Sitting of 23 May 1919

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bedwellty Urban District Council Bill, Swinton and Mexborough Gas Board Bill, Workington Corporation Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,
St. George's Church, Oxford Bill, without Amendment.
Ministry of Health Bill, with Amendments.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 87.]
RESTORATION OF PRE-WAR PRACTICES (No. 2) BILL.
Order for Second Reading upon Monday next read, and discharged.—Bill with-drawn.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  DOGS' PROTECTION BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  DOGS' PROTECTION BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(prohibition of Experiments upon Dogs.)
    Notwithstanding anything in the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876 (hereinafter referred to as "the principal Ac") it shall be unlawful to perform any experiments of a nature calculated to give pain or disease to any dog for any purpose whatsoever, either with or without anæsthetics, and no person or place shall be licensed for the purpose of performing any such experiments.
    Amendment proposed [4th April]: After the word "unlawful," to insert the words,
    "except as hereinafter provided."—[Sir Hamar Greenwood]
    Question again proposed,
    "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
    Sir F. BANBURY:The Amendment before the House was proposed a short time ago. In itself it is a very little Amendment, and is really a drafting Amendment, but the Amendments which follow really cut at the root of the Bill. If this Amendment is carried, the objects for which the Bill was brought in are practically frustrated. I presume that the House will wish to discuss the whole matter upon this first Amendment, and take a Division upon it. I do not quite see how we can avoid falling into a Second Reading Debate, since, as I have mentioned, the Amendment cuts at the root of the Bill. There have been two arguments brought forward by the opponents of the Bill, and they are exemplified, I think, in a little leaflet which was sent out from the Research Defence Society, and called "The Case Against the Dogs Bill." In that leaflet there is a letter written by Sir Edward Schafer to the "Times," in which he says:
    "It is hardly necessary to say the title of the Bill is a misnomer. Dogs are already absolutely protected from suffering in any experiments which require to be made upon them. No operation whatever can be performed on a dog without the express sanction of the Home Secretary. All operations must be conducted under complete
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    anæsthesia, and any dog suffering pain as a result of operation must be immediately killed. Perhaps 100 dogs are employed annually for experiments in this matter—certainly not more— whereas many thousands are killed every year, not with a view to extending knowledge, but simply for the sake of getting rid of them."
    I will deal with the last point first. It is really a very small point, and, I think, shows the feebleness of the case of the opponents of the Bill to bring forward such a question as the number of lost dogs that are killed. Even there we cannot rely on some figures which are given, because one learned Gentleman says that 40,000 dogs are killed every year and another says 20,000 dogs, and there is a considerable difference between the two figures. I do not want to labour that point. It shows that a good many of these statements have been inaccurately prepared and are inaccurate. I propose to show that every one of the important statements made by Sir Edward Schafer are absolutely inaccurate. He says that "dogs are absolutely protected from suffering in any experiments which require to be made upon them," and that "no operation whatever can be performed on a dog without the express sanction of the Home Secretary." I have provided myself with a considerable amount of literature, because I do not want to say anything I cannot absolutely prove. The Act of 1876 is the only Act in existence about the matter. That Act, instead of saying that no operation whatever can be. performed upon a dog without the express sanction of the Home Secretary states in Section 11 which contradicts the statement of Sir Edward Schafer:
    "Any application for a licence under this Act and a certificate must be signed by one or more of the following persons, the President of the Royal Society, the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the President of the Royal Irish Academy, the Presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in London, Edinburgh or Dublin.…
    The gentlemen mentioned are the Presidents of the various colleges, and the Section proceeds
    "A certificate under this Section may be given for such time or for such series of experiments as the person or persons signing the certificate may think expedient."
    Thus they can do what the people who sign the certificate want. Now comes the Home Secretary, and this is the only part of the Section which deals with him.
    "A copy of any certificate under this Section shall be forwarded by the applicant to the Secretary of State and shall not be available until one week after a copy has been so forwarded."

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    Therefore if the Secretary of State during that week is too busy looking after a Bill like the Ways and Communications Bill, which has taken a considerable time during the last few months, or is very busy looking after other Government Departments, he takes no notice during that week; and then those gentlemen can do as they like. Therefore I say it is absolutely misleading to say that no operation whatever can be performed upon a dog without the express sanction of the Home Secretary. With regard to the first part of his statement, that dogs are absolutely protected from suffering in any experiments which require to be made upon them——
    Captain ELLIOT: On a point of Order. May I read what is printed in red ink on the certificate, and which specifically states:
    "Experiments are not to be performed under this certificate until the licensee has been informed that it has not been disallowed by the Secretary of State."
    That seems to me to be an absolute protection. I would say to the hon. and noble and distinguished and learned Baronet before he brings forward——
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can reserve that for his speech.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am neither learned nor distinguished, but I am accurate, and I do not care a rap what these hon. and learned gentlemen now put upon their certificates. I am talking about the law, and if they choose to put that upon your certificates now, in a month's time they may choose not to do it and the law does not compel them. What we want is the law and not the good will or good faith of any gentleman, however noble or however distinguished. Let me read what was said in evidence by Mr. Bryne before the Royal Commission in October, 1906, as to the existing law. It is on page 3 of the Report of the Royal Commission:
    "A certificate may be given for killing the animal before the operation, which would frustrate the purpose of the experiment, and such a certificate postpones the obligation to kill until the object of the experiment has been obtained."
    That is Certificate B. That is the law. I wish the House to understand that that is the law, and it is the law and the law only which governs these things. The witness went on to say:
    "A certificate may be given that the object of the experiment would be frustrated unless performed on a dog or cat. This certificate is not necessary if the experiment is performed wholly under an anæsthetic."
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    There is the law as it stands at the present moment, whatever anybody says, and it permits these experiments, although these experiments are painful. Let me give some evidence as to the pain of these experiments. There was some interesting evidence given before the Royal Commission by Mr. Pembrey, who is a vivisector. In the Committee stage I stated that Mr. Pembrey had said before the Royal Commission that he had inflicted pain, that he thought it right to inflict pain, and that it was necessary to inflict pain. The hon. Member opposite (Sir Watson Cheyne), who is a distinguished surgeon, said he-did not care about Mr. Pembrey.
    Sir WATSON CHEYNE: I do not recollect that.
    Sir F. BANBURY:Perhaps the hon. Member will be able to say that he does care about Mr. Pembrey when I have read what he says. Here is what Mr. Pembrey says in his evidence in the Fourth Report of the Royal Commission, Question 14067, page 763:
    "I wanted to mention it in order to show the necessity of painful experiments. I think that painful experiments are necessary."
    Then he goes on to show the necessity of experiments without anæsthetics. Here is a learned gentleman, giving evidence before the Royal Commission, who says that experiments which cause pain are in his opinion necessary, and without anæsthetics are necessary. Then he was asked with what view he was bringing out these facts and he replied:
    "To show the necessity of experiments without anæsthetics, I want to baring out the fact that if one studies the question of bleeding and transfusion it is impossible to give anæsthetics. If one gives an anæ sthetic one cannot study the effect of bleeding and transfusion."
    He was further asked whether he thought that garrotting would not be a painful experiment and he replied:
    "No, not if done properly."
    I do not wish any harm to the opponents of the Bill, but if they think that garrotting is not a painful experiment and that they could give it without pain, I should not be sorry to see it done. The witness further said:
    "I consider that it is perfectly right to inflict pain upon animals."
    I think I have said enough to show that Sir Edward Schafer's statement that dogs are protected and that there is no suffering is incorrect on the face of it. Here is an extract from a speech by Dr. Wilson,

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    M.A., M.D., LLD., a distinguished medical gentleman, who was one of the members of the Commission appointed in 1906. It is an extract from the address which he gave as president of the section of State medicine at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association at Portsmouth in 1899. He said:
    "I boldly say that there should be some pause in these ruthless lines of experimentation, to take a calm and candid view of the whole position of bacteriological methods in the prevention or cure of human disease. I have not allied myself to the anti-vivisectionists, but I accuse my profession of misleading the public as to the cruelties and horrors which are perpetrated on animal life. When it is stated that the actual pain involved in these experiments is commonly of the most trifling description there is a suppressio veri of the most palpable kind. I admit that in the mere operation of injecting a virus there may be little or no pain, but the cruelty does not lie in the operation itself, which is permitted to be performed without anæsthetics, but in the after effects. There is the long drawn-out agony. The animal so innocently operated on may have to live days, weeks, or months, with no anæsthetics to assuage its sufferings, and nothing but death to relieve. What triumph has bacteriology achieved in stemming the tide of human diseases on these empirical lines? "
    Let the House remember that this is an extract from a speech not of a humble person like myself, but of one of the leading members of the medical profession. While I am on that subject, let me say that the doctors are not all on one side by any manner of means. I have a letter here from an old and respected Member of this House—I do not know whether he is a surgeon or physician—but a well-known medical man, and he was on the Royal Commission, and this is what he says—
    "Dear Sir Frederick,
    Allow me to congratulate you on the success which has so far attended you on the Dogs Bill. You will, of course, have noticed paragraph 95, page 57, in the Report of the Royal Commission which, if I remember rightly, I drafted. I wish you every success. With kind remembrances,
    Yours sincerely,
    WILLIAM COLLINS."
    That is Sir Willian Collins, a well-known Member of this House in the last Parliament, wishing me success with this Bill, and I have letters from other doctors to the same effect. In addition, it must be remembered that the Royal Canine Defence League have a petition signed, I think, by something like 1,300 doctors. Let me point out that the opposition from the medical men or—what shall I say?—the professors, has always been in existence. They opposed the Act of 1876 in the same way, and said there would be
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    an end of all science and investigation if that Act were carried, but it has come, and there has not been an end of all these great things, and I do not think the death rate—I speak subject to correction —has enormously increased. I am going to try to say nothing for which I cannot give absolute chapter and verse. I suppose Sir William Gull would be considered an authority. This is what he said in the Report of the first Royal Commission:
    "Answer 5475—I should regard any legislation as retrogressive or hampering. There is such a desire to be governed by weak sentiment that I am sure even the mildest legislation would do harm to the progress of science."
    Weak sentiment! That is the epithet applied to myself. For the first time for twenty-seven years in this House I have been called a weak sentimentalist. I am very glad hon. Members are finding out my true character. They have always hitherto regarded me as a hard-fisted, unsympathetic, reactionary Tory, whose views were not only wrong, but who had no sympathy or feeling for any living thing. Now apparently they are changing their view. I read on—
    "I would not object to even the most painful experiment on the sensitory nerves, nor any other experiment, if the teacher thought it necessary."
    So much for the idea that the dogs are protected from pain. There was a question put, I think, by my hon. and learned Friend who sits for York (Sir J. Butcher), as to what the practice was at the present moment. The Home Secretary, who answered, said they would give these certificates, and there was a faint cheer about that. This is the certificate which is now given by the Home Office, or, rather, this is the certificate on which the Home Office grants a licence. It is no real protection at all, because we might change the right hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary at any moment. I see rumours in the papers that there is going to be a change in the Government. We might have other hon. and learned Members opposite taking their place. What then would happen? They would administer the Act, and would be quite right in doing so. It is the Act we have to look to, and not any Home Secretary.
    "If an animal, by reason of any of the said experiments, under the said certificate, is found to be suffering pain which is severe, and likely to endure, and if the main result of the experiment ha3 been attained, the animal should be forthwith killed. … If an animal, after the said

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    experiment, is found to be suffering from severe pain likely to endure, such animal should be killed."
    Therefore, the two are absolutely contradictory. The first says that it shall be killed if the main result has been attained, and the second says it shall be killed only if it is suffering severe pain if it is likely to endure. Who is the judge? These gentlemen who say that they do not think it harmful to give pain if it is necessary to give pain. These arc facts. Let me read from the Report on the Second Reading in the House of Commons of the same Bill in 1914, because it shows one of the real reasons which animated these gentlemen. This is a speech of Dr. Chapple, and this is what he says:
    "But, even if we examine this question of cheapness, we find that the difference is not between 5s. and 7s. 6d., but between 5s. and £5."
    That is the ratio in which Dr. Chapple regards the giving of pain. If you can do it for 5s. you had better do it, because otherwise you may have to pay £5.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: Is that the only reason advanced by him?
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am reading from Dr. Chapple's speech in this House. I will read it again—
    "But even if we examine this question of cheapness, we find that the difference is not between 5s. and 7s. 6d., but between 5s. and £5. It is not, a matter of saving a few shillings."
    No, it is not, or the saving of a few pounds either—
    "It is a matter of getting animals for experimenting at a price which can be paid, as compared with a price that cannot be paid. It would cost £5 to get a suitable monkey."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1914, col. 524, Vol. 61.]
    Therefore, for the sake of saving £5, these gentlemen wish to subject the greatest friend man ever had in the world to these tortures. [Interruption.] The dog for a thousand and more years has been the friend of man, and has given his life for man, but the monkey, so far as I know, has not done that. Let me read from the "Journal of Physiology." Writing there on the 21st March, 1914, Dr. Douglas Cowan gives a description of sixty-five observations on three dogs. He says—
    "that the success of the matter (the experiments) is largely a matter of chance. … no positive result was ever obtained following injection."
    In order to gain no positive result, one of these wretched dogs was subjected to this experiment! Then I have a postcard
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    here in my hand. Someone, I suppose, has-taken the trouble to have it printed, and I commend it to the attention of the Government, though I do not suppose it will be necessary to recommend to the Government the advice it contains. The only argument, apparently, that those who sent the postcard have to fall back upon, is to-ask the Government to obstruct the Bill. I have known obstruction. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] I have here a copy of the "Journal of Physiology "for 27th February, 1899, which says:
    "Terrier: Right kidney mutilated 27th June,. 1890; left kidney removed 8th August, 1890; killed 27th August, 1890."
    I do not know that I need enlarge upon that. It seems to me that that alone is a. sufficient reason for my case. Let me conclude with an epitaph which Lord Byron wrote for his dog:
    "Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices. This praise, which would be unnecessary flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the memory of Bo'sun the dog."
    Mr. RAWLINSON:This Amendment, as has been pointed out, raises what is really, and practically a Second Reading Debate on the Bill. The real test of the Amendment is first: what the effect of the Amendment is; and secondly, what the result will be of the Amendment of that. The Amendment proposes to put further restrictions on the vivisection of dogs. If the Amendment is not carried, the Bill as it stands will prevent any more experiments being made upon dogs at all. The Amendment, no doubt, is in favour of exact science, because an Amendment of this kind will allow some experiments upon dogs. But the men of science will be subject to certain other licences. I want to put first plainly that I shall vote for the Government Amendment. I am glad indeed the Government have met us upon this point, and have put forward the Amendment. Yet I must frankly admit to the House, that even with this Amendment, I shall object very strongly to the Bill on the Third Reading. Is there any other country in the world—I would ask some people who know more about this matter than I myself—where men of science are confronted with the pains, penalties, and restrictions to which they are subjected already in following out matters of research? I should like to know very much if there is such a country where it is

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    Personally, this is a matter upon which I have spoken frequently in the House, and on which I feel very strongly indeed. You have men of science attempting to do work which is of the greatest possible use to humanity. Instead of regarding them as benefactors of the human race, you subject them to these licences which some of us look upon as unnecessary insults. Though I am going to vote for this Amendment, it adds another one of these licences to those existing, which I think are unnecessary. The question is: In view of the fact that experiments of this kind must be made, axe you going to allow them upon animals or upon human beings? Experiments will be made however much you try to prevent them—and manual dexterity in surgical operations is of the utmost importance. I, personally, should be prepared to go very far indeed in the direction of helping the medical profession to prevent and alleviate human suffering. Is there any one of us who has been present at an operation on anyone for whom he really cared? I have only seen one once. Take the case where the life of a person that a man really cared for more than his own was at stake—a matter of life and death! Not only so, but it may be that in the case of a son or a daughter the father's whole future- life will be affected. Think of one in that position looking back at having tried to prevent the acquisition of manual dexterity on the part of the surgeon, who at that moment has this frightful responsibility on his head. In the midst of all this agony consider the nonsense of talking about a hecatomb of smoking dogs! At such a moment as I have tried to describe is there any man who would not gladly sacrifice every dog in the world than that the one he loved should be lost? That is, in short, the point of a mere outsider. But the matter does not rest there. I would go very much further. I want to know: Do not other countries allow this? Are we the only country pharasaical enough to impose these fearful restrictions upon medical men? If you do this it will not stop at dogs.
    The anti-vivesection societies, whose patrons are supporting this Bill, with all the money that is behind them, and following all the proselytism that has been going on for years—are they merely to be content to save the dogs? Read their pamphlets and you will see they do not
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    mean to stop there. They will go on to prevent vivesection on every kind of animal, and, after all, that is the only logical outcome. The right hon. Baronet himself saw the difficulty he was in his observations about the monkey as well as the dog. You cannot draw an absolute dividing line. Assume you do not pass this Amendment—I do not like it—what do you do? You put an end to any experiments on dogs at all. I want to know definitely what will be the effect upon medical research, and I hope some hon. Members who are entitled to speak on this subject will tell the House whether, if this Bill were carried, dogs would not be experimented upon at all. One hon. Member on the Committee told us what had happened during the War, and I hope he will say a word on this subject, and tell us what the effect of this Bill would have been upon his work at the front. The hon. Member representing the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) told us all about this point upstairs very convincingly. There are very few doctors in favour of this Bill, and most of them agree that it will do a great injury to medical research. I listened carefully to what was said upstairs, and I unhesitatingly say that injury would be caused to medical research if these experiments upon dogs were stopped. I submit to the House that, after hearing the evidence, hon. Members can only come to the conclusion that medical research would be hampered by this Bill, and I think it is our duty to vote against it. I have given my reasons for opposing it upon a much wider basis, but if hon. Members prefer the narrow issue, I hope when they have heard the-speeches of those who are entitled to speak on this subject they will conclude-that medical research is likely to be injured by this measure.
    Those who are opposing this measure-represent a large profession. If we have-anyone we care for we call in the doctor, who performs operations and similar matters. You trust the doctor on those occasions, and why are you not prepared to trust them on this question. Do you really believe that the medical Members of the House who are opposing this Bill really operate on dogs for the sake of cruelty? What do you imagine their motive is? Having attained the highest position in their profession, what do you think they are opposing this Bill for? Do you think it is because they simply wish

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    to torture a monkey or a dog? They absolutely pledge their professional reputation that it is absolutely wrong to pass this Bill, because it will be a serious injury to medical science. Can they possibly have any motive in deceiving the House. If a large part of the medical profession come forward and say you will injure medical research if you pass this Bill, I think that is evidence which no hon. Member of this House ought to ignore. Under these circumstances I think you are bound to trust these men who make experiments upon dogs in the same way as you have to trust them in conducting operations upon those you love and care for, who are, after all, human beings and not dogs.
    Captain ELLIOT:It is with the greatest trepidation that I rise to oppose such an excellent master of the Rules of this House as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), but there are some things which one cannot allow to go unchallenged. I listened with the greatest interest to the speech of the right hon. Baronet, and I waited to hear what arguments he was going to bring forward in favour of his Bill. The right hon. Gentleman prefaced his remarks by saying that he was going to make practically a Second Reading speech, but I never heard so weak a Second Reading speech in all my life, because I found no arguments in it for the passing of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman started out by traversing the assertion of the professor of physiology in the University of Edinburgh, and the spoke of "all suffering" when he should have said "all unnecessary suffering." I am no lawyer, but I do think that I can understand a plain statement of fact as well as anybody. I looked up the Act of 1876, which is the Act, as was pointed out by the right hon. Baronet, under which all the legislation is based at the present time on this subject. The governing Clause is Clause 11, which states:
    "Any application for a licence under this Act and a certificate given as in this Act mentioned must be signed by one or more of the following persons."
    As has already been pointed out, those persons are doctors, but surely the word "application" obviously refers to some previous Clause. If you turn up the previous Clause you will find it is provided,
    "That the experiment must be performed by a person holding a licence from one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State as in this Act mentioned."
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    Therefore, the governing factor is the Home Secretary. Clause 8 says:
    "The Secretary of State may licence any person whom he may think qualified to hold a licence to perform experiments under this head."
    Under these circumstances it seems fallacious to try and get the House to believe that the governing thing is a certificate from doctors saying that a person is a fit man to have a licence, when it is provided that the licence has to be granted by the Home Secretary, and in that respect it seems to me that the statement of Sir Edward Shafer that an experiment could not be conducted except under the licence of the Home Secretary is absolutely correct. There seems to me to be some confusion with regard to the arguments in favour of the Government's Amendment in favour of no further restrictions being imposed upon the scientific people who are carrying out research for the good of humanity. To begin with we object to the name of this Bill. The Dogs' Protection Bill is not a Bill to protect dogs. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London does not care about dogs, and the Member for York does not care about dogs. They may be mutilated, and they are mutilated without any anæsthetics by all sorts of people as long as they are not qualified scientists, and the right hon. Baronet is quite willing to allow these people to persist in these cruel practices so long as you say in the Preamble that you have no intention of benefiting humanity. With regard to the operation of docking a dog's tail, does anybody suggest that it is not done by hundreds of thousands of people every year? Does that cause pain to the dog? Would it cause pain to me if I had so chop off one of my fingers? Of course it would, and it is painful to a dog to chop off part of his tail. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite does not object to that because it may increase the value of the dog.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I said nothing of the sort. Where did I say it?
    Captain ELLIOT: I assume that the right hon. Gentleman said it.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Then you assume wrong.
    Captain ELLIOT:The right hon. Gentleman calls this a Dogs' Protection Bill, and if that is the right title surely the measure ought to be to protect dogs, even against the dog fancier, and the man in

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    the back shop with a rusty knife, and other people who would torture dogs, and not merely the scientists. Some of these men would go out and remove any part of any animal to which they happened to take a passing objection. There is at present before the House a Bill to prohibit the most ruthless, the most revolting, and the most cruel of all possible series of experiments which are now being performed upon all animals, including dogs. This Bill was not brought forward by the right hon. Baronet, and he does not introduce any of its provisions into his Bill so grandiloquently described as for "the protection of dogs." There are three or four million dogs in this country, as stated in answer to a question put to the Home Office. There are a few scores of dogs which are operated upon by scientists. There are hundreds of thousands of dogs which are operated upon by sporting gentlemen, the friends and associates of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London and the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of York. He does not propose to interfere with those; he does not propose to interfere with people carving about dogs in any way.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that argument is relevant to this Amendment. It might have been relevant to the Second Reading of the Bill, but the House has accepted the Second Reading, and the only question now before the House is whether it will place some limit upon the general principle which it has adopted. The other questions of experiments upon dogs, the training of dogs, and so on, are not relevant to this Bill, though they might be relevant to the other Bill to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has referred.
    Captain ELLIOT: I bow to your ruling. I only wish to point out that the very name of this Bill is in our idea misleading, but I think that point is perfectly Clear to everybody, and I am now prepared to pass on. I wish to give an actual case on the Amendment before the House. The Bill says that it shall be unlawful to conduct any experiment calculated to give pain or disease to any dog for any purpose whatsoever. There are experiments being carried on now of the utmost promise to the human race which this Bill would absolutely prohibit and bring to a dead stop. The hon. Baronet the Member for York said that this Bill would not prohibit feeding experiments upon dogs.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Feeding experiments which are not painful.
    1.0 p.m.
    Captain ELLIOT: I beg to point out that the Bill says, "calculated to give pain or disease." Suppose the feeding experiment were to produce a diseased condition, as it very easily might, and which was not necessarily painful, it does not make any difference what the hon. Baronet says, the experiment would be prohibited under this Bill. I will give a case in point. One of the gravest diseases affecting the children of our big industrial towns is the disease of rickets. This disease is one of the most distressing, painful, and mind-racking things, and anyone who has seen a wretched child with rickets, with its humped back, its bandied legs, locked up for the rest of its life in a cage of bone and the key thrown away, would willingly go to any trouble, put out any amount of money, use any amount of endeavour and research in order to discover something by which this terrible disease could be averted. It is a disease of the growing child. It catches the child at its most delicate moment, when its bones are soft, and when very often there is ignorance on the part of the parents as to what is actually happening. On account of some deficiency, some little minor constituent either in its environment or diet, the bones of the child remain soft, its backbone is bowed, its legs are bent out, and it is diseased and crippled for the rest of its life. Ten years ago Dr. Leonard Findlay, of Glasgow, and Professor Paton, also of that city, resolved to initiate a series of experiments to find out what they could about this terrible disease. You will find in the paper which is conducting an agitation for this Bill that vivisectionists are a small and influential body of men who have very little connection with doctors. Here is a ease in point. Here is the chief physician of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow devoting his life to the alleviation of pain and suffering. His mind and heart arc so wrung by the sight of pain and suffering in the case of this particular disease that he resolves to start on a long and intricate series of experiments to find out what can be done to remedy it. There are experiments going on at Cambridge and in London. There are feeding experiments going on in many parts of England just now to try to find out the cause of this disease. The right hon. Baronet has

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    made great play with the nobleness, the loyalty, the constancy, the beauty, and the devotion of dogs. What about the nobleness, the loyalty, the constancy, and the beauty of our children? Cunninghame Graham says, "I would sooner have the life of my dogs than the lives of Lenin and Trotsky." What about the life of wee Willie and wee Jeannie? Have they no right to be considered? The hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) went so far as to state that these feeding experiments should be conducted on the poor.
    Mr. J. JONES: No, I object to that. I say that if you want to give food in experiment, let the children of the people have good food. That will cure rickets sooner than your experiments.
    Captain ELLIOT:The hon. Member for Silvertown has repeated on the floor of this House a statement which he made upstairs in Committee and which I consider to be, I might almost say of such a blasphemous nature that I would not have thought any Member of this House would have spoken it here in open Debate. We wish to find out what is good food and what is not. Here is a disease crippling and killing the children of our industrial classes. We are engaged in research to find out what is the matter, and we have good reason to believe that we are tracking it down. It is a defect of some constituent in the food of these children. The hon. Member for Silver-town says that you should go on giving the food to these children and that it is wrong to indulge in any experiment to find out what is good and what is bad food. Margarine is a perfectly good food, a very excellent food for fully-grown people, but experiments and research into the properties of margarine are tending to show quite distinctly that it is deficient in what is called the vitamines. There is a constituent called the vitamines which is very small in amount. They occupy no more bulk in the food than glue does in the construction of a chair. Yet they are absolutely vital to the health and proper growth to the creature which is being fed on this food If you find that margarine is deficient in these vitamines, then it is not fit for consumption by a growing child. Butter does contain these vitamines, and here is an immediate case of research which is
    740
    bearing actual fruit at this moment. We have margarine deficient in fat soluble vitamines; we have butter rich in it. There we can put our finger on an immediate and an important reform in the feeding of the industrial classes of this country. We see that to these vegetable oils in margarine there must be added some animal fats—suet or butter—so that margarine may be safe for consumption by growing children. Would you wipe out an experiment like that and bring it to a dead stop? I say that the man who docs that is committing a sin against children, and it would be better for him if a millstone were hanged around his neck and he were cast into the sea. The hon. Baronet shakes his head. He seems to feel the millstone already round his neck. These feeding experiments can only be conducted upon dogs. The constitution of a dog and its diet have become assimilated towards the constitution and diet of men. In the pamphlet issued by Dr. Payton we are told it is just possible that we know as much as we shall ever know about rickets. Surely that is an unworthy attitude to take up towards a great scientific problem involving the lives of millions of the children of this country. These feeding experiments are conducted on dogs because the dog is a suitable animal for the purpose. The dog can be fed on flesh or on cereals. You can change its diet and its digestion will not suffer, while the results of the experiment may be very valuable. The hon. Baronet says you are not to do this, as it is an experiment which is calculated to produce pain or disease. It is calculated to produce the disease of rickets, and therefore it ought to be stopped. Surely that is not a good argument to put forward. One anti-vivisectionist declares that as man is to benefit therefore the experiment should be conducted on man. On the same principle, I suppose, they should also be conducted on growing children. I have a record here of experiments conducted on children in the United States, where a quantity of these fat soluble vitamines was administered to some and withheld from others. In one case thirty-two children had a supply of these vitamines, and only two developed rickets. In the other case sixteen children did not get any of the vitamines, and fifteen developed rickets. Ninety-four per cent. were diseased in one case and 7 per cent. in the other. Surely when those diseased children grow up to manhood they will look

    741
    that experimenter in the face and ask him what right ho had to condemn them to a life of torture, to leave them as cripples for the rest of their lives, because he would not carry on the experiments on animals. Innumerable points might be raised in regard to this matter. I am not quite sure as to the extent of Mr. Speaker's ruling, and whether it is intended subsequently to rule out of order all Amendments which we have put down relating to cruelty to dogs in other cases. I do not know whether it would be possible for us to have a further ruling on that point.
    Mr. SPEAKER:In my judgment, none of these Amendments is applicable to the Bill. The title of the Bill is to "Prevent the Vivisection of Dogs." Vivisection is a term which is well known, and any curtailment to increase the selling value of a dog or anything of that nature is beyond the scope of the Bill.
    Sir H. CRAIK: On a point of Order. Surely vivisection is in no way confined to operations which are carried on for scientific purposes. Vivisection surely means the cutting of live creatures. In what possible way could vivisection be confined solely to operations of cutting which have for their object scientific ends?
    Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Gentleman will look at the Act he will find that it relates to the "discovery of physiological knowledge or knowledge useful for saving or prolonging life and alleviating disease. "That I take to be the definition of vivisection for this purpose. It is the object of the Bill, and it is what the House meant when it agreed to the Second Heading. What I conceive to be that object was that the vivisection of animals for purposes of medical research was not to include the vivisection of dogs. That was the meaning of the Second Reading of the Bill, and, consequently, the discussion must be confined within the four corners of that.
    Captain ELLIOT:I am glad to have had this explanation, although I am sorry to have troubled Mr. Speaker on the matter. I thought that vivisection was the cutting of animals alive, and that originally the Bill, having made no reference to the Act of 1876, it would stand by itself.
    Mr. SPEAKER: But the very first words relate to the Act of 1876. It is an amendment of that Act.
    Captain ELLIOT: The Bill as it went up to Committee did not contain any such reference, and I assumed that the fact of its being so amended in its passage through Committee did not alter the original form of the Bill, and that the introduction of Amendments subsequently do not alter the principle which is carried by the Second Heading. The speeches on the Second Reading had nothing to do with the Act of 1876, and therefore this is an independent Bill standing by itself. But naturally I am not a parliamentarian, and I am only too glad to receive instructions. It is a very odd thing that a certain number of members of the Labour party seem to be backing this Bill. I am very pleased to see that the hon. Member for one of the Durham Divisions who came to the Committee upstairs with an open mind announced at the end of the discussions that the evidence to his mind was so perfectly satisfactory that he intended to vote against any further restrictions on the vivisection of animals. But there are some Members who for some reason or other were not convinced by the arguments upstairs. I do not know what reason there is for the constant association of the Labour party with the Peerage. This is the second time I have had to draw attention to it in this House, and I think it might be worth while moving the Adjournment of the House in order to call attention to the extraordinary alliance between the right and left wings of the British Constitution. The people supporting this seem to be the Countess of Aylesford, the Countess de Rivas, the Countess of Dunraven, the Countess of Ravensworth, the Marshioness di Isbarea, Viscountess Bolingbroke, Viscountess Bangor, Baroness do Knoop, Lord Langford, Lord Tenterden, Lady Tenterden, Lady Wimborne, Lady Battersea, Lady Dunboyne, Lady Rosmead, Lady Bushe.
    Mr. C. WHITE: On a point of Order. Is this relevant to the Debate?
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is just as relevant as anything else.
    Mr. WHITE: I am inclined to agree with you, Sir.
    Captain ELLIOT: I am glad to have Mr. Speaker's ruling that anything I have said is just as relevant as anything else that has been said in this Debate. I see the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of York (Sir J. Butcher) in his place. I find

    743
    him in strange company, because he appears here with her Serene Highness Princess Ludvig von Lowenstein Wertheim.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to say that I never heard of a person of that extraordinary name, and. I hope never to see or to hear anything of her in my life!
    Captain ELLIOT: I thought that the hon. Baronet would have read all the literature associated with his side of the case. She is one of the vice-presidents of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. I am surprised that the hon. Baronet, who has spent so much time and trouble in rooting out the danger from our midst, should find himself in alliance with the enemies of this country for the purpose of preventing research. I can understand the principles of the Princess Ludvig von Lowenstein Wertheim. She would wish research to come to an end in this country, so that it might be carried on in Germany, and that Germany might have the glory of progressive research. Why the hon. Baronet should come down to this House and associate himself with the enemies of this country in an attempt to destroy research in this country is a thing which I and the hon. Members who act with me find it very difficult to understand.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: That is not a proper thing to say.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that the hon. Baronet has taken the statement too seriously. We must all be prepared to stand a little chaff.
    Sir J. BUTCHERrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER:I will call upon the hon. Baronet presently, and he will have an opportunity of replying.
    Dr. MURRAY: Would it be a fair thing to perform a surgical operation on English Members?
    Captain ELLIOT: The case in favour of experiments on animals is overwhelming. We have received no evidence in this House to rebut the points made by every learned society in Great Britain. The Statutory Committee which was set up by Parliament for the purpose of alleviating pain and assisting research made a unanimous report against the proposals in this Bill. A report like that coming
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    from a statutory body is one worthy of every consideration. I fail to find any arguments in favour of the abolition of research in this country. I have brought forward one very small point of a series of experiments which I happen to know myself, namely, feeding experiments conducted on dogs, which can only be conducted on dogs with a view to the alleviation of pain. These experiments in themselves are entirely painless. Yet these experiments require a certificate signed by two eminent gentlemen and to be subsequently allowed by the Home Office. If you are going to prohibit these experiments, you bring this research to an end, and you stop a very useful and a very hopeful series of experiments which are being conducted for the benefit of the sick children in this country. I leave to other hon. Members the task of dealing with the surgical experiments which are conducted. In nine cases out of ten those experiments are not only conducted but are concluded under full anæsthesia, and the animal has no feeling of pain throughout the whole operation. The case against this Bill is so overwhelming that we should demand on the floor of this House a few arguments from the other side in favour of the revolutionary proposals contained in the Bill.
    Mr. SPEAKER:Perhaps the House will allow me to say that since the hon. Member (Captain Elliot) called my attention to it, I have looked at the Bill as originally introduced. My attention had not been called to the change which had been made in Committee. On looking at it closely, I think that I was rash and wrong in saying that these Amendments went outside the Bill. I think that some of them do come within the limits of the Bill as passed on Second Reading.
    Lieut-Colonel SPENDER CLAY:I will not go into any technical details because they have already been dealt with by several members of the medical profession who are acquainted with the work. I should like to give my reasons for supporting this Amendment. This is one of the Bills which occasionally crop up, on which one's private inclinations are at variance with one's public duty. I, and probably every other Member of the House, have received shoals of letters from people whom one holds in the most profound respect asking him to support the measure. I am sure everyone of us deprecates any pain being inflicted on animals. I am one

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    of those who are inclined to think that the monkey is worthy of consideration as well as the dog. But I recognise that the dog, perhaps more than any other animal, is the special friend of man, and I can quite understand the desire of these people to protect an animal they consider to be their greatest friend. On the other hand, are we right, for sentimental and private reasons, to put a spoke in the wheels of science and to hinder in any way the march of science and the alleviation of suffering in the cases of the millions of unborn children? This Bill is one of those which always put Members of Parliament in a quandary. One is anxious to agree with the large number of people who write asking him to support their views, especially when he has sympathy with those views. We are not justified on the evidence that has been given to support the measure as it stands. We are justified in feeling that the overwhelming number of members of the medical profession would not have signed a document framed for the purpose of defeating this Bill unless there was good sound reason for doing so. I shall not believe that doctors and surgeons are more desirous of inflicting pain on any animal than the rest of the people of the community, and while I should like to do all I could to alleviate the sufferings of dogs, I feel bound to support the Amendment. But I do think this, that something might be put into the Bill—I do not know whether it is too late—to strengthen the position of the inspectors, who go round examining the conditions under which the animals are experimented on. I understand that they are few in number. I believe that if the number was increased, and that they were given a better position, and also that they should pay surprise visits, not merely visits by appointment—I understand that very often there is an arrangement made with lunch provided and a carriage sent to meet the inspector—and that an inspector should not visit only one district at a time, and go through the whole district, but should go about to other places. Then by that means you would do much to discover and prevent unnecessary injury and suffering to animals. For the reasons given I shall certainly support the Amendment.
    Colonel BURN: I desire to support the light hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury). I think that this Bill brings before us the question whether the dog is the only animal on which experiments can be made
    746
    that would prove to be of scientific value, and will assist medical research. I have never yet found any convincing proof that the dog is the only animal from which these results can be obtained. I know that the dog is more easily found, and he is a cheaper animal. On the other hand, the dog is certainly as near human beings as any other animal in the world, and by the way, we have had dogs always with us, and have educated them, they certainly are far closer to us than any other animal. I mean that a dog almost speaks to us. He knows our every movement and our every mood. However we treat that dog he never forgets his friend. Therefore, I say that a dog should be treated well, and, unless it can be demonstrated to me that no other animal will give the results, then we, as Members of the House of Commons, should strongly support my right hon. Friend and the Bill which he has introduced. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University asked why are we the only nation that hampers experiments of this kind on animals. There is a great deal of difference between the methods of this country and those of almost any other country in the world. I believe we are the only nation that finds it necessary to have a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and certainly our Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is, I believe, the only one organised by any nation. I believe that proof cannot be produced that these experiments cannot be performed with success on rabbits, rats, guinea-pigs, frogs, and monkeys. Taking the dog— why should he be nearer from his interior arrangements to man that any other animal? The dog digests bones, and certainly human beings do not. Then again, all the experiments that have been of the most value as to the action of the heart have been performed on frogs. Under the Act it is perfectly legal to keep a dog alive after an operation for the purposes of observation, and even to experiment on that dog a second time. I consider that to be one of the reasons more than another showing the necessity of this Bill. Then the suffering entailed by that procedure and through inoculations results in disease and lingering death.
    I brought up a few years ago in this House the case of a dog in Edinburgh, if I remember rightly, that had been operated on, and under vivisection, and this dog was found running about the streets of

    747
    Edinburgh with an open wound. It is the abuse of vivisection in places like that that makes all of us who agree with my right hon. Friend feel that the Bill is necessary. There may be difficulty in obtaining results and feeling sure that those results are applicable to human beings. Then, why not operate on human beings? I can only speak for myself, but if ever it is my fate to be stricken with a fell disease, as far as I am concerned I should only be too delighted to bequeath my body to the surgeons to do whatever they liked with it in the interests of research. I have always felt since I have been a Member of this House that I voiced my Constituents' views, and I have had numbers of letters from people in different parts of my Constituency, all asking me to support the Bill. On the other hand, I have only had two letters asking me to reject it. I feel strongly on behalf of the dog, and I believe I am carrying out my duty to my Constituency when I support this Bill. I had a letter to-day from a working man in my Constituency, and I hope I shall be able to read it, or some extracts from it.
    "I am writing to you entirely upon my own initiative, to express the hope that you will use your great influence in support of the Dogs' Protection Bill. If it is absolutely essential to the welfare of humanity that dogs must be experimented upon, surely there are plenty of wild does, pariah dugs, who, I understand, are, in the countries where they are permitted to breed, deliberately gathered together and famished to death when their numbers become excessive. It may be convenient, but it Certainly is not 'playing the game' to take a. domesticated, half-humanised and trusting creature and rely upon that trust—outraged trust!—for one's personal safety, while performing upon it a series of more or less diabolical experiments which are only terminated by the eventual death of the dog, whilst probably the poor thing is constantly expecting and hoping for the arrival of its previous beloved owner, whose presence means so much, everything, to a dog. There is a poor old flat-coated black spaniel retriever bitch who crawls up to me whenever I go home to the Warren. Many years ago I had slipped down a cliff there to a strip of isolated beach at low tide. I could not quite reach a crevice in the rock above me with my hands, while my toes were very insecurely fixed in another crack, with the rising tide wetting me up to my waist, when old Molly (the dog) found my whereabouts at last, and after vainly barking at the cliff top for assistance for about half-an-hour, at last deliberately climbed down and suspending herself from the nearest ledge hung on by her fore-paws while I climbed up her body to safety."
    You may say that is sentiment. Well, it is, and I am proud to support sentiment, and I think that many of us feel that it
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    is our duty to support the dogs, as well as to stand by our constituents, and so I shall have very much pleasure in going into the Lobby with my right hon. Friend.
    The MINISTER Of RECONSTRUCTION (Sir A. Geddes): I would like, if I might, on this occasion to speak not as a Minister but as a man whose life has been passed, with the exception of the last few years, in universities engaged in scientific work. I have seen a great deal of physiological work, and I have seen many experiments on many kinds of animals. I have been a teacher in medical schools, and I claim perhaps as good a right as any Member of this House to express an opinion upon this point. Is it for the good of humanity in the widest sense—I do not mean only for the physical good of humanity—that there should be experiments upon dogs'? I have great sympathy, very great sympathy indeed, with the man who says, "The dog has been my best friend. I cannot picture that dog being subjected to an operation in order that knowledge may be required." I understand that man's point of view. I have met many such, and I have had the privilege and the opportunity of taking many of these men round the universities and showing them exactly what was meant by vivisection. It is very difficult indeed to find any animal that is accustomed to live in man's home, that is accustomed to man's food, and that can be kept in buildings in normal conditions, other than the dog, and all these experiments have got to be carried out in buildings, and if the animal has to be kept alive for a long period of time it is absolutely necessary that some animal should be selected which is accustomed to that sort of environment. That is. the difficulty which the physiologist is continually facing. The question that presents itself to him is, "What animal can I use that is accustomed to a diet like man's diet, that is accustomed to a living environment like man's living environment, unless I take a dog?" It is no good saying, "Take a monkey." A monkey is not accustomed to live with man. Cats are to some extent, goats are not, pigs are not, guinea pigs are not, and so on through the whole scale. So that finally you come down to this, that there are certain types and classes of experiments which can only be carried out either upon a cat or a dog. The cat is peculiarly unsuitable in many ways for experiments. It is a smaller animal and experiments cannot be carried out on so

    749
    small an animal as the cat. It has retained more of its carnivorous characteristics, it is less humanised in its diet, and I can assure the House, as, the head of a university responsible for such choice, as to whether a cat or a dog should be allowed to be used in the laboratories of the university for certain classes of experiments, that it would be absolutely essential to choose the dog.
    You cannot possibly get the information that you want from any other animal, except from man himself. There are many things that one can learn from the body of a dead child, or the body of a dead woman, or the body of a dead man, and many things are learned from these bodies, but there are some things that you cannot learn from dead tissues. These can only be learned from living tissues, and the only living tissues that may be available in such cases arc those of dogs. Many people who oppose vivisection say they would rather not have the knowledge than cause any suffering to a dog. I do not think that is right. I do not think that is really in the highest sense a. moral point of view, because by withholding man's right to find out, you are dooming man's children to pain and suffering, and I do not see, when the choice is put in that way, how anyone can hesitate to decide. But that is not all. There are many things that have to be done in the course of an operation, and to those who have not seen many operations, or perhaps have seen none, there can really be no understanding of the delicacy of touch and the fineness of manipulation that is required to ensure success.
    It is absolutely wrong of this country to deny to its surgeons the right to be taught to save human life. They have now to go abroad to learn. We have allowed ourselves, and we are perhaps in danger now of allowing our surgeons, to be swayed by sentiment. This is not a thing where sentiment can rule. It is justice guiding the intellect, a profound sense of justice, and it is necessary and right and it is only just to our people and to the children of this country that our surgeons and physicians who attend them should be fully trained and fully educated, and it is upon that ground that I claim the right for the teachers of science—and in Canada that right is fully exercised—to have the power to equip with knowledge, with manual skill, and with dexterity the practitioners of medicine and surgery who pass from the
    750
    portals of the university licensed to practise. But education is something much more than technical training. Unless there be behind the education the whole spirit of research, the will to know the truth for truth's sake, your education is sterile. It is not education, but merely technical instruction. Therefore it is in really the most vital interests of this country that her schools of science should be empowered to investigate and to impart instruction about those mysteries which proceed within the bodies of living things which we call life. It is absolutely necessary that there should be in every school, if it is to be efficient, and in every nation, if it is to be efficient, that desire for knowledge for its own sake, and there is no stronger way of destroying that spirit than by putting up artificial and legal barriers.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Are yon against restrictions?
    Sir A. GEDDES:I am against everything that interferes with knowledge and the development of science. I consider that the Act of 1876 has done more harm to British interests than almost any other Act passed in this House. I am not against adequate supervision. I know from what I have seen on the Continent of Europe that supervision is necessary, but it must be supervision which is designed to help and not to hamper. There is all the difference between those two forms of supervision. So I will appeal to this House and to all throughout the country who feel that there is something cruel, something unkind in experimenting on dogs, to think of the children living now and the children who will live, to think of the suffering that is needlessly inflicted upon our fellow-countrymen simply and solely because we do not understand life in the conditions which civilisation imposes upon us. During nearly two years of war I was responsible for the recruiting service in this country and throughout the whole of that time with the medical examinations it was driven in with greater and greater force that the population of this country is suffering from a high degree of physical inefficiency on wholly preventable and removable grounds, if science is given fair play and allowed to develop and if the teachings of science are understood by this House. There is no more pathetic Debate in my recollection than this, that we should in a matter like this be

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    appealing to feelings of sentiment when we are dealing with the highest physical interests of the country, and I would appeal to the House to see that before this Bill loaves its hands and becomes an Act, everything is removed from it which might hamper the development and the growth of science and of knowledge.
    2.0 p.m.
    Mr. C. WHITE:The hon. Member for a Scottish constituency, in opening the Debate in opposition to the Bill, set out to amuse us, as he did before in his maiden speech. I am sorry, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is a most serious and pathetic matter that we have come here to consider, and I am sorry that the element of levity was introduced into the Debate. I support the Bill. About the last thing I expected when I came to the House—a working-man Member—was to find myself supporting anything brought forward by the right hon. Baronet. I disagree with him in almost all public matters. But I believe now that he is perfectly honest. I know now that he is intensely human. It has boon and will be argued with very great effect from medical gentlemen opposite as to the necessity to carry on vivisection. They are perfectly safe in advising, in dogmatising and in lecturing us, because we cannot answer that from the scientific standpoint. But I ask them to remember that there are medical gentlemen in this country, just as distinguished, of just as great experience, who would be able to argue, and possibly combat, some of the arguments which have been brought forward from the other side. I cannot argue this from a scientific standpoint, and I hope, for what it is worth, the House will accept from a perfectly human and humane standpoint what I am going to say. I have read this week much that has been said for and against vivisection. I am not convinced in my own mind—even if I were I should support the Amendment—that any real benefit to the human race has resulted from this practice. That is only from my reading. I read this morning the opinions of many doctors both for and against this Bill. I find that one of the contentions of some doctors is that it is likely to benefit or advance the cure of cancer. If that is the contention the results at any rate—and we are entitled to judge by results, Ithink—have proved that it has not been a success, and I think one might claim again—my limited knowledge of the scientific side must be taken into consideration—that it has been a
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    comparative failure. I was reading this morning—I had it sent to me by post— the opinion of a man who is described— I do not know him—as a cancer specialist, Dr. Robert Bell, of Half Moon Street, London. He says in answer to Sir Watson Cheyne:
    "The vivisection of clogs never has, and cannot possibly in any degree, prove of the remotest value to those investigating the nature and treatment of cancer. The only method of research that has yielded satisfactory results has been associated with clinical observation, and I am convinced that experiments upon animals have been the means of barring the way to progress."
    I have no personal knowledge of this gentleman's ability, but he claims to be, and is described as, "a cancer specialist," and he says that in that direction at any rate it has not been of any very great value. Again, from my own reading, I will give the opinion of a very eminent doctor whom I heard something about, because I was living not very far away, Dr. Lawson Tait, of Birmingham. He says:
    "Some day I shall have a tomb stone put over me, and an inscription upon it. I want only one thing recorded upon it. and that is to the effect that 'he laboured to divert his profession from the blundering which has resulted from the performance of experiments on the sub-human groups of animal life in the hope that they would shed light on the aberrant physiology of the human groups.' Such experiments never have succeeded, and never can; and they have, as in the case of Koch. Pasteur and Lister, not only hindered true progress, but have covered our profession with ridicule."
    If we could have some of these gentlemen on the floor of the House Ibis afternoon, we might have a very different kind of Debate from the one we are having. Here is also the testimony of another gentleman whom I happened to know very many years ago when I was a boy—Sir Frederick Treves, surely an eminent medical man, a man who, if I mistake not, operated on His late Majesty King Edward. He was not an anti-vivisectionist, but here is what he-said:
    "Many years ago I carried out on the Continent sundry operations upon the intestines of dogs, but such are the differences between the human and canine bowel that, when I came to operate upon man. I found T was much hampered by my new experience, that I had everything to unlearn, and that my experiments had done little but unfit me to deal with the human intestine."
    That is directly opposed to what we have just heard from the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Many lay advocates of vivisection believe that these experiments can

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    be conducted painlessly. It may be in the case of surgical operations that they can be to a certain extent, but there are experiments on dogs and other animals that certainly cannot. Who is to be the judge as to whether these things are being carried out painlessly? I have heard today that inspectors pay surprise visits. I also read in some of my papers this morning that considerably over 1,000 experiments were made in 1917. I wonder at how many of these experiments any inspector from the Home Office was present?
    Sir P. MAGNUS: Were those experiments on dogs?
    Mr. WHITE:On dogs and cats. This came out in question and answer in Committee upstairs, and I will read it if the hon. Member wishes. I quite realise that, speaking from the human standpoint, what I say will have no effect on Gentlemen opposite who study this question both from the human and the scientific standpoint. I want to be perfectly fair; I am not here to make special points; but I ask who is to be the judge as to whether these experiments are carried out as they should be? It is impossible to give anæsthetics in some experiments. The hon. Member for Lanark (Captain Elliot) said that vivisection was proving of some value in the treatment of rickets, and he made a rather unfair observation with regard to my hon. Friend the Member for Silvertown who, with his usual bluntness, suggested that children wanted better feeding and that that would prevent rickets. The hon. Member for Lanark said that this was very valuable in the treatment of rickets, and that we are about to find something out that would be good in that respect. I have not found out that it has proved of any value up to the present in the treatment of rickets. It may have done, and I may have missed the information. The question is, are we justified in continuing these practices on dumb animals when the results are, at any rate, somewhat problematical, and when there is such a conflict of medical opinion about it? I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who said that this Debate was intensely pathetic. I am no particular lover of dogs, but I know some of the most faithful creatures in the world. When one thinks that medical science can devise no other means than operation on these poor, dumb, faithful animals, I shall hesitate a long time before I vote for the continuance of vivisection, and I shall certainly go into the Lobby in support of this
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    Bill. I hope the Bill will not be talked cut as some Bills are. I hope we shall have a straight vote on it. I do not like any subterfuges. I want to see the thing fought out straight and square. I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London for introducing the Bill.
    Major McMICKING: I think it is a great pity that the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Auckland Geddes) did not wait in the House to hear the speech just delivered, and which. I think was a complete answer to his statement that it was necessary to vivisect dogs in order to save human life. What I want to get at is what does the new certificate mean? Will it reduce the number of experiments or the suffering to which dogs are now exposed in making experiments? Certificates A and E are given for operations without anæsthetics on dogs, and coupled with those we have what is known as "pain condition," which is a condition that if the animal is suffering severe pain it has to be destroyed. The point has been made several times, who is to be the judge of whether a dog is suffering severe pain. That is a very difficult thing for anybody to decide. With regard to Certificate A, let me quote from the Royal Commission on Vivisection. I know how tiresome quotations are, but being a layman I am obliged to refer to the Royal Commission. It is from page 52, paragraph 88.
    "From the foregoing conclusions (speaking about medical evidence), it is clear that although in the large majority of experiments performed under Certificate A (which dispenses with the use of anæsthetics), the animals do not appear to suffer pain; it is also clear that even if the initial procedure in oases under that certificate may be regarded as trivial, the subsequent results of this procedure must, in some eases, at any rate, be productive of great pain and much suffering."
    That is signed by all the signatories to the Report. Under Certificates B. and E.E. operations take place under anæsthetics, but the animal is allowed to recover from the effect of the anæsthetics in order that the result of the operation may be observed. That again is coupled with pain conditions. How is it possible for anybody to tell what pain the dog is in when it recovers from anæsthesia? It is quite impossible to say that. What about the effect of this pain condition? I say it is impossible for anyone to state positively what the animal suffers. My information

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    is to some extent confirmed by a series of operations about which I read the other day, and from which it appeared that some of the dogs were killed and some— an appreciable number—died after the operations. It seems to me that this new certificate would not diminish in any degree the number of experiments, nor would it reduce suffering. It would simply mean a certificate which would have to be given when a dog was operated on under anæaesthesia and when it had to be destroyed before recovering from the effects. We come then to the question of anæaesthesia, which is a very big question, and here again, as a layman, I must quote from the Royal Commission. It has already been stated that Dr. George Wilson was a member of that Commission and a gentleman well qualified to speak in medical matters. On page 75 of the Report, in his memorandum, he stated:
    "But even when an animal is rendered completely insensible to pain by whatever means there is still room for uncertainty that during a prolonged physiological experiment or a demonstration of the severer kind before students, it may not recover a certain degree of consciousness, because it is not always easy to determine whether in such cases full anæaesthesia has been continuously maintained."
    That is the point '' continuously maintained." On page 77 of the Royal Commission Dr. Wilson says this:
    "For it appears to me that even the most careful and conscientious physiologist or research worker may at times be mistaken as to whether in some of the severer operations the animal is entirely unconscious of pain throughout."
    Again, dealing with the obligations devolving on everyone holding licences, he says:
    "In this connection I may also point oat that there may be others engaged in research work who, like Dr. pembrey or Dr. Klein, as referred to in the Report (paragraphs 28–29) may regard the infliction of pain as quite a secondary consideration. Indeed, the numerous instances of the interference of complete surgical anæaesthesia with successful results, which were quoted by the various witnesses opposed to vivisection, and so fully illustrated by Miss Lind-af-Hageby in her evidence, warrant the conclusion that however confident the operator may be that he has abolished all pain, vivisectional anæaesthesia, with all its variety of agents and methods of induction, can never be divested of an element of uncertainty, whether incidental or not."
    The Under-Secretary to the Home Department wrote a letter on the 9th of April in the "Saturday Review" to Mr. Coleridge making certain statements about hard lauguage being used to medical men. I
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    wish to dissociate myself in any degree from that. All my life I have had friends in the medical profession and I have had great kindness from them, and hope that I am not ungrateful. Also the Undersecretary wrote:
    "Further, I am satisfied that the cases in which a dog suffers any severe pain in experiments under the Act are very few in number.''
    I would ask, Has the hon. and gallant Gentleman endeavoured to find out exactly what does happen when dogs are experimented upon, or is this simply the view of his official advisers? Has ho really gone into the question and made a study of it? I hope when he rises he will tell us something about this point. I have consulted a work called the "Journal of Experimental Physiology," from which I would like to quote a few cases. The first is the case of an experiment on a cat. The operations were conducted, I understand, in connection with inquiry about rickets.
    "Cat 91: The right sciatic nerve cut on 18/11. Thyroparathyroidectomy (that is, cutting out thyroids and parathyroids) on 19/11. On 21/11 marked spasticity, with water-shaking and tremors. The facial phenomenon was marked. On 22/11 course jerkings were added to the other symptoms, and the animal ran backwards and tended to fall to the left. On 23/11, spasticity, tremors and jerkings as before, in the morning, the animal tended to fall forwards, with head down and hindquarters up. In the afternoon, when put on Urn floor, it spun or sprung round its long axis from right to left, and when it reached the wall it leaned upon it. 24/11 very depressed. Several times sudden attacks of disturbance of balance. The head was flexed between the forelegs, the legs were extended, back arched, and in this position it sprang round its long axis. These attacks were brought on by placing the animal on its back. It was killed by chloroform."
    That shows that an anæsthetics was administered to this animal before it was operated upon, but the experiment lasted for several days, the better part of a week, and apparently no other anæsthetics was administered. There is one other ease that I would ask the House to let me speak about. It is a case of an experiment on a dog, and is reported in the "Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology," volume 10, Nos. 3 and 4, 1917, page 240:
    "Dog, C Young. On 16/9 morphine, then chloroform, and ether anæaesthesia, E.R. (electrical reactions) taken, and afterwards thyropara-thyroidectomy."
    I may explain that that means cutting out thyroids and parathyroids. The thyroid gland is a small swelling situated in front of the upper part of the windpipe,

    757
    and the parathyroids are small bodies of seemingly similar structure lying in the vicinity of the thyroid—
    "and introdural section of the dorsal roots of the spinal nerves going to the left sciatic nerve. Four roots were separated and identified. Next day no symptoms were observed. On the following day the fore legs were rigidly extended, and the hind legs showed rythmic flexor and extensor jerking movements, sometimes resembling walking. Between these movements the right hind leg was rigidly extended, and there was marked resistance to attempts at flexion. This rigidity was absent from the left hind leg. Fibrillary twitchings could be felt in all the muscles, best marked in the fore limbs, but also present in both hind legs. On moving the animal an extensor spasm generally occurred in which the left hind leg took part, but only for a very short time. When put under chloroform all the symptoms disappeared. On recovering from the anæsthetics all the symptoms were in obeyance for some time, but some jerkings of the hind legs returned. The animal remained in much the same condition until three days later, when it had a fit in which all the legs were extended and rigid, but the rigidity soon disappeared in the left hind leg. On the following day it had another fit in which tremors of all the muscles, including those of the left hind leg, were involved. The animal was anaesthetised, the E.R. taken and it was then killed with chloroform. post mortem examination showed that all the roots (dorsal sciatic nerve roots) had been cut.
    The experiment lasted about seven days, and apparently anæaesthesia was induced on the first, third and seventh days. This is very interesting but very painful reading to me. The table in that journal shows that there were forty-two experiments on dogs and forty-four on cats. It is interesting to note that these experiments were enabled to be carried out, in the later stages at any rate, owing to money voted by this House. The last speaker but one dealt with the value of experiments, but it seemed to me that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade begged the whole question. Who can say that one human life has been saved by these experiments on dogs? I think it is very difficult for anyone to give us any proof of that, especially when we have the Report of the Royal Commission. On page 89, the memorandum of Dr. Wilson is very instructive. He says:

    (a) "It was very prominently brought forward in evidence that the late Mr. Lawson Tait, admittedly one of the greatest pioneers in abdominal surgery, avowed in the most emphatic manner that surgery was not in any way indebted to experiments on animals, and that as Dr. Bur-ford, in his evidence expressed it, He publicly forswore any alliance or allegiance that he had to knowledge vivisectionately obtained."

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    (b) Dr. Granville Bantock, another well-known pioneer in abdominal surgery, in reply to a question by Sir Wm. Collins, said:

    "I think Mr. Hy. Morris, now Sir Henry Morris, maintained that abdominal surgery was very much indebted to experiments on animals. I entirely deny that; abdominal surgery is the result of ovariotomy, and to that alone is due to success of abdominal surgery generally."

    The hon. Member for Lanark (Captain Elliot) spoke about experiments for rickets. Is it possible to argue from the dog to the human being? I do not believe it is. Is it not well known in this country to what rickets are due? Surely the way to deal with rickets is to do away with slum areas, and to let in the air and the sunlight, and to see that people are fed on good food, especially milk and dairy produce. That is the way to stop the cause of rickets. It occurs in one section of the population unfortunately, but not as a rule in other sections. A word about dogs themselves. Not only are they the friends of man, but they are also most intelligent. What could be more intelligent than the way the St. Bernard dog does its work, or more wonderful than the way in which the dogs behaved during the War in carrying messages over No Man's Land? Those who have been in Scotland and have seen sheep-dog trials, come away enormously impressed by the intelligence of these animals. It is a wonderful sight, and if any hon. Member has a chance of seeing sheep-dog trials I advise him to take the opportunity. The dogs are trained to do this work better than human beings—in fact, no human being could do what they do. Then there is the sensitiveness of the dog. Giving evidence before the Royal Commission, Sir William Thornley Stoker, the late Inspector for Ireland, said:
    "The amount of terror a dog feels even in being put under chloroform is rather painful to witness."
    He went on to say he had chloroformed dogs dozens of times, and declared that experiments on dogs ought to be allowed with the greatest possible care, because they feel so much. We come to another question. Medical research has been carried on for a great number of years, and has disease decreased or increased? I think that everyone will admit that, not only has disease increased, but also that it is assuming new forms. Supposing a stranger from another planet had come to London a few months ago and had diligently studied the London Press. Surely he would have come to this conclusion: He would say, "After all,

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    creation has not been a very great success. It was not a very good bit of work, because, in order to keep man in health, it is necessary to have experiments which undoubtedly cause suffering on animals, and especially on dogs." Man, it seems to me, is the natural protector of the dog. and I do not believe it is possible for him to benefit physically by causing a faithful friend, who is wholly in his power, to suffer, and he ought not to attempt it. To carry out experiments on dogs is to sanction a principle which, if carried to its logical conclusion, would strike at the very roots of liberty, inasmuch that it attacks just those very qualities of justice, of mercy and of respect for the rights of the weak which alone stand between us and unmitigated barbarism.
    Sir W. WHITLA: I rise to support the Amendment, and I must say that I do so with a certain amount of reluctance. I should very much rather oppose this Bill entirely, but I feel grateful to the representative of the Government for introducing the Amendment, which has robbed this mischievous, objectionable Bill of one of its worst features, to stop all progress in medical science and the relief of human suffering. The difficulty I have in accepting this Amendment is that I know perfectly well that the propaganda, which we have been witnessing and experiencing, will be directed to regarding our acceptance of the Amendment as if this House had accepted the fact that cruelty was inflicted in the carrying out of research, as it is ordinarily conducted. It has been accepted in the Debate that the introduction of these Amendments had so altered the whole character of the Bill that it is impossible to proceed any further without a consideration of various matters which could not have been considered at an earlier stage. One of the two main allegations in favour of this Bill is that of cruelty. That we absolutely and utterly deny. I accept the able definition of cruelty given by the right hon Baronet (Sir Hamar Greenwood), namely, that cruelty is unnecessary suffering. We have heard a great deal from the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) about the law. I want to speak about the practice. I can assure the House, from my own personal experience in research work in the laboratories of this country and the
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    laboratories on the Continent, that I have never seen any real unnecessary suffering; I have never even seen any evidence of real pain inflicted in experiments on dogs. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down says that nothing has ever come out of these experiments—not a single life has ever been saved or prolonged by experiments on animals. He has quoted evidence to show that it is painful to chloroform a dog. Why not go further, and say that the lethal chamber should be abolished? Dogs are chloroformed there. Either stop the Bill, or pursue it to its logical conclusion, and do not allow a dog to die. If you do this you will convert London into a veritable Dog's Hell, like what Constantinople was, when I counted more than 100 living dogs lying on the public pavement with their wounds and sores festering in the sun within a space not much larger than the floor of this House. We ask for a few of these dogs that have gravitated to the lethal chamber in order to put them under chloroform, and we ask permission, while they are under chloroform, to watch the effect of some drug on their organs and on their blood pressure, and, as soon as that is determined, we give the dog a larger dose of chloroform and send him to the happy hunting grounds to await his master.
    The second argument is the underrating and absolute denial of any beneficial results that have followed experiments. I take the one case of hydrophobia. There is a propaganda in connection with this subject that is carried; on with an activity and with a real downright prevarication of truth, which is about the worst form of lying. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not apply that epithet to any Member of this House, but when one reads the yellow and green gutter Press of the country, what are you to think of a man who will tell you that he knows of so many people who have died who were inoculated with hydrophobia in the Pasteur Institute, and of so many people who have died of diphtheria? There is never a word about the thousands and thousands of lives saved. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down as to whether, if he were bitten by a dog to-night on his way home from this House, he would not be in the train first thing to-morrow morning on his way to Paris to the Pasteur Institute? That is the real test! Let me just reply to the wise

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    remark of the hon. Baronet. There is no diseased condition so susceptible to treatment, and the mortality from hydrophobia in people bitten by rabid dogs has fallen from 16 per cent. to less that 1 per cent. Only a small proportion of the people bitten by rabid dogs need die if proper precautions are taken. No human being ever recovered who had shown the symptoms of hydrophobia. Under 1 per cent. of the people who have been bitten die, and that represents the saving of many thousands of lives. On one occasion Pasteur showed me a chart or map in which he pointed out that the mortality rate rose with every few hundred miles from Paris. The number of cases that swell this small percentage of under 1 per cent. come from the interior of Russia, where the railway facilities and accommodation are very inadequate and people take a long time to travel to France. No human being need ever now die of hydrophobia if they take the treatment in time. The same with diphtheria. An hon. Member made a statement in Committee on this Bill, and it has been canvassed in the Press. I, however, hold and support the statement that no human being need ever die of diphtheria. There is a considerable number of people who die of diphtheria, but these have not taken the treatment in time. It is said—in fact, one hon. Member seems to think— that diseases treated by vivisection discoveries were increasing. Cases of diphtheria seen at their earliest stage would, I believe, never ensue in death. The number of deaths in the country is still very large, but there are hundreds of cases of diphtheria in some districts and thousands in others where there used to be only one. We never hear a word of the many thousands of people whose lives are saved by the injections.
    On the question of Pasteurism, I want to say one word in favour of the dog itself. I see in the distance a vision of the absolute annihilation, as we have every reason to believe, of hydrophobia and rabies by the protection of inoculation, but this can only be achieved by experiments properly carried out. No dog should be allowed to be kept unless it is protected by inoculation, and in time every dog would be probably saved from rabies. I want to say a word about the dog. There has been a lot of twaddle talked and written about it. Goethe uttered a profound philosophical truth when he defined man as "the dog's god."
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    My affection for the noble animal has led me to formulate a personal creed for myself, to the effect that I am the dog's guardian angel. I yield to no man in this House, or man or woman outside, in my love for this faithful animal. I do not want to introduce purely personal matters, but when I lose a dog, or it is stolen, I have always refused, and made it a business of refusing, the offer of well-bred dogs from friends of mine who are anxious to supply me. I send to the dogs' home and save a poor mongrel from the lethal chamber and bring him up. On coming to this House last February to take my humble part in this great legislative assembly I parted from my Irish terrier. I anticipate, like any schoolboy, the holiday we are going to get at Whitsuntide, which I hope to spend away from this sweltering heat. Then I shall be able to speak to my dog—and he can almost speak—and tell him what nonsense and rubbish I have heard on this matter here.
    An HON. MEMBER: Would you vivisect him?
    Sir W. WHITLA:If he could speak he would ask me, "What about those men who crop the ears and dock the tails of my fellow dogs?" I would tell him that these canine champions—many of whom should be ashamed to call themselves sportsmen—would be ashamed to be seen walking in the park with a long-tailed or uncropped fox or an Irish terrier like himself. I was very much struck with a lay member whom I met in the House yesterday. I like to speak to such men to get my mind broadened. He is a man whose opinion I have perhaps the highest regard for than anyone in this House. He is a man of level judgment. I asked him what he thought of one of the Debates the other day in connection with this subject. "Sentiment run mad," he replied. It is worse than that. The House will bear with me for one moment, for I cannot select calm and temperate language when I think of a lot of red-coated men galloping over the country lashing and spurring the heaving sides of their jaded dock-tailed horses, so that they may be in at the death of a poor innocent hare, the gentle deer, or the fox. I would like to lock them up. I can quite understand seeing the hon. Baronet cheering on a small party to be in at the Heath. In my very soul I believe there is more cruelty in this than there is in all the vivisection

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    experiments that have ever been performed. What is the fact? You see it every day. I do not blame the man, or say that he wants to be cruel, if he has his terrier cropped or its tail docked, or if he rides a docked horse. What I do say is that you are losing your sense of proportion—in fact, you have lost it. These are the things you see. You hear about a man in a scarlet coat with red-hot pincers and a flaming knife flaying a dog, but that is a picture that never was seen and never existed.
    I thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for having permitted me so far to use language which I think this House is not accustomed to listen to, language of heat and vehemence. I listened to the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson), and I waited to hear whether he should get an echo. I will touch the chord which he struck. Coming back now specifically to the Amendment before us, I take only one example; the experiment can only be used on dogs because the dogs are only suitable for dogs' serum, which is powerfully antagonistic to the tubercular virus. I believe in the future that we shall we able to combat the greatest enemy of mankind, the white plague of tuberculosis, by the protective power of the dog serum. I have followed the effects of experiments on tuberculous ulcers. I wished to prepare some of this serum, and I found that I had to get Certificate A and Certificate B, and that I had to get this and that from so many people that I was so disgusted that I gave it up here and went over to a Paris laboratory, where I could work without all these restrictions.
    What are you doing? You have been sending the best intellects out of this country. [Laughter.] I would like some of the supporters of this Bill to go over to Paris and see what happens there. I am going to speak as calmly as I can. What is the result of all this? I am now speaking specifically to this Resolution, which increases the restrictions, and what will be the result? It will stop all progress. What has been the result of the Hill which has been quoted so much? It has left England the last nation in the van of progress and advancement in the relief of human suffering in regard to such questions as Pasteurism, diphtheria, tetanus, and Salvarsan, one of the miracles of the age. When I think of the
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    results that have followed experiments on animals, as an Englishman I am positively ashamed of all this sickly sentimentality. I say as a solemn warning that you are going still further because of this hysterical, mock sentimental and legislative interference with the progress of the healing art, and all on account of an unfortunate misunderstanding and a colossal ignorance of the people who talk about these cruelties.
    I came up to this House, as every new Member does, with a marvellous anticipation of hearing and seeing all that we had dreamed about in our youth, and I was extremely sorry to find that it was simply a complaining Chamber. But I felt myself a few nights ago an Englishman amongst Englishmen—men of the Imperial race. An hon. Member put the ill-judged question to the Minister of Aviation: "Will you try and induce the Government to discountenance these foolhardy attempts to race in an aeroplane across the Atlantic?" His answer was: "No, Sir; such a suggestion is at utter variance with the esprit de corps of the British nation." Are you going to take a. back seat in a nobler race, the noblest that was ever devised by man, and that is the relief of human suffering and the prolongation of life? Are you willing to take a back seat in that race—a race fraught with potentialities beyond the dreams of imagination or of ambition, and deliberately drive our best intellects to the Continent in order to practice in the laboratories of the Hun in Berlin or alongside the Bolshevists of Vienna? If you vote for this Bill those who vote for it, and I say it with all solemnity, will reverse Goethe's definition of man and you will subscribe to a creed that is blasphemous. It is not man who is the dog's god, but the dog that is man's god. That is what it comes to if you follow it out to its logical conclusion. I support this Amendment, not that I love the dog less but that I love man more, and I would feel myself far more of a man if I was-opposing this rotten Bill root and branch.
    Sir J. BUTCHER:I desire at the outset of my remarks to disclaim in the strongest possible manner the suggestion that there is any want of sincerity or of earnestness on the part of those who support this Bill. I freely grant the great services which many hon Members and people who think that they have rendered to suffering humanity by the cure of

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    disease, but I do ask that they on their part should be as willing to attribute to us who support this Bill something of the same qualities which they claim for themselves. I am not going to follow my hon. and learned Friend who has just spoken into what I may call the by-paths of ethics, and I am not going to defend the ethics of fox-hunting, although I will make him this offer, that if he will bring in a Bill to stop fox-hunting I will not only undertake to convert him, but when the Bill is over and he has survived the indignation of his countrymen, I promise to give him a mount, provided he will promise not to kill either himself or the horse.
    Sir W. WHITLA:I accept the challenge. And why? In order that the men who are supporting this Bill may come into Court with clean hands, and not dyed with the blood of harmless and innocent animals, then they will be entitled to be listened to, and not till then.
    Sir J. BUTCHER:The hon. Member opposite asked us to discuss this subject with calmness, and I shall endeavour to do so. I oppose this Amendment because it goes to the root of the Bill, and, if carried, would destroy all the value of it. What does the Amendment do? There are already in existence a certain number of certificates for painful experiments upon dogs to be carried out. Notwithstanding those certificates, which are frequently granted by the very numerous class qualified to grant them, these painful experiments are conducted upon dogs What does my hon. Friend the Undersecretary propose? Here is a Bill to stop painful experiments upon dogs, and he asks us to accept another certificate as worthless as the rest, and tells us that then all our legitimate fears will be re moved. What is the assumption which underlies all the opposition to this Bill? I say "assumption" because it is not proved. The assumption is that painful experiments upon dogs are absolutely necessary in order to assuage human suffering. On the one hand you have a certain number of eminent gentlemen—I do not deny their eminence or honesty—asserting that is true, and on the other hand you have a very large body of public opinion founded upon equal knowledge — or, at any rate, upon knowledge that hon. Gentlemen will not deny, unless they are bound up in their own self-sufficiency—
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    and animated by sincerity, that painful experiments upon dogs are not necessary for the purpose of scientific investigation, and discovering the means of alleviating human suffering. The Royal Commission which considered this question did not find that these painful experiments upon dogs were necessary. It is quite true that they did not prohibit experiments upon dogs altogether, but you will not find a single finding of that Commission to say that these experiments upon dogs are necessary. You do find some witnesses who supported experiments upon dogs before that Commission who said, as some hon. Members have said to-day, that dogs are more convenient, because, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Basing-stoke (Sir E. Geddes) said, they are more in the habit of living with man, and it is more convenient to have them about. Other persons have said that dogs are cheaper. None of those reasons afford any justification——
    Sir P. MAGNUS: They are not the reasons.
    3.0 p.m
    Sir J. BUTCHER: There may be other reasons, but I have not heard them. There may be other proved reasons, apart from mere assertions, but in this matter the onus of proof is upon those who say, "We are entitled to inflict this pain upon dogs," and they have not proved it. We are here to-day to demand an alteration of the existing law, and before we can invite the House to change the law it is exceedingly important to know what is the existing law and practice. I regret that in the discussion in the public Press upon this subject there is the most profound and un-explainable ignorance on the part of eminent gentlemen who are opposing this Bill. Let me mention two great opponents of the Bill who have been flooding us with literature—Professor Starling and Professor Schafer. Both of those two gentlemen do not know what is the law or practice. Professor Starling wrote a letter to the "Times" on 19th April, and I ask the attention of the House to this, because, if I am right and Professor Starling is wrong, I say that the necessity for a change in the law is demonstrated. Professor Starling said:
    "According to the Regulations now in force the animal has to be fully under the influence of an anæsthetics during the whole of the operation, and to be killed before recovering consciousness."

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    That is not so. Ho goes on to say—
    "If the object of the experiment requires that the dog should be allowed to survive, it must be killed at once under an anæsthetics should pain supervene at any time after the operation."
    That is not so. Professor Schafer repeats those observations in almost identical terms. What is the law? The law is that upon certain certificates being granted, the Home Secretary may licence painful experiments without anæsthetics. I do not suppose anyone will dispute that. The law, further, is that upon certain certificates being granted, the Home Secretary may licence experiments in which the dog is kept alive after the experiment is over, even though pain, and severe pain, supervenes. That is the law. I may be told that the practice is somewhat milder. It is perfectly true that the practice is milder, but it docs not eliminate pain. Let mo say how the matter stands as regards the practice of the Home Office—and there is really no safeguard that the present practice of the Home Office will be continued. If one of my hon. Friends were to adorn the position of the Home Secretary some day, he might, on his own motion, destroy all these safeguards which have been imposed by practice and go back to the original severity of the Act. According to the present practice, the Home Secretary not only can, but does licence painful operations without anæsthetics. It is true that he does not licence surgical operations of a painful character, bat he docs licence inoculations of a character calculated to cause pain. If he has any doubt of this, let me ask his attention to the application form for a licence which says that for inoculations calculated to give pain they must get a certificate. Those are the sort of operations without anæsthetics that he licences. The practice with regard to killing the dog after the operation is this. If the object of the experiment has not been obtained, the operator or experiment or is entitled to keep the dog alive, although there is severe pain of a temporary character, or considerable pain which is likely to endure. It is only when there is a combination of the two conditions, severe pain which is likely to endure, that the dog must be killed. If there is temporary severe pain or continuing considerable pain, then in either of those cases the man is allowed to keep the dog alive. I have copies of the licences, and, if anyone cares to read them, they will find that is exactly what is licensed.
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    If that is so, can anyone say there is not a case made out for this Bill? Can anyone say that the passage which I have quoted from Professor Starling backed by Professor Schafer is correct? I regret very much to find that after his mistake was pointed out in a letter from myself in the "Times" on the 11th April, on the 15th of the same mouth a circular was sent out by Professor Starling in which he repeated verbatim this, as I thought, accidentally erroneous impression. At a later date, in common with other Members of this House, I received a, circular signed by medical Members of this House in which the misstatement is in substance repeated. We are told that in a few cases dogs are kept alive after the experiment, but they must be killed if they fall ill or suffer pain. But they need not be killed, although they may suffer pain. I regretted that letter very much. I hoped it was by inadvertence that the statement was made and I was sorry to see it repeated in the circular. The undertaking-assumption of the opposition to this Bill is the assumption that the infliction of painful suffering on dogs is necessary in the interests of humanity. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge was very candid. He would like to sweep away all restrictions—the Act of 1876 and everything else—and to leave it in the power of any operator to inflict any injury or any suffering whatever by his experiments. He told us that those certificates are an insult to learning. That is the type of mind of certain people who are opposing this Bill. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke was just as explicit. He talked some platitudes, if I may be pardoned for using the term, about knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I did not understand what he meant until he elaborated it later on. Then he said, quite openly and frankly, that he would sweep away the Act of 1876 and all restrictions whatever, and would allow men in pursuit or imaginary pursuit of scientific research to do anything they liked in the infliction of pain. Next we had the hon. Member for Lanark (Captain Elliot) who gave us what I hope I may call without offence unproved assertions and a good deal of reference to the painless feeding of dogs. Unproved assertions I do not like. The painless feeding of dogs I do not mind.
    Earl WINTERTON: Then why prevent it in the Bill if you do not mind it?
    Captain ELLIOT: The object of the Bill is the prevention of pain and disease.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: I have no objection, I say, to painless feeding, but if you inflict pain I do object, and if you inflict disease which involves pain I also object. If you merely impose painless feeding I have not the smallest objection whatever. There was one passage in my hon. Friend's speech to which I objected even more than his unproved assertions. It might have been simple Scotch humour of course. He mentioned the name of a lady, a German name which I had never heard, he accused me of undue association with her, of which I need hardly say I was wholly guiltless, and he made the astounding suggestion that I was making friends with an enemy of my country. I naturally resented that tended for a good joke. I dare say it was I did not realise for a moment it was in-my want of appreciation of Scotch humour. But when I tell the House that this lady whom my hon. Friend brought into the controversy is a British-born subject belonging to a very old-world British family, that it was her misfortune to marry a German prince some twenty years ago, who has been dead for some years, and that this lady is now living in England and has been for some time, I can only say I apologise for having repudiated the idea of ever making her acquaintance, and I think my hon. Friend must feel some regret that he attacked her in the House. If I may suggest this, if an Amendment is proposed to this Bill for the purpose of carrying out a time honoured surgical operation in connection——
    Sir H. CRAIK: Leave it to the Scottish Members.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: If my hon. Friend gives his imprimatur to it, well and good. Perhaps I am not a good judge of Scotch humour, but if the hon. Gentleman will propose an Amendment to the Bill which will have the effect of preventing Scotchmen making bad jokes I shall most cordially support it. But let me get back to the point I was making. This has been a little interlude somewhat provoked by my hon. Friend, and I hope he will take what I have said in good part. The law and the practice as it stands permit of pain being inflicted upon dogs. I am told by many hon. Gentlemen that they do not want to inflict pain, but they say that the dog is destroyed if pain supervenes. We have
    770
    been told, and shall, no doubt, be told again, that that is the case. If it is so, does it not prove the absolute necessity for amending the Act as it stands? The Act permits of this pain being inflicted, and if we do not want to inflict this pain, if it is not necessary for the progress of science or for the alleviation of human suffering, surely the original Act ought to be amended. If hon. Gentlemen will undertake to bring in or support a Bill to prevent pain being inflicted on dogs, either during an operation or after the operation is over, then, I think, we should know their position better, and we should better understand each other. But, if they will not say that, if they will not agree to the alteration of the law which is the minimum alteration which is possible in order to prevent pain, then we have no alternative but to go on with this Bill and bring it to the test of public opinion. I ask the House, seeing that it is admitted that the Bill prevents pain and that pain is not necessary, to reject this Amendment, because it would perpetuate the existing practice which permits and authorises, under the sanction of the Home Office, the infliction of pain on dogs both during and after the operation.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir Hamar Greenwood): I sincerely regret having to intervene in the Debate at this moment, and I hope it will not be taken as any discourtesy to the many Members on both sides who wish to speak who in most cases have better knowledge of the subject than I. The responsibility is mine for replying to the Debate on behalf of the Home Office, and I wish to adduce the reasons why I ask the House to accept the Amendment which stands in my name, which I admit will defeat one of the objects of the Bill, namely, the absolute prohibition of experiments on dogs, but which Amendment will give an additional precaution and further supervision on all experiments on this animal that will make it impossible, as I maintain it is impossible now, to inflict upon a dog during the course of any experiment any but the most limited and short-lived pain. I take it that the real line of cleavage between the followers of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London and the Government and those who support the Government in this matter is this: The right hon. Baronet and his Friends say they will not have a dog experimented upon in any event whatever, even though

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    the scientific world of this country and of every other country says that the experiments on dogs have done much to save life, and that continued experiments will do much more to save life. I appreciate the strong feeling of those who asked for the prohibition of experiments on dogs, but I cannot share that feeling. I take a much more serious view. Standing here as the mouthpiece of the Government and of the Home Office, I am endeavouring to qualify the prohibitory Clause in this Bill in the interests of men, women, and children, and not primarily in the interests of dogs. While we are prepared to protect the few dogs experimented upon, we are not prepared to go against the overwhelming mass of experience and scientific opinion and prohibit absolutely the experiments on dogs. May I further say that the word "vivisection" is not a word of the Home Office? That word does not occur in the original Act of 1876, or in any of our documents issued under that Act. Vivisection is restricted to comparatively few dogs. The great majority of the operations are simple inoculations or the cutting of small vein, which do not in the majority of cases interfere one whit with the comfort or health of the dog. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galloway (Major McMicking) received that with some doubt. I am a living example. I have been inoculated dozens of times.
    Major McMICKING: Were you inoculated in order to prevent disease?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I trust I am a fair example of the success of the operation. All inoculation is either to prevent disease or to prevent its more violent forms. You are inoculated in order to keep out a disease or stop its violent results. Let me remind the House exactly what the Home Office and the Government are doing. They are administering the law, which provides that the experiments on dogs must be performed in pursuit of physiological knowledge, or knowledge for the purpose of prolonging life or alleviating suffering. We have faithfully, sympathetically and successfully carried out that law, which has for its main objects the prolonging of life, the saving of life, and the alleviation of suffering. I must protest against the allegation, made more widely outside the House than in it, of the alleged cruelty of medical men or the
    772
    indifference of the Home Office and the Government in carrying out this serious and most important duty. I would ask the House to look at the question in its true perspective. The total number of persons who held licences during 1917 was 671. Each of those licensees furnished a report, and we find that only 279 acted under their licences and performed any operations whatever. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Torquay (Colonel Burn), reinforced by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. C. White), asked why no other animal is available for experiments. May I remind him that out of the 55,000 experiments conducted in the year 1917, a few hundred only were experiments on dogs, and most of these were feeding or harmless inoculation experiments that did not hurt the dogs. The great majority of these experiments are on rats, mice, guinea-pigs and rabbits. 19,000 of these experiments were performed on behalf of Government Departments and public health authorities throughout the Country. 22,600 were for the preparation, testing and standardising of serum, vaccine and other drugs. It is a very necessary and essential service that you should have vaccine, serum and other drugs tested for purity before they are used for human beings. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Torquay will be convinced from what I have said that the dog is only used, and indeed can only be used under the law in those cases where no other animal is available, and where unless the dog is used the object of the experiment would be absolutely frustrated. That is the law and the administration of the law. Let me clear up another misapprehension adumbrated at some length by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. He stuck to the Statute and endeavoured to persuade the House that nothing mattered but the Statute. May I remind him that under Section 8 of the Statute the Secretary of State has power to issue licences with any conditions that he wishes. Therefore the conditions issued with the licence and the certificates issued for certain special purposes and operations are as much the law of the land as the written word in the Statute.
    Sir F. BAN BURY: That is entirely in the hands of the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Basingstoke (Sir A. Geddes) has announced in this House that he is against any restriction.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: If the Home Secretary did not obey the spirit of the Act as well as the letter he could be challenged in this House. It is the first time I have ever heard it said in this House that the House is not as much responsible for administration as for legislation. I always thought myself that one of the primary functions of a private Member —and there is no more vigorous exponent of that function than the right hon. Gentleman himself—was to criticise administration. I want to bring to the attention of the House exactly what the administration is. I saw a cartoon the -other day in the paper called the "Abolitionist," representing a person going into a post office asking for certificates and licences to vivisect a dog. I have the ghastly thing here myself, and it reminds one of the difficulties that the Home Office and the Government have in meeting the super-emotional campaign against experiments on dogs and against the whole facts of science. When a person makes an application for a licence or certificate it is referred to the inspector of the district in which he lives. The inspector visits the Applicants, sees him, makes his inquiries, reports the facts to the Chief Inspector of the Home Office, who has spent long and useful years in the sympathetic administration of the law on this matter. The Chief Inspector makes his observations to the Secretary of State and when a. severe operation is to be performed, cutting with the knife, the application for a licence is referred again to a committee of seven of the most distinguished scientific gentlemen we have in the realm, each one particularly distinguished for his services during the War in saving the lives and relieving the sufferings of gallant men on every front. And when the application has passed through all these stages the licence is sanctioned by the Secretary of State himself, and the licence is for one year only. I admit that the Statute says that the licence may be renewed from time to time, but the practice is to give it for one year only. I hope that the House will observe that in this and in other matters the Home Office has endeavoured to interpret the spirit of the law and not the letter.
    Sir C. WARNER: Does that mean that the licence is never renewed?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: In certain cases it is not renewed.
    Sir C. WARNER: I understood the hon. Gentleman to imply that the licence is never renewed.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD:I am sorry that the hon. Baronet understands that. The licence is renewed subject to the good behaviour of the licensee from year to year; but the annual renewal of the application enables the Home Office to go through the whole matter and to supervise it with the care that is incumbent upon it to carry out Not only is the licence or certificate granted after these examinations, but no experiments can take place except in a registered place, except in those rare cases where an outbreak of the disease of animals has occurred at a particular place where no laboratory is available and there experiments must take place on the spot. The registered places are very carefully inspected and they are the laboratories of some, of the most capable and, I find, from personal experience, some of the most sympathetic men and women—for a very large number of brilliant women are engaged on this kind of experiment on dogs and other animals. The Home Secretary fixes a series of conditions, most of which are drastic, dealing with the antiseptic treatment of wounds, and no operation more severe than simple inoculation or superficial vivisection, which simply means the tapping of a vem—a very harmless operation in itself—may be performed in any experiment under any of the certificates without an anæsthetics The Amendment which stands in my name is based upon the Report of the Royal Commission which reported in 1912, and which has been referred to in the Debate to-day by many hon. And right hon. Members. I am quoting now from the Report signed by all of them. It is true that three of them made subsequent recommendations, but the paragraph which I am reading and on which my Amendment is based carried with it all the members of the Commission. It is this:
    "In view of the variety of practice and the divergence of opinion as to the necessity of employing dogs for experimentation and demonstration, we find some difficulty in deciding upon this important question. Some of us regard the provisions of the existing law as sufficient, some of us would prefer that in the case both of experimentation and demonstration the further special protection given to horses, asses, and mules should be extended to dogs, while some of us would exclude the use of dogs altogether. But if any alteration is made in the existing procedure, the majority of us would agree that

    775
    the special enactments now applicable to horses, asses, and mules might be extended to dogs, and also to cats and anthropoid apes."
    Every recommendation in that Report, except the one in the Amendment which now stands in my name, has already been adopted by the Home Office, including, among other things, the establishment of the advisory committee. We now want the House of Commons to assist us, by voting for this Amendment, to adopt the remaining recommendations of the Royal Commission that sat upon this question, and I think that that is an additional reason why this House, composed as we are of men with and without scientific attainment, should take the conclusion of the Royal Commission as the basis for their vote rather than the view they may gather from ordinary literature or from their deep feelings in reference to dogs being experimented on at all. I want also to say that we have on the side of the Home Office and the Government in this Amendment the vast majority of the scientific and medical profession. I believe there are 35,000 doctors in the country and there is not a single surgical or medical society that is not in favour of this Amendment. There is not one outstanding leader of any department of medical or surgical science that is not for a continuance of these experiments under proper safeguards, which now exist, on dogs. I make no aspersions on the learned medical men whose names have been given this afternoon and whose names are familiar to all of us who read the literature issued by the Anti-Vivisection Society, but not one of them occupies the highest position in the esteem of his own profession that these great leaders that I have referred to occupy. Deputations have been waiting on us at the Home Office but there has been no deputation of scientific men opposed to the Amendment or in support of the Bill. I think we have a right to say, therefore, that this great, mass of authority cannot be ignored by those of us, and I am one of them. who approach this question with an open mind and with the sole desire to come to a conclusion based on reason and that will be helpful to humanity. I have been asked to give cases in which experiments on dogs have yielded any results, and I am bound to confess that ft is amazing to find the great results that have been yielded by these experiments on dogs. It is purely a scientific question, but if I may be permitted to deal with one or two things that I have looked into myself, with
    776
    the assistance of some of the most eminent scientific medical men in the country, I would like to say, first, that the Report of the Medical Research Committee that has been circulated to the Members of this House ought not to and cannot, in all fairness to that Committee and to ourselves be ignored.
    Mr. C. WHITE: Has he interviewed and taken the opinion of doctors who are opposed to vivisection as well as of those who are in favour of it?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: The doctors opposed to vivisection have not given me their views except through the medium of the various anti-vivisection societies.
    Mr. WHITE: Have you asked them?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I do not think it is my duty to ask them.
    Mr. WHITE: You asked the other doctors?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD:No, I did not All the learned societies that have waited on the Home Office have asked the Home Office to receive deputations in the usual way, and the only society that has asked for a deputation against our view is the society led by the Hon. Stephen Coleridge, and naturally we granted them their request, and they had an interview. I think in this matter, having regard to the mass of scientific medical opinion in favour of the Amendment, that the small number of medical men who are against the majority of their brethren in their great profession take upon themselves a great responsibility in circulating these pamphlets to members who cannot possibly check them with scientific knowledge. This Medical Research Committee is really a creature of the House of Commons, set up under the National Insurance Act, and is composed of men whose names stand high in the profession which they adorn. I will give one sentence out of that memorandum:
    "It is the considered and unanimous judgment of the Committee that the proposals of the Dogs' Protection Bill now under discussion would place an insuperable and permanent barrier in some of the chief path9 of progress in this work."
    I submit to the House that if any layman takes a different view in face of that opinion he is indeed a bold man, and I hope so bold that he would be reluctant to call in one of these distinguished medical men if he felt, as we all do in time, the need of him. Let me give one

    777
    or two things that have happened by experiments on dogs. One is the localisation of the functions of the brain.
    Mr. J. JONES: That accounts for your operation!
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am quite capable of looking out for myself, and I hope I can do it courteously. The localisation of the functions of the brain was first established by experiments on dogs, and as a result of that experiment on dogs and experiments also subsequently on apes, the medical profession have been able to fix the exact position in the brain of certain diseases, like tumour on the brain and the spinal cord, and as a result of that operations have been made by surgeons who have removed tumours on these sensitive parts of the body and saved large numbers of lives thereby. One of the greatest surgeons to do this was the late Sir Victor Horsley, who gave his own life, the House will remember with gratitude, in the sand and deserts of Mesopotamia carrying out this noble art of healing for our troops there. Let me deal with the question of rabies. Pasteur's early work on the nature and mode of transmission of rabies was carried out on dogs and there are still many questions about which information is required regarding rabies in the dog. The very important question of the period of incubation is not yet definitely ascertained. One case has been reported in which a dog developed rabies 200 days after it had been bitten by another dog. If rabies is to be stamped out, it is essential that the longest possible incubation period should be established in order that measures of quarantine may be effective. Any research into the method of treating rabies in the dog and the human being would also have to be worked out on the dog. We have actually run out of the supply of the Pasteur lymph, because the French people can spare no more at present. My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board (Dr. Addison), himself a medical man of standing before he became a politician of repute, has at once started measures for the production of this lymph, which, I would remind the House, in spite of all statements to the contrary, is the only known remedy for the prevention of the most horrible disease that can afflict a dog or a man. In this matter of rabies the dog and the man, as in other matters, stand together, and both benefit from the experiments on the dog. We are all
    778
    agreed in paying allegiance to the dog, for many of us have had good friends and bad friends, but we have all had a good friend in the dog. The commonest disease of that faithful animal, the disease of distemper, in the opinion of the medical men who advise me, cannot be remedied except by experiments on the animal itself, and I should think that that was a perfectly commonsense as well as a scientific view.
    I do not wish to weary the House with a large number of scientific reasons, as I could do, but I want to assure the House that in this matter, when I went to the Home Office, I went with a perfectly open mind, to study the question from the point of view, I admit, of humanity and not from the point of view of the dog. This Amendment in my name will further protect the dog from anything approaching cruelty or torture or any of these allegations that I think it is libellous to utter against a profession that we all run to in case of any pain or suffering on our own part. The real divergence of opinion in this matter is whether you will exalt the man above the dog or the dog above the man. I speak with the profoundest feeling. I put the man first, and I put the child even before the man. The cures, the remedies and the preventatives as the results of experiments on dogs, arc not only numerous but innumerable. At this very moment experiments are going on under the Committee of Medical Research which would be stopped by this Bill, experiments with no object of causing pain or cruelty to the dog, but with the wider, and I think the nobler object of alleviating suffering and preventing pain in the human race.
    Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Why not experiment on human criminals, if it does not hurt them?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: That suggestion, I "believe, has actually been carried out in certain hospitals on the Continent. I need not define the boundaries which include those hospitals any more definitely. I hope the law will not allow experiments on human beings. That interruption only emphasises the gap between those of us who believe in these experiments on dogs for the alleviation of human kind, and others who feel sincerely, as undoubtedly they do, that we are not justified in using the dog to save humanity. To-day I represent the Home Office and the Government. More than that, I am the willing champion of the honour of the noblest profess-

    779
    sions of medicine, professions that include tens of thousands of men and women whose mighty work of healing and saving in the War, if it could save them, should save them from reproach as fellow citizens and from any accusation of cruelty, and we have in this House a number of distinguished medical men, some of whom have spent the last four years in hospitals and collecting stations at the front, who can speak with more intimate knowledge and personal experience than I can of the untold good they have done to gallant men in saving their lives and ameliorating the results of their wounds by reason of the knowledge they gained by experiments on dogs. We in the House of Commons are all pledged to improve the health of our people. We look to our doctors to be our guides and helpers in this crusade against disease, suffering, and untimely death. Because I feel profoundly that
    the passing of this Bill into law would cast an undeserved stigma upon a noble profession, including men and women, and will prevent experiments on dogs which make for the saving of life and the alleviation of suffering, I appeal to the House of Commons, with all the earnestness I can command, to accept my Amendment and make it possible to continue these experiments, which I think in the past have done great good, and which in the future, I think, will do still greater good for mankind.
    Sir F. BANBURY:rose in his place, and claimed to move,
    "That the Question be now put."
    Question put accordingly,
    "That the words 'except as hereinafter provided' be there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 147; Noes, 69

    Division No. 33.]

    AYES.

    [3.50 p.m.

    Adair, Rear-Admiral

    Farquharson, Major A. C.

    Murray, John (Leeds, W.)

    Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

    Fell. Sir Arthur

    Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

    Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

    Fisher, Rt. Hen. Herbert A. L.

    O'Connor, T. P.

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

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

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

    Astor, Major Hon. Waldorl

    Foreman, H.

    Parker, James

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Forestier-Walker, L.

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Foxcroft, Capt. Charles Talbot

    Perring, William George

    Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)

    Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir A. C. (Basingstoke)

    Pratt, John William

    Barnston, Major Harry

    Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

    Prescott, Major W, H.

    Barrand, A. R.

    Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John

    Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.

    Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

    Glyn, Major R.

    Pulley, Charles Thornton

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

    Greenwood, Col. Sir Hamar

    Raw, Lt.-Col. Dr. N.

    Bigland, Alfred

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Birchall, Major J. D.

    Gritten, W. G. Howard

    Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)

    Blades, Sir George R.

    Guinness, Capt. Hon. R. (Southend)

    Samuels, Rt. Hon A. W (Dub Univ.)

    Blair, Major Reginald

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

    Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

    Berwick, Major G. O.

    Hallas, E.

    Sassoon, Sir Philip A. G. D.

    Bowyer, Capt. G. W. E.

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

    Scott, A. M. (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

    Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)

    Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

    Brassey, H. L. C.

    Hilder, Lieut.-Col. F.

    Shaw, Capt. W. T. (Forfar)

    Bridgeman, William Clive

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

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

    Britton, G. B.

    Hood, Joseph

    Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Buchanan, Lieut. Col. A. L. H.

    Horne, Edgar (Guildford)

    Steel, Major S. Strang

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Hunter, Gen. Sir A, (Lancaster)

    Stephenson, Col. H. K.

    Burdon, Colonel Rowland

    Hurd, P. A.

    Sturrock, J. Lens-

    Campbell, J. G. D.

    Hurst, Major G. B.

    Sykes, Sir C. (Huddersfield)

    Cecil. Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Illingwofth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

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

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

    Inskip, T. W. H.

    Townley, Maximillian G.

    Chadwick, R. Burton

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

    Vickers, D.

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

    Jodrell, Neville Paul

    Wallace, J.

    Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

    Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.

    Cheyne, Sir William Watson

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Warren, Sir Altred H.

    Child, Brig.-Gen. Sir Hill

    Law, Rt Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)

    Watson, Captain John Bertrand

    Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender

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

    Whitla, Sir William

    Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

    Lloyd, George Butler

    Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)

    Coats, Sir Stuart

    Lonsdale, James R.

    Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)

    Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

    Loseby, Captain C. E.

    Williams, Lt.-Col. Sir R. (Banbury)

    Cohen, Major J. B. B.

    Lynn, R. J.

    Wills, Lt.-Col. Sir Gilbert Alan H.

    Colfox, Major W. P.

    M'Curdy, Charles Albert

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

    Conway, Sir W. Martin

    M'Donald, Dr. B. F. P. (Wallasey)

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

    Coote, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)

    M'Donald, D. H. (Bothwell, Lanark)

    Winterton, Major Earl

    Craig, Lt.-Com. N. (Isle of Thanet)

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

    Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge and Hyde)

    Craik, Right Hon. Sir Henry

    McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)

    Woods, Sir Robert

    Davidson, Major-Gen. Sir John H.

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Woolcock, W. J. U.

    Duncannon, Viscount

    Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)

    Yate, Col. Charles Edward

    Du Pre, Colonel W. B.

    Moles, Thomas

    Young, William (Perth and Kinross)

    Edgar, Clifford

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz

    Younger, Sir George

    Elliot, Capt. W. E. (Lanark)

    Morrison, H. (Salisbury)

    Eyres-Monsell, Com.

    Mount, William Arthur

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Lord

    Falcon, Captain M.

    Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

    E. Talbot and Mr. Dudley Ward.

    NOES.

    Allen, Col. William James

    Gretton, Col. John

    Norton-Griffiths, Lt-Col. Sir J.

    Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Col. Martin

    Griggs, Sir Peter

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Bell, James (Ormskirk)

    Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)

    Palmer, Major G. M. (Jarrow)

    Betterton, H. B.

    Hogge, J. M.

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

    Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

    Holmes, J. S.

    Parry, Major Thomas Henry

    Bottom lay, Horatio

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Pinkham, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Jameson, Major J. G.

    Ratcliffe, Henry Butler

    Breese, Major C. E.

    Jones, J. (Silvertown)

    Rees, Captain J. Tudor (Barnstaple)

    Brittain, Sir Harry E.

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Reld, D. D.

    Brown, Captain D. C. (Hexham)

    Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

    Rowlands, James

    Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes

    Lindsay, William Arthur

    Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander

    Burn, Col C. R. (Torquay)

    Lort-Williams, J.

    Thomas, Brig-Gen. Sir o. (Anglesey)

    Carter, W. (Mansfield)

    Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)

    Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

    Cobb, Sir Cyril

    Lyle-Samuel, A. (Eye, E. Suffolk)

    Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

    Courthope, Major George Loyd

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Waterson, A. E.

    Crooks, Rt. Hon. William

    M'Lean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

    Wedgwood, Col. Josiah C.

    Dawes, J. A.

    Macmaster, Donald

    Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.

    Edwards, A. Clement (East Ham, S.)

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)

    Edwards, J. H. (Glam., Neath)

    Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.

    White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

    Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

    Morgan, Major D. Watts

    Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)

    Gardner, E. (Berks., Windsor)

    Morris, Richard

    Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)

    Gilbert, James Daniel

    Newman, Major J. (Finchley, Mddx.)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir

    Greame, Major P. Lloyd

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

    Frederick Banbury and Sir John

    Green, J. F. (Leicester)

    Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

    Butcher.

    Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

    Mr. SPEAKER: The next Amendment is to leave out the words "or disease."
    Mr. RAWLINSON:My object is to allow feeding and inoculation experiments and to exclude them from the Bill. I had hoped to move, after the word "any" ["to perform any experiment"], to insert the word "surgical."
    Mr. SPEAKER:To introduce "surgical" would be to add complications. It would complicate matters to introduce a new adjective into the terms used in the principal Act.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: May I call attention to the. Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for London University?
    Mr. SPEAKER:This Bill has nothing to do with the training of animals; this Bill has to do with surgical operations, carried out for the purpose of scientific investigation.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: I beg to move, to leave out the words "or disease" ["to give pain or disease to any dog "]. The object of this and a previous Amendment, which has been ruled out of order, is to allow certain experiments to be carried out on dogs.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I did not rule the previous Amendment out of order. I passed it over by virtue of the powers conferred on me by Standing Orders.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: The earlier Amendment, I understand, has been passed over, this one being rather more important. I wish to exclude certain work which
    782
    is done by feeding and inoculation. At the present time, before any scientific man or doctor can make an experiment on a dog, he requires to have a permit from the Home Office, and certain safeguards have to be given. These two experiments that I wish to exclude are important. By experiments in the feeding of dogs discoveries have been made as to the effect of rickets on children. There is also the experiment, to which I attach very much greater weight—that of inoculation. By this means a great deal more can be discovered about disease than is known now. There is, for instance, the dire disease of cancer. At present practically nothing is known as to its origin or cure, and it is idle to tell me that before you permit experiments of any kind you must be able to foresee the exact way in which your discovery may come. When we are groping in the dark to discover the origin and cure of diseases like cancer, anything which may give a chance of discovery ought to be assisted, or at any rate not stopped in any way.
    Sir P. MAGNUS:I beg to second the Amendment. I do not think I can advance any further argument than that which has been urged to show that it is desirable that such experiments in inoculation should be performed, if only for the sake of curing dogs themselves, apart altogether from consequences to the human race. There was a letter in the "Times" of 17th April on this subject, in which it was stated—
    "As to experiments on dogs, in the future we limit ourselves to one anticipation. Among the diseases of which dogs die, cancer is not uncommon. There is no efficient remedy for this terrible disease, either in man or animals. It is

    783
    obviously useless to study a disease by experiment on an animal not naturally subject to it. If by experiments on dogs the intimate nature of cancer and the cure of this dread disease were discovered, it is impossible to estimate the sum of human and animal suffering that would pass away from this earth."
    It is quite possible, without any surgical experiments, but by inoculation, some steps might be taken by which this disease might be eradicated both from dogs and human beings.
    Sir F. BAN BURY: If we are to have any use for the Bill after the acceptance of the Amendment which has been carried, I think these words should remain. The Government could give a certificate under that Amendment by which what the hon. and learned Gentleman desires could be done. Therefore, I think we had better leave the words so as to have something of use in the Bill.
    Amendment negatived.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I beg to move to leave out the words
    "and no person or place shall be licensed for the purpose of performing any such experiments,"
    and to insert instead thereof the words
    "except on such certificate being given as is mentioned in the principal Act stating, in addition to the statements required by Section three of that Act to be made in such certificate, that for reasons specified in the certificate the object of the experiment would necessarily be frustrated unless it is performed on a dog, and that no other animal is available for such experiment. ''
    This is the Amendment on which the whole of the Debate has taken place.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Penalties.)
    Any person performing or assisting or taking part in performing any such experiment on any dog shall be guilty of an offence against the principal Act and punishable accordingly, and the provisions of this Act shall have effect as though they formed part of that Act.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I beg to move, after the word "dog," to insert the words
    ''in contravention of the provisions of this Act.''
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Is this only a drafting Amendment?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: It is a drafting Amendment, to remove all possible ambiguity.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: I beg to move, to leave out the words
    "the principal Act and punishable accordingly, and the provisions of this Act shall have effect as though they formed part of that Act."
    and to insert instead thereof the words
    "this Act, and shall if it be a first offence be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds, and if it be the second or any subsequent offence be liable at the discretion of the Court by which he is tried to a penalty not exceeding five hundred pounds."
    This Amendment stands in the name of my hon. Friend (Captain Elliot). I understand he wishes to alter the penalty Clause, which says,
    "shall be guilty of an offence against the principal Act and punishable accordingly."
    That necessitates legislation by reference. I understand he objects to the Clause in its present form not only because it is legislation by reference, but also because it is not the cumulative penalty which he desires. I apologise for not putting this matter more clearly before the House, but I am told my hon. and gallant Friend attaches some weight to this Amendment, and I do not think it right that it should not be moved.
    Dr. MURRAY: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I would ask my hon. and learned Friend not to press this. The penalties, as set out in the original Act of 1876, should, I think, apply in this Bill, which, after all, is a continuance of the original legislation, and I hope my hon. and learned Friend will agree with me that for similar offences we should not have different punishments and the penal Clauses in the original Act should control punishment in the Bill which we are now discussing. I hope, for those reasons, my hon. and learned Friend will not press this Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I beg to move, to insert as a new Sub-section
    "(2) In Section five of the principal Act the words 'dog or' and the words 'or dog' are hereby repealed."
    This is a consequential Amendment on the principal Amendment which was recently carried without a Division. It is really a drafting Amendment
    Amendment agreed to.

    TITLE (A Bill to Prevent the Vivisection of Days)
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I beg to move, to leave out the word "Prevent," and to insert instead thereof the words
    "Impose further Restrictions on."
    This Amendment is another necessary corrollary of the preceding Home Office Amendments.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Bill to be read the third time upon Friday, 27th June.

  DORMANT BANK BALANCES AND UNCLAIMED SECURITIES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to move,
  "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  This Bill deals with one aspect—and one aspect only—of the problem of bringing into the Exchequer, for the benefit of the State, the vast sums represented by unredeemed moneys in the hands of various corporations, companies, and others. Those sums, roughly speaking, consist of dormant balances and unclaimed securities in the hands of bankers, sums in the hands of insurance companies, gas companies, telephone companies, solicitors, trustees, and others; but this particular Bill deals—and deals only—with dormant balances and unclaimed securities in the hands of the bankers in the United Kingdom. The provisions, stated very shortly, are these: That every bank, every corporation carrying on the business of banking shall, after a given date, make a periodical return of all unclaimed securities and dormant accounts, which have been in their possession for a period of six years and upwards; and, after certain formalities, hand those amounts over to the Public Trustee, to beheld by him, subject, of course, to the rights of the owners, if they ever offer, in the meantime, the money to be used for the benefit of the State. If one were criticising the Bill from the Committee point of view, I admit at once there are many points in it that require careful amendment. The principle is this, and this only, that, by the operation of the banking system of this country, it follows inevitably, and from the experience of every country which has this law in force, that vast sums and a vast amount of securities have accumulated in the
  786
  hands of bankers to which they have no moral right whatever. Those sums ought to be held for the benefit of the State.
  Upon four occasions I have had the honour of introducing a similar Bill to this into the House. Under the Ten-minute Rule, in June, 1908, I introduced it. It was opposed by the then Member for Wandsworth, himself a bank director, but the House gave it a First Reading by 119 votes to 54. In June, 1909, it was opposed by the present hon. Member for East Nottingham; notwithstanding that fact, it was carried by 185 votes to 54. In June, 1910, it was again opposed by the same hon. Member. There was no Division; a First Reading was granted; while again in May, 1911, the Bill received a First Reading. For the purpose of emphasising the position, my desire has been, as far as possible, to bring in the measure to synchronise with the Budget discussion, in order that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have brought to his special attention what I believe to be a veritable El Dorado, from which he can derive wealth beyond the dreams even of an avaricious Chancellor of the Exchequer Apart from these four Readings, many questions have been put by me from time to time to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Prime Minister, and the present Prime Minister. Various answers have been given. These were all practically in the same category, that the matter is not one of sufficient importance, and the amounts involved are not large enough to justify legislation. When I further questioned these Ministers as to the sources of their information they told me, with a childlike innocence which was amazing, that they had consulted the bankers themselves, who had assured them they had nothing in their possession to which they were not properly entitled. I remember on one occasion illustrating the matter by suggesting a stained glass window representing the Soul of Candour divulging the truth to the Spirit of Simplicity. At any rate these inquiries went on. We arrived at the one point that both the late Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister came to the conclusion that there might be a case for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the whole thing.
  In circumstances over which I had no control, instead of looking after the funds of the bankers, I have to attend to my own affairs, and I temporarily disappeared from the scene. Since that time not very

  787
  much has been done in the matter. But in my Parliamentary experience of eight years I cannot, I think, recall any measure which has received such general assent from all parties of the House. There is scarcely a Minister on the Front Bench today, or a Leader in the Front Opposition Bench, including half of the Ministers of the Inner War Cabinet, who did not vote for this Bill. They include Members of the Irish party and the Labour party, and the names of the hon. Members which appear on the back of this Bill show that it is a matter well worthy of attention. The Press, including the banking Press and to my amazement even the "Daily News," favour this measure. The "Daily News" says:
  "The Bill introduced by Mr. Bottomley is of so much importance that we hope the present House of Commons will find an opportunity to proceed with it."
  When I find the "Daily News" praising anything I do I think it must be something that will commend itself to the orthodox supporters of certain sections in this House. The "Bankers' Magazine" says:
  "We hold no brief for Mr. Bottomley but candidly we think he never did anything better than when he introduced this Bill."
  Let me mention to the House that I believe we are the only civilised country in the world which has not dealt with this question.
  Major O'NEILL: What is the estimated amount of these balances?
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I will endeavour to give the hon. and gallant Gentleman some information on that point. As regards our Colonies, I may mention them because when you find new and small countries whose banking history is quite modern have something substantial in this respect, you can form a rough estimate as to what must be the situation in this country. The last annual return made by Canada covers a thousand closely printed pages of dormant balances and unclaimed securities. The State of Alderney shows 55,000 dormant accounts, and this was the first return they have made and it goes back ten years. Some years ago I put a question to the Postmaster-General relating to the Post Office Savings Bank in this country, and he admitted in this House that in relation to accounts of less than £1 the Post Office had half a million of money of absolutely dormant accounts the owners of which had utterly disappeared. With these illustrations I think it must follow that when you
  788
  come to our huge banks, with their palatial buildings, which I do not hesitate to say have never been erected out of the money lent at bank rate, and when you consider the huge dividends paid to their shareholders, and the specific instances of which I have hundreds, it follows that the total amount of these balances must be something enormous. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite asked me if I can form any estimate of the total amount. Of course, it is very difficult to form an estimate of what is in the vaults of our large banks to-day, to which I have no right of access, or of the dormant accounts in relation to books which are not open to me, but I am hopeful that the outcome of this measure may be the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into this subject. I am, however, going to say to the representatives of the Treasury that I believe the total would amount to over £100,000,000, which will go some way towards putting things straight in these abnormal times. There are certain banks, private banks—one does not want to mention names unnecessarily, but take any respectable bank; take Coutts—where it is notorious in business and in banking circles that in the days of the French Revolution the wealthiest families from France deposited their securities, their title deeds, and their money. Millions must have thus accumulated. I have written to every bank in the Kingdom more than once in relation to this Bill, and have said, "Will you assist me by doing one of two things: either by telling me, approximately—never mind the legality of the matter—what you have or say that you decline to do so?"
  In no case did they give me any information. I commend this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who honours me by coming into the House. A bank is under no legal obligation to give any information. In these modern times of respectability I happen to be the director of something which calls itself a bank—it is a 2½d. affair—and it has existed only about ten years, but we have dormant securities and unclaimed balances, and by virtue of being a registered bank—I do not want to advertise it by mentioning its name, but I will tell the right hon. Gentleman—we received a printed letter from a well-known firm of solicitors in London, saying, "Do you happen to have any moneys or any securities belonging to Mr. So-and-so, for whose estate we are acting? We find that shortly before his death he deposited

  789
  large sum6 of money and securities in a London bank, and we can find nothing about them." It happens that we were the bankers in that particular case, and we at once disclosed the information. Take another case. The mother of one who went down in a submarine a few years ago said that her son always told her that he had saved a considerable sum for her benefit, and that she knew that he had it in some bank. She had tramped through London from bank to bank asking them if they had any account in her son's name, and in every case the answer was the same: "We can give you no information." I could give case after case of that kind.
  The fact is that according to some old legal decision, which I am sure would not be maintained in these days, when a certain period has elapsed and an account becomes dormant and securities have obviously become unclaimed, the bank claims that they are entitled to keep them. They say that the relationship between bank and customer is not that of a trustee and beneficiary, but that of debtor and creditor. Some banks deny anybody's right to ask them what they have in their possession. I have mentioned Coutts. Go to their vaults—I do not know whether under "Dora" you have power to do so, but you can soon get power—and see some of those old boxes bulging with title deeds and securities. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer give me an opportunity of bringing before a Committee case after case of private banks who in these modern days have sold their undertakings to joint stock enterprises. I know of one case where there is something approximated to £2,000,000 worth of securities and title deeds unclaimed. Go through the evidence which I can produce of people who suddenly hear that they have something standing to their credit. There was an hon. Member of this House who, a few years ago, gave an illustration of that. He said that fifteen years previously he contested a certain constituency and opened a banking account for his election expenses. In the excitement of victory he forgot all about it. Time passed and he got elected for another constituency. Fifteen years elapsed and then he revisited old scenes, and one day he met the local bank manager who said, "I suppose you know you have a few hundred pounds standing to your credit." We have all heard of cases of parents of officers and soldiers who had money in the bank. I have had one particular case brought to
  790
  my notice of a young Canadian who came and brought his bank pass-book with him and left it with his parents. He had an account in Canada, but he transferred a considerable sum from that account to a bank in Southampton for his own personal expenditure. The father knew nothing about it. The poor fellow was killed, letters of administration were taken out, and it was only when his personal belongings were sent home and examined that they found documents from the Southampton bank showing there was a considerable sum to his credit, no mention of which had been made.
  There is another case which I have mentioned in this House on a previous occasion—the case of an old lady who had £28,000 to her credit in a well-known. London bank. Once every year she drove up in her carriage, asked to see the manager, examined her book, drew out a cheque for the full amount, got it cashed and then having carefully counted the notes and satisfied herself that the money was safe paid it back again into her account. I can give the name of the bank if necessary. After some years her visits ceased and for fifteen or sixteen years she has not been heard of. Perhaps she is in a lunatic-asylum, or she may be engaged in some other sphere of activity. But her relatives are unknown, and the bank will probably never hear of her again. It is a rather amazing fact that, on a former occasion on a Division on this Bill, the first Member who came out of the Lobby in opposition to it was a director of that particular bank. I have many other cases with which I do not propose to weary the House. Time is short, and I want if possible, to get the Second Reading before five o'clock. The case of this Bill can be put in a sentence. We are the oldest banking community in the world. It follows as a matter of course that people put money and securities in banks, they move about, their address is lost, and they die. There is no bank manager in this House who will get up and deny that there must be millions and millions in possession of the banks, and I want to point this out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that you may look through the balance-sheets of the great joint stock enterprises and you will not find one single figure indicating that there is a single penny dormant balance-or unclaimed security in that bank. They are all treated as the bank's property, and I do suggest that there is a primâ facie

  791
  case for this Bill under those circumstances. I do not care if there is only £1,000,000, £2,000,000, or £3,000,000; there is a principle. You have a Public Trustee, and the whole of these funds should be held by him for the benefit of the State. However many years these funds have been accumulating at the banks in this way, the money does not belong to them, and the Public Trustee is the man to hold it for the benefit of the original holders if they ever turn up. There is no confiscation. Let us have a periodical return from the Public. Trustee, or other safeguards put in the Bill. Let him hold these securities and take steps to find out the owners, and if he cannot, let him realise the securities, title deeds, jewels, and other valuables which exist in millions in London to-day, and then do something to add further lustre and usefulness to the office he adorns. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give some sort of inquiry in order to ascertain what and how much there is behind this measure.
  Major CHRISTOPHER LOWTHER: I beg to second the Motion. I do so in no hostility to the banking interests of this country. Those who are not specially -acquainted with those interests cannot justly realise what a very valuable service they rendered to the country during the War. I second the Bill because there is underlying it a principle of fairness and justice. What is the position to-day? If a man dies, probate is taken out of his will by his executors. They will go to the bank where they know he has kept his account, and on production of that authority they will naturally be able to ascertain what funds he had and to make disposition of them. But there are many men who keep accounts which are not known to their executors. There are many men who store away things either because they do not wish their relatives to know of their existence or because they are of a naturally secretive disposition. There is nothing to compel a bank to disclose to the executors of that man what he might have, although they may know perfectly well that their client is dead. I understand that the attitude adopted by the Bank of England and other bankers is that in order to obtain a reply to an inquiry, the applicant must be prepared to produce an authority from the representative of a deceased person, however many years pre-
  792
  viously the death might have taken place, and that the particulars of any stock, the exact amount of the funds, and the last names of all persons on the register must first be produced. All that is for an inquiry only. If that information were in the possession of the applicant, he would scarcely need to make an inquiry, because he would have the facts at his fingers' ends. The hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) has given instances of unclaimed balances, some of them very amusing. Curiously enough, not so very long ago there came under my notice an instance of much the same kind. In the early part of the nineteenth century the old banking firm of Devain and Company was wound up. There is excellent reason to believe that much of the stock and funds of that bank wore transferred to the Bank of England, also various securities standing in the name of the senior partner. Mr. William Noble. I have seen correspondence between the solicitors of the beneficiaries of one of these trusts and the Bank of England wherein the bank has declined to give information as to what may be lying in that trust. The net result is that while there is good reason to believe that the claimant is entitled to a certain amount of money which is held by the Bank of England he is unable to obtain it. I think that even the Bank of England themselves realised this, especially some ten years ago when I think that I am right in saying the late Sir Israel Hart at a meeting of the court did urge upon the Governor and directors that they should adopt a more reasonable attitude in this respect.
  To turn to the Bill itself, its objects are twofold, first, that the bank should make a return of what they have, unclaimed balances, etc., upon which no call has been made for six years; and second, that after a given period the securities, balances, or whatever it may be which they have should be handed over to the Public Trustee. It may be claimed that the secrecy which is always part of the contract between a banker and his client is likely to be violated. If that be so my observation is that in that case the disclosure would be made to a most respected public official, the Public Trustee, and that the disclosure itself is not at all to the detriment of the beneficiary, but on the other hand very much to his advantage, because it is provided by the Bill that the Public Trustee should hold the same in trust for the persons entitled

  793
  thereto, subject to such terms and conditions as may from time to time be laid down. It appears to me to be such an elementary principle of justice, that an heir to any property should receive whatever he is entitled to, that it should commend itself very widely not only in this House but in the country at large. What would happen to a solicitor who held certain, shall we say stocks, or whatever they might be belonging to a client, and on the death of the client did not disclose the fact that he held those stocks, or whatever they were, to the man's executors? I fancy that he would find himself in a very awkward predicament. I am not at all sure that the Law Society would not take action in the matter.
  Take a more humble instance. Suppose that I were fortunate enough on leaving the House this afternoon to secure at an exorbitant rate the services of a taxi-cab, that I was able to persuade the driver to go the way I wanted to go, and not the way he wanted to go, that after completing a very short journey and paying a large fare for the honour he had done me that I was so excited with my triumph that when getting out of the taxi I left my umbrella in it. Now I had deposited myself and the things I had with me, including my umbrella, in the taxi-cab, and the driver is not entitled to go away with my umbrella and not disclose the fact that he has got it. It is incumbent on him to go to Scotland Yard and declare that he has found the umbrella in his cab, and I can have it by going to Scotland Yard and paying a small fee. I cannot help thinking that that, though it is a rough instance, is more or less on a par with the case of the balance that you may hold in a bank. I trust that the Government, though they may deny us a Second Reading of this Bill, will consider that we are approaching the subject not in a spirit of hostility to the banking interests but merely from a sense of fairness and justice, and that from that point of view they will give it their sympathetic consideration.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain):I was very glad to hear my hon. and gallant Friend who seconded the Motion—and I dare say the same sentiment was uttered by my hon. Friend who moved it; at any rate, it would be shared by him—disclaim any attitude of hostility to the bankers. That is the right spirit in which to approach the proposition. They are an honourable body of men, and I should
  794
  have felt it my duty to resent, if there had been such a suggestion, any suggestion that they behaved themselves otherwise than as honourable men would. But there is no such suggestion, and I may proceed at once to the merits of the proposal. I gather that I shall agreeably surprise both my hon. Friends by saying that to the principle which underlies their proposal the Government have no objection, and from the. inquiries which I have made I think I am entitled to go further, and say that the bankers have no objection, if it pleases Parliament to pass legislation on. this question. No doubt, as the hon. Mover has said, the legal relation of a. banker to the client who has deposited money is not that of trustee, but of debtor and creditor, but no banker acts upon that legal right, or to a proved owner or heir of the owner would refuse payment of a balance standing to his credit, merely because the time within which he could legally recover a debt was past. The hon. Member who moved the Bill had great anticipations for it. The hunt for buried treasure has always fascinated the minds of the youthful, and equally the imagination of some of us who are no longer youthful, but the finding of the buried treasure and the realisation of your hopes occurs more often in romance than in reality. I think the hon. Gentleman ventured to prophesy that there were a hundred millions of really unclaimed money and securities in the possession of the banks. I do not pretend to have any estimate that I could lay before the House, but if, like the hon. Mover, I were a sporting man, T should offer' him a series of bets that he would not realise not merely the figure he has named, but anything approaching it. I am almost afraid to suggest figures, but I think if I put it at 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 that is multiplying on my own side the largest estimate that has been given to me by those who ought to be in a position to know. But be it large or small, all I say is, "Do not have exaggerated hopes." The principle of the measure remains unaffected. As regards the measure itself, I am sure the hon. Members will see when they consider it that it requires considerable amendment, and the proposal which I make is that we should read the Bill a second time, if that be the will of the House, but that we should then refer it to a Select Committee, where evidence can be taken as to the practical working of it and where it can be moulded into a form which will avoid

  795
  inconveniences which no one desires to see. The hon. Member gave us an interesting account of an old lady who visited annually a certain bank. I was talking on the subject to a banker the other day and he said on some previous occasion when this question was disturbing public feeling the bank with which he was connected felt that- perhaps they were not doing all it was their duty to do to trace claimants, and they began to examine their dormant balances. The first considerable one they found was. I think, for a sum of £20,000, which had been untouched for thirty years. It stood also in the name of a lady, presumably if not elderly no longer quite young. They accordingly communicated with her and asked whether she was aware that she had this sum of money which stood in their books. She replied rather tartly that she was perfectly well aware of what her property was, and where it was, and, since she could not leave it with this bank without being worried by them, she had taken steps to transfer it to another. That is one old lady against another.
  The hon. Member is taking six years. I know why he is taking six years. It is in order to include countless accounts which it would be most inconvenient to a customer to disturb. Take a single case. Numbers of firms in the City of London open accounts with the Bank of England in order that they may have relations with it in case of certain contingencies for which they may wish to provide. They open an account of, say, £1,000. That is not their operative account. They are banking with another institution. They open an account in order that they may be a client of the Bank of England for their own convenience, and very likely six or more years may pass without their disturb-
  796
  ing the balance or having any reference to it. Quite clearly you do not want accounts of that kind transferred at the end of six years to the Public Trustee. I must not say more. I have said enough to confirm what the hon. Member said, that the provisions of the Bill need amendment, and if he will be content with my proposal that we should send it to a Select Committee and have it examined, I offer no opposition to the Second Reading.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I accept with gratitude.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP A).
  Sir HARRY SAMUEL reported from the Committee on Group A of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Wednesday next, at Eleven of the clock.
  Report to lie upon the Table.
  Sir HARRY SAMUEL reported from the Committee on Group A of Private Bills; That Mr. Frederick Hall, one of the members of the said Committee, was not present during the sitting of the Committee this day.
  Report to lie upon the Table.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
  Adjourned at One Minute before Five o'clock.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (WOMEN).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (WOMEN).
  POST OFFICE (ARMY PENSIONERS).
  POST OFFICE (ARMY PENSIONERS).
  DEMOBILISED MEN (TRADING LICENCES).
  DEMOBILISED MEN (TRADING LICENCES).
DEMOBILISATION.
  APPLICATION FOE RELEASE.
  APPLICATION FOE RELEASE.
  SILVERTOWN EXPLOSION (COMPENSATION).
  SILVERTOWN EXPLOSION (COMPENSATION).
  SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (TRAINING).
  SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (TRAINING).
  ASSISTANCE OF THE BLIND.
  ASSISTANCE OF THE BLIND.
  BOARDED-OUT CHILDREN.
  BOARDED-OUT CHILDREN.
  NATIONAL INSURANCE (DOCTORS' REMUNERATION).
  NATIONAL INSURANCE (DOCTORS' REMUNERATION).
  RECORD OFFICE, KEW (ASSISTANT AOCOUNTANT-GENERAL).
  RECORD OFFICE, KEW (ASSISTANT AOCOUNTANT-GENERAL).
  PAPER-MAKING INDUSTRY (HOURS).
  PAPER-MAKING INDUSTRY (HOURS).
  CIRCULAR PASSPORTS.
  CIRCULAR PASSPORTS.
  POLAND (POGROMS).
  POLAND (POGROMS).