I beg to move,

These rules have been carefully made by the Government of India, acting with the local Governments, and in each case, both in the Government of India and the local Governments, there was an Advisory Committee chosen by the Government, of non-officials, who have carefully consi- dered the rules. Then they were sent home, were presented in draft to Parliament, I think over a month ago, and have been carefully considered and amended by the Joint Committee selected by the two Houses. The Joint Committee expressed a tribute, which I hope the House will echo, to the Government of India, to the local Governments and to their Advisory Committees, for what I think is a most remarkable piece of work. Any-body who reads through these rules with all their ramifications and sees that they contain not only the franchise proposals, but distribution proposals, will realise what industry and care have been expended upon them. The Joint Committee has been satisfied, and I hope the House will be satisfied, that they represent not only an accurate and scrupulous, but a liberal interpretation of the Act passed last year, and of the report of the Joint Committee which laid down certain principles.

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that he is not going to allow Amendments of these rules to be discussed in this House? It was distinctly promised by him to the House, when the Government of India Bill went through, that we should have an opportunity not merely of affirming the rules but of amending them if necessary.

I do not think I said anything of the kind. My hon. Friend has many Amendments standing in his name on the Paper, and I understand he has just handed in some more. That is what we are here to discuss.

If that be so, it is all we want.

The House has complete liberty. It can amend the rules or can refer them back to the Joint Committee, or take any action it desires upon them, subject to the ruling of the Chair. All I want to say is that the examination by all the authorities has been most detailed, and I ask the House to agree that, whatever Amendments are introduced, there can be no justification for the charge that the rules depart is any way from the intention either of Parliament or the Committee of Parliament. Every effort has been made to expedite these proceedings, consistently with doing the best possible work. The other House has already approved these rules. So far as I can discover from India, to-day is the last day upon which these rules can be amended. All I wish is that any Amendment which may be necessary shall be made to-day. If the House wishes to delay the matter one result is certain, and that is that the elections will not take place this winter. If hon. Members wish it, I can give to them my reasons for saying so. I think it sufficient to say now that the electoral rolls have to be made and published, have to be revised and corrected when objections, if any, are made, and the operations have been calculated to a nicety. You cannot hold an election in rural India at any season of the year. You do not want to interfere with harvest operations. I do not say that you could not adjourn the Debate until to-morrow or next week, but if there is to be any substantial delay it will mean the postponement of these elections for a year. If the House really wants to see the Statute of last year working, it is desirable to avoid that delay, if possible. I would urge the House to keep that view in consideration. Nobody pretends, nobody can pretend, that the franchise embodied in these rules or the electoral law embodied in these rules, is perfect or is comparable with the modern system that we have in this country, but when you compare it with the existing arrangements it is, I think, as good as we can make it. If you could get a perfect electorate working in India all at once then we would go further than the Act passed last year. I hope the House will not seek perfection in representation, but will content itself with making what is designed to be a good start for the first ten years. The House will observe that these Rules which are presented for their approval to-day deal with three subjects. First of all there are franchise Rules and Constituencies, then there are Rules designed as a consequence of the recommendations of the Joint Committee of last year to prevent malpractices. Finally, there are Rules of business for the new legislative councils and the new legislative assemblies. The Rules of business are modelled, roughly, on the Rules of this House. They are intended to be supplemented by standing orders in the legislative councils and legislative assemblies. The Rules of business, if approved by this House, cannot be amended except by Resolution again. The standing orders can be amended by the legislative assembly or the legislative council with the approval of the GovernorGeneral or the Governor. Therefore the Rules of business are by no means complete, they only contain such matters which it was thought desirable should not be amended without the consent of Parliament. I hope, with that explanation, that the House will find it possible to assent to these Rules.

I only intervene to deal with one point which was raised by the Secretary of State for India. I presume that he spoke from some fear grounded on some reasonable foundation when he asked the House not, as a consequence of their discussion, to imperil these elections being deferred for a year. If there is any reason for that, I very much regret to hear it. There cannot, I think, be any reason to dissent from this proposition, that it would be a great danger if by any action of Parliament the people of India were led to believe that there was an intention in any way to retard or delay the full operation of the Act which is now on the Statute Book. There is an amount of unrest, and far more than unrest in India at the present moment, and an agitation at home of a particularly active character, and which is peculiarly susceptible to misrepresentation to the peoples of India. I am not for one moment saying that that agitation is not founded upon sincere conviction. Unfortunately it is, but at the same time if linked with that there was any delay in putting the Act in India into full operation then I fear the difficulties which British rule is already experiencing there would be very much increased. Therefore so far as I can be of the slightest influence in backing up the appeal which the Secretary of State for India has made, I certainly desire to exercise it. While this House very properly exercises its full function in discussing these Rules, I hope that that action will not be used so as to bring about what I should regard as a disaster, namely, the delay of the elections in India contemplated and provided for in the Act.

I beg to move to leave out the words "of Business for provincial legislative councils" ["Legislature and Draft Rules of Business for provincial legislative councils."]

The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State said that he is going to allow these Rules to be either amended or referred back, and he made it quite clear that if they were referred back to the Committee, that would involve delay, and might imperil the chance of the elections being held this winter. So that obviously we must not refer them back to the Committee. That does not prevent us amending these Rules, and I want to make it quite clear that any amendment to the Rules will not involve the slightest delay, and can be made here in this House. The right hon. Gentleman said that he pledged himself to allow these Rules to be presented to Parliament, and that is certainly a great improvement on the procedure followed in a previous report. If these Rules may be amended the first thing we have to ask him to do is to allow a modification in his Resolution which will permit that. His Resolution as it reads prevents any modification of either Book 1 or Book 2 of the Rules, and allows modification only of Book 3. I think that must have escaped his notice when he prepared the Resolution, and I do hope that he will accept my first amendment in order that we may get the opportunity to amend. Books 1 and 2 deal with the franchise and elections generally. It will be seen that the Resolution reads,

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is under a misapprehension. If he will look at the first Amendment on the Paper, in the name of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Yate)— after the word "subject" ["subject however"], to insert the words "to provision being made in the rules relating to elections to provide for the grant of the franchise' to all officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the Indian Army on the termination of their service with the Colours, and subject to"—he will see that it is quite possible to move any of the Amendments he desires and that he can put in an Amendment in any place.

In that case all my Amendments will have to be redrafted. I cannot see that there is any objection to accepting my Amendment to leave out the words "of business for provincial legislative councils" so that we should have the right to amend, subject to the following modifications, the Draft Rules named. That would give us the chance to make the Amendments which otherwise we could not move. I cannot see that the other method of dealing with it is any better, because you have got to refer in each case to the individual Rule, Clause and Sub-clause, just as the right hon. Gentleman has done in his Amendment, and as I want to do with my Amendment also.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I should like, if I may, Mr. Speaker, to ask for your guidance. If it will help my hon. and gallant Friend to do this, it would mean the individual words would have to be reinserted again to make my Amendment intelligible, and I cannot see how he is prejudiced by keeping in these words. He wants, for instance, to leave out Sub-clause (2) of Rule 5. We can do that by inserting after the words "subject, however, to the following modifications," the words "that page 5, line 5, Sub-clause (2) is left out" and then he can deal with each of the items, whereas, if he is successful in this Amendment, we take out words which have then to be added to each of these first two Amendments on the paper. I do not know if I am right in that.

It could be done in that way. It could also be done by an addition. Assuming the House accepted the whole of the proposal of the Secretary of State for India, it would also be open to the hon. and gallant Member to add after the words "subject, however, to the following modifications in the Draft Rules of Business for provincial legislative councils, namely," the provision which the hon. and gallant Member proposes. It does not signify very much whether you take the Rules for Business first, or the Rules for elections to the councils.

Except that they are marked 1 and 2. However, I am prepared to accept that. May I then move my Amendment as proposed?

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman move it in this way, so that it will read "subject to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for election to provincial legislative councils, namely, page 5, Rule 5, leave out Sub-clause (2)."

Yes, Sir.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: After the word "however" to insert the words "to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for elections to provincial legislative Councils, namely, page 5, Rule 5, leave out Sub-clause (2)."—[ Colonel Wedgwood. ]

May I ask whether my Amendment comes in first?

No. The hon. and and gallant Gentleman's Amendment is not an Amendment at all; it is an objection to the whole Resolution. The Act says that the Resolution shall be approved or disapproved, and, if approved, approved simpliciter, or with additions or modifications. The hon. and gallant Gentleman does not suggest any modifications or additions.

Is it not an addition after the word "subject" to insert the words "to provision being made in the Rules relating to elections to provide for the grant of the franchise to all officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the the Indian Army on the termination of their service with the Colours"?

The hon. and gallant Member himself must draft the proposal which he intends to submit to the House. He cannot push it back on somebody else.

May I ask what I should do in the matter?

The hon. and gallant Member ought to have spent the whole of this week in preparing the Amendments, and put them on the Order Book at the earliest possible opportunity, so that everybody might see them.

I had no idea that this was out of order. Will the Secretary of State move the alternative that he has accepted? Will it be in order for him to do that?

The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has the ear of the House.

These are the rules for the election to provincial legislative councils, and they decide who is to be eligible for election, and they rule out certain classes of people. The particular Sub-clause of which I disapprove is Sub-clause (2), which prevents a person who has been convicted by a criminal court and sentenced to more than six months' imprisonment from being eligible for election. Normally speaking, one would agree with some such provision as that, but we must recollect that these rules are applied to the Punjab, and in the Punjab, in recent times, there have been serious disturbances and martial law, and under that martial law, and subsequent to it, many of the leaders of the Punjab have been sentenced to long periods of imprisonment. Some of these people have been pardoned, but in most cases the the sentences have been merely reduced to one month or some short period, and, if this Clause stands, it will mean that all those who have merely had their sentences reduced will be ruled out from the possibility of standing for the Punjab Legislative Council. At first sight that may seem to hon. Members to be the right and proper thing, and that it is desirable that those people who got into trouble with the military and who have been sentenced for sedition in connection with the Punjab riots, should be excluded, but the very fact of the enormous reductions in these sentences show that their crimes, when regarded in a cooler atmosphere, were not considered so very heinous. Further, I would point out that it is extremely desirable that exactly these people should be elected to the Punjab legislature. If you have them outside the legislature, they may become a very grave danger to the working of that legislature, but inside they are immediately put in a position of responsibility where their actions are bound to be very different from what they are if they are outside. Anyone who knows anything of the Punjab knows that the situation there is far more critical than it is in any other Province of India and must realise that the question to-day is, not whether there will be an extreme element elected on that Council or not, but whether the extreme element in the Punjab will not boycott the Council altogether.

I beg hon. Members to try to prevent that boycott. Directly you have that fighting race in the Punjab determining that they will take no part in these elections, that they will let the elections go by default, you are depriving this Reform Act of its chief advantage, namely, of the possibility of reconciling English and Indians in the Punjab and in India. The last thing every patriotic Englishman ought to desire is that these reforms should be boycotted. If they start being boycotted, it will be the most difficult thing to get them into operation hereafter, but if you determine that you are going to exclude leaders like Satyapal and Kitchlew, people who were deported, but who are followed devotedly by an enormous mass of the people of India, from taking part in your deliberative Assembly, you are doing the worst business for any possible co-operation between patriotic Indians and patriotic Englishmen in India. I beg the Secretary of State to see whether he cannot accept this Amendment, in any case for the Punjab, where these special cases have occurred. I cannot imagine the Punjab legislature without Doctors Kitchlew and Satyapal sitting in it, but if you do get such a legislature it will not be a Parliament representative of the people of the Punjab, and it may very well become a laughing stock so far as the population of the Punjab at large is concerned. Sir Edward Maclagan, the Governor of the Punjab, is doing his best to get the two races together again and to put an end to the appalling state of things resulting from the troubles of April last year. The best service we can render him is to make it quite clear, either by this Amendment or by the words of the Secretary of State this afternoon, that it is not intended to exclude from the right of election to the Punjab Council men like the well-known leaders of the movement in the Punjab whose names I have given this afternoon.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I hope the house will realise that we are not now legislating in the light of special circumstances, but for all time until Parliament otherwise determines. The existing rules in India bar from candidature persons sentenced by Criminal Courts for an offence punish- able with six months imprisonment, without limit of: time. The Joint Committee appointed by the two Houses of Parliament last year furnished a report to the two Houses in which they made this recommendation:

"The Committee are of opinion that dismissal from the service of the Government in India should not be a disqualification for election, but that a criminal conviction entailing a sentence of more than six months' imprisonment should be a disqualification for five years from the date of the expiration of the sentence."

Does that include courts-martial?

I read the words "a criminal conviction entailing a sentence of more than six months' imprisonment." Now comes the rule framed to carry out that recommendation of the Joint Committee, and the rule applies to all provinces and to all cases. I would ask the House to consider this, that if the opinion of those who exercise the Royal Prerogative is that a man should be pardoned, then he will escape the results of this rule, but if, on the other hand, the hon. and gallant Member persists in removing this rule, all those men who have been committing crimes involving a sentence of transportation or imprisonment for a period of more than six months will immediately become eligible for election to this new Parliament which it is desirable should represent all that is best in India. I cannot believe that expunging this rule will commend itself to the good sense of the House.

I find it easy to put myself at the standpoint of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood), but, once I have put myself there, I come away from it very rapidly. His sympathy is far too all-embracing for me. As the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, this indulgence will cover not only what may be called political offenders, but it will cover felons, thieves, and offenders of all kinds, and the new legislature will have ornaments gathered from the gaols of India, which will not add to their dignity or their strength. It seems to me that the Punjab can provide itself with a very worthy and a very efficient legislature, without the change which my hon. and gallant Friend proposes, and I should therefore strongly object to the Amendment in the interests of the legislature itself.

I do not want to force this Amendment or to divide on it, but I would point out that we have no rule here that a man who has been convicted for an offence shall not be elected to Parliament, and you might trust the Indians to have the same capacity for not selecting criminals as we have in this country. It is not necessarily because you allow them to elect anybody that they will elect anyone of a bad character. They are not children, but grown-up people. I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words rules, I should say, are not so bad as the others. In the Madras rules anybody who is on the electoral roll of the Province can be elected. In the other provinces certainly you have got to be on the electoral roll of the constituency before you can be elected. That very much hampers freedom of choice. There is a whole world of difference between the English system which we enjoy here, and that. Under the English system anybody can be elected whether he is a resident in the district or not, with the result that the people who are elected do not consider that the represent first and foremost their constituents; they feel that they represent the whole of Great Britain. That they stand for the public interest instead of being delegates for a particular district. The other principle, the one that is adopted in these rules, is the American idea that anybody to represent a district in Parliament must be a resident in that district. That to my mind, destroys the whole strength and efficacy of Congress in America, the fact that a man must be resident makes him more a delegate for that district than the representative of the whole nation. Surely we do not want to impose upon India a principle that we know has worked badly in the States rather than a principle which we know has worked well in this country? The reason that will be alleged—because these facts are perfectly well known to the Indians—will be that the people who drafted these rules, the Committee in India, and the Joint Committee here who passed them, wished to prevent undesirable Indians being elected, and, therefore, wanted to confine the election to those particular persons who were resident in the district, and, therefore, would be more suitable delegates for that district.

We want India to be a nation. We want the Indian representatives to feel that they are the representatives of the whole community. In the same way we want on the Madras Legislative Council that the people there should feel they represent the whole people of Madras, and not one particular corner. If we really want to make India free and self-governing, the only way is to foster the feeling of common interest instead of, by these rules, fostering a feeling of representation of vested and local interests. It is almost impossible to get the House to accept this Amendment, but I am quite certain that every single Member of this House would prefer in his own country to see the widest possible choice rather than the delegate system they have got in America. Merely because you are afraid of the Indians you do not allow them to have the same freedom of choice that we enjoy in this country.

1.0 P.M.

I regret I cannot agree with my hon. and gallant Friend, who has announced his intention of misunderstanding the motives with which I shall invite the House to reject this Amendment. It is not really a question of endeavouring to exclude anybody from becoming a member of the Legislative Assembly who can gain a seat… What we are anxious to do is this: the franchise is a thing practically unknown in India to-day, as the existing franchise is not worth a great deal. Nobody can say with certainty that this experiment in its earlier stages is going to be a success or that, with any certainty, you could at once proceed on the theories on which your British franchise is based. The fundamental and paramount consideration is this: that you have gone as far as you possibly can to secure that the man who seeks to represent a particular constituency will represent it. We have embarked upon a thing which is wholly unknown in this country in the shape of Communal Representation. Communal Representation is based upon a desire to see all the communities represented. To cut out this rule which would allow a non-Mohammedan to stand as the communal representative of Mohammedans. It seems to me to cut at the whole root and principle of Communal Representation. What we have done has been to see that in the Communal Representation the community must be represented by the one desired; and, secondly, that in the provincial legislative council the man who stands for election must be an elector not in that constituency but in the province. You do not want to allow somebody to come from Bombay and make an appeal to a particular constituency in Madras. What we desire is representation of the people of Madras. Surely that is a very sound principle… For these two reasons, and because of the agreement that has been arrived at, I hope the House will reject the Amendment.

I hope the right h on. Gentleman will understand that the views I am giving here to-day, though they may not be the views of the Joint Committee, are the views of the people of India—[HON MEMBERS: "Oh…"]—who are particularly anxious that it should be understood that in India there is a national feeling and that the people want to be represented by whom they like. They dislike intensely this perpetual desire to pit one religion in India against another—Musselman against Hindu, and all the other castes we are assisting nominally in this communal system. They realise——

On a point of Order. Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman entitled to make second speeches on his Amendments?

By leave of the House he may. But I understand that the hon. and gallant Gentleman intends to withdraw his Amendment.

I did not know but what this was the Committee stage.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for elections to provincial legislative councils, namely, page 24, Rule 6 (1), leave out Sub-clause ( b )."

The hon. and gallant Member has made a mistake, because this refers to special constituencies.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modification in the Draft Rules for elections to provincial legislative councils, namely, page 28, Schedule 2, leave out Clause 3."

This Clause reads as follows: Under that Clause, there are excluded from the general voters' list certain categories such as Europeans, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Mohammedans. They are represented specially on the Legislative Council. I am anxious that if they wish they should appear on the general list. I want to give these special classes, particularly the Indian Christians, the option of whether they will go on the general voters' list or on the communal list. I believe representations have been made to allow this option to Indian Christians to appear as, first of all, Indians rather than to claim their anti-national communal representation. The Indian Christians in the Madras Presidency are an extremely numerous body, and if they get on to the general list they might be an effective factor in the electors for that general list. To my mind it is of the utmost importance in the general interests of these Indian Christians that they should be on the general list rather than the special list. If they are left on the special list their representative is nominated by the Government. They have no right of election, but the Governor nominates their representative with the result that the ordinary Member of Parliament in Madras will have no Indian Christian electors, and, therefore, no incentive to look after the interests of Indian Christians.

It is infinitely more important for the Indian Christians that a few of them should be on the general electoral roll, so that they may vote for or against the different candidates put forward by the non-Mohammedan population rather than they should have their special representation. I should like to instance the difference in position between the South African native in Cape Colony where he has a vote on the general list for the representatives in the Cape House of Parliament, and the position of the Maori in New Zealand who has communal representation. The Maori position in New Zealand is infinitely worse from- the point of view of representation, although he has his own specially elected member of parliament, than is the South African native where he has a vote. Give special representatives, and the rest of the members are not looking after that community. But where they have a few votes in every constituency then every member of parliament is interested in looking after that community.

These Indian Christians feel that they are first of all Indians. They are as good and patriotic Indians as any of the Hindus of other classes in India, and they feel that their duty to India is much better carried out by throwing themselves into the common political movement in that country rather than standing out for separate representation. I feel that this is an effort made by the bureaucracy in India to keep permanent the divisions of interests among the people of India; to divide and rule in future these legislative assemblies just as they have divided and ruled in times past. If we really want India to be a self-respecting and self-governing part of the British Empire, we must accept their nationality and not try to divide them up into separate castes but rather try to unite them as loyal Indians.

Hon. Members interested in this subject will remember that the Viceroy and I, in the Report which we presented to Parliament, dealt with this point, and there is no doubt to my mind about the disadvantage. We also made it quite clear that our first purpose was to get representation, and it was quite clear in the discussions which followed the publication of that report that if you were to get adequate representation of all the communities in India you could not do without communal representation. If you have to have communal representation, then there is no half-way house between having it and not having it, and you cannot have people jumping in and out among the general electorate. You cannot decide what the general electorate is really going to be in that way, and you cannot fix the number of seats in proportion to the electors. Nobody knows better than my hon. and gallant Friend the difficulties that arise in India about the proportion of seats between Mohammedans and Hindus. If you give Mohammedans votes in the general constituencies and their special votes——

I propose that they should have the option of transferring to the general list.

If the Mohammedans could vote in either you would have no basis upon which to calculate what the proportion of Mohammedans should be to the non-Mohammedans. I assure the House that this question has been carefully considered, and particularly in the case of the Indian Christians. It does not represent the considered view of the majority, though it was put forward by the minority. I would welcome the disappearance of communal representation in India, but it can only be done at the request of the community itself and at a far later stage of development.

There are undoubtedly a certain number of Indian Christians—I had one come to see me the other day—whose whole interests in political life in India centre in the non-Brahmin controversy, which I thought was entirely a matter for the Hindus. This man said that he was not in the least interested in the representation of the Indian Christians but was entirely interested in the non-Brahmin fight and was going to throw himself heart and soul into that conflict. While it is true that there are those cases, the vast majority of the Indian Christians in Madras do for the present want this communal representation. I quite agree that the sooner we can get rid of it in India altogether the better, but it is not our doing, and, when the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Wedgwood) says that this is an act of the bureaucracy in India who are trying to force it upon India, he says that which is absolutely untrue. Constantly evidence was given before us last year to the effect that communal representation for the present was the only way out of the difficulty. I myself put the question specifically to Mohammedan and other witnesses, and they all said that for the present you would never get agreement among the Indians themselves upon any basis without communal representation. I look forward to its early disappearance. It is not the wish of this House or of any bureaucracy to force communal representation upon India, but it is the deliberate wish of the Indians themselves by an overwhelming majority of their various communities.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put and negatived.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for elections to the pro- vincial legislative councils, namely, page 34, Rule 6 (1) leave out Sub-clause ( b )."

This imposes a limitation on the people to be elected for the Bombay Legislature. The limitation is as follows:

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do so in order to ask the Secretary of State for India what is at the back of his opposition to these Amendments. I seldom find myself agreeing with the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood), and I approach with scepticism any proposal which he makes, but here I am very bewildered indeed. I have still an open mind as to whether the basis of this Bill, if there be a nationality in India, can be accepted or if the democratic principle can be applied; but you are applying the principle of the freedom of election to India and a democratic formula. Why should you give them a sort of congé délire and not allow them to elect whom they want. After all, it is their business, and, if they want to elect a person of another race, religion, or colour, it is their affair. If they say that they can represent them better than a person of their own——

On a point of Order. Is the hon. and gallant Member keeping to the Amendment? There is nothing in this paragraph with regard to religion, or to anything else.

I was just bringing that as an analogy. It is a residential qualification. I vote in Edinburgh for people who come from England or Ireland. There is no residential qualification. Why should there be one in India? That surely is the business of the election. The other system, of course, is that of congé d'élire. It is an old story. The King sent down to the Abbot and said to the monks "You are to hold a free election, but you must elect John Smith and nobody else." The principle of democracy is that the people may elect whom they think will represent them best. I want to know what is behind all this. Why are they not to be allowed to carry out their own business and to elect whom they like? I have quite an open mind in the matter, and I am only asking for information and not seconding the Amendment in any spirit of hostility.

There is nothing obscure, I hope, in the reasons which make it impossible at the present stage to apply to India the perfection of candidature which we have here. There is no question in connection with this business which has been more carefuly canvassed in this House than this question of the residential qualification of candidates. Some provinces were prepared to do without it. In regard to other provinces, when you took into account the number of constituencies, the number of electors in each constituency, and the position of the constituencies with regard to the big towns as centres of population, the conclusion was come to that, to get good representation, you must have the residential qualification. Madras said they could do without it now. I am sure the Governor of Bombay would say that he hopes one day to do without it, but that if he wants a really representative legislative council at first he must have this provision. My hon. Friend begins by describing Sir George Lloyd as a popular Governor who, if anybody is, is capable of making this scheme a success in Bombay, and then he invites the House to go against his deliberate recommendation, and imposes upon him the disappearance of a residential qualification for which he has specially asked. We are trying both; we are doing without it in some provinces and insisting upon it for the present in others. In a few years, therefore, we shall have seen how it works, and it is for that reason, and for nothing more obscure than that, that I would invite the House not to agree with the Amendment.

I am afraid that the support which I shall give to the Amendment must be of a very platonic nature. My views are in agreement with his, but I must lay down one or two of the principles which have been in my mind in coming to my conclusion on this matter. The political world of the Bombay Presidency is somewhat special. Most, or at all events many, of the representatives of the learned classes come from outlying parts of the Presidency. You have to consider the conditions of professional life in India, and they are something like this: In order that a professional man may get his living—and when I say professional man I have in view those who very largely fill the field of politics—he must leave his village or town and go to the Presidential town. The result of that is that Bombay is full of professional men who come from the villages and from distant parts of the Presidency. They have maintained a residence in their villages, but, still, their interests are very largely connected with the place from which they came, and it would be a disadvantage to debar them from representing their native place, for I think their friends and neighbours would be very glad to look to them to be their representatives. I know one after another of men who have been or still are representatives in the Bombay Legislative Council who come from outlying parts of the Presidency, but who have not maintained residences there, and who would be debarred from representing the places from which they came. Some, I know, who are still in the Council would, under the present rule, be prevented from continuing their political career. I know that one of the considerations the Government of Bombay had in mind must have been the prevention of the carpet bagger taking a place in the new system. The carpet bagger is a bogey. This House is full of carpet baggers, and if the carpet bagger were refused his voix de cité in our constitutional system this would be an empty House, or, at all events, it would be shorn of a considerable part of its talents. I am not a carpet bagger. I have been charged with being a carpet bagger myself. Unfortunately I am not. I should not mind if I were. The carpet bagger should be no terror, even in the Bombay Legislative Council. Though I am not going to support the Amendment by my vote, I do hope that while the new scheme is in operation these considerations will be carefully borne in mind, and I think it will be found that the Bombay Legislature will be deprived of a good many desirable Members by the restrictions which the rule imposes.

It is rather difficult to discuss these views when Members such as the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) suggest every possible motive in implying that there is an adverseness to the expression of native feeling on the part of those who have considered this subject and profess to know something about it. I am sorry that I cannot join with my hon. Friend below the Gangway (Mr. Bennett) in support of this Amendment. I expect the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) will look upon me as one of the reactionaries.

I do.

When the matter came up before the Committee, I was inclined to take the view suggested by the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Bennett). However, when I came to consider it, I saw that the arguments put forward against it were invincible. It is all very well for the hon. Member for West Edinburgh (Mr. Jameson) to rise and ask for elementary information on an Amendment which he does not hesitate to second. Surely it would have been more respectful to the House to give some sort of attention and study to the question before supporting a fundamental Amendment which has occupied the attention of the authorities in India and which has occupied very fully the attention of the Joint Committee. I am not going to follow the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Bennett) into a discussion of the good or bad carpet bagger. It may be all very well to refer to it here and there, but are we goinp to run to death the analogy between this country and India? Carpet baggers may be all very well, but are carpet baggers possible if you are to have a real expression and real representation of the indigenous feelings of different localities? It is all very well for the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme to speak of Indian nationality and the unity of that Indian nationality, but he knows just as well as anybody else that there is no truth in it.

I want to encourage it.

There are 30 nations in India. They are separated by religion, by race, by interests and pursuits and everything else. To speak of them as one nation is not right. Objection is raised to this Sub-clause ( b ) that it requires residence on the part of a man—that he might go out of a country district and spend a good deal of time in gaining his livelihood and be then cut off from representing his neighbours when he went back as a candidate to his village and among his neighbours. Surely my hon. Friend remembers that this condition is satisfied if a man has some sort of territorial connection with the locality. He does not need actually to reside there. If he has a domicile, if he has a home in that locality, he is reckoned as residential. If he has kept up his close connection with the locality, he will still, by virtue of that residential qualification, be eligible as a candidate. If, on the other hand, he has broken it, if, for 20 or 30 years it may be, he has had no interest, no stake in that part of the country, nothing that identifies him with it, surely it is a reasonable rule, in the interests of the locality itself, that the choice should fall on someone who has a real, close interest, and who would be not merely a nominal but a real representative of the feeling of that locality.

In spite of what my hon. Friend beside me (Mr. Bennett) has said, I confess that I do think there is a necessity for providing against the carpet-bagger in Bombay. I join in what my hon. Friend says about carpet-baggers in general, who have been conspicuous in this country ever since the days of William the Conqueror—perhaps the greatest of carpet-baggers—who dumped down his carpet bag with very great effect, and planted his relatives and friends all over the country. I am sure I shall offend my hon. Friend by what I am saying, but I do suggest that Bombay is hardly to be regarded as India. It is the most cosmopolitan city in the East, and I must say that I think it was extremely necessary and very wise to provide this limitation in regard to Bombay. That beautiful and splendid city is not to be regarded as India at all. It is wanting in representation of Indian feeling and Indian conditions to a quite extraordinary extent. I think that, if this Amendment were carried, it would be a very serious blot on these Rules, and therefore I cannot support it.

I understand that this is a Bill to confer political power on the people of India. I have listened very carefully to this discussion, and I want to know why it is desired that a people upon whom political power is being conferred shall be refused the power to select their own representatives. I have heard no reason, except that the people who live outside that place are spoken of as carpetbaggers. I do not think any of us were asked where we were born. We were born where we could not help being born. If the people of India are to have political power conferred upon them, why is there such a desire to deny to the people of India, who are considered to be sufficiently intelligent to take part in the political affairs of their country, the right to choose any representative whom they may care to return to their House of Representatives.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted.'

The House divided: Ayes, 21; Noes, 122.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modification in the draft Rules for elections to provincial legislative councils, namely, page 34, Rule 6 (1), leave out Sub-clause ( c )."

I do not propose to press this Amendment to a Division, but I want the right hon. Gentleman to make some sort of case for the Sub-section. In Sub-clause ( c ), which refers to Bombay, in the case of a Hindu constituency the candidate must be a Hindu, in the case of a Mohammedan the candidate must be a Mohammedan, and in the case of a European constituency he must be a European. I do not understand why there should be compulsion upon the electorate to elect their particular type of member. It seems to me to be a perfectly unjustifiable interference with the rights of the electors. You have already decided that they are to be residents, without any reason whatever except that you think you must try every form of Government except the English Government system. Now we are adopting another system of saying you must have a Mohammedan representing Mohammedans and a Hindu representing Hindus. One feature of the last year has been the extraordinary co-operation between the Mohammedans and the Hindus. The whole of this Khilaphat agitation has brought Mohammedans and Hindus together. You take no notice of that in these Rules. You still have your communal representation splitting up India into various religions and castes, and though the people of India are coming together and acquiring this common nationhood, in these Rules everything is being done to keep them apart and to prevent this nation, which all men of goodwill want and which is only opposed by other people who believe in the old doctrine of divide and rule, so far as India is concerned. I do not know whether the Mohammedans and the other people, who are bound to have free communal representation and bound to be represented by co-religionists, approve of this Amendment or not. I do not care whether they approve of it or pot. What I am anxious to do is to tell the House, and through the House the Indians, that this sort of provision is not only an insult upon a free electorate and a free people, but it is also to my mind based on the desire of the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy to preserve the differences in India as instead of to heal them, as everyone of good mind in this House wishes, to do.

I beg to second the Amendment. For the life of me I cannot see why we should attempt to divide the people up, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give some consideration to this Amendment.

I am afraid I shall have to repeat what I have said on a previous Amendment—that what the hon. and gallant Gentleman now seeks to do is to refuse to apply to Bombay what has already been applied by this House to Madras. There may be differential treatment on some subjects in different provinces, but the issue before us now is not whether this rule shall be made in India but whether it shall be made in Bombay, it having been decided that it shall be made in Madras. To the hon. Member (Mr. Richardson) I may say that although I feel it is impossible for me to recommend this Amendment to the House I am thoroughly glad that he and the hon. and gallant Gentleman are making speeches of the kind they are making on this subject of communal representation. I should like India myself, holding the views I do, to realise that communal representation is an expedient which is given to India to secure representation, but is very unfamiliar to us in this House and we would like to get away from it if we could. There is no desire in these Rules to divide India.

Oh yes, there is.

No, there is not. The whole Act is a recognition of the attempt to get a nation in India, but you cannot do it artificially. You cannot go to the Mohammedans in India and suggest to them that the day has come to abandon their communal representation.

Give them a chance. Allow them to get on to the general lists, if they prefer, and you will see.

The idea has given them feelings of the greatest alarm and apprehension. They have insisted upon their privilege of communal representation and none express themselves on this subject more clearly than the authors of the whole scheme. It cannot be done. You cannot get representation in India to-day except in the communal basis, and if once you admit the existence of the communal principle it seems to me to make it ridiculous if you say we are going to give the Mohammedans, because they are Mohammedans, the right to separate representation and then go on to say they can select, if they choose, non-Mohammedans. The whole essence of the principle is to get Mohammedan representation and this rule has been made, I will not say with the unanimous approval, but certainly with the overwhelming approval of all the communities affected by it. It seems to me the only logical application of the principle of communal representation. If hon. Members say they do not like communal representation I agree with them, but it is a regrettable and inevitable necessity if you are going to do what is more important than any theory—secure the proper representation of a constituency.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of the co-operation and fellow feeling between Hindus and Mohammedans. I should not like to let that pass without saying I believe it from the bottom of my heart to be factitious, fictitious, adventitious and ephemeral. It was born in political intrigue and it will come to an end with the end of the intrigue which gave it birth. If my hon. and gallant Friend's knowledge of India was equal to his industry in studying these particular problems he would know that what the Secretary of State has said is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and that you cannot have any representation in India which is not based on something which is more or less of a communal character. My hon. and gallant Friend said it did not matter a bit whether the people concerned approved or not. That seems to me a curiously undemocratic utterance from the hon. and gallant Member. I should not have expressed such a view as to the way to treat the proletariat. He spoke of the rights of the electors. The electors had no rights, until these rules have created rights by a great experiment in giving them to these people. I know of families in India who were born with sacred texts from the Vedas inscribed upon the insteps of their feet, but I never yet met any family which held that any little Indian was born with any right to the vote. No such thing ever entered the heads of the parents of any child born in India, and it is a perfectly absurd claim to put forward at a time when so much is being done to endow them with the vote and when the question is whether they should have so much as is given to them.

I should like to support for the most part what was said by the Secretary of State, but I differ from him in that I have no prejudice against communal representation. I think communal representation is an absolute necessity in India at the present time. What has astonished me is the fact that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has given forth what he consider to be the opinion of India. The hon. and gallant Member has, I suppose, met a few Europeanised Indians, cosmopolitan men, who have no race, no caste, or anything else, mostly atheists and internationalists, and then he gives forth their opinions as the opinion of India. He is absolutely wrong. Those are not the opinions of India.

2.0 P.M.

What the Secretary of State has said is the fact. I have had experience of Indians for some years, and I know that with them religion is a very serious affair. If the feelings of the people of this country in regard to religion were as keen as the feelings of the people of India, I have no doubt we should have communal representation in this House. I think this is more a religious measure than a political measure, and feeling in India about it is much keener than the hon. and gallant Member would lead me to believe were they based on so essentially a democratic view as he takes of them. That is the reason why, having regard to the great importance of this matter, I call attention to the fact that there are not forty Members present.

Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members being found present—

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

I beg to move after the word "however" to insert the words, "to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for Elections to the Provincial Legislative Councils, namely, page 38, Schedule 2, Bombay, Clause 2, line 3 of the Clause, leave out 'who is not a European,' and "—

This rule provides that:— regulations to prevent him having any voice and representation there…

On a point of Order, I believe I can satisfy my hon. and gallant. Friend. If he looks at the Clause, he will find that it refers only to electors, and therefore his arguments seem to me to be somewhat irrelevant. If he is thinking of candidature he ought to have moved his Amendment on a different Clause. He would find the same rules for this in the other provinces in India. It has already been passed in Madras, it is suggested for Bombay, and it has, I believe, been passed for Bengal and many of the other provinces.

May I point out that, by this Rule, although it is a qualification for an elector, it is also a qualification in Bombay for being elected, and that is why I have moved it.

It is not peculiar to Bombay.

Well, it may not be peculiar to Bombay, but, as I have said, the effect is to prevent Mr. Horniman's being elected.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modifications in the Draft Electoral Rules for the Indian Legislature, namely, page 3, Rule 5, leave out ' is a female'."

These rules deal with the draft electoral rules for the Indian Legislature. We have been dealing with the draft electoral rules for the provincial legislatures. Now we come to the Indian Legislature and the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for India, will be glad to hear that most of my Amendments here are more or less duplicates and therefore I do not intend to press them in any way.

Is the Amendment which the hon. and gallant Member is moving on the Amendment Paper?

No. It is a manuscript Amendment, dealing with the qualifications of elected Members to the Legislative Assembly. It is specified under Rule 5 that a person shall not be eligible for election if such a person is a female. I want to know whether the position is the same for the Indian Legislature as for the provincial legislatures in this matter. In the provincial legislatures it is left open to the provincial legislatures to decide whether women are to have Votes, and whether, when women are enfranchised, they may be elected to the provincial legislatures. As I understand it, if this Rule stands and if the words in Sub-section ( b ) "is a female" remains in the Rules, then, whether the franchise was given to the women or not, you will still bar them out from sitting in the legislature. I desire to know whether that is so, and whether it is the intention of the Government or not to make differences between the legislatures.

I beg to second the Amendment.

There is no difference between the legislature of all India and the legislatures of the provinces. My right hon. Friend has not observed the Rule in Book 1 which he has just passed, but he sees it now in Book 2. It is just the same. There never has been a Rule in the provincial or general legislatures that women should be qualified to sit as members. There is a suggestion that the provincial Legislative Council can grant the vote to women, but it has never been suggested, so far as I can remember, at any rate, that the present state of development of women's political sense in India is such that, at the outset, it would be necessary to provide for those who desire to become members.

I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "however", to insert the-words "to the following modifications in the draft electoral Rules for the Indian Legislature, namely, page 5, Rule VI., leave out Sub-clause ( b ) and Sub-clause (2)."

Sub-Clause ( b ) reads:

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 21; Noes, 117.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words "to the following modifications in the Draft Electoral Rules for the Indian Legislature, namely, page 40, Schedule 2, Part IX, Clause II, Sub-clause ( a ), leave out 'elected member,' and insert 'elector.'"

Under Part IX, we are dealing with the manner in which the Burmese are to vote for the Legislative Assembly. All the other Provinces of India elect their members to the Legislative Assembly by direct vote, but in Burmah indirect election is resorted to. That is part and parcel of the treatment that Burmah is getting now. It is common knowledge to everyone that the Burmese are, perhaps, higher in the scale of civilised development than the Indian, that they are better educated, that they are not divided by caste or religion or even so much by difference in wealth as are the other nations of the East. They treat their women every bit as well as women are treated in this country or in America, or at any rate they are far in advance of the whole of the Eastern races in their treatment of women. They have never given any trouble to the British Government, and now, when they ask merely to be treated on the same lines as the other Provinces of India, they find themselves throughout treated as though they were an inferior race. They are not allowed to have any responsibility in the government of their own country. They are jerrymandered in the representation given to them. This Rule is only another example of the way in which the bureaucracy of Burmah have prevented the Burmese from getting that fair treatment which they have not only every right to expect, but which they deserve at our hands on account of the way in which they have co-operated in the development of their country and their friendly attitude toward the British Empire as a whole. What is proposed is that votes shall be given to those people who have been elected on the Rangoon Municipal Committee and other town councils. The town councillors are to have votes and also the members of any Circle Board in Burmah. The ordinary Member of this House reading a Rule like that would not have the vaguest idea of what a Circle Board is. I doubt whether any permanent officials in Burmah know. The Circle Board has recently been invented. When you go into the question you find that these Boards are composed of Government agents, village heads, and that the people who are given votes are practically small Government officials throughout the country areas. They will remember by ten to one, and probably more, the municipal council electors. Practically speaking, you are handing over the representation of Burma on the Indian Legislative Council to a large mass of small government agents, the creatures of the Anglo-Burmese bureaucracy. My Amendment is designed to ensure that the Burmese shall have the same rights of representation on the Indian legislature at Delhi as the rest of India possesses. They have got an electoral roll in Burma, and the electors elect town councils such as that at Rangoon. Why under those circumstances should not the individual electors be allowed the same privilege as they have in India of directly electing their repre- sentatives on the Legislative Council. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider seriously whether it is necessary to pass this slight on the Burmese people, and treat them in this way as inferior to the Indians, when by a simple Amendment such as this without any difficulty he could place them on an equality with the rest of India so far as the Indian legislature is concerned. Even if he is not going to confer upon them any responsible rights in governing their own country, the same as Madras and Bombay, he might allow them to have the chance of direct election, instead of putting them in an inferior position for all time.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I have great sympathy with the proposal of my hon. and gallant Friend, but, very unfortunately as I think now, Burma was not included in the investigation which the Viceroy and I undertook three years ago, and we have not yet got before us, what I hope to produce, a satisfactory scheme for making an analogous move in Burma to that which we made in India. I hope that will not be delayed. There is, as my hon. Friend knows, a Burmese deputation now in this country, and the matter is under discussion. As we have not yet perfected an analogous scheme for Burma to that which we have recommended to the House for the rest of India, our choice was to leave the representation of Burma on the Legislative Assembly exactly as it is to-day, or to make some interim arrangement until we can revise it. You would have to decide on a new electorate, and I am perfectly certain it could not be done in time under this Amendment.

Are not the electors already there, such as those who elect the Rangoon Municipal Committee?

Without introducing some consequential Amendments, you could not make a very big electorate. I will read what the Government of India said on the matter:

"The materials for a direct electorate for the general scheme do not exist at the present moment and we have been compelled therefore to fall back upon indirect election by the elected members of the Circle Boards and of Municipal Committees."

I really think it would be most dangerous to fly in the face of a recorded opinion of that kind, and I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend to be content with this assurance. Indirect election, as he well knows, is an unsatisfactory process, and this arrangement for Burma must be regarded as a temporary arrangement. It is a remnant of the old order of things, due to the fact that the new move in Burma has not yet been determined. It will be necessary in the case of Burma to make an exception now and to bring it into line as soon as the Burmese Bill is got through the House.

Will the right hon. Gentleman leave out the words "a member of any Circle Board in Burma"? They are all officials, and they will swamp the few councillors.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has apparently more knowledge than I have on-this subject. The Circle Board, as I understand, is the best analogy that you can get in rural Burma for the Municipal Committee in-Rangoon.

No.

It may be unsatisfactory in the opinion of my hon. and gallant Friend, but I know of no other which at the moment would represent: rural Burma, and I hesitate therefore to-accept his suggestion.

All this comes from having Burma included in this scheme at all. I, personally, profoundly regret that Burma is still regarded as a part of India, and I hope to see the day come when Burma will no longer be required to send any representatives to Simla, or Delhi. I really think Burma is quite a separate country with a distinct people. Although this is obviously inadequate representation of Burma it is merely an interim arrangement, so that the very small representation of the Burmese can be continued at Simla or Delhi. It is bound to be unsatisfactory, and I am quite sure that the day will come, and should come, when Burma and India are once and for all entirely separated the one from the other, and when Burma is given a separate constitution.

According to my knowledge of Burma, which is very much less than that as to India, it is undoubtedly, as my hon. Friend has just said, a totally different country from India, and I agree therefore in substance with his remarks. But if by his remarks he means to imply that Burma has in any way suffered by association with India, or that it has not been well and fairly governed, I entirely differ from him.

I did not suggest that.

The country has been well governed by the Government of India, and with due regard to its totally different characteristics. No great harm will happen if it continues to be governed in the same way for some time longer. I believe the people of Burma are prefectly fitted to exercise the functions now granted to the people of India. I agree in hoping that in no long time they will be privileged to enjoy these rights.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 20; Noes, 110.

I beg to move, after the word "however," to insert the words

"to the following modifications in the Draft Electoral Rules for the Indian Legislature, namely, page 53, Schedule II., Punjab. Clause 5 ( a ), leave out '750' and insert '250'; leave out Sub-clause ( e )."

This Amendment is on the Punjab. The Punjab representation upon the Indian Legislative Council is based upon an extremely high franchise, and my desire is to lower that franchise. This is merely a token reduction as a protest against the very high franchise qualifications in- sisted upon in the Punjab. Under these rules and regulations special complications have been made by having a whole series of electoral lists. There is not only an electoral list for Europeans, and for the Anglo-Indians, and the Moslems, and the other religious sects who have got communal representation, but there are three separate lists for the ordinary electors in India. There is one list under which you vote for electing people to the Provincial Legislature; there is another list, completely different, under which you vote to elect people to the Indian Legislature at Delhi, and there is a third list under which you elect people to the Council of State. All these complications, to my mind, ought to be swept away. Even if you retain communal representation, I think you could still have one voters' role, both for the local legislature, the Indian legislature, and the Council of State, but we are here dealing with the voters' roll for the Indian Legislature, and under that the Punjab suffers particularly.

The Punjab, where all this unrest has occurred, is treated in the narrowest respect, and the qualifications are put higher than elsewhere. Among those who acquire the right of electors are whole classes of people who ought not to have votes but are included in the voters' list, because it is thought that their views will suit the Government. For instance, under paragraph ( e ) votes are given to anybody who is a provincial Punjab Darbari, that is to say, anybody who is an O. B. E. has a vote all to himself. It is giving votes to anybody who by any chance will vote with the Government and against the popular will. That would be all very well if it were possible any longer to rule India on those lines, but every one of these qualifications, such as that of 750 rupees per annum, and putting in the voters' list these O. B. E.'s, exasperates the people of the Punjab, and does not help the Government at all, because the more docile that Legislature is, the bigger will be the cleavage between the Indians with whom the Government is working and those with whom it is not working. It will be said that, under these Rules, you are taking back with one hand what you have given with the other, and rendering nugatory the whole of these reforms. I am quite certain that if you pass these Rules you will have all over the Punjab, when the elections take place, people denouncing these Rules, and saying that no true Indians can possibly co-operate with the Government, or take part in the Election, and that the Government have rigged and jerrymandered the voting list by putting on everyone on whom they can rely and keeping off all of whom they are afraid.

I beg the House to give those people the least possible chance of making a case against the Government. If you once get the people in India to believe that the Montagu reforms have been destroyed by the rules and regulations, just as the Minto reforms were destroyed by the rules and regulations, then the last state of public opinion in India will be far worse than the first. Rules like these make the people of India think that they are being deceived, and I would sooner you applied rules like these to any Province rather than the Province where the people have a deep sense of grievance, and will jump at anything of this sort as an evidence that they are distrusted by the Anglo-Indians. Surely it cannot be a wise thing to pack the voters' list in this way. The right hon. Gentleman must know that the only way is to get all these wild people, all these poachers and make them game-keepers inside the Legislative Council. We want them, not actively operating against the Indian Government, but inside the Council co-operating, instead of being antagonistic.

I really think my hon. and gallant Friend again has framed his speech on an erroneous impression that he was considering exceptional provisions made for the Punjab in the Indian Legislative Assembly, whereas the contrary is the case. He said this is an attempt which will be resented particularly in the Punjab. He wants us, therefore, to cut out 750 rupees and put in 250. He does not know in the least how many new electors that would mean, and the difference it would make in the constituencies. It has been carefully considered by the Punjab. There is nothing exceptional in the case of the Punjab, For the United Provinces he will find the figure is as high as 5,000, for Bengal 7,500, and Madras 3,000. I quite agree that if you have a Second Chamber it should be a nominated chamber, but if you have an elected Second Chamber you must have a re- stricted franchise, or your constituencies will be much too big. An attempt has been made to get a restricted franchise so as to secure a second or revising chamber on a senatorial basis. Several of them are comparatively rich men and others are men who have held high office. It is not intended to be a wide franchise, and so soon as the hon. and gallant Gentleman recognises that, I am sure he will withdraw the Amendment.

I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "namely," to insert the words

"page 3, Rule 6, leave out 'Governor' and insert 'Senior Minister.' "

I now get on to the Amendments to Volume 3, which deals with the Draft Rules of Business for the provincial legislative councils and Indian Legislature. These are the Rules of Business which are intended to coincide, more or less, with the rules of business in this House, but there are certain differences to which I wish to draw the attention of the House, and, if possible, get modified. Clause 6 deals with the allotment of time for nonofficial business and precedence of business. It puts in the hands of the Government the allotment of business in the Legislature. The Governor, under the Government of India, becomes partially, but not wholly, a constitutional sovereign. The more he is a constitutional sovereign and the less he is head of the executive the better, not only I, but the right hon. Gentleman opposite, will be pleased. The ideal system is when your Governor becomes a constitutional monarch, and when great responsibilities are handed over to the provincial councils and the Ministers. Under this rule it is the Governor who considers the state of business and allots the time both for public and private business. If that were done by the Crown in this country we should think it perfectly ridiculous. It is done by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, not necessarily as this Clause suggests, at the beginning of the Session, but throughout the Session. We ought to approximate the Indian model as nearly as possible to the English model. There will be four or five Ministers—probably two Indians and the other civil servants— and these have to get the work through the House. They are the Cabinet. I am confident if the Governor has to arrange the business he will be finding himself perpetually at loggerheads with the elected Members of the Legislature. They would always be clamouring, as we are here, for more time for discussion, and they will find the Governor up against them all the time. There is one thing we want to avoid more than anything else, and that is bickering between the legislature and the Governor.

I believe what my hon. and gallant Friend suggests would be perfectly right if the senior minister was responsible for the business of the Government, but he is not. He is only responsible for transferred business. The Governor is the senior Minister, if I may use the analogy, of the executive council. Therefore I am afraid the idea of the hon. and gallant Gentleman which will come, I think, in a very few years is not possible under the present system.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

I beg to move, after the word "namely," to insert the words

"page 4, Rule 10, line 4, leave out from 'questions' to end of Rule."

I have not said anything about questions, but I think the regulations made are far more strict than in this House. The idea put forward is an entirely new idea. If in this House the Speaker was at any time able to suppress the report of any supplementary question of which he did not approve I think the House would see to it. Anyone who puts supplementary questions is entitled to have them recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT and not to have them suppressed. I cannot understand what advantage there is in the suppression. After all, you will have the newspaper reporters there and if these supplementary questions are so disapproved of that they will not be reported officially they will be just the sort of question that the vernacular newspapers will report. In any case, it is better to have a true and accurate report of any of these items. If you suppress supplementary questions you leave the reporting to mere casual newspapers or to rumour.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Not having taken a tour of three months in India I have refrained from speaking upon matters of which I have no particular knowledge, but, at any rate, here, I think, is a fair matter on which I can speak with some little authority. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has raised an important point of substance. If this Amendment is not carried then it would appear to me something in the nature of a negation of parliamentary practice, and something which will not make for the good of government in India.

I really cannot agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that this matter is of such importance, for if a question is disorderly then there is no reason for it to be put on record.

You mean disorderly in a technical sense?

Yes, in other respects, it may be a very valuable question. I disagree to this extent, that it is very disheartening to the people who have worked so hard to make these rules that we should move amendment after amendment to them. But this one seems to me unimportant, and if my hon. and gallant Friend wishes, I can recommend the House to accept it. I do not see there is any danger in it.

What about supplementary questions put that, for various reasons, cannot be answered?

I do not see any objection. So far as I can see, this rule does not say they shall be reported. This rule says they shall not be reported. The hon. and gallant Gentleman objects to that. He says these Questions will be useful: why should they not be on the records of the House? I do not see any reason, and, therefore, I am quite prepared to accept the Amendment.

Numerous questions will be put for the sake of putting them on the record, and the object of this Amendment is to keep them off the record. I totally disagree with everything the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood) has said. I do not see why these rules should not improve upon the practice of the British Parliament.

Do we understand that it would still be in the power of either the Governor or the President to suppress in the Official Report of any local legislature any supplementary question which reflected on the honour or behaviour of a ruling Prince or Chief? I think it would still be in order, having accepted this Amendment, for the President who would have control of the Official Report to suppress any reference to something which it is considered improper for the local council to deal with. I do not think this Amendment makes any material difference.

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

I beg to move, after the word "namely," to insert the words

"page 4, Rule 11, at end add ' and Council.'"

This is subject to forty people rising in their places, and it should be subject to some such consideration in the legislature as well. To leave this matter entirely with the President leaves him really with more responsibility than is put upon the Speaker in this House.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do not think this is at all necessary. The President is never likely to give the adjournment unless the Council desire it. The exact method is by standing up, and this question will be provided for in a standing order. I prefer not to put anything in the rules of business, because they cannot be altered.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "namely,' to insert the words

"page 4, Rule 12, paragraph (iv) leave out from 'consideration' to end of paragraph."

My point is that this motion for the adjournment can, under paragraph (iv), always be prevented by blocking motions. This conceals the idea that blocking motions may be desirable in the Indian Legislatures. That may be so, but at the same time it ought to be said openly to the Indians, and it should not be concealed under words in a Clause which the ordinary Indian will not understand as curtailing his liberty of discussion. It is of vital importance that everything should be frank and above board, and if you are going to block motions then let it be by the action of the President or Minister, and not due to the action of some individual member acting as an agent for the Government, and doing it in the interests of the Government. I am sure anything of that kind would cause ill-blood in India. I particularly desire not to reproduce the methods of blocking motions which we have in this country, and that is why I want those words left out.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I have only risen to point out the inconsistency of my hon. and gallant Friend because just now he wanted the English practice to be adopted, and now he refused to accept one of the most time-honoured expedients in this House. There is hardly an hon. Member here who has served for any length of time who does not know what a valuable safeguard blocking motions are, and what a terrible waste of time they prevent and how they "temper the wind to the shorn lamb" and curb verbosity.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 16; Noes, 124.

I beg to move, after the word "namely," to insert the words

"page 10, Rule 10, line 9, leave out from questions to end of Rule."

The remaining three Amendments that I have upon the Paper for the Indian Legislature have already been discussed for the Provincial Legislatures. I do not intend to move them or to speak on them, but, as the right hon. Gentleman gave me one of these concessions for the Provincial Legislatures, namely, the right to print the supplementary question, even although it was not answered, I move that one so that we get exactly a similar right extended to the Indian Legislature.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, at the end of the Rule, to add the words "and subject to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for elections to provincial legislative councils:—Leave out the words of the rule or rules in Schedule II for every provincial council, namely:—

'is a retired and pensioned officer (whether commissioned or non-commissioned) of His Majesty's Regular Forces,' and 'is a retired or pensioned officer (whether commissioned or non-commissioned) of His Majesty's Regular Forces,'"

wherever those words occur, and insert the following in lieu thereof, namely:—

"is a retired, pensioned, or discharged officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier of His Majesty's Regular Forces."

My object is to give the vote to the brave and gallant soldiers in the Indian Army who have served us so magnificently during the War. I mean this Amendment to be a mark of honour to the soldiers for all the services performed by them.

I beg to second that Amendment.

I am very glad that my hon. and gallant Friend has taken up this cause, and I congratulate him on getting his Amendments carried. This very Amendment was moved from these benches by the Labour party when the India Bill was before the House, with a view to giving votes to the soldiers serving in the Indian Army or discharged from the Indian Army, and it was rejected by the House. Now, however, after it has been before the Select Committee, and has been turned down by them, it is accepted. I am glad it has been accepted at last, because obviously it is the right thing that the vote should not be confined to the officers and non-commissioned officers, but be extended to all the Sepoys of the army. The more we can do to extend the voting lists the better, and I am sorry that it is only under this Amendment alone that the-poorest classes of the Indian population will ever get the vote. The whole of the labouring classes are excluded from the vote, except the discharged soldiers who, at least and at last, will have the opportunity of registering their vote in the councils.

I have endeavoured to give my hon. and gallant Friend all the assistance in my power in drafting this Amendment with a view to inviting the House to accept it. It is not a welcome Amendment with the authorities in India, for one reason only, that it is going to be very difficult to get good electoral rolls in the time. Everybody is desirous that the men who fought for us should be enfranchised, and therefore I hope the House will accept the Amendment. I would ask that I should be allowed, on behalf of the House, to assure the authorities in India that if they do their best to trace these men—because some of them, not the pensioned ones, but those who have had their gratuity, may be difficult to find—we shall be quite satisfied, even though the first electoral roll may be imperfect in certain circumstances; it can be improved on the second occasion. I do not want to set the authorities, who have been working very hard, an impossible task. I want to say that the Amendment was not accepted when it was moved last year not because we were opposed to it but because the Labour party sought then to put into a Bill what it was the whole plan to do by rules afterwards. I think my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly right, and I am glad to be able to recommend to the House that the Amendment be accepted.

Do I understand that this Amendment deals with the enfranchisement of the soldier for the provincial councils only? We are dealing in this Amendment with provincial councils, and not with the Imperial Legislative Assembly, I understand?

Yes; the other will be dealt with in a second Amendment.

I rise to call attention to the fact that in the Joint Committee last year we did once carry a recommendation to this effect. We went back on it subsequently simply in response to a telegram from the Government of India, who pointed out the grave difficulties there would be in getting electoral rolls properly made out. I have always voted in the Joint Committee for the enfranchisement of the ex-soldier for the provincial councils. I voted against enfranchisement for the Imperial Legislative Assembly, because the franchise for the Imperial Assembly is on a totally different basis to that of the franchise for the provincial councils, and I shall certainly oppose the next Amendment, for I think it would render the whole arrangement top-heavy. Practically, the great majority of these new voters that this Amendment will put on the rolls are Punjaubis, and it would be an absolutely lop-sided arrangement, viewing India as a whole. It does not matter in each province where the province is concerned; but when you come to consider what subjects are going to be dealt with by the all India Legislature and what subjects are to be dealt with in future by the local home rule parliaments, you will see how suitable it is that the soldiers should be enfranchised in all the local parliaments, whereas it would be unnecessary from the point of view of the soldier himself, and would render the whole machinery unworkable, if the same Rule were applied to the Imperial Legislative Assembly. I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman has seen his way to give the soldiers votes in the provincial councils, but I hope he will think twice before extending the same Rule to the all-India Legislative Council.

I wish to associate myself with what has just been said by my hon. Friend (Mr. Ormsby-Gore), and to ask my hon. and gallant Friend opposite if he will reconsider his proposal for this military electorate for the Legislative Assembly. I regard such an electorate as entirely inappropriate for the purposes of the Imperial Legislative Assembly.

May I ask the Secretary of State whether it was not the Government of the Punjab which objected to this enfranchisement, and whether the Government of India did not merely give cover to the objection which came from the local Government?

The objections of the Punjab Government were not based in any way on merits, but only on the difficulty of tracing these men. I think that another Amendment which I shall invite the House to accept will go a long way towards removing that difficulty.

Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.

I beg to move, after the words last added to insert the words

"and, subject to the following modifications in the Draft Electoral Rules for the Indian Legislature, insert the following paragraph, that is to say: 'is a retired, pensioned, or discharged officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier of His Majesty's Regular Forces,' in Schedule II., Part I., Rules 6 and 7, Part II., Rule 6, Part III., Rules 4 and 5, Part IV., Rules 6 and 7, Part V., Rule 5, Part VI., Rule 4, Part VII., Rule 6, Part VIII., Rule 3, Part IX., Rule 2, Part X., Rule 5."

I found it quite easy to meet my hon. and gallant Friend on the last Amendment, but I would suggest to him that there is a very great difficulty with regard to this one. He has added about 200,000 men to the electorate of the Punjab. That is a very good thing for the Punjab Legislative Council. But when you add the same number of men to the Punjab electorate for the Legislative Assembly for all India, you are putting an enormous and wholly disproportionate new lump of voters on to a very small electorate. The whole theory of the Legislative Assembly electorate is a higher qualification, a restricted franchise balanced through the whole of India. This will make the whole thing lopsided. The representation of the Punjab will be not only different in character but enormously different in numbers. My hon. and gallant Friend has done the right thing in his last Amendment, of which everyone approves, because it not only produces a wider franchise, but a wider franchise by enfranchising men who thoroughly deserve, and will rightly exercise the vote. When he argues, however, from the analogy of the local Provincial Council to the Legislative Assembly, he is not on such sure ground. You have not got the same electorate voting for the two Assemblies; there is a different franchise throughout. I would submit to the House that they should not proceed too rapidly from the one to the other. We have already done something in opposition, on a pure question of machinery, to the wishes of the Governments of India and of the Punjab. I think it is going a little too far to do it a second time, when it is out of harmony with the whole fabric of the Legislative Assembly.

I do not quite follow in what way it is out of harmony, nor do I quite see why we should be giving such a dominating weight to the electorate of the Punjab as is suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. As I understand the Amendment, it would apply, if it were accepted, to all Sepoys who have been discharged from the Indian Army, to whatever part of India the units in which they served may belong. Therefore, I am sorry that I cannot follow the right hon. Gentleman in the case he has put to the House. Personally, I think it would be wise for the House to accept the Amendment, if only, or very largely, for the same reasons as in the case of the other Amendment.

In reply to what the right hon. Gentleman urged, I should like to say that I think it is impossible for us to give the Indian soldiers too much. Although it is quite possible that there may be delay and difficulty in compiling the first roll, that will be got over in time. We do not expect a perfect roll at first, but it will be obtained in time. For these reasons I must press the Amendment to a Division.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 53; Noes, 95.

Main Question, as amended, again proposed.

I should like to ask the Secretary of State to tell us, in the first place, the numbers of the electorate for the provisional councils, for the Legislative Council and for the Council of State. We have had no figures as to the numbers of the electorate, and that is a very important point, not so much to guide our discussions now as to give the information to the people of this country as to the number of people we are enfranchising in India. Before the question passes out of our purview I want to state what I think all the people of India feel very keenly, namely that these rules and regulations have been passed through the Joint Committee without the Indian people being able to put their views before that Committee. That Committee has had before it all the documents from the various Governors, from the officials, from the bureaucracy, but they have not had the evidence which could be given by the various interests in India, by the Congress people or the other people who have come over to this country in order to give evidence before the Committee. The rules and regulations have been rushed through that Committee. It may be that it is necessary to get them through at quick speed, but I cannot think it has been necessary to accept, as has been done, all the wishes of the. Governors and of the officials in India and to disregard entirely the point of view of the Indian people. I am confident that they have injured the chance of this great Reform Act working in India by the methods in which that Committee has carried out its work. The very fact that people are not able to state their case prevents them from accepting what may be really a most reasonable decision. They have hampered themselves in the possibility of getting these rules and regulations put satisfactorily into force owing to the fact that they have declined to hear evidence on the question.

4.0 P.M.

More than that, the people of India think, and think rightly, that these rules and regulations, and the decisions of that Joint Committee, have whittled down the recommendation of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report and have made the Act, as it is put into operation now, far worse than the recommendations of the original Report led them to expect. The whole of the communal representation, which they in their Report rightly condemned, has been imported and strengthened by every permanent official, by every recommendation made to the Joint Committee, and has finally been accepted by the Joint Committee. It is only natural that every official in India desires to see these Indian Parliaments represent not the Indian people but the various interests in India. The Joint Committee should never have accepted that point of view. They knew quite well that to the Indian, patriotism is now everything, that the Indian national spirit is now aroused, and it is intolerable that the permanent officials, the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy in India, should attempt to stem that national movement by seeing that every other interest is represented apart from the general national interests. We can never carry India with us so long as we keep to the idea that we can continue to run one interest against another, whether it be the Zemindar interest against the peasant, or whether it be the manufacturer against the workman. We can never carry on India by running those rival interests. The only way in which we can work Indian Home Rule, and work India as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, is by encouraging the national spirit in India, hoping that the national spirit will widen out from a mere Indian national spirit into the real internationalism which represents the British Empire today.

These rules, we must recognise, entirely fail to emancipate the working classes in India. In the towns not a single workman gets a vote under these rules. We are emancipating the rich and leaving the poor, the worker, unemancipated, without a vote, without representation, without any sort of power in India. That system cannot last long, and it is unfortunate that it has been even introduced temporarily. It will result in all these legislatures and all these councils representing the rich in India, the landlords, the manufacturers, the exploiters generally, and it will lead to these legislatures to emphasise their opposition to the British connection and to Britsh dominion in order to distract the attention of the workers of India from what is of real importance to them, namely, their economic subservience. If we had allowed the workers in India to get votes as we do in the Government of this country the problems that would arise in India would be the problems which we have in this country, between the exploited and the exploiters, between Conservative and Liberal, between Radical and Tory. As it is now the Conservative Party is the only one that will be represented in India, and Indians who believe in violence in order to distract attention from what really matters to the Indian people, will try to stir up difficulty against the British connection and will make things more troublesome for us than they were before. I look upon these things only as a halfway house, and I beg my Indian fellow countrymen to remember that this is only a temporary substitute for real freedom. We cannot hope that this Act, guided by these rules, will work, but we can still faintly hope that it will afford a legitimate and constitutional platform from which other reforms may be advocated, a step towards better things in India. It is, I still believe, only by accepting and working this constitution, however faulty, that they can ever hope constitutionally to get to a more perfect freedom. These rules are not what we want. They withdraw with one hand what was given under the Government of India Act. They are the best we can get for the present. They are the last word that the right hon. Gentleman can extract. I do hope, though with grave misgivings, that now that this great measure is out of the way we may yet see a more harmonious development of co-operation between the British and Indian peoples.

The hon. and gallant Member has expressed pleasure that a national feeling has been aroused in India. I cannot accept that with any pleasure, because that national feeling is very largely anti-British. It has spread throughout India very largely, and is one of the great dangers which we shall have to face in the near future. I hear that all the loyal Indians who stood by us during the rebellion of last year, and up to the present time are being so boycotted and so unfairly treated by those who called the rebellion in 1919 that their life is made a burden to them. British officers and others in India are treated with the greatest insolence and contumely by these men. Owing to the amnesty which was taken advantage of by the Viceroy, the Government of India and the Secretary of State, in order to liberate an enormous number of men who were convicted of murder and other crimes in the late rebellion, these men are now exercising a boycott on all those who gave evidence against them at the trials, and such feeling has been aroused in India as may lead to very great danger. I cannot, therefore, share my hon. and gallant Friend's pleasure as to the arousing of what he calls national feeling in India. The tendency of that feeling is certainly anti-British. All that we can do to-day is to pass these rules, after having passed the Reform Bill of last year, in order that we can get the scheme into working order as soon as possible. I was absolutely opposed to the right hon. Gentleman's Reform Bill of last year as to the diarchy which he introduced and the dual form of Government, because I believe it is foreign and entirely out of place in India. However, we have to make the best of it. I do protest, however, against the short time that has been given to us for studying these rules. During the past few weeks, owing to the pressure of work, we have not had time available for studying them, and I doubt whether many hon. Members have had time to look at them. However, we pass them trusting simply to the Government of India and the provincial governments who have drawn up the rules. We cannot offer any opinion upon them. There they rest for the present. I look on the state of India at the present time as most dangerous, and I do not know what the near future will bring forward.

I will reply to a few of the questions that have been raised. The total electorate is something about 6,000,000.

For the provincial councils?

We have made some alterations this afternoon, but I think roughly the numbers will be 5,100,000 for the provincial and 900,000 for the legislative assembly.

Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that only 900,000 people have votes for the legislative assembly?

Yes, roughly speaking. My hon. and gallant Friend is always carried away by the illusion that you can get a satisfactory electorate in India at the outset. I agree that everyone would like to see an electorate with more working men enfranchised, but you cannot do it in a day, and it is because you cannot do it in a day that this initial franchise has been made. My hon. and gallant Friend is quite wrong in thinking that the Joint Committee did not give it their most careful consideration. The Joint Committee did give it their most careful consideration, and he is quite wrong in thinking also that the Joint Committee did not receive evidence. They did receive evidence, much of it last year when they were considering the Bill, and much of it this year, and they made many modifications as the result of it. He is quite wrong also in thinking that agreements were only made as to the local governments, and I can assure him that so far as my colleagues and myself on the Joint Committee were concerned, we were absolutely of the opinion that the rules, in so far as they were drawn up, were not unsatisfactory. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down (Colonel Yate) to this extent, that there are grave factors in the situation, but I do believe quite firmly that when the Indians are given an opportunity of working this Bill, so far as the internal condition of India is concerned, there is every hope of improvement in the outlook.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That the Draft Rules under Sections 7, 11, 23 and 24 of The Government of India Act, 1919, relating to elections to Provincial Legislative Councils and to the Indian Legislature and Draft Rules of Business for Provincial Legislative Councils and the Indian Legislature, which were presented on the 7th July, be approved, subject, however, to the following modifications in the Draft Rules of Business for Provincial Legislative Councils, namely:—

Page 4, Rule 10, line 4, leave out from 'questions,' to end of Rule;

Page 10, Rule 10, line 9, leave out from 'questions' to end of Rule;

Page 7, Rule 29 (3), after 'at,' insert 'five.'

Page 7, Rule 33 (2), leave out 'not more than…Members including the Chairman,' and insert 'such number of Members as the Governor may direct.' and subject to the following modifications in the Draft Rules for elections to Provincial Legislative Councils:—

Leave out the words of the Rule or Rules in Schedule II. for every Provincial Council, namely: —

'is a retired and pensioned officer (whether commissioned or non-commissioned) of His Majesty's Regular Forces,' and 'is a retired or pensioned officer (whether commissioned or noncommissioned) of His Majesty's Regular Force,'

wherever those words occur, and insert the following, in lieu thereof, namely,

'is a retired, pensioned, or discharged officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier of His Majesty's Regular Forces.'"

I beg to move, "That this Bill be now read a Second time."

The object of this Bill is to remove the anomalous position under which at present, the Ministry of Food and the office of the Food Controller, which was to exist for twelve months after the duration of the war, finds itself, while the powers necessary for the exercise of functions depend upon the Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act, which expired at an earlier date. The reason why the Government have decided to ask the House, in passing this Bill, to agree to a very limited extension of the duration of the office of Food Controller, subject to the power to bring that office of the Ministry of Food to an end at any moment when the need for its continuance in the public interest has ceased to exist, are mainly if I may say so, grounds of economy. This is a time when we hear a very great deal about economy and about the need for economy by Government Departments, as well as by the public in general. Now the Ministry of Food is unique among other Ministries in this respect, that it is, in essence not a spending but a saving Department. With regard to most Ministries, they are formed to carry out functions essential for the safety and for the well-being of the State; functions which inevitably involve the spending of public money for that purpose, and the question whether the expenditure of such a department as the Admiralty, or the War Office is justifiable, depends mainly upon whether the money is being wisely expended upon necessary services. The Ministry of Food was created, not for the purpose of spending public money upon purposes of public utility, but for the purpose of saving the money of the public. Unless the Ministry does effect economies it has no reason for existence. I do not suppose that anyone who has taken the trouble to consider the work done by the Ministry from its inception in 1917, can have any doubt that it has been in every sense of the word a saving Department during the whole of that period. At the very lowest estimate, if we were to strike a balance between the Ministry of Food and the consumers in this country, it would be clear that during the two or three years of the Ministry's existence it may claim to have saved the consumers a sum which can be reckoned only in hundreds of millions upon the food bill of the country. At the time when the Ministry came into existence the price of foodstuffs was rising more rapidly in this country than in any of the other principal European countries. The price of foodstuffs stood actually at a higher level than in any of the other principal European countries. When the Armistice came the process had been reversed. The rise had been checked the moment the policy of the late Lord Rhondda had been brought into full working order, and at the end of the Armistice, instead of being at the top of the ladder of rising prices, we were at the bottom; instead of our prices having risen more rapidly, as they did during the first two years of the War, they had risen more slowly than those of any other important country in Europe.

If we test that claim by one fact, if we contrast the rise in the price of textiles, minerals or miscellaneous groups of other commodities, we find that where the wholesale price of textiles had gone up over 100 per cent., the rise in the retail price of all the principal articles of food showed an increase of only 15 per cent. from the date of the beginning of effective food control to the beginning of this year. On the other hand, if we strike a balance of account as between the Ministry of Food and the British taxpayer, I should say that this Bill will certainly put no burden of any kind upon the taxpayer. The moneys which we receive under our present estimates from the Treasury are not moneys received for the purpose of being expended upon public services, as would be the case in one of the great permanent Departments of State. We receive the moneys voted to us by the House of Commons upon the footing of a commercial transaction, in which we shall be expected to account to the taxpayer for every penny we have received, and when our operations come to a close to hand back to the taxpayer the moneys furnished to us for the purposes of the Ministry of Food. Throughout the life of the Ministry we have not only been served most admirably by great business men, who at considerable financial sacrifice to themselves have assisted us in the different technical departments of the Ministry, but our finances have throughout been supervised by Sir Harry Peat, of Messrs. Peat and Company, and our finances have been and are to-day conducted upon a basis which has for its object—an object which I prophesy will be found to have been accomplished—that of treating all moneys we receive from the taxpayer, not as moneys merely to be expended, but as moneys to be returned in hard cash to the Treasury, with interest, when the Ministry comes to an end.

The Ministry of Food is also exercising a function in conducing to real economy on the part of the British people at the present time, which is not always very clearly understood. A good many questions have been asked about the sugar position, and I will say a word about sugar from the point of view of supply, when I reach it in the order of topics with which I propose to deal. From the point of view of economy, the position is this. By a rationing system we secure that such limited supplies of sugar as can be obtained for the people of this country without undue inflation of price shall be equitably distributed between all classes, rich and poor alike. By so equitably distributing the supplies we are enabled as a nation to manage with less sugar than would be necessary if no equitable system of distribution were assured, because it is obvious if the rich were allowed to scramble for the supplies of sugar, either the poor people would go without sugar altogether, or the consumption as a whole would have to be increased, if there was to be a substantial surplus left for the needs of the working classes of this Country. The cost of the sugar rationing administration amounts to about 2d. per year to every taxpayer. The saving in the consumption of sugar at the present price is 90 million pounds. I know it is not one of those economies popular with the public. People will say "Why should we restrict our appetites." The popular economies are just those little ha'porths of tar which might spoil the ship, though in some quarters I really think if such economies might spoil the ship, that would not be regarded as a fatal objection to them. This is one of the economies not reckoned in charwomen's wages, or in the precise amount of salary that is paid to a distinguished civil servant, but it is an economy to be reckoned in millions of pounds.

The second reason why the Government have come to the conclusion that some reasonable period of duration for the Ministry of Food ought to be assured, is that the circumstances and the world conditions which made the policy of Lord Rhondda necessary in 1917, have not yet passed away. The Ministry of Food, it is true, is a war ministry, but it was not to fight the Germans, but to fight the shortage of supplies and high prices. Those conditions remain and to-day I am obliged to say that at no date since the commencement of the War has the price of the principal foodstuffs consumed in these islands stood at a higher figure than it is at the present moment.

Not a very good recommendation.

The right hon. Gentleman says, "Not a very good recommendation." If I take the principal country in Europe nearest to ourselves geographically, and nearest to ourselves in respect of price, and if I compare what the price of the food bill of those people is to-day under the control still exercised, I find that where our food bill stands at the substantial figure of 900 million pounds, if we were paying the prices paid in that country, it would mean an additional burden of 250 million pounds to the consumers of this country.

At what exchange?