Sitting of 30 October 1918

Preamble
The House being met, the CLERK AT THE TABLE informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. SPEAKER from this day's Sitting.
Whereupon Mr. WHITLEY, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table and, after Prayers, took the Chair as DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Standing Order.

NEW WRIT.
For the County of Wilts (Southern or Wilton Division), in the room of Sir Charles Bathurst, K.B.E., now Baron Bledisloe of Lydney, called up to the House of Peers.—[Colonel Sanders.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Gas Light and Coke Company Bill,
As amended, considered.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.

LOCAL TAXATION (SCOTLAND) ACCOUNT.
Copy presented of Return showing payments into and out of the Local Taxation (Scotland) Account for the financial year 1917–18 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
EAST INDIA (SEDITION COMMITTEE, 1918).
Copy presented of Report of Committee appointed to investigate Revolutionary Conspiracies in India, with two Resolutions by the Government of India [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copies presented of Colonial Reports, Nos. 971 (Ceylon, Report for 1917), 972 (Hong-Kong, Report for 1917), 973 (Zanzibar, Report for 1917), and 974 (St. Helena, Report for 1917) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.
    INDIA.

      MILITARY CLERKS (UNATTACHED LIST).
      Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the financial difficulties experienced by the military clerks on the unattached list employed in divisional and brigade offices in India; and whether he will suggest to the Government of India the advisability of the appointment of a Committee to inquire into and remedy the hardships complained of?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): Certain proposals for removing a block in promotion, due to the present embargo on retirement, in the portion of the India Unattached List to which military clerks belong are before me. Otherwise I am not aware that they are under any exceptional hardships. Those whose pay is not at a consolidated rate get the full advantage of the recent increase in the British Army rate of pay, and for those whose pay is at a consolidated rate an increase of pay has recently been sanctioned.

      OFFICERS' FAMILIES (PERMISSION TO TRAVEL).
      Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the hardships inflicted on officers serving in India by the enforced separation from their wives and families; and whether it is possible now to grant permission to the wives detained in England to join their husbands in India?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I fully realise the hardships to officers and their families, but in the present condition of shipping accommodation and the restrictions imposed on

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      journeys of women and children by certain routes passages cannot be obtained for more than a small proportion of wives of officers, military or civil, who desire to join their husbands in India.
      Colonel YATE: Is it not the case that women and children are allowed to go to the Cape, and if they are allowed to go to the Cape, could they not be allowed to go viâ the Cape to India?
      Mr. MONTAGU: As my hon. and gallant Friend knows, the route viâ the Cape is not prohibited, but there is the same difficulty in getting passports owing to shortage of shipping.

      RETIREMENT OF OFFICERS (UNEMPLOYED LIST.)
      Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the decision of the Secretary of State in Council of the 16th October, 1918, permitting officers on the unemployed list of the Indian Army who have reached the ages of fifty-five and fifty-seven and are working under the War Office to be placed on the retired list is of no benefit to those officers unless they carry retrospective effect, he will issue orders that these officers are to be allowed to retire on pension with effect from the dates on which they reached, respectively, the ages of fifty-five and fifty-seven or became entitled to their thirty-eight years' pension?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I do not admit that the officers in question will derive no benefit from the permission now given to them to retire, unless the permission is made retrospective. I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that the Government have an unquestioned right to suspend retirement when and for such time as it thinks fit, and that what may be permitted now might not have been prudent a short time ago. As at present advised I am not disposed to give the Order retrospective effect.

      INDIA OFFICE.
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has appointed a Committee to consider the future organisation of the India Office; and, if so, whether he will communicate the names of the members of such Committee to the House?
      Mr. MONTAGU: As I stated on Monday, I shall make an announcement as soon as possible.

      TOLERATED BROTHELS.
      Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for India whether tolerated brothels for the British Army still continue in India and Burma; and, if so, whether the practice will be summarily stopped?
      Mr. MONTAGU: The law applying to military cantonments in India does not admit of "tolerated brothels." There is no kind of official control or protection over prostitutes as such in any Indian station or cantonment.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: That includes Burma?
      Mr. MONTAGU: That includes Burma.

      REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.
      Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the grant of representative government to India, he will consult with the India Office as to machinery which shall eliminate from our Colonial administration anti-Indian action based on obsolete colour-bar ideas?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): As the alleged action has no existence, there is no occasion for consulting the India Office with regard to it.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does my hon. Friend know that the Indian population of Mombasa have protested against the recent action of the Colonial Office?
      Mr. HEWINS: No; I am not aware of it.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the Indian residents of Mombasa recently sent letters of protest against the action of the Colonial Government?
      Mr. HEWINS: The Colonial Office has no information as to what the hon. Gentleman has stated.

      WAR EXPENDITURE.
      Mr. C. ROBERTSasked the Prime Minister when the Resolution sanctioning the increased contribution of India to the expenditure on the War will be proposed?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): I understand that it would probably not be convenient to take this Resolution, at any rate for a week or two.

    FIGHTING IN TRANSCASPIA.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give the House information regarding the fighting which has taken place in Transcaspia in which Indian forces were engaged?
    Mr. MONTAGU: Accounts of the fighting which has recently taken place in Transcaspia have been communicated to the Press and published on 18th and 25th October. I have nothing to add to these communications at present.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can my right hon. Friend say why we are fighting in Transcaspia?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend will expect an answer to such a question now.

  DISABLED SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.

    DOCKYARD INSTRUCTION.
    Mr. HOHLERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will give facilities for teaching trades to disabled sailors and soldiers in the dockyard workshops in cases in which the dockyards are a convenient centre for these men?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): At some dockyards arrangements have been made for the definite training of disabled sailors and soldiers in particular classes of work; and it is being considered whether arrangements of this kind can be more extensively applied, in conjunction with the schemes of the trade advisory committee.
    At all dockyards opportunities are afforded, as far as possible, for disabled men entered as labourers to qualify for the rating of skilled labourer.
    As a matter of interest, I may say that since the beginning of the War over
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    4,000 men who have been discharged from the military forces have been entered in His Majesty's dockyards, and have been directly placed on remunerative work.
    Mr. HOHLER: When will the official consideration and decision be given to the point of my question, the training of disabled sailors and soldiers in the yards, not the question of how many you employ, important as it is?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My answer covered more than the numbers employed. Certainly I will make that representation to the trade advisory committee.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in connection with any scheme of this kind, consult the workpeople?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot imagine that this is done except with their consent.
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the convenience of this centre for the training of these men, and will he take advantage of it?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That is a matter, however it may be, for the trade advisory committee.

    ANTI-TORPEDO DEVICE.
    Mr. WRIGHTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the device and model claimed by Mr. D. Marshall, of Cheltenham, to render a vessel secure against submarine attack by torpedo and to the offer of that gentleman to construct and fit to any appointed vessel the device for testing with uncharged and live torpedoes; and if he has taken any action?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Mr. Marshall was interviewed at the Admiralty on 24th June last, when the device was inspected. After full investigation by the Admiralty Departments concerned, the device was not considered to hold out any promise of practical development into an efficient torpedo defence for seagoing ships. In these circumstances Mr. Marshall was thanked, and informed that it was not proposed to proceed further with his device.

    FISHING VESSELS (POST-WAR SALE).
    Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, on the termination of the War, patrol and other boats which may be suitable for fishing purposes will be sold; if, when disposing of such vessels, he will give preference to those fishermen who have served in His Majesty's forces during the War; and whether he will arrange to grant special facilities, such as easy terms of payment, so that fishermen who have been absent on active service may resume their calling under the best possible conditions?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As far as can be foreseen at present, there will be a number of fishing craft available at various dates after the termination of the War. The arrangements for their disposal have not yet been drawn up, but any applications from men who have served in the Navy during the War will be given every consideration when the time comes.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that fishermen who have been working at home have accumulated large sums, and are therefore in a better position to pay than those in His Majesty's forces, and will he give easy terms to the latter?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have no doubt that is quite true, and that is a matter that I have no doubt those who have to give consideration will take into account.
    Colonel ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will my right hon. Friend see that Scottish fishermen get their fair share?

  MERCANTILE MARINE.

    SHIPYARD LABOUR.
    Mr. RUNCIMANasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he and the Controller-General of Merchant Shipbuilding expect to obtain the extra 75,000 men declared by the latter to be required for the existing shipyards and their extensions; whether the 20,000 skilled men from the Army promised by the Government have yet been given for shipbuilding work, if not, why not; and whether the Government have decided that shipbuilding is not now of the first importance, and that building 3,000,000 tons per annum is not essential to the maintenance of our national strength?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I endeavoured to explain last Wednesday to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Molton that it will not be possible for some months to absorb the whole of the men necessary. As regards the earlier part of the supply, as I then explained, we have that in hand. As regards the extra men who will undoubtedly be necessary for the latter part of the supply, I presume, so far as skilled men are concerned, the only available source, broadly, is the Army, and here the military situation is the governing factor.
    As regards immediate and ultimate supplies of unskilled men, we hope it may continue to be possible to secure a number of recruits through the agency of the Ministry of National Service. The number of men released from the Colours for work in the shipyards, up to date, is 15,370, and in view of the urgent call for man-power in the Army, it has not been found possible to release men in excess of this number. We certainly have not decided that shipbuilding is not now of the first importance. Neither have we decided that the building of 3,000,000 tons per annum is no longer essential to the maintenance of our national strength. And my right hon. Friend may be fully assured that Lord Pirrie, who has direct access to the War Cabinet, will not lose any opportunity, as necessity arises, of pressing the claims of merchant shipbuilding, and the labour and material in connection with it, before that body.
    Mr. HOLT: May we have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that in the event of the military situation during the next few days becoming more favourable the whole of these men—skilled men—will be at once sent back to the shipyards?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot give that assurance. I should have to consult the Controller-General of the Merchant Shipping Department. Every effort is made to get the maximum output from the facilities for shipbuilding that we have and shall have in this country.

    SHIPBUILDING (HOUSING SCHEMES).
    Mr. RUNCIMANasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the housing schemes for a shipyard and marine engine works employés are to be proceeded with; if not, what alternative means are to be adopted to house the extra 75,000 men declared by the Controller-General of Merchant Shipbuilding to be necessary for

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    the existing yards and their extensions; and whether, in view of the urgency of accommodation being found for these men as they come forward without subjecting them to any hardship or delay, he can announce that the housing and hostel schemes for this purpose will be pressed on immediately?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Controller-General of Merchant Shipbuilding has worked out a number of schemes designed to meet the additions to labour in the shipyards as they arise. The materialisation of these schemes depends upon the extent to which it is possible to give priority in labour and material to them.
    Lord Pirrie is at the moment out of London; and, as I should be glad to discuss this question of claims for priority with him personally before finally answering this question, I shall be greatly obliged if my right hon. Friend will postpone it.
    Mr. HOLT: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is that, although shipbuilding is admittedly one of the most important things, that it does not get first priority?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Lord Pirrie has charge of the scheme, and I want to consult him. I have not had an opportunity of inquiring how he is going on with the scheme.

    SHIP REPAIRS (UNITED KINGDOM).
    Mr. HOUSTONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the total number of British and foreign merchant vessels which are now under repair, or awaiting repair, in the United Kingdom, and their aggregate tonnage?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The number and tonnage of British and foreign merchant ships under repair in the United Kingdom, either in dry dock or afloat, at the 17th October, were as follows:—

    Nos.

    Tons.

    British

    264

    979,161

    Allied

    31

    92,713

    Neutral

    44

    77,955

    339

    1,149,829

    With the exception of one important vessel, the repairs to which could not, until
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    lately, be sanctioned, there are no vessels reported as awaiting repairs at the moment, although occasional short delays owing to local conditions are, of course, unavoidable in ship-repair work.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday at Liverpool there were 140 steamers which required repairs in the dry dock list, and in view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, will he see that our Allies are informed of our limitations of shipping?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have given the facts to the 17th of October, but I will take note of what my hon. Friend has told me.

  OCEAN TRAFFIC.

    BRITISH WOMEN (PERMITS).
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the cessation of U-boat attacks on our commerce, he will take steps to permit British women once more to cross the ocean to join their husbands or to get married, or to take up work of national importance?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The existing restrictions will be reviewed as soon as there is a certainty that merchant vessels are safe from attack by the enemy.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much longer the Admiralty is going to continue this grandmotherly interference with the rights of the people?
    Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the priority of more ladies who have been waiting a long time in our Colonies to come home, and also see that when sufficient facilities are available there should be no delay as to who should come first?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There are lists of applicants which are already being considered.
    Brigadier-General McCALMONT: Has the right hon. Gentleman any reason to believe that the attacks on U-boats have ceased?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I must refer the hon. Member to the statement made by the Leader of the House.

  CRYSTAL PALACE.

    DEATHS IN NAVAL DIVISION.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked how many deaths have occurred during the past six months at the Crystal Palace and what diseases have been diagnosed as the causes of these deaths, giving the numbers attributed, respectively, to each disease?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There have been 120 deaths among men at the Crystal Palace during the last six months—117 from pneumonia following influenza, one from cerebrospinal meningitis, one from cerebral abscess, and one from Addison's disease. The average number of men stationed at the Crystal Palace is roughly about 5,600. During the course of six months, the number of men passing through the Crystal Palace would be much greater than that. As my hon. Friend will observe, the main, practically indeed the only, mortality during that period has been from an epidemic of influenza which affected, I regret to say, over 1,000 men.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if his attention has been called to the number of deaths occurring at the Crystal Palace from pneumonia following inoculation; and whether he will have an inquiry made by persons other than officials into these deaths and into the suitability of the Palace for its present purpose?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I gave the mortality figures in answer to the previous question. Of the 117 men who unhappily died from pneumonia following influenza, none were inoculated against influenza or pneumonia. Prior to the outbreak of influenza at the Crystal Palace, the average daily sick rate had been slightly less than 3 per cent.
    Though the building was not originally intended as a living place it has been satisfactorily modified subsequently to its being taken over at the beginning of the War, and the health reports prior to the present outbreak of influenza do not point to any serious objection to its continuing to be used for the purpose for which it was acquired. A very recent sanitary inspection of the building has been made as a result of which certain minor defects in ventilation are being remedied.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: I understand none was inoculated against influenza or pneumonia. Have any of them been inoculated at all?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not know what the hon. Member means. None has been inoculated against influenza or pneumonia. If the hon. Member wants to know whether some time or the other some have been inoculated against small-pox, perhaps he will put that on the Paper.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: I do not want to know that. I want to know whether any of them have escaped inoculation against typhoid fever?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put the question down more definitely.
    Sir F. HALL: Is it not a fact that the percentage of deaths has not been larger than the percentage in all other large buildings where troops are housed?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say.
    Sir F. HALL: Has not a report been received to that effect?
    Colonel LOWTHER: Is inoculation against influenza considered official by the medical fraternity?

  SUBMARINE WARFARE.

    SINKING OF STEAMSHIP "LEINSTER."
    Mr. MacVEAGHasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will state the speed of the "Leinster" and the speed of the average destroyer in fair weather and in rough weather, respectively; whether he will also state if the steamers plying between Larne and Stranraer have been protected by the Admiralty; and, if so, why protection was refused to the City of Dublin steamers?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It would be difficult to give precise comparative statements as suggested by my hon. Friend. "Lloyd's Register" gives the speed of the "Leinster" as 23½ knots. This speed represents the maximum effort under the very best conditions—that is, steaming trial conditions. Generally speaking, at least a knot and a half may be deducted for the speed which the vessel would average during the passage in fine weather, but, of course, under stress of weather, the speed would be further reduced. Though I cannot give the precise comparison, I can assure my hon. Friend that heavy weather would affect far more seriously the speed of the average

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    destroyer than a vessel of the class of the "Leinster." In regard to the second part of the question, all mercantile traffic, including the Dublin-Holyhead service, has been given protection by the antisubmarine measures in force.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question whether the steamers plying between Larne and Stranraer have been specially protected by the Admiralty.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes; if the hon. Member will consider he will see that there are very vital interests by that route.
    Mr. JOYCE: Is it not a fact that the mail steamers from Kingstown to Holy-head have been convoyed by destroyers many months ago in heavy weather, and that these destroyers—they were American destroyers—last January were able to work in half circles round about the bow of the mail steamer, and had a great deal more speed than the mail steamer itself? I know that of my own knowledge.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That may be so. Needless to say, we are all glad to see my hon. Friend here.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the inquest in Dublin the managing director of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, the owners of the "Leinster," gave evidence that the maximum speed was 21 knots, and that that evidence was suppressed by the Censor?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I gave the figures from "Lloyd's Register," and I explained what that means.
    Sir SHIRLEY BENN: Is it not a fact that the steamers plying between Larne and Stranraar were not protected except in extremely fine weather?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There are some ports to which it is necessary to devote more attention than other ports. It is purely a naval consideration. I shall be glad to tell the hon. Member why.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: What is the speed of a destroyer?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is a debating point.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: It is not a debating point. It arises out of part of the question which he has not answered. What is the average speed of a destroyer?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As I said at the outset, it is difficult to say what is the average speed of a destroyer.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: What is the average speed of a destroyer? He has given the average speed of a steamer and not of a destroyer.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: He has said it is practically impossible.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: It is not. Everybody knows but the Admiralty.
    Mr. HOUSTONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that he was misinformed by his technical advisers as to the speed of the mail steamer "Leinster" and as to the time she was torpedoed and sent out her S.O.S. call; and whether her S.O.S. call was so faint, owing to the explosion, that it did not reach Kingstown, but was picked up by the ss. "Ulster," at that time about three miles distant, at 9.50 a.m., and immediately transmitted to Kingstown?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards the speed of the "Leinster," there is no question of misinformation by technical advisers. I gave the Lloyd's figure in reply to my hon. Friend on 15th October, and gave it correctly. As regards the moment of the torpedo attack, the Senior Naval Officer, Kingstown, received 9.25 a.m. as the time from a survivor, and reported the same to us. It appears that this was inaccurate. Further reports go to show that the first torpedo struck the "Leinster" at 9.30 a.m. A corrupt message was received between 9.40 and 9.44 by Wireless Kingstown and the complete message was received at Kingstown at 9.50, both these messages being made by the "Ulster." It appears very doubtful if the S.O.S. signal, which the "Leinster" apparently attempted to transmit, was ever received coherently by any vessel, the presumption being that the "Leinster's" wireless was put out of action by the torpedo attack. As was stated above, the "Ulster" transmitted the message between 9.40 and 9.44 and again at 9.50. It was not till the last-named time that the message could be understood.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the speed given in Lloyd's book is simply the trial trip speed, and that the actual speed is, I think, 21 knots?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have explained what is meant in my reply to the hon. Member for South Down.
    Mr. JOYCE: Is it not a fact that not alone did the "Ulster" receive a wireless call, a weak call, from the "Leinster" that morning, but that a number of people on board the "Ulster" saw the actual explosion of the first torpedo that struck the "Leinster," and were it not for the fact that there was a heavy storm of wind and rain sweeping over the sea they would have seen the explosion of the second torpedo, and the end of the terrible catastrophe?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That may very well be, but I have not heard that before.
    Mr. LOUGH: Is there any reason why the "Ulster" did not go to the assistance of the "Leinster" when it was being torpedoed?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That does not arise.
    Mr. JOYCE: Go to sea, and learn something.
    Mr. HOUSTONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he has now made arrangements for the ss. "Ulster" to be escorted; and is he aware that on Thursday last the ss. "Ulster" was accompanied by destroyers which had no difficulty in keeping up with her?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As stated in answers to previous questions, escorts are provided when conditions permit, one of the conditions being the state of the sea. On the date in question, weather and other conditions enabled escort to be given.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a torpedo was fired at the "Ulster" last week from an enemy submarine?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that.
    Mr. HOUSTON: It is a fact.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I will make inquiry.
    Mr. HOUSTONasked the Prime Minister whether he will arrange for an independent tribunal, consisting of at least one judge of His Majesty's High Court and several independent members, to investigate the circumstances in connection with the loss of the mail steamer "Leinster"?
    Sir G. CAVE: The Government are not prepared to go beyond the steps indicated in reply to previous questions, and are not, therefore, prepared to adopt the suggestion contained in the question.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that because of what transpired at the inquest in Dublin and other matters in connection with the sinking of the "Leinster" the public will not be satisfied with a Departmental inquiry, and that there is a strong demand by the public for an independent tribunal?
    Sir G. CAVE: I do not know about that, but I have given a full answer to the question.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Leader of the House that there was a direct conflict of testimony between witnesses at the inquest and statements made on behalf of the Admiralty, and call his attention to the fact that the reports of the inquest have been suppressed and censored by the public Censor; and having regard to those facts will he consider the advisability of having a searching and independent public investigation into the whole matter?
    Sir G. CAVE: My answer, I think, covers all that.
    Mr. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is commonly believed that it was known that a submarine was in the vicinity for two or three days before the "Leinster" was sunk, and why was no protection given to the mail boat which had a large number of military as well as civilians on board?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that question.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    RETIRED AND EMERGENCY NAVAL OFFICERS (BONUS).
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the 25 per cent. bonus on the full pay earned by retired officers and Emergency List officers is a definite grant in lieu of pension which is suspended and cannot be increased by time served during the War and a definite grant on re-employment in time of war?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The 25 per cent. bonus referred to, plus full pay, is paid to retired officers and officers on the Emergency List re-employed. So far as the retired officers are concerned, it is a payment in lieu of counting service for further pension during re-employment.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) whether he is aware that retired and emergency officers employed in departments outside the Admiralty—namely, transport officers, port convoy officers, shipping intelligence officers, officers in charge of D.A.M.S., and commodores of convoys—are receiving consolidated pay plus the 25 per cent. bonus; if he can see his way to give similar treatment to retired and emergency officers employed in departments inside the Admiralty, and to make the rectification retrospective; (2) whether he can say, in view of the provisions of the Orders in Council regarding the employment of retired officers in time of war, dated 8th March, 1895, and 12th November, 1900, 16th May, 1904, 5th March, 1910, 5th July, 1911, 3rd February, 1915, and 15th February, 1916, and in view of the provisions of the Orders in Council regarding the employment of emergency officers in time of war, dated 13th May, 1901, and 11th February, 1913, why retired and emergency officers employed at the Admiralty are debarred from receiving the consolidated rate of pay of their rank and in addition the 25 per cent. bonus on their full pay, less allowances, as provided for by these Orders in Council?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards retired and emergency officers recalled to employment at the Admiralty, they receive pay and allowances plus bonus, or consolidated pay where the same is more to their advantage. As regards retired and emergency officers specified in question No. 17, they get consolidated pay plus 25 per cent. bonus. This was decided upon after careful consideration.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that men now employed in provincial towns are getting the consolidated rate of pay, plus the bonus, and not in London, where it costs a great deal more to live than in provincial towns.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The hon. Member is right in the points of Question 17. The officers therein specified are getting consolidated pay plus bonus. Those who are
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    recalled for service at the Admiralty receive pay and allowances, plus bonus, or consolidated pay. The matter was decided after very careful consideration, and I cannot carry the matter beyond that.

    MEDAL RECIPIENTS (GRATUITIES).
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether there is any reason why a gratuity or an addition of 6d. a day to pension should be given to recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, and Military Cross while the same is denied to recipients of the Military Medal; and whether he will in consequence consider the desirability of giving a bonus to those military medalists who have won a bar to their medal for a second act of bravery in this War?
    Mr. FORSTER: The Military Medal was instituted with a view to providing a form of decoration in recognition of bravery in the field which did not reach the standard of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and so did not call for the addition of the gratuity and extra pension which the latter carries.
    Sir H. GREENWOODasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, in view of the fact that 6d. a day is added to the pension of a recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Medal who is discharged to pension, he will consider the grant of a like sum for life to distinguished conduct medalists who are not discharged to pension in lieu of the gratuity of £20 which is awarded them instead?
    Mr. FORSTER: This matter has been carefully examined, and it is considered undesirable to multiply small pensions of 6d. a day where there is no other pension to which they would form an addition.

    KIT RENEWAL.
    Colonel Sir H. GREENWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the difficulties which officers living on their pay experience in replacing articles of kit when they become worn out after many months on active service, he will consider the possibility of giving an additional outfit allowance of £15 per annum to all officers who have served three years and over during the present War?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): Renewal of kit was one of the necessary expenses taken into account when the present scale of pay for officers was fixed by the War Cabinet.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the still further increase in the price of kits since the last arrangements were made?
    Mr. FORSTER: Arrangements have been made by which articles of uniform and so forth can be purchased at fixed maximum prices.

    ROYAL NAVY.

      ENGINEER OFFICERS (PAY).
      Major Sir B. FALLEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is now in a position to make a statement as regards the kept-on engineer officers of the Royal Navy and their pay?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I can only repeat that this question is still under consideration.

      COAST WATCHERS.
      Colonel McCALMONTasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the approximate percentage of the civilian coast watchers employed under the Admiralty who have never served in the Navy or Army or in the Mercantile Marine during the present War; and whether he will consider the advisability of replacing them by discharged men of all Services who are fitted for work of this nature?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not possible in the time to complete the inquiries which are necessary in order to furnish a reply to my hon. and gallant Friend's question. If he will repeat his question one day next week, I shall be in a position to answer him.

    GERMAN GOVERNMENT.

      LEGATION, BERNE.
      Mr. HIGHAMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the German Legation at Berne, which in pre-war days consisted of a staff fewer than fifty in number, now exceeds 1,200 persons; if he has any official information
      1448
      showing that this Legation has become the headquarters of the German system of espionage throughout the world; and if he will make representations to the Swiss Government as to whether Swiss consent has been obtained for so great an increase?
      The ASSISTANT-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord R. Cecil): The staff of the German Legation at Berne has been very considerably augmented. I am unaware of the exact numbers of its present staff, but I doubt if they are as high as is suggested. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative, and I am afraid that it would be impossible to comply with the final suggestion.

      CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.
      Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is in a position to explain the constitutional effect of the changes in the system of government in Germany referred to in the reply of the German Government to President Wilson's Note; whether the powers of the Bundesrat as a legislative body and as the supreme administrative board have been in any way modified; whether the Secretaries of State and other heads of executive departments have gained any responsible authority or remain answerable to the Imperial Chancellor alone and liable to be dismissed by him at will; and whether the expression War Cabinet now appearing in reports of German political movements implies the existence of an executive Government with collective responsibility to the Legislature, similar in constitutional status to that assigned by modern usage to the Cabinet in the United Kingdom, France, and Italy?
      Lord R. CECIL: I fear that I could not within the limits of a reply to a question explain the constitutional effect of the changes now being made in the Government of Germany. As far as I know, there is no evidence that the powers of the Bundesrat have been in any way modified. With regard to the third part of the question, it does not appear that there is any proposal to alter the position of Secretaries of State in Germany. They remain, as I understand, subordinate to the Imperial Chancellor, and are appointed by the Emperor on his recommendation. They are also, I suppose, liable to be dismissed by the Emperor, who will presumably

      1449
      exercise this power on the recommendation of the Imperial Chancellor, although this does not seem to be specifically provided for. The last part of the question is, therefore, presumably in the negative.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Will representations be made to the German Government that the powers of the Bundesrat should be regulated under the terms of the Parliament Act?

      ROUMANIA (BRITISH SUBJECTS' PROPERTY).
      Sir F. HALLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a considerable quantity of property owned by British subjects in Roumania was destroyed on the direct instructions of British officers; whether, in consequence, some of the owners thereof have been reduced from affluent circumstances to the verge of poverty; and whether, considering that the loss of such commerce must eventually be made good, the Government will now make reparation to the owners of the property, either in payment in full or by a payment on account, instead of waiting until after the cessation of hostilities?
      Lord R. CECIL: I presume that this question refers to the destruction of oil property in Roumania at the end of 1916 for the purpose of preventing its being utilised by the enemy for military purposes. This destruction was effected by the direction of the Roumanian Government, and was carried out under the supervision of Roumanian, French, and British officers. Any claim for compensation must therefore be, in the first place, one against the Roumanian Government, and no question of any payment being made by His Majesty's Government can be considered until the matter has been adjusted in consultation with the Roumanian and the other Governments concerned. I would point out that even if the destruction had not taken place the British owners could have received no income from their properties so long as these remained in the hands of the enemy.
      Sir F. HALL: As the property to which I refer was destroyed on the express instructions of His Majesty's Government, will the matter be reconsidered?
      Lord R. CECIL: I will consider any additional facts which my hon. Friend may
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      bring before me, but I do not think that it is accurate to say that anything was done by British officers except as agents of the Roumanian Government.

    RUSSIA.

      MR. B. CHRYSIN (DEPORTATION).
      Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a Russian gentleman, Mr. B. Chrysin, deported with Mr. Litvinoff on 26th September, is in London; and whether his return is in connection with any political object favoured by the Foreign Office?
      Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that Mr. B. Chrysin, who was deported from this country on 26th September, is now in London and writing letters from his address in the city; by what means and with whose permission was Mr. Chrysin allowed to return; and what action he proposes to take?
      Sir G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to question No. 29, and I will answer at the same time question No. 141. I regret that, in answering the hon. Member's question on the 17th instant, I was mistaken in saying that Chrysin had left this country. This was the information given me, but it proves to be incorrect. There has been some confusion in the case owing to the illness of the officer concerned, but the matter will be investigated.
      Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman apologise to Mr. Chrysin, who carries on business in the city in the co-operative movement, and can now have it put to him that the Home Secretary has said that he has been deported when he has never been deported; and will the right hon. Gentleman say who is the official who is responsible?
      Sir G. CAVE: I am having the matter investigated.

    CEYLON.
    Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a cablegram has been received from the Ceylon Reform League and the Ceylon National Association informing the Government of the disappointment caused in Ceylon by

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    the announcement of the Government that the time was inopportune for the discussion of reforms in Ceylon; whether there are any and, if so, what reasons why the same consideration should not be given to the demands of the people of Ceylon for responsible government as the Government is now giving to similar demands from the neighbouring people of India; whether any and, if so, what reply has been given to the Reform League and National Association; and whether he will call for and publish a Report of the Governor of Ceylon upon the steps necessary for introducing into Ceylon a measure of responsible government similar to that proposed by the Secretry of State for India?
    Mr. HEWINS: Telegrams have been received from the Ceylon Reform League and National Association. I have asked the Governor to inform these and other bodies in Ceylon who have approached me that I will carefully consider their views, but that I am not prepared to form any definite conclusions until the time is more opportune for examining all the proposals which have been submitted. I have no doubt I shall be furnished with the Governor's views in due course.
    Mr. MORRELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he is likely to have the Governor's Report?
    Mr. HEWINS: I do not know.
    Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons condemned by court-martial for offences during the Ceylon riots of June, 1915, are still in prison?
    Mr. HEWINS: I have no recent Return giving the desired information. The bulk of the prisoners were released in 1916, and the sentences of those remaining have been carefully reviewed.
    Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received a memorial from Ceylon denying that all the cases of illegal shooting alleged to have taken place during the riots have been investigated, and containing sworn affidavits going to show that the eye-witnesses of the shootings and the relatives of the persons shot have never been examined, and that the inquiry was confined to calling for a report from the officers accused of illegal action; and whether, in these circumstances, he will order a full public inquiry into all these cases?
    Mr. HEWINS: I have received no such memorial, and I have nothing to add to the answers previously given on the subject of the proposals for a further inquiry.
    Mr. MORRELL: Are we to understand that the Government entirely declines to clear up this old question?
    Mr. HEWINS: I have said that I have nothing to add.

    AUSTRALIA (BRITISH IMPORTS).
    Mr. HOLTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is now the average Import Duty on British manufactured goods imported into the Commonwealth of Australia; to what extent, if any, these duties have been raised since 1st August, 1914; and whether any other of the self-governing Dominions have similarly increased Import Duties on British manufactures?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. A calculation made by the statistical authorities of the Commonwealth shows that the average incidence of the tariff of 1914 (which came into operation after the outbreak of war) amounted to about 16¾ per cent. ad valorem on imports of all descriptions from the United Kingdom, as compared with about 14¼ per cent. in the case of the previous tariff. There has been a general increase of rates of duty in Canada, and one on important classes of goods in South Africa. In New Zealand and Newfoundland a few articles only have been subjected to higher rates.

    MOMBASA.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state why the segregating of Indians in a special part of Mombasa was not submitted to the India Office before it was carried out; whether he is aware that Indian opinion in the Colony is disturbed by this new departure; whether any further extensions of a colour-bar policy are intended; whether Indians have representation on the Legislative Council of the Colony; and whether he is aware that Indian troops have taken a leading part in defending the Colony from the Germans?
    Mr. HEWINS: The responsibility for the administration of the East Africa Protectorate rests and must remain with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I have had representations from Indian Associations in the Protectorate on the matter referred to, but I can give no pledge that further steps will not be taken if necessitated by the sanitary considerations, which have governed the measures already adopted. I am, of course, fully aware of the part taken by Indian troops in the campaign.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does that mean that the Colonial Office declines to consult the India Office on matters concerning the welfare of our Indian fellow subjects?
    Mr. HEWINS: I have nothing to add to the answer.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows better than the Colonial Office, he need not put the question.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I asked whether the Colonial Office in this matter had consulted the India Office?
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is need for Indian residences in Mombasa; and, if so, whether any land will be sold to Indians as it has been to Europeans?
    Mr. HEWINS: In answer to the first part of the question, I have no information. As regards the second part of the question, I have no doubt that if this is so, and if land is available For the purpose, the answer will be in the affirmatve.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I take it that the Indian population of Mombasa have made representations to the Colonial Office that they want land as well as the white settlers, and that land will be provided for them?
    Mr. HEWINS: I stated the hypothesis in perfectly correct terms, and I think the answer is complete.

    WOUND DISTINCTION.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that men wounded in former wars may now receive the same concessions in respect to military service,
    1454
    and the same rates, of pension as men wounded in the present War, he will also grant them the gold stripe, as given to men who have been wounded since 4th August, 1914?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): The wound distinction was introduced to meet the peculiar circumstances connected with the present War, and it is not proposed to extend the conditions of award so as to include men wounded in previous wars.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what are the peculiar circumstances of this war, and why men wounded in the South African and former wars should not be given the gold stripe as well as the men wounded in this War?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: This War is a very prolonged one, and it was thought at one time in the House that there was a great distinction between the man serving at home and the man who has come home wounded after serving abroad in this War.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Why should not men who have been wounded in former wars have a like distinction?
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Questions should not be made the subject of debate. It precludes the later questions from being asked.
    Colonel ASHLEY: This is my third question.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      THIRTEEN YEARS' SERVICE.
      Colonel ASHLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that, under the Military Service Act of May, 1916, men could claim their discharge if they had thirteen years' service to their credit and had reached the age limit of forty-one under that Act, he will now extend a similar concession to men who have reached the age of fifty-one and have also thirteen years' service to their credit?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I regret that in existing circumstances it is not possible to adopt my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion. The question suggests an amendment to the Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918, and should, therefore, be addressed to the Minister of National Service.

      RECRUITS UNDER NINETEEN.
      Mr. P. A. HARRISasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a draft of lads under nineteen was sent overseas from the Gordon Highlanders early in September and, in spite of the undertaking given by him on 7th August, in the same month were sent into the firing line?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Inquiries are already being made, and I will let my hon. Friend know the result as soon as possible.
      Colonel LOWTHER: Would it not be the greatest hardship to lads of nineteen to peremptorily forbid their entering the firing line, in view of the fact that they have displayed the greatest gallantry during the War?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have already said that I regard the conduct and attitude of these young fellows when perforce they were sent abroad in March last as simply magnificent.

      CONSCRIPTION (IRELAND).
      Sir B. FALLEasked the Prime Minister if he will have the calling up of men of over forty-five suspended until the necessity of conscripting the young men of Ireland shall arise?
      Sir G. CAVE: I regret that I can add nothing to the previous replies on this subject.

      RE-ENLISTMENT (RANK).
      Colonel ASHLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he can now state what decision has been come to with respect to the restoration to their former rank, irrespective of their medical category, of warrant officers and non-commissioned officers recalled to the Colours under the last Military Service Act?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Generally speaking, ex-warrant officers and ex-non-commissioned officers on re-enlistment are given the substantive rank which they held at the time of their discharge from the Army. There are, however, certain exceptions, which are explained fully in the instructions which have been issued on the subject, and of which I am sending copies to my hon. and gallant Friend.

      CLASS W (RESERVE).
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a man transferred to Class W of the Reserve is considered to be a civilian or a soldier?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: A Reservist in Class W cannot strictly speaking be called either a soldier or a civilian, but while permitted to remain in reserve he is not subject to military discipline. He is, however, liable at any time to be recalled to the Colours for service as a soldier.

      ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS.
      Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the fact that women doctors serving in military hospitals discharge similar duties and receive the same pay as men doctors and are entitled to wear the Royal Army Medical Corps badge, he will take steps to rectify the anomaly of their being refused even honorary commissions or to wear badges of rank which would be helpful to them in maintaining discipline; and if he can arrange that they obtain equivalent relief from Income Tax as is granted to men doctors under the Service rate?
      Colonel GODFREY COLLINSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is aware that duly qualified women doctors, attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps and performing the same work as Royal Army Medical Corps officers, are not granted commissions or the badge of rank; and will he consider favourably an alteration in these Regulations?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am sorry that I cannot give a definite reply to-day, but I can assure my hon. Friends that the question is at this moment receiving every possible consideration.
      Sir P. MAGNUS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he will be able to reply, as this matter is greatly pressing?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I quite agree that the matter is pressing, and I hope to be able to give a reply next Wednesday.

      22ND CHESHIRE REGIMENT.
      Mr. RENDALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War (1)

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      whether the 22nd Cheshire Regiment (4th Reserve Battalion. Territorial Force, was sent from Oswestry to Kinmel because there was a proposal that German prisoners should occupy their hutments at Oswestry; why the battalion was moved before a definite decision to use such hutments for prisoners was made; whether such hutments have been occupied since the battalion left; (2) whether the 4th Reserve Battalion Cheshire Regiment, Territorial Force, have recently gone into billets at Whitstable because their canvas camp has been in an exposed place and has been blown down; whether this involves the expenditure of large sums for billeting money; whether there are no public buildings suitable for training in bad weather; why this Reserve battalion cannot be placed at Kinmel, where there are plenty of empty hutments, etc.; (3) whether the 4th Reserve Battalion, Territorial Force, of the Cheshire Regiment, having been first moved from Oswestry to Kinmel, were in July, for no ostensible reason, moved to Tankerton Camp, Whitstable, and put under canvas; and whether he will explain why this course was adopted, as the cost of transporting recruits from Cheshire to Whitstable is at least three times that of taking them to Kinmel, and the cost of home warrants to the country similarly great, as well as the cost of men joining up from Lancashire and Cheshire hospitals and command depots?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The battalion referred to was moved in accordance with the measures necessary for the defence of the country. The camp at Tankerton was blown down under exceptional climatic conditions, and the battalion was placed in winter quarters a few days in anticipation of the normal moves of troops which had been arranged. The accommodation at Kinmel has already been allotted, and is not available.
      As regards question No. 41, my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. The hutments at Oswestry occupied by the battalion had been allotted previously for prisoners of war, and a certain amount of barbed wire had been put up in order to make the camp suitable for their reception at any time. The hutments were occupied by prisoners of war as soon as the special arrangements necessary were completed, and have since been continuously occupied by them.

      DOMINION PREMIERS.
      Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Prime Minister whether Mr. W. M. Hughes is still a guest of the Government?
      Sir G. CAVE: I have been asked to reply to this question. The answer is in the affirmative.
      Mr. LEES-SMITH: May I ask whether the business of the Dominion Premiers is not already finished, and whether, in these circumstances, their expenses could not be paid by the party organisations? [HON MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Notice must be given of that question. The question on the Paper has had a complete answer. Questions must not be used for the purpose of initiating debates.

      ENEMY ALIENS.
      Mr. R. GWYNNEasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the advisability of appointing a second Committee, similar to that presided over by Mr. Justice Sankey, so that the cases of internment or repatriation of enemy aliens may be dealt with more expeditiously?
      Sir G. CAVE: I do not think this desirable. The Committee have great experience, and are making good progress. I do not think it would conduce to expedition to hand over part of the work to another Committee.
      Mr. GWYNNE: How many cases have been dealt with, and how many remain to be dealt with?
      Sir G. CAVE: I cannot answer that without notice. I will inquire if the hon. Gentleman puts down a question.
      Mr. GWYNNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that anyone else will be before the Committee?
      Mr. GWYNNEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the possibility of a General Election in the near future, he will introduce legislation to prevent anyone of enemy alien birth, whether naturalised or unnaturalised, having the right to sit in Parliament or on municipal and local councils?
      Sir G. CAVE: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to the hon. and learned Member for the Ealing Division last Thursday.
      Mr. GWYNNEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the possibility of a General Election in the near future, he will appoint additional Committees, similar to that presided over by Mr. Justice Atkin, so that the certificates of naturalisation granted to aliens can be reviewed without further delay, and so prevent all those who are proved to be undesirable from exercising the franchise at the forthcoming General Election?
      Sir G. CAVE: This Committee is making good progress with its work, and I do not think it necessary to appoint an additional Committee.

      PEACE CONFERENCE.
      Mr. FIELDasked the Prime Minister whether he can state who will represent Ireland at the Peace Conference?
      Sir G. CAVE: It is impossible to say now who will be the delegates of the British Empire at the Peace Conference.

    RECONSTRUCTION.

      MUNITIONS (EMPLOYMENT).
      Mr. GEORGE TERRELLasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the possibility of an early peace, he is now in a position to make any statement as to the arrangements which have been made to wind up contracts for the manufacture of munitions and to find employment for the workpeople engaged thereon?
      Sir G. CAVE: I cannot add anything to the previous replies which have been given on this subject.
      Mr. TERRELL: As this is a matter of great importance, may I ask when the light hon. Gentleman thinks he can make a statement?
      Sir G. CAVE: I cannot say.
      Mr. DUNCAN: As a large number of people may be thrown out of employment at short notice, can the right hon. Gentleman say what steps are being taken to avoid that?
      Sir G. CAVE: My hon. Friend may be quite sure that the matter is being very carefully considered.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the
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      War Cabinet that an opportunity should be given to the House to discuss this matter before the General Election?
      Sir G. CAVE: I will convey that to my right hon. Friend.

      IMPERIAL CONFERENCE (MIGRATION RESOLUTIONS).
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Prime Minister whether legislation will be required to carry into effect the Resolutions on migration between India and the Dominions which were passed at the Imperial Conference; and, if so, whether it is proposed to introduce such legislation during the present Session?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I think that no Imperial legislation will be required, and that the necessary steps can be taken in India.

      Miss SYLVIA PANKHURST.
      Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether it is by his orders or authority that Miss Sylvia Pankhurst had been summoned to appear on 28th October at Ronishaw, Derbyshire, for a speech advocating Socialism delivered on 28th September; and whether the Government has taken any decision to suppress the advocacy of Socialist opinions?
      Sir G. CAVE: Miss Sylvia Pankhurst was prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and was convicted of an offence against the Defence of the Realm Regulations. The answer to the latter part of the question is in the negative.

    INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

      BELFAST PRISON.
      Mr. BYRNEasked the Prime Minister what steps, if any, the Government have taken to prevent the influenza epidemic spreading; if he is aware that over 100 political prisoners are now suffering from this illness in Belfast Prison; that they have not sufficient hospital accommodation or nurses to cope with the outbreak; that their food is insufficient and of a poor quality, being tea and dry bread; and if he will state what steps the Government propose to take to deal with the matter?
      The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Samuels): Dr. MacCormack, the medical member of the Prisons Board specially visited Belfast Prison in reference to the influenza epidemic. He reports that there are now under medical treatment for influenza 111 prisoners committed under the Defence of the Realm Regulations and fourteen officers of the prison. There is no foundation for the allegiation that the food is insufficient or of poor quality, or that the medical or nursing arrangements are unsatisfactory.
      Special treatment and diet are afforded to each patient, and the medical officer to the prison has authority to engage additional medical assistance and trained nursing staff, and to order any extra articles of food or medicines that may be deemed necessary. The prison medical officer has already called to his assistance Dr. Tweedie, of Belfast, and Professor McKisack, M.D., as consultant. There is no reason to think that the prisoners are not receiving all proper care and medical treatment.
      Mr. KING: Have some of these prisoners been transferred or will any be transferred to hospitals in other institutions where they can be better attended to?

      MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS.
      Mr. ROWNTREE (by Private Notice)asked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the continued spread of influenza, he will state to the House how many medical advisers there are attached to the Local Government Board; whether they are all at present engaged in giving their whole time to preventive measures dealing with the epidemic; whether, in view of the grave results arising from the spread of the disease, he considers the staff wants strengthening; and whether he does not think it advisable to issue broadcast advice as to what steps can be taken by the public to prevent the spread of infection?
      The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The staff of the medical department of the Local Government Board consists of a medical officer and four assistant medical officers, together with twenty medical inspectors.
      A memorandum of instruction as to the preventive measures available, which was prepared by the medical officer, has been
      1462
      issued to every sanitary district in England and Wales and the sanitary authorities, under the advice of their medical officers of health, are urging the adoption of the preventive measures in their several districts. In the invaded towns information as to the precautions available has been distributed broadcast by means of leaflets, posters, and Press notices. In many of these areas day schools and Sunday schools have been closed, and the public have been advised to avoid crowded assemblies. In some instances voluntary arrangements have been made for excluding children from cinema performances, and also for increasing the time between performances, so as to allow the air in the building to be thoroughly changed.
      The medical staff of the Board are devoting all such time as is necessary to this epidemic, and will continue to do so. I do not at present consider that the staff needs enlargement in consequence of the epidemic.
      Mr. ROWNTREE: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that in many areas there is great uncertainty amongst the public as to the best steps they have to take, and would it not be well to issue some general advice which can be publicly posted and wisely distributed?
      Mr. FISHER: That is precisely what we have done, but we think that that general advice will be much more likely to percolate through the medical officers of health acting through the various sanitary authorities. I am quite ready to make further inquiries as to how far that is being done, and to urge upon the medical officers of health and every sanitary authority to give whatever public notice they can by various means appealing to the public to obey, as far as practicable, the injunctions laid down.
      Colonel LOWTHER: Is it a fact that a sure preventative against influenza is cocoa taken three times a day?
      Sir P. MAGNUS: May I ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the medical officer of his Board has conferred on this subject with the medical officer of the Board of Education, having regard to the number of children affected by this disease?
      Mr. FISHER: A Conference has been sitting at the Local Government Board during the last few days to which the Medical Officer of Health of the Board of

      1463
      Education has been contributing his very wide experience and knowledge, and other experts are engaged in attending that conference to confer one with another to see what best can be done.
      Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether there are many of the sanitary districts, to which circulars have been issued, which are without the services of a medical officer of health at the present time?
      Mr. FISHER: I could not give the right hon. Gentleman any accurate statistics. There is a shortage of doctors in every direction, and medical officers, no doubt, to a certain extent have been depleted by military calls upon them. I will also make inquiries on that point.
      Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Having made those inquiries, will the right hon. Gentleman see that in sanitary districts where there is not a medical officer of health, the instructions which he has given shall be applied by some other competent person?
      Mr. FISHER: I will see that whoever is acting as deputy shall be equally apprised, that it is our desire that that information shall be widely disseminated.
      Sir C. HENRY: May I ask whether consideration is being given as to the desirability of prohibiting public meetings?
      Mr. ROWNTREE (by Private Notice)asked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the continued spread of influenza, he will state what is the view of the Medical Department of the Board regarding the advisability of closing schools at the first appearance of influenza in the school; and whether he thinks it desirable to issue some general advice as to what steps can be taken to prevent the spread of infection through the association of so many children?
      The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): The closure of schools, or the exclusion from school of children suffering from infectious diseases, including influenza, is a matter which rests with the local education authorities or the governors of the schools concerned. Appropriate directions, issued by the Board of Education in conjunction with the Local Government Board, for the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases occurring
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      among children attending public elementary schools have long been in the hands of all local education authorities and school medical officers. The wisdom or propriety of closure or other action is obviously dependent on the local conditions of the case, upon which it is, of course, impossible for the Board to pronounce. Among such conditions is the degree of prevalence and severity of the disease, as well as the home or other alternative circumstances of the children thus excluded from school. The case of each school must be determined on its merits. It is, of course, essential that all children suffering from catarrhal symptoms, feverishness, or other illness, should at the present juncture be at once excluded, and in many cases it will be found advisable to close the whole school, or at least departments or classes in the school. As a rule school closure is more effective in rural districts than in towns. Playgrounds should not remain open when schools are closed. As regards the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I have not up to the present thought it necessary to issue any general advice of the nature suggested by him. It is obviously impracticable to consider school children separately from other sections of the population which are not within the province of the Board of Education.
      Mr. P. A. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the result of closing schools is that children run about the streets to play, and are more liable to contract the disease than if they are in warm buildings?
      Mr. FISHER: That is one of the considerations to which allusion is made.
      Mr. ARNOLD WARD (by Private Notice)asked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether a serious epidemic of influenza and septic pneumonia broke out at the Royal Air Force Camp at Blandford, Dorsetshire, in the week ending 19th October; whether the epidemic increased in virulence during the week ending 26th October; whether many hundreds of cases occurred last week and many deaths every day, mostly of very young lads; whether the medical arrangements have been utterly inadequate to deal with the epidemic; whether there has been and still is a grave insufficiency of doctors and nurses; whether the sick men are lying on very dirty straw mattresses, and whether there is an utter lack of necessaries and comforts of every

      1465
      description, and especially a great dearth of utensils, crockery, bedding, and blankets; whether there has been any organisation of local supplies and local assistance; whether the Dorsetshire Red Cross have been called upon to give help; whether all last week, when the epidemic was at its height, hundreds of fresh men and young lads were arriving daily in this infected camp; whether fresh men are still being sent to the camp, and what steps are now being taken to deal with the situation?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE to the AIR MINISTRY (Major Baird): The prevailing influenza epidemic reached Blandford Camp on 21st September, and has continued to the present date. The number of cases increased in the week ending 26th October, during which 252 cases were reported; of these 198 were sent to hospital. The number of deaths since 21st September is fifty-nine. The average daily strength of the camp is about 15,000. Since the epidemic started five additional doctors and nineteen additional nurses have been sent to deal with the situation. The hospital accommodation has been materially extended, and recourse has been had to semi-official agencies. My information does not bear out the suggestion that sick men are allowed to lie on dirty straw mattresses, and everything possible is being done to provide necessaries and comforts. For administrative reasons, independent of the epidemic, the drafting of recruits to the camp has been stopped for a period of one week.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      SUBSIDIES.
      Colonel WEIGALLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the extension of the system of subsidy now applied to bread is in contemplation in reference to any other articles of food; and, if so, whether the financial consideration involved will be referred before final decision to the Select Committee on National Expenditure?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Major Astor): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second part does not, therefore, arise.

      PIGS.
      Sir C. HENRYasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state whether any arrangements have been made or will be made to compensate cottagers who were induced to buy young pigs for rearing and who in many instances are now obliged to abandon them on account of the necessary food not being forthcoming?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir R. Winfrey): No undertaking has been given that supplies of concentrated feeding-stuffs would continue to be available for pigs. The Board's encouragement of pig-keeping was confined to urging the fullest utilisation of waste, green food, and other materials which do not involve a draft upon the limited supplies of imported foods. I cannot agree with the hon. Baronet that any question of compensation for pig owners really arises.
      Sir C. HENRY: Has the hon. Gentleman not stated that these cottagers can rear these pigs without some form of concentrated pig-food, irrespective of refuse?
      Sir R. WINFREY: Yes; I think it is quite possible. I am doing it myself.
      Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Did not the hon. Gentleman invite cottagers to rear pigs, and will he not now provide food to keep the pigs?

      WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.
      Mr. BYRNEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been drawn to the amount paid under the Workmen's Compensation Act; if he is aware that the amounts for accidents and deaths are the same as were paid in pre-war days; and if he will take into consideration the reduction in the purchasing power of the sovereign, which is estimated to be 75 per cent., and have the amounts awarded under the Workmen's Compensation Act increased accordingly?
      Sir G. CAVE: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for South-West Ham on this subject on Wednesday last.

      BANKING PROFITS.
      Mr. FIELDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government,

      1467
      in view of the business of banking being a monopoly and in order to circumvent the danger of a money trust, will consider the desirability of limiting the profits to 5 per cent. on the paid up capital of banks; and whether the Government, in view of the money assistance given to Germany before the War, will call upon the great bank amalgamations to discount no German bills for some years after the War?
      The JOINT FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Baldwin): I do not think it is possible to take either of the steps suggested.
      Mr. FIELD: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why it is not possible when similar steps are taken with regard to other interests?
      Mr. BALDWIN: It would take a longer reply than could be given in answer to a question.
      Mr. FIELD: Will the hon. Gentleman send me a written reply?

      NATIONAL DEBT.
      Mr. ARNOLDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the total amount of the National Debt on the latest available date?
      Mr. BALDWIN: The deadweight National Debt outstanding on the 30th September was approximately £6,875,000,000.
      Mr. RUNCIMAN: Does that include floating Debt? Will the hon. Gentleman let us have the information?

      OFFICERS' DECORATION (TERRITORIAL FORCE).
      Colonel Sir ALAN SYKESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the recent decision of the Army Council to allow non-commissioned officers and men of the force to count their war service as double in reckoning the number of years necessary to serve to qualify for the efficiency medal, while a similar concession is denied to the officers in reckoning the number of years necessary to serve to qualify for the Terri-
      1468
      torial decoration, he will consider putting the officers on the same footing as the men as regards counting war service?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: It has been decided that war service shall count double in reckoning the number of years service necessary to qualify for the Territorial Force Officers' Decoration, and the necessary instructions are in preparation.

      SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
      Mr. BYRNEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will say who is responsible for the granting of leave to soldiers; if he is aware that soldiers in Irish regiments are not receiving the same treatment as soldiers in English and Welsh regiments; if he is aware that soldiers in these regiments have received two and three leaves to one granted to those in Irish regiments; if he is aware that many Irish soldiers have not received a leave since the outbreak of war; and if he will take steps to see that Irish soldiers with good conduct shall receive a leave at or before Christmas this year?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: As I have already informed my hon. Friend on previous occasions, there is no truth in the suggestion that Irish soldiers are treated less favourably in the matter of leave than their comrades from other parts of the United Kingdom. As regards the arrangements for the granting of leave generally. I would refer him to the several replies which I have given recently to questions on the subject.
      General McCALMONT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he drew the attention of the hon. Member who put this question down to the fact that false statements of this kind are calculated to cause great discontent in the Service, and did he ask him to withdraw it?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The hon. Member put this question down several times. It is not my duty to point this out to him.

    GENERAL ELECTION.

      POSITION OF SOLDIERS.
      Sir B. FALLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he can say what the position of Service officers, who are

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      serving in their own districts and are presidents or chairmen of political associations, will be during an election; if they will be allowed to act in their political capacity without Service restrictions; and if they will be given leave for the period of the election?
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he can state, in view of a General Election, if soldiers who happen to be home on leave and in khaki during the time of the election, will be allowed to canvass voters in favour of any candidate, or attend and address meetings of any kind in the interest of any candidates, or will they be prohibited under Army Regulations to take part in an election?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The War Cabinet decided some time ago that Regulation 451 should be vigorously enforced. Candidates, however, prospective and adopted, are having special leave facilities granted to them for the election. The same applies to duly accredited agents.
      Sir B. FALLE: Does that mean that those officers who are chairmen of organisations will not be allowed to act?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Not as chairmen.
      Mr. GILBERT: Can the right hon. Gentleman answer my question as to whether soldiers on leave will be allowed to take any part in the election?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I answered both questions together.
      Sir H. GREENWOOD: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that leave has already been granted to Members of Parliament and other candidates for the next election?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: What I have said is that I have made arrangements that candidates likely to be adopted in the immediate future will be allowed, if in the United Kingdom or in France, special leave to appear before associations. When a candidate has been adopted he will be allowed eight clear days' leave before the issue of the writ, and in all he will receive about 28 days' leave so as to make arrangements and hear the declaration of the poll.
      Sir H. GREENWOOD: Does that refer to Members of Parliament like the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Colonel John Ward) who is in Siberia, and would require more than 28 days' notice to get home?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: That of course is an exceptional case. It is a very difficult problem, and I had to consider exceptional cases, and the general cases. I tried to make a rule which, I understood would be acceptable to the various parties. With regard to the exception mentioned of the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke-on-Trent, I am quite certain that whether he is absent or present he will be elected.
      Mr. RENDALL: Does the answer mean that no officer at home on leave, who is not a candidate or an agent, may speak at the General Election?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Certainly.
      Mr. PRINGLE: But does the rule apply to privates as well as to officers?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Certainly.
      Mr. R. McNEILL: What length of leave is to be given to agents?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The arrangement which I have sanctioned is as follows—that agents will be given their leave at the same time as candidates, namely, eight clear days before the issue of the writ, and they will be allowed six weeks beyond the declaration of the poll, because I am informed—indeed, I know it to be the case—that a great many matters, monetary and otherwise, have to be cleared up after the election.
      Mr. HOLT: Will persons so allowed leave be allowed their pay during leave?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I cannot say that. That raises a very difficult question. The question must be faced by my right hon. Friend and colleague the Financial Secretary, whether leave is to be granted with pay or without pay, and that particular side of the question has yet to be considered by the Army Council.
      Mr. HOGGE: Are we going to have an election?

      BAGHDAD HOSPITALS (BEER).
      Mr. WATTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the hospitals in Bagdad are entirely without a supply of beer, so that the patients when ordered such by the medical officer are quite unable to obtain it, whereas the messes of the officers of regiments stationed there have beer, wine, and spirits on their tables in abundance; and, if so, will he see that orders are sent out for more equal distribution?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have telegraphed for information, and will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

      SKITTLES INN, LETCHWORTH.
      Mr. A. WILLIAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether an unlicensed house known as the Skittles Inn, Letchworth, has recently been commandeered by the Army Council; whether he can, consistently with the public interest, say for what purpose these premises are required; whether they are the only premises in the nature of a public house in Letchworth, and are much used for meals and for meetings of friendly societies and trade unions, and so forth; and whether his attention has been called to the protests that have been made in Letchworth against the taking of these premises, seeing that there are no other premises available in Letchworth for the purposes hitherto served by the Skittles Inn, and that a number of licensed houses within a few miles radius have not been interfered with?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: This inn was taken over by the War Office at the request of the Aeronautical Supplies Department, to provide accommodation for certain workpeople which it had been found impossible to obtain otherwise. Various protests against the taking over of the inn have been received, and are at present being considered.
      Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the inhabitants state that other accommodation is available?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: All these relevant facts will be taken into consideration now.

      SPECIAL DISTINCTION (1914 SERVICE).
      Sir F. HALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether any steps have been taken to provide a special decoration for those who joined the Regular Army or the Territorial Force after the outbreak of hostilities and before the 1st January, 1915; and, if not, whether it is the intention of the Government to provide these men with any special distinction?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: This point will be borne in mind in considering the grant of medals for the present War, but I can make no promise in regard to the matter.

      COURTS-MARTIAL (COPY OF PROCEEDINGS).
      Mr. JOWETTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if a soldier who has been tried by district court-martial for overstaying his leave is entitled under King's Regulations to a copy of the proceedings of the court-martial and to the return of a medical certificate he has produced as evidence in his defence if he applies for them?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: A soldier who has been tried by district court-martial is entitled on demand, at any time within three years after confirmation of the finding and sentence, to obtain a copy of the proceedings from the Judge Advocate-General, on payment for the same at the prescribed rate A medical certificate produced by him in evidence would be returned on application after the proceedings have been reviewed.

      BAKU EVACUATION.
      Mr. A. WILLIAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the official communication sent to the Press on 20th September charged the Armenians in Baku with having negotiated to hand over the town to our enemies; whether the negotiations in question were, in fact, entered into by the advice of General Dunsterville; and, if so, how the original statement came to be made without that vital qualification?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The report that appeared in the Press on the 20th September made no charge, but was confined to a statement of facts as known at the time. In an extract of his dispatch received subsequently, General Dunsterville stated that he had advised the Armenians to negotiate with the Turks when he realised that the fall of the town was imminent.
      Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this report as a whole very clearly did convey imputations against the Armenians?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I do not think so, and I cannot at the moment add anything to the answer I have given.

      REGIMENTAL PAYMASTERS.
      Mr. JOWETTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he is aware that soldiers on active service have reason to complain that regimental paymasters are inconsiderate in regard to the lack of simplicity and legibility of their communications to wives and dependants as well as in regard to unnecessary repetitions of requests for information, as, for instance, the regimental paymaster, Royal Army Medical Corps, Woking, who recently inquired of a soldier's wife what relation her children were to her husband, and if she was drawing any other allowance in respect to any other soldier, although during the three years' service of the soldier in question the marriage certificate and all the children's birth certificates had previously been sent to the paymaster for inspection on more than one occasion; if he will make inquiries into these matters; and, particularly, if he will ensure that regimental paymasters cease to communicate with soldiers' wives and dependants by means of pencilled letters instead of by means of letters plainly written in ink or typewritten?
      Mr. FORSTER: I have no reason to think that regimental paymasters are inconsiderate in their communications to soldiers' wives, though there may be individual failures in isolated instances. If the hon. Member will give me the name of the soldier's wife referred to, I will have the matter inquired into and let him know the result. It would be quite impossible to provide typists and machines to cope with all the correspondence in pay offices. Pencil is used instead of ink, as it allows of the necessary carbon copies being made for retention in the offices.
      Mr. JOWETT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether a pencil is used in communicating with officers and officers' relatives?
      Mr. FORSTER: I think so. The pencil is used very generally throughout the Army.

    MUNITIONS.

      WOODWORKERS STRIKE.
      Mr. T. WILSON (by Private Notice)asked the Minister of Munitions whether the whole of the wood-workers employed at the munition works in the Birkenhead and
      1474
      Liverpool district are on strike, and, if so, will he state the cause of the strike, and what steps he is taking in the matter.
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): A number of wood-workers in the Liverpool district are on strike against the introduction of a system of payment by results at a national factory in that area. This system was introduced at the request of the men in the factory. Negotiations were taking place between the Ministry and the National Aircraft Committee, but certain of the men in the district in works other than the factory in question ceased work whilst the negotiations were proceeding. It is hoped that work will be immediately resumed, but, if not, the Government will take such action as the circumstances require.

    BILL PRESENTED.
      LICENSED STOCKBROKERS (IRELAND) BILL,—
      "to make provision with respect to the rate of brokerage or commission fees of Licensed Stockbrokers in Ireland on dealings in Government stocks or securities," presented by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 101.]

      EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.
      Ordered, That Mr. Mooney and Mr. Brady be discharged from the Select Committee.
      Ordered, That Mr. Boland and Mr. Scanlan be added to the Committee.—[Colonel Sanders.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

    PEACE SETTLEMENT (IRELAND).
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask how many Orders will be taken to-day, and whether the House will sit on Friday?
    Sir G. CAVE: If there be time, it is intended to take the Bastardy Laws Amendment Act (1872) Amendment Bill, and the Loans (Incumbents of Benefices) Amendment Bill, it is not intended to ask the House to sit on Friday.
    Mr. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman name a day on which to discuss the Motion standing on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo?
    ["That, in the opinion of this House, it is essential that, before the British Government takes part in any proceeding for the resettlement of Europe on the conclusion of peace, the Irish question should be settled in accordance with the principles laid down by President Wilson, that all nations, large and small, should have free self-determination as to their form of government, and that no people should be ruled and dominated even in their own internal affairs by arbitrary and irresponsible force instead of by their own will and choice, principles for which, in the words of the Prime Minister, the Allies are ostensibly fighting in every other country; and that by the application of these principles the system of coercion and military rule, under which Ireland is at present governed, should be brought to an end."]
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes, I propose to ask the House to take that Motion on Tuesday.

    TITHE BILL.
    Considered in Committee.
    [The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir D. Maclean)-in the Chair.]

    CLAUSE 1.—(Temperary Limitation or Variation of Tithe Rent-charge.)
    The yearly sum which on or before the first day of January nineteen hundred and twenty-six becomes payable under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, in respect of any tithe rent-charge, shall be the sum payable in respect of that rent-charge as ascertained by the septennial average prices published under the Corn Returns Act, 1882, in the month of January, nineteen hundred and eighteen.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The first Amendment standing on the Paper in the name of four hon. Members is not in order as it proposes to postpone the main operative Clause of the Bill.
    4.0 P.M.
    Major COURTHOPE: May I ask you, Sir, to reconsider your decision on this ground? There are two Amendments on the Paper with regard to the redemption of tithe rent-charge, one in the name of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture and one in the name of some hon. Friends and myself, and I submit most humbly it is desirable that the Committee should defer consideration of the first Clause that proposes to stabilise tithe until they have considered which of either of the two schemes for encouraging the redemption of tithes is to be inserted in the Bill. Both schemes are materially different from the proposals in the Bill as originally drafted, but I submit that they have a bearing in common, and that hon. Members should have an opportunity of forming their own opinion as to which of the schemes it is desirable to adopt before they agree to pass this Clause. I ask you, therefore, to reconsider your decision, and to allow this Amendment to be moved.
    Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: May I point out that this is a Motion not for the obliteration of the Clause, but for the postponement of the discussion upon it. There is much in common among the Amendments which have been given notice of, although they differ somewhat in detail among themselves, and it might probably have the effect of shortening the whole Debate in Committee on the Bill if in a general discussion on the postponement hon. Members were permitted to deal with the various Motions of which notice has been given I respectfully urge upon you it would be within the Rules of Order to allow this to be done, and that it would tend to the general convenience, and probably shorten the proceedings.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I gave my ruling after very careful consideration of the matter. Proposals to postpone Clauses have come up time and again, as hon. Members will recollect. With regard to the point made by the hon. Member (Sir F. Flannery) as to a general discussion arising on the Motion, the discussion, if permitted, would be limited solely to the reasons for postponing the consideration of the Clause, and it could not touch the merits of the matter. There is a way open, of course, in Committee which would provide for the discussion of the alternative scheme, and that would be to negative Clause 1. I understand that the

    1505
    hon. and gallant Member and the President of the Board of Agriculture have alternative schemes, and if Clause 1 were negatived, then those alternative schemes could be dealt with as they arose. I do not wish to be pedantic, but I am sorry I am afraid I cannot alter the decision which I have arrived at.
    Captain Viscount WOLMER: Then may I move the deletion of Clause 1?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Committee must first consider the Amendments to Clause 1, but on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," it will be open to the hon. Member to move its deletion.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Prothero): I beg to move, to leave out the word "yearly" ["the yearly sum which"]. This is a purely drafting Amendment.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Do I understand that it makes no difference at all in the Bill as it stands now?
    Mr. PROTHERO: None at all; it is a purely drafting Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I beg to move, after the word "January" ["the first day of January"], to insert the words "and the first day of April where the parish commutation, award has fixed that day."
    I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman opposite when the Bill was up for Second Beading, and the answer he gave me was this, that his reason for fixing the first day of January was because under Section 20 of the Tithe Act, 1840, that was the day on which the tithe was announced, and it began to take effect for the first half-yearly payment on the 1st April in the same year. But under the Tithe Act of 1836, which provides that the tithe rent-charge shall be payable on two days, the 1st January and the 1st July, the rent-charge which commences on the 1st day of January next following the apportionment of tithe, and would become payable on the 1st day of July. Under the Tithe Act of 1837 and under the Act of 1840, it is indicated that the Parish Commutation Award or supplemental agreement may fix a day other than the 1st January or the 1st July; and under the Tithe Act, 1840, it is necessary for the Commissioners to assign different dates when such a tithe
    1506
    commutation award has been made. I am informed that as a result of these two Acts the tithe rent-charge in some parishes accrues due on the 1st January and the 1st July; but in the bulk of the parishes in England it becomes due on the 1st day of April and the 1st day of October. If that is so—and I can quote a well-known authority for it—then if the words stand as they are without the insertion of the words which I propose to insert, the tithe which has been fixed to be payable on the 1st April and the 1st July, 1926, will not become operative in those parishes until the 1st day of January, 1927. There may be some error which is not clear to me, and perhaps my right hon. Friend can explain it; but otherwise I am afraid that will be the position if the Bill is allowed to stand as now. My right hon. Friend has assumed that the first day of January is the day on which tithe rent-charge becomes due, whereas I am informed it is fixed by the Tithe Commutation Award, and if he will accept my Amendment I believe it will get over the practical difficulty.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Prothero): I think the right hon. Gentleman is labouring under a delusion in this matter. The Corn Returns Act, 1882, orders that the septennial averages for the year, founded on the averages up to the Christmas next preceding, shall be announced in January in the New Year. Payment follows in the ordinary course, and where the award has fixed payment for 1st of April and the 1st of October, these payments will be continued to be made at those dates; while where the award fixes the payment for the 1st July and the 1st January following, the payments will be made at those dates. Therefore there is no reason for the Amendment, which would really be quite ineffectual, and which would result in this, that the tithe rent-charge would be payable on the very day on which it becomes actually due; and that, I do not think, is what the right hon. Baronet is aiming at. I, therefore, cannot accept the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: I beg to move to leave out the words, "twenty-six" ["nineteen hundred and twenty-six"], and to insert instead thereof the words "twenty-three."

    1507
    The effect of Clause 1, if it continues to stand as originally introduced, would be to continue for a period of seven years the rent-charge at £109 as the standing rate of payment. That period of seven years, in the opinion of many people, is much too long, having regard to the other Clauses and conditions embodied in the Bill; and I think, in a Notice of Amendment which my right hon. Friend himself has given, he recognises that fact. I am proposing a change, a reduction from 1926 to 1923, which would reduce the seven years to a period of four years. Perhaps, in the general opinion of the Committee, that may or may not be suitable. I myself would not greatly object if a year more were taken off the period; but this would seem, at all events, to be a suggestion which might elicit the general opinion of the House. Anyhow, seven years is too long in the interests both of the clergy and of agriculturists, having regard to the other provisions. It is very unfortunate, I venture to think, that in the Corn Production Act so recently passed no provision whatever was made for restraining the enormous rise in the value of the tithes. Rents were not to be raised. Such was specially forbidden in consequence of the increased prices of corn. Tithes, it was known, must follow, but no mention even of restraint of that increase of tithes was made. Yet we know that we are seeking to do all we can to encourage agriculture and to increase the growth of food in this country. The original idea of this variation in the value of tithes, be it for a number of years long or short, was, as my right hon. Friend himself has frequently explained, that the income of the clergy should follow up and down the variation in the cost of living.
    There is no doubt that in 1836, eighty-two years ago, when the enactment was made, the cost of living did follow very closely the variation in the price of corn. To-day the cost of living does not, with anything like the same closeness, follow the variation in the prices of corn. So in the interests of the clergy, as well in the interests of agriculture, this system must be changed, and radically changed. It is a very great hardship that the clergy not so many years ago had to accept as little as £67 in the £100 as their stipend. It is equally as great an injustice to agriculturists that the rate of payment for tithes should increase, as it will increase,
    1508
    unless there is imposed this restriction to £150, or even £160, in the very near future. These tithes, although paid in the first instance by the landlord, must sooner or later reach everyone else connected with agriculture—the farmer, the agricultural labourer, will have to suffer if some restraint, some equalisation, is not insisted upon. There are some hon. Members whom I know are opposed to the idea of relief to landlords. I would call the attention of such to the fact that you have 500,000 tithe-payers and 270,000 occupying owners who are tithe-payers. A very large proportion of these occupying owners are small men who themselves till the land which they own, and it is in their interests, as well as in the interests of the great landlords—in the interests, I say, of the humble agricultural labourer—that this change must be made. I do not want at the present moment to refer to the proposals of my right hon. Friend, but I think I am justified in saying this: My right hon. Friend proposes in his Amendment to remove a great blot from the Bill. One of the blots of the Bill was that the Board of Agriculture had absolute power to do what they chose in regard to fixing the redemption. Under the proposals now before the Committee that blot will be removed, that is to say, the Board of Agriculture will be limited to a period of purchase to twenty years, and upon the basis of £100 instead of £109. The Board of Agriculture will not have the amount of discretion they would have had if the change had not taken place. What will be the result? The result will be that agriculturists and clergy will both know where they are. That is the great advantage of this Bill, and of this Clause in the Bill. There will not only be fixity of tenure but fixity of rates, a fixed income for the clergy, and fixed payments, or almost so, by the owners and agriculturists—by the farmer and the labourer. This 5 per cent. on the twenty years' purchase is, I venture to think, a fair rate.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Amendment of the hon. Baronet is confined to the point of reducing the term from 1926 to 1923. He now seems to be dealing with the general principles of the Bill, and, in particular, with an Amendment which we have not yet reached. I have allowed him latitude so far, so that I could find out what he really meant. I must now ask him to come down to the Amendment on the Paper.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Very well, Sir, if I have enlarged too much I apologise. I am sure you will appreciate the fact that one is tempted to go a little far, perhaps, when dealing with a matter of this sort. I will, however, confine myself entirely to supporting what I believe to be a right principle, namely, that this should not last for seven years, but should last for a very much shorter term, or for four years, and having generally explained the basis upon which I have tried to reason that out I will confine myself to moving the Amendment which stands in my name.
    Viscount WOLMER: I want very heartily to support the Amendment that has been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend. It is highly desirable that this period of seven years should be shortened to four years. In fact, I should like to see it shortened as much as possible, because it seems to me to be a very unjust as well as a very inexpedient thing to fix the present price of tithe for so long a period as seven years. I would like for a moment to ask the House to consider the position in which the clergy are placed in this matter. I would remind the House of the words that fell from Sir Robert Peel when he introduced the Tithe Commutation Act in 1836. Sir Robert Peel on that occasion said:
    "Considering that the parties interested are the clergy who have no direct representation amongst us, it is required by a proper regard for the protection of the rights and privileges of these clergy that we should not appear to sanction any principle which we are not satisfied is consistent with justice."
    I should like the House to remember that we are dealing here with what is in fact a bargain—one which has been maintained for eighty years. It is a bargain between two sets of people, one set of whom is very largely composed of the clergy who are statutorily debarred from silting in this House. Therefore this House, if anything, ought to err on the side of consideration towards the clerical tithe owners. I say nothing about the lay tithe owners, because they can sit here and look after themselves. The clerical tithe owners cannot. I do, therefore, ask the President of the Board of Agriculture and the House to consider with the utmost consideration the position in which they are placed. What does this Clause propose to do? It proposes to fix the present price of tithes at seven years. That is to say, we are asked to interfere with a bar-
    1510
    gain that was struck in 1836, and to arrest the process which is now going on of a rise in the price of tithes—to arrest that process for seven years. I very much want to know why the term of seven years has been selected. Surely the Government do not think that the War is going on for another seven years! I do not believe that they even think that the abnormal conditions introduced by the War are going to affect the cost of food for another seven years! If the Government do think that, I hope the President will be kind enough to explain to the House the reasons that he has for holding that opinion.
    In regard to the special conditions brought about by the War. I should like to put this point of view to the House: The bargain which was struck in 1836 was, no doubt, a rough-and-ready bargain. On the whole it has worked well-that is to say, that when the cost of living was low the tithe was low, and when the cost of living was high the tithe was high. The right hon. Gentleman comes down to the House and says, in effect, that the very abnormal conditions brought about by the War makes it necessary for us to interfere with the automatic rise in the value of the tithes for a period of seven years. Is he going to do anything to reduce the cost of living to the clergy for seven years 2 Is he going to do anything to meet the expenses of living of the clergy, seeing that the tithe is fixed in relation to the cost of living? I would remind the House that throughout the lean years, when wheat was at 22s. per quarter, and tithe was something like 66s., this House did nothing to step in and interfere with the automatic working of the Tithe Commutation Act. Therefore very strong arguments indeed are needed to justify any intervention at the present time. What we, in fact, are doing is, we are upsetting a bargain which, as long as it worked against the interests of a party which is absent from this House, we did not interfere with; but when it begins to play favourably for that party, we are called upon to hang it up for seven years! I do think we ought to be very careful how we proceed about such a business. It is for that reason that I welcome the Amendment, and because I think the term my hon. Friend has fixed in his Amendment is ample. I quite see the force of the contention that tithe next year, or the year after, perhaps, or the year after that,

    1511
    if not dealt with in any way, will reach such abnormal limits as very seriously to disturb the relations betwen landlords and tenants, and to introduce a number of complications and difficulties into the whole of the agricultural population. I admit that fully; but you cannot get away from the fact that you are breaking the bargain, and you are inflicting an injustice on men who did not complain when the bargain told against them, and who only ask to be left alone at the present moment. To hold this automatic rise up for seven years is unjust to the clergy. The President of the Board of Agriculture, in introducing the Bill, explained that he sincerely hoped the result of this Bill would be that universal redemption of tithe would follow. He said:
    "Universal redemption is what we should like to have."
    With all respect to my right hon. Friend, I say that, unless this Amendment is accepted, and unless other drastic changes are made in this Bill, there will be practically no redemption as a result of it. The tithe payer will see that all he has to do is to sit tight for seven years, and seven years hence food will either be cheaper and tithe will go down or else he thinks he can come to this House, which is always well disposed towards him, and takes less account of the other charge in the transaction, and try to obtain another extension of relief. I think the maximum we should follow is a term which just covers the abnormal situation brought about by the War, and by demobilisation afterwards. I think 1923 will see us through demobilisation, and it will see the tonnage of the world released to bring food supplies to this country and other countries in Europe. We shall be back again to the normal play of the law of supply and demand; and why the tithe bargain should be interfered with in 1923 I am at a loss to understand, unless, indeed, the Government can prove to the House that they really think they can abolish the whole tithe system by this Bill. I do not think they can show that, and, therefore, I shall support my hon. Friend's Amendment on the ground that 1923 is an amply sufficient period to cover the abnormal conditions brought about by the War.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I will deal with the Amendment itself. It proposes that the septennial average for the
    1512
    seven years preceding Christmas, 1922, should be calculated on the septennial averages, and the restrictions placed upon the rise of tithe should be at an end. That is the suggestion. The House knows that the value of the tithe in each year is made up by its value in the seven single years preceding. That is to say, the Amendment proposes to go back to 1916. It takes 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1922, and the tithe-rent charge on the 1st of January, 1923, shall be the result of those figures. What happens?
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Surely that would not be the effect. The effect of this Amendment would simply be, if the other parts of the Bill remain unchanged, to limit the effect of the Clause to four years instead of seven years, and it would not go back mixing up the calculations in the way suggested by the right hon. gentleman.
    Mr. PROTHERO: The hon. Baronet altogether misunderstands how septennial averages are arrived at. What I have stated is the process by which the septennial averages are arrived at. The seven years' septennial average to Christmas, 1922, is proposed, and the hon. Baronet has taken seven years, which in all probability will show prices of corn without record in our previous history under the Corn Returns Act. Take 1916, which was one of the years which the hon. Baronet has to bring into his septennial average. In that year tithe rose to £141 for the single year. The highest previous record had been £131, and to get that you had to go back to 1847. Therefore, in 1916 the value for the single year rose £10 above any previous record. In 1917 it rose to £188; that is to say, £57 more than any previous record. In 1918 and 1919 it will be about the same figure. What will happen in 1920, 1921, and 1922 I do not know; but, even assuming that you have a considerable fall in prices between 1923 and 1924, you might have a tithe rent-charge of something like £170, which is the very thing this Bill proposes to prevent. The hon. Baronet, who represents a county in which the burden of tithe rent-charge is very acutely felt, is not going to make himself popular with his constituency if I accept the proposal he has made, which is that, instead of paying £109, they should pay something like £170.

    1513
    As regards what the hon. Member for the Newton Division (Viscount Wolmer) said about the bargain, he is perfectly justified in placing the case of the tithe-owner before the House; but I do not think he can have done me the justice of reading the speech I made in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. I said then the tithe-owners' interest would have to be considered, and that it was my hope that this Bill would be made fair and equitable on all sides, and that the Government would receive suggestions sympathetically in order to make the Bill if possible fair. Therefore, I am willing to accept suggestions which will make the Bill fairer to the tithe owner, but not in the way that the hon. Baronet suggests. If the hon. Baronet had had the choice of a number of years which were worst for the purpose of his argument, he could not have chosen two worse than 1923 and 1924, which is the moment at which the tithe rent-charge, owing to the abnormal and exceptional causes arising out of the War, reaches its absolute maximum. Therefore, I cannot think that any useful purpose, either to the tithe payers or tithe owners generally, or even to the hon. Baronet himself, can be served if I were to accept his Amendment, and I regret I cannot accept it.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Perhaps it is my fault, but I do not understand the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend or the speech made by my Noble Friend in seconding it to mean what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. I understood that the real effect of this Clause was to say that all the years between now and 1926 the tithe payer should pay tithe at a fixed price of £109 instead of whatever the price might be if reckoned in the ordinary way.
    Mr. PROTHERO: That is the purpose of the Bill.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Now I understand my hon. Friend to say we are quite willing that the tithe payer should only pay £109, but he should pay it, not for seven years, but for four years, and, having got that, the tithe payer should revert to the old system under which he paid tithe. Am I right in that assumption?
    Mr. PROTHERO: You are.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Then I think the right hon. Gentleman contradicts his
    1514
    speech, which did not deal with the object of the Amendment. It may be that the Amendment has been badly drawn, and the effect may be that it would have the result which the President of the Board of Agriculture states. But if that is so, surely the intention of the Amendment is right, and the right hon. Gentleman might introduce words to give effect to that intention. I am rather inclined to think, and I hope I shall not press this beyond the Rules of Order in touching upon a question of redemption, it is a little hard to say that for seven years the clergy are not to receive the amount which they would have received under the bargain made, but that they are to receive a fixed amount. The answer to that in defence of the Bill is that there are two parties to the bargain and they both agreed to an alteration. I understand the clergy have agreed to an alteration to the bargain and therefore it is fair that it should be altered. The bargain which I understand the clergy agreed to is one that applies to the redemption of the tithe. They want to do away with all uncertainty and have the tithe redeemed. I am inclined to think there is something in the argument that if you are going to give the option to the tithe payer for seven years to pay on a fixed sum he might say "It will be to my interest to wait seven years before I redeem, because my idea at the end of the seven years is that we shall go back to our previous arrangement." It is quite possible something of that kind might result, and therefore I think there is something in the argument that if the object of the Bill is to redeem tithe surely the time in which the tithe payer can do this should be fixed, and he is more likely to redeem if he knows at the end of four years the fixed rate may come to an end. I do not know whether I have made the point clear, but I think it is an important point, and I would like to ask why the President of the Board of Agriculture did not deal with it?
    Mr. PROTHERO: Because I stuck closely to the Amendment.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Would it be possible for my hon. Friend to withdraw his Amendment and for the Government to assist him in drawing up one which will carry out his desire? I do not know whether it does or does not carry it out, but I think some such Amendment ought to be introduced, and I venture to

    1515
    throw out the suggestion in the interests of getting the Bill through without undue delay.
    Major COURTHOPE: I hope the hon. Baronet who moved this Amendment (Sir Fortescue Flannery) will not press it. If the desire is to use the annual rise of tithe which may take place if no statutory interference occurs as an inducement, or almost as a compulsion at the present time, surely the proper method is to knock out Clause 1 and not to deal with it by an Amendment of this kind. I understand that my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment merely desires to limit the period of stability, which is seven years, to four years. He does not wish to use the probability or the certainty of a very high annual figure of the tithe rent-charge in 1923 as a means of compulsion towards redemption. I should like to point out that by taking only four years you are doing a very dangerous thing. The tithe payable on and after 1st January, 1923, would be assessed under the present system of septennial averages, and it would almost certainly be the seven highest years there have ever been. It would not surprise me if it brought the figure up to £180 or £190. It would certainly not be less than £160 or £170. I do not think that is the intention of the hon. Member. If the situation is really to be met fairly from the point of view of stabilising tithe it is questionable whether the period ought not to be longer rather than shorter than seven years. By making it shorter you are ensuring that the first year of stabilisation will see an enormous figure as the annual tithe rent-charge, and that, I am sure, is not the intention.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: The complaint of the Mover and of the Noble Lord opposite (Captain Viscount Wolmer) is that if you fix tithe for seven years at £109 you prevent the clergy geting a higher sum in cases of redemption, though it is probable that the value of the tithe will be greater than £109 for redemption purposes.
    Viscount WOLMER: No; my right hon. Friend has misunderstood both our speeches. We were not complaining about the redemption Clause, but that the payment of tithe should be fixed for seven years.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: The whole of this Bill is for the purpose of redeeming tithe.
    1516
    What has been the experience of the past when you have attempted to fix that redemption sum at something which was not really the price of tithe? Hitherto the payer of tithe has only been able to redeem at par value. The real value being £67, £68, or £69, or whatever it was, you could not get rid of the tithe, because the price of redemption was too high. If you are going to fix the redemption value at over £109, people will stand out to see whether the tithe rent charge value does not come down. My right hon. Friend (Sir F. Banbury) thinks that corn will come back to 30s. Then the redeemer of tithe rent-charge will wait for that chance. You want to get rid of the friction that exists if the tithe rent-charge goes up in value much beyond the point at which it is now. I think it is wise to give the opportunity of redeeming on terms which are exceedingly favourable to the clergy, having regard to the fact that they will get a sum which will represent the value of the tithe rent charge at the time when it was instituted in place of the payment of the actual tithe itself. That is the sum total of this Bill. I confess that I would much rather that the period was extended than shortened. I would much rather that it was made seventeen years than seven years. You would, I believe, get a fairer average if you extended the period rather than shortened it. I hope, therefore, that the Government will not depart from the period laid down in the Bill.
    Mr. HOLT: I would rather like to support the Amendment, and I must say that I think the President of the Board of Agriculture used an argument which was rather unworthy of himself when he taunted the hon. Member (Sir Fortescue Flannery) for making an unpopular proposal. I do not think members who bring forward proposals ought to have that cast into their teeth. However unpopular, the hon. Baronet was quite right in putting his proposal before the Committee. I was very much impressed by the speech of the Noble Lord, but, of course, it was really a speech against the Bill altogether, and I agree with him.
    Viscount WOLMER: No.
    Mr. HOLT: The right hon. Gentleman really misrepresented the effect of the Amendment. The effect of it is simply to limit the duration of the Bill to a period of four years instead of seven years. The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten that there is nothing whatever to prevent a

    1517
    new Bill being introduced to deal with the period 1923–26 if circumstances between now and then make it appear desirable to do so, The effect of this Amendment is not to make a fixed condition of affairs between 1923 and 1926. All the Amendment says is that we will not now at this time alter the law during those three years, but it leaves it open to the House of Commons to pass legislation to deal with the period between 1923 and 1926 if it thinks fit to do so. I think it is hard luck on the clergy. I am a small tithe payer, but I think it is hard, when everybody else is having his wages raised because of the increased cost of living, that the clergy should not have the same advantage. I should have thought that it would be very difficult to conceive a more just proposal than that a man's income should be strictly relevant to the cost of living, which is what tithe means. I cannot see the real reason for this measure at all. If you are really going to stabilise tithe, surely you ought to do it for as short a period as possible in order that you may wait till the cost of living is stabilised also. How do we know that the cost of living will have gone down in the years between 1923 and 1926 to the pre-war standard? We have no guarantee, and I doubt very much whether the Government in their reconstruction proposals seriously expect that the wages of anybody except clergymen are going back to the old pre-war level. That being so, this does seem to me to be an unfair proposal, and I hope the Government will yet see their way to accept the Amendment, and let this Bill be for a strictly limited period in order that the position of the unfortunate clergy, who are an underpaid section of the community, may receive fair consideration at a date more near to the actual circumstances than we are at the present time.
    Viscount WOLMER: I realy think that the President of the Board of Agriculture has not been quite fair with us. The object of our Amendment is not such as a casual following of his speech might lead anyone to believe. You cannot consider the matter apart from the question of redemption. The whole object of the Bill is redemption.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I beg your pardon. The primary object of the Bill is to limit the rise in the value of the tithe.
    5.0 P.M.
    Viscount WOLMER: One of the most important objects in the Bill is redemp-
    1518
    tion. I read the right hon. Gentleman's speech very carefully, and he said that the Bill would lead to much redemption. The supporters of this Amendment feel that you will not get much redemption as long as the tithe payer can go on gambling on a fall in the price of tithe at the end of seven years. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that in 1923 the price of tithe might be £180. The answer to the whole of his speech is to be found in his own Amendment which he has put down, and in the provision in the Bill for redemption. If the tithe payer does not want to pay £180, let him redeem. Four years afford amply sufficient time to enable him to do so. Personally, I do not like the price of tithe fixed at all, but the tithe payer can have no grievance against this Amendment. In the first place, he ought not to have any great grievance against the bargain, but he cannot possibly have any grievance against this Amendment as long as he is allowed to redeem on equitable terms. The right hon. Gentleman answered himself when he pointed out that we did not know what the price of tithe was going to be in 1923, 1924, 1925, and 1926, or what temptations or allurements there might be to tithe payers to hang on and not to redeem. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to get tithe payers to redeem, then by all means, if he likes, give them a reasonable time to do so. But why say that they can eat their cake and have it? Why say that they can refuse to redeem and yet continue to enjoy the special immunity, the special privilege, and the special interference with the old bargain? That surely is not reasonable. Either a man ought to redeem on such terms as will give the clergy security of income and safeguard them against another disastrous fall such as they had in years past, or else the tithe payer ought to abide by the bargain. The Bill does allow the tithe payer to escape. It is heads he wins and tails the tithe owner loses. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to do anything unjust. He is the last person in the world to be reproached with any such desire at all. But he has not answered my hon. Friend, who was not desirous of raising the price of tithe in the year 1923, but merely of fixing a reasonable limit during which he thinks, and I think, that the tithe payer ought to find ample time to redeem under the provisions of the Bill.
    Mr. D. MASON: My hon. Friend (Mr. Holt) stated that the right hon. Gentleman entirely misrepresented the Amendment. I am very sorry to find myself in disagreement with my hon. Friend, but I did not so read the right hon. Gentleman's speech. My hon. Friend said the House might pass some other Bill, but it is always open to us to pass any Bill. On the arguments of the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Flannery) himself we are justified in supporting the Government, which certainly has done a great deal for agriculturists. I hope, therefore, the Committee will support the Government in sticking to the Clause as drafted. While none of us can tell what the cost of living will be, the tendency will surely be to fall, and therefore if we were to accept the Amendment and bring in another Bill at the end of four years to alter the situation again, which is very unlikely, we must assume that if the Amendment were carried the septennial basis would come into play after 1923, which would be at a period when tithe was at its maximum, and it would unduly add to the advantages which accrue both to the clergy and the agriculturists. I hope, therefore, the Government will adhere to the original Clause.
    Mr. HOHLER: I have listened with considerable interest to the speech of my Noble Friend, in which he constantly repeated that the bargain made with the clergy ought to be adhered to. In my view that bargain has very long since been broken, at the instance of the clergy. My recollection of the law is that under the Act of 1836 tithe was a charge as against the occupier or the tenant of the land. That continued until 1891, in which year, owing to the extreme harshness and the unjust operation of the extraordinary tithe for the benefit of the clergy, there were agitations throughout the country. The tenants would not pay the extraordinary tithe which became chargeable, and the result was that the clergy had to distrain and there were riotous scenes, and the bargain was altered. Instead of the tenant now being the tithe payer it is the owner. The owner, becoming liable for the tithe, could only ask a greater rent from his tenant if tithe went up if there was a provision in the existing lease that the tenant paid the tithe. After the Act of 1891, the owners of land, in the great majority of eases, entered into arrangements whereby merely a fixed rent is payable, and under the law the owner pays the tithe. It is not the owner who
    1520
    is getting the benefit of the increased price of corn at all as long as leases are running, and even if they were, leases are not or ought not to be broken for this purpose, and it is a great mistake to say that this is a breach of any bargain. We have now got an absolutely abnormal state of things which no one anticipated. No bargain of this character would have been entered into if it had been considered that this complaint would be made of breaking a bargain. I think this is beneficial to the clergy. Their tithe will be fixed at 108, and those clergy who have during the past been receiving tithe at far less have largely disappeared. Every new incumbent who has come in is getting this enormous benefit, and it is not the old man who has endured the loss in the past who is reaping anything. I have a case in my own parish where the clergyman is just dead. He has suffered this smallness of tithe, and the new man coming in will get this advantage. We have to consider this thing from a broad standpoint. Further than that, it is a very great advantage, and I am surprised that my Noble Friend does not realise it. He should not forget that the clergy are assessed to the rates on every halfpenny of tithe they get. Consequently, if you induce the landowner to redeem the tithe, he gets his money invested in Government securities and gets his average 3, 4, or 5per cent., or whatever it may be, and he is no longer called upon to pay those rates, and the difference has to be made up by an increased rate on every occupier in the parish. Consequently, it seems to me, there has been no breach of the bargain. Parliament apparently has never hesitated, where the bargain led to scandals or was unfair in its operation, to deal with it in the past. How anyone can complain that tithe, which was commuted at 100 per cent. and is now to be fixed for a period of seven years at 108, is unfair I am at a loss to understand. You are inducing people to find large sums of money to come in and redeem, in order to relieve the clergy from the rates and to raise the rates in every parish throughout the country. I think the Amendment ought not to succeed, and I shall certainly vote against it.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: The right hon. Gentleman's arguments have not convinced me of the logical rectitude of his position, but, as the main object I had in view, of facilitating the redemption of tithe, and making sure that it would be

    1521
    upon the terms of 5 per cent. and twenty-one years' purchase, are set forth in another Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, if he will give me the assurance that he will press for the passage of his Amendment, and not consent to it being substantially altered, I will ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I certainly propose to press my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: I beg to move to leave out the words "twenty-six" ["nineteen hundred and twenty-six"], and to insert instead thereof the word "thirty-three."
    The effect of my Amendment will be that tithe will be fixed at 109 for fourteen years instead of the period mentioned in the Bill. The reason which I have in moving this is not that which actuated hon. Members representing English constituencies in opposing the last Amendment. It is one of a series of suggestions which I make to the Board of Agriculture, in order that the Welsh county councils, which will be compelled next year to buy tithe of the Church in Wales, shall not make a ruinous bargain through the imposition of this obligation upon them by Parliament. I have no doubt a case can be made out for the point of view of the English and Welsh tithe payer in favour of the extension of the period, but I want to explain the parlous condition in which the Welsh county councils will find themselves next year. According to the Welsh Church Act, which got on the Statute Book in September, 1914, the Welsh county councils, immediately on the conclusion of the War, will be compelled, if the representative body of the Church in Wales requires it to commute the tithe. I pass by for the moment the question of the price at which they will have to commute, because I have other Amendments later on, but I am assuming for purposes of argument for the moment that this Bill fixes the price of commutation at 109. The Welsh county councils will have no option but to buy tithe at that figure. That is the first unfairness in the Bill. This Bill gives the right to the tithe buyer to refuse to redeem if he likes. He is allowed to wait and see whether tithe will come down or go up, but the Welsh county councils are ordered to buy next year by the Welsh Church Act. They have no option in the matter at all. It is not a question of the
    1522
    Welsh tithe payer having to pay 109 for every year that this Bill will be current, but the Welsh county councils, who have to buy tithe at that figure, will have to do so by the Welsh Church Act. What will their position be then? Take £100 worth of tithe which is fixed by this Bill at £109. Assume as we have always assumed in the other Debates, the county councils should commute on a basis of thirteen years' purchase, £109 multiplied by thirteen gives a figure of £1,417—that is to say, for every £100 of tithe commuted, the Welsh county councils will have to borrow £1,417. They have to borrow that money at 4 per cent. or 5 per cent.; that will mean that they will go on paying that for thirteen years in addition to the capital sum they will have to pay of £1,417. At the end of the thirteen years, their position ought to be that they do not lose, and do not gain.
    We were assured when the Welsh Church Bill was before this House—my Noble Friend I think (Lord Wolmer) was one who addressed us on several occasions, I am not sure, but I remember a great number of speeches were delivered at that time—we were told constantly that commutation simply means a business transaction carried on upon an actuarial basis. One party is not going to gain by it, and the other party is not going to lose by it; it is a pure business transaction. Find out what the real value of the life interest of the clergy is, and it is all simple. What would then be the position at the end of the thirteen years? The Welsh county councils ought to be in a position to say, "Well we have just cleared ourselves in this matter." But according to this Bill as it stands they will receive £109 for seven years—that is, £763. For the next six years the county councils, who will be then the tithe owners, will be left to the mercy of a septennial average. Whether the septennial average reduces or increases the value of tithe, no one, of course, can tell. I suppose the reason why seven years has been fixed in the Bill is that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board and his advisers have come to the conclusion that after seven years the abnormal state of things created by the War will have passed away and the ordinary rule for fixing tithes will be restored. The inevitable result must be, I submit, that after seven years, tithe must come down even to par, or something under par; I assume it comes down to par. For the next six years the Welsh county councils will be receiving £100 a

    1523
    year for £100 nominal value of tithe. In six years they will receive £600. They receive in the seven years currency of this Bill £763. They will receive altogether a total of £1,363, making a dead loss on what we were told was to be a pure business transaction. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider how this Bill affects the county councils. But for this Bill I agree that Welsh Members and Welsh county councils would have no right to complain. The fact that tithe has gone up since 1915 from £77 to £109 this year could be made no ground of complaint in my judgment if the price of tithe were not arbitrarily interfered with by the action of the Government. Scores of Welsh county councils would have to pay £153 next year for the tithe. As long as they have a chance of recouping themselves by increases in the value of tithe in three or four or six or seven years I should be quite willing to take my chance.
    But this Bill does this: It says to the Welsh county councils—the only people I am concerned with—"Though you pay so much for your tithe you shall not receive more than £109 for seven years. If after the seven years are over the price of tithe is found to have fallen to par or under par we are not going to help you. Parliament is not going to help you, although Parliament has arbitrarily interfered with the price of tithe during the period of increase." The object, therefore, of this Amendment is to try and safeguard as far as possible the position of these unfortunate county councils. If you say you will fix the value of tithe for fourteen years, as I suggest in this Amendment, that will give some assurance to the county councils that at all events they will get the money back they will have borrowed next year to buy out the tithes. It does not meet the whole grievance, because they will have to pay interest on the borrowed funds and pay the sinking fund as well. That has not been provided for, of course. That is why, in my opinion, you cannot deal satisfactorily with the case of the Welsh county councils in this Bill at all, but I am trying to relieve the position as much as possible by the suggestion in this Amendment. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept it as an act of common justice to these people. They have not asked to be allowed to buy the Welsh tithes; that was an Act of State of this Parliament, carried through this House in three successive
    1524
    Sessions of Parliament. The obligation is placed on these public bodies to become responsible for buying up Welsh tithes next year. It is surely not too much to ask Parliament to say that these public bodies in carrying out the behest of Parliament should not be brought into the bankruptcy court, because that may very possibly happen if nothing else is done. The first suggestion I make is contained in this Amendment, namely, that the price of tithes should be stabilised by this Bill, not for seven years, but for fourteen years, to give some additional safeguard to the county councils in the carrying out of their work.
    Mr. L. HARDY: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers in connection with this Amendment, I should like to say a few words from the point of view of an Amendment that I have a little lower in the Paper, in order that he may consider the two questions together. I do not wish to enter into the Welsh question in any sense, but I wish to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that I think there is a great deal to be said for altering in some measure the present system which prevails in regard to the length of time he stabilises tithes. I think the right hon. Gentleman, in his Second Reading speech, did contemplate some Amendment in the nature of the one I have on the Paper, because he said:
    "Tithe owners have expressed a willingness to accept a limitation, and that willingness has been coupled with a suggestion that if they gave up a prospective rise, they shall be protected against an undue fall. I should like to say that if that suggestion is presented in a concrete form in an Amendment it will receive our careful consideration."
    That did, I think, contemplate something in the nature of my Amendment. The tithe owner is giving up a great protection, and he should be protected from a too rapid fall at the end of the seven years contemplated by this Bill. It may be extremely rapid. He may lose all his good years and come in only for a bad time again, and I think it is only natural that he should be protected in some sense, and the easiest way to protect him, it seems to me, is to alter the septennial period to a longer average of fifteen years, and to make the changes very much more gradual to meet the circumstances. That is a very much better way. When cases came before the agricultural courts it was a complaint on the part of the tithe payer that the septennial average did not give

    1525
    him enough commission, that it was too slow in action. From all that side there were always complaints, but now it falls upon the owner there is very much more reason for a long time than when it fell on the occupier. The owner might alter his rent at any moment. Tenancies come-to an end and are renewed, and in other ways rents are greatly altered, and the value cannot be altered to meet sudden changes, as we have noted now and as we noted thirty years ago in the other direction. I think it will be a great advantage to the tithe owner that the change should come gradually, as it would with a longer time. It would certainly be an advantage to the tithe owner to have a longer period to get in under the lapse of this first Clause. From every point of view there seems to me good ground for suggesting a change of this sort, and therefore I would ask, without going fully into my Amendment at this point, whether the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether my Amendment will not meet the points raised by the Mover of this Amendment, and he might be willing to accept this particular way of giving more even conditions altogether to the raising and diminution of tithes.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I recognise that there is a substantial difficulty revealed in the hon. Member's speech about the position of the potential tithe owner. I think that while we are entitled to ask for these potential tithe owners the same sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice, that we ask from the existing tithe owners of some portion of the abnormal and exceptional rise of tithes, we ought not in this Bill to render the financing of the Church Act any more difficult than we can possibly avoid. I feel that if this Bill indirectly made the financing of that Bill impossible, we should be doing wrong to what is an Act passed by this House. Therefore, I am anxious to make such concessions to tithe owners as will satisfy them that the bargain that we strike with them is fair and equitable. I am bound to say that when I moved the Second Beading of this Bill I put the bargain from the tithe payer's point of view; but as the right hon. Member for the Ashford Division (Mr. Lawrence Hardy) has reminded me, I said that in doing so, I understood that the tithe owner had accepted the bargain, but with the proviso, or, at all events, the suggestion that some quid pro quo should be added in the form of securing him against too great and too rapid
    1526
    a fall in the value of tithe rent. It is quite true that in my Bill as it stands, 109 is to be the price for certain years—that is to say, it is not to rise above that price or to fall below. There are other arguments that I could bring to bear upon the point, but I can see no other conclusion than this, that this is a nominal advantage and not a real one to the tithe owner, as there is very little likelihood of the tithe falling below that sum during a period of seven years. If that is so the advantage offered in this Bill to tithe owners in compensation for the sacrifice they are making is not sufficient. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. L. Williams) prolongs this period for seven years. The right hon. Member for the Ashford Division tries to arrive at the same thing by a quindecennial average. His Amendment cannot be discussed now, but the effect of it would be that in starting his quindecennial average with the 1st January, 1926, he would take in the low-priced years which preceded the present rise. I take it he would begin at 1911 and make his fifteen years' average through that period. Therefore he would have these abnormally high values counteracted and counterbalanced by the low averages of the previous years, and that when these earlier low prices drop out their place would be taken not by the present abnormally exceptional prices but by prices which would represent peace-time agriculture. I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of that proposal. I prefer it to the proposal of the hon. Member for Carmarthen. In that deferred form, spread over an extended period, it does give to the tithe owner some of the advantages that he would be entitled to if we had not brought in this Bill. To that extent it would materially improve the financial position of the county councils in Wales in financing their statutory obligations. That is not the main reason why I regard the proposal favourably; it is on the broad ground of general justice to the tithe owner. With one small alteration, "Provided that in no case the tithe rises above 109," I should be disposed to accept that Amendment, and I can assure the hon. Member for Carmarthen that in accepting that in preference to his own, I believe he would not be in any substantially worse position, and that he would find that the council was obtaining for himself as a potential tithe owner, but obtaining in a deferred form, those higher prices which

    1527
    will prevail during the war period and would materially assist in financing the obligations under the Welsh Church Act. If he would be willing, therefore, to accept the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Ashford in lieu of his own, I shall be glad to accept it.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: In these days one has to be thankful for small mercies, and if the right hon. Gentleman makes this offer I shall not refuse it. The only comment I make upon his speech is that the county councils in Wales are in a different position from the payer of tithe in England. With the county councils it is a forced bargain next year. If you accept my Amendment you will be telling the county councils that you will see to it that they get 109 every year for the tithe for fourteen years. Therefore, the county councils would know exactly where they stood. By accepting the other Amendment it may be that the same result will be forthcoming, but no one can go to the county councils and say that after the seven years the quindecennial average will mean that they will get somewhere about 109 for the next six or seven years. It will be problematical and will depend upon all sorts of circumstances over which this House has no control at all. If the right hon. Gentleman had accepted my Amendment it would have been better from the Welsh point of view because it would have been certain, but having regard to what has been said, I am prepared to accept the Amendment and to accept the right hon. Gentleman's commitments on it. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Viscount WOLMER: I beg to ask whether the next Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member is in order? The effect of it, as I understand it, would be to alter the tithe rent-charge in the Welsh Church Act of 1914, which is to be commuted according to Schedule of that Act at the value of the septennial average. The effect of this Amendment would be to bring within the scope of this Bill the tithe rent-charge fixed in the Welsh Church Act 1914, with the result that that tithe rent-charge dealt with in the Welsh Church Act could not be commuted according to the septennial averages laid down in Schedule 5, but would be commuted at 109, the price fixed by this Bill. In other words, the effect of this Amendment would be not only to amend
    1528
    this Bill but to amend the Welsh Church Act of 1914. I submit that this Bill is, according to its short title, a Bill to amend the tithe Acts 1886 and 1891, and that therefore any Amendment which has-the effect of amending the Welsh Church Act or any other Act except the Tithe Acts is out of order.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. J. W. Wilson): That question has been carefully considered, and it is the opinion at the Table that Clause 15 of the Welsh Church Act where it alludes to the septennial average alludes to it as the ordinary value of the tithe, and it is, therefore, quite competent in an Act like this, which alters the value for the time being of the tithe, to interfere, if the House-thought fit, with the value laid down in the Welsh Church Act. Whether the House accepts it in this particular form or on an average of fifteen years, or seven years or five years, it is perfectly competent for the House to decide this point on this Bill. The question whether it is included in the tithe is a minor one because it is competent for the House to alter the title of a Bill.
    Viscount WOLMER: Will it be in order for other hon. Members to introduce Amendments altering other provisions in the Welsh Church Act?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That point will be dealt with when it arises.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: I beg to move, after the word "rent-charge," to insert the words
    "(including the tithe rent-charge dealt with in the Welsh Church Act, 1914)."
    I beg leave to move this Amendment in order to draw attention to this question as soon as possible. The Amendment is really identical in its object with the last Amendment which stands in my name on Clause 1—to add the words
    "And such sum shall be deemed to be the amount of the tithe rent-charge according to the septennial average in force at the date of Disestablishment of the Welsh Church within the meanings of the Fourth and Fifth Schedules of the Welsh Church Act, 1914, if the said Act comes into operation before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six."
    I should like to ask some guidance. I do not wish to make a speech twice over; therefore I propose to deal with the two Amendments which are identical in object now, in order that I may formally move my Amendment at the end of the Clause later on.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is obviously for the convenience of the Committee.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: The position created with regard to the Welsh Church Act is a very peculiar one. I said in the course of the Second Reading Debate that I had no intention in any way of reviving the old controversies, which I hope will never occur again, between us and what used to be called the Established Church in Wales. I am perfectly willing to accept the position as it stands. Great though the changes have been, and different as is the position from that which Parliament intended it to be when it passed the Welsh Church Act finally in 1914, no one could have foreseen, and no one did foresee, the enormous rise in the price of tithes. But since that has occurred I do not cavil in the slightest degree, and I am perfectly willing that the Church in Wales should get the benefit of it. All that I am concerned with is that the Welsh county councils should have fair play, and I am certain that my right hon. Friend will do his utmost, if I can make out a case, to meet our grievance. The Noble Lord has already pointed out that the commutation of Welsh tithe is provided by Schedules 4 and 5 of the Welsh Church Act, 1914. Schedule 4 provides that the price to be paid for the tithe shall be ascertained on the septennial average in force at the date of Disestablishment. This Bill, on the other hand, fixes the price for the next seven years at 109. The question that will have to be answered next year when the Welsh Church is Disestablished and when the Representative Body, as I have no doubt it will, will ask the county councils to commute the tithe is, "What is the price of tithe? Is the price of tithe to be ascertained by Schedule 4 of the Welsh Church Act or by the Tithe Bill passed last year?"
    If the Welsh Church Act will determine the price of the tithe next year—that is to say, on the septennial average—it is certain that the price of tithe will rise. Therefore the House will be in this position: it will be forcing the Welsh county councils, who have no option in the matter, to buy up tithe in Wales at 153, whereas English landowners will only be called on to pay 109. It may be, and it has been, argued by a great many that this Bill will fix the price of tithe for next year. I think that that is an arguable proposition, but at all events we cannot afford to allow an arguable proposition to determine our attitude
    1530
    on this Bill. We want to know where we stand. If this Bill does not make it perfectly clear what will happen next year will be this. Immediately the Representative Body and the county councils come together this question will arise, and nobody except a Court of law will be able to settle it. I have no objection to people going to a Court of law, but I do object, in a matter of this importance, to leaving it in doubt until a Court of law, next year or the year after, determines what the price is to be, and I wish to have it made perfectly clear that what Parliament meant to do by passing this Bill was to say the price of tithe next year for commutation shall be the price of tithe fixed by the Act for the next seven years—that is to say, 109. The Amendment is only designed to have this effect, to make perfectly clear what I believe is the intention of the framers of the Bill, so that the Welsh county councils may not be uneasy in the matter. It does not amend the Welsh Church Act, except in so far as this Bill amends the whole question of the price of tithe. If this Bill had not been introduced this question would never have arisen, but now that the Bill has been introduced, I think it only right and fair to appeal to the general sense and fairness of the Committee as to whether I am asking too much in asking that this Bill should declare in clear terms that the price of tithe fixed by this Bill, 109, should also be the price at which commutation will take place next year?
    Sir HERBERT ROBERTS: I would like in a few words to explain my own attitude to this Amendment, and the attitude of those with whom I am associated in this House. I desire to support this Amendment as clearly and as strongly as possible. When the Bill was introduced it became evident that it was bound to affect the financial condition of the Welsh county councils, and the commutation Clause of the Welsh Church Act, Whatever financial advantages have accrued to the Church in Wales through the developments of the War, I am one of those who do not complain. The Church in Wales is fully entitled to those advantages, and we must accept the situation. It is literally the fortune of war, and I have not the slightest objection to any benefit, financial or otherwise, accruing to the Church in Wales from these causes. But, as my hon. and learned Friend has already explained, a new situation is created by the introduction of this Bill. Under this Bill the value

    1531
    of the tithe will be fixed for seven years, at the present septennial value. But doubt has undoubtedly arisen with reference to the meaning of the words in the Welsh Church Act which defines the sum at which commutation shall take place under that Act. The Welsh county councils to-day are face to face at all events with the possibility that while on the one hand they will, during the next seven years, receive tithe only at 109 they may have to commute at 123 or a higher figure than that if commutation is for any reason delayed. I hope that the Committee will not think that I am unduly pressing this point. It seems to me that I can, with some little confidence, appeal to the sense of fair play of this House in considering the matter. The President of the Board of Agriculture has, I know, given the point very careful consideration, and I believe that he recognises that there is a financial hardship involved through this Bill upon the Welsh county councils. In these circumstances I make a very strong appeal to him, if it is in any way possible, to meet this difficulty and provide a solution which will place the Welsh county-councils, in regard to their obligations under the Welsh Church Act, in precisely the same position as if this Bill had not been introduced. I only desire to add that I also am most anxious to avoid in every possible way the recurrence of the old bitter controversy upon the question of the Welsh Church. I think that I may say honestly that during the last four years I have striven to prevent the recurrence of all controversy on these points. Personally, I am deeply interested in the present grave situation and the immense issues that are involved, and I have no more earnest hope than that all the differences which now divide and embitter religious forces in Wales, should be removed so that we may face the future unitedly and endeavour to solve the great problems which lie ahead of us. In conclusion, I appeal once more to the President of the Board of Agriculture to give this matter his most careful and sympathetic consideration. I would not press him at present unless I knew that the hardship which is threatened is of so serious a character to the Welsh county councils. I hope that he will be able to say something by way of an acceptance of this Amendment.
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I am much obliged to the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. L.
    1532
    Williams) and the hon. Member for West Denbigh (Sir Herbert Roberts) for the way in which they have brought this very important question before the Committee. I should like to state my own position. While I hold my own views, I am prepared, if any new and cogent arguments are addressed to me, to reconsider my position. The position which I now take up is this. The real hardship of which the county councils complain is this: They have, owing to the postponement of the date of Disestablishment made under the Welsh Church Act, an extremely bad bargain. They are, under that Act, bound to commute the life interest of the clergy at the septennial average figure for the time being in force. If the date of Disestablishment, therefore, comes about in 1919, the figure of commutation will be 123; if the date for Disestablishment is postponed to 1920, the figure will be 133. Both these figures are, as a matter of fact, largely in excess of the real value of the tithe rent-charge. It is, as has been observed, the fortune of war, and if that were the only difficulty that has been created by the prolongation of the Disestablishment period I should say at once that I had great hopes that the representative bodies would meet the county councils and arrange fair terms at which the commutation should take place. I very much hope that these two bodies may meet, and that before the Report stage of this Bill they may be able to announce some scheme. But we have heard, if I may say so, only one side of the consequences which have arisen from the postponement of the Welsh Church Act. There are losses of the Church. You have to set off the losses of one side against the losses on the other, and before you can arrive at any fair estimate of what the loss is you have to go into the most careful calculations. One point immediately arises. On this very question of commutation the Church has lost the interest of the lives of certain of the clergy. It does not seem to me reasonable that on a side issue such as this a decision should be taken for amending the Welsh Church Act; for that is what this proposition amounts to. While I have some feeling of sympathy, I am bound to say that I think it is hard on the representative bodies that their position in all future discussions should be prejudiced by advantage being taken of this Bill—which is quite different in its form and quite different in its objects

    1533
    from the Welsh Church Act—to prejudice their position for a future settlement of the case.
    When this subject first came up for discussion in my office I was firm in that opinion, and I should have thought that the right thing was to introduce a Bill dealing with the whole question of the difficulties and disturbance of the financial scheme caused by the postponement of the Welsh Church Act. I should have thought that was a reasonable thing to do. As I understand from the Commissioners of Church Temporalities, this is inevitable, and the sooner we all recognise that fact the better it will be. Difficulties have arisen on both sides of the account. They must be readjusted. You cannot readjust by an Amendment of this Bill. It is not quite accurate to say that this Bill in any way affects the Welsh Church Act. It does not do so. The particular point at issue is the figure of commutation stated in the Welsh Church Act. I promised the hon. Member for Carmarthen that we should endeavour to remedy the matter if the difficulty becomes more serious. I have already said that we mean to meet hon. Members on that point, but this proposal is a direct amendment of the Welsh Church Act. I would remind the House that this Bill deals with the relations of tithe owners and tithe payers. The Welsh Church Act does not deal with the relations between tithe owners and tithe payers; it deals with certain provisions regarding new owners of secularised properties, and other relations of quite a different class—namely, the clerical owners of vested interests admitted in the Welsh Church Act.
    The two measures are entirely on different lines, therefore to amend the Welsh Church Act because this Bill deals with other questions seems to me not reasonable. We are quite willing to except all Monmouth and Wales from the operation of this Bill. That is another alternative. But allow me to point out this, that if you do that it would be a cruel hardship on tithe payers in Wales, many of whom are small occupying owners. While I say that I am perfectly willing to do it, I cannot imagine that the representatives of Wales will really press me to do that. I do not imagine that they would for one moment. It follows, then, that, as I feel at present, I am bound to resist this Amendment, because I do not think it is fair or reasonable to prejudice the case of the other side, which has a great deal
    1534
    to be said for it. As for the point raised by the Noble Lord the Member for the Newton Division (Viscount Wolmer), about this question being beyond the scope of the Bill, I must say that I had considerable doubts about it myself, but I took the best possible advice upon the point, for I think that no Government and no Minister ever gains anything by insisting upon a technical point of this sort, and I at once told the hon. Member for West Denbigh that this Amendment would be in order, and it was placed on the Amendment Paper in consequence. At the same time, I feel bound to state that, at the present moment, unless there are new and cogent arguments that can be addressed to me, I think it is necessary to resist this Amendment.
    Sir ELLIS GRIFFITH: The right hon. Gentleman has addressed a peculiar speech to the House. As I understand his position, it is that this Bill does not affect the position of Wales and the Disestablishment Act. If that be so, I do not quite know why he is so anxious that the representative bodies and the county councils should come to terms, or why they should seek to make some arrangement in the future. But, as a matter of fact, whether we are content with the Disestablishment Act or not, this Bill has made the position different compared with the position which existed before it was introduced. The county councils claim upon a basis of 123 in order to receive on a basis of 123. On the other hand, if the county council receives on a basis of 109, they ought to pay on a basis of 109. Is not that really irresistible? It seems to me so obvious and elementary that I hesitate to address it to the right hon. Gentleman. But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that it must be so, that whatever basis affects the county councils in receipts affects them in payments, and whatever affects the basis of payments affects the basis of receipts. There is no way out of that dilemma. The right hon. Gentleman said we have made a bad bargain. This Bill is not our Bill, it is your Bill, and when you introduce the Bill which takes from the county councils thousands of pounds, you do not talk about bad-bargains, but talk about what you yourselves receive under the Bill. It is not a question of a bad bargain. It is bad legislation we have to deal with. Why should the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman be given to us? The real reason is that

    1535
    he knows perfectly well the injustice under this Bill. He may give us his sympathy, but I think it shows that the right hon. Gentleman has not been long enough in the Government, and that the real reason of his sympathy is that he has not entirely freed himself, while in this House, from the existence of a conscience, which, while dormant, yet speaketh.
    Without raising any of the old controversies I submit that this is really a very important matter. If we are dealing with the year 1920 just think what it means; it will mean that the county council will pay 136 for £109. The right hon. Gentleman talked about losses, and said there were losses on both sides. May I remind him that he apparently responded more readily to the losses on one side than to the losses on the other side. I am sure it was an oversight that he forgot to mention the fact that the money market makes an immense difference. Does he remember the percentage under the Disestablishment Act? Does he remember what money will fetch now, and, if he has balanced losses on both sides, has he made any calculations or has he the figures as to the difference in the commutation between 1919 as compared with the commutation which took place in 1914? I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman will see that this is a most important matter. I will not quote the old word of spoliation, but this is the right hon. Gentleman's spoliation. I do not say he can help himself. The right hon. Gentleman has been very successful in bringing tithe payers and owners to a bargain. I congratulate him, and I deplore the fact that the Church has been deprived of so much property by means of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has asked for new reasons why he should change his mind. I do not say I have supplied them, but I do say that this is a really substantial hardship. We are not talking sentiment and we are not reviving old controversies. The right hon. Gentleman said he was going to do something for us. I suppose that means that he was going to lend money to the county councils. I cannot think of anything else. I have never heard of this being done before. You take money from a person and you lend him money to make up the loss. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that really the case of Wales must be taken into account in this matter. He said we could exclude Wales from the Bill altogether. That was technical and ingenious.
    1536
    For my own part I have an open mind on this point, and I think the matter is worthy of consideration, but I do not think he ought to put us in a difficult position of that kind. He is a statesman. He is at the head of a great Department, and somehow he is responsible for this Tithe Bill. I tell him it is his duty and his business to find a remedy for this hardship, and I hope he will give us some more satisfactory answer.
    Sir ERNEST POLLOCK: I think we are getting into wrong lines in this Debate, and that there is some misunderstanding as to the real position. The hon. Member for the Carmarthen District (Mr. L. Williams) and the hon. Member for West Denbighshire (Sir H. Roberts) put their case quite fairly and reasonably from their point of view. They were not unmindful of the old controversies we had on the Welsh Church Bill, but from the attitude and tone of their speeches they desired to keep those controversies out of the question. I desire to do the same. It was said by them that the result of this Bill as it stands would be to create a great hardship upon Wales. The right hon. Gentleman has pointed out that this forms one of the terms in what was a bargain, or what we will call a system that was adopted for the purpose of the commutation of the interests of those who were the owners of the tithes. We know quite well that at the time that that commutation scheme was before the House it was very carefully considered in all its bearings and adopted as a fair, if not too generous scheme. Now it is suggested that under this Bill you can, by an Amendment, make an alteration in that scheme in order to remove what is at present called an injustice. I do not think it is possible for this Committee brick by brick to take that system in the Welsh Church Act to pieces. There are many articles in that system, and it would be quite unfair to deal with one and not with the others. I think the right hon. Gentleman was quite right when he said that there was a good deal to be said for the other side. If I do not refer to particular matters which could be put by the other side, it is because I do not want, even in appearance, to be in controversy with the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen District. I know he takes a very different view of the working out of the commutation scheme from what I do. I should challenge his figures, and, unless we were both to sit down and spend a great many hours

    1537
    on the question, we could not arrive at what was a true solution. At all events, it is better to leave it there by saying that I do not accept his figures, and he does not accept mine.
    How far does this Bill make an inroad on the Welsh Church Act? By that Act the tithes are handed over to the county councils, subject to this, that the county councils have got to pay the existing interests of persons who have got an interest which still survives the Welsh Church Act to those persons. They are the real individual owners. They are not the Welsh Church as a whole, and it is not to the representative body, but to the persons who have got the interest which survives the passage of the Welsh Church Act that the money is to be paid. It is a matter as between the county councils and the owners of those existing interests. The point is now whether or not we shall allow the facilities which are granted by this Bill for redemption at a certain price to prevail in Wales so that the county councils can redeem the tithes. If the county councils desire to commute or redeem the tithe at once in order to deal with the matter they could do so if they had the money. As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman says he would make it easy for the county councils to deal with the position under the Act and to redeem at once at a price of 109 by loans of money. If that facility is granted, then all difficulties are really taken away.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: He has not said so.
    Sir E. POLLOCK: I appreciate that, but I think the right hon. Gentleman intended to give facilities so as to make it easy for the county councils to make use of the facilities which are given by this Bill. I am quite certain that before the Debate is over he will gladly clear the matter up. But if it is so, and if the county councils get the power to take advantage of the scheme of this Bill then really very little harm is done. It is not a right thing to say that you will take out one of the bricks out of the structure or system which forms the scheme under which the Welsh Church was to receive or to lose certain property, because this matter does not concern money which is to be paid over to the Welsh Church or the Representative Body; it concerns only the question of the commutation of existing interests and as to whether or not the county councils are to have the opportunity of redeeming those liabilities which
    1538
    they have undertaken at a certain price or not. One alternative is presented to us, namely, leaving Wales and Monmouthshire out of the Bill altogether. I do not think that is in the nature of a dilemma, but it seems to me it would be a very unfair thing to remove from the Bill all persons who have to pay tithes in Wales and Monmouthshire and deprive them of the opportunity of redemption at the price stated in the Bill, because a certain number of county councils are under liability to pay to existing interests for certain tithes. I should be very sorry to lay, I will not call it an injustice, but to place Wales or Monmouthshire under that disability. There must be a great number of tithes there and a number of small people concerned who would be very glad to have the opportunity of availing of this Bill. Hon. Members from Wales must be able to tell us what that position is. If they prefer to cut Wales out of the Bill it can be done, but the present proposal is quite different from that. It is pleaded that some sort of injustice to the county councils is introduced, and that the advantage lies in favour of the Welsh Church. It is not so. It is only a question of the liability of the county councils to individual persons, and it would be quite unfair, having regard to the relationship of tithe owner and tithe payer to say that in this case you are going, by a Clause in this Bill, to take to pieces a part of a system adopted after much thought. I hope, under those circumstances, that the right hon. Gentleman will adhere to the position he has taken up. He has suggested that an arrangement could be made before the Report stage between those interested, namely, the county councils and those existing interests. I think those who are putting forward the claim on the ground that an advantage has arisen to the Welsh Church are really putting that claim too high. It is not so. It is only the tithe owner who could by any possibility have any advantage, and that advantage could be settled, if not entirely removed, if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to give the facilities I have mentioned.
    Sir COURTENAY WARNER: I should not have intervened in this Debate as I have no interest in the Welsh Church question, but it seems to me that this Bill has been introduced on the same principle as that which applied to the price of necessaries of life. Tithes, like the necessaries

    1539
    of life, have gone up enormously in consequence of the War, and it has been found necessary by the Government to fix the price. According to the Welsh Church Act there was a bargain that the tithes should be bought at their price next year. The price of tithe was defined in the Bill as the price of tithe has always been defined, namely, according to the Septennial Act which meant the ordinary current value. If we are going to alter the ordinary current value all over the country, surely we have got no business to say because there has been an agreement to sell at the ordinary current value under a certain Act of Parliament that though we alter the current value all over for purchaser and seller that we will not alter it in this case because there has been an agreement made some time ago. That agreement was not made with any view to this Bill or with any view to the War. Take the case of a dealer in meat who had undertaken to buy a certain number of hundredweights. You would not say he was not to pay the price that was fixed by the Government and that the price was to be that which prevailed in the market quite independent of the Government and Government regulations. I say that that would not be fair. You are making regulations now as to the price of tithe. If that is the case, surely it does not matter whether you have agreed to buy it before. As long as you agreed to buy it at the current price I do not think it will be fair to the Welsh county councils or to anybody else to say that they were to pay a price different from the rest of the purchasers.
    Viscount WOLMER: We have had a demand from the Welsh Members for a vital and fundamental Amendment of the Welsh Church Act. I listened to two very able and interesting speeches introducing this Amendment, and what was the reason that they advanced for trying to reintroduce the question of the Welsh Church Act into a Bill which is to amend the Tithe Acts? Their arguments, as I understood them, were that this Bill would bring about an entirely new and not contemplated situation and that unless their wishes are acceded to the net result of the Welsh Church Act will be very different from what its promoters intended or from what Parliament intended when the Act was passed into law. This Bill is not the cause of the trouble. The
    1540
    cause of the trouble is the phenomenal situation which has arisen by reason of the War. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If the War has nothing to do with it hon. Members have a very simple remedy. They can move to cut Wales and Monmouthshire out of this Bill, and that is a proposition which we will discuss on its merits. If the Welsh party really desire that this Bill should not apply to Wales and Monmouthshire they have only got to say so, but although I believe there was an Amendment to that effect some days ago it has now disappeared. Therefore the fact is that hon. Members put down that Amendment and then withdrew it.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: I put it down without consultation with my colleagues.
    Viscount WOLMER: After the hon. Member had had the benefit of consulting them he saw fit to withdraw it, and that shows very clearly that he recognises that the War has created a situation in Wales which none of us contemplated a few years ago and a situation which demands legislation to deal with it. I think the hon. Member has admitted that by his actions. Therefore it is not this Bill which has introduced the new situation, but the War, and, that being so, the hon. Member and his friends come to the House and ask us to make a vital alteration in the Welsh Church Act because the new conditions that were not foreseen have brought about a situation that was not contemplated when the Act was passed. If that be the argument of the hon. Members opposite, I am very much disposed to agree with them. A new situation has arisen which none of us contemplated when the Welsh Church Act was under discussion, and circumstances are now very different from what were ever contemplated even in September, 1914. But I absolutely refuse to agree to a partial, one-sided Amendment of the Welsh Church Act introduced into a Bill like this, without consultation with the Representative Body of the Church in Wales, and simply in order to put right one of the particular difficulties that have arisen through the War situation. I quite agree with what the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs said when he said that the present situation in regard to the Welsh Church Act is intolerable. I entirely agree, and I think the whole question will have to be reconsidered, but it would be a most unfair thing to reconsider it in a Bill like this.

    1541
    There are a great many other things that the War has done in regard to the Welsh Church Act which require revision in the light of our experiences during the last four years. What about the lapsed livings that have fallen vacant during that time? What about the acute financial drainage of the whole country? I listened very often to hon. Members opposite, who told us time and again that what they were doing by the Welsh Church Act was for the benefit of the Welsh Church, because it would prompt Churchmen to give their thousands and their tens of thousands to replace the endowments taken from the Church. Do hon. Members opposite think that that argument has not been affected by the War? Do they think it is as easy to raise money now as it was in 1914? Do they think they can pick out one particular part of the Welsh Church Act and say, "This has not quite panned out as we expected, and therefore we hope that the House of Commons will alter it in a Tithe Bill, but we refuse to admit that those circumstances have affected the Welsh Church Act in any other way"? No, Sir; it won't wash. If the Welsh Church Act has proved to be unsuitable and unfitted to the conditions brought about by the War, then by all means let it be reconsidered, but do not try to make the Welsh Church Act more harsh and more unjust than it was by a side-wind Amendment of this sort. What is the practical effect of this Amendment? As the Welsh Church Act stands at the present moment, the clergy, whose life interests are to be compensated, are to receive their compensation at the rate of the septennial average. The hon. Member for the Carmarthen Boroughs wants to cut it down to 109. That, as far as those vested interests are concerned, would be the effect of his Amendment. That is to say, he wants to deprive those men who have already been very hardly dealt with by the Welsh Church Act—it is quite a mistake to suppose that their interests are adequately protected by that Act, because they are not—he wants to cut down the settlement which seemed just to the Liberal party in 1914, and I think, if I may say so, that that would be a very mean and a very unworthy act on the part of this House.
    There is another side of the question. As I understand the scheme underlying this Bill, the justification for fixing the price of tithe, for interfering with the automatic rise in tithe, is that in future
    1542
    years the tithe owner shall be guaranteed by the redemption Clauses of this Bill against tithe ever falling to an abnormally low level, and therefore those two parts of the Bill are inter-related, and must balance each other. It is not just to fix the price of the tithe unless you are also going to guarantee to the tithe owner some security of income in the future, and the same applies not only to the tithe owner but to the Church as a whole. But what hon. Members opposite want to do is to lower the price that the Welsh Church Act fixes to be paid to the vested interests in Wales, without giving a single farthing of compensation or any other balancing advantage to make good that great loss of money. Therefore, I do not say that this is an Intentional attempt to queer the pitch, but the effect of it would be most unjust and most harsh. You would be picking out a particular section of the Welsh Church Act which was not quite working out as you wanted it to, you would be trimming that according to your fancy, you would be taking away money from poor clergy in Wales guaranteed to them by an Act of Parliament which you yourselves placed on the Statute Book, and you would be giving them no other compensation at all. I noticed that some hon. Members opposite stated that war conditions would bring more money into the Church in Wales. That, if I may say so, is an entire mistake. The rise in the price of tithe will not benefit the Church in Wales by a single farthing. It benefits the life interests, of course, but inasmuch as the Representative Body of the Church in Wales is only trustee for the money belonging to the vested interests and has got to pay back to them their full interest in their livings, the price of the tithe does not affect the Church in Wales as a whole. But it does affect several hundred poor clergymen who have had a settlement forced on them by the Welsh Church Act, and to interfere with the money guaranteed them by that Act would be a piece of one-sided and very grave injustice.
    Mr. ROCH: I do not wish to follow the Noble Lord in the very interesting speech which he has just made, which, I think, is rather outside the scope of the Bill and somewhat outside the scope of the Amendment. I have only risen to ask the right hon. Gentleman just one question. I heard the speech he made in reply to this Amendment, and I do not quite understand what exactly he proposes to do for the county councils. I understand he does admit the

    1543
    grievance and the difficult position in which the county councils have been placed. The interpretation which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Leamington (Sir E. Pollock) put on his speech was that the right hon. Gentleman would assist the county councils now to purchase and redeem these tithes at 109. Speaking for myself only, I think that is a very fair proposal, and it is one which I should be disposed to fall in with at once. I have risen, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is the right interpretation of what he said, and if he can indicate precisely what proposal he does mean to make to the county councils and what assistance he does mean to give them. If his view is as interpreted by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Leamington, it seems to me that that is a fair proposal which will be satisfactory to all parties concerned.
    Mr. PROTHERO: So far as those vested interests are to be commuted under Schedule 4 I cannot agree, but in all the other details they will have the advantage of the Bill.
    Mr. C. REES: The War may have created the situation, but the Bill which is introduced has created this difficulty. The War has sent up the tithe value, but the Bill has made it a difficulty, for this reason. This is a Bill dealing with the country generally. There is on the Statute Book a Welsh Church Act dealing with Wales—a particular part of the United Kingdom. It would appear as if that Act had not been considered when this Bill was drafted, and the result is that the county councils have to buy out at 123, and therefore there is a net loss of fourteen. I think that is the dilemma. How is the dilemma to be got over? It is quite clear that we in this House ought not to say "You are to buy at 123, and as soon as you get it you must sell at 109." It is not good for the county council to lose fourteen. On the other hand, the supporters of the Church say "We are entitled to get 123; why should we take 109?" The answer is that "Having regard to all the circumstances, if 109 is fair in England, it is fair also in Wales, and if we can ask the people in England to take 109 freely, why not the same in Wales?" To that it is said "We have got an Act, and it ought to be 123." The only way out is this. If they ought not to bear the burden and if the county councils
    1544
    certainly ought not, then the nation ought to bear the burden. It must be done somehow.
    Mr. HINDS: I do not think I quite understand the question put by the hon. Member for Pembrokeshire (Mr. Roch). He did indicate in his speech that the difference between 109 and 123 ought in some way, by some financial Clause, to be made up through the Treasury.
    Mr. PROTHERO: Now I realise that neither of the hon. Members was present when we were discussing the previous Amendment. What I said was that the councils would be assisted by my accepting an Amendment which stands in the name of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Hardy), which, over a long period of time, substantially gives the tithe owners, though in a deferred form, some of the advantages which they now derive from high prices.
    Mr. HINDS: I have heard the whole Debate. The Committee can see clearly that we Welsh Members are put in a dilemma. On the one hand, we would not touch this Bill. We only plead at the present time for a county council that which is already given to an individual. If you think the clergy should have the benefit of this bargain, as it is called, the Treasury ought not to ask the county council to pay all the money. We are only asking for justice. We never wanted to open this question. I dare say there will be some calculation to go into with regard to the Church Act. There are pros and cons. The four years have altered the position in many ways, but to ask them to buy tithes at 123 and 126 when they are only getting 109 for them is unfair to the county councils, and it is unfair to ask the smallholder to pay 123 when his neighbour in England is only giving 109. We do not want to open this Welsh question at all. We want to go in peace at the present time. I want to do the fair thing, but I do not think the Board of Agriculture by this Bill is doing the fair thing to the county councils or to the smallholders if it does not come to our rescue.
    Sir EDGAR JONES: I still hope that hon. Members opposite will come to see there is no reason why they should oppose the proposals which we have put forward. They have a right to complain of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, as we have. As a rule, when Departments bring Bills into this House they are supposed to

    1545
    have looked up all other measures with which their Bill might conflict. They did not do it in this case. They forgot the Welsh Church Act altogether when this Bill was drafted, and that is the root of all the trouble. This bother has not arisen owing to our action, and we did not raise the issue, which I am very sorry has been raised. The position is perfectly clear. You have in England and Wales at the present time clergymen who are owners of tithe, and tenants—some of them very small tenants—who are payers of tithe. The small tenants would be paying their clergymen regularly during the next twelve months in England and Wales, if this Bill were not introduced, at the current prices. The Noble Lord spoke of depriving the poor clerymen of what is due to them. We are not doing that. This Bill is doing that. The right hon. Gentleman has brought in a Bill, and hon. Gentlemen opposite are supporting it. By this Bill you are arranging that the small tithe payer shall not continue to pay to his clergyman the high price the War has created, and you are fixing an artificial price, which is, roughly, this figure of 109 It is all very well for hon. Members to say, cut Wales out of this Bill. Then you have got a grievance at once. If the sad thing happened that the War went on for another four or five years, you would be in this peculiar position, that you would have made an arrangement for small tenants in England to pay clergymen 109, while leaving small tenants in Wales to go on paying their clergymen under the circumstances of the War. That is an impossible arrangement. The difficulty that we have does not seem to have been grasped. This is nothing to do with the Welsh Members and the Welsh Church. The position is this: The county councils have to pay the Welsh Church at a certain figure. Under the Bill it is the septennial average. If you had left it at that they would have been in a position to deal with payers of tithe on the same figure, but you compel them to pay over to the Church a high figure. Now you bring in a Bill and say you cannot redeem it to the smallholders except at 109. It is up to the right hon. Gentleman to find a way out of this dilemma. He has no right to put county councils in a position of that kind, and he should find some way or other of arranging his Bill so that the difficulty could be avoided.
    Mr. L. WILLIAMS: I confess I have been very disappointed indeed at the
    1546
    reception which this very reasonable and business-like Amendment has received at the hands of the President of the Board of Agriculture and hon. Members opposite I really thought that it was so eminently reasonable, and the proposals embodied in it were so moderate, that it would commend itself to the common sense and sense of justice of everyone. The Noble Lord taunted me with having withdrawn an Amendment to exclude Wales. The reason I suggested the exclusion of Wales was that I was under the impression—and I am still under that impression—that you cannot remove all the Welsh grievances created by this Bill in the Bill itself, and that the proper way to deal with a peculiar situation such as this would be by introducing a special and separate measure. But I had no idea that such a proposal would be made by the Government, and therefore I thought that, though I cannot have all that I want, I will at all events try to see whether we can safeguard the county councils from financial loss through the operation of this Bill. We did not ask for this Bill. I do not think a single Welsh Member thought anything of the Bill until the Second Reading. It was when the Bill came on for Second Reading that we saw the character of it for the first time, and put in an immediate protest against it. What the Bill does is this: It interferes in one way with the tithe in order to give a benefit, and it interferes in another way in order to injure Welsh county councils. In other words, it tells the tithe payers in England that they need pay only 109. It knows that it may be that the Welsh county councils will pay 123 next year, although I do not think that is certain, I think it is very doubtful. The question would have to be argued in the Courts of law. I do not think we are taking anything away from the Welsh Church by this Amendment.
    7.0 P.M.
    It may very well be that the Courts of law will say that the words in the Welsh Church Act, "Septennial average in force at the date of Disestablishment," means that the septennial averages in force when the Bill we are passing to-day will be in force next year. In order to avoid any difficulty of that sort, I suggested these other words, so as to make it perfectly clear to county councils that they were safeguarded in this way. Then we were met with all this opposition. While the county councils will have to pay 123, the

    1547
    tithe payer will be paying them 109—a dead loss of 14 per cent. for twenty-seven years. Is that fair? Can anyone say it is a just thing for Parliament to do? I venture to say "No." But the injustice will not end there. This Bill, as the Noble Lord has remarked, is a redemption Bill. One of its chief objects is to enable the redemption of tithe rent-charge, but the county councils will have to pay for that tithe rent-charge at 123, while this Bill, if it becomes law, says that the tithe payer shall be able to redeem at 109. Is that fair, or just, or good business? The Noble Lord has suggested that we are complaining of the bad bargain which we made in connection with the Welsh Church Act. But we have done nothing of the kind, and have been careful to guard ourselves from doing so. I said, and my Leader repeated the statement, that we were perfectly willing that the Church in Wales should benefit by the extraordinary abnormal conditions that have arisen since the War. We have never complained of that, but we do complain that Parliament should be passing a Bill of this sort, interfering with the operation of the Welsh Church Act in a way that is prejudicial to the Welsh county councils, and at the same time not seeking even by lifting a little finger to help the county councils in meeting the difficulties which will be created by this Bill. I say it is a monstrous shame and injustice, and I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will support me in the Lobby. I appeal with every confidence to their sense of fair play. Whatever their views may be about the Welsh Church Act, let them be fair and straightforward in this matter. If they object to the Act, let them bring forward a Motion to repeal it, but, at all events, as long as the Welsh Church Act is on the Statute Book and as long as the Welsh county councils are forced under its operation, let those public authorities be protected from the injustice which will be perpetrated by this Bill.
    Mr. HAYDN JONES: Repeated references have been made in this Debate tonight to a suggested desire on the part of my colleagues and myself to alter the Welsh Church Act. We want nothing of the kind; all we want to do is to maintain the status quo and to prevent an injustice being done to the county councils. As the hon. Member for Carmarthen
    1548
    Boroughs has stated, you are fixing in this Bill the price that people will have to pay for tithe in the next seven years. They are to be able to redeem it at £109. On the other hand, when the county council commutes the interest of the clergy—it does not matter whether it is the interest of the individual clergymen or of the Church itself—you cast the burden on the ratepayer of making up the difference between 109 and 123. Is there any Member of this House who will say that it is fair and just to any public body to tell them that they shall not receive more than 109, but must redeem at 123 or some higher figure? The hon. and learned Member for Leamington (Sir E. Pollock) told us that the President of the Board of Agriculture was prepared to meet the Welsh county councils in this matter. As I understood it, he is prepared to give time to enable the county councils to redeem the tithe at 109. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain what his real intention is? In any case I venture to say that the action of the Government in introducing a Bill which will penalise the local authorities in Wales to this substantial extent, will be resented by all public authorities in the Principality. We do not want to reopen these questions. There are, no doubt, injustices done by the Welsh Church Act, but there are also distinct advantages conferred, and the advantage derived from postponing the operation of the Act far outbalances any disadvantage the Church may suffer. I do not want to go into particulars, but I have always reckoned that the Church will be better off by three-quarters of a million sterling by the postponement of the operation of the Act. But here you are perpetrating in a new Act a monstrous injustice, and I appeal to the House not to support any such action. We ask no favour, we simply want justice.
    Mr. PROTHERO: The great difficulty in conducting a discussion of this kind is that hon. Members are not all present throughout the Debate, and the result is that one has to repeat many things which he had hoped had been said once for all. The object of this Bill is to save the tithe payer from the excessive payments which the abnormal exceptional circumstances of the War will throw upon him. That is the prime object of the Bill, and that object can only be obtained by restricting those payments. It means sacrifices for all tithe owners, whether actual or

    1549
    potential. It means the sacrifice of a certain amount by the tithe owner who will be the owner at the date of Disestablishment, namely, the county council. We have tried by the Amendment which I have already explained to maintain the financial position, so far as the present county councils are concerned, and that is to help them to pay it. I admit you are going to lose money on the transaction, but that loss of money results not from the operation of this Bill, but from the operation of the Welsh Church Act, This Act said in effect that these vested interests are to be commuted by the county councils at existing prices. That raises a legal question which has not yet been decided. If the law decides that the septennial averages in force are the fixed payments created by the passing of this Bill, then you are great gainers by the Bill, because instead of buying the tithe at 123 you get it at 109. I must say looking at it as a whole, and with every wish to be fair to both sides, I do think that the proper remedy of any grievance—and I admit there is a grievance—felt by the county council, is to bring in a Bill definitely to settle that grievance whether it be felt on the one side by the county councils, or on the other side by the Church, and it is not fair to introduce it
    into a Bill to amend another particular grievance. Under the circumstances I must resist the Amendment.
    Mr. KEATING: I have listened to the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, and I am sorry to say I do not think it carries with it anything in the nature of conviction. It is entirely unfair to ignore the complaints of Members from Wales on this point, and if the Amendment is pressed to a Division I shall support it in the Division Lobby. The right hon. Gentleman has said that all tithe owners must make sacrifices, both present tithe owners and potential tithe owners. He went on to say that the Welsh Church has benefited by the situation created by the War, but while he converts the county councils into tithe owners he calls upon them to make these sacrifices. Why should they have to do so? What is the use of passing an Act here which will cast the necessity on the Welsh county councils either of fighting the case out in the Law Courts or coming to this House with another Bill? It seems to me both unfair and unreasonable, and I am opposed to any such proceeding.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 81; Noes, 127.

    Division No. 87.]

    AYES.

    [7.15 p.m.

    Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

    Haslam, Lewis

    Rea, Walter Russell

    Arnold, Sydney

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Durham)

    Rees, G. C. (Carnarvon, Arfon)

    Bentinck, Lord Henry

    Hickman, Brig.-Gen, Thomas E.

    Roberts, Sir Herbert (Denbighs)

    Bliss, Joseph

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

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M.

    Boland, John Plus

    Holmes, D. T.

    Robinson, Sidney

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Roch, Walter F.

    Brunner, John F. L.

    John, Edward Thomas

    Rowlands, James

    Bryce, John Annan

    Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Clough, William

    Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

    Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter (D'sbury)

    Cotton, H. E. A.

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Rushcliffe)

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Crumley, Patrick

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Sheehy, David

    Davies, Timothy (Louth)

    Keating, Matthew

    Smallwood, Edward

    Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

    King, Joseph

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Dillon, John

    Lambert, Richard (Cricklade)

    Sutton, John E.

    Donnelly, Patrick

    Layland-Barratt, Sir F.

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Doris, William

    Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Marshall, Arthur Harold

    Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.

    Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

    Meagher, Michael

    White, James Dundas (Tradeston)

    Esmonde, Capt. J. (Tipperary, N.)

    Molloy, Michael

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

    Morrell, Philip

    Whitty, Patrick Joseph

    Field, William

    Nolan, Joseph

    Wiles, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool, Scot'd.)

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Gilbert, James Daniel

    O'Dowd, John

    Williams, John (Glamorgan)

    Glanville, Harold James

    O'Leary, Daniel

    Williams, Thomas J. (Swansea)

    Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough)

    Outhwaite, R. L.

    Wright, Henry Fitzherbert

    Griffith, Rt. Hon. Sir Ellis Jones

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Hackett, John

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

    Harbison, T. J. S.

    Rattan, Peter Wilson

    Llewelyn Williams and Mr. Hinds.

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, South)

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Anderson, G. K. (Canterbury)

    Barnett, Capt. Richard W.

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

    Baldwin, Stanley

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

    Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)

    Bigland, Alfred

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

    Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

    Bird, Alfred

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Pratt, John W.

    Blair, Reginald

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

    Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.

    Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Prothero, Rt. Hon. Roland Edmund.

    Boles, Lt.-Col. Fortescue

    Hoare, Sir Samuel John Gurney

    Pulley, C. T.

    Boyton, Sir James

    Hohier, Gerald Fitzroy

    Randies, Sir John

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Hope, James Fltzalan (Sheffield)

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)

    Rees, Sir J. D.

    Butcher, Sir J. G.

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Rendall, Athelstan

    Cator, John

    Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Cautley, Henry Strother

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

    Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)

    Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

    Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Jodrell, Neville, P.

    Royds, Major Edmund

    Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

    Jones, Wm. Kennedy (Hornsey)

    Rutherford, Col. Sir J. (Darwen)

    Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry (N'wood)

    Coats, Sir Stuart (Wimbledon)

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Samuels, Arthur W. (Dub. U.)

    Collins, Sir William (Derby)

    Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

    Starkey, John Ralph

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Larmor, Sir Joseph

    Stewart, Gershom

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Lindsay, William Arthur

    Stirling, Lt.-Col. Archibald

    Courthope, Maj. George Loyd

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Stoker, R. B.

    Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

    Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir H. C. (Appleby)

    Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, W.)

    Currie, G. W.

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Swift, Rigby

    Dalrymple, Hon. H. H.

    MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

    Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Macmaster, Donald

    Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

    Fell, Sir Arthur

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

    Tryon, Capt. George Clement

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. William Hayes

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Walker, Col. W. H.

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Fletcher, John S.

    Mason, Robert (Wansbeck)

    Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

    Foxcroft, Capt. Charles Talbot

    Moore, Maj.-Gen. Sir J. N. (Hanover Sq.)

    Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

    Ganzoni, Francis J. C.

    Mount, William Arthur

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

    Gardner, Ernest

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Whiteley, Sir H. J. (Droltwich)

    Gastrell, Lt.-Col. Sir W. H.

    Newman, Sir Robert (Exeter)

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

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

    Wilson-Fox, Henry (Tamworth)

    Greer, Harry

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

    Winfrey, Sir R.

    Gretton, John

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Yate, Col. Charles Edward

    Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J.

    Parkes, Sir Edward

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence (Ashford)

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

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Captain

    Harmood-Banner, Sir J. S.

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    F. Guest and Colonel Sanders.

    Question put, and agreed to.

    Mr. L. HARDY: I beg to move, at the end, to add the words
    "The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries shall, after the twenty-fifth day of December in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-five, and in each succeeding year, compute in the same manner as the septennial average is directed to be computed under the Corn Returns Act, 1882, and shall publish in the 'London Gazette' in the month of January following the average price of each sort of British corn for the preceding fifteen years, and the sum payable under the Tithes Acts, 1836 to 1891, in respect of any tithe rent-charge payable after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, shall be ascertained by the average prices so computed for the preceding fifteen years in substitution for the septennial average referred to in the Corn Returns Act, 1882."
    I beg formally to move this Amendment—which I have already explained. In view of the fact that the right hon. it, there is really no need to add any more Gentleman opposite is willing to accept words. I am bound to say, however, that I think the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman suggested is rather a larger matter than I understood when I first heard his words. If he desires to fix for ever the highest limit of tithe at 109 I think it should not be done unless a minimum also is fixed. The tithe owner would feel it hard if at the first time the tithe had risen it should be fixed for ever
    1552
    at a sum at which we had arrived, whilst there was no provision made for that tithe falling back to low limits of the days from which he has already suffered. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, if he does not accept my Amendment now, to reconsider the matter before Report, so that this thing can be dealt with in a consistent way, rather than by fixing the maximum and the minimum—if he thinks that is the best way to deal with it.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I have already said that I will accept this Amendment subject to the addition of words like this: "but so that the sum payable in any year shall not exceed £109 3s. 11d." I think there is a great deal, too, to be said for a corresponding limitation of the extent to which it shall fall. If I may, I will accept the Amendment subject to some slight alteration in the two senses which I have now indicated.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Does that mean you are going to move an amended Amendment?
    Mr. PROTHERO: No; I am going to move an Amendment on the Report stage.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Does that mean, I am very sorry, but I did not know this

    1553
    addition was going to be made, that at no time the sum payable in respect of tithe rent-charge exceeds 109?
    Mr. PROTHERO: I think so.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: So that it is never to exceed it. They are quite limiting words?
    Mr. PROTHERO: That is my proposal—it shall be limited in the rise and limited in the fall.
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: It seems to me that this should have a little more consideration. I quite appreciate the object of extending the average, after the termination of the fixed period, for a fifteen years period instead of a seven years period. But one of the effects of that will obviously be that high prices of these years during the War, and perhaps a year or two after the War, will tell in tithe rent-charge for eight years longer than they otherwise would tell. That seems to me to be a very serious matter indeed. Under this septennial average high war prices, of course, would tell in the computation of the tithe rent-charge for seven years, but by extending it to fifteen years the tithe prices will tell for eight years longer than otherwise they would. I quite appreciate the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. I have no doubt he had this difficulty in view when he suggested the additional words, but I am sorry that he has accepted the Amendment. If he accepts it, may I venture to suggest that these words should be moved in now? There would really be no difficulty in adding them to the Amendment now, and we should know where we are standing before we come to the Report stage.
    Mr. PROTHERO: There are considerations which I should like an opportunity of going into both as to the fall and the rise, and certain other circumstances, and I welcome the opportunity for a little delay.
    Mr. WHITE: Is one of the circumstances the question of adopting the fifteen year period, or are we to take that as finally accepted by him?
    Mr. PROTHERO: Yes, I do accept the principle of the quindecennial average.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Compulsory Redemption of Rent-Charges Exceeding Twenty Shillings.
    A tithe rent-charge, notwithstanding that it exceeds twenty shillings, may, on the application of the owner of the land charged therewith, and without the consent of the owner of the rent-charge, be directed to be redeemed under and in accordance with the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, as amended by this Act.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I beg to move, to leave out the word "may," and to insert instead thereof the words, "shall unless reason be shown to the contrary."
    This is an Amendment to clear up a point which occurred to my right hon. Friend (Mr. L. Hardy) and myself. I do not contend that those are the best possible words, but they indicate my purpose. The purpose of the Clause is that tithe rent-charge, if it exceeds 20s., may, on the application of the owner of the land, be redeemed. We understand the purpose of the Bill to be to further the redemption of tithe rent-charge; but if that redemption depends upon the discretion of some official of the Board of Agriculture, it may be exercised in a manner hostile to the redemption of tithe. I should like the redemption of tithe rent-charge to be facilitated in every possible way. As the words stand at present, it looks as if the onus of proof that the rent-charge should be redeemed lies upon the owner. I understand that is not the desire of the President. There is always a Parliamentary difference about the meaning of the word "may" and "shall"; but I do want a clear expression from the President of his intention as to the future policy of the Board and the exceptions to these words that Parliamentary sanction should be given to the compulsory redemption of tithes save where there are exceptionally good reasons to do so.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I am prepared to accept the words "shall except in exceptional circumstances."
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment made: Leave out the word "may," and insert instead thereof the words "except in exceptional circumstances."—[Sir G. Hobhouse.]
    Mr. L. HARDY: I beg to move, at the end, to add the words
    "Provided that where the tithe rent-charge for the redemption of which application is so made exceeds forty shillings it shall not be directed to be redeemed without the consent of the owner of the rent-charge unless the owner of the land redeems at the same time all or any

    1555
    other tithe rent-charges on his land in the same parish payable to the same owner of the rent-charge which the owner of the rent-charge may require to be so redeemed."
    This is a case which has been put before me by a good many of those interested in this matter on the part of the tithe owner, and they think that where the complsion lies entirely on one side, that is to say, the tithe payer has the right to redemption, while the tithe owner has no say in the matter, it ought to be provided that the tithe payer should redeem the whole of the tithes that are particularly affected. It is well known that there are means in legislation whereby a tithe payer may get relief from the payment of tithes in connection with certain lands if the return is not at a certain rate. It might be that he would choose to only redeem the lands he was sure he would have to pay tithe upon, while he would leave the others untouched. I have made an exception where a tithe is less than 40s., because it is often desirable that a small amount should be redeemed for special purposes. I think some provision is wanted to protect the tithe owner from what might be the unfair user of the compulsory Clause of this Bill.
    Mr. HOHLER: I hope this Amendment will not be accepted. Tithe is charged upon a given area of land, and let us see what this proposal means. Supposing, for instance, I ask to redeem land on a certain estate, I may have entered into a bargain to sell it tithe free for the purpose of erecting a house upon it, or I may wish to erect a house myself or sell it for building purposes, and I may desire to redeem the tithe. If this Amendment is introduced, the tithe owner can say, "You can do no such thing unless you are willing to redeem the tithes on the adjoining land." The truth is that in that particular security it is charged upon a particular piece of land. Further than that it is not a personal liability that a tithe payer has to pay, for it depends entirely upon whether the particular land produces. It may be that I might require a small piece of land, and I should be stopped by this provision, which says you cannot redeem unless you redeem the whole of the tithe on all the land you own in that parish. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not accept any such Amendment.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I cannot accept the Amendment in the form in which it is put down on the Paper. It seems to me that any landowner might be willing to redeem tithe rent-charge by instalments, and they might not be rich enough to redeem the charges on all their land at once; they might want to do £50 in one year and £50 five years hence. This proposal would compel them to redeem the whole at once. At the same time, I should have no objection to considering an Amendment on the Report Stage to the effect that the Board might withhold redemption on the lines indicated where in their opinion redemption otherwise would cause the tithe owner serious hardship. I can conceive certain cases where it might be a hardship to the tithe owner that the whole of the land should not be redeemed at once. In that case, I think, we should have the power to alter it, but the power should be sparingly used and reserved for that class of case.
    Mr. HARDY: I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Before leave is given to withdraw this Amendment I would like to emphasise the objection which has been raised to this proposal. It seems to me that if this change is made it will have to be limited more strictly than my right hon. Friend has indicated. It would be a very great hardship to an owner of land, because he desired to redeem a small portion of his estate as regards the tithe for some building reason or some purely local reason, that he should be compelled to find, perhaps, thousands of pounds to meet the charges by direct borrowing to redeem the whole of the tithes upon his estate in that parish. That would be a hardship which, I am sure, would restrict the development of building, and would restrict lettings and sales of portions of his estates. My right hon. Friend knows it has been an important public policy that tenants should be encouraged to buy their houses. I hope my right hon. Friend will bear that in mind as regards building and tenants buying land in considering what portion of this Amendment he will bring forward on the Report stage. I hope it will be very strictly limited to safeguarding the owners in these two respects.
    Mr. HOHLER: I doubt whether the President has really appreciated my point. If you are going to say to an owner that he cannot redeem the tithe rent-charge on

    1557
    one portion of his estate without redeeming it on the whole, that is going to be a great injustice. It does not only rest there. I pointed out that this is not a personal obligation to pay tithe. It is true that by the Act of 1891 the owner of land for the first time could be taken to the county court for the tithe if the tenant did not pay, but even then it is not a personal obligation; it is an obligation which arises because you are in receipt of profits from the land, and, if there are no profits, there are no means of making you pay. Supposing I am both owner and occupier and the land is derelict, they cannot make me pay, and the steps which can be taken to force me to let my property if a tenant can be got are very cumbrous. If you go outside the land on Blackacre on which tithe is charged and say to the tithe payer: "You are also to redeem Whiteacre," you are going to make it a personal liability, and you have no right to do that. I trust the President of the Board will do no such thing. It is quite fair in regard to the piece of land on which the tithe is charged to say that the whole of it may be redeemed, because the security of the tithe owner may be impaired, but if you go beyond that and say that the other land must also be redeemed it is wrong, and I trust that the President will do no such thing.
    Amendment negatived.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Consideration for Redemption.)
    (1) The consideration money payable on the redemption of a tithe rent-charge on any land under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, or this Act, shall, in lieu of the amount authorised or directed by the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, be such an amount as may be agreed by the owners of the land and of the rent-charge, and in default of such agreement as may, on the application of the owner of the rent-charge, or of the owner of the land or any part thereof, be determined by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to be fair compensation for the redemption.
    (2) An agreement by an owner of a rent-charge under this Section shall not be valid—

    (a) if made by a spiritual person entitled in respect of his benefice or cure, except with the consent of Queen Anne's Bounty; or

    (b) if made by a person (not being a spiritual person so entitled), who is not empowered to sell the rent-charge unless he obtains the consent of some other person, except with the consent of that other person.

    (3) This Section shall not apply as respects any tithe rent-charge which before the passing of this Act has been directed by the Board to be redeemed.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "fisheries" ["Board of Agriculture and Fisheries"], to insert the words
    "in accordance with the provisions contained in the Schedule to this Act."
    Mr. CAUTLEY: If this Amendment be proceeded with, will it not cut out my succeeding Amendment:—[In Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "fair compensation for the redemption," and to insert instead thereof the words
    "The sum necessary to purchase the amount of 2½ per cent. consolidated stock sufficient to yield a yearly income equal in amount to the net amount of the yearly rent-charge after deducting there from the average yearly payments made during the preceding seven years for land tax, if any, or for rates assessed on the rent-charge under the provisions of the Tithe (Kent-charge) Bates Act, 1899?"]
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir D. Maclean): I will save your Amendment.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: If the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment be inserted, it would not be consistent.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: We must take the Amendments in the order in which they appear on the Paper, but I will put the question in such a way as to save your Amendment if this Amendment be not carried.
    Mr. PROTHERO: The Amendment refers to a Schedule in which the Board of Agriculture prescribe the method by which it proposes to fix compensation for redemption. In fixing that compensation we have to arrive at three different sets of figures—the future receipts from tithe, the future outgoings, and the value of money at the time of the compensation being fixed. We propose to do this for the next two years on the principle laid down in the Schedule, and the reason we only do it for two years is that experience has proved what a great mistake it is to fix some stereotype figure in dealing with tithe. Tithe varies so much that a stereotype figure may be wrong within the next five years. The Debate this afternoon is perhaps a warning against any fixed figure. The figure in the Welsh Church Act of 1915 was fixed in a particular year upon the septennial average. Four years have passed and that figure has become wholly unappropriate. Similarly, we must have a certain amount of elasticity, and in fixing the figure for the next two years we are going as far as we

    1559
    can safely go. The receipts for seven years are now to be fixed, under Clause 1, at £109 3s. 11d. For subsequent years it can only be a matter of computation. We take the gross value to be at par as at the present time. It is made up of seven years at £109, and a subsequent average in perpetuity at something like £96. That works out at a par value of £100. Then you have to take off the various outgoings, because you want to get at the net income as apart from the gross value.
    You get at the net income by calculating first of all the outgoings for rates. We propose to take the outgoings for rates at the average of the last three years. That is not, perhaps, the most scientific and accurate way in which the outgoings for rates can be calculated, but it eliminates all estimates, and we want to get rid of the uncertainty of all estimates. We therefore accept that form. The Land Tax, of course, would be another outgoing where it occurs. It is not much more than 3d. in the £ as a rule, but still where it occurs it would be an outgoing. The third outgoing is the cost of collection. We propose there to fix a limit and to reserve to ourselves also the right to say that the costs of collection are unnecessary. For instance, if a large landowner sends to the clergyman to his parish a cheque for the whole of the tithe in the parish it is very absurd that the tithe owner should insist upon that cheque being paid to his solicitor. Therefore, where we think the costs of collection are unnecessary, it is open to us to allow no costs of collection in calculating the outgoings, and in no case is it proposed that we should allow more than 2½ per cent. The third point is the present value of money. That is not so difficult to ascertain. The State at present borrows at something like 5¼ per cent., Consols are at a shade over 4 per cent., and Local Loans come between. We take it at that intermediate figure, which is about 4¾ per cent. Working on those figures, the net annual value is to be the computed value less the deductions, and the compensation is twenty-one times such value. The result is that it works out by giving to the tithe owner the net income that he at present obtains from tithe rent-charge at par. That appears to me on the whole to be a very reasonable and fair way of computing the value. It is acceptable to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to whom it has
    1560
    been submitted, and may therefore be said to be considered as fair and reasonable by the principal business authority on the Church side. The advantage of it, of course, is that among other things it discriminates between the lay tithe owner and the clerical tithe owner. It would be manifestly unfair to redeem tithe for both these sets of persons on the same basis, inasmuch as the clerical tithe owner pays only half the rates, while the lay tithe owner pays the whole of the rates. Working on those lines, making those deductions, and taking-twenty-one years as the multiplier, the purchase money for £100 of tithe rent-charge would be £1,879 10s. in the case of clerical tithe, and £1,711 10s. in the case of lay tithe.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Would it be in order to discuss the Schedule at this point?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is in order, because the Schedule is part of the Amendment.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: I understand that the view I took about my Amendment being out of order is now practically accepted by you, and therefore the only chance of having my alternative scheme considered at all is for me to speak to it now. I think it is a preferable scheme, being simpler, more easily worked out, and holding a more even hand between the tithe payer and the tithe owner. I do not think one view of tithe as it at present exists has been put before the Committee. Since the recent Act did away with all liability of the tenant to pay tithe, we are only concerned with the land owner and the owner of the tithe, and really both, in my view, are in exactly the same position, except that the tithe owner has a further advantage in that he is secure by coming first on the whole of the land. The proposition I wish to make clear is best illustrated by taking a concrete example. If you have a holding with a rental of £50 a year on which £10 tithe is charged, the real position is that the nominal landowner only has a rental of £40. The tithe owner is really in the position of owner of the land drawing a rental on it of £10 a year. Both are liable to be rated if the owner is in occupation, but the owner is only rated on £40 and the tithe owner is rated on £10. Therefore the

    1561
    tithe owner has this further advantage, that he holds security on the whole £50 for his £10. Being anxious to hold an even hand between the tithe owner and the tithe payer, and seeing that both interests are fairly land-holding interests, I cannot for the life of me see why the land owner is to receive this advantage and be enabled to redeem, really to buy out the other land owner at an advantage. I cannot see why the tithe owner should not receive a full and proper value for the interest that he has in the land. A further matter which we are rather apt to overlook here is that giving this undue advantage to the land owner is very likely going to prejudice the tenant. At present the tenant is under no prejudice, because the land owner has to pay the tithe, but if the land owner redeems the tithe the rates which have hitherto been paid on that part of the land to which the tithe owner is entitled will fall on the tenant. He will still be liable to pay £50 rent, but instead of his assessment for rates being on £40, in the future it will be on £50, and it is not at all clear to me, if the intention is to facilitate redemption on these terms, that we shall not in practice be putting an extra burden on the tenant in that he will find himself saddled with greater rates than he now has to pay.
    What is the reason that has actuated the right hon. Gentleman in giving this advantage to the landlord really to buy more land below its value? I can understand his desire to limit the amount of tithe in present circumstances, but I cannot see why the land owner should be benefited, and the scheme that I propose is to provide that the tithe payer should receive payment for his net income in a manner calculated to give him the best security he can be given, but which will vary according to the rate of money at the time of redemption. I know of no better security than Consols, and I know no better test of the value of money at any moment than the price of Consols. The tithe payer to-day has his tithe secured in the manner I have mentioned. He is absolutely secure, as far as I can see; and yet it is proposed, under the President's scheme, to compel him to take for the yearly sum that he now has of £109, which he is fixing by this Bill for seven years, twenty-one years purchase of the net sum he receives, not starting from the £109, but from £100. What equity or right is there in that? The great detriment and
    1562
    drawback to redemption in the earlier Acts is that it has been fixed by a number of years' purchase on the gross value of the tithe, and not on the net value. Except that the President, in arriving at his net value, has only allowed an average of three years for ascertaining the amount paid in rates and the amount paid in Land Tax, and I have adopted seven years as arriving at a fairer average, in other matters his principle and mine agree, and I notice that he fixes it on the same basis. I mention 2½ per Cent. Consols and he mentions Government securities, which, I take it, mean the same thing; because you could not call War Loan or ten year War Bonds Government securities for that purpose. If I have made that clear, surely my alternative scheme makes the question of redemption easily calculated. It is left to the Board of Agriculture to say what the amount is, and it is simple; and if the right hon. Gentleman would devote his ingenuity to providing a means of carrying this through without many legal formalities and at less cost, there is plenty of inducement for the landowner to redeem. But in his scheme there is extraordinary difficulty and uncertainty of calculation. The first Clause of his Schedule provides that he is to form an estimate of the future value of tithe, which is absolutely impossible. He does not tell us what principle he is going to adopt. He does not tell us for how many years he is going to estimate the value, and then take an average. It is left entirely in the dark for some official in his office to estimate, on some grounds which he does not tell us, the gross annual value to be received for tithe in the future. Is it not fairer that the tithe payer, if he wishes to redeem, should redeem on the value at the time? He can exercise his option then. It is a certain calculation within limits, and any case of difference is to be settled by the Board. The scheme I suggest is fairer both to the tithe payer and to the tithe owner than the right hon. Gentleman's proposition.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I should like to ask my right hon. Friend to lengthen the period over which the rates are to be calculated. In a great number of rural districts the rates have been deliberately reduced during the War by non-expenditure on essential objects, and it is quite certain that after the War, for a period of only two or three years, the rates will not represent the real expenditure which will be incurred by local authorities upon the

    1563
    rates, and, therefore, the sum deducible from capital paid on the yearly income and referable to the capital payment will not Be as large as it ought to be, if the real payment involved in rates in the future is to be taken into account. Therefore if the period of three years could be extended to five or seven, I believe you would get an approximation to a more real state of payment than is achieved by the three years. Then I do not understand why this scheme of calculation is only to last until 1921. Is the succeeding Government to bring in another Bill in that year to extend the operation of this Schedule? My right hon. Friend talked about fluctuations in the price of money. A great many people who would like hereafter to redeem their tithe cannot possibly know what the state of their income will be during the next few years. The whole world is upside down. No one knows what his income is, or what his means of redemption will be. It would be well, in order to achieve the purpose which we have in view, namely to facilitate redemption, to extend this period of years, from 1921 up to certainly 1926. It may be necessary to make fresh calculations after two years. The power of application runs up to 1926, but the power of adjustment under the schedule terminates in 1921. If the application is made before 1st January, 1921, the compensation will not be twenty-one times, but some unknown number of times. Therefore the fixation of this twenty-one years' period lapses after two years from now, while the power of adjustment under Clause 3 will continue, and settlement by the Board of Agriculture will go on being determined, certainly up to the year 1926, on a valuation of twenty-one times 109. Under this Clause their power of settling it at twenty-years' purchase will be determined in 1921.
    Mr. PROTHERO: You have the permanent power in the earlier parts of the Schedule.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Not permanent power, surely, to fix it at twenty-one years?
    Mr. PROTHERO: Permanent power in each year after the period named here to publish a standard scale according to gross value.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: If that is so, I am sorry I should have made that criticism, because that will carry out the object I
    1564
    have in view. With regard to fees, could not something be done in this Schedule to fix the fees of these transactions? At present the cost of redemption is very considerable, and I suggest that the opportunity should be taken to fix a very low scale of fees. I understood my right hon. Friend to say money can be invested at 4¾ per cent. on the average. At present you can get 5¼ per cent. for War Loan, which runs up to 1947. Surely the calculations which he makes might be fixed upon a more liberal scale than 4¾ per cent. If he does that, he will satisfy all the demands which the payers of tithe rent-charge can reasonably ask from him. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman to confirm what I believe to be an interpretation of his Schedule, which is rather different from that put on it by the the last two speakers. I ask for this confirmation from the point of view of correctness or otherwise because it would make a great deal of difference in the view from which I am able to regard it. As I understand it, paragraph 3 of the Schedule is merely a statement of the Board's decision with regard to the first period of two years, and that it will be renewed from time to time. I had on the Order Paper a series of Amendments-which, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, were prepared after long consideration by the Central Landowners' Association and were finally approved by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Chambers of Agriculture, and other miscellaneous bodies, and I had proposed up to this morning to press them with all the force that I possess. But for the first time this morning the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment appeared on the Paper, and so far as the general encouragement of facilities for the redemption of tithe rent-charge by a lump sum payment are concerned I am entirely satisfied with the arrangement the right hon. Gentleman makes in his Schedule. I say at once that I would withdraw the scheme which stands on the Paper in my name and that of several of my hon. Friends, but before doing so I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider favourably two points covered in my scheme—the Central Landowners' Association scheme—but which are not in his own, and if, as I hope, he can hold out a prospect of dealing favourably with these points there would be no need of my troubling the Committee by going into detailed points of the scheme in my name. My two questions are these:

    1565
    Will the right Gentleman be able to hold out any alternative method of redemption to the payment of a lump sum; in other words, can he make any provision for a scheme of payment, a sinking fund arrangement, for a period of years? I have proposed a fifty-year period which involved the payment of £113 a year for fifty years which would have cleared redeemed tithes and redeemed every £100 of tithe. Those to whom I am speaking attached a great deal of importance to that alternative, and although it is quite true that in some cases it might be possible for the tithe payer who wished to redeem, by annual payments, over a period of years to make some arrangement with an insurance company or other body to provide the capital sum and to receive from him the annual payment over the period, still it is not always possible for the individual to make that arrangement, and I hope some definite scheme may be adopted by the right hon. Gentleman of accepting payment in redemption over a period of years. The other point for which I ask his favourable consideration is the continuance of the relief in respect of deficiency of rates arising from redemption. At present the Tithe Rent-charge (Bates) Act of 1899 provides that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue shall make good the half-rate from the payment of which the beneficed tithe owner is relieved, and I ask, in the interests of the rural community, that that subsidy shall be maintained after redemption takes place. That is the second point which is covered by my Amendment, but not by the right hon. Gentleman's. If he is able to hold out any hope that he can meet these two points favourably I shall not trouble the House by going into any details of what I may call the Central Landowners' Association's scheme.
    Viscount WOLMER: Like my hon. Friend, I noticed the President's Schedule with very great pleasure, but I do feel, like him, that it would have been very desirable if the Government had made some provision in regard to the redemption payment being extended over a period of years. There is another point on which I should have liked, if possible, to have seen some provision made in regard to redemption. I think that, unless the effect of this Bill is to bring about an enormous amount of redemption of tithes its ultimate effect will be rather hard on the clergy. If my right hon. Friend can, by this Bill, succeed in inducing tithe payers
    1566
    to redeem their tithe largely, then I think he will have done a great service to the clergy, as well as to the rest of the community. Therefore I am very anxious that everything possible should be done to encourage and facilitate redemption. My hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down indicated one way in which it might be done. There is another which I would like to bring to the attention of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture, in his speech in introducing this Bill, said:
    "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 hold 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."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th October, 1918, col. 32, Vol. 98.]
    On that point I should be very glad if some means could be found for enabling landowners and tithe payers to redeem their tithe in kind by selling either to the Government, in the shape of the county council, or to the tithe owner, some of their land so that they could redeem the tithe by the value of the land that they sold, and by that means tithe would be redeemed without the landowner increasing his stock in land. That point is not provided for in the Schedule which the right hon. Gentleman has tabled, and therefore I had hoped that he would tell the House whether he thinks there is any possibility of some scheme of this sort being worked under the Bill as it now stands. The House will remember that a scheme such as I have mentioned was very elaborately sketched out by the Report of the Agricultural Sub-committee on Reconstruction. This Report pointed out that the opportunity to redeem tithe afforded a great opportunity, if means could be found, by which landowners could redeem their tithe in kind, because it would facilitate largo landowners parting with portions of their property to the county councils or to the Board of Agriculture or to some other public authority, and thus the land could be used for settling ex-soldiers on. I hope the President of the Board of Agriculture will be able to hold out some hope that a scheme of that sort can be worked under the Bill as it now stands, or when his Amendment is carried.
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I want to raise one point. There is, I think, general agreement as to the desirability of redemption, and the hon. Member for East Grinstead has raised a most important point, and a point which it would be well if those who redeem tithe would have in mind—namely, that when they redeem tithe they may be increasing their rates to no inconsiderable extent. If I may take the simplest case where the owner of land is also an occupier and pays tithe. Suppose the tithe—and I am not taking an extreme case—absorbs about half the value of the property, when he redeems the tithe he will not only have to pay redemption money, but will find himself further burdened, because when he has paid the money his estate will be increased by the capital value of the tithe rent-charge by this redemption, and he will have to pay half as much rates again as he paid before. The proportions taken by my hon. Friend were: value of property £50, of which the tithe rent-charge absorbs £10. I think he will agree with me that there are many cases in which the tithe rent-charge represents the larger proportion, and I need hardly remind the Committee that so much is it in some cases that Section 8 of the Tithe Act, 1891, provided that where it exceeded two-thirds of the annual value of the property under Schedule B of the Income Tax the excess should be remitted. I only mention that as showing that tithe rent-charge absorbs a very considerable proportion in many cases, and that the man who redeems tithe rent-charge should be prepared, as a result of that redemption, to pay higher rates. I would like to call the attention of the Committee to the statement that the President of the Board of Agriculture has made. There has been much said about the Tithe Rent-charge (Rates) Act, 1899, under which the taxpayers pay one-half the rates on tithe rent-charge attached to a benefice. When it comes to redemption we see how that works out in practice because these differences in the Tithe Rent-charge (Rates) Act makes a difference in connection with the payment of rates by the Exchequer on tithe rent-charge attached to the benefices, and the owners of those tithe rent-charges are to be benefices, and the owners of those tithe rent-charges are to be compensated on a different scale from other owners of tithe rent-charges. It seems to me right to call attention to that, in order to show how
    1568
    these grants of public money in payment of half the rates on this tithe rent-charge have eventuated in increasing the capital of this tithe rent-charge as distinguished from the other. One is inclined to think that the interest which has been considerably scheduled has been far too much the interest of the tithe receiver who has to pay the redemption, and allowance has not been sufficiently made for the case of the tithe-payer who redeems, and who, for the reasons I have pointed out, will not only have to redeem, but will find that when he has redeemed, his other burdens have very substantially increased.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: May I ask where in the Bill is the power to issue after two years the terms of redemption?
    Mr. PROTHERO: The first Clause of the Schedule gives the Board the power to fix the gross annual value on certain terms. In each year we shall issue a Schedule. The last part of the present Schedule is an example of what is going to be done in the next two years.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: That does not answer what I mean. In Section 3 the said Schedule says there is power for the redemption of a rent-charge application for which is made within two years, and the gross annual value is to be the original commuted amount, the compensation to be fixed at twenty-one years' purchase of the net amount. There is provision for redemptions within the next two years, but for applications to redeem made after two years or made after the 1st January, 1921, there is no provision at all as to the inclusion of the redemption.
    Mr. PROTHERO: If the hon. Member will look at Section 3, Sub-section (1), he will find that the Board of Agriculture in default of agreement has power to fix what is to be fair compensation for redemption. Having got that power, they then proceed to use it, on the terms of this Schedule.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: It will be open after two years for the Board to fix fifteen years' compensation. It rests entirely at their discretion.
    Mr. PROTHERO: It rests in their discretion subject to these rules of estimation. A number of questions have been raised on this Schedule. I have been asked questions about the fees for redemption. These were increased not very long ago in deference to the Committee upon Retrenchment which recommend us to do so, and they go to defray some of the expenses of the Board

    1569
    of Agriculture. If the Committee will turn to the new Clause which we propose to move respecting the power of Queen Anne's Bounty to pay expenses of redemption I hope the fees will not be an important obstacle. As to the question whether we will include in the Bill provision for purchase by instalments the position which I take up on that point is this, —that if there is an agreement with the tithe owner that it is to be paid in instalments lasting over fifty years, if he likes to make that arrangement by agreement with the tithe payer, we are willing that such agreement should be sanctioned by the Board, but we consider that the tithe owner ought not to be compelled to accept an agreement of that kind. It brings no pecuniary advantage. It exposes them for fifty years to all the friction and trouble which follow from his existing position, and if tithe prices twenty years after the system began were to drop to 80, while the men who are paying off by instalments have to pay 113, there would be intolerable pressure put upon the tithe owner to meet the difficulties of the case. Therefore we do not think that it would be fair to make that system compulsory upon the tithe owner, but in cases where tithe owners and tithe payers agree and Queen Anne's Bounty and the Board consent then we should be quite willing to accept the principle.
    Obviously, for the purpose of redemption, what we want is a payment which would put the tithe owner outside the question, outside all the trouble of the existing relation to the tithe payer, and the tithe payer can, through an insurance company, raise the money and effect this same sort of purchase by instalments at his convenience, while he pays off the tithe owner. If we had had compulsory redemption on the tithe payer, then I think that this system of instalments would be perfectly fair and reasonable. I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend will confirm me in this, but I believe that this proposal was originally made as part of compulsory scheme. Then I was asked about the question of rates. I am afraid that in the form in which the hon. and gallant Member's proposal is made I could not possibly accept it, but I hope that we will be able to meet him on Report stage with a proposal which might in certain ways satisfy what he wishes. As to the proposals of the hon. Member for Grin stead, his Amendment and his scheme as drafted apply to agreements as well as to
    1570
    decisions by the Board. This, I think, is very undesirable. In any case I think it undesirable to propose limits which will operate indefinitely. He imposes a limit of twenty years, and if that were the only objection I should object to his proposal. I need hardly say that I very much prefer my own Schedule. I think that his proposal as it stands would not be workable on the ground that, as drafted, it includes agreements between the tithe owner and the tithe payer.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: It was not intended to apply to the agreements.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I think that as drafted it does so. There was a question as to whether land should be taken in lieu of tithe rent-charge, and the tithe rent-charge should be extinguished as it were by an equal value in land. I am all in favour of that proposition. I believe that I was the unfortunate author of it a great many years ago. However, when I came to deal with the question as a matter of legislation there were substantial difficulties, and I hope that the same object can be attained in a simpler way. It is too early yet to say what the Cabinet decision will be as to land settlement. But I think that it is extremely likely that county councils will be enabled to buy land on permanent annuities. In that case Queen Anne's Bounty will be willing to accept those permanent annuities in lieu of cash for the extinction of tithe rent-charges. A land owner therefore, may sell so much of his land as will extinguish the tithe rent-charge to the county council for a permanent annuity, and Queen Anne's Bounty will accept that permanent annuity in lieu of cash.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2a) to insert the words,
    "or, in the case of a rent-charge affected by the Welsh Church Act, 1914, of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Wales."
    This Clause as it is drawn in the Bill might operate more widely than was in tended. What we meant was to reserve the rights of intended redemption, but as it stands it will apply to a certain number of old cases in which redemption orders had been made but not proceeded with for various reasons. It is really a drafting Amendment which I think the Committee may pass.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Major COURTHOPE: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2), to insert
    "(3) Sections seven, eight, and nine of the Tithe Act, 1846, shall apply to the payment of any consideration money and interest payable under this Section, provided that where a rent-charge which is redeemed under this Section is settled land within the meaning of the Settled Lands Acts, 1882 to 1890, the consideration money and interest may be paid to the trustees of the settlement for the purposes of those Acts, and the receipt of such trustees shall be a sufficient discharge therefor, and such consideration money and interest shall be held and applied as if the same were respectively capital moneys arising under these Acts and income of such capital moneys.
    (4) If at the time at which any consideration money in respect of the redemption of a tithe rent-charge is payable to Queen Anne's Bounty the Treasury are authorised to create and issue any securities for raising money for the purposes of the present War, the Board by their Order may direct that such consideration money shall be invested in the said securities or some or one of them, or that in lieu of payment of the consideration money in cash the same shall be satisfied and discharged by the purchase by the owner of the land from the Treasury in the name of Queen Anne's Bounty of such of the said securities as may be specified in the Order to the amount equal in value (at the issue price or the market price of a day named therein) to the amount of the consideration money, and any such Order may contain such directions and provisions as the Board may think fit for securing compliance with the Order and giving effect thereto."
    I put these Amendments down to make my scheme of Amendments complete; without them, otherwise it would be open to strong objection by Inland Revenue unless these two paragraphs were inserted. I am inclined to think that the right hon. Gentleman will find that there is merit in them, but as this scheme is now in his Schedule and mine is dropped out, I only move my Amendments formally in order that the right hon. Gentleman may say whether he accepts them or not.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I should be very glad to leave them, if I may, until the Report stage to see if there are any legal points raised by either of them. We do not think that the second one is worth inserting, but the first one, beginning with Sections 7, 8, and 9 of the Tithe Act, we would like to have an opportunity of considering, and seeing whether any amendments can be made.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. PROTHERO: I beg to move, in Sub-section 3, to leave out the words "which before the passing of this Act has
    1572
    been directed by the Board to be redeemed," and to insert instead thereof the words
    "with respect to the redemption of which proceedings are pending at the passing of this Act."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 4.—(Provision of Money for Redemption by Limited Owners.)
    (1) So much of Section eleven of the Tithe Act, 1846 (which enables a limited owner of land to charge on the land the consideration money and other moneys payable in respect of the redemption of a tithe rent-charge issuing out of the land), as fixes the rate of interest on the charge or requires an annual reduction of the charge, shall cease to have effect.
    (2) Money applicable to the purchase of land to be settled to or on any uses or trusts, shall be applicable in or towards the redemption of a tithe rent-charge which is charged on land settled to or on the like uses or trusts.
    Amendments made: In Sub-section (2), after the word "settled" ["land to be settled "], insert the words "or held."
    After the word "settled" ["charge on land settled"], insert the words "or held."—[Mr. Prothero.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 5.—(Power to Charge on Land Money Payable for Redemption of Tithe Rentcharge.)
    (1) If the consideration money payable in respect of the redemption of a tithe rent-charge is not paid or discharged within one month after the same becomes payable, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, on the application of the owner of the rent-charge, may make an Order in favour of the owner of the rent-charge, or other the person entitled under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, to receive the consideration money, charging the land with the payment of the amount of such consideration money and the costs properly incurred by the applicant in obtaining the charge, with such interest, by such instalments and with such directions for giving effect to the charge as the Board may think fit; and where a charge is so created then, after the payment of the half-yearly portion of the rent-charge which accrues due next subsequently to the time of the creation of the charge, the rent charge shall cease and be extinguished.
    (2) A charge created under the provisions of this Section shall have priority over every other then existing or future charge and encumbrance affecting the land, whether created under the powers of an Act of Parliament or otherwise.
    Mr. D. WHITE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the word "have" ["sections shall have priority over"], to insert the words "the same."

    1573
    I move this Amendment, and another which follows, with the object of drawing attention to the rather remarkable phraseology dealing with the case of a charge created to secure the payment of redemption money—
    "A charge created under the provisions of this Section shall have priority over every other then existing or future charge and encumbrance affecting the land, whether created under the powers of an Act of Parliament or otherwise."
    I have been wondering whether my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture will find a precedent for these words, because they seem very wide indeed, the object being to give priority not merely over any existing charge but-over any future charge, even though that future charge may be created by a future Act of Parliament. It has seemed to me that it will be sufficient, as my Amendment seeks to make it read, that the charge should have the same priority in relation to other charges and encumbrances affecting the land as the tithe rent-charge in respect of the redemption with which it is charged.
    Sir R. WINFREY (Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Board of Agriculture): The Clause as adopted proposes that the redemption money if not obtained can be recovered by any means by which a legal charge can be realised, and there is objection to the first Amendment, but we would accept the words as to charges and encumbrances, such as a charge made for insurance.
    Mr. WHITE: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), after the word "existing," to leave out the words "or future."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. WHITE: As regards my next Amendment, may I ask whether in the Bill as it stands the words "charge and encumbrances" are intended to cover rates and taxes and assessments?
    Sir R. WINFREY: They are not.
    Mr. WHITE: In that case would my right hon. Friend be good enough to accept the two further Amendments providing that "rates, taxes, and assessments of a public character shall not be deemed to be charges or encumbrances within the meaning of this Section."
    Sir R. WINFREY: I will consider that on the Report stage.
    Mr. WHITE: In that case, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 6.—(Corn Rents, etc.).
    (1) The powers of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under the Tithe Act, 1860, to convert corn rents into tithe rent-charges may be exercised at any time on the application in writing, of the owners of land liable to the payment of the major part in value of corn rents or of the persons to whom the major part in value of the corn rents are payable.
    (2) The tithe rent-charge to be awarded on the conversion of any corn rents shall be such as, in the opinion of the Board, is equal in value to the corn rents converted.
    (3) The provisions of this Act which relate to redemption of tithe rent-charge shall apply to corn rents, rent-charges, and money payments (other than rent-charges payable under the Extraordinary Tithe Redemption Act, 1886) which are liable to redemption under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891.
    Amendment made: After the word "in" ["equal in value"] insert the word "capital."—[Sir R. Winfrey.]
    Viscount WOLMER: I beg to move, at end of Sub-section (2) to insert the words
    "Regard being had not only to the amount of the corn rents at the time of conversion but also to the expectation of variation in value on revision in accordance with the provisions for revision applicable to the corn rents."
    I do so on behalf of the hon. Member (Mr. L. Hardy), and I understand this Amendment is proposed at the request of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who are very keen about it. It affects the principle on which certain decisions will be made, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to accept it.
    Sir R. WINFREY: This point was brought to the attention of the Board by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who pointed out that the word "value" in the Sub-section was rather ambiguous. They are now satisfied that capital value was intended.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Major COURTHOPE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), to leave out the words, "which relate to redemption of tithe rent-charge."
    My purpose is to make the temporary limitation of variation set up by Clause 1 in regard to tithe rent-charge apply to corn rents as well. The tithe rent-charge will be fixed at a certain figure for the next seven years, and corn rent will go

    1575
    on rising automatically. I do not think that that can be the right hon. Gentleman's intention, and I hope it is not. I think he will find considerable complication if one is fixed while the other is allowed to go on rising in price.
    Sir R. WINFREY: I am afraid this Amendment is not workable. It would apply Clause 1 to corn rents, and that Clause is quite inappropriate for that purpose.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Further Amendment made: In Subsection (3), after the word "shall" ["shall apply"], insert the words, "except as otherwise expressly provided by this Act."—[Mr. Prothero.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Power of Queen Anne's Bounty to Pay Expenses of Redemption.)
    Queen Anne's Bounty may pay or agree to pay out of redemption money payable to them in respect of any tithe rent-charge to which any spiritual person is entitled in respect of a benefice or cure such expenses of redemption of the rent-charge as they in their discretion may think fit, and may also pay out of any such redemption money the cost of redeeming any tithe rent-charge issuing out of any glebe land belonging to the spiritual person in respect of the same benefice or cure.—[Mr. Prothero.]
    Brought up, read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.

    NEW SCHEDULE.—(Method Prescribed for Ascertainment of Compensation for Redemption of a Tithe Rent-charge.)
    1. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries shall estimate the annual sum payable in perpetuity which is equal to the variable rent-charge payable under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, as amended by this Act, and the sum so estimated is in this Schedule referred to as the gross annual value.
    2. The compensation for redemption shall be such sum as in the opinion of the Board is sufficient, after payment of the cost of investment, to produce, when invested in Government seccrities, a permanent annuity equal to the gross annual value after deducting from that value the average amount paid or payable by the tithe owner in respect of the rent-charge for the
    1576
    three years immediately preceding the date of the application to redeem on account of rates and land tax, and such sum not exceeding 2½ per cent. of the gross annual value as in the opinion of the Board represents the necessary cost of collection of the rent-charge.
    3. For the purpose of the redemption of a rent-charge for the redemption of which an application is made on or before the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, the gross annual value of the rent-charge shall be the original commuted amount thereof and the compensation shall be twenty-one times that amount after such deductions therefrom as aforesaid.
    4. This Schedule shall not apply to corn rents and other payments to which the provisions of this Act with respect to the redemption of tithe rent-charge are applied by sub-section (3) of Section six thereof.—[Mr. Prothero.]
    Brought up, read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

    BASTARDY LAWS AMENDMENT ACT (1872) AMENDMENT BILL.
    Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Parker.]

    LOANS (INCUMBENTS OF BENEFICES) AMENDMENT BILL [Lords.]
    Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Parker.]
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
    Adjourned accordingly at One minute-after Nine o'clock.

WAR.
  FOOD SUPPLIES.
    PIGS.
    PIGS.
    LIVE STOCK.
    LIVE STOCK.
    MEAT (BELGIUM).
    MEAT (BELGIUM).
    FEEDING-STUFFS.
    FEEDING-STUFFS.
    BUTTER
    BUTTER
    COUPON VALUES.
    COUPON VALUES.
    MEAT TRUST (REPORT OF AMERICAN COMMISSION).
    MEAT TRUST (REPORT OF AMERICAN COMMISSION).
    FOOD CONTROL (FORMS).
    FOOD CONTROL (FORMS).
    BACON.
    BACON.
    TIVERTON TRADESMAN (LOCAL COMMITTEE'S ACTION).
    TIVERTON TRADESMAN (LOCAL COMMITTEE'S ACTION).
    WHEAT OFFALS.
    WHEAT OFFALS.
    ROYAL PARKS (CULTIVATION).
    ROYAL PARKS (CULTIVATION).
    DEFENCE OF REALM LOSSES COMMISSION (INSPECTORS).
    DEFENCE OF REALM LOSSES COMMISSION (INSPECTORS).
  IRELAND.
    RIFLE AMMUNITION.
    RIFLE AMMUNITION.
    COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.
    COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.
    PRISON WARDERS.
    PRISON WARDERS.
    STEAMSHIP "LEINSTER" (LIFE-SAVING PRECAUTIONS).
    STEAMSHIP "LEINSTER" (LIFE-SAVING PRECAUTIONS).
    H.M.S. "TERRIBLE" (SEAMAN'S TRANSFER).
    H.M.S. "TERRIBLE" (SEAMAN'S TRANSFER).
    ROYAL MARINE ARTILLERY (GUNNER UNWIN).
    ROYAL MARINE ARTILLERY (GUNNER UNWIN).
    NAVY AND ARMY PENSIONERS.
    NAVY AND ARMY PENSIONERS.
    ARMY COMMISSIONS.
    ARMY COMMISSIONS.
    WOUNDED AND DISABLED OFFICERS' (EMPLOYMENT).
    WOUNDED AND DISABLED OFFICERS' (EMPLOYMENT).
    TERRITORIAL FORCE (DECORATIONS).
    TERRITORIAL FORCE (DECORATIONS).
  MILITARY SERVICE.
    CASE UNDER INQUIRY.
    CASE UNDER INQUIRY.
    CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES (EMPLOYES).
    CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES (EMPLOYES).
    MAINTENANCE OF BUSINESSES.
    MAINTENANCE OF BUSINESSES.
  MUNITIONS.
    SCUTCH MILLS (LICENCES).
    SCUTCH MILLS (LICENCES).
    WHISKY (PRICES).
    WHISKY (PRICES).
  ROYAL AIR FORCE.
    AERODROME SITE, SUFFOLK.
    AERODROME SITE, SUFFOLK.
    YOUTHS (SERVICE ABROAD).
    YOUTHS (SERVICE ABROAD).
    PARACHUTES.
    PARACHUTES.
    EDUCATION ACT, 1918.
    EDUCATION ACT, 1918.
    DEPORTED RUSSIAN.
    DEPORTED RUSSIAN.
    PRISON WARDERS (PENSIONS).
    PRISON WARDERS (PENSIONS).
    METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE.
    METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE.
    COAL SUPPLIES.
    COAL SUPPLIES.
    LIGHTING RESTRICTIONS.
    LIGHTING RESTRICTIONS.
    MERCANTILE MARINE (UNIFORM).
    MERCANTILE MARINE (UNIFORM).
  GENERAL ELECTION.
    POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    WOUNDED CIVIL SERVANTS (PROMOTION).
    WOUNDED CIVIL SERVANTS (PROMOTION).
    IRISH MAIL TRAIN SERVICE.
    IRISH MAIL TRAIN SERVICE.
    AEROPLANE MAIL SERVICE.
    AEROPLANE MAIL SERVICE.
    ARMY HORSES AND STORES (DISPOSAL AFTER WAR).
    ARMY HORSES AND STORES (DISPOSAL AFTER WAR).
    ROAD MAINTENANCE, AYR.
    ROAD MAINTENANCE, AYR.
    CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS' SOCIETIES (WOMEN).
    CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS' SOCIETIES (WOMEN).
    SHERIFFS-PRINCIPAL.
    SHERIFFS-PRINCIPAL.
    MINISTRY OF INFORMATION (PROPAGANDA FILMS).
    MINISTRY OF INFORMATION (PROPAGANDA FILMS).
    GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (OFFICE ACCOMMODATION).
    GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (OFFICE ACCOMMODATION).
    Boarded-Out Children (Maintenance).
    Boarded-Out Children (Maintenance).
    Rural Postmen, Lackenacombe.
    Rural Postmen, Lackenacombe.
    Sasines Office, Edinburgh.
    Sasines Office, Edinburgh.
    School Teachers (Scotland).
    School Teachers (Scotland).
  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
    WEEKLY ALLOWANCES.
    WEEKLY ALLOWANCES.
    INCOME LIMIT.
    INCOME LIMIT.

PETROLEUM PRODUCTION BILL.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I desire, with your Lordships' permission, to put a question to my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. It has reference to the Petroleum Production Bill, which was down for Committee stage yesterday and was postponed on Monday. I need not tell your Lordships that that is a proceeding which, though it may have been right, necessarily involves a considerable amount of inconvenience. I know of cases of noble Lords who came up specially to London for the purpose of taking part in the consideration of the Petroleum Bill in Committee, and it was not until they opened their Paper on Tuesday morning that they were aware that the Bill had been postponed. I am sure that my noble friend and the Government will sympathise with the feeling of surprise, and to some extent of annoyance, which this occasioned, and I should like to ask my noble friend if he can tell us what was the reason for this postponement and what are the future prospects of the Bill. I am quite aware that Amendments were put down in the name of one, certainly, of my noble friends—there may have been more—just before. I think they were put down so that they appeared on the Paper on Monday; and this may be the reason for the postponement. But I do not think any blame attaches to my noble friends. The time between the Second Reading and the Committee stage was short, and it was not possible for them to consider their Amendments with the necessary care which is due to the respect they owe to your Lordships' House under the two or three days which were expended in that process. Therefore I do not think that would be a sufficient answer. But I am quite sure my noble friend will be able to enlighten the House upon this, and also as to the future prospects of the Bill.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The EARL of CRAWFORD): My Lords, I greatly regret the inconvenience which was caused by the rather sudden postponement of this Bill. A certain number of Peers who were directly concerned in the discussions fortunately were informed, but I am sorry that others whom it was impossible to
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notify at such short notice should have come here and found that the measure had been put off. I think my noble friend has explained in his remarks the cause of this action. The Duke of Northumberland had very little time to put his Amendments on the Paper, and he was only able to get them circulated to your Lordships on Monday last, and they were very important Amendments. The Ministry of Munitions—the Government, indeed—desire to give very careful consideration to those Amendments, and themselves found it impossible to do so yesterday. Accordingly the Bill was put off. It now stands on the Paper for Wednesday of next week, and that, I think, can be taken as the accepted date for the Committee stage. My noble friend assures me that he has every hope of being able to take the Bill in Committee stage effectively on Wednesday next. Beyond that, I am afraid I can give no further explanation.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Has the noble Earl considered, besides the points which were put by the Duke of Northumberland, the point as to research? That is tinder consideration, I take it?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: That is a most important point, of which my noble friend is fully conscious.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bills reported without amendment.

THE METROPOLITAN POLICE STRIKE.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY LORD STUART OF WORTLEY rose to call attention to the recent strike of certain members of the Metropolitan Police Force, and to the statement made by the Secretary of State on October 24; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I desire to say, at the outset, that nobody could have imagined for a moment that it was not only proper but highly necessary and no more than just that a great body like

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the Metropolitan Police Force should participate to the full in all increases of pay or allowances which might be deemed to be equitably due as arising out of the enhancement of prices or other conditions of war; and the only points which could possibly give reason for doubt in your Lordships' minds in connection with such a matter would be whether such concessions as had been made were adequate and whether they had been made with sufficient grace and alacrity, and without an undue amount of official obstruction or procrastination.
In taking a short retrospect of this rather unhappy incident, the only grain of comfort that I can extract is that the Secretary of State in another place described it as a matter of "very grave importance." That is very far from being an exaggerated phrase. But, unfortunately, it remains almost the only indication, so far, of the existence of anything like a true and proportionate sense of that which has taken place. The Home Secretary had to exonerate Scotland Yard and his own Department, and no doubt the blame for this, I might almost say, terrible occurrence should rest either wholly on the Home Office and the Commissioner of Police on the one hand, or wholly on the strikers, or should be divided between the two. The case for the Home Office appears to be that in December, 1917, certain increases of pay and other improvements in the conditions of service were granted avowedly as arising out of the war, and no doubt they were substantial. The case for the Home Office is that then and thereafter, until the time of the strike, no representations asking for more than those concessions amounted to were received at the Home Office; and your Lordships will perhaps observe that the statement was not that they had not been received, but that they had not been received at the Home Office.
It is said, however, that in February, 1918, a letter was addressed to the Commissioners of Police by a body calling itself the Executive of the Police Union, thanking them for the concessions which had been made but practically asking for more. It may well have been that in that communication the thanks for the favours granted came in the forefront of the letter, and possibly overshadowed what came afterwards. It may have been that the subsequent request for more was read by the officials to whom it was addressed as
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being no more than a more or less perfunctory move on the part of an official of an outside body, who probably was an outsider to the Police Force, and bound to justify his existence and actions by always asking for more, however much might be granted. That may have been the view. Whatever was the view, I suppose we may take it that for some reason, good or bad, the communication in question was not handed over to the Home Office, and therefore the Home Secretary was within his rights in saying that during the period named no further communication was received at the Home Office. But there were not wanting speakers in the debate in another place on October 24 who said that, if not by letter, certainly by Question in the House and representations made in Parliament, indications of dissatisfaction were undoubtedly made during the earlier part of the session of 1918, and that those representations made it abundantly plain, or should have done, that the concessions given had not been sufficient in quantity. I by no means wish to say that those representations made in Parliament were just or unjust. My point is that they were made.
Then, lastly, we were told in the same debate—I do not know whether we are asked to treat it as a serious matter, but it comes from an hon. Member connected with trade union organisations very closely—that on the Tuesday in the week in which the strike commenced there was a similar letter addressed from the Police Union, and that that letter never received any answer at all. During the short time that I took part in official life, I did my best to secure that in the case of all communications addressed to the Department in which I had the honour to serve it should be an inflexible rule that an acknowledgment should be sent by return of post, so as to make it impossible that it should be said that no answer had been received.
In face of these statements and counter-statements it is rather difficult for your Lordships to know where and how to apportion the blame for what has happened. The more you exonerate the Home Office and Scotland Yard the more you must blame the strikers, and of course vice versa. I must not be taken for a moment to admit that, if you are prepared to blame the Home Office, even in a high degree, you are thereby justified in exonerating entirely those who took part in the strike. Any-

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how, there remains to be apportioned a very heavy responsibility for events which perforce have left a most painful impression. It is best, perhaps, to leave this question of the apportionment of the responsibility there, for there remain two matters which are quite serious enough. One is the strike itself, that it did take place, and that it should have taken place; the second is the debate, and the character of the debate, which is all we have had by way of commentary upon it since in another place.
I am sure, my Lords, you will not think it undesirable that we should give our minds for a few minutes to considering what it is that makes a strike of anything like a Police Force so very undesirable. I think a few moments may be spent in amplifying the considerations which apply to that question. Amongst ourselves in conversation we should probably dispose of it quite shortly by saying that it is not desirable that any country, least of all a highly civilised and free country like this, should be governed by a band of Prætorians, but there are a good many people who would not understand you if you disposed of it by a short argument of that kind. Nor is it quite sufficient to say that the question is disposed of merely by describing the Police as a disciplined force. Any one who has seen an armour plate rolled by free labourers will have seen how absolutely vital it is for the whole process, in order to save life and property, to depend upon each man falling into the proper place assigned to him and obeying what must be discipline bred of long experience and practice. That is not enough. It does not convey enough to the popular mind to say that the Police ought not to strike because they are a disciplined force.
Let us take the analagous case of the soldier. Why is it that you require for the soldier such exceptionally high standards of conduct in almost all things? You entrust the soldier with lethal weapons, you teach him combined action and skill in the use of his weapons and in the tactics which arise out of the combined action in which he is practised, and all these things are entrusted and imparted to him at the expense and at the instance of those by whom he is employed, and they are intended to enable him to be, should occasion arise, a terror to his country's enemies and to his country's enemies alone. We know what happens to him in case of failure of duty in the face of the enemy, and we all know
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what would happen—or rather we do not like to think of what would happen—in the almost unthinkable case of his deciding to turn his weapons and skill in any case against his own countrymen. For these reasons it is that we require of the soldier—I should say that outside Germany there are required of the soldier—higher standards of duty towards his country and Sovereign, of forbearance towards the weak, of chivalry towards women, and of honour in all matters for which he may be called upon to exercise responsibility. The case of the policeman is not the same only because you do not entrust him with the same lethal weapons. In all other respects I shall be prepared to say that the case of the policeman and his duty is a case a fortiori against him as compared with the soldier, because, although you do not give him the same weapons, he at least has the same organisation and the same opportunity of misusing it if he should be so disposed. Indeed, he has more opportunities of so misusing it, because it is only his own fellow-citizens against whom he is capable of getting the opportunity to misuse it. It is only those among whom he lives that he can terrorise by misusing the opportunity, and that terrorisation he can resort to by the mere act of withdrawing his services in concert. That is only another way of saying that the policeman always acts in face of the enemy. He is always in face of the civil and social enemy, against whom he has sworn, and is paid, to protect those amongst whom he lives, both rich and poor.
I said that the other grave matter with which we have to deal is the debate which took place in the other House, and I think those of your Lordships who read it will wish, as I do, that there had been fewer exonerations of the strikers, fewer searches for pretexts to blame the Government, fewer invocations of the purely doctrinaire panacea of what it called municipalisation. For many years municipalisation has been put forward with fluctuating insistence as a remedy, not only for anything unsatisfactory in the organisation of the Police, but also for all forms of discontent in the ranks of the Police themselves. One speaker argued that they ought to have civilian heads, and that promotion ought to be open from all ranks to all ranks. If you go about among the provincial Police Forces of the country I think you will find a good many under

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civilian chief constables, but also not a few others where the Police authorities have, probably with great wisdom, found and engaged ex-Army officers who are very admirably doing the duties entrusted to them; and I should not be surprised if you found a large number of provincial Forces of Police, which are patterns to the municipal Forces of the world, in which there has been promotion to the chief office, and it has not been from the ranks of that particular force itself.
Supposing that we propose to municipalise the Metropolitan Police Force—and this is material to our considerations to-day, because it was openly said that so to do would remove discontent not only in the Police themselves but in the ratepayers who support the Police and in the citizens who are entitled to their services I presume it is imagined that you would get a closer criticism, better opportunities of ventilating grievances, if it were all done in the arena of the County Council than if it is done as things are now. Owing to the foresight of Sir Robert Peel in 1828, the Metropolitan Police district was stretched over an area which, perhaps your Lordships do not know, extends to Bushey on the north side, Erith on the east, Staines the west, and Epsom on the south, with a very large zone of country, rapidly being filled up with residences and buildings, outside of the area of the jurisdiction of the London County Council, so that it is impossible to find—you have not got—any municipality in existence which is capable of exercising jurisdiction at the present time over that very large area which, for very good reasons, which have not in the least disappeared, Sir Robert Peel saw fit to make the area, of jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.
If there is one thing more certain than another it is that the local authorities of the outside areas would stoutly and persistently refuse to allow their police arrangements to be governed for them by the London County Council. As an alternative, what have you got at the present time? As things are, the Metropolitan Police are governed by a Commissioner. He is responsible to the Home Secretary, and therefore they are practically governed by the Home Secretary on all difficult cases. The Home Secretary is responsible for their finance, and therefore you have practical responsibility to the House of Commons, which can at any
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time by a breath remove the Home Secretary, or censure him and make him feel the weight of its wrath. But that is not all. Is the House of Commons inaccessible then to the Metropolitan Police? Let your Lordships remember that every member of the House of Commons, from the fact of his position and duties, is a resident in the metropolis. I took out figures some years ago, from which I discovered that this wide metropolitan district of fifteen miles from Charing Cross was represented in the House of Commons under the old Redistribution Act of 1885—it will probably be in the new House of Commons under the last Reform Bill still more striking—by a body of upwards of eighty Members, to any one of whom any policeman with a grievance as to pay, any ratepayer with a grievance as to the extravagance of the Force, or any householder complaining of insufficient protection can go and address direct his complaints and make sure that they should be pressed by Questions in the House of Commons.
Who can compare the arena of the House of Commons for its conspicuousness and the interest taken in its proceedings by the Press and by all onlookers, with that of the proceedings which take place in the London County Council? It is no disrespect to the London County Council to say that the opportunity of questions and censures and motions to control expenditure in the House of Commons are a far better example and exercise of all the advantages, rights, and privileges that you hope to seek by municipalisation than you would have if you actually had to go through the form of municipalising the Police Force itself. I think it is a thing to be regretted that in the House of Commons an ex-Cabinet Minister, himself a member of the London County Council, should practically have made it clear that he thought that all grievances would disappear if you handed over the government of the Metropolitan Police to the London County Council, that there was a great deal of seething discontent, and that, unless more things were conceded than had been conceded in the present case, we were going to have more trouble of the same kind. I impute no intentions, but I say any man will judge for himself what the probable effect of words of that kind is likely to be.
There remains only the question of the recognition of the Union of the Police. I believe Sir George Cave rather plumed

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himself on the fact that he had not granted recognition to the Police Union. But he has allowed the existence of the Union; and when you allow the existence of a Union, indeed bring it into existence, it is rather futile, certainly very late, to say that you do not recognise it. Mothers generally recognise their own offspring; and in this case it seems to me that recognition has come by the operation of inevitable facts. For my part I may say that I attach very little importance to the question of recognition, because in my experience—and I have had some experience of trouble as between employer and employed—recognition inures generally to the benefit of the outside agitator, the man who has managed to fasten himself upon the trade union in question, who acts as their advocate, and who stirs them up to allow him to ventilate grievances which he says are theirs. When you get into the employer's room, or into the conference, or into the arbitrator's room, you find there is a vicious circle of two opposing principles of distrust. On the one hand you have the employers' doubt whether the demands put forward really have the support of the men whom they affect; whether, in fact, the demands put forward are really demands intended to improve the condition of the men in question, and are not rather demands put forward for the purpose of creating a number of jobs for the working class as a whole. On the other hand you have the distrust—it is a very natural distrust, and one with which I have a great deal of sympathy—on the part of the men that unless they are allowed a special advocate to speak for them they are in danger of what is called victimisation. Recognition does not get rid of that kind of thing, and the man who can get rid of that kind of thing will confer a benefit upon this country with regard to future labour troubles which it is difficult to estimate.
I do not think there is anything more to be said, but I believe your Lordships should sieze every opportunity to repudiate with all the vigour you can the doctrine which seems to obtain increasing acceptance—that wherever a body of men can use their organisation to compel satisfaction of their demands, they should use their opportunity to the hilt, even where their very status and organisation are themselves matters of trust which impose upon them in honour and morals the highest degree of obligation to restraint and forebearance in the use of those opportunities.
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Those, who make that sort of claim are riding trade unionism into an abyss; they are holding up the democratic principle to execration, because they remind us how even the democratic principle itself is capable of being abused, how it is after all but the principle of numbers, and therefore of might, and that When used against right it is a truly German form of frightfulness and nothing better. It means in the end the negation and destruction both of order and of security, and even the ruin of liberty itself. I beg to move.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, before the noble Lord speaks for His Majesty's Government, perhaps I may be allowed to say one or two words with reference to the important subject which my noble friend opposite has brought before the House. I think we must all be grateful to him for having brought it forward this evening, for it is one which has given rise to the greatest anxiety in the public mind. I will not attempt to follow what my noble friend said with regard to the apportionment of the blame for this most unfortunate episode; I am content to leave that where he left it. But I want to say a word about what seems to me to be the wider aspect of this question, for it is a one which concerns not only the Police Force and its conduct on this occasion, but the conduct of other bodies of organised people and their right to dictate terms to the public and to enforce the terms which they desire to dictate by withholding their services.
We have had a series of most regrettable affairs of this kind since the war began. We have had a strike of railway employees at a time when it was of the utmost importance that the means of locomotion should not be interfered with; we have had a strike of miners at a time when every ton of coal raised from the bowels of the earth was a matter essential to the progress of the great war in which we are engaged; we have had a strike in the shipyards at a time when our shipbuilding operations were falling lamentably into arrear; and now, as a kind of climax, we have had this strike amongst the men who are responsible for maintaining law and order in our midst. That seems to me to be a most serious occurrence. I have heard, I must say, nothing which seemed to me to be a complete defence either of this Police strike or of any of the other strikes which I mentioned just now. I do not mean to

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suggest for a moment by this that there may not have been a grievance on the part of the men who struck. What I take exception to is not that they should feel a grievance and assert it, but that they should resort to the means to which they actually did resort for the purpose of bringing that grievance to the public notice.
I do not think that I judge these people hardly, because those who were best able to judge them virtually admitted what I have just said. I dare say that some of your Lordships may have read the scathing words addressed by a very much respected Labour member of the House of Commons to the railway workers at Cardiff. I forget the exact date, but your Lordships will remember the event. This is what Mr. Thomas said—
"Before Saturday there would be a food famine in South Wales; foodstuffs were rotting at Newport—"
And then, addressing the strikers, he added—
"You have by your action destroyed the good name of your union. You have by one fell stroke destroyed all the influence railway men ever had. You have driven public opinion—which, after all, does count in these matters—never to forgive you."
And coming to the Police strike I see that Sir George Cave, speaking with authority, said that in his opinion the strikers had been misled, and that by their conduct they had forfeited a public confidence which they had so long and deservedly enjoyed. He added—I hope with truth—that the majority of the men regretted their action. I think this justifies me in saying that these strikes are strikes which ought never to have taken place.
But to my mind the most serious feature in the whole thing is that in spite of all, I believe in every one of these cases the strikers have really compelled the acceptance of the terms, or the greater part of the terms, which they were out to ask. There is always a good deal of brave talk. A Minister is generally sent down to conduct negotiations, but the whole thing ends in a very thinly-disguised capitulation. I do not think that I exaggerate when I say that this description applies to what took place in connection with the Police strike. I gather from Sir George Cave's speech, that during the year 1917 these men were receiving a total wage of 47 s. a week. At the end of 1917 it was increased to 69 s. 9d., and a scheme was under consideration for a further revision.
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Would it be believed, my Lords, that on the 28th of August these men put forward a demand for an increase of pay, a further bonus of 12½ per cent., the recognition of the Police Union, and the reinstatement of one or more dismissed constables, and that because those terms were not immediately accepted, on the very next day (August 29) 22,000 of them went out on strike? That seems to me to have been a most aggressive and wholly unjustifiable proceeding. Remember that they did this in spite of the rule, which I understand exists, under which every one of these men is bound to give one month's notice before giving up his work as a constable. As usual a Minister came in. This time it was the Prime Minister, and the result was that the men's pay was increased to a sum, including rights of various kinds, equal to £4 6s. 10 d. a week, which, unless I am mistaken, represents an annual emolument of about £224, and the men were allowed to join the Police Union. I rather think—my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong—that there was also a reinstatement of some of the dismissed men. I venture to say that all this really raises the great question whether we are to remain exposed to this kind of—I can only so describe it—blackmail. In war, as my noble friend truly says, this is conduct which would be equivalent to desertion and would be treated as such, but even in time of peace is it tolerable that the whole community should be held up to ransom in this way by a comparatively small body of organised men?
I hope that the House will not misunderstand me or think that I desire in any way to deny to these men, or to any other men, the right to combine, or the right to refuse further employment if they find that the conditions offered them are not sufficiently attractive. But what I wish to deny to them is the right, on the spur of the moment, to "down tools" and put the whole community to the greatest suffering or inconvenience. This is, I think, the more reasonable because of the length to which we have gone—I am not talking now so much of the Police as of other organisations—in recognising the rights of trade unions and bodies of that kind. Surely it is fair to urge that by conferring these great privileges we have acquired for ourselves a corresponding right to expect from the men a greater sense of their obligations to the public than I am afraid they very often exhibit.
I urge upon His Majesty's Government

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that they must take steps, not only in regard to this Police strike but in regard to all movements of the same kind, to protect the public against what I cannot help calling very grievous illusage. It seems to me reasonable to urge that the amount of protection to which the public is entitled must vary according to the nature of the service which is being performed by the persons who go out on strike. One can easily imagine a strike which might cause some trilling inconvenience but no really deep or general suffering—a strike, for instance, in any of the so-called luxury trades. But when you come to occupations upon which the public depends for the means of moving from place to place, for the fuel with which we warm our homes, for the light which enables us to get through the long hours of the winter nights, it surely is intolerable that any organisation should be in a position to pass what is, in effect, a sentence upon the rest of the community that they are to be deprived, of the fuel that they want, of the light that they need, and of their means of locomotion, in furtherance of some trade dispute; and surely the strongest case of all is this case of the Police which we are now discussing, because the one thing, after all, which we cannot do without is the maintenance of law and order. If that goes, everything goes; and I do not see how we can possibly sit down under a state of things which enables the people whose duty it is to maintain law and order to spring upon us, all of a sudden, a condition of things in which law and order will remain uncared for altogether.
I may be asked how I think this risk, which is a tremendous one, can be guarded against. I think that there are very obvious ways of dealing with it. In the first place, it will be necessary to distinguish, as I suggested a moment ago, between services which are essential and services which are less essential. In regard to the essential services, it seems to me that the one thing obviously required is to insist that the person who is dissatisfied with the conditions of his employment should not be at liberty to leave it without ample notice, and that if he fails to give that ample notice he shall be held guilty of a criminal offence and dealt with accordingly. In cases where the man serving is acquiring a right to pension or other deferred advantages, it would be perfectly reasonable to mulct him in respect of some of those advantages; and in addition to that, I
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hope that in all businesses, whether they concern trade or Police, or anything else, there will be set up proper machinery for the examination of these disputes and for their adjustment if possible by amicable means, before either side proceeds to extremities.
The suggestion that conduct of this kind might be made a criminal offence is not altogether a novel one. I do not know whether my noble friend who will reply has paid attention to an Act of the year 1875, called the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act. Its object is to fix upon certain kinds of workmen criminal responsibility for wilful breaches of contract. It is evidently aimed primarily at two kinds of employment—employment in the production of gas and in the distribution of water; and the Act contains a clause under which a man who by a breach of conditions deprives the inhabitants of the city or borough of their supply of gas or water, is liable to a fine of £20 or three months' imprisonment, wtih or without hard labour. That singles out specially these two particular services. But there is another clause which enacts that where the probable consequences of a withdrawal of labour are to endanger human life or to expose valuable property to destruction or serious injury, there also the man who breaks his contract shall be liable to a fine or to imprisonment. And if under this old Act it is thought necessary to prevent risk to valuable property and human life, surely that brings within the spirit of the provision the conduct of men whose duty it is to provide security for life and property, but who by their conduct suddenly take that security away.
I do not expect to have a full or complete answer to the question which I have raised tonight, but I feel very strongly that the whole of this question of breaches of contract, of an attempt to penalise and blackmail the public by abrupt cessations of labour, requires very careful examination, and hope that I shall be told that the Police strike has brought home to His Majesty's Government the need of investigating the subject very thoroughly indeed.
LORD WITTENHAM: My Lords, it is with the greatest possible diffidence that I rise to say a few words—not in criticism; I should not venture to criticise the noble Marquess—but to try and show that I look upon this matter from a somewhat

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different point of view. The noble Marquess just now made me think for a moment that I was living in the old days of profound peace. Then I should have agreed with every word that fell from his lips. But we must get out of that illusory state of mind. We are still in the midst—ay, at the very acme—of the greatest war in the history of the world. And, however able the noble Marquess's remarks may have been—and they were able—we must get out of his atmosphere and more into the atmosphere of reality. So I would ask the noble Marquess what he would have done in the presence of a threatened railway strike, of a threatened coal strike, of a threatened Police strike. He may answer me by saying, "Prevention is better than cure," If he said that, I should agree with him. On that I may venture to have a word with the Government. Prevention would have been better than cure; but suppose that you have got beyond that point—and the community had got beyond that point. We were in the immediate presence of those strikes, which would have certainly paralysed and perhaps stopped those industries.
I hate weakness. The Government have been very weak on many occasions, but I always try to put myself in this position—if I had had to do it, what should I have done? Should I have done any better? And I think the noble Marquess must put that question to himself. Would he have done any better had he been in the presence of that strike? He may answer, "Yes; if what I have proposed in my speech had been carried into effect, we should have been in a better position." But should we? If the men were determined to strike, how could this Government have stopped them? I think, having got to the point of the strike, that the Government were bound to meet the men—ay, I will go further—were bound to give way to the men.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: No.
LORD WITTENHAM: Yes; up to a certain point they were bound to give way to the men. If not, what then? How could you prevent them striking? Will the noble Earl tell me how you could prevent them striking?
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I will answer you presently.
LORD WITTENHAM: It is easy enough to say that the Government are weak. Anybody can say that. I have said that myself. They were weak, perhaps, in ever having allowed it to get so far; but, having allowed it to get so far, they were bound to patch it up as best they could because, if they had not, they would have gone further and have fared worse. If you want to get at the head and source, the fons et origo mali of these strikes, put your heel upon the head of Bolshevism. There are healthy strikes and there are unhealthy strikes. These have been unhealthy strikes. Stamp out Bolshevism, and you will have no more of these unhealthy strikes. Stamp out Bolshevism and that even more sinister power that lies behind—that is, the enemy in our midst. Get the enemy in our midst by the throat, and get Bolshevism by the throat, and you will have no more of these strikes whose end and aim and object have been to paralyse the war.
And so with the Police strike, I feel that there was something behind. I will never believe that the Police would have taken the extreme step that they took, the terrible step, unless there had been some sinister force behind that got hold of them and drove them on—the enemy in the midst and Bolshevism. Because I cannot believe that the Police would have done this thing, thereby undermining the whole safety of the community, unless they had either been got at, or unless they had a very much greater, a more intolerable, grievance than has appeared, at any rate on the face of it. That they had a grievance we all know. They say that they pressed it. The Police in these buildings have told me, and told me within the last forty-eight hours, that their grievance was well known to the Home Office, and that it had been pressed again and again; I do not say pressed in the House of Commons, though to a certain extent it was pressed there. I mean that the Home Office were well aware of the Police grievance. If they were, a great burden of responsibility and of blame lies upon the Home Office. And there I do not think the reply made by the Home Office in another place was sufficiently exhaustive; it was not sufficiently satisfactory because it was not made absolutely clear, so that he who runs may read, that those complants had not been brought before the head of the Police and before the Home Office, which ought to be one and the same thing, because

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those two heads are acting, or ought to be acting, in connection with each other. Therefore I hope that when the noble Viscount replies on behalf of the Home Office he will make it clear that the Home Office did all they could in the circumstances of the case to meet t he men's known grievances, and make it clear that really the men had no excuse whatever for taking the step that they did take. May we all exclaim, quis custodial custodes, what is going to be the sort of society, what is going to be the effect on those whom we trust to maintain order at the crucial point? Therefore in distributing the blame, I distribute it in three portions—the Home Office, unless it can exonerate itself; the Police, unless they can show that they had some tremendous reason for taking the course they did; and, thirdly, Bolshevism, if it was behind it, and I believe it was.
I feel that there is a great deal behind this. And I end by assuring the noble Marquess that I listened with the greatest possible interest to what he said to-day, as I have often listened, when I was a Member of the other House, from that Bar, to the many wise words he spoke in the old days. It is only because I do not think that his remedy is practicable here and now that I said what I did. If, and when, we get back to the piping times of peace and are able to take the strenuous measures which he has indicated, he will have no more fervent supporter than my bumble self in trying to arrive at a conclusion in which Capital and Labour, the governors and the governed, shall live in coordination with each other, a state in which disputes shall never get to the point of strikes, but will be settled amicably by some board able to exercise supreme and entire control over both parties to disputes, so that society may get on happily and favourably together.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, the debate has ranged, as not infrequently happens in your Lordships' House, over considerable ground, and subjects involving important principles have been dealt with. My noble friend the noble Marquess made some suggestions as to what steps might be taken, and he inquired if I was familiar with an Act of Parliament of 1875. The noble Marquess knows that my position with regard to the Home Office is not that of an Under-Secretary or an official in that
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Office, and he will not be surprised to hear me say that I am not familiar with the Act to which he refers. But in regard to the comments he made on the contents of that Act, and in regard to other matters that he laid before your Lordships by way of suggestions, perhaps he will allow me to say that I will faithfully report what he has said, and bring Hansard to the notice of the Secretary of State.
I cannot say I am at all surprised that my noble and learned friend opposite, Lord Stuart of Wortley, should have brought this matter before your Lordships' House. He has had a considerable administrative experience, some of which, as I think he reminded us, was passed in the Home Office, and he is, if I may say so, fully qualified to speak on the subject. I can assure him that I in no way quarrel with him as to what he said in regard to the Police. The Home Secretary described the strike as deplorable. If that is the right term to use, it certainly is not too strong.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I think it is no exaggeration to say that London, and districts far beyond London, were dismayed when they learned of the Police strike. The Metropolitan Police has been for so long, not only in its organisation but in its methods, the admiration not alone of this country but the pattern and the model of foreign capitals; and it was with a feeling going far beyond surprise that we learned one morning that the men had gone on strike. The position of the Police in London has always struck me, if I may say so with great respect, as a very remarkable one. They have to deal with very large crowds of a very difficult nature; they have to deal with what I might call, polite crowds—and I am not quite certain that, in a sense, they are more easy to deal with than others. The Police are the friend of every person, rich and poor, high and low, as we have daily testimony when we see them regulating the traffic and escorting infirm and aged persons through the dangers of that traffic. The patience we have observed, in crowds and in traffic, has been, I think I voice the view of your Lordships in saying, beyond all praise; and it was indeed, if I may use the term, a shock to find that these valued and honoured servants of the State had gone out on strike.

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In the course of his speech my noble friend Lord Lansdowne rather anticipated what I had to say, because I thought it would be necessary, out of the respect due to your Lordships, to give an account of those increases of pay. Of course, noble Lords who taken in interest, or are going to take or have taken a part in this debate, will no doubt have read the Secretary of State's speech carefully, but from what I have learned in the course of the afternoon there are a good many noble Lords who have not perused that speech. So that perhaps I may be forgiven if I repeat one or two figures to make the matter clearer. My noble friend who spoke last stated, indeed, that these grievances had been repeatedly put forward, but that no attention had been paid to them whatever. To take the House back for a moment, I wish to say clearly that the statement that the strike had been preceded by many applications, and that either the Commissioner of Police or the Home Office had refused to listen to them, is not correct. As Lord Lansdowne stated just now, in December of 1917 the bonuses were raised from 8s. to 12 s. per week, and the bonus for children from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. This was, of course, in addition to the pensionable pay, which was fixed then at 30 s. and upwards. That amounted to an average of 37 s. 2d., and was in addition to pension rights, which are estimated to be some 25 per cent. of the pay, and of which the constables' portion is estimated at 2 per cent. Then there was a new grant in December. The total pay and allowances, including full pension rights, was raised to 68 s. 9d. instead of 47 s. per week, and the rise was much appreciated. As was stated by Lord Stuart of Wortley, in February, 1918, a letter did come from a Police Union conveying thanks for what had been done and suggesting that, I think it was, pensionable pay should be put on a level with other services. Since that no application by letter or otherwise has been made to the Commissioner, and with certainty none to the Home Office, and that is the statement which I make in regard to the alleged refusal of repeated applications.
Now, this is true, my Lords, that in consequence of certain provincial arrangements for increasing pay which had been submitted to the Secretary of State and sanctioned by him—and this was stated in the House of Commons, I believe—the Commissioner was considering a scheme for
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increasing pay, but the Commissioner was anxious to combine with the proposal for an increase of pay a scheme for the pension of widows. This required Parliamentary sanction, and of necessity involved certain actuarial calculations as to its effects upon the Pension Fund, and this Report was expected just, about the time when the strike took place. It was a singularly unfortunate coincidence that the delay in the increase of pay, which was put about as the cause of the strike, may have been owing to the Commissioner's great desire not only to make an improvement in the men's conditions but also that it should be accompanied by the widows' pension arrangement to which I have referred.
Since February no communication of importance reached the Commissioner or the Home Office, and to show how little ground he had for anticipating trouble of any kind the Commissioner when the strike took place was absent on holiday, I think in Ireland. The notice of strike was extremely short. On August 28 the Home Office received a letter from the Police Union which demanded three things—namely, reinstatement of a dismissed constable; complete official recognition of the Police Union; and a war bonus of 12½ per cent. These demands could not be granted, and the strike took place the next day, as Lord Lansdowne reminded us, setting aside the engagement which provides for one month's notice if the men desire to give up their engagements. There is reason to believe—at least, I know that it is the Secretary of State's view—that a number of men were misled by inaccurate statements, and that there is considerable regret at the course which has been taken. The Secretary of State also wishes to recognise the fact that the Special Constabulary rendered very conspicuous services on this occasion. There were some collisions between the strikers and special constables, which were deplorable; at the same time, he believes that the feeling of regret which I have just mentioned is shared by great numbers of the Police Force.
The pay now, as has I think been stated by Lord Lansdowne, is increased, including all pension and other allowances, from an average of £3 13 s. 4d. to an average of £4 4s. 10 d. I believe this is the correct figure. The Police Union cannot be recognised, but on the advice of the Commissioner police officers are allowed to join any

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union so long as they do not claim or attempt to claim to interfere with discipline or induce the withdrawal of services. The union to which the police officers belong, the Police and Prison Warders' Union, is not recognised as competent to put forward representations for the Police. For this purpose an elective body of the Metropolitan Police has been formed as a representative board of the Metropolitan Police. That is established within the Police Force, and all representations as to conditions of service and general welfare are to be made by this body. It is already a going concern, and when the Police and Prison Warders' Union attempt to make representations as to the conditions of pay, and so on, of the Police, they are told that such representations should be made by this representative board.
As your Lordships all know, the Commissioner of Police resigned. If I may be allowed without presumption to say so, he had rendered great services to the Police and to London. I have seen notices of him in the Press in which there is reference to "sunbaked Indian civilians." Those who have been in India know pretty well that India is a great and stern school of administration. Sir Edward Henry passed nearly thirty years of his life in the Indian Civil Service and fifteen years as Commissioner of Police, and if there was one thought that he had nearest to his heart beyond the public safety it was the welfare and the contentment of the large force of men under his control.
As regards the Motion of the noble Lord, I do not know whether he meant it as a request that Papers should be produced, or whether he put it down, as sometimes is done, in order to have the right of reply. As to the actual wording of the Motion, I have made inquiry and I do not understand that there are any Papers to lay before the House. The only Papers concerned are Proclamations in regard to Police pay and allowances, which have been already published. My answer no doubt runs, to some extent, on the lines of that of the Home Secretary in the House of Commons; at the same time, perhaps your Lordships will see that one of the reasons of my being here is to represent what the Secretary of State says.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, if I may intervene for a moment I would say that I sympathise very much with my noble friend who has answered for the Government
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in having to reply for a Department with which he has really no such official connection as enables him to reply completely to any question connected with the Home Office. He has not even got a room, perhaps not even a box in which to carry his Papers, and therefore if his reply is incomplete it is no fault of his, but entirely the fault of the Department which he is told off to represent in this House. But I confess I was unable to follow the figures that he gave as regards pay. I heard something of 36 s.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: 37 s.
LORD HARRIS: It may be 37 s., with a rise of from 8s. to 12 s. That would apparently have very nearly corresponded with another figure that I heard him give—the pre-war pay of 47 s., raised sometime, either this year or in 1917, to 68 s. 9d., which is, of course, something between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. increase of pay. Then there were other figures, with which I do not think I need trouble myself. The main point is that during the course of the war, from 1913 to 1918, the normal pay of the Police—I take it that it is the normal pay, and not the pay plus war bonus—has been increased from 47 s. to 68 s. 9d.
I am very thankful that my noble friend opposite has not asked us to come to any conclusion ourselves upon this most regrettable incident, because personally I should be excessively reluctant to set up myself as a judge as to where the blame lay for what was practically a mutiny. What outsiders find is that the Chief Commissioner resigned at once, or was relieved of his command. I do not know that it very much matters which. Evidently the Government recognised that at the moment he was no longer competent to keep command of this most important Force, and, at his age, I do not think that that is any discredit to Sir Edward Henry. At any rate, it does not detract from his meritorious career, here and in India and other parts of the British Empire, in connection with the Police.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
LORD HARRIS: But what I should like to have seen supplied, in response to the Motion of my noble friend opposite, is some State Paper telling the public what were the causes of this strike, because I think we are entitled to know. Has there been

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no Departmental Inquiry? We know, of course, that the Prime Minister was brought in, and that he settled the thing off-hand by, as far as I can make cut, giving very nearly 100 per cent. increase on the 1914 figures. But surely there must have been some Departmental Inquiry? I confess that the explanation that has been put into the mouth of my noble friend does lead me to this inference—that the Police have a great grievance. It is a grievance which permeates the whole of society—that is, those who are paid fixed wages. It is that wages have not corresponded rapidly enough with the rise in the prices of all commodities, and this is at the bottom of all these strikes from which we are suffering.
Now, what is the excuse put forward for the men? They says—and there, again, we have no information—that they did represent their grievances to the head of their Department. It was hung up. Hung up where? In the office of the Chief Commissioner or in the Treasury? I wish very much that this could be cleared up, because I have a very strong opinion, from personal and official experience, that it is possible for a great deal of delay in financial matters to be imposed on all Departments by arguments from the Treasury. In this care there was a proposal before the Commissioner for a further scheme of pay connected with the men's pensions. May I observe at this point that the prospects of a pension are of no earthly use to men whose families are suffering from a shortage of food owing to rise in prices? The prospect of a pension does not help them the least in the world.
I am so far justified in rising to trouble your Lordships on this occasion that, in connection with another very important Government Department, I was called upon at a moment's notice to have ready a number of Volunteers to take the place of certain officials, who, if they had struck and deserted their posts, would have placed the civilian population in almost as great danger as they were placed in by the strike of the Police. At a moment's notice I, with other commanding officers of Volunteer regiments, was called upon to provide Volunteers—in their civil capacity if you please, but in uniform and with side arms—who were to have civil pay to supplant or be substitutes for these officials whom it was apprehended might strike. Therefore I had some little experience at that very anxious moment of the confusion and the danger to the public that were possible.
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Here, upon the statement of the Home Office itself, was a scheme before the Commissioner of Police, which had been evidently before him for some time, comprehending an increase of pay connected with pensions and connected furthermore with widows' pensions, all very admirable objects, I admit, but all of them—the whole thing—requiring Parliamentary sanction, and of course, preliminary to that, Treasury sanction. Cannot you imagine the inter-correspondence going on between the various Departments, the Home Office, and the Chief Commissioner of Police, upon this subject, and meantime the men's immediate grievance—assuming there was a grievance—of not getting enough pay compared with the rise in the cost of all the commodities that go towards keeping a man alive. All that was suspended because there was this other scheme on foot. That is the impression which is left upon my mind by the explanation put into the mouth of my noble friend by the Home Office; and if that is the explanation of the ignoring of a petition which the men themselves say to my noble friend on the back bench was put forward over and over again to the head of their Department, then it is not a satisfactory one, and I think that the public is entitled to some explanation as to what were the real causes that lay underneath this mutiny.
I yield to nobody in condemnation of every one who is under contract, whether he be a civil workmen or an official, who "downs tools" before the notice which he is bound to give. If your domestic servant leaves your service he can be sued in a Civil Court; I am not sure, but I believe he can be prosecuted if he leaves your service without giving you the notice to which you are entitled. He in his turn is entitled to claim from you due notice, or the pay for the period which is usually allowed for notice. Everyone of these men in the Police Force would be as insistent upon their rights as regards the period of notice to which they are entitled for their discharge as anybody else; yet they ignore the rights of the public and "down tools" without giving the notice to which the public is entitled. I am as strong as my noble friend below the gangway in condemning in the most criticial terms the Metropolitan Police for ignoring that condition of their service. I do not think that any condemnation can be too strong for them.

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But I confess that the answer of the Home Office does not satisfy me that the grievances of the men had been properly met. I should want a great deal more from the Home Office before I was satisfied that the men had been met in this essential particular. With regard to the index figures, I spoke upon this subject a year ago with regard to agricultural matters, and I said to my noble friend Lord Milner, What is the good of putting 25 s. into your Corn Production Bill, making a fixed amount, when prices are varying perpetually, and when under the custom of the country wages have corresponded more or less correctly with the cost of living; what is the good of putting a fixed figure into your Bill, and then six months, or at any rate a year, afterwards, the fixed figure has to be swept away? It must be swept away. Wages must correspond, roughly, with the cost of living.
I am not satisfied, from the figures given by the noble Viscount, that the rise in wage in the case of the Metropolitan Police anything like corresponds with the cost of living. If it did not so correspond, then I confess that I am not prepared to stand up as a judge of what are the merits of the case. I am prepared to judge them upon having ignored one of the important items of their agreement—namely, that they ignored the period of notice; but I am certainly not prepared to condemn them on the information which we have been given to-day as regards the grievance under which they suffered, or to say that the heads of the Departments, and perhaps the Home Office itself, were not in the main responsible for the strike.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend who has just sat down that it would be more satisfactory to this House and to the public if the Government, even yet, could tell us a little more than they have done in connection with that part of the Motion of my noble friend which consists in a request for Papers. My noble friend Lord Sandhurst says that there are no Papers. Will he tell us whether there has been no Inquiry into the causes of this lamentable occurrence, or whether there is going to be no Inquiry, and whether there will never be any Papers which can be laid before Parliament on this subject? I wish he would be a little more explicit on this point, because I entirely agree with my
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noble friend who has just spoken that we have not the material on which to express any opinion at all as to the merits of the case of the Police for an increase of pay. I wish to express no opinion on that. Nor, in my judgment, have we the materials on which finally to decide whether the Home Office, or the Chief Commissioner of Police, or the Treasury, or some other Department of Government, must bear a share of the responsibility in this matter. We have not the material; therefore we cannot attempt to formulate a judgment.
I am very grateful, nevertheless, to my noble friend behind me (Lord Stuart of Wortley) for having brought this very grave matter before your Lordships' House. I do not share the view of my noble friend opposite about what the noble Marquess said. The noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, passed to consider this strike as part of a larger subject. I do not propose to follow him in his general survey of the question of strikes, but I am sure that what he said will always be a valuable contribution to the solution of what is, perhaps, the most difficult of all our social problems. I propose to confine my remarks almost exclusively to this particular strike.
Before I say what I think ought to be said, I want to make it perfectly plain to everybody that during the whole of my life I have had the most profound admiration for the Metropolitan Police up to the occasion of this strike—an admiration so profound that I am not exaggerating when I say that it is part of my pride in being an Englishman that I am the fellow-countryman of the men of the Metropolitan Police. I feel about them exactly as I feel about the men of the Navy or of the Army. Therefore to have to say what I am going to say is a matter of profound grief, but I think it is also a matter of public duty. I wish to say further that, except in the case of certain public officials, of which the Navy, the Army, and the Police are the most important, I not only am not against trade unions but I think trade unions are absolutely necessary, and that if they did not exist they ought to be invented. It is impossible for the ordinary wage-earner to assert his just claims without the machinery of a trade union. A trade union implies the possibility of the threat to strike, and the ultima ratio, in certain cases, of a strike.

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I have already said that I am going to pronounce no judgment as to the merits of the case of the Metropolitan Police for an increase of pay. Still less am I going to pronounce any judgment on the merits of any of those other strikes to which the noble Marquess referred—the railway strike, or the miners' strike. What I want to say here and now is that in my opinion no strike of any sort or kind, and no threat of strike, is legitimate in time of war. When the country is battling for its life these strikes and threats of strikes are nothing but stabs in the back to the men who are fighting in the ships and in the trenches. This is true in time of war in all trades. I go further and say that never can it be legitimate for the Police, not in peace even, to strike or to threaten to strike. And if it is not legitimate for them to do so in time of peace, how deplorable and how wholly unjustifiable must we consider this sudden strike, and these threats, in the month of August, at a critical period of the war. It is the first blot on a hitherto noble escutcheon.
The Police are the penultimate foundation on which the whole basis of the law and order of the State stands. The ultimate foundation is the whole mass of citizens of whom the Army are a part, but, till you get down to the duty of every individual citizen to keep the law and order of the State, the paid public servants, held in high honour by all their fellow-countrymen for that very reason, are the Police, and there can never be true security for the State or true stability for law and order if there is any suggestion that in any circumstances it is legitimate for the Police to strike or to threaten to strike. My friend opposite provoked me to an interruption. I did not intend to be discourteous, but I could not withhold an ejaculation when I understood him to say that the Government should have done nothing less than what they did in connection with this Police strike.
LORD WITTENHAM: Not when once the strike had arisen.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I profoundly disagree with my noble friend. It is quite impossible for disagreement to be more profound than mine with him over that. I should not have presumed to say what I think ought to have been done had my noble friend not said what he did; but now I am going to say that in my opinion
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the moment that the Government were faced with the ultimatum they ought at once to have announced the machinery which they proposed for an examination of the grievances of the men, and at the same time to have given the men twenty-four hours to return to duty, and made an appeal to all citizens to come and support them. Had they done that there would have been such a manifestation of public opinion, such a rally of the whole male population on the side of the Government, that you would never have had a Police strike again, or a threat of it. I am afraid that the Government missed one of the greatest opportunities that Government ever had of squelching a grave public danger such as this threat of a Police strike.
In conclusion, I cannot help lamenting the course that the Government have taken about the union. They tell us that they have not recognised the union, but they have done something that is very difficult to distinguish from recognition, and I am afraid that they will find in the future that the limits they have imposed to the action of this union are not recognised by those who want to manipulate the union, and that, having gone as far as they have in recognising its existence, or the existence of some body to which they assign limits of function in their own mind, the day will come when they will find that their interpretation of the legitimate functions of the union are disputed, and the battle which might have been settled in August last will have to be fought again—I mean the battle of principle, because a great principle is involved. Nothing can be more deplorable or more hateful to every public citizen than the idea of any conflict between the citizens as a whole of the Government and that body of Police for which, as I have said, we always have had the most profound admiration and affection. I do not think that my noble fiend proposes to press for Papers, but I hope that the noble Viscount who spoke for the Government may have something more to tell us about the possibility in the future of further light being thrown on this understanding.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I should like to repeat what I said just now in regard to the applications by letter or otherwise relating to grievances. What I meant to convey was that no application had been made by letter or otherwise to the Commissioner, and certainly none to the

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Home Office, to which there had been repeated refusals. As to the further point mentioned by my noble friend who has just sat down, I have nothing more to say at this moment, other than what I have already explained to the noble and learned Lord opposite; but in view of what has been said by the noble Earl, I will, of course, communicate with the Secretary of State and see whether there is any further information to be given.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, I rise to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill, which has passed through the House of Commons with an absence of criticism, or at all events of any considerable criticism, and has, I believe, met with general approval in Scotland. The object of the Bill is to make adequate provision for the organisation of national education in Scotland, short of the Universities. Your Lordships are aware that in the month of August last a Bill for a similar purpose in England and Wales became law, and of course it was felt in Scotland that it is not for Scotland to fall behind in the race to achieve a thoroughly efficient education. The object being the organisation of national education—primary, secondary, and technical—it is obvious that you have to devise machinery which would be adapted for that purpose in the shape of local education authorities. Then, having done that, you must have provisions as to the duties of those local education authorities, and the changes in the law which they are to administer. Lastly, but not least, you must have provisions for advancing the scheme, which will be most valuable in its results but must cost money.
I propose to divide the few remarks that I am going to make under the three heads which I have mentioned. In the first place, as regards the machinery to be provided, it must be settled what the area is to be. In Scotland there has hitherto been a system of school boards. School boards have been elected by each parish
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and by the various burghs scattered throughout Scotland. It is quite obvious, I think, that for such a scheme as that which I have indicated it would be impossible to take these small areas. Many of the burghs are too small, and the majority of the parishes are too small, and you could not, even with the powers of amalgamation which exist, make a satisfactory job of it if you proceeded on the lines of the existing divisions for the purpose of education. For that reason it has been determined that the areas for this purpose should be the five large burghs—Edinburgh, Leith, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen—which are of a very considerable size, a size suitable for the matters to be dealt with; and throughout the rest of Scotland that it, should be according to the division into counties. Various suggestions have been made as to forming special areas for the purpose of education, but I think your Lordships will agree with the view that has been taken that the multiplication of special areas for particular purposes is inconvenient, and that it is much better to proceed on lines which are already thoroughly familiar. I may add that since 1908 the county secondary education committees have discharged not unimportant functions with regard to secondary education in Scotland under the Act of 1908. And therefore I ask your Lordships' approval of the course that has been taken in adopting the counties, with the five large burghs which I have mentioned, as appropriate areas for this purpose.
The second point which arose with regard to machinery was, What body are you to have? Are you to have a body elected ad hoc, or are you to throw the functions under this Bill upon the existing councils—the county councils and the burgh councils? The Bill as first introduced in December last year proposed to throw it upon the existing councils, but the opinion of Scottish Members and of Scotland was so unmistakably manifested in opposition to that proposal that the Government determined to re-introduce the Bill, which they did shortly before it came on for Second Reading in June last, making the authority not the existing councils but education authorities to be elected ad hoc. In Scotland there has always been a great liking in matters of education for an authority elected for that purpose and for that purpose only. The next point with regard to the education authority was how it was to be chosen, and this Bill pro-

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ceeds on the lines that it ought to be chosen by direct election. I need not waste time in recommending that course, for I do not think that any other would satisfy the people of Scotland. Further, some provision must be made for securing adequate protection to minorities. There is at present in force in Scotland the cumulative vote, by which, where a man has the right to give several votes, they may be bestowed upon one candidate, and by arrangement with his friends the great mass of votes may be concentrated on behalf of a minority numerically not very strong. The cumulative vote for that reason has fallen into disfavour in Scotland, and the opinion is held, and I believe justly held, to some extent at all events, that the cumulative vote gives more protection to minorities than is their due. It is therefore proposed, instead of the cumulative vote, to have the transferable vote, by which the voter may indicate the order in which he desires that his vote should be utilised for candidates. If his vote is not wanted for one owing to his having got a majority without it, the vote may be given in the order indicated by the voter to another candidate who is in the field. It is hoped in this way that due protection will be given to minorities, but that the undue favour to minorities involved in the cumulative vote will be put an end to. So much with regard to setting up the machinery for administering this Bill.
With regard to the duties of the new education authorities and the changes in the law which they will have to administer, I will first say this. There are a certain number of very necessary duties to be performed in connection with schools for which a central authority for a comparatively small area is not particularly competent. You want local management for schools in certain particulars, always subject to strong central control, and the Bill contains provisions for the appointment by the local education authorities, according to a scheme framed by them and approved by the Scottish Education Department, of school management committees, which it is hoped will be of an efficient and representative character, with knowledge of all the local conditions, and on which the various interests will be adequately represented. This system will combine the advantage of local knowledge with adequate central control. The more important duties of the education authority may not be transferred; there is an enact-
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ment mentioning them and forbidding that they should be thrown into the hands of a committee.
I will say a few words first about the duties of the education authority with reference to public schools, and then I will proceed to consider their new duties altogether with reference to the proposed transfer of what are called the voluntary schools to the education authorities. The first duty, and one of the most important, which the education authorities will have to discharge is to prepare a scheme for the approval of the Scottish Education Department for providing adequately within the area for primary, intermediate, and secondary school education. And with regard to that matter some points of importance may be briefly noticed. Your Lordships are aware that in Scotland, by what is called "use and wont," the education authorities have always been in the habit of providing for religious instruction in the schools. There was no enactment in the Scottish Education Act of 1872, now nearly fifty years ago, to that effect. In the preamble it is recited that there was use and wont with reference to religious education, and that, coupled with the determination of the Scottish people that the religious element should not be eliminated from the schools, was quite sufficient; it has always been provided. And it has been thought that, inasmuch as a change is being made to new authorities, it would be a proper thing to indicate to these authorities that they are to have the same powers in this most important matter that the school boards have always exercised. That is provided by the eighth clause, which confers on the education authorities under this Bill the power to provide religious education. It does not make it compulsory. Some ardent friends of religious education, I believe, were desirous that it should be made compulsory, but I suggest to your Lotdships' judgment that it was probably much safer to recognise the power, trusting the people in whose interests the power is to be exerted to give effect to what was entrusted to them.
The next point which I think is of some importance is that the local education authority have power to make provision by way of scholarships, or bursaries, as they are called in Scotland, and by making other payments, to enable promising of poor parents to get the advantage of education in secondary schools,

917
and, in suitable cases, in Universities. The children to whom this assistance is to be given, must, of course, be carefully selected. The responsibility for the selection will rest with the local education authority, who no doubt will act upon the information laid before them by the teachers as to the capacity of the child. Of course, unless the child is likely to take advantage of such facilities, it would be a waste of time and money to send him on to the University, he is much better doing that work for which he is fitted. But you have in every rank of life boys and girls of great ability who only want the opportunity to show what is in them. I believe it was a motto of the great Napoleon that a career should always be open to talent; and as far as legislation can achieve it, we hope that this Bill may serve to open the way to any sphere for which his abilities fit him to any child in Scotland, however poor his parents may be.
Certain changes are made in the law which the authorities are to administer. In the first place, the age for school attendance is raised from fourteen to fifteen years. In the second place, the power of exemption, which under the law as it has hitherto existed was to take effect when the child was twelve, is now to be at the age of thirteen, so that it is a year later. The power of exemption which was introduced by the Act of 1901 is an instance of that power of selection which plays an essential part in the formation of every well-balanced scheme. There are on the one hand, as I have indicated, children of exceptional powers, and on the other hand there are children who are so backward with their books that after a fair opportunity of being tested in the matter we must conclude that further time spent in book learning is really time wasted. In that case it is much better that there should be the power of exempting such a child from further attendance at school, and letting him go to the work for which he may be perfectly fitted, and which, in itself, will be a better education than poring over books which, to him, may mean little or nothing. The power of exemption is to be subject to attendance at the continuation classes which are to be set up under this Bill.
The continuation classes are a most important part of the provision made for education by this Bill. It is proposed that there shall partial attendance—for two hours. I think—up to the age of six-
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teen at continuation classes in the evening, and that power shall be conferred by the Bill when it becomes law upon the Education Department to extend the age for these continuation classes ultimately to eighteen, proceeding by steps if they please. These continuation classes will help the boy and girl to keep up their general education and prevent the young person from forgetting what has already been learned; but, they will also, I trust, in very many cases give special instruction bearing upon the handicraft which the young person is pursuing. Instruction of that kind may greatly increase the efficiency of our work, and, if well judged, and put in terms which the young workman can appreciate, it may be an education more valuable than learning of a more abstruse character ever could be.
And then, in the third place, these continuation classes may discharge a most important function in having the physical well-being of the young persons thoroughly well seen to. They are most important years in the life of a boy or a girl, and there will be, under this Bill, provision for medical examination, for the supervision of health, and for physical education and training. I need not dilate on the importance of that. Any one of us who has seen the effect which the physical exercises that a country lad goes through, or which a town lad goes through, on enlisting in the Army, can appreciate what a change it makes in the physique and in the morale of the person subjected to these influences. I regard it as most valuable if, as an important part of the education, the young person is subjected to influences at that time, which tend to there being a sound body, and which tend to there being a sound mind in the body. The continuation classes will prevent the minds from rusting, and will enable any boys or girls who are fit for the Universities to qualify for passing on to them. They may have gone to their work, they may not have been able to go to a secondary school, but in the hours in which they attend continuation classes they may be able to do enough to prepare them for going, as they get a little older and as the opportunity serves, to the University.
There is, of course, one matter which always should be borne in mind, and that is the importance of the power of selection in any sound system of education. You must begin by educating all children, but

919
you must endeavour to pick out those cases in which it is worth while to push education further and to give the young person the opportunity of rising, it may be, to a very different sphere from that in which he may happen to have been born. There is, of course, the same power of exemption with regard to the continuation classes provided in the Bill as that to which I have referred in regard to elementary education.
The second point on which the local authority will be entrusted with important duties is in the matter of what are called voluntary schools. In Scotland you have a large number of children who, owing to the religious views of their parents, are not able to take advantage of the education provided in the public schools. As your Lordships know, the greater part of the population of Scotland are really of one faith, so that the religious difficulty with regard to the great majority does not arise; but you have a certain number of Episcopalian schools and a large number of Roman Catholic schools. I think it has been estimated that of the children who are of age to go to school in Scotland about one-seventh are children of Roman Catholic parents, whose principles prevent them from allowing their children to go to any schools where there is an absence of religious education, however much the children may be protected by conscience clauses. That is a fact which must be recognised, and you cannot in dealing with this subject leave unnoticed those children who, owing to the pecuniary difficulty in thoroughly equipping and running these schools, have to be content with education in many cases very inferior to that which the public schools would be able to give them.
It is proposed to deal with this question in this way. The local education authority are required, on the request of the managers of any Roman Catholic or Episcopalian school, to take the school over. If no request is made for two years to take it over—unless the time is extended and there is power to extend it—the grants will cease to be paid to that school. If they prefer to continue on their own account they will have to do so, but it is apprehended that the proposed powers conferred on the local education authority of taking over such schools on request will be a power brought into constant exercise. It will work in this way. When the school is taken over the secular education will be under the control of the local education authority,
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but the religious education will be left entirely in the hands of persons representative of the religious body to which the parents of the children belong. That is a provision which I hope will work well in practice. It seems to be a provision of a reasonable nature, and it is difficult to conceive that you could have a better way of filling up a great gap in your educational system, which otherwise would exist owing to there being a large number of children whose parents think it wrong to let them go to the public schools in Scotland.
I desire to say a few words on the most important subject of the financial provision made by the Bill. There is to be for every local education authority an education fund to be administered by the local education authority. Into that fund will be paid all the grants and sums raised by loan, or otherwise, available for education purposes, and then if there is a deficiency it is to be made good out of the rates. The total deficiency for the area is to be apportioned among the parishes comprising the area according to their valuation, and is to be raised as provided. This may not be an ideal system, but it is one which is in force and one which it is believed will work well in practice.
In the second place, provision is made for the grant of a general fund for Scotland—the Education (Scotland) Fund. Into that fund for Scotland generally there will be paid all the sums which are payable under the 15th section of the Act of 1908; secondly, a sum equal to the grants which were made in 1914, which is taken as the standard year; and, in the third place, eleven-eightieths of the excess of the amount paid for education in England and Wales over that spent in 1914, the standard year. The explanation of that fraction is simply this. It was computed that the relation of the contribution by Scotland to the contribution by the rest of the kingdom for taxation was eleven-eightieths, and that has been adopted on other occasions as an index of the share which Scotland should get in any grant, and it is proposed to adopt it here. That central fund will be applied in making grants to the several education authorities according to minutes to be drawn up by the Scottish Education Department; and if one might anticipate, I should think that those minutes should be drawn up on the principle of measuring the grant according to the amount properly expended on education

921
in the area, with special consideration for districts where, owing to exceptional circumstances, the pressure of the rate is exceptionally heavy. That is a matter which must be left to be adjusted by minute, and I think that the Department may be trusted to discharge this duty in seeing that the grants are properly apportioned.
One thing is to my mind most satisfactory about this scheme. It will sweep away the whole apparatus of payment according to passes and results. I believe there has never been a greater mistake in any system of education than making grants according simply to the number of passes in particular subjects. It is fatal to the full idea of really good education, and I trust that in Scotland we shall have seen the last of it when this Bill comes into force. There are one or two other matters in the Bill which I really shall not dwell upon. Provision is made for an advisory council for the Secretary of Scotland in educational matters, and for an advisory council for the local education authorities themselves.
There is only one other point I will touch upon, and that is the provision which is made with regard to the remuneration of teachers. The salaries are to be not less than a sum fixed as a minimum according to a scale drawn up under Clause 7 (c) of the Bill. It was said long ago by Sir Walter Scott, with reference to the old parish schoolmasters in Scotland, that Scotland owed more to these men than to any other class in the community and treated them worse than any other class. I hope we are in the way adequately to recognise the service which the teaching profession can do to the country. That really is all I have to say in commending this Bill to the favourable consideration of your Lordships. It comes to you stamped with the approval of the House of Commons, and I submit to your Lordships that, if passed into law, it will do a great deal to help on the cause of education in Scotland. In these circumstances I trust that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I cannot think, after the full and exhaustive analysis of the Bill which we have just heard from the noble and learned
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Lord on the Woolsack, that it is necessary for me to say very much, but having regard to the fact (which I have no doubt is in the minds of many of your Lordships) that I was responsible for eight years for the Department which is concerned with this Bill, I think it would be a lack of courtesy on my part if I did not offer to the Bill a very cordial welcome in your Lordships' House. I am not altogether out of sympathy with the view that to some extent the great changes foreshadowed in this Bill have been sprung upon the people of Scotland without full discussion and preparation, but, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has told you, the first draft of the Bill, introduced at the end of last year, did not meet with approval so far as the authorities were concerned, and those who were responsible for this Bill have done their very best in the meantime to consult the opinion of the people of Scotland, and I believe, so far as this important question is concerned, the Bill will receive practically unanimous support.
Another reason why I think we should not pay too much attention to the criticism is that it would never be possible in these times to take a General Election turning largely upon the question of an Education Bill. More than that, we are face to face with many after-war problems, with great policies of reconstruction and changes, and I think it is of the very greatest importance that the foundation should be laid in time, and that we should proceed with this reform of our educational system while we have the opportunity of doing so. The noble and learned Lord has made it perfectly clear that the school board system and organisation will not do for solving the educational problems of the future.
The conditions have entirely changed from the time which even I can recollect—and which, along with me, the most rev. Primate on the Bench opposite and the noble Viscount behind me will also recollect—when the age of entry into a Scottish University was about fifteen, or even lower in some cases. The essential feature of change in the last half-generation in Scotland has been the raising of the age for entrance into the Universities. During this time, as we all know, education has made great advances, and much higher attainments are now required for entrance into Universities, training colleges, and other similar institutions than was the case fifteen or twenty years ago. If one thing

923
is more certain than another it is this, that the parish is no longer possible as a basis for the organisation of education, as it was someyears ago.
It is eighteen years since I myself was enthusiastic enough to propose a Bill of reform. Lord Dunedin, my successor in office, followed in 1904, but it was not till 1908 that any emendation of the old system, established in 1872, was found possible. Even that was essentially a compromise, and I can truthfully say it was a compromise which prepared the way for the present Bill. As the noble and learned Lord has told you, the object of Part I of this Bill is to set up a county authority for education, and that county authority will amalgamate and centralise both the powers of the school board and the secondary education committee. I entirely agree with what was said, that the one possible area for education in Scotland is the county. It is not perfect—there is some difficulty in certain places owing to the divisions of counties, the merging of populations in valleys, and the difficulties of transference across country for education—but, taking it all round, I am certain that no other area is possible.
I am very glad indeed that the authority is to be an authority for educational purposes alone, and that it will deal with education as a whole in all its aspects, primary, secondary, and technical. The noble and learned Lord passed over one point. He very rightly condemned the cumulative vote, but he did not explain to your Lordships as fully as I should have liked that the system of election for these new secondary education authorities will be that which is known as proportional representation. It will be a very interesting feature of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, to prove, as I humbly think, how excellent a method that will be of getting an exact reflex in the authority of the proportions of opinion among the different divisions in the electorate.
As the noble and learned Lord said, the second Part of the Bill is strictly educational. It raises from fourteen to fifteen the normal age for leaving school, but I am glad it continues the power of exemption from the full obligation of attendance. The idea, I think, which underlies that proposal is that those who are excused from full-time attendance, in order that they may engage in work useful for themselves, are to continue under the obligation to give
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a certain attendance in each year at continuation classes in order to prevent what has been acquired being lost and forgotten, as has been too often the case in existing circumstances. Personally, I find it impossible to attach too much importance to that safeguard, and I sincerely hope that in its main features it will be preserved in this Bill. But, on the other hand, those who have shown a real aptitude for education will under this Bill have much greater facilities for continuing their studies. Then again it is perfectly obvious that, as there cannot be a suitable school in every parish to carry the children up to the age of seventeen or eighteen, it most be under the larger area of the county. I need not go over the point again, but the noble and learned Lord made a most satisfactory allusion to the liberal provisions which are made in Clause 5 of the Bill for enabling a clever child to pursue his or her studies.
On one point in regard to this matter of attendance I think we might have a little more elasticity than is given in the Bill. I will not go into details now, but I shall give notice of Amendments with a view of making the transfer from the present system to the new one a little more gradual and a little more elastic than it is under this Bill. I hope that the precedents of the English Bill will be followed in one important particular, and that the period of bringing the new scheme into operation will be extended to seven instead of three years. And I really think that if more trust, more power, more authority, are given to the local committees they may be thoroughly trusted in Scotland not to use their power in a wrong way.
Another important feature of the Bill, to which I for one give my most cordial welcome, is that bringing in of the voluntary schools under the education authority. The noble and learned Lord said that about one-seventh of the school population belonged to those two Churches whose members have found it difficult in some cases to send their children to the public schools. So far as the Roman Catholics are concerned, that difficulty, of course, is almost universal; but I am glad to think that in many districts the Episcopalian children have been able to take their education in the public schools under proper safeguards for religious instruction. I think in this case in Scotland we have never been quite so dogmatic or quite so divided

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into sections as has been the case in England. I remember in one case, when I was Secretary for Scotland, visiting one of the Western Islands, in which 75 per cent. of the population was Roman Catholic There was a Protestant majority on the school board; the head teacher was a Roman Catholic; the religious education in that school was given in different rooms; and the whole staff, without regard to creed or other differences, took part in the secular education. That may have been an exceptional case; but I saw it myself, and know that it was carried out with success.
But the real reason for this change is a very important one. It is the growing cost of education which makes it necessary. This improvement in education and its consequent cost imposes a continually increasing burden upon these communities for maintaining their separate schools. The result is—I use these words with no reproach to them; they are the victims of circumstances for which they are not responsible—that they have been quite unable to keep pace with the public schools as regards efficiency and remuneration of teachers. If it is the case that the education given in these voluntary schools was really inferior to that given in the public schools; the lower standard was therefore unjust to the children concerned; and I say frankly and fearlessly that it is in the national interest as well as in the interest of these children themselves that a cure should be found for that difficulty. I believe that no other way of effecting this object can be made available than by bringing these children compulsorily under the new authorities, and that this will secure adequate maintenance from the rates and from the grants. But at the same time this Bill provides, as it ought to provide, efficient safeguards for the continuance of the distinct religious instruction which they rightly value so highly.
There have been other points involved in this discussion. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack explained to your Lordships what is known in Scotland as "use and wont," and some people think that use and wont, the prevailing form of religious instruction in Scotland, is put at a disadvantage under this Bill; that it is voluntary only, whereas the other two Churches have obtained a certain amount of compulsory power. It seems to me that under Clause 8 those of us who are Pres-
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byterian have obtained as much as is necessary for our protection. We are in a large majority, and if the majority want to continue the system of use and wont they have power to do it. I know enough of my fellow-countrymen to know that if they are told they can have a thing if they want it they will very likely take it, but if they are told that they must have it whether they want it or not they are likely to rebel, and to look upon the system with less favour than they otherwise would. But I do not think that the majority in Scotland can complain if they are given the power to do a thing when it rests with them whether or not they will have it carried into effect.
There are some subordinate provisions in the Bill for setting up what are called advisory councils—one to the Department and one to the education authorities. I think I should not be wrong in saying that these provisions are rightly and purely experimental. I hope I am not going too far when I say that I am not in the least in love with them. I think that if you have a right selection of the people concerned the councils will not do much harm, and it is possible that they may be helpful in some way. At all events, they will perhaps do something to allay a sort of feeling in the country that they are being too much governed from a central authority. But I have an apprehension that the class of people who will find seats on these advisory councils will be those who will occupy their time in giving advice without regard to the possibility of always carrying it into effect without other difficulties; and I have a great dread—perhaps it is gained from official experience—of people who have power to give advice but not responsibility for the result of the advice which they give. However, the Department and the House of Commons have resolved to have these advisory councils, and probably what is brought into force permissibly in these circumstances it is better for us to leave alone.
I do not think that I need say more about the Bill. There are some details to which I shall want to call your Lordships, attention when we get to the Committee stage, but it will be only waste of time to go over the ground now. I will end, as I began, by saying that as far as I am concerned I give a cordial welcome to this Bill.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I see that the noble and learned Viscount (Lord

927
Haldane) is going to say something, and I will not stand for more than a few moments between the House and him. I should like to add my tribute to the admirable character of this Bill. I have read it with care, and I find it extraordinarily interesting, apart from the technical points of administration, as a contribution to the discussion of the larger educational problems with which both in England and in Scotland we have been trying to deal. It covers, of course, a wider area of what have been, in England at all events, controversial elements of educational polity and discussion than the recent Bill passed through Parliament. Some of the provisions which this Bill contains seem to me to be likely to be of exceedingly high value when the time comes—as it must come—for dealing with those parts of our English educational problems which were quite rightly left outside the purview of Mr. Fisher's Bill when it was going through Parliament.
I believe that Mr. Fisher acted rightly in the course he took in leaving out from his Bill some matters which would inevitably have caused considerable difference of opinion. But I believe when the time comes for handling the matter, no small help will be discovered in the provisions which have been with great skill and perfect fairness drawn up in this Bill for dealing with a corresponding problem in Scotland. I say "a corresponding problem in Scotland"; but it is, of course, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has reminded us, on a much smaller scale—that is to say, the number of what are called voluntary schools is a very much smaller affair in Scotland than in England. But none the less the principles laid down with great clearness and lucidity seem so absolutely fair in the provision they make that the educational efficiency of the schools shall be in every way tested, and yet that the religious wishes of parents shall be considered, that I feel most thankful that this is likely to become law before there arises the question—which will have to be considered before very long—with regard to English educational matters.
The clauses in many sections which deal with the continuation classes seem to me, again, to be admirably drawn, and calculated to meet their purpose in a very remarkable way. If I am not mistaken—I say it with all respect—I think that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack accidentally
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made one slip in what he said in describing the Bill in his very lucid account of it. He spoke of the continuation classes being held in the evening. I am glad to say that the Bill provides that they should not be held in the evening, unless by special sanction given in special circumstances. It is of the greatest possible importance, as we all know, that continuation classes shall not be held at an hour when they would be attended by those who are already tired by a day's work. As in England, so in Scotland. The continuation classes must be attended during what are called the ordinary working hours of the day, and not when those working hours are over and the young person receiving the continuation class help is already fatigued. The provision is quite clear as it stands.
I should like to call attention to what seems to me—I do not know whether I am mistaken—a novel and certainly most striking addendum to educational legislation, the provision for providing books not only for children but for grown-up people in a parish. Nothing could possibly be better or more characteristic of Scotland's wisdom in educational matters than to extend the educational period to the end of a person's life. Any adult inhabitant of any parish may have the advantage of having his or her education continued, up to four score years if need be, by the aid of what this Bill empowers the parish to provide in the way of literature. It may be allowed to subscribe to libraries. That is continuation carried out in its true sense. It is education which is not to end at any special period of life, but to be carried on throughout all the years that the man or the woman needs for adding to the knowledge which he or she already possesses. I do not want to detain your Lordships at this hour, but I should not like this Bill to pass its Second Reading without saying, as one who has been keenly interested in educational matters for a great many years, how admirably it seems to me to have been drawn up, and how well calculated it is to fulfil the purpose which is in view.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, my attitude towards this Bill is as friendly as that of the most rev. Primate who has just addressed the House. I do not propose to follow the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, or my noble friend who sits near me, over the points of the Bill. It is not necessary. I only wish to make a few observations. The real im-

929
portance of this Bill is not its clauses and provisions, taken by themselves, but the fact that it provides a skeleton on which a living organisation develops. The organisation is a very living one in Scotland, and the framework of this Bill is what it is because Scotland has reached the point which has not been reached in England, which has not been reached easily even in Wales, with the result that you could not have brought forward this Bill in either of those two parts of the United Kingdom.
I will make good in a moment what I have just said, but I wish to say first that I think this Bill would have been better if it had been possible for the Government to adhere to the first form in which they brought it in. The first form in which they brought it in, instead of setting up ad hoc school authorities in the different counties and county boroughs, proposed to do what was done with the Education Act in England in 1902—to take the borough and county councils and to give to statutory committees of those councils the powers of educational authorities. The great underlying advantage of that was that it gave a new importance to the county borough and county councils. It made them more akin to local parliaments, with living things to talk about.
What we in Scotland have suffered from, and are suffering from horribly, is that our county councils and even our town councils are in too many cases run in the counties by factors and farmers and people who do not trouble themselves about the most idealistic side of social organisation, and in the towns and cities by persons who have not that keenness which we could desire, and one of the things which I looked forward to when I read the first form of the Bill as it was brought in was that the Government were at last in earnest with the policy of devolution from Parliament to subordinate local authorities which thereby would get a new life, acquire new living interests, and develop into an importance which would tend to relieve Parliament of much that overburdens it to-day. That course was not taken because of the outcry of what is called "our people." I have been in Parliament thirty-three years, and I have never known any good thing carried without the voice of what is called "our people" coming in and being a source that marred it. You attend to what a few very earnest
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people say, professing that they speak in the name of the whole community, and they only speak in the name of the whole community because, owing to the absence of instruction, the people do not understand the point put to them. I feel confident that if the people of Scotland had understood that this Bill was the beginning of the enlargement of the functions and importance of the town and county councils you would have had a very different attitude towards it from that which has resulted from the question being treated as merely one of education. However, there are the bodies. They are not wholly new, because there were county committees on higher education before, and I have no doubt that the thing will work very well. But for myself, I think that a great opportunity of the wider problem being dealt with of relieving Parliament has been missed by the departure from the course which was taken, doubtless because the Secretary for Scotland could not bring himself to do otherwise in the face of the only public opinion that he had to deal with.
The Bill as it stands is a very good one. And why is it a very good Bill? Because it unifies the whole system of education, as the most rev. Primate has pointed out, even to the provision of books for adults, bringing something of the beginning of adult education, a subject which has been taken up by the Workers Education Association and other bodies in this country, but which up till now has received no support from the State except what is given in this Bill. That is not all. The Bill recognises the unification of the whole system of education in Scotland. The Act of 1908 had gone a good way towards breaking down altogether the supposed line of demarcation between primary and secondary education. We do not know what that line of demarcation means in Scotland, and this Bill obliterates anything there was before.
Moreover, besides this Bill and alongside it, and in anticipation of its passing, great changes have been going on. The noble Lord who sits near me (Lord Balfour of Burleigh) spoke of the extension of the period of being at school and the consequent retardation of the age of going to the Universities. That is quite true, and it is because of the very inportant system which is largely due to the labours of the Scottish

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Education Department. You could not have brought forward this Bill, you could not have had the life and vitality that there is in Scotland in the whole educational system, were it not for the fact that in Scotland you have a really excellent system of secondary schools. I wish we had it in England. We have not even approached it. In Wales the situation is far from perfect, but in Scotland secondary education has developed, and the functions of the State in connection with secondary education are constantly developing also. What has been the result? Why, lately the whole of the teachers in Scotland, elementary and secondary and some of the University teachers, came in and unified themselves into one great organisation. The teaching profession in Scotland has not got any of the trade unionism which is apt to result when you take a section of the elementary teachers and band them together, almost exclusively concerned with questions of salary. You have there a much larger body with a magazine which is a perfectly admirable production, and showing a guiding spirit in education which is of the utmost importance to the State.
On the Table of this House there has lain for some time an Ordinance which was made under the provisions of the Scottish Universities Act, 1889. It has lain on the Table, and I am confident that there are only two of your Lordships who have read it—my noble friend who sits here (Lord Balfour of Burleigh) and myself. The purpose of that Ordinance was to make a revolution in the relation between the schools and the Universities in Scotland, and it has now received the Royal Assent and the revolution will take effect. Because we have a good system of elementary schools we have been able to abolish altogether what is understood in England by matriculation examinations. In Scotland a normal mode of access to the University will be the record of three years' attendance in one of these secondary schools of which I spoke and with which this Bill deals. And on the certificate of the teacher—on what the teacher records of his observation of the pupil, countersigned by the observation of the inspector—will depend the right of access of that pupil to the University. The young man or the young woman will be taken in the University on that certificate without any matriculation examination. The boundary of the University, in other words, is made to join on to the boundary of the secondary school. This
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is a great step that could only have been taken because of the development which has taken place in secondary education in Scotland, and which this Bill recognises and stimulates, and I think it is an object lesson to the whole country. You could not do that in England, because you would debar a very large number of people from access to the University. You have not got the secondary schools to make it possible. You would shut out the lower-middle and poorer classes altogether.
But that is not all. Right through the tendency is to make the whole of education one in which the passage from elementary to higher forms is a matter of course. With the bursaries of which my noble friend spoke, and with the new arrangements that are taking place in the country, a great change is in operation. If you go to a Scottish railway station near a village any morning at half-past eight you will see the platform of the station crowded with children who are going into the nearest town where they can get the higher form of school than the School Board school in their village, and the system is developing of sending the children to the neighbouring secondary schools at every turn. That will be stimulated and developed by the provisions of this Bill, and with its stimulation and development come the raising of the level of the whole system, because the requirements of the secondary school react on the efficiency of the elementary school.
There has been some reference to the continuation school, and I was glad that the most rev. Primate interposed to make clear what the continuation system means. It means in Scotland what it means in England. It means that when education stops in the ordinary sense then the boy or girl going on to the workshop is going to be instructed compulsorily during the day and instructed compulsorily in a way which I think it is to our credit in this country to have introduced. Compulsory schools—trade centres, as they used to be called—were well known on the Continent, and it was from the Continent that we borrowed the idea, but we have taken a method of our own in connection with these schools. Instead of their being simply schools where a trade is taught this Bill enables you, if you look at the general words and the etceteras which have been put in, to teach almost anything in the continuation schools.

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First of all, great stress is laid on English language and literature. That is quite right. It is the subject with which you can do most under these conditions. But you may add almost anything else you like that is suitable for a general education. Then comes in the reference to the special education of the young workman and the young workwoman. But this gives room for the teaching being what is called in technical language significant teaching—that is, teaching by which you can get in a great deal of science, perhaps a great amount of literary excellence, and many things which do not come under the head of technical training at all, giving life to the work of a young person, who is naturally interested because it bears closely on the interpretation of what he or she is concerned with in daily life. So that the continuation school is much more than a technical school; it is really a continuation of primary education, and it has the possibility of crossing over, by means of bursaries, to the full secondary course and the University course beyond that.
I do not desire to occupy your Lordships' time any longer with a Bill about which, I think, we shall probably all be agreed. Only one word about the religious question. A very sensible settlement has been made. We always make sensible settlements on questions of this kind in Scotland. If the advice of those had been taken who wanted to make religious education compulsory in the schools you would have had an outcry, an uprising from the teachers. You cannot do it without imposing indirectly, however little it may be, a test upon the teacher; the education authority is bound to look to their religious instead of their technical qualifications. With the voluntary system you avoid that difficulty. The authority takes these things into account, but it is not under the same kind of obligation as if a duty is imposed by Statute.
Another admirable feature of this Bill is the way in which it has dealt with Cat hobo and Episcopalian schools in Scotland. They are denominational schools up to the eyes, but we have taken them bodily over in Scotland without winking in the process. That could only be done by people who regarded these things with, I think, a certain sense humour. There was a great jest really in the old Scottish Education Act of 1872, to which the noble and learned Lord has referred. The
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preamble said that whereas it was desirable to continue the system of religious education according to use and wont in Scotland and to make provision for it in the Act—but then comes the Act with a great many clauses and not one single word about it. This time it is still more subtle. You have it in an Act that the education authorities may, if they like, continue to educate people according to use and wont. Let nobody say that a Scotsman cannot understand a joke when the whole people has accepted a Bill which contains such a clause. But it is just the sort of Bill the people want; it will work out quite smoothly; they will take what they want, if they can get it, but if you had tried to force it down their throats, as I think some rather wanted to, they would have objected; the people of Scotland would not have had it. Anyhow, we have got a very sensible Bill, on which I think we can whole-heartedly congratulate the Government, and I hope that this will be the view which your Lordships will take.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, may I make one remark as regards the provisions for religious instruction which are contained in this Scottish Education Act? I have always upheld that religious instruction is not only the most important element in education, but that it could be settled satisfactorily if you approached the problem in a tolerant, wide-minded spirit. It appears to me that an admirable solution has been made in this present Bill, and I agree with what the right rev. Primate said, that when the occasion arises to settle the question in England I hope that similar proposals may be made. The noble and learned Lord on the woolsack who called attention to Clause 19, which deals with voluntary or denominational schools, pointed out the conditions under which they might be taken over. I should like to emphasise what he said as regards teachers, because, after all, the question of religious instruction depends on the character, capacity, and qualifications of the teacher by whom that instruction is given. And the provision under subsection (3) (ii) of Clause 19 appears to me to be a solution of the whole matter on wide-minded and tolerant principles. It is this—
"All teachers appointed to the staff of any such school" [that is denominational school] "by the education authority shall in every case be teachers who satisfy the Department as to qualification—"

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And then these words appear—
"and are approved as regards their religious belief and character by the representatives of the church or denominational body in whose interest the school has been conducted."
From a very considerable knowledge of at any rate lay opinion with regard to denominational schools in England, I am sure I may state that a provision of that kind which will safeguard the teaching in these schools by the approval as regards religious belief of the teachers by representatives of the church or denominational body in whose interests the school has been conducted would, I believe, be accepted as a satisfactory settlement of this difficult question.
And not only is there that provision, but there is a further one. In order that the religious education may be a reality there is also power to appoint a supervisor who, again, is to be approved as regards his religious belief and character by representatives of the church or denominational body. And therefore you have the two-fold guarantee—first of all, that the teachers themselves shall be properly qualified, and then that the teaching shall be supervised by a representative approved by the church or denominational body in whose interest the school has been conducted. It appears to me that by those two provisions you get a tolerant solution of any religious difficulty. It has been pointed out that perhaps the religious difficulty has been less in Scotland than in England, but I do not think that affects the principle as regards its proper solution. And, of course, it is known that in Scotland there has not been the same statutory disability as in England with regard to the method of religious teaching to be given by the local authorities.
There is only one other provision of the Bill to which I wish to call attention and that is Clause 24. Attention has already been called to it, but I am sure it is in accord with the suggestions which were adopted on a wider scale in this House as regards the electoral machinery for Parliamentary purposes. Here we have no politics to trouble us, and, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has pointed out, he desires that there shall be equal representation, and not the undue representation of minorities which may arise from the cumulative system. Scotland, as the noble Viscount has said, is a country of great good sense, which looks out for its
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own interests. What do we find? Clause 24 runs—
"The voting at any contested election of members of an education authority shall be according to the principle pf proportional representation, each elector having one transferable vote as defined by this Act."
That is exactly the provision in terms which many members of your Lordships' House sought to introduce for purposes of Parliamentary representation, and I certainly congratulate Scotland on having, as I understand, unanimously introduced it into their Education Bill, thereby getting the best possible system o fair representation of the persons concerned.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of October 29.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

Commercial Gas.

Portsea Island Gas.

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

SHEFFIELD CORPORATION (CONSOLIDA TION) BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Carnock be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Lord Queenborough; read, and agreed to.
LONDONDERRY AND LOUGH SWILLY RAILWAY BILL.
SOUTH SUBURBAN GAS BILL.
LANCASTER CORPORATION BILL.
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.

LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
Reported, without Amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.