Sitting of 19 July 1928

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

LONDON, MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
SOUTHERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, with reference to the four Railway Bills on the Order Paper, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the Order made on the 22nd day of March last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 26th day of June next," be dispensed with.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LONDON, MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I should like to say one thing. In Committee it was found convenient to take the general discussion on all four Bills on the first Bill, and I suggest that that would be the most convenient course to-day.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I think it may perhaps be for the convenience of the House to say a word about the contents of these Bills, which have excited a great deal of interest and, it is perhaps only fair to add, have received a great deal of consideration. I have been asked also to say a word by my noble friend Lord Chelmsford, the Chairman

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of the Joint Select Committee, who regrets that he cannot be here because of another public engagement. As your Lordships perhaps have gathered from the public prints, the Committee sat from April 26 to July 5 on every Parliamentary day and on a good many days that were not Parliamentary days, they heard a great deal of argument and a great deal of evidence, and as a result they made a Report, which was first considered in the House of Commons, where the Bills had received their Second Reading, and on Report in another place certain Amendments were made to which I shall refer more particularly in a moment. I might say at once—and I think I shall be right in speaking for the noble Chairman of the Committee—those Amendments in our view improve the Bill and have done them no harm.
The discussion centred principally round the question whether there was danger of a monopoly in this form of transport being created if these powers to run road vehicles were given to the railway companies. We heard a great deal of argument upon that point and a certain amount of evidence, although your Lordships will appreciate that the matter was naturally one rather more for argument than for evidence; one could hardly give evidence as to a future state of things. But we came to the conclusion that the safeguards which are now in the Bill, and which include a good many safeguards added to the Bill as deposited, would sufficiently protect the public, and I propose to call your Lordships' attention to these safeguards in a moment.
There was one Bill which disappeared and I might say a word about that—the Bill of the Metropolitan Railway. Some surprise has been expressed about that, but not, I think, by those who were present at the proceedings of the Committee. It disappeared for the perfectly obvious and simple Parliamentary reason that the promoters failed to make out their case and were unable to convince the Committee that there was any case for the Bill, and therefore the Committee rejected it. As regards the four Bills which are now before your Lordships, the main line companies Bills, powers were sought as they first came before the Committee in the widest possible form and with very little limitation indeed, and there may have been some
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reason for the apprehensions which were felt as to the result. Your Lordships will appreciate that what was suggested was that with their very large resources and their large capital the railway companies might flood the roads with omnibuses, which they might perfectly willingly run at a loss for one year, or, it may be, two years, or even longer—a loss which they would be well able to stand until they had driven their competitors off the roads—and that they would then be in a position to raise the fares against the public, and the public, instead of having as it has now both in goods and in passengers two alternative forms of transport under separate control at its disposal, would have at its disposal two alternative methods of transport but all under one control, which naturally would not be in the public interest in the matter of rates and fares.
The evidence before the Committee showed that there was already in existence a very large system of omnibus services throughout the country, a system almost as large as the system of the railway companies themselves, of very powerful interests financially linked and otherwise linked together, and it seemed to us improbable that such a service would in any case be displaced without a very considerable fight. But your Lordships will appreciate, as we fully appreciated, that there was another danger which was even more serious and that was that this service, being already established, and being, as I say, more or less under one control, might by agreement with the railway companies, instead of fighting them, cause a state of things in which the public would be injured. Well, in these Bills the Committee have done what they could to prevent any danger of that sort, and I would ask your Lordships to consider for one moment some of the protection that is afforded.
In the first place—I am dealing for the moment with passenger traffic—the fares which are to be demanded are to be exhibited in a conspicuous place in every omnibus, so that they will be known to everybody (that is Clause 9). Then power has been given to any local authority including a county council to make representations as to the fares (that is in Clause 8 (3)); and those representations

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are to be made, of course, to the Railway Rates Tribunal as being the persons most familiar with rates, and not in this instance to the Minister of Transport, and they will consider whether the fares are such as should be charged. And there is a further point which is of great importance. Clause 11 gives power to the companies to make agreements—the kind of agreements that I have been referring to. Those agreements are to be reported to the Minister of Transport and in every case the company are to tell the Minister of Transport whether the company with which they have made agreements is one which they control, that is to say, whether it is, in fact, an extension of the personality of the railway company under another name; so that the Minister of Transport will be advised of that. The particulars of the agreements will not be given to him, but I have no doubt he has means at his disposal of obtaining them should any necessity arise.
As to goods it was represented to us that the same dangers might arise, that the disunited bodies which now carry on the road transport of goods might be crushed one by one, that gradually there would be no rival to the rates and charges of the railway companies, and that it would not be possible to bring pressure to bear upon them either for lower rates or—what appeared to us was quite as important—better facilities and better services. In regard to that, it is provided that, so far as there are regular services, the rates shall be announced where they can be seen by the public. But your Lordships will readily understand that regular services are practically non-existent in ordinary road transport. You cannot always tell how your load will be made up or where it is to go to. Therefore such a thing as a regular set of routes is really almost non-existent.
But the clause which the Committee consider to be the real protection to the public is Clause 13. That provides that if the Minister is at any time of opinion that the interests of the public are prejudicially affected by the exercise of the powers of the Act, he may give notice and so on and hold a public inquiry and if, after inquiry, he is still of the said opinion, he shall report to both Houses of Parliament. That clause may be
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objected to on the ground, of course, that it is an extremely vague one, and that it uses very general words; but I am bound to say that in my view that really is its merit, because all we were asked to guard against were not small matters here and there, small incidents, but a general public abuse of these powers by the railway companies. This clause seems to me fully to cover that case. The Minister of Transport has full opportunities for holding an inquiry. We excluded various words that were suggested that he should be moved by this, that or the other body, and we left it at large as to how he may be moved, as to who should apply to him, as to what should initiate his motion. He is, of course, a representative of the public responsible to Parliament and our view is that Clause 13 gives a real protection, the best protection you ever can give against the abuse of any monopoly.
There are one or two minor points which are worthy of mention. The Committee excluded the administrative County of London. That was, I think, in many ways, a very unfortunate area. It is an area which is unknown to the London Traffic Act. It was a new transport area and in another place, on Report, an Amendment was introduced which, I suggest to your Lordships, has really improved the Bill. Passenger omnibus services are excluded from the Metropolitan Police area, which is an area that is already familiar to the London Traffic Act, and a concession has been made to the railway companies that long-distance traffic may be run into that area and may start from that area but must not take up or set down passengers in that area; that is to say, you can have a char-a-banc service but you may not have an omnibus service. It is hardly for any member of the Committee or perhaps for any of your Lordships who are not connected with the working of the railways to offer them advice or to criticise them. I confess for my own part that I think the railways will be very unwise if they abstract any further traffic from their lines by running char-a-banc services. They have their railways and their trains and they would be wise, one would think, to keep as much of their traffic as they can upon those lines. But if they desire to meet competition by running char-a-bane services

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from distant parts to the centre of London they have now been given that power.
I should like to mention one more point, the protection accorded to local authorities. Local authorities have both tramway and omnibus systems and those systems have two characteristics. First of all, they are set up with public money; that is to say, the ratepayers' money; and secondly, in each case they have to have statutory sanction. They have therefore obtained the consent of Parliament to the expenditure of public money in this way and it seemed proper to the Committee that they should be protected. The Committee protected them within their municipal areas. There has been a slight extension of that protection in another place to cover joint boards which work what is really one system but which happens to be in two municipal areas. That, I think, is a reasonable enough extension of what the Committee decided. An attempt was also made in another place to exclude altogether competition with any service of whatever kind which was run by local authorities. Your Lordships may be surprised to hear that by joint working and other arrangements of that kind local authorities are running regular services between towns ten and even twenty miles apart, which services are definitely in competition with the railways and which cannot reasonably be regarded as municipal services. The Committee did not think that those services ought to be protected nor, after discussion, did the House of Commons. I would say this because I think it is in accordance with the facts, that if you did, in fact, exclude the railway companies from operating in all the areas covered by all the activities of local authorities you would leave them nothing but the unpopulated parts of England in which to operate. Therefore the Bills would not be of so much use to them as it is hoped they may be.
The ground upon which the powers were asked for was very largely the amount which the railway companies had suffered on account of the abstraction of their traffic. That is sufficiently familiar to your Lordships as to make it unnecessary for me to dwell upon it; but very considerable evidence upon that point, both as to goods and passengers, was given to the Committee and we felt, and
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I think we probably all feel, that it was most undesirable that the railway companies should go under that it was essential that this system of transport should be maintained; and that if these powers would assist them to continue in being and to render service to the community, it was desirable that they should have them, subject, of course, to these proper provisions for control. Those, I think, are the only points that occur to me as having been particularly discussed upon these Bills, and I think that in what I have said I have stated what on the whole was the general view of the Committee. We were not entirely unanimous.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, we have listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Earl, who took such a great interest in his work on the Committee and, if I may be pardoned for saying so, brought to that Committee a great deal of knowledge of a technical character which, possibly, some other members of the Committee did not possess. We ought, I think, to thank that Committee for the great patience with which it investigated the whole subject. It is a very complicated subject, and the Committee sat, I think I am correct in saying, for a longer time than almost any other similar Committee of recent years. It sat and took evidence during a time of year in which attendance at Committees is very onerous upon members of your Lordships' House.
On May 10 last I raised a debate on this subject in your Lordships' House. I stated then that I was in favour of the railways having these powers subject to proper restrictions. In my opinion the restrictions which have been inserted in this Bill are adequate and sensible, and, so far as I am concerned, I shall certainly support the Motion for Second Reading to-day. A restriction or a provision which is almost more valuable than any other that has been mentioned by the noble Earl is that, if there is any suspicion of unfair competition, the Minister of Transport can hold an inquiry and can then lay the case before both Houses of Parliament. I agree with the noble Earl that you cannot frame that provision in any words very much simpler than those which are already in the Bill and it would be undesirable to do so

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even if it were possible because the object of that clause is to cover any case that might arise. There may be some criticisms as to whether the whole question of road transport being run on a big scale by the railway companies ought not to be the subject of a Government Bill and not a Private Bill. I think there is a good deal to be said for that, though, as it happens, the result has been on the whole satisfactory and, possibly, this is more a theoretical than a practical objection.
From the railway point of view the only regret I have is that these powers were not asked for many years ago by the companies. They have come into this business, in my opinion, fully ten years late. They ought to have started after the War. Most of the best, lines of traffic have already been taken by other companies and unless the railway companies can buy out the road transport companies or amalgamate with them, I do not think there is much chance of the railway companies making any large amount of money on their road transport. In many cases, of course, the companies already have considerable powers. The Great Western Company, which was one of the most enterprising of the companies in the earlier days, runs a great many very efficient motor services in the West of England and elsewhere. Possibly the noble Viscount near me [Viscount Churchill] will not agree that they have made much money directly in that way, but they have opened up new districts and at any rate they have prevented competitors getting into the districts which are already served by railways.
EARL RUSSELL: Without powers.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: Without any powers at all. I believe, as a matter of fact, if a common informer had been on the war-path he might have put up a very good case against several railway companies in this matter. It is very often forgotten that the railway companies have already on the road nearly 3,000 motor vehicles and 32,400 horse vehicles; therefore they are not at all new to this business. The sort of plea which was made ad misericordiam that these companies should be allowed to do what their competitors
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were doing falls rather flat in view of that. At the same time they will now be able to run services which are not necessarily from station to station but general services all over the country. That, of course, is something new, or at any rate it is authorised for the first time.
I am often asked, and I often wonder myself, why it is that the railway companies, speaking broadly, have become so unpopular. All kinds of shortcomings are attributable to many great companies, but I think it is partly owing to the fact, that in the past the railway companies have been rather autocratic in their dealings with the public. I constantly come across both passengers and commercial firms who are dissatisfied with the way they have been treated by the companies in the past, and who say that whatever happens they will never go back to the railway as their sole source of transport. That is an unfortunate feeling, and there is no doubt it exists. The railway companies are quite conversant with it. How far it is their fault or not their fault I am not here to discuss to-day. To come to the question of what may happen, I may mention that one of the biggest trading companies, which has just been amalgamated with several other big supply companies, paid the railway companies of this country nearly £750,000 last year for freight. They have now ordered from Mr. Morris a number of one-ton and thirty cwt. vehicles, and in a very short time nearly the whole of that £750,000 paid to the railway companies last year in freight will no longer be paid. I am afraid there is no remedy for that. The railway companies can only hope to recover that kind of traffic by lowering their charges for freight and by cultivating more friendly relations with their customers. When I recently talked to some gentlemen concerned in that great organisation I found them in a state of hostility to the railway companies which may, or may not, be justified, but it has evidently been caused by all kinds of little pin-pricks, which have produced this unfortunate state of affairs.
The only staunch friend the railway companies have seems to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has put a fourpenny Duty on petrol in order to handicap road transport against railway transport, and who, on former occasions, has put up the tax on heavy vehicles. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in doing

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this, has shown a distinct favouritism. Whether it is justified or not is a matter of opinion. He has introduced a new and a rather dangerous principle in my view, because he has set up a kind of internal protection within the limits of the Kingdom, not protection as against the goods of foreigners coming into this country, but protection of a particular system of transport as against another system. The railways have had in the past great advantages, but I am not sure that they have made the best use of them. They had great social and political influence far in excess of that possessed by road transport. I think I am right in saying that two members of the present Cabinet have been railway directors. Everybody knows the charming and persuasive manner and statements of my noble friend on my right, the noble Viscount, who is Chairman of the Great Western Company [Viscount Churchill].
The railways have had greater political influence, much greater, than road transport has possessed. That has had its effect on railway transport in the past, but I would point out that, though that may have been very useful to them in the past, it will not save them now if they do not reform their own business. One of the things that they should do when they get these powers is in my opinion to have a thorough reform in regard to their smaller stations and branch lines. Whether they need legislation to do that I cannot say, but I am told that they do. They will have to make some rather drastic alterations. Merely to go into the road transport business in a half-hearted way will not serve them. If they only use road transport to try to bring back traffic on to the railway I think they will lose money. They must go into the business wholeheartedly and take people from where they are to where they want to be. Then I think the railways may prove profitable. But people are drifting away all the time from the railways to the roads, and in many cases nothing that the railway companies can do will stop that drift.
We find everywhere a desire on the part of the public for greater speed, but many railway directors think that that is unnecessary. I do not believe, that opinion on the part of railway directors is quite sound. In shipping we find that
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the big liners are more speedy, while road transport is becoming more speedy and aeroplanes are being used at higher speeds and with greater safety every day. Meanwhile, the railways practically remain where they were. Almost the only noteworthy development has been in the last year or two. Non-stop trains to the North have recently been instituted, but that, I think, is more of a "stunt" than something which is of real value. In fact, the other day a friend told me that there were only sixty passengers in a non-stop train that left Edinburgh for King's Cross. That is a very small number compared to the distance and the size of a train of that kind.
It has been said that we must not allow the railways to go under. Of course the railways ought not to go under. There are many ways in which they can keep themselves alive. Almost all the big concerns in this country—the great iron works, the great steel works and all kinds of industries—have Lately had to scale down their capital and reduce the charges to be paid by them to their shareholders. There is no sign of the railways doing that at present, but I think the railway shareholders will have to make sacrifices to some extent as well as the employees if they are to remain solvent. The valuation of all the stocks of the different railways was on the Stock Exchange on July 14 just over £715,000,000 as against a nominal capital of £1,143,000,000, so that fully one-third of the capital is already considered to be lost. All over the world there is this trend away from the railway to the roads. In France last year the railways, I believe, lost £3,500,000, and friends of mine in America write telling me that even there road transport is beginning to cut into the receipts of some of the railways. I believe that to be true. Railways not only in this country but all over the world will have to face this new situation. The same state of things has occurred in regard to tramways. Tramways have been very much depreciated, and in some cases they have been so damaged that they have had to tear up the rails and resort to motor omnibuses, because they found they could not compete against the motor omnibus. I dare say railways will have to do the same thing, but I never thought it fair that

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Parliament should have allowed tramways to indulge in road transport and have prevented railways doing the same.
It is largely upon these grounds that I think railway companies should have the power of going on the roads. The noble Earl said that the area in which the railway companies should not be allowed to operate on the roads has been enlarged from the administrative area of the London County Council to the Metropolitan Police area. I entirely approve of that. I think it would have led to considerable disturbance in the arrangements set up under the London Traffic Act, 1924, if the London County Council area only had been barred to the railway companies. Now that the wider area, the Police area, is substituted, I think it will be for the benefit of all concerned. The smaller area would have led to the traffic congestion in London being even worse than it is now. I do not intend to occupy your Lordships' time any longer except to say that I hope that the railway companies will take these powers seriously and work them, not only for their own good, but with the object of linking up different systems of transport for the good of the public. I have no doubt they will do their best in that direction. If they use these powers merely for the purpose of killing their rivals the people of this country will not allow them to go on for long. There are many ways in which they can help themselves and I hope a new spirit will come into the railway board rooms in regard to road transport. But I think they will be under a false impression if they think that the mere use of road powers is really going to put them on their financial legs again. Something much more drastic, something much more radical is wanted, although these powers will help to a certain degree. If there is a Division I shall vote for the Second Reading and I hope that these powers will be used for the benefit of the public.
LORD ASKWITH: My Lords, I was very glad to hear my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu speak so strongly in support of these Bills, and, if I may say so, nothing could have been more lucid than the way in which the noble Earl explained the decisions of the Committee to the House. I can speak to a certain extent as a member of the
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public because I am not a director of any railway company and have but small practical interest in railways except as a member of the public. But I was head of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade for a part of 1907 and in 1908 when the right hon. gentleman who is the present Leader of the Liberal Party in another place was President and when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was President.
I must say that it appears to me that these Bills are, if anything, rather belated. The railway companies come almost as suppliants. Strong interests have sprung up and have naturally laid down as many conditions as possible before allowing the railway companies to come upon the roads. The railway companies have been in great difficulties owing to the conduct of the railways during the War and the amalgamations and difficulties since the War, and they have been perhaps too slow in taking note of the great inroads that have been made upon, I will not say their rights but their position by the, new enterprises that have sprung up of recent years. As members of the public we must all wish for continued good service, for low freights, especially for the great basic industries, and for the railways to continue in such a way that the public at large may be properly served.
If I have a criticism to make of the Bills, it is that there may be too many litigations and too many statistics arising out of them. The Minister of Transport may complain at any time under Clause 13, the local authorities may complain under Clause 8, subsection (3), and any trader may complain under Clause 8, subsections (2) and (3). I hope that much litigation will not arise in consequence of that, and that the Railway Tribunal will not have too much to do. Then as to statistics, which, after all, cost money, though they may be very valuable in some senses, some of them might very well be reasonably cut down. When we find that under Clause 8, subsections (2) and (3), under Clause 9, under Clause 14, subsection (2), under Clause 44, subsection (4), and under the Schedule statistics may be required, and when we find also that no Act of Parliament, no order, or by-law and no regulations at present existing, which may all include the requisition of statistics, is in any way to be

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infringed, it will be realised that you may get a large number of clerks and bureaucrats engaged in the collection of statistics which will really be comparatively valueless and which the competitors of the railways do not have to give. I do not know whether much can be done at the present time to lessen the number of statistics.
No doubt the greatest precaution has been taken to prevent the railway companies going in for the policy which many people think they did according to historical tradition in the past, when they were competitors of the canals, and to prevent them obtaining a position so that they can unduly compete with the roads. There is another clause to which I will refer, and that is the one which provides that when once a railway company has started a road service it should not be allowed to withdraw except by special permission of the Minister of Transport. That is rather a drastic clause because it may make them very cautious about going into any such enterprise at all. Personally I should rather like some explanation as to the reasons why a railway company is not to be allowed to build the chassis of road motor vehicles, although they are free to manufacture the bodies of the vehicles. I should strongly support the principle that a certain amount of elasticity should be given to the railways in present circumstances, and also, from the point of view of a member of the public, that this small sop should be granted to the railway companies to aid them to maintain a position in which they may be of value to the public at large.
LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, at an earlier stage I ventured to suggest to His Majesty's Government that the point of supreme importance in regard to these Railway Bills was the safeguarding of the interests of the public and that a matter which went to the root of the question was the character of the organisations which were asking for extended powers. Had they in the past on the whole shown reasonable energy in the service of the public, or had they rather given first place to the interests of the clique of officials who control them? As they had behaved in the past so were they likely to behave in the future.
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There is much evidence to show that the railway companies are not primarily commercial undertakings at all. This is a hard saying, so I will give examples of what I mean. For many years the London and North Western Railway had a locomotive engineer who had all sorts of ingenious but quite unpractical ideas. For at least twenty years this gentleman kept on turning out locomotives embodying these ideas. For instance, one of the mechanical arrangements he introduced sometimes had the effect of making two pairs of driving wheels under the same engine revolve in different directions at starting. When he retired he left behind him large numbers of engines that simply had to be swept away. As soon as they could be replaced they were thrown on the scrap heap by scores, if not by hundreds. After they were got rid of it was found possible permanently to reduce the staff at Crewe works which had before been necessary to deal with the complicated arrangements of these engines. All that time—as I have said, for at least twenty years—his colleagues and superiors allowed this to go on. That is why I say British railways are not primarily commercial undertakings. It would be nearer the truth to describe the London and North Western Railway at that time as a subsidised home for the feeble-minded. Something of the same kind is going on at the present time on the London and North Eastern Railway. The officials lately made up their minds to put, I suppose, not less than £500,000 into building sixty enormous Pacific locomotives for which there is no work that could not equally well be performed by much smaller and cheaper machines.
The first object of the managements of the railways is the continuance of the conditions that ensure for them an easy and untroubled existence, remote from the cares that beset ordinary men. There is much evidence that there is rigid combination between the managements to produce this result. I need not labour the public importance of such evidence. It is obvious that, if it can be made good, it should profoundly affect the attitude of Parliament to these Bills. The Bill before us is recommended by the Joint Select Committee appointed to consider its provisions. In the proceedings before the Committee the question of the efficiency of railway management was on

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one or two occasions just touched upon. No attempt whatever was made to examine it at length and the Committee have taken no action about it. I am, of course, aware that the Committee abode by the strict rules that govern their procedure. It is sufficient for my purpose to point out that this vital question did, in fact, receive no consideration worth speaking of. Of its importance there cannot, I think, be any doubt.
Your Lordships cannot fail to have noticed that the endeavours that I have made to describe to you the defects of railway management have met with no response from noble Lords who sit on railway boards except a few vague general assertions, and that no attempt whatever has been made to deal with the definite facts given. Challenge after challenge has been refused. The noble Lords' one chance is boycott, and well they know it. To such an extent have they carried this policy that the noble Viscount who represents the Ministry of Transport, and who can, I think, by no stretch of the imagination be considered as favourable to the point of view that I represent, was on a recent occasion constrained to call your Lordships' attention to it. No one is better aware than I am what an anomaly it is that a person so insignificant as myself should take so large a part in ventilating this question. I have one asset, and one asset only, and that is that I know what I am talking about because I have taken time and trouble to look into the facts. I have no distinguished record of public service to recommend me, like so many of those whom I am addressing, but nevertheless I should feel that I was neglecting a public duty if I failed to call your Lordships' attention to things that I know and that profoundly affect the future of this country.
No one who does not deliberately shut his eyes to facts can be unaware of the fate that threatens to overwhelm us. Our very food, which we cannot produce for ourselves, is dependent upon plentiful and unhindered production of our factories, which in turn is absolutely dependent upon large supplies of cheap capital. Every year we are living on capital to a greater extent. I understand that in pre-War years we saved on an average £400,000,000 a year. Last year we saved well under £100,000,000, and every political
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Party tries to buy votes by promising yet further non-productive expenditure. Obviously the thing cannot continue. A fall in the exchange is a matter of a few years, and when that comes about there is no more food for this country. A few more years down the slippery slope and disaster will be upon us such as has never yet overtaken a civilised country.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, if I may address your Lordships on a point of order, though the noble Lord's earlier observations had very little connection with the Bill before us except that they contained the word "railway," the observations which the noble Lord is now making seem to have departed even from that connection, and I venture to suggest that they are not in order in this discussion.
LORD MONKSWELL: Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to continue. If the noble Earl had waited for one second more he would have seen where I was leading. Our one chance is to improve our methods and increase production. One of the worst troubles that we are suffering from is the enormous cost of transport, which is bleeding the country white. The politicians, for their own purposes, put up the pay of railway servants to a level which, so long as the present system of railway management endures, it is impossible for the railways to find without inflicting the gravest damage upon the industries of the country. Railway officials, who themselves stood to lose nothing, accepted the politicians' demand over the heads of the shareholders, who were not consulted. The only chance of its being possible for the railway servants to continue to receive their present scale of pay without bringing about disaster is immensely to increase the efficiency of the railways, and so to make the work of each railway servant much more valuable than it now is. Instead of doing this the Bills before us merely authorise the railway companies to extend to the roads the slackness and inefficiency which they have made permanent upon the railways. There is absolutely nothing in the Bills which is calculated to increase the efficiency of railway management, and there is a good deal that tends in the opposite direction by reducing the stimulus of competition from independent road motors.

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The introduction of these Bills provided a favourable opportunity for a complete investigation of the methods of the railways and for exacting from them, in return for any privilege that was given them, a much higher standard of efficiency in the service of the public. Nothing was done. The public and the railway shareholders are to be left more helpless than before in the clutches of the managements. I do not suggest that it is in all circumstances unreasonable for the railway companies to have extended road powers, but I do think that it is the greatest mistake for Parliament, if it grants these powers, not to take every step it can to ensure that the public shall be well served both by road and by rail. The fundamental trouble lies in the fact that the railways are managed by bodies of officials the less enterprising of whom have almost absolute power to block reasonable improvements. I know well, and have often stated, that there are many railway officials who intensely dislike the present state of things, but they are powerless to move. I recognise that it is hopeless at this juncture to throw out the Bills or to amend them as they should be amended. The only place where this could have been done was in the Joint Committee. I did everything that I could to get the question of the efficiency of railway management considered by the Committee, but every door was bolted and barred and the opportunity has passed away. The only people whose point of view has been heard are the organisations who could afford to appear before the Committee as regular Petitioners, and the heart of the matter has been ignored.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
SOUTHERN RAILWAY (ROAD TRANSPORT) BILL.
Read 2a: Committee negatived.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, perhaps it may be convenient if I say, with reference to the four Bills to which your Lordships have just given a Second Reading, that there is, as you will realise, no Committee stage to
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follow, since the Bills have been before the Joint Committee, and the only remaining stage is the Third Reading. I have heard rumours, though I have no certain knowledge, that there are one or two points that some members of the House desire to raise on the Third Reading, and I suggest, therefore, putting the debate down for Wednesday of next week. I understand that a Government Bill will come up on that day, and I suggest that the Government Bill should have precedence and that then the Railway Bills should be taken.

SHROPSHIRE, WORCESTERSHIRE AND STAFFORDSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments: further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

CHASETOWN AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Viscount Peel, I beg to move the Motions standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Special Order which was presented on the 21st of June last be approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TISBURY ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1928.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order which was presented on the 27th of June last be approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CLITHEROE AND DISTRICT ELEC- TRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.

  NEW SARUM ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1928.
  THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I beg to move.
  Moved, That the Special Orders which were presented on the 28th of June last be approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (RICHMOND (SURREY)) BILL.
Read 3a(according to Order), and passed.
NORTHERN IRELAND (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

SHOPS (HOURS OF CLOSING) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Younger of Leckie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Closing hours]:
VISCOUNT SUMNER VISCOUNT SUMNER moved to add to Clause 1 the following new subsection:—
"(4) Any shop may be kept open during the general closing hours if no person other than the occupier of the shop is employed or engaged in or about the business of the shop during those hours."
The noble and learned Viscount said: As I dare say your Lordships are aware, the object of the Amendment which I now ask leave to move is to restore to this Bill a clause which was in it in its original form, which formed an integral part of the Bill as prepared by its original promoters, and a clause which only disappeared in another place, in Committee, because it was made a term of the Bill's receiving further Government support that that clause should be omitted. I ask leave, however, to move to re-insert the clause not exactly in the form in which it originally stood, because I wish to substitute the word "occupier" for "owner" of the shop.
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That is more in conformity with the general language of the Bill. I think it removes the possibility of some misunderstanding, and I think, if your Lordships are minded to restore this clause at all, you will consider that in this form it will be more effectual and better understood.
Of course it will be a question of fact whether the occupier is a single person or one person and his partner, but it is quite clear that upon that wording no one could under that subsection keep his shop open beyond the general closing hours, by the use or employment of any assistant, paid or unpaid. Whatever be the title of the Bill, which is the Shops (Hours of Closing) Bill, the whole, or practically the whole object of this Bill, is the protection of shop assistants, against which I have not one word to say. The whole idea and form in which it has been carried out have now for some years been beyond the opportunity for criticism or substantial alteration. My fundamental proposition to your Lordships is that it is not right, under the name of a Bill the object of which is to protect shop assistants, to penalise and to restrict the liberty of law-abiding persons, who employ no shop assistant at all, and whose industry will not in any way that I can make out prejudice shop assistants in general, or any individual among them in particular.
The Bill as it stands says:
"Every shop shall, save as otherwise provided by this Act, be closed for the serving of customers not later than nine o'clock in the evening on one day in the week (in this Act referred to as 'the late day'), and not later than eight o'clock in the evening on any other day in the week, and those hours are in this Act referred to as the 'general closing hours.'"
There are numerous and peculiar exceptions introduced into this Bill, but the noticeable thing is that the exceptions are almost always in favour of consumers of particular commodities which are in a mild way articles of luxury, because the vendors of table waters, sweets, chocolates, or ice cream are allowed a different time. The retailers of tobacco and smokers' requisites are also specially favoured, and if you are keeping open for the "main purpose of the exhibition or show," whatever that may mean, that again is exempt from some of these restrictions. I think, finally, in the

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Schedule there is a relaxation in favour of those who wish to purchase motor or cycle supplies or accessories. In those cases, apparently, the shop assistant is to go to the wall because the great will of the people demands it. Those who demand chocolates and sweets, smokers' requisites and petrol, and so on, must, like youth, have their way.
With these exceptions shop assistants are protected up and down and very effectively, and at whose expense? At the expense of the man who keeps a shop by himself, the man who would rather be in his shop than at a moving-picture show, the man who, if he can, earns another shilling before he goes to bed and says his prayers for it before going to sleep—that is the person who for some reason is to bear the expense of this arrangement. It is surprising to me that it should be necessary in this House to try to intervene at rather a late stage to save British subjects from an invasion of their right to keep their own premises open as late as they like, to work as hard as they will, and to make their living honestly if they can. I think it is still more astonishing to find that the necessity for doing this has arisen because the interposition of a Conservative Minister imposed in another place the condition that all must be swept into the net on the same terms, and that people who had assistants and people who had not assistants should all be shut up in the same manner in the name of the protection of employees in shops.
Your Lordships, of course, know that this is a matter which has been enquired into on a considerable scale. There was an elaborate Committee, which published an elaborate Report, which I dare say your Lordships have seen, but not read. There is also an association, who for years have been devoting themselves to the cause of shop assistants, and I have no doubt deserving their gratitude. One example of their efforts, if your Lordships have fared as I have, has been in your hands since this morning, and, as it shows very clearly by what—I will not say arts—but by what organisations the present state of opinion has been stoked up to its present pitch, I would ask your Lordships' permission to let me draw attention to it. It is the Early Closing Association: President, the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill; patrons, the
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most rev. Primate and one member at least of the Government in your Lordships' House. This association assures me and those to whom the letter is addressed that, on behalf of the million and three quarters of shop workers throughout the country—the shop workers for whom this legislation is introduced—they make an earnest appeal to me (so thorough is their canvass) to support the Shops Bill as at present constituted without the re-insertion of the original Clause 2, "which, if included, will render the Bill unworkable and useless." That is to say, that the Bill cannot be worked at all, that it would be no good at all, unless you sacrifice these poor people, who may be many or who may be few—and I do not care whether they are many or few, for not the meanest of them ought to be deprived of his rights—unless you sacrifice them in this sense, that they are not to be allowed to keep open their shops when other people are shut.
There was, it seems, a great rally in the month of June and parties came by road from many parts to Knole Park Paddock, Sevenoaks. The afternoon "was devoted chiefly to sports, and the general atmosphere was one of go-as-you-please." That, I think, is a very good attitude for shopkeepers generally. The Chairman of the Sevenoaks Urban District Council was there, and on a raised platform the Sevenoaks Town Band rendered delightful music. But the real object of the gathering, of course, was to pass this resolution, which "was carried at the sound of the bugle":—
"That this gathering of small shopkeepers, their wives and shop assistants, assembled at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent …. respectfully urges the Government to place permanently upon the Statute Book the Small Shopkeepers' and Shop Assistants' Charter of Liberty, viz.: the Shops (Hours of Closing) Bill …."
and then the date of its stage in the House of Commons is mentioned—
"and to decline assent to the re-insertion of the original Clause 2, which would render the Act useless."
And so much does that represent the policy of His Majesty's Government that my noble friend Lord Desborough has been for the last two or three minutes unable to control the machine-gun fire of "Hear, hears," with which every word that I have read from this interesting document has been accompanied.
Now is that the right way in which even the Early Closing Association, with its distinguished patronage and its enormous membership, should approach the matter? Of course, associations which consist largely of shop assistants will support whatever is necessary to ensure to themselves a fixed early closing hour. That is what they are out for, and I for one am not going to say that there is anything inconsistent in their attitude. Of course, also, shopkeepers, great and small—and quite possibly the small even more than the great—will stand by their shop assistants, because, after all, if you have a large shop or series of multiple shops, with overhead charges running into a considerable amount, the more you can drive the public into your shops early in the day, and turn off the lights and shut up the shop early in the day, the less burden your overhead charges will be; and it is to their interest not to keep open an expensive shop later than a fair stream of customers would seem to dictate. But why is it that they should have this hostility to the shopkeepers who keep no assistants, who attend to their own shops, and whose overhead expenses probably consist of nothing but the rent and the rates on the small tenement which they occupy?
As I do not anticipate from the course of the Bill on Second Reading that its official supporters will give any very elaborate explanation of the reasons why this has been done, I must deal for a moment with the reasons that are given. The Committee gave a good deal of attention to this subject. I will not trouble your Lordships with the evidence, though I studied that with some care; but the observation I want to make upon it is that the evidence that they had before them was almost exclusively the evidence of large organisations—the secretary, or a managing director, or someone of that kind appearing before them to give expression to what he said was the opinion of his organisation. The result of that, of course, was that they heard in the main—not quite exclusively, but in the main—the opinions of highly organised bodies, containing for the most part shop assistants and the employers of shop assistants, and in very Few cases containing shopkeepers who had no assistants at all. And, not unnaturally, the combined voice of these associations was in favour of uniform closing, which was, of course,
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the thing that would make it easiest for the shopkeeper and the assistants both together. But even they could give no more cogent reasons for insisting that there should be no class of shopkeepers free from the limitations of the Bill than those which I shall read. They said:—
"We think that such a method would give rise to serious administrative difficulties and would, in additon, be open to other objections, not least among them being the undesirability of allowing shops where no assistants are employed unlimited hours to compete with shops conducted with the aid of assistants."
They refer to other objections, but; they do not say what they are.
The two points, and as far as I can make out from the debates in another place the only two points, are just those two—that there would be legislative difficulties, and that it is undesirable to let people who do not employ assistants compete any more than can be helped with the people who do. As to the administrative difficulties, they come down to this. We are told that it will be necessary for inspectors or police to ascertain whether the person who is keeping the shop is an assistant or not, and they might not be willing to take his word for it, and they might have difficulty in getting evidence on the subject; and therefore we are told it would require an army of inspectors to keep these people in their places. It seems to be forgotten that you cannot ensure that all shops will shut at a uniform time without having a very great staff of inspectors of some kind to go round and see that the law for early closing is observed.
It seems to have been forgotten that inspectors who would have to be employed for that purpose in any case could equally well take note of the shops that were open and seemed to have only one person in them. If they did not find out in the course of a few weeks who kept which shop and what the man was, I can only say that they must be very little fitted for the purpose for which they are employed. There is a volunteer body of police they could always rely upon and that is composed of the shopkeepers who employ assistants. They would be quick to be down on their neighbours who kept their shops open when their own shops were shut if they had the least ground for thinking that they were not really one-man shops, but were transgressing the

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law and ought to be pulled up. Considering that the fine for the second offence runs to £50, I think your Lordships will agree at once that this is rather massive machinery for crushing a very small butterfly and that the chance of anybody having the temerity to risk such a fine on the chance of escaping detection would be practically negligible.
The other thing is the undesirability of allowing shops where no assistants are employed unlimited hours to compete with shops conducted with the aid of assistants. Upon what principle can that be set up against the ordinary liberty of the subject? These early closing hours, apart from the one day a week closing, were imposed upon us during the War from the necessities of the War, with the object of saving light and fire, and for reasons of that kind. One of the recommendations of this Bill when it was moved on Second Reading was that at last we should now get rid of D.O.R.A. The fact, however, is that instead of War necessities imposed upon us for the purpose of national economy, we are now to have bound upon us the shackles of the closed shop applied to the whole industry of shopkeeping; that is to say, that it is undesirable that one shopkeeper should compete with another except according to strict rules fixed by somebody else. If the large shopkeeper does not wish to work or is restrained by law from working more than a certain number of hours a day, neither shall the small shopkeeper, though he employs nobody but himself, be allowed to work any longer. Why? Because these people are so dreadfully afraid that in the hour or two longer that these small people will keep open they might pick up some latecomer and get a little bit of trade that otherwise would have waited until next day and have gone into the shop, with its large establishment of assistants, that was open until 8 o'clock.
No one seems to have considered much the convenience of the customers. Over and over again in the debates, in the circulars and in the Report of the Committee, I find this statement: We are educating the public out of their bad habit of late hours. I do not think you could hit upon a more arrogant phrase than that if you tried. By what right does even so exalted an association as that of the shop assistants claim to educate the public as to the hours at which
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it shall buy what it wants from shops? Their business is to serve the public, not to dragoon the public into their shops at inconvenient hours. They seem to forget that the poor, who are easily forgotten, are not always very anxious to go into big shops. Women who have not the clothes in which they would be willing to be seen in big shops are glad to have, and they seek out, humbler shops in the by-streets. Women who are driven with their work all day, have to seek out, and are glad to seek out, a place where they can lay in their stores late at night perhaps for shop assistants, but the day of these women is not over for a long time. Women who cannot lay in much store at a time because they have neither the storage room in their houses nor the money, have to buy from day to day to feed themselves almost from hand to mouth. The great art of the mother of a working family is to know when to buy and how to buy to the best advantage. A very small amount of study would teach anyone who went about it with what care and skill they find out where to cheapen the things they want to the best advantage.
Mrs. Phillips, a member of the Committee who took great pains and was exceedingly well-informed upon the subject, instances this case. Butchers, who have not the modern apparatus of a refrigerating store on their premises—of course, formerly there were but few who had, and there are many now who cannot afford it—not infrequently lay in rather a larger stock of meat than they can be quite certain of disposing of in the day. Then, as the end of the day comes they reduce their prices and mark them down, and the shrewd woman who is buying waits until it is near the butcher's closing hour, until she gets what she wants at the lowest price it is going to hear. If everything is to be shut at 8 o'clock, that will be over. That source of relief of the small income will be cut off. Supposing a woman is working at charing until 8 o'clock, when is she going to do her shopping? Supposing a shop assistant works as a shop assistant until 8 o'clock and then has to take his or her part in tidying up the shop after the door is shut, when is he or she going to shop? People seem to forget altogether that there is a substantial class of the public who, not from any original sin or any

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slothfulness or any unintelligent indifference to cinemas and chocolates but simply from the hard necessities of their lives, want a few hours in which to do their shopping when they feel inclined and are not satisfied that any great national object is attained by shutting up the people that serve.
Let me take an everyday instance, the small cobbler who is working away at his trade of mending the shoes that are left with him, by the light of a lamp on his counter and who leaves his door open so long as he is working. He may just as well leave it open as not. He would go on working even if he shut up the shop. It is company if someone comes in. It is often a convenience for someone to come in and leave a pair of shoes or take them away. Instead of his shutting himself up behind his shop in the smell of his leather parings, he at any rate has the advantage of an open door and of an occasional visit from a neighbour or customer. What, harm is there is that? Is the shop that is able to employ an assistant or two further down the street in any great peril? If it is, why does not the shopkeeper turn to himself and keep his shop open for another hour and let his assistants go? This thing is not worked out from the practical point of view but from theory. It interests those attending these go-as-you-please entertainments in the public parks and who carry resolutions—unanimously, of course.
I would ask your Lordships to recollect that this Bill applies to the whole of Great Britain. It applies to little villages, to small towns, to places where life is dull and cinemas are few, where people are still neighbourly and where it is not considered a hardship to be going on with the trade that your hand is accustomed to even to a later hour than that at which the youthful assistant feels that his day's work—like Kaspar's—is done. All those people are to be shut up compulsorily unless they happen to be dealing in chocolates or smokers' requisites or in petrol and bicycle accessories, in which case they have to keep at, their work until the smoker, the chocolate-eater and the petrol consumer choose to assent to the shop being shut up. Really it cannot be good political economy, if there be such a thing, it cannot be neighbourly good sense, and
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I think it cannot be good politics to lay the heavy hand upon a large number of people, some of whom, and a good many of whom, I think, are quite capable, lowly as they are, of resenting injustice and hard treatment.
I have put my case before you. I do not know whether I have succeeded in making any impression upon your Lordships, but I do beg you to remember that these people, whom I believe to be very numerous, but who, even though they were few, ought not to be trampled upon—these people are humble and they are poor, and unless your Lordships will befriend them they have few friends. Are these people, simply for the sake of what is called "administrative uniformity," simply to promote some kind of compromise between the shopkeeper with one assistant and the shopkeeper with two, and the assistants themselves—are these people to be sacrificed? Is there any conceivable reason why these trades should be put on the same plane as alcoholic liquor or the sale of poison? What is there harmful about a shop being kept open? Why should you compel it to close because the man up the street has not the courage to shut his shop and leave the business to his competitor, because he has to stay a little longer for fear a few shillings may go past him that he otherwise would have absorbed? I beg your Lordships at least to take this into serious consideration, and I trust that you will be willing to accept the Amendment in the form in which I beg to move it.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 12, at end insert as a new subsection:
("(4) Any shop may be kept open during the general closing hours if no person other than the occupier of the shop is employed or engaged in or about the business of the shop during these hours".)—(Viscount Sumner.)
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: It used to be the proud boast of the Englishman that his home was his castle, but now the thin end of the wedge has been inserted in the shape of a horde of officials who can enter his house without, his leave. It is now sought to prevent him carrying on his business; in fact, it really is a case of putting the shackles of trade union regulations on persons who are not members of a trade union. How could

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such businesses as Woollands and Whiteley's and shops of that kind have become the great businesses that they are to-day if their proprietors had not been allowed to be industrious? The logical consequence of making all these people close their shops is that you must prevent casters from carrying on their business in competition with them. I hope very much that the noble Viscount's Amendment will be accepted.
VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE: I am sorry to say that I am not in a position to accept the Amendment which has been proposed by my noble friend. Many of his arguments were very attractive; they almost convinced me that something ought to be done in this matter. One would have thought in listening to my noble friend that this was an entirely new proposal, and that the promoters of this Bill were making a fresh invasion of the liberty of certain people. That is not really so. This question was ventilated as far back as 1904, when this proposal was opposed. You will cut entirely at the root of it if you accept the Amendment which has been moved and I hope that will not be done. The history of the matter is a simple one. This proposal was refused in 1904, but under the Defence of the Realm Act certain arrangements were made for early closing which have been continued ever since in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act year after year. As the proposals of this Bill have worked so well, and as most of the people concerned are satisfied, it is thought right that they should be made permanent. I do not think the noble and learned Viscount himself shops after eight o'clock, so that it does not matter very much to him whether or not the Amendment is carried.
At any rate, what is now proposed has worked generally quite well, and it is now sought to make permanent the arrangements that have been so far temporary. It is very undesirable that they should continue to be temporary. The Government, I suppose, have not changed their attitude in this matter. They look at it from the administrative point of view and no doubt also from other points of view. I have mentioned that in the circumstances it is impossible for me to accept the Amendment. I cannot enter into all the arguments of the noble and learned Viscount. As I say they were
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very attractive and were very ably expressed, as his arguments always are. I trust, however, that the House will not assent to them but will allow this Bill to pass as it is.
LORD DESBOROUGH: Perhaps it would be convenient to your Lordships if I stated the attitude of the Government at the earliest possible stage. The question is one of importance, and has already in another place, received a considerable amount of attention. I see that my noble friend has somewhat altered the Amendment which he put down upon the Paper by putting in the word "occupier" instead of "owner" of the shop. The owner of the shop would naturally be the owner of the freehold, and if the Amendment applied only to that class of person it would be a very limited class. I would also suggest that he should make an alteration in the words "Any shop may be kept open during the general closing hours." Would it not be better if the words were "after the general closing hours"? That, I think, would express what the noble Viscount means by his Amendment.
Having criticised the words of the Amendment I might, with your Lordships' permission, say something on the general question. Whether the single owner of a shop should be allowed to keep that shop open when other premises are closed is a matter which has been discussed for some considerable time. I rather demur to the statement of my noble friend that this Bill is entirely in the interests of shop assistants. It is a Bill that deals with the regulation of the closing hours of shops as shops throughout the country. The alteration which my noble friend tries to introduce here is something which was originally in the Bill, as he stated, but it was struck out in Standing Committee in the House of Commons. The Amendment we are now discussing was also considered with very great care by the Mackenzie Committee, and they carne to the conclusion that it should not remain in the Bill. It has also been considered by the Government in Cabinet, and the Home Secretary stated in the other House that if it were carried it would practically destroy the Bill and its objects.
My noble friend behind me referred to several resolutions that were passed to

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the sound of the bugle. I naturally applauded that because they were maintaining the position which I am trying to uphold at the present time. Several bodies have been in communication with the Home Office, and with the permission of the House I should like to state who those bodies are. All the organised bodies representing the retail trade, such as the National Chamber of Trade, the Early Closing Association, the London and Suburban Traders' Federation, the National Federation of Shopkeepers and Small Traders—they represent a large majority of those for whom my noble friend was speaking—are strongly opposed to any exemption of one-man businesses on the ground that such an exemption would cut at the whole scheme of early closing. Then there was a deputation which attended at the Home Office and urged that such an exemption would force all the other shopkeepers to remain open. You really would force all the others in the same situation to keep open for hours which are considered unnecessarily long. The closing hour now is eight o'clock or nine o'clock. That is late enough. But if you are going to exempt a certain class of people—and I will say something more about them later—you force all the people in similar circumstances to keep open to the very latest hour permitted.
There is another class of trader to which my noble friend behind me did not allude. There are street traders. Street traders come under the operation of early closing in the same manner as other traders do under the Acts of 1912 and 1920. If you are going to allow these one-man shops to keep open you will of necessity and in fairness have to allow these street traders to ply their trades at the same time. There are many objections to that course. Shopkeepers and others have protested against such unfair competition going on and against such an extension of the hours of labour in shops. Then there are various other difficulties. You may have a one-man shop kept by a man with a large, energetic and enterprising family. The family would all belong to the one man.
VISCOUNT SUMNER: No, no. The clause does not include them.
LORD DESBOROUGH: But how can you prevent his family working?
VISCOUNT SUMNER: It is not difficult now to prevent young people from doing that.
LORD DESBOROUGH: Oh, you think young people do not want to work. But how can you prevent any one working who wants to work? Then a man with a one-man business might take others into partnership. They would belong to the firm and would go on working. I do not see anything in the clause to prevent that. There would be very great difficulty also with regard to administration. Many of my noble friends on this side and on the other side of the House are very averse from what they call bureaucracy. Under this subsection think the number of inspectors would have to be enormously increased. I do not see how you could prevent it. If the closing hour is nine o'clock, say, then the least intelligent person walking down a street can see whether a shop is open or not, but if the shop is open he would have to go inside to see if only duly qualified owners or occupiers of the shops or members of the family were working. There are shops which may be kept open and which are allowed to sell certain things by shop assistants, and a certain number of things may only be sold by my noble friend's friends. Any inspector who went in—he need not be a policeman—would have to find out if anything was being sold that ought not to be sold by an assistant but only by the shopkeeper.
It would be almost impossible to administer. This is not my opinion only. A deputation was received from the Association of Municipal Corporations with regard to this particular provision, and they said the difficulties of administration would make it almost impossible for them to carry it out. I would venture to submit with all due deference to your Lordships' House that first of all this Amendment is condemned by every organised body, and further that it is condemned by the Committees, the Mackenzie Committee and the Standing Committee of the House of Commons. It is their considered opinion that the passing of this Amendment would absolutely ruin the Bill. I do not know that I need say more about this except that the Cabinet have carefully considered the matter and they have come to the conclusion that it would not be in the interests

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of the country or of the shopkeepers that this Amendment should be carried.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I never like to oppose, or rather I should say I always tremble in opposing, anything moved by the noble and learned Viscount who initiated this discussion. He says all that there is to be said on the side for which he is pleading and says it with such forcefulness that he makes everyone want to agree with him if possible. I was interested in some of the things he said when he kindly intimated his belief in some legislation for the protection and help of shop assistants. Shop assistants are a class who do need some legislation to prevent them from being subject to conditions of overwork which, especially as regards young women who form such a large proportion of them, are mischievous in a high degree. On the occasion when this Bill came up for Second Reading the noble and learned Viscount expressed himself in the same kindly way. It was more difficult to follow the arguments which were used by Lord Banbury of Southam, who succeeded Viscount Sumner in that debate. Lord Banbury said:—
"With regard to shop assistants, there is no reason that I can see why it is necessary to say that they may not work for more than a certain number of hours, and no reason why you should prevent an individual doing as he likes in such a matter."
That is perfectly clear, and it is very far-reaching. It goes, of course, against the whole principles of the Factory Acts and of legislation about hours of labour in large factories or small ones, and all the protection given to those who work and are downtrodden and are not their own masters or mistresses in this matter.
I venture to think the position has not been fairly put by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner. He gave a picture which would almost suggest to one that in the districts with which we are trying to deal, you would find large shops, great emporiums with numbers of assistants, cheek by jowl with little shops which are kept by a single occupier without assistants. He spoke of shops into which a woman would be afraid to go because she was not wearing her best dress and so on. That is not what takes place at all. I happen to know a good deal about this because for a great many
1204
years, long before there was any compulsory legislation such as there is at present, I was one of those engaged in studying the question of shop hours and shop assistants. We then endeavoured to bring about early closing by voluntary association on the part of shopkeepers, and the astonishing thing was to find how impossible it was to get even those whom you might imagine to be well-to-do and strong shopkeepers, people of apparent prosperity, to close their shops so long as little shops remained open. But there were no great shops alongside them. In poverty-stricken streets you will find a large number of shops. One will be occupied by a shopkeeper with one assistant or possibly two, and another by a man or woman alone.
The noble and learned Viscount spoke of the woman who was being prevented from earning her money at a later hour by keeping open when the shops round her are closed. We are asked to remember the poor, the down-trodden and the suffering, and we are begged to take care that we are not imperilling their rights. I maintain that there is a class a hundred times greater of those who are being down-trodden, and they are the shop assistants in the small shops, not in the great emporiums, the anæmic girls, the overworked young women who are kept at work while the shops are open because no persuasion will induce the shopkeepers to close so long as the shop next door or two doors away is still open. We are dealing with very small earnings and what seem here to be very small matters. The noble and learned Viscount spoke of a difference of three or four shillings in prices, but it is really a matter of three or four halfpence. They are cutting it down to the closest possible figures, because of the rivalry between one shop and another.
I want to impress upon your Lordships that if we are to enable the poor shopkeeper who has an assistant or two to be in a position that will allow him to close his shop without suffering the financial loss that he so much dreads, we must make the thing universal. In the days when we were doing it by voluntary association we found that the thing could often be done over a whole area or a large town but for two or three people. It may be easy to say that the rest were very cowardly if they submitted

1205
to the dictation of two people who remained open. So it may be, but in these poor regions rivalry is so great that they will all remain open so long as any shop in the neighbourhood is remaining open. As for the curious fact that people prefer to do their shopping late and to stand in the streets earlier in the evening, when perhaps they might be doing their shopping, I do not blame them. It is their custom and there it is. I should like to take the noble and learned Viscount into some of the streets which surround the house in which I live in South London and let him see what happens in the evening. He would find conditions very different from those which he pictured to us with so much eloquence. I believe it is true to say that, if we allow exemption of shops where there are no assistants and a man or woman is working alone, we shall keep other shops all along those streets constantly open and we shall prevent the very thing that we are aiming at in this Bill. I am sure that the Amendment proposed would have a mischievous effect, and I should like your Lordships to notice that in every place where it has been discussed, in the House of Commons or in the House of Commons Committee or elsewhere, the result has been arrived at that to replace in the measure the clause that was struck out would practically defeat the object of the Bill, would do great harm and would prevent what is really a beneficial measure from attaining its purpose.
VISCOUNT NOVAR: On the omission of this clause from the original Bill one would have expected that much stronger reasons would have been given before interfering with the liberty of the subject. Why should a man using his own time in his own business in his own house be interfered with in this manner? That is the real point, and it has not been met. The noble Lord who defended the Bill from the Government Bench spoke with a deference for organised unions and an enthusiasm for Governmental interference which one might have expected to come from the Front Opposition Bench rather than from the Government Bench. My noble friend who is in charge of the Bill is seldom short of excellent reasons for any course that he adopts, but I failed to observe that he gave any reasons against accepting the Amendment of the noble
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and learned Viscount beside me. It is true that the most rev. Primate endeavoured to answer some of the points put forward with irresistible weight by Lord Sumner in moving the re-introduction of this clause, but the essential part of the noble Viscount's argument has not been met, and I sincerely hope that this clause may be put back into the Bill.
VISCOUNT ULLSWATER: I should like to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that in dealing with the greatest industry of all in this country we do not impose, or seek to impose, any of these somewhat intolerable conditions. Take the industry of agriculture. Are you going to tell the small occupier that he is not to do more than so many hours work a day? Far from it. The line that the State has always taken has been to encourage him. The small occupier is the spoilt child of the State, the "white-headed boy," and the State is always ready to produce money to lend to him and to encourage him in working on his estate for the longest hours possible. Why should you make a distinction between the small occupier on the land and the small occupier in the cities? The large occupiers of the land are handicapped because they have to employ agricultural labourers who are limited to a certain number of hours. They are prevented from working for more- than fifty hours a week in the summer and forty-eight hours in winter by the agricultural wages board which the State has set up. But these hours do not apply to the small occupier and were never intended to apply to him. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and it is unfair to treat the occupier inside the cities in a different way from that in which we treat the occupier outside.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): It always gratifies me to hear these pleas for liberty. I am quite certain that most of your Lordships are faithful to the old English idea of liberty. But unfortunately, or fortunately, we have made very considerable exceptions to that theory, and I should like to point out to my noble and learned friend and others of my noble friends who sit behind me that in the Factory Acts are embodied a denial of liberty. Which Party was the author of the Factory Acts? Was it the Liberal Party or the

1207
Conservative Party? Everybody knows that it was the Conservative Party, and the predecessors of my noble friends on these Benches no doubt supported the Factory Acts, following the crusade of the great Lord Shaftesbury. To that extent they invaded liberty. That is to say, they said to grown people: "Notwithstanding that you desire to work beyond a certain time, the law does not allow you to work." This denial has penetrated the whole of our industrial legislation, and it is the work of the Conservative Party. I have boasted of if a thousand times on platforms in this country, and so have those of my noble friends behind me who have gone on platforms. I do not think that the noble and learned Viscount addresses public meetings, and no doubt it would not be very proper, on account of his great judicial position, for him to do so, but others of my learned friends have gone right through the country and nave taken that line.
I should like to make this remark. There were two divisions in my noble and learned friend's speech. He spoke of the interests of the occupier of the one-man shop. He also spoke of the interests of the poor purchaser, and he asked, was it not a great shame that the poor purchaser should not be able to buy what he wanted at a late hour? He seemed to think that that was an overwhelming argument, but why are the rights of the poor purchaser to be confined to the one-man shop? If he has this overwhelming right to purchase what he likes, at whatever time he likes, that is an argument against the early closing of shops altogether, and if my noble and learned friend really thinks that, I submit to his intensely logical mind that that is an argument against the early closing of shops altogether. Why should the poor purchaser he restricted to going late into the one-man shop? My noble and learned friend used the phrase that after all shops were for the public and not the public for the shops. That applies also to shops where there are assistants, just as much as to shops which have only a single occupier. Therefore I think I must allow myself to wipe out all that part of the speech of my noble and learned friend—all those touching appeals to our compassion for the poor purchaser late at night—because the
1208
argument does not hold water. It was not consistent in itself and like the general argument of my noble and learned friend it was not logical, it did not hang together.
We are, therefore, brought back to the simple question, are we going to allow an exception to be made in the Bill in the case of the one-man shop? I must say that, however reluctant one is to check liberty, it certainly does seem very unfair that we should say, by law, to the shop with a few assistants: "You must close," but to the shop with no assistant: "You may remain open." How can one defend this kind of inconsistent provision How can you say to shop A: "You must close," and to shop B next door: "You may remain open"? If you make exceptions of that kind there will be a feeling of injustice and inequity in the minds of the public. They will not be able to understand the subtle mind of my noble and learned friend. They will want to know why there is a distinction between one shop and another. I am, therefore, reluctantly compelled to agree with the various authorities who have pronounced upon this question, that it is not possible to draw a distinction without an injustice, an inequity, between one shop and another, and if you think that the early closing of shops must be done at all, then you cannot draw the line. I hope my noble friend will think of that seriously. After all, we have it on the authority of every speaker in to-night's debate that the fundamental idea of this early closing of shops is good. I am not quite sure whether my noble and learned friend said it with great conviction, but he did say—
VISCOUNT SUMNER: May I remind the noble Marquess that I said it was beyond criticism at this time of day? I hope that I am too much of a realist to go back to the days of the Factory Acts and Lord Shaftesbury as a foundation for a model. If it is sought to rest on logic I think these feats of the Conservative Party when even I was not born a little passé.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Being a good Conservative I like to go back to tradition always; but is it not clear from the interruption of my noble

1209
and learned friend, what I shrewdly suspected, that he does not approve of the system of early closing of shops at all? I think it is quite clear and quite obvious, and I do not think he will deny it. He may not say it, and it is not necessary he should do so. It is, however, not the view of Parliament up to now, and if I may respectfully say so, it is not the view of your Lordships' House. We have, the great majority of us, always approved of the principle of early closing, just as we approve of those limitations of the Factory Acts. As that is the settled policy of Parliament, I cannot resist the conclusion that this House, like another place, ought to resist this Amendment, and I hope it will do so.
LORD REDESDALE: I have no intention of intervening in this debate, but I would like to ask the noble Marquess one question, and that is whether the Factory Acts contain anything to prevent a single-handed factor continuing to work into the night so long as he likes.
VISCOUNT SUMNER: May I say a few words on one or two of the arguments used this evening? The most rev. Primate spoke from a full knowledge of the needs of the poor, much greater than mine, but if I may respectfully say so I think he entirely overlooked the fact that we are supposed to be passing a law which will be obeyed. If this law cannot be enforced, it is of no use passing it. My Amendment takes out of the operation of the Bill no single assistant whatever, male or female, young or old, and as we are told that an army of inspectors will enforce the law, you have only to enforce the law and there is an end of the whole of the fears upon which the most rev. Primate's moving speech was founded.
I will turn to the noble Marquess. I cannot tell him how infinitely flattered I am that my little Amendment has attracted members of the Government—not indeed to listen to the discussion—whom we rarely see here at all and whom I suppose are not here in vain; nor would he think it necessary to rise on a mere Amendment in Committee, after the able representative of the Home Office had spoken, unless it had occurred to him that perhaps the arguments which were dictated from the Home Office, and delivered to your Lordships, had failed quite to meet the real point. The point of the Government's argument was that they could not enforce the law unless it were enforced upon all, and then the noble Marquess, with a logical subtlety which is only equalled and never surpassed by any other occupant of the Government Bench, said that I put myself in error and that I was not accustomed to logic. If the logic is his logic then I am not accustomed to it.
He thought something was to be gained by trying to drive me into saying something about the Shop Assistants Acts. He might just as well have tried to drive me into a controversy about the Copernican system. The real difficulty of the Government's argument remains where it was. For some mysterious reason, dictated by thousands of small shopkeepers who do employ shop assistants, they must have the assistance of the law to crush their rivals, or else they will not consent to emancipate the shop assistants. I think it would be better to stand up to them.
On Question, Whether the proposed new subsection shall be there inserted?—
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 25: Not-Contents, 51.

CONTENTS.

Northumberland, D.

Novar, V.

Hindlip, L.

Sumner, V. [Teller.]

Hunsdon of Hunsdon, L.

Denbigh, E.

Ullswater, V.

Jessel, L.

Eldon, E.

Lawrence, L.

Midleton, E.

Askwith, L.

Leigh, L.

Morton, E.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Merthyr, L.

Westmeath, E.

Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

Muskerry, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Redesdale, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Sydenham of Combe, L.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Canterbury, L. Abp.

Plymouth, E. [Teller.]

Glenarthur, L.

Stanhope, E.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Hailsham, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Stradbroke, E.

Hampton, L.

Hanworth, L.

Balfour, E. (L. President.)

Elibank, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Salisbury, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Kylsant, L.

Lovat, L.

Peel, V.

Merrivale, L.

Sutherland, D.

Younger of Leckie, V.

Mildmay of Flete, L.

Wellington, D.

Muir Mackenzie, L.

Arnold, L.

Olivier, L.

Reading, M.

Ashfield, L.

Parmoor, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Beauchamp, E.

Biddulph, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Cawley, L.

Queenborough, L.

Buxton, E.

Clwyd, L.

Sempill, L.

Clarendon, E.

Daryngton, L.

Strachie, L.

Cranbrook, E.

de Clifford, L.

Thomson, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Desborough, L.

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

Wraxall, L.

Onslow, E.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Special provisions as to holiday resorts.
(2) Any order under this section—
(b) shall be made subject to such conditions as the local authority may consider necessary for securing that shop assistants affected by the order shall not be employed in or about the business of a shop for more than such number of hours as may be specified by the order, and shall be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked with full pay; and
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, in subsection (2), (b), to leave out the words "and shall be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked with full pay," and, at the end of the clause, to insert the following subsections:—
"(3) If, while orders made under this section are in force, any shop assistant affected by any such order is, in any year, employed in or about the business of a shop for extra hours, he shall, subject to the provisions of the Second Schedule to this Act, be entitled to corresponding holidays, calculated in accordance with the provisions of that Schedule, with full wages; and if at the date of the termination of his employment or at the end of the year, whichever first occurs, default has been made in granting to him any holiday or wages to which he is entitled under this subsection, the shop assistant may recover as a debt due from the employer for every
1212
day's holiday in respect of which such default has been made a sum equal to one-sixth of the highest weekly rate of wages paid to him in respect of his employment in or about the business of the shop during the year or the part thereof during which he has been employed therein.
"(4) For the purposes of this Act—
"'Extra hours' means, in relation to any shop assistant, hours in excess of the customary working day, being hours after the general closing hours fixed by or under this Act otherwise than by an Order made under this section:
"'Customary working day' means, in relation to any shop assistant, the daily number of hours during which shop assistants of his class are, while unaffected by any order made under this section, customarily employed in or about the business of the shop in which he is employed:
"'Full wages' means, in relation to any holiday granted to a shop assistant, wages at a rate equivalent to the rate of wages to which ho was entitled immediately before the holiday."
The noble Lord said: These Amendments, which embody a small verbal Amendment of which I have given notice, really carry out the intentions both of those who moved them in the House of Commons and also of the promoters of the Bill. I think they are agreed.
Amendments moved—
Page 4, line 14, leave out from ("order") to ("and") in line 16.
Page 4, line 20, at end, insert the said subsections.—(Lord Desborough.)
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First Schedule:

SHOPS (HOURS OF CLOSING) BILL.

  FIRST SCHEDULE.
  Transactions not prevented by this Act or by Closing Orders made wider the Principal Act.
  1. The sale after the closing hour of—
  (d) tobacco or matches on licensed premises during the hours during which intoxicating liquor is permitted by law to be sold on the premises;
  VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE moved a manuscript Amendment, in paragraph (d), after "tobacco," to insert "table waters." The noble Viscount said: The object of this Amendment is to repair an omission. Under paragraph (d) of the Schedule as it stands you can get a glass of whisky but you cannot get a bottle of soda water. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 6, line 29, after ("tobacco") insert ("table waters").—(Viscount Younger of Leckie.)
  First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, after the First Schedule, to insert the following new schedule:—
  "Method of calculating the holidays to which any shop assistant is entitled under Subsection (3) of Section six of this Act.
  "1. The number of extra hours for which a shop assistant has been employed in or about the business of the shop while any one or more orders have been in force under Section six of this Act shall be added together, any fraction of an hour not exceeding hall being treated as half an hour, and any fraction of an hour exceeding half being treated as an hour.
  "2. For the purposes of this Schedule the number of hours comprised in the customary working day on days other than half holidays shall be taken as the standard unit.
  "3. The aggregate number of the extra hours, as calculated in accordance with the provisions of paragraph I of this Schedule, shall be divided by the standard unit, and the quotient, fractions thereof being disregarded, shall be the number of the days' holiday to which the shop assistant shall be entitled."
  The noble Lord said: I have on the Paper a new schedule which deals with the method of calculating the holidays to which a shop assistant is entitled under Clause 6 (3) of the Bill. It is practically an agreed addition to the schedules, and I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 7, line 18, at end insert the said new schedule.—(Lord Desborough.)
  Remaining Schedules agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Commons Amendments.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM): My Lords, in moving that these Amendments be taken into consideration by your Lordships' House, it will probably be for the convenience of the House if I state now the nature and purpose of the Amendments so as to avoid having to make three or four speeches later on. There are six Amendments. The first three are purely formal, arising from the fact that it was originally anticipated that the Bill would become law at an earlier date than now appears likely. We are providing that it is not to come into operation before October 1.
The fourth Amendment, leaving out Clause 13, is one which I shall ask your Lordships to agree to with very great regret. It is an Amendment which omits that part of the Bill which provided for the appointment of two additional members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the purpose of Indian Appeals. The reasons which have induced the Government to accept this Amendment are that at this stage of the Session it is, unfortunately, possible for a comparatively small and insignificant number of people to prevent a Bill of this character becoming law altogether if they are sufficiently persistent in their opposition to any material part of it. This Bill is obviously one which could have been made to take a very long time in Committee in another place. Unfortunately, there was a section of the members of another place, I think very few in number, and I am sure, very short-sighted in their Imperial view, who took objection to this clause.
The Government, therefore, were faced with the alternative of dropping the clause or losing the Bill. Had it been that the effect of dropping the clause

1215
would be permanently to give up the hope of appointing these two additional members I confess I should have pressed very hard to fight the Bill even at the risk of prolonging the Session. I have had an opportunity of discussing the situation with my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and as a result of that discussion I have every confidence and belief that when the next Session begins one of the first measures to be brought before Parliament will be a measure embodying the provisions which are now being dropped. Therefore, the effect of the obstruction in another place will be, not to destroy this very useful provision, but merely to delay its operation.
I do not disguise that it puts me in some little difficulty during the first few months of the autumn. There are at present, if the Judicial Committee sits at full strength in two places and if this House be sitting judicially, some fifteen places which ought to be filled. I have six paid members of the Appellate Tribunal besides myself, seven in all, to fill those fifteen places. I am driven, therefore, to rely on volunteer help; but, however loyal and generous their help is, your Lordships will see what a very heavy strain is placed upon those who are willing to give their services in this difficult situation. I think that the delay will only be a temporary one, and for the reasons I have given I shall ask your Lordships to agree to the Amendment, assuring your Lordships that it will not be my fault if measures are not taken at a very early opportunity to repair the mistake which those in another place insisted on making.
Clause 16 was a clause which made the revenue judgments of the Dominions and of this country reciprocally enforceable. Objection was raised to that and it was dropped for the same reason. I should tell your Lordships that as a consequence it will be necessary to make two formal Amendments to the Bill which I shall move in due course. The sixth and last Amendment is of a purely formal and drafting character and has the object of making the Bill consistent. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, I rise only because of the absence,
1216
which we and I am sure the whole House feel very deeply, of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane. I happen to have spoken with him on the subject of the state just now of business in the Judicial Committee, and I know that he will learn with the very deepest regret that the Government have felt compelled to assent to the omission of the provision for adding two Indian members to the Judicial Committee. The one consolation to him will be the very strong assurance that has been uttered from the Woolsack that the Government intend at the earliest moment to try to remedy the great mistake that has been made by the omission of Clause 13.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL. [H.L.]

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  [The references are to Bill No. 45.]
  Clause 1, page 2, line 23, leave out ("since the first day of June") and insert ("on or after the first day of October").
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House agrees with the Commons in the first Amendment, the reasons for which I have already explained.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  Clause 4, page 5, line 26, leave out ("second day of June") and insert ("first day of October").
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  Clause 5, page 6, line 24, leave out ("second day of June") and insert ("first day of October").
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  Pages 10 and 11, leave out clause 13.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  Page 12, leave out clause 16.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  Clause 22 [Short title, repeal, construction and printing]:
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There are two consequential Amendments which I have to move in Clause 22. They are at page 15, lines 7 and 8, to leave out "Part II of the Administration of Justice Act, 1920, or amends," and at lines 10 and 11 to leave out "except so much thereof as amends Part II of the Administration of Justice Act, 1920." These words were there in order to comply with Clause 16 but since that clause has disappeared they are no longer necessary. I beg to move.
  Amendments moved—
  Page 15, lines 7 and 8, leave out ("Part II of the Administration of Justice Act, 1920, or amends").
  Page 15, lines 10 and 11, leave out ("except so much thereof as amends Part II of the Administration of Justice Act. 1920").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  COMMONS AMENDMENT.
  Second Schedule, page 18, line 11, at end insert:

  ("53 & 54 Vict. c. 23.

  The Chancery of Lancaster Act, 1890.

  Section seven.")

  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  Bill returned to the Commons.

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order),
PETROLEUM (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills made.

FOOD AND DRUGS (ADULTERATION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
House adjourned at a quarter before seven o'clock.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND JOHORE TERRITORIAL WATERS (AGREEMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:
London, Midland and Scottish Railway (Road Transport),
London and North Eastern Railway (Road Transport),
Southern Railway (Road Transport),
Great Western Railway (Road Transport).
Also the Certificate that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:
Lincolnshire Rivers Fisheries Provisional Order.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

LAMBETH BRIDGE (DESIGN).
Report by the Select Committee (with the proceedings of the Committee) made, and to be printed.
TITHE (ADMINISTRATION OF TRUSTS) MEASURE.
Text of the Measure: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and to be printed.
CLERGY PENSIONS (AMENDMENT) MEASURE.
Text of the Measure: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and to be printed.