Sitting of 20 October 1947

Preamble
The House—after the Adjournment on 13 th August, 1947, for the Summer Recess—met in St. Stephen's Hall at Half-past Two o'Clock.
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

WHITEHAVEN COLLIERY ACCIDENT
Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that during the Recess I have received a communication from the President of the French National Assembly transmitting the following Resolution:
"The National Assembly offers its profound sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives in the tragic accident at the Whitehaven Colliery.
(Signed) EDOUARD HERRIOT, 19th August, 1947."

NEW WRITS
Mr. Speaker: I have also to acquaint the House that I have issued during the Adjournment Warrants for new Writs for the Borough of Liverpool (Edge Hill Division), in the room of Richard Clitherow, Esquire, deceased, and the Borough of Islington (West Division), in the room of Frederick Montague, Esquire, called up to the House of Peers.
PROROGATION

  HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went; and having returned—
  Mr. Speaker(standing in the Clerk's place at the Table): I have to acquaint the House that the House has been to the House of Peers where the Commission under the Great Seal was read. The LORD CHANCELLOR, being one of the Royal Commissioners, delivered His Majesty's most
  2546
  Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, in pursuance of His Majesty's Commands, as followeth:
  My Lords and Members of the House of Commons
  During the Session which is now concluding substantial progress has been made in the work of reconstruction, but the economic difficulties resulting from the war, both at home and abroad, have presented My Ministers with serious problems and have required continuing efforts and sacrifices by My people. To enable My Ministers to deal rapidly and effectively with these problems, a measure has been enacted extending the purposes for which emergency powers can be used, and a new organisation for economic planning has been established. In order to secure a redistribution of labour to assist those industries which are essential to economic recovery, My Government have reintroduced a measure of control over the engagement of labour, supported by some limited use of the power of direction of workers.
  My Ministers have given unremitting attention to the serious deficit in the overseas balance of payments and to the continuing need to stimulate exports and limit imports. In order to protect our reserves of gold and foreign exchange, it has been necessary temporarily to suspend the convertibility of sterling. My Government have been fully aware that our own difficulties cannot be overcome except in conjunction with other Governments. They have, therefore, warmly welcomed the initiative of the United States in seeking to promote joint action by the Governments of the European nations to increase production and extend international trade, and they have given this initiative their strongest backing.
  My Government have continued to give full support to the United Nations in the task of promoting international understanding and co-operation. They have played a leading part in establishing the Trusteeship Council and have continued to share fully in the deliberations of the Economic and Social Council, the International Labour Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and other specialised agencies. They have also put forward

  2547
  proposals for defining and safeguarding the fundamental liberties which it is the right of all peoples to enjoy.
  A Treaty of Alliance has been concluded with the Government of the French Republic.
  My Ministers have persisted in their efforts to establish true democracy in Germany, and they have approved the establishment of popularly elected regional Governments in the British Zone and encouraged a gradual transfer of powers to the German people.
  Treaties of Peace with Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland have been signed and brought into force, and My Government have consequently resumed diplomatic relations, with those countries. The technical state of war between the United Kingdom and Austria has been terminated and diplomatic relations have been resumed between the two countries.
  The Queen and I were deeply moved by the warmth of the welcome which We received throughout Our visit to South Africa, and will always treasure the happiest memories of Our journey.
  It is with very great pleasure that I have given My consent to the engagement of My beloved daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to Lieutenant Philip Mount-batten, R.N.
  Ministers from the United Kingdom have attended a Conference of Ministers and other representatives of My several Governments held in Canberra, at the invitation of My Government in the Commonwealth of Australia. This Conference resulted in a valuable exchange of views on problems likely to arise in the drawing up of a Peace Treaty with Japan.
  In July I assented to the Indian Independence Act under which on 15 th August two new Dominions, India and Pakistan, came into being. Thus was brought to fruition the declared policy of Parliament that the peoples of British India should achieve complete autonomy within the British Commonwealth. I trust that the most cordial relations will rule between India and Pakistan and the other members of the British Commonwealth.
  The relationship which had so long subsisted between the Crown and the
  2548
  Ruling Princes of India has inevitably also changed. I acknowledge with gratitude the loyalty and devotion of the Indian Rulers to Myself and to My Royal predecessors and I hope that in association with India or Pakistan their ties with the Commonwealth will endure.
  I remember gratefully the services of all those men and women who have served the Crown in India and all those who have given their best in the service of the peoples of India; particularly I am mindful of the faithful and gallant services of the men of My Indian Forces in time of war.
  I am grieved at the grave disorders now occurring in India and Pakistan. My sympathy goes out to the Governments and peoples of both Dominions in their present troubles and especially to the refugees seeking new homes.
  It gives Me much pleasure to record that self-government in internal affairs has been restored to Malta, that gallant island whose signal contribution to the common cause in the late war has been a source of pride to us all.
  Delegates chosen by the legislatures of My possessions in the Caribbean have discussed the question of the closer association of those territories. I am confident that this conference will contribute to the progress and well-being of My peoples in this valued section of the British community of nations.
  My Government have referred the question of the future status of Palestine to the United Nations, whose recommendations are now awaited as the result of the present discussions in the Assembly. Meanwhile they have made it clear that, in the absence of a settlement, they must plan for an early withdrawal of British Forces and of the British Administration from Palestine.
  At the invitation of My Government in the United Kingdom, a conference of representatives of British Commonwealth Governments in the sterling area has been held in London to discuss questions of common interest arising out of the general financial situation.
  My Government have taken an active part in the discussions preparatory to an International Conference on Trade and Employment. I hope that these

  2549
  efforts will assist the expansion of international trade and will create world conditions favouring its further expansion and the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment in all countries.
  Members of the House of Commons:
  I thank you for the provision which you have made for the public services.
  My Lords and Members of the House of Commons:
  I have assented to legislation setting up a Ministry of Defence charged with ensuring the formulation and general application of a unified policy relating to the Armed Forces and their requirements.
  In many parts of the world My Forces continue to make their contribution to the maintenance of order and the restoration of peaceful conditions; their devotion to duty and the forbearance displayed in many difficult and trying circumstances are deserving of the highest praise.
  Despite the responsibilities of My Forces overseas and the many tasks at home arising from the aftermath of war, the progress of demobilisation has brought the total number of men and women released from them since June, 1945, to about four and three-quarter millions. The resettlement in civil life of those released has been continued with success.
  The National Service Acts have been amended to provide for the continuation of national service for a further period of five years from 31 st December, 1948.
  The exceptionally severe winter weather, followed by unprecedented floods, inflicted grievous damage on agriculture. In order to mitigate the losses sustained, My Government contributed to the Lord Mayor's National Flood Distress Fund and to the Agricultural Disaster Fund, and a measure was passed to provide special assistance to farmers cropping abnormally flooded land and rebuilding depleted flocks.
  My Ministers are acutely aware of the distress caused by the housing shortage. They have continued to regard the provision of houses as a matter of the utmost urgency and have
  2550
  made substantial progress with their programme.
  Steps have been taken to provide the additional teachers and the accommodation required as a result of the raising of the school-leaving age, and facilities for enabling promising students to obtain university and advanced education have been increased. The Universities are responding readily to the demand for an expansion of their activities and they have been aided by largely increased grants from the Exchequer.
  My Ministers have devoted continuous attention to the development of industry in Scotland and Wales in order to provide increased opportunities for employment. New industrial projects have been started, substantial progress has been made in the diversification of industry, and a large programme of afforestation is proceeding. Scottish hydro-electric schemes have been advanced and an Advisory Panel for the Highlands has been set up. Special attention has been given to improving the Government machinery for the consideration of Welsh problems.
  Measures have been passed for the better organisation of inland transport services under public ownership and control, for the co-ordination of the electricity supply industry under public ownership, and for continuing the centralised buying of cotton.
  I have given My assent to legislation making fresh provision both in England and Wales and in Scotland for planning and controlling the development and use of land.
  Bills have been passed into law to promote the stability and long-term development of agriculture in England and Wales, to extend the powers of the central agricultural wages boards, and to enable land to be dedicated permanently to forestry purposes.
  I have assented to legislation providing for exchange control; for a far-reaching measure of company law reform, for the establishment of development councils with a view to increasing efficiency and output in industry, and for the collection of statistics showing the use made of the nation's resources and the changing structure of its economy.
  A measure has been passed to amend the law relating to civil proceedings by and against the Crown.
  My assent has also been given to legislation providing for the arrangements consequent on the termination of the National Fire Service.
  Provision has been made for a National Health Service in Scotland and legislation has been passed consolidating the law relating to the constitution and general administration of local authorities in Scotland.
  I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may attend you.
  Then a Commission for Proroguing the Parliament was read in the House of Lords:
  After which the LORD CHANCELLOR said:
  "My Lords and Members of the House of Commons:
  By virtue of His Majesty's Commission, under the Great Seal, to us and other Lords directed, and now read, we do, in His Majesty's Name and in obedience to His Majesty's Commands, prorogue this Parliament to Tuesday, the Twenty-first day of October, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Forty-seven, to be then here holden; and this Parliament is accordingly prorogued until Tuesday, the Twenty-first day of October, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Forty-seven."
  End of the Second Session (opened 12th November, 1946) of the Thirty-eighth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the Tenth Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Sixth.

  MOVEMENT OF INFORMATION (FRONTIERS)
  MOVEMENT OF INFORMATION (FRONTIERS)
  POWER STATIONS (CONTRACTS)
  POWER STATIONS (CONTRACTS)
Preamble
Re-assembling after the Summer Recess, the House met at two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
The Marquess of Milford Haven—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

THE LATE VISCOUNT CALDECOTE.
2.9 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, since the House last met, death has deprived us of two of our prominent members. I feel sure that if the Leader of the House were here he would have desired and thought it fitting that some tribute should be paid to their memory. My noble friend Lord Listowel will presently express our sense of loss at the passing of Lord Passfield. I thought your Lordships would forgive me, and might indeed think it appropriate, if I were to say just a few words in appreciation of the life and work of Lord Caldecote. Lord Caldecote, having served the State faithfully and well in several important offices in the House of Commons, entered your Lordships' House as Lord Chancellor immediately upon the outbreak of war. He was destined to remain in that office for a comparatively short time, and he became thereafter Dominions Secretary and Leader of your Lordships' House until, as Lord Chief justice, he passed from the sphere of active politics.
This is not the place or the time, nor am I the person, to appraise the value of his work either as a Judge or as a statesman, beyond saying that in every office he filled he gave the best—and it was no little best—that was in him, not for his own self-aggrandisement, but for the cause for which he worked. It is inevitable that I who knew him so well for so long, should think of him as a friend—a friend of almost forty years' standing.
1472
He possessed a rugged strength of character, a strength that was due to the fact that his foundations were built upon a rock—the rock of his religious beliefs. Yet he possessed such tolerance that he could make and maintain a friendship with those of a differing outlook. Tolerance, I believe, is a much misunderstood virtue. It is so easy for a man to be tolerant about conflicting views on a subject on which he knows little and feels less; but how rare it is to find a man with strong views, passionately held, who can yet realize that those who differ from him are not necessarily less intelligent, and not necessarily less honest than he is himself. I confess that there was a time when I myself wanted advice and guidance. Tom Inskip, as he then was, was the man to whom I turned, for I knew that he had that rare quality, that precious quality, of being just as interested in his friends' problems as he was in his own. The life of his friends—and they were many—is the poorer for his going. Those especially near and dear to him who were with him to the end have this consolation; they could truly have said with Horatio, "Now cracks a noble heart."
2.12 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like, on behalf of those who sit on these Benches, to add a few words to the moving tribute that has been paid by the Lord Chancellor to Lord Caldecote. The House and our country have, indeed, suffered a grievous loss by his death. He had a career that any Englishman might have envied—Solicitor General, Attorney-General, Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, Dominions Secretary, Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice and Leader of the House of Lords. That, my Lords, is a glittering galaxy of legal and political prizes. But it is not by the offices that he occupied that Lord Caldecote will be chiefly remembered; it is as a great English Christian, representative of all that is best in our public life—sincere, straightforward, selfless. Those are the words that come to one's mind when one thinks of him.
He was brought up in the strictest school of West Country Evangelicism. He founded his whole life, as the Lord Chancellor has said, on the rock of religion. He never compromised with his convictions. He was fearlessly honest, both with himself and with everyone else.

1473
He brought both to the legal profession and to politics these rare and noble qualities, arid that is what raised him to the position of eminence which he attained. Everyone respected him, everyone liked him. He was, in the fullest and noblest sense of the word, a "good" man. At a time when religion, in many countries, is at a low ebb, and when politicians are only too apt to create their own principles, and change them when it suits them, the bluff, honest, fearless outlook of men like Lord Caldecote can ill be spared. In the account of his life in The Times, published after his death, the following words occur:
"He had the reputation of telling a client exactly what he thought and of never letting him down."
Let that be his epitaph. He could have no finer. We and the country shall miss him, and our sympathy goes out to his family, whose loss we all of us share.
2.15 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches desire to associate themselves through me most warmly and sincerely with the tributes which have already been paid to the late Lord Caldecote, and with the expressions of regret at the common loss sustained by his death. Assessed by any standard, his career was one of remarkable distinction, yet no man in the public life of our time was less of a careerist. He accepted the responsibilities for a succession of great offices loyally, humbly and devoutly. He discharged them with a steadfast dignity, industry, courtesy and wisdom, and upon all with whom he came in however fleeting contact, he left a lasting impression of transparent and transcendent integrity. Of him, truly, "Nature might stand up and say to all the world: 'This was a man.'"
2.16 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I wish, very briefly, to associate myself with the tributes which have been paid to the memory of Lord Caldecote. Your Lordships will readily understand why I particularly desire so to do, though to tell the truth the one thing I would most wish to say has already been said by those who have spoken. And it is most proper and fitting that it should be said by them rather than by me. In all the tributes paid to Lord Caldecote, whether here or elsewhere, apart from the record
1474
of his great public services, apart from the obvious affection that he inspired in all his friends, it has been noticeable haw invariably the outstanding emphasis has been on the sterling and unshakable integrity of his character. Nor has there ever been any doubt as to the soiree from which he must have drawn that strength and direction of purpose which governed his life. He was a devout: Christian, a devout member of the Church. of England.
As an undergraduate at Cambridge, he first took his stand amongst his contemporaries and first became active in Christian work and Christian life. It was not long ago that the late Archbishop Lord Lang said of him that he had never lowered his colours throughout his life—and indeed he never did. No one ever had any reason to feel hesitation or doubt as to where Lord Caldecote stood. There was no meanness, no pettiness, no self-seeking in him, or possible in him. All knew that here was a man who with clear eyes recognized and followed the principles by which he lived. Thus it was that he won from all both affection and deep trust. The Lord Chancellor has spoken with profound truth of his toleration, using the word "toleration" in its proper sense. He always showed a deep understanding of those who differed from him, and political opponents knew and loved and trusted him. Even in the sometimes more heated atmosphere of ecclesiastical politics, there was never any doubt that Lord Caldecote stood to serve no Party and no Party interests. Evangelical though he was, and great leader of Evangelicals, always what he sought to serve and did serve were the true interests of the Church, which he served with all his power, and those Who differed from him never lost that trust and profound reliance which he inspired. As has been said, he left his mark upon both the public and ecclesiastical life of this generation, for whether it was in Church or State he served but one Master and sailed under the colours only of that Master.
2.21 p.m.
LORD ROCHESTER: My Lords, as a Free Churchman, I desire to pay tribute to a great Anglican. We were accustomed to turn to Sir Thomas Inskip, as he was then, for help and guidance, and we never turned in vain. He was a great Christian

1475
gentleman and on behalf of the great body of Free Churchmen I desire to pay our tribute from these Benches this afternoon.

THE LATE LORD PASSFIELD.
2.22 p.m.
THE SECRETARY of STATE FOR BURMA (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, your Lordships have sustained the loss of another distinguished member of this House in the death of Sidney Webb, officially known as Lord Pass-field, who sat here as Secretary of State, first for the Colonies and then for the Dominions, in the Labour Government of 1929. I have spoken of him as Sidney Webb, because he regarded his title as a regrettable but unavoidable concomitant of public office. This is the name he liked his friends to use, and one that will be for ever memorable on account of the lifelong partnership with which it is associated, and because it is linked with the long series of books and pamphlets that made their author the most remarkable and influential political thinker since John Stuart Mill.
His mind was characterized by a practical bias and a sense of the possible that is typically English. The detailed and voluminous studies of social institutions undertaken by the Webbs were always inspired by an initial determination to improve them. Indeed, theory and practice were to them a single and continuous process—the staff work and operations of the same campaign. Sidney Webb's abiding greatness was not as a statesman or administrator, for he did not take office until he was over sixty. It lies in his work as the principal architect of the increasingly enlightened public opinion, and the succession of legislative reforms, that have quickened the pace of social progress in this country since the turn of the century. His main endeavour was to change the political democracy of his early years in the nineteenth century, with its two nations of rich and poor, into an economic and social democracy where wealth and opportunity would be shared, and planned co-operation for the common good would take the place of blind and egotistical competition. To do this he believed that the State should become the father of its people, instead of watching over their behaviour like a stern policeman. He has
1476
been charged for this reason with a bureaucratic indifference to individual freedom. But what in fact he wanted was to free the majority of society from living under economic duress in an environment and style of life created by the self-interest of powerful minorities. In such circumstances collective action becomes a sine qua non of personal freedom.
All Parties in the State stand in debt to his labours, for he lent to any man and any agency he thought capable of turning his ideas into facts. The Conservative Education Act of 1902, which opened the door of secondary and technical education to the children of the working classes, owed much to The Education Muddle and the Way Out, an anonymous Fabian tract written with the first-hand experience of the Chairman of the Technical Education Committee of the London County Council. The Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, with its analysis of the causes of destitution and its insistence that poverty must either be cured or relieved by the State, contained in germ the social legislation of the Liberal Governments between 1906 and 1914. It is also the direct ancestor of the Beveridge Report, and the comprehensive system of national insurance that has since emerged from it.
My own Party, if I may refer to our attitude, looks upon Sidney Webb much as the Children of Israel must have regarded Moses, who made of them a nation with a purpose, and pointed out to them the way through the Wilderness as well as the fair prospect of the Promised Land. He married the trade union movement to a peculiarly British brand of Socialism which eschewed violence and disavowed materialism, setting out to achieve its object by the patient and gradual process, of infiltration into the representative organs of central and local government.
The Webbs planned their private lives as systematically as their work and always with one eye on some fresh foothold for their ideas. The heyday of their political salon was during the years they spent at 41, Grosvenor Road. But when in later life they retired to Passfield Corner, which they secured in reply to an advertisement for a country cottage with no dogs or cocks within hearing, it soon became a place of pilgrimage to which political beginners were invited and where they could mingle with the great. It was there I

1477
believe I heard that the Webbs had once been to a concert. It was a performance of Parsifal at the Albert Hall, and they had been given a couple of free tickets. When Sidney Webb was asked afterwards whether he had enjoyed it, he replied, "Yes, we enjoyed it very much. Our seats were immediately behind Herbert Samuel, and we had a most interesting talk during the interval about the incidence of sickness during pregnancy."
This House and the country owe an incalculable debt to the intellectual legacy and personal example of this great Englishman, who embodied so well the spirit of our British political genius, its practical idealism, its hatred of violence, its will to public service, and its passionate resentment of cruelty, injustice or repression. I know that he would like best to be remembered as a faithful servant of the people, to whom his life and his writings were dedicated, and, above all, as the champion of the underprivileged among them, the sick, the hungry, the old, the unemployed whom his pioneering vision has already done so much to bring within the family circle of our national life.
2.27 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, it is, I think, fitting that something should be said from these Benches with regard to Lord Passfield, whose death we lament to-day, and I would echo what has already been so well said by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. Lord Passfield was, of course, rather a legendary figure to most of us. He was, indeed, a member of the House of Lords; but he was not in the accepted sense of the term a House of Lords man. He entered it, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, told us, with considerable reluctance, and played little part in its deliberations, except when official duties necessitated. He will go down to history not so much as a Parliamentary figure but as a social and political thinker. In this sphere the influence which he exerted on the history of his time cannot be overestimated. Most of us on this side of the House would disagree with much of his doctrine, but in one essential respect we should all find ourselves at one with him. He was essentially an evolutionary. To him Socialism was not a revolutionary creed, as it has so often been on the Continent. It was a practical method of improving the conditions of the working
1478
classes. In that respect he was characteristically English.
Even Parties who disagreed with his political views incorporated many of his practical proposals in their policy, especially in the sphere of education. He had a vision and, with his gifted wife, he devoted his life to it. He was the founder of the Fabian Society, and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, emphasized, he was the intellectual father of the Labour Party. When history comes to be written, no man, I believe will be found to have played a greater part in the moulding of the thoughts of his generation than Sidney Webb. I should like to join with the noble Earl in his expressions of sympathy with the relatives.
2.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, all sections of your Lordships' House would desire to join in this tribute to Lord Passfield, although, as has been said, his life's work and achievement were not here. It was only a few years after his advent to this House that he suffered a. stroke of paralysis which incapacitated him wholly from all political and literary activities. Indeed, it is not as a member of either House of Parliament, or as a Minister in the short-lived Labour Governments of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, that he will be remembered, but as an effective pioneer of political thought and as one of the principal founders of a great Party, which within his own lifetime had secured a great majority in the House of Commons and now constitutes the Government of the day.
On these occasions when we pay tribute to our members who have rendered distinguished and devoted service to the nation in any of its activities, it is a wise tradition that the test should not be our agreement or disagreement with their political views; the test in the case of one in political life is whether he has laboured long and ably according to his convictions to advance the common good moved not by ambition or self-seeking but by an eagerness to promote well., being and to raise the level of the happiness of the people. Judged by this test there is no man more than Sidney Webb who has won all our gratitude and our praise.
I knew Sidney and Beatrice Webb intimately for more than fifty years. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said,

1479
their partnership was a very remarkable one, probably more close and more effective than any in our history. They shared the same humanitarian enthusiasm; they were marked by the same untiring industry; they were equally willing to sacrifice all ordinary delights, not with fame as the spur, but in an effort to cure the social evils that have so long degraded our industrial civilization, and to raise the whole body of the people to a higher level of character and of culture.
Nor was it any vague idealism that inspired them. They excelled in the art—a very necessary art in our complicated world of politics and administration—of getting things done. They had also the great virtue of initiative, which they showed in the sphere of public education, in that of public assistance, in their labours in political and economic research, and in the foundation of the London School of Economics and Political Science, now one of the largest and most influential educational institutions of the world. They stand out as leaders of thought and action in the history of our time. Although our tribute here is to that member of the partnership who was himself a member of this House, in their death as in their lives Sidney and Beatrice Webb are not to be divided. They have won that highest honour that can be won, to live in men's memories as high examples of the good citizen.
2.33 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, if I sat here and said nothing it might conceivably be misunderstood to mean that the Church was not interested in the kind of work which Sidney Webb did for this country. That is wholly and utterly untrue. Just to safeguard myself from that misinterpretation I feel that I should, in the briefest possible way, associate myself with the tributes that have been paid. The Church indeed could not be indifferent to Sidney Webb's work when it dealt with problems which so closely concerned the mission of the Church itself, in relieving miseries and in raising the social conditions and the cultural level of our people. In fact, there was a constant interchange of affection on these matters between the Church and Sidney Webb. There were some great leaders of the Church who were intimate friends of his and the Church itself has benefited
1480
from the stimulus of the work which Sidney Webb did. I would, therefore, desire to associate myself with the tributes which have been paid.
2.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am, I think, now the only member in your Lordships' House who sat throughout in Cabinet with Sidney Webb, and perhaps I may be allowed to say a word on this occasion, the more because nearly sixty years ago I heard Sidney Webb's name frequently in my home. In those days a group of able men were planning the London that we know to-day. There were Charles Harrison, J. F. B. Firth and Sir John Lubbock; there were men who entered your Lordships' House later, Lord Dickinson, Lord Monkswell, Lord Farrer and others. They were led by one to whom London can never discharge its debt of gratitude, Lord Rosebery, the first Chairman of the London County Council. Under a non-dogmatic umbrella, which was called the Progressive Party, there were many opinions, and among the members there were famous Londoners, John Burns, Will Crooks and, later, Sidney Webb. I heard his name frequently at home because my father was an ardent supporter of this movement.
Although Sidney Webb's main interest was education (and in particular technical education)—and I suppose his main contribution in those days was to persuade a reluctant Progressive Party to adopt a conservative Education Act—yet his influence was far wider. He was planning a socialized London. He and John Burns were denounced as dreamers of dreams. I have read somewhere that the phrase was John Morley's. But, worse than that, they were denounced as Socialists, and in those days to be called a Socialist was a serious affair. It was not a passport to high and lucrative office as it is to-day, but a term of violent abuse, as if we should say Communists and fellow travellers. The work that Sidney Webb planned was severely checked in 1907, but he had the gratification of seeing it resumed and put on the way to completion by another very great Londoner; I mean the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Herbert Morrison.
As has been rightly said, Cabinet office was irrelevant in Sidney Webb's career. One thing I remember was the help he gave in eradicating possible friction

1481
between the Indian settlers and the Colonial Government in East Africa, which we know from experience can be a very bitter and delicate thing. I cannot forget that with the assistance of that rather terrifying soldier-civil servant, Sir Samuel Wilson, and Sidney Webb, we did avoid the possibility of those difficulties. That is just an incident I remember.
But it has been rightly said that Parliamentary life was only what you might call a postscript to the saga of the lives of the Webbs. As Mrs. Webb is reported to have said when Sidney entered Parliament in 1922: "Remember, Sidney, your career is behind you". That was perfectly true, because their real place was among the prophets, the forerunners of the Social Revolution of to-day. You will have to study the pages of history to find names to rank with theirs. In their day controversy was conducted with much heat and passion. Yet it was to be noted that when the heat had abated and the rhetorical incandescence was dimmed, the shape of things had often crystallized according to the Webb design.
I do not know whether it is permitted to make a personal reference in a simple and informal way. I was for some time a next door neighbour to Sidney Webb in Millbank, and it was a great privilege to have that casual and informal acquaintance with him. The Webbs' political parties were terrifyingly brilliant, and that was not by accident but by design. I remember Mrs. Webb saying: "You do not ask husbands and wives together; one of them is so frequently inoperative." The greatest privilege of all was to be invited as sole guest to their home at Passfield Corner. Certainly there was a penalty. There was that remorseless trek over hill and dale, led by host and hostess in person. But in the evening there was the fireside chat, and the opportunity of listening to the brilliant rapier play of the conversation of that affectionate and devoted pair. There was one thing we did notice in that sitting room, which some noble Lords may know. The curtains did not match. We raised that point with Mrs. Webb and we said: "The curtains do not match". She said: "The decorators objected, but Sidney and I wished it to be so". We came to the conclusion that this was an emotional reaction in their place of rest against the perfect balance of their mental processes.
1482
We are not paying just a formal tribute to-clay to a great man who served his country well and deserved honour. Sidney Webb's achievement was recognized by a place in this House, but the significant thing is the glory that his name has added to our records.
House adjourned during pleasure.

  MINISTERS' FLIGHTS.
  MINISTERS' FLIGHTS.
  WOOL CONTROLS.
  WOOL CONTROLS.
  EMPLOYMENT OF POLES.
  EMPLOYMENT OF POLES.
  COAL SUPPLIES.
  COAL SUPPLIES.
  THE HAIG STATUE AT MONTREUIL.
  THE HAIG STATUE AT MONTREUIL.
  PROROGATION: HIS MAJESTY'S SPEECH.
  PROROGATION: HIS MAJESTY'S SPEECH.