Sitting of 17 December 1919

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
St. Just (Falmouth) Ocean Wharves and Railways Bill [Lords,]
As amended, considered; Amendments made.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
British and Continental Bank Bill [Lords] (by order),
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged:
Bill withdrawn.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (HOUSING) BILL.
The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Whitley): I beg to move,
"That any further proceedings on the Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Housing) Bill be suspended in order that the same Bill may be proceeded with in the next Session of Parliament:
That, with regard to the said Bill, the Order of Presentation in the present Session shall be read, and thereupon the Bill shall be read the first time and a second time pro forma and committed:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Date when Closure moved, and by whom.

Question before House or Committee when moved.

Whether in House or Committee.

Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Speaker or Chairman.

Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion.

Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against.

and (2) in the Standing Committees under the following heads:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Date when Closure moved, and by whom.

Question before Committee when moved.

Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Chairman.

Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion.

Result of Motion, and, if a Division, Numbers for and against.

That no Petitioners shall be heard before the Committee on the said Bill, unless their Petition shall have been presented within the time limited in the present Session:
That this he a Standing Order of the House:
That a Message be sent to the Lords to acquaint them therewith, and desire their concurrence."
Major HILLS: I object.
Mr. WHITLEY: I am not quite sure if the hon. and gallant Gentleman is aware of the circumstances of this Provisional Order dealing with housing. I only consented to this Bill being brought in as a late Bill if it were unopposed. There are certain petitions against the Bill, and, therefore, I have not thought it right to allow it to be pushed through the House in the last days of the Session. But, in order to save time next year, I suggest that this Bill might be carried over so that it could be proceeded with quickly next Session, the petitioners to have their rights preserved.
Question put, and agreed to.

SESSIONAL RETURNS:
  ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 10.
  Return ordered, "of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10, showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing, the definite matter of urgent public importance, and the result of any Division taken thereon during Session 1919 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 133, of Session I 918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

  CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER No. 26).
  Return ordered, "respecting application of Standing Order No. 26 (Closure of Debate) during Session 1919 (1) in the House and in Committee of the Whole House, under the following heads:
  (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 135, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Return ordered, "showing, with reference to Session 1919 (1) the total number of days on which the House sat; and (2) the days on which Business of Supply was considered (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 134, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

  PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into the House of Commons and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1919, classed according to the following subjects: Railways; Tramways; Tramroads; Subways; Canals and Navigations; Roads and Bridges; Water; Waterworks; Gas; Gas and Water; Lighting and Improvement; Local Legislation; Corporations, etc. (not relating to Local Legislation or to Lighting and Improvement Schemes); Ports, Piers, Harbours, and Docks; Churches, Chapels, and Burying Grounds; Markets and Fairs; Gaols and other County Buildings; Inclosure and Drainage; Estate; Patent; Divorce; and Miscellaneous:
  "Of all the Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1919 have been reported on by Committees on Opposed Private Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which -each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected Member has served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills the Preambles of which were reported to have been proved; the Bills the Preambles of which were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed:
  "Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1919, have been referred by the Committee of Selection, or by the General Committee on Railway and Canal Bills, to the Chairman of the Committee of Ways
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  and Means, together with the names of the Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:
  "And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which have been referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0,001, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

  PUBLIC BILLS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1919; showing the number which received the Royal Assent; the number which were passed by this House, but not by the House of Lords; the number passed by the House of Lords, but not by this House; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills as did not receive the Royal Assent were dropped or postponed and rejected in either House of Parliament (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.002, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
  PUBLIC PETITIONS.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Public Petitions presented and printed in Session 1919; with the total number of signatures in that Session (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0.003, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
  SELECT COMMITTEES.
  Return ordered, "of the number of Select Committees appointed in Session 1919 and the Court of Referees; the subjects of inquiry; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and of the Chairman of each; the number of days each Committee met, and the number of days each Member attended; the total expense of the attendance of witnesses at each Select Committee, and the name of the Member who moved for such Select Committee; also the total number of Members who served on Select Committees (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0,004, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy Chairman.]

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.
  Return ordered, "of the days on which the House sat in Session 1919, stating for

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  each day the date of the month and the day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after 11 p.m.; and the number of entries in each day's Votes and Proceedings."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

  STANDING COMMITTEES.
  Return ordered, "for the Session of 1919, of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the six Standing Committees appointed under Standing Order No. 47, showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of days on which each Committee sat, and the names of all Bills considered by a Standing Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing, in the case of each Bill, the particular Standing Committee by whom it was considered, the number of days on which it was considered by the Committee, and the number of Members present on each of those days; and (3) in the case of Standing Committees by which Estimates were considered, the names of Votes proposed and agreed to and the names of Votes proposed and not agreed to in respect of each day for which the Committee sat for the consideration of Estimates (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 0,005, of Session 1918)."—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    BOLSHEVIST INTRIGUE.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir SAMUEL HOAREasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the extent and success of Bolshevist intrigue in Afghanistan and India?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): As regards Bolshevist relations with Afghanistan, I do
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    not think I can usefully add anything material to the information published in the newspapers, which my hon. and gallant Friend has no doubt seen. Bolshevik missions have been received in Kabul, but I can make no statement as to their success. I have no reason to think that the well-known desire of the Bolshevists to spread their doctrines in India has met with any success.

    TROOP-TRAIN ATTACK NEAR THAL.
    Mr. FORRESTasked the Secretary of State for India if he will state the exact facts with regard to the attack on the troop-train near Thal?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The train was attacked near Thal on the afternoon of the 1st December by a gang apparently consisting of nomad Waziris. Our casualties, according to the latest information, were thirty-six killed and fifty wounded. I have telegraphed to the Government of India for further details.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    ROYAL MARINES (PRISONERS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can now make a statement with regard to the ninety-three Royal. Marines in Bodmin Prison for offences alleged to have taken place in North Russia; and whether these mea are allowed visits from relatives?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Long): In view of the immense amount of labour involved, and the very full consideration that is being given to these cases, I regret that I am not in a position to make any statement at present. With regard to the last part of the question, the rules for the admission of visitors, as regards men serving penal servitude in the civil prisons, are that they are allowed to receive one visitor on conviction, and thereafter, to receive visitors when they have earned this privilege by good conduct; and as regards men serving imprisonment in Bodmin naval prison, they are allowed to receive a visitor when they reach by good conduct a certain progressive stage, which can be reached after two months.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state approximately when a decision will be arrived at with regard to these cases?
    Mr. LONG: I cannot name the day, but I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that there has been no avoidable delay. The reason why a considerable amount of time is occupied in considering these cases is the necessity of careful investigation in each individual case.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will it be before the House rises?
    Mr. LONG: I cannot promise that.

    TRANSPORTS AND HOSPITAL SHIPS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked why transports and hospital ships from Malta and the Eastern Mediterranean still call at Marseilles, and there disembark troops, passengers, and patients for England; whether he is aware that this means delay, inconvenience, and discomfort for the persons concerned; and whether it would be possible for transports and hospital ships to proceed direct to England after leaving Malta?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Colonel Wilson): I have been asked to reply. It should be remembered that by disembarking troops, etc., at Marseilles, a considerable saving of tonnage has been effected Arrangements have, however, already been made by which after the end of this month transports shall proceed to England for the disembarkation of troops. The position with regard to hospital ships is more difficult, as the ships must be elaborately fitted, and the number available has been insufficient to deal with the necessary number of patients by all-sea route. The number of patients is now showing an appreciable reduction, and the question of bringing them to the United Kingdom by all-sea route is again under consideration.

    PRIZE MONEY.
    Mr. DOYLEasked when it is proposed to distribute the prize money earned by the officers and men in the Royal Navy; what is the proportion to be allocated to officers and men who have served since the outbreak of the War; and whether the widows, orphans, and next-of-kin will receive the sum to which the deceased breadwinner was entitled?
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked whether the date for the commencement of the distribution of prize money to officers and men of the Royal Navy has yet been
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    fixed; and, if not, if the statement that a distribution would commence in the spring still holds good?
    Mr. LONG: The individual records of service of those eligible to share are now almost complete, and it is our hope and expectation that the work of the Prize Courts at home and abroad will be completed in such a large volume of cases as to enable us to commence distribution early in the spring. As regards the proportion to be allocated to officers and men who have served since the outbreak of the War, the scheme of shares is set forth in the Royal Proclamation of 10th February last, from which it will be seen that a certain minimum length of service at sea, namely, thirty months, is required to qualify for a full share. This provision was made for the purpose of recognising length of service during the War. As regards widows, orphans, and next-of-kin, the position is that in the case of officers and men who have died, their shares will be payable to their representatives; and in the case of those killed on sea service, their shares will be calculated as if they had served at sea until the Armistice, however short a period they may actually have served.
    Mr. DOYLE: Has any distribution taken place?
    Mr. LONG: Not that I am aware of.
    Colonel YATE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when spring commences?
    Mr. LONG: I think my hon. and gallant Friend will find full information in the almanac.

    DEMOBILISATION.
    Viscount CURZONasked how many officers of the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve are now employed at the Admiralty and in what Departments; and if a final date can now be given for their demobilisation?
    Mr. LONG: There are nine officers, Royal Naval Reserve, and four officers, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, now employed at the Admiralty. They are serving in the following Departments: Office of Admiral Commanding Coast Guard and Reserves, three; Naval Intelligence Division, two; Technical History Section, one; Office of Second Sea Lord, one; Accountant-General's Department, one; Trade Division, one; Tug Distribution

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    Committee, one; Allied Naval Armistice Committee, one; Transport Department, one; Principal Railway Transport Officer, one. Eight of these officers will be demobilised on 31st December; one on 15th January; one on 31st January; two on 31st March; and the remaining officer, who is sick, on the expiration of his sick leave.

    UNITED SERVICES FUND.
    Viscount CURZONasked whether any decision has been arrived at with regard to the participation of the Navy in the United Services Fund?
    Mr. LONG: The reply is in the negative.

    II.M.S. "REPULSE."
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked whether the alterations now being carried out to H.M.S. "Repulse" and "Renown" will reduce their speed; if so, to what extent, approximately; whether the alterations will decrease their radius of action; and, if so, to what extent, approximately?
    Mr. LONG: The alterations in these ships will result in a small decrease in speed and radius of action; but it is not in the public interest to state the exact amount.

    GRAND FLEET FUND.
    Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he, can now make any statement as to the Grand Fleet fund; what is the total amount of the fund; what is its income; what is the number of the staff required to administer it; what are the total costs of administration per annum; how are the expenses of administration defrayed; and what is the percentage of cases dealt with by the fund of the number of applications received?
    Mr. LONG: I have nothing to add at present to the reply given to my Noble and gallant Friend on the 10th of December. The Admiralty representative appointed on the Committee of the fund with the object of keeping the Admiralty in touch with its general policy, has not yet made a report.
    Viscount CURZON: How are Members of this House to obtain any information with regard to the Grand Fleet Fund?
    Mr. LONG: All they can do is to get their information through Questions and Answers. I do not think that my Noble
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    Friend doubts that the Admiralty has given all the information they can, and in my answer I have shown the reason why we cannot give him more at the present time.

    BATTLESHIP CONSTRUCTION (GLASGOW AREA).
    Mr. TAYLORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) if he is aware that His Majesty's battle cruiser "Hood," and the other battleships being built and repaired by Messrs. John Brown and Company, Clydebank, are wrongly described in the Navy Estimates as being built and repaired at Glasgow; and will he give instructions that, in any future references to vessels built by this firm, Clydebank and not Glasgow will get the credit of building them;
    (2) if he is aware that His Majesty's Ship "Raleigh," and other battleships being built and repaired by Messrs. William Beardmore and Company, Dalmuir, are wrongly described in the Navy Estimates as being built and repaired at Glasgow; and will he give instructions that, in any future reference to vessels built by this firm, Dalmuir and not Glasgow will get the credit of building them?
    Mr. LONG: It is no innovation to describe the work on these vessels as being carried out at Glasgow, but if my hon. Friend lays particular stress on the exact section of the Clyde being mentioned, I will give the matter full consideration when the next Estimates are being prepared.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the name of Clydebank is world-famed for the ships she has built, both naval and mercantile, and is it not a natural thing to ask that the name of the town in which the ships are built should be placed on the Government record so that future generations of people may know?
    Sir F. FLANNERY: May I ask if it is not well understood throughout the shipbuilding trade that Glasgow as a port includes the whole of the Clyde as far down as Greenock?
    Mr. LONG: I have already told my hon. Friend that I will take care this suggestion is considered. Certainly there is no intention to be guilty of any discourtesy to any portion of the Clyde or of Glasgow, but I think he will agree that Glasgow has invariably been used

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    as descriptive of that greet area where for many years such splendid work has been done for the Board of Admiralty. If he desires that various parts of the Glasgow area should be specifically designated, and especially Clydebank, I will consider the matter.
    Mr. TAYLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Clydebank is not in Glasgow—that is the point? It is not the case that the Clyde right down to Greenock is described as Glasgow, because in the Naval Estimates Dumbarton is credited with ships built there?
    Mr. LONG: I do not think my hon. Friend should press me any further. I can assure him we will do our utmost to pay full respect to local patriotism in the future.

    BLACK SEA (SENIOR OFFICER).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty who is the senior naval officer now in the Black Sea; whether he is a British officer; if so, whether the Russian men-of-war, manned by General Denikin's adherents, come under the general directions of the British admiral; and, if not, whether we are in any way responsible for the proceedings of those Russian men-of-war?
    Mr. LONG: The answer to the first part of the question is, Vice-Admiral Nenukoff, of the Russian Navy. The reply to the last two parts of the question is in the negative.

    SCHOOLMASTERS.
    Sir THOMAS BRAMSDONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the recent advertisement of the Admiralty for naval schoolmasters is misleading and unfair to intending applicants in that it implies automatic advancement to £383 per annum, whereas the only assured maximum is £264 per annum after 19 years' service, while the majority can only reach a maximum of £319 after 28½., years' service; also, in view of the advanced and technical nature of the naval schoolmasters' work, the qualifications necessary for promotion, and that evening school work is compulsory and carries no extra remuneration as in civil life, their Lordships will consider the advisability of these officers being paid on a higher scale than technical school teachers ashore, and not less than other naval officers of equal rank?
    Mr. LONG: The advertisement in question states that successful candidates become eligible for promotion successively to the ranks of commissioned warrant officer, lieutenant, and lieutenant-commander. This, I think, indicates clearly that the promotion to lieutenant-commander, and consequently the advancement to the pay of that rank are not automatic. As regards the rates of pay, I can only say that the rates of pay of all naval officers; including schoolmasters, were considered and fixed by His Majesty's Government as recently as July last, and that the Admiralty do not consider that the circumstances have so changed since then as to justify them in raising the question afresh.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a schoolmaster of warrant rank only rises automatically from £173 to £264 after 19 years' service, whereas the lowest elementary school teacher reaches £300 after 14 years' service and does he see any reason why naval schoolmasters should not have the pay of their rank?
    Sir W. SEAGER: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that in future advertisements are so clearly put that they will bring the best class of men to this important Service?
    Mr. LONG: I was not aware that the advertisements had failed, but of course I will have the matter looked into. With regard to the other question, I could not say off-hand whether the figures are correct or not. I am quite aware of the difficulty with regard to schoolmasters, but I greatly regret, for the reason I have given, I am afraid it is impossible to reopen the question now.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Would the right hon. Gentleman promise to personally look into this matter, because if so he will be convinced of its seriousness?
    Mr. LONG: I have done so, and I fully appreciate the serious character of the situation as it is now. But I do not think I can raise the question afresh.
    Sir T. BRAMSDONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will consider the desirability of not continuing to withhold promotion to the-rank of senior master from naval schoolmasters of over eight years' service who are eligible for selection for this rank by reason of their having held the rank of

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    head schoolmaster or acting head schoolmaster, and who have for a number of years been successfully carrying out the work which would be covered by the advanced course; and whether schoolmasters also doing such work will be paid the extra Is. a day, in view of the fact that it is not the fault of the schoolmaster branch that an advanced course, to enable them to qualify nominally for special list appointments, has not yet been held since its inception more than twelve months ago?
    Mr. LONG: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which was given to him on 26th November, in which it was explained that a certain number of promotions to senior master have been made from among those who had completed eight years' service, although they had not taken the advanced course, but that it is not considered desirable to fill the whole of the vacancies in this manner. It was then stated that advanced courses would be instituted as; soon as circumstances admit, and I am advised that only in the event of it being found impossible to commence the advanced course in the near future will it be necessary to reconsider this question, together with the further question of waiving the advanced course to enable schoolmasters on the special list to draw the extra 1s. a day.
    Viscount CURZON: Is there any possibility of the case of naval schoolmasters being considered by the Naval Welfare Committee of the Admiralty?
    Mr. LONG: I do not think I could answer that question off-hand. The powers of the Naval Welfare Committee are de-lined and their duties are clearly laid down.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Will the right hon. Gentleman promise this advanced course under which they may be entitled to the sum named in the question and is it not unfair to withhold it from them now?
    Mr. LONG: I could not undertake offhand to snake any promise for the future. I do not think it is unfair. There are a great many conditions in connection with promotion and advancement in the Service which operate hardly in regard to certain individuals, and I am afraid it is impossible to avoid that. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that at the Admiralty we are daily engaged in considering these
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    questions as they affect officers of all grades, and to see if we can remove any injustices concerning them.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Is he aware this is the only offices of warrant rank who does not get the pay of it?
    Mr. LONG: I am not aware of that, and is my hon. Friend quite sure of it?

    CHILDREN'S ALLOWANCE.
    Major Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if any decision has been come to as to the continuance or otherwise of children's allowance after 31st December, 1919?
    Mr. LONG: Assuming that my hon. Friend's question refers to children's allowances payable in respect of children of men of the Royal Navy, I can only state at present that the future of these allowances is engaging attention.
    Sir B. FALLE: Are not officers as much part of the Navy as the men?
    Mr. LONG: Certainly.
    Sir B. FALLE: Are they to have the children's allowance taken away from them?
    Mr. LONG: I am afraid I may be very stupid, but I do not follow the hon. Gentleman's difficulty. My answer is that this question is now engaging attention before the Board of Admiralty. I cannot say more than that.
    Sir B. FALLE: Will they be taken away on the 31st December?
    Mr. LONG: I did not say they will be taken away. The matter is under consideration, and I cannot really put it beyond that.
    Viscount C URZON: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the matter, will he bear in mind that the Army has got a children's allowance?

    ROYAL DOCKYARDS (PENSIONS).
    Mr. HOHLERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state the principle upon which an established man, aged sixty, in His Majesty's dockyards, on being discharged to pension at the present time, should calculate the pension to which he is entitled; and, particularly,

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    to what extra allowance to his pension he is entitled in respect of war bonus and the increased cost of living?
    Mr. LONG: As the reply is a long on, I will, with my hon. and learned Friend's permission, circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The following is the Answer referred to:
    Ordinarily, an established man's pension is assessed at the rate of one-eightieth of This substantive pay in respect of each complete year's established service. At present, in addition, to meet the increased cost of living, provided a man's emoluments do not exceed £300 per annum, and he has been in receipt of war bonus, an addition of 25 per cent. of his pay, or of.£26, whichever may be the greater, is made to his substantive pay, subject to the condition that in no case may the addition to substantive pay so made, exceed the actual amount of war bonus that the man received. This addition is taken into consideration in assessing pension.
    He would also be granted a gratuity equal to one-thirtieth of the same emoluments in respect of each complete year's service, plus ½per cent. for each year of established service prior to the passing of the Superannuation Act of 1909. If he had not elected to accept the terms of the Superannuation Act, 1909, the pension would be based upon sixtieths instead of eightieths; but no gratuity would be awarded.
    If the man had, during the last three years, been promoted or received an increase of pay other than an increment or increments on a scale of wages the pension would be calculated upon average wages during that period, plus average war bonus, subject to the latter not exceeding 25 per cent. of wages, or £26, whichever may be the greater.

  EX-SERVICE MEN.

    TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT.
    Captain FALCONasked the Minister of Labour if ex-soldiers are not granted training facilities unless they are able to show that they have been guaranteed employment at the ending of training?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir, Robert Horne): it is not the case that there is a rule under which ex-Service
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    men are refused training unless they can produce a guarantee of employment at the end of their training. The hon. and gallant Member will, however, appreciate that in the interests of the men, care must be taken not to train men in trades which offer no reasonable prospect of employment, and in such cases training is sometimes refused in such trades.
    Captain COOTEasked the Minister of Labour whether the fact that large numbers of disabled men are awaiting training is still due to lack of training institutions; and whether at such institutions as are available there are now resident the full number of men with which those institutions are capable of dealing?
    Sir R. HORNE: The lack of sufficient training institutions is, at the moment, the chief obstacle to providing training for disabled men. The instructional factories which have been acquired are not yet completely available for training purposes, but their adaptation is proceeding with the utmost possible dispatch. I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that even when suitable premises have been acquired, their conversion, equipment, and staffing for training purposes is bound to take time.
    Captain COOTE: Is there any system whereby the training institutes immediately notify vacancies to those who have the placing of these disabled men, namely, the local war pensions committees?
    Sir R. HORNE: I can assure my hon. Friend that there are no delays as between particulars becoming available and the men being placed.
    Captain COOTEasked the Minister of Labour whether the capacity of the training institution at Lancaster Street, Birmingham, is 300 men; whether there are actually resident only 109 men; and, in view of the number of men awaiting training, whether he will explain this discrepancy?
    Sir R. HORNE: The Government Instructional Factory, Lancaster Street, Birmingham, provides accommodation for 250 men. At the present moment 149 men are in training there. It is estimated that the factory will be completely filled by the end of the month by men transferred from technical schools after a preliminary course of instruction there and by new trainees directly admitted. The delay in

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    filling the total accommodation available has been due to differences of opinion in the local technical advisory committee as to the character of training which should be given by the technical school and the Government factory respectively.
    Major KELLEYasked the Minister of Labour what response has been made by the employers to the King's appeal to absoro disabled ex-Service men under the national scheme for the employment on a percentage basis of disabled ex-Service men; what proportion of employers employing more than ten workpeople have signed the agreements; what number of disabled ex-Service men have been placed in employment as a result; the number of disabled ex-Service men remaining unemployed; the number likely to need employmnt who are now undergoing treatment, training, or in hospital; whether the scheme is a failure in large industrial areas; and whether the Government are now prepared to legislate to make the scheme compulsory upon all employers?
    Sir R. HORNE: On 10th December the number of employers on the King's National Roll was 8,100, with a total of 1,230,000 workpeople, and guaranteeing employment for 75,500 disabled men. No figures are available to show what proportion of employers employing more than ten workpeople have signed undertakings. The total number of disabled men placed in employment by the Exchanges between 15th September and 5th December was 14,700, and many more have been placed by direct application. The number of disabled ex-Service men registered at the Employment Exchanges as unemployed on 5th December was 42,000. It is impossible to estimate how many of those now undergoing treatment or training, or in hospital, are likely to need employment hereafter. It would be premature to ex-press any opinion as to the Success of the scheme, but I consider that its progress up to the present has been reasonably satisfactory, and the question of applying compulsion has not yet arisen.
    Sir H. CRAIKasked the Minister of Labour whether young men who, but for having joined the Army during the War, would have been serving an apprentice-ship, and thus acquiring qualification as skilled labourers, are now, by the action of the trade unions, being prevented from receiving that training or being given any employment except as unskilled labourers;
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    and if he will take action to prevent this wrong being done in connection with any scheme of training under his direction
    Sir R. HORNE: If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the case of those who had begun apprenticeships prior to the War, there are, so far as I am aware, no impediments offered by any trade union to the training necessary for the completion of the apprenticeships. With regard to men who had not begun any apprenticeship before the War, it has been possible up till now to make arrangements with the trade unions through the Trade Advisory Committees for the training of disabled men only, and, in the case of one important, union, consent has not been given even to the granting of facilities for their training. I am using every endeavour to obtain a wider acquiescence of the trades concerned in these schemes.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is it not equally a hard case that a young man, who went out to serve in 1914, before starting his apprenticeship, should now find that he is prevented by the action of a trade union from following any occupation except that of an unskilled labourer?
    Sir R. HORNE: I think my right hon. Friend is leaving one factor out of account. Those who went to serve before the beginning of an apprenticeship were not, obviously, intending to begin any apprenticeship, because they were beyond the age at which apprenticeships in this country are usually begun. Accordingly, those for whom we must provide, in the first instance, are those who have begun an apprenticeship and still have to complete it.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there are such boys? have within my own knowledge the ease of one boy who began to serve at sixteen years of age—he was a well-grown boy—before he began his apprenticeship, who is now prevented at the age of nineteen or twenty from having anything before him, after giving five years' service to his country, except unskilled labour, and that by the action of the trade unions.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the majority of the apprentices in the engineering trade and in other trades are members of their respective trade unions, and that the members of the trade unions welcome them back at the earliest opportunity?
    Sir H. CRAIK: In such a case as I have mentioned the boy could not possibly be a member of a trade union, because he went out when he was sixteen, but the unions will not now admit him to apprenticeship.
    Sir R. HORNE: The case to which my right hon. Friend refers must be very unusual.
    Sir H. CRAIK: No!
    Sir R HORNE: I should be very glad if my right hon. Friend would put before me the particular facts in regard to people beginning to serve at that age. Certainly the cases are not numerous.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is it not within the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman that I did bring before him a case? I gave him all the facts and asked him to take action, but he told me himself that he was prevented from doing so by the action of the trade union.
    Sir R. HORNE: It is perfectly true that at the present time it is impossible to gain the acquiescence of the trade unions —
    Sir H. CRAIK: More shame to the trade unions!
    Sir R. HORNE—in the training of people who had not taken an apprenticeship before they began to serve.
    Sir H. CRAIK: It is just as hard for them.
    Sir W. DAVISONasked the Minister of Labour whether many hundreds of demobilised soldiers who were trained by the Government during the War to undertake engineering work in connection with motor transport, tanks, etc., and are capable of earning good wages as trained men, are kept unemployed because the great engineering trade unions will not allow their members to work with them; and what steps he is taking in the matter?
    Sir R. HORNE: Cases of the kind to the number mentioned have not been brought to my notice, though there have been some similar cases. I have endeavoured to alleviate such troubles where they have arisen.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Is it not a fact that a large number of cases of this kind have occurred where trade unions have prevented men from getting employment?
    Sir R. HORNE: There has been a considerable number of cases undoubtedly, but not the hundreds to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Mr. FORRESTasked the Minister of Labour if he will state the number of firms to date who in response to the King's appeal have undertaken to provide employment for disabled men; and which county, according to its industrial population, has so far made the best return?
    Sir R. HORNE: The number of firms at present on the King's National Roll is 8,469. The information asked for in the last part of the question is not available.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    OUT-OF-WORK DONATION.
    Colonel BURNasked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider the advisability of extending the unemployment donation to demobilised sailors and soldiers who, owing to having already received twenty-six weeks' donation, do not come under the recent extension, and thus help deserving cases to get through the winter months?
    Sir R. HORN: The hon. and gallant Member is apparently under a misapprehension. Under the scheme before its recent extension, ex-Service men were entitled to thirty-nine weeks unemployment donation, and, if disabled, forty-six weeks. In addition, anyone who has exhausted this provision, may during this winter obtain donation for a further period of nine weeks.
    Colonel BURNasked the Minister of Labour if the right of appeal to some other authority will be given to a man whose unemployment pay has been stopped owing to the decision of the local employment committee, or the right to have his case reopened on the production of fresh evidence?
    Sir R. HORNE: No, Sir; I share the view expressed by Lord Aberconway's Committee on the Out-of-Work Donation Scheme, that the balance of advantage is against allowing an appeal to another tribunal in such cases. If, however, fresh evidence is produced which appears to justify the reopening of a case, the Department is always ready to ask the committee to give a further hearing.
    Major GREAMEasked the Minister of Labour whether women in the Land Army are entitled to receive out-of-work donation after demobilisation upon the same terms as women enrolled in the other women's corps?
    Sir R. HORNE: The only members of Women's Service Corps who received special treatment as regards out-of-work donation were the mobile members of these corps who enrolled for the duration of the War under one of the fighting departments, and were accordingly treated as ex-members of His Majesty's Forces. The women in the Land Army do not fall within this category, and are not now entitled to donation if unemployed.
    Major GREAMEasked the Minister of Labour whether immobile women in the Women's Corps are deprived of the unemployment donation benefits accorded to mobile women in those corps; if so, whether special consideration will be given to women who were unable to enrol as mobile members by reason of the fact that they had to support children, parents, or invalid husbands?
    Sir R. HORNE: It was decided at the outset of the out-of-work donation scheme that immobile members of the Women's Corps could not be treated on the same footing as ex-members of His Majesty's Forces. The rights of these immobile members to donation accordingly came to an end with the cessation of civilian donation at the end of November last. With regard to the second part of the question, I am afraid that it would be impracticable to differentiate between individuals by reference to the reasons which prevented them from enrolling as mobile members.
    Major GREAME: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that a woman who has dependants, and who by reason of her dependants could not become mobile, is a more deserving case than a single woman who has no dependants to support?
    Sir R. HORNE: That might very well he in individual cases, but I could not make a general rule.
    Major GREAME: Would it not be possible for the local advisory committees to investigate special cases as has been done under previous arrangements?
    Sir R. HORNE: No; I am afraid it is quite impossible to do that.

    LOCAL AUTHORITIES' SCHEMES.
    Captain R. TERRELLasked the Minister of Labour whether he has considered the advisability of stimulating every county council in England to do what is necessary in the direction of cleaning out rivers, digging stones, and making good the roads along the different green lanes which lead from place to place, so as to find work for men who are unemployed; and if he has not so considered this matter if he will do so?
    Sir R. HORNE: Immediately following the Armistice, the President of the Local Government Board and the Secretary for Scotland issued a Circular to all local authorities impressing upon these authorities the advantage of preparing a careful programme of public works which could usefully be put in hand as soon as the requisite materials and labour were available, and the local employment committees of my Department have lost no opportunity of bringing all useful classes of employment, such as those suggested in the question, to the notice of local authorities. I do not doubt that they will act upon them as occasion arises.
    Mr. R. RICHARDSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the question of the prevention of coast erosion on the East Coast?
    Sir R. HORNE: There have been schemes of that kind considered. They have not been left out of account, but, without notice, I cannot say to what extent any such operations have begun.

    UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.
    Captain FOXCROFTasked the Lord Privy Seal whether His Majesty's Government purpose to introduce an Unemployment Insurance Bill?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is intended to introduce this Bill before the close of the Session, but not to proceed with it.

    CIVIL LIABILITES GRANT.
    Mr. N. MACLEANasked the Minister of Labour whether Deck-hand Angus Macdonald, No. A.S./230, Pier Master, Strachur, joined the R.N.T.R. in January, 1917; whether he was awarded a grant of £19 per annum from the Commissioners of Civil Liabilities, to be paid quarterly; whether before the first quarterly payment

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    was due Mr. Macdonald received intimation that the grant had been withdrawn; whether he is aware that this man has been threatened with diligence and imprisonment for his failure to pay the parish rates due to Strachur Parish Council, amounting to £19; and whether, in view of the circumstances, he will give instructions for the grant to be paid as originally awarded?
    Sir R. HORNE: I regret that no application from Angus Macdonald, of Strachur, can be traced upon the particulars furnished. If the hon. Member will supply the full address from which application was made, or the cypher and number quoted upon the notification of award to which he refers, I shall be glad to have further inquiry made.

    ORTHOPÆDIC HOSPITALS.
    Captain ORMSBY-GOREasked the Minister of Health, whether he has received proposals from Sir Robert Jones, K.B.E., and Dr. G. R. Girdlestone, of Oxford, for the establishment under the Ministry of Health of open-air country orthopædic hospitals for children suffering from rickets, infantile paralysis, and surgical tuberculosis on the model of the Baschurch and Stoke centres for crippled children; and what steps he is taking in the matter?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr. Addison): I am acquainted with the very interesting scheme referred to in the question, which has been under consideration at the Ministry. It deals with one (a very important one) of those special institutional services the development of which is greatly needed and which are now under the direct consideration of the Consultative Councils whom I have asked to advise as to a scheme of medical and allied services generally.

  TUBERCULOSIS (RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT).

    NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the Minister of Health how many persons are now receiving treatment for tuberculosis under the National Health Insurance Act; and what was the number for each of the last five years?
    Dr. ADDISON: I will circulate the figures asked for in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following are the figures promised:
    The number of persons in England and Wales who were receiving residential treatment for tuberculosis under the National Health Insurance Acts on the first of this month was approximately 8,350. I have no precise information as to the numbers who were in receipt of domiciliary or dispensary treatment on that date.
    The numbers of persons who have received sanatorium benefit in England and Wales during the past five years are as follows:

    1914

    31,793

    1915

    29,741

    1916

    29,850

    1917

    31,566

    1938

    35,430

    Sir S. HOAREasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied with the results obtained in combating tuberculosis under the National Health Insurance Act; and, if he is not satisfied, whether he proposes to make any changes either in the systm or the administration?
    Dr. ADDISON: No Sir, I am not satisfied with the results obtained.
    Circumstances connected with the War are largely the cause of the incomplete success attending the measures inaugurated under the National Health Insurance Acts for combating tuberculosis. These circumstances are explained in the Report of the Inter-departmental Committee presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for South Salford (Sir Montagu Barlow), and steps have been, and are being, taken to carry out the recommendations of that Committee.
    The Government has under immediate consideration the question of the desirability of change in the system of administration.
    Lord R. CECIL: Is that Report available to Members of the House? Will it be laid?
    Dr. ADDISON: Yes.
    Major MOLSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many patients suffering from tuberculosis were untreated long before the War?
    Dr. ADDISON: Yes; and I am also aware that it will take a generation to catch up.
    Sir S. HOARE: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the desirability of forming a special Department at the Ministry of Health to deal with tuberculosis?
    Dr. ADDISON: No; it would be most undesirable.
    Major HILLSasked the Minister of Health the present cost of tuberculosis treatment?
    Dr. ADDISON: The amount expended by public authorities in England and Wales on the treatment of tuberculosis during the financial year 1917–18 was approximately £1,550,000. This is the latest period for which complete figures are available. It is estimated that the expenditure during the present financial year will exceed £2,000,000. Expenditure defrayed by loans is in both cases excluded.
    Major HILLS: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the expenditure is sufficient?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have already said, in answer to a previous question, that I think the facilities for treatment are insufficient.
    Major HILLSasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that all persons entitled to receive treatment for tuberculosis are receiving that treatment, and are receiving it at a sufficiently early stage of the illness?
    Dr. ADDISON: All persons recommended for sanatorium benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts are receiving treatment in one form or another, but uninsured persons are in several areas not so fully provided for. The accommodation at present available for residential treatment is inadequate to meet the needs of the country as a whole. Steps have already been taken to expedite as far as possible the provision of additional residential accommodation. The question of securing proper treatment for each case at a sufficiently early stage is dependent to a large extent upon a correct diagnosis being made, and upon the willingness of patients to accept the appropriate form of treatment in the early stages of the disease.
    Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether tuberculous children of insured persons are now given treatment under the Insurance Act?
    Dr. ADDISON: No, not as it stands at present.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what extra accommodation is provided in sanatoria for ex-Service men?
    Dr. ADDISON: I must ask for notice of that.

  HOUSING.

    WOODEN HOUSES.
    Lieut.-Colonel W. GUINNESSasked the Minister of Health whether he has made any inquiries or arrangements for the production of standardised types of wooden houses on a large scale, and whether he has had any communication with the Agent - General for British Columbia as to the details of the scheme outlined by him in his letter to the "Times" of 3rd December?
    Dr. ADDISON: Particulars of various types of timber-framed bungalows, which have been examined and approved by my Department, will be found on page 4 of Command Paper 426. My Department have been in communication with the Agent-General for British Columbia, and I am still awaiting estimates which were asked for on my behalf at the beginning of October.
    Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman promoting the policy of wooden houses, and is he aware of the extensive use made of wooden houses in the United States, some dating back to the seventeenth century?
    Dr. ADDISON: I am well aware of it, and have stated on several occasions that steps will be taken.
    Lieut.-Colonel W. GUINNESSasked the Minister of Health what firms have offered to supply wooden houses; how many have been offered; and at what prices?
    Dr. ADDISON: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to Command Paper 426, on page 4, of which he will find the names of the firms which have offered to supply timber for bungalows. Since the Command Paper in question was issued, two additional firms have offered to supply wooden houses. The output of each firm would average twenty-five houses per week, and the prices average.£650 per house.
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: How many rooms are there in these houses?
    Dr. ADDISON: Three bedrooms, sitting room and kitchen.
    Sir J. D. REES: Are the huts in the numerous camps all over the country being fully utilised?
    Dr. ADDISON: A large number of them have been utilised. I think there is a question down for to-morrow on the subject.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to invite those who are so anxious for wooden huts and Army huts which are now unoccupied to be transferred from the houses which they inhabit and let the working classes get into them?

    COTTAGES IN PISE DE TERRE.
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESSasked the Minister of Health whether he has sanctioned any scheme for building houses of pisé or rammed earth; and whether any particular quality is necessary in the soil to make such construction possible?
    Dr. ADDISON: Inquiries have been made of my Department by two local authorities whether the erection of cottages in pisé de terre can be approved, and they have been informed that they can proceed provided that proper supervision is observed. I am advised that the earth to be used should be free from vegetable matter and stones, and that clay is not suitable.
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Do they effect a very large economy?
    Dr. ADDISON: It depends a good deal on local circumstances, the supply of labour, and so forth. I do not think it is fair to make any definite statement
    Lord R. CECIL: is the Government considering any experiment with this method of wooden construction?
    Dr. ADDISON: Oh, yes. We have had a considerable series of tests.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Are these houses for the working classes to live in?
    Dr. ADDISON: We do not say at the moment for whom the houses are.

    SUBSIDIES FOR BUILDING.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALLasked the Minister of Health if he will state the number of additional houses for the building of which arrangements have now been made in consequence of the new subsidy scheme, and the number which it is expected will, under that scheme, be ready for occupation by 30th June, 1920?
    Dr. ADDISON: It is hoped that 100,000 houses will be provided under the proposals contained in the new Housing Bill. The Bill provides that to qualify for the subsidy the houses must be completed within a year from the date when the Bill becomes law, or, in special cases, within sixteen months from that date. It is not, howeveŕ, possible to estimate at present the number of houses which will be completed under the scheme by the 30th June next.

    STONE HOUSES.
    Major W. MURRAYasked the Minister of Health whether he is taking any steps to enable local authorities to build houses of stone rather than of brick in cases where stone is abundantly produced in the neighbourhood and questions of amenity are involved; whether he is aware that the price of stone at the quarry mouth is in some cases four or five times as great as the pre-war price; whether this rise is justified by increased cost of production; and whether he will initiate negotiations with quarry-owners So that stone may be procured at a reasonable cost by the local authorities concerned?
    Dr. ADDISON: The use of local materials in connection with housing schemes is encouraged; but in some cases where stone has been specified for walling the estimates for the houses have been higher than would have been the case if brick had been specified. I am aware that the present cost of stone is considerably higher than the pre-war cost, and I am arranging for this point to be further investigated.

    WATER SUPPLY, EAST DEAN.
    Mr. WIGNALLasked the Minister of Health if he. is aware that, in consequence of the delay on the part of the Agent for Crown Lands in coining to an arrangement with the district rural council of East Dean, Gloucestershire, for the carrying out of the scheme for water supply to the district, the housing scheme

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    is held up indefinitely; and will he take such steps as may seem to him necessary to hasten the completion of the agreement between the Agent for the Crown Lands and the district rural council, so that the water scheme may be proceeded with, and thus provide greatly needed facilities for the inhabitants of the district?
    Dr. ADDISON: I was not previously aware of the particular difficulty referred to, but I will make inquiries and inform the hon. Member.
    Mr. WIGNALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the deputation that waited on the Department and the partial arrangement entered into, and the extreme need of the Crown Lands coming to an agreement, so as to give the water supply, so that the district council can proceed with the houses?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have given the hon. Member all the information I have been able to obtain up to the present. If he puts another question down, I will give him a detailed answer.
    Mr. WIGNALL: I am quite prepared to leave it to the right hon. Gentleman if he will prosecute the inquiry.
    Dr. ADDISON: I will do my best.

    SUBSIDENCE (DAMAGES).
    Mr. T. A. LEWISasked the Minister of Health what provision the Government intend to make for the protection of local authorities against financial losses arising from damage to houses bullt under the housing scheme consequent upon subsidences of the land in mining areas?
    Dr. ADDISON: I am considering the question of introducing a Bill dealing with this matter.

    BRICKLAYERS AND BRICKS.
    Mr. A. SHORTasked the Minister of Health whether it is proposed to hold a conference with trade unions to discuss proposals for dilution in the building trades; whether he is aware that, on the ground that 1,000 bricklayers and a similar number of bricklayers' labourers are alleged to be out of employment, the War Office have refused to take immediate steps for the demobilisation of about 150 bricklayers still serving in the Army; and
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    whether prior to the institution of any system of dilution, he will press for the immediate demobilisation of these men?
    Sir R. HORNE: I have been asked to reply to this question. A meeting of the Joint Industrial Council for the Building Industry was addressed yesterday by the Prime Minister, who urged the members of the building trade to recruit sufficient labour to bring their members to the level at which they stood before the war. I am not aware of the action stated to have been taken by the War Office, but there are riot enough bricklayers available to supply the demand, nor will there be even when all the bricklayers in the Army are demobilised.
    Mr. SHORT: Are there any bricklayers out of work?
    Sir R. HORNE: Sporadically you may find that in particular districts there are a few bricklayers out of work, but at present the great demand is for bricklayers which cannot be supplied.
    Mr. T. WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many cases what is required is not bricklayers, but bricks?
    Sir R. HORNE: In many cases where there are lots of bricks available there are no bricklayers.

    OVERLAPPING (DEPARTMENTAL).
    Major ENTWISTLEasked the Minister of Health whether he has received a communication from the city council of Hull enclosing a resolution of the housing sub-committee calling attention to the continuous delays, the alterations of instructions by the Government officials administering the Housing Acts, and the apparent overlapping in the Departments, and the great difficulties of those local authorities who are using their utmost endeavours to provide houses speedily; and whether he will have inquiries made into the same and take strong and immediate action to ensure the officials working in closer co-operation with local authorities and otherwise remedying the present serious state of affairs?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have received the communication referred to, and I am causing inquiries to be made, but it must not be assumed that I accept the statements made by the committee.

    NAVAL AMMUNITION FACTORY, ALEXANDRA.
    Mr. N. MACLEANasked tire Minister of Labour whether the Government are closing down the Royal Naval Ammunition Factory at Alexandra; whether this means the unemployment of several thousands of people; whether they have received offers to purchase this factory from several private firms for the purpose of engaging in other civil industrial work; whether the Government is considering these offers with a view to handing it over to private enterprise; and whether, in view of the demands being made for Government control of industry, he can see his way to recommend to the Government the continuing of this factory for the purpose of producing locomotives or other rolling stock for transport?
    Mr. LONG: I have been asked to answer this question. Instructions were given in October to close down this factory as an Admiralty establishment, and it is expected that this will be completed by the end of the year. Reductions in labour staff have been effected gradually, and there are now less than 800 borne. The factory was handed over to the Disposal Board on the 8th November last. and steps are being taken by that Board to effect an early sale to a private firm. I understand that up to the present no definite offer has been received, but several inquiries have been made. Quick sale was urged upon the Disposal Board, so that if possible the remaining workmen might be taken over by the Purchasing firm. I do not think it will be practicable to adopt the suggestion contained in the last part of my hon. Friend's question.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Why was it only as late as last October that this decision was taken?
    Mr. LONG: I could not say without notice. I imagine it was because, in the opinion of those responsible, that was the first time it was possible to come to that decision.
    Mr. MACLEAN: What commodities were being produced in that factory from the Armistice until October?
    Mr. LONG: I have not the slightest idea. If the hon. Member wants that information no doubt I can get it for him.
    Mr. CHADWICK: Does the right hon. Gentleman accede, or does he not, to the suggestion contained in the question that neither he nor the Government is moved in any way by the suggested demand for Governmental control of industry; and further, is the Government moving in the direction of decontrol of industry and commerce as fast as circumstances permit?
    Mr. LONG: The hon. Member asks me a set of questions which, so far as I can gather, have no relation to the Board of Admiralty. I have answered the last part of the question. With regard to the decontrol of labour I refer him to the answer I have given.

    HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT (No. 2) BILL.
    Mr. JODRELLasked the Minister of Labour if it is the intention of the Government, in the consideration of the Hours of Employment (No. 2) Bill, as touching the interests of agriculture, that representatives of the principal agricultural unions and societies should be consulted?
    Sir R. HORNE: Throughout the consideration of this question the Government has taken every opportunity of obtaining the views of the various agricultural interests.

  MUNITIONS.

    DISPOSAL BOARD (CONTROLLERS).
    Brigadier-General CROFTasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the complaints that have been made in regard to the sixteen controllers disposing of surplus stores under the Disposal Board not possessing any technical knowledge of the particular stores they are dealing with, he will say if one of these controllers is a junior Civil Service clerk lent to the Ministry of Munitions by the Board of Education, where he was employed as an inspector of schools; and, if so, whether he will inquire as to the special technical knowledge possessed by the other fifteen controllers?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): I have been asked to answer this question. I am not aware of the complaints referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend.

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    Of the total of eighteen controllers who are disposing of surplus stores under the Disposal Board, fourteen had acquired technical knowledge of the stores with which they are dealing prior to their association with the work of disposals, and four were engaged during the War on the purchase or production of the stores they are now handling, of which they consequently possess an intimate knowledge.. None of the controllers is a junior Civil Service clerk. One was one of His Majesty's inspectors of schools under the Board of Education and has been on loan from that Department to the Ministry since its inception in 1915. Prior to the Armistice this official acted as Deputy-Controller in the Department of the Ministry dealing with obsolete and surplus stores, and the duties of his present post have been discharged to the Minister's complete satisfaction. An inquiry into the qualification of the controllers of the Disposal Board was made in each case before the appointment was derided upon.
    Brigadier-General CROFT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is the greatest unrest amongst business men in regard to the conduct of their business by these controllers?
    Mr. HOPE: I am not aware of that.
    Sir M. DOCKRELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, money lenders have circularised the public offering the loan of money to secure the bargains of the Disposal Board?
    Mr. HOPE: I shall be extremely glad to see one of those circulars, because the usual charge against us is that we have been profiteering.

    IMPERIAL GRAVES COMMISSION.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the Prime Minister why the Imperial Graves Commission objects to the use of Christian symbols on the memorials in France to our fallen soldiers?
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNORasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the feeling aroused by the methods and policy of the Imperial War Graves Commission; and whether he will instruct the Commission to pay more regard to the wishes and feelings of the relatives of our fallen soldiers?
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked. the Secretary of State for War whether he can reconsider his decision not to consult the relatives of our soldiers. buried in France in respect of the character of the tombstones?
    Captain GUEST (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): These-matters will be dealt with fully in the-course of the Debate this evening, when a better opportunity will be given of discussing the points raised in these questions.

    SPIRITS AND BEER (SUPPLIES).
    Captain R. TERRELLasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the extreme shortness of supply of both spirits and beer at the present moment; and whether, in view of the approach of Christmas, he can hold out any hope of there being a better and cheaper supply?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. McCurdy): I have been asked to reply. According to the Food Controller's information, present supplies of both spirits-and beer are fully adequate to meet all reasonable requirements. I am afraid, however, that no reduction in price is possible for the moment.

    LEVANT MINE DISASTER.
    Mr. WIGNALLasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that, in consequence of the Levant tin mine disaster at Pendine, Cornwall, a large number of workpeople have been thrown out of employment and, as a result of the stoppage'. of the unemployment donation, there is. considerable distress existing among people at Pendine and St. Just, Cornwall; and can he recommend a grant from the national fund, or from any other source, to assist these people during their period of unemployment?
    Sir R. HORNE: I have been asked to reply to this question. I am aware of the temporary stoppage of work at Pendine in consequence of the tin-mining disaster, and every effort is being made to place those men who are willing to take work temporarily in other districts. The National Relief Fund is only designed to

    403
    assist cases of distress arising out of the War, and would, I fear, not be available for the purpose suggested. I do not know of any funds which cover such. In the past they have usually been met by local relief funds and fortuitous occurrences.
    Mr. WIGNALL: Is the right hon Gentleman aware that the real tragedy of this business is that it is not possible out of a, national fund to provide something to tide these people over a period of distress? Can he inform us why no efforts are made to place these men who are unemployed in consequence of the disaster into other places of employment, because in that part of Cornwall there is no employment?

    WAR RESTRICTIONS (LIQUOR CONTROL).
    Mr. WIGNALLasked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the unrest existing among the miners and others resident in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, in consequence of the War Restrictions (Liquor Control) not having been withdrawn in accordance with the promise of the Government that these restrictions would be removed at the end of the War; whether he has received petitions and resolutions calling upon the Government to carry out their promise; whether he is aware that the Forest of Dean is the only constituency in Gloucestershire where the restrictions are still imposed; and whether he will take immediate steps to withdraw the existing restrictions in accordance with the wishes of a very large section of the constituency?
    Mr. HOPE: I have been asked to answer this question. I am informed that some resolutions and petitions of the nature described in the question have been involved. I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers given by the Leader of the House on 9th December.
    Captain W. BENN: In coming to any decision about the relaxation of liquor control, will the Government bear in mind the severe economic competition with which we are faced from a dry America?
    Mr. HOPE: I have no doubt the Government will bear in mind everything that is relevant to a proper consideration of the question.
    Mr. WIGNALL: Why is a distinction made in this part of Gloucestershire compared with other parts of the country?
    Mr. HOPE: I do not know for certain, but I presume that at the time the restriction was proposed it was considered that that part of Gloucestershire required it.

    GOVERNMENT BILLS (CARRYING OVER).
    Mr. EVELYN CECILasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government still contemplate inviting the House to carry over any Bill or Bills to next Session; if so, whether he will state which; and when the Motion for the purpose will be taken?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Lord Privy Seal whether the Government Resolution for the carrying over of Bills from one Session to another is to include Bills that have only been read a first or second time?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): It is impossible to give a definite answer until we see what progress is made with the business still outstanding, but I hope that it will only be necessary to ask the House to carry over the War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Bill, and the necessary Resolution will be moved on Friday or Monday.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the assurance that this House will meet again after the Prorogation?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: To-day was to be the day to end everything; I cannot say.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    FISH TRADE REGULATION.
    Captain BOWYERasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the possibility of the immediate transfer of the functions of the Food Controller in the fish trade to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Secretary for Scotland; whether he is aware that this transfer is the wish of fishermen, owners, and fish merchants; and whether, in the

    405
    event of his not approving of the transfer, he will state the reasons which impel him to this decision?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative. So long as the Ministry of Food is in existence it mast deal with the food supplies of the country as a whole, although naturally there should be, and is, the fullest possible consultation between the Departments concerned.

    PUBLIC TRUSTEES OFFICE (FEES).
    Major HILLSasked the Lord Privy Seal whether he is aware that the recent Report on the Public Trustee's office recommends increases of fees, in some eases amounting to three and four times the present scale; and, since such a proceeding will gravely prejudice and may even be fatal to this useful public office, he will allow the House an early opportunity of discussing the matter before action is taken, which opportunity might be given on the Estimates or some other occasion convenient to the Government?
    Mr. BON AR LAW: This Report is receiving careful consideration. Section 9 (4) of the Public Trustee Act provides that the fees shall be arranged from time to time so as to cover all expenses of the office, and in view of the serious deficit existing at present, I fear that I cannot undertake to postpone action in the matter, as suggested.
    Major HILLS: May we have some chance of discussion?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Before action is taken?
    Major HILLS: I would rather have it before.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It can come before if there is a general desire for it.

    TRANSYLVANIA.
    Mr. SWANasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any particulars of a revolutionary outbreak in Transylvania?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): No, Sir, I have no information that there has been any revolutionary outbreak in Transylvania.

  RUSSIA.

    VLADIVOSTOK (MURDERS BY COSSACKS).
    Mr. SWANasked whether, late in September of this year, some Cossack troops sent to reinforce the garrison at Vladivostok, at the time of an impending coup d'état on the part of the social revolutionaries, perpetrated several murders of Allied and Russian soldiers and civilians; and, if so, whether His Majesty's Government or the representatives of the Allies in Siberia have taken or intend to take any steps in the matter?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. A Russian officer and an American soldier were killed, and a Czech soldier was wounded.
    The situation was immediately taken in hand by the Allied military authorities on the spot, involving the trial by court-martial of the chief offender, and steps were taken in conjunction with the heads of the Allied Missions at Omsk to re-establish order.

    CHALDEAN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any steps have been taken, or are in contemplation by the Allied and Associated Powers, to save the Christian community of Chaldeans in Mesopotamia from extinction; whether he has any information to the effect that, owing to lack of seed for next harvest and lack of food to meet present necessities, the economic condition of the Chaldeans is almost desperate; and whether, if the Governments of the Allied and Associated Powers are not in a position to give immediate relief to this ancient Christian community, he will undertake to provide facilities for the transport and distribution of any supplies that may be furnished for the purpose of unofficial organisation of relief?
    Mr. PARKER (Lord of the Treasury): I understand that only a minority of the Christian community of Chaldeans live within the area of Mesopotamia under British occupation, and I have no information leading me to think that their condition is such as is suggested by my hon. Friend, but I am making special inquiries.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: Has not information been sent to this country by the heads of the Chaldean community that, while they are being butchered and deported as much as other Christian populations under Turkey, they have, largely owing to geographical conditions and other circumstances, got. very little of the relief which has been given to other Christians in the East?
    Mr. PARKER: I will convey the question which the hon. Gentleman has put to me to the Minister who has the matter in hand. I cannot answer it.
    Mr. McNEILL: When will more definite information be forthcoming?
    Mr. PARKER: The hon. Gentleman had better put that question to the Leader of the House or the Secretary of State for India.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: Will the hon. Gentleman convey to the Minister that the information given in the answer to the question is entirely inaccurate?
    Mr. McNEILL: I would ask the Leader of the House can he give any information on the subject?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No. I do not think that my hon. Friend will expect me to give any information at present, but I will promise that inquiries will be made.
    Captain ORMSBY-GORE: As most of these Chaldeans are now in Persia, should not this question be addressed to the Foreign Office?

    CONSULAR SERVICE.
    Captain HACKINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the Consular Service Order in Council of 6th March, 1896, Section 4, gives him definite limited power to require any officer to retire from the Consular Service only if he has ceased, from whatever cause, to be fully competent for the performance of his duty, he will state by whom the definite unlimited power was conferred upon him to retire a Consular officer at any time, under any circumstances, in spite of the fact that such Consular officer may be fully competent and whose age is within the limit for compulsory retirement, and by whomso-
    408
    ever the unlimited power was given him, he will consider the advisability of having it incorporated in an Order in Council, so that those anxious to join the Consular Service may know the risks they run?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD (Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade—Development and Intelligence): The first part of this question has already been covered by my reply to the hon. and gallant Member on 26th November, with reference to the case of Sir W. Wilkinson. With regard to the second part I see no reason for altering the existing practice, which is not peculiar to the Consular Service.
    Captain HACKING: May I point out that that part of the question with regard to the definite limited power has not been answered?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am sorry to disagree with my hon. Friend, but I think that that part of the question was answered on 26th November last.

    CROWN COLONIES (ENEMY ALIENS).
    Mr. FORRESTasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if lie has yet decided on any policy with regard to the readmission of enemy aliens into the Crown Colonies; and whether the same rules and regulations as here will govern their readmission to territory of which we are now the mandatory Power?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Colonel Amery): It has been decided that any former enemy alien seeking admission or readmission to a Colony or Protectorate must have a permit signed by the Colonial Secretary or other corresponding officer of the Colony or Protectorate which he wishes to enter before he can be granted admission, and legislation to this effect has been passed in all the Colonies and Protectorates. The legislation is limited to a term of three years, at the end of which time the whole matter can be reconsidered. It has been decided to apply the same policy with regard to the admission of former enemy aliens to the Mandated territory of which the Imperial Government has been given the Mandate.

    GOLD COAST CITIZENS (LIVERPOOL OUTRAGE).
    Sir H. CRAIKasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will be in a position, before th Prorogation, to announce any proposal of the Government for making pecuniary compensation for the outrage committed on British citizens of the Gold Coast in Liverpool, in order to allay the strong feeling of resentment which that outrage has caused?
    Colonel AMERY: I fear I shall not be in a position to make a statement before the Prorogation.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    TERRITORIAL FORCE.
    Lieut. - Colonel POWNALLasked the Secretary of State for War whether the Army Council is still in. favour of the issue of a special medal to pre-war Territorials who volunteered in 1914 for service overseas; if not, will he state the reasons for this change of view; and, if it is still in favour, will he state when the necessary Army Council Instruction will be issued?
    Captain GUEST: There has been no change of view, but I am not in a position to make any statement on the subject at the moment.
    Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: Can the hon. Gentleman say when he will be in a position to make a statement?
    Captain GUEST: No. The most important part of the reply is that the Army Council has not changed its point of view.
    Captain COOTEasked the Secretary of State for War whether volunteers for the Army are now being declined; and, if so, for what reason, in view of the fact that many conscripts are still retained with the Colours who could be replaced by such volunteers?
    Captain GUEST: Soldiers serving overseas, being eligible for demobilisation, who volunteer to continue serving with the Armies of Occupation, are accepted for such further service provided recognised vacancies exist in the establishment of the
    410
    corps to which they belong. Similar procedure is in force in the case of soldiers serving at home; vacancies exist, however, only in certain administrative corps. Demobilisable soldiers serving in other corps were recently given an opportunity of volunteering to transfer to a corps in which vacancies exist, but the applications received amounted to forty-two only out of a total of approximately 80,000 eligible personnel.
    Captain COOTE: Are civilians offering themselves for service in the Army and being refused?
    Captain GUEST: On the face of it that is very unlikely. The voluntary Army is being recruited at full speed.

    SUFFOLK REGIMENT (⅕5TH BATTALION).
    Mr. J. DAVISONasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to state the result of his inquiries into the alleged compulsory transfer from the ⅕5th Battalion Suffolk Regiment to the Regular New Army?
    Captain GUEST: I regret that the investigations into this matter are not yet complete. Telegraphic inquiries of the military authorities in Egypt are being made, and I hope to be in a position to make a statement on Monday next.

  COAL PRODUCTION.

    TRANSPORT DIFFICULTIES.
    Mr. DOYLE (by Private Notice)asked the President of the Board of Trade whether 'he is aware that the serious shortage of domestic coal in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is causing grave anxiety to those responsible for the welfare of the populace, and that at the present moment thousands of private orders remain unfulfilled with no immediate prospect of an improvement; and whether, in view of the short time intervening between now arid the Christmas holidays, he will take immediate steps to relieve the situation?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir A. Geddes): No, Sir. I have received no complaints from Newcastle-upon-Tyne on this matter. Inquiries will at once be made, and any steps that appear necessary to deal with the situation found to exist will be taken.
    Sir A. YEO: Has not the right hon. Gentleman received complaints from other places?
    Sir A. GEDDES: Yes. I receive complaints regularly from every part of the country—from every large place—but Newcastle-upon-Tyne is the only one from which I have received no complaints.
    Sir A. YEO: Are you doing anything to remedy them?
    Sir A. GEDDES: Certainly. Though complaints have come in, no actual shortage has arisen anywhere except in the area of the Great Eastern Railway. It is not a question of coal available. It is a question of transport. This matter has been continually before us week in and week out for months, but up to this moment I have received no complaints from Newcastle.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the question of transport is playing havoc with all the industries of the country?
    Sir A. GEDDES: The difficulties with regard to transport are nothing new. They have existed ever since the first year of the War. What is playing havoc with the transport is the sudden change in the industrial position due to the eight-hours day. This applies all over the country, and until the transport arrangements adjust themselves to meet the new conditions the difficulties must continue.

    EDUCATION (IRELAND) BILL.
    Sir E. CARSON (by Private Notice)asked the Leader of the House whether the Government propose to give time for the Second Reading of the Irish Education Bill, having regard to the delays which occurred yesterday?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I greatly regret that it was not possible to take advantage of the opportunity which we afforded yesterday; but, in the present state of business, it is quite impossible to find further time tins Session.
    Sir E. CARSON: As this is a matter which has created a considerable amount of anxiety in Ireland, would it be possible, having regard to present conditions, to make some advance to the teachers of Ireland, who are suffering the greatest hardship by reason of the postponement of this Bill?
    Mr. DEVLIN: May I join in the appeal which the right lion. Gentleman has made, on behalf of united Ireland? The very just claims of the teachers ought to be dealt with immediately. That is the only thing that matters.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: This is not the first time that I have seen unity of feeling between the two sections in Ireland, which has always been with the same object and which is not likely to secure the same unanimity amongst the taxpayers of England and Scotland. 1 will look into the question.
    Mr. DEVLIN: When will the right hon. Gentleman be able to make a statement as to when these teachers are to be paid, not out of the pockets of the taxpayers of England, but by the taxpayers of Ireland?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think, possibly, that there will be a different view taken on that point in England and Scotland. This is a question on which I heard a great deal when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It must be considered by my right hon. Friend. I am afraid I cannot hold out much hope that it will be granted. All I can say is that it will be considered.
    Mr. DEVLIN: When will the right lion. Gentleman be in a position to make a definite statement so that we can discuss the matter, because these teachers cannot afford to wait?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am afraid there will be no opportunity for discussing it in any case but, in. view, of the hon. Member's great anxiety in tins matter, I am very sorry that he did not take the opportunity of having the proposals discussed yesterday.
    Mr. LYNN: May I ask is it possible to get this money for the teachers without passing a Bill?
    Captain REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in regard to another Irish Bill proposed by the Chief Secretary, the Police Bill, an advance was made before the Bill came into operation to those policemen who were to come under it? If that was the case in regard to policemen in Ireland, why should not the same thing be done in regard to teachers?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: There is really no. advantage in pressing this question. The difference between a Police Bill, where advances have already been made in

    413
    England and Scotland, must be obvious to the House. All that can be said has already been said, and that is that the matter will be considered.
    Sir E. CARSON: May I remind my right lion. Friend that the teachers in England and Scotland have had very great advances, and that the condition of these teachers in Ireland is one of the gravest anxiety as to how they are to tide over the next few months?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes, it is quite true there were advances to them in England and Scotland, but that happened after the passing of Bills. I can say nothing more than that it will be considered

    QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: On a point of Order. I put down to-day a Question, No. 65, on a matter about which a good many Members feel interested. It was a question to the Foreign Office. I want to ask, as a matter of order, whether the Foreign Office, with which the matter is really concerned, is entitled to pass that question to the India Office, which, so far as I know, has very little to do with it; and if so, whether the Secretary of State for India ought not to he here to answer it; whether it is right that a question of that nature should be answered by my bon. Friend, a Junior Lord of the Treasury, who cannot be expected to have any personal knowledge of the subject, and whether it ought not to be dealt with by the office to which it is addressed?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Those are not points of Order for me. I do not know what particular part of the world the India Office is responsible for or what part the Foreign Office is responsible for. I cannot possibly say.
    Mr. McNEILL: May I take this opportunity of giving notice to the Foreign Office that if I can get an opportunity I will raise this question in the Debate to-morrow?

    WAR EMERGENCY LAWS (CONTINUANCE) BILL.
    Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 232.]
    Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 232.]
    Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 247.]

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have agreed to—
    Irish Railways (Confirmation of Agreement) Bill,
    Glasgow Corporation Water Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.

    HIGH PRICES AND PROFITS
    Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 234.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Sir D. MACLEAN: May I ask the Leader of the House what Orders of the Day he proposes to take to-night on the Motion standing in his name?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope it may be possible—it will depend on the House—to take the first seven Orders on the Paper.
Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask whether, if we raise the question of the teachers' salaries to-morrow, the right hon. Gentleman will be in a position to assure us that the just claims of the teachers in Ireland will be dealt with?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I think it is quite impossible to deal with it to-morrow. I have already said all I can say on the subject.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Proceedings on Government Business he exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."— [Mr. Bonar Law.]
The House divided: Ayes, 227; Noes, 44.

Division No. 163.]

AYES.

[3.55 P.m.

Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

Glyn, Major R.

Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)

Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

Goff, Sir Park

Nicholson, R. (Doncaster)

Ainsworth, Captain C.

Grant, James Augustus

Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

Allen, Lt.-Col. William James

Green, A. (Derby)

Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

Amery, Lieut.-Colonel L. C. M. S.

Green, J. F. (Leicester)

O'Neill, Captain Hon. Robert W. H.

Archdale, Edward M.

Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Astbury, Lieut.-Com. F. W.

Greig, Colonel James William

Palmer, Major G. M. (Jarrow)

Baird, John Lawrence

Gretton, Colonel John

Palmer, Brig.-Gen. G. L. (Westbury)

Baldwin, Stanley

Gritten, W. G. Howard

Parker, James

Barlow, Sir Montagu (Salford, S.)

Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hn. W. E. (B. St. E)

Parry, Lt.-Col. T. H.

Barnett, Major R. W.

Gwynne, R. S.

Pownall, Lt.-Col. Assheton

Barnston, Major H.

Hacking, Colonel D. H.

Pratt, John William

Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

Hailwood, A.

Preston, W. R.

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Pulley, Charles Thornton

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hanna, G. B.

Purchase, H. G.

Bentinck, Lt.-Col. Lord H. Cavendish-

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)

Raeburn, Sir William

Blades, Sir George R.

Harmsworth, Hon. E. (Isle of Thanet)

Rankin, Capt. James S.

Blair, Major Reginald

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

Rees, Sir J. D.

Berwick, Major G. O.

Haslam, Lewis

Rees, Captain J. Tudor

Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.

Henderson, Major Vivian L.(Tradest'n)

Reid, D. D.

Breese, Major Charles

Hennessy, Major G.

Renwick, G.

Bridgeman, William Clive

Henry, D. S. (Londonderry, S.)

Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Briggs, Harold

Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)

Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)

Britton, G. B.

Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)

Rodger, A. K.

Brown, Captain D, C. (Hexham)

Hoare, Lt.-Colonel Sir Samuel J. G.

Roundell, Colonel R. F.

Burdon, Colonel Rowland

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Rowlands, James

Burn, Captain C. R. (Torquay)

Hope, John Deans (Berwick)

Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)

Burn, T. H. (Belfast)

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)

Butcher, Sir J. G.

Horne, Sir Robert (Hillhead)

Sassoon, Sir Philip A. G. D.

Campion, Colonel W. R.

Houston, Robert Paterson

Seager, Sir William

Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)

Howard, Major S. G.

Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

Hudson, R. M.

Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

Casey, T. W.

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T., W.)

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)

Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

Simm, M. T.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Birm., w.)

Hurd, P. A.

Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander

Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

Hurst, Major G. B.

Stanler, Captain Sir Beville

Cheyne, Sir William Watson

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

Stanley, Col. Hon. G. (Preston)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Jephcott, A. R.

Stanton, Charles Butt

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Jellett, William Morgan

Steel, Major S. Strang

Clough, R.

Jesson, C.

Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

Clyde, James Avon

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Stewart, Gershom

Cohen, Major J. B. B.

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

Sturrock, J. Leng-

Colvin, Brig.-General R. B.

Kidd, James

Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

Coote, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)

King, Commander Douglas

Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)

Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)

Terrell, Capt. R. (Henley, Oxford)

Cowan, D. M. (Scottish University)

Lewis, T. A. (Pontypridd, Glam.)

Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)

Craig, Captain Charles C. (Antrim)

Lister, Sir R. Ashton

Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mid.)

Lloyd, George Butler

Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (M'yhl.)

Croft, Brig.-General Henry Page

Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Hunt'don)

Townley, Maximilian G.

Davies, T. (Cirencester)

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Tryon, Major George Clement

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Lonsdale, James R.

Turton, Edmund Russborough

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Lowe, Sir F. W.

Waddington, R.

Davison, Sir William H. (Kens'gtn, W.)

Lynn, R. F.

Ward, Col. J (Stoke, Trent)

Dawes, J. A.

Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Stirling)

Ward, Col, L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)

Denison-Pender, John C.

M'Lean, Lt.-Col. C. W. W. (Brigg)

Waring, Major Walter

Dixon, Captain H.

Macmaster, Donald

Wason, John Cathcart

Dockrell, Sir M.

McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)

Weston, Colonel John W.

Donald, T.

Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

Wheler, Colonel Granville C. H.

Doyle, N. Grattan

Macquisten, F. A.

White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

Duncannon, Viscount

Magnus, Sir Philip

Whitla, Sir William

Edge, Captain William

Mallalieu, Frederick William

Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Hold'ness)

Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

Malone, Major P. (Tottenham)

Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

Elliot, Captain W. E. (Lanark)

Marks, Sir George Croydon

Wilson, Col. M. (Richmond, Yorks.)

Eyres-Monsell, Commander

Marriott, John Arthur R.

Wilson-Fox, Henry

Falcon, Captain M.

Mason, Robert

Winterton, Major Earl

Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

Matthews, David

Wolmer, Viscount

Fell, Sir Arthur

Moles, Thomas

Wood, Major Hon. E. (Ripon)

Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

Molson, Major John Elsdale

Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)

FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.

Morden, Colonel H. Grant

Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge and Hyde)

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Morrison-Bell. Major A. C.

Yate, Col. Charles Edward

Ganzoni, Captain F. J, C.

Mount, William Arthur

Yeo, Sir Alfred William

Gardiner, J. (Perth)

Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

Young, Lt.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)

Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir A. C. (Bas'gstoke)

Murchison. C. K.

Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

Murray, Lt.-Col. Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain

Gilbert, James Daniel

Murray, William (Dumfries)

Guest and Colonel Sanders.

Gilmour, Lt.-Colonel John

Neal, Arthur

NOES.

Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

Bramsdon, Sir T.

Carter, w. (Mansfield)

Benn, Captain W. (Leith)

Cairns, John

Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

Brace, Rt. Hon. William

Cape, Tom

Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)

416

417

Devlin, Joseph

Kenworthy, Lieut. -Commander

Sitch, C. H.

Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Spoor, B. G.

Finney, Samuel

Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

Swan, J. E. C.

Glanville, Harold James

Newbould, A. E.

Thorne, W. (Plaistow)

Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

O'Connor, T. P.

Tootill, Robert

Guest, J. (Hemsworth, York)

Onions, Alfred

Waterson, A. E.

Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)

Harbison, T. J. S.

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Williams, Col. Penry (Middlesbro', E.)

Hayday, A.

Redmond, Captain William A.

Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)

Hayward, Major Evan

Richardson, R, (Houghton)

Hirst, G. H.

Rose, Frank H.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Irving, Dan

Royce, William Stapleton

Tyson Wilson and Mr. Neil McLean.

Kelly, Major Fred (Rotherham)

Short, A. (Wednesbury)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. The Bill has not been printed. I have been to the Vote Office only two minutes ago, and it was not available there for Members. Is it in order to proceed with a Bill on Second Reading when it is not in the hands of Members or available to them?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The Bill itself is in common form and follows exactly the Bills of former Sessions. I see no objection to taking it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Do I understand that we are about to have a discussion on a Bill which has not been printed?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I did not catch what the hon Member said.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Is it your ruling that the House of Commons is to be called upon to give its judgment upon a Bill that is not printed?
  Mr. SPEAKER: There is no objection to taking a Bill which is in common form. It is in the same form that has been followed for a great many years. There would be great objection to taking a Bill which was novel and which the House had not seen. The Appropriation Bill, however, is always in the same form; it is only a ease of altering the dates and figures from year to year.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I ask whether there is any precedent whatever for taking an Appropriation Bill without having it printed, because it is really not respectful to the House that we should be asked to pass a Bill without the Government having taken the trouble to have it printed?
  Mr. SPEAKER: At one time it was never the custom to print for circulation the Appropriation Bill at all. I remember that when I first came to the Table it was not the custom to circulate the Bill. Since then it has become customary to print and
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  circulate it. It is, however, exactly in the same form as the Bill which has been taken for many years, and I see no objection to taking it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: As I want to vote against it, and as I do not want to vote against anything that I have not seen, may I respectfully point out, in order to guide hon. Members as to what they ought to do, that this Bill ought not to be taken until it is printed.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I should recommend the hon. Member to turn up the Appropriation Act of last year; by altering the date from 1918 to 1919 he will know exactly what the Bill is.
  Mr. DEVLIN: We want to deal with the Bill for 1919, and I object to it, because I am sure it is all wrong. I have not seen it, and I would not like to vote against it unless I had seen it.
  Lord R. CECIL: Is there anything to prevent the Government printing the Bill to-morrow in an entirely different form from anything that we have seen? What security has the house for knowing that this is the real Bill? It may not be a matter of great importance, but I do think that it is most scandalous and discourteous to the House to ask it to pass a Bill before it has been printed.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I really do not think that the Noble Lord's indignation is justified in any way. It was not customary for many years to print the Bill at all. It comes on as a matter of course at the end of the Session when time is valuable. If delay has to be interposed in order to print the Bill, it is not possible for the House to take it. Of late years, when printing has been accelerated, the Bill has been printed and circulated. I cannot say why it has not been printed to-day; I am not responsible.
  Lord R. CECIL: No, I did not say that you were.
  Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Can the hon. Members see this Bill in manuscript at the Table? Are the Clerks at the Table in possession of the Bill in extenso?
  Mr. SPEAKER: No, the Bill has not yet been printed. It is now in course of being printed, I believe.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Would it be in order now to move that the Debate be adjourned until the Bill can be produced I
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have called upon the hon. Member for Royton to address the House.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Do I understand that it is your ruling that we cannot move the Adjournment?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have called upon an hon. Member to address the House, and until another hon. Member rises there is no question of the Adjournment of the Debate.

  CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE.
  Mr. SUGDEN: I do not apologise for opening for discussion in this House the questions Of finance, currency, and exchange, for I say without hesitancy or uncertainty that the supreme sacrifices that have been made in the field by the men and women of this country and of this Empire will be jeopardised, traduced, prostituted, and annulled unless we. are assured that these great sciences will be applied in such a manner and fashion as will result in the great development which is vital and essential for our industries. I suggest that, although we may to a certain extent have culled some lessons from the great campaigns of the previous centuries, all the great economic strata upon which at the commencement of the War we built for the purpose of financing our country has to a great extent been proved inequitable and has certainly not been considered efficient for the duty and purpose which has been placedupon it. I will bring to the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench the fact that there were no bodies of financial or banking experts called in to diagnose the situation arid who correctly forecasted the proper means whereby we might face the cataclysm which fell upon us when the War broke out. But I do suggest that the great science of exchange and currency has not advanced to any great extent since those days. I well remember there came an occasion when the question of raising Loans in this country had to be considered, and the Leader of the House, under whose banner many of us are honoured to march, sought the collective judgment of all the financial magnates of the country. who suggested a policy which might have been sufficient in those older times. He alone countered their opinion, and obtained his Loan at a lesser price than the bankers collectively said was at all possible. But, with very great respect, I think that the interim and final reports
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  which have been presented to deal with finance, exchange and currency and the national credit, make suggestions which are totally inadequate to deal with the policy of industry—the bread-and-butter policy—which is equally necessitous and equally heroic, although prosaic, as the great days through which we passed and upon which we now look hack with great pride and pleasure.
  Let us see what the intervening days have taught us in regard to finance. There was a tremendous spur to inventive and industrial progress at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars We find that Watts brought forward his machinery discovery, with the result that exports, particularly of cotton, rose from £355,000 in 1780 to £19,000,000 in 1815. Our woollen exports. which are in these days of vital importance to us, were doubled in twenty years. Iron production in 1780 amounted to 68,000 tons, but in 1820 it rose to 400,000 tons. The national income in 1784 was £150,000,000. In 1815 it rose to £350,000,000. Our national debt in 1815 was £900,000,000, but. as a result of this great industrial movement in 1829, it had been reduced to £769,000,000. I suggest to this House that if now we were prepared to utilise every known effort in the great science of exchange. if we were prepared to utilise, in a full and efficient manner, the great industrial forward movement which is the new portion of our life, our great electrical undertakings now to be collectively and economically applied to industry, all the modern transport arrangement of air, road, canal, river and coast, all the new usages of oil in industry, together with standardisation of output, as Watts led the boom in England, so these new forces, plus a proper standard of comfort for labour, will send our land ahead leading the world in progress. But it must also be by a sufficient and exact consideration of the utilisation of the immense and wonderful fundamental strength of the Empire in regard to its finance, credit and loans, we could make a great lead forward, a great campaign in this direction. I repeat there would be a Tar greater advance than we in this country have ever had at any time in our history.
  To-day we are faced with a National Debt of roughly £8,000,000,000, and the cost of living, we have been told by the Board of Trade, had in September last increased 80 per cent. above the pre-war level. Although we have a vast national debt, I do suggest that our country and

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  Empire would bound forward in a way such as the world has never seen, if once and for all we correctly apply all our knowledge of the science of exchange. Therefore it is vital and essential we should have knowledge of the way in which the Treasury intend to deal with these great problems. The science of currency and exchange supremely affect firstly, the production of sufficient commodities and services to feed, clothe, and house our population on a considerably higher standard than that which obtained before 1914. In the second place, the raising of the standard of wages in terms of money by at least 50 per cent. over that prevailing before the War and in some cases double. Thirdly, the supply of employment for all workpeople, and fourthly, the maintenance of our pre-war position in relation to international trade and finance. The sciences of currency and exchange further clearly faced the economic problem which confronts the people of the world, and demands first, a reduction of the amount of money in circulation, or a recognition of a new valuation of money; secondly, an attempt to force commodity prices down to a pre-war level, and with infinite suffering and strife to get back to the pre-war economic standard of wages, prices, production and consumption, or rather to maintain wages and commodity prices at a high level and increase national production up to a point which would justify the raising of the standard of living to a much higher level. The first course, I believe, to be practically impossible, and I suggest if we were foolish enough to attempt it nothing but destitution and a chaotic condition, such as obtains now in Russia, would result to this country. I urge, therefore, that we ought to follow the second course, and by production—extreme and entire production—we might make ourselves efficient to face the problem which lies before us.
  What is the value of the British sovereign in these later days. Why has it fallen to a discount of 14 per cent., and that in the face of the fact that our British assets are enormous, as also our foreign and Colonial securities, even when allowance is made for the sums we have borrowed from America and other countries, still so valuable and still showing huge overplus. We find that even under these conditions we have a credit balance of some £3,000,000,000 in foreign and Colonial countries. Moreover, if one examines the country's trade balance it is
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  found that we are still paying our way, or nearly so, and when it is suggested that the raising of the Bank rate to 6 per cent. would attract gold and credit (returns show that it has not so done) to this country even with high prices we should be able to retain our position. I want to press upon the Government the suggestion, very tentatively be it said, which was made by the Prime Minister that he would consider an international Loan, a Loan into which might come all the great industrial chiefs, all the great industrial leaders of each and every country, and we could thereby not only raise production to an efficient level in this country but there would also be some means whereby foreign countries, who come penniless to us for food and who we are supplying, shall thereby receive an equipoise of exchange which should make it possible to lift the standard up so that we may find it possible not only to trade but also to fund our own loans and our own debt both abroad and at home. It should be possible for us, although many of us have painful knowledge of what Germany and Austria did in regard to the great world-war, although we may not be prepared to give them any kudos or status or any but limited trade opportunities, we feel that we must be prepared to take some action to admit them into some channels of trade with us, because otherwise it would be impossible to obtain the indemnity which we demand and say is essentially necessary if we are to face the future and if our country is to gain its full stature and strength.
  The right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, therefore, should give us some exact delineation of the proportion which each of the Allies is to contribute to this International Central Fund, and when we remember the way in which such great people as the United States of America, the Southern States of America, and others made a great amount of money and great profits from us before and during the War, and how at the present time, we as a country are sending and selling to the people of Europe—the poor people of Europe—and are obliged to pledge our credit because we are selling without receiving any payment for the goods, and thus making our exchange lower and the price of our sovereign lower, I do suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should put pressure on Spain, on the United States of America, and on the Southern States of America, so that they, at any rate, may

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  accept some responsibility. They are pledged to us in regard to their support of the great national policy of the League of Nations. We are carrying, as we did in war-time as the great martial power, great financial responsibilities for every nation. The one solution of this great international problem is to be found in that direction. Hon. Members must never forget that even though some of the financial power of the world is going to New York, yet to-day this country is the centre of the money market of the world. But America in her own interests, in the interests of Europe, in the interests of all nations, and in the interests of civilisation, must take a predominant part in promoting that international loan. I want more particularly this afternoon to draw attention to the bearing which the restriction of imports has upon this question, and not for a single moment am I prepared to permit dumping or the underselling of our labour, but the whole gamut of imports, exports, trade licences, and controls requires reviewing if our exchanges are to get normal. In passing, the vast cotton, woollen, and iron interests of the nation are supremely helpfully affected by a broad, wise business policy, or adversely by a narrow, academic, professional treatment. If these matters were considered and dealt with in the fashion which the Chancellor of the Exchequer must deal with them, he would call in question not only the coal control, but the food control and other controls which have a bearing on our exports and imports. He might take some little part with regard to the question of shipping. Let him remember that in pre-war days our assets, both visible and invisible, were largely comprised not merely of foreign securities, but of our shipping. The major part of that shipping is now being used against us, through the Shipping Controller, by Japan, America, and other great nations, and I suggest that the great Council of Versailles might by its action strengthen our power, and enable us to utilise our great assets, and thus guide the policy of the nations of the world to a higher standard and to a nobler, purer idealism.
  Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: I wish to say a few words on the subject of the Report on Currency and Finance. It would ill become me to speak slightingly of the work done by the distinguished
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  Committee which has dealt with this subject, but I do suggest that the final Report is nothing more than an Essay on the Obvious. The Treasury must have arrived at the same conclusion as the Committee long before the Report was published. The question of currency and exchange is indeed most difficult. It is one which I have followed closely, for I know that the whole economic fabric of our trade is bound up in the policy of currency and trend of exchange between this country and the world. I find myself at variance with several of the observations that appear in this Report on currency and foreign exchanges. It appears to me in at least two cases that Report has put the cart before the horse. In the second paragraph it says a sound currency system would in itself secure equilibrium in the foreign exchanges, hut I think that equilibrium in the foreign exchanges would be sooner likely to bring us to a sound system of currency than the other way about, and the advice given reminds one very much of the observation that a surgeon would address to a lame man if he said that he would walk all right when his leg was mended. What would have to be done would be to mend the leg first. The remedy in the fourth paragraph is not only increased production, which is a self-evident proposition and a counsel of perfection, but a free market of gold. What would it mean if currency notes and bank credits were based on a free market of gold? A free market in gold, with United States exchanges at 3.75, would soon drain every ounce out of Britain, and our bloated bank credit balances would intensify the liability of outflow.
  Here I would like to make a reference to the term "inflation of currency" I think a misunderstanding has taken place in this country on the words "the inflation of currency." We are not suffering from an inflation of currency so much as from an inflation of credit. At the present moment the uncovered currency notes, which I suppose is what some mean when they speak of inflation of currency, amount to £300,000,000. Before the War we had a currency of gold and Bank of England notes, which are as good as gold, and fiduciary notes of the Bank of England amounting to, say, £160,000,000. The consequence is we have at present a currency amounting to no more than £140,000,000 more than it was before the War. If people are going to tell me that an increase of £4 per head on our

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  45,003,000 people, in currency, has brought us to much of the economic trouble we are now enduring, I say I do not believe it, and if I understood correctly what Lord d'Abernon said in another place about the inflation of currency notes bringing about the increase of prices, all I can say is that I cannot follow his argument. In recent months there has been an increase in the index number of prices of commodities at a time when there has been no corresponding increase in the amount of our currency notes, but the main point on which I base my argument, and which I would like to impress upon the House, is that the currency, amounting to £300,000,000, is only £140,000,090 more than it was before the War, and to assume that an increase of under £4 per head on a population of 45,000,000 has brought us to our present troubles is not a proposition that will be supported by any economist.
  That currency which has really become inflated in these war-times, and which is only defined very slightly in this Report, is the cheque currency, because the currency of this country is a cheque currency. What we are really suffering from is an inflation of credit, and not an inflation of currency. The credit—i.e., deposits—in the banks at present amount to no less than between £1,750,000,000 and £2,000,000,000, as compared with a sum probably under £1,000,000,000 before the War. That is the weak spot, that is the inflation which is putting up the price of living and degrading sterling in the eyes of the exchange brokers of the Western world. We have to address ourselves to that question of inflation of credit in the banks, and if it cannot be redressed by a great increase in the existence of goods, so that for every pound's worth of credit you have you may have a pound's worth of goods, other means will have to be found. At present, for every pound's worth of credit you have not in volume more than ten shillings' worth of goods. You have twice as much credit to buy with as there are goods, consequently up goes the price of the goods. Therefore the most desirable form of redressing the inflated credit is to produce an extra amount of goods so as to represent the amount of credit now at the command of the public. Or we must reduce the bank credit by other means. If you reduce it, by so much will you reduce the expansion of credit and limit the power of the public to put up prices against itself in not only the markets of England, but in the markets of the world.
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  I do not think extra taxation is of very much use to reduce that large bank credit balance; for, after all, what can you get by extra taxes? A matter of £100,000,000 will not go very far in the process of the reduction, and we know that this country has reached the limits of endurance in taxation. and extra taxation will now do more injury than good, on balance. The Excess Profits Duty is doing more harm than good, for example, and is probably hindering the expansion of trade, although some say we are not taxed enough. We know we have to pay for the War either by Loan or by taxation, but I do not think that further taxation is the remedy, whereas I do think that the ability of the public to use these balances should be limited and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the fact that he has had to raise £300,000,000 temporarily to balance his Budget for the present year, should again turn on, to use a vulgar expression, the tap of National War Bonds. If these National War Bonds are again put on tap, we shall get a certain amount out of the bank balances, which will reduce the purchasing power of the people and moreover reduce the necessity for 'Ways and Means advances and Treasury Bills. I am against adding to our debt, but I would like to borrow to reduce the floating debt incurred to balance the current year.
  But there is another form of raising money which I do not think has been tried in this country, and which I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman in all humility. There are many middle-aged men, myself among them, who might regard the purchase of terminable annuities with thirty years to run with some favour. The principle has been tried in the purchase of the Government railways of India. Thirty years is a generation. You cannot expect to raise any money much under 5½ or 6 per cent. The British Government 5 per cents. to-day are worth 91, and therefore we shall have to give slightly better terms to raise a similar loan to-day. I think a thirty years' terminable annuity, a form of security which a middle-aged man can buy from the Government to cease at the end of thirty years, yielding him, say 7½ per cent., might attract people in this country. It would give him a good income at least for the investor's lifetime, if it did not exceed the thirty years from date of purchase. It is not a new theory or an experiment, for when the Indian Government bought the Great Indian

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  Peninsula Railway they bought it in forms of Annuities: A, which terminated absolutely, and Annuities B, which allowed the capital to be repaid at a definite date, yielding income meantime. Those are the two proposals that I make for the purpose of reducing the floating debt and the purchasing power of the inflated bank balances, which are the real form of inflation of credit, and which do cause the trouble from which we are suffering, and I would here say that I do not agree that the inflation of note currency, to which our attention has been so often directed, has any great effect upon our financial position.
  I do not think people should be so impatient in regard to immediate repayment of the Treasury Bills and the Ways and Means advances. I know the continuation of Ways and Means advances is bad, and that it is a wrong system of finance, and I know it is not good to have overdrafts called Treasury Bills in normal, healthy times. But we have been through a time such as we wish never to have to go through again, and to think we can get our finances quite straight in a few months or in a few years after the War is not only asking too much of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but is asking too much of the country. There is too much impatience about getting our finances straight. We must wait and work, and I was glad to gather from the representative of the Board of Trade, answering a question of mine the other day on invisible exports, that for this month our financial position with regard to imports and exports is of such a kind that the excess of imports over exports this month will probably be balanced by the average amount of £40,000,000 of invisible exports for this month. That means that, notwithstanding all the trouble we have gone through and all our anxiety about our Ways and Means advances and Treasury Bills, we are now getting pretty well on an even keel. For, notwithstanding the bad United States exchange, the nation as a whole has reached an equilibrium in its balance-sheet, though individuals may be hurt in their individual capacity as traders.
  The other part of the Report I have in my hand deals with Exchange. As I said, so far as the real cure, increased production will not put exchange right, we have to look for other means, and there is an ambiguity, I think, in the Report on this
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  question. It deals with exchanges, and does not differentiate between the Eastern exchanges, which are now playing a great part advantageously in our trade, and other exchanges. I presume it refers to exchange with America, that is to say, a disadvantageous exchange, and it says nothing of the exchange with Germany or with Central Europe. I must, therefore, address myself to the point of view taken by the Report so far as it, I suppose, concerns America. Why do we want the American exchange to rise in favour of the sterling? Because we require to pay as little as we may for our foods and raw materials and our debt interest to America, and I would here make a point which, I think, must nave already occurred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the credits which we are now putting up for France. I think credits for foreign nations raised in this country, and particularly with regard to France, have been misused in a way that has done us harm. If you put up a public or private credit for France she uses that credit—I have no proof of it, but my intuition and instinct tell me it is so—for paying her debts in-New York. Suppose France borrows money here next week for £50,000,000. There is no obligation on her part to spend it here. She owes money for food and materials in America, and she wants more of the same things; she gets the credit here, and, quite legitimately, of course, the first thing she does is to pay with it for the things she wants in America, with the result that she aggravates at our expense, although we help her with the loan, our trouble of an adverse United States exchange against this country. If Britain lends money now to France, it should be understood that she is not to use up our credit to pay her debts to the United States or spend our money there. I have taken some trouble to extract the type of goods we are buying from America, and have tried to deduce from the list how it is that our exchange is so unfavourable, and so far as I can. see, putting our imports from America at £500,000,000 in the year, a half of that is for food, a third for raw materials, and a quarter for manufactures: The troubles we are going through ought to make us reconsider the countries in which we might buy, and what we buy, especially in America. It does not matter what we pay for cotton. I do not fear the bad exchange in the case of cotton. What-

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  ever we pay for cotton at the present time, and for some time to come, we can get a profit on. The whole world is clamouring for Manchester goods, and it does not for the present matter whether the exchange is two dollars or five; whatever the price Manchester people decide to pay for cotton now they can get a profit on. But against trade slackening we ought to look round the world to see where we can supplement in His Majesty's Dominions the supply of cotton, to be paid for in sterling. Nyasaland is gradually increasing its supply of cotton, and there is no reason why the Government should not, I do not like to speak of subsidies, give some encouragement to growers of cotton in Nyasaland; I am sure it would pay us in the long run by freeing us of the low sterling value of our £ when buying American cotton. Egypt, too, has 1,000,000 more acres available for cotton, and that would assist us materially. That extra area can be put under cotton. Why is it not done? And tobacco. I had the privilege of serving on the Raw Materials Committee of the Imperial Institute, and 1 am certainly under the impression that a large quantity of tobacco produced in Nyasaland and Central and West Africa could be substituted for American tobacco. There is no reason why the public, by means of propaganda, should not have their attention drawn to tobacco grown in His Majesty's Dominions, so as to divert, if possible, our payments from America to places where payments can be made in sterling. All this will tend to reduce the pull of all-one-way on the American exchange. With regard to other raw materials, such as copper, I do not think we need bother about that, because on whatever we pay for it we can get a profit.
  Take the list of manufactured articles coming from America as showing how the price of foods which we buy from America is being increased by our purchasing in America things we ought to be able to do without, and, if se cannot do without, we ought to make here, and, if we cannot make here, we ought to buy from some of our Allies, such as France, Italy, or Belgium, so that we could get back, at any rate, our money which they owe us and, incidentally, to restore the exchanges between ourselves and those Allied Powers in Europe. I take the types of goods which have come in within the last fortnight in ships from the United States. There were im-
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  ported into Glasgow by the steamship "Vendelia," from New York, on the 4th of this month, things we ought to buy from places other than America, if we cannot produce them here. For example, that ship brought 18 barrels of whisky, 13 crates of baking powder, 66 cases of trunks. and suit cases, 2 cases of printing ink, 68 cases of curtain poles, 52 barrels of motor tyres, one case of golf balls—this trivial item is a very good instance of how we are aggravating our troubles by importing things of amusement which could just as well be made in this country as not—200cases of soap, 22 cases of gentlemen's. underwear, 116 boxes of saucepans. On the steamship "Wauconda," last Saturday, came 8 boxes of penholders, 63 cases of corset materials, 51 cases of shoes, Then there is an item—1,499 boxes of clothes' pegs, 4 cases of chocolate, 34 cases of toys, 6 cases of knives. On the "S. W. Miller" came 2,100 boxes of wire nails. I remember the trouble we had on the import Committee of the Board of Trade about nails, which could just as well be made in this country. Then there are twenty-five model motors, 133 cases of churns, sixty-nine packages of office cabinets, nineteen boxes of office indexes. On the "Haverford," 1,875 cases of choeolates and three cases of pianos. That is how we are wasting our money in buying things abroad which we ought to be able to make or, at any rate, buy from other markets than America. I use these facts as arguments about exchanges and not about trade policy.
  Now that freights are falling on the east Asiatic side—the China, trade—especially as we have more ships going into the water, the Government ought to take steps to get a good portion of its food from Australasia and cease, if possible, buying in America meat, wheat, butter and every kind of food, and perhaps tobacco. Australasia owes us money, and, to use a House of Commons expression, the buying of these things in Australasia would count two on a division, because what we pay Australasia for her wheat coming here would be a set-off against the credit she owes, and relieve the necessity for us to, buy United States exchange. The conclusions I have come to are these: that we must dismiss from our minds that our troubles are caused by the inflation of the currency and realise that they are brought about by the inflation of bank credit. This inflation of bank credit, I think, could be reduced by the reopening of the issue

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  of War Bonds, and probably by an attempt to obtain from the public subscriptions to what I have termed thirty-year annuities. 'The money so raised to be used to reduce floating debt. If increased production does not in the meantime meet the difficulties, we and the Government must do what we can to cease our purchases from America, and buy the goods, if we cannot produce them at home, in places where there is not a high dollar exchange; or an exchange which is not only against us but one which operates against us as a reward to us for being a customer.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: I am afraid -the condition of the House at this moment is fairly indicative of the popular interest taken in this very important question, and the fact that attention was going to he called to the currency question has apparently driven a very large number of Members into the country. I do not for a moment approach this question as a pundit of finance. I do not pose as a pundit of finance, but I am exceedingly interested both in the industrial stability of the country, and also in the social happiness of the people at large. It is from the latter point of view that I want to call attention to this matter this afternoon, and I exceedingly regret to see the entire emptiness of the benches opposite, for if there is one question in which people who pose as the friends of labour in this country ought to be interested, it is the condition of the currency. I am afraid that in the months which are immediately ahead of us we are likely to hoar a good deal of discussion as to the causes of industrial unrest, and I am quite certain that we shall be told that among those causes there is none more potent than the prevailing high prices at the present time. I think that is probably true. Then I am certain we shall be further told that those prices are to be attributed, in the first place, to general profiteering. I want to say, in passing, just one word on this point. I would be the very last person in the world to underestimate the evil social results of what is very loosely called profiteering. But even if I were able to find, as I have never been able to do, a- reasonably accurate definition of the term, I should still say that, as a factor in the problem of universally high prices, profiteering has now been proved to be relatively insignificant, I do not say absolutely, but relatively insignificant.
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  There is another point. We shall be told that, if it is not due to profiteering, it is due to the low productivity which is at present prevailing. [HON MEMBERS: Hear, hear!] I am very glad to hear that cheer, because I think it is. I am quite certain that we are not working at the present moment anything like as hard as we might work, but may I suggest that there is a good deal of excuse for that? After all, the great burden of the War, from which we have just emerged fell upon the people of this country in one way or another. It fell upon them industrially. It fell upon them in sacrifice of life. It fell exceptionally heavily upon the people of this country, and as a people we are to-day tired. I do not think that ought to be forgotten when these accusations of lack of productivity are bandied, as they are, to and fro. I have no doubt in my own mind that a large increase in the output would tend, perhaps more than anything else which is reasonably within our reach, to bring down prices, certainly a great deal more than any artificial limitation of profits—a great deal more. But when I am asked to attribute to under-production the whole result of high prices, I cannot refrain from asking the House to look at that very important Return which was issued two or three weeks ago, and which, as far as I know, has never publicly received attention in this House. I am referring to Command Paper 434—Statements of Production, Price Movements and Currency Expansion—in various countries. I am not certain, but my impression is that this White Paper has not so far been publicly noticed in this House. When I am asked to attribute the prevailing high prices to lack of production, I cannot help turning to this White Paper. The first tables there deal with this question of production, and they deal with the year 1919 in comparison with the five years' average before the War —that is to say, the years 1910 to 1914. Let us take the commodities as they are set forth in the White Paper, and I think the House will be surprised to learn how nearly the production of to-day approximates to the production of the five years previous to the War. In some cases it exceeds it. Take, in the first place, wheat. I am bound to say that the figures only refer to the countries for which particulars are available for the present year 1919. The average for the five years—this is in metric quintals—to 1914 was something over 540,000,000; for 1918 it was

  473
  586,000,000, and for 1919 it is 537,000,000. In other words, the production for the year 1919 is 99.3 per cent. of the production for the average of the five years previous to the War.
  5.0 P.M.
  I go on from wheat to rye. Again the figure refers only to the countries for which the figures are available for 1919. I find that the production for the present year, so far from being less than the quinquennial average before the War, exceeds it by about 23 per cent—123.6, as compared with the unit of 100. Take barley. This again is above the average—104. Oats are rather under—97.1. Maize is rather above—104.8. Linseed is very much down, for obvious reasons—53.1. Tobacco, which is United States production—128.9; and so on. Taking these figures of production as set forth in the Return which the Government were good enough to give us a few weeks ago, I am forced to the conclusion that one must look further than to mere underproduction for the causes of the prevailing prices to-day. If I go on from the first of these heads to that which immediately follows it, "Prices Movements," I am driven irresistibly to another and different conclusion. I suggest that the conclusion to be drawn from the figures which I am about to quote now is almost irresistible. That conclusion is that there is not only a connection between prices and currency, but a causal connection between the two. These figures are very remarkable. They have not in this House, so far at any rate, received the attention they deserve.
  These figures are for the summer of 1919. I will not go into the months; some relate to May, some to June, some July, some August; but they all refer to the summer of 1919. The expansion of the currency in the United States is only 173.0, as compared with the year 1913. Taking 1913 as a normal year, represented by 100, in the United States the currency of to-day stands at 173. Wholesale prices in the United States, again, compared with 1913, stand at '206; retail prices of food at 181. To pass from the United States—I omit many others—to the United Kingdom, I quote figures for August, 1919. The currency in August, 1919, as compared with 1913, is represented by 244 as against 100; wholesale prices are represented by 257.2 as against 100, and the retail prices of food by 217 as against 100. The House will observe that the increase in the currency, as compared with the United States, is in almost
  474
  precisely the same ratio as the increase both in the wholesale and retail prices of food. In the Netherlands the expansion of the currency is greater than our own. It stands at 270. There the retail prices of food stand at 203. In Sweden the expansion of the currency is 275, wholesale prices 339, and the retail prices of feed. 336. In France the expansion of the currency is 365, wholesale prices 330. In. Italy—the worst of all, of course—the expansion of the currency is represented by the figure 440, wholesale prices by 329, and retail prices of food by 281.
  I submit that these figures—for they are difficult to follow except on the White Paper—suggest, at any rate they do to my mind, a conclusion which is irresistible— namely, that there is a precise, or almost precise, ratio between the expansion of the currency and the general level of prices. One naturally asks, under these circumstances—and this is the question which I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will answer for us—what can. be done to remedy a state of things which is undoubtedly socially dangerous? In the first place, what has been done? There has been a definite increase, which one is very glad to recognise, in gold and the Bank of England note reserve against the currency Treasury notes. I am glad to sea from the papers of this morning that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is proposing for the next year to set a definite limit—I think in deference to the Report of Lord Cunliffe's Committee—upon the Treasury note issue. I am very glad to see that. What I want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be good enough to tell us, if he is going to reply, is, if it is possible to-day to set this definite limit to the Treasury; note issue, why was it not possible to do it before? We have been told again and again—it has been given in evidence to me sitting upstairs in Select Committee, certainly by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer— that it was impossible to set this limit. We were told the reason. This was because the note issue of this country is not a forced currency. We have been told over and over again across the floor of this House that, as a matter of fact, these Treasury notes were issued only in deference to the demand from the bankers; that they were not forced upon the country, but merely issued in deference to a demand. We learn now that what we have again and again been told was an impossible transaction is actually going to be effected

  475
  and a definite limit is for the year 1920 to be placed upon the Treasury note issue. We are told that for the coming year the note issue is going to be limited to the maximum of the fiduciary note issue for the present year. The House understands perfectly well that what is meant by that is an issue which is not covered by gold reserve or Bank of England notes reserve.
  I find that this maximum fiduciary note issue for the present year, 1919—and I am indebted for the figure to a very admirable article—one of many—which appears in the Money column of the "Times," which has always, so far as my own observation goes, proved itself singularly accurate and well-informed in regard to this very difficult and intricate problem. I find, according to that article, the maximum for the present year is something over £320,500,000. The exact figures are £320,608,298 10s. That is the maximum fiduciary note issue for the present year. As a matter of fact, on 10th December, Last week, I find that the total outstanding note issue was £343,295,645. You may deduct from that £28,500,000 for the gold reserve, and a further £3,100,000 for Bank of England note reserve, making a total to be deducted of £31,600,000. Deduct that from the total of the outstanding issue, and you get an outstanding issue to-day—or on 10th December—a fiduciary note issue of £311,692,645. In other words, you are going to take as your legal maximum for 1920 an amount which is about £9,000,000 in excess of the issue as it stands to-day. I respectfully put the point to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, at any rate, at the very lowest, it would not have been possible for him, instead of taking the maximum fiduciary issue, to have taken the minimum fiduciary issue, and to have said that for 1920 the maximum should not exceed the minimum of the present year? That seems to me, and to others interested in what I may call a sound and sane currency, to be a very modest request. I think we might have asked for a good deal more. I would like to know why we ought not, at any rate, to do that, I do not want to weary the House by a subject which is exceedingly intricate. I want to conclude by very earnestly assuring the House that this question, which I venture to bring before hon Members briefly this afternoon—the relation between currency and prices—is not, as many people suppose, merely an academic issue, but is an issue of vital im-
  476
  portance to our industrial and commercial future; and what, for the moment., I am even more concerned about, an issue of vital importance to industrial peace and social contentment at home.
  Lieut.-Commander HILTON YOUNG: It was said by Walter Bagehot that nobody would shed tears at the funeral of an economist. If that is so, the funeral of a student of currency problems must be an occasion of positive hilarity I wish, however, to escape from that category lay, making a few observations for the purpose of showing that it is possible to lay a great deal too much stress upon the question of currency in connection with our financial troubles. I do not go so far as the hon. Member behind me in belittling the importance of these matters, but I suggest that currency difficulties are a branch of a much larger difficulty, that of credit. I believe there is a tendency in the mind of even the most instructed inquirer to think that it is possible to arrive at mitigation or remedy for our economic troubles by tinkering with the currency. I believe that quite the reverse is the truth of the case. You will find the idea I refer to in many different places. You will even find it in that most valuable Report, the Cunliffe Report. Matters there are approached from the point of view of the banker, which the Committee naturally took—from the point of view of the currency rather than from that of credit. As the hon. Member behind me (Mr. A. M. Samuel) so well put it, the currency question must be envisaged as a secondary consequence of the great credit question.
  By our war finance we have forced up credit and we have thereby forced up currency. To see that this is so, it is necessary only to consider the way in which Bradburys get out on to the market. There is now only one way. Bradburys go to the Joint Stock Banks through the Bank of England. Within the limits of its deposits at the Bank of England any Joint Stock Bank can obtain thence any amount of Bradburys, by paying for them with a cheque drawn against its deposit there. Why do the Joint Stock Banks go there for Bradburys? To have more currency in order to deal with two things, rising prices and what follows them, rising wages. It is the need for currency for circulation that causes the outflow of paper money. What is it that causes the rise in prices and wages? What else but the increase in bank deposits, which owing

  477
  to our cheque system is also the increase in the purchasing power of the country. By those two steps the inflation of paper currency is the inevitable consequence of the increase in bankers' deposits, which is the inflation of credit. There is another circumstance which may be mentioned in this connection. As bankers' deposits increase, bankers naturally desire a larger amount of cash in hand on their premises. I know this is a matter they do not want to lay too much emphasis upon, because it relates to some of the more delicate circumstances of banking which are kept by bankers in the background. The increase and outflow of paper money is thus the natural and inevitable consequence of the inflation of credit. It is not only inevitable but it is expedient. If there is a great increase in credit you must have an increase of currency, and what follows from that? I think it is quite clear that it follows that, if the cause of inflation of currency is inflation of credit, the only way to deflate currency is to deflate credit, and I will go farther and say that to try and deflate credit by a swift and arbitrary deflation of currency would be disastrous. You could do it, no doubt. By an immediate reduction of currency effected by some such expedient as the imposition of a high standard of reserve undoubtedly you could deflate credit, but the process must necessarily be spasmodic and even catastrophic. The first immediate effect of doing so would be that you would produce a dangerous discrepancy between the credit of tire country and the proportion of reserves, and it is to be feared that that would effect the reduction of credit by widespread failures and insolvency. It does not necessarily follow that immediate efforts to limiting the further output of paper currency are unwholesome or disadvantageous. Although it may be wrong to try and reduce currency swiftly or by direct action below the necessary proportion in relation to our inflated credit, yet on the contrary it may be, and indeed obviously is, perfectly Tight to take such measures as will prevent the inflation of the currency further in excess of what is required by our inflated credit.
  The recent adoption of the admirable provision by which further issues of Bradburys are covered by Bank of England notes, and so indirectly by gold, is obviously sound and must commend itself to practical men. Whether the new limitation of confining this year's legal maximum to last year's actual maximum of
  478
  currency notes is advantageous is more open to doubt, because is it not the experience of everybody that by stating a maximum the tendency is to encourage those affected to look upon that maximum as something which they are always entitled to attain. The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) led us through what seemed to me the right course about the currency argument up to the last fence. But the last fence he did not take in such a courageous style as he approached it, because he made a suggestion which economists must always hear with certain qualms, a suggestion of new forms of borrowing. The remedy for the evils of inflation is the cessation of Government borrowings.
  Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: I meant that the money should be raised by such methods as commended themselves to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to increase the amount of borrowings. It is a dangerous thing to increase the Debt, and I am totally against it.
  Lieut.-Commander YOUNG: I accept the hon. Member's correction. But if it is necessary to stop a flow, it is, perhaps, incautious to open new channels while you are engaged in stopping the old. A deflation of currency may be expected to follow by natural and normal steps a reduction of the inflation of credit. The measures required for the deflation of credit are well known. There is only one way, and that is to stop and reverse those processes by which it was inflated. Raise revenue until it covers more of the gap between income and expenditure, stop borrowing as soon as may be, and in particular stop those measures of borrowing by the creation of a floating debt which most directly tend to bring into existence fresh credit which is not to be represented by any real increase of wealth. Those are the well-known remedies, and there is none other, for the evils of inflated currency or credit.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. A. Chamberlain): Those Members of the House who heard the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend on the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, and again to-day, will recognise that in him we have a real acquisition and a real assistance in the consideration of the very grave and definite financial problems with which we are confronted. I find myself in such happy agreement with the hon. and gallant Gentleman in the larger

  479
  portion of the ground he covered that I should almost be content to leave the defence of the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his hands, and, were such a thing possible, riot to have intervened in this Debate. With regard to the earlier speech, I could not express as complete agreement in so far as I understood it, which perhaps was not entirely. I could not help feeling how difficult it is for simple men like myself to agree when the doctors disagree. I am constantly adjured to take into consultation real experts, and they say, "Why not have a committee of city men to advise you?" Here we have a Committee of bankers and business men, with a trained economist, and at once the doctors explain that they differ from the recommendations of the Report. The hon. Member for Farnham found a good deal of fault with the Committee's Report, I am not sure altogether justly. I agree with the argument of the hon. and gallant Member who spoke last that in the main the currency inflation is but the result of credit inflation, and you must effectively deal with currency inflation. The hon. Member for Farnham said he thought the Committee and Members of the House were much too anxious about the Ways and Means advances and Treasury Bills.
  Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: I did not mean that. I said that I thought we were too impatient about repaying this floating debt in a hurry, and that I saw great danger in the large amount of the Ways and Means advances and Treasury Bills. We feel that much harm can be done by unduly hastening the repayment of them, although they must be repaid as soon as possible.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The moment you recognise that the root difficulty is in credit, that cannot be dealt with by any abrupt method or violent deflation of credit. A violent deduction of credit would produce disastrous consequences, not merely to the State, in the balance of revenue and expenditure, but to the general economic structure of the society in which we live. It would produce a sudden fall in wages, and unbalance the Budget at the very moment when we hope to arrive at a proper balance of it. The process must be gradual. Assuming that it is in our power to go as far as we wish, it must be governed by circumstances as
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  they develop, and must be subject to revision from time to time as we proceed, and see the effects that are poduced by the different steps that we take. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford was surprised that the Government should now have taken a step in accordance with the recommendations contained in the Financial Report of the Currency Committee. I think it would have been quite unsafe at an earlier period of this issue to fix a maximum issue for the currency notes in another year. I think now and the Currency Committee thought that the time has come when such a limit might reasonably and safely be fixed. My hon. and gallant Friend suggested that there is great danger in fixing the maximum, lest it should become the minimum, but I hope it will not be so. At any rate, as far as I am concerned, I shall treat it not as a figure which we must go to as nearly as we can, but as a figure which we will keep as much below as we can.
  The hon. and gallant Member will realise that to attempt to forecast what the course of events will be next year, or to fix more definitely than I have done our course of action, would be highly rash on my part. Recognising that credit inflation is the real problem with which we have to deal, let me say in passing that I cannot follow my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford in the views which lie and others have drawn from the Command Paper which embodies figures that were asked for by Lord d'Abernon in another place. So I think my hon. Friend attaches too much importance to figures which do not represent the world, but only a portion of the world. What is the good of figures for cereal production which take no account of the deficiency of Germany and of Austria-Hungary or of the absence of Russia as a source of supply?
  Mr. MARRIOTT: Those figures only related to the other countries.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly; my hon. Friend expressly stated that, but I was afraid that, although he saw the danger, he had not avoided it. That is a matter the exact importance of which I do not know, but about which it is almost certainly possible to argue ad infinitum. After studying that paper carefully, I came to the conclusion that, as far as I was concerned, I should not like to base any conclusion whatever on statistical tables of that kind.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: I only instanced those figures in support of conclusions which I derived from other facts.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: With the matter of world prices, shortage of production has more to do than my hon. Friend supposes. A very small shortage is sufficient to account for a very large increase in price, especially in a market which is rising from other causes—from increased cost of labour and of production throughout. I think it would be very rash to suppose, even if, by a wave of the magician's wand, we could bring ourselves back to prewar conditions of currency, that we should find pre-war conditions prevailing in other respects. I do not think that is possible, and I do not think it is desirable. If you are to have the general rise in the conditions of living among the manual workers of the world which everyone desires to see, you will not get back to the old prices unless new methods of production compensate for the increased cost of the labour employed. There are two remedies which we can apply for the present condition of things, and which we ought to apply as largely as we can. One is undoubtedly increased production, and without that no other remedy will suffice. That may be helped or may be hindered by the Government, and you will say the Government helps or hinders it according as you are disposed to support the Government or not. On the other hand, the conditions will no doubt be acted upon directly if we cease to borrow. To cease to borrow in order to balance the income and expenditure of the year is the first duty that I set before me. Having ceased to borrow new money for that purpose, I then want, as soon as possible, to make a beginning with the repayment of old debt—the repayment in the first place, up to a reasonable amount, of the floating debt. [An HON. MEMBER: "Convert it !"] What I am dealing with now is repayment. Conversion would come in the main after repayment has been begun, at any rate when new borrowing has been stopped. By conversion my hon. Friend, of course, means the funding of short-dated securities, or at any rate the con version of those short-dated securities into securities with a much longer period to run. It is most desirable to bring the Ways and Means advances back, as the Currency Committee recommend, to their own purpose, and- merely to tide over a
  482
  few weeks' difference between revenue and expenditure; and also to reduce the very large amount of Treasury Bills which will be outstanding by the close of this ear. The amount outstanding is already large and it may increase in the next few months. To do those two things is very desirable, and it is desirable to do them in both ways—both by paying off debt altogether and by funding as much as we can of that which remains. I do not think it would be a wise financial operation, as circumstances are at present, for me to attempt a funding loan. I do not think the money for a funding loan would be forthcoming until this House, by co-operation, has shown that we are in a position to pay our way, that borrowing to balance revenue and expenditure has ceased, and that we are really going to begin the actual repayment of debt, I do not know that I can add more on our insular position. The hon. Member who opened the Debate roamed over a wide field, and 1 have a little difficulty in following his purpose and his recommendations. He invited me to become a super-Controller of Coal and a super-Minister of Shipping. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Marriott) observed that he was quite confident that none of us were working anything like as hard as we could. I hope he will except the Minister from that generalisation.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: And Members of the House of Commons.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am quite ready to except Members of the House of Commons, provided that they will allow that, at any rate, Ministers are working about as hard as they can. I am not anxious, in addition to my own office, to take over the control of coal and the duties of the Minister of Shipping, nor did I exactly understand for what purpose I was to do it. I think my hon. Friend was under the impression that shipping was not now returning us a sufficient sum in invisible exports. If that sum can be still further increased, all of us would be gratified, but at least let my hon. Friend realise that the invisible exports provided by shipping at the present time are probably bigger than at any time in our past history. Then, not content with asking me to take over the duties of two other Departments, he invited me to undertake the duties of Finance Minister to the United States of America, the Republics of Southern America, and most of the neutral Powers

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  of Europe. In so far as he meant thereby to imply that the larger world problem of which he spoke is one which cannot be grappled with or solved by any individual nation, I am heartily in agreement with him. In so far as he meant to imply that the remedy for the condition of that large portion of Europe in which for the time being credit is non-existent, and the supplies, whether of food or of raw material, which are necessary for the sustenance of the people or for the restarting of industry are riot obtainable—in so far as he meant to imply that the remedy for that state of things is an international remedy, I agree. This country, with its limited resources, strained as they have been by the immense financial sacrifices that we have made—not on our own account hut largely on account of our Allies—cannot by itself sustain the provision of that remedy, nor can it be sustained alone by any one of the Entente or Associated Powers.
  It is a world problem. It is to the interest of the commercial nations of the world to help in securing a settlement, and if it is to be successfully dealt with it can only be by international effort on a scale in which the largest share must necessarily be taken by those who have the largest means. They are not to be found among the nations who have fought from the first day of the War to the end. They must be looked for in America and among the neutral Powers who have suffered much less than those who were belligerents throughout. When the hon. Member suggested it was my duty to lecture or coerce the Finance Ministers of foreign Governments, I really think he hardly appreciated the delicacy of international negotiation. He did not realise that if I followed his advice it would not be likely to promote a happy settlement of a very difficult question. We are the creditors of some Powers, and we are the debtors of others, but I fear that his proposal on this subject would not be calculated to result satisfactorily. The policy of the Government in respect of this subject is that we are quite ready to join with America and our Allies in any settlement of inter-Allied indebtedness on general principles applicable to all; we are willing to co-operate with them irk working for the restoraton of credit, and therefore for the restoration of the commercial and economic life not of Austria alone but of Europe, and if such a scheme can be de
  484
  vised, and I think it can, then we will cooperate with them each according to their means.
  I hope I have dealt with the various questions which have been raised in the course of the Debate. It may be complained by hon. Members that I have not added to the knowledge that they possess. But I do not think that anything could be added to our knowledge. We have to repeat things which are commonplace until we really can act upon them. There are no sudden changes to be made, no expedients of which the world has never heard which will set this state of things right. A long, continuous, and steady course of action can alone repair the damages of five years of war. We can look back to the past, perhaps, and draw comfort from it. Oar burdens seem to us very heavy, and some people are inclined to ask how we are to bear them. But are they heavier than the burdens which fell upon our ancestors at the close of the Napoleonic Wars? Of course, great sacrifices are always demanded from the generation that immediately follows a war, but I believe that in this case, as in previous cases, as we grapple with our difficulties they will be found to grow less, and the real remedy will be not by wild expedients in taxation, not by sudden and ill-considered measures to cure all our difficulties in an instant, but by that growth of production and expansion of wealth which in other times and in similar circumstances in the past has rendered a burden that seemed almost intolerable at the time light and easy to bear.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: The close of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, if I may venture respectfully to say so, was encouraging to this country. At the same time, I am not quite sure whether he was accurate when he said that there was the same general rise in the cost of living at the end of the Napoleonic Wars as now. There was, of course, a considerable rise in the cost of living, but I am not quite sure that it was to the same extent as now. However, I am not going to enter into the currency question. To my mind, the essential thing is that the people of this country should know what to expect. If it be really true that there is little to anticipate, from the point of view of lower prices, from any change in our currency, let us face that fact and say so to the country. Let us tell the people that prices will remain substantially as they are. If it

  485
  be true, let us have it stated plainly. I know there are people who think the prices may be brought down by an increase of production. I have the greatest doubt whether that can be done when you have a general rise in the level of prices. No doubt, in reference to a particular article, you may bring prices down by an increased output, but where there is a general rise of prices involving an increase in the cost of production I doubt very much whether an increased production will materially lower prices. However, I may be wrong as to that.

  IMPERIAL WAR GRAVES COMMISSION.
  I rose really to call attention to quite a different subject—one which undoubtedly excites a very great deal of painful interest, and that is the administration of the Imperial War Graves Commission, It is a difficult and painful subject to discuss, and I only raise it because I am quite convinced that, no doubt unintentionally, the policy adopted by the Imperial War Graves Commission is inflicting great pain and suffering on those who really have a just claim on the consideration of this House, a result which, I am sure, is quite unjustifiable. I have no desire to make a general attack on the Commission. Its position is an exceptionally difficult one. The first portion of the work began under General Fabian Ware, and I think very few bodies worked better or did better work than the original Graves Commission, by whatever name it was known. I have no doubt that the work which was clone by it in the matter of identification of graves, and so on, was of the highest possible importance, and it was, as I happen to know, most deeply appreciated by many of the relatives. I do not think, indeed, that anyone had any complaint to make of the way in which the work was done. But, unfortunately, at some period in this year the thing was transformed into a much more elaborate and much more official Commission, on which were placed a number of excellent persons, who no doubt had every right to be there, in addition to technical advisers, military and otherwise. I do not think it operated quite in this form until after the War, but it then became more formal and a more official body, and approached the subject from a different point of view—a far more official and bureaucratic point of view. I cannot help thinking that the result was disastrous. We had a complete change of attitude on this question,
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  and the matter has now assumed the aspect—I hesitate to use strong language, but I really can think of no other words—of heartless official action, and is inflicting, as I know in fact to be beyond all controversy, the greatest possible pain on a very great number of relatives of those who have fallen. I have seen letter after letter on the subject, and I will quote some to the House before I sit down.
  6.0 P.M.
  I want to present two views which may be taken on this subject. You may regard a memorial to the dead as an impersonal national memorial. That is perfectly right and perfectly legitimate. All over the country it is popular to erect monuments—call them what you may—which most readily express the general national feeling, and it may be sectional feeling as well, towards a group of those who have given their lives for their country. Then, in addition to that, there is a quite different kind of memorial. There is the memorial to the individual who has fallen. Normally we know it is an expression by those who survive of some of their deepest feelings—of their personal loss—and it does excite, and always has done, most profound emotion. The graves of the dead have always been throughout history one of the centres of emotional writings of the most touching kind, and our literature is full of references to that subject. I have no doubt hon. Members will entirely agree to that proposition, but if they require any confirmation of it they will recollect the bitter fights—bitter because they arouse deep feelings—over the question of the guardianship of the burial grounds, and things of that kind. Anything which touches the burial of the dead is always a subject that cannot help exciting the deepest possible feeling. If, you have these two things before you, the impersonal view of a general memorial recording great acts of heriosm, and the personal memorial to the individuals who have fallen and whose death has been a grievous loss and a terrible sorrow to those who remain, I think the House will see immediately there are two ways of regarding the memorials put up to the individual soldiers in France. To my mind, it is the second that attention should be fixed on. It is not the proper function of a number of gravestones erected to individuals to commemorate the national side of it so much as the actual personal loss, and, in point of fact, you have really to consider it from

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  the point of view of this country to see how strongly that would be felt. It applies equally to both officers and men. Quite as strong feelings exist about the men as about the officers. No question of class arises at all. If you proposed that an identical sealed pattern tombstone should be put up to the commemoration of all those soldiers and officers who died in hospital and were buried in cemeteries here you would have a revolution. No one would tolerate it for a moment. I see no difference in principle when you get to France. There are difficulties of practical execution which ought to be met, but, in principle, the same thing ought to prevail. The memorial to the individual and the expression of the great sorrow and grief which his relatives have suffered through his loss ought to be the primary aspect of it. I am forced to say that there are at least three grave evils which are alleged against the operation of the War Graves Commission, all of which I think proceed because they regarded the thing front a too bureaucratic and official point of view, and have lost sight of the individual and personal point of view. In the first place, I have read a number of letters which complain bitterly of the actual neglect of existing graves. I will read one or two of these complaints:
  "At Le Cateau, where the Germans buried all the English on one side, the Germans on the other, nothing could be nicer, and I live in dread lest the War Graves Commission may want to disturb it and remove the English."
  Here is another:
  "I have recently returned from visiting the British military cemetery at such-and-such a place, and I was appalled at the state of things there. The graves and paths are one tangled mass of weeds and tall rank grass, the tiny crosses are black and falling sideways in many cases and barely standing. The cemetery is a heart-breaking wilderness of neglect. The few American and French graves have been looked after, but the greater part of our British loved one's graves are a crying disgrace to our own country, especially so when one knows that need not be."
  Another letter, written in. October this year, says:
  "The condition of these cemeteries was disgraceful."
  I have no doubt I could find a number of other quotations. That is one thing. I quite admit that that must and will be treated by the House with great leniency, because I admit the enormous size of the problem which has to be dealt with, and I merely call attention to it because I think the Imperial War Graves Commis-
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  sion might well have devoted their principal energy to solving that instead of harrowing people's feelings.
  The second great grievance I have to mention is that in a number of cases the bodies and the memorials have been removed and placed elsewhere. I am sure that is done even in cases where they are buried in existing French cemeteries. I cannot understand why it should be done. Whether it is done in all cases I do not know, but certainly this kind of case is complained of. Here is a letter on the subject:
  "I am particularly interested because of my son's grave, which is near the village of Doullens. Here lie about a thousand bodies of men who fell in the Air Service. Some of these have crosses made out of aeroplane propellers, parts of aeroplanes, and in the case of my son a cross of iron made out of a smashed motor lorry and an aeroplane with the centre made in brass from a shell case fired on the field, there exists a permanent memorial. It was made by his brother officers as a personal tribute. It will last for generations. It will be difficult to conceive of a simpler or more durable grave mark, and there are many others of which I can say the same."
  In another case there is an oak cross.
  "It was only after an embittered correspondence with the Commission, in which I described such an act as an insult to the honoured dead, that they undertook not to remove the cross until they communicated further-with me."
  All that seems to me a complete misapprehension of the real substance of the difficulties they have to deal with. The most important is the attempt to enforce on everyone a particular pattern of tombstone. I cannot conceive how it can have entered the mind of men that that could be a really appropriate way of commemorating an individual's death. I only read this letter to show the deep feeling which has, in fact, been excited:
  "When my boy was killed I was touched by the action of the Craves Commission, and the sympathetic way they dealt with my request for particulars, and was very grateful to them for all the trouble they took, but this handing over the cemeteries to a commission of architects, antiquarians and Government officials I resent very much."
  Here is another in September this year:
  "I do not know how convicts are buried at Dartmoor, but I should think like that."
  Again:
  "It is very hard that we are not to be allowed our own choice. I feel very deeply that this might be granted to us with a clause that no memorial must be erected above a certain sum."
  Again:
  "We wish most strongly to put up our own memorials to our two dear suns if possible."
  Again:
  "I think we all ought to be given the power or the chance of putting up something not more than 3 feet high or to lay down a granite or marble cross if we wish. The very poor are accustomed to put up something in memory of their dead."
  Again:
  "So many people have said to me that the originally proposed headstones in rows would be like nothing so much as a dog's cemetery, and unpleasant though the comparison is it is apposite."
  That is a selection I have taken from a large number of letters, and the number of letters I saw were themselves a selection from a still larger number. I do not think any Government has a right to inflict pain of that kind unless there is some overmastering reason why they should do so. What is the reason? There are two. There is a certain number of people who have what they consider an artistic conception of a graveyard and desire to have something which they can design and will do credit to them as the authors of these graveyards, and no doubt a beautiful object in itself. I protest against that. It really is not right to play with people's feelings in order to produce an artistic effect. There is nothing so changeable as artistic opinion. A thing that is thought beautiful in one generation is thought hideous in the next, and a thing that we may do under the advice of some skilled architect in the cemeteries in France is almost certain to be condemned by the generation that comes after them. It seems to me almost useless to put that forward as a reason for the action that is being taken. There are two other grounds. There is the military ground of liking to have a lot of rows, I suppose in likeness to a regiment of soldiers and a desire to have the thing properly drilled. I have no sympathy with that at all. That is not the proper attitude to approach this question. There is, lastly, the ground, which I have heard my right hon. Friend refer to, which seems to me an entire misapprehension. He says everyone ought to be treated equally. I desire that they should all be treated equally. No one wishes that a. different kind of monument should be erected by the State to an officer and to a man. Let the contribution of the State be the same in every case. That is only right and proper. Why on earth, within certain limits which are imposed by the necessities of the case, should not the relatives be allowed to put up the monument which best expresses
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  their grief. I know that space is limited, and the number of bodies unhappily is very great. I should have no objection to a rule that any monument should not exceed a certain size. I should not myself object to saying that it should not exceed, even with the Government contribution, a certain expense. What I protest against is that the Government should say: "You are to have a round pedestal and nothing else." There are many who attach the greatest possible importance to the symbols on these graves. I know many are passionately desirous to erect a cross. That may seem perfectly extravagant to the official mind, but it is felt deeply and it is no use telling people something else will do just as well. These things touch the very depths of emotion, and cannot be treated officially and bureaucratically at all. I am told precisely the same policy is being pursued in Palestine, where there is no question of size—immense space is open—merely from bureaucratic tyranny and the desire to force on everyone what the bureaucratic mind thinks is most fitting. If the Government does not give directions to the War Graves Commission to consider primarily the feelings of the relatives, they are going to inflict an amount of hardship and grief on those who ought to be the special care of this House, which it is impossible to exaggerate. I hope the Government will see fit to give the matter very serious and sympathetic consideration.
  Captain BROWN: I am sorry to find myself in disagreement with the Noble Lord, but I feel that he has exaggerated the claims of the parents and minimised the claims of the State. I do not wish to give pain to any parent, but surely we might consider a little bit what possibly the soldiers themselves would have thought, supposing one could ask them what they would like done to their mortal remains. It seems to me a reasonable supposition that many of these soldiers, if they had been asked, would have said, "We would like to lie with those who fought and died beside us." Therefore, while the Noble. Lord rather cast ridicule at the lines of graves there is a great deal of sentiment about it, to know that these men are lying together as they fell in battle, and that their graves are uniform, like the regiments to which they belonged.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: They have been moved.
  Captain BROWN: The hon. and gallant Member for Hull says that they have all been moved.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Some of them.
  Captain BROWN: I quite agree that it was impossible to leave them exactly where they lay in the trenches. Subject to that in these large cemeteries it was the only possible way of dealing with the question. If you are going to allow every parent to have the right to put up whatever form of cross or tombstone they want, where are you going to stop? You are bound by limitations of space, and what sort of tombstones they are going to erect. All tastes are not alike, and stones put up by some people would perhaps be very distasteful to the relatives of some of the men lying near by. If you are going to allow that, why not carry the thing further and say that the parents can have the bodies of these soldiers? I can testify that there are many people who claim that it is their absolute right to have the bodies of their own sons or other relatives brought home and buried in their own churchyards.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Why not?
  Captain BROWN: The main governing reason is transport.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Is it impossible?
  Captain BROWN: For many years we cannot consider bringing back the bodies, and the difficulties of transport which apply to the bodies will be equally great as applied to the tombstones. Even if the Government did allow it, it would be many years before the transport could be found to take over the private tombstones. There is another aspect. of this question. I have seen many graveyards, some I have seen have not impressed me very much. Those of the Franco-Prussian war are the most desolate graveyards that anyone could see. On the other hand, I have seen one graveyard in India which I consider to be one of the most sacred memorials I have ever seen. It was at Cawnpore. I have never seen anything so expressive as a national graveyard. If you are to allow variety now right through the graveyards, how are you going to build and organise a national memorial in these graveyards in the future? All these varieties of crosses and private tombstones will have to be taken away and put on the scrapheap or broken up. Under the present pro-
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  posal the tombstones with their records will form the wall which will surround the graveyard of the future. Those who lie there do not belong to this generation only. We have to see that they lie there as a memorial to future generations, and it is of the utmost importance that we should so regulate and plan these graveyards that., while being beautiful now, they will be far more solemn and wonderful sights to those of our children who come afterwards.
  Major COHEN: I want to throw any little weight I have on the side of the hon. Member who has just spoken. My desire is to give the point of view of a man who has been out there and the point of view of the men who lie there now. We did not think very much about death when we were out there, but we did think a great deal of comradeship, and I cannot imagine that any man who is now lying out there would like to think that because possibly his friends or relatives had more money than others they were able to erect a better or more magnificent tombstone over his remains than poorer people would be able to put over their sons. I have a brother who died out there, who in his lifetime always looked after his men. That was his chief effort, and the same remark applies to every other officer and non-commisioned officer out there. I know that he thought, and the others would think, that there could be no higher memorial given them, now they are dead, than that they should have the same tombstones as everyone else who fought and fell out there.
  Major MOLSON: I should like very strongly to endorse the views of the Noble Lord. There is a great deal of misunderstanding from the point of view of the last two speakers. I stand here as a parent interested in this question, and I have seen letters from mothers on this subject who desire not to erect any gorgeous tombstone over the remains of their sons, but that they might be allowed to have a little individual choice and, in a great many cases, to erect a cross which, I understand, has been refused by the War Office. I appreciate very much the point of view of the Government that they are going to take care of these graveyards in the future. That is perfectly right. I also understand from direct correspondence that the Government are removing the bodies that are buried in cemeteries of less than fifty and collecting them in

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  larger cemeteries. That will probably meet the difficulties of the last two speakers. These bodies will be collected into a larger graveyard and taken care of by the Government. At the same time, it is an unnecessary act of bureaucracy and military control to interfere with parents putting small tombstones, which will be perfectly proper, over the remains of officers or privates. There is no question of a great deal of money being spent on the tombstones. I understand, however, that there has been a direct refusal to allow anything but a mere tablet. There are many people who have strong religious feelings and who wish to put up a cross. The reason given against the erection of crosses is that they would not last so long as a tombstone. A very simple granite cross will last a great many years, and I do not think it is a wise act of the War Office to oppose the erection of a cross provided that there are suitable inscriptions, and that not too much money is spent upon them, thereby providing against one tombstone being grander than another. I hope the War Office will see their way not to interfere with parents who wish to show some slight mark of respect to their lost relatives. To make it a matter of taste is a very great mistake. We have appreciated very much in our country churchyards, the placing of a few flowers upon the graves, or the placing on the grave of some little remembrance by the parents, although these tokens of remembrance may not be as artistic as we would like. That is not the object of any token of remembrance on a tombstone. I hope that the War Office will see their way to remove these unnecessary restrictions on parents and relatives of those who have given their dear ones.
  Sir H. NIELD: It is a pity that this subject has been brought up, but it is better that it should be discussed here than in the columns of the "Times." Those who take a passionate interest in a small plot of land in France, and those who have taken the trouble, as I have, to go out and search and to see the work actually in progress, can have nothing but admiration for the way in which those who are doing that work are treating the dead. In the particular case to which I am referring the loss had taken place on a field of battle which had been swept again and again. It was swept again
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  in March, 1918, and again in the retreat of the enemy in July. By last June the whole of that field had been cleared of British bodies, isolated burials, many of them in shell-holes and other places, and the bodies had been collected and buried in a beautiful little cemetery which had been formed on the side of the main road close by. The cemetery commanded views which would be unparalleled in France when that devastated country comes back to its own again. I gratefully recognise with reverence all the care which was being taken by the men engaged in this work. No order of lay brethren attached to any religious house could do their work more thoroughly and more carefully. The men worked behind high screens which were erected so that no persons through mere curiosity could see what was going on. Then they arranged the plots as nearly as possible together, which they were bound to do.
  With regard to the question of crosses, I can answer that criticism by saying that the graves are so narrow that it is almost impossible to have anything like diversity of monuments. Take the British graveyard to which I have referred; the winter frosts sweeping over it would crack and break any marble tombstones put up. The last speaker said something about granite, but it is almost impossible that you can get granite sufficiently small to suit the little patch of ground allotted to each grave. As at present arranged these graves leave nothing to be desired in the manner in which they are set up and the care with which they are plotted. Nothing further can be desired to complete what the average Englishman would wish. The Noble Lord spoke of the absence of symbols to which I agree many people are passionately attached. I yield to nobody in my desire to illustrate our cemeteries and burying places by the symbol of the Cross. But the Cross is permitted to be inscribed on the stone, and we must bear in mind that it is absolutely necessary, if we are going to maintain those graveyards in years to come when this War has faded into the past, that we must have them arranged in such a form that they may be kept in order with the least possible difficulty, and the present arrangement of having a uniform shape for the monuments apart from what is on them seems to me desirable, and I believe that in the end it will justify the choice which has been made.
  Sir H. CRAIK: I fully admit the strength of the arguments adduced by the hon. and learned Member, and also the moderation and good sense with which he has urged them. We certainly, who are protesting against this over monotony, would not speak in that sense if it implied any lack of full appreciation of the tender care and reverence which have been shown by those in charge of these graveyards. Certainly I would not be speaking in that sense if it meant that this power of choice involved any disagreeable mark or division between people of different degrees of wealth and station, or if tended, as was hinted in the interesting speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Liverpool, to separate those united in the comradeship of death. There must be limitations in regard to cost, and there must be limitations as regards the size of the monument, but we believe that much greater variety should be permitted in view of the desire of those who have lost those dear to them. We may have all our own views on these matters. Personally, I do not attach as much importance as some do, and I say it with all humility, to those outward memorials. I have seen, what many of us I am sure have seen, and what is perhaps the most impressive of funeral ceremonies, a burial at sea, where we commit our brother not to a grave dug by human hands, but to the bosom of the illimitable ocean where in place of the grass turf there will be the never-ending ripple of the waves, and where in place of monument there will be only the sentinel ship of the eternal stars. But whatever our opinion on the matter is, it all sinks into insignificance before the one supreme duty which is to attend, first of all, to the wishes of those who have been bereaved, and I would protest in their names against this too rigid control.
  Many of us are beginning to kick and goad against various types of this over-control. This is only one specimen of it. We are controlled from the time we are born to the time we die, from the time we get up until the time we go to bed, from the rising of the lark to the couching of the lamb. In reference to everything which we wish we are told by some Ministerial authority that it cannot be done. If there is one thing which is becoming more irksome than another it is the control not of a responsible Minister but of some Committee or Commission which he appoints under him, and which has no such responsibility. That Committee entrenches itself
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  behind the authority of the Minister, and from that secure shelter plays the tyrant. It is impossible for the Minister to look into all that it does—he has far too much to do—or to weigh all its decisions. But these Committees have neither salaries to be docked nor souls to be saved (or otherwise), nor bodies to be kicked. They are independent of us here, and they act in the spirit of that independence. I know that the Secretary of State has a full desire to meet the wishes of the various individuals who are concerned, and I ask him to exercise his judgment, which I am sure is sympathetic.
  Is it monotony which will best express the feelings of the nation? What is the beauty of our churchyards? Is it that they are monotonous? Is it that they are drilled in a certain way? Are we to drill these churchyards in a certain way according to the pattern of the military martinet who wishes everything to be reduced to regularity in a graveyard? How far is this monotony to go on? Are we to prescribe the sort of flowers that are to be laid on the tombstones? Is everyone to be forced to have the same colour? No. We have one duty, and what we must do is, within all reasonable limitations which we are ready to observe, to give as much freedom as possible to the individual sentiment of the bereaved, that sentiment which prompts them to desire that the memory of their lost ones should be linked with the symbol of their religious faith.
  Colonel LAMBERT WARD: I desire to say a few words in support of what was said by the Noble Lord the Member for the Hitchin Division. I join with him in expressing the hope that the War Office may see its way to allow a little more latitude than it is allowing with regard to some alteration in the stereotyped form of memorial which is now being placed over the grave of every soldier who died for his country. I feel that I have a right to say a few words on this subject, because it was my painful duty to read the burial service over, unfortunately, a very large number of my comrades who were killed in action. I am speaking of the days before a padre was attached to every battalion. In those days we only had one for every brigade, and they rightly felt it to be their duty to give their time to attending the sick, wounded, and dying rather than to burying those who had passed beyond human aid. Therefore it fell to my commanding officer and myself—I was second in com-

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  mand in those days—to perform the last rites over our men, and we made it a point that none of our men should be buried without, at any rate, a few words of prayer being said over him, and I know that many bereaved parents have told me that they would like a memorial which is more symbolic of the faith in which their children died placed over their beloved dead.
  I know that this subject is one which bristles with difficulties. If we once start allowing latitude, it will be very difficult to know how far we may go. In addition to that, the steps which the War Office have taken in that direction hitherto do not give much encouragement to me to hope for better things. I think I am right in saying that quite recently they have decided to allow an inscription chosen by the parents or next-of-kin to be inscribed on a tombstone. That inscription was conveyed to the next-of-kin in what I think I may describe as a singularly tactless letter, informing them of the fact, and that the cost of doing this would be 2½d. a word. If that is the method in which they were informed that alterations might be made on the tombstones I think that it would be better perhaps if things were left as they were. But surely it would be possible to inform them that some small alterations could be made. We cannot ask anything very large because there is no room for it, and it would never do to have wide divergencies in these small and unfortunately rather over-crowded graveyards. But I do hope that something may be done to fall in with the views which have been expressed to me so often by parents and widows, that they would like some symbol more than the plain cross on the tombstone which is all that is at present allowed.
  With regard to the suggestion that the memorials placed over the dead by their -comrades should be left, and that the bodies should be left where they were buried, I sympathise with it but fear it is utterly impossible. Those bodies were scattered everywhere, wherever there had been any serious fighting, and the memorials which were placed over them were not of a permanent nature. In many cases they were only the smallest crosses, made perhaps out of a biscuit box, with the name inscribed on it in indelible pencil, and perhaps the place was not invariably well chosen. I have a case in mind. We were holding the line at a certain place. The battalion headquarters were in a ruined chateau. The place which we chose
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  as the battalion graveyard was the lawn of the chateau. I do not know why we chose that place except that it looked nice and green, and that there were trees and roses about. But I can quite understand that if that chateau is ever rebuilt the owners of it may not be too pleased to have almost in front of their drawing-room window a burial-ground. I can understand that in those circumstances perhaps it is impossible to leave those dead where they were first buried, and it is necessary to collect them into these cemeteries which have been such a fertile topic of discussion during the past few months. The crosses which were put up were not permanent, and in many cases, I am afraid, the name has been washed out and the cross had been knocked down or carried away. That cannot be helped, but I think it disposes of the suggestion that it would be in any way possible to leave the men where their comrades placed them, and with the memorial that their comrades placed over them. At the same time, if the War Office authorities can see their way to grant some latitude to parents and to allow a memorial more symbolical of the faith in which the men died to be placed above them, they will be earning the gratitude of many bereaved parents and widows.
  Lieut. - Colonel ALLEN: Perhaps an Irishman may be allowed for a few moments to intrude upon this Debate. I represent a regiment, one of whose battalions had upwards of 16,000 casualties. I have no doubt that many of the difficulties which have been mentioned by the Noble Lord will be healed by time; others will never be healed. Those of us who have seen something of the work done out there and of the havoc that was played with our men, know perfectly well that there are parents who can never see the tombstone or cross put up to the memory of their dead. There are other cases where crosses have been found broken down in cemeteries, and the places generally disturbed. I remember on one occasion we had a cemetery prepared for our dead. Then the retreat came, and then our advance, and on advancing over the same ground we found the cemeteries almost obliterated. Then, again, I have no doubt that those who are responsible in France and Belgium for looking after these cemeteries must take time to gather all the bodies into one place. Since the Armistice I have had the privilege of visiting a good deal of the ground, and as late as June

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  last the little wooden crosses could be seen scattered all over the country. Time will obliterate these, but time will not obliterate the sorrows of those who mourn their beloved dead. I think the Noble Lord has been rather misunderstood with reference to the lines of graves. I do not think that his complaint was so much about the line of headstones as against a line of headstones of a similar character. Personally I see no difficulty whatever in allowing stones of a different character to be placed in those positions. If necessary All the stones can be of one particular material. There need be no additional cost, and no less cost, for any of these particular stones. They should, in fact, all be of about the same cost. I do not think there is much in the argument that one family might put up a more costly headstone than another. There is a limited amount which one can spend in a particular size of headstone. Some time ago, when we were in France, we had a communication from headquarters at home, asking us to submit the design which we as a regiment, or as a battalion, would like to put over our dead. I have no doubt that as many men have as many ideas, and very different ideas were submitted on that occasion. I saw a great many of those that were submitted. The officials, as far as I know, turned them all down. I know one Irish regiment which suggested an ancient Celtic cross, one of the most beautiful memorials that could be erected, and of wonderful historic value. Of course that amongst others was turned down. Being an Irishman, I suppose an Irishman is known only when he has a grievance. I received this morning a letter from a friend's home. It is not bearing so much on the question of headstones, or on the character of them. It is the letter of a father who writes:
  "For a long time I have been endeavouring to get a full account of my son's grave in France from the Director of Graves Registration. But they always put me off. They have not located the grave, although on 13th March, 1919, I gave them full particulars as to where my son was buried in France."
  I think that is a just cause of complaint. There are officers out there whose only duty is to carry out work like this. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make such inquiries as will obviate the necessity of such letters being written. I am very glad that the Noble Lord has introduced this question, and although I think it would be imposible to satisfy everyone, yet
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  I believe that the Graves Commission can go a long way to satisfy the majority of the parents of the dead.
  Mr. T. THOMSON: While I can support the principle of uniformity in general, I would join in the appeal for a certain amount of elasticity, even within the limits prescribed. It seems to me it would be possible for those who value the symbol of the Cross to have a standard cross, even within the limits that must be laid down by space. I suggest, too, that the War Office should allow more lettering than was originally provided. Parents tell me that it is impossible for them to find room for reference to the relationship which the dead bore to those who remain behind. Although it is necessary that the dead should be designated by their military rank, at the same time some connecting link with the loved ones left behind is desirable. With regard to the general question of uniformity, I join with those who have already spoken. It has been urged that we should have regard to the wishes of the dead. As one who served in the ranks, I, perhaps, have come in contact with the mind of the private soldier, and I must say that our wish was that we should be buried as we fell. We served in a common cause, we suffered equal hardships, we took equal risks, and we desired that if we fell we should be buried together under one general system and in one comradeship of death. There is no more impressive sight than a small graveyard near Ypres, where there is the grave of a Prince of the blood Royal side by side with that of an ordinary "Tommy," both bearing exactly the same sort of wooden cross. I think it would do much to undo the value of the comradeship that was cemented by the War if afterwards we had a considerable distinction made, measured by the wealth of those who remain behind rather than by the service given overseas. I know it has been suggested that that question could not come in to any great extent, and that within the limited space allowed the question of varying expense would not be possible. I think it would. We saw in the French civilian cemeteries the extraordinary waste of money, the extraordinary differences in the stones that were erected, in pointed contrast to the simplicity and beauty which we have in our own graveyards. I submit that it is not merely the bureaucratic and military mind which lays down this uniformity. In the Quaker-

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  burial-grounds of our country—not, a military organisation, by any means—you have exactly the same uniformity—uniformity from the point of view of simplicity—as you have in the burial-grounds of the battlefield.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Why does the hon. and gallant Member want to force a Quaker, or uniform, or bureaucratic standard on anyone else's dead?
  7.0 P.M.
  Mr. THOMSON: I am not trying to force any one system on anybody. It has been suggested that uniformity was the type of the military and bureaucratic mind. It is not necessarily bureaucratic, it is not necessarily military, and I was arguing that there was a certain uniformity of style apart from those two particular predisposing causes. I would appeal to the Secretary for War to see whether he cannot influence the Graves Commission to allow a certain amount of elasticity, to allow a cross, if preferred to a headstone, and to allow more lettering on the memorial, so that the identification of the relatives may be seen. I would ask also that where the propellers of aeroplanes have been used as grave memorials they might be allowed to remain as suitable memorials. An attack was made—at least it seemed to me to be an attack—upon the work of the Graves Department overseas. I would like to pay my tribute to their wonderful work and their care of the cemeteries. I cannot speak of what has happened since the Armistice, but during the two years that I was over there I saw many of the cemeteries close to the fighting line. It is wonderful the amount of care that was exercised by those in charge of them.
  Lord R. CECIL: I expressly dissociated myself from any such attack. I am personally acquainted with those who were in charge, and I know that they did their work admirably. I said that it was since they have handed over the duty to the Imperial War Graves Commission that these objections—many of them rightly founded—have arisen.
  Mr. THOMSON: I am sorry if I misunderstood the Noble Lord. Wonderful care was taken under trying circumstances. Many of the cemeteries were chosen with every regard to a pleasing situation, and it would be unfortunate if the feelings of parents were harried by thinking that their relatives' graves had been neglected.
  Viscount WOLMER: I have had so many piteous appeals from parents and widows in my Constituency, and I feel so strongly upon this matter myself, that I cannot refrain from detaining the House for a few minutes. I listened with great. respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Captain Brown) and the hon. Member for Liverpool (Major Cohen), and I appreciate their very strong feelings on this question. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham said that he had a strong. feeling of sentiment in this matter. Of course he has, and so have we all; but our sentiments are not the same, and the question is, Who is to be the judge as to the proper expression of sentiment over a soldier's grave? Is it to be the bureaucracy or the relatives of the soldier? Like my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, I also have a brother whose grave is in Mesopotamia, and I have as much right, as a relative, to say what form of remembrance shall be put over his grave, if it is ever found, as he has with regard to his brother. The whole point of this Debate, which I hope the War Office will appreciate, is what right has any one of us to dictate to other people as to how their nearest and dearest shall be commemorated? This is a matter which stirs the deepest feelings in thousands of deserted homes throughout the country. There are thousands of homes in which the tenderest memories are all centred in one tiny spot in France, Mesopotamia, Salonika, or Palestine. You are outraging their deepest sentiments, religious and otherwise, by dictating to them what shall be put over the grave of him whom they loved most.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool spoke of comradeship. He thought that any distinction in the tombstones went against the spirit of comradeship. Do, they not all lie together, shoulder to. shoulder, near the field of battle where they fell, in graveyards allotted to them and kept for them? Does not that emphasise the spirit of comradeship sufficiently and patently to all the world? If you are to say that you cannot get your spirit and emblem of comradeship without absolute uniformity, then I would respectfully say that you have no idea of true comradeship. Let the War Office keep their uniforms for the living; let them confine their drill-sergeants to those who walk about, but ward them off the hallowed precincts of our graveyards. Lot us remember that those bereaved widows,

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  orphans, fathers, brothers, and sisters, have suffered a loss and a sacrifice on behalf of the nation which the nation can never never repay. The nation has tried to give adequate financial compensation to those who are in poor circumstances. The nation has tried to honour its honoured dead in every way, but it can never bring them back to those who have suffered the loss; and I say, therefore, that it is specially incumbent upon us to honour their tenderest feelings and to respect their prejudices, even if we think them only prejudices, as sacred and as hallowed, and to do everything that we can in order that the relatives of those who fell for the nation may not have their feelings outraged and injured by the military bureaucracy of the War Office.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): I rather deprecate the asperity with which the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) who introduced this subject approached and executed his task. This is a subject which requires to be treated, as it has been treated by every other speaker in the Debate, with feelings of tolerance and sympathy, and I regret very much that the Noble Lord should have addressed himself to it in a manner which suggested that he not only enjoyed superior wisdom, but that he had superior right feeling in a matter of this kind. The Noble Lord said some very hard things and quoted some very painful documents which do not, I believe, represent the true state of affairs. He suggested that the graves of British soldiers were worse looked after than those of the French. I am assured that is simply not true. It is quite possible that here or there isolated cases may still exist There are 1,500 approved cemetries in France alone, and there are 18,000 men who have been working for many months putting those cemeteries in order and collecting the graves into the larger cemeteries. They will he working all through the winter months, and it is expected that their task will be completed in the spring. It is an immense task. More than 160,000 scattered graves have to be treated, and these graves, lying about in this vast desert area, scores of miles from any remaining habitation of man, confront those who are charged with the task with every diffculty from the point of view of administration.
  We heard from the hon. and learned Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield), who paid a visit to some of these areas re
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  cently, of the care and the reverence and the efficiency with which this work is being conducted. I do think that very great accumulations of evidence were required before the Noble Lord, with his responsible position, should, as it were, have given the impression to all those in this country to whom these matters are of exceptional and intense pain, that the graves of our comrades who fell in the War were being callously or carelessly neglected. That is not true. It is the reverse of the truth. Neither is the Noble Lord justified in reflecting upon the character of the Imperial War Graves Commission. He spoke of it as a bureaucratic, official body, proceeding with heartlessness upon its task, guided by the spirit of a drill sergeant—I think that was the Noble Lord opposite (Viscount Wolmer)—seeking some militaristic uniformity out of a mere desire to produce an artistic effect. Nothing is further from the truth. The Imperial War Graves Commission consists not only of British representatives, but of representatives of every one of the self-governing Dominions. The Secretary of State for War is, ex-officio, the president, and the members of the Commission are: The Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Secretary of State for India, the First Commissioner of Works, Sir George Perley, appointed by the Government of Canada., the Right Hon. Andrew Fisher, appointed by the Government of Australia, the Hon. Sir Thomas Mackenzie, appointed by the Government of New Zealand, the Right Hon. W. T. Schreiner (who has since died), appointed by the Government of the Union of South Africa, a representative appointed by the Government of Newfoundland, and the following other members who were also appointed by the Royal Warrant: Sir William Garstin, Mr. Harry Gosling, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Lieut.-General Sir C. F. N. Macready, General Sir Herbert Plumer, Admiral Sir Edmund S. Poe, and Brigadier-General Fabian Ware, who is the executive officer in this matter.
  Lord R. CECIL: I think there are only three or four of them who are non-official.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think it is possible to gather together a body of men who could do more justice to the sombre and solemn task with which they are charged. I should like to point out that just reading this list through brings home to me the fact that at least three of the names that I have read are the names of

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  men whose own sons died in the war zone, and there is not one but has feelings just as strong and passionate upon this subject as any Member of this House, and not one who has not dear friends and relatives lying on these battlefields. You may differ from the work of the Commission, you may differ from the course they recommended, and recommended unanimously after prolonged examination of this matter, and with no desire whatever but to give solace and a measure of comfort to the sorrowing homes of the British Empire, but no one has the right to impugn their sincerity or humanity or their earnest desire to assuage, every possible pang. The administrative task is a very formidable one. There are upwards of 500,000 graves that we know of for certain, and there are 100,000 others—themselves the cause of special difficulty—that the Commission are not yet completely certain about. The task of erecting within a reasonable time this immense number of monuments in all the different places where the cemeteries are to be set up is one which involves a great administrative problem, and it cannot be dealt with except on the basis of general principles.
  I do not believe it would be possible—and all the evidence which has been put before me has convinced me it would not he possible—to achieve this work within the reasonable time that is necessary if that complete latitude which many would desire were accorded to individual wishes. In the first place, everyone who has spoken in this Debate has realised that the space of the individual graves must necessarily be small. That imposes physical limitations upon the size of the headstones, and those limitations in themselves react upon the form of the headstone. I wonder whether the Members of the House who have taken part in the Debate have studied the publication called the "Graves Report," which I directed to -be sent to every Member of the House some months ago. I think those who have done so will see the spirit in which the Imperial War Graves Commission approached their task:
  "Stone crosses to succeed the temporary wooden crosses were at first suggested, but crosses of the small size necessitated by the nearness of the graves to each other do not allow sufficient space for the mens' names and the inscription, and are also by their shape too fragile and too subject to the action of frost and the weather for enduring use. Plain headstones measuring 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 3 in. were chosen, upon which a cross or other religious emblem of the dead man's faith could be carved and his regimental badge fully displayed."
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  The Committee were not drawn to that conclusion until they had attempted to solve it from the point of view of a universal cruciform headstone. I should like to make it clear to the House that the difference in regard to the religious symbol is not a difference as to whether there should be a cross on the headstone or not, and is only a difference of whether the headstone itself is cut in a cruciform shape. The hon. Member for Ealing said that the cross would be permitted, but that does not do full justice to the position. The cross is invariable except in cases where it is clear that the religious faith or the personal wish of the soldier would render other things desirable. I will arrange to place in the Tea Room of the House specimens of these headstones, which will show the prominent manner in, which the cross is displayed, whether it is cut in or imposed upon it, but comparing the cruciform headstone the space on the plain headstone gives opportunity for nearly double the lettering to be inscribed.
  I say that this matter can only be treated: administratively on certain broad general principles, and it does seem to rue that the first of all those principles is the principle of equality of treatment. We have heard from soldiers who are Members of the House, and saw the terrible scenes of this War, and know accurately the feelings of the fighting men, powerful arguments in favour of the principle of equality of treatment. It is not to be supposed that such a principle does not impose sacrifices on relatives of many of those who have, fallen. There are great numbers of: parents who would like to spend all the money that is possible on raising monuments to their dead. There are many who would like to build a special monument on the battlefield where the soldier actually fell, and preserve the ground for ever as a private burial place. There is really no limitation to the number of different ways in which the desire to show reverence and affection to the memory of the fallen, and to preserve that memory have manifested themselves. But the great mass of those who fell could not indulge in expensive monuments, and the thing that is deeply ingrained in soldierly breasts is that all should be treated alike, general and private, prince and peasant, all who lie there in common honour, and that the wealthy should forego in this matter that which their wealth would enable them to obtain.

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  That is an admirable sentiment. I think nothing would be more grateful to many people than that their sons should lie exactly where they fell on the battlefield, but that is not possible. The French Government notified us that after a number of years they could not guarantee that the graves would not be disturbed by the ordinary life of the country, its agriculture and commerce, and it is for their protection that we have had to embark on this task of gathering them altogether and treating the problem as an administrative whole. Once you have admitted the principle of equality and imposed the sacrifice which that principle entails it does seem worth considering whether the advantages of the other course should not be reaped to the full—I mean the principle of uniformity.
  I think it will be found that the limit in which variations are possible are very small, and the difficulties of introducing an alternative uniform headstone are very great. Lord Balfour of Burleigh brought a deputation to me at the War Office some time ago in which the whole case, which we have heard so eloquently and powerfully put this evening, was placed before me. I did not in any way contest the principle of an alternative cruciform headstone provided that the difficulties and disadvantages attending upon it could be successfully surmounted within the limits prescribed. Lord Balfour went away, and after full consultation with experts, and full consultation with General Fabian Ware, who represented the Imperial War Graves Commission, he proposed an alternative headstone which partially embodied the crucifom shape. It found no favour from the point of view of sightliness and there were other difficulties attendant on the manufacture of the headstone which were pointed out in the discussion that took place. As a result, Lord Balfour undertook to submit another alternative. I am telling this to the House to show how unjust is the suggestion that the War Graves Commission are simply trying to force an Imperial uniform scheme in this matter without making every effort to meet individual views upon it.
  Lord R. CECIL: They may have been quite mistaken, but the impression was conveyed that the Commission intended to reject all alternative schemes on particular grounds, and, therefore, to enforce their will indirectly.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that imputation of motives is at all a just one. For myself, I say I certainly would not allow a small difference in the expense to stand in. the way of the adoption of an alternative headstone, provided that the other aspects of it were equally satisfactory. The present position is that Lord Balfour is going to try another alternative, and I will not prejudge my decision on that point, nor will the Commission, until we see it. I agree very largely with the view that if it be possible to have this alternative it should he provided. I agree most frilly with what has been said about the lettering, and anything that can be done to extend the lettering and the choice of inscription within the limits available shall certainly be done. I hope that the House will feel that this matter has been treated reverently and earnestly throughout by all who have been concerned in dealing with it. I cannot conceive that any body of Englishmen, British men, dealing with a subject of this kind, could be animated by any but the most solemn feelings. I did not agree entirely, and here I express a personal opinion, with the idea that a uniform cross should be provided in the first instance. I came to it also with the idea that a much greater latitude should be allowed. I was convinced in the course of presiding over these meetings of the very great difficulties which lay in the way, and I also, I am bound to say, have been led somewhat to, share the view which was so forcibly expressed by the hon. Member for Hexham (Captain Brown) earlier in the Debate. It is quite true that the wishes of the relatives should, as far as possible, be given full play within the limits allowed, but the collective aspect of these memorials ought not to be overlooked. They are unique memorials. There will be no cemeteries in the world like them. There will be no cemeteries in the world that will be preserved so long as they will be. The power of a great State operating over the centuries will keep these graveyards in a condition of repair, which will make them notable in the wide landscape of France long after the greater part of the memorials which will be raised over this generation who die in the ordinary course will probably have passed altogether from human knowledge. The collective aspect of these cemeteries as they have been planned by the Imperial War Graves Commission, in contrast with the ordinary

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  cemeteries, with their varying memorials, would be most impressve and would, as it were, mark out those who have given their lives in this War in a special way from all those others, their contemporaries who met their ends in the ordinary manner. I cannot myself feel that that ought to be excluded. I cannot myself feel that the general and collective aspect of these war memorials should be ignored. They ought to present that feeling of national memorials to those who fell in this, extraordinary struggle, and I cannot believe that Members of the House who will give careful and patient study in the document which has been published by the Imperial War Graves Commission will feel that the Commission have fallen far short of the true solution of this most solemn and difficult matter.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting speech, but nearly all of it had nothing to do with the point. It is only in the last part of it that he approached the subject which has been brought to the notice of the House by so many speakers to-day, and the nature of what purported to be a defence was really a confession that the accusation made against the Imperial War Graves Commission is a true one. He spoke of a war memorial. What conceivable right have the War Graves Commission, or my right hon. Friend, or anyone else to take the bodies of the dead to form part of a war memorial? The very phrase shows how abominable is the wrong done to the feelings of the survivors. This is not a war memorial at all; it is a cemetery of the dead. By all means let my right hon. Friend or the Imperial War Graves Commission put up any war memorial they like in France, and as many as they like, to express the national feelings of sorrow and honour to the dead, but they have no busi ness to use the individual body of the individual soldier for that purpose, because to do that Is to outrage the feelings of those who survive. The doctrine that the State or the Imperial War Graves Commission, or even the brother officers of the dead, have a right to be considered prior to those who really feel the sufferings of bereavement is a position which well deserves to be called partial. It is utterly without ethical defence. It is a position which disregards the tenderest feelings of humanity merely to pursue a bureaucratic ideal.
  My right hon. Friend really misses the point, and when he called our attention to
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  that book, let me say that I have looked at it and that, to my eyes, anything more absurd or grotesque than the cemeteries that are proposed to be erected cannot be conceived. My opinion is no better than anyone else's on that matter, but the point is that, if you are going to determine it as a question of taste, one person's opinion is as good as another's, arid the only people who have a right to judge are the relatives. No one complains that my right hon. Friend and the War Graves Commission, in so far as it is a question of dimensions, or expense, or transport, have laid down limitations, but the point is whether within the limits of what is possible you are going to commit the outrageous offence of using people's bereaved feelings as part of your apparatus for a war memorial, which is my right hon. Friend's own phrase, by way of making a monument which, although in my view it is in very bad taste, you think suitable; and that is the outrage he has no right to commit., and which justifip in essence all the language of indignation which we can command. My right hon. Friend misses the whole point, or, rather, as I say, he concedes it, w hen he has once said these are to be collective war memorials. You have no right to make them. You have to bury the dead in a manner as acceptable to the relatives as is consistent with the possibilities and as the consideration of dimensions, expense, and transport will allow. But to heap upon those who have already suffered enough for the good of the country this additional wrong, gratuitously, vexatiously, and of wilful purpose, that is the wrong that the War Graves Commission are committing to the bereaved, and that is why they richly deserve all the abuse that they have received or can receive in this Debate.
  The thing is an outrage. It is to erect the pleasure of the State above the tenderest feelings of the individual. How foolishly inappropriate is this whole scheme of uniformity. What is the great characteristic of death? What is it that gives it its unique distinction? It is this: that it is the naked personality which stands alone at death as never before in life; all symbolism in a graveyard ought to express that characteristic, and to submerge it in a national uniformity, one stone exactly like the other, is to miss the whole beauty and pathos of death and to commemorate it in a way most inappropriate to its fundamental character. What is it that might be done? At any rate, my right hon. Friend concedes that there

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  might be some larger variety. Look at an ordinary village churchyard. What is it that gives it its beauty and interest? Surely it is that every gravestone—many of them, it may be, in bad taste according to present standards—speaks of the personality, is typical of the individual, and that is what you want in a graveyard. Do not let us have these absurd photographs which I have seen. It is only the sadness and pathos of the thing which has prevented me from bursting into derisive laughter as I have looked at them, so utterly, so absurdly inappropriate are they. They are the very opposite of the right kind; these rows of gravestones, just like each other are altogether inappropriate. Everything should speak of the personality of the individual, and nothing that can be avoided of the uniformity of the organisation by which they are erected.
  M. CHURCHILL: I wish the Noble Lord would address himself to the practical point and say exactly what his ideas are as to the variety which he thinks could be organised within the limits which he himself recognises.
  Major MOLSON: Will the cross be allowed?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: No satisfactory cruciform headstone has yet been devised which comes within the limits which are necessary.
  Lord H. CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman must not misapprehend what I am endeavouring to argue. For my own personal opinion, I care nothing how people are buried. I am much more interested myself in the surviving personalities of the dead than in their dead bodies, but my feeling is that you ought to have regard to the bereaved, and what moves me to all the indignation I am expressing is not in the least my personal feelings, but that I cannot bear to hear the State representatives, with their silly formula of Parliamentary reply, trampling on the feelings of the bereaved who have sacrificed everything in the world to the State, and to whom from the State is due a debt which can never possibly he paid by this miserable desire to make pinchbeck war memorials; and that for the sake of that miserable exhibition of bad art and bad taste the feelings of the bereaved should be outraged moves me to a passionate indignation.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: What is the Noble Lord's practical suggestion?
  Lord H. CECIL: My practical suggestion is that. he should give up the idea of a War memorial and of a collective commemoration in these graveyards, and that he should say that the War Graves Corn-mission will address themselves to the subject afresh, basing their decisions on this, that they will allow such variety as is consistent with the rules laid down in respect to dimensions, transport, and expense. I quite recognise that the task is an exceedngly difficult one, that you cannot satisfy everybody, and that you must have these limitations. By all means let them lay down limitations, but let them at any rate give up the idea of a rigid uniformity, and let them try and give as much expression as the circumstances permit to the deeply lacerated individual feelings of those who alone should be considered—the bereaved parents, children, and widows of the dead.

  OVERSEAS TRADE DEPARTMENT.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: I desire to give the hon. and gallant Gentleman in charge of the Overseas Trade Department an opportunity for making a brief review of the Department over which he presides with such ability and distinction. The Department, if properly organised, developed, and conducted, is one of the most important Departments of the Government. It must be our object individually and collectively to develop our export trade. This country lives on its export trade, and in so far as the Department of Overseas Trade can help to develop our export trade it is good for the country at large. Earlier in the year a Debate took place upon the reforms in the Diplomatic and Consular Services, into which Debate the Department of Overseas Trade largely entered. Since that time the Committee presided over by Lord Cave has issued its Report, and various recommendations are contained in that Report with respect particularly to the Department of Overseas Trade. May I draw the attention of the House to some of the recommendations of the Report, and put to the hon. and gallant Gentleman certain questions relating thereto? One of the first recommendations of the Report is that the parts of the scheme put forward by the hon. Baronet the Member for Erdington (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) with regard to development of the Consular

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  Service, including the creation of new posts, training, pay, and allowances, should be brought into operation as early as possible.
  I should be glad if the hon. and gallant Gentleman, in his reply, could tell us exactly what the position is with regard to those particular recommendations. The Committee approved the proposal contained in the same Report for "periodical interchange between the staffs of the Department at home and the Consular and Commercial Diplomatic Services abroad." That recommendation, to my mind, is one of the most important recommendations of the Report. Anyone who has seen the work of our Embassies and Legations abroad knows how important it is that there should be an interchange between those Missions abroad and the Department at home, in order that the officers in both sections should be up-to-date in their training and their knowledge. Then the Committee go on to say that they considered the proposal that there should be attached to the British Missions in foreign countries permanent Labour Attachés responsible to the Minister of Labour, but working under the Ambassador or Minister. The Committee have not seen their way to adopt that Report. I suggest that the Government should reconsider their position in that matter. I have in my mind an Embassy which deputed a member of its staff to draw up reports on the labour situation in the country to which the Ambassador was accredited. The member of the staff drew up very efficient reports, and they were referred to the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. So far as those retorts went, they were very good, and every credit was due to the member of the staff who drew them up. But they did not supply the real information that was necessary. They were drawn up hurriedly by a member of the Embassy staff who had no real knowledge of labour conditions in that country, and had there been a Labour Attaché at the Embassy in question, those reports would have been very much more interesting and very much better from the point of view of the Foreign Office.
  Now we come to the really vital part of the Cave Committee's Report, and that is the relations between the Department of Overseas Trade and the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade, and the House, I feel sure, will be glad to see the President of the Board of Trade here to-night, and
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  is indebted to him for coming here. It was suggested in evidence that the Department of Overseas Trade should be transferred to, and become a Department of, the Foreign Office. The Committee, however, were unable to approve this suggestion. One of the reasons they gave was:
  "It appears to us that the Foreign Office is not properly organised for this purpose."
  I do not think that is a very good reason at all. It may be that the Foreign Office is not properly organised for the purpose at the present moment, but it does not follow that the Foreign Office could not be properly organised for that purpose. I think that is a weak reason, if indeed it be a reason at all. In the Minority Report attached to the Majority Report, Mr. Dudley Docker says:
  "I consider that the system of dual control of the Department of Overseas Trade is at the root of the trouble. Any such system of dual control must be eradicated."
  I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be able to tell us exactly how this dual control is working at the present moment. I think I am correct in saying that our experience, so far as it goes, of dual control in the past, has not been satisfactory either from the point of view of the Department of Overseas Trade or from that of either of the offices concerned. I should like again to press the Government on the point of the evidence that was given before the Cave Committee. The Government have never given any satisfactory reason why the evidence given before the Cave Committee cannot be laid before this House. Mr. Dudley Docker in his Minority Report said:
  "After hearing the strong evidence put before us by the representatives of the Consular Service and the commercial world, I have come to the conclusion that the only remedy I can recommend is the adoption of the principle that the Foreign Office must be responsible for establishing the lines upon which our foreign commercial policy should be framed."
  I do think—and I know other Members of the House share my view—that the House is entitled to see that evidence. How can the House decide on such a Report as this without having seen the evidence upon which the Report is based? I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be able to tell us that he will reconsider this question, and publish the evidence on which the Report is based. May I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman what is the exact measure of the link that now operates on the one hand between the Department of Overseas Trade and the

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  Foreign Office, and, on the other hand, between the Department of Overseas Trade and the Board of Trade? What is the nature of that link and how is it developing? Is this dual control shifting more to the side of the Foreign Office or to the side of the Board of Trade? Is the Foreign Office the real factor in the situation, or is the Board of Trade more and more obtaining control? Those are very vital questions to anyone who holds that it is desirable that the policy of the Foreign Office should be commercialised, as it could be if the Department of Overseas Trade were entirely divorced from the Board of Trade, except with the link necessary for providing information, and were brought more directly under the control of the Foreign Office. One of the recommendations of the Report was that
  "Matters can never be placed upon a satisfactory footing until the Department of Overseas Trade is housed in close contact, and, indeed, under the same roof, with the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade."
  I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman what is the position now with regard to the housing of the Department? Is it intended to release the various offices, in which, as I understand, sections of the Overseas Trade Department are now distributed, and is it intended to bring the Department of Overseas Trade under one roof and that the roof of the Foreign Office? May I further ask him what it is proposed to do, or what has been done, in respect of the War Trade Intelligence Department? The Committee recognised that the greater part of the work at present being performed by the War Trade Intelligence Department should be transferred to the Department of Overseas Trade. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will let us know how that particular question is developing?
  May I say this in conclusion? The Committee, whilst acquiescing in the control of the Department of Overseas Trade by the Foreign Office arid the Board of Trade, says that it thinks it desirable that the Consular and Commercial Departments of the Foreign Office should be transferred to the Department of Overseas Trade. May I ask the hon and gallant Baronet whether that transfer has been completed, whether the Consular and Commercial Departments of the Foreign Office have, in fact, been transferred to the Department of Overseas
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  Trade, and if, if that be so, what exactly has been the nature of the transfer? Are there any Foreign Office officials connected with the old Consular Department? Have they also been transferred to the Department of Overseas Trade? What is the nature of the transfer? The Report also says,
  "We consider it desirable to urge that the Foreign Office shall take care that it is impressed upon His Majesty's Ministers and Consuls abroad that the Department of Overseas Trade is in fact a part of the Foreign Office and that they must look to it for instructions and guidance in commercial questions."
  In my mind that supports and confirms the view which I venture to submit to the House, that the joint control of the Department of Overseas 'Trade by the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office should be removed, and that the Department of Overseas Trade should be in effect part of the Foreign Office alone. The Report makes this recommendation, that the Consular and Commercial Diplomatic Services abroad should look for instructions and guidance in commercial questions to the Foreign Office, and if they are to do so that does, to my mind, emphasise the necessity of commercialising the Foreign Office, which can only be done if the Department of Overseas Trade is brought into intimate connection, apart from any activities of the Board of Trade. This is the first opportunity we have had of drawing attention to this Report, and of asking for a review from the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents the Department of Overseas Trade of his activities, and of the progress that his Department is making. I hope in his reply that he will be able to answer some of the questions I have put to him, and that he will be able to hold out to the House some hope that the joint control which; it is true, was not condemned by the Majority Report, although if we had seen the evidence we might be able to confute even the Majority Report, but which cannot, I feel sure, be in the interest either of the Foreign Office or the Board of Trade, or in the interest of the trade of this country generally.
  8.0 P.M.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD (Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trace—Devciopment and Intelligence): I appreciate the very kind references that my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, who has just 8.0 P.M. sat down, has made to myself. I shall endeavour, as briefly as possible, to answer the questions he has raised. I hope he will forgive me if I do

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  not make any long speech in review, because I do not think this would be a suitable occasion for such a speech. The feeling between the Overseas Department and the President of the Board of Trade on the one side, and the Foreign Office on the other, is exemplified to-night by the fact that the President himself is here on the Front Bench, and also my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Harmsworth) to support me in dealing with these questions. In reference to Lord Cave's Report, which, being adopted by the Cabinet, is now the governing Report under which the Department of Overseas Trade works, I may say that the recommendations in that Report have been in the main carried out. In reference to the new posts, with training and pay allowances—as regards the pay and allowances there are certain outstanding points between the Department of Overseas Trade and the Treasury—the total number of new posts, set out in what h known as the Steel-Maitland scheme, has not been made. Primarily this is on the ground of expense, but, secondarily, on the ground that it is considered better not to create all these posts at one time, but to submit. a new post as the occasion arises, and the trade needs in any particular part of the world demand. As to the exchange, between this country and abroad, I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the Consuls, Commercial and Diplomatic officers, and Trade Commissioners who operate in our Empire, as he knows, regularly visit the Home country, as regularly visit mercantile and industrial concerns, and also serve, when possible, for a period in the Department of Overseas Trade itself, so that they may keep in the closest touch with the modern developments of industry and also with the personnel of the Department under which they serve.
  The question of Labour Attachés is one for the Minister of Labour. It has not been considered necessary to add to the number of Attachés specifically those who can be called Labour Attachés. One ground for this, and it is a paramount ground in these Departments, is the expense. In the second place, it would be adding to the Commercial Consuls, Councillors and Secretaries, formerly known as Attachés, to carry out duties they ought to do, duties to be carried out by Labour Attachés specifically sent out to these different posts. I can hold out no hope to my hon. and gallant Friend that
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  we will add to the Military and Naval Attachés, to the Commercial Councillors and Secretaries, a fourth body of men known as Labour Attachés.
  As to the relations between the Foreign Office, the Board of Trade and my own Department, I have dealt with that. As I said, I think the presence of the three Ministers of this House, interested, and vitally interested, in this Department is symbolic of the union that exists in the interests of our overseas trade.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I quite understand the friendly relations between my hon. and gallant Friend and his confrères. My point was—what is the organisation, what are its details?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: I will come to that. In order that the present good feeling among the persons concerned may be continued, in respect to the machinery of the Department we have set up in the Department of Overseas Trade a Committee on which a representative of the Foreign Office and a representative of the Board of Trade sit with myself week by week to dispose of matters which concern us. The President of the Board of Trade has also established a council over which he presides. The council meets twice a Week at the Board of Trade Myself and Sir W. Clark, the Comptroller-General of the Department of Overseas Trade, are members of it. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend and the House that during the time I have had the honour to be connected with this Department I have not had the slightest friction with either the Foreign Office or the Board of Trade, and in spite of the presumed impossibility of working under what is called the dual control system—I think there is more in the word than in the essence of the matter—I am very pleased to be able to assure the House that I have experienced no difficulty whatever in continuing amicable relationships in our joint working to further the interests of oar trade at home and overseas.
  As to housing, in July last the Department of Overseas Trade was housed in seven different places. We are now in four. We hope within a month to be housed in two, namely, the block of buildings known as Queen Anne's Block, or Great Queen Street, with one other office in Basinghall Street, which will be for examples and catalogues and an inquiry office for the City. It is impossible for the Department of Overseas Trade to be under

  519
  the roof of the Foreign Office, because there is no building which can house both. We are as near to the Foreign Office and Board of Trade as we can possibly be. We are united in spirit, and, physically, we are as close as possible. As to the War Trade Intelligence Department, that Department, which was engaged in war purposes, in peace time is absorbed in the Department of Overseas Trade. The records of that Department, which are very valuable, are now in my Department. The transfer in the Consular Services, according to and following the Cave Report, took place on 20th November, and the whole of the Consular Service, Consuls, Commercial and Diplomatic, is now under the Secretary of the Overseas Department, subject, of course, always to the final decision of the Noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: In regard to appointments?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: In regard to everything. The transfer which took place was complete. The staff of the Foreign Office have transferred to the Department of Overseas Trade, but still remain at the Foreign Office, because we have not yet got room for them in the present buildings that were used for the Department for years. I should just like to sum up, and say that so far as the Department of Overseas Trade is concerned we are ready to perform the functions which have been allocated to us—Consuls, Diplomatic officers, and Trade Commissioners. The Consuls have all been chosen for former enemy countries, and they leave this country at once for their respective places abroad when peace is signed. I must say, going with some prejudice against the Consular system, and having heard reckless statements in this House in days gone by—not in this Parliament—I am convinced that we have in our Consular, Commercial, and Diplomatic officers —may I say it with all respect?—in our Diplomatic officers as well, a body of gentlemen that, man for man, are superior to any other Consuls or any other service in the world. In many cases they are much underpaid compared with other Services. They have done their share in recent times. There was not a single case in which they failed to perform the onerous duties frequently put upon them. I would draw the attention of the House
  520
  to this fact, that by reason of the increased cost of living in some of the countries, and for other reasons, many of our Consular officers have been compelled to give up their homes and live in two or three rooms. This is not an advantage to British trade, because if an officer is not able to uphold the position which he would like to adorn, the fact is reflected in his failure to do what he would like in carrying out his duty as a Consular or Diplomatic agent. This is a matter for the House of Commons. I should like to see the House so interested in it that these officers abroad would be more adequately remunerated.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Perhaps the Government will initiate it?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: It is in the power of any hon. or right hon. Member to initiate discussion in this House, and so assist the Government in doing what they would naturally like to do if they felt they had behind them the majority of this honourable House. From all parts of the world it is clear from the evidence that the efforts of the British Empire in the War, and our paramount wish to secure the seas and make them safe for the world, has put our race higher in the esteem and respect, of all people than it ever stood before. These men who sleep in different parts of the world are the great reason for that prestige. It was their sacrifice and valour that raised our prestige, reinforced our credit, and made it possible for us to keep in the van of trade. and, as I think, of civilisation now as before.
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I did not know this question was to be raised until about half an hour ago. There are two points with which I thought it very likely the hon. and gallant. Gentleman in charge of this Department would deal, and about which I hoped he would have given us information. I think it would be to the advantage of the House if it be possible for the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs to tell us. The Minister in charge of this Department has told us that certain questions are outstanding with the Treasury. I should like to ask whether one of those questions is the question of the pay for commercial councillors and secretaries? The hon. and gallant Gentleman has spoken in very feeling terms of the extent to which many Consuls abroad are still underpaid. I quite agree that under present circumstances Consuls

  521
  abroad in many cases are still underpaid in view of the burdens upon them. Few of the people of this country adequately realise the devotion with which these gentlemen have performed their duties in view of the extremely straitened conditions in which they have been asked to act. I understand the pay of the Consuls has already been raised in accordance with the scales of the scheme which was brought before the Cabinet and was approved by them. What is of equal importance with the case of the Consuls is that of the Commercial Councillors and secretaries. They act, as it were, as the headquarters staff of our representatives abroad, while the Consuls represent the local command. In the scheme which I know was brought before the Cabinet, and which in this respect has received the approval of Lord Cave's Committee, rich in its turn was accepted by the Cabinet, is a recommendation that the pay of the commercial councillors and secretaries should be raised in accordance with the proposals. Here we have this extraordinary situation, as I understand it: the pay of the councillors, the local staff so to speak, has already been raised in accordance with the proposals. Even so, says the hon. Baronet in charge of the Department, in many cases they are still too low. I hardly agree with him that it is for any private Member in this House to propose that they should be raised. There is, of course, quite clearly the Parliamentary rule that no private Member can propose increases of pay, but still we have it on his statement that, at present, the pay of Consuls, although it has been raised, is still too low. But how about that of the Commercial Councillors and the Secretaries? As things stand, or at any rate, as far as I understood, as they stood a little while ago, their pay and their allowances—which are almost equally important—have never been raised at all. I would ask whether that is still the case; is that still one of the outstanding points? I would venture with certainty to say that it is absolutely necessary that their pay should be raised.
  We all of us recognise the need for economy in the country at this moment, but everyone, of course, is naturally anxious for efficiency in his own Department, even if it means increased expenditure, and, therefore, he is not very likely to see the need for economy in his own Department so much as in those over which
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  others preside. In this particular case it would really be far better, for the whole commercial interests of the country, that, if economy is so necessary, there should perhaps be fewer posts; but, at any rate, the salaries should be raised to a tolerably adequate figure in the case of those posts which are sanctioned, and adequate allowances should be given for carrying on the work. It is no good trying to get a good man, and setting him down to do important work, when he is starved, not only in his own personal salary, but in all the equipment necessary for the purpose of his work. Perhaps the Under-Secretary to the Foreign Office can tell us if these salaries have really now been raised or, if not, when we may expect a decision on the subject. If need be let the posts be fewer, but, at any rate, let the salaries be adequate, and let adequate allowances be given for office staff and equipment. That is one of the points Which was emphasised by Lord Cave's Committee and which is accepted by the Government. These scales are intimately bound up with the scales for Consuls which have been already sanctioned. We can never expect the service of the country abroad to be properly attended to until we have men so equipped that they are free from a grinding personal anxiety as to how they are going to live day by day, and until they have such a staff that they shall not themselves have to be like razors used for chopping wood in order to try and get the work of the country done.
  Another point to which I would draw attention hinges on the question of dual control. I know that the general opinion in this House has been that dual control is a thing which is impossible. I think it is only fair, if I may say so, to the hon. Baronet (Sir H. Greenwood) to say openly that I think dual control is really quite possible, and can be made to act perfectly well, and with greater efficiency, in a difficult matter like this, than any other form of control. But that is on one condition only, which I am glad to hear from the hon. Baronet is being fulfilled. It is that the two Departments work together with real trust and cordiality, and that neither of them seeks to encroach upon the proper sphere of the other. That was the difficulty in times past, and, if it has been put straight, I see no reason why dual control should not operate in the future; but, unless that condition is observed, it will lead to general inefficiency. With that in view, I should like to put a further ques-

  523
  tion. We know the difficulties about public buildings at the moment. There is a great call upon all work in connection with building, for the houses which are necessary throughout the country, and the question of further Government Departments may have to stand in abeyance; but is it really accepted that this Department shall ultimately be under the same roof as the Foreign Office? Is the principle accepted? Its carrying out may be postponed for the moment; but is it ultimately an ideal on which the Government have decided, and which they are going to carry out when the circumstances allow? I hesitate to take up the time of the House by putting too much emphasis on this, but if only the evidence before Lord Cave's Committee could be published the proof would be clear to everyone. 1 cannot myself understand why there should be any reluctance to publish that evidence, and I am sure that if it could be published the need would be shown for bringing the office primarily under the same roof as the Foreign Office; and, secondarily, under the Board of Trade. Foreign policy and foreign trade are so closely joined together that, while you may separate them in this matter or in the other, taking it all in all they are so intertwined that they cannot be separated right through the whole gamut of the subjects which have to he dealt with. Therefore, it is really necessary that those public officials who deal with these matters from the diplomatic point of view in the Foreign Office should be able to be in intimate personal daily contact with those other officials who deal with the commercial side in. the Department of Overseas Trade. It is better to send minutes from Queen Anne's Gate Buildings to the Foreign Office than to send them a distance of two or three miles; but if the foreign policy of the country is really to be commercial, which is what the business community hope for, the commercial spirit must permeate the diplomatic side of the Foreign Office, as well as the strictly commercialised side in the Department of Overseas Trade I venture to say that that cannot be done unless the officials of the two Departments are able to be day by day in personal contact, and to discuss together subjects of joint interest. I hope I shall not be considered unduly pressing if I ask whether that recommendation in Lord Cave's Report, which, I understand, must be postponed at present owing to stress of cir-
  524
  cumstances, is decided upon and approved by the Cabinet, and whether we may understand that it will be carried into effect as soon as practicable. When all is said and done, buildings are made for men, and not men for buildings.
  Mr. F. C. THOMSON: I think this is a real, live Department with a great future before it, and I would press very strongly on the Minister the necessity for strengthening the staff of the office here. It is a young Department, and it has a great future, but its work is, I am sure, very greatly handicapped by tie fact that it has to carry on now with an inadequate staff who are most inadequately paid. We know that at the present time economy is above all things necessary. But it is very false economy in any way to starve a Department which, if it be established at all, should be worked to its fullest possible extent. The more opportunity this Department has of bringing the traders into contact with the importer, of bringing the importer in the foreign country into contact with the trader and manufacturer here, the better will it, be for our trade, but it will be quite impossible for this Department to carry on and do its proper work with the staff now available. I wish to press that point very strongly on the hon. Gentleman in charge at the present moment.
  I am very much in sympathy with the last speaker in what he said about the pay and allowances of Commercial Attachés. It is most important that these officials should be well paid, and also that they should have someone under them who too is well paid. If their work is to be adequately performed it must involve a. good deal of travelling up and down the country in which they are employed—that is, if they are to be in the position of good intelligence officers—and it is necessary that they should have someone left behind who is responsible and can carry on in their absence. With regard to joint control, it seems to me that the case made out by the majority of the Commissioners for dual control is a strong one. With reference to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire (Lieut.-Colonel Murray) that the Department should be entirely with the Foreign Office, I admit the full strength of the argument put forward by the last speaker as to the close connection between foreign trade and foreign policy. But it would never do to cut the Department entirely adrift

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  from the Board of Trade, because you would then have one Department supplying information with regard to the trade in the Dominions and another with regard to foreign trade. That is a complete division which would involve great practical inconvenience. Therefore, looking at it impartially, and admitting the strong desire in the commercial world for a close connection with the Foreign Office, one is inclined to think that this compromise, which would enable harmonious working between the two Departments, is really the best way out of the difficulty. I would strongly impress that view on those in charge of the Department that if it is to be given a chance to secure the greatest possibilities for our trade, by bringing commercial intelligence from foreign countries and advising our people and our manufacturers of their opportunity for doing trade, it is not good policy to starve such a Department either in regard to the staff here or abroad. There must he additions to the staff if the Department is to carry on its full and proper work.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.
  Mr. CLYNES: My name is associated with a Motion on the Paper to indicate the degree of our disappointment at the absence of any action, so far as we are at present aware, by the Government since last we raised the question Of the unemployed, and I have been asked to avail myself of the opportunity of this discussion to again press upon the Government the need for some more cheerful message to the masses of the unemployed than they have yet received. It may be that in view of the decision recently reached by the House, when the majority of the hon. Members decided to discontinue the monetary grant to the men who had been receiving it, that it is too soon to press the importance of the question of the degree of suffering which prevails in many parts of the country. But I do so because we have been told in this House by men who influence its decisions that there is work for everyone who wants it, and that no one who is willing to earn wages or his living need be idle. Within the last half hour I have received this telegram:
  "Huge mass meetings of tinplate workers in Cornwall demand immediate continuation unemployment donation. We are suffering acute distress made permanent owing to mines closing down. We fear serious developments if this distress is not immediately relieved."
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  That is one of a very large number of messages received by wire and by post as to the position in which a considerable number of the unemployed are placed. We have some evidence of the national character of this distress in the spectacle of the Prime Minister going to Manchester and there being pressed by men to receive a deputation who wished to speak to him on the state of unemployment in that city and to make an appeal to him to relieve their condition. Not long ago a body of men, mainly ex-soldiers, marched from the North to this City of London in the hope of putting their case before the Monarch, and when the other day the Prince of Wales returned to our shores, and landed at Southampton, an unemployed body of men made an endeavour to see him and to present, by deputation, the condition of the unemployed in that district. These are facts so melancholy and so striking as in themselves to prove that this is still a very real and distressing subject requiring the attention of the House, and, I should hope, a changed attitude of mind on the part of the Government. Yesterday the Prime Minister addressed a meeting jointly representing employers and employed in all branches of the building trade, and I want to quote a part of the Prime Minister's speech in which he described the position of the roan who is unemployed. He said:
  "I know what workmen have in their minds. They have got a horror of unemployment. I wonder what sort of Christmas the unemployed man has to face for his children. We must get rid of that for ever. That is a thing we have no right to permit in any civilised country. It is a torture which no decent human citizen ought to suffer. It is a thing which is causing a greater sense of wrong and grievance and injustice in the minds of the working people of this country than anything else."
  My right hon. Friend opposite, I believe, heard these words. He heard the Prime Minister tell his audience about the sense of injustice and social wrong and suffering involved in the conditions of unemployment. And the view I want to put to my right hon. Friend is that it is not facing the situation, it is not helping these men to escape from what the Prime Minister described as the "horror of unemployment" if they are to be left without any of those forms of support which we suggest these men should have at least for this Christmas period, and for some succeeding months. This melancholy spectacle of so many thousands being still unemployed requires something more than fine

  527
  language. It requires some action for the relief of distress due to unemployment —some definite action that will make their work secure. I have no doubt my right Lion. Friend will he able to prove by figures that the situation has improved to a certain extent, but I venture to say it has riot improved for the margin of the men—still very large—who have not been able to secure employment. We well know that during the winter months, the end of December, January and the early part of February, the common experience is to find men falling out of work and therefore making the conditions in the employment market much more difficult for the others. We shall certainly have this usual seasonal difficulty aggravating the trouble of those who were previously employed. A man who is out of work and finds next day that some fellow workman has also become unemployed, sees his chance of getting work reduced. Therefore this is the very worst time to have discontinued the monetary pay which throughout the year the Government has provided. The fact that the Employment Exchanges are still very hardworking institutions shows that this problem of unemployment has not been solved. The replies we have received to many of our efforts and the communications which have been sent to us show a measure of indignation amounting at times to threats of any drastic action that can be taken because of the suffering which underlies present day idleness.
  It is not sufficient to prove to us that in certain parts of the country there is a demand for work. We have this situation: bodies of men unemployed in one place and a demand for labour in other places. Those facts show that there are difficulties in respect to travel, housing, the cost of living and the great expenses which are now incidental in the case of the ordinary wage-earners to removing from one place to another and finding anything like accommodation where they pursue their labour. So that these figures can deceive us unless we look at what are often the underlying causes or circumstances of the case. It is impossible for a man having a house and home with a wife and domestic responsibilities in say, Barrow, Southampton, Bristol or anywhere else, to go one hundred or two hundred miles away, pay his expenses, provide himself with a livelihood and secure anything like the accommodation which was obtainable
  528
  under normal pre-war conditions. I suggest this is not merely an outstanding but I should hope the supreme reason for recognising the soundness and. force of the claim of even the small number of men who have remained unemployed. The smallness of the number does not entirely take away the individual rights of the margin of unemployed. men still remaining.
  As to the responsibilities of the Government in matters of this kind, in principle at least that has been fully accepted. It will not do for the Prime Minister to go about expressing himself in the terms. which I have quoted; it will not do for the Government to find millions of money, as they have done, to relieve the distress due to unemployment, and it will not do for them to try to reorganise working conditions at Woolwich or elsewhere in order to find employment for men unless they accept that degree of State responsibility for this unemployment difficulty which means that if men cannot by their individual efforts and in the private market obtain work, the responsibility of the Government towards these men is completely proved. I have said often enough in the House before that the policy of merely paying out benefit and making State Grants, without an attempt so to organise our industries, and so to use the apparatus available for the purpose of turning to some useful account the labour of the unemployed, is a bad and wasteful policy. We have paid £40,000,000 or thereabouts, and there is not a brick to show for it. Not a sign of anything of substance of any kind can the State claim out of that expenditure of £40,000,000. It would have been far better to have spent the money in useful forms of productive work, as a result of which the Government might now have had several million pounds' worth of property created as the result of the organised labour of those men who, unfortunately, were paid for doing nothing. Not only is the effect that you have nothing that is worth anything after all that expenditure, but by paying men to remain in a state of idleness they themselves tend to deteriorate. There is some little clement of demoralisation which steals over men who get into a state of idleness, whether they are rich or poor. We have argued this side of the case at some length on other occasions, and I do not wish to enlarge upon it

  529
  unduly to-night. Let me say that the number of men who are still out of work is large enough to warrant the responsibility we have been trying to extract from the Government during the past few days. Look at a great centre like Newcastle, which an hon. Member who addressed the House on a former occasion assured us was a centre where no man need be out of work if he desired employment. Here is the Newcastle report from the Labour party of that city, dated 28th November:
  "In the city of Newcastle to-day there are mote than 7,000 workers unemployed. In that number are 1,000 women. The numbers have been increasing weekly at an alarming rate and with the withdrawal of the State out-of- work donation thousands have been thrown on the verge of starvation."
  Newcastle is typical of the whole of the Tyneside and the country generally. These unemployed men and women are drawn from all sections of industry. Monster demonstrations have been held, and the men and women who were promised a new England are determined not to tolerate the continuance of these deplorable conditions. Go to the opposite end of the country. You find in a city like Bristol facts which I have already placed before the Minister of Labour in questions which have previously been answered. I asked his attention in the case of Bristol to the fact that the list of unemployed shows a very considerable number of men out of work who were skilled in the building trade: reasons, carpenters, bricklayers, etc., men in many branches of the engineering trades, such as drivers and motor- men, and a considerable number of dock labourers, warehousemen, porters, and a few hundred general labourers. It seems to me that these are the very men who have a strong claim upon the Government for the reason that as yet, at any rate, the schemes and paper plans of the Government, with regard to building houses, have not taken a definite shape. These men individually are not to blame for the delay of either a municipal body or of the Government, and until the building plans and housing schemes of the Ministry have got properly into their swing, with some tendency to absorb the unemployed, it is simply cruelty to these men in the building trade, with no chance whatever of getting appropriate work during the winter, to keep them on the streets without any means of livelihood at all.
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  I have tried to get from the Prime Minister either a frank or a full statement of what actually has been promised as the result of his Woolwich visit. As I. read in the newspapers, which have so far been my only source of information, some general assurance was given that the plant and the machinery at Woolwich thrown. idle as the result of the end of the War would be so arranged and used as to turn out locomotives and a goodly supply of machinery of that kind, in order to meet the needs of our railway system. If that be so, I want to ask the Labour Minister whether he does not think that similar steps can be taken by the Government in regard to a great amount of the plant, the buildings, machinery, tools, and implements scattered in many parts of this country in buildings acquired by the Government during the War? If it is right to do this in Woolwich because there you have a great town with thousands thrown out of employment since the close of the War—an ever-increasing number—because of the pressure of numbers and the dangerous situation that naturally would develop if things were neglected in Woolwich, how can it be wrong to attempt it in the smaller centres when to do so would mean that you would gradually absorb those who were out of work and attract men to these different places, as was the case during the War? I hope the Labour Minister will agree that it is better to settle this matter on the basis of justice than of fear. It is not statesmanship to organise the workers in any centre and provide employment and wages for them because you have become afraid that, unless you do so, certain consequences will follow. The better and higher statesmanship consistsin facing the difficulty because of its justice and because of its common sense. There is nothing more wasteful than to leave these men totally unemployed. I believe the Government has even gone the length of claiming that the £40,000,000 which was paid as unemployment benefit was a kind of insurance against revolution. d do not think it was any such thing, but, if it was, how are we to deal with the revolutionary elements and tendencies which now naturally are being developed and cultivated as the result of this treatment of the men and women who are unemployed this month and will be next month, but did not happen to be unemployed when the donation was being paid?

  531
  In the absence of the work of reconstruction, in the absence of any real comprehensive effort to organise the unemployed and put their efforts to some useful purpose, we are compelled to resort to an appeal to the Government to provide the necessary maintenance for these men and their families during the coming months. I do not think it is any use appealing to the right hon. Gentleman—I suppose he is quite helpless in the matter—to continue the donation payment in the ordinary way. But there is open to him some step which I trust he will be willing to take. I do not know how far he has interested himself in the steps resulting from our previous appeal to use a considerable part of the reserve funds in what is known as the National Relief Fund. We have pressed the matter on the Prime Minister in this House, and quite recently by private deputation. We were assured by him that he would personally see the Chairman of the National Relief Committee and he led us to believe that something substantial would be done as the result of his action. That is considerably more than a week ago, and this is a period of the year when time is priceless and delay is dangerous. There is available in connection with that fund, after all its commitments and all its promises and obligations have been met, a sum approaching £1,250,000. We do not ask that that money should be spent without some corresponding sum from public funds. It would scarcely be fair to those who have the control of that money in the National Relief Fund to ask them to exhaust it completely in a mariner which would be in relief of the national expenditure, while incidentally in relief of the individual who received it, so that the National Exchequer should to some degree be called upon to give a like contribution to ally which might be secured from this National Relief Fund.
  Let me press the urgency and the necessity of giving to-night some satisfactory answer which will give relief and hope to those who are now suffering in regard to this form of our appeal. We do not like it. But those who are suffering are not really at liberty to choose and settle matters on points of dignity, and as they are quite unable to secure it from other public funds in the ordinary way, we ask that the Government should take effective measures to secure the considerable sum of money to which I have referred. They
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  are justified in doing that, because it was expressly subscribed by all classes of the public, even by poor men. A very large number of trade unionists subscribed to this fund. I know something of it, because I took a little part in organising subscriptions for it in the early months of the War, and it was expressly subscribed by a large number of people in order to relieve distress due to unemployment caused by the War in those early months, when it was thought that the War, in its effects, would cause wry severe distress and suffering to unemployment. The War left this fund in quite a prosperous state, and. it accumulated an amount that surprised a great many people. The distress of those who are unemployed is very largely a by-product of the War. They are out of work because as yet peace conditions have not been restored to them in the sense that they have been able to get back to their ordinary employment such as they followed prior to the War, and the Leader of the House, when the matter was last raised, expressly admitted that that money was subscribed to relieve such distress as we have brought forward in various appeals. With the present high prices, with the doors of all these great places where people are going for their Christmas purchases and good cheer practically closed against them, surely these men have a case which cannot be answered by merely referring to the fact that the figures offer seine improvement and that with the spring or the summer they will be absorbed by the ordinary social and industrial forces. We submit that this claim is urgent, that the money is available, that it requires merely action on the part of the Government, coupled with the assurance that the Government will provide some share of public money which can jointly be used with the money from the relief fund to which I have referred. if that were done, it would help us completely to tide over, at least, the acute forms of distress which otherwise will continue until well into next year.
  9.0 P.M.
  Mr. INSKIP: The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) has on more than one occasion brought before the House the subject of the use that might be made of the very large sums of money which have been expended in unemployment donations. While I confess that I have never been satisfied that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has, if I may say so with all respect, really effectively answered the criticisms that have been made as to the

  533
  expenditure of that money in return for any service, I maintain that there is a great deal of work in the country which might be done by public authorities if they were able to use this money in paying those who might do the work. I cannot speak in the same way as those who have had official experience in the labour world, but I know that in my own Constituency and elsewhere there is an immense amount of work which might be clone by public authorities, and would be done by public authorities, if they were not anxious to observe proper economy in the use of the rates. It is riot that they are avoiding work the expense of which ought to be borne by the rates, but that they are refraining from engaging in public works which are almost of an essential kind merely because the rates will no longer stand any additional strain being placed upon them. Although I fully realise the great difficulty there may be in handing over to local authorities blocks of public money from the national Exchequer which might 'be used by those authorities in providing work or carrying on work of that kind, yet I cannot believe that the resources of the Ministry of Labour are exhausted, and that they can discover no means by which the public purse could he protected and yet the money more usefully expended. It is quite likely that, some persons would receive employment under these circumstances who ought to find employment in other quarters. It is quite likely that the rates of some local authorities would be relieved; but when we realise that £40,000,000 has been expended and there has been nothing hi return for it, it appears to me that almost any state of things and any use of the money would be preferable to what I think I am entitled to describe as that waste of money, and preferable to the demoralisation that must ensue and, in fact, has resulted from the use of the money in that way. I join in appealing to the Minister of Labour to give further consideration to the proposals which I am sure many local authorities are willing to undertake in connection with the use of money at present expended in unemployment donation, if only they were allowed to exercise their local knowledge and their experience in making a better use of it. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) would not like it to be understood that it is only the wage earners or the people employed in work of this sort who are to
  534
  be considered. There are large numbers of persons who are out of employment, whose condition is almost as distressing as that of the people to whom Ire has referred. In the city of Bristol there are 900 officers out of employment, not belonging to the class that may be described as wage earners, and certainly not persons who would be likely to apply for unemployment donation, but their position is just as distressing as that of those who would receive the weekly donation, and if it is the duty of the State to provide work or pay for one class, it is the duty of the State to provide work or pay in respect of another class. When you have said that of the officers who are out of employment in Bristol awl elsewhere, you must apply precisely the same principle to the many ladies who have been employed during the War, and who belong to the class which prefers silent poverty rather than to appeal for assistance. I hardly know where any line is to be drawn, if the principle which my right hon. Friend suggests as a proper principle is to be adopted. Wage-earners are not the only classes who are suffering poverty through unemployment. There are large populations in every city who belong to what we call the middle class who deserve pity from the Government, and who might expect assistance from the Government just as much as wage-earners, and I hope that if any proposals are ever considered for the further assistance of those at present reciving unemployment donation, that care will be taken that the same protection and assistance is extended to all those who, through no fault of their own, are living without means to make life possible and pleasant for them.
  I am rather disappointed that my right lion. Friend did riot state exactly what it is he expects the Government to do. It is useless to suggest that people are in a very unhappy position now that Christmas is approaching, and that fine language will not provide for them. What we want to know is what is the principle which he would suggest for helping them. Surely he does not suggest that the State is for ever to provide for those who are out of employment, or to provide work for them? Is it a mere temporary measure that he suggests, or a measure of permanent and universal application which he proposes? Perhaps some other hon. Member will state in intelligible terms the principle for which Government approval is desired. My right hon. Friend has quoted

  535
  the Prime Minister's speech yesterday, but he did not quote the statement made by a representative of some bricklayers' union or some building trade union that under no circumstances would that union consent to dilution of Iabour or an extension of the apprenticeship system with a view to bringing more people into the building trade.
  Mr. W. THORNE: Unless!
  Mr. INSKIP: The hon. Member is attempting to remind me of something which is at present not in my mind. If I have misrepresented the passage he can correct me. I am referring to a report that I read in the "Times" this morning of a statement which was deliberately made that they were not going to consent to dilution of labour unless they saw that they would be safeguarded from the danger of unemployment. That is an impossible condition to demand until the Government accepts the principle—which I do not suppose anybody really contends for—that they are to provide employment or pay for everybody of any class who is out of employment. But when we see in every quarter of the commercial world a lack of the goods which everybody needs, it seems to me absurd to talk about lack of employment if only proper organisation is applied and proper work done by those who are competent to do it.
  You cannot go into a single shop, Wholesale or retail, without being told that it is impossible to get the goods which the public demand, and we must be lamentably failing in many of those qualities which the British race is supposed to possess if we cannot speedily organise our trade and put it on a footing on which these innumerable wants will be supplied by those who, my right hon. Friend says, only wish to do the work if they have an opportunity to do it. In my own Constituency a few days ago, the position art one of the greatest docks in the Kingdom was that there were something like 40,000 tons of food waiting to be transported by rail. A number of wagons were sent down to the docks sufficient to move an appreciable amount of that enormous quantity, and a number of them were not loaded, because the labour at the port was not prepared to work for the number of hours which might have. enabled them to be loaded and sent on their way to perform service in other parts of the country. Surely, my right hon. Friend opposite will
  536
  realise that that is a lamentable fact, if I have correctly stated the facts, and they are on the authority of the Minister of Transport. Labour must do its share in doing the work which is available, and if it does then labour will speak with much greater authority and force when it is pressing the reasonable and eloquent appeals which my right hon. Friend has made to the Minister of Labour this evening.
  Mr. A. SHORT: I shall be expressing the sense of the House when I say that we have listened with very deep interest to the sympathetic speech from the hon. and learned Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Inskip) who has addressed one or two queries suggestive of sympathy with the sentiments that have been put forward from these benches in coping with this very serious problem of unemployment. While I appreciate the importance of the queries mentioned, I hardly think that this is the time in a Debate of this character to express fully our opinions or to put forward suggestions such as the hon. Member calls for. But when this House withdrew the donation and initiated, in my judgment, a very cruel blockade of some thousands of helpless people in this country it raised problem of unemployment to one of vast importance. It brought it. more fully to the notice of the people, and it is certainly to-day a problem which will have to be tackled by this Government, or if not by this Government by some Government quite soon if we are going to avoid many of the risks which have ever been associated with revolution. The policy was defended on the ground of economy, but in so far as public health is concerned, with the starvation of men and women and the stunting of children because of the impoverished and ill-nourished state of the mothers of these children, we shall probably have to spend considerably more millions in the interest of public health in fighting disease than we should have expended had we continued this donation.
  We of the Labour party have never advocated contributions of this kind, but we have said that it is the function of the. State to see that the units which comprise the State are provided for adequately in the way of employment at remunerative rates, and failing that it is the function of the State to come forward with some assistance by way of contributions to enable the unfortunate people to

  537
  maintain themselves until such time as they can secure employment. This problem at once appeals to the sympathy of the House and of almost everybody in the country, but up to the present there has been no real action taken either by this Government or any previous Government to cope with this problem, and it is the growing opinion of the organised workers of this country that it is not the desire of the Government or of employers to see this problem solved, that it is their firm, strong, economic belief, that it is essential to have the unemployed men at their gates so that the unemployed men may be used to browbeat the others into the acceptance of terms which otherwise they would reject were it not for the existence of a large army of unemployed. My hon. Friend has referred to what might be done. At present the organisation of industry is left entirely to profit-making companies and to the caprice of individuals. The State takes no hand apparently in the business at all. Reference was made by my right hon. Friend to the building of locomotives at Woolwich. What can we say about the state of things when we read in the papers this week that Mr. Dudley Docker, Chairman of the Metropolitan, Wagon and Finance Company, states that he can turn out 500 finished wagons per week, while this firm, which has large works in my own Constituency and in the Birmingham area, has its people employed short time, four days a week.
  In my own Constituency there are thousands of skilled men who have been brought up to this industrial wagon building unemployed, when the State is in absolute want of wagons, and it is anybody's and everybody's business to produce them, but nobody takes any action in the matter. Here we have got the skilled men and the machinery, and we have got no organisation of industry to ensure that the things the people want shall be produced, or to ensure, on the other hand, that the workpeople unemployed shall find employment at remunerative rates. If there is any criticism to be levelled at all, it is not from that side of the House against labour. The criticism comes from here, and it is not only a criticism but a challenge, a challenge to the economics of our industrial and commercial life. As far as we can see it has failed to provide work at more than a subsistence rate of wages and it has maintained a large army
  538
  of unemployed who have ever been at the mercy and caprice of the unscrupulous. The hon. and learned Member for Bristol asked what we would do. Has he forgotten what we did during the War? Has he forgotten, when the enemy was at the gate, how the workers were the salt of the earth? They were wanted then not only to fight but to produce munitions. At that time the State could organise the material and human resources of the country in the interests of the State and of the life of the State, and our belief is that it is the vital duty of the State, even in times of peace, so to organise, or to assist in the organisation of, the resources of the country as to ensure that the working classes shall be free from the possibility of unemployment
  Mr. INSKIP: Has the lion Member forgotten that the organisation of industry during the War involved the abrogation of all trade union rules, which was repugnant to hon. Members opposite?
  Mr. SHORT: The hon. and learned Member recalled something to mind which I am very well aware of and am not likely to forget, as I happened to be one of those who, with my fellow leaders, entered into that bargain with the State. Surely my hon. and learned Friend does not suggest that all we did in those days is essential and necessary in the future organisation of industry I It is the principle I want to bring home to the State, in the interests of its own life, of entering the arena of industry and many other arenas, of organising the resources of the State for this special purpose. The Government might become far more active in the use of the land. We could provide greater opportunities and improved facilities, we could develop channels whereby large numbers of the workers could return to the land and produce the foodstuffs that we require under proper conditions and with fair rates of pay. That is one suggestion I have to make. This problem has ever been with us; it is likely to be with us, so far as this Government is concerned. I do not see that they are making any legitimate effort to solve the problem or that they propose to move upon any lines other than those followed in the past. They intend to depend entirely upon the activities of private individuals, whether trade union officials on the one hand or employers on the other. I venture to make an appeal. It is that the House it-

  539
  self should take hold of this problem. It should make up its mind that it will make a serious, honest, and legitimate attempt to solve the problem—a problem which is a menace to industry and to the life of the community, and, snail I say, if it continues to grows will be a menace to tee safety of the community. Surely it is a problem which calls not only for sympathy or lip service, but for immediate and direct action so far as this House is concerned. If my hon. and learned Friend or the Minister of Labour says that it is not possible to find a solution because of the complications associated with our present economic system, we reply that we are prepared to abolish the existing economic system, and we believe that by its abolition we may find a solution of the unemployment problem.
  The Minister of LABOUR (Sir R. Horne): I do not possess the eloquence of my right hon. friend opposite (Mr. Clynes). He has made a very moving speech upon the question of unemployment. Although I have none of the gifts of rhetoric which he possesses, I believe I could make an eloquent and moving speech also upon this great question. There is certainly no topic which moves me so much, in all the tasks I have to perform, as the fact that there is a considerable hotly of people who at the present time can find no employment. I would beg of the hon. Member who has just sat down not to believe that the Government have any wish to perpetuate any system by which anybody should be unemployed. There may have been people in the past who regarded it as good economics to have a number of unemployed as a means of keeping down the rates of pay of those who were employed. If there are any such left—[HON MEMBERS "Plenty!"]—they are guilty more of folly than of anything else. All their efforts will produce no such results as they are supposed to desire. They will only burden themselves and their industries with a greater charge than if everyone was employed. I believe that we all approach this matter with a genuine and sincere desire to get rid of the suffering and the bitterness of heart which are occasioned by the lack of work. My right hon. Friend dilated upon two aspects of this question, and, as it appeared to me, he somewhat confused them. There is the aspect of the distress which results. From
  540
  unemployment, and there is the otter aspect which is involved by the question of ensuring employment for everybody. I would like to separate these two things and deal first of ail with the question of distress. My right hon. Friend referred to the melancholy and striking fact of which we are witnesses now. He gave three examples, two of which were connected with discharged soldiers who, although it is perfectly true that they are suffering in mind and to a certain extent in substance for lack of employment, are still not in a state of distress comparable with the others who have got no unemployment donation. The third instance he gave was connected with the disaster at the Levant mine. He made a reference to a telegram, a copy of which I also received to-day. The fact is that while it is said that a huge mass meeting took place, there are altogether something like 280 people who have been thrown out of work, and of these a considerable number are discharged soldiers who are receiving already the unemployment donation. The remaining civilians number roughly about 150, and it is a fact that the public in that district have been moved, as the public always have been moved, by mining disasters, to raise a considerable fund in relief of the people who have suffered injury and distress owing to this disaster. I do not anticipate, therefore, that these people are entirely without resources. In addition to that, I am glad to know that the mine has been purchased by a neighbouring mine proprietor, and that it is believed it will be in operation again by the month of January. I do not say that in the interval people may not suffer some distress, but at least we ought not to exaggerate their condition, and we ought to look at all these things in their proper perspective. I want to bring to the knowledge of the House the actual situation with regard to unemployment in this country. It is said that we ought to have continued the unemployment donation. What would that have meant? At the time when the unemployment donation ceased there were 492,000 people in receipt of it, of whom 354,000 were ex-Service men, leaving a difference of 138,000 civilians.
  Mr. SHORT: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many thousands had already received the benefit and were still unemployed?
  Sir R. HORNE: I agree that is a pertinent query. I cannot tell the actual

  541
  number of persons, because there are no figures which are available. I would gladly give the House the figures if I had them. There cannot, however, have been a very great number who were not absorbed, because we find that the numbers of people on the live registers at the Exchange are not greatly in excess of the number of people drawing the unemployment donation. There are on the live registers of the Exchanges people who are not out of employment, but who wish to change from one employment to another. You always find that floating body of people on the live registers of the Exchanges seeking a change. Therefore, I do not think that the number can have been very large. We find that of the 138,000, 55;000 immediately the unemployment donation ceased went on the Unemployment Insurance Fund, which they were entitled to do as belonging to insured trades. I am glad to think that the benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Bill will be increased very soon. The Bill which has dealt with that matter has passed through the House of Commons, and I hope that Christmas Day will see the increase in that benefit which the House of Commons has voted. That leaves altogether something like 83,000 throughout the country. A proportion, which I cannot exactly estimate, is in receipt of the trade union benefits. When you get down to that figure, you see what is the real proportion of those who are deprived of something substantial by the cessation of the unemployment donation. Some of these, rather over 10,000 altogether, are merchant seamen who endured all the vicissitudes of the ordinary sailor, many of them more frequent by reason of the submarine menace to which they were constantly subjected. The Government have made up their minds that they, as having endured the real vicissitudes of war, should be treated in the same way for this particular purpose as if they had been in the fighting line.
  It may be said, against the arguments that I am putting forward, that unemployment may have increased since the date when the donation ceased. In point of fact, unemployment has greatly or considerably decreased since the donation ceased. I find that in the fortnight between 21st November and 5th December there were 34,000 people less seeking employment at the Exchanges. That circumstance gives rise to the reflection that there were a considerable number of
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  people who were only deterred from seeking opportunities of employment by the fact that there was a donation for them to receive. I do not say that accounts for the whole of the difference, but at least there must have been a certain proportion. The remainder of the difference is accounted fur by the fact that trade has really been bettering and that the opportunities for employment have been increasing. These facts are amazingly significant if you take them along with the circumstances that during that same period you have had a most disastrous strike in the moulding trade, which has been from day to day increasing the number of people that have been thrown out of employment in many branches of the engineering trade. It is, indeed, marvellous that we should have a disastrous circumstance of that kind and a decrease in the total number of those unemployed.
  There is, indeed, another circumstance to add even to this tale, because at the same time the number of soldiers being demobilised has been increased. The number of ex-Service men added to the live registers of the Employment Exchanges has been growing during fire same period, so that the total of 34,000 does not really represent the full amount by which unemployment has decreased in this country. These are encouraging facts, and, when you reflect that even at this point of tune, when we are only twelve months away from the cessation of hostilities, we have unemployment, in spite of the mouldcrs' strike, standing at a figure in the main trade unions of the country comparable with the best periods before the War, I think we have every reason to feel some satisfaction at the way in which trade and industry in this country has been revived. It is suggested that is not a fair comparison. It seems to me a most remarkable thing that you have brought back from the War between three and four millions of soldiers, whom you have reabsorbed in industry to the extent of 90 per cent. If it be an unfair comparison, it is only unfair in the sense that it is putting too severe a test against this year.
  Mr. N. MACLEAN: The right hon. Gentleman in making the comparison has omitted altogether the fact that we have been engaged in a war in which about 800,000 have been slain and thus taken from the industrial ranks, and another 200,000 have been disabled.
  Sir R. HORNE: My hon. Friend fails to realise that, while it is true a considerable number of men have been killed in the course of this War, at the same time there has been no emigration from this country during the past five years. When he talks of the disabled men, it has to be remembered that they are included in the figures, and it is far more difficult to get employment for disabled men. In spite of all these difficulties, we have reached the condition which I have described as remarkable in the circumstances. My right hon. Friend opposite asked me with regard to the National Relief Fund. I agree entirely with the suggestion that the National Relief Fund ought to be used for distress arising out of unemployment caused by the War. It was for that very purpose the fund was raised, and I hope that in dealing with the various cases which arise the managers of the fund will take a wide and generous interpretation even of those terms. What has been settled with regard to that matter is that the fund shall be made available for the purposes described, and a circular is being issued, if it has not yet been sent out, to the various local authorities by the managers of the National Relief Fund, stating the objects of the fund and asking that they should set up Committees which should take into account the amount of distress in each district and investigate the circumstances of the various cases which arise, and then make an appeal to the managers of the fund for the amount which they require. I hope and believe that a very great deal of the distress which exists will be relieved by means of this very admirable fund.
  I turn to the other topic which my hon. Friend raised, and in which he got some support from another hon. Member who spoke. He said the £40,000,000 spent in unemployment donation was waste, and that indeed this fund ought to have been used for the provision of employment. He suggested that national factories might have been made available for the purpose of giving work to many of the men who at that time had no employment. Just look at the matter for a moment. What was to happen whilst you were getting ready the places for the work on peaceful industry in national factories? By what method were you going to sustain the hundreds of thousands of civilians who were thrown out of work; after hostilities ceased, from munitions works which no longer produced the war material which they had
  544
  previously been manufacturing? Is it not perfectly obvious to everybody who thinks of it for a moment that it would take a period of months even to start the provision of employment in any of these factories for the making of any of the ordinary commodities of commerce? In the interval were you to provide no fund at all upon which the people should live, and probably in the months immediately after the hostilities had ceased you had over 1,000,000 people unemployed v. ho had recently either been in the Army or engaged on munitions work? I venture to submit whatever designs you may have made and however rapidly you put them into operation, you still would have been faced with the necessity of maintaining by far the greater number of those people for many months after the 11th November. The Government, so far as I know, has got no prejudice against affording employment. In every case it is a question of expediency and prudence. It was suggested that employment was offered to Woolwich out of fear, but no such motive ever affected any of us. We place the whole question upon the footing which I described in the first speech I made in this House upon that question. We were determined that we were not going to afford employment in some places which would result in throwing people out of employment in other places. In this connection I may remark the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Short) complained we were making wagons at Woolwich, one of the national factories, while his constituents are being —
  Mr. SHORT: I must correct the right hon. Gentleman. I recalled that my hon. and learned Friend had made a reference to wagons being built at Woolwich, but I expressed no opinion on that matter. I did call attention to what was happening in my Constituency, and it appears to be nobody's business to assist to organise.
  Sir R. HORNE: My hon. Friend's explanation suits me just as well as what I first mentioned. The whole point is this, that he says that at the present time, whilst wagons are being built at Woolwich, his constituents—
  Mr. SHORT: I have not said anything of that kind. I made a reference to the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, and I called attention to what was happening in my Constituency: but I expressed no opinion upon what the Government was doing.
  Sir R. HORNS: I am still reinforced for the purpose of my argument. The fact is, according to my hon. Friend, that many of his constituents, who are only working three or four days per week, would be glad to be at work on building wagons, and it is also the fact that wagons are being built at Woolwich. I do not know how far they act and react on each other, but there is one thing perfectly certain, you do not do an industry or employment any good by starting work in a Government factory it the result is—and I do not say it is so in this case—to make short employment in other places or no employment at all. That is the sole point. That is the sole motive which has guided the Government upon this matter. Just to show we have no prejudices in this question, it is enough to point to the fact that we are now engaged upon the largest scheme for affording employment which has ever been tackled by any Government in the world, to wit the housing scheme. If on the other hand there is shown a feasible project for using Government property for the affording of employment in a way in which it will not dislocate it somewhere else, I am heart and soul with that project, and will give the greatest possible support to it. While my right hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes) was dilating upon this question of the duty of the Government to find employment for the people as distinct from finding the donation, I recollect a Bill, a private Bill, which was introduced into this House a considerable time ago—
  Mr. WATERSON: On the 23rd March.
  Sir R. HORNE: Upon the back of that Bill I find the name of the right hon. Gentleman. The Bill proposed to transfer to the Ministry of Labour, many of the powers of the Ministry of Health, and of the Home Office and of the Board of Trade. It was called the Prevention of Unemployment Bill, but the only question of unemployment it prevented was that of the Minister of Labour, who already belongs, I am afraid, to a sweated industry. My right hon. Friend, by the terms of that Bill, perfectly well realised that it is not always possible to provide employment. One of the most important Sections of his Bill was that, in the event of the Minister of Labour failing to provide employment, he should provide adequate means of subsistence for every man and his family, so that he completely realised that there must be some alternative to the provision of employment. Just
  546
  let me take one or two of the illustrations which he gave. He referred to the fact that labour was not mobile at present because of the lack of accommodation in various places, but how can the State provide employment to meet circumtances of that kind? Supposing you have a dozen people of a particular trade in one place who cannot find employment there, while opportunities exist in some other part of the' country where no accommodation can be provided for them, what is the State to do in those circumstances? Is it to start, in each individual instance of a small knot of unemployed, some factory by which work may be found for them? When you examine the problem it is entirely insoluble on these lines. Let me take the case with which my right hon. Friend started, the instance of the Levant Mine, where a disaster in the pit shaft led to a number of people being thrown out of employment. Is the Government to start a new mine in the district, or a factory, until a new mine shaft is sunk? It is perfectly obvious that no Government in its senses would start out upon the project of providing work for people who, through a temporary disaster, were thrown out of opportunity of employment.
  Mr. CLYNES: May I ask my right hon. Friend not to finish this part of his speech without noting the reasons which prompted me to cite those cases? The reasons were. as I said, that the claim of these men for financial benefit had been enormously increased because they could not remove from the places in which they found themselves to go to work that existed elsewhere.
  Sir R. HORNE: My right hon. Friend started by confusing cases of distress with cases of unemployment, but all I have to say on that in connection with my present argument is that whatever you do it is obvious, even from those instances which he has cited, that you cannot provide employment which is going to ensure always work for everybody. Let me take the case of the moulders' strike. There are over 100,000 people to-day, who are not moulders, who are out of work because the moulders are on strike. How is the Government to provide employment in these circumstances? If ever there was an instance which established the reasonableness of bringing the unemployment donation to an end it is the circumstances which have occurred in connection with the moulders' strike. The moulders have been supported by funds of trade unions,

  547
  whose members themselves have been thrown on the streets because the moulders
  are on strike, and if the Government had been providing unemployment donations to these men it would have been paying strike funds to the strikers. That at least is an evil which has been avoided.
  But I would address an appeal to my right hon. Friend in response to the one he has addressed to me. He has referred to the number of discharged soldiers who are still without employment. There are at least some of these who would be in employment to-day but for the action of the great organisations with which he has some connection. There is no question at all that many of them would have been hard at work at the present time if only men who already are in trades where their work would have been of use had not refused to receive them as brother workers. I am perfectly certain that none of my hon. Friends opposite will ever regard me as having been too critical of trade unions, because I have always recognised their difficulties, and I know the apprehensions from which they suffer. But, indeed, in numerous instances in which there is no prospect on the horizon at all of unemployment occurring in certain great trades, nevertheless these men who fought the battles of their country have now been refused entrance. I make an appeal to my right hon. Friend at least to do his best to cure that defect.
  Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: Will the right hon. Gentleman name us the trades to which he refers?
  Sir R. HORNE: There was an example the other day in a wagon works at Horbury. There was another example, that of the Campbell Gas Engine Company at Halifax, and my hon. Friend knows there are numerous instances of this kind. He also knows that one great trade union organisation has refused even to allow any trading facilities to be granted in their trade to the disabled men who have come home and who are seeking to acquire skill rather than to be thrown into the ranks of the unskilled workers. I hope that something may be done to change that spirit, and to enable these men to find the employment which undoubtedly they deserve. But all this question of the Government finding employment is fraught with great difficulty. We have all had before our eyes the example of the French Government after the French
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  Revolution. There one remembers very well that nothing was so demoralising in the history of the world, so far as labour is concerned, as the attempt of the French Government at that time to find employment for everybody. One remembers the instance in which one French workman said to another, being asked how long his job would last, that it would last a very long time so far as he was concerned. His friend said, "Even that must sometime come to an end, and what will you do then?" "Oh," he said, "then they will put us on to bottle the Seine." I hope we shall never arrive at that pass in this country. I deplore, as my right hon. Friend does, the amount of unemployment that exists, but, indeed, things are better, and I feel confident that if only we have peace and harmony in industry, prosperity so far as trade is concerned will ensure more employment in this country than we have ever had at any period except during the War.
  Mr. ROYCE: I should like to say a few words with regard to the closing remarks of the Minister of Labour. I have heard an hon. Member for one of the Universities, I think it was, this afternoon wax indignant over the alleged fact that men were refusing admittance to disabled men, or to men who had served their country in various trades owing to trade restrictions, and he became very indignant on the subject. So far as I am concerned, I deplore it. The mere fact that he has served his country seems to be sufficient evidence, at any rate, that he should have an opportunity of learning a trade, but while the hon. Member waxed so indignant on the subject, I could not help reflecting that, as a member of a university, he would hardly admit any person who came along, even if he had served his country, to a university degree. He has quite as close a corporation there as any he is condemning in the trade unions. But what I rose for is to bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite an opportunity by which employment can be found for a very large number of men without dislocating any industry. When the present Government launched its programme, one of the items it laid considerable stress upon was the reclamation of land. We have a splendid opportunity on the shores of the Wash of reclaiming very large areas of land and employing advantageously many thousands of men.
  I may bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman that German prisoners

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  were employed at one place, and that 500 acres of valuable land were secured from the sea during the War, and a very fertile crop indeed was produced on that land. There are thousands of acres that can now be reclaimed if suitable accommodation is provided for the men who work. We have plenty of huts that could be used for that purpose. The work in question was started in a perfunctory manner and placed under the control of the Board of Agriculture, who have reclaimed there, or rather are in process of reclaiming, 500 acres of land, which will cost them some thing over £50 an acre—not an altogether bad deal, when you take into question the quality of the land. There are thousands of acres to be reclaimed, and, if the land can be reclaimed at something like £50 art acre, it will give employment to thousands of men, which is better than paying unemployment donations. If the right hon. Gentleman would like any assistance in the subject, I should be glad to afford it to him, to show how work could be done and thousands of men employed. It will provide land which can be immediately brought under cultivation, and it is not at all a bad deal for the Government to engage in. I am very much surprised they have not taken advantage of it to a very much greater extent. I put a question to-day, and I have had a question previously, with regard to what is being done in this matter, and. I learnt that something like 150 men only are employed on the work now proceeding, and the Board of Agriculture are considering the advisability of modifying the scheme they have now in hand. Instead of modifying it, there is an opportunity to enlarge it almost indefinitely, and the result, I am sure, would be satisfactory not only in finding employment, but reclaiming valuable land.
  Mr. ACLAND: May I say a word or two arising out of the speech of the Minister in charge of the subject, and the speech we have just heard? I was very much impressed with the earnestness of the right hon. Gentleman in trying to find a remedy for the state of things, if it could be found without opening up very considerable principles. I have also some knowledge of the subject to which allusion has been made. The Cornish people do find it extremely difficult to move out of their own county, and to take to work to which they are unaccustomed. I think that difficulty would be great, even if there were houses avail-
  550
  able to which they could go, which there are not, and therefore the problem really is to find work, if it can be found, in the district. The difficulty is pressing more or less, with regard to the whole of the tin-mining area, and also in some places where there were munition works during the War, quite small places where houses. grew up, and people came to live during the War, and where munition works and cordite works were suddenly closed when the War was over. The people have houses there, and are quite unable to get houses anywhere else, because the places-from which they moved are absolutely full up. There is one suggestion which might help the tin-mining districts in the north of Cornwall and elsewhere, to which allusion has been made. The Camborne and Redruth drainage schemes. were overdue before the War. Of course, the local authorities now do not want to go ahead with their drainage schemes, because of the high cost of labour arid the heavy burden that would fall on the. rates, but I would like my right hon. Friend, if he would, to communicate with the Minister of Health and see whether the Ministry could not send down an inspector to confer with these particular local authorities, and see whether these schemes could not be put into operation, or, at any rate, begun in a way which would provide a great deal of the rough work which must be done before either of the schemes can be carried out. The Government would then have done its best, and it would be the fault of the local authorities if they would riot do, anything. A special effort should be made to point out the desirability of taking action in the general interest, and, at any rate, the Government would have done what they could.
  Sir R. HORNE: I should be very glad to do that.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. ACLAND: Then with regard to reclamation. The Board of Agriculture, acting in connection with the Forestry Commissioners, were about to undertake a big joint scheme on Bodmin Moor, partly for agricultural reclamation and partly for forestry. The Forestry Department, with which I am connected, is going on with its share, as Bodmin Moor is a very promising place to go ahead with a scheme, hut you can give a great deal more employment on reclamation for agriculture than merely in planting. I have

  551
  heard that recently the Board of Agriculture has on Bodmin Moor, as well as in the Wash, apparently abandoned the schemes with which they were rather far advanced. That may be Government policy which has been made necessary in the general interests of economy and that sort of thing, but, again, I would like my right hon. Friend to make inquiries of his colleague the President of the Board of Agriculture and see whether there is a definite, settled Government policy that these schemes of land reclamation shall be abandoned, because if they could go Ahead on Bodmin Moor and on the Wash and other places this winter, it would alleviate the position. If my right hon Friend would undertake to do these two things, it would be a practical contribution towards the subject.
  Major BARNES: I am gratified with the sympathetic way in which the right hon. Gentleman has met the suggestion of my right hon. Friend on this side, and would press him a little further in the matter of dealing with this question, not so much from a national point of view as from the local point of view. I had not the privilege of hearing his speech, but I understand he made a very effective speech in dealing with the problem from a national point of view, and if it is not so extremely serious from that point of view, I think he would agree with me that probably it is more seriously felt in special parts of the country than generally throughout the country. A few days ago I sent to him, a resolution which was passed by the Council of the city of Newcastle, in which they were pressing for special measures to deal with the situation there. The House, and I am sure the right lion Gentleman, will, know that the city of Newcastle is a very special instance of congestion arising out of war. A great many people were brought to Newcastle to deal with the great amount of work done there in connection with the provision of munitions of war, and the closing down of the War has closed down a great deal of employment there. Therefore, in that city I think the problem does present features which may not be common to the whole country, and the suggestion I wish to make to the right lion. Gentleman is that perhaps he might be good enough—he has promised to send down somebody to that part of the country in which my right hon. Friend is interested to confer with local authorities upon the situation
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  there—to take some steps to make the local authorities in Newcastle-on-Tyne fully conversant with the position there. It may be they have an exaggerated view of the situation, and he might be able, through some representative of his, to bring them into an easier frame of mind. It appears to me with regard to the whole problem, whether national or provincial, that the great thing is to put the people in possession of the facts so far as they can be. Knowledge dispels fear, or it ought to do. If the right hon. Gentleman can promise me that, by some intimation direct or through his representatives to the local authorities of Newcastle, he can inform them that he may be able to do something, it will do a good deal to relieve the minds, not only of the local authorities themselves, but of a great many people in the city who are very uneasy.
  Sir R. HORNE: I shall be very glad to do so.
  Mr. T. DAVIES: Housing and finance have been dealt with over and over again in this House. To find the money for building houses the local authorities are asked to raise local loans. I would appeal to hon. Gentlemen on the Government Bench who are in favour of that to say whether it is not possible to adopt the same plan in regard to these local loans for small amounts as they adopted in regard to the War Savings Certificates. On these latter no Income Tax whatever is deducted during the five years in which they are running. The idea, unfortunately, has got about that in issuing these local loans for amounts up to £500, no Income Tax was to be charged but I gather from what has been said in the House that that is not so; that in regard to £500 of bonds Income Tax would not be deducted at the source, but the income upon the £500 would have to be reckoned and Income Tax paid. Many of the working classes, especially in the agricultural districts, do not understand the working of the Income Tax in the slightest degree. If you want to make these local loans up to £500 successful, I believe it can be only done by letting it be known that bonds up to the amount of £500 can be held by any individual and no Income Tax need be paid. I am assured by people in the county of Gloucester with whom I worked very cordially during the War Savings Certificate campaign, that the issue of local bonds will be an absolute failure in the county under the circum-

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  stances. I would urge that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Health, and those concerned in the matter, should take the position very seriously into consideration if they want to make the local loans a success. They should try to introduce the principle that was introduced into the War Savings Certificates.
  The other point is this: We have heard a great deal of the hardships of those people who are out of work. Whilst these have their hardships undoubtedy, there is a class of people suffering all the time, whether in or out of work. I mean those in receipt of old age pensions. I frequently have petitions from these people. I have petitions from boards of guardians. Only this week I had one, to the effect that the case of these people, who only get. 7s. 6d. per week at the age of seventy, in view of the high price of goods and especially of coal, is most pitiable. When boards of guardians, who have had the credit of being very hard in the past, pass resolutions asking that these poor pensions should be supplemented by outdoor relief, there is much significance in the fact. What is more significant still is that the one thing upon which, I believe, the Old Age Pensions Committee which has recently reported was unanimous was that outdoor relief should not be reckoned in the case of old age pensioners, in view of the prevailing high prices.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That subject does not come within the scope of the Appropriation Bill. It will require a special Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means, and, in consequence, legislation.
  Mr. DAVIES: Thank you for correcting me. I will conclude my remarks.
  Mr. WATERSON: In view of the remarks that, fell from the Minister of Labour with reference to the Prevention of Unemployment Bill, introduced on 21st March, I would suggest that that Bill, even if it had been accepted by the House, would have had revision in Grand Committee. That Bill was turned down by the House. In view of that, we of the Labour party feel at this stage that we are justified in making a point against the Government in not taking some steps to prevent unemployment. Both sides of the House are agreed, to a large extent, that the Government organised exceedingly well for the prosecution of the War. We organised, not only on national lines, but on international lines. We entered into
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  what would be termed extended arrangements with other Allied Powers in order to secure the victory of our arms. The complaint we have is that the Government which had foresight, ability, and capacity to organise for war made absolutely no preparation, or little, for peace. Students of history know that the aftermath of war always includes a period of unemployment. This question of unemployment had been in the minds of many people before hostilities broke out in Europe, and if the War had been kept off, or we could have avoided it, I feel confident that the Government would have had' to bring forward a Bill similar to that which I have mentioned.
  I hope I shall not be misunderstood if I give what I believe to be the impression abroad in the country, and which to-day is in the minds of many working people who are walking the streets. There are men and women who feel that the Government have neglected this important. part of social legislation with an ulterior motive. We come in contact with men who have served in the War right loyally and well. Had it been their lot they would have paid nobly the supreme sacrifice. They have returned to civil life to find that unemployment is waiting for them at the entrance to that civil life. Those of us who mix with them and inquire if they have got anything to do, get the reply, "Nothing; what can we do now; we do not intend to go to the workhouse, we mean to live somehow or other, we are fed up"—to use the soldiers' phrase — "with walking the streets. The War Office and the Government have had three or four years of hard toil out of us. We will go back into the Army and have two or three years of ease out of the Government."
  That is a phrase that we are confronted with. It is one of the sayings that represent the convictions of the men of to-day who are walking upon the street. When we hear this talk, we begin to wonder whether the Government has neglected to-bring in something that would prevent unemployment, with the ulterior object of creating the new Army of the future.
  The Bill which has been mentioned this evening, for insurance against unemployment, may be very well as far as the future is concerned, but what is required is something to cope with the needs of the present time. Insurance against unemployment is no source of comfort to those

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  people who cannot find a job. The very fact that there is a need for such a Bill is a condemnation of the past policy of the Government in not preventing unemployment. The hon. and learned Member for Bristol (Mr. Inskip) drew attention to the lack of transport. As I have said on more than one occasion in this House, and particularly in supplementary questions, our transport system to-day is far from being satisfactory. We see a state of chaos in many of our large industrial centres. Many stations are not yet open, although the war has been declared at an end. All that is due to the fact that those railwaymen who were taken into the Army during the latter period of the War have not yet returned to civil life; the cream of the railwaymen are now to be found in the ranks of the Army of Occupation.
  Another matter to which I think the Government ought to give attention is that of the land. I have been told in this House only this evening by one who is particularly concerned with small holdings, that it is impossible for these men to get the necessary small holdings. When they get them they have to pay such a price that it is no encouragement to them, and, as a consequence, they find themselves with nothing to do. It woud be interesting to know if the Minister of Labour, in conjunction with the President of the Board of Agriculture, has been interested in this matter, because we find that land can be let at £1 6s. an acre, and yet, when workmen who are on the street are trying to get some land in order to produce food, to encourage our own British production, they are asked £2 10s. per acre for the same land. That is not far from the very place in which we are meeting to-night. Soldiers to-day are finding it extremely difficult to get on to that land to till it and produce food at a reasonable and fair remuneration for the services they give. I am reminded by this Debate of a statement made in this House by one of the hon. Members for Newcastle. He told us from that bench, waxing eloquent, and extremely enthusiastic, that there was plenty of work for everybody; and yet we find, by the very figures which the Minister of Labour has given this evening, that there are 138,000 men and 354,000 exService men still upon the streets.
  I want to make the suggestion to the Minister of Labour that there may be the possibility, if he will be prepared to look into it, of developing our tube system as
  556
  far as the City of London is concerned. I am told that, as regards one particular line, it is impossible for them to proceed because one railway company is going to block the progress to the utmost of its power. I feel that no one industry like that, simply for the sake of gaining profits for its particular concern, should stop the enterprise of another concern which may be in competition with it. I hope the Minister of Labour will be prepared, if he can, to do something particularly to see that the Piccadilly Tube shall be extended far more North than it goes at the present time. My hon. Friend who spoke last (Mr. Davies) dealt with the question of old age pensions. I do not think there are many men in this House who will attempt to argue what these men and women have been suffering. The Minister of Labour referred to the question of trade union pay. Is he aware that many of these men are getting no more out-of-work pay from the trade union than some old age pensioners? Many trade unionists are not paid when they are out of work, but in the cases where they do get unemployment pay it averages something like 15s. a week, which is only equivalent to is. 6d. before hostilities broke out. As I took some part in the Debate on the introduction of the Prevention of Unemployment Bill, I have a little complaint against the Minister, and I hope lie will consider the advisability of granting at once some necessary relief to these people, who are finding it so hard to make both ends meet, and to give the children, at any rate, a chance. I say that with all seriousness. There is no one in this House, probably, who has passed through the experience I have. When I was quite a boy I bad to beg my bread from door to door. I naturally feel a kindly interest in the children. We cannot afford to neglect this matter, These children will be the men and women of the future, and, therefore, in the interests of child welfare we must do our best for the boys and girls.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.

  ALIENS RESTRICTION. BILL.
  Lords Amendments, considered.

  CLAUSE 2.—(Extension of Powers.)
  (1) Sub-section (1) of Section one of the principal Act shall be amended by the addition at the end thereof of the following paragraphs:
  (l)for determining what nationality is to be ascribed to aliens in doubtful circumstances, and for disregarding, in the case of any person against whom a deportation or expulsion order has been made, any subsequent change of nationality; and
  (m)for prolonging, for a period not exceeding six months after the termination of any war in which His Majesty is engaged, the internment of any persons who durthe war have been interned as alien enemies.
  (2) His Majesty may also by Order in Conned under the principal Act make Regulations requiring information to be given as to the property, liabilities, and interests of the subjects of any State which has been at war with His Majesty at any time during the year nineteen hundred and eighteen, and for preventing (without notice or authority) the transfer of or other dealings with the property of such subjects.
  Lords Amendment: in Sub-section (1), leave out paragraph (m).—Agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: After Sub-section (1), insert
  "(2) For the purpose of enforcing the provisions of ally Treaty of Peace concluded or to be concluded between His Majesty and any Power with which His Majesty was at war in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House cloth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.—[Mr. Shortt.]
  Mr. TYSON WILSON: Will the right hon Gentleman explain the effect of this Amendment?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I do not think it requires much explanation. The House of Lords have put these words in to ensure that any inquisition into the financial position shall be only for the purpose of carrying out any treaty sintered into between nations.
  Lords Amendment agreed to.
  Lords Amendments: In Sub-section (2), leave out the word "also" ["His Majesty may also by Order in Council"] —Agreed to.
  In Sub-section (2), leave out the words "the subjects of any State which has been at war with His Majesty at any time during the year nineteen hundred and eighteen, and insert instead thereof the words "former enemy aliens."—Agreed to.
  In Sub-section (2), leave out the word "subjects" ["property of such subjects"], and insert instead thereof the word "aliens."—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 5.—(Employment of Aliens in Ships of the Mercantile Marine.)
  No alien shall act as master, chief officer, or chief engineer of a British merchant ship registered in the United Kingdom, or as skipper or second hand of a fishing boat registered in the United Kingdom, except in the case of a ship or boat employed habitually in voyages between ports outside the United Kingdom:
  Provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any alien who has acted as a master, chief officer, or chief engineer of a British ship, or as skipper of a British fishing boat, at any time during the War, and is certified by the Admiralty to have performed good and faithful service in that capacity.
  Lords Amendment: After the word "skipper" ["or as skipper of a British fishing boat"], insert the words "or second hand."—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 6.—(Appointment of Miens to the Civil Service.)
  After the passing of this Act no alien shall be appointed to any office or place in the Civil Service of the United Kingdom.
  Lords Amendment: Leave out the words "United Kingdom," and insert instead thereof the word "State."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." —[Mr. Shortt.]
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY:
  Does the word "State" include the Colonies, or does it mean only the United Kingdom?
  Question put, and agreed to.

  CLAUSE 7 —(Restriction of Change of Name by Aliens.)
  (3) A Secretary of State may, if it appears desirable on special grounds in any particular case, grant an exemption from the provisions of this Section, but shall not do so unless he is satisfied that the name proposed to be assumed or used, or to be continued to be assumed or used, is in the circumstances of the case a suitable name.
  (4) Nothing in this Section shall—

  (a) affect the assumption or use or continued assumption or use of any name in pursuance of a Royal licence; or

  (b) affect the continuance of the use by any person of a name which he has assumed before the commencement of this Act if he has been granted an exemption under the Defence of the Realm Act or the Aliens Restriction Order; or

  (c) prevent the assumption or use by a married woman of her husband's name.

  Lords Amendments: In Sub-section (3), leave out the words "or used or to be con-

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  tinned to be assumed or used," and insert instead thereof the words "used or continued."—Agreed to.
  In Sub-section (4, b), leave out the word "Act" ["Defence of the Realm Act"], and insert instead thereof the word "Regulations."—Agreed to.
  In Sub-section (4, b), after the word "Order" [Aliens Restriction Order"], insert the words "in force on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and nineteen."—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 9.—(Deportation of Former Enemy Aliens.)
  (1) Every former enemy alien who is now in the United Kingdom shall be deported forthwith unless he shall within two months after the passing of this Act make an application to the Secretary of State in the prescribed form to be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom, stating the grounds on which such application is based, and unless the Secretary of State shall grant him a licence to remain: Provided that this Sub-section shall not apply to such former enemy aliens as were exempted from internment or repatriation on the recommendation of any advisory committee appointed after the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, and before the passing of this Act.
  (2) The Secretary of State may, if he is satisfied on the recommendation of the advisory committee hereinafter mentioned that there is no reason to the contrary, grant such licence, subject to such terms and conditions (if any) as he shall think fit.
  (3) The committee may, unless satisfied by reports from the naval, military, air force, or police authorities that there is good reason to the contrary, recommend the exemption from deportation of a former enemy alien on any one or more of the following grounds, namely:

  (a)That the applicant is seventy years of age or upwards;

  (b)That the applicant is suffering from serious and permanent illness or infirmity;

  (e) That the applicant has one or more sons who voluntarily enlisted and served in His Majesty's Forces or the forces of one of the Allied or Associated Powers:

  (d) That the applicant has lived for at least twenty years in this country and married a British-born wife;

  (e)That the applicant came to reside in the United Kingdom when he was under the age of twelve years;

  (f)That the applicant has served in His Majesty's Forces during the War or resided in the United Kingdom for not less than twenty years, and has rendered valuable personal services to this country during the War;

  (g) That the applicant is a minister of religion.

  (4) The committee may also where the application for a licence is made on any ground other than one or more of those above specified, if satisfied that owing to the special circumstances of the case deportation would involve serious hardship to the applicant or to his wife or children, or owing to the special technical
  560
  knowledge or skill of the applicant, would involve injury to any British interest, recommend. his exemption as aforesaid.
  (5) In granting a licence under this Section, the Secretary of State may include in the licence the wife of the applicant and any child or children of his under the age of eighteen.
  (6) A list of the persons to whom such licence is granted shall, as soon as may be after the granting of the licence, be published in the Gazette.
  (7) Any licence so granted may be at any time revoked by the Secretary of State.
  (8) If such licence is not granted or if, having been granted, it shall be revoked, the Secretary of State, shall make an Order (in this Act referred to as a Deportation Order) requiring the alien to leave the United Kingdom and thereafter to remain out of the United Kingdom for a period of seven years after the passing of this. Act. The Secretary of State may, by a Deportation Order, require the alien to return to the country of which he is a subject or citizen.
  (9) The provisions of this Section shall be in addition to and not in derogation of any other provisions of the principal Act or this Act, or any Order in Council made thereunder, providing for the deportation of aliens.
  (11) This Section shall not apply to a woman who was at the time of her marriage a British subject.
  Lords Amendment: In Sub-section (1) leave out from the word "Kingdom" ["now in the United Kingdom"] to the end of the Sub-section. and insert instead thereof the words
  "and to whom this Section applies shall be deported forthwith unless the Secretary of State on the recommendation of the advisory committee, to be constituted under this Section, shall grant him a licence to remain."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Mr. SHORTT: I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  I shall propose that there should be inserted at the end of Sub-section (1) the words "or to the wife or to the children under eighteen years of age of any such alien" Perhaps I might explain here exactly what the position is with regard to Clause 9. That Clause has been entirely remodelled since it left this House and went to the House of Lords. There were moved in the House of Lords certain Amendments standing in the name of Lord Finlay. The Government to-night ask the House to disagree with the Amendments passed by the House of Lords, and to restore the Clause as it was before it left-this House subject to this: That we shall introduce into it to-night the Amendments which were moved in the House of Lords by Lard Finlay. They meet some of the

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  main objections which were expressed in the House of Lords and many of them also expressed in this Rouse also, but at the same time they do preserve in its main principles the Clause which this House accepted on an absolutely free vote. It was not a ease of its having been forced through with the aid of the Government Whips, or anything of that kind—it was a free vote of this House. The House determined on a Clause with categories in it, and that, subject to those categories, the Advisory Committee should be able to recommend the grant of an exemption in accordance with those categories. In addition to that, freedom was given to the Secretary of State to impose conditions. That was the decision of this House on a free vote. Therefore, on behalf of the Government, I ask the House to disagree with the Lords Amendment substituting a, merely general Clause in the place of the Clause we had sent up, and to substitute for the categories which were in the Clause as it left this House the categories which were suggested in Lord Finlay's Amendments.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I rise to express, as far as I can, my very hearty agreement with what the House of Lords has done in this Amendment. On this, and, indeed. on some other occasions in this Session I say thank God for the House of Lords. I am glad that that Chamber has on this and on other occasions acted, in my judgment at any rate, far more in accordance with the traditions of British justice than a majority of this House has. The House of Lords has turned the Clause round, and instead of these categories being conpulsory upon the Home Secretary they have empowered him, acting on advice duly submitted to him, to grant exemptions. I have had a long, personal and very strenuous experience of the operation of these Advisory Committees under the Act. I was a member of the first Advisory Committee set up in 1915, and I acted on the subsequent Committee and was on the point of acting on a more recent one, but for reasons which were probably very sound I did not proceed. The majority of this House, in the action they took, have gone against the very careful experience of both the learned judges who presided over those Committees and, with one exception, I think, that of the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Butcher) every one of the members of those Committees.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: On what ground does the right hon. Gentleman say this was against the opinion of Mr. Justice Sankey?
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Perhaps as he has not expressed any opinion in public I ought not to have said that. I ought not to say I know it is true.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Is it true?
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The real, effective point I wish to press on the Committee is this: No such generalisation as is laid down in the Statute here can be enforced with reasonable justice. I will give one example, which is in my own experience borne out again and again in the work of the Committee. Let us take such a case as this: You have an enemy alien of long residence in tins country, with a British-born wife, a family of children, and sons serving, prima facie, that carries with it almost the unqualified right of exemption from any of the restrictions laid down in this Bill. Over and over again the Committee have found in such a case as that, that, although every One of these conditions were in the case, they did not constitute by themselves justification for exemption from internment during the War. The Committee examined these cases.
  I have several cases in my mind where the father and husband of such a family as that., with sons actually serving in the War, was interned, because we found from the evidence that it was overwhelmingly our duty to deprive that man of his personal liberty during the War. Take a further case of a man of comparatively short residence here—five or six years—a man who was not married even to a British-born wife, and whose avocation was a useful one. We had information laid before us, first, from the reports of the police and then from a more reliable and valuable source than the report of the police—the reports of the Secret Service of the War Office, coupled with other information which we always asked for, and invariably got; and over and over again we found that in such a case as that the enemy alien was no danger to the State and would be justifiably exempt from internment. That is the kind of case on which I base my claim that the existing system, to which the House of Lords has substantially returned, is the right one. It worked well during the War, and that it worked well is proved by the fact that there was no case during the whole period of the War

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  in which there was any act of violence or destruction of property which could be directly or indirectly brought home to any of these persons who come within the scope of this measure. If that was the case during the War, working under the conditions which prevailed during the War, how much easier should it be in peace, when the numbers are enormously reduced? Three times the comb has been put through these enemy aliens, and I do think that it is wrong for this House. after the War is substantially over, when passions should be dying down, and, in spite of all efforts, are dying down, to go back 100 years to get legislative opinion as to what our policy should be.
  I cannot tell what is passing in the mind of the Home Secretary or of the Executive, but I cannot help coming to the conclusion that they must have felt that there was very considerable force in the arguments which have been addressed on the lines I am putting to the House, otherwise, as guardians of the public safety, they would not have dared to take off their Whips and leave it, as they did, to the free vote of the House. In the House of Lords, too, it was left entirely free and open to their Lordships to take what action they liked, and there was no Division at all. They came to the conclusion that this was all that was necessary for the safety of the Realm. That is the point. We have nothing to do with any other reason than the safety of the Realm. The safety of the Realm was amply secured during the War when we were working under extraordinarily difficult conditions, by committees meeting within the ambit of these walls. Now that the War is over, what case can be made out to show that the safety of the Realm requires that the Clause should be in the form to which the Government propose to put it back? There is no case at all for it on the merits, and we have no right to legislate for racial prejudices, if we are really to be true to the traditions of our great British race. From time to time we have fought the most determined enemies all over the globe, and the w ay we have maintained our moral leadership is this. When we have beaten our enemies, as we have beaten them to the dust, we recognised that the fighting was over and we have got back to normal conditions as speedily as we could, and that is the only way to win back the human
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  race to peace, while by passing solemn Acts of Parliament appealing to hatred and prejudices you are going to deal one of the most deadly blows at the League of Nations. I appeal to hon. Members to act m the spirit of the noble traditions of the House of Commons despite the views and prejudices of certain members. That is the note on which I ask the House of Commons to address itself to the consideration of this problem. I shall certainly vote that we agree with their Lordships in their Amendment.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: The issue which we have to decide to-night is very simple. It is whether a decision deliberately taken by this House, after two days' debate, by a majority of 226 to 116, on a free vote of this House is to be over-ruled by the views of another place who have shown very little Comprehension of the issues involved. I was a member of Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee, and my right hon. Friend and I got on very well together. Unfortunately he has departed from the views on which he then acted and I have not.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I can only reply to that with a most direct negative.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: With great deference to my right hon. Friend's view I maintain my opinion. May I summarise the effect of the Clause as it left the House of Commons, as compared with the Clause as it left the House of Lords? The reason the Clause was inserted by this House was this At the time when Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee ceased to work, there were some 18,000 or 19,000 former enemy aliens whose cases had never been examined by that Committee, and who still remained uninterned. My right hon. Friend (Sir D. Maclean) will not challenge that. The Committee was appointed in 1918 to revise the cases of these former enemy aliens and to see who should be interned and who exempted. The Committee revised 3,000 or 4,000 cases. They ordered internment or repatriation in several hundred cases and exempted the rest. There were still 17,000 or 18,000 which had never been examined. It was to examine these cases that the Committee we proposed to set up by this Clause was appointed. That is the reason of the Clause. The principles upon which Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee gave exemption or ordered repatriation are substantially continued in this Clause, with the exception that the exemptions are on a

  565
  more liberal scale as provided by this Clause than they were by Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee.
  Major O'NElLL: On a point of Order. May I ask whether we are now discussing the Clause as it stood when it left the House of Commons, or whether we are to take notice of the Amendment which was, I believe, moved by Lord Finlay in the House of Lords, and is, I understand, to be adopted by the Government? The hon. and learned Gentleman is discussing the Clause as it left the House of Commons.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think we have reached that stage. The Question is to disagree with the Lords Amendment, which proposes in Sub-section (1) to leave out from the word "Kingdom" to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert "and to whom this Section applies shall be deported forthwith unless the Secretary of State, on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee to be constituted under this Section, shall grant him a licence to remain" That is the only Amendment we are now discussing.
  Captain BENN: May I ask, with great respect, how we are to omit these words if the House is not cognisant of the terms of the Amendment which the Home Secretary intends to move?
  Sir J. BUTCHER: May I suggest, Mr. Speaker—subject to your ruling, of course —that it would be for the convenience of the House as all the Amendments hang together, to have a general discussion on this Amendment?
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: We have not had the Amendments which, I understand, Lord Finlay moved in another place, and I think it is very germane to this discussion that we should know what the Government proposals are. The question before us is whether we disagree or not with the Lords Amendment, and it hangs very largely on what the Government recommendations are. I am utterly ignorant of them.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I share the hon. and gallant Gentleman's ignorance. I have not the faintest idea about Lord Finlay's Amendments. I have never heard of them until now.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: I was trying to explain the Clause as it left the House of Commons. There were some 16,000 or 18,000 former enemy aliens whose cases
  566
  had never been examined by Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee, owing to the coming of the Armistice, and we propose by this Clause to continue that examination and to give large and liberal exemptions in the case of old age, infirmity, meritorious service of men who had sons serving in the War, and in the large and important case of any serious hardship involved by deportation. In all these cases exemption would be granted, and it would be only in other cases that deportation would result. That was our Clause. What is the Clause as amended in the House of Lords? I say without fear of contradiction that the Clause as it comes back to us is skilfully designed for the purpose of giving every former enemy alien now in this country complete exemption from deportation. What is the framework of the Clause? It says, in effect, that no former enemy alien shall be deported unless two things happen. Someone has to come forward as an accuser or informer. He may or he may not be honest. He has to formulate the charge, giving full particulars, against the former enemy alien whom he desires to have deported. Then that charge has to be brought before the Advisory Committee and decided by them whether it is well or ill founded. Is it not possible that men may come forward and make a charge for the purpose of blackmail? They may come and say to some perfectly innocent former enemy alien, "I am going to make a charge against you before the Advisory Committee. I am going to try and have you deported. Give me £20 and I will let you off." Let me point out a further defect in the Clause. Supposing the charge is perfectly bond fide, what is to happen? The accuser will have to go and hunt about and get witnesses, and he will have to prefer his case as if he were preparing for a lawsuit. He will have to bring these witnesses up to London at his own expense. There is no provision for paying their expenses. I challenge anyone to point to any such provision. More than that, there is no provision for compelling witnesses to attend. He cannot Subpcena witnesses. Supposing lie can get witnesses upon payment of their expenses, then he will have to go before the Advisory Committee, possibly with counsel and solicitors, and try and prove his charge. Is it reasonable and fair to suppose that any man would go to the expense of £50 or £100 or more in order to get a certain former enemy alien out of the country? Is it not certain that in every case, although the

  567
  accuser might have plenty of material to show that the continued residence in this country of the former enemy alien was undesirable, he would say, "This is the business of the State. It is not for a private accuser to go to large expense in order to prove his case; it is a matter for the State." Supposing anyone says, "Very well, let the Advisory Committee act," I would reply that the Advisory Committee have no machinery to embark upon such investigation. They have no funds at their disposal and no machinery by which they can collect witnesses. Therefore I say you are substituting an absolute farce in this Clause, which was skilfully drafted in a way which would occur to no one except some ingenious Gentleman in another place who has more sympathy apparently with Germans than with his own people. Therefore I say on the merits of the Clause there is no comparison between the two, and I say unhesitatingly that the Clause deliberately passed here by a majority of 110 after a long Debate is a Clause we should stick to, and no reason has been shown to the contrary. The action of the House of Lords in this Clause was accompanied by certain statements on the part of Noble Lords which were not only remarkable, but which, I am glad to think, were very novel in that or any other Assembly discussing the action of the House of Commons. In the House of Lords there were assembled Lord Parmoor, Lord Buckmaster, and a name I regret to mention in this connection, Lord Newton. As regards Lord Parmoor, we all know him and when he makes a speech we generally pass by on the other side, and rightly so.
  Captain W. BENN: The Gentleman who passed by on the other side was not commended.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: He had not Lord Parmoor to consider. I am not going to weary the House with Lord Parmoor. Lord Buckmaster is, or ought to be, a more responsible person. When I look at the speeches he made on this Bill on Second Reading and Committee stage, I find some things to regret. In Committee on the Bill Lord Buckmaster said:
  "When this Clause is examined it will be found that it has been considered in another place with great carelessness, that the Clause itself had been thoughtlessly prepared and that it was quite unthinkable that any body of
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  Englishmen who realised what the Clause did would ever have consented to its passage in. an English House of Commons."
  11.0 P.M.
  It will be remembered that amongst those who voted for the Clause was the Home Secretary, the Leader of the House of Commons, the Lord Privy Seal, the Solicitor-General, and 216 Members of this House, and, I venture to think, not the least important Members. When Lord Buckmaster tells us that no reasonable person would vote for this Clause, all I can say is that it is a degree of intellectual superiority and mental arrogance which is extremely offensive. This assumption of infallibility on the part of a Noble Lord who has left this House, and ought to know better, is extremely inappropriate when it is applied to 216 Members of the House of Commons, and in this particular connection. which we are now discussing it is additionally unfortunate, because it appears to be the kind of arrogance which would only be expected from the All-Highest himself, who, no doubt, would be much gratified if this Clause of the Lords were passed into law. Lord Buckmaster, in Committee of the House of Lords, wound up by saying:
  "I can never believe that another place ever understood the provisions of this Bill—"
  The same exhibition of superiority and infallibility!
  "and my reading of the Debates confirms me with confidence in that belief. I only wish that it were within my power to make your Lordships understand what I regard as its real meaning. I feel bitterly about it. I regard it as a Bill the passage of which will do eternal shame and dishonour to our legislation."
  We in this House claim to be as good judges of honour as Lord Buckmaster, or any of those who think with him, and we do not intend to be instructed in our standard of honour by Lord Buckmaster or to take his advice. There is only one other word I wish to say, and that is with regard to an unfortunate remark which fell from the Mover of this Clause, Lord Newton. It was pointed out by Lord Newton that a very large number of Members of this House, including the present Prime Minister arid the Lord Chancellor (then Attorney-General), had given pledges at the time of the General Election—pledges which we in this House were under the impression that Members who had given them, and on the strength of which they obtained their election, were bound to honour—a view which I have held, and shall continue to hold,

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  whatever advice and suggestion I may receive from another place. Lord Newton, en the Second Reading of the Bill, said—I am abbreviating the phraseology—
  "It has been openly admitted that this campaign was not prompted by any danger to the country, but by the necessity of carrying out promises made during the election and in order to maintain what I may term the policy of hate. With reference to the first of these reasons—"
  That is the reason to be bound by our pledges:
  "I think that, on the whole, the less we talk about election promises the better."
  And then he goes on to make some rather foolish observations about hanging the Kaiser. This is the view that is put forward by the supporters of this Clause, and if that is the view—I cannot believe it is—that is held by any large number of supporters of Lord Newton in another place, I can only say that, speaking for myself, and I hope the large majority, if not all, of the Members of this House, we repudiate the suggestion that we are at liberty to throw our pledges to the wind. Lord Newton, is possessed of a caustic wit, and —
  Mr. SPEAKER: I really fail to see what this has to do with the Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman is entering upon an attack on the Lords for their observations on the Second Reading of the Bill. It has nothing to do with this Amendment now before the House. I might also remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that entering into a debate on what is said in another place is quite contrary to the courtesy generally shown in this House towards the other. The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite entitled to make any arguments against the line the Lords have taken, but it is quite novel to select certain Peers for personal attacks.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: I have endeavoured to quote these observations of the Noble Lords which were made in support of this Clause in order to meet and to answer them. As regards the speech of Lord Newton to which I was referring, when he was challenged as to these pledges, he gave the reason for supporting the Clause then under discussion—that the pledges need not be adhered to. I desire to bow to your ruling entirely, and I will not further refer to that observation of Lord Newton beyond saying, if I may, that, notwithstanding his advice, I believe we in this House will still adhere to the old Parliamentary custom by which Members
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  who have given pledges to their constituents at the time of the General Election, will adhere to those pledges, and in this connection the matter has special relevance because a great number of those who supported the Clause when it was down here were bound by pledges, and we intend, as I believe, to adhere to them.
  Under those circumstances I say that not only is the Clause as passed by this House preferable to the Clause as it came down from the Lords, and which is purely nugatory and means nothing, but when we examine the arguments by which the Clause substituted by the Lords is recommended, we find in it expressions of views that were never accepted in our Parliamentary history, and which I trust will not now for the first time be accepted by this House.
  Major O'NEILL: My hon. and learned Friend in the spirited and vigorous speech which he had just delivered referred in terms of some contempt to the observations of a Noble Lord in another place, which were to the effect that, in his opinion, this House had not properly understood the Bill. That is not the case. This House, I am quite sure, understands the Aliens Bill. What I do say is that while it is possible to understand it, it is a much more difficult proposition to understand all the difficulties and intricacies of the way aliens were dealt with during the War: who were interned, who were allowed to remain, and so on. I do honestly believe, if I could explain to the House, and make hon. Members understand the position as regards former alien enemies now here, and if the Whips were taken off, they would endorse the opinion at which the House of Lords has arrived. I need hardly say that I do not approach this question on the grounds of any friendship for Germans, or—I would go so far as to say—of creating an atmosphere of goodwill to our former enemies. I have no friendship with Germans. I have no great desire to create an atmosphere of goodwill to the enemy who treated us so atrociously in the War. The principal reason why I support the action of the House of Lords is because I believe it is based upon nothing but common British justice. It is because I believe that this House should support the principal of common British justice that I find myself speaking upon the side I am.
  The Amendment which the House of Lords has inserted in the Bill does not in

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  any way do away with the deportation Clause of the Aliens Bill. It is necessary, of course, to have the power to deport aliens. Everybody agrees that to deport undesirable aliens, after all we have suffered in the War, is a primary necessity of the Government in the future. That power is still left in the Bill as passed by the Lords. It is really merely a question of machinery. The House of Lords say, "Deport the man who is an undesirable alien, but allow the man to stay who has proved himself innocuous" The House of Commons has said, "Deport every former enemy alien unless he can show that he has some special grounds for remaining."
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Why not?
  Major O'NEILL: In accordance with the Bill as it left the Lords, you confine to the Advisory Committee to certain definite and specific rights. You say to that Committee, "You can exempt a person if he comes within certain categories." I am speaking as a member of Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee. I spent many hours during the summer investigating at great pains and great length the individual cases of thousands of former enemy aliens who claimed to be exempted.
  Those hon. Members of this House who have taken the trouble to read Mr. Justice Younger's Committee's Report will remember that we stated that it was utterly impossible to decide the cases of these men by any cast-iron rules as regards categories. We found that you must deal with every individual case upon its own individual merits. As the right hon. Gentleman opposite said quite rightly, you may find one man who on the face of it, has every claim to stay in this country. He may have had two or three sons serving in the War; he may have a British wife and children; there may be all sorts of perfectly good reasons why he should remain, and yet there may he something against that man which makes it impossible to allow him to remain. And the reverse may be the case.
  As the result of my experience on that Committee, therefore, I am convinced that it is impracticable and inexpedient in the last degree to bind and fetter the Committee that is going to be set up by any categories put into the Bill, and that the only proper way is to allow the Committee, as we surely ought to allow any Committee of fair-minded Englishmen, free judgment
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  as regards every individual ease which comes before them. That is what the House of Lords, by their Amendment, propose to allow. No Committee which was-set up during the War was ever bound by categories as to what aliens they should allow to remain in this country and what aliens they should deport. My hon. Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) told us on the Report stage of the Bill that the Committee upon which he sat did in fact. act according to categories, but I venture to assert that there were numerous cases in which the Committee allowed people to stay in this country who did not come within those categories, and that there were people who were deported who equally did not come within the categories—
  Sir J. BUTCHER: The Sankey Committee granted exemptions not only in the case of old age, infirmity, meritorious services, and so on, but also in all eases where serious hardship would result from deportation.
  Major O'NEILL: If you act, not upon the categories, but upon the part of the Bill which renders the categories nugatory, surely it is better to have no categories at all. I do not know whether the House realises that the people who. will be dealt with by this Committee are all of them people who were never interned at all at any period during the War. Half, or more than half, of them, I believe, are women. They are people who, while hostilities were in progress, at a time when, as my hon. Friend is constantly reminding us, the Germans were perpetrating their barbarities and, by their appalling submarine campaign, were sinking our ships day by day—even at times like that, these people, whom it is now proposed to deport out of hand, were allowed to stay unhindered in this country. Not a single person who would be hit by-this Clause was interned during the War. These people could have been deported during the War. The Home Secretary-had every power he required to deport every one of them during hostilities, and yet so little injurious were they to the country that he never took advantage of his powers to deport them, but allowed them to stay free and uninterned. Those, and those only, are the people with regard to whom this Bill as it left the. House of Commons would enact that they should be deported out of hand surely it is a principle of British justice worthy, at any rate, of consideration by

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  this House, with its great traditions, that you should think twice before deporting in times of peace those who in war time you considered so harmless that they were not even worthy internment. If I may, I would like to quote a few lines from a speech by Lord Lincolnshire the other day, which seem to put the position very aptly. Lord Lincolnshire is a peer who from the inception of this question has taken a very strong line against former enemy aliens. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for York will agree with me that Lord Lincolnshire, from beginning to end, has supported the view which he himself advocates in this matter, and has been in the other House one of the strongest of those peers whose whole attitude bas been extremely hostile to former enemy aliens. The Noble Lord said in the course of the debate—
  "This Amendment gives complete protection against undesirable aliens and at the same time avoids the reproach of dealing unfairly with men against whom nothing is known."
  Lord Lincolnshire, the anti-alien protagonist, thus expressed his opinion in favour of the Clause we are now considering. I should also like to quote to the House in this connection an answer received by my hon. Friend to-day from the Home Secretary to a question which had appeared on the Paper but was not reached at Question Time.
  The question was—
  "whether the Home Secretary had any information regarding the introduction into the Chamber by the French Government of a Bill dealing with aliens; and if he can state whether such Bill contained provisions for the expulsion or exclusion from French territory of German end other former enemy aliens?"
  In answer the Home Secretary said:
  "I understand that a Bill dealing with aliens was introduced into the French Chamber of Deputies by the French Government in June of this year and has been referred to a Committee. From a copy of the Bill which has been received at the Home Office, it appears that it contains no special provisions for the general deportation or exclusion from French territory of former enemy aliens. It does, however, reserve power to the Minister of the Interior to prohibit aliens from entering or remaining in districts to be prescribed by the authorities, and the object of this provision, according to the Memorandum prefixed to the Bill, is to enable access to the devastated regions to be forbidden, where necessary, to certain aliens whose nationality might render their presence there provocative of disturbance."
  The latter part of that answer has the approbation of my hon. Friend opposite. I entirely agree that you must have absolute power to deport undesirable enemy aliens, and to control their movements. I
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  submit, however, that the French Chamber was right in not putting in what we are asked to insert in this Bill—a general Clause deporting every formal enemy alien in this country. Surely if the French who, as we know, are not separated from their former enemies by any stretch of sea, and whose feelings of hostility and bitterness against the Germans are probably greater and more profound, and indeed with greater cause than we ever entertained—if they pass a Bill which does not provide for general deportation of enemy aliens, it would be a very retrograde movement for this. House with all its great traditions were to pass the Clause now in the form in which it appeared before it was amended by the House of Lords? My hon. Friend. has referred to the question of election pledges. I agree that any pledge given at an election should be fulfilled up to the hilt, both in the letter and in the spirit. But I do say there are a number of Members of this 'House who never gave any pledges with regard to aliens, and I would ask those Members—and I think they are many to act as they feel the demands of justice in this matter require.
  The letter which my hon. and learned Friend wrote to the "Times" a few days ago practically confined the question entirely to the necessity of supporting his election pledges. He did not argue the question on its merits, because on its merits there is not, on the question of the undesirable aliens, any difference between us. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are all undesirable."] Those pledges were given on the strength of the pledges of the Prime Minister, in spirit and in words, in favour of the exclusion of undesirable aliens.
  Sir H. NIELD: No.
  Major O'NEILL: If hon. Members consider that their pledges for the immediate deportation of every former enemy alien are binding, let them stick to their pledges and vote for the Clause as it left this House, but I appeal to those who did not give any pledges—and they are many—to support the Amendment which the-House of Lords has introduced.
  Sir E. WILD: I did not understand Mr. Speaker to rule that it would be out of order to refer to what took place in the, other House, but that it would be out of order to make any attack upon the speakers who took part. Although this is a matter of great importance, I do not

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  intend to go over the ground traversed at such length by this House, both in Grand Committee and on Report. We are faced with a position which raises certain important principles. There is first the question of the safety of the Realm; then there is the question of the constitutional position of the House of Commons, and there would have been, if the Home Secretary had not taken up the attitude we expected of him, the question of the good faith of the Government. The only new fact that has been elicited in this Debate is the belated expression of gratitude to Providence by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) for the existence of the House of Lords I propose to see whether anything transpired in the Debates in the other place which should cause this House to alter the view to which it deliberately came by a large majority on a free vote. The position is this: It is admitted not only by the "Times" leader, but by Lord Phillimore himself that the effect of the Amendment of the Lords to our Clause is entirely to revolutionise that Clause. Lord Newton said that this Clause was passed by a policy of hate which received the approval, not of soldiers, but of lawyers. Included in the Members who voted in that free Division—226 to 116—there were 83 sailors and soldiers on our side and only 22 on the 'other. Lord Phillimore said:
  "I hope that when the Bill comes into Committee, Clause 9 will disappear, and if it dock not, it will be so changed that its authors will not know it."
  That is precisely what has happened. It was pointed out by the Lord Chancellor—which is an answer to the argument of my hon. and gallant Friend (Major O'Neill) —that this Clause does not apply to those who have been through the Committees of 1918 and 1919, and there was general dissatisfaction in the country at the proceedings of the Committee of 1915. He also pointed out that it does not apply to naturalised persons. He also referred to the German mentality, and instanced their conduct with regard to Scapa Flow, and we might also notice the very curious coincidence of the number of enemy merchant vessels in New York and also London. Then Lord Cave, who had been Home Secretary, and certainly cannot be said to have erred in his administration in the way of being too stringent with regard to the enemy, expressed the whole point that is before the House in these words:
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  "Shall a former enemy alien who comes within the Clause be allowed to remain unless someone makes a report about him, or shall it be the duty of such a man himself to apply for exemption?"
  That is the whole issue. Lord Cave went on to say:
  "I think they should be called upon to make application themselves."
  Really this Amendment as it comes from the other place, is absolutely futile. In my belief the deliberate intention of the people who drafted it was to keep all former enemy aliens in this country, because it says a statement in writing has to be signed by a credible person to the effect that the continued residence in the United Kingdom of that alien is, for reasons relating to the alien, undesirable in the public interest, and giving particulars of the allegation upon which such reasons are based. Of course it could not be done. It could not be done during the War. If this Debate had taken place before the War, and we had said these things about the spies who were proved afterwards to exist in our midst, we should have been regarded as lunatics, and been howled at by the benches opposite. It is impossible, even with regard to the people who have since been proved to be spies, to say with the particularity of an indictment, "I know this man to have been hostile to the country, and I put down in black and white, a, b, c, el, the things he has done." It could not be done. This was all done by lawyers, and it is by this ingenious legal device, because the draftsman knew it could not be done, that this thing has been brought about. It could not be done during the War, and it cannot be done after the War. Take the ease of these ships. I was talking to-night to a man connected with the docks, not only as a working man, but as an owner, and he says there is no manner of doubt that these cases of conflagration are due to Germans. Supposing you suspect certain enemy aliens who are lurking about the docks to be incendiaries. According to this Clause you have to bring your allegation against them with such particularity that a jury would return a verdict of arson. You wait until your ship is fired and then fire out the incendiary. It cannot be done. There is one other point that I venture to press upon the House. I say that our people have a right to get rid of the Germans and the enemy aliens unless they are proved to he good fellows by coming under any of these categories of exemption. I do not understand

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  the mentality—I must not mention a Noble Lord's name, but there are plenty like him here in this House—of those who seem to want these people to be among us. I say that, after the way they have behaved, a way not comparable in any war in history, our people are entitled to what they demand, namely, to be able to say "Out you go"—exactly what the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, and other Ministers said— "unless you can bring yourself within any of these very liberal categories." The Government and those who have been supporting the Government met the opposition in the most conciliatory spirit. If I here be any fault in these categories, they err on the side of being too liberal. We even put in a general category on the ground of serious hardship, and we are prepared to support the Government hereafter in accepting Lord Finlay's Amendment, which would meet the case of women even better than the Clause as it left the House of Commons.
  The question of pledges has been thrashed out again and again in the course of the Debates, but some months ago I did Fee upon my breakfast table an interesting prospectus of an unlimited company. It was called "The Future." The Prime Minister was the chairman of the board of directors, and eight other Cabinet Ministers were directors. It purported to express not only what the Government were going to do, but also what they had done. I read what they said that they had done, and among the contracts that they said they had made was this: "A Record Output; Drastic Regulations for Aliens." tan anybody say that the Clause, as amended in the House of Lords, is a drastic regulation for aliens? It is simply a device to keep every enemy alien in this country. There is just one other point. Are we not up against the constitutional position of this House? I am perfectly certain that my right hon. Friend (Sir D. Maclean), with his great admiration for our position and our traditions, would never try to secure a mere party advantage because just for once the other place happened to agree with the views which he so admirably and so consistently expresses. Speaking as a new Member, but as a student of constitutional history, it seems to me that we are the representatives of the people, and the real use of the other place is to prevent us carrying legislation that the people have not had time to consider. We bring up something that has not been before them. The use of the
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  other place is that they can say: "No, we will act as a drag upon the wheel in order that this matter may be submitted to the people." What is the position here? We fought our election, the great majority of us, upon this specific pledge. We get our majority upon this pledge. In Grand Committee we debated this thing for eight days, and this Clause for two or three of them, and then we came to this House and debated the matter for six hours. We argued it out, and we endeavoured to meet the other side in every reasonable way. Time other place, in an irresponsible afternoon, sweep away all that we have done. They do it deliberately. I do not think you will say that I am transgressing your ruling. I make no attack upon the bonâ fides of any one of the Noble Lords, any one of the quartette, Lords Parmoor, Phillimore, Buckmaster, and Newton, who are responsible for this catastrophe, but I am entitled to say that their views are not popular in the country, and are not views that would allow any one of them to be returned as a Member of this House. I respectfully say to my right hon. Friend, and those who support him, that as far as this House is concerned it is what we lawyers call a res judicata The people have spoken. We have spoken. I was not speaking of myself. I was talking of the House of Commons. The question is—and it is the only question to-night—has anything occurred in another place to cause us to change our mind? Nothing has occurred, and it is not only consistent with our duty as representatives of the people, but also with our realisation of the position which we take in the Constitution that we shall remain firm, and send this Clause back to the House of Lords with such Amendment as my right hon. Friend may think fit.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Those who are opposed to the House of Lords Amendment have said a great deal—not always, as you, Sir, have pointed out strictly in accordance with the Rules of this House, in criticism of the Debates in that House. My hon. Friend who has just sat clown has laid down the theory that the House of Lords should do no more than delay the coming into force of legislation passed in this House, and that it has no final right of revision. That is a very respectable opinion, and an opinion which is embodied in the Parliament Act. I spent a great deal of time and energy in opposing the Parliament Act, and I am

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  certainly not going now to be led into supporting it simply because my hon. Friend and other hon. Members, in a fit of foolish passion, think it not unbecoming of their reputation as Conservative Members to attack the House of Lords for exercising its normal, reasonable, and constitutional function.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: May I assure my Noble Friend that I made no attack on the House of Lords as such? My attack was limited to two very unfortunate speeches which were made, and which I thought established a principle which we could not pass by in silence.
  Lord H. CECIL: The House of Lords with virtual unanimity—there was not a single voice raised against the Amendment except that of the Lord Chancellor—thought that the observations which the hon. Member thinks so contemptuous were perfectly deserved, and that he and his Friends fully deserved the contempt that was brought upon them. That was the unanimous opinion of the House of Lords and I suspect that it was a just opinion. When criticism of the House of Lords comes from Liberal and Labour benches it is consistent with their point of view. We have two Chambers and the other Chamber may be very bad and incompetent, but we have to work the constitution as it stands. We cannot work a constitution of two Chambers unless we have respectful regard to the other Chamber. While it is there we must pay attention to what it says, instead of having this silly nonsense of standing on our dignity, because we are the House of Commons and because the people have pronounced—like Roma locuta est—because this House has spoken in the name of the people of England, because it is the House of Commons. Putting aside appeals to prejudice and fear and taking the question on its merits we have to work with the House of Lords and make reasonable-concessions to meet its opinion, and we ought to address ourselves therefore to the sort of things with which its criticism is concerned. What is the Amendment they made? The Amendment that they made was that whereas, as this Clause left the House of Commons, all enemy aliens were to be excluded unless within certain categories, they made an alternative suggestion that only those should be excluded who the Advisory Committee
  580
  thought ought to be excluded. I am not surprised that the Lords made that suggestion.
  What is the history of this Clause! This is a matter on which the Government of the day, advised as they are by the police and military and naval authorities, are necessarily much better informed than anyone else. The Bill as it was introduced did not contain this Clause. It was moved by the hon. Member for York, the protagonist of Conservatism. It was moved by him in Committee upstairs. It was opposed by the Government and it was carried against them. When it came down to this House the Government gave notice of its rejection, but before the Clause was read, the Government were defeated on a wholly different line—the question of alien pilots. Thereupon negotiations took place between the hon. Member for York and his friends and the Government and their friends. Nobody else had anything to do with it. But as a result of the negotiations the Government accepted this exceedingly absurd and vile Clause. Would any Second Chamber that respected itself have left without substantial alteration a Clause so produced! Would it be worth while having a Second Chamber if it submitted to treatment of that kind? What we really want to do is to create as little friction as possible, consistently with maintaining the public safety. We want, of course, to keep out everyone who is an enemy of the country. My hon. Friend—I was amused to think he was a lawyer—instanced the difficulty of enforcing this Clause against the undesirable alien. There are difficulties, of course. But they are the same difficulties as arise in enforcing the law against any criminal in the country. You have to prosecute, to call witnesses, and so forth. My hon. Friend dilated on the extraordinary difficulty of making complaints and obtaining witnesses. You have to do that to prosecute a thief.
  Sir F. FLANNERY: The informer must act in these cases.
  Lord H. CECIL: Any constable can act, anyone under the direction of the Home Office. If that is all the amendment that is wanted, we can put it in without any discussion at all. The point is whether we ought to presume that every alien is a public criminal until the contrary is proved, or whether you are going to assume that he is an honest citizen until

  581
  you prove that he is undesirable. That is the reality. I want the House to consider what an intolerable evil this deportation inflicts on a person who does not deserve it. It breaks up his home. How cruel it is, if you have lived for years and years in a country that all your life should be torn up by the roots, and that in late middle age you should be sent to earn your living, if you can, in another country!
  HON. MEMBERS: They can be naturalised.
  Lord H. CECIL: Are you going to allow them to be naturalised? Why should you inflict on any human being all this cruelty, unless it is necessary in the public interest? Let the Committee decide. You appoint your Committee; you trust it. It decides who is desirable and who is not. Hon. Members speak as if a great mass of undesirable aliens who did an immense lot of mischief in this country were well known to the police and, through the negligence of the Government, had not been dealt with. I should very much like to know what the facts are. There was a certain number of spies in this country—ten or twelve. But is it the case that the Government were hampered in conducting the War because there were aliens they could not lock up? I have never heard the shadow of evidence of it. I believe it to be a huge legend due to the insane hatred in which some hon. Members have wallowed. I love my country, but that is no reason why I should hate all sorts of people. You love your country none the less if you are not consumed with hatred of the people of other countries. Really, we ought to be free from the insanities of war by this. After the period of war it is time we returned to a sane state of mind.
  If these arguments do not please hon. Members, let me revert to another argument. Supposing you do not agree to this Amendment, what are you going to do if the Lords insist upon it? It is open to them to insist upon it. Are you going to wreck the Bill? Is the hon. Member for York going to wreck the Bi11? Surely he would not agree to that course. I hope the Lords will insist upon it, because it is just and reasonable. If they do, think what a silly position you are putting this House in to-night, when two or three days hence you may have to accept it, if the Lords have the good sense to stick to their guns.
  Sir H. NIELD: They would be wrecking it, not us.
  Lord H. CECIL: That is not the law of Parliament. I earnestly hope that the House will agree with the Lords, thereby saving the Bill, shortening the Session, and, above all, adhering to the strong, old-fashioned English principle that a man is assumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and burying in a grave from which they ought never to be resurrected the insane hatreds that the War excited, and returning to the normal principles of British justice which have made this country the greatest in the world, and have enabled us to overcome those enemies which had much lower standards—the standards of the hon. and learned Member for York. The hon. and learned Member for York is out of place in this House. His proper place is in Prussia.
  Mr. REID: I would not have ventured to detain the House at this late hour if it had not been that I have had considerable experience of the method of dealing with enemy aliens. I was for the last two or three years secretary of the Civilian Internment Camps Committee, which deal with the scrutinising of the camps for enemy aliens. In that way I became familiar with the work done by the various committees. I do not want to speak from the German point of view; after three years contact with the interned German I detest the Huns much more than I did before. I want to speak from the point of view of the British taxpayers. There are 19,000 uninterned Germans, who were exempted by the 1915 Sankey Committee, people who have been at liberty during the War, and have been all the time under the supervision of the police and of the military intelligence authorities. Not one of these people showed the slightest symptom of disaffection or had the exemption withdrawn. All these people have gone through the mill, having been exempted by the first Sankey Committee and passed the supervision of the police and the military intelligence authorities. If you set up an advisory committee and ask them to examine these cases, can any hon. Member say how long the job will take? It would certainly take two years, and probably longer. Some time ago I asked a question of the Home Secretary as to what it would take to do this, and he said it would require a staff of twenty five, and if the work could be done in six months it would

  583
  cost about £15,000, without allowing anything for office accommodation or police or outside expenses. Hon. Gentlemen have only got to multiply that by the time it will take in order to get the total cost. The Amendment made in another place puts this work, I suggest, on a reasonable basis. The hon. Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) spoke of the difficulty of bringing witnesses. If the House will only look at the Lords Amendment they will see it provides—
  "This Section shall apply to any former enemy alien… as to whom there shall be delivered to the Secretary of State within two months of the passing of this Act a statement in writing signed by any credible person to the effect that the continued residence in the United Kingdom of that alien is for reasons relating to the alien undesirable in the public interest, and giving particulars upon which the allegation is based.
  "(4) The Secretary of State shall refer all such statements to the Advisory Committee."
  Under that it is only necessary to bring the particulars before the advisory committee, which can then call on the alien to clear himself. It is not necessary for anybody to establish any allegation. All that is necessary is for the person who
  makes the complaint to produce some sort of prima facie case on his own authority sufficient to induce tile committee to proceed further. If the Clause, as it left this House, is carried, I venture to say that the advisory committee will exempt 95 per cent of the people they deal with. Why should we go to all this trouble and expense in order to lay hold of a very small number? Therefore, I ask the House to agree with the Lords Amendment.
  Captain W. BENN: This Clause was not proposed by the Government, but by a private Member, and when it came before the House the Government left it to a free vote. In the other place the Lord Chancellor announced that it was to be left to a. free vote, and I would ask if the Government can see their way to leave it to a free vote now?
  Mr. SHORTT: Having regard to the fact that there was a free vote in this House before and in the other place, it ought to be a free vote now.
  Question put, "That this House doth disagreee with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  The House divided: Ayes, 128; Noes, 66.

  Division No. 164.]

  AYES.

  [11.58 p.m.

  Ainsworth, Captain C.

  Foreman, H.

  Lorden, John William

  Allen, Lt.-Col. William James

  Forestier-Walker, L.

  Lort-Williams, J.

  Archer-Shee, Lieut. -Colonel Martin

  Foxcroft, Captain C.

  M'Lean, Lt.-Col. C. W. W. (Brigg)

  Astbury, Lieut.-Com. F. W.

  Ganzoni, Captain F. J. C.

  Manville, Edward

  Atkey, A. R.

  Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir A. C. (Baa'gstoke)

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

  Mason, Robert

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Gilmour, Lt.-Colonel John

  Matthews, David

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Glyn, Major R.

  Mitchell, William Lane-

  Barnett, Major R. W.

  Goff, Sir Park

  Moles. Thomas

  Barnston, Major H.

  Gould, J. C.

  Morden, Colonel H Grant

  Bell, Lt.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)

  Grayson, Lieut.-Col. H. M.

  Morrison Bell, Major A. C

  Betterton, H. B.

  Greame, Major P. Lloyd

  Murchison, C. K.

  Bigland, Alfred

  Greene, Lt.-Col. W. (Hackney, N.)

  Nelson, R. F. W. R.

  Blair, Major Reginald

  Greer, Harry

  Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

  Berwick, Major G. O.

  Guest, Capt. Hon. F. E. (Dorset, E.)

  Nield, Sir Herbert

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Hacking, Colonel D. H.

  Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

  Brittain, Sir Harry E.

  Hailwood, A.

  Palmer, Brig. -Gen. G. L. (Westbury)

  Brown, Captain D. C. (Hexham)

  Hamilton, Major C. G. C. (Altrincham)

  Parker, James

  Bruton, Sir J.

  Hanna, G, B.

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Butcher, Sir J. G.

  Hanson, Sir Charles

  Perring, William George

  Campion, Colonel W. R,

  Hennessy, Major G.

  Pinkham, Lieut. -Colonel Charles

  Casey, T. W.

  Henry, D. S. (Londonderry, S)

  Pollock. Sir Ernest M.

  Cayzer, Major H. R.

  Hilder, Lt.-Colonel F.

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Hood, Joseph

  Pulley, Charles Thornton

  Plough, R.

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Ramsden, G T.

  Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

  Hopkins, J. W. W.

  Raw. Lt. -Colonel Dr. N.

  Coats, Sir Stuart

  Horne, Sir Robert (Hillhead)

  Rtes, Sir J. D.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Howard, Major S. G.

  Rogers, Sir Hallewell

  Colvin, Brig. -General R. B.

  Hudson, R. M.

  Roundell, Colonel R. F.

  Courthope, Major George Loyd

  Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

  Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)

  Davidson, Major-General Sir John H,

  Hurd, P. A.

  Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

  Davies, T. (Cirencester)

  Jephcott, A. R.

  Seager, Sir William

  Dean, Com. P. T.

  Johnson, L. S.

  Seddon, James

  Denison-Pender, John C.

  Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)

  Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-7., W.)

  Dixon, Captain H.

  Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

  Simm, M. T

  Doyle, N- Grattan

  King, Commander Douglas

  Stanier, Captain Sir Beville

  Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)

  Kinlech-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Stanley, Col. Hon. G. (Preston)

  Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M.

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)

  Steel, Major S. Strang.

  Falcon, Captain H.

  Lindsay, William Arthur

  Stewart, Gershom

  Talbot, Rt. Hon. Lord E. (Chichester)

  Weston, Colonel John W.

  Yate, Col. Charles Edward

  Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

  Wheler, Colonel Granville C. H.

  Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Whitla, Sir William

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— Sir

  Townley, Maximilian G.

  Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

  Ernest Wild and Colonel burn.

  Waring, Major Walter

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

  Hayday, A.

  Rodger, A. K.

  Barnes. Major H. (Newcastle E.)

  Hirst, G. H.

  Rose, Frank H.

  Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

  Inskip, T. W. H.

  Royce, William Stapleton

  Benn, Captain w. (Leith)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Seely, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. John

  Breese, Major Charles

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

  Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

  Cape, Tom

  Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander

  Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

  Carr, W. T.

  Lewis, T. A. (pontypridd, Glam.)

  Strauss, Edward Anthony

  Carter, W. (Mansfield)

  Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)

  Swan, J. E. C.

  Cecil, Rt. Hen. Lord H. (Oxford Univ.)

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

  Chadwick, R. Burton

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Coot, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)

  Mallalieu, Frederick William

  Ward, Dudley (Southampton)

  Cape, Major W. (Glamorgan)

  Malone, Colonel C. L. (Leyton, E.)

  Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)

  Cowan, D. M. (Scottish University)

  Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

  Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)

  Edge, Captain William

  Murray, William (Dumfries)

  Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Hold'neest)

  Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)

  Neal Arthur

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Elliot, Captain W. E. (Lanark)

  Newbould, A. E.

  Wood, Major Hon. E. (Ripon)

  Elveden, Viscount

  Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)

  Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C)

  Entwistle, Major C. F.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Young, Lt.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)

  FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Young, William (Perth and Kinrose)

  Gang, E. S.

  Pratt, John William

  Younger, Sir George

  Green, J. F. (Leicester)

  Reid, D. D.

  Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— Major

  Grundy, T. W.

  Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)

  O'Neill and Mr. Acland.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Words so restored to the Bill: At the end of Sub-section (1) insert the words "or to the wife or to the children under eighteen years of age of any such alien."—[Mr. Shortt.]
  Lords Amendments: in Sub-section (2), after the word "the" ["recommendation of the Advisory Committee"], insert the word "said."—Disagreed with.
  In Sub-section (2), leave out the words. "hereinafter mentioned." — Disagreed with.
  Lords Amendment: Leave out Sub-sections (3) to (9) inclusive, and insert instead thereof the following new Sub-sections:
  (3) "This Section shall apply to any former alien enemy now in the United Kingdom (not being a former enemy alien exempted from internment or repatriation on the recommendation of any advisory committee appointed after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and eighteen, and before the passing of this Act.) as to whom there shall he delivered to the Secretary of State, within two months after the passing of this Act, a statement in writing signed by any credible person to the effect that the continued residence in the United Kingdam of that alien is, for reasons relating to the alien, undesirable in the public interest, and giving particulars of the allegations upon which such reasons are based.
  (4) The Secretary of State shall refer all such statements to the advisory committee to be constituted under this Section, and the committee shall thereupon require each alien affected to make to the committee within one month, in a form prescribed by the committee, an application to be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom, stating the general grounds on which the
  586
  application is based, and the answer of the alien to the allegations made in relation to him, and the committee shall examine into suck allegations and in the result may:—

  (a) recommend that the alien be immediately deported; or

  (b)if satisfied that the allegations are groundless or insufficient, and that the alien affected holds an exemption recommended by any advisory committee appointed in the year nineteen hundred and fifteen, recommend that such exemption be not disturbed; or

  (c)in any ease in which it seems to them right and proper so to do, recommend that the alien be granted a licence to remain subject to such terms and conditions (if any) as may appear to them to be fitting in the circumstances.

  (5) In grantng a licence under this Section, the Secretary of State may include in the licence the wife of the applicant and any child or children of his, and such inclusion shall, not withstandng anything in this Section, have the same effect as the grant of a licence.
  (6) A list of the persons to whom such licence is granted shall, as soon as may be, after the granting of the licence, be published in the "Gazette."
  (7) Any licence so granted may be at any time revoked by the Secretary of State.
  (8) If such licence in not granted, or if, having been granted, it is revoked, the Secretary of State shall make an order (in this Act referred too as a deportation order) requiring the alien to leave the United Kingdom and thereafter to remain out of the United Kingdom so long as the order remains in force. The Secretary of State may by a deportation order require the alien to return to the country of which he is a subject or citizen.
  (9) The provisions of this Section shall be in addition to and not in derogation of any other provisions of the principal Act or this Act or any Order in Council made thereunder."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Mr. SHORTT: I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  In moving to disagree with the Lords, I am merely carrying out what the House has agreed to by its last vote. Instead of these Amendments, we desire to rearrange the Clause as follows: To leave out from the beginning of Sub-section (3) to the end of Sub-section (9), and insert instead thereof the following new Sub-sections:
  ["Deportation of a former enemy alien on the following grounds, namely:—]

  (a) Old age;

  (b) Permanent illness or infirmity;

  (c) Service during the present war (whether by the applicant or by any son of the applicant in His Majesty's forces or the forces of any allied or it associated Power;

  (d) Residence in His Majesty's dominions either from early youth or for a long period;

  (e) Valuable personal service to this country or any part of the British Dominions or to any allied or associated Power during the recent war;

  (f)The possession of valuable technical or industrial skill;

  (g)Proved sympathy with the cause of the Allies;

  (h)The fact that deportation would involve either (1) serious hardship to the applicant or his wife, children or dependants, or (2) injury to any British interest;

  (i) The fact that the mother of the applicant is a natural-born British subject.

  We desire, in Sub-section (5), after the word "eighteen" ["age of eighteen"], to insert the words, "and such inclusion shall, notwithstanding anything in this Section, have the same effect as the grant of a licence." In Sub-section (8), to leave out the words "shall be" ["shall be revoked"], and insert instead thereof the word "is"; and, in the same Sub-section, leave out the words "for a period of seven years after the passing of this Act," and insert instead thereof the words "so long as the Order remains in force." In moving these alternative Amendments to the Bill, as it left this House, I am merely doing what I indicated I would do. It gives a wider and more generous form to the Clause. It gives greater freedom to the advisory committee, and I think in every way it is possibly an improvement, therefore I ask the House to accept it.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The list that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has just read out—is it in substitution for, or in addition to, the existing categories?
  Mr. SHORTT: In substitution for.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I think the categories suggested now are an improvement on the old ones.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am not going to address the House on the merits of this proposition. I have had no opportunity to read it over. I understand this list of Amendments came down some time ago, and I think it is treating this House, I will not say with discourtesy, but not reasonably, that we have not had these Amendments in our hands. We have had a long list of important categories just read out. I do not know whether the House has seen them.
  Sir H. NIELD: On a point of Order. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is reading from a paper, which is nothing more or less than the list of Amendments which I myself handed to him.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: That observation rather reinforces my point. When at the Vote Office I looked carefully round, after getting the list of Lords Amendments to the Bill, and apparently the only copy of the present Amendments is the copy that the Home Secretary has just read. This example is not a good one. I have only been for a short while in this House, but if this is the way previous Parliaments legislated I do not wonder at- some of the things passed through in former years. I think I have reason to make this protest, and I hope it will not occur again.
  Captain W. BENN: I submit to the House that my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly right. I take a great interest in this subject, and I came to the House tonight totally ignorant as to what form of words the Government now propose to insert. It is a mistake to suppose that the Lords Amendments circulated in the Vote Office gave us the text which the Home Secretary read out. What has happened is that, on the Motion of the Government, the House has struck out the Clause inserted by the other House, whereupon the Home Secretary has moved to insert a Clause which was never even moved in that House. It was proposed to be moved by Lord Finlay, but he never moved it, because the other House inserted this Clause which we have now rejected. I have not the least desire to detain the House, or to put hen. Members to any inconvenience, but when a new Clause is proposed with no less than nine Sub-sections, I propose to exercise the ordinary

  589
  rights of a Member of this House and to debate the Clause; and I should like to ask whether I should be in order in moving Amendments to this new Clause which the Government propose to insert. It is based on a system which was condemned by Mr. Justice Younger as being unsuitable for dealing with these cases.
  The Government have decided to adopt the category system, and propose nine separate categories. We have had no sort of opportunity of examining these categories to find out whether they are any less fatuous than those originally proposed by the hon. and learned Member for York (Sir J. Butcher). We must, surely, have some opportunity of doing that. I do not know whether it would not be a good thing if the Government were to circulate this new Amendment to-night in the Votes, and let us consider it to-morrow. At any rate, that would give the House some opportunity of exercising its undoubted rights arid proper functions of criticism, and would, it seems to me, be quite reasonable. I do not know whether other hon. Members value their self-respect as much as we do, but at least it is due to us to know what it is that we are proposing to put in. I did not see this Amendment until ten minutes ago. I managed to secure a copy of the text by getting the Debates of the House of Lords, and I suppose it is the same, although I have no reason to know that it, is.
  The first category is old age. What on earth is old age? Some people are old at a certain age according to their birth certificate, and others never get old at all. Then the second category is permanent illness or infirmity. Paragraph (f) speaks of the possession of valuable technical or industrial skill. Suppose a man is a great artist. He would not be able to come in under paragraph (f), because it might be said that, while technical or industrial skill was valuable, artistic skill was not. With regard to the matter of proved sympathy with this country, what constitutes sympathy with this country? It is quite impossible to make a coherent investigation into all these Sub-sections now, and I do not propose to attempt it, because I do not intend to put the House to inconvenience; but I direct the attention of the House to the fact that we are inserting in this Bill, which is one of prime importance, a Clause which, so far, has never been submitted in its details to the Members of the House for their consideration.
  Sir H. NIELD: With reference to the remarks of the last speaker, if he, occupying a distinguished position on the Front Opposition Bench, thinks it hardly worth while to make himself acquainted with what was happening in another place, those on the Back Benches could not be expected to do so. Some of us did, and from day to day obtained the Amendments about to be moved until the Bill was begun in Committee in another place, and thus made ourselves acquainted with the various alternative suggestions which Noble Lords were making. Therefore, when the Government on the Committee stage stated, through the mouth of the Lord Chancellor, that they proposed to take the Amendments down in the name of Lord Finlay, and those Amendments were discussed together with the Motion to insert the Clause we have just disagreed with, it was perfectly clear to everybody who chose to follow the proceedings what were the contents of Lord Finlay's Amendments. Having disposed of the technicalities and fine arguments advanced against Clause 9 as it originally stood, to make it more common sense from the point of view of equity, is the last thing of which this House ought to complain.
  Lord H. CECIL: Everyone, including probably the Government themselves, will agree that the position in which the House finds itself is an inconvenient one, but it is only fair to the Government to say that so far as my recollection goes what they have done does correspond with the ordinary practice in dealing with Lords Amendments, namely, to move Amendments to the Lords Amendments without having put them on the Paper. That happens because Lords Amendments are dealt with usually in rather a hurry towards the end of the Session, and there is no time to put Amendments on the Paper. I understand that the Bill came back to this House yesterday, therefore the Government would not have had time to put Amendments on the Paper unless they had further postponed the consideration of the Lords Amendments, which might have been inconvenient. I agree that we are in an exceedingly inconvenient position. The assent we give to the Government's proposals has hardly the weight of a reasoned and deliberate assent. We prefer the Government's Amendment to the Clause as it left the House of Com-

  591
  mons, and I hope we may not divide again, but support the Government in the course they now propose.
  Amendments made in the words so restored to the Bill: Leave out, in Sub-section (3), paragraphs (a) to (y), and Subsection (4), and insert instead thereof the words

  "(a) Old age;

  (b) Permanent illness or infirmity;

  (c) Service during the present war (whether by the applicant or by any son of the applicant) in His Majesty's forces or the forces of any allied or associated Power;

  (d) Residence in His Majesty's Dominions either from early youth or for a long period;

  (e) Valuable personal service to this country or any part of the British Dominions or to any allied or associated Power during the recent war;

  (f) The possession of valuable technical or industrial skill;

  (g) Proved sympathy with the cause of the Allies;

  (h) The fact that deportation would involve either (1) serious hardship to the applicant or his wife, children, or dependants, or (2) injury to any British interest;

  (i) The fact that the mother of the applicant is a natural-born British subject."

  At end of Sub-section (5) add the words "and such inclusion shall, notwithstanding anything in this Section, have the same effect as the grant of a licence."
  In Sub-section (8), leave out the wards "shall be" ["it shall be revoked"], and insert instead thereof the word "is."
  Leave out the words "for a period of seven years after the passing of this Act," and insert instead thereof the words "so long as the Order remains in force."— [Mr. Shortt.]
  At the end, insert the following new Sub-section:
  "(11) This Section shall not apply to any subject of the Ottoman Empire who holds a certificate issued by a police authority, or by or under the direction of the Secretary of State, granting exemption from any provisions of Part II. of the Aliens Restriction Order in fore. on the first day of January nineteen hundred and nineteen, applicable to alien enemies."
  —Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 10.—(Admission of Former)
  (1) No former enemy alien shall for a period of three years after the passing of this Act be permitted to land in the United Kingdom either
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  from the sea or from the air, or, if he should land without permission. to remain in the United Kingdom, without the permission of the Secretary of State, to be granted only on special grounds, and such permission shall be limited in duration to a period of three calendar months, and may upon special grounds he renewed from time to time for a like period.
  (2) A list of the persons to whom permissions are so granted during, each month shall be published in the "London Gazette" as soon as practicable after the end of each such month.
  Leave out the word "calendar" ["a period of three calendar months"].—Agreed to.
  After Sub-section (2), insert the following new Sub-sections:
  "(3) The requirement of this Section that permission to remain in the United Kingdom shall be limited to a period of three months shall not apply to a former enemy alien who was resident in the United Kingdom at the date of the passing of this Act, and after a temporary absence abroad returns to the United Kingdom.
  (4) Where any former enemy alien, formerly resident in the United Kingdom, and having a British-born wife or a British-born child under the age of aixteten still resident in the United Kingdom, applies, within three months front the passing. of this Act, to the Secretary of State for permission to land in the United Kingdom, the Secretary of State shall refer the application to the Advisory Committee constituted under the last foregoing Section of this Act, and, if that Committee recommends that he be permitted to land, he shall be so permitted, and the requirement of this Section that permission to remain in the United Kingdom shall be limited to a period of three months shall not apply."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House cloth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[Mr. Shortt.]
  Sir J. BUTCHER: I think that the words inserted by the Lords require a little amendment. The substance of the new Sub-section (3) is that if any former enemy alien has been in fact exempted from deportation, and then goes out of the country, he should be allowed to come back again freely; in other words, once he obtains exemption and he goes out of the country, you should not keep him out, but allow him to come back. Thai is quite reasonable. As the Sub-section is drawn, however, it would give that liberty not merely to the man who had been exempted from repatriation, but to every enemy alien who had managed to

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  slip out without getting exemption. He could say, "I am coining back, and shall remain here as long as I like." I do not think that that is the intention of the Lords Amendment, and it ought to be made clear that that is not the intention. I therefore wish to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in Subsection (3), after the word "Act," to insert the words "and who has been exempted from deportation or repatriation by any Advisory Committee appointed since the first day of January, nineteen hundred and' eighteen" That means that the privilege to come back and remain in this country indefinitely shall be confined to those who have been exempted from repatriation or deportation, either by Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee in 1918 or by Mr. Justice Younger's Committee this year, or by any Committee appointed under this Bill.
  Lord H. CECIL: On a point of Order. Is not the hon. Member too late? Has not the Question already been put?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have put the Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," and the hon. Member's Amendment has only just this moment been handed to me.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Before you put the Question again I beg leave to move to insert certain words at the end of Subsection (4) of the Lords Amendments. Before I mention the words I should like to explain shortly what is the effect of this Amendment. It is that where a former enemy alien, formerly resident is the United Kingdom, who has a British born wife or child—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order. I have put the Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," and we must dispose of that before taking any other Amendment.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: I beg to move, at the end of the Lords Amendment last agreed to, to insert the words
  "Provided that the provisions of this subsection shall not apply to any former enemy aliens; against whom an order for deportation or repatriation has been made."
  The object of the main Amendment is that where a former enemy alien formerly resident in the United Kingdom, and having a British-born wife, or child under
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  sixteen, still resident in the United Kingdom, applies within a certain time to the Secretary of State for permission to land, the Secretary of State shall refer his application to the Advisory Committee, and if the Committee recommend he shall be so permitted, that then he may be allowed to remain here for an indefinite period. That is right where an enemy alien is not already under a sentence of deportation, but if he has already been ordered to be deported I do submit that it would not be right that he should, under this Section, be allowed to come back. That seems common sense. If an order of deportation has been made, and he goes out of the country, and then within a month or so says to the Home Secretary, "Let me come back," it looks as though under this Section he could come back.
  Sir H. NIELD: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. SHORTT: I hope the House will not press me to accept this Amendment. It really would negative the whole of the, last Amendment which the House has just agreed to. The object is that where a man has been allowed to remain here and he has gone abroad temporarily for some reason, he should be allowed to come back as though he had never left the country. Equally, Clause 4 gives a right of appeal where there may be a change of circumstances, or, may be, other circumstances can be shown, and this is decided not by the Home Secretary but by his Advisory Committee. It is simply a case of allowing a man who has a wife and children here who thinks that there are circumstances which might vindicate him with regard to that which has already been done to him to bring the matter again before the Advisory Committee. That does not weaken the Bill as it stands, and if these words are accepted it will really negative the whole of the Lords Amendments which the House has agreed to.
  Amendment negatived.

  CLAUSE 11.—(Temporary Restriction on Acquisition by Fortner Enemy Aliens of Certain Kinds of Property.)
  (1) During a period of three years from the passing of this Act it shall not be lawful for a former enemy alien, either in his own name or in the name of a trustee or trustees, to acquire property of any of the following descriptions; Unit is to say:—

  (a) any land, or any interest in any land, in the United Kingdom; or

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  (b) any interest in a key industry, or any share in a company registered in the United Kingdom which carries on any such industry; or

  (c) any share in a company owning a British ship registered in the United Kingdom.

  In paragraph (c) after the word "share" insert the words "or interest in a share"—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 13.—(Additional Power, of Secretary of State.)
  The Secretary of State may, if he thinks it necessary in the interests of public safety, direct that any of the provisions of this Act as to former enemy aliens shall in particular cases be applicable to other aliens, and thereupon such provisions shall apply accordingly.

  CLAUSE 14—(Offences and Penalties.)
  (4) A person who is guilty of an offence against tins Act is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds and to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding six months or, on a second or subsequent conviction, twelve months.
  In Sub-section (4), after the word "months" ["twelve months"] insert the words "or in either case to both such fine and imprisonment."—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 15.—(Saving for Diplomatic Persons, etc.)
  Nothing in this Act contained shall be construed as imposing any restriction or disability on any duly accredited head of a foreign diplomatic mission or any member of his official staff or household.
  Lords Amendment: At the end insert the following new Sub-section:
  (2) The Secretary of State may exempt from any of the special provisions of this Act as to former enemy aliens any consul or vice-consul to whom His Majesty is pleased to grant an exequatur and the wife and child of any such consul or vice-consul.
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Mr. SHORTT: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Would the Home Secretary be good enough to explain the
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  meaning of this addition? It may be all right, but I do not quite follow it at the moment. It is really to this effect—that it permit Germans and others to be appointed in certain cases Consuls and Vice-Consuls, and remain in this country, if they are not already here. Perhaps the Home Secretary will explain under what circumstances that is desirable?
  Mr. SHORTT: It simply gives the Secretary of State the power, where it is considered advisable, to extend to Consuls and their families the same privileges which are extended to the accredited heads of foreign diplomatic missions or any member of their official staff or household. It makes nothing obligatory at all, but simply gives to the Home Secretary the power to extend those privileges to the Consul when it is thought desirable that it should be done.
  Sir H. MELD: The alteration which was made in this on Report in another place has made all the difference in the world. As originally moved, and as adopted by the Government in the Committee stage, it did leave an opportunity for a great abuse, butt sec that the words "and their family and their servants" have been withdrawn, and I cannot imagine that His Majesty would grant an exequatur to any Consul or Vice-Consul sinless he was perfectly satisfied on the advice of his Ministers, that the person was a fit and proper person to hold it.

  CLAUSE 16.—(Definitions)
  The expression "former enemy alien" means an alien who is or has at any time been a subject or citizen of the German Empire or any component state thereof, or of Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, or Turkey, and has not changed his allegiance as a result of the recognition of new states or territorial re-arrangements, or been naturalised in any other foreign state or in any British Possession in accordance with the laws thereof, and when actually resident therein, 'and in such a manner as not to retain according to the law of his state of origin the nationality of that state.
  Leave out the word "and" ["and has not"], and insert instead thereof the words "or who having at any time been such subject or citizen."—Agreed to.
  Leave out the words "in such manner as not to," and insert instead thereof the words "does riot."—Agreed to.
  At the end, insert the words
  "Provided that the special provisions of this Act as to former enemy aliens, except the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Section two of this Act, shall not apply to any woman who was at the time of her marriage a British subject."
  —Agreed to.

  PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL.
  Lords Amendments considered.
  PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Provisions for the Prevention of Abuse of Monopoly Rights.)
    For Section twenty-seven of the Patents and Designs Act, 1907 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), the following Section shall be substituted:
    27.—(l) Any person interested may at any time apply to the comptroller alleging in the case of any patent that there has been an abuse of the monopoly rights thereunder and asking for relief under this Section.
    (3) On being satisfied that a case of abuse of the monopoly rights under a patent has been established, the comptroller may exercise any of the following powers as he may deem expedient in the circumstances:
    (b)He may order the grant to the applicant of a licence on such terms as the comptroller may think expedient, including a term precluding the licensee from importing into the United Kingdom any goods the importation of which, if made by persons other than the patentee or persons claiming under him, would be an infringement of the patent, and in such case the patentee and all licensees for the time being shall be deemed to have mutually covenanted against such importation. A licensee under this paragraph shall be entitled to call upon the patentee to take proceedings to prevent infringement of the patent, and if the patentee refuses, or neglects to do so within two months after being so called upon, the licensee may institute proceedings for infringement in his own name as though he were the patentee, making the patentee a defendant:
    (c) if the comptroller is of opinion that the objects of this Section will be best attained by making no order, he may refuse the application and dispose of any question as to costs thereon as he thinks just.
    (8) The comptroller shall consider the matters alleged in the application and declarations, and if satisfied that the applicant has a bonâ fide interest and that a primâ facie case for relief has been made out he shall direct the applicant to serve copies of the application and declarations upon the patentee and upon any other persons appearing on the register to be interested in the patent, and shall advertise the application in the Ilustrated Official Journal (Patents).
    (9) If the patentee or any person is desirous of opposing the granting of any relief under this
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    Section, he shall within such time as may be allowed by the comptroller, or within such extended time as the comptroller may on application further allow, deliver to the comptroller a counter statement verified by a statutory declaration fully setting out the grounds on which the application is to be opposed."
    Lords Amendment: Sub-section (3, b) after the word "defendant," insert the words
    "A patentee so added as defendant shall not be liable for any costs unless he enters an appearance and takes part in the proceedings. Service on him may be effected by leaving the writ at his address for service given on the register."
    Lords Amendment read a second time.
    The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    This Amendment really gives to a person who has been named in legal proceedings as the nominal defendant an immunity from costs unless he has taken such a part as brings him within the ambit of our ordinary procedure. It is in the interests of poor persons.
    In Subsection (8), leave out the word "on," and insert instead thereof the word "from."—Agreed to.
    In Sub-section (9), leave out the words "allowed by the comptroller," and insert instead thereof the word "prescribed."—Agreed to.

    CLAUSE 2.
    For Section twenty-four of the principal Act the following Section shall be substituted:

  24. — (Provision as to Patents indorsed 'Licences of Right.')
  (1) At any time after the sealing of a patent the comptroller shall, if the patentee so requests, cause the patent to be indorsed with the words licences of right,' and a corresponding entry to be made in the register, and thereupon—
  (d) every such licensee shall be entitled to call upon a patentee to take proceedings to prevent the infringement of the patent, and if the patentee refuses, or neglects to do so within two months after being so called upon, the licensee may institute proceedings for the infringement in his own name, as though he were patentee making the patentee a defendant:
  (4) All indorsements of patents under this Section shall be entered on the register of patents and shall be published in the official journal of the Patent Office, and in such other manner as to the comptroller may seem desirable for the purpose of bringing the invention to the notice of manufacturers.
  (5) If at any time it appears that in the case of a patent. se indorsed there is no existing licence the comptroller may, if he thinks fit, on the application of the patentee and of payment by him of the unpaid moiety of all renewal fees which have become due since the indorsement, after due notice cancel the indorsement, and in that case the patentee's rights and liabilities shall be the same as if no such indorsement had been made."
  Lords Amendment: In Sub-sections (1,d), after the word, "defendant," insert the words,
  "A patentee so added as defendant shall nit be liable for any costs unless he enters an appearance and takes part in the proceedings. Service on him may be effected by leaving the writ at his address for service given on the register."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  This is merely consequential on the first Amendment, putting the same words in another place.
  Lords Amendment: In Sub-section (4), leave out the words "official journal of the patent office" and insert instead thereof the words "Illustrated Official Journal (Patents)".
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move "that this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  The Amendment merely provides that the proper name of the Journal shall be inserted.

  CLAUSE 4.—(Amendment of Section 11 of Principal Act as to Opposition to Grant of Patent.)
  For paragraph (b) of Sub-section (1) of Section eleven of the principal Act, which relates to the opposition to grants of patents, the following paragraphs shall be substituted—
  "(b) that the invention has been published in any complete specification or in any provisional specification followed by a complete specification deposited pursuant to any application made in the United Kingdom within fifty years next before the date of the application for the patent
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  the grant of which is being opposed, or in any document other than a British specification) published in the United Kingdom prior to the application; or
  "(bb) that the invention has been claimed in any complete specification for a British patent which though not published at the date of the application for a patent the grant of which is opposed will be of prior date to such patent; or"
  and after paragraph (d) of the same Sub-section the following paragraph shrill be inserted—
  "(e) that in the case of an application under Section ninety-one of this Act a specification describes or claims an invention other than that for which protection has been applied for in a foreign state or British possession and that such other invention forms the subject of an application made by the opponent in the interval between the leaving of the application in the foreign state or British possession and the leaving of the application in the United Kingdom."
  In paragraph (bb), after the word "opposed," insert the words "was deposited pursuant to an application for a patent which is or."—Agreed to.
  At the beginning of paragraph (e), insert the word "or"—Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 7. —(Amendment of Section 18 of Principal Act as to Extension of Term of Patent.)
  (1) At the end of Sub-section (1) of Section eighteen of the principal Act which relates to the extension of the term of a patent, the following proviso shall be inserted:—
  Provided that the Court may in its discretion extend such period within which such a petition may be presented.
  (2) At the end of Sub-section (4) of the same Section there shall be inserted the words "including in particular any loss or damage which may have been occasioned to the patentee, as such, by reason of hostilities between His Majesty and any foreign State, except in cases where the patentee is the subject of any such foreign State."
  (3) In Sub-section (5) of the same Section, for the words "for a further term not exceeding seven years, or, in exceptional cases, fourteen years," there shall be substituted the words "for a further term not exceeding five years, or, in exceptional cases, ten years."
  After Sub-section (3), insert the words
  "(3) At the end of the same Section, the following Sub-section shall be added:—
  (6) Where, by reason of hostilities between His Majesty and any foreign State, the patentee such has suffered loss or damage (including loss of opportunity of dealing in or developing his invention owing to his having been engaged in work of national importance connected with

  601
  such hostilities) an application under this Section may be made by originating summons instead of by petition, and the Court in considering its decision may have regard solely to the loss or damage so suffered by the patentee:
  Provided that this Sub-section shall not apply if the patentee is a subject of such foreign State as aforesaid, or is a company the business whereof is managed or controlled by such subjects or is carried on wholly or mainly for the benefit or on behalf of such subjects, notwithstanding that the company may be registered within His Majesty's Dominions."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  This is au important Clause, and is added really at the request of a number of Members who served upon the Committee. It gives an advantage to the patentee who has suffered loss or damage in consequence of the War. It enables him to bring his claim before the Court by an originating summons, and it enables him to ask that such loss or damage may be made good to him, and that his patent may not suffer by the action of the War. I call the attention of the House to it because we have now been able to meet a point which was pressed upon me many times in Committee, and to which a solution was not easy to find when the Bill was before the House.

  CLAUSE 8. —(Right of Crown to use Patented Incentions.)
  At the end of Section twenty-nine of the principal Act the following words shall be inserted:—
  "And the terms of any agreement or licence concluded between the inventor or patentee and any person other than a Government Department, shall be inoperative so far as concerns the making use or exercise of the invention for the service of the Crown:
  Provided further, that where an invention which is the subject of any patent has, before the date of the patent, been duly recorded in a document by, or tried by on behalf of, any Government Department, such invention not haying been communicated directly or indirectly by the applicant for the patent or the patentee, any Government Department, or such of their agents, contractors, or others, as may be authorised in writing by them, may make use and exercise the invention so recorded or tried, far the service of the Crown, free of any royalty or other payment to the patentee, notwithstanding the existence of the patent. If in the opinion of the Department the disclosure to the applicant or the patentee, as the case may be, of the document recording the invention, or the evidence of the trial thereof, if required, would be detrimental to the public interest, it may be made confidentially to counsel on behalf of the applicant or patentee, or to any independent expert mutually agreed upon. In ease of any dispute as to the existence or scope of any
  602
  record as aforesaid, or as to the use of an invention, or the terms of its use, the matter shall be referred to a judge of the High Court for decision, who shall have power to refer the whole matter or any question or issue of fact arising thereon to be tried before a special or official referee or an arbitrator upon such terms as he may direct.
  The right to use an invention for the services of the Crown under the provisions of this Section, shall include, and shall be deemed always to have included, the power to sell any articles made in pursuance of such right which are no longer required for the services of the Crown."
  Lords Amendment: Leave out Clause 8, and insert instead thereof Clause A:
  "A. For Section 29 of the principal Act the following Section shall be substituted:—
  29.—(l) A patent shall have to all intents the like effect as against His Majesty the King as it, has against a subject:
  Provided that any Government Department. may, by themselves or by such of their agents, contractors, or others as may be authorised in writing by them at any time after the application, make, use or exercise the invention for the services of the Crown on such terms as may, either before or after the use thereof, be agreed on, with the approval of the Treasury, between the Department and the patentee, or, in default of agreement, as may be settled in the manner hereinafter provided. And the terms of any agreement or licence concluded between the in ventor or patentee and any person other than a Government Department, shall be inoperative so far as concerns the making, use or exercise of the invention for the service of the Crown:
  Provided further, that where an invention which is the subject of any patent has, before the date of the patent, been duly recorded in a document by, or tried by or on behalf of any Government Department, such invention not has lug been communicated directly or indirectly by the applicant for the patent or the patentee, any Government Department, or such of their agents, contractors, or others, as may be authorised in writing by them, may make, use and exercise the invention so recorded or tried, for the service of the Crown, free of any royalty or other payment to the patentee notwith Landing the existence of the patent. If in the opinion of the Department the disclosure to the applicant or the patentee, as the case may be, of the document recording the invention, or the evidence of the trial thereof, if required, would be. detrimental to the public interest, it may be made confidentially to counsel on behalf of the applicant or patentee, or to any independent expert mutually agreed upon.
  (2) In case of any dispute as to the making, use or exercise of an invention under this Section, or the terms therefor, or as to the existence or scope of any record or trial as aforesaid, the. matter shall be referred to the Court for decision, who shall have power to refer the whole matter or any question or issue of fact arising thereon to be tried before a special or official referee or an arbitrator upon such terms as it nosy direct. The Court, referee, or arbitrator, as the ease may be, may, with the consent of the parties, take into consideration the validity of the patent for the purposes only of the reference and for the determination of the issues between, the applicant and such Government Department.

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  (3) The right to use an invention for the services of the Crown under the provisions of this Section shall include, and shall be deemed always to have included, the power to sell any articles made in pursuance of such right which are no longer required for the services of the Crown.
  (4) Nothing in this Section shall affect the right of the Crown or of any person deriving title directly or indirectly from the Crown to sell or use any articles forfeited under the laws relating to the Customs or Excise."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, at the end of Sub-section (2) to insert the words:
  "The Court, referee, or arbitrator, further in settling the terms as aforesaid, shall be entitled to take into consideration any benefit or compensation which the patentee, or any other person interested in the patent, may have received, directly or indirectly from the Crown or from any Government department in respect of such patent."
  The Clause is an important one. It provides for the payment of the sum which is to be paid for the use of a patent by a Government Department. Hon. Members will remember that it provided, instead of the Treasury fixing the sum, that the sum should be estimated by a judge of the High Court. Although the Clause as set up carries that out, it leaves two small Amendments which I beg to move. One is an Amendment for this reason: The Clause does not come into operation at once, because a large number of these questions as to what compensation should be paid to patentees for the use of their patents has now been referred to Commission. One Commission has been set up under Mr. Justice Sargant, and I think there is another Commission. It would be obviously inconvenient for Mr. Justice Sargant to be taken from those duties and to be asked to deal with those under the Act. It is therefore proposed not to bring this question into force until that Commission has completed its work. If that be so, it is necessary to make two small Amendments. The first is, that the Court, whenever it does sit, shall take into consideration any benefit or compensation which may have been granted by the Commission, which is now an operative tribunal for the purpose of fixing compensation.
  Amendment to Lords Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment to Lords Amendment made: In Sub-section (3), after the word "section" ["provisions of this sec-
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  tion shall include"], insert the words "or any provisions for which this section is substituted."

  CLAUSE 9.
  After Section thirty-two of the principal Act the following Section shall be inserted:

  32A.—(Power of Court to Grant Relief in Respect of Particular Claims.)
  If the Court in any action for infringement of a patent finds that any one or more of the claims in the specification, in respect of which infringement is alleged, are valid, it shall, subject to its discretion as to costs and to such terms as to Amendments as it may deem desirable, grant relief in respect of any of such claims which are infringed without regard to the in validity of any other claim in the specification. In exercising such discretion, the Court may take into consideration the conduct of the parties in inserting such invalid claims in the specification or permitting them to remain there.
  After the word "costs" ["discretion as to costs"], insert the words "and as to the date from which damages should be reckoned." —Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 11.
  (1) After Section thirty-eight of the principal Act the following Section shall be inserted:
  38A.—(Chemical Products and Substances Intended for Food or Medicine.)
  (2) In the case of any patent for an invention intended for or capable of being used for the preparation or production of iced or medicine, the comptroller shall, unless he sees good reason to the contrary, grant to any person applying for the same. a licence limited to the use of the invention for the purposes of the preparation or production of food or medicine but not otherwise; and in settling the terms of such licence and fixing the amount of royalty or other consideration payable, the comptroller shall have regard to the desirability of making the food or medicine available to the public at the lowest possible price.

  CLAUSE 13.—(Amendment of s. 41 (2) of Principal Act as to Anticipation.)
  (1) At the end of Sub-section (2) of Section forty-one of the principal Act, the following proviso shall be added:—
  "Provided that the protection afforded by this Sub-section shall not extend to a patentee

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  who has commercially worked his invention in the United Kingdom for more than six months prior to such publication as aforesaid."
  (2) This Section shall not apply in the case of patents granted before the passing of this Act.

  CLAUSE 15
  After Section fifty-eight of the principal Act the following Section shall be inserted:

  58A.—(Registration Designs to Bind the Crown.)
  The registration of a design shall have to ail intents the-like effect as against His Majesty the King as it has against a subject:
  Provided that the provisions of Section twenty nine of this Act shall be read as though they applied to registered designs."

  CLAUSE 16.—(Registration of Assignments, etc.)
  At the end of Section seventy-one of the principal Act, which relates to the entry of assignments and transmissions in registers, the following Sub-section shall be inserted:—
  (4) Except in applications made under Section seventy-two of this Act, an assignment, transmission or mortgage of, or any other instrument affecting the title to, a patent or the copyright in a registered design, or any interest therein, or a licence to use a patent or registered design, shall not be admitted in evidence in any Court unless it has been entered on the register of patents or the register of designs as the case may be.
  Lords Amendment: Leave out the Clause, and insert instead thereof Clause B.
  "B. For Section seventy-one of the principal Act the following Section shall be substituted:—
  71.—(1) Where a person becomes entitled by assignment, transmission, or other operation of law to a patent or to the copyright in a registered troller to register his title, and the comptroller shall, on receipt of such application and on proof of title to his satisfaction, register him as the proprietor of such patent or design and shall cause an entry to be made in the prescribed manner on the register of the assignment, transmission, or other instrument affecting the title.
  (2) Where any person becomes entitled as mortgagee, licensee, or otherwise to any interest in a. patent or design, he shall make application to the comptroller to register his title, and the comptroller shall, on receipt of such application, and on proof of title to his satisfaction, cause notice of the interest to be entered in the prescribed manner in the register of patents or designs, as the case may be with particulars of the instrument, if any, creating such interests
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  (3) The person registered as the proprietor of a patent or design shall, subject to the provisions of the Act and to ally rights appearing from the register to be vested in any other person have power absolutely to assign, grant licences as to or otherwise deal with the patent or design, and to give effectual receipts for any consideration for any such assignment., licence, or dealing:
  Provided that any equities in respect of the patent or design may be enforced in like manner as in respect of any other personal property.
  (4) Except in applications made under Section seventy-two of this Act, a document or instrument in respect of which no entry has been made in the register in accordance with the provisions of Sub-sections (1) and (2) aforesaid, shall not be admitted in evidence in any Court in proof of the title to a patent or copyright in a design or to any interest therein unless the Court otherwise directs."
  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, "That this House cloth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  This is a longer Amendment, and I venture to trouble the House with an explanation of it. It really deals with the question of assignments and transfers of patents, and the effect of it is to transfer the title of the patent. It is quite obvious that some method must be adopted whereby some changes of ownership ultimately appear on the register. At the same time it is necessary to safeguard the rights of persons who have acquired tentative interest in the patent. This is a Clause which has been moved by Lord Moulton in the House of Lords after careful consideration. I think it safeguards the interests of all persons concerned and is far better than the old Clause. I beg to move that the House agree with the Lords.

  CLAUSE 18.
  For Section eighty-four of the principal Act, which relates to the registration of patent agents, the following Section shall be substituted:—
  (Registration of Patent Agents.)
  84.—(1) No person shall practice, describe, or hold himself out, or permit himself to be described or held out, as a patent agent, unless—
  (c) in the case of a company which commenced to carry on business after time seventeenth day of November, nineteen hundred and seventeen, every director and the manager (if any) of the company is so registered;
  Provided that in the last-mentioned case the name of such manager or managing director shall be mentioned as being a registered patent agent in all professional advertisments, circulars or letters in which the name of the company appears.
  In Sub-section (1), leave out the word "managing" ["managing director"]. —Agreed to.

  CLAUSE 22.—(Short Title and Commencement.)
  (1) This Act may be cited as the Patents and Designs Act, 1919, and the principal Act and this Act may be cited together as the Patents and Designs Acts, 1907 and 1919.
  (2) The provisions by Sections one and two of this Act substituted for Sections twenty-seven and twenty-four of the principal Act shall not come into operation until such time, not being later than one year after the passing of this Act, as may be fixed by Order of the Board of Trade. except so far as the provisions so substituted for the said Section twenty-four are by Subsection (2) of Section six of this Act applied to the patents therein mentioned; save as aforesaid this Act shall come into operation on the passing thereof.
  Lords Amendment: In Sub-section (2), after the word "mentioned" ["therein mentioned"], insert the words
  "and the provisions of this Act relating to the terms on which an invention or registered design can be made, used or exercised by or on behalf of a Government Department shall not come into operation until such time as may be fixed by order of the Board of Trade."
  —Agreed to.

  SCHUDULE. —(Minor Amendments of Principal Act)
  Section Amended.

  Nature of Amendment.

  Section 15.

  In Sub-section (2) for the word "on the ground of fraud" there shall be substituted the words "by the Court on the ground that it has been obtained in fraud of the first and true inventor or where the grant has been refused by the Comptroller under the provisions of paragraph (a) of Sub-section (1) of Section eleven of this Act or revoked on the same ground under the provisions of Section twenty-six of this Act."

  Section 29

  For the words, "by themselves, their agents, contractors, or others," there shall be substituted the words, "by themselves or by such of their agents, contractors, or others as may be authorised in writing by them."

  For the word "use," there shall be substituted the words "make, use, or exercise." The following words, at the end of the Section, namely "or, in default of agreement, as may be settled by "the Treasury after hearing all parties interested," shall be omitted.

  Section 31

  In Sub-section (1) for the word "either," there, shall be substituted the word "all."

  Section 38

  After Sub-section (1), insert: "In any action, application, or proceeding under this Act no person shall be estopped from applying for or obtaining relief by reason of any admission made by him as to the reasonableness of the terms offered to him under Sub-section (1) (i)."

  Section 71

  In Sub-section (1) for the words "the Comptroller shall on request" there shall be substituted the words "he shall make application to the Comptroller in the prescribed manner to register his title and the Comptroller shall on receipt of such application."

  In Sub-section (2) for the words "the Comptroller shall on request" there shall be substituted the words "he shall make application to the Comptroller in the prescribed manner to register such interest and the Comptroller shall on receipt of such application," and the words "in the prescribed manner" shall be omitted.

  Section 77

  In Sub-section (2) after the words "on oath there shall be inserted the words" and discovery and production of documents."

  After paragraph on Section 31, insert

  "Section 34

  For the word inspection or account ' there shall be substituted the words ' or inspection.'

  —Agreed to.
  In paragraph on Section 38, leave out the word "insert," and insert instead thereof the words there shall be inserted the following words."—Agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: After paragraph on Section 38, insert the words

  "Section 45(1)

  After the word 'inventor' where it first occurs, there shall he inserted the words 'or the reading of a paper by an inventor before a learned society or the publication of the paper in the 'society's transactions.'

  In proviso (a) after the word ' invention ' there shall be inserted the words 'or the person reading such paper or permitting such publication.'

  At the end of proviso (b) there shall be inserted the words 'or the reading or publication, of such paper."

  Lords Amendment read a second time.
  Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  This Clause has been asked for by those who are interested in the case of a person who reads a paper before a learned society and may disclose particulars of a patent. They have asked that protection should be given, as in the case of an exhibition and similar ways of publication, where a thing is exhibited merely for the purpose of illustrating the patent which he has in his mind. It safeguards the person who discloses his ideas in an address to any of the various societies.
  Leave out second paragraph on Section 71, and paragraph on Section 77.—Agreed to.
  After paragraph on Section 77, insert the words

  "Section 91

  In Sub-section (5) for the word and ' there shall be substituced the word or."

  —Agreed to.

  PROFITEERING (CONTINUANCE) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. INSKIP: Before this Bill be read a second time I think the House ought to be informed of the action taken under the Profiteering Act. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"] I beg pardon, I thought there had been a formal Motion made.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridge-man): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  1.0 P.M.
  I wish to state a few facts as to the working of the Profiteering Act. This Bill is merely intended to carry on the Profiteering Act for a further three months. Hon. Members will remember that under the Act it was only to last six months, and it expires on the 19th of February next year. We propose to carry it on for three months after that date. I will now give a few facts and figures as to the position at the
  610
  present moment. Out of 2,356 local authorities, 1,900 have formed local committees, and eighty-six appeal tribunals have been set up. The Central Committee, presided over by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food (Mr. McCurdy), set to work on the 30th of September and divided itself into three sections. One is a section for the investigation of prices, another for complaints regarding wholesale prices, and the third is the trusts section. These sections have divided themselves into a number of subcommittees dealing with the various branches of the sections. They have got to work in the investigation of particular eases or groups of articles. Before the local committees up to the end of November, 1,935 cases have been heard and determined. Of these 1,300 have been dismissed. In 398 cases a price has been declared or a refund ordered. In eighty-two cases prosecutions have been ordered. Of these, twenty-eight cases have come up for trial, and in twenty-four convictions have been obtained. Seventy-one cases have been referred to Appeal Tribunals, but most of these have not yet come up for consideration. With regard to the financial position the House will remember that £75,000 was sanctioned for the expenses of the Board of Trade under the Act. Up to 19th February it is estimated that some £25,000 to £30,000 will have been spent, and for the throe months after that probably something like £40,000, or rather less, will have been required. Therefore, the whole sum will not be reached even if we extend this Act for another three months.
  I do not think it is necessary for me at this time of the night to go into a long description of the success of the. Act, but I think that the figures I have given will show that the machinery is only just getting into complete working order, and it would be most unfortunate if it was cut short before it had had time: to have its full effect, especially with regard to the more difficult investigations with reference to wholesale prices, trusts, combines, and so on, which everyone will recognise must take some time to follow up. I think I ought to say that the fact that this measure is only to prolong the life of the Act for three months does not mean that we are not carefully considering the possible necessity of an amending Act to amend the measure in one or two particulars. We have had a good many representations

  611
  made to us from different quarters. A good many of them can be dealt with by an alteration of the Regulations, but some we think may require an Amendment in the Act, and the passing of this measure will in no way prevent such action being taken. There is one difficulty with regard to articles which in some particular stage are controlled. As the Act stands, if an article in any stage or process is controlled it may be held that the article cannot come under the review of the committees. We think it necessary to allow certain stages of the process to come under the committees, even if other stages are controlled. There are also some difficulties connected with the publication of reports which may possibly require amendment. At any rate we shall be in a better position at the beginning of next Session to amend the Act, and as the old Act will expire on 19th February, the House will recognise that it is very necessary to add these three months, because it will be impossible to introduce a Bill at the beginning of next Session before 19th February. I would remind hon. Members that the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. W. K. Jones), who opposed the Act on Second Reading, used as one of his chief arguments the statement that the six months was not nearly enough. That, no doubt, enabled him to lead some of the eight hon. Members into the Lobby against the Bill. He was right, and in order to extend the time I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. LINDSAY: Do the figures given by the hon. Member refer to the whole of the United Kingdom?
  INSKIP: I am much obliged to the hon. Member for the interesting facts he has given with regard to the working of the Profiteering Act. I regret he did not inform us as to what I hoped would have been the most interesting part of his statement. Most of us have been aware, although not to the extent we have now been informed, that a number of prosecutions have taken place under the Act and a number of threepenny-bits and sixpences have been ordered to be returned. What we were deeply interested in was as to the investigations which were being pursued by the various Committees and Sub-Committees, not in consequence of complaints, but in order to make those very investigations which the Select Committee appointed by this
  612
  House was embarking upon when the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade conceived the Profiteering Act. Section 5 or 6 of the Act, I forget which, expressly provides that those Reports shall be made public, and so far as I know not a single Report has been made public up to the present time. The Select Committee on high prices was precluded from embarking on the inquiry for which they were appointed in consequence of the intention to set up those Committees, which everybody supposed would cover the same ground as we were supposed to cover. We were later informed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food that those Committees were in full operation and that a number of interesting—I think the hon. Member even suggested startling —disclosures were about to be made; that they would very shortly be made; and he suggested that the Select Committee might wait for those Reports with the assurance that it would be unnecessary to pursue their duties. Up to this time we have not had a single Report. Section 5 might not have been in the Act for all we know. We have no information from my hon. Friend as to whether those committees have made, any investigations; whether they found that any blame attached to trusts, rings, or companies, and we are just as much in the dark as to the real causes of high prices as we were in July, when the Select Committee was appointed.
  I hope the President of the Board of. Trade will give us a categorical answer to the questions. How many of these Committees—not Committees that have considered cases in consequence of complaints—have made Reports? When will those Reports be published? and, if not already published, what are the reasons for withholding them from publication? If the House can be satisfied on these points I am sure they will be more ready to give an extension to the Profiteering Act.
  Mr. G. THORNE: I do not for a moment desire to take the responsibility of opposing this Bill. I recognise that under the circumstances, as the Act will expire at the time named, there is nothing for us to do but to have an extension. But I observe that my hon. Friend (Mr. Bridge-man), in his remarks, said he did not propose to dwell upon the success which the Act had obtained. I thought that was rather discreet on his part, because so, far we have had no evidence that it has

  613
  been a success at all. We should be very glad to know it is a successs. My hon. Friend who has just spoken (Mr. Inskip) and myself were members of the High Prices Committee. We were to take steps publicly and independently to investigate facts. This Bill came on the scene and torpedoed us, practically. But we took this course. We had the presence of the Parliamentary Secretary at one of our meetings, and he very courteously and fully gave us most interesting information, and, as my hon. Friend has suggested, the members of the Committee anticipated that before this time we should have had published certain Reports which would enable the public to understand better the working of the Committees and the results of that working. I, therefore, only wish to emphasise and support what my hon. Friend has just said that it will be a very great satisfaction to this House and, I believe, to the country to learn something in the direction of what we understood was promised at the meeting of the Committee would be given to the public.
  I rather gather from my hon. Friend who spoke just now from the Front Bench that there are some difficulties in the way, under the provisions of the Act itself, and if there are difficulties in the way I presume they will be amended in a Bill proposed in the next Session. Perhaps they will indicate what these difficulties are, of which we do riot know anything. I do not know whether he knew of them himself when he appeared before the Committee. I am bound to say that when we considered this matter yesterday at the final meeting of the High Prices Committee, there was general dissatisfaction and disappointment—and I think my colleagues will agree with me in that—that we had not yet had these promised Reports. I hope my hon. Friend may now be able to give us some information in that direction which may help to satisfy the anxiety of the public.
  Major BARNES: I am also upon this Prices and Profits Committee, and there are one or two things which have not been raised which I should like to refer to. I think the House will feel that in being asked for only three months' extension of this Bill they are getting some kind of insurance that by that time the
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  Board of Trade expect to be nearing the end of their task. They had a very powerful engine placed in their hands when this Bill was passed, and to some of us it looks as though they were using a Nasmyth hammer to crack a nut, that is probably not the real state of the case. They are no doubt carrying on very important investigations, not in little matters of retail trade, but in the very much larger questions with regard to trusts and combines. The whole country is looking forward with tremendous interest to the result of these inquiries, and I think hon. Members who have spoken are only voicing the feeling of the Profits Committee in expressing some disappointment that up to the present we have not yet got the Reports of these inquiries. I understand that they are going on with such important matters as the soap combine, and cotton, and other things. If I may be allowed a criticism which is, perhaps, not a very usual criticism at this time, it is that I think they are erring a little on the, side of economy in their investigation. The Under-Secretary told us that out of their £75,000 they have spent only £25,000 up to the present.. I really do not think that is as matter for congratulation. I think the work would go forward better if a little more money were being spent and if my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Central Committee were provided with more staff and larger means of carrying on his work. In support of that I will give the House one instance, and with it I will finish. On the 29th October the Chairman of the Central Committee appeared before the Profits Committee to tell us something about the working of the Act, and he gave us a lot of interesting information. I took that opportunity to bring before his notice the question of prices and profits in the dye industries, a matter of very considerable importance, not only to that trade but on account of its effect on the textile trades. He agreed that the information I placed before him did give subject-matter for inquiry and he brought it before the Committee, and a Committee has been appointed, I learned from him, to deal with this matter; but the point I want to make is this—that although the matter was brought before him on 29th October, here we are on 18th December, seven weeks later, and the

  615
  committee has not yet met. The reason, I understand, is that the staff which the Chairman of the Central Committee has is really not large enough for the task he has got in hand. There are twenty-five or thirty sub-committees and a comparatively small staff. I think that is false economy. What must be wanted by everybody—by the Board of Trade, by the Chairman of the Central Committee, and by the public —is that this work shall get on, that it shall get forward as rapidly as possible, and that, whatever economy may be effected in other directions, at least in the direction of an inquiry into this all-important matter, this matter which is probably engaging the anxieties of the country more than any other subject before it, there shall be no "scrimping," and that between now and the period when the new Bill is to end, my hon. Friend shall have at his disposal a fully adequate staff so that these Committees may be got together and may be able to proceed in the very quickest possible way.
  Major GREAME: The House understood when it sanctioned this Act that these inquiries were going to be independent inquiries by practical people and not by an ad hoc staff. If they are to carry confidence in the minds of the general public it seems to me that it is absolutely essential that they should be inquiries directed by those with practical experience, who have a first-hand experience, and not—this the very thing which the hon. Member and his Friends have been objecting to throughout—a bureaucratic inquiry by what they are pleased to call bureaucrats. I should strongly oppose spending money in order to create a staff, very likely wholly unqualified, an ad hoc staff, to conduct these inquiries which ought to be conducted by practical people—manufacturers, distributors, labour, and so on—who are the very people we want to get into the thing. Otherwise, what is the use of the inquiry? The whole object of the inquiry is to consider whether the Board of Trade is exercising these functions properly What is the good of setting up a new Department of the Board of Trade, and paying Civil servants to conduct that in quiry? I think that is the most unfortunate contribution that could have been made to the Debate.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. McCurdy): At this time of the night I am sure no one would expect or desire that I should attempt to report with any fulness on the work which has been done by the Central Committee set up to carry out what I venture to claim are some of the most important functions of the Act. I can very briefly answer the last speaker, and give the House some information at the same time, by just stating briefly what are the Committees that have been set up to carry out the work of independently investigating prices and costs and the operations of trusts and combines, quite apart from any complaints of profiteering. First of all, I may say in a sentence, in answer to the last speaker, that, broadly speaking, the Committees which are set up are independent Committees, they are representative Committees, in the sense that, whatever trade or industry is affected, there are the manufacturers on the one side and the operatives on the other side. investigating prices or the operations of trusts, as the case may be. I think I may fairly say that they are democratically constituted. They are certainly not in any sense bureaucratic bodies. They are not appointed by the President of the Board of Trade, they are appointed by the Central Committee or the Sub-committees designated by it, and the Central Committee is a very democratically appointed Committee, containing no less than between thirty arid forty representatives of the great trade unions. First of all, we set up a Costings Advisory Committee, in which we have the assistance of the President of the Incorporated Society of Accountants and the late Director of Costings of the Army Contract Department, the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and one or two other well-known accountants, of course, acting voluntarily and unpaid. Their business is to direct the officials who are furnished by the Board of Trade to carry out the actual costings, and I may say that at the present moment I believe costs inquiries are being conducted by accountants appointed by that Committee, for that purpose, in no less than fifty-five businesses in Great Britain, apart altogether from the work of the Committee.

  617
  If I may, I should like to tell the House in a sentence or two what sort of Committee was set up. We have a Committee to inquire into prices in the cocoa and chocolate trade, which has now just reported. We have a Committee inquiring into the question of cotton, We have had an accountant examining the books of Messrs. Coats and Company, who have, I am happy to say, furnished every facility for the purposes of investigation. We have had a large Committee investigating the prices of a good many drugs, such as aspirin. Another Committee has been inquiring into the costs of electric lamps, another into the cost of candles, and another into the operations of fish rings, which are supposed to be responsible for the holding up of supplies of food. Another Committee has been making inquiries with regard to furniture. Other Committees have been investigating the questions of groceries, matches, petrol, fuel, and so on.
  Mr. LINDSAY: What about whisky?
  Mr. McCURDY: We have not, at present, touched whisky. I think I may say that all the great outstanding monopolies in this country, such as tobacco and soap, are now being investigated. Then we come to matters like the problems of clothing: woollens, yarns, and things of that kind. We are not, in those cases, setting up Committees in the strict sense of the word. We are really calling a series of conferences with regard to each of those articles, upon which the trade is fully represented, and the operatives are fully represented. The assistance of experts and accountants is also available. I am grateful to the hon. Member opposite for his sympathetic reference to the work of this Committee and his desire to assist it by having as full a staff as possible. May I say, as to that fact, that a larger staff might produce the desired effect a little more rapidly. But I think it is only fair to say that, if we have not the staff, it is certainly not due to any lack of readiness on the part of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to provide us with the assistance, nor is it due to any reluctance on the part of the Treasury to sanction the expenditure. It is due to the simple fact that, to be of any use to us, a staff must be possessed of some
  618
  expert knowledge. They must have had some experience in costing work, and when we try to obtain assistants for that work, and can only offer them appointments terminable in February next, and are unable to hold out any promise of permanency, it is difficult to obtain competent men from other jobs to come and help us. With regard to the question of report, the Central Committee *as only formed on 30th September last, and since that time we have set up between twenty and thirty committees and conferences, some of which I have mentioned. It is only in the case of one or two of them that reports have been in the hands of the Board of Trade for more than a few days. But there has arisen a difficulty with regard to the publication of these reports which certainly did not occur to me when I gave evidence before the Select Committee on High Prices. The difficulty is that under the Profiteering Act it is specially provided that in respect of a trial or complaint, the information and evidence laid before a Committee is to be regarded as confidential, with this exception. Nothing in the Act is to prevent the publication of the findings and the decision of such a Committee. In the first place, reports are presented to the Board of Trade which contain, in some cases, transcript of evidence given, or in every case reference to the evidence, and it became a question of some doubt to the legal officers of the Board of Trade whether a report in that form would have the statutory protection which the Act gives to the publication of the findings and the decision. It may be necessary to remodel some of the first reports presented in order to bring them under the necessary words of the Act, but, subject to that, I have every hope that a substantial number of reports will be laid before the House.
  Captain W. BENN: The Profiteering Act, a piece of stunt legislation, was rushed upon this House just before we adjourned in the ordinary manner, in order to satisfy public clamour, in spite of the fact that a Committee of Inquiry had been appointed. Two things might have been done. The inquiries might haste been set on foot, and the public informed of the result of those inquiries. That has

  619
  not been done. I am very doubtful whether any Act of Parliament was required at all to enable the Food Controller and the President of the Board of Trade to do what obviously was within their powers, to make inquiries into prices. What the public will be interested in is the fact that 1,900 committees have been appointed, and 1,935 cases have been heard. That is one case per committee. Twenty-four convictions have been established, and £25,000 have been spent, That is an average of about £1,000 per conviction, and the price of living has gone up from 115 per cent. to 131 per cent. above the pre-war level.
  Bill accordingly read a sceond time, and committed to a. Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Colonel Sanders.]

  MILITARY KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR BILL [Lords.]
  Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. Churchill.]

  UNION OF BENEFICES BILL [Lords.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir E. CORNWALL, Deputy-Chairman, in the Chair.]

  UNION OF BENEFICES BILL [Lords.]

    CLAUSE. 1. —(Bishop on Request of Ecclesiastical Commissioners to issue Commission as to Union of Neighbouring Benefices.)
    Whenever it shall appear to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, whether on their own motion or any representation made to them, that inquiry ought to be made as to the desirability of uniting two or mare benefices, or one or more benefice or benefices, and one or more sinecure or sinecures, being either in the same parish or neighbouring to each other, they may address a request to the Bishop of the diocese, in which that one of those benefices which has the largest population shall be situate, to cause a commission to be issued under his hand and seal addressed to three persons to be nominated as in the next Section mentioned, authorising and requiring them to inquire and report to him whether such union may, with advantage to the interests of religion, be made, and to inquire into and report on all such matters in anywise affecting such union, or connected therewith, as they may deem necessary, and to recommend terms for effecting any union in favour of which they report, including the regulation of the course and succession
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    in which the patrons (if there he more than one patron) shall present or nominate to the united benefice from time to time as the same shall become vacant. The Bishop shall thereupon issue the commission, and the Commissioners shall thereupon make a local inquiry in the prescribed manner as to the matters referred to them.
    Sir S. HOARE: I beg to move, to leave out the word "three," and to insert instead thereof the word "the."
    The object of this Amendment, and the subsequent Amendments which stand in my name to Clause 2, is a very simple one. The machinery for settling the union of benefices is a Commission composed of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Bishop and the patron. The object of this Amendment and the other Amendments is to give the parishes a direct say into the question of whether the benefices shall be united or not.
    The result will be if this Amendment be carried that the four churchwardens of the parish concerned would be empowered to appoint a member of that Commission. The Commission would consist of four persons, and the chairman would have a casting vote in the ease of the votes being equal. I think this is an improvement. The proposal has been unanimously agreed to by the various Church representatives who have promoted the Bill.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Commission Now to be Nominated.)
    (1) Of the three Commissioners one shall be nominated by the Bishop of the diocese in which the benefice or benefices, and sinecure or sinecures (if any) affected by the proposed inquiry are situate, or in case the benefices are situate m more than one diocese than jointly by the Bishops of those dioceses; one shall be nominated by the patron or, if there shall be more than one patron, jointly by the patrons of the benefice or benefices and sinecure or sinecures affected; and the remaining Commissioners (who shall act as chairman) shall be nominated by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
    (2) Provided that, if the Bishop of the diocese in which any benefice or sinecure affected by the proposed inquiry is situate shall also be the sole patron of that benefice or sinecure, the right of nomination by the Bishop in his capacity of patron shall be exercised by the same person as it would have been exercised by in the case of a patron who had after request, as in this Section mentioned, refused or neglected to nominate a Commissioner for a period of thirty days.
    (3) If for a period of thirty days after being requested in writing by the Bishop to nominate a Commissioner the patron or patrons shall re-

    621
    fuse or neglect so to do, his or their right of nomination shall be exercised by the persons following, that is to say—

    (a) where the benefice or one of the benefices affected is situated wholly or partly within s city or municipal borough, by the mayor of the city or borough; and

    (b) where no benefice affected is situated wholly or partly within a city or municipal borough, by the person who has presided as chairman of the last preceding quarter sessions for the county or division of the county in which the church of the benefice affected or if more than one benefice is affected of that one of the benefices which has the largest population shall be situate, or, if there be no such person, then by the lord lieutenant of the county in which the church of that benefice shall be situate.

    Sir S. HOARE: I beg to move, in Subsection (I), to leave out the word "three" ["Of the three commissioners."]
    I think this a consequential Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In Sub-section (1), after the word "affected" ["sinecures affected"], insert the words "one shall be nominated by the churchwardens (if any) of the benefice or benefices affected or by the major part of them."—[Sir S. Hoare.]
    Mr. E. WOOD: I beg to move, in Sub-section (I), after the word "chairman" ["who shall act as chairman"], to insert the words "and shall have a casting vote in addition to his vote as a commissioner."
    This is only to meet the case after the Amendment made providing for four commissioners instead of three.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In Sub-Section (2), leave out from the word "the" ["the same person "], to end of the Subsection, and insert instead thereof the words "patron or patrons of the other benefice or benefices affected."—[Sir S. Hoare.]
    Mr. E. WOOD: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2), to insert
    "(3) Provided also that if the bishop of the diocese in which each of the benefices or sinecures affected is situate shall be the sole patron of that benefice or sincecure there shall be no Commissioner nominated by the patrons."
    The object of this Amendment is to provide for cases where the bishop is also the patron. He will then only have the right to nominate one representative instead of two.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In Subsection (3), after the word "patrons" ["patrons shall refuse"], insert the words or the churchwardens or the major part of them."—[Sir S. Hoare.]
    Mr. E. WOOD: I beg to move, in Subsection (3), to leave out from the word "shall" ["nomination shall"], to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert instead thereof the words "lapse, and the commission shall be issued and shall be valid for all purposes notwithstanding any such lapse."
    In the Bill there are various provisions for the case of patrons not exercising their right of nomination, and, in the event of their not doing so in a certain time the right of nomination shall lapse.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 3 (Power of Lord Chancellor to Mske Rules) ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 4—(Bishop to Transmit Report of Commissioners to Ecclesiastical Commissioners Who are to Propose Scheme.)
    (a) The Bishop receiving a Report under this Act shall cause the same, or a copy thereof, to be transmitted to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who shall if the Commissioners or a majority of the Commissioners making the Report shall recommend a union, and if the Bishop of the diocese or the Bishops of the dioceses affected shall signify in writing his or their approval of the Report, but not otherwise, cause to be prepared a scheme based upon the terms recommended for effecting the proposed union, which scheme may, with the assent of the Bishop of the diocese or the Bishops of the dioceses affected, embody any modification of the proposals.

  (Draft Scheme to be Published Locally.—Objections.)
  (b) Drafts of such proposed scheme shall be published locally in the prescribed manner, and also be transmitted in the prescribed manner to the patron or patrons affected, together with a notice in each case requiring any objections to such draft scheme to be stated or transmitted in writing to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners within the prescribed time.
  (Ecclesiastical Commissioners to Certify Final Scheme to the King in Council.)
  (c) After giving full consideration to such objections (if any), and after making such alterations (if any) in the draft scheme as, having regard to such objections, they shall deem right, and after submitting such alterations (if any) to the Bishop of the diocese or the Bishops of the dioceses affected, and obtaining his or their consent thereto in writing, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. (unless, after full consideration,

  623
  they shall think it advisable to withdraw the scheme) shall certify the scheme, and the consent thereto in writing of the Bishop of the diocese or the Bishops of the dioceses affected, to His Majesty in Council.
  Sir S. HOARE: I beg to move, in paragraph (a), to leave out the words "or a majority of the Commissioners."
  This is a purely drafting Amendment.
  Major BARNES: I should like to get some statement of the effect of this Amendment. The Clause as it stands refers to the majority of the Commissioners. I think that the Amendment means that the vote should be unanimous.
  Sir S. HOARE: I will, in the next Amendment, move to insert the words "unanimously or by a majority of votes."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In paragraph (a), after the word "shall" ["making the Report shall"], insert the words "unanimously or by a majority of votes."—[Sir S. Hoare]
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clauses 5, 6, 7, and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  (Draft Scheme to be Published Locally.—Objections.)

    CLAUSE 9.—(Provision as to Church within United Parish and Not being Parish Church.)
    In respect of any church left staining within the united parish and not being the parish church, the scheme may provide that the same, except the chancel, may, with the consent of the bishop of the diocese within which the united parish is situate, be used for any ecclesiastical, educational, or charitable purpose in connection with the Church of England.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Sir S. HOARE: I think this Clause should be omitted. It was only inserted as an after-thought, and there is a general feeling among the people that the Church should not be used for this purpose.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Clauses 10, 11 and 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 13.—(Supplemental Schemes for Uniting Parishes of United Benefices.)
    (2) The Bishop shall thereupon issue the commission to three Commissioners appointed in like manner as Commissioners nominated or appointed to inquire into and report upon a proposed union of benefices under
    624
    this Act, and the same consequences, mutatis mutandis, as to the inquiry and report by such Commissioners, the preparation, publication, and certification to His Majesty in Council of a scheme to give effect to the report, the issuing of an Order or Orders by His Majesty in Council, and the registration and validity thereof shall follow as in the case of Commissioners having been appointed under this Act to inquire into and report upon a proposed union of benefices.
    Amendment made: In Sub-Section (2) leave out the word "three" ["issue the Commission to three"] —[Sir S. Hoare].
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 14 (Administration of Expenses Fund) ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 15.—(Bishop may give Direction as to Services in Church not being Parish Church.)
    It shall be lawful for the Bishop from time to time to direct what services (if any) shall beheld in any church in a benefice united under this Act or otherwise not being a parish church.
    Amendment made: Leave out the words "what services (if any) shall," and insert instead thereof the words "that services shall or shall not"—[Mr. E. Wood.]
    Clauses, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 ordered to, stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 21.—(Short Title and Extent.)
    (1) This Act may be cited as the Union of Benefices Act, 1919, and shall extend to the Channel Islands.
    (2) Nothing in this Act shall affect or apply to any benefice or sinecure situate in the metropolis within the meaning of the Union of Benefices Act, 1860.
    Amendment made: Leave out the words "and shall extend to the Channel Islands"—[Major Baird].
    Mr. E. WOOD: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert
    "(3) No commission shall be issued under this Act after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-one."
    The object is to limit the duration of this Act to two years. That should be inserted because the date when the Bill was introduced was before the National Assembly had been set up under the Church Enabling Bill, and it was felt that this Act should be for a limited period to enable the National Assembly to review it. The Amendment is drafted so that if

    625
    there was any scheme in progress on the 31st of December that scheme would not be interfered with. It provides for any new scheme launched after the expiration of two years.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
    The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.
    It being after half-past Eleven o'clock on Wednesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at Nineteen Minutes before Two o'clock.

  OFFICERS' WIVES (DESERTION).
  OFFICERS' WIVES (DESERTION).
  NATIONAL FINANCE.
  NATIONAL FINANCE.
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TYPEWRITERS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TYPEWRITERS).
  BOARD OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE (WOMEN CLERKS).
  BOARD OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE (WOMEN CLERKS).
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  STOCK (MARKING).
  STOCK (MARKING).
  LIVE STOCK.
  LIVE STOCK.
  RESTAURANT PRICES.
  RESTAURANT PRICES.
  IMPORTED FOOD.
  IMPORTED FOOD.
  MILK
  MILK
  IMPROPER PACKING.
  IMPROPER PACKING.
  MEAT (CONTROL).
  MEAT (CONTROL).
  FISH.
  FISH.
  CATTLE GRADERS.
  CATTLE GRADERS.
  NEW ZEALAND MEAT.
  NEW ZEALAND MEAT.
  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY (PENSIONS).
  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY (PENSIONS).
  SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT MAKERS (TRADE DISPUTE).
  SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT MAKERS (TRADE DISPUTE).
BRITISH ARMY.
  RECORD OFFICE CLERKS (PAY).
  RECORD OFFICE CLERKS (PAY).
  OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY.
  OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY.
  COURTS-MARTIAL (COUNSEL).
  COURTS-MARTIAL (COUNSEL).
  HOME SERVICE (RECOGNITION).
  HOME SERVICE (RECOGNITION).
  TROOPS ABROAD (CHRISTMAS LEAVE).
  TROOPS ABROAD (CHRISTMAS LEAVE).
  SOLDIER'S ACCOUNTS.
  SOLDIER'S ACCOUNTS.
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  MANSTON PARK STATION, MARGATE.
  MANSTON PARK STATION, MARGATE.
DEMOBILISATION.
  Z RESERVE.
  Z RESERVE.
  TROOPS FROM INDIA.
  TROOPS FROM INDIA.
  QUEEN MARY'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS.
  QUEEN MARY'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS.
  ARMY PAY OFFICE,:HOUNSLOW (WAGES).
  ARMY PAY OFFICE,:HOUNSLOW (WAGES).
  OPEN SPACES (WAR OFFICE OCCUPATION).
  OPEN SPACES (WAR OFFICE OCCUPATION).
  ALLIED PRISONERS OF WAR, GERMAN Y.
  ALLIED PRISONERS OF WAR, GERMAN Y.
  SOUTHERN RUSSIA (INTERNAL COMMUNICATION).
  SOUTHERN RUSSIA (INTERNAL COMMUNICATION).
  HAY (STOCKS).
  HAY (STOCKS).
  GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR.
  GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR.
  RECORD OFFICE CIVILIAN EMPLOYES (WAGES).
  RECORD OFFICE CIVILIAN EMPLOYES (WAGES).
  ALMERIC PAGET MASSAGE CORPS.
  ALMERIC PAGET MASSAGE CORPS.
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  POST OFFICE EMPLOYES.
  POST OFFICE EMPLOYES.
  WAR GRATUITY.
  WAR GRATUITY.
  Ex-SOLDIER CLERKS.
  Ex-SOLDIER CLERKS.
  PENSION REFUSED.
  PENSION REFUSED.
MUNITIONS.
  FERTILISERS.
  FERTILISERS.
  MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (SALARIES).
  MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (SALARIES).
  JIGS, TOOLS AND FIXTURES.
  JIGS, TOOLS AND FIXTURES.
  HOTEL VICTORIA (CONTRACT CLAIM).
  HOTEL VICTORIA (CONTRACT CLAIM).
  BOXES.
  BOXES.
  PARTINGTON STEEL AND IRON COMPANY.
  PARTINGTON STEEL AND IRON COMPANY.
  OUT-OF-WORK DONATION.
  OUT-OF-WORK DONATION.
  TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (DISTURBANCES).
  TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (DISTURBANCES).
  NAVAL SCHOOLMASTERS (PAY).
  NAVAL SCHOOLMASTERS (PAY).
  MINING DEPARTMENT (INSPECTORATE).
  MINING DEPARTMENT (INSPECTORATE).
  ALIENS (FRENCH LEGISLATION).
  ALIENS (FRENCH LEGISLATION).
  COAL MINES (ARMOURED CABLES)
  COAL MINES (ARMOURED CABLES)
  METROPOLITAN POLICE (RACE MEETINGS).
  METROPOLITAN POLICE (RACE MEETINGS).
  BARON LOUIS ANTON VON HORST.
  BARON LOUIS ANTON VON HORST.
  MISS TROY (DEPORTATION).
  MISS TROY (DEPORTATION).
  ANVESTHETICS (ADMINISTRATION IN HOSPITALS).
  ANVESTHETICS (ADMINISTRATION IN HOSPITALS).
HOUSING.
  INCREASE OF RENTS.
  INCREASE OF RENTS.
  GOVERNMENT HOUSES, RAFROROUGH.
  GOVERNMENT HOUSES, RAFROROUGH.
  ALTERNATIVE ACCOMMODATION.
  ALTERNATIVE ACCOMMODATION.
  VOTERS' REGISTER, BEVERLEY.
  VOTERS' REGISTER, BEVERLEY.
COAL PRODUCTION.
  SUPPLIES, ENFIELD AND EAST LONDON.
  SUPPLIES, ENFIELD AND EAST LONDON.
  COST (ACCOUNTANTS INVESTIGATION).
  COST (ACCOUNTANTS INVESTIGATION).
  COAL CONTROL, SCOTLAND
  COAL CONTROL, SCOTLAND
PROFITEERING ACT.
  COMMITTEE'S EXPENSES.
  COMMITTEE'S EXPENSES.
  BELFAST COMMITTEE.
  BELFAST COMMITTEE.
  GERMAN TOYS (IMPORTS).
  GERMAN TOYS (IMPORTS).
  MATCHES.
  MATCHES.
  KNITTING WOOL.
  KNITTING WOOL.
  INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL.
  INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL.
TRANSPORT.
  WAGONS.
  WAGONS.
  SUTTON-IN-ASHFIELD RAILWAY.
  SUTTON-IN-ASHFIELD RAILWAY.
  RAILWAY CONTROL (DISTRIBUTIVE TRADERS).
  RAILWAY CONTROL (DISTRIBUTIVE TRADERS).
  CEMENT (NON-DELIVERY).
  CEMENT (NON-DELIVERY).
  TIMBER, CHALLOW, BERKSHIRE,
  TIMBER, CHALLOW, BERKSHIRE,
  GRAVESEND SEA SCHOOL.
  GRAVESEND SEA SCHOOL.
SCOTLAND.
  HOUSING, INVERGOWRIE.
  HOUSING, INVERGOWRIE.
  LAND SETTLEMENT (EX-SERVICE MEN).
  LAND SETTLEMENT (EX-SERVICE MEN).
  HOPS (CULTIVATION).
  HOPS (CULTIVATION).
  CONTROL OF DOGS ORDER.
  CONTROL OF DOGS ORDER.
  LAND RECLAMATION, WASH.
  LAND RECLAMATION, WASH.
  BRITISH MISSION TO SANNA.
  BRITISH MISSION TO SANNA.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, THE LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD FORSTER.
The Right Hon. Henry William Forster, having been created Baron FORSTER of Lepe, in the county of Southampton—Was (in the usual manner), introduced.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

NATIVE RIGHTS IN BRITISH WEST AFRICA.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP rose to call attention to the recent interference by the Colonial Office with the rights of natives in British West Africa to dispose of their agricultural produce in the open markets of the world; to ask what other Powers if, any, have imposed similar restrictions, and what effect such action will have upon obligations of this country under the General Act of Berlin or under any more favoured nation clauses, or under any treaty or engagement; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, already since this Notice appeared on the Order Paper His Majesty's Government have in one material point altered their policy in regard to native rights in British West Africa, but the export duty of £2 per ton remains, and it is for this reason that I raise the question. The first stage in this policy was taken when in 1916, as a war measure, Mr. Bonar Law appointed a committee on oil seeds and kernels under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Steel Maitland. The Committee was composed of Departmental officials, margarine manufacturers, palm oil merchants, a representative of the shipping interest, and Mr. Thomas Wiles, M.P., for Islington, who issued a Minority Report. It is noticeable and regrettable that there was no direct representative of the natives upon this Committee, which reported in the sense no
222
doubt desired by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I quote the following paragraph which contains the gist of their recommendations, but which I hope your Lordships will notice was not signed by Sir Frederick Lugard or Sir Hugh Clifford—
"The imposition at an early date in the several West African Colonies of an export duty of not less than £2 per ton on all the palm kernels exported from British West Africa, the duty to continue during the war and for five years afterwards, and to be remitted on all kernels shipped to and crushed in any part of the British Empire. If a duty of £2 per ton be found insufficient to divert the trade to this country, the amount should be raised until the duty is adequate to effect its purpose, and this determination should be made clear from the outset."
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Which paragraph is that?
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I have not the reference with me. I think it is one of the summaries. Your Lordships will note that there is no guarantee that the £2 per ton is a maximum, or that it might not be raised at any time it appears good to the Secretary of State. After June 1, 1916, and before the White Book was in the possession of Parliament, without any discussion in the House of Commons Mr. Bonar Law issued instructions to the Governors of British West Africa to prepare legislation giving effect to the majority recommendation. The Legislative Ordinances appear to have passed through the local Legislative Councils of Sierra Leone and Nigeria without any difficulty because they were recommended on the plea that it was a necessary war measure against Britain's enemies. In the Gold Coast, however, the proposal met with vigorous opposition, and when it was before the Legislative Council in November, 1918, it was opposed unanimously by all the white and coloured unofficial members. Only the official members of the Council voted in favour. It was open to Sir Hugh Clifford to use his official majority to force the measure through, but this he refused to do and referred the matter to Downing-street for instructions. The whole subject was then postponed until the departure of Colonel Guggisberg in October, 1919. The Ordinances postponed through opposition and various other difficulties, coupled with the fact that the blockade had rendered the measures superfluous, were brought into effect on October 20, 1919, by Proclamation. I should be much obliged if the Government can give me any information

223
in regard to the Gold Coast Legislature in this connection, having regard to the fact that the unofficial members in November, 1918, refused to pass the Ordinance. Has it been passed in spite of their protest?
About October 20 certain unknown difficulties occurred, and there is some reason to believe that the Colonial Office had discovered at the last moment that the proposals as set forth in the Ordinances were impracticable, and steps were hastily taken, with the help of the British Food Controller, to reinforce the Ordinances. Instructions were sent to West Africa to prohibit the export of vegetable oil seeds except upon this basis—10 tons of kernels to competitors for every 90 tons of kernels sent to British manufacturers of margarine and cake; 20 tons of ground nuts to competitors for every 100 tons to British manufacturers of salad oil and margarine, and 100 tons of copra to competitors for every 100 tons to British manufacturers of margarine and cake. The kernels therefore appeared to be doubly protected.
The Indian Government was invited to adopt the same method with reference to ground nuts, but refused to do so. Will the Government produce any Papers on this point? The provision which had been imposed in the latter half of October was revoked, I understand, on December 2. We are all accustomed, my Lords in these days to bad administration by Government Departments. In this case I think we are entitled to some explanation from the Government why these instructions were given and why they were suspended? Surely nothing can be worse in administration than to change your policy so often.
Your Lordships will not be surprised if those of us who are interested in the question view action of this kind with particular suspicion. We do not believe that the object is the retention of foodstuffs specially needed in the British Isles; but we do believe that the result will be to consolidate the financial position of a privileged, but small group, of British manufacturers. The plea that additional and exceptional security against competition is necessary for the manufacture of margarine and cattle cake has some light thrown upon it by the issue of the prospectus of the "Jurgens Group," and Levers, and also various other crushers and oil cake mills. They show such a handsome profit that I do not think it is very necessary to do anything more to assist them.
224
But apart from questions of this kind, international questions are involved affecting treaties with several Powers. Questions arise whether or not France has (she has now a system of licences) already contravened the General Act of Berlin, also what will be the attitude of America in regard to cotton seed under the Treaty of 1815, whether if other British Colonial territories are involved France will retaliate still more effectively and in some more permanent form. There is also the question as to whether if Belgium retaliates we have the right to object, and, if not, what happens to British capital sunk in the Belgium Congo for the expansion of the palm, kernel, and oil industry. I venture to read a letter received by the antislavery society from a firm in Lagos. They say this—
"In view of the interest which your society is taking in the question of the special £2 per ton Export Duty now levied on palm kernels shipped to foreign countries from British West Africa, the following extract from a recent letter received from a native of Warri, who is an agent of ours, will interest you: 'The Government has abolished the general bond in connection with the export of kernels, and has ordered that a separate bond must be executed for each shipment of 50 tons or above. On any shipment below 50 tons no bond is allowed, but a deposit of on every ton so shipped has to be paid to the Custom Department, this duty to be refunded, of course, after a landing certificate shall have been produced by the exporter here. It is unfair of the Government to saddle shippers at this end with such responsibility.' The glaring injustice of such regulations is apparent. The larger exporters are allowed by the Nigerian Customs to give a bond to cover this duty, but the small shipper, be he native or European—"
And, of course, generally speaking he is a native—
"is debarred from giving a bond, and obliged to pay the duty, for which it is in the highest degree improbable that he will become liable, and which duty will only be returned to him, then without interest, on his producing the landing certificate from the port of discharge for the consignment."
That is to say, the money which he deposits is locked up without bearing any interest to him until he gets back his landing certificate, say from the port of Bristol, or whatever may be the place to which the goods are consigned. The letter goes on to say—
"This certificate it will probably take him six months to obtain. For this landing certificate the charge is 5s. Customs fee and 5s. for clerical work entailed, so that a shipper who makes say fifty small shipments of 5 tons each incurs charges as follows, as compared with his more favoured competitors:—

50 Landing Certificates 10 s.

£25

10 per cent. Interest for say—six months on £500, being a deposit of £2 per ton Export duty on 250 tons

£25

Allowing six months for obtaining the Landing Certificate.

Beyond this he is deprived of the use of £500 of his small capital locked up on deposit with the Customs. The duty in itself is serious enough, but if such regulations as these are to be inforced to aggravate it, the effect on the small shipper will be that he will be quickly squeezed out of the trade. Considering that apart from a few chartered ships practically nearly every ship loading, at any rate at Nigerian ports, belong to Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co. and that the itinerary and port of discharge of every ship is perfectly well known to the Customs Department, it is surely extraordinary that either bond or deposit of the duty should be required in respect of palm kernels exported by these steamers when they are cleared for the United Kingdom."
I hope very much that, in view of the well-founded complaint which is voiced in this letter, His Majesty's Government, if they are determined to retain this duty, may at any rate be able to offer seine relief to the small merchants and traders in our West African Colonies.
There is another, but. I agree smaller, point on which I should be very glad to have the opinion of the Government. Your Lordships will see that this ordinance, even in the West African Colonies affects partly these goods when in this country. How far is it possible for an ordinance in the West African Colonies to affect goods while in this country? The refund is not made until after the goods have been in this country for some time, and I should have thought it would have been' necessary there should have been legislation in this country in order to cover goods while within the limits of the United Kingdom.
But the most important issue at stake appears to be the departure front British Colonial policy, because this dictated policy implies a proprietary right of the Mother Country in the internal vegetable resources of the Dependencies. It has hitherto been a cardinal principle of British administration that the right to collect or dispose of virgin vegetable produce belonged exclusively to the native possessors of the soil. Indeed, this was the basis of the British protest against the Congo scandal. The Congo system reposed upon a claim that the virgin produce of the Congo forests, which the native alone could gather, was primarily the property of the Belgian Government, which could dispose of it at will to financial syndicates. The Congo
226
system was in its inception beneficent, but it developed into pernicious exploitation.
The new British policy cannot be compared in degree with that of the Congo, but a similar principle is at stake, namely, the right of the natives of the Dependencies to gather produce which only the natives are capable of gathering, and then to sell the products with out, disabilities in the open market. It is believed that this is the first time that the British Colonial Office has attempted to issue directions for the sale of the native produce almost exclusively in our markets. In this connection it is important to know that the Belgian Government has lately reasserted its determination never again to expose the peoples under its care to the dangers which arise from the combination of commercial interests and executive powers in the same hand.
I should like to point this out to His Majesty's Government. As I understand the Treaty of Berlin imposes upon Belgium certain conditions with regard to duties on palm kernels exported from anywhere inside the Congo Basin. If we allow financial duties of this kind to be imposed in our Colonies, how would it be possible for His Majesty's Government to protest against Belgium if she follows our example. We shall not be in a position, having once abandoned the high principles which have actuated the British Empire until the present time, to refuse to Belgium permission to do the things which we are doing ourselves. It seems to me it would be very curious treatment of the gallant Ally to whom we owe so much. It seems to me that in this matter the action of the Government has weakened our position before the world in regard to the matter of native rights. I can imagine that something might be made of the position of tin. Tin also is a product of these West African Colonies, but I think I may point out one very essential difference which exists between tin and these palm oil kernels. Palm oil kernels are a product of native labour. Tin is almost entirely the result of development by white men; the mines are financed from this country, they are largely worked by white labour, and therefore are in a very different position from the natural native resources of the West African Colonies.
This seems to me to be a curious result of an attempt at Imperial Preference, the object of which was to bind the British

227
Empire together. One of the first attempts to put it into operation has produced the unanimous opposition of the unofficial members of the Gold Coast Legislature. The finer policy seems to me to have been indicated by the speech which was made by the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in November, 1896, which I shall venture to quote to your Lordships—
"We, in our Colonial policy, as fast as we acquire new territory and develop it, develop it as trustees of civilisation for the commerce of the world. We offer in all these markets over which our Flag floats the same opportunities, the same open field to foreigners that we offer to our own subjects, and upon the same terms. In that policy we stand alone, because all other nations, as fast as they acquire new territory—acting, as I believe, most mistakenly in their own interests, and above all, in the interests of the countries they administer—all other nations seek at, once to secure the monopoly for their own products by preferential and artificial methods."
I wish that His Majesty's Government would revert to the principles indicated by Mr. Chamberlain in this connection. The Committee, it will be observed, admit (you may observe it in the White Book, page 23, paragraph 2) that there would a "risk" but they say that the "risk" of injustice to the native is "worth taking" in view of the "object" of the duty. I venture to say, on the other hand, that no risk is worth taking if it means danger to the natives' rights for the benefit of the traders of this country.
May I refer your Lordships to an admirable article which appeared in The Spectator of December 6, and which puts this point forcibly. It said—
"If by our Ordinance we are depriving the natives of the right to get the best price they can for their product then we are failing in our duty as trustees to the natives of West Africa."
This is surely a most serious departure from the traditional policy of the British Empire which has been entered into by His Majesty's Government without any public discussion. I am glad to have had this opportunity of bringing it before your Lordships this afternoon, when I hope a full and free discussion may take place. Although I suppose that it is too much to hope that His Majesty's Government may indicate a reversal of their policy, I do trust that they may be able to indicate that they will take such steps as will ensure that the rights of the natives are properly safeguarded and looked after. I beg to move.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I feel somewhat presumptuous in standing up to speak even for a few moments on this subject. It is a very technical subject, and a very difficult one, and I do not desire to plunge either into the problems of palm kernels or into questions of conceivable preference and the like that are involved in the policy which has been described. The reason that I venture to ask for a few moments' attention is this. Ten years ago I was to the fore essentially in the question of the Congo and its administration, and all the troubles which we then went through. I was practically compelled, not against my will but with my will, to bear a prominent part, and I know that a superficial reading of the literature on this subject—and it can be for me only superficial unless I were able technically to go into the small details—leaves with me an immense whiff of something like the very thing that we were then denouncing in the Congo. I say an "immense whiff," for I think it is very possible that the noble Earl who replies on behalf of the Government may be able to show me and others that we are under a misapprehension.
As it looks to me on the surface of the matter it is something like this. We are now almost for the first time—I hope it is for the first time—departing from the principle which we have throughout endeavoured to lay down that although a European country and above all our own country may take over the trusteeship, control and guidance of a country belonging really to a native people in Africa, we do it with the view of benefiting that people and of making that country when developed a better place not for shareholders at a distance primarily but for the people of the country itself. That we feel was violated entirely in what took place in the Congo ten years ago, and that is what I hope we shall not find is being violated in what is now being done in regard to these West African products. The danger is that what is developed is developed simply for the interests of the concessionaire or the shareholders and not for the benefit of the country and its people, and that seems to me to be bad. At its best such a policy is practically incapable of being worked satisfactorily in the end. Unless we can see that our trusteeship for the child races of the world in the development of the products which they must produce, and which are derived from land belonging to

229
them and can only be produced by their handiwork and their toil, and unless we can see that that production, if it be successful, is going to result finally in gain to the country from which these products are derived and only indirectly to those who are developing it for the purpose of profit we shall fail I think in the way in which we transact our business.
I venture to interpose now because I want to be assured by His Majesty's Government. It is upon that point only that I desire to say this word, but it does seem to me a vital one. If our principles are to be maintained the world over, we must administer a country for the benefit of the simpler races or the child peoples as we like to call them, and not do it merely for the gain of those who administer it because the investment is a sound one. We must act primarily for the advantage and ultimately for the improvement in every sense of the peoples on whose behalf alone it is that we have a right to be there. That seems to me to be a fundamental principle stretching far back into the very roots of the administration of Colonial and other Dependencies which are inhabited by races other than our own. It is because I cannot help feeling some alarm as to the tendency of what is here described that I ask an assurance from His Majesty's Government on the subject.
LORD EMMOTT: My Lords, any one who feels as strongly as I do that this recent new departure of His Majesty's Government is a very dangerous one must be grateful to the most rev. Primate for laying down the broad line of the chief objections which those of us who are critics feel about it. Indeed. I think that we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Beauchamp for bringing this matter forward this afternoon. Very often the request for Papers is a mere formality in this House to give the chance of a reply at the end of a debate, but in this case I think that the demand for Papers is justified in itself.
Why is it that after three and a-half years of vacillation this duty has suddenly been put on in October of 1919? What is the real story of what happened in the Gold Coast? I think that some of the circumstances are tolerably well known. General Grey, a man who rendered such extraordinarily valuable assistance to General Maude in his advance on Baghdad
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that he was specially mentioned in The Times in their account of the affair and praised for what he had done, took his first leave by going back to the Gold Coast Colony. When there he found that this question was before the Legislative Council and he felt so strongly about it that he led the opposition to it, and the opposition was so strong that Sir Hugh Clifford, a most experienced governor, absolutely refused to override the unofficial minority and referred home for instructions. That occurred, I think it is public knowledge, in November, 1918. Why is it that the unofficial minority is overriden after what happened then? Again, what is the reason of the recent restrictions as to quantity, which my noble friend described? What is the reason these restrictions were put on a day or two before the new duty was imposed, and why were they suddenly removed? So far as I know anything of the circumstances, there was no shortage of oils and fats in this country at the time—October, 1919—these restrictions were put on, and I am confirmed in that by seeing in a paper that was handed to me this morning quite unexpectedly called The Margarine and Allied Trades Journal. In an issue of November that journal, in regard to the importation during September of oils, seeds and other goods, said that the increase in that importation was simply astonishing. There cannot, therefore, have been any shortage in October, and I want to know what were the real reasons for these restrictions which have now been removed.
I desire now, however, to speak on the question of principle. It cannot be denied that the object aimed at by this £2 duty on palm kernels to other than an Empire destination is for the purpose of giving an advantage to the trade of Great Britain. May I read a paragraph from the Report of the Joint Committee on the India Bill which seems to me to have a direct bearing on the principle which we are discussing this afternoon. It is said in the paragraph—
"Nothing is more likely to endanger the good relations between India and Great Britain than a belief that India's fiscal policy is dictated from Whitehall in the interests of the trade of Great Britain. That such a belief exists at the moment there can be no doubt. That there ought to be no room for it in the future is equally clear."
What does that mean? It means, I think, undoubtedly that it is contrary to sound policy to dictate the fiscal policy of the countries we govern in the interests of our

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own trade. And it is so contrary to sound policy that in the case of India the mere suspicion that it exists is to be removed and India is in future to have the right to arrange her own taxation and to tax the import of goods from this country if she chooses to do so in defence of her own industries. This palm kernel duty is a flagrant violation of the principle of which I speak. I thought that was a self-evident proposition. There is no pretence anywhere in this Report that the duty is for the benefit of the natives. It was imposed on the fiat of the Secretary of State against the wishes of the Colonies. It was carried in the Gold Coast by the action of the official majority at a time when the new Governor had been appointed—I forget whether he had arrived or not—and when an old, experienced Governor had left.
This country is so absorbed in other important matters that I am very much afraid that the importance of this particular question is not fully realised. I make no apology for appealing to fundamentals in regard to it. History tells us the story of great Empires that have risen and passed away. The great Empire of Rome was destroyed largely owing to slavery and the exploitation of subject races. More than a thousand years later the great overseas Empire of Spain fell through similar causes. But one had hopes that the British Empire had learnt by experience and found a better way of dealing with native races which would have given it a longer term of life. We began with our Colonial Empire as these other Empires began, but we were taught a sharp lesson by the American colonies and we learned a good deal from it. Later we purged ourselves of the curse of slavery by a somewhat heroic action, the paying of an enormous sum of money at a time when we were almost as overburdened with debt as we are to-day. We learnt how to deal with the Dominions by giving them autonomy on the basis of the famous Durham Report of 1840. We followed with the other Dominions, and the notable case of South Africa, whose statesmen—not of our blood and men who were fighting against us only a few years ago—have stood by us so splendidly in this war, is a justification of that policy.
On the whole, even in the last years of the Company and since the days of the Company we have ruled India in the interests of her people as we conceived
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them. And in Queen Victoria's reign what the Spectator described in the article to which my noble friend has alluded as "the principle of trusteeship" had, I thought, been finally accepted in this country as regards our Colonial Empire. Trusteeship involves the principle that native races are to be governed for their own interests and not exploited for the benefit of our trade. When I went round the Dominions with a Parliamentary party in the autumn of 1913 I very often took the opportunity of explaining in the Dominions what our colonial policy was as regards those parts of the Empire that were not self-governing. I did it for obvious reasons, and I found that it was often listened to with the greatest interest. I should be ashamed to go round now, with this £2 kernel duty, and try to tell the same story. Indeed, the confidence placed in what the British people have done in the past is almost pathetic at the present time when there are derelict portions of the world left by this great war, many of which are clamouring to come under the ægis of the British Empire. That is a great tribute to the justice and unselfishness of our rule in the past.
Is all this to be changed? Is the war to start a new era of selfish exploitation of native races for the benefit of the people here at home? If so, I am sadly afraid that the Empire, already dangerously large, will soon fall to pieces, owing to the trouble and difficulties that will be created. You may think I am exaggerating and tearing a passion to tatters. All I can say is that I am saying what I honestly believe, and I am not at all exaggerating consciously. To me the new principle involves the exploitation of native races for our own interests, to which I object. It is an absolute reversal of the policy of the last sixty or seventy years. I believe that, if it is continued, it will prove to be a policy of ill-omen to all of us. It is no use saying this is such a little thing it really does not matter. The recommendation of the Committee—and it is endorsed by the then Secretary of State in his Dispatch of June 1, 1916—is that if the £2 duty proves inadequate it is to be increased. It is quite futile to say, as Colonel Amery said in another place, that he did not understand that the native producers will lose in any way. Of course they will lose.
I admit that trade is at present abnormal, and one needs to be very careful how one

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uses market quotations unless one knows all the details and everything connected with them. But I had some prices sent to me without any solicitation. I have had them checked and I quote them because I believe they are correct. On September 2, weeks before the new duty or the restrictions were put on, palm kernels to Antwerp were quoted at £44 10 s. a ton, and to Liverpool at the same time £43 15 s. On the 18th, a month before the duty, they were actually quoting for Antwerp £41 10 s. and for Liverpool—a rather high price—£42. Quotations of course vary. On October 29, nine days after the duty was imposed, the price was £41 to Antwerp, £39 to Liverpool—just the £2 difference. On November 24 to Antwerp £44 10 s. on November 25, to Liverpool £39—there is the difference of the duty, plus the other restrictions on the destination. Also, on December 11 I am informed the price of Congo kernels in this market was £12, of West African kernels £37 10 s., and I am told that the difference was because of the restriction in the one case and the absence of restriction in the case of the other.
I do not want to attach too much importance to isolated figures, but I beg you to look at the matter from the other point of view. Supposing a duty for export to other than Empire destinations were proposed for the cotton and woollen manufactures of this country. What would the manufacturers of Lancashire and Yorkshire say as to the effect on prices? Again, take our self-governing Dominions. Is it conceivable that Australia should put on a similar duty as regards wool; or—to take a case more exactly analogous—the case of India, is it conceivable that India would put a similar duty on copra? on ground nuts, on linseed, or on cotton? Incidentally, she was asked to put on restrictions—not a duty—as regards ground nuts and copra and contemptuously refused to have anything to do with it. It needs no argument that when you restrict a market prices will tend to fall. And a more unconvincing a argument I never read than on pages 22 and 23 in this Report. I am surprised that Sir Frederick Lugard should have agreed as it is stated he did agree, to what is there stated.
I have made inquiries about this Report. One member who sat on the Committee told rue that the Report was drawn under the impression that the war was soon coming to a close. I can hardly conceive that this
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was the case; but at any rate anyone who reads the Report will see that it is based entirely on the belief that Germany was going to be in a position at the end of the war to carry on the competition that she carried on before the war. The only reason given for this proposal is the fear of German competition. I must now read one or two passages from the Report to prove my point. Here is one—
"But while this is so, the Committee are still convinced, from the evidence before them, that the bulk of the trade will revert to Germany in the absence of specific measures to the contrary. On this point the Committee are quite clear. The trade will not have become sufficiently rooted in this country by the end of the war to overcome successfully the competition which it will then have to meet."
Another passage says—
"The question is one between this country and Germany. For many years before the war, German traders in British Colonies in West Africa, as throughout the rest of the world, have enjoyed—and abused—British hospitality. Just as German trade has been fostered by the German Government, so German traders have in their turn been the political instruments of that Government. When the war is over, they may be expected to return and carry on trade, as before, if they are allowed to do so. Already discussion is taking place in Germany as to the reorganisation, when peace returns, of her commerce and industry 'in anticipation of a fresh war.'"
One other short passage—
"It must be remembered that there is an appreciable danger of State aid on a lavish scale being used in Germany to, retain such an industry as palm kernel crushing, and the British Colonies concerned must be prepared to adopt a resolute policy if they are to avert the danger of the trade returning to its pre-war channel. The Committee, therefore, have suggested a tax of £2 per ton as a tentative measure. If it proves inadequate it should be raised."
Those passages prove that the only reason for the suggestion made in the Report was the fear of German competition.
The Committee sat from the autumn of 1915 and reported in May, 1916; and obviously they thought that Germany was going to be left in the position in which she was before the war when the war was over. They could not have anticipated that Germany would suffer the greatest defeat known in history. They imagined that Germany was going to be in a position to offer financial aid to this one industry on a lavish scale. They worked on the hypothesis that the trade had not obtained a sufficient root in this country to run by itself. But since that time we have been crushing in this country. We have been

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bringing to this country from 250,000 to 300,000 tons a year, and crushing almost the whole of it here. The trade has become organised, and new works and machinery have been put down for the purpose. We are told that palm kernel oil is the best oil for edible purposes—for the manufacture of margarine. We know that the manufacture of margarine has enormously increased in this country and that the demand for it is very much greater than it was. But if the case for the temporary protection of an industry here had been sufficiently strong to justify such a grave departure from sound procedure as is here indicated—a thing which I personally deny—the whole case is shattered by the out-turn of the war. The Germans have been turned out of West Africa, their property sold, and the whole trade is in non-German hands. So far from Germany being in a position to resume, her traders have gone, her shipping has vanished, and her financial resources are such that she cannot pay any in-indemnity for some time to come. It is impossible to dream that Germany can give subsidies on a lavish scale to an industry like this. Indeed, if we are to have any indemnity from Germany at all we must allow her to re-start her industries. Whatever case could have been made early in 1916 for this action has now entirely disappeared. As I have said, I do not think that our case was good enough to justify it; but, whatever case there was has now entirely gone.
I agree with my noble friend opposite that the case of tin is not a real precedent. Tin is an article which is irreplaceable. The whole mining of tin is arranged by white prospectors, run by white capital under white supervision, and with the assistance of white engineers. The tin is brought here for the white man's needs. Palm kernel collection is absolutely and purely a native industry. Personally I do not defend the case of tin; I dislike the principle as regards tin; but it does differ almost toto cœlo from the case of palm kernels. The effect of the palm kernel duty is felt by the natives, but the effect of the tin duty is not.
Let me say one or two words about the positive reasons against this proposal. Palm kernels are not a monopoly. France in her Colonial Empire raises 40,000 to 50,000 tons a year; the amount that can be produced in the Belgian Congo is, of course, enormous. It is not a monopoly of
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this country; but even if palm kernels, as such, were a monopoly, the uses to which they are put can be attained by half-a-dozen or a dozen other oleaginous commodities. Copra has a much larger oil value than palm kernels, and it is practically as good for all edible purposes; and nowadays by the advance of science the process of hydrogenation makes it possible to use whale oil and linseed oil, and so on, and they are being used on the Continent for making a quite good margarine. If all the palm kernels produced in the world had come to Great Britain before the war broke out they would not have provided more than about one-quarter of the oil we ourselves used at that time, to say nothing about France, Germany, America, and the other great countries of the world. As far as I can see, the total quantity of oil produced from palm kernels to-day supplies only one twenty-fifth or one-thirtieth of the whole oil requirements of the world.
Therefore in these circumstances, as palm kernels can be practically replaced by other commodities, the only effect of the lower prices for palm kernels in this market is to tend to raise the prices of other things which compete with it. The British Empire has nothing like a monopoly of vegetable oils, and as to animal fats it is very deficient. America has the great supply. America produces cotton-seed oil and animal fats; the Argentine gives us vast supplies of linseed; the Dutch Colonies give great quantities of copra; the French Colonies give palm oil and other oleaginous commodities, and Belgium has a vast supply of palm kernels and other oleaginous material. What does this mean? It means that other countries have means of retaliation on us even with regard to the matter of oil. France has most closely watched our manœuvres in this matter—I have documentary proof of that if I had time to give it to the House. They have translated the whole of our White Paper; they have translated and put into its proper logical form the evidence given. That they have taken the trouble to do this, shows how interested they are in the matter. Therefore we may be sure that the highly protectionist and scientific people interested in this industry are taking note of the matter. It may be said by the Government that the General Act of Berlin prohibits a preferential duty in the basin of the Congo. That is correct. It may also be said that the Anglo-American Com

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mercial Treaty dating as far back as from 1815, and still, I believe, in force, prohibits a differential export duty being put on the products of America which are sent from America to British territory in Europe. That also is perfectly correct. But these treaties are not laws of the Medes and Persians; they may be denounced; they probably will be denounced if we are foolish enough to go on with a policy of exasperation such as this seems to me to be.
Another aspect of the question has been alluded to by my noble friend—namely, the unfairness between different classes of natives, and between small traders and large traders. In the mandated territory—the new territory that comes to us of former German Colonies—no such differential duty can be imposed by the terms of the mandate. Therefore the naives of those former German Colonies are now able to sell at the best price they can obtain in the open markets of the world, while the natives of our own Colonies, who stood by us so loyally during the war, are unable to do so. How can we expect contentment in our old Colonies when an unfairness so gross and palpable as that is, being perpetrated? Sir Frederick Lugard and the Committee knew nothing about that matter when they brought up their Report.
Then as to the large traders and the small, I think I ought to tell your Lordships that I am a director of the Niger Company, but I am not in any way speaking on their behalf; I am simply expressing my own views. I say that it is unfair that a great company like that should be able to give a bond instead of money for the quantity of palm kernels that the export, where a small trader, whether native or European, sending less quantities than 50 tons has to provide cash for the purpose. I say it is grossly unfair.
To whom does this advantage enure? I believe it comes to the manufacturers and the crushers. I do not think it goes to the consumer, because the oil market of the world is a great international market, and you will not, by protecting a certain quantity of oil producing raw material in one particular country, lower the general price of oil in the world. But you do lower the price of the raw material which you bring here, and therefore I think the profit enures to the manufacturers and crushers.
Mr. Bonar Law, who was Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1916, in speaking
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of the Report of the Committee in the House of Commons, suggested that the objectors to the idea of the new duty—for it was not then in existence—were influenced by manufacturers. I presume that the Margarine and Allied Trades Journal, which is a new production to me—it happened to be placed in my hands today—speaks for some of the manufacturers. It is a highly protectionist journal, and this appears in the issue for November—
"Palm kernels, ground nuts, copra, to be protected for our use. If the £2 per ton is not yet imposed, the policy of prohibition has been accepted."
The information on which they rest their pæan of joy is obviously out of date. But it shows the spirit in which this matter is regarded by some of those who are supposed to represent the manufacturers.
I apologise for having detained your Lordships so long. I trust that I have done something to show, in the first place, that this new duty exploits the native of West Africa in our old loyal Colonies—not in the new mandated Colonies—for the benefit of the manufacturer here; in the second place, that it is not needed against Germany, and it also Would be ineffective if it were needed because they would equally well buy other things; in the third place, that it is foolish for this country to set an example of an expert duty, because it is provocative of retaliation; and in the fourth place, that the trade is quite profitable here at the present time and there is no need for protection at all. In conclusion, I say that if protection is necessary, in Heaven's name let there be protection by subsidy or some other rational measure, and not by the mean and un-English policy of exploiting the native races for the benefit of our traders at home.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, there is only one point to which I desire to call your Lordships' attention, in addition to what has been said by my two noble friends and the most rev. Primate. It was alluded to in passing by my noble friend Lord Emmott, but I think it deserves separate attention. It is to be found in the Covenant of the League of Nations. In the provision for Mandates in Article 22 of the Covenant there is a paragraph which prescribes the treatment which is to be given to natives. It begins—
"Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee—"

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Then a number of points to be guaranteed are specified: freedom of conscience and religion, and so forth—
"and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other members of the League."
The point of that, of course, is that in the Covenant of the League of Nations, to which we and the other signatory Powers have recently assented, there is a principle that in the territories of native races which are to be administered under a Mandate equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of every member of the League are to be given. That is a principle to which we have just set our hands, and which very likely may have been introduced in deference to what has been, on the whole, our traditional policy. Nigeria is not subject to a mandate. These territories were already ours, and they will not come under the Mandate. But there is the principle. Is it right for us, having recently affirmed that principle, to deviate from it in this particular case and to refrain from giving equal opportunities simply because we happened to have Nigeria already? I think that is inconsistent with the line of policy we have taken; it would not be fair, and would be very likely to give rise to attempts at evasion on the part of other countries.
My noble friend Lord Emmett referred to the possibility that there might be retaliations. So also where there are other countries enjoying Mandates, if they see that in one of our Colonies we are not observing the principle which is laid down in the Covenant of the League of Nations, they might be inclined to evade and find excuses for a departure from that policy of equal opportunities. It has been the policy which we have followed out for many years. It was enunciated in that quotation from the speech of Mr. Chamberlain which my noble friend Lord Beauchamp read to the House. It is a sound principle in the interest of the natives themselves. It is one which has been vindicated by our practice during many years, and it would be a very great pity if, in a case like this, where any possible benefit to British trade is, of course, infinitesimal, we attempted to set an example of deviating from it.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (The EARL of CRAWFORD): My Lords, I must thank my noble friend Lord Beauchamp for having given me very
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specific notice of the points he wished to raise, and I think I shall be able to answer them with one exception, upon which I have not a complete note. But I confess that I was not prepared, upon the comparatively narrow issue formulated in my noble friend's Question, with an answer to what in effect is a general debate on Free Trade and Imperial Preference, dealt with by Lord Emmott. But I will deal, though I fear in rather a perfunctory manner, with some of the matters which have been raised, notably by the contribution made by the most rev. Primate.
In the first place, let me say that this is not a new matter. It has not just been settled, as Lord Emmott tells us, after years of vacillation. This question first came up soon after the war began, in the time of Mr. Asquith's Government. The policy was settled under Mr. Asquith and by Mr. Asquith's Government, and it was not settled or agreed to by that Government until it had been submitted to the closest scrutiny by a large and carefully-constructed Committee. Eleven out of twelve members of that Committee who were in England at the time the Report was signed, gave their adhesion to this policy. I emphatically deny that it was with the object of consolidating the position of a privileged and small group of British manufacturers. I forget which of the noble Lords said that, but those are the words I took down from the lips of one of your Lordships. That was not the object of the Inquiry. Far from that being the case, it could not have been the object of the Inquiry, because when the Inquiry took place there were no manufacturers of these kernels to speak of in this country. The industry practically did not exist here, so that there could have been no question, at that time at any rate, of consolidating any advantages for British manufacturers.
No; I must ask your Lordships to go back to the position as it was in 1915, and to think perhaps a little less of the British manufacturers and of British trade, about whom we have heard so much this afternoon, and to think a little more about the actual, concrete hardship of the producers of these goods in Africa. Before the war, from a variety of reasons, including a skilful manipulation of tariffs, Germany had virtually acquired a monopoly of this crushing industry. The war came and shipments to Germany had to stop. The export of these goods, so far as the pro

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ducers was concerned, practically came to an end. Prices which had been remunerative to the producer in Africa disappeared altogether. There was a collapse. Prices, which are to-day £20 a ton, fell to the disastrous figure of £9 a ton in 1915, when the export to Germany stopped.
It was with a desire to help the Colonies, and not for the mean and gross motives which Lord Emmott ascribes to these three successive Governments—primarily with a desire to help the Colonies to find an alternative market for the produce—that the Colonial Office was led to enquire into the subject. They were driven into this Inquiry, and where an industry, a producing or exporting industry, has fallen into the hands of one monopolist importer, the greatest service you can render to that production is to find an alternative destination for the goods. And, as I say, an Inquiry, a most careful and meticulous Inquiry, was accordingly held by the Colonial Office, and action was taken.
What has been the result of that? Lord Emmott said that in 1916 the Committee reported in the belief that the war was going to come to an end shortly, and he quoted two or three sentences which showed that the Committee thought that the attitude of Germany in this commercial matter was of paramount moment. I agree that there were people in 1916 who thought the war was going to come to an end quickly, but whether the war came to an end quickly then or not, or whether, shortly or remotely, Germany is going to re-enter the market for palm kernels, the effect of that series of Ordinances has been that a new market has been created for these goods which did not exist before the war.
LORD EMMOTT: May I ask the noble Earl which Ordinances?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I use the word "Ordinances." It may be the wrong word to use—the action under which this duty is imposed.
LORD EMMOTT: But it was only imposed on October 20 of this year.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: The absence of shipment to Germany, as the noble Lord is aware, ceased with the war.
LORD EMMOTT: Of course.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Then, when the Inquiry was held, a recommendation was made that this differential duty should be imposed. On the strength of that guarantee, we were able to build up an industry in this country; and, therefore, as I say, we have got in this country—and I think it also applies to British Dominions as well—plant and equipment, which did not exist before the war, which represent a potential consumer of these African products, and which (in other words) gives the producer of palm kernels an alternative, and a second; market. That, I say, is an invaluable asset to the producer of these palm kernels. Supposing this had not been done and in the course of time Germany had been able to revive the virtual monopoly she held over these goods, the producer would have had only one market. The most rigid and the most immaculate Free Trader cannot object to an alternative market being given to the producers of goods. It carries with it competition, cheapness, a variety of assets which I know are highly valued by Free Traders.
What was the practical result? When this Report was issued and when it was accepted by the Government, the assurance was there by given to manufacturers here that for the remaining period of the war, and for I think a period of five years after peace was declared, or ratified—I forget which—this differential duty should be allowed to continue. On the strength of that assurance plant has been set up in this country, and in large quantities. There has been a considerable development here at home of the crushing industry. I do not know whether it is wrong to point out, or wrong that it should have occurred, that this has resulted in increased employment of people in this country; or that a second result is that the output of margarine in this country has been considerably increased. Lord Emmott might argue that owing to the manner in which these two results have been obtained, these things are to be deplored.
I will therefore turn to the third result—namely, that the grower and collector and the man who does the preliminary cleansing of this fruit in Africa have gained enormously by the fact that during the war we have set up this industry, and have been able to take scores of thousands of tons for

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crushing, and thereby have been able to pay a remunerative figure which, without that, they could not possibly have received. This is said to be a great departure from British policy. Natives, we are told, have complete freedom in handling the national products of their soil. Lord Emmott insisted upon this in a most gloomy fashion, predicting in effect the end of the British Empire in consequence of this action on our part. I hope to-morrow morning, if I may say so with perfect good humour, that he will read through his speech and make a schedule of the epithets and terms of obloquy with which he has assailed all those who support Imperial Preference.
LORD EMMOTT: I must beg the noble Earl's pardon. I did not deal with the question of Imperial Preference at all; I never mentioned the term. I was dealing with this matter and pointed out why it was against public policy. The noble Earl accuses me of hurling epithets and terms of obloquy against those who believe in Imperial Preference. I said nothing to justify that remark.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I am delighted to hear it. I should have said "Preference within the Empire." I am glad to think that those epithets were not directed against those who advocate preferential duties within the Empire. But there are ample precedents for this. Lord Beauchamp was, I think, rather painfully conscious of the tin precedent. He said that tin is very different from palm kernels. Of course it is. He said that palm kernels were produced by native labour and that tin in Asia was not. That, in effect, is what he said. It is not the case, of course. There are many of your Lordships who know the Straits Settlements and who know how tin is produced and smelted there. I undertake to say that no white labour is employed except in its superior direction and control.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I never said a word about Asia. It never entered my mind.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I am speaking of the Straits Settlements. It is a distinction between the Straits Settlements in Asia and Nigeria which is in Africa. The principle is exactly the same. Native labour is used for producing tin just as much as it is used for clearing palm kernels.
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I say that there is ample precedence for this. Export duties have existed for years and years. It is a perfectly recognised form of public income in these Dependencies. It exists in Nigeria, in the Gold Coast, and in Sierra Leone. Let me here answer the question which Lord Beauchamp asks about the Gold Coast. He is quite correct in what he said, and I merely state this in order to confirm his statement. The Ordinances imposing a differential export duty on palm kernels was passed by the Gold Coast Legislature by nine votes to eight by the use of the official vote, all the officials voting for the Ordinance and all the non-officials against it. I do not think it applies to a very great degree to palm kernels, but I am not sure about it. I think the Gold Coast places an export duty on other products of its own country, such as cocoa.
LORD EMMOTT: Differential duties?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Export duties. The articles in particular in West Africa are palm oil, cocoa, and one or two other items. In the Malay Straits it is tin and rubber. Lord Emmott referred to the preferential duties on tin from Nigeria. These were actually proposed (not merely export duties, but preferential export duties) under the régime of Lord Harcourt, and I believe they are in actual force to-day.
There is one other precedent which, I think, should be quoted. Lord Emmott said that the India Government contemptuously refused to do something of the kind in relation to copra. I should like to inform him that in July last the Government of India itself proposed that an export duty should be imposed in India of 15 per cent. ad valorem on hides and skins, but that a rebate of two-thirds of the duty should be made in the case of bides and skins tanned within the British Empire. The legislation imposing this duty has actually been introduced. There again is not exactly a precedent but an ample example that these things can be done by Governments which are concerned with the interests of great native populations.
Lord Beauchamp also put two further questions. He asked what effect such action will have upon obligations of this country under the General Act of Berlin or under any most favoured nation clauses? I think there must be a little misappre-

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hension about that. He rather illustrated it by referring to the General Act of Berlin and its relation to the Congo Basin. I am informed that the British West African Colonies are not bound by the free trade provisions of the General Act of Berlin since they are outside the Basin of the Congo. Therefore they are completely free to do this, and such action can apparently have no effect under the General Act of Berlin because it does not apply to them. I desire also to inform the noble Earl that no most favoured nation clause of the Treaty, nor any other Treaty engagement, gives any foreign power a right to object to the preferential export duty on palm kernels in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, or Gambia. That particular point therefore should not cause any diplomatic difficulty.
I am afraid I cannot answer the question which Lord Bryce put to me. I do not carry the text of the group of clauses of the League of Nations in my mind, but if I understand him aright he said that every country had agreed that there should be complete free trade in all Colonies or Dependencies where there were large native populations.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: No I did not say that. I intended distinctly to say that we were not bound, as regards Nigeria, by the passage in the Covenant of the League of Nations. What I said was that we have declared it as a principle which ought to apply to any African colony which comes under a mandate. It does not apply to Nigeria because it is a British Colony already and does not come under a mandate. We have asserted this principle in the case of all African Colonies that do come under a mandate, and it seems a pity that we should depart from the principle in the case of this Colony of our own.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Perhaps I had better not embark on a discussion of this kind, as I have not examined the subject; but I should be much surprised to learn that the American Government, for instance, has thus tied its hands about the Philippine Islands, France about Madagascar, Spain about her interests in Morocco, or Holland with regard to her interests in Java; or, indeed, how far it is compatible with adherence to that clause to impose preferential railway duties, or preferential dock, harbour, and freight duties, or systems of through rates, which seem to me just as good as preferential duties. Still
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Lord Bryce must understand that I never forecasted a technical question of that kind, but I will make sure that my right hon. friend Colonel Amery, who is in charge at the Colonial Office during the absence of Lord Milner in Egypt, shall have his attention drawn to this particular clause.
I have detained your Lordships longer than I had intended, but I desire to refer to what fell from the right rev. Primate. May I say that I heard his speech with some surprise. He used the phrase that the name of the Congo is associated with atrocities and systematic misgovernment. He spoke furthermore about our trusteeship for the child peoples of the world, and the danger that the development of these colonies should be in the interests of concessionaires. I discussed this general question on two occasions with officers of the Colonial Office, and I asked them what further points, other than those raised by Lord Beauchamp's Question, were likely to be raised by subsequent speakers, and these public Officers told me this that and the other on which they desired me to be prepared to answer, but I confess it was never suggested to me that this action on the part of the Government was susceptible to so grave a construction as was put upon it just now.
I do, however, recall now one thing which was told me at the Colonial Office a day or two ago, namely, that—whether it was one colony in particular or the four colonies in general I have forgotten, but at any rate in our West African Dependencies—there has recently been a very severe loss of revenue owing to drastic action being taken by the authorities, with the cordial assent of the Colonial Office, to reduce the trade in strong liquor. I was told that the income which will be derived from these duties will materially contribute to make good these losses, and I was also told that it will probably be used also for the erection of schools.
I demur to the statement by Lord Emmott that this is selfish exploitation. I, at any rate, should not be ashamed to talk to any fellow subjects of mine in His Majesty's Dominions as to the action of the Government in this matter. I do not admit that there has been any dishonesty of purpose on our side, and I refuse to accept the indictment of Lord Emmott of our motives, or to admit aspersions which I regret are so widespread, so uncompromising, and as

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I think so unfounded. This policy has been considered throughout not merely as an aspect of the German imbroglio of 1915, not merely in order to establish a new and a useful trade in this country, but in the interests of these African Colonies which have always been to the front in the Colonial Office here. I believe that their motives in pressing this forward—three or four Secretaries of State for the Colonies in succession—have been purely honourable, and I believe it will be really beneficial to the Colonies concerned.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, this question would naturally have been dealt with by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and I have no doubt that the noble Earl opposite regrets that Lord Milner is not here to make a reply to my three noble friends who started the debate; but your Lordships will, I am sure, agree that the noble Earl, who is labouring under considerable physical difficulties which we all deeply regret, has made a careful study of the subject, and, so far as the facts of the case admitted, has dealt fully with the indictment which was made by my noble friends, and on particular points by the most rev. Primate. The subject, of course, can be approached from two different points of view, and has two different aspects. There is the question upon which the noble Earl became indignant in his closing sentences, as to whether the natives are being fairly and properly treated according to the old traditions of the British Empire, under these Regulations. Further, there is the question of the fiscal side of the matter, and as to how far this particular action on the part of His Majesty's Government involves au approach to a protective system.
So far as the interests of the natives are concerned, this is in one respect no new subject to me, because when I was at the Colonial Office, a number of years ago, on more than one occasion British firms endeavoured to secure monopolies for palm nuts in different West African colonies. The attempts at that time dealt less with the question of palm kernels, which are used for the extraction of the finer oils, than with the outer shell of the palm, which is used for the production of the coarser kinds of oils, which are not edible oils. The reason which actuated us at that time, and I think my successor at the Colonial Office also, in refusing those lucrative monopolies, which no doubt would in a sense have encouraged trade, was that it was im-
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possible to feel that under them the interests of the natives could be sufficiently safeguarded. I do not think the noble Earl alluded to, or at any rate he did not attempt to explain, the fact that in the particular Colony of the Gold Coast the unofficial members of the Legislative Council were unanimous in opposing the imposition of these duties, which were forced on the Colony by the action of the official members, who, being official members, have to vote as they are instructed by the Government.
I confess that I cannot feel satisfied, after hearing the reply of the noble Earl, that there has not been on this side of the question some departure from the ancient custom which was so well defined by Lord Beauchamp and by Lord Emmott and also by the most rev. Primate—that of regarding ourselves as primarily in such matters the guardians and trustees of the interests of the native races inhabiting our Colonies and Dependencies. The two conceptions of Empire have been fully explained by former speakers, the opposite conception to that which I have mentioned being the utilisation for commercial purposes of Colonies inhabited by what have been considered in the past inferior races. The history of our Indian Empire in the past is by no means entirely free from the taint of such a conception, and it was, as everybody knows, the danger of that sort of thing which early in the nineteenth century caused the political control of India to be taken from the East India Company, and which finally placed India under a special Department of its own in this country. One cannot help feeling that in Colonies which are Crown Colonies but are more strongly represented on the native side and are consequently more vocal, this particular step could not have been taken. In such a Colony as Ceylon or Trinidad it would have been impossible to take the steps against the wishes of the unofficial members which I understand Sir Hugh Clifford was compelled in the long run to take at the Gold Coast.
I pass from that side of the question to the commercial side, to which the noble Earl devoted the greater part of his speech. I understand that he maintained that it was part of the work of the Government to which I belonged—
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: To which I belonged, too.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I was speaking of the Government before the Coalition. I was under the impression that the noble Earl was speaking of Mr. Asquith's Government before the Coalition. The Government in which I had the pleasure of being a colleague of the noble Earl is then considered to have been responsible for the adoption of the principle upon which this action is founded. I do not know whether the noble Earl desires to imply that this action is in conformity with the decisions of the Paris Conference. I think that perhaps he may, because, as we know, at that Conference different political action in relation to trade was laid down to be taken during the war and was foreshadowed for an intermediate period after the war, and finally for the future, generally speaking. It is important to remember what was alluded to by Lord Emmott—that in 1916, although all the Great Powers and the small Powers represented at the Paris Conference were fairly confident of victory, yet we could not at that time venture to foresee so complete a victory, ending in an entire political and economical break-up of Germany, such as that which rather more than two years later took place. It was quite possible then that even though we obtained the victory which would close the war it would be by no means in its economic aspect a victory such as crowned the year 1918, and the Resolutions of the Paris Conference for which I was partly responsible—I was one of the three representatives of the Empire there—were founded on the possibility that Germany at the close of the war aught still be, although beaten in the field, economically very powerful and able to carry on in various fields a rivalry with us in which in some respects she might enjoy even greater advantages than she had possessed before the war.
That possibility has entirely disappeared by common consent—I think even by the consent of those who shake their heads most dolefully about the possibilities of renewed German aggression. This being so, it is not safe to found upon what happened then—before the Battle of the Somme as it was—or upon what happened at the Colonial Office at that time, arguments for the taking of new action at this time, or even for the maintenance of action which may then have been necessary as a safeguard. The noble Earl adduced a number of cases in which export duties are imposed in Colonies and Protectorates, and he might have added that they are some-
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times imposed here. A former Government proposed for a time an export duty on coal from this country, and we all know that export duties in themselves are thoroughly recognised means of raising revenue, although they ought to be imposed with extreme caution because their effects are uncertain; and it is also the fact that unless the country in which the duty is imposed possesses a monopoly, or at any rate a qualified monopoly, of the article the subject of the duty, the duty will not be paid by the foreigner but, like so many other duties, will be paid by the consumers of the article in the country itself.
But the point is surely in this case, not whether it is expedient or reasonable to raise revenue in the West African Colonies by means of an export duty, either upon tin or upon any other product., but whether the imposition of this particular duty inflicts a hardship upon the inhabitants of the country. The noble Earl has tried to show that it does not. He has taken the bold line of saying that the duty is imposed from a desire to assist the Colonies. How you can assist these West African Colonies by limiting the market to which their products can be sent, I confess, passes my comprehension.
The noble Earl's argument (as I understand it) is that, unless the duty had been imposed, margarine factories would not have been set up in this country or in other parts of the Empire, and that now there would be a smaller market for palm kernels than there is, if the duty had not been imposed. I greatly question whether that contention can be sustained. In the first place, there was a growing tendency in this country to manufacture margarine before there was any question of imposing the duty; and, again, the country which has been the principal and most successful manufacturer of margarine, namely Holland, is also subjected to this disability, with, I conceive, the probability of reducing the consumption of palm kernels there. In fact, it is not easy to separate this contention of the noble Earl's from—I going to say almost the mechanical use of the old Protectionist arguments with which we have been so familiar ever since the subject had a new birth in the year 1903. And when the noble Earl said that, according to the best of his recollection, when Lord Harcourt was at the Colonial Office a preferential duty on some Imperial product was imposed, I

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confess I should be very glad to know what that product could have been. I certainly never heard of such a duty.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I appear to have said that under the régime of Lord Harcourt, whom I believe to be a Free Trader of irreproachable virtue, an export duty on Nigerian tin of a preferential character was seriously proposed. I do not know whether he put it into force, but it was seriously discussed under his œgis.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: With a preference within the Empire?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I can only say that, as a colleague of my noble friend, it was never discussed within my hearing, and I cannot help thinking that, if it was discussed in his, he must have refused to assent to it.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I hope I am not wrong.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: However, I pass from that. I am quite certain that the noble Earl is convinced from the information which is before him that something of the kind took place.
The only other point on which I desire to say a word is regarding the possible infraction of the Berlin Act, as to which the noble Earl pointed out with perfect accuracy, I believe, that these Colonies—Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast—not being in the Congo basin, did not fall within the ambit of that Act, and that therefore there can be no infraction of its provisions as regards them. That is precisely on all fours with the point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Bryce with regard to the League of Nations, in which he pointed out that these, not being mandatory territories, did not fall under the stipulation laid down in the Covenant of the League of Nations. But in both cases the point is that if you take this action, so different from that imposed by the Berlin Act, or recommended by the League of Nations Covenant, we are stultifying ourselves as an Empire and removing, or doing away with, the old traditions which have so fortified our Imperial position.
The point surely is this. We have now for 150 years held a worldwide Empire. It
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was considerable before that, but for that period we have held a worldwide Empire, through the control of which we might have earned the hatred of the whole world and have come to be regarded as a public enemy to civilised Europe. There has been, no doubt, some jealousy of us, and we have been habitually regarded as a rather hypocritical nation. But we have never earned that sort of dislike which, if we had used our imperial position worse, we might so easily have incurred. And, above all reasons, that is due to the fact that our ports have been open and all countries have been able freely to trade in them, and have had the freest use of the products of our great Colonies and Dependencies. If there is to be a departure from that rule, particularly at the time when we are endeavouring to take the lead in setting up the League of Nations, we place ourselves, as I venture to think, in a most unhappy position in the face of Europe and of North and South America, and we cannot be surprised if, in spite of all our sacrifices and the part we have played in the war, we are regarded with suspicion, if not with actual dislike, by all the Powers with whom we have to deal commercially or otherwise.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I am inclined to apologise for taking part in a debate in which I did not hear the mover of the Resolution. On the other hand, I should be very sorry if my noble friend opposite who is in charge of this debate should not be told by some one, at all events, that he has in the speech that he has just made, the hearty support of, I believe, a good many noble Lords on this side of the House and of a great many other people outside. Quite apart from the Paris Conference, it is not so very long ago that the principle of Imperial Preference was announced as accepted by His Majesty's Government by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the other House. This announcement led to a dinner being given by prominent Tariff Reformers and advocates of Imperial Preference in this country, and among those who were present was one of the most distinguished members of your Lordships' House—namely, my noble and learned friend, the Lord Chancellor. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor made what was called "the speech of the evening" upon that particular occasion. Therefore, that the noble Earl should be flouted and attacked from two different parts of the

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House for the acceptance of that principle, and for stoutly maintaining it, is something to which I could not submit without saying a word or two in his defence, and in confirming my complete support of everything he has said.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The noble Earl who responded for His Majesty's Government was good enough to satisfy me in nearly every particular. There is, however, one Paper to which I shall refer in one moment, but before I do that may I make a comment upon the noble Earl's reference to the speech made by the most rev. Primate? He told us, as I understood, that in preparation for the debate to-night he was good enough on two occasions to consult the officials of the Colonial Office with regard to everything that might possibly be said upon this question, but that they never suggested to him that the rights of the natives or the interests of the natives would enter into this discussion.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: No, not at all. Really that is not fair. My noble friend must not say that. I asked, "On what case shall I be attacked apart from that of which Lord Beauchamp has given me notice?" and they told me a variety of things—Lord Crewe has referred to one and Lord Emmott to others—but it did not occur to them that this action laid them open to the imputation made by members of this House that the rights of the natives had been disregarded and still less that the natives had been badly treated.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I accept that. May I ask the noble Earl whether he will transmit to the Colonial Office this aspect of affairs which has been discussed in more than one newspaper and is an impression which is commonly held by a number of people outside your Lordships' House? Will be insist that the Colonial Office shall consider the matter from the point of view of the interests of the natives themselves, and how far this differential duty bears hardly on them? May I beg that the noble Earl at the same time will point out to them that in this country, where the differential duty exists, the natives get a lower price for their produce than they get for the produce which they send to other countries? It seems to me that if they consider those figures it will be difficult for them to come to any other conclusion
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except that the differential duty causes a loss to the native producer, and in so far it very harmfully affects his existence in the British Protectorates? I hope that this point of view will be put before the Colonial Office, and, perhaps, on some future occasion, we may be favoured with their views on that aspect of the matter.
The other point to which I wish to allude is this. As I understood the noble Earl, this question is no new one; it has been considered for a long time; from the moment when the war broke out it was obviously a question which had to be dealt with. The result of it has been that this Ordinance was promulgated in the month of October, 1919. In the meantime, without the help of this Ordinance a large and thriving industry has been set up. If this large and thriving industry has been set up in the course of those, years, I do not quite understand how it is that this differential duty was necessary on October 20, 1919.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: It may be due to the assurance. The noble Earl said something about an assurance. Might we have that assurance laid upon the Table of the House, because that seems to me to be a matter of very serious importance? If the noble Earl would agree to lay that assurance on the Table of the House I will with draw my Motion for the production of Papers.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I understand that an assurance was given by Mr. Bonar Law in the House of Commons, in public; probably in the first Official Statement on this subject by a Secretary of State, which, I think, must have been in August, 1916. That is my impression. If I am correct in this, the assurance, of course, is public property. Lord Beauchamp also asked that I should get some Indian Papers. I will inquire about those Indian Papers, but I do not really know what they are. I think that I gave him information about which he obviously did not know—namely, the preferential treatment accorded by India in the question of hides. I imagine that the noble Earl will be less interested in the discussion of India on the question of oil seeds, and palm oil, and so on, because in the case of hides the Government of India has conceded the propriety of this preferential duty. I will make inquiries

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and see if there are any relevant documents which can be laid. When I say "laid," I mean that I will submit them to Lord Beauchamp first, and ask him whether he thinks it necessary to go to the expense of having them printed.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am obliged to the noble Earl. I shall be glad to see the documents with regard to hides as well as those with regard to seeds. The point about which there is some difficulty is the assurance. If it is a public assurance it certainly will not be necessary to lay it upon the Table of the House. May I take it that if there is an assurance of any other kind the noble Earl will lay it upon the Table of the House?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I will undertake that a complete statement shall be made as to the justification of my remark that an assurance has been given. What form that assurance took I will endeavour to find out.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am much obliged to the noble Earl, and I am willing to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE rose to ask the Lord Chancellor whether he proposes to take any action with regard to the recommendations of the Committee which recently reported upon the Office of the Public Trustee.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think your Lordships will have seen the Report that has been recently laid upon the Table of the House with reference to the office of the Public Trustee, and also no doubt your Lordships may have seen letters in several of the newspapers dealing with the subject of that Report. The matter is certainly one of some importance, and I think it is probable that several of your Lordships may be personally interested. It is now twelve years ago, I think, since the office of Public Trustee was established. It was set up on the ground of being needed to satisfy a public want. There were people who desired to find trustees for their
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settlements and other matters, and who found a difficulty in doing so. On the other hand there were people who were asked by their friends and relations to be trustees and wished to be relieved of that burden. What was wanted was an available, reliable, competent, continuous trustee.
Beginning at zero, in the short number of years that I have mentioned the want has been met to the tune of something like £130,000,000. I think, therefore, the metaphor that was used by the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for India, might be repeated in this case: the grain of mustard seed has become a great tree and innumerable birds are lodging in the branches thereof. There can be no doubt that the want has been met. When the Trustee Act was passed the whole thing depended upon the appointment made of Public Trustee. There never was a happier appointment made. Sir Charles Stewart, by his abilities and his enthusiasm, organised and popularised that institution; his appointment, in fact, was the making of it. On no man, my Lords, and on no Department did the war fall so heavily as upon Sir Charles Stewart and upon his Office Sir Charles Stewart lost his two sons and the husband of his daughter. The office, which consisted entirely of young men, was denuded for the purposes of the war to a greater extent, I believe, than any other Public Department. How Sir Charles Stewart managed to carry on that work with his devastated heart and his devastated Office it is difficult to say. But he did run it until nature gave way and a catastrophe fell upon him, which made it impossible for that strain to be continued.
That things began to go awry was naturally to be expected, and a Committee were appointed very opportunely at the time when the Office was vacant to inquire into the state of the Office. It is impossible not to feel some anxiety when you read their Report. It speaks with certainty of the need of such an Office and of the excellence of its work, but it is the fact that at the present time the Office is being run at a loss and the fees must be raised. What effect may be produced by that is a matter of uncertainty. I am confident myself that the public will continue to regard the advantages of utilising the Public Trustee as outweighing the increase of cost which may seem to be necessary. This seemed to be

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the opinion of the Committee that was appointed, with one exception. Respect is due to the dissentient voice, and the noble and learned Lord has a difficult task in deciding what course be is to take. The main contention of the dissenter is that the Public Trustee, like a son of Zeruiah, takes too much upon himself. It is not an easy point to determine where the Trustee should draw the line as to the transactions which belong to his Office. He would certainly not give satisfaction if he were to act as a mere conduit pipe for bringing business to solicitors, surveyors, accountants, and the like. It is equally certain that the expenses connected with trusteeships would not be diminished if he were to adopt that course. I did not rise in order to trouble your Lordships with my own views upon the Office or upon the effect of this Report but the Lord chancellor is aware of, and I know forgives, the great interest that I take in this subject, and I venture to ask him the Question which stands on the Paper.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, I am glad that my noble and learned friend, by putting down this Question, has given me an opportunity of making a statement upon the Report of Sir George Murray's Committee. No one has shown more interest than the noble and learned Lord in the office of Public Trustee, and no one contributed so much to its formation; few, at any rate, contributed more. My noble and learned friend naturally watches over the activities of this Office almost with a paternal eye. I am sorry that the reply which it is right that I should make to this Question must necessarily be somewhat lengthy and, I fear, tedious to those who have not had occasion to take an interest in the work of the Public Trustee's Office. I would only, in condonation, remind your Lordships that, directly or indirectly, the activities of that Office affect the fortunes of many many thousands of our fellow subjects; that millions and millions of pounds are committed to the care of the Public Trustee; and that every indication available to us for our guidance suggests that the activities of the Office are likely to be very greatly exceeded in the future. I ought, I think, to add that there has been much legitimate public curiosity as to the workings of the Department. In the last, two years certain questions have been asked in another place, and it has not been
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possible to reply to them with authority or with completeness there because, as your Lordships know, I am responsible for the office of the Public Trustee and it is I alone Who, in the circumstances, can make any pronouncement with authority upon this subject.
While the proposals of the Majority of Sir George Murray's Committee have received on the whole a very favourable reception in those circles which are best fitted to judge, there have been in the public Press certain criticisms which merit attention. Many of those criticisms are, I believe, based on a misapprehension, both as to the reasons which impelled me to set up the Committee and as to the effect of the Committee's recommendations, and I am very glad to have this opportunity of dispelling any misunderstanding on those points which may have arisen, and perhaps not unnaturally arisen, in the minds of those who are most deeply interested in the subject.
There were two main causes which led me, in consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to think the time had come for a general inquiry into the administration of the office of the Public Trustee. I was not in any way actuated by any notion that the affairs of the Office were conducted inefficiently. I shall have a word to say presently about the manner in which the business was conducted. Nor was I actuated by any desire to initiate some far-reaching change the general nature of the conduct of the business, and particularly I had no intention—nor did it pass through the mind of any of those whose opinions were taken upon the matter—of increasing the scope of the duties performed by the Public Trustee. The reasons were, as I have said, two:
First, the enormous and rapid growth of the business entrusted to the Office, and second, the financial situation produced mainly by the war, with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself were faced. The idea of such an investigation had, I believe, been present to the minds of my immediate predecessors. From a period which roughly coincided with the commencement of the war, it had become obvious that the Office of the Public Trustee had passed through what I may call the experimental stage, had justified its existence, and had reached that period of its growth at which it was desirable that

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a general review should be made of its activities, and there should be a kind of stocktaking with respect to its operations. While the war was proceeding, it was, for obvious reasons, impossible to set on foot such an investigation. But the cessation of active hostilities, with its promise of a return to more normal business conditions, happened to coincide with the retirement of the late Public Trustee, Sir Charles Stewart, and this conjuncture seemed a very favourable opportunity for initiating the work which had been contemplated for so long.
Taking those two motives in order, I should first like to give the House some idea of the enormous growth of the work of the Department. It commenced operations on January 1, 1908. I am unwilling to inflict upon the House more figures than are absolutely necessary, but to give some idea of the position I must say that in the first fifteen months of the existence of the Office the number of cases accepted by the Public Trustee represented an approximate value of 3½ millions. In the last completed year before the war the value of the cases accepted was nearly 13½ millions. In the year which is now last completed the value was somewhat over 17 millions; and the total number of cases accepted up to the time when the Committee commenced its operations was 14,522, representing an approximate value in excess of 129 millions. It is perfectly obvious that a system which was capable of dealing, and dealing adequately, with some 3½ million pounds worth of investments, whether in real or personal property, required complete overhauling and minute examination, when the values with which it had to cope amounted to some forty times that figure and when the gross total value of all the estates to be dealt with was increasing at a rate five or six times that which prevailed during the early months of its existence. It seemed to us that the public at large, and more particularly those of the public whose financial interests had been committed to the care of the Public Trustee, were entitled to know upon inquiry by skilled and impartial observers that sound, careful and honest administration had been exercised in the management of their business.
Now on that I am happy to say that the Report of the Committee is quite clear. They say, "We have been much impressed by the pride which the staff take in the
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work and the energy and devotion to duty which have enabled them to cope with the rapid increase of business under exceptionally adverse conditions. The figures which we have given (some of which I have already read to your Lordships) show that the Department has now established itself successfully; that it has broken down most of the opposition with which it was at first confronted; and that it has met a growing demand for its services. "I lay stress on the rapid increase of business which I have already mentioned as showing, despite such observations as to mistakes as I shall have to make later on, that there is a widespread desire on the part of the public to take advantage of the Office and that, whatever slips or mistakes have been produced by the emergency conditions of the last few years that confidence in the Office continues and is still growing so that the rate of increase in the number and value of the estates entrusted to the Office grows continually. When we hear, as we do from time to time, general criticism, which seldom condescends to particulars, of the methods or the practice of the Department, I think that I and those more closely concerned in the administration are entitled to point to those figures as a proof that there is general confidence, and that that general confidence is deserved and justified. It can be but seldom in the conduct of a great business that an investigation into its methods is necessitated, not because the business is diminishing or the public are resorting to it less than its promoters had hoped, but because the confidence is so overflowing and the resort to it so thronged as to be almost embarrassing to those who have to conduct it.
My second motive in a setting up the Committee was less cheerful. We were faced with an accumulated deficit which, if present arrangements continue, must also continue, and, I fear, continue in an ever increasing degree. When I speak of deficiency I think that I ought to make it quite clear in what sense that word is used. There is no question as to any deficiency in the trust funds committed to the charge of the Trustee. The only question which arises is with regard to the expenditure of the Office in managing those trusts and the income available to meet that expenditure. Section 9 of the Public Trustee Act 1906 (6 Ed. VII. c. 55) directes that there shall be charged in respect of the duties of the Public Trustee such fees as the Treasury with the sanction of the Lord

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Chancellor may fix, and it requires that those fees shall be arranged from time to time so as to produce an annual amount sufficient to discharge the salaries and other expenses.
Now I should like to make clear also, once and for all, what my own view is with regard to this matter. The provisions of the Statute are explicit and must be obeyed. But even were it otherwise, in my opinion there is no justification (subject to one observation on one small point) for imposing upon the public any charge in respect of services rendered by the Public Trustee to the private persons who seek his assistance. It is open to them to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the Office for the care of their affairs and for the guarantee from the Consolidated Fund which is thereby obtained. It is equally open to them to abstain from so doing. I see no justification whatever for the provision to those who make use of the Office of a subsidised service or a service below cost. The Office has justified its existence in the past by providing a service for which the public or certain members of the public were willing to pay. If they should cease to be willing to pay, the facilities must come to an end. I will be no party now or hereafter to providing those facilities at the cost of the general taxpayer, or to setting up at the public expense, machinery which with the aid of that subsidy could compete at an advantage with professional accountants, surveyors and solicitors who live without a subsidy by the exercise of their profession.
Unfortunately, the facts with which we are faced in this matter are very serious. The first few months of the Office not unnaturally resulted in a small deficit. This is inevitable in the start of any business of this nature. But that state of things soon passed away and for some six or seven years the Office showed a small apparent surplus upon each year's working—a yearly surplus which began to diminish when the war began, and which by the third year of the war had become a small, and by now has become a large, and indeed a formidable, deficiency.
One of the tasks which we laid upon the Committee was to consider this circumstance together with others bearing on the same subject matter. The Committee have considered this matter and they have reported not only that the deficiency to which I have already alluded exists, but
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that it is necessary that further expenditure should be incurred which, if no increased income can be obtained, will increase the deficiency still further.
There is only one source from which an increased income can be obtained, whether to meet the deficiency upon yearly working as the Office is now constituted, or to meet the still heavier expenditure which is proposed by the Committee, and that source is an increase of the fees paid by those who take advantage of the Office. These were the two main motives which induced me and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to set up Sir George Murray's Committee. But I have already alluded to complaints of inefficiency and mistake in the Office, complaints which together with all other relevant matters formed a subject for the consideration of the Committee. I do not shrink from saying that there were mistakes and that there was inefficiency, though these mistakes have been vastly exaggerated in popular belief, and the total loss consequent upon them in eleven years working has been almost negligible. It would, indeed, be strange if in the conduct of so vast a business no weaknesses were disclosed in the course of ten years' rapid growth. It would be still stranger if such weaknesses had not arisen in the course of the last five years of strenuous and difficult administration.
During those years, as I have already pointed out, the business of the office has grown in ever-increasing ratio. Meanwhile, the Office, like all other great offices, whether in the public service or outside it, has suffered most seriously from war conditions. At the commencement of the war there were employed in the Department 155 permanent male persons. It will be remembered that the Department was new, and, as might be expected, a large proportion of that staff were below the average age. No less than 140 of the 155 were eligible for war service and no less than ninety-nine actually joined His Majesty's Forces. Two-thirds, therefore, of all the skilled male staff were removed from the Office and the work had to fall to less skilled and, I am afraid I must say, less efficient hands. Long before, under demobilisation, these men began to return to their duties it had become almost impossible to obtain anywhere efficient male clerks with any skill in the technical matters with which the Office is principally concerned.

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Nor was this all. It will be remembered that during the whole of that time the growth of business has increased so far as related to what I may call the ordinary work of the Public Trustee. Owing to the fate of the war not only were more estates committed to the charge of the Public Trustee, but death removed an unusual proportion of those whose affairs were so committed, and thus the Department of the Office concerned with distribution and with executorship was doubly overburdened. In addition, the numerous Acts which dealt with enemy property in this country imposed wholly strange and new duties upon the shoulders of the Public Trustee and his officers. He became the custodian of enemy property under the Trading with the Enemy Acts, and I might observe that in that capacity he has conducted his business to such advantage as to give general satisfaction and establish a balance between the fees and the cost of administration. But for this, in the midst of the anxieties and the burdens of increasing work and decreasing staff, a new Department had to be organised and some of the time of his most experienced officers devoted to learning this new work and teaching and managing this untrained and unskilled staff.
My Lords, if in these circumstances some mistakes have been made and some well-justified causes for complaint have arisen, is it to be wondered at? Is there any noble Lord conversant with the conduct of a great business during the war who has not been conscious that his own business has not been conducted with the same despatch and the same accuracy which in more peaceful times made its pride and reputation? I am glad to think, as I am entitled to think upon the Report of the Committee, that those of the staff who were enabled to remain at their duties, assisted by the less skilled members of the old staff, and by such assistance as could be obtained from time to time with great difficulty from the open labour market, devoted themselves day and night to their duties, and in spite of these minor slips and mishaps have earned the commendation of the Committee and have enabled the work to be carried on with the minimum percentage of error.
Now I think that before I proceed to deal in any detail with the recommendations of the Committee, I owe it to the House that I should explain how it is that we come
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to be faced with this present deficiency. I think it possible, and indeed probable, that when the fees were originally fixed they were fixed too low, having regard to the expenditure which even then had to be anticipated. Almost the whole of the money expended upon the office goes in salaries. The staff at the commencement were young and they were willing to work on small salaries, looking forward no doubt to promotion and advancement if the business proved a success. I think it possible that even then the youth of the staff and the certainty that if they remained in the Service they would require larger salaries might have been taken more closely into consideration and a higher expenditure therefore anticipated, and therefore some part of the deficiency with which we are faced is due to some initial miscalculation. But having said this, I wish to say at once that that is the smallest element in the present situation. It is extremely difficult to analyse figures of this nature, but I am pretty confident that the great bulk of the deficiency is due to other causes—causes which could not possibly have been foreseen at the initiation of the work and which have sprung primarily from the effects of the war.
In the first place, as I have already stated, two-thirds of the skilled male staff were withdrawn for military services. To each of these men, as in the case of all other clerks employed in Government service, and I am glad to think the vast majority of clerks employed in private adventure, sums of money had to be paid to make up the difference between their military pay and that which they would have received had they remained at work. This was just and equitable, but of course the result was to cast upon the Public Trustee a mass of expenditure which was wholly unprofitable looked at from the strict point of view of profit and loss. Nor was this all. In place of each of the men who so went to serve their country in the field there had to be employed, if he could be got, some persons from the outside world. As the war proceeded, it was not possible to obtain those substitutes even at the salary which had previously been paid to the man whose place was being taken. The market continually rose against us. It is common knowledge that all banks, insurance companies, and solicitors' offices were in a like case. We had actually to pay for less experience and less skill a greater sum than before the war had been

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given to our permanent employees. And unhappily, and this is in itself a high attribute to the existing staff, it was not even found possible to substitute one untrained man for one trained one. We frequently had to get two men where one had previously sufficed. Hence again a heavy burden of expenditure wholly attributable to the war. These factors no doubt will cease gradually to have their effect as the trained men return and resume their duties. But there are other and more permanent factors on the expenditure side, directly attributable to the war, which went to build up our deficiency. Rightly or wrongly, and this is not the time to discuss the policy of the measure, the claims of all clerks employed in Government offices have been submitted from time to time to the Conciliation and Arbitration Board and there have been paid to those clerks war bonuses which now amount to over 30 per cent. upon their pre-war salaries. Similar measures have been necessary in private enterprise. We have here, therefore, apart from the other matters to which I have alluded, a direct increase of over 30 per cent. net to by far the heaviest figure on the expenditure side of the Public Trustee.
On the income side, the effect of the war has been no less serious. It had been the custom, though I am not sure how far the terms of the Fee Order justify it, to charge the income fee, that is to say, the fee reckoned on the income paid to the beneficiary which the Public Trustee receives in respect of his yearly administration of the trust, to charge that fee not on the gross income of the trust but upon that income less income tax. When the difference in the amount of income tax at the commencement of the war from the figure at which it stands at present is remembered, it will be seen at once that we have here a loss amounting to some 25 per cent, upon so much of the Public Trustee's income as is derived from the income fee.
Again, the acceptance and distribution fees, that is, the fees paid when the estate is handed over to the Public Trustee for administration, and when it is distributed to the beneficiaries and which is reckoned upon the capital value of the estate, have shrunk proportionately to the shrinkage in general capital values with which we are all so painfully acquainted. The figures which I have given in an earlier part of these
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observations of the value of the estates committed to the Public Trustee's charge are to this extent misleading, that the figure of thirteen millions which I gave for the last year before the war is reckoned upon stock exchange values as they then stood, and the figure of seventeen millions which I gave for 1918–19 is also reckoned upon stock exchange values as they stood during the, latter year. Naturally, having regard to the general shrinkage, seventeen millions in 1918–19 represents a far greater excess of labour and administration over the 1913–14 figure than would be supposed at first sight from the mere mathematical difference between the two figures, and if the estates handed over in 1918–19 had been valued at the figure at which they stood in the former year, a far greater fee would have been taken by the Public Trustee.
These then are the causes of the deficiency in the presence of which we now find ourselves. To sum them up they are some small miscalculation at the commencement. The vast dead weight of the sums spent to replace those who had gone to the war. The general increase in expenditure caused by the war bonus and the rise in the labour market. And on the income side, the increased income tax and the shrinkage in capital due to the general depreciation in the value of securities.
Unhappily that is not the full tale of all that we have to face. The Committee have, as they say, found it necessary to make proposals for strengthening the staff of the Department and those proposals necessarily "involve a considerable increase of expenditure." "This must" they say, "be regarded as inevitable under the circumstances. In its earlier years the Office was an experiment depending for its success on its ability to attract business, and there was a natural tendency on the part of those who controlled it to keep down expenditure and charges. The scales of salary offered were low and the staff was insufficient in number."
I do not wish to minimise in any way the gravity of the total effect of the Committee's recommendations upon the expenditure of the Department. In their view, the net expenditure of the Office as at present conducted must be taken at £204,000, and the figure which they have found it necessary to adopt for the purpose of determining the amount of expenditure to be fixed in the future is £275,000. The estimated annual receipt from fees at

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present rates may be taken at £120,000 and, as the Committee say, it is therefore necessary to construct a scale which will produce the necessary income. Now I am not myself committed without further inquiry to these precise figures. The Committee point out that further consideration of the number and salaries of the staff may enable some reduction to be made in the amount of revenue which must be earned, and they desire their figure to be taken merely as a provisional estimate framed for the particular purpose in view, bearing in mind that it represents the estimated cost at the time when all salaries are exceptionally high and under conditions which can hardly be regarded as permanent. The officers of the Public Trustee and the officials of the Treasury are at present engaged in conference in going through again these estimates and proposals with a view to seeing how far it is possible to avoid unnecessary expenditure. But with these estimates before me, I am bound to tell the House that I see no alternative but a largely increased expenditure, and as a result the making of provision for a largely increased income. With such evidence as lies before me of the amount of over-work and over-strain at present imposed upon the staff, with the actual figures of the salaries paid to the people employed in the Office, it would be idle for me not to face the fact that a very large additional expenditure is imperatively and immediately necessary, and for that purpose a very large increase in the revenue of the Office. I am sure that no one wishes that the staff should be called upon to work unreasonable hours or at unreasonable rates of pay. To adopt either of these courses must mean the perpetuation of the system under which the mistakes and inefficiencies of which complaint is made have occurred. It must do much more than this. It must mean the definite acceptance of a low standard of work and a low standard of duty towards the beneficiaries and the Public Trustee, which must ultimately result in the destruction of the business and the ruin of the Office, and, therefore, however reluctantly, I have felt bound to assent in principle—as I have said I am not committed on any detail until after long consultation between myself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer—to the Committee's main recommendations.
This being so, I have next to turn to the question of the source from which the additional revenue is to be obtained. There is,
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in fact, only one source, and that is the fees paid by the persons who have the advantage of the services of the Public Trustee. The Act, as I have already pointed out, calls upon us to require such fees as will enable the income to balance the expenditure. It will at once be said, indeed it has been said, that to increase the fees will be to inflict a previous hardship upon those persons whose estates have been entrusted to the Public Trustee without any notice that these increases would be made. I do not stay to do more than notice the technical answer that. any person who so committed his affairs did so with his eyes open to the fact that from his fees, combined with those of others, the expenditure of the Office had to be met having regard to the terms of the Act of Parliament. I would, however, remind you, my Lords, that after all these people are in this position. They are at present receiving a service at much under its cost price. Some of them have had the advantage of receiving that service for some years. We are all, in these unfortunate times, faced with the necessity of paying more for services and articles whose cost we had regarded as never likely to rise, or never likely to rise to any serious extent, and I am afraid that the beneficiaries and settlors who are concerned in this matter must face this disc agreeable necessity like the rest of us.
At the same time, I will point out that there is a considerable misapprehension in connection with the matter. The fees taken by the Public Trustee fall into three main categories, two of which are taken on capital and one on income. As far as the income fee is concerned, it has hitherto been the custom to levy that fee ad valorem on the net income of the estate excluding from the calculation the amount paid by the estate in income tax. There is at least room for doubt whether this practice of excluding the amount paid in income tax is in accordance with the Fee Order. It is held by competent authorities that it would be open to the Public Trustee (and that it was always intended that he should) to levy the fee upon the gross income. However that may be, the recommendation of the Committee now is that the gross and not the net income should be taken into the calculation for the purpose of determining the income fee to be levied. I believe that the fairness of this proposal will commend itself at once to any one who considers it. Some extra charge must be imposed upon the beneficiaries, and regrettable as that

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necessity may be, this seems, having regard to the considerations which I have already laid before the House, the most equitable manner of obtaining it. But this is the sole measure in any way affecting income which is now proposed.
The two capital fees are taken respectively on acceptance of a trust and on its distribution, and it is by a large increase of these two fees that in the main it is hoped to make the income balance the expenditure. It is at once obvious by raising the fee taken on acceptance, that no injury is inflicted on anyone. No one is obliged to have recourse to the Office of the Public Trustee. If he has that recourse, it is only reasonable that he should pay such a fee as will enable that business to be conducted otherwise than at a loss.
The Committee further propose a large increase upon the distribution fee. Here again I regret the necessity for an increase, but I see no alternative and those who suffer—as some must suffer from the increase of this fee—must bear in mind that they have for some years enjoyed the services of the Public Trustee at a cost to themselves which was less than the market price of the services.
Now, having said this much as to the condition of the Office, as to the recommendations of the Committee, as to the expenditure necessary in the Committee's opinion, and as to the means whereby that expenditure can be met, I should be in-dined but for one circumstance to sit down with this final observation, that I hope that everyone who is interested in the question, either because he has business relations with the Office, or because he takes a general interest in the matter, will read the Report of the Committee. It is short and clear. I do not think that it is possible for me to summarise its contents in such a way as to present its proposals to the House more clearly than the Committee themselves have done. It is in my view a State paper worthy of the closest scrutiny.
The reason why I cannot take that course of bringing my observations to an end which would be alike agreeable to the House and to myself, is that it would appear from communications which I have received from certain professional bodies and from letters which have appeared in the public Press, that the Report has not received that impartial and careful scrutiny which, in my opinion, it deserves. I say that because the criticisms which have appeared upon it,
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and indeed the impression which seems to have been formed in the minds of those who have emitted these criticisms, proceeded upon a complete misapprehension of the situation and of the proposals of the Report.
Before I come to deal more closely with the matter, I want to draw the attention of the House to the constitution of the personnel of the Committee, bearing in mind that those criticisms proceeded mainly upon the ground that an attempt is now being made, apparently for the first time, to build up some great institution under Government control which is to frustrate private enterprise and place everyone's affairs, so far as I can make out, in the hands of a body of interested officials.
The Chairman of the Committee was Sir George Murray, himself certainly an official of long standing, sometime Secretary of the Post Office and subsequently Secretary of His Majesty's Treasury, and therefore biased, I suppose, with a liking for official interference and official ways. If that is the suggestion, it is curiously wide of the mark so far as Sir George Murray is concerned. After years of eminent public service he is now, I believe, engaged in private business and those who knew him during his official career, whatever other observations they might have to make as to his views on administration, know well that he was not one of those who had sympathy with large Departments or the indefinite extension of departmental activities, or with bloated expenditure. With him were associated Mr. Henry Bell, General Manager of Lloyd's Bank, who may be presumed to have brought from his long and intimate experience in the City a singularly wide knowledge to the consideration of problems kindred to those with which he has dealt during his whole life; Sir Willoughby Dickinson, a very well known former Member of Parliament, a member of the Bar, and of ripe experience in many business and philanthropic enterprises; and Sir William Plender, head of the great firm of Deloitte, Griffiths and Co., chartered accountants in the City of London, who is probably as well known to most members of this House as he is to myself, and who has brought to the inquiry the singular advantage of having had for many years an inside knowledge of its methods and business. It is the Report, signed by these four gentlemen, which has provoked the criticisms to which I

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have referred. They were impartial, they had wide business experience, no one attempted to dictate to them what they should find or what they should say, and have not the least doubt that any men equally experienced and equally impartial who came to the consideration of the question would have arrived at the same decision.
With them was associated Mr. Samuel Garrett, one of the most eminent solicitors in the City of London, a gentleman very well known to me professionally, universally respected and eminently successful in his profession. Mr. Garrett has concurred in the great majority of the proposals made by the Committee, but he has unfortunately, as it appears to be, coupled with his concurrence certain extremely drastic proposals which not only diverge wholly from the conclusions of his colleagues, but, as it seems to me, cut at the root of the existence of the office itself.
Mr. Garrett's report is published with the Report of the Majority, and here again for those who wish to understand the subject, I can only recommend them to read Mr. Garrett's own words, to which I could hardly do justice if I endeavoured to give a detailed summary of them. Perhaps, however, the main point of the Report is summed up in paragraph 28, which is in the following words:—
"The remedy is surely obvious. The Department has attempted to do a quantity of work which it was not intended by Parliament to do, which it is unable to do efficiently and which it is not paid for doing. This must cease if disaster is o he avoided. The branches created to do extraneous work must be practically abolished, and the work of the Department must be confined to that which can be done by a competent and careful trustee."
I do not think I am doing Mr. Garrett an injustice if I say that the implication in this and in the remaining paragraphs of his report is that if what he calls extraneous work were rejected and the work confined to that which could be done by a private trustee, the necessity for the large increase of fees would disappear, and all would be well. Certainly this is the implication contained in the letters which I have received and the letters which I have read in the Press. No conclusion could be more fallacious, as I shall show in a few moments.
On that, interpreting Mr. Garrett by those who base their criticisms upon the foundation of his Report, I cannot help noticing representations which have been
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addressed to me on behalf of the Law Society, the Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors, and the Surveyors' Institution. They, like Mr. Garrett, seem to read into the recommendations of the Majority some adumbration of a gigantic scheme in which, as they say, "the Public Trustee should himself act as the accountant, valuer, land agent, or any other professional capacity"; or again—
"If instead of merely instructing and checking the outside agents and their work, the Public Trustee is to have a professional staff to do the work themselves of accountants, surveyors. valuers, land agents, house agents, financial advisers, and so on in connection with these 14,000 trusts, the business of the Department would become unmanageable from its bulk and comp exity."
Some of these categories of professional people have definite meanings, others have not. It is quite clear that the Public Trustee must have accountants to keep the accounts of the 128 millions of money which is entrusted to him, and I should have thought it was obvious that he required some small sub-division of his office in which could be located some one who could act as the financial adviser or investment manager. Indeed, Mr. Garrett himself was a party to the unanimous Interim Report of July 8, 1919, in which he definitely recommended the continuation and development of the small investment branch which then existed, changing, it is true, the title of its head from Financial Adviser to Chief Investment Manager, but retaining all and more than all the functions hitherto committed to that branch of the Office. Dealing with this particular branch the Report to which he is a party says: "We think that it is of the first importance to provide a staff which will enable the business to be conducted efficiently." As far as all these other persons—surveyors, valuers, land agents and house agents—are concerned, I quite agree that if it were proposed that the Public Trustee should himself act in those capacities not only would the professional interests of gentlemen in the outside world be injured, but also probably there would be a loss of efficiency. No one has ever made such an absurd proposal, and no one makes it now. It is true that there has been in the Office a small staff of surveyors and valuers. Its duties, so far as these matters are concerned, comprise the general administration of real property including the supervision of the collection of rent, the collection of mortgage interest insurance and records. If by Mr. Garrett's

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observations, and those of his friends, it is intended to convey that there is to be some new departure of policy whereby the Office will be developed shortly into a place where law, land surveying, and the business of letting and managing house property is to be provided for all those who come without recourse to outside assistance, I can only say that such an idea bears no relation whatever to the recommendations made by the majority. What the majority have recommended is that—
"trust estates should, while retaining the services of outside agencies, secure the further advantages afforded by a Public Department having at its disposal, within its own walls, independent experts capable of criticising, and possibly correcting or supplementing the advice received through the ordinary channels available to the private Trustee."
It is the more curious that this misapprehension should have arisen because the Majority Report deals specifically with the three branches of the Office, which might be thought to provide unduly specialised services. The first of these is the Investments or Financial Section of which I have already spoken. Here the Committee, with Mr. Garrett's concurrence, recommended the employment of one Investment Manager, three Assistant Investment Managers, and a small clerical staff. I may say in passing that nothing has been pressed for more insistently during the last few years by the small Advisory Committee on Investments, than the establishment and development of this Branch. The Advisory Committee consists of four independent gentlemen, whose names are well known in the City, Mr. Frederick Huth Jackson, Mr. Robert Holland-Martin, Mr. Mullens, junr. (of the firm of Mullens & Marshall), and Sir Robert Kindersley—none of them gentlemen, as one would have thought, likely to favour the undue growth of the Departmental system. Can it be contended that a small staff like this can dispense, for executive purposes, with outside professional assistance in handling investments which approximate to £100,000,000 in value?
Next comes the Surveyors Branch. The Majority Report recommended the retention of this Section as "an Advisory Branch on all questions arising out of the management of real property held by the Public Trustee." The real and leasehold property in the hands of the Public Trustee is valued at about £11,000,000 and the mortgage investments at about £3,250,000.
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The staff recommended consists of one Chief Surveyor with six Assistant Surveyors, and the necessary clerical help. How could a staff of this size deal executively with even a small fraction of this mass of property, or how is it possible for any one with a sense of proportion to base upon the existence of a staff of this size, the suggestion that the Public Trustee is to have a staff of Surveyors, Valuers, House Agents, and so on instead of employing outside agencies for the purpose? The third Specialist Branch is the Legal Advisor-ship, together with its sub-Branch dealing with the legality of investments, and this Branch is recommended for abolition both by the Majority Report and by Mr. Garrett.
There remain the two big Central Branches of the Office—namely, the Administration Branch which actually manages the Trusts, and the Accountants Branch where the Accounts of the Trusts are kept. Now here, when we come to detail, it is very difficult to see what changes in substance are suggested. Mr. Garrett does suggest a diversion of some of the work from the Accountants Branch to the Administration Branch and a more frequent recourse to outside accountants. It is very difficult to follow what economy would result from the transfer which he suggests. It is quite certain that it would not result in meeting the wishes of the professional critics of the Office. It merely shifts work from one portion of the Office to another. What really seems to be running in the minds of the critics of the Office is the idea that the Public Trustee should have no more competence or skill in the administration of his Trust than the ordinary man in the street. Considered as a maxim of general application, it may be that no higher degree of care and duty and skill is called for from him than from the first comer, but in practice it must be remembered, first that those who entrust their affairs to an institution established and conducted under the œgis of the State, look, and rightly look for a higher degree of these qualities, than when they commit them to the Trustee taken at haphazard, and often unwillingly from among their acquaintances and friends, and secondly, that when the Public Trustee selects those persons who are to be employed to look after the Trusts, he of necessity selects them from a class who have a slightly greater knowledge of the Law and of business than can be found in the average private Trustee. The question may be

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presented ad absurdum. Clearly whoever is employed to act as clerk in charge or in some analogous position, will in course of time, through handling many Trusts, become more skilled in Trust matters and particularly in the simpler legal problems than the ordinary individual who is a private Trustee, and whose life is spent in selling candles or in speculating on the Stock Exchange. Is it argued that as soon as he becomes more skilful, he is to be dismissed and someone less skilful substituted in his place? Clearly such an argument could not be advanced. It seems only reasonable that the persons entrusted with the every day conduct of the Trust should be chosen from among those who have a certain degree of skill derived from education and experience in the handling of Trust matters. It follows of necessity that the simpler legal problems and the conduct of the simpler business operations which arise in the every day work of the office can be dealt with by these gentlemen without recourse to outside assistance, though I can understand that the feelings of the professional gentlemen who suppose, though without any warrant, that they will lose professional business, may be ruffled, and that their apprehensions may be aroused, however unnecessarily.
It would be impossible to carry on the business of the Public Trustee with satisfaction to the public and with due regard to the interests of the Consolidated Fund without the employment within the office of some persons who are specially skilled in the conduct of trust business. It stands to reason that the executive staff must be composed in the main of expert trust administrators. I should like the House to consider how much skill and how much discretion must necessarily be expected of these gentlemen. It was to find that skill and discretion combined with a complete disinterestedness and security that the office was established. Let me give instances of what actually happens in practice. Within the last few months twelve cases have come to my notice in which a solicitor has given to the office demonstrably wrong advice and has been corrected by the office; and within the last few weeks two cases at least have come to my knowledge in which a solicitor acting as solicitor to a trust under administration in the office has maintained a position in which his duty to other clients plainly conflicted with his duty to the trust and has compelled the Public Trustee to refer
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to an independent firm. In all these cases I think that a private trustee would have acquiesced in the advice of the solicitor, and the trust, and possibly also the trustee himself, would have been damnified.
One further point is taken by way of criticism of the system of the office and of the recommendations of the Majority Report. It is said that simple estates are by the system of a flat rate of fee taxed for the benefit of more complicated and difficult estates. There is no doubt that any flat rate fee must involve the result that some trusts obtain more than the strict value of the amount paid entails them to, and some trusts obtain less. The real practical question is, however, in what degree this results in hardship, and whether any means can be found to modify it. On the former question some light may be obtained by comparing the different proposals of the Majority and Minority Reports. I have already spoken of the three specialist departments. As to the retention of the first for dealing with investments, the Majority and Minority are agreed, and it must therefore be taken that the charge for that Department can reasonably be spread over all the estates met by a flat rate. As to the Surveyors and Valuers, the total cost of that branch would not exceed £6,000 a year. It is an advisory branch and its cost reduced to a percentage is very little over 2 per cent. of the total cost of the office salary. It is purely advisory. The third technical branch, the Legal Advisorship is, as I have already said, proposed for abolition. On the other hand, the Majority Report recommends that certain specialist services should be paid for by special imposed management fees so advised as to cover approximately the cost in view of the special operations which attract them.
It remains for me to say a word with reference to the cost of small estates. No doubt the management of some estates by the Office involves the Office in loss on the cost of administration, and here it is possible that some special arrangements may have to be made to meet the difficulty. The Majority Report makes detailed proposals on the subject. Some of them are concerned merely with administration; some with serious and difficult problems of finance. All these matters will receive my most careful consideration after consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and at present I have not arrived at any conclusion upon them.

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I have dealt in the main with the various criticisms which have been made against this Department. I am not unconscious that it may be said of me that at this period of the session I have taken an undue advantage of your Lordships in dealing at such extraordinary length with a subject which can interest only those who have had occasion to pay attention to it. Believe me when I say that I have a justification for so doing. In the history of this Office in the work it has already done, in its contingent importance in the years that lie in front of us, and in the very serious nature of the problem which faces us to-night as to whether it can be maintained on lines which are financially sound, I am sanguine enough to believe that we should be wrong not to draw from the history of the past the confident conclusion that not only is the Office of the Public Trustee desired by the population, but that it can render the greatest possible service to many people who find it difficult to surround themselves with legal advice, and whom, as the past as shown, would have been exposed to risk and hardship if they had not had this Department at their service. I will only acid this. If we can keep this Office going upon an economic basis, if we adhere to the terms of the Act of Parliament and insist that the Office shall pay its way, having spent a great deal of labour on this question since I attained to my present position I venture to predict, first, that this Office will grow more and more in weight and influence, and, secondly, that the increase in its fees which is necessary, and which I propose with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to authorise, will not sterilise or indeed very much alter its activities and its beneficial service to the public.

MINERAL RIGHTS DUTY.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Strachie, who is unavoidably absent, I desire to ask His Majesty's Government the Question standing in his name—Whether it is the case that Mineral Rights Duty is payable on Excess Profits on mineral royalties; and, if so, whether they consider it fair that such tax should be imposed on that part of royalties on minerals which has to be paid over to the Government.
LORD HYLTON: In answer to the Question, my noble friend will probably
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know that the Mineral Rights Duty imposed by the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, is charged at the rate of 1s. in the £ upon the net amount, after the deduction of Income Tax, of mineral royalties paid by the lessee working the minerals in respect of the right to work the minerals. Then as regards the Excess Mineral Rights Duty, that was imposed by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, as an addition to the Mineral Rights Duty. It corresponds in some respects, as your Lordships know, to the Excess Profits Duty, being a charge upon the "excess" royalties accruing in certain circumstances to the owners of mineral rights just as the Excess Profit Duty is a charge upon the "excess" profits of trades and businesses. The subject of the charge to Excess Mineral Rights Duty is the mineral royalties payable by the working lessees in respect of the right to work the minerals; but whereas the Mineral Rights Duty is charged upon the full amount of the mineral royalties so paid, the Excess Mineral Rights Duty is levied only in cases where the royalty varies according to the selling price of the minerals, and is charged upon the "excess" of the royalty payable in any working year ending after August 4, 1914, after the pre-war standard. The rate of duty which is payable on the "excess" has always followed the rate of the Excess Profits Duty. That was originally 50 per cent., subsequently it was increased to 60 per cent., then to 80 per cent., and it has now been reduced to 40 per cent., in respect of the excess accruing as from January 1, 1919.
I do not know whether my noble friend wants me to explain to him exactly how that pre-war standard of which I have spoken is arrived at. As a matter of fact, it is the average of any two of the pre-war rent values of the last three pre-war years. That pre-war rent value is a purely hypothetical figure bearing no relation to the amounts of royalty actually payable in the pre-war year, and is taken to be the figure to which the royalties payable in the working year would have amounted if the selling price of the minerals in the pre-war year were substituted for the selling price in the working year. There is one point about the Mineral Rights Duty and the Excess Mineral Rights Duty—namely, that they are both of them in effect annual levies on capital; because, as your Lordships know, minerals are a wasting asset, and, to arrive at the difference between the gross and the actual net receipts in the case of an income

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derived from mineral royalties, you must deduct from the gross royalties in the first place the Income Tax at 6s. in the £ in the second place, the Mineral Rights Duty, to which I have referred, at 1s. in the £ in the third place, the Excess Mineral Rights Duty, if any; in the fourth place, the super-tax if any; and fifthly—owners cannot disregard the fact that this must be the fifth deduction to arrive at the difference between the gross and net mineral receipts—the salary of minerals agents whose services are, as many of your Lordships know who are practically acquainted with these matters, indispensable in the case of every royalty owner. From the figures I have given it will be obvious to your Lordships that the State has been receiving, and is now receiving, a larger proportion of the receipts on royalties than the nominal owner of the royalties; and it will, perhaps, be a matter of regret to some future Chancellor of the Exchequer to lose this considerable branch of the revenue if mineral royalties are nationalised.
The second Question of my noble friend asks whether in the opinion of His Majesty's Government it is fair that the Excess Minerals Rights Duty should be imposed on that part of royalties on minerals which have been paid over to the Government. I am not authorised by His Majesty's Government to answer this question, but most noble Lords know that, under the present system of assessing Income Tax on lands or houses, we most of us have to pay Income Tax on much that we do not and cannot receive. My noble friend might equally ask whether the Government thought that was fair. I am afraid that the only answer I can give is that at present it is legal.

TURKISH RULE IN ARMENIA.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY rose to call attention to the sufferings of the Christian refugees, Armenian, Nestorian, and Chaldæan, who are still prevented from returning to their homes by the Turkish troops who are occupying the districts from which they were driven, and to the repeated declarations made by the Government that all Turkish rule should cease in Armenia and the other districts referred to; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give any information as to the steps taken or proposed in relation thereto.
The most rev. Primate said: My Lords, I do not think that any of your Lordships who have taken an interest in the question relating to which I have placed a notice on the Paper will take exception to public attention being called to the matter at this time. We have reached a stage in what may be called the resettlement of the world after war, when this matter, whether it be possible or not to handle it thoroughly, at present, is one of urgent and massive importance; and it it is to be handled it is well that it should be in the public recollection what has passed hitherto respecting it, and with what it is we really have to deal.
Just three years have passed since a remarkable Blue-book was published in October, 1916—a Blue Book which I venture to say, if the war had not at that time absorbed everyone's attention and retained their attention for some time afterwards, would have had a position and a reputation unlike most of the books which appear under covers of that colour and in that form. It was the Blue-book giving the story of the treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and containing a collection of documents relating to it. The treatment of Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and to some extent Greeks, is handled in some measure at least in that book, and the book is one which to any one who desires to understand the whole question is not only essential for proper information but is interesting from cover to cover.
The appalling stories of wholesale massacre, of expulsion of great populations from their homes under conditions which could only be described as in most cases slowly dragged-out massacre, are set before us in incident after incident, showing what has happened on a scale so vast as is scarcely credible in our own time or, indeed, in any time. Every one who studies the subject at once begins to ask himself: Are the outrages which are here described the misdeeds of lawless ruffians who are out of hand and incapable of knowing what mercy or humanity means, or can they be the deliberate acts of a Government itself? On that question very large issues would necessarily turn. Unhappily the Blue-book leaves the impartial reader in no doubt whatever as to the answer which must be given. The book is no mere string of incidents. It gives the coherent story of these years, introduced and supplemented by narratives of the past and

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summaries of what has happened in the present which enable us by the lucidity, the range, and the clear arrangement of the whole, to deal with that question without hesitation and to arrive at the conclusion which is, I think, inevitable. No one reading it carefully but must be convinced, not, I will say, of the Turkish Government's complicity in these matters, but of its authorship, the actual authorship of these unspeakable outrages.
At the very outset of the war a deliberate plan was adopted, it is perfectly clear, by the Turkish Government for dealing with these long oppressed peoples, peoples in their various groups whose courage, whose loyalty to their Christian faith and, in some cases, whose industry aid grit had enabled them to hold their own for centuries and centuries in face of oppression, and poverty, anti misrule. The Government decided upon a cold-blooded plan of a double character. It was first to be a plan of quite deliberate massacre on a large scale, and it was next to be a plan of so-called deportation from the occupied regions which, in very many cases, merely meant massacre in a deferred degree.
Different regions were taken in order. The records which are here brought to light show that there were telegrams at the same time sent to the various parts of the Empire so that the massacre, if it was to be a massacre, should take place at the same time in different places. The deportations were carefully arranged by a plan which makes it utterly impossible to suppose that they were the acts of local governors, or local authorities, or that they emanated from any other source than headquarters, whether or no those headquarters had an identity different from that which belonged to the Turkish Government.
What took place is described in this book by eye-witnesses. Narrative after narrative gives it in detail. These are not for the most part the accounts of victims who had survived; they are narratives by calm, competent, highly-skilled observers, familiar with the country, familiar with the people, and incapable of misrepresenting what they saw. Americans, Germans—I will note Germans very markedly—and English observers as well. These all support, with practical unanimity, the stories given by those victims who had survived, whose records, had they not been thus supported, might very unfairly have
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been judged as not likely to be correctly or temperately given.
The last thing I want to do is to go over in detail horrors of this kind. I would quote just two instances in order to give examples of the kind of things to which I refer. There was, first, the policy of this deportation that we speak of. I have chosen out of an almost unlimited number of cases which one might choose, a statement by the principal of the American college who has gone into the whole matter with the most accurate observation and with statistical care, in regard to one particular deportation, and this is his summary of it—
"Front the village of E—"
The observer has not mentioned what village it was—
"212 individuals set out—"
"Set out" means, of course, that they were driven from their homes with the express intention of their being taken somewhere to be settled, were driven for the most part into wild regions over roads of such length and under such conditions of hardship that the survival only of the strongest of them was possible. All the young men before that time had in every single case been taken away, and the old men, the women, and the children were the people who survived to be the victims of the deportation—
"From the village of E 212 individuals set out, of whom 128 (60 per cent.) reached Aleppo alive; 56 men and 11 women were killed on the road, 3 girls and 9 boys were sold or kidnapped, and 5 people were missing. From the same place another party of 696 people were deported; 321 (46 per cent.) reached Aleppo: 206 men and 57 women were killed en route; 70 girls and young women and 19 boys were sold; 23 were missing. From the village of D a party of 128 were deported, of whom 32 (25 per cent.) reached Aleppo alive: 24 men and 12 women were killed en route; 29 girls and young women and 13 boys were sold; and 18 were missing."
I have purposely taken not one of the many accounts which give the facts in their detail, but a summary of that which the observer found to be the outcome. If we remember the phrase that "seventy girls and young women, and nineteen boys were sold," and we look over the page to see what that means we find how, as they passed each town, the girls or young women were in most cases paraded in front of the house of any Turkish buyer who chose to come and take them for purposes described in detail, so unutterably horrible—girls

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being constantly done to death by those who took them in this way—as make the records appalling to read. That, I take it, is by no means an extreme case. There are many cases where the numbers were greater and the survivors fewer, but I have taken the one which was testified to by so competent and cool an observer, who is able to give us figures and not to talk in any way general terms.
So much for the deportation part. Let me give you one form among many that there are with regard to the massacres. The massacres were often en route. For example, great numbers of women and young girls were placed on board dumb barges on the Tigris and half an hour after leaving the bank they were thrown overboard, while soldiers had been placed in proper positions along the banks to prevent any of them reaching the shore. That kind of thing happened not in twenty, thirty, or fifty cases, but—I do not say in thousands—but certainly in many hundreds of cases.
This kind of thing is also described by a careful observer whose name is there—
"Every one of the Armenians, leaders as well as men, was killed fighting"—
That is, the younger men—
"and when the silence of death reigned over the ruins of churches and the rest, the Moslem rabble made a descent upon the women and children and drove them out of the town into large camps which had already been prepared for the peasant women and children. The ghastly scenes which followed may indeed sound incredible, yet these reports have been confirmed from Russian sources beyond all doubt. The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them. Fire was set to large wooden sheds in Alidjan, Megrakom, Khaskegh, and other Armenian villages, and these absolutely helpless women and children were roasted to death. Many went mad and threw their children away; some knelt down and prayed amid the flames in which their bodies were burning; others shrieked and cried for help which came from nowhere. And the executioners, who seem to have been unmoved by this unparalleled savagery, grasped infants by one leg and hurled them into the fire, calling out to the burning mothers, 'Here are your lions.' "
That is the kind of description which occurs, not once or twice in this book. It is not some over-wrought account by an excited observer, but it is the record of really competent people telling what they saw take place, not at one spot but at many, over a region of that fertile country which is capable of better things.
There are not a few men and women in this country who are able to speak as eyewitnesses of many of these things. Some of your Lordships know, and have had the privilege of making the acquaintance of, a lady in a high position among the Nestorians, Surma the sister of Mar Shimun, the late Patriarch, who is now in this country as a sort of delegate from her people. She is able to speak with the fullest personal knowledge of details of happenings which she herself has witnessed. Her brother, the Patriarch, was massacred. She herself survived and the account she gives, with great calmness and perfect self-control, of things she has seen and what she knows to have happened to her sisters, cousins and other relatives and friends, women and girls particularly, are such as support to the full, one is only too sorry to say, the very worst accounts which appear in the printed record.
What was the result, taking it in a large way numerically? I prefer here to take the statement of one of these careful statistical observers who has summarised for the Blue-book what were the results. I may be asked "Are you speaking of a few thousand, or how many thousand?" I will read the paragraph in which it is summarised—
"There is no dispute as to what happened in 1915. The Armenian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire were everywhere uprooted from their homes and deported to the most remote and unhealthy districts that the Government could select for them. Some were murdered at the outset, some perished on the way, and some died after reaching their destination. The death-roll amounts to upwards of six hundred thousand; perhaps six hundred thousand more are still alive in their places of exile; and the remaining six hundred thousand or so have either been converted forcibly to Islam, gone into hiding in the mountains, or escaped beyond the Ottoman frontier. The Ottoman Government cannot deny these facts, and they cannot justify them."
If you refer to the Book itself you will see that the estimate is carefully reached as the result of balancing different evidence about the numerical details, which are obviously very difficult to obtain. If it errs at all I am quite clear it errs by under-stating, rather than over-stating, the facts.
I believe that the story of these years is really an outrage on civilisation without historical parallel in the world. I do not believe that in the wildest barbarities recorded in history, including those of the days of Tamerlane, you would be able to exceed, if you could parallel, the accounts

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that are here given. And these can be, as I have said, undoubtedly traced, not to the outrageous conduct of undisciplined hordes, but to the deliberate plan and scheme of a Government with which you are supposed to have been on friendly terms and in alliance for many purposes. After all the distractions which the war has brought into the mind of men all over the world in contemplating contemporary history, is it conceivable that we are going to allow these facts to be forgotten; or, if we do not allow them to be forgotten, that we are going to allow conditions to arise again during which their repetition can be possible? That seems to me to be a question which ought to be, and must be, asked at once.
Any person to whom one mentions the subject naturally asks, "How do they explain, how do they account for, this themselves? What answer do the Turks themselves give to a statement of that kind as to the wholesale character of these horrible doings? To my mind hardly anything is more damning in its condemnation than the nature of the defence which is offered. There are three different branches of excuses given, which are summarised for us in this book. The first is that these were rebellious people, that they were not really loyal to Turkey's rule—we know what the Turkish rule over them had been for a great many years—and that it was necessary to exercise disciplinary action in order to reduce things to order. This is the way they put it—
"It was the Ottoman Government's duty to uphold public law and order. In war time measures of this kind assume an especially weighty and pressing character."
It is not that the thing is not true. As to the next explanation the quotations I am going to give you would, if one could get away from the horribleness of the whole thing, really have an almost humorous character. The Turkish Governor said—
"The sad events that have occurred in Armenia have prevented my sleeping well at night. We have been reproached for making no distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty; but that was utterly impossible, in view of the fact that those who were innocent to-day might be guilty to-morrow."
That is the second explanation. Is it possible to conceive, when officials in high places give that as an explanation of what has taken place, that we can regard the doings in any way except with horror?
The third explanation is a deliberate statement that it was revenge executed upon Armenians and other Christians resident in Turkey for the fact that Armenians and other Christians were fighting against them in Russia at that time. Here is another quotation—
"Was it not human nature that we should revenge ourselves on the Armenians at home for the injury we had received from their com-patriots fighting against us at the front in the Russian ranks—men who had actually volunteered to fight against us in the enemy's cause?"
Therefore, those who in their own country were subjects of the Turkish Empire and were allied to those who in another country were fighting against Turkey, were to be treated in the way here described. You will notice that every one of these excuses admits the facts. The facts, as far as I know, have never been challenged except in vague generalities asserting that they were gross exaggerations. The facts are patent; the authors of these misdeeds stand self-condemned as well as condemned by the opinion of every reasonable man.
It is, of course, difficult to know how to deal with the question and that is a matter which is not within my province or within my power to handle in any way at all. No one contends that it is a very easy matter to know what ought to happen next, and hardly any one contends that we should suppress the Turk in Asia Minor proper; that is in the peninsula west of a line running from Samsoon in the north to Alexandretta in the south. West of that line we admit that Asia Minor is a region under Turkish rule, and presumably it is to continue to prevail with whatever checks or supervision are practicable. No one suggests that they should be suppressed in this region. But east of that line the whole conditions are entirely different. That region has never historically belonged properly to Turkey; is not inhabited by the Turkish races, nor are the Turks as numerous there, as are other races.
When the Turkish arrangement of the Provinces there was made, I understand that the vilayets were so constructed and defined as purposely to make the elements contained in them as heterogeneous as possible so as to prevent a great Christian population growing up. The result is that the races are very mixed, and they really have no claim to be Turkish in character. They are of all kinds and sorts of races; a very large proportion of Christians, and many

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Mohammedans. Though strong things have been said as to the nature of the Kurds many observers say that the Kurds and Armenians would get on fairly well together provided there was some control of the whole country, some government properly controlling the country when the Kurds would no longer commit the outrages which he is only too ready to perpetuate when encouraged by the Turk. This region could get on without Turkish rule with less difficulty than some people suppose. But whatever is the process for mending matters the Government and the Allies have declared their resolve quite clearly to prevent a repetition of these outrages.
I do not think some of your Lordships, and doubtless many people in the country, realise what a great deal we are doing at this moment for these Christian people. There is a great camp outside Baghdad into which the remnant of these refugees, Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans, have been collected up to the number of 50,000, and we are paying for their upkeep and care at the rate of £1,000 a day. It is worth knowing that this country is doing the work on this gigantic scale. We believe that for the moment we are doing what is best for these unhappy people.
But what is to happen next?—that is the purport of my question. We have always believed firmly that as regards America, when the war was over and the active help which Americans gave us so strenuously during the war ceased to be necessary, we might rely on the same spirit to help us in these matters. It is no more our business in one sense than it is theirs, and we have a right to expect that we are going to get some practical, strong, and substantial aid from those who have shared our responsibilities in war and who we believe ought to share them now. My fear is that the story of these horrors have been almost obliterated from many minds by the incidents of the war, in which we had perhaps a more direct concern and that they will fade into the background and be forgotten. People will think that we ought to go on now in the way we are doing and make the best of it. I do not believe the Government will think that but I can imagine, and I know, that such an opinion is finding expression in many quarters now.
It has been definitely promised that whatever flag it is which flies over these regions in the future the actual control
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must never again be in Turkish hands. I will not trouble your Lordships with quotations but I will give two from the Prime Minister himself. Speaking in December 20, 1917, in the House of Commons the Prime Minister said this—
"What will happen to Mesopotamia must be left to the Peace Congress when it meets; but there is one thing that will never happen; it will never be restored to the blasting tyranny of the Turk. At best he was a trustee of this far famed land on behalf of Ah! what a trustee! He has been false to his trust, and his trusteeship must be given over to more competent and more equitable hands chosen by the Congress which will settle the affairs of the world. That same observation applies to Armenia, the land soaked with blood of innocents massacred by the people who were bound to protect them."
Speaking a little later the Prime Minister said—
"Outside Europe we believe the same principles should be applied. While we do not challenge the maintenance of the Turkish Empire in the home lands of the Turkish race with its capital at Consantinople—the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea being internationalised and neutralised—Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine are, in our judgment, entitled to a recognition of their separate national conditions. What the exact form of that recognition in each particular case should be need not be here discussed, beyond stating that it would be impossible to restore to their former sovereignty the territories to which I have just referred."
I ask now, What are we to understand as to their fulfilment? I do not believe I appeal to an unsympathetic tribunal. I apologise for having detained your Lordships so long but the point raised in the question had to be made clear; it is one which deserves attention and must not pass from the memory of civilised people. It is a matter of vital import to the honour of humanity and the good faith and wellbeing of the world.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, I do not want to stand between the House and my noble friend Lord Bryce, but, I have an engagement which compels me to go away presently. No one will dispute the extreme gravity or the poignant tragedy of many of the incidents which the moat rev. Primate has placed before us. He has recapitulated from the Blue-book many of the most terrible incidents in the long career of bloodshed, atrocity, and crime which has disfigured what I hope will be the dying days of the Turkish Empire in those parts of Asia to which he had alluded. I need not dwell or even comment upon that

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narrative, which can leave but one impression on the minds of those who are brought in contact with it. What the House will be concerned to hear from me is what the Government are doing in the matter, and what is the prospect that lies before the unhappy peoples of whose sufferings we have heard so much from the most rev. Primate.
I observe that in his speech the Archbishop moved rather rapidly from Assyrians to Armenians and from Armenians to other Christian populations, treating them, as it is not unfair to do, as a great aggregate of suffering humanity placed under the cruel heel of the Ottoman Turk. In my reply I ask leave to distinguish rather sharply between them, because I think that your Lordships will wish to know what is being done for each community in the geographical area in which it is at the present moment. The most rev. Primate spoke a great deal about the Assyrians, variously known as Nestorians and Chaldæans. He spoke about the remarkable lady who has come from that race and from that country to England, and with whom I, among others, have had the privilege of conversing; and I may say, in passing, that a more remarkable specimen of womanhood, or a lady more competent to speak for the interesting community to which she belongs, it is impossible to imagine.
The most rev. Primate told us of the existence of this camp at Bakuba, in the vicinity of Baghdad, and spoke of the 50,000 or more refugees who have been there collected. Probably the number is in excess of what he says, and is nearer 53,000 than 50,000. They have been there from the month of September or October, 1918, and they consist partly of Assyrian Christians from the neighbourhood of Lake Urumia in Persia; partly—and this is the larger number—of Assyrians from the regions of Kurdistan; and partly also of Armenians, 12,000 in number, who are included in that total. There, as the Archbishop correctly pointed out, we have been maintaining them ourselves for over a year and a-quarter. The cost, I think, has been even greater than the most rev. Primate anticipated. It has amounted to £4 per head per month, or an aggregate of over £200,000 a month, which works out—I mentioned to your Lordships that the total period already exceeded a year and a quarter—at £2,500,000 in the year. These
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unhappy people in this country have been occupied in various forms of work—namely, military work, gendamerie, road-making, camp duties, cultivation, and so on, but of course the important thing is to get them back. The difficulty about that is manifest. In the first place those who are Persians in origin and come from the neighbourhood of the Persian lake cannot go back to a country access to which is at present closed, and where no sort of security exists, and for the time being the lady to whom the most rev. Primate and myself have referred herself fully realises that repatriation to the Persian homes of these Christians is not to be contemplated.
Then there is a further difficulty. We have no right under the terms of the Armistice to repatriate these people to any place outside the Armistice area; in other words, we have no right, even if we had the force (and we have not the force), to take them back into the mountainous region of Kurdistan, and obviously it would be suicidal folly to send them out to be waylaid and murdered on the way. These people themselves are, of course, reluctant to move unless tinder conditions which give them reasonable security, and as winter is now approaching I am afraid we cannot expect to do anything substantial until the spring. Meanwhile the administration of this camp has been taken over by the civilian from the military authorities, and it is hoped that the expense will thereby be reduced to £3,000 a day.
Willing as we have been to pay, we have never quite been able to see why this expenditure, as indeed most of the expenditure of the war in the East, has fallen upon Great Britain alone. Therefore we have invited France, who is greatly interested in that part of the East, to bear her share of the burden. Our policy there is quite clear. It is to get the Persian Assyrians back to their country as soon as conditions admit of it; and as regards the Assyrians who lived before and who are willing to live again in the areas which belong to the old Turkish Empire, either to place them in an enclave adjacent to the territories under our control, so that they may be under our wing and within easy reach of our protection, or, if we provide a home for them in their former home lands or further afield among the Kurdish peoples, to try to make such arrangements for them as may secure their safe and decent existence.

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Here let me say that what the most rev. Primate said about the relations between the Kurds and the Armenians appears also to be true about the relations between the Kurds and the Assyrian Christians, because the lady who has been referred to told me that she did not anticipate that difficulties would arise from that cause. The fact is that these people when not stirred up by the Turks, or by local feuds, are quite capable of getting on with each other; indeed, the Assyrians are in many ways necessary to the Kurds, for the purposes of cultivation and otherwise. If you can arm a sufficient number of them to act as a sort of gendarmerie to themselves, I believe there is no reason why in the future those two communities should not live side by side. That is the object that we are keeping before ourselves, and I hope that when winter is over and spring comes we may be able to take steps to move them back to their own homes. So much for the Assyrian Christians.
Now may I say a word about the Armenians, and I need not enlarge upon—indeed, I need not devote even a passing sentence to endorsing—what the most rev. Primate said about the historic sufferings and miseries of that people. Never in their long history have they been so scattered or dispersed or in a more forlorn and pitiable condition than at present. What are we doing for the Armenians, and where are the Armenians with whom it is possible to deal? I spoke just now about the 12,000 who were at Bakuba, refugees from different parts of what was formerly Turkish territory. The most rev. Primate himself alluded to the Armenians in the South, and there have been until quite recently for the best part of a year if not for longer something like 12,000 Armenian refugees at or in the immediate neighbourhood of Aleppo. The House is probably aware from what it has seen in the Press that arrangements have been recently concluded between the British and French Governments by which those parts of Syria and Cilicia have been evacuated by the British troops who have hitherto occupied them and handed over to the French, and accordingly when this step took place we proposed to transfer to the charge of the French the 12,000 Armenian refugees at Aleppo to whom I have referred. That charge was accepted by them, and those persons are being transferred to Cilicia. There are also a number of Armenian refugees at other towns in the north of
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Syria, Marash and Urfa, and other places which are now in the French sphere, and who will therefore be looked after by the French. Then if you come to Cilicia itself, there is the Armenian community in that old province of the Turkish Empire which throughout has been under the military and civil administration of the French where therefore the Armenians are again a French charge. So much for the southern fringes of the Old Armenia.
If we go up to the North we come to the areas where a larger number of these exiles are congregated. There has been for some time a cluster of 25,000 to 30,000 refugees from Turkish Armenia in the State of Azerbaijan. I am glad to say that the relief work of feeding them and saving them from destitution has for the most part been undertaken by the Americans. Next door to them we come to the old Province of Russian Armenia which, in the new condition of affairs, has claimed for itself a national existence, calls itself the Armenian Republic, maintains a form of Government, and indeed a definite national existence, with its centre at Erivan. Around Erivan and Kars are said to be a population of about 500,000 Armenians. I should say that one of the most difficult features of the Armenian case is that of reconciling the various figures that are given, sometimes from American, sometimes from British, and sometimes from native, sources. I assure your Lordships that they differ not only by 50 or 100 per cent., but sometimes by 200 and 300 per cent. I only give your Lordships the figures which are the best that I can produce. There are believed to be in this Armenian State something like 500,000 resident Armenians. Then there is the refugee population who have crowded in there from the west and south-west. Again the figures that I have been given from different sources vary from 150,000 to 300,000. I do not know where the truth lies between these extremes. Here, my Lords, I am afraid that there has been and there is great suffering, a very heavy mortality, and that the people have in many cases reached the absolute limit of their resistance. Here again the principal work has been done and is now being done by the American Relief Mission, and it is a splendid thing that we have found our own charitable efforts backed not only by the large heart but by the deep purse of the American nation in this emergency.
About one thing I think we may be reassured. A few months ago we were told

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on every side that there was very grave danger of a massacre of these unhappy people, and that a repetition of some of the worst horrors of the past was to be feared. As far as I can make out that is not at all likely to be true, partly because the Armenians themselves are now in many quarters well armed and are able to look alter them elves, and partly because I suspect that the old Armenian massacres of which we have heard so much were almost invariably ordered for political reasons from Constantinople; and now that Constantinople is voiceless and powerless in the matter there is really no one, as far as I can see, interested in setting in motion that particular weapon of cruelty.
The Americans and ourselves—for we have officers in the Caucasus—are doing the best possible to establish peaceful relations between those Armenian groups of whom I have last been speaking and their neighbours in the neighbouring states and partly owing to the influence of the American head of the Allied Mission deputed from the Paris Conference to do what he could in that neighbourhood, and partly by the efforts of Mr. Wardrop, who is our own Consul at Tiflis, much more harmonious and peaceful relations have been created between the Armenians in the centre, the Azerbaijanis on the East, and the Georgians on the West. I hope myself that the worst is over, and that there are here the germs of a State which will retain an independent existence in the future with clearly-defined boundaries, and able to live in peace and amity with its neighbours.
The most rev. Primate alluded to the different declarations that have been made at various times since we went into the country by responsible spokesmen of His Majesty's Government. He quoted in particular two declarations made in the course of last year or the year before by the Prime Minister. By those declarations we stand. They have never been departed from there. They do not express the sentiments, the aspirations, or the intentions of ourselves alone. They are shared by all our Allies. And, my Lords I hope that many months—I may even go further and say that I hope that many weeks—will not now elapse before the Allied Powers in Conference are able seriously to come to a solution of the Turkish problem, too long delayed already, and bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.
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I am not certain that as this is solved the larger aspirations which were once entertained of an Armenia stretching from sea to sea will be capable of realisation. The problem is not merely one of means and of money; it is also one of men. Many of us had hoped—I myself cherished the hope for long—that America would have been willing to take up this great responsibility. President Wilson was, I believe, earnestly disposed to do so at one moment, and for all I know may be so still, and had America taken it up she would with her large ideas and her great resources have been able to do it on a much larger and more satisfactory scale than anybody else. I am afraid that the omens in the United States are very unfavourable to any such solution being found, and I think that the best that we can do for the time being, without surrendering the hope of better things, is to try and solidify, consolidate, and build up the fortunes of an Armenian State in that part of the world to which I have referred. I think I have covered most of the ground that was touched upon by the most rev. Primate.
I hope, as I have to go in a moment, that my noble friend Lord Lamington, who has a Starred Question on the Paper, will allow me to answer it before I sit down. The Question he asks me is "whether I will lay on the Table the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the disorders that took place at Smyana last May and June." The Report in question is addressed to the Peace Conference by an Allied Commission appointed by the Supreme Council in Paris, and is not the exclusive property of His Majesty's Government. It is therefore, I am afraid, not in our power to lay it.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, as I recognise the very large amount of business which remains to be done this evening I shall confine myself to a very few remarks upon what has just fallen from the noble Earl. I am anxious that the House should appreciate the great urgency that this question has with regard to these refugees upon whom the most rev. Primate dwelt, and who have been referred to in some detail by the noble Earl who has just spoken. They are anxious to return to their homes. They are anxious, not only on account of the suffering which at present presses en them, and which some of them have endured for more than two years—now nearly for four years since they first fled

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from the great massacres of 1915. It is by that that the prosperity of the country, if it is ever to be restored, must be restored. Meanwhile they are dying—dying by hundreds a week in many places, not only from disease, but from starvation and from diseases which are due to starvation. They are dying in spite of all the relief which we are giving at Bakuba, in spite of the relief which has been given partly by Americans in the north, but from British sources also—and in the case of the Americans I should like to say that a sum of £6,000,000 has been sent out from America within the last ten months—and that in addition to millions of pounds which had been previously contributed by America. It is only fair that, although the American Government has not come forward, the private gifts of Americans to this immense extent should be appreciated in this country.
It is becoming a matter of great urgency that these unfortunate refugees, who in the north in particular are perishing in such numbers, should be able as soon as possible to return to their homes, rebuild their houses, cultivate the fields, and avoid the prospect of a famine which is always impending in these countries where it is so difficult to bring food and where there has been so little cultivation during the last four years. They cannot return until something is done to check the Turkish bands which are still ravishing the country. There are, I am informed, no regular Turkish forces now in Armenia proper, that is to say, in Armenia to the east of the Taurus Mountains, nor in Cilicia, but there are wandering bands—the remnants of the former Turkish forces—and all the bad characters who always come to front where a country is in complete disorder, and these are so numerous and so well armed that it would be unsafe for the refugees at present to return.
What I therefore desire to press upon His Majesty's Government is the duty of taking all possible steps to endeavour to free the country from these bands in order that the refugees may return and may again resume the cultivation of the country. Of course, it is said that you require a large force, but it must be remembered that although these bands are Irregulars they are all more or less amenable to the Turks who remain—to some extent to Constantinople, and to some extent to Mustafa Kemal, who is in command of a large Turkish force which is
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to the west of the region I have described, on the other side of the Taurus in Asia Minor. If it is provided in the Treaty to be made with Turkey that one condition of the Treaty shall be that the authorities at Constantinople and such Turks as remain in power in Asia Minor, such as Mustafa Kemal, shall at once be responsible for joining in the pacification of the country and securing the withdrawal of these bands, it will then be possible for these refugees to return.
I believe that by that means, by means of the exercise of diplomatic pressure, by sending a force into the country, which need not be a very large force, to see that these bands are suppressed, it will be possible to enable the refugees to return in safety. I believe that although there is a certain amount of ammunition and a certain number of rifles still in the hands of these bands, and also in the hands of Mustafa Kemal, they have no artillery to speak of, and, of course, they are dependent for supplies of ammunition and of many other things upon commerce with the West, and therefore the British Fleet would be able to prevent any military supply from coming in, and to put a pressure upon them which will be extremely efficient in reducing the Turks to reason, and in securing that, when the Treaty is made providing for their withdrawal and the pacification of this country, that Treaty will be carried out.
That brings me to say a word about the Treaty itself. The first condition of any Treaty to be made with the Turks is that they shall entirely evacuate what is known as Armenia. I share the view which was expressed by the most rev. Primate that there is no reason why a Turkish Sultan should not continue to reign in those parts of Asia Minor where there is a majority of the Muslim population. The Muslim population is in the large majority along the north coast of Asia Minor, and through most parts of the central plateau, and there a Sultan may remain, and if anybody likes—if he can obtain recognition from the Mahomedan world as Caliph—he may remain as Caliph also. But what I believe the public of this country will insist upon, and in fact, what public opinion must insist upon when it knows the facts and realises those facts upon which the most rev. Primate dwelt—the immense scale and the circumstances of horror which attended these massacres and which have shown once again how utterly unfit the Turk is to

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exercise powers over persons of a different faith and race—is that there shall be no more Turkish rule in Armenia nor in those other regions, Chaldæan and Assyrian, in which the massacres have been perpetrated.
Some other declarations—those made by the present Prime Minister—have been referred to by the most rev. Primate. I could if it were necessary give other declarations—declarations made by Mr. Balfour on behalf of the Government, declarations made by Lord Robert Cecil on behalf of the Government., declarations made by M. Clemenceau who also pledged France to secure liberation of the Armenians. And therefore I am very glad to know that the noble Earl, in the words which he spoke just now, declared that His Majesty's Government—and he said he spoke for the Allies also—stand by those declarations, and intend to fulfil them. I am sure the House will note with satisfaction that declaration, and will feel sure that His Majesty's Government will carry it out. But I want to press this point upon it, that that must be taken to mean the regions in which the Muslim population is not in a large majority, such as the centre of Asia Minor, and that the declaration must be taken to include all the countries to the east of the Taurus Mountains, Cilicia, and the six vilayets of Armenia, and that it is not only for the Republic at Erivan that independence is to be promised, but that that independence is to belong to all the regions which historically belong to the Armenian part of Western Asia.
I need only remind your Lordships that if you desire to have any other view of the conduct of the Turks and the character of those massacres in addition to that which the Blue-book presents, to which the most rev. Primate has referred, you will find it in the book of Mr. Morgenthau, the American Ambassador at Constantinople during the period of the massacres. He tells us himself that he constantly went to Enver and Talaat, who are the two chiefs of the Committee of Union and Progress and the persons chiefly responsible for planning and carrying out the massacres. He represented to them that the world would be outraged if those things continued, and he tried for the same purpose to enlist the sympathy of the German Ambassador, Wangenheim. He describes there how Talaat and Enver did not attempt to conceal the massacres, did not deny what their policy of extermination was.
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They did it all with a deliberate purpose; they were supported by the other members of the Committee of Union and Progress, and not a word was said amongst the Turks against these massacres.
LORD LAMINGTON: And the Germans.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: Yes, the Germans also knew; but I am speaking now of Turkish opinion. Not a word was said in Turkey, or by the Committee of Union and Progress, to deprecate the massacres; and the Germans, through Wangenheim, absolutely refused to interfere. If anything were needed to show how impossible it is to allow the Turk to go into the regions of which I am speaking, the facts stated in the Blue-book and the facts stated by Mr. Morgenthal would be sufficient.
I had intended, had there been more time, to have dwelt also upon some very important British political interests which attach to this country. It is a matter of the highest political interest for the future of Persia that there should be no Turkish power co-terminous with Persia to threaten Persia or to bring into it, and through it into regions further east, those intrigues of which we have heard so much and in which the Turk is the tool of the German. It is very much to the interest of Persia and Afghanistan that there should be no contact with the Turk any more. It is very much to the interest of India, and for the security of India, that the country between the Black Sea and the Caspian, which is now held by the four small republics which have emerged from what was Trans-Caucasia, should not be used as a strategic base through which the Turk, as the tool of Germany, can form designs against Baluchistan and Afghanistan and the security of India itself. We know what the plans of the Germans were, and the most efficient way of preventing them from being carried out is to prevent any contact between the Turks beyond the Caspian and the Turks who ought to be confined hereafter to the regions of Asia Minor That is, however, a subject too large to dwell upon further at present.
I welcomed what was said by the noble Lord with regard to the solidifying of the Armenian Republic of Erivan. I believe it would be very greatly to the advantage of that Republic, and greatly contribute to the preservation of order in those districts, if His Majesty's Government would allow

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some British superior officers to superintend the levies that they say they could raise, and also give them some rifles and ammunition which would enable them to arm the forces they could collect. They assure me that they could arm and put into the field a considerable force if they could have a supply of ammunition from His Majesty's Government. The desire has been expressed that this force should be under the order of British officers in order to prevent anything happening in a country where passions have been aroused, and where we should have the security that the force would be used for policing and not for revenge by the Armenians. I hope that suggestion will be considered by His Majesty's Government. I am glad to note that an arrangement has now been made—a sort of treaty concluded—on the one hand between the Republic of Erivan and the Tartars to the east of them; and on the other hand between the representatives of the Armenians and the Kurds who live to the north, so that in those two quarters there is the prospect of an arrangement which will result in an ultimate peace.
With regard to the Americans, I think it is premature to conclude that there will not be some assistance from the United States. I continue to hope that, whether it takes the form which was no doubt desired by President Wilson—namely, of the acceptance of a mandate, or whether it takes the form proposed of a pecuniary subvention, there is still reason to hope that America will feel, after the part she has taken in the war, that it might be a duty on her to do something further to aid the Allies in the establishment of peace, and to give some assistance to these countries which have suffered so much, and for which her sympathy has been in many ways so strong. She has contributed enormous sums for the relief of distress and for the preservation of life; in times past she has rendered great service to this country through her missionaries, and I think it is still possible to hope that she may do something in the future, as soon as the Treaty to be concluded with Turkey removes Turkey's power altogether from these regions, to give an opportunity for their future pacific development.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I desire to say a word with regard to the appointment of British officers for a force to be raised to prevent ebullitions of feeling between the Armenians and the Turks.
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The noble Viscount referred to vengeance being taken by the Armenians. As a matter of fact, in the spring of this year the Armenians did perpetrate cruelties on the Turks. It is to prevent this that I suggest some precautions should be taken. That is made more difficult by reason of the new settlement whereby France is really put into occupation of what might be termed Southern Armenia or Cilicia. I think it must be recognised that what the noble Viscount feared has already taken place in the early part of this year.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: There may have been something, but I do not think it was on a large scale. Further, I thought it was in a different part of the country from that to which my noble friend refers.
[The sitting was suspended at twenty minutes past eight o'clock and resumed at a quarter past nine.

LAND SETTLEMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Procedure for compulsory acquisition of land, and entry on land to be acquired.
3.—(1) For the purpose of the compulsory acquisition of land under the foregoing provisions of this Act, the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act shall have effect.
(2) Where an Order for the compulsory acquisition of land has been duly made under the provisions of this Act, then at any time after a notice to treat has been served the Board may, after giving not less than fourteen days' notice to each owner, lessee, and occupier of the land or such part thereof as is specified in the notice, enter on and take possession of the land without previous consent or compliance with sections eighty-three to eighty-eight of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1845, but subject to the payment of the like compensation for the land of which

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possession is taken and interest on the compensation awarded as would have been payable if those provisions had been complied with.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved to insert the following new subsection—
"(2) No order for the compulsory acquisition of land made under the provisions of this Act shall authorise the acquisition of any land which at the date of the order forms part of any park, or of any home farm attached to and usually occupied with a mansion house if the land is required for the amenity or convenience of the mansion house, or of any land which at that date forms part of any garden or pleasure ground, or which is woodland, not wholly surrounded by or adjacent to land acquired by the Board under this Act."
The noble Duke said: This Amendment is perfectly simple and straightforward. There is a similar provision to be found in the Small Holders (Scotland) Act, and much the same idea is followed in the English Act. I cannot quite understand why it is not in Part I of this Bill. I presume the reason is that it was not thought that such ground would be required, that it possibly was of an expensive nature and unlikely to be dealt with within the period of two years which is covered by Part I of this Act. In other words, I imagine that the Secretary for Scotland, as he has not excised it from Part II of the Bill—that is to say, it is in there by inference—considers it is unnecessary in Part I, and therefore not objectionable in itself.
Perhaps the Secretary for Scotland is afraid that it might prevent him from purchasing a whole estate in which there may be a home farm or a mansion house. If such is the case, certainly it is not my intention to put that interpretation upon it. I must also point out to your Lordships that there is another Amendment later on that I may have to move on another part of the Bill, which deals with very much the same subject. It is to give the Board of Agriculture leave to buy other ground to substitute for a home farm if such is necessary and for the advantage of both parties.
I do not particularly wish to press this Amendment to a Division. At the same time it is only just and right that we should have it, because it might be very hard on a small estate especially if the whole of the surrounding ground were bought, and even the mansion house and the reasonable pleasure grounds were to be taken. I think it is necessary more for the protection of small landowners than large ones, and it is already admitted in the principal Act.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 18, at end insert the said new subsection.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendment which has been moved by the noble Duke in studiously moderate terms was one which was considered in the House of Commons and it may perhaps be worth while, in however short a time, to consider its history. It was moved, not in identical but in very similar terms, by Sir George Younger on October 28, and after debate it was withdrawn. An Amendment in terms which I think have suggested those employed by the noble Duke, was moved on the Report State on December 2. On that occasion it was negatived without a Division.
The restriction which the Amendment of the noble Duke would impose would apply to land purchased by the Board under Part I of the Bill. As regards land which may be selected for the purpose of small holdings under Part II, restrictions much more comprehensive than those suggested were prescribed by Section 7 and Section 26 of the Act of 1911, which are not affected by this Bill. When the Amendments were moved in the House of Commons it was pointed out—and this I think at least cannot be denied, whatever the reasonable view upon this question may be—that the usual and more convenient procedure under Part I would be for the Board to purchase the whole of an estate; and that while, even if the Amendment were inserted, the Board could still do this by agreement, yet if the landlord should refuse to sell the whole by agreement, the Board could insist on buying only divided portions. That might be, as any one will readily see, very hampering and restrictive upon their freedom.
Here we approach a question which I anticipate I shall have to ask more than once in the course of these debates—How far are your Lordships prepared to trust the Board? I know that many will say, and perhaps some among the number who have a good deal of experience of the Board, that they are not satisfied with the decisions which they have taken in the past, or with the exercise of their discretion in the past. These are topics that can only be touched upon with great reticence and discretion. I am not unaware that many noble Lords who represent important interests in Scotland have formed the view

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that the discretion of the Board in the last few years has not always been exercised—I choose my language carefully—in the wisest possible direction. We have, after all, to look to the future, and in my humble judgment, for what it is worth, that any great interest in this House—and the Scottish landlords, historically and actually, represent a very great interest in this House and a very powerful contribution to the national life of these Islands—I cannot help thinking that they would act unwisely if they despaired of the fairness of the Scottish Board of Agriculture; if, in other words, they said they were not definitely prepared to accept legislation upon these lines, and to believe that at least those who administer it will administer it with responsibility, with fairness, and with a due sense of their public obligation.
I make these general observations not because they bear directly upon the present Amendment but because I think these considerations ought to be borne in mind by your Lordships in the differences of opinion which have manifested themselves between those who speak for these interests and those who have put forward these proposals on behalf of the Government. I assure you that there is not only no desire to inflict any injustice upon any legitimate interest but that the very contrary is the case. It certainly does happen here, as it happened in the case of the English proposals—if the contrary can be proved in argument I will gladly listen and see whether I can meet it in reply—that cases arise in which it is not possible to carry out the purposes of the Government and not possible to give effect to admittedly public interests without involving a certain degree of inconvenience and of hardship to certain classes in the community.
I beg your Lordships to apply your minds to the specific proposals, not very numerous though of great importance, which confront us in the Committee stage of this Bill with the knowledge that it is the desire of every one, as far as their purpose can be reconciled with the essential objects of the Bill, to see that fair play is done. It was, and is, the view of the Secretary for Scotland and of the Board that the wiser course in relation to this particular Amendment would have been to rely upon the decision of the authorities—the consent of the Treasury and the consent of the Secretary for Scotland are alike necessary before such proposals can be
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carried out. While that is true, at the same time everybody must realise that there is some sentiment which surrounds the proposal to acquire land which forms part of a park or home farm, and if it be the view of those who I know are acting with the noble Duke that on the whole, and having regard to their experience in the last five or six years, they would prefer the security which is given to them by this Amendment to such security as is alternatively secured to them by a decision of the Board of Agriculture, subject to correction by the Secretary for Scotland, the Government would not be prepared to contest it or challenge it.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think the main point is this, that we are not quite satisfied that injustice might not be done under the Bill. There is no intention or wish to prevent the Secretary for Scotland, that is to say the Board, from purchasing the home estate, but we think it necessary to safeguard small estates for the next two years, and if the noble and learned Lord is prepared to say that this power under the Bill is not going to be used unjustly, I personally have no wish to force the Amendment, because I have a much more important one to move.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: I think one of the points is that it is possible for the whole of the land to be taken and only the mansion house left, which would be practically valueless. Under the clause that would be done, and it rather reads as if it was intended.
LORD LOVAT: May I raise one further point which I think goes to the whole root of the opposition to this Bill? I think the central point, which the Lord Chancellor rather seems to have missed in his argument, is that what is resented on this side is the fact that we in Scotland have been treated in an entirely different way from the way in which English Peers were treated when a Bill with exactly the same object, namely, the settlement of soldiers on the land in England, was introduced last session. That is the root of our opposition, because we say you are treating English owners of land in one way and—either because the Government declined to stand up to a certain section, or because they do not expect the same support from Scottish landlords—they have treated Scottish landowners in an entirely different way. It is not in the

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least a matter of administration by the Board. I am perfectly prepared to submit myself to the good mercy of the Board, and I hope we shall be properly treated, but here is a definite Amendment which was accepted in the English Bill but which is left out of this Bill.
If noble Lords on the Government bench can bring forward a single argument why in Scotland parks and home lands should be treated in a different way to parks and home lands in England, we shall be glad to listen to them, but no such argument is forthcoming. Personally I associate myself on the question of a division on this Amendment with the noble Duke who has recently spoken. We shall be very loth to divide the House on a matter of secondary importance. We have one and all declared that we wish to see this Bill passed and soldiers settled on the land, and if we have to make additional sacrifices we are prepared to do so; but we ask the Government to give us a concrete reason why landlords in Scotland should be treated differently from the stronger body of land-owners and people representing the land interest in England.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the discussion would have been accelerated if the noble Lord had listened a little more carefully to what I said. He is quite wrong in saying that I did not appreciate the central argument which was advanced. He is still more wrong when he says that I have not appreciated the point made on the Second Reading debate, that one must attempt to see whether landlords in Scotland are treated in the same way as landlords in England. It is for that reason that I indicated to your Lordships after considerable discussion that this Amendment was one which, if pressed, the Government are prepared to accept. Why noble Lords should say that I have paid no attention at all to the point made over and over again on the Second Reading I confess myself unable to see. I told the noble Duke who moved this Amendment in a spirit of great moderation that if on the whole he preferred the security which was afforded to him by this Amendment to reliance upon the Board of Agriculture the Government would not resist it. I cannot say more than that.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to
Clause 4:
"Power to contract to pay feu duty, &c.
4. Where, under the Small Holding Colonies Acts, 1916 and 1918, the Board has power to purchase land in consideration of a feu duty, ground annual, or other annual payment, the Board shall have power and shall be deemed always to have had power to contract to pay the feu duty, ground annual, or other annual payment as and when it becomes due.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved to insert as a new subsection—
"(2) Where the Board exercise the said power to purchase land in consideration of a feu duty, ground, annual, or other annual payment, the amount of the annual payment shall be such as would, if sold in the market by a willing seller at the time the amount of the annual payment is fixed, realise a capital sum equal to the value of the laud."
The noble Lord (who was indistinctly heard) said: The point that I want to raise is that this is a novel way of giving an agricultural holding in Scotland. So far as I know, we have no feus for agricultural land. The fens that we have experience of are feus for building land, and in those cases, of course, there is the house on the land as security for the feu. But if the land is feud, as, is proposed under this scheme, I do not see where there will be any security whatever for the feu. The Bill says that the Board has power to purchase land in consideration of a feu duty, and that the Board shall have power and shall be deemed always to have had power to contract to pay the feu duty as and when it becomes due. It is important in connection with this matter that consideration should be given to the market value of such an annual payment. It is easy to see that the capital value by the sale of a fourteen years' purchase can never possibly be approached. No one here will dispute that. The value of the farm may be considerable and yet all that the landlord can get is the equivalent of a fourteen years' purchase.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, after line 36, insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Saltoun.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord was kind enough this afternoon to bring me his Amendment and ask me if I had any observations that I could usefully make upon it. I regretted very much that at the moment I had another subject, and a very complicated and difficult one, in my mind, and it was not possible for me to take

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advantage of the opportunity for discussion that he was good enough to afford me. But I think the Amendment has been put down under a little misapprehension. The Amendment deals with the power of the Board, and it is a question of the exercise of "the said power" of the Board. The power which is referred to is their power when purchasing land to contract to pay an annual sum instead of a lump sum. This is a power that can be exercised by agreement only—I am not sure that the noble Lord is aware of that—that is, only if the owner of the land consents to accept payment in that form; and, that being so, it is for him to see that the annual payment is sufficient. He can always insist on payment of the whole price at once. Further, there is another point, namely, that the Amendment, if inserted, might prove to be actually hampering to limited owners contracting with the Board, for which purpose they have these special powers under Section 5 of the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897, which is applied by Clause 5 (2) of this Bill. No one is more conscious than, I am that to fling a number of sections and subsections at the head of the noble Lord is likely to be a little bewildering, and if there is any doubt about this point, if he would be good enough to approach me privately, I am quite sure I could resolve it to his satisfaction.
LORD SALTOUN: I think the wording of this is bad. If the noble and learned Lord would leave out the words "has power to," or at all events would consider that point and allow me to bring it up on Report, I think such an Amendment would make it much clearer.
LORD SHAW: I think the Amendment of the noble Lord opposite is really founded upon a mistake. I think this Amendment clearly applies to an arrangement for acquisition of land between the owner on the one hand and the Board on the other. If that acquisition of land is in the form of a capital payment, then there may be a fixed or an agreed sum, or they may be required to proceed to ascertain that sum. But in the case of agreement I desire to impress upon the House the great advantage to the landlord interest in accepting feu duties or annual payments instead of a capital sum. I will illustrate this by only one figure. In former times I had much to do with the valuation of property realised on the subject of feu duties. In those days
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the feu duties were of a higher value than now, but there is no better security known in Scotland than a feu duty. It is the envy of other systems of jurisprudence. May I press my noble friend to reconsider this matter, because I think the advantage of the option given to the landowner to make this a feu duty payment is highly in the interest of landed proprietors.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Powers of Board with respect to land acquired.
7. Without prejudice to any other power conferred on the Board by the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897, or the Small Holding Colonies Acts, 1916 and 1918, the Board shall have power in any case where in their opinion it is necessary or expedient so to do for the better carrying into effect the purposes of those Acts or of this Act—

(a) to erect, repair, or improve dwelling-houses and other buildings on any land acquired by the Board, or to execute any other improvement on or in connection with and for the benefit of any such land, or to arrange with the tenant or holder of any such land for the execution of any such improvement on such terms as may be agreed:

(b) to sell, excamb, or let any such land or any right or interest therein: and

(c) generally to manage any such land.

LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON moved, in paragraph (b), after "therein," to insert the following proviso—
("Provided that (subject to the provisions of this Act as to the prior offer to the Forestry Commissioners of land suitable for afforestation) unless the land has been offered to and purchased by the tenant of the land, the Board shall offer such land to the owner from whom the land was purchased, or his successor in title, at a price at which in default of agreement shall be determined by the Land Court ").
The noble Lord said: Clause 7 gives powers to the Board, and amongst those powers is that to "sell excamb or let any such land or any right or interest therein." It is obviously a distinct hardship to a landowner to have his land taken for the national purpose of the creation of small holdings and then in the course of time find that this land might be diverted to some other object—a factory, or whatever it might be. I have put down this Amendment for the protection of the original landowner. In the first place some objection was taken to it on account of the

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forestry interest, but that has now been included in the scope of my Amendment, and I therefore trust that the noble and learned Lord will accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 12, after ("therein") to insert the said proviso.—(Lord Lamington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would certainly not be possible to accept this Amendment in the language in which it is conveyed; and, as I do not desire to found myself upon a technical objection to it, I say that on the merits also it is in my judgment open to grave objection. As drafted the Amendment would require the Board to offer purchased land back again to the owner before letting it even to a small holder. I cannot think that this is the object of the noble Lord.
LORD LAMINGTON: No.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can assure the noble Lord that it will have that effect. No doubt it is intended to apply only to "sell or excamb," and this defect to which I have called attention could be rectified by inserting the words before "sell or excamb," such land. I ask the noble Lord to accept that.
LORD LAMINGTON: I accept that amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Now as to the merits. This Amendment, securing in every case where the Board purchases land for small holdings a right of pre-emption to the seller or his successor, was not proposed in the House of Commons, where many Amendments which were well worth consideration were brought forward—as has been the case also in this House—and it is one which in my judgment ought to be resisted. If the Board purchase by agreement and the seller desires to reserve such a right—in the case of an agreement it ought to be left to a voluntary and declared reservation—the Board can always consent if they think it compatible with proper freedom in their subsequent dealings and if they could thereby reduce the price. But if the Board should purchase compulsorily a much more formidable consideration arises. The intention then is that they should buy out and out, and the whole frame and the scheme of the Bill are upon the basis that they should buy out and out. In those circumstances the superfluous land
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provisions of the Lands Clause Act are excluded from incorporation by paragraph 2 of the First Schedule. This exclusion is in accordance with recent practice wherever a local authority or a Government Department is the acquiring authority, and I think I am right in saying that the practice has also been shared in England. I think this particular Amendment is open to two further criticisms, both of which are worthy of attention. In the first place, it is inconsistent with the obligation of the Board under Clause 6, sub-clause (5) of the Bill to give the Forestry Commissioners an opportunity of buying any land suitable for afforestation which the Board may wish to take.
LORD LAMINGTON: That is saved; that is in the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have the words of the noble Lord's Amendment before me, and I do not think it is saved.
LORD LAMINGTON: It says: "Subject to the provisions of this Act as to the prior offer to the Forestry Commissioners of land suitable for afforestation." That is saved.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I agree that those words save that, but I should desire to consider them more carefully before agreeing that the protection is complete. I think that particular criticism has been anticipated by the noble Lord, and he has attempted to deal with it. The second objection I suggest is, I think, more formidable. "The price at which the land was purchased," I think, is the wording used by the noble Lord. That, surely, is an uncertain measure. It is highly improbable that the Board would re-sell a whole estate, an estate in its entirety. I have the words here. [THE LORD CHANCELLOR then read the Amendment.] I do not know how recently the noble Lord amended his Amendment, but I think there is something in the last line which does not appear in the form in which it was before me this morning.
LORD LAMINGTON: It was circulated this morning.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It should be "price at which," I suppose?
LORD LAMINGTON: Yes.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I cannot help thinking that if this Amendment were adopted it would prove really to be quite inconsistent with the basis upon which any system of compulsory purchase can be defended. All the great landlords of these islands—it is a circumstance, if I may say so, of which we may all feel proud—have desired to assist the main features of these proposals, and, of course, a principal feature of all of them is the compulsory element. I cannot help thinking that the objection to this Amendment is almost insuperable, and that if the Board must purchase compulsorily the intention of such compulsory purchase is that they should buy out and out. In that case I would point out that the superfluous land provision of the Lands Clauses Act excludes the particular incorporation by paragraph (2) of the first schedule, and that practice has applied in the case of England in Scotland. Unless, therefore, this is one of those points—I know there are one or two to which noble Lords attach very great importance—which they regard as being of the highest importance, I should hope they would not think it worth while making this a subject of difference.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I venture to suggest that the noble and learned Lord should not give a final decision on this Amendment at present, because it is quite clear that since he first had the opportunity of seeing the Amendment it has been re-drafted. Anybody who followed his speech could see that the form in which he had seen the Amendment was not the precise form in which it appears on the Paper. Perhaps the drafting is not perfect now, because the noble and learned Lord has pointed out that certain words would require to be changed. But on the real substance of the matter, I think my noble friend behind me is absolutely right. The broad object of the Amendment is that if the land which has been taken from the landlord turns out in fact not to be required for the purpose of the Act, then the landlord shall have the opportunity to recover it. I cannot see anything objectionable in that principle. It seems to me to be straightforward. It does not follow as a matter of certainty that the landlord will wish to recover the land, but it is proposed that he should have the opportunity to do so, supposing it is not required for the purpose for which it was acquired by the authority.
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The only point which remains is as to the price at which this opportunity should be afforded. On this point it is clear that there must be a re-drafting of the Amendment as it stands on the Paper, but otherwise it is very difficult for a layman to see what objection can be made to it. It is proposed that the land should be re-sold at a price to be fixed by the Land Court in case of a difference of opinion, and I cannot see how anything more fair can be proposed. I do not say that this is one of the Amendments of vital importance and I do not suppose my noble friend would desire to die in the last ditch for it. I only suggest to the Government that it is an obviously fair Amendment, and if the noble and learned Lord, not having seen the Amendment in this form until he stood at the Table, wished for an opportunity to reconsider it, I suggest that it should be postponed to the next stage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Marquess has made a proposal which is perfectly fair and I gladly accept it, because our object is to arrive at an accommodation. If the noble Lord will withdraw it for the moment I must not be understood as promising more, but I will most carefully consider it and the arguments in its support.
LORD LAMINGTON: I will withdraw on that understanding.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Amendment of section 7 of Act of 1911.
9. For subsections (8), (9), (10) and (11) of section seven of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, 1911 (in this Act referred to as the Act of 1911), there shall be substituted the following subsections:—
"(8)— (a) Where the Board are satisfied that there is a demand for small holdings and that suitable land is available for that purpose, it shall be the duty of the Board to prepare a scheme for the constitution of one or more new holdings on such land, to be occupied by new holders upon such terms and conditions not inconsistent with the Landholders Acts as the Board think reasonable.
"(b) Every such scheme shall show—

(i) the situation and total area of the land on which one or more new holdings are to be constituted;

(ii) the number and respective situations and areas of the new holdings;

(iii) which, if any, of the existing buildings on the land are to be utilised for the new holdings;

(iv) the water supply for each new holding, including the source from which the supply is to be taken, and any necessary pipes or other works;

(v) the situation and area of any common pasture or grazing to be occupied in connection with the new holdings; and

(vi) the rent of each new holding.

"(c) Where the Board are satisfied that there is not available on the land on which the new holdings are to be constituted a supply of water sufficient for the holdings, they may include in the scheme provision for taking and conveying from or through any part of the estate whereof such land forms part such supply of water as may be necessary for the new holding and is not required for the remainder of the estate; and for the purposes of this section any land from or through which supply of water is to be taken or conveyed shall be deemed to be comprised in the scheme.
"(9) Where the Board intend to prepare such a scheme, they shall give notice of their intention to the landlord of any land which is to be comprised therein, and when a landlord has received such notice it shall not be lawful for him, save with the consent of the Board, to let or to enter into any agreement for letting such land or any part thereof until the Board have made an order confirming the scheme, or have abandoned the same:
"Provided that—

(a) Such disability shall not in any case continue for a longer period than six months from the date of notice, and

(b) for any loss sustained by a landlord, tenant, or occupier from the operation of this subsection, the Board shall pay to him such compensation as may be agreed or as may be determined, failing agreement, by the Land Court on the application of either party.

"(10) When the Board have prepared a scheme under this section they shall intimate the prepared scheme to the landlord, tenant, and occupier of any land comprised therein, and shall give to such landlord, tenant and occupier, an opportunity of considering the scheme and of making representations concerning the same to the Board, and after giving to all persons interested an opportunity of being heard may, with the consent of the Secretary for Scotland, make an Order confirming the scheme, in whole or in part, and with or without modification, or may abandon the scheme.
"(11)— (a) Where the Board make any such order, they shall notify the same to the landlord, tenant and occupier of any land comprised therein, and shall pay to such landlord, tenant and occupier such compensation for any damage or injury done to him in consequence of and directly attributable to the constitution of new holdings under the scheme (including any damage or injury done to a landlord in respect of an obligation to take over sheep stock at a valuation) as may be agreed or as may be determined, failing agreement, by the Land Court, upon the application of either party, and after giving to all persons interested an opportunity of being heard, and, if they so desire, of leading evidence in the matter.
"(b) The compensation payable under this subsection shall not include—

(i) any allowance on account of the constitution of new holdings being compulsory;

(ii) any compensation for injury done to or depreciation in the selling value of the land comprised in the scheme, or of any estate whereof such land forms part, except in so far as the same arises from injury done to or depreciation in the letting value of the land or estate; Or

(iii) any compensation for injury done to the value of the sporting rights over such land or estate in so far as it exceeds the estimated value of such rights if the land or-estate were put to the full possible use-for which it could be let to agricultural or pastoral tenants.

(c)" For the purpose of this subsection any benefit or relief enhancing the letting value of the land comprised in the scheme or of any estate of which such land forms part resulting to a landlord or to any other person in consequence of and directly attributable to the constitution of new holdings under the scheme upon the one hand shall be set against any damage or injury done to him as aforesaid upon the other hand.
"(d) In determining the amount of compensation payable to the tenant of any farm, regard shall be had to the duration of his lease, and in no case shall any allowance for loss of tenant's profits be made in respect of a period exceeding three years.
"(e)— (i) Where any compensation has been awarded and the amount thereof determined by the Land Court under this subsection, the Board may at any time within two months after such determination, resolve to abandon the scheme and withdraw the order, paying to any person any expenses reasonably incurred by him in connection with the making of the order or the claim for compensation, as such expenses may, failing agreement, be determined by the Land Court on the application of either party.
"(ii) Subject to the foregoing provision, every order made by the Board for the constitution of new holdings shall be recorded in the Landholders' Holdings Book as if it were an order of the Land Court, and shall there

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upon have effect and be enforceable in like manner as an order of the Land Court so recorded.
"(f) In any case where the Board have entered into an agreement with a landlord or a tenant or any other person for or in connection with the constitution of one or more new holdings upon land in which such landlord, tenant or other person is interested the Board may pay to any person so interested, whether a party to the agreement or not, such compensation (or other consideration in money), if any, as the Board consider equitable and consistent with the provisions of this subsection in respect of any damage or injury done to him in consequence of and directly attributable to the constitution of the new holdings, and it may be a term of any such agreement entered into by the Board with a landlord that section seventeen of this Act shall apply in respect of any such new holding as if the holding had been constituted otherwise than by agreement, and in that case the said section shall apply accordingly."
LORD ERSKINE LORD ERSKINE moved, at the end of the substituted subsection (8) (a), to insert the following proviso—
"Provided that, in considering the relative suitability of land, the Board shall have regard to the probable effect of a scheme upon the burden of rates in the locality concerned."
The noble Lord said: The Amendment which I have the honour to move is practically the same as one moved by the Secretary for Scotland in Committee of the House of Commons. It was, however, taken out on the Report Stage after an interesting debate, and I hope the noble and learned Lord will now see his way to agree to its re-introduction. Noble Lords who own land in Scotland are not one whit less anxious than other Scotsmen to see small holdings created in Scotland. They recognise that the strength of Scotland depends upon settling men in these crofts as in former days, but they feel strongly that the Board of Agriculture should take the rating question into consideration, and they consider it only wise and proper that the instruction should be included in the terms of the Bill.
This is a matter affecting in a vital degree the interests not only of landowners but also of ratepayers in many parts of the Highlands. Without entering into detail on a very controversial subject, it is sufficient to say that there are vast tracts of the Highlands which are suited for nothing but deer. These tracts of country, as pastoral subjects, are worth practically nothing, but they have a high value for sporting purposes, and the rents obtained for them pay a large portion of the local
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rates in the very districts where, owing to the barren nature of the country, the assessable rental is abnormally low and the local rates aye abnormally high. For example, in the year 1914–15 the total assessable rental of the parish of Bogart was £4,715, of which £2,281, or 48 per cent., was sporting rental, and for the parish of Kildonan the total rental was £11,940, of which £6,820, or 57½ per cent., was sporting rental.
To enable the deer in these barren tracts of country to live, it is essential that they should have some area of low lying grazing ground in the winter. The extent of this ground may only be a fraction of the total area of the forest, but if it is withdrawn the whole forest is ruined. For example, the rent of one forest before sheep stock was introduced used to be £1,200, the sporting tenant paying occupier's taxes. As the result of the introduction of sheep on to part of the forest the rent has fallen to £750, the proprietor paying the occupier's taxes. The tenant has indicated that he will not return as a large part of the forest is useless. The grazing rent paid by two tenants is £30. The fact remains, therefore, that if the Board of Agriculture for the sake of a few hundred acres of rough grazing were to cut out these parts of a forest they would ruin the whole, and under the present Bill as it stands the proprietor would get no compensation whatever for the loss of a very valuable sporting subject, for which he has been regularly taxed.
The indiscriminate taking of these wintering areas will, however, most seriously affect not only the proprietor of the forest, but all the other ratepayers of the district. I have figures here as to the local rates in some parishes which disclose the present serious state of matters even where sporting rentals are uninjured and bearing a very large share of the burden. In many parishes the education rate has gone up this year three and four times above last year's figures, and in one case (Moy) five times. The parish of Arisaig, with a gross assessable rental of £7,000, has to raise £2,144 in rates. In one parish the sum to be raised for education works out at nearly£17 per pupil. In view of these startling figures anything which would lower the existing assessable rental of these parishes would spell bankruptcy and reduce many of the parishes in the north of Scotland to the pauperised condition of the Outer Islands. In these districts sporting

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rentals have an economic value which far outweigh any small agricultural loss that may exist through the land being put to its present use.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 39, at end insert:
("Provided that, in considering the relative suitability of land, the Board shall have regard to the probable effect of a scheme upon the burden of rates in the locality concerned").—(Lord Erskine)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendment moved by the noble Lord undoubtedly raises a point of considerable importance, and about which many noble Lords speak strongly. Its career in the House of Commons was somewhat chequered. The noble Lord has been an attentive student of the debate in the House of Commons on this point. In the Scottish Standing Committee Sir George Younger moved an Amendment which had the same object as that of the noble Lord. The Lord Advocate submitted a revised version, and this revised version of the Lord Advocate, who is a very accomplished lawyer and draftsman, was accepted. But the noble Lord has fastened for dialectic purposes on the very amendment which was drafted and recommended by the Lord Advocate. In the Report stage the omission of the proviso was accepted and agreed to by the Government and rather surprisingly, having regard to its history, it excited no dissent or comment. It is not for me to attempt to compose the differences of view that arose in the stages which I have briefly summarised, but the effect of the noble Lord's Amendment is, after all, a somewhat innocent one. He says that in considering the relative suitability of land the Board shall have regard to the probable effect of the scheme on the burden of rates in the locality concerned. I am on the whole—and perhaps I may be allowed to have an independent opinion having regard to the difference of view which has taken place in the House below—of opinion that there is no reason at all why, in considering the relative suitability of land, the Board should not have regard to the probable effect of a scheme upon the burden of rates in the locality concerned. Therefore I take upon myself to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: There is a lot of other business, and therefore I will
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only say on my Amendment that I do not think there is any objection to it. It is really drafting.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes; I accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 23, leave out ("is not required for") and insert ("which can be taken without detriment to the requirements of").—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON moved, at the end of subsection (11) (a), to insert—
"Provided that, where within twenty-one days after the receipt from the Board of a notification of the making of an order under this subsection, a landlord or tenant as the case may be, intimates to the Board that he claims compensation to an amount exceeding three hundred pounds and that he desires to have the question whether damage or injury entitling him to compensation as aforesaid will be done together with the amount of such compensation (if any) to be settled by arbitration instead of by the Land Court, the same shall be settled accordingly and at any time within fourteen days after the said intimation, failing agreement with the Board as to the appointment of an arbiter, it shall be lawful for the landlord or tenant, as the case may be, to require the Board to have the questions aforesaid decided by an official arbiter appointed under the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919."
The noble Lord said: The provision which I wish to insert simply has reference to the nature or character of the tribunal which is to determine the question of compensation when the amount claimed is over £300. I do not wish to press this Amendment, for one reason that the alternative tribunal which I name, namely an official arbiter appointed under the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, has never yet been appointed. It is not in existence, I understand, and therefore the Land Court is the only tribunal which can determine the amount of compensation; but at the same time it might be desirable that this new tribunal which is to be formed should be the arbitrating authority instead of the Land Court.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 31, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Lamington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I hope that the noble Lord will not think that this is an Amendment on which it is worth his while to insist, because it is one which I should feel difficulty in accepting. Its

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effect would be to preserve the existing law as regards the tribunal for assessing compensation, under Section 7 of the Act of 1911, as provided in subsection (11) of that section, as it stands, and as modified by Section 11, subsection (1), paragraph (a) of the recent Acquisition of Land Act. To put it in popular language, as matters stand the Land Court is the normal tribunal, but the landlord or tenant can demand arbitration where the amount of the claim exceeds £300. For this distinction I confess there does not seem to me to be any sound reason, and I do not think any of your Lordships who are familiar with recent developments in Scotland will dispute the claim which I now make, that recourse to arbitration has been frequent, delaying and very costly. It will be my unfortunate duty to say more on the subject on another Amendment.
If it is said that the Land Court is not a good assessing tribunal, I am informed by those who are in a better position to know that it is a tribunal which, judged by every standard one can employ, is enjoying increasing confidence. Noble Lords know better than I whether that is a well-founded claim, and they may reply that it is enjoying increasing confidence among those whose interests are divergent from theirs. The argument which I desire to establish is of a simple character, and it is this, that if the Land Court is admitted to be a reliable tribunal up to £300, it really would seem to be difficult to argue that for a larger sum one would dispute their competence. It is not the distinction which we might draw between a County Court Judge and a High Court Judge in this country where, admirable as the County Court Judges are, every one will admit that a greater degree of confidence may under all the circumstances be expected from the High Court Judges. But those who are members of the Court are, after all, people in regard to whom even this Amendment insists that up to the amount of £300 they are reliable, and having regard to the evident importance of unanimous and rapid procedure, so far as that is consistent with a proper consideration of the case, I very much hope that this Amendment will not be pressed. If I am to give its Parliamentary history in a sentence, it is this. It was moved in Committee in the other House by Sir George Younger on November 6, and in the Committee on which I think practically all the members were Scots it was very fully debated, and was not even divided upon
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by the representatives of Scotland who represented all parties on that Committee. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not think it worth while pressing this particular issue.
LORD LAMINGTON: In view of what the noble and learned Lord has said, I will withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH moved, in subsection (11) (b),to leave out paragraph (ii). The noble Duke said: I think that this is one of the most important Amendments, but it is one which at this late hour I do not wish to detain your Lordships upon long, because I spoke upon it at some length on Second Reading. Perhaps your Lordships will not object to my reading out what is provided as to compensation. I propose to leave out the subsection which states that the compensation payable shall not include "any compensation for injury done to or depreciation in the selling value of the land comprised in the scheme, or of any estate whereof such land forms part, except in so far as the same arises from injury done to or depreciation in the letting value of the land or estate."
The objection that we have to this paragraph in the Bill is this. I think that it has been quite accepted by your Lordships and by Parliament that it is right and proper that the country should take any land which is required for national purposes, but it has been laid down that when the country does that it should be prepared to pay a full and fair value for the land that is taken. Without raising any argument it must be admitted that in this case the individual from whom the land is taken has to pay a part—possibly a small or possibly a considerable part—of the cost of these holdings, because it says that no compensation is to be paid for the objects which I have enumerated. It is said that there have been certain difficulties in the past. No doubt there have been, because the sums allotted for small holdings in Scotland have not been at all extravagant. The whole point, which I do not wish to labour, is that instead of the whole of the cost being paid for by the State a proportion of it is to fall upon the individual. I admit that it will not affect the very large estates so much as the small ones, but it is generally accepted

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that if small holdings are created on a farm the value of that farm is greatly depreciated.
I do not give that as my own opinion, because it has been expressed in a decision of the Land Court. And they also stated there that apparently it was not a favourite investment for lenders. The point really comes to this, that when the small holding is created on a small estate very likely the mortgagee forecloses and there is a forced sale at a ruinous price, and the individual is ruined. In many cases it will not only be the contribution that the individual would make to this thing, but far more, because, if there is a forced sale, he may lose all that he has to live on. What we contend for is the broad principle that if anything is taken for the good of the country a fair price should be paid for it, and I think on the face of the clause it cannot be denied that a certain portion of that price—whether small or large, does not I think matter very much—has to be paid by the individual from whom the land is taken.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, lines 36 to 40, leave out paragraph (ii).—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
LORD SHAW: I am surprised at, and I very much regret, the action of my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch, because I happen to know the history of this question pretty much from the beginning, having been largely concerned with the drafting of the original Act which, I think, appeared in Parliament in 1908–9, but which culminated in the legislation of 1911. The passage of that Act through the Grand Committees of the House of Commons was extremely heavily contested from day to day and from week to week, and the time came when it was necessary, if possible, to make a supreme effort to compromise the position of parties, in this sense, that they would combine to make an experimental clause of the kind which is contained in the Act of 1911.
I think much of the lack of success of that Act has arisen from that compromise because the scheme of compensation—and, if I venture to mention the subject, it is with real anxiety—set up by the Act of 1911 was to all intents and purposes unprecedented in this country. Compensation was given in respect of the letting value of the land to be occupied by the new holder, or of any farm of which the land formed a part, or to any tenant in respect that the land formed part of the whole of
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his tenancy, or to any land in respect of an obligation to take over sheep stock at a valuation; and then come these fatal words—
"or in respect of any depreciation in the value of the estate of which the land forms part in consequence of, and attributable to, the now holdings."
Parliament is not unacquainted with this subject of injurious affection of land. Since the Railways Clauses Act, 1845, and The Lands Clauses Act of the same year Parliament has been well acquainted with the fact that there must be a payment, not only for the land taken, but for the injurious affection of land or buildings in the immediate proximity of which buildings a part is taken, and a part only, under the scheme.
With regard to the land, as apart from the buildings, all the ambit of the extensions beyond the part actually taken is where there has been half an acre of land (I think it is) extra which is cut off from communication with the outside part of the estate. But the scheme of compensation introduced by the Act of 1911 was so vast that not only was the compensation to be given in respect of the land taken, in respect of the farm or which it was a part, but in respect of the entire estate of which that part of that farm was a part. I say that in principle, if that had been the law of this country applicable to railways or applicable to great undertakings under which a settlement is made under the Lands Clauses Act, the industry of this country and its transport would have been sterilised, and we should have had no progress made until a scheme of that kind had been destroyed.
Not long after this Act came into effect there was the case to which my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch has referred. How serious the matter is your Lordships will understand from the observation I am now going to make. The land taken in that case was part of a little estate of 3,000 acres—800 acres were taken. There was compensation to be reckoned under the Act, and the compensation in the first place was by reference to the letting value of the land taken. It was found by the arbitrator (as we call him in the North) that there was no loss whatever in the letting value of the land because, upon a comparison of the existing rent of the 800 acres with the new rents to be obtained under the scheme, the landlord was to be the gainer

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by about £23 a year, I think. Then buildings were compensated for on a very large scale to the extent of £3,800; fencing was compensated for, and also manures; then there were certain holdings remaining unlet—the whole amounting to about £4,000. Then came this clause. What was the arbitrator to do as to valuing the injury to the remainder of the estate? Will your Lordships believe that what the arbitrator gave under this clause was no less a sum than £4,600.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: I think that included everything—the farm buildings, and so on.
LORD SHAW: No, not at all. That is the shocking thing about it. I myself could hardly believe it, but to-day I went to verify it, and the noble Duke may take my word for it as I have gone into the original papers in the action. Here are the figures: For buildings, £3,740; fencing, £19; manures, £118; for holdings remaining unlet,£109. That comes altogether to £3,986. Then on top of that came this item, and this is thus named by the arbitrator, who himself was apparently a little shocked by it because he catalogued it "secondly," and then he proceeded to divide it up and paved the way for Courts of Law to say whether that was reasonably competent under the Act. This is his language in respect of loss—this is over and above the £3,986—caused by depreciation in the value of the estate in consequence of that attributable to the constitution of the new holding; that is to say, this landlord got £4,600 in respect of the prospective and conjectural value of a difference between having an estate with small holdings on it and an estate without small holdings on it. That was actually given. It almost looks like a direct attack upon Parliament itself by the landlord saying: "Stand and deliver" in so much money because that land is to be devoted to the very purposes for which Parliament passed the Act.
I know what your Lordships will say in reply to me: Is it not right when the value of an estate is affected as, for instance, when the shootings are affected injuriously, that there should be a payment for that in addition to the payment for the land taken? Or, is it not right that severance may be taken into account? Many of your Lordships are much more expert in these matters than I am, but you know that
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in all these cases severance is an important consideration. Is it not right, you will say, that management—that is to say, the difference between splitting up the management of an estate, part of it under the Government and part of it in the man's own hands—and all these things should be taken into account?
It seems like a fairy tale. But the arbitrator saw the thing himself, and he differentiated his figures and said: Of the £4,600 which is to be given for damage to the value of the estate, and to the shootings, the compensation for severance and for division of management, I do value that. The sum of these three things put together, which is almost as much as imagination could conceive, is £750, and therefore the remaining sum, says he, is £3,850 in addition to shootings, severance, management, land taken, and all the rest.
In respect of this clause in the Act "Depreciation in the value of the estate," had the like been dreamed of under the Lands Clauses Act or the undertakings under it, or under the Railways Clauses Act and all the undertakings under it, it would have stopped industry in this country and prevented anything being done. That is the instance which has occurred, and what this Bill says in this proviso is that that instance shall be taken out. It says compensation shall not include any compensation for injury done or depreciation in the selling value of the estate. Then comes an exception as to which I have the greatest doubt myself "except in so far as the same arises by injury done or by depreciation in the letting value of the land or estate." That is an extremely generous and extremely large departure from anything that could have been done under the Lands Clauses Act, 1845. But, my Lords, assuming that is so, here is depreciation which is not to include depreciation in the letting value of the land or of the whole estate. What more can any man want than that? The landlord will be left exactly in the position that the commercial value of the subject which is being disposed of will not only be recouped to him, but there will be completely recouped to him every commercial factor which went to deplete the value of the remainder of the estate. I am only anxious upon this subject. It matters little to me what the House decides with regard to any trivial matter, but this is not a trivial matter. This case is a concrete illustra-

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tion of the thing which has marked the history of land legislation in Scotland, and marked it as a failure, because it is impossible for land to be acquired either by individual small holders or by any public Board on terms so extraordinary as those I have described. It is desired that that difficulty, which has made all this land legislation a failure, shall be removed and for ever.
I will now ask your Lordships to consider what was done in the House of Commons. We have now a Coalition Government. No more astute ally of my noble friends opposite exists in the House of Commons than Sir George Younger. He was present at all the debates in Committee on this Bill. Not one Amendment, so far as my recollection serves, was made in the extreme sense of that of the noble Duke, because every man on both sides of the House, and the Parties in the Coalition, realise fully that to reinstate in this Bill the selling value of the entire estate as a matter of compensation would ruin the measure once and for all. Then we come to Report. Not one Amendment was moved there. All parties accepted the clause in this form. There were various suggestions for amendment with regard to other particulars, but none in regard to this. I do ask your Lordships to pause before wrecking this measure. I think it means the wrecking of the measure; I do honestly and sincerely. I think it is impossible that this measure can ever have the success which a measure for giving access to land can have, if this Amendment is insisted upon.
Since the Act of 1911 was passed that illustration has occurred. But another thing has also happened, which ought seriously to weigh with your Lordships. Soldiers and sailors are returning, and in Scotland there are no nobler men who went to the war than those who are now returning. They wish to have access to the land. They do not desire to have access to the land on unfair terms, but they desire to have it under a Bill in which this wrecking element shall not occur. If this element is insisted upon then that access for soldiers and sailors is denied by this House—not by the Coalition Government I am glad to think, not by any Party in the House of Commons, but by a section of your Lordships' House. I hope your Lordships will not think I am over-rating the value of the Amendment, but I conclude with an appeal
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to your Lordships to reconsider your attitude towards the Amendment, which is fatal to the efficacy of the Bill.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I am sure we have been interested in what has fallen from the noble and learned Lord, and I shall be prepared to deal with the shocking case he has raised. I should like first to say that in my opinion this is the most objectionable part in the Bill. We are in favour of the Bill and most anxious to get men who have served in the trenches on to the land, if they wish to go there and we can train them to it; but we do not see why it should be necessary to tack on to a Land Bill for soldiers a principle which has never been in any Bill before. This is absolutely germane to other species of property. It may be our turn at the present moment, but if later on it is the turn of noble Lords opposite I shall not be sorry if they do not help us to-day. It is for that reason that I hope noble Lords will judge the question from the point of view of the principle involved rather than as part of a Scottish Land Bill, no matter how desirable the measure might otherwise be. It may jeopardise the Bill but only if certain people are obstinate enough to make it so. There is no reason why it should jeopardise the Bill; it has nothing to do with the objects of the measure.
We must admit that in a sense no subject has any rights at all; but he has many privileges as a citizen. There is the protection of his life and his property as long as he behaves himself and is engaged in a lawful pursuit. We accept that in a civilised community. We also realise that the Government may take anything from any individual for the purposes of the State, and unless it is directly stated that compensation is to be paid then we understand that there will be no compensation. In other words the Law is supreme. If the Law chooses to allow injustice to be done, or commits unconstitutional actions, such as is proposed in this Bill of depriving citizens of their legitimate pursuits and the results of their enterprise, then the whole fabric comes down. In this case we have an individual who has property of an undoubted value, and the State, which is supposed to maintain the rights of property, wishing to acquire the property which it admits is being used for the best possible benefit of the community. Surely that is not fair.

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The principle of the Bill is that property shall be acquired at a valuation, and that due compensation shall be paid. That is admitted by Lord Shaw. The purchaser, however, has no right to say that he will pay the cheaper part of the compensation and will not pay the expensive part. The attitude of the arbiter in this case is quite clear, and it was ably summed up by Lord Shaw in the shocking case to which he referred. Some of us remember "the shocking case," and also remember the splendid defence made by the noble and learned Lord himself in that case. Indeed it was due to him and Lord Haldane that exactly the opposite was carried to that which is proposed in the Bill. The noble and learned Lord may remember his words. They made a strong impression upon me at the time, and I have refreshed my memory since. He was talking about the arbiter. He was strongly in favour of many things, including the sentimental value. He said "In my humble judgment—
LORD SHAW: I was interpreting the Act of Parliament and showing that that Act would include all kinds of things like sentimental value and all the rest, and it is another question whether such a token of value should remain on the Statute Book.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I agree with the noble and learned Lord and therefore want to quote what he said—
"In my humble judgment an arbiter has nothing to do with the quality of the objections which either raise or depress market values. The one equally with the other he does not inspect the quality of. He assesses the pecuniary result."
That is really our point. The noble and learned Lord went on to say—
"These sentimental objections matter nothing one way or another except as they affect the price to be realised."
We thank the noble and learned Lord for the way in which he put the matter on that occasion. Here we find a particular Department of the Government, whose duty it is among other things to purchase land for small holdings, deliberately admitting the value and refusing to pay for it. In plain English, this is brigandage and nothing else. If the Government deliberately embark on this line of policy then nothing is safe in the way of property and it is difficult to blame individuals who, possibly from want, or possibly from baser motives, act in the same way. The noble
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and learned Lord is a Judge and knows how he would deal with an individual who acted as the Government propose to act and I cannot see any difference between a burglar and a Government if they both do the same thing. In ordinary life, if you cannot pay for a thing you have to do without it. In this particular instance the Government have not even the excuse we see in many cases, that they are improving the well-being of the community. They are stirring up endless opposition to a scheme which if it is to be successful should have the cooperation of all men. I assure the noble Lord that we all desire to promote in every way the success of this scheme.
It has been said tentatively, and I think even considered by the Secretary for Scotland, that an owner should exercise his claim within a limited number of years, by selling the estate, when he should be given the balance due for capital value. I absolutely disagree. I consider he should be given the full value of what he is deprived, when the deal is made in the first instance. Lord Haldane puts it in a nutshell. He also was one of the judges in the case. He stated in the same way—
"It is true that the arbiter has also said that the landlord has no intention of selling, but what of that? According to the principles which are so well settled in this House and other Courts, when you make a claim of this kind you must make your claim once for all. If hereafter damage emerges from the same cause, for which therefore you might have claimed, you cannot claim again."
That is good law and good sense, and I cannot understand why His Majesty's Government should wish to depart from it. No doubt the noble and learned Lord will explain. I also believe that the view advanced by the Scottish Office is that if you put property in the market you do not get a fair valuation. It is very difficult to know any fairer method of getting to know the true value of an article. After all the market price is a criterion at the moment. But it is very difficult for noble Lords on this side to know what to do when the Government itself does not know what to do. I am a supporter of the Government—except on this. You find one Department of the Government doing exactly the opposite to what another Department does. You find one great Department of the State when dealing with Lord Rosebery the other day offering for disposal that which was not their own property and advancing the argument in justification that it was really only a bogus

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sale in which they were trying to find out the true value by a sale in the open market, that being the only way of assessing the true value. Yet when we suggest that the market value should be taken the Scottish Office say that the market value is unfair and improper. On the other hand as I have just pointed out you have another Department saying that is the only way of arriving at the true value. We say exactly the same in the case of other Departments. At the present moment I believe there is a small war going on between two dusky Potentates in the East, one financed by one Department and the other financed by another Department of the Government. In very much the same way we see proprietors mulcted by the Inland Revenue. The noble and learned Lord will admit that in arriving at the death duties the capital value of land is taken into consideration. The noble Lord nods and I assume he agrees. If it is good for death duties why is it not good in the case which I am putting when an assessment has to be made of the value of land taken. When one has paid ones death duties there is no earthly reason why the Land Court and its minions should not step in and refuse to pay the capital sum which the other Government Department has a short time before assessed for the purpose of death duties. That is an impossible situation and it is dishonourable. We have all heard about honour rooted in dishonour, and I cannot myself see how you can possibly have justice based upon injustice. For that reason I support the noble Duke.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it would be idle to conceal that the Amendment which has been moved is likely to present a most serious cause of difference between the Government and noble Lords who are here to-night to give expression to their views. I do not underrate the importance of the discussion, though I a little regret the language in which in one, I think, uncompleted sentence the noble Duke said to his colleagues, speaking for a large number of Peers in Scotland "It is our turn to-day. I hope other noble Lords will help us now."
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I did not intend it quite in that way. What I hoped to say was that I trusted the lesson would not be lost on noble Lords whose own turn might come another day to be deprived of a commodity.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am much too old a friend of the noble Duke's for many years now in another House to develop any criticism at all on any language he uses the moment he says he did not mean it in the sense in which I took it. But I must, I confess, ask your Lordships to go with great care into this Amendment. It is an Amendment which in my judgment is really destructive of the practical success of the Bill, and yet it is one of those Amendments which, of all others, are the most difficult to criticise and to oppose, because it can undoubtedly be defended with a plausibility which is not altogether superficial. I would ask that the history of the question raised by this Amendment should be considered a little attentively, because in relation to Scotland this is a matter which requires some degree of historical treatment. And I am bound to make an observation in this connection upon the criticisms which the noble Duke made with reference to the contribution to this debate of my noble and learned friend Lord Shaw. I know that the noble Duke is not a lawyer—he will thank me for this testimonial. But when he says as against my noble and learned friend that, sitting as a Judge on the Act of 1911, which it is our expressed purpose in this Bill to amend, he gave certain decisions and reached certain conclusions, and then cites these as if they involved my noble and learned friend in any definite individual opinion, at a period when the one object of this Bill is to alter those very conclusions of law upon which my noble and learned friend was pronouncing, it is really an argument to which I think, with a little more reflection, my noble friend would not have committed himself.
But with regard to the history, I hope to build up a case which will satisfy your Lordships of this, and I do not desire to put it too high. I do not desire to put it so high as this, that the landlords of Scotland have no cause of complaint under these proposals. But while I make that admission, I say that they have no greater cause of complaint than many landlords in England have had now for nearly forty years under the Lands Clauses (Consolidation) Act. So in all these great public reforms cases arise in which individuals suffer. And believe me, it is a mistake, and it is certainly a mistake in this House to put it too much as if it was a matter of principle. Let us rather argue it out in

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this way. Where great national ends are common ends, where everybody admits that certain conclusions must be gained, are we or are we not pressing unduly upon a single class?—are we or are we not asking a single class to make a sacrifice which, under all the circumstances of the case, must be pronounced excessive?
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Do the Lands Clauses Acts apply to this?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No Certainly not. But I was trying to point out that under the Lands Clauses Acts if, for instance, a railway intervened in the estate of a noble Lord, comparable sacrifices were compensated for in a manner analogous to that which is recommended in this Bill.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: If a railway took land it would pay for it. In this case it would not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: But if a railway took land, no doubt they would pay for it under the terms of compensation provided in this Bill, but they would not pay for it on the terms, or anything like the terms, or on the principle, to which my noble friend has called attention; and it was one of the most scandalous applications of the principles of the Act of 1911 of which I am aware, and indeed it was an application of those principles which made those principles bankrupt, and which has produced these proposals to amend them, which—I would remind the noble Duke—have been received with extraordinary public support from all classes in Scotland.
Let me now come back to the history of it. The tenure of the small landholder in Scotland, as it stands to-day, has grown directly out of the crofter's tenure under the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1886. That is the first landmark in the history of this question. That Act gave to the crofter in the crofting counties security of tenure at a fair rent which was to be fixed, failing agreement, by the Crofters Commission. The Crofters Commission were the predecessors of the present Land Court, and many of your Lordships are familiar with their activities. The arrangement under that Act was subject to revision every seven years, and a statutory tenure was thus substituted for a tenure by agreement. I am speaking in
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the presence of many noble Lords who, by their circumstances and their history, have had great experience of the crofting conditions, and they will tell me whether I am right or wrong when I say that the rent roll under that legislation not only suffered but suffered very considerably. The Scottish landowners at that period received no compensation, and so far as I am aware they asked for no compensation.
It may be said in answer that this is not a true analogy; it may be said that Parliament imposed no new tenants upon him and put none of his land to a new use. I have heard the argument used that it revived, and in a sense stereotyped in the public interest, the existing contracts between the landlord and his existing crofter tenants. But that does not conclude the matter. While the Act of 1886 did not provide for the creation of new crofts, it did provide for the compulsory enlargement of existing crofts—a very analogous case to that which we are discussing to-night; and here, again, the landlord received no compensation whatever for loss in either selling or letting value. The only compensation payable in respect of enlargements was to the agricultural or sporting tenant of the land taken. Under the Act of 1886 more than 72,000 acres—including, I would ask your Lordships to remember, portions of deer forests—were assigned for enlargements by the Crofters Commission before the 1911 Act came into force, without one penny of compensation being paid to landowners. And this loss or injury—if indeed it is to be called a loss or injury—fell not on all landlords alike but only on those landlords whose lands were assigned.
Then came the 1911 Act. When noble Lords say, as they say with perfect truth, that this Bill gives them less than was given by the 1911 Act, let them clearly understand the attitude which we assume in relation to that Act. It is true that we propose less under this Bill. Under circumstances of imperious public necessity known to everyone, under the stimulus of objects which are admitted by noble Lords in every part of the House to be demanded at this moment by every consideration of public duty and obligation, it has been decided that arrangements must be made under which far greater facilities may be swiftly and immediately provided for the settlement of soldiers upon the land. Then we had to ask ourselves this question—

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Can we really claim that it is within our power to make those settlements if we adhere to the conditions of the 1911 Act? Not one expert who has advised us has told us that it is in our power to make the arrangements which everyone admits to be required, and to be required now, if we adhere to the principles which have been proved to be unworkable, to be unjust, to be unfair to the general taxpayer, and which were most disastrously adopted by the Act of 1911.
My Lords, let me for a moment remind you of the provisions of the Act of 1911. It began by converting a large number of existing tenants into small holders. For this it provided no compensation to the landlord, treating it in this respect just as the 1886 Act had done. Section 7 of the Act of 1911, which must be carefully borne in mind in this discussion, provided for the constitution of new small holdings, and therefore was the comparable section to the relevant section in this Bill and to the section equivalent to the Crofts Section of the Act of 1886. It contains a very general compensation provision which covers loss in selling value as well as in letting value. In order that your Lordships may be apprised of the whole of the circumstances under Section 16, this applied to enlargements also.
The whole question in debate to-night is whether the provision of Section 7 of the 1911 Act ought to have been stereotyped and applied in the proposals which are now before this House. I must point out, to begin with, that no Amendment was ever proposed in the House of Commons anything like approaching that which the noble Duke has proposed tonight. There are many Scottish Members representing all parties in the House of Commons fully acquainted with the history of this matter, able and willing to make any reasonable protest which the stability and protection of property might seem to render reasonable, but no Amendment like this was proposed. In the House of Commons an Amendment was moved to omit all the words of the paragraph after "part," in order to exclude land selling value altogether. That Amendment was opposed by the Secretary of State and on a Division it was defeated, not by a Committee of unintelligent and uninformed Englishmen, but by the Scottish Committee. It was put down again, but it was not even moved. But at no stage in the
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House of Commons was it proposed, as is now done, to omit the paragraph altogether.
Whatever other Amendments may require consideration, I cannot think that the noble Duke would desire that his name should go down in the history of this controversy as having for the first time—no such attempt having been made in the House of Commons—moved that this provision should be omitted altogether. The Amendment was pat down by Sir George Younger, and I agree entirely with what my noble and learned friend has said that no more astute adviser, no more kindly and assiduous friend of all the legitimate interests of the great land-owners of Scotland could be found No man has a more perfect and complete comprehension of what is practicable and obtainable in the House of Commons and of the means by which alone the essential objects of the Government, as shared by noble Lords, can be obtained. Sir George Younger moved an Amendment to which I desire your Lordships' careful attention. He moved both in Committee and on Report a proviso to the effect that on actual sale of the land within five years after the creation of small holdings, thereupon the landlord should have a claim for actual loss of selling value as shown by the price obtained. I conceive Sir George Younger's object to have been this. I imagine that he was pressed as any noble Lord who gives attention to this matter will be, by what I really must call the scandal of the arbitrations that have been held under the Act of 1911.
The case made, and plainly made, on the Second Reading of this Bill can be summarised almost in a single sentence. It was this—Under the terms of this Bill you only give us compensation for letting value. That is incomplete and unfair compensation, because it may be that we have not sustained at the moment any real loss under the head of letting value, but if we have to sell in the circumstances of small holdings super-imposed on our estates, we have sustained a real loss under the head of selling value. That was the case made here on Second Reading.
Let me tell those of your Lordships who are not so familiar as noble Lords from Scotland how the matter has in fact been dealt with between the year 1911

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and to-day, in order that it may be determined by the House as a whole whether the system which has prevailed during that period is one which can, on its merits, be defended, or whether it is one which any thoughtful friend of landlords, either in Scotland or England, would be deeply concerned to protect or to recommend. Arbitration after arbitration has been held under the Act of 1911. In these cases the claimants were Scottish landlords, upon whose estates small holdings were established. They came forward and they said, under the terms of the 1911 Act, "We affirm that the selling value of our estate has been diminished, and inasmuch as it has been diminished, here and now we claim to receive compensation." And they had not the slightest intention of selling their estates. They have not sold their estates to this day. There has not been in the majority of the cases at this moment in my mind any single indication that they ever intend to sell them. Yet they have recovered from arbitral tribunals thousands and thousands of pounds of compensation upon grounds founded upon the most flimsy hypotheses which in my experience have ever been offered to the consideration and judgment of an arbitrator.
If I may inform your Lordships, this is the kind of evidence. An expert witness comes—I have on previous occasions expressed some of my opinions and stated some of my experiences of expert witnesses—and says, "Here is this estate. I find that upon it there are twelve small holdings. I believe that the purchaser would have given £40,000 for that estate if these small holdings had not been placed upon it, and my opinion is that the purchaser would not give more than £30,000 for it now." And with no appreciable or provable inquiry to an estate, of which the landlord has not divested himself and of which there is no reason to believe he ever intended to divest himself, these enormous and swollen verdicts have been given by arbitrators. Not only did this happen in the case referred to by the noble and learned Lord, but, unfortunately, it has become a kind of precedent. The next arbitrator says that was the principle in the case of so-and-so, and £8,000 or £9,000 was given; and so one case succeeds another until the situation has been reached in which I say plainly—and plain, though I hope entirely inoffensive
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language is desirable in this matter—in which those who are best qualified to judge have advised those who are responsible for introducing the Bill that if the methods of compensation adopted under the 1911 Act are to be maintained and applied to all cases of compensation under this Bill, the Bill cannot be made an effective measure in Scotland. If we had reached the conclusion that what was provided by the Act of 1911 was defensible in itself then, if we could not justify the course we propose in this Bill, it might be necessary to reach the conclusion, melancholy as the conclusion would be, that some other line of approach must be attempted. But when we have reached the conclusion that no sufficient justification can be made for the principle of compensation which was adopted in the Act of 1911, it can hardly be expected that we should acquiesce in the destruction, as we conceive it, of our present proposals by a perpetuation of the provisions of the Act of 1911 which have been riddled with abuse in Scotland and elsewhere.
I was dealing with Sir George Younger's alternative proposal. It will be readily conceded that that proposal at least dealt with the scandal of large sums of compensation being awarded to landlords who did not sell, and whose claim to be treated on the basis of selling value was not obvious. It was resisted in the House of Commons upon grounds which cannot be lightly dismissed. In the first place it was resisted on the ground that it would be extremely difficult to estimate how much, if any, of the loss was due to the existence of the small holding. I do not regard that as a fatal objection, for this reason, that all arbitrators have to face difficulties which are really almost as great as that which I have indicated. The Tribunal is a finite one and the methods which they must employ are finite too. While some weight must be given to it is not a serious argument. The most serious objection to the proposal of Sir G. Younger is this—that it is absolutely essential that the compensation should be ascertained once for all when the scheme is made, in order that the Board may know the cost and decide whether to proceed with the scheme or abandon it. If there are contingent liabilities at a given moment it would certainly impede the activities of the Board.
These considerations were pointed out in connection with the moderate amend-

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ment of Sir G. Younger. They were pointed out in the House of Commons, and as a result Sir G. Younger withdrew his amendment I cannot help thinking that the experience in the House of Commons indicated a general, and in my judgment a justifiable feeling that unrestricted compensation for injury to selling value, though it was provided for in the Act of 1911, has proved to be a mistake, and is now indefensible. It results in compensation for every loss actually sustained, plus compensation for loss which might never be suffered at all. Certainly in some cases, noble Lords for Scotland will not deny it, the landlord may be richer than he was before. It would be unfortunate if any such claim should be made in relation to a Bill which is in redemption of war pledges, and which everyone supported, not only with the language of the tongue but with the language of the heart. In arguing this difficult case I hope I have said nothing to reflect upon the well known desire of noble Lords who directly represent Scottish interests to contribute even by great sacrifices to that which the national interests require. I earnestly impress upon them that the view is taken that if anything like the. Amendment of the noble Duke is accepted, the Bill becomes a Bill which it is impossible to press forward with any hope that it will attain the objects proposed to itself by the Government. I know how dear to the hearts of noble Lords are the objects of this Bill. And while any alternative proposal which the ingenuity of noble Lords or of their advisers may suggest will be considered with the respect that their origin would require, I can only tell the noble Duke that the omission of this subsection would in my view be regarded by the Government as a fatal objection to the progress of this Bill.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, let us see how we stand in this very complicated and important matter. All of us, without exception, wish to help the Government to fulfil the national pledge of putting on the land the men who fought for us. If my noble friends from Scotland claim anything more than has been given under similar conditions in England I certainly am not going to support them, but they surely are entitled to an absolutely fair price for any property taken from them for any national purpose; and the Prime Minister himself has laid it down
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as one of the corner stones of his policy that although he will take for the nation what the nation requires, he is always going to pay a fair price for it. Now the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that unless the Bill we have before us is passed very much in its present form the purpose of settling these men on the land in Scotland cannot be carried out. But is that so, my Lords? It is going to be carried out in England, and this difficulty does not arise in England. What is the whole cause of this difficulty in Scotland? In England the State can either buy land or hire land. In both those cases the Lands Clauses Acts come into operation, and if there is injurious affection it is taken into account either in the purchase price or in the rent paid for compulsorily hired land. I do not suppose that my noble friends from Scotland ask for anything more than that. The whole point is that the Lands Clauses Acts do not come into operation in the case of this particular plan adopted for Scotland. The State says "We want to put soldiers on the land." The State can buy the land. You say that in this case it is difficult to raise more money and the State will not buy the land, but the State can hire land. That will cost the State no capital sum. Instead of which, for some reason which is perfectly unintelligible to Englishmen, the late Government adopted this plan of neither buying nor hiring but placing compulsory tenants on an unwilling landlord and insisting upon his keeping the land and making those tenants his own. To us Englishmen it seems a perfectly preposterous plan, and Lord Shaw told us that the clause, which he drew, Clause 11, turned out to be a very bad one.
LORD SHAW: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I did not draw it. I had the honour of being a member of your Lordships' House before the clause came into existence. I was referring to a previous Act.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Then somebody, the then Liberal Law Officer for Scotland, drew a very bad clause—and then the Lord Chancellor tells us practically that every arbiter in Scotland is unfit for his post. I do not know whether my noble and learned friend really wished us to infer that.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said nothing of the kind. I said that two decisions had been given under this Act which had undoubtedly occasioned the greatest possible anxiety and had shown that if this principle contained in Section 7 of the 1911 Act were persevered in it would prevent this Act being possible. I never made any general reflection on the arbitrators.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: If the noble Lord, Lord Shaw's account, which I thought was entirely endorsed by my noble and learned friend opposite, is accurate I cannot call the arbitrator a good arbitrator.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I had the arbitrations in my mind, both of which are well known to the noble Earl, before I spoke. The arbitrators in these were profoundly wrong and unfortunately they have been followed in other cases.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I am not at all sure then that I exaggerated if profoundly wrong decisions be given by two arbitrators and all the others have followed their example. These arbitrators are I understand appointed by the Court of Session, and I would have thought that the Court of Session would have appointed fit men for such responsible work. If the wording so unfortunately adopted by some Scottish law officer whose name I forget and which was not Lord Shaw has had these disastrous effects there might be an argument for amendment, but I can see no argument for entirely depriving the unfortunate landowner of what may be a very important part of his property. The Government are founding their position on a hard case and Lord Shaw has laid great stress on the Lindean case, in fact this sub-clause is founded on the Lindean case. I am only an Englishman and it is quite by accident that I happened to come across this information the other day. But I have been reading very assiduously the evidence given before the Royal Commission on Agriculture, and I came across this given in cross-examination by the representative of the Scottish Farmers' Union. I had never heard of the case before. It was the case of Lord Elibank's estate and Lord Elibank had a lot of these tenants
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imposed upon him by a Scottish Land Court or Board of Agriculture. Lord Elibank said that he did not want to be the landlord of these tenants and he would therefore sell his land. The land is in the Lothians, and what do your Lordships think that this part of the estate sold for? Ten years purchase of the land. No one could possibly have thought that ten years purchase was the value of this land before it had been taken for this purpose. Therefore there is a real case to be met here. I do not think that it is met in the best way by this Amendment. I am, however, not competent to form an opinion on that subject and I rather gathered by several of the sentences of my noble and leaned friend the Lord Chancellor that he was not quite comfortable about the wording of the Act as it stands. If, the only choice we have is between the Amendment of my noble friend and the non possumus of the government, I shall certainly vote for my noble friend.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: My noble friend, Lord Selborne alluded to the case of Ballencrieff. I think I am correct in saying that the tenant was offered £25,000 for the farm, and that when it was sold the total realised by him, including compensation, came to £20,500, so that he had a loss of £4,500. I would point out that this does not affect Part I of the Bill, which is the principal part for settling soldiers it only affects Part II.
But we have unofficially made certain suggestions to the Government with which I understand they will proceed. We were quite willing to do anything we could so as to give a reasonable security to those whose land is going to be taken, and if possible to prevent any abuse, assuming—which I do not quite admit—that there has been any abuse, as stated by my noble and learned friend opposite (Lord Shaw). The case I allude to is the Kinnenhall case, in which the Land Court stated that, owing to the property being turned into small holdings, they awarded three years purchase. There is no doubt there is a loss of value in this, and all that we want is that that value should be met, and if an Amend-merit could be suggested by the Government I am sure that those on this side of the House will be very pleased to consider it and do what we can to meet the Government.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would ask your Lordships to remember that the history of the question, as I attempted shortly to describe it, shows quite plainly that a difference of system has been adopted as between the law applicable to English land and the law applicable to Scots land, and it is quite possible to point to cases in which you can show divergencies of practice, and even occasionally the appearances of hardship in relation to the one system which cannot be discovered in the other. For instance, there are Many cases in England in which you have compulsory leasing, and no compensation is payable on the selling value, although the property is considerably depreciated. And you must consider each system separately. I have no claim to be a great authority on Scots law or the history of Scots law, but I am advised by those who are very competent to give advice in such matters, and I am not at all sure—to take the only specific case which my noble friend Lord Selborne put to me, the case of Lord Elibank—I am not at all sure that the noble Earl has sufficiently considered his facts in regard to that matter.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I read the facts in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on Agriculture.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am informed on the subject by those who took a very prominent part in the proceedings. I am sure that what the noble Earl read was accurately stated, according to his memory, but I am informed by one who had very intimate sources of knowledge that nobody ever did better than Lord Elibank as the result of those proceedings. I am informed that Lord Elibank received compensation for his buildings, received damages to compensate him for depreciation by reason of that which had happened, and and in addition received ten years purchase If I am well informed upon that, the whole edifice of the argument raised by the noble Lord upon that case is dissipated and destroyed. I should not have thought it right to state this view of the facts if it had not been given to me by one who is entitled to consider himself an authority upon the matter.
The Amendment of the noble Duke is one which we cannot and will not accept. It is, in my judgment, one which would be rejected by an overwhelming majority of
342
the noble Duke's countrymen in the House of Commons. I should profoundly regret if your Lordships persevered with it, but that does not in the least mean that the Government would not be prepared to consider less extreme proposals if they can only be framed and formulated, and if they will not destroy—as we are convinced that this will destroy—the whole hope and prospect of this Bill.
LORD LOVAT: Although I do not accept one or two of the facts mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, what he has said evidently shows a wish to reconsider the situation, and I have advised the noble Duke, rather than divide upon this question at this time, to formulate certain proposals for the next stage of the Bill. It is a question who should be the ones to bring forward these proposals. I think we have heard enough to show that it is admitted on the other side of the House that in certain cases a definite hardship occurs. I think there is not the least question that, when a sale actually takes place, something between three and live years purchase of the land has to be stood by the proprietor. I myself would urge that the proposal should come from the other side, but if it does not I would suggest that the noble Duke withdraws his Amendment and makes a proposal before we get to the next stage on the general lines of what has been brought forward.
LORD LAMINGTON: It is a question of principle. It. is almost impossible now to devise some Amendment, except that which the noble and learned Lord has seen on the Table, which would be a compromise that the selling value should be only in respect of the land actually taken and not in regard to the estate lying outside the scheme. It would be a compromise with regard to amount but not as regards principle. I hope that the noble Duke will adhere to his Amendment unless the Government compromise on those terms. The lairds will be hit under these proposals, and it is not fair that we should make our decision solely on the question of the large landowners being affected.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I want to say what I think would be a convenient course to adopt. The argument on this Amendment has now proceeded for a considerable time, and I am convinced that upon the case submitted my noble

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friends who represent Scotland have established their case, therefore in my judgment your Lordships would do well to insert the Amendment in the Bill. But there is no doubt that the noble and learned Lord has intimated that he has certain doubts. Supposing that between now and the Report stage an arrangement can possibly be come to upon other lines—though I myself do not see what other lines are possible—then a modification may be hereafter introduced; but as it appears, on the arguments submitted to your Lordships, that the noble Lords from Scotland have established their case, if they go to a Division I shall certainly support them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will only say this. If it be the fact, as the noble Marquess has inferred from the debate, that on the discussion which has taken place noble Lords are right and the Government are wrong, and if it also be the proper inference from the debate that it is for the Government, realising that noble Lords have been right and we are wrong, to make an alternative proposal, I for one should think it wrong to persuade the noble Duke to withdraw his Amendment under any such delusion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not suggest that there should be any
obligation on the noble and learned Lord, but it may appear that some other arrangement is possible. I do not put the Government under any obligation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I could not possibly undertake such a responsibility because, like the noble Marquess, I am at present not able to suggest an alternative to the proposal of the noble Duke. The noble Lord sitting behind the noble Marquess has handed in a manuscript Amendment to which I have given such consideration as I can I would not dismiss it as not deserving of consideration, but, while I have been either making or listening to speeches, I have not been able to give it full consideration. So far as the Amendment of the noble Duke is concerned, nothing is to be gained by postponing difficulties and the solution of difficulties. It is one to which the Government will never willingly assent. If the House thinks it worth while to postpone the difficulty by the withdrawal of the Amendment—well, if not, I think the House had better take its course.
On Question, whether paragraph (ii), proposed to be left out, shall stand part of the Clause?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 23; Not Contents, 42.

CONTENTS.

Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Farquhar, V. (L. Steward.)

Meston, L.

Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

Ranksborough, L.

Bradford, E.

Peel, V.

Rathcreedan, L.

Chesterfield, E.

Shaw, L.

Curzon of Kedleston, E.

Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

Sinha, L.

Lytton, E.

Clwyd, L.

Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]

Onslow, E.

Colebrooke, L.

Stanmore, L. [Teller.]

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Hylton, L.

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)

Lee of Fareham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Argyll, D.

Churchill, V.

Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.)

Portland, D.

Falkland, V.

Gisborough, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Ampthill, L.

Harris, L.

Linlithgow, M.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Hindlip, L.

Salisbury, M.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Lamington, L. [Teller.]

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) [Teller.]

Clinton, L.

Lovat, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

Malmesbury, E.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Ebury, L.

Ruthven of Gowrie, L.

Selborne, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Saltoun, L.

Strafford, E.

Sandys, L.

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Elphinstone, L.

Tweedmouth, L.

Erskine, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Chaplin, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Wolverton, L.

Wyfold, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved, in subsection (ii) (b), to leave out paragraph (iii). The noble Duke said: This is a difficult subsection to understand. To put it shortly it really means that you are not giving compensation if the land is full of stock. But supposing it is not fully stocked or a part of it is not fully stocked they will only give compensation as if it had been fully stocked, and this although the fact that you have not stocked your land fully is a distinct advantage to the district, and although it results in keeping a far greater population in the district, and is better for the rates. I would remind noble Lords that the rating question is a very serious question in the North, and an intolerable burden would also point out that I have had to move the rejection of the whole of this paragraph because I could not think of or invent a new paragraph which would meet the views of noble Lords opposite. I only wish they had put forward a proposal before to-day which we would have been able to consult and agree upon; but the Government will not put out a right hand in any shape or form. Therefore there was no other course except to move the excision of this objectionable paragraph.
I wish to make it clear, however, that I am absolutely in favour of doing away with deer forests which should never have existed and the existence of which is detrimental to the populace. They are only doing harm from every point of view. To justify a deer forest it must not displace people, there must be as many healthy families on it as could be employed if it were used for other purposes, and it must produce a reasonable amount of meat in comparison with the amount of meat which would be produced if the land were used for agricultural purposes. I am prepared to go a very long way with noble Lords but where a deer forest in comparison with a sheep farm offers an overwhelming advantage to the rates it is most unjust to the poor people who are groaning under the burden of the rates that they should have to make good the deficit due to an uneconomic fad—more especially when you recollect that the people who are to be planted on the land are not going to bear their share of the burden of the rates. I should have thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have realised that there were
346
enough difficulties in the way of getting money in this country and would have restrained the Government from bringing in a measure which is going to pauperise most of the landowners in Scotland, with the result that he will get very much less in the matter of income tax, and the direct outcome of which will be that he will have to pay huge subsidies in the relief of rates. So I cannot see where there is any catch in it at all.
The Clause as it stands gives no security that it will not be unreasonably used, and I want to point out that if the Clause is passed no land will be secure. I think a far better clause could have been invented. I have no objection to the real reasons underlying the Clause, but as drafted it is going to depreciate practically the whole of the land in the North. I must ask the noble and learned Lord to consider what the effect of it will be upon mortgaged land in Scotland. At the present moment I should think that certainly more than half the rural land in Scotland is under mortgage, and if the value of the land is to be depreciated in this way in a great many cases the estates are so burdened that the bond-holders will actually lose their money. In that case there will be taken away a great deal of the security of the land, and it will be extremely difficult to get money at any price to carry out improvements. I cannot see the advantage of a measure which is so unjust, and to prevent compensation being payable for injury done to the value of sporting rights on the land is not fair. This paragraph will do a great deal of harm, and I must move its recission unless the Government are prepared to give us a Clause in which we can fairly agree.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, lines 1 to 6, leave out paragraph (iii).—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: After the decision which your Lordships so recently reached by a large majority this is a matter of comparatively small importance, and I propose to discuss it quite briefly. The paragraph was attacked from both sides in the House of Commons, and was very fully discussed in the Scottish Standing Committee on November 5 and 10. Let me say at once that it is recognised that there may be what are sometimes called natural deer forests consisting of land suitable for deer and useless, or practically

347
useless, for agriculture or the grazing of sheep. Under these circumstances separate treatment is, of course, to be justified, and it is adopted in this Bill. But there is also land devoted to deer which has been cleared of sheep and of men, or in other places withheld from pastoral uses in order that deer may abound. I do not think that any noble Lord will challenge that statement. It is considered as a matter of policy that sheep might be readmitted to much of this land without a serious reduction in the stock of deer or a serious diminution in sporting value. The rule set out in the Clause is that regard is to be had to such sporting value as arises from what are called legitimate sporting uses. This would mean the full sporting value in natural forests, and in other cases a value corresponding not to exclusive sporting use, but to such sporting use as should be consistent with concurrent agricultural or pastoral use so far as the land admits of that. The noble Duke apparently almost makes it a grievance that the Government has not suggested some Amendment to its own Clause, and have not met them half way. I am informed that the Secretary for Scotland has discussed this matter very closely with him, and with profound respect to the noble Duke, I must demur to the view that it is the duty of the Government, which is perfectly satisfied with its own Clause, to put forward an Amendment of it. It is for noble Lords who are dissatisfied to move such Amendment as would give effect to their grievances.
VISCOUNT GALWAY: I shall support this, for the State has no right to take away land or property on which death duties have been paid and not compensate the landlord for the loss. That was what led me to support the noble Duke in the last Division. It is the same motive which induces me to support him now, because I hold very strongly that wherever a case has been made on which the landowners have paid death duties to the State and the property on which those death duties are paid is deteriorated the State is bound to pay compensation for it.
LORD LOVAT: I shall certainly follow the noble Duke if he goes to a Division. It is a similar case to certain other cases under the Bill in which the Scottish landowners are not treated in the same way as the English landowners have been. At Election time we had certain definite
348
promises made in Scotland by the leader of the Unionist Party, Mr. Bonar Law, as well as promises made by Mr. Lloyd George, that land would be taken as and when required for soldiers, but that suitable compensation would be paid. I would take issue with the Lord Chancellor and say that it is up to the Government to fulfil that pledge. The amount of money which is involved, however, is very apt to be exaggerated. I believe that you could produce the number of deer forests suitable for carrying a stock of sheep or for afforestation at a not very considerable cost. I believe that £200,000 would probably produce perhaps 50 per cent. of your deer forests, which is a very small sum to sacrifice for a promise definitely made. The Bill as it stands gives absolute power to take land wherever they wish, and makes it possible by merely placing 200 sheep there to absolutely ruin a subject which may be bringing in £3,000 or £4,000 a year, of which 50 per cent. of the net revenue goes to the local rates. I listened very closely to the debate in the House of Commons on the local rate question, in which the sporting interest plays a large part. The question of the rates was never fairly faced in another place, and it is essentially here that we realise what importance the rate question has. An accusation has been made that I am not in favour of reducing the area of land dealt with by sport. I am in favour of its reduction to the absolute limit possible, but I do believe that there are two distinct limitations. One is the rates, and the other is the amount of wintering for sheep on the high ground. I would add that I have spoken in exactly the same terms in my own country on this very point. I happened to stand the other day for a County Council election, and I told the electors that I was certainly going to oppose the Government in this House for not paying adequate compensation to landowners for what is taken away. I am absolutely satisfied that I did not lose a vote at my election by the fact that I stated what I thought was correct to be done. I do not believe that the average man in Scotland would not agree that fair compensation should be paid to the lan-owner for what is taken away from him. With regard to what the noble and learned Lord has said, I think it is only fair when a subject is taken away that full and fair compensation should be paid. I shall certainly follow the noble Duke into the Lobby if he divides.
On Question, whether paragraph (iii), proposed to be left out, shall stand part of the clause.
Resolved in the negative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved, after Clause 9, to insert the following clause—
"10. Where the Board make any order under the immediately preceding section they shall, if so requested by the landlord, be bound to erect and maintain, or cause to be erected and maintained, to the satisfaction of the landlord of the land comprised in the scheme and of any adjoining land such march fence, or fences, as may be necessary to prevent the stock of the landholder straying beyond the limits of the land comprised in the scheme, any dispute as to the adequacy of such fence or fences to be settled failing agreement by the Land Court."
The noble Duke said: The Amendment is simply this. In cases where there are pieces of ground cut off from deer forests, permission shall be given to put up fences and that putting up of fences shall be compulsory, if it is required. I do not think I need say anything further. The reason is to prevent stock from getting out and straying into the ground and spoiling its value. The landlords may not require fences to be put up, but where it is necessary to do so I think it should be compulsory.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 9 insert the said new clause.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 22 Not Contents, 36.

CONTENTS.

Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.)

Hylton, L.

Peel, V.

Lee of Fareham, L.

Bradford, E.

Meston, L.

Chesterfield, E.

Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

Shaw, L.

Lytton, E.

Clwyd, L.

Sinha, L.

Onslow, E.

Colebrooke, L.

Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Stanmore, L. [Teller.]

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)

Farquhar, V. (L. Steward.)

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Argyll, D.

Chaplin, V.

Erskine, L.

Portland, D.

Churchill, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Falkland, V.

Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.)

Cholmondeley, M.

Hampden, V.

Gisborough, L.

Linlithgow, M.

Harris, L.

Salisbury, M.

Ampthill, L.

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Lamington, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.) [Teller.]

Lovat, L.

Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

Malmesbury, E.

Clinton, L.

Saltoun, L.

Rosslyn, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Sandys, L.

Selborne, E.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

Strafford, E.

Ebury, L.

Wyfold, L.

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.) [Teller.]

Elphinstone, L.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This proposal in its present form is unacceptable, but if the noble Duke will put it down in such a form as to make the Land Court, failing agreement, the arbitrator in respect of the necessity for fencing as well as the adequacy of any particular fence I should not quarrel with him. Perhaps he will do so on Report, or as there is not much time I had better say that I will consider some words by the Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 10 to 13 agreed to.
Clause 14:
As to land within burgh in crofting counties.
14. Notwithstanding anything contained in paragraph (c) of subsection (3) of section twenty-six of the Act of 1911, or in the reference to that paragraph in subsection (4) of the said section, a person may be held, as from and after the commencement of this Act, an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder, and shall be admissible to registration as a new holder under the Act of 1911 in respect of land within the parliamentary, police, or municipal boundary of any burgh or police burgh situate in the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney and Shetland.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved to leave out Clause 14. The noble Duke said: On this Amendment I am entirely in the hands of the Government.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 14.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Duke says he is in the hands of the Government. I can assure him he has done nothing to entitle him to expect to receive any compassion from our hands. If he does not intend to press the Amendment I should be strongly tempted to tell him to leave it where it is. On the other hand, there is something to be said for the point raised, and while in all new small holdings, properly selected, the Board might safely be allowed any such powers as are spoken it may cause confusion now and stereotype all existing holdings without distinction. I think the result which the noble Duke desires could be obtained by omitting the words from "person" to "shall," but at this hour of the evening I think we should prefer to trust to the clearness of the Report stage, and I invite him to postpone the proposal until then.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15:
Power to make advances to land banks, &c.
15. In addition to the purposes mentioned in section six of the Act of 1911, the Board may, on such terms and conditions as they think proper, with the approval of the Secretary for Scotland and the Treasury, apply the Agriculture (Scotland) Fund constituted under section five of that Act in making or guaranteeing advances, either directly or indirectly, to land banks or co-operative or credit societies having for their object or one of their objects the assistance of tenants under Part I of this Act, landholders or statutory small tenants in the stocking, equipment, and profitable working of their holdings.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH moved, at the end of the clause, to insert "and may, with the approval of the Secretary for Scotland, apply the said fund in the acquisition for such sum or annual payment as failing agreement may be determined by the Land Court, of land for the purposes of facilitating the constitution of new landholders' holdings and the enlargement of landholders' holdings."
The noble Lord said: The object of the Amendment is obvious. It is, that with the approval of the Secretary for Scotland there shall be an alternative to purchase as well as lease.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 10, at end insert the said words.—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I hope the noble Duke will be satisfied with the
352
wounds which his tomahawk has already inflicted on the Bill, and will not persevere with this Amendment.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: I do not wish to do so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.
First Schedule:
(5) If within that period no such objection has been so presented, or every such objection so presented has been withdrawn, the Board may subject to the approval of the Secretary for Scotland, forthwith make the Order; but if any such objection has been duly presented and has not been withdrawn, the Board shall take the same into consideration, and, after such inquiry (if any) as they think fit, may either withdraw the Order, without prejudice to the preparation and making of a new Order, or may make the Order with or without modification, subject to the approval aforesaid.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved, after (5) in the First Schedule, to insert, "Provided that, before giving such approval, the Secretary for Scotland shall consider any objections which may have been presented to the Board as aforesaid and not withdrawn, and shall, if so required in such objections, direct the sheriff of the county in which the land comprised in the Order is situated to hold a local inquiry and to report to him with respect to such objections."
The noble Duke said: My sole point in moving this Amendment is that some people feel that they are being tried by the same Court twice, and that the Court itself is interested. Nobody suggests that the Secretary for Scotland would not be a fair arbitrator, or that anybody in his position could not be trusted. At the same time he is a very busy man and has not the time to go into these matters. As there is a law officer in every district in the person' of the Sheriff he could make a local investigation and report upon the case, although some people are afraid that there might be a certain amount of political bias used with regard to these small holdings, and this would really be a very great safeguard, I think, for the Secretary for Scotland himself, who ought not to be particularly anxious to make himself arbiter in these matters. If the Sheriff found good reason for making

353
these Orders the Secretary for Scotland would be in a very strong position.
Amendment moved—
First Schedule, page 15, line 33, at end insert the said proviso.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Schedule relates to the compulsory purchase of land for small holdings by the power in Part I of the Bill, or for allotments by local authorities under Part III. It has nothing whatever to do with Part II. Now, my Lords, under the scheme of the Bill the Order is to be made by the Board subject to the approval of the Secretary for Scotland. For the intervention of the Sheriff in such a case, so far as I know, there is no precedent in the whole of the history of Scottish Law, and it would undoubtedly cause a great deal of delay. If we are to seek for guidance in the English case, such orders are made by the County Councils, subject to the approval of the Board, and during the next three years, under Part of the recent English Act they do not even require the approval of the Board. I do not think noble Lords would put forward the contention that the Secretary for Scotland would be likely to discharge his duties in a perfunctory way, and I hope they will be satisfied with what is given them under this Act, namely, a larger degree of protection than is given in the English Act.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
First Schedule agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I ask when it is proposed to take the Report stage of this Bill?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Marquess makes a very reasonable application. I think, on the whole, it would be not inconvenient—at least I understand so—to noble Lords from Scotland that a very short interval should interpose between the discussion to-day and the Report stage. After all the points at issue are very clearly determined, and I am not hopeful, although for some time I was, that an adjustment in respect of them would be reached in this House. I do not know that anything is to be gained by postponing for any considerable time the Report stage. There are two points on
354
which your Lordships have over-ruled the Government—one of first class importance—and two points of quite subordinate importance on which I have promised amendments, which I can readily introduce to-morrow, and which will not be the subject of controversy. As your Lordships have taken the course on these two points of challenging directly the policy of the Government in this Bill, I should have thought it would be acceptable to everybody if to-morrow we took the Report stage and sent the Bill to the House of Commons, in order that whatever controversy may develop may be developed at the earliest possible moment.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It is not a matter for us to express a very strong feeling about, but I should certainly have thought that a delay of 48 hours to consider the Bill would be an advisable course, but if the noble and learned Lord does not agree with me I do not wish to press the matter further.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I take the responsibility, on a matter on which I feel very strongly indeed, of saying that if there was any disposition which I could appreciate to take a different or largely modified view on the very important decisions taken in this House to-night, I certainly am not one of those who would say whatever the results might be that I would not take the Report stage tomorrow, but I was bound to assume and did assume that the decision taken to-night was deliberately taken with full knowledge of all that it was likely to involve, and if that was a first view I confess that I should think that the more convenient course would have been to take the Report stage to-morrow, but if any noble Lord from Scotland desires to take a different view I shall carefully consider it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: We will not press the matter further, but will take the Report stage to-morrow.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said that if any noble Lord from Scotland cared to take the view—
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think that for many reasons it should be taken tomorrow.
The Report of Amendments to be received to-morrow, and Bill to be printed as amended.

DOGS REGULATION (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL.
Order of the Day for Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, at the present moment there is a licence duty in Ireland upon all dogs, and this Bill proposes to increase that licence duty from 2s. to 4s. The proposal is supported by practically all types of local authority and Government departments in Ireland. I understand that it is valuable, not only as helping to control the dog population of that country but as giving to the officers responsible for looking after these licences a proper remuneration, which the present amount of the licence does not allow them to receive.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House tomorrow.

IRISH LAND (PROVISION FOR SAILORS AND SOLDIERS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, this is a Bill which I believe to be substantially an agreed measure not arousing points of controversy analagous to those we have heard this evening. It is to provide land for sailors and soldiers in Ireland. The Bill does not change the existing land acts in Ireland except in one small particular. It merely extends under the two groups of land acts the benefits to soldiers and sailors who as such are not at present qualified to become benficiaries under these Acts. The machinery therefore in Ireland already exists. Large powers are vested in the Government and the two separate series of enactments—namely, the Land Purchase Acts and the Labourers (Ireland) Act—provide a system by which soldiers and sailors can be settled on land in Ireland without any substantial modification of the existing law. The Bill in fact does no more than to say that soldiers and sailors as such shall be qualified to benefit under these two groups of statutes where as now it is a specified body of men who can be included under these two groups of Acts. The first clause of the Bill makes the provision as regards the Land Purchase
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Act. It allows sale to be expedited and it provides for land which is vested in the congested Districts Board to be sold. The second section is technical. It restrains alienation, the object being to give these men a good start in life by preventing their being hampered by antecedent debts. Clause 4 is the second branch of the Bill, and here the benefits of the Labourers (Ireland) Acts are extended to soldiers and sailors as such. This is the existing statute but amended in one or two small particulars. Firstly, the control of the interests of soldiers and sailors under the Labourers Act will by this Bill be vested in the Local Government Board instead of in local authorities; and the second Amendment is that, instead of one acre, which is at present the statutory minimum, two acres shall be substituted. I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Crawford).
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House tomorrow.

THE COAL QUESTION.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government what tonnage of coal has been raised during the preceding eleven months of this year; what proportion was shipped abroad and what proportion was used for house and industrial consumption; if the Government can state the average price received for each of the above. I may say that I am not asking this Question for any idle purpose.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: The tonnage of coal raised in Great Britain during the eleven months ended November 30, 1919, was approximately 207,873,676 tons. During that period the proportion shipped abroad as exports was 32,315,700 tons, or 15·5 per cent. of the output, and 10,838,130 tons (or 5·2 per cent. of the output) were shipped for use of steamers engaged in the foreign trade. The amount of coal delivered to merchants for retail sale for household purposes was 33,656,000 tons, or 16·2 per cent. of the output.
I am very sorry that we cannot give the full particulars for 1919 in further detail, but the figures for 1918 may be of use to my noble friend. Leaving out the exports in 1918, the amount for consumption as

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household coal was 18 per cent. of the whole, for gasworks 9 per cent., for electricity works 3 per cent., for railways 7 per cent., for general industrial work 10 per cent., making a total of 77 per cent; the remaining 23 per cent. was divided principally between Admiralty bunkers and collieries' own consumption. These figures, as I have said before, do not include exports, and we cannot say what the figures for 1919 are, but the noble Lord may take it that they are practically the same.
I understood that the noble Earl also desired to ask whether the Coal Controller considered that the amount raised by the extra price of coal exported was sufficient to pay the loss caused to those collieries which deal only with household coals. On that I would say that arrangements have already been made to finance, by means of advances, collieries which are in difficulties, as the result of the 10 s. reduction in the price of household coal. The Coal Industry (Emergency) Bill provides for the pooling of all profits derived from the raising of coal, including the very large profits which certain collieries are making as a consequence of their being permitted by the Coal Controller to sell their coal for export. The basis of distribution provided in the Bill has the effect of making good losses caused to collieries producing household coal by the reduction of 10 s. in the price. The Government is now considering what steps should be taken to arrange the finance of the year in view of the situation which has arisen with regard to the Coal Industry (Emergency) Bill.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: The noble Lord did not mention what the average prices for export were for this year.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: I am sorry I forgot that. The average value per ton f.o.b. of exported coal during the period under notice was 45 s. 8d., and the value of coal shipped for the use of steamers engaged in foreign trade may be taken at approximately the same figure. As regards the price of household coal, I am unable to furnish the figure as the information respecting the price of coal sold in England does not distinguish between household coal and coal sold for general inland purposes. That is why I gave the figures for 1918 instead of those for 1919.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: I am obliged to the noble Lord for his courteous reply; but I really must draw your Lordships attention to the extraordinary attitude of the President of the Board of Trade—
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: May I remind the noble Earl that there is no Motion before the House?
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: May I not ask a supplementary question? Then I will leave the matter.

REGIMENTAL DEBTS (DEPOSIT OF WILLS) (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, the object of this Bill is to overcome a difficulty which has arisen, in connection with the deposit of wills with the Commissary Clerk of the County of Edinburgh, in terms of Section 21 of the Regimental Debts Act, 1893. That. section requires that, where the original will of a person subject to military law is in the hands of the Secretary for War, and confirmation (the Scottish equivalent of probate) of the will is not taken out, the Secretary for War may cause the will to be deposited, if the testator is a domiciled Scotsman, in the office of the Commissary Clerk of the County of Edinburgh. The section makes provision with regard to the preservation of the will in the Commissary Office. It sometimes happens that, after a will has been so deposited, it is required for the purpose of completing a title to heritable estates in Scotland. For this purpose the original will is necessary. The present Bill therefore authorises, under due safeguards, the surrender of the will by the Commissary Clerk, for the purpose of completing a title to heritable estate, and also for the purpose of taking out confirmation, as it sometimes happens that the will is deposited before a decision to take out confirmation is reached, and difficulty is thereby occasioned.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House tomorrow.

THE HIGH COST OF LIVING.
LORD MESTON: My Lords, on behalf of Lord D'ABERNON I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will give the necessary directions for the publication quarterly in an amended form of Command Paper 434, in view of the important bearing of the facts contained in this paper upon the problem of the high cost of living and the prevailing rates of exchange.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, the reply is a very brief one. It has been arranged to present in a quarterly Command Paper the statistics asked for by the noble Lord.

BRITISH TROOPS IN PALESTINE.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is a fact that no British troops now remain in Syria and Cilicia; whether all British civilian subjects have left Syria; if not, what British representative there is to look after their interests; and what number of British troops there are in Palestine and what is the most northerly post they occupy.
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, in reply to the first Question, British troops have now been withdrawn from Cilicia and Syria, with the exception of some troops awaiting embarkation at certain ports. The replies to the second and third Questions have been supplied to me by the War Office. I have no information of any general exodus of British civilians from Syria. Mr. Wratislaw has been appointed H.M. Consul at Beirut, and is leaving shortly for his post. Until other arrangements can be made the United States Government has instructed then Consuls at Damascus and Beirut to take charge of British interests. As to the fourth Question, there will remain in Palestine, as post-war garrison, one Indian Infantry Division and one British Cavalry Brigade. The most northern line occupied there is approximately from Ras-en-Nakhura, about half-way between Tyre and Haifa, on the coast, to the marshes north of Lake Tiberias.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (WAR ADDI TION) AMENDMENT BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3a to-morrow.
COUNTY AND BOROUGH POLICE BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3a to-morrow.

INCREASE OF RENT, &c. (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill at this period of the session I am taking a cause which can only be justified by the extreme urgency of the situation to which the Bill relates. I have explained the circumstances and the scope of the Bill to several of your Lordships who take an interest in these matters, and I think they are unanimously convinced that the Bill is one which ought to be passed through its stages in this House with the utmost possible expedition.
I think I can explain in five minutes what is the emergency and what is the remedy proposed. Under the existing law a tenant who pays his rent and observes the conditions of his lease cannot be evicted from a house to which the Acts apply, except on the specific grounds which are set out in the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1915, and the Acts amending it. Those grounds are—1, that the tenant has committed waste or been guilty of a nuisance; 2, the premises are reasonably required by the landlord for the occupation of himself or some other person in his employ or in the employ of some tenant; 3, some other ground which may be deemed satisfactory by the Court making such order.
The existing Acts are so framed that the Court has practically no discretion to refuse an order for possession if one or other of the special grounds set out is established. The continued shortage of housing accommodation in London has led to an immense multiplication of cases in which application is made to which there is no legal answer, and yet in respect of which every County Court Judge before whom the cases come says that cruel injustice is being done by the application of the existing law. This Bill was suggested by a most powerful representation of all the County Court Judges of London who have to administer the law, which they tell me—and I accept

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their statement—is leading to the gravest risk of widespread disturbance in the poorer parts of London.
I examined the representation made to me by the County Court judges and I assented to it. I have put it before several members of your Lordship's House as a grave matter of national urgency which I believe the House of Commons will accept even at this late period of the Session.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, the House is very empty now, but I believe every one desires to meet the emergency alluded to by the Lord Chancellor. There is, however, a great deal to be said upon the policy of this Bill, and even now there is nothing to prevent a tenant who remains in a house against the wishes of the landlord, sub-letting the house at a great increase on the rent. That is a point which I hope the Lord Chancellor will consider before we reach the Committee stage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That point has been considered, and I shall be glad to discuss it with the noble Viscount at an early stage. I shall have to ask your Lordships to take the Committee stage quite soon. I ask the noble Viscount to approach the Committee stage with this knowledge, that it is the unanimous recommendation of the County Court Judges, who are closely in touch with the question, that some such proposal should be passed in order to deal with the subject.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House tomorrow.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY AND LUNACY (AMENDMENT) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3a to-morrow.

MINERS AND COLLIERY BOARDS.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether any scheme whereby the miners could be represented on Colliery Boards and share in the profits has ever been considered by His Majesty's Government; and in what respect.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, the Government have considered the reports on the second stage of the Coal Industry Commission. Noble Lords will remember that Sir Arthur Duckham's report contains provisions for representation of miners on colliery boards. On August 18, in the Prime Minister's review of the trade and industrial position, he announced the Government's policy with regard to the future of the coal industry. Briefly, the policy then decided upon might be stated to be—first, nationalisation of mining royalties; second, certain improvements in housing conditions; and third, unification and amalgamation within districts, with the workers having directors on the Area Boards which control the policy in the district, and also having the opportunity of co-operation in shaping the general conditions of the industry.
As a result of the Prime Minister's meeting with the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee and the Executive of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain on October 9, the position underwent a considerable change, necessitating a further consideration of policy by the Cabinet. Subsequently the Prime Minister intimated that it would be necessary for him to refer the matter to his colleagues for further consideration in view of the fact that the Miners' Federation objected to unification even if accompanied by representation on the board of directors. Since then I learn that no move has been made and I regret I have no further information on the subject which I can communicate to the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN: Will the noble Lord make representation to the Government that all these objections can be overruled?
LORD SOMERLEYTON: I will take care that what the noble Earl has said is passed along.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 41:
Statutory commission.
41.—(1) At the expiration of ten years after the passing of this Act the Secretary of State, with the concurrence of both Houses of Parliament, shall submit for the approval of His

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Majesty the names of persons to act as a commission for the purposes of this section.
(2) The persons whose names are so submitted, subject to the approval of, and to any alterations made by Parliament, shall be a commission for the purpose of inquiring into the working of the system of government, the growth of education, and the development of representative institutions, in British India, and matters connected therewith, and the commission shall report as to whether and to what extent it is desirable to establish the principle of responsible government, or to extend, modify, or restrict the degree of responsible government then existing therein, including the question whether the establishment of second chambers of the local legislatures is or is not desirable.
(3) The commission shall also inquire into and report on any other matter affecting British India and the provinces, which may be referred to the commission by the Secretary of State.
VICOUNT MIDLETON VICOUNT MIDLETON formally moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "subject to the approval of and to any alterations made by Parliament," and insert if approved by His Majesty, "and at the end of subsection (3), to leave out" the Secretary of State "and insert" His Majesty."
Amendments moved—
Clause 41, page 29, line 16, leave out from ("submitted") to ("shall") in line 17, and insert ("if approved by His Majesty")
Clause 41, page 29, line 29, leave out ("the Secretary of State") and insert ("His Majesty").—(Viscount Midleton.)
LORD SINHA: I accept the Amendments.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Second Schedule:
LORD SINHA: I have a manuscript Amendment which is purely drafting.
On Question, drafting Amendment agreed to.
Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order).
[THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords; I have given notice of half-a-dozen Amendments, but I can assure you that they are purely drafting and technical and do not in any way change the principle of the Bill to which you gave unanimously a Second Reading. I suggest that they be agreed to en bloc, and I so move them.
Amendments moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 18, after subsection (2 insert the following new subsection:
"(3) Where the Public Libraries Acts have been adopted by the council of a county the council may borrow for the purposes of those Acts as for the purposes of the Local Government Act, 1888:
"Provided that money borrowed for the purposes of those Acts shall not be reckoned as part of the total debt of the county for the purposes of subsection (2) of section sixty-nine of the Local Government Act, 1888, and that sixty years shall be substituted for thirty years in subsection (5) of the said section sixty-nine as the maximum period within which money borrowed for the purposes of those Acts is to be repaid."
Clause 3, page 2, lines 16 and 17, leave out ("for a library district the library authority of") and insert ("by an authority which is not the library authority of an existing library area and")
Clause 3, page 2, line 28, leave out from ("may") to ("delegate") in line 30, and insert ("refer any matters relating to the exercise by them of their powers under the Public Libraries Acts to the education committee established under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1918, and may")
Clause 3, page 2, lines 30 and 31, leave out ("any of their powers under the Public Libraries Acts") and insert ("to that committee any of those powers")
Clause 3, page 2, lines 32 and 33, leave out ("to the education committee established under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1918").
Clause 4, page 3, line 28, after ("borough" insert ("including a metropolitan borough").
Clause 10, page 5, line 25, after ("Acts") insert ("or in which a public library has been established and is being maintained under or by virtue of any local Act").—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
The Report of Amendments to be received to-morrow.

NURSES REGISTRATION (No. 2) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I have some Amendments, but can assure you they are all drafting and do not alter the principle of the Bill in any sense or degree. I therefore move them en bloc.
Amendments moved—
Clause 3, page 4, line 3, after ("void") insert ("and if modified it shall thenceforth have effect as so modified").
Clause 6, page 5, line 9, after ("registered") leave out ("as a nurse") and insert ("either generally as a nurse for the sick or as a nurse of some special class")
Clause 6, page 5, line 15, after ("registered") insert ("in a corresponding manner").
Clause, 8, page 6, line 16, leave out ("If any person") and insert ("Any person who "(a)")
Clause, 8, page 6, line 24, leave out (" If any person ") and insert:
("(b) being a person whose name is included in any part of the register, at any time after the expiration of the period aforesaid takes or uses any name, title, addition, description, uniform or badge, or otherwise does any act of any kind, implying that his name is included in swim other part of the register; or
"(c)")
Clause, 8, page 6, line 26, leave out ("he").
Clause 9, page 6, line 36, leave out ("(No. 2)").—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

NURSES REGISTRATION (IRELAND) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: The Amendments to this Bill are also drafting, and I move them en bloc.
Amendments moved—
Clause 3, page 3, line 38, after ("annulled") insert ("or modified"), and after ("annul") insert ("or modify")
Clause 3, page 3, line 39, after ("void") insert ("and if modified it shall thenceforth have effect as so modified").
Clause 6, page 5, line 5, leave out ("as a nurse") and insert ("either generally as a nurse for the sick or as a nurse of some special class")
Clause 6, page 5, line 11, after ("registered") insert ("in a corresponding manner").
Clause 8, page 6, line 11, leave out ("If any person") and insert ("any person who
"(a)")
Clause 8, page 6, line 25, leave out ("If any person") and insert:
("(b) Being a person whose name is included in any part of the register, at any time after the expiration of the period aforesaid, takes or uses any name, title, addition, description, uniform or badge, or otherwise does any act of any kind, implying that his name is included in some other part of the register or
"(c)")
Clause 8, page 6, line 26, leave out ("he").—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

NURSES REGISTRATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order).
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: The object of the Amendments standing in my name is to bring the Bill into conformity with the other measures. I only wish to call attention to the Amendment in Clause 3, page 2, line 30, which leaves out that part of the clause which had to do with a lady being one of the examining body. I have put this Amendment in at the request of Lord Kintore, who would have moved it if he had been present.
Amendments moved—
Clause 2, page 2, line 3, leave out ("mental")
Clause 2, page 2, line 4, after ("nurses") insert ("trained in the nursing and care of persons suffering from mental diseases")
Clause 2, page 2, lines 12 and 13, leave out ("duly authenticated in the prescribed manner").
Clause 3, page 2, line 30, leave out from ("examinations") to end of line 33.
Clause 3, page 3, line 3, leave out ("and") and insert:
(f) for enabling the council to constitute committees and for authorising the delegation to committees of any of the powers of the council, and for regulating the proceedings (including quorum) of committees; and
(g)
Clause 3, page 4, line 22, after ("void") insert ("and if modified if shall thenceforth have effect as so modified").
Clause 6, page 5, line 32, leave out ("as a nurse") and insert ("either generally as a nurse for the sick or as a nurse of some special class")
Clause 6, page 5, line 38, after ("registered") insert ("in a corresponding manner")
Clause 7, page 6, line 27, leave out ("Division") and insert ("Court").
Clause 8, page 6, line 37, leave out ("if any person") and insert ("Any person who (a)")
Clause 8, page 7, line 5, leave out ("If any person") and insert:
("(b) being a person whose name is included in any part of the register, at any time after the expiration of the period aforesaid takes or uses any name, title, addition, description, uniform, or badge, or otherwise does any act of any kind, implying that his name

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is included in some other part of the register; or (c)")
Clause 8, page 7, line 7, leave out ("he").—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
The Report of Amendments to be received to-morrow.

ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY (ACQUI SITION OF CAPITAL) AMENDMENT BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a tomorrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I beg to move the adjournment of the House, and in doing so I desire to say that the first Order to-morrow will be the Motion in the name of the Leader of the House to consider the suspension of Standing Orders. Of the Bills to be taken, the Aliens Bill will come first, the Housing Bill second, and the Scottish Land Bill third.
House adjourned at ten minutes before one o'clock a.m.