Sitting of 31 July 1923

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Wimbledon and Sutton Railway Bill,
West Riding of Yorkshire County Council (Drainage) Bill,
Chesterfield Corporation Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, pursuant to the Order of the House of 20th July, and agreed to.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  BRITISH WIVES OF EX-ENEMY ALIENS (PROPERTY).
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade the number of separate estates of British-born women which have been wholly or partly seized in pursuance of the terms of the treaties of peace; and the aggregate amount so realised?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir P. Lloyd-Greame): I am unable to state the number of separate estates of British-born women which are subject to the charge under the terms of the treaties of peace or the amount involved, but in accordance with a decision reached in June, 1922, the crediting of the proceeds of German property other than enemy debts to the German Government through the Clearing Office has been postponed where the owner is a woman born of British parents who became German by marriage and the property comes from British sources.
  Captain BENN: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that no property belonging to the wives of Germans and Austrians has been seized under the treaties?
  Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: No, I did not say that. What I said was that after the decision referred to, all foreign property is subject to the order and the crediting process is being postponed.
  Captain BENN: The question is, how many of these women have suffered, and what is the aggregate amount seized? That is a simple question.
  Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: It is a simple question, but it would require an enormous amount of investigation to give an adequate answer.
  Captain BENN: In a matter which excites so much interest on all sides of the House, are we not to be told what is the aggregate amount of property seized under these articles of the Treaties?
  Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is aware that we are considering the matter referred to in the question on the Paper. I am considering the appointment of a Committee to go into this type of case and make recommendations. It would take an enormous amount of labour to prepare the material required to answer this question specifically, and in view of the course which I am adopting, it would be unreasonable to undertake it.

  MERCANTILE MARINE.

    LOSS OF s.s. "EL KAHIRA."
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether an inquiry has been held into the loss of the s.s. "El Kahira," of London (O.N. 110,140), with all hands and passengers, which left London on the 7th July, 1922, bound for Algiers, and was last seen about 12 miles west of the Casquets on the 9th July, 1922, and has not since been heard of; if so, what was the result of the inquiry; whether the vessel was fitted with wireless; and is he aware that no compensation has been paid to the relatives of the crew?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: An inquiry into the loss of the s.s. "El Kahira" has been ordered, and will be held at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday the 18th September. Questions of the equipment of the vessel will come before the Court holding the inquiry. I am informed that the owners of the vessel have at

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    present no funds available for the payment of compensation, but this is not a matter in which the Board of Trade has any power to intervene.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY:Why is the inquiry only being ordered for 18th September next when the ship has been missing over a year?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: If the hon. and gallant Member will put down a question on that point, I will give him a full explanation.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I think I am entitled to an answer when this is a clear case of neglect of duty on the part of the Board of Trade. The vessel has been missing for over a year and is there any reason why the inquiry has only been ordered now.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question is not included on the Paper and the hon. and gallant Member should put it down.

    LONDON TRINITY HOUSE (PILOTS' PENSIONS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the President of the Board of Trade what pensions are being paid from pilotage funds to the retired servants of the Pilotage Department of the London Trinity House; and what is the maximum pension being paid from the pilotage funds of the London Trinity House to any pilot retired from service in the area under the jurisdiction of the London Trinity House?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am informed by Trinity House that there are no retired officials of the headquarter's staff of the Pilotage Department of Trinity House in receipt of a pension from the pilots fund. A former ruler of pilots at Gravesend is in receipt of a pension of £87 8s. per annum from the fund. The maximum pension which can now be granted to a retired London Trinity House pilot is £50 per annum, plus a bonus of 20 per cent., which latter will be increased to 50 per cent. on the 1st January, 1924.

    CITY LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY.
    Mr. SHORTasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what
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    action, financial or otherwise, he proposes to take to safeguard the interests of those policy-holders of the City Life Assurance Company who are not covered by the offer of another insurance company;
    (2) what action, if any, his Department took to call the attention of the directors of the City Life Assurance Company to the company's financial position; and what assurances were given by the directors relative thereto?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: On the 19th December, 1922, the Board of Trade wrote to the Chairman of the City Life Assurance Company, Limited, stating that, having regard to the serious financial position disclosed in the company's valuation which had been received on the 14th December, a meeting of the shareholders should at once be called to consider the position and that in the meantime the company should cease to incur new liabilities by the further issue of policies. The complete correspondence with the company, between October, 1922, and April, 1923, will be found at pages 27–35 of Part II of the Return relating to assurance companies which was published in June of this year. A copy of this Return is in the Library. As I informed the hon. Member on the 24th July, in answer to his previous question, an order for the compulsory liquidation of the company was made on the 17th July under which the Official Receiver who is an officer of the Board of Trade is provisional liquidator. A full investigation of the conduct of this company's affairs will be made by the Official Receiver. The value of the policies not taken over by another assurance company will be fixed by the Court in accordance with the rules laid down in the Sixth Schedule to the Assurance Companies Act, 1909. Until the assets have been realised it is not possible to state what amount will be available to meet the claims of such policy-holders.
    Mr. SHORT: Has the right hon. Gentleman's Department any power to prevent this company from continuing?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: No, that is the difficulty. We have taken some power under the Industrial Assurance Act of this year.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: When was the attention of the Board of Trade first called to the financial position of the company?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: When the company failed to make its regular return of accounts, which, I think, was due in June of last year. The company was then prosecuted by the Board of Trade and the accounts were received in December.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that attention was called to this company in writing, three years ago, by a constituent of my own?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: No.
    Mr. TURNER: If people are sent to prison for fraud under the Health Instance Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act, will anybody be sent to prison about this matter?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: There will be a full investigation of the matter in liquidation and obviously I could not answer a question of that kind.

    RUSSIAN OIL (IMPORTS).
    Captain MOREINGasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) how much of the oil imported in this country from Russia during the last two years was produced from wells owned or developed by English capital;
    (2) the amount of oil imported into this country from Russia during the last two years; and how much of this oil was shipped from Novorossisk and Batum?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The imports of petroleum into the United Kingdom, consigned from Russia during the two years 1921 and 1922, amounted to 10,480,601 gallons, of which 9,081,555 gallons were from Batum and none from Novorossisk. I am unable to say how much of the petroleum was produced from wells owned or developed by English capital.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    ENEMY DEBTS CLEARING HOUSE (COST).
    Sir ROBERT NEWMANasked the President of the Board of Trade what will be the total expenditure chargeable to
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    British creditors in respect of staffing, housing, and other costs of the Clearing House for Enemy Debts at Cornwall House for the month of July, 1923; and what was the total similarly for July, 1922?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The expenditure of the Clearing Office (including the Departments for the administration of Austrian, Bulgarian and Hungarian property and the accredited representatives in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest and their staffs) for July, 1923, is estimated approximately at £22,600, and that for July, 1922, at £27,000. The foregoing figures do not include any provision for the guarantee of debts under Article 296 (b) of the Treaty of Versailles and corresponding Articles of the other Treaties of Peace.

    TREASURY TECHNICAL POOL.
    Mr. FRANK GRAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that in certain cases dissatisfaction is felt among civil servants in respect of the working of the Treasury Technical Pool and that this dissatisfaction applies to a particular officer in the War Office and Disposal Board; that the dissatisfaction is based upon the fact that this officer is still employed as a temporary officer at a large salary and has been preferred to the advancement of permanent and temporary officials alike, not warranted by his experience, knowledge, or war service; and whether he will inquire into the matter?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness): I aw aware that representations have been made regarding the officer in question, and these representations are, I believe, now under the consideration of Lord Southborough's Committee on the Employment of Ex-service Men. In these circumstances, I do not think the case should be concurrently dealt with by way of question and answer in this House, but I will say that on the information before me, neither the alleged dissatisfaction, nor the allegations contained in the last part of the question, appear to me to be justified.

    WRITING ASSISTANTS.
    Mr. HAYESasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the writing assistants, Civil

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    Service, have not yet received an increase in pay nor a promise of an increase similar to that given to women clerical officers: and whether he will state on what grounds women who entered the clerical class through the 1919 examination have not received the benefit of the Southborough Committee's recommendations?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on the 26th July to the hon. Member for Lambeth North.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does the answer of the right hon. Gentleman mean that next September when these alterations come about there will be no chance for these assistants?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will read the reply to which I have referred, he will see that the claims made on behalf of these clerks are now under consideration.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will they be in time for the alteration?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: They are being considered very rapidly now.

    AIR MINISTRY.
    Mr. ROSEasked the Prime Minister if his attention has been called to the Second Report of the Select Committee on Estimates, which charges the Air Ministry with extravagance and lack of financial control and efficient organisation; and what measures, if any, does he contemplate to prevent the extravagance and correct the dis-organisation?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): Yes, Sir. I am aware that these charges have been made, but not how they are substantiated. I have impressed on all my colleagues the need for efficient financial control, but my information does not lead me to suppose that it is right to impute extravagance and dis-organisation to the Air Ministry. I may add that the Air Council have the Report of the Committee under careful consideration.
    Mr. ROSE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that a Ministry which, after careful inquiry by a Select Committee of this House, has been brought under strictures of this character, is a fit and proper authority to meddle with the Royal Navy?

    DYESTUFFS.
    Mr. COLLISONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that users in Japan of 99–100 per cent. synthetic indigo can buy from British dye makers at 5s. per 1b. whilst the sum of 8s. 6d. per 1b. is charged to the British user; that this difference in price is due to the fact that British dye makers have a monopoly in this country both in manufacturing and in the distribution of imported German dyes; and whether he will inquire into this matter with a view to removing this grievance?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I think the hon. Member must be under a misapprehension, as I am informed by the only British makers of synthetic indigo that none of that product is being sold by them in Japan.
    Mr. COLLISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to consider the facts which I will produce for his benefit?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I will be very glad to consider any facts which the hon. Member produces.
    Mr. H. H. SPENCERasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether his attention has been called to the statement of the president of the Colour Users' Association to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce of 23rd February, 1923, in which he asked the Government to redeem its pledge that the Act should not jeopardise the using industries; whether the Government does propose to do so;
    (2) whether his attention has been called to the statement of the president of the Colour Users' Association that prices both of home-produced and reparation dyestuffs are at an artificially high level, 300 to 400 per cent. above pre-War; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am in constant communication with the representa-

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    tives of the dye-making and dye-using industries, and every effort is being made to secure that the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Act is administered in such a manner as to promote the best interests of both parties.
    Mr. SPENCER: Does the Minister agree with the Chairman of the Licensing Committee, as stated in this House the other day, that these are fairy tales, or are they facts?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I agree with every single word that the Chairman of the Licensing Committee said in this House.
    Mr. SPENCER: Then I can have no answer as to the procedure of the Board of Trade?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The hon. Member can have this answer. There is a very representative Committee there, presided over by a very distinguished Member of this House, and that Committee will continue to do its work in the admirable way in which it has been carried on in the past.

    GERMAN SHIPBUILDING.
    Colonel GRETTONasked the President of the Board of Trade approximately the value of the tonnage built in German yards in each of the past three years, having regard to the class of vessels constructed?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I fear that I have not got the necessary information to enable me to add to the answer I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend on 24th July.
    Colonel GRETTON: Are we to understand from that reply that the Board of Trade know nothing of the expenditure on shipbuilding in German yards during the past three years?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: No; the hon. and gallant Gentleman must not understand that. He must understand what I told him on the last occasion this question was put, and that was that while I could give him the figure of the aggregate tonnage launched, it was quite impossible without an analysis of each class of ship included in that, to give an approximate estimate of price.
    Colonel GRETTON: Such an analysis not having been made, the Board of Trade has not the information?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I have not the information to make the analysis of each of the ships for which orders were placed in the German shipyards.

    LIQUOR REGULATIONS (UNITED STATES).
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether any alleged cases have been brought to the notice of the Board of Trade of ships taking out false clearance papers from Great Britain since the adoption of prohibition by the United States of America?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. J. HOPE SIMPSON: Have there been any similar complaints from the British Colonies?

    ENEMY ACTION CLAIMS.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that most of the 15,000 belated claims which have been lodged with the Reparation Claims Department were sent in by seafaring people in urgent need, he can assure the House that these claims will continue to be dealt with day by day and payments either in full or on account made with as little delay as possible?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers given to the hon. Member for Birkenhead East (Mr. Graham White) on the I6th July and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) on the 24th July, of which I am sending him copies. As I have already stated to the House, each belated claim must be dealt with on its merits, and every step is being taken to expedite the work, and to put the Royal Commission in possession of the facts required to enable them to give their decisions.
    Captain Viscount CURZON: Does this mean that the Commission are really going ahead with these reparation claims, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware

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    that there has been very serious delay, and that men are suffering severely in consequence?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes, the Commission is going ahead, but I do not think there has been any delay on the part of the Commission. What happened was that the Commission made its Report on the cases which were before it, and after that Report was issued an enormous number of further claims was received.
    Mr. STURROCK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these claims have already been lodged for over four years, and can he give any indication as to when these claims which are at present under consideration will be disposed of?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I could not accept the suggestion which was made by the hon. Member. The Commission, I think, dealt with all the claims which were before it in its first Report, and, while they are proceeding as rapidly as possible, I cannot say when they will have completed the remaining claims brought before them.
    Mr. STURROCK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I, last year, brought forward a case, to which his Noble colleague replied, a case which has been lodged for over four years, and which has not yet been dealt with?

    REQUISITIONED SHIPS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the two steamers "Claro" and "Cicero" belonging to Messrs. Wilson, now Messrs. Ellerman Wilson, of Hull, were in Petrograd loading for Hull, on the outbreak of War, were chartered by the British Admiralty, at the Blue Book rate, and lent to the Russian Admiralty, and afterwards passed through the German blockade to England; and how is it proposed to meet the claim of the owners for the cargo with which the ships were loading against the British Government whose Admiralty agent requisitioned the ships and cargoes in Petrograd?
    Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am aware of the facts of this case. The vessels themselves were requisitioned by the
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    British Government and handed over to the Russian Government, and it was by the latter that the cargoes were requisitioned. Any claim, therefore, in respect of the value of the cargoes lies against the Russian and not the British Government.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the owners of the cargoes declare that the cargoes were requisitioned by the British Admiralty agent at Petrograd, and surely there is some liability of the Government in that case?
    Viscount CURZON: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the expression in the question about the German blockade of Britain during the War?
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY:No, it was meant for the German blockade of Russia, obviously.

    GREAT POWERS (COST OF ARMIES).
    Mr. COLLISONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War the cost of maintaining armies in the following countries: Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States for the years 1913 and 1922?
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: As the answer is long, and includes a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    Great Britain.—The total voted for the British Army in 1913–14 was £27,700,000 (exclusive of aviation). The figure for comparison in 1922–23 was £60,800,000 (exclusive of War terminal charges, but including the cost of troops in the Middle East repaid to Army Funds from the Colonial Office Vote).
    France.—The total cost of the French Army for 1913 was:

    Francs.

    War Budget

    …

    1,022,821,931

    Colonial Budget

    …

    88,023,178

    Total

    …

    1,110,845,109

    The corresponding figures for 1922 were:

    Francs.

    War Budget

    …

    3,409,473,659

    Colonial Budget

    …

    188,443,000

    Total

    …

    3,597,916,659

    The cost of the French Army in Germany is not included in the War Budget, but is dealt with under the heading of "Compte Special," or expenditure recoverable from Germany.
    Germany.—The total cost of the German Army for 1913 was about £60,000,000, and for 1922 it was Marks 3,341,477,038 (=£2,386,769 at Marks 1,400 to £1).
    Russia.—The total cost of the Russian Army (including the Air Force) for 1913–14 was 647,000,000 gold roubles. The cost for the first nine months of 1922 was 556,000,000 gold roubles.
    United States.—The cost of the United States Army for 1913, including a small supplementary estimate, was $320,800,000. The cost for 1922 was $361,075,165.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    MEDALS (REPLACEMENT).
    Captain AINSWORTHasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in the case of old soldiers who have accidentally lost their medals, any provision is made, and, if so, of what nature, whereby such medals can be replaced at the cheapest possible rate; and whether he can make an official announcement on the subject?
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Yes, Sir; such ex-soldiers can have their medals replaced on making a statutory declaration as to the circumstances of the loss and on payment of 7s. 6d. for a silver medal or 2s. for a bronze one.

    STAFF APPOINTMENTS.
    Brigadier-General SPEARSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War, whether officers who held staff appointments during the War, although they had not passed through the Staff College, are eligible for staff appointments at present?
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: The answer is in the affirmative.

    EX-SOLDIER'S DISABILITY (E. MASON, DONCASTER).
    Mr. PALINGasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that Ernest Mason, of Woodlands, Doncaster, joined the Army in 1919, served a few years in India, and, after having undergone an operation for appendicitis, was discharged as suffering from ventral hernia and sciatica; that Mason's application for a pension was refused on the ground that his disability was not due to military service; that, since the date of discharge, his condition has got gradually worse to such an extent that a recent X-ray examination has revealed that he is suffering from a curved spine, which has deformed his body and prevents him being able to walk except with the utmost difficulty; and, seeing that the possibility of Mason being able to contribute anything towards his own support is exceedingly remote, and that he is meanwhile dependent upon his parents, will he have further inquiries made into the case with a view to rendering some assistance?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Gwynne): This case has recently been fully and carefully reconsidered by the medical authorities at the War Office, who are unable to find any grounds for departing from the finding of the Medical Board, held on 3rd April last, namely, that the man's disability was due to constitutional causes and was in no way attributable to his service in the Army. In these circumstances, as I informed the hon. Member on the 18th July, there are no Regulations under which an award of pension can be made.
    Mr. PALING: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this young man was passed into the Army as being thoroughly and physically fit and that his own medical advisers, who have looked after him for years, ever since he was a boy, are emphatically of opinion that this disability has been caused through his service; and, further, is he aware that since he has been treated for this deformity to his spine, he has been sent by the infirmary to the military authorities, because they say the case really belongs to the military?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Is there not an appeal from the decision of the medical

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    board of the War Office, just as there is from the medical board of the Ministry of Pensions?
    Mr. GWYNNE: It is because of the representations made that the case has been thoroughly reinvestigated, and the medical authorities of the War Office are quite clear that they are unable to state that this man's disability was due to his service.
    Mr. PALING: Is there not any Regulation or any way whatever by which the medical officers attached to the War Office and the medical men who have had charge of any particular patient for years are able, when their evidence differs, to be brought together to see whether any conclusion can be reached?
    Mr. GWYNNE: The hon. Member has just pointed out that this man has been under medical attention for years, and that does not quite bear out his former statement that he was perfectly fit all his life, but this case has been fully considered. The man has been before a medical board, and we have no power to go behind that board's decision.
    Mr. PALING: If I can bring the hon. Gentleman evidence from the man's own medical advisers, under whom he was brought up, will be give attention to it?
    Mr. GWYNNE: The hon. Member does not seem to realise that this has already been done. The case was reconsidered, and this man had an opportunity of bringing evidence to refute the medical report.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: If this man enlisted in 1919, when there was no urgent call for soldiers, he must have been absolutely physically fit, or he would not have been accepted, and does that not imply that this man's physical deterioration set in during his service in India?

    RHINE ARMY PAY.
    Major-General Sir R. HUTCHISON(by Private Notice) asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, in view of the rapid fluctuations in the mark, he is now in a position to announce the steps which will be taken to safeguard the interests of soldiers of the Rhine army in the matter?
    Mr. GWYNNE: Arrangements are now being made which will enable the soldier to purchase goods at the canteens at the same rate in marks for the £1 sterling as that at which he receives his army pay. These arrangements will come into effect by next pay-day, the 3rd August.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Would it not be practicable to pay soldiers in sterling if they so desire, on giving a month's notice?
    Mr. GWYNNE: That point has been raised on many occasions, and I have stated why we cannot do it. I have made these arrangements, which I think will meet the situation.
    Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Having been in a similar difficulty myself, I invite the hon. Gentleman to tell me why the British soldier who has enlisted for so many shillings or pence a day cannot receive that money wherever he is, but must be paid in some foreign coinage that fluctuates from hour to hour. There is some swindle behind it, I am certain.
    Mr. GWYNNE: The hon. and gallant Member should be aware, seeing that he has served so much abroad, that it is the invariable custom to pay the troops in the currency of the country in which they are stationed.
    Lieut.-Colonel WARD: I know, and I want to get at the reason for it.
    Mr. GWYNNE: If we paid in sterling we would not get the marks from Germany which at the present time we are getting.

  SCOTLAND.

    JOHN MCPEAK (ARREST).
    Mr. MUIRasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland under what procedure the arrest and surrender of John McPeak was made; and whether any stated charge against him was made to a Court in Glasgow before the Irish warrant was endorsed?
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Mr. F. C. Thomson): As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to his question on 24th July. The procedure by which Irish warrants

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    may be endorsed in Scotland is regulated by various statutory provisions, in particular, Section 14 of the Indictable Offences Act, 1848. That procedure has been continued, since the establishment of the Irish Free State, by Clause 8 of the Irish Free State (Consequential Adaptation of Enactments) Order, 1923. The warrant granted by the Irish magistrate would, in accordance with the usual practice, specify the charge. The procedure does not require that the charge should be stated in Court.

    SHEEP AND CATTLE (DEER FORESTS).
    Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health if he can state the progress that has been made in the direction of obtaining by voluntary returns information as to stocks of sheep and cattle in deer forests?
    Captain ELLIOT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland):The returns referred to are being collected by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland in connection with the Annual Agricultural Returns, which are now in course of receipt and tabulation. The results of this tabulation are usually available in September.
    Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Will the returns be complete?
    Captain ELLIOT: As these returns are merely voluntary, I cannot yet state whether they will be complete, but, as the hon. and gallant Member knows, we have a Bill down to make these returns compulsory, and if the hon. and gallant Member could induce the two Members of his own party who have Amendments down for the rejection of this Bill to withdraw those Amendments, we might be able to make sure of him getting these returns complete.

    CASTLE PARK, DUNBAR.
    Major WARINGasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he is aware that the Castle Park, Dunbar, is overgrown with weeds detrimental to the surrounding district; and whether the Board of Agriculture for Scotland has taken or will take steps to bring the delinquent authority to book?
    Captain ELLIOT: No complaint or other representations have reached the
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    Board of Agriculture for Scotland that the Castle Park, Dunbar, is overgrown with injurious weeds. Inquiry is being made in the matter.

    EDUCATION (MAINTENANCE GRANTS).
    Mr. W. GRAHAMasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether the Scottish Education Department has received protests against the minute of 2nd July, 1923, in regard to maintenance grants to be paid to central institutions under Section 16 (1) (c) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908; whether he is aware that institutions which do not happen to show a deficit are penalised, although their general needs may be great; and whether he will consider the advisability of making payment for actual work done, either for teachers' or for students' hours?
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: Various observations on the Minute have been received and considered by the Department, but only a very small minority of them could be described as in any sense protests. The reply to the second part of the question is in the negative; under Section II (b) of the Minute the existing privileges of the institutions referred to are fully conserved. The method of calculation suggested in the third part of the question was carefully tested before the Minute was framed, but its adoption was found to be impracticable owing to the widely differing circumstances of central institutions generally.
    Mr. GRAHAM: If central institutions in Scotland are in a position to submit practical schemes to the Department, will the Department consider them at the present day?
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: I would ask the hon. Member to remember that all the grants coming to such institutions as he describes come out of the education fund, and are a first charge upon it, and pro tanto affect the sum available for education purposes.

    SMALL HOLDINGS, LINLITHGOW.
    Mr. SHINWELLasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health what steps have been taken to deal with

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    the complaints of the Linlithgow smallholders in regard to water and transport facilities?
    Captain ELLIOT: I am informed that the Board of Agriculture have arranged with the local authority for the latter to examine the possibility of augmenting the present water supply at Parkhead by giving an additional supply from the public main. The Board are also willing to provide free supplies of road material if the holders will undertake to spread it and to fulfil their obligation to keep the access roads in repair.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Will the Board arrange for carting the road material to the small holdings?
    Captain ELLIOT: They will bring it to a central place. The actual bringing it to the access roads would, I am afraid, require to be done by the smallholders.

    SANITARY INSPECTOR, SUTHERLAND.
    Mr. W. GRAHAMasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Sutherland County Council are advertising for a fully qualified sanitary inspector for that large county, to give his whole time to the duties of the office* at the inadequate salary of £200 per annum; and whether, in the interests of public health administration, he will make representation to the County Council on the subject?
    Captain ELLIOT: I am informed that the post has been advertised by the county council at a salary commencing at the figure stated. The Board propose to consider the conditions of the appointment on their merits when they have had submitted to them the qualifications of the officer proposed to be appointed by the local authority. The Board do not propose at this stage to make any representation to the county council.

    MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEANasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether it is the intention of the Scottish Board of Health to publish the Report of the Joint Committee set up in 1920 and composed of representatives from the Consultative Committee on
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    Local Health Administration and General Health Questions and the Consultative Committee on National Health Insurance (Approved Societies' Work) to consider and report on the interrelation of maternity benefit under the Insurance Act and the maternity and child welfare schemes of local authorities; and, if so, when?
    Captain ELLIOT: It is not proposed to publish this Report.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Is it not the case that when this Committee was set up it was the intention of the Government to publish the Report, which is in the hands of the Government and contains useful information? Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman not see his way to publish the Report?
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman see that no preference is given to Scotland over England?
    Captain ELLIOT: These questions give an example of the trouble we are in. There is expense connected with the publication of these Reports, and it was not considered that the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages of this expenditure.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Was it not the intention of the Government, when this Committee was set up originally to make public any Report? Why is the Government not going to implement their promise?
    Captain ELLIOT: It is the intention of the Government, if possible, to publish, for the public advantage, any report which may justify the expenditure of public money on it. It was thought, after consideration of this Report, that the advantage would not outweigh the disadvantage of the expense.

  TRANSPORT.

    GLASGOW-EDINBURGH ROAD.
    Mr. SHINWELLasked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health the result of the negotiations with the local authorities in Scotland on the question of the Glasgow-Edinburgh road?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have been asked to answer this question. The Director-General of Roads went to Scotland on 11th July and held further conferences with the local authorities. Negotiations are still proceeding, but agreement has not yet been reached as to the scope of the works to be undertaken, or the proportions of the total cost to be borne by the various authorities.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give any assurance that the work will be proceeded with before next winter?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I cannot give any assurance, because it depends upon a satisfactory arrangement being made with the local authorities as to the proportion of the cost of the work which they will undertake. We are doing all we can, as evidenced by the visit of the Director-General of Roads, to push this matter through, but it will depend on the attitude of the local authorities.
    Mr. SHINWELL: In the event of the local authorities failing to agree, will the Government undertake the work themselves?
    Colonel ASHLEY: That is a matter I will have to consider.
    Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman see that no money is spent on this road at the expense of the roads in the North-East of Scotland?
    Mr. MACLEAN: As one of the conditions laid down by the Ministry is that all the labour to be employed in the making of these roads is to be direct labour, are not municipalities and county councils which are not in favour of doing the work by direct labour ruled out from contract labour?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I understand that the trouble has arisen largely owing to an Amendment moved by hon. Members opposite recently.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consult the Director-General of Roads when he comes back from Scotland?
    Colonel ASHLEY: Of course, I will consult him.
    Mr. HARDIE: Is it not a fact that it is not a question of money? All the parties concerned are agreed about the money. The money is there. It is simply a question of certain municipalities being in favour of private enterprise.

    MOTOR TRAFFIC (PRIVATE ROADS).
    Mr. R. DAVIESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he is aware that a private company is about to be formed with the object of constructing private roads for motor traffic; whether he is able to state what capital is involved in this project; what progress, if any, has already been made by the company; and what are the roads to be constructed in the first instance; and whether he will state the attitude of the Ministry towards the proposal to establish private roadways on a large scale in this country?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I am afraid I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on 1st May last.

    BRIDGE WIDENING (DONCASTER).
    Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport if he is aware of the inconvenience caused at Thorne, near Doncaster, by the failure of the canal company and local authorities to agree to the strengthening and widening of two bridges which are the only approaches to the town; if he has made inquiries into this question and, if so, with what result; and, if not, whether he will cause inquiries to be made at once with a view to facilitating this improvement?
    Colonel ASHLEY: This matter has been under negotiation for a considerable time. I have some hope that an arrangement will be arrived at in the near future for the reconstruction of the two bridges in question. I have received a proposal from the navigation company, and this is now before the West Riding County Council for their consideration.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman assure the House that he will speed up the negotiations and so facilitate the work on these bridges in view of heavy traffic across the bridges?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I quite appreciate the hon. Member's point of view and I am doing all I can.
    Mr. PALING: Will the Ministry of Transport do something with other bridges in the West Riding, and in the county generally where they are suffering from the same inconvenience?

    ACCIDENTS (STATISTICS).
    Sir HARRY BRITTAINasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he is able to give figures showing the number of accidents, fatal and otherwise, caused by mechanically-propelled vehicles during the last 12 months for which figures are available in New York and London, respectively?
    Colonel ASHLEY: The latest comparable figures that I have been able to obtain are for the calendar year 1922. These show in the Metropolitan Police district that 595 persons were killed and 17,138 were injured by mechanically-propelled road vehicles, whilst, in New York, from figures published in the Press, though not official, 932 persons were killed by mechanically-propelled vehicles, and the total number of persons injured by road vehicles was 28,097. I regret, however, that I am unable to say what number of the injuries included in the latter figure were attributable to mechnically-propelled vehicles.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman satisfied that the police take steps to see that motors do not exceed 20 miles an hour in towns?—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ask Curzon!"]
    Mr. J. JONES: Put that question to your pal at the back.

  COAL INDUSTRY.

    ACCIDENTS, DURHAM.
    Mr. HERRIOTTSasked the Secretary for Mines whether, seeing that the number of accidents in Durham County causing more than seven days' disablement increased from 10,272 in the year 1921 for approximately nine months' employment to 26,119 in 1922 for a full year, he can give any explanation of this increase; and if he will consider the desirability of appointing more mines inspectors in this area?
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Lieut.-Colonel Lane-Fox): The large increase in the number of non-fatal accidents re-
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    ported under this head is not peculiar to Durham. It is common to all coalfields, and, indeed, to other important industries. There is no corresponding increase in the number of fatal accidents or of non-fatal accidents that were sufficiently serious to be reported immediately. In these circumstances it is, I think, reasonable to presume that the increase in the figure of minor accidents reported is due more to a growing appreciation of the importance of treatment than to any increase in the risks of mining. I have certainly no reason to suppose that the figures indicate any inadequacy of Government inspection.

    HEWERS (ABSENTEEISM).
    Captain ROGERSONasked the Secretary for Mines what was the percentage of absenteeism amongst coal hewers during the last month for which returns are available?
    Lieut.-Colonel LANE-FOX: Particulars of absenteeism amongst coal hewers are not separately available. For all classes of colliery workers, both above and below ground, the number of man-shifts lost that could have been worked during April last was rather more than 8 per cent. of the total number of shifts that were, or could have been, worked.
    Mr. LAWSON: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman give us the percentage of absentees among directors of colliery companies for the same period?
    Mr. R. RICHARDSON: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the large amount of lost time consequent upon the lack of ventilation in many of the older mines of the country, as a result of which men have to absent themselves from work?
    Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Any further question must be put down.
    Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: On a point of Order. I wanted to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he is aware—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] This is a very important point.
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is not a point of Order.
    Mr. J. JONES: You made him a colonel, and now you will not listen to him.

    MINERS' NYSTAGMUS.
    Mr. PALINGasked the Secretary for Mines whether any statistics are yet available showing the number of cases of miners' nystagmus at pits where electric lamps are used, as compared with pits where oil lamps are used?
    Lieut.-Colonel LANE-FOX: No, Sir As I informed the hon. Member on 13th March last, such statistics would be of little value in themselves, owing to the number of factors involved.
    Mr. PALING: Is it not possible in such districts as the Doncaster area, where there are pits which use electric lamps entirely, to get evidence, which, if followed up, might be very useful?
    Lieut.-Colonel LANE-FOX: It is quite possible to get evidence as to individual collieries, but it is not possible to get a fair comparison between collieries as a result. Let me give an instance. If we have a group of collieries, and one colliery adopts electric lamps and the other continues to issue flame lamps, obviously the tendency of all the men in the district who are getting anxious about their eyes will be to drift into the colliery with electric lamps, and in a short time that colliery would have a worse record of nystagmus, due to the fact of its being better equipped.

    INJURED MEN (LIGHT EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. PALINGasked the Secretary for Mines how many injured men and boys previously employed at collieries and now drawing partial compensation pay have been medically certified as hems; fit for light employment but have been unable to obtain such employment at the pits where the accident occurred?
    Lieut.-Colonel LANE-FOX: I regret that the information is not available.

    OLD AGE PENSIONS.
    Mr. R. MORRISONasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the strong feeling throughout the country in favour of the repeal of the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Acts as to calculation of means, and the amendment of the Acts to enable old people to derive the full benefit of their thrift and personal provision for old age, and to receive
    1264
    assistance from friends, employers, and organisations without reduction of or disqualification for the full pension; and whether he can make any statement as to the intentions of the Government on this matter before the House rises?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It is quite impossible to make any statement at the present moment.

    PERFUMED SPIRITS.
    Mr. FRANK GRAYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Customs authorities permit scent to be imported into this country through the parcels post, and confiscate such article if sent by sample or letter post; whether he can inform the House under what Regulations this right is sought to be exercised and the interests sought to be served by this course; and whether he is aware that only a small percentage of cases are treated in this way?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Under the general Customs law, perfumed spirits may be imported through the parcels and insured box posts but not by sample or letter post. Such goods imported by the latter methods are liable to forfeiture and may be subjected to fines or returned to the country of export. The object of these provisions is to safeguard the revenue and they are in accordance with the Regulations of the International Postal Union which are operative in all countries within the Union. As regards the last part of the question, suitable action is taken by the Customs authorities in all cases of infringement brought to their notice.

    INCOME TAX.
    Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in view of the decision of the Court in the action of D. M'Donald v. Shand, 1922, S.C. 555, affirmed by the House of Lords on 30th April, 1923, whereby it was laid down that commission received by a director of a company was to be assessed for Income Tax purposes as perquisites under Rule 4, Section 146, of the Income Tax Act, 1842, Schedule E, and be based on the preceding year or

    1265
    the average of the preceding three years, his attention has been called to the action of the Inland Revenue in refusing to reopen assessments for the year 1921–22 made subsequent to the decision of the Court of Session, on the ground that no notice of appeal was lodged by the taxpayer within the time allowed, although such assessments have not been made in accordance with the law as laid down in the said decision; and whether he will give directions that on the application of any taxpayer such assessment shall be reopened and a fresh assessment made in accordance with the law as laid down in the said decision, and any money overpaid by such taxpayer shall be returned to him?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am not aware of the cases to which my hon. Friend refers. If he will furnish me with particulars of any case he has in mind, I will gladly inquire into it and communicate to him the result.

    TRADE MACHINERY (INCOME TAX).
    Sir JOHN SIMONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, seeing that the present assessment of premises containing fixed machinery under Schedule A is in practice based upon or arrived at in the light of the assessment made for Poor Law purposes, and that the assessment for Poor Law purposes in some unions is arrived at by taking into account ordinary trade machinery, whereas in other unions such machinery is not taken into account, he will say how are commissioners engaged in assessing property under Schedule A to secure a uniform standard of value for Schedule A throughout the country?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I would refer the right hon. Member to the reply which was given on this subject to the hon. Member for Deritend on the 14th June. I am sending him a copy of that reply.

    ELECTRICITY EXTENSION.
    Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether there are any cases in which electricity extension is delayed owing to inactivity of local
    1266
    authorities; and whether, in view of the need for providing employment this winter, he will instruct the Commissioners to suggest to such local authorities either that they show greater activity in meeting public requirements, or allow other authorities, ready to take over the work, to expand their activities?
    Colonel ASHLEY: The Commissioners are not aware of electricity extensions which are being delayed owing to inactivity of local authority undertakers. On the contrary, there has, for some time past, been much activity on the part of such authorities, as is shown by the fact that the Commissioners during the past three years have sanctioned the borrowing of no less than £36,000,000 by such authorities for electricity purposes. If my hon. Friend will give any specific instances of extensions delayed through alleged inactivity, these will be inquired into.
    Mr. SOMERVILLE: Has the hon. and gallant Gentleman any power in the matter when a considerable amount of work is being held up by the Electricity Commissioners themselves not coming to a decision?
    Colonel ASHLEY: I do not think that is so.
    Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Why, and how far, are the Commissioners themselves actually preventing the development of electrical enterprises, especially by private companies?

    EX-SERVICE MEN (TRAINING FACILITIES).
    Lieut.-Colonel NALLasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that disabled men were successfully trained in watch-case making and similar work in a private factory in Manchester but, owing to competing imports, the work could not be continued; and whether the Government will afford to this and similar trades facilities at least equal to any granted to the Brighton diamond factory?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I have no information as to the first part of the question, and I am not therefore in a position to determine whether the circumstances are the same as those which

    1267
    existed in the case of the Brighton diamond factory.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that any facilities which are given to the Brighton diamond factory are extended to the Fort William diamond factory?

    INDUSTRY (PROTECTIVE DUTIES).
    Lieut.-Colonel NALLasked the Prime Minister (1) whether, seeing that the imposition of protective measures has avoided the total loss of large sums of public money advanced as subsidies to the beet-sugar and dyestuffs industries, he will consider the adoption, in lieu of further expensive experiments in subsidies of protective measures in the first instance where suitable industries require support;
    (2) whether the Government will consider the possibility of encouraging factories for diamond cutting, watch-case making, and other luxury trades suitable for disabled men by means of protective duties on competing imported goods?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Where there is a case for special assistance to an industry, for whatever reason, it would, I think, be inexpedient to rule out of consideration any particular form which that assistance might take.
    Captain W. BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman throw any light upon the policy of protecting these industries?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think that arises.
    Mr. H. H. SPENCER: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that these protective measures are the policy of the Government in view of the pledges given before the last General Election?

    LEAGUE OF NATIONS (BRITISH REPRESENTATIVES).
    Captain BENNasked the Prime Minister whether the British delegates to the League of Nations assembly have yet been nominated; and whether it has been decided to include a woman among them?
    The PRIME MINISTER: If the hon. and gallant Member will repeat his question to-morrow, I hope to be in a position to make a statement.

  POST OFFICE.

    ACCOMMODATION, TOTTENHAM.
    Mr. R. MORRISONasked the Postmaster-General whether he has recently received a deputation from the Tottenham Urban District Council with regard to the present inadequate post office accommodation; and what action he intends to take in the matter?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): A deputation from the council was recently interviewed and the questions raised by its members are being actively pursued.

    BROADCASTING COMMITTEE (REPORT).
    Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Postmaster-General if, in view of its importance to trade, he can provide for laying the Report of the Broadcasting Committee before the House before it separates for the Recess; and if he can state what is the policy of the Government with respect to it?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: lam informed that the Broadcasting Committee are holding a further meeting for the consideration of their Report to-day, but even if it is then completed, it is improbable that copies will be available before the House rises.
    Mr. SOMERVILLE: Will the Report be published for general information?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I think an undertaking has already been given to that effect.

    TELEPHONE CHARGES (CITY CORPORATION).
    Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Post master-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that, in dealing with the account for telephone charges to the City Corporation, the Chief Commoner claimed that an error of 10,000 calls in favour of the Post Office had been made; and whether the correctness of that claim has since been admitted?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am sorry to say that, as the result of a clerical error, an account rendered to the City Corporation contained an overcharge of 10,000 calls. The matter was rectified as soon as attention was drawn to it.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Seeing that a very large number of subscribers have protested against similar errors and failed, how is it that the City Corporation were so very fortunate as to have this little error acknowledged?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It was not a little error but a mistake in the addition, which showed the amount to be 24,000 calls when the proper and correct addition was 14,000.

    SALE OF BUILDINGS (READING).
    Major CADOGANasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that on the 31st of May of this year a letter was sent to a few firms in Reading informing them that it was the intention of the Post Office authorities to dispose of the old general post office buildings in Reading, and that offers should be made not later than 11 o'clock on Wednesday, 6th June, thus leaving very little time for would-be purchasers to have the opportunity of inspecting the property, getting the advice of competent valuers, and making their financial arrangements; that it was not even stated in the letter whether the property was freehold, leasehold, or copyhold; and that the sale of the property was subsequently rushed through; and will he explain why the property was not put up for public auction?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The Circular Letter in question was sent to all enquirers after the property. It was not practicable to allow a larger interval because a substantial offer for the premises had been received which was open only until the 7th June last. As, however, it had long been known that the property was coming into the market, I think that any really interested party should have been able to obtain such further particulars as he might require, and a number of offers were, in fact, received. Further, I am advised that the amount finally accepted for the property would in all probability not have been realised at a public auction.
    Major CADOGAN: Is he aware that the property was resold at a much larger figure, and does this not prove that it would have been wiser to have put these buildings up to public auction?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The sale was effected at a price which was above the valuation which the Post Office was advised they would receive. The offer was only open, as I understand it, for a very few days, and there was a risk that, if put up for auction, the higher price would not be obtained, and so the highest offer was accepted.
    Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Was the valuation made by the Land Valuation Department?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am not quite sure. At any rate, it was made by the Department which usually advises Government Departments on valuations.
    Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Why was it disposed of by the Post Office and not by the Office of Works?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I think I must have notice of that question.

    POST OFFICE AND NEWSPAPER PRESS.
    Mr. LAWSONasked the Post master-General who drafted the paragraphs, particularly referring to himself, which were handed to the Press on Tuesday last; and on whose instructions they were sent out?
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Postmaster-General whether any official in his Department has been reprimanded or discharged in connection with the statement supplied to the Press on Tuesday last describing his past activities; and, if any officer has been so dealt with, will he give to the House the name and status of such official?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: As I informed the House on Wednesday last, I had not seen the statement referred to, which was issued without my knowledge or authority. It was drafted and sent out by the Intelligence Officer of the Post Office, who acted on his own responsibility. I have caused the Intelligence Officer to be informed that in issuing this statement he acted without authority and contrary to my wishes, and instructions

    1271
    have been given to him that no communication is to be issued to the Press without the sanction of the Secretary or a responsible officer of the Department.
    Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in this statement there are certain new and intimate details concerning himself which have been revealed to the public, and that the public are asking how the official came into possession of these facts; and in view of the public dissatisfaction in the matter, is he prepared to have an inquiry into the whole matter, and so give satisfaction all round?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: So far as I know, there is not a single matter referred to in any of these statements which is not a matter of public notoriety. The hon. Member will realise that I am not defending the statements, but when he says that these are facts that show intimate knowledge, or can only be known from intimate information, that is not, in fact, the case, because every single one of these facts are, as I say, on public record. However, the hon. Member will have an opportunity later in the afternoon of raising this question, and there is nothing I wish for more than the opportunity of replying.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: What are the duties of an intelligence officer?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is rather unusual to give this information in reply to a supplementary question, but the duties of an intelligence officer are briefly as follow:

    (a) To prepare and issue to the Press generally information as to the Post Office services available to the public and the means of making use of them.

    (b) To issue to the local Press statements as to the development of, or changes in, the local Post Office services, such as the establishment of new telephone exchanges, extensions of trunk call facilities, etc.

    (c) To receive representatives of the Press who require information on the Department's activities, and to obtain and supply such information as may properly be given.

    (d) To issue corrections of information appearing in the Press which may be misleading to the public.

    Mr. LANSBURY: If that be an accurate statement of the duties of this officer, how does it come about that the present officer takes upon himself the responsibility of issuing biographical notices of his chief?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: That is precisely what has been objected to by myself and the officials of the Post Office, and he had no right to do anything of the sort.
    Mr. LANSBURY: He was doing it for you.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Why did he not do it before?

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    GLOUCESTER REGIMENT (R. G. PROTHEROE).
    Colonel WOODCOCKasked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that Lance-Corporal E. G. Protheroe, No. 242,520, Gloucestershire Regiment, who served in the Army from 24th May, 1915, until his discharge on 2nd March, 1919, part of his service being in France, was in the Gloucester mental hospital from 5th August, 1922, to 30th November,1922, and was readmitted on 16th January,1923, and is still detained there; and, in view of the fact that he was suffering from nervous depression and was treated in the Southern Hospital, Bristol, during 1918, while in the Army, and that from the date of his discharge until he was admitted to the asylum he was periodically treated for a type of hysteric epilepsy which his doctor believes was entirely due to War service, will he explain why the Pensions Ministry disclaims all responsibility for this ex-soldier and allows him to be chargeable to the guardians as a pauper lunatic?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Captain Craig): My right hon. Friend is looking into the facts of this case and will communicate with the hon. and gallant Member as soon as possible.
    Colonel WOODCOCK: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this man was in the asylum at the time when he was boarded, and that the Minister refused to accept any liability for him;

    1273
    and also while he was in the asylum he was asked to sign and did sign a form on behalf of the Ministry?
    Captain CRAIG: I am sorry I cannot give the hon. Member any further information at present. As soon as the Minister of Pensions has had an opportunity of fully considering the facts he will communicate with the hon. Member.

    NEATH HOSPITAL.
    Mr. W. JENKINSasked the Minister of Pensions if he contemplates vacating the hospital at Penrhiewtyn, Neath; whether he is aware that there is considerable resentment in the area at the idea of its being removed; will he state the number of wounded ex-service men now at the hospital, the number attending there for treatment, and the extent of the area it covers; and, before any step is taken, will he cause full inquiries to be made and give an opportunity to representatives of the wounded to be heard?
    Captain CRAIG: It is proposed to vacate the hospital premises at Neath in the autumn when a more suitable institution at Chepstow will be available. My right hon. Friend is not aware of any objection to this change; on the contrary he has reason to believe that the ex-service men appreciate that it is to their advantage, in view of the better facilities for treatment which the new instituion will afford. There are a present 169 inpatients and 78 out-patients at Neath Hospital.

    IRISH FREE STATE (MALICIOUS INJURIES AWARDS).
    Sir JOHN BUTCHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that there is no precedent in which legislation by a Dominion has overridden and abolished statutory rights of British subjects which have accrued and become vested under legislation of the Imperial Parliament prior to the acquisition of Dominion status by such Dominion; and whether, under these circumstances, he will make representations to the Irish Free State requesting them to reconsider their action in abolishing the statutory vested right of British subjects to compensation for malicious injuries under awards made
    1274
    before the ratification of the Treaty by the Imperial Parliament?
    Captain DOUGLAS HACKING (for Mr. Ormsby-Gore): I am not aware of any exact precedent for the provision to which my hon. and learned Friend refers, nor am I aware of any precedent for the circumstances giving rise to it. In view of the fact that, by Article 7 of the Heads of Working Arrangements, His Majesty's Government agreed in principle to this provision on the ground that the rights in question were in fact unenforceable and were to be and have been replaced by rights which are enforceable, my Noble Friend the Secretary of State is not prepared to make any representations such as are suggested in the last part of the question.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give any explanation-why they should be abolished without legislation in this House?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Can he say why?
    Captain HACKING: I must have notice of both those questions.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give any reason why these statutory rights were abolished without legislation?

    KENYA AND RHODESIA (NATIVE LANDS).
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government intends to constitute for Kenya and Rhodesia a land board similar to that which exists in Natal, charged with the duties of safeguarding native reserves from encroachment, promoting education, and encouraging the cultivation of the soil?
    Captain HACKING: In the case of Kenya the whole question of native land is now under the consideration of the Governor. My Noble Friend the Secretary of State will bear in mind my Noble Friend's suggestion when he has the Governor's views. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has dealt, in replies to other questions yesterday and to-day, with native education and cultivation in

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    Kenya. As regards Southern Rhodesia, in view of the settlement now arrived at with the British South Africa Company, the administration of the lands will be in the hands of the new Government, subject to the provisions as to native administration and the Native Reserves contained in Sections 39–47 of the draft letters patent published in Cmd. 1573.

    NATIVE TAXATION AND EDUCATION (KENYA).
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies how much money is contributed by the African natives towards the revenue of Kenya, and how much is spent on native education; and whether the Government intends to institute a system of State education, or to subsidise the missionary societies for that purpose?
    Captain HACKING: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary gave the figures which my Noble Friend desires in his written reply to the hon. and learned Member for Orkney and Shetland on the 12th of June. The question of education for the native, as for other communities, in Kenya is now under the anxious consideration of the Governor. So far as general native education is concerned, my Noble Friend the Secretary of State is satisfied that it will be much better for the Government to encourage the admirable work of the missions than to embark on a system of State schools, if such is possible.

    PALESTINE.
    Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies at what date it is expected that the territory of Palestine may become self-supporting?
    Captain HACKING: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary would prefer not to indulge in prophecy. My hon. Friend knows, no doubt, that the only charge borne by the British Exchequer in respect of Palestine is the cost of the garrison (including the British Gendarmerie), and that this charge is being progressively reduced.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Will the hon. Gentleman invite the Under-Secretary for the Colonies to collaborate with the
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    Governor-General of Palestine who is over here and has already indulged in prophecy? That is why I put the question down.
    Captain HACKING: I will convey that suggestion to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. BECKER: Is it the fact that the loan made by the Crown Colonies to Palestine is not considered a charge, as I gather from the reply that we can never hope to get the money back again?
    Captain HACKING: I said that the only charge borne on the British Exchequer was the cost of the garrison.

    FEDERATED UNIVERSITIES (SUPERANNUATION SCHEME).
    Mr. W. GRAHAMasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that, in connection with the Federated Universities Superannuation Scheme, the provisions apply not only to Universities but to many educational institutions and public departments, and that there are grants of public money; that a comparatively small number of life assurance offices are on the panel, to the exclusion of a large number of offices of equally high standing; and seeing that this involves considerable hardship for policy-holders in non-panel offices and that the Committee in charge of the scheme has so far failed to meet this criticism, he will take steps to ensure that a free choice of all first-class offices is afforded to all entitled to benefit under the scheme?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The management of the Federated Superannuation System for Universities is not in the hands of the Government but of an independent central council consisting of representatives of the bodies participating in the system, including one Government representative. The system applies to various University institutions, to other educational and research institutions not under Government control and to certain members of the scientific and research staffs attached to a few Government Departments. The life assurance offices, forming the panel approved for the purpose of the scheme, have been nominated by the central council; and I do not think it is desirable that the

    1277
    Government should attempt to interfere with the council's discretion and to take the responsibility of selecting a panel of insurance companies for a scheme which applies mainly to the employés of outside institutions. If the existing arrangements involve hardship to individual policy-holders, the individuals affected can, of course, make representations to the council through the institution or Department which employs them.

    PUBLIC TRUSTEE (STAMP DUTIES).
    Sir ARTHUR LEVERasked the Attorney-General if he is aware that the Public Trustee has an unfair handicap over other corporate trustees, in that under Section 1 (2) of the Public Trustee Act, 1906, any instrument sealed by the Public Trustee is not by reason of the Public Trustee using his seal rendered liable to a higher stamp duty than if he were an individual, while any other corporate trustee has not this privilege; and if, at the earliest opportunity, he will take steps to remove this anomaly by providing that any instrument sealed by a corporate trustee shall not by reason of the corporate trustee using its seal be rendered liable to a higher stamp duty than if it were signed by an individual?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The advantage referred to in the question, which is enjoyed by the Public Trustee, is not, I understand, of much practical importance. It was, however, deliberately conferred on him by Parliament, and I am not aware of any sufficient reason for initiating legislation extending it to other bodies.

    INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE (WHITE LEAD).
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether legislation will be introduced to carry out the requirements of the Draft Convention on white lead adopted at the International Labour Conference in 1921 and whether the Government proposes to ratify this Convention?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson): The Home Secretary regrets he can add nothing at the moment to the replies given to previous questions on this subject. He hopes to be able to announce the decision of the Government when the House reassembles in the autumn.

    DOCKERS' DEMONSTRATIONS (POLICE ACTION).
    Mr. J. JONESasked the Home Secretary if he is aware that on Wednesday the 25th instant, at about 10.8 p.m., a meeting was being held at the corner of Beckton Road, Canning Town, of the dockers on strike and that, without any warning, a number of mounted police rode into the crowd and up and down the road, causing injuries among the crowd, women and children being ridden down; and if he will order an inquiry into the matter?
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which my right hon. Friend gave yesterday to a similar question by the hon. Member for Plaistow.
    Mr. JONES: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that this has nothing to do with what happened at Plaistow? This is a totally different occurrence. One happened on Tuesday night and the other on Wednesday. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to answer the second part of my question as to whether he will order an inquiry?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I do not think the hon. Gentleman can have seen the reply given yesterday. I have a copy here and will send it to him.
    Mr. JONES: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply—[Interruption]—I am not going to sit in this House—I ask permission—
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I am quite prepared to read the answer given yesterday. I think it covers the hon. Member's question.
    Mr. JONES: I want the answer to-day. I am not going to stand here and see—
    Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member will listen to the answer, he will see what it covers.
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The answer given by my right hon. Friend was as follows:
    "I am informed that about 4,000 persons had assembled in connection with the meeting to which the hon. Member refers. The police had reason to believe that a considerable proportion of those present were provided with stones and other missiles, and as the behaviour of the crowd towards the few police on duty was becoming very threatening, additional police were sent for. Shortly after 10 p.m., a small number of mounted police arrived, and the crowd, on seeing them, stampeded up side streets. The mounted police were stoned near Hermit Road and again near Rathbone Street, but no police drew or used their truncheons, and the crowd eventually dispersed by 11.30 p.m. The police appear to have acted in a very forbearing manner under considerable provocation, and I see no need for further inquiry into the incident."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1923; col. 1070, Col. 167.]
    Mr. JONES: I beg to ask if I can raise this question on the Adjournment.
    Mr. SPEAKER: It would be in order to raise it on the Consolidated Fund Bill to-day or to-morrow.
    Mr. JONES: I will so raise it. The statement is not true.

    PARLIAMENTARY RECESS.
    Mr. ASQUITH(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the critical condition of European affairs, the absence of complete information as to the views of the various Powers, and the probability of serious developments in the near future, the Government will not contemplate securing to the House of Commons the opportunity, if necessity arises, of a special meeting, after the Adjournment, at some earlier date than is now proposed?
    The PRIME MINISTER: As I stated yesterday, as Parliament will be standing adjourned, arrangements can be made for summoning it at short notice should the necessity arise.
    Mr. ASQUITH: I am well aware that that has been enacted, but I want to get some assurance from the Prime Minister that the powers given by the enactment will be exercised.
    The PRIME MINISTER: Of course, that would be done, but I am no more anxious than the right hon. Gentleman that the necessity for it should arise.

    LOCAL LEGISLATION COMMITTEE.
    Special Report brought up, and read.
    Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
    Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

    PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.
    First Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, brought up, and read.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

    PUBLIC PETITIONS.
    Third Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

    COUNTY COURTS BILL,
    "to amend the Law relating to Officers of the County Courts and of District Registries of the High Court, and to make further provision with respect to County Courts and proceedings therein; and for purposes incidental thereto," presented by Mr. ATTORNEY-GENERAL; supported by Mr. Solicitor-General; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 211.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—

Agricultural Rates Bill,

Nottingham Corporation Bill,

City and South London Railway Bill,

Torquay Corporation Bill,

London Electric Railway Bill, with Amendments.

Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road Ferry Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the regulation of the manufacture, sale, and importation of vaccines, sera, and other therapeutic substances." [Therapeutic Substances Bill [Lords.]
And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Robert Gordon's

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Colleges and the Aberdeen Endowments Trust." [Robert Gordon's Colleges and Aberdeen Endowments Trust Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]

ROBERT GORDON'S COLLEGES AND ABERDEEN ENDOWMENTS TRUST ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
Ordered (under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) to be considered To-morrow.
AGRICULTURAL RATES BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 212.]

SUSPENSION OF MEMBERS.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I beg to move,
"That the period of suspension from the service of the House of Mr. Maxton, Mr. Wheatley, Mr. Stephen, and Mr. Buchanan do terminate this day."
I am afraid I must trouble the House with a few remarks on this Motion. It may be within the recollection of the House that Standing Order No. 18, Section (2), reads at present:
"If any Member be suspended under this Order, his suspension on the first occasion"—
and there it stops. The reason of that is that, while for more than 20 years before 1902 the old Standing Order read that such suspension should vary as from a week for the first offence and so forth, in 1902 the Government of the day sought to make an alteration in the period, and to insert in the Standing Order what had not been previously inserted, namely, the necessity for an apology in any circumstances before a Member could be readmitted after suspension. That question was debated at great length in 1902, and there was so great a divergence of opinion that the Government finally withdrew all their proposals, and left the Standing Order in the form in which it is to-day. The result of there being no agreement arrived at with regard to periods was that the suspension would last for the Session if no Motion to the contrary were submitted; and the responsibility for making a Motion was not left to the suggestion of Mr. Speaker, nor to the Leader of any party, but to the Leader of the House, and it is rather invidious work for the Leader of the House, for he has to take into consideration, in the first place, what in his view is a reasonable punishment—for that is what the application of a period of suspension amounts to—a reasonable punishment in the absence of an apology; and, secondly, he has to consider how far the extent of that punishment commends itself to the general judgment, not merely of one party, but of that House against which the Members in question at various times have offended. I think it would be the greatest service in the future if, before very long, the House would make up its mind in what direction it would like to see that second Section of Standing Order No. 18 put into final and workable form.
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I think we have to consider first the precedents since 1902, to see what the view of the House has been in dealing with cases—the House will forgive me for repeating it again—where no apology has been tendered, because the practice has always been that the tendering of an apology, even if it should be on the day on which the offence was committed, wipes out the offence, and the suspension is not put into force. About the time that the alteration was made in the Rules, in 1902, there occurred the suspension of Mr. Dillon, which lasted one week—I am only dealing with cases where there was no apology—and the Motion for the suspension was rescinded at the instance of Mr. Balfour, who was then the Leader of the House. In 1913 came the case, with which most hon. Members are familiar, of Mr. Moore, and his suspension lasted for three weeks. On that occasion the Motion was moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), and it was supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law), who expressed it as his view that three weeks was an ample period for suspensions, and he hoped that it would be taken as a precedent. In 1920, Mr. Devlin was suspended, and his period of suspension was interrupted by the adjournment of the House—there was an Autumn Session that year; but the Motion for his restoration was put down within three days of the re-assembling of the House, so that the actual amount of Parliamentary time for which he was suspended was 13 days.
These were all three cases of Irishmen, and now we have to deal with cases of Scotsmen; but, before coming to them, I would like to say, if it be any comfort to any section of the House which believes that England always pays for everything, that the longest period of suspension was in the case of an Englishman, Mr. Albert Grayson, who was suspended in 1908, and whose suspension was allowed to run until the end of the Session, which made a period of nine weeks.
Mr. J. JONES: He was a Labour man.
The PRIME MINISTER: The House will see, therefore, that the periods of suspension had nothing consistent about them; they have varied from as little as one week to as long as nine weeks. In my view it is fair and reasonable on this occasion to take a mid-period of about five weeks, such as has elapsed in this case,

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and I believe that that view will commend itself to a majority of this House. I hope very much that the House will not allow itself to be influenced unduly by anything that may have taken place outside its precincts. We have to deal with the purging of an offence to the House on the Floor of the House, and I think that it would be beneath the dignity of this House to be guided from time to time by every ebullition of feeling that might occur outside the House. It could only lead to an unseemly prolongation of the period of suspension, alternating with Motions being put down and with something occurring outside which caused the withdrawal of those Motions. I am quite convinced, after giving careful consideration to this case, that the dignity of the House would be better maintained by accepting this Resolution to-day, on one of the closing days of the Session, in order that we may part, before we go for our holidays, with this case, which has been a painful one to the House; and I hope that the House will accept this period as a due punishment for an offence committed—a punishment which has been imposed by the will of the House—and will regard the offence now as being expiated.
4.0 P.M.
Sir F. BANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman has rightly stated that 21 years ago the rule dealing with suspension was left in an incomplete state. The rule has remained incomplete for 21 years; that is to say, that under the rule as it now stands, if a Member be suspended, he will be suspended until the end of the Session, unless a Motion be made, as is being done now, it being, of course, well understood that should the hon. Member apologize to the House, a Motion for the termination of his suspension would be received by acclamation by every single Member of the House. But that apology has not been made, and I will ask the House to consider how the hon. Members in question have acted since their suspension. I would like here to say that it is a question for the House. It is not a question for the Government or for the Opposition; it is a question for the House itself. We are making this Motion when only yesterday three of the Members in question, after having written a letter to you, Sir, quoting a precedent, with which I shall deal, and making themselves judges
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in their own case, stating that in their opinion they ought to come back and were going to come back, came down to the House in order to flout the House and to disregard its rules; and they were only prevented from doing that by the action of the police. What have the hon. Members done since they were suspended? There is a letter in the "Times" to-day signed by a gentleman who stood as a Labour candidate at the last Election, in which he tells us—I have not been able to check the statement, but I assume it is correct—that the four Members in question have been down to their constituents and have asked their constituents whether or not they should apologise to the House and their constituents, I presume, have said, "No." They are, therefore, making their constituents the judges of what is to be done in this House.
Mr. NEWBOLD: Hear, hear!
Sir F. BANBURY: The gentleman in question in the letter says:
"Such procedure would render Parliamentary Government impossible."
May I for a moment deal with the precedents to which the Prime Minister has alluded? The first precedent was 20 or 21 years ago, and it was that of Mr. Dillon, who did not apologise, and who was out for a week. I do not remember the circumstances of that suspension, but it is quite evident that at that time the new rule had been in force only a few days or weeks, and therefore it was not unjustifiable to make an exception in Mr. Dillon's favour. I may also point out that Mr. Dillon's behaviour during his suspension was very different from the behaviour of these four hon. Members. Then we come to the case of Mr. Moore. Those hon. Members who were in the House in 1913 will remember that case. I do not propose to go into it now beyond saying that the words which Mr. Moore used, under very great provocation, were:
"Disgraceful trickery."
Mr. NEWBOLD:Are you not a provocation?
Sir F. BANBURY: They are not words of a very strong order. Listen to the words of the hon. Member for th9 Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Mr. Maxton):
"I call the men who walked into the Lobby in support of that policy murderers.

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They have blood on their hands—the blood of infants. It is a fearful thing for any man to have on his soul—a cold, callous, deliberate crime in order to save money."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1923; col. 2382, Vol. 165.
Mr. NEWBOLD: Hear, hear!
Sir F. BANBURY: I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and I ask the House whether any man could lay to the charge of another man a more grievous or awful crime. I have been 31 years in this House, and I have heard hon. Members on all sides of the House, under provocation or whatever you may call it, use words which in their calmer moments they would not have used. But I never could have conceived it possible that a man could coolly and deliberately, as I am prepared to show, get up in this House, and use the words which I have just read. You could not call a man by a worse name or attribute to him a worse crime.
What were the actual facts? The hon. Member for Northern Lanark (Mr. Sullivan) was making a speech about housing, and he alluded to the shortage of houses in Glasgow. He said something about children which I did not catch, and he then said something about saving money and I said "Hear, hear!" I have the OFFICIAL REPORT in my pocket, and I said "Hear, hear!" in such a way that if hon. Members will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, they will see that there is no name mentioned. But in little brackets there are the words [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear !"]. When I said "Hear, hear I" the hon. Member for Lanarkshire said: "I do not resent that interruption, but I should like to ask the right hon. Member how he would like his daughter to live in a one-roomed house." I made no answer. I did not think that it was a question which I had any need to answer. The hon. Member concluded his speech, and I left the House. That was all the remark that I made, with the exception of a correction of the hon. Member when he had misquoted me earlier. I venture to say that the fact that the hon. Member for Northern Lanark asked whether I would like my daughter to live in a one-roomed house shows that the hon. Member, like myself, was under the impression that the matter he was discussing was a question of housing.
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I went out of the House, and was out about three-quarters of an hour. I came in again behind your Chair, and, as I entered, I heard the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow mention my name. I did not hear what he said. I came in and sat on the front bench. I took my hat off, and I said: "If the hon. Member wishes to ask me any questions, I shall be prepared to answer." The hon. Member said: "There is nothing to answer." I came back to my present seat, and the Debate went on for a quarter of an hour, and nothing further happened. Then the hon. Member used the words which I read to the House a short time ago. I say, therefore, that the hon. Member was not speaking under excitement. He was speaking coolly and deliberately, and the three hon. Members who later on supported him also did it deliberately. This House is face to face with the question, "Are we going to maintain the old rules of order, or are we not?" If we are not, we cannot carry on this House, and we cannot carry on Parliamentary Government. We must not forget that certain hon. Members, coming from Scotland—I do not know whether these four are included—publicly stated to their constituents and to the country that, when they came into this House, they would break its rules and overthrow its rules. Are we going to submit to that?
Mr. NEIL MACLEAN:On a point of Order. [Interruption.] I am doing what the right hon. Gentleman did on that occasion when he rose to a point of Order. As a Glasgow Member, and as one, therefore, who comes under the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, I should like him to quote—[Interruption]—I should like him to mention to the House when and where that statement was made.
Mr. SPEAKER:That is not a point of Order.
Mr. MACLEAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman then to be allowed to make inaccurate statements?
Sir F. BANBURY: We have to decide whether we intend to insist upon the rules of order being maintained, those rules being the product of many years of wisdom and thought, and being rules which up to the present time have, on the whole, operated so as to enable Par-

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liamentary Government to continue. There is one precedent to which the Prime Minister alluded, that of Mr. Grayson. Mr. Grayson was suspended—I do not care whether it was for seven, eight or nine weeks—for the remainder of the Session. Why does not the right hon. Gentleman act upon that precedent, unless the Members in question apologise. I would conclude by asking the Prime Minister if he could not see his way to withdraw this Motion. If after this Debate the hon. Members in question do the right thing and write to you and apologise for their conduct, every one of us will be only too glad to see them back, but, until they do that, I submit that we should be making a grievous error to let them come back.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir M. ARCHER-SHEE:I wish to say one word in reference to this matter, because I wish to appeal to the Prime Minister to take off the Government Whips and to allow this matter to go to a decision of the House. As my right hon. Friend has said, this is a matter for the House and not for any party. I am quite sure that there is not a man in this House who, if these hon. Members had apologised, would not have welcomed them back, as is the ordinary way in which the House treats Members who have made a mistake. These Members not only called my right hon. Friend a murderer and other hon. Members on this side of the House, but they deliberately insulted the Chair, and went on persistently insulting the Chair. In addition, they have gone about the country since saying that they have no intention of apologising, and, if they are taken back without apologising, as they ought to do; they will regard it as a victory. I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend does not mind being called epithets by them any more than a lion objects to the yelping of jackals, but, if hon. Members of this House have made fools of themselves, that is no reason why this House should not maintain the precedents which have always been followed in the past.
There is another precedent beside those quoted by the Prime Minister. There was the case of John Maclure, in 1892, who broke the rules of the House. He apologised, but that was not considered enough. It was a question of intimidation of a witness. He not only apologised most
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abjectly, but the House received his apology and ordered him to be admonished by Mr. Speaker, and Mr. Speaker admonished him in these words. I will only read the first few lines of it, as he did it at length.
"It now become my duty, as the mouthpiece of the House and as the interpreter of its wishes, to state to you what is the opinion of the House upon your conduct. It is quite true that you have made an apology to the House for an undoubted breach of its privileges. I need hardly tell you that a mere apology does not always-cover the extent and surface of an offence, but the House has taken a lenient view in that respect of your conduct and has expressed, in its Resolution, its willingness-to accept your apology. But that is not all. The House has instructed me to admonish you for a grave breach of the privileges of this House."
I think these hon. Members not only ought to apologise, but they ought to be admonished by you, Sir, for the gross outrage which they have perpetrated upon this House.
Mr. J. RAMSAY MacDONALD: I rise certainly not for the purpose of importing any further heat into this discussion. We can enter very fully into the feelings of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), but I am sure he will be the last man to put his own feelings this afternoon before the right conduct of the House of Commons.
Sir F. BANBURY:I have said over and over again that I do not want an apology for myself. I am quite willing to drop it, but I demand an apology to Mr. Speaker and to the House.
Mr. MacDONALD: I was perfectly certain that was the right hon. Gentleman's attitude, that the offence was against the Chair and the House, and to that extent it is on all fours exactly with the case of Mr. Moore. If hon. Members would look at the Moore case they would find that the words used by him were most offensive. They were a direct attack upon the Chair—a far more direct attack than took place five weeks ago. Mr. Moore made it perfectly clear that he accused the Chair and the Secretary to the Treasury of "a piece of disgraceful trickery." and then proceeded to accuse the Chair of partiality in the conduct of the affairs of the House. I hope hon. Members will think twice before they come to a hasty decision as to how they are going to vote this after-

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noon. Mr. Moore's offence was committed under great provocation, the right hon. Gentleman says. I was present. The provocation was one which an old Member of the House, a Member learned in the law, a Member accustomed surely, to control himself, might have been expected to disregard. Not only that, but the point about the' Moore case was that a Division was taken after he had used the offensive language—a Division on another point altogether—and then when the House came back, after the advantage of a 20 minutes interval, Mr. Moore, in cold blood, in a calm frame of mind, deliberately got up and repeated the statement he had originally made. It was a deliberate insult offered to the Chair. His suspension followed. Many hon. Members opposite, who were then Members of the House sitting on this side, voted against the suspension in spite of that—some of them important Members, some of them sitting on the Front Bench now. Three weeks elapsed. Then the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) moved that the suspension be now terminated. He used these words:
"It is a very serious thing to deprive a constituency of its representation in this House for a longer time than is absolutely necessary in order to vindicate our traditions and our Rules of Order."
He also said:
"Three weeks is at least as long a term as has ever been considered necessary by the House for a purpose of this sort."
That is not all. The late Prime Minister, himself a Member for Glasgow, then Leader of the Opposition, got up and said that the course taken by the Government, was in his opinion, the course which ought to be taken whoever the Member was who committed the offence, and the precedent set that day would, he was sure, be applied in future. That is the opinion of their own late Leader, the ex-Prime Minister.
Another point emerges—the conduct of the four hon. Members who are now suspended. It is on exactly all fours with the conduct of Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore went to his constituency, Mr. Moore gloried in what he had done, Mr. Moore in public boasted that on no account would he apologise. Mr. Moore took his punishment and, the punishment having been meted out, this House decided to terminate the period of suspension. The
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right hon. Gentleman referred to what took place yesterday. The Prime Minister to-day is not acting as Prime Minister exactly but as Leader of the House, as I am acting at the moment not as Leader of the Labour Parity but as Leader of the Opposition. Both he and I are careful to do our best to preserve the best traditions and the finest spirit of the House in asking that the suspension should be removed. He and I for the last fortnight have been working away at this matter. The events of yesterday and the publication of that letter, I can assure hon. Members opposite and hon. Members on this side, have had no more to do with the putting down of this Resolution than the box in front of which I am speaking. So far as the Members were concerned, they never intended that it should be anything but a technical claim of the right of individual Members to be received here. They gave the Moore precedent, and said, "Why are we to be treated differently?" They have been quoting the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley. They have been quoting the words of the late Prime Minister. They have taken the words of the latter in particular as a definite statement, accepted by both sides of the House, that any future suspension should terminate at the end of three weeks, and a fortnight after that having elapsed they rightly or wrongly—I think if I might say so following a very bad judgment—decided to send you, Sir, that letter and to make an appearance at the House of Commons yesterday, a technical appearance as everyone who saw it knows perfectly, and turned away when the policeman told them the suspension still ran, and they could not approach the precincts.
I have no intention of saying a word more. I hope the House is going to behave in what I am sure most of the old Parliamentary hands will say is a proper way. Suspension is a punishment. Make no mistake about that. If a Member is suspended and apologises, this House is always generous. The suspension is at once terminated when Mr. Speaker signifies to the Leader of the House that he is satisfied with the apology. That is one way, but there is another way. It may be the best way, but it is not the only way. The other precedents are perfectly clear that the period of suspen-

1315
sion may run, and if the Member does not apologise, this House, recognising its responsibility to the constituency and declining absolutely, as the House ought, to recognise anything that happens outside, short always of a breach of privilege, removes the sentence when the punishment is complete. For us Members of Parliament, not individually, but as parts of this great historic assembly, to go and scan every word and every sentence said by Members outside about us or about themselves, is really too much beneath our dignity, and beneath the dignity of the House of Commons to take into account when it is asked to vote for or against such a Resolution as this. Therefore, I appeal to hon. Members opposite, as well as to hon. Members on this side, to pass this Resolution and to take up the proper attitude that suspension is a sentence. When the sentence is finished, then the Members of the House are brought back without apology, and that was undoubtedly the sense of the Members of the House in 1902 when the Standing Orders were under consideration. I hope, therefore, the Resolution which has been moved by the Leader of the House will be carried by the House.
Mr. ASQUITH: It is with very great reluctance that I intervene in this Debate. I have never known a case in which a Motion of this kind has been made by the Leader of the House, on his responsibility not as head of the Government, but as representing the corporate sense and authority of the House of Commons, when it has not been accepted. I should be very sincerely anxious for our future if we were to set such an evil precedent as is suggested to-day. Do not let it be supposed that I am for a moment extenuating the gravity of the offence which has been committed. It is one of the worst, in a long Parliamentary experience, which it has been my ill-fortune to witness. Nor can I wonder at the degree of feeling which has been shown by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who we all know is in disposition and practice one of the humanest of men, when a suggestion apparently, as he thought, personally directed against him was made. There is a fact, and a very important fact, which has been, as far as I have heard, completely ignored in this dis-
1316
cussion. It is true that we ought to vindicate the authority of the House of Commons. At the same time we ought, not to be forgetful of the interests of constituencies. The prolongation of a sentence of suspension is, in substance, a temporary disfranchisement of the constituencies which these hon. Members represent. In the case of Mr. Moore—a very bad case, in all its circumstances—when I took the responsibility as Leader of the House, after the expiration of three weeks' suspension, of moving that he be re-admitted, without apology, I said that I thought it
"a very serious thing to deprive a constituency of its representation in the House for a longer time than is absolutely necessary in order to vindicate our traditions and our Rules of Order."
I hold that opinion still. That Motion was assented to by the then Leader of the Opposition, the late Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law). Perhaps you will allow me to say, Mr. Speaker, that the offence on that occasion was directed against yourself. You were at that time our Chairman of Ways and Means. The Chairman of Ways and Means, now occupying the Chair as Mr. Speaker, said on that occasion:
"I am in full accord with everything the Prime Minister has said. … I am sure that whoever happened to be in the Chair would take the same view."
We have, therefore, in that case, the Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chairman of Ways and Means all assenting to the view that the dignity of the House had been sufficiently vindicated by a suspension of three weeks' duration, even without apology, and that the rights of constituencies must not be ignored. I do net know of any other case since 1902 where a Member's suspension has been continued more than three weeks—[HON. MEMBERS: "Victor Grayson!"]—except the case of Mr. Grayson. Mr. Grayson on the first occasion, I think, described the majority of Members of this House as traitors, and on the next day he described them as murderers. Thereupon, on his being named by Mr. Speaker, I moved the ordinary Motion for his suspension. That happened on the 16th October, 1908, at the beginning of the Autumn Session. On the 17th December, exactly two months later, I was asked by Mr. Belloc, who was then a Member of the House,

1317
if I would afford facilities for a Motion for the re-admission of Mr. Grayson, in view of the fact that the procedure on the suspension of Members was in a state of ambiguity. We were then within two days of the prorogation, and I said:
"I do not think at this period of the Session, when the business of the House is so nearly finished, that there would be any advantage in giving facilities for a Motion to readmit the hon. Member. If earlier representation had been made, and there was a desire that the House should express an opinion upon the matter, I should have been glad to have given an opportunity."
I would have given that opportunity. That case cannot be taken as a serious exception to the uniform practice of the House. It is, I think, very discreditable to the House of Commons that this rule as to suspension should be in its present condition. It has remained so for 21 years. It was passed in 1902, and it is an extraordinary thing that we have in our Standing Orders this singular provision:
"If any Member be suspended under this Order, his suspension on the first occasion."
It is an incomplete sentence. It means nothing, and it comes to nothing. There we have remained for 21 years. The old rule for which this rule was substituted provided a graduated scale. On the first occasion the suspension should continue for one week—that was what Lord Balfour had in mind in the case of Mr. Dillon—on the second occasion for a fortnight, and on the third or any subsequent occasion, one month, so that under the old practice the suspension was never contemplated to be longer than a month. Under the old rule which was abrogated by this incomplete sentence in 1902, the utmost punishment that was ever contemplated, even when the offence was repeated twice or three times, was a period of one month. These four hon. Members have been out of the House for five weeks. If our procedure had remained as it was before 1902, even if they had repeated their offence, their suspension would have come to an end before now.
What possible objection can there be to this Motion? You have in the case, which is by far the most relevant, of Mr. Moore, the combined opinion of the then Leader of the House, the Leader of the
1318
Opposition and he Chairman of Ways and Means, assented to without Division, and, as far as I know, without adverse criticism in any quarter of the House, that in normal conditions a sentence of three weeks is sufficient. These Gentlemen have been suspended for a longer term than that. I think the House of Commons would be taking a retrograde step in objecting to this Motion—I have nothing to say in extenuation or defence of the offence that has been committed—and acting with a harshness that it has never previously shown, and would inflict upon these constituencies a prolongation of their compulsory non-representation in this House which the circumstances do not justify. I appeal very strongly to the House to support the Motion made by the Leader of the House, and to carry it without a dissenting voice.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I should like to appeal to my hon. Friends not to press their opposition to this Motion to a Division. This is one of the occasions on which we ought to combine to support the dignity and authority of the House. Any student of Parliamentary history must be aware that whenever the House has entered into long and embittered conflict with individuals it has never conduced either to the dignity or the authority of the House. These conflicts have occurred very frequently in the history of the House of Commons, and I think I am right in saying that in no single instance has the House of Commons come out of the conflict with individuals without discredit. I hope, therefore, that we shall support my right hon. Friend's Motion, which I believe is in the interests of the dignity and authority of the House. I do so specially because the Leader of the House is entitled on this occasion to a special degree of support. He has considered the matter, I am sure, in a judicial spirit, and it would greatly weaken his authority and his power to serve the House unless he can feel that on an occasion of this kind he has the loyal and devoted support, not only of his own supporters, but of the Whole House.
Question put, and agreed to.
Ordered,
"That the period of suspension from the service of the House of Mr. Maxton, Mr. Wheatley, Mr. Stephen, and Mr. Buchanan do terminate this day."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."—[The Prime Minister.]

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.

    POST OFFICE AND NEWSPAPER PRESS.
    Mr. PRINGLE: The House has been dealing with a personal issue in which very important questions in relation to this House have been involved. The question to which I am now going to direct the attention of the House is also a personal question, and in that personal question there are also important issues of public policy involved. On Wednesday of last week the Postmaster-General found it necessary to come down to the House and to ask your leave, Mr. Speaker, and the leave of the House, to make a personal statement. To refresh the memory of the House I intend to read' that statement. He said:
    "My attention has been called to certain paragraphs containing vulgar and stupid personal puffs, which were sent to the Press Gallery of the House of Commons yesterday. I find, on inquiry, that they were written and sent by an officer of the Post Office. They were sent without my knowledge or authority. I never saw them until I noticed them in the newspapers this morning.
    I authorised the sending of copies of my Estimates speech to the Press, in the usual way, but nothing else. I am taking steps to prevent any recurrence, and nothing will be sent out in future from the General Post Office to the Press, except that which is authenticated by the signature of the Secretary or a responsible official."—["OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1923; col. 478, Vol. 167.]
    That statement has been amplified by an answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave at Question Time to-day. The amplification, however, does not add much to our knowledge, neither does it throw much further light upon an episode which we are entitled to assert is somewhat obscure. The statement, with the addition of this afternoon, leaves certain matters obscure in relation to this particular incident, but it also raises wider questions as to the continuance of
    1320
    publicity departments in certain Government offices, and the functions which these publicity departments perform. The mystery or obscurity in connection with the peccant paragraphs is a matter for the Postmaster-General to clear up. As to the attitude of the Government on the general question of publicity, I hope that the Prime Minister, or some other Minister authorised to speak on his behalf, will be able to state what the attitude of the Government is.
    It is necessary before I proceed further to deal with the paragraph out of which this incident has arisen. According to the Postmaster-General's statement, there were paragraphs sent to the Press Gallery, along with his Estimate speech, which he assured the House was sent in the usual course. I am not quite sure that it was sent in the usual course. It was sent somewhat more precipitately than is the usual custom. It was sent so early that one evening paper could have it in the newspaper before it was completed in the House of Commons, so there was obviously, in the manner of sending the speech to the Press, an attention to the Press which had not been usually observed by the Postmaster-General or other Ministers. But there were two sets of paragraphs at least. There was one which was obviously intended for the evening papers, and it is very important that we should have the actual words of these paragraphs, because the right hon. Gentleman says that everything that is included in these paragraphs was a matter of public notoriety. That was the phrase which he used, and I am now going to read the paragraphs, and I hope that the House will observe the passages which, in the view of the Postmaster-General, who, of course, is a public character, are publicly notorious. This is the evening paper statement:
    "Sir Laming Worthington-Evans in presenting the Post Office Estimates in the House of Commons this evening"—
    that is obviously for the evening Press—
    "dealt with his third Departmental Budget"—
    an interesting word "Budget." I want the House to mark that term "Budget." I notice that the Financial Secretary is also interested in that paragraph. It is right that the Financial Secretary, who sympathises with him in this matter, should be present with him in the House,

    1321
    not only as a colleague but fellow lawyer to hold his hand—
    "since he first took office in 1916. He piloted the Ministry of Munitions Estimates through Committee in 1917, and those of the War Office last year, an occasion which gave the ill-fated Sir Henry Wilson the opportunity of making his maiden speech."
    I cannot understand the object of dragging in that allusion.
    "'Worthy,' as he is familiarly known in his Department,"—
    that is a matter of public notoriety—
    "is not so well known outside the House. When the National Insurance Bill was introduced he was its tireless critic, and when it finally scraped through Mr. Lloyd George expressed himself as thoroughly tired of this pertinacious critic who had only held a seat in the House of Commons since 1910. But the critic by means of this one Measure had made good"—
    this is public notoriety again—,
    "and when the opportunity came he was given a post."
    Now this is a matter of interest to the House:
    "Mr. Lloyd George's great virtue"—
    we all thought that his great virtue was that he won the War—
    "was his appreciation of ability. He had kept his eye on Worthy, and in 1916 he sent him to the Ministry of Munitions as Parliamentary Secretary. Before the War ended he had held two portfolios, and in April, 1920, he was given a seat in the Cabinet. He became Minister of War in 1921,"—
    Captain O'GRADY: What are these things?
    Mr. PRINGLE: These are the paragraphs.
    Captain O'GRADY: Where from?
    Mr. PRINGLE: Sent out by the Post Office.
    Captain O'GRADY: Oh, I beg pardon!
    Mr. PRINGLE: I understand my hon. and gallant Friend's bewilderment at the fact that this was done by the Post Office, and the Intelligence Officer of the Post Office—
    "When Mr. Churchill succeeded Lord Milner at the Colonial Office."
    Here is another matter of public notoriety—
    "It was something of a compliment to the Post Office"—
    1322
    think of that—
    "that this shrewd Parliamentarian should have been placed at its head; for, as Lord Derby said, 'he is destined to go very far in the high offices of State in the Unionist party.'"
    There was a possible vacancy that morning, as we know. Then there was the second edition. This is a later set of paragraphs. They are obviously intended for the morning papers. They are somewhat longer, as the morning papers have more space than the evening papers, and it is not difficult to conceive that both sets of paragraphs had the same origin:
    "Sir Laming Worthington-Evans who introduced the Post Office Estimates is familiarly known as 'Worthy' in the House. He fell foul of Mr. Lloyd George's Insurance Bill in the very early days of his Parliamentary career. He was then only an unofficial Member, but he showed that he was not to be intimidated by rather complicated legislation. He tore the Bill to shreds with the cold and merciless logic of the lawyer, and by the time the Measure had scraped through he was fairly in the limelight as a coming political force. Mr. Lloyd George's almost feverish search for political talent was one of his most notorious characteristics"—
    this is somewhat different from his great virtues—
    "and it was not surprising when in 1916 Sir Laming Worthington-Evans became Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions. Before the War ended he had held two portfolios, and in 1920 he was given a seat in the Cabinet which tie retains in connection with his present office though for some years past Cabinet rank had not generally accompanied the Postmaster-Generalship. It is not generally remembered"—

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went, and, having returned,
  Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

  1. Bastardy Act, 1923.

  2. Housing, &c., Act, 1923.

  3. Agriculture (Amendment) Act, 1923.

  4. Isle of Man (Customs) Act, 1923.

  5. Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment Act, 1923.

  6. Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Act, 1923.

  7. Public Works Loans Act, 1923.

  8. Railways (Authorisation of Works) Act, 1923.

  1323

  9. East India Loans Act, 1923.

  10. Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act, 1923.

  11. Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act, 1923.

  12. Agricultural Credits Act, 1923.

  13. Oyster Fishery (Roach River) Provisional Order Confirmation Act, 1923.

  14. Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Act, 1923.

  15. Pier and Harbour Order Confirmation (No. 3) Act, 1923.

  16. Tramways Provisional Orders Act, 1923.

  17. Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 9) Act, 1923.

  18. Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 10) Act, 1923.

  19. Church of Scotland Ministers' and Scottish University Professors' Widows' Fund Order Confirmation Act, 1923.

  20. London County Council (Money) Act,1923.

  21. Essex County Council (Barking Bridge) Act, 1923.

  22. Mitcham Urban District Council Act, 1923.

  23. Greenock Corporation (Electricity) Act, 1923.

  24. Potteries and North Staffordshire Tramways and Light Railways Act, 1923.

  25. Birkenhead Corporation Act, 1923.

  26. Bromborough Dock Act, 1923.

  27. South Staffordshire Mond Gas Act, 1923.

  28. Thornton Urban District Council Act, 1923.

  29. Rugby Urban District Council Act, 1923.

  30. West Gloucestershire Water Act, 1923.

  31. Oldham and Rochdale Corporations Water Act, 1923.

  32. Plymouth Corporation Act, 1923.

  33. Mid Kent Water Act, 1923.

  34. Felixstowe Dock and Railway Act, 1923.

  35. West Bromwich Corporation Act, 1923.

  36. London, Midland, and Scottish Railway Act, 1923.

  37. Southern Railway Act, 1923.

  38. Seaham Harbour Dock Act, 1923.

  39. Swanage Gas and Electricity Act, 1923.

  1324

  40. Lytham Saint Anne's Corporation Act, 1923.

  41. Dover Harbour Act, 1923.

  42. Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Act, 1923.

  43. Barnsley Corporation Act, 1923.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. PRINGLE: When I was interrupted, I was reading to the House the second of the set of paragraphs which was the subject that has given rise to this discussion. I had reached the last paragraph, and had read out the first sentence:
  "It is not generally remembered that Sir Laming was the author of two of the vital expedients of War Finance. One was the commandeering of colonial and foreign securities by the State, a Measure which Mr. McKenna, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused at first to adopt, but ultimately accepted as a means of averting the danger which the country was incurring by borrowing from America at ruinous terms without adequate realisation of our financial strength."
  I hope the House will observe the very interesting comparison that is there made as to the relative merits of the Postmaster-General and of Mr. McKenna in the sphere of finance.
  "The other expedient was the War Savings Certificates. The only difference between Worthington-Evans' idea and the scheme which was subsequently launched was that he suggested 18s. for £1 in two years, whereas the Treasury decided to make the offer 15s. 6d. for £1 in five years."
  A variant of "9d. for 4d." But that is not all. That is the second set of paragraphs, but I understand there was another set of paragraphs, which did not go to the Press Gallery, but which was only communicated to certain favoured evening newspapers. Unhappily, I have not been able to get a copy of that particular document and I have to rely on the recollection of my informant. The most interesting statement in that other set of paragraphs was that the Postmaster-General resembled the late Professor Lecky in personal appearance and that the resemblance did not stop at personal appearance, but that the right

  1325
  hon. Gentleman had "the Lecky mind." The House, of course, accepts the right hon. Gentleman's statement that he never saw these things before they went out, and that he did not authorise them and we accept also the other parts of his disavowal. His description of them as stupid and vulgar will, I think, also be generally accepted, but those words contained in his personal explanation of last Thusday and his answer to a question this afternoon, seem to me to go rather to the form than to the substance, and it is with the substance that the House is really concerned. It is a great advantage to the House this afternoon to have on the Front Bench the Financial Secretary to the Treasury who was the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman at the Post Office. Was the intelligence officer there in his time? Did he ever do anything like this in the Financial Secretary's time; or, if he did try to do it, did the Financial Secretary sternly stamp his foot on any such attempt at publicity? I have no doubt, if the Financial Secretary speaks he will be able to enlighten us on that matter, but he is not the only right hon. Gentleman who has recently held office as Postmaster-General. There was before him the present Minister of Health. There was no such untoward episode in his day. Indeed, we have to go back to Mr. Kellaway's time to find a precedent. My recollection is that in Mr. Kellaway's time there was also issued an interesting personal "puff" which Mr. Kellaway had to disavow. We have not the advantage of Mr. Kellaway's presence here to help us in the present discussion; he has found a safe, congenial and lucrative refuge in the arms of the Marconi Company.
  I only refer to that because here we have a strange coincidence. This has only happened in the case of two Postmasters-General, and both of them began their Ministerial life in the same office. Their first Ministerial appointments were at the Ministry of Munitions and the Ministry of Munitions was the first Department which started the publicity business. [Interruption.] Yes, it was under the resourceful auspices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). That was one of his methods of winning the War. It had its origin and it attained to considerable stature in that
  1326
  Department—indeed, it grew so far, that the Department actually subsidised an organisation which was publicly attacking one of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues. That was enterprising publicity, and is it surprising that two Postmasters-General who started their Ministerial careers in that Department, who, as it were, served their apprenticeships there, and who saw all the virtues of this particular machinery, should, when at the Post Office, both have been victims of blunders of this character? It is a strange coincidence. It is not only a matter of coincidence, but the House has some grounds for believing in the inspiration of the substance of the document. We might deal with it after the manner of the higher criticism and go into the internal evidence. These paragraphs bear all the marks of a somewhat clumsy exercise in the art of selective autobiography. This gentleman when selecting matters which are matters of "public notoriety" selects the right things. The references to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs are particularly illuminating. It is not the Postmaster-General's association with the right hon. Gentleman during the War—it is not, for example, his visits to Genoa and Cannes—which are mentioned. The veil of obscurity is thrown over all that. It does not mention what perhaps was, and what all of us certainly understood to be, the greatest achievement and the most publicly notorious achievement of the right hon. Gentleman's life, namely, his great speech at the Genoa Conference. He was chosen to announce to a waiting world the great economic programmee which was to reconstitute and revitalise Europe. I remember the right hon. Gentleman at that time described it as the new economic Pandects. Think of it! He was on the same plane as Justinian. That was the Lecky mind.
  That is all forgotten. It is not publicly notorious now. All that is publicly notorious now is that in the year 1911 he fell foul of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. Is it not ungracious that allusion should only be made to old conflicts with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs and that the Postmaster-General should, as it were, desert the right hon. Gentleman in his fall as

  1327
  he has deserted his colleagues on the back benches opposite, and that he should flaunt the fact as being publicly notorious? Then, again, there is the attribution to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs of only one virtue now. Bereft of everything, all his laurels gone, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs can only spot talent. The only public service the right hon. Gentleman has done apparently was the selection of the present Postmaster-General for Ministerial office. How are the mighty fallen! Then I go a little further with the internal evidence:
  "Sir Laming was the author of two vital expedients of War finance."
  Now there have been suggestions that that statement is not entirely accurate, but I gather that the right hon. Gentleman to-day adheres to their accuracy, because he says they are publicly notorious. One of the expedients in relation to the mobilising of foreign and colonial securities, is claimed, I notice, by Lord Rothermere. The right hon. Gentleman will have to be careful. That is not the way to get the "Daily Mail." Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, who is well known in this House and was for several years Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has written to the "Times" to point out that it was really his brother who did it, and he alone. In connection with the scheme of War Savings Certificates, I have had a communication from a person somewhat more obscure, a business gentleman on the South side of London, who tells me that he is really the father of the War Savings Certificates idea, so that the public notoriety test is not quite sound. The right hon. Gentleman, I understand, was questioned about this and submitted himself to cross-examination the other night, and he said these things were notorious, and that anybody who looked up the OFFICIAL REPORT would see that he was the first to suggest the mobilisation of foreign and colonial securities. I thought I would look up the OFFICIAL REPORT and refresh my memory, and I find there that Mr. McKenna said the idea had been suggested to him in the June previous to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was made, I think, on the 11th October, and Mr. McKenna stated
  1328
  in this House that he had the suggestion made in the previous June, and the only reason he did not accept it was that he thought it premature. According to this paragraph Mr. McKenna resisted the idea, so that we have some doubt as to the accuracy even of this document.
  Then there is the interesting statement of Lord Derby which I think is new to some hon. Members of this House. I am not questioning the accuracy of Lord Derby—far be it from me—when he said that the right hon. Gentleman was destined to go very far in the high offices of State and in the Unionist party. I do not know how many hon. Members of this House were aware of this interesting prediction, but it was particularly appropriate that that prediction should appear as a paragraph in the newspapers on that particular day. Why on that particular day? This helps the coincidence business a little further. On the morning of Wednesday of last week there appeared a paragraph in the "Daily Mail," among other papers, which said that it was now practically certain that Mr. McKenna would not enter the Ministry as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was to be appointed to that office. As we know from these paragraphs, the Postmaster-General is too good a man for his present office. This says so, and also infers that it is a compliment to the Post Office that ho should be there. Obviously, he is marked out for advancement. Obviously, the Prime Minister merely gave him his present post as a stop-gap, so that when the opportunity occurred he might be asked to step up higher. Obviously, when that paragraph appeared and when the competing claims of the Financial Secretary were mentioned, it was very important that something should appear in another interest. In other words, it was the moment for a big push. The push took place with somewhat unhappy results. When the House takes all these things into consideration I think there will be general agreement that there are strong prima facie grounds for believing that this intelligence officer, in the matter of the substance of this communiqué, was not acting entirely without inspiration.
  I wish to ask a number of questions in regard to this, and, first of all, from whence the initiative earner Not since

  1329
  Mr. Kellaway's time has anything like this been done. Was this gentleman moved entirely on his own account to take this precipitate and unauthorised action? Who supplied the facts? Has the intelligence officer been browsing through the OFFICIAL REPORT—not a very delectable occupation? Some of us are compelled, in the course of our Parliamentary duties, to read the OFFICIAL REPORT, but we would not do it for pleasure, or even to oblige a friend, unless there were some powerful motive to stimulate us in our researches. Did he discover about the War Savings Certificates? There is nothing about that in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I am told that the right hon. Gentleman once gave an interview to the "Daily Telegraph" in 1917, and that that is the foundation. The intelligence officer at the Post Office must keep a very good file. I know there are some hon. Members of this House who are very proficient in card indexing, and so on, but it would be a marvel indeed to learn that the intelligence officer at the Post Office had, since the right hon. Gentleman entered upon his new office, card-indexed all his utterances since he entered the House of Commons. It would be interesting to know also whether, before this communiqué, the Postmaster-General had any communication, direct or indirect, with publicity officials. And what has happened to this official? [An HON. MEMBER: "Who is he?"] We know that it is the intelligence officer, that he has been in the Department for a considerable time, and that, apart from these peccadilloes in relation to Mr. Kellaway and the present Postmaster-General, he has a blameless and a stainless record. Obviously something is required to account for this extraordinary aberration on his part, and I hope that the Postmaster-General may clear that matter up.
  I myself was somewhat surprised at the form of his personal explanation. The old Parliamentary tradition, and I think the old official tradition, in this House was not to throw over the permanent officials. I think the usual thing was for the responsible Minister to take blame or credit, whichever came his way, for the action of the permanent officials, and I think it has been a regrettable change in recent days that that good, old-established practice has
  1330
  been abandoned. I think, on the whole, it would have been better for the right hon. Gentleman to have taken the responsibility. After all, the House of Commons is generous and indulgent to all hon. Members who make a clean breast of it. I remember Mr. Birrell saying that if a Member of the House of Commons were, by some strange accident or fortuitous association of circumstances, to be led into a position in which he had murdered his mother-in-law, and if he came down to the House of Commons and begged leave to make a personal statement and stated that he was fully and entirely responsible for the murder, the House of Commons would say that after all he was a very good fellow, and they would accept his explanation. I commend that to the right hon. Gentleman, and to other Ministers who in future get into trouble. I think it will stand them in much better stead than this method of throwing the blame and the responsibility upon their subordinates.
  That is the issue so far as it relates to the Post Office. There is the other matter, and that is the general question as to these publicity departments in other Government offices. I think this episode has been of considerable value in calling public attention to these things. The Prime Minister was asked a question yesterday by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) as to these publicity departments, and his answer was:
  "Publicity officers are at present employed under the Air Ministry, Colonial Office, General Post Office, India Office, National Savings Committee, Ministry of Pensions and War Office. Their total annual salaries amount to £5,520. None of these posts existed prior to 1914. The question of the continued existence of the posts is being considered on the merits of each case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1923; col. 1034–5, Vol. 167.]
  The same question was also put by the Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon). That, of course, shows that, so far as the number of officials is concerned, these Departments have certainly very largely diminished in recent years. We all know that the Prime Minister has no love for them. We know that there was one department at the Board of Trade when he went to that office, and that very shortly after he went there the depart-

  1331
  ment was abolished. The full growth, of course, of the system was in the old Coalition days. I believe that in one year as much as £110,000 of public money was spent on publicity business. That was a flagrant scandal, and we are all glad that to some extent it should have been reduced
  I am not going to enter into any argument or into any definition as to the correct attitude of the Government to the Press. That has been a much debated question. I remember that in 1918 the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), during a short period when he was out of office, initiated a Debate in the House on that question, which led to no useful result except, indeed, his early return to the Government. So that when such great men have failed, I should be the last to generalise. I think it is necessary that Governments should have some relations with the Press. They always have had, in one form or another. Indeed, we have all had relations with the Press. We cannot avoid it, when we go out to the Lobby, and, as a matter of fact, the most intelligent people to talk to in the precincts of this House are the Press representatives in the Lobby. I say it advisedly. Some of us, indeed, write articles to the Press, sometimes under our own names, sometimes we attach our names to articles written by other people, sometimes we write under no name, and sometimes we are alleged to sign the names of other people. At least, an ingenious writer in the Sunday Press has suggested that I have written an article in praise of myself and signed it "J. M. Hogge," so that I should be the last to be in any way prudish or puritanical in regard to these Press matters.
  This raises a completely different issue. This is a question of the use of public money for the purpose of promoting the personal interests of particular Ministers, or even their special political schemes, and I think hon. Members on all sides of the House will be agreed that that is a practice which should not be tolerated. I say that it has diminished in bulk. At least, the expenditure is not so great as it was, but it still continues, and I will quote from a very experienced journalist a statement in these words, in
  1332
  regard to the paragraphs we have been discussing:
  "I have known this kind of thing done, and it is being growingly done, but the specimen now given is the lowest depth of banality I have seen touched. If its compilation involved any expenditure from the public purse, it is nothing short of a scandal."
  We are anxious to know, in regard to the other Departments, what exactly is happening. We only know about this because it was clumsily done. It was done in a foolish way. Perhaps it was thought that the old ways of the Coalition would be still tolerated in this new regime, that the Press would take no notice of it, and that if they did not publish it, it would be merely thrown aside. Fortunately, the Press published it and revealed its origin, so that is how the House of Commons knows all about it. But it is being done, though not so flagrantly and not so clumsily. The Prime Minister's answer told us about the Air Ministry, the Colonial Office, the General Post Office, and sundry others, but there is something new that has arisen.
  What about the Press campaign of the Admiralty? The Admiralty is not mentioned in the Prime Minister's statement, but I am informed that there are at the Admiralty gentlemen—officers—known as intelligence officers, whose duties are to keep up relations with the Press—at least, who in fact do keep up relations with the Press. There is an allegation in the newspapers this morning as to an abuse which has occurred in this respect. We are told that in a statement issued from the Admiralty on Saturday morning there is a paragraph which is taken from a secret document, obviously a thing which should not have been published under the circumstances. I hope the right hon. Gentleman who is going to reply will be able to answer on that point. It is a very disquieting thing that when, for example, as in this instance, there is a dispute between two Ministries, you should have one Ministry firing off information and communiques to the Press as against another Ministry, and that officers of the Department should be using confidential information for that purpose. If these disputes have to be carried on, the place to settle these things is the House of Commons—first of all, the Cabinet, then, after the Cabinet, either before or after their decision, the

  1333
  House of Commons is the proper place where the matter can be discussed and determined, but this Press propaganda, I submit, must be brought to an end.
  There are other Departments. I believe that the Foreign Office has also means of giving information to the Press, although the representatives of that Office are not technically called intelligence or publicity officers, but that the same thing is carried on. I would not lay down any rule that no such officer should exist in particular Departments, because I can conceive circumstances in which it would be advisable that there should be authorised and accredited representatives of the Department whose duty would be to give information. But that is a different thing from propaganda. We must have a clear distinction between the giving of legitimate information and propaganda, either for personal or for political ends. I have not thought fit to place the attack on this system too high. I recognise the importance of the public being informed regarding the working of Departments, and of it being done in a legitimate way, but if you are going to have these representatives, I think a clear rule must be laid down that they should in no case be used by the head of the Department for his personal ends, or by the Government as a whole for political ends. For example, we must not have, as we had under the late Government, speeches by the Prime Minister printed and published at the public expense. That is not a thing which can be tolerated. It has not happened under this Government, and I hope it never will. I do not believe it is ever likely to occur again, but these are examples of the kind of abuses that are likely to arise.
  I, therefore, ask that on this general ground the publicity staffs should, as far as possible, be abolished, and where they are necessary, as I believe on the whole something of the kind is necessary in the Foreign Office, they should be used solely for the purposes of communicating news to the Press, and not for disseminating any kind of dope or propaganda. That is the case I wish to present. I hope, in the first place, the Postmaster-General may be able to give a somewhat more complete, adequate and satisfactory explanation than he has yet done as to the respective parts played by in-
  1334
  dividuals in his office in the composition and distribution of the paragraph to which so much reference has been made, and that we shall have a statement from the Government as to the line of action which the Government are to pursue in the future.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I do not intend to attempt to follow the hon. Member in his attack on the Postmaster-General's intelligence officers. I want, however, to say that I should think any head of a Department, having been served so badly by a subordinate as the Postmaster-General has been served on this occasion, the House of Commons might be told who he was, and what steps were taken to bring him within some sort of discipline for the future. No workman would be allowed to commit so gross an error as this without being very severely reprimanded. I do not know what good the officer concerned thought he was doing for his Department by publishing this kind of puff. But I want to go away from that to say that I think every Department needs some particular officer to give information to the Press. I do not want it to be supposed that I am saying I think it is not necessary that each Department should give information, but I want to join issue with, I should think, nearly every head of a Department as to the kind of information that is given. During the War, and since the War, it seems to me that every Department has used the Press, not for personal aggrandisement, or personal puffs, as on this occasion, but always to support the particular line of policy of the Government, and to do all it can to prove that the policy of its opponents was wrong. I think that is the business of the Government themselves. I think it is their right to do that, but I do not think they have any right to use public money in paying men in their Departments to do this sort of thing.
  There is the well-known case of the attack made upon the unemployed at the beginning of this Parliament. Nothing more outrageous was ever done than was done on that occasion from 10, Downing Street. It so happened that when that information was being doled out, I was there with a deputation of men representing the unemployed, and saw the paper being handed out to the correspondent of the "Daily Mail." On that

  1335
  occasion the people who handed out the dope discriminated as to which particular newspapers they should give it, and they knew perfectly well that no decent newspaper, except for propaganda purposes, would ever publish it. Nine-tenths of the statements made about those poor men, no one of whom could defend himself, each one of whom was unemployed, and whose only crime was that he was agitating to get rid of unemployment, was in a position to contradict anything that was said. Yet those men were most scurrilously libelled by officers in the employ of the Government at 10, Downing Street. I hope someone will tell us from the Treasury Bench whether that sort of thing is going to be put an end to or not. I do not think the House ought to agree that public money should be spent in libelling and lampooning the unemployed, or any other section of the community. The newspapers can do that if it requires to be done, or hon. Members and right hon. Members can get themselves reported whenever they so desire through speeches and otherwise, without the country paying the cost.
  I would also like to say something in that connection with regard to the Home Office. The Home Office has wonderful ways of carrying on political propaganda, especially against Socialists and Communists. I know that many hon. and right hon. Members opposite think that Communists and Socialists are legitimate prey, who ought really to be stamped out, but I have yet to learn that this House has authorised the Home Office, or, at least, has voted public money for the purpose of employing people to engage in propaganda against Communism or Socialism; at least, I have never seen any Vote in any of the papers that have come to me. But it is a fact that at the Home Office there is a regular Department, the Criminal Investigation Department, that not only treats Communists in this way, but publishes the same kind of scurrilous statements in regard to it. They also do something worse, of which, perhaps, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs may have heard. There is a paper published in Russia called the "Pravda," and on a famous occasion a forged "Pravda" was published in this country, and the extraordinary thing was that it was taken to Scotland Yard to
  1336
  have the imprint of the printers cut off the bottom. That also is well known in this House, because the matter was raised here at the time. I would like to inquire from someone on the Treasury Bench whether that sort of thing has been put a stop to. The reason that the forged "Pravda" was taken to Scotland Yard and dealt with in that fashion was because it was hoped that its publication would damage the Soviet Government, and damage the propaganda for Communism in the eyes of the general public. It seems to me that the House ought to put its foot down on that kind of thing. That sort of publicity could very well be left to the ordinary Press.
  During strikes and lock-outs I have been invited to the Mines Department of the Board of Trade to hear the Government's view of strikes and lock-outs, and to hear the statement as to the Government's position in regard to them. I do not think the Government have any reason to take up any such a position, or to take sides in a strike or a lock-out, or to take part in giving anything to the Press except pure and simple facts. When I have been there, I have heard statements, which I know have not been facts, but I have also heard the Press requested not to print this or that, and generally to act in the way of suppressing news rather than spreading news abroad. I think all that sort of relationship with the Press is entirely bad, and the Government ought not to have in any of their Departments men engaged on that kind of work. With regard to the Foreign Office, especially concerning Russia, will someone on the Treasury Bench tell us where all this sort of half-truths and half-lies comes from that appears in the Press in a sort of semi-official kind of way, always on one side, always to prove what villains the Communists are, and what angels all the other people in the country are? The "lie factory" at Helsingfors, which is well-known to every pressman in the world, and the equally big "lie factories" along the Baltic coast at other places, as everyone knows, belch forth torrents of lies as to what is happening in Russia and in the countries close to Russia. I want to know who at the Foreign Office ladles out this stuff week by week in a semi-official sort of way, and always for the one purpose, as I say, of proving what villains the

  1337
  Russian Communists are. We do not do the same sort of thing, as far as I know, with any other kind of Government, but we take up an attitude of sheer hostility, and we always support anything that happens to be hostile to the Government that we do not like. I do not think that is giving facts; it is giving opinions. I can respect people who hate Socialism as I hate Capitalism, but that is no reason why my point of view should be twisted at the cost of public money, and that people should be employed at the public cost to do it.
  6.0 P.M.
  Therefore, I hope that this slight hullabaloo about the puffing of the present Postmaster-General will lead to an entire review of the whole position in regard to publicity. Finally, I want to emphasise and to drive home the point that the gentlemen in these Government offices are partisans, and are employed as partisans, and I want to refer to the Ministry of Health. I notice that neither the Foreign Office nor the Ministry of Health are on the Prime Minister's list, at least I have not heard about it. But there are people at the Foreign Office, I know from my own personal knowledge, who do give information to the Press and are, therefore, I suppose, in the same position as the intelligence officer at the Post Office. As regards the Minister of Health it so happens that I represent a Board, and I am a member of a council that adopts a policy which is entirely against the ordinary official policy of the Ministry of Health in regard to public health and in regard to the Poor Law. We are entitled to our views, and, obviously, the Ministry is entitled to its views, but it is not entitled to use public money for the purpose of propaganda against the point of view of myself and my colleagues down at Poplar. I am bound to say that we have not suffered so much from that kind of thing during the last couple of months, but previous to that there were communications, half-lies, half-truths, that you could not nail down as complete lies which were continually being sent out to the Press. The Poplar Board was treated in a most scandalous manner in regard to the communication and publication of Mr. Cooper's Report, a report which we nailed down directly we got it, for we were able to demonstrate that it contained any number of quite inaccurate statements in
  1338
  regard to the subject-matter he had been appointed to investigate.
  What happened to this Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Health? Nobody has denied that this happened. Five days before the report was communicated to Poplar—a report that was censuring these people—the document was published in the evening and morning papers in London, together with a statement put together at the Ministry of Health condemning the Poplar Board and pointing out what scallawags we all were. I do not mind the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London or any other Member writing against us or saying the same kind of thing. What I object to is my money or part of my money, part of the public money, being used to pay for that sort of propaganda. I should have thought the whole House, after the War, would have wanted, as I do, to have this kind of thing stopped. You may hang Socialism, but you will not destroy us in the same way. That is not the way. You will have to reason. You will have to prove, not only by our action but by your actions, that your policy is much better. You will have to demonstrate it in a way that people will understand. You will not have to destroy our propaganda by using public money in this fashion.
  Does anyone who sits on the other side think, for instance, that Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, or any of the great men who have sat on the Government Benches would ever have tolerated the services of men in this kind of position in Government Departments? I do not believe there is any man here who thinks that that sort of thing could have persisted years ago. I think that in this matter we on this side are Tories, or Conservatives; anyhow, we want to preserve what, I think, is the best tradition in British public life, and that is that the civil servant is above all parties and is always willing to carry out the policy of whatever Government happens to sit on the other side of the House, and that he should never, under any circumstances, take sides in great public controversies. It seems to me that because of the War we have fallen away from that position. I think it is time that we got back to the old-fashioned way of carrying on the work of the country and of seeing that

  1339
  those men who have to carry it on, in spite of whoever sits on the Front Government Bench, shall be considered as above all parties, and shall be allowed to carry on their work without being dragged into controversies on the merits of the different policies that they may be called upon to carry out. I want to repeat that I am not very much concerned about the Postmaster-General in this business. I am only concerned with the state of affairs that these revelations have given to us. I am very much concerned that a perfectly legitimate thing, such as the communication of facts to the Press, should have been degraded, as I feel it has, to the level of simple partisanship used for the purposes of condemning one's political opponents.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I hope that the Government will after to-day as soon as possible abolish the Intelligence Department of the Post Office, and any other offices of the same kind. I do not quite agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite that it is necessary to have an Intelligence Branch. We did not have intelligence officers before the War, and I see no reason why we should require them now. I rather agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) that public money ought not to be spent in order to advance the claims and objects of any one political party. The difficulty is that all these officers may be inclined, or tempted, to use their position to put out propaganda in favour of the particular party—at present it happens to be the Conservative pary—that may be in power at the time. Therefore, I sincerely trust that the Postmaster-General will warn the Prime Minister that, so far as I am concerned, and I believe I speak for other Members on this side, they are desirous of seeing this system put an end to. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) said that these Departments profess to give information, not propaganda. I agree with him. I have never held office, but if I happened to do so I should be perfectly able myself to give what information of my own Department I desired to go out to the Press. If I was not able, then I would not be fit to be in the Department. Therefore the matter should be left to the head of the Department. I am glad the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has just come
  1340
  in. I was only saying that I hope that the Government will see that the Intelligence Officers' Departments are abolished—in the proper manner!
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): I am not anxious to interrupt any other hon. Member, but I welcome the opportunity of making a reply to the questions that have been asked. I will answer first the questions of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). He wanted to know who was the intelligence officer. Of course he is not going to ask for his name. The intelligence officer is a temporary officer, not a permanent civil servant, but a temporary officer employed at the Post Office for about two years now, or a little over, upon the duties which I read out at Question Time. They are in the hon. Member's mind so I will not repeat them. These duties are duties which have nothing whatever to do with politics, or the person of the Minister, but have solely to do with the business of the office. The hon. Gentleman asked me what steps had been taken, and that I detailed also in the answer that I made to the question that he put to me at Question Time. But I want more particularly to deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle).
  Mr. MACPHERSON: Is this officer going to be dismissed?
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No. There is no case of dismissal.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: Because I was going to say a word on his behalf, if need be.
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: At Question Time I explained what steps had been taken. The officer has done the general work and the proper work that comes into his functions well, as I understand it; he has done this, I think, ill—but that is another matter. May I deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Penistone? He accepted the denials which I made on Wednesday, yet in a very clever and of course a very amusing speech he suggested that by reason of coincidences which he examined, and by reason of what he called internal evidence, these paragraphs were not written without some instigation on my part, and that although my denial of having

  1341
  seen them might be accepted, he wished to know whether the internal evidence did not show that I had given information for the purpose of having the matter written. He asked me one or two specific questions.
  I want to be perfectly frank. I told the House, and I repeat to the House, that I had no idea whatever that any steps were being taken, or were going to be taken, in order to influence the Press in the way that has been suggested. The hon. Member says that I declared that all these matters were matters of "public notoriety." I did use that word at Question Time. I also said they were "on public record," which is a good deal better as an expression. If hon. Members will look at Dod they will find that some of the questions the hon. Member raised can be answered out of that—particulars as to the Ministry of Munitions, the War Office, activities on the Insurance Bill, and so on. I am not, let hon. Gentlemen realise, defending these references in any way. I am only saying that they do relate to the things that are on public record, and can be got, and were, in fact, got without any reference to me personally. He then asked: "Did I ever see the publicity officer?" Yes, I did. There is the incident about which I think the House ought to know, and I propose to tell them frankly and to be candid in the matter, and they can judge for themselves. I saw the publicity officer on the Monday morning. That was yesterday week. I had then in draft the speech which I proposed to make on the Post Office Estimates the next afternoon. I consulted him about it. I said to him: "This is a very heavy speech. It deals with a lot of figures. What are the interesting things connected with the Post Office about which the public would like to hear?" This publicity officer has had a long experience there. I have been at the place for six or seven weeks at most, and I really did not know what were likely to be interesting and brightening features in a heavy speech, and of interest to the public, and I asked him. I went through the various things with him, and, amongst others, was something which I referred to in my speech, namely, the cash turnover of the Post Office, showing that there was a million a day received from various sources.
  1342
  Amongst them were the Post Office Savings Bank and the National Savings Certificates. I said on that, "I admit I am always rather interested in Savings Certificates, because I had something to do with the original suggestion of them." That is how it arose, and in no other way, and I had not the faintest idea in answering a further question about those same certificates that I should see it in that vulgar form in the Press next day. There was a sort of general conversation arose on financial matters, and he said something to me about other war activities. I did not claim that I was the inventor of the idea of commandeering securities, but I said you can find the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT at the end of 1915.
  I have not looked up those speeches, and when the hon. Gentleman said that Mr. McKenna had stated that he had the idea proposed to him in July, I am sure that is correct, and he will be able to square that with the claim made by Mr. Harmsworth on behalf of Lord Rothermere. I am in a difficult position; I am called upon, if the hon. Member challenges my veracity, to prove a negative, and it is almost impossible. But I did say something about Savings Certificates, and that is how it arose. It arose from my asking him to tell me of anything I could use to brighten the speech. The hon. Gentleman talks of his informant, and he says he has seen another set of paragraphs.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I said I had not seen them.
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: He says there was another set of paragraphs although he has not seen them, and I have not seen them. All I saw was what was in the Press, and I did not see them until they appeared in the Press. I am not quite sure that the hon. Member for Penistone is even yet satisfied, but let me put this to him. I made a statement in the House on Wednesday by leave. Before I made that statement, and as soon as I saw these paragraphs in the papers, I sent for this intelligence officer to come and see me. He apologised for what he had done, admitted that there was no justification whatever, and I read to him the statement that I was going to make in the House, and he thanked me for it. I answered to-day's question

  1343
  after having it prepared in the office in the ordinary way, and it was submitted to the intelligence officer to see if he had any observations to make upon it, and he had none to make, and therefore I answered the question in terms in which he may be presumed to have approved. I do not know what more I can do. It is almost impossible to prove a negative, but surely if any proof be wanted it is not in a series of coincidences ingeniously put together, but in the statement of a man who has been 14 years in the House, who has a feeling of responsibility, and who is endeavouring to tell the House exactly what the position is so far as he knows it.
  I want to say a word about the public question, and the use of publicity officers in the Post Office. I will not dwell upon the general question, because my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is going to deal with that. As regards the Post Office, it is a trading concern, and it is rather different from an office which has not goods to sell, and therefore a certain degree of publicity is required to keep in touch between the customer and the provider of what the customer wants. I understand that the whole position will be considered, and the Financial Secretary will no doubt inform the House more particularly what will be done.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks): I think the House will have heard with satisfaction the statement made by my right hon. Friend, and I hope after that statement the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Pringle) will use the muck-rake fairly.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Is it quite Parliamentary to refer to the "muck-rake"? The right hon. Gentleman has accused me of using a muck-rake.
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: If the hon. Member objects to that phrase, by all means I will withdraw it. The public question is one of real importance, and it is desirable that it should be considered by the Government, and a decision arrived at upon the whole question. The Prime Minister would have been here this afternoon, but he is engaged with the Cabinet, and that is
  1344
  the reason why I was not here a few minutes ago when my absence was referred to.
  There are seven Departments which employ publicity agents, and they are trained journalists, men with newspaper experience, and, with the exception of two, are purely temporary appointments; and only two of them are in the Civil Service. In regard to offices like the Post Office and the National Savings Committee, where it is essential that wares should be placed before the public, their duty is to give the public all the information in their power, and, in fact, to advertise the wares they are selling. Everybody knows that this kind of publicity has in the past resulted very much to the public advantage. In regard to the ordinary Departments, I am making very careful inquiries, and I think it is desirable that the House should know the present position, so far as my inquiries go. The War Office and the Colonial Office have got two temporary gentlemen, with journalistic experience. They are temporary appointments, and it will be entirely open to those Departments, on the advice which I am quite sure will be asked from the Treasury, to bring those appointments to an end in September.
  The Air Ministry also employ temporarily a trained journalist. The Ministry of Pensions also, for the last five years, has employed a journalist temporarily. The Admiralty has no official journalist or intelligence officer. With regard to the point raised with reference to the leakage which has just taken place from the Admiralty, I desire, on behalf of the Admiralty, and on behalf of all public Departments, to express in the strongest terms that it is absolutely essential that this leakage, which has occurred before, should not take place. Public Departments are the servants of the Government, and it is essential, if Government is to be carried on properly, that confidential information prepared for submission to the Cabinet should be regarded as absolutely inviolable.
  With regard to this particular leakage, the Prime Minister has deputed me to inquire how that leakage has taken place, and to see what steps can be taken to prevent its recurrence. With regard to two at least of the Government Departments, resignations of these officers are on the point of taking place. Some of

  1345
  them were coming to a conclusion. I have interviewed two of my colleagues on this subject who have had the benefit of these officers during the past two years, and they have come to the conclusion that there is no real necessity for them, and that any information which it is desirable the public should know could much better be given to newspapers through the instrumentality of the Ministers' private secretaries, who would be directly responsible to the Ministers.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I regret that the First Lord of the Admiralty is not here. The right hon. Gentleman says there is no Intelligence Officer at the Admiralty, but certain officers in the Naval Intelligence Department are the people told off for this duty. Will the right hon. Gentleman see that these people are got rid of?
  Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: We have been dealing with officers specially selected for their journalistic training, but none of these are in the Admiralty. Information has to be handed out by the Admiralty and there must be some officers to do it. All I can say is that two of these appointments have already come to an end, and that there are clearly one or two offices where it is desirable that trained intelligence officers should be provided as in the case of the War Savings Certificates Department, and the Post Office, where it is essential that the earliest possible information of postal changes should be given to the Press in order that the public may know what is being done. With regard to the intelligence officer in the ordinary Government Departments, I hope the House will not press me to say more than that I have caused inquiries to be made, and I am continuing those inquiries, and the Government will consider, as soon as possible, how far it is desirable that a policy, which I regard quite frankly as a relic of War days, might be abolished with the exception of particular cases where the public service might be served.
  Sir JOHN SIMON: The statement which has just been made is one which I feel sure hon. Members in all parts of the House were glad to hear. It is curious to me that these servants of the various Departments should be described as Intelligence Officers. An Intelligence Officer during the War meant a trained
  1346
  individual who gathered information for the purpose of putting it at the confidential disposal of his chief. What does an Intelligence Officer mean in this connection? It does not mean anybody who gathers information in order that his departmental chief may be the wiser for it. It means apparently someone who disseminates information about his political chief in order that the newspapers and public may be supplied with material. I think the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right when he says that whatever may be the justification of that system in the times which we have passed through for propaganda purposes, and however necessary under War conditions and for War purposes, it is most undesirable that they should form any part of the permanent machinery of government.
  I want to make two observations. The first is that I think I am right in saying that, to a large extent, these so-called Intelligence Officers are much more propaganda officers than Intelligence Officers, and they are not members of the permanent Civil Service. They are doubtless very skilled gentlemen with special knowledge of journalism and newspaper work and better able to discharge their peculiar duties for that reason, but they are not Members of the permanent Civil Service. I make that observation for this reason. I do not believe that the leakage which from time to time is complained of is always correctly attributed to permanent civil servants. I recollect being told of a Prime Minister who in times past was called upon to decide a very difficult question which everybody who has been a member of the Cabinet will appreciate, namely whether the confidential key which will open the Cabinet box is a key to be possessed by Cabinet Ministers alone or whether their private secretaries may also have a duplicate key. The Prime Minister in question said that, in his long experience of the public service, he had never known a private secretary of a Cabinet Minister who had betrayed any secret to anyone, but he could not say the same about disclosures, possibly accidental or unintentional, on the part of Ministers themselves. The truth is that the indirect leakage of information comes much less frequently from the trained civil servant than from some of those concerned in Government Departments. That is one of the claims which

  1347
  civil servants would be entitled to make for themselves, but which in their absence from the House of Commons should be made for them. That is one reason more why we should get rid of this war-time practice introduced for temporary reasons, and the officers performing which are most oddly described as intelligence officers, although their real function has been to provide pabulum of a particular colour for consumption by the Newspaper Press.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.

    DISPOSAL BOARD CONTRACTS.
    Sir JAMES REMNANT: I will ask the permission of the House to bring to its notice another subject, namely, the Disposal Board and the contracts entered into by that body. We have heard quite recently in this House of the publicity officers, and I hope if they have a publicity officer, as indeed they must have, attached to the Disposal Board, he will be got rid of as soon as possible, and that at the same time the Disposal Board itself will go. I notice whenever a question affecting the Disposal Board is brought up in this House, or whenever there is a discussion likely to take place with reference to its doings, we have in the papers on the same day as the question is put, or the discussion takes place, most extraordinary statements as to the huge profits that this Disposal Board has made for the country. But the publicity officer very conveniently forgets to add for the information of the public the cost of the goods to the country and to the taxpayers or the benefits which the Disposal Board is supposed to confer. I should not to-night have brought up this subject of the Disposal Board, and the contracts entered into by it, had it not been that on the last occasion when the Consolidated Fund Bill was before the House I had the misfortune to be put off until quite late in the sitting, when those who agreed with me had no chance of replying to the extraordinary statements made by the then Financial Secretary and by the Chairman of the Disposal Board itself, the hon. Member for Banff (Sir C. Barrie). Because I raised then the question of the contracts I was accused of attacking the honour of members of the Disposal Board. I did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, I went out of my way to say that the most I could allege
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    against any of the members of the Board was that they had not been too careful in seeing that their instructions were carried out. I repeat that allegation to-day. I say that if the Area Clearance scheme which was accepted by the Disposal Board had been carried out, the whole of the Disposal Board business would have been closed down 18 months or two years ago. We are unfortunately reminded by the Votes that a very large sum of money has still to be provided for carrying on the Board, and so far from its being likely to end in the near future, there seems to be a very long run ahead of it, to the advantage of those who happen to form the staff and personnel of the Disposal Board.
    One of the contracts I referred to on a previous occasion was that with the British Metal Corporation. The Chairman, the hon. Member for Banff, described the contractor, who claimed that he should have had the goods sold under this contract, as a disgruntled contractor, because he had not got as much as he thought he ought to have got under the contract. Now, I have nothing whatever to do with the Disposal Board nor with the purchasing of profitable business from it. I am dealing simply with the contracts under the Disposal Board, and I claim, representing as I do the taxpayers of my constituency, who have had to bear their share of the burden incurred by the Disposal Board in dealing with the various contracts, that a Select Committee ought to be granted to look into this, and into one or two other contracts made by the Board. The hon. Member for Banff suggested as his chief complaint that I had only alluded to one or two contracts out of 300,000. I replied that had I had time I could have alluded to many more. At any rate, I asked for a Select Committee to inquire into the British Metal Corporation contract, and I did so for good reason. We were told in this House that, in this very large contract involving 150,000 tons of scrap brass, there was included, under the special direction of the officer in charge of that Department, a lot of new material which was realising in the market £60 per ton. This was included in the scrap brass, and was sold at £24 per ton. This same brass could have been handed over to Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale under their contract at £35 per ton and upwards, and they were

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    perfectly willing and able to take it. The Government would then have benefited in two ways, by a better price for the brass and a large saving in the penalty price of £46,000 which they had to pay because they did not carry out their contract with this firm. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale have been called disgruntled contractors, but if they had only been out for personal gain they could have obtained far more than the £46,000 paid by the Government if they had made the Government pay what was due when the Government failed to carry out that contract in the first year, but they put it to the Disposal Board that they only wanted to carry out their contract, that they were not out for personal gain, and that they considered it to be in the interest of the nation that every firm should place itself at the disposal of the Government in order to get rid of this material.
    The Government claim that this contract was open to competition, but that was not the case. The Chairman of the Disposal Board was a little more accurate. He said, "We did not bother about inviting tenders; we selected firms we thought likely to carry out the contract." The House will agree with me that if tenders were not invited it was up to the Disposal Board to select firms with great care and to see that they were firms who no one could suggest were undesirable to undertake the work. They selected the British Metal Corporation, a company formed since the Armistice. It had eight directors, six of whom had been officials in Government Departments dealing with these particular matters. One of them was appointed managing director of the corporation. The two others were very closely connected with H. R. Merton and Co. which was suppressed, because of its German activities, at the express wish of the Australian Government. Yet this British Metal Corporation was the firm to which this huge contract was given without competition. Every metal merchant in the country was up in arms against it. Telegrams were sent protesting against the action of the Board and meetings were held in various parts of the country, but the Board paid no attention to these protests. They gave the contract to a firm which had on its directorate six members who had held high office in the Disposal
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    Board and Munitions Board. These men had inside information. Under DORA they could select any firm they liked and examine their books, and did so. No wonder, therefore, complaints came from all over the country at the way in which the Disposal Board was carrying out its work. I asked the House to allow an inquiry to be made into that contract. The Financial Secretary on the last occasion quoted from an agreement with the firm—Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale—to suggest that they could not have been made to take this huge amount of brass scrap at a higher price. But I held in my hand the original contract under which they could have been made to take it at a higher price, and I may add that they were perfectly willing to do so. The fact is that the Disposal Board did not accept the highest price. We know perfectly well there was no competition. They knocked the price down. They could have got a bigger price and of that there is no question whatever.
    Another thing I protested against very strongly was the statement that I was attacking the members of this Board. It was stated that they were gentlemen who had given their services free of reward. Not of all reward, for Sir Howard Frank must feel his back breaking under the shower of honours he has received. How many patriotic men, during the War, gladly worked for nothing if they felt that by so doing they were helping on the interests of their country? I am sur9 that the hon. Member for Banff is one of those who would gladly place their services at any time at the disposal of the Government to help at such a time of stress as that through which we have passed, and I hope that he and other members of the Board will at all events acquit me of any lack of appreciation of the work they did during the War and afterwards. What is the reason of the delay in closing down this Disposal Board? Not so long ago we were told that it had been closed down, but the next thing we hear is that it has all been handed over to the Disposal and Liquidation Commission, to which, apparently, have been transferred the whole staff and personnel of the Disposal Board, and it is still going gaily on with the same personnel as before. I am only wondering what will happen at the end of the contract which has just been entered into.

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    That contract has been entered into, nominally, to dispose of the whole of the remaining surplus stock of the Government. It has been estimated that there is something like £10,000,000 worth of surplus stock to be disposed of, but how is it going to be disposed of? Are the contractors again to be selected, not by competition, but specially selected by the Disposal Board to deal with this huge mass of goods? I think that if hon. Members will look through that agreement, they will be surprised at the generous terms that have been given. They range from 2½ per cent. to 5 per cent.—2½ per cent. for auctions, 4 per cent. for stock sold in this country, and 5 per cent. on sales made abroad. That is a very comfortable little profit for those who have-had the good fortune to get the contract. There will not be many auctions under those terms, but it is left to the contractors to decide as to the amount to be so sold. All expenses are to be paid by the Government, so that all they have to do practically is to draw their commission without any expense to themselves, the Government conducting the negotiations in some cases. I think the right hon. Gentleman told me, when I asked him, that no alternative offers had been received in reference to this contract. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would be the last man in the world to state what he did not believe to be the facts, but is he aware of the offer made in a letter from what may be called the rival group—the Vickers group—on the 30th May, and that, when it was rumoured that this huge contract had been entered into, the people who had made alternative offers wrote to Sir Howard Frank? This is what one of the letters said:
    "I have heard with surprise that a contract has been or is about to be concluded with a group other than that which I represent, for the disposal of the remaining surplus stores belonging to the Government. I can hardly think that such a contract would be concluded without any reference to myself or any other member of our group, in view of the terms of our offer which was made to the Government through you on our behalf by"
    a certain gentleman named in the letter. It goes on:
    "The offer which we were authorised to place before you in our letters of the 30th May and the 1st June, 1923, is, I think you must admit, in many ways most favourable
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    to the Government, especially as we suggest that they shall nominate two members 10 join to see things carried out. If you or anyone else had any counter-suggestions to make on behalf of the Government, we were very willing to consider them, as our interest was to try and support what seemed to us an important matter from the national standpoint, and one in which, with our existing sales organisation, we could materially assist the Government. We cannot help feeling that there must be some mistake in the information that we have received, and that the Government, and you in particular, can hardly have decided to accept another offer without even discussing the matter further with us."
    That was one offer. Then there was another offer made from time to time by Messrs, Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale, the firm who were called disgruntled contractors by the hon. Member for Banff, because they had not sufficient profit. The hon. Member even went so far as to say—which was absolutely wrong, though I do not for a moment suppose he knew it to be so—that they received 16 per cent. commission on any sales that they made. That is grotesquely wrong. All that they were to receive as net commission to themselves was 2 per cent., and even that was to be reduced in the event of a certain amount being sold. The balance was the amount agreed upon by experts, and it was the least that they could allow, for reconditioning, handling and various other items, which all cost large sums of money, and all of which is now being paid by the Government under the contract they have accepted from Messrs. Cohen and Levy and Armstrongs and others in that group. The terms arranged with Messrs. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale were described by a right hon. Gentleman in this House, a Member of a Committee appointed to enquire into three large Disposal Board's contracts, as the only business agreement he had seen made in recent years in reference to large deals of this description. It was a business deal, and the more the contractors sold the more the Government got and the less the contractors got. This firm was-asked for financial guarantees, and without a moment's hesitation they got bankers' guarantees for £5,000,000; while the present contractors, dealing with a far larger sum of money, are only asked to find financial guarantees for £250,000. I say that this contract was not right, and unless something can be told us as to why this firm—a new firm—should have

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    been specially selected, I shall not be satisfied until I have got from the Government a promise that a Select Committee shall look into this and other contracts which I will refer to before I sit down. Such an inquiry would allay a great deal of the irritation that has been caused by the dealings of the Disposal Board throughout the country.
    Another accusation has been made by Sir Howard Frank against the firm of Messrs. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale, and I have made inquiry into it. I do not know anything about the firm; they are no more, as far as I am concerned, than any other firm; but, having seen the charges, I have made inquiries, and am satisfied that they are a good firm, quite as good as that of Messrs. Cohen and Levy, who have now got this contract. Sir Howard Frank said, when applied to by this firm for the goods in order that they might complete their contract, "We have handed you over all we have got." and yet these very goods are now being handed over to this other firm of scrap metal merchants, among other things, drugs and other medicinal articles. I cannot go further into the details of this contract to-day, beyond saying that the end of this Disposal Board seems to be no nearer now, under this contract, than it was before. Under this contract, the Commission are only to hand over from time to time lists of such goods as the contractors are to sell, so that it still remains with these men, who have shown in the past a calculated obstruction to closing these depots, to hand over, as and when they choose, goods to the contractors to sell.
    There are various other matters that I should like to go into, to show the sort of arrangements that have been made. For instance, the Government are to appoint four representatives on the Committee to deal with the goods when they are handed over, and the contractors are to appoint four representatives, of whom one is to be Chairman, but without a casting vote. Therefore, you have four representatives of the Government and four representatives of the contractors, without a casting vote for the Chairman, so that, when they come to loggerheads, the whole thing is to be tied up until they have referred it to Sir Howard Frank, the Chairman of the Com-
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    mittee. There is delay from beginning to end. The contractors are given until the 31st December, 1924, to complete their contracts, but we know perfectly well that when the contractors are able, as they undoubtedly will be, to say that the goods were not handed over to them, and that, therefore, they could not sell them, it will go on considerably longer than the 31st December, 1924, and the country will still be saddled with the cost of this very expensive Department.
    7.0 P.M.
    I am not going to weary the House with details of any more contracts, but, in order to avoid the accusation that I have only picked one out of 300,000 contracts, I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will give us an open inquiry into say, six out of the enormous number of contracts entered into by the Disposal Board. I want an inquiry in which there shall be nothing private and confidential on the part of the Government, no obstruction to producing documents, deeds, and records, which were the conditions under which they promised an inquiry before my right hon. Friend went to the Treasury. A more absurd inquiry could hardly be imagined. We want an open inquiry which will be of some use to the country, so that if, unfortunately, it ever finds itself involved in another war, great or small, it will be able to refer to the experiences which it unfortunately has had during the last Great War. The six contracts into which I would like the right hon. Gentleman to give us an inquiry are: First of all, the rolling mills at Southampton, which were sold to a man of straw for £1,000,000, with the inevitable result. I want inquiry No. 2 into the Richborough business. I want inquiry No. 3 into the Audruicq depot transaction, a pretty scandalous transaction entered into with two men, Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Hughes. Mr. Aldridge is, I believe, in a very unhappy position to-day. Both these men failed to carry out their contracts, and yet the Government made concessions to them and continued them, Mr. Hughes, who could not carry out his contract, bought several of the capital ships we sold last year, on which I asked for information in this House, and was, as usual, told it would not be in the public interest to give it. Why, Heaven only knows. We are supposed to represent the taxpayers of this country.

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    We ask for information, and are refused it because it is not, so it is said, in the public interest to give it. I do not see why. The same thing was told us when I asked why the £50,000 was given out of the taxpayers' pockets to Sir Eric Geddes under an agreement. I asked then that the agreement might be laid on the Table of House, so that we should see why and how he was entitled to this sum. The same answer was given, or rather no answer was given—the Government refused to give it. We had to pay it. He was a Minister, and there was all the more reason why his hands should be clean and everything should be clear. I still say that this everlasting reply that it is not in the public interest to give details of sales that have taken place of property and commodities purchased with the taxpayers' money is quite wrong, and that the sooner the House can get possession, as it ought to have, of its own financial arrangements, the better it will be for the country and everybody else concerned.
    The next contract I want inquired into is that of the British Metal Corporation and the sale of the huge quantity of metal to that corporation. I want, particularly, inquiry to be made as to whether there was provision in that contract that the scrap brass—it was called scrap brass, but included a lot of new stuff—should be utilised in this country and for the advantage of this country. Instead of that, the great bulk of that cartridge brass was shipped within a day or two of the signing of the contract to Germany at a net profit to this British Metal Corporation of over £1,000,000. The hon. Member for Banff (Sir C. Barrie), when he was criticising me last time, said it was nothing to do with him what profit the contractors made, and hoped they all made a profit. I hope they will not make a loss. He said that at the Disposal Board all they cared about was to get rid of the goods. I am sure as a business man he will see that that is a little dangerous. "Get rid of the goods, never mind what the price is, or what profit the contractor makes, or whether it is to the advantage of this country. All we have to do as a Disposal Board is to get rid of the goods." This last agreement insists on the goods being got rid of for immediate cash. Immediate cash!
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    I should have thought the best way to get rid of the goods was to give credit.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am sure the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Remnant) does not wish to misrepresent the position. Clause 5 of the Agreement, which deals with cash, says:
    "All sales to be made by the contractors in pursuance of this agreement shall be for immediate cash payment so far as possible and in any event no credit for any sums payable for any of such goods shall be given for any period beyond ninety days from the date of any sale without the previous consent in writing of the Commission."
    Sir J. REMNANT: Why do you put in, "for immediate cash payment"?
    Sir CHARLES BARRIE: Would the hon. Baronet prefer bills to cash?
    Sir J. REMNANT: There is nothing to show that you will get the value of the goods. You have said you do not mind what profit the contractor makes, or whether he is an Englishman. You do not care what you get for it provided you get rid of it. You cannot summon him to pay for 90 days, but what is the good of treating him in that way? I want the British Metal Corporation contract looked into. Then I want looked into the contract of E. J. Smith and Company, the speculative builders of Birmingham, against whom the Birmingham merchants are up in arms that he should have been given a contract at a fixed price which was not carried out by the firm. Directly the metal dropped they were let off on terms, and he was put on selling for the Government at a 5 per cent. commission basis. I wonder whether he got 5 per cent. on this wonderful sale to the British Metal Corporation. The last of the six, if my right hon. Friend will give us this independent, free, open Select Committee, is this contract of which I talked just now of 12 June, 1923, with Cohen and Armstrongs. I need hardly say that, having looked into many of these contracts, there are many more I should like to bring before the House, but I shall be satisfied with his giving us an inquiry into these six contracts, and if he is satisfied with them I shall be very surprised. He has promised when he has time that he will let us know how many contractors have failed to carry out contracts made by them with the Disposal Board. He says it would be a gigantic task, and that he has not the time to do it. I then raised

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    it to all contracts over £5,000, and he said he thought he could do that. I know how busy he is, however, so do not let us stop at £5,000, but make it £10,000, or £50,000, or £100,000 contracts, and I will be satisfied. I am perfectly sure that it can be proved that this country has lost tremendous sums by contractors breaking their contracts and not carrying out the original terms, and that my right hon. Friend will be surprised when he gets the figures put before him. It has been said that the Disposal Board is not perfect. I agree. No one is perfect. I do not make any attacks on the members of the Disposal Board, but I do say they have not been over-careful in seeing that their instructions have been carried out; otherwise, the whole Disposal Board would have been cleared out 18 months ago when they accepted the area clearance scheme which undertook to clear them out within that period. The least that can be said against them is that they have not exercised as much strong supervision over their personnel as they might have done. I only hope my right hon. Friend will be able to tell us that this Board is coming to an end. We have had enough of these excrescences that have grown up during the War. Food control is still on, Heaven knows why. I think there is one contract still left. The senior men are still drawing their pay. Smaller fry go, but the bigger men remain, and their experts are keeping the game going. I hope, now that my right hon. Friend has got into a position of authority at the Treasury, he will exercise his well-known business acumen in bringing this thing to an end, and so save the country an enormous amount of money.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I realise to the full the great interest of my hon. Friend (Sir J. Remnant) in these matters. He has put several questions to me during the last few months in reference to various contracts, and I did make a promise some little time ago which I thought had satisfied him. I have not refreshed my memory by reading the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I remember quite well that he said that if I would only pledge myself to a personal inquiry, he would be satisfied.
    Sir J. REMNANT: Into the £5,000 contracts.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The £5000 contracts are a little too much, even for an overworked Financial Secretary to the Treasury to inquire into. I have only recently been responsible for the work of the Disposal Board, but, with regard to the last contract on which my hon. Friend has made a very strong attack, I agree that I am responsible for it as being at that time responsible for the work of the Disposal Board; that is to say, the contract relating to the sale by which we hope to get rid of practically the whole of the remaining stock of the Disposal Board between Cohen and Company and Armstrong Whitworth and Company. Will he forgive me for saying that although Messrs. Cohen and Company have a gentleman named Cohen and another named Levy, why it was necessary for him to emphasise the Cohen and the Levy business, I do not know, unless it was to throw odium—
    Sir J. REMNANT: No.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It is not only made with Messrs. Cohen and Company, who are, I am informed, a highly responsible firm, but it is also made with Armstrong Whitworth and Company, one of the first firms in the country.
    Sir J. REMNANTIt is signed by these two, Cohen and Levy.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: And it is also signed by Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., who, as I say, are jointly responsible for carrying out the contract, and who are a firm above reproach. It is only a small matter, perhaps, but my hon. Friend might have told the House that Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. are just as responsible for carrying out the contract as Messrs. Cohen. I am going further. On 17th May, before the contract was entered into, Sir Howard Frank wrote to the present Prime Minister, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, giving him details of the contract he proposed to enter into, and asking whether in the view of the Treasury that would be satisfactory. That was about the time I came to office as Financial Secretary of the Treasury. The object of the Government for some time past has been to wind up the Disposal Board as soon as possible. It is a relic of the War. The Government has had all the difficult articles to get rid of. In this very contract there are £2,500,000 worth of locomotives. You

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    cannot sell locomotives like you can penny buns. You have to find the people who want to buy £2,500,000 worth of locomotives, and you want to find the people who want to buy the particular kind of locomotive that you have. Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. are perhaps the best firm in the country you could deal with in selling a large block of locomotive engines. Proposals were put before the Prime Minister and myself. I take full responsibility. We approved, on behalf of the Treasury, of the proposal of the Disposal Board to make a gigantic contract, if you like, with Messrs. Cohen and Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. in order to clear up all the remaining goods they had to get rid of, and in order that we might, as soon as we possibly could, reduce the personnel of the staff of the Disposal Board.
    Sir J. REMNANT: Why were alternative proposals not entertained?
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am coming to that. My hon. Friend is a little eager. This contract has been placed before the House. It was printed and published as a Parliamentary Paper. I should like hon. Members to go through it. It was very carefully considered by the legal advisers of the Treasury before it was approved. It was approved, and it was signed. Let me take the one point on which my hon. Friend fastened. He said that there is a Clause in the contract that everything should be sold for cash. On the whole, I do not think it is a bad idea to get cash where you can, to get rid of all these things, and not have them hanging over the country perhaps for six months or a year. There may very likely be cases where you cannot sell for cash and where it is more advantageous to sell for credit. My hon. Friend did not read the remainder of the Clause. The Clause says, "sell for cash where possible," and where they cannot sell for cash the contractors are permitted to sell at 90 days' credit on their own responsibility. If they want to give more than 90 days' credit, all they have to do is to come back to the Disposal and Liquidation Commission and ask for permission to give extended credit. What more could you put into a contract? What more sensible Clause could you have? "Sell for cash where
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    you can. If you cannot sell for cash, you may give 90 days' credit. If you want to give more than 90 days' credit, submit the name of the purchaser and his bank reference to us, and we will let you know whether you can give more than 90 days." Go through the whole contract, if you like. My hon. Friend has given a fail-description of it. It has been before the House a great many days, and in my view there is nothing whatever in it that is unsatisfactory. Moreover, believe the result of the contract will be that we shall get rid of the goods very much more quickly than if we had retained the Disposal Board to do the selling. My hon. Friend complained that the terms were too high. We always think the terms are too high. Many of us think we could have got things done cheaper than they have been done. I am informed by my Department—and I have no reason to doubt the correctness of the fact—that whatever these terms may be, the net cost of all the work done by Messrs. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale for the Disposal Board is 17·3 per cent.
    Sir J. REMNANT: I am sure my right hon. Friend wants to be fair. There is a responsibility here for expenses on the Government and not on the contractors. Of the 16 per cent. alluded to by my right hon. Friend the major part, all with the exception of 2 per cent., was allotted to reconditioning, handling, transport, and various other things, so that it left Messrs. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale with 2 per cent. as the maximum of their commission, which was considerably lower than this.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Let us see what the contract provides. My hon. Friend told us what the terms of commission were. When he said the terms were 5 per cent. and 4 per cent., I should have been prepared to say they were 10 per cent. and 9 per cent. They are 4 per cent. and 5 per cent. commission, but in addition to that this firm is to have expenses, which covers the same thing he has just mentioned with regard to Messrs. Rownson, Drew and Clydesdale. Clause 27 of the contract says that in addition to commission the contractors shall receive a sum equal to 5 per cent. to provide for selling expenses in respect of goods not sold, which expenses shall include all expenses in respect of rent,

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    and provision of offices, remuneration of all employés of the contractors employed at the head office, such sums for overhead charges as the joint auditors may consider proper, all expenses of agency and administration properly incurred by the contractors, all expenses properly incurred in the opinion of the joint auditors for insurance against employers' liability, national and unemployment insurance, and any other expenses not otherwise provided for in the agreement which shall be certified by the joint auditors as being reasonably and properly incurred for the purpose of effecting sales. The arrangement which has been made, an admirable one, is to provide a net commission to the contractors of 4 per cent. and 5 per cent., respectively, on certain classes of sales and the whole of the other expenses—clerks, offices, remuneration, and so forth—shall be such as are agreed by the joint auditors, but not to exceed a further sum of 5 per cent.
    Sir J. REMNANT: Read Clause 23, and at the bottom of page 8 all the additional things to be deducted from the gross sales.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am prepared to read the whole thing, but it has been printed and is in the hands of hon. Members. I have read what I think are the material Clauses. My hon. Friend has the contract and can ask any further questions. I certainly advise the House that this contract was entered into with very great care, after very great consideration, and, I believe, will lead to the sale of the goods as reasonably as could possibly be expected. My hon. Friend asked why we did not get someone else, and he told us another syndicate was prepared to take the matter in hand. He did not mention the name, but there is no harm in mentioning it. The only person who has been in communication with the Disposal Board was a Mr. Rees. I have the minutes of a meeting on 30th May at Sir Howard Frank's office between Colonel Cobb, Major Wells, Mr. Rees and Sir Howard Frank. This is at the time of the so-called alternative offer by this Mr. Rees. First he excused himself and said he had not come to see Sir Howard before because he was never in a position to make a suggestion and to give the name of anyone for whom he was acting. This was 15 days after Sir
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    Howard Frank had submitted the proposal of Messrs. Cohen and Messrs. Armstrong to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for approval. This gentleman says he has not been in a position to give the name of anyone for whom he was acting. He said he was now endeavouring to form a syndicate, including several firms whom he could not name, except that of Sir Trevor Dawson, who is a director of Messrs. Vickers. He outlined his ideas, which were to endeavour to form a syndicate to work with the Disposal Board and practically take over the control. His proposals, however, were of a very indefinite character and it was impossible to know what he really meant. Sir Howard Frank and his colleagues replied that the deal was practically completed with Messrs. Cohen and Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth, and Company. Sir Howard said that if there was any hitch, and the Commission were open to consider offers from other quarters, he would let Mr. Rees know. Sir Howard added that the Commission were prepared to consider offers to purchase anything outright. Mr. Rees said he quite understood, and if the negotiations fell through, he would endeavour to put definite proposals before Sir Howard. That was a fortnight after the arrangements were practically concluded with the rival firms. I should like to ask my hon. Friend whether he is authorised by Messrs. Vickers to say that they have any grievance in the matter at all. I do not think they have. I think if he makes inquiry he will find that Messrs. Vickers at that time were not prepared with the details of the syndicate that Mr. Rees mentioned. We know what runners are. They think they can get up a syndicate, and if they can get satisfactory terms they might then get Messrs. Vickers or someone else to go in with them and form a syndicate and get the thing through.
    My hon. Friend made some remarks with regard to the honours showered on Sir Howard Frank. Sir Howard Frank is a man of very great ability in his profession. He has given an enormous amount of his time voluntarily to the service of the country. He has not had a sixpence. It is quite true that His Majesty and the Government have seen fit to honour him, and no war honours were more deserved than those given to

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    Sir Howard Frank. I think it was a little ungracious of my hon. Friend to have made those remarks. I have had many interviews with Sir Howard Frank. He is always at my disposal to deal with any of these questions when I ask him to do so, and I am sure he will give me any information I want in the future. At all events, although the Disposal Board has been attacked pretty frequently, it has got rid of something like £600,000,000 worth of property. It has cleared up the aftermath of the War. It has cleared away the mess. We may think that in certain matters they might have done better. My hon. Friend is entitled to think that in regard to some of the contracts they were not as well advised as they might be. I made him a promise in answer to a question some few weeks ago, and he said he would be satisfied if I would make inquiries. I am not going to make inquiries into 5,000 cases. I am a fairly over-worked man as it is.
    Sir J. REMNANT: I never asked my right hon. Friend to make five thousand inquiries.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: My hon. Friend has given me the names of six cases into which he wants inquiry made. I will repeat the promise I made him. I will personally take the papers relating to these contracts away for such holiday as I can get. The Disposal Board and the Treasury, to whom they were responsible, have been challenged by an hon. Friend of my own and he says there ought to be a public inquiry into these cases. He says if I will go into it personally he will be satisfied. I will go into the cases fully and I will say to him here and now that if in my opinion there is anything not entirely above board, if there is anything disreputable or underhand, if in any way any bad conduct has taken place in regard to any one of these things, I will consent at once to a public inquiry. I do not think I can make a fairer offer. It will take me some little time during my holiday, but I will do it, because I want to assure my hon. Friend, who is a very old friend of mine, that, at all events, the Treasury will do its utmost to see that no wrong has been done, or if any wrong has been done to put it right.
    Sir J. REMNANT: I accept what my right hon. Friend has said, but will he do me a further favour, and that is that he will not spoil his holiday by looking into this matter, but that he will have a real holiday, and when his holiday is over, if he can find time, he will look into the matter. If he does that, I shall be quite satisfied. I suggest that he should not take just one side, but hear both sides.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Certainly.

    EAST AFRICAN RAILWAYS.
    Major-General Sir J. DAVIDSON: I was not able to speak on the Colonial Office Vote last week, and I want to touch on the subject of the Voi-Kaké Railway, about which there has been so much controversy. I cannot congratulate the Colonial Office on the decision at which they have arrived in this respect. I think that their case has been very unconvincing throughout, while the case against their decision is overwhelming. It is precisely the same thing as if a man went into hospital with a broken arm and the surgeons proceeded to amputate his leg. I should like to describe the position in regard to this railway and the neighbouring railways. As the House probably knows, there are two main trunk lines in East Africa, one leading from the Port of Kisumu, on Lake Victoria Nyanza, and running about 400 or 500 miles down to the coast at Mombasa, more properly known as Kilindini, and another railway running 200 miles further south—a railway 600 or 700 miles long—from Lake Tanganyika to the coast at Dar-es-Salam. Mid-way between these two railways there is a short railway which was built by the Germans linking up the fertile area around Kilimanjaro with the coast at Tanga. This railway is about 200 miles long. The Voi-Taveta section connects this small line with the Uganda railway and Kilindini, and it is this particular section which the Government intend to tear up, and in regard to which I believe they have given orders already that it should be pulled up. They are spending money in order to recondition the line which runs from Kilimanjaro to Tanga. The point is whether the produce of the fertile tract of Kilimanjaro should be taken down to the Port of Tanga or to the Port of Kilindini. The Government's

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    decision is to recondition the line running through an unproductive country to a bad port. Our contention is that that should not be done, and that the line running from this productive country to a good port should be improved and put into proper order and not pulled up. Obviously the Government's decision is wrong.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies read a letter last week in order to prove that the country along the line between Voi and Kahé was unproductive, and that it was desirable to pull up the line. It is very easy to read letters from almost any source to prove anything you like. I have a letter written by a responsible person which proves precisely the opposite to what the Under-Secretary sought to prove. It says that the stretch of country which, according to the Under-Secretary, is a desert is in reality a very fertile country. I will read it:
    "I was Assistant Conservator of Forests for the Coast Division for several years, and for this reason I hope you will record my protest against the decision of the Government to dismantle the Voi-Taveta Railway. The country through which the line runs is worth development. The bush country abounds in sansevieria, and the Teita Hills form a watershed, which might well be used for the cultivation of sugar and other tropical crops. The natives have a wonderful system of irrigation on the slopes of the hills, but at present the water after reaching M'tate is wasted. The forests on the hills are not extensive, but valuable timber is to be found there, including podocarpus (yellow wood) and ocotea (camphor wood), which species are not found at so low an elevation (under 5,000 feet) elsewhere in East Africa.—Mr. F. L. Kelly, Shenfield, East Preston, Sussex."
    I do not want to be hard on the Under-Secretary, but I am not inclined to give too much credence to some of his remarks, seeing that he stated in regard to the Voi-Kahé line that it was in Tanganyika territory, when as a matter of fact 90 per cent. of it lies in Kenya territory.
    Let us look at the problem from different points of view. First of all, there is the point of view of the railways. The special commissioner on railways in East Africa prepared a very voluminous report on railway development in that country, and in dealing with this question of the Voi-Kahé line he said:
    "I recommend most strongly that the Voi-Kahé section should be retained, as not only will it prove more economical in the
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    long run, but it will aid the development of the country better."
    It is perfectly obvious that if you have a fertile area in the middle, with two ports equi-distant, and one is an excellent port and the other is no port at all, that the line to the good port should be maintained. From any point of view in regard to railway development in a country which is in its early stage of development, is it not far better to link up the productive area with your main trunk system than to go to the expense of maintaining another system? The Voi-Kilimanjaro railway should act as a feeder to the main trunk line. From the railway point of view there can be no two ways of looking at it. The obvious thing is to retain the Voi-Kahé line and, if necessary, pull up a considerable distance of the Tanga-Kilimanjaro line.
    As far as the ports are concerned, namely, Tanga and Killindini, I am advocating that the produce should be brought to the latter, where we are already spending over £1,250,000 in development, and where there is a first-class natural harbour. It seems to me ridiculous that the produce of Kilimanjaro should be diverted to the port of Tanga. I have some knowledge of this port, because I had to spend a week there last year. It is not a port at all. The Germans, when they bulit the line from Tanga up to Kilimanjaro, wanted to connect this productive area with the sea, but they could not build a line thence to Dar-es-Salaam, nor could they connect Kilimanjaro with Killindini, which is in our territory, so they chose the nearest point on the coast, and they had to run through unproductive country. This port of Tanga is scarcely a port at all. There are shifting sands, and navigation is extremely difficult. The ships have to lie out one or two miles from the shore, and the produce has to be handed on to lighters and from the lighters on to the ships, at some considerable distance from the shore, often in a rough sea. I watched valuable coffee produced at Kilimanjaro being shipped and damaged by salt water as it was being transferred from the lighters. It was lying in the lighters, with spray going over it. The Government by their decision will be forcing produce to be sent down to this wretched place, and great damage and unnecessary expense will be caused.

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    When the Tanga Railway was built there was no other choice open to Germany. Now since we have control of Tanganyika, there is a choice, and we have to make a decision now. The reason why the wrong decision has been made is largely because there are petty jealousies between Tanganyika and Kenya Colony. The Colonial Office should have nothing to do with these jealousies, but should do what they believe to be right in the interests of the country. Now is the opportunity of doing it. I am convinced that these Colonies of Tanganyika and Kenya will be federated in the near future, and that their interests will be one, and that the Colonial Office should regard their interests as one. The Under-Secretary told us that the Voi-Kahe line would cost £500,000 for reconditioning. I suggest that it will cost nothing of the sort. On balance, according to the Special Commissioner of Railways, who ought to know something about the matter, it will cost £315,000 to recondition and realign. It has been working until recently quite satisfactorily for the amount of produce it has to carry, and with very little expense it might be kept going for any amount of produce that it may be required to carry. Therefore, to come down and to say that it will cost £500,000 to put in order is entirely wrong. The railway experts and the present and previous governors of the Colony, and chambers of commerce at home and out in East Africa, are all agreed that the Government's decision is wrong. There is only one chamber of commerce that believes that the Government's decision is right, and that is the chamber of commerce of the port of Tanga, which is an interested party. The chamber of commerce of Tanga consists of a number of juniors from four or five firms, and their opinion is not worth anything. I cannot understand why the Colonial Office persists in their decision, and why they say they will not reconsider it. I want an answer to one question. What right have they to pull up this line, 90 per cent. of which runs through Kenya Colony, without asking the permission of the Colony, without getting an expression of their opinion, and without referring it to the Colony in any way. To my mind, it is a most drastic action and indefensible.
    I want to deal with one or two points which were raised by the Under-Secretary
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    in his speech and by the Colonial Secretary in his speech in another place. The Colonial Secretary gave every reason against his own decision. He said:
    "Of the two ports Mombasa is by far the more promising, and greater use may be made of it."
    It is suggested not by the Colonial Secretary but by other responsible people that the port of Tanga may be developed in the future, and that it will be developed in the future. I predict that in the course of the next 25 or 30 years not a halfpenny will be spent on the port of Tanga. If one halfpenny is spent on the port of Tanga it will be money wasted, considering that we have a good port at Killindini, only 70 miles away. Then the Secretary for the Colonies says that he has made most careful inquiries and is quite satisfied that to relay the line would not cost less than £500,000. We do not want a lot of work done; we want just a line which will carry the produce from Kilimanjaro, and when that line begins to pay, then is the time to improve it. He says also that, at any rate for some years to come, the loss must be from £5,000 to £6,000 a year. Has anybody ever heard of a railway in an undeveloped country which pays in the first few years? Of course it does not, and this is no exception to the rule. Then he points out, in reference to the objection that the line was in mandated territory, that we should be within our rights in removing part of an existing line in mandated territory, so that there is nothing in that. He further goes on to say that though no doubt the Voi Kahé line is an ideal one, if he had to make a fresh decision, he feels that in the circumstances the decision arrived at is the only justifiable one. Then he says that the mandated territory of Tanganyika is now suffering severely from the effects of the War, and it will take a long time before that country is placed in a satisfactory position.
    It is not right to look at these questions from a parochial point of view. They should be looked at from the East African point of view. The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies made a speech last week on this subject, which was the most unconvincing that I ever listened to on this matter. If I had known nothing whatever about it, I should have said at the end of his speech,

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    "He is supporting a decision with which he does not agree himself." He said:
    "After the War the railway became practically derelict and although very few trains were run on it it had become dangerous for traffic. The temporary structures were in a bad condition—an important bridge had recently been destroyed by a flood—and expenditure quite out of proportion to the traffic had to be incurred to keep the line open."
    May I point out that this line was carrying traffic quite recently, and an individual, who is a great expert on railway matters, happened to travel over that line less than a year ago, and reported that it was in quite respectable order, and in sufficiently good condition to carry produce and traffic required. Then the hon. Gentleman said:
    "Estimates presented to my Noble Friend showed that the cost of these works would be £500,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1923; cols. 510–511, Vol. 104.]
    I have already dealt with that. If you were called on to convert the line into a first-class railway line, something on the style of a railway line in England, you might have to spend something like £500,000, but that is not required at all. I would ask the Chancellor of the Duchy, who represents the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he will insure that this problem can get further consideration. It is an essential factor in the development of that part of East Africa. It is a question of the development of the country in the interests of those who grow produce in the country, and it affects gravely the question whether the railways will pay or will not pay in the future. This decision is going to make a great difference to the country, and I would ask that the pulling up of this line should be at least postponed until the matter receives further consideration.
    The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. J. C. C. Davidson): I have not yet had time to inquire into this matter. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for the Colonies asked me to take his place in his absence, and, having heard what my hon. and gallant Friend has said, I can assure, him that all his representations will be conveyed personally by me to the Colonial Office, and I shall see that what he says is put before the Secretary of State for his consideration. I cannot promise more than that,
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    but I am sure that the Colonial Office will give every weight to what has been said.

    EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
    Mr. SULLIVAN: I wish to draw attention to the Regulations in reference to the Scottish Education code. I wish particularly to draw attention to the position of children who will be leaving the elementary schools. They get a three years' training and are able to qualify in that time to take an intermediate certificate. It is very helpful, not only to the parent, but the managers of the school, to follow the success of the education so imparted. The authorities, in Scotland are all opposed to the alteration of the code and to the omission of the words" intermediate "and" intermediate schools. "When the matter was last before the House it was stated that only one authority in Scotland, the Glasgow authority, had made complaint against the operation. We have now a communication from the Educational Association in Scotland protesting against these alterations, and we have a communication from the Edinburgh School Board this week, in which they say:
    "The education authority for the burgh of Edinburgh regard with concern the omission in the last code of regulations for day schools, and in the draft regulations for secondary schools for Scotland, any provision for 'intermediate schools' and protest that 'advanced division' or undefined higher grade schools are inadequate substitutes for the statutory requirement of Section 6 (1) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, that the education scheme of every education authority shall provide for all forms of primary intermediate and secondary education. Further my authority object very strongly to the abolition of the intermediate certificates which have been so long valued as a national recognition of the attainments of a scholar who has completed a full three years' course of instruction after the age of 12 and is unable for many reasons to continue at school to obtain the full leaving certificate which involves a five years' course at a secondary school."
    I have communications from other authorities on the same lines, and I hope that the Solicitor-General for Scotland will pay some attention to these communications. The system of education which has been built up in Scotland has been of" great help to the Scottish people. I think that one of the reasons why we get Scotsmen and Scotswomen in every part of the world is because of the system that has been built up. There is a tendency

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    since the present Government came into power to interfere with that system, and the feeling on the other side of the border is that, instead of trying to level the English system up, they are trying to pull the Scottish system down. That would be a bad thing.
    We admit that probably we have spent more on education in Scotland than you have spent in England, taking the populations of the two countries into account. The industrial centres of England have spent as much as we have spent, but there are large areas in England in which comparatively little money has been spent on education, and the result is that the system of taking the populations of the two countries as the basis for the allocation of expenses is having a tendency to lower the standard of education. I appeal to the Government to consider the representations which have been made. The system in Scotland has worked very well. No authorities in Scotland want any alteration. I do not think that the Government should insist on making this change. We would like them to meet the views of the authorities in this matter. They are the best able to judge. They know the needs of the people and how they have progressed in the past and I hope that the Government will take these things into account, and will allow the old system to remain.
    Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted; and forty Members being present—
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. D. M. COWAN: I have listened with the greatest pleasure to the eloquent and well-reasoned speech of my hon. Friend, and I trust that what he has asked from the Government will be conceded. I confess that I rather sympathise with my hon. and learned Friend in the position in which he finds himself, because I think that he is engaged in what may be all very well in ordinary matters of law but does not apply in matters of education, and that is in trying to make the worse appear the better cause. A month ago we had a discussion in this House on what was then a draft code of Regulations. Now we have the Regulations in their final form, and it is these which we are considering. I admit that in the final draft of the code of Regulations we do find an Amendment or two
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    as compared with the former draft. I congratulate the Solicitor-General and the Department on having made a change with regard to the number of pupils who can be normally in charge of a particular teacher, and reducing it from 60 in the draft code to 50 as a general rule. That is good, so far as it goes, but it might go a little further and impose a penalty after a certain time upon such school authorities as keep the number larger than 50. My sympathy goes out to the hon. and learned Solicitor-General, because he is defending Regulations which are opposed by practically every authority in Scotland. This is a matter which should receive the very careful attention of the Department and of the Government. If those authorities find that their wishes are unreasonably disregarded, it will not make for the betterment of educational administration in Scotland.
    With regard to the question of the retention of the term "intermediate," I should like the Solicitor-General to tell us, quite frankly and fairly, why the Department is so wedded to the phrase, "advanced divisions"? He has said that school authorities are quite at liberty to call their schools intermediate schools, but does it not appear to be a very absurd thing that an authority should call its school an intermediate school while, in the Departmental sense that same school is referred to as an advanced divisions? There is no logical reason for this differentiation. It is rather an absurdity than anything else. I think we ought to have a definite answer to a definite question, as to why this phrase "advanced division" has been substituted for the old familiar "intermediate," which has become a household word in Scotland, owing to the number of pupils who have taken the intermediate certificates. On the previous occasion, I said that some proposals in the draft Code were retrograde, and in this revised version of it we have ample proof of that. Up to the present, in our intermediate schools, the number of pupils under a particular teacher has been 30. Now, we find that in the final Regulations that number has been raised to 40, which is a most retrograde step. I have been told—not on the Floor of the House, but with almost equal authority outside the House—that this is to be an equality between the number of the pupils in the

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    intermediate schools and in the advanced divisions. That may be so, but this seems to be a matter of dragging down Scotland rather than raising it up.
    We have not even the excuse that we are following England. In England, in similar schools, the number is normally 30, and in no case is it allowed to exceed 35. The Solicitor-General should tell us frankly whether that is an advance in Scottish education, a retrogression, or just a stage worse. These are definite points, and this, the unanimous opinion of Scottish educational workers, is deserving of more consideration than it is receiving at the hands of the Department. No one has a greater respect for the Department and for its distinguished head than I, but at the same time, for the sake of the rights of the children of Scotland, we have to make the situation clear, and I am afraid there will be very considerable trouble unless we get very clear answers to the question I have put.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Mr. F. C. Thomson): I have been told to-day that practically all the educational opinion in Scotland is opposed to the Code and Regulations. I desire to deal briefly with the points which have been made. I was accused, not unjustly, in the Debate on the Estimates of taking up a very great deal of time. On that occasion I went as fully as I could over various points, the Code and the Regulations for secondary schools being the main subjects. I put the matter before the House as fully as I could, and therefore I shall not be expected to do so to-night, and I will only deal with the points raised. I am told that practically every education authority in Scotland objects to the new Code and Regulations. All I can say is that in the last week or so there have been representations from eight authorities in Scotland criticising certain parts of the Code and Regulations on the lines indicated in the speeches which have been made, with regard to the use of the word "intermediate." One of those eight solely deals with the point of the intermediate certificate. The whole question of the intermediate certificate, as I indicated in the discussion on the Scottish Estimates, is at present under consideration. It is not decided yet whether the Department will issue a certificate or merely endorse it; how far account can be taken
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    of continuation school work; how far, if at all, written tests may be required, and regulations made for early leavers in secondary schools.
    All these things are under discussion, and I find, even in those documents which are sent by the education authorities which offer some criticism, that they really seem to appreciate—and I am glad of the fact—the point of view which the Department has taken up in regard to the certificate, that the things you really want to lay stress on are the effort of the teacher coupled with the working of the inspectors of the Department, which really are factors on which it is most proper to rely. The efforts of the Department are directed very much against any excessive rigidity, and the whole desire is to give the teacher more scope with regard to the work of the pupil. I should like to say that the Education Authority of Lanark, a very populous county in Scotland, passed a resolution in favour of the Code and Regulations when they were first in draft; and only yesterday the Education Authority of Midlothian, another most populous and important county, passed a resolution in favour of the Code as laid on the table. Therefore, it cannot for one moment be suggested that educational opinion in Scotland is unanimous against the Regulations and Code. When the draft was first submitted, nearly half the education authorities in Scotland made no comment upon it at all. I do not wish to put that any higher, and you may say, putting it at its lowest, they acquiesced in it; but we find that nearly half of them made no sort of comment whatever, and two of the most important county authorities expressed themselves as satisfied with the Code. Therefore, I hold quite clearly, that it cannot be laid down that the Code is objected to by the educational opinion of Scotland.
    Mr. SULLIVAN: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman quite clear in his statement with regard to the Lanarkshire Education Authortity? They have written to me.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: My information is exactly in accord with what I have said, namely, that Lanark, some time ago, passed a resolution in favour of the Code as drafted; and that only yesterday Midlothian did the same. That is, I am

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    informed, an accurate statement of what was done. Does the hon. Member say that he has had a resolution from the education authority of Lanark objecting to the Code?
    Mr. SULLIVAN: Yes, but unfortunately I have not got it here. I thought I had it with my papers. So far as my memory goes, Lanark was against it.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: I think, unless I am mistaken, that the hon. Member is thinking of the Glasgow Education Authority, which certainly has criticised the Code. If my information is correct, the education authority of Lanark took another view, and when the draft Code first appeared, passed a resolution approving of it. There has been a good deal of criticism from those educational authorities who have sent in documents of protest in the last few days on certain points. As I have said, there are only eight in the whole of Scotland, and one confines itself to the question of the intermediate certificate, which is still under discussion.
    On this question of the intermediate schools, it is admitted, pretty generally, that as regards curriculum the new Code represents a considerable advance, both in the curriculum in the schools described as intermediate and in the advanced divisions. After all, it seems to me that the proposals in the Code make for a wider division of higher education in Scotland. Is it to be said that intermediate education is only to be given in a selected group of schools, and that these schools alone can carry on education after the primary stage? If such a privilege were conferred on a certain restricted number of schools, it could only be conferred in respect of special equipment as regards buildings and staff. Through the necessities of the case, such schools would be bound to be limited in number, and it would mean that over wide stretches of Scotland pupils would need to travel considerable distances from home. The Department has no objection to, and in fact desires to encourage concentration where it is possible in populous counties. It is of great use, but to limit or restrict education beyond the primary stage to a certain defined number of schools would not, I think, be of benefit
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    to Scotland as a whole. These intermediate schools go on as before, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and the Department has no objection whatever to their being described as intermediate. They will continue, but they will have this one difference, that their curriculum will be widened, broadened, and better.
    The curriculum in the advanced divisions is an immense advance on anything we have seen before. A defect in Scottish education has been that the intermediate curriculum hitherto has been on rather narrow lines, and large numbers of pupils have not had as much benefit from it as they ought. We know that in many cases a very small percentage of pupils completed the course, which has meant a wastage of time and money, and that the boys and girls have not got out of their school careers all the benefits which ought, under better circumstances, to have been possible. Value was attached to the word "intermediate" owing to associations, and the Department recognises that the schools may value the title, and they have no objection to its being used.
    Mr. COWAN: If the Department have no objection to it, why do they not use it officially?
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: We have strong objections to con fining intermediate and post-primary education to a certain selected group of schools. We have complete freedom from financial restrictions as regards the grant, and the money can be spent as the authorities think proper—
    It being after a Quarter-past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS.
    STOKE-ON-TRENT CORPORATION BILL [Lords]. (By Order.)
    As amended, considered.
    STOKE-ON-TRENT CORPORATION BILL [Lords]. (By Order.)

      CLAUSE 57.—(Prohibiting entry of petroleum, etc., into sewers.)
      Every person who wilfully or negligently turns or permits to enter into any sewer of the corporation or any drain communi-

      1377
      cating therewith any petroleum spirit or carbide of calcium from any workshop motor garage or other like premises shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding ten pounds and to a daily penalty not exceeding five pounds.
      Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: I beg to move, after the word "pounds" ["not exceeding five pounds"], to insert the following new Sub-section:
      (2) In this Section the expression "petroleum spirit" means such crude petroleum oil made from petroleum, coal, shale, peat, or other bituminous substances and other products of petroleum and mixtures containing petroleum as when tested in manner set forth in Schedule 1 to the Petroleum Act, 1879, gives off an inflammable vapour at a temperature of less than seventy-three degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer.
      It is suggested that this interpretation is necessary to make the intention of the Bill perfectly clear and on behalf of the promoters I have been asked to move this Amendment.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to second the Amendment.
      Amendment agreed to.

      CLAUSE 107.—(Power to regulate omnibus routes.)
      (3) (c) In the event of the company objecting to the decision of the corporation on any application for a licence to run omnibuses on any tramway route the company shall have a right of appeal to the Minister of Transport within a period of fourteen days after publication as hereinafter provided and after hearing all parties interested the Minister shall have power to make such Order therein as he shall think fit and the corporation shall not grant the licence or licences until the determination of any such appeal.
      (4) Every Order made by the Minister of Transport under this Section shall be final and binding on the parties affected thereby and shall on the application of the Minister be enforceable by writ of mandamus.
      Captain Viscount CURZON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), to leave out paragraph "(c)."
      In order to explain this Amendment to the House it is necessary that I should go back on the history of this Bill. The question at issue is not whether the corporation should have the powers they seek in order to protect the public, but whether the tramway companies should be allowed to interfere with the corporation when it sees fit to grant licences to
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      omnibus companies. The history of the case is this. There are two tramway companies in North Staffordshire, the Potteries Electric Traction Company, Limited, and the North Staffordshire Tramways Company, Limited. They both own and operate tramways in the borough and they promoted a Bill this Session known as the Potteries and North Staffordshire Tramways and Light Railways Bill. It contained a Clause which stated that so long as the companies provided a reasonable and sufficient service of cars or omnibuses on any route, no one else should run a service of omnibuses along such route or any other street or road so as to compete with the tramways. The Stoke Corporation Bill as introduced in the House of Lords contained a Clause to enable the corporation to make general traffic regulations and to prescribe the routes to be followed by particular vehicles. Both these Bills met with opposition from all quarters of the House, and both these Clauses were eventually withdrawn and a new Clause was substituted in the Stoke Bill. The new Clause as it came from the Lords was the result of an agreement between the Stoke Corporation, the tramway companies, and the associations representing the omnibus proprietors. I will read to the House the Clause as it came back from the House of Lords:
      "In the exercise of the powers conferred by this Section the corporation shall have due regard to the claims of the Potteries Electric Traction Company, Limited, and the North Staffordshire Tramways Company, Limited, to run omnibuses to supplement their tramway and light railway services, and if any dispute shall arise as to the necessity of such omnibuses the same shall he referred to the Minister of Transport, whose decision shall be final."
      The new Clause gave the corporation all the powers they required, and Subsection (4), which I have just read, gave the tramway companies the protection they required. The two words on which I lay stress are the words "supplement" and "necessity." This Clause was accepted by the motor omnibus people, by the corporation, and by the tramway companies. The Clause went before the Local Legislation Committee, and there the Ministry of Transport representative appeared and recommended that the Clause should be disallowed, and that, if it should be accepted by the Committee, further consideration should be given to Sub-section (4), which I have quoted.
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): May I point out to the hon. and gallant Member that the Ministry did not suggest that the Clause should be disallowed, but what we did suggest was that the Clause should be made perfectly clear.
      Viscount CURZON: I was just going to explain that the Ministry of Transport representative stated before the Local Legislation Committee that the reason they objected to the Clause was because, they did not understand the meaning of the words "supplement" and "necessity" as used there, and wanted a clearer definition. The promoters of the Bill called evidence in support of the agreed Clause, especially as to the necessity for powers to limit the number of omnibuses on these routes, and to show that the agreement come to between the corporation and the promoting companies had given the companies a special right to be considered. Such right was given by Sub-section (4), which required the corporation to have regard to the claim of the companies to run omnibuses. Not a word appears in the report of the proceedings as to any intention to enable the tramway companies to object to licences being granted to other parties, or to companies other than the tramway companies, and no such provision was in the agreed Clause. That is an important fact which I should like the House to bear in mind. The discussion went on for a long time before the Local Legislation Committee; I expect it was a rather hot day and it was getting near lunch time, but, in any case, the evidence extends to over 17 pages of the report, and, finally, the Chairman wound up the proceedings by saying, "We suggest that you should get together and come to some arrangement, and I think, as business men, you should be able to do so." They were further told that the Committee would adjourn for lunch and expected some agreement to be arrived at after lunch. It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion and one which I should have heartily endorsed had I been a member of the Committee. Then the promoters of the Bill, the representatives of the tramway company and the representatives of the Ministry of Transport conferred during the luncheon interval and agreed upon an Amendment.
      Lieut.-Colonel NALL: The parties were asked to withdraw and confer at least an hour before the luncheon interval, and the Committee went on with other business.
      Viscount CURZON: I will not stress the point about the luncheon interval too much. What I said about that was in a somewhat humorous vein, but my point was, that when the Committee adjourned this particular discussion, they told the promoters of the Bill, the Ministry of Transport, and the representatives of the tramway companies to go away and agree upon a Clause. Previously, I would remind the Committee, the Clause as it stood in the Bill was agreed to by the motor omnibus companies, as well as by the other interests to which I have just referred. When they went away, and this discussion was adjourned, the motor omnibus interests were not represented, in view of the fact that the Clause was an agreed Clause and gave everybody the safeguards which they required. The promoters thereupon went away, and agreed upon a Clause, and when the Committee re-assembled the Chairman said:
      "Delete the old Clause 107 and put the new one in, and then we shall see the sequence of everything."
      It was not explained that the following five points, which I will mention in a moment, were not put before the Local Legislation Committee at all when they re-assembled to consider the new Clause, and I would like to stress the words in this new Clause "on any application," because that is the whole point of my objection to it as it now stands. It was not explained to the Committee, first of all, that they were creating a precedent. I am informed, on the very best possible authority—and I have taken a good deal of trouble to obtain it—that there is no precedent whatever for granting such authority, and I would say that when the same powers have been sought in other Bills, in some cases the powers have been withdrawn by arrangement with the promoters, and in other cases they have been definitely refused to the corporations which have sought such powers. If these powers are granted in this Bill, I do not know what the views of these other corporations which have sought similar powers will be. Secondly, the new Clause was substantially different from the old

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      Clause. The first Clause dealt only with applications by the tramway companies, but the present Clause deals with "any application." The third point is: Was there any occasion for giving tramway companies power of appeal from the decisions of the corporation granting licences to omnibus proprietors? The fourth point is that the effect of the Clause was to give such right of appeal; and the fifth point is that the old Clause had been agreed to by parties who were not before the Committee when the new Clause was put before it.
      There are members of the Local Legislation Committee in the House now, and I am sure they could not really have been aware of the fact that the old Clause was agreed to by everybody, whereas the new Clause was agreed to by everybody with the exception of the motor omnibus interests. It is assumed that when the Chairman inquired whether all the parties were satisfied with the new Clause, the promoters of the Bill inadvertently overlooked the fact that the associations prejudicially affected by it, who had been agreed with in the House of Lords, had not been consulted as to the new Clause. It may be asked why they were not there.
      Lieut.-Colonel NALL: What are the associations to which the Noble Lord refers?
      Viscount CURZON: The motor omnibus interests affected by this Bill—the Commercial Motor Users' Association and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. They were affected by this Clause, and they should have been consulted when the parties were sent away to agree on a new Clause.
      Lieut.-Colonel NALL: Does the Noble Lord say that the Commercial Motor Users' Association agreed to the Clause which went to the Committee from the other House?
      Viscount CURZON: Yes. I say they agreed to the Clause as it came to the Committee from the other House, that the new Clause was never before them, and that they never had a chance either to agree or disagree with it. As a matter of fact, they disagree with it, as it goes far outside the scope of the original Clause. The effect of the new Clause is to give the tramway companies a power of appeal against decisions of the cor-
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      poration to grant licences to omnibus proprietors, which the tramway companies did not have under the agreed Clause. Under Sub-section (4) of the agreed Clause the matter to be referred was the necessity for such omnibuses, meaning omnibuses to supplement tramways, but under paragraph (c) as now in the Bill, the power of appeal given to the tramway companies is on any application for a licence to run omnibuses on any tramway route, whether the application is made by the tramway companies or the omnibus proprietors. I want to know what is the necessity for such a power to interfere with the decisions of the corporation.
      I have received, in common with most hon. Members, a statement on behalf of the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation in support of the Bill and against the deletion of the paragraph which I seek to wash out, and in regard to that statement I would like to say, first, that the sole point of principle at issue is the proposal to give the tramway companies a right of appeal to the Ministry against decisions of the corporation to grant licences to run omnibuses to companies or persons other than the tramway companies. Secondly, there is no precedent in local government law for such a right of appeal. It associates the tramway companies with the corporation in the decision to license or not to license the tramway companies' competitors. Thirdly, the fact that the companies will be in a position to appeal against the corporation's decisions, if licences are granted, must always influence these decisions. I submit that these are real points which the House should bear well in mind before agreeing to any such provision in this Bill. Fourthly, it must influence independent applicants for licences, who will be deterred from seeking authority the granting of which by the corporation will be challenged at once by the tramway companies. By consistently using this right of appeal the companies will influence the corporation against the granting of licences, intimidate those who desire to apply for licences, and bring pressure to bear upon the Ministry of Transport to revoke licences that are granted to competitors.
      In other words, there is a real danger that you are going to set up a monopoly, and it is not at all clear whether this

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      monopoly is in the real interests of the inhabitants of North Staffordshire. I gather that there are the gravest possible complaints against the tramway system of interminable delays, of an inefficient service generally. It was said by those who want to get this Clause in the Bill that great danger is caused to the inhabitants of Stoke-on-Trent by the existence of omnibuses and motor chars-à-bancs. I have the proceedings before the Committee here. The Chief Constable in giving evidence said that the danger is not really very great, and that there have been a few accidents where the streets of Stoke-on-Trent are undoubtedly very narrow. But the complaint was certainly not borne out in evidence before the local legislation committee that grave danger is caused by the existence oil motor omnibuses. I submit that paragraph (c) would be prejudicial to the public interest, and should not therefore be sanctioned by the House, and that the powers objected to would make it almost impossible for smaller omnibus proprietors to obtain a licence. The small man would be up against the large powerful private company, able to take care of itself and fight a case through to the last Court of Appeal. Imagine the small man who, very often, has invested all his savings, and may even have raised a mortgage on his property, to put money into motor omnibuses. Very likely his whole savings and mortgage would be jeopardised by the powers in this Bill. The small man cannot possibly afford the expense of continually fighting the large tramway companies before the Minister of Transport. I would like to read to the House a question and an answer on the subject of the possible danger arising from motor traffic in the streets of a narrow town. Question 274 was put by an hon. Member, whom I see opposite, to the chief constable of Stoke-on-Trent. The question was:
      "Have you had any accidents due to this congestion of improper sorts of traffic, as you regard them?"
      The answer of the chief constable was:
      "No, not many. We have had the awnings pulled down from the front of shops. It is owing to the good regulation by the police on point duty that we do not have more accidents."
      Everybody who uses the streets of our great cities must know that wherever you
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      have tramways you have congestion of traffic. If anyone wants an example, he has only to go as far as Brentford on the Western Highway leading out of London to see how dangerous trams can be. In fact, it has been necessary to construct a new road for several miles. I, therefore, submit that the paragraph to which I object should be deleted. The Clause we agreed upon as it came down from the House of Lords could very well be reinserted in the Bill. The Minister of Transport merely requires a definition of the words "supplement" and "necessity." A minor alteration made here as to what is intended by those two words would not be objected to, I am sure, by the motor omnibus interests. But do not let us necessarily go further, and do a thing for which there is no precedent in local legislation, namely, grant to a private company a right to appeal over the head of a corporation, which must be the best judges of their own locality as to what is most suitable for them.
      Do not let us go further than has been allowed in every similar case in local legislation in this country, and grant to a private company this right to go direct to the Minister of Transport in respect of any application. The corporation might say, "Very well, we will grant you a licence to run your omnibuses," but the tramway companies might object, simply because they do not want competition, which is a very good thing for an inefficient service, and much more likely to buck them up than anything else. Otherwise the inhabitants of North Staffordshire will have to depend upon a thoroughly inefficient service to get to and from their business. Therefore, I say, let us have this healthy competition, and do not let us grant that which has been refused, or withdrawn by agreement, in similar cases. I hope we shall be able, even at this eleventh hour, to arrive at some agreement with the promoters of the Bill, and also with the Minister of Transport, on the lines of the original Clause as it came from the House of Lords.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: I believe that any hon. Member who has ever been in North Staffordshire will sympathise with us in attempting to get this paragraph deleted from the Bill. We certainly have, in North Staffordshire, the worst system of tramway service in Great Britain. It is not only extraordinarily

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      slow and noisy, but so rarely can you find a tram, that people walk instead. When I go down to my constituency I go to the nearest station and then walk a mile and a half sooner than wait for a tram. Other towns, blessed with a municipal service, may imagine, perhaps, that in objecting to a monopoly being given to tramway companies in Stoke-on-Trent, we are asking for some competition with an admirable and perfect system such as they own. That is not the case. We are objecting to giving a monopoly to a system which, in North Staffordshire, is a by-word for badness. That is not our only reason for objecting. This paragraph affects people outside the area of Stoke-on-Trent. It affects people in the urban districts surrounding it, and in my borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and the districts to a certain extent are far more dependent now upon the motor omnibus services. Therefore we in the surrounding districts, in the interest of our constituents, have to look carefully even at a Bill promoted by Stoke-on-Trent.
      Let me illustrate what I mean. In many cases the urban districts surrounding Stoke-on-Trent have at present a tramway system which may go part of the way, but for the last three or four years they have had a motor omnibus service which goes the whole way, the journey being partly with the tramway service and the other half untapped country. As I understand it, under this Bill it is not at all impossible that the independent omnibus services may be prevented from paralleling the tram line, and one may find that the middle service or the half service which they render at the present time from the tram terminus onwards might as well be knocked off altogether, because the change from an uncertain tramway service to an uncertain omnibus service will make travelling in that district and in that manner extremely hazardous.
      I do not propose to go back into the history of this Clause, but what I want to do is to explain to the House why we object to this particular paragraph, and not to the whole of the proposals. Clause 107 proposes in the first Subsection to give the corporation power to license the omnibuses for certain routes, that is to say, to issue licences to the omnibus company, and, in doing so, tell them where they are allowed to ply and
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      where not. That seems to me to be a power to which some objection may be taken by the omnibus owners themselves, but from the point of view of the public, the corporation, in deciding where these omnibuses are to run, are the servants of the public, and they have to consider the safety of the passengers in the streets, as well as the convenience of the travelling public. They come to their decision on these questions, and I suppose they are obviously the right people to decide. Anyhow, they have to decide, and they will subsequently have to answer to their constituents for it. We do not object to Sub-section (1). We do not object to Subjection (3, b), by which it appears
      "the corporation shall have due regard, to the claims of the company to run omnibuses on any tramway route."
      I have no objection to the corporation, if they think fit, allowing the Electric Traction Company running omnibuses; in fact, the more omnibuses and the fewer trams the better it will be for the population of that district; but I should say that it is perhaps an unnecessary paragraph to put in. The corporation will still keep the power to decide whether the omnibuses are to run and where in their own area and their constituents can deal with them, if they do not serve the public in the best possible way. Paragraph (c) to which we object is not only new in local legislation, but it deliberately takes the power out of the hands of the corporation. Why the corporation assented to it I cannot understand, except as a sort of bargain to buy off opposition. Under paragraph (c) what they do is to say that after the corporation have decided where the licensed omnibuses are to run, that having decided whether such may or may not pass along the tramway route, after having decided that such and such routes shall be served that the company may appeal to the Ministry of Transport against some particular private omnibus running alongside the tram lines. That seems to me to be fatal. There is no possible means of serving towns like Fenton, Tunstall, etc.—these suburban towns—by omnibuses from Hanley or Longton except that for part of their journey these omnibuses travel along the existing tramway routes. If it is against the decision to allow such omnibuses to run, the Potteries Electric Traction Company can appeal to the Ministry of Transport. I

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      say it will be fatal to the real interests of the corporation itself, and I cannot think how they allowed this paragraph to get in. What it means is that the corporation will be put to endless expense over appeals from outside on matters which may be in the interests of the community as a whole, but which may infringe, in the opinion of the Traction Company, their rights under Clause 107 of preventing competition along their own routes. This is the question which will be brought up by the Potteries Electric Traction Company, and the more trouble they give in appealing the better will be their terms in dealing with the corporation in future. What we ask is that this particular paragraph (c), which gives the right of appeal against the decision of the corporation, obviously and presumably given in the interests of the public of the borough, to give an appeal against that on the suggestion that the service of omnibuses along the tramways route will not be encouraged unless it is in the hands of the Potteries Electric Traction Company. My additional reason for begging the House to cancel this part of the Clause is that really people outside the borough are concerned. If I could get from the Minister of Transport a definite indication in his speech that this paragraph will not be used to prevent private omnibus services continuing to serve these outlying towns, I should be satisfied. I should still think that this is a Clause which will cost Stoke-on-Trent unnecessary expense, but I should have nothing more to say. In the interests of the outlying districts, however, which perhaps cannot take part and put their case before the Local Legislation Committee, I claim that we should have some safeguard for them, that their omnibus services should not be cut off simply because a part of their omnibus service moves along existing tram lines.
      Let me come to a more general point. I think it is really deplorable that a very important question such as this is should come up simply on a private Bill. This is a matter which the Minister of Transport ought to have taken up generally. It is a question which affects every town in the kingdom. I have no doubt it affects towns such as we had in North Staffordshire which are unfortunately
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      dependent upon private companies more than it affects a town, say, like Ipswich, which has the benefit of a public tramway service. But other towns are served by private companies, and every such town is now to be met with a new problem which it never had to consider before. Every one of them is to be faced with a new problem in view of the enormous, increase in the motor omnibus services and the enormously increased danger to life owing to that competition, with not only the tramway services, but with the railway services, I am glad to say, which is causing needless complaint from the people who have hitherto carried the people of these towns. This, surely, is a problem which ought to be considered by a Select Committee of the House; even by a Royal Commission. A Departmental Committee will really not meet the case. There is the whole question of the different vested interests, the question of private omnibus owners, the interests of the existing tramway companies and of the railway companies, and. I may say, the interests of the towns and villages which are now being served by these services, and even the ratepayers who have to pay for the roads. All these interests ought to be considered. We want to have a rule of general application which could either be embodied in every omnibus Bill such as this which is brought forward, or it should be an Act of Parliament giving definite powers to corporations on certain definite lines. I myself should prefer to have an Act of Parliament which should set forth in detail and in the case of municipalities their powers as to regulating the omnibus traffic. Something of that sort has to be done, otherwise we shall be putting every local authority that introduces a Bill to unnecessary expense in opposition to their Bills, and I suggest that, whatever is done with this Bill, the Government should take a definite step to settle on a satisfactory basis the whole of this question.
      Sir THOMAS ROBINSON: The Committee which considered this Measure approved it as it left the Committee, and I am requested by that Committee to ask the House to pass this Measure as it is presented. We believe that, as far as greater safety to the inhabitants of Stoke are concerned, these provisions are necessary. With regard to Clause 107

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      dealing with the power to regulate omnibus routes, I will say at once that this was an agreed Clause. It was agreed to by the Corporation of Stoke and the tramway companies.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Were the urban district councils represented before the Committee?
      Viscount CURZON: And were the motor omnibus interests represented?
      Sir T. ROBINSON: If those interests were not represented that is no fault of the Committee, and it was their business to be present and give the Committee the benefit of their advice.
      Viscount CURZON: This Clause as it originally came from the House of Lords was an agreed Clause, and if it had not been altered there would have been no objection to it at all.
      9.0 P.M.
      Sir T. ROBINSON: We only followed the usual Parliamentary practice, and it is our duty to consider whatever opposition is offered. After having done that, it is our business to proceed with the Bill on the evidence placed before us. The urban district council and the omnibus interests were not represented. This is an agreed Clause between the corporation and the companies, and it is really a Parliamentary bargain. We accepted it because we thought it would secure equity between the various interests in Stoke-on-Trent. Within the Borough of Stoke-on-Trent there is a main arterial road, and there are some places where the distance is only 24 feet between the curb, and in other places only 27 feet. Having constructed therein a tramway, in some places a double line and in other places a single line, and having the heavy motor traffic and the omnibus traffic and charabanc traffic passing through this main road, they submitted evidence that there was congestion in this this particular road. I would remind the House that local authorities are responsible for the public convenience, and, as far as practical, for securing the public safety. I respectfully submit that when a local authority satisfies a Committee of this House that dangerous conditions obtain within its area, and such authority asks for reasonable powers to remove such danger, such a request should not be lightly set aside.
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      What are the powers asked for by the Stoke Corporation in order to remove this congestion and this public danger in the Borough of Stoke? The Stoke Corporation is the licensing authority within the borough, and they submitted that by an improved system of licensing they would be able to amply provide for the public convenience, and at the same time remove this dangerous congestion in the streets of Stoke. May I very briefly refer to the system of licensing which, I take it, would be the practice of the corporation under the general law and under this Bill? In the first place, I think my Noble Friend will agree that if an application for a licence is refused by the corporation, the applicant has a right of appeal, under the Roads Act, to the Minister of Transport. Therefore, if a person in Stoke has a small omnibus, and he applies to the corporation for a licence and they refuse his application, and he believes that he has suffered detriment, he has an appeal against the decision of the corporation to the Minister of Transport under the Roads Act.
      Viscount CURZON: That is one of the main objections of the omnibus owners.
      Sir T. ROBINSON: I want to deal with the principle of the Bill, and I want to establish the fact that the Corporation of Stoke has willingly assented to submit all their decisions to an appeal to the Minister of Transport. As they willingly assented to take this course, we felt we could trust the corporation to deal with the interests concerned with great competence and satisfaction. Take the case of the omnibuses. There is an appeal given to a single person who may have a grievance against the corporation because his licence has been refused. This Bill provides that the corporation may attach conditions to the licence. I am surprised my Noble Friend did not call the attention of the House to the licensing law, and the difference between the Common Law and this particular Clause of the Bill. Under the ordinary law the local authority may grant licences to any person, and the moment the licence is granted the man who receives it can ply for hire in any street or town in the borough. There is no power to restrict him doing so. But the Corporation of Stoke said: "We must have larger

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      licensing powers than obtain to-day, and we ask to be allowed to attach conditions to the licences we grant, so that we may consider public convenience and public necessity on every road." The Committee felt that if the Stoke Corporation were held responsible for public convenience and safety, they were the best people to know what services were required on any road, and I do not know whether this House could do any better than trust the local authority which is responsible to the inhabitants whom they represent. I would far sooner trust the corporation and the inhabitants than I would trust any interest, even that represented by the Noble Lord opposite. But they gave the appeal all the same. The person who takes out a licence, if he has a grievance, can appeal to the Ministry of Transport.
      Now we come to another Clause which was referred to by my Noble Friend. If an application is made to the corporation, and they attach a condition that the person may run or may not run his omnibus on the tramway route there is an appeal. Take the position which is raised by this Amendment. I differ entirely with my Noble Friend when he says that we are creating a permanent monopoly. There is not one atom of monopoly created under this Bill; not one further monopoly than existed before. The only thing that this Clause does is to give the right of appeal to the company and no more. Why did we assent to this? The tramway company have constructed in this district 42 miles of single tram and approximately 32 miles are within the Borough of Stoke. They have expended £827,000 on the undertaking. They have relieved the ratepayers of a very large annual charge on account of road construction. They are responsible for the maintenance of 42 miles of tram, and maintenance to-day is not what it was 10 years ago. They carry that burden. If these tram lines are not maintained to the satisfaction of the local authority the authority has its remedy. If they allow the tramway company to neglect their tramways it is their own fault.
      The company are under a further obligation to maintain a reasonable service of cars. If the service is not satisfactory to the Borough of Stoke and surrounding districts, the local authorities have it in
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      their power at any time to bring the matter before the Minister of Transport. By using that instrument they can put the whole thing straight, and make the company satisfy the necessities of the borough. The tramway lines are rated; the company pays £12,000 per year in rates to the municipal authorities. In addition to that, the trams may be purchased at specific periods on specific terms by the local authorities if they so desire. There is something more than that. Maximum fares are fixed for the trams. This does not obtain in the case of omnibuses. They must provide workmen's fares morning and evening at halfpenny per mile, with a minimum of 1d. The omnibuses do not run in the early morning, and are not used in the evening for workmen's fares. These are left entirely for the tramway to provide. They are provided because the company are under a statutory obligation to do it. They are subject at any time to interference at the hands of the Ministry of Transport, and may be called upon to reduce the maximum fares on appeals made by the ratepayers within the area of the local authority. There is no statutory limitation of omnibus fares within that area.
      Bearing in mind all these obligations—the construction of roads, the maintenance of roads, the relief of the local authority of enormous costs equivalent to a considerable contribution of rates, £12,000 a year actually paid in rates, statutory maximum fares, the obligation to provide workmen's fares, the obligation to provide satisfactory services—bearing in mind all these things, I ask the house to agree that the company are entitled at least to an appeal under this Bill. Something has been said about the corporation losing this, that or the other. The corporation have willingly assented to these Clauses. They believe that by the administration of the Clauses they will be able to remove a danger already cited, and that they will be able to act equitably as between the interests involved. I will take an extreme case, and will suppose that the day of possible purchase of this undertaking by the corporation is approaching. Is it reasonable that, without appeal, the companies should be under these obligations, and have inflicted upon them by the corporation, not

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      to-day or to-morrow, but three or four years hence, 150 omnibuses on this street, without an appeal, without a chance to raise even a single voice? Indeed, I understand that they have already 100 omnibuses on this route. Is it reasonable bearing in mind the capital outlay and the obligations which rest upon them, that they should have to run the risk of a corporation acting unwisely and placing, perhaps, 200 omnibuses on this route, which would mean the ruin of the companies. All that they ask is the protection of an appeal. The monopoly cannot be theirs, because they have no power to become a larger monopoly than they are at present. It rests entirely with the Ministry of Transport to protect the public of Stoke and see that justice is done between the omnibus proprietors, the tramway companies, and the general public. As far as the Committee are concerned, they have complete confidence in the Borough of Stoke, and ask the House to pass the Bill as it stands.
      Colonel WOODCOCK: The last speaker has told us that the Committee were unanimous in their decision when they sent this Clause down to the House, but that really should not, in a case of this sort, stifle discussion on what, perhaps, may happen in many other cities throughout the country. The Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon) has told us that this is the first case of the kind that has occurred, and if this House cannot discuss it fully and go into the matter, whether the Committee were unanimous or not, we shall have many other towns and cities coming with the same plea that they want a Clause to give them the same authority. The motorbus traffic has developed very largely since the War. In many towns it has been of the greatest convenience to the workers, and has done a great deal of good. It has been provided, in many cases, by individual men, not by companies, and these men are, many of them, ex-service men, who have formed small syndicates to purchase these omnibuses and so get a living. Notwithstanding what has been said to-night by the hon. Member for Stretford (Sir T. Robinson), I still think that the companies being able to appeal, over the heads of the corporation, to the Ministry of Transport, against any omnibus proprietor who may get a licence, is creating
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      a very dangerous precedent and stifling competition, which is certainly very useful, as the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has pointed out, in speeding up the traffic in these districts.
      We know very well that the trams pay rates and have made concessions, but the whole of that is part of the bargain which they made with the corporation when they went for their Bill. They did not anticipate the motor traffic. We quite understand that they pay rates, but that should not stop them from giving the best service possible. We know that they had to give certain services on those routes that they were made to give up, but we do not want just the minimum service, stifled down to the very lowest ebb. We want them to give a good and efficient service for the workers from morning till night, as has been done in other towns. The city from which I come has had this very same experience. The motor omnibuses have done a vast amount of good in speeding up the tramways to give more efficient services for the workers. If these motor omnibuses are not allowed to compete in the way that we want, all parallel routes to the tramway will be cut off. If they want to run part of the way along the tramway, and then cut off at right angles to the tramway, it will be found that the tramway company will certainly appeal to the Ministry of Transport against the motor omnibus service, and it is that sort of traffic that is going to be so helpful to the people who live in outlying suburbs. They can come right into the centre of the town from their districts, which are not served by a tramway, and they can come over part of the tramway that runs to the centre of the town. Certainly it will be found that the tramway companies will object to that sort of thing, and we do not want such a monopoly created. We do not want these routes laid down so as to assist the tramway companies in every possible way.
      This motor omnibus traffic has very many favourable features. In the first place, a motor omnibus does not have to keep to the centre of the road, but can come in beside the footpath, and that is certainly an advantage in many cases. Again, the motor omnibus is not confined to the tramway route, but can vary its route, and can sometimes be of greater

      1395
      service to the district than the tramway. Furthermore, the motor omnibus can pick up and set down people at their own convenience without having to wait for stages as on the tramway. Often it is a great convenience to people to be picked up or set down between the tramway stages. I think it was the hon. Member for Stretford who referred to the narrow streets in the town of Stoke, but that is the case in very many other towns and cities. Take the City of Bristol, in which, I believe, the streets were made, in the first place, really for dog carts. They had to make, or endeavour to make, the streets such as to allow of the passage of motor omnibuses, and motor omnibuses are the probable traffic of the future. The Corporation of Stoke must endeavour to provide facilities as other towns have.
      A great point has been made of the question of safety with these 100 omnibuses running along the road. I can assure the House that in the City of Bristol we have hundreds of omnibuses running along our roads, but the Watch Committee of the corporation have always the necessary powers, and they are there to see that the safety, both of the travelling public and of the people on foot, is properly guarded. If there is any trouble or any danger of omnibuses running too closely to each other, it is always in the hands of the watch committee to check it. They license the omnibuses and provide for the public safety. They can suggest the routes or change the routes, but when a man gets a licence and knows his route, he knows he has to conform to the conditions the watch committee impose on him. They do that in the public safety, or if they do not they are not performing their proper duties. I do hope that now that this Clause has been discussed by the House it will not be made so that any monopoly can be created. If this private enterprise, which is put up in many cases by small ex-service men, is going to be of service to the public and the workers, do not let us have a rich company, although they pay rates for which they bargained when they got the concession, overriding the licence granted by the corporation and going straight to the Ministry of Transport to have it put away. I support the Noble Lord in his Motion.
      Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: I have listened to the speeches that have been delivered on this subject with the idea of getting at the real kernel of the contention of those who wish that this paragraph (c) should be struck out. I would remind the last speaker that we are debating the deletion of paragraph (c) from Clause 107 of this Bill. I understand the suggestion is that if this paragraph (c) remains we are creating some huge monopoly which will prevent the ordinary private omnibus owner having any chance of putting on the streets a supply of the omnibus accommodation necessary for the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. I understand that is the contention.
      Colonel WOODCOCK: You may do.
      Lieut.-Colonel WARD: You may do. There is no doubt you can do anything, but I understand that is the contention.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: The contention is that if you give the tramway companies an appeal they will be able to prevent the corporation at its own option giving a licence to private companies to run along the tramway lines.
      Lieut.-Colonel WARD: Quite so. If we have a madman in charge of the Transport Ministry. I have listened attentively to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), because if there is a weak point hi a Clause he is generally able to fasten upon it, but he has not pointed to a single word in this Clause which justifies him in suggesting that, unless it is that you will get the Stoke Corporation, on which there are some 30 odd Labour members, members of his own party, the tramway companies, and the Ministry of Transport all combining together to prevent any kind of competition. There is not the slightest doubt that that is the only way in which a monopoly can be obtained under this Clause. It is only on that supposition. I do not say for one moment that the deletion of this Clause will make any difference one way or the other, because for it to fail in its object—namely, to regulate the introduction, which has already occurred and gone to some ridiculous extent in some cases, and to give the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation power to make regulations with reference to the running of omnibuses in the future—you have to assume there are some very foolish

      1397
      administrators. As the Chairman of Committees stated, the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation desire me to read a statement to the House to justify them in maintaining this Clause exactly as it stands. It is in the nature of a Parliamentary bargain between the different parties concerned in the promotion of or opposition to this Bill.
      Viscount CURZON: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say exactly who the parties are?
      Lieut.-Colonel WARD: I think the Noble Lord will find who they are by reading the statement. This is a statement on the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation Bill in support of Clause 107 and it says:
      "The circumstances under which this Clause is included in the Bill are shortly as follows: The conditions in Stoke-on-Trent are peculiar to itself. The borough consists principally of one main thoroughfare running from one end to the other, a distance of about 10 miles, and round this thoroughfare the former six towns which now comprise the borough are built, there are practically no byepass roads, and substantially the whole of the traffic from any one of the towns to another has to use the main thoroughfare along which tramlines run the whole length. For some time past the corporation has been receiving large numbers of applications for omnibus licences and they have been placed in a position of great difficulty as guardians of the public safety. It has been found that applications have been made for licences to run omnibuses on certain routes, but that after the applications have been granted the omnibuses do not confine themselves to the routes suggested, but move about from route to route where the owner thinks he can pick up most fares. The result has been that in many cases it has been found that on certain routes many more omnibuses than are necessary for the convenience of the travelling public are plying for hire. In fact, so bad has the position become that even the number of omnibuses is a great public danger. The corporation have felt for some time that their powers of regulation were not large enough—the power they have of limiting the total number of omnibuses does meet their difficulty at all, as it may be quite safe to issue, say, 150 licences over the whole borough while it would be absolutely unsafe to have more than, say, 10 on a certain route. To meet this difficulty a Clause was drafted and in the Bill as originally deposited a Clause was inserted in very wide terms. This Clause was petitioned against by the local tramway companies, the Automobile Association"—
      This is where the parties the Noble Lord (Viscount Curzon) asked me for come in—
      "and the London and Provincial Omnibus Owners' Association, but an amended Clause
      1398
      was agreed with all the petitioners, and the Clause came before the Lords Committee as an agreed one.
      "So far as the tramway companies are concerned the agreement between the corporation and them was arrived at under the following circumstances. The tramway companies this Session promoted a Bill which contained several Clauses to which the corporation took very great exception, and they accordingly petitioned against the Bill, and several meetings took place between representatives of the corporation and the tramway companies as a result of which an arrangement was come to by which both parties were satisfied. The tramway companies withdrawing from their Bill one very objectionable Clause to the corporation and amending others, and the corporation agreeing to amend their Bill by the insertion of Clause 107 as it was in the First House, and both petitions were withdrawn. Before the Bill came to be considered by the Local Legislation Committee, the Minister of Transport by his Report notified his objection to Clause 107, and especially to the proviso contained in Sub-clause 4, and this objection, and this objection was or should have been known to everybody who was interested in the Bill. It was thought by the corporation that the Clause having been agreed they were honourably bound to proceed with it in its entirety, and the tramway companies petitioned against alterations. When the Clause came to be considered by the local legislation committee, they heard very full evidence as to the necessity for it from the town clerk and the chief constable of the county borough, and after considerable discussion with the representative of the Minister of Transport on his objection to the form of the Clause, the chairman intimated that the committee considered that the Clause was one which ought to be agreed between the Minister of Transport, the corporation and the tramway companies in the interest of public safety, and the consideration of the Clause was adjourned for a short period to enable this to be done. The parties who were represented before the committee accordingly got together and the new Clause 107, as it appears in the Bill to-day, was drawn and submitted to and passed by the committee. The opposition to the Clause is largely misconceived and certainly does not represent the views of the two largest omnibus owners in the county borough, who have withdrawn from the Omnibus Association. There has been some feeling locally that the corporation may use the provisions of the Clause harshly against the small omnibus owner, but I can definitely say on behalf of the corporation that this will not be done, and undertake on their behalf that no omnibus which is at present licensed and which is in a safe condition to be used will be required to be taken off the road for a period of at least twelve months after this Bill or its Regulations come into force. It is most sincerely desired by the corporation to retain the Clause as it must very materially help them in their efforts to adequately provide for the public convenience and safety."

      1399
      That is the statement of the corporation. I am speaking for them to-night, and I do not see anything in the discussion which has taken place so far to justify me in hesitating to support their claims. This Bill, after all, is put forward by a public authority elected by the electors of Stoke-on-Trent, upon which there are some 30 odd members of the party immediately above the Gangway, and I dare say we can assume, if there is any accuracy in the prophecy of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that Stoke-on-Trent very soon will nave a majority of Labour members on the corporation. Then why any difficulty about giving them all these rights over administration, of which you complain at the moment? There is one other observation I cannot help making. When it is a question of discussing Regulations and the power to enforce them, with reference to motor traffic in our public streets, for the provision of public safety, I do not think the evidence of the Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea is just the sort of evidence I should require.
      Viscount CURZON: I can appreciate the hon. and gallant Gentleman's inuendo, but I do not think it is quite worthy of him.
      Lieut.-Colonel WARD: If the Noble Lord feels the slightest resentment at anything I have said I at once apologise and withdraw it.
      Colonel ASHLEY: May I, in the first place, reply to a question which was put by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) dealing with the policy of the Ministry with regard to motor omnibuses which are running from the centre of a town to outlying districts, and he was anxious to know what the policy of the Ministry was when these motor omnibuses sought to run alongside an existing tramway route, because he was afraid this Bill might contain some germ of opposition to his friends getting a proper omnibus service to outlying districts. Our policy is to allow these omnibuses which run to outlying districts to run alongside the tramways, though occasionally we put in a proviso that they shall not take up passengers after they have started, until the end of the tram route.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does that mean, for instance, in the case of omnibuses from Hanley, that they will run straight through Burslem market place without being allowed to take up passengers?
      Colonel ASHLEY: Unfortunately I am not acquainted with the topography of the place, but that is the policy, in order to try to secure that people in the outlying districts shall be able to get into the centre of the town, and at the same time to safeguard the legitimate interests of tramway companies, which have expended large sums of money. May I say how the Ministry of Transport comes into the picture? An agreed Clause was brought up in the House of Lords, I understand, between the Stoke Corporation and the Tramway Company. When it came down and was considered by the local Legislation Committee we discovered that certain powers were sought to be vested in the Ministry, and naturally before we accepted them we wished to be quite clear what they were. We said we could not agree to the Clause till it was made clear what obligations were sought to be imposed upon us. Then the representatives of the Stoke Corporation and the tramway companies and an officer of the Ministry of Transport went away for a consultation and brought back an agreed Clause, which in our opinion stated exactly what the powers were which were sought to be imposed upon us, and in answer to criticisms which have been raised by the Noble Lord and others that representatives of other interests were not present, those interests could have been present if they had wished. If they did not appear before the local Legislation Committee that was their fault and not the fault of the local Legislation Committee. What the local Legislation Committee is called upon to do is to consider the people who come before them and put their views before them. The local Legislation Committee cannot run up and down the town seeking people for information. They judge upon the evidence that is produced before them. I cannot see that there is any grievance if these other people were not there This duty was put upon us. We accepted it with the very greatest reluctance. It is no precedent at all, but we accepted it. The Bill is put forward by an important corporation, and we

      1401
      have done all we can to get it through, and we have taken on this duty simply in order to try to get it through as an agreed measure, and we understood it was an agreed measure. If that is so, and in view of the speeches which have beer, made by the Chairman of the Local Legislation Committee, and by the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke-on-Trent, who represents the corporation, I think this House ought most certainly to support the Local Legislation Committee and the views of the Stoke Corporation. If we do not do that, and if we are going to throw over the Local Legislation Committee, who have heard all the evidence, and were unanimous in supporting this Clause; and if we do not give the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation what they want, and what the tramways want, we shall be doing a grave injustice. I hope, therefore, the House will refuse to delete this Clause.
      Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask my hon. and gallant Friend if he will say something about the general question which I raised?
      Colonel ASHLEY: We have a Departmental Committee sitting at the present time dealing with the powers of local authorities and the licensing of hackney vehicles. I admit that it does not cover all the points which were raised by my hon. and gallant Friend, and very important points they were. I can assure him, although I cannot make a promise, that I will go into the whole matter which he has raised, and consider it most carefully, with a view to seeing whether anything can be done.
      Sir F. BANBURY: The hon and gallant Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward) is wrong in one point which he put. The Stoke Corporation authorised certain omnibuses to run, and the tramway company objected. They went to my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, and he upholds the tramway company.
      Colonel ASHLEY: I may equally support the corporation.
      Sir F. BANBURY: I am well aware of that, but you might not, or your successor might not. I only instance that, to show that the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke was mistaken. The Chairman of the Committee said that the tramway com-
      1402
      pany have spent £800,000 on the tramways, and that, therefore, they ought to have a right to go to the Ministry of Transport and to say that they object to omnibuses competing with them. May I ask what happened to stage coaches? Did the proprietors of stage coaches go to the Ministry of Transport, or whatever Ministry was in existence at that time, and say, "We are on the road; we have spent large sums of money, and we object to any other form of transport competing with us"?
      Sir T. ROBINSON: I should be very glad if the right hon. Baronet would tell me under what Act of Parliament stage coaches were licensed.
      Sir F. BANBURY: I did not hear what the hon. Member said. Did the owners of hansom cabs when the taxicabs came to London demand that they should be protected against the competition of the taxicabs? Of course not. The modes of transport alter, and if certain people invest their money in a certain mode of transport and modern methods supersede that mode of transport, I am very sorry for them, but they have to lose their money as other people have done before them. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the railways?"] The railway companies do not say, "You must not send anything by an aeroplane, in which you run the risk of being burned or drowned." The railway companies have never said that they must have the right to go to the Ministry of Transport and to ask my hon. and gallant Friend to prevent aeroplanes running from this country to Paris and elsewhere. New methods of transport are discovered, and you have to make the best of the situation. I am very sorry that motor cars were ever invented, but that does not alter the fact that you have to take the new methods, whatever they are.
      My hon. and gallant Friend says that the Ministry of Transport have accepted this duty, which was thrust upon them, with much reluctance. I would point out that the result of this will be that every tramway company in the country will come forward and say, "We desire to have the same privilege that has been given to the tramway company at Stoke-on-Trent. We desire that, if any new method of locomotion is discovered, that we shall be able to go before the Ministry of Transport, and ask that they should

      1403
      prevent this new and better method from competing with us." It seems to me to be a very dangerous thing for this House to do—whatever the Committee did—to create a new precedent of this sort. I have had the privilege of the acquaintance and the friendship of my hon. and gallant Friend for many years, and I am going to say something which perhaps he will not like. I do not want to see the powers of the Ministry of Transport extended. I thought that we had got rid of it, or that we were going to get rid of it. It seems to me an extraordinary position that at this time of day we are going to say that whether or not locomotion is to be allowed in our cities is to depend upon the will of the Ministry of Transport. It is a new proposition. In the interests of my hon. and gallant Friend I do not want to see him put in such an invidious position, and I hope the House will accept the Amendment.
      Sir CHARLES WILSON: I desire to support the case of the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation. This Clause is very mild and moderate, but behind it there is a very great principle involved, and that is the question, who shall control traffic in the narrow streets. In my opinion, no one can control that traffic except the municipality. I know that this House in times gone by has been very chary of granting to any municipality outside London any powers of traffic control, but the time has arrived when such powers must be given, or we shall kill the people. The transport machinery has grown so immensely that it is absolutely necessary for corporations to take powers to order heavy and slow traffic along a different route from that run by trams and motor cars. This Clause ought to stand. It is a sufficient safeguard for the moment, but it is as nothing compared to the demands that will be made by the great corporations for further powers. They cannot carry on as they are at the present time. I do not care what the constitution of the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation may be. That has nothing to do with the question. This House, acting through its machinery, has practically directed two opposing parties to agree. They have agreed, and it would not be well for this House to throw down that agreement. I have seen too many cases where Bills or Clauses have been
      1404
      destroyed by those who have not heard the evidence as has the Committee dealing with the matter. I suggest that as only a municipality can deal with this question of control of traffic we ought to allow this exceedingly mild and moderate Clause to go through. I have had experience for 30 years of this matter, and I know that the corporations of the present time are practically powerless, because they are not armed with any powers for control of traffic. Only London has power to control its great traffic. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] London has those powers, and the municipalities outside London have scarcely any. Just as it is necessary in the case of London to have these powers, so it is necessary in the case of other municipalities. In the case of the Corporation of Stoke-on-Trent it is very reasonable, and I support it.
      Mr. MacLAREN: Though the previous speaker is older than myself, I trust that he will not take it amiss if I congratulate him on his first effort in this House. I do sincerely hope, despite the speech made by the Minister of Transport, that it is not too late to make an appeal to him to change his mind. Perhaps most of the contention centres round that part of the Potteries which I represent in this House. If any hon. Member of this House came to the Potteries, the first thing that would impress him would be the antiquated system of tramways which meander up in a single line, and when he comes to the various loops on the single line he will notice that the train driver sits down passively and reads his paper and waits until another tram appears on the horizon half a mile away. It is the most inefficient and antiquated tram system in Europe, and I say this as coming from Glasgow, where they have the best tramway system in the world.
      This tramway system, which is antiquated and out-of-date in every respect, was suddenly faced a few months ago by the competition of chars-a-banc and motor omnibuses run by private individuals. The immediate effect—though it may seem strange to hon. Members opposite that anyone on these benches should seem to champion private enterprise in this way—of this competition was that the tramways were forced to reduce their fares. The second effect was that the tramway company, whose service had been

      1405
      extremely slow, and run in disregard of the mind of the public, began to speed up their service, and try to correlate the passing of one tram with another, and in every way possible to secure the patronage of the public, who, by that time were passing over to the motor omnibuses and chars-a-banc. And so incensed were the public of Stoke-on-Trent, Burslem, and other parts of the Potteries by the treatment which they had received from this tramway company that when the chars-a-banc and omnibuses began to compete the public gathered in the streets and practically prohibited anyone from boarding a tramcar for weeks after the competition began.
      10.0 P.M.
      The argument has been advanced that we ought to accept this Clause because of the great amount of capital which this antiquated company has laid down in the five towns. I agree with the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) that it is no argument at all to say that you must have regard to the expenditure of any company in a district, simply because it happens to have spent a large amount of capital. With regard to the contention of this Bill, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent says that he has been asked by the corporation to ask that this particular paragraph should remain in the Bill. With all deference I say that while he may say that, I know distinguished members of the same corporation who are only too anxious to preserve the Bill as a whole and to delete this particular paragraph.
      Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: The statement which I read on behalf of the Stoke Corporation described the method by which this Clause was agreed to, and it says that they therefore do not feel at liberty to do other than support the Clause as it stands. They are also agreed that if Sub-section 3, paragraph (c) went out it would make very little real difference in the Clause.
      Mr. MacLAREN: I thank my hon. Friend for his statement, but that does not counterbalance what I have stated that many distinguished members of the corporation are extremely anxious that that this paragraph should be deleted, and, furthermore, if the absence of this Clause will make no difference in the power of the Bill, then why all this con-
      1406
      tention to retain all the Clause? This same tramway company, which has been in open conflict with the public, and was so inefficient that it brought about the competition of the chars-à-banc and the omnibuses, came to this House a few months ago with a Bill in which they had a Clause asking for complete monopoly rights of running in the Stoke area. With the Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon) I blocked that Bill, and I maintained the block on that Bill, and did not remove it on the understanding that if I did so there would be some allowance made in the Corporation Bill for the tramway company. There is no argument in that so far as I am concerned.
      This Clause as it stands is setting up a new precedent—to allow a private company, having running powers under a distinguished corporation, to have powers to appeal over the head of the decision of the corporation to the Ministry of Transport. "But," said the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke, "there is no good anticipating trouble, unless you postulate that at the head of the Ministry of Transport there happens to be a madman." I think it better to be on the safe side, and not be put into the Bill language which would give to a madman a free hand if he happened to land in that particular place. Therefore, to be quite safe, I appeal to the House in all seriousness—because I know the feeling of the people in the district—to have this particular paragraph deleted. It has not been agreed to in the sense that some hon. Members have tried to make out, and it is setting up this iniquitous precedent of giving a private company power to appeal against the decision of a corporation. The hon. Member for Leeds truly said that the corporation ought to be the supreme power in their own streets, but by this Clause you are giving power to a private company to appeal against them. I want to impress on the minds of hon. Members that this paragraph seems rather like enabling the company to get some of their own back, because they had to drop the Clause to obtain a monopoly which was in the Bill promoted a few months ago. I hope that what has been said will in some way command the attention of the Minister of Transport, because I can assure him that, in dropping this paragraph, he will

      1407
      be doing a distinctly popular thing in the district.
      It is no good saying it was an agreed Clause, because, even on the confession of the Chairman of the Local Legislation Committee, whose speech none of us heard without feeling that he was absolutely sincere, the agreement on this Clause was a rushed agreement, come to without due consideration and without full representation of all the parties concerned. Therefore, I hold it is not true to say that it was a fully agreed Clause, in which all the parties concerned freely acquiesced. I appeal to the Minister to come to the Potteries some time, and to see for himself the great service which a speedy transport system is to the community over and against the tramway system which is now receiving this great consideration. The Chairman of the Local Legislation Committee has said that we ought to have due regard to the amount of rates which the tramway company pay for the road over which they run, and indeed that this tramway company is really a benefactor to the local area. I can assure the Minister of Transport that the people of the Potteries would willingly allow the tramway company to take away all the tramway road and give them a new system altogether.
      Sir W. LANE-MITCHELL: Why do you not take it over?
      Mr. MacLAREN: I am glad the hon. Member has made that interjection, because the tramway company know that if there is free competition by chars-à-banc and motor omnibuses their capitalised value will come down,, and that they will not be able to unload on the
      corporation at an enhanced value later on. They want, if possible, to block any competition, because they have now agreed with the corporation which has given them 20 years' running powers in the area. They are already a nuisance in the area, and they can tantalise the corporation into buying them out. I have many friends opposite, and many hon. Gentlemen on that side believe in free competition and private enterprise. Now is their chance to vote against monopoly. Here we have an outstanding example of how open competition broke a notorious monopoly, such as the tramway system was. The Bill now seeks to give them statutory powers to appeal over the head of the corporation to the Ministry of Transport. If the Minister of Transport were an angel, that would be no reason why, under a Bill of this kind, we should set up a precedent allowing a private company to over-rule the decision of a local corporation under whom they are acting. I am speaking on behalf of the people I represent, and I sincerely hope that the House will delete this particular paragraph. If it be true, as the champion of the paragraph says, that it matters not one way or the other whether the paragraph remains or not, I hope it will be deleted.
      The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANSrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
      Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed be left out stand part of the Bill."
      The House divided: Ayes, 120; Noes, 113.

      Division No.345.]

      AYES.

      [10.11 p.m.

      Ainsworth, Captain Charles

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

      Furness, G. J.

      Ashley, Lieut.-Colonel Wilfrid W.

      Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

      Ganzoni, Sir John

      Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

      Clayton, G. C.

      George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)

      Balfour, George (Hampstead)

      Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

      Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

      Barnett, Major Richard W.

      Conway, Sir W. Martin

      Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John

      Barnston, Major Harry

      Crook, C. W. (East Ham, North)

      Gould, James C.

      Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar (Banff)

      Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

      Greenwood, William (Stockport)

      Batey, Joseph

      Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

      Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

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

      Dawson, Sir Philip

      Gretton, Colonel John

      Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)

      Edge, Captain Sir William

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

      Birchall, Major J. Dearman

      Edmonds, G.

      Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

      Bowdler, W. A.

      Entwistle, Major C. F.

      Halstead, Major D.

      Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

      Erskine-Bolst, Captain C.

      Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

      Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

      Evans, Ernest (Cardigan)

      Hartshorn, Vernon

      Brittain, Sir Harry

      Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. M.

      Hawke, John Anthony

      Brown, Brig.-Gen. Clifton (Newbury)

      Fairbairn, R. R.

      Henn, Sir Sydney H.

      Brown, J. W. (Middlesbrough, E.)

      Falconer, J.

      Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

      Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.

      Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

      Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

      Burn, Colonel Sir Charles Rosdew

      Fawkes, Major F. H.

      Hiley, Sir Ernest

      Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)

      Fildes, Henry

      Hinds, John

      Hopkins, John W. W.

      Murray, John (Leeds, West)

      Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William

      Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)

      O'Grady, Captain James

      Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

      Hughes, Collingwood

      Parker, Owen (Kettering)

      Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

      Hurd, Percy A.

      Pattinson, R. (Grantham)

      Tillett, Benjamin

      Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

      Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)

      Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

      Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

      Pease William Edwin

      Turton, Edmund Russborough

      Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)

      Perkins, Colonel E. K.

      Wallace, Captain E.

      Jodrell, Sir Neville Paul

      Raine, W.

      Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)

      John, William (Rhondda, West)

      Rees, Sir Beddoe

      Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)

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

      Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)

      Weston, Colonel John Wakefield

      Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)

      Roberts, C. H. (Derby)

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

      King, Captain Henry Douglas

      Robertson-Despencer, Major (Isl'gt'n W)

      Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

      Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

      Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)

      Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

      Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)

      Roundell, Colonel R. F.

      Wolmer, Viscount

      Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

      Russell, William (Bolton)

      Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

      McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)

      Sandon, Lord

      Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward

      Mason, Lieut.-Col. C. K.

      Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furn'ss)

      Yerburgh, R. D. T.

      Mercer, Colonel H.

      Stewart, Gershom (Wirral)

      Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)

      Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—Lieut.-Colonel Nall and Sir Kingsley Wood.

      Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

      Sturrock, J. Leng

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

      Sugden, Sir Wilfrid H.

      Morrison, Hugh (Wilts, Salisbury)

      NOES.

      Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

      Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

      Ponsonby, Arthur

      Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)

      Harrison, F. C.

      Potts, John S.

      Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')

      Harvey, Major S. E.

      Price, E. G.

      Ammon, Charles George

      Hay, Captain J. P. (Cathcart)

      Pringle, W. M. R.

      Attlee, C. R.

      Hayes, John Henry (Edge Hill)

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel

      Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

      Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (N'castle, E.)

      Rawson, Lieut.-Com. A. C.

      Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)

      Henderson, Sir T. (Roxburgh)

      Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)

      Barnes, A.

      Herriotts, J.

      Remer, J. R.

      Becker, Harry

      Hewett, Sir J. P.

      Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

      Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

      Hill, A.

      Ritson, J.

      Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)

      Hillary, A. E.

      Ruggles-Brise, Major E.

      Berry, Sir George

      Hudson, Capt. A.

      Russell-Wells, Sir Sydney

      Bonwick, A.

      Hutchison, Sir R. (Kirkcaldy)

      Saklatvala, S.

      Briggs, Harold

      Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)

      Salter, Dr. A.

      Broad, F. A.

      Kelley, Major Sir Frederick A.

      Scrymgeour, E.

      Bruford, R.

      Lamb, J. Q.

      Sexton, James

      Buckle, J.

      Lansbury, George

      Shepperson, E. W.

      Burgess, S.

      Lawson, John James

      Simpson-Hinchcliffe, W. A.

      Burney, Lieut.-Com. (Middx., Uxbridge)

      Leach, W.

      Smith, T. (Pontefract)

      Butcher, Sir John George

      Linfield, F. C.

      Snell, Harry

      Buxton, Charles (Accrington)

      Lorden, John William

      Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

      Chapple, W. A.

      Lowth, T.

      Sullivan, J.

      Charleton, H. C.

      Lunn, William

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

      Clarke, Sir E. C.

      MacDonald, J. R. (Aberavon)

      Warne, G. H.

      Clarry, Reginald George

      Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)

      Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

      Collison, Levi

      M'Entee, V. L.

      Weir, L. M.

      Cope, Major William

      McLaren, Andrew

      Whiteley, W.

      Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

      March, S.

      Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

      Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)

      Marshall, Sir Arthur H.

      Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

      Duncan, C.

      Middleton, G.

      Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

      Dunnico, H.

      Morel, E. D.

      Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

      Ede, James Chuter

      Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

      Wise, Frederick

      Ford, Patrick Johnston

      Newbold, J. T. W.

      Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

      Garland, C. S.

      Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)

      Wright, W.

      Gosling, Harry

      Oman, Sir Charles William C.

      Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

      Gray, Frank (Oxford)

      Paling, W.

      Gray, Harold (Cambridge)

      Penny, Frederick George

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Captain Viscount Curzon and Mr Morgan Jones.

      Greenall, T.

      Philipson, Mabel

      Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

      Phillipps, Vivian

      Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

      CLAUSE 150.—(Apportionment of expenses in case of joint owners.)
      Where under the provisions of this Act the corporation shall construct or do any works for the common benefit of two or more buildings belonging to different owners the expenses which under those Acts or any of them are recoverable by the corporation from the owners shall be paid by the owners of such buildings in such proportions as shall be determined by the surveyor or in case of dispute by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction.
      Amendment made: Leave out the words "under those Acts or any of
      1410
      them," and insert instead thereof the words "this Act."
      Ordered, "That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
      King's Consent on behalf of the Duchy of Lancaster signified.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Question again proposed.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.

    EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: At a quarter-past Eight o'clock, I had almost reached the conclusion of my remarks dealing with the Scottish education code, and especially with the point as to the intermediate schools which was raised by the Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. D. M. Cowan). The intermediate schools will go on as before, but with a wider curriculum, and there must be ample opportunity of giving this kind of education elsewhere. The puplis of the primary schools must be given a broader outlook, and that will never be done if post-primary education is confined to the intermediate schools. The Scottish Education Department, I think rightly, have set their faces against the creation of a privileged group of schools in which alone education beyond the primary stage may be given. The provisions of the Code and secondary school Regulations now lying on the Table will do much to promote a wider diffusion of secondary education in Scotland, especially in rural Scotland.
    Captain HAY: It is with pain that I have listened to the speech of the Solicitor-General for Scotland, and unless the hon. and learned Gentleman changes his mind to-night, I am afraid he will go down to posterity with the unenviable notoriety of having completed the rending of the seamless garment of Scottish education. I do not say he has rent it, but he will have done the last act in completion of the rending process, which has been going on more or less for 25 years in Scotland. The time is not so far distant when in Scotland, in the smaller schools, the teacher who taught the simplest elements to the youngest in the school was also a man who completed the education of those who were going right in for the University. That happy state of things has now passed, owing to different excuses, mostly under the guise of efficiency, but really for economy, and now the crucial point is this, that if these two sets of Regulations go through, we
    1412
    are going to have for Scottish children, between the years of 12 and 15, two kinds of education. We are going to have an intermediate course, and we are going to have what is called an advanced course.
    As a practical teacher, as one who left the schoolroom to come right here, I dare to say that this so-called advanced education is going to be something cheap, but in proportion to its cheapness it is bound to have a certain amount of nastiness. We ask that for all children from 12 to 15 in Scotland there should be but one kind of education, and that is intermediate. To show the spirit under which the Scottish Education Department works, I wish to point out that when this subject was debated on the Scottish Estimates four or five weeks ago, we made this criticism, that advanced education was not intermediate, because, under intermediate education, your class was confined to 30, while, under the other, the class might be as large as 40. They have changed that. They have not reduced the 40 to 30 to show they mean well towards the advanced course, but they have lifted the 30 to 40 in the intermediate course, thus proving without a doubt that the levelling Is a process of levelling down, and not of levelling up. That is how one of our criticisms has been answered. They say, "Yes, we will make you equal. We will take away the sting of your criticism by making the same number of pupils per teacher both in the advanced course and in the intermediate course," but instead of knocking 10 off the advanced course, and giving the teacher a real chance, they add 10 on to the intermediate course, so that the total outcome of our criticism is this: that the intermediate course is going to be levelled down towards this cheap and shoddy advanced course.
    My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland is not quite clear yet as to the balance of Scottish opinion against this new Code. If he consults the records of voting on the Scottish Estimates, he will see that the balance is 44 to 11 against him and against the officials of the Scottish Education Department, and since that time the opposition has hardened considerably. We have against the Department, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, we have the Assembly of the Established Church, we have the Educa-

    1413
    tional Institute, we have eight education authorities, all speaking with a voice unanimous on this particular question. They say it is wrong that there should be two kinds of education in Scotland for children between 12 and 15. We can see quite well that it is going to be settled really on a class basis. We are told that the old intermediate schools are going on as usual. Yes, they will go on with their good staffs and fine equipment as usual, but under the guise of advanced education, the children of the working classes from 12 to 15 will be marking time in the schools under the idea that they are getting intermediate education.
    Our plea is a simple one—that there should be one kind of education in the country for all children between 12 and 15, and we say, knock out the word "advanced" altogether from the code and the schools. Let there be intermediate education equal in all respects. In these days of unemployment among teachers, when the standard among teachers in Scotland is so high, there is no reason at all—and the education authorities know it quite well—why all these classes should not be staffed by teachers of a high standard. The men and women are in the country. I know quite well the Scottish Education Department fears it would cost much money, but we are just as clear that for a very little extra expenditure those courses might be made intermediate courses, and we would get away altogether from this miserable class barrier which has been growing in Scottish education for the past 25 years.
    Again, at a time like this, when members of education authorities have gone on holidays, when the educational machine, as far as the technique is concerned, has been slowed down, this is a bad time and a wrong time to ring these changes on Scottish education. We were told to-day in one Department the old tradition had been abandoned—the tradition whereby the Minister took upon himself all the faults and the responsibilities of those who are acting under him. I will not ask my hon. and learned Friend tonight to abandon that position; I will ask him to try to find a via media, and while I do not ask him to abandon some officials of Scottish education, if he cannot see eye to eye with us just now, I ask
    1414
    him if he will do on this occasion what he did four weeks ago, and postpone this until the Autumn, when we will come back with fresher minds, the position will be clear, and he can see for himself that all Scotland is absolutely against his Department on this matter. I strongly appeal to him not to close the question, and not to ask us to close the question, but that he will make this a piece with the other things which we debated a few weeks ago, so that we can come back from the Recess with fresh minds and unstrained tempers, and give a new consideration to this, not for the sake of party or politics, but for the sake of Scottish education.

    CIVIL SERVICE (WRITING ASSISTANTS).
    Mr. HAYES: I desire to raise the question of the writing assistant class of civil servants. This is a question that was touched upon somewhat in the Debate which we had upon certain members of the clerical staff of the Civil Service some three or four months ago. The history of the case is that the writing assistant class was introduced into the Civil Service of this country in 1911 with a view to avoiding financial expenditure which would arise out of the recommendations of the Hobhouse Committee. This particular writing assistant class is confined to women workers, and when I say that large numbers are affected I mean that there are at least 3,000 who are in receipt of a wage and bonus which, together, are not sufficient to keep body and soul together.
    In 1920 the Civil Service Reorganisation Committee made certain recommendations whch were contingent upon certain conditions being observed. The recommendations included one that this particular class, a temporary class, should continue to, exist until 1925. The conditions of that recommendation were that there should be free promotion from that class to other Departments of the Civil Service, and that the age of recruitment should be from 16 to 18 years. We are well aware that during the War the War's exigencies compelled a certain variation from the age of recruitment with the consequence that the vast majority, certainly 3,000 of the writing assistant class, are women whose age averages about 30, and who consequently cannot be regarded in the same light that we would regard new recruits whose ages were 16 to 18 and who have not the

    1415
    responsibility that persons of a more mature age have. The wages and bonus of the present class are a minimum of 39s. 6d. per week, and a maximum of 43s. It is anticipated, in fact it is definitely settled, that in next September even this miserable wage and bonus will be subjected to a reduction. When we had a Debate in the House a few months back on various sections of the Civil Service the Southborough Committee was set up. The terms of reference to that Committee, unfortunately, did not bring within its purview the condition of this unfortunate section of the Civil Service. Although considerable pressure was brought to bear upon the Treasury and the Prime Minister, we were informed that the Southborough Committee would not consider the circumstances of this class, but that everything would be done for them through the National Joint Committee composed of the official side and the staff side.
    The National Joint Committee has been considering this question. Only this afternoon, in reply to a question which I put to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I was informed that the Treasury are well aware that no promise of an increase in the wage or bonus has been made to this section of the Civil Service, but that the whole matter is under consideration. It is to that point I wish to address my remarks. I hope that the Treasury will regard those remarks not in the light of a bitter complaint, but merely in order that they may thoroughly understand that there is dissatisfaction existing in the service in regard to how the Joint Committee are handling the claims which are being submitted on behalf of the writing assistant class. As a matter of fact the official side of the Joint Committee have refused to discuss the claims submitted by the staff side owing to the basis of the cost of living being involved. As well as rejecting the staff proposals they apparently consider the matter can be left in the air, because they resolutely refuse either to make alternative proposals themselves or in any way to suggest a way out of the difficulty. That is the position of this class, large numbers of whom have shown their interest in this matter by seeing various Members of Parliament. They are anxious that the Treasury shall consider the whole ques-
    1416
    tion in a very sympathetic manner with a view to endeavouring to bring about, in the Joint Committee, some amelioration of the position so that this section may receive a little better treatment than they have had in the past.
    I want to say that the Southborough Committee have recommended that retrospective effect to April, 1923, in regard to an increase of from 8s. to 12s. per week on the salaries of those whose case it was the duty of the Committee to inquire into. I think it would be a very reasonable claim that would come from the staff side in the light of the recommendations made by the Southborough Committee. So far as this class is concerned in the Civil Service it is difficult to expect it while we have so many grades probably living under similar conditions and receiving widely different salaries and pensions. So far as the class to which I have referred are concerned I think it will be agreed that the women in our Civil Service, many of whom are ex-service women, have to maintain a decent standard of life, and live in respectable surroundings.
    As a rule they are persons of good education and they have to maintain a position worthy of the Civil Service, and if these women are to do all that, and come up to the standard that the honour and dignity of the Civil Service demand we must be prepared to pay them an adequate wage. It is because of these things that we hope the Secretary to the Treasury will give a sympathetic consideration to the position which has arisen. I hope we shall have an indication that whatever may have been the cause of the deadlock in the National Joint Committee with regard to the question of an increase, the official side may come forward with some recommendation which may be considered by the staff side in the light of the way in which they have put forward their proposals.
    Mr. MIDDLETON: I should like to emphasise the appeals which have been made by my hon. Friend. The House knows that the precincts of the House have been invaded by a large number of women and girls recently who came to the House of Commons appealing to hon. Members to see that something might be done to meet the position in which they find themselves in regard to their wages.

    1417
    There were a large number amongst those 400 or 500 girls who were here last night who are finding it exceedingly difficult to make both ends meet on the wages they are receiving. So far as the merits of their case are concerned it is as strong as the case of those whose claims have recently been considered by a Committee of which I myself was a member, and which I hope I may refer to without impropriety and which considered the question of the Lytton entrants.
    These women were not included in the terms of reference to that Committee, but their case is a very strong one. Whilst it is true that they only perform the minor writing duties, nevertheless those duties require a great deal of care and call for qualifications which ought to meet with the appreciation of this House. There were many of the girls here last night who are finding it almost impossible to live. I heard—as I have heard before—the plea of the girls who find that the wages they receive are not sufficient to enable them to get a decent living. They have to go up in the morning by workmen's trains because they cannot afford a season ticket cut of their very meagre wage. They arrive in the City long before they are due to go on duty; they have to wait about, and they get home late in the evening, and from early breakfast to getting home at night they do not get a decent meal. They carry sandwiches with them because they cannot afford to purchase an ordinary lunch, and in some Government Departments where they have refreshment branches special arrangements have been made, and special rooms are set apart for the girls who cannot afford to pay the ordinary tariff. I suggest if their case is substantiated, as I believe it is, it is for the House of Commons to remove the grievance by encouraging the Treasury to believe that the House will be behind it in coming to a settlement.
    So far, I understand, on the National Whitley Council they have arrived almost, if not quite, at a deadlock. The Prime Minister gave as his reason for not including them in the terms of the South-borough Committee's reference, that a joint Committee had been set up on the National Whitley Council on which the girls were represented. Now on the eve of Parliament breaking up there is some prospect of a deadlock. The girls think
    1418
    it is necessary to bring their case to the attention of the House in order that the Treasury may be encouraged, if necessary, to make some offer to the staff side which will be acceptable to the girls. I sincerely hope that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will give instructions to his representatives on the official side of the Committee to come forward with an offer which may be negotiated upon by the staff side.
    Then I want to say a few words as to the case of another class of Civil Service women. This time it is the case of women who have gone into the clerical grade which is a grade with a higher status than the girls of whom I have been speaking. They have a particular grievance at the present time, because they find themselves being paid less than their own colleagues in the same grade who entered the Service a year later. Again I have to refer to the Southborough Committee, because the people who entered the clerical grades in 1920 were included in the recommendation of that Committee and consequently got rises ranging from 8s. to 12s. weekly. But the girls who entered for the 1919 examination, which was a stiffer examination, were from the very fact of their having passed that examination, and having longer service, disqualified from receiving that rise. Some of those who failed in the 1919 examination, and thereby were enabled to enter for the 1920 examination, have fallen within the terms of the Southborough Committee's recommendations, and are, in a way, in consequence of their failure, being paid from 8s. to 12s. a week more than the girls who passed in 1919. That is a matter which I think the Treasury might well remedy, and I think they should remedy it, because the merits of the case dictate that course. They should not take refuge behind the pure technicality that these girls are not regraded, but should examine the case from the point of view of its merits.
    My object in rising is to urge the House to indicate to the Department that they do desire the Treasury to deal adequately and justly with this grievance. When you have, as the result of inquiry, a settlement of the case of a number of civil servants, the Department should not say that it will just take that number or those grades of people who are technically

    1419
    within the terms of the Committee's finding, and do nothing for anyone else who happens to be outside. I think they should say that, the House of Commons or a Committee, having examined the case, and having come to a judgment, that must be the standard on which the case of those whose claims are analogous shall be examined. I believe that not only are the claims of these 1919 girls analogous, but that they are even stronger than the claims of those for whom the House of Commons has done something. I think, therefore, that the Treasury should at least place the 1919 entrants on an equality with those of 1920. I feel sure that it is only necessary to bring this matter to the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and that he will give instructions that treatment on the lines I have indicated shall be meted out to the girls in question.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has asked me to make a short reply, which is all that is necessary in this case, but I hope the hon. Members who have raised this question will not think that he is lacking in courtesy in not being here at this moment. He has made two speeches this evening, and he has other duties still to attend to. I think that everyone who has heard the observations of the hon. Members will appreciate the truth of what I say, and will realise that these questions—many of them, as has been mentioned, technical and complicated—are not really suitable for being dealt with across the Floor of the House. If there were a very glaring case of hardship, or any refusal or failure to work the machinery which is being set up to settle these different questions, of course those would be matters which it would be proper to raise here on the Floor of the House; but the invasion to which the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Middleton) referred as having taken place in the Lobby is, perhaps, almost as unsuitable a method as could be devised for settling these questions. The hon. Members are well aware that the machinery under which these questions have been considered is the machinery which has been accepted by both sides as
    1420
    the proper way of dealing with these difficulties.
    The hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Hayes), who introduced the matter, made a statement which, I think, if I heard him rightly, is not accurate. He said that there was a maximum of 43s., which I understood him to say included the bonus. The real facts are that in accordance with the recommendations of the Reorganisation Committee of the National Whitley Council, who fix the basic scale of pay, the rates of pay which are now being received, with the bonus included at the current rates, begin at 32s. 5d. at the age of 16. They are 36s. at the age of 17, and 39s. 7d. at the age of 18, which I think hon. Members will feel is a rate that is a little better than the rates paid outside the Civil Service. They rise by annual increments of 3s. 7d. a week to a maximum of 64s. 4d., which is rather more than £1 above the figures that the hon. Member mentioned as a maximum. I am not here to argue whether these rates are the rates that ought to be fixed. All I know is that they follow strictly the rates fixed by the National Whitley Council. They are in accordance with the agreements that have been made, and unless good cause is shown before that body for altering these rates, they appear to be better than is paid outside Government Departments. The duty of the official side of the Council is to preserve a proper balance between the employés and the general taxpayer, subject to any gross failure to give a decent standard of living. When the hon. Member says that these girls, as the great majority of them are, find it difficult to keep body and soul together on these wages, while I am not in the least unsympathetic and do not suggest that they are high rates of pay, I find it a little difficult to believe that these women find it more difficult to keep body and soul together on these rates of salary than other women who are doing precisely the same, and possibly more responsible, work at slightly lower rates.
    Mr. HAYES: The point with regard to the wage for 18 years of age is that that wage is applicable to some of the women clerks who are 30 years of age who are recorded on the rate of pay applicable to 18 years.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I understand that temporary women clerks appointed by limited competition enter at 39s. 7d., which is the eighteen rate, and then they proceed by the annual increments. I do not propose to discuss the rates this evening. The hon. Members have made their observations, and I am sure the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will pay attention to them, but at the moment, as they are aware, the matter is under consideration by the appropriate tribunal. Only on the 28th July the staff side wrote a letter that they were anxious the official side should consider. The official side is meeting to-morrow afternoon to consider what reply should be sent to this latest request put forward. In the circumstances, I think it is better that I should ask hon. Members to wait until the machinery has—as I hope it will not—broken down before requiring the question to be taken up outside the Council. It is not that we are not sympathetic to genuine attempts to better the conditions of people whose salaries are not sufficient, but that we think the best place to deal with it is the body chosen by both parties.
    Mr. MIDDLETON: The point I raised is separate from the National Whitley Council, and I take it that the Solicitor-General will see that my points are brought to the notice of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL The SOLICITOR-GENERAL indicated assent.
    Mr. HANNON: I think this House will deprecate this method of bringing up a question affecting the administration of the Civil Service before Members of the House. It is a great pity, when a tribunal is actually in operation dealing with this matter of a certain class of civil servants, that agitation is at work outside and pressure is being brought to bear on Members of this House to interfere with the deliberations of a body which is honestly and sincerely doing its best to adjust these differences. I have the privilege of serving on the Committee which is dealing with this question of writers' assistants, and I assure the House that on the official side every possible sympathy is being extended to the cases of these civil servants, and, as the Solicitor-General points out,
    1422
    if a comparison is to be made—and I do not want to enter at all into the merits of the case—between the rates of remuneration which these civil servants receive and those of girls in similar or comparable occupations outside I think the verdict of the House would be that these civil servants are very fairly and reasonably treated by the Treasury. It is most unfortunate for the Civil Service that it lends itself, through its voluntary organisation, to pressure of this kind being exercised by this House. The Council, for the origin of which you, Sir, were responsible, in dealing with the relationship of employers and employed is working admirably in the Civil Service, and we have had so far the most amicable discussions on the official side and the staff side in dealing with this question. During the time I have served on the National Whitley Council of the Civil Service I have not seen the smallest bitterness imported into our discussions. Any bitterness which has been imported at all has been brought into our relationship with the Civil Service by hon. Members opposite who are interfering without rhyme or reason with the work of the Civil Service.
    Mr. MIDDLETON:I am on the Council.
    Mr. HANNON: I have not seen the hon. Member there. I wish the House to understand that the Treasury is really doing its best and the Treasury officer responsible for the working of the National Whitley Council of the Civil Service is giving every possible consideration to the cases of these writers' assistants. A case can always be made for girls employed in work of that kind.
    Mr. HAYES:Women!
    Mr. HANNON: Women and girls too. You have to judge dispassionately, keeping the interest of the taxpayers before your mind. You have to make comparisons between the circumstances in which the women are employed and the circumstances in which they are remunerated for similar employment outside, and I protest against hon. Members opposite making appeals of this kind at the very time that every effort is being made to

    1423
    do what can possibly be done in the interests of these writers' assistants. The officers of the Treasury are as sympathetic towards the interests of civil servants as hon. Members opposite, and I believe if a plebiscite of the lower grades of the Civil Service could be taken, you would find the treatment these civil servants have received at the hands of the Treasury would be endorsed by the great majority of civil servants themselves. I hope the House will leave to the tribunal which is now carefully and conscientiously and dispassionately examining the question, the fullest liberty to deal with it without any pressure brought to bear from the House itself.

    IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.
    11.0 P.M
    Major Viscount SANDON:It is rather an anti-climax after some of the subjects we have been discussing, such as the rival merits and demerits of the Stoke Bill, to come down to such pettifogging matters as the coming Imperial Conference! Here we are at 11 o'clock, and the Dominions, which will all be meeting together in October, have been thrashing out these complicated questions for days, and in some cases even weeks. I feel that it is not unjustifiable to call attention to the sense of proportion that that indicates. One might go a little further and notice that a whole day was allowed for the discussion of a subject which, anyhow at present, is hypothetical, that of Socialism, but still we are unable to have any information as to what is likely to take place in October. We see in the Press that the agenda of the Imperial Conference has been published in Australia. As far as I can make out, we are still entirely un-informed on that subject in this country. Before dealing further with that matter, I should like to express the hope that the Government may see fit to give rather more publicity to the results of the Conference than has been the practice in the past. I realise the importance of confidential communications, and the way that liberty of expression is cramped if everything has to be published; but I do feel that something on a rather more generous scale might be put before the public after the next Conference than we have had previously. The first intimation we had of
    1424
    the Conference was that it would be purely an economic Conference. Although I do not wish to dwell upon that aspect of the case, I should like to say that I hope most sincerely that any proposals which representatives of the Dominions may see fit to put forward in regard to trade relations and the improvement of trade between this country and the Dominions should not be ruled out of order, and that if any of the Dominions wish to discuss the question of Preference it should be allowed the freest and most ample discussion at the Conference. I hope at the same time that due consideration will be given to one of the most pressing Imperial problems of the moment, that of communications as far as wireless, air and shipping is concerned, because one of the chief difficulties with which we have to contend from the point of view of getting a unified policy in the Empire is the difficulty of communications. Times are moving very quickly in that direction, and there is no reason why in the next 10 years we should not see Imperial communications absolutely revolutionised.
    What I chiefly wanted to receive information about was as to what would appear on the agenda of the Imperial Conference. I feel sure that the question of emigration will not be overlooked, and I hope that His Majesty's Government will take a bold line in this connection, and say—I believe this has support from several of my hon. Friends in the Labour party—that we believe this country is carrying at the present moment 15,000,000 too many people. We are over-industrialised, and we ought to put it to the Dominions as to whether they feel that they can make any contribution towards a solution of that question. I hope particularly that we shall approach the Canadian Prime Minister and find out how it is that if the economic position of Canada at the present time is so bad, that we cannot have a big migration scheme, they are able to go in for a wholesale recruiting campaign in South Eastern Europe. I do feel that in that connection we are striking bedrock in Imperial relations, and I hope that it may be possible for the Conference to reach a degree of unanimity on that general question.
    I assume the Conference will not be able to avoid the question of Empire defence.

    1425
    I have seen from a number of Dominion writers representing various views that they still, in reference to the matter of Imperial defence, conjure up a vision of one organisation for offence, which would mean that any part of the Empire can be launched into a big military campaign in support of the other. I do not think that that is the least bit necessary from the point of view of acceptance of the idea that we may have further co-ordination in the matter of Imperial general defence. I am convinced that we should not allow the matter of our Imperial defence to remain in the same sort of casual happy-go-lucky position as that in which it was at the beginning of the late War. I do believe that it is of the utmost importance that we should have some sort of co-ordinated general staff on which all the Dominions should be represented; so that we could have some good idea of the operations should they ever be necessary, making it clear at the same time that no one Dominion should undertake military activity in any other part of the Empire where it had a very indirect concern. As a necessary part of that we shall, I hope, seethe three services unified, atleast from the political and general staff point of view, and I am convinced this House will never rest while Defence is treated as three problems and not one. I think that that in itself is a question that might very well be considered by the Conference. I think that it ought to be made clear that no action can be taken by any one staff or any one Parliament binding any other Dominion without mandate from the Parliament of that other Dominion.
    I imagine also that the Conference will consider the question of the League of Nations. I think that the League of Nations, which is really the child of the Dominions and ourselves, is so far established that it will not present the same difficulty as some other problems. At the time of the Peace Conference mandates were given to Dominions with the utmost success, and I feel confident that on the report of the Dominions as mandatories presented to the League of Nations, they will be more than satisfied with the administration by these Dominions. And we have only to look at the position in the Saar to realise how much the world owes to the Dominions on account of the way in which they have helped to guide that unfortunate bit of territory on right lines, by
    1426
    the work of Mr. Waugh, the Canadian, member of that Commission. We have read in the papers telegrams reporting the attitude of Mr. Bruce, the Prime Minister of Australia, and we know that Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, holds very similar views, on the subject of Imperial foreign policy, but although I thoroughly agree with all they have said on this question, and I believe it to be a vital part of the security of the Empire, I am convinced that it is impossible for any solution to be found so long as we have the present arrangement for conducting Dominion and Imperial affairs.
    At present we have the Dominions, so far as we are concerned at this end, under the aegis of the Colonial Office. I was at the Colonial Office for the best part of two years following the War, and I have seen myself what that actually means in real life. Those at the Colonial Office responsible for the Dominions spend their time mostly in these ways. They keep a very close eye on the speeches made by leading personalities in the Dominions. They, further, keep a close eye on all their Acts of Parliament, to make quite sure they are within their original Constitution, and that the rights as between the States and the Federal Authority have not been abused. Then, they have a certain amount of controversy always over personal questions affecting the Governors. They are also used very largely as a "Post Office" for negotiations between the Dominion and the State Governments and the Departments in this country, such as the Treasury, War Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, and so on. Also, they have an incredible amount of social work with the Dominion people in this country. We are spending money on the Colonial Office, and I submit that it is not right that we should spend it in doing donkey work for the Dominions in this manner. It is work that it is absolutely unnecessary for the Colonial Office to do. It occupies an enormous amount of the time of very hard-worked and overworked officials, and it is work which should not be within the proper province of the Colonial Office at all. In the first place, as far as the affairs of the Governors and the social work in England are concerned, that is purely clerical work, and as to keeping a watchful eye on the Australian and Canadian Acts of Parliament, that is

    1427
    absolutely immaterial, because, even if they found that they conflicted with the original law, it would not matter a bit, because, if Australia wished to do it she would do it, and it would not make one halfpenny worth of difference if we said it was not within the Constitution. Therefore, though it is very interesting to see whether these things are within the original law, it would not have any bearing on the Colonial Office action.
    The proper field of the Colonial Office is the administration of the Colonies. It is an enormous field and is, in itself, ample enough to entitle the Colonial Office to rank quite as high as any other Department in the State. I am convinced that until we take the Dominions entirely away from the Colonial Office we shall never progress from the point of view of any settled Imperial policy. At the present moment, things are, as they have been for a long time, just anyhow. We have a theory that we are still consulting the Dominions on anything which can possibly be said to have any bearing on Imperial affairs, but it is not systematic, and they do not really know what is going on. It depends very largely on someone having a brain wave and saying, "Of course, we must not forget to consult the Dominions on this." Then, perhaps, something has to be put off in the House for three or four days while this formality is being gone through. I need only instance the case of the airship scheme of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Lieut.-Commander Burney), which is essentially an Imperial question. To my mind it is not a question of informing the Dominions what decisions we have come to. The Dominions ought to be a party to matters of that sort, together with the five or six Departments which deal with external affairs. The Dominions ought necessarily to be a party to all the discussion, and should not merely be informed of the result and asked if they agree.
    I am convinced that it will be absolutely necessary to have some permanent machinery whereby representatives from the Dominions can meet our inner Cabinet on an equal footing as by right.
    I do not think a mere extension of the Committee of Imperial Defence will be adequate to meet the needs of Imperial
    1428
    policy. I do not suggest that we should have an Australian or Canadian representative to sit in the Cabinet and discuss, for example, the Workmen's Compensation Bill, but I feel the Dominions should have a share not only in decisions, but also in consultation and everyday discussion on all external affairs, as a matter of routine.
    Mr. Bruce gave a strong hint that he might favour some scheme of having a resident Minister in this country, and, I believe, as soon as we can wipe away all suspicion that that would involve dictatorial action by the Imperial Government, in forcing policies upon their Parliaments—as soon as that fear can be overcome, the inevitable result will be, we shall require to have some system of resident Ministers from the Dominions in this country, so long as we are going to regard London as the capital, and with it will go the secretariat which Mr. Bruce also supports. I do not know what General Smuts would have to say on a matter of that sort, and how far he would feel that it would be advisable, from the point of view of maintaining the independence of action of all States in the Empire. General Smuts originally was one of those who held what I might call the extreme laissez faire view and he was very much in favour of the undefined position, which certainly has many things in favour of it, but in 1921, when the Washington Conference was on the tapis, in a speech at Pretoria he complained that the Dominions were not having adequate representation on the Washington Conference, and he used these words:
    "I want the Paris precedent to be followed at Washington and at every subsequent international conference. I want the British Empire represented through its constituent equal States. There is no other way to give it representation. The United Kingdom is not the British Empire and a United Kingdom delegation does not become an Empire delegation merely by slipping in some Dominion statesmen through a back door. Unity of action in the Empire means that a group of equal States, recognised and represented as equals, freely consult together and co-operate in their external relations."
    That shows that General Smuts realised that the undefined position could be carried a bit too far. It would be instructive to know what view Mr. Mackenzie King takes. Canada in the past has always been for that laissez faire policy. At the same time. I notice they are

    1429
    equally keen on the question of a unified foreign policy. "Le Devoir" of Mons. Bourassa, which represents extreme Radical opinion in Canada, just before the last Imperial Conference, investigated the question of the Dominion's relations with the Mother Country. They only raised the point as to what must be the ultimate development of these relations, and they did not quarrel with the relations within the Empire at the present time, but I think even they would agree that the procedure which they believe desirable should be made easier of practice at the present time, in that as all the Dominion Ministers have been complaining, whereas the theory is that His Majesty is advised by his Canadian Prime Minister or his New Zealand Prime Minister, as the case may be, yet in actual fact that is practically impossible. That is a very serious difficulty from the point of view of getting that independence to which they rightly attach so much importance. The fact is, just as General Smuts says, in the quotation I read, that all these Ministers hark back to the Peace Conference and to the War Cabinet as the ideal of inter-Imperial relations, and I feel absolutely convinced that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) would agree that this was right. He saw far more of the working of inter-Imperial relations than anyone in this House. He saw what the British Empire delegation accomplished in Paris, and I am convinced that he would agree that we should get nearer than we are at present towards maintaining the extent of the liaison and of the unification of foreign policy that existed under the regime of the Peace Conference and the War Cabinet.
    I hope, furthermore, that not only will these subjects be discussed at the coming Conference, but that the question of Ambassadors will be further considered. We have conferred the right on Canada to have her own Ambassador, if she so wished, at Washington. Personally, I should attach far greater importance to Canada having an Ambassador at, say, Vienna, or some place where her interests were not so obviously personal, if I may put it in that way. If we could secure' our Dominions to represent the Imperial interests in different foreign capitals, we
    1430
    should go a long way towards meeting the difficulties that arise at the present time, and I cannot help thinking that, although we have reason to be grateful for a certain measure of success over the solution of the difficulty in Kenya, it is to be regretted that a matter of that kind, which touched so largely the interests of the whole Empire, should not have been brought up before the Imperial Conference for them to help shoulder the burden of Empire. We have had a wonderful example of unanimity between the Mother Country and the Dominions in the British Empire Services League ex-service men, who came over the other day, and it will be a great pity if we are not able to make a big fight to get an equal degree of Imperial unanimity at the coming Imperial Conference.
    The late Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law), about two and a half years ago said that any one Dominion could vote itself out of the British Empire at any moment it liked, without any formality. That is true, and that is a very important fact to emphasise. It is the slenderest possible thread that joins this Empire together. It is perfectly easy for any Dominion to clear out at any moment it likes, and, to my mind, that is where the strength of our whole commonwealth lies. We have, as I believe, one common ideal, through blood and through all the sacrifices we have made together, apart from the lesser consideration of interest, and we have the hall mark of our stock throughout the whole world, that they are free and independent, and I believe that we can translate that into more definite practice if we face these issues and establish the precedent of the War Cabinet and of the Peace Conference than if we allow these things to lapse, simply because they are a bit difficult to approach and to secure unanimity upon.
    Mr. J. C. C. DAVIDSON: I regret very much I did not know that my Noble Friend was going to make so interesting a speech, dealing in such great detail with the proceedings of the Imperial Conference, and if I confine my remarks within a very short compass, I hope he will excuse me. There are only two things I should like to say. In the first place, with regard to the agenda of the Imperial Conference, I am quite certain the Government will be only too happy to indicate to the House before

    1431
    the Adjournment the nature of the subjects which are to be discussed at the Conference; and, in the second place, I am sure that—I do not say all, because my Noble Friend travelled over the ground so very widely—but I think I am safe in saying a great many of the subjects to which he referred will form proper subjects of discussion by the Imperial Conference. I do not think I can say more than that, and I hope my Noble Friend will be satisfied with that short explanation.
    Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: I shall be greatly surprised if the Noble Viscount or any other hon. Member is satisfied with the very courteous but extremely empty remarks of the hon. Gentleman. I cannot cover the whole ground that was covered in the very interesting speech—if he will allow me to say so—of the Noble Viscount. What I particularly want to know has reference to a question which to the working classes of this country is of very vital interest. Mr. Bruce telegraphed to Lord Long the other day that Australia intended to demand wider preference, and when Canada and New Zealand have discussed what their Governments are going to put forward at the Conference, we are entitled to know what our Government propose. It is no use our offering a preference on cinematograph films and musical boxes. You cannot give an effective preference to the Dominions without putting a tax on food and raw materials, and what we want to know is the Government's policy with regard to this undoubted demand. We cannot get a reply to that question, and I suggest, even in the interest of the Government, it is not wise to pursue this reticence, because at the Conference it would be of assistance to them to know that definitely and finally all the working-classes of this country, including those who, for the moment, may support hon. Members opposite, are determined that no further tax shall be put either on the food of the people or on the raw material on which our industries depend.
    Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House for To-morrow.

  TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].
  As amended (in the Standing Committee) further considered.
  TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendment of Section 49 of 63 and 64 Vict., c. 49.)
    Section forty-nine of the Town Councils (Scotland) Act, 1900, which relates to the taking of polls in contested elections, shall have effect as if the following proviso were added at the end thereof:
    Provided always that, where the council are satisfied that it is necessary in order to afford to all electors such reasonable facilities for voting as are practicable in the circumstances, they may by resolution passed not later than one month before the issue in any year of the notice referred to in Section forty-two extend the hours prescribed by the last-mentioned Act for the keeping open of the poll, so, however, that the poll shall not commence earlier than seven o'clock in the forenoon and shall not be kept open later than nine o'clock in the afternoon.—[The Solicitor-General for Scotland.]
    Brought up and read the First time.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
    This Clause was agreed upon last night. Therefore I need not waste any words in support of it.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Amendment of Sections 43 and 45 of 63 and 64 Vict. c. 49.)
    (2) This Section shall not apply to any burgh other than Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Greenock, or Paisley, unless and until it has been adopted by a resolution of the council of such burgh, which resolution shall be published in the "Edinburgh Gazette," shall be intimated to the Secretary for Scotland, and shall come into force on the expiry of two months after such publication.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (2).
    This is an Amendment which carries out the desire expressed by the Scottish Committee, making Clause 1 apply automatically to all Scottish burghs instead of the six which were originally mentioned.
    Amendment agreed to.

  GAS REGULATION ACT, 1920.
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Bromsgrove Gaslight and Coke Company, which was presented on the 26th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Derby Gas Light and Coke Company, which was presented on the 26th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Horncastle Urban District Council, which was presented on the 26th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade
  1434
  under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Whitchurch (Salop) Gas Company, Limited, which was presented on the 26th July and published, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Wrexham Gas Company, which was presented on the 26th July and published, be approved."—[Viscount Wolmer.]
  The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
  It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Twenty-eight Minutes before Twelve o'Clock.

BRITISH ARMY.
  SECOND NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS (PRIVATE E. BRAGG).
  SECOND NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS (PRIVATE E. BRAGG).
  VACCINATION (WOOLWICH).
  VACCINATION (WOOLWICH).
  WAR MEDALS.
  WAR MEDALS.
  WAR OFFICE STAFF AND PERSONNEL.
  WAR OFFICE STAFF AND PERSONNEL.
  STRENGTH.
  STRENGTH.
  LABOUR MEETING, GIRVAN (TERRITORIAL OFFICERS).
  LABOUR MEETING, GIRVAN (TERRITORIAL OFFICERS).
  ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, DUBLIN (DISCHARGES).
  ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, DUBLIN (DISCHARGES).
  FAIR WAGES RESOLUTION.
  FAIR WAGES RESOLUTION.
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  BRENNAN HELICOPTER.
  BRENNAN HELICOPTER.
  AIR ATTACHE, WASHINGTON.
  AIR ATTACHE, WASHINGTON.
  AIRCRAFT CARRIERS (ECONOMIES).
  AIRCRAFT CARRIERS (ECONOMIES).
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  SERVICE PENSIONS (COMMUTATION).
  SERVICE PENSIONS (COMMUTATION).
  ARMY FORM D 415.
  ARMY FORM D 415.
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS,
  OFFICE OF WORKS (MR. MILNE).
  OFFICE OF WORKS (MR. MILNE).
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS (ACCOMMODATION, EALING).
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS (ACCOMMODATION, EALING).
  SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS (COST).
  SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS (COST).
  WOMEN ENTRANTS.
  WOMEN ENTRANTS.
  WRITING ASSISTANTS.
  WRITING ASSISTANTS.
  HOFFMAN MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LIMITED.
  HOFFMAN MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LIMITED.
  ACTS OF PARLIAMENT (PRINTING).
  ACTS OF PARLIAMENT (PRINTING).
  INCOME TAX.
  INCOME TAX.
  HOUSE PROPERTY (INCOME TAX ASSESSMENTS).
  HOUSE PROPERTY (INCOME TAX ASSESSMENTS).
  SANITARY INSPECTOR, LEDBURY.
  SANITARY INSPECTOR, LEDBURY.
  HOUSING (GARSTON SCHEME).
  HOUSING (GARSTON SCHEME).
  SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION.
  SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION.
UNEMPLOYMENT.
  NECESSITOUS AREAS.
  NECESSITOUS AREAS.
  ADVANCES.
  ADVANCES.
  INSURED INDUSTRIES.
  INSURED INDUSTRIES.
  OLDBURY AND STOURBRIDGE.
  OLDBURY AND STOURBRIDGE.
  BENEFIT.
  BENEFIT.
  WHITE LEAD IN PAINT.
  WHITE LEAD IN PAINT.
PEACE TREATIES.
  TURKEY.
  TURKEY.
  UNOCCUPIED GERMANY AND BRITISH ZONE (TRAVELLERS).
  UNOCCUPIED GERMANY AND BRITISH ZONE (TRAVELLERS).
  BUTT OF LEWIS COASTGUARD STATION.
  BUTT OF LEWIS COASTGUARD STATION.
  MERCHANT SHIPS (LIFE-SAVING APPLIANCES).
  MERCHANT SHIPS (LIFE-SAVING APPLIANCES).
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  MEASURING INSTRUMENTS.
  MEASURING INSTRUMENTS.
  MERCHANDISE MARKS.
  MERCHANDISE MARKS.
  BANK HOURS.
  BANK HOURS.
  AGRICULTURAL CREDITS BILL.
  AGRICULTURAL CREDITS BILL.
  COAL SUPPLIES, FRANCE.
  COAL SUPPLIES, FRANCE.
  EDUCATION (SCHOOL TERMS).
  EDUCATION (SCHOOL TERMS).
  IRAQ (DEPORTATION).
  IRAQ (DEPORTATION).
POST OFFICE.
  UNDERTAKINGS (CAPITAL VALUE).
  UNDERTAKINGS (CAPITAL VALUE).
  RAILWAY STATIONS (POSTAL FACILITIES).
  RAILWAY STATIONS (POSTAL FACILITIES).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The EARL of DONOUGHMORE on the Woolsack.
NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments: further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments: another Amendment made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
TORQUAY CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move the suspension of Standing Order No. 143 in respect of this Bill and that the Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 143 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the London Electric Railway Bill, and that the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The consent of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales signified.
Bill read 3a accordingly with the Amendments.
Further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

SUMMARY JURISDICTION (SEPARATION AND MAINTENANCE) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST RESTRICTIONS BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
AGRICULTURAL CREDITS BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
ROBERT GORDON'S COLLEGES AND ABERDEEN ENDOWMENTS TRUST ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).

JUDICATURE CONSOLIDATION (PROBATE, ETC., DIVISION) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, the object of this Bill is to enable the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills to add to the Bill which they now have before them a number of clauses which were brought to their attention but were not comprised in the Bill which was first committed to them. I have ascertained that the Lord Chancellor, who himself brought in the Judicature Bill, thinks that the course which I have taken in the matter is the right one, and I hope your Lordships will confirm that view by allowing this Bill to be read a second time this afternoon, and referred to the Joint Committee.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Bill read 2a.

THERAPEUTIC SUBSTANCES BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
AGRICULTURAL RATES BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons
MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without amendment.

BRITISH TRADE WITH RUMANIA
LOUD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON LOUD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON rose to ask His Majesty's Government if their attention has been called to a law the Rumanian Government have passed to enable Rumanian debtors to postpone the payment of their debts to British traders, thus overruling judgments that have been obtained by British firms in the Rumanian courts; whether various foreign Governments have protested against this law, and whether any protest has been made by His Majesty's Government.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is with some hesitation that I venture to address your Lordships. Although I have had the honour of being a member of your Lordships' House for several years, I have always found it more pleasant and illuminating to listen to those noble Lords who have addressed us with such eloquence and who have always filled me with admiration and envy on account of their ability to approach such a variety of subjects from so many different angles. I hope your Lordships will give me the kind and gracious attention which I have observed that you always extend to those who are addressing you for the first time, and that you will make allowances for my many shortcomings.
I desire to make a few observations arising out of the Question which I have put down upon the Paper on the subject of British trade with Rumania. We all know that when British trade is good it means prosperity for all of us, and that

1491
when it is not good all of us suffer, more or less. We also know that British trade has experienced many vicissitudes and suffered great shocks and cataclysms during the war and its aftermath. I can assure your Lordships that those who are engaged in any business to-day, no matter of what description, are experiencing the very greatest difficulties. I hope, therefore, that anything that can be done to alleviate these conditions and to assist in the rebuilding of our great overseas trade will have the wholehearted support and co-operation of all British people.
I have the honour to represent about 25,000 operatives in Lancashire. Should trade decline much further, as many people who ought to know seem to think that it will, I am afraid that a great many of these employees will inevitably find themselves out of employment and will have to rely upon the money which they draw from the Government under the Unemployment Insurance scheme, provided that the country, with a continuance of such adverse conditions, can maintain the dole. Personally, I do not share these pessimistic views, for I have always been an optimist and I believe that with hard work, application and strict attention to business many of these difficulties can be surmounted. I also represent a good many thousands of shareholders, and these are but a small proportion of those who are affected by similar conditions. Unless these difficulties are overcome, I venture to think that His Majesty's Surveyor of Taxes will experience much chagrin and disappointment when he calls with his usual regularity for taxes, and again for more taxes.
I feel, therefore, that it is incumbent upon His Majesty's Government to do everything they possibly can to assist British merchants, and particularly those British merchants who have overseas affiliations, and to support and protect them from what I think I am not using too harsh a term in describing as the unjust, even the dishonest, legislation of our friend and Ally, the Rumanian Government. I understand that the Rumanian Government have, or had until recently, a Commission in this country whose object it has been to raise a loan in London, while they have been passing legislation at home which absolutely deprives British
1492
merchants of the right of collecting their debts from Rumanians—debts which have been incurred or created since the termination of the war, notwithstanding the exercise of every vigilance and caution.
I desire to set out a few facts of which I have knowledge in support of my case. The law to which I particularly refer is one which has been recently passed in Rumania, preventing Rumanians from paying those of their debts which are payable in sovereigns or non-depreciated currency. This law was passed so recently as June 3, 1923. Under it Rumanian debtors are given the opportunity of taking advantage of the protection afforded by it provided they register their intention of doing so within three months of the date of its promulgation. This is equivalent to giving them a moratorium extending over twenty years. And the points which I should like to make resulting from this law are as follows: As British traders, we cannot understand why a friendly and allied country should be allowed to pass legislation depriving us of our rights of justice in their Courts under the ordinary law of that country. We should all like to know-why strong and vigorous protests have not been made by the representatives of His Majesty's Government to the Rumanian Government against the passing of this law, because I am given to understand that protests have been entered by the French, American, Czecho-Slovakian and Swiss Governments.
I think your Lordships will all agree with me that this law is most unjust to British traders because, although the Rumanian debtor is given protection by this legislation, there is no guarantee from the Rumanian Government that the regulations resulting from this law are to be carried out. In this connection I would point out that although the Rumanian debtor can take advantage of this protection if he wants to, and he undoubtedly will, there is nothing in the law to guarantee his solvency over the period of twenty years which is granted to him in which to liquidate his debts. Should the Rumanian currency depreciate in the meantime to anything like the same extent as the currency of some other European countries, it is evident that the Rumanian debtor will never be able to meet his obligations. Furthermore, the 7·33 per

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cent. which is allowed for interest under this arrangement is altogether inadequate. I do not think that any Rumanian debtor could obtain an extension of his bills on anything like such favourable terms in the ordinary way of business, and from what I know of the conditions in Eastern Europe I am certain that no one could go to his bank, even on the most approved collateral security, and get accommodation on anything like such terms.
Then I think it is most unjust that British traders who have had to go to the Courts and expend large sums of money, and who have obtained judgments, should now be deprived of the benefits of those judgments by this new legislation. I do not wish to detain your Lordships on minor details, but I would like to give you an illustration of how British merchants who are owed money by Rumanians are affected, and to state the experience of one firm in particular. They were owed money by a Rumanian who could have paid but did not do so when the bills first became due, although he could have paid then with very little loss on the exchange. Afterwards, the firm had recourse to the Courts and obtained judgment. Now they cannot get any compensation if the Rumanian debtors take advantage of the protection afforded under this law, which they are almost certain to do.
I feel that strong representations should be made to the Rumanian Government in order that British subjects may obtain protection. If this protection is not forthcoming, I do not think Rumanian debtors should be allowed further credit facilities or that the Rumanian Government should be permitted to raise any more loans in the London market. In conclusion, I would add that it would seem to me impossible for British merchants to attempt to do any further business with Rumanians, except on a strictly cash basis, because if they do they will run grave risks of losing their property through some similar legislation on the part of Rumania in the future. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, in reply to the Question which has been addressed to the Government by Lord Fairfax of Cameron, I am authorised to make a short statement on the case which
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he has raised, and to give a brief history of how the matter stands at the present moment. In consequence of the continued fall in the international exchange value of the Rumanian currency, and a misplaced confidence in its recovery by Rumanian importers, considerable commercial indebtedness undoubtedly prevailed at the commencement of the year. Rumanian debtors found themselves unable to provide the amount of Rumanian currency required to liquidate the full amount in sterling of their debts. A series of schemes for dealing with the question had already been elaborated in the course of the preceding twelve months, but without, unfortunately, any result.
Finally, the Rumanian Chamber of Commerce at Bucharest decided to send over a delegation to France, Switzerland, and Great Britain, to represent Rumanian debtors in an effort to try to arrive at some satisfactory solution. At the beginning of this year this delegation contracted agreements with the representatives of bodies of creditors in this country, under the auspices of the Manchester and the London Chambers of Commerce for the settlement of debts contracted between November 11, 1918, and December 31, 1921. These agreements, which were substantially the same, provided for the immediate deposit as security by the Rumanian debtor of about twenty per cent. of his debt and the liquidation of the debts by instalments over a minimum period of twelve years and a maximum period of twenty years, the amount of the instalments being dependent upon the rate of exchange.
These agreements which, in terms, covered all the debts falling due within the dates mentioned, and not only those owing to creditors acceding to the agreement, were subject to ratification and subsequent legislation by the Rumanian Government, and in June a law, as the noble Lord has stated, was passed purporting to ratify these agreements. But when this law came to be examined it was found that it differed in certain respects from the arrangements previously made in this country, especially as to the procedure where greater security than that required under the agreement had already been given by the Rumanian debtor. Another clause to which objection was taken was one

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which, contrary to the previous agreements, introduced an arbitrary settlement of pre-war debts.
Accordingly, an opportunity was taken by the British creditors of the Rumanian Finance Minister's recent visit to this country to discuss the whole question with him, and M. Bratianu, before he left England, gave certain assurances to the effect that the terms of the agreements entered into at the meeting to which I have referred should prevail. In addition to this, His Majesty's Minister at Bucharest has received instructions to obtain formal confirmation from the Rumanian Government of these assurances. It is confidently hoped, therefore, that before very many months have elapsed a satisfactory solution of the whole of this question will have been arrived at. In regard to the latter part of the noble Lord's Question, I understand that the French and the Italian Ministers at Bucharest have lodged a diplomatic protest against the law, but mainly, it would appear, on the ground that the French and the Italian debtors were not parties to any such agreements as the law is based upon.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, an answer upon this Question was recently given in the House of Commons, and my recollection is that it was expressed in stronger terms than those used by my noble friend who has just spoken. But, reading the two answers together, I have no hesitation in saying that there has seldom been a greater condemnation of the good faith and honesty of a so-called friendly Government than there has been in this case. I rise only for the purpose of pointing out that it is this Rumanian Government, which is responsible for this dishonest legislation, which at this moment is holding up the whole of the financial settlement of Central Europe by reason of its obstruction to the settlement of Hungarian Reparations. I desire as strongly as I can to emphasise this point, and I hope the noble Lord opposite will hold the Government to the statement which has been made this afternoon by my noble friend
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: I desire to thank the noble Earl for the reply he has made to my Question.

GAS REGULATION ACT, 1920, SPECIAL ORDERS.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I beg to move the Motions standing in my name.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Bromsgrove Gas Light and Coke Company, which was presented on the 26th July, and published, be approved.— (The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order, proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Horncastle Urban District Council, which was presented on the 26th July, and published, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Whitchurch (Salop) Gas Company, Limited, which was presented on the 26th July, and published, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Wrexham Gas Company, which was presented on the 26th July, and published, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That the Draft Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Derby Gas Light and Coke Company, which was presented on the 26th July, and published, be approved.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:—

Bastardy,

Housing, &c. (No. 2),

Agricultural Holdings Acts (Amendment),

Isle of Man (Customs),

Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment,

Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen),

Public Works Loans,

Railways (Authorisation of Works),

East India Loans,

Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions,

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,

Agricultural Credits,

Oyster Fishery (Roach River) Provisional Order.

Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2),

Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 3),

Tramways Provisional Orders,

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 9),

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 10),

Church of Scotland Ministers' and Scottish University Professors' Widows' Fund Order Confirmation,

London County Council (Money),

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Essex County Council (Barking Bridge),

Mitcham Urban District Council,

Greenock Corporation,

Potteries and North Staffordshire Tramways and Light Railways,

Birkenhead Corporation,

Bromborough Dock,

South Staffordshire Mond Gas,

Thornton Urban District Council,

Rugby Urban District Council,

West Gloucestershire Water,

Oldham and Rochdale Corporations' Water,

Plymouth Corporation,

Mid Kent Water,

Felixstowe Dock and Railway,

West Bromwich Corporation,

London, Midland and Scottish Railway,

Southern Railway,

Seaham Harbour Dock,

Swanage Gas and Electricity,

Lytham Saint Annes Corporation,

Dover Harbour,

Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry,

Barnsley Corporation.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at ten minutes past five o'clock.