Sitting of 13 February 1936

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
The Lord Wrenbury—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

TRING GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed: the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CONSTITUTION OF ORISSA) ORDER, 1936.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND): My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Order be approved. The Report of the India and Burma Orders Committee was communicated to the House by my noble friend the Leader of the House at the conclusion of business yesterday, and in those circumstances I am grateful to your Lordships for agreeing to my moving this Motion so soon after the Report of the Committee. But having said so much, it is perhaps permissible for me to add that the text of these Draft Orders was laid upon the Table of your Lordships' House on January 20 last, and it has been lying there ever since. So that your Lordships have had something more than three weeks to study the text if you desired to do so. I say that because there appears to be an impression in some quarters of the House that the text of the Orders was not available to your Lordships until the Committee had dealt with them. That of course, as I have explained, is not so, and had it been so I should certainly not have been so inconsiderate as to ask your Lordships to deal with what is certainly an important matter at such short notice.
These Orders are the first which have come before your Lordships' House under the new practice laid down by the Government of India Act, 1933, and it will therefore perhaps be for the convenience

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of your Lordships if I explain briefly the procedure which it is proposed should be followed. The text of Orders of this kind will be considered in the first instance in another place, and in point of fact the text of these particular Orders was considered and was approved in another place last week, on a Motion for the adjournment of a debate on the proposal that an humble Address should be submited to His Majesty, praying that the Orders should be made in accordance with the, drafts approved. The Motion for the adjournment of the debate was made in order that your Lordships might have an opportunity, should you so desire, of making modifications of the Orders before another place again considers them. The procedure in this House is that, after that preliminary investigation has been made in another place, the Orders shall be taken into consideration by the India and Burma Orders Committee which your Lordships have established; thereafter the report of that Committee shall be taken into consideration by your Lordships and the text of the Orders examined.
That is the stage which we have now reached. This is a stage on which it will be appropriate that your Lordships should express your opinions upon the merits of the Orders themselves. Assuming that the text of the Orders is agreed to by your Lordships, a Message will be communicated to another place, where upon they will conclude their debate upon their original Motion. When that is done we shall receive information to that effect, and I shall ask your Lordships to pass a similar Motion asking that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Order shall be made in accordance with the text agreed upon. I would point out to your Lordships that that further stage will be a purely formal one, since the consideration of the Orders on their merits will have taken place and the proceedings in another place will have terminated. I hope that with these brief observations I have made the procedure which it is proposed to follow tolerably clear.
May I turn for a few moments to the subject matter of the particular Orders now before the House? The purpose of these Orders is to give effect to Section 289 of the Government of
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India Act, 1935, under which Parliament has agreed to establish two new Provinces in British India, to be known respectively as the Province of Sind and the Province of Orissa. As your Lordships will be aware, this is by no means the first time that new Provinces have been established in British India. In 1901, for example, the North-West Frontier Province was carved out of the existing Province of the Punjab. In 1905 the then existing Province of Bengal was partitioned, and two new Provinces were created—namely, the Province of Bengal on the one hand and the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam on the other. Again, in 1911 these two Provinces were further divided, and three new Provinces were established—on the west the Province of Bihar and Orissa, in the centre the Province of Bengal, and on the east the Province of Assam, from which Eastern Bengal had once more been detached.
It must be admitted that the reasons underlying these previous re-orderings of the map have usually been those of administrative convenience and possibly of political consideration, and it must be further admitted that in the case of Bengal, at any rate, they have given rise to violent controversy and to vehement and prolonged agitation. But the reasons for the establishment of the two Provinces which are now under consideration are very different. The creation of these two new Provinces is based upon racial and geographical considerations. They are being established not only with the acquiescence, but at the insistent demand, of the majority of the people who are affected, and in that respect therefore they rest upon a different basis to the previous re-orderings of the map to which I have referred.
Let me for a moment turn to the proposed new Province of Sind. The proposed new Province will be essentially a Moslem Province. The population of Sind, as to something like 73 per cent., is a Moslem population. Indeed, Sind was the scene of the earliest of all the incursions of the Moslems into India. Your Lordships will no doubt remember that the grand incursion of the Moslems into India took place about the time that the Norman Conquest of this country was taking place in the eleventh century,

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when Mahmud of Ghazni swept down from Afghanistan with his Moslem hordes and conquered and occupied large parts of the Northern territories of India. But some three hundred years before that date there had been another and more peaceful penetration of the Moslems into India. Followers of the Prophet of Arabia had made their way from Persia into Sind, and had settled there, so that from the earliest days Sind has been a Moslem territory. Then I come to the conquest of Sind by this country, which took place in the year 1843. Your Lordships will perhaps remember that the authorities of Whitehall at that time were very loath to increase their territorial acquisitions in India and the responsibilities which inevitably followed upon such acquisitions, and if we may judge by the announcement made by Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sind, to the Governor-General of that date, he was perfectly well aware that that was the case.
The story of his report of the conquest of Sind to the Governor-General is that it consisted of a single word in Latin, the word "Peccavi"—"I have sinned" —and he left it to the Governor-General to spell it with one "n" or two "n's" as he considered most appropriate to the circumstances of the time. It is a good story, which will be found in more than one history of repute, and it is always against one's inclination to spoil a good story; but I am bound to say, in the interests of historical accuracy, that my investigations of the matter seem to show that no foundation in fact for the story exists. To begin with, I am told by men of an older generation that it is very unlikely that Sir Charles Napier had as much Latin as would enable him to send a Despatch even in one word in that language; but my researches have shown that the origin of the story, so far as I have been able to make out, is a witty paragraph in an issue of Punch which appeared on May 18, 1845. I have traced the story back as far as that day, but I am unable to trace it any further. Be that as it may, Sir Charles Napier conquered Sind, and provision had to be made for its administration.
For a brief period Sind was administered as a separate entity. Subsequently, on grounds of administrative convenience it was absorbed in the Presidency of
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Bombay. It was always realised, however, that on racial and geographical grounds it was inappropriate that Sind should be administered as a division of the Bombay Presidency, and many proposals were made from time to time for making changes. It was suggested on more than one occasion that it should be incorporated in the Punjab. Then there was the grandiose scheme of Lord Lytton—not my noble friend who adorns these Benches, but my noble friend's distinguished father—who proposed the creation of a vast frontier Province stretching almost from the highlands of Kashmir in the North to the India Ocean in the South, and embracing the territory of Sind. But none of those large projects came to maturity. During recent years the people of Sind have pressed with ever greater insistence for the creation of a separate Province of their own, and the proposal which was definitely put forward by a special Committee of the First Round-Table Conference that Sind should be established as a separate Province was accepted by Parliament and embodied in the Act of 1935.
Then, to turn for a moment to Orissa. Orissa is essentially a Hindu territory. For many centuries, and before the invasions of Orissa by the Moslems in the sixteenth century, the Kings of Orissa ruled happily over the Oriya people in what was known as the holy land of Orissa, and now once more Orissa has become essentially Hindu territory. Practically the whole of the population is Hindu, but there is a small smattering of Moslems, amounting, I think, to not more than 1½ per cent. of the total population of Orissa. Thoughout the present century the people, of Orissa have pressed from time to time that their claims to be regarded as a homogeneous entity should be recognised. I am bound to say it is a claim that has my fullest sympathy, and, personally, I was gratified when I found that, as in the case of Sind, Parliament was willing to recognise the reasonableness of the claim and to provide for the establishment of a new Province of Orissa.
I think there are only three main points of importance on which I need say anything so far as the actual text of the Orders is concerned. The first main point concerns the date of the inauguration

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of the new Provinces; the second deals with the nature of the Government which is to be set up in the new Provinces during the interim period before Provincial Autonomy comes into operation; and the third is concerned with the financial adjustments between the territories which are being divided up (which will be found dealt with in the Schedules of the Orders) and the financial assistance which in the case of both these Provinces will be required from the Central Government.
First as to the date of their establishment. The date proposed is the 1st of April of this year, and the reason for the choice of that date is a simple one. It is almost essential, I think, that the new Provinces should come into existence at the beginning of a financial year. Considerable confusion would be caused if they were to be established in the middle of a financial year when the Budgets which concern them would not concern them as entities but would concern the larger Province as a whole from which they have been detached. There is one other reason why the Government are anxious to see these new Provinces established at an early date. So far as I have been able to judge by the progress which is being made with the work that has to be carried through before Parliament can be asked to agree to time establishment of Provincial Autonomy, I see no reason at the present time why the Government should not be in a position to ask Parliament to consider the establishment of Provincial Autonomy in about a year's time, the spring of 1937; and if it indeed be the desire of Parliament that Provincial Autonomy should be brought into force in the spring of 1937, it is very desirable that these two new Provinces should have a period of a year in which to establish their administrative machinery before they have to operate a full self-governing Constitution.
So much for the date. Now with regard to the nature of the Government in the new Provinces during that interim period. We have desired to make the form of Government as simple as possible and, in effect, the executive authority will be the Governor of the Province. There will be no Legislative Councils in the ordinary sense during the interim period, but the Governor will be furnished with Advisory Councils, consisting
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of twenty-five representatives in the case of Sind and twenty representatives in the case of Orissa, who will be consulted by him on all matters of major importance. He will further be given the power of making such use either of individual members of his Advisory Council or of Committees of his Advisory Council, in assisting him to bring the new administrative machinery into operation, as he thinks fit. It was thought very desirable that during this period in which the administrative work is being built up major questions of political interest should be left in abeyance, and that being so the only legislative power during that time will be the power of the Governor and Governor-General in Council under the provisions of the existing Government of India Act.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: How long will the interim period be?
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND: The period will last from the 1st of April, if the Provinces are set up on the 1st of April next, until the establishment of Provincial Autonomy. The legislative power, as I said, will vest in the Governor under the provisions of the existing Act—not the Act of 1935 but the existing Government of India Act, which gives power to make rules and regulations; but it is not likely that he will use this power for any other purpose than the adjustment of existing enactments to the new state of affairs: that is to say, to the new Provinces.
Finally, I come to the question of the financial adjustments. If any of your Lordships have studied the provisions of the Schedules dealing with the apportionment of assets and liabilities you will no doubt have found that they are somewhat complicated in their details, but broadly speaking the effect of these proposals will be to impose upon the new Provinces liabilities proportionate to the assets they will take over. Perhaps the simplest example in the Schedules of the way in which that will work is to be found in the provision with regard to the Bombay reclamation scheme. It is laid down that the liabilities in respect of that scheme shall be exclusively the liabilities of Bombay since of course Sind in no way benefits from it. With regard to the assistance from the Central Government which will be required by these two new Provinces, they are both what is

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known as deficit Provinces—that is to say, neither of them possesses a revenue which is sufficiently great to meet its necessary expenditure. I am not in a position, of course, to indicate to your Lordships what the financial assistance will be that will be granted by the Government of India to the new Provinces after Provincial Autonomy has been established. That will depend upon the Report of Sir Otto Niemeyer, who is undertaking his investigations in India at the present time and who will issue a Report which will be submitted for the consideration of Parliament in clue course.
All that I am in a position to do to-day is to inform your Lordships of the financial arrangements which have been made for the interim period, which, so far as can be foreseen, will be the financial year 1936–37, the next forthcoming financial year. In the case of Sind it is estimated that during that year the deficit of the revenue of the Province will be approximately 102 lakhs of rupees. Of that amount it is estimated that between seven and eight lakhs of rupees is due to the additional expenditure involved in the creation of the new Province. The remainder is really the deficit of the Province at the present time, which is not found by the Government of India, but which, of course, since the Province is part of the Presidency of Bombay, falls upon that Presidency. Some ninety lakhs of rupees or more is the cost of Sind to Bombay in a year. The Government of India are prepared to find the above amount for the year 1936–37, and in addition to make a non-recurring grant of six lakhs of rupees to set the Province on its legs, to provide it with an opening balance and to meet one or two charges for equipment.
In the case of Orissa, the estimated deficit is in round figures something like forty lakhs of rupees. That again is largely part of the existing deficit of the area and would have to be found in any case, even if the new Province was not created, except to the extent, of course, to which the deficit is due to additional expenditure resulting from the establishment of the new Province. In this case the Government of India are prepared to find the forty lakhs of rupees for 1936–37, and to make a
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non-recurring grant of between nine and ten lakhs of rupees to the Province, to make good certain capital requirements such as the famine relief fund and to provide an opening balance and the necessary equipment. That in brief is a description of what these Orders in Council propose to do. I am happy to say, as I indicated before, that whereas on previous occasions the creation of new Provinces in India has usually been accompanied by violent controversies, in this case the proposals meet with general acceptance and indeed with the good will of the vast majority of those who are affected by them. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Order as presented to Parliament on 20th January. 1936, and reported from the India and Burma Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(The Marquess of Zetland.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will feel very grateful to my noble friend the Secretary of State for a very interesting speech on this subject. I will not pretend for a moment that I am in any sense a master of the topic under discussion, because in the vastness of the Indian question as we were compelled to discuss it before the Joint Select Committee the fate of Orissa and Sind figured as only small crumbs in the diet which we were compelled to consume. I do not know that there was any real controversy so far as the Joint Select Committee was concerned. If I remember aright there was a Sub-Committee which sat upon the subject of Orissa and Sind, and as far as I know there was no difference amongst us—my noble friend opposite confirms that—as to the propriety of this change.
May I just say one word as to the procedure in your Lordships' House this afternoon? My noble friend has explained that though there is an appearance of hurry in bringing this matter forward for decision, that is mitigated by the fact that the Orders have in fact been laid before Parliament, for three weeks. I admit that we ought to have become familiar with the Orders during those three weeks, but I would venture to call attention to the fact that the mere establishment of the India and Burma Orders Committee does necessarily postpone the consideration of any Orders in Council by the House at large until the Report of the Committee is in our hands

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That is naturally the case because, if one knows that a Committee is going to sit upon a particular topic, one thinks it would be better to spare one's pains in considering it until one knows what the Committee has to say. Therefore I do think—and I am sure my noble friend will agree in general—that it ought to be understood that the necessary interval for consideration, or at any rate a necessary interval for consideration, should take place not merely after the Paper is laid but after the Committee has pronounced upon it.
When look at the Report of the Committee as it has been rendered to us I find that the Committee say that this matter does require the special consideration of your Lordships' House. It is natural that noble Lords would not undertake that consideration until they knew that the Committee had sat, because that is what toe Committee is there for. Therefore, although I quite agree that the fact of the Paper having been laid three weeks makes a great difference, it does not make the whole difference. I hope my noble friend will not think it at all disagreeable of me if I say that I hope that in future cases we may have a little more time.
As regards the substance of these Orders in Council I am very grateful for the account which the Secretary of State has given to your Lordships. Though I sat for I do not know how many months on the Joint Select Committee, a good deal of it was entirely new to me. That shows how little it was possible for us to grasp of the full significance of what we were doing; but at any rate we are agreed in the main. There is, however, one element in the change to which I would like to call the attention of the Government, and that is the position of the civil servants who are affected. I do not for a moment wish to say to your Lordships that the interests of the civil servants are the most important consideration which we have to bear in mind. That is not so. No doubt the welfare of the people of India and their interests come first. But the interests of the civil servants do deserve consideration, not only for their own sakes but also because, unless they are satisfied and are able to work with good will in their charges, the interests of the people of India will undoubtedly suffer.
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Unless the civil servants and the Police think they are well treated, everybody who has been accustomed to administration will admit that you are not likely to get the very best work out of them. Therefore it is important, and I shall not apologise to your Lordships for dwelling upon it for a moment or two. The principal characteristic of these new Provinces is, above all, their very small size. Sind is minute, but both are very small. The interests of the civil servants are therefore immediately affected. Mind you, they have no choice. When a civil servant in the Province of Bihar or in one of the other Provinces affected is ordered to take over work in the new Province, he cannot say he would rather not. He has no choice. And when he has once taken over that work, he finds, of course, that his prospects of promotion and his career are immediately affected. Although Orissa, for example, will have become a Province, it will have exactly the same area and exactly the same population—with certain small additions—as it had before, and therefore a large number of opportunities which would have been open to the civil servants had the change not taken place will be barred to them. There will be no Commissioners of Divisions, because there will be only the one Division, and I believe there will be no Secretary to the Government. Indeed, the whole Government will be the Governor; he will be the Government.
That applies so far as the principal people are concerned; I do not mean, of course, that it applies in every respect. I quite admit that I may be in error, and the Secretary of State will have abundant opportunity of putting it right; I apologise if I have made any mistake, but that is what I am informed. Putting it at its lowest, the civil servant has not anything like the same opportunities, unless some other arrangement can be made, as he would have had if he had not been called upon, without any power of refusing, to do his service in the new Provinces. I will just call attention to the fact that judicial personages are not in that position. Although Orissa is cut off from Bihar, yet the Judge may still look to his career in the larger area. I suggest, therefore—I do not pretend that this is my own knowledge, but it has been submitted to me—that the suggestion ought to be made that the civil

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servants who are posted in these new Provinces should be lent by the old Provinces and not definitely posted; so that, supposing hereafter, either of their own motion or by the orders of their superiors, they are moved from the new Provinces, their career will be carried on just as if the change had not taken place. They will be only lent for purposes of administration to the new Provinces, and in all other respects they will be as they were before. I do not know whether that is a possible arrangement, but if it is made, of course none of the difficulties to which I have called attention will arise.
Where I have spoken of the civil servants, I have, of course, meant the civil servants appointed by the Secretary of State in Council now or, after the new Act is in operation, by the Secretary of State himself. I was confining my remarks to that class of civil servant. I am advised that the same difficulty will not arise with regard to the Provincial civil servants. There I am not quite sure, but, at any rate, so far as the Indian Civil Service are concerned, I should like in respect of them to make this suggestion. There is a subsidiary point which I hope the Secretary of State will bear in mind. He reserves under the Order power to control the financial arrangements which will affect those civil servants, but there are other precautions which it may be in the interests of these civil servants to extend to them, and I suggest that he should reserve powers, not merely in respect of finance but in other respects as well, to provide what is necessary for the protection of civil servants transferred as these will be. I have applied all I have said to Orissa, but mutatis mutandis I believe that it applies equally to Sind. I do not mean to say that the two cases are absolutely on all fours, but so far as the observations that I have ventured to make are concerned, what is true of Orissa will be true of Sind as well.
I hope my noble friend will be able to reassure your Lordships on this point, and—what is, if I may respectfully say so, even more important—to reassure the civil servants concerned. The House will forgive me for reminding them that, in the very far-reaching change for which Parliament has been responsible in India and with which we were all too familiar last year, the interests of the civil
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servants were profoundly affected and they were consequently in great apprehension as to the future. The Secretary of State showed himself very aware and conscious of that, and we were extremely grateful to him for making important concessions in respect of the civil servants while the Bill was going through. That is my excuse, if I need an excuse, for adverting to it on the present occasion, not with any view, I need not say, of obstructing the passage of these Orders, but in the hope that something may fall from the Secretary of State which may have a reassuring effect.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I come between the House and my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition just for one moment. I happen to be Chairman of the India and Burma Orders Committee. Arising out of what my noble friend Lord Salisbury said just DOW, I may perhaps make a few observations on the procedure which I think may be for your Lordships' convenience. My noble friend said it would be a convenience to your Lordships if a certain interval were to take place between the meeting of the India and Burma Orders Committee and the moving of the Orders in this House. I have suggested to Lord Zetland, and also to Lord Goschen, the only two members of the Committee whom I have had an opportunity of consulting, that we should regularly meet, when these Orders come forward, on Thursdays. That will give your Lordships always a week-end in which to consider them and prepare ammunition to deal with them. We are meeting again, as a matter of fact, next Tuesday, when I will bring the matter before my colleagues on the Committee, and probably we shall be able to arrange a system which will be for the convenience of your Lordships.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, it has always been the wish, and in general the practice, of my noble friends and myself to give all the help we can to His Majesty's Government in passing a measure of self-government for India. We do not retract any of the obvious but unrewarded wisdom that we expressed during those discussions, but that is not the question before us to-day. I understand that the purpose of these Orders is to establish an interim form

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of government in these two new areas, in preparation for the Provincial Autonomy which is to come. I understand, next year.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Much more than that.
LORD SNELL: I think it is unnecessary, in any case I do not propose, to discuss details respecting these Orders to-day. It seems to me quite reasonable, if Provincial Autonomy is to be established in the spring of next year, that these two areas should have at least a year in which to prepare themselves for the great task that they must then assume. They will have very complex problems to discuss, and it is right for them to take account of them as soon as possible. I venture to hope that full Provincial Autonomy will not be delayed beyond the period which has been indicated by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India.
I feel that any experience which is gained during this interim period should be of the utmost value to the two Provinces when they are started. But there is one point about which I am slightly anxious, and about which I think the noble Marquess has not informed your Lordships. It is whether there will be any continuity about the two separate efforts of government. Will the personnel, for example, of those undertaking this preliminary responsibility be in any way associated with the areas when Provincial Autonomy is set up? It would seem, looking at it from my point of view, that those who are going to be responsible for the problems of these areas during the next twelve months will have accumulated a good deal of experience which will be valuable, and I should like to know whether it is in the mind of the Secretary of State that that experience should be available for the Provinces when they are set up. With these few observations, and with the recognition that these Orders are for a merely interim term, I raise no objection whatever to them, and my noble friends will not resist their being passed.
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND:My Lords, perhaps I might just reply to the observations of the noble Lord who has just sat down and of the noble Marquess who spoke before him. With regard to the noble Lord's question as to whether the personnel which will be engaged in
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establishing the administrative machinery in the new Provinces is likely to continue to be available when the interim period comes to an end, my answer is "Most certainly." It is certainly my expectation that the majority, at any rate, of the officials who are engaged in the task of setting the administrative machinery in motion will be available for assisting in working it after the interim period conies to an end. With regard to the opening remark of the noble Lord, as to the extent to which the wisdom which they had contributed to the solution of this vast problem had gone unrewarded, I am bound to confess that from their point of view it has, to an extent, gone unrewarded, but I hope that so far as I am concerned he will not think it has gone unrecognised. I appreciate very greatly the contributions which were made in the debates last summer by the noble Lord and his friends.
With regard to the question put to me by the noble Marquess, I can assure him, in the first place, that I am very grateful to him for his courtesy in intimating to me that he did propose to raise the question of the position of the Civil Service under these Orders. I can also assure him that I am as anxious as he is to be assured that their interests are fully safeguarded. I am happy to be able to say that am so satisfied. I quite agree that the two new Provinces will be small, but they are not the smallest Provinces in India. Both of them will be larger, and Sind considerably larger, than the North-West Frontier Provinces, and it is of course the fact that a member of the All-India Services accepts it as part of his conditions of service that he shall serve in any part of India to which he may be called upon to go. I quite agree with the noble Marquess that there may be apprehensions in the minds of some persons, though not in the minds of civil servants themselves—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Oh, yes.
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND—because I think if they had had apprehensions I should have had representations made to me, and I have not received a single representation from the Civil Services or the Indian Police or the Civil Service

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Associations, or any individual members of them. I assume, therefore, that their apprehensions, if they exist, are not very great.
I will explain to the noble Marquess that he is surely mistaken in one observation which he made. He said that in Orissa there would be no Secretaries to Government. I cannot imagine how a full-blown system of responsible Parliamentary government can be established in a Province without having a headquarters secretariat. I think it will be essential that there should be Secretaries to Government. They will have immense duties to perform, and I can assure him he is mistaken in thinking there will be no headquarters secretariat in the Provinces. Indeed if he will look at it in this way he will see that the prospects of the Indian Civil Service, from the point of view of the higher appointments, are really increased by the creation of the new Provinces. In the area which is at present served by one Governor, Bihar and Orissa, there will be two Governors. There is straight away an enormously-important new post created. And not only will there be two Governors, but where there is one headquarters secretariat there will in future be two headquarters secretariats, with all the posts connected with them. So that to that extent the prospects of the Indian civilians will be improved.
But then the noble Marquess has perhaps in mind the case of a district officer who sees no chance in a small Province like Orissa of securing a selection post. I agree that there is a possibility that to that extent the prospects of some officers might be thought to be less than they are at present, but we are quite prepared to meet that case. The noble Marquess suggested that the civil servants of Bihar should be lent to the Province of Orissa. I am prepared to agree to a proposal which comes to the same thing I think, though it is not put quite in that way—a proposal under which there shall be a joint cadre for the two Provinces, which I think would be even better than the noble Marquess's proposal. And not only in the case of Bihar and Orissa but also in the case of Sind and of Bombay.
Then, as the noble Marquess observes, we have specifically put into the Orders themselves the provisions dealing with
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the case of those officers who, to begin with at any rate, are obliged to serve in the new Provinces even if they do not wish to do so. Under Section 23 (2) of the Orissa Order the power of the Government to require these officers to serve in a new Province is subject to this proviso
"The power conferred by this paragraph to require a person to serve in, or in connection with the affairs of, Orissa shall be exercised subject to any conditions for the protection of the persons concerned prescribed by the Governor-General in Council, either generally or in relation to particular persons or classes of persons."
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I interrupt? It is only to make it quite clear. These arrangements are prescribed by the Governor-General in Council. How will that be after the new Constitution of India is in full working?
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND: The conditions will, of course, be prescribed before the new Constitution comes into operation.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I see.
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND: And they will of course remain after it comes into operation. And supposing that a new Government tried to interfere with these conditions, to the detriment of any member of the Services, the special responsibility of the Governor will at Once come in. He will act under that special responsibility in his discretion and, acting in his discretion, he will be subject to the control of the Secretary of State, who in his turn will be subject to the control of Parliament. So that the chain of control is quite complete, and if an officer felt himself aggrieved in a matter of that kind, of course it could always be brought to the notice of Parliament, and Parliament would have complete control over it. I mention that in order to show the noble Marquess that so far as the Secretary of State's Services are concerned, I think that they are fully safeguarded.
The noble Marquess said that he did not think the question arose in the case of the Provincial Services. There I am bound to say I differ a little from the noble Marquess. I think it is possible that in the case of Orissa a member of the Provincial Service who is at present serving in Madras might rather dislike having in future to serve in Orissa; but we are prepared to do what lies within

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our power to meet the case of those men also, and to arrange, so far as circumstances will permit, that if there are any cases of that kind the Madras Provincial Service officer shall revert to his own Province, and his place shall be taken by a member of the new Orissa Provincial Service. So that as far as it is possible to do it, the interests of those officers will be safeguarded as well. I hope that, I have been able to satisfy the noble Marquess that we have had the interests of those officers very much in our minds, and that we have considered every possible safeguard which may be necessary to prevent any injustice being done to them.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CONSTI TUTION OF SIND) ORDER, 1936.
THE MARQUESS or ZETLAND: My Lords, I beg to move the next Resolution standing in my name on the Paper relating to the Sind Order.
Moved, That the Draft Order as presented to Parliament on 20th January, 1936, and reported from the India and Burma. Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(The Marquess of Zetland.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT (CONVEN TIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

FIREARMS (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, this is a Bill to amend the Firearms Act, 1920, and the Firearms Act, 1934, and also to make a consequential amendment in the Firearms and Imitation Firearms Act, 1933. Before I proceed to explain the provisions of the Bill, it may be well for me to give a very brief summary of the existing system of control over the manufacture, sale and possession of firearms and ammunition for, as your Lordships will see, the Bill is technical in character and the drafting necessarily complicated, owing to the fact that the majority of its provisions refer back to
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these former Statutes. The existing law is contained in the three Acts that I have named, the first of which is the Firearms Act, 1920, which prohibits the purchase and possession of firearms by any person who is not in possession of a firearms certificate, or who is not specifically exempted from the requirement to obtain it. It is here important to recall the proviso to the definition of a firearm in this Act, to the effect that a smooth bore shot-gun or air weapon and the ammunition for these weapons are exempted. The Act also prohibits the manufacture and sale of firearms and ammunition except by persons registered as firearm dealers. Chief officers of Police are responsible for registration of dealers and also for the issue of firearms certificates. The result of this system of control is that criminals and irresponsible persons can only obtain dangerous firearms and ammunition through difficult underground channels, and, further, that the armed criminal is as we know a comparative rarity in this country.
The second Statute is the Firearms and Imitation Firearms Act, 1933. This Act makes it an offence, punishable by most severe penalties, for a person to make, or attempt to make, any use of a firearm or imitation firearm with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detention of himself or any other person. It is also an offence for a person, at the time of his committing certain serious crimes, to have in his possession any firearm or imitation firearm. The third Statute is the Firearms Act, 1934. This Act must be read in conjunction with the Act of 1920, and the resulting position is, I fear, complicated, but the main effect is that it raised from fourteen to seventeen years the age below which a firearm or ammunition may not he sold to, or purchased by, young people, and it extended the definition of "firearm" for this purpose so as to include any lethal shot gun, air gun, air rifle, or air pistol.
The present Bill is based upon recommendations of a Departmental Committee appointed in 1935. This Committee was appointed because the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland decided that legislation effecting any important alteration of the definition and classification of firearms ought to be preceded by inquiry into the question whether any amendment of the law was necessary in the interests of public

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safety. The Committee was set up under the Chairmanship of Sir Archibald Bodkin, and on it were representatives of all sides of the House, of Government Departments, the Police, and the firearms trade. After hearing a great deal of evidence the Committee presented a unanimous Report, except in one respect to which I shall refer later. The recommendations of the Departmental Committee do not propose any alteration in the general scheme of control over firearms and ammunition as prescribed by the Act of 1920, but they make proposals for improving the statutory definition and classification of firearms and ammunition and for effecting minor amendments of the law. It would be very wearisome to attempt to explain to the House the individual clauses in detail, and I think the most convenient course would be for me to explain the general provisions of the Bill under three or four main headings.
The first of these is the purchase and possession of firearms and ammunition. This part of the Bill proposes no change in the general scheme established by the Act of 1920. Clauses 1 and 2 effect a few minor amendments relating to the purchase and possession of firearms as applied to specified classes of persons who need to be in possession of firearms in the course of their natural occupation. These amendments authorise the grant to such persons of firearm certificates without any charge being made, or it exempts them from the requirement to obtain a certificate, as the case may be. The second heading contained in the Bill is the regisstration of firearms dealers. The present law relating to firearms dealers is unsatisfactory in certain respect. A firearms dealer pays a single fee of £1 upon registration. No further fee is payable, and the registration continues until his name is removed from the register by the Chief Constable on the ground that he has given up business or that he cannot be permitted to carry on business without danger to the public safety or the peace, or until the registration is revoked by order of Court after a conviction. Under the existing law no steps can be taken to prevent a firearms dealer from carrying on business in premises situated in an unsuitable district although, of course, the accumulation of stocks of firearms and ammunition in certain districts,
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at certain times, might be a source of public mischief and public danger. Clauses 3 and 4 propose amendments designed to remedy these defects.
Clause 3 further imposes an additional requirement upon firearms dealers which was not recommended or considered by the Departmental Committee. It has been put in the Bill to meet representations made by the Police, who have pointed out that they are required to register any person as a firearms dealer if he wishes to carry on such business, and if he is not a, person who cannot be permitted to carry on business without danger to the public safety or to the peace. The effect of registration is that the dealer can open business premises and keep and display firearms and ammunition in an unsuitable and unsafe district. It is not anticipated that it would be necessary for the Police to refuse to register any particular premises in many cases, but it is thought that they should have the power to prevent the establishment of a firearms dealer's premises in a district where the presence of firearms and ammunition might be a danger and temptation to an unruly population. A firearms dealer who was refused permission to open premises in any particular district would, of course, be free to find fresh premises in a more suitable neighbourhood.
I turn to the most important part of the Bill, which deals with the amendments of the definitions and classification of firearms and ammunition. The general effect of the existing law is that certain classes of weapons are restricted while others, such as smooth bore shot guns and air weapons, are free from control. As regards the restricted weapons—that is, rifled weapons, including rifled pistols, automatic pistols and revolvers—the Bill proposes no relaxation of the law. There is, however, one class of restricted weapon which, in view of its exceptionally dangerous character, seemed to the Committee to need special treatment. This class of firearm may be described as an automatic continuous-fire weapon, the action of which, if pressure is applied to the trigger, is that bullets continue to be discharged in rapid succession until the magazine is exhausted or until pressure is removed from the trigger. These weapons are, in effect, small machine guns which can be fired from the hand, and they are sometimes
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described as sub-machine guns. It was with a weapon of this character that King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated, and your Lordships are no doubt aware that their use by gangsters in. America has been an alarming feature of crime in that country.
The Committee were of opinion that, apart from naval, military and air force purposes, there could be no legitimate use in this country for such an extremely dangerous and deadly kind of weapon, and they recommended that the manufacture, sale and possession of such weapons should be totally prohibited unless they be authorised by the Admiralty, the Array or Air Council. That is to say, that they should be treated in the same way as gas pistols, which are regulated by the Firearms Act of 1920 under Section 6. Clause 7 gives effect to this recommendation and declares that all continuous-fire weapons shall be prohibited weapons within the meaning of Section 6 of the 1920 Act. The effect of the clause is that in future no such weapons can be manufactured, sold, or possessed except with the authority of one of the Defence Departments.
The Committee's inquiry was largely concerned with the effect of the proviso to Section 12 of the Firearms Act of 1920, which excludes, as I have already intimated, from the definition of "firearms" the smooth bore shot-gun, air rifle and air gun. They came to the conclusion that there was no reason to subject the ordinary sporting shot-gun to the statutory restrictions, and that the small calibre smooth bore guns, which are generally known as saloon guns or garden guns, which are expected to be useful and popular weapons for getting rid of vermin in farms and gardens, and also for target practice, should continue to be exempt from these restrictions. But at present there is no definition of what constitutes an exempted smooth bore shot-gun and the result has been that all types of smooth bore weapons, including smooth bore pistols, have come to be regarded as if they were smooth bore shot-guns and exempt from the Act of 1920.
The Committee draw a clear distinction between the ordinary sporting gun and smooth bore pistols and they look upon such pistols as being dangerous weapons for the reasons that they are
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cheap, readily procurable, easily concealed in the pocket or elsewhere, and therefore likely to be used by criminals. The Committee came to the conclusion that no smooth bore shot-gun, as that expression is properly and generally understood, need be fitted with a barrel of less than twenty inches in length and that all smooth bore weapons having a barrel of less than twenty inches in length should be regarded as firearms within the first part of Section 12 and therefore subject to the machinery of control. Clause 15 accordingly repeals the definition of "firearms" in the Act of 1920, and replaces it by an amended definition the effect of which is that all firearms, whether rifled or smooth bore, will be subject to control, with the exception of smooth bore guns with a barrel of twenty inches or more and air weapons.
As a corollary to this recommendation the Committee recommended that it should be made an offence for any person without lawful authority or excuse to reduce the length of barrel of a smooth bore gun below 20 inches or to have in his possession such a shortened weapon without a, firearm certificate. Clause 9 gives effect to this recommendation and makes it an offence for any person other than a firearms dealer to shorten the barrel of a smooth bore gun below twenty inches. The Firearms Act of 1920 exempts not only the smooth bore shot-guns but "ammunition therefor," but again it provides no precise definition of the term "ammunition therefor." It is clear that the ordinary spread shot cartridges containing a number of small round shot are ammunition suitable for shot-guns, but it is said that sometimes cartridges containing only a single bullet can be, and are in fact, used with shot-guns, and that when they are so used such cartridges are ammunition for shot-guns and therefore exempt. The members of the Committee were unable to agree that the intention of the Act of 1920 was to exempt such ammunition from control as being ammunition for ordinary shot-guns. In their view the intention was to exempt the spread shot cartridges normally used with shot guns—that is, cartridges containing a number of shot considerably smaller in diameter than the calibre of the cartridges.
They were satisfied that the unrestricted sale of any type of single

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bulleted ammunition is too likely to lead to mischievous results to be permitted. Accordingly they recommended that the trade in bullets should be confined to registered firearms dealers, and that they should not be obtainable by people other than those who have satisfied the Police that they are fit to be entrusted with firearms and fit to be entrusted with ammunition and equally have good reasons for requiring them. Clause 15 of the Bill gives effect to this recommendation by excluding from the definition of ammunition which is subject to control all cartridges containing five or more shot, none of which exceeds nine-twenty-fifths of an inch in diameter.
The last main point arising out of this Bill is under the heading of safety or dummy pistols. These safety or dummy weapons have the appearance of pistols, but when manufactured and sold the barrels are solid or plugged, and they are therefore incapable of discharging a missile. In their unconverted state they are used as toys or for starting sporting events or for theatrical purposes; but it is possible to bore through the barrels and to convert them into effective weapons, and cases have occurred from time to time, which no doubt your Lordships will remember, in which safety pistols have been so converted by either irresponsible youths or actual criminals. The proper way of dealing with these safety or dummy pistols was the only point upon which the Departmental Committee were not unanimous. After careful consideration of all these arguments the majority of the Committee reached the conclusion that there could be no justification for prohibiting the manufacture and possession of these weapons, nor indeed for subjecting them to the restrictions imposed upon firearms proper, unless it could be shown that there was no other method of stopping the practice of converting these toys into lethal weapons.
The mischief and danger accompanying the use of these pistols begin only when conversion takes place and when bulleted ammunition is used with them. The majority of the Committee took the view that the placing of restrictions on the sale of bulleted ammunition and the enactment of heavy penalties were the measures best adapted to meet any possible mischief or danger. The
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minority of the Committee, while agreeing that the prohibition of safety pistols with solid barrels was not required, considered that the measures recommended by the majority were not sufficient and were of opinion that in addition the plugged hollow barrelled type of toy pistol should be brought under control, because that type of pistol was more easily procurable and more easily adapted into a lethal weapon. Clause 9 of the Bill makes it an offence for any person, other than a firearms dealer, to convert a toy or safety pistol into a weapon capable of discharging a missile, while, as previously explained, the effect of Clause 15 is to subject to control all ammunition other than shot cartridges. The Bill adopts the view of the majority of the Committee that these measures are sufficient to deal with the problem of conversion of toy or safety pistols into lethal weapons.
These are the main provisions of the Bill to which the House is asked to give a Second Reading. As your Lordships will observe, the Bill involves very few questions of principle, and although the drafting is necessarily complicated the Government believe that its provisions are not controversial and will be generally accepted as a necessary and reasonable measure of reform. The Bill is solely concerned with improving the administrative system for the internal control of firearms and ammunition, and raises none of the large problems which are at present being considered by the Royal Commission on the trade in arms. There is, my Lords, nothing in the Bill which unduly hampers the legitimate activities of the firearms trade or the interests of true lovers of sport, and it is hoped that the Bill will commend itself to all those who are concerned to see that our traditions of law, order and internal security are maintained, and further that this country continues to be free from the activities of the armed gangster.
I should add that the Government propose that, as soon as the Bill passes into law, a Bill should be introduced to consolidate the law relating to the internal control of firearms and ammunition. Scattered over four separate Acts, the law will be very difficult for the trade to understand or for the Police to administer, and the Government are

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satisfied that the time has come for a consolidating measure. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Feversham.)
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I am sure the House is grateful to the noble Earl for the very clear way in which he has explained a difficult and somewhat complicated measure and I think his final words will be warmly welcomed. A consolidating measure will make clear not only to members of your Lordships' House but to the public at large the actual provisions under which firearms may be held in this country. We on these Benches welcome this measure as embodying the principal recommendations of the Departmental Committee of 1934—a model Committee, if I may venture to say so, who issued a model Report and took the unusual course of even indicating the actual wording which they hoped would be embodied in the Act giving effect to their recommendations.
While we welcome this Bill I should like to put to the noble Earl, who has studied the matter and has available sources of advice and information naturally much wider than are at the disposal of the Opposition, certain questions in order to obtain assurances which we hope will make the Bill more effective. In the first place I should like to refer to Clause 7 of the Bill. I notice that the Committee, in Appendix 4 of their Report and in their recommendations, suggest the inclusion of weapons
"designed or adapted for the discharge of any poisonous or noxious substance whether solid, liquid, or gas."
There seems to be no mention of such weapons in Section 7 and I am wondering whether there is some specific reason for that. I have no doubt the noble Earl will have a full and clear explanation of the omission.
Then, on page 14 of their Report, after making their recommendations with regard to the type of weapon included in Clause 7, they add these words:
"It follows that if effect is given to this recommendation the Board of Trade will refuse to grant any licence for the importation of automatic (continuous fire) weapons in the absence of an authorisation given by one of the three Departments."
There is no mention in the Bill of that subsequent action by the Board of Trade.
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We would welcome from the noble Earl a statement that that will be carried out and that, as far as possible, special attention will be given to the danger of smuggling small continuous fire weapons into the country. We know that in the past there have been cases of the smuggling of such weapons, and in fact military authorities have been concerned with such smuggling. I remember a case in Northern Ireland a good many years ago. Your Lordships would desire, I think, an assurance that everything possible will be done to deal with that problem.
There is another point I want to raise in connection with Clause 7. In subsection (3), there are the words:
"Any authority given to any person under Section six of the principal Act or this section shall be given in writing and shall be subject to such conditions as may be specified therein. …"
I would like to ask the noble Earl whether those conditions will be laid before Parliament and whether Parliament will have any control whatever over the conditions under which that authority is granted. We know that in certain European countries there have been among the civil population outbreaks of what might be called Fascist methods, involving the use by the civil population of lethal weapons and firearms. Might we not have laid before Parliament an annual statement by the Services concerned of any authorities which they have granted or revoked during the previous year, in the same way as any of the other annual publications of the Government Departments, so that we may be aware of the extent of any such authorisations as are included in this Bill? Could there not be an annual return to Parliament of such grants and certificates as may have been revoked during the year? Under subsection (4) the three Service Departments may revoke any authority given. I believe that return would be valuable and would safeguard us against the possibility of any misuse of an authority so given by Parliament over which Parliament would appear subsequently to exercise no continuing control.
In Clause 7 (5) we have the matter of refusing to grant or renew, or of revoking, firearms certificates in respect of prohibited weapons or prohibited ammunition. It would be as well if we

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could have a very close liaison between the chief officers of Police concerned with the individual to whom the authority is granted and the Ministry, whether Air, Army or Admiralty, which grants the authority. There ought, in fact, to be a careful exchange of information between the chief officers of Police in the area in which the recipient of the authority lives, so that the chief officer of Police may know exactly what authorities have in fact been granted. Also I should like to ask the noble Earl whether there are any forms laid down for making application for the authority suggested in the Bill; whether there is any form under which the application is made; and to request him to give some suggestion of the information that will rightly be required by a Service Department which is requested to grant the authority.
One other question that I should like to ask the noble Earl in this connection is: What happens to the possessors of weapons which are duly entered to-day under a firearms certificate but which, after the passing of this Bill into law, become prohibited weapons within the meaning of the new Act? I have a case here. My noble friend Lord Strabolgi informs me that he has had for fifteen years such a dangerous weapon, which, held in his hand with the trigger pressed, continues for a period of time to discharge bullets. That is a duly registered weapon. Personally, I think it is a very dangerous one for him to have in his possession, and I have no doubt that there are many other citizens of this country who have such weapons. What is the position of the holders of these weapons, duly entered under firearms certificates, after the passing of this Bill into law?
LORD SNELL: Three months.
LORD STRABOLGI: Two years.
LORD MARLEY: My noble friend Lord Strabolgi suggests two years.
LORD STRABOLGI: It is in the Bill: two years.
LORD MARLEY: I hesitate to suggest that that is the true answer; I have no doubt that the noble Earl will give us something less than that.
LORD STRABOLGI: It is a felony, anyhow. I could be tried by the Peers.
LORD MARLEY: The last point I want to make is in the form of a question relating to Clause 9 (4) of the Bill. I am so sorry to overburden the noble Earl with these questions, but I know that he is so good tempered, and so willing to answer and do his best, that he will forgive me. What happens to the person who has one of these cut-down smooth bores or converted toy pistols after the passing of this Bill? Many people will never know that it is illegal to possess such a weapon. Many people will have weapons of this kind. I am afraid they do not read, as they ought to, the reports of Parliamentary proceedings, and they do not buy copies of Acts, so they may be unaware of the illegality which they will be committing after the passage of this Bill. I wonder whether the noble Earl could suggest any recommendations or ideas which the Government have for bringing to the notice of the public the position after the Bill becomes law, and for dealing with the large numbers of people who probably possess the converted toy weapons or cut-down shotguns to which the Bill refers. I apologise to the noble Earl for putting such a string of questions, but I have no doubt that with his customary ability and courtesy he will be able to answer them to our satisfaction.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I had hoped that in my Second Reading speech I had to some extent been able to deal with the main provisions under the various headings as they are contained in this technical and complicated Bill, but from the series of questions put to me by the noble Lord opposite I rather think that I should have taken up the time of the House at considerably greater length in explaining more concisely some of the points—and they are important points— to which he has referred. The House will recognise that the noble Lord has touched on some matters which, strictly speaking, are matters to be more fully discussed in Committee, but I will to the best of my ability answer the main considerations on which he has questioned me at this stage.
LORD MARLEY: I hope that the noble Earl will forgive me. I only put these questions so as to avoid the necessity of debating them in Committee.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: I quite understand the noble Lord's desire to

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have these matters explained at this stage. The noble Lord first put a direct, question to me with regard to the gas pistols which contain noxious substances: whether they are exempted or not from the operation of Clause 7. These weapons designed for the discharge of gas are already dealt with by Section 6 of the Firearms Act, 1920, and that section is on the same lines as the present clause by which it is proposed to deal with continuous-fire weapons. The noble Lord seems somewhat perturbed in his mind as to the importation of these prohibited weapons. This matter is of course one within the control of the Board of Trade, who can deal with the matter without further legislation. The powers already exist for them so 'to do, and it would be for the Customs of course to do their best to prevent and stop the smuggling of such weapons.
The noble Lord then referred to the provision in Clause 7 which states that the automatic continuance weapon, commonly called the sub-machine gun, is only to be authorised by either the Ministry of Air or the Army Council or the Admiralty, and the noble Lord, as far as I could understand, was questioning whether Parliament would have the right, at some future date, to control the action of those Ministries by present legislation. It would appear that the normal course of procedure would then be adopted, as now, inasmuch as any Member of Parliament can, at any time, question the responsible Ministers and criticise their conduct in the granting of the authority in improper or unsuitable cases.
LORD MARLEY: So long as they know about it.
THE EARL OF FE VERSHAM: I think that the risk of such weapons falling into undesirable hands would be controlled by such authority as is contained in the Bill, but if, after further consideration, it is found that any other authority, including that of the Police, would assist, I should be only too glad to look into the question. In any case, if the Chief Constables were in control, it would surely finally revert to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and either now, or at some future date, it seems that Parliament must place its confidence and trust in proper administration by the Department concerned. There will be the closest
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liaison between the Defence Departments and the Police. This will be done by administrative action, and it is not necessary to provide it in the Bill. Further, it can easily be provided that necessary forms be prepared for application, and such forms would not require any specific legislative proposal.
I now come to the last point which the noble Lord illustrated by quoting the position of the noble Lord by his side, Lord Strabolgi—that of a firearm which I gather he considers is a trophy. The Departmental Committee found great difficulty in defining either that weapon which was an antique or that which was a trophy, but the present position is that those weapons will now, under the proposed Statute, come within the provision as to obtaining a firearms certificate: either the possessor must surrender them or obtain such a certificate. Full publicity will, of course, be given to the provision of the law before the Bill is put into actual operation, and that consideration would apply to the present position of a smooth bore shotgun the barrel of which is less than twenty inches in length. I hope that I have briefly condensed the answers to the questions which the noble Lord has put to me, and if I can provide any further information between now and the later stages of the Bill I shall be only too glad to do so.
LORD MARLEY: Before the noble Lord sits down, there is one point with which he did not deal, and that is the suggestion that there should be an annual return to Parliament of the authorities granted by the three Service Departments.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: I shall be very pleased to consider the suggestion made by the noble Lord, and to ascertain whether the extent of the grants which have been made by the three Defence Departments is sufficient to warrant annual returns being made.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think we had better get the matter quite clear, because unless we do I can foresee hundreds of cases of trouble. I am sorry I did not have an opportunity of explaining the matter a little more clearly to my noble friend, but I only saw the clause this afternoon. As Clause 7 is drafted, obviously, from the remarks of

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the noble Earl, he means to prohibit the use of the sub-machine gun, and I entirely agree, but either the Department or the Departmental Committee did not appreciate that as Clause 7 is drafted the modern automatic pistol comes under it. I will bring my pistol down and show it to the noble Earl, and it is no more dangerous than the ordinary revolver. It is a pistol no bigger than a small automatic, and I have had permission from the Police to carry it for fifteen years. If you press the trigger it goes on firing. It is what, in the Navy, we used to call a pump gun, and in the later stages of the War we were issued them.
Surely there are hundreds in existence. They are no more dangerous than the Colt automatic, of which you have to pull the trigger every time, or the ordinary revolver, which a skilled shot can fire with tremendous rapidity. Yet, as the Bill is drawn, and I take myself as an illustration, there will be hundreds of cases. Inasmuch as I know of this, I shall get permission from the Army or the Navy, but otherwise I might be liable to serve a sentence of penal servitude, and we should be having another trial in your Lordships' House. I shall take pains to keep within the law, but I would not like to hazard how many of these weapons there are in the country. If it is the sub-machine gun you want to prohibit, I support that entirely, but if you want to decide that the Colt pistol is safe and the Mauser pistol is dangerous, then you will be in trouble at once. I shall raise the matter again, and I ask the noble Earl to consult very carefully with his advisers on this question and to put the matter right.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SHOPS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, in the year 1942, when the principal Act governing the hours of labour in shops received the Royal Assent, the present very large extension of popular lending libraries was not contemplated. Had it been contemplated, I have no doubt that provisions would have been made for
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regulating the hours of opening of lending libraries, for the conditions in those libraries are almost identical with conditions of labour in shops. I am now moving the Second Reading of a Bill to bring the same regulations into force with regard to lending libraries as are already in force with regard to shops. The National Chamber of Trade, which is a very large organisation, with more than 400 local branches representing retail traders, is strongly in favour of the Bill, as is also the Early Closing Association.
The lending libraries have, in some cases, taken advantage of the present gap in the law and, as I told your Lordships on a recent occasion, there are a good many cases in which they keep open from half-past eight in the morning until eleven o'clock at night. There is one case at any rate, and possibly more, in which the hours were recently from eight o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night. Until a recent decision by a bench of magistrates that these establishments came under the Lord's Day Observance Act, the lending libraries kept open on Sundays as well. In these circumstances one cannot but feel grave anxiety as to the hours which assistants may be called upon to work. I have no information on that point—there is no real possibility of obtaining information on such points— but it is quite clearly in accordance with the mind of Parliament that the hours of labour of assistants can only be regulated by compelling the establishments in which they work to close during certain hours. There is also the fact of competition with other establishments which do come under the Shops Act, and this is worthy of consideration.
In Clause 1 I am asking your Lordships to insert the words "the lending for reward of books or periodicals" in the proper place of the Act of 1912. In subsection (2) of that clause I am making it quite clear that this does not apply to public libraries or to libraries provided for charitable or educational purposes. My principal object in making provision for this exemption is to safeguard the position of Sunday Schools and similar semi-philanthropic associations. I understand that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is giving his consideration to this Bill and may propose certain Amendments. I should be very happy indeed to fall in with any of the suggestions which his noble friend in

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this House may make on the Committee stage. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Iddesleigh.)
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, when the noble Earl moved a Resolution in July last it afforded me the opportunity of stating the. Government attitude with regard to the question dealt with in this Bill. I think therefore that it will be unnecessary for me to repeat what I then said about the position of those libraries under the existing law. It will be recollected that at that date I informed the noble Earl that the Government did not wish to dissent in any way from the terms of his Resolution, although I could give no promise of any Government legislation, and I am glad to see that the noble Earl has taken advantage of the assurance that I then extended to him that any proposal that he put forward in the form of a Bill would be seriously and sympathetically considered by the Government. As the noble Earl has indicated, it may be necessary to consider the amendment in some details of the provisions of his Bill. In particular, it will be necessary closely to examine the precise scope and the effect of the exemption provided for public libraries and certain other libraries from which no private profit is derived. These are Committee points which can receive consideration at that stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (PAYING PATIENTS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) (EX- TENSION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I give some indication of the business next week. There are no new Government Bills for the consideration of the House, but further stages of the Bills already in course of passage will be taken. There are several Motions of importance, the first by the noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, for Tuesday on the Italo-Abyssinian dispute. On Wednesday there are Motions in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rennell and. Lord Charnwood, which deal with the constitution of the League of Nations, and on Thursday the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is raising a question connected with industrial reorganisation.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes past six o'clock.

Preamble
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders have not been complied with in respect of the Petition for the following Bill:
Yorkshire Electric Power.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

EAST LOTHIAN COUNTY COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Order made on the 5th instant discharged, and Bill committed.
YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER— [PETITION FOR BILL].
  CIRENCESTER GAS.
  Examiners' Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee.