Sitting of 20 November 1931

Preamble
The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Kilmarnock Gas Provisional Order Bill,
Considered; to be read the Third time upon Monday next.
Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Sitingbourne and Milton) Bill,
"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to Sitting-bourne and Milton," presented by Sir Hilton Young; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 10.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Ordered,
"That Mr. Speaker do not adjourn the House this day under Standing Order No. 3 until he shall have reported the Royal Assent to the Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Bill."—[Captain Margesson.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Abnormal Importations (Customs) Bill, without Amendment.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The Bill which I present to the House to-day is, in one sense, the most important and far-reaching that has been presented to this House for several generations. It marks the end of a long road which had its beginning when Parliamentary institutions were first established in the oversea Dominions of the Crown three centuries ago. It represents the culmination of a process of constitutional development which began long before the War, but the pace of which has been greatly quickened since the War. It is especially fitting that this Bill should be introduced under the auspices of a Government in which all parties are represented, seeing that it represents, in terms of law, the principle of equality of status between this country and the Dominions, a principle to which the leaders of each of the parties in the State have pledged themselves at successive Imperial Conferences. As early as 1921, at the first Imperial Conference held after the War, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), in his opening speech, said:
  "They (the Dominions) have achieved full national status. They now stand beside the United Kingdom as equal partners in the dignities and the responsibilities of the British Commonwealth."
  This status was, equally recognised by the present Lord President of the Council in his opening statements at the Imperial Conferences of 1923 and 1926 and by the present Prime Minister in 1930. The principle thus outlined received formal expression in the now historical definition agreed to at the Imperial Conference of 1926, describing the position and mutual relations of the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions. It said:
  "They are autonomous communities within the British Empire equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic and external affairs,
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  though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as Members of the British Commonwealth of nations."
  It would be interesting, if there were time, to trace how the path of constitutional development in the British Dominions oversea has followed that in -this island realm of ours, the home of Parliamentary Government. Here, it has taken centuries to establish the supremacy of Parliament freely elected by the people and subject to no limitation of its powers, and the system of Cabinet Government, that is to say government by Ministers responsible to Parliament for the advice tendered to the Crown in all that concerns the country's affairs. In the countries oversea the process of constitutional development has been more rapid, but it has travelled the same road. British character, the desire to manage our own affairs in our own way, does not differ with the sky above us and the soil we tread. Love of liberty for ourselves and others is born in us and has been carried by our kith and kin across the seas. Never let us forget that important trait in British character.
  The Dominions having once started on the road there could be no halting place short of entire and complete autonomy. One of the great milestones on that road was Lord Durham's famous report in which he enunciated the principles of responsible government. Lord Durham, as I have no need to remind the House, was sent to Canada nearly 100 years ago to report on the best means of solving the constitutional deadlock between the Governor and his Ministers which had occurred there. In submitting his proposals for remedying the situation, Lord Durham used the following words:
  "It needs no change in the principles of government, no invention of a new constitutional theory, to supply the remedy which would, in my opinion, completely remove the existing political disorders. It needs but to follow out consistently the principles of the British Constitution and introduce into the government of these great Colonies those wise provisions, by which alone the working of the representative system can in any country be rendered harmonious and efficient.… The Crown must … submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions: and if it has to carry on the government in unison with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in Whom that representative body has confidence."

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  This great and far-reaching change, the introduction of responsible government, led, in due time, to the establishment of the Dominion of Canada, and the principle of responsible government as applied to Canada has, with the progress of years, gradually been extended and adapted to the needs of other Dominions oversea. Let me pause for a moment to deal, by way of historical analysis, with the suggestion which I have sometimes heard advanced, and indeed is being advanced to-day, that recent constitutional developments, and the present Bill in particular, are the prelude to the break-up of the British Empire. Sir John Macdonald, one of the fathers of Canadian Federation, in a speech made in Canada in 1865, on the introduction of the scheme for Federation, said:
  "One argument, but not a strong one, has been used against the Federation, that it is an advance towards complete independence. Some are apprehensive that the very fact of our forming this Union will hasten the time when we shall be severed from the Mother Country. I have no apprehension of that kind. I believe it will have the contrary effect."
  I need not remind the House how amply this prophecy has been fulfilled, and I say confidently that I believe the views expressed in Sir John Macdonald's now historic speech have as strong an application to-day in regard to the present Bill. It is true that the original idea of responsible Government involved separation between matters of local concern, which were to be entirely within the responsibility of the local Government, and matters of Imperial concern, which were to be reserved to the Government of the United Kingdom; but subsequent history has shown the progressive disappearance of all these limitations on the oversea Governments which were then thought essential.
  It is unnecessary to consider in detail the stages by which what I may call the reservation of Imperial matters has gradually been removed, but perhaps it might be said that the principal mark of a very interesting history has been the development of the Imperial Conference system, which, while affording more adequate means for consultation and cooperation, has led to the substitution of such consultation and co-operation between partners in a group for the older
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  idea of centralised control by one of the partners. The pace of progress too was enhanced by the effects of the war and by the impetus which it gave to the development of the spirit of nationhood. When one thinks of the response which the Dominions freely made to the call in 1914, and how more than a million men in the Dominions took a hand in the defence of the Empire, I am sure that no Member of this House will doubt their right to their place among the nations of the world.
  The final summing-up of this trend of development was the work of the Imperial Conference of 1926. The result of the discussions at that Conference was the report of the Inter-Imperial Relations Committee, which will always be associated, and proudly associated, with the name of the late Lord Balfour, and the famous definition of the position and mutual relations of the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions, which I have already quoted. Even at the time, however, it was felt that this definition required a setting in order to bring out its full implications and meaning. The House will allow me to quote a sentence or two from the now famous passage—.— as I understand almost entirely the work of Lord Balfour's own hand—in which was described the spirit underlying this definition. He said:
  "The British Empire is not founded upon negations. It depends essentially, if not formally, on positive ideals. Free institutions are its life-blood. Free co-operation is its instrument. Peace, security, and progress are among its objects."
  The report of Lord Balfour's Committee went on to show that there still remained, both in practice and in law, certain forms and machinery forming part of the old system of centralised control which had now become obsolete. There were two methods by which Ministers in this country were enabled to exercise control over Dominion legislation, a control which is, indeed, still used in practice in regard to Colonial legislation. There was what was called the method of disallowance. Ministers here could advise the King to disallow an Act; that is to say, after the Act had been passed by the Legislature and assented to by the King's representative oversea, it could be nullified by an Order from this country.
  There was also the method of reservation. It was possible, by Statute or by

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  special or general instructions given to the King's representative, to reserve a Bill, that is, to direct him not to assent to a Bill which had been passed by the local Legislature. A Bill so reserved did not come into operation until the King's assent had been given to it on the advice of his Ministers here. Again, there is a general provision embodied in what is called the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865, the effect of which is that the Dominion law, if repugnant to a provision of a United Kingdom Act extending to the Dominion, is void to the extent to which it is repugnant; in other words, there is an overriding power in Acts of the United Kingdom.
  Lastly, there is what is called a limitation, the extent of which is doubtful, on the power of Dominion Parliaments to give extra-territorial effect to their legislation. To quote an instance given recently in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, it is doubtful whether an Australian court would have power to punish a person found in Australia for having entered into a conspiracy outside Australia to commit an offence against Australian law, even if that offence was to forge Australian bank notes. The absurdity of that will, I am sure, appeal to the House. This is still the position in law, whatever may be the position in practice, and it is the need for dealing with such legal anomalies that has given rise to this present Bill.
  The legal problems involved in the consideration of these matters proved too intricate to be dealt with in the time at the disposal of the 1926 Conference. It was only able to indicate the lines on which further investigation of these matters should be made and to leave it to another body to complete the work of investigation. This was the origin of the special Conference of 1929, known as the Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation, the report of which was approved and adopted by the Imperial Conference of 1930.
  I will not detain the House by giving more than a brief summary of its recommendations, which were designed both to carry into full effect the root principle of equality of status and to indicate methods for maintaining and strengthening the practical system of
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  free co-operation. So far as disallowance is concerned, the power was recognised by the 1929 Conference as obsolete and capable of abolition if so desired by the appropriate constitutional procedure, subject to one exception. That exception is that certain Dominion stocks have been admitted as trustee securities in the United Kingdom under a condition which has required the recognition by the Government concerned of the continued existence of the power of disallowance. That is not interfered with in the Bill. As long as this position obtains as regards the securities of any Dominion, it was recognised that the right of disallowance must, as a matter of contract, remain in relation to that Dominion.
  On the question of reservation again, in principle it was recognised as obsolete, though the machinery needed to secure its removal may not in all cases be the same, or indeed require to be put into effect immediately. The Colonial Laws Validity Act was, it was recommended, to be repealed in relation to the Dominions, and the constitutional convention, which has existed for a good many years, by which the United Kingdom Parliament does not pass laws affecting the Dominions without their consent, was to be given statutory force, with the effect of a rule of interpretation. Moreover, the powers of Dominion Parliaments to give extra-territorial effect to their legislation were to be made clear by declaratory enactment.
  Lastly, the 1929 Conference made recommendations designed to remove the existing limitations on the right of the Dominions to legislate about merchant shipping. At the same time, it sketched out a complete scheme designed to secure, by voluntary agreement, concerted action between the United Kingdom and the Dominions on all essential matters connected with merchant shipping where uniformity was thought desirable. I may add that arrangements are now being made for an agreement on this basis, drawn up and approved by the Imperial Conference of 1930, to be completed and signed so as to take effect concurrently with the passing of this Bill. The importance of that to the whole of our merchant shipping will be appreciated by the House.

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  11.30 a.m.
  The Imperial Conference of 1930 substantially adopted all the recommendations of the 1929 Conference, and set out in its Report the Clauses which would be required in a United Kingdom Statute to give effect to them. Further, it settled the next step in procedure, by which the Dominion Parliaments were to be asked to approve and request the passage of legislation by the United Kingdom Parliament, and the latter was to be asked to give that legislation the force of law by 1st December, 1931. The proposals have been laid before the several Dominion Parliaments which by means of Resolutions have expressed their approval and their wish that the required legislation should be passed. In other words, this Bill is being introduced, not only in accordance with the promise at the various Imperial Conferences I have mentioned, but also, as I have said, by the Resolutions passed by the various Dominions without a solitary exception. Therefore, it comes forward not only as a result of this agreement, but with the express approval of all the Parliaments —Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland.
  Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Was not an Amendment made to the Statute in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia on the Motion of the Opposition and carried by the whole House—an Amendment to the Statute which does not appear in it?
  Mr. THOMAS: I will, at a later stage, give the House the details of all the Motions and Resolutions passed, but the Imperial Conference decision was that this Bill should not be introduced until Resolutions were passed in each of the Dominions requesting it to be done. That condition has been complied with. It is only fair, however, to say that certain States in Australia, I will not say took exception, but have expressed some doubts. But, as far as the Imperial Conference is concerned, its decision was that Resolutions were necessary by all the Dominion Parliaments, and that has been complied with.
  Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. THOMAS: I would appeal to my hon. Friend to allow me to continue. I am sure the House will appreciate that the Statute, as well as the draft in connection with it, is not only important to this House but to the whole of the Dominions, and if there are questions to be answered they can be answered either to-day or on Tuesday. There is no need, therefore, at this stage to enter into a detailed discussion of all the various Clauses of the Bill, but it may be as well to set out briefly some of the main points which it is the object of the Bill to achieve. In the first place, I would call special attention to the recital in the Preamble which contains the expression of a constitutional convention relating to the Succession to the Throne in the following terms:
  "inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it, would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom."
  I would just say this about the Constitutional Convention expressed in the above words. The personal devotion to the King and the Monarchy of His Majesty's subjects is one of the most striking features of the world to-day. It seems to me of special significance and importance that the place of the Crown as the abiding link between the members of the British Commonwealth should be emphasised in the very forefront of this Bill. Incidentally, as we all know, nowhere is the feeling towards the King and the Royal Family warmer or more devoted than in His Majesty's self-governing Dominions beyond the sea.
  Clause 2 of the Bill provides for the repeal in relation to the Dominions of the Colonial Laws Validity Act. It is unnecessary to set out at length the history of this Act, which, in its origin, was designed to free rather than to fetter the legal powers of the Dominions; but there is one point to which it seems worth while to call special attention. In 1900, at the time of the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia, some doubts were

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  raised as to the appropriateness, in relation to the status of the new Dominion then being created, of the restrictive character of the repugnancy provisions of that Act. The matter was dealt with by the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and in moving from this place the Second Reading of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Bill, he said:
  "I do not object on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that the matter is not worthy of consideration. All I say is we have to deal with a provisional period. We cannot delay the passing of the Federation Act in order to discuss this matter. We must have a proper understanding before any change is made; but it will be open to the Federation of Australia and the Dominion of Canada, if they see fit to raise the matter at a subsequent period, and no doubt, in that case, any views they may express will receive the most careful consideration by Her Majesty's Government."
  If that be the attitude adopted towards the suggestion 30 years ago, it cannot be said that the repeal of the Colonial Laws Validity Act in relation to the Dominions can now properly be regarded as a startlingly new or revolutionary idea.
  Clause 3 of the Bill deals with the question of the power of a Dominion parliament to give extra-territorial operation to its legislation. This is a subject which has afforded an ample field for controversy among lawyers, and it is taking place to-day. The need for some such power in order to enable proper effect to be given by Dominion parliaments to legislation for their domestic purposes has long been recognised, and has indeed been declared judicially to exist in certain special cases; but there is still a doubt as to the precise scope and extent of the power which it is the object of this Clause to remove.
  Clause 4 sets out in statutory form for convenience in drafting and for other purposes the existing constitutional practice which was declared by the Imperial Conference of 1926 as follows:
  "The constitutional practice is that legislation by the Parliament at Westminster applying to a Dominion would only be passed with the consent of the Dominion concerned."
  This only recorded a practice long recognised; it would be necessary to go back many years to find an occasion on which legislation by Parliament here had been applied to the Dominions without their
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  prior consent and absolute approval. So much for a brief description of the more important Clauses of the Bill.
  To return to more general considerations, the Statute has been criticised both here and overseas as being formal and negative, and as a piece of legal machinery which will have no practical effect in altering the relations between this country and the overseas Dominions. It is perfectly true—and I am glad to notice that the point has already been made by many of those who have spoken in Dominion parliaments on the subject—that the principle laid down in this Bill as a matter of law has been for many years observed as a matter of practice. At the present stage of inter-Imperial relations this Parliament would not think of legislating for the self-governing Dominions except by their request and with their consent; and there are many both in this House and the country and in the Dominions who, preferring an old coat to a new, would have been content to allow the present practice to remain as a convention rather than to crystallise it by law.
  I respect that feeling, but when once we were asked by the Dominions to give legal form to the principle of equality of status which the Conference of 1926 had formally enshrined in their Report, what possible alternative was there for wise statesmanship but freely and ungrudgingly to accede to their request? TO have done anything else was to run counter to the whole course of our policy in relation to Imperial development, a policy which believes liberty to be the only true keynote of that development. I would go further. I am hopeful that the passage of this Bill by removing possible grounds for controversy in the political field will be the prelude to increased co-operation in the economic field between the several parts of the British Empire.
  I submit that it is a happy chance of history—indeed, I like to think that it is something more than coincidence—that this Bill should come before the House as one of the first important Measures which the present Parliament is invited to pass, for this Parliament has surely an unequalled opportunity to do its part in building up in relation to the British Commonwealth a firm structure of mutual economic help. I would urge

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  that we should look on this Bill, not as something formal and lifeless, but rather as the cutting away of dead wood which will render possible new growth. It is not intended to destroy the principle of uniformity where uniformity is desirable, but rather to give new life to that principle by setting free the quickening influence of liberty, by making all Members of the Commonwealth responsible for the common law of the Commonwealth in future, and giving them a living interest in the making of that law.
  The Statute of Westminster is to be regarded not as an end in itself but rather as the beginning of a new system, where all members of the Commonwealth will have equal freedom and equal responsibility in building up the new structure which I hope to see rising on the basis of a group of free peoples united under one Crown and working together for their common good and for the peace, security and well being of the whole world. It is in that spirit that I commend the Bill to you. Liberty and responsibility are the foundations of our Constitution, and I am persuaded that they are the only secure foundations for the British Commonwealth if it is to prosper and endure. In the words of Burke:
  "We view the establishment of the English colonies on principles of liberty, as that which is to render this kingdom venerable to future ages. In comparison of this we regard all the victories and the conquests of our warlike ancestors, or of our own times, as barbarous, vulgar distinctions, in which many nations whom we look upon with little respect of value, have equalled if not far exceeded us. This is the peculiar and appropriated glory of England."
  To-day, in relation to the Dominions, we are carrying the principles of liberty to their logical culmination. Posterity must judge us. Posterity will, I am confident, acclaim that we were right.
  Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: I rise to support the Second Reading of this Bill, and to demonstrate, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that all parties in this country concur in this Measure. The right hon. Gentleman has given a historical account of Imperial development, and perhaps the most important factor in that account is the manner in which all parties have shared in the responsibility
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  for this development. In our view, a peculiarly valuable element of our imperial policy has been the manner in which it has brought together the political parties in this country in a common effort to work out our future destiny. We hope that that method of dealing with Imperial matters, whether generally or in particular instances such as the instance of India, will continue to be a feature of the political life of this country. This Bill is, in our view, a very large step forward in the evolution of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Conferences of 1926, 1929 and 1930 were confronted with a most difficult and complex task. They were confronted with the duty of taking the next step in a constitutional development which was without precedent in the history of the world. In 1926 the Conference committed the Empire to a somewhat vague and general principle of evolution in words which the right hon. Gentleman has already cited from the historic declaration that was then made. That declaration was intended to express, as far as one could in a short formula, the position at which the Imperial Constitution had actually arrived as a matter of fact.
  It still remains to make the legal position harmonise with the facts. It was that duty which the Conference of 1929 and the Conference of 1930, under the guidance of the late Labour Government, undertook, to work out in practical detail the effect of the general principle which had been laid down in 1926. That, again, was a matter which taxed the ingenuity of lawyers. Self-government in the various Dominions had developed under widely differing conditions. The degree of independence varied in different parts of the Empire, and the views of the Dominion Governments as to the method of carrying into practice the general principle of 1926 naturally were not all the same.
  In spite of these difficulties the present Bill represents the unanimous decision of this country and of all the Dominions, and it is a matter of congratulation to every one concerned in the Imperial Conference of 1930 that the present step forward is being made possible. There is no party in this country that is not anxious for the most friendly and intimate relationships between the Dominions and ourselves, and we believe

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  that the great strength of the British Empire lies in the readiness of this country to recognise the justness of the claim of the Dominions to complete freedom of self-expression within the British Commonwealth of Nations. Nothing is more fatal to good feeling and mutual respect than the continued chafing of bonds which at one time were justified but which are now no longer necessary. It is the removal of these bonds that is the chief feature of the present Bill, and we believe that by their removal the more intangible magnetism of common loyalty and common inheritance will acquire fresh strength. May I cite a passage from the speech made by the Attorney-General of Australia when introducing the Resolutions into the Australian Parliament? He said:
  "To some minds it may appear as a weakening of what are commonly called the Imperial bonds, but most thoughtful men will see in the Statute of Westminster the apotheosis of colonising genius, and the expression of that complete mutual trust and goodwill which, more than anything else, go to make the foundation and fibre of the British commonwealth of nations."
  We believe that that sentence expresses truly and fully the real position of the peoples not only of this country but of the Dominions as well. No doubt everybody will not be agreed upon all the provisions of the Statute. Divergent views have been expressed in the Dominion legislatures, and will no doubt be expressed in this House, especially, perhaps, with regard to the position of the Irish Free State. But it is impossible in these matters to expect unanimity. Genuine fears and genuine doubts will be and have been expressed.
  It has been doubted, as the right hon. Gentleman has already said, whether it is not better to leave things as they are, to allow the common sense of the British people to permit that flexibility which has characterised our Imperial relationships in the past to continue to guide our policy in the future. This state of affairs would not, in our opinion, be satisfactory. Bonds such as the Colonial Laws Validity Act still exist not only in theory but in practice. Even in quite recent times Dominion legislation has been held to be ultra vires because of this statute, and the continued existence of what is out-of-date legislation is always a danger in any country, and more particularly in
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  Imperial matters. We believe it is far wiser to face the facts, and make the legislative provisions fit in with those facts, than to leave the law in a state which does not accord with either the desires of the people of the Empire or the stage of evolution which the Empire has reached. Universal agreement can never be reached on a matter of this complication, but for this Statute the agreement of the majority of the peoples of all the Dominions has been obtained, and we are glad to voice the agreement of those whom we represent with that majority view.
  We shall welcome the time when a greater and greater degree of self-government and self-determination can be given to the remaining parts of the Empire, and to India in particular, so that this country may have a just pride in having propagated throughout the world those ideas and principles of democratic government which it has itself developed for its own internal governance, a system which has been the admiration of the world, and the development of which we should welcome in our sister nations within the Empire. That very independence which we, as a people, have so persistently claimed we now formally give to our Dominions.
  But side by side with this advance along the constitutional path, this freeing of the legislative bonds, we believe that every effort should be made to encourage good feeling and good fellowship between this country and the Dominions by a recognition of their common interests and their common obligations. The very novelty of the constitutional development of the British Commonwealth of Nations is bound to bring in its train difficulties and disputes between the various component nations, and it is essential, in our view, that some machinery should be set up which will deal effectively and fairly with these disputes. The British Commonwealth of Nations should become a great example to the world of the ease with which international difficulties and disputes should be settled. Within the Empire we have a microcosm of the whole world, and the successful development of a great unit of freely associated nations, including, at no very distant date, we hope, Asiatic, as well as European, peoples and this should go far to demonstrate the possibility of international

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  agreement and co-ordination for a peaceful and prosperous development of world affairs, a development essential to the future of civilisation.
  It is imperative that, as soon as this Bill becomes law, there should be some agreed and accepted tribunal that can solve the problems that are certain to arise as to the exact ambit of the powers of the many independent legislative bodies that will exist within the British Commonwealth. Unless such a body is in existence we shall run a serious risk of ill-feeling developing over our differences. I know that such a tribunal has been foreshadowed in paragraph 125 of the report of the 1930 Imperial Conference, but I would urge the Government to see that its constitution, whether by appointing panels of persons fit to serve, or by setting up a permanent tribunal and its jurisdiction, is defined at the earliest moment, so that it may be ready to deal with any constitutional difficulty the moment it arises and in order that there may be no delay while it is being constituted, a delay which might be a very adverse element in achieving a friendly settlement.
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  In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Dominions is about to embark upon an extended tour of the Dominions immediately after this Bill is passed, I might perhaps be permitted to impress upon him one or two matters with regard to Imperial relations which we regard as of particular importance. Having succeeded by this Bill in removing the legal bonds which might have been a potential source of friction in our relationship with the Dominions, we should now do our utmost to encourage the development of bonds of another sort based upon our common interest, by such efforts as those which are being made by the Empire Marketing Board at the present time, which depend upon good will and not upon any bargain or bond. We believe such efforts will be of the greatest value in developing our inter-Imperial interests. We believe that the Government might greatly increase the volume of inter-Imperial trade, and good feeling between all parts of the Empire, by developing that side of its attack upon the problem.
  There are two important matters which should be carefully considered. One is
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  the question of the bulk exchange of goods which has been tried in other parts of the world, and which might succeed in the case of this country. The other question is that of inter-Imperial salesmanship through Government organisation. Those matters still remain to be tackled, and they are matters which, if we had reached that state of Socialism which we believe to be necessary for the recovery of the country, might easily be undertaken. That is the existing state of affairs, and we believe that the right hon. Gentleman has agreed to try to develop our prosperity along those lines.
  This new era in our Imperial relations has come largely through our realisation that in the difficult days of the war the Dominions reached the full stature of manhood, and stood by us as free and independent brothers, and no longer as children under our direction and command. To-day we are facing another great crisis, and without any compulsion or bargain we hope and believe that the freely associated members of the British Commonwealth of Nations will stand by one another, and give to one another that help and assistance which may be so vital a factor in the future prosperity of them all.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State for Dominion affairs and his late colleague in the Socialist Administration have laid before us the case for this Bill in very learned and worthy addresses. They no doubt concocted the Measure together when they were members of the same Administration, and it is a happy conjunction of events that they should be able to present it this morning in unison, simultaneously and concurrently, from both Front Benches. I hope the House, with its usual courtesy to minorities, will be willing to tolerate an expression of opinion from a. Conservative quarter, not indeed of opposition, but rather of caution and restraint. I hope the House will also endorse the assertion of one or two fixed, unyielding points. It is high time that we had some fixed unyielding points in our political philosophy. For a good many years we have proceeded complacently upon an ebbing tide and few there are who have not yielded to the easy going sentiment and lassitude of the age. Now we are called upon to express all the general conclusions of the Imperial Conference, and all the good-natured emotion which sustains them, in

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  the hard language of statute law which has resulted in the introduction of this Bill.
  The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs congratulated himself upon this Measure, but I cannot congratulate His Majesty's Government on this occasion. They have constituted themselves the heirs, they are the representatives, of the most splendid expression of the love and loyalty of the British people for their country and for the cohesion of the Empire of which our records bear witness. They possess a greater majority than dreamland ever portrayed. This majority has been largely produced by the votes and by the heart-felt patriotism of many millions of very poor people. It is, I think, bad luck—I say it sincerely, because it is a coincidence—it is bad luck that the very first and almost the sole Measure of the Gracious Speech should happen to be the Bill which we are asked to read a Second time to-day. When all the generous sentiments in which all parties have bathed themselves during recent years have to be reduced to the language of Acts of Parliament, the result is not only pedantic, it is painful, and, to some at any rate, it will almost be repellent. Anyone who likes to read the Clauses of the Bill will understand quite well the aspect that I am expressing.
  I wish to divide my examination of this Measure this morning into three parts—its effect upon the Empire, its effect upon Ireland, and its potential effect upon India. Like everybody else in the late Conservative Administration, I was involved in and am responsible for the Imperial Conference declarations of 1926. In all our self-governing Dominions there have been for many years two parties on Imperial questions. One party has set the Imperial connection at its highest; the other has set it at the minimum; and these two parties have disputed against each other in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand and in South Africa. The declarations of 1926 have removed this issue altogether from the arena of Dominion politics. We accepted in this Motherland the view of those who wish to state the Imperial obligation and Imperial ties at their minimum; we abandoned the whole apparatus of sovereignty and constitutional law to which our ancestors, and even the later Victorians, had attached the greatest importance. Remembering
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  that, and remembering the atmosphere of those days, not long gone, and the spirit of those days, I cannot think that we were wrong, and I do not think that we are wrong now. I feel that we are bound, where the great self-governing Dominions of the Crown are concerned, boldly to grasp the larger hope, and to believe, in spite of anything that may be written in Acts of Parliament, that all will come right, nay, all will go better and better between Great Britain and her offspring.
  I had, however, misgivings at the time, in 1926. I had misgivings that we were needlessly obliterating old, famous landmarks and signposts, which, although archaic, have a historic importance and value. I remember that that great statesman, the late Lord Balfour, with whom I talked this matter over very often, answered me, and to some extent re-assured me, by saying, "I do not believe in wooden guns." I thought that a very pregnant remark. He saw no advantage in preserving an assertion of rights and powers on which, in practice, we should not find it possible effectively to base ourselves. I still repose faith in the calm, lambent wisdom of that great man in his later years.
  It follows from this acceptance, as I am bound to accept responsibility, among others, for the conclusions of 1926, that I am bound also to face the ordeal of seeing them embodied, with all the awkwardness of the process, in practical legislation. The legislation, however—and this is a question which the House is free to revolve—the legislation to fulfil the purpose may be well-conceived or it may be ill-conceived. It may easily give an untoward bias in interpretation upon many points, and that is certainly a matter which we must examine. I could, indeed, wish that it were possible to remit this Measure to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, where all the unequalled legal authority and constitutional knowledge of the House of Lords could contribute its constructive touch to the shaping of this most important and memorable Statute.
  The Attorney-General is not with us. He, I understand, presided over a committee of lawyers who actually drafted this Bill. The Attorney-General at that time, when he was drafting the Bill, was in the full flush of his ardent enthusiasm

  1191
  at having newly embraced the Socialist ideal. He had cast aside his Liberalism and had seen the light, and he was, perhaps, hardly in a normal condition. It may well be that, if the Attorney-General, now that he has leisure and now that he is in a different political environment and atmosphere, might easily, in reviewing his work of last year, be more fortunate in the phraseology and terms in which he expressed the purposes to which we were committed by the Conference of 1926. But, when all is said and done, I should not be prepared myself, nor would, I dare say, a good many of my friends who take an interest in these matters, to vote against the principle of this Measure in its Second Reading stage. I see that some of my hon. Friends have on the Paper a proposal to move the rejection of the Bill. I hope that they will not carry that through to its extreme conclusion, because I think it would only create a false issue in the minds of the public. If large numbers of our fellow-subjects in the Dominions like to think, and like to see it in print, that the bonds of Empire rest only upon tradition, good will and good sense, it is not our policy—except as I shall hereafter mention—it is not our policy or our interest to gainsay them.
  But there I think we must call a halt. At this point we enter the region of special obligations. These special obligations, entered into between the Mother-country and the various Dominions, have been strongly affirmed by all the great self-governing Dominions of the Crown, and we see the results of their inclinations and wishes on the text of this Statute. We see them in Clauses 7 and 8. Canada, for instance, stipulates that nothing in this Act shall be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment, or alteration of the various British North America Acts from 1867 to 1930. The Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand stipulate that nothing in the Act shall be deemed to alter their constitutions under the Imperial Acts which have called them into being. They assert the inviolability, so far as they are concerned, of the Imperial Statutes upon which their houses are founded. It has not been left for us to make these claims. It is the Dominions who have made them for themselves.
  1192
  But in the case of the Irish Free State there is also a special obligation which does not find its reservation within the corners of this Statute. It is a special obligation to which, I think, we are bound to pay the greatest attention. I mean, of course, the Irish Treaty of 1922, or the Articles of Agreement as it is sometimes called. I am well acquainted with this. Curiously enough, it has been my duty not only to have charge in this House of the Transvaal Constitution Act of 1906, which was the parent and forerunner of the Act of Union of South Africa of 1909, but also I was the Minister in charge of the Irish Free State. Constitution Act of 1922, and it is of that Act in its relation to this Treaty that I wish particularly to speak.
  I regard the Irish Treaty, in spite of all its terrible surroundings, as a great pact and symbol of peace between the British and Irish peoples after 700 years of reciprocal maltreatment and misunderstanding. I am one of the surviving signatories of that Treaty. I remember vividly the circumstances in which it was made. Both sides were strained to their utmost limits. Every one of us British delegates realised the measureless danger to an Imperial power of surrender to the kind of violence to which we had been subjected. The Irishmen whom we faced knew that they took their lives in their hands for their part, and nearly all of them have given their lives for the fulfilment of the Treaty obligations. I do not wish to labour details, but the names of Arthur Griffiths, Michael Collins, and, though he was not a signatory of the Agreement, Kevin O'Higgins ought not to fade from our memories, because they gave their lives for the maintenance of the instrument called the Irish Treaty or the Articles of Agreement. They had pledged their faith to Englishmen whom they met for the first time, with whom they had previously warred, but of whose fidelity they were now assured, and they marched in that faith steadfastly on their path to the end which was not delayed.
  I cannot believe that such an instrument thus defended should be lightly set aside or that we should create a situation in which it should be lightly set aside. I know that we are told it will make no difference, that if it was the will of the people of Southern Ireland to

  1193
  repudiate their Treaty obligations, what we write in this Statute or leave unwritten would make no difference. I do not agree. The Irish Treaty constitutes the title deeds of the new Irish Free State. We never considered hypothetical contingencies, or what sanctions might be invoked in particular cases of repudiation of solemn treaties and agreements. But, if the Irish Treaty were illegally or violently repudiated, the Irish Free State would have lost its title deeds. That certainly would happen. In the common law of Europe, in the jurisprudence of the world, the Irish Free State would have lost its foundations. It would have become a mere inexpressible anomaly. That would be a great disaster to them and a great weakening of their position in the whole world which they have so carefully endeavoured to defend and build up. Therefore, it is the interest of Nationalist Ireland, and of Sinn Fein Ireland, no less than of this House, to preserve the sanctity of that memorable Treaty between these two proud parent races from whose loins so much of the British Empire has sprung.
  I am advised on high technical authority that this Bill confers upon the Irish Free State full legal power to abolish the Irish Treaty at any time when the Irish Legislature may think fit. Doubtless we shall hear the opinion of my right hon. and learned Friend who is the surviving Law Officer of the Crown upon this question, and well I know the force and power of the legal arguments which the Law Officers, with their great erudition and commanding professional skill, are always able to assemble in support of Government policy. I cannot pit my own knowledge as a layman against such authority, but I am advised by extremely high and weighty legal luminaries that the effect of this Bill passing in its present form would be to make it perfectly legal and perfectly simple for the Imperial Act which embodied the Articles of Agreement to be repealed by the Irish Free State. The Irish Treaty rests on and is embodied in the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922. Clause 2 of the Statute of Westminster which the Dominion Secretary has already read, reads in terms which no one can have the slightest doubt about. No one can
  1194
  say it is obscure or cryptic. It is the plainest Act of Parliament that I have ever read.
  "No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of a Dominion shall be void or inoperative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England, or to the provisions of any existing or future Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule, or regulation insofar as the same is part of the law of the Dominion."
  What can be plainer than that It would be open under this Bill to the Dail at any time to repudiate legally—that is the point—with the full sanction of law and Parliamentary procedure, every provision of the Articles of Agreement. They could repeal the Irish Free State Constitution Act in every respect. It would be absurd to argue that, when they had repealed the Irish Free State Constitution Act, an Imperial Act, they would be inhibited from further action by the fact that they themselves passed through the Dail their own replica of the Imperial Act. If the parent Act were destroyed, everything else would perish with it, and at this point we must look at the Irish Free State Constitution Act and its Schedules in which the Articles of Agreement are embodied. Anyone who likes to read the Articles of Agreement will see how very important are some of their provisions.
  Mr. HEALY: Read Article 12.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: May I not choose which Article I shall read? It would be open to the Dail if they were so minded—and there is no reason why we should not find them so minded in the future—to repudiate the Oath of Allegiance which is embodied in Article 4 and which is the great guarantee while it stands against a great many unfortunate departures. They could certainly abolish and decide for themselves this question, which, I admit, is a delicate one, of the right of appeal to the Privy Council. It is a matter upon which both sides should be consulted, but, once the Statute of Westminster is passed in its present form, it would be open to them, without even consultation, to settle that disputed issue in their own way and on their own terms.
  An HON. MEMBER: They cart do it now.
  Mr. THOMAS: I said that they have nullified it on several occasions up to now.
  An HON. MEMBER: Illegally.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: That is the whole point. We are entitled to adhere to and to press peacefully and patiently our view of those things. By this Bill in its present form we shall have placed it out of our power to continue to hold our view of the case, because we shall have provided an absolutely legal method by which the matter can be settled in an adverse sense to that which we hold. They could repudiate the right of the Imperial Government to utilise, for instance, the harbour facilities at Berehaven and Queenstown which are contained in those Acts and other Articles of Agreement. They could repudiate the right of facilities for aviation and oil fuel storage to which great importance was attached by the country at the time this Treaty was negotiated. They could repudiate the limitation upon the size of the Army of the Irish Free State, which is now restricted to the same proportion of the Irish population as the military establishments in the United Kingdom bear to the population of the United Kingdom—a very fair and reasonable proposition, and one which still bears the test of time. I do not say that they would do so, but they would have a perfect right to do so once they had repealed the application to the Dominions of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act of 1922. There are other various provisions with which I will not trouble the House.
  We are asked by the Dominions Secretary to look at the Preamble to this Act. Some language is used in the Preamble about the Crown which, I am assured, does less than justice to the ancient constitutional doctrines which exist, but the proposal that secession from the Commonwealth of Nations should require to be, or that the questions affecting the Crown should require to be, dealt with by all the parties to the British Commonwealth of Nations, is, of course, very valuable, but it is perfectly worthless in its present form. It has absolutely no validity at all as a Preamble. The Preamble is nothing. It has no legal force. Judges, I am told, do not read the Preamble. They look at the Clauses. There is no meaning attach-
  1196
  ing to it at all. But we had a Preamble to the Parliament Act:
  "Whereas it IS expedient without delay to set up a new and reformed Second Chamber."
  12.30 p.m.
  Twenty years have passed. What is the use of the preamble being there. It may well be, therefore, that in the long run, perhaps in this Parliament, we may read again that Preamble. It will at any rate show that there is no legal force in the Preamble. There are other various provisions with which I will not trouble the House, but in essence under this Act, if it is passed in its present form, the whole structure of the Irish Treaty can be de stroyed, not by illegal repudiation, but by the mere passing of a law through the Irish Free State Parliament, which this Bill declares they have plenary powers to pass if they think fit. I think that that is a very wrong thing and one to which we ought not to lend ourselves, especially at the outset of a new, and what we may all hope may be, a famous Parliament.
  Great anxiety has been caused in Northern Ireland by the position which will be created when this Bill is passed and needless anxiety, because, if we mean the same thing, there is no difficulty in giving effect to the purposes of the House. Moreover, the remedy is so obvious and so simple that I am most hopeful that His Majesty's Government, with all their power, will be willing to adopt it. An Amendment will be moved in the Committee stage by my right hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton) which will seek to introduce into Clause 7 after the words:
  "Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1930."
  the words which are incorporated in the text of the Bill—the words:
  "or to the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922."
  I trust that His Majesty's Government will accept the Amendment in the sense that it is moved, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will be able to tell us straight away that they will do so. I must point out how strictly the Amendment conforms to the spirit and the principle of the Irish Free State Constitution Act and the Articles of Agreement.

  1197
  Section 2 of the Irish Free State Constitution Act says, and I ask the House to notice these words:
  "Subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial Parliament and Government and otherwise shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law, practice and constitutional usage, governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion of Canada shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State."
  Subject to the provisions set out, the relationship shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and here in Clause 7 of the Statute of Westminster Bill, my right hon. Friend will in due course propose to safeguard the special obligations entered into between Great Britain and the Irish Free State in the same Clause and immediately after the provisions which by the wish of the Dominion of Canada safeguard the British North America Acts from 1867 to 1930. You could not have a closer concordance either with the Irish Treaty or with the constitutional arrangements which Canada desires. His Majesty's Government are now at the beginning of what we all hope will be a prosperous and even a glorious tenure of power. They will do well not to set aside lightly the representations which are made to them in all good faith and in all good will by many who sit in their support upon these benches.
  There is no violent hurry about this matter. The Government have introduced the Bill and in that way they have kept their pledge, but Parliament is in control, and no-one can limit in any way the power of Parliament to deal with this Bill. As has been pointed out, some of the Dominions themselves have amended it. In other cases they have passed Resolutions. We, for the first time as a Parliament, have to go through the process of examining and studying carefully all the concrete and definite proposals in the form of the Statute, and certainly we should not be hurried. I hope and trust that it is not intended to bring this Debate to a premature conclusion this afternoon.
  I have only one more topic to deal with. This Bill does not, of course, deal with India, but it naturally, and I think inevitably, must govern our thoughts in relation to the Indian situation which
  1198
  may some day arise. For the first time, we see set out in cold legal language what Dominion status means. Let anyone who reads these Clauses contemplate the frightful disaster which would be brought upon India if the full Dominion status as set out here became the law governing India. For India we have inalienable responsibilities and adequate and necessary powers to maintain them. We are going to have a debate in a few days on India; therefore I will not dwell upon that topic, but when we have before us the actual legal provisions of Dominion status, is there anyone who does not see the fatly and the wrong of the declarations which excited the hopes of the Indian political classes that, after a brief period of transition, full Dominion status would be conferred upon the Indian central Legislature. The gravamen of the charge which I bring against those who have made improvident declarations upon these matters is shown by the presentation of this Bill to-day.
  The declarations in favour of Dominion status which were made a year or two ago took no account of the fundamental change between the time of the Montagu reforms and the Irwin declarations in the meaning of Dominion status. The term is the same; it is printed in the same letters; it is pronounced with the same accents, but it means, after this Statute has been passed and after the declarations of the 1926 Conference, something fundamentally different from what it was in the days of the Government of India Act, 1919. No-one can doubt that Dominion status as defined in this Bill would be incompatible with the slightest semblance of Imperial authority over the races, the peoples and the States of the vast sub-continent of India.
  Could we ever see more clearly than we do in this debate the valuelessness of paper safeguards? It would be even an argument of the Government: "It does not matter what you do or you do not do; the safeguards are valueless." I do not think that we should throw away any safeguards which are necessary or proper. The valuelessness of paper safeguards is one of the painful conclusions driven in upon all our minds. In the fullness of time and in the nick of time a Parliament has arrived which is capable of calling a halt in these matters. It is a Parliament which is bound by the

  1199
  obligations of the past. It is a Parliament which is willing to face realities both in Ireland and in India. It is a Parliament resolute to preserve the lawful, practical essentials of Imperial structure, and I trust that His Majesty's Government will prove themselves, at the beginning of their work and of their career, in sympathy and in harmony with the wishes and feelings of this Parliament.
  Mr. AMERY: We have just listened to one of the most powerful and most impressive speeches which has been delivered in this House for a long time, and yet it was a speech which I feel was based upon a conception of the British Empire utterly different from that which I hold. I do not believe that this Empire can be held on the foundations of old legislative supremacy, but only on the foundations of free co-operation. It is on that basis that for 90 years past the Empire has been held together and built up. It is 90 years since Lord Durham, in that famous report of his, ventured to suggest that you could give responsibility to British subjects not living in these islands, and that the greater the responsibility you gave and the nearer the equality to this country, the closer would lie their attachment to us and the greater the unity of the Empire. Those proposals when they were brought before this House were met with speeches as powerful and as logically unanswerable as the speech which we have just heard; speeches pointing out that if you gave up direct control all was gone and nothing was left. For 90 years the growth of the principle of confidence and of equality has steadily coincided with a growing sense of unity in the British Empire. The first step was when this House, in spite of the warnings that were uttered, accepted Lord Durham's proposals. The next step was when we assented to Federations which did in fact transform the Colonies into nations.
  In these ever increasing measures of freedom, it was not only Dominion statesmen but British statesmen who dwelt on the Dominions as nations, and upon their equality with us. So far from the struggle being simply between those who put the Imperial connection highest and those who put it at its lowest, it has
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  been precisely those who put the Imperial connection at its highest and thought most of the Imperial connection—men like the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the late Lord Balfour, the late Sir John Macdonald in Canada and Alfred Deakin in Australia—who laid the greatest stress on equality and on the importance in practice and in law of getting rid of the remains of the old system of direct control and direct veto. The principle of equality was inevitably and enormously strengthened by the Great War. In that War, not as a result of any Bill passed in this Parliament, although we had the legal right to pass one, but because of their freedom, they came forward from the first day of the War. Canada and Australia each of them alone lost more men on the battlefield than the United States with over 100,000,000 people.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: In Ireland they had a rebellion.
  Mr. AMERY: I will deal with the subject of Ireland in a moment or two; at the moment I am talking on the general principle embodied in the Statute. After the War increased recognition of equality was bound to come. We freely and voluntarily invited the Dominions to become equal members of the League of Nations and to take the same position as ourselves in the matter of Treaties. Nobody has ever doubted, for many years past, that in all essentials the British Commonwealth does consist of a number of nations on an equality; not a mere equality of separateness but equality in co-operation and in responsibility. The Dominions have grown not towards the status of ordinary nations but towards the status of Imperial nations. The underlying question in this matter of equality is do we say that we alone in this country, in this Parliament alone, are to be entrusted with the exercise of powers and with a sense of responsibility towards this Commonwealth of Nations or should we not rather assume that every one of the great Dominions, while free to legislate and act as we are, but also inspired by a sense of common union, will take care that their legislation does not prejudice the union as a whole? On that basis alone union and co-operation will exist.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I should like to make it clear that my right hon. Friend

  1201
  in the statement he is now making is not replying to any case that I have made. I agree with every word he has said.
  Mr. AMERY: I am not dealing entirely with the observations of the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill)—I shall venture to traverse some of them shortly—I am stating a somewhat different point of view to that which he has taken. In this country we cherish all old survivals in the matter of form. Many of our forms represent an earlier monarchical Government which has long since passed away, but we love these old forms, and they do no harm. I myself should wish to preserve these forms in the Empire however inconsistent they may be actually with the principle of equality. The fact, however, is that some of the Dominions include people of other races besides our own, a somewhat differently minded people, who cannot grasp the idea that you may have the legal forms of domination consistent with the practice of complete equality. After the War when they met other nations at Geneva, and when Dominion statesmen were dealing with the national aspirations of their own people at home, they found these old forms a real source of embarrassment in their desire for equality and co-operation. They said that if their status in the Empire remained in any shape subordinate then they were not for the unity of the Empire, but once they were able to say, as they were after 1926, that there was complete equality I know, from my own experience, what a difference it made to the outlook of many men in some of the Dominions, particularly to South Africans who had been fighting against the Empire but who were prepared to take their place in the Empire.
  It is also true that certain of these survivals of legal authority were actually inconvenient in point of fact. There was the Privy Council decision, I know nothing about its merits, but it was discovered that a 20 year old Statute of the Dominion of Canada was ultra vires. It seems to me that in these matters there is a case for giving the Dominions free self control, and, in those circumstances where unity of action is desirable, that unity can be obtained by agreement on common measures, as I believe has already been attained on such a vital matter as the Merchant Shipping Act. It was from that point of view that we
  1202
  came to the decision in 1926, and there was no difference among any of us, or in the Dominions, as to the principles which should govern Imperial unity. In fact, most of those principles have been in force for a generation past. There is nothing in this Statute of Westminster which is so revolutionary. A great part of it is only giving legal sanction to what has been the practice for a generation or more, and what no one would have dreamt of traversing at any time during the last 20 or 30 years. I know the view is held that we have broken the bonds which hold the Empire together. I do not believe that any bond, which had the slightest effect in holding the Empire together, was abandoned in 1926. On the other hand, I believe that many misunderstandings which stood in the way of Imperial unity were cleared up, and a failure to carry out the wishes of the Conference of 1926, of the legal conference of 1929, and of the Imperial Conference of 1930, as embodied in this Statute, would indeed be a serious embarrassment to those who wish to stand for Imperial unity. I do not believe that this Bill in any material point affects the general unity of the Empire. There is nothing in it which prevents our building up that unity and co-operation in trade and in defence, in foreign policy and in research, drawing ourselves together step by step and substituting for the husks of a legal and formal unity the living substance of an Empire which works and lives and thinks together.
  May I come to the actual terms of this Bill. The most important changes are those which affect extra-territorial legislation, and as far as I can understand these legal points there is nothing of any great consequence to the unity of the Empire involved. This has grown up out of the past. While we can legislate against crime, whether a criminal action may be committed outside the three-mile limit or not, the scope of the original Constitution of the Dominions has confined the power of their legislation narrowly to the three-mile limit. I see no reason why Canada or any other Dominion should not pass legislation affecting her ships on the high seas or to deal with people who may forge banknotes in Australia which should affect the unity of the Empire.
  Far more important, of course, is the issue of the Colonial Laws Validity

  1203
  Act. The Act of 1865 was not an Act to enforce uniformity by this House upon Dominion legislation. It was an Act for relieving the Dominions of all restraint with regard to their legislation, except in certain points, to remove the last element of control, except in the case of certain Acts passed before the Act of 1866 was passed, and certain subsequent Acts more particularly merchant shipping. Here again the main and fundamental issue is this. Is the Empire going to be kept working together by the legal control of one Parliament among Parliaments otherwise supposed to be equal? Is it our assumption that this Parliament alone has the knowledge, virtue and wisdom to be able to control the others, and to keep them in unity, or are we to trust to the Imperial sense of a number of free Parliaments, each seeing that its legislation does not conflict with such unity as may be essential in Imperial affairs?
  What is reserved, what remains I Significant among the things that remain is the fact that the Dominions have agreed to the continuance of the latent power of this Parliament to legislate for any Dominion at the request and with the consent of that Dominion. That is no innovation. No one has dreamed for 50 years past of legislating here for any Dominion except with its consent and at its request. The interesting thing is not that that power has in any sense been limited, but that it has been maintained, and that it might some day prove a very useful factor in some Imperial emergency. The other point kept is at the desire, within the Dominions, where you have a constitution based upon an internal pact in a Dominion, that that pact should not be at the mercy of the Dominion Government alone, but that the Provincial or State Governments should have their position respected.
  That brings me to the position, in some senses parallel, as my right hon. Friend suggested, in some respects very different, of the Irish Free State. This is not a question of maintaining the relative balance in an internal federal constitution of the United Kingdom. It is the question of an agreement between two partner Dominions. What is the basis of that agreement? It was an agreement made in 1921, solemnly signed and rati-
  1204
  fied by both parties and binding on both parties equally, after it bad been signed and agreed to by the Parliaments concerned, whether it was embodied in Statute law or not, and remaining binding on both and enforceable by either, and, I think, acquiring comparatively little additional strength by the fact that, in accordance with the habit that has grown up in the establishment of Dominion constitutions, we subsequently gave to it statutory form.
  1.0 p.m.
  I do not profess to know what the legal position is. I do not know how far, for instance, the Constituent Act of the Irish Free State Parliament would in that Parliament make it imposible and illegal to introduce measures inconsistent with the Treaty. I do not profess to know or to prejudge the question, as apparently my right hon. Friend did, that in law at any rate, if they have the will, this Treaty, the Constitution of the Irish Free State, could be changed by themselves. That is not the essential. The thing that is going to bind the Irish Free State, if it is to be bound, is the original Treaty of Agreement in the minds of men who mean to keep it, and in the minds of men who have been working with us and are realising the advantages of the Imperial connection, and may realise it a great deal more when those advantages are translated into economic fact.
  My right hon. Friend quoted the precedent of the Transvaal. It is quite true that he was connected both with the Transvaal and with the Irish Free State constitutions. While he was speaking I could not help remembering what happened at the outbreak of the great War. There were those in South Africa who were prepared to seize the opportunity to rise in rebellion and to declare a republic. Some of them did rise. They were defeated mainly by the influence of one great man, Louis Botha. What Louis Botha said was not: "This is an illegal Act, unconstitutional; this is not within the clauses either of the Transvaal constitution of 1907 or the South Africa Act, 1910." He said:
  "at the Vereeniging Treaty, I made terms with the British Government. They kept their faith with me, and I shall keep my faith with them."
  On that main basis after all the whole position of the Treaty must rest.

  1205
  I speak in this matter very differently from my right hon. Friend, who is an old Home Ruler and was in favour of that Treaty. I am an old Unionist. I am one of those who were prepared in 1913–14, if necessary, to resort to armed force to prevent Ulster being coerced within a Home Rule Ireland. I am one of those who afterwards supported forcible suppression of the Irish Rebellion. I should not have put my hand to that Treaty. I was for maintaining the Union by force. I still regret what took place. I do not say now that I am altogether sanguine as to what might happen in the future. What I do know is that, once we had set Ireland upon the footing of a Dominion, there was only one way to treat it, and that was like the other Dominions, and in everything I had to do, whether as First Lord of the Admiralty or as Secretary for Dominion Affairs, I extended to my colleagues from the Free State the same complete confidence and the same loyalty and wholehearted welcome that I extended to any other statesmen of any other Dominion. If you give you must give generously and without looking back.
  I am not so optimistic as to believe that all Irish troubles, that all difficulties between this country and the Irish Free State are ended for ever, but I do say that, having set the Free State upon the footing of a Dominion, you must treat it as a Dominion. The main basis, the first Clause of the Treaty of Agreement, was that the status of Ireland was that of Canada and the other Dominions. I do not know what lawyers may say as to what that means, whether they say that it means the status of Canada as at the date, 1921, and that Irish nationhood was, as it were, put into cold storage at the 1921 temperature. It cannot be done in practice. You must agree that Ireland as a Dominion should develop with the other Dominions and share the same position with them. This does not affect the validity of the Treaty or its binding moral force upon both sides by one whit. Nor does it affect our position if it comes to any issue which affects us in time of war. If Ireland in time of war were minded not to fulfil its obligations it is not to the law courts that we should go!
  Lord H. CECIL: It is a matter of whether what we do is legal or illegal.
  Mr. AMERY: I say that there are other issues which far transcend the legal issues in importance, and that when you are dealing with a nation which you have resolved to treat as a nation, you cannot control it by niggling points of law or by Amendments to any Act. Do not let us forget the fact that if there is equality it must be on both sides, and that we in this House have complete power, as far as law goes, to break the Irish Treaty. No one has ever suggested that we should not be free to alter any law which has ever been passed in this Parliament. But does anybody suggest that our maintenance of this agreement is really weakened by our legal power to go back upon it? We may have our misgivings and our doubts as to the actions of certain parties in Ireland, but I cannot see how, on the basis on which we have been acting ever since the Treaty, we can insist by law on obligations being imposed on one party and not on both:
  I believe that we must deal with this matter on the basis of trust and confidence and still more on the basis of making it worth Ireland's while to be loyal. Her interests arc inextricably bound up with ours. Her whole trade is dependent upon us. For ten years and more she has experienced how high is the status in the world of a British Dominion and how absolutely free is such a Dominion. Why should she break away If there are forces which are determined to upset all that we have done for Ireland in the past, then no. Amendments of this Statute are going to restrain those forces. Now may I say a word about India. Of course, this Statute is one to make us consider very seriously and very carefully what we have to do in regard to India. It is just as well that, whatever we decide upon that issue, we should go into it. with our eyes fully open. We must realise what would be the power and what would be the position of India if she had full Dominion status.
  I have spoken, perhaps not altogether in line with the feelings of a good many of those who are here. But I have given most of my life to keeping in touch with Dominion sentiment, to studying what the Dominions feel and to working for Imperial unity. The unity of the Empire has been, I think, a not ignoble

  1207
  passion of mine. I have felt from the very start that it is only by equality in the Empire that we can progress. There was a time when I hoped that that equality might be based on some federal constitutions so that certain powers could be exercised equally by us all through a common legislature. Experience taught me that, not only in the Dominions but even more in this country, there is a reluctance to consider the possibility of a power above us, of a legislative control above our own. I had hopes 25 years ago that if this country met the wish of the Dominions and freely and readily co-operated with them in the field of trade, there might, as happened between the Provinces of Canada, as happened between the States of Germany, have arisen an atmosphere in which some form of federation was possible. That opportunity was missed.
  Even now we have reached a point in time at which the loosening of the old bonds actually precedes, though I hope not by many weeks, the forging of the new ones. Do not let us spend our time in trying to reconstruct the British Empire of the past or even the United Kingdom of the past, or even such remnants of that United Kingdom as still remain in our legal relations with the Irish Free State. Let us rather take the broader view. I do not believe with my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping that the nation the other day gave this Parliament a mandate to call a halt. It was a mandate to go forward, to act boldly, to act with confidence, and it is confidence which will weld this Empire more closely together. It is because of these things that I have always passionately and, perhaps, impatiently urged that we should get ahead with those matters which mean practical union. That is why I have been anxious that this Government should declare here and now what it means to do about Preference because every month that passes with nothing done, is a month of danger, of far greater danger than any arising out of the presence or absence of some legal restraint.
  Let us go forward. We have come to the end of one great chapter in British history, a chapter to which we can look back with immense pride and satisfaction. If that chapter were all, then its inevitable end in this Statute would be the end of the British Empire. But I
  1208
  accept the closing of this chapter only because I believe that it is the prelude to a new chapter. On that new chapter we ought to enter with courage, with confidence, with the forward view. I would like to say, in words which were used upon an issue not fundamentally different from that of to-day, what Burke said more than 150 years ago:
  "Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great Empire and little minds go ill together." Let us "elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us."
  Mr. HOPKIN MORRIS: I beg to move, to leave out word "now", and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."
  I do not propose to enter into any inquiry as to whether the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) who sits below me or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) who sits behind me, has changed more since 1914. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping who was a Home Ruler in 1914, is to-day if not actually opposing this Bill, treating it with great caution, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook who in 1914 was prepared to resort to force in order to maintain the Irish connection, to-day supports this Bill in its present form upon the curious ground, as I understand him, that whatever is put into legal enactment in regard to the relationships of the different parts of the Empire does not matter very much. I agree with every word he said about the real bond which unites the Empire, and so, I must add, does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping. It is perfectly true that you cannot keep the Empire together except by the good will and co-operation of all the Dominions and the mother country.
  No one seeks to enforce upon the Dominions something to which they themselves are not prepared to consent, but that is a different thing from saying that if you are going to pass a Bill through this House which is to represent our views on the relationship of the Dominions one to another, that legislation should not contain at least a coherent principle of legislation. One agrees that you cannot put in exact legislation what shall be the precise relationship of one Dominion to

  1209
  another or of those Dominion Parliaments to the Imperial Parliament. That has never been capable of being done, but if that is true, I fail to see the necessity for any legislation at all being introduced. Why has the position not been left as it was? It is true that before this Bill was introduced, it was very difficult to enforce—and I do not know of any attempt made by the Imperial Parliament in the last 50 years to enforce—legislation against the will of the Dominions. It has not been the practice to enforce it, but if that is the case, why could it not have been left to the actual practice of the last 50 years, without recourse to this Bill?
  This Bill makes far-reaching and fundamental changes. It may be true that those changes will have very little practical effect and that the only way in which Ireland can be kept to its bargain and to the Treaty made in 1921 is by the good will of the Irish people themselves. I have no doubt that that is true, but the material point is this—and it was very validly made by the right hon. Member for Epping—that if they broke away from the Empire, if they so decided to-day, they would be breaking away unlawfully and in breach of their contract. Quite apart from the Statute that enacts the Irish Treaty of 1921, they entered into the Treaty itself, and they would be breaking the Treaty to which they themselves were a. party. But once this Bill becomes law, then they can, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, under the forms of law and without being open to any charge of a breach of obligation, and indeed without breach of any moral obligation even, do what they like.
  I think it was before the Franco-Prussian war that Russia herself was a party to a treaty which renounced her rights in the Black Sea and agreed to the Black Sea becoming an international waterway. Russia signed a Treaty in Paris renouncing those rights, but four years later, when she saw her opportunity to regain the Black Sea, she recaptured it, and tore up the Treaty in that regard; and the argument was put forward in the German Parliament and in this country that the action of Russia was immoral. It could not be argued that it was illegal, because Russia was a sovereign Power, but Bismarck replied, and rightly replied,
  1210
  that it was useless to talk about whether or not the action was immoral. If Russia was once admitted to be a sovereign Power, as she was, she had a complete right to do what she had done. The same argument was put forward by Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords in this country, and that is, I think, sound constitutional doctrine at the present time.
  Once this Bill is passed, that will be the position of the Irish Free State. She will be a sovereign Power, as every Dominion Parliament will be a sovereign Parliament quite as much as this Parliament itself is a sovereign Parliament, though with certain exceptions. Exceptions have been put into the Bill at the request of the Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, bet in the case of South Africa and the Irish Free State, the position will be that they will have complete sovereign rights; and the case of South Africa is really a very important illustration of the position in which we find ourselves. It is clear that, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the ex-Solicitor-General said, there have been misgivings. Divergent views have been expressed when this Bill has been discussed in the Dominion Parliaments, and there have been misgivings on the part even of those who have been ready to support the Bill, but the South African Parliament found it advisable to pass a special Resolution to be attached to the Bill. It does not form part of the Bill, but it is a Resolution placing on record their views on the Bill and on the application of the Bill.
  That is a very important point, because they are concerned about the Act of 1909, which gives South Africa her own constitution. They are concerned about what they term the entrenchment Clauses of that Constitution. If those Clauses become open to repeal by the South African Parliament, the constitution of South Africa can be altered, not by a two-thirds majority, as is now necessary under Sections 35 and 150 of the Act of 1909, but they can be altered by a simple majority. South Africa was very concerned about that position arising, and she passed this Resolution:
  "That on the understanding that the proposed legislation wilt in no way derogate from the entrenched provisions of the South Africa Act, this House, having taken cognisance of the draft clauses and

  1211
  recitals which it was proposed by the Imperial Conference of 1930 should be embodied in legislation to be introduced in the Parliament at Westminster, approves thereof and authorises the Government to take such steps as may be necessary with a view to the enactment by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of legislation on the lines set out in the Schedule annexed."
  It is very unsatisfactory that a Statute of this importance should be passed when even the Parliament of South Africa had misgivings about it and passed a Resolution, which is not even to be given a place in the Statute, making an attempt to safeguard the constitution which was set up by the Imperial Parliament and under which the freedom of South Africa has grown up. Now to-day we are passing a Statute here, or we are asked to do so, under which the Dominion Governments themselves are trying to safeguard Statutes passed by us. It speaks well for the good feeling of the Empire, but it speaks badly for the attempt at legislation by the Imperial Parliament.
  I now come to another Clause. I do not want to go over the ground, which has been so ably covered by the right hon. Member for Epping, with regard to Ireland, but I want to draw attention to some other Clauses of this Bill. Towards the end Clause 2 provides:
  "and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or regulation in so far as the same is part of the law of the Dominion."
  Once a law becomes part of the laws of the Dominions, the Dominion Parliaments will be enabled to repeal that law at their own free will, whenever they please. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that in Clause 4 there is still reserved a power by which the Dominions can make a request to the Imperial Parliament to pass legislation, and that a Clause shall be put into an Act so passed to the effect that that Act was passed at the request of the Dominions, and it then becomes part of the law of the Dominions. What is the effect of that when we come to Clause 2? Immediately a Bill is passed by this House at the request of a Dominion and the Clause is inserted in that Bill, it becomes part of the law of the Dominion and subject, immediately it is passed, at the request of the Dominion, to the procedure of the Dominion itself, and it can be repealed the next day.
  1212
  This is a new departure in regard to legislation. What is the whole point of this legislation? It would be simpler to say, "Let the Dominions legislate completely for themselves." That may be a right thing to do; I do not know. It might be better to rely on the good will of the different parts of the Empire to keep the Empire together, but why make this attempt to legislate in this form, which is really an untenable form of legislation, and which enables the Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand to make certain exceptions safeguarding their own rights? If that is necessary for the maintenance of liberty in the case of the federal Dominions, surely it is necessary in order to maintain the safeguards with regard to minorities in the other Dominions. They have their rights, and they are very anxious about them. I shall certainly ask the House, as far as I can, to pause a good deal before it passes this Statute in this form. If we are to legislate, we might at least legislate in a logical form, and not introduce legislation which will never be looked at or will be forgotten. The best defence I have seen of this Statute was that of an ex-Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, who pointed out that the consequence of passing this legislation would not be serious, because it would share the fate of its predecessors and never be looked at. If that is to be our view with regard to important legislation of this kind, cannot the same argument be urged against any law passed by this country I Surely a larger responsibility rests upon those in whom is placed the custody of the British Empire.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I think that a fundamental objection to this Statute is the way in which it is brought before Parliament, but I think that its history is not without interest. It is my view—I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Spark-brook (Mr. Amery) disagrees with me—that it arose after the Imperial Conference of 1926. At that time even under a Conservative administration the Dominions despaired of anything like economic assistance or economic unity in the Empire. What had they then to discuss? They were shown as a subject for discussion this shadow of Dominion

  1213
  independence—not independence so much, perhaps, as Dominion equality. This was a shadow of a thing compared to economic unity, and in the disputes which arose Lord Balfour was called in to try to bring members to agree among themselves, and he, in charming and clear English, introduced a statement of what he thought was the true relationship between the Dominions and the mother country and between themselves; but Lord Balfour, although a very discreet and kindly man, never concealed his hatred for lawyers. He continually repeated his dislike for lawyers, and once in this House he described a trade union as a corporation, and was immediately corrected by Sir Robert Reid, who said it was no such thing. Mr. Balfour as he then was, replied "I am not talking law; I am talking English."
  1.30 p.m.
  Little could he understand how the whole working class movement rebelled against him because of a mere decision in law on the Taff Vale case; but here I think lies the curious irony. When they met in 1930 at the Imperial Conference, the Dominions themselves were in a far more hopeless situation. There they were not even treated with courtesy, and their proposals were thrown back in their face as being nonsense and humbug, and when they saw that they could not get any help from the Mother Country on economic lines, of course they turned once more to the old idea of Dominion equality, and demanded that Lord Balfour's sentence should be put in the form of a Statute. Nobody could have been more angry or surprised than Lord Balfour to think that his five sentences should be put into an Act of Parliament by a number of lawyers, his words imprisoned, deformed and embalmed by a committee of lawyers at the head of whom was a Socialist Attorney-General. That is the history of this Statute. It has been framed by a Socialist Attorney-General as head of that legal committee, and now it comes before us and my right hon. Friend (Member for Sparkbrook), said that we are not entitled to move Amendments. With regard to Lord Balfour, in this instance Mark Antony's cynical judgment is true.
  1214
  "The evil that men do lives after them;
  The good is oft interred with their bones"
  and this Statute is in the ironic sense the descendant of the declaration of Lord Balfour in 1926. I think that now when there is a hope of economic unity in the Empire, this other shallow thing does not matter at all. All our plans are built upon unity and co-operation, and this is a moment when we are asked to assent in legal form to the idea of separatism. It is unfortunate, it is inopportune I think, and may lead to very grievous and unhappy results. Members in this House should not be blind to those results. This Measure comes before this House on a Friday afternoon, and I think the Government had not judged how great the opposition to this Measure would be. They hoped to slip it through on a Friday afternoon. I trust that they have now realised their mistake. Why, they were asking this House to give less attention to a matter of this imperial importance than they would give to their own affairs in drafting a lease for a new house.
  It is a monstrous proposal that we should allow this to go through without any question, examination or criticism whatever, and it is very strange that a Parliament which has been elected for quite different and urgent reasons should be called upon in the very first week almost of its existence to deal with a Statute for which it has really no mandate. I know that my right hon. Friend despises lawyers and the legal point of view, but I daresay in his own private affairs he may have some reason to consult lawyers with regard to his own personal interests. Let him now consult this lawyer, however humble, on matters of first importance to our vast empire. He is better than none. Are we not entitled to examine these provisions, to criticise them and see whether evil may not befall the Commonwealth, which I believe he prefers to the word "Empire."?
  In the first place, I propose to divide the proposals of this Statute into two main divisions—the constructive side and the destructive side of this Statute. What is the constructive side? It is to be found in the Preamble. The Preamble, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) has said, has no force in law, where the words of the Statute are clear. The Preamble says

  1215
  that there should be no change in the Royal Style and Title or Succession to the Throne without the consent of all the Dominions. This is really unfortunate. It is no guarantee of imperial unity. All who take an interest in the past of our party will remember that Mr. Disraeli by his own will changed the title of the Crown and made Queen Victoria Empress of India. We may have great changes in India in the next few years which may, perhaps, necessitate a change in the Title of the Crown, and I would ask hon. Members even on this side to remember that you would not be able to secure a change unless ratified in all the Dominions. There is no guarantee of Imperial unity, but there is a great hindrance to what is still of some value to our Commonwealth. Of course, there is no guarantee of Imperial unity, because Subsection (2) of Clause 2 makes perfectly clear—and I cannot think that the Solicitor-General can argue otherwise—that those Dominions which have no special reservation concerning constitutional status from the operation of this Bill will have the power to repeal any law passed by the Imperial Parliament including their own Constitution. Their Constitutions are Imperial Acts like the rest. Nothing could be clearer than the powers of Parliament in Subsection (2) of Clause 2 which says:
  "the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act".
  Of course, that means that they can repeal not only this Act but the Act under which they derive all their rights and constitution.
  But the matter does not end there. The ambiguity of the Statute, which was so sedulously prepared by our busy Attorney-General last year, does not end there. This is a matter of the first importance. Has the Solicitor-General really realised that by this Bill any discussion of any future Imperial statute is absolutely barred by a form of clumsy wording. It will be observed that in the Preamble it is said that no Act of the Imperial Parliament shall apply to a Dominion Parliament except at the request and with the consent of the Dominion. Those words are also included in Clause 4 so that there can be no doubt about it. It means that a Dominion has first to request such
  1216
  an Act. Then it has to come here, and in order to avoid any kind of dispute, the Act which is passed here must be the very same Act which they have requested. That does away with all Amendments in Committee and all discussion. Then it has to go back to the Dominion Parliament to be assented to.
  Could any procedure be more clumsy? It must be the same Act which is requested which must be assented to, and the Dominion Parliament, from the moment it has let the Act come from them to be passed formally here, cannot consent to more than they have requested; if they do, the Act becomes absolutely invalid under this Statute. One could easily devise a form of words which would get over this difficulty, but my right hon. Friend says that we must not be allowed to amend it. There is a further difficulty about this. It will be observed in Clause 9, Sub-section (3) that
  "In the application of this Act to the Commonwealth of Australia the request and consent referred to in section four shall mean the request and consent of the Parliament and Government of the Commonwealth."
  I suppose that that is inserted at the will of the Commonwealth of Australia, but in regard to the other Dominions it is merely said at the request and consent of the Dominion. If we are to have definitions, they must be precise. There will be no difficulty in saying exactly what the consent and request of the Dominion means having regard to the more precise definition with regard to Australia.
  There is yet another very serious defect in this Statute. In Clause 10 it is said that the Dominion may adopt it at what date it pleases. After the 1st December, which is the date by which we have been told we must pass this Statute, they may adopt it on 2nd December or on any future date, but we are told that the adoption, whenever it may be, even if it is in 10 years, shall have effect either from the commencement of this Act or from such later date as is specified in the adopting Act. In other words the Dominion may not adopt it next year but 10 years afterwards, and it will revert back ten years, upsetting every decision of the Imperial and Dominion courts. Just imagine the state of chaos in which Dominion decisions may be thrown by

  1217
  this Bill, and yet my right hon. Friend says we may not amend it. All these things, I should have thought, would have occurred to the able Socialist Attorney-General, and surely the House must not be deprived of the opportunity of amending these glaring errors in draftsmanship and principle. These are matters of legal examination, and we shall surely betray the mandate and interests of the people who sent us here if we do not examine very carefully the provisions of this last Imperial Act. I think that I have shown by reference to the Bill and to a sufficient number of provisions in the drafting of this Statute, that someone has blundered.
  I have shown that the Bill is an attempt at construction. Let me turn to the destructive side. What does it destroy? The Colonial Laws Validity Act is destroyed. Perhaps I may be allowed to say two or three sentences as to what that Act means. It began in 1865 as a. great charter of liberty to the British Empire. It has since become a badge of inferiority. It said that Imperial legislation should not apply to the Dominions or Colonies unless it was expressly stated to do so, and that any Dominion Act should not be void if it contained any clause repugnant to English law except with regard to that part of it which was repugnant. That has since become a grievance. Nevertheless, the Colonial Laws Validity Act has been the instrument for uniformity, and if you are to have an Empire at all, you must have uniformity. It has been the instrument of uniformity in matters of common concern to the whole Empire at times of stress and crisis, and no one has questioned its authority in those times. It has enabled the Empire to act together both by legislative and executive action. It is essential in certain respects to have uniformity, and under that Act we could in times of crisis and stress have it; and when it has been used it has been welcomed. It is not a question of resignation of power. It is a question of having a means by which in times of stress the Empire can work together. That is what we had before this Statute came upon the scene. That is what we shall not have when this Statute is passed, and the Statute does nothing to set up anything in its place. One knows that in times of war the Empire must act together. We had no other means of doing it except by
  1218
  the Colonial Laws Validity Act. That was the position before this Statute came into existence.
  In legislating for the Empire, we legislated under three heads—the head of criminal extradition, which I will not deal with, and which is a comparatively minor and technical matter which concerns international law; and the heads of merchant shipping and nationality. With regard to nationality, I ask hon. Members really to appreciate this. Before this Statute came into existence any man under the British Crown, whether black, brown, yellow or white, could boldly say all over the world, "Civis Britannicus sum"—the proudest boast of nationality since the days of the Roman Empire. It is said that a convention is going to see to these matters, but it is not in the Bill. If this Bill is passed, we shall do away with the old Imperial nationality and will have only Dominion nationality. Until this Statute we had the pride of Imperial nationality, and unless something is set up in its place, all that will be gone. It is a serious matter. With regard to merchant shipping, the pride and cause of our Imperial position, it is essential to have uniformity. How are we to set it up? By a convention? It is not in the Bill. The complex nature of the law relating to the mercantile marine, the necessity for uniformity all over the world, and the danger to shipping interests which will arise as the result of the decentralisation of control, make this matter of greater moment than of mere academic interest, with which, one gathers, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook regarded it; because these are matters of the most vital moment.
  We are told by the right hon. Gentleman, however, that we are having the substitution of affection for coercion or potential coercion. Whoever dreams of coercion or talks of it now? There is no coercion; it does not exist. What we want is the power and ability to act together. You are substituting impotence for power and rigid rules for elasticity. You are substituting this badly drafted Statute of Westminster for old traditions and machinery of great antiquity, efficiency and incalculable value. That is the substitution that you are making. When a wise and good man has children, he does not set them to play games without rules; and when they grow up, he does not put them into business together

  1219
  without a deed of partnership. That is all we are doing by this Bill. We are playing the greatest game, and we are committed to the greatest deed of partnership to which any nation has been committed in the history of the world.
  Before I made my maiden speech in this House, I made a careful study of the Soviet constitution of Russia. There I found a system very much like what we shall have if the Statute of Westminster is passed in theory and in law. In the Soviet system a number of independent republics are tied in some sort of way, by some political machinery, to a central republic. Theoretically they can break away at any time they like, but if they did, or when they did, they would hear, not from the law, but from the central republic, that they must not do these things.
  Let me turn to quite a different aspect of the question, and try to make the House of Commons regard this matter not as we see it with our own British eyes but with the eyes of foreigners. Supposing one of our great Dominions, say Australia, were the victim of aggression by a foreign Power, and that she had to put herself on the defensive and to make or respond to an act of war. Do you suppose that a foreign power would regard the British Empire according to the definition of Lord Balfour? No, they would say that the British Empire was one and indivisible, and they would seize British possessions and British shipping as though they were part of the Dominion with which they were at war. It is a monstrous thing that at a time of stress like that, which might involve the whole Empire in war, the voice of Westminster should, owing to this Statute of Westminster not only be silent in command but silent in consultation. We are told by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook that we cannot alter this Statute, and the Secretary of State for the Dominions told us the same thing, by inference. Why cannot we alter it? I have read the Debates on this matter here and in the Dominion Parliaments. There was not a breath of suggestion that we could not alter it or amend it. Indeed, in New Zealand and Australia we were expressly invited to discuss it and amend it. While I am on this point let me ask the learned Solicitor-General this question. Amendments which were passed by
  1220
  the Australian Parliament have been incorporated in this Bill, but there are two other Amendments, passed by the Australian Commonwealth without a Division, which are not included.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): I do not want to interrupt, but it is not desirable that, even inadvertently, any inaccuracy should be stated in this Debate. I think the hon. and learned Member is referring to two Amendments passed in July. Perhaps he is not aware that in October another Amendment was passed which got rid of one of the previous Amendments, and that the final conclusions of the Commonwealth Parliament are embodied in the terms of this Bill.
  Mr. MARJORIBANKS: I am very much obliged to my hon. and learned Friend who, with his usual courtesy, has set aside one of my arguments, I am glad to say a minor argument, with that explanation. But with regard to South Africa there is a very curious position. There they did not include it in their ratification of the Statute, but they passed a resolution which would have the same effect as the reservation of the other Dominions, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, who have safeguarded their own Constitutions. In effect, South Africa did the same thing by resolution, although they did not ratify the Statute. That seems to be a distinction without a difference in principle, but in law it is extremely important, and I should have liked to see that in the Statute as we have it before us now. Of course I am treading on very delicate ground, but in logic and in principle, I do not see why that should not be included.
  I would have hon. Members understand that this is not merely a constitutional question, this is a question of moral obligation, at any rate as regards the Dominions which have not reserved their contributions. I cannot see how the Solicitor-General can argue that if this Statute is passed in its present form, Ireland and the other Dominions which have not expressly safeguarded their Constitution may not secede from the Crown and the Empire and may not repeal any provisions under these Acts. If he can argue that I will be delighted to hear him, but at present I cannot see that it is really arguable, having regard to Clause 2. It is not a question merely

  1221
  of Imperial credit; it is a question of honour and obligation, treaty and duty owed in the past in Ireland and in other Dominions, and the antiquity of the debt should not alter its obligation. Are we going to allow the whole question of racial minorities and religious minorities to be thrown back into the melting pot of Dominion politics? I hope that will not be so, that that will not be allowed by this present House of Commons, remembering that these obligations of honour and the British name mean nothing if we cannot protect the weak against the strong.
  I would like to say one word in defence of that great and honourable Court, the Privy Council, as a court of law for the Empire. Many people do not appreciate what a very convenient thing an antiquated tribunal can be. It is a fact that it is extremely doubtful whether one Dominion can sue another in the Privy Council. I believe there is a decision which says they cannot. It is a court for individuals of the Empire, and not a Court in which Dominion can meet Dominion. I think that is a very good thing. That one Dominion should be constantly litigating another in some arbitration court which it is proposed, according to my hon. and learned Friend to set up, would not make for unity but for separation. Nothing could be more undesirable than that one Dominion should be suing another in a court of the Empire.
  I gather from my hon. and learned Friend that it is proposed to set up a voluntary arbitration Court ad hoc for each dispute. That presents a very strong contrast to the compulsory arbitration clause which every Dominion has signed with regard to the world court at The Hague. Among ourselves, arbitration is to be voluntary, but in the world outside we must submit to this strange court of foreign judges who believe in a quite different system of jurisprudence. It is a strange contrast. For my part I do not welcome any constitutional court under which the Constitution of the Empire may become hard and frozen and crystallised. I know that Lord Balfour was a great master of English, and that he had a difficult position to deal with in 1926, when the Dominions were being refused anything in the way of economic unity, but I have been reading lately
  1222
  about the American Revolution, and I think that Madison, immediately after the Revolution, stated the principles on which the American Colonies has been fighting better than did Lord Balfour. This is the same position which the Dominions have already obtained without any Statute of Westminster. This is what Madison said about the men of 1776:
  "The fundamental principle of the American Revolution was that the Colonies were co-ordinated members with each other and with Great Britain of an Empire united by a common executive Sovereign but not united by any common legislative Sovereign."
  And this the Dominions have won without the Statute of Westminster and without going to war with the Mother Country. We are told that in some mysterious way by this Statute we are going to get a closer unity by means of legal separation. I have no faith that any form of law or statute will be able to bring that about. Where the law cannot increase, cannot unify, and cannot help, the law may freeze, it may narrow, it may confine, it may imprison, it may embitter. The seeds of all these things are in this Statute, in my view. It is true the British Empire depends upon moral unity and can only continue upon a highly refined and intelligent moral unity, but do not let us now, at a time when everything depends upon closer unity, when our whole plan is based upon such unity, make it impossible for us as an Empire to act and to think together.
  Mr. DONALD SOMERVELL: I ask the indulgence of the House in addressing it for the first time. Particularly, I ask for that indulgence for venturing to address you, Mr. Speaker, on matters so weighty as those which are raised by this Debate. This Bill is primarily a Measure for declaring and enacting full powers of legislative self-government for the Dominions. It is not suggested that the Dominions are in fact at the present time not in a position to exercise those powers. The position is that neither this House nor the Government of the United Kingdom would think of using its legal powers to interfere with legislation passed by the Dominions or to pass legislation referring to them which the Dominions themselves do not desire. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) referred to the words of this

  1223
  Bill as pedantic and repellent. With the permission of the House I will read a paragraph from the Imperial Conference of 1926 from which the provisions of this Bill seem to take their origin. It says:
  "On the question raised with regard to the legislative competence of members of the British Commonwealth of Nations other than Great Britain, and in particular to the desirability of those members being enabled to legislate with extra territorial effect, we think that it should similarly be placed on record that the constitutional practice is that legislation by the Parliament at Westminster, applying to a Dominion, would only be passed with the consent of the Dominion concerned."
  2.0 p.m.
  It is clear, I think, that that paragraph refers to the placing on record of these powers in a statute because it also deals with the right to legislate extra territorially and that could only be done by an Imperial statute. It seems to me that Clause 4 of the Bill, which is perhaps the most fundamental of the whole of the Clauses, is taken from the proceedings and the report of the Imperial Conference and very little alteration or modification has resulted from the later Conference presided over by the present Attorney-General. That being the position as to Clause 4, it is clear from the speeches that nobody opposes the intention as set out in that Clause. That being so, I suggest that Clause 2 follows as a matter of logic and common sense. Clause 2 is the Clause which makes in applicable the Colonial Laws Validity Act, and it says:
  "No law, no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act shall be void or inoperative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England."
  How can you say to a Dominion, "You have full legislative capacity for the future but you are to remain forever bound by a statute passed by another member of the Empire to whom you are in no way subordinate in any aspect of your domestic affairs." It would be quite impossible to retain the Colonial Laws Validity Act or any other similar provision if you are going to put on record what the Imperial Conference of 1926 recommended.
  I would like to say a few words on the question of the Irish Free State and the position of that State in the Treaty under this Bill. I do not want anything I am going to say to be taken to mean that
  1224
  I think the events suggested may occur, but this House is entitled to consider what changes, if any, have been made or will be made in the position of the Irish Free State if this Bill is passed into law. The Irish Free State came into existence as the result of what is called a treaty. Whatever legislation may be passed by this House or by the Irish Free State that Treaty remains a Treaty and it remains an agreement binding the two parties who entered into it unless it is modified by agreement or a subsequent Treaty. I submit that this is not a doubtful point, because it is plain that if this statute is passed it will be wholly wrong to say that the Irish Free State would have power to repeal the Treaty it has entered into with this country.
  Two things have to be kept distinct. One of them is the obligations imposed on the parties by the Treaty and the other is quite a different point as to whether either or both parties choose in their wisdom to give the terms of that treaty legislative sanction by passing an Act of Parliament making its terms the law of the land. This House passed an Act under which an Order in Council was made giving legislative effect to certain sections of the Treaty of Versailles and under that Order those sections have and had the full force and effect as law. If the Order in Council had been repealed it would be absurd to suggest that the repealing of that Order would in fact repeal the Treaty of Versailles or affect the obligations of His Majesty's Government to other signatories to the Treaty. The position, as I understand it—

ROYAL ASSENT.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went, and, having returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:
Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Act, 1931.

STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER BILL.
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
Mr. SOMERVELL: I was dealing with the position, as I understood it, of the

1225
Irish Treaty at present, and apart from the passing of this Bill. May I put what I want to say in this way'? It seems to me that at present the Treaty and the obligations under it have three sanctions. There is what I should like to put first, the sanction of the Treaty itself as an agreement made between the parties to it, continuing to bind those parties and the countries which they represent until by agreement its terms are in any way altered or brought to an end. That is the first and, perhaps, the fundamental sanction of all treaties. Secondly, it was made part of the law of this country by the Act of 1922. So far, therefore, as anything that may be done in Ireland is concerned, that gives it the second sanction, that any modification made by that country alone, if it took the form of legislation, would be contrary to the Colonial Laws Validity Act. That is what I call sanction No. 2.
Sanction No. 3 arises from the very remarkable way, as I venture to suggest, in which the sanctity of the Treaty is embodied in the Irish Constitution. The Dáil, sitting as a constituent assembly, set up the present legislature. We are less familiar in this country than they are in more revolutionary countries with constituent assemblies, but the Dáil chose to describe themselves as a constituent assembly. A constituent assembly, as I understand it, is an assembly clothed with authority to set up a Legislature and a Constitution, and to define the limits and powers of their Legislature. A constituent assembly could say that the Constitution which it sets up can only be amended in a particular way, and, if so, it could only legally be amended in that way. It could say that the Constitution might not he amended at all, and in that case it could not legally be amended, and a legal revolution would be necessary to alter it. It could say, as the Dáil, sitting as a constituent assembly, said, that only certain amendments might be made. The only Amendments which the Irish Legislature can constitutionally make are Amendments as defined by Article 50—Amendments "within the terms of the Scheduled Treaty." That is what I call sanction No. 3.
By the passing of the Bill you remove the sanction based on the Colonial Laws Validity Act. Speaking as a, lawyer, I may perhaps venture to doubt whether
1226
those who may contemplate breaking a Treaty are likely to be deterred by the fact that they are also breaking the law. But let it be conceded that what I call the sanction based upon the Colonial Laws Validity Act goes if this Bill is passed. May not that be a blow, not to the forces of legality, not to the forces of those who wish the Treaty upheld, but to those who are anxious that the obligations of the Treaty should not be fulfilled. At present they are in a position to say, "This Treaty is imposed on you under the Colonial Laws Validity Act: that we are fighting, not against a solemn undertaking entered into by you, the Irish Free State, as a separate nation and registered by you, as it was under Clause 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, but we are fighting the Colonial Laws Validity Act, and foe that purpose they would be able to bring on the Treaty the odium which that Act may excite." If a case arises when there is a danger that this treaty may be broken—I do not suggest that that is likely but we must consider it, on that basis—are the Government more likely to succeed if they approach the. Irish Free State on the basis that they are bound by this Treaty because it is contained in. an English Statute, or are they more likely to be successful if they approach the Irish Free State on the basis that the Treaty is the foundation of their own Constitution, that it is a Treaty which they have entered into as a separate State, a Treaty which they have themselves registered as a Treaty at Geneva, rightly or wrongly; and contains contractual obligations which they, as a separate State, have undertaken towards this country.
May I summarise the general position in this way? Imperial relationship may be based on the supremacy of the central authority or it may be based on equality and trust. We have decided to base our Empire on equality and trust. Having taken that decision, I suggest that, when trust is requested, it is not the weak course but it is the strong course and the wise course to grant what is demanded generously, freely and without qualification.
Mr. DAVID REID: The House has listened with pleasure to a very able speech in support of the Bill, and I am sure the hon. Member may well be satis-

1227
fied with the impression that he has made on the House. I am afraid I do not take quite the same point of view. I speak as a Member for an Irish constituency, but I am not speaking from any local point of view. I only want to deal with it from the point of view of a citizen of the United Kingdom. When we consider this Bill and the position of Ireland, we must consider the surrounding circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) was full of benevolent sentiments. I am sure everyone in the House would wish that the relations between all parts of the Empire should be conducted in a spirit of good will. I have no desire whatever to cast any doubt on the good faith or good will of those who have been in control in the Free State since the Treaty, but one must remember that there has been, and is still, a very large minority in the Irish Free State who, so far from approving of the Treaty, dislike it. It has been the cause of severance between parties in the Free State. That minority is a very large one. It is quite within the realms of possibility that it may become a majority at a future election.
Is it not sensible that we should consider, when we have this Bill before us, in the light of those facts what the position is? The last speaker called this a Treaty. As a matter of fact, it was a written agreement between certain individuals and entirely unauthorised. The real analogy is not a treaty made between this country and properly accredited representatives in Northern Ireland, but an ordinary municipal agreement such as an agreement between a corporation and a gas company. Any virtue possessed by the Treaty is due to the fact that it was embodied in the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act. Hon. Members talk of this matter resting on good faith. The Free State authorities do not dispute, I understand, at the moment that the Treaty is binding upon them and that at the moment they can only get rid of it by agreement.
I think that it is also agreed by everybody in the House that if the Bill is passed into law in its present form the Free State can by an Act of the Free State Parliament repeal the Treaty. This Measure is going to be passed in this House by the authority of one of the parties which ratified the Treaty. That
1228
means to say that this House of Commons is going to give to the other parties to the Treaty an option to annul the Treaty. Can anybody say that if we give the other side an option to annul the Treaty and if the other side exercise that option they are breaking any moral obligation? It is open to the Dáil without any breach of contract to exercise that option. That being the case, what is the position if this Bill is passed into law? The Treaty can be repealed. There is a large Republican party in Southern Ireland. If that party comes into power, is there anything to prevent them from legally voting themselves complete independence? Nothing! They can go to the League of Nations and say that they are an independent State.
2.30 p.m.
Let us consider the matter further. We must remember that the Free State is not on the other side of the world but is close to Great Britain. When the Treaty was entered into it contained various reservations in favour of this country to be operated both in peace and in war. I believe that those reservations were made by negotiators on competent naval and military advice. If the Treaty is got rid of, those obligations go. What will be the position then? It has been asked: If the Free State chooses not to observe them, what can you do? While the Treaty is in existence, if it were necessary to impose those obligations, any soldier or sailor acting under orders would be acting in the exercise of a legal right in accordance with the law of the land. I should like an opinion on some of the legal points which arise. Suppose that there is an attempt to exercise the rights of the Treaty and there is opposition. Suppose that a British soldier or sailor is arrested. He would be exercising his duty, and there is no reason to suppose that the Free State would not do their duty under the laws of the Free State. These are questions of very great moment and do not appear to be decided merely by expressing the hope that everything will be done by good will. I disagree profoundly with the policy of the Government, but I do not think that there is anything inconsistent with the Treaty. Surely, if Ireland is to have the status of Canada there is nothing derogatory in the Free State being put into this Bill on exactly the same footing as Canada. I would not

1229
be prepared to subscribe to the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook.
Mr. THOMAS: It is necessary that I should intervene at this stage, because my hon. Friend is falling into precisely the same error. If Canada had not made that request and desired this Clause this Parliament would not have been asked and indeed would not have thought for a moment to impose it. Surely it is an entirely different thing for us to attempt to draw the analogy that if Canada says "We want so and so inserted for our protection" the British Parliament should say "We will put something in to protect Ireland against Ireland's request." It is not fair to assume that. It is not only not fair to assume it, but it is an entirely different point, and I hope that my hon. Friend will keep in mind the fact that if Ireland or any other country desired a provision which was not inconsistent it would be all right. It is no good assuming that we are doing for Ireland the same as we are doing for Canada when as a matter of fact it is put in at Canada's request.
Sir W. DAVISON: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that this is against Ireland's request? Does that mean that Ireland proposes to tear up the Treaty. If it is passed it can have no other meaning.
Mr. THOMAS: Surely I am within the recollection of the House; no one would draw that deduction from it. I merely referred to the statement that we and those who are supporting the Amendment desire to put in an Amendment at the request of Canada. I merely explained why the Canadian request is put in. No, as far as the Government and the Irish Free State are concerned we do not believe that any amendment or any legal document that you could draw up would be so important and so binding as a treaty entered into by two persons, and that treaty could not be altered except by the consent of both persons.
An HON. MEMBER: You are going to give them leave to do it.
Mr. REID: I am sorry that my right hon. Friend has misunderstood me. I was pointing out that the effect of this Bill is to give the Free State power to break
1230
the Treaty. The right hon. Gentleman also misunderstood me on the other point. I say that by the Treaty Ireland agrees to have the same Constitution and status as Canada. If Canada desires this particular Clause, there is nothing derogatory in applying the same Clause to Ireland. The Treaty is binding, but the effect of the Bill is to give the Free State power to nullify the agreement. If you give a person power to nullify an agreement or Treaty, you cannot say that that person is breaking any moral obligation if they break the agreement. You put them in the position to do that. Let me put it another way. Suppose the Solicitor-General made for the right hon. Gentleman a lease for 21 years, and that some time afterwards the right hon. Gentleman came to the Solicitor-General and said: "I would like to have power to break the lease at seven or 14 years," and the Solicitor-General said: "Very well, I will agree and we will have a supplementary agreement to that effect." Could anyone say, in those circumstances, that the right hon. Gentleman was doing anything wrong in determining the lease at one or other of those periods?
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: What would happen supposing I gave my solemn word that I would not exercise my power?
Mr. REID: In the conference on Dominion legislation on Page 12 there is a paragraph in regard to the Colonial Stock Act. It calla attention to the conditions prescribed by the Treasury, and says:
"One of the conditions prescribed by the Treasury which at present govern the admission of such stocks is a requirement that the Dominion government shall place on record a formal expression of its opinion that any Dominion legislation which appears to the Government of the United Kingdom to alter any of the provisions affecting the stock to the injury of the stockholder or to involve a departure from the original contract in regard to the stock, would properly be disallowed."
The paragraph proceeds:
"We desire to place on record our opinion that notwithstanding what has been said in the preceding paragraph, where a Dominion government has complied with tills condition and there is any stock (of either existing or future issues of that Government) which is a trustee security in consequence of such compliance, the right of disallowance in. respect of such legislation must remain and can properly be exercised."

1231
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is being done with regard to that paragraph? I am unable to find any reference to it. It is a question of ordinary commercial morality. Large sums of money are invested in such stocks, and the Conference thought that it was necessary that certain special provisions should be made.
Mr. HEALY: The debate has largely turned on the right of the Irish Free State to alter the Treaty. I cannot speak and do not attempt to speak as to what would be the attitude of the Ministers in Ireland in that respect, nor can anyone here speak for what would be the attitude of the citizens of that country, but I do know that there were three parties to the Treaty—the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain. The Treaty has already been broken in several respects. The Northern Ireland Government for whom the hon. Member speaks, undertook to pay to Great Britain an Imperial contribution of more than £7,000,000, but so far from Northern Ireland paying that contribution she has received a contribution from this country, as was disclosed to me on Tuesday last by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Treaty has been broken in another respect, and a very vital respect so far as we are concerned. There was protection for minorities in the Treaty, and one of the vital Clauses was the acceptance of proportional representation. The minority in Southern Ireland are 9 per cent. of the population for whom the Free State Government have retained proportional representation—
Mr. REID: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member entitled to raise points which come within the province of the North of Ireland Parliament?
Mr. SPEAKER: The Bill is not concerned with Northern Ireland.
Mr. HEALY: The hon. Member knows what I am getting at and he wants to foreclose the facts. I am not going to refer to legislation within the province of the Northern Ireland Parliament. I am referring to the practical effect of the carrying out of the Treaty as between Northern and Southern Ireland, and I think that, will be relevant to the matter under discussion. In the Free State proportional representation has been retained for the protection of the minority,
1232
but in Northern Ireland proportional representation has been set aside. The only protection for the minority there is proportional representation. The effect of proportional representation having been put aside in Northern Ireland has been that, although the constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone sends two representatives to this House by very large majorities they cannot in those two counties elect a minority upon any rural district council or county council because of the gerrymandering tactics of the Northern Ireland Government. Any agreement, whether it be a Treaty or otherwise, in the Free State rests upon the good will of the people of both sides. The Free State representatives were prepared to carry out their part of the bargain, as was shown by the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) today. Three of the signatories to that Treaty have passed away. They were prepared to keep their bond with you, but you have not kept your bond with them. Let me point out Article 12 of the Articles for a Treaty, which the right hon. Member for Epping showed some reluctance to face. It is specified that the boundary should be formed
"in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland, and for the purposes of the Government of Ireland Act. 1920, and of this instrument, the boundary of Northern Ireland shall be such as may be determined by such Commission."
The plain meaning of that to ordinary people is that the wishes of the people in the two counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone were to be consulted, and when you appointed one representative for Northern Ireland and one of the Free State of Ireland and the Chairman as the representative of this House, you did not, in point of fact, ascertain the wishes of the people. You set aside and tore up the Treaty. In practice, how has the Irish Free State treated the minority within their borders?
Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot see how this has anything to do with the Bill.
Mr. HEALY: Except that reference has been made again and again to the rights of the Irish Free State under this Measure, and I take it that hon. Members were thinking mainly about the position of minorities.
Mr. SPEAKERThey did not say so.
Mr. HEALY: I shall be in order in saying that the Irish Free State has gone a long way in observing the Treaty which was signed in 1921, so far as minorities are concerned. They have appointed to the High Court more than half of the judges from members of the minority, whilst Northern Ireland has not appointed a single member of the minority. [An HON. MEMBER: "What do you mean by the minority?"]. In Southern Ireland it is 9 per cent, of the population and in Northern Ireland it consists of 33 per cent. Nationalists. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"]. The people I represent in this House. The people of Northern and Southern Ireland believe in the unity of the country and no Treaty that you can make will, I hope, be permanently binding on the people as a whole. You have drawn an artificial boundary in the country, but the aspirations of the whole people is that at some day there will be a united Ireland. This applies just as much to the people who live in the North as to those who live in the South, and, therefore, I support the Bill now before this House because it makes a step forward. If the people in Northern and Southern Ireland can come together mutually they will probably arrive at national unity much quicker.
I know that there exists an element of what may be called separatists, but that element has gathered strength chiefly from the fact that the Treaty was not the spontaneous expression of the wishes of the people. It did not consult the views of those in the six counties or the views of those in the 26 counties. It was something which politicians in this House, in order to relieve themselves of a difficulty, put into force over the heads of the Irish people and, therefore, it does not lie with hon. Members in any part of the House to say that the Irish Free State ought to be bound in the future by chains of legislative iron. You must rely on goodwill on both sides, and on trade between the countries. The Irish Free State is probably your best customer, and if you cannot rely on the goodwill of the people of the Irish Free State, whether they are Republicans or supporters of the Government, it does not
1234
matter what sort of a Treaty, or sanction or legal act, you may pass, it will have no binding effect. Without this goodwill, you will be in exactly the same position as in 1921 when the right hon Member for Epping introduced the Black and Tans, and carried on such a war upon the people in that country that the conscience of the whole world was outraged. The Irish Free State has done everything possible in the spirit and in the letter to carry out the Treaty of 1921. Indeed, most people consider that they have gone a great deal too far, otherwise you would not have treated Article 12 with less respect than the other Articles in the Treaty. I desire to support the Second Reading of the Bill.
Mr. ROSS: After listening to the pathetic speech of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Healy), it is nice to get back to the Bill, but I should like to congratulate the hon. Member on having spoken at last about Ireland. He and his colleague the senior Member for Tyrone (Mr. Devlin) sit en-bosomed in the heart of the Socialist Opposition, although they claim to be independent. If hon. Members heard the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone in his constituency saying how independent he was they would have a different view. I can assure hon. Members that the hon. Member goes about Fermanagh and Tyrone saying that he is a terribly independent person, but when he comes here he never votes otherwise than with the Opposition. I congratulate both the Opposition and the hon. Member. He first of all stated that he was here on a very large majority. A mere majority of 4,000 is nothing on this side of the House. He neglected to inform the House that 44,000 people, a very considerable minority, voted against him. He went on to deal with Article 12 of the Treaty. I do not think it would be proper for me to indulge in more than one comment on that Article, or on the way it has been dealt with. The hon. Member's allusion to it was a travesty of the facts. An impartial Commission decided that Northern Ireland should have far more territory than it got. The Irish Free State objected to that, and there was a compromise, in the course of which the Free State succeeded in evading the payment of their share of the National Debt.

1235
Now I come to discuss the Bill. I have understood that we came to this House for two immediate purposes. One was to effect national reconstruction, and and the other to pass routine matters such as this Bill. This Bill is certainly not a matter of national reconstruction. It is an attempt to codify the law, the position between Great Britain and the Dominions. I do not propose to vote against the Bill on Second Reading. I am optimistic enough to hope that the Bill will achieve nothing worse than benevolent futility. I do not think it alters the essential relations between Great Britain and the Dominions to any great extent. But there is one point about which I have real anxiety. I do not propose that there should be an alteration of the Bill as regard Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but I would try to safeguard the basis on which the relation of this country and the Free State stands.
The Treaty when it was settled could not have been settled in a more solemn way. The preamble shows how those Irishmen who signed the Treaty on behalf of Southern Ireland looked at it. We have been told that the Free State and Canada were analogous. Then why is the Free State treated differently from Canada? Why is the Canadian constitution safeguarded and the Irish constitution not mentioned at all? Possibly it is more necessary in the case of the Free State than in the case of Canada. What is the position in truth and in fact? I listened with great interest to a maiden speech from the hon. Member for Crewe (Mr. Somervell), who dealt with the matter with great lucidity and with the definite legal knowledge which one would expect from him. As to his conclusions I would wish that they may well he true.
3.0 p.m.
But what is the issue here? Does this Bill release the Free State from its obligations under the Treaty, or does it not? That is a plain question deserving a plain answer. If it does release the Free State, why was this never put before the country at the General Election? It was not an issue; it was not mentioned in the Election. It raises a fundamental point of Unionist policy at all events. It the Bill does not alter the relations between
1236
this country and the Free State, why should there be any objection to making that clear in the Bill? In all politics there is nothing so fruitful of trouble as a Bill which shirks an issue. The Bill in its present form shirks this issue, and I beseech the Government, before the Bill becomes law, to amend it so that we may see what is in it in plain terms and so elect what we will do, whether we are to accept the principle of the Bill or not. Let us know what that principle is. At present the whole thing is wrapped in obscurity.
We had a speech from the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), in which he gave a view of Irish politics so ingenuous that I could hardly believe it possible, coming from a distinguished Member of this House. Since then we have had the speech of an Irish Member the hon. Member for Tyrone. He looks at the Bill with complete honesty from his point of view, as I would expect from him. He says it is a step forward, a step to the unity of Ireland, a step to getting rid of the Treaty. I ask the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook to consider the weighty speech which we have had from the hon. Member for Tyrone, with whom I always profoundly disagree.
Then let us consider our position as a National Government. We are a National Government. It is, perhaps, a little unfortunate that neither of the two Ministers who are in charge of this Bill is a Unionist. The one, the Secretary of State for the Dominions, has had a long and distinguished career in the service of this House; the other is one to whom everyone looks for a long and distinguished career in the service of the House and the country. But can they be expected to appreciate the point of view of the Unionist Member who sits behind them? On arty occasion when the Secretary for the Dominions has embarked upon a consideration of Irish affairs it has not been on the side of the Irish loyalists that he has embarked. We are here to support the National Government, but if I might repeat the phrase which has been used by the Leader of the Unionist party very recently in asking Conservatives and Unionist Members in supporting a Bill, essentially anti-Unionist in principle, as I believe it to

1237
be, I should say, is it quite playing the game'? I think it is not. I seriously ask that this point be considered.
As to Ireland, if this Bill is passed I think it will rekindle the whole embers of Irish bitterness. There are men who will always be glad of an opportunity of embittering the relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom. I think the Bill will give them the opportunity. Whatever may he the precise legal position, whatever may be the true rights of the case, here they will have an excuse for an unending source of trouble to us and to them. Those men who signed the Treaty on behalf of Southern Ireland are not there to defend it. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) has said, those signatories to the Treaty are not there to support it. If they were alive, I think they would support their work. I do not believe that any of them would like to think of the State which they did so much to create, as being "the country of the desecrated Treaty."
Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: I wish to draw attention, in the first instance, to the difference between the situation of Canada and that of the Irish Free State and the reason for Clause 7 of the Bill. I presume that the difference is that Canada is a federal State and there is, therefore, reason why the Bill should contain provisions for dealing with conditions which only exist in a federal State. On the other hand, the Irish Free State is a unitary State, and there are no subordinate Parliaments there whose position and status have to be considered. I rise mainly to deal with the Bill as it affects the Irish Free State, and I do so because I think the vast majority of Members of this House have very little personal or intimate recollection of the struggle of Ireland for Home Rule. My interest in politics was first aroused in the eighties, particularly after the introduction of the Home Rule Bill by the late Mr. Gladstone. I am certain that one of the greatest tragedies in. the history of this country is that Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill did not become an Act of Parliament, and, in saying so, I am not merely expressing the opinion of Liberal Members in this House, because I am sure that there are Conservative Members who will agree that years of tragedy
1238
would have been avoided, had that Bill become an Act at the time.
Already we have heard from the hon. Member for Down (Mr. D. Reid) of the position in Southern Ireland. He said that a large minority in the Irish Free State disliked the Treaty and that there was the possibility that that minority might become a majority. If such a contingency were to happen, I think that it would be one of the greatest disasters to the Irish Free State that could occur. It would create a situation which all in this House would dread to contemplate. Supposing that as a result of the return of a Republican majority to power in the Irish Free State, there was an immediate repudiation of the Treaty, an immediate attempt to set up a Republic and to sever every bond which unites the Irish Free State to the British Commonwealth of Nations, is there anyone who would contemplate such a possibility as that of sending a vast army to Ireland in order to quell what would, of course, be in the nature of a rebellion against this country. I doubt very much whether it would be possible to get a vote of this House in support of any action of that kind. But do we realise that if this Bill is not passed, or if there are introduced into it certain Clauses such as those suggested by the hon. Member who has just sat down, we are going at once to create a very serious situation in Ireland?
We have passed through a serious crisis in this country. I believe there is a great constitutional crisis about to take place in Ireland. Within the next few months there will be a general election in Ireland, and in some respects the auguries are fortunate. There has been within the last few days an understanding between the President of the Irish Free State and one of the members of the old National party. That is all to the good, but, at the same time, anyone who has been in Ireland in the last few months must realise that underground in. all parts of the country there is an agitation going on to upset the present Government; and remember this, that the present Government in Ireland has for the last 10 years been a Government that has done everything in the interests of the State. It has protected the minority in a way which makes us marvel at its courage.
Take what happened a few months ago in County Mayo, where a Protestant was

1239
appointed to a position of trust. In the county itself there was a good deal of opposition, but the Free State Government insisted that the appointment should not be altered and that the Protestant who was appointed was entitled to his appointment, and as a result they have actually had to displace the local authority and to place it in commission. The Government that is prepared to do that is carrying out the terms of the Treaty, not merely in the letter, but in the spirit, but what would be the position if this Bill did not go on the Statute Book, or if we introduced into it the Amendments which have been indicated? We should be giving an enormous amount of power to those who are agitating against the Government in Ireland, and we should be doing more than anything else to bring into power the party which is determined if it can to break every bond which ties it to the British Commonwealth of Nations. I appeal to this House to let the Bill be enacted in the form in which it stands. To do otherwise would place a great responsibility on this House if difficulties arose in the future in the Irish Free State.
Mr. MACQUISTEN: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned." I do so for the following reasons—
Mr. SPEAKER: I could not accept that Motion.
Mr. MACQUISTEN: I thought I might at least be allowed to give my reasons for moving the Motion, and I was proposing to do so.
Mr. SPEAKER: I could not accept it, whatever they were.
Mr. RHYS: I think the Debate to-day is of the most momentous importance in our Imperial history. It has ranged almost entirely around the question of the Irish Free State, but I think it would be well, before the Debate closes, to refer for a moment to larger issues, to the whole question of the future of the British Empire as we know it to-day. I hope the Bill will get a Second Reading to-day, because when this question of Dominion statue is out of the way, we shall then be free to go ahead, with no obstacles in the way of obtaining the various trade agreements and Imperial preferences that we all want to see. There is no question
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but that at the last two Imperial Conferences a great deal too much time was spent in arguing and quibbling about actual Dominion status. I know very well —I have been to Canada on more than one occasion, and to other Dominions—that it is a matter which has a position of greater importance in the minds of the Dominions than it has in our own minds. If it be that, they are satisfied if we put into the form of an Act the exact status they now require, I think it will be a deed well done, and the way will be cleared for the advance of Imperial unity on new and stronger lines.
With regard to this Bill, if I have one criticism, one form of misgiving, I should really like to see the Preamble of the Bill dealing with the Crown standing as Clause 1 of the Bill. I have a little misgiving about the wisdom of not safeguarding the position of the Crown in that connection, and I would appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs to see whether or not that can be done. To come back to the question of Dominion status, it is not now a question of being able to stop the Dominions. I recollect some years ago being in a camp where there were some Australians, and, I must say, discipline was not as good as it might have been. A man had been granted leave and applied for two extra days. As I was unable to prevent it, I accorded him the extra two days until I had been able to establish a better form of discipline, and the soldier came back at the end of two days. I believe that that will be the position with the Dominions. They will stand firm with us as an example to the world of what unity can be, and, if I may say so, a great example to the League of Nations.
To come back to the question of Ireland. A great deal of argument has taken place, and I want to appreciate the difficulty of the Dominions Secretary in this matter. The argument has run that Ireland should be accorded the same status as Canada, and that because in the Bill provision is made to safeguard the constitution of Canada, the same provision ought to be inserted on behalf of Ireland. But what is always overlooked, it seems to me, is the fact that that provision safeguarding the constitution of Canada has been inserted at the request of Canada, and has not been inserted at the desire of the United Kingdom. If

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we are to treat Ireland upon the same basis as Canada, as is suggested, I think we should appreciate at least, if we cannot agree, with the difficulty of the Dominions Secretary in that respect in asking him to force upon one Dominion that which we should not force upon any other.
I know—and I have always been a strong Unionist, as I still am—that we must recognise that once you have accorded Dominion status to any particular Dominion, it is extremely difficult for the Government of this country to treat any of the Dominions in a separate fashion, but I also believe that when we talk so much about the breaking of treaties and the abrogation of treaty rights, we are apt to overlook a little the extradordinary advance, which, I believe, has been made in the Free State in the last 10 years, when you have had men prepared to lay down their lives for the Treaty. As the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken pointed out, a General Election is about to take place in the Free State, and it is my belief, from what I understand of Irish politics, that the issue at this coming Election is going to he the Treaty or not. You have, on the one hand, the Government party standing firm by the Treaty. You will have the Opposition, whether this Bill be passed or not, saying that the Treaty ought not to stand. I am sure that we shall strengthen the hand of the Government Treaty party in Ireland if we give them credit for meaning that they are going to stand by the Treaty.
If it is not too material, I will put this further point. In my view, we are going to have a vast system of Imperial Preference before very long, and it will be of material advantage to the Free State, whatever party may be in power, to remain within the Empire. Let them remain in, firmly believing that the faith of this country is good and that we are going to trust them to make good in future and not to leave the Empire. If we do that, I believe that this Bill will embrace every section of our Dominions on a future basis of co-operation, and that it will ensure the continuation of the Commonwealth of Nations as we know it to-day, and that we shall not take the course which lost Spain and Rome their empires. Just as democracy at the last General Election in this country faced
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great problems, in spite of the pundits who said that it would not, if we are prepared to take a certain risk with great good will, we shall see that our Empire will not go the way of the great empires in the past.
Sir CHARLES OMAN: I have only three minutes to speak, but I want to throw a small constitutional bombshell into this Bill. It is called the Statute of Westminster Bill. The right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, called it the Statute of Westminster Bill, but it has no relation to the Statute of Westminster. The only Statute of Westminster to which that name can properly be applied, if you talk of the Statute of Westminster not meaning the second or third or subsequent statute of some reign, is the Statute of Westminster of 1275, which was III of Edward I. It can have no other meaning. I have been spending some weary hours looking through the Norman-French of the Statute of 1275, which deals with many things, but it does not deal with the Possessions and Dominions such as Ireland or Aquitaine, as quite conceivably the Members of the Government introducing this Bill, might think. It deals with many things. It deals with rent and with the hospitality of monks. It deals with officials of the Crown who wrongly extort money from the King's lieges; it deals with lawyers in the service of the King who pervert the truth in the court; it deals with heirs who marry without the permission of their guardians, but it does not deal with anything to do with the King's Dominions.
Therefore, it seems to me that if this Bill is described as the Statute of Westminster Bill, and has no relation to the only thing that can be properly described as the Statute of Westminster, one of two things happen: either the Bill is invalid or the Gentlemen in charge of the Bill must change its title into something which will bring in the proceedings held at Westminster at a much later date. Just as you talk of the Carta when you really mean Magna Carta, or of the Reform Bill when you always mean the Reform Bill of Lord Grey's time, or as you talk of the Act of Settlement when you mean a certain definite Act of Settlement, so, if you have a Statute of Westminster, you can only

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mean the Statute of 1275. This Bill has nothing whatever to do with that, and therefore I hold that there is a misdescription of its whole Title.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: In rising to reply to the debate on this Bill, I almost feel that I am entitled to claim that indulgence from the House of which new Members have bad such plentiful measure during the past week. I claim that indulgence, because I have not lived with this Measure as the Attorney-General and other Ministers of the Crown have. They are acquainted with it in all its aspects. At the same time, I have no doubt at all as to the view which I think the House ought to take, and I would suggest reasons why a Second Reading should necessarily be given to the Bill this afternoon. The Bill has a splendid title, and in spite of what my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman) has said, I have no doubt that Parliamentarians and constitutional lawyers will be able to distinguish it in future from the Statute of Westminster of 1275. The Bill not only has a splendid title, but is one which, if it be passed, will be regarded as a landmark in the constitutional history of the British Empire.
The Government have no reason to complain of either the tone or the substance of the criticism passed upon this Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) said that the Bill needed caution and restraint. I gladly and sincerely accept his admonition that we are dealing with a subject which deserves caution and restraint, but I think I am entitled to remind the House that caution and restraint have been shown in the long process of the evolution of this Measure. Two Imperial Conferences and one Conference of Dominion representatives have taken part in producing it. The Bill is not a hasty draft, it is not even the production of my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General, as the right hon. Member for Epping rather suggested. If anybody chooses to look at the record of the Imperial Conferences he will find that not only did the Imperial Conference of 1926 contemplate that Lord Balfour's formula—if I may put it that way—should be considered in its implications upon existing legislation,
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but the conference having prepared the legislation which they thought suitable the next Imperial Conference of 1930, taking their form of words made some Amendments in it, so that almost every single provision of this present Bill is to be found word for word and letter for letter in the schedule to the report of the Imperial Conference of 1930. Therefore, it is not altogether fair, though I do not complain at all of the way in which my right hon. Friend put it, for anybody in the House to suppose that this is a Bill which has been produced either by the Parliamentary draftsmen or by the Attorney-General. It is the product of the mature consideration of the representatives of all the Dominions in at least two conferences, the second of which sat in 1930 and is known by the noble and dignified name which we give to it of the Imperial Conference. It does not become any of us who have, in the past, attached great weight to the deliberations of these Imperial Conferences lightly to pass by anything that the representatives of the Dominions in those Conferences have decided to be right. Indeed, it was for that reason that my right hon. Friend wisely counselled the House not to reject the Bill, and I hope that advice will be accepted.
3.30 p.m.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cardigan (Mr. H. Morris) inquired the reason for not leaving the constitutional position alone. He asked us why it was necessary to put into the framework of an Act of Parliament a constitutional position well known and understood. The answer I suggest is that whatever the merits of that course might be—I am not unaware of the attractiveness of that course —if the Imperial Conferences including Dominion representatives, with our own representatives of all parties in the two successive Conferences were of one mind, it is scarcely possible for this House to go back on that decision as suggested without flouting the opinions arrived at on those two occasions.
The impression has been sought to be produced in this Debate that the Dominions are now at any rate very lukewarm as to the Measure. It is quite true that the Dominions, whose constitutions are of a Federal character, have shown a good deal of anxiety as to the form and

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provisions of the Bill necessary to maintain the existing relationship between the Federal or central government and the State. The course which has been adopted in Australia and Canada has been mentioned; the Clauses dealing with those Dominions are the result of discussions with those most vitally concerned. In the case of Canada, Australia and New Zealand there are Clauses preserving the Constitutions of those three great Dominions, but all those Clauses have been inserted at the request of the Dominions themselves for their own protection. So far as South Africa and the Irish Free State are concerned, those two constitutions are framed on the unitary principle, and they have legal powers for the Amendment of their Constitutions. South Africa includes in its Constitution of 1909 the entrenched Clauses for the protection of certain rights which it was thought ought to be inviolably preserved. In the case of the Irish Free State it is bound not by an Act of Parliament or by Letters Patent, but by a Treaty which has been the subject of so much discussion this afternoon, and about which I shall have something to say before I sit down.
Mr. CHURCHILL: It is also bound by an Act of Parliament.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: It is quite true that it is bound by an Act of Parliament, and I shall not forget that. So far as South Africa is concerned, and the addition that was Shade to the Resolution requesting the Imperial Government to pass the Statute of Westminster, that addition was made for the purpose of safeguarding the position in South Africa in regard to the entrenched Clauses. I need not quote the words because they have been referred to already, but the addition to the Resolution in the case of South Africa was arrived at in the light of a declaration of the Prime Minister, Mr. Hertzog, that there was no intention whatever of departing from, or seeking to get rid of the entrenched Clauses. That is a declaration which the Prime Minister of South Africa and the Government of South Africa will carefully observe, and the addition to the Resolution asking this House to pass this Bill is not to be taken as any indication whatever of any lukewarmness or hesitation as to the desirability of passing the Statute of Westminster.
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With regard to the other Dominions, every one of them, including the Irish Free State, have sent Addresses from both Houses, or Resolutions having Parliamentary approval, requesting His Majesty's Government to submit this Measure to Parliament. I do want to displace the impression, which I think has been produced, that any one of these Dominions, whatever they may have done in the course of their discussions in their Parliaments, is uncertain as to their attitude towards this Bill. It has not merely been advised by the Imperial Conference in grave session, but it has once more been asked for by the Dominions. If in this House, largely composed of Members of a party which has always attached special significance to the desire of the Dominions, their expressed wishes, repeated lately with emphasis, are to be disregarded, I should indeed despair of binding the Dominions to this country by seeking to obtain a common expression of their desires. We may abandon that hope once and for all if we disregard the Resolutions that have been passed by the different Parliaments of the Empire.
Having spoken of the way in which the Parliaments of the Empire have dealt with this Bill, let me now say a word, with great respect, as to the way in which this House should be asked to deal with it. We are not seeking to dragoon this House. I hope that I have, and I know that my right hon. Friend has, too much respect for our Parliamentary institutions to suppose that we should help the cause of the Empire or of Great Britain by submitting something which we demanded should be passed letter for letter without examination. I may assure the House that whatever Amendments are brought forward shall be considered upon their merits. But let me add this. It must not be supposed that the merits which will be considered will not include the consideration that, if any considerable Amendment were to be made to this Bill involving one of our great Dominions, that matter would have to be submitted to the Dominion concerned before this Bill could pass into law; and I am bound to say, speaking for myself, and I think also for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions, that it

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would be a matter of very grave responsibility to insert any Amendment in this Bill which would go contrary to the expressed desire of any of our Dominions—I am not speaking for the moment of the Irish Free State, but of any of our Dominions overseas.
In that connection, let me refer quite shortly to the proposal that the Irish Free State should be included by express mention. The Irish Free State and South Africa are two Dominions whose constitutions are framed on the unitary principle. If the Treaty or the Constitution of the Irish Free State is, against her expressed wish, to be put into this Bill, a similar course will presumably have to be taken with regard to the Constitution of South Africa, and I do not know whether my right hon. Friend, who, as he has reminded us this afternoon, was so largely responsible for that Constitution, would think it was consistent with the dignity of that Dominion, which he did so much to set on its way, to put into this Bill a provision that its Constitution shall not be broken and its entrenched Clauses shall not be repealed contrary to the good faith and sense of honour that they have as much desire to observe as we.
Lord H. CECIL: Were those Clauses a treaty or agreement with the Imperial Government?
The. SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I am surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the Act of 1909 founding the Dominion of South Africa was not in the nature of a solemn agreement between this country and South Africa—
Lord H. CECIL: It did not confirm a treaty.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: My noble Friend is too technical if he distinguishes between a Treaty and an Act of Parliament. They were both pledges—
Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Has not General Smuts himself introduced a Resolution safeguarding the Constitution of South Africa in exactly the same way?
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: What General Smuts has done, or may desire to do, is another matter. I am considering now what this House may he asked to
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do. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) was suggesting, as I understood him, that the Act of 1909, constituting the South African Dominion, was in a different category from the Treaty which is the basis of the Irish Free State. I find it difficult to distinguish in principle for my present purpose between a solemn Treaty which the Irish Free State has said they intend to observe and the South Africa Act of 1909.
Mr. H. MORRIS: Did not the Dominion of South Africa pass the Resolution that there should be no derogation from the entrenchment Clauses of the Act of 1909, in order to ensure the maintenance of the present position? If the Irish Free State passed a similar Resolution, would not the situation he wholly different?
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: When we deal with every Amendment on its merits, we shall be bound to bear in mind the implications which the insertion of a reference to a Treaty under the Bill would have in reference to South Africa. I am not giving a promise to accept any particular Amendment, but I am undertaking—and I hope the House will accept it on behalf of my right hon. Friend—that, with the opportunities for consideration which, no doubt, will be given to all these important matters, every single Amendment shall be considered on its merits without any desire to compel the House to a particular course of action.
I am bound to refer to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping said with reference to India. I cannot let it pass by, but I am bound to say I could not regard it as wholly relevant to the Bill. He deplored what he called the improvident promise held out to India of Dominion status. He deplored, not only the implication of this Statute of Westminster upon the Indian question; he deplored just as much the implication of the Balfour formula upon the Indian question. I think he said so. I only mention it in passing to show that really no one need think this Bill really is directly connected with the Indian situation. My right hon. Friend and others have dealt with the position of the Crown. It was suggested that, satisfactory as the Preamble might be in reference to the Crown, there is no positive enactment in the body of the Measure. Has it, first of

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all, been observed by everyone that, if the position of the Crown does require strengthening, it is immensely strengthened by the Preamble so far as it goes, because not merely will the consent of a single Dominion Parliament, or of this Parliament, be required, but for any alteration of the position of the Crown, if the Preamble does prevail, the consent of every single unit in the Empire is required? So that not only the consent of this Parliament, but the consent of every Parliament in the Empire has to be obtained if the position is to be altered.
My right hon. Friend says that is only in the Preamble and judges do not read Preambles. I take leave to say that the future of the Crown of the British Empire will not be decided by judges in courts of law, but in the hearts of the subjects of the Crown, and, having declared, as we have in the Preamble, a great constitutional principle, I should have thought that it was sufficient-for us to leave that notable declaration where it is in the Preamble without taking the trouble to insert it in the body of the Bill. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will allow me to leave the point upon which I have dwelt and to proceed to the great crux of this question. Undoubtedly the crux of this discussion this afternoon has been the position of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping truly said that the Treaty is the title deed of the existence of the Irish Free State. I agree with him. There can be no suggestion of the possibility of a repeal of that treaty. I agree with him. As far as I know, there is nobody in a responsible position, either in this country or in Ireland, to-day who intends to repeal that Treaty. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I was very careful, as the House would observe, to say no one, as far as I know, in a responsible position. Let me assume that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. de Valera, whom an hon. Gentleman has mentioned, is in favour of repealing the Treaty. Whatever I know about Mr. de Valera does not lead me to think that, if he sees any objection to breaking the moral and sacred obligations involved in the Treaty, he will be deterred by the scrap of paper as he will probably regard the Imperial Act of Parliament, but, apart from that gentleman and those who may support him, I believe I am right in saying that
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the Government of Ireland at the present time have never suggested by a single word that they have any desire or intention of breaking the Treaty. That is emphatically the position His Majesty's Government would expect that the Irish Free State would adopt.
My right hon. Friend and his allies this afternoon dislike legal forms. They distrust Preambles. My right hon. Friend reminds us how Lord Balfour did not like wooden guns. He himself despises paper safeguards. He anticipates, however, a breach of this Treaty, a repudiation of the moral obligations involved in the Treaty, by the Irish Government. Will paper safeguards, wooden guns, and Preambles and Sections in Acts of Parliament prevent the repudiation of these moral obligations?
Mr. CHURCHILL: They will make the repudiation illegal.
HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I beg leave to say that the right hon. Gentleman and those who cheered him have spoken without consideration. If the House had been able to hear the admirable speech of the hon. Member for Crewe (Mr. Somervell) they would have teen reasons for thinking that the Treaty is so deeply embedded in the constitution of the Irish Free State that there must at least be considerable doubt as to whether the legality would be as plain as my right hon. Friend assumes. If anyone would turn to the material Article, Article 50 of the Constitution, they will find that Amendments of the Constitution within the terms of the Schedule of the Treaty may be made by the responsible Houses in Ireland, but that the Treaty and the Constitution which are irrevocably woven together can be made the whole basis of an argument which, I seriously suggest to the House—and as the hon. Member for Crewe suggested —is not at all certain to be decided in the way the right hon. Gentleman suggested just now. But even assuming for a moment he is right that the Treaty might be repudiated after the Statute of Westminster has been passed with legality, whereas now it can only be re pudiated with illegality, I want to say emphatically, that if that be so—and let the House not be deceived by anything I say—we are, of course, then dependent only upon the moral obligations involved

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in the maintenance of the Treaty. I do not want to run away from it at all. But I am not going to argue the legal point on the structure of Article 50. I do not want the House to run away with the idea that the question is certain to be decided as I suggest it may well may be: That is to say, that the Constitution is a, rigid one.
Let us face up to the position that what is going to bind the Irish Free State to maintain the Treaty is the sacred and solemn obligations involved in the Treaty. I know that my hon. and right hon. Friends behind me and in other parts of the House will say that that is not enough. All I can say is that the name of the right hon. Member for Epping appears on the Treaty of 1922, and that he and other Ministers at that time asked this House to engage in a much bigger act of faith when they passed that Treaty than we are asking the House to engage in to-day in accepting the moral obligations of the Treaty. In his own words the right hon. Gentleman told us that this Statute of Westminster is but crossing the t's and dotting the i's of constitutional practices which are well known and recognised. Which is the greater leap in the dark, to dot the i's and cross the t's of a Constitution well known and recognised, or to trust the Irish Government in 1922 to carry out obligations into which it had entered? A stupendous revolution in the relations of this country with a country that had been nothing but a source of anxiety within the memory of every hon. Member in this House.
I assert that His Majesty's Government have no intention of condoning or excusing or permitting the repudiation or a breach of the Treaty. It is right also and it is fair to say, whatever some of my hon. Friends may say, that the Irish Free State Government have no more intention than we have of repudiating the obligations involved in that Treaty. My right bon. Friend below the Gangway paid eloquent tributes to the dead Irishmen who had given their lives for the maintenance of the solemn obligations into which they had entered in 1922. Why should we reserve all our bouquets for those who are no longer in need of them? Why should not we pay some tribute to Irishmen as loyal and determined as
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those who have given their lives, and who are seeking to maintain the solemn obligations involved in the settlement of 1922? This House should seek by a great act of faith to strengthen the hands of those Irishmen in maintaining the constitution in the Treaty, upon which the happy relations of this country and Ireland at present depend.
The Privy Council, it is true is a question of great difficulty and has been the cause of some bitter and acrimonious words at various times in the Irish Free State. I have not time to develop that question at great length to-day, but let me remind the House of one or two things. The legal position is not always agreed by everybody to be exactly what I, for one, claim it to be. I have no doubt at all, and I believe that all my hon. Friends will agree with me, that it is implicit in Article 2 of the Treaty that the right of granting special leave to appeal to the Privy Council is part of the constitution of the Irish Free State. That is not the opinion of the representatives of the Irish Free State. We differ on that point. I suggest that the right of appeal to the Privy Council is implicit in Article 2, and I believe that every constitutional lawyer in this country would say that that is the case. The Irish Free State is based upon the model of Canada. Canada in 1921 had the right of appeal to the Privy Council and so we say that the Irish Free State has the same right of appeal.
The argument of the Irish Free State is that since 1921 there have been constitutional developments in the relations between the Dominions and Great Britain; that when in 1926 the Balfour Declaration was made granting, not independence but autonomy to our self-governing Dominions, this characteristically British development of the grant of autonomy to our self-governing Dominions resulted in the same position being given to the Irish Free State as to Canada, who, if she pleases, can unilaterally without our concurrence get rid of the right of appeal to the Privy Council. That is not the view of His Majesty's Government, and it is fair to say that the Attorney-Genera and other representatives of the Crown, and the Prime Minister, have made it plain that the right of appeal to the Privy Council is an essential part of the

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obligations between this country and Ireland. If we put it into the Bill it will not dispose of the view held by the Irish Free State, and once again we come back to the question as to whether it is better that this matter should be discussed by concurrence and agreement between the two Parliaments and Governments of two equal parties, ourselves and this Dominion, or whether we should try and force our legal view upon the Irish Free State—we may conceivably be wrong in our view, although I do not think we are—and say that we will put it into this Bill and bind the Irish Free State to the view we hold.
I must not attempt to develop that further, because there will be opportunities on Tuesday. I will only say this, that it is 10 years since this House put its foot upon a road which the right hon. Member for Epping described as a narrow and difficult road—I remember his speech very well as I had the honour of hearing it—and that we must be prepared to tread that road to the end, and make a happier and more united Ireland than we had ever known. There is only one way by which that great experiment can be made to fail. Let us grow the bitter weed of suspicion and we shall make ruin of this typically British enterprise in founding a friendly Dominion out of a long hostile country. Having set our hand to the great task of making Ireland a great Dominion, let us set an example of confidence which we should like her to follow, and at the same time complete the task to which 10 years ago we put our hands.
Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: The learned Solicitor-General has said that the Government do not wish to dragoon the House. I take it that that does not mean that they are going to take the Whips off next week, but that it means they have been impressed by the widespread feeling in the House on this matter.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I will answer at once. It means that every consideration will be given between now and Tuesday to all that has been said here to-day, and that the Government will be asked to consider the whole situation in the light of the Debate that has taken place.
Several MEMBERS rose—
Mr. THOMAS rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be
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now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question,
Mr. H. MORRIS: In view of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. [Interruption.]
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—[Mr. J. H. Thomas.]

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (PROLONGATION OF INSURANCE) [MONEY].
Resolution reported,
"That it is expedient—

(a) to amend the sub-section substituted by the National Health Insurance Act, 1928 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act of 1928"), for sub-section (3) of section three of the National Health Insurance Act, 1924 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act of 1924"), by providing that a person who has, under the said substituted sub-section, or under that sub-section as applied by the regulations made under section twenty-three of the Act of 1928, or as amended by section one of the National Health Insurance (Prolongation of Insurance) Act, 1930, been treated as an employed contributor insured under the Act of 1924, shall continue to be so treated until the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, if he satisfies the condition contained in paragraph (a) of the said sub-section, and also the following condition, that is to say, if he proves within the prescribed time that throughout the period during which he was by virtue of the said substituted sub-section, or of that sub-section as so applied or amended as aforesaid, treated as an employed contributor insured under the Act of 1924, he was at all times when not employed within the meaning of the Act of 1924 either available for but unable to obtain employment within the meaning of the Act of 1924, or incapable of work by reason of some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement of which notice was given within the prescribed time;

(b) to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(i) of a sum equal to thirty-six contributions (at the rate of ninepence in the ease of a man and eightpence halfpenny in the case of a woman) in respect of every person to whom this Resolution applies, such sum to he paid or credited to the fund or account out of which the benefits to which that person is entitled are defrayed; and

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(ii) of the additional cost of benefits under the Act of 1924, and the expenses of administration of those benefits (so far as such cost and expenses are payable out of moneys provided by Parliament) consequent on the provisions of paragraph (a) of this Resolution."

Resolution agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in on the said Resolution, by Sir Hilton Young, Sir Archibald Sinclair, Mr. Ernest Brown and Mr. Skelton.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (PROLONGATION OF INSURANCE) [MONEY].

  NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (PROLONGATION OF INSURANCE) BILL,
  "to amend Sub-section (3) of Section three of the National Health Insurance Act, 1924, and to make financial pro-
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  vision in connection with such Amendment," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 11.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
  Adjourned at Four Minutes after Four o'clock, until Monday nest, 23rd November.

HOUSING.
  SCHEMES, KENT (BRITISH CEMENT).
  SCHEMES, KENT (BRITISH CEMENT).
  MANCHESTER.
  MANCHESTER.
  ABNORMAL IMPORTATIONS (ORDERS).
  ABNORMAL IMPORTATIONS (ORDERS).
  AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (IMPORTS).
  AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (IMPORTS).
  CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
  CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that he had received an office copy of an order made by the County Court of Devonshire holden at Exeter, dated the Lit day of October, 1929, annulling tin; bankruptcy of George Francis Alexander Seymour, Marquess of Hertford.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHUL-BREDE: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House if he can make any statement about the business for next week.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, assuming that your Lordships accede to the Motion which is to be made by my noble friend Viscount Brentford, the Motion which at present stands in his name for Wednesday will take its place first on Tuesday next. On Wednesday there is a Motion by my noble friend Viscount Elibank. I am proposing to ask your Lordships to take the Second Reading of the Statute of Westminster on Thursday, provided that that Bill passes in another place by Tuesday evening. I know that that is not a very long interval, but your Lordships will appreciate that we want to have an interval between the Second Reading and the Committee stage. I hope that this House will not be sitting very much longer, and unless we take the Second Reading next Thursday it will involve either delaying the adjournment of the Session or else practically having no interval between the Second Reading and the Committee stage.

ABNORMAL IMPORTATIONS (CUSTOMS DUTIES) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with a Certificate from the Speaker that it is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; and read 1a.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name, to enable the House to suspend Standing Order No. XXXIX in order to deal with all the stages of the Bill to which a First Reading has just been accorded.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be suspended for this day's sitting for the purpose of passing the Bill through all its stages.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

OUTRAGES IN INDIA.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD had given Notice to move that leave be given for his Motion with reference to outrages in India (which now stands for Wednesday next) to be advanced to Tuesday next. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, you will see on the Paper a Motion for next Wednesday in regard to India, and I understand that my noble friend Lord Elibank has a Motion in front of it. I have consulted various sections of opinion in the House and I gather it will be convenient if my Motion is taken on Tuesday afternoon. I have consulted my noble friend the Leader of the House and also the Leader of the Opposition, and, that being so, I hope your Lordships will agree to allow me to expedite the Motion. I beg to move.
Moved, That leave be given for Viscount Brentford's Motion (which now stands for Wednesday next) to be advanced to Tuesday next.—(Viscount Brentford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

ABNORMAL IMPORTATIONS (CUS TOMS DUTIES) BILL.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of the Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Bill, I desire at once to make it plain to your Lordships that this measure is not, and is not intended to be, the permanent policy of His Majesty's Government in dealing with any of the problems with which we are confronted. This Bill is intended to be a temporary measure, limited in its operation to a period of six

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months, and is moved solely with the view of dealing with a pressing emergency. Two of the major problems which engage the attention of His Majesty's Government at the present moment are the problems of maintaining the purchasing power of the pound sterling and of restoring the balance of trade, which, unfortunately, is still moving against us to a very considerable extent.
Your Lordships will remember that at the recent Election the Government, going to the country as a National Government, committed itself to no concrete policy with regard to these problems. If the Conservative Party had gone as such to the country, I have no doubt that they would have incorporated in their appeal to the country an appeal for authority to impose tariffs. That has been part of the policy of my Party for a considerable time and I have no doubt that if, as a result of that appeal, the Conservative Party had been returned to power, a Bill to carry out that policy would have been one of the first measures which we should have presented to Parliament. But that is not the situation. The National Government embraces members of all Parties, and the pledge which we gave to the country was that in dealing with the problems which we had to solve we would reject the examination of no proposal, we would investigate everything with an open mind—naturally not without the prejudices which past experience has imposed upon all of us, but still as far as possible divesting ourselves of any pre-conceived ideas, desiring only to find that solution which was best for the national interests.
Your Lordships will appreciate that if we are going loyally to fulfil that pledge it is essential that a certain time, must elapse before we can present to Parliament the conclusions which we have reached. It is essential, therefore, for some time to come that we should be engaged in the examination and discussion of these problems. But it is equally essential to see that the time so occupied shall not be used by people outside to prejudice any decision which we may ultimately reach. It appears that quite a number of people reached the conclusion that if we examined this problem impartially we should be bound to arrive at the decision that a tariff was essential. At any rate, if they did not take that view,
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at least they thought it was sufficiently probable that that would be the result of our deliberations to necessitate their taking every means in their power to forestall that event. And the means which, in fact, they have taken—quite legitimately from their point of view—are the adoption of attempts to pour into this country great quantities of manufactured goods, very much beyond the immediate requirements of the country, very much beyond the normal importations during this period of the year—apparently intended to ensure that, if a tariff is ultimately imposed, there will be already inside the tariff wall large quantities of goods sufficient to meet any demands for a great many months to come.
The result of that policy is twofold. First of all, it imposes an increased strain on the exchange value of the pound sterling. These imports of things which we do not need at present, which we shall not require to use for many months to come, have to be paid for, and have to be paid for by our hard taxed exports which are already strained to their utmost in paying for the supplies of food and raw materials necessary for our existence. The result, therefore, of that policy, if it were allowed to go on unchecked, would undoubtedly be to produce an increasing fall in the gold value of the pound sterling. And, secondly, the result of that policy, if allowed to continue, must be that if ultimately the Government should decide to impose a tariff duty on any of the goods of the classes to which I have referred, the decision of the Government would be rendered futile, its policy would be defeated because there would already be inside the country goods sufficient to meet all demands for a great many months to come, and therefore any hope of increasing employment among our own workpeople would be utterly destroyed.
Your Lordships no doubt may desire to be assured to what extent the evil which I have indicated has actually happened. I have been at some pains to look into the figures in order to give your Lordships some information on that point, and I find that, whereas in normal years, for instance, in 1929 or in 1930, the imports of manufactured goods in the month of September do not materially differ from the average of the previous eight months; whereas in both those

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years there was a slight increase in October over September (of course there is an extra day) and correspondingly a decrease in November as compared with October, in this year we find that the figures are as follows. The average for the eight months ending August 31 for Class III goods, goods that are wholly or mainly manufactured, was £20,654,000; in September the imports were £2,000,000 above that average, being £22,618,000, and in October they were £5,000,000 more than in September, being £27,250,000. In November, for the first ten days of that month they were being imported at a rate which would make the November figure something like £35,000,000, £8,000,000 above October and £15,000,000 above the average.
I do not think that your Lordships can fail to realise that those are Very striking and significant figures. Not only do we find that this increase has taken place, but nobody has suggested that it has any other cause than this desire to anticipate the possible imposition of a duty. It is not, I think, accurate to call that process "dumping". Dumping is more accurately used to describe what happens when goods are brought into this country and sold at a price below the cost of production in the country of origin, or sometimes when goods are produced under unfair labour conditions and sold here at a price with which goods decently produced cannot compete. There is no suggestion that these goods are being sold at any unduly low price or that any dumping is taking place in that sense. What is really happening is what is more accurately described as forestalling; that is to say, anticipating the imposition of a duty, and that this is the reason is corroborated by the observation that the goods in which the greatest increases have occurred are precisely those goods which have either already been safeguarded and therefore likely to be the objects of a duty if one were imposed or goods which notoriously have been the subject of a considerable pressure for the imposition of duties.
I do not want to weary your Lordships with a great number of figures, but I find, for instance, that in wrapping paper, which your Lordships will remember was the subject of one of the Safeguarding Duties, the average of importation for
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the eight months ending in August was some 273,000 cwts., in September that went up to 355,000 cwts., in October to 487,000 and in November it has been brought in during the first ten days at the rate of nearly 800,000 cwts. Again in the case of knives, which were the subject of a Safeguarding Duty, the figures are equally striking. In the first eight months of the year the monthly average was 37,439 dozens, in September that had gone up to 68,772 dozens and in October to 82,941 dozens. In November they are coming in at the rate of 90,000 dozens a month. The iron and steel group is, perhaps, one of the largest and most important groups and comprises a large number of different manufactures. In iron and steel we find that against an average monthly importation of £1,500,000 sterling value, in October it had gone up to £l,830,000 and in November it is at the rate of £3,000,000. Woollen tissues are another striking instance, and I could give your Lordships a number of others if it were necessary. I do not suggest that those are the only groups of articles in respect of which an increase has taken place, but I think the fact that the increases have taken place to such a very marked extent in those kinds of articles which are most likely to be the subject matter of a duty if a duty is to be imposed, or those thought to be the subject matter of a duty if a duty is to be imposed, is a corroboration of the deduction which we draw that it is forestalling which is taking place.
There is a very considerable range of articles which are showing signs, by an accelerated rate, of this process being in operation. The Customs were able to say that definitely in the case of something like 35 per cent. of the total imports in this class, more than one third, they could find clear evidence of forestalling importations in abnormal quantities, and there was another 10 per cent. which looked as if on investigation they would show the same. So that very nearly one-half of the total articles falling in this class seem to indicate that forestalling operations are taking place and, of course, they are taking place in an increasing degree. In those circumstances, in our view it became the clear duty of the Government to take effective steps to put a stop to that proceeding

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and the proposals of the Bill are designed for that purpose.
If your Lordships would be good enough to take the Bill I might very shortly run through its main provisions in order to show the House the course which we suggest ought to be taken. The Bill begins by providing in Clause 1 (1) that if the Board of Trade are satisfied that articles of any class or description comprised in Class III—that is the wholly or partly or mainly manufactured articles—are being imported in abnormal quantities it shall be lawful for the Board of Trade, with the concurrence of the Treasury, to apply the Act to articles of that class or description. Then, in order to maintain the control of the House of Commons over taxation proposals, it is provided in subsection (2) that an Order made under the section shall be laid before the House of Commons and must be the subject of an affirmative Resolution within 28 days—that is 28 sitting days—or otherwise it will lapse.
Clause 2 (1) of the Act provides what is to happen when an Order is made. The effect of making an Order is to impose upon the importation of any articles named in the Order Customs Duties at such rates as are prescribed in the Order, not exceeding 100 per cent. as a maximum. That does not mean, of course, that 100 per cent. will always be the rate imposed. It is intended to act as a prohibitive duty. This legislation is not intended for revenue purposes. The object is to prevent goods coming here in these abnormal quantities, and the duty must be fixed at such rate as, in the judgment of the Board of Trade and the Treasury, is sufficient to achieve that purpose. Subsection (2) exempts Empire products from the duty. Empire products, as your Lordships know, are always defined in Finance Acts as being goods which are produced or grown or manufactured within the Empire, and the definition of such goods is comprised in regulations which lay down that at least 25 per cent. of the labour value of the goods has to be expended within the Empire country. We have thought it right, first of all because there is no evidence that such forestalling is taking place from any part of the Empire, and secondly, because we desire to encourage the view that in this type of legislation we do not want to penalise the Empire
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and do not want to interfere with Empire trade. We have thought it right to leave the Empire out altogether. It would have been possible, no doubt, to arrange for some system of Preference as between Empire goods and other goods, but we have thought it simpler in this emergency to say quite boldly that Empire goods are not to fall within its provisions at all.
In Clause 3 provision is made for fixing the ad valorem value. Those are familiar provisions which have appeared for the last ten or twelve years and have always worked smoothly. In subsection (2) provision is made for enabling the Customs to obtain information in order to fix the proper value. Clause 4 enables disputes to be determined by a referee to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor instead of the more expensive and lengthier process of going to the Courts. Clause 5 exempts goods in transit in order to protect our entrepôt trade and Clause 7 limits the operation of the Act for a period of six months, with a proviso that that limitation shall not affect the validity of anything which has been done before the six months expires. Those are, stated shortly, the main provisions of the Bill. Naturally I shall be only too glad to answer any question which may occur to any of your Lordships upon any of the clauses.
Some criticism has been directed at the fact that there is no mention of agricultural produce in this Bill. I quite understand that that point should be raised. The answer which I have to give to your Lordships' House is twofold, in the first place there is no evidence of any forestalling taking place in the case of Class 1 goods. We find that there is no increase beyond the normal annual increase k. these months in regard to Class I goods between October and September, or, so far as we have been able to detect, between November and October. Secondly, agricultural products do not lend themselves to forestalling, partly because the cost of warehousing is generally large, partly also because many of the goods are perishable products which cannot be kept indefinitely stored awaiting consumption. If, in fact, this were going to be part of the permanent legislation which we are asking the House of Commons and this House to endorse then I confess I should feel it very difficult to

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defend the exclusion of agriculture, but that is not the purpose of this Bill. This Bill is intended to prevent an existing evil continuing or growing worse during the six months of its operation, and while our permanent proposals are being framed and brought before Parliament for its approval. So far as we are able to judge, here is no real risk of forestalling taking place in regard to what are called goods in Class 1; therefore there was no purpose in including Class 1 goods within; he provisions of the Bill, and, obviously, their inclusion would have raised questions of principle with regard to which there may be considerable difference of opinion which will have to be resolved by careful examination of all the relevant facts.
I make no doubt at all that, before the six months have elapsed, at the end of which this Bill will cease to operate, and therefore will have had to be replaced by a more permanent structure—I make no doubt at all that long before that six months has elapsed the Government will be in a position to place before both Houses of Parliament their constructive proposals for agriculture as well as for other industries, because I altogether decline not to regard agriculture as one of our industries. I hope that the proposals which we then bring forward will be such as to commend themselves to the country as a. whole, and to satisfy those champions of the agricultural interest which we know exist, I am glad to say, in this House as well as in another place. Personally, I could not be a party to a scheme which proposed to exclude agriculture from the consideration to which the Government is pledged; but, having regard to the temporary character of this Bill, I hope your Lordships will realise it is not unreasonable to confine it to those cases for which a necessity can be made out, and in limiting it, as we do, to a very short period of time, I give your Lordships, as I am authorised by the Minister of Agriculture to do, the assurance that he is actively engaged on the framing of a constructive policy which he hopes to be in a position to lay before Parliament at the earliest possible moment after it has been considered and approved by the Government as a whole.
For those reasons I invite your Lordships to give to this Bill a Second Reading, and if your Lordships should be
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pleased to do that I would ask then that we should proceed—presumably there will not be a Committee or Report stage, because it is a certified measure—to the Third Reading. I ask that for the reason that it is obviously essential that if legislation of this character is to be effective it should be passed into law at the earliest possible moment after it has been made public. For that reason another place compressed their own time-table and passed all the stages and the Resolutions, connected with the legislation within the period of three days. If your Lordships are pleased to accept the proposal which I put before you the Bill will, I hope, receive the Royal Assent this afternoon, and, although I have no knowledge of what the intentions of the President of the Board of Trade may be, I personally hope that we shall find the Bill in operation within a day or two of that time. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I shall attempt in opposing this Bill on behalf of the Party I represent to be as brief as the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. We have a number of objections to the Bill, and I propose to deal with those as shortly as possible. In the first place, we desire to protest against the procedure adopted. This unseemly haste, this compression of Parliamentary time, is surely unnecessary unless some real emergency is proved. This Government, which was conceived in a crisis and born in an emergency, has to continue to find a series of crises in order that it may live. This sham emergency is the temporary crisis selected to tide over the differences which are already appearing in the Government ranks between the Free Trade and the Tariff groups. Tariffs, as the noble Viscount pointed out, have been the policy of the Conservative Party for a considerable period. They have been the only policy of the Conservative Party. They have been the substitute for thought. One has only to say "tariff" and that is sufficient to provide for every evil from which the country suffers. The dumping emergency is an emergency which replaces the facts of the situation.
We on this side suffered for a considerable period from the policy from which the National Government has

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already suffered during the first few days of its existence—the policy of procrastination, the policy of inquiry, the policy of committees to go into the question of whether tariffs are necessary or not. The Prime Minister, as we learnt to our cost, is a master of committees, a master of inquiries, a master of arrangements to enquire into inquiries, a master of committees, of inquiries into inquiries. It was our task, again and again, to put before the House, unfortunately, the delay which Commissions were able to impose. It has been said of the Prime Minister, with regard to his "doctor's mandate," that "An inquiry a day keeps the crisis away." That has already been put before the National Government, and this measure, to-day, is the revolt of those who feel that they have the country behind them on the question of tariffs, and their determination to have some measure of tariffs before any adequate inquiry has been carried through.
The fact is that Parliament is too slow for many of the new members. It was a well-known Admiral, Admiral Campbell, who said that he contested his Division in order "to give politics a hell of a kick in the pants." "Pants" as the Admiral knows, is not the usual naval term. The matelot prefers something more fundamental, but this is the "hell of a kick" which Parliament is now receiving, and I protest against Parliament allowing itself to be kicked in this way. Parliamentary procedure has been built up during centuries, and it ought not to be misused or abused. In particular I want to remind the House that while it is true that the Labour Party received a very heavy defeat at the last Election—they were subjected to a frontal attack, to an attack in the rear, to bombing and mining, and had poison gas to deal with, and were heavily defeated—we still have 7,000,000 supporters in the country, and the representation in the House of Commons of 49 should on that proportion have been no fewer than 180 members. In this House the disproportion is and always has been extremely marked, and I do suggest that that is a reason why special consideration should be given to the opinions of the Opposition in this matter, because of our weakness, which is a weakness which is not really representing the opinion of the country.
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The second point which I want to protest against is legislation by Orders in Council. I have here a dozen Orders in Council, which represent what I might call the mushroom spawn of the emergency Government. Now we start again with legislation by Orders in Council. Of course this really amounts to a form of dictatorship—dictatorship cutting down Parliamentary control and putting in the hands of the President of the Board of Trade powers which Parliament ought to have kept for itself. The safeguards referred to by the Leader of the House, in Clause 1, are of course quite worthless, because we know that Parliament will not be sitting for the next two or three months and therefore any tariffs imposed will not be, subject to the 28 sitting days affirmative Resolution. We may well have a tariff actually in force, without any agreement by Parliament, for between three and four months. It was Bagehot, in his "English Constitution," who said that the most dangerous of all sinister influences is that of the Executive Government. He said further that a Second Chamber might be of value if of the opposite sort, but we have a Second Chamber here which is not of the opposite sort, and which has resumed the rôle, which this Chamber adopted for many years, of being a committee of the Tory Party. That is a regrettable feature in the constitution which this House ought to take very great care not to press too hardly, because the results might very well be unfortunate for the Constitution of the country.
I want to turn for a moment or two to the Bill itself. I want to say at once that the Labour Party do not agree with either forestalling or dumping. We are opposed to forestalling because it is an action which in substance is illegal, although not in actual fact, and we are opposed to dumping because dumping involves conditions of trade which may do harm to the conditions holding in this country. We are told by the noble discount that this Bill is intended to keep goods out, and not as a Revenue Bill. I cannot see why, if the Bill is to keep goods out, it should not be a Bill either prohibiting or restricting imports. Merely to apply a tariff has the effect either of keeping certain goods out or of letting other goods in at an enhanced price, and therefore it seems to me that

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rather than to use the weapon of tariffs merely to keep goods out, or, if it is desired, to let some goods in, the method of restriction would have been better. It seems to me that the use of tariffs is a purely fatuous proposal if it is intended merely to keep goods out.
I will deal with the other reasons and the main reasons put forward for the Bill. First of all with regard to the question of the balance of trade. The tirade balance, I would remind the House, has been favourable to this country for very many years, up to and including 1930, and this year we are actually not yet in a position to say whether the balance of trade will be favourable or unfavourable. The President of the Board of Trade, speaking in the House of Commons on November 17, said, in reply to a question as to what was the position with regard to the balance of trade:
"I cannot furnish at the present time an estimate in a mutter so subject to modification in accordance with day to day developments."
The Macmillan Committee, in examining the position earlier this year, pointed out that the visible balance at the beginning of this year would actually be more favourable to this country than in previous years. Of course it is quite true that there are many aspects of the balance of trade which will be adverse to this country. I have no doubt that the income from international banking work will be down, and that dividends from investments abroad will be less than last year, and I am certain that if this Bill is carried through, and is used with all the power it places in the hands of the President of the Board of Trade, the income from shipping will be down this year. Nevertheless we are not in a position to say yet whether or not the balance of trade will be adverse or favourable, and I submit that it is entirely wrong to have emergency legislation of this character upon a hypothetical difficulty. The President of the Board of Trade, speaking in the House of Commons last Monday, said:
"The only permanent way of restoring our trade balance without imposing any sacrifice upon our people is by expanding exports rather than curtailing imports. The two things are not incompatible. Both can be achieved."
This Bill is precisely the opposite to that suggestion of the President of the Board
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of Trade and it would be interesting to have an explanation why one has been adopted and not the other.
The second reason which has been given for this Bill, but not by the noble Viscount who leads the House, is that it is to deal with dumping. I do not propose to deal with that aspect except to remind your Lordships that all goods dumped into this country must be goods ordered by some British trader. Some British trader must have ordered those goods, because they are not put out of the ship on the sea shore and left to be distributed by the nation. They are ordered by some presumably good, patriotic British trader to meet the demands of our people. The abandonment of the gold standard, which was the first act of the emergency Government, makes dumping virtually impossible so that there is no excuse for that as a reason for this Bill. In any case, if there were dumping, this is not the way to deal with it. The way to deal with that is, of course, by boards to control imports, boards which can prohibit, which can licence, which can themselves purchase. In that case the more dumping, the more soiling below the cost of production that takes place, the better it would be for this country, because the import board would purchase at a low price and release en our markets at the price which would give a reasonable return to the British producer. I commend that to your Lordships for consideration as a suitable method to deal with this problem should it arise.
The third reason, which was particularly emphasised by the noble Viscount, is that goods are entering this country in abnormal quantities. He used the words, that they were pouring into this country. I wish to examine the figures for a few moments, because he and I have both examined the figures and have apparently come to rather opposite conclusions. I will tell him what the figures appear to indicate to me and perhaps he will tell me, if I am wrong, where I am wrong. First of all, with regard to general imports (not Class III imports), looking at the figures I find that October shows no abnormal increase either over September, 1931, or over October of last year. The facts are that in October of this year our total imports were valued in round figures at £80,600,000, an in-

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crease of £12,300,000 over September of this year. But last year the increase of October over September was precisely the same. It was £12,200,000, so that there was no difference at all. There is, therefore, no abnormal increase in October over September this year and, when we come to the actual figures, we find that in October of this year the total imports are more than £10,000,000 less than last year. The total imports in October this year were £80,600,000, while the total imports in October last year were £90,800,000, a difference of over £10,000,000. The Financial News on the 12th of November, dealing with these figures, used these words:
"October is the time of the year when the seasonal purchasing of raw materials and foodstuffs normally begins. This year's increase between September and October is £12,400,000 against £12,200,000 last year. The trend of buying is as it should be and is therefore upwards.… The conclusion then is that.… the so-called dumping of goods, to which much prominence has been given, has amounted at the outside to goods worth roughly £200,000 for the month of October."
Another way to examine these total imports is to examine the shipping returns—
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: And the ships in the port of London.
LORD MARLEY: The noble Lord confines himself to the port of London, but I would remind him that there are other ports in this country, including Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull, Southampton and Avon-mouth, all of which must be taken into account in calculating our imports. The totals of ships entering our ports with cargo, from a tonnage point of view, show that the tonnage entering our ports in October of this, year is lower than for any of the last five months and lower than for any October for the last four years. The total tonnage was 5,200,000 tons for October of this year and was lower by hundreds of thousands of tons than the tonnage entering in any previous month during the last four or five months of this year. There is no evidence of an abnormal increase in the importation of goods in October of this year. When we examine the ten months ending October, I want to remind the House that here we see a very big decrease. The figures of shipping tonnage entering our ports for the first ten months of this year amount to 50,500,000 tons. Last year
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they were 53,600,000 tons, or 3,000,000 tons more in the ten months. There is no evidence of abnormal imports there.
Now I come to Class III goods. Class III goods are the goods included in the present Bill. Any of your Lordships who are interested and who will get the Import and Export List, will find that 52 pages of this list are used to detail all the items included in Class III, of which there are something like 1,500 kinds of goods, articles wholly or mainly manufactured. Here the noble Viscount used the figures which he presented to your Lordships' House in a way which was perhaps convenient to the very bad case which he is attempting to support, but by omitting the year 1928 he omitted the year in which the increase was equivalent or similar to the increase of imports in this year. The increase for the last four years in October over September in Class III goods amounted in 1928 to £3,400,000, in 1929 to £1,800,000, in 1930 to £2,100,000, and in 1931 to £4,600,000. Those are not very striking increases, there is nothing abnormal about them, and, as I shall show in a moment or two, these figures can very easily be explained away. I am quite sure that every one of your Lordships will realise that they are misleading in the way in which they are put.
Coming to the ten months of this year applied to Class III goods we find this fact, that for Class III goods in the first ten months of this year the figures are £47,000,000 less than for the first ten months of last year. Where is the evidence of abnormal imports when we look at those figures? Those figures, I may say, are, of course, quite undeniable. They are all figures taken from the Trade and Navigation Returns issued by the Government Department concerned—£47,000,000 less this year than last year, something like £60,000,000 odd less than the year before. November has been instanced as a special example of the increase in imports showing the need for this measure, and the noble and learned Viscount told us that the imports for the first ten days of November indicated a monthly rate of £35,000,000, as compared with £27,000,000 in October and £22,000,000 in September. If my figures are in any way wrong I trust the noble and learned Viscount will correct me.

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In giving those figures to the House of Commons the President of the Board of Trade used this sentence:
"I must point out that import figures for so short a period as ten days are liable to give a misleading impression as to the course of trade."
Those figures have given a misleading impression as to the course of trade and it is curious that the President of the Hoard of Trade who made that statement on Monday of this week, should proceed on subsequent days of the week to found this sham emergency upon figures which he himself says are misleading if used to judge the course of trade.
The one factor which the Government and the President of the Board of Trade emitted to take into account is the one factor which vitiates the whole of the figures for October and November—the factor of price. I would remind your Lordships' House that we have gone off the gold standard in the last two months and that therefore the price of goods imported is higher by reason of the fact that the pound is now only worth something in the neighbourhood of 15s. Therefore, to get the real facts as to the volume of imports—and the President of the Board of Trade was very careful to inform the House of Commons that he had no facts as to volume of imports—you must reduce the figures for October and November, which are given as £27,000,000 and £35,000,000, by from 20 to 25 per sent. to compensate for the reduced purchasing power of the pound, it is quite evident that the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House does not understand those figures. He is so overcome with amusement that he does not understand them. Let me put it to him in this way. When the pound—I trust noble Lords will follow these figures because they are important—stood at 125 francs in Paris an importer of French goods worth 125 francs received £l for them. To-day he only receives 15s. In other words to-day if he imports goods which were valued at £1 he only receives for them 100 francs. Therefore, if the volume of imports were the same the number of pounds paid for those imports would be greater. I trust the noble and learned Viscount follows those figures and is not too much amused at the difficulty of the facts. This number of pounds
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should represent a similar volume of imports. That is why I suggest that this emergency upon which this Bill is founded is a sham emergency and bears no relation to the facts
If we take the details of Class III goods we find that they are classified under twenty headings from A to T. I am not going through those headings. I am only going to tell the House that only under four of those headings out of twenty does October of 1931 show any increase in values over October, 1930 and October, 1929. Under the remaining sixteen of those headings there is a decrease in value in 1931 as compared with 1930 and 1929. Therefore I venture to suggest that the emergency tariff proposals are founded on doubtful, insufficient, inadequate and misleading evidence. The evidence, I admit, is in many case3 conflicting, but it has been bolstered up by a misuse of figures, an omission of some facts and over-emphasis of other facts, which I suggest vitiates the whole of the basis upon which this Bill is based.
Finally, I want to deal with the results which will come if this Bill—and I may say when this Bill—becomes law. I believe that it is already having, and that it will have, many disastrous effects on our international relations. The International Economic Conference which took place in May, 1927, resolved—and it was supported by the delegates of Great Britain—that tariffs are one of the chief obstacles to trade and therefore represent a failure to realise the economic interdependence of nations. That fact is understood by the Prime Minister, and when he spoke at the Guildhall a very few days ago he used this sentence:
"We have been witnessing a complete breakdown of the doctrine of economic self-sufficiency."
This Bill reflects the attitude of mind of many of the Conservative candidates at the last Election, who took the line that we must treat foreigners as our enemies and not as our friends. I remember seeing a Conservative poster in one Division: "Vote for Jones and kick the foreigner out." That is not the way to encourage the export trade of this country upon which so many millions of our people depend. The result of the return of a Parliament of which nearly 500 members are pledged to tariffs is that the main and indeed the only policy to be adopted for

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this country has already begun to destroy good relations and confidence with other countries.
The uncertainty of the tariffs to be imposed under this Bill, whether there are to be tariffs or not to be tariffs, whether they are to be 25 per cent. or 50 per cent. or 100 per cent., must make export trade extremely difficult, if not in many cases impossible. Many of the imports which are liable to taxation, partly-manufactured goods, are the raw materials of our industries. How can forward contracts be made when at a moment's notice the new dictator of our financial and fiscal policy, the President of the Board of Trade, is able to impose a new tariff or to double an existing tariff? The result is bound to be a blow to our export trade, and to the shipping trade. It endangers the most favoured-nation treaties which have been built up for many years with other countries, and I am afraid that retaliation is inevitable in our international relationships; in fact we have already seen signs of it in France and in Canada. It is the wrong way of dealing with an emergency, even if such an emergency exists. I have indicated that the right way is by using import boards, which may be a channel of communication, a channel to arrange for the interchange of imports between one nation and another, instead of using a weapon such as tariffs—openly used as a weapon to hit at foreign countries and foreign traders.
The effect of this Bill at home is bound to mean higher prices to consumers at a time when many of the consumers, especially among the workers, have been hit by economy cuts, by reductions of wages, and by reductions of benefit and other means. Higher prices of semi-manufactured goods are bound to mean increases in the cost of raw materials to many of our industries. Some industries, of course, will make higher profits by tariffs, some shareholders will no doubt receive higher dividends. But the result on our export trade is certain to be serious, and I think may very well prove to be disastrous. The Times, in their City Notes last Monday, used these words:
…. the smaller the amount of our imports the smaller must be the amounts that foreigners will have available to spend on British goods. Any unnecessary restriction of imports is to be deprecated, for it would
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limit exports, and thereby reduce the total volume of international trade."
I say that this Bill, therefore, is to be deprecated, because, by limiting exports, it is bound to limit the purchasing power of other countries for British goods and therefore to be an attack upon our export trade.
Already the new Government, by its well-known determination to impose the heaviest possible tariffs, has caused a depression in trade, has caused depression on the Stock Exchange. The sham industrial revival about which we have heard so much is due—and anybody who is honest will admit it is due—to going off the gold standard, and not to any remarkable effort of the present Government. The sham improvement in unemployment figures, which we have been told week by week has taken place, is an improvement owing to the removal of tens of thousands of people from the exchanges by reason of their being no longer able to draw benefit. The figures given in the House of Commons yesterday show that dose on 80,000 people have been removed from the registers of unemployed. That is where the reduction of unemployment, which is so trumpeted abroad each week, has taken place. There is not actually a decrease in those who are wholly unemployed. The number of persons wholly unemployed in this country as a result of this type of policy is actually showing an increase week by week, and not a decrease.
I have tried to show that the proposals are not fair to Parliament, both as regards discussion and as a means of legislation. I have tried to show that these proposals are founded on evidence which is misleading and very doubtful. I have tried to show that this Bill, when carried into law, will hurt our international relationships and injure us at home; and I venture to suggest that a fair reading of the figures upon which the whole Bill is based must indicate that it is hasty legislation, which is undesirable as a means of dealing with a subject so vital to this country as our international trade.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, I can partly understand now why we got our very large majority at this Election. I am told that the noble Lord who has just spoken did his Party the service of making a tour throughout the country;

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and I imagine, from what I saw in the newspapers, that in that 400- or 500-mile tour he made more or less the same kind of speech he has just made—a good, old-fashioned, Free Trade, love-your-international-friends-more-than-yourself kind of speech. I am not surprised, if that was the doctrine put before the people, that re got our enormous majority. Then the noble Lord comes here and makes the same sort of speech, totally oblivious of the fact that there has been a General Election, that the vast majority of the people of the country have decided that forestalling and dumping have to be stopped, and that, for the benefit of our own country, we are entitled to put on tariffs, whatever effect they may have on people in other parts of the world.
The noble Lord ended his speech on the international note that we ought not to regard foreigners as enemies, but as friends. I think that is perfectly true. I do not think there is any suggestion of regarding foreigners in this matter as enemies, but what I think is still more true is that the first duty of a Government is to have regard to its own friends, the well-being of its own nationals, rather than of the nationals of other countries. Their Governments look after their interests. The noble Lord said that retaliation would very soon begin. That is not the case. It is true that France has already increased, without reference to ourselves, certain import duties, not because of this Bill, but because of what toe noble Lord referred to—the change in the value of English money; and, thinking that exports from here or other countries which have gone off the gold standard would be better made in France, they put up certain tariffs. We are not hostile towards France for that reason. They are entitled, exactly as I submit we are entitled, to do what they think is best for their own people and their own manufacturers. I am not going into figures. of unemployment or the statement made by the noble Lord. Let him go and make another tour. Let him go into the cotton district, into the Midland district, and he will find throughout all those manufacturing districts that work has already increased, that men who have been out of work, or working on half-time, for many months are now getting back into decent work. I claim to have some knowledge of
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the working class opinion in this country, and I have fought a great many more Elections than the noble Lord.
LORD MARLEY: I have fought five.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Five! That is nothing. I have fought nine, and had two unopposed returns in addition. And some noble friend reminds me that in all the noble Lord's five fights—but no, I will leave the noble Lord to tell the House what the result of those fights was. He admits that he is against forestalling and dumping, but he actually has had, if it had been in another place I should say the audacity, but I will say the courage to ask your Lordships, as a remedy for forestalling and dumping, to go in for the discredited policy of the Socialist Party of import boards, inspectors and that kind of thing. We have decided that we will not do it. The country has decided that it will not have it. It is no good the noble Lord coming here with his small representation—I do not want to make fun of the efforts that I am sure noble Lords opposite will make to uphold their views, but with his small representation in the country, where he has been beaten by two to one, and suggesting those things when, as I have said, the country has decided that it will not have import boards and that the Government is to take what steps it possibly can at the earliest moment to get rid of dumping and forestalling.
I do not propose to follow the noble Lord further in this matter, but I should like to say one word in defence of the Minister who brought him really into public life. The first part of the noble Lord's speech, if he will forgive me for saying so, was a very ungenerous reference to the Prime Minister. All that could be said against the Prime Minister was said on public platforms by his colleagues of higher eminence even than the noble Lord. And the country came to the conclusion, and rightly came to that conclusion, that it believed in the honour and the honesty of the Prime Minister. The people believed that he was prepared to take the very gravest risks that any politician could have taken—he risked his whole future and position—and came to the conclusion that they believed in his desires and intentions. We, at any rate, on this side of the House, and I think I may speak for a very large number of noble Lords, are proud to be led by a man who gave

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up the great position he held, who put the whole thing to the test and received an enormous vote of confidence from the people of this country.
LORD MARLEY: If I may interpose for a moment, I made no reflection either on the sincerity or the honour of the Prime Minister. I merely said that he possessed in an enhanced degree the Cross-Bench mind. Therefore, he was always trying to enquire still further into the aspect of a case and his support of continual Commissions, inquiries and committees was what I was referring to.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, I do not wish to misunderstand or misinterpret the noble Lord, but he will see to-morrow the report of his speech, though the actual print cannot report the vailed sneer in the words and manner of the noble Lord, and I think he will find and that the country will realise that he was not fair to the Prime Minister under whom he has served.
There is one point that I want to stress for a few moments. I want to renew the appeal made in another place and by noble Lords in this House in regard to agriculture. My noble friend in his speech told us that a certain time must elapse, of course, before we can have the Government views on agriculture. But may I submit, in the first place, that time is the very thing that agriculture cannot afford to give at the present moment. We are now in November. We have almost got beyond sowing time. We have got to the period when, as everybody knows, for speeches have been made in this House and another place, notably by Lord Hastings the other day, and it is common knowledge here and at all events throughout the country, that agriculture is at such a low ebb that it is at least entitled to demand not a cut-and-dried Bill from my noble friend—that I admit might be difficult—but some statement of a more definite character than that made either by my noble friend or by the Prime Minister yesterday, that they really do intend to bring forward measures for the benefit of agriculture itself. My noble friend did not seem to realise that dumping had touched agriculture. On the other hand the Election proclamation of his Leader, Mr. Baldwin, stated that the Conservative Party at all events would stop the dumping which was so
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ruinous to agriculture. It is dumping exactly of the same kind as that which is doing harm to the manufactures and workmen of this country that I know the Government could stop in regard to agriculture, the fanners and the agricultural labourers. A vast number of the very finest men in this country, agricultural labourers, have been put off during the last few months because of dumping and the uncertainty of the Government policy. It is on behalf of those men that I desire to plead with the Government to give us a really more substantial hope and a more substantial policy than they have as yet given us.
My noble friend told us that the time which must be occupied in coming to their conclusions must not be used by people outside to prejudice those conclusions. But it is being so used to-day. It is being used for the dumping of agricultural produce which is so far prejudicing any conclusions the Government may come to that it is ruining farmer after farmer in the country and putting off thousands of agricultural labourers. Their position must be prejudiced because the longer the Government's consideration the worse it will be for those farmers and agricultural labourers who are trying to keep their heads above water. Your Lordships will forgive me for quoting a few figures because I want to show that difficult as the position is in regard to manufactured goods under Class III, dangerous as the position is to our manufacturers and workpeople, it is even more so in regard to agriculture under Class I. The noble Lord opposite dealt a good deal with figures in pounds sterling and, if I may say so, he made play with the effects of the slightly increased value owing to the abandonment of the gold standard and so forth. I will not deal with pounds sterling. I will deal with cwts. What really affects the farmer is the bulk of goods that come in in competition with him.
Let me take the very first case of all, the dumping of wheat. It is idle to say that there is no dumping in agriculture. These figures, as the noble Lord knows, are given for the ten months up to October; we cannot have them for November yet. I am quoting from the same document as he referred to in his speech. For the first ten months of 1930 there were 6,500,000 cwts. (I need not

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give the full figures) of wheat from Russia. Certainly my noble friend would agree that in every sense of the word wheat from Russia is dumped wheat, grown under conditions that it would be impassible for our men to put up with in this country. This year that had risen from 6,500,000 cwts. to 23,750,000 cwts. I do not care about the pound sterling: here is additional dumping of 17,000,000 cwts. of wheat from Russia in competition particularly with our own farmers and equally in competition, of course, with those parts of our Empire, Canada and elsewhere, where wheat is produced. The import of barley has also increased by 2,000,000 cwts. in the ten months.
I would call the noble Lord's attention to the remarkable fact that the total import of grain of all kinds for the ten months in question rose from 142,000,000 cwts. in 1930 to 176,000,000 cwts. this year—a very large increase. The noble Lord led us to suppose from the figures he gave that there were no actual increases in imports during the current year.
LORD MARULEY: I was not dealing with those figures at all.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I thought the noble Lord gave the total. He is right in this respect and this is what I want to put to him because of the reference he made to the value of the pound. It is perfectly true that the importation of 176,000,000 cwts. cost £44,000,000 this year; last year 142,000,000 cwts. Costing £59,000,000. I quite agree there is a difference in the value of the pound sterling. What I want the noble Lord opposite to realise is that it is the totality of the imports which really matters. The question of the balance of trade is a different question, and I am not dealing with it at the moment. To the grower and the manufacturer it is the totality that matters and not the value.
There is still more. My noble friend quoted some figures in regard to the last few months. Let us take the two months of September and October last year and the same two months of this year. The noble Lord quoted total figures in regard to those months. Actually in the two months of last year the total import of wheat was 21,000,000 cwts. This year, in the same two months, up to the end of
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October, the total import was 30,750,000 cwts. That shows clearly that dumping is going on. My noble friend does not like the word "dumping." Well, let it be "importation." It affects the farmer just the same; it prevents him knowing whether he has to face an importation of 30,000,000 cwts. in the two months of next year or 20,000,000 cwts. It is the uncertainty which causes him not to know whether he will be able to sow wheat or not during this autumn or in the spring. Wheat is not the be-all and end-all of farming in this country. Let us take, if I may, bacon. You will find that the import of bacon has increased enormously in volume. I am quoting these figures to dispose of the noble Lord's statement that there was no real increase of imports. From Denmark last year the importation was 4,750,000 cwt. This year in the ten months it is 6,000,000 cwt. That is an enormous increase. The same applies to the Netherlands and even more in proportion to other countries. I am leaving out our own Dominions.
LORD MARLEY: What about the United States?
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: The United States has gone down.
LORD MARLEY: 400,000.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: It went down last year from 429,000 to 176,000.
LORD MARLEY: And the Irish Free State?
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: The totality of all imports of bacon has gone up from 7,400,000 cwts. to 9,216,000 cwts. in the ten months of this year. The main rise in those imports is from the countries I have mentioned—friendly countries, it is true. Perhaps the noble Lord may have a kindness in his heart for Denmark. So have I, but I have a greater affection for those who breed and rear pork and bacon in this country, because they are our own people, and because we are bound to look after them and, I do not hesitate to use the word, protect their interests in this matter. I could give the same quotations about butter, but I do not want to weary your Lordships. There the same thing, has occurred. From Russia the import of butter has more than doubled during, the ten months of this year as compared

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with the ten months of last year. From Denmark it has increased by 100,000 cwt.; and so one could go on.
If your Lordships will allow me for one moment I would like to say a word about the importation of potatoes, because potatoes are a very important item in the farming of this country. We find a most extraordinary rise in the import of potatoes from Germany. Two years ago Germany exported less than 4,000 cwts. of potatoes to this country. Last year she exported 72,000 cwt. This year she sent us 2,700,000 cwt. of potatoes, and a very large rise also took place from other countries. The totality is a rise from 5,000,000 cwt. to over 12,000,000 cwt. of potatoes into this country in the first ten months of this year as compared with the ten months of last year. It is after the General Election, and it is incumbent upon His Majesty's Government to take these matters into consideration. I am quite aware that they are going to take them into consideration. In fact I always feel, while I am speaking here in the presence of my noble and learned friend who leads the House, that I am speaking to one who holds probably the same views as I do myself in this matter.
There are also some remarkable rises in regard to sugar beet, which represents one of the attempts that our farmers have made to tide over bad days. I am sure my noble friend Lord Cranworth knows the effect in the Eastern Counties of this enormous rise in the importation of sugar beet. I do not care what you call it, whether you call it dumping or whether you call it forestalling, or whatever it may be, the facts and the figures which I have given to your Lordships' House cannot be denied. They are all bulk figures, not sterling figures. There is every possibility, I think of the English agriculturist growing a very large proportion of those imports in our own country. I have been the victim of farming myself, at one time, and lost a good deal of money on it; therefore I have had some experience. I have recently made a tour through the Eastern Counties. I have consulted landlords, agents, farmers, and others, and one and all tell me that it is impossible for the farming industry to go on very much longer under present conditions. That, I think, must be admitted.
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Therefore I appeal to my noble friend who leads the House that he will ask the Government if it is possible—I think it may be possible before the House rises—to make some statement which will relieve the minds of the farming and the agricultural community in this country and give them fresh courage to go forward. I do not ask for a Bill, I do not ask for a definite statement that there shall be a tax here and a tax there, but I do ask that the Government will make a far more definite statement than they have yet done, that they will say to agriculturists: "You may safely go forward, you may spend more capital, you may sow more seed, you may take on more labour, and we at least will guarantee you that the position which you are in this year shall be very much improved by the time next year comes round."
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, the noble Viscount who has just spoken is always entertaining to listen to and the more unsound his arguments are the more vehemently he advances them. I have rarely listened to a speech, if I may say so with respect, further removed from the facts and more inconsequential. Take the question of Russia. As we know Russia to the noble Viscount is a "King Charles' head." If the noble Viscount had made the world Russia would not exist. If he were the world's arbiter it would be blotted out of the map. Happily the noble Viscount did not make the world, and Russia does exist. It is a very large country, and a very rich country, and it does an enormous trade. The noble Viscount seems to think that his day's work is not wasted if he takes some of the trade away from us and makes a present of it to Germany and the United States. That is what he did when he was in office with his preposterous Arcos raid, taking away from this country our badly-needed trade and increasing unemployment, and making a present of valuable trade to Germany and the United States. He has quoted figures in regard to wheat, showing an increase of imports of wheat from Russia. No doubt the imports of wheat from Russia have increased, but that is because Russia is rapidly developing, and is resuming the place which it had before the War.
The noble Viscount did not refer to Russia as a large exporting country of

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Wheat—the noble Viscount did not tell your Lordships what the exports of wheat from Russia were before the War. There was no complaint made about Russia then. I have not looked into the figures lately. If I had known the noble Viscount was coming here to-day I should have done so because I would have known if he was to speak that he would be sure to speak about Russia. I do not know precisely, but I believe that I am not fir removed from the fact if I say in regard to the exports of wheat that the totality of the, figures he has given are very little larger, if they are at all larger, than they were in quantity in the years before the War.
LORD MARLEY: Not as much.
LORD ARNOLD: I am a moderate person. My case is so strong I can afford to be so. My noble friend tells me that they are not so large. That being so, the case which the noble Viscount has put proves to be absolutely vulnerable. Russia, as my noble friend tells me, is not, as a matter of fact, sending us now even, despite this tremendous harangue of the noble Viscount, as much wheat as before the War. Then he comes and says that this cheap food coming into the country is an injury to the workers. Nothing could be more untrue. Free Trade has given to Great Britain the cheapest and best bread in the world and this National Government is intending to take away that supreme blessing from the working classes. I will not say any more about that, for the time will come when there will be a very different state of things to discuss in this House from that which exists to-day.
I will now refer to this unprecedented Bill, which has been put forward with arguments almost as unsound as those of the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford. I do not make any complaint of the Bill being rushed through this House, because your Lordships have no power in finance. I make no complaint of that at all, although it is not strictly true to say that you have no power in finance. Far be it from me to add to your Lordships' powers, but I will make you a present of this, that perhaps it is not so widely known is it should be that as a matter of fact you can amend a Finance Bill, even one certified by the Speaker, and can send it down to another place for discussion, and
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if your Amendment is accepted then it becomes the law. There is, I think, one month allowed. Therefore it is not true to say that your Lordships can do nothing with a Finance Bill, although I think myself that probably it would be a good thing if you could do nothing.
Lord Marley, in an able and singularly temperate speech, has to a considerable extent exposed this Bill, and I will endeavour in what I have to say to attack it in the main from somewhat different standpoints. I will not deal with the question of its unconstitutionally, though of course it is an unconstitutional measure, but having been eight years in this House I know that your Lordships do not worry about constitutional matters if they stand in the way of what you want. The noble Viscount opposite perhaps remembers what happened in connection with the Coal Mines Act. However, I will leave that and come to the Bill. The alleged case for the Bill—and I would like to have the attention of the noble Viscount, because I think there was certain misunderstanding in what he said—is, I understand, put forward broadly on two grounds. The first is that it will rectify the adverse balance of trade, and secondly that it will avoid the loss of revenue through forestalments. In that sense it is a revenue-getting Hill although the nobly Viscount said if was not a Bill for that purpose. That, however, was the whole case put forward by his colleague in another place. The object of this Bill, as I understand it, is to check imports now which, if they came in now, would not pay duty but which in all human probability will pay fluty a few months hence. In that sense it is a postponed revenue-getting Bill.
Then as regards the balance of trade. No case whatever can be made out for this Bill as being one which will help to rectify the balance of trade. It will do nothing whatever to help the balance of trade. There is no necessity for Parliament to deal with the balance of trade, because now that we are off the gold standard the balance of trade will rectify itself. Big purchases from abroad will at once cause a fall in the value of the pound. That will mean an increase in the price of imports and will automatically itself check excessive purchases, and also the fall in the value of the

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pound, by reducing prices for exports, will increase exports. Therefore, you have a mechanism already at work for redressing the balance of trade, and in so far as this Bill reduces imports then it will reduce exports. That cannot be denied, and therefore this Bill can have no such effect upon the balance of trade as is claimed for it. No economist of note would support the contention that this Bill is necessary to deal with the balance of trade. I challenge the noble Viscount—I have done so before with singular lack of success—to name a single economist of note who supports the theory put forward by the President of the Board of Trade and by himself today. I have here extracts from the greatest of living English economists. Professor Edwin Cannan, speaking at Oxford last week in the Sidney Bull lecture, said:
"The immense volume of silly talk about the balance of trade which has emerged from the highest quarters, both of the political and the business world, has convinced me that we economists have hitherto completely failed in our duty to make this matter clear to the public. So completely have economists failed in the 200 years since they began to exist as a class, that if David Hume were still alive he could repeat today with perfect truth what he said in 1752: 'This apprehension of the wrong balance of trade discovers itself whenever one is out of humour with the Ministry, or in low spirits.'"
He goes on:
"The guise in which the bogey of 'a wrong' or 'adverse' balance of trade has appeared, has indeed changed somewhat since Hume's time, but the bogey remains as unsubstantial as ever. There is a large class of people who spend their time in arguing that their country is going to the dogs, who take every opportunity of raising a scare that their country is not really able to pay for all the imports it is taking—a course which they say can only end in some rather unexplained phenomenon called ' national bankruptcy.'"
Then he makes a most interesting speech on the aspects of the present position and towards the end refers to certain difficulties which face us. He then says:
"Even so we managed to carry on, and whether on or off the gold standard we certainly shall not benefit by reviving the 300-year-old and long-ago-exploded superstition that the balance of trade must be watched over and kept right by Parliament—a superstition which can only be ranked with the once equally widespread belief that witchcraft must be smelt out and witches burnt at the stake."
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Those are words of the greatest living English economist and I think his opinion absolutely smashes to smithereens the kind of argument doled out from the Treasury Bench in this House and the other House in support of the Bill.
There is no case for the Bill on those grounds which have been advanced and that is quite apart from the fact that these imports are not simply consigned here and put on the beach. They are ordered and if the amount is rather more during one month it cannot go on indefinitely. Traders cannot go on buying indefinitely. They only buy to sell again and the amount they can buy is limited. Thus you have that check also upon the case put forward by the noble Viscount. As regards the balance of trade argument, it simply cannot be sustained.
Now let me come to the second argument, which requires very close scrutiny, that this Bill is necessary to avoid a loss of revenue because of forestalment. This argument contains some very significant implications and I would ask your Lordships to follow a little closely while I endeavour to put the case as I see it. If the case for this Bill means anything, surely it means that the tariffs, which are subsequently put on by the President of the Board of Trade against certain goods when this Bill is passed, are indications of the tariffs which are going to be put on when the Budget comes. That must be so, as otherwise there is no object in it; there can be no fore-stalments if there are to be no duties later on. If that is so, and if these tariffs are forerunners of some of the tariffs—because I am afraid there will be others, too—in next year's Budget, then what becomes of the Prime Minister's statement about the position of the Government at the election?
The noble Viscount was very cross about the very moderate observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Marley, about the Prime Minister. Apparently we must not mention him, if that is the sort of thing that is going to happen. I am not going to be intimidated. We have 3ur duty to do here and I am going to quote what the Prime Minister said at the last Election. The Prime Minister made it clear that the mandate was not to impose tariffs at once, and he gave a special interview at an hotel on Barnby

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Moor in which he said that the mandate Which to investigate and then, if later on they were found necessary, they would be imposed. There has been no investigation here whatever. Almost before the Government got on the Treasury Bench it took this action. Only a week before the Prime Minister was asked about this, just before he was driven into this Bill and was trying to stave off the Bill. He still had his Election pledge in his mind and he then said that they would have to examine and consider separately each of the articles of importation and also examine collectively the effect of such duties as these on our general trade and commerce. All that has gone by the board. This Bill has been rushed through because the Government has been obliged to yield to the clamour of those behind it. The real reason for this Bill is not forestalment or revenue, but the necessity of placating the huge Protectionist majority.
If the noble Viscount claims that there is a majority which gives power to impose Protection, I do not dispute that. I shall not go into the way in which that majority was obtained, although we shall hear more about that later. I have no doubt that the Government has a mandate to impose a certain amount of Protection and that, even if it had not, it will go forward with it, having regard to the tremendous pressure exercised on the Ministry. I cannot understand how men like Sir Herbert Samuel, Mr. Runciman and Mr. Philip Snowden can agree to this Bill. They are—or are supposed to be—strong Free Traders. This Bill if a pure Protectionist Bill. There is no emergency made out to justify it. I am not able to understand how these gentlemen can reconcile it with their consciences to support this Bill; still less I cannot understand how they reconcile it with their intellects. Nobody could oppose it more strongly than they. Nobody could oppose it more vehemently than Mr. Snowden himself. He has changed and his venomous and vitriolic vocabulary is now placed at the disposal of those vested interests which up to now he has spent his lifetime in attacking. I leave these gentlemen to reconcile their action as best they can. The responsibility is a heavy one.
It cannot be too strongly emphasised that this is a Protectionist Bill; it is
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not a Bill to deal with dumping. Mr. Runciman gave up the attempt to define dumping. There is no dumping and in any case you cannot administer anything on that definition. It is all very well trying to keep out goods which come here, as the noble Viscount said, below the cost of production in the country of origin. Again and again it has been attempted to proceed on those lines and it has been found impossible to ascertain the cost in the country of origin. Under the Act of 1921 there was machinery set up to deal with dumping and cases of alleged dumping could be brought before a Committee. In the ten years since then only two cases were brought before the Committee and neither of them was substantiated. That shows the difficulty of dealing with it and, as Mr. Runciman and the noble Viscount have both said, this Bill is not to deal with dumping but with abnormal imports. The noble Lord, Lord Marley, made an interesting speech on that point and showed that, if you take into account the changed values, having regard to the fact that this country has gone off the gold standard, it is a very different case to that which the noble Viscount put forward.
If it be the case that there are abnormal importations, how does the matter stand with regard to forestalment of revenue, which is the only remaining argument that can be put forward to support this Bill? This Bill applies to Class III, articles wholly or mainly manufactured. Those articles are divided into various categories and about one third of them are definitely raw materials for our manufacturers here. Presumably it is not proposed by the President of the Board of Trade to put any duties upon them because, if he is going to do that, the position would be extremely serious for many people in this country, and he has given a pledge—as I understand it—not to injure any of our people or any of our industries. That pledge cannot possibly be carried out because anything done under this Bill will injure somebody in this country. As regards putting a duty on that third of the articles in Class III which are definitely raw materials, that will be such a clear and definite injury that I do not think that even this Government would do it.
I was rather perturbed to hear the noble Viscount talking gaily about iron

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and steel. A great proportion of the steel imports into this country—which are greatly exaggerated—are really raw materials for various manufactures. Out of the total steel of this country, home produced and imported, something like one half is exported in one form or another. What is going to happen to the export trade, which even Mr. Runciman has not altogether forgotten now that he is among his new friends, if you increase the cost of steel when about one half of the total is exported? In 1929 the total production of home produced steel was about 9,000,000 tons, a record year except for a war year. This trade, which Protectionists say is down and out, had a record production in 1929. In addition to that we imported 2,900,000 tons, so that, out of a total of 11,900,000 tons, 9,000,000 tons was home produced. About half of that total was exported. If you increase the cost of that, you are going to injure your export trade and you are going to increase the competition in neutral countries abroad, because the steel you do not take here will enter into competition with you there.
Then about 12½ per cent, of Class III goods are partly manufactured goods. Again those are in the nature of raw material and presumably will not have any duty on them. About 12½ per cent. already pay a heavy duty of from 25 to 33 per cent. Presumably, it is not intended when the Budget is brought in to increase duties above 33 per cent., which is an enormously high duty. I believe I am correct in saying that before the War in Germany, which was regarded as a high protectionist country, the average of the duties was about 6 per cent. Presumably these duties are not going to be increased. There can be no question of forestalling there because you are paying duty now. So you are left with somewhere about 40 per cent, of wholly manufactured articles of various kinds which might come under the operation of the Bill. I suppose this year that 40 per cent, will probably amount to about £100,000,000. Let it be supposed that that £100,000,000, owing to the so-called abnormal importations, will be increased by 50 per cent. It is an enormous assumption to make, but I can make it because my case is so strong. I can afford to be generous and make it 50 per cent. Taking the most extreme case it
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means that that £100,000,000 would become £150,000,000 in the course of twelve months, so that in six months the increase would be £25,000,000.
I believe that is too high, but if you assume that and if you put on that £25,000,000 a 33⅓ per cent, duty it will amount, speaking broadly, to about £8,000,000 gross. That is, of course, on the assumption that all these goods continue to come in. You cannot get away from the inescapable dilemma that we cannot get revenue from goods and at the same time keep them out. The utmost conceivable loss is £8,000,000 a year, but from that we must deduct cost of collection, so that probably you would not lose more than one penny in the pound on Income Tax so far as that is concerned, but the effect on home trade would be so damaging that you would lose far more revenue on home trade than you could possibly make on the revenue which you are proposing to put on to prevent forestalling. The matter really will not bear analysis. It is not a business proposition. Even from the revenue point of view, if you examine the Bill you will find that it rests on an insubstantial and unsubstantiated foundation.
I hope the noble and learned Viscount, when he replies, will deal with some of these figures, because I am sorry to say that my experience of fiscal debates in your Lordships' House is that a case is put but no attempt is made to answer it. I have taken part in I do not know how many fiscal debates, but no attempt is made to deal with the arguments advanced from this side. I think that if we have a debate figures, if they are wrong, should be rebutted or if they are right should be admitted, and I hope the noble and learned Viscount in his reply—he is very competent to do so—will deal with the figures and show why they are wrong, if they are wrong. Otherwise we cannot get the true perspective of the matter debated. I can only say in conclusion that it is a matter of profound regret that the Government, almost before they have found their places on the Treasury Bench, should bring in a Bill for which no case can be made out and which, as my noble friend below me hinted, will, if it is put into operation, be found to do great harm to the delicate and complicated mechanism of trade, not only of export trade but home trade.
LORD CRANWORTH: My Lords, I rise for only one purpose and that is to express a measure of regret that in this Bill of which I so heartily approve there is no question of extending benefits to agriculture and to join in the appeal made by my noble friend Viscount Brentford, that at an early date some statement on the subject may be made. The noble and learned Viscount who leads us said that the reason for the exclusion of agriculture was that this Bill was not an anti-dumping Bill but was a forestalling Bill and I am quite certain he is correct, but unfortunately 100 per cent, of the fanning community and I think 95 per cent, of the population of these Islands think that it is an anti-dumping Bill and do not know that it is an anti-forestalling Bill. It may be said—it has been said—that the agricultural community are impatient and unreasonable in expecting so quickly, within a month, to have some such policy as they have been promised explained in detail.
I do not think the farming community are impatient or that they do expect any policy in detail, but when they see in this Bill that they are excluded from its benefits and when, in the gracious Speech from the Throne, they see no mention of agriculture they are filled with apprehension and dismay, for this reason, that for thirty years now it has been a case with agriculture of "jam yesterday and jam to-morrow but never jam to-day". The reason why they have had no jam today, is, I think, that they have never had friends enough to see that they got the jam that was their due. I am glad to say that that is not the case to-day. They have always had plenty of friends in your Lordships' House and to-day in another place there must be at least 350 members who hold their seats as the result of pledges which they gave that agriculture is to have fair play. Furthermore, there are in this country many millions of people—not only in country districts but in towns—who also are firmly determined that agriculture shall come into its own at last. At the last Election by an enormous majority a mandate was given to this Government. There are various interpretations put upon that mandate but I venture to think that it will not be denied that this is one interpretation: that this Government should use their
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vast legislative powers, not for the purpose of retaining or gaining votes but for the purpose and the sole purpose of Te-storing prosperity to this country.
We have heard about the balance of trade. I have been given to understand that the adverse balance is somewhere in the region of £300,000,000 and I listened with admiration to the mistaken optimism of the noble Lord opposite, Lord Marley, when he said that he did not think it was proved that there was any adverse balance of trade at all. With regard to that adverse balance there is one quite obvious method whereby it may be helped and that is by producing in this country food which we at present import. I believe it to be perfectly possible that £100,000,000 worth of food at present imported can be produced at home. When I say that, it is not one of those things which we hope may be or which we think may be. We say it is so and for the reason that we have done it. Seventy years ago this Island fed entirely 26,000,000 people and those 26,000,000 people were almost all Grade Al people. To-day we feed less than eight million people whose category is considerably below Al and is below largely for the reason that they do not eat enough food produced in this country.
You may ask, and it has been asked: "Did you not hear the pleasant words of the President of the Board of Trade? Were; they not good enough for you? "I did read the pleasant words of the President of the Board of Trade and I heard the equally pleasant words of the noble and learned Viscount just now. They are good enough for me because I know both of them to be men of their word and I know also that the President of the Board of Trade was one of the few men who left the Ministry of Agriculture with a higher reputation than when he entered it. But, unfortunately, farmers and agricultural labourers do not know that, and they say: "We have had plenty of fine words before. What we want is action." And I would join in the appeal of my noble friend Lord Brentford that we may have as soon as possible some further action which will show the agricultural community that there is an intention and determination at long last that they shall have their fair share of whatever good things are coming.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not wish to detain you very long but there are certain points which I have to deal with. The noble Lord, Lord Marley, who stated the case of the Opposition, began by complaining of the unseemly haste with which we were bringing in this legislation and then went on to point out that he knew that our procrastination was so great that we should never do anything. I think I can leave those two arguments to counterbalance one another. Then he went on to tell us that this was a wicked Bill because it gave a dictatorship to the Executive. A dictatorship to the Executive controlled by Parliament is not at all a bad thing. I think it is not at all a bad plan in these days that the Executive, so long as Parliament retains its control, should be given by Parliament in appropriate cases the power to act swiftly and energetically.
Then he went on to discuss the financial aspects. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I say that as an exposition of the official attitude of his Party it seemed to me that his speech displayed that profound ignorance of the facts which he was proposing to discuss which does not characteristic him of course, but which is only too characteristic of the Party for which he was speaking. He told us that the right way to do this was by prohibition not by tariffs. If the noble Lord had begun to study the problem he would have ascertained what probably everybody on this side of the House knows, that we cannot proceed by prohibition without breaking a whole series of Treaties to one of which at least the Government of which he was a member was actually a party. Then he went on to say that there was no evidence that there was an adverse balance of trade and he quoted the President of the Board of Trade in another place as saying that he did not know yet what the figures were. It is quite true that we do not know on November 20 what the figures are going to be on December 31. We cannot tell your Lordships what exactly the adverse balance is going to be on that date, but nobody who has studied the problem in this country has any doubt, so far as I know, that there is a very large and" increasing adverse balance of trade. And the fluctuations of the pound sterling are unfortunately the most conclu-
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sive and damning evidence of that fact, and the Bill is designed to check that strain on the exchange value of the pound. Can anybody doubt that the exchange value of the pound requires fortifying and requires protection?
The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, said that a Bill is quite unnecessary because as the flood of imports goes on the value of the pound will more and more be reduced until at last its purchasing value will be so low that that will automatically check the flood of imports. It is quite true. That is what would happen. The price of all goods imported would go up until they reached such a prohibitive level that we could not go on buying. But just observe how that which the noble Lord thought was the right way of dealing with the question would operate. Floods of manufactured goods which we do not want and shall not consume for months to come are to be poured into this country and paid for with our exports as far as they will go till the pound sterling is depreciated down to a worthless price.
LORD ARNOLD: Oh no.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: To a very much lower price. That was his argument.
LORD ARNOLD: Not a very much lower price. It would not make much difference to the price but it would be sufficient to do the trick.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not know how much lower but so much lower that we could not afford to buy foreign goods. That is the essence of it. What are the goods which we should not be able to buy I They are not the manufactured goods. They are the wheat, the raw material, the food which our people have to get from abroad and at all costs; and the result of the noble Lord's proposal therefore is that the people of this country are to be faced with famine prices for necessaries, that our factories are to be stopped because they cannot afford to buy raw materials in order that the foreigner without check may pour goods into this country. A more ridiculous proposal for dealing with a serious economic problem I do not suppose this House has ever listened to. And the fact that it is seriously put forward by the noble Lord is perhaps the best evidence of how entirely impossible it is to

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persuade the members of the Socialist Party to begin to face facts and to under-stand the problems with which they so rashly attempt to deal.
Then Lord Marley went on to say that this Bill does not help our exports. I am glad to hear that at last the Socialist Party are beginning to take a little interest in exports. They succeeded in halving them in two and a quarter years and what they would have been down to now if they had remained in office I do not know. It is true that this Bill does not help exports. Its purpose is to check imports and that purpose I think it will very effectively carry out. Then figures were quoted. We were told that the general imports, if you take all the classes together, do not show any abnormal increase. But we are not dealing ii this Bill with the general imports. What we are dealing with is one class of imports and the fact that the grand total does not show any alterations only shows that the increase in Class III is masked by the other classes, and why the Opposition should desire to show that it is less possible to buy raw materials because of the parlous state in which the Socialist Government would reduce the country by continuing to import goods that we are quite able to make ourselves is a thing that I am quite at a loss to understand.
The noble Lord said that the total shipping tonnage of this country did not show an alteration which bore out the figures. But he forgets two things. He forgets first of all that the total tonnage has nothing whatever to do with the problem we are discussing because the total tonnage deals with all the imports and we are dealing only with one particular Class. And he forgets also that if he looked at the tonnage of shipping coming into the ports where this forestalling is going on—mostly London and Harwich—he will find that there has been a very considerable increase during November. The figures were given in another place and they are something like 30 per cent., but I am speaking from memory. And it is entirely foreign shipping so I hat it does not help our own shipping trade.
LORD MARLEY: It was not the tonnage, it was the number of ships. That was the point.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: After all, what matters is not how many ships come in,
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but how big they are, and the number of ships; and at the ports of London and Harwich you have had more ships in and they have been of bigger tonnage.
LORD MARLEY: That is definitely not the case; it is more ships, but less tonnage.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I read only to-day of the "Bremen" that it was so large that there was the greatest difficulty in handling it.
LOUD MARLEY: One ship!
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: "One ship" says the noble Lord, but how many more will there be following that ship if we do not put a stop to it? Then he went on to say that the price factor had been ignored. There are two answers to that. In the first place the price factor has not been ignored, because I gave not only values but quantities. I gave three or four instances, and I could give half a dozen or more in which there had been a dramatic change. In the case of leather there was an increase of over 10O per cent., and in the case of razors 200 per cent. I could give other figures, but I do not want to take up time. But there have been numerous instances in which there has been an increase in quantity, quite inexplicable except on the ground that these are forestalling importations. And the noble Lord forgets that the price factor argument is a double-edged one. Because your Lordships will appreciate that the reason why it is said—or one reason why it is said that the drop in the value of the pound acts as a protection to our people is that the result of the depreciated value of the pound is to increase the cost of the foreign goods and thereby render it impossible for the foreigner any more to bring them into this country. If, in spite of the price factor, you still see an increase in the quantity of importation then that reinforces very strongly the arguments I put forward when I introduced the Bill to your Lordships.
Then the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, said first of all that of the two purposes of the Bill, as he understood them, the purpose of improving the balance of trade was an impossible one, because you could not do it by Act of Parliament. That is one of the things which the country has told us to do and, although the noble Lord states that we cannot, in that pontifical manner

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of which he is so great a master, we are going to do it and before Christmas he will see that we have begun to do it. We are not in the least discouraged by the prophesies of the noble Lord, because we know they are based on those Free Trade premises which experience has so often proved to be untrue.
He went on to say that this Bill must mean that we are going to impose this sort of tariff or a tariff at any rate on these goods. If I was speaking not as a member of the Government, but as a member of the Conservative Party, I should say: "I wish it were true"; but it is not. We are taking power to impose these duties not because we have made up our minds to put on a tariff, but because we have made up our minds that if hereafter we should decide to put on a tariff we are not going to have the tariff made ineffective by something that has happened in advance. It does not in the least commit us to put a tariff on these or any other goods to ask your Lordships' House, as we do to-day, to give us power to stop goods being poured into the country in advance and so render the ultimate tariff, if it comes, ineffective. The noble Lord also said that the Bill was a Revenue Bill because the object of the duties, when they come, will be to raise revenue. The object of the duties when they come will not be merely to raise revenue. I hope it will not be mainly to raise revenue. It will be to improve unemployment which the noble Lord and those with whom he is associated very signally failed to deal with when they had the power.
I do not wish to occupy your Lordships' time, but there is one other matter about which I must say a word or two. I have had from my noble friends Lord Brentford and Lord Cranworth a very strong appeal to represent to those with whom I am associated the plight of agriculture and the urgent necessity of doing something at least to reassure those who are engaged in that, the greatest of our industries. I hope my noble friends will believe me when I say that I need no such encouragement to make those representations. Your Lordships will understand, and I know that my noble friends will, that I am not in a position and have no authority to make a statement on behalf of the Government which will pledge the word of the Government. I can pledge myself to them that I will
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present, as far as my ability permits me, those pleas which they have so powerfully put forward to the Minister of Agriculture in the hope that he may be able to do something to meet their requests. I hope that he will be able to do something, but I cannot undertake that he will do something because the matter has not been the subject of a Cabinet decision which would give me that authority.
I can only say that I am sure it is not only myself but the Government as a whole who realise the tragic position of many of our great branches of farming to-day. We do realise, I am sure, that the agricultural industry has a right to expect, as a result of the Election, that something will be done to help it in the straits in which it is. I, at any rate, feel confident that the Government, when the proposals of the Ministry of Agriculture are considered, will be in a position to do something effective, and I shall do my best to urge that that decision, so far as it can be taken for the time being, should be taken at the earliest possible moment. I cannot give a wider promise than that, but I hope very much that the fulfilment will be something better than the actual promise involved. At this hour I do not want to take up further time. I have attempted to answer the objections which have come from the Benches opposite. I have attempted to give the best assurances I can to those who think with me in this matter and I ask your Lordships, with some confidence, to give a Second Reading to the Bill which is only designed to deal with a temporary emergency and which is to deal with an emergency which calls for action and which can, I think, be dealt with effectively by the measures which we propose.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
Committee negatived. Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), Bill read 3a and passed.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (SAFETY AND LOAD LINE CONVENTIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to give effect to an International Convention for the safety of life at sea, signed in London on the 31st day of May, 1929, to give

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effect to an International Load Line Convention, signed in London on the fifth day of July, 1930, and to amend the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1928, relating to passenger steamers, life-saving appliances, wireless telegraphy, load lines, timber cargoes, and other matters affected by the said Conventions; and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Hill be now read 1a.—(Earl Stanhope.)
On Question, Bill read 1a and to be printed.

GRAMPIAN ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1931.
Special Order to increase the capital and borrowing powers of the Grampian Electricity Supply Company:
Laid before the House, (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

NAPTON AND DISTRICT ELECTRI CITY ORDER, 1931.
Special Order in respect of part of the rural district of Southam in the County of Warwick:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

TORQUAY ELECTRICITY (EXTEN SION) ORDER, 1931.
Special Order in respect of parts of the rural districts of Kingsbridge and Totnes in the County of Devon:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bill received the Royal Assent:
Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Bill.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at a quarter past two o'clock.