Sitting of 31 March 1920

OFFICIAL REPORT.
The House met at Twelve of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bridlington Corporation Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Dublin Port and Docks Bill,
Farmers Land Purchase Company Bill,
Great Northern Railway Bill,
Lands Improvement Company Bill,
Llantrisant and Llantwit Fardre Rural District Council Bill,
Penllwyn Railway Abandonment Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Metropolitan Police Provisional Order Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Land Drainage (Ouse) Provisional Order Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tuesday, 13th April.
Hertfordshire County Council Bill,
"To enable the County Council of Hertfordshire to provide and run omnibuses; to authorise the grant of powers to joint committees for similar objects; and for other purposes,"
Presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
Bristol Corporation Bill,
Seaham Harbour Dock Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Message from the Lords.—That they have agreed to Amendment to Henry Bath and Son's (Delivery Warrants) Act, 1890 (Amendment) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

ROYAL ASSENT.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went, and, having returned,
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—
Coinage Act, 1920.
Coal Mines (Emergency) Act, 1920.
War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Act, 1920.
City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's Act, 1920.
Colonial and Foreign Banks Guarantee Corporation (Transfer to Alliance Assurance) Act, 1920.
Henry Bath and Son's (Delivery Warrants) Act, 1890, Amendment Act, 1920.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    DISTURBANCES, JAMSHEDPUR.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any information with regard to the recent disturbances at Jamalpur, in the North-West Provinces; what was the cause of the disturbance; whether strikers were fired on by the troops; if so, whether there were any casualties among the troops or among the strikers; and whether any form of inquiry will be held into the occurrence?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher, for the Secretary of State for India): The hon. and gallant Member no doubt refers to the recent disturbances at the Tata ironworks at Jamshedpur, in the Province of Bihar and Orissa, erroneously reported in the newspapers as having taken place at Jamalpur. The strike, which was declared towards the end of February, involved some 30,000 workers. Disturbances began on the 13th March, when determined and well-organised attempts were made by armed bodies of strikers to prevent those who wished to attend work. The factory was besieged and troops escorting a motor lorry bringing food to workers were attacked. The Deputy-Commissioner of the district was able to avert a collision, but picketing continued and no workmen were allowed to enter the works. On the morning of the 15th it was discovered that the railway lines had been tampered with, and the Deputy-Inspector-General of Police ordered two

    1225
    parties of mounted police to arrest the offenders, with instructions not to fire unless in self-defence. About forty arrests were made, but the prisoners were rescued and a large mob of strikers' then attacked the police, who were compelled to fire in self-defence. Mr. Ashby and several police were seriously injured, five of the crowd being killed and 21 wounded, The police fell back on the works and fired only when closely pressed. The injured were taken to hospital for treatment The situation then improved rapidly, and on the 17th 2,000 men had resumed work. An announcement by the directors seems to have had a favourable effect, and my latest information is that on the 18th 15,000 men had returned to work, the rest being expected to return on the 20th.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will there be any form of inquiry held into the occurrence as asked for in the last part of my question?
    Mr. FISHER: The facts will certainly be investigated.

    GERMANS (INTERNMENT).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether two of four Germans interned from Bangalore have been exempted from repatriation; if so, whether any other Germans have been exempted in like manner; and whether, in view of the mischief done by German missionaries and others in India, the policy of exclusion will be strictly enforced?
    Mr. FISHER: An official communique appears in the Indian papers regarding the two Germans referred to. It is stated that one of them had resided in India for 34 years and the other for 27 years, that both, had severed all connection with their native country, were married to British-born wives and had daughters married to British officers. Other Germans have been exempted from repatriation for very special reasons. Inquiries have already been made as to the number. The Government of India have every intention of enforcing the policy of exclusion strictly.

    MOHAMMED ALI (SPEECH AT WOKING).
    Sir CHARLES OMANasked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to a speech delivered at Woking on 21st March, by
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    Mr. Mohammed Ali, leader of the Indian Khalifat delegation, in which the speaker declared that if England fought the Turks on the question of the temporal powers of the Khalif then the Indian Moslems must fight on the side of the Turks, and that they did not want it, but they must fight for their religion; and whether he intends to take any action with regard to such speeches?
    Mr. FISHER: I do not propose to take any action.

    TRAWLING, GALLOPER SANDS.
    Major ENTWISTLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that his action in closing the fishing grounds in the vicinity of Galloper Sands to British trawlers is causing much concern in fishing circles, seeing that the French vessels are not so restricted; and if the closure is intended to be permanent?
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir R. SANDERS (Lord of the Treasury): With the hon. Member's permission, the reply to his question will be published in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The following is the answer referred to:
    Trawling has been prohibited to British fishing vessels in an area known as the Northern Approaches to the Straits of Dover (Area No. 10), because of the danger to vessels trawling from the presence of sunken mines on the bottom and the difficulty of determining how long such mines remain dangerous. The Admiralty have, however, already had under consideration the reduction of Area No. 10, and instructions are being issued to amend Notices to Mariners No. 5 of 1920 and Notices to Fishermen No. 10 of the 9th March, 1920, whereby Area No. 10, "Northern Approaches to Dover Straits," will be reduced by about 80 per cent.
    Two smaller areas, one in the vicinity of the Kentish Knock Light Vessel, and one between Deal and Dunkerque, will still remain prohibited to trawling by British fishing vessels. It need not be stated that the Admiralty are very reluctant to retain restrictions on trawling, but they feel bound to do so except where reasonable safety from sunken mines can be assumed. Certain apparatus has been devised and brought to the notice of the fishing community for preventing the entry of sunken mines into the trawl—

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    but it has not so far been adopted by fishermen to an extent sufficient to affect the problem before the Admiralty.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    PETTY OFFICERS (VOLUNTARY DISCHARGE).
    Sir T. BRAMSDONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many chief petty officers and petty officers, respectively, have applied for voluntary discharge; and how many have been granted this discharge?
    Sir R. SANDERS: It has not been possible to grant free discharge to chief petty officers or petty officers of the seaman branch except in special cases where great hardship would have been caused by refusing discharge. The numbers who have been granted free discharge on compassionate grounds since 1st October, 1919, are:

    Chief Petty Officers

    Nil

    Petty Officers

    …

    …

    24

    The number of applications from such ratings is not known, and could not readily be ascertained.

    COAL AND OIL FUEL.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state the proportions between the coal and oil fuel, respectively, which it is intended or expected will be expended by His Majesty's Navy during the current financial year, and the coal and oil fuel expended during the year 1913?
    Sir R. SANDERS: It is not considered desirable to furnish the information asked for.

    ROYAL NAVAL RESERVES.
    Major HENDERSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is now in a position to make any further statement as to the future of the Royal Naval Reserves?
    Sir R. SANDERS: My right hon. Friend regrets that he has nothing to add to the statement already made by him on this subject.

  INVESTMENTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
  Mr. W. R. SMITHasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware
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  that the National Health Insurance Commissioners have refused sanction to the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives' approved section to invest moneys in the Co-operative Wholesale Society development bonds on the ground that investments can only be made in trustee or corporation stock; and whether, in view of the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Section 56 of the Act, which empowers the investment of moneys in any securities for the time being approved by the Commissioners, he will have the decision re-considered?
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr. Addison): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The general decision of the Insurance Commissioners referred to by the hon. Member, followed the recommendations of the Investments Advisory Committee contained in their report of May, 1914 (Cd. paper 7,498 of 1914). In view of the present range of trustee securities I see no reason for reconsidering that decision.

  EX-SERVICE MEN.

    TRAINING (TRADE UNION RESTRICTIONS).
    Mr. G. W. H. JONESasked the Minister of Labour whether, according to the Regulations of the Local Technical Advisory Committee for the London area of the printing and allied trades, only 50 disabled sailors and soldiers can be absorbed per annum; whether such Regulations only allow disabled men with previous knowledge of the trade to be put into training; and whether this last restriction is in direct contradiction to Regulation L.A.C. 92–2?
    Sir R. SANDERS: It is correct that only about 50 ex-Service men per annum are being accepted for training in the London area for the printing and allied trades, but the present facilities for training in these trades would not admit of a much larger influx. Until recently, the Local Technical Advisory Committee in question required candidates to have had some previous connection, although perhaps only of a remote character, with the trade. This requirement has, however, now been waived, and the last part of the hon. Member's question does not therefore arise.
    Mr. JONES: May I ask if it is a fact that 40,000 men were employed in these

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    trades in pre-war days, and whether he thinks it satisfactory that only 50 disabled soldiers and sailors can be absorbed per annum?
    Sir R. SANDERS: I cannot give an opinion on that point.
    Mr. JONESfurther asked the Minister of Labour whether, according to the regulations of the Local Technical Advisory Committee of the London area for the brush-making trade, no disabled sailor or soldier can be trained for such trade by any firm unless all present employees of the firm are working full time; that the trainee is to take the place of an employee lost by the firm through the War owing to death or disablement; and that such firm is to guarantee the trainee employment on the completion of his training?
    Sir R. SANDERS: The Local Technical Advisory Committee in the brush-making trade for the London area have not laid down any general regulations to the effect that no ex-Service men can be trained for the trade by any firm where full time is not being worked. The special report governing training in this trade lays down that, as a general rule, men should not be sent for training to firms who have not lost men by death or disablement during the War, but allows for this rule being relaxed. So far as the London area is concerned, the question of restriction on this ground has only arisen as regards one particular branch of the industry when the restrictive clause was waived by the Committee and 24 men sent for training to the firm concerned. I am not aware that the Committee require a guarantee from the firm giving the training that they will employ the man at the end of his training, but the hon. Member will appreciate that the question of the after-employment of the men trained should rightly be borne in mind by the Committee.
    Sir CYRIL COBBasked the Minister of Labour whether the Local Technical Advisory Committee of the electric light and power industry has limited the number of disabled sailors and soldiers allowed to be trained per annum for that industry to 113 in the London area; whether the existing training facilities in the London polytechnics
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    have been declared insufficient for 73 men who have been in training for nearly a year; whether it has been laid down that under no conditions may men be trained by a private firm and that no man over 27 years of age is eligible; whether 17,000 men were employed in this industry before the War in London alone; and whether there is any justification for the restrictions imposed, in view of the great demand for skilled labour in electrical industries?
    Sir R. SANDERS: The facts are substantially as stated by the hon. Member. I do not consider the restrictions imposed are justifiable and consequent upon the amalgamation of the National Committees in Engineering and Electricity respectively. I propose to ask the new Joint Local Committee for London to enquire into the whole matter with a view to the removal of unreasonable restrictions.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Will my hon. and gallant Friend draw the attention of the Minister of Labour to the fact that naval electricians are being prevented from joining the trade unions, although they are better qualified in every way than many of the trade unionists?
    Sir R. SANDERS: I will see that that is brought to my right hon. Friend's notice.
    Sir C. COBBasked the Minister of Labour whether the Local Technical Advisory Committee of the boot and shoe industry has limited the number of disabled sailors and soldiers allowed to be trained for that industry to 100 per annum in the London area; whether only men with one leg amputated are eligible; whether such men may only be trained in the highest class of West End boot-making; whether the age limit has been fixed at 35; and whether, in view of the fact that 20,000 men were employed in this industry before the war in London alone, these restrictions can be removed or at least modified?
    Sir R. SANDERS: No hard and fast limit to the number of ex-service men to be trained in the boot and shoe industry in the London Area has been fixed by the Local Technical Advisory Committee concerned. In order to avoid overcrowding the trade and in view of its particular suitability for men only capable of sedentary work, the Committee have,

    1231
    however, thought it advisable to restrict acceptance to men with severer disabilities, generally reserving vacancies for men with leg amputations, but considering other serious disabilities on their merits. The training given is designed to fit the men to earn the highest wages current in the trade, but the employment is not restricted to the West End. While the Committee are generally reluctant to accept men over the age of 35, since they consider that men over this age are not usually likely to become efficient at the work, exceptions are made in suitable cases.
    According to the 1911 census, some 19,000 men were employed in London in the whole of the boot, shoe, slipper, patten and clog making trades, but the Local Technical Advisory Committee in question are concerned only with hand-sewn work, which is, comparatively speaking, a small proportion of the total. In view of the large number of disabled men which has already been trained for the boot and shoe trade, I do not regard the attitude of the Committee as unreasonably restrictive. Indeed, the Committee, like most other similar Committees in London, have worked in a most helpful spirit with my Department.
    Mr. JONES: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell me how many disabled men have been trained for these trades?
    Sir R. SANDERS: No, I cannot.
    Mr. J. DAVISON: Can he say why the Government do not employ these men direct in the manufacture of boots and shoes for the Army and Navy?
    Sir R. SANDERS: No, I cannot.
    Mr. JONES: The trade unions would not let them.

    PATIENTS IN PUBLIC ASYLUMS.
    Major ENTWISTLEasked the Minister of Health if he will state how many discharged soldiers and sailors are at present in public asylums; and if it is intended to provide any other accommodation for these men?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Major Baird): My right hon. Friend has asked
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    me to reply to this question. The number is about 4,000. As regards the second part of the question, so far as I am aware, there is no intention to provide other accommodation for these men, and I am advised that there would be serious objections to treating these cases in special establishments. The hon. Member will find the matter discussed in the Report of the Board of Control for 1917. There is also the important point that under the present arrangements it is possible in many cases to transfer the patient to an asylum closer to his relatives, and a large number of applications for such transfers have been received.
    Lieut.-Colonel MALONE: Are not many of these cases not really very serious, and likely to return to complete sanity if they were put into more suitable accommodation?
    Major BAIRD: I do not think that follows. I think they are receiving the best possible treatment likely to lead to their recovery.

    INGHAM HORTICULTURAL INSTITUTE.
    Mr. HAYDAYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture whether instructions have been issued that ex-Service men training at Ingham Horticultural Institute, near Statham, Norwich, to the effect that all trainees drawing £2 or over must sign a stamped receipt, the trainee finding the stamp for this purpose; and, if so, will he state the reason for this action?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Sir A. Boscawen): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The hon. Member is, no doubt, aware that stamped receipts are required on all transactions of £2 or over, under the Stamp Act of 1891.

    LAND SETTLEMENT.
    Mr. GRUNDYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture whether he can supply any literature or memoranda showing the progress made in the settlement of ex-service men on the land, the general conditions of the scheme, the amount of land taken over, and the average rent charged?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I am sending the hon. Member a Memorandum recently

    1233
    issued to the Press, which shows the progress made in regard to the settlement of ex-service men on the land, together with copies of two booklets entitled "Land Settlement in the Mother Country," which contain information as to the general conditions of the scheme. The rents charged for holdings provided under the scheme are fair rents based on the present value of the land. The rent is approved by the Ministry in each case, but, as the value of land varies considerably in England and Wales, any figure as to the average rent charged would be misleading.
    Mr. RAFFAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any applications for settlement in farm colonies can now be received, or whether all ex-soldiers are referred to the County Council?
    Mr. WATERSON: Will it be made possible for every Member of the House to be acquainted with that pamphlet?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Certainly I do not propose to send it round to every hon. Member, but if any hon. Member likes to apply for it, I will gladly send it to him. With reference to the question of my hon. Friend (Mr. Raffan), the applications for farm colonies are not closed. We have lately bought a considerable amount of additional land for the purpose, and men are now being settled on it.

  HOUSING.

    SMALL DWELLINGS ACQUISITION ACT.
    Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEYasked the Minister of Health if he can state the number of houses purchased under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act for the years 1913 and 1919?
    Dr. ADDISON: Information as to the number of houses purchased under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act in 1913 arid 1919 is not available, but loans amounting to £76,745 in 1913 and £5,598 in 1919 were sanctioned to local authorities for the purpose of enabling them to make advances under the Act.

    BUSINESS PREMISES (RENTS).
    Mr. LESLIE SCOTTasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the case of Messrs. W. S. Taylor and Company, sack mer- 1234
    chants and hydraulic packers, who have been tenants of premises in Liverpool for over 20 years; is he aware that they have fitted up several heavy hydraulic packing cases, together with other plant and machinery requiring expensive concrete foundations; that the rent payable by them up to May, 1916, was £315, which was then increased to £450 for three years; that on the 1st June, 1919, it was raised to £600, and on the 1st October, 1919, to £900 for one year to 30th September, 1920; that notice terminating the tenancy on 30th September next has now been received, with a notification that a rent of at least £1,600 will be required for another year, which may on expiry be further increased; and that it is impossible for the firm to find other premises suitable for their trade or to bear such an increase to standing charges; and whether, in view of the large staff employed by the firm, he will draw the special attention of the committee now considering the rent restrictions to this particular case?
    Dr. ADDISON: I am informed that the firm in question have communicated directly with the Committee.
    Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of introducing a Clause into the new Bill which would give the tenants, without limitation of small rents, the right of appeal, say, to a Judge of the High Court?
    Dr. ADDISON: That suggestion, along with many others, is being considered by the Committee which is now sitting.
    Mr. G. W. H. JONESasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that tradesmen are being compelled to pay extortionate rents in order to retain their shops, and whether he will bring in a measure which will give them the benefit of the Rent Restriction Acts?
    Dr. ADDISON: I can only refer to the answer which I gave the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Briggs) on Thursday last, of which I will send him a copy
    Mr. RAFFAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication as to when the Committee is likely to report?
    Dr. ADDISON: I know the Report is in draft, and I hope it will be available very shortly.
    Mr. FRANCE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is the greatest hardship on small shopkeepers in all parts of the country, who are being practically held up to ransom and having increased rents placed upon them; that after they have built up a business in certain premises the landlord is taking advantage of that to raise the rent of this type of property?
    Dr. ADDISON: It is for the consideration of those hardships that the Committee was appointed.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these hardships are not confined to small shopkeepers, but that large manufacturers are being victimised in the same way, and will he bring specially before this Committee the question of removing restrictions on rents?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that question.

    SCOTTISH SLAG CEMENT.
    Mr. GIDEON MURRAYasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that Scottish slag cement is procurable at a price of about £2 per ton less than English cement; whether he is aware that this Scottish slag cement is quite suitable for use in the construction of the foundations of houses being built in Scotland; and whether he will arrange with the Director of Supplies that this cement be placed at the disposal of Scottish local authorities, some of which have based their estimates upon the lower cost of the Scottish cement?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. J. Hope): I have been asked to reply. The reply to the first two parts of the question is yes, Sir. With regard to the third part of the question, the only two slag cement firms in Scotland were both approached without result in October last for the supply of materials for the Government Housing Schemes. One of the firms were unable to accept orders, owing to their entire output being booked for months ahead, and the other firm were suffering from the effects of a collapse of their kilns. Negotiations have now been resumed with these firms and it is hoped that a definite proportion of the output of slag cement will be secured for housing in Scotland.

  IRELAND.

    HOUSING, BELFAST.
    Mr. DEVLINasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the great delay in the erection of houses for the workers in the city of Belfast; whether he will take immediate action to expedite this work; and whether he will see that the houses erected will be up to the standard of the Local Government Board requirements as laid down by the Housing Act of last year?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Macpherson): My hon. Friend may rest assured that the erection of houses for workmen in the city of Belfast will be pushed forward with as much expedition as possible, and that suitable houses will be erected up to a suitable standard.
    Sir E. CARSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether a single house has been erected?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I think a great number would have been erected, but a great deal of time has been occupied by discussion as to the standard of house, and I have now sanctioned a grant to the Corporation.
    Mr. DEVLIN: When will the period of discussion end, and the period of action commence?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The period of discussion is now ended.

    LATE LORD MAYOR, CORK (ARREST ORDER).
    Mr. MacVEAGHasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that at the inquest on the murder of the late Lord Mayor of Cork, Alderman MacCurtain, the Crown Counsel, Mr. Wylie, stated that the late Lord Mayor was universally respected and had continuously, both in public and in private, denounced crime; whether the first witness called on behalf of the police was a district inspector, who testified that the competent military authority had ordered the arrest of this gentleman, and that the arrest was to have taken place on the night of his murder; whether he can state what charge was to have been preferred against him; and whether he was to have been deported and imprisoned without trial?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major Tryon): I am afraid I can add nothing to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave on Monday last to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull, except that I am informed that it was proposed to arrest him under the Defence of the Realm Regulations. I have, however, called for a further report from Ireland.
    Mr. E. KELLY: Was it intended to deport him also?
    Major TRYON: I think it is better to await the report before dealing with that.

    DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT (INTERNED PRISONERS).
    Mr. MacVEAGHasked the Secretary of State for War whether he can state the total number of prisoners now interned in British prisons under the Defence of the Realm Act?
    Major BAIRD: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The number is 102.
    Mr. E. KELLY: Does that include the number who are imprisoned in Ireland? If not, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman give us the number for Ireland?
    Major BAIRD: The question on the Paper refers to this country.

    ALLOTMENT HOLDERS (TENURE).
    Captain REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland when he intends to introduce the promised measure to give Irish plotholders security of tenure and grants similar to those enjoined under the English and Scotch Allotments Acts?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave to his question on this subject on the 18th instant, and to which I have nothing to add.
    Captain REDMOND: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is the intention to place the tenants of these plots on the same footing of tenants in England?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The War Emergency Act has placed them on the same footing for this year.

    BLIND PERSONS (CRANTS-IN-AID).
    Captain REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that the Ministry of Health is now making grants-in-aid of services for the blind in Great Britain, and that their Lordships of the Treasury have promised to ask Parliament to vote an interim grant of £12,000 for services carried on for the benefit of the blind in Ireland; and if he will state when the House will be asked to sanction this amount?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the latter part, a Supplementary Estimate for the current financial year makes provision, amounting to £7,000, for the payment of instalments of grants at a rate not exceeding 50 per cent of the estimated grants for the year.

    LAND SALES.
    Mr. COOTEasked when the moneys derivable from sales of estates under the Wyndham Act, dating as far back as 1906, will be paid?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Sales under the Wyndham Act in respect of which advances have not yet been made amount to about £11,500,000, of which £11,250,000 will be payable in cash, and the balance in guaranteed 2¾ per cent. stock. Advances in those cases are being made continuously in accordance with the priority regulations, and assuming that cash is placed at the disposal of the Estates Commissioners by the Government as required, and provided that vendors comply with the requirements of the Commissioners as to title and other matters, without unnecessary delay, the Commissioners anticipate that the advances in these pending sales will be completed within three years.

    GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL (EMIGRATION).
    Mr. JELLETTasked whether the Government are prepared to facilitate and finance a scheme of emigration by Colonies for such loyalists of the South and West of Ireland as may desire to leave that part of the country through apprehension of the results to themselves in the event of the Irish proposals of the Government becoming operative, and to compensate them for their losses?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I hope that this contingency may not arise, but if it does, it is obviously a proposal that would require grave and serious consideration
    Captain REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to suggest to the hon. Member who put this question that, owing to the fearful intolerance with which he has been treated in Dublin ail his life, he should emigrate?

    MURDER OF BRYAN MOLLOY, DUBLIN.
    Mr. IRVINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the man who was shot in Exchequer Street, Dublin, on the 24th instant, was identified by the police as bearing the name of Molloy; whether, in fact, this name was correct; whether there was any deliberate concealment of the real name; if so, can he state the reason; and whether the man had at one time been in the Dublin Metropolitan Police?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: This man was identified by the military authorities as Bryan Fergus Molloy, under which name he enlisted, and, as far as is known, this was his correct name. He was at no time a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

  PRISONERS (TREATMENT).
  Mr. E. KELLYasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the dicta of the late Lord Chief Justice in the case of Leigh v. Gladstone, to the effect that it is the duty of prison officials to preserve the health of prisoners in their custody, and, a fortiori, to preserve their lives; and whether the attention of prison governors will now be called to that decision?
  Major BAIRD: There is not the smallest reason for doubting the prison officials' recognition of the duty incumbent on them to do all they can to preserve the life and health of prisoners committed to their custody—no circular on the subject is needed.
  Mr. KELLY: Is it not infraction of the principles laid down in that case when the Government proclaim that they are going to allow hunger-striking prisoners to starve themselves to death?
  Major BAIRD: I do not think that the point arises. The gentleman in question is now in a home and is taking his food.

  INTERPRETERS, DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any list is maintained at the Foreign Office of public servants, on the active or retired lists, who have qualified as interpreters in various languages by the official tests; and, if not, in what manner the money spent in rewards is recouped or made of advantage to the taxpayer by the use made of such qualified interpreters?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Harms-worth): I understand the hon. Member's question to refer to the system of qualification as interpreters, which is, I believe, in force in the Army, Navy and Indian Civil Service. The same system is not followed as regards the services under the Foreign Office, but certain allowances are granted to members of the Diplomatic Service who have passed an examination showing that they possess a competent knowledge of Russian, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese or Amharic language, while serving where such language is vernacular.

  NYASALAND TOBACCO (EXPORT TAX).
  Sir RICHARD COOPERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he was consulted by the Government of Nyasaland before the export tax on tobacco from that country was raised from 1s. per cwt. to 2d. per lb.; if he has approved of this burden on the development of a young industry; and if he can say on what grounds foreign countries are accorded this advantage over a struggling British possession?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel Amery): The duty on tobacco forms one of a number of proposals for increasing the revenue of the Protectorate to meet the extra cost of necessary services. Native taxation is being increased, and it is essential that European planters, who have recently been very successful, should bear their share. The duty has been approved, and I see no reason why it should unduly affect the position of planters, who have the advantage of the Imperial preference on Empire grown tobacco.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    ARTILLERY RECORDS, WOOLWICH (CIVILIAN DISMISSALS).
    Mr. ALFRED DAVIES (Clitheroe)asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the number of dismissals of civilian clerks employed at the Royal Artillery and Royal Field Artillery Records, Woolwich; whether he is aware that these men volunteered their services when the country was in need, being unfit for military service, and that these positions are now being filled up by Regular soldiers; whether he can state if it is the policy of the Army Council to staff these offices with Regular soldiers; and whether he will give this matter his consideration in view of the amount of distress which will be caused by these dismissals?
    Major TRYON: The policy of the Department is to employ disabled and demobilised soldiers wherever possible. The number of civilian clerks employed in military record offices is reduced from time to time by substitution or in proportion to the decrease of work in the offices. All Regular soldiers employed in the office mentioned have left or will have been demobilised or discharged by the end of April. There are, however, seven surplus Battery Sergeant-Majors at present temporarily employed.

  MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE (PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT).
  Sir ALFREDYEOasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture if he is aware that Press representatives complain of the small amount of information which they are now able to obtain from the publicity department of the Ministry; and will he give instructions to have the matter remedied?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: No complaints of the kind suggested have reached the Ministry, and I shall be glad, therefore, if my hon. Friend will send me particulars of any instances in which Press representatives have failed to obtain information from the Publicity Department of the Ministry.
  Sir H. BRITTAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House who is in charge of this Department of the Ministry?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Chief Publicity Officer, Mr. Bensusan.
  Sir ALFRED YEOasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture how many persons are employed in the Publicity Department of the Ministry; what are the salaries and the total annual cost of the Department to the State; and what are the terms of employment?
  Sir A. BOCAWEN: The staff of the Publicity Department consists of a Publicity Officer, who is paid at the rate of £750 a year, and an Assistant Publicity Officer paid at the rate of £350 a year. Certain typing and clerical assistance is also given from the general staff of the Ministry. The appointments of the two Publicity Officers have been made for the period ending 31st March, 1921, and are of a temporary character.
  Sir A. YEO: Is there any difference between the staff to-day, owing to economy, and what it was prior to the War?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I should like to have notice of that question.

  RABIES, NORTH-EAST ESSEX.
  Sir F. FLANNERYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture on what date the last case of rabies was reported and confirmed in the North-east Essex area; and if ho can now state at what date the restrictions upon dogs will be removed in that area?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The last case of rabies in the North Essex Area occurred on 24th October last. The question of contracting the present Scheduled Area is under consideration, and, if no further case of rabies occurs in this area, all restrictions now in force will be removed by the end of June at latest.
  Mr. MACMASTER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take the same course as regards Surrey?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: There has been a very much later outbreak in Surrey than in Essex.

  FAKM DISPOSSESSION, SUTTON BRIDGE, LINCOLNSHIRE.
  Captain TERRELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the circumstances in which Mr. T. R. Burges, who has been farming 330 acres at Sutton Bridge, in Lincolnshire, for the past 23 years, has been dispossessed of his tenancy; is he aware that the farm occupied by Mr. Burges was recently sold to the Ministry of Agriculture by the Governors of Guy's Hospital without opportunity being given to the tenant of purchasing his holding or offering an increased rental; that a new lease for 10 years was signed and sealed on 10th January, 1919, and assurance was given recently by the Governors of Guy's Hospital that, when the Ministry took over the land, the conditions attaching to the tenancy would be observed; that in January of this year an official of the Ministry saw Mr. Burges and told him that, unless he agreed to quit the farm on 25th March, a period subsequently extended to Michaelmas, he would be given 14 days' notice to quit; and whether, seeing that Mr. Burges had provided land for two ex-soldiers, the Ministry of Agriculture will reconsider the whole matter?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Ministry have acquired, for the purposes of a farm settlement, the whole of the Guy's Hospital Estate consisting of 6,542 acres, and including the farm referred to by my hon. Friend. A large number of approved ex-service applicants are waiting to be settled on the land, and the Ministry have accordingly come to voluntary arrangements with certain of the sitting tenants with a view to obtaining vacant possession of parts of the estate at an early date. In the case of Mr. Burges, who, I am informed, holds land elsewhere and does not live on this farm, the Ministry have asked him whether he is prepared to negotiate voluntarily for the surrender of his lease at Michaelmas, 1920, as otherwise they will be obliged to exercise their compulsory powers in order to obtain possession of his farm.
  Mr. ROYCE: Has not Mr. Burges, assuming he is displaced, a right to make an appeal for compensation?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: He will get full compensation, under Section 2 of the Act,
  1244
  if possession is entered upon in the summary manner contemplated. That is already provided for.

  REGENT'S PARK (SWIMMING).
  Mr. GILBERTasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he can make arrangements to allow swimming during the ensuing summer months in Regent's Park?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): I regret that the answer must be in the negative. To render the lake in Regent's Park suitable for bathing would involve a heavy expenditure, as it is very shallow and there are no adequate facilities for introducing fresh supplies of water.

  CATTLE TESTING, SCOTLAND.
  Major MACKENZIE WOODasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture whether he is aware that Scottish farmers strongly object to the proposed establishment of a cattle testing station, on the ground that such a station is unnecessary and would involve a waste of public money; and whether he can hold out any hope that the present system of testing cattle on the owner's premises will be continued?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Ministry understand that there is opposition in some quarters in Scotland to the proposal to establish a testing station for the convenience of Scottish breeders. The Ministry were informed on the 10th inst. that the Minister of Agriculture for the Union of South Africa had decided that no change in the existing regulations prescribing the testing at a Government testing station of cattle destined for South Africa could be allowed. So far as export to South Africa is concerned, the testing of cattle on owner's premises has not been permissible since October, 1919.

  POSTAL FACILITIES, SELKIRK.
  Major STEELasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the great dissatisfaction among the residents in the valleys of the Ettrick and Yarrow, in the county of Selkirk, over the present

  1245
  postal service; whether he is aware that the people who live in this district had a daily postal service for over 50 years prior to the War and have only now a house-to-house delivery on three days a week; and will he consider the restoration of a daily postal service?
  The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): The amount of correspondence in these valleys is extremely small and the cost of the postal services is already abnormally high. My right hon. Friend does not feel justified therefore in establishing a daily house-to-house delivery, but I will arrange during the summer months for some additional deliveries to these houses, which are situated on the main route or to any roadside boxes which other residents may put up for the reception of their correspondence.
  Major STEEL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that most of the people who live in this neighbourhood are farmers or shepherds or other agriculturists and the great majority of them cannot get an answer to a letter for two days, and they find that a great hardship?
  Mr. PEASE: I agree that there is a hardship in the matter and the whole question is being well considered, but the question of expense has to be taken into account. If it is possible to provide any further facilities I shall be only too glad.

  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAYasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the advisability of introducing a Bill to establish the system of proportional representation or alternative votes at Parliamentary elections?
  Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I am not prepared to adopt my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Why does the Government consider proportional representation a good thing for Ireland and not for this country?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hardly like to argue this question by way of question and answer.
  Mr. RAFFAN: Has the Government decided not to adopt any of these principles at any time or during the present Session of Parliament?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: "Any time" is very distant.
  Sir E. CARSON: Will my right hon. Friend consider the expediency of repealing the Act applying proportional representation to Ireland?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not prepared to consider that suggestion either.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman support a Bill for England and Wales, on the lines of the Act for Ireland, if I introduce it?

  RUSSIA.

    SOVIET PROPAGANDA.
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that M. Lenin, of Russia, and a train consisting of 15 cars, called Lenin's car, recently returned to Moscow after a tour on the western part of the Soviet Republic; that during this tour there were circulated more than half a million roubles' worth of books, papers, and pamphlets; that 150,000 proclamations and reports were delivered free; that 1,500 posters were displayed; that 556 organisations were supplied with various publications; that about 60 lectures were organised on various topical questions at which about 100,000 workers, peasants, and soldiers of the Red Army attended; and that similar trains are being prepared for all parts of Russia; and whether the Government have considered the advisability of adopting a similar policy with a view to circulating books, pamphlets, and reports giving the true position and explaining to the people what Socialism means, so that they will be able to distinguish the difference between Bolshevism, Communism, and Syndicalism?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: His Majesty's Government have no authentic information about the propaganda being carried on by the Bolsheviks in Russia. With regard to the last part of the question the Government are not prepared to adopt a policy of the kind indicated.
    Mr. FRANCE: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to carry out quieter educational methods without adopting the methods of Lord George Sanger?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: We are carrying out quieter methods.

  HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM.
  Colonel BURNasked the Prime Minister what steps have been taken to give effect to the recommendation of the Bryce Report for the reform of the Second Chamber?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The matter is under consideration, and, as indicated in the Gracious Speech from the Throne, the Government intend to deal with this question as soon as possible.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Will you introduce a Bill to reform the Lower Chamber as well as the higher?

  CLOTHING (COST).
  Lieut.-Colonel WILLEYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that unrest is developing as a result of the high cost of clothing; that this is only in part due to the high cost of cloth, but that prices of cloth could most effectually be reduced by increased imports; and if, to facilitate this by putting idle machinery on the Continent of Europe to work, he will recommend Governmental assistance to the credits necessary to effect this?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridge-man): I am aware of the facts stated in the first part of the question. With regard to the employment of idle machinery in the woollen industry on the Continent of Europe, I understand that business on these lines is already being done, or is in contemplation, without recourse to Government assistance. As at present advised, I am not prepared to recommend any extension of State Credit for this purpose.
  Lieut.-Colonel WILLEY: Is it not the fact that there is no difficulty in banks providing credit for the export of Empire-produced raw material?
  Sir H. BRITTAIN: Has the cost of clothing been in any way reduced by the recent efforts of the hon. Member (Mr. Mallaby-Deeley)?

  RUBBER TRADE (PROFITS).
  Mr. A. SHORTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the exceptional profits being made in the rubber trade, he will recommend inquiry under the Profiteering Act?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Central Committee have in hand at present a large number of investigations, but I will bring the hon. Member's suggestion to their notice. I would, however, remind him that, in so far as rubber is sold by auction, it is outside the scope of the Profiteering Act.
  Mr. SHORT: Will the hon. Gentleman consider bringing in rubber within the scope of the Act?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: We are contemplating amending the Profiteering Act.

  IMPORTS (CONTROL).
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade whether imports are in any way licensed, restricted, or controlled by that Department?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No, Sir.

  COAL PRODUCTION.

    SUPPLIES (MIDLANDS).
    Sir R. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade if the Midland division coal supplies were 8,000 tons short the first 11 weeks of this year compared with a similar period last year; whether the London area has received more than 100,000 tons for the same period in excess of that supplied in 1919; and if he can announce what steps he is taking to relieve the position of householders?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am aware that the Midland Division coal supplies were smaller and that the supplies to the London area were greater during the first 11 weeks of this year as compared with a

    1249
    similar period of last year, but the reserve stocks held in the Midland division at the beginning of this year were very much greater and in the London area considerably smaller than at the beginning of last year. The question of supplies to the Midland division is receiving attention.
    Sir R. COOPER: Is it not a fact that the real difficulty in the Midlands as regards coal supplies is that the steps taken by the Coal Controller have resulted in too much coal being sent to London and not sufficient kept in the Midlands?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No.

    DOMESTIC SUPPLIES, IRELAND.
    Mr. DEVLINasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a very serious shortage of coal for domestic purposes in Belfast in consequence of which the working classes are suffering great hardships and there has been a considerable increase in the number of deaths of children, due mainly to the want of coal for heating purposes in the homes of the people; and whether he will take steps to have the supply of coal for domestic purposes in Belfast increased?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on the 25th March to a question on this subject asked by the hon. Member for the Ormeau Division of Belfast. The claims of Belfast and the North of Ireland have not been overlooked, and a substantial proportion of the additional supplies sent to Ireland has been allocated to Belfast. I am advised that some of the Welsh coal being sent is not unsuitable for household purposes, but in any case local arrangements are in operation to substitute Welsh coal unsuitable for household purposes for bituminous coal at present used for other than household purposes, setting free the latter for domestic consumption.
    Mr. DONALD: Has the hon. Gentleman received a communication from the Co-operative Society of Belfast, and will he give the matter favourable consideration?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have not received the communication.

    DOMESTIC COAL (10S. REDUCTION).
    Mr. MacVEAGHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the 10s. per ton reduction in domestic coal made by the Board of Trade on 28th November, 1919, applies to coal mined in Ireland?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The answer is in the negative.

    EXPORTS, ICELAND.
    Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the quantity of coal exported from the United Kingdom to Iceland in the period from 1st January to 15th March, 1920; whether during this period there were exported to Sweden 396,309 tons, to Norway 308,607 tons, to the Netherlands 119,891 tons, and to Austria and Hungary 49,768 tons; whether he has received information that Iceland is now so short of coal that not only are the fisheries, which is the main industry of the island, in serious jeopardy, but also the bakers of Reykjavik have insufficient stocks to ensure the bread supplies; and, if so, whether he can undertake to release 2,000 tons of coal for immediate export to Iceland?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The quantity of coal exported from the United Kingdom to Iceland in the period from 1st January to 15th March, 1920, was 215 tons; the figures for the other countries mentioned were given in the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend on the 29th March. I understand there is an acute shortage of coal in Iceland, but, subject to special priorities in favour of coaling stations and certain allied countries, there is now a free market in the exportable surplus of British coal. Distribution is governed by commercial conditions, and in those circumstances I regret that no special provision can be made for Iceland. It will be realised that the world shortage of coal is affecting all parts of Europe and not Iceland alone.
    Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Is it not a fact that the Iceland Government is being prevented by the orders of the Coal Controller from buying Scotch coal and shipping it to Iceland?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The exportable surplus is not enough to go round, and

    1251
    Iceland is suffering like many other places.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Cannot they get coal from Spitzbergen?

  IMPERIAL HOTEL COMPANY, EASTBOURNE.
  Mr. GWYNNEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Companies Registration Office at Somerset House has refused to register a company at Eastbourne called the Imperial Hotel unless it can be shown that the proposed company has justification for including such words in its title; whether this is a new regulation and, if so, when it came into force; whether there are any other hotels known as Imperial in different parts of the country; whether places provided for rest and refreshment known by such names as the Royal Oak, the King's Arms, and the British Queen are all directly under Royal patronage; and, if not, and the rule does not apply to them, why is distinction drawn in the case of the present application?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have been asked to reply. I am informed that the Registrar of Companies has refused to register a company with the title Imperial Hotel, Eastbourne, Limited. In the year 1898 the Board of Trade were advised that the Registrar had a discretion, and that if the title of a proposed company, when fairly read and taken in connection with the objects of the company, could be supposed to imply Royal patronage or connection with the Government, registration ought to be refused. I have no information as to whether the other hotels referred to in the question of my hon. Friend are under Royal patronage. So far as I am aware such hotels are not registered as companies.
  Mr. G WYNNE: If that be the policy of the Somerset House authorities, will the hon. Gentleman say why the Imperial Tobacco Company was recently registered as such?

  TRANSPORT.

    CYCLES (CONVEYANCE BY RAIL).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Minister of Transport whether a deputation
    1252
    was received from the National Cyclists' Union on 23rd March to urge that the doubly increased railway rates on bicycles accompanied by passengers be reduced; whether, in spite of his assurance in Parliament that he would do whatever he could to meet them, the deputation were informed that nothing can be done for the present; and whether, if he has no power over the Rates Advisory Committee, he will use his good offices to expedite the reconsideration of the rates on cycles and thus relieve the thousands of people who use their bicycles for recreation and are anxious to avoid the roads in the congested and thickly populated parts?
    Mr. CAIRNSasked the Minister of Transport if he is aware that cyclists in the North of England complain at the second increase of 50 per cent. in the carriage of cycles in trains; is he aware of other goods only being increased by 50 per cent.; and, if so, will he take steps to restrict the increase to 50 per cent. in the case of cyclists?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): I would refer the hon. Members to the answer given to a similar question put by the hon. Member for Spelthorne on the 25th March.

    HAY (LOADING DIFFICULTIES).
    Sir F. FLANNERYasked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been called to the fact that farmers in the area of Southminster, Essex, are experiencing difficulty in getting their hay loaded on rail, and that hundreds of tons are already tied out but that the railway company will not accept anything other than perishable goods; whether he is aware that Southminster is an important station and serves a very big district, and that these restrictions are having a very serious result; and whether he will take steps to assist the farmers and their customers in this dilemma?
    Mr. NEAL: During the past week 60 wagons have been provided at Southminster for the purpose of loading hay. There is no foundation for the statement that nothing but perishables can be loaded, although the latter are given preference. The railway company are

    1253
    doing all possible to supply wagons for this traffic, which formerly went by water for the most part.

  CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).

    RESTRICTIONS ON CLUBS, CARLISLE.
    Mr. HAYDAYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions if his attention has been called to the order of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) of 12th February last prohibiting the formation of any clubs in Carlisle without the sanction of the Board; and if he will say how many members of the Board were present when the Order was made?
    Mr. J. HOPE: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Silvertown on the 15th instant.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    SUGAR.
    Sir F. FLANNERYasked the Minister of Food whether his attention has been called to the complaint in reference to the amount of sugar allotted to the Maldon and Heybridge Co-operative Society, Limited, for manufacturing purposes (confectionery); whether the allotment is based on the reduced 1915 usage, i.e., 56 lbs. per month; whether he, is aware that in 1914, and during the whole of 1915, the bakery of the society was being used mainly for the supply of bread to the troops in the town and district, with the result that the confectionery business had to be closed; whether the society, having during the War placed its bakery at the service of the authorities, to the detriment of its members, is now penalised for that action; and whether the department will redress the grievance?
    Mr. PARKER (Lord of the Treasury): The attention of the Food Controller had not been drawn to the complaint referred to. Allotments of sugar to manufacturers are in the ordinary course based upon the quantity used in the year 1915. Enquiry is, however, being made with a view to re-adjustment, if it can be proved that the general regulation operates unfairly in this particular case.

    MILK (PRICES).
    Captain TERRELLasked the Minister of Food if he has received representations from agricultural and dairying interests on milk prices during the spring and summer and, in that case, what these in substance are, and whether he has yet arrived at any decision on the subject?
    Mr. PARKER: The Food Controller has received no representations from agricultural and dairying interests with regard to milk prices in the spring and summer of this year. There is no present intention of reimposing control over the price of milk.

  EDUCATION.

    SUPPLEMENTARY TEACHERS (PENSIONS).
    Captain TERRELLasked the President of the Board of Education why it is that supplementary teachers have for many years been and still are recognised as forming part of the teaching staff and yet are excluded from the benefits accruing to the teaching profession, namely, the pension scheme and the Burnham scale?
    Mr. FISHER: A supplementary teacher is only recognised in connection with a particular school. Her recognition is subject to reconsideration from year to year and may be withdrawn at any time. These teachers are not regarded, and have no qualifications entitling them to be regarded, as regular members of the teaching profession.

  POLICE PENSIONERS, LANCASHIRE (REMUNERATION).
  Mr. ALFRED DAVIESasked the Home Secretary whether he has received any complaints from the rejoined police pensioners of Lancashire who joined the force in 1914; whether these men on rejoining received a flat rate of 5s. per day, irrespective of rank, and have received no war bonus during this period; whether he is aware that a constable whose pay and pension were merged is receiving £2 8s. less per week than the present time serving constable with other ranks in proportion; whether these men claim that they should receive the scale as laid down by the Desborough Committee, and receive the standard rate for

  1255
  the same duties; and whether, in view of the fact that these men are still serving and have added over five years to their service, they are entitled to the same rate of pay as men with 26 years' service?
  Major BAIRD: The police pensioners to whom the hon. Member refers accepted employment from the Lancashire Police Authority on the outbreak of war at a rate of 5s. a day, but this rate was afterwards increased, and those of them who still remain in this employment are paid 7s. 6d. a day. They continue to draw their pensions and are not entitled to pay on the scale fixed for members of the regular force; but it is open to them, if they desire to continue their employment, to apply to the Police Authority for a further increase.

  LIFE ANNUITIES (CONSOLS).
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the tables for Government life annuities are constructed so as to vary the amount of the purchase money according to the price of Consols when that exceeds £50; and whether, in view of the fact that the price of Consols is now under £46, he will direct that there shall be corresponding tables for prices of Consols below £50, thereby removing the disadvantage which at present attaches to this method of investment?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Baldwin): Further tables are being prepared and will shortly be published.

  TUBERCULOUS DISCHARGED SOLDIERS, BARNSTAPLE.
  Captain TUDOR REES(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that a discharged soldier, suffering from tuberculosis, has been in the Barnstaple workhouse for five months, and that appeals have been made, without success, to the Pensions Ministry for his removal, and that the man is now in a serious condition; and whether he will take steps to have him removed for treatment to a military hospital or elsewhere.
  The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): In the
  1256
  time at my disposal I have not been able to ascertain the facts of the particular case, but, as I explained recently in reply to a general question on this subject, when a man enters a Poor Law Institution for treatment of a War disability notification is at once sent to the Local War Pensions Committee, who take steps to remove him in order that he may be given the special treatment which his disability requires. If my hon. and gallant Friend will give me particulars of the case I will have immediate inquiry made and will inform him of the result.
  Captain T. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that appeals have been made by the Local Pensions Committee to the Pensions Committee in London without any effect?
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: My hon. Friend has not given me an opportunity to make my inquiries, so that it is obvious I do not know that. If he would give me that opportunity I will see to it at once.

IMPRISONMENT OF MEMBERS.
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House that he had received the following letters relating to the imprisonment of Members: No. 28,567/S.
"Chief Secretary's Office,
Dublin Castle,
27th March. 1920.
Sir,
I have the honour to inform you, by direction of the Lord Lieutenant, that Mr. Joseph McDonagh, Member of Parliament for North Tipperary, and Mr. William T. Cosgrave, Member of Parliament for North Kilkenny, were arrested on the 18th and 25th instant, respectively, and that orders for their internment under Regulation 14B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations have been issued by His Excellency.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
J. J. TAYLOR.
The Right Honourable the Speaker,
House of Commons.
London, S.W.1."
"Headquarters,
6th Division.
The Right Honourable the Speaker,
House of Commons,
London, S.W.1.
Sir,
I have the honour to report that, on the 29th day of March, 1920, Mr. Patrick Moloney, M.P. for Mid-Tipperary, was arrested under a direction issued by me as.

1257
Competent Military Authority, under the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and was committed to His Majesty's Prison, Cork.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
E. R. STRICKLAND,
Major-General,
Commanding Sixth Division, and Competent Military Authority.
Cork,
March, 1920."

BILL PRESENTED.
  TREATIES OF PEACE (AUSTRIA AND BULGARIA) BILL,
  "to carry into effect Treaties of Peace between His Majesty and certain other Powers," presented by Mr. CECIL HARMS-WORTH; supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, and the Attorney-General; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 12th April, and to be printed. [Bill 66].
EASTER RECESS (ADJOURNMENT).
Resolved, "That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn till Monday, 12th April."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Amendment to—
Henry Bath and Son's (Delivery Warrants) Act, 1890 (Amendment) Bill [Lords], without amendment.

PUBLICATIONS AND DEBATES' REPORTS.
Special Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read;
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 64.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [29th March] "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Which Amendment was, to leave out the word "now", and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—[Mr. Clynes.]
  Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  Debate resumed.
  Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask the Leader of the House, will he make arrangements to have the Division taken not later than 4.30 to-day?
  Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): We will do our best in that direction.
  1.0 P.M.
  Sir E. CARSON: Alter listening to the Debate for the last two days, on my return home last night the first letter I opened enclosed a copy of the "Illustrated London News" for the week ending Saturday, 30th August, 1851, and the leading article in it was under the heading, "What is to be done with Ireland?" and it states:
  "It was imagined by some hopeless Englishmen, sick of the very name of Ireland, that the only means to relieve Great Britain from the constant abuse inflicted upon her by Mr. O'Connell's 'gem of the sea' would be to shove the troublesome isle out into the Atlantic Ocean midway between Liverpool and New York and to establish the Pope as its temporal and spiritual sovereign. It is a pity that the engineering difficulties in the way of that arrangement are insurmountable."
  Mr. DEVLIN: And other difficulties.
  Sir E. CARSON: It goes on,
  "How satisfactory the result would be to all parties."
  I suppose that ever since 1851 this country has been asking the same question, and I do not imagine for a moment that I shall be really able to make any novel contribution to this Debate. I am told by His Majesty's Government that they mean to pass this Bill into law, and in those circumstances I would like to take
  1288
  advantage of this which may well be one of the last opportunities of reiterating, however tiresome it may be, to the House of Commons my opposition to the very end to the whole policy of Home Rule for Ireland. I never believed in it. I do not believe in it now, and I believe that it will be fraught with disaster to your country and to mine. As regards my own country, it will be cut off from the greatest Kingdom that has ever existed. We shall no longer be able to rely upon your credit. Of all the extraordinary proposals which are put forward, to which I profoundly object as being absolutely impossible and uneconomical, it is that we shall be here in reduced numbers while you retain the power of taxing us to the full.
  Ireland is mad to give up her representation in this House. Every injustice and every harm committed towards Ireland, towards her trade laws, and towards her whole administration from an economic point of view—all those injuries were inflicted before the Union and not since the Union, and none of them would be possible with the present representation of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament. There is another matter. It cuts me to the quick that you are going absolutely to desert my loyal fellow-subjects and co-religionists in the south of Ireland. I believe that to be a part of the Home Rule policy, which is a gross act of treachery to faithful friends. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Lieut.- Colonel Guinness) made the case, as I understood it last night, speaking, I think, on behalf of what is called the Anti-Partition League, as if Ulster was deserting the south of Ireland. Nothing is further from the fact, and if the hon. Member will recollect or look back to his own actions on this Home Rule controversy he will see that he was one of those who most specifically put forward the impossibility of Ulster helping the South of Ireland by being retained within the ambit of the Irish Parliament.
  Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: The 1912 Bill.
  Sir E. CARSON: Listen to what he said:
  "I believe that almost every Irish Protestant will recognise that in the present conditions it is the duty of Ulster Members to take this opportunity of trying to secure for their constituents freedom from this iniquitous measure. I believe that Unionists outside Ulster would blame their allies in

  1289
  this House if they opposed such action. It would be merely a dog in the manger policy for us who live outside Ulster to grudge relief to our co-religionists merely because we could not share it. Such self-denial on their part would in no way help us, and it would only injure our compatriots in the North."
  Upon that question we voted for leaving Ulster outside the Bill. I am more and more confirmed in my hostility to the Home Rule Parliament on every occasion upon which we have a discussion on the subject, and the reason is that nobody has ever yet suggested, nor have we in this Debate been able to suggest, any alternative to the Union which was generally acceptable on this side of the Channel and on the other side. You have had already two Home Rule Bills and one Act. What is the fate of all of them? I thought it a rather pathetic sight to see the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) standing at that box yesterday. We all know the struggles which he went through to get the 1914 Act on the Statute Book. Yesterday he was killing his own child. It was only five years born before he saw how utterly inefficacious it was as a settlement of the Irish Question. He has confessed to the failure of it. He has confessed to the failure of the other two Bills—both proposed by Mr. Gladstone, and one of them backed by himself—and he now comes down to this House after all these failures to tell you that he can give you advice how to produce an alternative proposal.
  The truth of the matter is that there is no alternative to the Union unless separation, and anybody who for a moment will think out the circumstances will necessarily come to that conclusion. We have said it for the last thirty years. It has always been one of our main stock arguments which our opponents jeered at. It is now the confession of the majority of the representatives of Ireland, headed by Mr. de Valera, their elected President, that he will accept nothing but, to use his own latest words, the evacuation of the English people from Ireland, and in the face of that, in the face of the announcement of the vast bulk of the Irish people that they will have nothing but an independent republic of their own choice, is not it idle and is not it ridiculous to be trying to formulate something halfway which will offend your own
  1290
  friends and will not conciliate a single one of those who are in favour of separation? That is the reality of the situation. It is no use talking of settlement in Ireland where nobody proposes to settle. It is no use talking, as I will show in a few moments, of self-determination in Ireland, for nobody proposes to give self-determination.
  Let us try to put away all these sham phrases. I took them down as the Debate went on. An hon. Member opposite—I have no doubt in perfect sincerity—said, as if he had solved the question, "We must start with unity." Where are we to get it? Another says that there is no use doing anything unless you satisfy Irish aspirations. What are Irish aspirations? Another says, "Above all things, let us do it on the principle of self-determination," and then immediately goes on to add, "but it is self-determination as defined by me. It is not the Irish who are to self-determine. It is I who am to determine how the Irish self-determination ought to work out." That was what my right hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes), who moved the rejection of the Bill, said. I believe that more harm has been done in Ireland and in all these controversies by the use of this ridiculous phraseology which has crept into our political controversy. "Make the world safe for democracy!" Make the world safe for hyprocrisy, and all the rest of it. No, what you are really going to do—I wish to put it on record as my opinion, if I was never to make another speech in the House—what you are really proposing to do is to give a lever to your enemies by which they may, under the guise of constitutional law, attain results which you know in your hearts will be absolutely fatal to your whole Empire. Under these circumstances I, at all events, can take no responsibility, and I decline to take any responsibility for this Bill.
  We are always told that the Union has failed in Ireland. I do not agree. It may not have been an absolute success, nor would any other system have been an absolute success. Certainly the Union has not failed in that part of Ireland which I represent, and, if it has not failed there, I do hot see why it should have failed in the other parts of Ireland. If, however, the Union has failed in Ireland, why has it failed? It has failed because of the corruption of English political parties. It has failed because political

  1291
  parties, as Mr. Gladstone confessed, could not resist the power of office or the hopes of office given to them by coquetting with the eighty Irish votes. It is that which has caused the failure in Ireland. I quite agree with what I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that once a great political party in England had taken up this question and were determined to prevent. Government going on in Ireland, the whole situation was changed. I remember the first time that I ever came to this House as a listener, I sat under that Gallery, and there was going on an Irish Debate at a time when Ireland was, if not in a worse, certainly in as bad a condition as it is at the present time. Magistrates and police were carrying their lives in their hands from day to day, and murder was rife. What was the spectacle that I saw coming straight from there, helping myself at the time in the administration of the law and not without personal danger? What was the scene that I saw. I saw Mr. Gladstone and I saw Lord Morley ridiculing the magistrates, ridiculing the police, and doing their best to raise against the Government in Ireland all those feelings which they have never since hesitated and do not hesitate to-day to raise. Yes, that is what has caused the Union to fail in Ireland. Mr. Birrell was Chief Secretary for a long time. I will say this for him. He had a policy. His policy was to show that the Government of Ireland by this country was impossible, and therefore he refused to enforce the law or to put down crime. That was his policy. What is the good of telling me, in circumstances such as these, that it is the Union that has failed? It is not the Union that has failed; it is the grasping at office through Irish votes which has led people into courses which in anything connected with the government of their own country they would be ashamed to avow.
  Having said so much, that does not relieve me of the responsibilities which I have, rightly or wrongly, for so many years taken upon myself. It would be very easy for me to say that I will go on and fight to the end regardless of consequences. I am not such a fool or so inexperienced in politics as not to know what it means that the Act of 1814 is upon the Statute Book. There are two things, one of which affects one side and one the other, which are cardinal facts in
  1292
  the present situation. One is that the Act of 1914 is upon the Statute Book, and the other is the pledges that have been given to Ulster. That is really the whole situation. I know that many of my old friends in Ireland will call me a traitor. Plenty of them will. Why? Because I will not go on and fight to the end. Let me say this. I am offered by this Bill a Parliament for the six counties. Ought I to try and kill a Bill that contains that proposal with the Act of 1914 upon the Statute Book? In other words, if I help to kill this Bill, I bring into force automatically the Act of 1914. What a nice statesman and leader I would be when the Act of 1914 or something worse was being set up! If I saw no hope from the other side in the course of this Debate, what a nice leader I would be to go up to Belfast and call the people there together, and say, "Look here, you made a Covenant; go and get your rifles again, and come out and drill and fight." For what? For the six counties that are offered in a Bill which I could have got without fighting at all. No one but a lunatic would undertake such a performance.
  Mr. DEVLIN: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has got all that he ever asked for, and more.
  Sir E. CARSON: No, I have not! If I had got all that I ever asked for there would never have been a Home Rule Bill. Therefore my duty at all events is clear in this matter. I cannot vote for Home Rule, and I will not vote for Home Rule At the same time, I shall do nothing to prevent this Bill becoming law. I looked forward with great interest yesterday to the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Paisley. I have had a great deal to do with him in the past over this question. He commenced by asking a very germane question: "Does any section of Irishmen demand this Bill?" I certainly do not demand this Bill.
  Mr. DEVLIN: We do not.
  Sir E. CARSON: But does any section of Ireland demand the 1914 Act? When I am given my choice between these two Bills, I certainly prefer the Bill in which the six counties of Ulster do not come under the Parliament in Dublin. What is the good of putting this kind of question? What is the Bill that any Irishman demands? Where is it? Why do not they produce it? "Oh!" they say,

  1293
  "start a Conference!" I think the ex-Prime Minister, in one of his references, said: "Start a Conference." [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Yes, set up an assembly to frame—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Then perhaps it was my right hon. Friend who moved the rejection! [HON. MEMBERS: "Both!"]. I think they both did. What does that mean? What hope is there? When the present Prime Minister started a Conference, I was in his Government, and I was in favour of the Conference. What became of it?
  Mr. DEVLIN: Your friends killed it.
  Sir E. CARSON: Not at all. It is no use trying to do this by repartee at all. This is the most serious hour for Ireland. What happened at the Conference—The first and fatal thing that happened was that the majority of the representatives of the Irish people would not go there at all.
  Mr. DEVLIN: He knew that.
  Sir E. CARSON: The hon. Gentleman says that I knew that.
  Mr. DEVLIN: No, I said the Prime Minister.
  Sir E. CARSON: All I can say is that I did not. I never anticipated it. Will the hon. Member for the Falls Division of Belfast assure us that, if there be a Conference set up, the Sinn Feiners will come?
  Mr. DEVLIN: You had better ask the Sinn Feiners.
  Sir E. CARSON: Now what is the use of that kind of talk? You are not getting down to business when you say that. Therefore, I say that there is no use attempting this Conference. I never understand. One moment they say, "Have a Conference," which, if you could bring it about, would certainly take about a year or two, and the next moment they say, "Something must be done at once, if you are to relieve the situation in Ireland." I followed, as well as I could, what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Paisley said about his Ulster pledges, but I must admit that I did not come to any satisfactory conclusion. What is his objection to this Bill? Let me try and tell the House what I make out. He pointed across to me and said, "Ulster's case always was,
  1294
  'leave us alone.'" That is our case to-day. Our longing is to be left alone. Our appeal to you is to leave us alone. We ask you to keep us with you. We are prepared, as we have been in the past, to go with you in your triumphs and your sorrows, in your wars and in your victories. Yes, that is our case—"Leave us alone." Will the right hon. Gentleman leave us alone? He certainly did not tell us so yesterday. What is his objection? Here is what he said. He seemed to see something very fantastic in the division of Ireland and in the Parliament for the six counties. In 1916 I was sent, though not a member of the Government, or at least I was requested by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who was then, I think, Minister of Munitions, I was asked to go to Ireland on his invitation, backed by the Prime Minister, who had wished to make a settlement at the time. I also even got a letter from Lord Northcliffe. The present Prime Minister had so little influence with me that Lord Northcliffe wrote to me at his request—so he says in the letter—and he said "Do go over! I can assure you this arrangement of the elimination of the six counties is a most reasonable one." I consented to go over.
  When I came back the other day, having got my Unionist friends' support for not trying to destroy this Bill, to have a Parliament for the six counties, the next day in the "Times" it was said, "All he has succeeded in doing is getting six counties cut out. Was there ever a more terrible or humiliating position?" Good old Northcliffe! Then having described my humiliation with all the fairness of that great journal, the "Times," two days afterwards he wrote and said that practically the whole cause of discontent in Ireland was that I had so much power over the Government that I could do what I liked. Why, Sir, that is what Lord Northcliffe is always trying to have. I went to Ireland in 1916, and the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) knows something of what he went through and what I went through. I have always in my heart felt that he showed the true courage of a man, however I may hate and loathe the political view he possesses, and I have this common bond of sympathy with him for the occasion, that both of us having done our best, we were both thrown over when we came back to England. What did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley say

  1295
  then? I am now on the point of the fantastic division of Ulster. Here is what he said, speaking on 24th July, 1916:
  "He had laid it down in the clearest terms that there must be no coercion of Ulster, and the six excluded counties should not be put back by any automatic process, but only by an express Act of Parliament." What is it he objects to, then, in this Bill? Is it the difference between excluding them without a Parliament and including them with a Parliament? Is that the whole difference? I asked this question the same day:
  "Another thing I should like to ask is—I assume the Bill to be brought in will contain a provision with reference to the future government of the six counties, or, at all events, we will have, before the Bill goes through the House, a provision for the government of the six counties laid before the House."
  The answer was:
  "The machinery will be suggested."
  So it becomes more narrow. It is not merely a difference between leaving it out and including it with a Parliament, but between having a Parliament and the machinery of government to govern it when it is left out. Why is my right hon. Friend then opposing this Bill? If he was here sitting on this side of the House and had to face this question, he would be coming to me and he would be saying to me: "Will not you get your Ulster people to agree to some settlement on the basis either of excluding them or of giving them a Parliament?" Yes, Sir, he asked me before. What is his reason now? He says he has come to a different opinion. He did say that he would like to keep his pledges to Ulster, but he did not tell us how he was going to keep them if we rejected this Bill. He went on to say: "I would give something in the nature of dominion home rule with limitations—the Army and the Navy. I would give them all the rest. I am prepared to sacrifice every principle in my Home Rule Act of 1914 which I put forward to the country at the time, which was to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom." Taxation, Customs, Excise—they were the baits held out. I heard that over and over again in this House. That showed the emblem of unity that still existed after the Act came into force. He said he was prepared to scatter them all to the winds and to give what he called dominion home rule with these exceptions. But he did
  1296
  not tell us what he was going to do with Ulster. Was it to be dominion home rule without Ulster? Above all things he did not tell us who was prepared to agree to such a settlement as that.
  The hon. Member for Falls spoke afterwards. I did not see him swallow that offer with great avidity. I did not see him rise rise and say, "I am in favour of leaving out Ulster or parts of Ulster if you will do that." I did not hear anyone suggest that the Sinn Feiners would be willing, even for a moment, to consider such a question. No. No alternative has been put forward. I should like to ask hon. Members opposite, if they defeat this Bill what are they going to the country upon? What is the question they will raise before the country? Let us have it perfectly clear; let us not play with it any longer. The right hon. Gentleman who seconded this Motion said, "Might is not right." Only when it is applied to Ulster apparently. Will you go to the country—I dare you to do it—and say, "We are determined to drive Ulster under a Dublin Parliament by the forces of the Crown." Will you do that? Will you go down and tell the people of the country "Ulster was our most faithful ally and part of ourselves in the War. She sacrificed everything for the War. She did not shoot our troops in the streets at the middle of the most critical period of the War, but for all that, ladies and gentlemen, we propose to put Ulster under the Sinn Fein Parliament in Dublin, and be faithless and treacherous to the man who died in thousands in France and Flanders and never gave us one moment of anxiety throughout the whole course of the War." Go and preach that on the platforms.
  Or are you going further? Are you going down to tell them, "None of these Home Rule. Acts has gone nearly far enough." You never were able, even with the old ones, to get a majority in this country, and do not forget that England is not a negligible quantity in these matters. Are you going down to them and say, "There is no use doing things half-way, we must go the whole hog. There is nothing for it but to satisfy Irish aspirations. There is nothing for it but unity. There is nothing for it but self-determination, and the will of the majority must prevail. Therefore, we are going to give either what is a republic, or what any day may be turned into a re-

  1297
  public Will you honestly go down and preach that from the platforms, and will you tell them then that if, unfortunately, another war comes, what will be the condition of the western ports of Ireland as havens and harbours for the enemy? Why, you could not have won the last War under those conditions. Every man who had anything to do with the Admiralty knows that perfectly well. All that is an impossible policy. I know that, whatever happens, you will never have the boldness to say these things to the constituencies. You will camouflage it all. You will say, "Do not bother about Ireland. Think of your nationalisation and other things; think of your bread and butter and do not bother about Ireland." And then you will come into power, and you will be just as powerless as you always were in trying to deal with Irish matters. Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, the tragedy in Ireland will go on.
  To some people it is new, to me it is not. I remember well the old Fenian times. I know that the right hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of this Bill attributes the whole of the misfortunes to my rebellion in Ulster, as he called it. I remember the old Fenian times. I was brought up in the middle of them I remember the old Land League times and I had something to do with the administration of the law at the time when the murders which then disgraced the country went on. I remember the newsboys, I was very young at the time, calling put in Dublin, "Glorious news from Tipperary, another landlord shot." Now it is "Glorious news from Thurles, another policeman shot." I remember it all perfectly well. I remember the Phœnix Park murders and I remember the boys in the street rolling out "Phœnix Park murders, the whole discovery found cut." I remember it all perfectly well. It has been a tragic, may I call it, queue of crime which has always in one form or another taken this brutal method of assassination. I do not believe it is my countrymen who are in these assassinations. I do not believe it. I believe it is ill-conditioned men from America, who have come back here, and are carrying out these things because of the propaganda' which goes on in America and which you never take the slightest trouble to answer. I myself, when the Ulster business was at its height, got a message one day from Scotland Yard as I was
  1298
  coming down here, to tell me to be careful, as six men had' left New York from the Clan-na-Gael to assassinate me. Those are the Irishmen, those are the people you are asked to hand over Ulster to. Those are the people whom you are asked to patronise as if they were assisting this country, and to throw over those who really help it.
  This Bill, at all events, does this. It modifies the objections to the 1914 Act as regards Ulster. As the ex-Prime Minister said yesterday, we would rather be left alone, and if that will bring him in as a supporter of this Bill, which will be very important, and if he likes to move an Amendment to leave us out of the Bill and to have no Parliament, I will support him. I would rather see Ulster brought every day closer and closer and closer to this country with her great Labour population which has the right to advance hand in hand with the great Labour population of this country. We have been too long dragged down by other influences in Ireland. It may turn out, as the Leader of the House said yesterday, that under this Bill, if it passes, the only part of Ireland which will have a Parliament is the part that never asked for it. That, of course, sounds like a paradox. All I can say about that is this. If the South and West would come forward to-day to me, or if there was anybody here who could say it for them, and say, "Look here, you and I are members of the same country "—I will not say nation, for Ireland never was a nation—"and we each love our country; let us each do our best, starting in good temper to govern in these new Parliaments the districts which are entrusted to them," and I would grasp his hand firmly, and I would say with all my heart, "I accept it as a settlement," and what is more, as I have said before, I would look forward to a very short time elapsing before, under those conditions, we would be more likely to unite in one Parliament. But I do not get that chance. Is that my fault? Certainly not. As far as the conception of the Bill goes, it sets up these two Parliaments with this Council as a liaison between them. I know Ulster does not want this Parliament. Ulster unreasonable, always unreasonable, as we are told, so unreasonable that it never asks for anything, so unreasonable that she values her citizenship in the United Kingdom, a thing

  1299
  despised by hon. Members. But one thing I will promise you, that Ulster, even under the conditions laid down by the Leader of the House, will do her level best with her Parliament. I do not myself look upon a Parliament in Ulster as altogether without a ray of sunshine. The day cannot be far distant when there will be a great devolution of the business of the United Kingdom, and necessarily under those conditions the same question will arise as to Parliaments in Ireland. Whilst we will do our best, and I say this to my Ulster friends, and particularly to the trade unions and the working classes there, who can carry every single place if they like, you will have at your door the right of access to have every grievance put forward which takes you months and months, perhaps years, before it can be brought up in the House of Commons Your children will perhaps then be allowed to be educated. Thirty thousand children without a day's schooling in Belfast—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"—because the priests will not have it. Thirty thousand children, the children of the working classes, blocked in their education, because the Government try to conciliate the priests' No, Sir, I hope all that may come to an end. These are the rays of sunshine that I see in the Bill. I see no other alternative which can at the same time face the two conditions of the Act of 1914 and the pledges to Ulster, and certainly nobody in this House has pointed out anything. I will only say this in conclusion. Why do you always abuse Ulster? Has Ulster ever been false to you? Has Ulster ever been false to the Empire? What is it you want me to do in relation to Ulster? You are always talking of me as some unreasonable man who wants to do or is bringing about some great wrong to Ireland or to the United Kingdom. What is it you want me to do? I ask you from your hearts, do you want me to go over and say to the Ulster people, "Go and entrust your destinies and the destinies of your children to a Sinn Fein Parliament in Dublin"? Is that what you want me to do? If it is, all I can say is that if I did it you would have lost your last friends in Ireland, and when the day of your trouble came, instead of having the most loyal men that have ever existed to help you in your struggle you would have men who, as at the time of the War of Independence with America, were
  1300
  your bitterest enemies. Ulster has asked to be left alone, and all the thanks for all she has ever done is the abuse of malignant politicians.
  Mr. JELLETT: It is not inappropriate as one of a very small band of Unionists in this House that I should intervene at this stage. I cannot help thinking that this House is being placed in a most extraordinary position in connection with this Bill. We are asked by the Government to vote for a Bill which the House does not approve of in order to prevent another measure coming into operation of which it does not approve either. The Bill apparently is not to be treated in this House on its merits, but the Government find apparently the only way out of the difficulty is that the Union with Ireland shall be broken up. As representing a very large body of Southern Unionists, may I be allowed to say that we Southern Unionists in common with our fellow Unionists of the North have opposed this Home Rule policy ever since it was first introduced? Why have we done so? We have opposed it because we saw in it, not only disaster to Ireland, but the gravest possible danger to the future of the British Empire. We have opposed it because we have seen that every movement of this kind has been based on disloyalty, and because every movement of this kind had in front of it the same goal of absolute independence and total separation. There is, I think, in some minds a slight misapprehension as to what is the attitude of the so-called Constitutional Nationalist party on this measure. I would like to remove that. Speaking in this House on the 5th November, 1918, the then Leader of the Constitutional Nationalist party in this House used these words:
  "As regards the demand of Ireland we do not differ in the least degree and never have differed from the demand made by the present Sinn Feiners or by any of the Nationalist Revolutionary parties of the past."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1918, col. 2058, vol. 110.]
  2.0 P.M.
  A little more than a year ago these words were used by the then Leader of the Nationalist party in this House. I am not aware that they have ever been repudiated by any Member of that party, and no one who has followed these different Home Rule proposals from 1886 to the present time will deny that these words represent

  1301
  the absolute truth, and that the object and the ultimate aims of that party are what was stated. The right hon. and learned Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson) has put before the House in no unmistakable terms the reasons why he thinks that those for whom he speaks will not be willing to place the destinies of Ulster under the control of a Sinn Fein Parliament in Dublin. He speaks for the people of the North. He has a considerable following, and they are strongly represented in this House. The dangers with which they are faced are very apparent. What is the position of ourselves in the South? If the North is not prepared to run the risk of the danger of being governed by rebels, what chance have we in the South of Ireland, scattered as we are in different counties, with no power in the representation and no way of getting our views heard; what chance have we and what have we to look forward to, because in some cases we are not allowed even to live.
  We were asked the day before yesterday by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to face the facts, but that is what His Majesty's Government has always declined to do until the present moment. What are the facts? We are also asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to remember that a good many things have happened since 1914. Yes, Sir, a great many things have happened since 1914. Everything that has happened since 1914 has only served to further convince the Irish Unionists of the danger of this policy. Every prophecy which the Irish Unionists made has been fulfilled to the letter. The moment of the greatest agony of the British Empire was the time seized by the dominant party in Ireland to stab us in the back. The moment of the agony of Verdun was seized by them as the moment when they broke out into open rebellion, with the result that they kept many thousands of British soldiers in Ireland who at the time were sorely needed in the line of battle. That is one of the facts that we have learned since 1914. We find, again, that in 1918 there was another German plot in Ireland. We found that the same thing happened then as had happened in 1916. We people in the South of Ireland have often wondered what the English people are waiting for, what further proof
  1302
  they require in order to demonstrate beyond a possibility of doubt what the loyal people of Ireland have been and are exposed to at the present moment. We want to know whether the Empire is to be dictated to by these hostile people, who are hostile not only to the British Empire, but have also determined to do everything within their power to bring about the downfall of this Empire. All these facts apparently have left the Government unmoved. Apparently they have nothing to do with them and their policy because they now propose to entrust the destinies of Ireland to the rebels, who fought side by side in favour of Germany. It is even worse than that. They have been abandoned by what they called their gallant allies the Germans. The Germans, whom they hoped would have come to their assistance and would have secured the victory, have failed, and they have turned their hopes in other directions.
  Where do they now look? They have turned to Bolshevist Russia, and they are now acting in close alliance with those anarchial forces which are spreading from land to land and are doing, and will continue to do, everything they can to uproot our system of society. So that I am entitled to say when I am asked to look the facts in the face and to remember what has happened since 1914, that my conclusion is this—that you are now faced in Ireland with a force which demands, and which will do its best to set up a hostile independent republic, a hostile independent Bolshevist republic. Is it any wonder that Ulster declines to entrust her destinies to such a power as this? Is it any wonder that the Unionists in the South of Ireland look forward to the prospect before them with absolute consternation. Let me turn, for a moment, to the proposals of this Bill. This is not the time to analyse its provisions, but there are one or two matters which stand out in bold relief and enable us to take a proper view of the whole position. We observe some provisions which we have never seen before, and I hope that that is the effect of the realisation of the facts up to a certain point. The echoes of the struggle in 1914 have, to some extent, died away and the facts are now realised at last. They are realised in Ulster. They realise how much they will be affected by these new facts and that is also realised, to some

  1303
  extent, in the South. The Bill thus contains some extraordinary provisions. The Government will not allow, and rightly they will not allow, the Sinn Feiners to govern Ulster, even though they might be confronted in that part of Ireland with a large and powerful majority, but apparently they are to be allowed to govern the west of Ireland where the Sinn Feiners will be absolutely omnipotent. That is the extraordinary feature of this Bill; that loyalty is recognised technically in the North of Ireland, but when you come to the South the loyal people are surrendered to the forces of disloyalty. Why has this Bill ever been introduced in the circumstances with which we are confronted? I have never heard more than two reasons given for a measure of this kind at this moment. One was that we should try to please America and the other was that the Act of 1914 was on the Statute Book.
  I hope it will be a long time before this Imperial Parliament will be prepared to regulate its own domestic affairs at the dictation of any foreign Power, and I hope that we in this House will be still competent to frame our own Constitution by ourselves, and not to do so at the dictation of any outside Power. The real reason, so far as I can see, why this measure is introduced is the existence of the Act of 1914. We are told to remember that the Act of 1914 is on the Statute Book. So it is? But how did that Act get there? Was it the result of the considered opinion of the electorate of the United Kingdom? Was there any mandate for it from the electorate? Nothing of the kind. The election of 1910, as we all know, was fought upon the question of the veto of the House of Lords. Ireland was never mentioned. There was no mandate for Home Rule from the electorate. There was certainly no mandate for the introduction of the measure which subsequently became an Act of Parliament, and accordingly we are entitled to say that the considered views of the electorate were not behind that policy. More than that, we were told that at the outbreak of the War all contentious matters were to be laid aside. We were told even by the then Prime Minister that nobody was to be prejudiced, no political party was to be prejudiced, by anything that was to be done in connection with this matter.
  1304
  What happened to that pledge? It was treated in the same way as Germany deals with its treaties. But it does not stop there. Does anyone suppose, even if the Act of 1914 was a proper measure in the circumstances of the time, that nothing has happened since then? Are we for ever to be guided by what happened before, and never by what subsequently occurred? Are we to be tied down to something which occurred four or five years ago and in totally different conditions and circumstances? Are we never to be allowed to review the present circumstances or the circumstances of that time in the light of subsequent events? Has what was thought to be, in the circumstances, a proper measure to be proposed and carried years ago, to be now necessarily put into operation.
  I can understand this House considering this Bill now upon the Statute Book if it were true that the country was behind it. I can understand that consideration, if the House agreed that it was a desirable Measure, even now in the altered conditions, but I cannot understand this House considering that it is bound by the fact that the Bill is on the Statute Book, now that everybody, in Ireland has rejected the proposal and that the conditions have changed since the time it was passed. It is not supported by anybody in the electorate in Ireland, and yet it is to be put into operation under circumstances which are wholly different from those which existed at the time of the passing of the Act. I have yet to learn that it is any defence of this Measure to say that we are to consider ourselves bound hand and foot; that it is not in our power to deal with this Measure which is now before the House as if it were a piece of honest and necessary legislation. I suppose His Majesty's Government wish to please somebody, but that somebody has yet to be found. I need hardly say you are not going to please the Sinn Feiner. What about Ulster? The Bill places Ulster in an almost impossible position. Ulster has been asked—has been told in effect—that unless she is prepared to be ruled by a Parliament in Dublin, she must take what she is now offered, and what she does not want. She has been forced, sorely against her will, to adopt a course involving not only her own isolation but the isolation of her fellow-

  1305
  Unionists in the rest of Ireland. And all this in the futile attempt to placate your deadly and implacable enemies! It has been made clearer than ever that loyalty to King and Empire does not pay, and that the real, if not the only, way to win the sympathy and secure the confidence of His Majesty's Government is by treason, sedition, rebellion and crime. What an example to the rest of the British Empire and the world! What does anyone suppose will be thought of this course in other parts of the British Empire where the forces of anarchy are even now at work? That is the example we are going to set at home, and we should pause to think what effect it will have in other parts. It may be that the full disaster may not be sounded in our time, but the House may rest assured that if this Bill is passed and ever becomes law, future generations will curse the day when we here took the first step which led to the disintegration of the British Empire.
  What about the date of Irish union? The Bill talks glibly about it. The Bill looks forward to it, and apparently contemplates that at some period not very remote North and South will fall into each other's arms. I take the liberty of saying that neither now nor hereafter can there be any union between the forces of loyalty and treason. If that is the union to which the Bill is looking forward, it is looking forward to a date that will never arrive. So far as any hon. Member in this House may feel attracted by the provision, which apparently contemplates that at some future time there will be one Parliament for the whole of Ireland, he may put it out of his head. Ireland will not be made loyal by this Bill. Those who have fought against their King and Empire will not suddenly become loyal by the passing of a measure which they do not want, and which they will ignore. You will not make the disloyal loyal. You will make the loyal disloyal, because once it goes abroad from this House that the loyal population are going to be abandoned by His Majesty's Government to their bitterest foes, you need not imagine that after that there will be very much more talk of loyalty in southern Ireland.
  I have said practically nothing about the Unionists of the South of Ireland. Their fate, apparently, is a matter of small consequence to some people, but, however callous anyone may be as to their future, there is one thing they cannot deny.
  1306
  Through evil report and good report the Loyalists of the South of Ireland have steadfastly stood by their King and their Constitution. They have never wavered. They did their duty, and more than their duty, in the War. They fought for you, and, like many another gallant Irishman, they died for you. Now, apparently, they are about to receive their reward, and what is it? To be handed over to the tender mercies of those who fought against them. Those who drew the sword to defend you are to be handed over to those who drew the dagger in the hour of your greatest agony, and stabbed the Empire in the back. I have said, and am entitled to say, we have never wavered in our loyalty. We are loyal now. But there are limits even to loyalty, and those limits will be reached on the day when you hand over loyal southern men and women to the tender mercies of pro-Germans and rebels. What will be the position of the Imperial Parliament then? You will have lost your last friends in southern Ireland. You will be confronted then with a country uniformly hostile. The demand for total independence will be intensified tenfold. We will all be asking for it. Why should any man continue to be loyal to those who have betrayed him, and who have handed him over to probable, if not certain, ruin at the hands of his enemies? Are Englishmen going to stand by and see the Loyalists of South and West robbed of their property, ruined if not murdered, driven away from the land of their birth in search of some happier clime, where honour is not yet dead, and where they can at least expect to find some protection for their lives and the small amount of property they possess? This House some years ago voted, with a light heart, some £200,000,000 for the benefit of those in Ireland who never were your friends. Will you do the same now to save from ruin those whose loyalty has ever been unquestioned and unswerving? If not, all I can say is they are doomed.
  Let me take a wider view for one moment. We have heard a great deal about national unity. Never, I suppose, in the history of this Kingdom was there a time when it was more essential. Empires and kingdoms have been tumbling down about our ears. The world is in a state of upheaval. Europe is looking to us for help, guidance and example. Is this a time for experiments

  1307
  in disruption, and are we going to imperil our whole future by embarking upon a policy of disintegration in the very heart of the Empire? One last word I might perhaps be allowed to address to Unionist Members of this House. They belong still, as their name implies, to the great party that was called into existence in this House many years ago to combat the grave perils to which I have briefly referred. They are still Members of that great party led by the great leaders of the past who have warded off this danger and successfully defeated it up to the present. I ask them to face the issue now as they have always faced it before. The issue is, the Union or total separation. The Union, let them remember, is a great constructive policy which always succeeded where it was properly administered. We have only to look back to the days of the right hon. Gentleman, the First Lord of the Admiralty. We always look back upon them with pride and gratitude. Why? He administered the Union, and when he left the shores of Ireland he left behind him, as his successor said, a country peaceable, contented and prosperous. The only safe course for the Imperial Parliament to adopt in the conditions existing in Ireland is to maintain the legislative union. There is no other course. Any other possible course you may adopt will only lead, either to an absolutely independent republic, or bloodshed to put it down. Those are the alternatives which are before His Majesty's Government. The republic will be started, you may be perfectly certain. You have two alternatives. You can recognise it, which is inconceivable. You will not recognise it. You have got to fight. That is the prospect held out to us in Ireland, and that is what we are told is the message of peace. I ask—and I confidently ask—the Unionist Members of this House to remember that they are the custodians of a great trust. They belong to a great party that has great and essential and fundamental principles. I ask them to act to-day, true to themselves, true to their convictions, true to the principles of the great body to which they belong, true to their honour. I ask them confidently to face the issue now, and if the issue is not faced now it will have to be faced later at the point of the bayonet. Now is the time to make up your minds: Are you going to hand over
  1308
  any part of Ireland to the King's enemies or not? Yes, or no. I appeal to every Member of this House' to act according to his convictions, and vote against this Bill.
  Mr. HARBISON: In supporting the rejection of this Bill, I would like to say that so far as I can understand from the speeches on the Government side of the House, that there has been nothing of reality about the whole performance. It is a case of make-believe. The right hon. Gentleman, the Chief Secretary, introduced the Bill, the title of which is "A Bill for the Better Government of Ireland." I could change that title and make it more appropriate by altering one letter, when it would read, "A Bill for the Bitter Government of Ireland." For the last 40 years the party to which I belong has come here to try to find a way of knitting together in one solid bond of friendship the two peoples. Up to the present we have failed, for reasons that I need not now go into. The Bill, however, which is produced here to-day, is a Bill not to create friendship but to create discord, and that not only between England and Ireland but between Irishmen and Irishmen.
  I was very much pained at the tone of the speech to-day of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dun-cairn (Sir E. Carson). Towards the end of his speech he made one statement that rather astonished me. He was weeping tears—crocodile tears—because the Ulster Unionists had never had a chance of shaking hands with their fellow-Irishmen. I was astonished to hear that statement coming from a man who leads a party in this House. I would ask him if his memory has become defective? If not, let him go back in memory to early August of 1914 when the then leader of the Irish people-there were no Sinn Feiners in Ireland then, Ireland was peaceful and loyal—when the leader of this party, the late John Redmond, offered to shake hands across the floor of this House with the Leader of the Ulster Unionist party, so that they might join together in the battle for freedom, not only for England, but Ireland also. What was the response? There was no response. Immediately a campaign began in Ireland, and the Bill that is produced here to-day is the result of that campaign, of conspiracy to drive Ireland into disloyalty. Ireland at the beginning of the War, by voluntary recruiting, gave more soldiers accor-

  1309
  ding to her population than any other part of th three Kingdoms. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ulster!"] The statistics show it—show that Southern Ireland more than Northern Ireland gave her quota voluntarily, and if Ireland had not been disturbed by the conspiracy which was then hatched she would have gone on in that course. This Bill is a result of that conspiracy to drive Irishmen from joining the Army. Men were sent to recruit in the South of Ireland who told the people there that Irishmen were not wanted in the Army. Irishmen are sufficiently cute to see things, and they soon saw the game, which was that the Act stated to be upon the Statute Book was not to be put into force. Is it any wonder then that recruiting died away?
  When the leader of the Ulster rebellion was placed in a position of trust in the British Government, is it any wonder that Ireland became dissatisfied? Ireland has been taunted to-day with her disloyalty. Ireland is not disloyal, but she is very discontented. In this Bill it is proposed to divide Ireland into two parts, or rather Ulster into two parts. We are told that there is a homogeneous Ulster. So the homogeneous six counties are to be created a separate State and cut off from the rest of Ireland! What are the facts about three of these Ulster counties, the three that lie together, and are coterminous with what is called Southern Ireland? There is the county of Tyrone, which has a Nationalist majority of 15,365. There is county Fermanagh, which has a Nationalist—or call it Catholic, if you like—majority of 7,644. It is proposed that these two counties are to have a kind of self-determination, that the minority in these two counties are to rule the majority, and that the majority in these two counties is to be placed in the position of a permanent minority in a Parliament where they get practically no representation.
  I put it to Englishmen, who have a reputation for being sportsmen, and men who like to see fair play; is it fair on any constitutional ground that two counties, having an absolute majority of the population, ought to be put into an assembly where they never by any chance can have their rights asserted, and where they will be subject to the bitterest and most bigoted government that could ever be set up—of men who have stated in this House during this
  1310
  Debate that never would they coalesce with their brother Irishmen? The right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) to-day corroborated his brother Member (Capt. Craig), although he did not think he was doing so, when he was trying to cover a slight mistake that his brother Member made when he addressed the House. The hon. and gallant Gentleman lifted a little corner of the drop-scene, and let the House see what was the mentality of these men that have said—and sworn it—that they would never coalesce with the rest of Ireland.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Duncairn to-day said that Ireland was never a nation. That is another statement that I am surprised to hear from him. I have here a document which this House cannot dispute. It is an Act of this House. It is an Act for preventing and removing all doubts which have arisen—I quote from "Statutes at Large" (Vol. VIII., 23 George 3, chap. 28):—
  "An Act for preventing and removing all doubts which have arisen and will arise concerning the exclusive rights of the Parliament and Courts of Ireland in matters of legislation and judicature, and for preventing any writ of error or appeal from any of His Majesty's Courts in the Kingdom from being received, heard, or adjudged in any of His Majesty's Courts in the kingdom of Great Britain."
  There is the preamble, and then follows:—
  "Therefore for removing all doubts respecting same, may it please Your Majesty that it may be declared and enacted and be it declared and enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent—"
  and so on:—
  "That the said right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the Parliament of that kingdom in all cases whatsoever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in equity which may be instituted in that Kingdom, decided in His Majesty's Courts therein, finally and without appeal from thence, shall be and is hereby declared to be established and ascertained for ever.…"
  That is the form of the Declaration of Rights that came from my county of Tyrone, in the heart of Ulster, from the assemblage of the Ulster Volunteers in 1782 under Henry Grattan, and confirmed by Statute by this House, that Ireland is a Kingdom.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: A kingdom, but not a nation!
  Mr. HARBISON: England is not a nation either. It refers to England as a Kingdom—England or Great Britain!
  Mr. J. JONES: And that is the voice of an Oxford professor!
  Mr. HARBISON: Will the hon. Gentleman say that Ireland was not then a Kingdom, a nation?
  Mr. MARRIOTT: Yes.
  Mr. HARBISON: Will the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister deny that Ireland is a nation? Was he not a member of the Administration of this country that granted a measure—and I say a good measure—of self-government for Ireland? He was a member of that Administration, and responsible for that Act of Parliament which is on the Statute Book. Was he of the opinion then that there were two nations in Ireland? Yesterday a letter was quoted by the hon. Member for the Falls Division, and there seemed to be some controversy about it. Was the right hon. Gentleman of the opinion on February 25th, 1918, when he wrote that letter that Ireland was one and indivisible, and could not be divided up? Here are his words. He was writing to Sir Horace Plunkett:—
  "There is, however, a further consideration which has an important bearing upon the possibilities of the present situation. During the period of the War it is best to proceed, as far as possible, by agreement. Questions on which there is acute difference of opinion in Ireland or Great Britain must be held over for determination after the War. At the same time it is clear to the Government, in view of previous attempts at a settlement, and of the deliberations of the Convention itself, that the only hope of agreement lies in a solution which on the one side provides for the unity of Ireland under a single legislature, with adequate safeguards for the interests of Ulster and the Southern Unionists, and on the other hand, preserves the well-being of the Empire, and the fundamental unity of the United Kingdom."
  Did he then hold that there were two nations in Ireland? I do not think so. We have been asked in this House whether there is any solution of the Irish question. That is a very simple question, and the answer is equally simple. The solution is the granting of liberty to Ireland, and by that I mean that the liberty that was given by the Statute of 1783, which was taken away by a deed as dark as any that blackens the pages of the
  1312
  history of any country, by the Act of' Union. I am glad to see in this Bill there is one little ray of hope, because if it is passed, it does away with the Act of Union and paves the way to eventual freedom. The Irish people are being denounced for their disloyalty, but I deny that they are disloyal, and they have proved this too often on many battlefields. In the wars of the past, there were no more loyal soldiers than the Irish. Ireland is a nation, and as such she demands her rights, and she will not; have partition either of six, nine, four, or even one county. Ireland is a nation one and indivisible, and this House has no moral right or power to divide Ireland. In my humble judgment no power has any right to divide up a nation, except the people of that nation itself. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh at that statement, but I wonder what they would say if a proposition were made in this House, or even outside, to cut off Lancashire and Yorkshire and the northern counties from England. Would Englishmen admit, in regard to such a proposition, that you had power to divide up your own kingdom, much less the right to divide up another nation and another kingdom.
  With regard to this Bill and the county which I represent in Ulster, I want to say that I have been in this movement, fighting the constitutional cause for the rights of my countrymen in the county of Tyrone for well-nigh 40 years, and during that period we have held that county for nationalism. Formerly, Tyrone returned four Members to Parliament, and we never returned less than three until the Redistribution Act of 1918, when one Member was taken off. Fermanagh has been Nationalist ever since the passing of the Franchise Act of 1884, and these two counties and Armagh and Tyrone have been cut off. Armagh has a larger Nationalist minority than Tyrone has a Unionist minority. Why should we not claim that Armagh should come in with Tyrone and Fermanagh and the rest of Ireland? The figures for these three counties, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Armagh taken together, show a gross total of 168,000 Catholics and 166,000 Protestants, which gives a Catholic majority in those three counties, which are to be made into a separate State, of 11,770. Derry City is to be taken way where there is an absolute majority, and nearly 45 per

  1313
  cent. of the entire population is to be taken away, and where is your homogeneous Ulster?
  I was talking to Sir Henry Robinson over a little gerrymandering scheme which is going on in Tyrone, and he informed me that he had instructions from the Government to draw up a map of Ulster. We did not know what was going on behind the scenes in this country, but Sir Henry Robinson had to mark that map in electoral divisions, giving the Protestants and the Catholics over the whole province, and also the surrounding counties. Sir Henry is a public official of 40 years' experience, and he said that he was astounded, on going over the map of Ulster, to find that it was Catholic everywhere except at one little dot around about the City of Belfast, part of the county Down, and Antrim, and with those exceptions the Catholics were overwhelming everywhere. What is the grand total? Outside the places I have mentioned and the City of Belfast, in the entire province of Ulster, the majority is Catholic. Now we are asked in Tyrone and Fermanagh to submit to going into a Parliament in Belfast. The county of Tyrone is the land of the O'Neills. There were two O'Neills, there was the O'Neill and the Queen's O'Neill, and the latter was not very popular in Ireland. All that I can say is that the land of the O'Neills will never submit, no matter what Statute is passed, to being put into bonds of enternal slavery amongst the men who swore they would never coalesce with their brother Irishmen.
  Mr. ADAMSON: I desire to intervene for a short time for the purpose of supporting the Motion of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Platting Division of Manchester (Mr. Clynes). Like him, I am not taking this course because I am against extending the principle of self-government to Ireland. That is a principle I have been in favour of, both for Ireland and for my own country, for the greater part of my life. I am taking this course because I believe the Bill now under discussion will miserably fail to settle this century-old controversy between Ireland and ourselves. As a matter of fact, I am strongly of the opinion that no section of the Irish people are in favour of such a Bill as is now being discussed in this House, and I believe that the overwhelming
  1314
  majority of the Irish people resent bitterly the idea of Ireland being divided into two parts. Like the hon. Member who spoke last, I was very much surprised to find the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Duncairn stating to-day that Ireland had never been a nation. I can quite understand the Prime Minister or anyone on this side of the Channel falling into an error of that kind, but I cannot understand a man who professes to be an Irishman himself taking up the position that Ireland has never been a nation. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is true!"]
  Mr. J. JONES: It is not true. It is absolutely false, and you know it.
  3.0. P.M.
  Mr. ADAMSON: From my own knowledge of Irish history I know that Ireland is a nation just as much as Scotland or England, and just as much as the Prime Minister would claim that Wales is a nation. In addition to being strongly of opinion that Ireland is a nation, just as firmly I believe that Ireland is an economic unit, and anyone who seeks to divide it is not the friend of Ireland or of the Irish people. Not only will the Irish people bitterly resent the idea of Ireland being divided into two portions, but I think that some of the statements which have been made in this House in the course of the Debate will more firmly convince them than ever that in the terms of the Bill submitted by the Government there is no earthly chance of the two parts of Ireland ever coming together. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Captain Craig) said in the most emphatic terms that it would not be fair to this House if he did not state that there was not the slightest hope of that state of things arising in the lifetime of any man in this House. I do not believe for a moment that such a thing is possible. This, to my mind, will leave no doubt in the minds of the men of the South and West of Ireland as to the attitude and the course to be pursued by the officials of Ulster. There are two things from which Ireland is suffering to-day. The first of these is the frustration of their national aspirations. For generations they have been demanding self-government at the hands of our people, and on every occasion that demand has been met by refusal. We have been willing to give to them any-

  1315
  thing else but the opportunity of realising their national aspirations. We have been willing to put on the Statute Book Land Acts and Acts providing cottages under very advantageous conditions, and other remedial legislation of various kinds, but I would remind my fellow Members that remedial legislation, good government, kind government, is never a satisfactory substitute for self-government, and the Irish people continue to claim Home Rule at our hands, and I believe will continue to claim it until we are wise enough to give it them. I believe that a very large number of Irish people have grown tired of repeated applications being made to this House. They have made up their minds that it is going to be impossible to secure this by constitutional means, and as a result we have seen that the principles for which Sinn Fein stands have been spreading over large parts of Ireland. The second of the causes of discontent and dissatisfaction, the second of the maladies from which Ireland suffers, is unquestionably our methods of administration. Over the greater part of Ireland the belief exists that Dublin Castle pursues a policy of calculated provocation. Military rule alone obtains in large parts of the country, raids on private dwellings are of common occurrence, the possession of certain political leaflets is the cause of immediate arrest, ordinary trade union meetings and meetings for national games and pastimes are declared illegal assemblies, musical festivals and literary societies are regarded as conspiracies, social functions of every kind are repressed, and we have men taken from their homes and deported without a charge being preferred against them and without being put upon trial.
  Under such conditions as these, can anyone wonder that the doctrine of Sinn Fein is sweeping over large parts of Ireland like a holy war? What I would suggest to this House is that if we wanted to complete the influence of Sinn Fein in the other parts of Ireland we could not do better than go on with our policy of repression. At no time in the history of Ireland has the policy of repression been a success, and I think that no particular time has it been a more miserable failure than it is at the present moment. The condition of Ireland shows the futility of the position taken up by the Noble Lord
  1316
  the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) in the course of Monday's Debate, and by others associated with him, that the restoration of law and order must precede self-government, and that the enforcement of law is the first duty of any Government in Ireland at the present time. This policy has never settled the Irish Question, and we would be well advised to try some other method of governing Ireland. We have simply, so far as our policy of repression is concerned, been following a vicious circle. When Ireland has been in a state of ferment and turmoil, as has been the case in the last few years, we have been told, as the Noble Lord told us, that law and order must be enforced before it was safe to confer upon them any form of self-government, and as soon as ever the policy of repression or some other cause has quietened the disturbed condition of Ireland, we have been told that Ireland has never been in a more happy and prosperous condition, and that it would be better not to disturb the happier relations by raising the question of self-government. In the course of yesterday's Debate the Leader of the House said he would like to know what was the attitude of the Labour party with regard to the settlement of the Irish Question. The words used by the Leader of the House were:
  "But I would like to know what the attitude of the Labour party is with regard to that. I listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) yesterday, and I have rarely listened to a speech from anybody so disappointing, and certainly never a speech from him which was so disappointing. He talks about self-determination and all the rest of it, as if he were living in the world with his eyes shut, and he knew nothing of the facts of the situation. When he talks of self-determination, I put it to his party to say openly, Do they mean what their language implies? Do they mean that if the elected representatives of Ireland want a Republic they will give them a Republic?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th March, 1920; col. 1126, Vol. 127.]
  In reply I want to ask the Leader of the House—
  HON. MEMBERS: Answer!
  Mr. ADAMSON: It so happens that the Leader of the House and myself are fellow countrymen and that such a method of answering a question is permissible in the country to which we both belong. What I want to ask the Leader of the House is, has he discussed that very pertinent

  1317
  question with his friend and colleague the Prime Minister? Because I do not know of any member of the Labour party who has been more definite in his statements regarding the principle of self-determination than the Prime Minister has been. Take, for instance, this quotation from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, on the 5th January, 1918, when addressing a meeting of trade unionists in one of the halls of this city, said:
  "Mere lip service to the principle of self-determination is useless."
  I do not know any member of the Labour, party who has been more definite in talking of the principle of self-determination, than that. The Prime Minister went on to say further in connection with that same principle:
  "We believe that before permanent peace can be hoped for three conditions must be fulfilled, one of them being a territorial settlement based on the right of self-determination with the consent of the governed."
  There again you have the Prime Minister dealing with that principle of self-determination in as emphatic a way as it is possible for any member of the Labour party to deal with it, and I should suggest to the Leader of the House that before he asks either the Labour party or any other section of the House what they mean by their repeated statements about self-determination he should adjust that matter with his friend and colleague the Prime Minister.
  HON. MEMBERS: That is no answer.
  Mr. J. JONES: We are self-determinationists.
  Mr. ADAMSON: I will leave hon. Members to have that out with the Prime Minister. All that I want to say regarding that is this, and I think it would be just as well for hon. Members who seem so mightily amused to give a little attention to what I am going to say. All I want to say further regarding that matter is this, and it is to the Prime Minister. That is a statement that has sunk into the minds of every Irishman and into the minds of every people who are presently incorporated within the British Empire. That is a statement' that has sunk into the minds of every Irishman and of the citizens of India, of Egypt, and of the other parts of the British Empire. [HON. MEMBER'S: "And Ulster!"] I expect it will have sunk into the minds of the people of Ulster as well. I do not take
  1318
  up the position that the people of Ulster are less intelligent than the people of any other part of the Empire. That is a statement that has sunk into the minds of the people in every part of the British Empire, and it will demand at the hands of the Prime Minister and, of His Majesty's Government a clearer definition of what was meant than has been given by the Prime Minister up till now, and in closing on that particular point I would recommend my fellow-countryman, the Leader of the House, to have the matter out with his friend and colleague, the Prime Minister, at the earliest possible moment. The statement that I have just quoted is on all fours with that other one that was referred to in the course of the Debate to-day: "Making the world safe for Democracy." May I say that I was sorry to discover the manner in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Duncairn Division of Belfast (Sir E. Carson) dealt with that matter, and I was sorry that he descended to the statement: "Making the world safe for hypocrisy."
  Sir E. CARSON: It was a quotation from an American.
  Mr. ADAMSON: He did not say so at the time. It may be, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has explained, but, to my mind, it was a blemish on an otherwise brilliant speech from his point of view. The Leader of the House, in the course of yesterday's Debate, did not deal only with the principle of self-determination. He also asked those who were taking part in the Debate, and who had signified that they were in favour of Dominion Home Rule, what they meant. He went on to explain that Dominion Home Rule would hand over to Ireland the military forces and all the other parts of national government, and that, if carried to its logical conclusion, it might mean the setting up of an independent Irish Republic. With reference to that, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if the granting of Dominion Home Rule to certain Colonies belonging to this country—[An HON. MEMBER: "Dominions"]—they were not Dominions until they had been granted Dominion Home Rule—I would ask the Leader of the House if the granting to those Colonies of what is commonly called Dominion Home Rule has resulted in the setting up of any in-dependent republics? If that is our ex-

  1319
  perience as a nation, why should the Leader of the House argue that the granting of Dominion Home Rule to Ireland is something that is dangerous, in order to prevent the Irish people from getting a proper measure of self-government. Not only has the granting of Dominion Home Rule to our Colonies not meant the setting up of independent republics, but those very Dominions who have been granted Dominion Home Rule have been our foremost friends and supporters during the great War. I question seriously whether we should have been able to come through that conflict in the manner in which we did but for the magnificent help that we got from those same Colonies. A united Ireland would have been of far more value to this country in those days than a sullen Ireland, smarting under the idea that she was being worse treated than any other section of our people. I want to ask the Leader of the House whether the refusal to grant self-government to any of our Colonies has been the cause of setting up independent republics? I find he does not answer so readily as he did on the occasion of the first question I put to him. I think he is beginning to realise that these questions of mine are rather difficult, because, if he did answer, he would be bound to answer in the affirmative. He knows that the insistence of this country in imposing on our American Colonies something which they did not want, led to the setting up of an independent Republic. What I want to say to the Prime Minister and to the Leader of the House is, that we had better take warning by our experience as a nation, and not press the Irish people to the point when nothing short of the setting up of an independent Republic will satisfy them.
  There are just one or two more points that I want to deal with, and I take them from the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dun-cairn. In the course of his eloquent and moving speech earlier in the Debate, he asked us a plain question, "Are you going to hand us over to a Parliament of Sinn Feiners in Dublin?" In asking that question, he got the sympathetic cheers of three-fourths of the House. Was not that his attitude, however, in 1914, when no Parliament of Sinn Feiners was possible? I happened to be a Member of
  1320
  this House in 1914, and I well remember the discussion that took place on the Home Rule Bill of that time. I remember the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attitude towards a Parliament in Dublin that would have been made up of the Nationalist Members, in the main—men who professed, and who now profess, to be constitutionalists.
  Sir E. CARSON: I always believed that when a Parliament was set up in Dublin, it would be manned by Sinn Feiners and people hostile to this country.
  Mr. ADAMSON: The representation from Ireland in this House did not justify any such belief. The representation of Ireland in 1914 was as largely, if not more largely, Nationalist than it is Sinn Fein to-day. The attitude of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to-day is not a new one. All through those Home Rule Debates, ever since I became a Member of this House, he has been taking up the same attitude that he takes up when he asks us to-day if we were willing to hand them over to a Parliament of Sinn Feiners. He said to us, "All that we want from you is to be left alone," and again he carried with him a considerable amount of sympathy in all parts of the House. I would remind him, however, that that is exactly what the majority of the people in the South and West of Ireland are saying. They are simply asking at our hands to be left alone. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] In putting a statement of that kind before us, he is giving us no solution of the problem which his country presents to this House and to the people of Great Britain. We are entitled, from a man of his ability, to a greater contribution towards the finding of a solution than that. No man, in my opinion, could render such service as the right hon. and learned Gentleman could, if he cared to put himself into the task of finding a solution for this problem, which has so long separated the people of Ireland and the people of this country. He also told us, in the course of his speech, that there is no alternative to union but complete separation. With that statement I profoundly disagree. I believe that there is an alternative that would be satisfactory to the majority of the Irish people. Of course, if we have the people of the North, as represented by the right hon. and learned

  1321
  Gentleman the Member for Duncairn, taking up the impossible position which they have taken up all through, then it is just possible that there is no alternative but complete separation. If, however, he and those who are associated with him in the representation of the Province of Ulster take up a different position, I have no hesitation in saying that there is a solution, short of separation, that would be satisfactory to the majority of the Irish people. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is it?"]
  Mr. W. THORNE: Home Rule for Ireland all along the line.
  Mr. ADAMSON: I have been asked, "What is it?" In giving my answer, I am not speaking on behalf of the party that I represent at the moment, because the statement I am about to quote from is a personal one, and has not yet come before the party, either for acceptance or rejection. Consequently, I give it as a personal statement. The first thing that, in my opinion, would be a satisfactory solution of this difficulty to the majority of the Irish people, would be the granting of a full measure of Dominion Self-Government, with provision for the protection of minorities, the questions of Defence and Foreign Relations being reserved for the Imperial Parliament. The second alternative which, in my opinion, would be a satisfactory basis of settlement to the majority of the Irish people, is that the form of self-government should be decided upon by an Irish Constituent Assembly, representing the whole of the Irish people and elected on a system of Proportional Representation, which would be charged with the task of drafting the new Constitution and making provision for the protection of minorities, questions of defence and of foreign relations being reserved to the Imperial Parliament. Holding these views, and being convinced that the Bill supplies no settlement of the Irish question, I shall have much pleasure in joining my right hon. Friend and voting against it.
  Mr. J. JONES: On a point of Order. I should like to ask if there is going to be any opportunity for heterodox opinion to be expressed on the subject? Up to now we have only heard the orthodox.
  Mr. SPEAKER: It would be difficult for me to say which are orthodox and which are heterodox.
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): My right hon. Friend, when he came to the practical part of his speech, discriminated rather between himself in his personal capacity and himself as Leader of a party. He made a certain suggestion in his own name and on his own personal responsibility, with which I will deal later on, but when speaking on behalf of the party he had only one solution, and if he were here in my place now, introducing a Bill for the better government of Ireland, it would consist exclusively, as far as I can see, of a note of interrogation. He answered none of the very pertinent questions which were put to him, and it is upon the answer to those that must depend the judgment, not merely of Members of this House, but of the people of this country, and of Ireland as well.
  Mr. ADAMSON: You may answer them.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am going to answer them, certainly. The difficulty of this problem, as I pointed out when I sketched out the scheme which has been embodied in this Bill, is that no proposals which would be acceptable to any party in this country will be accepted by any party in Ireland. I think the Government have every reason to be gratified with the course of the discussion, because it demonstrates quite clearly that the Government plan is the only one that holds the field. If you asked the people of Ireland what plan they would accept, by an emphatic majority, they would say, "We want independence and an Irish Republic." There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected representatives of Ireland now, by a clear, definite majority, have declared in favour of independence—of secession. Is there a single party in this House which would support them? (Interruption.) I understand there are individuals. Unless I am mistaken, in an interruption which was made by the hon. Member (Mr. Jones), he would be in favour of a proposal of that kind.
  Mr. J. JONES: I never said anything of the kind. I am prepared to answer

  1323
  for myself and not have anyone else answer for me.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am not in the least concerned about the hon. Member's opinion. I was only dealing with an interruption. If I misinterpreted it, I am sorry. I ask therefore, is there a single party in this House, a single group or a fraction of a party which would accept this. Therefore it is of no use talking about self-determination. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adamson) supports self-determination he must go the full length of planting an Irish Republic in Ireland.
  Mr. ADAMSON: I have asked the Leader of the House what the Prime Minister meant when he used the same term. That is a term you cannot play with.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I agree, and I am going to deal with it. Self-determination does not mean that every part of a country which has been acting together for hundreds of years shall have a right to say, "We mean to set up a separate Republic." That is the very thing which was fought for in the Civil War in America. If any section in Wales were to say, "We want to set up a Welsh Republic," I should certainly resist it to the utmost of my power. Not only that, Britain in its own interests, including the interests of Wales, would be absolutely right to resist it, and yet Wales has a definite and clear nationality. The same applies to Scotland. If Brittany demanded self-determination that does notmean that France, which has been in favour of the principle of self-determination, ought to grant a separate Republic for Brittany. There must be that limitation to the application of any principle; otherwise you might carry it to every fragment and every area and every locality in every country throughout the world. When you lay down a principle of that kind you must lay it down within the limitations which common-sense and tradition will permit. That is my answer to my right hon. Friend. Having given that answer I now ask the Leader of the Labour party, is he, speaking on behalf of his party, in favour of applying the principle of self-determination to Ireland? There is no answer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."]
  Mr. CLYNES: If an answer is to be exacted, the answer is not self-determination as you have now defined it.
  The PRIME MINISTER: That means that the Labour party is not prepared to give self-determination to Ireland. That is, that if Ireland demands a separate Irish Republic, the Labour party is opposed to it. If that be so, that is quite satisfactory. But do not mislead Irish electors either in Ireland or in this country into the belief that the Labour party means to concede self-determination.
  I come to the suggestions made by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Asquith). He has got a plan. Can he name any Irish party or any section of a party in Ireland which will get up and say, "We will accept it"? What is it? The Act of 1914, with Dominion Home Rule added on, as far as I can understand, subject to serious limitations: Customs, the power to erect a tariff wall against Great Britain, to exclude British goods from Ireland, the power to give a preference either to America or to Germany—that is the proposal—but with the exclusion of Irish counties. He says that is unity. He says, "I will give an Irish Parliament to the, whole of Ireland, but with county option." My right hon. Friend is always ill the habit of believing he can cover a fact with a phrase. He can say what he likes about it. That is partition. It may be a partition of four counties instead of six, but nevertheless it is partition. I ask hon. Members from Ireland, will they get up and say they accept that proposal? I listened to their speeches. I heard the eloquent and witty speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Devlin) coming immediately after the speech of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Asquith). Never a word of acceptance of it. His plan is not accepted by anyone. Sinn Feiners treat it with scorn. The Nationalist Members will not get up, and say they will accept it. The whole of the Ulster Members will resist it. What is the use of saying, under these circumstances, that no plan is acceptable unless Irish opinion will accept it?
  Mr. ADAMSON: They will not accept your Bill.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have pointed out that there is no plan acceptable to any of the British parties which is acceptable to any party in

  1325
  Ireland at present. That is one of the fundamental facts. Let us get that into our minds. You have no foundation to build upon until you accept that. Therefore it is no use talking about this Bill not being acceptable to Irish opinion. My right hon. Friend's plan is not acceptable to Irish opinion. There is Irish opinion here which is prepared to accept and work this plan. His plan would be resisted by that opinion. There is no other section which would have a word to say to his plan. What is the good then of putting Motions down about this plan being unacceptable to Irish opinion?
  I come now to the plan put forward by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes). He would have a Convention—a Constituent Assembly—with, I take it, legislative powers. Otherwise I do not see the object of it. There has been a Convention in Ireland. Not even Nationalist opinion was agreed there. There is a document signed by twenty-two Nationalists and another document signed by twenty-six Nationalists disagreeing with it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: They only disagreed on one point.
  The PRIME MINISTER: My hon. Friend will not get out of it like that. It was a very vital point. It was such a vital point that he separated from his leader on it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. My leader was as strongly convinced as I was, and said so in his written and public declaration, in favour of this proposal upon which we had a division of opinion in the Convention, but he thought, in order to secure the Southern Unionist and the Labour Members, that he would waive that point.
  The PRIME MINISTER: That shows the difficulty we are in now to get assent. At any rate, there was no agreement in the recommendation that was made to the Government. The Nationalist party was completely divided.
  Captain REDMOND: No!
  The PRIME MINISTER: It is no use saying that. The hon. and gallant Member has only to look at the document itself. It has the actual signatures of 22 Nationalists who signed one report, and there is another signed by 26, the late Mr. John
  1326
  Redmond, and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast (Mr. Devlin) being in two separate camps.
  Captain REDMOND: That is not the case. It is untrue.
  The PRIME MINISTER: What is much more serious is this. Take that document. There were two classes of Irish opinion who had nothing to do with either of those reports—Sinn Fein and Ulster. It turned out in the elections that they were the two sections which between them represented the whole of Ireland. That has been the result of a Convention—complete division amongst all parties—a report that the whole of Irish opinion declined to accept. Why does my right hon. Friend think that he will be more successful with his Convention than we were with ours? Things have become much more difficult since then. Therefore, we are in the position that every plan which has been put forward is a plan which Irish opinion has declined to accept. A proposal which Irish opinion would by a majority accept, no party in Great Britain would accept. Therefore we must exercise the best judgment we can with our responsibility for the whole United Kingdom, a responsibility not merely for Ireland, but for Britain, and not merely a responsibility for Britain, but a responsibility for the whole Empire. We must exercise the best judgment we can and come to the wisest conclusion which we can possibly arrive at after serious reflection.
  There is another observation I should like to make on this Debate, and that is that some of the leading critics of this Bill have clearly not taken the trouble to study it. I make no exception in favour of my hon. Friend the Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin). He said that the Home Rule Parliament which we propose to set up under this Bill has not the powers of a municipality. What does he mean? He really cannot have read the Bill. Let me give to the House a summary of the powers conferred upon both Parliaments by this Bill. They can deal exclusively with the problems of agriculture and agricultural development in all its forms, legislatively as well as administratively. Can he name a single municipality in the Kingdom which has those powers? That is an industry by which two-thirds of the people of Ire-

  1327
  land earn their living. The factories of Ireland are under the control of these Parliaments. The workshops, the shops, the railways, inland transport, the development of inland transport, housing, problems relating to health, insurance (health and unemployment), old age pensions, higher, secondary, and primary education, licensing, and law and order, after an interval of two or three years. In fact everything that touches the lives of the people in their daily occupations, in their homes, in their training for the tasks of life, in their liberties, in their health, in their comforts and amenities, in the farm, the shop, the factory, the home, the schools, in their coming and going, in their business and industry, is transferred to the exclusive jurisdiction of these Parliaments. The only exceptions in this comprehensive description are the Post Office and the Customs and Excise which undoubtedly affect some of these categories. And yet the hon. Member for Belfast speaks about "this wretched thing," and says he cannot find words in the English language to describe it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Hear, hear!
  The PRIME MINISTER: Let him go to any State in America.
  Mr. DEVLIN: To an English city.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Let him honestly read out the powers.
  Captain REDMOND: We are not a State, but a nation.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Let him read out in any State in America the powers which are conferred upon an Irish Parliament by this Bill, and then say, "This is too wretched a thing for me to describe in the English language," and he will see what kind of a reception he will get from every American there, if he honestly reads out the Bill.
  Mr. DEVLIN: You can go with me.
  The PRIME MINISTER: There are two other nationalities in this kingdom which are just as Celtic as that represented by my hon. Friend. One is Scotland and the other is Wales. Both are as intensely patriotic as the Irish, both as intensely national, both as proud of their nationality
  1328
  and the traditions of their nationality. And may I say that at any rate with regard to one of them—which is more than my hon. Friend can say—it has conserved the Celtic language. The very treasonable documents which we found in the pockets of the gentlemen who were trying to strike a blow at Britain when we were fighting in March, 1918, were all written in the language of the oppressor! My hon. Friend (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) described himself as a man of letters. He has a right to claim that proud designation. He is probably as well acquainted with the literature of every language of Europe as any man in this House—every language except his own. There is an attempt—and as I come from a country where probably the bulk of the people can talk the language which their people talked two thousand years ago with a living literature I know what it means—there is an artificial attempt to revive that language in Ireland, and they put up names at street corners to the confusion of every honest patriot.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do not jeer.
  Mr. DEVLIN: If you continue to jeer at us, do you expect not to be interrupted?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Gentleman jeered at us the whole time yesterday.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Not at our nationality.
  The PRIME MINISTER: What I want to say is this. Here are two nationalities that have as good a claim to nationhood as that of the hon. Gentleman.
  Captain REDMOND: Why do they not demand it?
  The PRIME MINISTER: They would be proud and would not regard it as an insult; they would be grateful if a measure of self-government of this kind were given to them. They would not come to the House of Commons and say, "This wretched, miserable thing!" especially if you had bought up all their land, and put the whole burden of payment upon the taxpayers of the other parts of the United Kingdom.
  Captain REDMOND: It is not true.
  Mr. ADAMSON Mr. ADAMSON rose—
  The PRIME MINISTER: Hon. Gentlemen have had their turn.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Does the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adamson) rise to a point of Order? If not, he has no right to interrupt the Prime Minister.
  Mr. ADAMSON: On a point of Order. I want to say that if the Prime Minister puts it to Scottish Members that they would be proud to have a measure of this kind, I wish to say to the Prime Minister that no Scottish Member of this House would accept a Bill of this kind.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman must address his remarks to me, and not to the Prime Minister.
  The PRIME MINISTER: All I can say is this—
  Mr. W. THORNE: We will turn him down some day.
  Mr. J. JONES: We will boil him in oil one of these days.
  The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend is a Scottish Member. Let him go to any Scottish constituency, and say, "I am in favour of a Bill for Scotland to give full powers over education, licensing, land, railways, housing, over the agricultural development of the country, over afforestation, health, local government."
  Mr. ADAMSON: Which divides it in two. That is my point.
  The PRIME MINISTER: If Scotland demanded it.
  Mr. ADAMSON: They will not.
  4.0 P.M.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Of course they will not. My right hon Friend's Scottish logic is not quite equal to sample. If the Highlands almost unanimously demanded exclusion, you would not get Scotsmen insisting upon them having a Parliament that would put them under the heal of Edinburgh if they objected. It is because they do not, and the fact that they do not, is proof that they are a unit, and the fact that Ulster does not agree is a proof that Ireland is not a unit. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley was very mild, and I must say as to his criticism of the Bill that I have never seen it surpassed in its vehement futility. He talked about the Council, and said that the Council was a "fleshless and bloodless
  1330
  skeleton." It makes one's flesh creep to picture it. If he had taken as much trouble to read the Bill as to prepare phrases in denouncing it he would have known that that was not even remotely accurate. He need not have read more than one clause. Let us see what this bloodless, fleshless skeleton is. First of all it has got full powers to deal with all the private Bill legislation which affects the whole of Ireland.
  Mr. ASQUITH: I said so.
  The PRIME MINISTER: But I am going to say the things which the right hon. Gentleman did not say. Is that "flesh-less and bloodless"? I rather think that my right hon. Friend was responsible for a scheme for Scotland to deal with private Bill legislation. There was a scheme for Scotland—I am not complaining of it—which was purely a means of investigating in Scotland the Committee Stage. The rest had to come up here. This is a Bill which gives the whole powers of private Bill legislation to the Council. I do not dwell upon it, because I come to the second, which is much more important, and which he also mentioned without giving the real meaning of it—railways. What does that mean? The whole of the enormous powers which have been conferred on the Government Departments of this country to deal with railways are not merely handed over to this Council, but they are handed over for all time. I remember the denunciation by the associates of my right hon. Friend in the House of Lords, by Lord Buckmaster and Lord Crewe, of this gigantic Bill that was to hand over for two years these powers to a Government Department left under the supervision of an Imperial Parliament, with many of the powers only to be exercised under a Provisional Order obtained after coming back to this Parliament. Without any of those conditions all these powers are handed over to this Council. I have heard many denunciations of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, but I have never before heard him called a "bloodless, fleshless skeleton." Those are gigantic powers, powers not to be exercised for two years by reference to Provisional Orders which enable this Parliament to control it, which are handed over with full administrative and legislative powers to this Council. Anybody who knows how important transport is as an agency for

  1331
  developing the trade, commerce, industry and agriculture of a country will admit the folly of treating that as if it were a mere skeleton of no account at all. It is of vital importance in the life of a nation. But that is not all. This Council has to meet immediately. What for? To consider what services there are for the whole of Ireland that can best be administered by this Council.
  Captain REDMOND: What is the composition of the Council?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Gentleman knows the composition as well as I do.
  Mr. DEVLIN: You do not say much about it.
  Captain REDMOND: A statutory veto of Ulster.
  The PRIME MINISTER: There are many things in Ireland as to which I have not the faintest doubt that it would be a mistake to divide the representative functions of both South and North. It may be in agriculture or local government, or perhaps education. It is not for me to specify, but I have no doubt at all that when they meet, always given that the temper of Ireland is such as to make it possible for the North and South to discuss things in a fair and reasonable spirit, a great many of these powers will be handed over to this Council. So I say that it is for Irishmen themselves to clothe it with flesh and blood and to breathe into it the breath of life. If they do not do so, why should we force union upon them when they cannot establish it themselves? Those are the powers which are given by this Act. It is a great mistake, it is unfair, it is misleading; it can do no good to represent to the people of this country, and especially to the people of Ireland, that there are not powers of a gigantic kind conferred on these Parliaments by these proposals.
  Captain REDMOND: What is the composition?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The composition is of a character which makes it absolutely essential that, before anything can be done for the whole of Ireland, there should be agreement between North and South.
  Mr. DEVLIN: What do you mean by North and South?
  The PRIME MINISTER: We have deliberately formed it in such a way that no powers, beyond those which we have specified, should be given over the whole of Ireland except with the consent—
  Captain REDMOND: Of Ulster.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Not merely of the North, but of the South as well. The South can veto the North, and the North can veto the South unless there be unity between them. That is the point of the Bill. There is nothing to conceal. Much will depend when you try to achieve unity upon the attitude of the Sinn Fein population of the South. They can bring unity nearer by years if they make a real effort to work this plan, but if they work for the purpose of inflicting damage or harm upon Ulster or upon the population of this country they will postpone unity indefinitely. It is for this reason that I think it is a misfortune that the population of Ireland has been misled as to what the Bill really contains, because in that temper they cannot consider it; they cannot give a fair judgment upon it. I know that there are many men in Ireland who are sincerely desirous to see this Bill through, men who are just as good Nationalists as those sitting on that Bench.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Who are they?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member knows as well as I do.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I do not know one.
  The PRIME MINISTER: This scheme holds the field, because it recognises the facts. It recognises that you cannot satisfy Irish opinion in its present state of exultation without destroying the essential unity of the Kingdom. You must take that as an axiom for the moment, and I regret it. It recognises that the demand in Ireland for the moment is a demand for independence, for secession, and not for self-government. I want to say this to our American friends. Mr. de Valera is putting forward the same claim in exactly the same language as Mr. Jefferson Davis. The ancestors of some of the men who voted for that Motion in the Senate the other day fought to the death against conceding to the Southern States in the United States

  1333
  of America the very demand they were supporting for Ireland. The acceptance of that demand we will never concede. It is a demand which, if it be persisted in, will lead to exactly the same measures of repression as in the Southern States of America. We claim nothing more than the United States claimed for themselves. We will stand no less. Another point I want to put is, that there are certain powers which might be conferred on Ireland when she settles down and accepts union and works union, but which, if given to her in her present mood, would be used only for the hurt of the United Kingdom and for her own hurt. It would be placing dangerous weapons in the hands of an infuriated people.
  Take Customs. Handed over now, they would be used inevitably for the purpose of making war on Great Britain. Those are powers we cannot see our way to transfer until Ireland settles down, until Ireland establishes union, until Ireland accepts in good faith partnership with the United Kingdom, just like any other nationality of this land. Another fact is this: It was referred to by the right hon. Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson) in one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard him deliver with regard to Ulster. Ulster has been treated as if it were a minority that needed to be protected. Ulster is not a minority to be safeguarded. Ulster is an entity to be dealt with. It is a different problem. It is a separate and different part of Ireland. I am not now going to enter into the question of whether there is one nation or two nations, because I do not want to be more controversial than is necessary. It is exactly the problem we had to deal with in the Peace Conference in regard to Silesia. In Silesia you had one of the most ancient provinces in the whole of Europe—a separate entity, a separate government. In one part you had an overwhelming population of Poles, and in another an overwhelming population of Germans. What is the decision of the Peace Conference? We might have treated Silesia as a whole, which it always had been, but we felt that that would have been unfair. If the majority had been in favour of the Germans, you would have put a solid block of Poles inside Germany. If the majority had been in favour of the Poles, you would have put a solid block of Germans inside Poland. The Peace Conference decided that the
  1334
  area should be divided—have a block where probably there was a Polish majority here, and a block with a German majority there.
  The same thing applies in principle here. Therefore the first thing for Ireland to do is to recognise this fact. Here I do not know whether I dare make an appeal. I am afraid it will be misunderstood. For 120 years England, or I would rather say Britain, has refused to recognise the one fact with regard to Ireland, that Ireland does not want the dictation of Britain in its own affairs. Britain might do it better; it might be able to endow her richly. That was not the point. Ireland wanted to go her own way as far as her domestic concerns went, and Britain would never recognise that fact. It said it was the work of agitators. It hurt the national pride; it hurt the national vanity to recognise it. Are Irish men quite sure they are not making exactly the same mistake with regard to Ulster? They say, "Ulster really wants us. Ulster would rather be governed by us. It is only the work of organisation— Orangemen." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Duncairn—
  Mr. DEVLIN: You said that yourself.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I daresay I did, but I was wrong. I have always thought that we should have to deal separately with them. My hon. Friend knows that perfectly well, and if that had been done there would have been no trouble in Ireland. However, I do not want to go into that. Would it not be better that Ireland should recognise this fact, that Ulster does not want to be governed from Dublin, that Ulster has got her own ideas, her own thoughts, which are not common with those of the rest of Ireland? Are they going to wait 120 years before that fact comes home to them? Let them learn from the mistakes we have made with regard to Ireland as a whole, and not repeat the mistake when they come to deal with Ulster. If they do, they will get much more quickly to union. The real trouble with regard to Ireland is this. My right hon. Friend opposite has talked about Irish government.
  There is a good deal in Irish government that one regrets from generation to generation, but the real trouble is that not for 100 years, as he said, but for 700 years, the majority of the people have been dis-

  1335
  sociated from responsibility in their own government. Government and law, whether good or bad, or bad or good, always came from the outside. The hand that extends good government to them is the same hand that extends bad government to them, and it gets equal discredit. It is not that Irishmen sympathise with murder. That is not the point. They say, "That is the business of Government," and the Government is not theirs; the Government belongs to somebody else. My hon. Friend talked about the teachers, and he will excuse me for saying I could not get a better illustration than that. He said the teachers were very badly paid in Ireland, and he talked as if that were purely a matter for Great Britain. It is not. We rate ourselves heavily here and we make our own effort to put up contributions to our teachers. In Ireland they say, "That is the business of the Government, that is the business of somebody else." The whole system of government in Ireland is vitiated by the fact that you have severed the people from the law and severed them from government.
  Union—there is no union. There is union between Scotland and England and Wales. There is a union that bears the test of death. There is no union with Ireland. A grappling hook is not union. How are you going to get it? I am sanguine enough to believe
  that we shall get it through this Bill. I do not say you will get it in a year, or in two years, or in three years. You cannot remove the misconceptions and misunderstandings and bitterness of centuries in a year or two. Ireland is a country of long memories. In fact it is one of the troubles of Ireland that it has stuck its roots rather too deep in the past and it has got, as you always do, into rather poor soil. Ireland needs root pruning. She has got to live more in the realities of the present. But I believe that with patience, and that feeling of good humour which I know Britishers can under certain conditions display, and without taking too much notice of mere histrionic displays of disaffection whilst dealing firmly with all real cases of treason and of crime, you will gradually work a union of the North and South, a union of Protestant and Catholic, a union of Britain with Ireland, a real union, in which all will be good partners in a great concern of which all will equally be proud.
  Mr. J. JONES Mr. J. JONES rose to continue the Debate—
  Whereupon, Mr. BONAR LAWrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 348; Noes, 94.

  Division No. 77.]

  AYES.

  [4.23 p.m.

  Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.

  Blair, Major Reginald

  Chadwick, R. Burton

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C.

  Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

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

  Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

  Blane, T. A.

  Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

  Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

  Boles, Lieut.-Colonel D. F.

  Cheyne, Sir William Watson

  Ainsworth, Captain Charles

  Borwick, Major G. O.

  Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.

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

  Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-

  Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

  Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin

  Bottomley, Horatio W.

  Coats, Sir Stuart

  Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.

  Bowles, Colonel H. F.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Astor, Viscountess

  Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Atkey, A. R.

  Brassey, Major H. L. C.

  Cohen, Major J. Brunei

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Breese, Major Charles E.

  Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Briggs, Harold

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Balfour, Sir R. (Glasgow, Partick)

  Brittain, Sir Harry

  Cope, Major Wm.

  Barnett, Major R. W.

  Britton, G. B.

  Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)

  Barnston, Major Harry

  Broad, Thomas Tucker

  Courthope, Major George L.

  Barrand, A. R.

  Brown, Captain D. C.

  Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

  Barrle, Charles Coupar

  Bruton, Sir James

  Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)

  Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

  Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.

  Curzon, Commander Viscount

  Beauchamp, Sir Edward

  Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.

  Daiziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)

  Beck, Sir C. (Essex, Saffron Walden)

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Burdon, Colonel Rowland

  Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)

  Beilairs, Commander Carlyon W.

  Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel A. H.

  Davies, Sir David Sanders (Denbigh)

  Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)

  Butcher, Sir John George

  Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)

  Benn, Com. Ian H. (Greenwich)

  Campbell, J. D. G.

  Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)

  Bennett, Thomas Jewell

  Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

  Betheil, Sir John Henry

  Carew, Charles Robert S.

  Dean, Lieut.-Commander P. T.

  Betterton, Henry B.

  Carr, W. Theodore

  Denison-Pender, John C.

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Casey, T. W.

  Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)

  Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)

  Cautley, Henry S.

  Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry

  Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland

  Cayzer, Major Herbert Robin

  Doyle, N. Grattan

  Du Pre, Colonel William Baring

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

  Rodger, A. K.

  Edge, Captain William

  Lister, Sir R. Ashton

  Rogers, Sir Hailewell

  Edwards, Allen C. (East Ham, S.)

  Lloyd, George Butler

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

  Lloyd-Greame, Major P.

  Roundeil, Colonel R. F.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)

  Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)

  Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund

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

  Lorden, John William

  Rutherford, Colonel Sir J. (Darwen)

  Eyres-Monseil, Commander B. M.

  Lort-Williams, J.

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Falcon, Captain Michael

  Loseby, Captain C. E.

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

  Faile, Major Sir Bertram G.

  Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Farquharson, Major A. C.

  Lyle-Samuel, Alexander

  Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert A.

  Fell, Sir Arthur

  Lyon, Laurance

  Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

  M'Donald, Dr. Bouverie F. P.

  Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  FitzRoy, Captain Hon. E. A.

  Macdonaid, Rt. Hon. John Murray

  Scott, Leslie (Liverpool Exchange)

  Flannery, Sir James Fortescue

  Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)

  Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Maryiebone)

  Foreman, Henry

  M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.

  Seddon, J. A.

  Forestier-Walker, L.

  Macieod, J. Mackintosh

  Shaw, William T. (Forfar)

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Macmaster, Donald

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

  Fraser, Major Sir Keith

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Simm, M. T.

  Freece, Sir Walter de

  Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

  Smith, Sir Allan M. (Croydon, South)

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Smith, Harold (Warrington)

  Gange, E. Stanley

  Maddocks, Henry

  Smithers, Sir Alfred W.

  Ganzonl, Captain Francis John C.

  Mailalieu, F. W.

  Stanier, Captain Sir Seville

  Gardner, Ernest

  Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)

  Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. G. F.

  Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)

  Manville, Edward

  Stanton, Charles B.

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Starkey, Captain John R.

  Gilbert, James Daniel

  Marriott, John Arthur Ransome

  Steel, Major S. Strang

  Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John

  Mason, Robert

  Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

  Glyn, Major Ralph

  Matthews, David

  Stevens, Marshall

  Gould, James C.

  Middlebrook, Sir William

  Strauss, Edward Anthony

  Grant, James A.

  Mitchell, William Lane

  Sturrock, J. Long

  Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)

  Molson, Major John Eisdale

  Sugden, W. H.

  Grayson, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.

  Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred M.

  Sutherland, Sir William

  Green, Albert (Derby)

  Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.

  Sykes, Colonel Sir A. J. (Knutsford)

  Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)

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

  Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

  Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar

  Moreing, Captain Algernon H.

  Taylor, J.

  Greer, Harry

  Morris, Richard

  Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)

  Gregory, Holman

  Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

  Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Mount, William Arthur

  Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)

  Guest, Major O. (Leic, Loughboro')

  Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

  Thomas-Stanford, Charles

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

  Murchison, C. K.

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

  Hailwood, Augustine

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

  Thorpe, Captain John Henry

  Hambro, Captain Angus Vaidemar

  Murray, John (Leeds, West)

  Tickler, Thomas George

  Hamilton, Major C. G. C.

  Murray, Major William (Dumfries)

  Townley, Maximilian G.

  Hanson, Sir Charles Augustin

  Neal, Arthur

  Tryon, Major George Clement

  Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)

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

  Vickers, Douglas

  Harmaworth, Sir R. L. (Caithness)

  Nichoil, Commander Sir Edward

  Waddington, R.

  Harris, Sir Henry Percy

  Nicholson, Reginald (Doncasler)

  Walters, Sir John Tudor

  Haslam, Lewis

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.

  Henderson, Major V. L. (Tradeston)

  Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

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

  Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

  Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John

  Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)

  Higham, Charles Frederick

  Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark

  Waring, Major Walter

  Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank

  Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.

  Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

  Hills, Major John Waller

  Parker, James

  Warren, Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred H.

  Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.

  Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry

  Wason, John Cathcart

  Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

  Pearce, Sir William

  Watson, Captain John Bertrand

  Hood, Joseph

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike

  Weston, Colonel John W.

  Hope, H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn'n, W.)

  Peel, Lieut.-Col. R. F. (Woodbridge)

  White, Lieut.-Col. G. D. (Southport)

  Hope, James F. (Sheffield, Central)

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

  Wigan, Brig.-Gen. John Tyson

  Hope, J. D. (Berwick & Haddington)

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Wild, Sir Ernest Edward

  Hopkins, John W. W.

  Perring, William George

  Willey, Lieut.-Colonel F. V.

  Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)

  Philipps, Gen. Sir I. (Southampton)

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

  Hotchkin, Captain Stafford Vere

  Philipps, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)

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

  Howard, Major S. G.

  Pilditch, Sir Philip

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

  Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)

  Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles

  Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud

  Inskip, Thomas Walker H.

  Pollock, Sir Ernest M.

  Wills, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Gilbert

  Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.

  Pownail, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)

  James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

  Prescott, Major W. H.

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

  Jephcott, A. R.

  Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.

  Wilson, Lieut.-Col. M. J. (Richmond)

  Jesson, C.

  Purchase, H. G.

  Wilson-Fox, Henry

  Jodreil, Neville Paul

  Rae, H. Norman

  Winterton, Major Earl

  Johnson, L. S.

  Raeburn, Sir William H.

  Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)

  Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Ramsden, G. T.

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

  Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)

  Rankin, Captain James S.

  Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge and Hyde)

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

  Raper, A. Baldwin

  Wood, Major S. Hill- (High Peak)

  Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llaneily)

  Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel N.

  Woolcock, William James U.

  Kellaway, Frederick George

  Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)

  Worsfold, Dr. T. Cato

  Kelly, Major Fred (Rotherham)

  Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Kidd, James

  Remer, J. R

  Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Remnant, Colonel Sir James F.

  Yeo, Sir Alfred William

  Knights, Capt. H. N. (C'berwell, N.)

  Rendail, Atheistan

  Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)

  Lambert, Rt. Hon. George

  Renwick, George

  Young, W. (Perth & Kinross, Perth)

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Richardson, Sir Albion (Camberwell)

  Younger, Sir George

  Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)

  Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

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

  Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)

  Lord E. Talbot and Capt. Guest.

  1338

  1339

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. F. D.

  Grundy, T. W.

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

  Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.

  Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.

  Redmond, Captain William Archer

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

  Gwynne, Rupert S.

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

  Harbison, Thomas James S.

  Robertson, John

  Banner, Sir John S. Harmood

  Hayday, Arthur

  Rose, Frank H.

  Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)

  Hayward, Major Evan

  Royce, William Stapleton

  Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)

  Shaw, Thomas (Preston)

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, Yeovil)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Bramsdon, Sir Thomas

  Hirst, G. H.

  Sitch, Charles H.

  Briant, Frank

  Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

  Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)

  Bromfield, William

  Houston, Robert P.

  Spencer, George A.

  Cairns, John

  Irving, Dan

  Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander

  Cape, Thomas

  Jeilett, William Morgan

  Stewart, Gershom

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

  Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

  Kelly, Edward J. (Donegal, East)

  Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)

  Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole

  Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)

  Croft, Brigadier-General Henry Page

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

  Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)

  Kiley, James D.

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)

  Davies, Major D. (Montgomery)

  Lawson, John J.

  Waterson, A. E.

  Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)

  Lunn, William

  Wignail, James

  Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)

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

  Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)

  Devlin, Joseph

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)

  Dockreil, Sir Maurice

  Malone, Lieut.-Col. C. L. (Leyton, E.)

  Wilson, Capt. A. S. (Holderness)

  Donnelly, P.

  Morgan, Major D. Watts

  Wolmer, Viscount

  Duncannon, Viscount

  Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)

  Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)

  Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot

  Myers, Thomas

  Woods, Sir Robert

  Glanville, Harold James

  Newbould, Alfred Ernest

  Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  O'Connor, Thomas P.

  Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)

  O'Grady, Captain James

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

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

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Mr. Tyson Wilson and Mr. Neil

  Gretton, Colonel John

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Maclean.

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Perinefather, De Fonblanque

  Bill read a Second time, and committed be a Standing Committee.

EASTER RECESS (ADJOURNMENT).
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now Adjourn."—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]
Mr. A. WILLIAMS: I wish to raise a matter touching the honour and the interests of this country which ought to be discussed before we separate for our well-earned holiday. I refer to the unhappy people of Armenia, who have no holidays, but suffer day by day and year after year under the terrible tyranny of the Turkish Government and the Turkish bands. I refer particularly to Cilicia. There is a most dangerous state of things there, and unless it is dealt with by the Allies it will lead to a great expenditure of money, and perhaps loss of life. It is all very well to think that these things are far away from this country, but we cannot neglect our responsibilities to those who have been our Allies, to those who are in their present position largely because of the action of the British Government in the past, without entailing upon ourselves also very serious and very lamentable consequences in the
1340
future. In the province of Cilicia, a district which has no exact geographical boundaries, lying between the mountains and the sea, in a sort of crescent at the point where Syria and Asia Minor join, at the present time there are scores of thousands of refugees, chiefly Greeks and Armenians, who have barely escaped with their lives from the great Turkish massacres during the War, and now they are in very grave danger of their lives from the attacks of Turkish bands. We have all read of the town of Marash where there were at least 10,000 people killed, mostly Armenians who had been repatriated by the British authorities, and, I have it from official information, repatriated in many cases against their will, and were sent back to the North, whereas they wanted to follow our troops to the South.
Then we handed over their country to the French, and these terrible massacres occurred. At present the town is for the most part destroyed, being a wooden town. The Church authorities there are held as hostages, and a telegram I have here has been received purporting to come from them, declaring their danger if the French should return to that town, which will be understood by all who know the ways of the East, as just a threat on the part of the Turks that these people will be massacred if there is any attempt by

1341
the French to re-take the place. The town of Aintab is in very great danger, and Hadjin, where there are 6,000 Armenians, is also in very great danger. The Greeks and Armenians at Schar have been massacred. That information has come within the last two days, and there are several other towns being occupied by bands. Within these towns there are not only native Christians, but Americans and, possibly in some cases, British subjects also, but I certainly know of Americans. When you come to the town of Adana, the centre of the district, there are at least three British subjects there, and there are 55,000 Christian people, 30,000 of them refugees who have come back, and the remainder inhabitants of the place. Thousands of Armenians are asking arms of the French to go and relieve the town of Hadjin, and probably other towns in danger. The French find themselves unable to send troops. They have officially recommended that the women and children should be brought away from Hadjin, but that is not practicable without the greatest possible danger; indeed it is practically impossible to do it at all, unless a force of troops is sent. The French are unable to send a force of troops all the way, but they have offered to send them half way if the men of Hadjin are able to conduct the women and children the first half of the way to Adana.
I have here quite a large number of documents bearing upon this position which I should like to read to the House, but I do not wish to intrude upon the time too much. Here is one very short extract from a letter which left Adana on the 10th of this month. Adana is the very centre and capital of this district, the headquarters of the French, and the place to and around which the great mass of the refugees have been brought back. This is what a very level-headed Canadian writes:
"There is at present some directing power hehind these bands, as the attacks are being made in a complete semi-circle all round Adana, although at some considerable distance from it. Last night the French Consul admitted that twelve men had been killed outside Mersina (that is a town right upon the coast), and that there was restlessness in the direction of Selefkeh (which is another town right upon the coast). This is continued in a large circle round to beyond Islahieh (a long way further to the east).
1342
where the railway is cut in several places, and no communications of any kind are open to Aleppo. It is hard to say that massacres on the scale of the troubles in the Marash district are taking place, but without doubt many Armenians are being killed daily in small parties in widespread areas."
These bands are attacking from the hills, and are gradually working their way down to the plains. From the first, as we know from the Rev. Harold Buxton, who has come direct back from this district, they took for their war cry "To Adana." They are not merely brigands, as the Turkish authorities like to call them, but regular, organised bands working in a semi-circle, and taking first one place and then another, and working down to Adana, where the great bulk of the Christian population is. If the French of course, are able to defend that place, and, above all, if they are able to go on giving arms to the Armenian people, who desire no better than to have arms put in their hands, in order that they may defend themselves, then there is some hope; but I am bound to say that what has happened in the past causes in our minds the greatest possible anxiety as to what will happen in the immediate future.
I have letters indicating the absolute necessity of holding the hill country if the plain of Cilicia is to be effectively held, but at present it seems the Nationalists will attack the plain and the rail way and the towns of Adana and Tarsus. I do not wish to underestimate the difficulties which the French have in that country. I know it would take a consider able force really to maintain order in that country, but they desired to occupy it, and I feel bound in my duty to these people, whom I have had the honour of representing in some sense in this House for a good many years, to say that the French people, having undertaken to occupy Cilicia, having been anxious to occupy Cilicia, having sent on a certain number of troops to one point and another—not troops enough to hold the country, but enough to exasperate the fanaticism of the Mohammedan people— the French Government are bound in honour to see that they maintain order there, and they are bound, I think, by every principle of honour and expediency, to call in the native Christian loyal inhabitants to help them in that great work.

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This is a matter of the greatest anxiety at the present time. Before we meet again we may hear that 10,000 people have been massacred at Hadjin, or 10,000 people had been massacred somewhere else, that possibly Adana itself is seized, and then possibly will come the cry that we, as the Allies of France, will have to send greater forces there. It would be not altogether unnatural, because we were in possession of that country until November, and then we handed it over to the French, in pursuance of some arrangements between us and the French, not asked by the native people there at all. We handed it over to the French, and when handing over the country we handed over the refugees whom we had sent back against their will into this country, and into this great danger. I hope, therefore, the Government will bethink them while yet there is time that they have a great responsibility in this matter; that they cannot come here merely and say this loss of life is very deplorable, but that the French are in possession and are responsible. I do not believe the conscience of this country will bear that. I say more than that. We cannot forget that these people have been our Allies, and have fought for us, and have fought for the French in the War. They have shed their blood in defence of Verdun in France itself. If we are now going to desert them, then I ask; what little people are going to trust this Nation in future in any war that may arise? I hope we shall have some words from the representative of the Government that either they or the French Government will take all necessary measures to effectively maintain order in that country, with justice and security for men of all races and of all religions.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I share fully with my hon. Friend opposite the anxiety as to the fate of the Armenians in Cilicia. I cannot help feeling that it would be a very serious disgrace to us and to our Allies generally if the remnants of this unhappy people in Cilicia were finally wiped out. What they have suffered during the War is very terrible to many of us, and it is very difficult to find words which do not sound exaggerated in describing what their sufferings have been. May I remind the House very shortly how very precise are our obliga-
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tions in this matter? In the statement of the Allied Aim in 1917 we expressly included the Armenians as among those who must be liberated from Turkish rule. The Prime Minister's speech of 1918 referred to the matter, and a pledge was again given in the most specific and definite terms. In this House the Government of the day has constantly reiterated those pledges. I myself, as the mouthpiece of the Government, on more than one occasion have stated in the strongest and plainest language the obligations we felt to do everything we could to protect the Armenians. Though I have not looked at the document recently, I rather think that an avowed and similar undertaking, expressed or implied, is in President Wilson's fourteen points as a basis for the Armistice.
It was for that reason, because of the anxiety felt in various quarters of this country, among considerable numbers of people, that I ventured to press upon the Government the other day that it was right that they should have some direct representative in Cilicia who could report directly upon what was happening there. It was not from the slightest want of confidence or trust in the French that I suggested this, but merely that there might be direct official information that we could absolutely trust so that we did not depend upon indirect methods, or obtain information which we were not strictly entitled to, and which we could only receive by the courtesy of our French Allies. It would be a great satisfaction to the people of this country if they knew somebody was there representing the British Government in the sense I have put, charged with keeping the British Government fully informed as to what actually was happening, and in which the British Government's honour was so expressly and completely pledged as it is in this matter. I still think as I did, but I should be very sorry if it were believed that that suggestion implied the slightest want of confidence in our French Allies. The French aim, in this and other matters, is the same as in this country. I believe there is a very strong feeling of humanity in the French nation, quite as strong as exists in this country. I believe they are as quite determined to carry out their pledges to the Armenians as we are. It is not because I doubt that in the least. I am sure they will do so if they can. To think

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otherwise would be to think very basely indeed of the French nation, for not only are they bound by the Allied pledge, but it is common knowledge, as my hon. Friend reminded the House, that the Armenians have actually fought for the French; more than that, the French raised an Armenian battalion—or was it a brigade?—which fought in other parts of the world. The Armenian decision was only made on the express understanding that they were to be liberated from the Turks; that they were fighting for their own liberation as well as for the general cause of freedom. I am sure it is not too much to say that the civilised world has been watching with close attention the action of the Allied Powers, and the French in particular, for she has a force in that part of the world. The civilised world is watching what action will be taken to carry out and make effective the pledges we have given to these people. If the Allies fail in this matter it will be useless to expect that anyone should attach the slightest weight or value to any pledge that may in future be given by any of them on the same or similar grounds. I only hope that the Government will realise this and will realise the great disgrace which will happen to the Allied cause, and to the British name, if there is any failure, and that we shall not again, as has happened on too many occasions, have to write the terrible epitaph, "Too late!" on the efforts of the Government.
5.0 P.M.
Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: A subject has recently been brought to my attention which I desire to refer to for a little while only, because I do not think that the continued discussion to-day is really to stick to the rules of cricket. In addition to that, it is not necessary that any Minister should reply to me. But I want to place on the records of the House just a protest in reference to a matter of which I have personal knowledge. It comes, I suppose, under the Department of the Colonies. I have had sent to me a paper—"The Child's Guardian," for April—apparently published in London. The front page deals almost entirely with a subject the heading of which is, "Does child-slavery exist in a British Colony?" Perhaps I had better read one quotation which will explain what I want the authorities to gather. I am now quoting from the "Hong Kong Telegraph":—
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"Whether slavery does or does not exist in Hong Kong is a matter upon which different people have different ideas according to their conception of the meaning of the term. One of our Registrars-General once referred in his Annual Report to a state of affairs which he admitted was, at any rate, closely allied. But on one point there can be no dispute, and that is that Chinese children are bought and sold in this British Colony, without their consent being in any way obtained, and no attempt whatever is made to hide the fact. This is a Chinese custom. Whilst we admit that very many of these children are far happier in their slavery than they would be in freedom, we say unhesitatingly it is a custom which ought to be suppressed. We can understand the horror of the English lady who wrote us yesterday on the discovery of the existence of this pernicious system in a British Colony, and while we agree with the sentiments she expressed, we are glad to think she realises the difficulties of the matter. We wish her success in her determination to get the matter brought to the notice of influential persons at home. It may interest her to learn that the very first enactment passed, when Hong Kong became British was an anti-slavery Bill, but it was disallowed by the Home Government, as it was considered that the Imperial Statutes for the abolition of slavery extended by their proper force and authority to Hong Kong. That means that the laws against trafficking in human beings are still operative."
Then this newspaper asks
"Then why are they not rigidly enforced by His Majesty's officers in this Colony?"
Just for a moment I will describe my own experience. When I was in Hong Kong, in 1917, by attention was called to this question, and I wrote letters to the Secretary of the General Federation of Trades Unions, and I gave report of a case which was tried in the High Court of Hong Kong, where for some reason or other the ipse dixit of the Judge was to the effect that as the buying and selling of human beings was a Chinese custom, and that when taking possession of the colonies we had agreed to observe the Chinese customs, and buying and selling of human beings, if included in that custom, could not be interferred with by us. I called the attention of the Federation of Trades Unions to this matter in the latter part of 1917. I asked them to keep it quiet, and I said that while we are fighting and battling with all the forces of our Empire I did not wish it to be known that we were tolerating the buying and selling of people in one of our own colonies. I asked them to go quietly to the Colonial Office and lay this very case before the Secretary of State for the Colonies and see if the matter could be quietly altered.

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It strikes me that you cannot get anything quietly altered in this country and you have to make a noise before you can get anything done. I am informed by the Federation of Trade Unions that the Colonial Office definitely promised to attend to the matter if the Federation would not make it public property. They promised to see that this practice was curtailed and as far as possible abolished. Now we are having letters from Hong Kong, which are about to be published in a paper circulating in London, showing that this buying and selling of human beings takes place quite publicly. Anyone can go and see it done, and can offer so many dollars for one of these girls or boys as the case may be, which to my mind is a most outrageous proceeding. On this question the documents must be at the Colonial Office, and my letters must be there. A copy of the report of the trial to which I have referred at Hong Kong must be in the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office, and yet not a stroke appears to have been done to deal with the matter. This seems to me to be so unusual and opposed to our character as a nation that I wonder how the thing has lived as long as it has done. I thought it was only necessary to draw the attention of the Colonial Office to it in order that it should disappear. Three years have gone by, and, according to an advance copy of a newspaper sent to me, the thing is still flourishing and would continue to flourish if I had not been allowed use of these few minutes, which I hope will be sufficient to put this inhuman practice down.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel Amery): I was not aware that my hon. and gallant Friend was going to raise this matter or I would have taken an opportunity to refresh my mind on the subject. Not very long ago my attention was drawn to it, and I made inquiries, and there are inquiries on this subject on their way to Hong Kong at this moment. Looking through the papers I came across this very material point. There is no form of slavery in force or recognised by law in Hong Kong. There are no persons who have not perfect liberty over their own bodily self to do what they like, and they are not bound by any permanent contract as to service. What has caused confusion is that there are two Chinese customs. One is slavery which exists in China, and which in no
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shape or form is recognised in Hong Kong. There is another practice, and I do not remember the Chinese term for it, which is the adoption of girls and youths for domestic service, in which case a lump sum is paid to the parent or guardian. As a matter of fact, the adoption does not carry with it any power of restraint over the person. If a Chinaman in Hong Kong wishes to pay a sum to the parents of a particular girl to become an adopted inmate of his house that girl can walk out of his house at any time.
Lieut.-Colonel WARD: That may be so in theory, but it is not so in actual practice. They remain in servitude for the whole of their lives.
Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: That is exactly the sort of point on which I wish to get fuller information. I saw a letter from the Governor about the time my hon. and gallant Friend refers to, drawing this very clear distinction between the two entirely different Chinese customs, and confirming my statement that there was nothing in the nature of slavery in Hong Kong. If, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests, children are often not able to get away and are held in restraint, that is a matter I must inquire about. I do not think even in this country either adopted or other children can always get away as freely as they would like, and perhaps that is sometimes a good thing for them. It was suggested that attempts were made by procureurs and others to get these girls from their homes, and to that extent the courts would watch over the interests of those girls and young men. I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman has done no harm in raising this question, and I am much obliged to him, but it is just one of those sort of things that we ought to have cleared up, and if anything wrong is going on, the sooner we put an end to it the better. We could not know what is going on in these matters unless some hon. Members took up these questions and brought them to the notice of this House. I shall look into this matter again and see that our inquiries are accelerated.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Harms-worth): It will probably be for the convenience of the House that I should say what I have to say on the Armenian question at this juncture. I will say at once

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to my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. A. Williams) that I am not yet in a position to affirm or deny the accuracy of the latest telegrams he has received. His information, as the House is aware, is usually ample and extra ordinarily accurate. I only wish to tell him that I have made the latest possible inquiries at the Foreign Office, and we have as yet no confirmation or otherwise of the greater and more alarming reports that he has received. May I say this? My hon. Friend and the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord E. Cecil) have spoken of the great anxiety that prevails in parts of this country and among a large part of our population in regard to the Armenians in Cilicia. I can assure the House that that anxiety and that solicitude are shared to the fullest extent by His Majesty's Government, and indeed I think my hon. Friend and my Noble Friend are well aware with what anxiety the Government Department chiefly concerned have watched the development of this very dangerous situation, and I was very glad to hear my Noble Friend say that there was no reason to suppose that the French people or the French Government were less anxious about the situation than we are. I am very glad also that in this Debate no expression has been used tending to convey the impression that the French people or the French Government are less willing to render aid and assistance than we should be in like circumstances, but I am not at all sure that the House and the country fully realise that Cilicia is a country that is not under the control or the jurisdiction of His Majesty's Government. That has been made clear, I admit, in the speeches of those hon. Gentlemen who have paid particular attention to this matter, but I am not at all sure that it is fully realised in the House or in the country. Whatever our past obligations may have been to individual Armenians in Cilicia, or large bodies of Armenians for that matter, we have not at the present time any jurisdiction over that part of Asia Minor in which they now find themselves.
Colonel GREIG: I am not sure that the public mind is quite clear on this. Are there not two countries in which there are Armenians in Asia Minor? One is the North, which it is suggested should be made independent and be autonomous, and the other is Cilicia, which is now under the control of the
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French, and it has nothing to do with the other Armenians at all?
Mr. HARMSWORTH: Of course that is so, but I think my hon. and gallant Friend is mistaken in supposing that that is not generally appreciated. It is appreciated, I think, by all who have given any mature consideration to the subject. The situation has been very fully described from time to time in this House. The House knows of the recent events in Marash, and it appears that the French Government are not at present in a position to render military aid. Every kind of representation, for what such representations are worth, has been made to the Turkish Government, not only by the French Government, but by our Government, and a plain intimation has gone out from the Peace Conference, as the House is aware, that if necessary, and if these misdoings continue, the Allied Governments may alter their attitude in regard to recent pronouncements about Constantinople. Everything that moral pressure can effect has been tried, and I can only trust that our great Allies have found it possible by now, or will find it possible, to render that more immediate and material aid which I agree with my hon. Friend in thinking is necessary in this case. I only rise with the object of saying that in fact the Government have nothing to add, are not in a position to add, anything to the rather full reply I gave yesterday to private notice questions of my hon. Friend. I can assure him and the House that as in the past, so during the time of the recess, the Foreign Office will continue to pay day by day anxious consideration to this most important matter.
Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Will His Majesty's Government offer to the French Government that British forces will, if they desire it, be sent there to assist in this work?
Brigadier - General CROFT: I gave notice that I would raise on the adjournment the whole question of the Ministry of Munitions, but in view of the fact that there are two other hon. Gentlemen raising questions, and that the Ministry of Munitions Vote will be taken on Tuesday week, I wish to deal with the specific case which is now know in the House referring to the dismissal of Mr. Hankinson. With regard to the general question, I will only

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say that I hope by Tuesday week the House will be quite convinced, on general grounds of efficiency, and in order to end extravagance and waste, that the whole policy should be reformed, and that the Ministry of Munitions and the Disposals Board should give place to one of the older Departments, which ought now to be able efficiently to carry out the remaining work. With regard to the specific instance which was raised in the House by several hon. Gentlemen last week and the week before, a perfectly simple administrative matter, it seems to me, has now, owing to its treatment, become a grave question of principle. The facts briefly are as follows:—Certain irregularities existed. The superintendent-in-charge repeatedly warned the delinquent who was responsible for these irregularities, both verbally and in writing, in writing on 5th September, 1919; on 29th January, 1920; and on 6th February, 1920; and on 9th February, in view of the fact that the conduct of this particular individual did not improve, the Superintendent asked for the removal of this gentleman, whose name was Mr. Stevenson, on the following grounds: First, taking his subordinates into licensed premises during working hours, after being cautioned against so doing; second, conduct subversive of discipline; thirdly, the removal of important documents from the Ministry without permission, and, when reprimanded, using insulting language to the Superintendent. The Superintendent was informed that the official whose removal he demanded could not be dismissed without an inquiry, and Mr. Hankinson accordingly welcomed that in quiry, which was held on 14th February.
The principal evidence in this case came from the female staff, and the inquiry into the female staff was, as has been admitted by the Deputy-Minister, carried out by Miss Stevenson, the sister of the accused, and whom the Deputy-Minister has himself described in this House as the appropriate officer to inquire into the conduct of this case where her brother was concerned. Neither the Superintendent nor his deputy was called into this inquiry and asked to give their side of the question. It was an inquiry which was one-sided, and, as I think, I may say without fear of contradiction, in view of the fact that the sister was employed for this purpose, it was an improper and im-
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partial inquiry. On 16th February, Mr. Hankinson, by Minute, called attention to the partiality of the afore-mentioned inquiry. I venture to think that his communication was couched in most proper terms. I am not going to trouble the House by reading it, but it was written in a most correct manner, respectfully asking that there should be a further inquiry of a different description. On 20th February, Mr. Hankinson received notice of the termination of his engagement, to take effect on 16th April. I do not think that anyone would be surprised at that, because we all want to see all those gentlemen who have been described as "limpets" got rid of at the earliest possible date. He was given notice that his services would be dispensed with on 16th April. On 25th February, Mr. Hankinson put his request for another inquiry before Mr. Boland, an official who has carried out his duties most efficiently. He instructed Mr. Hankinson to obtain evidence and forward it to him through Mr. Biggs, who is another official, the immediate superior of Mr. Hankinson. On 28th February, a Saturday, that evidence was duly forwarded to Mr. Boland. On 1st March, the following Monday, Mr. Hankinson, instead of being allowed to serve his time until 16th April, was summarily dismissed. That was a very extraordinary fact, in view of what had been happening. Someone was sent down immediately to take over the keys and the cash and everything else in his place, and he was turned on one side. In other words, in view of the whole of his staff, this superintendent, who had done his duty, was suddenly degraded. That was an extraordinary thing, when his sole object was evidently efficiency. The Deputy-Minister, in Debate, stated with reference to myself that
"If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had only been informed, he would not have touched this case with a barge pole."
I agree. A barge pole is hardly long enough to touch this case, when one comes to examine it and understand the methods that have been, employed. The Deputy-Minister, further, when the question was raised on the Adjournment of the House, camouflaged, if I may say so, the whole case, by saying that I was making this attack upon these ex-Service men. The hon. Gentleman knows that I made no attack upon the ex-Service men, but only upon one man, who

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happens to be an ex-Service man, who was in charge of all these ex-Service men. The hon. Gentleman will hardly suggest that I could blame any of those porters, whom Mr. Hankinson has never complained of as individuals, and who were led astray by the man' put over them—the official against whom we are complaining. The Deputy-Minister was very ready, I understand, to take the evidence on one side, but what I cannot understand is why he did not take the evidence of the trusted official to whom he has paid tribute in this House. He has tolerated and condoned a most partial and irregular procedure with regard to the method of inquiry, in the first place, in attempting to justify it in this House. At the same time, whilst the hon. Gentleman admits the behaviour of the accused, he has stated on the floor of this House that there was no evidence of drinking in Ministry hours, of card playing, or of other irregularities; and he turned and trounced me for having made these disgraceful suggestions against one who had served in the Army. I invite the Deputy-Minister, as he has told me that there was no evidence, to state whether or not it is a fact that the signed evidence of eight or nine witnesses was in his possession at the Ministry of Munitions? In order that the House may see that my charges were not wild threats, I am compelled, in view of the fact that there has been so many inaccurate answers on this matter at Question Time, to tell the House that if the Deputy-Minister had not this evidence before him it was withheld from him, for it was in the possession of the Ministry of Munitions. I do not intend to quote the names unless the hon. Gentleman demands it, but here is what the first witness said:
"I have seen the men playing cards with Mr. H. G. Stevenson in the afternoon during Ministry hours."
The Deputy Minister said it never happened—
"To my knowledge the men have been drinking during business hours, and on Friday, January 2nd, in my opinion, several of the men in the middle of the afternoon were the worse for drink. I have personal knowledge that Mr. H. G. Stevenson on many occasions was rude to the Superintendent, and was in the habit of making disparaging remarks concerning the Superintendent to the staff."
The second witness says:
"I myself, when putting a call through to Mr. Hankinson for Colonel Macnaghten, was
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asked by Mr. H. G. Stevenson to listen to it. He said to me, 'Just listen; I want to hear what they are talking about.' I also am aware that the men, including Mr. H. G. Stevenson, used to play cards in the Ministry hours. On the occasion to which I refer, I myself saw Mr. H. G. Stevenson in the hut at the time. I also am personally aware that the men used to go out to get drink through the emergency door during Ministry hours.
That absolutely substantiates what I said, and what the hon. Gentleman denies any evidence of. The third witness says:
"There are many times that the men have been known to be drinking during office hours, and Mr. Stevenson on more than one occasion has boasted that he could obtain drink at any hour of the day; in fact, as far as I can remember, Mr. Durrant himself found the men worse for drink when he paid a visit, and they were sent for from the public-house because he was there."
This was the Mr. Durrant who superseded Mr. Hankinson. The fourth witness states:
"I am aware that Mr. Stevenson played cards during the Ministry working hours in the afternoon, and during Ministry hours I am also aware that Mr. H. G. Stevenson and the men on occasions went to the public-house down the street for drinking, and that Mr. H. G. Stevenson said that he could get drink at any time, oven at prohibited hours, by going in at a side door."
The fifth witness states:
"It is to my knowledge that the men have been in the habit of going out for drink in Ministry hours, and it is common knowledge among the staff that the men, to escape notice, made use of the emorgoncy door at the far end of the premises leading into Sumner Street."
The sixth witness states:
"It was common knowledge among the staff at Archives Registry that Mr. H. G. Stevenson and the men were warned when Mr. Biggs was coming down to inspect the Archives or Mr. Hankinson was going his round. It is to my personal knowledge that several of the men were the worse for drink on the afternoon of Friday, January 2nd."
The seventh witness says that
"On one occasion Mr. Stevenson made the following remark: 'I am going to fight Hanky now and beat him. He will soon be out of it. I am in charge of the papers here. It will not be very long before Mr. Durrant is here in his place!"
That was a truly prophetic utterance. Then there is an eighth witness, who says:
"During my working hours at the Archives Department I have spent more than one afternoon in a neighbouring public-house with Mr. Stevenson and some of the other men, while Mr. Hankinson was led to believe we were out on a Government lorry or at work in one of the huts. We have played

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cards in some quiet corner, and brought in bottles of beer to consume during the afternoon. This was always done quite unknown to Mr. Hankinson, and always at the suggestion of Mr. Stevenson."
I think the House will be satisfied that I was on firm ground when I said that these things have been going on. The Deputy Minister has solemnly declared in this House that there was no evidence of the irregularities to which I call attention. Those statements have now all been sworn to before Commissioners for Oaths. Does the hon. Gentleman still maintain that no irregularities took place, and does he still maintain that this trusted Superintendent should have been treated in this disgraceful manner? I would also ask him a further question. Was Mr. Stevenson appointed originally on the recommendation of Mr. Durrant, who has taken Mr. Hankinson's place? Mr. Stevenson openly boasted that Mr. Hankinson would be got rid of and Mr. Durrant placed in his post. I would remind the hon. Gentleman, in spite of what he said to me during the last Debate, that Mr. Durrant is not an ex-service man. Mr. Hankinson has done his duty as a servant of the State, and the hon. Gentleman came down here and said there was some question of his not being able to make the luncheon hour ten minutes later, and that any man with "nous" would have put that right. The hon. Gentleman knows, however, that Mr. Hankinson had repeatedly called attention to what was going on, and that he had every ground for asking for Mr. Stevenson's dismissal. What is the reason? The man who is guilty of these irregularities is still retained in the Ministry of Munitions whilst the man who did his duty to his country has been summarily dismissed. Unless the hon. Gentleman can disprove this evidence, which was not obtained under any sort of pressure whatever, what is he going to do to see that the character of this official is restored? What reparation is he going to give him, and is he going immediately to reinstate him in his office, even if it is only for the completion of the time, in order that justice may be done to this most honourable man who did his duty to his country and did not fear to say what was going wrong?
The DEPUTY MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): I find some dis-
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proportion between the strength of my hon. and gallant Friend's language and the facts.' I had to make a somewhat similar observation when he raised the question on the Adjournment. The facts were then given and there is very little which can now be added to them. Broadly the position is this. A number of ex-service men employed in one of the Ministry's warehouses under another ex-service man were carrying on extremely unpleasant and arduous work. They were working under Mr. Hankinson. Mr. Hankinson was not successful in getting the work to run smoothly. I make no criticism of him, but that is quite obvious from the facts to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers. The complaints made by Mr. Hankinson against these ex-service men were that they had been drinking in Ministry hours and had been playing cards in a corner of the warehouse, and that Mr. Stevenson, the man in charge of the ex-service men, had been discourteous to his chief. Two inquiries were held into these statements. The first was vitiated, in the view of Mr. Hankinson, because the woman official whose duty it was to examine evidence was a sister of Mr. Stevenson. The second inquiry upheld the first. All these statements, this tittle-tattle, to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has lent his authority, were before the second inquiry and they came to the conclusion that the first inquiry properly dealt with the situation.
Brigadier-General CROFT: Was the Superintendent asked to give evidence at the second inquiry?
Mr. KELLAWAY: He was quite well aware of what was done. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has not repeated the suggestion he made before, that Mr. Hankinson was dismissed because he asked for this inquiry.
Brigadier-General CROFT: Yes, I did.
Mr. KELLAWAY: In spite of the fact that Mr. Hankinson was told last November that his job was coming to an end. The House demands that Departments shall be demobilised as rapidly as possible. It is a general demand, and I quite understand the impatience with which the House sees War Departments continuing long after the War has passed away. It also demands that if you have to retain staffs the largest

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possible proportion of them should be ex-service men. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says, "Reduce as rapidly as possible, but do not dismiss Mr. Hankinson." Retain the largest number of ex-service men, but retain Mr. Hankinson and get rid of an ex-service man. No Department could possibly be run if we were to give attention to a criticism of that kind. In the course of a rapid and extensive demobilisation there must be inconvenience and hardship caused to individuals. If every Member of the House is going to take up every trumpery tale which is brought to him in regard to a demobilised friend of his, it will be impossible to carry on. I do not propose to make any change in the decision which is come to, but I want to make it clear, since the hon. and gallant Gentleman seems to be in doubt about it, that there is no reflection on Mr. Hankinson's character or capacity. That is all that is necessary to be said.
Sir R. COOPER: It is very deplorable to me to notice the different mental atmosphere in the speeches we have heard from the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kellaway) and the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. In the former case, we heard these words, "If there is anything wrong going on, the sooner we expose it the better." In this case there is no doubt about the charge made by my hon. and gallant Friend that there is something very wrong and very undesirable going on at the Ministry of Munitions, and yet in answer to questions which have been put to him and in answer to the statement which has been made this afternoon, the hon. Gentleman clearly tells the House that it is a trumped-up case, and that he proposes to take no action whatever. There is no hope of honesty in administration if that is going to be the attitude of Members of this or any future Government. The hon. Gentleman did not reply to a categorical question, namely, was he aware, when he was answering questions within the last two weeks, that there were in his Department eight statements made by members of his staff supporting the Superintendent and bearing testimony to the undesirable practices which were going on? Copies are here. They have since been sworn to. Eight officials in his Department swear that in that section there were undesirable practices going on which, in their judgment, were sufficiently bad to drive them to give evidence and
1358
to try to get the evils removed. Anyone who knows anything of State administration knows how extremely difficult it is for anyone in a State Department to give evidence or to do his duty to remove evil and corrupt practices because he is always victimised, or fears that he is going to be. For these eight people to make these statements and to swear to their accuracy is surely not a primâ facie case. It is absolute definite proof and the hon. Gentleman has been misleading the House in answer to questions, and his answer today is one of the most deplorable which could be given.
To the hon. Gentleman it does not seem in the least strange that Miss Stevenson should be the proper person to take evidence against her brother. That is not an honest or impartial inquiry. It savours by its very nature of being an attempt to hide up something that ought to be exposed. Again, the hon. Gentleman made a reference to the dismissal of Mr. Hankinson. It was not intended that Mr. Hankinson should be dismissed on the particular day he was. Within 36 hours of this matter being prominently brought to the notice of the Department Mr. Hankinson was summarily dismissed. A question was put to the hon. Gentleman in this House about a fortnight ago, and he replied that Mr. Hankinson was dismissed in the ordinary course, and the reason given was the need for reducing the staff. Yet within a week of that being said, the staff in that section was actually increased by five people. What then becomes of the value of statements which the hon. Member is making to the House, and the value of his discretion in this matter in refusing to go any further into it? The last point made by my hon. and gallant Friend was that the first inquiry was apparently recognised as not being above board. Therefore, a second inquiry was held. That second inquiry was not a bonâ fide, honest inquiry, because the man who brought the accusation should have been present, or at least he should have been examined and enabled to put his case fairly before those who ultimately had to give a decision. He was not allowed to do that. The second inquiry was a corrupt inquiry. It was not honest. The attitude which the hon. Gentleman takes this afternoon, in face of the evidence of his own Department beyond any question, can lead me and lead the House to no

1359
other conclusion than that the Ministry of Munitions is wanting very seriously in the atmosphere in which it is administered, that there is direct evidence that it is the policy of that Department to hide corruption and evil practices when they are alleged, and when evidence is brought forward in support. There is great anxiety in the country as to the administration of the Ministry of Munitions. I am not going into that to-day, because I shall have an opportunity of dealing with it on Tuesday week, and I shall not fail to do so. If these matters are to be dealt with in the manner in which the hon. Gentleman is treating them, one can only feel that the public will be justified, when it reads the account of the decision of the hon. Gentleman, in concluding that there is something very gravely wrong. When one evil happens and it is exposed, and it is then hushed up, we have every reason to suppose that there may be hundreds of corrupt practices going on, every one of which is equally being hushed up. Until the hon. Gentleman takes a different line in administration as a State official, I do not see how the House or the country can have the slightest confidence in him.
Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I wish to draw the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to a matter which has taken place in Scotland, and upon which I was speaking last night when the House was counted out. I do not wish to go over the same statements which I made last night, but I wish the Secretary for Scotland to remember in his reply that if it is unsympathetic to-morrow morning several Scottish crofters, to whom promises were made prior to the War, will go to gaol. These crofters rely upon the word of the then British Government. A farm was scheduled for them in order to be cut up into small holdings, so that they might occupy the land and follow out their own inclinations, as smallholders; but the War suspended the plans which had been made both by the men who wished to have the small holdings and by the Government, and in the interval the whole of the island of Lewis has been bought, including the farm which has been scheduled for small holdings, by Lord Leverhulme. Lord Leverhulme evidently does not feel inclined for this farm to be split up into small holdings, but desires to retain all the island of Lewis in his own possession, or at least in the possession of the com-
1360
pany which he has formed, of which he is chairman and director. He wishes to retain the island of Lewis for certain purposes. The men desire the farm to be split up into small holdings and they will not take the refusal of Lord Leverhulme. They have taken possession of the farm. They are, I understand, building, or have built, houses upon that farm. Most or all of the men have been born or reared in that island. They are Lewis men. The majority of them fought for their country. Many of them have been decorated for bravery on the field, and now when they come back to their own land, they find that the island belongs to an Englishman, that they are aliens, and that if they wish to live upon the island on which they were born they must do whatever Lord Leverhulme or his managers say, so far as earning their living upon the island is concerned. They must either go into a fishing fleet, they must work upon the farms, or go into the canning factory.
I submit to the Secretary for Scotland that this is a reversion to the period in British history when the enclosures of the common land of the English villages took place, and when the peasantry of England, owing to those enclosures, were driven into the factory towns to compete with the factory workers, and when wages fell because of the competition of the unemployed workers who surrounded the gates. That is going to take place in Lewis. There is to-day a large body of imported workers who are erecting factories where people are to be employed. These crofters, if they must go into Stornoway to work in the canning factory, will go there to compete with the labour already there. If they refuse to work in the factories in Stornoway, or if they refuse to go in the fishing fleet, or if they wish to work upon the land, and they can find no land in their own island to work upon, then they must leave the island of Lewis and cross to the mainland into some of the large industrial towns. This is no time, after having appealed to these men to fight for their country, to throw them into gaol, as they are likely to be tomorrow, because they have gone back on the 1914 period and taken the Scottish Board of Agriculture at its word. They cannot see why, if the land could be given or promised to them then, that it cannot be given to them now. If Lord Leverhulme, the new proprietor, says that he must have the whole island, and that he

1361
cannot give them this particular farm, or these two farms, to be split up into small holdings, of what use has been the two Acts passed for the Scottish Land Holders and for the Scottish Small Holder? What use are those Acts if you cannot insist upon a proprietor, especially a new proprietor, respecting an agreement already entered into between the Scottish Department and these men to enter into occupancy of the land? What use is the law of the land if these men cannot be placed upon the land for which they fought and on which they were born?
I know that, apart from his official position, these men have the entire sympathy of the Secretary for Scotland. He knows as well as I do that there is no Scotsman who will allow himself to be put back into the days of feudalism, into which Lord Leverhulme evidently wishes these men of Lewis to be placed. To own the land so that he may control the destinies of the men, the women, and the families who live upon that land is a return to feudalism. To be able to compel these men to go into the factory and work at whatever wages or under whatever conditions he imposes is industrial feudalism. The Highlanders of Scotland will submit neither to be feudal slaves nor wage slaves. Instead of that, these men will go to prison to-morrow. As we go on holidays, as we speed in our trains to the places where we will spend our Easter vacation, a number of men will come down from the Island of Lewis to appear to-morrow before a Court, and if they refuse to recognise the interdict placed on them going back to the land of their fathers, and submit to be kept from that land, and become virtually the bond-slaves of Lord Leverhulme in Scotland, these men will go to prison while we are enjoying ourselves.
Dr. MURRAY: As this question affects a part of the country with which I am acquainted, I wish to make a few observations. I am glad that my hon. Friend has brought this forward, but I hope that that will not in any way prejudice what I know to be the very delicate and difficult negotiations which are at present going on between the Secretary for Scotland and those who own the Island of Lewis. It was for that reason that I did not raise the question for some little time. I raised this point in my first speech here, and on many occasions since, and on the last occasion my right hon. Friend informed
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me that these negotiations were going on, and that the Board of Agriculture were anxious to bring them to a final issue. I am quite sure that the Secretary for Scotland cannot in his official position approve of what has been done. This is, I may say, a little bit of a strike in itself. It is a way the people have of showing their displeasure at the slowness of the negotiations, but I know that the Secretary for Scotland is as anxious to see a satisfactory solution effected as any Member of this House.
It is not quite a simple matter. A great portion of the population of Lewis are willing to go into Lord Leverhulme's industrial scheme's, and neither I or anyone else whom I have met in Lewis desires that these schemes should in any way be interfered with. Those men want to stay upon the land, and demand perfect freedom to live in the way in which they want to live, and work out their own economic salvation. Though we cannot express direct approval of an illegality, there is a great deal to be said in excuse for these men. There has been a great deal of delay, perhaps necessary delay—I do not know—in carrying out the scheme, but the Board of Agriculture and the Government are pledged up to the hilt to have land given to these men so far as the land will go, and there is not only this farm, but there are also three or four other farms on the Island of Lewis where the question is quite as urgent. These farms have been scheduled by the Board of Agriculture for the purpose of smallholdings, and were simply held up until the War was over. In one instance, to show you the confidence that the public authorities in Lewis had that these farms would be divided up, I may mention that a schoolhouse was erected a few years ago 1½ miles from a certain village because it was believed that a certain farm on the other side of that schoolhouse was to be divided up, so that the schoolhouse would cater for the existing population and the prospective population in the new village, which was to be created on the other farm.
When the War was over these men came on the scene and sent in applications. Not only the Government promised, but every political candidate promised this. Among the three political candidates up there there was no difference on this matter. Even the candidate supported by Lord Leverhulme promised to get the

1363
land divided. So we are all pledged up to the hilt, and those of us who are in this House can do no other but support it, and I do so without in any way criticising Lord Leverhulme's other operations on the island. I am quite willing to credit him with doing a great amount of good on the island of Lewis, although to certain aspects of his methods I cannot assent. But on this particular question, I believe that he is wrong. If the Secretary for Scotland finds any difficulty with Lord Leverhulme in cutting up these farms, I think he can appeal from the Company, as it is now, which owns the Island of Lewis, to Lord Leverhulme him self. If you read what is called the co-
1364
alition programme that was submitted to the country in November, 1918, you will see that the first plank in that programme was, land for soldiers and sailors. It was submitted at a great meeting of representatives from all parts of the country; it was moved by a Member of the House of Commons and seconded by a Member of the House of Lords—Lord Leverhulme himself.
Notice taken that Forty Members were not present; House counted, and Forty Members not being present,
The Mouse was Adjourned at One-Minute after Six of the Clock till Monday, 12th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.

  SEXUAL CRIME (LEGISLATION).
  SEXUAL CRIME (LEGISLATION).
  CENOTAPH.
  CENOTAPH.
MUNITIONS.
  MINISTRY (STAFF).
  MINISTRY (STAFF).
  MILITARY STORES, CARRICKFERGUS (VEHICLES).
  MILITARY STORES, CARRICKFERGUS (VEHICLES).
  WOOLWICH (COST OF CONTROL).
  WOOLWICH (COST OF CONTROL).
EX-SERVICE MEN.
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT, BEDENHAM (DISCHARGES).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT, BEDENHAM (DISCHARGES).
  RESETTLEMENT GRANT (BLACKBURN APPLICANT).
  RESETTLEMENT GRANT (BLACKBURN APPLICANT).
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  MILK (PREFERENTIAL RATE).
  MILK (PREFERENTIAL RATE).
  SUGAR.
  SUGAR.
  AMERICAN BACON.
  AMERICAN BACON.
  FLOUR.
  FLOUR.
  BARLEY.
  BARLEY.
SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS.
  DULWICH COLLEGE ESTATE.
  DULWICH COLLEGE ESTATE.
  NEW FOREST.
  NEW FOREST.
  HOPS (CONTROL).
  HOPS (CONTROL).
HOUSING.
  LAMBETH SCHEME (KNIGHT'S HILL SITE).
  LAMBETH SCHEME (KNIGHT'S HILL SITE).
  PAUPER LUNATICS (MAINTENANCE).
  PAUPER LUNATICS (MAINTENANCE).
  NURSING AND MIDWIFERY (CONSULTATIVE COUNCILS).
  NURSING AND MIDWIFERY (CONSULTATIVE COUNCILS).
  ZYMOTIC DISEASES (WOODFORD).
  ZYMOTIC DISEASES (WOODFORD).
  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL.
  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL.
  BOARD OF HEALTH, WALES.
  BOARD OF HEALTH, WALES.
  INFLUENZA.
  INFLUENZA.
BRITISH ARMY.
  RIFLE BRIGADE, 2ND BATTALION (PROFICIENCY PAY).
  RIFLE BRIGADE, 2ND BATTALION (PROFICIENCY PAY).
  MILITARY HOSPITAL, BOURNEMOUTH (COMPENSATION FOR INJURIES)
  MILITARY HOSPITAL, BOURNEMOUTH (COMPENSATION FOR INJURIES)
  NATIONAL RESERVISTS (GRATUITY).
  NATIONAL RESERVISTS (GRATUITY).
  GARRISON HEADQUARTERS, PLYMOUTH.
  GARRISON HEADQUARTERS, PLYMOUTH.
  MILITARY OFFENCES.
  MILITARY OFFENCES.
  STRAW (GOVERNMENT PURCHASES).
  STRAW (GOVERNMENT PURCHASES).
  INDIAN ARMY (APPLICATION FOR RELEASE).
  INDIAN ARMY (APPLICATION FOR RELEASE).
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  CADETS' OUTFIT (TRADERS' CLAIMS).
  CADETS' OUTFIT (TRADERS' CLAIMS).
  ALEXANDRA PARK, MANCHESTER (RECREATION GROUND).
  ALEXANDRA PARK, MANCHESTER (RECREATION GROUND).
  IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE (TRANSFERRED CIVIL SERVANTS).
  IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE (TRANSFERRED CIVIL SERVANTS).
  OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITIES (REFORM).
  OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITIES (REFORM).
  IRELAND (LOCAL EXPENDITURE).
  IRELAND (LOCAL EXPENDITURE).
COAL PRODUCTION.
  NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM (SURFACE OFFICIALS).
  NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM (SURFACE OFFICIALS).
  SUPPLIES, IRELAND (SHORTAGE).
  SUPPLIES, IRELAND (SHORTAGE).
  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT (GERMAN FABRIC GLOVES).
  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT (GERMAN FABRIC GLOVES).
  WOOLLEN AND WORSTED SUITINGS.
  WOOLLEN AND WORSTED SUITINGS.
SCOTLAND.
  SCHOOL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES (SECONDARY SCHOOLS).
  SCHOOL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES (SECONDARY SCHOOLS).
  SCAPA FLOW (REMOVAL OF HURDLES).
  SCAPA FLOW (REMOVAL OF HURDLES).
  GERMANY (POTASH CONTRACT).
  GERMANY (POTASH CONTRACT).
  LAND VALUE DUTIES.
  LAND VALUE DUTIES.
  INDUSTRIAL UNDERTAKINGS (GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE).
  INDUSTRIAL UNDERTAKINGS (GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE).
  EGYPT (LORD MILNER'S MISSION).
  EGYPT (LORD MILNER'S MISSION).
HUNGARY.
  SELF-DETERMINATION (PLEBISCITE).
  SELF-DETERMINATION (PLEBISCITE).
  JEWS (ALLEGED MASSACRES).
  JEWS (ALLEGED MASSACRES).
  GLASS RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (APPOINTMENT OF DIRECTOR).
  GLASS RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (APPOINTMENT OF DIRECTOR).
  BERLIN ACT AND BRUSSELS DECLARATION (REVISION).
  BERLIN ACT AND BRUSSELS DECLARATION (REVISION).
  POSTAL FACILITIES, BRIGHOUSE.
  POSTAL FACILITIES, BRIGHOUSE.
TRANSPORT.
  NOTTINGHAM (DELIVERY OF GOODS).
  NOTTINGHAM (DELIVERY OF GOODS).
ROYAL NAVY.
  NAVAL INSPECTION AND DESIGN BRANCHES (OFFICERS' PAY).
  NAVAL INSPECTION AND DESIGN BRANCHES (OFFICERS' PAY).
  SALVAGE (INVENTION).
  SALVAGE (INVENTION).
  PERSONNEL (REDUCTIONS).
  PERSONNEL (REDUCTIONS).
  NAVAL EXPENDITURE.
  NAVAL EXPENDITURE.
  CIVIL SERVANTS (SUPERANNUATION).
  CIVIL SERVANTS (SUPERANNUATION).
  UNITED STATES NAVY.
  UNITED STATES NAVY.
  TREASURE (FREIGHT AND INSURANCE RATES).
  TREASURE (FREIGHT AND INSURANCE RATES).