes owing to the system of redemption. If this were done I think there might be a system of considering the difference in value between the gross tithe and the net tithe, and in the distinction between these two sums an amount could be put on one side which would reserve that sum of £150,000 a year payable for rating purposes. Whether it is necessary or not I do not say. I only throw out the suggestion for consideration by the Government if they think the rates question should be settled at the same time as the redemption of tithe.
The Bill which I propose to your Lordships is an extremely simple one. At the present time by agreement, but only by agreement, the tithe can be redeemed at twenty-five years purchase. In some cases a different term is applicable, but in substance twenty-five years is the term generally applicable under the Act of 1878. The first proposal of my Bill is simply this—that instead of twenty-five years purchase we should substitute twenty years purchase. And if your Lordships will consider for a moment I think you will see that this proposal is quite fair in itself, and is likely to lead to a real advance in the direction of the redemption of tithe. I will give an illustration of what I mean. In old days £100 worth of tithe could have been redeemed for the lump sum of £2,500. That can be done at the present moment by agreement. The proposal in the Bill is that instead of £2,500 being paid for the redemption of £100 worth of tithe, the amount should be £2,000. It is quite clear that this is an additional inducement to the tithe-payer; it is obviously an advantage to the owner who is paying tithe in respect of his property. But, on the other
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hand, it is no disadvantage as regards the tithe-owner, because at the present time the tithe-owner has to invest the sum of £2,000 to bring him in as large an annual income as what he could obtain from the investment of £2,500. It is nothing more than recognising a change in the terms upon which you could change one form of investment for another. Your Lordships will of course, understand that there is no proposal whatever to Change the purposes to which tithe is to be applied. I should be the last person to make any suggestion of that kind. The only proposal is that the nature of till., investment should be changed; you can change it on the twenty years purchase, so that the old income is still maintained, and you get this advantage in the change in the form of investment, that the friction which undoubtedly does arise, and always will arise, in connection with tithe is got rid of.
I should like to give one or two figures as regards the value of tithe rentcharge of recent years, in order to show why at a period of this kind a Bill of this sort should be introduced. In 1878 the tithe rentcharge stood at £112—£100, of course, being par—and every one, I think, in your Lordships' House is aware that agricultural depression became very severe in 1879 and the succeeding years, with the result that in 1901 the tithe fell to £66 and some odd shillings and pence. It had fallen, in fact, from £112 to £66. After 1901 the process began of the recovery of the value of the tithe rentcharge. In 1914, just before the war, it had gone up to £77. In 1917 it was at £92, and this year it is £109. But if the proposal of the payment for tithe rentcharge had been on the basis of one year instead of an average of seven years, the amount payable in this present year would have been £188 9s. I give you that figure because it is a matter which ought to be and must be dealt with, having regard to the special conditions under which tithe is rising at the present time. I do not shut my eyes to the fact that at the same time that tithe has been rising, prices generally have been rising; and I certainly do not want to suggest any proposal that could really be regarded as a hardship upon the tithe-owner. But if you consider that the tithe-owner would get rid of all the expense of collection, that he would get rid of all the incidental friction which undoubtedly arises in connection with tithe collection, and if you add to this that the only proposal, in my Bill at any rate, is to put in twenty

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years instead of twenty-five, I do not think the tithe-owner has any grounds of complaint.
The second proposal in my Bill is to make the machinery of redemption more easy. At the present time you cannot carry out the redemption of tithe rentcharge without the assent of the Bishop of the docese and the patron of the living, and although it may at first sight appear that this is not a troublesome matter, yet it has in many cases caused a great deal of trouble and a considerable amount of expense; and it is difficult to see how either the Bishop or the patron can be affected when the only proposal is not to alter in any way the incidence of tithe or the purchase for which tithe shall be given, but merely a change in the form of the investment. I am not sure whether the Government Bill contains a similar proposal, but, if it does, I think it is one of those changes of procedure in the direction of simplicity that ought to be sanctioned.
Now in the Bill which I am proposing to your Lordships there is a third proposal, which is very similar to one contained in the Government's Bill, although I feel more doubtful how far a proposal of this kind ought to be pressed. The proposal is this—that the value of tithe shall not exceed what it is in the present year; that is about, or a little under, £110. If there is a reduction the question of the value of tithe in the future is not a matter of very great importance, but if a provision of this kind is introduced there ought to be a corresponding provision which will protect tithe-owners in the event of the probable, or possible, reduction of tithe after war prices have gone down. I propose, therefore, in the Bill before your Lordships' House, that there shall be a guarantee after the end of the war for a period of ten years against any reduction of the tithe then payable to the tithe-owners. That proposal is not of the essence of the Bill; but, as I say, this Bill is introduced after most careful inquiry by a specially selected Committee of the House of Laymen, and, as I am proposing the Bill, it has been accepted after considerable discussion by the House of Laymen themselves. They are not a body likely to deal unfairly with the clerical tithe-owner. Their object has been to give every possible consideration to the clerical tithe-owner to relieve him of a matter of friction between himself and his parishioners, at the same time leaving the
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endowments of the Church on the same footing as they are at the present time.
Now, my Lords, I want to say a word as regards the Government's Bill. I am sincerely desirous that this matter should be settled, and I do not want at all to press; my Bill beyond the point of explaining how far, at any rate according to the information that I have, the clerical tithe-owners at the House of Laymen are prepared to go in connection with a matter of this kind. In the first place, the Government's Bill proposes compulsion. At the present time you can only redeem tithe by consent; it must be done on the initiation of the tithe-payer, and with the assent of the tithe-owner. So that you cannot at the present time obtain redemption of tithe except by compulsion. Well, the question of compulsion was considered in the Committee to which I have already referred, but that Committee were opposed to the principle of compulsion altogether. I want to say, as regards my own individual opinion, that I am not so opposed to compulsion, if compulsion can be applied in a fair form.
What I do object to, and object to very strongly in the Government's Bill, is the way in which they propose that the terms of compensation shall be assessed under a compulsory process. And, as far as I know, there is no precedent—it is difficult to say exhaustively there is no precedent—for the Government's proposal, and it appears to me to be on an entirely false footing. The proposal is this: that if the two parties cannot agree, what is called "compensation," or the terms of redemption, shall be settled by an official body—namely the Board of Agriculture. It surely is altogether wrong that a question of compensation in matters of this kind should be settled by any official body whatever. It is not a matter for a bureaucratic body; it is a matter which ought to be settled by some outside authority wholly independant of political influence. One knows perfectly well that political influences do have their bearing upon our central Departments. I do not in the least want to satirise the work which the central Departments do; at the same time, we have to look the matter in the face. And what I suggest to your Lordships is this: that it is a wrong principle, a principle which ought not to be allowed, that one of these central official bodies should settle questions of compensation of any kind—for instance,

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as between the tithe-owner and the tithe-payer. Practically you ought to have the same number of years purchase, which is the only question in all cases, because the security is practically the same in all cases.
But, my Lords, I have had a suggestion made—it came, I think, from the Land Agents' Society—which may meet the point between the views I have expressed and those expressed in the Government's Bill. If a Government Department is to have a power of this kind, my view is that it is wrong in principle. It ought to be on the basis that they cannot force the tithe-owner to accept compensation below an adequate number of years purchase—for instance, twenty years purchase—and that there ought to be no opportunity of imposing conditions from high quarters which would allow an unduly large number of years purchase to be fixed as compensation for the tithe-owner. The document to which I have referred, and which comes from the Land Agents' Society, which possesses knowledge of matters of this kind, compares the proposal that I have made with the proposals of Mr. Prothero's Bill. I think I can say that it agrees in the main with the proposals which I have made in my Bill, but it does not agree with them altogether, nor does it agree altogether with the proposals made in the Government's Bill.
I am brought to this consideration. Assuming that this is a matter which your Lordships think should be settled—that, of course, is at the basis of all that I have said—I would suggest that a Second Reading be allowed of the Bill which I have introduced and which has had the effect already of hastening the Government's steps, but that I should not proceed with my Bill to the Committee stage until the Government's Bill has been discussed and considered in the other House. I quite realise—and I am sure Lord Clinton will understand this—that a matter of this kind is one which legitimately should be left in the Government's hands, and I only want a guarantee that if it is left in their hands the proposal shall not be allowed to die down, but shall be pressed forward, and that the Bill shall not only be a paper Bill, but one which shall be made a reality.
Undoubtedly this is a question in which time tells against a fair settlement. I think that the Government Bill itself proposes that the value of tithe rentcharge in this year—1918—should be taken as the
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basis of payment for a certain number of future years. So it appears quite clear, if you get beyond 1918, that you will have to consider the terms of a fresh settlement upon a fresh basis. I have no desire to press my own Bill. I shall ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading, and then I think it might rest with the Second Reading in the hope that the Government will proceed with their proposal, and that a practical scheme will be carried through Parliament. I want to make it quite clear that I am no opponent of the Government's Bill, and that I shall do my best, subject to the criticism which I have made, to help any Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (LORD CLINTON): My Lords, the noble and learned Lord who-has proposed the Second. Reading of this measure speaks with an authority not only derived from his great personal knowledge of the question, but also as representing, I think, the House of Laymen in the Bill that he has brought forward; I believe, also that he has the approval of the house of Convocation. Consequently his views are entitled to the fullest respect and consideration. The whole question of tithe has been the subject of Parliamentary activities for a very long period of years. I think that there have been something like a dozen public Acts passed into law since the great Commutation of Tithes Act in the year 1836, but none of them, apparently, has had in it much of the element of permanency. They have for the moment, at all events—I think I may use the term—broken down in the face of a very sudden emergency.
The matter at this moment, as I think the noble Lord told us, is really urgent on account of the very high prices which are prevailing—high prices that are directly connected with the war. The result is that the averages upon which tithe rent-charge is calculated, if they have not actually at this moment will in the very near future, impose a burden upon the tithe-payer which it will be exceedingly difficult for him to bear. The matter is one of difficulty both to the tithe-owner and to the tithe-payer. The tithe-owner is fully entitled, by his bargain with the State in the Act of 1836, to take advantage of the high prices

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of corn in order that his income may be sufficient to meet the other high expenses which the increase of prices entails upon him. At the same time the tithe-payer finds himself also faced to an equal extent, if not to a greater extent, with the difficulties arising from increased expenses. He finds in a great majority of cases that he will get no advantage from the high prices, while at the same time he has to meet this very largely increased claim for tithe. However legal and however justifiable it is for the Church—the tithe-owner—to receive the fullest tithe to which it is entitled on account of the increase in prices, I do not think that it could be anything but disadvantageous to the Church if it got into a position through the exercise of an undoubted legal power—the exercise of it perfectly justly—in which it claimed from so many parishioners a tithe out of due proportion to the lower income of those parishioners.
It would no doubt be an advantage to all the parties concerned if a settlement could be found fair to both sides. The measure of the noble Lord is based mainly, though not entirely, upon the principle of redemption. It is probably the best, if not the only possible, solution of a great difficulty; but the noble Lord himself recognises that, while we may be in agreement on the principle of redemption, yet there are a great many methods by which it might be carried out. The noble Lord went on to explain his method. It is a redemption on the flat rate of twenty years purchase of the gross value of tithe at par. Lord Parmoor has shown the difficulty which calculating on the gross value may lead us into; that is to say, it ignores altogether the incidence of the deduction of rates from the tithe-owner's income. That rate varies very much in different parishes. The reduction is also increased, perhaps, by a varying cost of collection, and although it may have been possible when we were carrying through tithes of small amounts occasionally to ignore these differences between the net and the gross value of tithe, yet I think that when we are dealing with a matter which I hope will spread itself over all the parishes of the kingdom, it would not be proper to leave out of account such an important feature as the difference between these. I do not want to go into the subject of the future incidence of rates, because I think that would require alterations of the Rating Act; but it must not be lost sight of that there are difficulties
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in connection with the future of rates which will arise directly out of the redemption of tithe.
I do not want to follow any of the noble Lord's criticisms of the Government's Bill. I think it will be more proper to do so when that measure is before us. But because that measure is already before Parliament,—it is actually at this moment under consideration in another place—I am going to suggest to the noble and learned Lord that probably the better course for him is not to proceed with the Second Reading now, but to adjourn the debate until the House is in full possession of the Government's proposals. In anything I have said I do not want it to be understood that I am in any sense hostile to the measure of the noble and learned Lord. I recognise its value, but I also recognise—both of us recognise—that there are different methods of carrying out the same thing; and because the method of the noble and learned Lord is not the method which the Government has adopted, I claim that we should leave this matter in suspense until the whole proposals of the Government are before your Lordships' House.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I think that neither the noble and learned lord who introduced this Bill, nor the noble Lord who has spoken on behalf of the Government, will regard it as disrespectful to the discussion or to themselves if I, who necessarily will have something to say about this subject when the proper time comes, postpone my observations until such time as the Government's Bill is before this House. The noble and learned Lord has helped us considerably by the speech which he has made. He has put many of the points before us with great and characteristic lucidity, and his speech can do nothing but good. Nor can it prejudice the ultimate issue that we should have his Bill before us as setting forth his view of the situation. At the same time there are points, both in his Bill and in the Government's Bill, upon which questions may easily arise, and I do not want at present to weigh the one against the other, or to speak about them in detail. The difficulties are considerable. That relating to rates has been referred to to-night, but there are others besides.
I am anxious that in the discussions which must take place in both Houses this

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subject should not be spoken of as if it were entirely a clerical matter. There are lay as well as clerical tithe-owners, and it must not be supposed that any advantage (if there be advantage, which if doubt) which is to be gained by the tithe-owner would be entirely for the benefit of the Church; or, on the other hand, if sacrifices would have to be made by the tithe-owner, that those sacrifices would be made solely by the Church. That point has to be remembered. The policy of redemption is obviously at the base of both Bills, and personally, and as far as I know every one who has thoughtfully considered this subject, believe that it is the real secret of a satisfactory solution of this question that redemption should be encouraged to the very utmost of our power. Redemption, on whatever may be decided ultimately to be reasonable grounds, would be of advantage to both parties to the controversy, and would avoid a great many difficulties which at present exit. Therefore both Bills are founded on the principle flat redemption ought to be permitted, and I believe that to be in every sense sound.
There is a point—a rather fundamental point—which, if it has not already come before us in the Government's Bill by the time that measure reaches this House, or when either Bill is before this House in Committee, I shall be prepared to speak about—I mean some change in the arrangements by which at present tithe is calculated at an average of seven years. I believe we should in every sense act better, in the interests both of the tithe-owner and the tithe-payer, if the tithe were calculated at a longer period of years, and if fifteen years, rather than seven years, were the basis on which calculation took place. I shall be prepared to show that after the war—or, rather, after the period when temporary arrangements cease—that would be a more satisfactory basis to work upon than the seven years principle. I merely wanted to mention it now as a matter which bears very pointedly upon the whole question, and which will have to be debated when the right moment comes.
In the meantime I would thank the noble and learned Lord for his continued interest in this, as in any other matter which concerns the well-being of the Church. Nothing could have been more reasonable, I think, than the way in which he has expressed himself to-night as ready to wait for any
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decision upon the subject and for the appearance in this House of the Bill which, at this very hour, I believe, is under discussion in the other House of Parliament.
LORD PARMOOR: I understand that the noble Lord who represents the Board of Agriculture desires to move the adjournment of the debate.
LORD CLINTON: I suggested to the noble and learned Lord that he should withdraw his Bill until the other Bill came before us.
LORD PARMOOR: I am entirely willing to meet the views of the noble Lord. My only desire is that we should get a good Bill. If he thinks that that would be a more convenient plan, I will move that the debate be adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM had the following Questions on the Paper—
To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India—

1. Whether the terms of reference to, and the full composition of, the two Committees proceeding to India will be made public.

2. Whether Mrs. Besant's statement that she was permitted to see and discuss an early draft of the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State is correct; and, if so, to what other persons similar privileges were accorded.

3. At what date the Report of the Rowlatt Committee was printed, and when it will be made available for the information of Parliament and the public.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very glad that the Secretary of State has anticipated my first Question by publishing this morning the composition and the powers of the two Committees which are about to proceed to India. In these circumstances I should not be in order in putting my first Question. I will only say that I propose on some future occasion to

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draw attention to these matters, and also to the very strong protests which I have received from non-Brahmins in many parts of India, both as regards the composition of the Committee and as regards the decision of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State to reject communal representation, which I believe to be the only method by which the great mass of the people can ever obtain any real representation or real protection. It is quite clear from my correspondence that a feeling of resentment and alarm has been created among large classes of the most important and most loyal elements in the population of India.
As regards my second Question, I need say only a few words. In a signed article the other day in her most mischievous paper New India, Mrs. Besant writes this—
"It is with the profoundest regret that I find myself unable to change the view I formed on an earlier draft—"
that is, a draft of the Report—
"on which I had the honour, as had many others of taking part in some discussions many months ago."
I trust that this statement is not correct, because it seems peculiarly undesirable that Mrs. Besant, in view of her past record, should have been selected for special privileges in the matter of private negotiations such as site appears to indicate. If true, it must create an impression that efforts were made to placate extremists, unless my noble friend is able to tell us that the same privileges were accorded to leaders of the Moderate Party.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD ISLINGTON): My Lords, my noble friend has told your Lordships that there is now no necessity for putting the first Question that he had placed upon the Paper. That, as your Lordships are aware, is owing to the announcement in to-day's Press both on the constitution of the two Committees that are now proceeding, and are well on their way, to India, and the References upon which those Committees are to work. Before I pass from that subject I would like to allude to one remark made by my noble friend in regard to the method of the electorate. I am sure that if he will read the Reference as it now stands upon which the Franchise Committee has been instructed to work, he will find that the widest and most comprehensive scope is left for them in
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their deliberations, in their discussions, and in their final decisions, as regards the methods by which a representative assembly may be procured for the Legislative Councils in India.
In regard to the second Question which my noble friend has asked, I am requested by the Secretary of State to say that he did not afford Mrs. Besant the opportunity of seeing a draft Report of the proceedings of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, as is suggested in the Question. Neither am I able to see in the material that I have had an opportunity of perusing—namely, the article in New India to which my noble friend refers—nor have I been able to detect that a statement was made by Mrs. Besant herself, that she saw a draft Report. What she said in New India on July 8 was this—
"It is with the profoundest regret that I find myself unable to change the view I formed on an earlier draft, on which I had the honour, as had many others, of taking part in some discussions months ago."
I have not had an opportunity of a close and intimate conversation with the Secretary of State in regard to the exact proceedings that took place, because unfortunately the Secretary of State has been indisposed during the past week, and has been away from London. But I should like to point this out to my noble friend and to the House—I am sure I am correct from all I have been able to gather in regard to the proceedings—that, in the first place, the Secretary of State and the Viceroy visited the various Provinces in India together. The Commission went out to India on the direct instructions of the War Cabinet to obtain informally and confidentially as much information as they could front all possible sources as to the proposals that might be made which should give effect to the announcement of August 20 last year. There is no doubt that the Secretary of State and the Viceroy took every opportunity to interview informally and confidentially all classes of the community in India. They saw scores of people representing those different interests; and doubtless in the course of those interviews they submitted proposals which would give effect to the announcement of August 20 with a view to eliciting from those with whom they were having discussion their views on that subject. That, as I understand, is entirely the extent to which Mrs. Besant had access to any proposals in regard to what is now embodied in the main Report of the Secretary of State and the

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Viceroy; and that discussion, and that throwing out of suggestion followed by discussion, which took place between the Secretary of State, the Viceroy, and Mrs. Besant, also took place with scores of other people representing other interests in India.
One other point—to which the noble Lord did not allude in his speech, but on which he asks for information in his written Questions—namely, "At what date the Report of the Rowlatt Committee was printed, and when it will be made available for the information of Parliament and the public."
LORD SYDENHAM: Might I point out to the noble Lord that I have not yet put that Question? I wish to make a few remarks upon it later.
LORD ISLINGTON: Then, my Lords, that is all I have to say with regard to the Hither Question put by my noble friend; and I hope it will satisfy him that the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, in their innumerable interviews with various people throughout India, offered to Mrs. Besant no privileged position beyond that which they offered to other representatives of time community.
LORD SYDENHAM: From what my noble friend has said I hope I may take it; that Mrs. Besant's statement that she saw an early draft of this Report is incorrect?
LORD ISLINGTON: Yes. As I said just now, no written statement has come before me which indicates that Mrs. Besant said that she saw a Report. All that I saw was what I read out just now—
"I had the honour, as had many others, of taking some part in some discussion months ago."
LORD SYDENHAM: "On an earlier draft."
LORD ISLINGTON: Yes.
LORD SYDENHAM: Those were her words.
LORD ISLINGTON: But she does not say that she saw it. I allude to that merely because I have not seen any statement on the part of Mrs. Besant that she actually
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saw it; and I am authorised categorically to deny, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that he showed Mrs. Besant a draft of the Report.
LORD SYDENHAM: I am very glad to hear that the statement of Mrs. Besant, which is explicit in a signed article in her own paper, is not correct; and I understand from what my noble friend has said that. Mrs. Besant received no special privileges in regard to the Report, but was treated merely in the same way, naturally, as all other people were treated by the Viceroy and the Secretary of State.
With regard to my third Question, I wish to point out that the Rowlatt Report is a State Paper of extreme importance which everybody ought to read in connection with the Report of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State—everybody, that is to say, who really wishes to arrive at an accurate estimate of the present condition of affairs in India. Every one who has been in India in recent years must have known perfectly well that there was a far-reaching revolutionary movement designed to destroy our rule in India; that it was started with funds from unknown sources, and was under some secret control. Many of us have narrowly escaped assassination, and it is probably true that I am here to-day only because a bomb, which was being made by some students, was not ready for the occasion for which it was being thoughtfully prepared.
When war broke out, and possibly before, though I am not sure of that, the Germans took an active part, very naturally, in this revolutionary movement, and the story told by the Rowlatt Committee is really one of the most amazing criminal complexity. The conspiracy had ramifications which stretched all over the world. Tremendous attempts were made to import arms into India, and a very serious plot in the Punjab was discovered happily just in time. If it had not been—and I think it was discovered largely thanks to the help of loyal Indians in the Punjab—and if it had not been effectively handled by Sir Michael O'Dwyer, some of the scenes of the Great Mutiny would have been repeated. The machinery for corrupting young schoolboys, University students, and native regiments was singularly elaborate and complete. How far it has been successful, of course, we can never know.

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Through the pages of the Rowlatt Report flit the names of several prominent Indian politicians whose speeches and writings undoubtedly gave encouragement to or helped to condone murder and outrage. The revelations which have been made in this Report have been derided by a section of the Indian Press as merely the inventions of the Police, and a great deal of sympathy has been shown, espcially in Bengal, for the interned conspirators. All this is strikingly similar to what has occurred in Ireland. Surely it is essential that Parliament and the public should not be left dependent upon extracts from Indian newspapers for the findings of the Rowlatt Committee. I understand that the Report was received by the Government of India in April, and was not published until July. The Secretary of State said in another place that simultaneous publication would have delayed publication in India. I do not quite understand this point, but I have no doubt my noble friend will be able to explain it. There does, however, seem to have been some reluctance in publishing these revelations here and in India, and as by this time ample space has elapsed I hope my noble friend will say that this grave State Paper will be made available without any further delay.
LORD ISLINGTON: I am sure my noble friend will exonerate me from any discourtesy if I do not attempt, this afternoon, to follow him into any of the questions which have arisen in the Rowlatt Report. Ample opportunity will be given, I hope at no distant date, for the fullest discussion in regard to what I agree with him is a must important State document. I may say that the Rowlatt Report was presented to the Government of India, and was issued in India on July 19 last, and instructions were given by the Secretary of State at that time to send 2,000 copies as quickly as possible to this country. Unfortunately, owing to a misunderstanding that arose in the offices in India, the copies of the Report intended for issue in this country have only been despatched quite recently—namely, on October 9—and I am afraid that the ship upon which they have been despatched will not reach this country for some considerable time. The Secretary of State, therefore, realising the importance of the Report and the public interest that is naturally aroused in this country by it, and that it has already been published for some months in India, has given instruc-
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tions for the Report to be reprinted in this country, and has also asked that every possible step may be taken to speed up its printing. It is hoped that it may be laid before Parliament in the course of a fort-night, or at the latest three weeks.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, my noble friend will no doubt be gratified to know that the Report is to be laid, but I think it is a matter of considerable regret that the Secretary of State did not realise the vital importance of this document a little earlier. It is common knowledge, for it was announced before the close of the last sittings, that there would probably be an important debate in this House on the Secretary of State's Report immediately upon the re-assembling of Parliament. No doubt that debate will take place in the course of a few days; and with the knowledge before them I think it is a matter of regret that the Government did not see the importance of this essential document being in the possession of noble Lords before that discussion took place. As I understand, owing to the regrettable occurrences to which the noble Lord has just referred, it will take three weeks more before copies of the Report will be available, and we shall therefore not have it in our hands till after the debate has taken place. That is Unfortunate but I have no doubt that my noble friend, who watches very closely the publications in India, will be able to confide to your Lordships the sum and substance of the Report when the matter comes to be discussed. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this document w hen we come to discuss affairs in India.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I may, perhaps, be allowed to say that, like the noble Lord opposite, I think that any attempt to discuss the contents of the Report, the extreme gravity of which it is hardly possible to exaggerate, ought to be postponed until we are in a fuller position to do so. I merely rose to call attention to the very remarkable lapse of duty which seems to have taken place in India in connection with this matter. The noble Lord opposite did not pass over it lightly, but I hope he will be able to tell us that serious notice has been taken of what he described as a misunderstanding, but which I think must be a gross blunder on the part of somebody in not having paid attention to the demand of the Secretary of State for the 2,000 copies of the Report.

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I quite appreciated at the time the argument which the noble Lord used, that if 2,000 copies could be obtained from India, where printing easy and cheap, there was good reason for not going to the expense of reprinting here, where, as we know, both printing and paper are matters
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of serious consideration for the Government. But that fact, I think, only makes the lapse more grave, and I hope the noble Lord will be able to tell us that some definite notice of it has been taken by the India Office.
House adjourned at half-past five o'clock.