Sitting of 27 March 1922

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Staffordshire Potteries Water Bill,
As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Legal and General Assurance Society Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.
Milford Docks Bill [Lords.]
To be read a Second time To-morrow.
Jarrow Extension and Improvement Bill (by Order),
London County Council (Tramways, Trolley Vehicles, and Improvements) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
Highland Railway Order Confirmation Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  BEER (PRICES).
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can report any further progress in his investigations into the price of beer charged to the public, and in particular whether he can yet state the result of his researches into the profits made by the majority of brewery companies during the last few years; and whether he will state the amount of tax paid on the actual barrel of beer delivered by the brewer to the retailer or club for sale to the public?
  Major KELLEYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that
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  the brewers of this country are very desirous that the fullest inquiry shall be made into the question of profiteering in their trade; will he therefore, in view of the repeated attacks made on them, hasten an inquiry; and, if any charges of profiteering are found proved, will he institute prosecutions at once?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Baldwin): I am not yet prepared to summarise the results of the examination of brewery accounts. The duty on a barrel of beer of the average gravity of that brewed in January of this, year is about 80s.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: How much of that duty is represented on an average barrel of beer sold to the average publican or club?
  Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Is not the figure my right hon. Friend has given partial prohibition by taxation, instead of legitimate revenue raising by taxation? Are not temperance people getting what they want, without the consent of the House?
  Major KELLEY: Is it not a fact that if beer were lower by 1d. a pint to the public, brewers would not only have their profits wiped out, but would incur a loss of £10,000,000 or £15,000,000? I assure my hon. Friend that that is correct.

  SURPLUS VEHICLES (SLOUGH DEPOT).
  Sir W. J0YNS0N-HICKSasked the President of the Board of Trade when the existing contract for the sale of surplus commercial vehicles to the owners of the Slough depot expires; whether it is proposed to renew it; and, if so, on what terms?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): The contract expires on the 6th April, 1922. It is not proposed to renew it.
  Sir W. J0YNS0N-HICKS: Does that mean that no further vehicles will be declared surplus?
  Mr. YOUNG: I do not know how that may be under the terms of existing contracts. Of course, the terms of existing contracts have to be fulfilled. No further contracts will be made.

  BRITISH FARINA MILLS.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked the President of the Board of Trade what quantities of foodstuffs, farina and farifeed have been produced by the British farina mills at King's Lynn since the Government acquired a financial interest in the undertaking; what quantities of these foods still remain unsold; whether the only purchaser of farifeed has been a single firm in London; what prices were obtained from this firm for the food; and at what price farifeed was retailed to the general public?
  Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is 1,813 tons of farina and 406 tons of farifeed. All the farina has been sold, except a few tons either damaged or of inferior grade. The farifeed was sold by brokers appointed by the Food Controller, and the bulk of it was consigned to one firm. The average price obtained was £9 10s. per ton; but I have no knowledge of the retail price.
  Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what farifeed is?
  Mr. BALDWIN: It is a preparation used in making animal food?

  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.

    PART II (INQUIRIES AND ORDERS).
    Sir A. FELLasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) how many inquiries by the Committee have been held under Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921; in how many cases have reports been made;
    (2) how many Orders have been made under the provisions of Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921?
    Mr. BALDWIN: Eight complaints have been referred to Committees, and five Reports have been received. No Order has yet been made.
    Sir A. FELL: In view of the unfortunate results which have followed from Part II, may it be considered to be almost a dead letter now?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I do not know of any unfortunate results.
    Major MACKENZIE WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman either confirm or
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    deny the report published in the newspapers on Saturday that the Government intend to repeal this Act?
    Mr. BALDWIN: That was a piece of pure invention.

    SILK MANUFACTURES.
    Sir A. FELLasked the President of the Board of Trade if the silk industry has complained to the Board of Trade under the provisions of Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921; if so, what is the position of their case; and if he is aware that the large imports of silk manufactured goods are largely owing to the fact that they come from countries where the currency is depreciated seriously?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. No primâ facie case has been made out for reference to a Committee, but certain further representations by the manufacturers concerned are under consideration. With regard to the last part, the records of the countries from which imports of silk manufactures were consigned last year show that only a relatively small proportion (certainly less than one-eighth part) are derived from countries the depreciation of whose currency furnishes a special stimulus to export to the United Kingdom.

    LENSES.
    Dr. MURRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can explain why Piano and B. I. convex lenses, worked and used in connection with motor and other lamps for illuminating or magnifying purposes, are admitted under the key section of the Safeguarding of Industries Act without being liable for duty, whilst at the same time a duty is levied on ordinary low-grade lenses, illuminating or magnifying, used for spectacles; and can he explain on what standard or definition these two decisions are based?
    Mr. BALDWIN: All types of lenses which have worked surfaces, or are made of optical glass, are liable to duty under Part I of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, irrespective of the use to which they are to be put. I am not aware that any lenses to which either of these descriptions is applicable have been admitted free of duty.

    CREAM OF TARTAR.
    Dr. MURRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has personally read the judgment given by the official referee in regard to the cream of tartar, tartaric acid, and citric acid complaints under the Safeguarding of Industries Act; whether he is aware that this case occupied nine hearings, involving the expenditure of many thousands of pounds, part of which will fall upon the taxpayers of the country; whether the santonine case, which was heard last December, was also a very protracted one; and whether he will take steps whereby the representatives of the chief interested parties should be called together in conference, with a view to eliminating the necessity for further costly proceedings which, apart from the expenditure of time and money, operate very injuriously upon the business of the country.
    Mr. BALDWIN: I am aware of the judgment in the cases mentioned by my hon. Friend, and that the hearing was a protracted one. The santonine case occupied only two hearings. Steps are being taken to shorten the proceedings in future cases, and I may add that the last five cases which have been dealt with by the referee occupied together only six short hearings. As regards the last part of the question I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Whitechapel on the 23rd March.
    Dr. MURRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade the date when he received the complaint that a duty of 33⅓ per cent. was being improperly levied on cream of tartar, tartaric acid, and citric acid; the date when the complaint was handed to the referee to be dealt with; is he aware that the referee has now decided that this duty should not have been levied; what amount has been collected by the Customs authorities on these commodities; and is he prepared to take any action to secure the refunding of such amount?
    Mr. BALDWIN: A large number of formal notices of complaint under Section 1 (5) of the Safeguarding of Industries Act were received in respect of the commodities mentioned. A joint case was submitted on behalf of a number of complainants on the 5th December;
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    amended statements were subsequently submitted and placed before the referee, who called for further particulars, which were furnished on the 19th January. The decision of the referee was signed on the 25th March and the commodities mentioned were withdrawn from the dutiable list as from that date. The amount of the duties collected is £5,718. As regards the last part of the question, I would draw the attention of the hon. Member to the provision of Section 1 (5) of the Act, which is to the effect that any decision of the referee shall be without prejudice to anything previously done.
    Dr. MURRAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these delayed proceedings are causing uncertainty in trade and crippling industry? Why should not Genoa begin at home?
    Mr. KILEY: Does the Treasury appreciate the position, that there are traders who have paid this duty, whereas their competitors next month will be able to sell their goods 33⅓ per cent. cheaper?

    DUMPING (ALLEGATIONS).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the President of the Board of Trade how many complaints have been received by his Department, under Part II (1) (a) of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, alleging that goods are being dumped into this country below the cost of production; and, if he has received any, what action has he taken?
    Mr. BALDWIN: In three cases evidence has been adduced by complainants in support of the allegation of dumping, under Section 2 (1) (a) of the Act, but in no instance has a primâ facie case yet been made out for reference to a Committee.

    GLASSWARE MOUNTINGS.
    Mr. GALBRAITHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give the date when he received the Report of a Committee appointed under Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act to deal with glassware used by the electro-plate and silversmiths of Birmingham, London, and Manchester for the purposes of mounting; whether he is aware that these firms have to make contracts for such glass many months in advance; and if he realises that the uncer-

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    tainty now prevailing as to whether a duty will be imposed or not is hampering the industries concerned?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The Committee referred to reported on the 18th February. I have received no representations from the industries mentioned to the effect indicated by the hon. Member. The Report of the Committee is under consideration, and I hope to be able to make an announcement with regard to it very shortly.

    GOLD LEAF.
    Mr. FOOTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received the Report of the Committee appointed by him under Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act to consider a request for a duty on imported gold leaf; if so, on what date the Report was received; and what decision he has come to on the subject?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Committee reported on the 21st February to the effect that the necessary conditions specified in the Act are not fulfilled. Consequently no further action can be taken by the Board of Trade in regard to this complaint.
    Mr. KILEY: Will those who make complaints be advised accordingly?
    Mr. BALDWIN: They have been.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    BRAZIL.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether steps will be taken with his active support and that of his Department to counteract the impression now being made in the Brazilian aniline dye trade by officially supported corporations of German traders; and whether he will consider the desirability of investigating the means by which such steps might conveniently be taken, and of reporting upon the same, for the benefit of British traders to whom the Brazilian dye trade is of so much importance, having regard to its prosperity in 1919 and 1920?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I shall be glad to consider any information and suggestions on this matter which my hon. and gallant Friend may care to send to me, and to draw the attention of British dye manufacturers to the importance of the Brazilian market. I would point out, however, that the present depreciated state of the German exchange gives the German manufacturers a very substantial, though it may be only temporary, advantage in respect of export trade.
    Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is able to give any information as to the prospects of this country's establishing a successful cotton trade with Brazil; whether the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners, who sent a representative to Brazil in 1921 to report upon the possibilities of cotton development in that country, have given any information to the Board of Trade which might be of value to British traders in general; and, if not, whether he will consider the desirability of obtaining information upon this matter, having in view the importance of the cotton trade to this country and the necessity of regaining our pre-War prosperity?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The latest figures available indicate that while the Brazilian cotton crop is increasing, the local consumption is also increasing, and there has been a considerable drop in recent years in the exports of Brazilian cotton in this country, namely, from 30,000 metric tons in 1913 to 9,000 tons in 1920. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. As regards the last part of the question I shall be glad, subject to considerations of expense, to make investigations on the matter if there is any representative demand for such investigations by the British interests concerned.

    DYBSTUFFS.
    Mr. MALLALIEUasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that up to December last lists of licences granted under the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Act, marked confidential, were circulated to members of a certain organisation represented on the Dyestuffs Advisory Licensing Committee, and that directly complaint was made about this

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    the issue of such lists ceased; and can he say how this official information was obtained by the organisation in question?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The lists in question were distributed to members of the Licensing Committee, four of whom are representatives of the association mentioned and communicated the lists to that association. When it appeared that such communication was causing inconvenience to the Committee it was discontinued.
    Major M. WOODasked the President of the Board of Trade on what grounds it is considered necessary to compel an applicant to the Dyestuffs Act Licensing Committee for a licence to import a dye to disclose the name and address of his customer; and whether, in view of the presence on the Committee of trade rivals of the applicant, the necessity of giving this confidential information might be dispensed with?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on 27th February to the hon. Member for Whitechapel.
    Major WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in neither of these answers does he give the ground upon which this has been done?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I do not think the ground is difficult to see. It is my unwillingness to interfere with Committees which have been set up to do a certain work.
    Mr. KILEY: Is there any reason why a man should be compelled to give away his business goodwill for the benefit of his competitor?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I am afraid I do not know what the element of compulsion is.
    Major WOODasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that an application was recently made to the Dyestuffs Advisory Licensing Committee for a licence to import 6 cwts. of acid alizarine, grey G, a dye not made in the United Kingdom, which was required by consumers in three different industries; that the Licensing Committee granted a licence for 3 cwts. on the express condition that it was to be used in one industry only; and, if so, on what
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    grounds this preference is given to one over other industries?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The reason for the distinction was that in the opinion of the Committee in the one case an entirely suitable substitute of British manufacture was not available, whilst for the other purposes an adequate substitute was available.
    Mr. KILEYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Government have imported quantities of dyes from Germany under reparations and are selling them through their agents in this country, while at the same time they are, through the Dyestuffs Advisory Licensing Committee, refusing to allow merchants to import the identical materials; and, if so, since the Government's action of selling German dyes in the United, Kingdom is seriously affecting the dye industry of this country, and, in fact, nullifying the effects of the Dyestuff (Import Regulation) Act, will he consider the desirability of immediately withdrawing this Act to enable dye merchants in this country to compete with the Government who, under the prevailing conditions, have a monopoly of trading in German dyes?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I am aware of the facts stated in the first part of the question. The stocks of reparation dyestuffs held by the Government were mainly obtained at a time when there was no reason to anticipate any immediate or prolonged decrease in requirements in this country, and were intended to supplement domestic production. Any additional supplies taken under the continuing option given by the Treaty of Versailles will be restricted to dyestuffs not produced in this country, and for which adequate substitutes are not obtainable from British manufacturers. No doubt the slow liquidation of the original stocks, in consequence of the general trade depression, is causing some difficulty to British manufacturers, but that does not appear to be a reason for the course suggested by the hon. Member.
    Mr. KILEY: Is there any reason why these dyes could not be distributed among firms who have been accustomed

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    to handle them for many years instead of giving a monopoly to one firm while others are destroyed?
    Mr. BALDWIN: Doubtless there were alternative courses, but I am not in a position to judge without examining the question closely.
    Mr. KILEY: Will you look into it?
    Mr. MALLALIEUasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that on the 29th November, 1921, the Dyestuffs Advisory Licensing Committee refused to recommend the issue of a licence to import a quantity of a dye not made in the United Kingdom named alizarine direct blue E3 B O, and suggested that a British-made dye named alizarine blue L A should be used by the applicant's customer as a substitute; that the user stated the substitute was altogether unsuitable, as it would not stand fast under certain processes it had to undergo; that since December last the Licensing Committee have repeatedly refused to recommend the issue of the licence despite the strongest evidence from the user that he could use no other dye than that for which a licence had been asked for, and that it would mean sending some hundreds of pounds worth of business abroad where the dye could be obtained; and, if so, does he approve of this action by the Licensing Committee?
    Mr. NEWBOULDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that Messrs. Zimmermann and Company (Photographic), Limited, of London, applied to the Dyestuffs Advisory Licensing Committee, on the 18th December last, for licences to import certain dyes used for tinting purposes by kinematograph film, printers; that on the 9th December the Licensing Committee refused to recommend the issue of such licences unless evidence was produced from the actual consumers showing that similar British-made dyes were not satisfactory for this particular process; that on the 20th and 21st December Messrs. Zimmermann forwarded to the Licensing Committee eight original communications from their customers, the film printers, who stated that unless they
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    were permitted to obtain supplies of the foreign dyes their industry would be seriously handicapped in competing with American and other foreign film-printing firms, and that they had tried all the British-made dyes, which had proved to be entirely unsatisfactory; that, after receiving this definite evidence, the Licensing Committee again on the 22nd December refused to recommend the issue of the licences; that on the 1st February Messrs. Zimmermann forwarded to the Licensing Committee a further six original communications from their customers the film printers, in which strong complaint was made against the Licensing Committee's refusal to allow them to obtain these dyes; that on the 3rd February the Licensing Committee again refused to recommend the issue of the licences, and gave no reason for such action; and, if so, does he approve of the Licensing Committee's action in thus forcing industries such as the film industry to use British-made dyes which are stated by consumers to be unsatisfactory and detrimental to the business when meeting foreign competition?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I am in communication with the Committee in Manchester about these cases, and will inform the hon. Members of the result.

    IMPORTS AND EXPORTS (1913 AND 1921).
    Mr. MALONEasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the difference in this country in pounds sterling of our import and export trade in 1913 and in 1921?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The answer involves a statistical table which, with the permission of the House, I will have circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. MALONE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the decrease of trade is due to the Treaty of Versailles?
    Following is the Table promised:
    The following statement shows the declared values of imports into and exports from the United Kingdom registered during each of the years 1913 and 1921:—

    —

    1913.

    1921.

    Increase (+) or decrease (-) in 1921.

    £

    £

    £

    Imports

    …

    768,735,000

    1,086,687,000

    +317,952,000

    Exports of British produce and manufactures

    …

    525,254,000

    703,196,000

    +177,943,000

    Exports of Foreign and Colonial merchandise

    …

    109,567,000

    107,052,000

    -2,515,000

    In view of the great differences in the levels of prices in the two years, these figures give but little indication of the quantities of goods imported and exported. The table below gives estimates

    —

    1913.

    1921.

    Decrease in 1921.

    £

    £

    £

    Imports

    …

    768,735,000

    570,912,000

    197,823,000

    Exports of British produce and manufactures

    …

    525,254,000

    261,647,000

    263,607,000

    Exports of Foreign and Colonial merchandise

    …

    109,567,000

    85,612,000

    23,955,000

    The figures are discussed in greater detail in the Board of Trade Journal for 19th January, 1922.

  PEACE TREATIES.

    CENTRAL RHINE COMMISSION.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the President of the Board of Trade who is the, present representative of the British Government on the Central Rhine Commission; and, in view of the decisions to be taken on the 25th April regarding the proposed lateral canal, what steps are being taken to appoint the second representative on the Commission to which the British Government are entitled?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The present representative of Great Britain on the Central Rhine Commission is Mr. J. G. Baldwin, C.B. The question of the appointment of a second British representative on the Commission is under consideration.
    Sir S. HOARE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a feeling that there ought to be a second representative appointed who is not an official, and it is very important that he should be appointed before the Conference?
    of the values which would be recorded for 1921 if the goods imported and exported were assigned the same average values as were recorded for the same descriptions of goods in 1913:—
    Mr. BALDWIN: I am quite aware of that feeling, but I may perhaps be allowed to state to the House that our representative cannot act on important matters without obtaining instructions from us, and that he has two votes in the Conference. I have hesitated to appoint a second member to that Commission so far, because it would mean an extra salary.
    Sir A. SHIRLEY BENN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chambers of commerce are particularly anxious that a commercial man should be appointed if a second man is appointed?
    Sir S. HOARE: Will the right hon. Gentleman also come to a decision before the Conference meets?

    SUPREME COUNCIL.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Prime Minister how many meetings of the Supreme Council have been held since the signing of the last of the Treaties of Peace arising out of the 1914–1918 War; at how many of these conferences was agreement reached between the representatives present; and what was the total number of days occupied in these several conferences?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): There have been 11 Sessions

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    of the Supreme Council, with an aggregate of 215 meetings since the signing of the last of the Treaties of Peace arising out of the 1914–18 War. I have no recollection of any occasion on which a Session of the Supreme Council terminated without an agreement. The total number of days occupied in these several conferences is 116.
    Lord. H. CAVEND1SH-BENTINCK: What has been the result of these meetings?

    VILNA.
    Lord R. CECILasked the Prime Minister what is the present position in the difficulty between Poland and Lithuania over Vilna; and whether any reply has been received from either of those countries to the resolution of the Council of the League of the 13th January last?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): An act of union drawn up by the Polish Government, including a Clause for the creation of a statute for Vilna, received on 22nd March the signatures of the 12 Vilna delegates who had hitherto opposed it. This is thought to be equivalent to the acceptance by the Vilna diet of the act which will now presumably be ratified. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative, both countries having replied. I am sending my Noble Friend a copy of the relevant League of Nations' document.
    Lord R. CECIL: Was the Diet of Vilna, which is said to have ratified this arrangement, packed by the Polish Government?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: I think that the facts are well known. I should not like to comment on them.

    EX-GERMAN AFRICAN COLONIES.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked the Prime Minister whether it is now proposed that the next meeting of the Council of the League of Nations should take place earlier than 25th April; who will represent the British Government at that meeting; whether any reply has been received from the American Government with regard to the submission of the amended draft mandates for the ex-German African colonies to the next meeting of the Council; and, in the event of no reply having been received from
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    Washington to the representations made by the British Government on 22nd December, 1921, in this connection, whether he will request the British Ambassador at Washington to point out the desirability pf receiving the reply of the American Government in time for the disposal of the mandates in question at the forthcoming meeting of the Council of the League?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: A meeting of the Council of the League of Nations was held in Paris during the past week-end, but the question of mandates was not on the agenda. The next meeting will, I understand, be held towards the end of April, but I cannot state the date, nor can I say yet who will represent His Majesty's Government. No reply has yet been received from the United States Government to the Note of the 22nd December last. His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington has been instructed in the sense mentioned in the question.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: When was the instruction referred to sent?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: I would be glad to have notice of that question. I am not sure.

    PARIS CONFERENCE, 1919 (PRIME MINISTER'S MEMORANDUM).
    Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked the Prime Minister whether he authorised the publication, on Friday last, of a memorandum circulated by him to the Peace Conference on 25th March, 1919, as a Command Paper, No. 1614; what is the purpose of publishing this confidential document now, seeing that so many of its proposals were superseded by the Treaty of Versailles; and whether he now proposes to revert to the policy outlined in the memorandum?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Repeated requests for presentation of the document to Parliament were made in this House in consequence of its publication abroad in a book written by an Italian statesman.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Are we to understand that the publication had no connection with the Genoa Conference?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No connection whatever. After the publication of Signor Nitti's book, I was asked if I

    931
    would lay Papers in this House. My first answer, I think, was that the Government, in view of the publication of various papers in various countries abroad, were considering the publication of documents on the subject. Then the hon. Gentleman opposite pressed me for the publication of this particular document, and I accordingly laid the Paper giving this document.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The spirit which informs the document which has been laid is the spirit which animated His Majesty's Government throughout the whole of the negotiations.
    Mr. FOOT: Can the right hon. Gentleman also have published the reply to that Memorandum by the Prime Minister of France at the time?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It is not customary to publish international documents of this kind without previous consultation with the other Powers concerned, and I believe that it was understood at the time of the Peace Conference that all these matters should be treated as confidential. Certain publications having taken place abroad, including the publication of the Memorandum of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we thought that it was proper that this should be published.
    Mr. AMMON: Are we to understand that other Powers broke confidence?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not want to be involved in a rather invidious controversy. Partial publication has taken place in various other countries of documents laid before the Conference.

  RUSSIA (MRS. STAN HARDING).
  Sir W. DAVISONasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the case of Mrs. Stan Harding, who went into Russia on a safe-conduct from the Soviet Government and on arrival was cast into prison on a false charge and gravely maltreated; whether, notwithstanding that His Majesty's Government have informed the Soviet Government that the British Government
  932
  expected the Soviet Government to accept Mrs. Stan Harding's claim for compensation commensurate with the sufferings she had endured during her false imprisonment, the Soviet Government have refused to pay any compensation or make any reparation; and whether, under these circumstances, he intends to go into conference at Genoa with Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky, who are responsible for this grave outrage on a British subject to whom they had given a safe-conduct, until the compensation demanded by the British Government for Mrs. Stan Harding has been paid?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part, the claims of private individuals against the Soviet Government form a subject which it is intended to discuss at the forthcoming Conference at Genoa.
  Sir W. DAVISON: Is not this case being treated as quite exceptional, as evidenced by the White Paper which has been issued, and what is the use of entering into agreement with these gentlemen if they dishonour the safe-conduct pass given to a woman?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It would be better if the hon. Member would permit me not to anticipate the debate to be held this day week.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the Government press upon the Soviet Government the necessity of giving some satisfaction to Mrs. Harding? Is any action going to be taken? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an answer? Will satisfaction be given in this exceedingly wicked case?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government will use their best endeavours to get satisfaction for a British subject who is aggrieved, but it would be inexpedient that I should be invited to discuss the Genoa Conference on a subject like this.
  Mr. RONALD McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, on a Vote which is to be a Vote of Confidence in the Government, there will be any possibility of raising personal questions of this sort?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: There would be an opportunity of raising the whole policy of the Genoa Conference, and of any discussion or negotiations with Russia arising therefrom.

  IMPERIAL TELEGRAPHIC AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS.
  Mr. HURDasked the Prime Minister whether he has received representations from the Empire Press Union on behalf of the leading journals of this and overseas British countries viewing with anxiety the continued lack of adequate telegraphic communications within the Empire and with concern the prolonged delay in securing the full advantages of an inter-imperial wireless system in which the Dominions overseas would be willing to co-operate; and what steps the Government propose to take to carry out the unanimous resolutions of the Imperial Conference on these matters?
  The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): I have been asked to reply to this question. The Prime Minister has received a communication from the Empire Press Union on the subject to which the hon. Member refers. The Report of the Planning Commission was sent to the Dominions and they were invited to consider co-operating in the scheme in accordance with the resolutions of the Imperial Conference. So far as I am aware, the Dominions have not yet replied. Preparations are proceeding for the construction of the stations for which the Imperial Government is responsible.
  Mr. HURD: Is it not a fact that the Dominions are, one after the other, refusing to take any part in this scheme?
  Mr. PEASE: No reply had been received up to yesterday. The replies are to be received by the Colonial Office, and I am afraid I cannot say anything more about them.

  GENOA CONFERENCE.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Prime Minister if he will say when the Motion in connection with the proposed Genoa Conference will be placed upon the Paper?
  Lord R. CECILasked the Prime Minister whether the questions of the reductions of armaments or of the payment of reparation by Germany or of Allied debts are to be considered at Genoa; and whether any Papers dealing with the proceedings at Genoa will be laid upon the Table before the proposed Debate on the subject?
  Captain Viscount CURZONasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the statement of the French Government that any decision of the Genoa Conference, as far as France is concerned, will be subject to ratification by the French Senate and Chamber; and whether he can give the same assurance on behalf of His Majesty's Government?
  Sir W. DAVISONasked the Prime Minister whether he will stipulate that the delegates of the Russian Soviet Government give a definite and categorical acceptance of the conditions contained in the letter inviting them to attend the Conference at Genoa before they are admitted to the Conference, having regard to the fact that no reference to these conditions has been made by the Soviet Government in their reply intimating that delegates representing the Soviet Government would attend the Conference?
  Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Lord Privy Seal whether he will table the Motion to be debated on 3rd April not later than Tuesday, in order to give hon. Members full opportunity of considering with their constituents whether the Motion invites the House to express its confidence in the specific policy to be pursued at Genoa, or whether it implies a vote of general confidence in the policy and administration of the Prime Minister?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: A full statement of the policy of His Majesty's Government at the Genoa Conference will be made in the Debate on Monday next. I hope to announce the terms of the Resolution on which that discussion will be taken on Wednesday or Thursday. I am considering the laying of Papers.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: In view of the unprecedented action of the Government in moving a Vote of Confidence in themselves will the right hon. Gentleman put the Motion on the Paper not later than Wednesday night?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is a question I have answered.
  Lord R. CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. Can he give me an answer, not in reference to the policy of the British Govern-

  935
  ment, but what is going to be discussed at Genoa, which, I understand, has already been settled?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think it is better to make the whole statement in the Debate this day week. I am considering whether in the meantime papers can be laid.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Would it not be better to have two days for the discussion?
  Lord R. CECIL: I will raise this question again next Wednesday.
  Sir W. DAVISON: Arising out of Question No. 39, did the Soviet delegation say a single word as to accepting the conditions laid down when they said they would attend the Conference?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: These matters can be dealt with in the Debate on Monday next. I am not prepared to deal with them by question and answer now.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Could we have two days for the Debate?
  Major GLYNasked the Prime Minister whether it is intended to consider matters affecting the Near East at the forthcoming Conference at Genoa; whether the satisfactory settlement of terms of peace between Turkey and Greece is an essential fact precedent to any settlement of international and commercial affaire in the Near East; and whether the Conference now assembled in Paris considering the revision of the Treaty of Sèvres is expected to come to any decision before the Genoa Conference is held?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. While a settlement between Turkey and Greece is most desirable, I cannot admit that it is an essential condition precedent to the Conference at Genoa. The Paris Conference concluded its sittings yesterday.
  Viscount CURZONasked the Prime Minister exactly how the staff of the British Empire delegation at Genoa will be composed?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not yet in a position to give the numbers of the staff.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALLasked the Lord Privy Seal whether the Dominion Governments will be individually represented at the Genoa Conference; and, if not, what steps have been or will be taken to ascertain their views on the question of the formal recognition of the Soviet Government in Russia, particularly in the case of South Africa, where Bolshevist activities directed from Moscow have recently been prominent?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Government of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa were invited to send representatives to the Genoa Conference, and have accepted. The Government of New Zealand have asked that they may be represented by the delegates of His Majesty's Government if their representative does not arrive in time. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.
  Sir F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman also take cognisance of the decision of this House at the time of the Prinkipo Conference when a very emphatic verdict was given?

  MINISTER OF TRANSPORT.
  Major KELLEYasked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to appoint another Minister of Transport, and whether the status of the Ministry of Transport is to be altered in the coming financial year?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. It will be necessary to appoint another Minister, though the post will carry no salary. As regards the last part of the question, I am not in a position to add to what was said on this subject by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of his statement on 1st March, to which I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend.
  Mr. HOGGE: Will this appointment be, as the last, without salary?

  EDUCATION.

    ECONOMY PROPOSALS.
    Mr. WIGNALLasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the unrest

    937
    created in the country by the Geddes Committee recommending serious cuts in the cost of education, and the serious effects such economy will have upon our educational system if adopted, he will set up a Select Committee to inquire and take evidence and report before any action is taken to carry out the recommendations?
    Mr. T. GRIFFITHSasked the Lord Privy Seal whether, in view of the public interest and anxiety as to the proposals of the Government to secure economy in the expenditure on education, he will consider the advisability of appointing a Select Committee to consider these proposals and report?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The recommendations of the Committee on National Economy with regard to educational expenditure were very carefully examined by the Government, and the proposals for reduced expenditure in the coming financial year, which are embodied in the Civil Services Class IV Estimates, represent the decision which the Government has taken, after a survey of the educational needs of the country and of the resources available from taxes and rates. In the circumstances I do not think that any advantage would be gained by the appointment of a Select Committee for the purpose suggested.
    Mr. WIGNALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the far-reaching effect of this Report in its various details, apart from the question of salaries of teachers, and other things, and the extensive nature of its effect on children who cannot help themselves, and would it not be advisable to inquire into that aspect as well as the economic aspect?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: So far as the Government are concerned, they are very well informed, after careful examination given to the matter, of the results that may be expected to follow upon their decision.
    Mr. BARKERasked the President of the Board of Education whether he would consider the desirability of the appointment of a Select Committee to go fully into the education question as it affects the exclusion of scholars from the schools, the closing of schools and consequent dismissal of teachers, the ques-
    938
    tion of teachers' pensions, and other measures affecting education, so that local education authorities and the teachers can place their views on these matters before the Committee for report before the Government brings in legislation dealing with any or all of these important questions?
    Mr. J. GUESTasked the President of the Board of Education if ho is aware of the strong feeling in the country against the proposed reductions in the Estimates for Education; and whether, before these cuts are made operative, he will propose the appointment of a Select Committee to consider the proposals of the Geddes Committee and to receive evidence from education authorities and the teaching profession with reference thereto?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): I would refer the hon. Members to the answer given to-day by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to the hon. Members for the Forest of Dean and Pontypool (Messrs. Wignall and Thomas Griffiths).
    Mr. BARKER: Is it not a fact that the Government are the employers of the teachers, and will they refuse to give the teachers an opportunity of stating their case before any of these alterations are made?
    Mr. FISHER: The answer is that the Government are not the employers of the teachers. The teachers are employed by the local aducation authorities, who have the power of appointment and dismissal.
    Sir W. de FRECEasked the President of the Board of Education whether he can make any further statement as to any actual steps now taken or about to be taken to effect any reduction in the outlay on education; and whether, in the case of important changes of policy, the House will have an opportunity of discussing them before they are put into force?
    Mr. FISHER: If, as I hope, the discussion on the Board's Estimates for the coming year takes place at an early date, I will make a full statement on the subject.
    Mr. W. THORNE: With all the cuts that are taking place, will what are known as necessitous areas lose some of

    939
    the grants they received in days gone by?

    TEACHERS, LONDON (EXTENSION or SERVICE).
    Colonel BURNasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that up to the time of the Training of the Teachers (Superannuation) Bill, 1918, all applications from teachers under the London County Council for extension on reaching the age of 65 were refused, and the applicants compulsorily retired under the age limit regulation of the council, but that after the new Bill appeared all similar applications for extension were granted and the applicants thus made eligible for, and admitted to, the benefits of the new Act, while their colleagues whose application for extension had been refused were debarred from its benefits; will he say on what principle was such differential, treatment based; what compensation does he propose to give to those teachers who sustained heavy loss by being refused the same extension of service as that granted to their colleagues; to how many teachers under the London County Council was extension of service granted during the year ended 31st March, 1918; and to how many during the year ended 31st March, 1919?
    Mr. FISHER: I understand the hon. and gallant Member's question to refer to the action of the London Local Education Authority in a matter which was completely within their discretion, and in which I cannot intervene. The number of teachers in the employment of the London County Council whose certificates were extended by the Board on the application of the council was, in the year ended the 31st March, 1918, 56, and in the year ended the 31st March, 1919, 135.

    SCHOOL INSPECTION.
    Mr. HURDasked the President of the Board of Education what further measures he has in view to secure the closer co-ordination necessary in the great majority of cases between inspectors of the Ministry and the county inspectors?
    Mr. FISHER: It is one of the duties of His Majesty's Inspectors to co-operate closely with the officials of local education
    940
    authorities and to make arrangements which will, as far as possible, prevent duplication and overlapping, and in the great majority of cases such arrangements exist and are, I believe, successful. The functions performed by inspectors of local authorities are very miscellaneous and are usually supplementary or complementary to those of the Board's inspectors. The Board have no authority to prescribe the functions which local inspectors should or should not perform; but I am as anxious as the hon. Member to prevent duplication and unnecessary expense, and if I see any opportunity of improving the existing arrangements I will certainly take it.
    Colonel Sir C. YATE: I heard of a case where one schoolmistress had eight -inspectors at her school in one week. Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these were local inspectors and how many not?
    Mr. FISHER: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will give me particulars, I will inquire into them.
    Mr. HURDasked the President of the Board of Education whether, seeing that the majority of schools in the big towns of England and a large number outside the towns are generally classed as efficient, he will consider whether the number of inspectors could be reduced by one half if schools were enabled to win a certificate of excellence, which would exempt them from inspection for, say, three years?
    Mr. FISHER: The Board cannot divest themselves of responsibility for ascertaining the efficiency of the schools and the return which they yield for public expenditure. As regards elementary schools the Board aim at such inspection as will enable a proper report to be made on each school once in three years, but I must admit that, owing to the limitation of the Board's staff and the heavy burden of administrative business which, in order to avoid delay and diminish official correspondence, inspectors transact personally with local education authorities and their officials, this object is not attained, particularly in the large urban areas. As regards secondary schools, the Board for similar reasons are unable to undertake a full inspection of each school even once in every five years. The hon. Member's suggestion would involve a very substantial increase of the inspectorate.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Could the right hon. Gentleman not leave a little more discretion to the local authorities in these matters and so carry out his own great wish for economy in regard to education?
    Mr. FISHER: I am very anxious to leave as much discretion as possible to the local authorities. In fact, there is very little inspection in the whole of the London area. We leave it almost entirely to the inspectors of the London County Council. But we do find in many cases that when we propose to reduce our inspecting staff we receive protests from the local education authorities, who rely very much on the judgment of our inspectors as to the efficiency on many points of their schools.
    Colonel NEWMANasked the President of the Board of Education the number of inspectors of schools or scholars who will be borne on the Estimates of his Board for the coming financial year; and, having regard to the recommendations of the Committee on National Expenditure, what will be the deduction in point of numbers and cost to the taxpayer as compared with 1921–22?
    Mr. FISHER: The number of inspectors of all grades borne on the Estimates for the coming financial year is 413. Provision has been made in the Estimates for savings on vacancies to the amount of £10,000, and I expect to make a saving of about 20 posts. The net total for salaries and allowances of the inspectorate in the year 1922–23 is estimated at £314,659, as compared with £366,195 for the year 1921–22, i.e., a saving of £51,536, due partly to reduction of war bonus. The estimated cost of administration and inspection for the year 1922–23 is below the figure of £850,000 to which the Committee on National Expenditure recommended that it should be reduced.
    Colonel NEWMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman answer that part of the question as to what the reduction in the number of inspectors is to be?
    Mr. FISHER: I have given the answer. I said there would be a saving of about 20 inspectors.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is it not the case that the total cost of administration since 1914 has increased enormously, although a very large part of that administration has
    942
    been handed over to the local authorities?
    Mr. FISHER: It is true that the expenditure has increased, because salaries have increased.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that he has handed over a very large part of the work of the Department to local authorities, and still it is costing the nation more for central administration?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We shall debate that on the Estimates.

    TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION.
    Major BIRCHALLasked the President of the Board of Education whether the Government will appoint a Select Committee to consider the superannuation of teachers, with a view to introducing such modifications into the present system as will enable the teachers to accept a new scheme on a contributory basis?
    Mr. FISHER: As has already been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Government propose to investigate further the question of the superannuation of teachers, but I am not in a position to state the precise form which such investigation will take.
    Mr. M. JONESasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated that the question of teachers' pension system was to be investigated; whether, seeing that he himself has since declared that the Government has decided upon its policy in regard to the matter, the investigation referred to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was made in consultation with the Ministry of Education: whether the investigation involved the taking of evidence from teachers' representatives; and, if not, whether, having regard to the great importance of this question and with a view to securing the highest degree of efficiency in schools, he will recommend the appointment of a Select Committee of the House, with a view to the examination of witnesses who may be called to give evidence in regard to the economies suggested by the Board?
    Mr. FISHER: I think the hon. Member has misconceived the position. As was announced by my right hon. Friend on

    943
    1st March, the Government propose that, pending the further investigation of the question of the superannuation of teachers, the teachers should contribute 5 per cent. of their salaries. The manner in which this further investigation will be conducted is under consideration?
    Sir F. HALL: As the teachers have to contribute 5 per cent. towards their superannuation, is not that tantamount to a reduction of salary, and is it not another way of going back on the Burnham Report?
    Mr. FISHER: It is not exactly tantamount to a reduction of salary, because it is obvious that the contribution will be demanded only from teachers of those classes which are pensionable. The whole matter will, of course, come up for discussion when the proposals are before the House, and it would be much better to defer discussion until then.
    Sir F. HALL: I am sorry to press the right hon. Gentleman. Was not this superannuation to be on a non-contributory basis for the teachers?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We are now debating the matter.

    TEACHEKS (DISMISSAL).
    Mr. M. JONESasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that teachers are being dismissed in various parts of the country, through no fault of their own, on the ground of economy; and whether, in such cases of compulsory unemployment, he proposes to make any provision for such teachers?
    Mr. FISHER: I am aware that in some areas reductions of staff are being made, but I have no power to compensate teachers for unemployment.
    Mr. JONES: Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that these teachers have made a good deal of sacrifice in order to fit themselves for this profession, and does he not think that their case demands special consideration?
    Mr. FISHER: It must not be assumed that because the services of a teacher are dispensed with in a particular area the teacher will not be able to find employment in other areas. I am certain that local authorities who find it necessary to
    944
    dismiss teachers will be fully alive to the desirability of exercising discrimination in the matter in order to avoid, as far as they can, the infliction of any real hardship.

    SPECIAL SCHOOL (CLOSING).
    Mr. AMMONasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that, on grounds of economy, a number of the special schools in London for physically and mentally defective children are being closed; and whether, in view of the certain injury that will fall to the children as a result, he will take steps to maintain all such existing special schools?
    Mr. FISHER: The only proposal, of which I am aware, for the closure of a special school in London relates to a small school for physically defective children conducted in the premises of a voluntary hospital. In this case the children are to be transferred to other schools. I am not aware of any other proposals to close special schools for physically and mentally defective children in London on the grounds of economy.
    Mr. AMMON: If I supply the right hon. Gentleman with particulars of schools, is he prepared to look into them?
    Mr. FISHER: Certainly.
    Mr. AMMON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in spite of his statement that the law age limit would not be raised, by the closing of the smaller schools large schools are being overcrowded and children cannot go to the special schools until they are seven years of age?
    Mr. FISHER: I was not aware of it. If the hon. Member will bring me the particulars he has in mind, I shall be pleased to meet him.

    MOTOR DELIVERY SERVICE, KEXT.
    Mr. E. HARMSWORTHasked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been drawn to the proposal of the Education Committee of the Kent County Council to purchase a motor-car for the delivery of stores to various districts within its area; how many motor-cars are to be employed in this service at the public expense; and whether it is his intention to take steps to prevent this extension of county council trading which is carried on to a

    945
    very large extent at the cost of the ratepayers and to the serious disadvantage of individual enterprise within the area of the County Council?
    Mr. FISHER: I am not aware of this proposal, but will communicate with the local education authority.

  GERMAN EXCHANGE.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the recent collapse in the German exchange; and what steps, in view of the urgent need of a stabilised exchange for the economic recovers' of Europe, the Government intends to take in the matter?
  Mr. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second, the whole subject of exchange will, I hope, be fully examined at Genoa with a view to such international action as is possible.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: What is the use of discussing the question of the exchange at Genoa if the Reparations and Peace Treaties are to be ruled out of the agenda?
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: What is the use of going to Genoa if the Reparations Commission are inflicting sabotage on Central Europe?
  Mr. M. STEVENS: Will the whole question of the stabilisation of exchanges be dealt with in Genoa?
  Mr. YOUNG: I have no doubt that these matters will be entered into and explained more fully in the course of the discussion.

  PACIFIC TREATY.
  Mr. L. MALONEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of paragraph 2 (Pacific Treaty) of the agreement of 13th December, 1921, the Powers signatory to the Treaty would be diplomatically bound to take a favourable view of the Japanese case should a war ensue between Russia and Japan in which Russia sought to recover Saghalien and her outlets on the Pacific Ocean?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The Japanese delegation at Washington made a declaration to the effect that it was the settled policy of the Japanese Government to respect the territorial integrity of Russia. The hypothetical case to which the hon. Member refers seems therefore to be so remote that I think it unnecessary to speculate on the policy which would be followed by His Majesty's Government, should it arise.

  PALESTINE (DRAFT MANDATE).
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Lord Privy Seal whether, since no decision of the House on the question of the Draft Mandate for Palestine has yet been given, he will give half a day, in the event of a Resolution being put down dealing with the Mandate, upon which a Division could be taken?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I would suggest that the most suitable opportunity for such a discussion would be found on the Consolidated Fund Bill.
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does not my hon. Friend realise that if we move a Resolution which has the effect of stopping the Consolidated Fund Bill we are doing great harm to everyone, while we only want to get an expression of the intention of the House of Commons on that particular matter?

  BANKRUPTCIES (GAMING LOSSES).
  Sir F. HALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in bankruptcies in which the creditors have appointed a Committee of Inspection, the Board of Trade have issued instructions to the Trustees in Bankruptcy to take proceedings for the recovery of gaming losses paid by the bankrupt by cheque?
  Mr. BALDWIN: No, Sir. In such cases the acts of a Trustee in Bankruptcy are subject to the authority, not of the Board of Trade, but of the Committee of Inspection. I would refer my hon. Friend to Section 56 of the Bankruptcy Act of 1914.
  Sir F. HALL: Am I to understand that it rests with the inspector to see whether proceedings should or should not be taken?
  Mr. BALDWIN: It rests with the Committee of Inspection.

  SMUGGLING AND POACHING (GERMANS).
  Viscount CURZONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the British Customs authorities have had to complain of a pronounced tendency of Germans to attempt smuggling; whether any complaints have been received of a pronounced tendency on the part of German fishing craft to poach in territorial waters; and, if so, what steps are being taken by the Government to deal with the situation?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the negative. The third part, therefore, does not arise.

  MEXICO.
  Major C. LOWTHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of his statement in the House of Commons, on 5th May last, that it is a disadvantage, not only to Mexico, but to the commercial and other interests of this country, that our relations with Mexico cannot be be more regular, he will explain why the Foreign Office have delayed so long in remedying this evil; and why the Foreign Office still withhold recognition from the constitutionally elected government of Mexico which, in addition to providing overwhelming evidence of stability, offered in October last to agree to the suggestions of His Majesty's Government with regard to the setting up of a mixed claims commission?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I agree with the hon. and gallant Member that it would be to the advantage of all concerned that our relations with Mexico should be on a regular basis, but I cannot admit that the responsibility for the present state of affairs lies with His Majesty's Government rather than the Mexican Government. Among the reasons which have affected His Majesty's Government in considering the question of recognition, I may mention the reluctance of the
  948
  Mexican Government to deal with the question of their foreign indebtedness and the continued occupation of British properties without the payment of compensation. The draft of an agreement for the establishment of a mixed claims commission to deal with British claims has just been forwarded to the representative of the Mexican Government in London. The hon. and gallant Member will realise the desirability of avoiding statements in this House which might offend the susceptibilities of the Mexican Government, and thus prejudice the maintenance of those good relations in which he is so much interested.
  Major LOWTHER: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of my hon. Friend's answer, I give notice that I propose to raise this question on the Motion for Adjournment to-night.
  Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: Can my hon. Friend say whether His Majesty's Government are in touch with the American Government on this matter?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am not pre pared to say that I know what my hon. Friend means by "in touch." The matter is being considered by both Governments.

  TRANSPORT.

    ARTERIAL ROADS.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport how many of the by-pass roads around the County of London which were commenced by grants of money from his Department in order to relieve unemployment have been completed; if any of them have still to be finished; how many men have been employed on the various jobs: and how much money has been granted by his Department towards the cost of the various roads?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): A section of the Western Avenue in Acton is the only one of the arterial road works in the metropolitan area which has actually been completed. Excluding the Great West Road, it is anticipated that all other sections representing complete contracts in themselves will be completed at various times

    949
    within the next 18 months. As the information in reply to the last two parts of my hon. Friend's questions contains a large number of figures, I will, with his

    ARTERIAL ROAD WORKS IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA.

    —

    Grant from Road Fund.

    Number of men employed on 23–3–22.

    Highest number employed.

    £

    Shooter's Hill By-Pass

    93,100

    51

    335

    Western Avenue—Acton Section

    10,000

    Completed.

    100

    Hammersmith Section

    15,000

    1

    9

    Woodford—Ilford Road

    75,000

    205

    205

    South Circular Road—Woolwich Housing Scheme Section

    12,500

    1

    140

    East Ham and Barking By-Pass

    130,000

    313

    523

    Great West Road Extension

    73,000

    34

    36

    Great West Road

    698,690

    264

    281

    Croydon By-Pass

    121,000

    60

    150

    Eastern Avenue

    178,000

    369

    1,481

    Eltham By-Pass, including Kidbrook Park Extension.

    137,224

    192

    363

    New Cambridge Road

    254,000

    245

    529

    New Chertsey Road

    29,500

    47

    65

    North Circular Road

    306,000

    450

    712

    Sudbury Spur

    7,500

    21

    55

    Dartford—Erith Road

    1,000,000

    133

    188

    London—Southend Road

    2,080

    2,080

    London—Tilbury Road

    474

    474

    Watling Street (between Dartford and Strood)

    679

    708

    London—Dover Road (Dartford—Gravesend—Strood).

    873

    943

    London—Folkestone Road (Sidcup—Wrotham)

    762

    762

    Mr. GILBERTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport if he will state what progress has been made with the new roads in Kent and Essex, for which his Department gave a grant of £1,500,000 and the London County Council £500,000; whether any part of the roads has been commenced or completed; how many men have been employed on the work up till now, and how many men are still being employed; and if he can state approximately when the roads will be finished?
    Mr. NEAL: Work has been commenced on the following arterial roads in Kent and Essex, towards the construction of which the London County Council have made a grant of £500,000:

    London-Southend Road (21 miles).

    London-Tilbury Road (11 miles, including by-passes at Rainham and Purfleet).

    permission, circulate the details in tabular form in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the Table:
    Watling Street (11½ miles between Dartford and Strood).
    London-Dover Road (12½ miles between Dartford and Strood via Gravesend).
    London-Folkestone Road (13½ miles between Sidcup and Wrotham).
    It is anticipated that these works will take about 12 months to complete. Further details will be found in the table referred to in the reply to my hon. Friend's preceding question [above printed].

    RAILWAY STATISTICS.
    Major GLYNasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport what is the size of the staff employed in the statistics section of the Ministry; whether the rates tribunal have been consulted as to what figures they may and do require; and whether the Railway Clearing House is able to supply statistics on all rating matters.
    Mr. NEAL: The number of officials of all grades employed in the statistics section of the Ministry at the present time is 31. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to Section 22 (2) of the Railways Act of last year, which provides that the Minister shall give to the rates tribunal such assistance as the tribunal may require, and shall place at the disposal of the tribunal any information in his possession which he may think relevant to the matter before the tribunal. The statistics referred to are essential to the proper carrying out of this duty imposed by Parliament upon the Minister. I am not aware that, apart from the returns required by the Minister under his statutory power, the Railway Clearing House is in a position to supply all relevant statistics on matters affecting rates and fares, and, in addition, I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that it is necessary that such information should be made available to the traders and to the public generally.
    Mr. STEVENS: Is it not a fact that the Railway Clearing House decline to give any statistical information to the general public, being purely for railway purposes?
    Mr. NEAL: I am not informed as to that.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport to what purposes the great bulk of the statistics now required to be provided by the railway companies are put by the Ministry of Transport?
    Mr. NEAL: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the discussion on these statistics during the proceedings on the Railways Bill last Session before Standing Committee B, of which he was a member. I would also refer him to the answer given to a somewhat similar question by the hon. and gallant Member for Clackmannan on the 20th instant.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these statistics are quite useless from the point of view of the railway companies?
    Mr. NEAL: On the contrary, I think they are at the foundation of the economies which must be made.

    NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY STOCK.
    Mr. FORDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he is aware of the serious hardship entailed upon large numbers of small investors whose sole capital is locked up in North British Railway stock by the Government's action in refusing to accept the finding of the Railway and Canal Commissioners with regard to the £430,000 deducted by the Government from the company's claim for December, 1920, for actual expenditure on repairs of engines and wagons, and in deducting from the company's claim for the first 7½ months of 1921 further sums of £690,000 actually expended on repairs of engines and wagons; and whether, in view of the growing resentment on the part of all interested in the railway and its stocks because of the impression that is gaining ground that the Government are purposely preventing the early trial by the chosen arbitrators of the real dispute between the parties with a view to postponing payment as long as possible, the Government will expedite legal proceedings?
    Mr. NEAL: I am fully aware of the hardship involved to shareholders who do not receive their dividends, but I cannot agree that the Government is responsible therefor. The hon. Member alleges that the Government refused to accept a decision of the Railway and Canal Commissioners, and I can only presume that he is unaware that this finding was reversed by a unanimous decision of the Court of Session. He further implies that the Government is improperly seeking to prevent or delay the trial of a dispute with the company. There is no foundation for this suggestion. The only dispute which can arise is whether the company, in compiling their account, have given credit for the receipts due to the Government and charged only the expenditure for which the Government is liable, and that issue cannot be formulated until the company have rendered their final claim in the agreed manner and until such claim has been examined in the usual way. The hon. Member will perceive that the claim is not simply one of actual expenditure upon rolling stock, though I may point out that upon repairs of rolling stock alone the company claims about £2,000,000 more than their charge

    953
    in 1913, after that charge has been adjusted to meet the increase in wages and prices—
    HON. MEMBERS: Circulate it.
    Mr. NEAL: If hon. Members so desire, I shall be glad to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. FORD: Does it convey an accurate impression to say that the finding was reversed by the Court of Session on the facts; and are we to take this necessarily lengthy and detailed answer as really implying that the Government is not going to take refuge behind a technicality but will endeavour, as soon as possible, in the interests of the shareholders, to have this matter decided?
    Mr. SPEAKER: This is not a time for speeches by Members, or by Ministers. Lengthy and detailed answers should always be circulated in the OFFICIAL BEPORT.
    The following is the completion of the reply prepared:
    I received from the company on the 24th instant an account for £13,978,419 6s. 2d., against which they state that they have received on account £12,222,711 16s. 3d., and claim a balance of £1,755,707 9s. 11d. without prejudice to other claims not stated. The company filed an application to the Court on the 23rd instant, the day before I received their account. It would be improper for me to discuss the matter now, but I explained the position fully to a deputation consisting of directors and shareholders on the 14th of March, and am sending the hon. Member a copy of the statement then issued.

    RAILWAY BRIDGE, GOOLE.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he has received a report of the serious damage by fire to the Goole railway bridge; whether he is aware that this damage seriously hampers railway traffic between Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire and the South of England; whether steps are being taken to repair the damage without delay; and whether, in reconstructing this bridge, he will approach the railway companies concerned with a view to adapting the bridge for road traffic as well as railway traffic, in view of the fact that road traffic has to go
    954
    all the way round by Selby or over an inadequate ferry at present?
    Mr. NEAL: The North Eastern Railway Company have furnished me with a report on this subject, from which it appears that, while the jetty and engine room under the bridge were seriously damaged, only slight damage was done to the machinery controlling the bridge, and practically none to the swing bridge itself. Every step is being taken to put the bridge into a condition for reopening for the passage of river traffic with the least possible delay, and the repairs necessary to permit of the resumption of railway traffic having been carried out, the working of such traffic over the bridge was resumed at midnight on Friday last. In the circumstances, no question of the reconstruction of the bridge arises at present.

    COMPENSATED DIRECTORS (WESTERN GROUP).
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport what total compensation for economised directors has been passed by the tribunal as to be paid by the Western Railways group for amalgamating the six small railway companies into that group; whether these compensated directors do or do not lose the right to free travel; and whether the tribunal has passed any compensation yet to men who have been economised out of their work?
    Mr. NEAL: The scheme provides for the payment, with the consent of the proprietors, of a total sum of £54,500 out of the assets of the vested companies as compensation among directors who suffer loss by the abolition of their office. In reply to the second part of the question, the scheme contains no provision with regard to free travel. The, issue of passes to directors or others is, as the hon. and gallant Member is aware, a matter within the discretion of the companies. In reply to the third part of the question, the scheme, in accordance with Section 3 (i), (f) of the Railways Act, incorporates the provisions contained in the Third Schedule of the Act with respect to the compensation of existing officers and servants.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: When the tribunal was considering the granting of this enormous compensation of £54,000,

    955
    did they, or did they not, take into account whether directors were to get free railway passes for the rest of their lives?
    Mr. NEAL: I think it would have been outside the power of the tribunal to do so.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Did they, then, decide on this sum, which comes out of the pockets of the taxpayers, without considering that vital question?
    Mr. NEAL: This sum does not come out of the pockets of the taxpayers, but out of the pockets of the shareholders, and the claim being an agreed one, it would not have been relevant for the Committee to have considered that question.

  GREECE AND TURKEY.
  Major GLYNasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Allied Governments have made any inquiries of the Angora Turkish delegation as to the willingness of the Turks to conclude immediately an armistice with the Greeks; whether the British Government have in any way prevented the conclusion of such an armistice; and whether it is the intention of the British Government, whilst safeguarding British property and interests, to do everything possible to settle the Turko-Greek war?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answers to the first and third parts of the question are in the affirmative; that to the second in the negative.

  CIDER.
  Major MORRISON-BELLasked the Minister of Agriculture if he has any record that the Board some years ago issued a circular to the farming community suggesting that it might help them over bad times if, as a subsidiary industry, they took up the making of cider?
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I am unable to trace any record of the circular in question.
  Major MORRISON-BELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I sent a copy to the Ministry of Agriculture?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: My hon. and gallant Friend did not send a copy of the circular, but a copy of a long Report which was published some years ago by the Board.
  Major MORRISON-BELLasked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that the duty on cider which is home-made and supplied by farmers to their workers costs as much in the collection as it brings in to the Treasury; and will he recommend that cider produced on a farm and for home consumption should be relieved of this tax?
  Mr. YOUNG: Duty is not charged on cider made by a farmer and supplied free to workers on his farm. If, however, such cider is sold to the workers duty is chargeable, and I am not prepared to recommend exemption from duty in such circumstances. I may add that the work involved is insignificant, and no saving in staff would result from the suggested exemption.

  MILK (PRICES).
  Lieut. - Colonel BELLasked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that, owing to the fall in milk prices, many of the ex-service men recently settled on the land are now faced with ruin; and whether, in view of the plight of these ex-soldiers and the waste of public money that must result if these smallholders are ruined, the Government has any policy to help them through this crisis?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I am aware that smallholders who depend for their livelihood primarily on dairying will be seriously prejudiced by the fall in wholesale milk prices. I am giving the matter the most careful consideration, and my hon. and gallant Friend may rely on the Ministry considering sympathetically proposals with regard to the abatement of rent in all cases of serious hardship, but it is quite impossible for the Government to adopt any policy for subsidising the production of milk either by smallholders or large farmers.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Is the right hon. Gentleman investigating the charges made by these retailers, and are not the retailers getting a far larger proportion of the milk prices than the producers?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I have personally interviewed several of the big retailers on the subject, but, of course, I have no power to intervene to control prices in any way, nor do I think that it would be desirable that I should do so.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do, then?
  Mr. H. MORRISONasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the fact that a combination of milk distributors has already announced the retail price of summer milk supplies, although contracts have only been entered into with producers in isolated cases; and whether, in view of the manner in which cost of production is ignored by the combination, he will bear that circumstance in mind when considering any amendment of the Milk and Dairies (Consolidation) Act, 1915, so that no additional charges may be imposed upon producers?
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): Yes, Sir. I am very desirous of avoiding any measures which would add to the cost of production of milk.

  LONDON PARKS (EMPLOYMENT).
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, the number of men working in Hyde Park and St. James's Park; what is the number of hours worked per week by labourers and forestry hands; and what wages they receive?
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. GILMOUR (for the First Commissioner of Works): The staff normally employed in Hyde Park is 107, and in St. James's Park 43; and the average number of hours per week throughout the year is 48. The wages of men with less than five years' service is 59s. 6d. per week, and of those with over five years' service 61s. 6d. per week. In addition to the above, there are 60 men in Hyde Park and 84 in St. James's Park on unemployment relief work who are paid 75 per cent. of the park labourers' rate for a five-day week.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (ACOUSTICS).
  Sir MAURICE DOCKRELLasked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he will institute an inquiry with a view to improving the acoustics in this House?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I am not aware of any general desire for such an inquiry.
  Sir M. DOCKRELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that during the submarine warfare we made the discovery of how to magnifiy the smallest sound? Will he not take into consideration such an installation in this House to do the same thing; and, further, is he aware that I am not actuated by selfish motives, because we Irish are getting kicked out of this House?
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Will the hon. Gentleman also consider the further idea of minimising the noise made by some speakers?

  NEW BATTLESHIPS (ARMAMENT).
  Major KELLEYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty when it is proposed to place contracts for the guns and gun-mountings required in the two new battleships; and whether the Admiralty proposes any payment towards the maintenance of plant in the works of armament firms which do not share in these contracts?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): With regard to the first part of the question, it was originally intended to place orders for gun mountings in July next and for guns in October. In view of urgent representations made to the First Lord by a deputation from the manufacturing districts, the possibility of advancing these dates is receiving special consideration, but no definite decision has yet been arrived at. With regard to the second part of the question, as the distribution of orders has not been settled, this question does not arise.

  AIRCRAFT DISPOSALS COMPANY.
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury

  959
  whether the Disposal Commission is entering into another contract with the Aircraft Disposals Company; what are the terms of such contract; and whether they have the full assent of the Air Council?
  Mr. YOUNG: Pending the completion of the contract, I am unable to make any statement as to the terms that may be finally settled. In the meantime, I can assure my hon. Friend that the Disposal and Liquidation Commission are in touch with the Air Council with a view to meeting their wishes upon any points arising with which that Department is concerned.
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the hon. Gentleman undertake that this contract shall not be entered into by the Disposal Commission without the full assent of the Air Council?
  Mr. YOUNG: I think, when my hon. Friend considers the terms of my answer, he will find that we are consulting the Air Council.

  RELAND (DISTURBANCES).
  Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information to give the House with regard to the disturbed conditions in Ireland—in Belfast especially?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Churchill): I have no information to give the House other than what has appeared in the Press, except that General Macready telegraphed me this morning that the situation on the border is quiet and that a sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary has been killed, and another sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary has been fired at, at Rathmines, near Dublin, but providentially escaped.
  As the House is aware, His Majesty's Government has invited representatives of the Provisional Government and of the Government of Northern Ireland to come to London to discuss the situation. The Provisional Government accepted the invitation on Saturday morning, and Sir James Craig advised me this morning that his Cabinet has decided to accept the invitation for a conference on the
  960
  present position in Ireland, and that he will arrive in London on Wednesday morning, no doubt with some of his colleagues. I have telegraphed at once to the Provisional Government asking Mr. Collins that he and his colleagues should be here on Wednesday. I understand the Provisional Government are sending Mr. Collins, Mr. Griffith, Mr. Duggan, and possibly Mr. O'Higgins to represent them. I do not think there is any advantage in discussing the matter further before the conference.
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the murder of a policeman, what steps are the Government taking to permit these ex-policemen to leave Ireland, where many of them are in grave danger?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think I could at Question Time give a full account of the measures we are taking, but the greatest amount of care and of pains have been taken in working out a plan, which we believe is adequate, and I should be quite ready to discuss it in the House at any time, or even to lay a Paper on the subject, if that were desired. Everyone feels that the pledge with regard to the Royal Irish Constabulary must be fully and generously kept, and I am of opinion that that condition is established by the terms which we have prescribed.
  Viscount CURZON: Could not the representatives of the Provisional Government be pressed to bring Mr. O'Duffy across to London as part of their delegation?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: That does not arise out of this question.
  Mr. R. McNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that these Royal Irish Constabulary who are about to be disbanded are all marked down for murder when they are disbanded and return to their homes, and will he take steps to meet that situation?
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Could my right hon. Friend arrange that we should have some time to discuss this matter of the Royal Irish Constabulary even if after 8.15?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Perhaps it would be better for me to lay a Paper showng the actual position of the pensions, and of

  961
  the advances on the pensions and commutation scheme, as well as the special arrangements we have settled with regard to these men.
  Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: What is really important, and what is necessary to be done at once, is this: Will the right hon. Gentleman give them money for them to come to England with their wives and families?
  Sir W. DAVISON: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is not a matter of pension, but that when they return to their homes they will be murdered, if no arrangement is made to protect them and take them to a place of safety?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that is so with regard to the whole of this force, but there are, no doubt, a number of men who are in great danger. Facilities will be given those men to move to another part of Ireland, or out of Ireland, if they wish to do so, directly.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I ask whether the man who has been shot in Cork is in addition to the ex-sergeant who is reported in this morning's papers to have been shot?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It is the same man.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Has the right hon. Gentleman assisted to provide some money for these unfortunate people, to enable them to get away from places where they are in great danger?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Sir DONALD MACLEAN: Has the Leader of the House any information to give us with regard to the change of business for the week?
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: We shall have to take the Lords Amendments to the Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill as the first Order on Wednesday, and thereafter the Unemployment Insurance Bill, and, if there be time, other Measures as announced.
On Thursday, we shall not be able to take Supply, as the Civil Service Estimates are not ready for moving Mr. Speaker out of the Chair, and, therefore, we propose to take the Committee stage
962
of the Unemployment Insurance Bill Financial Resolution, the Report stage of the East India Loans (Railway and Irrigation) Financial Resolution and other Bills, if time permits.
On Friday, the Report stage of the Unemployment Insurance Bill Financial Resolution, and further stages of Bills put down for Wednesday and Thursday.
Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Does that mean that the Summer Time Bill will not be taken on Friday?
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Probably not.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir PHILIP WIGHAM RICHARDSON, O.B.E., for County of Surrey (Chertsey Division).
BILLS PRESENTED.
  LAND NATIONALISATION BILL,
  "to provide for the nationalisation of land in Great Britain and the abolition of private property therein," presented by Mr. WALTER SMITH; supported by Mr. Cape, Mr. William Graham, Mr. Griffiths, Mr. Hodge, Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy, Mr. Myers, Mr. Spoor, Mr. Trevelyan Thomson, and Mr. Wignall; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 25th April, and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
  AUDIT (LOCAL AUTHORITIES, ETC.) BILL,
  "to make provision with respect to the period for which certain accounts, subject to audit by district auditors, are to be made up and audited; to authorise the holding of extraordinary audits of any such accounts; and to enable the councils of municipal boroughs to adopt the enactments, relating to audit by district auditors," presented by Sir ALFRED MOND; supported by Mr. Fisher; to be read a Second time upon Wednesday, and to be printed. [Bill 66.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS,
That they have agreed to,
Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve the marriage of Hume Babington, of St. Kevin's, Victoria

963
Park, Buncrana, in the county of Donegal, with Dorothy Marie Babington, his now wife, and to enable him to marry again; and for other purposes." [Babington's Divorce Bill [Lords.]

IRISH FREE STATE (AGREEMENT) BILL,
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Wednesday, and to be printed. [Bill 67.]
BABIKGTON'S DIVORCE BILL [Lords],
Read the First time; to be read a Second time.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL

    FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
    Sir DONALD MACLEAN: I do not offer any apology to the House for mentioning to-day the subject of foreign policy, since the Order Paper and Supplementary Questions show the deep and keen interest questions of foreign policy not only evoke in this House, but in the country at large. That is not to be wondered at since, of all the nations in the world, we are the most deeply interested in matters of foreign policy. We live by our export trade, and if our export trade fluctuates down to a low level, as it is, unhappily, at the present moment, to that extent, and in the most acute manner, every cottage home is deeply concerned in foreign policy. We have no hope of anything approaching the stable revival of our trade unless confidence is established. Confidence can only come from security, and security in the end is very largely dependent upon good government. There are many topics which are open to those who are interested in this wide and varied subject, and I am quite certain that, before this Debate is over, some references will be made to the question of Armenia. For my own part, I express the fervent hope that the fate of the Armenians is not going to be allowed to drift along until some further massacre of the old type once again reduces those unfortunate people to the position in which they were when they lived under direct Turkish rule. I hope that that question will not be lost sight of by His Majesty's Government, as although it is not so thoroughly and well organised as we might wish in this House, it is no less a grave matter of public, and, indeed, international concern.
    To-day there were many questions addressed to the Leader of the House with regard to the Conference at Genoa, and, quite naturally, he was not in a position to give all the information that the House desired. I do not know
    986
    whether the Prime Minister, when he comes here on this day week, will be able to give us all the information the House desires in order to arrive at a proper decision on the Vote of Confidence which is then to be moved, but I think, before next Monday arrives, the House is entitled to have some definite, clear information upon which it can give its vote. We know what will happen next Monday. The Prime Minister will come down here with all his unequalled gifts of raising issues which are not absolutely relevant to the question which is before the House, and, before the Debate has gone far, the personality of the Prime Minister will be the supreme issue of the day. What we ought to have is not questions about the personality of the Prime Minister, or his relations with his colleagues in the Cabinet, but what we, ought to know is what is going to be discussed at Genoa. We have had a very large number of conferences already. I started reckoning them this morning, and I stopped when I got to 11 or 12, dreading I should get to 13. What has been the result of them all? Have we pacified Europe I Have we lessened unemployment at home? Is there any better accord amongst the nations? The answer must be that these conferences, so far, have had unsatisfactory results.
    Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: What about Washington?
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: It is the only one the Prime Minister did not attend.
    4.0 P.M.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: My hon. and gallant Friend asks mo to make, and I make, an exception in the case of Washington. The result of that certainly was very satisfactory, and afforded a real hope of better things. But, as somebody added, it was a Conference which the Prime Minister did not attend. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It is perfectly true.
    Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: That was why it was a success.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: One of the reasons, perhaps, was that the Minister who did attend had nothing else to do and was able to devote himself to this single but difficult issue. That determined concentration did produce a result which we all acclaim as satisfactory, and which we are all sure will continue to be progressively fruitful. The question of the Genoa Conference

    987
    seems to have been pitched on the top note. In the Press, from the platform, and turn where we like, we have most extravagant anticipations as to what is to be the result of the Genoa Conference. Let us hope that one-tenth of these anticipations will be achieved. If that be so, a very great work will have been done for the pacification of the world. We want, however, to get a proper sense of perspective with regard to Genoa, and I think we shall achieve that by trying to find out what is likely to be done. We have some knowledge as to what is not going to be done. We are credibly informed that the great question of disarmament does not arise. We know that reparations with regard to Germany will not be dealt with, and the question of the revision in other directions of the Treaty of Versailles will not be raised. I understand, however, that the question of unemployment may be solved by what happens at Genoa. If you are going to leave out the question of reparations and all that it involves, and if, as I understand, the settlement of Allied debts is not going to be raised, what is going to be done for the revival of international trade 1—because until we do settle this question of reparations, until we do get to close and definite work with regard to disarmament of the land forces, and until we do get some sort of settlement as to how we are going to deal with Allied debts, business will never revive in anything like a stable and progressive manner. Therefore, let us consider the matter a little more calmly and find out what all the fuss is about Genoa. What is going to be discussed? Disarmament out of the way, reparations out of the way, Allied debts out of the way, all the many questions with regard to the Treaty also put on one side—what remains?
    Dr. MURRAY: The General Election.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: There is a very important fact remaining, and that is that for the first time representatives of Russia are to meet round a common table with representatives of the other countries of Europe. I say at once that I am glad of it. Think what you like about the Government of Russia, it is the only Government that is there, and you must deal with it. Whether it is going to be recognised as the de jure or de facto Government, it certainly is the
    988
    only Government that Russia has, and you must recognise that fact if you are going in the future to have any relations at all with Russia. It is no use building up wild hopes about setting up trade relations with Russia. It will take a very long time indeed before you can get any trade going with Russia. The condition of chaos there is indescribable. Famine has devastated thousands of square miles, and such Government as there is does not function in vast portions of that great territory. It is very much more important for the re-establishment of Europe to get Germany going. Every business man knows that, whatever our ideas about Germany might have been, that great country was our best customer before the War.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In Europe.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: Yes, in Europe. Germany acted as the great distributing agency for vast portions of our goods. There are still goods from this country left in Russia which found their way there viâ the great German exchange, and only when Governments realise what business men know and have known all these years, that the main thing to-day is to arrange on a business footing this question of reparations with Germany, to get her into the League of Nations, and to get her to function once again as a proper entity in the comity of nations, will hope really arise for the re-establishment of trade in Europe and, indeed, in many parts of the world. It is the only practical way to do it. Whatever our feelings may be about Germany, that is the clear duty before statesmen in all parts of Europe.
    Let us examine for a moment what may be still left on the agenda for Genoa. There is the question of general financial arrangements, always assuming that you must not touch the questions of reparations or Allied debts. I suggest to the Government that they have already had a lot of information on this point as the result of the Conference at Brussels one and a half years ago. That was a conference of very able men from nearly all the countries of Europe. I do not think that Russia was represented, but Germany certainly was. After very careful examination, they came to certain most useful recommendations. They not only gave advice, but they made very

    989
    definite resolutions. I have in my hand a cutting from "The Times" of 8th October, 1920. How many of these pieces of advice and these practical suggestion—have been carried into effect? I will just give the House one or two points of advice:
    "The advice includes the balancing of budgets by the reduction of expenditure, especially on armaments, and by increased and ruthless taxation; … production to be increased by the freeing of commerce as soon as possible from control, and impediments to international trade to be removed; all classes to work harder—"
    and to talk less. I think it was:
    "The practical suggestions include the forming of an international organisation for the benefit of States desiring to resort to credit for the purpose of paying for essential imports; the nomination of a committee of legal experts and business men to assist in the carrying out of the present system of furnishing credits; the extension of the existing system of export credit and insurance.
    "The general impression- is that, in the presence of divergent views, the committees have been very successful in securing unanimity, even although some of the resolutions have thereby become flabbier than they might have been."
    That ground has been covered. Therefore I take it that there must be something very remarkable which the Brussels Conference has left out, and which, to our mind, is not yet apparent, because the business side seems to have been covered by Brussels or eliminated by being put out of order. There must be some wonderful secret. What is it? We are entitled to know, and not only this House but the country is entitled to know. I am unable to say what very remarkable secrets are locked in the breast of my right hon. Friend. He must know. We are within a week of it, and he has been the chief confidant and the chief colleague of the Prime Minister. There he sits, and he knows all about it. [HON. MEMBEBS: "Does he?"] I read in the Press lately that at Genoa they are going to lay up treasures in a political heaven, and yesterday there was an outburst of pagans of anticipation of a new and glorious Europe which is going to be, created at Genoa. There was put into my hands an hour or two ago a manifesto to the electors of East Leicester by a gentleman who may, though I do not know and cannot tell, very shortly be a Member of this House. This is what Mr. Marlow, who is described here as the Coalition
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    Liberal candidate—[HON. MEMBEES: "What is that?"]—says:
    "A few days after East Leicester votes the Prime Minister will ask the House of Commons to give him authority to go to Genoa and there to apply the only remedy that can cure unemployment at home and produce stability and peace abroad."
    What is it I Then ho goes on to say:
    "Filled with anxious hope, the representatives of the nations will make their pilgrimage to Genoa, a pilgrimage for the healing of the people. Let us send our great national lender there with the firm support, solid confidence, and rich encouragement of a united nation behind him."
    You cannot get a united nation nowadays by perorations. The nation wants facts. It knows that you are not going to discuss reparations, or disarmament, or the revision of the Treaty, or any question of finance, but there is some secret locked in the breasts of the Prime Minister and of my right hon. Friend which is going to heal the nation. Let us get down to the real facts of the situation. The country is thoroughly sick of this sort of thing. What is wanted is not a manifesto to electors, not wonderful perorations, not manœuvres with this section and that section, but straight politics and good government. That is what is wanted, and Europe will never be stabilised or move forward to a better day until all these strategic and tactful manœuvres in one way or another are put an end to.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I understand that on Monday next the principal business to be discussed will be whether the Prime Minister can still rely upon a sufficient majority of the Members of this House to carry on the Government of the country.
    Mr. A. HOPKINSON: You will vote for him!
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Well, he can rely on the vote of the hon. Member for all reactionary purposes, but I shall have to see the terms of the Resolution first, and it is possible that I shall reserve my vote. It is possible for us to-day on this Consolidated Fund Bill to discuss policy in the interests of the nation and not in the interests of the Coalition, or of the Prime Minister himself. Following on what my right hon. Friend the Leader has said, I propose to ask one or two questions without exactly treading in the same path. If we divide to-day it will not be, a mere

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    Maurice Division to be used at the forthcoming appeal to the country, and, therefore, I hope, we shall have a straight reply from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House to the questions which are going to be put to him, so that we can vote for or against the Second Reading following on whether we are satisfied or not.
    We have heard a good deal about Cabinet responsibility. We have been told that this Cabinet is united, is harmonious, and that every Member of it fully approves of every step taken. Therefore I am quite certain the Leader of the House can give us a great deal of information—and we have a right to have it! Here are one or two of the questions I wish to put to him. In the first place, with regard to the personnel of the British Mission to Genoa, so far as we are told, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister for Foreign Affairs will be there. Might I ask for what reason the name of the Lord President of the Council has been left out? As has been said by the previous speaker, that right hon. Gentleman has to his credit one highly successful congress, one that stands out from the remainder like a beautiful tree growing up in a stunted and blasted forest, one or two branches perhaps may be a little withered or crooked, but there is achievement, there is something that delights the eye, and the Washington Conference has been ratified by the American Congress, and approved in this country, and I believe by France and Japan. Why is he not to go? He would take a prestige with him. He would meet many of the statesmen of Japan and France that he met at Washington, and I ask this, especially as Lord Riddell is going, and he was at Washington with the Lord President of the Council. Why are not these two great statesmen, Lord Riddell and the Lord President of the Council, going to Genoa?
    Secondly, there is a very notable omission in the personnel. Why is the Secretary of State for the Colonies not going? Surely he ought to be there to see how matters are going? Consider how well the Secretary for the Colonies and M. Trotsky would get on together. All this waving of swords, and talking about wading through seas of blood and thrones of skulls! It is all the same. It is only the reverse side of the same medal. They would get on admirably together, so that
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    I think it is a great pity the Secretary for the Colonies is not going to Genoa, partly for his education and partly in order that he may see that the leaders of the present Government in Russia have not horns growing out of their heads or tails peeping from beneath the skirts of their garments, and also in order that they may see that this super-journalist and statesman, who now presides over the Colonial Office, is not so very different from themselves and that he has not horns growing out of his head.
    I say, however, quite seriously that the good results that will flow from the Secretary for the Colonies attending Genoa would be considerable—quite considerable! It would give a little polish to his international education in respect to the peoples of Eastern Europe, and would do him a world of good. Might I also ask whether it has yet been decided to invite any representatives of organised labour to attend Genoa? We have heard a great deal about conventions and conferences of business men and financiers—very right and proper I—with the Minister of War and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other parties in Paris. I have no doubt they have achieved very good results; but has organised labour been consulted or asked to take any responsibility at Genoa, and, if not, why not? So much for the people who are not going to Genoa. Now with regard to the people who are going. I want to say this very seriously indeed. I think it is a great pity that the Lord President of the Council is not going, for the reason that I am now going to state in a word, and that is that the Prime Minister at the present moment is not persona grata with France. I do not want to go into the reasons, but the facts are that they are knocking heads together. When a country sends someone to conduct delicate negotiations you try to pick a person who is personally on good terms with those with whom he is to negotiate. I feel, for that reason, it a great pity that the British Delegation is not going to be strengthened in the way I suggest. I quite agree that I would much rather prefer to see a totally different team going to Genoa in a few days' time than this Government can provide at all. I would rather see a team going to Genoa with absolutely clean hands, and that cannot be said of anyone connected

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    with the present Government. Also, I believe that those chosen, with one or two exceptions, are badly in need of a rest, for mental if not for physical reasons. I have great sympathy with them. I said with one or two exceptions, but I notice my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, the Under-Secretary of State for India, and I do not include him. He does not need a rest just yet, I think, but a great majority of the present members of the Cabinet are tired, and it is high time we got fresh blood. I heard an answer by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House to a supplementary question put by my hon. Friend behind me as to whether the Government is still content with the policy given out in a Memorandum issued by the Prime Minister at the Peace Conference. The Leader of the House said they still, and always have, acted in the spirit of the Memorandum. I have never heard anything so cynical in my life—never! I trust the Prime Minister at Genoa will refrain from speeches similar to some of his previous speeches about Bolshevism that we have heard both at that dispatch box, and in the country. I might, in reference to questions that are, and are not, to be discussed, follow what my right hon. Friend a moment or two ago has said, and I might ask whether the British Government, in raising these various questions, have any fixed policy?
    First of all, you are going to meet at Genoa representatives of the Russian Government and of the Japanese Government. At the present moment the Japanese troops are in occupation of Russian soil. In the North they are in occupation of Saghalien Island, which was left to Russia by the Treaty of Portsmouth, and has been looted by Japan. She has taken advantage of Russian weakness to seize and occupy the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok and the greater part of the Maritime Province of Siberia, and to support with the bayonets of her soldiers a dummy reactionary government which could not last five minutes if Japanese support were withdrawn. We are assisting to keep this policy going by sending every reactionary Russian officer we can get hold of either in Persia or at Constantinople—the remnants of Wrangel's armies—in British ships at the cost of the British taxpayer, the money being voted by this House of
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    Commons? My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary knows the thing perfectly well. Is that question going to be raised, and can you expect peace and good relations to be established until it is cleared out of the way? I do not know whether it was raised at Washington. I have asked questions about it, and have received evasive answers. We were told that assurances were given by the Japanese. They are not good enough. The Japanese troops are occupying territories which is the lawful property of the Russian people whatever Government holds out at Moscow. Again, what is the use of our talking about the necessity of balancing the Budgets of the people in Germany when every ten days the German has to pay gold to the extent of £1,550,000? What is the good of going to Genoa and starting a discussion on balancing Budgets, stopping inflation, and subjects of that sort, when at the present time the German Budget for 1922 is 83 milliards in paper marks, and the Allies' demand as against that internal Budget of 83 milliard marks is 135.5 milliard paper marks. The only way the Germans can possibly pay is by keeping their printing presses going, and the result is to make the exchange worse and worse with more and more business loss to this country in consequence.
    We have had answers to-day by the President of the Board of Trade pointing out the great advantage German dyes are having over ours in Brazil because of the rate of exchange? What is the good of talking about this if this great subject is to be left, as it is, in welter and slough? When we do receive this amount of money which we are getting every 10 days, we are not even paying for the Armies of Occupation. In spite of this, we have had a demand from America for £50,000,000 for their Army of Occupation, and I think they can show a case for it, as I read Reuter's telegram. Might I make a suggestion to the Leader of the House in reference to the payment to America I When she makes demand again for payment, let the right hon. Gentleman make reply and ask how she will take it. We have already had a reference to Peace Treaties. I wish to remind the House of one or two things, especially in reference to this Memorandum that has been disinterred and published. On 16th April, 1919, after the issuing of the Memo-

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    randum, but before the publication of the peace terms, the Prime Minister said:
    "I tell the House at once that, if on reflection, and if after examination of the problem with the statesmen of other lands—who have not had to fight an election, and therefore could take a calmer and more detached view of these problems-—if, after coming in contact with them, I had arrived at the conclusion that I had gone too far, and pledged the Government and the country to something that I could not carry out, I should have come down here and said so, because it would have been folly, even for an electioneering pledge, to imperil people of Europe."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1919; col. 2949, Vol. 114.]
    Has the Treaty of Versailles gone too far, and have the people of Europe been in peril I There is only one answer to that question. If they are not in peril why are you going to hold a Conference at Genoa? The Prime Minister has not carried out that pledge, and he should have told us boldly the reason why, or he should have resigned or asked authority for an entirely different policy. He has not had the moral courage to do that. We have had these endless conferences ending largely in misleading official communications. We have heard a good deal about a pact with France, and I understand she has now undertaken to take part in the Genoa Conference. If we have promised France a military alliance?—you can call it a defensive alliance if you like-—as the price for taking part in the Genoa Conference, the Government have given a promise to deliver goods which they cannot deliver, because such a pact, without the support of the democracy of this country, will not be worth the paper it is written on. The Government has no business to give such a promise without consulting the people of this country, or even this House of Commons, and unless the Government obtain a mandate for this, they are misleading the French people by promising such a thing.
    Might I make this statement as well: It will be no good trying to tinker with the exchanges, because that is starting at the wrong end of the problem. You might just as well put ice on the chest of a fever patient in order to reduce his temperature. You may be able to take exchanges and solidify them for the moment, but it is no cure. The uncertainty of exchanges is only a symptom of what is going on in Europe. On this point I can refer hon. Members to the
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    Brussels Conference at which the British representatives were all men well-known in banking and commercial circles, and they were fully equalled by the bankers and financiers sent by the other nations who were parties to the Brussels Con ference. That Conference pronounced very strongly on the question of exchanges, and against hoping to get any permanent cure by such means.
    I want to ask a question with regard to the Central International Corporation which is being formed with its office in London. It is what we call the £20,000,000 International Trust. I hear that, apparently, all that has been arranged is simply the ordinary banking business, on rather conservative lines, that any acceptance house or insurance house would undertake in any of the big capitals of Europe to-day. I shall make one or two suggestions on something much wider than that. I believe that the majority of the smaller and younger nations of Europe are very earnest and very keen on this Genoa Conference. I happen to know that the Poles are sending a very strong Mission to Genoa. I have had the privilege of knowing one or two of the members and they carry great weight as economists and business men. I know that the Polish Government is taking Genoa most seriously, and will be most disappointed if it is not a success. The same applies to Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and many of the other smaller States, who are looking to Genoa as a means of deliverance. I hope we shall have a clear British policy which will not be confined to secret intriguing and bargaining behind the scenes. Might I suggest what should be done and what should be the British policy?
    Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: The Kenworthy policy.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: No, not the Kenworthy policy, but I hope it will be the business policy of the Liberal party. First of all, we have to settle this question on entirely different lines. One of the most interesting suggestions I have heard is the funding of the German internal debt into sterling and taking over that debt by the creditors of Germany, the interest to be paid by Germany. The whole internal debt of Germany reduced to Swiss francs is not a very formidable amount, and it should not be difficult to float bonds to that amount, and use them as reparations,

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    the Germans paying the interest as they are doing at the present time.
    Do, for Heaven's sake, let us bend ourselves to induce free trade, and let us do our best to get the economic barriers broken down between the peoples of Europe. The Brussels Conference unanimously agreed to this policy, and it was unanimously recommended by all the delegates, and the only reply of the British Government was to introduce the Reparations Recovery Act and the Safeguarding of Industries Act. That was their reply to the financial Conference at Brussels. That was authorised by the League of Nations, but that League is apparently never taken seriously by the Government. Every means should be used to induce the peoples of Europe to break down artificial barriers to trade, to restore freedom of communications, and particularly the abolition of the passport visé system which is hampering commerce to-day. If our Government would lead the way in this matter, I am sure it would be very fruitful of good results.
    Secondly, whatever undertakings we have given on this matter I think the Peace Treaties should be discussed, and they ought to be revised. Two of them are waste paper already, namely, the Austrian Treaty and the Treaty of Sevres. The others are nearly so. We ought to stop these reparation payments except for the reconstruction of the devastated provinces, and if France is not willing to take material and labour for that purpose, then she should reconstruct her provinces herself. You ought to withdraw and demobilise the armies of occupation in Germany.
    Recognise the Russian Government, and make peace with them.
    Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Is that the Liberal programme?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Of course. On the 10th of February, 1920, the Prime Minister said:
    "There is a suggestion made from another quarter—'Make peace with the Bolshevists.'
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Hear, hear!
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: At any rate, there is one supporter. The first objection to that is this. Until you receive assurances—I do not mean verbal assurances, but assurances from observation and experience—that the Government which is in control in Russia has dropped its methods of barbarism, and that it is governing by civilised means, there is no civilised community in the world which
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    will be prepared to make direct peace. There is a second objection. There is no Government in Russia which can speak for any defined area."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th February, 1920; col. 43, Vol. 125.]
    I do not know that much has happened since to alter that opinion. Does the hon. Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward) still think that we ought not to make peace with Russia? I think we have been brought round now to sec that the policy for which I was jeered at by the House at that time is likely to be adopted. I do not want to say, "I told you so," because that is always easy, but for Heaven's sake do not let the Government be frightened by the newspapers from meeting the Russian Government on equal terms. The Russians are not a defeated nation, and they have managed to hold their own, in spite of famine and desolation, and let us see if we cannot bring them to a better frame of mind, and try a little sympathy and help.
    Might I suggest that a great international loan might be floated of bonds to be backed by all the nations concerned who are prepared to back them in sterling or Swiss francs. I believe the United States would accept those bonds on the market, and they could be used to create credit for supplying machinery and fertilisers and food for the famine areas of Russia, and this scheme should apply to Poland, Bessarabia and Eastern Galicia. We could arrange to send locomotives, machinery, and other goods to induce the peasants to part with their corn.
    Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: We have not got any of those goods.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Yes, all the articles I have mentioned are a drug on the market at the present time and the warehouses are full. There are locomotives at Woolwich that cannot be sold, and I know that the makers of agricultural machinery have been working short time for a long time. If, during the late War, Poland had wanted transport, clothing and boots for her soldiers, if she had wanted motor cars and munitions and guns, there would have been no question whether she could pay for them. They would have been ordered from the contractors here and sent over in ships to the nearest point to Poland, and any Government which had failed to see that that was done would soon have been thrown out of office. That was during the War.

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    War is not over yet; it is still going on, although with a different enemy. That enemy is want, hunger and despair. It is a very formidable enemy which is stalking across the plains of Eastern Europe, and we have got to fight it. We welcomed one or two shady Allies in the late War in our fight against the Central Powers, some of whom we would be only too glad to be rid of. We helped them without stint and without hesitation in the fight against the Central Powers. Now, however, we have a much more difficult and elusive enemy to fight, and any nation which will help us should be welcome. Above all, we must get re-constructed the transport which is needed for Eastern and Central Europe, as without transport trade cannot be carried on. There is enough work for all the factories in Europe in turning out rails, locomotives and rolling stock for years to come, and unless we can find some means of producing the goods which are wanted and sending them where they are wanted in Europe, the sickness, of which the rates of exchange are only a symptom, will continue, our unemployed will continue unemployed, and the financial drain upon the country will become such as to drive us into bankruptcy. I do not want to end in too pessimistic a tone. This Genoa Conference should have been held long ago. The original Peace Conference should have been a Conference of all the nations in the War, whether defeated or victors, and it should have been held for the purpose of preventing a common ruin. This proposed Genoa Conference is three years too late. I do not believe the present Government can produce delegates who can go there and make it a success, but, at any rate, if they are successful they will receive here every support and praise.
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): The two speeches to which we have just listened struck mo in a very different way. I am rather surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) should have chosen the subject he did for his remarks. I cannot express surprise at the intervention of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), because hardly any Debate takes place in this Chamber without his intervention; and, in the second place, whatever the subject of discussion,
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    he always has opinions which he thinks it of consequence to the country to state. Generally his observations are dogmatic, whatever be the subject with which he deals. I noticed to-day that in a metaphor which he used—a very dangerous practice in which to indulge—he so strongly intermixed his medical views as to drive the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Dr. Murray), who was sitting near him, straight out of the House. I am not competent to express an opinion on the medical side of the question, neither do I profess to know a very great deal about international finance. But I think the hon. and gallant Member's remedy for the financial condition of Europe is one calculated to shock professors of finance quite as much as his medical opinions will shock professors of medicine. What did he suggest as his contribution towards solving the present situation—that we should take over the internal debt of Germany, and convert it into sterling, dollars or Swiss francs. What we were to do with it when we had taken it over did not appear to me from anything he said. We were, he suggested, to issue a loan under an international guarantee, but he expressed no very clear view as to what other nations would contribute, nor whether the guarantee was to-be a separate guarantee of a certain amount of money by each country, or a joint guarantee which might land us into liability for the whole amount. I do not think I need deal further with the hon. and gallant Member's solution of our difficulties.
    I turn now to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles. I am surprised that he should have chosen the Genoa Conference as the subject of his speech, not because that subject is not well worth consideration by this House, but because the Government has promised to afford a special opportunity for its consideration next week. Again and again the Opposition have complained that we have not given special opportunities for the discussion of some part of our policy, domestic or foreign, and when we have pointed to an occasion like the Consolidated Fund Bill as a suitable occasion for discussing these matters, they have said that what they want is a definite day—a definite resolution and a definite issue. We have promised to give the day and the resolution, and now my right hon. Friend is already trembling in his shoes at the

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    prospect of having to meet the Prime Minister in the Debate. He said so. He is so frightened that he cannot wait for a week hence, when the Prime Minister will be present, because of the disturbing personality of the right hon. Gentleman. But he selected, as a less disturbing occasion, the opening of our Debate to-day, to be utilised for a discussion at large, critical but unconstructive, on the situation of Europe and our general policy. I am not going to anticipate next week's discussion. It would be perfectly absurd to do so.
    But I wish to make one or two observations in reference to what the right hon. Gentleman said. Does he want the Genoa Conference to be held, or does he not? I invite him to make up his mind on that point before next Monday. Everything he has said until this afternoon has been in the direction of urging conference and co-operation. Now, because we have been the prime movers in securing such a Conference, he is doing everything he can to crab it, and to weaken the authority of the Ministers who will represent this country at the Conference. Does he want it to be a success? I invite him to find that out before Monday. The right hon. Gentleman said that extravagant expectations had been aroused by this Conference. He added that he had read in some organ of the Press—he was not quite sure whether it was on a Sunday or a weekday—that the question of unemployment was to be solved by this Conference. I agree with him that extravagant expectations of this kind are wholly misleading. The question of unemployment is not to be solved by a single conference. It is not to be solved by the act of any individual Government. It is a process which, under the most favourable conditions, will take time, and much time, for its achievement.
    If we have promoted this Conference, it is not with the idea that the Conference will find a remedy for all our ills; it is not with the idea that, in one day or in one month, you can so alter the conditions of the world as to bring back prosperity where there is now distress, that you can set trade going in countries where the machinery of trade has been wholly destroyed, or that even if Governments turn over a new leaf, and be wise to-morrow where they have been foolish in the past, they can undo by a
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    single act a wrong system of action, which has resulted in the destruction of the security and confidence upon which trade depends, and out of which alone any revival of trade can spring. We go to Genoa with much more modest expectations. The right hon. Gentleman asks why it should be held, and reminds us that we held a Conference in Brussels?
    Sir D. MACLEAN: Not for one moment did I suggest that the Conference should not be held. I said: "Let us know what is it going to be held about."
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Is that all that the right hon. Gentleman said? In that case I have nothing more to add, except that that is the, subject of next Monday's Debate.
    5.0 P.M.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has dealt with the very reasonable questions put to him by my right hon. Friend in a way which, coming from anybody except himself, I should have been inclined to think was almost discourteous. After all, they were reasonable questions which were put, but the right hon. Gentleman tries to suggest that because the right hon. Member for Peebles is anxious to know what is going to be considered at the Genoa Conference, he must, therefore, be taken to be against the holding of that Conference. That, in my view, is not a reasonable criticism. I have no right to speak for anyone but myself, but I certainly cannot say it would be desirable for the Government at the present moment to withdraw from the Genoa Conferences now that it has been agreed upon and now that invitations have been issued by the Italian Government to many Powers to attend it. I understand from the Press that already from 30 to 40 Powers have accepted the invitation, and it would, therefore, be quite impossible now for the British Government to say that they will not take part in the Conference. I do not conceal from the Government my own view, for what it is worth, that it is a pity that the Conference was not summoned under the ægis of the League of Nations. I have always thought that, but it does not follow that I would like to see the Conference put an end to at the present time. Quite the contrary. If the Prime Minister or anyone else thinks that something can be done to heal the wounds of Europe by a fresh Conference, the condition of Europe is far

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    too serious for anyone to obstruct any such measure. My right hon. Friend's statement was a very reasonable one, that it would only be a step in the direction of reconstruction, and that you could not hope for any miracle from a Conference. All that part of my right hon. Friend's observations is quite sound, and I most heartily concur in it, but it is a great pity that the language which he uses in this House is so different from the language which the supporters of the Government use outside. I quite agree that the Cannes Memorandum was a crushing condemnation of the conduct of the Allies which has led up to the present position in Europe. It certainly did not minimise the terrible financial and economic condition in which Europe found itself. But I am not referring now to the Cannes Memorandum, which, after all, was not the work of the supporters of the Government in this country. I am referring to such documents as that which was read by my right hon. Friend, namely, the election address of the Coalition candidate at East Leicester, and to what I read every day in the newspapers which are supposed to draw their inspiration from the Government. Such enthusiasm and conviction are there shown that I thought there must be some secret which no one knew, or some wonderful panacea which the Prime Minister was going to announce when he got to Genoa and which would set the whole of Europe on its legs again. I quite agree that the account given by my right hon. Friend is very different, but I do venture to press upon him that it is very desirable that we should know, not merely this day week, but at some time before that, what really is the programme that is to be discussed at Genoa. The Government are coming down to this House—they have not made up their minds yet as to the form of the Resolution—with something which is to give them consolation and comfort, and to give consolation and comfort in other parts of the world also—
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: And divide the Unionist party.
    Lord R. CECIL: That may be one of the incidentals; I do not know; but the objects are understood to be twofold. The first is to approve the Genoa Con-
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    ference, and I should not think that that would excite a very great deal of controversy in this House. The second is to express confidence in the Government, and that will excite a great deal of controversy. As to the second part, I quite agree that we do not want any papers; we have all of us, or almost all of us, made up our minds about that. As to the Genoa Conference, however, if the House of Commons is to be treated seriously, and if a real opinion is to be obtained from it of serious international value—if that is the real object of the Government, and if it is not merely a party, Parliamentary electioneering move—the Government must do its utmost to put the House into a position to form a considered and genuine judgment. It is really not treating the House fairly to say, "We will tell you nothing, not even what is to be discussed at Genoa," and for the Prime Minister to come down on Monday next and say, "We want confidence in the Government and confidence in Genoa. We make a speech to you here and now, we give you no opportunity of considering what it all means, and we ask you to vote here and now on the subject." I think it is very important that we should know.
    I tried to ascertain from my right hon. Friend by question and answer this afternoon, but he did not see his way to reply. Is it the question of disarmament? Is it the question of reparation payments from Germany? Is the question of Allied debts to be considered, and, if so, to what extent? Is it the question of the revision of the Treaty of Versailles? Of course I do not ask my right hon. Friend to answer these questions "Yes" or "No." One has to do one's best to obtain information in any way one can, and as far as I can gather, none of these questions are to be considered at Genoa, so that I do feel, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles, inclined to ask, "What is it that you are going to talk about?" The question of the economic condition of Europe was very fully and instructively discussed at the Brussels Conference 18 months ago, and important recommendations were made as to what ought to be done to put Europe on its legs. It is quite true that those recommendations have been imperfectly carried out here, and, as far as I know, they have been very little, indeed, carried out in the rest of Europe. One of them is

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    disarmament; another is the destruction of international barriers of trade; another is public economy in all Departments; and I can understand a Conference being summoned for the sole purpose of putting pressure on the various countries to carry out those recommendations. If that be the purpose, tell us. It is a very simple one, we shall understand it, and I believe the great majority of the House will approve. What is the reason for this hide-and-seek in the matter? I cannot understand why the Government should make a secret of it, and why they should not tell us frankly and immediately.
    Some of us thought that they had indicated something of the purpose of the Conference by circulating the Paper which was presented to the Conference at Versailles on the 25th March, 1919. It is a very remarkable Paper. In its first part it contains a number of admirable sentiments. It points out the great danger of thrusting under alien rule minorities of a different race. It points out that that is very dangerous in regard to Poland, and in regard to the Magyars. I am not aware, however, that these admirable sentiments found any place in the Treaty of Versailles. It points out the great importance of disarmament, with regard to which there is a very eloquent passage pointing out that it is not enough to disarm Germany unless the rest of Europe be disarmed as well. Turning to the actual proposals attached to the document, I find that all that is suggested there are proposals which are already part of the Treaty of Versailles. I cannot say that that is very impressive, and it does not seem to carry us very much further. If all that is intended when we go to Genoa is to do what we have already done at Versailles, I do not think it will improve our position as far as disarmament is concerned. Then there is the suggestion that Germany should come into the League. Why that was proposed on the 25th March, 1919, and afterwards abandoned, I do not know. Then there is the proposal that there should be a Russian settlement, as to which nothing was done.
    I notice that these proposals were made by our chief representative at Versailles on 25th March, 1919, and that the greater part of them were not carried out in the Treaty. Is that a precedent for Genoa? It does not seem to be a very encouraging
    1006
    one, and I trust that that manœuvre, at any rate, is not going to be repeated. I also notice that in this document there is not only no definite proposal as to disarmament, but that two proposals are made which have done, as I think, very great harm in Europe, and which I cannot think are intended to be regarded as a precedent at Genoa. One is the statement that Germany is to pay full reparation to the Allies, and that, since the amount greatly exceeds anything that she can possibly pay, she is to be saddled with an indeterminate amount—the very vice for which we have suffered ever since—and that that is to be continued for years. The other suggestion is that she is to hand over, not only the Kaiser, not only those who were guilty of horrible cruelties to our prisoners in Germany, but "all individuals responsible for the War." A more fatuous proposal was never made in international politics. If that is put forward as an indication of what our policy is to be at Genoa, I regard Genoa with very great misgiving, and I trust—
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know whether the Noble Lord heard what I said as to the reasons for the publication of this document. I am sorry to interrupt him, but the whole of his speech turns upon the assumption that the document is produced to the House of Commons at this time as a preliminary to Genoa. That is an entire misconception. The document was published by Signor Nitti in his book, and published by him without his having asked the leave of the Prime Minister or the British Government. Members of this House asked that the document should be presented to the House, and I promised some little time back that I would present it accordingly. I may say that it was not published fully in Signor Nitti's book, but very large extracts were given from it, and we thought it only right that it should be laid before the House.
    Lord R. CECIL: I have read Signor Nitti's book. The greater part of the preliminary memorandum was published, but none of these specific proposals. I was trying to find some indication of what was to be considered at Genoa, but it appears that this document, which I thought did give some indication, is now to be cast aside as merely accidentally published at the same time, or nearly the same time, as the Genoa Debate is to take I place. We are, then, absolutely in the

    1007
    dark as to what is to be done at Genoa, and that is a position in which the House of Commons ought not to be put before this Debate takes place. There was one observation which I confess I heard with a certain amount of regret from my right hon. Friend. He suggested that the object of my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles was to weaken the authority of the British Government—or, at any rate, that that would be the effect—when they attended the Genoa Conference. This looks exceedingly like a repetition of manœuvres that we have had before. I hope we are not going to have a repetition of the attempt to use the international difficulties of Europe and of this country in order to obtain a vote of personal confidence in the Prime Minister. That is a manœuvre which can be practised once, and perhaps twice, but it will be rejected, and rejected with contumely, if it be again repeated.
    Sir MARTIN CONWAY: I never listen to one of these general Debates about the condition of Europe and the world without a feeling of sadness at their insufficiency. We always hear a number of suggestions and criticisme—suggestions as to how the miseries which the world suffers can be done away with, and criticisms of everything that has ever been tried for producing that effect. Everyone seems to forget that there has been a great war; that some £40,000,000,000 of capital has been annihilated; that, consequently, the world is suffering, and will continue to suffer, do what it may; and that the only cure is long and hard work, great and persistent saving carried on year after year, and self-abnegation by individuals and classes, until this destroyed capital is slowly piled up together again. Therefore it is to me almost a pathetic thing to listen to these well-intended suggestions of how the disease of the world is to be removed, when it can only be removed by reversing the process by which it was brought on, i.e., by recreating the capital which the War destroyed. I have not intervened to add my little1 quota to this volume of suggestion and criticism, but I desire to approach a purely practical matter which affects the comfort of a number of individuals. I need hardly say I refer to the passport and visa discomfort. We cannot make Europe a happy continent again in five minutes or
    1008
    five years or fifty years, but we can remove a discomfort from a very large number of respectable and harmless people who are penalised day after day and month after month by what I consider an entirely unnecessary and vicious system of passport and visa regulations. What is the primary idea of passports, and what have they grown to be? A passport is, in fact, in the present day, nothing but a verified portrait of an individual, stating that that portrait represents such and such a definite individual and that he is a respectable citizen of the country issuing the passport. That is, and may be, a very useful instrument for all manner of purposes, and it will probably be many years before any attempt is made to do away with passports. In fact, I think their use might be increased, and they might be made useful for many other purposes than that for which they are now actually employed.
    A visa, on the other hand, was originally merely this: that a traveller, when he arrived at a certain place, showed his passport and had it stamped, and that recorded where he was and where he had come from, and possibly where he was going. It was nothing in the world but a record of his movements. The visa has developed in recent years into a much more elaborate instrument. It is a kind of second passport issued by the foreign country to which the traveller is going, in a sense accepting him at the valuation given him by the country issuing the passport. That is a very much more difficult thing to elaborate and to work. As a matter of fact, of course, in actual practice a visa is issued, in 99 cases out of 100 probably, without any sort of inquiry into the character of the persons to whom it is given. An ordinary traveller is put to immense inconvenience in many countries to obtain a visa. Very often he has to wait for hours in a queue, or he goes to an office and finds that, though the Consular officer ought to be there within certain advertised hours, he is not there, and there are all kinds of inconveniences and difficulties which are multiplied whenever he wants to get a visa in the foreign country to which he has already travelled. It is bad enough in London, but fifty times worse when the traveller has gone away without knowing exactly where he was going, what route he was going to travel, and has to get a new

    1009
    visa. Travellers are not merely, nor in the main, people wandering about for pleasure. Most of the time they are men going on some kind of business, and for difficulties to be put in the way of travellers in general reacts upon the business of the country and upon the activity and efficiency of business men. The Bolshevist, the anarchist, and revolutionary, whom it is the object of visas to keep out of the countries that desire not to have them within their frontiers, can almost always penetrate the visa screen. There is nothing that can be more easily organised by revolutionary bodies than a route through the defending wall of visas and passports. While it is relatively easy for revolutionaries and dangerous criminals to get through this fence, it is always a trouble for honest men.
    In the Swiss Bundesrath, on 23rd March, there was a Debate on this very question of passports and visas. Switzerland is a country which respectable people from all parts of Europe and America often desire to visit. Three or four times a year there are floods of people passing into Switzerland and returning to their homes. One of these times is approaching when thousands of Britons will desire to go for a short holiday to the Alps. They must have these quite unnecessary visas. The Swiss Government, as appears from the Debate to which I have referred, was perfectly ready to abolish the visa mutually with Great Britain, indeed I think they took the initiative about a year ago of proposing to the Governments of, I think, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the mutual abolition of visas. What the answer of the other countries to that proposal was I cannot say, but I know that Great Britain refused and, I understand from the statement of the Swiss Minister of Justice, still maintains that refusal. I desire with all the emphasis I can to urge upon our Foreign Office, and still more upon the Home Office, that the time has come when, as far as Switzerland and those other States which were, approached by Switzerland are concerned, the visa might be abolished. There are, no doubt, countries with which we do not want to facilitate intercourse too much. But the Scandinavian countries, the Low Countries, France and Switzer-
    1010
    land might surely be regarded as in a sane and sound condition. Switzerland does not encourage the presence of revolutionaries within her borders. Indeed, Switzerland is even more efficient than we are in keeping them out, and there is no earthly reason why people coming from Switzerland should have to have visas in order to come through France or Belgium to England.
    Another point I desire to make is this. A passport at present lasts for two years. That is an unnecessarily short period. A passport is nothing in the world but a verified portrait of a certain individual, with an official statement that he is a respectable citizen of his country of origin. There is no earthly reason, then, why passports should not last as long as the photograph is likely to represent the person portrayed. If, for any reason, a man's aspect changed so much that the photograph no longer resembled him, that would be a sufficient reason for his getting a new passport, but, as long as anyone can identify him from the photograph, the passport ought to remain valid, because it verifies him, and that is the only use a passport has. I urge very strongly upon the Government that the time has come when the annoyance and trouble of the passport system should be done away with. A commercial traveller came to me the other day who had been for a long journey on the Continent, covering some months, and he showed me his passport. He had to have two. The first was entirely used up. They were large sheets of paper some two square feet in area, covered on both sides with visa stamps. Every one of those stamps had been the cause of some trouble. Many had taken two or three, or even four, days to get. There must have been 40 or 50 on that passport. He travelled, of course, from one frontier to another, going back and forth in the course of his business, and he told me the annoyance, delay, expense, and burden attending on these visas was absolutely intolerable and that the time he thus lost would have been worth to him a very large sum of money indeed. I wish to press upon the Government very strongly that the time has come when this matter ought to be taken into serious consideration, and the annoyance that citizens of this country are put to in obtaining visas from certain foreign countries should be terminated.
    Mr. WILLIAM GRAHAM: I propose to discuss only one point bearing upon the Genoa Conference. I think there is no Labour Member who will not, on the one hand, welcome the Conference, and on the other, deplore the manner in which the agenda for the Conference is being restricted. It is perfectly plain that there is very little hope of recovery in Europe at present unless we are very clear in our own minds what we want in the way of economic remedy and unless we are perfectly fearless in stating the faith that is in us. Beyond all question, one of the most important difficulties with which the Genoa Conference will be confronted is just that difficulty of the restriction of trade from the impediments to free commercial intercourse which is above all necessary if we are going to see any reconstruction worth the name. Let us take, for example, some of the recent discussion in Europe, and ask ourselves candidly whether it is likely to lead to any satisfactory result at Genoa at all. I read a few weeks ago a speech which the Belgian Prime Minister delivered to a gathering of experts who, I understand, were to proceed from Belgium to the Conference, and he laid it down in that direction to his experts that they were to be very careful to steer clear of references to reparations. At the same time, he pleaded with them that the primary object of the Conference must be the restoration of the Central Powers and Russia. Let us exclude Russia for the moment. May I respectfully ask how they are going to restore the Central Powers in any shape or form if the question of reparation is to be excluded? Yet that is precisely the kind of controversy and discussion which is taking place in Europe at the present time, ruling out the very fundamental considerations which should be taken into account at this Conference as to the method of finding a remedy for the disease which has overtaken such a large part of Europe.
    That is not, however, the main point to which I wish to draw attention. This country, which up to very recent times had a long record of fiscal freedom, or something approaching fiscal freedom, will note the fact that there is in Europe now probably more restriction on trade from many points of view than in pre-War times. That restriction recently has taken two forms, and it seems to me very
    1012
    important that they should be considered at Genoa. There is no doubt that the traders, the merchants, and the large business concerns in many countries, belligerents and non-belligerents, suffered very severely since the War, and many of those traders have been compelled to enter into quite exceptional business arrangements. For example, I saw some time ago an agreement which had been concluded between Dutch and German business houses, under which the Dutch concerns actually gained the controlling interest in the German undertaking in return for certain promises which they made as to the course of trade. That is one illustration of the kind of restriction which must operate against this country as being largely interested in European commerce in the future. There are other forms of restriction of a somewhat similar character. Take, for example, the very large concessions which have been given to powerful oil companies and others in Czecho Slovakia and elsewhere. Is it wrong to suggest that that will go to build up and strengthen monopolies in many parts of Europe, to encourage trust power, and to exclude from the free entry into certain markets those British commodities which had access to those markets in other times? That is one form of restriction which is born of post-War exhaustion and all the chaos which has been true of Europe since the Armistice was signed.
    There is another form of restriction with which Members are more familiar. Take that growth of tariff barriers and that multiplication of fiscal devices of every kind which is intended to secure some temporary advantage or protection, but which, in the aggregate, makes European recovery more or less impossible. We have a recent instance in what has taken place in Spain. If any hon. Member will turn to and study the Spanish tariff of 1914, 1921, and to-day, he will be impressed by the tremendous penalties which are really being imposed upon the entry into Spanish ports of goods of all kinds, and, unfortunately, of commodities in which we in Great Britain are keenly interested. Then in France, which I regret to say has been guilty of a great deal of economic fallacy within recent times, there was actually a discussion on a supplementary tax over and above their already high tariff, designed to try to keep out of France those goods which

    1013
    would enter France enjoying the advantage of depreciated exchange elsewhere. Could any device be more hopeless? These illustrations are an indication of tendencies in fiscal restriction. If we take another non-belligerent country like Sweden, we find an important discussion in the Swedish Chamber in which a prominent economist and publicist of that country pleaded that it should not do anything more to increase its tariff barriers, for two reasons, (1) that they are hindering the recovery of overseas trade, and (2) that they are ministering to the growth of trust power in Sweden itself.
    While these things are happening on the continent of Europe, and while artificial barriers are being piled up, we in this country embark upon doubtful and hopeless enterprises in our so-called Safeguarding of Industries Act, and we are actually encouraging the disease which I have tried within brief limits to describe. It is rumoured now that very soon we shall be compelled to rescind that legislation, but probably not before a considerable amount of damage has been done, and before we, unfortunately, with our history of fiscal freedom, have made our contribution to the perpetuation of this European menace. It may be argued by hon. Members that there is nothing new in all this fiscal restriction, that in fact these tariff barriers existed in pre-Wav times, that we found it difficult in the absence of any method of retaliation to get over them, and that we must make the best bargain we possibly can in Europe at the present time. That argument fails to take sufficiently into account the remarkable change in the situation. In pre-War times we had not a Europe which was largely paralysed, but to-day we have a Europe which is largely paralysed. We have conditions that call urgently for the fullest measure of freedom in commercial intercourse that we can possibly obtain, and, above all, we have support in that connection from such a representative body as the Cunliffe Committee, when they laid down the lines of remedy which must be followed if the exchanges and other difficulties were to be righted.
    We shall fail in our duty at Genoa unless we draw attention to these things. Probably, in view of the heat and excitement of next Monday, this is the only real opportunity of referring to the practical considerations which ought to come
    1014
    before the Conference. It seems to mo to be very important, just as we are approaching Genoa, that we in this country should emphasise the danger that is being done to European recovery by the multiplication of these fiscal restrictions of all kinds. Let us say quite candidly to other countries there assembled that there is no chance for them, that there is no chance for us, and that there is no hope for the 2,000,000 of British unemployed, unless they are prepared to recognise two things, (1) that the strength and weakness of Europe must be taken together at this hour, and that we must make the best of the situation, and (2) that they must give up any idea of temporary advantage, which will only make things worse, by raising these tariff barriers higher than they were in pre-War times in some cases, thereby actually retarding the recovery which we all desire.
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I am sorry that the observations that I shall have to make in regard to the settlement in the Near East come at a time when the Conference on that very important subject is already sitting in Paris. As the House knows, I made several attempts to raise the question, and I did succeed in raising it partially more than once during the last few weeks, but obstacles in the Rules were in my way, and the result was that I was not able to make the observations at what would have been a more appropriate time, namely, before the Conference met. Therefore I think I am entitled to take the opportunity of expressing in the British Parliament what I believe to be the opinion of all Liberals, of the members of the Labour party, and I think of all progressive men in the Conservative party with regard to this settlement.
    I see it is stated in many newspapers that the British Government are going to demand of the Greeks that they should evacuate Smyrna and abandon all claims to Smyrna. That seems to be the solution that recommends itself to many minds, but I cannot see a single argument in its favour. Smyrna has been a Greek city for centuries, for centuries before the Turks went there. It was a Greek city before London was in any real sense of the word an English city, and it has remained through all its history a Greek city. It is associated in Greek minds with the fact that it was the native city of Homer, the greatest of their poets.

    1015
    Apart from these historical considerations, why did the Greeks go to Smyrna? Nobody denies that the Greeks were invited by our Government to go to Smyrna. There may have been misgivings in the minds of the statesmen of Greece as to whether this was a wise policy or not, but when the recommendation came from the British Government, on whose good faith and on whose benevolence the Greek people always relied, and rely to-day as much as ever, it amounted almost to a command. The Greeks, therefore, went to Smyrna and Anatolia because we asked them to go. They were fulfilling, more or less, a mission imposed upon them by at least one member of the, Entente.
    Sometimes when I hear this question of the Near East discussed I am inclined to ask myself whether I am dreaming and whether there is not some confusion of mind as to who were our enemies and who our friends in the late War. From the manner in which some hon. Members discuss the demands and the so-called rights of the Turks, one might imagine, if one did not know the history of the War, that during the War it was Greece that was fighting against us and Turkey that was fighting for us, whereas, as everybody knows, the War might have been ended two years sooner, had it not been for the fact that the German and Austrian Powers had behind them all the strength and all the strategic positions of the Turkish Government. How have we treated Greece? We invited them to go to Smyrna. They were compelled to advance, not from any desire of conquering the whole of Anatolia—no such mad idea ever entered the mind, or ever has been expressed by any responsible Greek statesman—but they went there because a certain amount of advance was absolutely necessary to prevent the two wings of their Army, greatly separated, from being taken in turn by the Kemelist Army and being defeated. Having made that advance for military reasons only, they stopped when, as they thought, they had sufficiently protected their Army. Having got the Greeks into this very perilous enterprise one would have thought that they might have relied upon our moral it not our physical assistance in that enterprise. I dismiss physical aid at this moment, because I know that public opinion in this country would not permit
    1016
    our sending an Army, or even a small portion of an Army, to the defence of the Greeks. But at least we might have given them moral support. But instead of that, for the last few months there has been a terrific campaign against Greece. Everything she did was wrong. She was described as a bellicose Power, anxious to make war to achieve large and impossible national ideas, with the result that every effort that she made to defend her own position was represented as aggression, and even an effort on her part to supply herself in the markets of London with the necessary means of clothing and feeding her soldiers was assailed by a well-organised campaign.
    Now it is proposed to evacuate Smyrna and leave no trace of the Greek occupation there. I asked an Armenian two questions, because I am as anxious about the position of the Armenian in the Near East as that of the Greeks. Indeed more so, because the Greeks, after all, have a Government and can defend themselves. This Armenian, though he had been born in Smyrna, spoke Greek perfectly, as most people do in Smyrna. My first question was as to the condition of Smyrna under Greek rule. He told me that, having spent several months there, he was prepared to declare that Smyrna to-day was one of the best governed cities in the world. I have heard to the contrary, but I speak from the testimony of a witness. Monsieur Styriadis, the representative of the Greek Government, was, he declared, one of the best and justest administrators whom Smyrna had ever seen, and the only objection taken to him by some of the Greeks belonging to Smyrna was that he was too much in favour of the Turks and too little in favour of his own race. It was a common saying that he ought to be wearing a fez, so much bound up was he with the Turkish population, and I was told he could be severe as well as just, because he has caused to be executed several Greeks who were found guilty of offences against the Turks. Has anyone ever heard of the Turkish authorities executing one of their people because of atrocities against the Christians?
    The second question was what would be the effect upon Armenia if the Greeks are turned out of Smyrna? The answer was that it would be the end of Armenia. The reason why the consequences of turning the Greeks out of Smyrna would be dis-

    1017
    astrous is that it would deprive all the other Christian populations of Anatolia of a great protection from massacre and a great safeguard of their liberty. I do not insist that Smyrna should become entirely Greek and be entirely under the Greek Government. I have no objection, nor do I believe that responsible Greek statesman would object, to some form of compromise which may give the Turks a nominal suzerainty, but what I do insist on is that the Greeks shall never be asked to evacuate Asia Minor until we have got satisfactory safeguards for the Christian populations, Greek, Armenian, and others, and also that, if the Greeks are not allowed to establish a Government of their own there, there should be international control which, in my opinion, is the only safeguard for the lives of the Christians in Anatolia under Turkish rule. That is the answer I made to M. Franklin-Bouillon, the author of the Angora Treaty—on which I cannot congratulate him—who, with a new enthusiasm for the peaceful and enlightened Turk, says that he had never met an abler and broader statesman in any part of the world than those whom he met at Angora, and he went the length of saying that he wished that we had statesmen of equal benignty and intelligence on the Ministerial Benches of either French or British Parliaments. This is the kind of exaggeration which men advance when they change their views with regard to a situation. I say emphatically that every single experience which Europe has had during centuries with regard to promises made by the Turks has been that they have broken them, and that, if anything, the last condition of Christian subjects of the Turks has always been worse than the first. Some people regard me as a Turkophobe. I am not. I am not a "phobe" of any kind.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: You are much too kind-hearted.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: I need not put it down to that. I would rather attribute it to an intelligence which has by this time discovered that all the world is dependent, each country upon the other, and until we get that as the guiding rule of our policy in trade and in everything else the world will remain in the condition in which it is to-day. I am sure that the Turkish peasant is all that he has been described, honest, sober; sober
    1018
    not only with regard to drink but, what is perhaps harder to some people, also with regard to food, loyal to his chiefs, and one of the bravest soldiers whom the world has even seen. These are not the people against whom I am making war. They are the others, the Pashas and all the rest, whose rule has been as disastrous to the Turks themselves, to the common people of their race, as it has been to the Christian people whom they have massacred. Also I am no anti-Mahommedan. When a creed appeals to hundreds of millions of human beings there must be something in it that is a faithful response to some longings, strivings, and aspirations of their souls and, whatever may be the faults that can be alleged against the Mahommedan people, nobody can doubt that it was a very good substitute for the superstitious polytheism which it displaced, and cultivates some of the finest virtues of the individual man. I am not fighting this question on any such bigoted grounds as that of an antagonism to race or creed. I am only asking for justice and equality to all races.
    The argument as to Mahommedanism has found most conspicuous expression in the form of the telegram from the Viceroy of India, the publication of which led to the resignation of my right hon. Friend the late Secretary of State for India. We are told that we must not do justice to these Christians in the East and give them adequate protection against the Turks because we may affront Moslem feeling in India. This is one of the most extraordinary arguments which I have ever heard. It is alleged that the masses of Mahommedans in India are interested profoundly in the question of the Khilafat, that is that according to them the Khilafat must vest in the Sultan at Constantinople, and that, if not, there will be an enormous addition to our difficulties in India in dealing with the Mahommedan population. He would be a very foolish, irresponsible, and hardhearted man who would add to any of the difficulties which our people have in India at present. Heaven forbid that I should take such a guilty responsibility upon my shoulders, but my view is that this Khilafat argument is a modern invention. I have spoken recently to many men who spent their lives in India, and who came home during the last two or three years, and they tell me that this

    1019
    idea of the Khilafat, as something embodied in the minds of the Mahommedans of India, did not exist in their time. So far as it does exist, what has brought it into being now? Mr. Gandhi was, I think, one of the first persons to start this idea, but he is not a Mahommedan. He is a Hindu, and was it his object in bringing forward this idea of the Khilafat to protect the Turks and leave the Christians without protection? It was not. He had an object much nearer home. That was to bring the conflicting creeds of India into a common effort against the rule of this country in India. My friend Aga Khan is also among the holders of this doctrine of the Khilafat. He is head of one of the sections of the Mahommedan creed, and naturally feels, as more or less the Pope of this section, in favour of the idea. The Ali Brothers are also among the upholders of this idea.
    6.0 P.M.
    If you accept this idea according to the exposition in the famous telegram of the Viceroy of India, you will find that it leads you to lengths to which you cannot get. The sacred places must be in the hands of the Khilafat. Many of them are in the hands of the Arabs, and the Arabs are just as good Mahommedans as the Mahommedans of India. Does the Arab Mahommedan population complain that the places most sacred to the Mahommedans are under Arab instead of Turkish control? If this idea of the Khilafat is a stimulus to Moslem agitation and rebellion, why not to Arab agitation and rebellion? Everybody knows that the Arabs, although Mahommedans, were as eager as the Greeks and the Armenians to escape from the devastating tyranny of Constantinople, and that they would die to the last man rather than give back the control of the sacred places to the Sultan of Turkey, Khalif though he may be. That is not an argument which has any force of fact or history behind it. However much we are bound to respect Mahommedan opinion, however much we are bound to cultivate it, however much we are bound to protect it, there is one thing to which I will never submit as a duty on our part, and that is that in order to please Mahommedans we should allow Turks to kill Armenians or Greeks, because the Turks are Mahommedans and the Greeks and Armenians are Christians. I say that in no sectarian spirit. If
    1020
    Christian Greek and Christian Armenia were endangering the lives of Turkish Mahommedans, I would be the first to denounce them, and the more freely because I would think that such people, called Christians, did not deserve the name of that religion of charity and justice.
    I have no faith in the promises of Angora. I will give a very easy test. I have given the House a description of the outlook according to M. Bouillon. But I can add some details to this propaganda of the rulers at Angora. A week or two ago there was a curious little item in the Estimates. It was £25,000 for the Turkish prisoners who for years had been living at our expense in our gaols at Malta. The history of the transaction is rather curious. I am not in any way criticising the action of the Government. Our authorities in Constantinople made a list, as we did in regard to Germany, of war criminals, not of men who made war against us according to the chivalrous rules of warfare, but of men guilty of atrocious criminal offences, who ought to be brought into the dock and, if necessary, sent to the scaffold for their crimes. We made appeal after appeal to the Turkish authorities in Constantinople. Those appeals were neglected. At last our people there came to the inevitable conclusion that the Turkish authorities did not mean either to try or to punish these men, and by the exercise of our authority we took a number, I think 120 or 140, forcibly out of Constantinople and interned them in Malta. In due time we would have tried, I believe, committed and, I hope, punished them, but in the meantime a number of our own country-men were taken prisoners by the Kemalist army and were at Angora. We knew too well what kind of fate they would have. When I hear Gentlemen in this House and elsewhere talking of the gentlemanly Turk, I wonder if they realise the fact that 50 per cent. of our prisoners died from bad treatment during the late War. These men of ours at Angora were liable to the same suffering and perhaps to the same death. At the end of many negotiations we exchanged the 120 criminals for our own 25 soldiers. I do not blame the Government for that transaction.
    Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: I would exchange 1,000 of the rogues for 25 of our own men.
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: My hon. and gallant Friend puts it in his more vivid way. I express my full approval of the conduct of the Government in the matter. I will give the names of some of those Turks who were released: There were Mouammer Bey, ex-governor of Sivas, where he organised the massacre of 30,000 Armenians; and Elias Hofa, of Mouche, responsible for the massacres of Mouche and Bitlis. He is now a high official in the Angora Government. Hon. Gentlemen talk about our relations with the Soviet Government and about shaking hands with murder. This is the kind of thing of which the Prime Minister had to remind M. Briand at Cannes. These are the kind of gentlemen with whom we are asked to shake hands, and on whose promise of good behaviour we are to give away the liberties of the Armenians. There were also Tahsin Bey, ex-governor of Erzeroum, responsible for the massacres in the Erzeroum area; and Tchaoush Moustapha, of Trebizond, notorious for the massacres at Trebizond. I have read a letter from a French pen describing how the writer walked along the shores during these massacres and was heart-broken at the sight of the drowned babies that had risen to the surface. Here are others of the exchanged prisoners: Ali Ishan Pasha, who had a very high rank in the Turkish army in the Eastern vilayets, notorious for the massacres which took place in the Eastern vilayets. He was interned in Malta, allowed out on parole, but broke faith, and, having escaped, joined Moustapha Kemal at Angora as a general in his army. These are M. Bouillon's enlightened statesmen. As a supplementary to a question answered by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the other day, I asked whether the character I gave of some of these criminals was justified or not, and the answer was that my description was perfectly just. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert) is a great authority on the question of the Near East, and he has mentioned to me the name of one of the prisoners who, I believe, was a perfectly respectable man; at least, my hon. Friend says so, and I am sure I can accept the accuracy and good faith of his statement. Will he deny any of the statements I have made with regard to the other gentlemen who are now members of the Angora Govern-
    1022
    ment or generals in the Angora army? It is no answer to say that there was one decent gentleman in the crowd. I do not trust any pledges of the Turks when some men like these are in their councils. Even now, when any vestige of wisdom would urge them to keep quiet, they are breaking pledges before the ink is dry on the papers containing those pledges.
    I have received an account with regard to Cilicia. The Armenians are left to the protection of the Turks under minority safeguards. When the French abandoned Cilicia, the confidence of the Armenians, with centuries of experience behind them, went also. Their experience of the pledges of the Turks and of the guarantees of the Turks had been that almost every man, woman, and child fled from the place, some of the wealthiest men in Cilicia being glad to go in cockle boats. These ships of weeping emigrants, torn from their property and homes and the soil they love, had a voyage of nearly 30 days. Rejected at Cyprus, rejected in Egypt, rejected in Constantinople, at long last they found an asylum in the capital of Greece, a country on which so much undue and unworthly contumely has been poured. What happened after that? The French got securities, and the securities were broken within a few hours of the disappearance of the French troops. Orphanages were attacked, the French military cemetery was destroyed. That was their gratitude to France. The French Consul there had to put wire entanglements round the cemetery. The Armenian cemeteries were destroyed, Christian officials were removed from the banks, mixed and consular courts were dissolved, the pupils of the French schools were stoned. In Adana four Armenians were killed, one an old woman. At Mersina several Armenians and Christians were hanged. A secret Turkish society, the Society of National Vengeance, is already in course of organisation.
    I must say one word more about the Mahommedan aspect of the question. Would anything you can imagine be more calculated to inflame Moslem fanaticism than the programme which, apparently, some of the Christian countries of Europe are organising, namely, that the Greek troops should evacuate Anatolia and the Kemalist troops take their place? Every fanatical Moslem would be entitled to say that this weakened and defeated

    1023
    country of Turkey, which had fought the victorious Allies throughout the War, had in the end conquered them all and had sent their triumphant army marching over the bodies of Greeks and of the friends of the great Powers at Smyrna. According to all the Armenians I have consulted the fate of Armenia is indissolubly bound up with the fate of Greece. I think our fortunes in the Near East are indissolubly bound up with a strong and friendly Greece. I know that that is an opinion in much higher quarters than any to which I can ever soar. If anyone studies the geography of the Near East, he will see that Greece is the progressive and Turkey the decadent country. Greece is a commercial nation. She is surrounded by a number of islands, every one of which could be made a poison nest of submarines to destroy our communications. We are bartering away our security in the East if we do not make a strong and friendly Greece.
    As to the Armenians, I would weary the House if I were to go over again the thrice-told tale, nay, the tale told an hundred times, of the pledges made by the statesmen and Powers of Europe to the Armenians during the War. On the strength of these pledges we got the Armenians to organise armies, to defend some of the most imperilled fronts, and to help in some of the victories in the East to which we owed our great victory in the West. The promises made to Armenia would fill the volumes of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 60 years. Old politicians like myself can remember when the agitation against the Armenian massacres, led by Gladstone, swept like a prairie fire through this country and made the strongest appeal to good feeling, love of justice and hatred of cruelty ever organised by any statesman in this country. What is the result of it all? Nearly 40 years after Gladstone raised his great cry for the protection of the Armenians, more than a million of them have been butchered, and what is the kind of argument which one hears against providing adequate securities to prevent future butcheries? Some gentleman with the manner and air of a comedian, even of a low comedian, gets up in this House and describes the Greeks and the Armenians as a poor, scurvy lot. That is not quite what he said, but it is what he meant.
    1024
    I wonder how many Armenians or Greeks, gentlemen who talk like that have ever met in their lives? I have met many of them in the course of my life, and whenever I go to little receptions given by Armenians, I find myself surrounded by as cultivated gentlemen and by as pure and intelligent and as educated women as you could find in the best homes in England. When I meet these people, that other vision immediately comes before my mind—the vision of men equally intelligent and of women equally pure being given to butchery and to violation by Turkish soldiers and Turkish gendarmerie, and all the masses of the semi-civilised hordes of Asia Minor. I feel so strongly that it positively makes me see red when, in this great temple of human justice and human liberty, I hear men talk about giving to the hyenas Christian men and Christian women and Christian babes, as dear to their relatives as ours are to us, and worthy of all the respect that we claim for ours. Yet this is happening after all the promises which are chronicled in the Treaty of Sèvres and which were accepted by the Turks in the Treaty of Sèvres. Here is Article 88 of that Treaty.
    "Turkey, in accordance with the action already taken by the Allied Powers, hereby recognises Armenia as a free and independent State."
    Where is the freedom now? Where is the independence? Cilicia, swept of nearly all its population; a large portion of Armenian territory taken back from the hands of the Russians, and threatened massacres everywhere. Yet the Armenians are the race who held the postern gate of Christianity in Eastern Europe. It was that small nation—once a great and powerful nation—which stood at the postern gate against the advance hordes of Asiatic savages and pagans. As to Greece, its culture is in the mind of every educated man in this country. It still holds its great unchallenged and unequalled intellectual and spiritual position in the chronicles of mankind. Phidias holds comparison with the greatest of our sculptors; Homer stands on a pedestal as high as that of Shakespeare; Plato and Aristotle are equal to the most modern works in style and philosophy. With that great culture and tradition behind them, I believe Greeks and Armenians will bring peace

    1025
    and justice and equal rights wherever they go, and I throw upon every man who opposes their resurrection and liberation the responsibility for all the insane bloodshed that will result from a policy so disastrous.
    Mr. A. HERBERT: I had not intended troubling the House until I heard the speech of my hon. Friend who has just sat down. I regret that I had not the advantage of hearing the first part of that speech. While I yield to no man in this House in my admiration for my hon. Friend's humanity, I very much regret the kind of speech he has just made. It gets us no further. It is the old, weary, and, horrible round of recriminations. Massacres are endemic in the East, and all have shared in them, and we in this Government have our responsibility for those massacres; but I will come back to that point again. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that we had liberated a number of Turkish prisoners from Malta. I should like to state the facts about this, as I know them. We took these Turkish prisoners during the Armistice. They were not War prisoners. They may have been guilty of the crimes which my hon. Friend charges against them, but they were never tried, and at least one of them, Rahmy Pasha, was a man who, during War time, distinguished himself by extraordinarily chivalrous and kind treatment of the English in Smyrna, and was officially thanked by us. Has my hon. Friend made one single proposition that is going to help us? The real fact of the matter is that when we come to the East, we find this condition of things, that it is a great mosaic of rebellious colours which have never amalgamated. There has been one invasion after another invasion sweeping across the East from various different races and various sections of humanity, whose nationalism has remained, and in consequence of that there is no peace. Many hard things have been said against us with regard to our treatment of rebellion and Sinn Fein in Ireland, and yet in Ireland we have only one island to deal with. The ruling race in Asia Minor has got to deal with Continental Sinn Fein, and when people have something in the nature of Continental Sinn Fein to deal with, we must not be surprised, especially in the East, if they use the very strongest measures known to mankind.
    1026
    I have just seen the so-called terms which have been offered to-day in Paris. May I say quite briefly and with great deference, as a man who has at all events some knowledge of that part of the world, that I think those terms will not be acceptable to anybody there. For all our sakes we want peace. We do want peace for the minorities. There, my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor) and I are absolutely at one. We do want to save life, if we can, in the East, but we must have guarantees which are not paper guarantees but real guarantees. Those guarantees we had in the past when we had a gendarmerie organised by Englishmen in Thrace and Macedonia. You can only get those terms if you get men who know the question to deal with it, and if you act with an open mind and honestly.
    I am glad of this opportunity of saying one other thing. The other day I brought up the name of Sir Basil Zaharoff in this House. I know Sir Basil Zaharoff is a man of many parts, and I believe, has contributed very greatly to many philanthropic institutions in this country. I know of him also in this repute—as one of the chief counsellors of the Prime Minister. I say that our Government should have confidence in the House of Commons, and should declare its policy to the House of Commons, rather than to any of these foreign advisers. I believe had the Prime Minister taken the advice of any of the experts, be they soldiers or merchants, who are people on the spot, that advice would have been very different to the advice given by Sir Basil Zaharoff. He is a very big Greek multi-millionaire. Indeed, he is commonly supposed to be the richest man in the world. The policy of England has been consistent in only one thing, and that is through thick and thin, with and against our interests, in backing the policy of Greece. I would appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division, and to people who think like him, to leave aside all recriminations and work for the real settlement we all desire. The longer you continue these recriminations the more do you inflame blood out in the East and the harder do you make a just and proper settlement.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: I agree with the observations of the hon. Mem-

    1027
    ber for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert) that we ought to get away from recriminations and generalities. It seems to me that towards the end of his remarks he made an attack on Greece which was not altogether in keeping with his general observations in the beginning.
    Mr. A. HERBERT: I did not wish to make any kind of attack on Greece. I merely made certain references to the position of Sir Basil Zaharoff in the counsels of our Government.
    Sir S. HOARE: I readily accept my hon. Friend's explanation.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: He was not correct, as a matter of fact.
    Sir S. HOARE: I should like to get away altogether from that line of country. I think in the midst of the negotiations actually going on in Paris, it would be a mistake for this House to-day to go in detail into the controversy between Greece and Turkey. From what I heard in Paris—and I returned from Paris only last night—the negotiations were proceeding as favourably as could be expected, and I think it would be a mistake if we started the old wrangle to-day in this House between the rival claims. I rise to make two suggestions, connected with the other invitation made by the hon. Member for Yeovil, that we should get away from generalities. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. O'Connor) made a very eloquent speech on behalf of the Christian minority. Let me suggest to the House two practical ways in which I think we could give the Christian minority very real help. I am painfully aware that many of the provisions that we have adopted in the past have been useless. It is very easy to talk of the protection of minorities in Turkey, but it is very difficult to find effective protection. It is easy to talk of international gendarmerie and of international High Commissions, but the experience of the past has been that they have given to the Christian minorities very little real protection. That being so, I have been giving a good deal of thought recently—and only the other day I was in Constantinople and Smyrna and had a chance of talking to people on the spot—as to what kind of practical safeguards one might adopt.
    1028
    Let me suggest two, and let me take, first of all, the case of the Armenians. I agree with what the hon. Member for the Scotland Division said about the terrible way in which they have been treated and the obligations under which all the great Powers of the West are to them. I cannot help thinking that in the present state of affairs the most practical way for the protection of the Armenians is to develop the Armenian State of Erivan. There is, I quite agree, at the moment an unfortunate state of affaire in which the country is in the hands of the Bolshevists, but none the less it is an Armenian State, and I believe, myself, that one will find a much better national home for the Armenians by developing the State of Erivan than by creating for them an artificial zone in Cilicia or elsewhere. I throw that out as a suggestion, in answer to the challenge of the hon. Member opposite that we should come forward with practical proposals. Let me give the House another proposal that I wish to bring to its attention. I believe, myself, that one of the most effective ways of protecting the Christians in Turkey is to insist, in the terms of peace, upon the abolition of conscription. I believe, myself, that the use which has been made of conscription by the Turks since 1908—for it was only adopted in 1908—has meant the massacre and the death of numberless Christians. I hope, therefore, that whatever may be the result of the negotiations in Paris, we shall see that thi6 quite modern system of conscription has been abolished, for it seems to me inconceivable that, whilst we have abolished conscription in Germany, in Bulgaria, and in Austria, we can allow it to continue in Turkey. Hon. Members will remember that one of the most terrible ways in which Christians have been massacred was their drafting in battalions, their conscription, their removal far away from their homes, by which means, I am assured by many people in the Near East who have been brought into direct contact with the massacres that took place, thousands and thousands of Christians have been massacred. I therefore make these two practical suggestions to the House—first of all, that for the Armenians the idea of the independent State of Erivan should be further developed and, secondly, that one of the most essential terms of the

    1029
    peace with Turkey should be the abolition of conscription.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: The House always listens with great respect, on matters of this kind, to the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare). I quite agree with the remark that he made, early in his speech, that in so far as possible in questions of this kind we should avoid all recriminations, but the hon. Baronet went on to deprecate any discussion at this moment in view of the negotiations that are taking place in Paris. He informed us that these negotiations were, in his view, proceeding favourably, and we all hope that may be so, but what he means by favourably might be very different from what would be meant by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. O'Connor) and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert). Neither of those Gentlemen takes the same view of the settlement of the Turkish and Near Eastern problem, and I am bound to say, for myself, that I think it is eminently desirable that, certainly without recrimination, on an occasion of this nature the House of Commons should be able to advise Ministers as to what particular view it takes on this question. I merely say that, but do not propose to enter into the subject at any particular length.
    The hon. Member for Yeovil said that if the Prime Minister and the Government had in the last two or three years taken the advice of experts, either inside this House or out of it, we should never have arrived at the impasse at which we now find ourselves, and I am very glad to find myself in agreement with him. The reason that we find ourselves at this impasse at the present moment is twofold. One is that the advice of the experts has never been taken, and the other is that there was an interminable and unreasonable delay in settling the Turkish and Near Eastern problem. Various excuses have been given during the last two or three years for that delay, but there is no reasonable excuse that can be found, and if to-day we find ourselves in the difficult position with which we are confronted, it is principally due to that delay and to the individuals from whom the Government has sought its advice. The Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy), speaking a few nights ago, drew attention to an institu-
    1030
    tion which he named the "Garden Suburb," in other words known as the Cabinet Secretariat, and he showed—and I have myself referred to this matter on previous occasions—how our foreign policy had suffered owing to the meddling of the Cabinet Secretariat. I was very interested, in reading the Geddes Report, to see a reference to the Cabinet Offices, otherwise known as the Cabinet Secretariat, and on page 58 of that Report I find that no recommendation is made in the direction of economy, so far as this is concerned, by the Treasury in favour of the abolition of the Cabinet Secretariat. This Secretariat was instituted, I think, during the War. It was a war creation, and I venture to state that, in the opinion of all those best qualified to judge outside the circles of the Government, there has been no justification whatever for the continuation of that Secretariat. We existed up to the beginning of the War in 1914 without a Cabinet Secretariat, and I suggest that all the Departments of State could conduct their affairs very much more efficiently to-day if the Cabinet Secretariat came to an end. So far as I can see, the Cabinet Secretariat has one end and object only, and that is to poach on the business of every other Department and to lead to the vacillations in Government policy, of which we have seen so much during the past three years.
    I pass from that for one moment to the subject with which this Debate opened, and it has been in that connection what I venture to call a very remarkable Debate. It is customary—at least, during the considerable number of years that I have been in this House it has been customary—for the opportunity to be seized of the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill to discuss foreign affairs. In fact, I think no Debate of this description has taken place in previous years when this has not formed one of the main subjects of discussion. On an occasion such as this, what matter in connection with foreign affairs is most likely to be discussed? During the past three or four weeks we have heard about nothing but Genoa. The supporters of His Majesty's Government, in this House and outside, and in the Press, have told us at great length all about Genoa, what is to be expected of the Genoa Conference, what is to come out of it, and how, arising

    1031
    out of it, we are to see a new Heaven and a new earth. Therefore, what more natural, when this opportunity is given, than that my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), and the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil), and others who have spoken, should endeavour to elicit from the Government what it really has in view so far as the Genoa Conference is concerned? The right hon. Member for Peebles pointed out that out of the mouth of the Prime Minister, and by reason of the agreement which was come to at Cannes, there were certain specific questions deliberately ruled out from the agenda of the Conference. He showed that the Prime Minister, at the request of the French Government, was not to discuss the question of reparations. He further indicated, so far as we know, that the question of Allied debts is not to be touched, and he then proceeded to ask the Government—and rightly so, in my humble judgment—with what is the Genoa Conference going to deal, and where is this new Heaven and new earth which we are led to expect; where does it exist and how is it to arise?
    I suggest that the reply of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was totally inadequate. I would not like to suggest, of course, that the Lord Privy Seal was totally unaware of what was going to be discussed at Genoa. No doubt he is fully aware, not only of what is in the Prime Minister's mind on this subject, but of the agenda, and all that is going to take place. But in all seriousness, I suggest that, when an opportunity such as this has been given, when the Government must have known that questions would be asked of them as to what was to take place at Genoa, in order that this House might have full time to make up its mind as to how it is going to vote on Monday next, it is unfair to the House that the Government should not have been prepared to answer the questions which have been rightly put to them from the front Opposition Bench. On Monday we are to have one day's Debate. We are told that this is to be a critical day in the life of the Government. With that I am not concerned, but we are all of us concerned with the state of grave unemployment in this country at the present moment. We are
    1032
    all of us concerned with setting going again the wheels of international commerce. We are told through the Press, and by other means, and by the Prime Minister himself, that these great objects are to be achieved by, and through, the means of the Conference at Genoa, and in those circumstances I would say it would not only have been fairer to the House, but it would have been more courteous, if the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had come to the House to-day prepared to answer the questions which have been put to him by my right hon. Friend.
    Major CHRISTOPHER LOWTHER: I would like to invite the House to accompany me from the East to the West, and to turn our attention for a few moments to the subject of Mexico. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and I have had several tussles on this subject, and I propose shortly, this afternoon, to join issue with him once again. I have remarked that when my hon. Friend finds himself driven into a corner, he is apt to appeal to Members of the House, myself included, not to press him to make a statement or to give a particular answer to questions upon this subject. I have done my best to meet my hon. Friend's wishes in this respect, but the time is come when I feel it is my duty to press again this subject. I think the House will agree with me that it is fair to state that in the case of two countries, unless they are at war, the normal condition is that there shall be mutual recognition, and if that be generally agreed, then, I think, it is incumbent upon the hon. Gentleman to prove the case why recognition should so long be withheld from the Republic—the constitutionally elected Government, be it said, of Mexico. I have invited my hon. Friend on several occasions to give an explanation of this state of affairs, and I do not think he has ever seriously attempted to make out a case. If he has done so, I am afraid it is my stupidity which has failed to realise the importance which he attaches to his arguments.
    I am not content to leave the matter at that. I am not content to say that it is entirely my hon. Friend's duty to make out a case. I will venture to supply him with a very few, but, I hope, pertinent arguments as to why he should, even now at this late hour, recognise the Mexican

    1033
    Government. The first and the most important argument is that the policy which the Foreign Office have pursued in this respect has been not only not helpful, but it has been actually harmful. I have sought in all directions to ascertain what is the view of those who are well qualified to judge of this matter. In addition to paying a visit recently to a country which I formerly knew very well, I have endeavoured to get into touch with those who can be fairly described as having leading interests in that country, and I come upon one conclusion overwhelmingly evident everywhere, that, for the sake of British interests, the Republic of Mexico should be recognised. I have it, I think, from my hon. Friend himself, for, if I am not mistaken, upon the 5th May last, he made a statement very much to the effect that it is a disadvantage, not only to Mexico but to the commercial and other interests of this country, that our relations with Mexico cannot be more regular.
    My hon. Friend may, perhaps, not believe me. He may perhaps affect to disregard the opinions which, I believe, he has the opportunity of taking, of the leading commercial interests in this respect, but I do put it to him that he would be well advised to go outside that small official circle in the Foreign Office which seems to hold him to this obstinate course, and to take advice from some of the great public servants who have themselves served in Mexico, and who know not only that country, but know very well the conditions of Latin America. I invite my hon. Friend to take the opinion, for instance, of such an authority as Sir Reginald Tower. Let him appeal to him. He was for many years Minister at Mexico. He was for a number of years Minister in the Argentine. He is a man who is well qualified to know what is the view not only of British people trading in those countries, but also of those countries themselves. Let him take his opinion, and I venture to think he will find that he will express himself far more strongly than I have ever ventured to do in this House on the subject. If he disregards what I say here; if he disregards what he has been told by British interests; if he is disinclined to take the advice and opinions of great public servants, let him pay heed to what the Prime Minister said. I read with great interest a letter which the right hon. Gentleman wrote to
    1034
    the Coalition Liberal candidate at Leicester. This is what he said:
    "Much progress has been made in the revival of trade since the War, but much remains to be done. We have to find markets for British goods. We have to find means which will enable British manufacturers to obtain orders which will enable them to give employment and to pay wages to British workers."
    I think the right hon. Gentleman, when he wrote that letter, was not bearing in mind his own Foreign Office, because time after time has it been pointed out to them that in this respect, at any rate, they are stifling that very policy; they are shutting it down. I have concrete instances. I should like to give the House an actual case. The chairman of the Mexican Railway, which is an important concern in that country, entirely owned by British capital, was good enough to write to me, and I will send my hon. Friend the letter, although I believe he has already seen it. He wrote to mo that the board of the Mexican Railway Company, on which are representatives of two of the five leading banks, and on which other distinguished gentlemen have seats, had decided to extend the Mexican Railway for an additional 200 miles, and, furthermore, they had decided to electrify a portion of the railway in order to avoid having to use a particular kind of locomotive on a very steep and difficult part of the tract. But, he added—and this is very significant—
    "My board will not for a moment consider entering upon such work until recognition shall have been accorded to Mexico."
    I would also like to bring to the attention of the House a letter from an entirely different source, but, if possible, rather more important. The name of the great contractors, the great oil developers, Messrs. Pearson and Son, Limited, is not unknown to this House. It is they who in the past have practically made that country. If my hon. Friends will take the trouble to walk down Parliament Street, and look at Nos. 47 and 53, they will see brass plates upon the doors showing that they represent the most important developments in that country. What does a partner in that firm write on the attitude of the Foreign Office in that respect? What does he say of their desire to encourage British enterprise in that country, and the means they have taken to do it?
    "Quite apart from the question of recognition itself, their support of Cummins"—

    1035
    the British Chargé d'Archives in Mexico City—
    7.0 P.M.
    "has probably done and continues to do more harm to the relations between the two countries than anything else. They were notified officially by Urquidi here in London that he was persona non grata, and they must have ample information from other sources confirming this. In their replies, however, to the Mexican Government on this subject they have adopted the most highhanded attitude possible, and their every action would almost seem to have been calculated deliberately to increase rather than diminish the friction between the two countries."
    That is a formidable indictment. That is the Foreign Office, whose business it is to push, to encourage, to protect British trade, and that is what one of the principal people whom they should protect has to say about them. It seems to me as if the Foreign Office represent themselves. They seem to forget that they represent this country and British interests, and so long as they represent themselves so long shall we go on in this same old groove. My hon. Friend has hinted more than once that the conditions in Mexico do not warrant the British Government recognising that country. That country is at peace, and has been at peace for the last 18 months. It is infinitely better governed than a great many of the smaller countries of Europe at the present time. It is constitutionally governed. Out rages do not take place in that country such as we, unfortunately, have to read about in the newspapers day by day in Ireland—
    Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: Will it recognise British claims?
    Major LOWTHER: I will come to that. The argument, then, based on the assumption that Mexico is in a state of permanent revolution, falls to the ground by the mere weight of fact. The country is in a peaceable condition, is constitutionally governed, and for the first time in its history, I think, it has a Government that is endeavouring to govern democratically. It must be within the recollection of the House how for many years General Diaz was the President of the Mexican Republic, but what the House do not know—or, perhaps, what they do not generally realise—is that during the Presidency of General Diaz, beneficial as it was to foreigners in many respects, no
    1036
    Mexican had the right to represent any opinion whatsoever that was in any way contrary to the Government or that could in any way be held to be against the existing order of things. Nowadays, it may not be an advantage, but we are living in democratic times. Nowadays, newspapers, individuals, and Parliaments all express their opinions according as they think—not always very wisely, I agree, but at any rate freely, so that I venture to think that my hon. Friend, if he will go outside that little narrow official circle, will find that the country on the whole compares favourably with many other countries with a similar population as regards its government.
    My hon. Friend (Mr. A. M. Samuel) has raised the question of the claims of British subjects. Some little time ago there emanated from the Foreign Office the proposal that all claims of British nationals, of British subjects who have suffered during the years of revolution of 1910 till the revolution came to an end, ought to be examined, ought to be assessed, and ought to be paid. The Mexican Government—I know this for a fact—acceded to the British Government's request. They accepted the proposals which the British Government made. Principal among them was the appointment of a Chilian Chairman, to which the Mexican Government assented. That was so long ago as last October. According to an answer I had to-day, my hon. Friend (Mr. Harmsworth) has just sent the draft of an agreement for the establishment of a Mixed Claims Commission to deal with British claims to the representative of the Mexican Government in London. If there be delay in this respect, then it lies at the door of the Foreign Office, because I can tell the House that I was in the Mexican Foreign Office myself when the telegram came from the Mexican representative in London with the British Government's suggestion, and there and then the Mexican Foreign Minister agreed to the suggestions. Therefore the delay, such as it has been, has been the fault of the Foreign Office. There are two distinct processes as regards claims. You first have to examine the claims, because obviously you are not going to admit spurious claims or allow claims to be filed without being stamped. Then you have to assess the amount to be paid on any well-established claim, but there is no

    1037
    reason why this Mixed Commission should not have got to work a long time ago. I am going to put this to my hon. Friend. The Mexican Government is not much more vastly wealthy than any other Government. It is wealthier than some, but if my hon. Friend withholds recognition, where does he think that such Mexican money as there may be in the Treasury will go—to the education of Mexican children, or to the payment of the claims of nationals who have not recognised the Government? I will tell him. They will go to the charity which is nearest at home. If my hon. Friend were to recognise the Mexican Government he would have there an official instrument to insist upon payment of such claims as might have been assessed by the Mixed Claims Commission. If he does not have an official representative there, I do not know how he is going to make representations to the Mexican Government for the speedy payment of the claims. My hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Samuel) raised just one other point about the external debt—
    Mr. SAMUEL: Raised in this country.
    Major LOWTHER: Quite so. Perhaps he is not aware that at the present moment there is sitting in New York a committee of foreign bondholders who have been in treaty with the Mexican Government for the payment of the external debt, arrears of interest, and the payment of the present interest as it falls due. The difficulty of that was this. The Mexican Government have endeavoured for some time past to arrive at an understanding with the owners of large oil properties in the Republic of Mexico for the payment of taxation. They had—so I understand, because nothing has been officially declared in this respect—set up this position: that when they were able to arrive at a satisfactory arrangement with the owners of the oil fields in Mexico as regards the payment of taxation they would devote the sums they so received to the funding of the external debt, arrears of interest, and the payment of interest when it falls due. On 20th March appeared in one of the financial papers in London the following notice:
    "Mexico accepts the responsibility for foreign claims resulting from the revolution, and is ready to adjust them when the countries concerned appoint representatives."
    1038
    My hon. Friend has a chance now to say to the Mexican Government, "What you have said, do you mean?" and if they say to him, "We do," then, surely, he should take his courage in both hands and say to the Mexican Government, "We will restore the friendly relations that used to exist"—and which, mind you, are held very dear in Mexico, where British capital is the most potent of foreign capitals in the country. He has an opportunity there. I submit he has delayed all too long, but I for one will never cast a stone or say a word against him from this moment onward if he will but realise that the recognition of that country is vital, not only to the good and stable Government of the country itself, but, what is more important to us, sitting here as representatives of a great people, to the provision of protection for British interests abroad.
    Lord EUSTACE PERCY: I did not intend to-night to make any reference to Mexico, but I think the speech to which we have just listened should have some words said about it. Perhaps, from my supreme irresponsibility, I may be able to say something about Mexico which the Under-Secretary of State will not be inclined to say. I was very interested in the hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech, which seemed carefully to leave out of account the one factor of the situation which we all know has governed it for the last eight or nine years, namely, the question of the policy of the United States in Mexico. This is one of those very rare instances where actually our foreign policy has been consistent. That policy has been that in Mexico we should pursue a common policy with the United States, that we should recognise the United States as, on the whole, having a prior position in regard to Mexico, and that we should, more or less, and within reason, follow their lead. That factor has been left entirely out of account, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman probably knows that the policy of the United States Government, which during the last year has, I think, been a battleground between certain differing personalities in the United States Cabinet—even in the United States Cabinet there are differing personalities on the matter of policy, even as there are here—on this question is coming to a head, and will very probably allow of a decision in the near future.

    1039
    There is one thing I must say. The hon. and gallant Gentleman gets up and says, "If the Foreign Office will only consult their great public servants who know that part of the world," and then in the next breath he reads out a letter from a commercial firm in this country making an attack on one of those public servants who is our representative in Mexico City. That is not the way to increase the prestige of the British Government in Mexico, and I do not understand why, on the authority of a commercial firm, however eminent, a personal attack should be made on a gentleman who apparently has already been attacked by the Mexican Government. Our representative in Mexico City is, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, the representative of the commercial interests of this country. He is not the representative of the Mexican Government, and I should certainly refuse to withdraw a man who, at any rate, has long residence and intimate knowledge of Mexico. Certainly I should refuse to withdraw a man at the beck-and-call of the Mexican Government, although I have nothing to say against the present Mexican Government, which, I believe, will prove stable and successful.
    What I wish to speak about to-night—if I may go back to a previous part of the Debate—is with reference to what was said about the Near East. I agree with everything that has been said by hon. Members to the effect that this is not the appropriate moment to discuss the merits of particular claims in the Near East, and especially is it not the moment to try to get an advantage for one nation or another. I confess that I think that our policy in the Near East for many years has been rendered ineffective by the competition between Turkophile, Greekophile, Bulgarophile, Serbophile, and so on; but this is not the appropriate moment to indulge in vain contention. We can however cast our minds back and look for a moment at what is the background of the situation in which we now find ourselves. There is no doubt that in the Near East at the present moment we have a choice of evils—and that in a field where at one time we had, or might have had, complete freedom of action, and complete power to do precisely what we wished. At the time of the Armistice we might have confined the Turk to Asia
    1040
    Minor and yet have maintained our friendship with the Turks. We could have ejected the Turk from Constantinople without leaving any such bitterness behind as would be the case now, whereas we are now apparently reduced to keeping the Turk in Constantinople, and yet not maintaining our friendship with Turkey. That is the position in which we are placed, and it does behove us to remember what is the reason.
    This has been referred to already tonight by the hon. Gentleman opposite. For weeks and months during the Paris Conference we delayed making, I do not say a settlement, but in giving any consideration to the Turkish question. It was a question which had been discussed in some detail both in the Departments here and internationally with certain of our Allies before the Armistice. It had been made the subject of international agreements, of the merits of which I say nothing here. There was the Sykes-Picot agreement, for instance. There had been more intensive work upon that than on any other single subject which was brought before the Paris Conference for settlement, but it was the one subject which the British Delegation at Paris was forbidden so much as to mention during the whole of the first four, almost five, months of the Conference. No meeting of the Near Eastern Commission of the Conference was allowed to be held. The matter was left in the hands of the Council of Four, and no man knew what the policy of His Majesty's Government was or, indeed, any other Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "Zaharoff!"] My hon. Friend opposite is very fond of finding niggers in the wood pile.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Are they not there?
    Lord E. PERCY: Sir Basil Zaharoff's name has been mentioned. It is not the fact that that gentleman or any other gentleman has determined the policy of the Government in the Near East, because the Government never have had a policy. The Prime Minister said some months ago in a Debate in this House that Greek troops had been sent to Smyrna in order to carry out the policy of the Allies to give Smyrna to the Greeks. That was not so. The Allies never had decided definitely in any way as to the fate of Smyrna. The Greek

    1041
    troops were sent to Smyrna, not to carry out any settled policy of the Allies but simply because there was the danger of massacre and trouble at Smyrna, and the Greek troops were the only army disposable in Europe. I think the sending of Greek troops there was the greatest mistake, but, as I have said before, it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who did their best, by agitation after the Armistice, to strip this country of armed power in the Near East and everywhere else, to wash their hands in innocency on this question, or on any other. But the fact remains that the position in which we find ourselves in the Near East at the present time is due to this long delay, a delay partly excused or sought to be excused on the ground that it was thought that the United States might possibly and conceivably be induced to undertake a mandate in some part of Asia Minor.
    The Government was advised by every man who had the slightest knowledge of American politics that there was no such chance whatever, but if there was the shadow of some chance, why did the Government choose that very moment to exclude, as far as possible, any American interest in the Middle East by the conclusion of their ill-timed agreement with Persia? There has been no consistency whatever even in the errors of His Majesty's Government. I do not like, I confess, to appear in the character of a Jeremiah in relation to the foreign policy of this Government, because I do recognise the difficulties, the enormous difficulties, they have had to encounter. I do not wish to make any criticism upon their ideas of the policy which they have sought to carry out. I do not make that criticism, because I confess, in the prevailing darkness hovering over the Supreme Council and the Cabinet Secretariat, I have never clearly understood what their ideas of policy were. What, however, I do criticise is their method of execution and their delays. I do criticise the fact that the Government have never used any of the machinery of foreign policy, any of the diplomatic machinery, in the attempt to settle matters in the Near East. They have never maintained relations with any single country in the Near East of a close enough character to enable them to direct the policy of these countries. They have thought—and they think the same now—that they can settle
    1042
    these great questions merely by meeting in conference, with no previous preparation. They know what the result of that was. They know that the only reason of failure at Paris was because there had been so little preparation beforehand. They are now doing the same with Genoa. They have done the same, over and over again, in the Near East. We have had Conferences at San Remo and Cannes, and we are no further at all, because the Government will not trust any administrative representative, any civil servant, any of the public servants of the country, to carry out their policy up to a certain point by negotiation. I have never joined in the absurd attack on diplomacy by conference, but I do say this, that diplomacy by conference is of no use whatever, except to sum up and arrive at definite conclusions on a long course of diplomatic negotiations.
    When you settled the reparation question—I do not mean settled finally but at any rate fixed the total of the indemnity to be exacted—did you do it by an Allied Conference? No. You did it by diplomatic means, by a long course of months and months of British diplomacy which eventually convinced our French friends that their original anticipation of indemnity payments from the Germans were exaggerated, and could not be fulfilled. That is the only way in which you can arrive at any agreement. Diplomacy by conference or a final meeting of the Supreme Council has to be held in order to take the final decision, but they cannot do without preparation. That, and that alone, is the real reason why some of us support the League of Nations, because the one object and purpose of that organisation is to provide both for preparation beforehand on technical matters and for the final summing up, by international conference, of the conclusions and settlements previously prepared.
    Captain ELLIOT: It shows the hopelessness of this Debate that the speeches have ranged so widely, for there is opportunity for reviewing all the actions of the Government for the past twelve months. The speeches to-day have had one governing factor: that there is a feeling in this country that sufficient consideration is not being given to the great problems of foreign policy, that there is not sufficient thought being put into them

    1043
    beforehand, and with that, though with very few other of the sentiments of the Noble Lord opposite, I am in full and hearty agreement. Take the question of the Near East. The main thing that was said was: "Too late," and it is too late. We have disaster and humiliation accomplished, and we have not yet gathered the fruits to follow—
    Mr. N. MACLEAN: Rare and refreshing fruits!
    Captain ELLIOT: Well, it certainly does not lie in the mouths of any party in this House to claim that they sought in any way to offer a solution to the problems of the Near East. In the great Debate on the question of Constantinople hon. Members opposite were loudest in their demand that we should practically forget the pledge that we had given, and take Constantinople, the capital of the Turk, away from that country. Even one of so high a moral character and so profound a student of the problems of politics as the Noble Lord was in agreement that that city should be taken away from Turkish control and hung like a millstone around the neck of the League of Nations. That attitude makes one realise how great and fearful are the great problems that the Government have to face, and how little it lies—
    Lord R. CECIL: I never made any such statement.
    Captain ELLIOT: I was present in the House when the Noble Lord made his speech claiming that Constantinople should be put under the control of the League of Nations.
    Lord R. CECIL Lord R. CECIL indicated dissent.
    Captain ELLIOT: I am quoting from memory, and consequently I am perfectly ready to withdraw.
    Lord R. CECIL: I think what I did say was that I did not think it was right that Constantinople should be left under the control of the Turks.
    Captain ELLIOT: I will look up the Noble Lord's speech, in which I believe he said that his main object was that it should be taken away from the Turks, but that he thought it should be given
    1044
    to the League of Nations. I was very much struck with the fact that speaker after speaker re-echoed that sentiment from all sides of the House, showing that there was no sort of prescience in the mind of any one of those hon. Members as to what the course of events was likely to be in the next few months. Two right hon. Gentlemen speaking for the Labour party also stated the policy of that party which was to deprive the Turk of Constantinople and hand it over to the League of Nations, and it was only the hon. and gallant Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) who, with that sense of brutal reality which always characterises his speeches, stood up as an uncompromising supporter of the reign of the Turk.
    The only reason I have troubled the House on this occasion is to ask hon. Members to consider this case, which I do not think is yet too late. We have had to revise the Treaty with Turkey. I beg of the House and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in particular to consider the urgent question of the revision of the Treaty with Austro-Hungary. Luckily disaster has not yet taken place in this corner of the globe, but there are all the materials for an explosion accumulating there, but we have not yet so far been humiliated as we have been in other parts of the world, and we have done our best to teach these nations that force and not reason will be listened to by the Allies. They asked for a plebiscite in Odenburg. At first we refused them this plebiscite, and they afterwards invaded a portion of this territory and held it, and then the Allies came and practically said, "We recognise the old familiar argument of the bayonet and the bullet and we accede to your request for a plebiscite." The plebiscite was held, and the people of that district gave a decided majority in favour of restoration to the kingdom of Hungary. At present a determination is going on of the frontier of Transylvania between the kingdoms of Hungary and Rumania, and I beg to the Under-Secretary to make some attempt to see that the principles under which Hungary has been stripped of so much of her territory shall not be applied to her detriment in the only case in which this inquiry is likely to tell in her favour. She has a clear majority of the inhabitants and this is territory which should not be taken from her.

    1045
    Three of her great towns are within the strip of territory which is to be determined by the Commission, and I have already heard it asserted by some of the Ambassadors interested that the retention of these three towns in the territory now being considered cannot be acceded to, and that the only thing that can be done is to shift the frontier posts a few yards one way or the other. I do not wish to weary the House with figures but, roughly speaking, there are 154,000 people being dealt with in this area, of whom only about 17,000 are non-Magyars. It is plain that these must be given to Rumania because they control the railway line which maintains the necessary communication north and south. It is a line which does not run into Rumania, but up through Czecho-Slovakia. It is not a through line, but merely a local line which runs more or less north and south. In the main, there is plenty of railway communication and plenty of chance for the communications of the Rumanian and the Transylvanian territory to be kept up.
    At this moment the Boundary Commission is sitting and exploring the ground. I believe the British representative on that Commission recognises, as anybody must, that a settlement of this question in a manner which will be a flagrant injustice to the kingdom of Hungary will result ultimately in one of those running sores in Europe which it was the ostensible object of the Versailles Treaty-makers to remove once and for all. I know that it is almost hopeless to bring forward these cases in this House, but these responsibilities have been thrown upon us, these crushing problems and the re-determination of the European frontiers have been placed upon the Western Powers, and I ask the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs to make sure at any rate that the views of the representative of Great Britain on these questions are properly attended to by the Foreign Office, and that they will give their whole weight in the direction I have indicated and not defer too much to the weight of the French representative. I know the weight of the French representative is thrown largely on the side of Rumania and against Hungary, as it has consistently and unjustly been ever since the collapse of the dual monarchy and the dissolution of it into its component parts.
    The three towns alone stand as a sort of symbol of what Hungary has hoped
    1046
    for, and under the promise of which she accepted the terribly harsh terms of her Treaty, when she was promised that a Commission would examine the frontier and make what re-distributions were found to be possible. A Committee is sitting now on this question, and re-determination of the line is possible. It is possible to restore some 2,000 or 3,000 Hungarians to their native land without doing any injustice to any of the other places around, because what I am suggesting would not cut off these three towns from the main Magyar country by any strips of territory which form part of Eastern Europe.
    I apologise for troubling the House with this case, but we can only bring these problems up once a year, and it is useless to hope that at the Genoa Conference or any other Conference they will ever come to any settled peace and re-start trade throughout Europe as long as we encourage the countries in Central Europe to believe that we are actuated by a spirit of injustice, and a desire to crush and humiliate our ex-enemies, and as long as we make them believe that it is hopeless for them to look for any justice at our hands.
    This is a terrible lesson. Let us come back to our own doctrine of fair play to the under dog, and standing up for the person whom morally we have knocked down. No doubt hon. Members opposite are just as anxious to see a revival in Europe as we are, but we on this side have our own ideas as to how it should be done, which are not the same as the ideas of hon. Members sitting on the benches opposite. Here is one small country where we have a chance of bringing about a settlement now, and let us do it for the sake of justice instead of doing it later on for the sake of fear.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: I hope the House and the Government will not follow the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down in his opinion that it is too late to deal justly and effectively with the Near Eastern question. Surely with the might of this Empire that is a wild and rather absurd opinion to put before us. I much prefer the line taken by the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare), who asked us to turn our attention to practical things that could be done. I am perfectly certain that there are many

    1047
    things still that can be done in the East, and all those who are fully acquainted with this problem and whom I know certainly hold that view. One suggestion made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea was most valuable, and it was that we should add to the territory of Erivan. A year ago representatives of the Turks and the Greeks were over in this country discussing peace terms, and the suggestion was made by our Government that there should be an Armenian Home established in that country.
    I understand the intention was that a certain small part of territory, which had been formally inhabited by the Armenians and belonged to Turkey, should be added to the Erivan Republic, and the Armenian refugees should 'be encouraged to settle there. That could be done now, and it is probably the most hopeful way in which some measure of fulfilment could be given to the promises which the British Government and the French Government have so freely given to the Armenians. There are at present half a million Armenian refugees in the Caucasus waiting for some opportunity to get back to their homes, where they could live together and support themselves by their industry. I hope His Majesty's Government will encourage that proposal, which, it is reported, was made by France at the recent Conference in Paris, that a certain portion of territory should be added to the Erivan Republic, and if that is done a great deal towards a solution of this question will have been accomplished.
    It is very disturbing to find it reported in the same newspapers announcing the suggestion I have just referred to that our Government opposed this proposal which had been put forward by France. I hope, at any rate, that that is not true, and I trust the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs will be able to assure us that it is not true. I do not think we should take any objection on the ground that the Erivan Republic is under the influence of Russia: it has been under Russia for a very long time, and Russia is the only country that has ever given peace and protection to the Armenians. Since the Armistice we have done nothing, as a matter of fact, for the protection of these people. Russia has, at any rate, protected a large part of the Erivan Republic from the incursion of
    1048
    the Turks, and I think it would be a big step towards a general settlement in the East if this additional territory were given for the settlement of these refugees.
    On behalf of those who have taken an interest in the subject races of the East I say that we have never had any hostility to the Turkish people. Quite on the contrary, we desire to see a general appeasement which would be for the good of the Turkish people and for the good of the Russian people as well. Naturally we have to speak chiefly, and first and foremost for those whom we particularly represent.
    There are several practical suggestions besides the one with regard to adding territory to Erivan. Surely the Government intend to set up some special régime in the district round about Smyrna. I am not speaking for the Greeks. It is not my business to do so. But we know there are a very large number of Greeks there. There are also 60,000 or 80,000 Armenians in that particular area. What is to become of these people if the Kemalists come back, proud of their victory, and if there is no adequate protection for the subject people there. However much a few enlightened Turks may desire to prevent butcheries, it is impossible for them to do so.
    My hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was most unjustly charged just now with recriminations and with bringing up old scores, but it is absolutely necessary, until this matter is settled, to bear in mind the massacres that have been organised by the Central Turkish Government. Therefore, when the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert) spoke of massacres being endemic in the East, he was really confusing the House. Of course he was not doing it designedly, but there is all the difference in the world between sporadic cases on the one hand, and, on the other side, great organised massacres by a Central Government pretending to be civilised, as a result of which hundreds of thousands, and even a million, of its own subjects are the victims. When we find some practical settlement, and some effect given to the just claims of the subject peoples in the East, no one will be more glad than we to drop all reference to the past. But until that justice is done, it is necessary to keep in mind the basis

    1049
    of our claim, especially as I am afraid that the Governments of Europe are only too anxious to put these things out of sight in order that they may have an excuse for taking no action, or, at least, adopting the line of least resistance in these matters.
    One hon. Member in the Debate to-night said it was better not to set up an artificial zone in Cilicia. But it is not a question of artificial zones. Until the recent massacres there were 150,000 Armenians in that country, and nearly a hundred thousand of these, when the French retired and left the country, fled in terror before the advancing Turks. Now we hear talk of artificial zones. That was not the language addressed to Nubar Pasha, the leader of the Armenians, when he was risked to, and did, raise troops for the French on the definite promise of the French that they would see to it that the Armenians had a fulfilment of their national aspirations in Cilicia, where they and other Christians were the majority of the population. There are 100,000 people who have been driven out from that country and are wanting to come back now. A real practical suggestion, quite apart from all question of history and of recrimination is that they should be given some area within that country of their origin, where they can come back and settle and enjoy the necessary protection.
    I hope the League of Nations will be called in, not to make a settlement, but, after the Powers have made a settlement, to supervise carrying it out. It is not the business of the League of Nations to make a settlement. That is one of the debts of the War. It is for the Great Powers to make a settlement, and when that has been effected, it is better that a body like the League of Nations should supervise and see that the Turks carry out their promises, and, if necessary, see also that the Christian Powers which have a Mahommedan minority also carry out their promises. No one could object to that double supervision. It is far better that the League of Nations should undertake this supervision rather than that it should be nobody's business, and that the Powers of Europe should be rivalling one another in their jealousies, and should be playing one against another for the favour of the Turks. I hope we shall look to practical conclusions and
    1050
    to practical steps in these matters, and I trust that the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, when he conies to reply, will tell us it is not true that these practical suggestions have been thrown out, as has been suggested by some of the papers, by the Conference which has just taken place in Paris.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): Our discussions on foreign affairs are usually very difficult to deal with from my point of view. They are generally very discursive and travel over a wide and varied field, and very often deal with details in regard to which I cannot be expected to have exact knowledge at the tips of my fingers. I do not remember a Debate under more difficult circumstances than that of this afternoon. It opened with the speech of the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), dealing mainly with Genoa. We are to have a full dress Debate on that subject on this day next week. I understand a Resolution is to be tabled which, I suppose, will indicate the line of policy of the Government. If my right hon. Friend and the other speakers who have dealt with the question of Genoa will permit, I shall prefer to wait for the Resolution, and to hear what is to be said by the Prime Minister on Monday. It would hardly be suitable for a Minister in my junior position to butt in on a question of this magnitude when we are to have the Prime Minister addressing us over the whole area a week hence.
    The other main topic of our conversation this afternoon has put me in an even more difficult position. My hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) and the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. A. Williams) have both referred to the Conference in Paris, and have referred to it as if it were still continuing. As a matter of fact, the Conference in Paris came to an end last night, and my Noble Friend the Secretary of State is now on his way to London. I myself have no late official information as to what has taken place in Paris, and, owing to the fact that I have been obliged to be on this Bench all the afternoon, I have had scarcely more than enough time to glance at the evening papers, exceedingly well informed as they usually are, to see if they are exactly well informed on the subject which we are dis-

    1051
    cussing this evening. My hon. Friend must not take too forward a view of any decision arrived at in Paris. I am not in a position to affirm or deny any statement one way or the other as to what has been done or has not been done, and that makes it exceedingly difficult for me to discuss anything that has taken place.
    I should hope that there is something in the practical suggestion first made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) and endorsed by the hon. Member for Consett that a partial solution at all events of the very difficult question of Armenia will be found in the development of the Republic of Erivan. In that direction, possibly, some part of the problem—not of course the whole of it—may find a solution. This discussion has been animated by an intense spirit of criticism with regard to the Government and the Foreign Office. I do not think that is altogether fair. The Government, of course, is fair play for opposition from every quarter, and no Minister of experience objects to it, but when we are dealing with the alleged harsh terms of treaties, it seems to me to be universally ignored that we have never had, in regard to any one of these problems, the solution in our own hands. We have been partners with other great Powers in all these things, and so far as the Turkish Treaty is concerned, the House must be well aware, as it has been reminded by one speaker this afternoon, that at all events a considerable portion of the delay entailed in the settlement of the Turkish problem is due to the fact that the Allied Powers of Europe hoped when dealing with the immensities of the problem involved in the settlement of Turkey, that the matter would be taken in hand by the United States of America.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: That was in August, 1919.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am not prepared to put a date on it, but certainly that hope was very strongly entertained for very obvious reasons. Every Member of the House will agree with me that it would have been an enormous advantage in the settlement of many of these problems had it been possible for the great Republic in the West to take in hand the responsibility. I venture to
    1052
    think, myself, that very often, had our representatives had sole charge of the solution of some of these difficulties, they would have been solved on lines more agreeable to this House and to the people of this country. There were two specific points to which I must now refer. I was glad to observe that my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway) now takes a more lenient view of the passport system than originally he did. He has come to recognise, apparently, that, after all, the passport is only what he calls a certificated photograph, and I am not aware that any country yet has found it possible to do without some kind of passport in these difficult times. Those countries that have abolished passports have substituted another system, namely, that of cards of identity, which are precisely the same thing, are just as troublesome to secure, and do not carry quite the same sanction and authority. My hon. Friend has suggested that passports ought to last more than two years, and that really represents the whole weight of the charge that he brought against the system. I think, however, that a passport lasting two years, and costing, as it does, only 7s. 6d., cannot be regarded by anyone as really a serious charge. When we come to the question of visas, that is a subject which does not now fall within my particular Department. I confess, however, that, useful as I think the passport is at present, I shall rejoice when the whole system can be swept away. I regard it, as no doubt every other Member of the House does, as one of the minor obstructions to human intercourse and the reconstruction of the world.
    My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Cumberland (Major C. Lowther) returned to what is a very favourite topic with him, the question of the recognition of the Republic of Mexico. I would venture to disabuse his mind of one thing. I think it is rather our way in the House of Commons to suggest, first of all, that Governments are universally wicked, and, secondly, that Government Departments are entirely stupid and bureaucratic. My hon. and gallant Friend urged me to go outside the narrow Foreign Office circle in dealing with this question of Mexico. Who would suppose from that—my hon. and gallant Friend, perhaps, does not know it—that I have

    1053
    personally seen all these eminent persons whom he mentioned, and many others who are known to him, but whom he did not mention this afternoon? I think I have seen every principal partner in the eminent firm of Messrs. Pearson and Sons, together with other gentlemen coming to England from Mexico charged with full knowledge of that country; and I have given it out in the Foreign Office and elsewhere that I am only too glad to see anyone who comes from Mexico, and to talk with him about that country, which I believe has so magnificent a future. I would rather not talk about this any more. It is so difficult to say anything about a great country, inhabited by a proud and susceptible people—unless, indeed, one writes it out very carefully beforehand and ponders over it—that may not conceivably cause harm. My hon. and gallant Friend knows as well as any Member of the House, and the House generally knows, what are the reasons why at present our relations with Mexico are not as close and intimate as we should like them to be. May I leave it at that? I have great hopes that, as the result of the setting up of these Mixed Claims Commissions, the outstanding obstructions and difficulties will be removed, and there will be a fair prospect of coming to those better relations to which I look forward at least as ardently as my hon. and gallant Friend.
    Major LOWTHER: Without wishing to ask anything that is at all embarrassing, may I put to the hon. Gentleman this question? If it is possible to establish these Mixed Claims Commissions upon a basis satisfactory to His Majesty's Government, will that go a long way towards the renewal of friendly relations between the two countries?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: I must leave that to my hon. and gallant Friend's judgment. It certainly is a step in the right direction. If these Commissions are successful in removing those difficulties, if the just and valid claims that we have against Mexico are satisfactorily disposed of, obviously, that must constitute a step in the direction in which I desire to travel as much as does my hon. and gallant Friend. I do not think there is any specific point coming entirely within my province with which I have not dealt. I hope that, when next we discuss
    1054
    Foreign Office questions in this House, we shall all know exactly what has been done at Genoa, and certainly what has happened in Paris. I fervently trust, and I feel sure that there is every indication, so far as my information goes, that the Conference in Paris will be numbered among those conferences—some hon. Members may say they have been very few—which have been successful, following the great War.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: The hon. Gentleman complained that a great part of this Debate had turned upon criticism of the Foreign Office, but I do not think it will be denied that the Foreign Office has incurred a certain amount of criticism in this House. It has not shone during the last three years. There has been, on nearly every question, a degree of instability which argues the absence of any fixed principle, and also, I am afraid, the absence of that up-to-date information which is so essential to a successful foreign policy. I think that, if I had to criticise the Foreign Office on one particular point, I would say that they only read the newspapers of their own colour. Our representatives in the various Capitals of Europe naturally have the Press of the countries in question translated for them and "potted" ready for remission to England; but the information sent is far too often the information that suits their views and not the information that really reflects the bulk of the opinion of the country to which they are accredited. In the same way the Foreign Office here, while it knows its "Morning Post" and its "Times," has only recently discovered the "Manchester Guardian." I think it is only within the last year that the "Manchester Guardian" has been taken in, and, as everyone knows who keeps abreast of foreign news, the "Manchester Guardian" is undoubtedly the best informed of all our daily papers on foreign affairs. In that respect the Foreign Office might find itself more efficient in dealing with the problems that come before it. Indeed, a great deal of the criticism has not been criticism of the Foreign Office so much as criticism of the pseudo Foreign Office in the Garden City across the road. That is where most of the ground for criticism has been, and particularly in connection with the muddle of the Near East.

    1055
    As one who, fortunately, has through out taken the right line and has now been proved right—I have always said in this House that it was essential that Constantinople should be restored to Turkey and that Smyrna should be part of the Turkish Dominions, ever since the Debate began two and a half years ago—I should naturally like to point out to the Government that, although they have finally, as I believe, in these Paris terms, come down on the right side of the fence, yet their hesitation, which has been due very largely to their being incorrectly informed, during the last two and a half years, has done more than anything else in foreign affairs to shake the credit of the British Empire, not only in the Middle East but in the whole of the Far East as well. It is very lamentable that only now, under a particular form of pressure which I for one am very sorry to see, has the Foreign Office finally adopted the just solution of the Middle East question. It must not be thought that I and my friends have been advocating the restoration of Constantinople to Turkey, or the restoration to Turkey of that part of Thrace and that part of Asia Minor which is occupied by the Ottoman Turks—it must not be supposed that we have been asking for that, as the hon. and gallant Member for Melton (Sir C. Yate) has always asked for it, because it would soothe down the Moslems of India. Our object throughout in urging the settlement which I hope has now been arrived at has been that it is an eminently just settlement, and that our prestige and reputation depends, as an hon. Member has said already, not upon our Army, not upon our Air Force, but upon our traditional sense of justice, even to the under dog. If we had only done this two years ago, how much better would our reputation have been, how much better would our traditions be for the future.

    INDIA.
    I want to-day to say a word or two about the pressure that has been brought to bear from India to secure this solution at which the Noble Lord has arrived, and to which this country is, I hope, now committed. I have said that we on this side always wanted that solution, because we believed it to be the right solution. I think it is very unfortunate that we have given the impression now to the whole world that
    1056
    we have only taken up the position of justice to Turkey in deference to the pressure brought to bear by the Moslems of India. It is an example of feebleness which ought not to have been given. As a matter of fact—and I think that this ought to be said here in this House—people who have studied the question in India know perfectly well that you will not be able to soothe down Moslem opinion in India by giving way to the demands of the Khilafat agitation as regards the settlement of the Turkish question. The Khilafat agitation used the Turkish question, but it was; not the cause of the Moslem unrest in India. The Moslem unrest in India will continue. They will find some other excuse, and they will merely despise the British raj which has given way to them so obviously on the Turkish question—which has given way to pressure instead of accepting the just solution. We should not have convoyed this impression to the Moslems of India. I am certain that the founders of the Moslem agitation will not be mollified by your settlement of the Turkish question. Their attitude towards England remains now what it was before the Paris Conference. It is one of insistent hostility, and you cannot soothe down that hostility by accepting the telegram from the Viceroy or the theories of the bureaucracy in India. For the last three years every Anglo-Indian official in India has been begging this Government to accept the Moslem demands—the Khilafat demands—on the Turkish question. They have hoped that thereby they would be able to placate the Moslems. Let me assure the House that they will not thereby be able to placate them. The Moslems of India are committed to something far more tremendous than the settlement of a country which shares their faith, but in which otherwise they have no direct interest. They are out for their swaraj. They are out, I am afraid, in the case of the Moslems, with very frank hostility to this country, to get rid of the English control over India. I do not think you have improved the situation by giving way to the pressure, by accepting as gospel what has been stated in the Viceroy's despatch and advocated by Sir Wm. Vincent and others of the permanent officials in India.
    The fact of the matter is that India is becoming day by day a more dangerous

    1057
    problem for this Empire, and while I am very glad to see the Noble Lord opposite in charge of Indian questions, I do not pretend that the change which has been made in the conduct of the India Office has made things any easier in India or has thrown any more hopefulness into my attitude towards the Indian difficulty. I am afraid those of us who love India, and justice for India, and the development of real democracy in India, must say that the late Secretary of State was of all the Members of this House far and away the best fitted to hold that post, and that the substitution for him of the Noble Lord in the other place, who knows nothing of India and whose past has been reactionary in this House—I do not know what it has been in the other House—is not likely to bode good for India or for the tradition and reputation of this country. We have put our hands to the plough in India. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms are not a step which can be withdrawn. We have got to go on on those lines. You are pledged by the August declaration of 1017, honourably pledged to set India on the road to freedom and to work for Dominion Home Rule in India, not at once, but by stages. That has been our declaration. Our honour is bound up in it. I see the "Times" pointing out that the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms show signs of breaking down in practice, that the attitude of the Indian Legislature towards the Budget, towards the question of raising additional money for the Army in India, is an intransigeant attitude taken up through hostility to the British rule, and must make it more difficult to pursue the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and may lead us to reconsider the whole question of those reforms. That alone is lamentable. That alone will give grist to the mill of the non-co-operation movement in India. It will be used on platform, after platform as an illustration of what they are always throwing in our teeth, namely, British bad faith. They will say, "Here you see again. There was a promise of the British Government, and now a suggestion has already been made in unofficial quarters that the step should be reviewed, and the policy should be revised." That is not all. It is a matter of enormous pity that the very day that the Secretary of State, who loved India, resigned, there was notified in India the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi. Anybody who has closely studied the
    1058
    Indian question recently will know that the Government in India, Lord Beading's Government, was playing a very difficult game with extreme skill. For month after month they were urged by irresponsibles in this country to deal with the non-co-operation movement by force, to imprison the agitators, and to close down the agitation. Of course, you cannot close down an agitation by imprisonment. Lord Reading and his administration were dealing with the agitation on proper lines.
    The House should understand that the agitation in India is not an agitation solely against Western rule, but that it is an agitation against Western civilisation, and not merely against Western rule. Gandhi's agitation, if carried to its logical conclusion, means the abolition of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. It means the abolition of civilisation and the return to Tolstoyan institutions of the Middle Ages. As that agitation proceeded people in India who possessed a stake in the country became alarmed. As the agitation developed, in one case by means of the Moplah rebellion, where the Moslem murdered the Hindu, and in the next case by the massacre of the police in the United Provinces, more and more of the moderates said: "It is all right to be anti-English, but this is too serious." They became naturally reconciled to the Government as the excesses of the non-co-operation movement went on, and then, just as things were moving admirably, the disaster came. The Viceroy forced—I will not say how he was forced—to do exactly what Gandhi was playing for, imprisoned Gandhi. There is no lack of people in India who are prepared to go to gaol. You can fill every gaol in India five times over, voluntarily. That is what Gandhi did in South Africa. He filled the gaols in South Africa in order to break the Transvaal Government, but in South Africa the Indians were in a minority, and they did not succeed altogether. At any rate, they only succeeded partially. In India the Indians are in the majority, and if you once get it into the heads of people in India that the most patriotic thing that they can perform for their country is to go to gaol you will fill all the gaols.
    That is what is proceeding in India. The agitators have now been arrested, but the agitation goes on. There is no end to the repression, just as there is

    1059
    no end to the agitation. You have locked up Gandhi and given him six years' imprisonment. My friend Lajput Rai and every one of my friends in India are in gaol. It is, unfortunately, becoming almost the right thing for an Indian to be in gaol. That is a horrible thing. Instead of, as there was a chance three months ago, working through the Montague-Chelmsford reforms, and gradually getting the Indian people in favour of those reforms, and getting them out of the non-co-operation movement into cooperation and friendship with this country, the future there is black, and one does not know what is now to be done. I urge upon the Under-Secretary of State that he should take every possible measure to alleviate the lot of the political leaders who are in prison. It is all very well to imagine that an Indian prison is like an English prison. It is not. An Indian prison is more nearly an approach to hell than any prison in this country. Anybody who has read the reports of the Andaman and other Indian gaols will not consider that going to prison for conscience sake in India is to be compared with going to prison for conscience sake in this country.
    I do hope that the Michael Collins's of India are not being treated as felons, but are being treated as gentlemen. It may be necessary to put them in prison—I do not say anything about that—but let there be no indignity; let there be no unnecessary hardship. Let there be a deliberate distinction drawn for the first time in India between the political offender and the ordinary common felon. At present there is no distinction in regard to food, and there is no distinction in regard to quarters. The attitude of the administration towards the political offender is almost, one might think, one of vengeance. That will not do. It will not do for this country, and it will not do for our future relations with India. We have got to the imprisonment stage. These people have gone to prison, they have filled the gaols, but the agitation goes on. The next step has already been advocated from the benches, below the Gangway, and that is to muzzle the Press. The Press Act is to be repealed. You are now having an agitation to prevent the repeal of the Press Act. The Press is becoming daily more important in India. Its circulation is going up, and, what is
    1060
    far more important, the Press is being read in the agricultural villages, and is being used for agitation purposes among the cultivators and among the uneducated people in India as never before. Every stroke of policy which led you to lock up the agitators must drive you inevitably to proscribe the Press as well, and when you have proscribed the Press and when you have proscribed meetings, there comes the next stage, far more damnable than anything that has been gone through in the past, and that is, the stage of secret organisation and assassination. You will get to that just as you have got to the other stages.
    What is the future of the British Empire to be if we are going through all these stages? It will be worse than the Irish terror, because when you get a race war it is much worse than war between two white races. When you get to that the end is the same. You may hold on for a few years, but the end is the same contemptible surrender to force what you would not surrender to justice. That is what I want to avoid. The Noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State; for India is a Tory, but I think he agrees with me on nearly every subject of foreign and colonial affairs. I do put it to him that ho might attempt to use all his influence with his Noble Friend the Secretary of State to get something done that shall not be mere repression. Something can be done, and I am quite certain that what ought to be done is to give the pledge of a time limit for the granting of the next step in the reform scheme. The next scheme in the reform scheme is complete autonomy for the provinces and control over finance in the Legislative Assembly. They have control over finance in the Legislative Assembly now, not by law but by practice. The next best thing that can be done now is to insist on fresh elections both for the Legislature and for the Council.
    I believe that if fresh elections were held now that the non-co-operation movement, so far as the Councils were concerned, would break down. You have now already in the Councils, and in the Legislatures, the beginning of a regular Opposition. For the first time Indians are beginning to realise that acting through the Councils does not mean going into the Government, that it does not mean taking part in the governing

    1061
    machine, and that there is just as honourable service to be rendered in the Opposition as in the position of a right hon. Secretary or Minister. If fresh elections could be held now it would not be a repetition of 1920. You would get these people returned to the Councils, and taking part in those Councils as an Opposition, and as part of a democratic machine. Our fight now is to graft direct democracy upon India, and not to save for ever British administration in India. It is no good either giving any pledge for the future, or having new elections now, unless at the same time the non-co-operators dropped their non-co-operation. What I would do would be, though Gandhi is in prison, to approach him, now that the Khilafat business is out of the way, with a view to putting an end to non-co-operation, provided that he would be satisfied with a pledge as to when the next step will be taken to give complete Dominion Home Rule, coupled with an immediate opportunity of taking some part in the administration by having fresh elections to the Councils and to the Assembly. Though it is a risk, though unfortunately things may be so far embittered that there is no chance of any settlement by agreement, that is the best chance we have got of avoiding that Irish terror, which is the alternative as I see it to an amicable settlement of this problem.
    Two things are necessary if we look forward to a British Commonwealth in the future, of which a free India shall form a part. First of all complete self-government, complete Dominion Home Rule. Second, for, unfortunately, Dominion Home Rule is not enough, that all citizens of the British Empire, whether they be European or Indian, shall have equal rights throughout the British Commonwealth, because they will not stop inside the British Empire, if Indians are not treated as equals in the Empire. That is the obvious test that every patriotic Indian would apply. "Is it worth while being in the British Commonwealth? If we go into Kenya and are not treated as equals then, as soon as we get Dominion Home Rule we will take the next step and declare an Indian Republic." The only chance of keeping them in is to show that there is no colour bar, and that there are advantages in being a British citizen just as in the old
    1062
    Roman Empire there were advantages in being a Roman citizen. That can be done still, but is being blocked at present. The whole future of the British Empire is being endangered at present by the ridiculous prepossessions of a small band of settlers in Kenya. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for India likes those settlers. I know them myself and I like them, but you cannot have all these risks, you cannot have the prospect of ruling for the British Empire weighed in the balance against the prejudices of a handful of settlers. It is not good enough.
    Kenya is under our rule. It is a Crown Colony. The Legislature has a minority of elected members and a majority of nominated members, so that the Colonial Office, which means this House, can still dictate the policy of the administration of Kenya. We pass the laws and unfortunately we have got to force through the equality of citizenship in Kenya which was recognised by the Conference of Premiers last year as being the Magna Charta of our Commonwealth, and is only being resisted at present by the Colonial Office and by the local administration of Kenya. If the Noble Lord is going to play the game for the Indians he must put up against the Colonial Office as good a fight as the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Montagu) put up. It had become before he resigned a duel between the right hon. Gentleman and the Colonial Secretary, a duel in which the whole future of this Empire was the stakes. This is a small point, but it is typical of the struggle that has got to be settled one way or another. The late Secretary of State for India was not going to accept defeat. His attitude in the last resort was that this question of Kenya must be decided by the Cabinet and that he could not submit to defeat from the Colonial Office without the Cabinet deciding the matter. If he had been outvoted in the Cabinet, undoubtedly he would have resigned, and I hope that the present Secretary of State and the Noble Lord will fight the same good fight. It does not much matter whether they are consistent with their past. What does matter far more are the traditions of our Empire and the future of the amicable relations between India and England.
    Colonel Sir C. YATE: I listened to the address of the hon. Member with some astonishment. I suppose that it is the result of his visit to India when he went round for two or three months with his friend the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Spoor).
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: You were there about 50 years ago.
    Sir C. YATE: As we all know, the hon. Member was met by the principal agitators and non-co-operators in India, and he and the other hon. Member were led around India, like a couple of tame bears with strings in their noses, and whenever the string was pulled they had to cry, "Agitate, agitate" from one Congress meeting to another. That visit is the source of all the knowledge of India that the hon. Member has got. The hon. Member has told us that the non-co-operators and Ghandi's men are full of what he calls "insistent hostility" against the British Government. That I think is correct. They are out for getting rid of the British Government. If I were a Governor in India, and the hon. Member came into my province, he would be put in prison, and when I put a man in prison I never let him out unless he was impotent to do further mischief. He told us that we are pledged by the August, 1917, declaration. So we are. I am one of those who are most ardent advocates of self-government for India, but I am for the real and proper self-government—that is, a unified government. I have always been dead against that form of diarchy which was introduced by the late Secretary of State. Nothing was said in the declaration of August, 1917, about diarchy. That is an excrescence which was put on entirely by the late Secretary of State for India, and you will never get peace in India until that form of divided government, which has never been tried before in any part of the world, has been eradicated. In India, as in every other country, you must have one undivided Government. You cannot have a divided Government.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Have it in Ireland too!
    Sir C. YATE: The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) draws a distinction between political prisoners and other prisoners. It is absolutely necessary for the Government of India to insist that the man who in-
    1064
    cites men to rebellion should get exactly the same punishment as, if not greater punishment than, his unfortunate dupes who carry out his incitement. The hon. Member instanced the case at Chauri-Chara, when some 20 policemen were captured by a mob, who stripped them, poured oil on them, and burned them alive. Do you mean to say that a man who incites to horrors of this sort should not get the same punishment as the man who carries them out?
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Gandhi always urged only passive resistance.
    Sir C. YATE: All right. Then let him be stripped and oil put on him, just as was done to these men, and then you will stop this non-co-operation immediately. The hon. Member also referred to the Press cuts. There is no country in the world where the vilification of servants of the Government, British and Indian, has gone on to such an extent. It has developed in the last two or three years to an extent which is beyond the knowledge almost of everyone in England. I urge the Secretary of State to see to it that the Government of India secures full power to stop this vilification and persecution, especially in the vernacular Press. The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme also spoke about an Indian Republic. He said that unless we did exactly what he suggested there would be a declaration of an Indian Republic. Good Heavens! Could an Indian Republic last for a day? Suppose a Republic were declared to-morrow. Were the protection of the British Fleet taken away would not the whole of India be opened to attack by everyone, whether from East or West? You would have the whole of the Punjab swept by an Afghan army and by the frontier tribes, who would come down in their hundreds of thousands, and sweep aside Sikhs and Hindus and everyone else. You would have Bengal and the United Provinces overrun by the Nepalese, who would take the whole country from Calcutta right up to Delhi, or wherever they met the Afghans. Yet here you have the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme urging that there should be an Indian Republic!
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I did not urge anything of the sort.
    Sir C. YATE: Then there was the question of the Indians in Kenya. The

    1065
    only interest of the Indians in East Africa was that a few of their merchants had been on the coast there for a few years. The English opened up East Africa, and they have done everything there. When the British Government took Uganda and made the railways the Indians went there. These are the man who are now agitating. Why? Because they are put up to it by the non-co-operators in India. The whole movement apparently is organised from India. The Indians in Kenya are artisans, coolies, labourers on the railways, and men of that sort. They are none of them men of standing compared with the English settlers in the uplands. If the English settlers can live in the uplands, why should they not be allowed to do so without disturbance from Indians of an altogether different class? There are two sides to the Kenya question. To-day we have heard far too much of the Indian side and not nearly enough of the British side.
    An hon. Member spoke of the settlement of the Turkish question as necessary. I am one of those who from the start urged a speedy settlement with Turkey. I join entirely with what was said by the hon. Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) as to the disastrous result of delay in that settlement. Had we only made a settlement at the end of the War we could have had any terms we liked. I think that the Prime Minister's pledge that we should not interfere with the Homelands of Turkey either in Anatolia or Eastern Thrace ought to be carried out. I hope that something of that kind has been arranged in Paris. I think Constantinople should be retained as the capital of an independent Turkey, but an arrangement of that sort is absolutely impossible so long as the boundary of Turkey is fixed at the Tchatalja lines. They are only a few miles from Constantinople, and no capital of any independent State can possibly exist if it is within range of the field guns of an enemy. I hope we shall see the question of Eastern Thrace and Anatolia amicably settled.
    The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) referred to the question of the Indian Moslems and the way in which they looked at this settlement. He spoke of the disastrous consequences of turning
    1066
    the Greeks out of Smyrna. I would draw attention to the disastrous consequences that may arise if the Greeks are allowed to remain in Smyrna. One thing that the hon. Member said had a certain amount of truth in it. He said that the Indian Mahommedans a few years ago paid no attention to this question. A few years back the Indian Mahommedans—I mean the Hindustani Mahommedans, the Mahommedans of the Punjab, the United provinces and Bengal—knew little and cared little about Constantinople and the Khilafat question. The only people to whom the question of the Sultanate of Turkey and the Khilafat was of real importance, and to them it was the very essence of their religion, were the Afghans and Pathans, roughly the people who live to the west of the river Indus. They were fanatics on the question, and nothing could drive out of them their ideas about it. Allowance should have been made for that. If the Government had had knowledge of it I do not think they would have made the Treaty of Sevres in the way they did. I certainly hope that the question will now be fully considered. We must remember, as regards the Indian Mahommedans, that although they knew little about the Sultan or the Khilafat a few years ago, a great change has come of late years. The Punjab and Hindustani Mahommedans fought against the Turks in Palestine without questioning, but since then they have been influenced by the friends of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, the Ali brothers and Gandhi, and all these men in India. It is right to say that this agitation is not a bonâ fide agitation.
    This Khilafat agitation now going on in India is a trumped up agitation to carry out the seditious measures of the Ali brothers and Gandhi and others. We all know what terrible destitution was caused by the agitation which impressed on the poor and unfortunate Mahommedans of India that it was illegal and against their religion for them to live in a country governed by a non-Mahommedan power. By that agitation thousands of them were induced to emigrate so as to live under a Mahommedan Amir in Afghanistan. There they suffered great hardships, many of them died, and such of them as found their way back to India had to be provided with agricultural implements and estab-

    1067
    lished in new homes by the Government they had so foolishly left. The Ali brothers had to be interned during the War because they had been in correspondence with Germans and enemies of the Allies. The pity of it was that they were ever let out. All the Indian Mahommedans are being excited now by their agitation. I trust that when the agitation is taken in hand and appropriately strong measures are enforced in India, and when men who are imprisoned one day are not liberated the next day, this agitation will be brought to an end. I trust that the Secretary of State for India and the Under-Secretary will see to it that what has been called by an Indian member of the India Council the culpable weakness of Lord Chelmsford and Lord Reading is ended, and that we shall now have no more criminal weakness, but a strong and definite policy in India.
    Mr. SUGDEN: To-night I want to place before the House the viewpoint, not of the hon. and gallant Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), who adorns the Front Opposition Bench—and I say that quite sincerely—but rather the viewpoint of India's place in the Empire, because, whilst we hear frequently and much from the hon. and gallant Gentleman and those who support him of our place in regard to India, I suggest we have an equal right to claim from India a recognition of her place in the Empire, of her responsibilities and of her duties, both to the remainder of the sister nations, and to the mother nation. It is with very great pride that one can say here to-night that when, in 1919, the Government of India Act was enacted the whole of the Lancashire Members supported that Measure. We have heard from many quarters in this House that Lancashire has a selfish viewpoint concerning her relationship with India. I should like hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who hold that view to study very carefully the history of the County Palatine for the last 300 years in its relation with India, and I challenge any one of them to put their finger on a definite and major instance of selfishness in respect of our arrangements with the great Empire of India. The time has come when it is right and proper that the relations between the County Palatine
    1068
    and India should be carefully reviewed and considered, and the bearing of the one upon the other looked into.
    Keeping in mind in what fashion the 1919 Government of India Act has worked, I would call the attention of every thoughtful Member of the House to the procedure which is now obtaining. I am perfectly cognisant of the fact that the new 1922–23 taxes which it was suggested should be increased not only on Lancashire goods, but on other manufactures of this country, have been eliminated, but I am under no misapprehension concerning the reason, purpose and cause for that. It is definitely for the purpose of weakening the Gandhi power and also to resist any step, whether military or other type, which the Government may find requisite in India. It is from that standpoint, and not from any generous consideration, that this elimination of extra taxation has been accepted by the governing classes of India. What are the Empire obligations resting upon India? Very right and proper is it that she should call on us to give her full opportunity, but I wish to remind hon. and right hon. Members that, when we are dealing with the problem of India, we are dealing with one of the greatest racial and religious problems which the world contains. I have some little general knowledge of the Irish problem, and I know that it has been a grave and serious problem. But the Irish problem pales into insignificance when we consider all the questions of caste and of religion and all the different viewpoints of Orientalism which obtain in the great Empire of India. It is worth our while to consider the fact that of 237,000,000 population in India, only 187,000 have voted. We must remember that its Government has been formed by a Western type of book-learned lawyer and journalist, and that the well-being and the future of India are in the hands of certain minor numerically interested sections of the community in India. When we consider all these matters, we see that it is indeed a great and far-reaching problem to which the House will do well to devote its closest attention.
    9.0 P.M.
    What is the bearing of the Indian question upon this country? I want to say first that we have a financial stake and responsibility in regard to India. We have provided her with, and she owes us at the present moment, £187,000,000, which

    1069
    we have supplied to her at a lower price than money at which we have supplied some of our own county boroughs and urban districts. Last year we provided for her (at a lower rate of interest than we charged local authorities in Lancashire) £7,500,000 in respect of irrigation, railways, posts, telegraphs and some other departments of Indian governmental activities. That to my mind calls for definite, careful and sympathetic consideration on the part of the Indian people for their fellow-workers in this country. The India Office too has a right to consider the position of these my Lancashire people to whom they owe some responsibility. May I take this opportunity of congratulating the Government on the choice of their representative in this House as the Under-Secretary of State for India? Frequently some of us have held views differentiated from those of my Noble and gallant Friend, but to my mind the Government have done well in choosing him for this position. Few men have so wide and cosmopolitan an outlook as the Noble Lord (Earl Winterton). I compliment the Government on the fact that in the other House also they have one who understands the Lancashire point of view, one who ably represented in this House a Lancashire constituency, and who knows something of Lancashire's trade and industry (Viscount Peel).
    When that is said, however, I should like to press home with great definiteness upon both these Noble Gentlemen the fact that up to the present the Government, whilst they have given helpful support to the employés of Lancashire, as regards raw materials, cotton growing within the Empire and in Egypt can still do much in respect of general work and labour by giving fair play in respect of markets for our cotton goods in India. The House must remember that we provide one-fifth of the taxation of this country. Lancashire finds one-fifth of the finances required in the governing of Great Britain. It is the industrial classes, more than the agricultural classes, who have to find that whereby the Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to finance the Government of the country. It is only right and proper that the labouring classes and the employés in India therefore (for England accepts the cost of Imperial protection and some other charges in respect of India) should remember Lancashire's position
    1070
    and should give permissibility of life (for that is what it amounts to) to that great industry, the cotton trade of Lancashire. Let them give us in Lancashire the opportunity of earning our living, and we will continue to stand just where we stand now in relation to these problems of taxation. I am not here to say that the Indian worker is definitely antagonistic to the Lancashire workman. I know the Indian worker has sympathy towards his Lancashire fellow worker, and if the Government of India Act is given its full opportunity, if it is so enfranchised that the worker himself (not just a few of them) protected from the paid agitator can give expression to his views, concerning taxation and other matters, he will see that his brothers and sisters in Lancashire should have a fair opportunity to benefit by the output of their industry.
    What is obtaining at the present time? We find that a certain wealthy section are utilising their immense power in respect to taxation in India to suit their own particular purposes and ends. It may be said that not very many years ago the Lancashire millowners made profits, but those profits pale into insignificance compared with those which have been made by certain Bombay cotton operators, some American operators, and other German operators in India during the last six months, and that, forsooth, against the wellbeing and will of the majority of the people in India. In the preamble of the Government of India Act, 1919, I find this phrase:
    "It shall be gradual development of self-governing institutions."
    I, and those who support me, say "Amen" to the whole of that. We desire to give the fullest opportunity, the greatest democratisation that is possible to India, but we do say that if you are placing in the hands of ignorant children—as I suggest these poor illiterate Hindus and Indians are—sharp-edged tools, not only are they going to do injury to themselves, but they are going to place in jeopardy the very Empire itself. It is further stated in the preamble to the 1919 Act that "progress can only be achieved by successive stages." My advice to the Noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for India is that we should make haste slowly, that if power can be given and used, as it has been used, illegitimately, for example,

    1071
    the non-co-operation movement, which has spread through the use of ill-conceived and ill-considered opportunities illegitimately used, when we remember that our products and cloth are being burned in the very centres of the cities, boycott (under threat) of our products, when we see deliberate disloyalty offered to the noble son of our great King, who, with a courage which he instanced in France, has visited his people in India, then I say we call "Time," and call the attention of this House to the great problem that lies before us asking for their support, not only for Lancashire, but for the Empire. I call to the mind of the House the fact that a certain section of Lancashire is suffering as a result of an illegitimate power which has been used under that Act in India, I call attention also to the fact that there are sister trades—coal, machinery, engineering and transport trades—all interlinked with the great cotton trade also are suffering. I therefore suggest that we should very carefully consider how we can protect the 97½ per cent. of illiteracy in India from being used by a small vested interest against their will and well-being and against the Imperial right of protection of English workers.
    Before the War Germany was the eighth in point of the trade status in India, but to-day she is one of the greatest traders there. I want us to remember also that America in those days occupied a very insignificant position in respect to industry in India, to-day however she comes second only to Germany: whilst England, which carries the responsibility, both financial and Imperial, of the protection of India, takes quite a back place in respect to industry and supplies to India. I agree the Government of India has to be carried on, and that her Budget has to be met, but for the last four years she has not faced the position, she has not given full opportunity in respect of her Budget; she has in fact always budgetted for a deficit. She has taxed her poor people, and left that small wealthy American and Indian section, to which I have already referred, almost entirely alone. At any rate the rates of burden carried by the Hindu employee and by the Bombay millowners has not been equitable. The time has come when there should be a reconsideration of
    1072
    their status in respect of these matters, and whereas in the past these poor Hindoos and Indians have been taxed, there should be relief given to them, and whereas the manufacturers and men in industry in this country have paid Super-tax, a 6s. Income Tax, Excess Profits Duty, and Corporation Profits Tax, in India the tax against these great millowners has sometimes been only one-seventh what it is in this country; there should also be a near proportion of relative taxation between the cotton manufacturers of both countries. When I tell the House that they pay their employés often one-tenth of what we pay our employés, when I inform you that our employés have far better opportunities in respect to education, training and welfare care than their employés have, I say the House must accept its own Imperial responsibility, not only to India, but also to the County Palatine and to all our own country as well. What are the financial calls of India? First, she wants us to finance some of her wars; secondly, she expects us to subsidise her railways, which never have paid, because, although the passenger fares have been raised to the travelling public, the great millowners have not had a single penny put on their freightage on the Indian railways. I suggest that the Home Government must accept responsibility for these matters, and that if these poor illiterate people of India are not able to protect themselves against the exploitations of American, German, and Bombay millowners, it is only right that we in this country should give them definite guidance and protect them through the Secretary of State for India.
    If I am asked how we propose to deal with the trading relationship between this country and India, I reply all we ask is that Imperial preference in respect to taxation be given to us and cease to be given to Egypt, Germany, and other countries which are disloyal in competition to us in certain sections of trade, and whose employés are paid less wages and have a lesser standard of comfort than is the case in Lancashire. We ask for the same treatment as Canada gives to us—the Empire Nation favourable tariff. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme tells us that India should have a Dominion status, I ask him to balance and compare the type of education in some of

    1073
    our self-governing countries and in India. I do not mean book-learning, but I mean the status and position and character of the people of these great Colonies, as compared with these poor illiterate Indian natives, many of whom do not even know the very rudiments and elements of civilisation. If we Lancashire people are to carry the taxation and financial responsibility which we do to-day, if our relationships are to be as they should be, as worker to worker, Indian to Lancastrian, with opportunity for all, we have a right to call for protection for these people, and while some hon. Members may suggest that this is only a class interest, I strongly deny such assertion and repeat that for over 300 years the people of Lancashire have supported the growth of democratisation in India. We ask for Imperial preference, for complete opportunities of trading one with the other, for a revision of the system of taxation so there can be that view-point given which is vital and essential for improving the burden we now carry in respect to the handicap of cotton duties, and which has so important a bearing in respect to prices, we claim to be considered as loyally and as patriotically, and with as much care as at least you consider the workers in India. I ask the Noble Lord to consider these methods and to adumbrate, remedies whereby the progress of the 1919 Government of India Act may proceed, but proceed on right lines, which shall give full opportunities for the majority of the people there, and also give a place and position in the great centres of industry and work for this nation.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENT1NCK: I do not rise to put before the Government the particular Lancashire point of view with respect to the Indian cotton duties, although I deeply sympathise with the Lancashire operatives, except to say that I cannot help feeling the only way to a solution of their troubles is for the Government to realise that there is a very close connection between economic prosperity and political sentiment. Really, at the bottom of their troubles is the existing discontent in India. I cannot help feeling, with all due respect to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Melton (Sir C. Yate), that this question is not to be solved by any of the methods which are so dear to his heart, by marchings and counter-marchings of troops, by
    1074
    arrests and imprisonment, or by scolding or any display of petulant autocracy. This question can only be solved in the same way as any other political question can be solved in any country, whether inside or outside the British Empire, that is, by sympathy and understanding, by securing the co-operation of the Indian people themselves with your Government, identifying your Government with the aspirations, both political and economic, of the people, and satisfying their great longing for an improvement in their own social conditions, and in the standard of their lives. After all, I cannot help thinking that the basis of the discontent in India is the same as in this country. It is entirely economic. We are dissatisfied with our Government, because we feel that they are squandering our money in armaments—squandering money, which otherwise might remain in our pockets, might be improving the trade of the country, or be expended in social improvements of the people.
    So far as I can gather, the Indians have exactly the same feeling, with this difference that here the anti-wasters and economists are patted on the back by our Press, whereas in India the economists, when they are taking the, only constitutional way of expressing their dissatisfaction, are accused of a refusal to co-operate with the Government of India, and of displaying what Lord Castlereagh once alluded to as "an ignorant impatience of taxation." The chief duty we have to follow, it seems to me, at the present time in India, is to see ourselves as the Indians sec us. The position which we are up against is that we are ruling a people who, as the hon. Member has said, are not ignorant people, but a people who have made an uncommon advance in political consciousness, and who are extremely acute and extremely clever, and, what is more, extremely sceptical of our methods, and of our claims to a monopoly of political wisdom. They ask these questions, which no doubt are answered, but which I, ignorant person as I am, find it very difficult to answer. They ask us, for instance: "Why is it, if you have a monopoly of political wisdom, you spend 40 per cent. of our Revenue on the Army, whereas you only spend 1 per cent. on our education? How is it that three villages out of four are without any schools at all, and how is it that one boy

    1075
    in three in India is illiterate, and one girl in fifteen? And if our agriculture in India is backward and in a hopelessly antiquated state, how is it you spend so little upon our agricultural education? After all, you send flying columns into the country districts in order to cure the discontent. Would it not be better to get to the bottom of that discontent, and alter the land system, which, in the United Province of Agra, is really a scandal to civilization? If you are such financial experts, why do you allow the rich mill-owner to remain almost entirely untaxed, while you raise the great bulk of your revenue from the ryots, who have the greatest difficulty in keeping body and soul together?" It is all very well to imprison Gandhi—and here I am perfectly in accord with the Government; I think they had to imprison Gandhi—but, after all, what we have to understand is that there are in India all the elements that make for discontented people, and very few of the elements that make for contented people.
    You are in a vicious circle in India. The more you spend on the Army, the more discontent there is among the people, and the more discontent you have among the people the more you have got to spend on the Army. The only way of breaking out of this vicious circle is somehow to diminish the political discontent among the people. The only way to do that is to secure their co-operation in raising their standard of life, and realising their political aspirations, and, what is more, giving them more responsibility in doing it, getting bureaucracy and the Army off their backs, and, therefore, having more money to spend on the social improvement of the people. My hon. Friend has alluded to the reform scheme. The reform scheme is a very good scheme, so far as it goes, and I hold that the late Secretary of State deserves a very good mark for the energy and ability which he displayed in getting a real scheme accepted by this rather reactionary House of Commons. But it is absurd to uphold it as a perfect work of man, so perfect as to make it almost sacrilege to alter or criticise it. The reform scheme, like every new piece of machinery, wants overhauling, and the quicker you overhaul it the better. Is it not evident now that it has led to a great increase of your bureaucracy, and a great increase
    1076
    in the cost of your bureaucracy? Even Lord Sydenham, in to-day's "Times," agrees. Your Provincial Councils, although they are ostensibly given the power of developing education and sanitation, in reality do not get that power, because three-fourths of the provincial revenues are taken by the Government of India for military purposes.
    My hon. Friend below me has advocated the grant of a complete provincial autonomy at once. If the Government cannot see its way to altering by legislation the Indian reform scheme, would it not be possible now that the political situation in India is a little easier to make a sort of gesture of reconciliation, and to say to the Indian people, "Your reform scheme is a good scheme, but it may possibly want overhauling. We will send out a Commission at once to ascertain what is required." I am perfectly certain that the only way to kill non-co-operation is to get by every means in your power a greater measure of cooperation with you on the part of the India people. I have noticed lately a tendency to rate and scold the moderates for not taking a more active part. The late Secretary of State has indulged in that also. That sort of thing is futile. If you seek the co-operation of the moderates they will rally round you whenever you make it worth their while to rally to your side. The true method of getting better conditions and understanding in India, as well as greater loyalty, is to give the moderates an opportunity, as you are doing in Ireland, of seeing that there is a better means of realising their political aspirations than by political force and political violence. I was discussing this the other day with an Indian gentleman who was, I am bound to say, a great extremist, and I was horrified at the hatred he displayed of the English rule and of England generally. He was bound to confess, however, that if we gave the Indian people the power to diminish the cost of the Army and to develop education and sanitation, the Indian people generally would have very little cause of complaint against the British Government. That, I think, would be the key to the whole solution. As my hon. and gallant Friend said, let us rely in India, as we have relied elsewhere in the Empire, on liberty and self-government, and let us make it patent to the world and to

    1077
    Indians that we do really believe in liberty and self-government wherever the British flag flies.
    Mr. ALFRED DAVIES: I find myself in a very difficult position, because, first of all, I would not in any circumstances subscribe to interference with the Government of another country, and, secondly, I realise the importance of bringing such moral influence to bear upon the Indian Government as will show some regard for a considerable section of the people with whom I am closely associated. The hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) in the course of his observations made use of the statement that Gandhi was out for the abolition of Western civilisation. That may or may not be true. If it is his point of view that Western civilisation is undesirable in India, and if that point of view is endorsed by the whole of the Indian people, or by the majority of the Indian people, then I say that point of view ought to be accepted and endorsed by every advocate of democracy. There is, however, one thing certain, and that is that the activities of Gandhi, whether they tend towards the abolition of Western civilisation or not, certainly tend towards the abolition of the Lancashire cotton industry. I believe that attitude and agitation of his is largely due to the lack of foresight of our own Government. In 1917, when the Indian Imports Duties were being discussed in this House, the Prime Minister said:
    "At the same time we declare the opinion that such changes as are proposed in the Indian Budget in the system of Indian Cotton Duties shall be considered afresh when the fiscal relationship of the various parts of the Empire to one another and the rest of the world comes to be reviewed as a whole after the War."
    We look forward to a review of the fiscal relationships of the Empire at the earliest possible moment so that the anomaly of wealthy Bombay manufacturers accumulating wealth from the enhanced price of commodities which the common Indian people are too poor to purchase will be done away with. We are looking forward to a time when a review of these conditions can take place with a view to making it possible by influence and persuasion to get a greater access of Lancashire cotton goods into India on a fairer and more equitable basis.
    It has been argued in the course of many Debates in this House that the
    1078
    principal reason why wages are to come down in nearly all industries is competition. In regard to the Lancashire cotton trade, however, competition is practically negligible. If you take America, it can create little more than its own requirements. If you take Japan and compare it with the wonderful productive capacity of Lancashire, you will find that is negligible. Therefore the argument of competition reducing wages is not applicable to Lancashire, and yet we have at the present moment a demand on the part of employers, or a threatened application, of a reduction in wages to the extent of 70 per cent. We attribute this position in which the Lancashire cotton operative finds himself to the impotence of the Government in not taking steps at an earlier date for the purpose of bringing about a review of the fiscal relationships of the different parts of the Empire. It is therefore with some concern that we approach the Under-Secretary of State for India and ask him to use such influence as he can with the Indian Government to persuade them to view this thing, not from the standpoint of either one particular wealthy section in India or wealthy section in Lancashire, but from the standpoint of the common people of India itself. After all, we are being told time, after time that the reason why persons in other countries cannot purchase our goods is on account of their depleted purchasing power. Yet we permitted, we have allowed, to enter into the relationship between this country and India a system of taxation which enhances the price. Yet it is said that people are to buy at the price which obtained at the time the tariff was imposed. While my knowledge of racial relationships and castes that operate in India is, relatively speaking, infinitesimal, I do know that the economic aspiration of all men and all women in all lands is to be in such a position that they can live in something like decency and comfort. I am prepared to assert, and I believe I can prove it up to the bilt, that wherever tariffs are imposed they are of no benefit to the country that imposes them or to those upon whom they are imposed. I do hope this question of the Indian Import Duties will receive more consideration in the near future than it has done in the past.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): May I point out that both my Noble Friend the Secretary of State in another place and I in this House represent, not merely a great Department, but the Government of India, which as a result of the powers willingly accorded them by the Government and Parliament of this country, are performing most important new duties They have, admittedly, been passing through a period of stress and strain as great as that with which any Government in any country is faced. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), whom I thank for his particular references to myself, made a reference, which I regret, to my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for India. He said that the change in the Secretaryship of State would not make the position in India any easier; and he then went on to speak of possible reactionary tendencies. I think it is most desirable that at the very outset of my speech that I should clearly assure the House, which I have the greatest pleasure in doing—though I think it is hardly necessary—that the appointment of my Noble Friend the Secretary of State does not involve any change in the policy of the Government, and that, as before, the Government and the Secretary of State will carry out in the spirit and the letter the policy laid down in the Government of India Act, 1919. Speaking for myself—merely because I represent the Secretary of State in this House—I would call the attention of the House to the fact that I spoke and voted in favour of the Act of 1919 at every one of its stages through this House, and, so far as a private Member could be, was identified with its policy by voice and vote.
    A very interesting speech was made by the hon. and gallant Member as to the position of the Governments in India, a speech with which in many parts I am not in great disagreement. He spoke 'of the arrest of Mr. Gandhi and other prominent people in India whom the Indian Government have thought it right to arrest, and he made a lengthy and theoretical statement on the duty of the Indian or any other Government when dealing with agitation. I think this matter may be best summed up by saying that the Government of India, like every other Government at the present time, and in the past, were obliged, in the
    1080
    exercise of their ordinary duties of authority and obligation both to India and to this country, to carry out the arrest of certain people. Every Government has primary duties which it is bound to perform, and while it is regrettable that in carrying out these duties there is sometimes involved the arrest of people whom one would wish in happier circumstances had co-operated with the Government, it is the duty of any Government which feels it ought to take certain steps to take them. My hon. and gallant Friend said he hoped I would be able to say something as to the action of the Government in this and other matters. I can assure him that any Secretary of State standing at this Box would say exactly what I am about to say, and that is that everyone connected with the Government of India, either in India itself or at the India Office in this country is anxious, as I have already said, to see the spirit and the letter of the Act of 1919 carried out by mutual good will on both sides and with as little as possible of what my hon. and gallant Friend opposite called repression. He then went on to say that in his opinion the best way of dealing with these matters, as I understood him—and I listened very carefully—was that we should buy off the opposition to the Government of India by giving a pledge that if certain people would abstain from opposition, we would immediately advance another step on the road to self-government. I, of course, could give no such pledge without consultation with the Secretary of State, but I cannot avoid saying that the suggestion was the least useful that could be made in the circumstances. Nor do I think that the primary duties of the Government in any country could be carried out by giving a pledge to agitation of that kind.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: In order to bring the agitation to an end!
    Earl WINTERTON: That is exactly the same thing: "buy off the agitation." I recognise fully that my hon. and gallant Friend is as anxious as any Member in the House to see the best done both for the interests of India and of the whole Empire. But I cannot think that the plan suggested is either a possible one that any Government could adopt, or that it would continue to receive the support of a large section of opinion in this country

    1081
    if it did adopt it. My hon. and gallant Friend made reference to what is admittedly the very difficult question of the position of the Indians in Kenya. I shall, of course, represent his views to the Secretary of State, but I can assure him that this question is engaging—and necessarily must engage—close attention. I do not think either the interests of India or of the Kenya Colony would be served by my making any statement on this matter at this stage. Quite obviously, it is a question which, from the point of view of India, of this country, and of the Indians in Colonies overseas, other than Kenya, is most acutely felt, and on which I hope sooner or later—I do not myself think it is outside the bounds of probability—sooner or later there may be an agreed solution. I speak unofficially. But looking at the question from several points of view, and from my own knowledge of Africa, I think there will be at some time or other an agreed solution. In order to arrive at that, it is very necessary at this stage that matters should be conducted carefully, and nothing done to interfere with the attempt to arrive at a solution.
    Before I turn to the speech of two hon. Members representing Lancashire constituencies about cotton duties, I should just like to make one reference to the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck). I was sorry to hear some of it, and I make mention of this because it will get copied into the Indian papers and go out as the views of Members of this House. The Noble Lord, speaking with the authority which appertains to a Member of this House, said that all the elements in India make for a discontented people and very few for a contented people. I can only say that I am very sorry that an Englishman with the advantage of the education and general knowledge possessed by the Noble Lord should have so described the work of thousands of his fellow countrymen, and so signally failed to realise that the work of the British soldiers and civil servants on India is not only a monument of national unselfishness, but a monument of national efficiency as well.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Did I ever say it was not? I said there
    1082
    are many elements of discontent in India and many causes for discontent.
    Earl WINTERTON: The Noble Lord said there were all the elements which made for discontent and few for contentment. Speaking, as he does, with the authority of a Member of this House and with the position he fills, I say that his statement is not one which should be allowed to go without contradiction. I now turn to the speech made by the hon. Member for Royton (Mr. Sugden). Those who have spoken in this Debate for Lancashire have put their case for the abolition of the cotton duty with great moderation and force, although I must say I do not agree with all then-arguments. The hon. Member for Royton began his speech by regretting that there had been in the past accusations of selfishness in this matter against Lancashire Members, and they had been told that all they cared for was the interests of Lancashire. All I wish to say is that such an accusation has never been made by me, and, so far as I know, I do not think they have been made by the late Secretary for India, or by my Noble Friend in another place. I know the late Secretary for India has not made any such accusations, because I read recently the reply which he made to the deputation of which my hon. and gallant Friend was a Member about a year ago. Then my hon. Friend went on to use an argument, which I might describe as a sub-argument, because- it was not his main contention, and pointed out that India was able to obtain money in this country more cheaply than many of the English counties or boroughs. That is quite true, but he should have explained that that money is subscribed by public loan in this country, and if the people here subscribed so readily to those loans I think that is a tribute to the financial soundness of India. It is not a very sound argument to say that, because India is able to raise money more cheaply here than some English boroughs or counties, that that involves an obligation on India to make certain alterations in her tariffs. I think the hon. and gallant Member is stretching his example of financial soundness a long way in order to apply it to his argument. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Waddington) is not present, because I observe that he has been addressing some arguments to his

    1083
    constituents on the subject of these duties, which are based on a false premise to which I shall refer in a moment. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Royton spoke of leading the poor illiterate natives of India into better paths.
    Mr. SUGDEN: I pleaded that they should be educated to give us that Imperial preference which I believe they will in regard to tax.
    Earl WINTERTON: Surely my description was accurate that they should be led into better paths. I notice that the hon. Member opposite was somewhat restless when this reference was made in relation to a cause which he has always so valiantly championed in this House, but I will return to the argument that was used by the hon. Member for Rossendale the other day. Addressing his constituents, he said that the Government had power under the rules made under Section 33 of the Government of India Act, which deals with the powers, superintendence, and direction of the Secretary of State in Council, to safeguard Imperial interests against action taken by the Indian Government. I wish to point out that Section 33 of the Act refers to transferred subjects and not to central subjects such as these duties are, which is a most important distinction. I regret the hon. Member is not here, because he based his argument for interference by the Government on the powers they possessed under these rules.
    Let me now come back to the speech of the hon. Member for Royton opposite. His accusation is that the Government of India ought to have raised this money by other means than by suggesting an increase in the cotton duties. I can answer that point very shortly. In the first place, he said that their taxation is protective. It is perfectly true, and we do not deny the fact that the taxation proposed is protective, but I wish to point out that it has not been settled yet, and there is a fiscal Commission sitting at the present time inquiring into this subject.
    Mr. SUGDEN: Is it not a fact that we have no representation on that fiscal inquiry, and is it not also a fact that the two practical Lancashire men, who could
    1084
    have been sent over, will not get that representation we desire, and there will only be Indian representation?
    Earl WINTERTON: That is most emphatically not the case; there is no more reason why the particular interest of this country should have representation in regard to this matter than there would be for India to have representation on a Royal Commission appointed to deal with factories in Lancashire. But, of course, the representatives of the Lancashire cotton interests will have an opportunity to give evidence before the Commission. This is a very important matter, and if my hon. and gallant Friend can point out to me that there has been any difficulty put in the way of the representatives of the Manchester cotton industry stating their ease—if he can show me that anything has been done to prevent their giving evidence before that Commission—1 will represent the matter to my Noble Friend, who, I am sure, will at once telegraph to India, and have it put right. I must say my information is altogether different from that of my hon. Friend. Every opportunity, I am told, was offered to the two representatives to give their evidence, and I understand they have decided not to do so.
    Mr. SUGDEN: I and my co-secretary of the Lancashire Committee made representations to the then Secretary of State for India, asking for facilities for a deputation of employers and employed to go out to India to give evidence before the Commission. We were not granted those facilities; neither did we get any definite suggestion as to how we could present our case. We had further a direct indication that no official facilities would be offered in respect to that deputation.
    Earl WINTERTON: My information is that an opportunity was given—and it was stated in black and white—to the great cotton industry of Lancashire to give evidence before that Commission, but for some reason with which I am not acquainted it has not been taken advantage of. For my part, I will discuss the matter with the Secretary of State. I am sure he will do all in his power to see that facilities are given. But this is a Commission set up by the Government of India. It must be realised that it is an

    1085
    Indian Commission, and not a Commission set up by the Government of this country, and it has to consider the matter specially from the Indian point of view. I now come to deal with the question whether or not we could have raised our revenue by other means than those adopted by the Government of India in its recent Budget. No source of revenue in India has been unexplored during the last few years. The only possible main sources are first the land revenues and opium, and as to the latter obviously we could not add to the duties. As to salt, the Government of India did propose to increase the salt revenue, but it was rejected by the Legislature. The Salt Tax in Eastern countries probably hits hardest the poorest people in those countries, and the taxation of salt is a form of taxation we ought to be careful not to increase too greatly. Then there is the Income Tax and the Super-tax. It was pointed out that these taxes are not so high in India as in this country, but can anyone suggest, having in mind the varying circumstances of the two countries, that the Income Tax and Super-tax in India should be on the same level as in this country? Then the Post and Telegraph Taxes have been considerably increased, and are as high already as we think they should be. The same may be said with regard to the railways, while as to the contributions by the Provincial Governments to the Central Government, they are fixed by Statute.
    10.0 P.M.
    There remains that great source of taxation, Customs and Excise. The point is there was a general increase proposed to operate on all goods sent into the country and it must be borne in mind that the manufacturers of other goods might just as strongly object to these duties as the cotton manufacturers. We have to look at the great cotton industry from the point of view that it is one of our main props of taxation and livelihood. But manufacturers in other industries have to consider their own position, and their interests are as important to them as are the interests of the cotton industry to the cotton manufacturers. It is unfair to talk as if this was an increase only on cotton goods. It is a general increase. Now I must ask the House to give me every leniency in dealing with a delicate constitutional point, and not to request me to say more than I am going to say as
    1086
    to the relationship between the Government of India and the Secretary of State and Government in this country in the matter of taxation. I cannot do better than quote the Report of the Joint Committee which sat on the Government of India Bill under the chairmanship of Lord Islington. My hon. and gallant Friend does not, I think, agree with the Report of that Committee, but other people do and the Report shows the great attention which was given by the members of the Committee to the problem. The Committee say:
    "Nothing is more likely to endanger the good relations between India and Great Britain than a belief that India's fiscal policy is dictated from Whitehall in the interests of the trade of Great Britain. That such a belief exists at the moment there can be no doubt. That there ought to be no room for it in the future is equally clear. India's position in the Imperial Conference opened the door to negotiations between India and the rest of the Empire, but negotiation without power to legislate is likely to remain ineffective. A satisfactory solution of the question can only be guaranteed by the grant of liberty to the Government of India to devise its own tariff arrangements which seem best fitted to India's needs as an integral portion of the British Empire. It cannot be guaranteed by statute without limiting the ultimate power of Parliament to control the administration of India and without limiting the power to veto which rests in the Crown; and neither of these limitations finds a place in any of the-statutes in the British Empire. It can only therefore be assured by an acknowledgment of a Convention."
    These are the concluding words to which I wish to draw the special attention of hon. Members:
    "In the opinion of the Committee, therefore, the Secretary of State should, as far as possible, avoid interference on this subject when the Government of India and its legislators are in agreement, and they think that this intervention, when it docs take place, should be limited to safeguarding the international obligations of the Empire or any fiscal arrangements within the Empire to which His Majesty's Government is a party."
    Obviously these fiscal arrangements mean general Imperial preference. They have not reference to a particular fiscal view which is held in this country. I think that these conclusions are conclusions which may well be studied by every Member of this House, and I am sure the House will forgive me if I, not from any lack of desire, do not give any further information, especially as the matter of the relationship between the

    1087
    Government of India and the Secretary of State and the Government in this country in these matters of financial control will come up again on some future occasion. I should like to say, with regard to the whole question of the Indian cotton duties, that, while the two hon. Gentlemen who have dealt with this subject to-night have done so in a most moderate fashion, and neither I nor anyone connected with the Government of India has anything to complain of on that matter, the question has not always been so dealt with in this House or in the country, and there is no one who knows anything about India who does not agree that this is one of the most dangerous and difficult questions which can arise in the relationship of India with this country. While I assure the House on my own behalf, and I think the Secretary of State would like me to give this assurance, that we will do everything in our power to endeavour to meet the views of Lancashire, I must point out that the hon. Member (Mr. Sugden) was himself treading on dangerous ground. If he and those with whom he is associated say some of the things—I do not think they will say them, although I did not like his reference to the poor, ignorant and illiterate people of India—if they say some of the things which have been said by their predecessors, they will do more than anything else to put back the clock, and injure the cause of the policy embodied in the Act of 1919. I think that the vast majority of this House would regard it as a great misfortune that any such injury should be done. I would further point out that this subject has been one of bitter controversy for 50 years. The Secretary of State, the India Office, and the Government of India realise, as I hope the hon. Member for his part will realise, the stress and strain of the present period in India, and I hope we shall not be pressed to make, at untimely moments, further statements on this most difficult and intricate subject.

    IRELAND.
    Captain CRAIG: I am going to ask the House to come back from India and follow me for a few moments while I take them to the border between Ulster and Southern Ireland. As the House knows,
    1088
    the Government, by the Treaty which we were discussing last week, and by their action since that discussion in this House, have done all that they could, whether deliberately or not, to inflame and exacerbate the feelings of Ulster. Certain parts of the Treaty, particularly the setting up of the Boundary Commission and the inclusion of Ulster in the Treaty, have given great offence to the people of Ulster. There is another matter also which we look upon as a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government, and very successful it has proved, to irritate feeling in Ulster. I refer to what is known as the Ulster month. The Treaty stated that within a month from the passing of the ratifying Bill Ulster was to have the right to vote herself out of the Treaty. Practically every lawyer I have met—
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): I must remind the hon. and gallant Member that the Debate must be confined to questions of administration, and that we cannot discuss legislation.
    Captain CRAIG: I would point out that the condition of which I am about to complain on the borders of Ulster arose almost altogether from the state of feeling which has been caused both in Ulster and Southern Ireland by the Treaty and the action of the Government since the Treaty. However, I think I shall be able to keep within your ruling. About five or six weeks ago an organised raid was made from Southern Ireland over the Ulster border, in which a large number of people took part. The result was that some 40 or 50 inhabitants of Ulster were forcibly taken into the Southern area, and it was two or three weeks before many of them were restored to their homes. At about the same time a serious incident took place in Clones, where, I think, five special constables travelling by train through a small portion of Southern Ireland were killed and others were taken prisoners. Of those who were taken prisoners, I think two are still in the hands of the Irish Free State authorities, or, at any rate, of someone within the Irish Free State. From that time till the present moment things have continued to get worse. There have been events of various kinds which have tended still further to inflame the passions of the people of Ulster, and to-day

    1089
    we have an extraordinary state of affairs on the border. On the Southern side we have regular organised troops, so the information at our disposal leads us to believe, in many cases in uniform, with all the accoutrements of soldiers, entrenched within a few hundred yards of the border line, and for some time past they have been carrying on a regular fusillade across the border into Ulster. It is true that not many lives have been lost, but it is also true that there is a sort of neutral zone where the inhabitants have had to leave their houses and give up tilling their land, while outside that zone the people are living in terror of their lives. In spite of such arrangements for defence as Ulster has been able to make in the way of posting special constables in different places, raids are still being made, people are being dragged out of their houses, and only a few days ago several persons were murdered. When that raid took place the Colonial Secretary made excuses for the Free State people. It was stated, either by him or by some other member of the Government, that such events were not altogether unexpected, and we were led to believe that such a thing was a more or less natural outcome of the Treaty. That is a very nice commentary on the Treaty.
    Mr. J. WALLACE: Who said that?
    Captain CRAIG: It was some Member of the Government. I did not think the statement would be contradicted, and therefore I have not the actual quotation with me. If the right hon. Gentleman says that he made no such statement, I, of course, absolve him. The position at the present moment is very serious and critical, and I want to ask the Government what action they propose to take in the matter. They have taken none up to the present, or, at any rate, none that is worthy of the name. It is true that they wrote some long telegrams to Mr. Collins stating that this action was entirely wrong and could not be tolerated, but beyond that they have done nothing.
    An HON. MEMBER: Did not Lord Carson arm the Volunteers?
    Another HON. MEMBER: They gave you six battalions.
    Captain CRAIG: During the War the volunteers handed over their arms to the Government, and with regard to the six battalions they have not been, and are
    1090
    not going to be, used for the purpose of ejecting these people.
    When this raid was made the men who made it were either under the control of Mr. Collins and the Free State-Government or they were not. If they were under the control of Mr. Collins, the Government's duty was to tell him that he must remove these people from the border and must bring to justice those who had been guilty of kidnapping Ulster inhabitants. It seems to me that is the elementary duty first of all of the Free State Government, and in the second place of this Government which, after all, up to the present, is or ought to be the master of the Free State Government. If, on the other hand, as is more likely to be the case, the people who perpetrated these outrages and kidnapped these Ulster inhabitants are not under the control of Mr. Collins, it is an absurd position for the Government to take up to say they can do nothing more than treat with Mr. Collins. My view of the situation is that these persons who committed these outrages do not owe any allegiance to Mr. Collins, who has no power over them whatever. On the other hand everyone knows that they are a large and important and organised band of people. Therefore we are in the position that the Government has handed over the entire Government in Southern Ireland to Mr. Collins and his Government, and at the same time they are prepared to tolerate another authority in Southern Ireland committing the outrages I have mentioned, and the only protest apparently that they make is that they tell Mr. Collins that this is not as it ought to be and these men ought to be removed. That position is not one worthy of this, country or this Government. That attack on Ulster was, to my mind, just as much an act of war on this country as it would be if Germany or any other country tried to land a force and make an invasion into one of the eastern; counties. If that happened those invaders would be very summarily disposed of, and for people to come from the Southern State into Ulster and carry off the people of that province is an act of war just as much as the invasion of Belgium by the Germans, and should be so treated by the Government. But we all know that is the very last thing the Government, propose to do with them.

    1091
    The position at present is that terror reigns amongst the inhabitants, and to save themselves and to prevent further incursions of Free Staters, it has been necessary to blow up bridges and to break up the roads so that motor cars containing raiders cannot so easily get into Ulster. Trade and business between the two sides of the border has been completely interrupted. I have details here of a case where a motor car belonging to a gentleman who went constantly from one side of the border to the other was commandeered as soon as it got into the Free State, and is being used by the Free Staters since, and another case of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, which has a large business covering ground on both sides of the frontier, which on one of its ordinary rounds that it has been in the habit of making for years past was commandeered by the Free Staters and is now being used by them. In the original raid, I am informed on very good authority that a notorious member of the Irish Republican Army, known as McKeon, the Ballinalee blacksmith, actually organised and carried out the details. I am informed on equally good authority, that two of the special police who were captured at the time of the Clones' outrage are now in Ballyshannon workhouse. How does it come about that with all the might the right hon. Gentleman has behind him, and the six battalions which the hon. Member opposite so glibly talks about, these two special constables, taken prisoners five or six weeks ago, are still prisoners, and that they cannot be handed back to the Ulster Government? Protestants and Loyalists in the South have been evicted from their farms and sent across the border. The condition of affairs is shown by two telegrams which the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies some days ago. I believe a paraphrase of these telegrams was read to the House by the right hon. Gentleman, but they contain such an interesting picture of the condition of affairs that I propose to read them to the House:
    "The following telegram was forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on Wednesday last:
    'Have received report from Londonderry County that situation there is very precarious owing to raids and murders by the
    1092
    Irish Republican Army from mountain district in our area. The Northern Border Commission'"—
    that is the Commission appointed by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies and composed entirely of military men. It consists of the Northern and Southern Border Commission, and their duty is to try to preserve order on the border—
    "'visited the border between North East Monaghan and Tyrone and Caledon this morning. As reported on 17th instant fire was opened from the Free State territory about 20 hours on the nights of the 16th and 17th March upon a party of special constabulary who were commencing the demolition of Burns Bridge on the Emyvale Road. Desultory firing has continued since that time. Aimed fire has been directed upon any individual police or civilian who has exposed himself in the vicinity of Burns Bridge. Unaimed shots have been constantly fired across the Aughnacloy-Caledon Road. The attitude of the special constabulary in the above area has been and still is a purely defensive one, and they have shown commendable patience. They have so far refrained from replying to the fire to which they have been exposed for two and a half days. The actions of persons on the Free State side of the border in assuming the offensive by means of rifle fire is, in the opinion of the Commission, uncalled for and provocative. It is recommended that the matter should at once be brought to the notice of the Free State Authorities with a view to the issue of the necessary orders for its cessation.'—"
    A very pious and excellent hope, but so far it has been entirely without result—
    "'It is feared that if normal conditions are not restored patience might become exhausted on the Northern side of the border, and very soon troubles may spread over a wider area. The civilian population inhabiting this side of the border are in considerable terror. They have been shot at whilst approaching their homes by day, and they are afraid to remain in their homes by night. The Commission interviewed a Loyalist who had just reached Caledon from Glasslough whence he had been evicted at 24 hours' notice. He stated that seven more Loyalist families have received similar notice to leave Glasslough and to proceed north to the border. He did not know who were the persons who gave him his orders. They were dressed in civilian clothes and wore trench coats. In order to provide accommodation in Caledon for these refugees the civilian population there had compulsorily evicted three families of Southern sympathies.'"
    This is the only piece of retaliation that I have been able to discover that the Northern men have been guilty of.
    The second telegram states:
    "Your representative on the Northern Border Commission reports as follows: On

    1093
    the morning of the 21st the Commission visited the Caledon area. There had been heavy firing from Free State territory near Burns Bridge between 7.45 and 8 o'clock this morning. The houses of Loyalists on the north side of the border had received considerable attention, and are being evacuated by their occupants. Any individual who exposed himself has been fired at, and desultory shooting has continued throughout the day across the Caledon and Aughnacloy Road. The fire has not been Teplied to from northern territory except for a few rounds which appear to have been fired on Sunday evening. The discipline of the A specials, who have been exposed to this fire for 5½ days, is excellent. They can be relied on to carry out their orders. The B specials of Caledon give the impression of being hotheaded and anxious to take the law into their own hands. They are showing signs of impatience, and it may soon become difficult to restrain them from carrying out reprisals. It appears that on Saturday night they removed furniture from the houses of Southern sympathisers and dumped it on the border. This action was unreasonable and provocative. The owners do not appear to have been evicted, and the furniture had been returned to them. The B specials at Tynan were visited. They are well in hand, and their attitude is tolerant and reasonable. The incident of shooting into the bedroom of a Mr. McGuire of Tynan on the night of the 12th-13th March was further inquired into. There seems no reason to doubt that this was carried out by two Northern sympathisers domiciled in Glasslough. Their motive probably was reprisal for certain treatment by I.R.A. police in Glasslough which they resented. In the afternoon the Commission visited Dr. Bradly in the County Tyrone, who was stated by the Southern Boundary Commissioners to have cause for complaint against the B specials. His only complaint was that he was twice fired on at night by B specials while out in his car, and that on another occasion a B patrol had pointed a loaded rifle too close to him when challenging him at night. He appears to have been satisfied that these incidents were due to excessive zeal and excitement on the part of the patrol and not to any political hostility."
    I maintain that these two telegrams give a very fair picture of what is happening on the border, and I claim that they show that there has been great self restraint on the part of the Constabulary and the people on the borders of Northern Ireland. What have the Government done up to the present? Obviously, whatever it is it has had no effect in bringing this state of affairs to an end. What are they going to do? So far as I can see, their one method of treating cases like this, where they are in a difficulty, is to apply the only panacea which seems to be known to them, to a conference. They seem to love conferences. Why I do not know.
    1094
    I do not think they have much reason to be proud of the results of the innumerable conferences that have taken place during the last few years. They seem to think that that is the best way of getting out of their difficulties. Things are going from bad to worse, and unless they interfere matters may soon extend from the comparatively small outbreaks which exist at present to a general civil war. Hence they proposed to apply this Conference panacea and, so far as I know, they have asked the representatives of the Free State and the representatives of Ulster to meet them in conference in London, and we were informed this afternoon that the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland has consented to come over here to take part in the conference. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I notice that hon. Members think that that is a good thing. I hope it may result in a settlement of these matters, but I have comparatively little expectation that that will be the case.
    It is a little way the Government have when they find themselves in a difficulty, as they did over the boundary question, when we asked them to define what the boundary Clause of the Bill meant, and when we asked for an assurance that it meant only a slight rectification of the Bill. They said, "That is all finished with, and we have nothing further to say in the matter. If you want to come to a settlement about the boundaries you must confer with Mr. Collins." The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, deeply anxious as he is for peace and to have these horrible doings in Belfast and other parts of Ulster brought to an end as soon as possible, did consent to meet Mr. Collins. Everybody knows the result of those meetings. The first meeting was thoroughly satisfactory. He brought back to Belfast, where I was at the time, a message of peace which relieved us all very much, but within a few days all our high hopes were blasted, and we found Mr. Collins, I presume because of the pressure brought to bear upon him, quite unable to carry out the promises which he had given to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister here, in dealing with the question, said, "Oh, that is nothing. You know what these Irishmen are. They disagree five or six times." According to the Prime Minister, the procedure for coming to an arrangement was to have

    1095
    about a dozen of these conferences, and then possibly something might be done. That may be the way with Southern Ireland, thought I do not believe it is. It is not the way with Ulster. If they cannot come to an agreement after two solemn conferences, they give it up as a bad job.
    As the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland found it quite impossible to come to an amicable arrangement on that occasion, I see very little hope of his coming to any amicable arrangement with reference to this border trouble at the meeting on Wednesday. This I take to be the more unlikely because that meeting will not be a conference between the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and Mr. Collins alone, but a conference between the Government of this country and Mr. Collins and Sir James Craig. That is to say, the dice will be loaded against Ulster. The Government, of course, will be acting with Mr. Collins in presenting his case. [HON. MEMBEES: "Why?"] Because they have done it all along. [HON. MEMBERS: "No; the reverse."] They have favoured him on every occasion. They have broken their pledges time after time, and hon. Members know that as well as I do. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That being so, I see comparatively little hope of any good coming from that conference. I say this in all sincerity. I have had no means of knowing the views held by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Therefore, I have to state my view from what I know of the feeling of the people at home. I know that they are full of suspicion and distrust of this Government.
    It is only a few months ago since the heart of every Ulsterman beat high with hope for the future of his province. Particularly was that the case on the day when His Majesty opened our Parliament. We thought that at last the Government had brought us into some sort of a haven of refuge. That feeling of hopefulness has been slowly changing to one of suspicion and distrust, and, I am sorry to say, has rapidly become one of hatred of this Government. We consider, as I have said on many occasions, that we have been betrayed by the Government, and every action they now take is looked upon by each one of us with the utmost suspicion. It is natural, therefore, as we
    1096
    hold these feelings, that we do not look forward with any hopefulness to the Conference on Wednesday. Apart from that, I maintain that for this purpose there should be no need of a conference. This is not a matter which ought to be arranged between the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and Mr. Collins. This is a matter which should be taken in hand and settled by this Government. Northern Ireland has been invaded by organised troops form Southern Ireland, and whatever Southern Ireland may be, Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom.
    The entry into Ulster of bodies of men, whoever they may be, armed with rifles and other weapons of destruction, and the driving "of our people away, is just as much an invasion as was the inroad of the Germans into Belgium. Had the Government the faintest respect for their own honour and their obligations, they would have used those six battalions—which an hon. Member was so proud of having placed in Ulster—for putting the Free Staters back into their own part of Ireland. It is a positive disgrace, and every man in this House ought to feel ashamed that his own fellow countrymen, his own flesh and blood in Ulster, should be treated in this way. I know we have still some staunch friends in this House, but I am sorry to say the great majority of Members, even on my own side of the House, seem to have forgotten their obligations and the promises so often made to the people of Ulster. I await with interest to hear what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies intends to do in reference to these matters.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Churchill): My hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Captain Craig) has given us some very serious accounts of the conditions which prevail upon the Ulster border. He has read out telegrams, the authenticity of which is beyond dispute, and I do not quarrel with him at all in the general survey he has made of the position along the boundary. Luckily not many people have been killed or wounded, although one or two have been, but a great state of disturbance exists there. Bridges have been blown up, roads have been cratered, and a good deal of firing is going on, which each side declares is confined to the other. At any rate there is a sort of

    1097
    "No Man's Land" growing up between Northern and Southern Ireland in which the ordinary cultivators find it very difficult to carry out their agricultural pursuits, and in which a number of residents have been forced to quit their dwellings.
    All the same, so far, nothing very serious has happened. It is quite true, as my hon. Friend said, that a considerable raid was made about seven weeks ago from the South into the North, for which there is absolutely no defence, and about 48 prisoners were taken as hostages. The object was to prevent an execution which it had been intended to carry out in Londonderry. These hostages were taken into the Free State, not by the troops of the Provisional Government or any forces acting under the orders of the Provisional Government, but by the Monaghan Irish Republican Army, so called, who are a law unto themselves in that disturbed and excited part of the country. My hon. Friend says we did not make a descent on that district, and start to hunt for these people who had been kidnapped about the wilds of Monaghan. Nothing would have been more foolish. It is very likely that had we attempted to do that, injury would have been done to these people; but by the innocuous expedient of telegrams and letters and peaceful representations, we have, in fact, secured the return, the unconditional return, of all these persons. We might easily have taken more violent measures, and have reached less good results, but, at the same time, I have no words whatever to defend a raid of this kind. It is disgraceful, and who has suffered by it most, I should like to know? There is no doubt whatever that the Southern Irish, the Provisional Government, who were not responsible for the raid, the Sinn Feiners generally—the cause of a united Ireland—have suffered, and suffered very formidably, by these things.
    What is happening now as a result of this raid and of other events that have occurred on the one side and on the other? There is growing up a sort of military frontier between Northern and Southern Ireland, the very thing that, above all others, the Irish Provisional Government most desired to avoid. The only remedy in their power is to quieten things down on the border as far as they can, and that, I believe, they are increasingly doing. Their position is
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    that every shot fired across the border, every man kidnapped, every little house fired into, every act of lawlessness or excitability that is done there deliberately injures and postpones the future reconciliation of the whole of Ireland. And, as the Southern Government have that as one of their principal objects, and the Northern Government are taking the view that a complete separation on their part will suit them best, I say the injury in all cases falls upon the Southern Irish; and it is their interest, their strong interest, to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the situation on the frontier.
    But let me say that it is a great mistake to suppose that the difficulties on the frontier arise on the frontier; they are created by the difficulties in Belfast. In Belfast a far worse state of things prevails than on the frontier, and there is far more disturbance, danger, or loss of life in Belfast than in the whole of the rest of Ireland. The whole of the 26 counties have not shown a quarter of the things which in a single week-end are sometimes exhibited in Belfast. I know well what the difficulties are in Belfast, and I know the strenuous efforts which the Government of Northern Ireland are making to compose matters. I trust they will be successful, but it seems to me that if they are to be really successful in re-establishing a tranquil and stable situation in Belfast, they ought frankly to invite the assistance of law-abiding and law-respecting Catholics to help them keep order in the Catholic areas. In some way or other they ought to endeavour to make all sections of the community and both creeds take a responsible share in the peace and order of their city. [An HON. MEMBER: "That has been done!"] I am afraid that, in the nature of things, it has not been possible to carry it very far. So much for the actual situation. My hon. and gallant Friend said the Government had done nothing. I cannot agree. We have placed very large military forces in Ulster—
    Captain CRAIG: They do nothing.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: —and we shall place still larger ones if they be needed. Apart from that, we have issued over 15,000 rifles and a considerable proportion of transport to the Ulster Special Police, and we are bearing, out of moneys provided by this House, a very heavy

    1099
    expenditure for the maintenance of these police, of whom over 25,000, armed and unarmed, or in the process of being armed, are at the present moment mobilised. You cannot say that that is nothing. These very considerable measures have been taken, and I have seen no evidence which shows that a multiplication of these forces, or a large increase of them at the present time, would add anything to abate the evils which are going on. The remedy lies in an abatement of the shocking conditions which prevail in the city of Belfast. That is the great responsibility which falls upon the Northern Government. They have a right to be aided in every way by the Imperial Government, and also by the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland, in order that this city may resume some semblance of decent, orderly, Christian, civilised life. I am quite prepared to consider the question, with the military authorities, of placing a portion of this city definitely under martial law. That is what is greatly desired by the Catholic population, in order that the control of law and order may be in the hands of more or less impartial Imperial troops; but I, of course, can only take such steps in agreement, and in accord, with the responsible Government of Northern Ireland. At any rate, it is one of the questions which we ought to discuss in the next few days.
    The other proposal which we must discuss, and on which military assistance has been called for, is the idea of drawing a cordon of Imperial troops along the frontier. At the present moment we have the so-called Irish Republican Army on one side, and the special constables facing on the other. These are two sparking points in the closest juxtaposition, while the British troops remain three or four miles back at the various barracks and centres where they naturally dwell. I have been very anxious to put an insulating pad—I am not quite sure of the technical word—an insulating barrier between these two very electric forces, but the difficulties of putting troops there have been very great during the inclement weather at this season of the year.
    With the approach of spring, however—by the middle of April—it should be possible to put troops under canvas, and put them in just those exact
    1100
    positions, among the more troubled sections of the frontier, which will enable them to control the situation. At any rate, this is being carefully studied, and we must discuss it with representatives of both Governments. In that event, we should endeavour to secure the withdrawal of the armed forces of both sides for a certain distance, leaving this area to be policed entirely by the troops. Naturally, that could only be done, as I say, in agreement with the two administrations, and it is a matter which will be considered. I say frankly that all these measures are mere palliatives. The proper way of stabilising conditions on the frontier, of stabilising the position in Belfast, and of giving Ireland a chance to resume peaceful and orderly life is through a friendly working agreement between the Governments of Northern and Southern Ireland. If that could be achieved, you would touch the disease, and not the symptoms. You would find an immediate abatement of all the anxieties and dangers that are now causing so much complexity and doubt. Why should it not be so?
    On the 21st January an arrangement was reached between the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and Mr. Collins, in which a whole series of very difficult questions were satisfactorily adjusted between those two areas. It has broken down in some particulars, but only in some particulars. It has broken down on the question of the boundary—not on the agreement in regard to the boundary—but on the interpretation of the Clause to be put into the Treaty about the boundary. It is not for me to try and weigh up the balance and credit, or the want of balance and credit, on the one side or the other. A speech was made by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in which he used words to the effect that not one inch would be conceded. Whereupon Mr. Collins, being visited by large deputations from the Northern area, immediately made statements of a still more far-reaching character in the opposite direction. Whereupon a complete lack of concord was created between these two parties. Then followed the lamentable raids which I have described.
    Let us try to get back to the policy of 21st January. It may be very difficult, but it is surely the common interest of

    1101
    both parties to do so. I have shown how it is to the interest of the South to get peace on the frontier, and so to avoid a sterotyped military line across Ireland It is also to the interest of the Northern Government, who wish to have a fair opportunity of developing the commercial activities of their Province, and who greatly need to be in harmony and in peaceful relations with the rest of Ireland. This Conference must, of course, be master entirely of its own proceedings. The matters to be discussed can only be subjects which both sides are willing to discuss. So far as we are concerned, there is no subject which both sides are willing to discuss that we will not bring before them in the most helpful manner. All our good offices are available in every way; but we do not desire in any degree to intrude or interfere. If at any moment the representatives of the Northern and Southern Governments would like to discuss a matter between themselves, face to face, the British Minister or Ministers will leave the room without the slightest hesitation, and will await some convenient moment, in retirement, until, or in case, they are wanted again. We are not standing on ceremony of any kind. If one Minister be not agreeable, another will present himself. Whatever these two different Irish Governments want at our hands, we will give them.
    Mr. REID: Why do you not invite de Valera?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Because I have no reason to suppose that either Mr. Collins or Mr. Griffith would consent to sit in conference with Mr. de Valera at the present time. Mr. de Valera is using astonishing language to the Irish Provisional Government. In his violence he is even declaring his intention of wading through blood. We have had enough complications for it not to be necessary for us to wish to add to that by bringing together the two parties in Southern Ireland who are so violently opposed to each other. I do not pretend to guarantee that there will be good results from this conference. There may be no result at all, except that both sides may go home with more hopeless feelings than before, and the trouble will continue to grow. We will do our very best, but it rests with Irishmen who care for Ireland to try to bring about a better state of things. They alone can do it. Great Britain will
    1102
    help, but the initiative, the controlling administration, has passed out of our hands by our own will, deliberately, into the hands of Irishmen. Let them meet together, and endeavour to create in a satisfactory manner a decent future for Ireland.
    Captain Viscount CURZON: To-day at Question time I made a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary with regard to this Conference. I suggested that it might be- a good thing for Mr. O'Duffy to be present at this Conference, I had read in the papers that Mr. O'Duffy had advocated using lead to Ulster. If that be so, why did the right hon. Gentleman tell me that it was not a helpful suggestion to ask Mr. O'Duffy to come? Would it not be well to invite him so that he might share the responsibility of putting things right? Anyhow, it was intended to be a helpful suggestion. Another point, following the remarks which the right hon. Gentleman has just made about the use of the British military. I do hope you will not put the British military between these opposing parties in the North and South. If you do, you will only put them where they will be a target and will probably be shot at by both sides. There are sympathisers with the South in the North and there are some that would not, I think, hesitate to shoot at the Southern forces and put the blame on to Ulster. I trust the right hon. Gentleman wilt give attention to these two points.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: The discussion has been kept entirely to the question of Northern Ireland. I rather hope that in one word the right hon. Gentleman will tell us his hopes for Southern Ireland. From what I hear things are going from bad to worse: I refer specially to Sligo and Roscommon. The Sinn Fein courts which were functioning a short while ago are having less business now, and our own courts are doing nothing. This has nothing to do with Belfast; now the boundary question. Is the Government going to do anything with a view to restoring law and order in Southern Ireland? The state of things there recently is such that had they occurred in any other part of Europe we should have had people asking questions about it every day in this House.
    11.0 P.M.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I can only speak by leave of the House, but may I say that I do not think things are so bad as all that in Southern Ireland. I noticed today that a gang of four or five men who had robbed a bank had been brought up in the ordinary way, had been found guilty, and sentenced to penal servitude. I know that in many parts of the country life is normal. The Provisional Government, I am sure, as fast as they can get their armed police trained, will -secure control in one way or another. I had instances brought to my notice by Southern Unionists only to-day of the way in which Dail Eireann have been settling disputes between the agricultural labourers and their landlords. The public meetings which are being held are everywhere giving them very great encouragement, and representatives of the whole strength of the country have assembled round them.
    Mr. de Valera's action is a sign that he no longer expects to have behind him the majority of the Irish people. We can only carry out the experiment on which we have embarked with courage and consistency, and I am by no means disappointed with the situation up to the present time. When we consider the extraordinary conditions under which the country has been handed over from one Government to another, all the police and
    1104
    soldiers withdrawn, that in the interval there should be so few really terrible cases of outrages and lawlessness is, to my mind, not at all unsatisfactory. I hope the House will now allow me to have the Second Reading of this Bill.
    Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.

  PUBLICATIONS AND DEBATES REPORTS SELECT COMMITTEE.
  Ordered, "That Sir Thomas Poison be discharged from the Committee, and that Sir Cecil Beck be added to the Committee."—[Lieut.-Colonel Gibbs.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  PUBLICATIONS AND DEBATES REPORTS SELECT COMMITTEE.

    ADJOURNMENT.
    Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]
    Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes after Eleven o'clock.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  MEXICO.
  MEXICO.
  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.
  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.
  COLONIES AND PEOTECTOEATES (IMPOSTS).
  COLONIES AND PEOTECTOEATES (IMPOSTS).
  BRITISH-ITALIAN CORPORATION (GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES).
  BRITISH-ITALIAN CORPORATION (GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES).
  TRADE FACILITIES ADVISOEY COMMITTEE.
  TRADE FACILITIES ADVISOEY COMMITTEE.
  AUSTRIA (BRITISH CLAIMS).
  AUSTRIA (BRITISH CLAIMS).
  MOTOR DEPOT, SLOUGH.
  MOTOR DEPOT, SLOUGH.
  ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY.
  ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY.
  EX-GERMAN SHIPS.
  EX-GERMAN SHIPS.
  NATIONAL MUSEUMS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
  NATIONAL MUSEUMS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS (SIR DUNCAN RHIND).
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS (SIR DUNCAN RHIND).
  PENSIONS OFFICE, CAERPHILLY.
  PENSIONS OFFICE, CAERPHILLY.
  COMMANDEERED HOTELS.
  COMMANDEERED HOTELS.
EX-SERVICE MEN.
  VISITING BOARDS, MENTAL INSTITUTIONS (REPRESENTATION).
  VISITING BOARDS, MENTAL INSTITUTIONS (REPRESENTATION).
  OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.
  OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.
  AIR MINISTRY.
  AIR MINISTRY.
EDUCATION.
  TEACHERS' PENSIONS.
  TEACHERS' PENSIONS.
  SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
  SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
  EGYPT.
  EGYPT.
  TERRITORIAL WATERS, DENMARK.
  TERRITORIAL WATERS, DENMARK.
  PERSIA (BRITISH ADVANCES).
  PERSIA (BRITISH ADVANCES).
INDIA.
  CIVIL SERVANTS (RETIREMENT).
  CIVIL SERVANTS (RETIREMENT).
  SEDITIOUS SPEECHES (PRISONERS' TREATMENT).
  SEDITIOUS SPEECHES (PRISONERS' TREATMENT).
IRELAND.
  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  DISTURBANCES, BELFAST.
  DISTURBANCES, BELFAST.
  DRUGS (SMUGGLING).
  DRUGS (SMUGGLING).
  REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA (ALIENS).
  REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA (ALIENS).
  CHEMICAL AND COPPER SMELTING INDUSTRIES.
  CHEMICAL AND COPPER SMELTING INDUSTRIES.
  USK PRISON.
  USK PRISON.
  EAST HAM TEADES COUNCIL (STREET COLLECTION).
  EAST HAM TEADES COUNCIL (STREET COLLECTION).
  MR. G. L. BEVAN.
  MR. G. L. BEVAN.
  INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE BILL.
  INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE BILL.
  LICENSED TRADE (HOURS OF OPENING).
  LICENSED TRADE (HOURS OF OPENING).
  METROPOLITAN POLICE-STATION CLEANERS (APPOINTMENTS).
  METROPOLITAN POLICE-STATION CLEANERS (APPOINTMENTS).
  HEALTH SERVICES, SOUTH WALES.
  HEALTH SERVICES, SOUTH WALES.
  FRESHWATER FISH.
  FRESHWATER FISH.
  HOME SERVICE, ROYAL NAVY (MEDALS).
  HOME SERVICE, ROYAL NAVY (MEDALS).
TRANSPORT.
  BLAENAU-FESTINIOG RAILWAY STATIONS.
  BLAENAU-FESTINIOG RAILWAY STATIONS.
  LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY (TREASURY GUARANTEE).
  LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY (TREASURY GUARANTEE).
  TELEPHONE SERVICE.
  TELEPHONE SERVICE.
  NAIROBI (DISTURBANCES).
  NAIROBI (DISTURBANCES).
  RAND DISTURBANCES.
  RAND DISTURBANCES.
  GREECE (FOREIGN LOANS).
  GREECE (FOREIGN LOANS).
  ASPHYXIATING GAS (WASHINGTON TREATY).
  ASPHYXIATING GAS (WASHINGTON TREATY).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I desire to put a Question to my noble friend who is leading the House, as to what his intentions are with respect to the Electricity (Supply) Bill, which, at present, stands upon the Paper for Wednesday.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): I must apologise to the House for the difficulty that I have experienced in arranging for the further stages of this Bill. Conversations are proceeding on the subject, and perhaps it will be to the general interest of the House that the further stages should be postponed for a few days. I suggest, therefore, that the Bill should be put down for to-morrow week.

ADVERTISEMENTS REGULATION (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
LORD NEWTON: I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Advertisements Regulation Act, 1907, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1ª.—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Bill read 1ª, and to be printed.

PAWNBROKERS BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1ª, and to be printed.

IRISH FREE STATE (AGREEMENT) BILL.
Debate on the Motion by Viscount PEEL, that the Bill be now read a third time, resumed (according to Order).
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, when you adjourned on Thursday last my noble and learned friend, Lord Carson, was in possession of the House. I regret to have to inform you that my noble and learned friend is prevented by indisposition
894
from being in his place this afternoon. He begged me to express his apologies to the House for his absence. Having been instrumental in inducing your Lordships, largely out of courtesy to himself, to postpone the Third Reading, it is particularly annoying that he should be prevented from being here, and I am only saying what he himself would say—that nothing would have induced him to be absent but that his doctor has absolutely ordered him on no account to come down to the House this afternoon. Therefore I hope your Lordships will allow me in his name to offer to you his apologies.
I am afraid that your Lordships will have to put up with a few remarks from me in view of what he would have said. I do not intend to speak at length because this is a business-like Assembly. We all know that this Bill is going to become an Act of Parliament in a very few days and there is no great advantage in prolonging the discussions upon it, whatever our opinions may be as to its character, or as to the circumstances in which it has been brought before your Lordships. But I think I ought to say that the careful examination which your Lordships have given to the Bill in its various stages has confirmed the impression which you already possessed of its character. This Bill evidently, upon the face of it, now that we have examined it, was the result of a Treaty constructed in a hurry, constructed almost in a panic. The drafting is imperfect; the language vague; and it is very difficult to know to what people are committed when it becomes an Act of Parliament.
What is specially illustrative of the conditions in which this Treaty is submitted to your Lordships on the present occasion is the reluctance, nay, I may say almost the terror, with which the Government have regarded any attempt to amend it. It is evident that the acceptance of this Treaty in Ireland hangs almost by a thread, and the Government are afraid that the very least disturbance from this side may prove fatal to it. They are the best judges of that, but it is a solemn and mortifying reflection that the Legislature of this country should be called upon to approach what is thought—at any rate, by the Government—to be the final stage of these great difficulties, in a condition of hurry and panic, and under the threat that, if they attempt to put the Bill into what

895
is really good order, the whole policy may be prejudiced, and may come tumbling, like a pack of cards, to the ground.
That seems to me to be the moral of the investigations which we have made into the Bill in its successive stages in your Lordships' House. Those of us who last December hesitated in accepting the Treaty appear to me to be abundantly justified. Taking the point of allegiance alone, since that day everybody, I think, is conscious that the so-called Oath of Allegiance, which is not really an Oath of Allegiance, becomes of less and less value every day, and even the fidelity which it is there pretended will be sworn to His Majesty is an extremely precarious fidelity. It seems extremely doubtful how many members to be elected to the Legislature in Ireland will really swear fidelity at all.
And then there is Ulster. Ulster has been the theme of the greater part of the discussions with which we have dealt. Ulster is suspicious. I am not surprised that Ulster is suspicious. She feels, as regards the policy of the Government, that there is an attempt, as it were, to jockey her out of her independence, and that there is no real, strong desire in the hearts of those who are responsible for this Treaty and this Bill to preserve her independence. That feeling which she has and which, whether it is justified or not, is not unnatural in the circumstances, is greatly intensified by the treatment of the Amendment with which we have had so much to deal during these discussions. Why has there been this difficulty over the "Ulster month"? Why were the Government not willing to make a reasonable concession upon it? When your Lordships adjourned on Thursday I said I believed that there ought to be some negotiation outside the House in order, if possible, to ascertain the real reasons why the Government were opposed to letting the "Ulster month" run from the passage of the present Bill. I fulfilled that which I undertook to do, of course, but I am not able to say that those negotiations resulted in anything. The Government, as, of course, they are entitled to be in this matter, were obdurate, and no concession could be obtained.
But I have not yet altogether abandoned hope, because, as the forms of Parliament stand, although the Bill is now to be read a third time, this matter can yet be dealt with before the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. Your Lordships have made
896
an important Amendment in the Bill in this respect. It will, therefore, require the assent of another place, and, according to the Rules, with which you are very familiar, it is possible for the House of Commons to change the Amendment which your Lordships have passed at the instance of the Government, and to put in its place a provision which would make the "Ulster month" run from the passage of this Bill. Of course, the House of Commons will not do it unless the Government wish them to do it. But there is an opportunity of doing it, and I earnestly hope that, before the Bill reaches its final stage in that House, the Government may be willing to make this concession. Let me remind your Lordships that there is a universal agreement in Ireland as to the propriety of taking this month at once instead of waiting until the next Bill. The representatives of all sections of opinion in Ireland are agreed.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is my noble friend who cheers me; there is, of course, Ulster; and there are Mr. Collins and his friends: all are willing that this change should be made, and Ulster is most anxious. There is nothing in the way, nothing at all, except the determination of His Majesty's Government. When this matter was last under consideration the noble Viscount, the Secretary of State for India, who was in charge of the Bill, submitted to your Lordships that there were drafting difficulties; that there were material and physical difficulties in the way of so changing the Bill as to render impossible that for which I am contending. After having looked into the Bill rather carefully I say with perfect assurance that no such drafting difficulties exist. No doubt there would have to be a consequential Amendment, but it would be of the simplest kind. I shall be very much astonished if the Government rely any longer on what I may call the drafting objection.
The condition of things in Ulster and on the boundaries of Ulster is going from bad to worse. The disorder is extreme. Surely the Government will not refuse to make a concession which will do something—I do not say it will do very much, but it will do something—to mitigate the feeling of irritation which exists on the Ulster side

897
of the border. So long as the Bill remains in its present condition, with the Government Amendment in it, upon the passage of the Bill into law Ulster will be, technically, part of the Free State. No doubt the Free State will not be allowed, under the provisions of the Act, to exercise authority in Ulster; but, technically, Ulster will be part of the Free State. Technically, she will be that which she repudiates, and that which she has spent money and blood and energy of every description in resisting all these years. Nothing will do more to intensify the feeling in Ulster than that she should be placed, even temporarily, under the Free State which she abominates. Besides that there is the unrest in Ulster as a whole and the special unrest in the area which is to be the subject of delimitation. All the people who live along the border do not know, and will not know until delimitation takes place, whether they are to belong to Ulster or to the Free State. I need not remind your Lordships that the area in doubt, although according to His Majesty's Government it is small, is, in the opinion of the leaders of the Free State, a very large area. Therefore, there is an element of doubt which extends over many square miles of country.
Can anything be more certain to lead to unrest and disorder than that this doubt should remain? The Government have put in an Amendment. I do not know whether they admire the drafting of that Amendment; I confess it does not appear to me to be particularly happy, for as it stands there seems to be an intention to exempt one Article, and one Article alone, from ratification. The words of the Amendment are:
"… it is hereby declared that this Act shall not for the purposes of the said Article 11 be deemed to be the Act for the ratification of the said Articles of Agreement."
Article 11 is the Article which protects Ulster; it is the one Article which protects Ulster. So that upon the face of the Bill as the Government are going to pass it into law, there is one Article, and one Article only, which is not to be ratified, and that is the solitary provision which protects Ulster.
I do not want to press this too far. The whole of this process of ratification is, to me, a mystery. The Bill says that certain things shall be done, and as soon as it receives the Royal Assent it will be
898
law to all intents and purposes, with or without ratification. We do not know of this process of ratification in our domestic law. It is a term borrowed from diplomacy and has no real relevance to the passage of Acts of Parliament. I am not upon the real substance of the matter, for I believe that all these Articles will have equal validity when this Bill becomes an Act. I am submitting this question: When the uninstructed. Ulsterman sees that there is only one exception to this mysterious and unmeaning process of ratification, and that this exception is the one Article which protects him, how can you be surprised that he suspects the Government? He does not believe they are his friends. He does not believe they are acting in the spirit of fulfilling all that they have held out to Ulster.
The Government have a great opportunity to make a concession in another place. They have no difficulty in finding out whether the leaders of Irish opinion will agree with them. They will have Sir James Craig here; they will have Mr. Griffith here; and it is possible that they will have Mr. Collins here. It is merely a question of a conversation with these various great authorities and if they agree the Government still have an opportunity of putting this Amendment right in another place. The door is still open. If the Government are sincere in their determination to treat Ulster fairly, I call upon them to avail themselves of this opportunity.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I must begin with an apology for intruding upon the House on this occasion, but I have two excuses. The first is that I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons fifty-four years ago on the question of the Plantation of Ulster. The second is that I was followed on that occasion by Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister of the day, whose applause and approval of the speech which I had made occupied a whole column. In the following year I made a speech upon the Irish land question, and on the following afternoon when I was crossing in the Lobby, I am ashamed to say to get a drink at the bar, a gentleman whom I had never seen before, accosted me, and making a profound bow, said: "I am. Mr. Delane, the editor of The Times. My object in introducing myself to you is to tell you that you made the speech on the Irish Land Bill last night that The Times

899
wants." And he followed that up by telling me that I had only to write to them and they would always report me at any length I liked. What a change from that day to this! If I ventured to express an opinion, I could name two or three of your Lordships whom I believe to be the best public speakers of the present day, and yet, while the debates in the House of Commons are reported at great length, it is very constantly the case that the greatest speeches made in this House are reported very briefly. I am making no complaint on my own behalf, because it is very rarely that I have thought it right to intrude upon your Lordships' attention.
I ought to add that I heard, a quarter of an hour ago, from Lord Carson, that he would be unable to attend to-day. At the week-end I was staying in the same house with him. I was there for the purpose of trying to go hunting, and he for the purpose of speaking on Saturday night at Burton. He told me, on returning from Burton, that he doubted very much whether he would be able to be here to-day owing to some affection of his throat. I foolishly stated that I would do anything I could, in his absence, to help him.
Ever since I can recollect there have been two policies with regard to Ireland. One is the policy of resolute government supported by Lord Salisbury; but before Lord Salisbury's time the Irish question had not reached the prominence that it has gained to-day. The other policy is that of surrender. Mr. Gladstone at one time made the most powerful speeches against Home Rule that could possibly be read, and he ridiculed the proposal without mercy. Mr. Parnell then came upon the scene; and Mr. Gladstone made equally strong speeches, from his own point of view. He told Mr. Parnell that if he continued in his then course he would find the resources of civilisation were not exhausted. Mr. Gladstone put that policy of resolute government into practice, for when Parliament assembled he very quickly shut the Irishmen up in Kilmainham prison. That was a strong measure to take, but they had hardly been there a week when he let them all out again because Mr. William O'Brien preferred to sleep naked, rather than wear prison uniform. That is a positive fact. Within a short time after that it became apparent that Mr. Gladstone had become the tool
900
of Mr. Parnell. Then Mr. Parnell got into difficulties of another kind, and the problem of Home Rule passed to a different stage altogether.
I have only had a few minutes in which to think over what I should say to your Lordships to-night. I will speak a word or two about the two policies which have always prevailed with regard to Ireland. One policy, as I have said, was that of resolute government. When Lord Salisbury's reign, which lasted for fifteen years, was over, the first Chief Secretary appointed for Ireland was Lord Bryce, of whom your Lordships entertained a high opinion. I read, the other day, a speech of his made somewhere in Lancashire, in which he stated that he found Ireland more contented and peaceful than she had ever been for six hundred years. He was followed in the Chief Secretaryship, in a very few months, by Mr. Birrell. Mr. Birrell spent six weeks, I think, in Ireland gleaning every kind of information from all possible sources respecting the condition of the country. Then he came back to the House of Commons and made a speech which I heard. In that speech he said: "I am delighted to be able to tell the House of Commons that I found Ireland more peaceful, more tranquil, more prosperous and more thoroughly contented than she has ever been for six hundred years." To what was that attributable? To fifteen years of resolute government by the persons who were appointed by a Conservative Government.
What has caused the change? The change has been caused by a succession of Liberal and Coalition Governments who, from beginning to end, have been content to follow the policy of surrender rather than the policy of enforcing the law and keeping order among the people of Ireland. How did Mr. Birrell leave Ireland after four years? He left it in open rebellion. The Government of the day, headed by Mr. Asquith, was so appalled at what had happened that Mr. Asquith appointed a Royal Commission to inquire how it was that all this had come about. I will tell your Lordships what that Commission reported:—
"It is outside the scope of your Majesty's instructions for us to inquire how far the policy of the Irish Executive was adopted by the Cabinet as a whole, or to attach responsibility to any but the Civil and Military Executive in Ireland, but the general conclusion that we draw from the evidence before us is that the main cause

901
of the rebellion appears to be that lawlessness vas allowed to grow up unchecked, and that Ireland for several years past has been administered on the principle that it was safer and more expedient to leave the law in abeyance if collision with any faction of the Irish people could thereby be avoided."
Can any one be surprised at what has occurred since then? That is exactly what many of us, including myself, have said most strongly, and are complaining of now.
That is the cause which has produced the most horrible position that has ever been known in Ireland, and since the Treaty was approved, under which we were promised peace and tranquility for the future, the state of Ireland, instead of getting better, has grown worse and worse every day. It is a most serious position. I have followed the question of Ireland and Irish troubles as closely as I could during the whole of my political career. I have tried to follow it in every particular. The more I think of it the more serious do I consider it to be now, and still greater is the responsibility which rests at the present day upon His Majesty's Government. I hope with all my heart and soul that we shall hear, in unmistakeable language, that the monstrosities which are occurring day by day in Ulster and in Belfast, and on the borders, will be put down with the most remorseless hand. There is a great deal that I could say to-night, but I am afraid that I must now close my observations. I have been suffering greatly of late from illness and have nothing like my ordinary strength, or I should have taken part long ago in these discussions. There is nothing in present-day politics which moves me more than the Irish question. I conclude by hoping that your Lordships will take to heart what Lord Salisbury said just now and will insist, before we give our sanction to the Third Reading of this Bill, that every possible step in the power of His Majesty's Government shall be taken to put an end to the awful disorder and shocking scenes which are occurring in Ireland from day to day.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, it is delightful to all of us, whatever views we hold upon this question, to welcome Lord Chaplin here to-day fifty-five years, as he has told your Lordships, after he made his first speech on Ireland in the House of Commons, It is not in my power to offer him, fifty-five years afterwards, compli-
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ments from a source so distinguished as those which he indicated as having been communicated to him upon this historic occasion, but he will at least allow me to make myself the mouthpiece of the whole House when I say that it is a source of great pleasure to us to have so distinguished a veteran still in full voice and in complete possession of his faculties, offering us counsel upon these grave matters of national concern. I may add this, though I know of no reason why those to whom I address this request should pay attention to it, that whatever fate may follow the utterances of the rest of us in the columns of The Times I cannot help thinking that it is at least due to a sense of continuity of the past, to which a journal so old ought to respond, that the observations of the noble Viscount should be fully reported in the columns of that newspaper.
As to the serious argument contained in the noble Viscount's speech I will make one reply, and one reply only. He has called attention to what is, in my judgment, undoubtedly true. Had the ordinary domestic politics of this country made it possible to pursue, for a period of twenty years, a sustained and unbroken policy I believe with him that there would not have been an Irish problem. I believe with him that the late Lord Salisbury spoke with his usual sagacity and prescience when he said that twenty years' resolute government, at the time in which he spoke, would for all time have disposed of the Irish problem. The noble Viscount has forgotten, what I think the late Lord Salisbury in his heart knew, that there is not, and there was not then, the slightest prospect that you would obtain twenty years of resolute government. A series of accidents produced an almost unbroken Tory supremacy for fifteen years, and during the whole of that period the policy which recommends itself to the noble Viscount was adopted, and was adopted with the happiest results. But the difficulty has always been that such is the incomparable stupidity of the democracy of this country that you could never persuade them to trust a Tory Government with twenty years of unbroken power, and there never has been an opportunity of testing the prescription which the late Lord Salisbury gave and to which the noble Viscount subscribes himself to-day as an adherent.
I come now to the observations made by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury; and let me say, in the first place, that I

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regret very much the absence from our discussions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson. I regret his absence still more when I am informed that ill-health is the cause. Had the noble and learned Lord been present to-day I should have said far more plainly that which I still conceive it to be my duty to say in his absence. A discussion took place in this House some days ago as to the functions of those who are Law Lords, as to the extent to which it was desirable they should take part in discussions which are purely political in this House. The question is undoubtedly a difficult one. My own view is that which was stated by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane. All of them, as Peers, are undoubtedly entitled to express their opinions according to the Rules and practice of this House upon any subject which conies before your Lordships, but there has grown up a convention of the Constitution that they shall not make speeches which are purely Party speeches, in the sense in which we all understand that expression. And I am persuaded that this is the true view.
In the observations I felt it my duty to make on this subject a few days ago, I indicated that I recognised the special case, when speaking in this House, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson. But I should be wanting in my duty in the office I now hold, if I did not make it quite plain that what I said has, in my judgment, no application at all when it is extended to the case of one who is a Judge, and who, upon the platform, thinks he is entitled to make bitter, if dull, taunts against individual members of His Majesty's Government and deliver what is in every respect, and in all its aspects, a crude partisan, political attack upon the policy of the Government.
I must make myself quite plain, and I regret more than I can say that Lord Carson is not here to listen. I had no knowledge until I took my seat on the Woolsack, that he would not be here to-day. The position that I recommend to the serious consideration of your Lordships is this. The position of a Law Lord in this House, since the passing of the Act of 1876, is exactly the same, so far as any political activity outside this House is concerned, as that of any other Judge. I reserve the special point as to his position as a Peer in Parliament, because I have indicated what in my judgment is the true
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view in relation to that. But if a Law Lord in this House is to be at liberty to go upon a political platform and to make Party attacks upon the Government of the day, will anyone inform me why the same privilege is not to be accorded to the Judges of the Court of Appeal? Is the Master of the Rolls, who is a Peer and a member of this House, to be at liberty to go to a by-election, to mount a Party platform, and to attack upon Party lines the policy of the Government of the day? Is Lord Coleridge, a member of this House and a Nisi Prius Judge, one who formerly held strong views upon Party matters, one who was well known as a powerful speaker upon political subjects until he became a Judge, one who has never opened his mouth in all these years upon any political subject since he did become a Judge—is he to be in the same position? If he is not to be in the same position, why is he not to be in that position?
And if he is to be in the same position, is there anything in the world to prevent the whole body of our Judges and Nisi Prius Judges distributing themselves in political hordes over the country, supporting and opposing candidates, impeaching or defending the policy of the Government of the day? If it can be done in this House, if it can be done in the ultimate judgment seat of the British Empire, where impartiality and dignity have been accepted for generations in all parts of the British Empire, if it can be done in the highest judgment seat of all, do not delude yourselves with the impression that you can long exclude from our Party discussions the Judges from whose judgments we sit in appeal here. If that state of affairs once arises, what becomes of our Judiciary, the pride of the world for its impartiality, for its complete and final withdrawal from our political quarrels?
We are approaching the days, believe me, in which serious issues await the decisions of the Law Courts. I can hardly conceive of one of those graver issues upon its industrial side which might not deeply impinge upon what are truly political issues. Consider the industrial anxieties which exist to-day, the problems as between employer and employed, which are bound to come before the Law Courts and then, in the ordinary progression, before this House. Are these questions to be decided before Judges of all of whom it is known that they are partisans

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upon these matters? It has been the pride of the British Bench for generations that no man can say of one of them that he ever expressed himself in public upon a political subject. I have made one reservation; I do not know what your Lordships' decision would be upon that point, if it were ever truly presented for decision, and it would be for your Lordships and not for me to decide. I have made the reservation so far as the position of a Peer in Parliament is concerned, and I laid down clearly, so far as I am concerned, my own view. But whether they accept that view or not, I wish those who succeed me in this seat to know at least that I did declare, specifically and plainly, that no Judge in this Court, that no Judge in the Court of Appeal and that no Nisi Prius Judge has the slightest right to go upon a platform in the country and make political speeches.
I will leave a topic which is painful to me, and approach the more particular subjects to which the noble Marquess invited my attention. Let me say, in the first place, that anxious as I have been throughout in relation to the problems for which I in common with others have made myself responsible, doubtful as I have been, and as I have throughout expressed myself to be, as to what the ultimate outcome of these proposals would be, I am not conscious of being specially open to the reproach which the noble Marquess has addressed to me of putting forward these proposals in a state of such panic that I cannot consent to the modification of a word without running the risk of seeing the whole structure fall to the ground. It is obvious, of course, that if you negotiate in matters of infinite difficulty and doubt a large number of complex provisions, if you reach an agreement by a slow and painful process upon a long series of issues, each one of which has been deeply and even vehemently argued, you cannot, in a Parliamentary Assembly which takes place in the abode of one of the Parties to those discussions only, begin to alter them wholesale, or even very generally, without running the risk of destroying the equipoise of the whole instrument.
The noble Marquess would be the first to realise that, supposing the Irish Parliament had taken this instrument and proceeded to introduce ten, or fifteen, or twenty Amendments—if it had proposed, for instance, an Amendment to the Oath of Allegiance, or had suggested improve
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ments to many other complicated provisions of this Treaty—the thing could not possibly have succeeded. Even the American Senate, so far as I know, has never thought it a useful process to introduce a series of verbal Amendments into any Treaties which have from time to time engaged their attention, and no Parliament sitting in the seat of one of the negotiating parties could possibly interfere on any considerable scale with that which had been agreed upon, without the certainty of destroying the whole substance of the Agreement.
The noble Marquess turned his attention most particularly to the question of the "Ulster month." I really think that the noble Marquess has not quite done justice to the attitude of the Government in relation to the "Ulster month." I do not know whether the noble Marquess was in his place—I suspect he was—in the earlier stages of our discussion. In those stages the only complaint that was made was of the suggested ambiguity. It was not then contended, neither by the noble Lord, Lord Carson, on the Second Reading, nor by the noble Viscount, Lord Cave, on the Second Reading, that there was any particular injustice in the provision itself—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to interrupt him, I think he is in error. Lord Cave is in his place, and I will not attempt to speak for him, nor would I speak on behalf of Lord Carson if he were here. I will not say in which speech it was, but Lord Carson did clearly indicate, at a very early stage of the proceedings, that he looked to a clearing up of the ambiguity in the right and not in the wrong direction.
VISCOUNT CAVE: I think that I clearly indicated the same thing.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The speeches of the noble and learned Lords must be judged by examining them in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have done so to-day; I am not unusually stupid, and I can only say that the impression I carried away from the speeches both of Lord Carson and of Lord Cave was that they did not care very particularly whether the month ran from the conclusion of this Treaty or from the ratification of the Constitution. They complained, however, that it was oppressive

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and unfair that the matter should not be cleared up beyond any scintilla of ambiguity. That at least was the impression that was left on my mind.
When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Sumner, moved his Amendment in this House, the whole matter was open for consideration and for decision by the House, and upon its merits— not upon any technical point—Lord Sumner made the proposal that the month should run from the passing of this Act. Your Lordships debated the matter fully. The argument was clearly stated upon both sides. And on the merits—not upon any technical point—of the case, as presented on one side by Lord Sumner, and on the other by the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill, your Lordships reached a clear decision. My own view is that you were right. The issue was a very short one. It was whether or not extra time should be afforded to Ulster to make its decision. I did not see then, and I do not see now, that the most pronounced advocate of the most extreme rights of Ulster can complain that she is given six weeks longer in order to reach her decision. I should have thought, however strongly one may have embraced the cause of Ulster, that one would have resented it as an intolerable grievance if, before finally and irrevocably withdrawing from the Constitution, she was unable to see the Constitution from which she was withdrawing. For that purpose she is given six weeks longer in making her decision.
The noble Marquess says that all Parties in Ireland are agreed that it would be an advantage that the month should run from the passing of this Act. I am not sure how far that agreement is apparent and how far it is real. In my judgment, as a matter of construction of the Treaty, the month runs from the ratification. It has, as I think your Lordships have already been informed, been the desire throughout of the representatives of Southern Ireland that this debate now proceeding in Parliament should be treated as the ratification of the Treaty, and discussions took place at great length between the representatives of Southern Ireland and those who have undertaken the negotiations on behalf of His Majesty's Government, as to whether or not these discussions were to afford the ratification, or whether there must be further Parliamentary discussions when the Irish Constitution has been produced.
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The view upon which we thought it necessary to insist prevailed, with the consequence that your Lordships know, and have been repeatedly informed in the course of these discussions, that when the Irish Constitution is drafted, and is produced, your Lordships will have an opportunity of examining it and of deciding whether or not that Constitution is congruous with the terms of the Treaty, of which in the circumstances you will be taken to have already approved.
Of course, if the month were to run from now, nothing is more certain than that the representatives of Southern Ireland would immediately say you have treated this as the ratification, because you have made the Ulster month to run from the ratification, and you have thereby assented to the claim made that the debate now proceeding should be treated as the actual and formal ratification of the Treaty. Nor can I see that it would be an advantage to accelerate the calling together of the Ulster Commission. I do not take the view which some noble Lords have taken that the sooner the Boundary Commission is enabled to commence its duty the better.
The noble Marquess and the noble Viscount are quite right when they say that the situation on the boundary is causing the most acute anxiety. It undoubtedly is, but you must analyse the mischief a little more closely. You must determine, if you can, how far the mischief at this moment is purely a boundary mischief and how far it is a Belfast mischief. You must ask yourselves how far the shots, which hardly ever cease on the boundary, are the repercussion of those which, to the horror of us all, have been taking place in Belfast in the last ten days. We have summoned Mr. Collins, and we have summoned Sir James Craig, in language too imperative, I think, to have been denied, to come to London in order that these matters may be discussed.
I welcome the suggestion of Lord Salisbury that all the various matters which have been raised by way of amendment or suggestion in this House shall then, so far as the prospect of a fruitful reference to them opens itself, be discussed when these two gentlemen meet. I certainly shall strongly advocate that all the points which have been put in issue in this House, and which seem to afford material for discussion, and it may be adjustment, shall be open when this discussion takes place,

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and I greatly hope that the result of the conversations which will then take place may be such as to afford some alleviation of the growing and culminating horrors of which the noble Viscount did not speak, to-day, in terms of excessive reprobation. I do not know how far these discussions may be carried, but I at least recall the fact a at until the partial breakdown which took place in the conversations between Sir James Craig and Mr. Collins a very considerable degree of harmony had been attained. Had that harmony been maintained up to the present moment, it is plain that those discussions would have covered the whole ground of one of the Amendments introduced into this Bill—namely, the Amendment which dealt with the constitution and functions of the Council of Ireland. I am by no means without hope that the discussions, at least upon that proposition, if resumed and if prosecuted under conditions as harmonious as those which prevailed a few weeks ago, may render unnecessary further Parliamentary discussion upon that point.
The Third Reading of any Bill in Parliament is always a matter of some moment. This is a moment at which your Lordships part, almost for the last time—subject to one or two points reserved—with the power of controlling these memorable issues. The noble Marquess parts with the Bill in a mood of complete and avowed pessimism. I never associated myself with this endeavour in a mood of extravagant optimism. I have never, in any speech, expressed any such spirit, but I nevertheless am bold enough to say that even now no ground exists for abandoning hope. I see many signs which encourage me, amid many which are profoundly discouraging, and I will tell your Lordships what it is which encourages me more than anything which is to be observed in the progress of Ireland to-day. It is the cumulative proof of the sincerity of the men with whom we dealt and who persuaded us of their sincerity.
Let me give your Lordships what strikes me as the most irresistible evidence of their sincerity. All the forces in Ireland which are frankly extreme, all the forces in Ireland which to-day are pledged by any means, violent or otherwise, to break the Treaty and to contend for a Republic, are ranging themselves in implacable hostility to Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. There was a meeting of a section of the Republican
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Army held in Dublin a few days ago. It was a meeting proscribed by Mr. Griffith, but one which, with the limited powers which he possesses, to-day, in his imperfectly established position, he evidently did not feel himself powerful enough to control. But this, at least, is certain, that that meeting was attended, and was attended only, by those who intended to contest the decision of the Dail, and who, for all I know, may intend to contest even the decisions of the electors, when those decisions are pronounced. But is it not plain that the more every extremist abandons himself to bitter and inveterate attack upon Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins, the more clear it becomes that those men, at least, are doing their best to deliver the bond and the instrument to which they set their hands?
That is a source of satisfaction to all of us, because what does it mean? It means that, when the Irish Government, with the approval, and, as I believe, to the satisfaction, of the overwhelming majority of this House, sent Plenipotentiaries to discuss with the representatives of Great Britain the prospects of arriving at a permanent peace, we were entitled to suppose, and the whole civilised world was entitled to suppose, that these men carried with them the authority with which they were ostensibly armed, and that no instrument to which they set their hands would be repudiated by the Irish nation as a whole. In that belief we reached a conclusion with these men; by however narrow a majority that conclusion has been affirmed by the Irish Parliament; and all our information is that, if the material forces winch are at the disposal of the Provisional Government are strong enough to put down intimidation at the polls, the decision of the Plenipotentiaries and the decision of the Irish Parliament will be affirmed by a large majority by the Irish electors as a whole. And therefore, though the road is dark and doubtful, though each morning may bring its fresh discouragement, let us address ourselves to the completion of this task in the spirit of men who have undertaken the responsibility of making the attempt, and who are not lightly to be dissuaded from continuing that attempt until all has failed, if indeed all should fail.
I am one of those who are still hopeful that the considered decision of the Irish nation will ratify the decision of our own

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Parliament. But, if I face the worst, if I were to be counted to-day the competitor in pessimism of the noble Marquess, I could still say we are better off than we were, and for this reason: that, whether our past policy has been well advised or badly advised, it carried with it neither the support of the civilised world, nor even the adherence, taken as a whole, of our great self-governing Dominions. At this moment, whatever trials and difficulties lie in front of us, whatever demands may be made upon our impoverished resources, we at least address ourselves to the tasks that await us with a moral burden immensely alleviated, we address ourselves to that task with the knowledge that the whole world—the United States of America and our own Dominions in particular—says
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that we have done all that the most ardent friend of the Irish cause could have expected; and they would say of the Ireland which refused this offer, Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat.
On Question, Bill read 3ª.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.— (Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past five o'clock.

WEAR NAVIGATION AND SUNDERLAND DOCK (CONSOLIDATION AND AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
CITY OF DUBLIN STEAM PACKET COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
title>TRAFFORD PARK BILL. [H.L.]
GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Committee of Selection that Lord Walsingham be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Marquess of Linlithgow; read, and agreed to.

STRETFORD AND DISTRICT GAS BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
Witnesses ordered to attend the Select Committee.
YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Petition for Additional Provision; of Yorkshire Electric Power Company; together with proposed amendments and clauses annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (CARDIFF EXTENSION) BILL.
Leave given to the Select Committee to adjourn sine die.
CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Message from the Commons that they concur in the Resolution of this House communicated to them on February 22 last on the subject of Consolidation Bills, as desired by this House.
ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL. [H.L.]
Committee of the Whole House (which stands appointed for Wednesday next) put off to Tuesday, April 4 next.