Sitting of 18 March 1924

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LONDON, MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY (NEW CAPITAL) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
ISLE OF WIGHT HIGHWAYS BILL.
Read 2a.

THE ILLNESS OF LORD OURZON.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, some anxiety has been caused on this side by the statements as to the condition of the noble Marquess, Lord Curzon. Can the noble Viscount on the Woolsack give us any information?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): My Lords, in the absence of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who is unfortunately indisposed, I will reply to that Question. I will read to the House a statement that I have obtained which, I much regret to say, is not of a reassuring character. The statement is in these terms:
"I am sorry to say that the news of Lord Curzon's condition is not good. The bulletins which have been published for the information of the public have all along rather under-estimated than over-estimated the seriousness of his condition, in case the patient should ask for a newspaper. Those in attendance upon him have all along taken a serious view of the case, and at the moment they may almost be said to take a grave view. Lord Dawson of Penn has been drawn into consultation and shares the anxiety of his colleagues, with whose opinion he concurs."
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I need not say that on this side of the House we have received the news which the noble and learned Viscount has given us with deep concern.

GERMAN DISARMAMENT.
LORD PARMOOR,LORD PARMOOR, who had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government whether the defaults in disarmament alleged against the German Government include matters for which a time limit is prescribed in Article 203 of the Treaty of Versailles; and to move for Papers, said: My Lords, might I, before the public business begins, say that I have received a notification from the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, that he would not be here to-day and asking me not to put the Question which is down on the Paper in my name. Of course, I immediately acceded to that request. I thought at first of putting it down for to-morrow, but I understand that it is doubtful whether he could be here to-morrow, and therefore I have held it over. But the subject is very nearly connected with the Notice that I have placed on the Paper for Tuesday next [relating to the meeting of the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva], which raises the same matter in a wider form. I hope that when the question of foreign policy is to be discussed, as I understand it is in another place on Tuesday, we shall also have a full opportunity of discussing it here. Perhaps the Lord Chancellor can consider from that point of view whether, if any time is likely to be taken by the Legitimacy Bill, it might not be postponed to another day.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course, I will consider it.

MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC-HOUSES.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON, who had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will have an inquiry on the different systems of disinterested management of licensed houses, and in particular on the licensing system in Carlisle, as was agreed to by His Majesty's Government last July and accepted by this House without a Division; and to move for Papers, said: My Lords, for the same reason that has been given, I have had a request from the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, to allow the Question which stands on the Paper in my name to be postponed till a later date. I beg to put it down for Wednesday of next week.
LORD PARMOOR: I was going to put down my Question for Tuesday. I sup-

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pose it will be discussed on Tuesday, but the noble Marquess from whom I have had a communication will know that the Notice I have put down for that day will raise the same questions.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (KEIGHLEY WATER CHARGES) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.
ELIZABETH FRY REFUGE AND REFUGE FOR THE DESTITUTE CHARITIES SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

JUVENILE UNEMPLOYMENT.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK rose to call attention to the demoralisation which results from juvenile unemployment, and to ask His Majesty's Government how they propose to deal with this problem. The right rev. Prelate said: My Lords, perhaps I need hardly say that in raising the question of juvenile unemployment I have no intention of criticising the Government. They have been in office a comparatively short time and in the gracious Speech from the Throne it was announced that special attention would be given to this subject:—
"The various schemes which have already been initiated for the relief of unemployment, including those relating to juvenile unemployment, will be examined with great care, and you will be asked to make provision for the continuance and extension of all such measures as are likely to alleviate the present distresses."
It is very difficult to state at all definitely the number of juveniles between the ages of fourteen and eighteen who are out of employment. According to a statement made by the Minister of Labour in another place, there are 70,000 registered at the employment exchanges, but of course this by no means covers the full number. The 70,000 are mainly those who are entitled to draw on unemployment insurance.
Among those 70,000 there are to be found very few indeed of those who are under sixteen. In all probability, in the opinion of those who have investigated the subject, that number ought to be at least doubled to give any approximate idea as to the numbers of boys and girls who are unemployed. The London figures reported to the education committee of the London County Council may perhaps give us a further help in discovering the number. Of the children who left school in 1923 there were, at the end of last year, 3,531 unemployed, and of those who left school in March of last year there are 10,472 unemployed; that is to say, in London alone, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen there are over 14,000 children who desire work and are unable to obtain it.
But this again, by itself, does not give a full idea of the gravity of the problem. Many of those who are at this moment in work have lost a great deal of time in seeking for it. They have been in various jobs and they have had to wander about from place to place seeking for posts. A very careful and important investigation has recently been carried out in the district of Bermondsey by two gentlemen who are very well qualified for this task, and in their published account of this investigation they say they inquired into the cases of 141 lads between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, and they find that in the last three years very nearly half the time of the boys concerned has been wasted—wasted in the sense that it was spent in enforced idleness, an idleness in the sense that many hours were spent in looking for work, tramping down to the employment exchange, hunting round the city, and killing time.
Nor is that all. In considering this question of unemployment it must be remembered that a large number, possibly the majority, of those who are employed between the ages of fourteen and eighteen are in occupations which are temporary and seasonal, and very frequently they are in occupations which are described as "blind alleys." For instance, immediately before Christmas nearly every boy is engaged in work, packing Christmas parcels. At the present time you would find in the unemployment centres very few girls, for they are all engaged at the present time in preparing for Easter, packing various

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parcels. At another time in the year several hundreds of girls who are normally unemployed are employed in the somewhat strange industry of cracking nuts for confectioners. There are a number of boys who, from morning until evening, spend their time either in cleaning bottles or fixing labels on tins or packages. In the ease of one boy, I was told that he had to spend most of the day in scrubbing rusty tins so as to make them appear as if they were new.
A very large number of boys are engaged in these employments which lead nowhere, which will come to an end probably at the age of sixteen, when they come under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and when their employment has come to an end it has not trained them or given them any prospects of future work. It is, I think, a very real disaster that so few boys are apprenticed in these days. From various figures taken from the London Census, it appears that out of every thousand male juveniles 399 are messengers at fourteen years of age, and only 47 out of that number become carpenters and only 32 bricklayers and masons. Very few of the boys who are leaving school now will be apprenticed. The problem, then, is that there are something like 200,000 juveniles without work at the present time; that a number of those who are in work have wasted months in looking for it; and that a large proportion of those who are in work have no prospects of permanent and satisfactory employment.
There are two factors which intensify this problem that ought to be borne in mind. At first, very few of these boys and girls who are out of work have any education after they leave school at fourteen. The boys who are attending continuation, secondary and evening schools are, as a rule, either those who are in work or those whose parents have no need to send them immediately into employment. Out of the boys and girls who left school two years ago in London—I do not know what are the figures for the whole country—eighty-seven out of every hundred are receiving no further education. The other factor which should be borne in mind is the appalling overcrowding that exists. Most of those who are unemployed live in overcrowded conditions. This means that they have to spend practically the whole of the day in
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the streets. They are able to go home for brief meals and for the night; otherwise, from early in the morning until late at night, they are wandering about the streets, either looking for work or occupying themselves in any amusement or distraction that may be had.
Demoralisation is bound to be the result of all this. After a very short time of unemployment a boy becomes coarsened, undisciplined, unregulated and unpunctual. Any one who has had experience of club work among boys will tell you that the most dangerous influence any boy has to meet is that of unemployment. All except the best characters among boys break under the test of a prolonged period without work. After a very short time without work, boys who were the most useful and the most valuable as leaders in their clubs almost invariably become ineffectual, irregular in their attendance, listless and apathetic. The physical results also are by no means negligible, for lack of employment often means lack of sufficient food Worst of all, after some months the boy who left school full of hope and enthusiasm loses all hope and becomes prematurely an old and disillusioned man, beaten in the battle of life.
Unemployment is the factory of the unemployable. Most of that class who are the despair of social reformers—the men who cannot work—come from those periods of unemployment between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. They have lost the discipline of school. They have not the help of their home. They have not the discipline of work. Out of these there come a, number who are bitter in their hearts against all government and all society. The experienced head of an unemployment centre told me that juvenile unemployment, in his opinion, was creating scores of Bolsheviks every week. When a boy is thrown out of work at the age of sixteen, often through no fault of his own, he becomes bitter against everybody. His bitterness increases as the impossibility of finding work dawns upon him, and he becomes a kind of Ishmael, with his hand against everyone and with a grievance against the world.
In addition to this, another sign of demoralisation is to be found in the connection between unemployment and crime. Here one must be rather careful

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in quoting statistics or statements because frequently, or at any rate occasionally, both unemployment and crime are due to the same cause—certain detects in character. But those who are most competent to know the facts of the case assure us that there is a very close connection between unemployment and crime. In the Report of the Commissioners of Prisons for last year there is a paragraph dealing with this matter. The Governors' Report says that last year unemployment was responsible for a large number of convictions, and two of them draw special attention to the conviction of youths who are unable to find regular employment after leaving school and have had their character sapped by passing several years in a state of idleness. The chief probation officer of Liverpool states that 85 per cent. of the cases he has had to deal with of juvenile offences are among those who are unemployed.
What are the methods at present adopted by the State for dealing with this problem? They are hopelessly inadequate and can be summed up very briefly. There is the juvenile exchange. Excellent work is done by many of those who are in charge of these exchanges, but only a minority of the unemployed juveniles register at these exchanges, and only a very small minority of the employers use them. Next, there are the after-care committees. But these committees are voluntary and depend upon voluntary help. They are in most cases hopelessly under-staffed. Next, there are the insurance payments. But these are limited to those between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Then, and most important of all, there are the unemployment centres, which have done and are doing admirable work. Some time ago a considerable amount of criticism was directed against them, but I do not believe that any one who had the slightest personal experience of those centres would have indulged in such ill-informed criticism. They are maintaining the self-respect of a large number of boys. They are not only keeping them out of mischief during the time they are out of work, but they are preparing them for future work.
These unemployment centres have carried on their work under exceptional difficulties. There have been continual
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disagreements between the education authorities and the Ministry of Labour, with the result that service at these unemployment centres has not been counted as time qualifying for a pension. I believe that the Minister of Education has now promised to change that state of affairs. These unemployment centres are under-staffed. They are often in unsatisfactory and gloomy buildings, and only a comparatively small proportion of the unemployed attend them, although it is a condition that those who are drawing unemployment pay should spend fifteen hours a week at one of these centres.
The real root of the difficulty has been that the Government of the day, in devising these various methods, has regarded this problem simply as a temporary one which would pass away. These have been makeshift policies dealing with a problem which, I think we are realising now, will be with us for a large number of years. Moreover, these schemes have been devised often without due attention to the educational needs and capacities of the adolescent. I am afraid, in looking for remedies, in this matter as in others, we have most unfortunately to distingush between what is the ideally right policy and what is practically possible. The ideally right policy, I feel, would be to increase the age at the elementary school to fifteen, and to see that those who have left school give half their time to work in some continuation school. This is not an impracticable point. Mr. Fisher, in another place, stated the other day that in New York State there were no fewer than 120,000 juveniles between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who are engaged in industry, and who are at the same time attending regularly some of these continuation schools. I believe that is the ideal policy towards which we ought to work, but I quite recognise that at the present time it is impossible. There is not the accommodation, there are not the teachers, and even if, at this moment, there were both the buildings and the teachers, the opposition of many of the parents would be so great that it would be impossible to carry out such a policy.
But there are, I believe, various lines on which practical measures could be adopted at once. First, I would suggest

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—these are by no means original suggestions; they have been brought forward time after time—that all unemployed juveniles should be registered. It is impossible, unless they are registered, to know the extent of the problem. No one to-day can tell definitely how many juveniles there are who are without employment. If all juveniles were forced to register when they wore out of work, it would be possible for those who are at the heads of the exchanges to guide them in looking for work, and advising them when they are thinking of taking some work which has been offered. All engagements and discharges should also be notified to the exchanges. This, of course, is a more difficult matter, though I do not think it is at all impossible.
I notice that last year the National Federation of Employers made a statement in which it seemed as if they accepted the policy of informing the exchanges of any engagements for work. I have spoken to more than one who is practically concerned with these matters and they believe that it would be quite feasible to carry this out. But if all juveniles have to register at the exchanges, it means that the exchanges would have to be considerably improved. At present, juveniles dislike the exchanges intensely, partly because they have often to wait so long there, and partly also because there is so little privacy. It is very difficult for a sensitive boy to state the whole of his case and his feelings before a number of other boys, strangers to him, who are waiting in the same room.
Next, I would urge that all those who are unemployed juveniles, whether they are under the age of sixteen or above, should attend the unemployment centres. It is hopelessly illogical that an unemployed boy of sixteen should be compelled to attend these centres if he is to draw his insurance pay, while nothing in the way of education is done for the boy who is fourteen or fifteen and out of work. More than once those who have been engaged in teaching in these schools have told me that their work would be far easier and far more beneficial if there were not this gap in the education of the boy from the time of his leaving school and the time of his coming to the unemployment centre. The last suggestion which I would support is that these unemployment centres should be brought
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directly under the Board of Education, and should be made part of the educational system of the country; that the buildings should be improved; that the curriculum should be revised; and that services in teaching at these centres should qualify the teacher for his pension. I have deliberately confined myself to only one aspect of this problem. I have not touched on perhaps the larger problem, the problem of how to find employment for the juveniles who are unemployed. I have wished to bring before your Lordships the loss and the hardship due to the neglect of the large number of juveniles between fourteen and eighteen who are unemployed. I hope that His Majesty's Government will be able to assure us that they have some thought-out policy for dealing with this question. At the present time the unemployed juvenile means, in some cases, the squandering of the education he has already received. It means deterioration in character, and it means the waste of lives which, in other circumstances, should have made quite useful citizens of this country.
LORD GA1NFOBD: My Lords, I do not know if I might intervene in this debate which has been raised so ably by the right rev. Prelate. There is no more hideous sight in the world than to see a man or a child tramping the roads of the country vainly seeking employment. We all deplore the present condition of trade in our country. The depressed state of many of our industries necessitates a great number of men being thrown out of employment, and when men are out of employment it necessarily follows that a great number of boys cannot find work when they leave school. It is natural for all boys at the age of fourteen to think that their education is completed. They are permitted at that age to leave the elementary school, and parents have not got into the habit of keeping their children at school after the age up to which, under the law, they must remain at school. There are, also, local education authorities who recognise the right of parents to take away their children before they have reached the end of the term after attaining the age, of fourteen. Perhaps the most satisfactory feature at the present moment in connection with our education is that parents are taking an

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increasing interest in the education given in the elementary schools. In some districts weekly educational efforts are made, and parents are invited to go to the school and see the progress their children are making. Steps of that kind are all to the good and will help to give parents an increasing interest in the education of their children.
I have no panacea, no remedy, to suggest for the awful problem which must be faced by the Government of the day—namely, what to do with our children when they reach the age at which they are permitted to leave school. There are 70,000 children reaching that age in London every year, and 250,000 in the whole country, and employment should be found for them of a healthy and satisfactory character. My own suggestion at the moment is that the Government should try to induce the educational authorities of this country to do something more than they have already done to influence parents to keep their children at school until a satisfactory opening can be found for them. Under our elementary school system it is not compulsory for children to leave school at the age of fourteen. They can be retained until they are fifteen years of age, or sixteen, and there are many free places in our secondary schools. Every schoolmaster I have spoken to on the subject tells me exactly the same thing—that if only the children wore retained at school it would be to the great advantage of the children themselves. A great number of them enter the "blind alley" occupations alluded to by the right rev. Prelate because nobody encourages them to remain at school.
What we want to do is to make our schools much more attractive to those children who have reached the age of fourteen: and much more attractive to the parents. There are a number of different directions in which, under our present curriculum, it is possible to interest children. Unfortunately, the teachers of this country are not very anxious to use their brains in order to make their schools more attractive for the children after they have attained the leaving age. In rural districts a great deal could be done by teaching gardening and agriculture. In our industrial centres much more could be done in the way of manual training. And in connection with the girls, it is most important
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that they should be taught domestic-economy, cooking, laundry work, and such matters. Very little is done to encourage parents to retain their children at school, and very little is done to encourage more attractive education in the schools.
I do not want a system to be established under which a child, the moment an occupation is offered, can be taken away from school. It is important that they should go forward with the particular work in which they are engaged until they have reached a particular standard; otherwise, their careers and characters will be to a large extent demoralised by the feeling that they are only at school in order to mark time. I am told by the education authorities that equipment is not a matter of serious moment in connection with the establishment of such educational classes, and I feel that in this direction much more can be done for the children now out of employment than has hitherto been done. I appeal to the Government to try to arouse the interest of education authorities in order to increase the attractiveness of the schools to the children and to the parents so that the children will remain longer at school. The asset to the country would be enormous. Schoolmasters realise that every additional year a child remains at school so much greater is the advantage which the child secures as the result of the education so given. In this way we could do a great deal to prevent that demoralisation so eloquently spoken of by the right rev. Prelate.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, there is no member of your Lordships' House but will admit the great importance of the subject introduced by the right rev. Prelate this afternoon. He has sketched with personal knowledge and experience the great loss the State must suffer by the development of the demoralised and unemployable element, because in their younger years these children have been unable to find employment, occupation or education. I take exception to one sentence uttered by the right rev. Prelate. He was referring to the different methods of dealing with these children and he spoke of the after-care committees rather coldly I thought. He said they were understaffed, and also that there was a great deal of voluntary effort connected with

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them. The latter fact rather recommended them to my idea. I have some knowledge of the work of the after-care committees in London, and though they may be under-staffed they do an immense amount of admirable and devoted work. They take care of children when leaving school; they meet the teachers and do excellent work; they advise as to some sort of occupation and try to get children some employment when they leave school. The right rev. Prelate will allow me to say that the work they do is really to be very highly commended.
Another point I desire to criticise in the speech of the right rev. Prelate is the criticism he made of the inter-action of the Board of Education and the Ministry of Labour. He rather suggested that they were in a state of perpetual feud. He must be alluding to some ancient matters that have passed away. I can assure him that there is now the utmost co-operation between these two Departments, and I have seen no sign myself, nor have I heard of any of these deplorable dissensions which in his view have delayed the improvement of the position of these children.
Though no doubt we all agree as to the seriousness of the problem of youth fill demoralisation, however large or small that problem may be, the remedies that we should suggest for it would, I suppose, largely depend upon our view as to whether in these early years it is better that the child should be educated or should have a combination of education and employment. I think the first thing to try to discover is what is the scope of the problem and what are the numbers with which we are dealing. The right rev. Prelate gave us some figures, and I should like to give your Lordships a few figures, too, prefacing them with the observation that it is difficult to get accurate figures on this subject. As he rightly says, it is much easier to obtain figures of children employed between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, because, as a condition of obtaining their unemployment benefit, they have to report themselves to employment centres. There is a greater difficulty regarding children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, because in their case, paradoxical as it may sound, though they are two years younger than the others, there is no such system of
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registration. I can tell the right rev. Prelate at once that this question of the registration of the younger generation of children, of those between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, is at the present time under consideration, and more than that I think he will hardly expect me to say upon that point.
Now I come to the nature and scope, if I may so call them, of this problem. As I have said, children under sixteen do not come under the Unemployment Insurance Acts and have not the same inducement to register as have those between sixteen and eighteen. A proportion of them do register, but what proportion those who register bear to the total of the uninsured groups cannot be exactly stated. I am able to give the following figures, with the reservations to which I have already alluded. In March, 1925, there were 65,921 boys and gills between the ages of fourteen and eighteen registered at employment exchanges or bureaux as totally unemployed. Taking a rough estimate that the number of registered and unregistered juveniles actually unemployed would show an increase of fifty per cent. on this figure, the total number of boys and girls now unemployed would be 98,881. The last Census shows that the total of occupied boys and girls in this age group was 2,196,904 on June 19, 1921, or about 2,250,000 at the present day, allowing for an increment of about 1 per cent. per annum. The total percentage of unemployment would therefore be about 4½ per cent. The number of boys and girls employed in normal years before the war is not known, but there is general agreement that in a normal pre-war year the supply of juvenile labour was not quite enough to meet the demand, though there were, naturally, fluctuations from year to year.
If you take the figures for the years 1919 to 1924, and assume that in each year the ratio of unregistered unemployed boys and girls to the number of registered boys and girls remains constant, there appears to be a continuous decrease in unemployment since 1921, and in the last year the difference between the figures of 70,000 odd in March, 1924, and 65,000 odd in March, 1925, shows a decrease which is greater than might otherwise appear, partly because the operation of the Unemployment Insurance Acts slightly inflates

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the registers, and partly because, as I understand, local education authorities do not always clear their registers but retain on them a proportion of young people at school or in work.
Serious unemployment among these young people is confined to a few centres. Naturally, the different degrees of unemployment between boys and girls vary very much in different districts. In the case of boys there is very serious unemployment in Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Swansea and some of the colliery districts of South Wales, and among girls in Swansea, Newcastle, Liverpool, Plymouth and Portsmouth. I understand that there is no evidence that any considerable proportion of the total number of juveniles now unemployed have been out of work for lengthy periods. Investigations made recently at juvenile unemployment centres show that such cases are comparatively infrequent and, when they exist, are often due either to the sub-normal condition of the children or to continued depression in some particular industry. These figures are undoubtedly serious, but I think that, perhaps, they are not quite so serious as some of those who dealt with this subject have been led to suppose.
So much for the figures of unemployment. May I now give parallel figures concerning education, and the number of those who are educated after the school-leaving age of fourteen? Of the 500,000 children who enter the elementary schools every year about 55,000 go to secondary schools, about 5,000 go to junior technical schools and about 25,000 to central schools, thus leaving about 400,000 who leave the elementary schools at the age of fourteen without any general system of education. The right rev. Prelate spoke, I think, of the London figures. The figures that I have show that of the 70,000 children leaving school in London at the age of fourteen, about 20,000 attend evening or part-time classes and about 7,000 join the Boy Scouts or Girl Guides, which leaves about 43,000 without further education. Again, the children who attend evening classes are very often employed children. A large proportion of those not being educated are, of course, being employed, and the question, as the right rev. Prelate has raised it, is: What is to be done with those who are
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not employed and are not getting education?
The right rev. Prelate went rather rapidly over the possibilities of various forms of education. I will deal with this point rather quickly, too. First of all, there is the proposal for a very largely increased number of secondary schools. I understand that plans for the replacement of, or the building of new, secondary schools, about 240 in number, representing an increase of about fifteen per cent., would cost £1,250,000 a year, and the buildings themselves would take about five years to erect. Consequently, it is clearly impossible to deal with this problem at all rapidly, and even if an attempt were made to double the number of those in secondary schools it would be impossible to deal with this problem in this way within the next few years. Then there is the question of increasing the number of central schools which give a higher elementary education up to fifteen years of age. The cost of these schools, as I understand, is half that of the secondary schools, but the cost of maintenance is very nearly as high—namely, four-fifths, of the cost in the secondary schools. The building problem in the case of these schools is, of course, very nearly as great as in the case of secondary schools. There is also a further proposal that has been suggested, I think, by Lord Gainford, who is an old Minister of Education, and that is the raising of the school age to fifteen. There are. I understand, only two authorities—East Suffolk and Carnarvon—who have sub mitted by-laws on the subject which have been approved, and very few local authorities will apply general compulsion to children up to fifteen years of age.
LORD GAINFORD: May I interrupt? My point was not so much that there should be compulsory education up to fifteen, although I know the local authorities have power, with the sanction of the Board of Education, to insist upon compulsion, but that, while the people of the country are not prepared for compulsory education, they are prepared for voluntary education if the schools are made more attractive and the curriculum better arranged.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Then I think the noble Lord recognises that it is not practical politics to raise the age to fifteen. And, indeed, there is another

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difficulty, I understand, because unemployment is now worse between the ages of fourteen and fifteen than between fifteen and sixteen, and assuming that you could build all the schools and staff them, you would rather push the question of unemployment a year forward and possibly make it more difficult for children between fifteen and sixteen to get occupation before the apprenticeship age of sixteen is reached. I believe there is also another educational difficulty, and that is that you may have to retain many of these children in the same classes, and very likely under the same teachers, and they would not gain so much in that last year if so retained as they would have gained when moving up through the different classes in the school.
I should like to make this general observation: that it would be an immense advantage of course if you could persuade industry that it was to the advantage of employment and of industrial processes to take children more educated at a rather higher age. If you could do that, it would have a reflex action upon the parents themselves, because if they recognised that it was to their interest and to the interests of their children to get better employment by keeping them a year or two years longer at school, that would have an immense effect upon the feelings of the parents towards the question of raising the school age or giving longer and fuller education to their children. There is required, therefore, speaking generally and shortly, some adjustment between the views of the parents and the views of industry on the question of school education.
Now I should like to say one word about the, form of proposals now being considered by His Majesty's Government and which were alluded to, in effect, by the right rev. Prelate in his speech. He spoke about the juvenile unemployment centres. These centres were originally opened in 1919 to meet the unemployment which followed the Armistice. They were discontinued for about a year and then revived in 1923 to meet the serious condition of things which had then arisen. Since 1923 they have been administered by local education authorities who have received a grant of 100 per cent. of the total cost from the Ministry of Labour, and that grant, I understand, has been proposed for 1925–26 only. The work of
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these centres has been carried on under considerable difficulties. They are housed, of course, in such premises as can be obtained by the local educational authorities, and they have been hitherto to some extent handicapped by the fact that the teaching in these centres has not been pensionable and therefore it is very difficult to get consecutive work from the teachers, although I understand that this difficulty is about to be remedied in the coming Bill.
The work in these centres has mainly benefited children between the ages of sixteen and eighteen rather than between fourteen and sixteen. Of the 9,258 young people attending these centres on March 4, only 2,152 were not in receipt of benefit. Of those a certain number may be presumed to be young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen not qualified for benefit, and therefore the conclusion is that less than 25 per cent. of those attending are between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. The question arises whether it is possible or wise to apply some measure of compulsion to those children between fourteen and sixteen; anyhow, to those in the insured trades between sixteen and eighteen who have fallen out of work. The other suggestion to be dealt with is the question of continuation schools. I put aside the proposal of the last Government to make the insurance ago fifteen, because it was defeated by the House of Commons.
The day continuation classes can be brought, of course, into operation by the machinery of the Act, but there is, I understand, a good deal of difficulty from the educational point of view. It will take a very long time to bring a general scheme into operation, because of the difficulty of teachers and buildings to which I have alluded. Then the number of hours under the Education Act works out at only eight per week for forty weeks in the year—not sufficient to keep boys or girls out of mischief—and the cost of bringing these schools into operation throughout the country is admitted to be about £4,000,000 a year.
There is another proposal which has been made, and it is that the local education authorities should retain the children in the schools until they obtain employment or reach the age of fifteen, whichever is the earlier. The objection

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to this is that the knowledge that these children may at any time leave on obtaining employment may have a rather slackening effect upon their work during that time, and that if boys older than fourteen left school on obtaining employment, and then lost it, it would be very difficult to bring them back into the school and into the school system; and of course that would not imply any control over boys and girls between fifteen and sixteen.
One of the suggested proposals which are being considered by the Government is that the local authority for higher education shall be given power, by bylaw or otherwise, to compel the attendance of juveniles of from fourteen to sixteen at juvenile unemployment centres in areas where the central authority is satisfied that juvenile unemployment is sufficiently severe to justify this step. The organisation of these centres is far more suitable than compulsory day continuation classes can be, because the boys or girls are free to leave on obtaining employment, and are usually not required to attend for more than fifteen hours a week—say, three hours a day for five days, either in the morning or in the afternoon. This gives plenty of time for the interviewing of employers or for the finding of work, while at the same time it provides quite an effective period of daily instruction.
Another advantage is that it can be applied rapidly and at a fraction of the cost which would be entailed either by raising the school age or by instituting compulsory day continuation classes throughout the country. And, in addition, these centres are in close touch with the exchanges or the juvenile unemployment bureaux, and those who are in charge of them can make it one of their chief objects to raise the morale of these young people and assist them to obtain work in school; while, of course, the teacher would naturally be employed on his proper work of education. It is thought that a very considerable addition may be made to the numbers of those occupied in this way if these unemployment centres are established. It is further suggested, I believe, that the local educational authority should be able to distinguish between the sexes and possibly to make attendance compulsory
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in some areas and not in others, so as to make the system as flexible as can be.
I should like to say that these proposals are not put forward as a definite educational alternative either to raising the school age or to the establishment of day continuation classes. These centres have been in existence for several years, and the object of this proposal is to make them more effective as regards juveniles from fourteen to sixteen years of age. This is not a development of the educational system, and it is not to be so built up as to have a necessary organic relation to it. It is expressly directed to combat the demoralisation arising from unemployment, and does not pretend to be anything more. It is quite probable, however, that parents, faced with the compulsory attendance of children of the ages of fourteen to sixteen years at these juvenile unemployment centres, might prefer to keep them on for another year on a voluntary basis; or, on the other hand, the compulsory attendance of children at the centres might gradually prepare a way for compulsory day continuation classes. Then again, the question of the transfer of the centres to the Board of Education is now being considered. Whether this change is made or not, of course it is absolutely essential that the centre should remain in the closest possible touch with the juvenile exchanges, or with the choice of employment machinery which many educational authorities are now administering.
In many parts of the country this juvenile unemployment is very slight, and may almost be said to be non-existent; it can be accounted for by the short intervals that always must occur, however good employment may be, between leaving school and obtaining work, or between one job and another. In other areas it is appreciable, but not severe—certainly not more severe than before the war—while in much smaller, and in some considerable areas, there is severe juvenile unemployment, ranging from 10 per cent. up to a considerably higher figure. The Government believe that their proposals are best designed to meet the situation, because they can be brought into operation without the delays inevitable in any large modification or extension of the general system of education, since the efforts and the expenditure can be concentrated on the areas where that problem

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is most difficult and most urgent. It has another advantage, that it will not commit the Government hurriedly or without full consideration to any particular line of development in our educational system, because it is devised to meet a special emergency.
I should like to say that all these points and one or two other matters that were alluded to by the right rev. Prelate are going to be considered, I understand, very shortly in a conference of the local education authorities. They will avoid, I understand, going over much of the ground that has been already thrashed out, and which is known, and will address themselves in a thoroughly practical spirit to the working out of the scheme for the setting up and development of these unemployment centres which, though not a complete settlement of the whole problem, as the right rev. Prelate well knows, yet may do a great deal, I think, or at any rate act as a powerful palliative towards the diminution of the demoralisation of these young people who—whether the numbers be small or great—must suffer severely at these youthful ages through having neither employment nor education.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I wish to begin the brief criticism which, I have to make of the speech of the noble Viscount by a reference to the Notice of the right rev. Prelate. I think the right rev. Prelate was peculiarly justified in bringing up this question. He spoke with knowledge of his own diocese, a diocese which has been deeply studied in this connection. There was a book which was widely read a few years ago, called "Across the Bridges," written by Mr. Patterson, who, I am glad to say, is now in the permanent service of the State. In that book there was brought out the appalling state of things which prevailed on the south side of the river, among just that class of boys to whom this Question refers. Education, so far as it is compulsory, stops at fourteen, and for the most part there is none after that time. I am not deprecating the use of unemployment centres, but they only touch a very small part of the problem with which we are concerned.
It is a great delusion to think that education consists of three parts, primary, secondary, and higher, and that these are separate. It is a great delusion
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to think that you have done a good dear when you have given a primary education to all, and left the secondary for the few who are fit to take advantage of it, and the higher to the still fewer who have the chance of going on. The future of this country depends on education. We are surrounded by competitors at every turn, and we shall not be able to hold our own as a nation or as an Empire unless we develop education in the way that is going on on the Continent and in other countries. It is essential that we should tap that vast reservoir of undeveloped talent which exists among the uneducated children of our working classes, and in which lies buried even genius to a high degree. We have never realised our possibilities in this respect. We have never taken them seriously We have never thought how much it would add to the production of this country if we only had that talent devoted to it.
But it is not merely production, it is not merely material prosperity, it is not merely the development of the nation that one has to have in view in these things; it is what education in itself means, what a change it makes for the better. We all know how vastly improved are the manners and customs of the boys and girls in this generation compared with those of fifty years ago, when they were uneducated and illiterate and had no sense of manners or anything else connected with the outlook of the better classes. That is changing. Our manufacturers are beginning to realise that they must have highly trained minds m their employment if they are to make the most of their industries. Our working classes are realising it, too. I know a navy who has had eight children and wages in the average of much less than £2 a week; yet that man has sent five out of his eight children to a secondary school, and educated them without assistance and at his own expense. That is a state of things which is far more common among the working classes than is thought.
I am always annoyed when I hear it said that the working classes will not stand their children being taken away from employment. I have seen a good deal of the working classes. I have gone about amongst them, and the best of them do not say that. The mothers, even more than the fathers, want their children to have a better chance that they

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have had and not to be miserably held down as they were themselves. I believe that to be not only a growing feeling among the working classes, but a very widely spread feeling, and it is for the Government and those who know to give them a lead and to develop public opinion on this side. It is not so many shillings a week more for the working class family that we have to look to primarily, though that, no doubt, is a very good thing, but far better is it for them that their children should be given a chance of being able to fend for themselves at the earliest opportunity and to be bettered, not only in manners but in mind and in spirit.
I said that it is a delusion to divide education artificially in the way we do. The problem we have before us is a serious one. It is as to how to provide such a system that everyone shall have a chance—not everybody can take advantage of it, but everybody ought to have the chance—of going through a course of education which knows no grade and comprises the three divisions of which I have spoken. Your elementary education means that you are getting all the education you are capable of having up to fourteen years of age. Then there ought to be a chance of getting the higher education which is given in what we call the secondary schools. Finally, there ought to be the chance, as I am glad to say there is to-day through the Workers' Education Association and other organisations, of getting some of the benefit of the University spirit and also a chance for the most talented to get within the walls of the University itself. That is the work which the Royal Commission has set itself to consider and which is being developed, much to their credit, by the great Universities, and not least by Oxford and Cambridge. That is the education problem—to provide a system for those of our children (and there are many who have it in them) who, with encouragement and stimulation, can make far more use of it than is possible at the present time. Throughout his speech the noble Viscount spoke as if this might be a very good thing.
VISCOUNT PEEL: As if what might be a very good thing?
VISCOUNT HALDANE: To push education and to give these people a chance;
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but the noble Viscount did not speak as if it were a necessary thing. To me it is a necessary thing. To me it is the one thing without which our country will not have a chance in the future, and certainly will not be able to compete with other countries. Therefore, all these propositions to give something short of full opportuntities for education, to set up unemployment centres and things of that, kind, though good in themselves, do not solve the problem. My complaint of the speech of the noble Viscount is that he showed no sense of the magnitude of the problem or of its importance, either from the point of view of the right rev. Prelate who spoke of the state of affairs in his own diocese or the still more extensive point of view of the nation as a whole. We have to give the people of this country a chance of education. As I said, they cannot all take it, but at least they ought to have a chance of it.
Then comes the alternative way of dealing with things to which the noble Viscount rather leaned—the carrying of elementary education up to the age of fifteen. He spoke of the difficulties of it, the difficulties of making it compulsory, and the divided opinion of the working classes. As I have already said, I doubt whether the opinion of the working classes is really so divided as he thinks it is; but I agree very much with the opinion of my noble friend Lord Gainford, who observed that the important question was not that of making elementary education compulsory up to the age of fifteen, but of providing such facilities that the parents of the boys and girls would be encouraged to take advantage of them.
If you go to Scotland, where education is in many respects more advanced than in England, you will find that parents really value it. If you go to a railway station in the morning you will see boys and girls of fifteen, unable to get more than a good, sometimes a very good, elementary education in the village schools, going off to the local centres where there are secondary schools and there, with small bursaries and other assistance, continuing their education. There is no compulsion needed. The parents have a keen sense of the advantage of education, and they send their children in every way they can. That is the kind of spirit which we have to encourage in this country. But we

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shall not get that spirit if the Government pursues half-hearted means towards its attainment.
I know the difficulties and the opposition that have to be overcome in these things, but I want to insist upon this. It is not by setting up an inadequate standard and saying: "This is all that we can do", that you will mould public opinion. If you can get public opinion on your side, you will overcome the difficulties of which the noble Viscount has spoken. It is all very well to talk of the labour aspect of the question. I know the narrow views that prevail among a certain section of working men about this matter. What I am interested in pressing upon the noble Viscount is that it is a diminishing opposition. It is an opposition which will diminish still more if he takes the question up in the larger view which I have been trying imperfectly to advocate, and make education a thing about which the public in this country are moved to care because they understand what it is. That is what I am at.
All such palliative measures as unemployment centres, which are good as far as they go, and other things are quite inadequate to a solution of the problem. What is more and what is worse, I find in the speech of the noble Viscount, just as I find in the speeches that are naturally made on behalf of Governments about education, a great failure to realise what the problem really means, and how it concerns the whole ration and not merely a section of it.
VISCOUNT PEEL: The noble and learned Viscount will pardon me for interrupting him, but I should have made, no doubt, a very eloquent speech had I been able to deal with the whole range of education and the whole country. But I was dealing with a very limited point in regard to the unemployment of children, and I was considering what could be immediately and practically done, considering all the difficulties of general educational development, to deal with these children and save them from pressing and immediate demoralisation.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My comment on what the noble Viscount has said is that it is just because it lies in that point that you have to develop the larger aspect of it if you are to have even a chance of solving the problem. You cannot deal
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with this question of unemployment apart from the general question of education. You Cannot get rid of it by putting forward measures which, after all, are small and palliative. It is true that it is a very good thing to deal with the unemployment of children; but it is not enough, nor does it even lead to a solution of the question. You have to go further than ever was proposed in the Act of 1918. You have to go further because public opinion has advanced further and because we cannot be behind that public opinion. Sooner or later, the time will come when a generation which follows ours, will laugh at the kind of thing which we have been in the habit of saying about education.
It is because I feel that the attitude of the Government is not adequate to this subject that I have risen to speak. I appreciate the hard and excellent work which the noble Lord who presides over the Ministry of Education is doing. I think it is worthy of all praise and I am not miscalling it in the least; but I say that until Parliament rises to a larger sense of the problem with which it is concerned we shall never even be on the way to solving the problem itself.
LORD SOUTHWARK: My Lords, we have heard a great deal about education and unemployment during this debate, but I have heard no suggestion about creating employment. I represented for twenty-two years, in the House of Commons the See of the right rev. Prelate who addressed us to-night, and during my experience as that representative this question of employment came before me a great deal. It seems to me that what we want in dealing with this problem is a little more free trade in apprenticeship. We educate boys, and then when it is time for them to go to work their fathers cannot apprentice them.
I have had fathers come to me and say: "What am I to do with my boy?" My advice to them always was: "Have your boy taught a trade, and then he will always have a livelihood." But the difficulty now is that when a boy reaches working age he cannot find an opening to become an apprentice. There is a barrier in his way, and I ask that are investigation should be made to see whether it is not possible to widen the

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scope for apprentices. Many great industries admit apprentices, but there are many other industries in which there is no organisation for apprenticeship. We ought, therefore, to have an investigation to find out where the barrier is to apprenticeship, and see whether it cannot be removed and whether we cannot have more free trade in apprenticeship.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, the right rev. Prelate who introduced this subject said that the most serious condition for young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen—and he might have said between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five, or any age—is to be out of work. It leads to demoralisation, and to crime and vice, and to everything which is wrong. Therefore I am heartily in agreement with the right rev. Prelate so far as that goes, but when he comes to his remedy I part company with him. I listened to the noble and learned Viscount opposite making some suggestions in a long dissertation about education, and I beg leave very humbly to differ from him. The noble and learned Viscount said that if you educate these boys—by which I presume he means to give them book education—they will immediately find employment. May I ask the noble and learned Viscount whether it is not the fact that all barristers who are called to the Bar have had a good education, and whether it is not also the fact that at the present moment a large number of barristers are complaining that it is impossible to earn a living at their profession, notwithstanding the fact that they have had an excellent education?
There is only one Lord Chancellor, and there are only a certain number of Judges—I do not remember how many, but for the sake of argument let us say fifteen or twenty. If you educate many millions of people they cannot all be Lord Chancellors, neither can they all be Judges. It is only the exceptional people, like the noble and learned Viscount himself, who come to the front, and he did not do so from the force of education but from the force of character, and probably also from a strong constitution. Therefore, I do not think that we can deal with this problem by keeping boys and girls a year or two longer at the elementary schools or at the secondary schools. My own belief is that a good deal of the unemployment arises from the bad education
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given in primary schools. If the boys were taught a trade—and I gather that is what the noble Lord opposite (Lord Southwark) is in favour of—and if they were allowed to leave school a little earlier in order that they might learn a trade, they would be more likely to be successful in after life and to be good citizens. Only the other day a man was brought up before the bench of magistrates on which I sit because his child had gone to work for a farmer. The boy was fourteen years of age, but the term had not finished, and the school representative demanded that the boy should go back to the school. We were obliged to order him to do so, but how much better it would have been for the boy if he had continued in the employment of the fanner instead of going back to school to be taught, very likely, socialistic doctrines !
I am glad my noble friend below me (Viscount Peel) is not going to do very much in the direction suggested by the right rev. Prelate and by the noble and learned Viscount opposite. I had always hoped that with the advent of the Conservative Government we should have retrenchment. The old motto of the Party to which the noble and learned Viscount opposite once belonged was "Retrenchment," "Fewer officials and fewer Government buildings." Now, I understand, the right rev. Prelate would like more officials and more Government buildings. I also understand that the cost of these things would be very great. There was one omission from the speech of the right rev. Prelate, and that was he did not tell us what would be the cost of these juvenile centres. I hope the Government have thought of that.
VISCOUNT PEEL: It is a little difficult to give my noble friend an exact estimate. It depends on whether you can find accommodation in existing buildings, and so on.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: It is to be hoped that accommodation will not be found, and also that the Government will not build. If I may venture to say what I think would be a solution of this difficulty, it would be, first of all, an increase in trade. That is the first thing we have to do, and in order to get an increase in trade we must have a diminution of expenses and taxation.

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Having got that, we might then have an increase in trade, and might have more employment for these young people. Unless we do something of that sort, and unless we put down the "dole" and discourage fathers from being an object lesson to their children of how to live without doing anything—unless we do that, and compel people to work, or if they do not work ensure that they have a very unpleasant time, I am afraid that we shall not go very far in the direction that is required.
Some question was raised about unemployment among girls. May I point out to the right rev. Prelate that you cannot get a kitchen maid or a servant of that description for love or money? If these people, instead of being sent to a school, were sent into private houses and taught to become domestic servants, you would decrease to a very large extent the unemployment among women. It is the very thing that the noble and learned Viscount wants which has led to this state of things. There has been so much education that the young people think they are too grand to go to ordinary work, and they want to wear black coats and become Lord Chancellors like the noble and learned Viscount opposite.

THE HEJAZ RAILWAY.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I wish to ask His Majesty's Government whether they propose taking any steps to facilitate the restoration of the Hejaz Railway. The Hejaz Railway, as most of your Lordships know, runs from Damascus to Medina. It was built by the Turkish Government with the object of facilitating the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. It was paid for by subscriptions raised all over the Mahomedan world, and especially in India, and was constituted a religious trust. During the war the bridges on that railway were destroyed by us. They have to a certain extent been repaired, but they have not been rebuilt, and as things are at present there is no prospect of the railway being put into proper order or efficiently run.
This question is one of great importance to all Mahomedans. Most of the people who go on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina are desirous of going also to Jerusalem. To the Shiah Mahomedans, among whom are many millions of
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Indians, it is of particular importance, because in order to perform their religious duties they have not only to visit Mecca and Medina but also Kerbela, and to do this their easiest way is to go via Damascus. At the present time they have fewer facilities for performing this pilgrimage than before the war. At present the situation in the Hejaz is uncertain, but one may be quite sure that whichever side wins it will never run the railway efficiently without assistance, and whichever side wins will welcome assistance if it is tactfuly offered. The sort of assistance which I venture to suggest His Majesty's Government might offer would take the form of materials and competent Moslem engineers, and if by this means it is possible to put the railway into working order the British Government might at a very small cost, probably at no cost at all, perform an act which will earn for them the gratitude of all pious Moslems.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I can only reply as to those sections of the Hejaz railway which lie within the territory for which His Majesty's Government are responsible as the Mandatory Power. His Majesty's Government have no responsibility in this respect for the sections of the Hejaz railway which lie within Syria and the Hejaz. I presume that when the noble Lord speaks of restoration he has in mind the repair of the permanent way, provision of rolling stock, and the organisation of train services on the section concerned.
The position of the section that lies within territory in respect of which we are responsible under the Mandate is as follows:—From Haifa to El Hamme, where the line crosses the Syria-Palestine frontier, and from Nasib, where it crosses again into Trans-Jordan, to Amman, the line is run as a single unit separate from the Palestine Railways, but under the control of the head office and general manager of the Palestine Railways. Trains circulate freely upon these two sections. The control of the Amman-Maan section remains for the moment in the hands of the Hejaz Government, to whom it was assigned by the late chief British representative in Trans-Jordan on his own initiative. His action was not confirmed by His Majesty's Government, but it

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has not yet been found possible to extend the control of the Palestine Railways' administration further south than Amman. The matter is engaging the careful consideration of the Government, and I am unable to give any definite information on the point at present, but if the noble Lord will put down a Question at some later date I shall be glad to afford him such further information as may be available.

BOROUGH COUNCILLORS (ALTERATION OF NUMBER) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee rend.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Alteration of number of councillors of boroughs.
1. The powers of dividing boroughs into wards and altering wards conferred by Section thirty of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, as amended by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1893, shall be extended so as to include power to alter the number of councillors of a borough and in the case of a borough divided into wards, to apportion or alter the apportionment of the councillors among the wards, and accordingly a petition may be presented by the council of a borough under that section as so amended praying for an alteration of the number of councillors of the borough, either with or without a division of the borough into wards or an alteration of the number or boundaries of the wards; and for the purposes of any such petition and the proceedings thereon, the provisions of the said section shall apply with the necessary modifications, and in particular with the modification that in the case of a borough not divided into wards, the Order in Council fixing the number of councillors of the borough shall take effect from such date as may be specified therein, and subsections (3) to (15) of the said section shall not apply
LORD DESBOROTJGH LORD DESBOROTJGH moved to omit the words: "and in particular with the modification that in the case of a borough not divided into wards", and insert "save that in the case of a petition presented by the council of a borough not divided into wards praying only for an
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alteration of the number of councillors in the borough". The noble Lord said: This Amendment is moved in pursuance of an undertaking I gave on the Second Reading of the Bill. It is merely a drafting Amendment and is put down to carry out a promise given in another place that this Amendment would be inserted here when the Bill reached your Lordships' House.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 21, leave out from ("modifications") to the first ("the") in line 23, and insert the said words.—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: This Amendment was, as the noble Lord has said, put down in another place but, by mistake, was not moved there. I think it is a little more important than the noble Lord has indicated, because it preserves to the ratepayers the right of saying whether or not a borough is to be divided into wards. It is not left to a Government Department to arrange the matter. I am much obliged to the Government and to the noble Lord for bringing forward the Amendment, which, as he says, was an agreed Amendment in another place.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.

TOWN PLANNING BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

HOUSING BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the House to be put into Committee.
LORD HUNSDON OF HUNSDON: My Lords, I have one point to bring before your Lordships. I propose to move an Amendment on the Third Reading, and it would be convenient to me, if it would suit the convenience of your Lordships, that this stage should be taken on Tuesday.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

TOWN PLANNING (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the House to be put into Committee
LORD HUNSDON: My Lords, may I assume that the Third Reading of this Bill will be taken on Tuesday?
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Yes, on Tuesday.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
House adjourned at a quarter before six o'clock.

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LANARKSHIRE HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.

LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (DOCK CHARGES) BILL. [H.L.]
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, on behalf of the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 91 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2a accordingly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT: My Lords, I beg to move that the leave of the House be given to my consent to postpone till after the adjourned debate on the naval base at Singapore, to-day, the Notice standing in my name, which arises out of a debate which took place in this House on March 5. It has been brought to my notice that it would be for the general convenience of the House if this were done.
LORD PARMOOR: I know your Lordships will be glad to assent to the Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

HOUSING BILL. [H.L.]
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the enactments relating to the Housing of the Working Classes in England and Wales,
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and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the enactments relating to the Housing of the Working Classes in Scotland, and to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That, the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Probation areas, committees and officers.
(9) Section seven of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914 (which relates to the recognition of societies for the care of youthful offenders on probation), shall cease to have effect.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON moved to leave out subsection (9) and insert the following new subsection: "(9) Nothing in this Part of this Act shall affect the right of voluntary societies to supply agents for the missionary work in any probation area or for engagement as probation officers." The right rev. Prelate said: It must not be supposed for one moment that in moving this Amendment I am opposing the Bill in any way. Indeed, I am most enthusiastically in favour of the Bill before the House, but there is one collateral point on which I, with many of my brother Bishops, feel

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very strongly, and that relates to the appointment of probation officers. If your Lordships will take the Bill in your hands you will find that subsection (9) reads as follows:—
" Section seven of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914 (which relates to the recognition of societies for the care of youthful offenders on probation), shall cease to have effect."
That is the only mention in the Bill of voluntary assistance, and I wish to tell your Lordships what has been done, and why we feel so strongly with regard to probation and missionary work in the police courts.
If there is one thing of which the Church of England has been proud, and especially the Church of England Temperance Society, it has been the police court mission, which began in 1876 when there were two missioners sent to two of the police courts. In 1907 we had 143 missionaries working in 358 courts; we have now 155 missionaries working in 362 courts, and on this particular work we spend £33,000 a year. There are many people with very little sympathy with our temperance work in other respects, who have spoken enthusiastically in favour of this particular work, and all the magistrates into whose courts we send our missionaries have informed us again and again that without these police court missionaries it would be almost impossible to carry on their work.
In 1922 a Departmental Committee set up by the late Government made a Report, and I would call attention to the extraordinarily favourable terms in which this Committee, of which Sir John Baird was the Chairman, spoke with regard to our police court missionaries. I will proceed to quote a series of extracts from what they said:—
" Further, the probation officer has hitherto owed much of his success to the relationship he has been able to establish with the probationer, who looks upon him as a friend, not as an official. To turn the probation officer into a new class of civil servant would, we believe, tend to destroy tin's valuable influence…
" As we have indicated above the supply of probation officers throughout the country depends to a large extent on the work of voluntary societies. The principal of them is the Church of England Temperance Society, which has performed most valuable services in supplying for this field of social work a number of devoted men and women … "
I call your special attention to what follows:—
" We think it would be a great pity to take any step which would endanger the carrying on of this valuable work …
" All the witnesses, including magistrates whom we consulted, were unanimous in attaching great importance to the missionary work of the courts …. Courts and local authorities should not discriminate too narrowly between probation work and missionary work."
The last statement which I will quote has a particular bearing on this question:—
" Many qualifications were mentioned to us as desirable in a good probation officer. Sympathy, tact, common sense, firmness, are but a few, but there was a general agreement that a keen missionary spirit based on religious conviction is essential."
We have carried on this work since 1878, and all the magistrates have welcomed our co-operation.
This is a matter in which the Church has really educated the nation, but when we turn to this Bill we find no mention whatever made in it of the societies. It is a great mistake to discourage the work of these voluntary societies. It is not customary in this country to discourage such voluntary effort. We do not discourage voluntary hospitals; we did not abolish voluntary schools when the nation adopted national education—we encouraged them. And therefore it would be a false step to throw away the £30,000 a year which voluntary societies are ready to supply for this particular work. The last point, and the strongest of all, is that for this work you must have a man of a certain character—a man with some kind of missionary zeal, some kind of power to influence character. It is no good to turn him into a mere civil servant, who takes his money and does his best : you must have a man with a special character. And what we are so anxious for in this great improvement of our national system is that the voluntary societies should be allowed to supply men as they have done up till now. We pay one-third and the State pays two-thirds, and by that means we get the type of man which the country really needs for this very special work.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, lines 21 to 24, leave out subsection (9) and insert the said new subsection.—(The Lord Bishop of London.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): I am very much in sympathy

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with what has been said by the right rev. Prelate, but there is no desire to interfere with the work of these societies. The right rev. Prelate seems to think that there is something in the Bill which may affect that work, but there is nothing in the Bill which touches it. We leave it completely intact, and I hope, therefore, that he will be content with my assurance that that is so.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: I would willingly accept the noble and learned Viscount's assurance, but if there is nothing in the Bill whatever about the voluntary societies would not a magistrate's clerk, interpreting the Bill, say that under this clause we are not allowed to intervene ?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: You give your personal assurance ?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: Very well, I accept the noble and learned Viscount's assurance, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 (Summary trial of adults charged with certain indictable offences):
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have to move a drafting Amendment to this clause.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 14, leave out (" charge ") and insert ("offence charged").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 (Provisions as to reading over, etc., of depositions and as to statement of accused on proceedings before examining justices) :
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Here again is what is merely a drafting Amendment, the purpose of which is to get rid of a verbal obscurity in subsection (4).
Amendment moved—
Page 10, lines 24 and 23, leave out (" him if he so desires and also by the examining
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justices ") and insert (" the examining justices and also if he so desires by him ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in the last paragraph of subsection (5), after "aforesaid," to insert "not being a witness merely to the character of the accused." The noble and learned Viscount said: This, again, is just a drafting Amendment. It was never intended that witnesses merely to character should have all their statements written out. They should be taken note of, and used in the usual way, as they are at present.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 9, after (" aforesaid ") insert the said words.— (The, Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 13 to 15 agreed to.
Clause 16:
Provisions as to issue of process by justices in case of persons outside jurisdiction.
(4) The power of a justice under section sixteen of the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, and under section seven of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848, to issue process for the purpose of obtaining the attendance as a witness of any person within the jurisdiction of the justice, shall he extended so as to authorise the issue of such process in the case of a person who though not within the jurisdiction of the justice is in any county or place in England or Wales.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (4), after "justice," where that word secondly occurs, to insert "and under section twenty-nine of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, to summon and require any such person to attend as a witness and to produce such books, plans, papers, documents, articles, goods and things as are mentioned in the said section." The noble and learned Viscount said: That Amendment is to enable the magistrates to get the documents that are, necessary, as well as to summon witnesses. It is a little more than a drafting Amendment, but it makes no substantial alteration.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 5, after (" justice ") insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause l6, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 17 to 20 agreed to.
Clause 21:
Court of quarter sessions on appeal to state case on point of law.
(2) The applicant shall, before the case is stated and delivered to him by the court of quarter sessions, enter before a justice having jurisdiction in the county or place for which the court of quarter sessions acts into a recognisance, with or without sureties and in such sum as the justice considers proper, conditioned to prosecute the appeal without delay and to submit to the judgment of the High Court, and pay such costs as may be awarded by that court, and the applicant shall before the case is delivered to him pay to the clerk of the peace his fees for and in respect of the case, and to the clerk to the justice his fee for and in respect of the recognisances.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, in subsection (2), after "as the justice considers proper," to insert "having regard to the means of the applicant." The noble Earl said: This is an Amendment to which I hope His Majesty's Government will see their way to agree. Your Lordships will see that subsection (2) of Clause 21 provides that if there is to be an appeal to quarter sessions the justice who has jurisdiction shall make the applicant enter into recognisances, with or without sureties and in such sum as the justice considers proper, conditioned to prosecute the appeal without delay. It has been my experience that very often, in the case of poor persons, sums are named for the sureties which it is impossible for them to find. I recollect a case in which a man who obviously had no goods and chattels was required to be bound over himself in £40 and two sureties in £50 each. I recollect also a case, quite lately, of an appeal from the decision of the magistrates to quarter sessions in which two sureties of £50 each had to be found. The result very often is to make appeals impossible to the poor, and I am sure your Lordships would not desire that result. At the same time, there should not be any encouragement of frivolous appeals.
Therefore, the Amendment I propose does not in any way limit the discretion of the justice, but merely puts before him, as one of the things to which he should have regard, the condition of the applicant and his power of getting the sureties required. I desire to insert in line 33, on page 20, after "proper,"
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" having regard to the means of the applicant"; so that the justice should have before him the fact that in some eases smaller sureties should be required than in others. I do not want to limit the discretion of the justice, but I think your Lordships will agree that the opportunity for appeal should not be limited simply because a person is poor.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 33, after (" proper ") insert ("' having regard to the means of the applicant ").—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that this is a reasonable Amendment and I am glad that the noble Earl has called attention to the point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 22 and 23 agreed to.
Clause 24 (Enforcement of recognisances to be of good behaviour):
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "recognisance was entered into "and to insert "court by which the recognisance was ordered to be entered into was held." The noble Viscount said: This is merely a necessary drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 9, leave out (" recognisance was entered into") and insert ("court by which the recognisance was ordered to he entered into was held ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, at the end of the clause, to insert the following new subsection: "(3) Where a defendant refuses to enter into recognisances to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour, he shall not be liable to a heavier penalty than could have been inflicted upon him if convicted of the offence originally charged."
The noble Earl said: I want to insert the new subsection as printed on the Paper for this reason. I am not, quite certain that I am stating the law correctly, but I think I am. The noble and learned Viscount will correct me if I am wrong: but I believe that in cases where a person is charged with a very minor offence, for which probably the maximum penalty would be three days' or seven days' imprisonment, or some-

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thing of that sort, the justice, instead of proceeding to conviction may, under the provisions of the First Offenders' Act, offer to bind him over to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour, as the case may be. That is obviously intended as an alleviation of his powers. Now the section certainly did provide when it was Section 10 of the old Act, "where the ease was trivial or one which does not require conviction." Therefore, presumably, the offence is not so serious as the full offence charged; but if the defendant who is ordered to be bound over refuses to be bound over, then, I believe, a justice has power to sentence him to a month's imprisonment in default of his being so bound. That is a more severe penalty.
Your Lordships will remember what happened in regard to the suffragettes. "Hundreds of these women were sent to prison for a month for refusal to find sureties, although the particular offence with which they were charged was one for which the maximum penalty was three days' imprisonment. That is obviously an anomaly. I have in my recollection a case, in which the magistrate deliberately used this power in regard to a Salvation Army captain who had been preaching in the streets and causing an obstruction. He was summoned for causing an obstruction, and he was simply ordered to be bound over. But, like the suffragettes, he thought it was a matter of principle to refuse, and he refused to be bound over. He was, therefore, sent to prison for a month. That is obviously a straining of the law, and I hope your Lordships will agree that in future that should not be possible. I do not think it often happens now, but it does happen. It happened in innumerable cases during the suffragette agitation, but it ought not to happen again. When a person is summoned for an offence for which the penalty is small, the penalty for refusing to enter into recognisances should not be greater than that to which he is originally liable. Therefore, I move the insertion of the new subsection which stands in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 19, at end insert the, said new subsection.—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: On the last occasion I was with my noble friend
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in his suggestion, but this time I cannot be with him. The fallacy, if he will permit me to call it so, of the Amendment is that it assumes that there is always some definite offence rigidly charged before the man is called upon to enter into recognisances. I will take the very illustration which he gave,—some of the threats made by the suffragettes. They often proposed to do a number of things, some of which were small offences, but sometimes they accompanied that by saying: "We mean to burn down your house." Therefore, the magistrate, who is a judicious person, not taking the lady very seriously but seeing that she was threatening something very serious indeed, has said: "I bind you over in your own recognisance not to do this thing."
If there had been a small offence charged to the lady, it might have been very well to limit the penalty for breach of recognisance to that small offence. Very often the magistrate took into account not merely the little thing that arose at the beginning but the much larger thing—the burning down of the house—which had also been mentioned, and, instead of going into the specific offence, he said: "I think you ought to be ordered to enter into your own recognisances and recognisances against all the things which you have, threatened to do," there being no offence charged of the larger nature, but still an offence which was possible. In that case it would have been very inadequate if the penalty for breach of recognisance had been limited, to the little thing and had not extended to the larger thing to which the recognisance had been made to extend. The effect of the Amendment would be to repeal, or to alter, the existing law in Section 25 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, which has been a very useful provision. I think it is much better not to put a limit on the penalty which would have to be imposed.
EARL RUSSELL: Will the, noble and learned Viscount tell me what limit there is to the sentence of imprisonment that can be inflicted in default of recognisance ?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Under Section 25 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act the Court may order a defendant to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour,

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or, in default, to be imprisoned for a period not exceeding six months if it is a Court of Quarter Sessions, or if it is some other court of summary jurisdiction, for a period not exceeding 14 days.
EARL RUSSELL: I still think, with all respect to the noble and learned Viscount, that that is a very heavy penalty where a person is not charged with having incited to commit an offence, or having attempted to commit an offence, but where he is merely bound over to keep the peace and he says, for reasons probably bad, that he will not be so bound. I submit that it is a dangerous power, and at any rate it seems to me that my Amendment as it stands would deal with an offence which was charged. If there was another offence to be charged, with a heavier penalty attaching to it, let it be charged, and the magistrate would be able to inflict a heavier penalty. The clause as it stands does enable you, by a side wind, to inflict a heavier penalty than any which can be inflicted for the offence which has been gone into in court. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount, and other noble and learned Lords in this House, will see their way to support my Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is not merely a breach of the recognisance to be of good behaviour that is in question. I think it is much better to leave it as it is in the Bill.
VISCOUNT CAVE: If the noble Earl presses his Amendment, I should like to say that I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord Chancellor. Ex hypothesi the man has threatened to do something, or is expected to do something, dangerous to the community. He is asked to bind himself to be of good behaviour, and he refuses to do so. I am sure that a penalty such as is inflicted by Section 25 is by no means excessive for such a refusal as that.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 25 agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 25, to insert the following new clause: "Notwithstanding anything in section six hundred and eighty of the
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Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 (which relates to the prosecution of offences under the Merchant Shipping Acts), any offence whatsoever under section ten of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906 (which relates to the carrying of wood goods as deck cargo), may be prosecuted summarily."
The noble and learned Viscount said: The purpose of the new clause which I propose to your Lordships is to enable offences under the Merchant Shipping Act to be prosecuted summarily. At present there is a limit, and if the sentence is not within that limit there must be an indictment. There are a great many cases which could properly and advantageously be tried summarily, when ships come into port, and this Amendment would permit such cases to be tried summarily. For a long time this amendment of the law has been thought necessary. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 25 insert the said new clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 26:
Search warrants for indecent articles.
26.—(1) If a justice is satisfied by information on oath made before him by an inspector of police or any other officer of police of equal or superior rank that there is reasonable cause to suspect that indecent or obscene articles are kept within any place within the jurisdiction of the justice for the purpose of being sold, published, distributed, exhibited or lent on hire, and whether in any case for purposes of gain or not, the justice may, if he thinks fit, issue a search warrant authorising the constable named in the warrant to enter the place named in the warrant at any time, and, if need he, by force, and to examine the said place and any person found therein, and search for any such articles therein, and to seize and remove any such articles found therein.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, in subsection (1), after "hire,'' to insert "for an improper purpose." The noble Earl said: I do not know whether your Lordships have read Clause 26, but it is a very comprehensive clause. It gives wide powers to an inspector of police who has reasonable cause to suspect that indecent or obscene articles are kept for the purpose of being sold, published, distributed, exhibited, or lent on hire, whether for

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purposes of gain or not. In such cases the justice may issue a search warrant authorising the constable to remove any of these articles. Under this provision as it stanch pictures in the National Gallery that any inspector of police thought indecent might be seized and, removed. Your Lordships will notice that the provision does not apply only to an exhibition for the purposes of gain. The word "exhibited" is a very vague word. I have no objection to the police having very extensive powers in this matter; indeed, I am told that there are reasons why such powers are desirable; but I think it well that there should be some kind of indication as to the purposes for which these powers are to be, used, and the way in which they are to be used.
These words are very vague, and I have less objection to the vagueness of the words that I wish to insert. I should like to insert in line 35, after "lent on hire" the words "for an improper purpose." Those words are extremely wide, and they give the magistrate very full discretion as to whether he should act or not. They simply mean that he need not interfere in the case of pictures which are shown to decent company and which would not be dealt with in any way. Under my Amendment the magistrate would only interfere when he was satisfied that the purpose for which the articles were being used was, in fact, an improper purpose. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 35, after (" hire ") insert (" for an improper purpose ").—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is very little in this, but there is just enough to introduce an element into the burden of proof. Your Lordships will observe that the clause is limited. It is a clause enabling the police to get hold of certain articles, and it is limited to indecent articles. Things that are used for medical purposes are not, indecent and obscene, and it will be upon the parson who seeks to take them to satisfy the magistrate that they are indecent and obscene. If they are indecent and obscene, then prima facie the purpose for which they are used is indecent. You do not want the words of this Amendment. If they were inserted, they would enable a defence to be set up by somebody keeping extremely indecent photographs
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that he did not keep them for an improper purpose. That is just what we want to avoid. We want to prevent people keeping indecent things which will be sold and distributed among the public. We do not like the words which my noble friend proposes, because they would enable an artificial defence to be set up which might he very difficult to deal with and which would be quite out of place.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27 agreed to.
Clause 28 (Form of information, etc., in criminal proceedings before justices):
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 11, leave out ("warrant or summons ") and insert (" summons, warrant, or other document ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 28, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 29:
Power in make rules with respect to procedure of examining justices.
29. The Lord Chancellor may, subject to the express provisions of this and of any other Act, make rules for regulating the practice and procedure of examining justices on or in relation to proceedings for indictable offences, and with respect to the forms to be used in connection with any such proceedings, and generally for carrying into effect the enactments relating to such proceedings, and provision may be made by such rules for revoking or amending any of the forms contained in the Schedule to the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, and for substituting new form" for any of those forms.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit "all the forms contained in the Schedule to the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, and for substituting new forms for any of those forms "and to insert" forms which are directed or authorised by any statute to be used in connection with any such proceedings, and for substituting new forms for any of such forms." The noble and learned Viscount said: This is really a drafting amendment. Some of the forms now in use in connection with proceedings before examining justices do not depend upon the Indictable Offences Act and other Statutes.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 26, leave out from (" any ") to the end of the clause and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 30 to 33 agreed to.
Clause 34:
Amendment of Sections 42 and 43 of Offences against the Person Act, 1861.
34.—(1) Where a person has been convicted by a court of summary jurisdiction of an offence under Section forty-two of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861 (which imposes a penalty on persons committing any common assault or battery), he shall instead of being liable to a fine not exceeding, together with costs, the sum of five pounds, be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds in addition to any costs which the court may order him to pay.
(2) The fine to which a person shall be liable on conviction by a court of summary jurisdiction for an offence under Section forty-three of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861 (which imposes a penalty on persons committing an aggravated assault), shall, instead of being a fine not exceeding together with costs the sum of twenty pounds, be a fine not exceeding the sum of fifty pounds, and the offender shall in addition be liable to pay any costs which the court may order him to pay.
(3) A court of summary jurisdiction by which any person is convicted of an offence under cither of the enactments mentioned in this section may order the offender to enter into a recognizance, with or without sureties, to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour for a period not exceeding twelve months.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to substitute "five pounds" for "twenty pounds." The noble and learned Viscount said: This Amendment proposes to make a change in the clause as it stands by providing that the word "twenty" should be deleted and the word "five" put in. The reason is that the word "twenty" puts a limitation on very useful and necessary provisions of the law. Under an old Statute, if more than £5 is the penalty for an offence it is the penalty of an offence of an aggravated character. The assault for which it is imposed is an aggravated assault, and when that is so the jurisdiction of the magistrate is restricted, so that he cannot deal, for instance, with a case in which a married woman can obtain a separation order under the Summary Jurisdiction Act on the ground that her husband has been convicted summarily of
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an aggravated assault. In order to give that jurisdiction it is better that the fine should be £5 than that it should be as much as £20. It is a technical point, but it is necessary in order to make the rest of the Bill workable.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 13, leave out (" twenty ") and insert (" five ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next Amendment, in subsection (3), after "may" to insert" in addition to imposing any penalty,'' is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Line 27, after (" may ") insert (" in addition to imposing any penalty").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 35:
Penalty for drunkenness while in charge of motor car and for reckless driving.
35. Any person who is drunk while in charge on any highway or other public place of any motor car within the meaning of the Motor Car Act, 1903, or who is guilty of an offence under subsection (1) of Section one of that Act (which relates to reckless driving) shall, on summary conviction, be liable in respect of each offence to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, at the end of the clause, to insert the following new subsection: "(2) Any person who is convicted of driving a motor car on any highway or other public place while drunk shall in addition to any other penalty be disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for a period of twelve months."
The noble Earl said: This is an extremely mixed grill of a Bill, as no doubt your Lordships have observed. It contains provisions on almost every possible subject, and we have now come to a provision which deals with motor cars. My own desire is to leave this clause out altogether, but should the clause stand I desire to see it amended. I am told that the proper course is for me to move my Amendment first and then to move to leave out the clause later on, whether the Amendment is accepted or not The effect of the Amendment is to

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provide that a person who is convicted of driving a motor car while drunk shall be disqualified from holding a licence for a period, of twelve months. When I raised this subject the other day I said that I was very reluctant to interfere in any way with the discretion of magistrates, and I do not like putting forward this proposal now because it interferes with their discretion. Your Lordships, however, must have noticed that the power which is given for disqualifying an unfit person from holding a licence for a certain period is a power which is far too rarely exercised. The Home Office refused a suggestion which I made that a circular should be issued on the subject.
In this Amendment I am not dealing with the imprisonment of persons, or with the sentences which are imposed by way of punishment on the person himself. I am dealing with the removal from the road of a dangerous person. I do not think we are going too far in laying it down as a rule that where a person has been convicted of this very serious offence, so dangerous to the public, he should for at least twelve months be kept off the roads. A letter has been written to The Times, and I am not sure whether your Lordships have not received a circular, in which Mr. Bees Jeffreys, who has had a great deal of experience of this subject, suggests that the offender should be disqualified until he shows signs of penitence. The difficulty of that is to find out the proper tribunal to say when he is fit to be turned loose again. I do not think it is an excessive proposal to say that for at least twelve months the man who has so abused his licence and endangered the life of his fellow subjects should be removed from the chance of doing it again. The clause will be much better for this provision, and I am not at all sure that the particular kind of reckless motorists of whom I am speaking will like this kind of punishment better than the punishment which is now provided by law.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 29, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendment proposes to do at once too little and too much. Too little because there may be cases so gross that the licence should be suspended for more
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than twelve months; and the Amendment prevents the offender being suspended beyond that period. It also proposes too much because offences differ very much. Magistrates must have a certain amount of discretion in the matter. A man may have been drunk in charge of a motor car, but it may have been a very trivial offence. It depends on the circumstances. It may also have been a very serious offence. I agree with the noble Earl that licences should be, suspended more freely, but if you make it a hard-and-fast condition, if you say that licences must be suspended for twelve months in every case, the result will be that magistrates will refuse to convict, and it is therefore better to take the course we have always taken and leave it to the discretion of magistrates in inflicting punishment.
EARL RUSSELL: The first objection of the noble and learned Viscount can easily be removed by slightly altering the wording of the Amendment. We could say" for a period of not less than twelve months." I feel the force of his second objection. I felt if when I put down the Amendment, and I feel it now, but I think the time has come when something should be done. It could be reconsidered in a couple of years if it was found to act harshly. I do not think, however, that any case of a man being drunk while driving a motor car can be considered a trivial one. It is, in itself, a very serious offence, and that sort of person is not fit to be on the road. Motorists who drive with some consideration are very much damaged in the public eye by the inconsiderate conduct of people like that. I should like to take your Lordships' opinion on this point, and I hope I shall get a large measure of support for dealing rather more drastically with these offences which are growing in numbers.
THE EARL OF DERBY: Does the noble Earl move the Amendment with the words "not less than twelve months" ?
EARL RUSSELL: Yes, I will move it in this form: "Any person who is convicted of driving a motor car on any highway or other public place while drunk shall in addition to any other penalty be disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for a, period of not less than twelve months.''
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved to leave out Clause 35. The noble Earl said: It seems, I confess, a somewhat ungrateful course to take, after having put your Lordships practically to the trouble of a Division, to move that a clause amended in the way which I desired should be left out. I will submit to your Lordships in a few words the reasons why it seems to me that this clause should be omitted. I mentioned them on the Second Reading of his Bill, but I will recall them to your Lordships' recollection. Successive Governments have promised motorists for many years that there should be a new Motor Car Act. It is admitted by every one that the Motor Car Act, 1903, is out of date. A new Act has now. I believe, actually been drawn up for some considerable time and has not been introduced merely owing to the pressure of business upon the last Government. This clause properly belongs to that new Act, and ought properly to be considered in connection with the various modifications and provisions which that Act will make.
A particular grievance which motorists feel is that in return for what you might call the whips and scorpions of this clause they were promised some plums in the way of a withdrawal of the speed limit and other matters of that sort, which are now practically obsolete. I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount to consider whether it is fair to keep this clause out of that Act and to put it in here by itself, unless we are to understand that all hope is to be abandoned of the introduction of a new and complete Motor Car Bill. I do not think it is right to take this legislation piecemeal. We might just as well put into this Bill the removal of the speed limit or any other fragment of a large subject. This does not seem to me the best way of legislating, but, having raised this question, I propose to leave it to your Lordships to treat it as you think fit. It does occur to me, however, that if this new Bill is prepared and can be introduced shortly we ought to wait until its introduction before this clause is added.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 35.—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think my noble friend is asking a little too much. Here is a practical provision
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which has been amended and made very stiff at his instance, giving at any rate some control over drunken persons driving cars. My noble friend now asks us not to introduce it, even in this enlarged form, because it will come in so much better in a general Motor Car Bill, which will give some privileges to motorists for which they are hoping. My noble friend himself hopes for them, but they may be deferred. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," and I am afraid my noble friend's heart may be sick before he sees that Bill passed in the present congestion of urgent business. I therefore propose to him that it would be better to leave this clause in its new form. It gives us, at any rate, a bird in the hand, and the bird in the bush which he desires is a very long way off.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 35, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 36:
Prohibition on taking photographs, etc., in court.
38.—(1) Except with the leave of the judge, or if there is more than one judge, or the presiding or senior judge, no person shall—

(a) take or attempt to take in any court any photograph, or with a view to publication make or attempt to make in any court any potrait or sketch, of any person, being a judge of the court or a witness in or a party to any proceedings before the court, whether civil or criminal; or

(b) publish any photograph, portrait or sketch taken or made in contravention of the foregoing provisions of this section or any reproduction thereof;

and if any person acts in contravention of this section he shall, on summary conviction, be liable in respect of each offence to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.
(2) For the purposes of this section—

(a) the expression "court" means any court of justice, including the court of a coroner;

(b) the expression "judge" includes recorder, registrar, magistrate, justice and coroner;

(c) a photograph, portrait or sketch shall be deemed to be a photograph, portrait or sketch taken or made in court if it is taken or made in the court-room or in the building or in the precincts of the building in which the court is held, or if it is a photograph,

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portrait or sketch taken or made of the person while he is entering or leaving the court-room or any such building or precincts as aforesaid.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1) (a), after "court'', where that word thirdly occurs, to insert "or a juror". The noble Viscount said: Your Lordships determined the other clay that photographs of the proceedings of a court were not to be taken without the permission of the Judge, and now the jurors say, with some force, that the provision ought to be framed in such a fashion as to include themselves. They do not like being photographed, for the same reasons as other persons concerned, and we propose to extend the benefits of the clause to them.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 3, after ("court ") insert ("or a juror ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 36, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 37 agreed to.
Clause 38 (Amendment of Schedule 1 of Children Act, 1908):
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next is merely a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 39, leave out (" for ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 38, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 39 and 40 agreed to.
First Schedule agreed to.
Second Schedule:

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL. [H.L.]

  SECOND SCHEDULE.
  Indictable Offences by Adults which may be dealt with Summarily.
  8. Offences under Section ten of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit" 8. Offences under Section ten of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906." The noble Viscount said: This is consequential on a previous Amendment.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 31, leave out lines 10 and 11.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Second Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Third Schedule:

  THIRD SCHEDULE.
  Enactments repealed.

  Session and Chapter.

  Short Title

  Extent of Repeal.

  24 & 25 Vict. c. 100.

  The Offences against the Person Act, 1861.

  In Section fifty-seven the words "England or "

  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in the reference to the Offences against the Person Act, 1861, to leave out "in Section fifty-seven the words ' England or,' "and to insert" in Section forty-three the words from ' and if the justices ' to the end of the section, and in Section fifty-seven the words ' England or ' where they secondly occur." The noble Viscount said: This, again, is consequential.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 32, line 33, in third column leave out (" in Section fifty-seven the words ' England or ' ") and insert (" in Section forty-three the words from ' and if the justices ' to the end of the section, and in Section fifty-seven the words ' England or ' where they secondly occur ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

ADVERTISEMENTS REGULATION BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Extended powers of making byelaws.
1.—(1) The powers of a local authority under Section two of the Advertisements Regulation Act, 1907 (in this Act referred to as the principal Act), shall include powers to make by-laws for regulating, restricting or preventing the exhibition of

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advertisements in such places, in such manner and by such means as to disfigure or injuriously affect—

(a) the view of rural scenery from a highway or railway, or from any-public place or water; or

(b) the amenities of villages in rural districts: or the amenities of any historic or public building or monument or of any place frequented by the public solely or chiefly on account of its beauty or historic interest.

(2) In Section two of the principal Act the words "or to disfigure the natural beauty of a landscape "are hereby repealed.
(3) This section shall not apply to the exhibition of advertisements on or upon any railway station, yard, platform or station approach belonging to a railway company.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, in subsection (1), after "preventing," to insert" within their district or any part thereof." The noble Lord said: This is really little more than a drafting Amendment. I propose its insertion to meet the views of the Home Office, and I do not think it requires any explanation.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 9, after (" preventing ") insert (" within their district or any part thereof ").—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "in such places, in such manner and by such means "and to insert "so." The noble Lord said: This and the following Amendment are drafting Amendments.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, lines 10 and 11, leave out (" in such places, in such manner and by such means ") and insert (" so ").—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 16, at beginning insert (" (c) ").—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT moved, at the end of subsection (3), to insert "or on or upon the wharves, locks or toll stations of, or the approach road to any canal or inland navigation." The noble Lord said: The object of this Bill, as stated in the earlier part of the clause, is to prevent the disfigurement of the view of
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rural scenery by advertisements—an object which, I believe, all your Lordships desire to see carried into effect. The object of my Amendment is in no way to interfere with the general objects of the Bill. It is not intended to do so, and I am confident that it will not do so. The only object of my Amendment is to give to the property of canal companies the same exemption from the operation of the Bill as is already given by the Bill to the property of railway companies.
I think I am right in saying that it has always been the practice in legislation in this House, and in the other House, for an exemption which is given to railway companies' private property to be granted similarly to the property of canal companies. They are both part of the transport system of the country, and are sometimes in competition with each other, and it is difficult to see any reason why, if this exemption is given, in my judgment properly, to the property of railway-companies, the same exemption should not also be given to the property of canal companies. I do not suppose it will be suggested for one moment that there are likely to be, or ever have been, more disfiguring advertisements on the property of canal companies than are exhibited on the property of railway companies, and in drafting my Amendment I have been careful to follow, as far as possible, the words of the exemption already given to railway companies. The exemption given to railway companies in Clause 1, subsection (3), is in the following words:
" This section shall not apply to the exhibition of advertisements on or upon any railway station, yard, platform or railway approach belonging to a railway company."
Therefore, following this as nearly as I can, I suggest that your Lordships ought to add at the end of the subsection the words of my Amendment on the Paper.
Can anyone suggest why a canal company should not be allowed to use its wharves for the purpose of advertisements, if it thinks fit ? The effect of such user will not be to disfigure the view of any rural scenery, and therefore as regards the word "wharves" I presume that my noble friend—who is. I understand, celebrating his birthday to-day, a matter on which we all congratulate him—will be in a conciliatory frame of mind, and will raise no objection. Then I go on to the words "locks or toll stations."

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If you exempt their wharves, why not, exempt also their locks, or toll stations ? A lock, in itself, is not a very beautiful object. Most of them are very repulsive, and I have no reason to suppose that they will he rendered more disagreeable by advertisements being placed upon them.
Then, as regards the approach roads, I would be quite willing, if the noble Lord desires it, to limit the words of the Amendment to any approach road belonging to the canal company; in other words, to make it apply only to what is the property of the canal company. I have been unable to discover any difference between the case of canals and the case of railways with regard to this exemption, but it has been suggested to me that it would be proper to limit this exemption in the case of canal companies to urban areas, whatever that may mean, and improper to grant it in the case of rural areas. I cannot, however, think that that distinction can really stand, because there are wharves of canal companies in rural areas, just as much as there are in urban areas, and if the exemption is given in one easy it is difficult to see why it should not be given in the other ease. Therefore, I think my noble friend will see that in accordance with the regular practice of this House in the treatment of railway and canal companies, it would be proper to give effect to this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 26, at end insert (" or on or upon the wharves, locks or toll stations of, or the approach road to any canal or inland navigation ").—(Lord Danesfort.)
LORD CLWYD LORD CLWYD, who had on the Paper an Amendment to insert at the end of subsection (3), the words "or on or upon the docks, quays, piers, landing stages, wharves, locks or toll stations of, or the approach road to any harbour, dock, canal or inland navigation," said: I have an Amendment dealing with the same point, but extending the exemption proposed by Lord Danesfort to properties in connection with docks and harbours. Perhaps, with the leave of the House, it will save your Lordships' time if I state now my position with regard to this Amendment, with a view of hearing something from the noble Lord in charge of the Bill which will be of a satisfactory character. I think your Lordships will all agree that if protection is provided for railway
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stations, it ought to be provided for property held by dock and harbour authorities, and I think there is no chance of these authorities making a misuse of their exemption in this regard. I am heartily in favour of the general aim of this measure, and I do not think that any ill effect will flow from granting this exemption for which I ask in my Amendment. I support Lord Danesfort's Amendment, and hope that the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill will be able to say something of a reassuring nature with reference to the position of properties in connection with docks and harbours, for I think they have an equally good ground for protection in this matter.
LORD NEWTON: I cannot honestly say that I think my noble friends are, behaving very well over this matter. This is an agreed Bill, the result of most laborious negotiations with people representing the advertising interests, and we have made so many concessions that there is hardly anything left in the Bill. Now, at the eleventh hour, my noble friends come forward and say, in effect: "This is very hard upon canal companies. Why should not canals be allowed to have these beastly advertisements if they want them ?" We heard nothing about canals last year—they never approached me at all—and I submit that the Amendment is not of quite so limited a nature as the noble Lord intimated just now. It will be observed that the Amendment contains the words "inland navigation,'' which would cover, for instance, the Thames. I have beside me Lord Desborough, Chairman of the Thames Conservancy, who, much to his credit, has prevented the Thames from being desecrated by these advertisements for some time. I happen to know that the Thames Conservancy are always in want of money, and the time is likely to come when they will be unable to resist taking all sorts of steps to obtain additional revenue. If this Amendment is accepted it is quite possible that the locks and quays and the rest of the river will be used for the purpose of advertising.
I would further point out to my noble friend that canals are not in the same position as railways. A railway station is a building. As a rule it is a very unattractive building, and you could not make if more unattractive by permitting

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any number of advertisements. Very often the canals run through pleasing rural scenery. Take a canal like the Basingstoke canal; a lock on that canal is almost an ornamental thing in itself. It would be a, great pity to spoil it by advertisements. But I am so anxious to show a conciliatory disposition that I would suggest the withdrawal of these Amendments, which I cannot accept in their present form, and on the. Report stage my noble friends might bring forward an Amendment of a more limited character which would merely include places in genuinely urban districts. I do not suppose that people would object to advertisements on the docks, say, at Wapping, or even at Cardiff.
LORD SOUTHWARK: My Lords, the noble Lord has said that this is an agreed Bill. It is a Bill for which we have fought for several years, and I think that the suggestion made by the noble Lord is one that ought to be accepted. It will give both sides an opportunity of seeing whether they approve the proposed alterations, and, if it is necessary to have a division of opinion, we can then have it on the Report stage. Personally, I am a supporter of my two noble friends who are responsible for these Amendments, but I think they would be wise to accept the suggestion made.
LORD ANSLOW: My Lords. I hope that there will be no undertaking given that this limitation will be put in on the Report stage. There is a general desire that the use of canals for public service should be encouraged, and therefore it is important that nothing should be done that would hinder their development of canals. One of the ways in which a means of transport can be encouraged, where there is a deficiency of capital at the back of it, is by enabling a certain amount of money to be made in extraneous ways. That has happened over and over again in other industries, and canal companies ought to have the same rights.
The reason why I object to the suggestion that this privilege should be limited to urban areas is, in the first place, because it is a very difficult thing indeed to define what is an urban area or a rural area. Is it intended to limit this privilege to the areas which are within the jurisdiction of an urban district council
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as against a rural district council? If so, I would point out that there are a great number of urban district councils of a very strictly rural character, which would be in exactly the same position as the rural district councils round about them. As I have said, we want to develop water traffic throughout the whole country and get more people to put boats on the canals for transport, to own wharves, and to go into the development of canal traffic generally. And anything that would hinder the general development of wharves by preventing the earning of money would be a very great mistake. I hope, therefore, that, if the Amendment is withdrawn now, the whole question may come up again on the Report stage without the Amendment being limited to the urban areas, and the Canal Association should be consulted in the meantime. It would not be right that this Amendment of the Canal Association should be withdrawn without the matter being properly considered by the many representatives of canals who form that association.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD OLIVIER): I must say that I think the speech of the noble Lord who has just addressed the House shows an extraordinary lack of imagination, or an extreme lack of knowledge of the conditions of the country. Does anybody suppose that the people who go along the rural canals, as we know them all over England, are the kind of people to whom it is necessary to appeal by advertisements of motor tyres and that sort of thing ? If any kind of protection is given to the interests of canal companies in the matter of raising money by advertisements—which I hope they will never have the opportunity to do, because we propose to nationalise the canals—that should certainly be restricted to the urban areas, and I hope the noble Lord will, if he accepts any sort of Amendment, insist that it should be restricted to urban areas.
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, I have been alluded to in connection with the Thames, and I should like heartily to support the noble Lord who has just addressed us. I do not think it is very hopeful for the inland navigation of this country if it has to depend for its support on pills and motor tyres. I have heard with regret that the noble Lord, Lord

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Danesfort, has got rather a "down" upon locks.. There are forty-seven locks on the Thames. We are doing our best at the present to prevent these locks being disfigured by advertisements. When you are in a lock you cannot escape from an advertisement. You cannot very well shut your eyes because you have to look after your boat. When motoring you can, to a large extent, save yourself by shutting your eyes. We are trying to make the locks places of beauty on 136 miles of the River Thames. I hope they will not be disfigured by advertisements. At present we give prizes to lock-keepers for beautiful gardens, and those who go down the Thames will see the most beautiful crimson ramblers in these gardens. I hope that my noble friend will stick to his Bill as it stands.
LORD DANESFORT: I am very desirous not to take up the time of the House at a time when there are other subjects of great importance coming on, and I am therefore anxious to fall in with the general wish of the House. What I suggest is that I should withdraw this Amendment now, and put it down again on Report. Possibly, in the meantime, Lord Newton will be able to suggest to us what modifications of the clause he would consent to, and then those modifications can be considered by the proper authorities. If we can agree, well and good, and, if not, the question can then be decided. I therefore ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, after Clause 1, to insert the following new clause:
".—(1) A person shall not use nor cause or permit to he used for purposes of advertisement any aerial contrivance or means involving the emission of smoke or other visible fumes.
(2) Any person acting in contravention of this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds."
The noble Lord said: I am rather terrified by the noble Lord opposite saying that this is an agreed Bill. If it is an agreed Bill, I am not proposing to do anything to interfere with its passage. I should be the last person to desire to do so, and I do not quite know why the clause which I am proposing to add was
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not put in last time. This clause was in the Bid before, and, I think I am right in saying, was struck out in another place. I believe your Lordships agreed to it before, and I think I remember the noble Lord opposite defending it very earnestly and successfully. It proposes to re-enact the clause that we had before us last year—namely, that prohibiting skywriting by aeroplanes. There seem to me to be several objections to sky-writing by aeroplanes. The first is from the purely advertising point of view; it is the worst possible way of advertising. It is a very great expense, and it is very unlikely to return its expense to the advertisers. The second objection is the disfigurement of the sky, and the third objection is, I think, the danger to traffic and to people in the streets which would be caused, if this took place in crowded areas, by people craning their necks up and not looking where they were going.
Last year, I remember, we had a rather passionate defence of the exclusion of this clause by those who then represented the Air Ministry, on the ground that it was going to provide a really important civilian reserve to the Air Force. I do not think we shall hear that defence this year. I, at any rate, did not take that statement seriously. It is not a source to which we should look for our Imperial Air Reserve Force. This sky-writing might just as well be prohibited. It has no advantages and many disadvantages. I do not see why the Bill should be passed without this clause this year. Another place is differently constituted now from what; it was when the Bill was last before it, and it might accept this clause. I, therefore, move, in order to test the feeling of the House, that the clause be inserted.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 1 insert the said new clause.—(Earl Russell.)
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD THOMSON): May I say, on behalf of the Air Ministry, that the Ministry considers that this sky-writing stimulates aviation to a certain extent and arouses interest in it. The actual number of machines now in commission in the Savage Sky Writing Company is 29; the number of pilots is 17, and the number of mechanics is 53. It is perfectly true that this is very small; nobody pretends that it is anything else.

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But it is the nucleus of a squadron. Those are its advantages. It certainly stimulates interest.
The disadvantages, I think, have been exaggerated, as I am informed that to function successfully sky-writing has to be conducted at a height of over 12,000 feet; that is to say, far out of the range of noise or smell or any other discomfort, and I cannot see that the scenery or the sky is disfigured to any serious extent at that height; more especially as it is probable that these sky-writing performances could only take place on between, sixty and seventy days of the year. Generally speaking, though we do not ignore the æsthetic side of the matter, we deplore the doing away with this form of advertisement.
LORD NEWTON: This is an Amendment with which I have the very fullest sympathy. This is about the most blatantly objectionable form of advertisement that I can imagine, and I confess that I am not at all impressed by the arguments of the noble Lord who represents the Air Ministry. We heard a good deal last year about this wonderful Savage Company which, apparently, has about a dozen machines. They have done no sky-writing for about two years and, therefore, all this elaborate work that we hear about in arguments advanced in favour of allowing these smoke advertisements, seems to amount to this—that these people have been practising upon the ground. They certainly have done nothing in the air. I am not in the least impressed by these arguments, and I am fully in sympathy with my noble friend.
At the same time, I am afraid that I am unable to support his Amendment. There are a certain number of people who are afraid to come out into the open and attack this Bill. But, if this Amendment were adopted, it would provide a lot of excuse for people in another place to say that we were seriously hampering the future of British aviation, and to indulge in ridiculous arguments of that character. I want to get the Bill through, although it is a very modest measure. In the circumstances, I would appeal to my noble friend not to press his Amendment. May I be allowed to make this further suggestion ? If he is really anxious to abolish this absurd, unnecessary and very expensive form of advertising, he should
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bring in a Bill of his own, a one clause Bill, for the purpose. If he docs that he will at all events obtain my support.
EARL RUSSELL: I have not the courage to adopt the suggestion of my noble friend, but I will take the course he has mentioned of withdrawing my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following new clause: "In this Act rural districts have the same meaning as in the Local Government Act, 1894." The noble Lord said: This is merely a matter of drafting.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, insert the said new clause.—[Lord Newton.]
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.

ADOPTION OF CHILDREN BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I am aware that there is a good deal of business on the Order Paper to-day and that there are Questions following this Bill with which many of your Lordships are most anxious to deal. I will, therefore, be very much briefer in explaining the provisions of this measure than I should otherwise have been. I should also like to explain that there are three other Bills on this subject now under consideration in another place. That, at least, shows that considerable interest is being taken in the question. Of these other Bills I will merely say that one of them is simply a sketch in outline and would have to be very much more amplified before it could become law. Another is much on the lines of this Bill, but, that Bill having been introduced rather in a hurry in order to obtain discussion elsewhere, its promoters have not had an opportunity of bringing it quite so much up to date as the Bill which is now before your Lordships. The third Bill in the other place has not yet been printed, but it is, in effect, I believe, the same as this one and is intended to apply this Bill to Scotland. That is, of course, a matter which can be dealt with later on in this Bill if it continues its existence.

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It is not for me to advise His Majesty's Government, but I would point out that these Bills are not intended to torpedo each other. They are really intended to assist a common cause. There are good points in all of them, and I believe a great deal of time and trouble would be saved if it were possible for this Bill to be considered by a Joint Select Committee of members of the two Houses under a Chairman of judicial experience. All the Bills on the subject might be remitted to that Committee, and your Lordships would have the benefit of their experience on the later stages of this Bill, which, I feel certain, must be the basis on which any legislation is founded. Another way of dealing with the Bill might be to remit it to a Departmental Committee. But we have already had one Departmental Committee upon the subject and this Bill very closely follows that Committee's proposals. Unless the Government take the Bill up themselves and push it through as quickly as they can, a Departmental Committee, I think, would only delay matters. The evidence given before that Departmental Committee was published in 1920 and shows the necessity for legislation on this subject.
I will not amplify the point now, but I would point out that Britain is alone amongst English-speaking countries and, indeed, amongst most of the civilised countries of the world, in having no adoption laws. The general purpose of this Bill is to provide that when children are adopted they shall, so far as is possible and advisable, be legally adopted, thus giving the child who is adopted the same status and privileges, subject to certain exceptions regarding titles and settled property, as the ordinary child born in more fortunate circumstances. Cases occur in which children are adopted, and the adopters get tired of them. They bring up children in luxury, and then get weary of them; indeed, cases have actually occurred where children have been sent to the workhouse after having experienced the full joys of sumptuous home life for some years. We want to make that impossible. This Bill provides that when a child is adopted, the new parents take on the full responsibility of parenthood, but it is also possible under this Bill for the new parents, in cases approved by the court, to get rid
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of these children, provided they can get them suitably re-adopted.
Take the contrary. Cases occur where the real parents of a child who has been adopted leave the child with the adopters until the child has become a real part of the home life of the adopters, and then claim the child back and become little better than blackmailers. This Bill provides that once parents have let their child go, and it has been adopted by mutual agreement by the third party, the third party takes complete control and its attendant responsibilities. In addition, this Bill provides that the adopted child shall be regarded as a child more or less of the same blood as that of its adopter. The reasons for this are very obvious; they are principally reasons of morality and for purposes of marriage. The child is brought into the scope of kindred and affinity which, of course, is an absolute necessity in such cases. Questions of succession to titles and of certain forms of settled estate have been carefully safeguarded. I will not detain your Lordships with regard to those points now. They are matters that we can easily discuss in Committee.
Every care has been taken to make the provisions in the Bill fair to all three parties concerned. We have decided, after careful consideration, to keep the question of inspection of adopted children right outside the Bill. People's own children are not inspected, and why should their adopted children be inspected any more than others ? There are plenty of regulations affecting parents' duties to their own children, and I see no reason for making any differentiation in these cases. The question of secrecy in dealing with cases, so far as it is desirable or necessary, has been provided for. Those who wish to adopt a child have to apply to a recognised authority, and the authority that we have suggested is a county court. This follows the recommendations of Sir Alfred Hopkinson's Committee. However, our minds are perfectly open on this as on other points in the Bill.
The. Bill is a non-political and non-Party measure. It deals with a question which every thinking man and woman who is interested in social reform in this country, quite irrespective of Party, knows to be urgent, and, if other Par-

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liamentary exigencies admit, I have little doubt that, if the members of this House and another place who are interested in the matter could meet, we could arrive at general agreement in the matter. It would then be open to any Government either to adopt the Bill itself or give facilities for it to be passed through all its stages. It seems to me almost hopeless, in the present congestion of business in another place, to get any Bill discussed and passed through the necessary stages, unless something of this sort is clone. It is far more easy to discuss a measure of this kind in the more placid atmosphere of your Lordships' House and, if I may say so with all respect, if your Lordships will assist me in getting this Bill passed, it will be one more testimony to the fact that the House of Lords is not indifferent to the social welfare of the people of this country. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Duke of Atholl.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with the noble Duke's Bill the Government are in full sympathy; so much so that they are about to take steps in order to make the object one which can be effectively attained. But since Sir Alfred Hopkinson's Committee, in 1921, unfortunately recommended the county court as the tribunal which should determine the question of the propriety of acceding to an application to adopt, there has been a great deal of trouble. All the Bills that are in existence now—and there are several in the other House—take the same course that the noble Duke has taken. They seem to consider it enough to refer the matter to the county court to determine whether an adoption is proper. Not only is that founded on a misapprehension, but it is founded on a failure to realise that what is required can only be supplied by the creation of special machinery. The county court has no machinery which would enable it to pronounce upon such a question as this.
What are the cases ? They fall into two very different classes. One of them is the desire of some benevolent person or persons to adopt a child. That is all right. The legal consequences of that will have, to be ascertained, and that is not a matter of very great difficulty, although it is a matter involving a good deal of technical inquiry into the law. There is another
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class of case altogether, and a very serious class of case. There are people who adopt children merely in order to get the money that is paid to them for adopting them, and who afterwards do not exercise due care for the child. These cases are far from being uncommon. It is essential to provide against them in any Bill which regulates adoption. In order to provide against that there is required careful inquiry into the circumstances of the person proposing to adopt, and of the child, and, generally, of the situation in which the application to the court is made. The County Court Judge has no machinery which would enable him to make such an inquiry. His function is to decide issues brought before him promptly and simply. He has a registrar, but the registrar is not the person who can be looked to to make such inquiries, nor can the clerk to the registrar (who in these days is often a very ill-paid individual) be expected to do so. The result is that the County Court Judge would have to dispose of this matter summarily. Of course, he would do his best, but he would have to do it without any of that inquiry which the noble Duke desiderates.
The proposition of the Government is to devise special machinery for making the inquiry efficiently. It is necessary to have some body which would report on these applications, after examining into them, before any judicial authority makes a pronouncement upon them. That is the whole essence of the problem. Without the solution of that no progress can be made, and, therefore, although the Government welcome the declaration of its purpose contained in the noble Duke's Bill, they are unable to look upon it as a Bill which could be passed into law with the prospect of doing any real good. If the noble Duke likes to take a Second Reading, with your Lordships' assent, well and good. It will stand on record as another declaration in favour of the principle, but the Government intend to appoint a Committee to inquire at once and deal with the highly technical matter of which I spoke just now, a matter which, probably, cannot be dealt with by any Joint Committee of the two Houses. It requires experts to consider it. On that footing I offer no objection to the Second Reading of the Bill. I only desire to warn the noble Duke of the position with which we shall be faced in the future.
VISCOUNT KNUTSFORD: My Lords, I know your Lordships are anxious to get to the discussion which is to come on later, and I promise you I will be very short. I must protest against this Bill because it does not go far enough. All it, does is to protect the adopter of a child. It is illegal now to make an agreement to adopt a child; an agreement of that sort is not worth the paper on which it is written. The law does not allow parents to rid themselves of the legal liability to support their children, and it is quite right, therefore, as the noble Duke has pointed out, that not only in this country but in every other country we should give a person who adopts a child a legal position and protection and some safeguard against parents who have deserted a child coming forward ten or twenty years afterwards, when the child is a useful member of society, and claiming it, and very often using the affection of the person who has adopted the child to blackmail him for money. This Bill would secure that, and, so far, it is right, but it does not go far enough.
It only gives legal sanction and recognition to those who seek it; only to those people who go to the county court, or whatever the authority may be, and ask for sanction for the adoption of a child. It does not touch those who traffic in child life; it does not touch those who make a business of getting rid of unwanted children. It leaves them to go on with this abominable traffic unmolested. There are many people, as no doubt your Lordships know, who will take children and insure their lives for the purpose of getting the insurance money. There are people who will take a sum down when adopting a child, and that child very soon becomes an unwanted encumbrance. Only last week I came across two gross cases of neglect of an adopted child. In one case the poor little child was indecently assaulted by her adopted father—I hate to use the word father in such a connection—and she was too frightened to give evidence in court. In another ease a man and woman who were cohabitating had already planted out, three of their children, and in the third case a man and woman were proved to have received £300 for adopting no fewer than ten children. All these people are left untouched by this Bill and allowed to go on with this
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traffic. I notice that the noble Duke shakes his head, and I always think that if anyone contradicts me he, is right, but I have studied the Bill with great care and there is nothing in it which makes the registration of any adopted child compulsory.
The Committee which sat in 1920 reported as follows:—
" The establishment of a legal sanction for adoption "—
that is, this Bill—
" will leave untouched a large number of cases where legal sanction is not sought for…. There must be control to eliminate bad homes and bad surroundings. The absence of this "—
just listen to this—
" has resulted in an undesirable traffic in child life with which no one can interfere. The time has come when the State should have cognisance of all adoptions."
And they recommended that—
" any individual or association who arrange for the transfer or entire control of a child should be legally obliged to notify the fact to the local authority of the place where the child will reside."
No one in this House will deny the few minutes we give now to protect these children. Every board of guardians in England has petitioned that the registration of the adoption of children should be made compulsory, and if this Bill is amended so as to make notification of adoption compulsory, we shall not only safeguard the adopters of children but we shall put an end to this abominable traffic in child life. These children have no voice, no vote themselves. They have only one life, and it is "up to us" to see that that life is not one of long and intolerable misery.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, no one can have listened to the speech of the noble Viscount who has just addressed the House without realising the desirability of an extension of the provisions of this Bill with regard to the adoption of children, but so far as the other part of the measure is concerned, I hope the noble Duke will agree to leave it out, when we come to Committee. It deals with property, and it says that where a child is adopted that child, so far as regards property, shall be placed in the same position as though he were the adopter's own child. You have done in the last few days a good deal of

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mischief so far as property is concerned. There is the Legitimacy Bill, the effect of which no one can foretell, and I really cannot see why, in a Bill dealing with the adoption of children, you should bring in new laws relating to property. Supposing I adopt a child and have property of my own to leave, there is nothing to prevent me leaving it to that child. I can execute a will and leave that property, but under the Bill, if I die intestate, that child comes into my property. There are provisions with regard to settlement, and what effect they will have when they come before a Judge of the High Court I cannot say. But it is a dangerous thing in a Bill of this sort to confuse it by bringing in certain provisions which deal with the distribution of property. I shall support: most earnestly anything which would remedy the evils which the noble Viscount has mentioned, but I hope the Bill will be confined to evils connected with the adoption of children, and that in Committee we shall leave out any new proposals dealing with property or the settlement of property.
LORD GORELL: My Lords, I do not intend to stand for more than one moment between your Lordships and the subsequent Orders on the Paper. I raised the question of the adoption of children last month, and I have a Question on the Paper for next week dealing with the subject. I had intended to say very much what the noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford, has already said about this Bill. The noble Duke who introduced it said that it followed the findings of the Departmental Committee which reported in February, 1921. It follows only one-third of their recommendations. The Report of that Committee is divided into three parts. This was the first of the matters which they declared to be urgent. The second of the matters, which also they declared to be urgent, was the whole question of safeguarding children who were adopted from improper motives where full legal adoption was not desired. That seems to me to be far the most important side of child adoption, and far the most urgent aspect of it, and there is no Bill of which I am aware that deals with the subject at all.
The third subject with which Sir Alfred Hopkinson's Committee dealt was that which is now the basis of the Legitimacy
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Bill, so that we have two Bills to deal with the first and third matters upon which the Committee reported, and none to deal with the second. I rise only to say that I hope to pursue a little further, when we have more time, the very important subject of the safeguarding of children who are really being made victims of child murder and of the traffic in infant life to which Lord Knutsford has referred. I hope that I shall be able to obtain a little more information from His Majesty's Government next week than was accorded to your Lordships last month.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I listened with pleasure to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam, on this subject. I will only say that in preparing this Bill I knew well that we should have his meticulous eye watching it, and that I am very much relieved that he has at least-approved the principle of the Bill. With regard to the inheritance of property, I think, if I may say so with respect, that the noble Lord is entirely in error in his objection to the provisions of this Bill, because we have provided for such cases as he mentioned and are quite willing to make further provision, in Committee, if this should prove necessary. It is surely very easy for a testator, when he adopts a child, to alter his will, if he so desires, by providing that the adopted child shall not succeed, and there is nothing to prevent his leaving all or none of his money to such a child. So far as settlements are concerned, the Bill expressly rules out settlements made before the child was adopted. The noble Lord has suggested that a testator might have no knowledge of this Bill, but as he can only adopt a child under its provisions there does not seem to be much force in that part of his argument. We can have the matter out, however, in Committee. The noble Lord and I do not always disagree when it really comes down to business, and we have had very many years' experience of Bills of this sort.
With regard to the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Knutsford, I was not prepared to bring in a compulsory Bill because I was not at all sure how your Lordships would receive it, but if there is anything which your Lordships' House desires to do to strengthen the Bill, I can

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assure, both the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Gorell, who spoke just now, that I shall not stand in the way of any suggestion which I consider at all reasonable. As for the proposal put forward by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, I feel very gratified, and I am sure we are all glad to hear that the Government really mean to tackle the subject seriously. The invitation which the noble Viscount puts forward is certainly not one that I should refuse. If the Government set up a Committee of Inquiry, I hope it will be a real Committee of Inquiry set up without delay and with the real purpose of getting the Bill passed. In the meantime, the noble and learned Viscount suggested that this Bill should be read a second time by your Lordships' House, and I naturally concur in that view. I hope that your Lordships will agree to give it a Second Reading now, with a view to considering it further on a later stage. In view of what the noble and learned Viscount has said, I can assure your Lordships that I shall "ca' canny" so far as the Committee stage is concerned, so that we shall have ample time to consider all these matters.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion of the Earl of Balfour, That there be laid before this House Papers relating to the naval base at Singapore.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD): My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I read at once a statement which contains the considered policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to the subject matter of the Motion which was brought before your Lordships by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, last Thursday. We have given careful consideration to the proposal to develop the naval base at Singapore. We have closely studied the reasons which led to the adoption of this project, and the arguments in support of its continuation urged upon us from the point of view of naval defence. We had, however, to consider the matter in a wider relationship, and came to the
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conclusion that we could not ask Parliament to proceed with this scheme. We were convinced that, if we were to do so, our action would exercise a most detrimental effect on our general foreign policy. As we have repeatedly stated, we stand for a policy of international co-operation through a strengthened and enlarged League of Nations, the settlement of disputes by conciliation and judicial arbitration, and the creation of conditions which will make a comprehensive agreement on limitation of armaments possible.
As stated in the Prime Minister's letter to M. Poincaré on February 21, "out task meanwhile must be to establish confidence, and this task can only be achieved by allaying the international suspicions and anxieties which exist to-day." It seemed clear, apart from any other considerations, that to continue to develop the naval base at Singapore would hamper the establishment of this confidence and lay our good faith open to suspicion. Whilst maintaining the present standards in a state of complete efficiency, we take the view that it would be a serious mistake to be responsible for new developments that can only be justified on assumptions that would definitely admit that we had doubts of the success of our own policy. As a result we should almost inevitably drift into a condition of mistrust and competition of armaments in the Far East.
Having provisionally reached the conclusions which I have set out, we felt it our duty, in view of the discussions at the recent Imperial Conference, to communicate with the Governments of the self-governing Dominions. We therefore put the position before them and invited their views. I propose to give the House a summary of those views. The Canadian Government tell us that they wish to refrain from any advice on the proposal. The Irish Free State has adopted a similar attitude. As to Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland, I must explain quite clearly that their Prime Ministers wish, and indeed urge, us to continue with the base. The Commonwealth Government express cordial sympathy with our international policy of conciliation. They tell us that the desire in Australia is for a better understanding among the nations and a definite reduction of armaments on every possible

819
occasion. They consider, however, that the action which we propose, instead of assisting the policy in view, will jeopardise it, in that any reduction in the mobility of the Fleet will reduce our influence in the councils of the nations. If the development of the Singapore base, the intention to proceed with which was, they point out, well understood at the time of the Washington Conference, is now to be discontinued, Australia would rather see this step taken as a means for securing further international agreement for mutual reduction of armaments.
The New Zealand Government attach great importance to the development of the base, their opinion being founded mainly on grounds of naval strategy. Whilst laying stress on the view that its use is for defensive and not offensive purposes, they feel that the interests of the British Empire in the Pacific will be endangered should our capital ships be unable to operate in those waters, and that the time has not yet come to rely solely on the influence for peace of the League of Nations. I should add that the Commonwealth Government have informed us of their readiness to submit proposals to their Parliament for a substantial contribution to the development of the base. New Zealand has already generously offered a first contribution of £100.000 towards it.
Lastly, from South Africa we have heard from General Smuts that our proposed policy, which he describes as "a bold move towards enduring peace," meets with his whole-hearted agreement. He feels that the authority of the British Empire as the protagonist of the great cause of appeasement and conciliation among the nations would be seriously undermined by the construction of the Singapore base.
From this summary, I think I may claim that we have a large measure of sympathy in the Dominions with our international policy, even if all parts of the Empire do not feel able to endorse the methods by which we consider that that policy should be carried out. The criticisms are founded, in the main, on the conception that the Singapore base is essential as part of a complete defensive Pacific strategy. Should the practical necessity for putting such a strategy into operation arise by reason of the condition of world politics and a return to attempts to provide
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Imperial security primarily by armaments, the whole question would have to be reconsidered, but in the opinion of His Majesty's Government that has not now arisen, and it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to try to prevent its arising. We have every confidence in our policy, and we feel that a decision not to proceed with the naval base at Singapore will give that policy the best possible chance of success, and is an earnest of our good faith. May I say in the first place, in regard to that summary which I have read of the opinion of the Dominions, that we are communicating at the present moment with the Dominions, to request them to allow us to publish their telegrams in full. They are secret telegrams at the present moment, and we could not proceed to the publication without first obtaining their leave.
But before I proceed to touch upon the policy which has been outlined in the statement of the Government which I have read to the House, perhaps it might be well for me to indicate the manner in which the Government have proceeded in this matter. It is well known, I think, to your Lordships, that the Government, when in opposition, held decided views against the policy of the Singapore naval base, but notwithstanding that, indeed I may say because of that, they felt it was imperative for them to enter into a very close and thorough examination of the whole problem, and so they decided that the question should be re-examined de novo. I think the reasons for that determination must be obvious to your Lordships. In the first place, the two previous Administrations bad affirmed the policy of the naval base at Singapore, and that, in itself, was a cogent reason why there should be careful examination by His Majesty's present Government of the reasons which actuated them in that policy. In the second place, it is obvious that the data which are at the disposal of the Opposition for forming a considered judgment on any matter, must be widely different from those which are at the disposal of the Government, which has all the inside knowledge at its disposal, on which to form an opinion.
Then, my Lords, I can say that the Government re-examined this problem afresh. They had all the facts, they had

821
all the knowledge, they had all the experience which could be furnished to them by their highly trained expert advisers. If it had been a naval issue, pure and simple, which we had been called upon to decide, involving no repercussion on other spheres of policy, I think I should not be going too far in saying that the Government would have had no hesitation in accepting the purely naval point of view, if it could be taken alone. Indeed, I think it is clear from the statement itself, towards the end, where it is stated "and should the practical necessity for putting such a strategy into operation arise "the whole question would have to be reconsidered. We have not said to our experts—and are they not the finest in the world?—"We do not accept your facts, we doubt your knowledge and experience, we know better than you." Far from it. All we say in this statement of policy is this, that the naval issue cannot be judged by itself. It must be considered in a wider relation. I have dwelt upon this because I think it is essential, at the very outset of my remarks, to make quite clear what this decision of the Government means.
On Thursday last the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, addressed your Lordships on this subject. Of course, anything that the noble Earl may say on any subject would carry the greatest weight, and be entitled to the profoundest respect, and I think it must be clear from what I have already said that, so far as the purely naval issue is concerned, I am not combating, or endeavouring to combat, that part of the speech of the noble Earl in which he dwelt upon the naval aspect of the Singapore base. But he did not address himself—and how could he?—to the basic principle which underlies our statement of policy, It was not before him at that time, and, if I may, I will read to your Lordships again the objective of our foreign policy. It is in these words:—
" We stand for a policy of international co-operation through a strengthened and enlarged League of Nations, the settlement of disputes by conciliation and judicial arbitration, and the creation of conditions which will make a comprehensive agreement or limitations of armaments possible."
Now, my Lords, I will ask you to consider what would be the Prime Minister's position when he approached other
822
Powers with such proposals if he proceeded with the policy of the Singapore naval base.
Would he not be twitted at once with this: "Your intentions, no doubt, are admirable and strictly honourable, but we should have had greater confidence in your sincerity if it had not been that at the very moment when you are making these proposals to us you are developing the great naval base of yours at Singapore "? The noble Earl dwelt with great force in his speech last Thursday on the attitude of this country with regard to Singapore, and his words are so eloquent, and, if I may respectfully say so, so true, that I will read them to your Lordships. He said:
" And the fundamental defence of our view of Singapore is that by strengthening the defences of the Empire for which we are responsible, without at the same time threatening any other rival Power in those parts of the world, we are taking a step which safeguards peace, which makes in favour of the status quo, and which does nothing whatever, direct or indirect, either to raise legitimate jealousies, or to excite fears, be they right or wrong, or to produce the state of war which is too often the result of armaments designed for a different purpose and capable of being turned to a different use.''
I do not pretend for one moment that those who were responsible for the policy of the naval base at Singapore were not sincerely convinced that they were proposing nothing to raise legitimate jealousies or to excite fear. But surely, at this moment, what the Prime Minister has to bear in mind is not the rectitude of our own conduct, but the views and susceptibilities of other parties.
There has been a very striking instance just lately of the susceptibilities which exist abroad with regard to what we may very rightly consider to be perfectly innocent acts on our part. You have noticed that lately exception has been taken abroad to our Fleet exercises in the Western Mediterranean. May I state as a fact that for the last thirty years our squadrons which are based on home waters have cruised in the Western Mediterranean during the winter months, in order to get finer weather and longer days, and because the Western Mediterranean is a convenient point of meeting for the squadrons. ? In 1922 similar exercises took place in the same neighbourhood, and they only did not take place last year because of the situation

823
in the Dardanelles. I am anxious to mention this for two reasons. In the first place, I hope to disabuse the minds of our friends abroad of the idea that these Fleet exercises have behind them any ulterior or sinister motives. I mention it also for a reason which is more germane to the reply which I am making to the noble Earl—namely, that surely this is not an inapposite example of the necessity of bearing in mind the views of other parties.
Let me take another illustration. The noble Earl in his speech put this question to myself:
" Does anybody think, does the noble Lord who is at the head of the Admiralty think, or is he prepared to contend, that the creation of a naval base at Singapore is of a character which can be seriously treated as a menace to any other Power at all? "
If one regards that purely from our point of view, I say: Certainly not, we cannot regard it as such. But one can quite conceive that other Powers may well say that defensive arrangements always connote offensive potentialities; and it is from this point of view that at this moment we have to approach this problem, and it is from this point of view that the Government have arrived at the decision which I have announced.
But it will be said, and it was said by the noble Earl, that the great Powers at Washington knew of this proposed base when the Washington Pact was come to. Of course, the Government know that that is so from the investigations which they have made, and I am not suggesting for one moment that ill faith could be imputed to this country if it were to proceed with the Singapore base. But I come back again to this point: it is not the rectitude of our own attitude which is at stake at this moment, it is that we have to convince the world of our sincerity if we are proceeding to approach them with a view to appeasement and the getting rid of the spirit of suspicion and hate which seems to exist almost everywhere. It is a simple and a broad point, which does not require much elaboration, which I will put before your Lordships, and it is this. It is imperative for the Government at this moment to convince the world of the sincerity of this country when it is approaching them with proposals with regard to a more peaceful state of things.
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There is one more matter to which I should like to allude before I sit down. During the controversy which has been proceeding on this subject attacks have been prevalent on the Board of Admiralty, and if they had been levelled against myself as the political head of that Department there could be no possible ground of complaint. It would have been the right and proper course to take. But that has not been the case, and I want very briefly to point out the constitutional position. In 1910 the following was laid down with regard to the responsibility of the Navy in a Report of a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, of which the whole is published in Command Paper 2029:
" The maintenance of sea supremacy has been assumed as the basis of the system of Imperial Defence against attack from over the sea. This is the determining factor in shaping the whole defensive policy of the Empire, and is fully recognised by the Admiralty, who have accepted the responsibility of protecting all British territory abroad against organised invasion from the sea."
That principle was, in terms, endorsed last year. From that it is perfectly clear that the duty of the Lords of Admiralty is to advise the Government on the naval responsibilities as so laid down. As soon as they have advised, the responsibility passes to the Government, if it accept their advice, or if, as in this case, it has not rejected their advice, but has said that it must be considered in a wider relationship. The Admiralty then, in this case, must neither be regarded as having gone beyond its duties in advising on the responsibilities so laid down, nor, on the other hand, is it responsible for policy, which is the Government's alone. Like any other Government servants, they have given their advice, and with that advice their responsibility begins and ends.
I should not have alluded to this but for the ignorant and unfair attacks which have been made on some of my naval colleagues, and I would appeal outside for fair play—an appeal which, I believe, never fails when it is made in this country and to Englishmen. Like all Government servants, their mouths are shut, and it is for me to protest and defend them; and I need hardly say that the great sailors with whom it is my privilege to have been associated during the past few weeks possess the complete confidence of His Majesty's Government.

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Now I have finished, and I hope, at all events, that I have made the position and policy of His Majesty's Government perfectly clear. I believe that I have set forth a policy, which, whether noble Lords agree with it or not, is at least intelligible and fraught with great possibilities. For my part, I can say we have every confidence in it, and we desire to give it the best possible chance of success. For us to pursue any other course would be to admit that we had doubts in our minds of the success of our own policy.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, the noble Viscount has just announced to your Lordships, partly from the paper which he read and partly from the remarks which followed it, the decision which has been arrived at by His Majesty's present advisers on this most important question of the development of the naval base at Singapore. That decision will have been received by your Lordships' House, I will not say with surprise, because it may be said to have been, in some respects at any rate, foreshadowed by previous utterances from members of the Party to which the noble Viscount belongs; but whether it has been received with surprise or not, I venture to assert that it will have been received by your Lordships with profound regret, and I would venture even to add a stronger phrase, and to say with feelings of dismay.
I shall turn in a moment to the reasons, to my mind the astonishing reasons, which have been given by the noble Viscount for this procedure on the part of the Ministry to which he belongs. Before I do that, may I say that I was glad to note that from his speech there disappeared any repetition of the argument with which we have been made familiar on previous occasions—namely, that the decision of the late Government to proceed with this naval base at Singapore could justifiably be regarded in any way as a ground of suspicion and complaint amongst those Powers who were represented at Washington; still less, that it argued any breach of good faith on the part of ourselves in this respect.
A year ago, when we had more than one discussion in this House on the subject, speeches were made by the noble Viscount, Lord Wimborne, and the noble Viscount, Lord Grey of Fallodon, in which, speaking without full information
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at their disposal, they hinted that at Washington our Government had been a little too clever, a little too smart, had got the better of our adversaries or, if not of our adversaries, even of our friends in this respect, and that altogether there was something a little unsavory about the whole proceedings. The speech of the noble Karl, Lord Balfour, completely demolished this groundless suspicion. Not only do we know that this policy of developing the base at Singapore has been one which has for long been in the minds of His Majesty's advisers, not only do we know that it was part of the instructions with which Lord Balfour went out to Washington, but we learned from him also that the fixation of the one hundreth-and-tenth parallel of Eastern longitude was arrived at with a perfect knowledge on the part of all those concerned, not only that we were at liberty to protect and fortify our bases lying outside that limit, but that we intended to do so; that it was known to the Americans; that it was known to the Japanese, and that it was known to all the signatories of the Washington Agreement. Therefore, nothing can be more clear than this, that the idea that there was any breach, technical or otherwise, either of the letter or the spirit of the Washington Agreement, or that there was any scintilla of bad faith on our part, may be, dismissed as purely baseless. I am very glad that that at least is swept away.
Now I would like to add what, perhaps, I am in a better position to say than anybody else. If no suspicion could be created out of what happened at Washington, could any such feelings of apprehension or disappointment be legitimately aroused in Japan? I was at the Foreign Office when these decisions were arrived at. Supposing there had been any ground for such apprehension on the part of the Japanese Government, supposing they had thought that the construction of a naval base at Singapore was in any measure directed against them, what would have been their natural action ? The Japanese Ambassador would have come round and seen me at once with his interrogations, with his challenge, with his, demand for further information. Did he do so? Not in the least. On the only occasion on which the Japanese Ambassador came to see me about this question, he remarked

827
to me that he thoroughly understood our policy, that it was in consonance with what he knew to be our policy, that he himself did not, and his Government did not, share the apprehensions to which I am referring, and that he had no complaint whatever to make. Are we to be more sensitive, more suspicious and more susceptible than Japan ?
The Japanese Government behaved in this matter with perfect straightforwardness and good faith. They know, as we know, that, although the Alliance that subsisted for so many years between England and Japan has come to an end, the feelings of friendship and of concord that unite the two countries are not only strong, but lasting. They entertain no more suspicion of us for developing this base at Singapore than we do of them for spending two millions sterling this year in strengthening and fortifying their naval bases, as they are doing. Do we get up and level our suspicions against them ? Do we attack the Americans because, within the limits permitted to them in the Washington Agreement, they are acting in the same way ? No. And if we do not entertain these suspicions, neither for a moment do I believe that they are entertained by Japan or by any other country.
That brings me to the explanation of this decision on the part of His Majesty's Government which has been given by the noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford. He has told us this afternoon that the resolution to continue the policy of the past two Governments in this respect would have a detrimental effect upon our foreign policy in general; that the task of His Majesty's advisers is to establish confidence—that has been the task of every Government that has ever spoken from the Front Bench in either House of Parliament—that it is for them to allay the suspicion and anxiety which everywhere exist and to destroy the impression that our good faith is not to be counted upon. The noble Viscount spoke about the spirit of suspicion and of hate that is abroad in the world. Where ? I wish the noble Lord would give his evidence, for, after all, it is only about two months ago that the noble Lord and his colleagues took office. Certainly when we retired I had, I suppose, as good means as anybody of ascertaining whether these feelings were in existence. I do not recollect them. I
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have no recollection of Ambassadors coming with frowning countenances into my room and telling me that we were living in a world of suspicion and hate, and that I must perform some signal act of abnegation, even at the expense of my country, in order to remove these feelings of suspicion and hate.
When did these feelings of suspicion and hate grow up ? What representations have been made about them and by whom; The only evidence the noble Viscount could adduce was this, that somehow or other in some quarter which he did not specify, because the British Fleet had been moving about in a certain part of the Mediterranean, someone—I believe it was an Italian newspaper—had said: "What are these people about ? Are they not really challenging our position in the Mediterranean ? "On that basis and that alone, as far as I can determine, the noble Viscount asks us to believe that we are living in this terrible state of affairs, which His Majesty's advisers are destined to exorcise.
He said that the pursuance of this plan would mean that we were drifting into a competition of armaments. Now, what does that mean ? What were we proposing to do at Singapore? As I understand, the proposal was simply this. The mobility of the British Fleet, for whatever purpose it be required, either for the keeping open of the trade routes, or the protection of our Dominions, or the vindication of the honour of our flag, requires that there should be certain facilities provided in respect of floating docks, graving docks, and so on, which do not at present exist, or, if they do exist, exist at a distance from the possible scene of action so great that the Fleet might be rendered useless for the purpose for which it might be called upon to act. For that reason, and for that reason only, it has been proposed to take a place lying in the channel between the Island of Singapore and the mainland, to create there these docks and these establishments in order to enable the Fleet to do with greater promptitude and at less cost what it might otherwise have to return to Europe to effect. That is, we are told, tantamount to a confession on our part that we are going in for competition in respect of armaments. Surely, that argument is one which cannot be sustained for a moment, and

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still less can we hold, as the noble Lord I invited us to do, that this is a bellicose step.
The noble Viscount himself gave the answer to his own charge when he quoted Lord Balfour's words. If there is any man who has a right to speak in this House, or to the public opinion of the country, with authority on such a subject as that, not merely as a statesman of the highest standing but as one who has been himself Foreign Minister, it is Lord Balfour. I suppose there is no one who has a greater right to speak than he, and the greater part of his argument in the latter portion of his speech was that this was not a menace of war but was an act of peace, that it was a measure which will enable us in the future to exercise that influence in Far Eastern waters, in the Indian Ocean, in the China Seas, and in the Pacific which undoubtedly will be a guarantee of peace rather than a menace of war.
The noble Viscount may say—he did not actually say, but I have heard it said before: "Is this provision required? What enemy do you possibly fear ? It cannot be the United States; it is inconceivable we shall ever be fighting with them. Is it not therefore Japan that you are aiming at ? "I think that is a line of argument that can only be pursued with considerable caution. As a matter of fact, you might use the same argument with respect to any part of our defensive forces. You might say: "You must not have a fleet in the Mediterranean, for that is a menace to Italy; you must not have a fleet in the Channel, because that is a danger to France; you must not have a fleet in the North Sea, or the Baltic, because that is shaking your fist in the face of Russia; you must not have a fleet in the Atlantic, because America may not like it."
The whole of the arguments of the noble Lord are really arguments not in favour of not proceeding with this particular measure; they are arguments in favour of disposing of the whole of our defensive forces. His argument is equally valid for saying: "We will not have an Air Force of any commanding character, because people will suspect us; we will not have an Army at all "—and indeed I read that a number of gentlemen in the House of Commons yesterday were arguing on those lines—" we will not
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have an Army at all, because, after all, if you have an Army someone knows that some day or other you may fight, and that is not the impression we desire to produce." Our armaments are kept and maintained, whether they are armaments in the air, or on the sea, or on land, not with a view to meeting any one antagonist, they are kept with a view to meeting any contingency that may arise, to meet any possible antagonist or any combination of antagonists that may conceivably occur. They are maintained not with a view to a situation that may arise to-morrow, or the next day, but with a view to all likely or conceivable contingencies in the future. They are, in fact, a part of the policy of insurance which we have to pay if we are to remain a great Empire in the world.
I pass to that part of the speech of the noble Viscount which dealt with the question of the Dominions. Here we are on very delicate and very tender ground. I had the honour of assisting at all the sessions of the Imperial Conference a few months ago. This question was most minutely sifted and explored on that occasion. The Ministers of the Dominions by no means came with their minds made up upon the matter. I remember very well that Mr. Bruce, the Prime Minister of Australia, in particular, before he was satisfied, required answers to a number of questions of a most searching character. But I also recall that when the matter had been discussed on no fewer than two or three occasions, he ended by saying that he was prepared to admit that they believed the establishment of a base at Singapore to be absolutely vital to their interests, and to the interests of the Empire as a whole. What Mr. Bruce then said was confirmed in the published Resolutions of the Conference, and has been not only confirmed but emphasised by the evidence which the noble Viscount has given us this afternoon.
He said, and I heard it with satisfaction, that His Majesty's Government propose to lay before Parliament the text of the opinions they have received. That is, if I may say so, quite right and proper. But I also hope the noble Viscount will lay at the same time the text of the communication which was addressed by His Majesty's Government to them. Many of us would rather like to know in what

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form the request for an opinion was couched, whether it indicated that the mind of His Majesty's Government had already been made up, or whether, the matter being still open, the Government desired the advice of their distinguished colleagues across the sea. The noble Viscount told us just now that the Canadian Government offered no advice, and that the Government of Ireland was in the same position. On the other hand, New Zealand, Newfoundland—I hope I am quoting correctly—and the Commonwealth of Australia expressed themselves in the strongest possible language, in stronger language even than the published Resolutions of the Imperial Conference.
As I gathered, the Commonwealth of Australia said that our action would jeopardise the position of Great Britain in the world, and diminish our influence in the councils of nations, and that the position of Great Britain in the Pacific would be in danger. So strongly do they hold these views that some of them, I gather, in addition to New Zealand, which six months ago placed in its Budget an item of £100,000 for this purpose, are prepared to increase their own contributions. Of the whole of the Dominions whose answers were quoted by the noble Viscount the only one that expressed criticism or dissent was the South African Government, as represented by General Smuts. Nothing will induce me ever to speak of General Smuts except with respect and admiration, but his views on these pacific questions are well known, and it may also be remarked that South Africa lies very much outside the purview of the scene of action in which a British Fleet might be called upon in connection with the base at Singapore.
One word about the position, if he will allow me to offer it to him, of the noble Viscount. He told us the other day of the circumstances under which he had accepted Office, and we respected the candour and the courage of his remarks. Now, in what position does he find himself to-day ?
VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD: I think I made it quite clear in my speech that I was in absolute and cordial agreement with His Majesty's Government in this matter.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I was not raising that point for a moment, and it would be most unfair to the noble Viscount to suggest anything of the sort. What I was pointing out was that the noble Viscount, as First Lord of the Admiralty, finds himself, unless there has been a complete change of opinion, acting, in concert with his colleagues, in opposition to the views of the whole of the naval experts in the Admiralty. Unless there has been a complete change of opinion, I assume that is the case. He finds himself acting in opposition in this matter to the views of the whole of the Dominions, with the single exception of South Africa; and I wonder whether he finds himself acting in harmony with the Government of India, he himself being an ex-Viceroy. India, and the Indian Ocean, are vitally concerned in this matter. The Indian representatives at the meeting of the Imperial Conference strongly endorsed the views taken by their colleagues from the Dominions, and all I suggest to the noble Viscount is this, that in the inauguration of a term of office, which we hope will be successful, to begin by acting in opposition to the views of the whole of your naval advisers, the whole of the Prime Ministers, with one exception, of the Dominions, and, so far as I know, in opposition to the opinions of the Government of India, of which he was once the head, is to assume a very grave responsibility indeed. The noble Viscount is conscious of his own ability to bear such a responsibility, but I may be pardoned if I point it out to the House.
There are many other points which I might have been disposed to take were it not that at this late hour, if the discussion is to continue to-night, it is undesirable to do anything more than allude to the particular observations that have been made by the noble Viscount. But this I would like to say in vindication of what I believe to be the attitude of the Party to which I belong. Why do we hold that the construction or the development of this naval base at Singapore is a matter of supreme importance ? And that question ought to be answered, because I remember that a year ago, when in its earlier stages we discussed the subject, while the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack admitted that a prima facie case might

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be made out, and while noble Lords speaking with authority quite agreed that the central position of Singapore rendered it a desirable spot to take, that the Navy would be strengthened by it, that the power of Britain would be enhanced—really at that date the question was more of the money it would cost than anything else—while that was the position taken up by the majority of speakers last year, all of them, as far as I can recollect, were disposed to admit that if the construction of this base could be shown to be vital and essential, then it ought, to be done.
It is our view that it is vital, that it is essential; and for that reason it ought to be proceeded with. Our view depends, as I understand it, upon our estimate and idea of what the functions of our Navy ought to be, and let me in a sentence or two attempt to define them. Most of us at home are apt, with the memory of the recent war upon us, to regard the Navy as our domestic shield, as the force which protects us from invasion, which secures our food supplies coming to these shores, and which is strong enough to defeat any enemy that may attack us. But that, of course, is only a small corner of the function of the Navy. What it has to do, inter alia, is to protect and keep open the whole of our trade routes in every part of the world, in the Pacific as much as in the Mediterranean or in the Atlantic, and, further, to secure from attack, from invasion, from the risks of loss, our possessions along the great trade routes in distant parts of the world.
I have spent a good deal of my life in travelling in those regions—I am speaking now of the countries which lie between India and Japan—and I have always contemplated with the gravest anxiety what might happen in contingencies in the future not wholly to be dismissed, in which attacks might be made by an enemy, or by a combination of enemies, either upon the shores of India, or upon Singapore itself, or upon Hong Kong: and even if those attacks were not made I have often wondered what would happen if, as is not inconceivable, the great Empire of China broke up in chaos and confusion and it were necessary to take steps there, by the despatch of powerful military and naval forces, to sustain our interests in those parts of the world. On such an occasion, may you not want the most powerful fleet that you can put on
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those waters ? And in such a case might it not be vital that it should have means of repair and docking which a great naval base in, those waters can alone afford ? Do not believe that such risks are a mere chimera. They may, or they may not, happen in the lifetime of any of us.
But supposing you dismiss my vaticinations and confine your attention to the question of the Dominions only. Nothing was borne in more strongly upon me when the case was recently discussed than the fact that these Dominions believed profoundly that they were not safe, that their security must depend in the future, as it has in the past, upon the action and co-operation of the British Fleet; that they have not the means and the resources to enable them to defend themselves, that reliance upon our Navy in the background has been the sheet anchor of their confidence and defence. Have you paused to think, not merely whether you do wisely in passing over the advice of the Dominion Ministers whom you have consulted, but of the effect you are going to produce on the populations of the Dominions as a whole ? What is the whole theory upon which we have built up and maintained this Empire ? Surely, it is that of common co-operation in a common interest, that while we, when we were in trouble, looked to them, and seldom looked in vain, for such assistance as they could render, they could always rely on the British Navy to assist them in their hour of need. That is the whole basis of our Imperial position in the world.
And what are you going to say to them ? No more of that mutual co-operation ! If you want to defend yourselves you must do it yourselves, meanwhile we are going trotting about the world in order to find a policy of disarmament; we are so much alarmed by the atmosphere of suspicion and hate that we are going all round the countries of the world cap in hand promising them reductions here and there in order to induce a better spirit ! The idea is admirable, purely platonic, wholly academic, and while you are pursuing this phantom—as I am sorry to say, in the existing state of affairs, it is—you are running the risk of shaking the confidence and the belief, and impairing the unity, of your Empire. That is the point of view from which I believe the majority of my friends, of the noble Lords with whom I act in this House, regard this matter.

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We do believe, not in any bellicose spirit, not with any jingo designs, that a British Fleet can only perform the service for which it is intended, and in the pursuit of which it has hitherto acted, if it is given the facilities for mobility to which I have referred; and holding this view as strongly as we do, and resenting as deeply as we do the manner in which the opinion of our colleagues in those Dominions is about to be overruled, I feel that I have no alternative but to ask your Lordships to record these views in a Motion. At the present moment the Motion before the House is that moved by Lord Balfour last week for Papers. I should like to move, as an Amendment to that Motion on the part of the noble Earl, that the words after the word "that" be omitted, and that for them be substituted these words: "this House, believing that the development of the naval base at Singapore, as approved by the recent Imperial Conference, is urgently required for the protection of our commerce, the security of our Dominions and the future maintenance of peace, deeply regrets the decision of His Majesty's Government not to proceed with that measure."
Amendment moved—
Leave out all words after (" That ") and insert (" this House, believing that the development of the naval base at Singapore, as approved by the recent Imperial Conference, is urgently required for the protection of our commerce, the security of our Dominions and the future maintenance of peace, deeply regrets the decision of His Majesty's Government not to proceed with that measure.''—(The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.)
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I think some of your Lordships who may not feel that this question of the naval base at Singapore is quite so simple as it would appear to anyone who has listened to the speech of the noble Marquess, will be placed in some difficulty by having a Resolution of which no previous notice has been given put to your Lordships for decision at this late hour of the evening. I am prepared to state my own views, but I will not attempt to do so at any length, the more so because, a year ago, I did express at some length my views, as they then were, on this question of the naval base at Singapore. I expressed considerable doubts as to its wisdom. The speech of the noble Marquess
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has not removed those doubts. It is the kind of speech which has always been made, and, I suppose, always will he made, and which is perfectly unexceptionable in itself, in defence of every increase of armaments that is proposed.
I do not go quite so far as the noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford, in founding my doubts about this base on the League of Nations or the prospects of future peace. I think it would be very dangerous and, indeed, disadvantageous to the future of the League of Nations if at the present stage we based any reduction of our armaments upon the hopes which we found upon the future of the League. I have my own views, upon which, of course, I will not enter to-night, as to how that League may be greatly strengthened and made a much greater reality than it is at present, and when that time comes I think it will automatically produce a reduction of armaments. But I will not enter upon that to-night.
I should like to point out, however, that we are not, to-night, discussing a diminution of armaments at all. The very point which I have put as to not basing reduction of armaments upon the prospects of a future pacific policy was put with more force than my own by the present Prime Minister in the House of Commons the other day when he was defending the building of five cruisers. It was put, with great point and force and without reserve, and it amounted to this—that we must not let our Navy down while the prospects of a future pacific policy were in the balance. But this is not a question of letting the Navy down. It is a question, as I understand it, of to-day, now, at this moment, agreeing to contracts which commit us irrevocably to giving to our Navy—not to maintaining to our Navy—a range of potentiality which it has not had before, certainly in recent years, and has not to-day. It is not an, increase in the size of the Navy, but it is a great increase in the striking power and the potential force of the Navy. That is a point which the noble Marquess did not make in his speech, and which is really a point of substantial difference.
If it were a question of diminishing the strength of the Navy from the point of view of a European standard, I should agree with everything the noble Marquess has urged. The country was very rightly sensitive for years before the last war on

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the subject of maintaining a Navy based upon a certain European standard, and that Navy was maintained. Preparations to meet the contingency of a European war were not only made but were kept, up to the very eve of war, at the pitch of preparedness. That was the case before the last war. But this is providing for an entirely different contingency—not a contingency of European war but a different contingency altogether. Sooner or later, we shall, I am sure, again come back to this, that our standard of naval strength, our primary and first consideration, is a European standard. This is not going to increase our naval power from that point of view. In so far as it adds to the naval expenditure, not merely the millions which are required to build this base, but the millions required to keep it up, it will weaken rather than strengthen our Naval Estimates for the contingency of another European war.
We are always at a great disadvantage in discussing these questions of naval expenditure, because it is indiscreet to come to realities. The noble Marquess spoke about providing for a possible contingency, a conceivable contingency, and so forth, but one knows very well that when this sort of naval expenditure is advocated it is advocated on grounds, discussed, presumably, in the Committee of Imperial Defence, which are not providing for possible or conceivable contingencies but for some definite contingency. Of course, it becomes invidious to discuss that question of definite contingencies. One knows perfectly well, in this case, that if there were not another powerful fleet in that part of the world this expenditure would not be advocated. If another powerful fleet began to be built in that part of the world probably the Admiralty would advocate this expenditure. It is therefore advocated for a certain definite contingency.
I am not impressed by the fact that the Japanese Ambassador was perfectly civil about, this expenditure. I am not impressed by the fact that the noble Marquess did not hear from the Ambassadors any evidence of the suspicion and hate which exist in the world. Until the eve of war the Foreign Office is the last place where any uncivil language is used. I agree that as regards ourselves and Japan any idea of suspicion and hate is
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out of the question, and I like to think that, although the Alliance is at an end, our relations remain as cordial as when the Alliance was in existence. But what happens with our expenditure on armaments is not that one nation comes down and objects to that expenditure, but that another, which always says it understands that expenditure, also spends itself.
I went at some length into this point of possible contingencies last year. I went into it at a length which I thought at the time, and which I think now, was possibly rather indiscreet. What I said is on record in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I am not going to take away from my remarks, nor am I going to emphasise them by repetition, because I think that on the whole what I said was sound. There is only one qualification which I wish to make with regard to what I said a year ago. It is this: the noble Marquess said I had hinted, at any rate, that this expenditure might be regarded in the United States or in Japan as a breach not of the letter but of the spirit of the Washington Agreement. Of course, it is always possible at such Conferences to be perfectly clear in your own mind as to what it is you want to get, and then afterwards, when the Conference has closed, rather to surprise those with whom you are in conference by disclosing that which was in your own mind, and of which they had not known until the discussion had closed. Therefore, I welcome the statement made by the noble Earl, and also by the noble Marquess, that not only was this question of the Singapore base known at the Washington Conference, but—I notice this with pleasure-that the suggestion that what was proposed about a base at Singapore was in any way a breach of the spirit of the Washington Conference has not been taken by public opinion or by the Government, either in Japan or the United States. I therefore qualify what I said last year by saying that I am delighted to know that that objection is out of the way.
But that is not the only thing. It is true, as Lord Balfour has said, that this measure of expenditure or proposed expenditure upon the base at Singapore is in our own minds, in our hearts and intention, purely a defensive measure. That is absolutely true. What is equally true, unfortunately, is that that descrip-

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tion of the expenditure is never accepted fully by other countries, as from their point of view the sole account of the matter, and it never will be; for this reason: that in most matters of strategy the most effective measure of defence is a measure of potential offence. That was a favourite doctrine of one great Sea Lord, no longer living, whose conception of defence was that you should be able to strike hard and strike first.
We may take it for granted that every measure we take for the increase of armaments, or the increase of our power, will be regarded, though purely defensive in our own mind, from the angle of vision of possible offence in the minds of other Governments mainly concerned. I do not think that the building of this base at Singapore will impair our relations with Japan if we go on with it, but I am perfectly certain that, although the direct consequences will not be to create friction between the Governments, the indirect result must be an increase of expenditure in that part of the world. One, expenditure leads to another, and I think there is strength in the argument of Lord Chelmsford that this is not the time for taking steps which will lead to a large increase in naval strength.
Then I come to a point of considerable difficulty, and that is the opinion of the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers. We, who do not wish to see this base at Singapore pressed at the present moment, and who agree that the line taken by the Government is not an unreasonable one, are placed in this difficulty. We are simply upholding views which we held a year ago, and which we professed, and were known to profess, on this question. Since we last expressed those views an Imperial Conference has been held, and the Government of the day came under, I will not say an undertaking but an agreement, an understanding, with the Dominion Prime Ministers to do certain things. They did it knowing that a considerable body of Liberal and Labour opinion was opposed to some of those things on which they were coming to an agreement or understanding with the Dominion Prime Ministers.
They were perfectly entitled to do that. The Dominion Prime Ministers must have known perfectly well that the decisions at the Conference which required the
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sanction of Parliament must be subject to Parliamentary sanction, that those things which required money and taxation, and so forth, would require the sanction of the House of Commons. They knew that, and they knew there was considerable opposition, but they were entitled to enter into these agreements, and I think the Government were entitled to make these agreements, because they had a majority in the House of Commons, and they had every prospect, and indeed every right, to say to the Prime Ministers of the Dominions that they were in a position not merely to pledge themselves but to make those views effective in Parliament. What has placed us in a difficulty is that the Government which conducted the Imperial Conference put all the decisions of that Conference to the hazards of a General Election.
That has created a most unfortunate situation. If the Dominion Prime Ministers are disappointed, I do not think that the responsibility for their disappointment ought to be placed upon us who repeat this year the views which we had expressed last year. Their disappointment, if they feel any, should be with the late Government, which put to the hazard of a General Election the agreements they had come to with the Dominion Prime Ministers, when they might have continued in power till those agreements had been made operative in Parliament.
I am not convinced by anything that we have heard that the views we expressed a year ago as to the wisdom of this base at Singapore were unsound. I had very-great doubts as to whether it is a wise step to commit ourselves to this expenditure. I should, of course, have been perfectly prepared to accept the Motion of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, asking for Papers, and I would endorse the request of the noble Marquess that not only the replies of the Dominions but the Despatch of His Majesty's Government to the Dominions should be published together. I am anxious for the fullest information on the point, but, as the noble Marquess has moved an Amendment which directly challenges views which we expressed a year ago, and which I see no reason to change, though I know that he may have with him a large majority of your Lordships, I shall feel bound myself to express

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my inability to accept his Amendment by voting against it in the Lobby, if it goes to a Division.
VISCOUNT NOVAR: My Lords, if the statement which has been made on behalf of the Government has caused dismay among the great majority of the members of your Lordships' House, it is not surprising to learn that it is regarded in Australasia, in the Dominions of the Southern Seas, as a fatal decision. The Prime Minister has undoubtedly hitched his waggon to a star, and the realities are lost sight of in pious aspirations. It will be in the recollection of your Lordships that, as with Singapore, so with Rosyth and the subsidiary bases in Scotland, precious time has always been lost through the vaccillation of the Government and the opposition of the Treasury. The year 1914 found Rosyth incomplete and unprepared to meet the urgent necessities of the Grand Fleet for mobilisation, to its no small hazard and danger. In the years preceding 1914 the people of this country were no more ready to anticipate war in the North Sea than they are now to contemplate the possibilities of trouble in the Pacific, or to grasp the ineffectiveness of even the greatest Navy in the world, if it is tied to one part of the world for lack of repairing and refitting docks in the other.
Mobility is the first necessity of the Navy of the British Empire, and, without adequate docks in both hemispheres, where lie the lands that it has to protect, the British Navy has not a chance. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, a confirmed pacifist, freely accepted the Rosyth scheme as one which merely provided the ordinary, obvious requirements of our Fleet. Singapore stands in the same category. Rosyth provided for the requirements of the Navy in Northern waters, Singapore for the same requirements in the Pacific, where, it is unnecessary to remind your Lordships, the British Navy always has business. At present there is no base in the Southern Seas which can accommodate our largest ships, nor are there repairing facilities, or places of shelter.
I should not have intervened in this debate on a subject with which so many experts in external affairs and in naval matters have dealt so adequately, were it not for the fact that I had the opportunity
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of seeing how the problem looked from the other side of the world. When war broke out Australia had to send her troops 12,000 miles across the sea, and to provide defence against the vessels of von Spee. At that time Australia had her own efficient naval unit. Japan was our faithful ally, and together these ships provided convoy, and kept watch and ward till the German cruisers were disposed of. But those favourable conditions might not always prevail. We might find ourselves single-handed in the Pacific, in which other Powers have large naval bases. The United States has a specially fine one at Honolulu, of recent creation, and her interests in the Pacific can scarcely be said to be more extensive and vulnerable than ours. Moreover, in 1914, despite cur advantages, we know that had not von Spee met his fate at the Falkland Islands the duties of convoying troops, protecting commerce, and defending our immense coastline might have proved too tough a job for the ships at our disposal.
Nor would it have been possible, in case of need, for ships of larger size to operate in those waters. There are no docks there of repairing capacity, or with harbours adequate, to receive them. Despite the magnificent Sydney Harbour, which the noble Viscount knows so well, the "Renown," which brought His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Australia, could only just turn and find adequate room for anchorage. Fortunately, no such critical occasion arose during the war, but we learnt from the exploits of the "Emden" and the "Wolf" by the sinking of our ships close inshore, through mines laid by unseen enemies, how terribly vulnerable we were: and the bombarding of Madras by a light cruiser showed what might have been the fate of the big coastal cities of Australia. Of course, it is probable that Australia will once more build a small fleet for the purposes of local defence, but, so long as such a fleet can never hope for backing at times of great emergency from the Grand Fleet, we cannot pretend that the Southern Dominions are adequately protected. Nor can we pretend that Britain exercises any real control in the Pacific. It is not surprising, therefore, that, in the present state of the world. Australia should feel deeply interested in the Singapore base.

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Prior to the war, the Australian Government had evolved schemes for establishing Australian bases and had spent a good deal upon them, acting under the advice of Admiral Henderson and other eminent naval and dock authorities. Operations at those bases were suspended by the war, and later in anticipation of the visit of Lord Jellicoe, who was commissioned to inquire and report on the problem of the defence of the Pacific. I hope that the noble Viscount will soon be amongst us, and able to give us first-hand, authoritative information on the subject. At the present time Australia awaits our decision before formulating any fresh plans of defence. Lord Jellicoe anticipated that her local fleet would use Singapore as a base, and have the advantage of cooperating there with ships of the Royal Navy. This would be of the greatest advantage and would secure homogeneity in methods, discipline, and standards of efficiency between the different units of His Majesty's Naval forces. This Report, unfortunately, has never been studied as it should have been—the minute scrutiny given by Lord Jellicoe, the greatest of strategists, to every side of the question. Still fewer have read the convincing arguments with which he had supported his considered recommendations that the best Eastern base for the British Naval forces was Singapore. If Australia recognises the advantages of Lord Jellicoe's scheme she will, I believe, recognise also her financial responsibilities towards it. New Zealand has already promised a definite money contribution.
The Government has consulted the Dominions, and they may possibly judge to a certain extent of their enthusiasm for this scheme by the size of their promised contribution. This is fair enough; but though the Singapore base ensures the defence of India and the Eastern Dependencies and protects British commerce, it is Australia and NewZealand—the most undefended, the most vulnerable and, I think I may add, the greatest prizes of the Southern seas—that stand to gain most by carrying out the scheme which will bring Indian and Pacific waters under the protection of the Grand Fleet. The burden on the British taxpayer for defence, as for other purposes, is far heavier than that which rests on the citizens of any of the Overseas Dominions. Their comparatively
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light taxation and rating, their strong financial position, makes the inequality of sacrifice on defence more apparent. Therefore, it is only natural that we should look to Australia to become a live partner in the undertaking. I believe that both Dominions can do this without adding to their burdens, because they could save enormously on schemes of first-class and subsidiary bases for their own defence. This scheme is one in which the co-operation of all parts of the Empire is necessary.
With every sympathy for Imperial Preference, one cannot be blind to the fact that as long as the Dominions remain unfavourably disposed to increased imports, so long as England cannot afford, for very good reasons, to tax food, nothing very substantial can be done through Preference towards further Imperial unity. On the other hand, much can be done to foster unity by developing, cheapening and speeding up inter-communications, by combining in one great and comprehensive scheme of defence, the central factor of which must be a mobile and adequate Fleet, centred, according to the necessities of the day, either in the northern or southern hemisphere. It is in view of the need for this that I welcome the Amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I feel that I must reply, but at this hour I shall do so very briefly. The noble Viscount who has just spoken has expressed himself from the point of view of Australia with the strength which one would expect from any one who has occupied so distinguished and intimate a position as he has in her affairs. He expressed what I have no doubt is the general feeling in Australia. But he also spoke of the position of the British Navy and the great value of Singapore as a base. I do not challenge what he said from a naval point of view. The British Navy, when all has been said, fulfils the functions of holding the Empire together by being its principal instrument of defence, and I have no doubt that a naval base at Singapore would add considerable strength to the position of the British Navy.
But that is not the point. The point is whether that ought to be done at this moment. The Government, justifiably perhaps, and certainly with a very strong sense of what is their duty, are making

845
an effort to assist the nations of the world to a better frame of mind than they have been in for some time. With the object of getting a common point of view, the Government have themselves abstained from anything that would have the appearance of being, or could be interpreted as, hostile, or as giving rise to suspicion. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Grey of Fallodon said upon this subject. It is not so much a question of depending on the League of Nations as a question of agreeing with the nations on something like a common point of view; even if you only began with a view and then progressed.
Between the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, to which I listened with the closest attention on Thursday, and the speech of the noble Marquess, the Leader of the Opposition, there was a considerable gulf. Lord Balfour was extremely cautious. He recognised that this base might give rise to suspicion if it was regarded from the point of view of offence but not if it was regarded from the point of view of defence. Lord Balfour's speech, admirable in temper and very moderate in tone, brought the matter to this—that the justification for the base was that it was purely for defence. The noble Marquess did not, indeed, say that it was for any other purpose than defence, but he spoke in a somewhat more resolute tone.
I am not questioning this matter from a purely naval point of view. What I am questioning, and what I questioned when I spoke in this House last summer at the same time as my noble friend Lord Grey, is the expediency of taking this step at this time. As I said before, from the naval point of, view, no doubt, Singapore would add considerably to the strength of the position of the Navy. If you established a base at Singapore, there is little doubt that, to use the phrase which I have heard in this House more than once, you would dominate the Pacific. There is nothing comparable to it, with the British Navy there, in the Western hemisphere. Again I say, if it was only a question of defence, I should regard the controversy as one open to very different considerations to the controversy which we have before us to-night. You can have things that are purely defensive. If you put up artillery positions to defend Portsmouth or Dover, they are purely
846
defensive formations and they cannot be used for offence. It is said that is a purely defensive measure, and that it cannot be used for offensive purposes. But if you make a great naval base and fortify it at Singapore, and protect it by a garrison, and make large docks and large storing places, what is your position ?
You have a position from which your Fleet can sally forth and establish subsidiary bases, and become a directing power over a large range of ocean. That may be desirable from a purely naval point of view, but observe what it means. The suggestion to the world is that you are extending, and extending vastly, your armaments. You are making a great weapon for yourself that you did not possess before. The noble Marquess will say that nothing was further from the minds of those who conceived the Singapore project than that it should be regarded as a menace. He said that he never felt safe unless he was armed with a sharp sword. But if you have a sharp sword it is a weapon which can be used for attack as well as defence. You cannot separate offence from defence, except in such cases as those I have mentioned. Whenever you do a thing such as you are proposing to do in the case of Singapore, you are, no doubt, making a splendid instrument of defence, but it is also a potent weapon of offence. You cannot expect those with whom you are dealing to accept your assurances at the same measure that you put upon them. They may regard them in an entirely different way.
The Government felt that they could not make this base without doing something that was inconsistent with the guiding principle of their policy. Do not let anybody suppose that we are considering merely economy, and do not let anybody suppose that we are overruling the Dominions. General Smuts, who, after all, knows as much as anybody in the Empire, is with us, and Canada does not oppose. In the condition of things that we have, what are we to do ? In a great issue of foreign policy we are bound to judge of it ourselves, and to take the decision upon it ourselves, although, of course, we must take into consideration the views of the Dominions. That the Government have done, and they feel that they must resist the Amendment of the noble Marquess.
On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Motion?
Resolved in the negative: Amendment agreed to accordingly.

CLAIMS OF IRISH LOYALISTS.
VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT had given Notice to call attention to the words used in this House on March 5 by
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 19; Not-Contents, 56.

CONTENTS.

Haldane, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Chelmsford, V.

Gainford, L.

Grey of Fallodon, V.

Gorell, L.

Parmoor, L. (L. President.)

Wimborne, V.

Muir Mackenzie, L. [Teller.]

Olivier, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Arnold, L.

Pentland, L.

Buxton, E.

Chalmers, L.

Shandon, L.

De La Warr. E. [Teller.]

Clwyd. L.

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Thomson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Devonshire, D

Falkland, V.

Elphinstone, L.

Marlborough, D.

Falmouth. V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Finlay, V.

Glenarthur, L.

Curzon of Kedleston, M.

FitzAlan of Dervent, V.

Glendyne, L.

Hood, V.

Harris. L.

Albemarle, E

Novar, V.

Hawke, L.

Bradford, E.

Younger of Leckie, V

Jessel, L.

Caithness, E.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Clarendon, E. [Teller.]

Askwith, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.[Teller.]

Lawrence, L.

Derby, E.

Muskerry, L.

Lucan, E.

Banbury of Southam, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Midleton. E.

Biddulph. L.

Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)

Morton, E.

Carson, L.

Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.)

Plymouth, E.

Charnwood, L.

Raglan, L.

Stanhope, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Riddell. L.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Saltoun, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Stuart of Wortley, L.

Cave, V.

Danesfort, L.

Teynham, L.

Chilston, V.

Darling, L.

Wharton, L.

Churchill, V.

Desart, L. (E. Desart.)

Lord Muskerry in connection with the conduct of an Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in view of the late hour I ask leave to postpone this Notice until to-morrow.
House adjourned at eight o'clock.

SPENCER SETTLED CHATTELS BILL. [H.L.]
Judges' Report received: Bill presented, and read 1a.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That in pursuance of Standing-Order No. 163A relating to Private Bills, ho had, on the requisition of the Chairman of Committees, appointed the Right Honourable George Charles Earl of Lucan as Guardian of the infant children of Earl Spencer, Brigadier-General Archibald Fraser Home as Guardian of the infant child of Lady Annaly, and the Right Honourable John Baron Revelstoke and George Strachan Pawle, Esquire, as Guardians of the infant children of the Sixth Earl, to represent such infants before the Committee on the Bill.

HASTINGS CORPORATION BILL.
Report from His Majesty's Attorney-General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.
AIRE AND CALDER NAVIGATION BILL. [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Order made on February 19 last discharged, and Bill committed.
BOMBAY, BARODA AND CENTRAL INDIA RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill,
ought not to be dispensed with, except in the case of Tramway, No. 3:
Read, and agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
London and North Eastern Railway (Dock Charges). [H.L.[
And also the Certificate that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill, introduced in pursuance of the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, have been complied with:
Grampian Electricity Supply (Substituted Bill).
The same were Ordered to lie on the Table.

LANARKSHIRE HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (DOCK CHARGES) BILL. [H.L.]
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LEGITIMACY BILL. [H.L.]
Third Reading (which stands appointed for Thursday next) put off to Tuesday next.
STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.
Message from the Commons that they concur in the Resolution of this House communicated to them on the 12th instant, That it is desirable that a Standing Joint Committee on Indian Affairs of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to examine and report on any Bill or matter referred to them specifically by either House of Parliament, and to consider with a view to reporting if necessary thereon any matter relating to Indian Affairs brought to the notice of the Committee by the Secretary of State for India.