Sitting of 16 May 1923

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
WEST BROMWICH CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
CALEDONIAN INSURANCE COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
WEST GLOUCESTERSHIRE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
CHELMSFORD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.
OLDHAM AND ROCHDALE CORPORATIONS' WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
METROPOLITAN RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

THE WHITSUNTIDE RECESS.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I venture to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House whether he can give us any information as to the course of future business.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, in reply to the noble Earl, I would say that it is proposed to meet to-morrow at 12 o'clock because the Royal Commission is fixed for half-past twelve, and we shall then, subject to any alteration that may be found necessary but which I think is extremely unlikely, ask your Lordships to adjourn till the Tuesday week following, the day on which, I think, it has always been contemplated that we should meet again.

EASTERN FRONTIERS OF POLAND
LORD TREOWEN: My Lords, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the Question of which I have given Notice—namely, what decision has been reached with regard to the definition of the Eastern frontiers of Poland, and their recognition by the Allied Powers. I am conscious that the Question is a somewhat belated one. Returning last autumn from a stay of some weeks in Poland I was inclined at once to put a question of this kind to the noble Marquess had occasion offered, because I came back full of the impression of the urgency of some decision in reference to the matter of these frontiers of that country. But political events in this country intervened. They were followed by a time of severe stress for the noble Marquess, in which I certainly would not have thought of adding by the smallest featherweight to the heavy burden of anxiety and responsibility which rested upon him and has rested upon him for the last six months. I am glad that I waited, because the presence of the noble Marquess here, to-day, notwithstanding that this is a time of very great anxiety to him, fills me with confidence that I can ask for a record of something achieved. It is far better than entering upon an inquiry which might appear to be dictated by a critical spirit or a spirit of recrimination.

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I do not propose therefore to take up much of your Lordships' time in referring to the past history of the Polish frontiers but to pass on to the most recent stage—namely, that which followed the events of the summer of 1920—and to ask the noble Marquess to give your Lordships such information as he can afford of the present state of affairs. I may remind your Lordships that this country is undertaking—I speak, of course, subject to correction by the noble Marquess if I am wrong—in common with the other Great Powers certain responsibilities as to the setting up of the independent State of Poland. That alone gives a certain importance to any question concerning the boundaries of that State. But that a State thrice dismembered in the course of 150 years in the interests of autocracy, should reappear in the comity of European nations as a united independent and democratic State is certainly an event of very great importance. The influence of such a State and the part it may be called upon to play in the future peaceful development of Central and Eastern Europe is assured by its position on the extreme limit of western civilisation and in the midst of the fragments of Russian, German and Austrian imperialism. With these few words I have conveyed to your Lordships, I think, that which to my mind gives importance to the question of the boundaries of that State.
The Treaty of Versailles and the instruments connected with it did no more than set up an independent Polish State. The Prime Ministers of Great Britain, France and Italy, in 1918, jointly declared that the creation of a united and independent Polish State with free access to the sea constituted one of the conditions of a solid and just peace and the rule of right in Europe. I think we may assume that this declaration describes one of the purpose" with which those three Powers went into the Conference of Versailles and that purpose was carried out to a limited degree; that is to say, such a State was set up but its frontiers have to this day, or until recently at least, never been clearly defined. Article 87 of the Treaty of Versailles empowered the principal signatories of the Treaty to define through their representatives at some future time what those frontiers might be. In other words, representatives to be appointed at some unspecified time would at, some unspecified date declare what
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certain statesmen had in their minds when they decreed the creation of a united and independent Polish State with free access to the sea.
Your Lordships will readily conceive that it is a matter of some difficulty and some delicacy for those who might be called upon to perform that duty. The minds of politicians are not easily fathomed, and after the lapse of five years, during which some of those politicians may have exercised the common right, which we all have, of changing our minds, it became increasingly difficult to ascertain what was really intended. And it became the more delicate, inasmuch as upon the results of this investigation of politicians' minds depended the establishment of a solid and just peace and the dominance in Europe of the rule of right. Difficult as the task no doubt has been, it has been confined happily to the hands of skilled diplomatists, and they have accomplished their task. I read in the month of March last in The Times that the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris had signed a Protocol dealing with this question of frontiers and my purpose to-day is to ask that your Lordships may be informed as to the scope and character of the decisions arrived at and recorded in that Protocol.
I have said that the frontiers have remained for a long time undefined. Neither official geography nor international diplomacy could in the last five years have given anyone any accurate information as to where Poland began or ended in the East. I hope this condition of things has now been brought to an end. After the events of 1920, to which I alluded just now, and the defeat of the last Soviet raid into Poland, the Polish Government entered into negotiations with the Soviet authorities, and concluded with them an Agreement in the following year by which the Eastern frontier was laid down in general terms. When I was in Poland last autumn I was able to ascertain that a very considerable part of that long frontier had already been demarcated by a Joint Commission from the Soviet and the Polish Governments. It is a long line and it has several sectors, each one of which divides the territory of Poland from that occupied by one of the peoples who are included to some extent in what was formerly the Russian Empire.

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It is difficult to explain the condition of things where a huge country exists that cannot be said to have any regular government. This Polish territory is divided from that of the Lithuanians, and from those also of the Little Russias, White Russia, the Ukranians and the Rumanians, and in all these different sectors different problems arose which had to be settled more or less on the spot. But one thing about which I was able to satisfy myself completely was that whether the frontier was demarcated or not by frontier posts, whether it was recognised or not by the great Powers signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, Marshal Pilsudski had realised his conception of a moral frontier extending throughout this region, on the eastern side of which there was nothing but rapine and chaos, whilst on the western side there was law and order, peace and protection for life and property. Of that I can speak from my personal knowledge.
In these circumstances, I have said enough to assert the importance of this question in general politics, and I will only add a few words to express my ardent hope that our Government has been able to take up a firm and comprehensible attitude in regard to Poland. That did not exist previous to the events to which I have referred as occurring a few months ago. I was very much struck by the extraordinary development that has taken place in a country which I knew well some thirty years ago, when it was no longer a nation—the development, that is, which has taken place in the short period that it has existed as a free and independent State. The Government, which has been submitted to a great deal of criticism both here and abroad, has certainly shown wisdom in its general lines of policy, that of conciliating the minorities which exist within its boundary, of setting up that which did not exist in the former days to which I have alluded, a thoroughly national system of education, and of developing and restoring its old system of internal communications which had been wrecked during the war. That is a very notable record for a Government which has only existed for two years with peace. A little more than two years ago she was subjected to that raid to which I have referred.
Another remarkable thing was the zeal and earnestness with which all classes
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were working for the reparation of the destruction caused by war—the reparation of a devastated condition the like of which I have not seen in any country in Europe, not even in the most devastated regions in France. One could not fail to realise that for a nation which had set itself to its task so nobly peace was the great condition of success, and that peace could only be assured when the frontiers of the country were established and guaranteed by international compact. From her geographical situation Poland lives constantly subject to a great menace and she is obliged to prepare against it. She is obliged to maintain military forces perhaps in excess of what might be considered desirable in her financial condition. But those forces are necessary so long as this condition of uncertainty and menace continues. For the reasons that I have imperfectly endeavoured to put before your Lordships I have considered it desirable to ask the Question which stands in my name.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, with reference to the opening remarks of the noble Lord, and the consideration which he was good enough to remind us he has always been willing to extend to the labours and anxieties of the Foreign Office, I can assure him that his intervention in our proceedings has never added any perceptible weight to a burden which is admittedly heavy. And for this reason: His interpositions in our debates are rare in number; they are never inopportune, and they are always concise in dimensions. It is true that the noble Lord, in the course of the remarks to which we have just listened, spoke somewhat disrespectfully of politicians and drew an unfavourable contrast between our activities and those of the diplomatists. I might, in ordinary circumstances, be disposed to take up that challenge, but inasmuch as this afternoon I am not so much a politician as I am speaking for the diplomatists. I must allow the gibe which he passed upon me in one respect to pass unnoticed in view of the compliment which he paid to the class of able men for whom, for the moment, I am speaking here.
The noble Lord said with truth that it was perhaps just as well that a delay had ocurred in the making of his speech, because had he spoken when he returned from his journey last year I should not

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have been able to give as definite a reply as I can to-day. The circumstances have advanced since then. He knows well what the present position of the frontiers is, and undoubtedly any representative of the Government speaking to-day may-adopt a more confident and more definite tone than he might have been able to do six months or a year ago.
The question of the frontiers of Poland is one, as the House knows, of the utmost complication, partly for the reasons named by the noble Lord—namely, that the Polish State is coterminous with a large number of other States with differing populations, partly because the determination of the new frontiers has, in addition to its own inherent difficulty, been delayed by commotions and disturbances, and sometimes even by fighting, in the regions concerned. The Polish frontiers might be dealt with, if I had been asked to do so, in quite a number of sections, but the Question of the noble Lord upon the Paper is confined only to the Eastern frontier of Poland, and if is to that branch of the subject that his remarks have been exclusively directed. Therefore, it is with that alone that I feel called upon to deal in my reply.
I said that the question was complicated, and I would like to bring the present position of affairs before the House by indicating, quite briefly, the various stages through which, in the last few years since the war, it has passed. As everyone knows, the settlement of the Eastern frontier of Poland has turned almost entirely upon the solution that was to be given to the question of the future of Eastern Galicia. Eastern Galicia is a territory where the principal towns and what are commonly called the intelligent ia of the population are in the main Poles, while the majority of the people inhabiting the country districts are Ruthenians. This area of Eastern Galicia was a part of Poland up to the, partition in 1772, and then it passed to the domination of Austria and in that position it remained until the Treaty of So. Germain, signed in September, 1919. When the Austrian Government ceded all her rights over Eastern Galicia to the principal Allied Powers to be disposed of by them as they might think best.
Meanwhile, in the later stages of the war, the Ruthenian inhabitants of
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Eastern Galicia had seized the country and joined the Ukranian Army. At the same time the Poles were fighting a series of battles against the Bolsheviks until at length, in May, 1919, the Poles launched a vigorous offensive against the enemy, defeated the Ukranians in battle and occupied the whole of Eastern Galicia. That was the turning point in the situation. The Supreme Council, representing the Great Powers who had fought and won the war, confronted with a fact which they had no means of disputing or disturbing, recognised, provisionally, the occupation of Eastern Galicia by Poland, and after several unsuccessful attempts to fix the future frontiers decided, in view of the local commotions that were existing, to postpone the examination of it until a rather later date. This examination, owing to the many pre-occupations that beset the Governments of Europe at that time, never took place, and, accordingly, a settlement devolved upon the Ambassadors' Conference at Paris, who were charged by the Powers with the duty of interpreting and executing the various Treaties of Peace.
In the course of this interval to which I have alluded the Poles concluded, in 1921, the Treaty of Riga, by which they fixed, so far as they were concerned, their Eastern frontier with the Soviet Government and with that of the Ukraine, leaving the whole of Eastern Galicia to Poland. In May, 1921, Poland set up a scheme of administration for Eastern Galicia involving a certain degree of local autonomy, and in September, 1922, they followed this up by passing a provisional law of autonomy in the Polish Diet. That scheme was submitted to the Governments of the principal Allied Powers. I went very carefully into it at the time, and I was rather doubtful as to whether the scheme of autonomy contained in the proposal was altogether adequate, but the other Great Powers appealed to, and concerned, raised no objection. Therefore, it was not only undesirable but impossible for us to stand alone.
Meanwhile, the long uncertainty upon this frontier was telling so heavily upon both parties that all were anxious to arrive at a solution, and accordingly the matter was finally referred to the Ambassadors' Conference in the early part of

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this year. A double question was referred to that Conference, that of the frontiers between Poland and Lithuania involving the fate of Vilna—to which the noble Lord has not referred and which was settled in a sense upon which I need not now dwell by the Ambassadors' Conference—and that of the Eastern frontiers which is under our examination this afternoon. This Conference discussed the matter and settled it, and on March 25 this year publicity was given to the decision.
It was as follows. They recognised the line which had been laid down in the Treaty of Riga, thus incorporating Eastern Galicia in the Polish State, subject to the condition which I have already indicated, and which was recognised by the Polish Government, that an auotonomous régime, should be established in that territory. This solution has found critics in some quarters, but I think your Lordships will see that in the circumstances of the case it was inevitable. It would have been impossible for many reasons—political, economic and strategic—to place Eastern Galicia in the borders of the Russian State, and there was the less necessity for considering any such solution because the Russian and Ukranian Governments had themselves disowned any such settlement and had ceded any claim they might have been held to possess. That alternative therefore could be dismissed. The second alternative was to leave Eastern Galicia to stand alone. Anybody who is at all familiar with local conditions will at once recognise that so small a State, divided in the manner that I have described, could not possibly have acquired such stability as would enable it to maintain an independent existence.
Consequently, the third alternative, which was adopted by the Ambassadors' Conference—namely, to incorporate it in the Polish State subject to safeguards for an autonomous provincial régime—was in the circumstances of the case the only practicable course. That decision, arrived at, as I have said, by the Ambassadors' Conference in March of the present year, has been accepted by all the Allied Governments concerned, and the latest reports from our local representatives are to the effect that it has been on the whole accepted by both parties, that matters are settling down and that the clouds are lifting in that
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rather troubled part of Central and Eastern Europe. That is the decision which the noble Lord asked me to explain this afternoon.
When he went on to say that our sympathies ought to be enlisted on the part of the Polish State, and that now that her frontiers are fixed and, as time passes, the institutions of her new life are becoming more solidly grounded, our sympathies ought to lie with her in her endeavour to build up a strong national existence in that part of the world, he was expressing a view with which everyone in the House will agree. I am myself strongly hopeful that under the conditions which I have described this afternoon a brighter future, a future resting upon surer foundations, lies before the Polish State than could have been predicted a few years ago, and the friends of Poland, many of whom are seated in this House—notably, the noble Lord himself—can now, I think, look forward with reasonable confidence to the future.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: My Lords, I am sure that the friends of Poland, of whom, as your Lordships know, I have sometimes shown myself to be one, have listened to the speech of the noble Marquess—not only to the sympathetic spirit of that speech but to the evidence it showed of the care which he has given to the subject—with much satisfaction. I have ventured to ask the noble Lord by a private notice which I sent him if he could include in his reply any information which could properly be given without embarrassing negotiations, or otherwise having any detrimental effect on the public service, as to the one outstanding factor concerning the Polish frontiers which, I believe, still remains. I refer to the future of the common frontier between the Polish State and the Czecho-Slovakian State.
I believe it to be still unsettled, and such geographical authorities as one can consult give one very little information. They do show, however, that there seems to be a natural mountain line between the two States, and I am bound to say that it is not possible to point to any particular great centre of industry on one side or the other of which the new frontier could be made to fall. Nevertheless, it is evidently a subject of anxiety to the rulers of the Polish State, because

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I find an assertion by the Polish Foreign Minister, in March last, to the effect that he hoped that during the approaching visit to Warsaw of the Czecho-Slovakian Minister it would be possible for him to make a gesture which would bring about the possibility of an arrangement. He said that Poland asked for the sacrifice of one commune, and was prepared to cede two others in return. Any information which the noble Marquess can give us will perhaps afford even further satisfaction to those who have heard his speech with so much pleasure this afternoon.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I can speak again only by leave of the House, but I gladly respond to the request of my noble friend, which reached me a little while before I came down here. As he has been good enough to recognise, the question of the frontier to which he refers is not directly raised in the Question on the Paper, but ho is quite entitled to ask for such information on the subject as we may possess.
The question that he has raised relates to only a small section of the frontier between Poland and the Czecho-Slovakian Slate. The dispute has arisen about one small district upon this contemplated line, bearing the name of Javorina. I will tell the House and the noble Lord in a few sentences how this has come about. The frontier between Poland and Czechoslovakia was laid down originally by the Paris Agreement of July, 1920. It was then agreed that this frontier should be defined by a Boundary Commission which had a certain liberty to suggest minor modifications of the line. It was while the frontier was thus being traced by the Boundary Commission that a, dispute arose between the Poles on the one hand and the Czecho-Slovakians on the other with regard to this little area in the neighbourhood of Javorina. It was hoped for a while that the matter might be settled by negotiations between the Polish and Czecho-Slovakian Governments, and an Agreement was concluded between them with a view to arranging for such a settlement. The two Governments failed, however, to arrive at an agreement, and the matter then came back to the Ambassadors' Conference; and undoubtedly it is in the power, and
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would in the last resort be the duty, of the Ambassadors' Conference to prescribe a line.
The main difficulty that has arisen has sprung from the attitude of Dr. Benes, the very energetic and capable Foreign Minister of the Czecho-Slovakian State. He has declared the impossibility from his point of view of giving away the position which he has taken up, and there the matter for the moment rests. Meanwhile, the Ambassadors' Conference have, in the hope of arriving at a peaceful settlement, deferred their final decision until the spring of this year; that is, until now, in the hope that the two Governments concerned might arrive at some friendly understanding before that date. Failing such an understanding the Ambassadors' Conference must be trusted to decide upon the best line available, after due consideration of the evidence of the Boundary Commission placed before them, and with due regard to the interests of the two Powers principally concerned. That is a duty which will presently devolve upon the Ambassadors' Conference, and they must be trusted to discharge it with the impartiality and desire for peace which has so far characterised all their proceedings.
LORD TREOWEN: My Lords, I only wish to say a few words in order to thank the noble Marquess for the statement he has made in answer to my Question, and to assure him that I feel certain that such a statement, showing such a mastery of the situation and such a sympathetic view with regard to it, cannot but produce a very admirable effect upon the countries most affected. I beg the pardon of the noble Marquess if, by anything I said, I seemed to east any slur upon such a politician as he is, for I have never myself decided whether I should consider him as a politician or as a diplomatist, as he combines the good qualities of both.

DEPORTATIONS TO IRELAND.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL had given Notice to call further attention to the recent deportations to Ireland and to the character of the reply made on behalf of the Government on April 24, and to move to resolve, That in the opinion of this

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House there is no justification for the retention by the Executive of any powers of arrest without trial.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, on the last occasion when I called your attention to these very remarkable seizures of numerous person" and their deportation to the Irish Free State the legality of that action was in question and actually in issue before the Courts. I therefore did not deal with that matter. It was not really relevant to the principal point of my argument, which addressed itself not to the legality of the powers which the Government claimed to possess, or thought they possessed, but to the expediency of using such powers in times of peace. However, since I last addressed your Lordships there has been delivered a judgment of the Court of Appeal of the strongest possible character, affirming in almost every respect the illegality of the action taken by the Home Secretary in deporting these persons, and I think we can be thankful that we still possess Courts that are prepared to assert our Constitutional Law against the over-riding attempts of the Executive. And we may be the more thankful because it has been, I think, observed by constitutional lawyers that during the war, and of recent years, the Courts of the King's Bench have not been so firm as they used to be in resisting the encroachments of the Executive.
The learned Judge, Lord Justice Scrutton, in his judgment, said:—
"It is quite possible, even probable, that the subject in this case is guilty of high treason; he is still entitled only to be deprived of his liberty by due process of law."
It ought not to be, and in this House I dare say is not, worth while emphasising the propriety of exercising these powers only by due process of law. It does not depend upon the criminality of the person arrested. If there is a malefactor or a wrong-doer you can arrest him by due process of law. Of that I make no complaint, and I suppose no one, unless he be an enemy of the Free State, would make any complaint. You would only have to produce the evidence which you have against the person, and witnesses would have to be called in public, where the evidence can be sifted, and the Court, if the person is found guilty, would then have to apply to him appropriate and, no doubt, severe punishment. The question
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whether these are worthy or unworthy persons is quite irrelevant. I hold no brief for them, and I know nothing about them. My objection was to these powers being exercised in times of peace, and although a decision has now been given I do not think that any apology is needed for raising the question again, because the attitude which the Government have taken is still uncertain. I have not yet succeeded in gathering what was in their mind, and I hope we may elicit some information on the point this afternoon.
One result of these proceedings in the Courts is to exhibit the Home Secretary, who is a great officer of State—the principal Secretary of State and the personal adviser of the King—in a light which it seems to me is hardly a dignified light for a Minister of the Crown. A question arose in the course of this action as to whether the Home Secretary had, or had not, the personal custody of Mr. Art O'Brien, and could produce him if called upon to do so. The Home Secretary had made a certain statement in another place, in which he said that he retained control over these people, and that they could be returned if he asked for them. Under pressure of this litigation, and apparently with a desire, which does not seem to me to be creditable to a Minister of the Crown, of winning the action not on its merits but by any side issue, the control of the Home Secretary seems to have been presented to the Courts in a very ambiguous manner.
Lord Justice Bankes says in his judgment:—
"In his affidavit he states that the Governor of Mountjoy is an official of the Free State not subject to his orders."
Lord Justice Scrutton says:—
"No exact evidence …. the arrangement was oral …. until further orders. Whose further orders is not stated, but the Attorney-General contended that the Home Secretary had no power to release the prisoner. The Home Secretary certainly did not say this to the House of Commons …. on this conflicting evidence all proceeding from the Home Secretary himself."
Your Lordships may remember that I pressed the noble Viscount (Lord Novar) who replied to me on the last occasion, as to whether the arrangement was oral or in writing, but it now appears that there was a mere verbal understanding between

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these two gentlemen as to what was to be done with these deportees. That makes the whole action more remarkable.
Then Lord Justice Atkin said:
"The Attorney-General relied upon the absence of control …. the answer of the Home Secretary refrains from stating that ho had no Control. The affidavit states that the applicant is not subject to the Home Secretary's orders… He can it he has in fact parted with control show fully how that has come about."
I confess that that does not seem to me to be a dignified position for a Minister of the Crown to occupy. Surely it would have been far more straightforward for the Home Secretary in his affidavit to have repeated what he said in the House of Commons, and to have admitted that he had power to produce the person if the Court called upon him to do so. I think that was a course which would have reflected less discredit upon his high office than a course which showed he desired if necessary to win the case upon a mere technical ground without really fighting it upon the merits.
A good deal was said—and, I think your Lordships would be inclined to agree, justifiably said—on the procedure by Order in Council on which all this rested. The Order under which the action was taken was thus described—and quite correctly described—by the learned Judge. Lord Justice Bankes:—
"The Order deprives the Executive of this country of that full and uncontrolled right to direct the release of the interned prisoner which, in my opinion, is a necessary incident of a valid Order."
And he also said:—
"The Regulation confers on a branch of the Executive in England certain absolute powers, among them the absolute power of interning prisoners without trial and without informing them of the details of the charge made against them or of the evidence on which it is made and for an unlimited period."
What I desire to do this afternoon is to protest against powers of that autocratic character being in the possession of any Government in this constitutionally governed country in time of peace.
And, seeing the importance of these Orders and their far-reaching effect, one would have thought, at least, that great care would have been taken in drawing them up, that every possible precaution would have been taken to see that the Orders were clear, and were only such as
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were necessary, and were not capable of misunderstanding. But Lord Justice Scrutton said—and this is what the Judges thought necessary to say in a judgment against the Crown—
"There appears to have been no careful consideration of each of these Regulations where concerned with the restoration of order ill Ireland. … It is difficult to understand why it was desirable for the restoration of order in Ireland to regulate the cultivation of hops in England, keeping of pigs in England, or English season tickets. … Why these Regulations were ever enacted in this lazy and unintelligent way I do not understand."
That does seem to me to present rather a serious ease against the Government, not only for using autocratic powers, but for not even troubling to make their Regulations upon the subject perfectly clear and intelligible.
There is one other point to which I think attention should be called, and that is that two Regulations were made, in the hope apparently of putting the Government upon a better footing while the ease was, so to speak, in progress and sub judice. This is what Lord Justice Bankes said about them:—
"The two Orders in Council were both made after the internment of the applicant. The last Order is remarkable not only because of the date at which it is issued but also because of what it purports to do."
Then he went on to discuss technical reasons, with which I need not trouble your Lordships, why the Order, which was made apparently in the hope of assisting the Government's case, failed in law to do so. He also said in general that the practice of legislation by means of Orders in Council is one which leads to inconveniences, difficulties, and dangers. Laws, he said, are made the principle of which has never been subjected to criticism in Parliament. And I think I am right in saying that another Judge commented upon the difficulty of a Court trying any case if the Government is to pass new legislation during the progress of the case, in the hope of putting it in a better position to win the case.
All these things seem to me to have resulted in a situation which has not placed His Majesty's Government in a particularly favourable or a particularly creditable light, and I hope they are not now so proud of the action they took as they appeared to be on the last

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occasion. The noble Viscount who replied to me made what, I venture to suggest, was rather a dithyrambic pæan of praise of the action of the Executive, apparently prepared by the Home Office. I hope that to-day the answer will bear rather more relation than it did on the last occasion to the questions that I am putting to the Government.
In dealing with the people who were arrested he said:—
"They had formed themselves into a military organisation, under a commanding officer, and were collecting arms and ammunition for transmission to the irregular forces in Ireland."
If that were so, and if that were capable of proof, why was it necessary to proceed under an Order under which you could arrest a person who is suspected of acting, or of being about to act, in a manner prejudicial to the restoration of order in Ireland? If you have your proof you can give it.
He said further on that the Government had in its possession material clearly indicating the existence of this military organisation, and that, therefore, they were bound to take action. Ho added:—
"Could it possibly be argued that His Majesty's Government were to allow this kind of thing to go on, that they should have permitted this widespread and subterranean rebellion to grow in strength, to become more firmly rooted?"
So far as I know no reasonable human being over suggested that His Majesty's Government should allow it to go on. What is suggested is that, if the facts alleged are true, and if the evidence exists, the person should be brought to trial in the ordinary way: and the best answer to these rhetorical observations of the noble Viscount is the fact of the arrest to-day, under the ordinary criminal law of this country, of Mr. Art O'Brien himself.
The noble Viscount said:—
"We should, of course, have to be satisfied, before giving consent to such arrest, that a prima facie case existed."
That is all you have to be satisfied of before you arrest a person and bring him to trial. Finally, he said that if you did not adopt this method of procedure you would give full latitude to disaffected persons to carry on active warfare under the protection of British law. "Conspirators," he added, " would merely have
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to cross the Channel and shift their domicile in order to renew their malpractices in perfect security." What does that sentence mean? Does the ordinary law of this country not exist? Do all the Acts which make these practices illegal not exist? Are the offences not statutory crimes? Are not many of them common law crimes? Are our Courts not open for the indictment, prosecution, conviction, and the proper sentence of these people? The claim made apparently is that they should not be prosecuted, but that they should merely be interned and handed over to someone else.
I suggest that in this matter the Government are showing themselves the real anarchists. Those for whom I speak, who care about Constitutional Law, desire that we should retain those liberties and those safeguards for our individual liberty and for fair trial which have been obtained in this country after a long fight, and which have been in existence for many years. We were all willing during the war to submit to a system of very intensive Prussianism because we were all anxious not to embarrass the Executive in any way, and to allow people to act without proof and on suspicion and in any way that seemed good to those in power. But we have now been at peace for a number of years, and it is time that these powers came to an end. Those who desire to use illegal and autocratic powers of this character are themselves the real promoters of anarchy, because they are not willing to rely upon the laws of their country.
It has been said that there will have to be an Indemnity Bill, and I have no doubt that is true. The Home Secretary has incurred penalties, many of them, I imagine, of a somewhat ancient order, involving all kinds of unknown punishments which. I fancy, nobody desires him to undergo. But there is also a rumour that His Majesty's Government propose to take advantage of this Bill to re-enact, in some form or another, autocratic powers of this character. I should be glad to be informed whether that is intended. It was suggested to me that when the Indemnity Bill was produced there would be an opportunity for discussion, and that we should then be able to raise all these points and to consider them. If any scheme of that sort is in the mind of the Government, it cannot

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be attacked at too early a moment, and it cannot be attacked too often, because I think it is only right to say that there still exists, I trust, in this country a large number of people who, when they realise what is proposed, will resist it to the utmost. When they realise that in time of peace it is proposed to establish Russian methods of arrest and Russian methods of dealing with those who are obnoxious to the Government upon mere suspicion and upon evidence which is not produced in any Court and not even produced to the person arrested, they will be prepared, I think, to resist for a long time anything of the- kind. I should be glad if the noble Viscount would tell us, if he can, when he replies whether it is in the mind of the Government to go beyond that simple indemnity which I think no one is unwilling to grant to the Home Secretary.
I hope that your Lordships will clearly understand that I hold no brief for any of these people. I know nothing about them. They may all be guilty, or they may all be innocent for aught I know. I merely desire that the Government should bring them to trial in the ordinary manner which is recognised in this country, before the ordinary Courts of this country, and should punish them, if necessary, in the ordinary way. I suggest to your Lordships' House that this is ultimately the best and most successful way of preserving law and order. It is the way of carrying with you the good will and the good feeling of that great majority of the population which is in favour of the maintenance of law and order. I desire that your Lordships shall have an opportunity of expressing your opinion on this point at as early a stage as possible and of making it clear to the Government, as I think your Lordships will make it clear, that powers of this sort if they do exist ought to be abrogated, and if they do, not exist ought on no account to be re-enacted; that the Government, having taken a very bad fall by a proceeding which is not only illegal but, I suggest, very ill-advised, should now take no further action of the kind and should let your Lordships' House clearly understand that such action is not proposed.
I have, therefore, placed on the Paper the Motion which I propose to make and
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to carry to a Division. It is in these terms:—
"That in the opinion of this House there is no justification for the retention by the Executive of any powers of arrest without trial."
Your Lordships will remember the description which the learned Lord Justice gave of these powers: No charge mentioned to the person arrested; no statement of the evidence against him; no opportunity of being brought for trial; internment for an unlimited period at the sole will of the Home Secretary or whatever Secretary of State is acting. I hope that your Lordships will say that this is a state of things that we do not wish to have in this country now, and that your Lordships will not be a party to perpetuating it. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House there is no justification for the retention by the Executive of any powers of arrest without trial.—(Earl Russell.)
VISCOUNT LONG OF WRAXALL: My Lords, I ask your Lordships to permit me to say a very few words upon the Motion made by the noble Earl, though not with the object or intention of entering into controversy with him upon the legal points. He is much more capable than I am of dealing with them. For my own part I am content to leave them to be dealt with by His Majesty's Government. I admire the constitutional and legal attainments of the noble Earl immensely; but I admire those of the Lord Chancellor and the learned Law Officers of the Crown still more. And when, at the end of his speech, the noble Earl asked your Lordships to adopt his Motion because inter alia he told us that the Home Secretary took this or that action upon his own initiative and sole responsibility, surely the noble Earl was ignoring that with which we are all familiar—namely, the forms and methods by which this country has been governed for many a long day. If the noble Earl will forgive me for saying so, it is a travesty of the facts of the case to suggest that action of this grave character has ever been taken by a Government, or is likely to be taken by a Government, on the sole responsibility of the Secretary of State for the Home Department or of any other individual Minister. It is taken on the collective

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responsibility of the Cabinet of the day who are supported and advised by their Law Officers.
I have never listened to a debate upon Irish questions in your Lordships' House, or, indeed, elsewhere, initiated by those holding such views as the noble Earl has told us that he holds, without a feeling of despair. Nobody in your Lordships' House and few, if any, people in the country will dispute the noble Earl's statement as to the necessity of protecting, and the duty of us all to protect, those liberties and privileges which we have inherited and with which our citizenship is bound up. But we have to think of something else, and I have ventured to intervene in this debate because I should be very sorry if His Majesty's Government thought that the only views held in your Lordships' House were those of criticism and attack of the kind expressed by the noble Earl. The legal side of the case has been decided in the Courts, and, as I have already said, I have no doubt that the Government had good reason from the legal point of view for the course which was adopted. Anyhow, I am content to leave the defence of that course to them, and to follow them in supporting that defence.
I look at the matter from a different point of view. With the noble Earl, I believe in maintaining the privileges of our ancient citizenship and the liberty and freedom of the individual about which he was so eloquent. But what alternative has he to offer to the policy which this Government has adopted? What were the circumstances in which that policy was adopted? A friendly Government, a Government which had only just been brought into existence in circumstances of the bitterest controversy, had been doing its best, with what measure of success it is impossible now to say, to administer the government of Ireland. A difficult task, my Lords, and one which has puzzled all the statesmen of this country for more than a hundred years! Whether the new Government have been wise or statesmanlike it is not for us to judge; but nobody will deny that they have been courageous and that they have done their best to restore law and order in the country. They found themselves retarded and obstructed in their work by what they were satisfied was a
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conspiracy. They applied to His Majesty's Government in England to help them by taking certain action. His Majesty's Government believed that the evidence upon which the Free State Government rested their case was well founded. They had reason to know that there were these extremely dangerous elements existing on this side of the Channel, and they took the action for which they are unequivocally condemned by the noble Earl to-day who asks your Lordships to support him in that condemnation.
May I say most respectfully that I hope your Lordships will do nothing of the kind? I hope you will ask yourselves this question which the noble Earl apparently has not asked himself, before you accept his invitation to condemn the Government: What is the alternative? Is it only of the liberties and privileges of the people of this part of the United Kingdom that we must think when these terrible crises arise in Ireland? What is the noble Earl's alternative? He told your Lordships: and to my amazement on a previous occasion the noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, speaking with his almost unrivalled knowledge of the law and the facts of this case, expressed a somewhat similar opinion. The noble Earl invited the Government to proceed by the ordinary process of law to try these people and to bring the evidence against them.
Has the noble Earl in all these years never followed the history of Ireland and the difficulties with which Irish Governments have been confronted ever since those unfortunate days when, through weakness in the administration, it was made possible for the long arm of those engaged in criminal practices to follow the witnesses wherever they went and, however they may be disguised, as sure as night follows day, to molest them in the most terrible way? What is to be the consequence of giving evidence in order to secure a conviction? Does not everybody know who has been in the Government, or has been associated with the government of Ireland, that there exists to-day, as powerfully as there ever existed in the history of Ireland, that fundamental difficulty in the administration of the law which was well described by the father of a member of your Lordships' House, a most witty and clever Irishman, when he said that this is the fundamental difference between the

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people of England and the people of Ireland—"If," he said, " a man in England picks your pocket, and the police have to take him up, and he runs away, the people in England will shout 'Pickpocket,' but if that occurs in Ireland the public will trip up the policeman." You have always that initial difficulty in the enforcement of law that you have in Ireland a public opinion unwilling to support those who have to uphold the law.
As to this particular kind of crime, if crime it be, like the noble Earl I know nothing of these men themselves. The noble Earl declares that he has no desire to defend them, and of that I am quite sure. He knows nothing of the facts; nor do I. I have no desire to condemn them, but I know from my own experience of the government of Ireland—and I believe it is the common experience of everybody who has been responsible for the government of Ireland—that lives are in danger. I am not thinking now of our lives, of the lives of Ministers and ex-Ministers, but I am thinking of the lives of the men who are trying to govern Ireland to-day, and of the lives of those innumerable men and women who are around them endeavouring to aid them. What is the proposal of the noble Earl for their protection? To bring those who are believed to be guilty of conspiracy to trial in this country. What will he say to the witnesses who, I tell him, will refuse to come here? I do not wonder that they will refuse to come. And if they are brought here and are put into the witness box, they will refuse to give evidence. Why? Because they know that what I referred to a moment ago as the "long-arm" will follow them, and make them pay the penalty for their act of courageous devotion to duty. Ever since Carey the informer was murdered on the landing stage at Cape Town, ever since other witnesses were tracked and found out and made to pay the penalty, you have never been able to get evidence in Ireland which would lead to the conviction of any of these people who are charged with these offences.
Dearly though we love justice, keenly though we shall fight for the retention of all those great privileges which we enjoy, and which secure to us justice and liberty, if we are going to make a pronouncement to-day in condemnation of the action of
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the Government the least we can do is to make some suggestion as to the change which must be made unless we are to let these practices continue. I have no alternative. I have thought about it often and for many years. I am as keen a believer in British justice, British freedom, British liberty and the rights of the British (lag as the noble Earl or anyone else Deeply do I deplore, and have always deplored, the necessity in certain times of crisis and danger of appearing to deviate from the strict path of protection of the liberty of the subject, but we must not only think of the liberty of the subject here, we must think of the liberty of the subject in Ireland where this profoundly difficult task of administering the law and securing obedience to the law is now being carried on by a friendly Government.
I personally regret the legal mistakes that may have been made. The noble Earl seemed to me—I may have misunderstood him—throughout his speech to be endeavouring to attach too much blame to the Home Secretary. Everybody who knows the Home Secretary knows that—quite apart from the fact that he is a man of great ability and long training—he is a man of a personal character which would make an act of this kind odious to him. The last thing he would do, having been responsible for it, would be to seek in any way to avoid that responsibility either by his action in another place or by the affidavit he presented. Surely the noble Earl knows as well as I do that that affidavit was not the individual act of the Home Secretary. It was part of the whole procedure based on the legal advice given to him. Whether the Home Secretary was right or wrong he was only right or wrong as an individual member of the Government. He was advised by his legal advisers, and he had, I am convinced, the benefit not only of the full previous consideration by his colleagues of the whole case, but also their support when he acted, and I am certain their support will not be withdrawn from him now. Whatever we may think of the legal aspect of this matter we may be assured that the Home Secretary, when he gave his advice to his colleagues in the Government, did so because he felt it to be his primary duty if necessary to run certain risks rather than refuse to aid a friendly Government in its desire to maintain law and order.

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I wish with all my heart that I had some suggestion to make, based upon my long knowledge of Ireland and my experience of the administration of the law there, as to the change which would secure for us the effective administration of the law in that unhappy country. It is possible that great lawyers may be able to give us some advice which, while it is in consonance with our Constitution, will yet help in the detection and punishment of crime. But until that suggestion is made I will have no share or lot in condemning the Government for action which I believe they took in the public-interest. It may have been ill-advised, but I believe it was courageous action, and I hope the day will never come when the British Government will be afraid to take any action which they think necessary to protect the rights and liberties of the humblest amongst us; for that, my Lords, is the issue to-day.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): My Lords, on the last occasion when the noble Earl raised this matter in the House I suggested that the occasion was inopportune, because the question was then actually being considered by the Courts. I, of course, make no such complaint to-day, and I am not at all sorry the noble Earl has given us an opportunity of stating our position in regard to this grave and important question. It has already been stated in this House that the action taken by my right hon. friend the Home Secretary was taken on the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. That was advice which he was entitled to take and to act upon. The Order which he made was questioned, and after a very careful argument it was decided by the Divisional Court to have been valid and justified by the law. That alone shows that the matter was certainly not free from doubt. There was an appeal, and the Court of Appeal, as your Lordships know perfectly well, reversed that decision, and held that the Order was invalid, but on one ground only—namely, on the ground that the persons ordered to be arrested and interned were interned not in this country, where they would be under the control of the Secretary of State himself, but in the Irish Free State.
The noble Earl said—at least I understand him to say—that our Courts in this matter acted with the absolute independence
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and fearlessness which we have always been accustomed to expect from them. The noble Earl also said something which I do not understand about our Courts having been less firm during the war. I know no justification for such a criticism or reflection. I believe that during the war, as well as before and since the war, our Judges have considered cases and given their decisions without paying the least regard either to the character, good or bad, of the person before them or to the power and authority of the Government. In this matter as in all others our Judges have done just as we expected them to do.
It happens, in one respect it is unfortunate, that on appeal to this House in its Judicial capacity it was found that no such appeal could be entertained, and, therefore, it is impossible to obtain a decision of the highest tribunal in this country. It follows, therefore, that the decision of the Court of Appeal is final and binding, and, of course, it must be, and indeed has been, accepted in the fullest sense. All the persons who were deported to Ireland under this Order, so far as they are not already in this country, will be brought over. As to some of them it is thought right to take measures for their prosecution for offences against our law, and one of them, as the noble Earl has said, is already under arrest for that purpose. As to all the others, they must, of course, be set free on arrival on these shores, with what results time alone will show. I hope I have made it clear that the Government accept and will act upon the order of the Court of Appeal in every respect.
The noble Earl made some observations which I heard with some regret on the conduct of the Home Secretary in this matter. It is not for me to characterise the actions of my own colleague, but I think everyone who knows the Home Secretary knows well that he would act as he has acted with one purpose only—namely, to protect the safety of people in this country, and, so far as his powers allow, to assist the Government of the Free State to secure the end which we all desire, the fullest restoration and maintenance of order in Ireland. He acted with resolution and with a full belief that the Order he made was justified by law, and being the man he is he could have taken no other course.

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The noble Earl also made some observations about a passage in an affidavit. I think his criticism there, too, is wholly unjustified. The Home Secretary stated, as he was bound to state and as he was advised to state, the exact facts and conditions under which these men were sent to Ireland and put in the custody of the Government of the Free State; but he did not say, and as I know has always refused to say, that he could not procure their return when occasion arose. It was arranged at the time when the men were deported that upon our request they should be returned, and that no action should be taken against them except with the consent of the Government of our country. The Free State will continue to observe that agreement, and the Home Secretary refused to say, and never did say, that the men were not to that extent under his control. There is not the least justification for the observations of the noble Earl founded on a partial quotation from an affidavit in the case. So far, that is the main position. I hope I have been frank about it. I do not think here is any more to be said.
But the Motion of the noble Earl raises quite a different question—namely, a question of policy for the future, and he invites your Lordships to say that there is "no justification for the retention by the Executive of any powers of arrest without trial." I do not know whether he means no justification under present conditions or none under any conditions. There is a difference in the two propositions, but whatever his meaning may be I do not think it is possible for the Government to accept a Motion in that form. I admit, and agree with much that was said about, obscurities in the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, and in the Regulation made under it. The Act is not a product of the present Government, nor are they responsible for the Regulation. They had to take both Act and Regulation as they found them, and I agree there is a good deal in them which is obscure and requires explanation. Therefore, I think it is necessary to make careful inquiry into the present meaning and effect of this Regulation and that inquiry is now being made with the view to having the actual position cleared up.
It is necessary, and this is the view which the Government take, to consider very carefully how Far the powers conferred
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by this Regulation, when its meaning is made clear, should be retained and used in case of need. While that inquiry is proceeding, and I hope a decision will be come to within a very short period, it would be most unwise for Parliament to pass a Resolution of this kind absolutely tying our hands whatever the result of that inquiry may be. I hope no such Resolution will be accepted by your Lordships' House. The facts are still not generally known. They ought to be further made known, and when they are known and the position is made clear, then Parliament will be better able to come to a decision.
Let me put this position. There was, when the Order in question was made, and I believe there still is, a conspiracy to promote disorder, disturbance and revolution in the Free State of Southern Ireland. The means used for that purpose are such means as robbery with violence, destruction of public property, burning of buildings, and, if necessary, the murder of individuals. Those are the methods which are used by persons engaged in this conspiracy. No one, I am sure, would desire that that kind of thing should be allowed to continue in our land. We cannot allow England to be made a centre for the preparation of such attacks in the Free State. It is quite easy to say: "Resort to the ordinary processes of law." That is easy to say, but it is not, to my mind, altogether convincing. Everybody who is concerned with the matter knows that, while a case against individuals may be exceedingly strong, may amount to suspicion and often to much more than suspicion, yet if you take legal proceedings in the midst of a disturbance, at a time when the disclosure of facts, of the names of informants and of other matters, may defeat your own purpose of putting down the trouble, you will not only do great harm but you may fail to achieve the end which all honest men desire.
As my noble friend Lord Long said just now, information comes from persons who dare not and who, if you attempted to compel them, would not give the facts in open court. Witnesses would be intimidated while the trial went on and would possibly suffer when the trial was over. It is not fair in times of trouble such as this, while unrest continues and people are still defying the law in the

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neighbouring country and, indeed, to some extent here, to force a Government to resort to methods which may have effects such as those. I hold as strongly as the noble Earl or anybody else that so far as you can you should and ought to rely upon the ordinary laws. But there are times of crisis, and this is a time of crisis. At such times you have to take the best means you can for the protection of innocent people, and the best means not only to punish those who have broken the law, but to prevent the continuance of lawlessness. It is entirely for that purpose that we desire, before committing ourselves to a final decision—and I hope it may be given, if not in a few hours, within a few days—to take a little time to consider exactly what we should advise Parliament and the country to do.
Let me add this. The action taken by the Home Secretary a few weeks ago, the very action of which complaint is made, has undoubtedly had the effect of crippling and for the moment of rendering entirely inoperative and ineffective the conspiracy to which I have referred. Letters quoted by my noble friend Lord Novar the other day showed the state of utter powerlessness to which some branches of that organisation were reduced. Besides those letters we have other sources of information which show that the action taken had the effect of scotching the snake although not finally killing it. What may be the effect of the present change of position nobody can say, but while we do not for a moment—I want to make this quite clear—propose to go behind the decision of the Court of Appeal or to ask Parliament to reverse and set aside that decision—that is not in our minds—yet everybody, I think, will desire that if need be shown we should keep these special powers, to be exercised if and when they may be required.
For that purpose only I ask the House not to pass a Resolution of this kind, to leave the matter for the careful consideration both of the Government and of Parliament, and not in this way to tie our hands. I hope with all my heart that the time is not far distant when peace will return to the troubled country of Ireland. I think it is our duty to do all we can to bring about that result, and it is only for that purpose and with that view that I
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ask the House to give full consideration to the observations which I have made.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I was not in the House when the noble Earl behind me made the earlier part of his speech, and consequently I did not hear the reflections which, as I gather from the replies made to him, he passed upon the conduct of the Home Secretary. I am not therefore in a position to comment upon anything but the latter part of his speech, and I can only express my own personal views on the matter which is now under your Lordships' consideration. With regard to the action of the Home Secretary, though I have no personal knowledge of it, I entirely accept the statement put before us by the noble Viscount opposite, Lord Long, that the Home Secretary acted on legal advice. It was no arbitrary act on his own part, and I should think that very probably it was considered on legal advice by the Cabinet as a whole. The idea of making a personal attack on the Home Secretary in regard to this matter is surely irrelevant.
I further recognise that the Government and the Home Secretary are placed in a difficult position by the extraordinary and painful state of affairs in Ireland, and that in considering this matter they were dealing with something complicated and abnormal. Consequently, though it is clear that a breach of the law or of the Constitution is committed by the executive act of the Government in this matter, I am not anxious to be critical about that, and I shall be quite prepared to accept the very frank statement of the Lord Chancellor that the Government entirely accept the decision which has been given by the highest Court, of Law, and that they will act in the letter and in the spirit in accordance with that decision.
That being so, if a Bill of Indemnity to indemnify the Home Secretary for this particular act comes before your Lordships' House, so far as I personally am concerned, I shall give it support and offer no opposition to it. But I shall do so on condition that it is purely a Bill of Indemnity for this particular action, that it relates solely to the past, that it is an act of indemnity for something illegal done under difficult circumstances, but that it does not

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prejudice the future and has no words in it to authorise future suspension of the constitution. I would really urge upon His Majesty's Government, in order that this Bill of Indemnity may go through not only by majorities but with real good will, in recognition of the difficulties of the case, that when it comes before us it should be purely a Bill of Indemnity for this one particular act, and that it should not raise complicated questions as to what action may be authorised in the future.
Then I come to the Motion before the House. The actual Motion which the noble Earl has moved has nothing in its wording to connect it with this difficult question of Ireland. The actual words of the Motion are simply these:—
"That in the opinion of this House there is no justification for the retention by the Executive of any powers of arrest without trial."
I regard that as a proposition which your Lordships ought to be ready to endorse as a general principle. It is true that there have been many occasions in the case of Ireland where special authorisation has been given for suspending the Constitution, and there have been powers of arrest without trial. I am not concerned to discuss what may or may not be necessary for carrying on Government in Ireland to-day. But this is not a question of government in Ireland. It is a question of government in England, and much as I deplore the indescribably painful state of affairs in Ireland. I think it would be still more deplorable if, because Ireland is in that state, we in England allowed ourselves to be so infected that we departed from what we have always regarded as the liberties of this country.
I have always understood that the fact that the. Executive must not exercise powers of arrest without trial was the foundation of the liberties of this country. It was that which has made us for centuries boast of being the most free country in Europe. Our liberties have been founded upon that, and when this general proposition comes before your Lordships' House, without reference to a particular act which will be the subject of an indemnity afterwards, I think it would be very regrettable if the House did not find it possible to affirm that general principle, upon which the liberties of this country have been based—that general principle for which, in previous generations, those
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who cared most for the liberties of this country have been prepared to go even to the length of civil war, rather than see the liberty of the country undermined. I have been thinking, therefore, whether, if the Government cannot accept the actual words on the Paper, they could yet acept some words affirming the general principle, which would prevent its going forth outside that this House is reluctant to stand by that great principle of constitutional liberty with which so many of our ancestors in years gone by have been so intimately associated.
I ask the Government whether, if, for the particular reasons given by the Lord Chancellor, they cannot accept the actual words on the Paper, they could not, as the general principle has been raised, accept some other words. It is very difficult on the spur of the moment to suggest words which would be open to no criticism, but the words that occur to mo are these:
"That this House affirms the long-established principle of the Constitution, that without the special and previous authority of Parliament the Executive must not exercise powers of arrest without trial."
That leaves open the question of great emergency, such as time of war. We have just passed through a time of war in which our liberties were, by common consent, necessarily suspended. I think that some of our troubles since the war have been due to the fact that, the country having got used to the suspension of its liberties during the war, there has been too much tendency to continue in this country that habit of mind, that our liberties were not so impregnable as we had regarded them as being before the war. I agree that in time of war it may be necessary to suspend the Constitution, but I would stipulate that it ought never to be done without the previous authority of Parliament, and I cannot see that there need be any objection to affirming the general principle—that without the special and previous authority of Parliament it is a long-established principle of the Constitution that the Executive shall not exercise powers of arrest without trial.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, the noble Viscount has addressed your Lordships, as he always does, with gravity, evidently speaking

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with a great sense of responsibility, recognising a proposition of English historical Constitutional Law with which I need not say every member of your Lordships' House has general sympathy. We are especially grateful to him that he has spontaneously assured us that any Bill of Indemnity, as he limited it and described it, would receive his support; but when he asks us to go further than that I think your Lordships ought to proceed with the greatest caution. The noble Viscount most frankly and candidly recognised how strong were the arguments advanced by the Lord Chancellor why your Lordships should not agree to the Motion moved by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and finding them to be so the noble Viscount suggested other words as an alternative to that Motion. He will allow me to say that it would be exceedingly rash of the Government, and If I may say so respectfully, exceedingly rash of your Lordships, to agree to words of the gravest importance without a moment for consideration or for testing their exact purport and meaning. These deal with some of the most important matters of the Constitution, but not only do they deal with the Constitution but they deal with the gravest public disorder with which the Government has been obliged to grapple.
I would ask your Lordships to have a little sympathy with the Government. We did not pass Home Rule. We did not produce this terrible state of things. We did not paralyse the arm of England and produce civil war in Ireland. Some of us protested against it, and urged your Lordships not to agree to it, but we were overruled. The deed was done and the heaviest blow at the Constitution was struck by our predecessors in office. It was largely in consequence of that action that the country displaced that Government and replaced it by another. What were we to do? We must be loyal to the state of things as we find it. It was our duty to face the consequences, and we found the condition of disorder in Ireland which has been described over and over again in this House, and notably by Lord Long, an ex-Chief Secretary, who in a very eloquent speech to-night brought it under your Lordships' notice. We were compelled to deal with it, and the Home Secretary and the Government found this state of things. When the
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Order in question was issued they found that Ireland seemed to be on the brink of breaking up into actual chaos, and that the head and front of the conspiracy which was to destroy the Irish Free State was to be found in England.
Were they to take no notice of it? Were they to take no action? It was quite evident that it was the duty of the Home Secretary and the Government to do anything they could to try to make good mischief for which they had not been responsible but with which they had to deal. The Government found this Act for the restoration of order upon the Statute Book, and they tried to apply it. I am not going into the point with which my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack dealt, I thought, so effectively, of how difficult it is to deal finally with these conspiracies if you are bound down to the rigid rules which ought to apply, and which we are so proud do apply, to the administration of the law in this country.
I noticed that the noble Earl who moved the Motion to-night, in an extremely effective speech, spoke of these proceedings as having taken place in time of peace. That was his point. In time of peace, my Lords! No doubt there was peace in England, but it was a time of civil war in Ireland, and that is the point of it. Of course, if it had been a normal time of peace, which the noble Earl seemed to think we were enjoying, there was no case. I am certain that in that circumstance there is no Government which has ever ruled in this country which would have been more determined to oppose any deviation from the tradition of the ordinary law than the Conservative Government which is now in power. But this was not in time of peace at all; it was a time of war—war in Ireland of the most violent and malevolent character. And when criticism is made against my light hon. friend the Home Secretary, because he acted, and used these powers in time of war—they may have been illegal: they have turned out to be illegal—I think it does the greatest credit to his moral courage and to his determination to do his utmost to mitigate the condition of disorder in Ireland. I do think, therefore, that we have nothing to be ashamed of in the mistake which has been made.
As to the future, my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has stated our

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position absolutely clearly. We accept, of course, in every respect the decision of the Courts against the Government. But while that decision has been given, and while we have not yet had time to consider the exact consequences of that decision, to ask us to bind ourselves, as the noble Earl does in the Motion, for all time not to apply some of the proposals which might be necessary in time of grave disorder, but which, of course, ought not to be used at any other time—that, I think, would be exceedingly rash. In a very short time—in a few days, I hope in the course of a few hours—it will be possible to state perfectly clearly what the decision of the Government ought to be. These matters require grave consideration, and I am quite sure that the noble Viscount on the Front Bench [Lord Grey of Fallodon] would be the last man to ask the Government to hurry into decisions without due consideration, and, least of all, to adopt words drafted at that box on the spur of the moment which we have not had time to scrutinise nor the opportunity of determining whether they are good or bad.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I think it will probably be for the convenience of the House if I say a few words in reply, and I should like to begin by saying that if it was understood that I made anything in the nature of a personal attack upon Mr. Bridgeman, as Mr. Bridgeman, that was a mistake. I think the noble Viscount perhaps did not hear that portion of my observations; but when I spoke of the Home Secretary I meant the Home Secretary and his advisers and the Government of which he is a member. I still think, in spite of what the noble and learned Viscount said, that it would have been a better affidavit, and a less disingenuous affidavit, if the right hon. gentleman had not merely not denied that he had the control, but had said definitely, as he said in the House of Commons: "I have the control of these prisoners, and can produce them if desired." That would have been a more dignified form of affidavit to make.
I do not wish to follow the noble Marquess into the question of the creation of the Irish Free State, nor, indeed, am I sure to whom he referred when he said: "We are not responsible for it." I see beside him some of those who surely did have some responsibility in that
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matter. However, that subject is not relevant to the discussion to-night, and I do not wish to pursue it. I was very much impressed by what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Long, about the difficulties of getting evidence. It is a point which I quite understand and appreciate. He said that that consideration had been effective ever since the time of Carey. I remember very well the case of Carey. It was a long time ago, and it is in my recollection that since the date of Carey persons in Ireland have been dealt with, and have been punished by the ordinary Courts, and by evidence, and without any of those powers of arrest without trial, until we came to what I might call the quite recent Black-and-Tan days. And if it has been possible to do it since then it might be possible to do it now.
I was also very much impressed by what the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said, and I could not help feeling, while he was speaking, that I should only do him justice in saying that he felt quite as strongly as I did the detestation of any methods which were contrary to our constitutional liberties. Therefore I was most anxious, and am most anxious, to do nothing to impair a feeling which he shares with me as to the merits of the question which we are discussing, and which might become only a question of misapprehension. I did not quite understand the references that the noble and learned Viscount made to this matter being examined and being cleared up. I accept, of course, the statement that the Government are not contravening the decision of the Court of Appeal, and are not, as has been too much the custom lately, introducing an Act of Parliament to reverse the decision of the Court as soon as it is given, but that they are examining the situation and endeavouring to clear it up.
I should have liked to have heard whether that clearing up was by making some new Order under some other Act, or was by legislation which would come before both Houses of Parliament, stating exactly what is required, when the words can be discussed in the ordinary Parliamentary way. If it were by legislation I do not think there could be any objection to it, because, if it were passed by both Houses of Parliament, we naturally would have to accept it, whether we agreed to the legislation or not. But I very much

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deprecate this legislation by Order in Council, and I hope that, whatever course the Government decide to take, they will do it by putting their proposals fairly, squarely and honestly into a separate Bill before both Houses of Parliament, where they can be considered and discussed in the ordinary way.
Now we come to the actual question of this Motion. An Amendment has been suggested by the noble Viscount on the Front Bench, Lord Grey of Fallodon. If I press this Motion as it stands to a Division, and if your Lordships vote against it, it will go forth to the world that your Lordships' House is opposed to our old constitutional principle of freedom. Your Lordships' House is constantly being misunderstood outside, and I should be sorry to be one to add to that misunderstanding. A vote against this Motion would undoubtedly be misrepresented in many quarters, and I should not like to take the responsibility of putting your Lordships' House into what would appear to be a position not according. I am sure, in the least with the real feeling which you have on this matter of constitutional freedom. As to whether your Lordships would accept or divide upon the suggested Amendment, which I am quite prepared to accept, I would rather leave that to the noble Viscount on the Front Bench. So far as my Motion stands, rather than make your Lordships give a vote which would be, in effect, contrary to your real intention, I should prefer to withdraw it. But as to that it leave myself in the hands of my noble friend on the Front Bench.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I recognise the point that your Lordships ought not to pass a Resolution which will make it clear that in no circumstances, not even if another great war was upon us, should the Constitution be suspended, and I am anxious not to vote for anything which would by its wording absolutely tie the hands of this and future Governments. But when this question of the power of the Government of this country in ordinary circumstances to arrest without trial is raised as a general principle it stirs my blood, and I want to give a vote for that principle and I do not want to leave this House without having given a vote for that principle. I would, therefore, read once more the words which I have drafted and which
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I think are not open to any objection but really agree with the point which was raised by the noble Marquess opposite. The words are these:
"This House affirms the long-established principle of the Constitution that the Executive should not, without the previous and special authority of Parliament, exercise the power of arrest without trial."
If the noble Earl withdraws his Motion I should like to move those words instead of it. If not, I should like to move those words as an Amendment to his Motion. So far as I am concerned, I would still hope that the Government might think my words so safe that they would accept them. But I really would like to stand by those words and to give a vote for them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all words after the word ("That") and insert ("this House affirms the long-established principle of the Constitution that the Executive should not, without the previous and special authority of Parliament, exercise the power of arrest without trial").—(Viscount Grey of Fallodon.)
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I had not previously taken part in this discussion, and I asked my noble friend sitting beside me to represent the Government because I was called away from the House to preside over a Committee elsewhere at five o'clock and, therefore, did not like to take part in a debate the preliminary stages of which I had not heard. But the point raised by the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition is one with which I think, although I have not heard the whole discussion, I am competent to deal and upon which it is my duty, as Leader of the House, to advise your Lordships. Now, I look at the matter not merely from the point of view of the merits of the Amendment that the noble Viscount has moved, but from its relation to the ordinary course of procedure in your Lordships' House.
Here upon the Paper is a Motion, very clear and definite in its language and in its meaning. Upon that Motion the discussion, so far as I have heard it, has taken place, and the noble Earl who moved it, reluctant to provoke a Division which might be a source of misunderstanding, has announced his intention to withdraw it or, at any rate, not to take it to a Division. Thereupon, the noble

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Viscount who leads the Opposition, anxious to affirm a constitutional principle which he regards as of the first importance, moves an Amendment entirely altering the whole character of the Motion before us and asking your Lordships—
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: No.
THE MARQUESS CURZON or KEDLESTON: Yes—undoubtedly extending, expanding and altering the character of the Motion before the House and asking your Lordships at the last moment, on words merely submitted to your Lordships a few moments ago, without any discussion upon the Amendment he has proposed, to accept and to lay down on the part of this House that constitutional principle. I could not possibly as Leader of the House advise your Lordships to take any such step, and I could not advise you to do so because I conceive it to be a wholly illegitimate way of dealing with the Motion which is down upon the Paper. During the time I have sat in this House I have known Resolutions amended by the omission of a word, by the addition of a phrase, by the substitution of one set of words for another on a smaller scale. I have never in my life known a single case where, a Motion of a, particular character having been moved and the mover of that Motion having intimated his intention not to persist in it, an entirely different set of words has been proposed at the last moment as an Amendment.
It is not an Amendment, my Lords; it is a new proposition, and if the noble Viscount, speaking with all the authority of the Leader of the Opposition, desires to ask your Lordships to affirm a series of propositions or principles of the character that he has indicated, let him put them upon the Paper. Let us have a discussion. I should like to take part in such a discussion myself. We will give him, so far as the procedure of your Lordships' House is at our disposal, the fullest opportunity whenever he likes. But to come and ask us to accept this Amendment, this principle, this proposition in the form of an Amendment to a Motion of another character is something which I think it would be contrary to all our practice and procedure to acquiesce in.
I hope, therefore, that the noble Viscount will not persist in his suggestion,
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and for this reason, that just as the noble Earl is not going to persist in his Amendment because it would place the House in a false position in dividing for or against it, so if the noble Viscount persists in his Amendment now and I am compelled to vote against it, as I shall feel compelled to do, I should be placed in a false position. We none of us want to do that. We none of us want to embarrass each other or to put each other in a false position. If the noble Viscount desires to raise this principle let it be raised on its own merits and according to the customary and traditional procedure of your Lordships' House, but do not ask your Lordships at the last moment to vote upon a proposition which we barely have had time to examine, which none of us has had an opportunity to discuss, and which, if it is worthy of consideration, is worthy of consideration in circumstances much more favourable than those in which it is moved this afternoon.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, my object in bringing forward this form of words was not that which I have sometimes seen pursued in another place of embarrassing the Government. It was really because, this principle having been raised—I did not know of it until I came down to the House this afternoon, and I had not read the terms of the noble Earl's Motion—and it being so important and so long established, I think we ought not to let it drop as if we had not an opinion upon it. But I recognise the force of what the noble Marquess has urged, that it is very difficult for the Government to accept words without time to consider them. I appreciate his offer to give time for a discussion of the general principle, and I would propose, therefore, to put those words upon the Paper as a substantive Notice of Motion.
They would then have this advantage, that they would be separated from any particular details of controversy and would stand simply as a matter of general principle. I would ask the Government to consider the words, and if they find that there are particular objections to them and are prepared with other words which will affirm the general principle, then if they will give a day for the Motion subsequently I should hope that we might arrive at a form of words which would enable us unequivocally and unanimously to affirm this great principle

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which has been the foundation of our liberties, that the Government should not exercise a power of arrest without trial without special authority from Parliament.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House has truly said that we none of us desire to embarrass each other or to put each other in a false position. Therefore, I think, as the question is going to be raised in a substantive form by a Motion that will satisfy all our constitutional requirements, the best plan for me to pursue would be to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SPECIAL CONSTABLES BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP moved, after Clause 3, to insert the following new-clause:
". No special constable if called out for duty during an industrial dispute shall be called upon to perform any work in connection with the industry in which the dispute is proceeding."
The noble Earl said: "I am afraid the Government Department which was responsible for this Bill is one of those which are least willing to accept Amendments that are suggested in your Lordships' House. It was even unwilling to accept an Amendment such as this which is moved simply with the object of making the Bill more acceptable to the people of this country. Your Lordships will see from the terms of my Amendment the simple object that I have in moving it. The Bill itself is not a very clear one to follow. There are many references to previous Statutes, but I take it that the situation at the present moment is chiefly governed by the Act of 1831, in Section I of which I find the words that these constables may be
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appointed for the preservation of the public peace, for the protection of the inhabitants, and the security of property.
As your Lordships know there are two kinds of strikes in these days. One kind affects non-essential industries, such, for instance, as a big railway strike. In connection with these non-essential trades what we want to have made perfectly certain is that it would be illegal to make a demand upon special constables to take part in the organisation of a motor service in order to defeat a railway strike, I take that as an example in order to make the position clear. I would say to the noble Earl in charge of the Bill that if he agrees that the special constables cannot under the present law be called upon to do so it should be clearly stated in this Bill. If, on the other hand, he proposes an amendment in the law as it is, I do not think your Lordships would be willing to accept it. If the employment of special constables at the present moment is illegal then let us put it into the Bill. If, on the other hand, it is legal then the position should be made clear to the country.
Surely what passed yesterday gives emphasis to the point. I understand that it has been stated by more than one of those who are in favour of this measure that special constables cannot be used for this purpose at the present time. The discussion which we bad in your Lordships' House yesterday shows, whatever may be the intention of Ministers, that that is not sufficient. We want to have things put in black and white in a Bill so that everybody may understand clearly what the position is. I think the uncertainty which exists may ruin the usefulness of the Bill, or may make the special constables into a class force. Those of us who have seen anything at all in one friendly and Allied country of the use of forces during the last few years, who have seen those forces marching about and have read in newspapers of the actions which they have been permitted to take, would always regret any measure which would allow or in any way assist the promotion of such forces in this country.
But there is yet the other point, that of the essential trades. The words which I have quoted from the Act of 1831 say that the constables "may be used for

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the protection of the inhabitants." That is a very vague phrase. It may mean a very great deal. I would ask the noble Earl whether it would include such a matter as keeping the electric power stations in working order. Your Lordships may remember that there was a strike in the year 1919, and that there was a good deal of confusion on that occasion. Telegrams were sent from New Scotland Yard to the various commanders of special constables in the different areas of the Metropolitan district asking that men who had special technical knowledge should be paraded on duty at a certain time. "Duty" was the word used in the telegram. It is obvious, therefore, that if any man had presented himself and refused to obey the orders which were then given to him by his superior officer he would have been guilty of a violation of his duty. When these officers paraded it was suggested to them that they should take part in the working of these stations, and although they were told that they should not do that as special constables but as members of the public that surely does not answer the point I am making, which is that they were summoned for duty as special constables and then were asked to undertake this particular work. That seems to me to be a position which should not be tolerated if there is real anxiety that these special constables should become a useful force.
I cannot help feeling that perhaps His Majesty's Government might have made more use of the retired forces of the police throughout this country. Those of us who are at all acquainted with local government must have seen with deep regret on occasion after occasion how constables in the prime of life are retired on salaries which before the war would have seemed uncommonly large, and how a country is deprived of the services of those constables at the very moment when they are in the prime of life, when they have all the experience which a number of years' service in the force has given them, and while they are still strong enough to carry out their work. Those men, knowing the work of the police, able to draw upon their experience, and best knowing how to manage crowds, would be far more likely to be useful than special constables who may have had no experience. Surely we may say, too, that though we have perfect confidence in the intentions of the present
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Home Secretary and of the present Government, our experience—I again refer to our experience yesterday—forbids us relying entirely upon that. We need to have a special clause in an Act of Parliament so that it may be made perfectly plain what is the intention of Parliament in order that we may remove all doubts and secure for this Bill a greater measure of success than it is likely to attain if this doubt is allowed to remain. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Clause 3, page 3, line 5, at end insert the said new clause.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): The Amendment which the noble Earl has put down says that no special constable called out during an industrial dispute shall be called upon to perform any work in connection with the industry regarding which a dispute is proceeding. That is to say that no special constable shall be called upon to take the place of a striker. I think that is the effect of the Amendment. I trust your Lordships will agree with me in thinking that this Amendment is unnecessary. The noble Earl quoted the Act of 1831. It is true that that Act is the Act which governs the employment of the special constabulary, whose powers are derived from the provisions of that Act. The noble Earl correctly said that no special constable can be called upon to perform any duties except the preservation of public peace, the protection of the inhabitants, and the security of property. Therefore the special constables cannot be called upon to take the place of strikers. Under the Act of 1831 they can only be called upon for the particular duties which I have mentioned, and those, as is quite clear from the wording of the Act, do not include taking the place of strikers during a trade dispute.
The noble Earl has called attention to what occurred during a strike in February, 1919. Let me tell your Lordships exactly what occurred on that occasion when the Government were making their arrangements to carry on the London power stations if the threatened strike took place. Special constables, among other classes of the community, were invited to volunteer, and a number of them did so. They were not removed

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from the roll of special constables, and they were told that if they volunteered they would not be called up for duty as special constables while undertaking this work. The purpose for which special constables are appointed is defined in the Act of 1831, and my contention is that in no way was it contravened. It is a very different thing from saying that a man who happens to be a special constable and volunteers when an appeal is made to the general public should no longer continue to be a special constable.
In industrial disputes there have been strikers who have joined the special constables, and doubtless the same thing will occur again. There is nothing whatever to prevent men who are striking from joining the special constables, and nothing in the Act of 1831 can compel these men to take the place of strikers. The fear expressed by the noble Earl in his Amendment was that a striker who becomes a special constable may be forced to perform work which, as a striker, he has refused to do. I contend that the Act of 1831 is quite Sufficient to prevent such a danger occurring, and I hope the noble Earl will not press his Amendment. The position is fully safeguarded and the Amendment unnecessary.
EARL BUXTON: The noble Earl who speaks on behalf of the Government has argued that these words are unnecessary because the difficulty anticipated by my noble friend cannot arise. But my noble friend founded his Amendment on the fact that such a difficulty did arise. There was a misunderstanding between the function of a special constable and the function of a volunteer who came forward to assist the public, as he thought properly, in a trade dispute. That difficulty has arisen, and all of us desire that it should not occur again. There ought to be an absolute distinction between a special constable, who if he is called out and on parade refuses to act as he is told commits a very serious crime and may be subject to serious punishment, and the volunteer who is prepared to do the actual work which he is desired to do. I cannot see what possible objection there can be to the Amendment.
I am sorry to say that this Bill is like many other Bills of this Government, and also of the Government of which I had the honour to be a member, inasmuch as
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it is drawn in the worst possible way. It goes entirely by reference. The unfortunate person who wants to know what his duties are has to refer to Acts which, obviously, he cannot have at his disposal, and he is, therefore, unable to ascertain. No harm can be done from the drafting point of view by accepting the Amendment and great advantage would accrue from the public point of view. The noble Earl confirms and reaffirms what was stated by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons when this particular Amendment was discussed there. The Home Secretary stated definitely that—
"Under the Act of 1831 they (special constables) cannot be called upon to perform any duties except the preservation of public peace, the protection of the inhabitants, and the security of property. They cannot be called upon to take the place of strikers, because the Act of 1831 already says that they can only be called upon for these particular duties, which do not include taking the place of strikers in a dispute."
It is because the Home Secretary stated definitely that special constables cannot be called upon to undertake personal interference in industrial disputes that we are anxious that these words should be introduced.
I know it is constantly argued that every British subject ought to carry in his head all the Acts of Parliament that exist and that if he breaks them it is his own look-out. But this is a very special case. Many of the special constables who may be called out may be in the same trade in which there is an industrial dispute, and surely it is a great advantage that they should know, when they are called out as special constables, what are the limitations to the orders they can receive. There are, no doubt, a great many lawyers in this country, but the bulk of those who are called out will not be lawyers, but laymen, and it is of the utmost importance that the position should be made perfectly clear for the information of those who undertake these duties. The mere fact that a misunderstanding has occurred shows that there is some need for this protection. Many persons, while perfectly willing and anxious to assist the Government in the protection of law and order, would find it most distasteful and would altogether object, and rightly so, to be called upon to undertake duties which may prejudice the position as regards an industrial dispute. That is the difficulty you want

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to avoid. You want to make it perfectly clear that in no circumstances will they be placed in that position, and I cannot understand why the Government cannot accept words which would make the position perfectly clear.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: There is another reason against this Amendment which was not pressed by the noble Earl on behalf of the Government, and that is that it entirely fails to achieve the object it sets out to secure because of the hopeless ambiguity of the language used. The language of the Amendment is such, as I read it, that it would be impossible, if the Amendment became law, to call upon a special constable to take part in defending power stations from a violent attack. That will be part of his work, and I submit that so far from importing clearness into the law and defining the duties of a special constable, it would import nothing but confusion and anarchy.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not pretend to be a master of this subject but I should like to assure the noble Earl who moved this Amendment—and I am sure he will be gratified to hear it—that there is no desire on the part of the Government to press this Bill through at railway speed. On the contrary, we do not propose to take the next stage of the Bill until after the Whitsuntide Recess. The case which has been submitted to your Lordships by the two noble Lords who sit upon the Front Bench opposite is, as I understood it, that they do not want to go beyond the assurance which the Home Secretary gave in another place as to the present state of the law. That may be the case, but if the law is so already it certainly is not good draftsmanship to repeat it in the present Statute. If the noble Lords will allow me I will venture to make a suggestion. I will ask them not to press the matter at the present moment, and I will engage to look into it between now and the next stage of the Bill, and to confer with the noble Earl opposite on the subject. If he will take that advice from me I venture to think that it will be for the convenience of your Lordships' House.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am much obliged to the noble Marquess for the consideration which he has been good
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enough to give to this Amendment ant I very heartily accept the suggestion which he has made. Perhaps I may be allowed to add this remark. The real reason why we want something added or this occasion is that in the year 1831 strikes had not assumed that importance in the general economy of the country that they have assumed to-day, and it is really necessary for that reason that something should he put into the Bill in order to make the law clear. In the circumstances I agree to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Remaining clauses agreed to.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING OF SOLDIERS.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I wish to ask His Majesty's Government—

1. What percentage of men leaving the Colours will receive vocational training, and what average percentage of the men on the home establishment; will be engaged in receiving such training.

2. What attitude towards such men has been adopted by the trade unions concerned, and whether any communications have passed between the War Office and these unions.

3. The numbers and trades of the Hounslow students who have found employment.

THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Derby, who has had to attend a Cabinet meeting and is unable to be present, has asked me to reply to this Question addressed to the War Office. With regard to the first part of the noble Lord's Question, the present establishment of the two Army vocational training centres can provide training for a maximum of three per cent. of those who leave the Colours annually. The average percentage of men on home establishment being trained at any one time will be under one per cent. Training at an Army vocational training centre, to the cost of which the trainees materially contribute, is a reward for good Army service. It is given only to small numbers of those who by general education and manual skill have shown they can benefit by the intensive courses. It is to be the

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culmination of two or three hours a week spent at manual and vocational training in garrisons spread over a period of years.
The reply to the noble Lord's second Question is that the Ministry of Labour, Board of Education, and Ministry of Agriculture have all sent representatives to inspect the work. There have been various unofficial meetings with trade union officials, and no opposition has been met with. Wide publicity in the Press and several speeches in another place have brought no hostile comment from trade unions. As regards the third part of the noble Lord's Question, as the scheme has only recently received official sanction, detailed statistics are not available. As stated in the answer given on May 9, 70 per cent. of the trainees, amounting to 2,000 men, got immediate employment from the school during the time that it was conducted as an experimental command school. The chief trades taught were building trades, furniture renovation, gardening, and smallholding.

JUVENILE UNEMPLOYMENT CENTRES.
VISCOUNT ASTOR VISCOUNT ASTOR rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in view of the admitted success of the juvenile unemployment centres in preventing physical and moral deterioration among young people due to continued unemployment, they propose to close these centres on June 30, thus wasting the work and money already expended and turning on to the, streets large numbers of juveniles who have no prospect of immediate employment.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I desire to submit to your Lordships the Question which stands in my name upon the Paper. I need not remind your Lordships that in spite of a slight improvement in trade there is still a tremendous amount of unemployment in this country. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are unable to find work, and the labour market is not able to absorb them. Nor need I remind your Lordships that at the present moment tens of thousands of children leave school every year, and no opportunity is provided to these juveniles between fourteen and eighteen to find employment. A man who is out of work
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for any considerable period of time becomes demoralised. Nothing is so demoralising as hanging about with nothing to do. If that is what happens to adults, how much more demoralising is it for young men and women, boys and girls, who have no regular training, to wait for months and even years with absolutely nothing to do. It is particularly demoralising when they are able to draw what is called the dole, and do nothing all the time.
After the Armistice the Government decided that it would not be in the national interest that this sort of thing should go on. Training centres for juvenile employment were established, and were so successful that something like 200 of them were in existence at one period. Unfortunately, when the cry for economy was raised the Government grant was diminished, and eventually withdrawn altogether. These unemployment centres were consequently closed clown. As a result there was such a popular clamour for their re-establishment that last December the Government decided on 75 per cent. grants to juvenile unemployment centres which were started by local authorities. I regret to say, however, that it was announced recently in another place that the Government contemplated the closing down of these juvenile centres at the end of Tune.
I raise the question to-day because, if the Government are not able to announce that they intend to continue these juvenile centres, I am very anxious that people should realise what the policy of the Government is going to be in order that public opinion may be mobilised and make itself felt, and that the Government, not for the first time in relation to this question, may reconsider its decision. I find it difficult to understand the attitude of the Government, because only the other day the Minister who is responsible for the administration of these juvenile centres paid eloquent tribute to their success. As recently as last December the Government, in a circular which was sent to local authorities, stated that it was thought most desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, that is the Department primarily interested in the welfare of persons of this age, to revive these centres which had been closed down, and thus to mitigate the evil effects of unemployment.

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If it was desirable in. December, 1922, to mitigate the evils of unemployment by setting up these juvenile unemployment centres it is equally desirable now.
It has been my good fortune to visit several of these centres, and I can say from my personal experience of those which I have visited that they have been extraordinarily successful. Young men and young women, boys and girls, have been taught occupations such as carpentry, they have had organised games, they have learnt the principles of citizenship, the responsibilities of leadership and esprit de corps. I know of another centre, which I have not myself visited but which I have heard about, where when it was started those who were responsible for running it were horrified to find how quickly young men who came to the centres had lost all that discipline which had been instilled into them during their period of school training and had become disobedient. I am glad to say that after six months those responsible for the centre are able to report that the boys again act under their control, and are working well, and that the effect upon them of the discipline and training which they get in the centre has been entirely beneficial.
I agree that there may be some centres which are not so good as others, but that is no reason for sweeping away those which have done good work. If there are any which are not satisfactory let us change the conditions governing them, but do not let us scrap the whole lot. The other day I noticed a letter written by Sir Arthur Yapp, of the Y.M.C.A., to The Times, in which he stated that he had heard with consternation that it was proposed to close down these centres, and he heard the news with consternation because of the excellent results achieved. I submit that there is absolutely overwhelming evidence that these centres have been successful, not merely in manual training and in developing the intellects of the boys and girls attending them, but, a matter which I think is oven more necessary and desirable, in developing their characters.
What are the objections? We are told, first of all, that we cannot afford the cost; that they are too expensive. There is nothing so costly as false economy. There is nothing so ruinous to a nation as neglecting the welfare and development of
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its rising generation. If we have to economise, I suggest that it is unfair and unwise to begin with the children. It is also, I understand, suggested that these centres can well be closed down in the summer—that in the summer there is not so much need for them as in winter. I do not believe that to be the case. I believe that it is particularly in the summer that organised games can be developed: that as the summer goes on you will find an increasing number of young men and women with nothing whatever to do, and that it is desirable to have these centres to which they can be attracted. Anybody who has had anything to do with boys' clubs, for instance, will know how difficult it is to get the right men to run them, and the right spirit established within those clubs. The success or failure of these centres must depend upon having the right men to run them, and the right spirit established in them. Therefore I suggest to the Government that it would be unwise, and extravagant, having got sixty or seventy centres established, to close them down for the summer months and then have to re-open them in the winter.
I remember a conversation that I had after the Election with a trade unionist and Socialist, who told me that what had struck him during the last Election was the fact that young men and women were attracted by what he described as the loudest noise. They had lost all sense of control and discipline. They would not even listen to their trade union leaders. It is doubly necessary that we should keep any machinery which promotes discipline in the rising generation. We hear and read about proletarian schools. I have heard it alleged that in these schools boys and girls are taught that there is no God, and that it is not for them to respect law and authority and government as we understand them. Nowadays the man in the street judges the ruling classes not by the labels that they wear but by their actions. There is not a single man in this House who would deliberately take his boy or girl away from school and let him or her run around without any supervision or control. Yet that is what the Government's action proposes to do—to have tens of thousands of young men and women with no control or discipline and no chance of getting work.
If we can only teach citizenship to the rising generation I have no fear whatever

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of Bolshevism or atheism, but if we turn boys and girls into the street, give them nothing to do, and convert them into hooligans and loafers, we shall have great responsibility, because we shall be providing soil upon which the seed of Bolshevism and atheism will take root and flourish. I trust that the noble Earl, when he replies, will be able to announce either that the Government do not intend to close, or if they have done so are willing to re-open, these centres, because I am convinced that if the Government do shut down these centres they will be prejudicing the welfare of the rising generation. I am equally certain that public opinion will insist upon having them re-opened.
LORD ASKWITH: My Lords, I hope that the noble Viscount is drawing upon his imagination when he says what the Government are going to do. I trust that they will not at one moment blow hot and at another moment blow cold upon this subject. Only last December various social bodies asked me to act as leader in efforts which were being made for dealing with these children who cannot be employed owing to lack of work, who are being thrown out of school at the end of their term and getting into no good habits at all but in many ways deteriorating in a very marked manner. This effort was knocked on the head, or rather by agreement stopped, because it was said that the Government were going to do something. The Government did do something, and proceeded to have these juvenile unemployment centres established. If, after six months' trial, they should be stopped, then all the work and all the money will have been entirely wasted.
In six months you cannot do much with the mass of material that has to be dealt with; yet there are a great many associations, like the Y.M.C.A., which have been strenuously working to get hold of these lads and teach them to be good citizens. There are individuals, too, in different cities, who have worked wonders with these unemployed juveniles. There are men in places like Bristol who have managed to provide games of football for, and also given training in various kinds of trades to boys who would otherwise be simply wandering about Clifton Downs and getting into thoroughly bad habits: Their efforts
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have done wonders. In Liverpool and in many other great cities the same thing has taken place. As the noble Viscount has said, Sir Arthur Yapp recently wrote a letter in which he expressed consternation at the reported closing down of these centres. Some of them may be poor centres. It is not always easy to get a good manager; but in those cases where there is a teacher or a manager who has a capacity for getting hold of the boys and understanding them, who can arrange the proper treatment, teaching, and training, the centres must be of value.
The noble Viscount hinted that as the summer is coming on and there might be better weather, there might be some sort of employment obtainable in the harvesting I am not sure that the summer is not one of the very best times to get hold of these lads and girls, and to give them the best training available. Some of those holiday camps, costing extraordinarily little, helped in many cases by Rotary Clubs, either on the downs inland, or else upon the seashore, have caused a wonderful revolution in the habits and outlook of children who have been to them; have taught them cleanliness, have taught them to work for themselves and for others, and have given them some idea of the dignity of service and of what it means to have some of the elements of citizenship. I hope, therefore, that the answer of the noble Earl may be favourable, and that the threatened action of the Government—the sudden action, really, after what was stated last January—may not take place.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I desire to join with those who are pleading for the continuation of these centres. I am prepared to admit quite frankly that a number of them have not yet fulfilled the expectations of their promoters, and there are certainly some of these centres in London where the attendance has been disappointingly small and irregular. But these centres are still in an experimental stage, and, more than that, they are the only method which is used by the State at present to deal with an extremely grave problem. We are concerned, not with a few thousands, but literally some tens of thousands, of adolescents who are out of work, and there is nothing more discouraging than

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to see the deterioration which follows when a lad who has left his school full of hope, believing that he is on the threshold of manhood, realises, after a year or two, that no one wants him and that there is apparently no place in which he can work. To the majority of these lads it means the life of the streets. But in these days of overcrowding it is a point of honour with the older lads to remain as long as possible, until late at night, outside their houses—the two rooms, or the one room, in which they live—so as to leave their accommodation for their mother and the children. They spend their time at the street corners, sometimes gambling, and looking out for any kind of excitement; and, as time goes on, they gradually become demoralised. The stronger of them become filled with a spirit of revolt.
There was no exaggeration by the noble Viscount who introduced this question when he said that there is a real danger of some of them turning into revolutionaries through despair I had an illustration given me the other day. One of the stronger boys, a boy of about eighteen, in one of our clubs suddenly began breaking up the furniture. He was suspended, and, after three weeks, allowed to come back again, but he adopted exactly the same course. He had to be expelled from the, club, and it was heard that he was doing the same thing at another club which he had joined. His friends then told my informant, the manager of the club, that this boy had heard some speaker say that the only thing to end unemployment and bad social conditions was to smash up everything when you had the chance, and this boy deliberately decided that he would go from club to club, remaining in the club smashing up things until he was expelled from it. As a matter of fact, I have very much more hope for that boy, who has some force of personality, than for the vast majority of these unemployed boys, who simply lose heart, and, at the age of twenty or twenty-one, become broken and disillusioned men. And I would remind the Government that it is out of this class that the hooligans are created, and that you are creating a class which in five or six years will be the class out of which mobs are formed, consisting of men who have everything to gain and nothing to lose through riot and disorder.
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These centres are the only method at present of dealing with unemployed boys. I am not asking the Government to continue the centres exactly as they are at the present time. They need many reforms, and they need to be made more attractive. I do not wish to go into details now, but what I would press upon the Department concerned is the necessity of postponing this decision and holding a conference with some of those who are actively and practically concerned in this kind of adolescent work in order to see whether the work of these clubs, as the result of this conference, cannot be improved. I am sure it will be a retrograde and disappointing policy to close these centres. It will not be an economical policy, for the little we may save now will be more than counterbalanced by the measures which, later on, the State will have to take to provide for those who have joined the ranks of the unemployable, and who, if they had only been assisted over this difficult time, might have made useful and self-supporting citizens.
THK EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: My Lords, the noble Viscount is correct in his surmise that His Majesty's Government do not intend to continue these grants to the juvenile employment centres after June 30 next, and, in the ease of those which have been more recently established, after July 21. That is the intention of the Government at the present moment. The position is briefly as follows. These centres were set up after the Armistice to cope with the sudden and unexpected crisis of unemployment. The whole cost was then borne by the Government. Subsequently, the grant was reduced fifty per cent., which was the normal grant to the local education authorities. It is as the result of that that most, if not all, of these centres were then closed down.
When the present Government came into office the question of the revival of these centres was again considered, and it was decided to give a, grant of seventy-five per cent. towards the cost, the other twenty-five per cent. being paid by the local education authorities, and an invitation was sent out by the Ministry of Labour to all these authorities to ask them to co-operate with the Ministry in setting up these centres upon that basis.

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The scheme was limited to three months; at any rate, it was not to be carried on after May 31 of this year. That was extended later on to the date that I have mentioned—June 30—and, in the case of the more recently established centres, July 21. The total amount of the grant payable under the arrangement will be considerable. The aim was to make these places curriculum centres for the teaching of something practical wherever possible, but, of course, there was no Intention at any time of leaching any definite trade.
I think the noble Viscount was perfectly right in stating that these centres have been admittedly successful in preventing the moral and physical deterioration of these young people during their long period of unemployment and as such, of course, these centres are undoubtedly deserving of sympathetic treatment. But the decision to bring the grant to an end on June 30 has been arrived at partly because the original scheme was not to continue for more than three months if it was extended—it was really set up to deal with the later winter and the early spring months—and partly because it was thought there would be no real need, or at any rate no considerable need, for these centres during the summer months. It is surely, therefore, an open question whether it is either economical or useful to maintain these centres if the attendance is small, especially as that attendance may possibly be materially reduced during the summer months. There is something to be said, I know, for the manner in which these young people can be usefully employed during the summer. It is not entirely a matter of study, although I understand that a certain amount of study is required of those attending the centres. On the question of study, if the noble-Viscount will recall to mind that period of his life when he was completing his education he will remember, as I do and as I am sure other noble Lords do, that any sort of study was a real mental and physical difficulty during the hot weather.
At any rate it is for the reasons I have given and, as the noble Viscount surmised, because of the pressing need for economy in national expenditure at the present time—a need which calls for the very careful watching of these and other grants—that it was decided that these grants could not be continued after the time that was designated. But my right hon. friend the Minister of Labour has stated
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in another place that he has set on foot inquiries to obtain full information as to the utility of these centres, and it is not altogether inconceivable that the information he will obtain may induce His Majesty's Government to give the matter further consideration. Personally, I hope that the result of these inquiries will justify the continuance of such a grant to these centres as will have the effect of keeping them open. But the noble Viscount will understand that I am not in a position to-day to say more than that the decision is that these grants cannot be continued for the reasons I have stated. I certainly shall not fail to represent to my right hon. friend the forcible and very clear ar ments which have been brought forward by the noble Viscount, the noble Lord, Lord Askwith, and the right rev. Prelate in favour of these centres, and I hope that the Minister of Labour and His Majesty's Government, in consequence, will, perhaps, be able to give the matter further consideration.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, on behalf of those who are interested in this matter I should like to express the gratitude they feel to the Government for the hope which is held out that these centres will not be closed, and that it is quite possible that, as the result of the inquiry which is proceeding, there may be a decision to keep some of them open and to arrange for their being adequately subsidised so as to enable the work to go forward. In matters of this kind where an experiment is being tried not only in the Metropolis but in other large centres in England and Scotland, there is a great variety of experience as to the success or failure that is attained. The value of the centre depends on many things. It depends on the sort of person who is in charge. It depends on the nature of the employment, or recreation, or teaching that is offered, and it depends to some extent on the tone and character of the neighbourhood in which those live who take advantage of the unemployment centres, and the conditions under which they live, which may be either mischievous or helpful.
But there can be no doubt of the fact that dangers have arisen in the past from the absence of some such opportunity for those who are of the age with which we

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are specially concerned to-night. Those dangers are very real, and I should like, with all the earnestness I can command, to press upon His Majesty's Government the importance and the need, in the inquiry which is now being made, for taking counsel both in London and the provinces with those whose experience of the matter is the best. It is well worth while to inquire into the necessity for the continuance of these centres which are doing great and magnificent work. And I earnestly hope that the ray of hope which has been given us to-night as to the possibility of a reconsideration of the matter, may grow and intensify, and that at a later date we shall hear that the centres which it is now proposed to close are still in active operation and are doing an immense amount of good.

ADVERTISEMENTS REGULATION BILL. [H.L.]
Amendment reported (according to Order).

PETROLEUM BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Viscount
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Long of Wraxall I beg to move the Motion which stands in his name on the Paper in reference to the Select Committee to consider the Petroleum Bill.
Moved, That the following Lords be named of the Select Committee:

V. Younger.

L. Montagu of Beaulieu.

L. Dynevor.

L. Redesdale.

L. Armaghdale.

—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The Committee to meet to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and to appoint their own Chairman.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn till to-morrow at twelve o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at ten minutes past seven o'clock.