Sitting of 23 October 1919

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Granton Harbour Order Confirmation Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Granton Harbour," presented by Mr. MUNRO; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered To-morrow.
Fraserburgh Harbour (New Works) Order Confirmation Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Fraserburgh Harbour," presented by Mr. MUNRO; read the first time; and ordered (under Section 9 of the Act) to be read a second time upon Friday, 31st October, and to be printed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  TREATY OF PEACE.

    INDEMNITY FROM GERMANY.
    Mr. KENYONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any modifications had been made in the Peace Treaty in respect of the contributions to be made by Germany?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. KENYONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress had been made in exacting the Indemnity from Germany?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: Steps to recover the amount of the indemnity cannot formally be taken until the Treaty has been duly ratified, but I understand that much preliminary work has been done by an Organising Committee which has been
    168
    sitt some months, and on which the prin Governments concerned are repre ed. In particular, deliveries under nexes IV. and V. of the Treaty have commenced.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: What is the position in regard to German shipping?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: That matter is under negotiation at the present time.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the hon. Gentleman say when he expects the Treaty to be ratified?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: Perhaps my hon. Friend will give me notice of that.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Has the amount of the indemnity to be recovered from Germany been fixed?

  EGYPT.

    NATIONALIST APPEAL TO UNITED STATES.
    Captain WEDGWOOD BENNasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention had been called to an appeal made by the Egyptian Nationalists to the United States Senate; and what steps, if any, he proposed to take in consequence?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The reply to the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question is in the affirmative, but it is not proposed to take any action in the matter.

    ARMY OF OCCUPATION (COST).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for War what was the monthly cost of the British Army of Occupation in Egypt and in Palestine, respectively?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The monthly cost of the British Army of Occupation in Egypt and Palestine is £2,400,000. I regret I cannot at the moment give separate figures, but I hope to be in a position to do so early next week.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state how much of this is recoverable from the Egyptian Government or whether the total charge comes on the Imperial Exchequer?
    Mr. FORSTER: It comes on the Imperial Exchequer.

    COAL EXPORTS.
    Mr. NEWBOULDasked the President of the Board of Trade what was the weekly amount of coal exported since 31st July, the average price charged, and the profit accruing thereon?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridgeman): Statistics of the quantity and value of coal exported are only compiled monthly and are published in the Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom. The average weekly amount of coal exported during August and September, 1919, was 557,000 tons, the average f.o.b. price being £2 14s. 9d. per ton. No later figures are yet available. There is no available information as to the profits accruing in respect of coal exported since 31st July, 1919.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the price of bunker coal in Liverpool is £6 per ton, and that the profit made on the export of coal has been swallowed up in supplying home manufacturers and consumers at 35s. per ton?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am quite aware that the price is very high at Liverpool, and it is receiving consideration.
    Mr. BILLING: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we anticipate a coal shortage during the winter months? Does he think it right that coal should be exported to foreign countries, and that the working classes in this country should freeze in the coming winter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: We are taking account of both the considerations raised by the two hon. Members.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if coal is not exported the price of food in this country will be much greater?

    PROFITEERING ACT.
    Mr. BRIANTasked the President of the Board of Trade what measures Thad been taken to check the operations of trusts and to deal with speculation under the Profiteering Act?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The first step taken in connection with the investigation of the operations of trusts has been to examine prices. I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given yesterday by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for the
    170
    Elland Division, to which I might add that inquiries are being made into the costs and profits at all stages in the handling and distribution of fish, and that special Sub-Committees are at present investigating cotton, tobacco, soap and farriery.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    BRITISII EXPORTS TO GERMANY.
    Major M'KENZIE WOODasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he was taking to encourage British exports to Germany?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend recognises that it is desirable that British traders should make every effort to secure a proper footing in German markets, and this view was expressed in a White Paper (Cmd. 350) issued in September. A Commercial Commissioner has already been stationed at Berlin, and two additional Commercial Commissioners will be appointed very shortly. A representative of the Department of Oversea Trade has also been attached since last June, to the staff of the Military Governor at Cologne to reply to commercial inquiries. The Department of Oversea Trade will be prepared to deal with any inquiries which it may receive with regard to the German market.

    GERMAN GOODS.
    Captain BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade whether ho was taking any steps to prevent other countries from importing goods from Germany at the present favourable exchange and re-exporting them to this country at a profit?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No action in the direction indicated has been necessary up to the present, because, according to information received by my right hon. Friend, Germany has no great quantity of goods to sell to any buyers at present.
    Mr. TERRELL: Is it not a fact that goods are now being delivered 5n this country from Germany?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Not in any quantity.
    Mr. TERRELL: Is it not a fact that there is an enormous profit accruing to the German exporter in being able to send any goods? Is he taking any steps to secure that profit to our own Exchequer instead of allowing it to go to Germany?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The matter is awaiting the decision of Parliament in a Bill, but if my hon. Friend has any specific instances to bring forward I shall be very glad to report them to the President of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the hon. Gentleman say from whom he gets his information?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I think I had better have notice of that.
    Mr. HOGGE: When my hon. Friend gives an answer it is based on information, and I ask him to state from whom the information comes.
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not quite sure, without consulting my right hon. Friend, whether I can give that answer. If he will put a question down, I will inquire.
    Mr. TERRELL: When will the Bill be introduced?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: That should be addressed to the Leader of the House.

    DUMPED GOODS (CABINET ACTION).
    Mr. GEORGE THORNEasked the Prime Minister under what statutory authority the Board of Trade restricts imports of dumped goods?
    Mr. KILEYasked the Prime Minister under what statutory authority the Board of Trade restricts imports of dumped goods?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Board of Trade are not at present restricting the import of any goods on the ground of their being dumped.
    Mr. TERRELL: May I ask when the promised legislation will be introduced to deal with this matter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: That is a question which should be addressed to the Leader of the House.
    Mr. TERRELL: This question is addressed to the Leader of the House, and may I ask him for an answer?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): The question was, but the supplementary was not. A Bill is prepared and is now under discussion by the Cabinet, and will be introduced as soon as possible.
    Mr. TERRELL: Within the next week or two?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope so.
    Mr. RAFFANasked the Prime Minister under what Statutory authority the Board of Trade restricts imports for the protection of key industries?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have been asked to reply. The restrictions on imports to which my hon. Friend alludes are at present in force by virtue of Proclamations issued under Section 43 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Has there been any legal testing of the legality or illegality of the Proclamation and is the Board of Trade satisfied that they are acting within their legal rights?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Board of Trade has taken advice on the matter, but I am not aware of any test action being taken.
    Mr. KILEYasked the Prime Minister under what Statutory authority the Board of Trade makes orders restricting the imports in cases of collapsed exchanges?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Board of Trade have not made any orders of the kind referred to by the hon. Member.
    Captain W. BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade what was the test applied for dumping; and was it that the goods were sold in this country at a lower price than they were sold in the country of origin or at a lower price than that at which the same goods were sold in this country?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The hon. and gallant Member appears to be under some misapprehension. At present there is no antidumping action being taken. A Bill to deal with the matter is to be introduced at an early date, when the precise nature of the test to be applied will be determined by Parliament.

    GERMAN TRADE WITH RUSSIA.
    Mr. KENYONasked the President of the Board of Trade the present amount of German trade with Russia?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No figures are available as to German trade with Russia. I am informed, however, that the quantity of German goods reaching Russia is very small.

    RUSSIA (BLOCKADE)
    Mr. ARNOLDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Supreme Economic Council had instituted a blockade of Russia?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: While no blockade of Russia in the technical sense of the word has been instituted, the Allied and Associated Governments have transmitted a Note to the Neutral Governments inviting them to co-operate in preventing communication between their nationals and the parts of Russia controlled by the Soviet Government: a Note has also been transmitted to the German Government through the Inter-Allied Armistice Commission requesting them to take similar action. Trade with South Russian ports is now proceeding as freely as difficulties of transport and finance permit. His Majesty's Government are doing everything possible to encourage trade with South Russia.
    Mr. ROGGE: Can the hon. Gentleman say on whose authority we are refusing to deal with the Soviet Government?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: It is part of the policy of the Allies in Paris.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: What replies have been received from the Neutral Governments and from the German Government to our Notes?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The hon. and gallant Gentleman must put that question on the Paper.

    WOMEN'S ROYAL AIR FORCE.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Air Ministry how many women, officers and other ranks, respectively, were in the Women's Royal Air Force on 1st October, 1919; and how many women, other than those in the Women's Royal Air Force, were employed by the Royal Air Force on the same date?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major-General Seely): The numerical strength of the Women's Royal Air Force on the 30th of September, 1919, was:

    Officers

    164

    Other ranks

    5,800

    It is proposed to reduce this number to 400 by the 1st of December, and to 200
    174
    by the 1st January, 1920. The number of female civil subordinates on the same date was 2,529.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand that the 400 and 200 respectively apply to all ranks, or only to officers?
    Major-General SEELY: Of course, to all ranks.
    Mr. BILLING: To what extent does the right hon. Gentleman propose to reduce the female Air Force?
    Major-General SEELY: That is given in my answer. The hon. Member did not hear my answer. I said 400 on 1st December and 200 on 1st January.

    HOUSING (SCOTLAND).
    Major M`KENZIE WOODasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can state the number of houses which had been erected under the new housing schemes and the number upon which operations had commenced?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY of HEALTH for SCOTLAND (Mr. Pratt): Seventy-two temporary houses have been provided and are in occupation. No permanent houses have yet been completed. Seven hundred and sixty-eight houses are in course of erection, some of them being ready for roofing.
    Mr. HOGGE: Are the seventy-two houses wooden houses?
    Mr. PRATT: Yes.
    Mr. ROSE: Does that apply to the whole of Scotland?
    Mr. PRATT: Yes.

    ENEMY PRISONERS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state how many enemy and former enemy prisoners are now in this country; and how many soldiers are employed in guarding them?
    Mr. FORSTER: On the 20th October there were 72,065 combatant prisoners of war in the United Kingdom; the number is, of course being continually reduced as repatriation progresses. This total includes

    175
    both enemy and former enemy combatant prisoners if, by tile latter, the hon. and gallant Member means prisoners of war of any of the enemy belligerents with whom a Treaty of Peace has been concluded. If his question is intended to cover enemy aliens in this country, then I must refer him to my right lion. Friend the Home Secretary. From the latest Returns available, 10,244 soldiers are employed in guarding prisoners of war; but I would add that the number is being reduced daily.

  DEMOBILISATION.

    MESOPOTAMIA.
    Lieut. -Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state how many troops, white and Indian, respectively, are in Mesopotamia; and how many of these white troops are volunteers for the post-war Armies?
    Mr. FORSTER: The numbers at the end of September were:—British troops, 21,000; Indian troops, 79,000. Of the British troops, 501 men have voluntarily enlisted for the after-war Army.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what progress is being made to relieve demobilisable men by volunteers?
    Mr. FORSTER: I think my hon. and gallant Friend had better await the statement which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to make next week.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the whole of the old Army who are in Mesopotamia will be returned, as many of them have been there four years?
    Mr. FORSTER: I cannot say that without notice.

    WILTSHIRE REGIMENT.
    Mr. TERRELL (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for War whether a battalion of the Wiltshires in India has now been ordered home, and, if not, what are the reasons for the delay?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): I have not received any private notice.
    Mr. TERRELL: I gave you notice in a letter which I left at the door yesterday afternoon.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I greatly regret that it had not reached me up to Question Time.

    GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (MOTOR CARS).
    Mr. KILEYasked the Prime Minister what is the present number of cars in use in connection with Government Departments.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The number of motor cars in use in connection with Government Departments is—in London 73, in the Provinces 339.

    UNEMPLOYMENT PAY.
    Mr. TERRELL (by Private Notice)asked the Minister of Labour whether ex-soldiers and ex-sailors who are out of work in consequence of the moulders' strike will be paid unemployment pay?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): The rule applicable in this connection is that laid down by Parliament in the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and is the same for ex-members of His Majesty's Forces as for others. A notice setting out the effect of this rule in relation to the moulders' strike was published recently in the Press; briefly it amounts to this, that the moulders' strike causes the disqualification for donation of all the workpeople employed in the foundry, but not of workpeople employed elsewhere in the engineering establishment concerned. The interpretation of the rule in individual cases does not rest with the Department, but with the Courts of Referees and the Umpire, whose decision is final.
    Mr. TERRELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are cases of very great hardship amongst ex-soldiers and ex-sailors who have only recently joined unions, and who can get no relief from the union, and can he see his way to meet their cases by giving them unemployment pay?
    Mr. WARDLE: As I have already pointed out, it does not rest with me. I should imagine that the numbers must be very few.
    Mr. TERRELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, though the number may be few, there are cases of very great hardship and injustice?
    Mr. WARDLE: I am not quite sure how the rule to which I have referred can be altered, but I will make inquiries.

    NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.
    Mr. GEORGE LAMBERT (by Private Notice)asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will add to his statement of Government expenditure the contingent liability on the rates caused by the Education, Housing and other Acts recently passed into law?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to make such an estimate as my right hon. Friend desires, but I will ask the Ministries of Health and Education whether they can supply the information, but it would, as my right hon. Friend will agree, be very undesirable to postpone the presentation of the Papers already promised until this further information had been obtained.
    Mr. LAMBERT: When does the right hon. Gentleman think he will be in a position to give this information, as the rates in some districts are threatening to rise to very ruinous heights?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Although my right hon. Friend puts his question to me, he is asking for information from half-a-dozen Departments or several Departments, and he desires that I should collect the information rather than that he should collect it himself. I am communicating with the two principal ones who are responsible for the Acts which he names in his question. I do not know whether they will be able to give the information, but if they do I will communicate it to my right hon. Friend as soon as I receive it.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Is not the right hon. Gentleman the guardian of the financial interests of the country?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think am guardian of the ratepayers. I have sufficient burdens on my shoulders already without being responsible for that.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to ask the Leader of the House what business it is proposed to take next week, and if the House sit to-morrow (Friday) what is the business to be considered?
Mr. BONAR LAW: We propose that the House should sit to-morrow and take the concluding stages of the Aliens Restriction Bill, including the Third Reading, and other Orders on the Paper.
Upon Monday we propose to take the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Bill, the Superannuation (Prison Officers) Bill, Second Reading, and some other Orders.
On Tuesday next the War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Bill, and
Upon Wednesday—as I understand it is agreeable to all sections of the House—we propose to take the discussion on the financial position of the country. The House will probably regard it as desirable —and I think it is desirable—to have two days for the Debate. Therefore, I am leaving Thursday free, should the House so desire.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  ALIENS RESTRICTION BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  ALIENS RESTRICTION BILL.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Incitement to Sedition, etc.)
    (1) If any alien attempts or does any act calculated or likely to cause sedition or disaffection amongst any of His majesty's Forces or the forces of his majesty's Allies, or amongst the civilian population, he shah be liable on conviction on indictment to penal servitude for a term not exceeding ten years, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.
    (2) If any alien promotes or attempts to promote industrial unrest in any industry in which he is not bonâ fide engaged in the United Kingdom, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.
    Amendment proposed [22nd October], to leave out Sub-section (2).—[Mr. Tyson Wilson.]
    Question again proposed, ''That the words 'If any alien' stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. T. WILSON: In again urging the Government to meet us by accepting this Amendment to leave out Sub-section (2), I would point out that, assuming that an alien is a member of the Transport Workers' Union, he can make as strong a speech as he likes at a meeting of the transport workers in connection with hours of labour or other conditions of labour, and he cannot be prosecuted under this Act, but if he goes to a meeting of railwaymen or miners and makes the same speech, or a speech of a milder nature, it is possible under this Sub-section for him to be prosecuted. I submit that that is placing a member of a trade union in an extremely invidious position, and that instead of making for the harmonious working of the Act it will have just the contrary effect. Some hon. Members last
    night, when I was using this illustration, said that one way out of the difficulty was for the member, in this case, of the Transport Workers' Union, to become naturalised, so that he could then speak at any and every meeting in the country Without fear. Does the right hon. Gentleman favour naturalisation? I do not, and therefore if an alien is a member of a trade union and is dealing with questions which are purely industrial, I would give him the same liberty to make the same speech at a miners' meeting or a meeting of the railwaymen that he could make at a meeting of the transport workers. The Sub-section is absurd on the face of it. Let me put this to the right hon. Gentleman, that a prominent member of one of the societies that I have referred to has made his speech at a meeting of members of his own union, and he makes the same speech at a meeting of the members of another union and is arrested, and prosecuted, and sentenced to one, two, or three months' imprisonment. Is it not quite possible, nay, is it not quite probable, that the members of the Triple Alliance would resent the prosecution of a man for making a speech at one gathering when he had riot been prosecuted for making the same speech at another gathering? I suggest to him that if he wishes to avert unrest and industrial trouble, and if he wants the Act to work smoothly, he will accept my Amendment. If he will not accept the Amendment as a whole, I hope he will accept it in a somewhat modified form; but, speaking from a long experience of trade union work and of labour matters, I think it would be in the best interests of everybody concerned if he would agree to the deletion of the Subsection.
    Question put, "That the words 'If any alien' stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 166; Noes, 50.

    Division No. 111.]

    AYES.

    [3.15 p.m.

    Adair, Rear-Admiral

    Barwick, Major G. O.

    Butcher, Sir J. G.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur Grifflth

    Campion, Colonel W. R.

    Archdale, Edward M.

    Bottomley, Horatio

    Carr, W. T.

    Bagley, Captain E. A.

    Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

    Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Breese, Major C. E.

    Casey, T. W.

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Cayzer, Major H. R,

    Balfour, George (Hampstead)

    Briggs, Harold

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

    Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

    Brown; T. W. (Down, N.)

    Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

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

    Bruton, Sir J.

    Cheyne. Sir William Watson

    Bigland, Alfred

    Buckley, Lleut.-Colonel A.

    Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

    Billing, Noel Pemberton

    Burden, Colonel Rowland

    Clough, R.

    Bird, Alfred

    Burn, Colonel C. R. (Torquay)

    Cockerill, Brig.-General G. K.

    Cohen, Major J. B. B.

    Inskip, T. W. H.

    Preston, W. R.

    Conway, Sir W. Martin

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

    Purchase, H. G.

    Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

    Jodrell, N. P.

    Ratcliffe, Henry Butler

    Cory, Sir James Herbert (Cardiff)

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

    Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.

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

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Richardson, Sir Albion (Peekham)

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Kelly, Major Fred (Rotherham)

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Davies, Sir D. S. (Denbigh)

    Kidd, James

    Rodger, A. K.

    Davies, T. (Cirencester)

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Roundall, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.

    Dawes, J. H.

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. George

    Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)

    Dean, Corn. P. T.

    Law, A. J. (Rochdale)

    Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

    Du Pre, Colonel W. B.

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

    Seddon, James

    Edge, Captain William

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)

    Seely, Maj.-Gen. Right Hon. John

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

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

    Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

    Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

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

    Eyres-Mansell, Commander

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

    Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander

    Falcon, Captain M.

    Lorden, John William

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

    Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

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

    Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

    Farquharson, Major A. C.

    Lynn, R. J.

    Stewart, Gershom

    Fell, Sir Arthur

    M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)

    Sturrock, J. Leng.

    Foxcroft, Captain C.

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

    Sykes, Sir C. (Huddersfield)

    Gange, E. S.

    Macmaster, Donald

    Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

    Ganzoni, Captain F. C.

    Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

    Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)

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

    McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)

    Terrell, G. (Chippenham, Wilts)

    Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Terrell, Capt. R. (Henley, Oxford)

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)

    Glyn, Major R.

    Marriott, John Arthur R.

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

    Goff, Sir R. Park

    Matthews, David

    Tickler, Thomas George

    Greame, Major P. Lloyd

    Moles, Thomas

    Townley, Maximilian G.

    Green, J. F. (Leicester)

    Morrison, H. (Salisbury)

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

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

    Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

    Wardle, George J.

    Greenwood, Col. Sir Hamar

    Mosley, Oswald

    Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Murchison, C. K.

    Wason, John Cathcart

    Hacking, Colonel D. H.

    Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rallox)

    White, Colonel G. D. (Southport)

    Hanna, G. B.

    Murray, William (Dumfries)

    Whitla, Sir William

    Harmsworth, Cecil R. (Luton, Beds.)

    Nall, Major Joseph

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

    Haslam, Lewis

    Nicholl, Corn. Sir Edward

    Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)

    Herbert, Denniss (Hertford)

    Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

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

    Milder, Lieut.-Colonel F.

    Norton Griffiths, Lt.-Col. Sir J.

    Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

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

    Hope, John Deans (Berwick)

    Palmer, Brig.-General G. (Westbury)

    Woolcock, W. J. U.

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Parker, James

    Yeo, Sir Alfred William

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Parkinson, Albert L. (Blackpool)

    Hurd, P. A.

    Pownall, Lt.-Colonel Assheton

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— Lord E

    Hurst, Major G. B.

    Pratt, John William

    Ta'bot and Capt. Guest.

    Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

    NOES

    Adamson Rt. Hon. William

    Hogge, J. M.

    Sitch, C. H.

    Cairns, John

    Holmes, J.

    Smith, W. (Wellingborough)

    Cape, Tom

    Irving, Dan

    Spoor, B. G.

    Carter, W. (Mansfield)

    Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander

    Swan, J. E. C.

    Clynes, Right Hon. John R.

    Kiley, James Daniel

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

    Crooks, Rt. Hon. William

    Lunn, William

    Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

    Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)

    Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)

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

    Thorne. Col. W. (Plaistow)

    Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)

    Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

    Walsh, S. (Ince, Lancs.)

    Finney, Samuel

    Neal, Arthur

    Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Newbould, A. E.

    White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)

    Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

    Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Grundy, T. W.

    Richards, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)

    Guest, J. (Hemsworth, York)

    Richardson, R. (Houghton)

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

    Hall, F. (Yorks. Normanton)

    Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)

    Henderson, Arthur

    Rose, Frank H.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— Mr.

    Hirst. G. H.

    Rowlands James

    T. Wilson and Captain A. Smith.

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Royce, William Stapleton

    Lieut.-Commander KEN WORTHY: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the word "alien" ["If any alien promotes"], to insert the words "other than a bonâ fide official of a registered trade union."
    I hope that this Amendment will meet certain hard cases that leave been disclosed in the discussion on the last Amendment, without in any way hampering the Home Office in prosecuting and sending out of the country dangerous characters of foreign nationality. The object of the
    186
    Amendment is to safeguard the case of the foreigner who is the secretary of a trade union, most members of which are aliens, as, for example, the tailoring trades, and so on, in the East End of London and in Manchester. It is said that these people ought to become naturalised, but this Bill, and Orders in Council that hang on this Bill, are making it far harder now to become naturalised, and, therefore, with the best will in the world, these people may not be able to become naturalised.

    187
    Nevertheless, I think it is most desirable that these alien trades—tailoring, and so on—which are what is known generally as sweated trades—[An Hon. MEMBER dissented.] I am much obliged to my hon. Friend, who has greater knowledge than I have of the trades in the East End, but I think aliens are employed by other aliens in this country, and have been employed in the past at very low wages. In fact, these men come from the ghettoes of the great manufacturing towns of Eastern Europe, where there was, unfortunately, a low standard of life. They come here, and I think we succeed in a generation or two in raising them morally, physically, and in every way, so that they become a very fair imitation of the natives.
    It is most necessary that these people should have some organisation. Their employers are very often aliens, and these people need protection just the same as anybody else. The officials of their organisations have to be of their own nationality, and, for the reasons I have explained, it is difficult for thorn to become naturalised. This Amendment would safeguard the case of the secretary of a Jewish tailors' union or guild who attends a meeting of a trades and labour council, for example, or meets with officials of other trade unions and who would be, according to the letter of the law, liable to prosecution and to imprisonment up to three months. We do not want any sort of persecution of trade union officials, simply because they happen not to have been naturalised. At the same time, this Amendment would not in any way hamper the Home Secretary in prosecuting foreigners. I do not think the English working man concerns himself with any desire to persecute these people, and I know a good deal about English working men, having served with their class for a good many years in ships. I think they pay very little attention to foreign agitators and even less to their own agitators. I think it would be better if they did sometimes. Without weakening the hands of the Home Secretary in any respect, this Amendment does guard the case of a bonâ fide secretary of a small alien union trying to uplift their economic lot, and who might otherwise, according to the letter of the law, be liable to prosecution.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to second the Amendment.
    188
    It seems to me that this Amendment affords a convenient compromise between the Bill and the Amendment previously moved. I support both Amendments because I believe in freedom of speech. I do not want people to be led away by agitators who put -stupidity into their heads, but I believe in freedom of speech, because unless you allow people to hear nonsense they will never learn to know right. Unless you allow them to go wrong they will never go right. The whole secret of the political education of the working man of this country has been because he was allowed to hear every point of view so that he has now a clear policy and is able to discover what is right and what is wrong. It is on the same principle of allowing a child who is learning to walk to tumble. It is on those lines that England has been built up. The whole object of this Bill is to circumscribe the freedom of the subject in this country.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): This is not an Amendment that it is possible to accept. It really is based upon a total misapprehension of the mischief that is aimed at, and the effect of the provisions of the Bill. We have gone as far as we can go in allowing the alien who chooses to remain an alien to deal with matters connected with his own trade. The alien working in his trade will be able to take any part he likes in a dispute, but when he comes to deal with bodies like the Triple Alliance, well, I am astonished to think that the miners, transport or railway workers who wished to decide a matter in dispute would, any one of them, desire as a spokesman an alien—still more, that he should be an alien un-naturalised. The argument is raising up bogeys that do not exist. A man chooses to remain an alien. We allow him to remain in this country. He enjoys the hospitality of this country. He can protect his own personal interests, and in his trade he is there secured in his interests. I do not see why he should be allowed to interfere with other people in other trades.
    Mr. BILLING: Really, anyone who has read this Clause and the Amendment, and gives any support to the latter, must do so because of some peculiar reason of being anxious to see industrial disturbances in this country. I only wish the Government had strengthened the Clause so as to make it that no alien should be allowed to promote any industrial unrest,

    189
    whether or not a member of that trade. By this the Government are accepting or allowing the principle of direct action. The alien is not allowed to vote here, which means that he is not allowed to take part in the legislation of the country. Yet we allow him to promote industrial unrest which one must naturally assume is aimed against the laws. To allow such a man to take direct action through the medium of strikes is to admit the principle of direct action; thus holding up the Government. and inciting the British working man. I would put this point not only before the Government but before the Labour members. We have a heavy time ahead of us. We are all agreed that so long as the question of industrial unrest is considered in the light of the good sense of the average British working man who, thank God, pays little attention to the agitation —some Labour members seem to regret that ‡—if I say the thing is left in their hands we shall muddle through without bloodshed. But if the alien agitator is allowed to take a hand in the game there will be bloodshed in this country in the next twelve months.
    Mr. HODGE: I do not think that this Amendment has exactly the construction that the Home Secretary has placed upon it. We on these benches think the Clause as it stands is very dangerous. For instance, when before the War we have attended international conferences in Germany we have been amused at the presence of the military, who prevented certain people from speaking. There was an ex-Member of this House so prevented. This Clause would give the Government here the same power to interfere in an international conference of preventing a foreign delegate speaking because he might not be palatable to the Government. I hope the Home Secretary will find some words to modify the Clause. We do not believe that certain people should be at liberty to create disaffection. You have the power necessary to deal with this in the previous paragraph of the Bill. So far as trade union matters are concerned, I really think, in view of the point I have made, that the Home Secretary should do something to preserve us from the Prussianism rampant in Germany previous to the War. I desire to emphasise that point. At the Miners' International Conferences in Germany before the war certain people from this country were prevented speaking
    190
    by the interference of the authorities, because of the fear of the latter of industrial unrest. Do not let us have that kind of thing in this country. I hope, therefore, the Home Secretary will reconsider the position and tell us that he will modify the strength of the Clause.
    Mr. SHORTT: May I allay any fears that my right hon. Friend has? I can assure him there is absolutely nothing in the point he has raised. If he will read the Clause as it stands he will see that it deals with the promotion of industrial unrest in a definite industry. That would not affect any foreign delegate who came over here to attend an international conference and discuss general policies, general principles, and so on. This Clause will not touch him; he would be free as to-day. But if he comes over here, and, abusing his position as a delegate, endeavours to promote strife in an industry lie is guilty of a great breach of faith, and abuses the hospitality of the country, and this Clause would touch him. So long as he observes his position as a delegate and confines himself to the general conference discussions and avoids mixing himself up in a definite industry he is perfectly safe under this Bill.
    Mr. ADAMSON: Instead of allaying the fears of my right hon. Friend and those associated with him the explanation of the Home Secretary has confirmed our doubts and fears. Some of us on these benches have attended international conferences, and we have been much amused in the various countries to discover the presence of a representative of the law taking notes for the purpose of seeing whether the delegates were, by their speeches, creating disaffection. We used to twit our foreign friends because of the presence of these representatives. Well, but that will be the exact position here if this becomes law. After the explanation of the Home Secretary I do not doubt that if this is passed we shall be just in the same position as that at which we used to be amused. After all, does the Home Secretary really require the power that this Clause gives him? I do not think so. If you take Subsection (1) of Clause 3 you will find that the Home Secretary has there all the powers he requires.
    Mr. SHORTT: That gives no power to the Home Secretary, but to the ordinary law.
    Mr. ADAMSON: If it gives the power to the ordinary law then it accomplishes exactly what I was saying. Sub-section (1) reads,
    "(1) If any alien attempts or does any act calculated or likely to cause sedition or disaffection amongst any of His Majesty's Forces or the forces of His Majesty's Allies, or amongst the civilian population."
    What more power does the Home Secretary require in order to carry out the objects of this Bill? The powers given under Sub-section (2) of the Clause under discussion are not required. There will be a representative of the. law sitting at any international congress that may be held here in the future for the purpose of discovering whether anything said in the speeches of the delegates is likely to cause industrial strife in this country, and if anything of that kind does occur those particular delegates will be taken in charge and put over the border. We have had that done in the past to some of our own men, and we cannot be consenting parties to legislation of that kind being put on the Statute Book. I hope the Home Secretary will give serious consideration to this matter.
    Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I sincerely hope that the Government will stand firm. The Leader of the Labour party seems to think that under Sub-section (1) of the Clause you have got everything contemplated in Sub-section (2). If he thinks that I would point out to him that that is not qualified by any such words as are now proposed to be added to Sub-section (2). Under Sub-section (1), whether a person is a bonâfide member of a trade union or not, he will be liable to prosecution if he promotes industrial unrest or disaffection, but I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there is a fundamental distinction between what is laid down in these two Clauses. One provides for general disaffection amongst the civilian population, and the other is quite distinct from the specific strike in a particular industry. The object of that Sub-section is that, whether he be a member of a bonâfide trade union or not, nobody is entitled to take steps to promote strikes. What puzzles rue is to understand the anxiety of the Labour party to procure an increased army of strike leaders. Have they not got enough leaders now, or are their present leaders so discredited or out of favour that the old supply is failing and they are prepared to welcome the alien strike promoter? I hope the Government
    192
    will resist this proposal as a preliminary to accepting the next Amendment, which prohibits the alien from promoting strikes even in an industry in which He is engaged. The alien is not a citizen of this Realm and he has not got a vote, and it is absolutely an abuse of the hospitality extended to an alien to permit him to take any active step to undermine the industrial safety and prosperity of this nation.
    Mr. RONALD McNEILL: The right lion. Gentleman the Leader of the Labour party (Mr. Adamson) expressed great apprehension on exactly the same lines as those expressed by another hon. Member last night as to the effect this proposal would have on an international labour conference. I think the nervousness of my right hon. Friend rests upon a very slender foundation. I do not believe for a moment that any international labour congress will be hampered in any way by this Clause. Both he and another hon. Member last night based their fears on the experience of other countries. There would be a great deal more force in that point if my right hon. Friend had given us any indication of what is the law of those countries. I do not suppose that the law upon which steps were taken in the case of the conferences in Germany and perhaps in Scandinavian countries were parallel with this legislation, and probably the law there was infinitely more stringent. Unless we have some evidence that the law on which action was taken was not really more drastic than we are proposing, I do not see why we should be alarmed by the apprehensions of the right hon. Gentleman.
    There was another argument upon which the hon. Member opposite based his case for this Amendment which had nothing to do with an international congress, and that was the apprehension that bonâfide trade union leaders in this country would be interfered with under this Clause. Both on this Amendment and the last there has been a great deal of the same fear expressed from the benches opposite. It has much surprised me that none of the hon. Members who have raised that point have thought it necessary, as some indication of the substance of the point, to state how many bonâfide trade union leaders in this country are aliens, or how many within a recent period have been aliens. I should have thought that, in their own interest, they would have thought it necessary to give us some

    193
    information on that point. Anyone listening to the points that have been raised would imagine that the trade unions of this country were mainly manned by aliens.
    Mr. ADAMSON: This is a point of principle, and not one of numbers at all.
    Mr. McNEILL: I recognise that a point of principle is important. I take that as an admission that this is purely a matter of principle, and that it has no substance as a practical point. That is very material, and I think that a great many of us will vote with a very light heart in face of that fact, if we have the assurance from the Leader of the Labour party that, although it is a matter of principle, that in point of fact there are no aliens w ho are bonâ fide trade union leaders. [An HON. MEMBER: "No‡"] I am inviting some hon. Member who has the information to tell as and let us know whether this is so or not. I am assuring the House that a substantial number of trade union leaders are aliens, and I understand a Labour Member says "No." I want to know who is right. But whether there are many or few, I think the explanation of the Home Secretary is sound, and under no circumstances whatever, even if there are plenty of alien trade union leaders, can they be hit by this Clause unless they go outside the jurisdiction of their own trade to stir up labour unrest. I really do not think that it is an unreasonable proposition that whatever may be done for the people of our own country, with the extreme liberty that we all enjoy in that respect, there might be at all events to that extent a restriction on the mischievous activities of those who are not of our own country.
    Mr. NEAL: The proposition has proceeded up to now on the basis that the words "industrial unrest" are synonymous with "a strike." I respectfully suggest that is a wrong basis altogether. So far as I know, these two words are being introduced for the first time in any Statute, and I invite the Home Secretary to consider what interpretation, judicially, may be placed upon them if they find their way into the Act of Parliament. I respectfully suggest to him that "industrial unrest" is an inapt phrase which has passed into common parlance as being a comprehensive phrase, because it may mean a great variety of things. I venture
    194
    to say ere is not an hon. or right hon. Me of this House who has not at some; or other endeavoured to stir up industrial unrest, not in the sense of desiring tir up strikes, because you may have litical unrest, [An HON. MEMBER: e are dealing with industrial unrest. I can only deal with one thing at a ti I promise the House that I will not let the other matter escape me. You may have unrest as to high prices, you may have unrest as to the government of the country, you may have unrest affecting the conditions of an industry, or you may have unrest in an industry quite apart from its own conditions. I ask the Home Secretary to consider if it means, as his speech indicated and as the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) interpreted it as meaning, strikes, the desirability of putting the word "strike" plainly into the Bill. It would be something that could be understood.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is not the point that we are now discussing. The point is whether this Sub-section is to be made applicable generally or whether bonâfide officials of registered trade unions are to be excluded from it. That is the only point.
    Mr. NEAL: I will follow your ruling most carefully and closely, but, subject to that ruling, the point is as to how far a member of a trade union who is a bonâfide official of that union may encourage industrial unrest. I want to deal with it from that standpoint, and I respectfully suggest that these words are capable of a variety of interpretation and that the bonâfide official of a trade union will not know the position in which he is placed. The Home Secretary said that this only dealt with the stirring up of unrest in a particular industry. Does the Howe Secretary mean then that it would be legitimate under this Section to advocate a general strike, to advocate direct action, and to advocate things affecting more than one industry, but an offence when dealing with a certain industry? Surely the greater danger to this country is from a combination of industries rather than from a single industry. If I interpret this Subsection aright, the agitator resident amongst us or imported could argue in favour of, and do what he liked to stir up, general unrest, though he would be—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not confining himself to the Amendment. The House has accepted ally the whole of Sub-section (2) he exception which is now prop is that it should not apply to bonâ fide officials of trade unions. That is only point that we are now discussing.
    Mr. NEAL: I do not and I am sure if I do so it is vertently, to transgress your ruling i the slightest degree, but within your may I put it that for a bonâ fide official of a trade union to do those things which I suggest reduces the matter to an absurdity? I will not follow some of my hon. Friends who preceded me and deal with the earlier part of the Clause, but I suggest that requires some reconsideration, because the words "sedition or disaffection" are introduced with reference to the civilian population in a curious manner. I am quite unable to vote for the Amendment, because I do not see why there should be any differentiation between the official of a trade union and an ordinary member of a trade union or of the public, and I hope that the Government will give further consideration to this matter before the Bill gets to another place.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: In reply to the hon. Member for the Canterbury Division (Mr. R. McNeill), who asked if any alien was a trade union leader, I wish to point out that a certain strike took place in this country not so very long ago. It was the misfortune of the chairman of the Trades and Labour Council not to be born an Englishman or a Scotsman. The Trades and Labour Council formed itself into a strike committee, and, although his trade union was not affected, yet, as he happened to be the chairman of the Trades and Labour Council, he acted as chairman of the strike committee also. Under the wording of this Clause that individual would be liable.[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear ! "] Now we know your meaning. You are prepared to strike at the working man, but you will allow an alien of the wealthier classes [HON. MEMBERS: "No ‡"] You have them here today promoting unrest with regard to Russia among your own class. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO ‡Yes, wealthy aliens whom you let in and whom you support. There is no question about it. You are paying £5,000 per week to train Russian officers who are aliens in this country, and they belong to your class. But when it is a working man, a
    196
    man who has to earn his bread either in this country or elsewhere, his interests do not concern you. They do, however, concern us.
    4.0. P.M.
    The trade unionists I refer to would be liable to arrest on the evidence of a police constable, and could be sentenced to three months' imprisonment by a magistrate who might be interested in the particular industry whose workpeople were out on strike. We are told, of course, that they ought not to abuse the hospitality of this country. But if this country is to be hospitable, let it show that hospitality to the individuals who come here to earn their living and enable them to enjoy their life as you enjoy it. The Home Secretary says that this proposal will not affect international delegates who may be employed in another country in the particular industry whose workpeople are out on strike at this moment of their visit to this country. That foreigner may have particular information as to the working-class conditions in that industry in his own country which might be beneficial to the workers in this country, yet he is not to be allowed to take any part in assisting those who are on strike, although they are of his own trade and his own class. I beg to suggest to the Home Secretary not to allow us to have panic legislation, for that is all that this amounts to. The Government and a few otherss have been stirring up industrial strife, hatred and animosity against sections of the community who do not happen to have been born Englishmen or Scotsmen or within the boundaries of the British Islands. Are we the only good men in this country? Possibly we on these benches are, but I question if that is the case elsewhere. Show at least some toleration. If you are afraid of industrial unrest, if you are afraid of foreigners or aliens mixing themselves up in the industrial unrest, why not change the conditions and make industrial unrest impossible? But you will not do that; you prefer to leave things as they are. You are refusing to allow any, change for the better. Your housing problem is solved. We are not satisfied with our housing conditions.
    Mr. SPEAKER: This is a very long way from the subject under discussion.
    Mr. MACLEAN: I bow to your ruling, but when other speakers interrupt, I feel bound to reply.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is not in the least necessary. If we followed that rule we should never get on with the business.
    Mr. MACLEAN: I only have one other point to put with regard to promoting industrial unrest. It is not necessarily the conditions that a man works under or the wages he receives that lead to the condition which is classed as industrial unrest. We had a great agitation going on in Glasgow during a certain period of the War in which certain individuals believed they could hold a section of the community by the throat because they thought the opportunity was in their favour. The workers came out on strike and the result was that the Government, after offering opposition for some months, finally wiped out the cause of unrest by passing their Rent Restriction Act. In that particular agitation certain individuals residing in Glasgow, who were foreign to this country, stood side by side with the native-born people and fought with them against this particular injustice. And why not? Why should a foreigner be asked to pay more for his rent than is just? Why is he not entitled to the same conditions as other people? Why should he not have the same home life? Because he is a foreigner he ought not to be charged more. If a similar set of circumstances should crop up again, as may possibly be the case when bite Rent Restriction Act is ended, you are going to have these people accused of promoting industrial unrest; they will come within the scope of this particular Clause and may be arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. I hope the Home Secretary will agree to the inclusion of these words. I hope he will not give way to this alien stunt. If he does, he will be faced with a fresh stunt to-morrow.
    Sir COURTENAY WARNER: I have been a Member of this louse for many years, and during almost the whole of that time have been working side by side with the Labour party, doing what I could to improve their condition. If there be one thing that has come out during the War—and this is known best to those who have been out at the War—it is that the Englishman, in organisation and in holding his own, has proved himself fifty times better than the foreigner. The whole object of this Amendment is to exclude foreigners from having power to lead Labour organisations. Surely the men who sit on the bench opposite and the Labour party
    198
    throughout the country must know that as far as capability, organisation, common sense, good understanding, and knowledge of their trade are concerned the Englishmen are far ahead of the foreigner. The whole point of this Amendment is that the Labour party are seeking to keep the foreigners who somehow have climbed into some sort of leadership in the Labour party under the limelight. I appeal to the Labour party not to be led by foreigners, not to take foreigners as their leaders, not to countenance them in that position any more than I would countenance them in any other position. Surely we have good enough Labour men in this country to hold their own and to do the great work for the improvement of the conditions of the labouring classes without calling in the assistance of the foreigner, who may only be able to talk a very little English, and who is working now, and has been working throughout the War, not in the interests of Labour, but in the interests of the foreigner against England. It is acknowledged that some of these men have been proved to be no friends of Labour, but friends of the enemies of this country. They ought, therefore, to be excluded. They ought to be kept out of this country, and surely the Labour party can afford to sacrifice the small amount of help they get from these incompetent foreigners. I appeal to them not to continue this alliance with the foreigner who may be the enemy of this country. This proposal cannot do the Labour party any harm if it removes certain foreign Labour leaders. It will, on the contrary, strengthen the Labour party. We do riot accept foreigners as leaders in any other connection. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about banking?"] Yes, they have got there somehow, but they have not got there by the sympathy of their fellow men; they have bought their way in, as some of your leaders have bought their way in. Let us be quite straight. Let us accept the lessons which the past has taught us. We do not want the foreigners to lead us, whether in the matter of labour or anything else. We shall be ready to be advised by Britishers rather than by foreigners. There is no question of preventing the foreigner earning his living. All that is desired is that he shall be prevented from leading agitation—from taking the leadership from Englishmen. I hope the Home Secretary will not accept any of these Amendments in favour of the foreigner.
    Mr. SWAN: I hope the Home Secretary will see his way to accept this Amendment. There seems to be a strange contradiction between the words as applied to working men and as applied to masters. There may be in the ranks of workers a man or a woman who really is a member of a trade union, has shown his or her fidelity to it, and won the confidence of the workers in it. He or she may be selected to the responsible position of leader, but if this proposal be carried that person may become liable to prosecution and imprisonment for leading the working classes. Yet when it conies to the masters they are not to be governed by the same standard. They sit behind closed doors. They refuse the reasonable request of the workers for higher wages and improved conditions, but when the responsibility comes to be placed upon them the leadership sinks into obscurity. We think that this Clause imposes a big injustice on the working classes, and we hope, in the interests of democracy and of peace, the Home Secretary will accept the Amendment.
    Mr. GALBRAITH: I have not got up to talk in parables. Here is a real opportunity for some of my Friends to give effect to their own doctrine. I am just as hopeful that the Home Secretary will not accept this Amendment as some of my hon. Friends are that he will. I am a trade unionist and have been one for fifty-six years, although I am not now identified actively with any organisation. I know the trade union world, for I was
    one of the delegates to the first Miners' International Conference that was held. I was at the last one which was held in Austria-Hungary, and I have been at practically all of them. I remember being at Zurich along with my late colleague and revered friend, Dr. John Wilson, who was a Member of this House, and another old colleague, Mr. John Johnson, who was also a Member of this House. We had something to say, and we heard something in reply from a lot of the German delegates who were there. My friend, Mr. Johnson, knowing that I had never trusted the Germans from the beginning, said to me, "After that hearty welcome, you will have nothing more to say about the Germans." I said to my honoured friend, "John, I am old enough now to know that it is never wise to put too much confidence in a dog because he wags his tail that he is not going to bite." I am in favour of the fullest freedom; my sympathies are as broad as the Cross and as wide as the world so far as right is concerned, but we want to be sure as British people that we do not give licence to an enemy. I hope in the name of all that is British trade unionism, because the working peoples' interests are too serious rightfully, constitutionally, and legally that the Home Secretary will riot accept this Amendment.
    Question put, "That the words ' other than a bonâ-fide official of a registered trade union.'" be there inserted in the Bill.
    The House divided: Ayes, 44; Noes, 231

    Division No. 112.]

    AYES.

    [4.20 p.m.

    Adamson Rt. Hon. William

    Hirst, G. H.

    Sitch, C. H.

    Barnes, Major H. (Newcastie, E.)

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Smith, W. (Wellingborough)

    Brown, J. (Ayr and Bute)

    Holmes, J.

    Spoor, B. G.

    Cairns, John

    Irving, Dan

    Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough. W.)

    Cape, Tom

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampten)

    Carter, W. (Mansfield)

    Kiley, James Daniel

    Thorne. Col. W. (Plaistow)

    Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

    Lunn, William

    Walsh, S. (Ince, Lancs.)

    Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)

    Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

    Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

    Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)

    Morris, Richard

    White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)

    Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)

    Murray. Dr. (Western Isles)

    Wignall, James

    Finney, Samuel

    Newbould, A. E.

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

    Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

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

    Grundy, T. W.

    Richardson, R. (Houghton)

    Guest, J. Hemsworth. York)

    Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— Lieut.-

    Hall, F. (Yorks. Normanton)

    Royce, William Stapleton

    Commander Kenworthy and Mr.

    Henderson, Arthur

    Short, A. (Wednesbury)

    Swan.

    NOES.

    Adair, Rear-Admiral

    Barnston, Major H.

    Birchall, Major J. D.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

    Bird, Alfred

    Archdale, Edward M.

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Blades, Sir George R.

    Atkey, A. R.

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

    Blair, Major Reginald

    Bagley, Captain E. A.

    Bennett, T. J.

    Borwick, Major G O.

    Balrd, John Lawrence

    Betterton, H. B.

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur Grifflth.

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Bigland, Alfred

    Bottomley, Horatio

    Balfour, George (Hampstead)

    Billing, Noel Pemberton

    Bowies, Colonel H. P.

    Bowyer, Capt. G. W. E.

    Griggs, Sir Peter

    Palmer, Major G. M. (Jarrow)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

    Guinness, Capt. Hon. R. (Southend)

    Parker, James

    Breese, Major C. E.

    Gwynne, R. S.

    Pearce, Sir William

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Hacking, Colonel D. H.

    Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)

    Briggs, Harold

    Hall, R.-Adml. Sir W. R. (Lpl, W. Dby)

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Brown, T. W. (Down, N.)

    Hallas, E.

    Pownali, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

    Bruton, Sir J.

    Hanna, G. B.

    Pratt, John William

    Buckley, Lieutenant-Colonol A.

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

    Preston, W. R.

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Haslam, Lewis

    Pulley, Charles Thornton

    Burn, Colonel C. R. (Torquay)

    Herdert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovll)

    Purchase, H. G.

    Burn, T. H. (Belfast)

    Herbert, Denniss (Hertford)

    rn, Sir William

    Butcher, Sir J. G.

    Higham, C. F. (Islington, S.)

    Ramsden, G. T.

    Campion, Colonel W. R.

    Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel F.

    Ratcliffe, Henry Butler

    Carr, W. T.

    Hood, Joseph

    Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

    Hope, John Deans (Berwick)

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Reid, D. D.

    Casey, T. W.

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Remnant, Colonel Sir James

    Cayzer, Major H. R.

    Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

    Richardson, Sir Albion (Peckham)

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

    Hurd, P. A.

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesalt)

    Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

    Hurst, Major G. B.

    Rodger, A. K.

    Cheyne, Sir William Watson

    Inskip, T. W. H.

    Roundell, Lt.-Colonel R. F.

    Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

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

    Royden, Sir Thomas

    Clough, R.

    Jodrell, N. P.

    Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)

    Cockerill, Brig.-General G. K.

    Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)

    Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)

    Cohen, Major J. B. B.

    Jones, J. (Silvertown)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Norwood)

    Conway, Sir W. Martin

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

    Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

    Coote, Colin R. (lsle of Ely)

    Jones, William Kennedy (Hornsey)

    Seager, Sir William

    Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

    Cory, Sir James Herbert (Cardiff)

    Kelly, Major Fred (Rotherham)

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

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

    Kidd, James

    Simm, Colonel M. T.

    Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander

    Croft, Brig.-Gen. Henry Page

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. George

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

    Davidson. Major-Gen. Sir John H.

    Law, A. J. (Rochdale)

    Steel, Major S. Strang

    Davies, Sir D. S. (Denbigh)

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

    Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

    Davies, T. (Cirencester)

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ. Wales)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington)

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

    Sturrock, J. Leng-

    Dawes, J. A.

    Lorden, John William

    Surtees, Brig.-General H. C.

    Dean, Com. P. T.

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

    Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

    Dockrell, Sir M.

    Lynn, R. J.

    Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)

    Doyle, N. Grattan

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

    Terrell, Capt. R. (Henley, Oxford)

    Duncannon, Viscount

    M'Guffin, Samuel

    Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)

    Du Pre, Colonel W. B.

    M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)

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

    Edge, Captain William

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

    Thorpe, J. H.

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

    Macmaster, Donald

    Tickler, Thomas George

    Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

    McMicking, Major Gilbert

    Townley, Maximilian G.

    Elliot, Captain W. E. (Lanark)

    McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)

    Waddington, R.

    Eyres-Monsell, Commander

    Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

    Wardle, George J.

    Falcon Captain M.

    Magnus, Sir Phillip

    Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

    Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

    Farquharson, Major A.C.

    Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)

    Whitla, Slr William

    Fell, Sir Arthur

    Marriott, John Arthur R.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

    Matthews, David

    Wild, Sir Ernest Edward

    Forrest, W.

    Mitchell, William Lane-

    Williams, A. (Censett, Durham)

    Foxcroft, Captain C.

    Moles, Thomas

    Williams, Lt-Com. C. (Tavistock)

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Molson, Major John Elsdale

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

    Gauge, E. S.

    Morison, T. B. (Inverness)

    Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald

    Ganzoni. Captain F. C.

    Morrison, H. (Salisbury)

    Willoughby, Lt.-Col. Hon. Claud

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

    Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

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

    Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

    Mosley, Oswald

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

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John

    Murchison, C. K.

    Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

    Glyn, Major R.

    Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)

    Wilson, Lt,-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal Gn.)

    Goff, Sir R. Park

    Murray, William (Dumfries)

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

    Gould, J. C.

    Nall, Major Joseph

    Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

    Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir E. A.

    Neal, Arthur

    Yeo, Sir Alfred William

    Greame, Major P. Lloyd

    Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

    Young, William (Perth and Kinross)

    Green J. F. (Leicester)

    Nield, Sir Herbert

    Younger, Sir George

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

    Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

    Greenwood. Col. Sir Hamar

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

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— Capt.

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    F. Guest and Lord E. Talbet.

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Sir H. NIELD: I beg to move, to leave out the words, "is not" ["in which he is not bonâfide engaged"], and to insert instead thereof the words "has not been."
    I will not move my first Amendment, as I think this covers the whole question more satisfactorily. The object of this and the next Amendment is to restrict the activities of an alien in matters of industrial
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    unrest and dispute to one who has been here bonâfide in the industry for at least two years immediately preceding the occurrence. I realise that our naturalisation laws require that a man should have been here for a definite time before he, can apply for letters of naturalisation. That operation can only take some considerable time if a man has left his own country and

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    definitely decided that he is going permanently to remain in this country, and if he engages in industry and continues in industry he should not be deprived in a moment of industrial trouble from taking part with his fellows in the trade union in work within the legal scope of trade unions. But I take the strongest objection to an alien either coming into this country for the purpose of assisting in stirring up trouble or coming perfunctorily and under the colourable plea of residence for a very brief period and then claiming to be an Englishman in relation to trade matters. I think the last debate that took place has intimated pretty clearly that there are many very able men who are now at the head of the various trade combinations who are perfectly well able to put the British case and to do whatever is necessary to forward the case of the British worker without enlisting the aid of the Continental, and particularly the South-Eastern European. We are not accustomed in this country to accompany these disputes necessarily with violence or with acts of incendiarism. No better illustration can be given than the late railway strike. For the most part throughout the country during that week order prevailed. Here and there, of course, there were hotheads, but in the main order prevailed. That was very different from the methods which have been adopted everywhere in Central and South-Eastern Europe since the Armistice. We have seen how the workers behaved, particularly in Russia, when they took in hand matters of dispute, and it is for that reason that J hope the House will accept this Amendment, so that no one who is not an Englishman or has not been resident in employment for two years immediately preceding the trouble shall be permitted to constitute himself a leader of industry for the purpose of intervening in a purely British dispute. I am not wedded to the period, but I think two years is really the shortest limit which could be reasonably asked before a man ought to go out of his way to interfere in purely British affairs.
    Mr. STEWART: I beg to second the Amendment.
    This is only a precautionary Amend went. It provides that adventurers shall not come over here to teach us our business, when, perhaps, they have not resided long enough in tile country to under
    204
    stand our ways. The limit of two years seems a reasonable one, and it gives a. man the opportunity of acquainting himself with our conditions of life and our way of looking at things. It was admitted in the previous Debate that there were certain risks of international delegates criticising the politics and the life of the country they visit. I have been at several commercial conferences abroad, and I do not think in any one of them any member who attended has said anything about the conditions of the country in which we met. I am not enamoured of the idea that we should invite foreigners too much in our own domestic affairs. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Wedgwood) last night wished Americans excluded from this Bill. Had British citizens behaved in the same way as the three Americans who recently visited this country and Ireland, American public opinion would have strenuously resented it. I think, although intercourse is most advisable, people should he left to manage their own domestic affairs, and that too much activity by foreigners only makes for trouble. If foreigners have good doctrines to preach, let them preach them and convert their own people, and let our people put forward the views which they have received from their foreign friends.
    Mr. SHORTT: I hope these Amendments will not be pressed. The provision at present is that the test shall be bonâ fide employment, and that completely protects you from the incursion of people whose sole object is to stir up unrest either for industrial or for political objects, which means injury to this country. What we want to protect ourselves against is a man who comes here, not for the purpose of getting work but for the purpose of making mischief, and I think the best test is not really that of years or months but whether the man is there bonâ fide or not. That the judge of the tribunal who heard the case would have to decide. He would not care twopence whether the man had been here two years or three. The point would be was he here bonâ fide, and if the judge found as a fact that he had come here for the purpose of mischief lie might lie in the country thirty years and he would still be convicted. Equally a man who had been here for six months might have come bonâ fide and been properly admitted and might be a bonâ fide member of a trade union. So long as we allow aliens to work in this country and belong to trade unions,

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    it stands to reason that we must allow them the privileges accorded to members of trade unions. I can understand the logic of saying definitely that no alien shall come here, or I can see the logic of saying that no alien shall be a member of a trade union, but so long as we allow them to be bonâ fide members of trade unions they ought to be allowed to take an ordinary part in the work of the trade unions. We prevent them, and it is a fair and legitimate limitation to prevent any alien interfering in any industry in which he is not bonâ fide engaged. There is really not a great deal in it, but I think the bonâ fide test is the better and more certain test, and if you put in a limitation of two years there is always the temptation to say: "This man has been in the trade for two years, or perhaps more, and he is no doubt bonâ fide engaged." I think the House will find that on the whole the better protection is for the judge to find as a fact whether his employment in an industry was bonâ fide or not. There is nothing between us in intention or in our motives. The only point is which is really the better. I do not pretend to any strong views about it, but I think the bonâ fide test is the better of the two.
    Mr. BOTTOMLEY: I think the right hon. Gentleman is making a somewhat futile attempt to hold out the olive branch to members of the Labour party in this matter. He tells us that if we allow an alien to become a member of a trade union we must necessarily logically give him the privileges of that membership. That is rather begging the whole question we are here to discuss. The whole spirit of the Bill is what restrictions are we to place upon aliens, whatever their rights hitherto and their position in this country. I wish the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir H. Nield) had stuck to Ids first Amendment, but since he has not done so, let us at least put some limit upon the freedom of an alien to promote a strike. The Home Secretary said in a previous discussion that we merely allowed him to promote a strike in the industry in which he is engaged. I dare say the Home Secretary has heard in the course of his career of what are called sympathetic strikes. Once a man promotes a strike in one industry it frequently automatically leads to strikes in many other industries and the provision here gives any man who can show that he is bonâ fide engaged in that particular industry, although he is not a British
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    citizen, has no British blood in his veins and no British sympathies, and may for aught we know be in foreign pay, the right to upset the whole industry of the nation. The Home Secretary says it will be a question for the Courts to determine whether he is a bonâ fide member of the industry. Any alien could get round that by coming over here a month before a strike and proving that he has been engaged in industry abroad and that he has been engaged in it here for a month before the strike. A bonâ fide member of a trade means a qualified member of it and receiving its wages, and no judge, and certainly no competent lawyer, would say that a man was not a bonâ fide member of his trade if he said, "I was apprenticed to it; I earned my living at it in Russia or in Timbuctoo. I have come over here out of love for the dear British people, and I have worked in the trade ever since I have been here. There is my book, there are my wage receipts and the rest of it." What judge and what lawyer, except a partisan political lawyer, would say that that was not legal unanswerable evidence that that man was a bonâ fide member of that particular trade?
    I know that length of time does not prove bona fides. A person may in law be party to a criminal conspiracy or any conspiracy, but may not have been actually directly interested in it. If a man is charged with being in a conspiracy and he can show that he has nothing to gain by it, it rather suggests to the judge and the jury that perhaps the evidence against him is not altogether trustworthy. If a man can show that he has been engaged in a trade in this country for two years that ought to stand in his favour and ought to some extent to influence the decision in his favour, but if he comes before a Court and says, "I arrived a week or two ago and I can prove that I am a bonâ fide member of this trade," then under this Bill you have no right to interfere with him, none whatever. The right hon. Gentleman seems to be wedded to the verbal sanctity of his Bill. He seems to regard it as a sacrilege on the part of any member of the Committee upstairs or of any hon. Member down here to attempt to make the Bill a little more workable. I beg the Home Secretary, whom we have supported so loyally up to the present, and whom we want to help, to accept our proposal, especially when he says that he does not feel very strongly on it. As he says he is not very strongly wedded to the

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    phraseology, I would urge him to accept the words of the Amendment, because they cannot do any harm, but on the other hand they would strengthen it.
    Mr. HODGE: The Home Secretary had a good deal to say about "bonâ fide engaged." Let me give him the case of a man who has worked as a waiter, either in one of the hotels or in a restaurant. We all know the conditions of the waiters in London and in the provinces were extremely bad, that their wages were very low and the hours of work very long. The men had really to depend upon the tips. They formed a union, and an alien waiter becomes a secretary of that union. Under this Bill, being an official of the union, he would not be bonâ fide engaged in the industry.
    Mr. SHORTTwas understood to dissent.
    Mr. HODGE: He would‡ I am afraid that a judge would not read it in that way. We trade union officials do not fear the competition of aliens. We can hold our own. I belong to an industry into which aliens never seek to enter, because the work is too hard. This country having permitted aliens to come in we find that in certain industries they have become a dominating factor. Take the tailoring trade. We all know what the conditions are there. I do not think it could be questioned that an alien tailor, speaking the language of the aliens engaged in that industry, is the more competent individual to organise that trade than an Englishman. This Bill is striking a blow at that particular feature of organisation.
    Mr. SHORTTindicated dissent.
    Mr. HODGE: The Home Secretary shakes his head. At any rate, I see the danger of this particular Section of the Bill. The Bill without it was quite strong enough. So far as I am concerned, I do not want any alien to come into this country, but if you permit them to come in, treat them fairly. There are grave dangers in the phraseology of this particular Sub-section, and I hope, in spite of the Home Secretary's faith in his offspring, that between now and the time when the Bill leaves another place the position will be considered and he will see if he cannot do something to meet the objection that we have urged.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: The Home Secretary has fairly and candidly told us that he
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    does not feel very strongly about this Amendment. He is anxious to make as strong as possible the protection against aliens coming and illegitimately stirring up industrial strife in this country. If he does not feel strongly about it, it would not be unreasonable for us to ask that the House should be allowed to express its opinion without compulsion from the Whips. There is nothing objectionable in the Amendment; the Home Secretary does not suggest that there is. He thinks that the Clause as it stands is better without the Amendment, but there is a very large number of hon. Members who think that it would be better with the Amendment. Therefore, the right thing to do would be to leave it to the House freely to decide a matter of this sort. There are aliens who have come to this country, and who will come to this country in the future, for political reasons, to stir up industrial unrest and to do their best to ruin our country. The Home Secretary admitted that last night when he said that one of the main objects of this Clause was to prevent people who come over to this country from making mischief for any selfish political purpose in their own country. There are aliens who come over for that purpose, and I do not think that the House wishes to allow aliens of any kind to come over here to interfere in our industrial affairs and to promote industrial unrest.
    We do not wish to treat aliens unduly harshly, and we say that if they are bonâ fide engaged in an industry for at least two years in this country, then they should be able to take their part in industrial disputes. The Home Secretary says that we are amply protected by the words bonâ fide engaged. That is not an adequate protection. As the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) pointed out, a person may come over to this country from Russia or Germany or some other country where political movements are on foot in order, if possible, to stir up revolution in this country. That person may come over for the set purpose of creating industrial strife. He may remain here for a month or two in order to give colour to his actions, and he may join a trade union, and when brought before a magistrate for committing the offence aimed at in this Section he might say that he was bonâ fide engaged in the industry, and unless there was some positive proof against him of his malignant desires it might possibly be that he would

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    get off. We want some better protection besides the words bonâ fide. We leave the words "bonâ fide" in, but we put in an additional provision that before an alien can take part in any industrial strike he must have been here for two years. That would be evidence of his bona fides, and would suggest to the magistrate before whom the case is tried a means of forming a fair opinion as to his bona fides or his mala fides. I beg the Home Secretary to acknowledge that this is a point which really deserves to be met. The Amendment cannot do injustice to anyone. It cannot do injustice to the alien, because we tell him that if he is engaged bonâ fide in the industry for two years he can engage in industrial disputes like any other people. While it cannot do harm to the alien it might be a. means of doing very great good for us in a time of industrial unrest, when we are confronted with great danger. I hope the Home Secretary will leave this matter to the unfettered decision of the House. If the House arrives at the decision that this Amendment should be included no harm will be done; the opinion of this House will have been honestly and fully taken without any prejudice or compulsion, and I am sure that no one will object to the result.
    5.0.P.M.
    Brigadier-General CROFT: It is very difficult to prove who is and who is not a bonâ fide worker in a trade. One hon. Gentleman who addressed the House on the last Amendment mentioned the extraordinary fact that seven leaders in the Glasgow strike were aliens. That is such an amazing proportion of the leaders of industrial unrest that one can only come to the conclusion that they had somehow managed to convince their fellow-workers that they were bond fide workers, although they had come into this country in order to make disturbance and unrest at a time when it was a very great peril. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman believes that two years is an unreasonable period, and I cannot think that the Labour party feel that the mantle of leadership in industrial disputes should fall upon foreigners until they have had at least two years here. May I give one instance in which neither the Home Secretary nor the Labour party discovered the true charter of a gentleman who was welcomed into this country at the time of great crises? I refer to Mr. Litvinoff, who was hailed by the whole of the Labour party as the ambassador of the new Republic of Russia.
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    Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and his colleagues were very much upset that anything should be said derogatory to Mr. Litvinoff. The Home Secretary apparently gave him protection in this country, but at last it was found that the Russian ambassador in that case was spreading revolutionary literature, that he was known by half-a-dozen names of various descriptions, that his real name was Finklelstein, that twice he had been convicted of fraud, and that he had been convicted of taking part in a bank robbery at Tiflis, but that is the case where the man completely hoodwinked the Labour party into the belief that he was a friend of the Brotherhood of Labour and was not a notorious character, and even in the case of the Home Secretary it does take time to prove whether a man is or is not a bonâ fide citizen of this country. I do not think that the proposal of my hon. Friend is unreasonable, and I hope it will be accepted.
    Mr. SHORTT: Nobody seems to have risen to oppose the two years, and therefore I would gather that the desire of the House is to have it inserted in this Bill. In my opinion, the period of two years should not be specified, for the wily aliens, most of whom are here for more than two years, would do all they could, but if the House thinks differently I shall not press a Division against the Amendment.
    Mr. BILLING: Would it not be possible for the Home Secretary to make it five years, or, seeing how essential it is to strengthen the Bill, make it no period whatever, which was what the Amendment really was? That would receive hearty support from this side of the House. As the Clause now stands it will certainly provide an enormous amount of work for the legal profession because of its vagueness, though it makes it less vague. I agree with the Home Secretary that to put in a period of two years is a mistake. Before he finally decides, I will appeal to him to make it illegal in this Bill for any alien to stir up any industrial strife in this country. It seems to me a perfectly clear-cut issue. We either allow the alien to come to this country and stir up industrial strife or we do not. We should say, "at such period when you have qualified for a vote in this country, then you shall have the right to take part in all trade union movements, but until such time you shall not be allowed to take part in any Act which is directed against the Constitution,"

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    as nearly all strikes are now, more or less, because each day as this country gets, shall I say more democratic or bureaucratic—I rather think the latter —so all the fights are gradually developing between Labour and the Government as such, or the Government great subsidised institutions, and that an alien should be allowed to come and foster such strikes in this country seems to me to be amazing. I would ask the Home Secretary to accept the first Amendment, and I am sure that the Mover of this would be only too pleased to accept the original Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 4.—(Pilotage Certificates.)
    No alien shall hold a pilotage certificate for any port in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. SHORTT: I beg to move, to leave out the word "port," and to insert instead thereof the words "pilotage district."
    The reason for this Amendment is that "port" is not the accurate expression. The certificate is granted for a pilotage area—the area of a pilotage authority.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. SHORTT: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to add the words "except in the cases for which special provision is made by the Pilotage Act, 1913."
    The question of pilotage was considered very carefully from the year 1906 to the year 1913, and one of the matters which were very carefully considered was the question of aliens holding pilot certificates. The matter was thoroughly threshed out at a Convention held between ourselves and France. An agreement was come to between ourselves and France. That agreement is embodied in the Act of 1913. The terms were mutually satisfartory. Whether they were actually reciprocal or not I cannot say. Such as they were I need not weary the House by detailing them. They preserve the existing certificate holders and they preserve the right to give certificates to the master or mate of a ship which is of substantially the same class and is trading regularly between the same ports as a foreign ship which in 1906 was exempt from the obligation to carry a licensed pilot or had habitually been piloted by a master or mate of the ship who held a pilotage certificate.
    Mr. MURCHISON: Are the same rights given to British pilots to go to French waters?
    Mr. SHORTT: I am not sure whether they are identically the same, but the arrangement was mutually satisfactory to both parties and the Admiralty had always the power to declare a pilotage district or any part of such district exempt from the provisions. Those, speaking generally, are the terms of the pilotage Act. They were agreed between ourselves and the French Government and we desire to safeguard them under this Bill.
    Mr. INSKIP: The proposal which the Home Secretary has made is one which may mislead the House. The Bill as it appeared in Committee had no provision for pilots' certificates. The Clause which was introduced is in plain terms. It provides that aliens are not eligible for pilotage certificates. The object of that provision was to get rid of the Act of 1913 and to get back to the Act of 1906. The Home Secretary, with a view no doubt to recovering as easily as he could the words which were lost in Committee, proposes this Amendment. A much more direct method of securing the same result would be to move to omit the Clause which was added in Committee. In 1906 it was for the first time enacted by this House that aliens should not be eligible for pilotage certificates. I may remind the House of what was said by those who brought forward this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Brace), said that it was a real national danger to allow masters and officers of foreign ships to bring foreign ships to British ports, and he asked the right hon. Gentleman to do what had been asked for many years and to make provision that every vessel coming into British ports shall be piloted by a British citizen, a man whom we can trust. The present Prime Minister, then the President of the Board of Trade, after consulting the Law Officers, introduced a Bill, which eventually became law, providing that British subjects only should be eligible for these certificatets. He put it entirely on the ground of national safety, and said,
    "If you look into the Report of the Select Committee on pilotage you will find that this view on the ground of national safety was supported with unanimity by Trinity House, London, and other witnesses, and that is the view which His Majesty's Government take with regard to the matter."

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    From that time downward an alien was ineligible for the granting of a pilot's certificate on the ground of national safety. When the Bill of 1913 was before the House, this Clause, which provides that on certain conditions the Board of Trade shall have authority to grant pilotage certificates to aliens, was introduced. I think it was contrary to the position of the House, generally speaking, but the House was informed that there was some sort of convention with foreign Governments and the British nation were to sink their views upon this matter in order to meet the views of foreign Governments. In order to get rid of the Act of 1913 and revert to the Act of 1906, this Clause was introduced in Committee. Now it is said, as it was said in 1913, that this change must be made because of Conventions with the French Government. I do not know what these Conventions are. I do not know whether they have been laid on the Table of this House, but the position of the French Government is that there is no reciprocity about the matter at all, and a French ship can conic in with its master or mate holding this pilot's certificate, but no British ship is allowed to go into a French port without either having a French pilot or paying the pilotage dues. We have as a nation to contribute to the pilotage of the foreign Government, and they do not contribute to the pilotage of this country. Take a port where we maintain a pilotage service. These men go out to do their duty. They see ship after ship coining in which is not required to take a pilot on board because there is an alien holding a pilotage certificate, and the bread is taken out of their mouths, for they have to go out to do their duty and are not allowed to do it because these alien pilots come in with these ships. But that is comparatively a small point, and I do not base the matter on that ground. I base it on the old ground on which the Act of 1966 was based—the ground of national safety.
    The Home Secretary referred with satisfaction to the fact that the Admiralty have the power, so to speak, to repeal these pilotage certificates. That appears to me to show that in the interest of national safety we must view with disfavour and suspicion the practice of granting certificates to aliens. I think we may gather from the action which the Admiralty took that the Admiralty are against this proposal
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    of the Home Secretary. At the outbreak of war the Admiralty cancelled—I think I am right—practically the whole of these pilotage certificates. That action showed how they regarded it. Before the War, in 1913, they exercised their powers, in regard to a wide district, which, I think, included the Port of London. At the outbreak of war there were nine of these pilotage certificates held by Germans. Some of these very men who had had pilotage certificates issued to them in consequence of the "skill, experience and local knowledge'' which they had acquired in order to earn those certificates, were found navigating German submarines. It is undoubtedly the fact that some of these men entered for the examination and qualified themselves to become certificated pilots in order that they might be assets in the hands of their Government when the time came to use their knowledge of British waters. With that experience behind us how can the Home Secretary seriously ask this House to re-adapt the Act of 1913. I think that the arguments in favour of this view are so overwhelmingly in favour of the Clause as it stands that I do not propose to detain the House with further observations upon it, except to say that the recent experience of Trinity House ought to lead those concerned in the question to say that they will not lend themselves to a continuance of a provision by which aliens may receive pilotage certificates on the same terms as British subjects. That the Government will have to yield on this question sooner or later I believe to be certain. I suggest that the House on this occasion should indicate that the lessons of this War are not to be unlearned, and that the House will not be misled by the cloak and the disguise which has been thrown over the Government's intention in this matter by the insertion of these so-called saving words, "except as provided by the Act of 1913." I respectfully ask the House to join those who are resisting the Home Secretary's proposal and to see that this Clause is preserved in the form in which it was introduced into the Bill in Committee.
    Mr. WIGNALL: I want to express surprise and alarm at the Amendment suggested by the Home Secretary. We have heard a good deal about aliens coming to stir up industrial strife, a lot of which has been absolute nonsense. If there is any trade or occupation that ought to be safe-

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    guarded in the sense in which the Clause is intended to safeguard it, it is the occupation of the pilots of our channels. I have been associated with pilots for many years; I have mixed with them, dealt with them in their trade union activities, and I know their wishes. I knew the position before the War. I know some of the men who held certificates before the War. I am here to say that in my firm conviction many a British ship and many a noble British seaman have gone to the bottom of the ocean because some of these aliens who held pilotage certificates knew the movements of British ships and knew exactly where to meet them. Do you want to go back to that state of things to-day? That is exactly what the Government proposal means if it means anything at all. I do not pretend to be an expert in the phraseology of lawyers, but sometimes one is able to grasp what is behind it or in it, or what is intended by it. Let me quote from the Pilotage Act of 1913:
    "If any master or mate who is not a British subject shows to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade that he is the master or mate of a ship which is of substantially the same class and is trading regularly between the same ports as a foreign ship which on 1st June, 1906, was exempt from the obligation to carry a licensed pilot, or has habitually been piloted by a master or mate of a ship who held a pilotage certificate, the Board of Trade may authorise the master or mate to apply to the pilotage authorities for a pilotage certificate under this Act, and the provisions of this Act as to the granting of pilotage certificates shall, notwithstanding any- thing in this Act, be extended to a master or mate so applying for a certificate, although he is not a. British subject—"
    That is exactly what the Amendment means. It would give to the aliens exactly the same privileges and the same liberties as they possessed before the War.
    Mr. SHORTT: This is not dealing with a pilot's licence, but a certificate to an individual captain of an individual ship.
    Mr. WIGNALL: That is exactly what I mean; that is exactly what I said; and that is exactly what I do not want you to do. It is not legal phraseology, but it is direct and emphatic, and it exactly explains the position we are taking up. On the question of reciprocity, the right hon. Gentleman said that this was an arrangement made to meet the convenience of both parties, France and England, in 1913 or before that. There happens to be in the House now a very important deputation of the pilots themselves. They are men
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    who ought at least to understand something of their calling, and how this arrangement applies to it. In conversation With them, I asked the question, "Did reciprocity exist as between other countries and this? "and for answer I had from all of them an emphatic "No!" and more especially as applying to France.
    The whole thing summed up means this, that with all our talk about keeping the alien mischief-maker out of our country, with all our arguments about preventing such men from stirring up industrial strife, with all our talk about the danger to our nation, here we are deliberately saying, "All right, Mr. Alien; all right, Mr. German; ail right, Mr. Austrian; you get the skipper to apply, and we will revert to the old position that existed before the War." We cannot allow that to-day, at least not as regards pilotage. If in years to come the bitterness and soreness have passed away, then will be the time to reconsider the position. Let us do it then, but not now. On behalf of the pilots of the United Kingdom, I appeal to the Home Secretary not to press this Amendment. If the Government do press it to a Division I am looking to all those who are against the alien to vote against the Government on this issue. They are bound to do it unless they are not straight in their dealings; if they vote to keep aliens out of industry they must vote against the Amendment of this Clause.
    Sir R. THOMAS: I should like to support those who have already spoken, simply because I happen to have some little experience of the piloting service in this country. For a great number of years I have had to do with pilots, more particularly in London and on the Mersey, and I know that they are strongly opposed to any alteration in this Clause. I think that in justice we should pay some attention to their wishes in this matter. It has been, I think, the practice in the House where there has been a different of opinion to consult and pay some deference to the views of the parties concerned, and the. pilots in this instance are unanimously opposed to any alteration in the Clause. During the War there has been no body in the country more loyal and patriotic than the pilots. They endured endless hardships and piloted shins without lights in all kinds of weather, and risked mines, and so forth. When those men say. "We do not want aliens in our service," I submit that it is the duty of

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    the House to pay some respect to that view. For that reason I strongly support the retention of the Clause as it stands. Another reason is that there is no reciprocity with other countries in this matter. If we admit aliens into this particular service we are undoubtedly reducing the employment open to seafaring men in this country. In France and in Germany and in other Continental countries they are not giving the same privilege to Britishers, and why should we give it to aliens? It seems to me to be perfectly monstrous that the thing should be suggested, and for the reasons which I have stated I most strongly support this Clause.
    Captain STANLEY WILSON: May I add my humble appeal to those already made to the Home Secretary not to press this Amendment? If he does, I shall on this occasion most certainly vote in the same Lobby with the Labour party. The Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Wignall) made an excellent speech, with which I am in entire agreement. The speech of the hon. Member for Bristol put an entirely different complexion upon this Amendment, and I do not think the House realised the exact position of affairs after the speech of the Home Secretary. I understand that this Clause was inserted in Committee upstairs against the desire of the Home Secretary, who has now put down this Amendment in order to defeat what the Committee did. I think that in doing this he is not behaving quite fairly to the Committee upstairs, and I think it is the bounden duty of every member of that Committee who supported that Clause in the Committee to support it now again. I know from the constituency I have the honour to represent that this Clause is desired by the pilots of this country. It is the one object they have in view. I earnestly appeal to the Home Secretary not to press the Amendment. I have no desire at present to vote against the Coalition Government, but if the right hon. Gentleman persists in his attitude of no compromise I, and I should hope every Member who has heard this Debate, will upon this occasion vote in favour of British pilots and against alien pilots.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Auckland Geddes): I think that the House is being misled in this matter and is being led off on a false scent. The position is this. There are at the present
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    moment twenty-four living individuals, who are not British subjects and who are entitled to act as pilots. They are masters of foreign or British ships and are entitled to pilot those foreign or British ships into one or other of two ports, namely, Grimsby and Newhaven. Everything else is ended. Those twenty-four individuals, cannot possibly be increased in number. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Do let me explain. None of them are Germans; none of them are Austrians, and none of them belong to any of the nations with which, we have been at war. Certain of them hold certificates granted before the 1st of June, 1906. Those certificates may be kept alive in respect of the individuals who now hold them, but they cannot be renewed under the Act of 1913. The only new certificates which it is possible to grant are those to masters of ships who are doing what I may call a ferry service and entering some port frequently, say every day or every second day. Where a new ship is put on and where it is substantially of the same class and running into Newhaven or Grimsby, it is competent under the law for a certificate to be granted to the master of that ship. As a matter of fact, by the arrangement which exists with regard to these matters no certificates of authorisation are issued by the Board of Trade without first getting the Admiralty's sanction and approval. The Admiralty do not authorise any application without fully considering the facts of the case. So that what we are dealing with here is not what was being pictured as an attempt to extend the right of piloting into our harbours to foreigners. What we are dealing with is the question of how what we all recognise to be the evil effects of the old practice shall be got rid of. There are two policies recommended. One of them is to say that from the moment this Bill becomes law no foreigner, no alien master—for it is not a question of pilots, but of a master of a ship trading in and out of Newhaven or Grimsby—shall be allowed to continue to pilot that boat of his own, or which he commands, into Newhaven or Grimsby.
    Colonel YATE: Has a British pilot the right to pilot any boat into foreign ports?
    Sir A. GEDDES: British masters are taking boats into Havre, Boulogne, and other French ports—that is the cross-Channel service—every night and morning. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Hamburg?"] There are no boats trading

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    in and out of Hamburg, and therefore they cannot get any certificates. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why can they not get them?"] -Because they did not exist before 1906.
    Sir W. RUTHERFORD: They did exist.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Let us look at the facts as they are. There is no possibility of creating new certificates under the powers which exist.
    Mr. INSKIP: Is it not the fact that the Act of 1913 provides for the grant of a new certificate to anybody piloting a ship of the same class as that which was running in 1906, so that it may go on for ever and ever?
    Sir A. GEDDES: As long as there was continuity. If there is a break it cannot continue, and you cannot start a new certificate after the break. That is the Act.
    Mr. INSKIP: I do not want to enter into a contest with the right hon. Gentleman as to the interpretation of the Act, but in the Act there is nothing about a break, and the only question is as to whether a ship was trading regularly between the ports, and if the ship which the alien was sailing is substantially of the same class as in 1906 he may apply and get a certificate if the Board of Trade think fit to give it.
    Sir A. GEDDES: The Board of Trade in this country works with the Admiralty and issues no such right to apply for a certificate without the consent of the Admiralty. I do not attach any special virtue to the Amendment which is being suggested in its present form, but I do attach great virtue to standing by an agreement entered into by this nation with France and embodied by this House in an Act of Parliament.
    Colonel YATE: Do the French grant reciprocity in this matter?
    Sir A. GEDDES: Our masters of the, cross-Channel boats pilot their ships into the French ports and pay pilotage dues. I believe I am right in saying that one of the captains of our cross-Channel boats is a Frenchman. He pilots the ship into Newhaven himself and brings it out.
    Colonel YATE: Does he pay pilotage?
    Sir A. GEDDES:The ship pays pilotage, not the man. I would be very unwilling that anyone should consider that the Government is not as keen upon seeing that the secrets of the entrances to our harbours are properly safeguarded. But we have to face the facts in this instance and to recognise the circumstances. We have, it so happens, a Convention entered into by this country with France in good faith before the War and embodied by this House in an Act of Parliament, and I invite the House to give effect to what was embodied in that Act of Parliament. Under those provisions the number of these men is continually diminishing. It is not a question of aliens acting as British pilots; it is a question of masters of ships, going in and out of our ports every day, or every second day, being allowed to bring them in and out of the port to which they are trading. There are only twenty-four of those foreign masters who hold those certificates and only two ports in and out of which they are now allowed to take their ships—Newhaven and Grimsby. There might be some form of Amendment which is more acceptable to tile House, and which will allow us to stand by our agreement with France, and allow this process of absorption of these privileges granted to foreigners being brought down to the bedrock minimum, because I think that in common sense there ought to be a few remain for the cross-Channel services. Dover is closed, but Newhaven is open, and that is a port about which there is no great mystery. Why should we say that every snip that is coming into Newhaven is to take on board a British pilot, just to bring it into harbour, when it is going in and out, in and out, every day, running in arid out alternately perhaps with British boats which are not compelled to take on French pilots on entering the b mirth ports? That is the question which is really before the House, and do not let us be led away by the very forcible speeches which have been made on this matter, because they are really raiding questions winch are altogether outside the bounds of what we are in fact considering. I would urge the House, if they think the Amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is too wide—I myself do not think it is, for there are 2,500 pilots round the coasts, and twenty-four masters who are not British have got certificates to enter the ports. What we are dealing with here is a process of elimination of all superfluous foreign persons who

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    have the right to pilot into British ports, but I hope in the case of the cross-Channel ferry boats the House will agree that it is only common sense that the men should be allowed to bring their boats into harbours to which they have been coming constantly.
    Mr. BRACE: I am really amazed at both the proposal of the Government and at the speech of my right lion. Friend who has just sat down. One would hardly have thought, listening to my right hon. Friend, that we have just come out of a war of the most terrible character, in which the liberties of the world might easily have been destroyed were it not for the superhuman heroism of the Navy which guarded these shores. Is not that going to be a lesson to us to be much more careful about these matters in the future than we have been in the past? After all, this is not a question for the Government but for the House of Commons and for the nation, and when my right hon. Friend says it is only a small point dealing with a few vessels engaged in cross-Channel services, that is not the proposal of the Government. What is the Amendment In the name of the Home Secretary? It is to insert the words "except in the cases for which special provision is made by the Pilotage Act, 1913."To understand the proposal we must therefore get back to what that Act of 1913 says on that point. My right hon. Friend quoted it, but in face of the speech of the President of the Board of Trade it is indeed essential for the House to understand that the Government are asking the House of Commons to give them the largest possible powers, the same powers that they enjoyed before the War under the Act of 1913, and upon this point that is munch too great a power for the Government. to ask, and they ask certainly too great a power, in my judgment, for this house to give. We arc an island people, and we are in an entirely different position from any other nation in the world. Our great bulwark, after all, is the water which surrounds us. Does it strike the Members of this House as really commonsense that we should allow anybody other than a citizen of this country to have knowledge of the channels of this land so that vessels may be piloted in during a period of war, such as was done to some extent during the last war until it was stopped by the Navy? I hope the Douse will not hesitate to realise that this
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    is a national question rather more than a pilot question. The Pilotage Act of 1913 rays, in Clause 24:
    "If any master or mate who is not a British subject shows to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade that he is the master or mate of a ship which is of substantially the same class, and is trading regularly between the same ports as a foreign ship which, on the 1st day of June, 1906, was exempt from the obligation to carry a licensed pilot, or had habitually been piloted by a master or mate of the ship who held a pilotage certificate, the Board of Trade may authorise the master or mate to apply to the pilotage authority for a pilotage certificate under this Act, and the provisions of this Act as to the granting of a pilotage certificate shall, notwithstanding anything in this Act, extend to a master or mate so applying for a certificate, although he is not a British subject, as they extend to a master or mate who is a British subject."
    Mr. SHORTT: The right hon. Gentleman should read the proviso.
    Mr. BRACE: The proviso is after all that we are giving power to some authority to grant. Someone is to have the right to grant under given circumstances, but I hold that under no circumstances should such power be given. I would not insult the patriotism of either my right lion. Friend the Home Secretary or any other member of the Government by declaring that they have less regard than other Members of this House for the welfare of the country, and it is not upon that ground that I am basing my opposition. 1 am basing my opposition on this broad ground, that this country of ours cannot afford any such liberty, and we dare not afford it, and consequently we must by Statute make it impossible for any certificate to be granted. I have only to say that 1 very much regret the action of the Government. I am more than surprised that the Government should come down now, just as we have concluded this great War, when the Navy have paid such a price because of a knowledge which alien people did enjoy of our water courses, and ask us to continue an old system which has cost this country so much in the blood of some of her bravest sons. As far as I am concerned, I am taking my stand not because of any special interest in the pilots, although it was my privilege to take part in the Debates when this Act was a Bill before this House in 1913, but I say that in making it a condition that under no circumstances shall other than a British subject hold the right to pilot British channels, we are adopting an elementary precaution against this country being endangered, and I hope my right hon. Friend will see

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    that the sense of this House is against him and withdraw this Amendment. When he asks the House to bring it up in another form, in some language which will meet the circumstances as outlined by the President of the Board of Trade, I want to say without any hesitation that I see no language which can meet it, because I take my stand on the broad principle that by Statute we ought to make it a preventative against any authority, whether it be the Board of Trade or any pilotage board, having the power to give a certificate to an alien to pilot vessels up our channels.
    6.0. P.M.
    Mr. A. RICHARDSON: I must confess that a weaker case for a proposal before this House has never been stated. The Home Secretary burked the question as to whether there was reciprocity with a foreign Government in this matter. The President of the Board of Trade made two speeches. The first was to indicate that safeguards were used in connection with the issue of pilotage certificates to foreign masters. If there were no danger, why have safeguards? He elaborated that question, and in doing so he showed that the proposal of his colleague was untenable. The second part of his speech was apologetic. He tried to make clear to the House that there was no reason to fear, notwithstanding the strong plea that there were sufficient safeguards against that which we did not need to fear. I want to bring the House back to the one dominant question. The Constituency I have the honour to represent (Gravesend) includes practically the whole of the pilots of the greatest port in the world. I am not going to base my argument on the tremendous loyalty of these men or on the sacrifices of these men during the War, and I am not going to say that they have put forward any arguments they may have used for s reasons, because I believe that those men are imbued with a fundamental principle of citizenship, and that is the safeguarding of this realm. Providence has given us the finest defence that a nation can possess, the defence of the water that surrounds us. You may say that a foreign master who desires a pilotage certificate undergoes an examination. Yes, he may know all about the charts and the navigation of the waters, but he has not that experience which enables a man to smell his way through the fogs and past the shoals and into the intricacies of our ports. Why should we
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    enable foreigners, let them be friendly foreigners or enemy aliens, to acquire that experience without which on all occasions a ship cannot be navigated into our ports? We are absolutely forfeiting that which Providence has given us, and I say this, with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Brace), that it is a first principle that we should not cede to any Government Department the conservation of our first-line defence in this country. We are here to govern, and we are not going to forfeit our rights to any Government Department, and I say this advisedly, that if we forfeit this right once more we do so on a flimsy pretence, because, as the President of the Board of Trade said, there is only one reason why we should do this very act of forfeiture, and that is some little Convention that has been made many years ago. We have changed many things by reason of the War, and we are going to change many more things. It is one governing principle of defence that we ought to prohibit aliens pilotage certificates, and I do hope this House. Will assert itself to-day on this principle of defence, because if we do not we are conceding to enemies of the past and potential enemies of the future the right to an experience which will enable them not only to send submarines, but any other future munitions of war, to defeat us in our own homes. I, therefore, hope this House will reject the Amendment by a very large majority.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has advanced two arguments in favour of this Amendment. The first argument was that, by an arrangement with the Admiralty, certain things were done. What I want to ask the Government is, What safeguard has this House and this country that those arrangements will be continued? We may have a different First Lord of the Admiralty and a different President of the Board of Trade, and therefore arrangements, which may be very excellent in their way, may be altered. We ought to legislate here, and not leave to any Government Department the power to make rules and regulations without coming to this House. Therefore, I do not think there is anything to be said for that argument. But the second argument advanced does seem to bear some weight. The right hon. Gentleman says there is a Convention which has been entered into under certain

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    circumstances. Now, I strongly object to breaking any bargain or agreement. I agree with almost everything the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said, except his last argument, that now we have been to war we can break any Convention. I do not think that is a good thing. That is the "scrap of paper" argument which was denounced in this country when the Germans used it as an argument. I would suggest an Amendment, which, I think, might possibly meet all the objections which have been raised to the Government's Amendment, namely, to leave out in the Amendment of the Government the words, "cases for which special provision is made by the Pilotage Act, 1913," and to insert the words, "case of France, in which country the special provision made by the Pilotage Act, 1913, shall apply," so that the Amendment would then read, "except in the case of France, in which country the special provision made by the Pilotage Act, 1913, shall apply" That would limit the powers of the Government to one particular country, France, and it would enable us to carry out the agreement made with what, after all, was our ally, for whom we went to war. I do not know whether the Government are prepared to accept that Amendment, but, if they would, I think it would be a way out of the difficulty. It would preserve our rights with regard to every other country in the world, and the only country which would be excepted would be our neighbour, France. Although I do not myself believe much in the League of Nations, nor do I think we are always going to be at peace with all the world, I think it will be a great many years before we have a quarrel with France, and 1 do attach importance to the keeping of a bargain which we have made.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Have you seen the Convention?
    Amendment moved to the proposed Amendment: Leave out the words "cases for which special provision is made by the Pilotage Act, 1913," and insert instead thereof the words, "case of France, to which country the special provision made by the Pilotage Act, 1913, shall apply."—[Sir F. Banbury.]
    Mr. SHORTT: Both in Committee upstairs and here this afternoon I entirely based my objection on the case of France. I based it entirely on the Anglo-French Convention, and nothing else. As regards
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    the danger, so long as we allow any alien constantly to come into our ports and stand on the bridge as a pilot, the mere fact of giving him a certificate will not increase the danger very much. But as France is the one basis of my opposition upstairs to the proposal, the Amendment moved by the right hon. Baronet, if it is acceptable to the House, is quite acceptable to the Government.
    Commander Sir E. NICHOLL: I would like to endorse everything that was said by the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Wignall). It is the wish, I think, of the great British public, and certainly of the pilots in the United Kingdom, that the law should stand as it is here, and nothing else will satisfy them. Although the President of the Board of Trade has tried to camouflage his remarks round this Clause, I still think the Clause should stand. Without any undue bravado, I might mention that perhaps more than any other man in this House during the War I have come into contact with the pilots. I have been personally responsible for the passing of 55,000 vessels in the Bristol Channel, and therefore I have come into contact with pilots to a very great extent, and everyone of them considers that we should support the exclusion of foreign pilots. Much of the losses during the War can be attributed to the knowledge of foreign pilots of our ports. I support in every way the Clause as it stands.
    Mr. STEWART: As one of those who served on the Grand Committee which had this Bill before it, the Government, I think, have treated us a little unfairly. They were beaten in Committee on this point, and they bring up the question now, knowing full well that, in the ordinary way, when the Division bell goes, Members who have not listened to the discussion will come in and support the Government and perhaps undo all the work that has been done upstairs. I am in agreement with the right hon. Baronet's Amendment, but before we accept it may we ask where we are? We do not quit know where the Convention begins and where it ends. The right hon. Gentleman opposite is very keen about keeping his bargain. Well, we all are. But if we are to have a Convention with Belgium and other countries—
    Sir A. GEDDES: France only.
    Mr. STEWART: So long as it relates to France only, of course it modifies the position a good deal. But I find on the 28th July last, when the President of the Board of Trade was asked questions about pilots, he produced the figures which he again mentioned to-day. Although he says there are only twenty-four people with certificates, there is nothing to prevent the Board of Trade from multiplying that number to any number they think fit. After all, we know that Antwerp became practically a German port, and that Rotterdam and other places are saturated with Germans, and we may have Dutchmen Who are really Germans getting pilots' certificates. The Dutch have not been friendly to this country during the War by any means, and when in Belgium the other day I heard with amazement that they allowed a German Army to march across their territory carrying Belgian spoil with them, whereas they kept our men from Antwerp in gaol for four years. Therefore, I do not think we need extend very much consideration to them in a matter of this sort. Supposing we pass this thing as it stands in the Bill, the ground is quite clear and we know where we are. I think it would be a wise thing to do. I should be very sorry to vote against the Government, but, having twice voted against them yesterday, if this goes to a Division I am afraid I will do it a third time to-day. This is something beyond party government. It is a question of national safety, and I think the Bill as it stands is probably the best way out of the difficulty.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I only want to, ask two questions of the Government, and I think their answers would help some of us how to vote. The first is, What really is in. this Convention with France? I understand efforts have been made in this House prior to to-day to get at this Convention. We have not seen it, and we are asked now to put in an. Act of Parliament really a declaration to the House that we are to approve that Convention. We ought to know what it is first.
    Sir A. GEDDES: That was done by this House in 1913. The Convention has been approved by the House, and special arrangements were embodied by this House in the Act.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I was in the House in 1913, but I confess I do not quite remember this Act being passed. I am
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    told the Convention was not produced to the House, and Clause 24 of the Act does not say it was in consequence of that Convention with France. Therefore I do not think that Convention was produced to the House at all. What I want to know is whether the Convention with France applies to the twenty-four pilots, who were in existence then, or applies to the second portion of the Clause to enable the Admiralty to licence practically an unlimited number of new pilots and new masters, provided they are masters of a similar type of ship. The second question I want to ask is this: If we put into an Act of Parliament a reference to a Convention with France giving them a certain favoured-nation Clause, as one may say, with regard to their pilots, is there anything in the treaties with other countries to compel us to extend it to them? In other words, is there any kind of favoured-nation treatment in the Convention with regard to pilots as there was in treaties as to Excise customs and such like? The answer to these two questions, I think, would enable many of us to decide whether to accept the proposal of the right hon. Baronet or to ask the House to vote clearly and simply on the Amendment of the Home Secretary.
    Sir W. RUTHERFORD: One can quite understand the attitude of the Government in this matter, and one can sympathise with it, because it is perfectly clear that they have been trying—I should think very much against their will, and possibly against their better judgment—to carry out what they conceive to be a Convention made, in 1913, with France, who have been our good Allies in the War. What does the Act of 1913 stipulate? It stipulates that in respect of certain vessels coining into our ports that the authorities here should have the power to licence the masters of these vessels, being foreign subjects, to hold pilotage certificates into our ports.
    An HON. MEMBER: That is done away with by this Amendment.
    Sir W. RUTHERFORD: We understand from the Government that there was a number of conventions in existence, not merely with France. There was one with Holland, and one with Germany; and there were conventions with other countries. These other conventions were, I understand, denounced by our Government at the outbreak of the War. The Convention

    229
    with France was not denounced, and has been allowed to continue, and the Government tell us that their idea is that to introduce this Amendment into the Bill is simply to safeguard the Convention of France. Of course, if that is so they would readily accept, and I understand, are willing to accept, the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. Our view, however, would be, 1 think, to make a clean cut in this matter. We have had enough of conventions with foreign countries which give aliens power to get pilots' certificates to come into our ports, whether it be Grimsby, or New- haven, or the port of Liverpool, of which I have the honour to be one of the members. We had enemy submarines within five miles of the port of Liverpool. We had vessels sunk between Liverpool and Holyhead. There was a vessel sunk and valuable lives lost on a voyage from Holyhead to Kingstown.
    Knowing as we do that under these very Conventions—not in the case of the Convention with France, but in the case of other Conventions, no less than nine Germans held pilotage certificates into some of our ports at the outbreak of the War; knowing as we do that some of these very men were able to guide the submarines into those places where they were able to destroy our shipping and valuable lives, I think, after the War, we have all come to the conclusion that whether or not we approve—as we should like to do, if we can see our way to do it—of the arrangement made with France, there is even something stronger, and that is the safety of our country. We ought to make a clean cut of this—and not altogether in the interests of the pilots. And let me say one word about that. I have been associated with pilots during the whole time I have been a Member of this House. They had to fight very hard to get what is the effect of this Clause. They have never got it. They said that no British subject was allowed to be a German pilot, and why, therefore, should German pilots navigate ships into our ports. No Dutch port was allowed to have a British pilot. Nothing of the sort They know better. But we, in our confidence, did not think of what might or might not happen, and allowed these foreigners to get these certificates. My own feeling on the matter is that, Convention or no Convention with France, or any other nation, it is now time that we made up our minds that no certificates are granted in future unless to British-born
    230
    subjects—not only British subjects, but British born. . I think the view of the House of Commons will be reflected in the country to-morrow when this Debate is published in the Press.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I hope the House will carefully consider the Amendment which has been proposed by the hon. et the Member for the City of London. I appears on the face of it innocuous. know the intention is to avoid anything that would wound the susceptibilities o our French Allies. Nevertheless, I hope every briefly to give one or two reasons the House should not accept the Amendment and should insist on the Clause as it nocuous to grant the right to to pilot their ships into Newhaven or other Channel ports, but I think it would be extremely difficult for the Government to resist the demand by other nations for equal treatment, and an extension of the ports —to Southampton, then from Harwich to the Continent, then from the Humber to Hamburg, and so on, till eventually you have exactly the same pre-war conditions —conditions which have been condemned by everybody in the House, including even the Government apologist for this Amendment. The position is a dangerous one in N, which the country has been and may be placed, by allowing foreign seamen to enter into our ports and to grant certificates to them for the purpose. I do not see how the Government could really resist a demand for reciprocal treatment by other nations. The Frenchman has been singled out, but if we did go the whole way, as passed in the Committee, and refuse to grant any certificates, I do not see how the Frenchman can possibly object. This is a sovereign House of Commons, a House which placed the original Act on the Statute Book in 1913, and now proposes to put this Bill on the Statute Book. I do not see how the matter can be questioned. We cannot be too much on the safe side, as has been pointed out tune and again by speakers. I do hope the House will reject the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, and will go for the Act plump and plain as it stands, to the effect that only British subjects shall have certificates. This is a serious matter. It is a national matter. I am quite sure, after what has happened

    231
    in the last five years, y will totally misunderstand i we do not insist upon this.
    Mr. MURCHISON: I hope the Government will not press this Amendment of theirs, because it is against the interests of the country as a wh. If we pass this Amendment it must create a good deal of difficulty in other countries in the future, for they will ask ve similar conditions to the French I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is a fact that, in addition the twenty-four certificates he mentioned in existence at the present time, the are not a large number of certificates were given and other aliens the war, which have been kept alive, as it were, by payments during the War? I shall be very glad if the Home Secretary will explain the matter to the House.
    Sir A. GEDDES: I should like to give an indication of the nature of the agreement with France. There was a long discussion carried on through many meetings during the year, and at the end an agreement was reached by which this country pledged its good name to make provision by which the masters of ships trading on the three specified routes between this country and France should be allowed to pilot their own ships into our ports. Then according to the reports there followed the discussion of the means and manner of giving effect to this arrangement; and finally the procedure which was adopted was rather extraordinary. The French were asked to agree not to sign a definite arrangement but to accept the Clause which appeared in the Act of 1913, to which we are bound as far as France is concerned. It would appear to me that the point which we have really to meet as a nation is that we have entered into an agreement, and that agreement has been ratified by this House—it is true five years ago, and before the War—I will admit all that—but we have this agreement with France—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about others? "]—and we have national rights, the same rights as France, for taking our ships into French ports.
    Sir EDGAR JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how that is guaranteed on the side of the French?
    Sir A. GEDDES: That is one of the extraordinary parts of the whole thing. It
    232
    is not guaranteed. It is an extraordinarily complicated business. It is mixed up with conventions with Bulgaria, under which a national right was given and the most-favoured-nation Clause was to apply.
    Mr. STURROCK: Other nations had the right ‡
    Sir A. GEDDES: We have here to deal with this Convention. The Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London meets the situation in part. I will be quite prepared on behalf of the Government to accept the limitation in regard to the ports of Grimsby and Newhaven, and that the number of certificates granted should be twenty-four. Will that meet the wishes of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No‡"] I do not want to have any expansion of this business, but we are pledged in this matter to give these rights to the French—in exchange for the rights which they have given us of national treatment, and of taking our cross-Channel boats into their ports.
    An HON. MEMBER: Are there no denouncing Clauses?
    Sir A. GEDDES: If we lose the right of taking our ships into the French ports we lose something very considerable and appreciable, and a matter of great importance to the trade of this country, because the majority of the boats of the trans-Channel service are British boats. It is in the interests of this country that there should be the freest possible communication across Channel for the purposes of trade.
    An HON. MEMBER: It is to the interests of France also.
    Sir E. CARSON: If this Amendment is passed as proposed by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City, what would be the effect on nations who have the most-favoured-nation Clause?
    Sir A. GEDDES: I am advised that it would not involve us in any difficulties with any other nation. It is an unusual thing to put in these conditions, but that is the difficulty with which the Government have been faced throughout. I do not see how the Government can say that we can depart from this agreement under which we are receiving very substantial benefit. I hope the House will agree to some such words as those which have been proposed to enable this Convention to continue.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Are we to take it as a definite statement by the Law Officers of the Crown on behalf of the Government that no complications could possibly arise with any other nation under any most-favoured nation Clause at all? Unless we can have that assurance I do not think this Amendment should be accepted.
    Sir A. GEDDES: Obviously no other possible difficulties can arise. I am in a position to say that the advice I have received after a rather rapid search is that no difficulties can arise. This is the Report stage. There will be further stages, and if what I have said turns out to be wrong, the matter can be dealt with in another place, and I will undertake to see that it is not allowed to go by default and that some other arrangement will be made. This difficulty in regard to the Convention is a very real one.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: As the Government is going to recommit this Bill in regard to certain other Clauses, would it not be possible to recommit it in regard to this Clause also in order that we may have the Law Officers of the Crown present?
    Mr. SHORTT: In a matter of this kind I must be entirely guided by the House. We all wish to get this Bill through, and if hon. Members would rather vote now upon the Amendment we can do so.
    Colonel L. WARD: I must apologise for intervening at so late a stage in this Debate, but I do so because I represent one of the largest shipping ports in the United Kingdom, and I appeal to the Government not to insist upon this Amendment, and not to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for the City of London. We were told that an arrangement had been come to after a long discussion satisfactory to all parties. I can only say that those who make that statement must be singularly out of touch with the feeling amongst the seafaring community, because the seafaring population of my Constituency are not satisfied with the Amendment, and they insist upon nothing else but the Bill as it stands. I have had representations from pilots, and so have other hon. Members, asking us to see that this measure is passed as it stands unamended. The two speeches which have been delivered by the President of the Board of Trade were difficult to under
    234
    stand, but I take him as saying that reciprocal arrangements have been made between France and the United Kingdom by which English captains could take cross-Channel boats into French ports and French captains could bring French cross-Channel steamers into English ports.
    May I point out that although an English captain is entitled to take a cross-Channel boat into a French port he has to pay pilotage dues all the same? That is, he has to pay for a pilot whether he uses one or not. What advantage is there in that, because, after all, you have to take the boat in at your own risk? This proposal will give to the French captain a definite pilotage certificate which will enable him to bring him to bring his ship here without paying any pilotage dues at all. Is that reciprocity? It seems to me that people who call that reciprocity do not know how to spell the word. If we have a definite understanding that if French captains are granted English pilotage certificates, let English captains be granted French pilotage certificates on the same terms. That is only fair play, and under those circumstances I should be prepared to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London, and otherwise I would not accept it on any account. Personally, I should prefer to have this measure as it stands at present, for it is much safer and better. I am not going through the arguments which have been advanced by many hon. Members with regard to the danger of allowing foreigners to hold pilotage certificates, because I do not think there is much in that. When a man is allowed to stand on the bridge beside the pilot it does not make much difference whether he receives a certificate or not. This Amendment is not fair play. It does not treat the English captain or the owner in the same way as the French captain or owner are treated.
    Sir E. CARSON: I feel some difficulty about this matter after the statement of the President of the Board of Trade. As I understand the right hon. Gentleman he said, as regards this French Convention, that we had similar rights in regard to France. The hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken says that is not so. I am not acquainted with the facts, and I would like to know do the French allow our captains to have pilotage certificates for the ports in France?
    Sir A. GEDDES: The system is different, but our captains have the right to pilot into French ports. [An HON. MEMBER: "They pay dues."] Yes, it is something like that.
    Sir E. CARSON: I want to know what "something like that" means. I understand they pay French Compulsory pilotage dues. If our French pilots get the pilotage certificates under the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London will they pay pilotage dues here, or "something like that"? We want to have this point cleared up, and we really want to know where we stand. There has been no answer given to the argument put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Hull (Colonel Lambert). We need not think so much about the Convention because we have often denounced conventions in the past. The House wants to know whether there is reciprocal treatment or not. All conventions of this kind entered into are of course subject to such municipal laws for our own defence as we wish to pass. There is no particular sanctity about. them, and certainly if we have not learned any lessons on these matters after five years of war, and what happened upon the sea and in relation to certificates given to foreign pilots, we shall have learned nothing whatever from the War. I remember when I was at the Admiralty the suspicion there was throughout the whole of the land, and the uneasiness there was when it was found out that there were eight or nine German pilots who had learned how to come into our ports by reason of the certificates we gave them, and they were afterwards found to be using that knowledge for naval purposes to blow up our ships. Surely that has taught us a real lesson in relation to the War. I do not think the House is sufficiently possessed of the necessary facts which ought to lead it to change this Bill which has been passed in its present form after full consideration in Committee upstairs. Unless I have better information that we have reciprocal obligations and treatment in all respects I am not prepared to say that pilotage certificates should be given to any but those of British birth. I am not satisfied upon the other point which has been raised. Certificates have been given in the past, I suppose, under a number of treaties and conventions to the subjects of other foreign nations. I do not
    236
    know how those stand now, and I would like to know whether they have been denounced?
    Sir E. GEDDES: The position is that during the War those certificates which in 1913 numbered 61 were suspended, as 1.0 one knows better than the right non. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) who, when he was at the Admiralty, took over the full charge of pilotage. There were, as the result of the right hon. Gentleman's policy while at the Admiralty, orders issued cutting down the number of those. certificates and they only exist now in relation to the two ports I have mentioned of Grimsby and Newhaven. For the other ports in regard to which certificates existed, although they may nominally still exist they cannot be made any use of. An lion. Member spoke of the condition in the Bristol port. Those certificates cannot be made use of. The same applies to Liverpool. There are just those two ports, Grimsby and Newhaven, and, although there are twenty-four certificates in existence, the number that will be made use of will be probably something less than twenty-four.
    Sir E. CARSON: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has reminded me of the service that I did during the War. I am: not in the least complaining. I think it ought to be continued. I do not remember under what particular law it was done, although in war-time it was an easy matter to carry out and a necessary matter. I am inclined to think that the arrangements must have been made under the Defence of the Realm Act, although I do not know.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Yes, they were.
    Sir E. CARSON: But I know also that the Defence of the Realm Act will come to an end.
    Sir A. GEDDES: It was not under the Defence of the Realm Act.
    Sir E. CARSON: Then under what Act?
    Sir A. GEDDES: Under the Pilotage Act.
    Sir E. CARSON: It was the Pilotage Act which enabled the Admiralty for the time being to make Orders and at the same time to get rid of Orders. They can issue a new Order. It is therefore merely a question of reviving these certificates by

    237
    the Admiralty passing another Order. The Admiralty have that right. What answer will my right hon. Friend give to and country, Holland or whatever country you like, if they come and say, "We have got a most-favoured-nation Clause. You have given special facilities as regards navigation in your ports to France. Under out most-favoured-nation Clause claim that we should have the same privileges as France." What is the answer Of course, there may be answer. We were promised nearly two years ago that all the most favoured-nation Clauses would be denounced. I wish that they were. They are the root of half our difficulties in the administration of international law. I have protested against them ever since I was a Law Officer. We were never done with them. You could never make a concession of any kind, even with the greatest reciprocity and to the greatest advantage, without you were met by someone else coming down under the most-favoured-nation Clause and claiming exactly the same. I wish that they were denounced. I know that they have not been, although we were promised that they would be. I am not laying it down as a legal opinion, but on the best view that I can form on the statements given I can see no reason why, if we grant these rights to France, any nation which has the most-favoured-nation Clause should not demand the same rights for themselves. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, not being satisfied that there is really any reason at all why we should riot get rid of this Convention with France, and at the same time, believing that we are incurring a great danger in leaving open the possibility of other nations coming in and making these same claims, and believing, as I do, that before another year is out we shall be having treaties with Germany, giving them the
    most favour of food Clause—you will get back in old circle which left us in the grip enemy at every turn when the War out—I hope that the House will take this opportunity of making a clean-cut, and keeping our pilotage for British seament, which is what we ought to do.
    Colonel GREIG: I just want to make one suggestion which I think will meet with the approval of those who have been very much impressed by what has been said about the Anglo-French Convention. If we were to go back upon any agreement of that sort it would not redound to our credit. Apparently, under it there is a power in one of our Departments, probably the Admiralty, of renewing or reviving these particular certificates. At the present time that is apparently confined to France. There are in existence twenty-four of these certificates. There can be no harm in our putting an end to the power and discretion of the Admiralty to renew, and scheduling in this Bill the existing twenty-four certificates, and saying that after those certificates have expired, either by the death of the holder or his ceasing to be a commander, there can be no renewal or revival. That will be preserving existing vested rights, and also our honour as regards the Convention with France, and it would prevent any fresh Convention or any fresh revival those certificates.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.
    Question put, "That the words 'except in the case of France, to which country the special provisions of the Pilotage Act of 1913 shall apply,'" be there inserted in the Bill.
    The House divided: Ayes, 113; Noes, 185.

    Division No. 113.]

    AYES.

    [6.55 p.m.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Dalziel, Sir Davison (Brixton)

    Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

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

    Davies, Sir D. S. (Denbigh)

    Gilbert, James Daniel

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Dawes, J. A.

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Doyle, N. Grattan

    Gregory, Holman

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

    Edge, Captain William

    Greig, Col. James William

    Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)

    Elliot, Captain W. E. (Lanark)

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Barnston, Major H.

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

    Hacking, Captain D. H.

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Eyres-Mansell, Commander

    Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)

    Blades, Sir George R.

    Falcon Captain M.

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

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur Griffith

    Farquharson, Major A. C.

    Hewart, Rt. Hell. Sir Gordon

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Fell, Sir Arthur

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Carr, W. T.

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

    Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)

    Casey. T. W.

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

    Hume-Wiliams, Sir Wm. Ellis

    Cecil, Rt. hen. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Forrest, W.

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

    Cohen, Major J. B. B.

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Johnson, L. S.

    Conte, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)

    Gauge, E. S.

    Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)

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

    Ganzoni, Captain F. C.

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

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

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

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Pownall, Lieut-colon

    Storreck, J. Long

    Knight, Capt. E. A.

    Purchase H.G Asshaton

    Sutherland, Sir William

    Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

    Raffan, Peter William

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

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

    Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

    Lewis, Rt. Han. J. H. (Univ. Wales)

    Thorpe, J. H.

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

    Ratcliffe, Henry Butler

    Wallace, J.

    Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)

    Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.

    Wardle, George J.

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Wedgwood, Col. Josiah C,

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

    Reid, D. D.

    Whitla, Sir William

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecciesall)

    Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    Rodger, A. K.

    Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

    Mason, Robert

    Rothschild, Lionel de

    Winterton, Major Earl

    Morison, T. B. (Inverness)

    Hoyden, Sir Thomas

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

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Rutherford, Col. Sir J. (Darwen)

    Woolcock, W. J. U.

    Neal, Arthur

    Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)

    Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

    Nicholson, R. (Doncaster)

    Samuel, Right Hon. Sir H. (Northwood)

    Yea, Sir Alfred William

    Parkinson, Albert L. (Blackpool)

    Sanders. Colonel Robert Arthur

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

    Pearce, Sir William

    Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John

    Younger, Sir George

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike

    Olin Shaw. Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

    Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mdd)

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

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— Lt.-Col.

    Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

    Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

    Stanley and Mr. Parker.

    NOES.

    Adair, Rear-Admiral

    Gould, J. C.

    Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

    Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

    Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir E. H.

    Nield, Sir Herbert

    Archdale, Edward M.

    Greame, Major P. Lloyd

    Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

    Atkey, A. R.

    Green J. F. (Leicester)

    Norton-Griffiths, Lt.-Col. Sir J.

    Bagley, Captain E. A.

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

    O'Grady, James

    Balfour, George (Hampstead)

    Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

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

    Banner, Sir J. S. Harmood

    Griggs, Sir Peter

    Oman, C. W. C.

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

    Gritten, W. G. Howard

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Betterton, H. B.

    Grundy, T. W.

    Palmer, Brig.-General G. (Westbury)

    Bigland, Alfred

    Guest, J. (Hemsworth, York,)

    Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

    Billing, Noel Pemberton

    Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

    Pennefather, Da Fonblangua

    Bireliall, Major J. D.

    Hanna. G. B.

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Bird, Alfred

    Hanson, Sir Charles

    Pinkham, Lieut.-Col. Charles

    Berwick, Major G. O.

    Hartshorn, V.

    Preston, W. R.

    Bottomley, Heratle

    Henderson, Arthur

    Raeburn, Sir William

    Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.

    Herbert, Denniss (Hertford)

    Romer. J. B.

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Milder, Lieut.-Colonel F.

    Richardson, Alex. (Gravesend)

    Breese, Major C. E.

    RANK, John

    Richardson, R. (Houghton)

    Briggs, Harold

    Hirst, G. H.

    Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)

    Brown, J. (Ayr and Bute)

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Robertson, J.

    Brown, T. W. (Down, N.)

    Mohier, Gerald Fitzroy

    Rogers, Sir Hallewell

    Bruton, Sir J.

    Hood, Joseph

    Rose, Frank H.

    Colonel Rowland

    Hopkins, J. W. W.

    Roundell, Lt.-Colonel R. F.

    Burn, Coloiici C. R. (Torquay)

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Royce, William Stapleton

    Butcher, Sir J. G.

    Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

    Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)

    Cairns, John

    Hurd, P. A.

    Sassoon, Sir Philip A. G. D.

    Campion. Colonel W. R.

    Irving. Dan

    Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Cape, Tom

    Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvll)

    Seeger, Sir William

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

    Jones, J. (Silvertown)

    Seddon, James

    Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)

    Jones. William Kennedy (Hulsey)

    Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

    Carter, W. (Mansfield)

    Joynson-Hicks, Sir William

    Short, A. (Wednesbury)

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander

    Simm, Colonel M. T.

    Cayzer, Major H. R.

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Sitch, C. H.

    Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

    Kidd, James

    Smith, W. (Wellingborough)

    Cheyne, Sir William Watson

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Spencer, George A.

    Clough, R.

    Lloyd, George Butler

    Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander

    Cobb, Sir Cyril

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Weed Green)

    Stanton, Charles Butt

    Cockerill, Brig.-General G. K.

    Lorden, John William

    Steel, Major S. Strang

    Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

    Lunn, William

    Stewart, Gorshom

    Cory, Sir James Herbert (Cardiff)

    Lynn, R. J.

    Surtees, Brig.-General H. C.

    Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)

    Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

    Swan, J. E. C.

    Croft, Brig.-Gen. Henry Page

    Macmaster, Donald

    Sykes, Sir C. (Huddersfield)

    Davidson, Major-Gen. Sir John H.

    McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)

    Terrell, G. (Chippenham. Wilts.)

    Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)

    Davies, T. (Cirencester)

    Maddocks, Henry

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

    Davison, J. E. (Smathwick)

    Mallaby-Deeley, Harry

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington)

    Martin, A. E.

    Thorne, Col. W. (Plaistow)

    Dockrell, Sir M.

    Matthews, David

    Tickler, Thomas George

    Duncannon, Viscount

    Moles, Thomas

    Vickers, D.

    Du Pre, Colonel W. B.

    Molson, Major John Elsdale

    Waddington, R.

    Edwards, C. (Bedwelty)

    Moore, Maj.-Gen. Sir Newton J.

    Walsh, S. (Ince Lance.)

    Elliot, Captain W. E. (Lanark)

    Mercies, Col. H. Grant

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

    Entwistle, Major C. F.

    Morrison, H. (Salisbury)

    White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

    Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfrey

    Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Finney, Samuel

    Murchison, C. K.

    Wigan, Brig.-Gen. John Tyson

    Foxcroft. Captain C.

    Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Frazer, Major Sir Keith

    Murray, William (Dumtries)

    Williams, Lt. Com. C. (Tavistock)

    Glyn. Major R.

    Nicholl, Com. Sir Edward

    Williams, J. (Gower, Glam.)

    240

    241

    Williams, Col. P (Middlesbrough)

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

    Young, William (Perth and Kinross)

    Willoughby, Lt.-Col. Hon. Claud

    Wilson W. T. (Westhoughton)

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

    Worsfold, t. Cato

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— Mr.

    Wilson, Capt A. Stanley (hold'ness)

    Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

    Wignall and Mr. Inskip.

    Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal Gn.)

    Question put, and agreed to.

    7.0. P.M.
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): In view of the decision which you, Sir, have just announced, I beg to move, "That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned."
    Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered upon Monday next.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn till Monday next."
  Mr. HOGGE: While the Government, speaking through the Leader of the House, is entitled to move, "That the House do adjourn till Monday next," we ought to have sonic explanation for that simple announcement in the form of a Resolution. I did not hear the Debate which has taken place, and I am not going to enter into the merits or it, but I think the Government ought to explain why other business cannot be gone on with. They ought to tell us whether they regard this defeat as so serious that they do not intend to continue in office. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ask Pringle ‡"] It is unusual in my experience for the Government to move the Adjournment over one Parliamentary day when other business has been provided for. We have been brought together in an Autumn Session to get through the business, and there is no reason why we should not go on with other work if the only object of the Government is to secure time to consider their position in regard to this one Bill. I should not have thought that a Government such as sits on that bench would have required a week-end to make up their minds what they are going to do, because they were beaten on the vote on which they have taken off their own Whips. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no‡"] In any case we are entitled as a House to hear a little more as to the Government's intentions, to know what they have in contemplation, and why they will not take any other business on the Paper.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: With the leave of the House, I should like to say a word or
  242
  two in reply to the speech we have just heard. First of -all, I wish to relieve my hon. Friend of the anxiety which I am sure must be very deep-seated, as to the possibility that the Government will regard this as a vote which implies a change in those who represent His Majesty in this House. I shall relieve his anxiety as far as I can in regard to that matter. That will depend on the view of the House of Commons as a whole. We are here as long as we are confident that we have the support of the majority of the House. When we cease to have that confidence we shall no longer be here to represent His Majesty. I think old Members of the House will recognise that the course I suggest is the only possible course open to us under the circumstances. Like the hon. Member opposite, I was not in the House, and I did not anticipate such a grave calamity as a Government defeat. In any case, such a defeat when the Government Whips are on is something that has to be taken into consideration. In order to take it into consideration, His Majesty's Government must meet and discuss the situation, and come to a decision as to what course they will take. That is all we propose to do. As regards going on with other business, I think that in any case the House will hardly be inclined to proceed with other subjects, not knowing what will be the attitude of the Government in regard to this matter. Apart from that general consideration, which I am sure will commend itself to the House as a whole, it is a fact that the only business for to-day and tomorrow was the very Bill the consideration of which I have asked should be postponed.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: What about the Rats Bill?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The Rats and Mice Bill will be postponed till Monday. The only business arranged for to-day and tomorrow was this Bill. I suggest that the course I have taken is not only, as I believe, in accordance with precedent, but is a course which the common sense of the House will approve.
  Sir E. CARSON: I think the House will agree that the Motion made by my right lion. Friend is a very reasonable one. It

  243
  would of course be impossible to pass to unexpected business. It might put Members interested in the other Bills at a disadvantage. I also agree with my right hon. Friend that there ought to be no gloomy anticipation and indeed no joyous anticipation at to what may occur simply because we have upheld a vote in Committee upstairs on a matter of this kind. While I agree that there should be this delay, may I say I hope that my right lion. Friend will make use of that delay to carefully consider the course that the Government are taking with regard to the other Clauses of this Bill. I hope they will try to get their minds back to the real importance of the methods with which we are dealing with aliens in this country. I think I can assure my right lion. Friend that many of those who have been most sympathetic with the Government have all through this Bill been greatly disappointed at the way in which the lessons we learned during the War seem to be fading away. We seem to be getting back—at all events the Government seem to be getting back into their minds the condition of leaving the country to take care of itself as far as foreigners are concerned—a condition which brought us to itch great disaster during the War. I vent are to hope that the vote just given by the House will be
  244
  fully realised by the Government as an indication that when we said that, at all events as regards matters relating to the defence of this country, we were not going to risk foreigners being in a position either as spies or otherwise to point out the easiest way to attack our country--when we said that we meant what we said, and we mean it now. We hope that the Government will carefully consider whether they arc not going too far in modification of the Bill passed upstairs.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Without going into the merits or demerits of the question before the House a little time ago, I simply rise to say that in my opinion the Government have taken the right course, a course distinctly in accordance with precedent, in adjourning the Rouse until a convenient time, which on this occasion is Monday. It does not appear, as my right hon. Friend said, a very serious matter that an adverse vote should have been given, and I am not attaching too much importance to it, but I am glad to find that the Government are acting in accordance with precedent in the course they are now taking.
  Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter after Seven of the clock, till Monday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.

DEMOBILISATION.
  HYDRAULIC PACKERS (RELEASE).
  HYDRAULIC PACKERS (RELEASE).
  2ND WIRELESS SIGNAL SQUADRON.
  2ND WIRELESS SIGNAL SQUADRON.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  STONE POINT, HANTS (GUARD).
  STONE POINT, HANTS (GUARD).
RUSSIA.
  IMPORTS AND BRITISH TRADE.
  IMPORTS AND BRITISH TRADE.
  KEY INDUSTRIES.
  KEY INDUSTRIES.

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

HOUSE OF COMMONS AND MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (QUALIFICATION OF CLERGYMEN) BILL. [H.L.]
LORD CHARNWOOD: My Lords, I wish to introduce a Bill to remove the disqualification of clerks in Holy Orders and other ministers of religion as members of the House of Commons and as municipal councillors, and I ask your Lordships now to read the Bill a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la,—(Lord Charnwood.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

FINANCIAL POSITION OF THE COUNTRY.
LORD BUCKMASTER LORD BUCKMASTER rose to call attention to the gravity of the financial position in which this country stands, and to move to resolve—
That in the opinion of this House it is essential that further taxation should be instantly imposed.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the indulgence which you so often accorded me on former occasions, and which I need again this afternoon, would be ill requited were I to waste your time in words of formal apology or excuse. There is, I think, no need to preface the subject-matter to which I ask your attention this afternoon. I could indeed have wished that the Motion which stands in my name upon the Paper had been moved by one of the members of your Lordships' House whose high and honourable position in the world of finance would have given to his views an authority and an influence which I cannot claim. I hope, however, that before the debate is over we shall have the advantage of the advice of those members of the House. The country is standing in a
4
very grave and dangerous position, and it is to my mind the duty of all to do what they can by way of counsel and assistance to help to remedy a state of affairs which, unless speedily and effectively cured, threatens to ruin the whole commonwealth.
There are two things that I would like to say about the form of the Notice which I have put upon the Paper. In the first place, I hope your Lordships will understand that it is not intended as anything in the nature of a vote of censure upon the Government, though it is, of course, impossible to dissociate the Government from the financial position which we now occupy. As they themselves have said, expenditure is largely a matter of policy, and the policy is the Government's and the Government's alone. Nor can they urge that they have been stimulated along the course which they have followed by the action of the House of Commons, for they have a larger and a more docile following in that House than any Government has known since the days when "pocket boroughs" were abolished. The responsibility for the position, therefore, is one that the Government cannot evade. But for all that, I think we should be wasting time and energy now if, in considering this question, we were led along the easy and attractive pathways that an attack upon the Government would offer.
Secondly, I dare say you may have noticed that the Motion is strictly confined to the question of finance. I thought at one time that it would be desirable to add our industrial situation, but I avoided it—first, because I was anxious that I should not needlessly extend the area of debate; and secondly because, so far as our industrial difficulties are associated with the material desire of the men for better wages and better conditions (and we make a great mistake if we think that this is the only cause of their discontent)—so far as they are associated with that cause, in truth our financial situation lies at the very root and core of the mischief. For what happens now is this. When the men seek, and often after great difficulty and much friction obtain, a rise in wages, it is instantly followed by an inflation in currency. Prices proceed to rise as the value of our currency dwindles, and the men, instead of finding themselves moving along the road towards that better life which they have been promised with such

5
reckless prodigality of assurance, find that they are moving in the mazes of a labyrinth from whose tortuous pathways there is no escape.
I said that the financial position in which we stood was grave. The facts are familiar to most of us. But there are just one or two outstanding figures that I think it well to bear in mind in considering the position. In the first place, we know that while the amount of legal tender existing before the war was £214,000,000, at the time when the Budget was introduced it had amounted to £540,000,000, and, so far as I can ascertain, it has been increased since that date, and only a fortnight ago was increased by a further issue of from £7,000,000 to £8,000,000 net, while all the time the gold reserve has remained stationary. There is one outstanding fact which shows that the value of every pound sterling before the war has been reduced by more than 50 per cent. While that process of currency inflation continues, industrial discontent and dissatisfaction will continue also, and prices are bound to remain high. There are two more facts which I think are important. One is this. The amounts owing on Ways and Means appear to have been £455,000,000 at the beginning of the year, and now, even after the flotation of the Loan, they are only £33,000,000 lower than they were.
Finally, it is stated that our daily expenditure exceeds by £2,000,000 our daily revenue. This last figure is one which I give with some hesitation. I do not myself accept it as accurate, but I have taken it from the pages of a new Government organ which is published free to the world—I am thankful to believe not at the public expense—and which is not inappropriately named The Future. From that paper, which is obviously an inspired Government organ, intended, and it may be rightly intended, to influence opinion in favour of the Government, I have taken the statement that our daily expenditure is £2,000,000 more than our daily receipts.
Those three facts are in themselves very alarming features of the situation. But lest I should be thought to use language of extravagance with regard to what those figures mean, let we once more quote Government authorities. This same paper, The Future. contains the following statement, and I believe the authority is that of the Prime Minister—
6
"We are not paying our way. We shall never pay our way until we increase production, and if we do not do that now, we shall be driven either to increase production or to reduce lower than ever the standard of living. I see no other alternative, except quitting the country for which the people have fought so bravely during the last four years."
Therefore the Prime Minister's view of the position is that unless something can happen which at this moment it seems extremely, difficult to stimulate, there is nothing for the people of this country but to leave its shores as quickly and as conveniently as they can.
And the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on August 8, made a statement such as, I believe, has never before been made by any English Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to our national finances. He said—
"If we continue spending at the rate we are spending now it will lead us straight to bankruptey, and there cannot be any doubt about it. If we cannot increase production beyond what we are producing now, we shall go to national bankruptey."
This statement was made on August 8, and it does not appear from the figures that have read from a recent issue of The Future that the Government have taken much heed by the warning, for they appear to be pursuing their course along the same road with unabated speed.
It is important, in considering what weight is to be attached to this statement, to have some summary and to make some estimate of our national wealth and of the possibilities of the future. People often say—I notice that Mr. Asquith said the other night—that there were all round us obvious evidences of great wealth. I should have said that there were all round us obvious instances of great and unwarrantable extravagance, which is totally different. People imagine that this great, stable, ordered life which we lead is, in itself, evidence of great wealth. It is nothing of the kind. The wealth of this country does not depend upon its existing buildings, which you can insure with an insurance company, but on something quite different. The Pyramids of Egypt are no part of the wealth of Egypt, except so far as they may draw tourists to Cairo. And so the whole of our buildings and our vast machinery are of no value at all unless they can be inspired with the life that will turn them to profitable account.
I think the wealth of our country may be said to come under the following heads—

7
first, our overseas credits; secondly, our internal resources; thirdly, the amount of stock we have of manufactured and marketable commodities; and, finally, our power to produce those commodities in abundant quantities in the future. Let us consider wealth for a moment under those heads. The war, if not entirely, has at any rate very largely denuded us of our overseas credits. The thousands of millions of credits we had in the United States have gone, and in their place there stands a debt which we owe of more than the same amount. Our natural resources may practically be confined to coal and iron.
So far as coal is concerned, what is the position at this moment? Although hostilities have ceased for nearly twelve months, we are in such a position with our coal measures (and coal is by far the largest and most profitable of our natural resources) that we know perfectly well we are going to face a winter in which many will suffer grave discomfort; the weak and the poor will certainly suffer from increased sickness and increased mortality, simply because we are not able to get sufficient coal from the mines to heat and light our domestic hearths. That is the position with regard to coal, and I submit that it is not exaggerated one single word.
What is the position with regard to our industries? It is plain that unless and until some clear understanding can be effected with the industrial people of this country, the dream of increased production —the only thing upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister appear to hang their hopes for the avoidance I of the disaster which they prophesy—is impossible. And good will can only be effected if we cease to mock the efforts of the men by false currency. At the present moment every struggle they make is cheated of its result by the operation of financial laws which they do not understand and over which they have no control, and the result is that they become more and more discontented and more and more angry with the system of society which many of them, as we know, bitterly resent.
The future must lie in our being able to stabilise and clarify our finances. What prospect is there of doing that? I want to consider the figures which are being put before us at the present time to show what our position is. In this connection I beg your Lordships, when we are considering expenditure, not to do what speakers from
8
the Government Bench only too often invite us to do—namely, consider what the expenditure would have been had the war not ended. That really has nothing whatever to do with it—for this reason. We were all perfectly ready to be ruined rather than be defeated, but we are not ready to be ruined now we have won. This comparison reminds me of the old scientific experiment in which a lecturer used to show a dark shadow and make it into a beam of light by the simple process of projecting it against a background which was even darker still. That is exactly what the Government do with regard to this expenditure. They say, "Admitted it is black, but if you will only contrast it with something which is blacker still you will see that it will assume a decent shade of grey." That is not the way in which this question of finance should be considered.
No reasonable man for a moment thought that directly hostilities ceased, or peace was declared, we could get back to a perfectly flat normal basis of expenditure. That would be the most unwise and foolish argument to advance. It is not that at all. The complaint against the Government is this, that in the circumstances in which they found themselves they have been prodigal of the nation's money, and that they have not taken, in the circumstances in which we stand, proper steps to safeguard the national interest. There, I think, a strong case indeed is made out.
In February of this year Lord Faringdon moved a Resolution relating to the question of finance, and pointed out that unless expenditure was controlled and steps taken to prevent a further inflation of our credit, grave danger lay ahead. It was in that debate, I think, that I made the humble suggestion to the noble Viscount opposite that a Committee should be appointed at once to ascertain what the country could afford to pay, so that we might know where we stood; and he did me the honour of approving of the suggestion. But has anything of the kind been done? Such a Committee could have been appointed in twenty-four hours. You could have selected from this House men of the highest and unquestionable power, able to settle such a question. But nothing of the kind has been done. Lord D'Abernon also introduced a Motion calling attention to the question of paper money. It appears to have had no effect. And further debates

9
have taken place in which noble Lords, chiefly from this side of the House, have constantly called attention to the dangerous position into which We were drifting. Yet until August 8, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer suddenly made the remarkable statement About the imminence of bankruptey, the Government do not appear, to have taken any steps whatever to curtail expenditure or to meet the growing adverse condition into which they must have known Our financial affairs were drifting.
The balance sheet that was introduced when the Budget came before the House of Commons is, I think, not a little responsible for the misleading position in which people have stood. As you know, it wrote off from the military expenditure £200,000,000 which it was assumed would be realised by the sale of national property in France. As a matter of mere bookkeeping, seeing that the balance was adverse anyhow, I quite agree that it made no difference. It would have made a great deal of difference had the balance been the other way. As, anyhow, it is adverse and you had to borrow, it made no difference. But it made all the difference in the world from the point of view of letting people know where we stood, because you brought forward the amount of War Office expense at a net figure which was £200,000,000 under what it ought to have been, and prevented people from seeing that the real deficit was £200,000,000 more than appeared on the face of the paper, and that the deficit was going to be met in that particular way. I do not wish to take a merely analytical point with regard to the proper way of preparing accounts. I imagine few people would deny that it is wrong, when dealing with national property, that it should he appropriated against the current expenditure of one Department. It ought to be brought into the whole national purse, and dealt with from tip, national purse. That was not done.
Something more happened, for which I do not think the preparation of accounts was so much to blame. Of the assets brought forward £300,000,000 were in relation to excess profits, and it was pointed out that this £300,000,000 included arrears already existing—an existing fund to which you can only have a limited recourse as the years go by, and to which you can eventually have no recourse at all. There
10
fore it comes to this, that your excess was £800,000,000 instead of £234,000,000. Taking it, however, at £234,000,000, we find at the end of six months that, the deficit which was calculated as the deficit for the whole twelve months has already been exceeded, and that either by increased expenditure or by deficient revenue—and I gather from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it is due to both—we have spent £70,000,000 or thereabouts more in the first six months than we estimated would cover the entire deficit for the whole twelve months.
Here, again, I think some note of warning is only fair. It obviously is not right to assume that therefore there will be another deficit of £300,000,000 for the next six months. Because, first of all, if any economies are being effected—and we are told that they are—they will begin to operate in the next six months, and, secondly, the last six months of the financial year are always the months during which you may expect the larger amount of revenue. Therefore although we have the indisputable fact that we have reached in six months the deficit that we expected to incur in twelve, I do not think we ought to imagine that it will be doubled when twelve months have gone by.
That being the position on the capital accounts, what is the position with regard to expenses? I do not think it is of much use attempting to discuss the expenses in the accounts as they now stand, for the reason that we are living in an artificial and inflated time. It is important to see what must be our expenses—expenses to which we are now committed—for a year when every fraction of the inflated payment has passed away, when we are really in normal tunes, and it may be two, three, or four years before we reach it. But when we reach it what have we to provide? That is of the utmost importance; for this reason—that it is taxation to meet that expenditure which ought to be imposed to-day. That is the bedrock of the expenditure which must be dealt with. You are not meeting normal expenditure by normal revenue.
Let me ask your Lordship's attention to these figures. I gave them once before in the absence of the noble Viscount (Lord Milner), but the noble Earl (Lord Crawford) kindly replied, and the figures which I then gave, he said quite frankly, after two days' deliberation, he was unable to answer.

11
The noble Viscount at a later date, when I had not the advantage of being present, said it must not be assumed that the Government accepted my figures as correct. That was a very reasonable precaution, to which I take no objection. The precaution was justified for this reason, that I believe every one of the figures which I put forward then were too low. I doubt if there was more than one—the fixed charge for our Debt and Sinking Fund—that was up to the real maximum. Therefore let me repeat the figures as they stand to-day.
There is first of all the figure, which no one questions, of £400,000,000 a year, which has to be provided to meet the interest on debt, and then a moderate Sinking Fund—one-half per cent., I think. You then have Pensions, which I took in my former account at £70,000,000, but which are now £100,000,000. You next have three figures which I took from the Government White Paper—figures that cannot be altered —namely,Education, £38,841,000; Old-Age Pensions,£17,892,000; Insurance, £13,435,000— which make another £71,000,000. You then have Customs, which is a small figure; then I have put down £40,000,000 for the expenses of our other Government Departments. That has since been estimated at £80,000,000, and I think it is quite plain that I was wholly wrong in putting the figure at £40,000,000. Then there is £75,000,000 for the Army, and £25,000,000 for the Air Force; this leaves only £60,000,000 for the Navy, or no more than you had before the war. Taking the present inflated prices, that is equivalent to only about half the pre-war service.
There remain only two figures. The first is with regard to the cost of the railways. It was stated in the House of Commons that the loss on running the railways as they stood was £60,000,000 or £70,000.000 a year. The accounts have not been produced, and no one could tell—a very unfortunate circumstance, which has been not a little responsible for some of the ill-feeling and misunderstanding which resulted in the late railway strike. Sir Eric Geddes puts the figure at £60,000,000. I strike off 20 per cent. and say £50,000,000; and I do not believe that any one who examines the character of the Transport Bill and sees what is contemplated will think it is possible, having regard to the inevitable raising of wages which must occur, that you can get much
12
lower than £50,000,000. I think you will get cheaply out of it at that figure.
Another figure which, strangely enough, finds no place whatever in the skeleton balance sheet put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when laying figures before the House of Commons, is the figure with regard to Housing. Now, my Lords, the Housing scheme provides that in a period of years—it may be three or five—you are going to build a million houses, and the expense over a certain fixed amount of that building is to be borne by the State. I estimated the annual deficit on each of those houses at £20 a year; I am convinced now that I was wrong, and that I put it much too low. I hold in my hand an account prepared for the borough of Godalming with regard to the erection of fifty-eight houses. The annual sum that is to be paid for principal, interest, and maintenance (carefully calculated) is £5,269. The amount that will be received from the houses, if they are let at 12 s a week rent, is £1,809, which leaves £3,460 to be borne by the State, and this represents £57 a house per year. This is no imaginary thing, nor have I gone about seeking it; this happened to come my way. I say that this is a most striking instance of what this building scheme is going to cost, and it ought to be made public. But it does not seem to me that it is phenomenal, and for this reason. The cost of building the houses which produced these figures is less than £1,000 apiece, and yet it was stated the other day in the newspapers that the lowest tender to the London County Council for building a five-roomed house was £1,021. I quite agree that there will be included in that expenses which may not be included in the other estimate; for instance, the roads will be made up, and the sewers and fences and matters of that kind done, but I think it is true none the less. I do not mind how you reach these figures; they are, I think, an urgent warning that we have to face the fact that the Housing scheme as it has been introduced by the Government is going to be a heavy burden —a very heavy burden—upon the State.
Something has happened to this scheme which, I think, is disastrous. For twelve months there seems to have been nothing but talk about it, and the result is that the men are more grievously discontented every day. They were promised that these houses would grow like mushrooms,

13
and they do not appear to grow at all. But this has got to be done, and there is nobody more in favour of it than I am. If you are ever going to have this country once more a happy country to live in, you will have to make the homes of the poor decent, and if ever we hope to get rid of the angry acrimonious feeling which undoubtedly does permeate a great deal the labour classes to-day, it is beyond all things essential that we should allow the men not; merely to lead a better material life, but—to use a term that is too often misused and too often misunderstood—a better spiritual life. And that is, believe me, at the back of the men's minds as much as the other consideration.
There then is the position with regard to the expense to which we are committed. I have worked out the. total of these figures at £888,000,000. If you delete from that the items mentioned before—Customs and Excise, Estate Duty, and stamps (representing a sum of £283,000,000; the remaining £5,000,000 will go in odds and ends)—there is left a net£600,000,000 that has to be provided by direct taxation. How is it going to be done? The sum of £600,000,000 a year is, I think, exactly 10 s.in the £ on the Income Tax. Those are the figures and the facts. I shall be glad, indeed, if they are capable of elucidation, or if the position can be made more easy; but if not, that is the position that we have to bring ourselves to look at, and we have to make up our mind how we are to meet it.
How is it going to be met? There are three proposals—I do not see for the moment a fourth—by which this position can be countered. The one is a General Capital Levy; the next is a Capital Levy on Profits made during the war; tile third is the imposition of this 10 s.Income Tax. Of course, it will have to be more at the present moment—that is obvious—because my figures are for a state of things when every subsidy is ended. Under my hypothesis you will have to pay more at the present moment. But leaving that aside, I ask your Lordships for a moment to consider which of these three plans meets with your approval.
The notice that stands in my name merely asks your Lordships to assert that an instant increase of taxation is necessary; the means by which it is to be imposed is
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a matter that I have not referred to upon the Paper. A General Capital Levy is undoubtedly open to many objections. There is the difficulty that if you once begin raising taxes by the process of imposing a Capital Levy you cannot be sure that the people who may get control of the reins of Government, and who may quite sincerely and genuinely hate the whole capitalistic system, will not use it as the simple and most effective means of ending Capital altogether. That is one objection to the Capital Levy. There is another objection. It is bound to be unfair; it is bound to be inequitable as between person and person; it is bound to penalise thrift; it will, I think, embarrass industry. Those are undoubtedly the objections. But let us see if they apply with just the same force to a Capital Levy on fortunes made during the war. I do not deny that to some extent they do. A tax levied upon war profits cannot be solely and simply confined to the profits made by industry. If it is to be levied at all, it must be levied upon this principle—that you take the capital value of a man's estate at the beginning of the war and at a notional date after the war, and you take a certain fraction of the increase and appropriate it for purposes of taxation. That is how it must be levied. By no other means can you ever get it assessed at all. It would do something which I think is also important. It would allay the feeling of public resentment that is at the present moment almost universally felt against the men who used the opportunity of the nation's greatest need as a means of making gain. There is no doubt that that feeling is very widespread, and however much it may be countered by reason, no reason will prevail. People see men who in four or five years have suddenly risen to a position of almost unheard of affluence, simply by the process of profitably trafficking with the Government in the means of war, and only too often the position thus obtained is used with very little regard to the feelings of other people and with all the carelessness, the ostentation, and the vulgarity that are frequently associated with raw and quickly gotten wealth. The anger that has been aroused cannot, I believe, be appeased. And, indeed, is it easy for any one of us, if we contrast for a moment the different situations that have arisen out of the war, to repress our own feeling that the man who has profited while other people have had to sacrifice all that they held dear should be called upon to

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pay back. I own that I feel it, and I know myself that my feelings are shared by others—because, after all, human beings are not mere compound tables of logarithms; they are moved and swayed by passions that logic can never either wholly conquer or express.
Although I think it would be a very bad thing indeed to impose a tax whose sole purpose was to satisfy a social demand —I do not think that a tax ought to be used merely as a means of social betterment, or simply as a means of attacking a particular class of person—yet the tax on war profits has two results. First, it will restore back to the State the money which most of us think ought never to have been parted with in such profusion; and, secondly it will most assuredly do more to unite this country once more than any other scheme that has yet been devised. Therefore I feel that there is a great deal to be said for that method of taxation, and I do not wish to-day to argue in detail about this proposal because, as I have pointed out, my Resolution pledges no one to any definite proposal.
But if it is not adopted there remains the Income Tax—and it is an Income Tax which must be high. It is no use for anybody to think that such figures as I have given can possibly be met by the process of having a low flat-rate Income Tax and a very high Super-tax, because that simply will not work. The only way in which it can possibly be done is by a very high flat-rate Income Tax, with generous deductions on the lower scale. And that is necessary for another reason. Every one knows that there are certain ingenious people who enter into all kinds of intricate financial devices for the purpose of avoiding paying Super-tax. And it is an easier thing to avoid Super-tax than it is to avoid paying Income Tax, because, of course, the Super-tax is never deducted at the source—I have often thought it should be, and that every one should be called upon to claim back if he is dissatisfied, just as people are now if they are under the limit which exempts them from the tax.
However, I will pass that by. I merely want to point out that when taxation is imposed it is essential that it should be a high flat rate Income Tax, and the deductions must be made below it. I really see nothing excepting one of those three policies as possible for the Government to adopt at the present time, and it ought to
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be adopted without delay. Which of these three policies it should be it is not, indeed, easy to say. I expect it is the common experience of many of us that if three policies are face downwards on the table it is not always easy to select the one that will turn out to be right. I am not at all sure that we shall not have to select two. I think that increased Income Tax and a War Profits Tax will both have to be applied, for I doubt if one will be enough by itself. But, whichever it is, something really great has got to be done if the country is to be lifted out of the financial slough in which it finds itself.
The only other course is that which has been indicated twice by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Prime Minister—national bankruptcy. We are told that that is the bourne to which we are speeding, and when once people get accustomed to the sound of a word they do not appear to pay much attention to it, and they think "Oh, bankruptcy. Yes, that does not mean much, it does not matter much." I think people ought to consider what bankruptcy does mean.
Bankruptcy means first of all the repudiation of our national obligations—a dishonour which this country has never suffered, and which is second only to the dishonour of defeat by the enemy. That is the first thing that it means. The next thing that it means is the complete collapse of all our domestic credits, and essentially of every credit oversea. This means that you cannot get into this country the food that is sufficient to feed the people, and hunger and famine must follow. Finally, I believe that the roots of our Empire are too far spread and too deeply buried to be torn up even by such a catastrophe as that, but it will certainly mean that the centre of commercial power, and possibly also of political power, would shift from this country, and that for the first time in our history the waters of the Thames would wash deserted walls and empty palaces. The road that I propose for your Lordships to follow is a road of hardship and a road of sacrifice, but I believe it to be the road of honour and the road of safety, and I therefore ask you to adopt the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That in the opinion of this House it is essential that further taxation should be instantly imposed.—(Lord Buckmaster.)
LORD WITTENHAM: My Lords, I need hardly says that it is only because none of your Lordships of much riper, larger, and longer experience than myself in this House has risen to speak on this momentous occasion that I take the liberty, with a certain amount of knowledge of the subject, to trouble you for not a very long period of time. The noble and learned Lord, in my opinion, did not, over-state the case. In fact, I think he stated the case with extreme moderation, without heat, not as a Party politician, and with all the skill and power of exposition that one would expect from his great legal powers. On the side of expenditure I agree with almost all his figures. I had the honour of saying in this House about the end of July that I did not think his figures of expenditure were in any way exaggerated; neither do I think so now. In fact, I believe that probably he was then under the mark.
The noble and learned Lord was, perhaps, a little pessimistic, although I am not quite sure of my own figures, but in his remarks on our position in regard to credits in other countries, I do not agree with him. I think that in 1914 we were owed something like £4,000,000,000 abroad. Then came the war. We sold about £1,000,000,000 to America. I think we made ourselves liable for another £1,000,000.000. That is£2,000,000,000 gone out of £4,000,000,000. On the other hand, we lent to our Allies something like £1,800,000,000. Let us say that £800,000,000 has gone, leaving us£1,000,000,000. If I am right, we are still owed all over the world £3,000,000,000; I think we are owed in neutral countries something like £2,000,000,000. If that is so, to that extent the position is better.
With only a short time in which to deal with this immense subject it would be presumptuous on my part to attempt to detain your Lordships for a great length of time; but in the next place I should like to say that, however you may look at it, this is an astoundingly difficult problem to deal with. If you brought down one of the gods of finance from the upper regions—where for the moment, I suppose, such deities live—he would be up against difficulties which he had never had to face before. He would be up against difficulties of currency, difficulties in the labour market, difficulties through having our great shipping trade almost massacred for the time being, the difficulties of great neutral countries having been able to
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spring into the breach immediately at the end of the war and to be occupied—legitimately occupied—in taking as much of our trade as they can. Then there are the difficulties of not knowing how big an Army to keep up. If you reduce your Army too low you are, of course, up against the pre-1914 condition, which might mean the loss of our place in the world. I still believe what is said in Holy Writ that it is the strong man armed who keepeth his house. Yet on the other hand, if you keep the Army expenditure where it is to-day, it only aggravates and intensifies the terrific financial position in which we stand. The same with the Navy and with the Air Force. It needs a superman to know where to draw the line; it needs a superman to tell you exactly how you ought to raise this colessal sum year by year—not for one year, not for two years, not for five years, but for fifty years—in such a manner as not to ruin the State.
May I examine the proposals of the noble and learned Lord as being the only means by which we can raise the money. The noble and learned Lord was not able to produce any balance Sheet—at which I am not surprised or grieved—to show that by adopting any of his methods we were going to bridge the gulf. Let me take first of all the Capital Levy. If you have a Capital Levy—apart from the thousand and one things about which I need not trouble your Lordships because you understand them as well as, probably better than, I do myself—you are destroying absolutely the means whereby you live. At this moment you want all the capital that you have; indeed, you want more than the capital you have in order to push trade at home and abroad, to increase your export, and to increase your production. You cannot do that without capital; and once the capital gets out of the hands of the individual into the hands of the State we know what happens. It means national profligacy in regard to expenditure. The State is not the proper custodian of money on a huge scale, as our experience in the last few years has shown. In addition, you could not do it apart from your destroying the means whereby you live. Before I pass on to say why you could not do it, may I mention that your Income Tax would be extraordinarily diminished? The more capital the State takes out of the pockets of the individual and puts into its own pocket, the less the income Tax will

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be. Therefore the one is to that extent destroying the other, and destroying it to a very grievous extent, so that there you are landed in an inextricable difficulty.
Then how are you going to put it in motion? It is difficult enough even now to levy the Death Duties, as those who are concerned in these matters well know. In that case it is only in regard to a certain number every year, but if you have the Capital Levy you are going to apply Death Duty methods to the whole population at the same time. Already the Government authorities are almost snowed under in trying to bring the estates of dead people up to date and getting in the money earned by those estates. If you are going to do it at the same moment for the whole population chaos will not be the word for it; you would want all the gods in the regions above to come down and help you. Also, the more you call upon the whole population to make an estimate of their goods and chattels the more the bottom would drop out; because everyone would be assessed at the same moment, and you must imagine every one having to sell at the same time. The more the thing is examined the more impossible it becomes; and I think that every State that has considered it has been confronted abinitio by such tremendous difficulties that it has had to be dropped.
The second proposition—namely, to take more of the war profits, is, of course, much more feasible, much more attractive and sound, on the face of it. But may we examine that proposition with an absolutely impartial mind—not looking at it merely because we do not happen to have made war profits and do not mind letting the other man's withers be wrung while ours remain unwrung; but consider if fairly and judicially, as I am sure the noble and learned Lord would wish to do, and as he, indeed, did. In the first place, we had the whole machinery of excess war profits working during the war, and very heavy taxation has resulted therefrom. I think one of the noble and learned Lord's own Party, Mr. McKenna, during the first year of the war, did not levy any Excess Profits Tax at all, as far as I can remember. That was rather a lapse from virtue, according to virtue as we understand it now. The next year—here I am speaking entirely from memory and may be wrong—I do not think he levied more than 50 per cent. Then it got up to
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80 per cent. under his successor, and now I think, in the last Budget, it is down. It is worth while considering whether, both Parties in the State having adopted that method of machinery, it would be quite fair to scrap it or to use it as is suggested and to say to the trader, "Although at the time we entered into a year to year understanding with you that you should pay that amount of war profits and that the State should be satisfied, you had much more left. We knew about how much you were going to have left, but you had a great deal more; now, disgorge! We are in a great difficulty, disgorge!" I must leave it there to your Lordships' sense of fairness.
Now, the machinery is there to hand. Do not imagine that I am holding it up as a temptation to anybody to put it in motion, but the machinery is more or less there to hand. Owing to the machinery that was set up to deal with excess profits, the big people, who have made their returns year by year since the war began, are pretty well known. But do the big people exhaust the whole question, if you wish to be fair? We have had profiteering up and down the whole country. If you are going to try and follow the little profiteer and make him disgorge—and you ought to do so if you are going to be fair—there again you must have all the gods of Olympus to help you to track all the profiteers, because they have lived in every class. As the schoolboy Latin has it, you may expel human nature with a fork but it will always come running back again. It is human nature to profiteer and human nature has profiteered.
There have been some very big whales and some very little minnows at the game. Are you going to catch the whales only in the net, or are you going to try to catch the minnows also? That is another matter for your Lordships to consider. You can do it. You can catch the whales. There is no doubt about that; and I saw, either yesterday or to-day, in one of the many able letters and articles that have been written on this matter, that if you were to take the remainder of the war profits from the profiteers, which can be easily ascertained, it might amount to the colossal sum of £900,000,000 or £1,000,000,000. Of course, that is very well worth having, because it would pay off our Floating Debt. I hope I am not digressing from the argument by referring to the Floating Debt, because that debt is now about

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£900,000,000. Therefore, if the whales disgorge to the tune of £900,000,000 or £1,000,000,000 we should have no more Floating Debt, which is a serious and pressing danger to-day. To that extent we should go on with a cleaner sheet. But there I must leave that matter.
Now I come to the third expedient, which is fraught with difficulty. They are all fraught with difficulty. It is the expedient with regard to the Income Tax. At present the great middle class—we are all one class, as a matter of fact; it always makes me indignant when I hear of the working class and the idle class; we are all the working class; and so, when I talk of the middle class, I do not mean, God forbid! the social middle class but the people with middle class incomes—the middle class has been frightfully hit by the war. A great many of them have not profiteered. Look at the position to-day of a great many of them. with small incomes, which were only just sufficient before the war, when the sovereign was worth 20 s.and when everything was very cheap, to bring up their families as they ought to be brought up. Now you are going to impose more Income Tax upon them. They will go under. The noble and learned. Lord said, and I think quite truly, in the financial sense, that you will have to raise the foundation tax, otherwise you will not get enough. By the foundation tax I mean the 6s. Income Tax. That is going to crush tens of thousands of people. They will be down and out.
Then the noble and learned Lord said that he wishes the whole Income Tax to be deductible the source. I wish he had sat on the Income Tax Committee which met in the first year in which Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's Government came into power, in 1906; then he would not have said that, because it is impossible; it is impracticable. It is easy enough with the railway companies or with other companies, when the whole of the fruits of the year's trading is paid into one till and the tax is deducted from the till, so that people who have dividends are paid their share minus the Income Tax. If you are going to have the whole Income Tax deducted at the source, there again you want not only all the gods of Olympus but all the angels besides if people who are entitled to a return are ever to get it. Why, even now, as the noble and learned Lord probably knows, there is chaos. They are
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snowed under at the Inland Revenue in trying to give back to people Income Tax which ought not, to have been paid in the first instance. A man who had, we will say, a dividend from a railway company from which the whole Income Tax was deducted but who, owing to his position, was entitled to a return of it, would not be able to get it for months and months. If you are proposing to make the whole Income Tax deductible at the source that would aggravate the difficulty to such an extent that it would be an impossibility and there would be universal chaos. That is only a detail.
There remains the great, broad principle: What is going to happen to this country with a higher Income Tax? I am only pointing this out to show that under each of the three heads put forward by the noble and learned Lord there is such a ponderous weight of objection that one is left almost in a condition of despair. I have no doubt as between the first and the third expedients, because a Capital Levy, if it is once and for all made, as the noble and learned Lord foreshadowed, may suggest to those who come into power in the future that, having once had a cut at the joint, they should follow and strike deeper and deeper into what was left on the joint. But, suppose the Capital Levy was once and for all, there is no room then for repentance or alteration. It is done, and the consequence remains. The Income Tax is gathered in from year to year and you can alter the amount. If circumstances alter you can alter the income Tax. If the position gets better you can lower the Income Tax, and if it gets worse you can raise it. But the Capital Levy strikes a blow at the heart of the State from which there is no recovery.
What are we then to do? If Lord Buckmaster's figures of expenditure are right, the means which he suggested are desperate. He did not mention one, perhaps because he thought the House would laugh if he referred to it—namely, that extraordinary amount we were to get out of the Germans when the war was over. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord never believed in it, but I do not think it is a negligible quantity. I am not at all sure that Germany is not better off than any other State in Europe to-day. There has been a tremendous amount of camouflage and, of course, the Germans themselves say they have nothing left;

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but people who have been there tell us there is a great deal to be got, and a pledge was given by the Prime Minister, which I imagine he will carry out as far as he can—namely, that the loser pays the bill. So far as the loser can be made to pay, the Germans will have to pay, although I suppose we ought not to take that into account in striking a balance sheet for the next year.
I may be right, or I may be wrong, but I think we shall have to raise another Loan. I do not see how we are to get on a possible financial basis without another Loan. But can you raise another Loan? It is an open secret that although the Victory Loan brought in a certain amount, it disappointed a great many high financiers. There was a good deal of changing from one security into another, and there was not as much new money invested as had been hoped for. There was between £300,000,000 or £400,000,00 of new money—not more. A new Loan would be unpopular in the City of London just when everybody is struggling to get ahead with production with the money they have got; and, to be quite candid, people do not trust the Government. Those who have money to put into loans say that this Government is so profligate that it is no good lending their money. And on what terms would you raise the Loan—at 5½or 6 per cent.? There again the interest on £1,000,000,000 at 5½or 6 per cent. would have to be added every year to the amount that would fall on the taxpayer. Whichever way you look at it, there are the most astounding difficulties. I am imagining for the moment that I am Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thank God I was created in such an ordinary mould mentally that there was never any chance of my attaining to that position. But we must not underrate the extraordinary difficulties of the position.
Just one word about profligacy, and I have done. I am not now speaking as a Party politician. The times are much too grave financially for any man to be a Party politician—he must stand up and say what he thinks. The Government have been extraordinarily profligate. They have gone on during the year which has elapsed since the Armistice as if all the wealth of the world was at their command. There has hardly been anything cut down; many things have been started, but no attempt at real economy. The worst of it is that if
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some great apostle of economy does speak, with one side of his mouth he says "Retrench," and with the other "Spend." The noble and learned Lord is not exempt from that criticism, because when he referred to the housing of the people, which is to cost over £300,000,000, he said it had to be done. That is what every great social reformer says. When you come to his pet lamb, "it must be done." Yet on the other hand he' says we are going straight down the slippery slope, as indeed we are, into the pit of national bankruptcy. In a great many cases we shall have to use the knife, not to cut at the tops of the branches but to cut much nearer to the roots of the tree. A prominent politician said this country must be made "fit for heroes to live in." In my opinion it was a most dangerous phrase to use. It is all right if you spread the improvement over a hundred years, but the people of the country imagine you are going to make this land a fit place for heroes to live in within twelve months. Whoever invented that phrase did an extraordinary amount of harm, almost as much as the man who said in the beginning of the war "Business as usual." The man who invented those two phrases has a great deal to answer for.
There seems no signs of this profligacy diminishing. Cut down the Army, of course, to the lowest point of safety, and cut down a great many of these social schemes, not because you want to but because you must. You are like the rich man who used to be a philanthropist, but has suddenly become poor. For no fault of his own, perhaps he suddenly becomes poor, yet still has, the dreams of the philanthropist. You have got to tell him that he must wake up, that he is no longer rich, and that he has to cut his coat according to his cloth. That is a very unpleasant thing for the nation to have to do, but it has to be done, and I am driven to the conclusion that you will have to face a higher Income Tax; that it may not be unfair to a. certain extent to increase the taxation on, and even to expropriate part of, the war profits; and, further, that we shall have to raise another Loan—individual extravagance has got to go as well as national extravagance. We have all got to live simply and not to set wild examples of extravagance in our private lives such as were set by a certain number of people during the war and are being set by much larger numbers since.
THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR THE COLONIES (VISCOUNT MILNER): My Lords, I think it may be for the convenience of the House that I should now make a few observations. I admit that I am somewhat surprised that a greater number of noble Lords have not addressed us. Indeed, had I been aware that this was going to be the case I should have pressed much more strongly than I actually did a request which. I made to the noble and learned Lord who has initiated this debate that we should wait, before entering upon the discussion of these questions of such great-gravity, until we had received the figures which are shortly to be presented to both Houses of Parliament, and which will contain revised Estimates for the current financial year and for the future. I did not press that request more strongly because I was under the impression that there was a very general desire to have a debate now. As it is, I am placed in the unfortunate position of having to speak for the Government on questions of this difficulty without being able to refer to vital figures, and of being exposed to the likelihood that many of the important speeches directed against the Government will be made after I have spoken. It seems a somewhat unfair position in which to be placed, but I have no doubt that it is due to accident. Therefore I will make the best of the position, and ask your Lordships to be indulgent with me if I am not able to give on all points such full and precise information as I should like to be able to afford.
As I have said, it is a matter of great regret that we have not waited for the figures which have been promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It may, of course, be said that it does not so much matter about precise details because the general position is perfectly clear. But, my Lords, the general situation is very far from clear. The uncertain factors are still extremely numerous. Some of them, very important indeed, are entirely beyond our control. I am thinking especially of certain very large items of receipts. With regard to the control of expenditure, I should like to say a word presently. I defy any man, however well versed he may be in making estimates of revenue and expenditure, to speak at this moment—I have myself in my time had as much experience in that direction as perhaps any of your Lordships—with any assurance as to the position in which we shall find ourselves at the end of the present financial
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year, much less how we shall fare in the course of the next financial year. We shall certainly be in a much better position to judge in a week or ten days, when we have the promised figures before us; but even then there will be many elements of uncertainty, many things which may turn out a great deal better or a great deal worse, according to the course of events at home and abroad, with so much industrial unrest here and elsewhere, and so many of the great countries of the world, who are our debtors, in an unsettled position and with a very uncertain future.
With all these doubts and uncertainties, I am prepared nevertheless to maintain that the financial position of this country, serious as it is—though it is far less serious than that of any other great country in the world, except the United States and perhaps Japan— is not sufficient to justify the talk of bankruptey and blue ruin in which so great a number of people, possibly even some members of your Lordships' House, are at present delighted to indulge. Nor is it such as to justify us in making any rash changes in our fiscal system. Additional taxation may be necessary; I fully admit it, although I do not admit that its necessity has yet been proved, and in army case it is incumbent upon us not to proceed in this matter without the utmost deliberation, or without giving the most close and careful study to the various sources from which additional taxation can most safely and most justly be derived. It is a most delicate operation, as I think anybody must have convinced himself after listening to the speeches which we have heard to-day, to indulge in such a novel experience as, for instance, the General Capital Levy. Without going into it at this moment, or into any of the proposals which have been broached—I may have a little more to say about one or two of them presently—I would make this general remark, that irreparable mischief might be done to the recovery of trade and industry—which, for all that has been said, is proceeding rapidly, and will, if only grave industrial trouble can be averted, proceed with amazing rapidity —by any rash and precipitate step in the direction of which I have spoken.
I believe, my Lords, that the panic which has seized upon a large portion of the public, and which is vigorously fomented by certain organs of the Press, is due to

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the belief that the Government does not realise the gravity of the financial situation, or the necessity of taking the most drastic steps to put a stop to all wasteful expenditure. That is constantly asserted and reiterated, and by force of constant reiteration it has got itself believed. If there is any member of the Government who is not, and has not constantly been, alive to the necessity of taking drastic steps to stop wasteful expenditure, all I can say is that I have never met him. I entirely deny that the Government has been or is supine in this respect. We may not always have taken the right step—we are not infallible —and the number of complex and urgent problems, the aftermath of war, with which we have had simultaneously to deal have been fairly overwhelming.
Then the process of re-establishing the normal checks upon expenditure, utterly shattered as they were by the exigencies of war, was absolutely bound to be a gradual one. Money was running away through a hundred channels. It may be that it is running away still through some, though I hope we shall be able soon to say that it has been stopped from running through all. The Treasury has been reorganised and immensely strengthened in its endeavour—and it is an endeavour which could not be accomplished in a day—to restore its old control over expenditure, to restore it and to improve it, and it has had the constant support of the Government, I might say more especially the most vigorous support of the Prime Minister himself. But it was necessary to concentrate effort in the first instance upon the main avenues of waste. There is only a certain amount of human time and human energy. There are only a certain number of people who can possibly deal with matters of this kind. Had we increased our staff, as I believe in some respects we would have been wise in doing, we should have had an immediate outcry about the extravagance of fresh appointments. There are only a certain number of people with the experience and the knowledge, and in a position competent to undertake and deal with this gigantic task of re-establishing an adequate financial control over the whole range of our expenditure, and they have had to concentrate themselves, and have rightly concentrated themselves, upon the main points, and upon sources of expenditure where the greatest amount was to be immediately retrieved. I say that this has been going on for a long time, and I believe that the main points
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have now been dealt with, but the effect—as the noble and learned Lord pointed out in his speech, in which I am bound to say he made very many fair allowances for our difficulties—of these great and enormous reductions in the main items of expenditure cannot be immediately apparent.
Take the case of demobilisation, for instance. Millions of men have had to be brought home from abroad. We are prepared to show that they were brought home as fast as was physically possible, and dispersed in the most expeditious manner. But then, every man that is demobilised, though that means so much saving for the future, causes an actual increase of expenditure at the moment. He has to receive his gratuity, and that is only one illustration of what happens all round. The actual process of cutting down expenditure very often necessarily involves an immediate and a temporary increase. Weekly returns of revenue and expenditure are apt to be misleading at the best of times, but at a time like the present, and in the middle of such a transformation scene as we are going through, with the whole activity and industry of the country being rapidly switched round from one form of production to another—in the midst of such a transformation scene these records of revenue and expenditure in any particular week or particular month are simply no guide at all.
I know it may be said that this is all very well, but that now it is nearly a year since the Armistice, and that we have not yet balanced revenue and expenditure and are still living on borrowed money. The noble and learned Lord who introduced the debate admitted, and I think any reasonable man must admit, that in this financial year it was absolutely impossible to do otherwise. No Government would have been expected in this year to balance revenue and expenditure. No country could have come down with a run from an expenditure of nearly £3,000,000,000 to one of £700,000,000 or £800,000,000. That would have been wholly impossible if all the circumstances had been the most favourable that it is possible to imgaine.
And, as a matter of fact, the circumstances have been unfavourable in the extreme. We have only just concluded peace with Germany; peace with Turkey is still hardly in sight. We have had troubles in Afghanistan and troubles in Egypt. More serious still, the condition

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of the whole of the Near East is such that the reduction of our forces in that part of the world has had to be slowed down. It would be the most desperate kind of economy to run the risk of another war in order to save even an appreciable number of millions on indispensable garrisons. On the other hand some very large sums—very large indeed—which we reasonably counted upon receiving in the course of this year we shall not receive. That does not mean that we shall not get them at all, but that we shall not get them in this financial year.
As a result of all these unfavourable accidents the deficit for this year, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer very roughly put at £250,000,000, after taking account of those appropriations in aid to which the noble and learned Lord referred and which entirely agree with him in thinking had better be put in our financial statements in a different form (I have never understood the reason for separating these recoveries, showing some of them as what they are, and allowing others to disappear in the reduction of certain Estimates)—I say that the deficit for the year, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer originally estimated at something round about £250,000,000, will be largely exceeded.
The actual amount of excess and the reasons for it will be contained in the Papers which will be shortly presented to Parliament and. which I am not in a position to anticipate to-day. And even when we have the Estimate it will necessarily be only a rough approximation. I am not able to anticipate the figures. All I can say is that there will be an increase; in fact, as the noble Lord has already pointed out, there is already an increase. But that increase will, to a very large extent, be due, not to increased expenditure, but to deferred receipts which will come to us in the following financial year.
That is, broadly speaking, the position. It is a position which is regrettable, though I do not admit that it is due so much to any neglect on the part of the Government as to changes of circumstances over which we have no control. But though the position is regrettable it really is not catastrophic. That with the return of normal conditions revenue must be made to cover expenditure and to provide besides for a substantial sum for a reduction of debt is, of course, axiomatic. I do not admit for one moment that there is any possibility of our doing
30
anything else but providing fully for our expenditure every year on a return to normal conditions, and doing more than that—commencing the reduction of debt. But I say "normal conditions." The conditions of this financial year are one hundred leagues from normality. The conditions of the second half of the year would be very much nearer to normal than those we have had hitherto. The process of moving towards normal expenditure will now, barring unforeseeable fresh disasters, be rapid and progressive; but I really am not prepared to say that even next year you will not have some overlap of war expenditure, or that within next year the position will be one which you could describe as normal. But it is surely clear that the only reasonable way of regarding the deficit of the financial year which will terminate on March 31 next is to look upon it as part of our war burden due to the liquidation of commitments which were the direct result of the war.
There is a good deal of speculation— the point, of course, is of capital importance —as to what the war burden will ultimately be. I see the figure of £8,000,000,000 constantly quoted. I cannot say whether that is or is not accurate, though personally I dare say it is not far from the mark. But that is gross debt. People who talk as if our permanent war burdens were to be £8,000,000,000 make a number of assumptions, some of which are certainly wholly wrong. I am speaking now of the position at the end of the present financial year. The estimate that our real burden of debt will be £8,000,000,000 is based upon the assumption that we shall have no more war assets coming in to us from the sale of surplus material, and otherwise; that we shall get not one penny of the £1,600,000,000 which is due to us from foreign countries or of the nearly £200,000,000 which is due to us from the Dominions; and that we shall not get anything whatever out, of Germany. Some of those assumptions are certainly wrong. It is certain that we shall have several hundred millions still to receive next year from the liquidation of war assets; indeed, the receipts from that source will be larger next year owing to the fact that some of the assets on which we had counted this year will be realised much later than was expected. All these debts from our Dominions may certainly be regarded as good debts. When you come, of course, to the two items of debts from foreign

31
countries and recovery from Germany, the amount is more speculative; but it surely is preposterous to suppose that, while we are to pay (as we are going to pay) what we owe to foreign countries to the last penny, foreign countries are going to default in toto in their obligations to us. How can we suppose such a thing as that? It is an insult to the great Allies with whom the principal indebtedness to this country rests.
Now as regards recovery from Germany. I was one of those who always protested against what seemed to me to be the extravagant expectations which were at one time formed—which it was fashionable to form—as to what we might get out of Germany. I remember the talk about her being made to pay the last penny of what we had expended in the war. But as much as I disbelieved those extravagant estimates as to what we might get, so I utterly repudiate the equally extravagant assumption that we are to get nothing at all. I do not for a moment regard that as within the bounds of probability. It may be that we shall be rather slower in receiving than we at one time expected, but I do not believe that we shall not receive a substantial contribution towards relief from the burden of our war debt through what Germany may be able to pay us and through what she has acknowledged by treaty she is bound to pay us.
According as things turn out worse or better, the ultimate burden may be far greater or far less. I do not know that it is really any use attempting to speculate at the present time about the exact amount of it. It may be £7,000,000,000 or £6,000,000,000, or perhaps less; who can really say? But whatever the amount it is, of course, a staggering figure. Yet there are a number of considerations which ought to lead us, not indeed to minimise its gravity—I do not want to do that—but not to let it frighten us out of our wits. There has been no time in all the 230 years that we have had a National Debt, when a great and sudden increase in that National Debt has taken place, at which people—not only ordinary people but economists of great repute—have not been found to come forward and predicate that it was utterly impossible for the country to bear it.
The statesmen of 1816, confronted with a Debt of £900,000,000, might well have thought that their problem was insoluble,
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when there were men actually living and still in the vigour of life who could remember the debt at £130,000,000; and the problem which confronted the statesmen of 1816 was greater than ours. The taxation was regarded as absolutely crushing. The literature of the time is full of references to it, and it was crushing on the great mass of the people, though certainly the rich escaped much more lightly than they do to-day. I say that the statesmen of 1816, with a burden of taxation which was absolutely crushing upon the mass of the people, had to face a debt of £900,000,000; and what was their tax revenue? It was £65,000,000 in 1816, and it was £54,000,000 in 1817, with that burden of £900,000,000 of debt. That is as one to sixteen. Today, our revenue from normal sources—I am not thinking now of the temporary sources of revenue like the Excess Profits Tax, but I mean the great items which are permanent pillars of our revenue like Customs, Excise, and Income Tax—is in the region of £700,000,000. Possibly, at an unfavourable estimate, it is as one to ten, compared with—
LORD BUCKMASTER: May I suggest that they do not exceed £600,000,000 on the figures published? I am simply referring to the Returns relating to the Financial statement of 1919–20. [LORD BUCKMASTER handed the White Paper to the noble Viscount.]
VISCOUNT MILNER: The total receipts from taxes as shown here for the year 1919–20 appear as £940,000,000.
LORD BUCKMASTER: And£300,000,000 are from Excess Profits Duty.
VISCOUNT MILNER: Yes, £300,000,000 are from Excess Profits Duty. On these figures the noble and learned Lord appears to be right; but, nevertheless, I think there has been some increase in the rate of taxation, some material increase under the head of Excise, since these figures were issued, and with that and the increase of Income Tax to the present rate, I believe the noble and learned Lord will find I am right in saying that £700,000,000 is the yield of our normal taxes at the present rate in the coming year. I am rather hampered at this point by my uncertainty as to the figures which will be put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer next week.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I feel that I owe an apology to the noble Viscount for having interrupted, but I thought the amount was substantial. The reason I did so was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he was disappointed in the returns of revenue, not that they were increasing.
VISCOUNT MILNER: I should like to deal with that point. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he was disappointed with the returns of revenue he must have been thinking of the total of £1,200,000,000, including exceptional receipts. The noble Lord behind me says that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not referring to tax revenue; and this is my point, because it is a matter on which I happened to make particular inquiry in the last few days from the Revenue officials. What they tell me is this—that though, as I have already stated, there are certain receipts, not revenue at all, which we expected during this year but which are going to be thrown over into next year, and though the Excess Profits Duty is now expected to show a less return this year than was estimated, what I call the normal items of revenue, Excise, Customs. Income Tax, were buoyant, and that, unless some complete change comes over the situation within the next five months, they will show at the end of the year appreciable increases over the estimates. That is a very encouraging fact and one of very great importance.
I was always taught by my masters in finance in old days—and they were some of the most eminent of our public economists—that the real danger point for which to look in taxation was when an increase of the rate of taxation no longer produced a correspondingly increased return; when your last penny on the Income Tax, for instance, did not yield so much as the pennies previously imposed, or rather when the penny of the Income Tax, after the rise in rate, was not so productive as before. What is our position in that respect? Every penny of Income Tax in the year before the war produced, in round figures, £3,100,000. Last year every penny of Income Tax produced £4,100,000.
VISCOUNT MIDTLETON: The noble Viscount does not call that a normal year. It is not a normal comparison.
VISCOUNT MILNER: This year it is estimated that every penny of Income Tax will produce even more than that.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: That takes in the whole of the Excess Profits as well.
VISCOUNT MILNER: I am quite aware that we are dealing with counters. The pound sterling is not what it was before the war, but had it not been for the immense rise in the cost of everything our Debt would not have been £6,000,000,000 or £7,000,000,000; it might have been £3,000,000,000, or £4,000,000,000. Then, the goods by which the interest on that Debt is really paid have increased in value in something like equal degree, and that leads me to make one observation with regard to prices, a point of very great importance in all our forecasts as to the burden of debt and revenue.
I should regard artificial attempts to bring down the general level of prices—I am not speaking of the exceptional gains of profiteers, or of profiteering, which ought to be suppressed like any other form of robbery—but I think that any attempt by artificial means to bring down the general level of prices, not that I believe it is practicable, might have a very disastrous effect. That a gradual fall of prices resulting from the multiplication of goods is an unmixed blessing I certainly believe, but I am not equally convinced that a sudden or rapid fall of prices brought about by artificial means would be otherwise than unfortunate. It would certainly involve us in a struggle for reduction of wages, which might well result in revolution; on the other hand it would reduce the value of all the goods with which we really pay the interest on our Debt, while the amount of the Debt itself would remain the same. We should reduce the value of the goods by which we pay our Debt while the amount of the Debt itself would be unaltered. I am speaking now of a sudden rise—not that I anticipate it—in the value of the pound sterling. If that rise is gradual it will not have the same disturbing consequences, because it will leave room for a number of financial adjustments, and among others probably bring about a reduction in the rate of interest which would enable us by conversion to lighten the burden of our Debt.
The noble and learned Lord went at some length into a consideration of various exceptional measures by which the burden of debt might be lightened, and the noble Lord behind me dealt also with the same point. I have listened with the greatest interest to their suggestions, and especially

35
to what was said about the possibility of a special levy upon the increases of wealth due to the war. I admit that of all the proposals which have been put forward this is the one which seems to me to deserve most sympathy in principle. It seems, in principle, only fair that people who very often by no effort, and often no desire, of their own have become enormously enriched as the result of the war should be called upon to make a special contribution to reduce the burden which the war has placed upon the shoulders of the whole community. Whether, when you come to look into it, the execution of that principle would produce such inequalities and would threaten us with the commission of so many individual acts of injustice that it might have to be abandoned, I am not prepared to say. But I do say this, that the project is one which deserves the most careful study and consideration, and I agree with both the previous speakers in thinking that of the various special expedients which have been discussed it is the one most worthy of all respect.
About all these projects I should like to say this, and I believe it to be the counsel of wisdom for to-day. By all means let us study them, and study them with the most unprejudiced mind, but do not let us rush into them like something that must at all costs be done at once or else the leavens may fall. The wolf is not at the door. We have plenty of means to meet our immediate requirements. If we do adopt any of these forms of raising revenue, I trust it will be because we are convinced that it is desirable to adopt them in order to effect a fairer distribution of the burden, and not because we feel that we are obliged to snatch at more money anywhere, anyhow, because we cannot get on from day to day. One thing I feel certain about, and that is that, whatever we do, we should make up our minds that we cannot and must not draw any more from the pockets of the lower grade of Income Tax-payers. By lower grade I mean those below—shall I say?— £1,500 a year. I believe that there is no class of the community which has suffered more in consequence of the war than that to which I refer, especially in the case of people who have small fixed incomes which they may not be able to increase by any means, such as pensioners, widows, and others in that position. There are, I am convinced, innumerable cases of privation and real penury in this class of the
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community. The same is the case with the small earned incomes of the professional and commercial classes, especially in the case of men who have large families to bring up and to educate. These are matters which I assume are receiving the careful attention of the Income Tax Commission, and I think we ought to await the result of their labours before coming to a conclusion upon this point, or indeed upon any of the points to which I have referred.
I have only one more remark to make. In all these questions, whether of the control of expenditure or of new methods of raising revenue, I think that the dominating consideration must always be the effect, upon national trade, national enterprise, and national output. Increase output, alone is going to see us through our difficulties, as it saw our forefathers through theirs. I am sometimes alarmed, in these, days of necessarily severe economy, lest we should be tempted to cut down something which is essential to greater production in the future. I am terrified by suggestions about saving on Education, about saving on Scientific Research, and about saving on the promotion of the National Health.
LORD RUCKMASTER: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT MILNER: I go further and say. in regard to this violent crusade against staffs, that though there have been enormous swollen war establishments which you cannot reduce too drastically, I could point to not a few staffs which could be actually increased to-day, and which ought to be increased in the interests of economy itself. What worries me most is not the thousands of millions which we owe to ourselves but the much smaller number of millions which we owe to other countries. The figures that I always study with the deepest interest are those showing the balance of our trade with other countries. Here let me say that, anxious as the consideration of those figures makes me, I nevertheless, considering all the troubles we have had during the last few months, cannot regard those figures as otherwise than indicating a great and growing activity of our trade and industry which, unless some new catastrophe comes to stop it, is I believe likely to lead to a very great, improvement in our economic position.
What worries me most of all is the spectacle of the waste, not of counters but of real wealth, involved in our per-

37
sistent unscientific use of our raw materials. We bewail the reduction of our output of coal, but we might get double the value out of even the reduced output if we could only learn to make a better use of the coal. In the development of electricity, of wireless, of new forms of transport, of new science of the air, I believe there are many prospects of increased wealth for this country. More than that, there is a mine of wealth very little appreciated at the present moment in some of our Colonies and Protectorates if only we develop them with greater energy than we have done in the past.
I believe that there is great danger in our getting into the frame of mind of regarding ourselves as a poor country. We have some years of greatest difficulty before us. There is all the need in the world for the utmost economy in the sense of the prevention of genuine waste, but we are not yet a poor country, or a poor Empire. Potentially this country, and still more this Empire, is immensely rich. We may fail to make use of the magnificent opportunities of increased production and economic recovery which are undoubtedly under our hand. We may fail through laziness or incompetence, or, worse than either, through domestic discord, or, worst of all, through loss of heart. Why should we lose heart? Do not let us as a House at any rate encourage it. I, for one, refuse to believe that the great, unbreakable spirit of this country which has carried us victoriously through the greatest of all wars will founder in the rough but not unnavigable sea of our economic troubles.
LORD EMMOTT: My Lords, I venture to suggest to your Lordships that this debate may well be continued when we have in our possession the figures promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer therefore move the adjournment of the debate.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Emmott.)
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, like my noble friend who has just spoken, I have been a little disappointed at the small number of speakers who have been willing to address us to-night, all the more so that the noble and learned Lord opposite was so insistent upon the urgency of this question that he declined to delay its submission to us even for a day.
LORD BUCKMASTER: That is really not what occurred.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: It is, at any rate, the impression conveyed to me of what occurred. I think the appeal made by my noble friend below the gangway (Lord Emmott) is a reasonable one, even though it is rather early in the evening. I appreciate the desire of the House to resume this discussion at, the moment when your Lordships have in your possession figures which are not now available. I understand that in another place Papers are to be laid on Monday next, and that it is contemplated that a financial discussion should take place in that House at the earliest on Wednesday of next week. I think it would be desirable, at any rate, that we should not resume this discussion here until we have the papers, or until after the discussion in another place. I do not know whether the noble Lord has any idea of the date to which he would wish to adjourn the debate, or if he wishes to adjourn it without mentioning the date.
LORD EMMOTT: I hope that the adjourned debate will not be taken before next Wednesday. Any date after next. Wednesday would be equally convenient to me. I should like to consult the convenience of the House generally. Could it not be put down for Wednesday and then be postponed if that day should prove inconvenient?
LORD BUCKMASTER: I do not wish to enter into any controversy on a matter about which it is easy to be misunderstood, and it is no use discussing why it was that I desired this Motion to come on to-day. There was to my mind very good reason why it should do so, and there are equally good reasons in my view why this debate ought not to be postponed until after the debate in the Commons. I think we should understand why it is that this House should be regarded as incapable of expressing its own independent views upon this Motion, and why we should always have to wait until after the House of Commons has debated the matter. If there was one thing that I understood noble Lords were more concerned about than another it was that they should not wait to express their own views until after a debate has taken place in the House of Commons. I want to know why we are to do that now.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I should be the last person to suggest to your Lordships that you should take second place to the House of Commons in any matter whatsoever. I was merely thinking of the convenience of your Lordships' House. You have heard a very important statement from my noble friend this afternoon, and it is quite clear that when discussion takes place in the other House you will hear the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other authorities speaking for the Government, and I own that I thought it would be entirely for the convenience of your Lordships that you should resume this debate at that date. If you do not wish that, but desire to pursue the discussion immediately the Papers are available and without waiting for anything else, I am at your Lordships' disposal. I will only suggest to the noble Lord below the gangway that, having himself moved the adjournment of the debate, he should name a day for its resumption.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: My Lords, it is not my desire to take up the time of the House. I came here anxious to support the noble and learned Lord in the Motion that he has brought before your Lordships. I want to address myself to the proposal for the taxation of war fortunes, and I should like another opportunity of continuing the debate, particularly when we have the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer before us. For the present I wish to say that, while I listened to the very optimistic statement of the noble Viscount with interest, I do not agree at all with the conclusions that he has drawn. I feel that the statement of the noble Viscount is entirely inconsistent with the figures of the financial position in which the country finds itself at the present time. In particular, the noble Viscount said that—
Several NOBLE LORDS: Order! Order!
LORD BEAVERBROOK: In particular I want to say, in relation to—
LORD HARRIS: I beg to call the noble Lord's attention to the fact that the Motion before the House is the adjournment of the debate, and not the Motion of the noble and learned Lord who sits in front of him.
LORD EMMOTT: At the invitation of the Leader of the House, I beg to move that the debate be adjourned until Wednesday next.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned until Wednesday next.

TERRITORIAL OFFICERS AND WAR BONUS.
LORD HARRIS LORD HARRIS had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government whether it is the case that Territorial officers in India are being paid for their war bonus and war gratuity 10 rupees to the£ whilst the men for their war bonus are being paid at the rate of 16 rupees to the £; and, if so, what is the justification for this difference.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord below me (Lord Sinha) would prefer that I should not put this Question at present, because it is under discussion with the Government of India, and he may be able to give me an answer later on. I therefore will not put the Question to-night.

TERRITORIAL OFFICERS AND MEN IN INDIA.
LORD HARRIS LORD HARRIS rose to ask His Majesty's Government what arrangements have been made for the relief of the Territorial officers and men serving in India.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these soldiers have been kept in India far too long, and contrary to the promise given them when they were first sent there. I quite recognise that it was inevitable in the circumstances that, existed, but the situation has now altered. I should like to read an extract from a letter that I received as I came into the House. It is from the father of a man who left home for his summer training in July, 1914. His regiment was mobilised in the following month; so that he has been away now for five and a quarter years. He has got as far as France, where he has been detained for nearly three weeks, and in a letter received from him to-day he says he expects it will be three more weeks before he leaves France. If that is true it really is most unfair. We were promised last

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year, when I put this Question before, that all invalid cases should be as far as possible brought home at once, and that the Territorials who were in good health would be relieved this autumn. I will take the opportunity of passing this statement on to ray noble friend below me, and I hope that he may be able to get this man brought home, as he deserves to be, at once. In the meantime I ask the general question as to what has been done and what is being done to carry out the promise that Territorial troops should be relieved from further service in India.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, as to the specific case mentioned by my noble friend, I shall be very glad to look into it and give him an answer. As to what has been done and what is being done with the Territorials in India, I should begin by stating that the number of demobilisable personnel in India on October 1 last was about 2,900 officers and about 48,000 other ranks.
LORD HARRIS: On October 1?
VISCOUNT PEEL: On October 1 last. My noble friend will understand that in these figures are included the Territorials at present in India, because they are all, I think, among the demobilisable personnel, although it has not been possible, and it would not be possible without some considerable research, to extricate from these numbers, precisely those who are Territorials and those who are not. In order to provide release for these troops the following Regular troops of all ranks have embarked for India, or are being despatched in the near future. Those embarked are 24,391; those ready to embark in October are 20,159; those ready to embark in November are 4,182; making up a total of 48,732. So that only a very small balance of 2,168 are left to complete the relief of demobilisation. Therefore, unless some great disturbance occurs, the undertaking given by the Secretary of State for War, I think in August last, will be a good deal more than fulfilled.
I should like to remind my noble friend of these two points, that, of course, a considerable number of the fit Territorials were sent to Mesopotamia, and they are returned as coming home from Mesopotamia; and that special instructions
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were given that priority in their class should be given to Territorials serving in India. But I think my noble friend will probably be satisfied with the figures that have been able to give him.

PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of October 22]
AMMANFORD GAS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
WICK HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Wick Harbour—Was presented by the Lord Stanmore; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, section 7) deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee.

SCOTTISH AMICABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY'S ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to the Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society—Was presented by the Lord Stanmore; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, section 7) deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Wallsall Corporation.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT MILNER: My Lords, I move that the House do now adjourn until Tuesday next.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.