Sitting of 24 April 1945

Preamble
The House met at two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
The Marquess Camden—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Lord Somerton (E. Normanton)—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

COMMERCIAL GAS BILL.
Read 2a and committed.
SOUTH SUBURBAN GAS BILL.
Read 2a and committed.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.

METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
2.5 p.m.
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON had given Notice that he would move, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to whom the Bill has been referred, that before authorizing the construction of the proposed reservoir and works near Datchet they should satisfy themselves that the consequent loss of a large area of valuable agricultural land has been fully considered.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I venture to take the rather unusual course of asking the House to agree that the instruction contained in the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper should be taken account of by the Select Committee which is dealing with this Bill. I will explain to your Lordships, in a minute or two, why I do so. In the first place, however, let me say that, of course, London must have an adequate water supply at any cost, and if it is vitally necessary that that supply should be provided in this particular way, then everything must bow to that necessity. At the same time let me say this also. I have no personal interest in the area in question, or in anything connected with it, but it has been my business, in other capacities, to have a great and close interest in the agricultural affairs of this district. I should explain to your Lordships that the Bill which is now to be remitted to the Committee proposes, in fact, that there should be two large new reservoirs for the service of London's water supply. There are ancillary provisions as well.
I took occasion to look through the various papers that will be submitted to the Committee, and I did not find in any of them that account was taken of the diminution of food production that would be involved by putting these two reservoirs where it is proposed to put them. I may say, in this connexion, that one of the reservoirs is proposed to he placed more to the east than the one mentioned in my Motion on ground which is now largely occupied by gravel diggings and so on. Therefore, the amount of food-producing land that will be destroyed by reason of the construction of that reservoir is relatively small. But the construction of the reservoir referred to in my Motion will destroy some 800 acres, taking it all in all, of some of the most valuable market-gardening land there is, which is largely used for supplying the London market. I do not find in any of the objections which are to be taken account of any reference to the question of the destruction of food-producing land. I hope that your Lordships will agree that this is a matter of which account should be taken by the Select Committee which is to look into the proposal.
I suggest this because, although I have been told that this is the only spot where
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the reservoir can be placed, quite frankly I remain entirely unconvinced. I do not feel satisfied that this particular place is the only place along the Thames valley which could be selected for the site of a new reservoir. I think that the Select Committee is entitled to inquire into that issue, and to see whether it would not be possible—as I think it would—to have the reservoir placed in some district where, at all events, much less destruction of good food-producing land would be involved. This is a subject which I am satisfied could be considered by the Select Committee, and I hope that your Lordships will agree that such an instruction should be given.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee to whom the Bill has been referred, that before authorizing the construction of the proposed reservoir and works near Datchet they should satisfy themselves that the consequent loss of a large area of valuable agricultural land has been fully considered.—(Lord Addison.)
2.8 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD STANMORE): My Lords, your Lordships may expect a few words from me on this Motion. One of the purposes of the Bill is to give power to the Metropolitan Water Board to construct two reservoirs, one near Datchet and one near Wraysbury. This proposal has not been petitioned against. In the normal way, therefore, that part of the Bill which deals with the proposal would not be considered by the Select Committee; it would be examined by me, as Chairman of Committees, before the Bill is reported to the House. Before allowing this part of the Bill to proceed, I should have considered the reports of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Minister of Town and Country Planning—the three Ministers concerned. If any of these Ministers reported against this proposal, their opinion would have influenced me in my decision. If there was any doubt in my mind as to whether the scheme should be sanctioned, I should have referred the matter, under a Standing Order of your Lordships' House, to be fully considered by a Select Committee of your Lordships.
In the present case, I believe that your Lordships will hear that the matter has been fully examined by the Departments

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of the three Ministers concerned, and that their view is that the proposal is justified On the ground that the need for an improved supply of water outweighs other considerations. After hearing what my noble friend has said, I think, however, that your Lordships would be better satisfied if the matter were thoroughly investigated from every point of view. Therefore I suggest that your Lordships agree to the proposed suggestion.
2.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH: My Lords, I should like to say one or two words, in view of what the noble Lord has said, in connexion with this new reservoir at Datchet. Members of the Metropolitan Water Board would view with very great anxiety anything that would prevent the Water Board being able to increase the amount of storage-capacity necessary for the future growth of the population of London. The Metropolitan Water Board is the largest water undertaking in the world. It supplies something like 8,000,000 people, and covers an area of supply of 640 square miles. There are three sources of supply: the Thames, the Lee and the wells. Of these, by far the most important is the Thames. There is no more water to be got from the Lee, and the well supply is relatively insignificant.
At the present time there are three large reservoirs under construction, and they would have been finished three years ago had not it been for the war. As recently as last year, your Lordships will remember, there was a serious shortage of water, which will remind the House that this is a very pressing question, and one which cannot be allowed to slide, because it may have very serious repercussions on the growth of London, which depends upon it. The demands for water are always increasing, and in fact in a recent White Paper it has been said that the demand for water is going up by leaps and bounds. It is quite clear, as regards the demand in London itself, that when the new houses replace the "blitzed" houses there will be very considerably increased facilities in those new houses for water, and we anticipate a very large demand in that respect. Even if the Abercrombie Report was put into operation, and no further increase of population was allowed inside London, the Board supply an area outside in which the people displaced
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from the centre of London would live, and we should still be responsible for the supply. At present the average consumption is about 40 gallons a head and it is steadily increasing. We expect that very shortly it will reach 60 gallons a head. This is nothing exceptional, because in some American cities the consumption is as much as 200 gallons a head. Your Lordships will appreciate the fact, therefore, that we have to make very careful provision for the supply of water in future years for the population of London.
As regards the question of sites for these reservoirs, the Board have taken very great care in consulting technical experts as to where suitable sites are to be found. There are very few sites indeed available; in fact, these are the only two sites ieft within reasonable distance of London. It is essential in siting a new reservoir that the bottom of the site should be impervious to water. The London clay runs out just west of Slough, and this is the last site which is available. If it is refused, the Board's only possibility of getting an adequate site would be by going eighty or ninety miles further into the country, in order to obtain a suitable position where the strata are impervious to water. That would mean very heavy pumping charges, and the cost of the water-supply in London would be very considerably increased.
The Board very much regret having to ask to acquire this particular area. They fully appreciate the fact that it is of very great agricultural value, but at the same time they have no alternative but to ask the House to give them this site. In order to meet some of the difficulties of the agriculturist, there is a clause inserted in the Bill whereby some of the earth taken away from the reservoir will be used to fill in some disused gravel pits in the immediate neighbourhood, in order to bring them into cultivation. It is hoped by that means that some I30 acres which are now derelict will be brought back into cultivation. I hope that your Lordships, in view of the immense importance of this matter and the absolute necessity of London having an adequate supply of water, will see fit to refuse to send this instruction to the Select Committee, who, I feel, should approach this question wall an entirely free mind and decide it purely on its merits.
2.16 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK): My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient to the House, as my noble friend has raised this question primarily from the point of view of agriculture, if I said a few words. The Minister of Health, we are informed, is satisfied that there is need for a substantial increase in the water supplies, because the demand is increasing, as Lord Falmouth has just said. The land which is being dealt with in this Bill lies as a part of the river gravel plain of the Thames and in the Thames valley, and its general characteristic is light, easily-worked soil, warm and early, and especially suitable for the intensive production of vegetable and salad crops for the London market. The amount of land of this quality available for cultivation has been steadily diminishing for some time past, mostly owing to the encroachment of building development and gravel-winning, and the further loss of so large an area is therefore serious from the point of view of agriculture.
A number of alternative sites have, however, been considered, but it has been found impossible to find a practical alternative. The selection of sites for reservoirs is limited by the engineering possibilities, and particularly by geological considerations. They must have an impervious base covered with materials suitable for the construction of retaining walls. The long-standing policy for London has always been to take its water from as near as possible. Therefore the Thames is the main source, and the sites must have easy access to the river. Of these two sites, the one at Datchet is generally of higher quality, and is used for market gardening to a greater extent than the other site, at Wraysbury. It would therefore be of great advantage from our point of view at the Ministry of Agriculture if the Wraysbury site could be developed first, because we understand there may be a period of anything up to ten years before the second reservoir is put under construction.
While this Bill will definitely take a great deal of agricultural land away, it has, as Lord Falmouth mentioned, some very slight advantage, in that for the first time, so far as I know, in national
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planning, the Departments have come together, and it is proposed, under Clauses 41 and 42, to make it possible for the surplus material and any surplus top soil to be used to refill many now derelict and water-filled gravel pits which have been worked out. By that means, we hope that a considerable acreage will be made available again for agriculture. We are satisfied that we shall have to lose a large piece of land, and I should like my noble friend opposite to know that we appreciate the good offices and intentions with which he has introduced this Motion. Should be feel it necessary to press this Motion, we should be prepared to accept it, the one point in favour from the point of view of the Ministry of Agriculture being that it would possibly bring to the Select Committee the point which I made earlier, that we should definitely like to see the site at Wraysbury constructed before that at Datchet.
2.20 p.m.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Duke for what he has said, which I think greatly reinforces the suggestion I have made to the House. I am informed, and I think it is true, that the agricultural considerations were taken account of, although, of course, it was proposed, and it is still proposed, that the site at Datchet should be proceeded with first, whereas the noble Duke has just said that from an agricultural point of view there is no reason at all why the site of the inferior land, which would take five years to develop, should not be proceeded with first. That is another indication, to my mind, that food production considerations have not received the attention which I think they ought to receive, especially having regard to the exceedingly high value of the land. One other point mentioned, I think, was that there might be an alternative site some thirty miles away. That leaves me completely unconvinced. We can bring petrol across the country from Bristol to the Thames, and we can bring water eighty miles, and I think that would be better than destroying 800 acres of splendid market garden land that supplies the London market. I am exceedingly grateful to the noble Duke for offering to accept the Motion, and I sincerely hope that your Lordships will do so.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CAMPS BILL [H.L.]
2.22 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I think that I can explain the provisions of this Bill, which only runs into two clauses and one of these the title clause, in a very few words. The object of the Bill is to transfer the functions and powers of the Ministry of Health under the Camps Act, 1939, to the Minister of Education. The Act of 1939 provided for the establishment of two nonprofit making companies, one for England and Wales and one for Scotland, for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and managing permanent camps. What the Government had in mind was that these camps would supplement accommodation available for people from evacuation areas during the war, and that when the war was over they could be used as holiday camps for school children. In the course of events twenty-nine of the thirty-one camps erected in England and Wales have been occupied by primary and secondary schools from towns exposed to air attack. Now that school children are returning to their homes the local education authorities are being asked to arrange for the use of camps for school holidays. In view of the tact that these camps have been used during the war, and will continue to be used after the war, for educational purposes only, it is obvious that the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health under the 1939 Act add an unnecessary complication. The proper authority for their organization and management is clearly the Ministry of Education, and this Bill will effect the desired transfer. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. I am sure that your Lordships will think it proper that I should take this occasion to pay a few words of tribute to the memory of one, recently passed from us, who was a member of your Lordships' House and a very great Colonial administrator. Lord Lugard holds a position in our Colonial story which has scarcely ever been equalled, and has certainly never been surpassed. It may not yet be possible to view his work in its full perspective: but I think there can be no doubt that the historian will find very few individual lives of such significance in the development of the Colonial Empire and of Colonial policy. I suppose it is certainly not an exaggeration to say that but for his life and work a Bill such as that which we are considering this afternoon would not have been before your Lordships' House for many, many years to come.
During the span of his life, the comparatively short period in which the dashing young captain who conducted a campaign against the slave traders of Lake Nyasa finally emerged as the wise old statesman that we knew in this House, Africa moved with incredible speed. It moved from a remote period of feudalism—even worse, of bloodstained savagery and human sacrifice—into the twentieth century and there were compressed into two or three generations profound changes which in other societies have taken whole centuries to achieve. It was indeed fortunate for this country that while the destinies of these vast territories in tropical Africa were being moulded in this fluid and formative period we possessed in Lord Lugard a man who had the gifts required to impose upon them a decisive shape. It is no exaggeration to say that in the nineties of the last century Lord Lugard, both in East and West Africa, was by his own individual decision able to determine the future issue in a way that was to the great advantage not only of the Empire but of the African peoples themselves. It was also a great fortune that this man who guided the work of territorial expansion brought such a large and liberal outlook to all questions of native welfare. Indirect rule, trusteeship, administration directed primarily to native interests—all these are now the commonplaces of our Colonial doctrine. But it was Lord

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Lugard to whom is largely due the first impetus given to these ideas, which half a century ago were new and rather formidable conceptions.
History may, I think, show that Lord Lugard's greatness lay in a rare combination of the gifts of the man of action and the thinker. When he was a very young man he took decisive action on more than one occasion; he also had the gifts of the great administrator. But the shell of the administrator never closed over his mind. His book The Dual Mandate, in which with ripe experience he elaborated the general principles of British rule in tropical Africa, was a tremendous contribution to the literature of Colonial administration. In his later years Lord Lugard was much hampered by deafness and this disability no doubt prevented him from taking so full a part in the debates of our House as he might otherwise have done. He made nine speeches, all of which were important contributions and will remain documents of value to those concerned in Colonial administration. To the end of his life he retained a wonderful youthfulness and freshness of mind, and he was ever eager in pursuing his beneficent and yet always practical conceptions for the advancement and increased enlightenment of our Colonial ideas. We shall remember the occasions when he spoke in this House and the wise counsel which he brought to our discussions on Colonial affairs. There have been many spontaneous expressions of tribute to his memory which have shown how greatly his loss has been felt in the Colonies—I have been very much impressed by that—and in the world at large. In this House we should be no less sensible of our bereavement in the passing of a noted public servant whose name has won renown and devotion in his own country and among the people of far off lands. Lord Lugard, whose death we all lament, passed full of years, full of honours and full of achievements. Our sorrow at his passing is tempered, quite naturally and properly, by the thought that he had had a full span of life and that his life's work was done.
Our House and the Colonial Empire have suffered another and very grievous loss by the death in battle of Lord Dufferin, a young man who seemed to have most of his work in life still before
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him. I am aware of the fact that a formal reference has been made to his death—the reference that is made whenever a member of your Lordships' House is killed in action—but I think something more is due to the memory of the member we have lost. He was singularly gifted, a man of the most exceptional and outstanding brilliance. His political work had been done almost entirely in one or other of the Empire Departments. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for India and he filled the post which I now hold of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, so perhaps I am better fitted than anyone else, having followed him in this office, to assess the value of his work. It still falls to my lot occasionally to read papers on which he had minuted, and I have always been impressed by three things about anything he ever wrote: his clear and comprehensive understanding—he had a most remarkable grasp of the bones of a subject—his keen and incisive wit, and, emerging most clearly of all, his wide and comprehensive human sympathy. Much of the work of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary deals with difficult border-line cases where perhaps an officer may have failed but consideration ought to be given to the question whether his failure may not have been due to his having been a long time without leave, to his having served under difficult tropical conditions, and so on. Always Lord Dufferin was tolerant, always sympathetic, always, if at all possible, for helping the lame dog over a stile.
The early days of this war were darkened for him by a period of miserable ill-health originating from some tropical infection which he picked up in the course of an official tour in the Colonies. By undergoing a most rigorous and prolonged course of treatment he succeeded in overcoming that severe handicap and was passed fit for service anywhere in the world. He won his hard fight, he achieved his heart's desire to serve as a front-line soldier, and he was killed in action. Your Lordships will like to hear that he had served with conspicuous ability and success, and he was, in the last weeks of his life, intensely happy in his service. Whether or not he had some premonition of his end—and such things do happen—he wrote, on the very last day of his life, two letters, one to his

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wife and one to his three young children which in themselves are the finest monument which any soldier could possibly have, the most moving last will and testament that I have ever read. These are too intimate for me to quote here, but the words which he himself wrote, not long before his death, of a friend killed in action, might serve as an epitaph for himself:
"By tradition and training and instinct his mind didn't work along mean lines and that was the end of it. His rights and his duties were so much a part of his mind and so inextricably mingled in the pattern of his thought that I do not suppose he would have found it possible consciously to separate them.
"It is of such stuff that the great servants of this country are made and we can ill afford to lose him now. Great servants are rare and will be desperately needed in the future."
Those are his words. My Lords, we have lost a great servant. The fact that he used those words in that order—"great" and "servant"—are a measure of his ideal and of his standards.
2.36 p.m.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I should like to say how much we appreciate the fact that the noble Duke has taken the opportunity to pay a tribute to these two members of your Lordships' House who have gone, and in particular with regard to Lord Dufferin. The impression on my mind as I sat listening to him was of the awful waste that this war means. Here was a man just beginning, in the prime of his life's capacity. As the noble Duke has said, we and the nation will miss such men, just as we have missed tragically in the last few years those hundreds of thousands of men who would now have been in the prime of life but who were killed in the last war. This will be another addition to that tragic waste.
As to Lord Lugard, I am sure we do most sincerely appreciate all that the noble Duke said. I remember those days when I myself was taking one might say a more distant interest in these things, when Lord Lugard's name was a household word. One knew about him, although, quite frankly, I knew very little about many others responsible for our Colonial affairs. He was a great pioneer and a constructive statesman. I think the reputation that Britain holds in the world of the value and efficiency of her administrative services in the dominions, which have done so much to
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bind them to us during these years of strain, is due to the fact that the nation produces men of this stamp; and many of them, I am sure, must have been inspired by the splendid example which Lord Lugard set.
2.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, the House will have been moved by the touching tribute paid by the noble Duke to the memories of Lord Lugard, and of Lord Dufferin, a man of great abilities whose loss we so greatly deplore. Lord Lugard was one of the finest Colonial administrators of this country or, indeed, of any country. He helped to carry through that great policy of peaceful change which in our own time has transformed Africa. He was a man of practical energy and at the same time wise restraint. He was of the very best type of Colonial statesmen. The progress and prosperity of Nigeria is especially his achievement and will be for ever his monument. He influenced also the opinion here in this country of students of Colonial affairs. I remember, as a young man, being very deeply impressed by his book The Rise of our East African Empire which indeed induced me, in the very early days of East Africa and Uganda, to visit those countries and to see what achievements were being accomplished in the early days of British rule. He was one of those men of experience, knowledge and wisdom whose presence here confers such great distinction upon your Lordships' House, and we especially will mourn his death.
2.39 p.m.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I follow the noble Duke and the noble Viscount who has just sat down in a melancholy task indeed. As a very great friend of Lord Dufferin, I feel I cannot altogether withhold my tribute to him to-day. It is as though a rich mine of assayed and proved worth has suddenly been taken so that we can no longer use its treasure, and I think the loss to your Lordships' House is indeed a grievous one. As you have heard, Lord Dufferin's life was not painted altogether in bright colours. To the brilliance of his scholarship and his wit, to the devotion to his ideals there were the more sombre undertones of frustration and ill-health. Many of your Lordships will no doubt remember in the early years of the war how Lord

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Dufferin struggled against illness and almost continual pain in an attempt to do his duty as he saw it. Simply by force of will he attempted to overcome these grave illnesses and difficulties. But above all, all the time he wished to be a soldier. With an enduring patience and determination he bent all his energies to that end and finally, as you know, his dearest wish was realized.
Last year he was posted to that part of the world which will for ever be connected with the illustrious line of Blackwood. Your Lordships have heard that by Fort Dufferin, not far from the ancient capital of Burma, whence he derived his Earldom, he fell in battle. He died as he would have wished, in close contact with the enemy, carrying out a mission, as I understand it, of extraordinary hazard. Whether it be fate, whether it was by design, I know not, but at least he fell, as I say, in that part of the world adding lustre to a name already illustrious. So, my Lords, he died, and we who are his friends, while we shall mourn his loss, do give him as the example of a man with a deep and abiding love for his country, a man nurtured and moulded in our best traditions, and yet with that elasticity of mind which was able to adapt conditions to changing needs. He was a man to whom office with responsibilities came early. He brought to it a fresh and youthful inquiring mind, a mind untramelled by any thought of self-interest or indeed by fear of criticism, a mind working only for success for its own sake. That is Lord Dufferin's reputation and I believe it will be long held in honour.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly: Bill reported without amendment.

MINISTRY OF CIVIL AVIATION BILL.
2.44 P.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (VISCOUNT SWINTON): My Lords, I hope with decent modesty to commend to your Lordships this short measure to legitimize myself. The Bill vests all the civil aviation functions of the Secretary of State for Air in the Minister of Civil Aviation. The whole of the powers and duties which
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it is sought to transfer are set out in the Schedule to the Bill. They come mostly out of two Acts of Parliament, the Air Navigation Act, 1920, and the Air Navigation Act, 1936. Those two Acts are concerned because, in the first place, the Act of 1920 vested all these powers in the Air Council and the Act of 1936, while adding certain new powers, vested those and all the existing powers in the person of the Secretary of State as an individual Minister as distinct from the Air Council. There is, in addition to the Schedule and to those clauses which are common form in any Bill of this kind, Clause r which, following our modern practice, sets out the scope of the minister's work.
Without creating any new powers, it sets out concisely the objects of the Ministry and the functions of the Minister and it divides them broadly into four classes. There is the duty of organizing, carrying out and encouraging measures for the development of civil aviation. That includes matters like airline policy, such as we debated recently, under the White Paper, matters such as negotiations with the Commonwealth and foreign countries for services overseas and the like, the general policy and general agreements such as we achieved in the Commonwealth conversations in Montreal and London, and the detailed application of all such agreements as we achieved in the recent and very successful conference in South Africa. I think perhaps without digressing unduly, because it is a good example of the powers under this Bill, your Lordships might wish me in a sentence or two to refer to that South African Conference from which I have so recently returned.
We there dealt with Commonwealth air services in the territories represented; and in addition to the United Kingdom and the Union both the Rhodesias and Nyasaland were present and all territories of East Africa. We dealt with the great trunk route from the United Kingdom to South Africa, we dealt with the local services in all the different territories, and with the regional services which will link up those groups of territories, and we dealt also with the inter-territorial services with neighbouring foreign countries. We agreed—and I think it was rather a remarkable achievement in a Conference which lasted only six days—on all the details of the operation of the great trunk route between here and South Africa. It

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will be operated in a parallel partnership by B.O.A.C. and the South African Aim Lines and will be operated by those air lines, I am glad to say, using the same types of British aircraft. We agreed upon the number of frequencies for the route, how these frequencies shall be shared between the operators, the pooling and sharing of revenue, how the expenses should be borne, and on the areas in which each company will look after the commercial and technical interests of the other. We went further because WE wanted to make a thorough job of this, and under the very expert chairmanship of Dr. Schonland, one of the ablest physicists in the world, our experts worked out together all the meterological services, the communications and the flying ads which will be required in the various territories for regular day and night flying all along the route. That in itself, I think your Lordships will agree, was an extremely complete and successful thing to have done in these few days.
We succeeded because we and the Governments of South Africa and the other territories were all applying those principles of ordered partnership in the air in which we most profoundly believe. We had plenty of practical difficulties, but we never had differences, and those practical difficulties were overcome, and easily overcome, because we were in partnership acting to overcome them. The Conference itself approved of the agreement and passed the following resolution:
"The Conference notes with satisfaction the arrangements made for the inauguration and operation of the trunk service between the United Kingdom and South Africa under which the British Overseas Airways Corporation and South African Airways will operate reciprocal services on an agreed partnership basis."
The Conference also set up—because we wanted to follow up the good work and make sure that not only difficulties but all the practical questions could be dealt with regularly and in complete agreement—the South African Air Transport Council representing all the territories concerned, including of course the United Kingdom with the following functions: to keep under review and promote the progress and development of civil air communications in Southern Africa; to serve as a medium for the exchange of views and information between the mem-
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ber countries on civil air transport matters; to consider and advise on such civil aviation matters as any member Government may desire to refer to the Council; and, in order to link it up with the Commonwealth Air Transport Council established at Montreal with its headquarters here, to furnish a link and to cooperate with the Commonwealth Air Transport Council and to keep the Council fully informed of its deliberations. I think that is a good example. Other examples, of course, of organizing this development of civil aviation are the Commonwealth Air Transport Council itself and that interim international organization which we agreed to set up at Chicago and which we hope we shall get established in the very near future with its headquarters in Canada.
Then the second of the duties is defined as measures for design, development and production of civil aircraft, with a proviso which was intended to make clear the intention of the clause that that would not entitle the Minister to engage in direct production. Whatever anybody's views may be on the question whether we should have private enterprise or State enterprise or both, I do not think anybody would suggest that it is the proper function of a Minister of Civil Aviation to set up great factories. It is his business to make sure that he can place all the orders needed for research and development, for prototypes or the like. I would like to emphasize that that power does not in the least mean that the Minister should take the place of that essential close contact between the user and the producer, between the operator and the aircraft constructor which is absolutely vital if the country is to get the right advice on aircraft. On the contrary, I take it that these powers mean that it is the duty of the Minister to ensure that close contact. During the war when all capacity has to be allocated by the Ministry of Aircraft Production in order to meet the demands of the Air Ministry, of the Admiralty and of civil aviation, the Minister must make his demands and place his orders through the Ministry of Aircraft Production.
The third function is defined as the duty of taking measures for safety and efficiency—for example, the provision of navigational aids at airports and along the flying routes; the charge of airworthiness on the advice of that admirable Air Registration Board, and matters like try-

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ing, as we are trying now, to work out details of the framework we laid down at Chicago, to get, as I hope we shall get, a complete and world-wide navigation code. The fourth of these functions is defined as research on questions relating to air navigation—for example, things like the development of radio. Then, again, there is the link up with the Commonwealth, as I explained on a previous occasion to your Lordships. We have taken under the æis of the Commonwealth Air Transport Council all the work which is being done by C.E.R.C.A. The countries of the Commonwealth will work together on radio development for civil aviation.
Then your Lordships will see there is a proviso about the acquisition and disposal of aircraft and their engines and equipment. The discharge of the Ministry's duty will be subject to the approval of the Treasury. That is that proper financial partnership which should always, I venture to submit, exist between the Treasury and the spending Department, and which is of very great benefit to the Department. I think your Lordships will be interested in one example, in regard to the disposal of aircraft. I come back to the South African agreement. As I have explained, we have agreed that these partnership services should be run with the same type of aircraft, which is obviously a great economy, and these will be British aircraft. I am glad to say that we have been able to agree—the South African Government and myself when I was in South Africa—that these lines, which I hope will start next July, shall be run with York aircraft. These are quite good aircraft. I made an excellent voyage there and back myself in a York, being on time at every single place. But they are temporary and the intention is that they should be superseded by the Tudor aircraft when they are ready. We therefore made this arrangement, that the Yorks should be leased by His Majesty's Government to the South African Government, as they will be to the British Overseas Airways Corporation until the Tudors are ready, and then we shall take them hack and the South African Government will buy the Tudor aircraft. Your Lordships will probably agree that that is a practical application of a provision about which there is a paragraph or two in the White Paper suggesting that aircraft might be
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leased where that was convenient. I think your Lordships will agree that that is a singularly appropriate arrangement. It has already been announced by the Minister of Transport in the South African Parliament.
The Schedule contains statutory powers and duties transferred. One or two will be exercised jointly by the Secretary of State for Air and the Ministry—for example, in regard to accidents. Accident investigations may relate to Service planes or civil planes. Obviously we want the same people to make the investigations. Therefore either Minister can direct the necessary investigation. There is no desire, as far as I am concerned, to duplicate organizations which already exist. I will give this undertaking that I shall not seek because a new Ministry is established to set up a vast number of sections and sub-departments within it. Wherever there is an organization, which can do the job, available to the Ministry, then it will be my aim to employ that organization for that purpose. For instance, take research. It would be madness to set up, first of all, entirely new research organizations. The thing to do is to strengthen those that exist. It will, I take it, be the Minister's job to see that all the research organizations know what civil aviation needs, and that those organizations serve its purposes.
This is a Bill for which this House has long pressed. If these powers are vested in me, by Parliament, I give this undertaking: that my whole object will be to use them for building up British civil aviation to play its full part on the airways of the world, and, first and foremost, in linking the countries of the Commonwealth and Empire where we have already made so propitious a start. I am deeply indebted to this House, which has taken so keen an interest in civil aviation, and which contains among its members such a wealth of practical experience in this matter. It will, I know, continue to give me that help and counsel which I need, and which I shall, I hope, use to the full. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 21.—(Viscount Swinton.)
3.2 p.m.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, the Minister has made most suitable use of the occasion of the Second Reading of this

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Bill to give us some very interesting information, and all of us, I am sure, were gratified to hear the report, short though it inevitably was, of some of the proceedings at the recent conference in South Africa. My noble friends on these Benches have heard with gratification of the important results so far achieved. We believe that the Minister of Civil Aviation, as much as any Minister, ha it in his power, by means of civil aviation, to cement, in large part, the partnership of the Empire and the Commonwealth. As the noble Viscount has said, this is a Bill to legitimize him, to make him respectable, to clothe his person with personality, and to turn him from an individual into a corporation sole. We wish him well in the task which he has undertaken.
This is a machinery Bill, and there is only one point arising on it to which need draw attention. The Bill differs from the draft which was originally circulated to your. Lordships, when it was presented to thé House of Commons, by reason an Amendment passed in another place in the Committee stage, inserting a proviso to Clause 1 (1). As the Bill was originally drafted, it bestowed upon the Minister a wider range of powers defined in positive terms. The proviso which has now beer inserted to the effect that the Bill does not authorize the production of civil aircraft by the Minister is, of course, a restriction upon the range of powers originally contemplated for him.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I think not as originally contemplated. There was some doubt as to whether the words which had been used gave that power or not.
LORD NATHAN: I am afraid I have not expressed myself suitably. I will use another phrase. It is now made abundantly clear—if there were ambiguities before—that there is no power reposed by this Bill in the Minister, himself, to produce civil aircraft by the authority of this Bill. Whether that be a wise proviso or not is a matter which I do not propose to argue at this moment. It is a matter which may require—which, doubtless, will receive—consideration either at a later stage of this Bill or on some entirely different occasion. My object is to ensure that it shall be on record that those for whom I am speaking must not he deemed by reason of their
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agreeing to the Second Reading to be in favour of what is implied, or what may be implied, in the proviso that has been inserted. Nor do I propose, on this occasion, to say anything upon the general question of policy in regard to civil aviation, because that will be more suitably dealt with in a discussion on a Motion which is down in the name of my noble friend Lord Addison with no date named. With those few observations, I would say that my noble friends support this Bill.
3.6 p.m.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the appearance of this Bill, and we feel that we are indebted to the Minister for the very clear and lucid explanation which he has given of its provisions. The Bill marks a definite step forward in the development of civil aviation in this country. As the war draws to its close, it is clear that the importance of civil aviation is being greatly enhanced. In this connexion I happened, recently, to read an article by Viscount Nuffield, who is, I gather, on his way home from the East. In the course of the article the noble Viscount wrote:
"The effects of full unhampered air travel—as we have never before known it—on our political, social and industrial relations with the Empire countries and with every other land on earth are to us as yet incalculable."
I think that that is quite true. We are within a few months of the end of the war, and with Canada less than a day's journey away, with Australia and New Zealand, possibly, a little over two days' journey away, the effects on our Imperial relations will be very notable indeed.
For my part, I hope that this full unhampered air travel will have the effect of linking the Empire more closely than ever before, more closely than would have been thought possible a few years ago. The Minister, himself, has shown us that he believes in the advantages of air travel. I think it was only the other day after he had taken part in a debate in this house, and made a most notable speech, that he travelled straight to an airport and set off immediately by aeroplane, arriving in Cairo the next day and in Capetown, I believe, on the Sunday afternoon. I think that we are indebted to the noble Viscount for the very interesting account which he has given of the conference which took place at Capetown, and in

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which he played such an interesting and important part. Only a few days after taking part in that conference he was back again in London and no doubt preparing for further debates in your Lordships' House.
I am sure that those responsible for civil aviation will be faced with keen competition in different parts of the world, and particularly, perhaps, in Latin America. I happened to read only a day or two ago the report of a speech made by the Deputy Director-General of the B.O.A.C., Major J. R. McCrindle, who is a very experienced administrator in civil aviation matters. Major McCrindle, who is representing the B.O.A.C. at the International Air Conference which is taking place at Havana at the present time, predicted "a wide scramble for serving new world routes with commercial airlines." Sooner or later, he said, the airlines of the world would agree to operate under a central authority, which would allocate air routes in a fair and equitable manner. I hope that he is right in that forecast, but, until that time comes and that agreement is reached, I think that much tact and diplomacy will be required if serious international friction is to be avoided.
In conclusion, I should like to say this. To those of us who take an interest in our proceedings, it is satisfactory to know that two members of this House, the noble Viscounts, Lord Swinton and Lord Knollys, have been appointed to important posts in civil aviation. They have shouldered great responsibilities, but they also have great opportunities for rendering signal service to this country, and for combining with the countries which form the Empire in order to establish air routes all over the world. We on these Benches sincerely wish them well in the great enterprises on which they have embarked.
3.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, if I may intervene again for a moment it will be to do two things. First, I should like to thank your Lordships for, so to speak, making an honest woman of me. Secondly, I should like to say that I entirely accept the fact that by endorsing this Bill no commitment is being made from one side of the House or the other as to how aircraft should be manufactured. The sole point here is that this particular Minister ought not to set up
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factories. When the Bill was in draft, as I saw it before I went to South Africa, it had some words about "fostering." I did not quite know what "fostering" meant, and those who were looking after the Bill in my absence took advice about it. I said, "The one thing that I must be able to do is to order aircraft. I must be able to order prototypes, and in this intermediate period I must be able to order aircraft on behalf of the companies." The lawyers advised that "fostering" would not give even that power, and so they devised some other words, which would give the power of placing orders. There was then some doubt about whether the power to place orders also implied a power to manufacture; and, in order that the common desire might be expressed beyond a peradventure, the proviso was put in that I at any rate should not have the power to manufacture. By the generous support which he has given me, the noble Lord opposite is by no means committed for or against a particular brand or extent of Socialism.
The only other point on which I would ask your Lordships to agree is this. We want, if possible, to get the Royal Assent to this measure to-morrow, and I hope your Lordships will agree to take all the remaining stages of the Bill to-morrow, so that that can be done. I ought to give your Lordships notice of that.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.
3.15 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD CROFT): My Lords, as your Lordships are aware, the Army Act and the Air Force Act are due to expire at the end of this month, and it is therefore necessary that this Bill should become law by that time, in order to keep these Acts in force for another year. The preamble and the first two clauses of the Bill are in the usual form. Clause 3 provides an alternative maximum punishment of a £30 fine for the offences of inducing or assisting officers or soldiers to desert or to absent themselves without leave, or of concealing

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such persons. The existing maximum penalty is six months' imprisonment; and as by virtue of Section 52 of the Summary jurisdiction Act, 1879, Section 4 of that Act does not apply to the Army Act, a court of summary jurisdiction has no power at present to award a fine instead of imprisonment. The Home Office represented to the War Office that in some cases where there was a strong com-passionate element magistrates should be empowered to inflict a fine instead of imprisonment, and this clause gives them that power.
Clause 4 amends Section 163 of the Army Act, which relates to documentary evidence, by permitting documents signed by certain civilian officials in record offices to be admitted as evidence in proceedings taken under the Army Act. Ai Section 163 of the Army Act stands, such documents must be signed by a military officer, and difficulty arises because an increased number of posts in record offices are now filled by civil servants. The new provision is confined to persons appointed to be record officers, and does not extend to all persons employed in record offices. In practice these appointments will be confined to individuals whose status is equal to that of Commissioned officers. I hope that these two points are clear, and that they will meet with general approval. The last clause applies Clauses 3 and 4 to the Air Force Act, with the necessary modifications. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Croft.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERGAVENNY'S ESTATE.
Petition for a Bill, together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read and referred to the Committee on Estate Bills.
RHODES TRUST.
Petition for a Bill, together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read and referred to the Committee on Estate Bills.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Petition for the following Bill ought to be dispensed with and leave given to introduce the Bill:
Pontypool Gas.
Read and agreed to.

PONTYPOOL GAS BILL [H.L.]
Presented (pursuant to leave given this day), read la, and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes past three o'clock.