Sitting of 16 March 1931

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Ventnor Urban District Council Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.
Preston Corporation Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    SITUATION.
    Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any further statement to make on the conditions in India?
    Mr. DOUGLAS HACKINGasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has anything to report regarding the effect of the recent agreement upon the boycott against British goods entering India?
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any report as to the effect in India of the recent Delhi agreement between the Viceroy and Mr. Gandhi?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): I gave the House in my speech on Thursday all the information then available, and there is nothing which at this moment I can usefully add to it.
    Mr. HACKING: With regard to my question in respect of the boycott in view of the great importance of this part of the agreement to the cotton industry of Lancashire can the right hon. Gentleman say how long he is prepared to wait for an improvement before he will take steps to see that the agreement is carried out in the spirit and in the letter?
    Mr. BENN: I think I said on Thursday that an improved tone was observable. Actual figures of course cannot be given without the lapse of some little time.
    Mr. HACKING: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what would be a convenient time to put down another question?
    Mr. BENN: I will have an inquiry made as to the shortest period within which the figures can be obtained.
    Mr. FREEMAN: May I ask if all the prisoners under the agreement have been freed?
    Mr. BENN: That is the subject of another question.

    CONFERENCE.
    Mr. FREEMANasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is yet in a position to make any statement as to His Majesty's Government's plans for carrying on the work of the Round Table Conference; and whether the next session will be held in India?
    Mr. BENN: My hon. Friend's question was answered by the statement I made in the course of the Debate last Thursday.
    Mr. FREEMAN: May I ask whether, in view of the fact that the future constitution of India which is now under consideration will have to be worked by Indians in India, the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advantage of having at least one section of the Round Table Conference in India; that this suggestion will not be overlooked?
    Mr. BENN: The consideration which the hon. Member puts forward will certainly not be overlooked.

    BOMBAY CONGRESS BULLETIN.
    Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOXasked the Secretary of State for India whether the Bombay Congress Bulletin has now been prescribed by Government?
    Mr. BENN: The hon. and gallant Member will recall that, under the terms of the settlement, all Ordinances directed against the civil disobedience movement have been repealed.
    Sir A. KNOX: Has the tone of this Congress Bulletin changed?
    Mr. BENN: That is a totally different question.
    Mr. BROCKWAY: May I ask whether, despite the proscription, the Congress Bulletin has appeared every day during the Civil Disobedience campaign?
    Mr. BENN: That is another question.

    TRANBVAAL ASIATIC TENURE (AMENDMENT) BILL.
    Major GRAHAM POLEasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give information in regard to the present position in the matter of the representations made on behalf of the Government of India by their agent in South Africa against the enactment of the Transvaal Land Tenure Bill?
    Mr. BENN: I have no recent information as to the course of the negotiations between the Government of India and the Union Government regarding the Transvaal Asiatic Tenure (Amendment) Bill. The Second Reading of the Bill has not been taken in the Union Parliament.
    Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman kept informed of the progress of these negotiations?
    Mr. BENN: I imagine that the information reaches the office, but the Government of India have their own representative there.
    Earl WINTERTON: Has it not always been understood that the Secretary of State for India will answer questions on this subject in this House?
    Mr. BENN: Yes, and, as the Noble Lord knows, he is constantly asked for information on this subject.

    CIVIL AVIATION.
    Major POLEasked the Secretary of State for India what provision is being made by the Government of India, in view of the growing importance of aviation in India, for increasing the size and scope of the Department of Civil Aviation in India?
    Mr. BENN: I have already supplied to my hon. and gallant Friend all the information I possess. I have no reason to suppose that the strength of the Civil Aviation Department in India is inadequate.

    PRISONERS.
    Major POLEasked the Secretary of State for India if he will give information showing the number of men and women civil-disobedience prisoners in each of the provinces who have been released from prison as a result of the agreement recently reached between the Viceroy and certain Indian political leaders at New Delhi?
    Mr. BENN: I am circulating the figures up to the 13th March.
    Mr. FREEMAN: May I ask whether the prisoners under the agreement are now free?
    Mr. BENN: I cannot answer that question, but I can say that the releases total over 14,000.
    Following are the figures:

    Prisoners released up to 13th March in consequence of the agreement for the Sessation of the civil disobedience movement in India.

    Province.

    Prisoners released.

    Male.

    Female.

    Madras

    1,305

    38

    Bombay

    2,769

    341

    (up to 14th March).

    Bengal

    1,516

    27

    United Provinces

    3,974

    36

    Punjab

    1,113

    95

    Bihar and Orissa

    1,457

    17

    approx.

    Central Provinces

    800

    10

    Assam

    205

    6

    Delhi

    287

    45

    North West Frontier Province.

    483

    —

    Coorg

    18

    —

    13,927

    408

    MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for India (1) in view of the fact that on all previous occasions when increments in pay and pension have been sanctioned by the Secretary of State for India these were given without distinction to both military and civil officers of all branches of the Army, including the Indian Medical Department, why the 1929 revised rates of pay for the Indian Medical Department have been sanc-

    1645
    tioned for those in military employ only and have not been given to those loaned for civil medical employment in the provinces; whether he is aware that, although the Madras Government has sanctioned the increased rates of pay to its civil Indian Medical Department officers, the other provinces, as also the State railways and the Government of India, have refused it to their Indian Medical Department civil medical officers; will he state why such distinction has been made in the Indian Medical Department; and whether he is prepared to take steps to inquire into the matter and remedy this position;
    (2) whether, seeing that the Indian Medical Department (military assistant surgeon branch) is an all-India service under the administration of the Government of India and the control of the Secretary of State as regards pay and pensions, he will state whether its officers are recruited in all cases under the same terms of agreement, and whether it is a cadred service; and, seeing that those of its officers whose services are loaned to provincial governments are, like similar Indian Medical Service officers, considered as the war reserve of the Army (Indian Medical Department), will he consider giving them equal treatment with similar Indian Medical Service officers?
    Mr. BENN: The assumptions on which these questions are based are not quite accurate. Although the Indian Medical Department has a definite cadre, it is not an all-India service like the Indian Medical Service. Military assistant surgeons are attested as soldiers under the Army Act on first appointment. While they are in military employ their conditions of service are governed by Army regulations; but on transfer to civil employ they come under the control of the civil authorities, who have full power to determine their rates of pay. So far as I am aware, there is some degree of competition for civil employ, and the conditions of service are well understood. In the circumstances I do not feel justified in suggesting to the civil authorities an increase in the rates which they have decided are adequate.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not the fact that the new pay and pensions of the Indian Medical Depart-
    1646
    meat sanctioned by him were for the whole unit; that there was no difference between military and civilian?
    Mr. BENN: No, the position of the Indian Medical Department and that of Indian Medical Service are not quite comparable.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Indian Medical Service is entirely recruited from Anglo-Indians and domiciled Europeans, and is it not undesirable to leave them with any sense of grievance?
    Mr. BENN: I cannot make out whether the hon. and gallant Member is speaking of the Indian Medical Service or the Indian Medical Department. They are separate organisations, and as I have said the conditions are not comparable.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will my right hon. Friend receive any representations on the matter?
    Mr. BENN: Gladly.

    NORWEGIAN SHIP "TRICOLOUR" (CARGO).
    Sir A. KNOXasked the Secretary of State for India if he has any information as to the nature of the cargo landed at the mouth of the Hugli by the Norwegian sailing ship "Tricolour," which recently blew up off Colombo?
    Mr. BENN: I have no information, but will inquire if the hon. and gallant Member so desires.
    Sir A. KNOX: Is there any truth in the report that this ship was carrying arms?
    Mr. BENN: As I have said, I have no information on the matter.
    Mr. HANNON: Is any observation being kept on ships that might carry arms?
    Mr. BENN: The ordinary procedure is followed.
    Mr. EDE: Did the arms come from Birmingham?

    INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.
    Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLEasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has considered the representations

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    from the staff of the Indo-European telegraph department as to the terms and conditions on which it is proposed to grant pensions and gratuities to them on the abolition of the department; and whether, in considering such representations, he will have regard to the climatic conditions under which the staff have worked and to the fact that, owing to continuous residence in a foreign country and to the nature of their profession, it is difficult for them to find other employment?
    Mr. BENN: Yes, Sir. I have considered in Council the memorial submitted by the staff of the Indo-European Telegraph Department regarding the terms to be granted to officers whose appointments have been terminated, and I am satisfied that all relevant factors, including those mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member have been taken into account in arriving at a decision.

    CHILD MARRIAGES.
    Miss RATHBONEasked the Secretary of State for India whether in view of the suspension of the civil-disobedience movement in India, it is now the intention of the provincial governments to commence enforcing the Sarda Act in restraint of child marriage?
    Mr. BENN: The enforcement of the Act has in no way been affected by the civil disobedience movement.
    Miss RATHBONE: Does that mean that the Act is in force or is not; and will the right hon. Gentleman say what has been the result of the circular sent to the provincial Governments in the course of last summer suggesting that the Act should be annulled or greatly cut down, what the replies were, and whether, in view of the improvement in the situation, that proposal for annulment of the Act can be regarded as suspended?
    Mr. BENN: So far as the question on the Paper is concerned, I have done my best to answer it. As regards the specific question of the hon. Member, if she will put it on the Order Paper, I will do my best to give her all the information I can.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    IMPORT DUTIES, INDIA.
    Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFTasked the Secretary of State for India whether the new Customs duties in India were submitted to him; and whether he took any steps to recommend that they should be raised to a greater extent upon foreign goods than upon those from Lancashire?
    Mr. BENN: I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member on the 9th March by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
    Sir H. CROFT: May I ask whether the proposed new duties were not submitted to him, and also whether representations were made to see that an advantage was given to Lancashire cotton goods, even assuming that an increased revenue ought to be raised?
    Mr. BENN: The hon. and gallant Member is repeating a question which I have answered previously.
    Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: Cannot the Secretary of State put an extra duty on Japanese cotton goods going into India and so give Lancashire a preference?
    Mr. BENN: The hon. Member does not seem to be aware of the terms under which we work. They are strictly governed by the Tariff Autonomy Convention.
    Sir H. CROFT: Is it not a fact that these duties are submitted to the Secretary of State in advance and that he has an opportunity of making representations?
    Mr. BENN: It is perfectly true to say that the Budget proposals come to the India Office, but it is equally true to say that my action is governed by the terms of the Convention.
    Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise the critical position in Lancashire?
    Earl WINTERTON: Does the Secretary of State suggest that the Convention has the force of law?
    Mr. BENN: No, but it has the force of tradition and practice by all parties.
    Earl WINTERTON: May I ask a question on the important question of this Convention?
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is no good asking the same question over and over again.
    Mr. HACKINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has anything to report to the House as a result of the deputation from the Master Cotton Spinners' Federation and the Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers' Association, which recently waited upon him to discuss the question of the import of cotton goods into India?
    Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): My right hon. Friend accompanied by the Secretary of State for India, received the deputation on Friday last, when the present situation of the cotton industry in this country was considered, and there was a useful exchange of views as to the prospects of trade with India. As the proceedings were confidential, it is impossible to give more detailed information.
    Mr. HACKING: Will the hon. Member say whether, in view of the information that was given to the President of the Board of Trade by the deputation, he is able to show any practical steps to help the cotton industry so far as India is concerned?
    Mr. GILLETT: I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to give notice of that question.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. MILLSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the occasions when defaults have arisen in connection with any guarantee respecting trade with Russia; and how this compares with any other country similarly quoted for risks?
    Mr. GILLETT: If my hon. Friend refers to the Export Credits Guarantee Scheme, I may say that none of the Soviet bills guaranteed under that scheme has been dishonoured. There have been defaults on bills drawn on importers in other countries.
    Mr. HACKINGasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will state the reason why the
    1650
    rate of premium has been increased by approximately 50 per cent. by the export credits department in connection with Soviet risks?
    Mr. GILLETT: For Russia, as for other countries, the rate continually fluctuates and varies from ease to case and from time to time. I regret that I am unable to give reasons for any fluctuations that may occur in the case of either Russia or any other country.
    Mr. HACKING: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is stated in my question is correct, and that there has been this increase?
    Mr. GILLETT: No; I cannot be assumed to agree with anything that the right hon. Gentleman has stated.
    Mr. HACKING: Will the hon. Gentleman deny that what I have stated is correct?
    Mr. GILLETT: As I have informed the right hon. Gentleman, it is very undesirable to discuss these details.

    SOUTH AFRICA (TRADE MISSION).
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he will state what was the cost to the nation of the British trade mission to South Africa; whether any, and, if so, what, recommendations in the report have been given effect to; and whether any benefit to trade accrued from this mission?
    Mr. GILLETT: The cost to the nation of the United Kingdom Trade Mission in question was £2,920 5s. 11d. As regards the mission's first recommendation, I have presided at a number of meetings addressed by Lord Kirkley and other members of the mission upon this, and other, aspects of their investigations. These meetings were convened by representative business bodies, and were held in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle, Leicester and Bristol. Other meetings have also been addressed by Lord Kirkley and his colleagues. It is known that certain firms have, as a result, reconstructed their sales organisation and other steps have been taken designed to achieve increased exports. An important exhibition of samples of textiles brought back by the mission was held in Manchester and

    1651
    aroused much interest. Whilst it has not yet been possible to give effect to the other recommendations, His Majesty's Government have them still under careful consideration.
    Mr. HANNON: Is it not a fact that the work accomplished by this mission has been of very great value to British trade in South Africa?
    Mr. GILLETT: Yes, I have very good reason to think so.

    LACE INDUSTRY.
    Mr. O'CONNORasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the representations sent to him from the Lace Workers' Association, representing all grades of those employed in the lace trade, calling attention to the distress among the lace workers which has followed the withdrawal of the Safeguarding Duties on lace, and urging upon the Government the renewal of the Safeguarding Duty; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, I can add nothing to previous statements on behalf of the Government.
    Mr. O'CONNOR: Does that mean that no representations made by the operatives' side of the industry will be attended to at all?
    Mr. SMITH: No. It means that the question has already been dealt with at length, and that I cannot reopen it.

    BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.
    Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGEasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will arrange for his Department to remind applicants for space at the next British Industries Fair that unsuitable staffing of stalls is likely to reduce the efficiency of the fair for securing foreign and home orders for goods?
    Mr. REIDasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in view of the complaints made that some stall-holders at the recent British Industries Fair did not place at their
    1652
    stalls salesmen with suitable authority and efficiency for dealing with the inquiries of buyers, he will, in future, take steps to avoid such difficulties?
    Mr. GILLETT: My Department will certainly point out to exhibitors at the next fair, as it has done in the past, the importance of having competent salesmen in attendance on their stands.

  CHINA (EXTRA-TERRITORIALITY).
  Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement as to the negotiations which are taking place as to extra-territoriality; and whether any conclusion has yet been reached?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): The negotiations are proceeding as rapidly as their complicated nature permits, but I regret that I am not at the moment in a position to make a statement.

  RUSSIA.

    DEBTS, CLAIMS AND COUNTER-CLAIMS.
    Mr. ALBERYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now report that any further progress has been made by the Anglo-Soviet Debts and Claims Committee, British section; and whether any additional English members have been added to the committee or sub-committee beyond the five names already notified?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The committee itself issues periodical reports to the Press. So far as I am concerned, I regret that I can add nothing to the reply given to the hon. Members for Moseley (Mr. Hannon) and Chislehurst (Mr. Smithers) on the 9th of March. No additions have been made to the British members of the main committee as enumerated to the House on the 14th July, 1930. I would remind the hon. Member that the names of the gentlemen added to the list of British delegates for service in the sub-committees was announced in the House on the 26th January.
    Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether

    1653
    he has now reached a decision as to the publication of quarterly reports as to the activities and progress of the Anglo-Soviet Debts and Claims Committee and its sub-committees?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I have considered the suggestion of the hon. Member, and can see no public advantage in adopting it.
    Mr. SMITHERS: Is it not a fact that hitherto these proceedings have been nothing more than a farce?

    LENA GOLDFIELDS (ARBITRATION AWARD).
    Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is able to make any further statement with regard to the policy of the Soviet Government as to the Lena arbitration award?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I am not in a position to add anything to the statement which I made to the House on the 4th of March.
    Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman not be able to do anything, in spite of his increase in prestige?

  AGRICULTURE.

    IMPORTED FRUIT PULP.
    Viscount ELMLEYasked the Minister of Agriculture (1) if he has reached any decision as to altering the regulation regarding the importation of pulped fruit;
    (2) whether he has reached any decision as to establishing a national mark for jam made from home-grown fruit?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): I would refer the Noble Lord to the reply which I gave on Thursday last to a question, by the hon. and gallant Member for Maldon (Lieut.-Colonel Ruggles-Brise), of which I am sending him a copy, and from which he will see that I favour the course referred to in his second question.
    Mr. HURD: What hope has the right hon. Gentleman of bringing this about?
    Dr. ADDISON: I think there is a good hope.

    WHEAT (STATISTICS).
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he
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    will state the proportion of wheat to the total agricultural produce of this country in the last available pre-War year and 1929?
    Dr. ADDISON: The value of the wheat crop sold off farms in England and Wales in 1908–9 was estimated to be 6.4 per cent. of the total agricultural output for that year. For 1929–30 the proportion is estimated at 4 per cent. It is estimated that at the present time about 75 per cent. of the wheat crop is sold off farms, compared with 80 per cent. before the War.

    MALE WORKERS.
    Mr. C. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will state the approximate number of male workers on agricultural holdings exceeding one acre for the last available pre-War year; and how many of these workers were adults?
    Dr. ADDISON: The number of male workers returned as employed on agricultural holdings in England and Wales on 4th June, 1913, was approximately 586,000, of whom about 488,500 were adult workers. The returns of agricultural workers in that year are not strictly comparable with those collected in post-War years, inasmuch as they exclude all members of the occupier's family, whereas the later returns exclude only the occupier and his wife.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: What is the rough difference, excluding all the occupiers' land?
    Dr. ADDISON: I will gladly try to get the information if the hon. Member will put a question on the Paper.

    SUGAR-BEET CONTRACTS.
    Mr. HARDIEasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will state the difference in the terms offered to growers of beet by those factories which have accepted the Government offer and the Anglo-Dutch group; and whether he is able to state the amount of the reserves accumulated by the Anglo-Dutch group during the subsidy period?
    Dr. ADDISON: My information is that the companies of the Anglo-Dutch Group of Beet-Sugar Factories are prepared to operate their factories for the manufacture of white sugar from home-grown beet in the season 1931, not for the pur-

    1655
    pose of making profits for their shareholders, and/or increasing their reserves, but in order to utilise the whole of the net proceeds of such manufacture in payments to farmers for beets delivered. No provision for depreciation on factory buildings and machinery will be made and no charge for directors' fees or for any increase in the existing standard of remuneration to the administrative and managerial staff.
    The companies of the Anglo-Dutch Group state that the grower will receive during the season payments on account at the rate of 30s. per clean ton of beet of 15½ per cent. sugar content delivered at the factory. If, in the opinion of the factories, the markets justify an additional payment on account, this will be made. The reserves, after provision for depreciation, of the five companies in the Anglo-Dutch Group amounted, on 31st March, 1930, to £1,046,845.
    The terms offered to growers of beet by those factories that have accepted the Government offer provide a firm price of 38s. per ton for beet of 15½ per cent. sugar content delivered at the factory. In offering this price, the Government has required from the factories in 1931 a maximum sacrifice of provision for depreciation and other capital charges, profit and additions to reserves. All beet contracts offered by farmers are to be accepted by factories up to their normal throughput capacity, and the whole of the contracts of each factory are to be on the same terms as to price.
    Mr. HARDIE: Have these accumulations came from the national subsidy?
    Dr. ADDISON: Yes, to a great extent, I think. They could not possibly have been accumulated otherwise.
    Mr. HARDIE: Have the other companies also got accumulations?
    Dr. ADDISON: No. I think these companies have much greater accumulations than any others.

    FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE (DANISH BACON).
    Mr. HURDasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of its bearing upon British policy, he will ascertain
    1656
    on what scientific evidence the Canadian Government have come to the conclusion that, because of the prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease in Denmark, the importation of Danish bacon into Canada should be prohibited?
    Dr. ADDISON: I will ask my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, to endeavour to obtain from the Canadian Government information on this subject.

    BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS (SERUM TREATMENT).
    Mr. HURDasked the Minister of Agriculture what tests are now progressing in England of the value of the serum treatment of bovine tuberculosis; and if, in the interests of the fresh milk industry, he will use his influence to expedite these tests?
    Dr. ADDISON: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on the 5th March to a question by the hon. Baronet, the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), of which I am sending him a copy. I have recently had under careful consideration the possibility of expediting this research, and can assure the hon. Member that any steps that may be practicable in this direction will be taken.

    EX-SERVICE MEN'S HOLDINGS.
    Mr. DUCKWORTHasked the Minister of Agriculture the number of applications that have been made to purchase their holdings by ex-service men tenants of county councils, in accordance with leaflet No. 197 of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the number of such applications that have been refused?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have no information as to the total number of applications made by tenants to purchase their holdings under section 11 of the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act, 1919, but returns obtained in 1929 showed that during the years 1927 to 1929, 79 holdings were sold under the section referred to. The number of cases in which councils applied for and obtained the Minister's consent to refuse the tenant's application to purchase during the same period was four, and the total number of such cases since 1919 is 14. The above figures include civilian as well as ex-service tenants, for whom no separate figures are available.

    EUROPEAN GRAIN CONFERENCE (RUSSIAN EXPORTS).
    Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics was represented at the recent European Grain Conference; and whether any proposals were made at that conference for checking the export from Russia of grain produced, harvested, or otherwise handled by conscripted labour?
    Mr. GILLETT: I have been asked to reply. The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. So far as I am aware no such proposals as are indicated in the second part of the question were discussed at the conferences.

  SHELL FISHERIES (FALMOUTH).
  Mr. C. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will state what steps have been taken to increase shell fisheries in the Falmouth area; and whether he will issue a separate report on this particular fishery?
  Dr. ADDISON: At the Ministry's request an exhaustive survey of the Fal estuary oyster beds was carried out in 1924 by Dr. Orton of the Marine Biological Association. A summary of Dr. Orton's report was published in the following year, and the report itself in 1926. Arising out of this survey, by-laws and orders regulating the oyster fisheries in the estuary have been made from time to time.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Are these by-laws satisfactory?
  Dr. ADDISON: The by-laws are all right; the question is the oysters.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: By that remark does the right hon. Gentleman not mean that these are the best oysters?

  LAND RECLAMATION (THE WASH).
  Mr. R. A. TAYLORasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any data as to the practicability or otherwise of schemes for the reclamation of land from the Wash?
  Dr. ADDISON: My Department has frequently had before it suggestions for the reclamation of land from the Wash.
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  The reclamation of small areas of land has been and can be successfully carried out, but the cost so far has exceeded the value of the land reclaimed: extensive schemes are, I am advised, impracticable.
  Mr. TAYLOR: Has there been any large-scale survey by the present Government, and, if not, why not?
  Dr. ADDISON: We have had surveys about the estuary of the Ouse, but as to the other parts of the Wash I require notice of any question.
  Mr. TAYLOR: Would not a large-scale scheme of this kind absorb a large number of single unemployed men?
  Mr. MILLS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the land reclaimed in the Spalding area is about the most prolific land in that part of the country?
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman found any trace of King John's treasure in the Wash?
  Dr. ADDISON: King John's treasure is now far inland, in a village several miles from the sea.

  NATIONAL PARKS COMMITTEE.
  Mr. ALBERYasked the Minister of Agriculture when the report of the National Parks Committee is likely to be issued?
  Dr. ADDISON: I hope that it will be possible for the Committee to report at an early date.
  Mr. ALBERY: What is the cause of this very long delay?
  Dr. ADDISON: I myself have passed the final printed proof of the report. It is a complicated subject.

  NATIONAL EXPENDITURE (COMMITTEE).
  Mr. REMERasked the Prime Minister if he is now able to state the names of the chairman and/or the members of the Economy Committee?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): The Committee is in process of being set up, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement.
  Mr. REMER: Is there any reason for the very long delay in the announcement of the names?
  The PRIME MINISTER: There is no reason at all, except that a committee of this kind cannot be set up in a day. It is practically finished, but there are still, I think, two names.
  Mr. REMER: Is it not over a month since the House decided that this committee should be set up?
  The PRIME MINISTER: It is over a month since we started to set up the committee, and the period of delay has been occupied in getting the right people to serve upon it.
  Mr. HANNON: Has the right hon. Gentleman decided who will be chairman?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but I would prefer to announce the whole of the committee together.

  UNEMPLOYMENT (WORK SCHEMES).
  Sir K. WOODasked the Prime Minister the actual amount expended in respect of the works of economic development totalling £160,000,000 approved by the Government for assisting in the relief of unemployment; the number of persons since January last to the last convenient date who have attained direct employment as a result of schemes initiated by the Government; and whether he has further proposals to make to the House with the object of mitigating unemployment?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Lawson): I have been asked to reply. As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the right hon. Member to the answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Malone) by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 22nd January, and by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour on the 5th February. As then explained, we do not call for returns of expenditure by local authorities and others in cases where we can get returns of men actually employed. Particulars of the number of persons employed are not available in respect of
  1660
  a later date than the 30th January, for which the right hon. Member was given information by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour on the 5th instant. As regards the last part of the question there is nothing to add to the answer which was given by the Prime Minister to the hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass) on 11th instant.
  Sir K. WOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman make some further inquiries in relation to this amount of £160,000,000 which the Prime Minister has asserted is the amount approved; is he not in a position to tell the House the amount expended, and, if not, when will he be able to do so?
  Mr. LAWSON: As the right hon. Gentleman knows from various answers which have been given, the only figures which are available from the monthly returns are those showing the number of men employed, and, as he has heard very often in Debate, it is not possible at a given date to get the amount of expenditure from the local authorities.
  Sir K. WOOD: Having regard to the very serious importance of this matter, as has been pressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), is the hon. Gentleman not prepared to make definite inquiries? Surely, the Treasury must have particulars as to how much is actually being expended at this time?
  Mr. LAWSON: This matter has been debated from time to time, and, on the occasion of the last Debate, the latest figures available to the Government were given to the House. It is not possible to give any more recent figures.
  Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Is the Prime Minister satisfied that the figure given is correct?
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Prime Minister what steps have been taken, or are being taken, to implement that part of the Resolution on plans for dealing with unemployment passed by the House on 12th February last which instructed the Government to raise funds by public loans for work schemes to be financed partly by a tax on the increased land values created by the improvements carried out under such schemes?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot usefully add to the general statement which I made in this House when the Resolution in question was under discussion, and to the answer which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass) on the 11th March.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the development schemes are enhancing the value of land to a tremendous extent?

  POST OFFICE.

    AIR MAIL (AFRICA).
    Mr. LESLIE BOYCEasked the Postmaster-General if he can give figures showing comparative postal rates for printed papers and samples by air mail between London and West Africa and London and East Africa, respectively; and whether, in view of the desirability of encouraging the sending of printed papers and samples by air mail between London and East Africa, the Government will consider the advisability of making a substantial reduction in the present rates for such postal matter at an early date?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Attlee): The inclusive fee for printed papers and samples to French Guinea, Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone is 4d. Per ½ oz.: the corresponding fee to the Sudan, is 5d. the first ½ oz., and 4d. for each succeeding ½ oz., and to Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika 7d. and 6d., respectively. The various fees have been fixed at the lowest possible point in relation to the charges made for air conveyance and, unless and until those charges are lowered, I regret I cannot offer a reduction.
    Mr. BOYCE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it costs as much per pound to send samples and printed matter by air mail to East Africa as to send an individual who has to be housed and fed; and does he not think it excessive?
    Mr. ATTLEE: The hon. Member will realise that, in this matter, we have to make arrangements with the French company, and that is part of the explanation.
    Mr. BOYCE: Is that in regard to East Africa or West Africa?
    Mr. ATTLEE: I am referring to French Guinea.
    Mr. BOYCE: I am referring and the question refers to East Africa, if the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to address his mind to it for a moment. Will he consider a reduction in the rate on printed matter and samples to East Africa, which is so high as to be prohibitive?
    Mr. ATTLEE: The point which arises there is one of getting a certain proportion between expenditure on letters and on printed matter. If it is intended to reduce the rate for printed matter very much then it will be necessary to charge more for letters, and the charge for letters, which are more important in that particular district, is lower than corresponding charges elsewhere.
    Mr. BOYCEasked the Postmaster-General the number of letters and the total weight of postal matter carried from England on the inaugural flight of the new air mail service between London and East Africa which left Croydon on 28th February last?
    Mr. ATTLEE: The total weight carried was 164 lb., but I have no information regarding the number of letters.

    MOTOR VEHICLES.
    Major BEAUMONT THOMASasked the Postmaster-General the total number of motor vehicles in use by his Department; how many are of foreign manufacture; what various types of vehicles these are; and what foreign vehicles, if any, are on order at present?
    Mr. ATTLEE: The total number of motor vehicles of all kinds at present in Use is 5,899, of which 4,998 are of all-British manufacture. The remaining 901 are Ford vans with all-British bodies, and with chassis of which four are of foreign manufacture and the remainder of British manufacture except for a small percentage of foreign parts. No vehicles of foreign manufacture are on order; but 10 Ford vans are on order which will contain a small percentage of foreign parts in the chassis.
    Mr. HANNON: Will the hon. Gentleman see that, in future, as these Ford vehicles go out of employment, they will be replaced by British-made vehicles?
    Mr. ATTLEE: The hon. Member cannot have caught my answer. These Ford

    1663
    vehicles are all British, except for very small portions of parts which are sent ready-made from America.
    Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: But is it not a fact that the money made out of these Ford vehicles goes to the United States?

    POSTMEN'S STAFF (EX-SERVICE MEN).
    Mr. OSWALD LEWISasked the Postmaster-General if the practice, followed by the last Government, of filling 50 per cent. of the vacancies occurring in the postmen's staff of the Post Office with ex-service men is still being observed?
    Mr. ATTLEE: Yes, Sir.

    STAMP LICENCES.
    Mr. TURTONasked the Postmaster-General what are the necessary qualifications for the recipient of a licence to sell stamps in a township; what salary is paid to such a licence holder; and what commission he receives upon the sale of stamps and money and postal orders, respectively?
    Mr. ATTLEE: No special qualifications are required for the holder of a stamp licence, but the Post Office must of course be satisfied that the person is suitable and that the issue of a licence is justified by public requirements. No salary or commission is paid to a licensee, and the licence does not cover any other class of Post Office business.
    Mr. TURTON: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of granting a salary and commission in order that more people in these small villages may be licensed to sell postage stamps thereby saving a considerable cost in fully-established officers?
    Mr. ATTLEE: There is no difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number for this purpose.

    COLERAINE (ENGLISH MAILS).
    Mr. ROSSasked the Postmaster-General what are the times of delivery and despatch of mails between England and the borough of Coleraine, County Londonderry?
    Mr. ATTLEE: Representations on this matter were received from the local
    1664
    authority a few days ago, and I am obtaining a report from the Postmaster-Surveyor.

    TELEPHONES, NORTHERN IRELAND.
    Mr. ROSSasked the Postmaster-General whether the number of additional public telephones installed in Northern Ireland during the past year has been on the same scale as the number installed in Great Britain, having regard to the population of these two areas?
    Mr. ATTLEE: In relation to the population, the growth in the number of public, i.e., call-office telephones, during the past year has been greater in Northern Ireland than in Great Britain?

    TELEPHONE SERVICE, RURAL AREAS.
    Mr. ROSSasked the Postmaster-General what percentage of rural railway stations and post offices in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, respectively, are still without public telephones?
    Mr. ATTLEE: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my predecessor's reply of the 2nd February to his question on this subject. The position is substantially unchanged.
    Mr. ROSS: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that there is still much to be done?
    Mr. ATTLEE: I appreciate that there are possibilities of improvement.

  CAMP SITES, ROMAN WALL.
  Sir ERNEST BENNETTasked the First Commissioner of Works whether, in view of the recent discoveries by aeroplane of hitherto unknown camp sites along the Roman Wall, he will consider undertaking the excavation of these and other portions of the Wall system?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): I have at present no power to undertake such excavations, and, in any event, it is probable that more urgent archaeological problems in connection with the Wall should be dealt with first. I am, however, obliged to my hon. Friend for his suggestion.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    OFFICE OF WORKS (EX-SERVICE MEN).
    Mr. O. LEWISasked the First Commissioner of Works what is the present policy with regard to the giving of a preference to ex-Service men when vacancies occur in his Department?
    Mr. LANSBURY: In filling vacancies in non-industrial grades, the general policy of His Majesty's Government is followed of according a preference, as between candidates of equal qualifications, to those who are ex-Service men. Industrial grades are recruited through the Ministry of Labour Employment Exchanges, the application stating clearly that a preference is to be given to ex-Service men.

    BRITISH EMBASSIES, RIO DE JANEIRO AND MOSCOW.
    Mr. HURDasked the First Commissioner of Works the reasons why the site at Rio de Janeiro has not been selected and the building for the new British Embassy erected thereon, although authorisation was given by the vote of this House some years ago?
    Mr. LANSBURY: The scheme for the erection of a new Embassy house on the site bought in 1928 is in abeyance pending definite information as to the development of the town planning scheme, in which it is proposed to include a new Embassy quarter. The town planning scheme is still in an immature stage, and no information is yet obtainable as to the terms and conditions on which a site in the new Embassy quarter will be available.
    Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a site was offered two years ago by the Brazilian Government, and does he now tell us that no agreement has yet been arrived at?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I have told the House exactly what I have to say in the reply that I have just given, namely, that the proposal to build a new Embassy house cannot be dealt with until the conditions with regard to the Embassy quarter are known.
    Mr. SAMUEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Treasury sanc-
    1666
    tioned the purchase of a site and that a site was offered by the Brazilian Government, and does he mean to tell us now that no decision has been arrived at?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I have told the hon. Gentleman the facts, and, if he will read my answer, I think he will be satisfied.
    Captain CROOKSHANKasked the First Commissioner of Works what are the existing arrangements for the accommodation of the staff of the British Embassy at Moscow?
    Mr. LANSBURY: The diplomatic and commercial staff are accommodated in the new Embassy house; the consular staff are housed in the Consulate building.

    ACCOMMODATION, EDINBURGH.
    Mr. MATHERSasked the First Commissioner of Works if he is aware of the expediency, both for the sake of the employment that would be provided and for other reasons, of proceeding with the provision of accommodation for Government Departments in Edinburgh; and whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the matter?
    Mr. LANSBURY: In view of the necessity of restricting expenditure as far as possible, I do not anticipate that it will be practicable to proceed with the provision of accommodation for Government Departments in Edinburgh for some considerable time.
    Mr. MATHERS: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is rejoicing in the fact that he is economising at the expense of Scotland?

    LAND REGISTRY.
    Mr. TURTONasked the Attorney-General in how many cases, as at 10th March, 1931, the final documents have not been issued by His Majesty s Land Registry within 21 days from the date of lodging the application with the chief land registrar?
    Mr. HAYES (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): I have been asked to reply. On the 10th March, 1931, 304 cases had been in His Majesty's Land Registry for more than 21 days. Of these, 254 were awaiting action by solicitors or expira-

    1667
    tion of notices. In no case was there delay from causes over which the Department had control.

    MINISTRY OF LABOUR (EXCHANGE STAFF).
    Mr. REMERasked the Minister of Labour if her attention has been drawn to the fact that the wages paid to many clerks at the Employment Exchanges are lower than the amounts they have to pay to unemployed persons; and if she will state what action she intends to take?
    Mr. LAWSON: No, Sir.
    Mr. REMER: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that arrangements have recently been made to reduce the wages of the staff and pay them a lower wage than is paid by them to unemployed persons?
    Mr. LAWSON: No. My right hon. Friend has no such information at her disposal, neither has her attention been drawn to any such case. I might inform the hon. Member that an unemployed man would have to have a wife and 10 dependant children before he received as much as the lowest paid male clerk.
    Mr. REMER: If I send the hon. Member particulars of these cases, will he go into them?
    Mr. LAWSON

    NEW GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, WHITEHALL.
    Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the First Commissioner of Works on what date it is proposed to commence the reconstruction of Government buildings in and around Whitehall; and what is the programme of the scheme?
    Mr. LANSBURY: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on the 2nd February last to the right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hacking).

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (MATCHES).
  Mr. THORNEasked the First Commissioner of Works whether it is his intention to discontinue the supply of matches in the various reading and smoking rooms in the House of Commons?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am sorry to spoil so good a story of matchless economy, but the truth is that no instructions regarding matches have yet been issued. All
  1668
  the same, my officers are engaged in inquiring into the consumption of house-hold articles, in which category matches are included.
  Mr. THORNE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a week ago to-day there was a report circulated in all the papers which was contrary to the reply that he has just given, and is he aware that his reputation will be very much damaged in consequence of that report?
  Mr. LANSBURY: I cannot help what the newspapers do with such a humble person as myself.
  Mr. HACKING: Is it not a fact that the Government have effected no economy since they came into office?

  IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CON- FERENCE, OTTAWA.
  Sir K. WOODasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has any information as to the arrangements, if any, which are being made by the Dominions in preparation for the proposed meeting of the economic section of the Imperial Conference in Ottawa this year?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): No, Sir.
  Mr. HANNON: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will make some statement on this matter?
  Mr. THOMAS: When I make a statement, it will be a full, comprehensive, and useful one.
  Sir K. WOOD: The right hon. Gentleman answered so softly that I hardly realised what he was saying. Does he mean to say that he has had no communication from the Dominions in regard to any of the arrangements suggested?
  Mr. THOMAS: That is not the question on the Paper. I answered that question a week ago, but that is not the point now. Certainly there are negotiations.
  Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman in communication with the Dominion Governments on this subject through the ordinary channels?
  Mr. THOMAS: Certainly.
  Earl WINTERTON: When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to make a statement?
  Mr. THOMAS: It depends on the Dominions. As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, it affects different Dominions; it is not a matter which affects one Dominion alone.

  HOSIERY WORKERS (WAGES).
  Captain WATERHOUSEasked the Minister of Labour if she can state the comparative wage cost per hour of hosiery workers in Japan. Czechoslovakia, and Leicester?
  Mr. LAWSON: I regret that comparable statistics are not available.
  Captain WATERHOUSE: In view of the importance of these statistics in the industry, will the hon. Gentleman try to get them, and will he say if he thinks the Government are able properly to weigh the difficulties of the various trades without such statistics?
  Mr. LAWSON: I may say that we have certain scrappy information at our disposal, which would be of no use to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I will undertake to communicate with the International Labour Office to see if we can get the figures for the two countries concerned. It is almost impossible to get the figures for Leicester, because the wage agreements do not fix hourly rates, and the available statistics of earnings are for the whole of the country and not for one particular town.
  Captain WATERHOUSE: If the hon. Gentleman gets the Consular Service to get hold of the foreign figures, I think I or my hon. Friend the Member for East Leicester (Mr. Wise) might be able to get them for Leicester.
  Mr. FREEMAN: Will the figures for India be included as well?

  AMERICAN SHIPPING COMPANIES (MAIL SUBSIDIES).
  Mr. ALBERYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he has any figures to show what subsidies are paid to American shipping companies for carrying mails between America and this country?
  Mr. W. R. SMITH: I can only say that information published in the United States shows that the payments made in respect of mail contracts to American steamship lines trading between the United States and this country are some two million dollars a year.
  Mr. ALBERY: Does this not constitute a very large subsidy to the detriment of British shipping?
  Mr. SMITH: I think the point as to a subsidy is a fair deduction.

  CHURCH ESTATES, SOUTH SHIELDS AND DURHAM.
  Mr. EDEasked the hon. Member for Central Leeds, as representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the number of acres of land in the borough of South Shields, including that let on building leases, vested in the Commissioners; and the amount of income from ground rents, short tenancies, mineral royalties and rent of surface let with minerals, and miscellaneous profits, respectively, received from this land during the last year for which figures are available?
  Mr. DENMAN (Second Church Estates Commissioner): The area of land let on building leases is not separately recorded in the Commissioners' rentals, and I am unable without undue expense to ascertain the acreage of land let in this way. Other lands amount to 750 acres or thereabouts. The gross income for the year to Lady Day, 1930, was:

  £

  From ground rents

  8,630

  From short tenancies

  1,400

  From mineral lettings

  9,000

  From miscellaneous profits

  nil.

  Mr. EDEasked the hon. Member for Central Leeds, as representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the number of acres of land in the geographical County of Durham, including that let on building leases, vested in the Commissioners; and the amount of income from ground rents, short tenancies, mineral royalties and rent of surface let with minerals, and miscellaneous profits, respectively, received from this land during the last year for which figures are available?
  Mr. DENMAN: The area of land let on building leases is not separately re-

  1671
  corded in the Commissioners' rentals, and I am unable without undue expense to ascertain the acreage of land let in this way. Other lands, apart from commons and wastes, amount to nearly 44,000 acres. The gross income for the year to Lady Day, 1930, was approximately

  £

  From ground rents

  21,000

  From short tenancies

  49,000

  From mineral lettings

  360,000

  From miscellaneous receipts

  1,150

  ROYAL NAVY (RUSSIAN TIMBER).
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what deliveries of Russian timber there have been at the Royal dockyards in 1930–31, and how much of this timber has been condemned as not up to specification; and whether he will undertake that no more Russian timber will be used by the Royal Navy?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): The total quantity of Russian timber delivered to the dockyards in the period in question is approximately 1,150 standards; none of this timber has been condemned, but about 800 standards were accepted at a reduction from the contract price owing to a falling off in the standard of quality of shipments to this country. No purchase of Russian timber has been made since August, 1930, and arrangements have been made for requirements for the Royal Navy of such timber to be met from Canadian sources.
  Mr. HARRIS: Are we to gather that none of the Russian timber was bought by the previous Government?
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Will the hon. Gentleman make representations to the First Commissioner of Works to follow his example?

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE, LANCASHIRE.
  Mr. GORDON MACDONALDasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the number of persons whose names were taken off the list of magistrates in Lancashire during the coal stoppage of 1926; and how many of the
  1672
  said persons have since had their names restored to the list of magistrates?
  Mr. ATTLEE: The name of one person was taken off the list of magistrates in Lancashire during the coal stoppage of 1926; his name has not been restored to the list.

  POOR LAW (MEDICAL TREATMENT).
  Mr. WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Minister of Health whether the Government will consider introducing legislation to remove the disqualification which inmates of a workhouse or other Poor Law institution suffer as a result of being admitted on account of destitution and subsequently receiving medical treatment, which leads to the practice of such persons leaving the institution for one day and being re-admitted as medical cases?
  Mr. HAYES: The answer is in the negative.
  Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is the Minister aware that there are great difficulties in these cases because of the absurd procedure of an inmate having to leave institutions for one day, and is it not possible by order to alter the existing system?
  Mr. HAYES: I will call my right hon. Friend's attention to the remarks of the hon. Member.

  CYPRUS (DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION).
  Mr. RENNIE SMITHasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the present director of education in Cyprus, responsible for the Greek education of 80 per cent. of the people of the island, is conversant with modern Greek language and literature; and if so, in making any new appointment to this post, he will require the possession of the degree of a Greek university?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on this subject to the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman) on the 11th March. The Director of Education was only recently appointed. He has proficiency in speaking and writing modern Greek. One of the reasons for his selection was his scholar-

  1673
  ship in Near Eastern matters, and I have little doubt that he is conversant with modern Greek literature. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the qualification necessary for posts of this kind will be the possession of a degree in a British rather than a foreign university?
  Dr. SHIELS: That is the present practice.

  EXECUTIONS (NEWSPAPER REPORTS).
  Mr. JAMES GARDNERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make inquiries as to the circumstances in which what purports to be the confession of Arthur Rouse reached the Press?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes): I have made searching inquiry. I am satisfied that no confession was passed out by any official, and I think it very unlikely that any such document was sent out or passed out in any other way.
  Mr. GARDNER: Is my right hon. Friend aware that certain journals are claiming that they have definite proof that such a confession has come out of the prison, and in the light of the libel, as I would call it, on the prison officials, will the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to prevent a recurrence?
  Mr. CLYNES: I cannot answer for the resources or inventiveness of the Press. I can only say that I have made the most searching inquiry at the prison, and have accordingly answered in the terms which I have already given.
  Mr. O'CONNOR: Will the Government allow time for a private Member's Bill to deal with indecencies of this kind?
  Mr. CLYNES: I doubt whether even a private Member's Bill could deal with indecencies of that kind.
  Mr. DAY: Has the right hon. Gentleman power to prohibit the publication of such sensational and erroneous information?
  Mr. CLYNES: No power whatever.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman make arrangements for the official publication of confessions?
  Mr. CLYNES: There is a firmly established practice to the contrary with very many advantages, and I see no reason to vary it.
  Mr. HALL-CAINE: Have the Press invented the confession or did Rouse confess?
  Mr. CLYNES: I think that the terms of my answer cover amply all that can accurately and officially be said on the question.
  Mr. FREEMAN: Would not the abolition of capital punishment be the best solution of this matter?
  Mr. GARDNERasked the Home Secretary if he has inquired into the means by which statements purporting to describe the last hours of Arthur Rouse, who was executed at Bedford on 10th March, have appeared in certain newspapers; whether any of this information was communicated by any of the prison officials; and, if so, what steps he is taking in the matter?
  Mr. CLYNES: These statements, where they do not relate to matters of ordinary routine, are sheer fabrications. For instance, it is entirely untrue that a gramophone was used as one means of passing the prisoner's time.
  Mr. GARDNER: Will not the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration an amendment of the law, because recently there have been powers taken to prevent cartoonists in the Law Courts and photographers outside making portraits for certain classes of cases, and are not the feelings of the relatives of the victim something to be considered?
  Mr. CLYNES: There is something in that analogy, but it is not a matter which can be disposed of by an answer to a supplementary question.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one good feature of the General Strike was that there were no newspapers?
  Mr. DAYasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the publication of an alleged confession by Alfred Arthur Rouse, he can say whether any pledge

  1675
  is demanded from relatives and others permitted to visit criminals under sentence of death that they shall not publish or divulge the result of such interviews; and, if not, whether he will in future exact such a pledge?
  Mr. CLYNES: It is not the practice to demand such pledges, which in any event would be difficult to enforce, and nothing happened in the present case which suggests that practice in this matter should be altered.

  ALIENS (RUSSIANS).
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALLasked the Home Secretary whether permits to remain in this country have, since the resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia, been refused to any Russian subjects employed in Great Britain in connection with any of the Russian trading organisations or in connection with the overseas diplomatic or consular services and who, although recalled to Russia by the Soviet Government, have desired to stay here?
  Mr. CLYNES: I have found it necessary only in one case to decline, as at present advised, to grant an extension of the time condition attached to the landing of such persons.
  Sir F. HALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that if these Russians are employed here, it is to the detriment of British labour, and that British labour is being displaced by these Russians?
  Mr. CLYNES: Russia is only one among many nations.
  Sir F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question, and does he not think that it is rather strange that these Russians should be undesirous of returning to such a happy and contented country as Russia?
  Mr. CLYNES: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman reads my reply, he will see that the point in his question is fully covered.

  ADMIRALTY CHARTS (COPYRIGHT).
  Sir GEORGE HAMILTONasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that Albert Close, publisher of deep sea fishermen's charts for 28 years, was prosecuted by the Stationery Office and fined £6, with £5 5s. costs, at Bow Street Police Court on 13th November last on a charge of infringing copyright of the Admiralty charts, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Close produced in Court reproductions and copies of these same Admiralty charts by the United States and German Governments on which no permission or copyright is acknowledged; and whether he will give an assurance that no private individual will in future be prosecuted for doing what can be done by a national of a foreign country without protest?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): I am aware of the circumstances referred to in the first part of the question, but I am not prepared to give the assurance suggested in the second part of the question.
  Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Why should the Admiralty claim a monopoly in this matter, seeing that this man had published the charts for many years, and that the fishermen find them of great use?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I do not think that it is right to say that the Admiralty claim a monopoly. There is a certain copyright, and in accordance with the hitherto established practice, it is usual to demand a small fee for the use of the charts.
  Mr. BROWN: Is it not a fact that this is not a long-established practice at all, but that this action on the part of the Admiralty is quite recent?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: No.
  Mr. BROWN: Will the hon. Gentleman make inquiries about it, because surely the Admiralty ought not to have a monopoly of these things, and they charge the fishermen much more for their charts than this man does?
  Sir G. HAMILTONasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that no foreign nation claims or admits copyright on its own or other nation's charts, and that all

  1677
  freely copy, and allow others to copy, without charging royalty fees; and whether he will give directions for similar liberty to be granted in the cases of the official British charts?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: As I have informed the hon. Member on previous occasions, I am not prepared to modify the present arrangements under which a small royalty is charged in respect of the reproduction of Admiralty charts for the preservation of Crown copyright. I am not aware of the practice of foreign Governments with regard to the copyright on their own charts, but there has for many years been an arrangement between the Governments of the maritime countries whereby each Government is free to reproduce, except in facsimile, the charts of other Governments provided that due and proper acknowledgment of the original source is printed on such reproductions.
  Sir G. HAMILTON: If any other Government can reproduce a British Admiralty chart without paying any royalty, surely a British citizen, in the interests of British fishermen, can do the same thing. Will the hon. Gentleman look into that point?
  Sir WILLIAM MITCHELL-THOMSON: Does the answer of the hon. Gentleman mean that a person is free to sell in this country reproductions of charts produced in America or Germany, but is not free to sell British charts?
  Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I should require to have notice of that question. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is the question on the Paper."] The form in which the right hon. Gentleman puts the question raises a difficult point, and I should have to look into it.
  Mr. MILLS: How many successive Governments have allowed this practice to go on before questions have been asked about it?

  TRANSPORT.

    RAILWAY CROSSINGS, NORTH KENT.
    Mr. MILLSasked the Minister of Transport if he has received from the Erith Urban District Council the petition addressed to him by 400 users of the cinder-path crossing of the Southern Railway Company at Belvedere, Kent; and
    1678
    whether, in view of the electrification of the suburban traffic, he will arrange to secure an improvement respecting the whole of the crossings from Woolwich to Erith?
    Mr. HAYES: I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has not seen the petition referred to by my hon. Friend, which I understand was addressed to the Southern Railway Company. After this line was electrified about five years ago the electrification works, including the arrangements at level crossings, were inspected and approved by one of the Ministry's Inspecting Officers of Railways, and the railway company now state that all reasonable precautions have been taken at the level crossings so far as they are concerned. The Minister of Transport understands that the crossing particularly referred to is of the footpath type.

    DARTFORD-PURFLEET TUNNEL.
    Mr. MILLSasked the Minister of Transport the estimated cost of the Dart-ford-Purfleet tunnel; the proportion of Government grant-in-aid; and the present position regarding the construction of the tunnel?
    Mr. HAYES: The estimated cost of the Dartford tunnel scheme, authorised by the Dartford Tunnel Act, 1930, is £3,500,000. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has agreed to make an advance from the Road Fund of 75 percent. of the net approved cost of the scheme, subject to a maximum advance of £2,625,000. The necessary preliminaries connected with the acquisition of land and the preparation of tender documents are being pressed forward as rapidly as possible.
    Mr. SMITHERS: Can the hon. Member say what proportion of the remaining 25 per cent. will be borne by the Kent County Council?
    Mr. HAYES: I will ask my right hon. Friend to let my hon. Friend have that information if possible.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE (MEDICAL OFFICERS).
  Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air to state the number of medical officers on

  1679
  the establishment of the Air Service, and the average strength of medical officers in each of the last five years?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): With the hon. and gallant Member's permission, I will circulate the reply in the OFFICIAL REPORT, as it contains figures in tabulated form.
  Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Is the Secretary of State for Air seriously disturbed by the position in regard to the medical service of the Air Force, and is he ready to take action?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: That is obviously a matter to be discussed on another occasion.
  Following is the reply:
  The following table gives the figures required:

  Medical Officers, Royal Air Force.

  Year.

  Establishment.

  Average Strength.

  Deficiency.

  1926

  …

  210

  184

  26

  1927

  …

  204

  181

  23

  1928

  …

  204

  188

  16

  1929

  …

  205

  188

  17

  1930

  …

  210

  190

  20

  The strength figures include medical officers serving on contract either on a commissioned or a civilian basis.

  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Major James Archibald Fitzwarenne Despencer-Robertson, for County of Wilts (Salisbury Division).

TRIBUTES TO RIGHT HON. VERNON HARTSHORN.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I am sure the House would wish for an opportunity to record its sorrow at the untimely death of the late Lord Privy Seal, Mr. Hartshorn, and also to enter a record of its appreciation of his work. The case is one of unstinted devotion to public duty shortening the days of life here. Mr. Hartshorn was one of the men of humble origin and lowly beginnings who, in this generation, have stepped into high offices of State, with vast responsibilities, and who have done their work with signal distinction and success. They have proved that the experiences which go to create a capacity to govern are not necessarily gained in public schools, in universities, or in the professions, but belong to the knowledge of life gained in working-class homes, facing working-class trials, fructified by steadfast character and native ability. He began life in an office, he passed on to a pit, and then his fellows selected him as their representative and their champion. Minutes with him were golden, and what gold he did not inherit he made. No one knew the intricacies of the coal trade in the end better than he did, and in all negotiations he was an outstanding figure. He had his own views. He led his trade union as a responsible man. As Gay said, "He heard the advice and took his own." He stood for peace, peace and just dealing. He won general confidence. He was a model to those who are to come after him and fill his shoes.
As a colleague, he was dependable and splendid. As Postmaster-General he was a good administrator. As a member of the Statutory Commission that investigated the problem of India, he brought a fresh mind to that question; he mastered the facts; he contributed liberally to the work. As co-ordinating Minister for Unemployment, he experienced to the full the disappointments attending that baffling problem, but he was beginning, I am sure, to see the fruits of his labour when he was called away from the scene of action. He will live in hearts and memories so long as those who worked with him live themselves; and in the history of the Labour movement and of working-class government in this country he has won an honoured and an abiding place.
Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: It is only fitting that the House of Commons should pay its tribute to a Minister who was so recently with us, and I would like, first of all, from this side of the House, to express our heartfelt sympathy with the Prime Minister and the Members of the Government in the tragic losses which they have sustained even within the last few days. It is not fitting in this House to speak of other losses than that of Mr. Hartshorn. I have known him for many years, and I would endorse from my own experience what the Prime Minister has said, for, after all, his words only gave expression to a belief that I have always held, that the capacity to rise to high places and to government is no monopoly of any class, or any rank in the State. I would venture to add this as coming from an opponent, and perhaps the Prime Minister will agree: I noticed in his career, which I watched with interest from my early association with South Wales, that his mind seemed to broaden with responsibility. His mind broadened and his capacity broadened, as indeed I hope may be the case with all of us, and it certainly was the case with him.
With regard to the great industry of which Mr. Hartshorn had special knowledge, there was no one in this House more familiar with its problems, who could speak with greater lucidity, or who was always more true and loyal to what he conceived to be the interests of those who had sent him to Parliament. He did not always see eye to eye with us, and, naturally, many of us approached the problem from different angles, but we always recognised his knowledge and his sincerity. With regard to the last words of the Prime Minister, I think that there can be no doubt that his end was hastened by the devotion with which he brought himself to face those great Indian problems and by the work he did on the Commission of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). He threw himself into that work with ardour, no light task for a man approaching 60 years of age to spend so many months in an Eastern climate working with devotion and with no limit as to time or hours, as was the work done by every member of that Commission. He has set an example of duty plainly and simply done. No higher

1693
testimonial can any of us ask or seek from this House, and this House pays a tribute to him as a man who has done his duty in his generation.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have known Mr. Vernon Hartshorn for well nigh 30 years, and for probably 20 of those years of his life I think I can claim that he and I were personal friends. The news of his death was a terrible shock to all of his friends. It was only on Wednesday last, just behind the Speaker's Chair, that I was making arrangements with him for a series of conferences on the problem of unemployment. I did not realise then that, instead of undertaking that very anxious problem, he ought to have been taking a long rest. There is no doubt at all that the concentration which he put into that task had a good deal to do with the shortening of his life. The first time I came in contact with him in business was about 20 years ago during the great mining stoppage, and I was not alone among the negotiators in being struck not only with his exceptional knowledge, profound, accurate and thorough, of the whole problem, but even more with the broadmindedness and the exceptional independent judgment with which he approached the problem. With protagonists, as there always are on those occasions, entrenching themselves stubbornly on both sides behind their respective formulas, he was devoting his very keen, shrewd and independent mind to finding means of getting round the difficulties, and urging the things that matter. I remember very well, because I was one of the three negotiators associated with Mr. Asquith on that occasion, that it was largely due to his wise counsel that a settlement was reached in the end.
All those who knew him realised that he had personal qualities apart from these gifts of mind, personal qualities of heart that endeared him to all. He was a kindly, genial, friendly soul, and extremely tolerant. There was no man I have met who was prouder of the movement with which he was associated. He never concealed it, and he never obtruded it. He was in it in the days of small things; he was devoted, he was loyal, and he was full of pride in his success. Nevertheless, I never remember a man who was so devoid of bitterness towards movements or men with whom he disagreed. All
1694
those who knew him loved him, and those who knew him best loved him most. There are scores of Members of this House who knew him who will not be surprised to know that in the valleys of South Wales to-day there are scores and hundreds and thousands of men and women not of his political creed who are mourning his loss to-day as that of a dear friend.
4.0 p.m.
Sir JOHN SIMON: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for inviting me to add two or three sentences to what has already been so well said, and said for us all, but for between two and three years Mr. Hartshorn was a colleague of mine on the India Statutory Commission, and this is the first gap that has occurred in the ranks of the Commission. As my right hon. Friend who has just spoken said, Mr. Hartshorn brought to the tasks that were laid upon him an energy and a sympathy which, in combination, secured great results. He sat by my side for every working day, sometimes for months on end, during the long investigations in India and in this country. I never knew him fail to discharge his full part, and I never knew him out of temper. He felt the heat and the travelling in India sometimes very greatly—he was older than most of us—and he had one very serious illness in Madras. From first to last—and it is right that I should say this to the House—Mr. Hartshorn brought to that great task the services of a completely candid mind, which desired to see things for itself and to assent to no conclusion which did not really carry his approval, and, if there be merit in the fact that the report which we produced was unanimous, it is but just that I should admit here that that was very largely due to the influence of the public servant who has just passed away. He combined in a very remarkable degree, as I saw it, on the one hand a quite exceptional power of grasping the general result of figures, and presenting them in a form which was impressive and picturesque, and, on the other hand, he had an easiness of temper and a willingness to listen to argument invaluable in all places, but most invaluable of all when one comes to a task such as that which he helped to discharge. I cannot imagine a better quality, and I have as much reason as any to say that in his death the country is losing a devoted public servant.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL.
  [3RD ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]

  CLAUSE 4.—(Abolition of University constituencies.)
  The CHAIRMAN: The first Amendment—to leave out Sub-section (1)—being a negative, can be discussed on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  Mr. ROSS: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (2).
  The effect of this Amendment, which stands in my name and the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Down (Mr. Reid), my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast University (Colonel Sinclair), if it is accepted and carried, will be to enable the Queen's University of Belfast to continue to return a Member to this House as it has done in the past. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that this Amendment should not have come after the all-embracing Amendment which deals with universities as a whole, because it is perfectly clear that any argument which could be applied to universities as a whole could also be applied to each university individually. It would, of course, be out of the question to endeavour on this Amendment to exhaust all the many arguments which could be put forward for the retention of the university seats as such, and I will try to confine myself as far as possible to those special considerations which should entitle the Queen's University to continue to return a Member to this House. I shall try to keep my arguments within as small a compass as possible, but hon. Members will, no doubt, remember that the question of Irish representation has a long history, and this is a subject on which for any possible analogy one would have to go back a long time.
  I maintain that the Bill, as it stands, is wrong in two essential features. First of all, if this Amendment be not accepted,
  1696
  the Government will be altering and reducing the representation of a community in this Parliament which controls all the major issues of that community, and will be doing this against the wishes of that community. Secondly, the Bill as it stands violates what we, at all events, had believed to be a national agreement which established our position to representation over here. It is, perhaps, significant that I should have the honour to move this Amendment, because I am, among those who represent Northern Ireland here, territorially the furthest removed from Belfast and Queen's University, but in this matter we come as representative, not of a class, not of a type of seat, hut as representative of an area and a distinct political entity. We did not create that situation for ourselves. If we had remained part and parcel of the United Kingdom with our representation as it used to be on a very much higher scale, it would have been quite impossible for me to move an Amendment such as this, and it would have been quite unnecessary for the Government to have included such a Clause as the one against which I am speaking.
  We were created a separated political entity by the Act of 1920. I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman—and I would like to tell him that I am grateful—that he has recognised our separateness, our distinctiveness in every other respect in this Bill. He has not tried to apply to us the other provisions for which there was no demand in Northern Ireland, but, alone of all the provisions of this Bill, he seeks to reduce our representation by the Member for Belfast University. There are many of the older Members of this House who may recall the passage of the 1920 Act—the Government of Ireland Act—and they may remember that Lord Craigavon—Sir James Craig, as he then was—said that he would much prefer to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. That was our view. There was not one Ulster vote given in support of the Measure. It was the work of a Government which contained elements of many members, but it was primarily the work of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and the right hon. and learned Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), and it

  1697
  was an attempt—an honest attempt—to solve the Irish difficulty. It was not particularly successful—
  The CHAIRMAN: If I were to allow the hon. Member to proceed on those lines, it would lead to a very prolonged discussion. He must confine himself to the question of the Irish University concerned.
  Mr. ROSS: I am keeping, as best I can, to the Unversity, but I must treat it from an Irish standpoint. I must treat this matter from the point of view of how we came to be represented on a scale inferior to any other community in this House. That was produced by the 1920 Act, and I cannot ignore that Act.
  The CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow any criticism in relation to the Act itself. Its success or otherwise does not arise.
  Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: On a point of Order. May I ask you to guide us a little more fully? Some of us feel that it is impossible to discuss this Amendment without referring to the Act of 1920. We do not want to discuss it, but the arrangement which now gives representation to Northern Ireland in this House is the result of that Act. Some of us who were responsible for that Act feel that we are, at least, under a moral obligation, if not more, to preserve the arrangement which was then accepted, and surely, in so far as it is necessary to make an argument, we may refer to the Act of 1920 and the circumstances?
  The CHAIRMAN: As long as that reference deals with the Queen's University of Belfast.
  Mr. ROSS: I can assure you that my reference to the Act will be as short as I can possibly make it, without neglecting to do justice to our position in this matter. The point which I was wishing to make was that the university seat was established by the Act of 1920, and I wished to draw the attention of the Committee to the way in which it was established. Before the Act was passed, the area which constituted Northern Ireland returned, I think, 29 Members. It now returns only 13. That was a very great sacrifice of numbers. As Sir Edward Carson said at the time, "We shall be here in reduced numbers, while you re-
  1698
  tain the power of taxing us to the full." There was one asset which one had hoped that this had secured, and that was that our representation should not continue to be the plaything of British politics, and that this seat, amongst the other pledges given by the Act of 1920, should be left alone. That point has, I think, already been made to the Government. It was answered by an argument of the Minister of Health, which, with respect, I would say was rather a facile argument. He pointed to Section 19, which establishes the representation here of Northern Ireland, and lie pointed to the words:
  "Unless and until the Parliament of the United Kingdom otherwise determine."
  Of course, everyone who had studied that matter in the slightest degree knew of that Section, and everyone knew that that power had already been exercised. The Parliament of the United Kingdom had already "determined," because it had done away with the representation of the 33 Members who represented Southern Ireland. But the point I want to make is, that this is the first time any attempt has been made to alter or interfere with the representation of either Northern or Southern Ireland as it is constituted, against the expressed wish of the community concerned. We were put in this position by that Act, and we were content with the position in which we were put, but the alteration which has already taken place in representation was made at the express request of our fellow countrymen of the South of Ireland. We do not ask for any alteration, and we have not asked for any alteration. We have only asked to be left with this number as we were constituted by the 1920 Act, which we have found to be satisfactory up to the present, and we hope that that will be continued.
  There is a point which I would bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman who is in charge of the Bill. The Treaty made with Southern Ireland embodied in its terms a statement that, subject to a Resolution in both Houses of the Northern Ireland Parliament, the Government of Ireland Bill, as far as Northern Ireland was concerned, should continue to be of full force and effect. The position of the Treaty, which is con-

  1699
  tained in the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, is not that of any ordinary Act; it is something which cannot properly be violated either by this country or by the Irish Free State. That Treaty recites that the Act of 1920 shall be of full force and effect, and, therefore, I would submit that by the terms of the Treaty, which ensured, by binding contract, the rights of what used to be Southern Ireland, our rights in Northern Ireland are no less protected.
  I would go further. Supposing that the right hon. Gentleman is able to find some legal channel of escape from that argument, supposing that he can say that that may appear to be so prima facie, but that legally it can be argued otherwise, I would ask him, does he, in a matter of national agreement—and this is almost a matter of national agreement—consider that the settlement which we got, and which gave us this Member in 1920, is less sacred than the agreement he made with those who did not pride themselves on being the friends of this country in 1922? In our private affairs a debt of honour is generally considered to be as binding as a legal contract, and certainly, from the point of view of Northern Ireland, we had thought that no Member of our rather small representation was going to he taken away by the vote of this House.
  As to the strength with which we are represented here, I do not think that any community since the passage of the Reform Bill has been represented on so small a scale in comparison with its numbers. Taking the number of electors in each constituency in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, if this Bill is passed unamended there is a vast difference. In Great Britain there will be 47,331 electors for every Member; in Northern Ireland there will be 65,506. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that we made a sacrifice of representation, and we could not have supposed that our position would have been made worse; that was the maximum extent to which we could be expected to go.
  Right hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway will, no doubt, remember that the question of our representation under that Measure was the subject of very considerable negotiation when the Bill was being passed, and probably they will re-
  1700
  member one fact in particular, namely, that as originally planned the Measure did not include representation for this university. They will recall that, in order to make the representation of Northern Ireland more adequate, an Amendment was moved in Committee, and this seat, the abolition of which we are now discussing, was added at that stage; and not one single voice was raised against that proposal. The right hon. Gentleman himself was in the House at that time, and he took a most distinguished part in the Debate. He did not think that there was anything wrong in this seat being added, and, by his very silence, he made us in Northern Ireland suppose that it was a course of which he, at all events, did not disapprove. Why have we no right to say how we shall be represented? We are certainly entitled, and we were certainly considered then to be entitled, to this representation, to these 12 Members with the university Member, which certainly is a far more meagre scale of representation than anyone else has in this House.
  Consider what would be the situation supposing that we were fortunate enough to be Indians. We should be viewed with a much more friendly eye by some hon. Members opposite. If we were Indians, and had been given a form of suffrage of which we approved, and a method of election against which no single voice had been raised in India, would the Government be endeavouring to alter the system by which we elected our Members, or the type of Member that we elected? Of course they would not. But because, I suppose, we are people who are just as determined to remain associated with this country and with this House as any Indian has ever been to be dissociated from it, we are treated otherwise. We often discuss the question of education. Many Members pay lip service to education. Is it so unreasonable that we should wish to give some slightly increased civic responsibility to those who have had the most extensive course of education that is now undertaken in these islands? Is it unreasonable that we, of whose countrymen a very large proportion go abroad to serve in the Colonies and in foreign countries, should wish to have one Member who can directly reflect the opinion of those temporary exiles from our country? Has anyone

  1701
  ever suggested, has the right hon. Gentleman suggested, can he suggest, that there has ever been any demand in Ireland for the abolition of university representation?—I say that there has not, either in Northern Ireland or in Southern Ireland, where they have university Members even in the Dail. Mr. McGilligan, who has been over here on many occasions, is one of them.
  Contrast the attitude of the Government in reducing our representation, already on such a meagre scale, with the traditional attitude which has always been held towards Irish representation in the past. Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, it was admitted on all sides that Ireland was represented on too ample a scale, that if she had representation in proportion to her numbers she would only have some 80 Members instead of 100, and it was urged that there was a moral obligation that that 100 should not be reduced, that there should be no alteration without the consent of the Irish. And there was no alteration. There was no serious attempt at alteration. But that is a principle which the Government, apparently, do not wish to pursue, because here we have Northern Ireland, with representation on a smaller scale, with more electors per Member than any constituency has ever had before in this Parliament, being deprived of the right to send a University Member here—an express provision of the Act of 1920—in defiance of the wishes of the people of this community. I do not propose to deal with the history of the matter in detail, but, if you look at the Home Rule Bills right down to the 90's, you will never find an attempt to put representation of any part of Ireland in this Parliament, as regards taxing powers, on such a lowly scale as this Bill will put ours.
  It may be asked, and there is, perhaps, some slight weight in the argument, though I do not think there is much: Is it logical that, if the old Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are to lose their representation, Queen's should retain it? I say that it is right; and what matters it whether it be logical if it be right and just? The arguments which I have tried to the best of my ability to put to this Committee include many considerations which do not apply at all to the elder
  1702
  Universities. You are depriving an area which was separated off, which was segregated, and which is represented on a different scale, of a Member to whom they feel they are entitled, and of the right of electing a Member in a way which they prefer. I would submit that it is better to treat a community justly than to follow any wooden law of logic to its conclusion, and even in connection with this Bill, as regards the City of London, a free vote of the House was a triumph of common sense over rigid logic. There probably is not a Member on the benches opposite, or a Member on the benches below the Gangway, who does not subscribe to the doctrine of self-determination, and I would recommend this Amendment as a little exercise to which they might apply that doctrine. Can they say that we are not entitled to at least 13 Members in respect of our numbers, and can they deny that a community has a right to consideration of its opinion as to how it shall be represented? This is the system which they prefer.
  I will make this offer to the right hon. Gentleman. If he is not content with the views expressed by Members from Ulster who are in this Parliament, there is in the Northern Ireland Parliament Socialist representation. If he can get a Resolution passed in that House desiring the abolition of university representation from this House here, I, for one, would withdraw my opposition. That House is sitting now. I know that it would be given an early opportunity for a Debate, and I know also that the opinion of Northern Ireland, which is more meticulously represented there than, perhaps, here, as there are more Members, would denounce this proposed alteration in the Bill, and would denounce it emphatically. It has been said many times that taxation without representation is tyranny; and taxation with a representation which has been brutally altered and reduced is very near it. It is quite possible to carry this Clause as it now stands. It is not difficult for a Government which commands the big battalions to override the wishes of the part of the British Isles that is concerned with this matter, but it is not generous and it is not just, and it will be a discreditable action, if we are to be de-

  1703
  prived of this Member for the University who was expressly added to make our representation more adequate and one which it will be difficult to forget.
  Colonel SINCLAIR: I represent Queen's University in this House of Commons, I am a pro-Chancellor of the University, and I claim to know something of its wants and something of the feelings and opinions expressed by both teachers and graduates. Ireland is a poor country and her graduates have to seek employment outside it. They are not very numerous. The figure is 3,288, but the register is at present being revised and potentially they will amount to 5,000. They represent all the professions. When they seek employment in all parts of the Empire, they would naturally like to keep up some interest in the affairs of their native country and have some share in the counsels of the nation. They cannot do that except by post or by some scheme of modified proportional representation. It is only right that they should be allowed to take that part, and the only way they can do it is by electing a university representative. Consider for a moment the way university members are elected. The students attending the universities represent all the religious persuasions and, I think, must have among them representatives of all forms of political thought. In a more or less fraternal way the various sects or political parties combine in the election of university members. A university member is not strictly a party member. He is prepared to take an interest in all educational matters that come before the House. He is not likely to be a partisan. He will bring more or less detached and considered judgment to a discussion of all matters that come before the House and he is not likely to act, either in speech or in vote, as a mere partisan.
  The Home Secretary some time ago in his wisdom, if I may use the expression without impertinence, was good enough to exempt Northern Ireland from the operation of this Bill in two important respects. I ask him, if on no other ground, to exempt Queen's University from the operation of the Bill. It only concerns one seat. Would it not be better for him to regard this as a very
  1704
  trifling matter compared with the larger questions which have already been decided by the Committee? Would it not be better for him to be thorough-going and not leave this single solitary seat more or less of a blemish on the Measure as it is not framed? I should like to make a personal appeal to the Home Secretary to be thorough and complete, having yielded on the other points, to reconsider his decision and perhaps announce from the Front Bench that this solitary seat may also be exempted. I appeal to him to be generous in this small matter.
  Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: It would not, I conceive, be proper for me to attempt on this Amendment to go into the general question of University Representation, and it is not for that purpose that I rise. I believe I am at the present time one of only two Members who sat in the Cabinet that passed the Act of 1920. I am also one of the Cabinet that was responsible for the later Irish agreement. I believe the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and I are the only two Members of the Cabinet of 1920.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I was a third.
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: That is so and the right hon. Gentleman has a particular responsibility. At any rate, it is because I was a member of that Cabinet that I ask leave to say a few sentences to reinforce, if I can, and to support, if I may, the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) based upon the nature of the agreement by which the present Northern Irish representation in this House was established. Let is be remembered, as my hon. Friend has said, that Ulster had no complaint of her old Parliamentary status, indeed that the most cherished wish of the Ulster people was to preserve it in the form in which it had existed for more than 100 years. It was not they who sought a change but we who begged them to acquiesce. We did that moved by the desire to bring to a close the secular misunderstanding between Ireland and this country. It could only be done by some arrangement which should be both acceptable and accepted by Southern Ireland and acceptable and accepted by

  1705
  Northern Ireland. The first effort was the Act of 1920, which was decisive for the fate of Ulster, and the part of it which applies to Ulster remains in force, not merely in spite of but because of the later Irish agreement which consecrated it afresh. That being so, we, the Government of the United Kingdom, having sought to introduce the change and the Ulster of that day being a party which did not so much accept as reluctantly acquiesce in it in deference to reasons of high policy and national interest, have we the right a few years afterwards to alter the representation which we agreed to allow and they agreed to accept?
  I remember well the introduction of the first Home Rule Bill into this House. I remember well—not that I was a Member at that time—the franchise agitation of 1885. I remember that, as long as we retained and meant to retain the right to govern Ireland from this House, it was common ground to all parties and every statesman who dealt with the question that we had no right to interfere with the representation allotted to Ireland under the Act of Union, even though that representation had become strikingly out of proportion with the representation with the rest of the Kingdom. When the new agreement was made, instead of Ulster being over-represented, she was persuaded to accept under-representation. If there was any claim of right, if there was any moral obligation on men of all parties here to maintain the old Irish representation as long as that agreement was in force, there is an ever greater obligation not to reduce the inferior representation which is all that Northern Ireland was allotted and accepted in the arrangement of 1920, confirmed by the later Act embodying the agreement with Southern Ireland.
  It is not, therefore, on the ground of the special claims of universities to representation, it is not on any general argument applicable to the whole of the country that I offer my support to the Amendment. It is because I feel that, as one of those responsible for both those Acts, I have a special responsibility as long as I am here, and the whole House has a moral responsibility to keep faith with those with whom it made a twice consecrated bargain. This is really no
  1706
  party issue. We hope we have wiped the Irish troubles off the slate of our political history. The right hon. Gentleman himself, at an earlier stage of the Bill, has recognised how undesirable, how impolitic, how foolish it would be to do anything which could disturb or upset the agreement that was come to. I beg him, even if he does not feel these arguments with the same force and pressure with which they appeal to me, to apply his own principles in this case and not to invite the House to do anything which can be felt by a great section of those whom we represent as a breach of the agreement and the treaty that we made.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I intend to vote for this Amendment, and not to he silent, though my words will be very few. I listened with very great interest to the two speeches delivered by my hon. Friends from Northern Ireland who put the case from different points of view. I have known the hon. and gallant Member for Queen's University (Colonel Sinclair) for a very long time, and I know of no man who is more able to put the case for the representation of that university in the Imperial Parliament on its merits than he can. He has occupied a distinguished position at that university for many years, and in my day in Ireland his name in his profession was a household word. I listened with the very greatest attention to what he had to say, and, on the merits of the position, he made a very excellent case. The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) took a different line, and it is the line which I propose to take.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) has reminded the Committee, I, like him, took a very prominent part in the negotiations which preceded the Home Rule Bill of 1920. Some of those negotiations were public and some of them were private, and, so far as I can personally do it, I propose, by my vote, to fulfil the share which I took in those obligations. There is no doubt in my mind that the six counties, as they were called, of Northern Ireland never wished to break away from the home connections with the Imperial Parliament, and it was after very careful, very prolonged, and, at times, very exacting negotiations that an

  1707
  arrangement was made by means of which the representation of the university should be as it is now, as well as that of Northern Ireland as a whole. There was a great demand in Northern Ireland for representation in the Imperial Parliament of Queen's University, which is a very distinguished university.
  I have every reason to know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry has said, that, if there was a plebiscite at the present moment in Northern Ireland as to whether there should be university representation as far as Queen's University is concerned in the Imperial Parliament, unhesitatingly all classes, all creeds, and all political sections would say that Queen's University, of which they are inordinately proud, should have representation in this House. After 1922, there was the Treaty. I had very little to do with the Treaty, but as my right hon. Friend has said, the Treaty merely sanctified what was embodied in the Act of 1921.
  There is, therefore, an even greater obligation, in my judgment, from the point of view of the honour of this House to maintain what was embodied in the Act of 1920. No single Member of this House can say that the Treaty rights of Southern Ireland have not been conserved—in my view they have been more than conserved—and all that Northern Ireland is asking is that their rights, expressly implied under the Treaty, should, as a matter of personal honour, be conserved in the same way by the Imperial Parliament. I am not discussing now the merits of University Representation—though I have my views about it—but what, in my view, is a simple question, namely, whether or not Queen's University is morally entitled to continue its representation in the Imperial Parliament. To that question, I shall unhesitatingly say "Yes," and I propose to fortify that answer by voting in the Lobby in favour of the Amendment.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes): As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out in the opening part of his speech, we are necessarily discussing this matter within narrow limits and cannot enter into the larger subject which will be the theme of our discussion later on. I hope
  1708
  that I shall not be misunderstood, therefore, if I say that we are now dealing with what is a minor matter in relation to the general proposal of University Representation. There was an impression exhibited in the Second Reading Debate that this Parliament was under a solemn obligation never to change the representation of Northern Ireland in this House. As the Debate travelled, I remember that many Members were impressed by that argument, until my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health quoted the terms of the Act in the speech which he made. He pointed out clearly that the Act begun by stating that,
  "Unless and until the Parliament of the United Kingdom otherwise determines, the following provisions shall have effect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd February, 1931; col. 1582, Vol. 247.]
  and included in those provisions was the provision that 13 representatives should come from Northern Ireland to the Imperial Parliament.
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman claim that that would justify him in turning out all the Irish representatives?
  Mr. CLYNES: I do not propose to do that. The right hon. Gentleman should keep his mind just within the length of that which I am putting forward and not raise a purely hypothetical, and, if I may say so, quite fanciful notion of something I am not proposing at all. It appears to me that many Members of the House are just as much mistaken, as revealed in the speeches that we have heard, as they were on the occasion of the Second Reading to which I have referred, for the Queen's University of Belfast secured its representation, not by the Act of 1920, not by any agreement which followed, or by any Treaty subsequent to the Act of 1920; representation was conceded to Queen's University of Belfast in the Representation of the People Act which was passed by this House in 1918.
  Mr. ROSS: If the right hon. Gentleman will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT, Volume 130, column 2067, he will see that Queen's University of Belfast got its representation in the 1920 Act in an Amendment, and that it was not originally intended that it should be represented. It only secured representa-

  1709
  tion, after representations had been made, by means of that Amendment, against which the right hon. Gentleman did not speak; nor did he oppose it in this House.
  Mr. CLYNES: I have here before me the Public Acts, and it will be found—
  Mr. ROSS: Will the right hon. Gentleman refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT?
  Mr. CLYNES: I cannot at the moment, but I will certainly refer to that point. The Representation of the People Act passed in 1918 included a Sixth Schedule in which you have the clear indication that representation, was conceded to Queen's University of Belfast. All the argument so far has been that Queen's University secured representation by the Act of 1920, and that that was confirmed, carried over, and ratified by some subsequent treaty. The whole of this argument goes completely by reference to the Act of 1918. Now the comment is that it does not matter when it got it. If we are to take that argument, we start upon even ground. I think that I am entitled to say that the Act of 1920 never contemplated absolute permanency of representation in this House on the part of either universities or constituencies. You must allow for conditions and probabilities of change according to changing electorates and according to alterations in our Parliamentary system. If we accepted the doctrine that once you do anything it shall never be undone, we shall never enjoy any condition of freedom.
  Assume that this House is disposed to agree on general principles to a change in the matter of university representation—and this will be decided later on—as soon as we reach the stage to agree to make a change in the matter of university representation, will anybody say that whatever be the degree of that change and however much we may alter it in respect of English, Welsh or Scottish constituencies, there must be no interference whatever with the position of Northern Ireland. Nobody, I assume, would use an argument of that kind. Therefore, if the House is to agree to a change, it is preposterous that anyone should assume that Northern Ireland should be left entirely unaltered, all the more so because Queen's University is, I will not say quite the least, but very
  1710
  nearly the smallest of the university constituencies. It has in this House a representative for an electorate of only 3,300. That electorate of 3,300 is represented here in a dual sense, because electors, in large part, if not entirely, are also represented by others in the Northern Parliament and by representatives in this House as well. Ordinarily, no man can come into this House unless he secures the support of a constituency numbering round about 50,000 electors.
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross), and, indeed, the seconder of the Amendment as well, seemed to apply to this Amendment the same argument that I applied to the argument on the general question of the Bill with respect to Northern Ireland. I argued then that to apply the general proposals of the Bill in regard to double-member constituencies, plural voting, and the rest, would, in my judgment, be an indefensible interference with the internal affairs of Northern Ireland. But the two positions are wholly different, and, therefore, assuming that the House is disposed to make this change, it is most unreasonable to expect the Government to make an exemption in Northern Ireland, particularly as one man comes here with so small an electorate. Accordingly, I ask the Committee to agree with me in the conclusion that this Amendment should be rejected.
  5.0 p.m.
  Sir SAMUEL HOARE: I am astonished at the right hon. Gentleman's answer to the case made out by hon. Members on this side of the House, and particularly the case made by the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), who was Chief Secretary for Ireland at the time when the Act of 1920 was placed upon the Statute Book. I was only a private Member at that time, but I remember very well the history of that transaction. The Home Secretary is right in saying that the constituency of Queen's University first came into existence in 1918, but what is important is not the date when it actually came into existence but the date when its existence was actually confirmed as part of the agreement made between hon. Members here and hon. Members from Ulster. In the original form of the Act of 1920 Queen's University was not included. My right hon.

  1711
  Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Guinness), with whom I was working in very close co-operation at that time, moved an Amendment to include Queen's University and three other universities, and the justice of his case was so unanswerable that that Amendment was accepted unanimously by the House. As a result, Queen's University was definitely included in the moral obligation into which we entered with Northern Ireland.
  It may not have been in the strict legal sense of the word a strictly Statutory obligation; it may not have been an obligation such as an obligatoin of the Act of Union, but in my view the very fact that it was a gentlemen's arrangement, that it was a moral obligation—[Interruption]—I mean what I say, and I am not ashamed of it—makes it far more binding upon this House than if it had actually been stated in an Act of Parliament that upon no occasion and under no circumstances should the 13 seats of Northern Ireland ever be altered. Ulster at that time was prepared to take a smaller representation than she was really entitled to owing to the importance of her position in the United Kingdom and owing to the importance of her growing population, The Home Secretary brushes aside this case as if it was not a question of any obligation. He says there can be no permanency as to the constituencies of Northern Ireland. If I understood him aright, that means that you can take away seats from Northern Ireland at will. Of course, as I understood him, we could not take away all the 13 seats, but perhaps in the course of the Debate we may be informed how far we may deprive a party to a bargain of an integral condition to which we agreed when the bargain was made. I should like to know how many seats, and when, may be taken from Ulster, and at what point the moral obligation would actually be broken or not.
  I cannot help feeling that the Home Secretary must feel in some difficulty over this Amendment. He told us in a previous Debate that he did not wish to introduce disturbing elements into Northern Ireland, and he reminded us just now that, holding the view that Northern Ireland is a definite political entity whose views ought to be consulted
  1712
  in a discussion of this kind, he was not prepared to apply to Northern Ireland the Alternative Vote, the single-member constituency, and the provisions in regard to motor cars. He said that this ease rests upon an entirely different category. I wonder what he has in his mind. If he means that it rests upon an entirely different category because in this case we are breaking a moral obligation while in regard to the others we should not be breaking an obligation, I think he is right. He used a very curious expression. He said that if we accepted the fact that a thing once done should never be undone, it would be a hopeless position into which we should get. I should have said that if you once start noon the principle that a bargain once made can be unmade by one side, the moral worth of this House will be seriously threatened in the eyes of the country and of the whole world.
  I hope that the Home Secretary has not given his final answer. He has heard the right hon. Member who was directly responsible for this arrangement say, quite definitely, that the 13 seats in Ulster, of which the Belfast University seat is one, were a definite part of a long and difficult bargain, in which Ulster gave up much and in which Southern Ireland gained much. He has heard that right hon. Gentleman say that he holds that view so strongly that he is going to show by his vote that a moral obligation of that kind must be kept. I hope that in view of that statement, to which the Home Secretary has given no answer, we shall hear some other response from the Government before we take the serious course that the Home Secretary wishes us to take.
  Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: I am very sorry on this occasion to find myself in disagreement with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), but I am glad to think that disagreement very seldom occurs between us. This is not a matter that raises any party issue. It is a comparatively narrow point, that should be dealt with upon its merits. There is one consideration in this case, and it seems to me an exceedingly important one, which has not been mentioned by any hon. Members who have spoken in support of the Amendment, nor by the Home Secretary, and it is this, that this Clause does not seek only to

  1713
  reduce the representation in this Parliament of Northern Ireland by one seat, but it seeks simultaneously to reduce the representation of Great Britain by 11 seats. That is an exceedingly important matter. This is not a one-sided arrangement. When the representation of Northern Ireland was settled in this House in 1920 it was settled only in proportion to the Members of the House of Commons at that time. Ulster was given a representation of 13 Members in a Parliament of 615. Now, she seeks to retain that representation of 13 Members in a House of Commons of 604. Therefore, what the representatives of Northern Ireland are asking today is for a larger representation of Northern Ireland in this House in proportion to its numbers, than was agreed to in 1920. Consequently, it is not a question of breaking a bargain in the interests of Great Britain against Northern Ireland. If this Amendment were carried the arrangement then made would be modified and would be modified mathematically to the advantage of Northern Ireland as against Great Britain.
  Mr. ROSS: May I give the right hon. Gentleman a few figures? At present the average number of electors per Member in Great Britain is 46,632. When Great Britain has given up its University seats, that number will be increased to 47,331. With us in Ulster, the average number of electors per Member with our University seat, is 60,467. We have vast constituencies. If you take away our one small constituency, the University seat, our average electorate will go up to 65,506, which shows that we shall be in an infinitely worse position than will Great Britain.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: That is partly because the Belfast University has a preposterous electorate of only 3,000, whereas the ordinary constituency has an electorate of 50,000 or 60,000. Naturally, if you abolish that one small constituency, it somewhat affects the average of the rest. That merely enforces the extraordinary anomaly of having this tiny constituency still surviving and entitled to a Member in this House, with equal voting power with the vast populous constituencies which the average Member represents. I will come to the point about voters in a moment. The right
  1714
  hon. Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) said, taking an extreme case, that if you think that there is a right to modify the Act of 1920 you could say that you have a moral right to abolish the Irish representation altogether. Let me take another extreme case. Suppose there was a redistribution of seats, and the position was entirely altered. Suppose it were felt that this Parliament of 615 Members was much too large, and some later Parliament, holding different views as to the nature of popular representation, thought that a Parliament of 300 Members would be much better. Would the right hon. Gentleman say that in such circumstances you would have no moral right to alter the representation of Northern Ireland in such a House of Commons, because in 1920 they were given 13 Members in a Parliament of 615?
  Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: That position was taken by all the great leaders, irrespective of party, in regard to the general representation of Ireland under the Act of Union, and I know of no reason why the representation of Ulster under the Act of 1920 is not as great and as high a moral obligation.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: The cases are not analogous, and for this reason, that all through the Irish Home Rule controversy the point was raised that the Irish ought to forfeit part of their representation here on the grounds of population, whilst obtaining no Parliament of their own. But Ulster has a Parliament of her own.
  Mr. ROSS: With no power of taxation.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: That is the reason why Ulster in 1920 agreed that her representation here could not be maintained at her full level. Now, I come to the point raised in the speeches this afternoon. Hon. Members from Ulster say that it is exceedingly unfair to reduce the Ulster representation by one when already they have only half the Members that they are entitled to on the basis of population. It is quite true, looking at the matter solely from the point of view of United Kingdom legislation as a whole, that they have only half the representation that they would be entitled to on the basis of population but, on the other hand, when we are legislating for

  1715
  Great Britain on, say the Trade Disputes Bill or the Education Bill, we find going into the Lobby Members from Ulster whose constituencies are in no way affected by that legislation.
  Lord ERSKINE: What about the Scottish Members?
  Sir H. SAMUEL: That is different. They have no Parliament of their own. Here there are 13 Members from Ulster, and they have it both ways. They can go to Belfast and deal with half the business there, and if the argument addressed to us were valid they would remain here in full force and deal with all our business and half of their own. The logical position of course, would be that Ulster should have her full representation here for the half business that affects her, but as that was found exceedingly difficult to work out, with that magnificent lack of logic which has always distinguished the British Constitution, we said to Ulster: "You are entitled to full representation for half the business here which affects you, but we cannot give you that, therefore we will give you half representation for all the business." That is the Constitution to-day. That is the reason why Ulster has no ground of complaint when she has to have about 100,000 electors, or whatever the number may be, to return a Member of Parliament while we have only 50,000 or 60,000.
  It would be out of order to go into the merits of this Clause, but I would invite the Committee to consider the effect of striking out this Sub-section if the Clause is ultimately retained, and if it is not retained. If the Clause is struck out then all university representation will be retained, Queen's University, with Oxford and Cambridge and all the rest. If the Clause is retained but this Amendment carried then there will be only one university representative in the whole of this House. Oxford and Cambridge and Glasgow and Edinburgh will all disappear, and there will be one university representative, that of Queen's University, Belfast. Is that really a possible proposition? For these reasons I hope the Committee will support the Government and maintain this Sub-section.
  Sir PHILIP CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The Committee must be amazed at the speech
  1716
  by which the night hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) has come to the rescue of the Government. He is prepared to go a great deal further than the Home Secretary. His argument comes to this, that it does not matter what bargain you make with Ulster, or what has been put into the Act of Parliament by which the Ulster bargain was carried out, if circumstances have changed in your own country you can tear up the whole of that bargain.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: Both sides of the balance are affected.
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: What does that mean? It means that if the Government having made a bargain, a treaty, consider that the circumstances have changed in England, Scotland and Wales, they are then entitled to propose to the House that the whole of the arrangement must be rewritten. It means that the bargain with Ulster was not a bargain, that the settlement was not a settlement, that it was a unilateral arrangement which can be varied at any moment. If the right hon. Member for Darwen had put that proposition to Parliament when the Ulster agreement was being enshrined in an Act of Parliament he would not have found another hon. Member to share his view. He has shown by his speech exactly what are the merits of the proposition. It is not a question of university representation as such. He is prepared to go the whole hog and say that it is not a bargain and can be torn up at any moment. He has put himself in exactly the same position as if he said that any treaty made with a foreign Power might be torn up if circumstances changed in this country; that if you make a commercial treaty and circumstances change, if economic conditions change, and you find it inconvenient to carry out the provisions of the treaty you may tear up the treaty. That is an exact parallel to the present proposition, morally if not legally.
  I know that constitutionally this House can revoke any Act of Parliament, but, if we put treaties into Acts of Parliament and enshrine agreements in Acts of Parliament, whatever may be our legal constitutional theoretical right we are nevertheless bound by an honourable obligation which should be as binding on this House as any letter of the con-

  1717
  sitution. Suppose a loan was floated and that people subscribed on the faith that it would be free of Income Tax up to 4s. in the £ the right hon. Member for Darwen holds himself free to say that if Income Tax goes up by another 2s. he can cancel this arrangement with the bondholders; he holds himself free to charge 6s. Income Tax on the people who subscribed to the loan. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen has intervened in the Debate because it shows that unless you are prepared to tear up the whole of the Ulster bargain this Sub-section cannot stand.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Stafford Cripps): I intervene in the Debate on one point only. It is assumed that this was part of the Ulster bargain. It has been pointed out already that this representation was introduced by an Amendment which was accepted by the House, and I should have thought that this showed conclusively that the Government who introduced the Bill containing the bargain did not consider that this was a part of it.
  Mr. REID: The Chief Secretary for Ireland at the time said that there was a bargain and to my personal knowledge there was a bargain. I was a Member for an Ulster constituency at the time and, although I was not present at the interview, I was told of what happened by Sir William Whitla, the Member for Queen s University. I know that representations were made and that as a result the agreement was that the Amendment should be inserted, and it was accepted. It was part of a bargain.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I can only speak of what is recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have read through the Debate which took place on this Amendment, and it is quite clear from the speech then made by Mr. Long that he did not consider it was part of any bargain. The only reason which was stressed for the continuance of university representation was because the Southern Unionists would have no representation in this House unless they could get members elected for Trinity College, Dublin. The question of any representation of Northern Ireland was not mentioned in the whole of the Debate on that Amendment. The only mention of
  1718
  it was when Sir William Whitla stated that he was prepared to sacrifice his seat for Queen's University, Belfast, in order to get what he considered desirable, and that was the representation of Southern Unionists by the Trinity College, Dublin, vote. He said it in these words:
  "I have the honour to represent one of these university constituencies, and I feel myself labouring under disadvantage on that account, but if I desire this Amendment to be put with all force it is because I believe in the simple justice which it will give to the southern and western Unionists. Without it they will not be represented. Dublin University has two members, the National University one; and the Queen's University one; but I do not think this is an occasion for any compromise. If I were entirely free I would throw my seat aside, much as I honour the privilege of sitting in this House, if it would help the Unionists in the south and west of Ireland."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd June, 1920; col. 2068, Vol. 130.]
  It is quite clear that he was not pressing a bargain by which the University of Belfast should be introduced as having a member. What he was pressing was an arrangement by which the southern universities should have representatives in this House so that Unionists in the south and west of Ireland might be represented.
  Mr. REID: The speech of the Solicitor-General only shows how untruthful history may be. Our own memory sometimes proves that what appears in print may be a very untrue statement of what actually took place. I must draw attention to the arithmetic of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel). If he wants to make a balance on this arrangement he must take 46 or 47 Members away from the other side. The position is clear from the words of the right hon. Member for Darwen. He said that. Ulster agreed that representation should not be retained but that half representation should be given to Ulster for all business. These statements can only mean that there was a definite arrangement. The Home Secretary has said that Queen's University was represented under the Act of 1918. I do not see the relevancy of that statement. It is true that Queen's University was represented under the Act of 1918 but the present representation in this House is under the Act of 1520, and the important question now before the Committee is whether the provision in the Act of 1920 was a bargain

  1719
  or not. The question is, was the representation given by the Act of 1920 part of a bargain or not? We say that it was part of a bargain, and we have the personal testimony of Members of the Government at that time who say that it was part of a bargain. We cannot push the
  matter any further but I think there is no doubt whatever on the subject.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 178; Noes, 168.

  Division No. 194.]

  AYES.

  [5.30 p.m.

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

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Hardie, George D.

  Paling, Wilfrid

  Aitchison, Rt. Hon. Craigie M.

  Harris, Percy A.

  Palmer, E. T.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Alpass, J. H.

  Hayes, John Henry

  Perry, S. F.

  Ammon, Charles George

  Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Angell, Sir Norman

  Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)

  Picton-Turbervill, Edith

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Herriotts, J.

  Pole, Major D. G.

  Ayles, Walter

  Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)

  Potts, John S.

  Barnes, Alfred John

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

  Barr, James

  Hopkin, Daniel

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Batey, Joseph

  Hore-Bolisha, Leslie

  Romeril, H. G.

  Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)

  Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

  Rosbotham, D. S. T.

  Bennett, Sir E. N. (Cardiff, Central)

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph

  Rowson, Guy

  Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

  Johnston, Thomas

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Benson, G.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)

  Blindell, James

  Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)

  Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret

  Kelly, W. T.

  Sanders, W. S.

  Bowen, J. W.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Sandham, E.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Kinley, J.

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Broad, Francis Alfred

  Knight, Holford

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Lambert, Rt. Hon. George (S. Molton)

  Shield, George William

  Brooke, W.

  Lang, Gordon

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Brothers, M.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Shillaker, J. F.

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Law, A. (Rossendale)

  Shinwell, E.

  Burgess, F. G.

  Lawson, John James

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)

  Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

  Simmons, C. J.

  Cameron, A. G.

  Leach, W.

  Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)

  Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.)

  Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.)

  Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

  Charleton, H. C.

  Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

  Chater, Daniel

  Lloyd, C. Ellis

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Longbottom, A. W.

  Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Longden, F.

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  Cocks, Frederick Seymour

  Lowth, Thomas

  Sorensen, R.

  Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

  Lunn, William

  Stamford, Thomas W.

  Cripps, Sir Stafford

  Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

  Strauss, G, R.

  Daggar, George

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)

  Sutton, J. E.

  Dallas, George

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.)

  Dalton, Hugh

  McElwee, A.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  McEntee, V. L.

  Toole, Joseph

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Townend, A. E

  Dukes, C.

  MacNeill-Weir, L.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Duncan, Charles

  McShane, John James

  Viant, S. P.

  Ede, James Chuter

  Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)

  Walker, J.

  Edwards, E. (Morpeth)

  Manning, E. L.

  Wallace, H. W.

  Egan, W. H.

  March, S.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Elmley, Viscount

  Marley, J.

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Foot, Isaac

  Marshall, Fred

  Welsh, James (Paisley)

  Freeman, Peter

  Mathers, George

  Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

  Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)

  Matters, L. W.

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.)

  Melville, Sir James

  Williams, David (Swansea, East)

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)

  Mills. J. E.

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Gibson, H. M. (Lanes, Mossley)

  Montague, Frederick

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Gillett, George M.

  Morley, Ralph

  Wilson, J. (Oldham)

  Glassey, A. E.

  Mort, D. L.

  Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)

  Gossling, A. G.

  Muff. G.

  Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

  Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)

  Muggeridge, H. T.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne)

  Naylor, T. E.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Noel Baker, P. J.

  Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)

  Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.)

  Thurtle.

  Grundy, Thomas W.

  Oldfield, J. R.

  NOES.

  Albery, Irving James

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.)

  Balniel, Lord

  Boyce, Leslie

  Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir William (Armagh)

  Beaumont, M. W.

  Bracken, B.

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.

  Berry, Sir George

  Brass, Captain Sir William

  Aske, Sir Robert

  Betterton, Sir Henry B.

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Astor, Viscountess

  Bird, Ernest Roy

  Buchan, John

  Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

  Bullock, Captain Malcoim

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.

  Butier, R. A.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

  Campbell, E. T.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.

  Robertson, Despencer-, Major J. A. F.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford)

  Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

  Castle Stewart, Earl of

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Ross, Ronald D.

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

  Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Russell Richard John (Eddisbury)

  Chamberlain Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)

  Hurst, Sir Gerald B.

  Salmon, Major I.

  Church, Major A. G.

  Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Inskip, Sir Thomas

  Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Iveagh, Countess of

  Savery, S. S.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Kindersley, Major G. M.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Colfox, Major William Philip

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U., Belfst)

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)

  Skelton, A. N.

  Cowan, D. M.

  Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.

  Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

  Smithers, Waldron

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)

  Somerset, Thomas

  Crookshank, Capt. H. C.

  Long, Major Hon. Eric

  Somerville, A. A, (Windsor)

  Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

  Lymington, Viscount

  Southby, Commander A. R. J,

  Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  McConnell, Sir Joseph

  Spender-Clay, Colonel H,

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Dairymple-White, Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey

  Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

  Stephen, Campbell

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Stewart, W. J. (Belfast, South)

  Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)

  Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)

  Marjoribanks, Edward

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral M. F.

  Duckworth, G. A. V.

  Meller, R. J.

  Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)

  Dugdale, Capt. T. L.

  Millar, J. D.

  Thomson, Sir F.

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Milne, Wardlaw-, J. S.

  Todd, Capt. A. J.

  Elliot, Major Walter E.

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)

  Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.

  Turton, Robert Hugh

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Faile, Sir Bertram G.

  Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)

  Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

  Fermoy, Lord

  Morris, Rhys Hopkins

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Fielden, E. B.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Forestier-Walker, Sir L.

  Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester)

  Wayland, Sir William A.

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld)

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  O'Connor, T. J.

  Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton

  O'Neill, Sir H.

  Withers, Sir John James

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Peaks, Capt. Osbert

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Womersley, W. J.

  Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)

  Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k)

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  Preston, Sir Walter Rueben

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  Rathbone, Eleanor

  Captain Margesson and Captain

  Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)

  Reid, David D. (County Down)

  Sir George Bowyer.

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Remer, John R.

  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I rise to advise a negative answer to the question. I must claim the indulgence of the Committee because, in addition to other ailments, I have been suffering from that endemic malady which the physicians call catarrh and the laity call a cold. That, it is well known, affects the vocal organs, so that it is possible I may be reduced to silence through no fault of my own, and not even with the consolation of supposing that it is the oppression of my opponents. I did not have the good fortune to hear the Second Reading Debate, but, with the assistance of the OFFICIAL REPORT, I have been able to make myself acquainted with what, I gather, is the main argument in favour of the Clause. Without attempting any quota-
  1722
  tion, I do not think I am misrepresenting the Home Secretary and those who supported him when I say that University Representation is attacked, not with any bitter reflection on the Members who actually represent the universities, but, in deference to a particular theory of representation, a theory which may be called the theory of equalitarian democracy.
  As far as I understand it, the theory comes to this: That all the electors have a right to a vote, and that that right is a political power which must be proportionately shared among the whole 20,000,000 odd people who share in the electoral franchise. Each man has this 20,000,000th share in the representation of the Commons of England; that is the right, and for anyone to have more than a 20,000,000th share is unfair; and that since university Members are elected,

  1723
  first by persons who have two votes, a university vote and an ordinary vote, and, secondly, are elected by a number of votes smaller than is commonly entrusted with the choice of a Member, there is an injustice, and in the name of justice University Representation is to be abolished.
  At the outset, of course, that is a mistaken theory. Voting is not a right; voting is a public function. No one has any more right to be a voter than he has to be, let me say, a policeman, or a judge, or a Prime Minister, or a Home Secretary. There is only one good argument for anyone having a vote, and that is the argument that it is in the public interest that he should have a vote; he is merely performing a public function, and, if it is the interest of the public that he should perform that function, that is the only good and sufficient argument why he should perform it. The function which voters exercise is not really a function that gives to each voter an equal share or anything distantly or remotely resembling an equal share in the Government of the country, as has been constantly pointed out by the Proportional Representation Society in the papers that that body has circulated. Everything depends, for example, on a thing so irrelevant to political right as where you happen to live, not in respect of your own opinions but in respect of the opinions of the other voters who share the franchise.
  If you are a Liberal and live in the Home Counties, you vote always in a minority, which, though it may be thought of as the exercise of a public right, is a very unsatisfactory right. Even if you are a Liberal living in Wales, where you are a part, not of a minority, but of an assured majority, you still do not matter. But if you are a person who by chance lives where the balance of voters is very nearly equal between the contending parties, you begin to find yourself a very important person, exercising considerable political influence; and, if you combine with a small number of other people of the right way of thinking, you may become one of those organised minorities which make their voices heard with tremendous effect—a small body of people where the con-
  1724
  stituency is balanced. How can anyone who thinks clearly say that this is a political right which in the name of justice must always be equal?
  There are inequalities much more subtle than these obvious inequalities. There are all those inequalities which arise from the system of choosing candidates. In a representative system the choice of the candidate is quite as important as the choice of the Member at the poll, and in many respects more important. Lately, wealthy individuals have run candidates in the name of one cause or another, and we read that the hon. Member for Smethwick (Sir O. Mosley) is contemplating no less than 400 candidates, but, in general, candidates are run by political parties and not by the enterprise of wealthy individuals. However those candidates are chosen, they are not chosen democratically. They are not chosen by the people for the people. They are chosen—but I will follow that out in detail in a moment.
  Let me narrate, first, my own experience in 1906 as a candidate and then as a voter, and it will be seen how untrue it is to say that this representative system, which is supposed to be founded on justice, really enables either the voter to express his political convictions, or that candidate to be elected who represents the political convictions of a majority. When I stood for Greenwich in 1906 the country was divided and the opinion of voters was divided generally between the Liberal party and the Conservative party on the multiplicity of issues which divided those parties, and also, very prominently, on the issue of Tariff Reform or Free Trade. I was a Free Trader and a Conservative. I stood for Greenwich and I was at the bottom of the poll. But on the issue that Conservatism was, generally speaking, better than Liberalism, my convictions corresponded undoubtedly with the convictions of the majority of the electors. If the votes given to me and the votes given to my Tariff Reform opponent were put together, they represented a considerable majority of the electorate. Again, on the issue of Free Trade or Tariff Reform, my Free Trade convictions also commanded the adherence of the majority of the electors. I

  1725
  agreed with the majority and the majority agreed with me in being a Conservative. I agreed with the majority and the majority agreed with me in being a Free Trader. Yet I was at the bottom of the poll. Is that representative system so permeated with justice that, in the name of justice, we must destroy a particular kind of representative? And let me observe for the edification of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on this side, that the Alternative Vote would be no use, because my vote as the representative of those two majorities would have been distributed between the two minorities.
  I went on the next day after my own defeat—in those days the election was spread over a considerable period—to record my vote in the city of Oxford. I had a vote for my college chambers, and awaiting me was the literature—which, very wisely, had not been forwarded—issued on behalf of the two candidates. I read, as a voter ought to read, the addresses of both the candidates who were presenting themselves for the suffrages of the people of Oxford, and I found that I thoroughly disagreed with both. That was natural, of course, because the Conservative candidate was a strong Tariff Reformer, and the other candidate was a Liberal. What became of my right to the one-seven millionth, or the one-eight millionth, as it was then, of the government of the country? I was a voter with convictions. I had no opportunity of expressing my convictions at all. I must either vote for a person who was in my judgment wrong on the fiscal question, or for the other person who was wrong on every other question. What becomes of the theory of equalitarian democracy?
  Let me further ask how a person desiring to become a Member of Parliament would set out to achieve that object. He would not, I think, present himself to the democracy. If he did, he would almost be thought a lunatic; it would be so eccentric. He would try to get, in modern times perhaps, the support of a wealthly and powerful owner of newspapers, but, in more normal circumstances, he would try to get the support of a political party. I do not know the machinery of all parties. I am only familiar with one, but I suppose that, apart from some slight differences in
  1726
  nomenclature, they are all much the same. He would find that in connection with the party there was a body called the association, which would be a tolerably numerous body. When he came to close quarters with this body, he would find that the function of the association was not really more discriminative than the function of the electorate at large. He would find that the real authority lay in a small body probably called the executive committee, or by some such title, and when he went to the executive committee he would find that two or three individuals of great energy and force of character really controlled the whole affair. It will be seen at once that all that system is oligarchic, and not democratic. The party itself is an oligarchic institution. The association which professes to represent the party is an oligarchy drawn from the larger oligarchy. The executive committee which professes to represent the association is a still smaller oligarchy drawn from the other oligarchy, and the two or three people who really decide the matter are the smallest and most powerful oligarchy of all.
  Anyone who thinks that I am exaggerating these matters or stating them from a biased Conservative point of view, I would entreat to read Lord Bryce's great book "Modern Democracies," the last work which he gave to the world before he died. It is the work of an earnest democrat, one who ardently admired democracy and the ideals of democracy, but it is also the work of a man of singularly candid mind, and a deeply learned man who had taken trouble to inform himself about six great democracies, namely, Switzerland, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. After a careful survey of democratic government in those countries he set out, in the last part of his book, the conclusions at which he arrived. What I have said as to an oligarchy is only a bald inadequate summary of the arguments which he propounds, and he comes to the conclusion that, though there may be such a thing in large communities as "government for the people," and in that sense a democratic ideal may be realised, government "by the people," strictly so-called, or democracy in its strict verbal sense, never exists nor can possibly exist in any large community. His analysis is much

  1727
  more elaborate and learned than that which I am putting before the Committee, but his principal reasons are these which will have been noticed in the sketch which I have already given.
  First, there is the mechanical difficulty. In the case of a motor car one person must hold the wheel. That is a matter of mechanism, and directly von have an organisation, only a few people can be concerned with directing it, because, without hopeless confusion, a larger number cannot be consulted. Secondly, there is in human nature undoubtedly a perpetual unceasing trend towards oligarchy. People always prefer to let the few control the many. Let us suppose that a committee is set up in the House of Commons for any purpose, whether it is a serious purpose under the direction of the House, or some relatively frivolous purpose like the organisation of some sports or amusements voluntarily undertaken by Members. Before such a committee has sat for half-an-hour, it becomes plain that two or three people are those who will have to do the whole thing and those who have the ability, the energy, or the force of character or whatever it may be, decide, and the other members of the body are quite willing that it should be so. The trend to oligarchy operates in human nature, and, always, I think, leaves the few to control the many who obey.
  6.0 p.m.
  That trend accounts, I think, for the disappointment often experienced by young and ardent Members coming into the House of Commons. They find that influence always operating. They experience it, to begin with, in their efforts to obtain a seat. They have climbed the oligarchic staircase, in whatever party to which they belong, and they have reached the House of Commons. But when they are in the House they find that a Member of Parliament has not very much power, that the power lies with the Government of the day, and that the Government of the day, composed as it is of trusted leaders of the party, has commonly been steeped in various oligarchical influences, until it is not what its more ardent supporters would prefer to expect. I read in some of the organs of the Labour Press that, at this moment Labour Members are disillusioned. If it is any consolation to
  1728
  them, from an old Member, let me say that Members below the Gangway on the Ministerial side are always disillusioned. In the Salvation Army there is a special penitents' form. We might call the benches below the Gangway on the Ministerial side the benches of disillusion. That is only an illustration which shows that the whole of this theory of equalitarian democracy is a delusion. There is no such thing. We have been told that the gallant men at Gettysburg died in order that:
  "government of the people, for the people, by the people, should not perish from the earth."
  If that be what they died for it was a pathetically futile death, because nothing is more certain than that that government only cannot perish from the earth because it has never existed upon it; and "government by the people" in any real sense of the term, has never been in existence, at any rate in any large community. Need we go further than the greatest political decision of our day? Our whole lives have been, and the lives of many generations succeeding us will be, coloured by the decision taken in August, 1914, to go to war. That decision was taken by the Ministry of the day, who called into collaboration the Front Opposition Bench as we term it, or the leaders of the other parties. They came to that decision. The House of Commons was, indeed, nominally consulted on 3rd August and its Members had an opportunity of voting for or against the Motion for the Adjournment. But the real decision had already been taken. Can anyone call that democracy? The whole fate of the country, the whole course of politics, was at stake, yet that decision was taken by quite a small number of persons. Nor could it have been otherwise, because the issue was not before the country, and could not have been, at any Election, and the House of Commons was required to assent, under the ordinary party arrangements, to what its leaders had determined. I would argue, therefore, that the principle of equalitarian democracy is a legendary thing. I view the Home Secretary like some arch-Druid in Stonehenge, preparing to carry out a human sacrifice to a false god that has never existed, nor is existing, nor ever will exist, and we,

  1729
  the Members for the Universities, huddled together like a "flock of slaughter," await his sacrificial knife with the miserable aggravation of our woes that he, fanatically sincere as we know him to be, is offering us up to a god that does not exist!
  I should be sorry to leave the argument there, in a merely negative form. There is a theory, and a true theory, of representation which is quite different from the theory which I have been criticising. That is a theory which descends to us, I suppose, for 200 or 300 years and which was made classical by the genius of Burke. That theory does not seek to trace political power from each of the 20,000,000 voters, or whatever the numbers are, up to this House or to the Government of the day. It views representation from another aspect. It seeks to have a House of Commons which shall be representative because it is a microcosm of the whole people. We sit here on that theory, not as being each man with so many thousand voters' political power to exercise, but as being typical commoners, who are so chosen that the decision we come to is likely to be the decision of the whole people.
  That is a true claim in the main. Everyone who knows the House of Commons knows that, outside of our differences between one party and the other, there are things which are out of the question, things which are excluded by the general sense of the House and the country; and they are very important things. There are things which nobody could put forward. In old times, we used to have acts of attainder, but no one ever proposes to have an act of attainder now. It is out of the question, and in that true sense we are representative. Such a barbaric thing could not happen; no one would propose it. I daresay there are delightful moments, when one is falling asleep, when I generally think that an American millionaire will leave me all his property, then the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) may dream of the Prime Minister on Tower Hill delivering a departing speech on economic truth, while perhaps the hon. Member for Smethwick (Sir O. Mosley), becomingly dressed in crimson, tight-fitting clothes, is to put an end to an ill-omened career.
  1730
  These are merely dreams. The representative system does not allow proposals of that kind, and it is so in a vast number of things. There are things that are absurdities, errors of economics—great as are the differences between economic theories—which no one would put forward. There are principles of breaking faith and the like which no one would put forward. That is the general sense of the community which we represent. We do not represent it, as I have said, by any arithmetical connection. We represent it because we are typical of the people. We are commons of the realm by representation. That is the old classical phrase. The commons of the realm comprise the whole population except those peers who sit in the other House of Parliament. Everyone else is represented in the Commons; the King and the peers are not. That vast body of opinion we represent, in the sense that a map represents the country over which the traveller wishes to travel. What is found here will be found, in experience, in the commonalty at large. That is the true theory of representation. It is a reality. It is not this dreadful, artificial argument which everyone knows is untrue and which breaks down in a thousand ways directly you begin to test it. It is the truth. What this House says, whether there is a Labour, or a Conservative, or a Liberal majority, will broadly speaking be more or less acceptable to the whole people, because we are the commons by representation, and what seems to us typical commoners to be right will not, on the whole, seem to be wrong to the commoners outside.
  From that point of view, and according to that theory, what can be more justifiable than university representation? Is it denied that the university electorate are in many respects leading in thought and in capacity for political leadership? Are they not the class from which political leaders in a very large measure come? And that is so in the case of revolutions. May I say, for the edification of those below the Gangway, that no revolution has ever prospered, has ever been successful, which has not been led by the professional classes? Robespierre was of this class. If Robespierre had lived to-day and been an Englishman, both of which are rather difficult to imagine, he would

  1731
  be undoubtedly a university graduate. I am inclined to think it would rather be of Cambridge than Oxford. The professional class are, beyond all doubt and controversy, an essential part of the popular voice in the true sense of the word. They have to be regarded. Certainly they have not to be regarded only, and if university representation was so expansive that it shut out the claims of other classes, no one would defend it for a moment. It is only as one contribution out of many to the general representative principle, of the representation of the whole by the whole, that it is justified.
  Should we be more like the people or less like the people at large if we had no university representation? Should not we shut out a voice which is a really an influential voice, which really goes to make up that mysterious thing called public opinion, which in the end decides so many controversies; and is it not right and important that the whole representative system should have regard to the real sources of political power and influence over public opinion? I am sure that the House of Commons, representing the professional class, and in some way able to speak on behalf of that class, is much more truly the mirror of the commons of the realm than if there were no such representation. Observe that under this theory of representation the absurdities of which I have spoken do not arise. The decision about the War, for example, was a decision taken by the whole House of Commons, which would certainly have been taken by the whole people had it been possible at the time to consult them. That representation of the whole by the whole justifies what then happened.
  Do not let us then spoil what has come down to us. Do not let us make the representative system less real in the true sense of the word. Do not let us shut out one important part of public opinion, one important part of the voice of the whole commons of the realm, merely because we have obfuscated our minds by an utterly false theory of representation which cannot stand criticism for a moment. I do appeal to the Committee to act in this matter as the inheritors of a great inheritance. The House of Commons has come down. We represent
  1732
  the whole commons of the realm. Let us take care that we hand it on to our posterity not less the mirror of public opinion than we find it—still, as it has always been, the true voice of Great Britain, where will be found the sense of the commons of the realm as befits a House which is the Commons House of Parliament. For the sake of that august tradition, for the sake of the truth of the representative system as it really is, I invite the Committee to reject this Clause.
  Major CHURCH: In opposing this Clause, I am probably acting in the best interests of representative Government and of those who fought to return me to the constituency for which I was returned to this House. I feel that, particularly at the present time, when the machine of all parties is being questioned in no uncertain voice, when many of us feel blind allegiance to party weakening, when we are feeling that country must come first, and that world problems were never more difficult to solve, we need in the seat of authority men of the ripest judgment, prepared by their training, knowledge and experience to look at world problems and to fit in the problems of this country with those of the world, men who are prepared to look beyond their own selfish interests, men who are not concerned always to be fighting and considering themselves as arrayed in their own country to opposing forces, men and women who are prepared to look at world problems as a whole. I feel that those who have had the advantage of a university training are entitled to some special representation in this House. I do not believe in the principle that one must merely count noses in order to determine representation.
  After all, what is it that the Labour party has been striving for during the whole of its existence? We can read the whole of the literature of the Labour party, and we will find all through, permeating every word that is written on the subject of representation and of education, that it is absolutely necessary that there should be a broad, high road to the university. What is the need for this broad, high road to the university? Why is it that in the Labour Year Book of 1918, written before the end of the War, such stress was laid upon the desirability of a university education?

  1733
  The writer on university education said quite definitely that it was to fit the people of this country, or a greater proportion of them, for the great responsibilities which awaited them in the future; and God knows that those responsibilities are greater now than they were even in the last year of the War. The problems facing the world to-day are greater than they have ever been before.
  Why has the Labour party philosophy been permeated throughout by this desire for better and more education? If you want to deprive the universities, those ancient and modern seats of learning, of their special representation in this House, why is it that they have always been held up to such regard? Has it been merely to catch the votes of the university graduates, to gain the allegiance of the university men, to keep faithful to the Labour cause those who have risen out of the Labour ranks and gone to the universities by dint of their own exertions, self-sacrifice and perseverance? In none of the universities at present, even in the ancient seats of learning, can you find a big majority of the graduates who are graduates of what might be called the upper classes. The vast majority in all the modern universities are people who have definitely risen from the working classes, people whose fathers and mothers are quite definitely of the class which is represented by Members on these benches.
  Even in the ancient seats of learning, you have only to look through the list, not merely of the graduates but of the dons and the professors, to find a large proportion of men of the most humble origin who have fought their way up to the positions they now hold. Every member of the Committee has had a manifesto on university representation, and I would invite attention to the signatories of that document. Consider what many of them are doing in the world at present; consider what contributions they have made to the material benefits which we enjoy, to which the average Member of Parliament has made singularly little contribution; consider the contributions which some of these men have made not merely to the material prosperity of the country and the material comfort of the masses of the people, but to the cultural side; and consider the new light which they have
  1734
  thrown on practically every problem that is facing us, whether in the world of science or of philosophy, or even of religious controversy. Above all, in the sphere of education these men have been responsible for broadening the whole basis of education, and they have been fighting year after year for a more liberal and comprehensive education for the whole of the people. Their names will he found in this manifesto, which asks Parliament to maintain a privilege given to people who have proved themselves by dint of their capacity for work and self sacrifice, and of their desire to put the whole of their energies into increasing the sum of knowledge for the benefit and the enlightenment of their fellows.
  I will go further. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) has already dealt with the question of the oligarchic form of our present government. He did refer specifically to those forces that are contributing to make the Government of the day possible; he did not refer to the administrative services. Governments are completely dependent upon the products of the universities. There is not a Minister of the Crown who is not absolutely dependent for advice upon men in his Department, the majority of whom are university men. [Interruption.] It is suggested that we are in a mess. When Ministers want to get out of a mess, they do not go outside the university ranks for better advice; they call into consultation on their various committees men who, by their specialised knowledge, have proved their capacity for giving an opinion. It is said by my hon. Friends about me that we are still in a mess, but I would like to refer to some other countries, and one country in particular, for which certain Members in my party have a curious affection since it lapsed into the most appalling tyranny, which is something worse in the way of tyranny than the one it displaced. I refer to that particular country because they deliberately, in the height of their enthusiasm, decided that all their university people, except those of one colour, were enemies of the system. They did away with a good many of them, but I find that the whole of their philosophy is now based upon one of them—Professor Pavlov. The whole of the materialistic philosophy of the Union of Socialist Soviet Repub-

  1735
  lics is based upon the philosophy of Pavlov, who has become a god even greater than Lenin. They have destroyed many of their university men and institutions, but because they find that they must have them they are now setting up their own university, and they are getting leadership from the universities—
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dunnico): I do not think that this has any direct bearing upon university representation.
  Major CHURCH: I was saying that there are other countries which have found that after destroying the special privileges once enjoyed by universities, they have had to reverse full cycle and become dependent on them more than ever. I understand, according to a paragraph from an untainted source which I read in a newspaper this morning, that they are actually applying for 15,000 technicians and professional men from outside the country—
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not see that this has any bearing at all on university representation. The issue before the Committee is not to dispense with universities, but to dispense with university representation—an entirely different matter.
  Major CHURCH: To get back to the special subject under consideration, there are many hon. Members who, if the Government had decided to make special provision for the representation of universities in another place in a reform of the Upper House, would have little objection to the change. Some of us would have welcomed that, for we see no reason why the university as such should not be represented, just as much as the Church is represented, in the other House in a special capacity. If we could have had a liberal measure of reform, comprising a complete revision of our constitution, including the Commons and the Lords, some of us might have been prepared to vote for the abolition of this privilege. The Committee have already decided by their vote on Clause 3 to abolish plural voting. If Clause 4 is not allowed to stand part, it will not violate that principle. Will the Government concede this point: will they be prepared to let this go to a free vote of the Committee, as they did on the ques-
  1736
  tion of the City of London, which is a money interest rather than an intellectual interest? As we have abolished plural voting, will the Government give the university graduates the privilege of voting in their own universities, if they wish to do so? In other words, can they have the option of voting in the university?
  There is little possibility, as the country is constituted, and considering how few relatively go to universities, of the university graduates as such exercising any real influence in the average constituency. It is true that a good many university graduates are in this House, but they are not here as university representatives, and they are not men to whom graduates can come and say, "Will you do this?" They are not men upon whom the universities as such have any definite call; they are not men to whom professional bodies will normally gravitate, unless they happen to be representing in a particular sense a particular profession. The professional classes, which are recruited largely from the universities, find themselves in every constituency in a hopeless minority, and they will find themselves more and more in a hopeless minority as time goes on. As far as I can gather, although we are more and more dependent upon the university graduates, and although even the present Government, in every Committee that they set up, appoint a majority of university men to advise them—[Laughter.] There are some people who would like to change the whole situation in five minutes, but I would point out that even some of the leaders of the Labour party, the younger as well as the older men, normally come from one or other of the universities, and not always from the newer universities, but more frequently from the older ones. I need only mention Tawney, our pilot in educational matters, and Cole, for a long time our pilot in economic affairs. These men came from the older universities, and their advice is constantly sought; I find their names appearing again and again on various special committees which the Government have set up. Evidently, therefore, Ministers of the Crown have a special regard for their special knowledge.
  It may have been true, as the Home Secretary said, that Lecky said that the

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  political influence of the universities had been almost universally hostile to political progress; but that was written a good many years ago, and I would like to refer to Professor Whitehead, who agrees with Lecky that years ago the professional classes and the universities were hostile to progress, but he says that the trouble in the world now is that the professional classes are on the road to progress, and the world is suffering because it has been unable to attune its political machine to the amazing progress that has been made by the specialist profession. I should prefer the Government to drop this Clause altogether, and give the whole matter a little more consideration. I cannot see that it is vital to any bargain that has been made between the party opposite and the Government, and I cannot think that it is a valuable contribution at the present time. It is dealing with the whole life of Parliament in a hole-and-corner fashion, and it will only excite feelings of the greatest resentment in a large number of people, many of whom I represent in this House; it will lose the Labour party far more than it will gain, and it will definitely set against it a whole class of intellectuals in this country. For a Government which is so dependent, and has shown itself completely dependent, upon the specialist classes, to remove from its ranks the possibility of having these specialists brought to a focus through Members of the universities, will be something for which it will be very sorry now, and more sorry at the time of the next election, when many of those who were in the forefront helping the Labour party at the last election will he found arrayed against it.
  Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: I cannot help thinking that the hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth (Major Church) has under-estimated the public spirit of the intellectual section of the community for whom he has spoken. Does he really think that in order to get them to give their support in the direction in which they honestly believe it should go, they need to be bribed by a special franchise? I cannot think it is so. He has asked us to refer to the manifesto sent round by the supporters of university representation. I wonder whether he has also seen the printed post cards they sent round, post cards which
  1738
  were so far away from the realities of politics that they actually asked Members of this House to vote against this Clause when it came up for discussion in the House of Lords? That does not seem to show a very close appreciation of the realities of the situation. I feel some responsibility in being the first Member to rise to criticise the fascinating speech of the Noble Lord the senior Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), but, as he spoke, this came inevitably to my mind. He was speaking of this House as a set of typical commoners, but could anyone listening to him—and I say it with the greatest respect—imagine that he is in any sense an example of the typical commoner? Is not the reason why we all come in from all the precincts of this House to hear him when he is speaking the fact that he is not a typical commoner, but something entirely individual?
  With a great deal of what the Noble Lord said when he was criticising the workings of democracy hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree. Who is going to stand up and say that democracy is perfect; but because democracy does not always work out as we think it should, because it is often, in fact, oligarchic, that is no reason why we should permit the continuance of unnecessary anomalies. To say that because it is imperfect it does not matter whether we make it quite absurd is not an argument which would appeal to me at all. When he was talking of his own electoral experiences at Greenwich he was arguing very powerfully for Proportional Representation, and nothing else. With that part of his speech I fully agree, but that what happened in that constituency through the lack of Proportional Representation can furnish any kind of support for the retention of the university vote I cannot possibly imagine.
  Sir CHARLES OMAN: On a point of Order. Proportional Representation exists in the universities. That is the way in which the universities vote.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: I am surprised to hear a member of a university giving such an extraordinary example of a point of Order. As the hon. Gentleman is fully aware, Proportional Representation,

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  working with three candidates only, does not give a fair test of Proportional Representation at all.
  Sir C. OMAN: It works with four candidates.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: It is very difficult for men to deal with interruptions which are directed from behind. Considering the constituency he represents, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt have an opportunity of speaking later in this debate. I want to challenge the central proposition of the Noble Lord the Senior Member for Oxford University that the exercise of the vote is only a function. I maintain that there is also a right involved, and a very important right. Democracy, to my mind, does not consist in merely securing a right to decision on points of detail. That is only a part of the problem. Democracy does not even mean that the people always choose right. I have taken part in five elections, and in three of them, I am sorry to say, the people chose wrong. Democracy means not that the people always choose right, but that they have a right to choose wrong if necessary, and that is a part of democracy which I regard as very essential. It is important to have the will of the people, which they have the right to express. Whereas I agree with the Noble Lord's criticism of the imperfections in our system, I am not surprised that if he regards the vote as merely a function and not a right he should uphold this antiquated system.
  If I were speaking solely from the point of view of prejudice and personal inclination, I should be supporting the Noble Lord and opposing this Clause, because the university suffrage gives me two votes, and it also gives to my party two very valuable Members, and it is a matter of great regret to me that I should make any speech which might have any adverse effect upon them. But when one cames to consider what real grounds of logic or reason can be put forward for this university representation, one can only come to an adverse conclusion upon it. Why should I be allowed first to register by post my vote in favour of the Noble Lord the Senior Member for Oxford University, and then, later, by the ordinary method of the ballot, register a vote not quite so favourable to the hon.
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  Member for Bromley (Mr. Campbell)? It is true that in some respects, since I cannot vote for both the Members I want amongst the University Members, my votes have failed in both cases. My votes are merely gestures; but why should I be allowed to give two gestures where other people have only one? I am an unashamed equalitarian, as far as I can secure equality, and if we have not obtained complete equality let us get as far towards it as we can. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth has suggested that what I am saying does not apply, because the plural vote will no longer exist. I hope that the Home Secretary will clear up that point; there is a considerable amount of confusion as to whether the retention of the university vote would result in the possession of a plural vote or not. It seems to me that university representation would be equally undesirable in either event. If we were to keep university representation while abolishing the plural vote, it would mean that the election would be in the hands of a handful of dons, and whereas those gentlemen are very estimable in many ways, are very nice to have about the place, I cannot see that they are entitled to have an electoral power which would, in effect, in those circumstances, be 30 or 40 times that of the ordinary person.
  I am assuming that if the university representation is maintained, the plural voter will be maintained also. If that be so, upon what grounds is this course advocated? It has been suggested that university voters are possessed of some kind of special knowledge. I have no doubt that we all took examinations before we became entitled to the university vote; but logic would demand that we should periodically be re-examined to see whether we retained that knowledge, and I, myself, would shudder, before any such prospect, and so, I think, would most other people. The real fact is that most of those who now exercise the university franchise are far removed from the universities to which they once belonged. They have no particular connection with them, except that of memory and sentiment, which is necessarily strong, but does not, to my mind, confer any right. If they have retained anything of what they gained at the universities they can use their knowledge in the

  1741
  ordinary way in their ordinary constituencies, and I cannot see that they have any other right. If special knowledge is to give a special right to the franchise, why should we stop at universities? Why should there not be votes for the great hospitals? The staffs of the great hospitals have been acquiring special knowledge all their lives. Why should there not be special votes for the Law Society as an entity? The answer would be, that already we have enough lawyers in the House. Those lawyers have won their way to the House, however, through the hurly-burly of the ordinary election, and I am suggesting that university graduates have no special rights as against them.
  It was an interesting suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth, and I am inclined to agree with it, that there might be an opportunity of finding a place for university representation in another place. That is a most interesting suggestion, but, unfortunately, it is outside the scope of this Bill. I would certainly say that in another place there should be vocational representation, not only for the universities, but vocational representation of many other kinds—for the trade unions, if you like; but that is outside our discussion to-day. We have to see whether there is any justification for keeping just this little fragment of vocational representation in the middle of the House, the whole of the rest of which is elected on a territorial basis, and I cannot see any such justification. I humbly suggest that, as regards this Clause and this House, university representation cannot be upheld upon any democratic principle, and those who sit on these benches, if they have any regard to the history of the party on electoral reform, will, no doubt, give their votes against university representation. Our party have played a great part in defeating other kinds of unfair and fancy franchises, franchises which gave an undue weight to land or to wealth, and why should we uphold this last remaining privilege? If they do uphold it it will be a great effort for them to convince the bulk of the Members of this House that they are still maintaining the principles for which they ought to stand.
  Mr. CLYNES: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Wandsworth (Major Church) made what, I imagine, his colleagues will regard as a most extraordinary speech, puzzling us by the defence which he offered of the existing system of university representation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up!"] What I gathered from his speech was that as the personnel of university graduates and students has changed, a fact which we all recognise, and that as they enjoy the great advantages of exceptional educational opportunities, they ought in after life to count twice as much as anybody else in the making of the laws. I take the very opposite view, my view being that a man, by virtue of his education, is in need not of more, but of less power in the making of the laws.
  Lord H. CECIL: Why spend so much money on education?
  Mr. CLYNES: While it is right, in our view, to spend money on education, it is quite wrong, in the matter of our politics and public affairs, from the point of view of Parliamentary action and the making of the laws, to give those who have had those special advantages a double power. Let me give an instance which was referred to by my hon. Friend below the Gangway. Here is a quotation from the manifesto upon the Representation of the Universities to which reference has already been made:
  "Belgium, for instance, an essentially democratic country, follows our example of according additional votes to graduates."
  My information is that Belgium in her last revision of electoral law abolished that privilege of university graduates.
  Let me say to the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) that we recognise that this is a very imperfect world. Some of its imperfections may be more readily borne than others. I sympathise with the Noble Lord in his illness, but I can assure him that we do regard him as an educationist of high standing. I have listened very carefully to the arguments put forward, but I submit that when one man has two votes the question of right does arise—the question, is it right that any section of the community should have two votes when the rest of the community have only half that number? It is not necessary

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  on this occasion for a Minister to make a long speech, but I hope that I shall be able to show in the short time I shall address the Committee that university representation is not an advantage to the public.
  From the standpoint of the Noble Lord, let us address ourselves to that question. Most of the speech made by the Noble Lord has been devoted to describing the imperfections in the electoral law. We on this side have had to find out what is best for the benefit of our country and we have done it by the process afforded under the ordinary electoral law, but Parliament after Parliament, and party after party since 1832, has travelled very slowly from the point when the ordinary man who did not possess property had no right to vote at all, to the point where men and women, regardless of possessing property, are able to exercise the function of going to the poll. I think in these days that men of high intellectual attainments could better show their quality by recognising that change rather than by opposing it. The Noble Lord gave us some delightful experiences of his own. I submit that the Noble Lord, while exposing the defects of the system in his closing observations on the question now before the Committee, did not say anything to justify the continuance of university representation in the House of Commons, and, in the end, he asked us to turn to the wisdom shown by Mr. Bryce on this question. Mr. Bryce was a distinguished Member of Parliament, and a great public servant, and I therefore turn to what Mr. Bryce said on 6th March, 1885. Addressing himself to this special question of the privileged position of our universities, this is what Mr. Bryce said:
  "He submitted that while university representation might have been a fair experiment to try, and while there might have been valid reasons for instituting it three centuries ago, and for continuing to give it a chance for some years after 1832, it was an experiment which had been tried long enough, which had altogether failed to bring about any substantial or beneficial results, either to the country or to the universities themselves. The time had now arrived when it became desirable to dismiss this device of the Stuart Kings to the limbo to which so many other of their devices had been relegated. He believed that when that happened, and no university any longer returned a Member to Parliament, no
  1744
  persons would be more pleased than the now misrepresented resident teachers of the universities themselves."
  I join with the Noble Lord in his praise of Mr. Bryce, who furnishes us with a stronger argument than the speech to which I have just listened. It might very well be said that at one time, when our country was so different and its activities were wholly unlike the state of things that exist at the present time, university representation might have been justified. The public view was that many groups or sections of individuals could not claim the privilege to exercise the vote, but when the law denied them that function a, few were left with that privilege. In 1832 university representation does not seem to have been exposed to any serious attack, but an attempt to secure representation of the Scottish Universiies was defeated. The retention of the university seats at that time was justified not only on the ground that without university represenation the interests of learning would suffer, but on a novel plea introduced by Althorp, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that it was deemed expedient that Oxford and Clam-bridge should retain their present elective system as a means of protecting the interests of the established church. There is not a Member of this House who would to-day submit an argument of that kind in favour of university representation. I urge that while there might be some justification for endeavouring to prove that university representation was justifiable at one time, it is not a privilege that ought to endure at the present time. I submit that now that a change has come about, whatever ground might have existed in the past for having such separate representation, there is very little to be said for it at all at the present time.
  As for the representation of particular interests as distinguished from the representation of localities, even on that score no case can be made out for singling out the universities. The mere possession of a degree does not distinguish a man from his fellows. As education becomes more widespread, the arguments for separate representation of universities become less and less plausible. If university representation is to be retained, it would be equally sensible and fair to give repre-

  1745
  sentation to the great professional interests such as law, medicine, or, better still, on the guild basis, and even to trade unions themselves. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are represented at the present time!"] Yes, trade unions have representation, but they are represented through the ordinary procedure of popular election. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have come in through the front door!"] I urge that there is no ground for continuing university representation, which cannot do any special service to the country. We have not seen in our experience of university representation any great capacity shown for service to the nation reflected in the votes which the university representatives have given in this House.
  I would like for a few moments to refer to the collective size of the electorate represented in this House by the 12 university Members. It has been pointed out earlier in the Debate that the ordinary Member of this House represents a constituency numbering, roughly, about 50,000 electors, but the Members of this House representing universities represent constituencies of anything between 43,000 and 3,000 electors. The position is that 12 Members are sent to the House of Commons by the universities, and they represent less than 120,000 electors. It is an intolerable state of things that those 120,000 electors should be allowed to have a second vote for other persons to represent them in the House of Commons. The university electors need not be resident anywhere near the university. As a matter of fact, they are scattered over different parts of the country, and they do not remain in the territory of the university in which they were educated. Nevertheless, all university electors are able to enjoy the privilege of being dual voters, and, in addition, they have the enormous advantage of their college training, which they can use in a double degree to that of any other voter.
  It is true that great scholars have come from universities, but when we remember how candidates are selected for the universities, we are driven to the conclusion that there have been great scholars rejected by universities, and men have been preferred who have less qualities to represent universities. I
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  think it is quite true to say that universities, like other institutions, societies and aggregations of men and women are influenced and dominated pretty much by the same conditions, and inasmuch as they resemble other sections of the community in that respect, they should not be allowed to differ from other people in having twice the representation as compared with the rest of the community. For these reasons, I ask the Committee to agree to this provision for securing the equality at which we are aiming.
  7.0 p.m.
  Sir MARTIN CONWAY: I have to stand to-night in the ungrateful position of seeming to ask the Committee not to impose this Measure upon me. It is as though I had to submit myself to the Committee and adopt an attitude which is imagined by hon. Members opposite to be against the public interest. This Measure will not affect my future, if it is passed, and I can regard it with perfect equanimity. In the Debates preceding this proposal references were made to a bargain, but no reference was made to the bargain by which female suffrage was won. There was, it will be remembered, a committee presided over by Lord Ullswater which overhauled the whole system of representation. It was a matter of bargain on that committee that, if female suffrage were granted, university representation should be continued. Every woman who has a vote at the present day owes it to the fact that a bargain was made, and the granting of the franchise to women was part of the bargain by which university representation was maintained. It was not only maintained at that time, but it was increased. Two additional Members were added at that time for the Combined Universities. It is not through an ancient Stuart tradition that we sit here; it is due to an enlargement of the number of university members made by this House less than a score of years ago.
  It is seldom referred to, but surely we all know that, behind it all, the reason for this proposal is that university constituencies in the past and at the present time have mainly returned Conservatives. Supposing university constituencies to-day returned 12 Labour Members, would any such proposal as this have been made? A misrepresentation largely

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  accounts for this prejudice, which arises on the other side of the House. They think that the universities will always return Conservative Members. As a matter of fact, they return three progressive Members at the present time, one-quarter of the whole representation. If my judgment is of any value, I think that a good many more representatives of the Liberal and Labour parties may be expected to come from the universities in the future than in the past. Universities are no longer preserves of the rich. In my own constituency, 75 per cent. come from the working class families. That number tends to increase and, along with that, there tends to come a change in the complexion of the bulk of university undergraduates. Undergraduates are largely not Conservatives; graduates are largely Conservatives. Let me ask hon. Members opposite, if university education is to have the normal effect of producing Conservatives, what is going to happen to the Labour party when everybody has been fully educated, when everybody has been through the universities, and when everybody has emerged Tory? Will there be any Labour representatives in those days? Surely, it is obvious that they are building their structure on a false foundation.
  The number of graduates in these universities is continually increasing. We have had certain figures put before us to show that certain members have been elected by small numbers, 3,000 constituents and so forth. When I was first elected, my constituency numbered 5,000, but at the present day it is over 15,000 and, if a General Election is deferred for 12 months, it will be over 17,000. Potentially, there are over 50,000 graduates in the universities which I represent, but in the past they were not automatically put on the register, and the bulk of them did not know how to get on it. Now every graduate is automatically put on the register, and the register increases by between 2,000 and 3,000 a year, and will go on steadily increasing for 10 years until this constituency will number upwards of 50,000 electors. The idea that these constituencies are in the hands of a handful of dons is quite wrong. My election committee did not include a single don. These committees are all run, as far as I know, by graduates who
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  are for the most part living in the university towns from where they graduated, though not entirely so.
  The main charge which is brought against university members is that they are an anomaly. It is supposed that, once you call a thing an anomaly, it must logically be done away with. An hon. Member has referred to that magnificent lack of logic which distinguishes the British institutions. It is conceded that lack of logic distinguishes British institutions. We all, more or less, conclude that there is a certain superiority of Great Britain over all other countries in that we are not logical, that we do not drive theories to extremes. It is anomalies that make the picturesqueness of our institutions and largely the picturesqueness of our lives. What could be more anomalous than the present Government? Here is a Socialist Government in office and in power which does not represent anything like a majority of the electors of the country. On the contrary, the last General Election gave a strong verdict against Socialism, and did not give the Socialist party a majority of any kind in this House. Yet there it sits and does its work. We may differ from it in many ways, but, on the whole, it is the Government, and we support it as the Government against the rest of the world. But it is an anomaly and quite as anomalous as university representation. If you are going to do away with university representatives, do away with the Government, too. [HON. MEMBERS: "Bolshevism."] No, it is not Bolshevism. You can say we are a kind of Soviet representatives. We are; we represent a fraction of a Soviet Government.
  The Home Secretary asked those who followed him in the Debate to address themselves to the question of how far university representatives had been an advantage to the country. I will indicate one reason why they are of advantage. They are immensely superior in all respects to the whole of the rest of the House. I will tell hon. Members why. Hon. Members are selected at an election. What is the process of an election? I have been through the ordinary election process 40 years ago, and I know, and we all know, what it is like. The whole business of an electoral

  1749
  campaign is to create excitement, to blackguard your opponent. The atmosphere has a certain warmth, you endeavour as far as possible to raise the temperature of your audiences, you have a meeting and you are not satisfied unless the audience go away in a high state of excitement. You wish to have them roar applause, to have them change from a number of people exercising their private judgment into an excited crowd, so that the psychology of the crowd becomes supreme. What is that psychology? All the members of a crowd become excited with emotion and lose all the use of their brain. That is the effect. You work up an excited crowd, which is an electioneering crowd, into that passion of enthusiasm in which they lose their individuality and become merged in a passionate crowd. Instead of selecting a representative by their intelligence, by quiet thought, they are rushed, in the passion of the election, into expressing not their judgment but their passion, not their intelligence but their emotions.
  The result is that all the hon. Members I see around me, with the exception of a few returned unopposed and my university colleagues, have emerged from a passion of excitement. Not a single supporter of theirs has ever had put before them any rational reason why he should vote one way or another, whereas we who are university Members are elected by our constituents all over the world after they have received our election addresses and considered them. They send in their paper and do not hide behind any anonymity, but sign them in the quiet of their own studies, so that we are returned by their intelligence—[Interruption.] For better or worse it is the intelligence of our constituents that chooses us, and not their emotions. We do not represent the emotions or the passions, but we represent the wisdom, the thought and the sober judgment of our constituents. Therefore, I say that, so far from our being an anomaly, all other Members except us are the anomaly. We are the only representatives; we are chosen by intelligent people using their intelligence, and not by howling crowds. [Interruption.]
  I have spoken for a somewhat longer time than I intended, but, in view of the attitude of hon. Members opposite, I found it difficult to resist enlarging upon a scientific fact. I have always won-
  1750
  dered why Governments did not appoint Royal Commissions to examine into the state of mind of excited crowds, and contrast it with the views of individuals on intellectual questions. If we could have had the report of such a commission, we should have been guided in our judgment. As it is, we have to do the best that we can. I suggest that hon. Members opposite should forget the passionate crowds from which they have emerged, and behind which exists the scattered wit which brought them here, that they should forget their origin and their past; and that, using their own intelligence and bearing in mind the long history that lies behind us, the excellent work that we do, and the constant manner in which we attend the Debates of this House, they should extend to us their hospitality for a little longer.
  Mr. BARR: I wish to address myself to one or two of the main reasons, some of which have been well stated by the hon. Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway), for the continuance of university representation. I think I should be fair in saying that one of the main reasons is the contention that the universities, and education generally, should be specially represented in this House—that men with intimate knowledge of the universities, of broad outlook on educational questions, and uninfluenced by party bias, should come here to represent those interests and should give us their views. The hon. Member for the University of Wales (Mr. E. Evans) put this point the other day by saying that we should have a special representation of the opinions of those who have built up our educational system, who are desirous of its continuance, and who are anxious for its extension. I gladly pay this tribute to those who represent the universities, that they are showing special interest in universities and in education generally.
  I was very sorry that another engagement prevented me from being present to hear the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), but I gladly pay tribute to the place that he has given to education in his speeches, and I would also say that in regard to education and other questions he has shown a certain independence of judgment. I can say the same

  1751
  for the senior Member, and also for the other Members, for the Scottish Universities, and, not least, a similar tribute can be paid to the hon. Lady the Member for the English Universities (Miss Rath-bone), who comes in as an independent representative, and who always exercises independence of judgment and puts education in the foremost place.
  I gladly pay that tribute, but, after all, we have to take the university representatives in the mass and to judge them by their deeds. On going into the analysis of the voting, I find that, on the Second Reading of the Education (School Attendance) Bill, six of the university representatives voted against the Bill, three voted for it, and three were absent; while on the occasion of the Third Reading six voted against it, only one for it, and five were absent. From these facts I draw the conclusion that they have not been able to lift themselves, taken in the mass, out of those political considerations which obtain in all parts of this House, and that they have not succeeded, speaking generally—I am making exceptions—in lifting this question outside of purely party relationships.
  A subordinate phase of that argument is that men should be here with an intimate knowledge and experience of university questions, men of educational knowledge, of academic zeal, and of high academic attainments. My answer to that argument is that increasingly, in all parts of this House, there are men with just as high academic attainments as those who now represent the universities, and I would venture to say that such men are conversant with the interests of the universities and of education, and that, even if those who now represent the universities were removed, they would increasingly attend to the highest interests of education and of the universities. The hon. Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway) said that we were elected on passion and emotion and enthusiasm, but a great French writer said that nothing great was ever done without passion, that nothing great was ever done without enthusiasm, that nothing great was ever done without emotion; while a great writer in this country said that religion
  1752
  itself was but morality touched with emotion. It is because university representatives have been sent here by university electors lacking in emotion, in passion, and in enthusiasm that they have not identified themselves with great causes as they should have done, and as we should have expected them to do.
  It is said, however, that there is a class of man whose appeal is academic rather than popular, and who would find difficulty in getting another seat to represent, as such men would not appeal to an ordinary popular constituency; and that there are also men of that type who could not bear the rough-and-tumble of an election. My answer is that, if men will not bear the rough-and-tumble of an election, I cannot see that they have any right to be here. I say that it is essential to democracy that men, from whatever quarter they come in, should come into our sheep-fold, if I may so call it, by the door, and should not climb up by some other way. My hon. Friend the senior Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) has said that he would easily find another seat. I am sure he would—
  Mr. BUCHAN: Not easily.
  Mr. BARR: Perhaps not easily, but he would find it; but I would say, with regard to the junior Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman), that I have read his election address, and I think he might perhaps find more difficulty, though I am convinced that there are many constituencies in the country which are sufficiently backward to adopt him as a Member.
  The next argument is that university representation leads to independence of political thought. I maintain that quite the opposite is the case. I maintain that the powerful reactionary influence of these universities, and their aloofness and divorcement from the actualities of life, has trammelled independence of mind and has hampered the political independence and progressive thought of their Members. I will give a well-known example. When Mr. Gladstone was still representing Oxford, Lord Palmerston wrote:
  "He is a dangerous man. Keep him in Oxford, and he is partially muzzled; but send him elsewhere and he will run wild."

  1753
  As a matter of fact, Mr. Gladstone was defeated at Oxford. The "Times" wrote that the influence and traditions of Oxford had greatly prevailed over his better judgment; but, after he was defeated, he said in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, when he was on his way to contest South Lancashire:
  "I come among you, and I come among you unmuzzled."
  That indicates that university representation, instead of promoting independence of thought, stifles it.
  Another point is that the professions, should be represented in this House, and through this special vote, represented twice over. I would point out that the educated classes—the professions—have a wide and special influence apart from anyone else. If I may speak of my own profession, there is not a minister in the country, however much he may eschew politics, that has not a political influence by his sermons, by their context, by his bearing, whether he be an Established Churchman or a Nonconformist. Educated men have a special influence in securing seats in this House. That is why we have clergymen in all parts of the House, though, for obvious reasons, we have more on this side than elsewhere. [Interruption.] If I could be convinced that professional attainments, professional status, and an academic career were a guarantee of political intuition, of political foresight and vision and attainments, I might reconsider my position, but I find quite the opposite when I come to history. Lord Shaftesbury complained that he could hardly get a single clergyman to support him; and if it had depended on the professional classes, the Factory Acts would not have been in operation to this day. He had to contend against official Toryism and official Liberalism, but it might have been expected that he would have got some support, on moral and social grounds, from the clergy and from the medical profession. He got more support from the medical profession, as he admits. I think I might trouble the House with his statement on this matter, because it is important as determining whether these classes are so advanced that they should have a second vote. This is what he says:
  1754
  "In very few instances did any mill-owner appear on the platform with me; in still fewer the minister of any religious denomination. At first not one, except the Rev. Mr. Ball of Brierley, near Bradford; and even to the last very few, so cowed were they"—
  and these are the men to whom you are going to give a special vote—
  "or in themselves so indifferent, by the overwhelming influence of the Cotton Lords. I had more aid from the medical than from the divine profession."
  Another point was raised by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith), and in this connection I would call attention to a very remarkable article which appeared in the "British Medical Journal" of the 21st February last. It supports the continuance of university representation, but it goes on to say that it would be made more acceptable by having no plural voting, and that, if a man is on the local roll and on the university roll, he should vote in only one constituency according to his choice.
  But who are these that make up the electorate? They have been spoken of here as a handful of dons—men who have undergone examinations. I speak only of the Scottish universities. A man has not even to be a graduate. The Scottish Universities Act of 1858 includes not only graduates, but those who can satisfy the University Commissioners that they have given attendance as matriculated students for four sessions. That is to say, men who were plucked in examinations—who could not pass a simple degree examination—may have the University vote. Is there any man in any quarter of the House who says that man is more entitled to a vote than a self-taught man who is highly educated and truly cultured? It is said that we are perhaps actuated by political bias. We are told in religious matters not to despair of anyone. I do not despair of any constituency. I do not despair of seeing these constituencies, if they are continued, beginning to vote Labour, but that would not alter my fundamental opposition to University Representation.
  It is also said that this is no longer special class legislation, because of the increasing numbers that are coming from the public elementary schools. That can have no influence with us in Scotland. Ever since the first University, St.

  1755
  Andrews, was founded in 1411, we have prided ourselves that most students come from the elementary schools, and, not only so, but I do not know if the Committee knows the very democratic constitution of these universities in Scotland. I heard Mr. Gladstone give his rectorial address to the students of Glasgow University in 1879. He gave a remarkable set of figures, which he got from the professor of humanity. There were 647 students in the humanity clause, of whom 590 gave returns, from which it appeared that no fewer than 391 were engaged in other occupations while they were passing through the university, and 240 of them had to work both summer and winter in order that they might pay their passage through. Every conceivable kind of employment is included. He said:
  "In the humanity classes this year are included joiners, miners, brass founders, bookmakers, tailors, grocers, engineers, shipbuilders, drapers, stewards of steamers, a toll keeper,"—
  here he turned aside to say he was evidently taking toll of himself:
  "a pocket bookmaker, a blacksmith, with others."
  That is something of which in Scotland we are proud, but it is no reason for giving a special franchise. It is a reason for these men returning with their added knowledge to the places from which they came, and seeking suffrages and support from the democracy from which they themselves are sprung. I am under no illusions as to the political gain that this Bill may bring to this side or any side. I have no great expectation in these matters, but, in resisting the continuance of the university franchise and university representation, I feel that I am standing on absolutely solid and secure ground. To resist university representation is in accordance with every tenet of political equality for which I have ever stood, is dictated by every canon of electoral justice, and is in keeping with the fundamental principles of the party to which I belong.
  Mr. BUCHAN: I hope I shall not be credited with the conscious superiority with which the hon. Member for the combined English Universities (Sir M. Conway) charged his fellow Members if I say
  1756
  I am sure every Member of the Committee feels that this has been an extraordinarily interesting Debate. We have done what is not very common in our Debates. We have got down to first principles. In fact, we have fairly wallowed in them. I do not propose to follow the hon. Member who has just sat down in the whole of his line of argument. He has stated very fairly and candidly and trenchantly the main arguments for the university vote. I am sorry to say that he did not agree with them. I am not giong to deal with the practical argument for its retention, the ground that, as a matter of fact, university representation gives something of value to the public service which could not be got without it. I always feel a certain delicacy in arguing that, since I might seem to be defending my own merits, but, if anyone will look at the communications to the Press, and at the signatories to the very remarkable demand for the retention of the university vote, I think he will agree that a large number of eminent men and women in every profession, and representing every party, do, as a matter of fact, feel that this system has a certain value.
  I want to make one point in reply to the hon. Gentleman. I do not want him to imagine that I and my colleagues put an extravagant value upon a certain kind of academic education. Personally, I would rather take the view of a Border shepherd on most questions than of all the professors in Europe, but the subject matter must be within his sphere of knowledge. Our great argument for the retention of the university vote is that there are certain spheres of knowledge which demand a special representation, and without some such system could not get it.
  I want to get back to the final words of the hon. Member's speech. He bases his real objection to the university vote on the ground that it is an infringement of the democratic doctrine of equality. That is the cardinal argument, I agree, against the system. Roughly put, it is this: We are a democracy. In a democracy every citizen should have one vote and no more, and that vote should be on the basis of residence and should have a uniform value. The university vote infringes that principle; therefore, it should be expunged from our system.

  1757
  That, I think, is a fair statement of the main, argument of the party opposite against this system. On that, I have three things to say. In the first place, the system of a simple arithmetical uniform representation does not exist in this country at the moment. Secondly, it cannot exist at any time in any civilised country. Thirdly, even if practicable, it would not be desirable. I propose to say a very few words on these three points.
  Take the first. The university voter has two votes, one for his university on a vocational basis, and one for the locality where he happens to reside. But have we no other cryptic plural voters in this country? Is there no other representation of vocational interests, although it may be disguised? What about the trade unionists? As I understand it, a member of a trade union votes for the selection of the candidates put forward by his union. I make no criticism of it. It is the democratic form of selecting candidates which the senior Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) desires to see. I think, if the universities survive this Debate, some system like that might be very well worth consideration in the selection of candidates. A trade unionist who votes in the selection of candidates has indirectly a real share in their election, for the simple reason, as I understand it, that those candidates usually have seats where the particular union predominates. [Interruption.] I think that is very largely the case, especially among the miners. Besides that, he has a vote for his residence in the constituency where he lives, which may or may not be represented by a man of his union. Can it be denied that in some degree he is a plural voter, and that his extra vote is based on his vocational interest? I admit that it is not the direct, straightforward double vote of the university voter, but, at any rate, surely he has a vote and a bit, and that bit is based on his vocational interest.
  It is the same with many other subordinate organisations in the State. It is true of the school teachers. It is true of the co-operative societies. Moreover, at any moment you might have a special question arise which would make it true of many other people. Suppose that you had a movement to disestablish the Church of England. You would certainly find some kind of Church Defence Asso-
  1758
  ciation started, running special ad hoc candidates, and those who had a voice in their selection would have a vote and a bit. Therefore, I submit, as my first point, that the simple, flat, arithmetical system, which is alleged to be the only system consonant with democracy, does not exist with us any more than the system of one vote one value.
  My second point is, that such a system could not exist in any civilised country any more than one vote one value. Wherever you have an intricate society elaborately differentiated you are bound to have subordinate organisations which will desire especial representation in the State, and those who have the right of selecting the candidates for such organisations thereby must have something added to their voting power. Of the country squire with only one house, and the country labourer who does not belong to a union, you might say they have but a single unit of voting power and that is based wholly on a residential basis, but surely not with the trade unionist, the co-operator or the school teacher. The fact is that in a very primitive society where there is only one type of interest you could have that simple arithmetical equality, but it becomes a sheer impossibility as soon as any society advances any stage in what we call civilisation.
  My third point is that even if this ideal were practicable, it would not be desirable. I am not going to enlarge upon that point. We have already had it discussed in the profound and memorable speech by the Noble Lord the senior Member for Oxford University. I am a firm and staunch democrat. I believe that democracy can yet surmount all its difficulties, but I am convinced that the ordinary crude equalitarian democracy cannot. I am certain that if we are going to defend true democracy against its enemies and its dangers we must put our house in order, and put it on a more rational and scientific basis, so that the mind and the will of the country will be truly and fairly represented. The opponents of the university vote may claim, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) has repeatedly claimed, that this is an anomaly—that the university vote is the patch of vocational representation that breaks the uniform pattern of Our simple territorial representation.

  1759
  But, as I have suggested, it is so much of an anomaly after all. If you get behind phrases and look at facts you will not find that this vocational representation of ours is so much an isolated thing. I do not think that the time has yet come when we can recast our whole electoral system in the interests of reason and science. We have too many urgent things to do at the moment. But I believe that that time must assuredly come. I am convinced that if, out of the narrow passion for a barren and impossible uniformity, we abolish one of the few rational elements in an irrational system, our act will be reversed by our more intelligent successors.
  Mr. RHYS DAVIES: It is exceedingly difficult for those who sit on this side of the Committee who have never experienced anything but an elementary education to enter upon a Debate and counter some of the arguments of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who are very much more learned than ourselves. I have read a great deal of the delightful literature which the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) has written. I wish he had studied trade unionism a little closer. The ignorance which he has shown of trade union organisation—if I may say so with respect—points, I think, to the fallacy of continuing university representation in this House.
  I support this Clause for reasons which have not yet been given. First of all, I want to criticise the method adopted by the universities themselves in their propaganda. They have asked graduates who are voters at universities to canvass all Members of Parliament in support of their system as if to show that it deserves our support. Why should those of us who are elected by what an hon. Gentleman called "the mob" be asked to support university representation when, in fact, we have to stand what is called the racket of the passion of the mob and they have not?
  The protest which we have received from several organisations on this Clause makes very interesting reading. I have read the list very carefully, and I hope the Committee will pardon me if I pick out a few of those highly democratic organisations who support the university franchise. The National Union of Manu-
  1760
  facturers support university franchise. I should imagine that they are very interested in the subject. If all the university Members in the House of Commons were Socialists, they would obviously not have joined in the protest. There is another very interesting organisation—the National Constitutional Defence Movement. That almost sounds like Toryism to me. You have the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations—and I should think so too! Then you have the Manchester University Constitutional Association, anothery Tory organisation. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"]
  It is argued that the universities ought to be represented as such in this House. I have taken the trouble to analyse the educational attainments of the present membership of the House of Commons, and I will give figures showing how far men and women who have passed through the universities are represented in this House already, apart altogether from those representing universities direct. My figures may not be quite correct, but they are an indication of the position. There are at present in the House of Commons about 53 members of the Labour party who have passed through universities, and who, I suppose, have secured degrees, or, at any rate, ought to have done so. There are about 29 Liberal Members, and 138 Conservative Members of the present House of Commons who have passed through a university. Proportionately, of course, the intelligence is on this side. [An HON MEMBER: "On this side!"] I had forgotten the reduced numbers of the Liberal party. That gives 220 or thereabouts who are Members of the present House of Commons with degrees, apart from those who represent the universities. Surely, when we have already about one-third of the membership of the present House of Commons comprised of men and women who know something about universities and who have secured degrees from them, there is no reason why we should have separate and special representation on behalf of universities. Strange to say, it is not a university franchise at all. No person gets this franchise until he has left the university. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh, no!"] Yes, it is so.
  Mr. GODFREY WILSON: I have been a resident of my own university for the last 30 years, and I have a vote. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are a don!"] Yes, I happen to be what you call a don.
  Mr. DAVIES: I will correct myself to this extent, that generally speaking, in the vast majority of cases, especially in the Northern universities, they do not secure this franchise until they have actually left the universities. I will give another point against the existence and continuance of this franchise. I shall have something personal to say a little later. It is not every person who has passed through universities, although he may have secured a degree, who can get this franchise.
  Sir JOHN WITHERS: Yes.
  Mr. DAVIES: No. I think that I am on correct ground when I say that there are some universities, the Manchester University for instance, where some graduates cannot get the vote unless they pay for it.
  Sir J. WITHERS: Everybody has to pay for it.
  Mr. DAVIES: There are some university students who possess a degree who can get the vote without payment of a fee, while other university students in the same position cannot get the vote without paying a registration fee.
  Sir J. WITHERS: A good many of the universities have, from the beginning, charged a small fee for the preparation of the register and for putting graduates names upon it.
  Mr. DAVIES: But every person who has secured a degree cannot afford to pay a registration fee.
  Sir J. WITHERS: It is 10 shillings.
  Mr. DAVIES: Ten shillings means a lot to some of our people. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is mostly a guinea!"] At any rate, it is a payment and that is sufficient for my purpose.
  I will pass on to another consideration. I hesitate to use the following illustration, but I think it is the best that I can do. I am very proud to have done something to try and give a university education to a son of mine, and I pay tribute to the universities and to education generally, chiefly because of my lack of opportunity. But having made sacri-
  1762
  fices for a son, what do I find under the electoral law of this country? He is four times as important as his own mother. I object to any young person for the purposes of our electoral or any other system being considered better than his mother, at any rate.
  I have another point to make against this franchise. The present system is unfair, because it allows a person to vote here though he may be resident abroad. As far as I know, he can become a naturalised citizen of another country and still vote in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "No!"] If I am wrong, I should like to be corrected, but I think it is quite possible for 100 or 1,000 persons who have secured degrees in this country to emigrate to the United States of America, reside there long enough to secure naturalisation, and take part in the politics of the United States of America, and still be able to vote in this country.
  Sir J. WITHERS: That is nut correct. A person who is not a British citizen cannot vote in England.
  Mr. DAVIES: Though he may not be a naturalised subject in a foreign country he can take part in the politics of that country and vote here.
  Sir J. WITHERS: No, he cannot.
  Mr. DAVIES: Oh, yes, he can, surely. A person resident in the United States of America, though he may not be a naturalised subject, can stand up and speak on political issues in the United States of America, and he can, therefore, take part in the politics of a foreign country and still vote in his homeland.
  Sir J. WITHERS: That is not our land.
  Miss RATHBONE: So also could a trade union leader go to a foreign country and take part in its politics while being able to vote in his own country.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. DAVIES: But he does not reside there permanently. The argument is very often used that there is something special about a degree in order to qualify a student for the extra vote. I should like to know what difference there is in this connection. A boy must matriculate, for instance, before he can become either a

  1763
  chartered accountant or a civil engineer. The cost of training a boy to become a civil engineer or a chartered accountant is as heavy, and the amount of study required to enter those professions is as arduous as if the boy had been studying in the university for a degree. Nevertheless, the boy who takes a degree at the university is entitled to two votes, while the other boys are only entitled to one vote each as ordinary citizens. I object to the principle that gives two votes to the one and only one vote each to the others.
  I sincerely trust that the House will abolish the university franchise, once for all. The time has arrived when men and women ought to secure the franchise on their manhood and womanhood and not because of any other qualification. If we measure men on their qualifications, there are some with degrees who ought not to have any vote at all while others who have never been inside a university ought to have 10 votes each because of their greater intellect. There are men who have become Prime Ministers of this country who have never been in a university, while others with several degrees can never secure a seat in the House of Commons.
  There is one other point to which I should like to call attention, and I will put it in as delicate a manner as I can. I refer to the two representatives of the combined English universities. I have looked at their votes in the Division Lobbies and the result supports the argument that has been put forward over and over again that representation from the universities, in the final analysis, is based upon party politics. The two representatives of the Combined Universities vote oftener than not in different Lobbies. They vote against each other and cancel each other out on most vital issues. It is wrong that we should continue this system, and I trust that when this Bill becomes law, we shall have seen the end of the university franchise.
  Miss RATHBONE: On a personal point, may I remind the hon. Member that I am not a member of any political party. I fail to see how the question of my politics has anything to do with the representation of the universities.
  Mr. COWAN: In view of the provisions of this Clause and the vigour of some of the speeches delivered in its support, it might not be inappropriate if university Members were to address the House somewhat in the old Roman fashion:
  "Hail Caesar! Those who are about to die salute thee."
  Perhaps that is to take too gloomy a view of the Division that will take place at 10.30. I am sure that every member of the Committee will agree that the position of a university representative standing here is one of very considerable delicacy and difficulty. Without being at all charitable, those who are listening to him might consider that in some ways he is influenced by self-interest, but I feel certain that the Committee are generous enough to acquit us of any such motives. I should very much have preferred that the case had been put wholly by other university representatives, but we have a duty laid upon us to raise our voice on this occasion so that our constituents, so long as we have them as constituents, may be assured that we do not neglect their interests. Even the worst criminals used to be allowed to make a speech before the guillotine fell.
  Coming to the merits of the case, I find myself at considerable variance with the arguments put forward by other representatives. I make no claim for the retention of university representation on the ground of logic or of inherent right. I know that it is argued that as it is a qualitarian qualification, perhaps it is the most logical of all franchises, but I shall base nothing that I have to say upon that argument. My position is this, that although it may be illogical, it is in no way undemocratic. That is to say, that this House, elected by the people, is at liberty, if it so wishes, to co-opt members outwith its full membership for any purpose that seems desirable. Therefore, whether this franchise be illogical or not, it cannot be made good that it is undemocratic. My view is, that university representation is a great privilege, freely granted by Parliament, and a great privilege which has been greatly appreciated and, in spite of all that has been said, it might well be retained.
  If this Clause were retained and university representation disappeared, it would be a matter of very great regret

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  to me, but in that regret there would be no tinge whatever of self interest or of self loss. It would simply mean to me that a long connection between this House and the interests of education to which my life has been largely devoted, ha o been broken. I should regret that. I trust that, in spite of what has been said, and well said by its many opponents, that this House, by a free vote, will still keep this link with ancient learning. If there is one interest which should receive special recognition, that interest is education. View it as we please, it is an interest common to us all. We may differ as to methods, means and details, but from the highest to the lowest we have to base the welfare of the country on education. Therefore, on these grounds and not on the grounds of logic or right, but as a recognition of the one great interest in which we are all concerned, I should like to know that this House had retained the representation and the privilege which it has previously granted to the universities.
  The Home Secretary, if I mistake not, in his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill, said that university representation was almost wholly of one political colour. I admit that that has been so in the past, but nothing is more interesting than to view the figures at university elections in the past few years. We see a growing number supporting the progressive candidates. While I am not offering that in the nature of an inducement to hon. Members opposite to retain university representation for that purpose, I do say that the university elections afford a very interesting barometer of the political situation and of the feelings among the steadier classes. I should like to add one personal word. Gratitude is not always a lively sense of favours to come. Whatever may be the result of the Division to-night, it will be to me always a great memory that university representation has allowed me to be for some time a Member of this House and to take part in what has been dearest to my heart, some of the social developments of the times.
  I have to thank my constituents. It has been urged time and again that university Members have a greater freedom allowed to them than other Members. In my case that has been so.
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  I have been free to vote on this side or on that aide very largely as I pleased, and I believe that had that spirit been carried even further, and had it been possible to have less party feeling in the election of university representatives, the result might have been happier than it has been. At the same time, with all its faults and with all its illogicalities, I hope that this House will retain university representation, apart from any individual Member that university representation may send to this House, because it would be a sympathetic bond forged between this House and the greatest interest in the country.
  Mr. NOEL BAKER: I find myself in a great measure of agreement with much that has fallen from the hon. Member who has just resumed his seat. I have spent a great part of my life in the universities. I have had the privilege and responsibility of teaching under the auspices of three of the greatest universities in this country, and I attach immense importance to the place of the universities in our national life. I believe that they should and they do make a great contribution through Parliament to the progress and well-being of our nation. I believe that they do and that they should help to provide the spiritual and intellectual force by which our nation and our society are moved. But as I view this question, the fundamental issue really is this—it was stated in the Second Reading Debate by the Prime Minister, and it goes to the root of the whole matter—is it or is it not necessary that there should be university representation in order that the universities can make this contribution to our national life? Do the universities, in fact, most effectively make that contribution through the university seats in Parliament, or in other ways? I suggest that whichever form of that question we choose, the answer, given by experience over a long period of time, must be "no."
  A good many arguments on that line have been provided by those who have spoken to-day in favour of the university franchise. My hon. Friend who spoke from these benches spoke of the great power and influence wielded on Government committees and in the Civil Service by university graduates. I think

  1767
  it was Dr. Nansen who said, that universities govern the world through the Civil Service, and, if that is true, why is it necessary to add this second anomalous privilege to that which they already possess?
  In this manifesto, circulated over a number of very distinguished signatures, dated 12th March, which has been quoted several times already during the Debate, we are urged in paragraph 4—the only one which seems to have much substance in it—to allow this representation to continue, because it permits the representation of the learned professions. It is said that those who follow the learned professions are scattered throughout the land and that their opinions cannot be focussed in our ordinary electoral system. What are the learned professions? There is the law. Is anyone going to suggest that the law is unrepresented in this assembly? There are the doctors. Are they not represented? There are the university teachers. There are nine of them on the benches on this side of the House. There are the engineers, and there is, as my hon. Friend has said, the Divine profession. Of course, the professions are represented; indeed, they are enormously over-represented in proportion to other sections of the community. And is anyone going to suggest that those who come from the professions to this assembly do not speak here, not only as the mouthpiece of their constituents, but also on matters which concerns their professions as the mouthpiece of their profession as well? I suggest that arguments like that do not hold water.
  As a matter of fact, the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), who asks the Committee to reject this Clause knows that these arguments do not hold water; otherwise, he would have advanced them. He advanced, instead, a very elaborate theoretical discussion of the principles upon which democracy should be founded. His case, as he put it, consisted in what he called the negative part and positive part; and I say with great respect, because no one listened to his speech with more delight than I, that both parts of his argument under analysis break down. What was his negative case? He said that the theory of an equalitarian democracy is an illu-
  1768
  sion, that it is a mythical deity, created by the Home Secretary, which has never existed and never will exist. The Noble Lord was challenging the whole theory of the working of our State; challenging the working of every institution in this country at the present day, and I, in my turn, would like to challenge the very fundamentals of the proposition he put forward.
  I say that to-day there is in our political life no such thing as an oligarchy of which he spoke, but that there is something very different, something perhaps a little discreditable, but nevertheless a vital factor in everything that we do in our political life; there is not oligarchy, but leadership by consent. The Noble Lord gave us an illustration from the Committees of this House which sit upstairs, and he said that in these Committees, in any Committee, you always have the rule that the few must control and the many must obey. I submit that in reality the rule is that the few must lead and the many must obey; and that it is leadership alone which makes our institutions work. The oligarchy of that leadership breaks down from the moment that active consent is withdrawn. I suggest, and this is why I think his argument is without foundation, that our system is working and giving good results, that it has ceased to be an oligarchy in the old political sense, in the old dangerous and unsatisfactory sense, and has become, instead, true democracy precisely in the proportion as it has been founded upon equality of voting power among the citizens of our land. The positive part of the Noble Lord's case quite equally breaks down. He said that the theory of representation in this House ought to be that Parliament is a true microcosm of the whole. It has become progressively, as the years have gone by since Parliamentary government really began during the last century, a microcosm of the whole, and more and more so in proportion as privilege in voting power has been got rid of and we have approached to an equalitarian democracy. It needs some positive case, something more convincing, to induce us to continue this anomaly of university seats.
  Hon. Members, in the Second Reading Debate and again to-day, have en-

  1769
  deavoured to produce a more convincing positive case, and they in their turn have created what I would like to call a legend, a myth, about University Representation. The myth is this, that university seats are in some way different from any other seats, that they are a special kind of constituency, with a special kind of Member, and that their Members make a special kind of contribution to learning and science and knowledge and a special kind of contribution to the progress of what may be called the spiritual leadership of our nation. I want to say that there is nothing personal whatever in what I desire to put forward. I recognise that there are exceptions to every rule, and I have as high a regard as anybody for the personal qualifications of hon. Members who represent universities at the present time.
  I want to challenge every one of these four propositions. I do not believe that a university constituency is in any real sense a special constituency. People think of it as consisting of men who are giving their lives to learning, research and the pursuit of knowledge. Nothing of the kind. It consists of those who happen to have taken the university degrees. At the present time in the great university with which I am acquainted nearly 50 per cent. of the resident members are taking pass degrees, and is anyone going to tell me that a member who has taken such a degree is any different in intellectual calibre to an ordinary educated person. I do not believe that in any true sense it can be said that university constituencies are different from ordinary constituencies by which hon. Members are chosen. Equally I am certain that they do not work in any manner that is substantially different. It has been suggested by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) that if they survive this ordeal the universities should introduce some such system as that by which trade unions sometimes prepare a list of candidates.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Sometimes!
  Mr. NOEL BAKER: Not all trade unions do it. If the hon. Member knew anything about the work of trade unions he would know that. I want to suggest that university seats are worked in exactly the same way as other seats in
  1770
  the country. The members are chosen by a party caucus, they issue party election addresses, they are chosen for party reasons. It has been said that too often the choice has been narrow and uninspiring. I do not endorse that opinion, but I say that experience has proved that those who represent universities are chosen for precisely the same reasons as we on these benches and hon. Members opposite are chosen, because they are good party men. It follows therefore, and I think it is true, that university members over a period of time have not been very different from other hon. Members of this House. There are 220 Members who have come from universities. Many of them sit on the Front Benches, but only one Member of the two Front Benches represents a university seat. If there is really no distinction, as I think, between Members who represent universities and the generality of Members in this House it is equally true that university Members have not made any special contribution to learning or education. I am not going to argue the question of their voting record. That has been dealt with already by the Home Secretary and other hon. Members.
  I challenge any one to go further into the history of university representation and to show that university Members have made special contributions to education, learning, the promotion of knowledge, the promotion of research. Of course there is an exception to every rule. I can think of one Member who sat in this House for many years and who was, perhaps, the most distinguished university man of his generation. I mean the late Lord Balfour. He was not only a university man; he was a great philosopher. His books are still read as text-books in the universities to-day. He ended his life as Chancellor of the greatest university in the world. He did more in this House and in the Government for medical and civil research than any other man who has ever taken part in the affairs of our nation. Lord Balfour never in his life sat as Member for a university. It cannot be shown that university Members have made any such special contributions, and equally I argue, on the fourth point, that they have not really made any special contribution to what I call the spiritual leadership or the general progress and well-being of our

  1771
  nation. They have not brought to this Assembly more than any other section of the House that broad vision without which the people perish.
  I remember very well a speech made by one university Member, the Noble Lord who sits for Oxford University, during the War. In that speech he defended the conscientious objector. I remember my father, then a Member of the House, telling me that that speech was the finest to which he had ever listened. But I am convinced, as I am sure any other Member will be, that the Noble Lord would have made that speech for whatever seat he might have sat. Of course he would. We have had quoted to us the opinion of various people as to the progressive nature of university representation in times gone by. I have a quotation from John Bright, who once said:
  "If the Parliament of England had been guided according to the councils of the representatives from the universities, England, instead of being a country of law and order, would have been, long before this, a country of anarchy and revolution."
  From this analogy that the universities are not special constituencies, that they have not a special kind of Member, and that university Members have not made a special kind of contribution in any way, I argue that it follows that the university Members are good, honest, honourable and staightforward party men, who serve with great devotion the parties by whom they are elected. I suggest that any other view than that is a myth which we ought to dismiss, and on the basis of which we ought to allow no further continuation of the anomaly which we are discussing. I suggest that if that be true, if the university representation can be seen in its true light as a relic of the days when privilege ruled this land, then it is just one more privilege that must be swept away in the interests of the community. We want to end it as we want to end minority representation, plural voting, and the other relics of privilege with which the Bill will deal, because we on these benches believe that it is privilege of different kinds which poisons the national life of our country to-day.
  Sir J. WITHERS: I would first like to thank the Committee for the very kindly way in which it has treated this subject.
  1772
  It is a very delicate position for a university Member to be in, in getting up to defend himself, but the task has been greatly facilitated by the kindly references and the absence of any personal matter in the Debate. We all greatly appreciate that fact. But there is one aspect of the Debate which really has amused me, and that is the treatment of this matter as if it was a myth that had come down from long ages past and was a sort of Stuart anachronism. Every single argument that has been put forward to-day existed in 1918. What happened then? There were five constituencies with seven Members, and, apart from the Irish Free State, which we rule out, there are now seven constituencies and 12 Members. The old system of university voting was changed and democratised, and instead of 43,000 voters there became 120,000 voters. If the growth goes on, the number will be doubled again in about 10 years. This "Stuart anachronism" or myth was the settled policy of every party in the House. It is all very well for Liberal Members to talk as if it were an open question. They were in power, and were quite able to deal with the matter, and did.
  The whole matter was gone into and settled on the basis of national policy. The system was enlarged; there were more seats and more people to vote. New constituencies were formed, new organisations were built up, and new registers had to be prepared. A large number of these people have paid 10s. for their votes. You are going to disfranchise a lot of those who have paid their 10s. to be enrolled on the register, and it is very hard luck on them. They are now writing and asking me to pay the money back again. I refer them to the Home Secretary. Why, after this definite settlement of policy only 10 years ago, should there be the suggestion of a total reversal? I have looked at the Home Secretary's speech on the Second Reading of the Bill. This is what he then said:
  "Accordingly the view of the Government is that this is a privilege which can no longer be justified, for, whatever else most of these university members may have exhibited as qualities for work in this House they have shown a deplorable ignorance on most occasions of what are the public needs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd February, 1931; col. 1480, Vol. 247.]

  1773
  That is the reason given for putting an end to the policy. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that every single Member who comes to this House comes here bona fide to put forward his idea of what the public needs. Some people say that the public needs the present Government. A great many people say that it does not. The Liberals are not quite sure; sometimes they think one thing and sometimes the other. The only meaning which the Home Secretary's statement can have is that most of the present university Members do not agree with the present Government. If that is so, what a democratic idea! Disfranchise your opponents! It is only a step further to shoot them; there is no real reason why you should not. If you disfranchise them and leave them without votes, why on earth should not not shoot them all?
  I have a theory that, apart from this, there is at the back of the mind of the Socialist party another idea. I believe Socialists think that university Members are a sort of special feature and that the House does not get value for money. I see that idea going through all the speeches made on the other side. Like all simple people the Socialists want something unusual and picturesque to impress them. I am sure that that is at the back of the whole thing—that we are not sufficiently unusual in intellect or in appearance. [Laughter.] It is all very well for hon. Members to laugh, but let me call attention to one point. The Government have differentiated in favour of the City, although the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) very recently said that the City "is always wrong." Why did the Government differentiate in favour of the City? Because, according to the Home Secretary, of its historical association, and because the Members for the City sit on the Treasury Bench at the opening of the Session. That shows that there is something picturesque and unusual about them.
  Obviously we university Members have made a mistake. We ought to have appeared here in caps and gowns. We could have had the red gowns of doctors for important occasions. We ought to have shown some special technical ability. If we were classical we ought to have denounced the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in the Greek of
  1774
  Demosthenes. If we wanted to get a favour from the hon. Lady the Minister of Labour we ought to have addressed her in Horatian lines, referring to her most suitably as
  Dulce ridentem, dulce loguentem.
  Again as physicists we ought to have referred to hon. Members below the Gangway as "waves," or we ought to have addressed you, Sir Robert, as presiding over a four-dimensional continuum. We might have encouraged the Government by saying that 600 Members passing haphazard legislation for the next million years must as a matter of scientific fact succeed in passing Bills carrying out the whole of the professions in Labour and the Nation. Again we might as mathematicians have pointed out that a line of thought passing from these benches in the direction of the place usually occupied by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and continued to its ultimate length through a limited eternity would come to an end by the side of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Marjoribanks).
  But the universities have, unfortunately for themselves, chosen a more serious position. They have tried to send here men who know their wants and who can, effectively if prosaically, discuss the problems of the hour. In fact one hon. Member opposite was kind enough to say that the universities had sent here men who might quite easily be elected for any ordinary constituency. Accordingly the objection really is that the university representatives are not in accord with the Government's views. That is what it all comes to, and I venture to say that it is extremely unwise for the Government to take that course, because, as has been pointed out, the constitution of the university electorates is changing rapidly. In Cambridge we have estimated that about 50 per cent. come from the class whose members have to be assisted with their education, and in due course the university must represent that class whatever their politics may be. Obviously the Government do not believe that that change will result in the universities returning Socialists, because they know that when any class come in contact with higher education their minds are broadened; they refuse to be
  "suckled in the creed outworn"

  1775
  of Socialism and look for something more healthy and more ennobling than the materialistic and exploded shibboleths of Karl Marx. But here we are, 12 university Members, like gladiators in the arena, having to ask for our lives. For my colleagues I say that undoubtedly they have well deserved to live. For myself I make no such claim, but I hope that when the time comes hon. Members will say that as a body we are entitled to be preserved, and that we have fought well, and that, if they do not as was done in the old days, show their appreciation of us by turning up their thumbs, they will do so by going into the Lobby when the time comes and saying that this Clause shall not stand part of the Bill.
  Mr. MILLAR: I have listened with great interest to this Debate, and I have failed to gather any reason why it would be to the advantage of our country that, the representatives of the universities should be excluded from the House of Commons. It appears to me that at a time when we are undoubtedly suffering from a lowered sense of the value of Parliamentary institutions, and indeed of the authority of the House of Commons, we should welcome rather than exclude the leaders of thought in the various departments of university learning, in science, literature and art. In the course of the Debate it has been admitted on all sides that the universities can make a powerful contribution to Parliament. It has been suggested in certain quarters that that contribution could be better made in another place, but I ask why should not the House of Commons have the advantage, if advantage it be, of securing such expressions of opinion? I am prepared to admit that the university franchise has not always been wisely used. From time to time representatives have been returned for the universities merely as party nominees without any real understanding of the needs of the universities themselves, but to my mind that is no reason why one should support the abolition of university representation.
  I believe that university representation affords an extraordinarily good opportunity of obtaining an independent type of member. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many are there?"] At the last General Election no fewer than three candidates
  1776
  ran as independents and two were returned. But I venture to hope that the universities themselves in the future even more than in the past, will realise their opportunities in putting forward men and women who have special knowledge and in returning representatives, on the ground of their outstanding qualities of mind rather than on mere party considerations. I should like to see the elimination, to a, large extent of the party caucus in connection with university elections. I cannot understand why our great universities should not select representatives, irrespective of party views—representatives who will do their best in the interests of the universities themselves. In the University of St. Andrews, which is situated in my constituency, the experiment has been made within recent years of nominating Lords Rector on non-party lines, with the result that we have had a series of very distinguished Lords Rector who have been appointed not as representing any one section of political opinion hut as possessing special qualifications for their high office.
  The University of St. Andrews, which is the oldest University in Scotland, was founded in 1411. It became early one of the greatest centres of intellectual life and progress in Scotland and rendered then, and still, I believe, continues to render in an increasing degree very signal service to the Scottish nation. It first obtained representation under the Reform Act of 1868, which applied to Scotland. It has been suggested that the great majority of representatives have been representatives of the Conservative party, but on the first occasion when the Combined Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh elected their representatives they elected to this House a Liberal, also one of the most distinguished scientists of our day, Sir Lyon Playfair, afterwards known as Lord Playfair, whose name was known throughout the whole world and whose services, not only to this country but to the world of science, were generally recognised. Incidentally, I may mention at the same time that the other representative who was returned on that first occasion was the right hon. James Moncrieff, afterwards Lord Moncrieff, Lord Justice Clerk, who, along with Sir Lyon Playfair, was a Liberal.

  1777
  On that occasion, as on subsequent occasions, the universities have not shown themselves to be restricted entirely to the Conservative party in regard to the Members which they have elected. We have had a distinguished succession of representatives of the Universities, perhaps not all in the same degree, but is there anyone here who will deny that many of them have rendered marked services to the nation? When my hon. Friend the Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Griffith) was referring to the speech delivered by the Senior Member for the University of Oxford (Lord H. Cecil) in the louse to-day, he could not fail to draw attention to the fact of the signal distinction which attaches to the presence of that right hon. Gentleman in this House. Through an experience in this House of many years' standing now, I would like to say that there are few Members in the House w hose speeches have more impressed me as a Member of this House than have the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Senior Member for the University of Oxford, on various national occasions when he was able to make a contribution to our Debates of outstanding merit.
  We have had an argument presented that the university franchise is undemocratic. Is there any hon. Member sitting opposite, who contests the value of the university franchise, who is not prepared to admit that our universities to-day are becoming increasingly democratized? There is no question about it. I can speak specially for Scotland, where we have an enormous percentage of our students drawn from the humbler classes. Many of them have attended the public elementary schools and, through the endowments provided through the Carnegie Trust and other endowments, have been able to take their place and have a university course and all the facilities afforded to other classes. The same applies to the English universities; I believe that there equally there is a large and overwhelming proportion of students who have attended public elementary schools.
  I should like to point out also that if hon. Members who represent the party opposite would have a little vision, as one of their number, who addressed the Committee first on this subject to-day, in a very courageous speech advised them
  1778
  to do, if they would look ahead, they would find that the time may not be far distant when the sons and daughters of those who are engaged in daily toil throughout the land will find their place in our universities. We have also the extension of the university electorate by the Act of 1918, which has still further opened the door for a wider sphere of representation, and I would remind the Committee that we have also got Proportional Representation, which makes it much easier for those who put forward their candidates, of whatever party, to obtain a seat in this House.
  We are dealing with only 12 seats, so that this is not a revoluntary proposal by any means. If you consider the fact that at the last General Election, out of the nearly 29,000,000 voters, no fewer than 5,851,000 did not take the trouble to record their votes, it seems to me that it is at least an argument that those who value their vote and who believe that education of the mind brings with it a higher sense of civic responsibility should recognise that in exercising the university vote they have a privilege which is well founded. May I also say that, in my humble judgment, our universities are not only centres of learning and thought, but are increasingly becoming the power houses of our nation in the development of our national character and efficiency, whose work is bound to have a great influence and effect in promoting our national prosperity and in pointing the way to further progress?
  It has been suggested that they have a monopoly of the professional classes, but is that so? If you turn to-day to our great industries, what do you find? You find that many of them are specially concerned to take direct from the universities the experts and the leaders of future industry, who will control our great industrial concerns, and many students to-day are being specially trained at the universities to take their place in the development of industry. There is a huge sphere of research work open to the universities, which is continuously being developed, and I am glad to say that at the University of St. Andrews that research work has been steadily pursued. During the War is enabled the university to render services to the nation which were of incomparable

  1779
  value, as indeed other universities were able to render at that time; and I believe that that research work ought to be increasingly developed in our universities and that a great service would be rendered to the nation in consequence.
  In conclusion, may I point out that while under the recent Reform Acts the tendency has been to expand the franchise and to remove unfair qualifications and privileges which could not be regarded as well founded, in the case of the university franchise the tendency has been directly to expand and to develop it, instead of seeking to restrict it in any further degree? Since 1603, when representation was given to Oxford and Cambridge, we have had in the later periods, contemporaneous with the great Reform Acts which were passed, enlarging and removing the anomalies of our franchise, the steady expansion of the university representation. In 1867 the University of London obtained its representation in Parliament, and in 1868 the Scottish Universities were accorded their opportunity of being represented here. In 1918 we had the representation increased from seven to 12 as a result of the Speaker's Conference, and I would like to ask hon. Members opposite, some of whose memories, I believe, go back to that time, whether it is not the case that during the consideration of this matter by the Speaker's Conference the Labour Members represented there were keen upon getting an extension of university representation and whether they were not parties to the arrangement which was then come to in the sense that it received their full approval and support.
  We have been moving forward in regard to the development of this franchise. We are anxious to secure for all classes an equal opportunity of having their views represented through this franchise, and I feel quite certain that it would be contrary to the best interests of our country and of this House if we were to exclude from it altogether those who are fitted to speak from the seats of learning. I have received representations from the University in my division and from other Scottish Universities and many other sources, from those who belong to different parties, in favour of continuing university representation, but I have re-
  1780
  ceived no representation from any source in my division against university representation. The Committee would do well to continue a franchise which I believe will be used in future to better purpose even than in the past in securing the highest type of representative in this House.
  Mr. HOPKIN: I agree with the hon. and learned Member for East Fife (Mr. Millar) on one point—the excellence of the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil). If anything could soften the hearts of those who propose to abolish the university representation, it would be the charming speech of the Noble Lord. I would like to point out the way in which the Noble Lord argued his case. He took his unfortunate connection with East Greenwich and from that exception built up his whole case. He asked if the House would be less real if the 12 Members representing the universities were absent. If he could show that these 12 Members would have an equal chance with the rest of us in an ordinary constituency, they would have nothing to feel aggrieved about. The hon. and learned Member for East Fife said that 5,000,000 people did not think it worth while to vote in the ordinary constituencies at the last General Election. In the elections for the university Members, however, only 71 per cent. of the electorate voted—
  Mr. MILLAR: That is hardly a fair comparison. Of course, a very large number of university electors are always absent abroad, and many are beyond reach of voting papers.
  Mr. HOPKIN: I understand from a printed communication I have received that that is one of the four arguments which have been put forward for the representation of the universities. Only 71 per cent. of the electorate voted in the university elections, whereas in the other elections 78 per cent. of the electorate voted.
  9.0 p.m.
  I wish, particularly, to call the Committee's attention to the arguments put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth (Major Church). I was sorry to hear his arguments, because he seemed to fail to grasp the essentials for which this party stands.

  1781
  His argument was that every Member of Parliament should have a university training, but he did not advance a single argument to show why, having had this university training, they should have two votes. I ask any hon. Member opposite to give a plain answer to a plain question. What is the principle upon which the university vote is founded? The basis of an ordinary vote is ordinary citizenship, and the university vote is a privilege. The fundamental basis of the vote for the universities is that of syndicalism. It is a representation of a profession or a special interest, and the only countries in Europe where that is the basis is Italy and, I regret to say, Russia. With other hon. Members, I have had a paper which purports to put forward four reasons for the retention of the university vote, and because of the distinguished signatures which are at the end, it deserves serious attention. The first reason given is this:
  "It has stood the test of realised experience, and has brought into the councils of the nation a type of member who would not otherwise have been available."
  The arguments in answer to that point have been sufficiently stated in this Committee. I agree with every word of the hon. Member for Coventry (Mr. Noel Baker) when he said that the university Members for the greater part have been sound party men. The second reason is:
  "Our university system, whatever it may have been in the past, has now been thoroughly democratised."
  Suppose that a family of South Wales miners sends one son to a university to take, it may be, a theological course. Is there any logical reason why that one son should have twice the political power of the other members of the family? The third reason given is:
  "The university vote is the only franchise attainable by British citizens resident abroad."
  It is forgotten that there is the absent voters' list. In the case of a person who is permanently resident abroad, why should we give the right to a university voter to take a part in British politics, whereas a trader, who has had no university training, has no such vote? The fourth reason is the one upon which the signatories depend:
  "The chief importance of separate university representation lies in the fact that,
  1782
  without it, certain important points of view will not be presented."
  I have gone one step further than the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) and have analysed the Members of this House into groups. Of the Oxford men, there are 72 Conservatives, 3 Liberals, and 16 Labour; of Cambridge men, 45 Conservatives, 13 Liberals, and 14 Labour; London University, 4 Conservatives, 1 Liberal, 10 Labour; Glasgow, 4 Conservatives, 2 Liberals, 6 Labour; Edinburgh, 5 Conservatives, 6 Liberals, 7 Labour provincial universities, 7 Conservatives, 5 Liberals, and 10 Labour. It is idle to argue that the Members who represent the universities can state special points of view any better than any one of the other Members who have been to the universities.
  Sir C. OMAN: This has been an, evening of surprises, but, before dealing with the greater ones, I would say one word to the hon. Member who has just sat down. The Members for the universities are supposed to be here as specialists. I say with all humility that I am a specialist, and most of my colleagues are specialists in one branch of knowledge or another, and I challenge the hon. Member to say that the Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or London men whom he catalogued are for the most part specialists of the academic sort. They were not elected as specialists. We have been. We are chosen by an academic body as representative of its studies.
  Mr. HOPKIN: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how he voted on the Education Bill?
  The CHAIRMAN: Order. If other hon. Members are to have an opportunity to speak, we must not have so many questions asked.
  Sir C. OMAN: The hon. Member asked me a question, and I have answered him straight. We are specialists elected by specialists. The people he quoted are not specialists and have been elected by all manner of constituents I think that is a sufficient answer to him. Coming to the more general aspects of the question, I must say that I have been startled by the archaic nature of the arguments which have been brought against the present

  1783
  representation of the universities. John Bright rather disapproved of it. Lord Shaftesbury, somewhere in the 1840's, was, as my hon. Friend opposite said, genuinely shocked by the refusal of the doctors and the clergy to be interested in his admirable humanitarian propaganda. How that bears on the present representation of universities I cannot see. Mr. Gladstone, too, in an Oxford which has long passed by, was rejected by the university and, retiring to other constituencies, observed that he was unmuzzled. I was glad to see the extraordinary enthusiasm which the name of Gladstone still provokes, but I am surprised to find that the opinions of those who represented the Oxford of the early 1860's or the late 1850's can be quoted as having a bearing on the Oxford of to-day.
  But of all the archaic arguments that interested me I was most interested in the allusion made by the Home Secretary to the opinions of Mr. Bryce in 1885. I happened to be an intimate friend of Lord Bryce, and in his later years I had a great deal to do with him. He trusted me with much important work, and I was well acquainted with his view. They are well put in that most melancholy book "Modern Democracy," in which he recanted very nearly all the views of his early youth. I can assure the Home Secretary that Lord Bryce in 1910 was a very different person from the Mr. Bryce of 1885. Passing on to the archaic arguments of the other side which may be said to have any bearing on the present universities, I must say a word to the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Griffith). He was apparently under the impression that the Members for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are not elected by Proportional Representation.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: I did not say so.
  Sir C. OMAN: But the hon. Member implied it. [Interruption.]
  Mr. GRIFFITH: If the hon. Member challenges me, I will answer him.
  Sir C. OMAN: I challenge the hon. Member to repeat what he said about the universities.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: What I said was that Proportional Representation did not
  1784
  work where there were only three or four candidates, and that it was necessary to have larger constituencies. The hon. Member knows that quite well himself.
  Sir C. OMAN: That is the second part of what the hon. Member said, slightly altered in its verbiage. He said that Proportional Representation would not work with three candidates, and I got up and reminded him that I had tested it myself with four candidates. I have asked him to repeat what he said about university representation and the way in which it was carried out—not the second part of what he said, but the first.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: I have said what I did say about it. That was my only reference to the method by which university representation is carried out.
  Sir C. OMAN: I hope those hon. Members who were present in the House will bear me out in saying that the verbiage used by the hon. Gentleman just now was not an exact representation of what he said in his speech.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: I did not use verbiage.
  Sir C. OMAN: After his two accounts of what he said I am surprised that the hon. Member has the confidence to stand up and answer me. [Interruption.] But I have more important things to say. I wish to show the real cause why this Bill was brought in. A constituent of mine who is also a constituent of the Prime Minister wrote to him asking why he was bringing forward this Measure for the disfranchisement of the universities, and I wish the Committee to listen to what the Prime Minister said in reply, by the hand of his private secretary:
  "I am writing on behalf of the Prime Minister to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated 2nd February relating to the question of university suffrage. University graduates will no doubt be aware that with some few exceptions the university franchise is entirely used on party lines, and this fact goes far to deprive it of any claims to special consideration when the plural vote is in question."
  There you have it. According to the Prime Minister, the university suffrage is used on party lines. That I entirely deny. Speaking for Oxford, I can say that we do not "work on party lines." That is to say, we have nothing to do with the Central Office, and in no degree

  1785
  are we subject to the authority or control of any party organisation. We are absolutely independent. We have always chosen our Members, not by a caucus of dons, as one hon. Member said, but by a quite different body. The best proof of our independence is that my colleague and I have repeatedly voted against the party whip on important questions. We can claim to be independent Conservatives. On the question of the granting of the franchise to the younger females, we voted against it, and I could quote half-a-dozen other instances where university Members, voting on their conscience and according to their principles, voted against their party. It is absurd to say that we are working on party lines. We represent an independent body, we vindicate our independence, and we refuse to be the slaves of anyone.
  Will those who have to pay their salaries into a common fund and withdraw from it a little more than they put in say that they are independent? I do not hear any applause on that point. We absolutely disclaim party patronage, we claim independence, and for that reason I protest against the Prime Minister's statement that we are elected entirely on party lines. We are elected on principle. No one could expect the voters in any constituency to elect persons whose views are entirely opposed to their own. That would be absurd. The last six elections have shown that the Conservative vote at Oxford University is rather more than double the Liberal and Labour vote combined. Could the Prime Minister expect in those circumstances that we should elect a Liberal or a Labour Member? Is it the idea that the Prime Minister would have been a little more merciful to us if we had elected a Labour or Liberal Member occasionally? It is as reasonable to expect that as that in the mining valleys of South Wales they should occasionally elect a Conservative. It would be against all their views and interests. I know that universities repeatedly elect persons who do not share the views of hon. Members opposite: university representatives do the poor best they can, but hon. Members cannot expect us to vote for anything we do not believe in.
  Lastly, we have to remember that this is a disfranching Bill, and something like
  1786
  15,000 or 20,000 university electors are going to be disfranchised. In my own constituency 1,500 electors will be disfranchised as they do not fit into any local register. They comprise the pick of the Civil Service and Consular Service, teachers, men of business, specialists all round Europe. A week is at present allowed for them to record their votes. They are now all going to be disfranchised simply because they do not answer to the new conditions. The Government are treating the universities in a different way to the City of London. In the case of the Clause dealing with the two votes in the City of London the Government whips were taken off. The Prime Minister has been asked by certain hon. Members to allow a free vote also on this Clause dealing with the university franchise, and they met refusal. The Government are ready to bow down to the interests of the City of London, but not to those of universities to which they have given so much lip service for the last 20 years. I leave hon. Members to their ill-disguised hatred of learning.
  Mr. ERNEST WINTERTON: I fail to understand why any special privilege should be granted to the universities. One of the earlier speakers said that the more the present Government considered this question, the more they would realise that their decision to abolish their representation was wrong. My view is that the more the universities become democratised, the less they will ask for privileges of this kind. We have been reminded by several speakers of the independence of those who represent the universities in this House. It has been admitted by one of the spokesmen for the universities that three-quarters of those who sit in this House representing universities are the adherents or regular supporters of one political party. We are asked to believe that this is merely an accident, and that it is not really the average experience as applied to universities.
  I am going to suggest that an examination of the records of all the Members of this House who have sat for universities will show that on the whole they have not been of the progressive temperament which has been mentioned by hon. Members opposite. I have here a list of those who are declared to have been independent representatives, and I find

  1787
  among them the names of Mr. Lecky, the historian, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Lord Watson, Sir William Anson, scientists like Lord Playfair, Sir George Stokes, Sir Joseph Larmor, Sir Watson Cheyne, scholars like Sir Richard Jebb and Professor S. H. Butcher, and men of special experience like Sir John Gorst, Sir Michael Foster, Sir Philip Magnus, and Lord Ernie. Three-fourths of the names of those I have mentioned really represented the Conservative point of view. I find in regard to the records of those representatives, who did not claim to be party politicians, that the common opinion about them was that the university Member was a man with Liberal views, but with strong Conservative instincts. I think that is a very fair description of the university representative.
  I gather from the speeches which have been made, and especially the speech of the last speaker, how much the cause of learning and the interests of education will suffer if we do not allow these gentlemen to remain Members of this House instead of devoting themselves to the particular work for which they are specially qualified. I think it has been a common experience that when any man distinguished in letters, science, or education comes into this House as a representative of one of the universities, he generally fails to make a great Parliamentary reputation, and he loses something of the usefulness to society which he formerly was able to display. There are quite a number of cases which might be quoted. It was said of Mr. Lecky that:
  "He never acquired the Parliamentary manner. His speaking was so fluent, even, and rapid as to become monotonous, and he excelled rather in set speeches than in debate. Although he had a distinct turn for politics, and his sincerity, ability and wide knowledge always carried weight, he must be ranked among those whom training and character fitted better for other fields, and whom distinction won elsewhere carried too late into the rough and tumble of Parliamentary life."
  That is an argument for keeping these people in the particular field for which they are fitted, instead of asking them to do two jobs, one of them far different from the other. I see no ground why those who have specialised in education should sit in this House, especially when
  1788
  one-third of the Members of this House are university men, or with degrees, and are qualified to put any particular point of view of the universities quite as well as any special representatives. There is only one ground upon which I should feel reconciled to university representation, and that is that the people who do come here should really forget party politics, detach themselves from partisan issues and exercise their votes in the Division Lobbies, even though it were sometimes against interests which they could hardly be expected not to support. I should be reconciled, in view of my experience since I have been in the House, by the contribution to our Debates of the only hon. Lady who sits for a university. If the Government could see their way to say that every one of those representatives should be a woman, I think we should get a special, independent point of view, but, as things are at present, I see no reason why I should not support the Government's action in this respect. Although, like many other hon. Members, I have received postcards from graduates who enjoy this special privilege and do not desire to relinquish it, and although I have a son and a daughter who are also graduates, I see no reason why they should have two votes when their father can have only one.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: The Committee is left in some doubt—at all events, I myself feel considerable doubt—as to the effect of the Amendment if it were carried. Would it leave the university electors with a plural vote or not? I do not think that anything has been said in the Debate to clear up that situation. Clause 3, which has already been passed, says:
  "after the passing of this Act no person shall vote at a General Election for more than one constituency."
  That being so, if university representation is left, apparently the voters at the universities would have to choose whether they would exercise their votes there or exercise their residential qualification. I hope that when the Minister of Health speaks later he will make it clear whether the Clause that has already been passed will have abolished plural voting for university representation, if university representation is retained.

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  The hon. Member for Middlesbrough West (Mr. Griffith), in a very effective argument, raised that point, but, as far as I know, it has not been taken up by any other speaker. If, as appears to be the case, the effect of passing the Amendment will be to retain university representation although plural voting is abolished, and if each elector will have to choose whether he will vote in the university or in his home constituency, how many electors will be left for the universities? It is impossible to make any prophecy, but it will not be unfair to say that possibly about one-half of the university voters will choose to vote for the universities, and possibly one-half for their home constituencies. That would mean that the average university constituency would attract only 5,000 votes to return a Member, while 50,000, on the average, are required to return a Member for any other constituency. In two constituencies in particular, Belfast University and the University of Wales, if only one-half of the electors took part in the election, 1,600 voters would be represented in the House of Commons by a Member.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin), who will follow me, belongs to a party which has always acted on the basis of "one vote, one value." It has been one of the principal planks of its political platform, and one of the leading articles of its political creed. How will the right hon. Gentleman be able to defend that system which would enable 5,000 electors in a university to send a Member to Parliament, while it requires 50,000 others to send an ordinary Member to the House of Commons? Even if the Bill were amended, either in another place or by other means, and plural voting were restored to the university constituencies, it would be open to grave objection. You only have 10,000 on the average, and 120,000 university electors, instead of returning two Members to Parliament, would be entitled to 10 Members.
  This Debate has really been conducted, to some extent, under a misapprehension with regard to quite a different matter. We thought we were debating university representation, and the phrase "University Representation" is invariably used. It is supposed that the universities send
  1790
  these Members to Parliament and the hon. and gallant Member for Wandsworth (Major Church), who made an amazing speech from the benches opposite, spoke of depriving the ancient seats of learning of their representation. That phrase has been used again and again as though the resident members of Oxford and Cambridge Universities met in conclave and solemnly appointed one of their number to carry the torch of enlightenment to Westminster. Nothing of the kind. The electorate consists of 120,000 individuals scattered throughout the whole country. Except that 15,000 are abroad, and they notwithstanding are entitled to take pare in the elections, although they are not for the time being subject to our laws. The rest also are far removed from the universities, most of them—country parsons in very large numbers, secondary schoolmasters and others, leading blameless lives and no doubt useful careers, but surely not entitled by their own personal virtues or qualifications to exercise in the State 10 times the power of any one of their neighbours?
  In opposing the Amendment and supporting the Bill as it stands, I disclaim wholly any lack of respect, indeed of reverence and affection, for my own university and my own college, for which I have, indeed, a real gratitude and a deep love, and I have done what I could to render them such service as is in my power. Nevertheless, I think I love Oxford best when she is least a politician. Indeed, the bringing of a university into political controversies and the forming there of partisan committees, as, I am afraid, most of them are, definitely attached to various parties and fighting one another on party lines, really does not conduce to the full respect, gratitude and good will on the part of university men and women throughout the country for the universities at which they were trained. University representation does increase the direct political power of the universities, but I venture to submit that it somewhat lessens the indirect political influence of the universities, for the very reason that they are brought into party controversy in this way, and are represented in this House by Members of various parties. It lessens the indirect political influence which should be their

  1791
  real power. The true power of education does not come from her winning political privileges for herself, but from her exercising leadership of others. That is the power that she does exercise very effectively to the great advantage of the whole nation.
  There have been mentioned in Debate some distinguished names in university representation, over a period of 50 or 60 years—rather few, strangely few, considering the high claims that are made for university representation. I wish to say nothing in any degree in detraction of hon. Members who now sit in this House for the various university constituencies, but I do demur a little to the claims, which, I think, are somewhat exaggerated, that are made on their behalf—claims of remarkable and exceptional impartiality, enlightenment and statesmanship. I do not know, with all respect to them, that they are so exceptionally distinguished from the average of the Members of the House. The junior Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman) gave an instance of his own and his colleague's independence of the ties of the Conservative party, but the only instance that he gave was that when the Conservative party, in the last Parliament, did introduce a progressive democratic Measure for the extension of the franchise, he and his colleague had the independence to vote against it. I do not remember ever hearing of a case in which there was some knotty, difficult, troublesome problem before Parliament, when the House was doubtful how to deal with it, and when the Government of the day said: "Ah, well, surely the best thing to do is to appoint a committee consisting of the university Members. They are so impartial, so enlightened and so statesmanlike that they will solve our problem for us." If university representation here is abolished, we shall regret, possibly, the loss of some lion. Members, but I am sure that many of them will have no difficulty in finding ordinary constituencies like the rest of us, and in returning here; although it is possible that some may not.
  The House to-day has had one of its far too rare delights, a speech from the Noble Lord the senior Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil). He delighted us all, but I am not sure that
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  he carried complete conviction to all of us. He pointed out most effectively the inequalities of our present electoral system, and the occasional unfairnesses or injustices that arise from it, but he led us, surely, to the conclusion, not that we should retain university representation, but that we should establish proportional representation. In essentials, what he said was this: The whole system is so absurd now, that one absurdity more or less really does not matter.
  Lord H. CECIL: No, I do not think it is absurd; in my opinion it is very wise.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: The Noble Lord says that there are so many inequalities, that representation is so ineffective, and that it is so ridiculous to think that the desires of the people are thoroughly represented in the House of Commons now, that it does not matter if there is one additional failure to represent the desires of the people.
  Lord H. CECIL: If you aim at a mathematically equalitarian system, it is an absurdity, but if you aim at true representation of the whole by the whole, our system is very good, and university representation is a true policy.
  Sir H. SAMUEL: Representation of the whole by the whole is a contradiction in terms, because there is no representation if the whole represents itself. You have to select representatives, and, if you want to select representatives to represent the whole body of a nation, you must represent, so far as you can, the ideas current in the body of the nation. The Noble Lord's argument was that you do not effect that at the present time, and that, since you do not effect it now, you may just as well as not retain university representation, which is as good a form of representation as any other, since no other is really a good form of representation.
  The Noble Lord's argument, as I understood it, was that, our present system being anomalous, the more completely anomalous you make it the more self-consistent it becomes; that, being illogical, an additional illogicality becomes itself logical, for the very reason that it is illogical. That is the conclusion to which we are led by a mind which has been trained in the more

  1793
  abstruse forms of theological dialectic. The true conclusion is rather that, if there are absurdities, we should set to work to get rid of them as fast as we can one by one. This Bill deals with, at all events, two obvious illogicalities and absurdities, plural voting and university representation. If we should go on to the Alternative Vote, or, as the Noble Lord, would prefer, to Proportional Representation, we shall be very glad at some future time to have his assistance in enacting that into law. In effect, however, his argument is really an attack upon the very fundamentals of self-government. Every argument that he used might have been used, and, indeed, was used, 100 years ago this very month in the House of Commons in defence of Old Sarum, and these are the arguments that are now used in defence of what are really the present-day pocket boroughs of the professional classes.
  It is easy to say, let us have an educational test, and give more weight to learning and more power to those who have passed through the universities; but no test that the mind of man can devise can distinguish the competent voters from the incompetent. John Stuart Mill made various suggestions in his book on "Representative Government," and Disraeli introduced a plan in his Reform Bill of 1867; but both were rejected by the general sense of the nation as a whole, which felt that they were artificial and unreal, and did not distinguish effectively between wise and foolish men. Who can distinguish, by any test, whether of property or of education? The plain, level-headed workman, who can see the wood in spite of the trees, is of more value to the State in the electorate than the sophisticated philosopher who may be very well informed on the details of political questions, hut may be wrong on broad principles.
  The science and art of Government are difficult indeed, but the voter's part is limited and comparatively simple. If we did not have the jury system in this country—inherited from a primaeval State—and if someone now proposed to invent it, how hon. Members above the Gangway would say, "What could be more absurd than to take a jury of ordinary men and women
  1794
  out of the street—anybody—and just put them in a box and expect to get a sensible judgment from them?" If they were asked, indeed, to become the judges, or if they were asked to become the advocates, it would be absurd, but everyone who is acquainted with the jury system, every jurist with whom you may discuss it, will say that it is the most valuable element in the whole of our judicial system. Democracy is nothing but the jury writ large. It directs us on the right lines of domestic policy; it directs us on the right, spirit of foreign policy. Learning is valuable, but common sense is more valuable, and you find it best by relying on the equal judgment of the whole people.
  These arguments that we have heard to-day from hon. Members who say that they are "democrats, but"—these arguments really challenge the whole fundamental idea of self-government. They are specious and devious arguments, meaning in effect simply that those who use them are unwilling to trust the broad and equal judgment of the whole nation. These are the same arguments which were used, as I have said, in opposition to the Reform Bill of 1831, and the same arguments have been used in opposition to the household franchise, in opposition to the ballot; the same arguments have been used in the past, and to-day, to defend plural voting; the same arguments have been used in the past, and to-day, to defend the control of the House of Lords. I am only sorry that some of my hon. Friends on these benches have failed to detect the ancient and familiar features of the spirit that opposes democratic self-government. For my own part, I have no difficulty in recognising them, and I shall fight that spirit wherever I find it.
  Mr. S. BALDWIN: I rise this evening to intervene in this Debate, not so much in my capacity as the Leader of the Opposition, hut as one who has enjoyed the signal honour of having been elected by all parties to the high office of Chancellor both of the University of Cambridge and of the University of St. Andrews. I cannot hope to put forward any new argument on a subject of this kind, but I cannot let the Debate draw to a close, nor a vote be taken, without putting forward one or two, I would rather call them thoughts than argu-

  1795
  ments for the earnest consideration of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Griffith), who always makes a charming speech, objected to my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) on the ground that he was not a typical House of Commons man. Would he accept me, I wonder, as a typical House of Commons man, because it is as such, and as such alone, that I propose to offer the few observations that I shall do? The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken will forgive me if I do not deal at length with his speech, time being short. There are only two observations that I would make about it. He leaves me quite unconcerned when he complains that we are neglecting our old principle of one vote, one value. I am not fond of bandying tu quoques in this House, hut, after all, he enjoyed office, if "enjoy" be the right word for office—for a considerable period by the votes of constituencies in Ireland smaller than any of the universities which are asking for a continuation of their representation to-day from the House.
  I thought it was rather an unworthy and an out of date sneer against the country parsons, because after all, the country parsons to-day are an infinitesimal fragment of the electorate of the whole of the united universities. I cannot speak for Oxford, but I would certainly say with regard to Cambridge that it is like the legend of the Bishops at the Athenaeum, which dies hard. I have been in the Athenaeum but have never seen a bishop, much less had my umbrella taken by one. Nor do I propose, although I listened with great care, to speak for more than a minute on what was said by the Home Secretary, because his argument seemed to me to be out of date. The universities are no longer the homes of privilege or caste. I could hardly believe my ears when he said, as I understood him, and took down, that, the better educated people were, the less they should be represented in this House. He did, as a matter of fact, correct that immediately afterwards into a much less objectionable form. Of course, that was the point of view with which the Soviet started, but I believe they are changing their minds now.
  Mr. CLYNES: May I just correct the right hon. Gentleman? What I said was that, the more educated people were, the less they required representation.
  Mr. BALDWIN: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not quite see why. The argument, if it can be called an argument, that ran up and down the benches during the Debate, seemed to be that because the votes given by most Members for the universities are non-progressive, therefore, the constituencies ought to be disfranchised. I can imagine that as an argument for changing the representation but not as an argument for abolishing the constituencies. Then he said that Mr. Bryce in 1885 was against university representation. I take that from him. I do not know what Mr. Bryce s views were later on, but it is interesting to remember that, 33 years after he made that statement, the Liberal party, the Labour party and our party were all united in the Franchise and Representation Congress in 1918 in not only confirming the privileges of the old universities, but in adding a considerable number of new seats for university representation in this country. That was only in 1918, and why the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) should object to any of his supporters remaining true to what they believed was true in 1918, I cannot think. Neither he nor anyone has told us what has occurred in the last 13 years which should make this House go back on the agreement that was assented to, so far as my recollection goes, by all the parties in the House. If you look at sentiment—and sentiment has been mentioned—the case of the universities is far stronger than that of the City of London, on which the House pronounced its judgment the other day. For the purpose of what I am going to say I am not going to be cynical. I am not going to suggest for a moment that the reason why hon. Members opposite wish to abolish these seats is because they will abolish a number of seats that are held by their opponents. Nor will I maintain the view for a moment that it is a quid pro quo for the Alternative Vote. I will believe that they are arguing in perfect sincerity, on logical grounds, against the universities having any representation.
  I could not quite make out what it was that hon. Members and the right hon.

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  Gentleman the Member for Darwen objected to so much in the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Wandsworth (Major Church). If I understood his argument, I thought there was a good deal of truth in that speech. I will try to put it in my words and see if I am doing justice to it. It is true that ever since the creation, if that be the right word, of the Labour party, there has beer no more prominent item in its programme than the demand for higher education, and I think the reason is obvious. I have always maintained, and I believe justifiably—for I knew years ago some of the men who were what I may call the fathers of the Labour movement—that, when you get politics in the streets and on the soap box, it very apt to become the politics of bread and butter, and very apt to degenerate merely into a fight between the haves and the have note. But before that time came, what really I think was one of the great motive forces of the whole movement was not so much the material desire for money. It was the desire for food for the mind, the feeling that they were shut out from much of the beauty of this world, to which they felt they had an equal claim with any other class, and with that feeling there is not a man in the House to-day who does not sympathise with all his heart. I think there is nothing in the history of the whole movement that is more worthy of admiration, and that excites my admiration more, than the fight men have made—men who have not had the advantages in early life that I have had—to make up for those disadvantages, and to get that learning that could not be got at that time except with great difficulty in the environment in which they lived.
  One of the most remarkable features since the War has been that that desire for learning, not as a means necessarily of making money but learning for learning's sake, has spread South of the Border, and what used to be the proud privilege of the Scot is now claimed, desired, and used by English people, and their desire for learning and for knowledge is just as keen, is sought after just as energetically and pursued with the same fervour as it is North of the Tweed. I think all that is for good and is a thing for which we ought to be thankful.
  1798
  Why is it that men whose spirit is moved in that way, desire a University education? It is not a question of class at all. It is simply this, that after all, even when the lamp of learning has burnt dim, there has been a tradition in the older universities—a tradition nobly sustained by the newest of them—that the standards in every branch of learning, the humanities, science, medicine, history, shall be kept high, and that there shall be no class except the examination class, and that the standard of truth in inquiry, in knowledge and in learning shall be maintained. That is why our universities stand where they do. That is why university education is a thing which our people want. That is why university education is the thing which they are seeking in increasing numbers, and that; is the education which the universities, on their part, are using every endeavour to extend among the people of this country, among all of them, so that they can get hold of those who have the brains to make use of what they learn. All that is something new. All that is the growth of recent years.
  I have always regretted that our Debates on education in this House are always confined to the Estimates of the Board of Education. I think that it would have been of the greatest value to this House to have had Debates on the university grants, and for the reason—and it is relevant to what I am going to say—that the universities of the country are the bodies which set the standard of education and the standard of learning. It is very much in accordance with their curricula and their examinations that the whole training of secondary education moves towards the universities. Universities will lead, and must lead, in the changes that are bound to come in the general education of this country. I believe it to be a matter of importance in this House that the universities should be a part of this House, as they have been for so many years, where those things, as they come, can be extended, can be debated, and can be dealt with.
  10.0 p.m.
  You may say that this is sentiment. I believe more and more that in an age like this, a material age, as it is often stated, and an age when we are so much immersed in the ordinary hard economics of life, it is of great importance to show, even in this symbolic way, that this

  1799
  House of Commons, the most democratic House, perhaps, in the world, a House of great traditions, recognises that the things of the mind, or what stands for the things of the mind, shall be represented here, even in few numbers, in the midst of the struggle and the days in which we live. I cannot help saying—and the Committee will forgive me if my feelings are strong—that. I think, it is a little mean to take advantage of this Bill to disfranchise the universities. I can understand, and, to a certain extent, I can sympathise with much that has been said, but surely at times one can do the big thing. It may be called a gesture—I big thing. It may be called making a gesture—I do not like the phrase—but do the big thing when you have the power. I cannot help feeling that if I sat on those benches to-night, I should like to get up and say, "We, sitting on these benches, owe the universities of the country a great debt. You have stretched out both hands to meet us and to help us. Perhaps we should not have give you this privilege. Perhaps we should not, had we had the power when the privilege was first given, but you have had it; you have it now. We have the power to take it from you, we shall not use that power, and we hope yet that we may convince you that our policy is worthy of support." That, I think, would be a big action and an action that would redound to the credit of the Labour party from one end of the country to the other.
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): After listening to a number of extremely interesting speeches during an extremely interesting Debate, as a university voter I am unrepentannt in my attitude towards this Clause. Nothing that has been argued in this Committee to-day has really touched upon the fundamentals of the problem. It is astonishing to hear the Conservative party now inaugurating a great campaign of push for more brains in Parliament. What is the argument to which we listened in the very delightful speech by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil)? His argument, which has been repeated since, was that democracy is a myth, that it is a, dream which cannot be realised, and that the only practical
  1800
  working proposition is an oligarchy. Then he went on to point out how everywhere, as he has seen it—and there is a certain truth in it—whatever organisation it might be, a few people took the burden of responsibility, and he jumped from there to what he called the justifiable conclusion that we ought to maintain the university vote. I suppose that what he had in his mind was that logically and philosophically we ought to abolish all other voters and keep the university vote—one degree one vote, two degrees two votes, American degrees half a vote, and so an all along the scale, whereby people who have accumulated unto themselves some outward mark of an inward learning should be able to be members of the great oligarchy which should run the country, instead of the 20,000,000 stupid electors who to-day do not understand the big problems of policy. That, as I understand it, was the argument used by more than one of the speakers on the other side of the Comittee.
  Lord H. CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman must not understand that I accept his account of my speech.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I understood the Noble Lord's speech. He first painted a picture of an impossible demand, and then painted something which he called representative government, which to me is democracy, and said that it was something entirely different, and the one thing that would break your oligarchy. There are Members in the Committee who heard the speech who would come to the same conclusion. The effect of that argument is, that the one way to do it is to maintain a select class of voters who within themselves comprehend all human mysteries and are able to deal with the political issues with which ordinary people are not able to deal.
  The right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) said that this Clause was a little mean. To that I reply that, grudgingly, the Tory party have again and again extended the franchise but they have never taken the brake off the people who are permitted to vote. They have persistently maintained the big anomalies which to-day are making political democracy an impossibility, and two of them are the system of plural voting, through the business qualification, and the university franchise. These have

  1801
  been consistently maintained by Conservative Members in this House. They have admitted on the Floor of this House that if the university franchise had never been invented no one would have been so absurd as to try and invent it, but, once having got it, they have tried to keep it. They keep anything which to-day is a weight against the full expression of the views of the ordinary man and woman.
  It is assumed that people who have spent a certain number of years at a university are thereby qualified for the 50 years of their subsequent life to speak for the university. Those people for the most part have gone into business, into the law, or medicine, or into teaching work or into the church and various other professions. [An HON. MEMBER: "Into Parliament!"] Yes, and they have gone into Parliament in very large numbers, and that is why I see no reason why there should be more of them here. They have no more claim to represent university feeling, the living and throbbing feeling in the university centres, than the ordinary man in the street, because even universities change. These people who left their university 40 years ago and still claim the university vote have no moral right to speak on behalf of the universities of which they are members.
  It is assumed, why, I have not been able to understand, that there is some special quality attaching to the representatives of universities who sit in this House. I am reminded of the speech made by Mr. Asquith, as he was then, a long time ago, in 1906, when he explained that modern university representation was the invention of Lord Beaconsfield, who
  "on a celebrated occasion told the House of Commons that he invented the seat for London University in order to provide Mr. Lowe with a place in this House, which otherwise he did not think he could have easily got."
  I imagine that that may have been true of other university Members in this House. Mr. Asquith went on to declare:
  "While he quite agreed that the ancient universities had been represented by very distinguished Members, yet he thought some hon. Members must have thought from time to time as they had seen those great scholars and mathematicians sitting silent on these benches hour after hour, and trudging drearily through the Division Lobbies, that perhaps their time and
  1802
  energies might have been better occupied if they had remained in the sequestered seclusion of the great seats of learning from which they were unhappily sent to mix in the uncongenial turmoil of political parties in this House."
  Therefore, the people who represent the universities in this House have brought nothing that has added special lustre to this House. I do not wish in the least to be disrespectful to university representatives, but, as I pointed out on the Second Reading, if we were to parade in this House 12 visitors and introduce them to 12 university Members and 12 Members elected from geographical constituencies they would detect nothing in their appearance, their intellectual quality, their moral fervour or their sincerity which would distinguish the one group from the other.
  It has been pointed out with perfect truth that men of unquestioned intellectual eminence have been refused representation in Parliament by university graduates. That is true to-day. I am not saying anything of the work of distinguished Members of this House who represent universities, but as regards their work in the realm of knowledge there are men who sit in this House to-day who stand as high in their own sphere of learning as the people who represent the universities, and it seems to me to be absurd to suggest that the only way to get into the House of Commons people of rare intellectual distinction and of independent mind is to send them from the universities. The right hon. Member for Bewdley holds high office in two universities, and I say this of a political opponent that he is as good as any Member that a university seat could produce, and a good deal better than many of them. There are men of great, quality and great distinction in their own walks of life who are quite as good and in many respects better than a number of the people who have represented university constituencies.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley spoke with very great feeling and with very great sincerity about education. I suppose I have talked about education as much as any Member of this House, and I suppose that I believe in it as many Members of this House. It does not follow that because people have had special opportunities for

  1803
  education not enjoyed by the rest of their fellows that they are thereby in a stronger position to lay down a sound view on questions of big public policy. Some of the most stupid people I have ever known have been the most learned. Big issues of policy are questions which the ordinary man and the ordinary woman can understand in their broad outline. We want more education and we ask for it, and it has been denied to us by the party opposite, not in order to increase the number of university voters, but in order to increase the number of educated electors. We think that education is a good thing in itself.
  The Leader of the Opposition spoke as though what we wanted to abolish was not the university vote but university education. The whole of his plea was that we must not destroy university education. We do not want to destroy it. The more education there is carried on by the universities the better I shall like it, and the better most of us on these benches will like it. The more universities keep out of politics the higher will be their standing amongst the great mass of the people of this country. It has been argued that because universities are to-day being democratised, in the sense that a larger proportion of students are coming from public elementary schools, that, therefore, it is an argument for the retention of the university vote. It is an attempt on the part of the Tory party to justify sticking to this vote.
  Our fundamental objection to the university vote is that it is a special kind of franchise conferred upon a very tiny proportion of the electors of this country, and any kind of fancy franchise in our view is wrong. If the party opposite had not deprived us of giving a longer educational life to the masses of the people—[Interruption]—we should have been able to take every boy and girl a year nearer the university, but that would not have altered our view of this question. The real demand for the maintenance of the university vote comes from those who have possessed it for years and not from those who are in the universities to-day. I see as much of our undergraduate population as most hon. Members, and you will not find amongst the young men and women in the universities
  1804
  to-day this passion for the university vote which has been expressed by university Members. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may take it from me as quite definite that the feeling in favour of the university vote in the university world of younger students is not the view that has been expressed in this House to-day.
  Mr. BALFOUR: Nonsense!
  Mr. GREENWOOD: It is no use hon. Members who have never seen any of these students saying "nonsense."
  Mr. BALFOUR: I have two sons there, and I gather from them the opinion of the young men in the universities.
  Miss RATHBONE: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that at every convocation meeting in all the younger universities a resolution against the abolition of the university vote has been carried by overwhelming majorities?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: The intervention of the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Balfour) is not very helpful.
  Viscountess ASTOR: What about the lady's?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: The Prime Minister informs me that he has three children at universities and, therefore, I presume he is in a better position to judge than the hon. Member for Hampstead. As to the remarks of the hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone) it is perfectly true that the bodies of convocation of the new universities have by overwhelming majorities passed a resolution in favour of retaining the university vote, for the reason I have already given, that they are the older members of the universities.
  Miss RATHBONE: On the contrary, they are the younger members.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I shall be very glad to meet the hon. Member for the English Universities and discuss this point.
  Viscountess ASTOR: It will be too late then.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I am afraid that hon. Members opposite are not quite confident about this matter. I come now to

  1805
  my last point. It has been suggested time after time in this Debate, and lastly by the Leader of the Opposition, that the real motive behind this Clause is our desire to abolish seats which invariably return representatives who are opposed to Labour principles. My reply to that is that the real reason why the Conservative party is so anxious to retain every shred of privilege that it can, is that it does not trust the people. [Interruption.] We have had a demand made by the Conservative party for the retention of votes for privileged sections of the community because they believe that the strongholds of privilege are among the bulwarks against the onward march of the ordinary elector. In this country there will not be any effective political system so long as any man, whether by position or wealth or education, can exercise more influence than is due to the possession of his own powers.
  It has been pointed out by an hon. Friend that a considerable proportion of Members of the House is made up of graduates of universities. That is the real way in which education should express itself in the service of the people. This fictitious method of social service, which allows an additional vote to be cast for a party which has recently shown its interest in education in no mistakable way—that kind of influence is bad. I want to see the influence of education extended to the whole of our land. I want to see educated people put what they have at the service of the nation, but no one will convince me that by giving a graduate a vote you are doing anything either for education or for the nation.
  We have come back in this Bill to something which ought to have been done many years ago, which it was not possible to do because of the continued and bitter opposition of the Conservative party. We are going to take a very big step forward. We are getting rid of serious anomalies which have hampered the working of the democratic machine. All that has been said by the Leader of the Opposition about education I believe in, but it is quite clear that many of his followers do not, and they have proved it to-night. I want the people of the country to feel that no man counts for more than his quality warrants. You will never get
  1806
  —[Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite are not doing themselves any good. What we want our people to feel is that they can pull their rightful share in the boat. Too long have the privileged classes had the pull. That is the reason for this Bill. This Bill represents, and this Clause represents, another step along the road to a position where the masses of the people shall control their own political destiny. They will do it better as education extends, and they can do it without the assistance of the university vote.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: After what the right hon. Gentleman has said I feel that I would not be doing my duty if I did not speak on behalf of the university franchise. [HON. MEMBERS "Divide!"] I remember some years ago when I was at the university I wondered if I would ever be able to repay in the slightest degree for what I had received from that great University of Oxford, and, even at this late hour, I seek to repay something of that debt by standing up to speak for the right of the university to send its representatives to Parliament. In the 12th century there were 30,000 students—[Interruption.]
  The CHAIRMAN: I must ask hon. Members on both sides to refrain from interruption.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: There are many people who would wish to see the University of Oxford and our other universities as democratic as they were in the twelfth century and the folly of the Socialist party is that they do not recognise the development which is taking place in the universities year by year. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are not preserves of plutocracy or aristocracy but are, year by year, becoming more representative of the people. University education is the education that really counts. It is only a short time since hon. Members opposite were arguing in favour of another year at the elementary schools—
  It being Half-past Ten of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 3rd March, to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
  Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 242; Noes, 246.

  Division No. 195.]

  AYES.

  [10.30 p.m.

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

  Groves, Thomas E.

  Mort, D. L.

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

  Grundy, Thomas W.

  Muff, G.

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)

  Muggeridge, H. T.

  Altchison, Rt. Hon. Craigie M.

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Murnin, Hugh

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro')

  Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Alpass, J. H.

  Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn)

  Noel Baker, P. J.

  Ammon, Charles George

  Hardie, George D.

  Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.)

  Arnott, John

  Harris, Percy A.

  Oldfield, J. R.

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston)

  Ayles, Walter

  Haycock, A. W.

  Palin, John Henry

  Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)

  Hayday, Arthur

  Paling, Wilfrid

  Barnes, Alfred John

  Hayes, John Henry

  Palmer, E. T.

  Barr, James

  Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

  Batey, Joseph

  Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.)

  Perry, S. F.

  Beckett, John (Camberwell, Peckham)

  Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood

  Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)

  Picton-Turbervill, Edith

  Bennett, Sir E. N. (Cardiff, Central)

  Herriotts, J.

  Pole, Major D. G.

  Bennett, William (Battersea, South)

  Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)

  Potts, John S.

  Benson, G.

  Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)

  Price, M. P.

  Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Ramsay, T. B. Wilson

  Birkett, W. Norman

  Hopkin, Daniel

  Richards, R.

  Blindell, James

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret

  Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield)

  Ritson, J.

  Bowen, J. W.

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph

  Romeril, H. G.

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Isaacs, George

  Rosbotham, D. S. T.

  Broad, Franc's Alfred

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)

  Rowson, Guy

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Bromfield, William

  Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)

  Bromley, J.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)

  Brooke, W.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Sanders, W. S.

  Brothers, M.

  Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M

  Sandham, E.

  Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield)

  Kinley, J.

  Sawyer, G. F.

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Lang, Gordon

  Sexton, Sir James

  Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire)

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

  Buchanan, G.

  Lathan, G.

  Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

  Burgess, F. G.

  Law, Albert (Bolton)

  Sherwood, G. H.

  Burgin, Dr. E. L.

  Law, A. (Rossendale)

  Shield, George William

  Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)

  Lawson, John James

  Shiels, Dr. Drummond

  Caine, Derwent Hall-

  Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)

  Shillaker, J. F.

  Cameron, A. G.

  Leach, W.

  Shinwell, E.

  Cape, Thomas

  Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.)

  Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

  Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.)

  Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern)

  Simmons, C. J.

  Chater, Daniel

  Lees, J.

  Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Lindley, Fred W.

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

  Lloyd, C. Ellis

  Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)

  Cocks, Frederick Seymour

  Logan, David Gilbert

  Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)

  Compton, Joseph

  Longbottom, A. W.

  Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

  Cove, William G.

  Longden, F.

  Smith, Tom (Pontefract)

  Cripps, Sir Stafford

  Lunn, William

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  Daggar, George

  Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

  Sorensen, R.

  Dallas, George

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)

  Stamford, Thomas W.

  Dalton, Hugh

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Strauss, G. R.

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  McElwee, A.

  Sullivan, J.

  Day, Harry

  McEntee, V. L.

  Sutton, J. E.

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  McKinlay, A.

  Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln)

  Dukes, C.

  MacLaren, Andrew

  Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.)

  Duncan, Charles

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)

  Ede, James Chuter

  MacNeill-Weir, L.

  Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

  Edmunds, J. E.

  McShane, John James

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Edwards, E. (Morpeth)

  Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton)

  Tillett, Ben

  Egan, W. H.

  Mander, Geoffrey le M.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Elmley, Viscount

  Manning, E. L.

  Toole, Joseph

  Foot, Isaac

  March, S.

  Tout, W. J.

  Freeman, Peter

  Marcus, M.

  Townend, A. E.

  Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)

  Marley, J.

  Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, N.)

  Marshall, Fred

  Viant, S. P.

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)

  Mathers, George

  Walkden, A. G.

  Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)

  Matters, L. W.

  Walker, J.

  Gill, T. H.

  Maxton, James

  Wallace, H. W.

  Gillett, George M.

  Melville, Sir James

  Watkins, F. C.

  Glassey, A. E.

  Messer, Fred

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)

  Gossling, A. G.

  Middleton, G.

  Wellock, Wilfred

  Gould, F.

  Mills, J. E.

  Welsh, James (Paisley)

  Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)

  Milner, Major J.

  West, F. R.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne)

  Montague, Frederick

  Westwood, Joseph

  Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  White, H. G.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.)

  Morley, Ralph

  Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Wilkinson, Ellen C.

  Williams, David (Swansea, East)

  Winterton, G. E. (Leicester, Loughb'gh)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Wise, E. F.

  Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)

  Charleton.

  Wilson, J. (Oldham)

  Young, R. S. (Islington, North)

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Duckworth, G. A. V.

  Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.

  Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles

  Dugdale, Capt. T. L.

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

  Albery, Irving James

  Eden, Captain Anthony

  Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond)

  Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)

  Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.)

  Elliot, Major Walter E.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)

  Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir William (Armagh)

  England, Colonel A.

  Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.

  Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.M.)

  Muirhead, A. J.

  Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Nathan, Major H. L.

  Astor, Viscountess

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Nelson, Sir Frank

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Ferguson, Sir John

  Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)

  Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.

  Fermoy, Lord

  Nicholson, O. (Westminster)

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)

  Fielden, E. B.

  Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld)

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Fison, F. G. Clavering

  Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert

  Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)

  Forestier-Walker, Sir L.

  O'Connor, T. J.

  Balniel, Lord

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  O'Neill, Sir H.

  Beaumont, M. W.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William

  Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

  Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton

  Peake, Captain Osbert

  Berry, Sir George

  Gibson, C. G. (Pudsey & Otley)

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Betterton, Sir Henry B.

  Glyn, Major R. G. C.

  Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Pilditch, Sir Philip

  Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman

  Grace, John

  Power, Sir John Cecil

  Bird, Ernest Roy

  Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Bourne, Captain Robert Croft

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Preston, Sir Walter Rueben

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Purbrick, R.

  Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W.

  Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Boyce, Leslie

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  Rathbone, Eleanor

  Bracken, B.

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Reid, David D. (County Down)

  Brass, Captain Sir William

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Remer, John R.

  Briscoe, Richard George

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.

  Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

  Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)

  Reynolds, Col. Sir James

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch't'sy)

  Buchan, John

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)

  Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Robertson, Despencer-, Major J. A. F.

  Bullock, Captain Malcolm

  Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)

  Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell

  Burton, Colonel H. W.

  Haslam, Henry C.

  Ross, Ronald D.

  Butler, R. A.

  Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)

  Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.

  Butt, Sir Alfred

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

  Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford)

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Campbell, E. T.

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

  Salmon, Major I.

  Castle Stewart, Earl of

  Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Cautley, Sir Henry S.

  Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart

  Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)

  Hunter-Waston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.

  Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

  Hurd, Percy A.

  Savery, S. S.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)

  Hurst, Sir Gerald B.

  Shepperson, Sir Ernest Whittome

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm-,W.)

  Hutchison, Maj.-Gen. Sir R.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)

  Inskip, Sir Thomas

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U., Belfast)

  Chapman, Sir S.

  Iveagh, Countess of

  Skelton, A. N.

  Christie, J. A.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)

  Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

  Church, Major A. G.

  Kindersley, Major G. M.

  Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Smithers, Waldron

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.

  Somerset, Thomas

  Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George

  Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Cohen, Major J. Brunel

  Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)

  Colfox, Major William Philip

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Southby, Commander A. R. J.

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Lewis, Oswald (Colchester)

  Spender-Clay, Colonel H.

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Little, Graham- Sir Ernest

  Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Llewellin, Major J. J.

  Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.

  Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

  Stewart, W. J. (Belfast, South)

  Cowan, D. M.

  Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Crichton-Stuart, Lord C.

  Long, Major Hon. Eric

  Suetar, Rear-Admiral M. F.

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Lymington, Viscount

  Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. C.

  McConnell, Sir Joseph

  Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

  Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.)

  Todd, Capt. A. J.

  Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Train, J.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)

  Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

  Dairymple-White. Lt.-Col. Sir Godfrey

  Marjoribanks, Edward

  Turton, Robert Hugh

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)

  Mason, Colonel Glyn K.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Davies, Dr. Vernon

  Meller, R. J.

  Wallace, Capt. D. E. (Hornsey)

  Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert

  Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)

  Millar, J. D.

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Milne, Wardlaw-, J. S.

  Waterhouse, Captain Charles

  Dixey, A. C.

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Wayland, Sir William A.

  1810

  1811

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Wright, Brig.-Gen. W. D. (Tavist'k)

  Wells, Sydney R.

  Withers, Sir John James

  Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)

  Womersley, W. J.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

  Sir Frederick Thomson and Captain

  Margesson.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Mr. S. BALDWIN Mr. S. BALDWIN rose—
  The CHAIRMAN: According to the terms of the Resolution passed by the House, Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill have to be submitted to the Committee at half-past 10. I will put Clause 5 now and then give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity later.
  The CHAIRMAN then proceeded to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at this day's Sitting.

  CLAUSE 5.—(Provision for enabling the taking of polls to be postponed in islands.)
  Mr. BALDWIN: I rise to ask the Prime Minister if he will consider, in conjunction with his allies, what course he proposes to take on this Bill. I think that after the Divisions which have taken place, the narrowness of the one and the defeat on this one, that the tactics which have been pursued throughout this Bill, in conjunction with the party below the Gangway, are proving that it is not popular and should be put an end to.
  The PRIME MINISTER: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right that after the Division which has just been taken, and particularly as the time has lapsed for considering the Bill, the matter will be considered—I do not say anything more than that—before the Bill is put down again in the Orders of the Day.
  Resolved, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Clynes.]
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

MENTAL TREATMENT RULES, 1930 (STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS, 1930, No. 1,083).
Mr. GREENWOOD: I beg to move,
"That the Mental Treatment Rules, 1930 (Statutory Rules and Orders, 1930, No.
1812
1,083), dated 30th December, 1930, and made by the Board of Control, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, under Subsection (1) of Section 338 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, as extended by Sub-section (1) of Section 15 of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, which were presented on the 20th day of January, 1931, be approved so far as they modify or adapt any of the provisions of the Lunacy Act, 1890."
The Motion I have to move will not keep the House very long. These Rules are to be laid on the Table of the House. They are made under an Act of Parliament. We have taken the opportunity to consolidate the existing provisions as far as possible. The Act required that in any modification of the existing law we should take the opportunity to consult interests concerned in reference to the matter as far as possible. We have, therefore, consulted with the local authorities, the medical profession, the Mental Hospitals' Association and similar bodies. Since the discussion took place the Rules were modified and published, and I think it has been shown that a measure of agreement has been reached, for no representation has been made against them. In these circumstances, I think the House may feel that the Motion may well be passed.
Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: Although the hour is late, it is due to the importance of this matter that some comment should be made upon these Rules, and that questions should be asked. The Rules are made under the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, which was passed with the general assent of most of those in the House. Nevertheless, the Rules affect to a very considerable extent the liberty of the subject, and, therefore, should be closely scrutinised before they are passed. It would be quite easy to say, in the middle of the excitement which has followed the Vote which the Committee has just given, that we should allow these Rules to go without any comment or scrutiny, but there are, undoubtedly, a large number of people up and down the country who are considerably concerned with them. I remember very well it was the main subject of criticism when the Act was passed that Rules and Regulations

1813
would be made by the Minister of Health which might very well affect the liberty of the subject to a very considerable degree. It is from that aspect that I have read these Rules, and would like the Minister of Health to give an explanation on one or two points. Rule 5 is entitled:
"Absence of temporary patients on trial or for health."
It says:
"Subject to the provisions of Section 5 of the Act of 1930, the person in charge of an institution, hospital or nursing home may permit a temporary patient to be absent on trial or for the benefit of his health for such period as the person in charge thinks fit."
That particular phrase "for such period" is perhaps subject to some statutory modification, and the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt state if that is so or not, because otherwise it does seem a very considerable degree of latitude to give to the person in charge. Then, on page 4, Subsection (2) of Rule 8, which deals with the removal of patients, suggests that, upon the death of a person having charge of a temporary single patient, the board may discharge the patient, or, if he does not apply within seven days after the death, may direct the patient to be removed into the charge of the person named in the Order. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to state under whose jurisdiction or authority that is. When the death occurs of the person responsible for a patient who is being treated in this way, apparently a period of seven days is to elapse before this particular Section can be put into operation, and it does appear to me that the period ought to be in some way limited or otherwise dealt with, because otherwise there may be no person who is responsible for the patient who is receiving treatment at that time.
I should like to ask a question with regard to Regulation No. 15, which is entitled "Weekly Expenses." This Regulation lays down that the visiting committee in regard to each institution maintained by a local authority shall fix a weekly sum for the expenses of maintaining patients. I take it that the amount of the weekly sum is to be entirely in the discretion of the local authority itself, and I should like to ask if there is any limit, or whether they are in any way subject to the jurisdiction of the Ministry in regard to the amount of
1814
expenses which they can charge in these cases, and whether there is any suggestion of any uniform sum being fixed in that respect.
11.0 p.m.
There is a very important regulation which I think requires a little explanation from the Minister. It is Regulation No. 26, on page 8, entitled "Application of Temporary Patient's Property." This is a very important regulation, because it says this:
"If it appears to any justice that a rate-aided temporary patient has any real or personal property more than sufficient to maintain his family, if any, such justice may by order direct a relieving officer, treasurer, or some other officer of the council of the county or county borough to which the patient is chargeable to seize so much of any money, and to seize and sell so much of any other personal property of the patient and to receive so much of the rents of any land of the patient as the Justice may think sufficient to pay for the expenses of maintenance.…"
That may undoubtedly be necessary, but, of course, it is very drastic to give power to any justice of the peace or local authority to seize the property of any individual who may be a temporary patient, and, apparently, without notice to the patient's friends, or relations, or next-of-kin, or guardian, come down and take this property and sell it for the purposes of maintenance. I do not say that such a regulation may not be necessary, but I do think that some further explanation is required from the Minister, particularly as to whether the patient's friends are first to be informed of any step that is going to be taken in that connection. On page 9, Rule 30, there is a very important regulation which deals with the ill-treatment of patients. It states that if a person ill-treats or neglects a patient, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and on conviction shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to state whether it is open to the court to inflict the penalty that they may think just and proper in such a case. We have to be careful to stamp out at once any suggestion of ill-treatment of patients. Rule 33, which deals with correspondence states, as is proper, that where a patient addresses a letter to the Lord Chancellor or other person specified in the Regulations, those letters must be forwarded without being

1815
opened. In Sub-section 2 it says that, if any person in charge of an institution defaults in complying with the obligation imposed upon him by this Rule, he shall for such offence be liable to a penalty not exceeding £20. It appears to me that there ought to be some provision made, in the case of an officer wilfully breaking that Regulation on more than one occasion, that the penalty should be increased.
I suppose the Minister has carefully considered the Regulation on page 12, that, if a temporary patient escapes and is retaken within 14 days, the person in charge shall take him back again to the institution. We have had the extraordinary spectacle more than once of a man or woman who has escaped and avoided capture for more than 14 days not having to go again through the process of being certified. If he is captured within 14 days, he is immediately taken back without any right of examination. I suppose it follows the rule of procedure, but it is certainly a very serious provision?
Mr. McSHANE: Is it unusual?
Sir K. WOOD: I think it has applied for some considerable time, but for the first time the Minister is making it apply to temporary patients.
Rule 49 says that rules and regulations may be made by the visiting committee of an institution, and then submitted to the board before they are finally approved. There does not seem to be any provision as to what should happen in the event of disagreement between the local authority and the Board of Control. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to make some observation on that point. On page 16, regulations are made as to visitation and inspection by the commissioners of people in these institutions receiving treatment. In 51, 53 and 57 it is provided that the commissioners need only of necessity once during the year visit a hospital, a nursing home or a house in which voluntary or temporary patients reside. The House of Commons should consider whether it is sufficient that there should be only one visit a year by the commissioners in the particular cases I have enumerated. I can conceive a case
1816
where there ought to be, and I hope that there will be, under those regulations, a visit by the commissioner to a private home more than once a year. Under the regulations as approved by the Minister, there is only an obligation on the commissioners to visit those particular institutions, homes and houses once a year. I hope that the Minister will be able to give an explanation of the various points I have raised.
Dr. MORRIS-JONES: When the Bill was before the House, there was very considerable perturbation in the minds of Members generally in regard to whether the liberty of the subject was being properly safeguarded. I think that these Rules and Regulations are sufficient with regard to that particular matter. I have very considerable sympathy with medical officers throughout all institutions, whether private or public, who will have to work under the Act. When I look at the Schedules at the back of the Statutory Rules and Orders and see their complexity and number and variety, I begin to wonder how a medical man in charge of cases is going to have time to look after the cases at all. I am not sure whether this is not another tendency of the State to burden the medical profession with far more clerical work than they have the facilities to carry out, feel sure there can be no suggestion whatever that the liberty of the subject is being infringed under this Act. On the contrary, it is very sufficiently safeguarded. I had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman might have found his way to simplify some of these Regulations, which are sure to be a very great burden upon those who will have the very serious responsibility of looking after the mentally affected.
Sir DENNIS HERBERT: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman if he has already answered any of the questions which I want to ask. I found it a little difficult to hear him, but. I think the House ought to pay attention to the fact that the document which we are asked to approve contains 133 Rules, occupying 37 closely printed pages, and another 32 pages of Schedules. The reason why this Motion is on the Order Paper to-night is that under the Mental Treatment Act these Rules are not to be effective in so far as they modify or adapt any existing

1817
enactments until they have been expressly approved by this House. I could not hear all the Minister said, but I think I am right in saying that he did not point out to the House in what various ways and in what different sections these Rules modify existing enactments. It is a great farce that the House should retain in its hands the power that these Rules are not to have force unless they are approved by this House, if we get a great document like this brought before us without any explanation from the Minister as to what are the portions of this document for which approval is required or, in other words, what are the portions of the document which modify existing enactments.
In order to show the House the importance of some of the points which may arise, I want to draw attention to Rule 22 at the bottom of page 9, which reads:
"Mechanical Restraint.
Mechanical means of bodily restraint shall not be applied to any temporary patient unless the restraint is necessary for the purposes of surgical or medical treatment."
In regard to "surgical or medical treatment," I think the question arises whether if a person is a temporary patient he puts himself under this Rule in such a position that he can be forced by means of bodily restraint to undergo some surgical operation which, if he had the chance and the choice to decide, he would prefer not to undergo. I think that is rather a serious point, and it is the only one that I want to raise as an example of the importance of this document. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will answer that question and also give us some definite indication which of these Rules modifies existing enactments and makes it necessary to obtain the approval of this House.
Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: I must join in protestng against the complication of these Rules and I also hope that when the right hon. Gentleman has them printed he will not insist upon printing them upside down. If hon. Members will look at page 40 they will see that they have been so arranged that if you want to read page 43 you have to turn it upside down. Even the Minister will not say that that is a good sort of mental treatment. It is a pity the right hon. Gentleman should
1818
spoil so complicated a document as this by making it absolutely absurd. I hope he will also explain the reference to post-mortems in page 19.
Mr. GREENWOOD: With reference to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) the provisions of the principal Act apply to the question of the liberty of the subject. As to the rates to be charged, where the patients are rate-aided, that is a matter for the discretion of the local authority. Where there are private patients the rate charged is fixed by agreement between the parties concerned. On the question of property some discretion has been granted. It is necessary to protect public funds and make a charge upon the patient. It is a very difficult matter of administration. It will depend on the form of the Order. I am circulating a statement to local authorities pointing out that patients ought not to be deprived of the whole of their resources and drawing their attention to an alternative procedure.
Sir K. WOOD: Is any notice to be given to the friends of the patient before the order is made?
Mr. GREENWOOD: I think that is so. In regard to second offences, the penalties are laid down in the principal Act and it is not possible to go beyond them. They will not exceed £100, and I imagine that the penalty for a first offence is not so high. As to recapture, that is an application of a Section of the principal Act, and we cannot go outside it.
Mr. McSHANE: Does that apply to temporary patients?
Mr. GREENWOOD: Yes. As to visitations, that is the prescribed minimum, although the commissioners can go oftener if they choose.
Sir K. WOOD: With regard to the general Rules of the Board, in the case of disagreement, how is it to be settled?
Mr. GREENWOOD: I think the authority of the Board of Control decides. As to the elaborateness of the Schedules, it is true that they are elaborate, but medical officers are accustomed to dealing with these forms, and I do not think they will find them confusing.
Dr. MORRIS-JONES: They are elaborate as compared with the existing Rules.
Mr. GREENWOOD: If my hon. Friend looks, I do not think he will find that they are substantially different. The hon. Member for Watford (Sir D. Herbert) complained about the size of the document. It is a large document. We took the opportunity of consolidating the regulations. Some of the Rules do not require the approval of the House, and a number of others, particularly 8, 10 and 11, are the re-making of the existing Rules.
Sir D. HERBERT: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question about Rule 32—mechanical restraint?
Mr. GREENWOOD: The wording here is a verbatim reproduction of the principal Act, Section 40.
Sir D. HERBERT: That disposes of my point, in that it is a reproduction of what is in the principal Act, and not a new enactment, except in so far as it applies now to a temporary patient. At the same time, it would have been more convenient if the right hon. Gentleman had issued a memorandum showing what were modifications of existing enactments, and what were not.
Resolved,
"That the Mental Treatment Rules, 1930 (Statutory Rules and Orders, 1930, No. 1,083), dated 30th December, 1930, and made by the Board of Control, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, under Subsection (1) of Section 338 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, as extended by Sub-section (1) of Section 15 of the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, which were presented on the 20th day of January, 1931, be approved so far as they modify or adapt any of the provisions of the Lunacy Act, 1890."

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

EPISCOPAL PENSIONS (SODOR AND MAN) MEASURE, 1930.
Mr. DENMAN (Second Church Estates Commissioner): I beg to move,
"That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this
1820
House do direct that the Episcopal Pensions (Sodor and Man) Measure, 1930, be presented to His Majesty for Royal Assent."
This Measure is extremely simple and needs the minimum of exposition. It merely brings the pension attaching to the bishopric of Sodor and Man into line with that of other bishoprics. In 1926 the other bishops, by a self-denying ordinance, surrendered their statutory right to retiring allowances which were drawn from their successors. Instead, they paid premiums to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and, in return, received from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners pensions on their retirement. By that process, the successors of the retiring bishops were relieved of all payments for pensions. This Measure enables the Bishop of Sodor and Man to have his part in that self-denying ordinance.
Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: I beg to second the Motion.
The present bishop will be liable to make a contribution and consequently he is sacrificing a great deal in order to give effect to this scheme. That is an additional reason why we should pass the Motion.
Mr. KELLY: As part of this diocese comes under the jurisdiction of the Parliament of the Isle of Man, I wish to know if the House of Keys or the Tynwald has been consulted on this matter and, if so, what has been the result of that consultation?
Mr. DENMAN: I understand that no such consultation was necessary.
Resolved,
"That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Episcopal Pensions (Sodor and Man) Measure, 1930, be presented to Mis Majesty for Royal Assent."

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMIS- SIONERS (LOANS FOR CHURCH TRAINING COLLEGES) MEASURE, 1931.
Mr. DENMAN: I beg to move,
"That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Loans for Church Training Colleges) Measure, 1931, be presented to His Majesty for Royal Assent."

1821
This Measure is perhaps of greater importance than that which was dealt with in the previous Motion. If passed, it will enable the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to make or guarantee loans for the purpose of reconditioning and extending Church of England training colleges. For some time past the Church authorities have been aware of the problem that their training colleges present to them. They had the misfortune to be pioneers, and I see that it was stated that the average age of the Church training colleges was some 40 years older than that of the colleges provided by public authorities. Naturally, they need a great deal of improvement to bring them up to modern conditions. Much has been done in this matter since the War. In another place, Lord Grey stated that no less than £600,000 had been spent on this process of reconditioning. Clearly the well-trained teacher is the foundation of a good educational system, and I can assure the House that money spent on improved training colleges is money well spent in the interests of the community. One or two hon. Members, however, have expressed the fear that the unfettered right of lending, as this Measure allows the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, might result in an undue expansion of Church training colleges and the upsetting of the present balance between them and the colleges provided by education authorities.
I think, in fairness to them, I should say a few words as to the very real safeguards that exist against that danger. Those safeguards are three, and each one of them is substantial, and collectively, I think, they form a body that should satisfy even South Shields. The first safeguard is the Board of Education. The Church training colleges are dependent for their finances upon capitation grants from the Board of Education, and any policy that went beyond what the Board was prepared to tolerate would be quite impracticable; and the Board's policy is controlled by this House when the Estimates annually come before it. The second safeguard is also important, and that is the modern temper of the Church. It is quite out of keeping with contemporary Church thought to antagonise public opinion by raising fresh claims in the educational field. Those who took part in the recent negotiations relating
1822
to the School Attendance Bill will know that that was true then. It rests not merely on the gifts of statesmanship of the present leaders of the Church, but also on the more permanent foundations of a sympathetic understanding of the views of other workers in the cause of education. In the cause of education, we are so much bound together that there is no danger that the Church would attempt to aggrandize its powers and to antagonise public opinion.
The third and final safeguard is as effective as any of the others, and that is the business capacity of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. They are the trustees of a large capital fund, and it is their tradition to do nothing in the way of investment that is likely to depreciate that fund; and can anyone suppose that the security of an exaggerated scheme for enlarging Church training colleges would be an adequate safeguard for a trust fund? Really, if there were any attempt at any such grandiose scheme, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would be the last kind of body to lend money for a project of that character. Therefore, I suggest that the risks that my hon. Friends fear are quite imaginary. They depend for their reality upon a simultaneous attack of lunacy on three separate public bodies, and that seems to me to he a, risk that we may safely invite the House to take. The Measure has an appreciable though small employment value. On the Ecclesiastical Committee we were asked to hasten the progress of the Measure in order that work on these colleges might be commenced at once, and if this Measure is now passed, in the course of this summer there will be considerable building work begun.
Major Sir JOHN BIRCHALL: I beg to second the Motion.
This Measure passed through the Assembly unanimously, and was regarded as so urgent and non-controversial that it passed through all its stages during one session of the Assembly—a very unusual proceeding. There has been a certain amount of misunderstanding in reference to the intention and meaning of the Measure. The ultimate object is very simple. It is solely to increase the number of teachers Available for the elementary schools, and to improve the conditions under which those people are

1823
trained. Many of the training colleges have been in existence for a large number of years, and long before the State undertook the training of teachers. The result is that many of them require modernising. The object of the Measure is to enable that to be done in order to improve the conditions under which the teachers are trained. In spite of what has been suggested, not one penny of public funds will be involved in this Measure. If the House refuses to give permission for it to go forward, however, a considerable expenditure of public funds will be involved, because, if the Church is not allowed to improve its training colleges, the State will have to do the work, and will thereby be involved in considerable expenditure.
Mr. EDE: I oppose this Motion, and I am bound to say that, if I had not been inclined to do it before the speech of the Second Church Estates Commissioner, I should have been after it. Let us understand what this means. During the past 27 years, the number of Church schools in the country has decreased by 2,010, and the number of Church departments has decreased by 4,285. During the same period, the number of council schools has increased by 3,545, and the number of council departments has increased by 4,731. I have held in this House during the past year or two that, where you have a Church school, you are entitled to apply a religious test to the head teacher. This is not, however, a Measure to apply a religious test to a head teacher, but a Measure to apply a religious test to a teacher seeking admission to a training college. The figures which I have quoted show that since the passing of the Act of 1902, the demand for teachers who would have to undergo this test has considerably fallen.
There can be no grounds, therefore, for the argument of my hon. Friend that this is necessary from that point of view. He says that one of the safeguards against the Church overstepping the mark is the Board of Education. I am surprised to hear that from him, for he has had a long experience in this House, and must have watched the Board of Education in its relations with denominational bodies. When a new denominational college is proposed, the Board of Education will be entitled to say, "We have a proposal to
1824
provide training college accommodation out of private funds, and therefore we shall not sanction the spending of public money." Therefore, the area within which teachers clan be recruited into the profession, irrespective of all religious tests, will be narrowed by the extent to which the policy of this Measure succeeds.
We were told that we should have to rely on the business capacity of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. I trust more to that than to the other safeguards he suggested. I was really astonished to hear the hon. and gallant Member who seconded the Motion say that not one penny of public money is involved. Today we have had quotations from John Bright and Mr. Bryce, dating back to the 80's, and I intended to quote something that Mr. Gladstone said in 1869, but after the way in which John Bright and Mr. Bryce have been alluded to I have some hesitation in doing so. In 1869 Mr. Gladstone laid it down in this House—and no greater son of the Church has ever stood in this House—that the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were public funds. The hon. Member for Central Leeds at least can have no doubts on that score. During the past few weeks I have been taking part in the Durham County Council elections, and the only question hostile to the county council that I heard asked was this: How is it that the sons of Nonconformist miners are unable to get seats in the training college that exists near Durham? The answer was that the county council does not control the college; has nothing to do with it. The figures that my hon. Friend gave me this afternoon show that in my own constituency, where very few of the miners would be regarded as communicants of the Church of England, their work produces for the Commissioners an income of £9,000 a year. They will have the pleasure of knowing that they are digging coal to enable funds to be provided for the improvement of training colleges to which their sons will be unable to secure admission unless they are prepared to be apostates to the faith of their fathers. The hon. Member may shake his head, but as an ex-Liberal he will recall the fights that took place from 1902 to 1906.
The Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education and myself were both Nonconformist teachers, and we both

1825
evaded going to a Church training college by going to a university college. He went to Reading, and I went to Cambridge. Although I passed high enough to secure admission to the Cambridge University Day Training College, I did not pass high enough to secure admission to Borough Road, which in those days was the only Nonconformist College apart from the universities. The door of admission to the training colleges is still too largely opened only to communicants of the Church of England, and yet, in an age when the control of the Church over the elementary school is lessening quite appreciably every year, this Measure will enable them still to control admission to the teaching profession and secure that the majority of the entrants shall be members of one Church. I suggest that these reasons are quite sufficient for the House not to pass this Measure; that so far from increasing the capacity of any denomination to control the entrants to the teaching profession it is very largely a matter of State service and Civil Service in the undenominational schools. We should take the earliest and the speediest opportunity of providing more undenominational training colleges, so that the avenue into the profession shall be free from any test at all. I realise that it is difficult to discuss these matters at such a late hour, and it is not possible to elaborate the arguments as fully as one would wish, but I think that the arguments which I have used are sufficient to make anyone who wishes to see the teaching profession gradually relieved of religious tests resist this Measure.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Morgan Jones): My position is somewhat difficult inasmuch as the task involved in defending the principle of this Motion is not primarily the task of the Board of Education. It is, of course, the task of the Church Commissioners to defend the proposition that they should have power to increase their right to lend money to the Church Assembly or any other ecclesiastical body. An issue has been raised in the interesting speech of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) with which I think I ought to deal before I proceed with the general case in favour of this Measure. The House will agree that in the main the case of my hon. Friend rested mainly, but not entirely,
1826
upon the subject of religious tests for entering these particular Church colleges. I think he was under the impression that only Church teadhers—that is Communicants of the Church of England—can enter those Church colleges. It is well for us to be perfectly clear on this point, because it is a matter of vital importance. The late President of the Board of Education issued in 1926 certain Statutory Rules and Orders concerning training colleges, and on page 8, in the Schedule, of those Rules and Orders, Section (2), appear these words:
"In the selection of candidates for half the number of places which will be vacant, the authorities of the college must not reject or invite the withdrawal of the application of any candidate not belonging to the denomination of the college on the ground of religious faith or by reason of his refusal to undertake to attend, or abstain from attending, any place of religious worship, or any religious observance or instruction in religious subjects in the college or elsewhere. Nor may they require any candidate not belonging to the denomination of the college to enter for any examination in religious knowledge."
That is the first paragraph. Paragraph (b) also provides a Conscience Clause. In point of fact, that particular proviso did not originate with the late President of the Board of Education. It is something like 20 years old, and I think it was originated by Mr. McKenna when be was President of the Board of Education. It is therefore not strictly true to say that all the entrants to these Church colleges must be Communicants of tine Church of England, because half of the places referred to are reserved for people of any denomination or no denomination at all.
It is not my task to defend the proposal involved in this Measure, but I think it is well that we should be clear about one or two points concerning the circumstances which make desirable some simplification of the business transactions involved in the raising of loans by training colleges. It has been explained why large sums are required. Briefly, the money is required, as I understand it, for the modernisation of old out-of-date buildings. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion and the hon. Member who moved it made it abundantly clear that there are Church of England colleges which are not only 50 years old, but some of them are 70 years old, and some are approaching a century old. In

1827
these days it must be obvious, especially now that the local education authorities themselves have embarked on the policy of building training colleges for themselves, some of which are very up-to-date, that the Church colleges, too, ought to be brought up-to-date and compare in facilities with those offered by the local authorities. The purpose involved in this proposal is not so much to embark on a vast scheme of extending tile number of places available in these colleges, as to modernise them, particularly so as to get rid of the old dormitories which still exist in some places and to equip them in such a way that study-bedrooms and other facilities shall be provided.
I think that is a long overdue provision desired by all, whether Churchmen or people of other denominations. Some may say that this kind of provision should be made by the local education authorities. It is perfectly true that some provision could be made, but the provision of colleges nowadays is not a simple proposition financially. I believe a new training college costs between £750 and £1,000 per place to build, and that means a very substantial sum in these days of financial hardship. If you have 200 places at £750 per place that means the provision of £150,000, a very big sum to provide. Everybody knows that in the financial stringency of recent days the local education authorities look somewhat askance at finding money in this way, especially when they have been providing places not only for students in their own areas, but for students outside and educating them at some expense to the ratepayers. From the point of view of accommodation what is intended is roughly this. Six years ago the Departmental Committee on Training colleges reported that in their judgment the minimum number of places in a training college should be between 150 and 200. As I understand the proposal involved in this Measure, it is not to extend the accommodation of a training college beyond 200, but rather to bring up the accommodation to something like between 150 to 200 places. There is no intention to enlarge the colleges beyond the figure of 200.
There is one other point which I think ought to be made. The hon. Member for South Shields said he was not quite
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satisfied with the guarantee that, if these places are provided, later on the local education authorities might not find themselves refused any requests that they might make, on account of the fact that there might be an over-supply of teachers through the medium of this Measure. I should like to make it clear that we have a firm understanding between the Board and the Church authorities. It is that
"The revised numbers for which each college will be recognised on the completion of the proposed alterations will be subject to any modification that may be decided upon at any time as necessary in the case of all recognised training colleges."
If the President of the Board of Education feels that there is danger of surplusage of teachers, he can call upon the Church training colleges to reduce their accommodation in the same degree in which he can call upon the local authorities to do so. When the proposals of the Church authorities have been realised, they will not provide for as great a permanent increase in the number of students as the existing temporary increase, and in normal times in the future the number in the colleges will not be as great as it is now, because we have asked them to make special arrangements for temporary increases due to reorganisation and so on. I hope I have made it clear to the House that the denominational test is not as firm or as rigorous as my hon. Friend, perhaps inadvertently, led the House to believe, nor is the safeguard really so lax as he seems to fear, and I hope, therefore, that the House will allow this Motion to be passed.
Mr. BEAUMONT: I cannot allow the speech of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) to pass with the very moderate comment made upon it by the Parliamentary Secretary. The House should realise exactly the hon. Member's suggestion. He objected to this Measure because, as I understood—I apologise if I misunderstood him—it was going to increase the facilities for the training of Church teachers; it was not going to give them an increased number of places, but was only going to see that the existing colleges, which would go on anyhow, did their work better. [Interruption.] I understand the hon. Member to say that he did not say that,

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but that was the effect of his speech. The effect of this Measure is to do just that.
Mr. EDE: I would draw attention to the words in Sub-section (1) of Clause 1:
"belonging to or to be provided."
That does enable them to build new training colleges.
Mr. BEAUMONT: Are we to understand that the hon. Member only objects to that part of the Measure?
Mr. EDE: I object to the lot.
Mr. BEAUMONT: That is the point I was trying to make, that the hon. Member objects to the improvement of existing training colleges, which will go on whether this Measure is passed or not.
Mr. EDE: I do not object to the improvement of Church training colleges provided the Church does not build new ones.
Mr. BEAUMONT: The hon. Member now says that he only objects to the provision of new training colleges. He did not say so in his original speech. Are we to understand that he thinks that a teacher is any the worse because he is Church-trained?
Mr. EDE: Yes.
Mr. BEAUMONT: Then I have only to say that, if there is an hon. Member of this House who really believes, after I do not know how many years' experience of the teaching profession, that a teacher is definitely the worse for being Church-trained, he does, by such a speech, no service to the system of education in this country, which has been built up by Church teachers and Church training.
Resolved,
"That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Loans for Church Training Colleges) Measure, 1931, be presented to His Majesty for Royal Assent."
The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Monday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at One Minute after Twelve o'Clock.

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