Sitting of 2 November 1921

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
VISCOUNT LONG.
The Right Honourable Walter Hume Long, having been created Viscount LONG of Wraxall in the county of Wilts—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
UNEMPLOYED WORKERS' DEPENDANTS (TEMPORARY PROVISION) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed.

INDIAN MUNITIONS BOARD CASE.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM had given Notice to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India—

1.What is the total sum involved in the alleged frauds on the Munitions Board?

2.What are the business concerns with which the accused persons were connected when the prosecution was ordered?

3.Whether the prosecution of the European subordinates is proceeding.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I put the first Question last week to the noble Earl and I gave him private notice at the time, but he did not then reply, being naturally encumbered by a great many other things that he wished to say. I have put the Question down again because I think that he would wish to have an opportunity of giving me an answer. I understand that under Indian law only three instances of fraud can be dealt with in one prosecution. I am told that the total sum involved is considerably larger than that which has been stated. That is the explanation of my first Question. As regards the second Question, it has been stated in the Indian Press that Mr. Kernani, at the time of the prosecution, was associated only with a land bank, with a paid-up capital of
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six lakhs of rupees, and that Mr. Bannerjee was a contractor on a very large scale and also associated with some coal mines, which certainly would never have shut down had he chanced to be convicted. I hope the noble Earl will clear up that very important point, and I beg to put my Questions.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE EARL OF LYTTON): My Lords, in the first place I should like to apologise to my noble friend for not having given him this information on Tuesday. He will remember that a great many speeches were made and several questions were put. I am afraid that when I came to reply I overlooked the specific point of which my noble friend had given me notice. With regard to the first Question my noble friend has put down, we do not know the total sum involved in all these frauds. In the one case against Kernani and others, in which the prosecution was withdrawn against Kernani, Bannerjee and Stringer, the value of the property involved was about one lakh of rupees.
Secondly, my noble friend asks what are the business concerns with which the accused persons were connected. In the case referred to there were four persons accused. One, named C. S. Waite, had been Deputy Controller of Munitions. Another, H. Stringer, was a subordinate official. Mr. Kernani is the managing director of the Kernani Industrial Bank, an institution which is understood to finance a number of minor industrial undertakings. Mr. Bannerjee is also connected with various industries in Bengal. Sir Thomas Holland was informed, as a ground for requesting him to withdraw the case, that the bank financed 120 concerns, and, from Press messages, it appears that the maximum available capital of the bank was £300,000.
With regard to the third Question, as already stated, the European subordinate, Mr. Stringer, was discharged, but against Mr. C. S. Waite, the former Deputy Controller, who is still on bail in England owing to illness, the prosecution still stands, and there is another case also pending in which four other Europeans are jointly accused with him. That is all the information which I have bearing on the subject which I am able to give my noble friend.

PALESTINE.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government—

1. When the Report and evidence on the Jaffa Riots will be presented to Parliament.

2. Whether the High Commissioner in Palestine has ordered the sale of the lands of the Orthodox Greek Church; whether the Advisory Council and the Authorities of that Church have acquiesced in these proceedings and whether the blocks for sale are so arranged that they can be purchased only by the Zionist organisation without competition.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have twice in this House pressed the Government to give the Report of General Palin's Committee on the riots in Jerusalem at Easter of last year. On the second occasion the Government said that the High Commissioner, who had not taken office when the riots occurred, considered that the publication of this Report would be prejudicial to the interests of the public. The natural inference from all that was that the Report was unfavourable to the Zionists who, we know, had secretly imported arms.
But the result of withholding the Report is most unfortunate. The Zionist executive made its own report to the Twelfth Zionist Congress at Carlsbad, and that report is full of what Mr. Churchill once called terminological inexactitudes. I think that a stronger word than that would be justified in this case. The Government, by holding back certain facts which were then in their possession, have, I believe, done a great injustice to the Palestinians, who stand accused of a rather stupid and wanton pogrom on that occasion. I am afraid it is too late to implore the Government to rectify this injustice, but I can assure them that by doing so, even at this late hour, they would, in fact, be righting a wrong. The Secretary of State very kindly informed me privately that the Report on the Jaffa riots of May last will be presented in a few days, so that that part of my Question is already answered, but I should like to press for the evidence in addition to the Report, for the reason that I have the evidence of a Jewish lieutenant-colonel, who was not sure whether he had been demobilised or not, but appeared to belong to
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the Defence Force paid for out of the taxation of the Palestinians, and this piece of evidence is so amazing that I think it; is desirable that the whole of the evidence should be published.
Turning to my second Question, your Lordships know that tie Orthodox Church in these days has fallen upon very evil times. Its claims in regard to the Holy Places at Jerusalem were among the causes which led to the Crimean War, and if Russia had not been destroyed it would have been perfectly impossible for the proceedings of which I complain to take place. The Palestine branch of this Church is now in debt, I understand heavily in debt, but its property is worth far more than its debts, if it could be realised at its proper value. It owns valuable land in Rumania, which. I understand, was confiscated by the Rumanian Government. I do not know whether any protest or claims have been lodged. The land now offered for sale at Jerusalem must be worth many times more than the whole debt which this Church owes, understand that the High Commissioner appointed a Committee to look into the circumstances, and that this Committee recommended that there should be liquidation, subject to certain conditions which it laid down at the time. A Receiving Committee has therefore Leen appointed, and I am told that it is violating some essential points of the conditions which the Advisory Committee laid clown in the first instance
The Orthodox Church in Palestine is therefore being forced into bankruptcy, and also to a forced sale which must be most disastrous to its prospects. I have in my hand the official notification of the plots of land which are to 'he offered for sale, and it is a very remarkable notification. There are, in all, sixteen lots, and of these the first lot consists of six properties embracing 457,000 square metres. These properties are not contiguous to each other, but they are all quite close to the City of Jerusalem. Lot 6 contains 72,000 square metres, which lie just outside the walls. There are other large areas in the same sort of position. If Palestine is ever relieved from the blight which now hangs over it, and if ever the pledges which were given through Lord Allenby are fulfilled, this land will in time become of enormous value. The lots are so arranged however, and especially Lot 1, which, as I have

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said, is arbitrarily grouped, that it is quite beyond the power of any Palestinians to purchase any of these lots. We must remember that the Palestinians have been impoverished by the war, and that they gave many thousands of lives in the cause of the Empire.
These lots may conceivably be bought up at knock-down prices by the great Zionist syndicates, financed from foreign sources, which syndicates, at no very distant date, may reap enormous profits. This land is not strictly Wakf land, but it was treated as Wakf land in the time of the Turks. The Liquidating Committee has powers to sell what is really Wakf land belonging to the Church, and any one who knows the East understands the violent feelings to which such proceedings give rise. To sell Wakf land would directly violate Article 9 of the Mandate for Palestine, and I am not at all sure that this sale does not violate at least the spirit of the Mandate, which, as we all know, is not at present in force. As an ignorant layman I cannot posssibly adjudicate the rights of the Patriarchate of the Holy Synod under Turkish law, which. I believe, still rules in Palestine, but I am nearly certain that if my noble friend, Lord Parmoor, who knows all about the intricacies of Ecclesiastical Law, were to look into this matter and have all the facts at his disposal, he would find that these sales are really illegal. In any case, very strong feeling has already been aroused among the Arabs and Christians in Palestine, by what I regard as, at least, very unwise proceedings.
The Orthodox Church community has sent this telegram to the Palestine Arab Delegation now in London—
" under Ordinance No in dated September 1st, 1921. Government appointed Commission consisting of officials and representatives of Patriarchate and Government nominee on behalf of community. Commission to liquidate Patriarchate's debts. Protest first against ordinance, second against body being -neither representative nor responsible to community, third Commission proposed sale large plots valuable urban lands impossible for individual Palestinians to purchase, leaving Zionists sole prospective purchasers at the price they fix."
That gives some idea of the feelings of the Orthodox body in Palestine. We have this very remarkable spectacle, that a Christian community asks Moslems to plead its case with a Christian Government I should think that has never happened before in our history. It is only in this House that we can raise questions of this nature at the present time. What is going on in
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Palestine now, and the danger of the situation as it appears to me, is unknown either to the public or to Parliament, under the authority of which, in my opinion, injustice is being committed against the Palestinians.
The Orthodox Church in Russia has been martyred by the Bolshevist Jews, who have done their best to root out Christianity throughout the land. They have failed to destroy the faith of the masses, and it is my strong belief that that Church is destined to play a great part in the restoration of Russia. Meanwhile, we are making it easy for the Zionists to acquire the property of the Church and become the owners of the most valuable suburban land around Jerusalem. I noticed that in the proceedings of the recent Church Congress it was stated that we were very near to a rapprochement with the Orthodox Church. I think it was stated that it might be accomplished within a few months. I think, therefore, that the Episcopal Bench might take some interest in the needs of their sister church, and the most rev. Primate has told me that he would have been in his place to-day to support me if it had not been for other engagements In conclusion, I feel that I must warn the Government that there may be trouble in Palestine. Although Palestine was by far the easiest country of all our new acquisitions to govern, it may be, before long, that the Government will find itself called upon to use the force of arms against people who are only craving the fulfilment of their own pledges. I beg to put my Questions.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, before an answer is given perhaps I might add one or two words to what the noble Lord has said. I must entirely disclaim the knowledge which he attributed to me regarding the legal matters involved, but what I should like to make clear, as regards the information which I think necessary and to which the noble Lord referred, is that we should know, in the first place, what is the authority under which the High Commissioner in Palestine has ordered the sale of the land of the Orthodox Greek Church That is, of course, a matter which cannot be done without authority. What is the special authority? If it is a special authority, what are the circumstances which have given rise to putting that authority in force against the Orthodox Greek Church? I was not present at

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the Congress to which the noble Lord has referred, but no doubt there has been considerable rapprochement between the Anglican Church in this country and the Orthodox Greek Church abroad.
Secondly, while I listened to what the noble Lord said I was anxious that the noble Duke opposite, who is going to answer, should tell us whether it is true that these proceedings have been advised by the Advisory Council, or is the suggestion true which the noble Lord has made, that the opinion of the Advisory Council has been over-ruled by some other body or authority, by whom the actual sale has been ordered. I am only emphasising the point in order that we may arrive at the true facts before coming to a conclusion. Again, as regards the acquiescence of the Church authorities, is there any power to sell or take their property against their expressed opposition? If so, it would be a very curious authority. It would be an authority out of accordance with the present law of civilised countries, and particularly those countries which believe in proprietory rights as against mere communistic principles.
The last portion of the Question seems to me to demand being cleared up. If you are to take the property of the Orthodox Greek Church, surely it ought to be disposed of under such conditions that you would get the maximum market from the largest number of possible purchasers, whereas the noble Lord has suggested that the plots were so laid out as to exclude all purchasers except those who are forwarding the Zionist movement. I think those are matters which will have to be cleared up.
TEE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, the first Question that Lord Sydenham has asked in regard to the Report and evidence in the Jaffa riots is, I think, a matter that has been dealt with by private letter, and I understand that he is quite content to wait until the Report will be published in a few days, when the matter ear again be raised.
In regard to the second Question which has been raised by the noble Lord, and those asked by Lord Parmoor, I think I can more or less clear up the situation, so far as it is in th.4 power of the Government to show what the situation really is, and what is being done in the matter. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is the
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most venerable and dignified historic institution for which the new Government of Palestine has become responsible. The Bishopric of Jerusalem, in fact, upon which this Patriarchate is founded, goes back to James, the Lord's brother, in the days of the Apostles. Its governing body at the present day is the Patriarch in Synod. Unfortunately, at the time when the civil Government of Palestine was formed, it found the affairs of the Patriarchate in considerable confusion. In the first place, a great schism had occurred between the Patriarch and the majority of the Synod, with the effect that the activities of the Patriarchate were more or less completely paralysed; and, in the second place, the Patriarchate was found to be deeply, and in fact almost hopelessly, in debt.
The immediate problem was solved by declaring amoratorium in favour of the Patriarchate, which was, in fact., to all intents and purposes a declaration of bankruptcy. Shortly afterwards, in January of this year, the High Commissioner appointed a Commission of Inquiry to inquire into and report on the controversy between the Patriarch and his Synod, and also the question of the debts. As members of the Commission the High Commissioner was fortunate enough to obtain the services of Sir Anton Bertram, the Chief Justice of Ceylon, and Mr. Luke, the Assistant Governor of the Jerusalem district, both of whom, in the course of their earlier service in Cyprus, had studied and become familiar with the intricacies of the organisation of the Orthodox Church in connection with the various disputes in the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Cyprus. To assist them in their labours various members of the Orthodox Church were appointed as assessors.
These gentlemen have prod led a Report so learned, and so interesting to the student of the Eastern Churches, that the Secretary of State for the Colonies has agreed to its being published for the Government of Palestine by the Clarendon Press. It Will appear in about a month's time, and l would strongly urge the noble Lord, who has shown in his speech how deep is his interest in this most venerable Church, to purchase a copy and read in it a much fuller and more interesting account than I can give to-day of the various circumstances which have led up to the crisis in its affairs to which he has called attention.

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With the main subject of that Report, the dissensions between the Patriarch and Synod, which are now happily well on the way to settlement, we are not to-day concerned. I must, however, trouble your Lordships with a somewhat lengthy account of the financial difficulties. The Patriarchate has for many years supported a number of monasteries, charitable institutions and schools in all parts of the Near East. To meet the necessary expenditure on these various activities it has always relied on the offerings of the faithful, especially the pilgrims visiting Jerusalem, and on the income derived from the vast properties bestowed on it by the devout in past ages.
The Comptroller of Customs in Palestine, who made a close and exhaustive study of the finances of the Patriarchate, and produced a Report, which is being printed as an appendix to the Report of the Commission, has calculated that in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the great war about 64 per cent. of its total income was derived from Russia, whether as offerings from the faithful or as income from its large properties. No income from this source has reached Palestine since 1914, and as expenses in that country have increased, in very much the same way that is unfortunately only too familiar to us in this country, it is hardly' surprising that the Patriarchate has entirely failed to make its budget maintain a state of equilibrium. Moreover, it must be remembered that there are no men with any kind of business training on the Synod; all its members are holy men, monks of the most ancient Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre; and it is, in fact, some considerable time since the Patriarchate has been free from financial difficulties.
A sort of crisis occurred as long ago as 1904, when tile Patriarchate was in debt to the tune of some £ 150,000 In that year an extremely capable Greek business man was asked to put its finances in order. He spent some two years in Jerusalem, and succeeded in producing order out of chaos, and evolving a scheme for the liquidation of the debt Some of his recommendations were carried out and in 1906 the situation was temporarily eased by the sale, for a sum of £ 45,000 odd, of a large estate in the Bukovina. I mention this fact to show your Lordships that the sale of its landed property is not, as has been suggested in some quarters, an entirely
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unheard of event in the history of the Patriarchate.
It goes without saying that it was not very long before the reforms introduced by this gentleman became a dead letter. By the outbreak of the war the debt had risen to £ 220,000, and by the beginning of this year, when the Commission came on the scene, to the enormous figure of £ 550,000. To meet this debt the Patriarchate had no liquid assets whatever, and even with the most strenuous economy the budget showed an annual deficit of between £ 30,000 and £ 40,000. It was obvious that the situation demanded drastic measures, and this fact was freely admitted by the Patriarch himself freely measures which were recommended by the Commission were embodied in an Ordinance which was placed by the High Commissioner before the Advisory Council, agreed to by them and submitted to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who has approved it.
This Ordinance removes from the Patriarchate all control of financial matters and vests it in a Commission, acting, so to speak, as receivers in bankruptcy. The Commission, as at present constituted, consists of two British officers of the Palestine Government, both, of course, Christians, a local non-official nominated by the High Commissioner, a representative of the Patriarchate and a representative of the lay community. The Commission is in complete control of the property and finances of the Patriarchate, but in certain matters, such as any sale of land, it can only act in pursuance of a general authorisation of the Patriarch in Synod. When the sale is one of property within the walls of Jerusalem or of lands attached ab antiquo to any monastery and also in some other special cases, the consent of the Patriarch in Synod to the specific transaction is also necessary. This is definitely provided by the Ordinance.
The Ordinance, it is true; does introduce one novelty, in that it permits the Commission to sell land belonging to the Patriarchate situated within the confines of the late Turkish Empire. By the peculiar system prevalent within that Empire all property of religious communities, whether Moslem or not, was subject to the complicated and very rigid conditions of Moslem religious law— to put it technically, all such properties were treated as Wakf By the provisions of that law no Wakf property can be sold; it can

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only be leased, and that for a period not exceeding three years, or exchanged for a similar property of equal value elsewhere. Now that Palestine is no longer under Moslem rule, there seemed no particular reason for adding to the difficulties of the Patriarchate by continuing to subject part of its properties to the provisions of Moslem law.
As it was obvious that some sale of land would be necessary, the Commission made a careful survey of the various properties of the Patriarchate. It discovered that these properties had been in its possession for very varying periods. Sonic parts, for instance, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, had been in its possession from time immemorial; others, on the other hand, had been acquired quite recently, either by purchase or by inheritance from deceased brethren whose estates by the rule of the Order all descend to the Patriarchate. Apart from the estates outside Palestine there are no less than 631 individual properties within Palestine itself, the most immediately saleable being a quantity of suburban property round Jerusalem at present undeveloped. All this is of recent acquisition. Two generations ago, except for the central shrines and some other monasteries and small properties the Patriarchate possessed no land in Palestine. In about 1863, when the kingdom of Rumania was severed from the Turkish Empire, the extensive and valuable domains of the Patriarchate in that country were confiscated by its new Christian Government, and the Patriarch and brethren, thinking it wiser to have their property nearer home, commenced to purchase suburban lands near Jerusalem which were at that time very cheap.
I have no doubt that it is some of these lands which have no historic associations with the Patriarchate that are now being sold The arrangements and conditions of sale have no doubt been drawn up by the Commission of Financial Control, and I can confidently assure the noble Lord that they will be drawn up with but one end in view, that of obtaining the maximum price for them The sales will, of course, be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Land Transfer Ordinance, which was drawn up by the Government of Palestine and approved by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House at a time when Palestine was under the control of the Foreign Office.
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The provisions of that Ordinance have been somewhat misrepresented. it has been said that by its provisions all except properties of trifling value can only be sold to an organization and not to an individual. That is not the case. The actual facts are that, in order to prevent the land speculation which is so likely to occur in a country which, like Palestine, is undergoing a process of intensive development, it is provided in the Ordinance that no transfer of any property of a value of more than £ 3,000 can take place without the consent of the High Commissioner, This applies equally to land purchased by the Zionist organization and any other company or individual. The High Commissioner will obviously not exercise his right of veto in this case, where the sale is urgently necessary in the interests of the finances of the Patriarchate.
The noble Lord will find in the Report of the Commission a fuller explanation than I have been able to give him of the circumstances which have led the Commissioners to believe that the sale of these lands is the step best calculated to meet the most pressing obligations of the Patriarchate, but I trust that I have said enough to satisfy both noble Lords that the apprehensions which they have voiced arc groundless.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Duke for his answer. I must get the document to which he referred; I am sure I shall read it with intense interest. The noble Duke did not say whether it would be possible, for the reasons I advanced, to give the evidence in the case of the Jaffa riots, and am I quite clear that the Advisory Council (which is a nominated body) did agree to the promulgation of this Ordinance? The only other point on which he has not made me quite clear is why these large plots are selected. Why could not they have been small plots which small people might -have had a chance of being able to purchase? Also, can the noble Duke say whether the land will be valued so that it may not go for a knock-down price, and whether it will be valued by skilled valuers with an eye to its very large prospective value?
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, I can reply to one of the main points which the noble Lord raises. The land is being sold in these large plots

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because the object is to get the best price possible, and to sell to people who will develop them in the future and spend the money needed upon them. I do not think it is likely that a number of small people would be able to develop them in the way that is required. Further, the object is to get the largest amount for the Patriarchate, and, in order to achieve that, it is found better to sell in the size at which the plots are now allotted rather than to sell in smaller plots.

FORESTRY BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF ANCASTER): My Lords, this is one of the Bills which are intended to deal with the question of unemployment. Its object is to suspend for a period of six months subsection (3) of Section 3 of the Forestry Act, 1919. That Act gave powers to the Forestry Commissioners to make advances by way of grant to local authorities and to private individuals in respect of afforestation. But such a grant could only be made subject to the conditions in that subsection which this Bill proposes to modify. In order to get this grant very careful and complicated accounts have to be kept. Under the Forestry Act, as it stood, there have not been a very great number of landowners and local authorities who have taken advantage of this grant.
At the present time, in order to relieve unemployment in rural areas, a special grant of £ 250,000 is being made to the Forestry Commissioners to encourage forestry operations during the coming winter and spring, and it is proposed that part of this sum shall be spent by way of grant to local authorities and private individuals who undertake to carry out planting operations during this period. The Commissioners are satisfied that in existing circumstances advances by way of grant would not be readily accepted subject to the conditions imposed by the Act.
Your Lordships are; therefore, asked to pass this Bill, which enables grants to be made free from any conditions contained in the Act of 1919— which conditions, as 1 have explained, involve the keeping of very
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accurate accounts. But those grants will be made subject to certain conditions, and the conditions are these:— (1) That the money voted is spent in relief of genuine unemployment; (2) that the proportion of ex-Service men taken on for the purpose of planting is not less than 75 per cent., if so many are available; (3) that the work undertaken for which a grant is made is carried out properly; (4) that the rate of wages is adequate— namely, the local agricultural wage. The Forestry Commissioners will have to inspect the operations and to certify that these conditions have been observed before the grant is made.
The Commissioners do not propose to insist that the recruitment for planting these areas should be done through the Labour Exchanges. I may say that personally I am pleased at that, because I believe in many agricultural districts a large number of the agricultural labourers never register at an Exchange and consequently would not be employed on this work if such a condition were insisted upon. We feel that there may be a considerable amount of unemployment in rural areas and that this is work which these agricultural labourers will be well qualified to carry out In addition, there are undoubtedly several schemes of re-afforestation which might be of great value to the country in future years, and which can be carried out by local authorities. Sonic of those schemes are at no very great distance iron' towns and it appears that this Bill will give a very great impetus to the local authorities concerned, and to private individuals, to go on with the work of afforestation, and be a means of employing people who would otherwise be out of work.
I do not know that I need dwell on the Bill at any greater length, though, if your Lordships wish for any further explanation, I shall be very happy to give it. I can only say, in conclusion, that this is work which we hope and trust may be of value to the nation in the long run and, therefore, is not entirely in the nature of a dole but of reproductive work. I have no doubt that it will employ a large number of people. At the same time I should like to impress upon your Lordships the fact that there is a reason for asking the House to pass this Bill and allow it to become an Act as speedily as possible. Most of your Lordships are aware that if planting is to be done successfully in the winter time it

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must be done as early as possible in the month of November if there is any delay in passing the Bill and making the grant, the work of planting might be put off to the middle of December or to Christmas time, when it would be a very great waste of money to plant trees. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will give a Second Reading to this Bill and allow it to go forward as quickly as possible.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Earl of Ancaster.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
THE EARL OF ANCASTER: Subject to your Lordships' approval, I will put the Committee stage down for to-morrow.

GAMING BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, anyone who heard what was said upon this subject by the Lord Chancellor in answering a Question which I ventured to put to him, would not be surprised, I think, at this Bill being now brought before your Lordships for consideration. I only hope that your Lordships will not think that, like the sons of Zeruiah, I have taken too much upon me in acting as the mouthpiece for a proposal of this kind. I have every hope that there is no opposition to the Bill in this House. I have spoken to various members of the House whose authority is recognised here, and I have not found any disposition to disapprove of it; quite the contrary. I have also had occasion to speak about it to many members of the legal profession and to Judges of the highest position, and they did not repudiate the word "ridiculous" which I ventured to use to them in conversation in regard to the state of the law as disclosed by a Judgment in your Lordships' House which nobody can doubt for a moment was absolutely correct. It is, perhaps, a presumption on my part to say so, but we know that in dealing with appeals this House is endowed with the supremest wisdom and that it cannot be overruled. As the Lord Chancellor is in his place I think I might venture to say that he rather deplored his own infallibility last week.
Everyone is familiar with the effect of that decision. It is to show that in a
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certain class of case with which we are all very familiar, if the amount due is paid by cheque instead of in coin or in cash it is possible for the person who paid the money to get it back again. If that is not ridiculous I really do not know what is, and I venture to bring forward a proposal which appears to me to get over the difficulty. The difficulty arises, as your Lordships know, because of the discovery ill the recent case which was before the House, of a section of an Act of Parliament which had not been observed, I think, in the other Courts. That discovery has brought about the present position. The proposal I make in this Bill removes those words. That is a very simple matter. It also goes on to say that nobody may take advantage of that which had been lying hid all those years, and that from the time when the revelation of the state of the law was made in this case of Sutters versus Briggs nobody shall be able to bring an action to recover the money which he paid and which was accepted without any idea that the condition existed which has now become apparent.
I am aware, of course, that there are two difficulties in the way of proceeding with a Bill of this kind, and with this Bill. One is that there has been a sort of agreement, I am sorry to say, that during this sitting of Parliament no business is to be taken that is not Government business and business of a certain kind. I hope it is not asking too much that as Parliament happens to be sitting, as this House is at present free to do business, and as the other House must presently be in the position of marking time, the opportunity should be taken to bring about this very obvious remedy.
The other obstacle is that this Bill refers to gaming, and there are very many excellent persons who refuse to touch the subject of gaming even with the tongs. They will be disposed, perhaps, to take an adverse view of a Bill of this kind, even though it proposes so obvious and simple a remedy, because it deals with the Gaming Laws. I am quite unable and I do not feel confident to argue that subject. If I attempted to do so I might find myself speaking inadvisedly; so I will leave that alone. I will only say one thing further, that I do not think this Bill ought to proceed or that it can proceed unless there is what might be called general consent to it. But I trust that general consent

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may be obtained. As I said before, I do not expect to find that your Lordships disapprove of the proposal which I venture to make, and I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a— (Lord Muir Mackenzie)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, it might be convenient that I should make a very brief observation upon the proposals recommended to the House by the noble Lord. He has, I think, done no more than justice to the decision in question. It has not been assailed, and it cannot be assailed, by any competent lawyer, but it has, none the less, produced a very inconvenient train of consequences; and I, speaking as an individual here and not as in any way taking upon myself to bind my colleagues in a matter in which, owing to the pressure of affairs, I have not had the opportunity of ascertaining their collective view, have no hesitation in giving every measure of support which is in my power to the Bill that is now before your Lordships.
The matter is really almost in a nutshell. It was at one time the policy of the Legislature that if a man paid his gaming losses, whether he paid them in bank notes or by cheque, he should in each case be able to recover them. Then the policy changed. When I hear reflections upon lawyers I listen to them with very great impatience, because the vacillation of policy has not been the vacillation of lawyers, but has been the vacillation of laymen, and the only occasional glimpses of light that have been forthcoming in this matter have been when those of your Lordships who devote themselves to legal matters have found leisure to address themselves to the tangle with the hope of straightening it out.
Any such confusion as there is has sprung from the conflicting and the constantly varying decisions of Parliament upon the morality of the transaction. If your conception of morality in any particular aspect is static, then you may expect a vein of consistency to appear in your legislation. If, on the other hand, Parliament thinks that to be morally tolerable which ten years earlier it thought to be morally intolerable, then you arc likely to find sonic resultant confusion in your legislation. So it happened that Parliament changed its mind. At one time it said it was proper
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that if a man paid his gaming debts by cheque or by Bank of England notes it would be possible to recover them, but, for the discouragement of gambling, it later changed its mind, and, not being an insane Parliament, it must be assumed to have changed it consistently. And if it changed its mind consistently, of course it could not have meant that a man who paid his debts in a Bank of England note should be in a position in which he could not recover them and that a man who paid them by cheque should be in a position in which he could recover them. The section of the Act which has led to confusion was unfortunately allowed to remain on the Statute Book.
What follows? We have to deal with a situation in which Parliament has said that if a man who has lost a wager pays in Bank of England notes he cannot recover it The section which says that if he has paid it by cheque he can recover it was allowed to remain on the Statute Book. Nobody knew that that section had been allowed to remain in the Act It had escaped the attention of those who had to deal with these matters. Suddenly it has been revealed that recourse may be had to the law successfully for the recovery of debts paid by cheque. My own conception of that which will follow is not that many people will avail themselves of this decision. But there are certain persons who may avail themselves of it— namely, persons who are under the obligation which springs from the discharge of a representative duty, and in these cases undoubtedly claims will be brought forward, sometimes on a large scale.
To take an illustration The executor of a deceased person who had lost £ 200,000 in betting, and had discharged his liability by cheque, would, in my judgment, be called upon to bring an action to recover this money. Conceive the position of the individual bookmaker against whom such an action is brought. He would say: "Well, I won, playing the game in a court of honour. Here is someone who brings a claim for £ 200,000 against me. If that claim is brought against me I, after all, must also have an equal opportunity of, taking advantage of the technicalities of the law." He would therefore be bound to bring actions against other persons to whom he has equally discharged his liabilities by cheque. There are grave difficulties in the Law Courts to-day owing to the amount of litigation, and I am shocked to

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think what the resulting consequences may be if persons— many of whom do not desire to bring these actions if they are left to themselves, but who would nevertheless be bound to bring them if only as a defensive measure— are to disrupt the work of the Law Courts in the course of the next six months.
Therefore, speaking for myself, I should greatly welcome the decision of Parliament if that decision were in a very short time to apply the remedy contained in the noble Lord's Bill— an effective remedy. I cannot for the life of me see how any person who is deeply concerned with gambling should object to such a proposal. Let us examine for one brief moment how far the argument can be placed upon the kind of morality which objects to gambling. It would not be right to expect Parliament to pass such a proposal in a short period of time if there were controversy in regard to it. But how could the controversial interest of those who are, on ethical grounds, opposed to gambling be served by a state of things which enables a man— who does not share their moral objections to gambling— because he made a bet and lost it and paid it by cheque, to recover the amount owing to a legal technicality of which he was not aware when he made and paid the bet? I cannot conceive that any sound rational or considerable protest in the direction of supposed morality can be made on those grounds. Looking at it as an ordinary human being, with such application of common sense as it is in my power to make, I do not see any answer to the proposals made by the noble Lord.
I very seldom myself visit racecourses— very seldom indeed. I can truthfully say of racecourses that I am parcus et infrequens cultor It is almost equally true to say that I never risked any sum or any wager except on those few occasions on which I have been present at a racecourse. I remember once when I had occasion a year or two ago— and even after I had attained this high Office— to visit a racecourse. The name of the races I have forgotten. I went there in very respectable company, because I was taken there by the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland So there were two of us to balance, so to speak, the levity one of the other. I am sorry to say that the advice of my learned colleague, very dependable in matters of law, was far less valuable when addressed
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to the topics of the turf, and the result was that, on one of the very few occasions when I have ventured my frail barque in those waters, I was very unfortunate. It so happened that I was not provided with a number of notes sufficient even to cover my insignificant losses, and I paid those losses by cheque. If 1 had paid them in Bank of England notes I could not have recovered them.
Is there any policy of the law to be served by allowing anyone— even I, who address your Lordships now, could do it to-morrow — to take steps to recover the sum of money which has been paid, because it was paid by cheque? The thing is a farce. Do not let anybody make the mistake of involving your Lordships, or those who speak for your Lordships in a legal capacity, in this farce. I have made it plain that we are not responsible for the farce. We have merely applied accurate consideration to the elucidation of the farce, and can be no further made responsible for it. If this House and another place can be made to realise the true facts, as I conceive them and have indisputably stated them, it would not surprise me, and it would gratify me, if a method upon the lines indicated in this Bill were adopted. For these reasons I shall certainly support the noble Lord's Bill.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, the noble Lard who introduced this Bill began by expressing the hope that he would not be held to be taking too much upon himself in the action which he has thought it right to pursue with reference to this matter. The noble. Lord, I am sure, need be under no apprehension whatever upon that point. On the contrary, the sporting world undoubtedly, and, I believe myself, the British public generally, will be themselves greatly indebted both to the noble Lord for the speech that he has made upon this subject and for the speech that has just fallen from the Lord Chancellor.
If I may, I am going to support this Bill in a very few words upon what I believe to be a thoroughly practical ground. If the noble Lord's action is able to defeat the policy that might be pursued, he will be doing a great service to what is a very important industry in this country. Anything which seriously affected racing, or left betting in the position which it is sought to remedy by the passing of this Bill, would undoubtedly have a very serious effect upon

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the race meetings of this country. The attendance would be greatly less, and if the attendance were less, the stakes to be run for would be very much smaller. What would be the effect of that? It would be a most prejudicial thing to what is a very important industry in this country— namely, the industry of horse-breeding
It is due to a great sport in this country, to fox-hunting and to fox-hunting alone, that the type of horses required for the Cavalry in particular is always provided It has been that sport alone which, in periods of peace, provides any number of horses of that particular type that are required in time of war. All those horses, almost without an exception, are the produce of thoroughbred sires, and these thoroughbred sires are bred for racing and for racing alone. Now if racing were seriously prejudiced, as it might be under the decision which has recently been given, if it were not for the introduction of some Bill of this kind, I do riot think anybody could say what the effect might be upon that industry to which I for one attach the greatest possible importance. Less and less of these thoroughbred sires would be produced from year to year, and by degrees we should steadily lose the production of horses in this country which has been going on for years and years, and which has made them famous and desired throughout the whole of the world.
If we only consider for a single moment what was done in the late war by Lord
Viscount Chaplin
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Allenby and his Cavalry in Palestine at, one period, I think even those who have no feeling in favour of sport would be strongly of opinion that this is a matter of very serious consideration, and, as I hold that opinion most strongly, I shall give all my support whenever it is required to the action of the noble Lord.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords. I propose to take the Committee stage of the Bill to-morrow, if your Lordships see no objection to that course.
[From Minutes of November 1.]

GREENOCK CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a(Lord Stanmore), and reported from the Committee.
House adjourned at ten minutes past five o'clock.