Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a position to make any statement as to the business next week, as promised yesterday?

I hope to be in a position to-morrow to make a more definite statement about next week's business. Perhaps I may say in the meantime that we shall ask the House to adjourn early on Tuesday, in connection with the King's Birthday celebrations, probably about seven o'clock.

Will any of the Scottish Estimates be taken next week?

Perhaps my hon. Friend will put a question down tomorrow.

I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."

Last night I stated that I disagreed with the statements made by the Attorney-General in introducing the Bill. This is the third time the measure has come before us. In connection with the two previous Bills the statement was made that they were for the purpose of meeting the claim of the Dominions, made at the Imperial Conference, and that statement is repeated in a modified form in the Memorandum to the present Bill. If the proceedings of the Imperial Conference are referred to it will be found that none of the Dominions ever asked for this, and there was no arrangement of the kind whatever. The question is whether there is a shortage of judicial strength in the House of Lords and in the Judicial Committee. Again, if I were satisfied that that was so, I would be prepared to support the appointment of additional judges, or such number of additional judges as might be required for the purpose of giving adequate strength to those two very important Courts, being the highest Court of Appeal for the Courts of this country, and also for the Courts in the Colonies throughout the Empire. Dealing first with the Attorney-General's suggestion that this was a pledge made at the Imperial Conference, I notice that the Memorandum states that the increase in the number of Law Lords from four to six, proposed by this Bill, is the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed at the Imperial Conference in 1911. That is a very plain, definite statement, but there is no truth in it whatever. I do not wish to suggest that the Government are deliberately trying to mislead the House—far from it—but I do say that no resolution bearing on this question involving the appointment by this Government of two additional judges was passed at the Imperial Conference. I think, if I can establish that point, that I take away the whole strength of the appeal made by the Government to the House. We are on this side—and I think I am able to include the Front Bench—economists. We profess to be. Charges are made by the other side that in face of being declared economists we have largely increased the expenditure. That has nothing to do with it. An economic Government may largely increase expenditure if that expenditure is for the good of the people. Economy means that the expenditure which the Government disburses which is not for the benefit of the country should be done away with. Everyone will admit I think that £ 12,000 per year is a very large sum of money, and capitalised it means that because it is to go for ever, since you may depend on it that if we agree to this Bill appointing two judges we will never get rid of those two judges, in our lifetime at any rate. Therefore I hope that if I can convince the Government they have made a great mistake—and I am sure they have—in suggesting such a Resolution was passed; and also, in addition, that the Attorney-General is mistaken in supposing that there is not at present on the rota judges available for the House of Lords and Privy Council sufficient for all purposes, that then the Government, being a Government pledged to the hilt in favour of economy, will no longer press this proposition on the House. The record of this matter is a very brief one. It commenced in this way. Mr. Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia, proposed a short resolution that there should be an Imperial Court constituting a Court of Appeal for the Courts in Great Britain and also constituting a final Court of Appeal for the Colonies. That is a proposition I have supported in this House before, and which was very considerably supported by Liberal speakers. Mr. Fisher's point was that the present constitution of the House of Lords and the Privy Council is not a good one. His resolution was:—

"That it is desirable that the judicial functions in regard to the Dominions now exercised by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be vested in an Imperial Appeal Court, which should also be the final Court of Appeal for Great Britain and Ireland."

In other words that the House of Lords as a judicial body should be abolished and that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a judicial body should be abolished, and that a new Grand Court of Appeal should be established for all those purposes. I think there are many reasons why that proposal should be adopted. We know that the Gladstone Government carried through the great judicial reforms and did away with many of the abuses to which I referred yesterday, and which were portrayed by Charles Dickens in "Bleak House," and by many other writers, abuses in the Court of Chancery which have been largely done away with in 1873 when Lord Selborne, then Lord Chancellor, carried through the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, which to a large extent removed the distinction between Common Law and Chancery so far as procedure was concerned. The Courts were then consolidated into one Court to a considerable extent, and we know that one of the great reforms adopted by that Act was the change in the composition of the final Court of Appeal. The judicial functions were taken away from the House of Lords, but, unfortunately for the country, in the following year, 1874, the Liberals went out of power, and the Conservatives came into office. They had not been in power for more than a year or two before they reversed that very great change, and we have the very unsatisfactory arrangement at present of the House of Lords, which is composed of a large number of laymen, and a very small number of lawyers, having those judicial powers. Every Member of the House of Lords has the right, the strict right, to appear and vote on every appeal which comes before the House of Lords. They do not, as a matter of fact, do it, but it leaves the matter in a very unsatisfactory condition. Another matter which has created a great deal of confusion in the Colonies has been that there are different decisions given by the Judicial Committee and the House of Lords. There are several subjects on which those two High Courts have come to different conclusions which makes it almost impossible to determine what the law is. If you are in a Colony and your appeal goes to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then you get the law as it has been laid down there. If the same circumstances arise in this country on appeal to the House of Lords, the precedents are all the other way. That is all wrong, and no doubt those were some of the reasons which induced Mr. Fisher to suggest this Motion. The Prime Minister of New Zealand had another Motion:—

"That it has now become evident, considering the growth of population, the diversity of laws enacted, and the differing public policies affecting legal interpretation in His Majesty's Overseas Dominions, that no Imperial Court of Appeal can be satisfactory which does not include judicial representatives of those Overseas Dominions."

That is a resolution which personally I would not agree with, because I think the great advantage of the Judicial Committee to the Colonies is that it is composed of judges who are not Colonial and are not concerned with the political affairs of the different Dominions and Colonies from which the appeals come. That has always been amongst us Canadians one of the strong reasons why we have always been glad that we have had an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When questions affecting the Constitution under the British North America Act, 1867, have come up in the Canadian Courts, they have nearly always been matters of bitter controversy between the two political parties, and it very rarely happens in the Colonial Courts, as also here to a large extent, that the judges have not been in their time politicians on one side or the other. Hence the people of Canada have never been really satisfied with the interpretation placed by the Canadian Courts upon debated constitutional questions arising out of the British North America Act, and every question of importance has sooner or later found its way to the Judicial Committee, whose decisions in these matters have been very acceptable to the general body of people in Canada. Sometimes those decisions have gone against one party, sometimes against the other, but it has been recognised that the questions have been approached here entirely from the legal point of view, unembarrassed by any political prepossessions on the part of the judges. Therefore, I should oppose the proposal of New Zealand. It is far more advantageous to the Colonies that they should get the benefit of the distinguished judges who sit in the Judicial Committee in connection with all cases, but particularly in connection with constitutional cases. That, too, was the view taken by the Imperial Conference. While there was no objection to Mr. Fisher's resolution, the New Zealand resolution did not meet with the approval of any other Dominion. After discussion both resolutions were withdrawn, and the only other resolution passed was one moved by Mr. Fisher in these terms:—

"That having heard the views of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Haldane, the Conference recommends that the proposals of the Government of the United Kingdom be embodied in a communication to be sent to the Dominions as early as possible."

In the face of that how can the Government make the statement that this proposed increase in the number of Law Lords is the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed by the Imperial Conference in 1911? There is no connection between the two things at all. I may say that in pursuance of that resolution the Government here some time afterwards put forward their proposals, one of which was an increase of two judges in the Judicial Committee, but those proposals were not discussed at the Conference. The Dominions do not care how many judges there are, so long as there are enough, and whether or not there are enough is entirely a matter for this Government to determine. I will deal with that question later on; at present I want to dispose of the idea that this increase has been asked for in any sense whatever by the Dominions. It would be invidious for the representatives of the Dominions at an Imperial Conference to dictate to the Government here, who pay the judges and are responsible for them, what they should do in the matter. What the Dominions did say in the discussion was that they were not satisfied with the quorum which now sits in the Judicial Committee. The Attorney-General referred to that last night, and I quite accept his statement. The Dominions wanted a quorum of five instead of three. How the larger quorum should be obtained was a matter entirely for this Government to determine. The Dominions did not suggest that it should be obtained by the appointment of two additional judges. I think I shall be able to show conclusively that a quorum of five can be obtained very easily from the number of judges at present available. The hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham) last night completely disposed of the suggestion of the Attorney-General that the appointment of these two new judges would enable the Court to do any more business than at present. It is not proposed to provide for two Courts; you would have only one Court to dispose of Colonial appeals; and if you appoint two new judges in order to increase the quorum, you certainly will not be able to do more business. In further proof of my statement that there is nothing in the proceedings to show that the Dominions want two more judges appointed, I propose to read the remarks made by the different representatives at the Conference. I will quote from the précis. There is a longer report, but really everything that was said is contained in the shorter statement taken at the time:—

"Mr. Fisher, in moving the Commonwealth Resolution, said that they wished to advance the view that it was advisable to have one Imperial Court to which all cases could be submitted for final decision. The constitution of that Court need not be gone into at the moment.

Mr. Batchelor pointed out that there were two Courts of Final Appeal in the Empire: one, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for the Crown Colonies, India, and the Overseas Dominions; and the other the House of Lords, for the United Kingdom. That was an anomalous position, and unless there were serious practical difficulties in the way it ought not to be continued in the Empire as now developed. When an appeal was made to a Court of Final Jurisdiction there ought to be no possibility of uncertainty or of conflict of opinion in different parts of the Empire as to what the law really was. As the two bodies were composed largely of the same judges there seemed to be no great reason against having one Court. The judgments of the Privy Council were findings of a Board rather than decisions of a Court. It was the one Court in the Empire which did not give individual judgments."

That is another grievance raised by the Dominions. The first was that the Court should have at least five judges sitting. In Canada the Supreme Court consists of six judges, of whom five make a quorum. It has always been felt to be not quite satisfactory that in appeals coming over here from Courts consisting of five or six members the judgments should be reversed by a smaller Court of three or four members. The representatives of the Dominions spoke very strongly upon that. The other question was that referred to by Mr. Batchelor. There has been a feeling that it would be more satisfactory to the Dominions that in the case of their appeals, as in the case of House of Lords appeals, the different judges should give their individual judgments, instead of there being one single judgment, which is not necessarily the judgment of the whole Court, but simply the judgment of a majority. The reason that point was taken was in connection with constitutional cases. It does not make so much difference in ordinary private cases whether or not you get all the opinions of the judges. What you want is the final decision. But in a constitutional case it is sometimes of the greatest importance to know whether or not the decision of the final Court is a unanimous decision, or whether there was a difference of opinion, because very often these constitutional questions result sooner or later in new legislation. It is therefore very important indeed, in suggesting new legislation, to know whether the final Court of Appeal was unanimous upon the question or whether there was a decided difference of opinion, and what that difference of opinion was. So that Mr. Batchelor and the other representatives took the ground that they would like to have individual judgments in the case of their appeals.

"Mr. Asquith said that some people thought that that was a drawback, others that it was an advantage. One never knew whether a judgment of the Privy Council was unanimous or not, or to what extent it was dissented from.

Mr. Batchelor said that was one of the arguments sometimes used against it. The practice of giving one judgment only could not tend to the same close study of a case by each individual member of the Court as the giving of an individual judgment would require. Moreover, the institution of one Final Court would be another step in the direction of Imperial unity.

Lord Loreburn, in explaining the nature of the jurisdiction already existing, said that the House of Lords heard all the appeals from the United Kingdom. In theory every Peer was entitled to sit in the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal."

A most absurd proposition, if you take into consideration that the House of Lords is appointed, not by election, but comes into existence by birth; for a man may be an idiot and yet be entitled, as a Law Lord, to sit and hear these appeals. [An HON. MEMBER: "They never do."]

"For a long time"—

Lord Loreburn goes on—

"the attendance had been restricted to the judicial members, namely, the Lord Chancellor, four Lords of Appeal, with any previous Chancellor, and any Peer who had held high judicial office; three members formed a quorum, but the Court seldom sat with less than four. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had jurisdiction, broadly speaking, in regard to India, the Dominion and Colonial Courts, and certain other Courts. From this it followed that the cases dealt with might involve old French Law, Roman Dutch Law, English Common Law, considerably modified by statutes in different Dominions, and also the Indian Codes. It was, therefore, necessary to adjust the composition of the Tribunal to the nature of the laws with which it had to deal. The judges entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee were the Lord Chancellor, the four Lords of Appeal, all Privy Councillors who had held high judicial office, two judges with special knowledge of Indian law, and also judges, not exceeding five in number, from the Dominions or Colonies."

I am rather sorry that the Attorney-General is not present, because he referred last night in one of the Clauses of this Bill to the raising of the five Colonial judges to seven. I understood him to say that these Colonial judges were now entitled to sit in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but did not sit in cases except those from their own Dominions. I would have liked to ask him about that. I think that is a mistake. I think I have seen sitting in the Privy Council and hearing appeals from Canada Lord de Villiers, who, of course, comes from South Africa. It does seem to me that the suggestion of the Attorney-General, if it be correct, is the proper one. That is to say, that this Court should not, for reasons I gave a short time ago, be composed of representatives from the different Colonies deciding one another's cases, but that the deciding judges in any particular case should be English judges if it so happens to be convenient to have representation from the particular Dominions from which the case comes. I have no objection whatever to having the number increased from five to seven. But I would like to have the point cleared up. Lord Loreburn goes on to say:—

"In practice the members were the same as those who sat in the House of Lords, with the addition of Sir Arthur Wilson, who was unquestionably a judge of the very highest ability, but of whose services they would shortly be deprived"—

That has happened since, but there are still two judges like Sir A. Wilson who sit in Indian appeals.

"If both the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee were sitting at the same time, a distribution of the available members was made, and the utmost care was taken to equalise as far as possible the strength in the two Courts. In substance the personnel of the two Courts was identical, and he had never known a case in which there had been conflict between their decisions."

I do not agree with that, for I have known a case where there was a conflict between the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Councl. That, I think, is a most unfortunate incident.

"Dr. Findlay said that the conflict, when any, had been in connection with dicta of different members.

Lord Loreburn said that that constantly occurred in England and between different dicta in the House of Lords itself, where it was the custom for each judge to deliver his own judgment. Sometimes the judges differed in opinion and sometimes they agreed, but for different reasons. His own view was that if in every Court there was only one judgment there would be more coherence and consistency. That, however, was a point in regard to which the Home Government would not be disposed to make any difficulty. Each constituent part of the Empire ought to judge for itself as to the kind of tribunal it wished, and the composition of that tribunal. Whatever Court of Final Appeal in England was desired by any of the Colonies the Home Government would wish to give effect to the desire as far as possible, and if they would agree on the same kind of Court and the same kind of judges so much the better."

All this is from Lord Loreburn: I hope the House will bear that in mind. What I am reading are not suggestions from any of the Colonial delegates, but from Lord Loreburn, and, of course, that what he may say in an Imperial Conference is binding upon the Government here. It cannot be said that it was a request from the delegates from the Colonies, as suggested in the Memorandum of the Government!

"With regard to the Privy Council, was it desired to have British judges only? Was it desired that the Indian judges should take part in the appeals from the Dominions? Was it desired that there should be a permanent judge from each Dominion, and that those judges should deal with all the appeals to the Privy Council, or that the individual judges should with the British judges deal only with the appeals from their respective Dominions? If desired, it could be arranged that all the cases from a particular Dominion should be heard consecutively, and a time fixed for their hearing convenient to the Dominion concerned, so that a judge from that Dominion might be present. Having regard to the complex nature of the jurisdiction, the best course would probably be to have always a wide membership of the Judicial Committee, and that a selection should be made according to the nature of the case to be tried. That was done at present so far as there was the necessary judicial strength. Another point for consideration was the different rules which prevailed in different Dominions as to special leave being required as to the limit of the amount involved, as to the nature of the security to be given, and so forth. With regard to the United Kingdom, the Government were not prepared to recommend that the personnel of the judicial body in the House of Lords should be changed. It was already possible to add any distinguished judge from the Dominions. If each Dominion would say what kind of Court they preferred and the class of judges they wished to see, the Home Government would do its very best to meet their views. His own idea was that they should add to the highest Court of Appeal both in the United Kingdom and for the Dominions and Colonies by selecting two English judges of the finest quality, that the quorum should be fixed at, say, five, and that the Court should sit successively in the House of Lords for United Kingdom appeals, and in the Privy Council for appeals from the Dominions and Colonies. In that way they would have substantially the same Court in its full strength for both classes of appeals."

There is a direct suggestion that two additional judges should be appointed. I ask the House to remember that this suggestion was made by Lord Loreburn, and did not in any way come from the Dominions:—

"Sir Joseph Ward pointed out that in order for a New Zealand judge to deal only with New Zealand cases it would be necessary for him to leave New Zealand for six months, and then perhaps have only one case to deal with. He and his colleagues would have no objection to Canadian or South African judges sitting in New Zealand cases, but it would hardly be practicable for New Zealand judges to come over to deal only with New Zealand cases.

Lord Haldane remarked that in connection with a Maori land case, which occupied nearly ten days before the Privy Council, it would have been useful if they could have had a New Zealand judge present as an assessor, to make sure that no points of importance on a long series of special Statutes were missed.

Sir Joseph Ward said that the majority of cases from New Zealand would have reference to native land, in regard to which there was much difference of legal opinion, and it was of the greatest importance that there should be present a judge who knew the customs of the natives, which had to be considered in such cases.

Mr. Asquith pointed out that if the Court sat in full strength it would meet the complaint sometimes made with regard to the Judicial Committee being a scratch Court and too few in numbers. He had often argued cases in the Judicial Committee before three judges, which he thought was hardly fitting, seeing that they might be appeals from the Supreme Courts of various Dominions."

And Mr. Asquith did seem to think that there should be a greater number. I quite admit that they asked for that:—

"Sir Joseph Ward asked if the Lord Chancellor had any objection to there being only one Court by merging the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the House of Lords, instead of one for the United Kingdom and another for the Overseas Dominions, and make the one a final Court of Appeal.

Lord Loreburn said it was practically the same thing, and the system which he had suggested might develop into the one Court. Personally, he would be very well pleased if it did. Our own system was somewhat complicated, but he did not think that the legal profession or the people at large at home had any quarrel with the existing final Court of Appeal."

I cannot agree with that. I have heard Member after Member in this House get up and object very strongly to the continuance of the judicial powers of the House of Lords. There is no advantage in it, and it involves a great many inconsistencies. Why, if the Government are so much concerned, as I think they ought to be, to fall in with the views of the Dominions as suggested in this Imperial Conference, do not they meet the Dominions upon this point? Why not, as was suggested here every time this Bill has come up, have one great Imperial Court—not a House of Lords Appeal Court, nor a Judicial Committee—but one real Court? We have that, in a way, at present. Why not have it really, instead of nominally? If we are to have appeals heard, why not substitute a Court? Australia asked for it, and Canada would like to have it, and I am sure there would be no objection as far as the people of this country are concerned that there should be a Court of that kind.

"Lord Haldane said that the Lord Chancellor's proposition was really to make one Court, but to keep the old forms.

Mr. Malan said that in South Africa there was no right of appeal from their Appeal Court to any Court outside the Union. But every subject had the right to petition the King, and any such petition would, as a matter of practice, go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. If the Committee gave leave to appeal the case would be considered on its merits. It was not anticipated that there would be more than one such case in five or ten years. Therefore, as far as South Africa was concerned, they were generally satisfied with the present practice. It was, however, felt that the Judicial Committee was in some respects no ordinary Court of Law at all, and it would be an advantage to have its procedure in conformity with that of the other Courts of Law."

I could not put my view on this matter before the House anything like as well as they are expressed in this document, especially as the Government are trying to make out, as I think most improperly, that they are meeting the views of the Dominions in the proposition to increase the number of judges. Mr. Malan went on to say:—

"The appeal to the King was one of the connecting links of the Empire, and on purely sentimental grounds it would be a right thing to have one final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire. A great deal sometimes depended on a name, and if they had one Imperial Court of Appeal, perhaps in two divisions, one dealing with appeals from the United Kingdom, and the other with appeals from the Dominions and India, leaving the Lord Chancellor certain discretion in constituting the bench of the respective divisions, the difficulty might be solved.

Mr. Brodeur said that in Canada they had been very well satisfied with the existing system of appeals before the Privy Council. In view of the dispositions of the British North America Act and of the different procedures and practices of the various provinces, it would be somewhat difficult to make a change. Everyone who had practised before the Judicial Committee must have been impressed with the great breadth of mind which prevailed amongst its members. Not only might a change be objected to by some of the provinces, but it would be a reflection on the present Court, which had given satisfaction.

Sir Joseph Ward said that there was not the slightest idea of reflecting on the Privy Council or its members. If such a line of argument were followed no change at all would ever be made. New Zealand were in the peculiar position that out of their limited area some 7,000,000 acres of land were owned by natives. When litigation in connection with this land arose, native customs had to be taken into account, and it was felt that when important cases of this kind came before the Privy Council, it would be a great advantage if they had a representative judge from New Zealand present. In view of the statement of the Lord Chancellor, he would not urge that the Judicial Committee should be merged in the House of Lords. He suggested, however, that in addition to the present members of the Judicial Committee, there should be a permanent judge from each of the important Oversea Dominions. The difficulty with regard to a judge coming over specially was that in all probability he would have to deal with cases which had already come before him in New Zealand. If permanent judges were appointed as he suggested, possibly for five or seven years, after which they would resume their work as Supreme Court judges, it would not only get over various difficulties which stood in the way of other proposals, but would greatly assist towards securing that uniformity and co-ordination of the law in different parts of the Empire which was so eminently desirable. In view of the importance of the interests involved, the question of expense, so far as each Dominion was concerned, was a secondary matter. New Zealand would hail with supreme satisfaction the presence of judges from the other Dominions in cases in which New Zealand was concerned, and he could hardly think that there would be any objection on their part on practical grounds to a New Zealand judge taking part in cases from the other Dominions.

Dr. Findlay said that the creation of one final Court of Appeal for the Emplre would satisfy a great Imperial sentiment."

I am sure that appeals to hon. Members on the other side of the House, and I am surprised when there is an opportunity like this of talking real Imperialism, and of trying to meet the demands of our Dominions we hear so little from hon. Members opposite. Their Imperialism is more connected with Toryism than with Empire. If there is any Tory capital to be made out of talk about Empire and waving the flag they are always prepared to do it, but when we are trying to induce the Government to meet the suggestions of the Dominions which are most reasonable for a great Imperial Court, not only for Great Britain and Ireland, but also for the Colonies and Dominions, including India, they are silent. That would be true Imperialism compared with what we hear suggested upon the other side of the House. Dr. Findlay went on to say:—

"and although the personnel would differ very little from that of the present Court, it would constitute a step towards closer union. The presence of a resident Colonial judge would obviate the necessity for sending over at great expense counsel from, for instance, New Zealand to see that the Privy Council were instructed on the peculiar features of New Zealand law. In any fair conception of the burdens of Empire, there should be no objection to the Dominions sharing the cost of the Imperial Court of Appeal by paying the salary of one of their own judges."

Sir Edward Morris said that very few appeals came from Newfoundland, and they were generally satisfied with the present arrangements. At the same time, if there was a desire for change on the part of Dominions who were more largely concerned in the work of the Judicial Committee, he would not consider himself justified in voting against the resolution. The proposed change was largely one of name, the Imperial Court of Appeal instead of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There could be no objection to each Dominion having a representative on the permanent Court of Appeal. The principle was in harmony with the general sentiment of unification now prevailing.

Mr. Asquith asked whether the other Dominions would approve of Sir Joseph Ward's suggestion that each Dominion should appoint a resident judge who should sit, not only in cases affecting his own Dominions, but in appeals from all the Dominions.

Mr. Fisher said that in Australia they desired to have an Australian final Court of Appeal, failing that, they desired to have one Court of Appeal in England. He was not at present prepared to accept Sir J. Ward's suggestion.

Sir E. Morris said that Newfoundland would not be prepared to appoint a man and pay his salary and expenses in view of the small number of cases from that country."

That is as I stated. They were unanimously opposed to Sir Joseph Ward's suggestion that Colonial judges should act on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. They also unanimously supported the resolution proposed by Mr. Fisher that there should be one Court of Appeal instead of two Courts. The report proceeds:—

"Mr. Asquith said that he would much prefer the suggestion that the cases from a particular Dominion should be fixed to be heard at a time to suit the convenience of a judge from that Dominion. He thought that this would substantially meet Sir J. Ward's view that when cases from a particular Dominion came on, it would be an advantage to have a local judge present, and the Government would be glad to meet that view as far as possible.

Lord Loreburn agreed that if there were only one or two cases, the sending over of a judge would be a large order for a comparatively small result."

That is Lord Loreburn's statement, and it is not a statement made by any of the Colonials, and it contains the suggestion that there should be two additional judges appointed. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that Lord Lore-burn made that statement because the Imperial Government have the responsibility of providing the Court, and that was his statement. It was not made by any of the Colonial representatives, and they did not ask for it. Lord Loreburn goes on to say:

"As he understood the discussion there was general agreement to the following effect: That there should be for the whole British Empire one final Court of Appeal in two divisions, one for the United Kingdom consisting of the same persons who were now entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and the other for the Overseas Dominions, consisting of the persons now entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee, with such further additions as might be agreed upon, and that it should be strengthened by the addition of two English judges."

If the Government think that that justifies them in saying that a resolution to this effect was passed by the Imperial Conference, very well.

Does the hon. Member quote Lord Loreburn as saying that that is the general summing up. Was there any dissent from Lord Loreburn's statement?

No. He said there should be two additional judges appointed. There would have been no dissent from the Dominions in regard to that proposition, and they were not called upon to pay any part of the expense. The suggestion of having two judges came entirely from Lord Loreburn. No doubt they have a reason for it. I do not know what it is exactly, but I have my suspicions. My point is that it was their proposition, and it was not asked for by the Dominions. I shall endeavour, in my subsequent remarks, to show that there was no necessity whatever to have two additional judges. In other words, a quorum of five can be obtained both by the Judicial Committee and the House of Lords from the present judges who are receiving salaries now without appointing these two additional judges.

"Sir Joseph Ward thought that that represented the only modus vivendi.

Mr. Fisher said that he would withdraw his resolution and substitute the following:—"

I have already read the resolution.

"Mr. Batchelor said that they looked forward to one final Court of Appeal for the Empire. The two divisions seemed to be a practicable arrangement for the time being, but it ought to be understood that the proposal was merely for the time being.

The original resolutions were then withdrawn, and the substituted resolution was unanimously agreed to."

I am sorry I have had to detain the House reading quotations from this Report, but when I make the charge that the statement set forth in the Memorandum has no truth whatever in it. I feel that it is necessary to prove it, and I submit that I have now proved it up to the hilt. I think I have shown that the suggestion to increase the number of judges from four to six as the first step necessary to give effect to the resolution passed at the Imperial Conference in 1911 is an absolute misstatement of what occurred on that occasion. Quite apart from what took place at the Imperial Conference, the Attorney-General suggested that there were not enough judges available to do the work. The real difficulty in connection with these two Courts arises from a matter that can be fixed without any legislation whatever, and it is that the two Courts should sit at the same time. There is no reason why the judicial Courts should not be divided into two parts, one sitting as the Judicial Committee and the other sitting in the House of Lords. When that was suggested it was stated that they could not keep up with the work. I do not know myself how many days a judge ought to work. In discussing this question in regard to the King's Bench Division, we found out that the judges work about 200 days in the year, or perhaps a little less. They work 170 days, and there are thirty-five Saturdays. Some of them do not work on Saturday at all, and some of them only half a day. There are thirty-five Saturdays in the judicial year, and Lord Loreburn, before the Joint Committee, made a suggestion that it would be fair to consider those thirty-five Saturdays as about seventeen working days. On this subject I have had a reply from the Attorney-General to a question I put which throws a great deal of light upon the point of these two Courts not being able to keep up with the work. I asked how many days the House of Lords sat as a judicial body and as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, respectively, actually hearing cases during the years 1910, 1911, and 1912. I also asked how many days in each of the said years the said Courts sat on the same day. Mr. Gulland, for the Attorney General, said that the House of Lords sat judicially 87 days in 1910, 100 days in 1911, and 86 days in 1912. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat 76 days in 1910, 101 days in 1911, and 101 days in 1912. Taking the year 1910, you get 163 as the total number of working days of these two Courts. Is it to be suggested that judges who sit altogether 163 days in the year cannot possibly take on any more work? It is a very serious thing for the Attorney-General to ask us to agree to an annual expenditure of £12,000 involving pensions for these judges, and to represent to us that they are required for the transaction of business when the Courts only needed to sit 160 days in 1910, 201 in 1911, and 197 in 1912 to clear up the business of both of them. The Attorney-General took the ground that the only judges available to constitute these two Courts were the four Law Lords. He objected to including the Lord Chancellor because he said he was a Member of the Government and had to attend Cabinet meetings, and was not always available. I think it will be found that the last three Lord Chancellors have always been on hand to sit in these Courts. We must remember that the Lord Chancellor receives the salary of £10,000 per annum, which is double the amount received by the Prime Minister, and he receives that seemingly large salary because he has to do this judicial work in addition to his responsible duties as a Member of the Government. The Attorney-General rather suggested that it was a matter of free will on the part of the Lord Chancellor whether he sat in these Courts. I object to that view. I say that if this country pays him a salary of £10,000 to fulfil certain duties it is not within the competence of that Noble Lord to say, "I will," or, "I will not attend in these Courts, as I see fit." I am not making any reflection upon these Noble Lords because they have always taken that view themselves. They do not shirk their work. They appear in these Courts, and preside over them, and there is no question that the Lord Chancellor is absolutely at the disposal of the country for the purpose of filling the office of one of the judges of the House of Lords. That makes five judges.

We always have in the House of Lords a number of ex-Lord Chancellors. At present we have two. A short time ago we had three, but unfortunately Lord Ashbourne died a few days ago. The Attorney-General said that none of these ex-Lord Chancellors were available except when they saw fit to sit in these Courts. I join issue with him there. He stated that these gentlemen had pensions in respect of the services which they had performed for the State. That is true with regard to an ordinary judge. He has to sit for fifteen years before he is entitled to a pension of £3,500 a year. Of course, it has so happened that in recent years Governments have remained in office a reasonably long time, though hon. Members opposite think that this Government is staying in a most unreasonably long time, and they are trying, with very poor success so far, to put them out; but it might happen that there might be a succession of Governments with very short terms of office. Lord Herschell was only in office for nine months, and that might occur again. We might at the next General Election have a very close result. This Government might be turned out, and their successors might only be able to remain in for a few months. Lord Halsbury is an old man now, and possibly he would not care to take up the appointment of Lord Chancellor again. We might, therefore, easily have a Lord Chancellor in office for only a few days. Is it reasonable to suggest that if a Government were in power for, say, a month, and a Lord Chancellor were appointed, that he would be entitled to a pension of £5,000 a year for the services he had performed for the country during that period of one month? To state the proposition is to furnish its contradiction. I suggest, therefore, that when the country agreed to give the ex-Lord Chancellor a pension of £5,000 a year the intention was that he should be available as one of the judges of these Courts. If I am right, then we are entitled absolutely to the services of the Earl of Halsbury and Lord Loreburn in addition to the other five judges. That makes seven judges.

The Attorney-General said that Lord Halsbury was very good, and that he came in of his own free will and gave his services on the Judicial Committee and in the House of Lords. I say it is not of his own free will. I say that as long as he takes that money from the country he is bound to give his services in these Courts. The large pension of £5,000 a year, equal to the salary of the Prime Minister, is given to these ex-Lord Chancellors in order that they may be available as members of the Court of the House of Lords and on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. We therefore have the four ordinary Law Lords, the Lord Chancellor, and two ex-Lord Chancellors. We may at any time have more. If hon. Gentlemen opposite and this Government comes to an end in three months or so, then we shall have another ex-Lord Chancellor, the present Lord Haldane. We, at any rate, have two, which makes seven judges to constitute a Court in which the quorum is five. That, however, is not all. We have, in addition, Lord Dunedin and Lord Kinnear, Scotch judges, who can be got at any time, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the Chief Justice of Ireland. We had Baron Palles over here the other day. He was called in by the Lord Chancellor to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to hear an important case from Canada affecting the marriage laws. We have also the Master of the Rolls, the President of the Probate Division, and five Lords Justice. We have fifteen or twenty judges who can be called upon if necessary. We have seven judges of whom we are absolutely sure, and, if by any chance any of them happen to be sick, we have this reserve force to fall back upon. There are always the two Indian judges, Sir John Edge and Syed Ameer Ali, so that all that is needed for the Indian cases, which constitute a considerable portion of the work of the Judicial Committee, are three other judges. Under these circumstances, there is no necessity whatever for the expenditure of this large sum of money.

I am very glad that this time the Government have put the salary of the new judges at £6,000. That may not meet with the approval of some of my hon. Friends, but I think it would be very invidious to appoint two new judges and give them £5,000 when there are four others, who have no additional duties to perform, getting £6,000 a year. It is suggested that the proper course would be to cut the salaries of the others down to £5,000, but I disagree with that. The salary of an ordinary judge in England is £5,000 per annum, and I do not think it is one penny too much. I oppose the appointment of these judges, but I would not oppose paying them the whole salary if they were appointed; and, if the salary of an ordinary judge is £5,000 a year, it does seem to me only proper that the judges who sit in appeal from these judges and who are naturally selected men, men who are considered to be most capable of filling the judicial office, should receive £1,000 additional, so that so far as that point is concerned I quite support the change in the Bill. Last night the Attorney-General raised the question as to the calls on the new judges, and antici- pated there would be no objection to it. Certainly, I have no objection to it, but I would like some information on the point. I understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the judges would only sit on cases from their particular Dominions. I have seen Lord de Villiers from South Africa sitting in cases of appeal from Canada. Do I understand there is to be a change in the law in that regard? If so, I agree with it. I do not think it would be acceptable to Canada or Australia to have their cases decided by judges from other Dominions or Colonies. What we really want, as Colonials, is to have the Court constituted of English judges, not acquainted with the politics or particular circumstances of the particular countries, so that they can look at the cases that come before them purely from a constitutional and legal standpoint, as they have done in the past.

The Attorney-General, I think unfairly, attempted to prejudice this discussion by pointing out that there were sixty-three cases standing for trial which ought to be disposed of before the 31st July next. Thirty-four of these cases are in the House of Lords, and it therefore comes to this, that there are about forty cases to be disposed of in ten weeks. That is no argument for increasing the number of judges. As a matter of fact, I suppose, there is not in the world, and certainly not in this country or in Canada, or in the United States, any Court which is in a better position to do its work than these Courts are, so far as the business before them is concerned. I believe I am correct in saying that there are really no arrears whatever either in the House of Lords or in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that the only cases in which judgment has not been delivered are a few cases very recently argued, as must always be the case before any final Court of Appeal. If there are forty cases to be tried in ten weeks, it means disposing of four cases weekly. If the Courts were in arrear, as are those in the King's Bench Division, I would suggest that the Privy Council might well sit oftener than it does. It sits regularly, I believe, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It sits sometimes on Friday, but never on Monday or Saturday. There is no objection to that, of course, so long as it keeps pace with the work. The Attorney-General tried to prejudice the issue before this House by suggesting that there are forty cases to be decided between now and the 31st July, and adding that the Lord Chancellor tells him that if we do not give him these additional judges the work cannot be accomplished. I do not think it is fair. I do not think it is true even. On the 31st July, every single case from the Colonies, including fifteen from Canada, will have been disposed of by the present judges in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and if for any reason whatever it may prove difficult to dispose of them, the Judicial Committee will only have to sit on Mondays and Fridays, and occasionally on a Saturday, in order to accommodate the Colonies and dispose of the cases. Colonial counsel are under great obligations to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the careful way in which they consider the circumstances of counsel coming over, and go out of their way to oblige them by expediting the hearing. I object to the Attorney-General taking this course.

Recently a long article appeared in the "Times." Evidently it was inspired by the Government. I always suspect, when I see anything on politics in the "Times," that it is more or less inspired by the Government, although it is a Tory paper. The Attorney-General has stated that there is a terrible rush in the Judicial Committee, and that, unless the House of Commons comes to the rescue, and authorises the appointment of these additional judges, there will be a great block. There is nothing whatever in that. The writer in the "Times" went so far as to point out that there were two cases which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had ordered to be reargued, and suggested that probably that order would not have been made had these additional judges been in existence. That shows how little the writer of the article knows about the law. What difference could it make whether there were five or twenty judges if the argument had been ineffective? The truth is that one case was argued ex parte. The Court probably saw that some point had not been dealt with, because there was no representative of the other side, and, consequently, provided for a reargument of the case. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the number of judges. When we find an argument such as this put forward by the Attorney-General, we are driven to the conclusion that the Government have a very weak case indeed for their demand for two more judges. What really was promised at the Imperial Conference was that there should be individual judgment given by the judges of the Judicial Committee. We are told by the Attorney-General that the Colonies have agreed to the abandonment of that. It would be satisfactory to this House to have published the correspondence upon that point. We had the representatives of the Colonies at the Conference taking a strong ground in favour of separate judgments, and I, for one, should like to see the correspondence which, according to the Government, has released them from the undertaking they certainly gave on this point. The other matter was that the Courts should sit separately. I do not think there would be any difficulty whatever in regard to that so far as the question of time is concerned. It would only mean, at the utmost, the Court sitting 200 days in the year, and surely that is a not unreasonable period of time. So much for the Government's position!

I should like to point out this one thing. While Canada has been very glad to avail herself of the services of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—it costs her nothing, and is furnished by the taxpayers of this country for the benefit of the Dominion—I would like to point out that in all probability the number of appeals from Canada hereafter is not likely to be so great as in the past. There have been a number of cases decided by the Judicial Committee during the past year the decisions in which have proved very unsatisfactory indeed to the people of Canada. I am not going to discuss these cases. I am not suggesting that they were wrongly decided; I am merely mentioning the fact that there is a great deal of discussion in Canada at the present time with regard to the advisability of sending appeals over here, and that discussion has arisen from the fact that there have been a number of cases between big financial corporations and municipal bodies in which the municipal corporations have got very much the worst of the decision. I am not saying it is not right. I have great respect for this Court; I have not examined these cases; in all probability the Court is right on matters of law. We may assume that to be so, considering the high character of the Court in question. What. I am doing is putting before the Government the fact that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in Canada, and it has grown stronger within the last few months in connection with a case decided from the Province of Alberta. There has been a great deal of trouble in that province with regard to the construction of a certain railway, and various Acts in regard to it have been passed by the Legislature. These Statutes came up for revision by the Judicial Committee, and, a few months ago, a most remarkable decision was pronounced. Again I do not propose to discuss it. I do not say it was wrong. But it almost paralyses the Legislatures of the different provinces in Canada, and it seems probable that, if the decision is allowed to stand, those Legislatures will not be able in the future effectually to legislate on a subject which has always been understood to be exclusively within their jurisdiction. So strongly has this feeling grown, and so much has it been discussed in the newspapers and periodicals in Canada, that recently a long discussion took place in the Senate on the point, and strong views were expressed by lawyers and others in the Senate that the time had arrived when Canada should cease sending appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I think that bears materially on this question whether we should precipitately appoint two additional judges to this Court, seeing that one of the reasons put forward for the appointment of the new judges is that the business before the Judicial Committee is likely to increase.

If this Bill passes its Second Reading—I hope it will not—there should be some legislation by this House in another direction. If there is a strong feeling in the Colonies in favour of having the power of appeal to the Judicial Committee, that is not a feeling which this House should for a moment undertake to force in any way. If any Colony, if Australia or Canada, should desire to have its own final Court of Appeal, I think it would be, from an Imperial standpoint, the greatest mistake in the world for this House to attempt to force upon any Colony which desired a change, the duty of sending its appeals to this country. The Dominion of Canada many years ago inserted in its Criminal Code a clause to the effect that there should be no appeal to the Privy Council in connection with criminal matters. I do not know whether that was constitutional or not, but, in spite of the clause being in the Criminal Code, the Privy Council has continued to hear criminal appeals from Canada. It seems to me Parliament should make it clear that if a Dominion passes legislation in favour of taking away the right of appeal with regard to particular classes of cases, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, we ought to make that constitutional, and it would be a great mistake to force the hands of the Colonies in this matter. The fact that that Clause was put into the Criminal Code of Canada does not in any way suggest that Canada is dissatisfied with the Judicial Committee as a Court of Appeal. The reason it was put in was to prevent delay in criminal matters. Canada has a great reputation for its exceedingly fine criminal law, which is so well administered. A very important thing in connection with the administration of the criminal law is speed, and we who are acquainted with what occurs in the United States fully understand the position. In the United States it is possible, on account of the numerous appeals, for a person convicted of murder to keep his case going in the Courts for seven or eight years.

This is totally irrelevant to the matter now being discussed. I must call the attention of the House to the continued irrelevance of the hon. Member, and warn him against it. The delays the hon. Member was dealing with were delays in the criminal jurisdiction of the United States. That has nothing whatever to do with this Bill. I must ask the hon. Member to approach more closely the subject-matter of this Bill.

We have a Bill here affecting the constitution of a Court of Appeal—the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It will be proposed to insert in that Bill a Clause making it clear that any Colony or Dominion can, if it likes, legislate constitutionally so as to prevent appeals coming from its Court to the Judicial Committee. The reason I referred to the United States was to show why it was that Canada legislated in that direction. It was because we appreciated so much the undesirability of having long delays caused by appeals to the different Courts in connection with criminal matters. That is all, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important.

I must point out to the hon. Member that he has already occupied an hour and twenty minutes, and that a great deal of what he has said has been tedious repetition. I give him a warning—that is all I wish to do at present—and I invite him to approach more closely to the subject-matter of the Bill now before us.

I look upon this as a very important matter indeed. I did not know that I repeated myself. I am very sorry that I should have done so, and I will endeavour to avoid that defect. I have just about finished the points with which I wish to deal. In conclusion, let me say with regard to both the reasons put forward by the Attorney-General last night—the first that this Bill has been asked for by the Dominions at the last Imperial Conference, and, secondly, that the Court requires additional strength—I submit that I have shown conclusively that there is absolutely nothing in either of those points. I have read every word of the précis of the Report of the Conference upon this particular matter, and I defy any Member of this House to point out in any way that any single representative of any Dominion at that Conference asked for an increase in the number of judges. With regard to the other matter, I have shown that we have at our disposal seven judges who are paid salaries for the purpose of sitting in these Courts, and who are bound, I submit, to sit in those Courts already. The quorum attempted to be established is five instead of three. There is no trouble at all in having a quorum of five when you have seven judges available, and in addition to those seven judges there are eight or ten more who can always be had on short notice in case any of the seven should be ill at any particular time. I may have repeated myself, but I was not aware of it. I devoted a large part of my speech to reading these extracts. That may have been wearisome and tiresome, and I should not have done it if the Government had not made certain statements. When I challenge the correctness of the statements of the Government I am bound to show that my challenge is a correct one. For these reasons I hope the House will refuse to give the Government power to put upon the taxpayers of this country for all time a further charge of £12,000 a year.

I beg to second the Amendment. I desire, in the first place, to protest against the methods adopted by the Government in putting down for discussion three Bills which are opposed by a number of their own party.

That is not relevant to this discussion now.

Perhaps it may, to some ex-tent, account for our action in strenuously opposing this measure that the Govern- ment have tried to punish their own supporters by bringing them back earlier than the regular Opposition. Seeing that you Sir, have ruled that out of order, I shall address myself to the question under discussion. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Martin), in his brief observations to the House, made one error. He said that this was the third occasion upon which this Bill had conic before the House. In fact, this is the fourth occasion. In 1911 a Bill was discussed in this House, the. Second Reading was passed after a protest, and nothing more was heard of it. In 1912 it was put upon the Paper, and the Motions for its rejection were many in number. This year it has been twice before the House. It has been twice through the House of Lords, and has twice come down here. The first occasion was on the 1st April—a very suitable day—when it was found that an error was made by the Upper Chamber in putting in the pensions and salaries of the judges, and a new edition had to be sent down to us. On the first of the two occasions, when the Bill was practically rejected by this House, we had the support of the Labour party in opposing the measure. They actively opposed the measure in 1911 by speeches and by votes, and in 1912, by their own Motions on the Paper, they indicated that they as a party intended to oppose the measure. It is an extraordinary thing that the Labour party are to-day conspicuous by their absence. Not a single representative of that party is in the House at the present moment. Yesterday, when an Address for a new judge was passed, only one Member of the Labour party voted with the thirteen who opposed it. I hope that the country will be made aware of the fact that yesterday the Labour party voted for an additional judge at a salary of £5,000 a year, and that now, when two new judges are being appointed, or the Bill appointing them at £6,000 a year—which is equal to a capitalised sum of something like £350,000—is being discussed, not a single representative of the Labour party is in the House. My belief is that the Labour party in the House are a stupendous fraud. The point which should make them most strenuous in opposing this measure is the fact that in the later editions of the Bill, as was indicated by the Attorney-General, the salaries to be paid to the judges are to be increased. Six thousand pounds a year is to be paid to each of these new judges, whereas in 1911 and 1912 the salaries were only £5,000 a year.

What is the idea at the back of this Bill? What is the Government supposed to be aiming at? What is the demand of the Colonies which they are constantly trotting out as an argument in its favour? In a nutshell, the demand of the Colonies is that when they bring their cases forward to this country on appeal they should have six judges to sit on those cases. They object to the fact that while in the Dominions, or in some of them, six judges sit on their cases, when they are brought over here on appeal the number of judges sitting on the appeals is four. That is the problem that has to be solved. The Dominions suggested a solution of the problem, which has been referred to by my hon. and learned Friend. The suggestion they made was that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be amalgamated, or made into one Court, and should be an Imperial Court for the Empire. The Government did not see their way to adopt that suggestion. I can see quite readily that there were many difficulties. There is the question of the reform of the House of Lords, which is to come in the immediate future, I suppose, and no doubt that will be dealt with when we do come to reform the House of Lords. The Government rejected that solution, but is there no other solution, apart from the one adopted in this measure, to the appointment of two additional judges? As my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, by an arrangement of the sittings of the two Courts it could easily be provided that six judges should always sit on the cases that come from the Dominions. What is the supply of Lords to constitute these two Courts? There are fourteen Lords who sit in the House of Peers who are qualified to sit in the House of Lords Appeal Court; there are fifteen Lords qualified to sit with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and there are twenty-one judges who hold or have held high judicial positions which qualify them to sit with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There are fifty men available from the Lord Chancellor to constitute the two Courts which only require six men to constitute them. Fifty available, and only six wanted! The Lord Chancellor has it quite within his power so to arrange the sittings that he will always have these six men available for the constitution of these Courts. The Bill of 1911 set about settling this demand from the Dominions in a different way from the Bill of 1913. The Bill of 1911 laid down that the sittings of these two judicial bodies should never be upon the same day. The Clause read:—

The sittings of the House of Lords for the hearing and determination of appeals and the sittings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council shall, so far as practicable, be arranged in such a manner as not to take place simultaneously, but nothing in this section shall be construed as requiring those sittings to be held at any time other than those prescribed for the sittings of the Court of Appeal in England under the provisions of the Judicature Act.

The last portion of the Clause was a saving of the holidays to the judicial bodies, but the first part indicated that they should not sit simultaneously. Since that measure was practically rejected by this House it has been found possible by the administration of the Lord Chancellor and by arrangement to provide that they shall not sit simultaneously. In the years 1911–12, in many instances the two Courts did not sit on the same day. My hon. and learned Friend referred to the fact that the Courts sat, in 1910, 163 times between them; in 1911, 201, and in 1912, 187. But the principle which I am advocating, of not sitting at all on the same days, was departed from in these years on several occasions. In the year 1910 they sat on the same day and at the same time on thirty-four occasions, in 1911 fifty times, and in 1912 thirty-nine times. My suggestion is that all that has to be done by administration on the part of the Lord Chancellor is that these thirty-four times, fifty times, and thirty-nine times should be done away with, that the principle which in the main is carried out, that they do not sit on the same day, should be carried out in its entirety, and I think with the fact that there are fifty men available, and that there are only, roughly, about 180 sittings, it might be very easily arranged. Then the question of the number of cases which come before these bodies is worthy of consideration. In 1910, which is the latest year for which we have statistics, the House of Lords dealt with 100 cases, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council dealt with seventy-eight cases, so that between the two judicial bodies in that year only 178 cases were dealt with—fifty men to deal with 178 cases. I think it could be easily arranged if it were desired.

Then with regard to the number of days on which the men available have sat I asked a question of the Attorney-General on 10th November, 1911, and the reply was:—

"The number of days on which each Lord qualified to sit for the hearing of appeals in either the House of Lords or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council during the last legal year is as follows:—Lord Chancellor 87, Earl of Halsbury 60, Viscount Haldane 7, Lord Ashbourne 27, Lord Macnaghten 121, Lord Atkinson 101, the late Lord James of Hereford 1, Lord Shaw 112, Lord Robson 119."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1911, col. 2046, Vol. XXX.]

Then come fewer numbers, Lord Gorell twenty-four times, Lord Mersey sixty-eight, Lord Dunedin nine, Lord Kinnear twelve, Lord Alverstone nine. These numbers indicate to me that the distinguished gentlemen who are available for the constitution of these Courts can readily be called on to take part in the work of the Court in a greater number of cases than they have done in the past. Then there is the financial aspect of this Motion, namely, the fact that£12,000 per annum and pensions are being passed by practically an empty House. That point becomes important when one realises the figures which are already paid to the distinguished gentlemen in connection with the work of these Courts. On 22nd November I asked the Chancellor what money was paid, either as salary or pension, to the fourteen Members of the House of Lords qualified to sit for the hearing of appeals in the House of Lords or in the Judicial Committee. The reply was that the fourteen Lords who were qualified received £75,000. Then I asked on 9th December what the twenty-one judges who were qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee were paid, and the reply was that only sixteen of these twenty-one received payment from British funds, and that these payments amounted to £63,712. Then I asked on 10th December what was the money paid either as salary or as pension to the fifteen Lords of Appeal qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee. The reply was:—

"The annual amount paid for this purpose is £70,792 6s."

So that with these three figures together we have the sum of £217,547 10s. 8d. for the administration of justice in these two Courts, that £217,000 now being raised to £229,000, and the Labour party will probably vote in its favour.

The hon. Member makes a very extraordinary statement when he says these moneys are paid for the administration of justice in these particular Courts. He must know, if he looks at the answer, that in a great number of instances they are pensions to judges who have retired.

I know that £56,000 is paid in salaries to the judges of the King's Bench Division and £17,000 in pensions, and I am quite willing to accept the proportion of seventeen to fifty-six.

It must be remembered that this measure is based upon certain decisions which were arrived at by the Imperial Conference, and we must look at those decisions and also look at what preceded their coming to those particular conclusions. I think it has been quite correctly stated by the hon. Member (Mr. Martin) that, in the first instance, the suggestion of Australia was for the creation of what will be practically an Imperial Court of Appeal, by the merger of the present House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Prime Minister of New Zealand had in view the representation of his particular Dominion in the Judicial Committee, and his suggestion was that all the great Overseas Dominions should be represented in an Imperial Court of Appeal. These were the two main points pressed, though there were some subsidiary points of importance with regard to the small number of judges who sit in the Judicial Committee and the manner of recording dissent, if there was dissent, in arriving at the conclusions. It was pointed out by the Prime Minister, who presided, that it was a matter of opinion whether a dissenting judgment should be recorded or not, and he also indicated that in the great tribunal of the Supreme Court of the United States usually one reasoned opinion was delivered on behalf of the majority who gave judgment, and all the dissenting judgments were embodied in one dissenting opinion from one of the other judges. After a great deal of discussion a considerable number of difficulties in connection with the matter vanished. For instance, it became apparent to New Zealand that as they only had one or two appeals a year, and sometimes not that, it would not be worth while for a judge to come over and remain in England all the year round to wait for the hearing of one or two appeals at the outside. Ultimately the ex-Lord Chancellor suggested in a most reasonable way that the sole desire of the Government of this country was to arrive at some conclusion which would best facilitate the objects the different Dominions Overseas had in view, and he ultimately made the suggestion that we should add to the highest Court of Appeal, both in the United Kingdom and in the Dominions and Colonies, by selecting "two English judges of the finest quality."

The Dominion of Canada has no ground for complaint whatever. The Minister representing it said they were satisfied with the decisions which were given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that they would view a change with some apprehension. The Prime Minister of Newfoundland said that his Government was satisfied, but that if it was the general desire that there should be a change he would fall in with it. Australia did not appear to be particularly interested except in respect of the establishment of an Imperial Court of Appeal. The whole basis of the discussion in the Imperial Conference very rapidly disappeared, leaving nothing behind it except the fact of some little inconvenience with regard to the presentation of cases, the small number of judges who heard them, and certain other minor matters. The Prime Minister of New Zealand pointed out something which is extremely important, and which has not formed the subject of sufficient consideration. He said—

"I would urge that in addition to the present members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council there should be a permanent judge from each of the important Overseas Dominions, one for Canada, one for Australia, one for South Africa, and one for India."

That was the general proposition. I believe if an Imperial Court is ever to be established on an enduring basis that idea must be given effect to. At present we have the Chief Justices of five of the Dominions taking part intermittently in the proceedings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, perhaps one once a year, and then for many years not appearing again. I am convinced, as a practitioner before the Judicial Committee for many years, that that system is bound to fail. It is already a failure. You cannot prepare a judge for the important work of an Appellate Court like the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by merely allowing him to look in occasionally, and have there what is practically a very minor status compared with the regular judges of the Court. If you wish to establish a truly Imperial Court you must select the best men, not merely from the United Kingdom, but throughout the Empire, and place them in the Court for a term of years—let them get their training that comes from the experience of hearing cases, and from association with the great men who are in the Court. They must inhale the atmosphere of the Court. If it is not worth while paying for that, it is not worth while making a change at all. What is proposed in the introductory Memorandum of this Bill? We are asked to sanction the appointment of two additional judges who are to be "English judges of the finest quality." I recognise these were the words used by the Lord Chancellor in his first alternative proposal, but they are not the words of his later formal proposal. I have not seen the reference to the quality of English judges put so emphatically before. I have always understood that it was difficult to discriminate as to the quality of the justice administered by English judges. But let that pass. Why "English judges?" What about my brother Scots and the Irish fighting brigade? Are these English judges to be restricted to the judges of Courts in England? Are we not to have included as eligible for appointment judges and lawyers practising in Ireland and in Scotland? But, even if you were to include these, then there is complete exclusion in this Bill of the possible appointment of judges and lawyers trained in the systems which prevail in our great Dominions. In that respect there is differentiation against members of the profession to which I belong, and of judges who come from that profession, and to that differentiation I cannot give my adhesion. I repeat that if you wish to have a great Imperial Court you must have representation in it not merely from England, not merely from the United Kingdom, but, if it is to be worth having at all, you must see that it represents the greatest men in the profession, whether they are judges or lawyers, from all these parts of our great Dominions which can supply such men. This Bill professes to be based upon the resolution of the Imperial Conference. After a long discussion at the Conference on 12th June, 1911, the late Lord Chancellor (Lord Loreburn) summarised what he believed to be the conclusion arrived at. He said:—

"Is this the substance of what is proposed—I think it has been spoken to by all the Prime Ministers—that there should be one Final Court of Appeal for the whole British Empire in two divisions, the first division for the United Kingdom, consisting of the same persons as are now entitled to sit in the House of Lords, and the second division for the Oversea Dominions, consisting of those now entitled to sit on the Judicial Committee, with such further additions as may be needed. Does that represent the view?

"Sir Joseph Ward: I should accept that.

"Mr. Fisher: Practically it is that."

That was what the Imperial Conference accepted. Then the President said:—

"You agree that what the Lord Chancellor read fairly represents the opinion of the Conference, and that will appear on the Minutes.

Viscount Haldane: It is understood that this final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire is not merely to be of the strength of the existing one. We hare agreed to strengthen it, and propose to add to it as the Lord Chancellor said, two highly-picked lawyers."

That is the conclusion they came to. There I discern that the present Lord Chancellor saw at once the absurdity of the previous description of the men who are to constitute this Court. He had in his recollection, no doubt, that two of the greatest men we ever had in the Judicial Committee were Lord Watson and Lord Macnaghten, both of whom came directly from the Bar and not from the Bench. He had in view that the best men should be "picked," no matter where they came from. It is clear that what the Conference decided was that the change should be in the direction of establishing an Imperial Court, one Division to deal with matters that now come before the House of Lords, and composed of the men who administer justice in the House of Lords, and the second Division to be for the hearing of appeals from the Dominions Overseas, and that to the second Division there should be added two highly picked men. Their decision, therefore, was that, if you appoint an imperial Court, the work, so far as the House of Lords is concerned, should be carried on on existing lines, that you should not abolish the judicial body of the House of Lords, which has done most important service—service which was acknowledged when this Bill was brought in in the Upper Chamber, but that simply the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should have an addition of two members. The point was put directly to Lord Loreburn as to how far the existing decisions of the House of Lords were satisfactory, and in clear terms he stated that their decisions were satisfactory, so far as Chambers of Commerce, the profession, and so far as the public generally were concerned. That being so, no amendment or improvement is required in that respect in the House of Lords. If we restrict the discussion to-clay to the question of the amendment or improvement of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I would say that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have made out a very strong case that the Judicial Committee at the present time is sufficiently manned, so long as you are not creating in two Divisions an Imperial Court of Appeal for the whole Empire. If such Court is created, and if it has two Divisions, then of necessity a certain number will be restricted to the hearing of United Kingdom Appeals, and a certain number will be restricted to the hearing of appeals brought before the Judicial Committee. In that case, you require two strong Divisions, and it is in these circumstances that provision is required, so far as the Judicial Committee is concerned, that it should be strengthened by additional judges. If you proceed on the lines laid down by the Imperial Conference and create an Imperial Court in two Divisions, then you are justified in adding strength to the Judicial Committee. But if you do not proceed on these lines you must demonstrate that the House of Lords is not now efficiently discharging its duty as a judicial body, which you cannot do, because the Lord Chancellor has said that it is not so; and you must also demonstrate that the Dominions Overseas are dissatisfied with the decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which you cannot do, for they have not said so. I think my hon. Friend has made out a strong case on that point. Many of the retired judges who are in receipt of pensions would be only too happy to appear and assist in the administration of justice, upon receiving the summons of their Sovereign to aid him in Council. In these respects, it seems to me, in view of the limited lines projected by the Bill, as distinguished from those forecasted by the Imperial Conference, this Bill is unnecessary. If you do create an Imperial Court of Appeal, I agree that the Judicial Committee should be strengthened. I do not say that it should be strengthened by the addition merely of English judges. It should be strengthened by the selection of the best men wherever they are to be found in the Empire.

I certainly do not intend in the very short reply I propose to make to travel over the ground which was travelled yesterday. In the speech I made yesterday I endeavoured to answer by anticipation all the arguments which have been addressed to the House today. I put forward the case for the Bill then in order that it might be unnecessary to go at any length into the matter again when I replied. There are only one or two points to which I propose to refer. My hon. Friends who moved and seconded the Amendment have, as I gathered from their speeches, some grievance—or, at all events, they think that they have some grievance. It would be out of order for me to travel into that. What we have to deal with is the merits of the Bill to which we are asking the House to give Second Reading. The hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) made, I confess, a speech containing statements which startled me, because they were based on answers to questions given by myself or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I really think that the use he made of them was quite unwarrantable. He put together all the pensions which were paid to judges who had served their time and had retired, or who had retired in consequence of ill-health, and he stated that payments were made to some of these judges who were agreeable to sit in the Privy Council. His point was that the payments so made to them for that purpose ought not to be paid. Well, obviously it is quite inaccurate, and I think the hon and learned Gentleman appreciated that when it was pointed out—

Pensions were included.

One must be careful when a statement is made and a lot of figures are given to see quite clearly what the figures represent. Then he enumerated the number of judges who have work to perform in Courts which are themselves in arrears He referred to the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, and others. Anyone who has the faintest knowledge of what is going on at present must know that nothing could be more unfair than to say that these payments are made for services on the Judicial Committee. To put that forward as an argument against the proposition of this Bill is, I think, very surprising indeed, and the only explanation that I can give is that my hon. and learned Friend cannot have quite grasped the meaning of the answers that were given to the question. I can scarcely credit him with intending to present to the House that a large proportion of the payments made were for judges whose services could properly be given to the Judicial Committee. He must have known perfectly well that none of those judges could be spared from the Courts in which they sit. Every one of them has his work to do there, and it would be impossible to come away without disarranging the whole of the work of the Courts.

Sixteen judges were qualified to sit on the Judicial Committee.

When the hon. and learned Gentleman represents that there are sixteen judges available, then I say that that is not a correct statement, because he knows, or should know, perfectly well that the majority of those judges are actually engaged in their own Courts, just the same as the President of the Court in Scotland has his work in Scotland to perform, and he can no more be spared from there to attend regularly here at a Judicial Committee than the President of the Probate and Divorce Division can be spared from the Courts in which he exercises jurisdiction.

There are no arrears.

It is not a question of arrears. In order to keep down arrears a judge must preside over his own Court. Take the Master of the Rolls. The Master of the Rolls presided over the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal is itself in arrears with its work, and does anyone seriously suggest that the Master of the Rolls should be asked to sit on the Judicial Committee? The Lord Chief Justice of England, when he is well enough to resume work, might be asked to sit at the expense of the King's Bench Division. When you come to examine the number of judges who are really available, they amount to very few. I gave that Memorandum yesterday, and showed that they do willingly give their services whenever it is possible. Reference has been made to Lord Halsbury who has been receiving a pension for a considerable number of years, but no one will suggest that he has not given valuable services for that pension, although he is not bound to do it. Lord Loreburn retired on account of ill health, but he does sit whenever he can; but that is not the same thing as having judges who are paid their salaries and are under obligation to sit in those Courts. One word with reference to what took place at the Imperial Conference. The result of the whole discussion there was that a conclusion was arrived at which was formulated in the proposition quoted to some extent by the hon. and learned Member for Chertsey. It came to this, after considering the various proposals that were put forward with reference to the Judicial Committee and the Imperial Final Court of Appeal, that there should be three new Law Lords appointed. That was the conclusion arrived at by the Conference. It is in order to carry out that conclusion that we introduce this Bill. It is summed up in those words which were read advocating the strengthening of the Court and proposing to add, as the Lord Chancellor said, two judges. Mr. Fisher said, "Two or more, just as you please." It is the minimum of that request that I ask the House to adopt, and I do submit that this is a proper thing to do in order that we may make our Imperial Court of Appeal one which will give satisfaction to all the Dominions and enable it to do the work of the United Kingdom, and in which appeals will be heard by a sufficient number of judges, and I will only conclude by calling attention to the extraordinary spectacle here in this country of the Dominions having recourse to our final Court of Appeal in this country as one of the great connecting links between them and this country, and pointing out that if they desire, that we should add two more to our judges in order that we may give them More satisfaction—and that is the result of the discussion which they had with us at the Imperial Conference—then I really do fail to understand on what ground it can be suggested that we should not give assent to their wish and should not pass this Bill.

At the Imperial Conference the Prime Minister of Australia particularly asked that the judges appointed should be English judges, because he said that the Australians prefer that their appeals should be heard by the House of Lords rather than by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The hon. and learned Member for Chertsey was rather opposed to the Bill on the ground that the words "English judges" were put in. I think it is a fact that the Scotch and the Irish have already in this country a very undue proportion of judicial appointments. A very large number of our present judges, from whom those two judges will be selected, are Scotsmen and Irishmen, and if they were to be selected also from the benches in Scotland and Ireland as well, in all probability that proportion, which is already undue, would be very much increased. I got up, principally to draw attention to the fact that the greater part of the speech of the hon. Member for East St. Pancras was directed to attacking the Memorandum upon the Bill. He endeavoured to prove that what is stated there was not the result of the Imperial Conference at all. I have taken the trouble to go to the Library and get the Official Report, and I see that on page 236, Command Paper 5746, contains a résumé of the proposal to His Majesty's Government agreed to by the Imperial Conference, and I think that if the hon. Member for East St. Pancras had read those words—which evidently he has not, as apparently he has only read the précis, which seems to have misled him—he would have found that the Memorandum endorsed on the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill is as correct a précis of what was agreed on at that Conference as it is possible for a précis to be.

If the hon. Member had read the proceedings at the Conference through he would have found that it was said time after time that it was impossible that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords could sit together at the same time because there were not sufficient judges available; that it was extremely important for the proper conduct of the business of the United Kingdom that the House of Lords should be able to sit for appeals at the same time as the Privy Council; and inasmuch as the number of paid judges who could alone be applied for was limited, it was impossible that the business of the United Kingdom could be carried on in the case of appeals where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was sitting. For that it would be necessary that you should at least have ten paid judges available. The point insisted on at the Conference was that the quorum should be increased from three to five, and that it was not fair to the Colonies that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should only consist of three judges when the appeals were from a larger number of judges in the Courts. It was also advisable that the House of Lords as the Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom should have its quorum increased to five judges. Now there are not ten judges available. That being the case the essence of the Bill is that there should be two new Lords of Appeal appointed who would bring the numbers up so that there can be two sittings, one for the United Kingdom and one for Appeals from the Colonies, each consisting of a minimum of five judges. That is the scope of the Bill. The origin of it was this. While it was impossible at present for this country to agree to have one Imperial Court of Appeal both for appeals from the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Dominions, yet they could take the first step towards it by strengthening the existing Courts of the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in such a way that the same judges would sit upon both Divisions. The Government were very anxious to meet the wish that as far as possible the appeals that came from the Colonies should be heard, not by the House of Lords sitting as the House of Lords, but by the Law Lords of the House of Lords sitting as a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. With that view two more Law Lords were to be added to the House of Lords, and they would be available to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The other provision of the Bill with regard to increasing from five to seven the number of Colonial judges who may become members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council when they are here for the purpose of sitting and hearing appeals is really a subsidiary matter, but it is one that has been thought to be important for this reason, that the Government have found that the five Colonial judges who have been appointed to positions which allow them to become members of the Privy Council and sit to hear appeals have not been able to attend more than very occasionally, and practically they are of little or no assistance, and it is hoped that if you have seven there will be more chance of more of them attending. The Bill also contains a very important provision to amend the Act of 1908 by which those judges were required to be drawn from men holding actual judicial offices in the Colonies. Sub-section (2) of Section 3 allows them to be drawn from

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

The scope and purpose of this Bill is the same as that of the Bill to which the House gave a Second Reading last year. Hon. Members will remember that on that occasion, after a Debate covering the whole ground, only nineteen Gentlemen voted against the Second Reading.

The Debate was closured.

I am not discussing the question of Closure. The number of Gentlemen who voted against the Second Reading was only nineteen. I am encouraged by that experience to believe that the general principle of this measure has been accepted by the House, and will be accepted again. But although the scope and purpose of the Bill is the same, in many material respects the machinery has been altered. In introducing the subject now I would only remind the House that this question was dealt with by a Royal Commission, which took evidence over no less than four years, and in its Report came unanimously to certain recommendations, upon which this Bill is founded. It was observed that there is a class of persons in this country who, by reason of mental defect, are not able to take proper care of themselves. Under the existing law they are not provided for under the Lunacy Acts or under the Idiots Act, except in a certain measure. The Idiots Act applies to a certain number of them, but it does not deal appropriately with the class of persons whom it is intended to provide for under this Bill. Therefore it is proposed to repeal the Idiots Act, and to re-enact and incorporate it in this measure. Not only have we a unanimous Report of a Royal Commission in favour of some legislative measure, but I am not exaggerating when I say that local authorities have been overwhelming in their petitions in favour of this Bill. I go further and say that persons now engaged in every kind of social work, who are brought in contact with the feeble-minded, have without exception recognised the need for some legislation of this kind. At this moment there are, I regret that I must say, scores of thousands of people who, owing to mental defect, are unable to take proper care of themselves, and who might, as I believe, if this Bill were passed, live happy and, within the limits of their powers, even useful lives. At present they are left, uncared for and unprotected, to live miserable existences, and, quite apart from their own habits, become a source of degradation, misery, and poverty to others.

Last year considerable criticism was directed against the proposed machinery. In the Bill then put forward it was proposed to set up a new Commission, quite separate from the existing Lunacy Commission, to have the special control of all feeble-minded persons. I remember that the hon. and learned Member for one of the Divisions of Liverpool (Mr. Leslie Scott) took very strong objection to the Bill on that ground, and in that view he was supported by the hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division (Mr. Goldsmith), the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Pollock), and the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Charles Roberts). Their arguments, which I admit impressed me very strongly at the time, were further pressed in Committee upstairs, and in consequence the whole scheme of the Bill, so far as that part is concerned, was altered. The whole charge for mentally defective persons, whether lunatics, idiots, imbeciles, or feebleminded, was proposed to be placed under a single Board of Control. That is the proposal contained in the present Bill. The Board of Control will consist primarily of the existing eight paid Lunacy Commissioners. It is proposed that there should be altogether twelve paid and three unpaid Commissioners. Of the twelve paid Commissioners one at least must be a woman, and of the three unpaid Commissioners also one at least must be a woman. The Board of Control will deal with all forms of mental deficiency. After the discussion which we had upstairs, I think I am justified in recommending to the House this second proposal as being far superior to that contained in last year's Bill. It would only be right for me to say here how much I am indebted to hon. Gentlemen opposite for the interest they have taken in this measure and for the great knowledge they showed in debating it upstairs. My hon. Friends on this side will agree with me that, interested and keen as they are in the subject, the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, the hon. and learned Member for East Birmingham the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington and others, were not less interested in securing for this unfortunate class of persons such care and protection as this Bill would give them.

The next important change in the Bill is one which in justice I am bound to attribute in large measure to the strong criticism made to the proposal of last year by my hon. Friends the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) and the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood). Those Members took a very strong line in support of the principle of individual liberty, and it is only justice to them to say that, although they opposed me very strongly in the course of the Bill, their arguments were singularly effective in pointing out the particulars in which the Bill might be considered to transgress the due line of the care and preservation of individual rights. We have in the Bill as now presented to the House, so far as is possible consistent with the existence of the principle of compulsion at all, done everything to meet the objections put forward by my hon. Friends. Let me point out the very important changes which have been made. Last year the persons to be dealt with included persons who might be classed as coming under the definition of the Bill by a subsequent Order of the Secretary of State. That portion of the Bill is omitted now. The Bill, so far as the definition goes, is limited to what is contained in the actual words of the Bill. No power was given either to the existing holder of the Home Office or any future holder of the office to extend the operations of the Bill except by introducing a new Act of Parliament. We have also omitted any reference to what might be regarded as the Eugenic idea, which my hon. Friend behind me believes underlies the whole promotion of this Bill. I can assure him that, as the measure now stands, it exists for the protection of individual sufferers.

By locking them up?

Well, let me put this case to my hon. Friend: I suppose he will agree that the Lunacy Acts were designed by Parliament for the protection of the sufferers, the lunatic patients? Yet they are locked up for their own protection. Persons suffering from mental defect who come under this Bill are only locked up in those cases where it is shown by past experience that they ought to be locked up. Let me explain very briefly the classes of persons whom we now propose to include in this Bill. We, first of all, define the mentally deficient. These are persons suffering from mental deficiency. They are idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral imbeciles. We make a clear distinction between the different categories of feeble-minded persons who come under this Bill. Idiots and imbeciles, who may already be certified under the Lunacy and Idiots Acts, continue to be certifiable under the Lunacy Acts, or under this Bill, without importing any new condition; but when we come to the classes of feebleminded persons who are not now certified, either idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, or moral imbeciles, such persons cannot be dealt with compulsorily under this Bill unless certain conditions co-exist together with such feeble-mindedness. They must either be proved to be neglected, abandoned, or cruelly treated. That is to say, they must obviously require the protection of the State; or they must have been found guilty of a criminal offence, they must be proved to be habitual drunkards, they must be children notified by the local education authority as being too low mentally or morally to benefit by the special schools provided, or they must be children who, on leaving the special schools, have been notified by the local authorities as requiring further protection. The only other class is that of women who give birth to illegitimate children whilst in receipt of Poor Law relief.

Or who are pregnant.

The difference between the two is obviously only a question of time. I hope my hon. Friend will be satisfied that we are only endeavouring to deal with those cases of feeble-minded persons where we have tangible proof that they are of a kind which calls for some degree of care from the State. My last few words are upon a point of the Bill about which I think there has been a good deal of misunderstanding. I refer to the financial side. It is proposed that the local authority shall have certain duties imposed upon them, and that certain powers shall be placed in their hands. So far as a duty is imposed upon a local authority under this Bill, it is limited to the extent to which the cost of carrying out the duty is borne by the State as to one half of the amount. The local authority will have no duty imposed on it except that in which the State bears one half the cost.

Would that amount to half the total cost of maintenance, including interest on capital, sinking fund, and cost of administration?

That will include half the total cost of maintenance, including interest and sinking fund, upon the cost of the institution and including so much of the administration as is directly and solely related to this Bill. It will not include half for the maintenance of that which might be termed the general administrative charges of the local authority, and which the local authority will have to bear in any circumstances. Beyond that the local authority is given power to spend money without assistance from the State, but this is a purely optional power. The amount of the State Grant is primarily limited to £150,000 a year under the Bill, but that sum does not by any means exhaust the whole charge which will fall upon the State. Outside this charge of £150,000 per year, the State will bear half the cost of the patients who are sent to institutions or placed under guardianship by order of the Court when charged with a criminal offence—that is to say, as the State will be relieved of the cost of maintaining the mentally deficient prisoners in prison the State, in exchange for that, pays half the cost of the maintenance of the mentally deficient person during the whole of the time he is treated as mentally deficient. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because the State would be bearing the whole cost only during the time the prisoner would be in prison, but the patient will be under treatment in the institution or under guardianship very likely for a much longer period, and so the State bears half the cost for the whole period that the patient remains under observation.

Is it the place where the patient lives or the place where he was born that bears the other half of the cost?

I should be very sorry to answer a question of that kind without reference to authority, but if the hon. Member will mention the matter afterwards, I shall be very happy to find out.

How many persons are expected to be dealt with under the Bill?

I expect that immediately under the Bill about 20,000 to 30,000 persons will be provided for in one form or another. The State will also pay the whole cost of the patients in the State institutions which will be provided for dangerous and criminally dangerous persons. I think it is clear that in the first instance that the number under this Bill will be quite as much aided by the State contributions as the local authorities will be able to deal with—at any rate for some time to come. The hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division asked me how many would be dealt with. I have made inquiry as nearly as I can, and I think I am not very far wrong in saying between twenty and thirty thousand people. That is, I am quite aware, not more than one-third of the whole number of people who will ultimately have to be dealt with. But it will take considerable time before we shall be able under local administration to absorb these twenty or thirty thousand, and I am quite certain, when experience has shown all the alarms of my hon. Friends on this side are entirely groundless, that Parliament will be able to expend the necessary sum in order to assist the local authority to carry their work further.

I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to insert the words "upon this day three months."

I am not altogether satisfied with what the right hon. Genleman said in the latter part of his speech, nor do I quite agree with him that the Debate was at all exhausted on the last occasion or was a satisfactory Debate. When we met in Committee upstairs we found that nearly every Member's time was occupied in trying to discover what the Government intended. There was a total lack of any general comradeship of idea as to the interpretation of any view of this House. We were totally without guidance when we met in Committee, and no one attempted to open the Debate by giving us what was the general view and spirit of this House. We commenced practically in chaos, and instead of considering the Bill which was passed by this House we had to consider a new Bill. Scores and scores of individual Amendments were poured upon us until we had to have special printing done in order that we might be able to form some hazy idea of what the Bill would be if the Government's Amendments were carried. Then there were many Members of the Opposition who put forward Amendments which the Government accepted in preference to those they had drafted, and the Bill was left in so fragmentary a form that I intended, when it came back to this House, to take the ruling of the Speaker upon the point that this was not a Bill that had passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons. I feel perfectly sure that I could make it clear to the House in a moment or two that my point of Order would have had considerable substance. The original Bill that we passed, and that the Home Secretary has described in the manner he has, would have set up a new authority. It would set up three new Commissioners to tackle this urgent problem. It is a new problem. There has been no light thrown upon its solution from the history of our own land. The Home Office of this country were in despair. There was something to be said for the idea of the three Commissioners, but the Home Secretary to-day has rather poured contempt upon it. I do not submit to the House that when we are approaching a new problem of this kind there is an argument in favour of three men being set apart to deal with it untrammelled and unbiassed by experience in any Government Department. The pressure for this new legislation upon the Government undoubtedly comes from the Opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] There is no doubt about it. The experience we have had shows that a most lively interest is taken in it by the Unionist party, particularly by the leaders of the opposition to the Welsh Church Bill. Immediately after the Bill was withdrawn a little temporary disappointment manifested itself in impatient exclamations from the Unionist party. I have seen very little evidence during the last winter of any genuine interest in this matter by the Unionist party, but I prophesy it will revive, and revive vigorously. I am not saying that at all in discredit to the Unionist party. I do not want to suggest for a moment that they are not perfectly sincere in their views upon this question. What I am rather suggesting is that the urgency of the matter in the view of the Opposition is determined, unconsciously no doubt, by party considerations.

When we met in the Grand Committee upstairs the Government immediately capitulated to the Opposition on a vital principle. This was a new experiment, and three men were to approach it with open minds. The Government immediately capitulated and decided to bring in the existing Lunacy Commissioners. I submit if it is wise to legislate upon this important question, it is not a good idea to put old wine into new bottles, and it does seem to me that if you take the Lunacy Commissioners, some of them very aged men who have served the State in a particular capacity, and a very definite capacity, and if you make them the definite and heavy majority of this new authority, you cannot expect justice to be done to the new experiment. What are the chief duties of the Lunacy Commissioners, who are taken bodily in response to the advocacy of the Conservative party and put into this Bill? The original idea, through the agency of Lord Shaftesbury, was that the Lunacy Commissioners were to protect liberty. In this case they are to be brought in to protect property; they are to spend money, which was never a part of the Lunacy Commissioners' duty. There was always a lawyer accompanying the doctor to visit each case, the idea of the State, as I understand it, being that, the medical man might possibly lean to institutional treatment in certain doubtful cases, and the lawyer was there to safeguard the State upon the question of personal liberty. You had first got to satisfy, not the medical expert, but the lawyer, trained to a correct sense of justice, that it was a suitable case to be incarcerated. That was their function; the idea was not to put people in. The whole foundation of that agitation was opposed to what the Home Secretary-stated to-day. It was to protect liberty. Scandals had only been too common. People were put away by their enemies or by relatives who were anxious to get rid of them in the country, and this course was, adopted in order to safeguard liberty. The Lunacy Commissioners were not a machine to drive people into these institutions, but to safeguard the liberties of those charged.

I venture to submit that the Lunacy Commissioners are not the right people to take in hand the administration of this new scheme. I think they are totally unsuitable, and this arrangement has only been came to as the result of a fight between the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department. They are officials and they have arrived at a compromise, and the one Department has to submit to the other their nominees and so on. I submit that if we are to look upon this question as we ought to, untrammelled by any bias and uninfluenced by wild theories, it is not right to put that scheme up merely as a barter with regard to posts. I am bound to say quite candidly that I consider the great question of the treatment of the feebleminded in this country, without any relation to the fate of this Bill and the composition of the authority, hangs upon a compromise between these two great Departments. There is no necessity for tackling the problem in this way. I know it will be represented that I am in favour of letting feeble-minded people have numerous children chargeable upon the rates. That is utter moonshine, and I do not merely criticise the Bill from the standpoint of individual liberty, but I say this is not the way to treat these unfortunate people. You are beginning at the wrong end. I should have thought that in a State like ours, proceeding on cautious and conservative lines, we should have built slowly and securely upon a sure foundation. We ought to recognise the present authorities. There was not a word of reference to-day to the position of the Poor Law guardians. Many boards of guardians wanting something done passed vague resolutions in support of a Mental Deficiency Bill. None of them read the details, and they were horrified when they came to particulars. What is the point of complaint? There was a meeting held yesterday under Liberal auspices, and some Members of the Government were present. That meeting was addressed by two or three Conservative women. When mental deficiency is the subject, it is only natural, of course, that those who speak upon it should come from the opposite side. What was the point made there? The hysterical suggestion was made that unless we pass this particular Bill a great number of children were going to die. That is not the way to approach this question. If there are a number of unfortunate women who go down to the workhouses and have illegitimate children because of being feebleminded, and then go out and come back again upon the Poor Law premises to be confined—if there is any reality in that case—why not face the thing in a straightforward way. Why not give the guardians power to go to some kind of public Court and to state the case and to get power to detain those persons and prevent, them from going out again. The idea of the Home Office is not to use the present authorities with their men of experience, but to create a Commission of twelve paid people with £1,500 or £2,000 a year each, and while that feature is in the Bill, while open minds are not brought to bear upon the question, while science and experience is not brought to bear upon it, we shall only find ourselves back to the old position.

I do not propose to divide the House on the Bill, but I am bound to say that if there is a Division of any kind, while that feature is in the Bill, I must vote with many Members of this House who forces such a Division. I do not propose to go through the various points of the Bill. I want to take the general objection. We have heard nothing from the Home Secretary about the law of heredity, and very little about the magnitude of the problem. I have made close inquiry, and I do not believe that there is an increase in this problem; I think it is a lessening problem, and it would be sad to think, after we have been spending so much money on social reform, and particularly on education and other great administrations, if there was an increase in it. How is it that idiots are made? I remember the first idiot I ever saw. A woman in my village was called from her bed through the window and asked to open the door to admit the bodies of her husband and two sons who were killed in a mine. The consequence was that that woman was an idiot for the rest of her life. What takes place now in such circumstances? It is the clergyman or some minister of religion, or perhaps the schoolmaster, who is called upon to break such news to those people, and you do not see the idiots and the imbeciles you formerly did. Somebody said they are hidden from us. I do not believe that is so. I speak feelingly on this question, because it has been my duty more than once to approach the widow and break the news to her in order to save her reason. It is not a nice duty, but I appeal to the House to realise that many of those cases of idiocy were the result and were brought about in such a way, not through lack of kindness or of mildness, but through lack of education. Working men and women now are educated, and they will not break news like that, as it was done commonly before. They were not to blame; it was because they were denied education and enlightenment that they did these things, and it would be most disheartening to all sorts of reformers to believe the awful and the false statements made with regard to the increase in feeble-mindedness.

What about the Christian position? This is frankly a pagan Bill, anti-Christian from its first line to its last The whole of the discussion upstairs was a challenge to the position of the New Testament. The ex- perience is not what Members assume. It does not fallow that feeble-minded people have feeble-minded offspring; that deaf people have deaf offspring. We do not know the real truth or remedy. Only this morning I had a circular from Wakefield Deaf and Dumb Institute, where they claim that it is people who hear who have deaf children, and that deaf people have children who can hear. They appeal for support for that institution which is under the ægis of the Church authorities in Wales. I do not believe these various theories; we want wore information, and therefore I suggest that to take an old body like the Lunacy Commissioners to dominate this new authority is not the way to do justice to this new experiment. If the Home Secretary would make research into history, he would find some of the most famous men in the history of the world had mentally defective mothers. I will name three, Bacon, Turner, and Lincoln, three great authorities. No one will deny that Bacon is in the foremost group, and no one will challenge the position of Turner or Lincoln. When you come to examine the lives of these men who have moulded our opinions, and have given us a definite lead, you find that there is a great deal yet to be learned in connection with this question of feeble-mindedness. Mozart, Nelson, and Spinoza suffered from the disease of phthisis, which they inherited. It is all very well to ignore history and put these extreme opinions into practice. How dare we do it? What authority have you from God or Nature to interfere in this way without more study of the question? To treat the subject in this way is to me a matter of the gravest concern. I am sorry on the last occasion that insufficient time was not allowed on the Second Reading. If I were to attempt now to go into the question deeply I know I should occupy an unfair portion of the time of the House. I will, however, refer to the Home Secretary's explanation, and to the Clause upon which I challenge him. In Clause 2, Subsection (1), paragraph (a) (vi.), it is provided that a person

"placed under guardianship—

(vi.) who is in receipt of poor relief at the time of giving birth to an illegitimate child or when pregnant of such child."

We have been told that it is only a case of time, but I think that is a monstrous answer to give. How can anyone say when a woman is pregnant of a child that that child is illegitimate? A marriage up to the time of giving birth would make that child legitimate. If you are going to treat the question in this way you are disregarding in many respects the liberty of the subject. If the question is approached in that spirit, then I have very little faith in this Bill becoming law this Session. I thank the Home Secretary for the concessions he has made from the point of view represented by some of my hon. Friends below the Gangway and myself. I admit that the Home Secretary has made a most genuine effort to meet that which he conceived to be sound and valid argument. I willingly acknowledge that this has not been done formally but in reality, and that influences me in not pressing my opposition on this occasion very far. After all, the Committee upstairs gave considerable time to the subject last year. Concessions have been made to Members of the Opposition on some points, and to the minority opposing the Bill on this side on some other points. Unless some other turn is given to the Debate, I do not think that one would be justified in trying to kill the Bill at this stage. I would, however, like to hear from some Member of the Government some announcement that when this Bill is before the Grand Committee—upon Which I sincerely hope I shall not be asked to serve—that there will be thorough latitude of discussion given, and I hope the Government do not think, because they have made these concessions, that the Bill is now perfect. If some assurance is given that an open mind will be kept, in view of the discussion which may take place, I shall not press to a Division the Amendment which I have moved.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Speaking on behalf of the Opposition, I can safely say that there are a very large number of us who could wish the compliment attributed to us by the hon. Member for Pontefract were correct, namely, that we were the real promoters of this excellent Bill. We cannot claim to be the promoters of it, and we recognise that the Home Secretary is entitled to that honour. As the Home Secretary most graciously, courteously, and generously said in his speech, we have done what we could to help him to deal with this difficult subject and make the proposals of the Government better than they were when they were first introduced in order that the Bill might become a good Act. It is an exceptionally pleasant task for one on this side, who is in the bitterest disagreement on many subjects with hon. Members opposite, and particularly with the Home Secretary, to have the opportunity of saying that the right hon. Gentleman has met us throughout the discussion on this difficult subject in a spirit of absolute open-mindedness, and with a single-hearted desire to try to make the Bill better. With that little interchange of compliments, I pass to the speech of the hon. Member who has moved the rejection of this Bill. I believe the hon. Member for Pontefract is perfectly sincere in his opposition, but at the same time I wish to point out that he represents the smallest possible minority of thought in this country. I believe the necessity for legislation on this subject is almost universally recognised throughout the country. The hon. Member has objected because he thinks that there should be one central authority instead of two, and also on the ground that the Lunacy Commission is like old bottles into which the new wine of the new Commission is to be introduced. The justification for the course adopted is that the Lunacy Commission has been trained in traditions of liberty in reference to the patients brought under its charge, and has had experience extending over many years in dealing with patients who are most akin to the patients to be dealt with under the new proposals. It is because of that experience and because we know they will protect the liberty of the subject that we want to utilise to advantage all their existing knowledge.

Although there was great regret expressed on the side of the Opposition at the close of last year at the withdrawal of last year's Bill, and although we expressed that regret absolutely honestly, I wish to say that I believe the country will be better off by that Bill having been dropped. That Bill, from the difficulty of the subject, and from the departmental difficulties necessarily involved, was introduced in an experimental form. We discussed it very thoroughly from certain aspects in Grand Committee, and that brought to light many new considerations, and I believe the work we did then was done once and for all in its main outlines, and will not have to be done over again. But in the meantime there has been opportunity for reflection on the criticisms passed, and above all an opportunity for reconsideration of the Bill with its alterations in Grand Committee, with the result that the Bill now before the House is a much more coherent measure than it would have been if those alterations had been grafted upon the original proposals. All those who have followed the subject carefully take that view very strongly, and when I say that, I think it is an admission which shows that our attitude to this subject has been in no sense a party attitude. Indeed, I believe party considerations have been absent from the discussion of this measure in an almost unprecedented degree.

7.0 P.M.

There are only one or two matters to which I think it desirable or necessary to draw the attention of the House upon the Second Reading. The first is the question as to whether the liberty of the subject is endangered or not by this Bill. The second is how children ought to be dealt with under the proposals of this measure; and the third is the question of the provision of proper medical research. There are also two other minor points I wish to deal with. I will deal first of all with the question of the liberty of the subject. It is said on behalf of a certain small section of this House, representing proportionately a very much smaller section outside, that the proposals of this Bill seriously interfere with the liberty of the subject. The best answer to that is to consider some of the concrete cases of feeble-minded persons who are dealt with in actual experience. And for the purpose of meeting this argument, which seems to me a fallacy likely to cause much misunderstanding, and possibly damage to the Bill in its passage through this House, I have had collected by skilled persons engaged daily in the care of the feeble-minded, a certain number of critical instances, and I should like to quote some of them. They have been collected by authorities whose weight will be recognised at once. They are Miss Mary Dendy, Mrs. Hume-Pinsent of Birmingham, and Miss Grayson of Liverpool, all of them persons in daily contact with the subject. These I put forward as typical cases to establish two propositions; (1) the necessity of power being obtained to detain children from their parents, and. (2) the necessity of power being given to parents to deal with their children when they are unable to do so without this power. Take the first aspect of the question, the need of power to detain children from their parents. Here is the first case:—

Birmingham Cases. "Grandmother insane: mother feeble-minded, with, two feeble-minded, illegitimate daughters. (1) Daughter educated in a special school, and on leaving great efforts were made by After-care Committee to place her in the guardians' colony at Monyhull for the feeble-minded. Feeble-minded mother absolutely refused to give her consent. This girl went into the workhouse for a confinement, and further efforts were made to induce her to go to the colony, but she refused and took her discharge. She had a second confine-anent about a year afterwards. She is now absolutely degraded and is reported to be earning her living by prostitution, and is accused of improper conduct with the grandfather. (2) The second daughter is a low-grade, feeble-minded girl who was found utterly neglected and committed by the magistrates to an industrial school. She is now licensed-out under the Children's Act to the Monyhull Colony, where she has greatly improved in manners, habits and physique, and where she is perfectly happy. Is learning to be useful. She is very nearly sixteen years old and her feebleminded mother has announced her intention of withdrawing her as soon as she possibly can. She will, therefore, return to live in the same house as the grandfather and feeble-minded mother and sister, and at is a foregone conclusion that she will lead the same life. If the Bill passes this year it will be possible to save this girl."

"G. C.—Feeble-minded prostitute. Two feebleminded daughters. (1) First daughter: Father a criminal, having had various long terms of imprisonment; since in workhouse, and now in Winson Green Asylum. The daughter was educated in a special school and every effort was made to induce her mother to allow her to go to the Monyhull Colony, but the mother always refused to do so. When the girl left school she sold matches in the street and made a good deal of money, as she was a pitiable object and people constantly gave her money. This made it more difficult to induce her parents to consider sending her to a home. She became associated with a street hawker, with whom she lived for some time. She is now constantly in and out of the workhouse and various charitable homes, in none of which has she ever stayed long. (2) The second daughter: Father, defective, epileptic; was found absolutely neglected and was committed to an industrial school. She, too, has been licensed-out to the Monyhull Colony, and has made great improvement in manners and habits. Her mother is also constantly in and out of the workhouse, and is waiting until the girl is sixteen to try to get her back again."

"G.D.—This feeble-minded girl was discharged from a special school at sixteen years of age. She went to live with her married sister and brother-in-law. She had a child by her brother-in-law and was confined in the workhouse. She took her discharge a fortnight: afterwards and went to live with a feeble-minded brother and a feeble-minded sister, She is so feeble-minded that she could not remember the month in which her baby was born only six months after the event. She is a girl who, if she had been sent to a colony for the feeble-minded on leaving school, would have been useful, respectable, and happy. Is now utterly degraded and miserable. Every effort has been made to induce this girl to go to the colony, but nothing will persuade her or her feeble-minded sister to entertain the idea."

"Liverpool Case, F.P.—A feeble-minded, good-looking girl, doing well in a home; taken away by her sister, a bad woman, who induced the girl to lead an Immoral life."

Here is a case which illustrates the need of parents having power to place their children under care:—

"G. B.—This girl was two and a half years in a special school. She has just been confined in the Birmingham workhouse of an illegitimate child. The mother carne to the office and implored me to try to get her into the Monyhull Colony, but the girl absolutely refuses to go. The mother cannot control her in the least."

I have the letter written by the mother to the schoolmistress asking for help. I will read it—a pathetic human document:—

"Would you kindly try your best to get Johnny into Home?…. I went out on an errand and saw a crowd of people. There were a dozen lads or more beating Johnny in the entry.…. He stood by the lamp-post and said he would not come for me. It was between nine and ten when he came from school; it is sometimes twelve o'clock when he comes home. Miss, do not you think he would be better if he was in Home? He would be cared for. I am quite willing to pay 1s. 6d. a week, and, as you know, it would be a great burden off my mind. His father is only a poor navvy and his wages is not much. P.S.—I would come myself, only I have got no boots. Please kindly do your best."

The comment on that case by the school doctor was this:—

"Regular street arab. Violent propensities; very little reasoning power. Very poor home; mother drinks. Boy often plays truant. Cripple in family. Typical farm colony case. Presence in school detrimental to other children."

Is not that a typical case where, if the mother had such power as this Bill gives, it would be a great advantage?

Is that a feeble-minded case?

They are all feeble-minded cases. I myself saw and wrote to Miss Dendy, Mrs. Hume-Pinsent, and Miss Grayson, and asked them to give me typical feeble-minded cases to illustrate the importance for the sake of the individual feeble-minded persons of these provisions which hon. Members are now attacking as taking away the liberty of the subject. I will take a few more, which I got Miss Dendy to print and circulate. Take this one:—

"R.I.A.—An abnormally developed and overgrown girl. At thirteen had already suffered every evil that can fall to the lot of a woman. Had several times been taken home by respectable men whom she had accosted. It was difficult to train her into habits of common decency, but at eighteen she was a happy girl living a simple, wholesome life, and her health, which had been very delicate, had improved. Her father, a drunken, disreputable man, then came and persuaded her to leave her shelter."

Take two more cases:—

"O. O.—An epileptic woman. Had an illegitimate child. Boarded it with a respectable woman and paid for its keep. One day fetched it saying she was going to place it elsewhere. Drowned it in the river on her way home. Is now in prison, being punished for a crime which she was probably quite unable to avoid committing."

"C. A.—A strong boy, small; high grade feebleminded; subject to very violent attacks of temper in which be does not know what he is doing. His father murdered his mother. So far as the law goes, C.A. is 'at liberty' to leave his home at eighteen."

I could quote these instances galore. Miss Dendy sums them up in these sentences:—

"These cases might be multiplied by the thousand. They are not exceptional. There are large numbers who, without further legislative powers, cannot be placed in any safe refuge. Even for those who are so placed, there is great danger that their criminal or feeble-minded patents may persuade them to leave."

That is the view taken by all those who have had to do with the subject. I had the honour of introducing to the Home Secretary a deputation, representing working men and women from Manchester and the surrounding districts on this subject. It is for those working men and women that those advocates on that side of the House are posing as protagonists in order to preserve to them the liberty they are supposed to desire. Listen to what these working men and women say. The first was a deputation of the Manchester and Salford District Trades and Labour Council, composed of 33,000 working men who signed a petition unanimously in favour of the Bill, and their representative, Mr. Kean, a shrewd working man himself, said:—

"There have been a good many remarks made as to the infringement or interference with parental responsibility, but to our mind, as workers, we rather look upon it as a liberation of the responsibility than an interference. Working people who have a child of this description may to some extent he able to look after the child. Still there is the constant harassing thought and dread as to what will become of the child after they have passed away, and we believe the way this Bill proposes to deal with this class of children is really the humane way. The time is long overdue and the question ought to be dealt with. We trust the voice of our workmen at all events will be some means of strengthening and helping you to make this measure an Act of Parliament, so that it will be put in working operation as soon as possible for the benefit of the children and parents and the community at large."

Take the view of the representative of the working women. Mrs. Nevitt said:—

"Speaking on behalf of the working women, who are mostly married women, I say with their full consent and understanding of what they are doing in this matter, as women who have studied the questions of the day and are much interested in social reform work, that we have come to the conclusion that these matters, have been dealt with from the wrong end. We wait until our workhouses and homes and prisons are filled, and we really think this Mental Deficiency Bill will deal with it at the right end, and prevent many of these people finding their way into the places I have mentioned."

What is the name of that lady?

Mrs. Nevitt, of the Manchester District Co-operative Guild. The second point she made was this:—

"Our women also feel very keenly at the present time that there is no restraint on this class of people perpetuating their race. We find that the working-class people at the present time are restricting their families - that I am absolutely certain of—because they feel they cannot bring their children up in the manner they would like to do. Yet at the same time they have to keep, or help to do so, this class of person, and there is no restraint whatever put on their bringing families into the world. We feel that very strongly: that we are populating the country with the wrong class, and the people who are worthy citizens have to restrict their own families."

That is the working-class view; no scientific eugenics.

"With regard to the liberty of the subject, I may say that our women do not look at it as in any way restricting it. They say "We see the feeble-minded people about the streets, and they seem to be the butt for everyone, and they are neglected, many of them. Even with the best intentions in the world, the parents cannot always look after them as they would like to do because they are working women. They have other work to do, and other children sometimes to look after, and all their family affairs. The child cannot be taken out, and is sometimes kept altogether in the house, which I suppose is one way of taking care of it. But to our minds the provisions laid down in this Bill would be more humane altogether, and these children would really have more liberty than they have at present, because they will be taken care of in the homes and schools and the same class will be kept together and looked after. They really will have more liberty in a sense, because they cannot be taken care of in the home."

I will only give one sentence more. Mr. McGlasson of the Trades Council said:—

"Our experience, as leaders, has been that the quarter from which the opposition would come is not the quarter where the child is happy. The economic condition of their homes is such that the parents hold fast to these children because they see the possibility of putting them to work even at the sacrifice of the child. They look forward to the time when the children will reach the age of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen, and when they can put them out to make money out of them."

I think that sufficiently illustrates my proposition that it is for the sake of these unfortunate individuals themselves that restrictions on liberty, if they are restrictions on liberty, are absolutely essential. I have here the report of Mr. Travis-Clegg, the Chairman of the Lancashire Inebriates Acts Board upon the work of the Langho Reformatory. During the last ten years a large number of women have been consigned, under the magistrate's order, to that reformatory, and of those women substantially more than 50 per cent. are feeble-minded, and drunkards because they are feeble-minded, and absolutely incapable of cure. Under the existing law, those women have to be discharged after three years' confinement, and of those, 50, per cent. are bound necessarily to relapse at once into that state of inebriety which sent them there. I will read one single sentence:—

"As I have pointed out before, these women, as their life history shows, have not become mentally defective through drink, but are inebriates because they are mentally defective and cannot resist indulging either that or any other passion to the full which happens to, take possession of them for the time being."

I want to quote one fact which is am answer, and I believe a conclusive answer to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Pontefract, that the evil is a decreasing evil. There are those who are wont to attribute this evil not to congenital variation, which is the technical phrase for saying that it is inherited, but to environment and bad conditions. So far as medical knowledge goes it is most unlikely that any appreciable number of cases is due to environment. I believe most doctors hold that opinion. If it be that environment is the chief cause, one would expect to find the evil to a large extent restricted to old civilisations like ours in England, where you have slums. But it exists in new and undeveloped countries—in the Colonies and in open lands, and the evil there is a growing evil. If hon. Members will read the Reports on the subject from Australia and. Canada, they will find it recognised as a growing evil. I will not trouble the House with details. Hon. Members can ascertain the facts for themselves from Reports recently issued, for instance, in New Zealand, Victoria, and Ontario. These Reports all show that it is becoming a serious problem how to deal with the mentally deficient. No doubt their presence in the Colonies is largely a heritage from the wastrels and criminals whom a beneficent Mother country sent out in times gone by. Recently they have adopted stringent immigration regulations to prevent that, but it is too late. They have the stock which breeds and makes the feeble-minded. This Bill in its present form does not represent any experiment in eugenics. It contains no single proposition which is, in any sense, an experiment in the new discoveries of eugenic scientists. It is a Bill based on practical experience, on the experience of people who have had to deal with mentally deficient persons in voluntary institutions. It is based on the conclusions at which they have arrived as a result of their experience.

I pass to another point. The Government in this Bill have accepted the suggestions that were made in Committee that the proper method of approaching this subject is to begin with the children. There is before the House not only the Mental Deficiency Bill, but also the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Bill. These Bills are part of one coherent scheme. They cannot be discussed separately. One is the complement of the other. Shortly the scheme is this: That the education authorities of the country, having already special schools in a great number of districts, having already had some experience of feeble-minded children, and being by law bound to deal with the education of all children, should be used as the means by which the children are to be sifted, so that those who are capable of education should be educated, while those who are not, and who ought to be treated as patients, should be sent on to be dealt with by the authorities under this Mental Deficiency Bill. The proposal in essence is right. But there is at present in the scheme as it stands a necessity for some further statement of the principles which ought to be applied as the criteria for deciding which children should be sent on and which should be retained. The proposal as it stands in the Mental Deficiency Bill is this: By Section 2 Subsection (2) all children in regard to whom notice is given by the local education authority are to be sent on to be dealt with by the mental deficiency authority, if they have been ascertained to be incapable, by reason of mental defects, of receiving benefit or further benefit in special schools or classes, or who cannot be instructed in a special school or class without detriment to the other children, or who within three months before attaining the age of sixteen, they are discharged from a special school or class, and in whose care the local education authority are of opinion it would be for their benefit to be sent to an institution or placed under guardianship.

I do not want to discuss Committee questions here. But there is a question of principle involved. I submit the true principle ought to be this. As the education authority is, by our system, placed there for the purpose of training our children to grow into useful citizens, it follows that, so long as the children are capable of being converted into useful citizens, it is the duty of the education authority to retain them and educate them. But as soon as it becomes evident, which it does after a comparatively short period of observation, that a child will never be capable in after life of standing on its own legs unaided, i.e., of becoming an independent citizen, then you ought to approach the question of what to do with that child from a different point of view. You have to bear in mind that that child will need support as it grows up; it will always remain mentally a child and always be in need of care and guardianship. Therefore, for its own sake, it ought to be sent on to the mental deficiency authority to be dealt with under the provisions of this Bill. This would certainly be in its own interests. There are two subsidary points on that. One is this: that a mentally deficient child will be able to learn very much more how to be happy in life and moderately useful, if taught by the manual method of training now systematically employed in all institutions for the feeble-minded. I am aware that that method is also applied in the special schools of the Education authorities. But what I suggest is this, that in an institution under this Bill that will be the normal method of teaching and training mentally deficient children, and it would be a waste of public money to keep these children in expensive special schools when you cannot ex hypothesi educate them into independent citizens.

Therefore I maintain the true principle should be that as soon as you have satisfied yourselves through the doctor—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Then I will use a colourless expression, and say that as soon as it has been properly ascertained that the individual child will never be an independent citizen, you should send that child on at once, and then he will have the advantage of being developed to the maximum of his limited powers from the earliest years. This will save a considerable amount of expenditure to the local education authority, for I gather that the cost per individual in institutions under this Act will be very much less than the cost per child in special schools. That, I suggest, would be the proper criterion to be applied. I believe the President of the Board of Education and the Home Secretary both share that view; and, if that be the case, then in Committee we shall have to consider how that principle can be satisfactorily expressed in the Bill, so as to prevent the possibility of divergent departmental views in the future between the Home Office and the Board of Control on the one hand and the Board of Education on the other. Those children will be kept in the schools so long as it is possible that they may develop into independent citizens, while those who cannot be so developed will be sent on, on the ground that they will throughout their lives require to be under care and guardianship. This point seems to me important. If that principle is applied, these children will be sent on just as soon as it has been ascertained that they can never become independent citizens without waiting for any particular age. I find corroboration of that view in this fact that, according to the information that has been supplied to me, 90 per cent. are now discharged from the special schools on or before reaching the age of fourteen; and the effect of inserting the age of sixteen in this Bill would be to leave a period in which they would go hopelessly to the bad through not being looked after.

I want to say a word on a class of feebleminded not technically children, but to which similar considerations apply. This perhaps is more a matter for the Home Secretary. There are a good many mentally defective, persons over the age of twenty-one who are not idiots or imbeciles, but who are, for all practical purposes, mere children over whom, under the law as it stands parents have no power of compulsion. These parents cannot send their sons and daughters to these institutions if they do not want to go. It may be desirable that the Bill should confer such a power on parents. I do not want to discuss that here, but I mention the matter as one important to be considered in Committee upstairs. They are mostly cases of what are described as "moral imbeciles."

There is one more point in connection with the scheme of these two Bills in regard to children. The provisions and safeguards with regard to certification, discharge, and so on, are more effective, in regard to children who come "in contact with the law," to use the Home Secretary's phrase, under Section 2, than in regard to those sent on by the Board of Education. With regard to these the ipse dixit of the school doctors is apparently conclusive. The Mental Deficiency Bill gives the President of the Board of Education power to make Regulations which are not required to be laid on the Table of this House, and which give him in fact autocratic authority to deal with the question as he likes, and to drive a coach-and-four through the Mental Deficiency Bill. I do not, of course, think that that is intended, nor will it be carried out in principle.

In regard to matters other than children there is one point on which I would like to lay stress. Under the existing law guardians of the poor are entitled to receive a 4s. Grant for every pauper sent to a voluntary institution under the Idiots Act. As the Bill is drawn I believe that 4s. Grant will be lost. I submit to the House that it ought to be preserved.

It is intended to be preserved.

I accept that statement as satisfactory. The only other question is one which has not yet been discussed at all. Doctors say they believe that in a great majority of cases feeblemindedness is a permanent condition which cannot be cured. On the other hand, a committee of doctors specially appointed by those used to dealing with mental cases, acting through the Medical Psychological Association, have expressed a strong opinion that research work ought to be prosecuted with the greatest zeal. It may very likely be, they think that, at any rate in early life, many of those conditions which result in feeble-mindedness will, in the future, be discovered to be remediable. If so, the gravity of this evil is such that we ought to do everything in our power to open out a hope to the public that feeblemindedness may not only be dealt with as under this Bill, but may be cured. There is at present research in connection with most of the asylums. The Home Secretary knows what is going on. But there is no co-ordinated research work in relation to this matter. I have had a report prepared for me by medical experts, showing the kind of work possible, its urgency, and the great expense of the necessary, equipment. I will not trouble the House with details now, but I do suggest that some provision ought to be made not necessarily for a definite Grant of public money this year, but that there ought to be provision in this Bill for allowing some money to be given year by year for National Research in connection with feeble-mindedness. That is a matter of the greatest importance, and I ask the Home Secretary, when he deals with the Financial Resolution, which will be necessary for this Bill, to bear in mind that all-important question of research work.

All of us on this side of the House who dislike this Bill, who dislike the principle underlying it, who believe that it is inspired by the grossest materialism, and who prefer to trust Providence rather than the Home Secretary, ought to be deeply grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down. We could not have had a more perfect example of the sort of thing to which we most strongly object. I do not believe the hon and learned Member can really appreciate the sort of blank dismay with which an attitude such as his strikes those of us on this side of the House who disagree with him. He gets up and advocates for the lower orders, for the working classes, for the children of the poor, a measure which he would never tolerate for one moment for his own children. Is it conceivable that the hon. Member—I do not know whether he s married and has children—if this measure were to be applied to his own children, if he were to have his own feebleminded daughter taken away from him at seven years of age, in spite of his protests, and in spite of his wife's tears, would consent to that daughter being taken away to an institution a hundred miles away from his home, and locked up there?

I did not quite catch the hon. Member's question, but I understood it to be whether I understood that this measure applied to children of all classes of the community. I regard it as applying to both rich and poor. The evil is quite as bad, and in some points worse among the rich than among the poor.

The question I asked the hon. Member was whether, if he had a feeble-minded child of seven years of age, he would be advocating this Bill, and contemplating with equanimity that child being taken away, against his wish and against his wife's wishes, and locked up for life from seven years of age onwards?

That is not in the Bill.

The Home Secretary may be acquainted with his own Bill, but he can hardly have read the Bill which is to be brought in next by his colleague, the President of the Board of Education. Those two Bills have to be taken together, as the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Leslie Scott) has stated, and, taken together, a child from the age of seven is taken from its parents, becomes the property of the State, and is segregated, and deprived of all chance of ever going home again.

That is in neither Bill.

I will deal with the Bill. I do not like being contradicted, so I will deal with the matter at once. If you look at Clause 2, Sub-section (1), paragraph (v.), you will see that the defectives dealt with are those in whose case such notice has been given by the local education authority; and in Clause 2, Subsection (2), (b), yon find that in the case of the children who are at one of these special schools, as they are called, and who are reaching the age of sixteen, the local education authority is to inform the local authority, under this Act, that those children are about to leave and are not fit to look after themselves, and thereupon these children are automatically drafted into these homes. What is called a "petition" is presented by the officer of the local authority, and the child, on reaching the age of sixteen, passes on automatically from the special school to the special home. These new special schools which are proposed under the Bill brought forward by the Minister for Education are to be residential special schools; they will be exactly like the homes proposed to be set up under this Bill, except that they will not be locked, barred, and bolted. Therefore I am justified in asking the hon. Member whether he would support this Bill for his own children as well as for the children of the lower orders. He says that the Bill is intended to apply to rich and poor alike, but he knows it is not so, for there are provisions whereby those who are well-to-do can send their children to homes, not to places locked and bolted, and to put them under the charge of a guardian, so that they may be saved from the segregation provided for the children of the poor. I do not think the hon. and learned Member would be quite so keen on this Bill, and advocate it with such enthusiasm, if he felt that his own children were likely to come under its scourge.

What I liked about his speech was the way in which he viewed the education of children as being entirely a matter for the children and not for the parents. He viewed the child as a potential producer of wealth, as a citizen who is not only to be trained to look after himself, but to be able to earn something as he grew up. I do not know whether he thinks that the only end of existence is to produce wealth for other people. It seems to me that whether or not the child is to be sent to a feeble-minded home and segregated is a question far more of the wishes of the child and the parents than whether the officials and the doctors of the State believe that when the child grows up it will be either a wealth producer or a drag. The one interest of hon. Members who support this Bill is the production of wealth by the community. They have no interest whatever in the real well-being of the child, in its happiness or in the happiness or wishes of the parents. The Home Secretary, in in- troducing this Bill, started by saying, quite-correctly, that this Bill was simply the outcome of the Report of the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission sat for four years and produced a Report upon which this Bill is founded. I do not believe it is the business of Liberal Governments, of Liberal Ministers, of men inspired by really Liberal ideas, to take, without examination, solidly the Report of a Royal Commission and embody it in legislation. Nobody can read the Report of the Royal Commission without seeing that from first to last they never conceived the idea that the welfare of the individual was one of the first things they should protect. Whether the people on the Royal Commission thought that or not, it is the duty of a Liberal Home Secretary and a Liberal Government to look at the question from that point of view. We are not here to enact in Acts of Parliament the Reports of all Royal Commissions. There are two absolutely diametrically opposite points of view of the government of the country. You can either accept the autocracy of the expert and do whatever the experts tell you, or you must ask what the people of the country really want, what you have a mandate for, and what is possibly not in the interests of efficiency or in the interests of wealth production, but what is in the real interest of the individual citizens of the country.

I complain that the home Secretary, in accepting the Report of the Royal Commission and embodying it in this Bill, never regarded it from the democratic point of view at all. He knows that he has no mandate from the country for this Bill. The whole of the Liberal Press—the "Manchester Guardian," the "Daily News," the "Citizen," and the "Daily Herald"—opposed this Bill last year, and denounced it as an illiberal, anti-democratic measure. It has absolutely no support from the country. The right hon. Gentleman has never mentioned it in his speeches in the country, and none of the Cabinet Ministers have attempted to defend it in the country. None of them had it in their election addresses when the last election was on. I do not suppose that any of them, except the Home Secretary, has ever read the Bill. It is now brought forward, based on the Report of the Royal Commission, and drafted by the Home Office. We should not swallow everything the Home Office puts before the House of Commons. I am against government by experts, and still more against government by artificial agitation. Last year we had a sudden, raging, tearing agitation got up over what was called the "White Slave Traffic" Bill. This House passed the Bill, and then discovered that there was no trade at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, no."] Not a single white slave trader has been arrested since. They may have passed over to France. That was a Bill to arrest all those people who were waiting at railway stations to lure poor girls away. The Bill was passed, and nobody has been arrested. A similar agitation has been got up now. Miss Pinsent, who speaks on Liberal platforms for the National Liberal Women's Association, has wonderful ability, such ability as only ladies seem to possess nowadays. She organised all over the country a series of petitions and a campaign in favour of this measure. It is very likely to grow in force, and we shall hear the women of the country clamouring for this Bill, as they did for the White Slave Bill. But it is our business to look at the measure from the point of view of actual law; to read the Bill, and see how it will actually affect our constituents. If this Bill is passed into law, it will put into prison 100,000 people who are at present at liberty. That means that in each of our constituencies there are fifty people now at liberty who will be put into prison. Before we enact a law doing that, we ought to carefully consider whether we are justified in making the change.

I admit at once that there can be a very strong case indeed made out for some measure on these lines. The heartrending examples react out by the hon. Member for Liverpool can be multiplied in every corner of the country. There are hundreds of cases of women who drift in and out of the workhouses. They go in to have a child, come out, and go back again. There are hundreds of cases of people who sink to the lowest depth of degradation because they are not properly looked after at the present time. While we admit all that—and everyone knows it is true—it by no means leads us to accept this solution of the Government as the proper solution of the difficulty. Hon. Members interested in the question know that at Sandlebridge, near Birmingham, there is an admirable institution. Such institutions are homes in the best sense; they are looked after by people who are interested in looking after this particular class of persons. There are separate houses for each class of defective and for each sex. The people who run these houses subsist partly on grants from the county council, and partly from voluntary contributions, and they have the utmost difficulty in making both ends meet. They are overwhelmed by applications from parents to make room for their children, So that their children can go to these homes. I think I was told there were 4,000 applications for a vacancy at Sandlebridge. These are the homes which are run on admirable lines.

Surely if yon want to do anything really to help the feeble-minded, and not something which is to turn out more defective children, the best thing we can do is to, encourage homes such as these. There ought to be far more of such homes. But let us be quite certain that we keep them as homes, and do not turn them into, prisons. Everyone who has studied the question knows that the backbone of this. Bill is the abolition of these homes and the substitution for them of asylums, where there are bolts and bars, where people are locked up at night, where people may not go in order to visit their friends, where they will be hunted like runaway slaves if they escape, and brought back by any constable or any servant of the asylum. The will power of these mentally defective people is so poor that there are hardly any escapes from these existing real homes. They do not run away, because they are-persuaded not to. You are going to alter these homes into places where they are locked up. The first result of that will be that people outside will no longer have confidence in the way these homes are being managed. Directly you put obstacles in the way of free egress you immediately start all sorts of ideas as to what goes on in these homes. No one who has read Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," no one who, reads the newspapers and sees the accounts which occasionally come up of ill-treatment of convicts, will for a moment assert that if you establish all over this country asylums where people on the borderline between sanity and insanity are locked up you will not take all manner of tales, and probably more than tales, of what goes on inside these new asylums. I believe good work can be done by amending our existing lunacy laws in the direction of more careful inspection and more humane treatment in these asylums. I should be the last person to do anything to add to the number of people in asylums in this country—100,000 poor people who cannot do anything for themselves and who are on the borderline between sanity and insanity.

We have at present admirable homes. Why not use the money which this Bill finds for increasing those homes and for establishing them all over the country? As the Home Secretary said last year, but unfortunately did not repeat to-day, if these were voluntary homes, if there were no locks and bolts and bars, 99 per cent. of the people in them would remain there just as though they were involuntary. Why, for the sake of the odd 1 per cent., introduce a prison instead of leaving to develope, still more fully than it is developing at present, the voluntary: system where the feeble-minded person is genuinely looked after. If you put on bolts and bars, you not only arouse suspicion, but you will get far more brusque treatment, possibly brutal treatment, of the inmates. If the home is voluntary, there is every inducement to the people who run it to see that the inmates are treated humanely, and not made to dislike the place. But if you make them closed homes, whence the people cannot escape, one of your greatest safeguards for kind treatment of the inmates vanishes, and you do not know what may take its place. We know there are these hard cases. We know there are feeble-minded men and women who ought to be looked after by the State. Let the 'Government go gently. Let them extend the existing system. Let them increase the number of these homes, but do not let them jump from the present system to one with which we have no acquaintance except so far as the Lunacy Commissioners and our present asylum for the insane give us light upon what may happen. If you give money to these homes; if you put local authorities in charge of homes such as Sandlebridge all over the country, if there are vacancies for all the parents who want to send their children to these homes, you will have done something for the feeble-minded people of the country, and at the same time you will not have committed any crime against them. You will not be scrapping them for life; you will not be locking them up against their wish, but you will be safeguarding them against ill-treatment. That is what I think the Government ought to do. Let them establish voluntary homes. If they like, let them make it impossible for the parents to take the children away from the homes until they are twenty-one years of age, but after twenty-one years of age, let them be free to go or come as they like, and we know that 99 per cent, will be so much at home in the homes that they will stop on naturally. But we have come to an age in which the State is supposed to do everything by compulsion, an age in which the policeman is a god, and in which he has to rule the people. The Government now say we will put these children away at seven years of age, and keep them in these institutions for the rest of their life. We will segregate them; we will look after them very kindly, but we will segregate them in order that the breed of the race may be improved and in order that the wealth producing power of the working classes may be increased.

I want to go through this Bill and see exactly what it does propose, because, after all, it is a long Bill, and 99 out of every 100 who talk about it have never read it. In the first Clause you have the definition of the various people who are to come within the ambit of the Bill. There are four different classes. There used to be more, but fortunately, we have reduced them to four. There are, first, idiots and imbeciles, about whom we need say nothing, because they are already dealt with; then we come to feeble-minded persons, in whose case there exists from birth defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care for their own protection, or for the protection of others. That is appallingly vague, and in many cases it is not a matter that a doctor can decide. It is not a question that he can diagnose. It is merely a matter of opinion that they require care for their protection or for the protection of others. Merely under the words, "for the protection of others," you might bring in all the ideas of the Eugenist School. We might want to protect others in the future from coming in contact with feeble-minded persons, and therefore we might segregate them. We might say that people like the hon. Member (Mr. Keir Hardie) are a danger to society, and for the protection of others they should be segregated and kept out of the way. Dr. Bernard Hollander, who has written an extremely interesting article upon this Bill, writes as follows on this important point of the definition of feeble-minded persons:—

"This definition is unsatisfactory. It can be made applicable to a great many persons who are leading normal and useful Is it not true of many men, and still more so of a great many women, that they are mentally defective—of course not amounting to imbecility, yet sufficiently pronounced that some care, supervision and control should be given for their protection and for the protection of others? We are all feeble-minded in some respects, or when taken out of our accustomed environment. For the law to interfere with the border-line feeble-minded it should be proved in any given case that the person was always in need of supervision and not merely at a particular time; and in the case of children it is not sufficient to say that they are incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in ordinary schools, which may apply to a great many children who do well in after life, but it should be stated that they have failed to acquire even rudimentary knowledge."

Of course Cowper the poet would have been locked up under this Bill. He was sufficiently feeble-minded. In fact, the children who would come under the definition of "incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools" might be extended to include nearly one-half the population. It is a matter which anyone who is put in authority would be able to use as a tremendous weapon to bully or blackmail people or in other ways to bend them to their will. People who are incapable of receiving proper benefit and instruction are unfortunately too numerous in this country, though there are plenty of them in this House, as far as I can see. The definition of feeble-minded is so vague as to be utterly valueless.

8.0 P.M.

Then we come to the people whom we really want to get at on the other side. Those are the moral imbeciles—that is to say, persons who from an early age display some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities, on which punishment has little or no deterrent effect. There are a great many people upon whom punishment has very little deterrent effect. I rather thought we were growing out of the habit of regarding punishment as being the best deterrent. Let me read what Dr. Hollander says about moral imbeciles:—

"What is meant by mental defects? Moral imbeciles are those who display some mental defect. If a moral defect is meant, it should be stated so, but if intellectual defect is meant, it is in the majority of cases not true. Moral imbeciles show, as a rule, intellectually, but little, if any, abnormality. They do not lack brain or intelligence. Of these they have more than their share, but they put them to a bad use."

When the other Bill was going through Committee upstairs an hon. Member actually proposed that all prostitutes should be included with persons who are liable to be segregated, and obviously there must be a large class of people who believe that prostitutes are feeble-minded persons, and should all be segregated for life. It is not fair to the citizens of this country to leave them absolutely at the mercy of people who can read into this Bill exactly what they like owing to the vagueness of these definitions. Such, then, are the classes of persons—idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral imbeciles. Having got these four different classes, what does the Bill propose to do? It does not say all these people are to be segregated. They have got to come in contact with the law, or-come under some of the Sub-clauses of Clause 2. Those who are idiots and imbeciles, the worst class, and also the feeble-minded and moral imbeciles who, are below twenty-one, can be put away by their parents after an inspection by a doctor. That seems to me to be a very satisfactory part of the Bill. At present a parent can put away a feeble-minded child if he is lucky enough to get a vacancy in a home. Then the next thing is that any of them who are found neglected or cruelly treated may be taken away. That seems to be perfectly just. They are the children of all parents who are not taken proper care of. Then we come to those "found guilty of any offence." The Home Secretary in stating what this Bill did inserted-there the word "criminal," which, at any rate, makes the Clause better. As the Bill stands at present "any offence" would include such offences as being sued for debt, non-payment of rates, or anything of that sort.

That is expressly excluded.

Is such an offence not included under paragraph (ii.), Clause 2, Sub-section (1)? It provides that a mentally defective person may be sent to or placed in an institution for defectives or placed under guardianship

"who is found guilty of any offence, or who is ordered or liable to be ordered to be sent to a certified industrial school."

Even there I would like to point out to the House that it makes a great deal of difference to a person sentenced to seven days' imprisonment whether the actual imprisonment is to be for seven days or for life. Paragraph (b), Clause 2, seem to me in need of amendment in the direction of excluding people who receive short sentences from the ambit of the measure. We have to remember that people in prison, undergoing short sentences can be transferred under the Bill by the ipse digit of the Home Secretary into these asylums for life. It is a very serious thing to pass an Act that gives such power over citizens of this country who have been guilty of some minor offence. There are powers dealing with habitual drunkards, and women "in receipt of poor relief at the-time of giving birth to an illegitimate. child." However much some Members of this House may look down on these women who go to the workhouse, we must remember that it is not fair to punish them in the way this Bill would do. It is rather hard that a woman who has been betrayed by some man, and who must go to the workhouse simply because necessity compels her to go there, should incur the risk of being sent to one of these asylums. There is a certain prejudice against women who have illegitimate children, and you might find boards of guardians acting with extraordinary stringency. I would ask the Home Secretary, when this Bill goes upstairs, to make a modification of this provision. He should make it apply after the birth of a second child, and not a first child, so as not to condemn these women to the awful doom contemplated by this provision.

You cannot do much even under eugenic regulations to deal with this question in the case of feeble-minded persons. The Government have followed up the suggestions of eugenic cranks in regard to this Bill and the Bill of the Education Department dealing with elementary education. They propose to deal with the children in this way: In the first place, schools are to be provided all over the country, both in urban and rural districts. There are many of these special schools already all over the country, and admirable schools they are. But there are country districts where it is impossible to put up a school for a couple of children. You will have these schools as residential schools. They will not be day schools to which the children will go in the day time, and return to their homes every night. During the term and very often during holidays as well, the children will be entirely separated from their parents, just as boys who are at public schools. At the present time children are not forced to go to school if they are mentally defective. Even in the urban districts children who go to the "silly schools" are not forced to go to the ordinary schools at the present time. So far as they are concerned education is voluntary, but directly the Board of Education Bill has been passed education for those children will become compulsory both in town and country, and people who have defective children will be bound to send them to these schools. The great argument in favour of compulsory education, so far as education in the ordinary schools is concerned, is that if the parents were not compelled to send their children to school they would make them work to bring in a little money. That argument does not hold good so far as defective children are concerned. The Bill proposes that children from seven to sixteen years of age should be weeded out from the ordinary elementary schools and sent to these homes for the mentally defective. To that part of the scheme I have no objection. It seems to me that it would be of advantage to the other children in the ordinary schools that defective children should be weeded out and sent to these institutions. What I have the greatest objection to is what, is to happen to these children when they get to sixteen years of age. When they get to that age they do not return to their parents and to normal life. After the presentation of a petition—a purely formal proceeding—they are segregated for the rest of their life.

The hon. Member is under an entire misapprehension in regard to what will happen to these children. We believe that a very large number of them will never have to be placed under any such custodial conditions as the hon. Member suggests.

Many experts agree that at the age of sixteen mentally defective boys or girls are not in a state to look after themselves. A very small proportion will be able to do so, and I do not think that the Education Department can say that they will be in a fit state to look after themselves at that age. If the age were raised to eighteen, I think he would be right, and that he would be able to let out a great many more boys and girls. At the age of sixteen it is very unlikely that the children would be able to be set free. They will be sent to an involuntary home—in fact, to an asylum. It will be observed that in hardly any of these cases are rich people touched. It is the lower orders who are being dealt with. Section 3 is immaterial. Under Section 4 we see the method by which the State gets hold of the mentally defective in certain circumstances. There are three ways for different classes. When a child has reached the age of sixteen a petition is to be presented to a magistrate by the officer of the local authority. The application is made in private, the petition is accompanied by two medical certificates, or, if they cannot examine the boy or girl, they must state why they have not done so. The doctors have to certify on a question which is not a medical question at all. Feeble-mindedness is not something that can be diagnosed like chicken-pox or phthisis.

The matter is one in which almost any-one is as good a judge as a doctor. The British Phrenological Society has put forward a very good point about this. They say that in every case there should be a statutory declaration in regard to the mental condition of the defective person made before laymen to be appointed for the purpose by a judicial authority, and they consider that one holding a public office or a justice of the peace would be preferable. You must remember that it will be fatally easy to get these certificates. The local authority makes the petition when the child is sixteen years of age, and inevitably the doctors will have thousands of these petitions to sign. They will be in all probability the servants of the local authorities, and the petition will be a mere matter of form in the case of children attending the special schools. I think there is the utmost need for an out-side medium in these cases—a justice of the peace, or somebody who is not a mere medical officer, or servant of the local authority. Having presented the petition, the next stage is that the person who is feeble-minded is summoned and brought before the magistrate. He is tried in private on the evidence of these two medical certificates. It is true that the magistrate can, if he wishes, have the inquiry held in public, but if he does not wish it, the inquiry will be held in private. He is to be empowered to allow the mentally defective person to have friends present. I am afraid those persons will not be in a mental state to demand the privilege of having their friends present. In this connection I wish to read to the House an extract from the letter of a man who was confined in an asylum.

It being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, Further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.