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

This is a Bill to amend certain enactments relating to compensation for criminal injuries in Ireland. The history of the legislation in Ireland dealing with criminal injuries, which includes compensation for malicious, injury to person or property, goes back as far as 1836. It was amended in 1888 on the passing of the Local Government Act of that year, which applies to Ireland. Further legislation was passed in this House in 1919, dealing especially with injuries to members of the naval, military, and air forces of the Crown, and to police constables and magistrates. It is with a view to making certain amendments in the procedure for the recovery of decrees made in Ireland by the County Court Judge, with an appeal to the Judge of Assize, that the present measure is introduced. It has been found that certain councils in certain counties have obstructed in every way in their power the payment of these sums, and the object of the Bill is to ensure that decrees made under legislation passed by this House shall become effective, and that the county councils shall be compelled by process of law to pay the sums awarded to those who have suffered injury in the discharge of their duty or who have sustained loss of property.

The procedure in dealing with any of these criminal injuries is, first of all, under the present law, to make a statutory declaration or affidavit within three days after the occurrence of the injury As I will explain in a moment, we regard that period as altogether too short, and propose to extend it. That, however, is the first step. An application is then made to the County Court judge of the county in which the property which has been injured is situated, or in which the person who has been injured resides. The County Court judge hears the county council and the rural councils of the various districts affected, as well as the applicant, and he makes a decree for such sum as he considers to be adequate compensation for the injury, whether to person or to property, which has been sustained. He has also the power to define the area of the county upon which the levy of the rate necessary to raise this sum shall be made. From that decision-there is no such procedure at all in England—there is an appeal, even on questions of fact, to the going judge of Assize, who rehears the case as if it had never been heard before. The ultimate decree is then a decree payable by the Council of the county, and is levied in accordance with the direction of the County Court Judge or of the Judge of Assize, as the case may be. Injuries to person and to property are dealt with on precisely the same footing.

It has been found in practice that there has been continuous obstruction of the levying of these decrees. In many instances county councils actually do not appear before the Court which assesses the compensation, and thus disregard absolutely their duty to the ratepayers, because very often, as a result of their non-appearance, claims are allowed for sums beyond those which, perhaps, might be legitimately payable. When those decrees are made, a considerable number of county councils decline to pay them. Our object is to facilitate the recovery from the county council of the amount of the decree. Many of the provisions of this Bill will apply to all county councils. There are, of course, county councils-who do not object, and who do pay, but there are provisions which in other cases will, I think, be of great assistance to persons who are entitled to a decree. We also propose to give the Lord-Lieutenant the power to allow the decrees, when they are very substantial—as they must be in some cases— to be spread over a number of years, so that the burden will not fall too heavily on the ratepayers in any particular year; and we propose to give to county councils the power to borrow for the purpose of paying these sums—a power which they do not at present possess. In Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 we provide that:

"Where a decree has been made against a county council … the amount recovered shall be a debt due by the council and payable by them on demand, and it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the council on demand to pay the amount out of the moneys under his control as such treasurer, and if those are insufficient, out of the first moneys coming to his hands as such treasurer whether such moneys represent sums raised for compensation for criminal injuries or sums raised for or applicable to any other purpose."

Under the legislation in Ireland the treasurer of a county council must be a banker, and we propose that, where a decree has been made and that decree is produced to the Treasurer, he shall, out of the moneys in his hands which are the property of the county council, pay the amount of that decree. In Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 it is provided that

"If it appears to the Lord-Lieutenant, on representations made by the council and approved by the Local Government Board, that, having regard to the rateable value of the area off which the amount recovered is to be levied and the circumstances affecting that area, the amount could not be raised by means of a rate in one year without imposing an excessive burden on the ratepayers, the Lord-Lieutenant may by order direct that the amount, instead of being payable on demand, shall, as regards the whole or any part thereof specified in the order, be payable by instalments of such Bums. …

and that such instalments may extend over a period of five years. That would apply to two classes of cases. It would apply to districts where a very heavy bill has to be paid for these injuries, and where there are a great many decrees; and in such cases it would enable the amount to be spread over a period of five years. It would also apply to a great many poor districts in the West and other parts of Ireland, where it would be very hard on the ratepayers that the whole sum should be levied at once, involving a very heavy rate indeed. I think there is one town in Ireland where the rate would amount to 18s. or 19s. in the £ if the whole sum that is likely to be allowed were levied at one time. There is power, again, under Clause 2, to deduct the amount of these decrees, where the Lord Lieutenant is satisfied that immediate payment cannot otherwise be obtained from the local taxation grant, from any fund administered by any government department, or from any Parliamentary grant—credit, of course, being given to the council for any amount thus deducted. Very large sums of money are payable to county councils—in some instances £60,000 or £70,000. They are paid sometimes by Parliamentary grants and sometimes under other conditions, and the county councils would like to draw the amount of these grants, at the same time, not paying their debts either to the Crown or to the servants of the Crown, or to other persons in case where decrees are made. When these grants are deducted there is a provision in the Bill that if the county council chooses to go on and obey the law they may raise the amount of these deductions or of these decrees in the ordinary way, so that the one principle, that underlies it is that obedience to the law and the desire to pay your just obligations will prevent any deduction at all. There will be no deduction if a proper rate is struck or an application is made to the Lord Lieutenant for an extension of five years, but it seems a monstrous thing that public money should go to a county council which repudiates the decisions of courts of law and declines to pay its just debts.

Have any of these deductions of Treasury, moneys given to councils yet been made, and if so, have they in any case been paid over to the claimant?

Yes, in certain cases they have been made. I cannot give the figures off-hand, but some £17,000 has been deducted in the City of Dublin. Then there is a provision, which is supplemental to that provision in Sub-section (3), enabling the Lord Lieutenant to direct deductions, prescribe the manner in which they shall be made and specify the particular payments from which the deductions are to be made in the first instance. He has full power to consider, in dealing with the payments, which he will take first, and the object is to enable him to make it as easy as possible for the county council in dealing with the deduction. In Clause 3 there is a provision which is important. We ask for powers to obtain payment from the Treasurer of the County. In some instances already the funds in the hands of the Treasurer, in defiance of the law, have been taken to the bank, and the county council proceeds to collect the rates and the rates are not deposited with the Treasurer, but are dealt with in some other way in a wholly illegal manner, and under this Clause we provide that where a person recovers a decree he can convert it into a judgment of the High Court and garnishee or attach in the hands of a ratepayer the amount of the rates that he owes to the county council. So that if a ratepayer owes £100 or £150 in rates to the county council it will be open to a person to attach that sum, and to that extent, or perhaps in toto, wipe out the decree. Of course it is simply and absolutely discharging a debt which the county council is under a legal obligation to discharge.

Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that a person who has a decree against a county council or corporation can go and seize the private property of any citizen for the amount of the rates that citizen owes to the corporation or county council?

The position is this: If I owe £100 to a corporation for rates, and the corporation have not obeyed a decree, it would be open to the person who has obtained the decree, on an affidavit made in the High Court of Justice, to get a garnishee order on my £100, and I should have to pay the gentleman who got that garnishee order, getting credit for my rates against the corporation. There is really nothing striking about it, because any ordinary creditor can proceed to garnishee a debtor or a person who owes money to a debtor. The principle of it is, pay your debts and you can collect your debts in peace. Clause 4 is a corollary of the instalment extension, that the decree is to carry interest at 5 per cent until payment Clause 5 enables a rate to be be levied to pay the debt. Sub-section (2) provides that a county council may, with the approval of the Local Government Board, borrow from any bank such sums as are necessary for the payment of com pensation, and Sub-section (3) provides that the obligation to raise by means of rates the amount recovered by a decree for such compensation shall not be affected by the discharge of the amount in the manner authorised by the Act. That simply gives the county council the power of always levying the amount payable for malicious injury. I come to Clause 6. Under the earlier Act the information must be sworn within three days after the commission of the injury, and before a justice of the peace for the county in which the injury has occurred. It must be sworn by the owner of the property or his servant who has charge of the property, and it would be quite obvious that there are considerations nowadays in which a servant may not always be faithful to his employer and there are many cases in which there is no servant in charge of the property, and within my own knowledge Members of this House who have suffered injury of that description have been unable to claim within the three days because of the trouble of transmission from Ireland and the difficulty of getting a justice of the peace for an Irish county in London, and accordingly we propose to extend that period to fourteen days and to enable any justice of the peace or any person authorised to administer oaths to administer the oath for the purpose of the claim. We also provide that the judge who hears the case should have power to extend the time where he comes to the conclusion that the claim has not been made by reason of threats, intimidation or apprehension of violence, and that the applicant is deterred from making the application, serving the notice or taking proceedings within the prescribed time. There are dozens of cases in Ireland where, under threat of death or injury, men who have sustained really serious injuries have abstained from making any claim within the prescribed time, and it is only just and fair that the court should have power to investigate cases of that kind, and if they are satisfied, as they must be under the provisions of the Bill, that intimidation was the reason for delay, they should have power to extend the time.

Clause 7 deals with a matter which is really an oversight in the former Act. In 1919 there was an Act passed dealing with the following cases. Where a judge, magistrate, police constable, member of the naval, military or air forces or the civil service of the Crown, has been murdered, maimed or maliciously injured in the execution of his duty or on account of his having acted as a judge, magistrate, police constable, or member of such forces or service, he is entitled to compensation. But it is only where he has been injured in the execution of his duties. As regards everyone else, in the way legislation stands at present, they are entitled to compensation if they are injured by anyone who is a member or arising out of a combination of a seditious character or any unlawful association. The words of the Sub-section were these:

"Where any other person has been murdered, maimed, or maliciously injured in his person, and the murder, maiming, or injury is a crime arising out of any combination of a seditious character or any unlawful association."

Will that cover civilians murdered by uniformed officers? Will civilians who are murdered by uniformed officers be entitled to this compensation?

The words in the Act are

"arising out of a combination of a seditious character or any unlawful association."

That is the law as it stands.

Are you bringing into this Bill any provision to compensate innocent individuals who are murdered or maimed or robbed?

I am bringing in a provision simply to amend a former Bill, and the effect is as I described. The other part of the Section referred to says that where any other person has been murdered, maimed, or maliciously injured by an unlawful association he is entitled to compensation. The legal effect of that is that the "other" person, which excludes magistrates, police constables, members of the naval, military or air forces of the Crown, are in a better position than the constables and the military forces of the Crown, because they are only entitled to get compensation when in the execution of their duty. Everybody else coming under the category of the word "other" has a better right. A gentleman in Galway, Captain Shaw Taylor, was shot one Sunday morning on his way to church. He was a magistrate; but he was not shot in the execution of his duty as a magistrate. An application for compensation came before the County Court judge, who held that he was not an "other" person, and as he had not been killed in the execution of his duty, although he had been killed by an unlawful association or a combination of a seditious character, his widow was not entitled to compensation.

How do you know he was killed by an unlawful association? Was anyone arrested or tried for it?

Instead of carrying on this Debate by means of dialogue we had better follow the usual practice and allow the Attorney General for Ireland to make his speech and then allow the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) to make his speech. That has been the invariable practice of the House of Commons. These dialogues are generally reserved for Committees upstairs.

The hon. Member asks me how I know that it was an unlawful association. I am not aware that any lawful association makes it a practice to attack you and shoot you on the way to church.

Oh, no.

My observation also applies to the hon. Member for Central Hull. I think the House would be better pleased if he would cease interrupting.

This legislation is not introduced for the benefit of one class or another. The constituents of the hon. Member (Mr. Devlin), have immense claims for compensation and all these provisions will apply to them equally as to others. I submit that the principle underlying the Bill is one to which they will give effect, namely, that where legislation has been passed by this House, and an Act of Parliament has become the law of the land, they would not allow any corporation or body of persons to treat that Act with contempt.

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

I move the rejection of this Bill for a variety of reasons—in the first place because there is not in this country any provision similar to that which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to strengthen in its application to Ireland. In England when malicious injuries take place the victim has to rely upon his insurance policy. Whether he is injured in his person or in his property he cannot get compensation at the cost of the ratepayers. We hear a great deal about the necessity for similarity and simultaneity in legislation for Ireland. We hear a great deal from time to time about the anxiety of this Government and of this House that the laws which apply to Englishmen should be the same laws which apply to Irishmen. Why have we a different state of laws in Ireland in regard to injuries to persons or damage to property? This Bill might fittingly be de- scribed as a Bill for the protection of insurance companies and the encouragement of improvidence. I do not see why anybody in Ireland should be entitled when damage is done to his person or his property to obtain any advantage over an Englishman who finds himself in exactly the same position. We have seen from time to time in this country disturbances of a very serious character. My hon. Friend, the Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) can speak for the City of Liverpool. Disturbances have broken out there from time to time, and enormous damage has been done to property, and lives have been lost, but has anyone ever heard of the citizens of Liverpool being mulcted for any of this damage? The thing is absolutely unknown in England, and the system should never be applied in Ireland.

The Attorney General knows perfectly well that in a great many of these cases it is not the victims who are seeking compensation, but it is the insurance companies who compel the victims to apply for legal compensation in order that they may escape the burden which they have taken upon their own shoulders. That is what is happening all the time. There is really a gross fraud upon the ratepayers. There is not a lawyer in this House who does not know that under an insurance policy if any damage is done the insurance company, compels the person who owns the property to take legal proceedings to recover the amount of the damage, and that enables the insurance company to escape liability, for the payment of which they have accepted premiums from the person whose property was insured. I cannot see any reason—the Attorney General has not given any reason; he has kept clear of the point—why the people in Ireland should be placed in a different position from people similarly circumstanced in England.

My second objection to the Bill is that it makes no provision whatever for compensation to the victims of other lawless bodies who go about in uniform. We are not supposed to know that anything at all has happened in Ireland. We are not supposed to know that 97 towns have been fired or raided by uniformed officers of the Crown, because the Government will not give us any report. They very carefully hold the reports back. They hold secret military inquiries controlled by officers of the men who carry on the de- precation. These gentlemen hold secret meetings, from which the press are excluded. They send their reports to Dublin Castle where they are pigeonholed and nobody hears what went on at the secret inquiry because the reports are never published. Why are we not to have protection for the victims of this lawlessness by forces of the Crown? Every person who reads a newspaper—I do not know whether all hon. Members read newspapers, some of them, I think, read nothing but their whips—know perfectly well that most appalling scenes of lawlessness by uniformed officers of the Crown have been going on throughout the country. I deplore as much as anybody in this House any violence on persons or property. I do not believe that any good cause is ever advanced by the taking of human life, and I condemn the lawlessness, the damage of property and the taking of human life as much on the one side as I condemn it on the other. I condemn it more on the part of the Government, because the Government is carrying out this work as a Government, and there is a very great difference between individual lawlessness and lawlessness organised and directed by the Government. I do not think that anybody in this House has any serious doubt that the Government have inspired the so-called reprisals that are taking place in Ireland to-day. They have been not only condoned, but actually directed from the highest quarter. We have had speeches from everybody, from the Prime Minister down—or up, as you may care to put it—members of the Government, all condoning these outrages by uniformed forces of the Crown, who go out to commit these outrages in Government lorries, with Government bombs, Government rifles and Government petrol. We all know how military barracks are conducted. We know that there is a check upon the movements of troops and of individuals and upon Government forces. Will anybody say that it is possible for forces of the Crown to take out Government lorries, bombs, rifles and petrol, and for the officers in charge not to have the slightest knowledge?

The fact is that, from the Government down, this is organised lawlessness by the Government of the day. It is not government. It is anarchy, and anarchy condoned and encouraged by those in authority. What does the Attorney-General propose to do with the victims of these disturbances? Has he any provision here for their protection or for compensation for these unfortunate people? The House has heard stories of a perfectly appalling character—people dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night and shot in the presence of members of their own families. We had the case yesterday of a poor woman within two months of her confinement shot down by men in one of these Government lorries. Will any compensation be paid in respect of these people; and, if not, why not? People are told that they will get no compensation unless they go before a County Court judge and claim to have compensation levied upon the ratepayers, including themselves. That is the sort of compensation that has been offered to them. The position is monstrous. The House is entitled to refuse a Second Reading to this Bill until the Government tells it what it is going to do to compensate the victims of Government lawlessness.

I do not suppose that the House will take that view. I know this House fairly well. Many hon. Members have already got something from the Government and most of the rest of them are waiting for something. That being so we need not expect that they are going to show the slightest independence or sense of justice. They will vote as they are told by the Government of the day—that is the bulk of them. I know there are a few honourable exceptions. You could not get 700 Englishmen of that type together who would be all of the same mind. We are bound to get a few honest men, but the bulk of the Government followers will vote as they are told and will not care a brass button what happens to the victims of lawlessness from Government forces. They are not to be protected or compensated. That is a subject which, whatever the majority will do, the House is entitled to investigate. Certainly whatever the House may decide, whether it resolves to ignore the claims of the civilians whose property has been ruined and of the relatives of the civilians who have been murdered by forces of the Crown, there is a court of appeal outside this House to which in due course we shall be able to appeal and which will reverse verdicts which are offered by the obedient majority in the House.

I beg to second the Amendment. This Bill, after what has happened during the last eighteen months in Ireland, starting with the sack of Fermoy by forces of the Crown in June, 1919, is really adding insult to injury. I do not want to use any expression that will offend anybody. I have as high a regard for the honour of the British soldier and his officers as anybody in the House and on a previous occasion, when we discussed these matters of malicious injuries in Ireland, I paid a compliment to the troops for their excellent conduct to women in that country. What I am about to say is not being said with any idea of arousing passions or encouraging extremists in Ireland to renew their awful murders against the police and soldiers which I condemn as much as anyone else. But I ask the House to consider what we are doing. Starting with the sack of Fermoy in June last year there has been a succession of these very serious damages to property in Ireland. Last night we had the case of Granard which was reported in the "Evening Standard," a paper under the proprietorship, I believe, of the Houlton family, where damage to the extent of £75,000 was done as a reprisal for some outrage by either the police or military, and this small district under this Bill can be proceeded against, its local body ordered to pay this amount after its contributions from the Imperial Exchequer are stopped, and, if I heard the hon. and learned Gentleman correctly, any ratepayers who happens to owe money to the council of that district can have his property attached and his banking account seized for the amount of rates he owes.

I asked whether there was any redress, but I do not think the right hon. Gentleman heard me. Has a ratepayer in Granard or any other district got any sort of appeal against his property being requisitioned in the way? Have Members a sense of humour? You shoot up a town, you burn people's property down, creameries or factories like the factory in Bandon under the chairmanship of the Earl of Bandon, which was burned by soldiers the other night, and you hold a military court of inquiry by certain officers. We are told by the Chief Secretary that senior officers are sent down. They may be impartial. I am not impugning their honour in any way. But the witnesses they hear are the local inspectors, heads of police or military officers who themselves are responsible for the order and discipline of the police or troops under them. The findings of these Courts, judging by the one or two explained to us by the Chief Secretary, have been ludicrous. Blatant cases of murder of men who have been dragged from their beds—they may have been assassins or they may have been quite innocent persons—we are told have been inquired into. From newspaper and private accounts which some of us receive, the facts are very well known. The sort of finding, we are told of in this House, is that so-and-so is an unfortunate Irish peasant who met his death by a gun-shot wound inflicted by some person unknown.

Take the case of the burning of creameries and factories. Even after the statements of men like Sir Horace Plunkett, the Chief Secretary has said there is not one tittle of evidence against the officers or the armed forces of the Crown. But the learned Attorney-General for Ireland comes down and asks us to give a Second Reading to a Bill which will still further enable the Executive in Ireland to penalise these unfortunate local bodies by attaching the funds of their ratepayers and by stopping their grants from the Government, in the very districts where these awful burnings have taken place and these damages have been inflicted. Any hon. Member who, in spite of pledges to his constituents, can support the Government in a Bill like this, has lost his sense of humour, has lost his sense of justice, and is careless of the good name of our country before the world. I hope hon. Members will think twice before they do anything of the kind.

Let me revert to the case of Fermoy. Terrible damage was done there. The main shopping district was wrecked, and several buildings were burned. I asked a question about it last year, and have repeated that question since. The Secretary of State for War put me off a great many times. He said a military Court of Inquiry was being held. Finally, this year, I got a reply which said that in the case of Fermoy certain officers had been reprimanded and certain private soldiers had had their leave stopped. I am not now discussing the adequacy of the punishment. I daresay the natural rage of the officres and men was taken into account. I have not read the evidence, and do not want to question the punishment given. But that is a clear indication and acknowledgment by the Secretary of State for War that the troops in the Fermoy district were responsible for the sacking of Fermoy. Under this Bill the insurance companies can sue for the damage, and the local county council or town council of Fermoy has to pay. If they do not pay or protest in any way—as far as I can see there is no means of appeal—their private property can be requisitioned, their banking accounts stopped, and guilty and innocent, Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and so-called Unionists and loyalists, can all be made to suffer. It is simply scandalous.

I do not want to labour the case of Balbriggan. The Chief Secretary, with a rare candour, has admitted that Balbriggan was sacked, and many houses and a big factory burned down by the police, and that two men were murdered. He used the word "murdered," as he said it might please the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith). What is going to happen in the case of Balbriggan? Who is to pay for the damage? Is any compensation to be paid to the 200 or 300 poor people who were thrown out of employment by the burning of the hosiery factory? A. whole row of poor houses was burnt down. The Chief Secretary said they were Sinn Fein houses. In another part of the town new houses, just built by the local authority, were burnt down. Who is going to pay for the damage there? Is it the unfortunate local authority or the Crown that is to pay? Can the Crown be sued under this Bill? I cannot see anything about it in the Bill. As far as I can gather, when these cases of wanton destruction by members of the armed forces of the Crown are heard at the instance of local authorities before local judges, the Crown does not have itself even represented by a barrister with a watching brief. I want to know who pays in these cases.

May I draw the attention of the House to the case of Abbeydorney, where a co-operative creamery was burnt down on 18th October. I believe I am right in saying that no sort of outrage had occurred in the district, and that this was not a case of supposed reprisal for an outrage or assassination. It was denied, of course, by the Chief Secretary that the forces of the Crown had anything to do with it, but the famous Mr. Hugh Martin, the special correspondent of "the Daily News," whose trustworthiness has already been impugned by the Chief Secretary, went down to Abbeydorney, which is 8 miles from Tralee, and questioned Mr. T. O'Donovan, the manager of the creamery. Mr. O'Donovan made a sworn affidavit in which he described the three lorry loads of police, some in the uniform of the R.I.C., and some dressed as "Black and Tans," which drew up outside the creamery. Then he describes the loading up of the police lorries with butter and cheese and petrol being taken into the engine-house and the woodwork being set on fire. Mr. O'Donovan was then assaulted with the butt end of a rifle, in spite of his assurances that he would produce the key of the safe, which was being demanded. That is a sworn affidavit made apparently by a man in a responsible position. This foul work was done by men in full uniform, and the damage amounted to £2,000. He says that two days later a district Inspector of Police called to make enquiries about the damage. The Inspector was accompanied by six constables. The creamery staff positively identified three of the six as having taken part in the original raid. I suppose the District Inspector made local inquiries and asked these police, who were in at the business, to give information. I suppose he then sent a long report to Dublin Castle, "I have the honour to state that I have made a careful inquiry, etc., etc., and there is not a tittle of evidence to show who burnt down the creamery. I presume it was done by some malicious persons belonging to an illegal association." The unfortunate shareholders of the creamery, if they make complaint now and have the case brought on, I suppose will find that the Crown will not be represented at the hearing, and that if anyone has to pay for the loss of this creamery the unfortunate ratepayers will have to pay. They will be jolly lucky if it is not decided to teach them another lesson by burning down more property.

I do not think that the Government are well advised in bringing in a Bill of this sort at the present time. Its only effect will be further to infuriate the local governing bodies in the South and East of Ireland. Most of them are under the domination of Sinn Fein. They will still further defy the authority of the Crown. The good work being done by asylum boards and health committees and other bodies will all be stopped. You will drive more and more moderate opinion into the camps of the extremists. It will tend to drive more and more of the inhabitants of North-East Ulster into the ranks of the republicans. It will not stop the burning of barracks or the firing of the houses of landlords or persons who are suspected of helping the authorities. It will not even stop these awful reprisals and burnings by the forces of the Crown. I do not know what will happen in Belfast, and I shall listen with great interest to any Hon. Member who replies from the Ulster benches. Over a million pounds' worth of damage has been done in the terrible riots there. I suppose under this Bill the parties affected will be able to get payment. I should think that Belfast and one or two other towns in the North are the only towns to which this Bill really applies. It is a Bill which will still further embitter opinion, moderate and extremist, and still further widen the gulf which unhappily separates the two countries.

I intend to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, and I desire to give my reasons for taking that course. I know it will be said—and to a large extent it is my own opinion also—that if His Majesty's Government is to be carried on on present lines in Ireland many of the provisions of this Bill are necessary, and would help in carrying on the Government on those lines. I shall vote against the Bill as a protest against carrying on the government of Ireland on the present lines. It is perfectly clear that we have established in Ireland a Government which is utterly repugnant to the feelings of the great mass of the people. It is contrary to English tradition to establish such a Government. Our idea everywhere is government by the consent of the people, and our belief is that by proper arrangements and proper feeling and proper tact in handling, government by the consent of the people might be established practically everywhere where the British flag is flying. But we have never really tried to do it in Ireland, and the result is that we have arrived at the present disastrous position, where on one side you have horrible murders and atrocities against the servants of the Crown and on the other you have what is almost more disgraceful—illegal violence, murders and destruction of property by the servants of the Crown condoned by the Government itself. I say "condoned" because they praise it with faint damnation whenever they speak about it. We have had no real earnest condemnation of it from the Government benches or from any Member of the Government, and no condemnation that breathed a feeling of real indignation and real abhorrence. It has been cold, official, conventional, merely playing to the proprieties. Therefore I shall vote against this Bill, which is simply piling restriction upon restriction, and simply strengthening a bad system, and taking us further and further away from the true idea of Government of Ireland by the consent of the Irish people. I know how difficult it is to establish such a Government, but this is no attempt to do it and is going in the other direction. I shall be told that there is a Bill already before us to establish Home Rule in Ireland. It is a mere farce to say that that Bill, so far as the mass of Ireland is concerned, is an attempt to establish government by the consent of the Irish people. It is merely throwing at their heads something which they do not want.

That Bill will be on next week.

This Bill is taking us further away from the ideal which we ought to pursue, and it is making the task of whoever has to eventually solve the Irish problem more and more difficult. It is to my mind an intolerable insult to the Irish people. It is likely, I think, to be felt as an insult in the North as much as in the South. It is the absolute negation of those principles which have made British Government the admiration of the world in almost every part of the world except Ireland.

rose—

On a point of Order. May I ask your guidance, Sir, if hon. Members are entitled to go into the question of principle whether or not it is right to levy this compensation, as that principle is already established by exist- ing enactments and this Bill simply relates to certain supplementary provisions to carry out the principle.

I believe it is almost a century ago since the principle of compensation was established in Ireland, but I think I should be taking a very narrow view if I stopped any discussion of the principle.

I am disappointed that no Member from the North of Ireland Las yet seen fit to intervene in this Debate. After all, there are a large number of us in the House who want, if we possibly can, to hold the scales evenly between the two positions. Those of us who attempt to hold the scales between the two positions are deprived of the views of those who are promoting this Bill from the Benches opposite. This Bill is nothing more or loss than another Government reprisal. This is a reprisal in the form of what will be an Act of Parliament. The provisions of this Bill are obviously intended to compel public opinion all over Ireland to act, as far as it can and as drastically as it can, with the prevailing public opinion represented in those districts. We all know that as a result of the local government elections, the local government bodies in the bulk of Ireland are in the hands of people who are tired of this Government, and who are taking their own methods to carry on the local government in those districts. You have these happenings that have been described over and over again in this House, and compensation is asked for the damage which is done. If that compensation can be recovered from those areas, it obviously weakens those areas in carrying out the local government of Ireland, and there is one provision in this Bill, in Clause 2, which alters the situation very materially. No local government anywhere can be carried on without funds and grants which come from Government sources. This second clause gives the Government power not to pay those grants directly to the authorities who are elected by the people in those districts, but to pay that money over to people who have a claim for damages against the locality. After all, one function of this House ought to be to preserve in full operation local government where it operates, and as local government has in its charge such things as the health of the community, and so forth, it follows naturally that if the Government of the day prevents Government grants being paid over to that locality, in so far as they are deprived of those grants, so far does the local government suffer.

That ought to be at any rate obvious to anyone, and what this means is that those who are against the prevailing opinion in Ireland are going to have, out of the money that ought to go for the preservation of local government in Ireland, compensation for damage done to their property, so long as it is not done by the forces of the Crown. I invite my right hon. and learned Friend, the Member for the Duncairn Division (Sir E. Carson), to be good enough to tell us how he views the prospect in Ireland of the operation of local government if in the first place the people in an area are levied with this compensation, and in the second place if it is not recovered, it can be got from the Government at the source before it reaches any of the local bodies in Ireland. It is all very well here or on public platforms to make statements about the state of affairs in Ireland, but this is a practical question, and I certainly, as a British Member looking at the future of local government in Ireland, view with considerable alarm the fact that the grants from Government can be cut off at the source and never reach the bodies responsible for local government in Ireland. Look at the oppressive nature of the operation of this Clause. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) pointed out, and as a matter of fact it was explained by the Attorney-General for Ireland, that if those damages were laid against the community the people who were to receive the damages would attach the property of any ratepayer. Can that be done by arbitrary selection?

Certainly.

Supposing the right hon. and learned Member for Duncairn has property in Belfast, can his property be attached, and can he be sold out?

This does not attach the property at all. What it does is, if I owe the corporation money as rates and the corporation refuse to pay a debt to somebody else, that somebody else can get an order that I pay what I owe the corporation. It does not attach anything.

I am obliged for the interruption, and it shows why the right hon. and learned Gentleman out to intervene in the Debate and let us appreciate the whole significance of this Bill. Is not this going to mean in districts that are against the Government, for instance, in Sinn Fein districts, that the people who are to receive the damage are going arbitrarily to select various people in those different districts and take action against them?

To the extent of what they owe them.

Look at the oppressiveness of these people going round and saying, "We will take A, B and C, but we will not take D, E and F."

D, E and F will have to pay, all the same.

Perhaps, sometime, but they do not now. Obviously the people would select those ratepayers from whom they would be most likely to get the money, and I say that that is introducing again into an already disturbed Ireland a very serious personal arbitrary inquisition, and I should be sorry if this Bill, therefore, became the law of the land. The last point I need not emphasise. If you are going to pay compensation for damage, it ought to be compensation for all damage, by whomsoever committed. If I may again appeal to my right hon. Friend, what would he do as an advocate facing the situation with which we are faced? Take the case of a woman mentioned yesterday by myself in Debate who was shot by what was described as a stray shot from a Government lorry. She was sitting in the garden with her child at her knee. She would not be entitled to compensation. Can my right hon. Friend with the future of Ireland in his mind look forward to the operation of this Bill, which gives the ratepayers' money as compensation for damage to property due, say to Sinn Fein attacks, while this poor woman, and other women like her, have to go without any measure of compensation? That is not going to bring peace in Ireland. I shall vote against the second reading of this Bill as I am up against those who support the Government unless they can make out a much better case why we should pay, out of the grants for local taxation for Ire- land, compensation for criminal or malicious injury to property.

The hon. Member who has just spoken has made a point which, I imagine, will appeal to a certain number of Members of the House, namely, that a Bill like this does tend to drive the loyalists of the South of Ireland into Sinn Fein, by putting an unfair extra taxation on them, and that this Bill, again, will further infuriate and make more disloyal the elected bodies charged with local government. He pointed out, and the hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) also pointed out that these bodies were already completely in the hands of Sinn Fein, owing to the failure of the Government, even although, as the hon. and gallant Member for Hull said, they were elected by proportional representation. I do not want to get on to any bye-path of proportional representation, but I would point out that those bodies were elected under a reign of terror. The doctors were not allowed to vote for loyal candidates under pains and penalties. But I confess I have not been in Ireland since last June, for reasons I need not go into. I remember the last day I was in Ireland a friend of mine came to see me in a rather flustered condition. He said he was just catching a train to go to Cork. He said, "I am putting up for my rural district council, and my proposer and seconder are told that they will be shot unless I withdraw my name, and I am going to Cork to see if I can do it, but I am afraid it is too late." Is that a fairly elected council? You cannot throw it in the teeth of proportional representation under circumstances like that.

I understand that on the Cork Council and one or two other councils in the South and West there are active Unionist members.

A few months or a year ago there were one or two, but they had to withdraw their names. I want to get on to the Bill. After all, this Bill is of very great importance to people like myself who are resident in the south of Ireland, and who will be called upon to pay a vast deal of extra taxation under it. I support this Bill and shall vote for it, but I think if I happen to serve on the Committee which takes the Bill upstairs, I have one or two Amendments I should like to suggest. First of all is the question of who shall pay. You are going to have enormous sums of money levied on particular districts, and to my mind, rightly levied on them. I do not suppose any Member of the House would suggest that the Imperial purse should bear the burden. I do not suppose any Member would get up and suggest that England should be called upon to pay for the damage that is being done in Ireland at the present moment.

I will get up and say that.

The hon. Member has not got English constituents behind him. I have, and if I did that I should lose my seat. How is the money going to be paid? There are loyalists in the south of Ireland. Are they to be called upon to bear the same heavy burden of the taxation to recoup the widows and families of policemen who are murdered, and all the damage that is done, when they do not sympathise with Sinn Fein practices, but are afraid to come out and say so? I will give a story of what happened to a very close friend of mine a few weeks ago. Motoring with his wife and son, he fell into the ordinary ambush. He was passing the house of a farmer who was a Protestant and a known loyalist, and from the wall in front of the farmer's house a fusilade was opened on himself, wife and son. They managed to escape. You say, surely the loyalist ought not to have allowed these men to use his house for an ambush. Where was that farmer at the moment? Tied up in his house, unable to move or utter a sound. Supposing my friend or his wife or his son had been killed or seriously injured in that ambuscade, the damage would have been assessed, very likely, on the locality where that loyalist farmer was living, and he probably would have had to pay a very big share. I do not think anyone would say that would be fair, because he was terrorised and compelled to allow his farmhouse to be used for an ambush. What happened in this case has happened in a great many other cases. Loyalists are terrorised into things being done because they are afraid to come out. I will make this suggestion to the House. It may appear, perhaps, to the majority of hon. Members, fantastic and impossible. I suggest that if a man or woman in the three southern provinces of Ireland will come out openly and make a declaration that he or she is absolutely opposed to what is going on in Ireland, and is loyal to the Crown, and will allow that declaration of loyalty to be posted up in any public place where it should be posted up, then he or she as a ratepayer and a taxpayer should be absolutely immune from paying for these criminal injuries. It may be said that no man or woman in the south of Ireland would do it. I say I will gladly do it.

You will not be there.

Unfortunately, my house and property are there. My house has been raided twice by the hon. Gentleman's friends, and pistols and guns have been seized, but they have not yet burnt my house.

If they got pamphlets of your speeches they would fall dead.

They may be valuable or not. At any rate, they have not set my house on fire. I am prepared to risk that. I myself believe a great many other people up and down the South of Ireland would be quite prepared to make that declaration. I suggest that is one way of getting a certain amount of fairness done to the loyal minority in the South of Ireland.

There is another way. I quite agree that the Imperial purse should not be called upon to pay directly on behalf of this matter. But again we all know, or most of us know, that Ireland is the spoilt child of the Empire, and has been for a good many years, in a financial sense, and that England has poured money into Ireland, and is doing so. We know there are thousands and thousands of pounds worth of grants going to Ireland, at any rate to the three southern provinces. I suggest that the money that will be paid for criminal and malicious injuries should absolutely be taken out of these particular grants and in no other way. In other words, these funds should alone be made responsible for payment for malicious injury. Here we have in Clause 2 of this Bill certain suggestions as to how that could be done by deducting the compensation money from

(a) the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account;

(b) any fund administered by any Government department; or

(c) any Parliamentary grant.

This is perhaps a pretty tall order. If hon. Members went into the total amount paid from the Imperial purse into these particular grants they would find the amounts would pretty well cover what is required or likely to be required, for compensation for malicious injuries. If that were done what would happen? Of course, the loyalists would to a certain extent suffer. People in the West, who look to the Congested Districts Board to assist them in their farming operations would suffer to a certain extent, for the Board would not be able to help them as in the past. If that were done it would meet the case. I desire to put one other question to the Attorney-General. In the Criminal Injuries (Ireland) Act, 1919, I read in Section 1, Sub-section (3) the following:

"The power of a County Court Judge or Judge of Assize to fix an area off which the compensation is to be levied shall include power to fix one or more town-lands or parishes or sub-denominations thereof, as the area off which the compensation or any apportioned part hereof is to be levied, and"—

these are the important words—

"to exempt from the levy any specified hereditaments within the area and his power to make a decree for such sum as he thinks just and reasonable shall include power to make a decree for full compensation."

I want to ask the Attorney-General if, as a matter of fact, that power is being exercised by the competent authorities, the County Court Judges and the Judges of Assize? Is it a fact that exemption has been made from payment of these malicious injuries rates on the property of any man known to be a loyalist and who is perfectly well known has had no hand in any outrages? Having made those observations I propose to support the Second Reading, but certainly, if I happen to serve on the Committee, I shall suggest certain Amendments carrying out the suggestions I have made.

After listening to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just finished, I have dis- covered there are two sorts of loyalists in Ireland. There are the loyalists in the South, who are in a minority, and the loyalists of the North, who are in a majority. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was very concerned that the minority in the South should not have to pay any share of the compensation for malicious damages. But I have not heard any concern from him as to who should pay the malicious damage done by the loyalists in the North who are in the majority there. The so-called loyalists of the North who follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson) believe that he and they are above the law. They give exhibitions from time to time of their loyalty, and this takes the form of the persecution of those who are of a different political or religious creed to themselves. I want to know who is going to pay compensation to the thousands of these people who have been persecuted by the so-called loyalists from the North, and who are now out of employment, who had their property destroyed by these so-called loyalists of the North? I look into this Bill in vain for any provision for the compensation of these people in the North of Ireland. I am rather surprised that my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Newman) should concern himself about the loyalists in the minority without concerning himself in the matter to which I have drawn attention.

We on this side of the House are often accused of condoning the murders and outrages committed on the forces of law and order. From the other side of the House the emphasis is put upon these outrages, and the outrages committed by the forces of law and order are condoned by the Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary, and others. In this Bill there is compensation provided for the damage committed by the one party, and not the other. It has been conclusively proved over and over again that there is a tremendous amount of damage committed by the police and military. So far as I understand it—and I am open to correction if wrong—the property that is damaged by the police and the military themselves has no claim whatever for compensation. I am going to give just one instance which has come under my own notice. It is not from a tainted source, but is a fact for which I can vouch.

A lady whom I know very well recently visited Ireland and stayed with some friends, a Catholic family, who had taken apartments in a small apartment house at a little seaside place. This apartment house was kept by an old lady of 80, and three daughters round about the age of 50. With the lady were two young children, a governess, and a nurse. They were very much alarmed each night by the promiscuous firing of the police and the black-and-tan patrols. After a few days the husband came from a neighbouring town 25 miles away to fetch his family home. A police officer had been foully murdered five miles away in a big hotel, and in the course of a day or two the news had reached the police in the town twenty-five miles away that reprisals were to take place miles away from the crime and over a considerable radius which would include this small seaside place. The man I refer to hurried over to fetch his family away. He was informed about the intended reprisals by the chief of police in the town in which he was days before they took place. That is to say, he was informed by the principal police authority in the town that reprisals were to take place in the small village, days before they actually took place. As a matter of fact, they took place sooner than was expected, and before the family could get out of the house a patrol of "Black and Tans" came along and threw a hand grenade in through the window of the house occupied by these ladies. Ono of the ladies staying there was the wife of a Member of this House. I want to know who is going to pay compensation to this old lady of eighty for the damage done to her house. Is there any provision in this Bill whatsoever to pay compensation in such cases? If the right hon. Gentleman will provide adequate compensation for the people who suffer in that way I will give my support to the Second Reading of this Bill, but unless he can assure me that people whose property is damaged by the forces of the Crown will have an equal chance with others I shall vote against it.

I intend to support the rejection of this Bill. I cannot understand why it has been introduced at all. The state of affairs in Ireland is entirely due to the mistaken policy of the Govern- ment which has been pursued for the last few years. It does not seem to me that this measure is intended to apply to any section of the community except one. A good many promises have been made to the Irish people which have not been fulfilled, and now we find iniquitous measures being imposed upon them, and this is the kind of legislation which has been responsible in the past for driving people out of Ireland. On the top of all the indignities and humiliations which the Irish people have suffered, we now find measures of this kind being introduced assessing the localities for damage for which the mistaken policy of the Government is responsible. A large number of people have lost their lives in these disturbances in Ireland and some of them were innocent civilians, and I wish to know if their dependents will come within the ambit of this Bill for compensation. Irishmen have for a long time been expecting measures which will add to their freedom, and, instead of that, this is the kind of measure which is being proposed on the top of coercion, and this policy will not restore the ancient liberties of the Irish people.

Some of us have been interested in the co-operative movement in Ireland as a means of assisting the Irish people to develop their land in order to provide them with employment, so that their sons and daughters, instead of being exiled, will be able to find work in their native land. What is the policy which the British Government has been pursuing? Not long ago a creamery was burned and damage was done, to the extent of £10,000. I ask the Attorney-General if he expects the support of hon. Members on these benches when actions like that can be done with equanimity. I want to know if the damage which has been done by the forces of the Crown to this creamery will come within the ambit of this measure for compensation. This measure is only intended to apply to the one section of the community who are largely responsible for all the chaos and disorder in Ireland, and those who are going to be punished are those who hold different political opinions from those who live in the Norh of Ireland.

These poor people have been goaded into rebellion by the policy of the Government. Measures like this will not make for peace, neither in Ireland nor in any other country where British subjects live. The whole policy of the Government in regard to Ireland has been repudiated by the Irish people and the whole of the working classes in Great Britain. To bring forward a measure of this description will not promote peace in Ireland and it will only add to the enormous discontent that already exists in that country, and tend to make the Irish people, both in Ireland and England, who hold moderate views more rebellious and cause them to revolt against the policy of the Government. Instead of filling Ireland with troops to menace the Irish people you ought to withdraw them, and then there would be no need to introduce a Bill of this description. The Irish people want to work out their own salvation instead of being coerced by the "Black and Tans." If you want to make Ireland free you will not do it by coercion Acts, and it can only be done by allowing them self-government to work out their own salvation. Let them formulate their own plans and policy in order to bring about their own redemption, and then you will find it will be quite unnecessary to fill the country with British troops. An hon. and gallant Gentleman (Col. Newman) said that no one would suggest that Britain ought to be responsible for the payment of these damages. If the British people are responsible for the damage, the obligation to provide compensation ought to rest upon the British Government. We further suggest that the British Government ought to be held responsible for the compensation of the dependents of those who have lost their lives by the policy of the Government. On 15th October, a man named Michael Hayes was dragged out of his bed by a party of English officers and shot. His dependents ought to be compensated just as much as any of those for whom the Bill provides compensation. Therefore, I submit that this Bill cannot be supported by anyone who wants to see a better state of affairs in Ireland, because instead of bringing peace to Ireland it will add to the humility and indignity which the Irish people have suffered for the last century.

This Bill, which calls upon the local authorities to make financial compensation for injuries to persons and damage to property, seems to me to be based on the assumption that those authorities have it in their hands to prevent this damage being done and these outrages taking place. If that point be not admitted, the claim that the local authorities should make this contribution falls to the ground. The present condition of things in Ireland leaves little room for the administrative efforts of local authorities. They have little or no control over what is taking place. The government of the country is very largely in the hands of the Executive, and for the Government of the country to be controlled from one place and for penalties arising from the defects of that Government to be imposed upon another body seems to me not in harmony with fair dealing and not satisfactory from the point of view of equity and justice. It is admitted that most of the injuries inflicted upon individuals, and most of the damage done to property is due to the estranged relationship between the people of Ireland and the Executive Government. Under these circumstances to call upon the local authorities to meet these charges is an encroachment upon the recognised principles of equity and justice. The rates of local authorities, the property of citizens, and the banking accounts of individuals are all to be open to attacks by the Government to meet the damage done. Even if the justice of that be admitted, the operation of the Bill is altogether one-sided, because it only applies to the damage done and the injuries inflicted by what are called "illegal associations," whereas there is abundant evidence which cannot be controverted that as much or more, injury to persons, and damage to property are done by forces of the Crown as by what are called "illegal organisations." Surely if compensation for damage to property and injury to persons be admitted on one side, there ought to be compensation provided on the other side. Hundreds of people have been thrown out of employment, houses and the contents of houses have been destroyed, and the loss in hundreds of cases has fallen upon people who have had no part or lot in the infliction of any of these injuries or any acquaintance with the damage that has been done.

There is further the damage to the property of the Co-operative Movement. Surely that movement is looked upon as a peaceful organisation. It is one of the great factors in the social regeneration of our towns. Those who have endeavoured, without an actual visit to the country to acquaint themselves with the condition of Ireland and its natural possibilities, feel and believe from testimony which is well recognised and accepted that Ireland under decent conditions could be made the dairy farm of the United Kingdom. It has even this year supplied this country to a very large extent with articles of agriculture and dairy produce, and there are tremendous possibilities in that direction. The co-operative movement has realised these possibilities, and by its capital, representing the accumulated savings of working people, it has endeavoured to develop co operative industry in the production and supply of butter, cheese, bacon, and the like. Those commodities come into this country and find their way into the homes of our working people. It is established that forces of the Crown have attacked these institutions and destroyed the property of this organisation. Not only have people been thrown out of work but the capital of the movement has been damaged and destroyed, but this Bill provides no compensation. If a creamery has been destroyed by a so-called "illegal association" we have some redress, but if it has been destroyed by the forces of the Crown we can get no satisfaction whatever. Probably the co-operative movement will get little satisfaction either way, because where is the justice and reason in calling upon people of a particular locality, who have themselves suffered by the acts committed, to pay for the damage done? It is a position altogether untenable. The restoration of reasonable conditions in Ireland is not likely to be effected on these lines. We are not going to secure peace in Ireland by imposing penalties here and there, or by endeavouring to narrow down the manner in which these penalties can be inflicted. It is another spirit altogether that is required in Ireland at the present time. We have discussed this matter in all its bearings in this House, and I do not want to encroach on either past or prospective debates. What is required in Ireland at this moment is a spirit of conciliation, and an attempt to get between those rival forces which are recognised to exist in that country, forces both of a religious and political nature. It is only on these lines that the trouble in Ireland can be settled or peace re-established, and if the Government, instead of producing Bills of this character, which can only intensify both local and national differences, will turn their attention in that direction, a better and more saisfactory era in Ireland may be inaugurated.

You, Mr. Speaker, mentioned incidentally the fact that this legislation imposing compensation for malicious injuries on the community has been the law in Ireland for a century. I believe that statement is historically correct. It must be somewhat surprising, however, to any English Member present at this moment, who will surely seriously ask himself why a law which was thought good enough for Ireland, or bad enough, as the case may be, during so long a period, should not by this time have been found good enough or bad enough for England. I cannot understand how, from the point of international jurisprudence, such a law applied for a century in Ireland should remain unapplied to England. Searching for the cause of that, I regret to say I must find, in the Acts of which this is a specimen, one of the many methods of Government which have brought Ireland to her present position. I feel entitled to describe this whole system of legislation as exceptional and coercive, and this last measure of the Government must be regarded as only another Coercion Act, in addition to the very drastic coercion Act passed a few weeks ago. Coercion is the inspiration and the purpose of this measure, and as such everybody must regard it as both an unjust and disastrous policy. What does the Bill propose to do? It proposes, so far as it can, to penalise and bankrupt local government, bodies in Ireland, and it proposes to do so because they happen at this moment to be controlled by a certain political party. In other words, this is a measure which is part of the war against a nation which has been carried on by the Government in the last few years, and which has led to such deplorable conditions as prevail today. It is not an honest measure; it is not an impartial measure; it seeks to give compensation to one set of persons, and it denies compensation to another set of persons. It seeks to punish one set, but grants immunity to another set. Everybody knows the particular bodies against which this measure would be directed, and I must protest against the doctrine which underlies the policy of this Bill. I contest the doctrine that any civilised Government of a free nation is entitled to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. The Government have sanctioned shooting, arson, and cold-blooded murder if committed by servants of the Crown. I will not labour the point. All I will say is that reprisals as they are called find no remedy in this Bill, although that remedy ought to be found in any Bill which was honest. I have here in my hand a document. It is called "The English Terror in Ireland." It gives a series of incidents which have taken place since September, 1919, pretty well down to the middle of last month. I do not propose to inflict upon the House any long quotations from it. I will only insist on this, that every single one of these statements shows, not merely the date, but the town and the particular act of so-called reprisal. For instance, I find that on 9th September, 1919, at Fermoy, the place was sacked by troops. In November Kinsale, County Cork, was partially sacked by troops, and in January, 1920, Thurles, in County Tipperary, was sacked by troops. Then there is the case in which, on 1st September, 1920, the town of Ballagh-dereen, in County Mayo, was sacked by police; and I believe there have been two sackings since that date. And so I might go on down to more recent days, when in Athlone, my native town, a large printing works has been sacked twice, and is now finally destroyed. In that case £100,000 worth of property has disappeared and many people have been thrown out of employment. All this is well brought out in a map, which I shall be very glad to show to any Member of the House, and on which, by red dots, all these towns have been marked. I believe there are nearly a hundred. And yet we have the astonishing spectacle of the Chief Secretary, in all his answers to these questions, professing, with one or two exceptions, not to have heard of any of these transactions.

I presume that the hon. Member is only referring to these matters in order to point out that they do not come under the Bill as regards compensation, and is not proposing to discuss them. If that is so, he will be in Order.

If I may say so, I am following strictly the lines which were laid down by Mr. Speaker. I asked a question upon that very point, and he declined to give an interpretation so narrow as to exclude, not detailed description of, but allusions to, such statements. I do not go beyond that. I put it to the House, that a Bill must be regarded as unjust which, in the face of this widespread desolation and destruction of property and of life, makes no provision to meet these cases. I, of course, think that the widows and the orphans of a murdered official should get compensation. It would be a monstrous doctrine to say that they should not. I think that they should get compensation from the Government which brought about the conditions which led to the murder. I think it would be shameful that the dependants of these unfortunate men, doing what they regard as their duty, should be left with, in addition to their bereavement, the horrors of hunger and pennilessness. But, with just the same strength as I plead for the case of the dependants of the official, I plead for the dependants of the men who are murdered by the officers of the Crown. I cannot understand how a man like the light hon. and learned Attorney-General—who, in spite of the hard duties he has to perform, is, I believe, a man of humanity—I cannot understand how he is able to reconcile his conscience with a measure which is meant to provide for the affliction and impoverishment of one category, but which does not make equal provision for those who are impoverished and afflicted by the tragic happenings in Ireland during the last few months. I am more astonished because only last night—not 24 hours ago—the Chief Secretary, as I understand, made a definite promise that provision should be made for these victims of the servants of the Crown. Let me recall to the right hon. and learned Gentleman this passage:

"There is the question of the destruction of creameries, which is a very substantial point. On this question I have already received representatives of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, of which Sir Horace Plunkett is the distinguished head"—

I am glad to see a little eulogy instead of a sneer from the Ministerial lips with regard to that magnificent and patriotic Irishman—

"and the British Co-operative Parliamentary Society, and I am now considering those two points: (1) has a case been made out that any of these creameries have been destroyed by the Forces of the Crown, for no case has been made yet identifying individual members of the Forces of the Crown;"—

I shall not make any comment on that as it might be outside the limits of the Debate—

"and (2) if the case is made out that they have been so destroyed, the question is, has the Government the moral responsibility to make what compensation they can in the way of money? These are two points which I am considering with the Government at this moment."

Then my hon. Friend the Member for Falls (Mr. Devlin) intervened with the question

"Will that offer apply to nil other property which has been destroyed by the Forces of the Crown?

and the right hon. Gentleman answered

"Certainly."

He went on say that

"If property is destroyed in the course of a fight, then another set of circumstances arise altogether."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1920, cols. 711 and 712.]

I have read enough to show that the Chief Secretary admits the moral responsibility; and I should say that, in the case of any honest government, moral responsibility involves legal responsibility. He admits the moral, and therefore the legal, responsibility for compensating injured individuals, or the individual owners of property; and yet, less than 24 hours after that definite pledge, here comes his deputy and colleague, the Attorney-General for Ireland, and introduces a Compensation Bill which contains not one word dealing with the cases with which, in his speech at eleven o'clock last night, the Chief Secretary undertook to deal. I think that is a vital objection to this Bill. There is another objection. I do not know whether the House appreciates that the Bill proposes, in order to pay this compensation, to deprive the county councils of certain Imperial funds given for certain objects in Ireland. Among the bodies affected are the Commissioners of Public Works, the Irish Insurance Commissioners, the Congested District Boards, the Registrar of Petty Sessions Clerks, and "any other public Department, and any Minister of the Crown"—these are remarkable words, and I should like an explanation of them—"any Minister of the Crown acting as the head of a Government Department." Does that mean, or does it not, that every single grant to local bodies in Ireland can be arrested under the operation of this measure, and, so to speak, confiscated, for the purpose of paying compensation. I will not enlarge on the consequences of such a provision, but will merely point out that everything in Ireland can be starved—everything from education to the little solatium of the poor old-age pensioner—not because the county councils themselves are guilty, but because of the offences of men with whom they may be unacquainted, and whose dealings they may condemn. We already have terrorism in Ireland by Black and Tans, by midnight assassination, by wholesale destruction of property in a hundred towns, and now there is another weapon added to the already extensive armoury. There is one exception made as I read Sub-section (2) of Clause 2:

"Nothing shall be done to the Guarantee Fund under the Purchase Act."

I am glad that nothing is to be done to interfere with the beneficent operation of transferring the land of Ireland from the landlords to the occupiers of the soil, though it looks to me as if this proviso were drawn in the interests of the landlords, so that whoever else might suffer they should not.

If I remember the words of the Attorney-General in order to justify the exercise of these powers with regard to a crime committed in a locality, it must be committed by a conspiracy of a seditious character. They are not the exact words, but that is practically the meaning of it. I should like to know what is a conspiracy. What is a seditious purpose? I can quite understand that there will be no difficulty whatever in the interpretation of the application of this Measure to a crime which is attributed, rightly or wrongly, truly or falsely, to a Sinn Fein organisation. Of course, in the eyes of the Government, that is a seditious organisation, and there can be no doubt as to the application of the Bill. But supposing people have been murdered—I use the phrase of the Chief Secretary—by some portion of the forces of the Crown. whether Black and Tan or soldiers, or whatever other body they may have belonged to, supposing it is admitted and proved beyond doubt that these citizens have been murdered by these forces of the Crown, is it possible to prove that that is a seditious conspiracy? Can you have a seditious conspiracy in the case of servants of the Crown? I daresay there was a case of seditious conspiracy at the time of the Curragh Camp revolt when it was attempted to intimidate the Sovereign and Parliament from passing certain measures, but can that be applied to a body of soldiers breaking loose from all discipline, though with the connivance of the Government? Can they be regarded as a seditious conspiracy, and if they are not regarded as a seditious conspiracy can they, under the terms of this measure, be made responsible for the destruction of life and property, and can they or the Government that employs them be made responsible to make good the loss to the widows and the orphans of the murdered civilians or the owners, as in the town of Athlone, of property to the extent of £100,000 which has been destroyed. I regard this measure as a now measure of coercion. I regard it as adding the bankrupting of local bodies to bayonetings, bullets and incendiarism in order to create in Ireland a solitude and call it peace. I therefore regard it as a new provocation. I regard it as a new torch thrown into an already burning magazine. I regard it, therefore, as bad policy as well as unjust. I think the Government would have been wise to wait for some more tranquil conditions, to have been satisfied with all the weapons of representation they have already and to give some pause, some interval, during which by the restoration of a better temper on the part of the Government and a better temper on the part of the Irish people you might find that way out to which I alluded last night.

This is, perhaps, a very proper stage of the proceedings for me to make an appeal to the Attorney-General to withdraw this Bill, because a more audacious and indefensible attitude I have never known in the House of Commons than that which has been taken up by the right hon. Gentleman as the spokesman of the Government in this matter. Last night we had a declaration from the Chief Secretary, which has been read by my hon. Friend (Mr. O'Connor), that he was considering the best possible means by which innocent victims of your Government frightfulness and terrorism could be compensated for the losses they have sustained, and to-day when we come to discuss the proposals contained in this Bill, so far from finding anything in it to carry out the Chief Secretary's promise, he does not even have the decency to come to the House of Commons and make some explanation. He remains away from the House altogether, and I want to know here and now, is there to be another Criminal Injuries Bill introduced to put into concrete and statutory form the promises which were given by the right hon. Gentleman last night. I oppose this Bill because it is another nefarious practice of a nefarious Government. It is a nice condition of things in these days of modern civilisation that a country like this, with nothing to justify it but force and power and the votes of jobbers, placemen, and profiteers, never comes to the House of Commons unless to propose some scheme for the suppression of whatever remnant of liberty is still left in the country. The Bill proposes to mulct innocent ratepayers and make them pay for crimes for which they have no responsibility, and it refuses to give compensation for the innocent victims of the Government of the country that is responsible for every crime that occurs in Ireland to-day. It is your Government that has done all this in Ireland. Your Government is responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed in the country. What of your broken promises, your refusal to hold impartially the reins of justice between the different parties in Ireland, setting one set of rebels on the judicial bench and sending the other set to the gallows or to prison, the instruments of the minority in Ireland crushing the majority, and your spokesmen defending an attempt to devastate the country, to destroy the people and to carry on a system of inhuman and notorious persecution for which there is no parallel even in the persecution of the Armenians by the Turks? I do not hear anything about any compensation that is to be given to the Catholics of Belfast who have been driven from their employment by the supporters of the right hon. Gentleman. They were peaceful citizens, pursuing their ordinary avocations, engaged in hard and laborious work, committing no crime against anybody, and most of them belonging to no political party, yet because of their faith 5,000 of them have been driven from their employment. Not a word about compensation for them! Policemen and soldiers when they join the forces know that they are running certain risks in the pursuit of their duty. They take those risks, and although they are prepared to take those risks, if they are injured, through the policy of the Government which they serve, they are to be compensated; but poor, unprotected citizens may be murdered in their homes, their property destroyed, their shops looted, their villages devastated, and there is not a single word about compensation for them. This is done in the name of the great British Empire, the great British Empire which we are told is the symbol of universal justice for mankind everywhere! I would be ashamed to mention the British Empire so long as there is anyone to stand up and defend the things that are going on in Ireland to-day.

What do you propose in this Bill? A poor woman sitting in her garden, with her little child on her knee, on an autumn evening in an Irish rural district, was shot like a dog by your minions. Is there any compensation in respect of her? No monetary compensation can bring back that mother to her helpless children who yet remain; no monetary consideration can appease the anger or soften the sorrow of that darkened hearthstone. One would have imagined, if financial consideration could be any appeasement, that at all events something would be done by the Government to manifest their humanity. Is anything done? Nothing at all. It is all for the Black and Tans. The ex-soldiers in this country whom you are starving, whom you have left to starve after they have come back from the War, and whom you wanted to got rid of, you sent over to Ireland to play fast and loose, to create a general hell in that country, and if they do anything on the orders of their masters, on the orders of your Government, then you bring in a Bill to compensate them if anything happens to them. What next do you propose to do? I am never amazed at the ignorance of the hon. and gallant Member for Finchley (Colonel Newman). He is a fine figure. He says he is a South of Ireland Unionist, and he tells us that he is prepared to placard over his door the fact that he is a loyalist, if they do not compel him to pay his share of the amount he would be entitled to pay as rates for compensation. He tells us that though his place is in Cork he never goes there. He said that Ireland is the spoilt child of England, and that we are always pouring money into her. He did not tell the House that you take £42,000,000 out of Ireland every year, and that there is only a sum of £18,000,000 spent on the government of the country. You extract from the Irish taxpayers £24,000,000 a year more than the government of the country costs, and this hon. and gallant Gentleman, who sneered at me as a friend of Sinn Feiners, and said that if he had a vote he would give it to a Sinn Feiner rather than give it to me, declares that your benevolent England, with your pockets full of gold, have thrown gold into Ireland, when as a matter of fact you are making a profit of £24,000,000 a year out of Ireland.

What are the grants that are to be stopped and taken in order to compensate the victims of the Government's outrages? The grants given to the Insurance Commission for the cure of consumption are to be withdrawn. The consumptive patient may die that the Black and Tans may live. That is your policy. You are to take away the old age pensions. The old age pensioners may sicken and die in order that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland may talk about his heroic policy of frightful-ness in the country. I expect the grant for education will be withdrawn, because you take power under this Bill to withdraw every Parliamentary grant that is given for every purpose. What will the citizens of Belfast do, where they have already 25,000 children who have no schools to go to? That is the proposal you put forward, and you put up the right hon. Gentleman to explain the Bill, and he explains the various Clauses of the Bill as if it were a simple little municipal measure that only required the fine subtle legal mind, and the clear power of elucidation which he possesses in order that it may slip silently through the House of Commons. The Chief Secretary for Ireland does not think it worth his while to come to the House and defend the Bill, nor does he come here to tell us how he is going to put into operation the promise which he gave last night. Innocent sufferers from this war which you have forced upon Ireland are not to be compensated for the wrongs that have been inflicted upon them.

Let me point out the absurdity of the whole proceeding. Take the town of Fermoy. I know that some of the premises destroyed there were the premises of Unionists, jewellers, places like Tylers' boot shops. In most of these towns the principal shopkeepers and ratepayers are Protestants and Unionists. It is one of the manifestations of the spirit of toleration of the Irish Catholics in that country that the most prosperous merchants are Protestants who are living upon the Catholic population, which is, perhaps, 95 per cent, of the population. Soldiers and police, the uniformed instruments of the Government, are let loose indiscriminately upon peaceful towns, and they wreck, loot, and burn every shop they see, with the result that these Unionists, who are ratepayers, will be compelled to pay the compensation which they claim for the damage that has been done.

The hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin), in dealing with this comparatively small Bill, introduces questions which have no relation to it. The main object of the Bill is to enforce obligations arising already under the decrees of County Court judges and judges of Assizes which are being treated with contempt by various County Councils in Ireland. There are at present decrees for tens of thousands of pounds at the instance of widows and orphans of men who have been murdered in your service, and you are asked now to give facilities for recovering those claims from the people who absolutely decline to recognise them. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. MacVeagh) says that there is no such principle existing anywhere except in Ireland. I join issue with him at once. In England, if property is destroyed by reason of riots or tumultuous assemblies of any description, claims can be made against the district, and are payable by the district. In like manner, in Scotland, if similar injury is occasioned, they have, power to claim in the same way against the Town Clerk in the case of an urban district. That principle was recognised in England so far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and it has been reaffirmed in this House. No doubt the circumstances, and we ought to thank God for it, never required that it should be extended beyond property. There never have been in this country the wholesale murders which have disgraced the country to which I belong, and of which I am proud, and for which I hope better things, notwithstanding the present lamentable condition. But have any of you any doubt that if a similar state of things arose to-morrow in England, if your resident magistrates, police officers and soldiers were shot—

And mothers and babies!

My hon. Friend has had his say.

Tell the whole truth!

I have observed, even in my own profession, and it is the same in this House, that when a man is being squeezed he generally cries out. The principle in this Bill is one which has been adopted by yourselves by this House—it is as old as Anglo-Saxon times—that where murder and outrage are perpetrated the district should pay compensation. That is all we ask. It has been recognised by this House. It is true that certain people objected to it, but once it becomes the law of the land, it is the law of the land for everybody.

What about the Act of 1914?

That is quite another matter. I am not dealing with that and I will not follow my hon. Friend into devious paths. I deal with the matter before the House.

Deal with the promise given yesterday by the Chief Secretary.

I will deal with the point which my hon. Friend has raised, because he deserves it. This matter of compensation is no new doctrine. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) seemed shocked that where a person has a decree against a public body, if that public body has a right to be paid by a ratepayer and will not pay the debt, the law should enable the person to go to the ratepayer and get from him the rates due towards paying the debt due by the public body. That is the ordinary law. If I owe an hon. Member of this House £100 and somebody else owes me £50 and he recovers judgment against me for the £100, he can attach the £50. Where is the injustice? The man who pays the £50 under the decree will be in the same position as if he pays his rates. As regards the suggestion that there is any party element in this, hon. Members should know that the bigger the rate payers the more likely they are to be selected. A person will not select 20 or 30 ratepayers. If I had a decree for £5,000 or £6,000 in Dublin I would make for some large ratepayer, like Guinness's Brewery, instead of scraping up a whole number of small ratepayers. The hon. Member for the Falls Division, who is anxious that I should not forget any portion of his speech—

That one only.

For this relief, much thanks. He is anxious that I should deal with the statement—he used the word "promise"—of the Chief Secretary yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman said:

"I am now considering these two points: (1) Has a case been made out that any of these creameries have been destroyed by the Forces of the Crown, for no case has been made yet identifying individual members of the Forces of the Crown; and (2) if the case is made out that they have been so destroyed, the question is, has the Government the moral responsibility to make what compensation they can in the way of money? Those are the two points I am considering with the Government it this moment, and if anyone has any evidence which will assist me in coming to a conclusion on that matter I should welcome it. [An HON. MEMBER: You may get it.]"

Read the whole of it, after I interrupted.

It reads:

"Mr. DEVLIN: Will that offer apply to all other property which has been destroyed by the Forces of the Crown?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Certainly. If property is destroyed in the course of a fight, then another set of circumstances arise altogether, and what are commonly called reprisals in the majority of cases are not reprisals done by anybody as the word should be used, but are the destruction that immediately follows or occurs in the course of a contest or combat in which the lives of individuals and the lives of the Forces of the Crown are involved."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Thursday, 4th November, col. 712.]

In the second portion he is dealing with the case of a fight, but in the first portion he is dealing with a case in which there is no fight, and I take it that that is the case to which my hon. Friend refers. Where there is no fight, and where there is destruction by the forces of the Crown. Well, that is the matter that is being considered.

Why not withdraw this Bill until it is considered?

Because this Bill deals with the question of local rates, and not with the question of Imperial charge. My hon. Friend does not want to throw up these claims upon the rates. What he wants to do is to make the English and Scotch taxpayer pay for these disturbances in Ireland—to make them an Imperial charge. That is not a matter which arises in this Bill. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, as he has said, is giving the matter most careful consideration.

Under this Bill, if it can be proved that two policemen have conspired to do damage to property, can compensation be recovered?

In Fermoy not merely has the learned Recorder of Cork held that, but given compensation.

For damages done by the police?

I do not say by the police, but by an unlawful association, and even if the police broke loose, or soldiers, it would be unlawful association. That would not meet the point of my hon. Friend (Mr. Devlin). His point is that he wants to make the Imperial Treasury pay. This question of an Imperial charge is one of extreme diffi-

I did not know that this Bill was to be taken to-day, but if it is being taken, we ought to have some information with regard to the various Clauses. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary remembers that he had no trouble with the Second Reading of the Bill, and certain questions were asked at that time. I am not sure that the replies were definite. This first Clause deals with the prohibition of employment of women and young persons in certain processes connected with lead manufacture, and I put the point on Second Reading as to the differences between the law in this country and the law that is being promulgated in connection with the Labour Section of the League of Nations Conference at Washington. I remember asking whether it meant that those nations which were below this minimum in restrictions on these trades were bound to come up to that minimum before any other nation did anything. I should very much like to know if in questions of this kind, which affect the physique of the workers, our law is above the minimum suggested by the League of Nations Conference in respect of all the six Subsections (a) to (f) mentioned in this first Clause, and, if not, in what respects we require to come up to the minimum. If you are going to have a conference of this kind that seeks to establish a minimum standard for the nations who are members of the League of Nations, we do not want to pass Bills piecemeal without understanding where we ourselves stand.

I answered this question very fully on Second Reading, as I think the OFFICIAL REPORT will show. I explained then that substantially we are ahead if anything of these proposals. There are one or two points in which our regulations do not apply to certain trades, but they do not apply because up to the present women and young children have not been employed in those trades, and the only change we shall have to make will be that the regulations must be made to apply to those trades. That will, of course, be done. I hope that makes it clear.

No. What I asked my right hon. Friend was a perfectly specific question. There are six Sub-sections here dealing with the prohibition of employment of women and young persons in certain processes connected with lead manufacture. These Sub-sections are set out, (a) to (f), and I asked whether our law at the moment covers every one of those separate Sub-sections.

I have said "Yes" over and over again.

The OFFICIAL REPORT is there for those who care to read it, and I say that all that my right hon. Friend has ever said is that in certain respects this is so. He has his officials at hand, and he ought to be able to tell us whether in these six Sub-sections we are covered above the minimum demanded by the Bill. If not, in which of them are we not covered?

I have answered that. Question put, and agreed to.

I said on Clause 1, and at the moment I was under correction, that this business had not been announced for this afternoon. My Noble Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Edmund Talbot) told me that it had been, and I said I did not think so. He has now just come over and told me that it had not been set down for to-day, so I simply rise to excuse my intervention, because I think it is quite fair, although I do not want to object to the Committee stage being token, that when a Bill which does con-corn an industry and changes the laws of that industry is brought forward the House of Commons should know that it is going to be taken.

I desire to associate myself with the protest of my hon. Friend. I am sure the Noble Lord (Lord E. Talbot) would not seek to take advantage of the House in any respect, but this habit of springing on the House Bills of which notice has not been given is a growing one. I have seen it done, night after night, and what is the utility of the Leader of the Opposition or any other Member of this House getting up and asking what the business is going to be for the remainder of the week if the answer that he gets is not going to be a correct answer? The Noble Lord knows that a Bill of this kind is of vast interest to all the Labour Members in the House, and he also knows that other Members would have felt it their duty to be here had they known that the Bill was to be proceeded with. I have no objection to the Committee stage of this Bill at all, but I object to Bills like this being sprung on the House. We were told distinctly that two Bills were to be taken to-day, and now we find a third sandwiched in between, and I do not think that is right. For the future we ought to have an assurance from the Noble Lord that this method will not be adopted. I cordially associate myself with the protest of my hon. Friend.

The mistake is entirely mine. I was distinctly under the impression—it was the intention—that we had given notice on Wednesday that this Bill would be one of three taken to-day. I find, however, that we did not give notice. We are, of course, entitled to take the Bills on the Paper, but by courtesy it is always the custom to give notice. Personally, I should not press for any stage of the Bill if the House did not wish it.

Let mo say at once that we shall not object, for this reason, that there is no Member of the Government who adheres more closely to the arrangements that he makes than does the Noble Lord. I have acted with him not only in this Parliament, but in other Parliaments, and I have never known him make a bargain that he did not keep. I am certain this is an oversight, and now that we have established the point that we were right, I shall certainly not object to the Committee stage of this Bill being taken.

I only wish to say that I, for one, would have been intensely disappointed if this Bill had not come on to-day, and it is no use saying the Labour Members were taken unawares. The Labour Members fully expected it on to-day, and that on the day it was discussed it would be taken in all its stages. As there is no Amendment on the Paper, I do hope there will be no obstruction to this measure going through, because it is so vitally important to the persons employed in the industry.

I made it perfectly clear, I hope, even to my hon. Friend, that I had no objection to the Committee stage at all—no objection to any Clause, and no intention of offering any opposition. I also made it perfectly clear, I hope, that I did not suggest that the Noble Lord had done anything irregular or improper, but I think the Noble Lord himself will agree that we were perfectly entitled to enter a protest, and that being so, we are quite ready to allow the Bill to proceed.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

I wish to ask a question on this Clause. I rather think there is an omission in the Bill. So far as I can see, the Bill does not specify the penalty for breaking Clause 1. There may be something in our general law for imposing a penalty, but if there is, I do not know it. Clause 1 just says that the employment of women or young persons in the six specified trades is illegal, but it does not say what the penalty for breaking the law is. Clause 2, which provides for certain equipment of works which use lead compounds, does provide a penalty in Sub-section (3), which says that where these equipments are not provided, there shall be deemed to be a breach of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. I think the Home Secretary will find that there is an omission, as no special penalties are laid down for a breach of Clause 1 of the Bill.

I will look into it.

Does the age of eighteen years here prescribed introduce any change?

None.

May I make an appeal to the House? I am entirely in the hands of the House. We all know what has passed, and if any section of the House desire that we should not take the Third Reading, of course, it would cot be taken; but, if there be no objection, I would ask for the Third Reading.

I am quite willing to respond to that appeal. This is an international arrangement. My right hon. Friend has assured us that there are very few points where we are not covered above the minimum, and I am quite willing to accept that.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

On the Second Reading of this Bill, having made a few remarks, I was followed by other Members of my own side, who said that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London and myself were opposed to what we had already approved by voting for the Treaty of Peace. I do not understand that. It seems to me that, by signing the Treaty of Peace as a whole, no individual Member of this House or the Government or the nation can be committed to particular Acts carrying out particular recommendations of the Iternational Labour Organisation. I demur altogether to the idea that we are in any way committed to any such Bill as this, simply because it is recommended by the International Labour Organisation, and it does not commend itself any more to me because it is international. But, suppose that principle were conceded, there are many small nations represented on this organisation, and suppose they decided, from their own point of view, that their present rates of wages—in wealth, and not on paper—were such that wages should be reduced, then is this House going to enforce, as a matter of course, a reduction of wages because gentlemen at Geneva recommend it? The matter does not admit of argument. The hon. Gentlemen who said that the right hon. Member for the City and myself were wrong in-the attitude we took were entirely wrong themselves, and the House, the Government, and the nation do not part in any respect with their freedom in this connection by being parties to the Treaty of Peace. Of course, I understand Labour Members are very much interested in the immediate passage of this Bill. One can see that by counting the Members who have flocked here. Though I confess I have no very intimate acquaintance with the subject of lead poisoning, I approve of the prohibition of the employment of women and young persons in what we know to be a dangerous occupation. I do not know anything about the details of the application, and it is not upon that that I speak. I do demur altogether to the principle—and I hope it is not in any way conceded by the passage of this Bill and the general consent to it—that this House, this Government, or this country are in the smallest degree bound to accept anything recommended by the International Labour Organisation, consisting of members of whom we know nothing, and who, possibly, even as regards our own country, do not really represent the opinion of the British people.

I would like to point out to my hon. Friend that the constitution of the International Labour Organisation forms part of the League of Nations, and the League of Nations forms part of the Treaty of Peace. This House has confirmed the Treaty of Peace, and I think my hon. Friend voted for it.

Yes.

I maintain that all the Governments who signed the Treaty, and whose representatives took part, are bound, whether they approve of those recommendations or not, to submit them to Parliament, or to the proper body in their State. Of course, Parliament is supreme, but, as I read the Clauses which constitute the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations, we are bound, when anything is carried at that Conference, to submit it to Parliament. Of course, Parliament can do what it likes. Surely there is the right of any country to decline to adjust its industrial requirements to meet the needs of the more backward countries. I submit to my hon. Friend that this, at all events, is about the worst example that he could have taken on which to attack an organisation. This Bill contains Clauses that many people have fought for for many years. I am perfectly certain that if he knew the terrible effects of lead poisoning, especially terrible on the women, and especially terrible to the race —they cannot be described, they are so horrible—and I am certain he does not approve of that.

I distinctly said that I approved of the purpose of the Bill, but I did not and cannot allow that we are bound to accept all these things.

I quite accept that explanation, but if my hon. Friend does want to fight the Labour office or organisation, I think he had better find a more favourable Bill than this. I shall be very glad when this Bill is passed, and that the House has consented to the Third Reading. I hope the Bill will very soon pass into law.

Let me say at once that if my hon. Friend opposite (Sir J. D. Rees) is under any misapprehension as to the conception we have had of the opposition submitted by him and the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), he had better clear his mind. We were clear upon the issue that they did not object to the Bill because it was a humane measure, although they knew nothing about it—according to the statement of the hon. Gentleman opposite himself! They did object to it simply because it was a Bill embodying certain of the recommendations of the Labour Convention of the League of Nations. But it is one of the most splendid evidences, to my mind, of a desire over the whole world to unite in modifying these terrible conditions which are a curse to humanity and industry. The difficulty we have had in years gone by to deal with this matter requires some recognition. Every association of employers dealing with this or kindred conditions existing in other countries which are competing with this country. They have said, "Put us on an equality, give us universal conditions, let us be equal, so far as equality can be brought about, and then we are not afraid of competition." For years some of us have been striving to bring about this better condition of affairs, and I think the first and most splendid step made in that direction is the recommendations of the Labour Section of the League of Nations. That at least gives us hope that there is a better and a brighter future. It only requires those who know, that do understand, and that have seen the terrors and horrors of it, to realise what this beneficent measure means to the people in this industry. This morning I was at a general conference of this very industry of employers and workmen, and I never heard a word of complaint in regard to this Bill from the people who do know something about it. We are, therefore, the more grateful because it is a step, an international step, in bringing about an improvement in industry. If all the world stood back I would still say to ourselves, "Go on on these lines for the betterment of our own children and those who have to enter into this industry."

I cannot allow a Bill like this to pass without just a word in reference to the provisions and objects which it purports to fulfil. I represent a constituency and district which is probably more interested in this subject than any other district represented in this House. In 1909, I think it was, I was appointed a member of the Lead Commission. For two years I laboured to understand this subject. We took evidence, not merely from experts in England and the kingdom generally, but from Europe. A mass of evidence was collected. On looking into this Bill I see that the Home Office have attempted, as far as possible, to impose the conditions that were finally recommended by the Committee, upon the employers engaged in British manufactures where lead was employed. It is with the greatest pleasure that one also finds that the. recommendations of that Committee relating to this industry are now practically international law. I must confess that I entirely agree with the speech of the hon. Gentleman on the opposite side of the House (Major Hills), that those who wish to oppose the Labour Department had better take a more favourable opportunity. If Labour had done nothing else but be successful in getting this Clause into the Treaty of Peace it would have done well. I believe this is the first international treaty over made where conditions of labour form part of it. In no great war hitherto, while commerce and trade and the general conditions of trade, and how it shall be conducted, have been considered, has this class of proposal ever been put forward. This is the first great step forward in international law. There are Clauses and proposals to attempt to bring up the standard to something like decency in employment in different trades by that international agreement of which this Bill forms part. Those who wish to oppose the Labour Department established under the Treaty of Peace could not, I am certain, either on humanitarian grounds, or national, or political, or any other grounds have chosen a worse case than the case represented by this Bill. If the Department of Labour constituted or instituted by that Treaty of Peace does nothing else than secure this kind of legislation, it will have been worthy its institution.

I need not enter into the subject, but I wish to say this: that from the evidence taken it was apparent that this was not purely a claim on the part of the workmen, or workwomen, or children, engaged in the industry. The evidence of 1909 clearly shows that the employers themselves were as anxious as the workpeople to find some way, if it were possible, to mitigate or abate the horrible results of lead poisoning and of working amongst the lead. Much has been done. But we have always had in our minds imposing conditions on the British manufacturer in the potteries, the possibility that other countries would not adopt similar rigid regulations, and that, therefore, we would be putting our employers and our industries at a disadvantage as compared with similar classes of work in other countries. This is therefore a great step forward. May I take the opportunity of saying that it is not done exclusively on the demand of the workpeople, but equally on the demand of the employers of the potteries. They give it their blessing as much as do the workpeople whom it seeks to protect. I give the Bill all the blessing I can and I am sure every well-wisher of the community will wish that it may become law, and subsequently applied internationally.

I agree with every word that the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward) has just said, but I wish to say that I think he is under a misapprehension as to what is the alleged opposition of my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees). In the last Debate I understood that my hon. Friend did not object to the proposals of this Bill, but what he did was to take exception by saying that he saw lurking within such proposals the possibility of some super-State being set up that would override the power of this House. As a democrat, and believing that we should come as near as we can on labour and all classes of legislation throughout the world, I protest against this House becoming subordinate, even in a good cause, to those assemblies which are not elected by the popular franchise of the people. I agree that this is legislation that is wanted. It was admitted by the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), that in this class of legislation we are proposing to go further than the labour section set up by the League of Nations. Let us continue the good work, and let us go on in front of other nations, but I for one cannot accept a provision which even suggests that there is going to be set up a super-State outside the authority of this House.

It is not very often that I heartily congratulate the Government upon a Bill, but I cannot let this opportunity slip without saying how heartily my hon. Friends and I really welcome this Bill. The fact that this Government has brought it in makes our praise no less sincere. May I point out to those hon. Members who are frightened by the words "international" and "labour," that the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations is really very bureaucratic, and I do not think there is a single person of extreme views upon it. The French representative is a patriotic French Socialist who took up a high patriotic line during the War, and he is a gentleman who is much respected in this House. Our own representatives are gentlemen who favoured the Conservative point of view during the War and since, and therefore right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite need not be alarmed at the words "international" and "labour." Those who made these recommendations constitute a very steady-going organisation, and the people who met at Washington were anything but extreme internationalists. The hon. Member who spoke last objected to any ad hoc authority calling itself a League of Nations overriding this House. I wish to say that when the next Peace Treaty comes along I propose to move an Amendment providing that the representatives of the Council and the Assembly of the League of Nations shall be approved by this honourable House. I moved an Amendment to this effect when the last Treaty was before us, and that includes the organisation of the League of Nations which has given birth to this Bill. I then pointed out that the Members of this House should have a say in electing those representatives both on the Council and Assembly of the League of Nations.

I would like to ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if the hon. and gallant Member's remarks are in order.

I thought the hon. and gallant Member was giving his reasons for supporting the Third Reading, although his remarks seem rather discursive.

I was simply trying to meet the view of those who say that they did not approve of this proposal because it came from the League of Nations. I was pointing out that I gave an opportunity of putting our representatives on the Council and the Assembly of the League of Nations under the control of this House, and probably those who have been opposing this proposal did not hear my argument. I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees) spoke upon that subject, and I suggest when I move such an Amendment in reference to the next Peace Treaty, that all those who object to this House being overridden should support that Amendment.

After the last speech and the speech of the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Seddon) I think that something should be said to emphasise the fact that the League of Nations has never aspired to be a super-State; it is not a super-State, and does not bind any member of any State. That is a constant misrepresentation made by the opponents of the League of Nations. Hon. Members like the Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees) frequently suggest that an organisation like the League of Nations or the labour bureau connected with it is in the nature of a super-State, but it is nothing of the kind. It is, however, the means whereby international action can take place on a subject of this kind which could never have been achieved without that organisation.

Before the War in 1913, a conference on this subject took place at Basle, at which most of the European countries were represented. It was agreed that something ought to be done, but, owing to the absence of recognised machinery, nothing was done, and it was generally admitted that under the old system it would have taken between 10 and 20 years to get anything done. Now, after the very first conference, under the auspices of the League of Nations held at Washington, it has been possible to get the various nations represented at that conference to take parallel action. The significance of this Bill is that it is the first example we have had of how the machinery of the League of Nations can facilitate, and hasten, international action of a kind generally beneficial to humanity, without in any way infringing the sovereignty of the various members of the League.

Apparently, there are some Members who have attended for a specific object and who possibly are waiting the opportunity of worshipping at the shrine of a Bill of Divinity. They want to pass on to the next Bill. May one who is generally credited with being an extremist, however, be allowed to point out one or two reasons why Members should appreciate the action of the Government, and hesitate before condemning any form of legislation because, forsooth, it may have either the word "international" or the word "labour" in it? May I point out to those damning this Bill with faint praise that the facts are exactly as the hon. Member (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) has just said? Our object in all the countries of the world would be far more quickly and effectively obtained if we could proceed upon international lines rather by the imposition of international duties and restrictions on trade, because, after all, the whole of the peril that confronts the so-called civilised countries of to-day is due to the lack of protection of those lesser civilised States already engaged in productivity. If, in Japan or any other country, we could get some measure of agreement as to the right of the workers, whether organised or not, to some decent standard of existence, that in itself would make for more amicable relations as between country and country and employer and employed.

I look forward to the time when there will be some universal code of living and of conduct as between those who work and those who dispose of the products, and this Bill, brought forward within twelve months of the meeting at Washington, shows that when people, whether nominated by Governments or directly elected by Labour, who have absolute and certain knowledge of the actual conditions under which people work, get together, there is not these academic and long-drawn-out quarrels and hair-splitting which generally result when people who happen to have been elected by so many thousand votes in such and such a division insist upon discussing these questions. It is a mere accident when anyone is elected to this House who can represent as a specialist any particular point of view, but, in questions of Labour and Labour conditions, most Labour men are specialists. It is only those who have interested themselves in the uplifting of wage conditions who know that only one woman out of ninety working in the lead industries is able to bring a child into the world. We know that blindness is directly due to this labour, and that there are men in East London to-day who, within three months of starting at the lead works in Hackney, have awful sores breaking out all over their bodies, and who have had to come away from their work. Under these circumstances, it is time we seriously considered whether any industry that depends for its continuance and prosperity upon the certain manufacture of malformation is worth continuing at all.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The object of this Bill, as we all know, is to give exceptional treatment to holders of sites and buildings used for the purposes of religious worship. As a rule, it will apply to chapels rather than to other places of worship. No one objects to this exceptional treatment which is given to them. If they hold their land upon a leasehold tenancy, they can at any time that they like purchase from the owner of the reversion, the landlord, the site upon which their buildings are erected, and they can purchase it upon very favourable terms. The buildings on the site are not to be taken into account at all in assessing the value. In the ordinary case, of course, the owner of the reversion looks to make a substantial profit by reason of the buildings erected upon the site. No one objects to this very exceptional treatment given to lessees of sites used for religious worship, but there is a power put into the Bill—I am afraid intentionally put into it—which ought not to be there. I happen to have had a case in court to-day which provides exactly the illustration which I wish to put to the House. The trustees of a Wesleyan chapel owned a plot of land in the East End of London. It happened to be freehold, and this Act would not apply, but let us assume that it was leasehold terminable in a year or two. They used part of the site for the purposes of a chapel and a Sunday-school, and on the back part of it there is a cinema which is very prosperous. I have not the slightest objection to exceptional terms being given to leasehold property used for the purposes of a chapel and a Sunday-school, but I do think it is wrong that they should be allowed to enfranchise a cinema and, when the lease is determined a year or two hence, get the hall for nothing so far as the reversion is concerned.

That is the point which I want to meet. While it is quite right to deal with places of worship or Sunday-schools, we are not entitled to give any special consideration to that part of a site which is used in that way. That is the meaning of my Clause, and I hope that the House will support it. I put down some Amendments in Committee, but unfortunately, not knowing the room in which the Committee was sitting, I went to Westminster Hall instead of upstairs, and I arrived after all my Amendments had been passed over. I did not therefore have an opportunity of putting this before the Committee upstairs. I hope the House will support me, because it would be unjust to the landlord not to give him these exceptional advantages. After all, the commercial side of the undertaking has nothing whatever to do with religious services, and when the premises are no longer used for religious purposes he should have the right of re-entry. I own no land, and therefore am in no way personally interested as a landlord; but I feel I ought, as a lawyer, to bring this matter before the House.

What about playgrounds attached to Sunday-schools?

Any land attached used for religious purposes, say, for graveyards, would not come under this provision. If the ground were let for football matches or to professional or amateur football clubs, then there should be a right to claim re-entry. I am not in the least against football. If the land is used for the purposes of a Sunday-school or place of worship I should not touch it, because then money would not be made out of it for commercial purposes.

I beg to second the Motion.

Suppose a man had provided a site for the erection of a chapel for religious services and it was enfranchised, the landlord only receiving the value of the land for such purposes. Suppose, further, that a year or so later the trustees decided to sell the place for a picture show. Would the extra value of the land thus secured go to the original landlord who had been compensated only on the basis of the value of the land when used for religious purposes? Surely it would be unjust that he should not have the benefit of the increased value for commercial value.

I have come down with the intention of supporting this Bill as heartily as I can. I think the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) has overlooked Clause 3. I have the privilege of letting to the Wesleyans in my village a chapel at a purely nominal rent. But there is a Clause in the lease which provides that, if for twelve months that building is not used for the purposes of religious worship, then it shall revert to the owner. Under this Bill precisely similar provisions are enforced, and I take it that if a chapel were diverted to the purposes of a cinema house it would be open to the original landlord to claim the right of re-entry.

I quite agree, but it is not everyone who has the foresight to insert such a clause in the agreement. I am only asking that the clause shall be assumed to be in every lease. I am afraid that in nineteen cases out of twenty there is no such power of re-entry under such circumstances. When the lease contains such a clause this Bill will not apply.

Perhaps I may usefully explain some of the provisions of this Bill which seem to have been overlooked.

We are now dealing with the proposed new Clause.

And I hope I am going to deal with it. The Bill has already passed the House of Lords on two occasions. As to the proposed new Clause I will not now attempt to dissect it as it can easily, later on, be put into a more perfect form if necessary. The object, however, is very clear. It is quite right that exceptional opportunities should be given for the enfranchisement of premises now held on lease for religious purposes, but I do not think that opportunity should be taken of enfranchising the premises to make a profit out of them by selling them for lay purposes. Under Clause 3, as has been pointed out, the land, when it has been enfranchised, still remains subject to the restrictive covenants which belong to and were inserted in the trust, and it will, therefore, be held upon these restrictive clauses. They run with the lease, as we lawyers say. The land will not be obtained free and independently of the purposes for which it is now held.

Then I come to the very important provisions of Clause 4, which really deals with the point which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson) has in mind. Clause 4 says that, if it is proved to the satisfaction of the Charity Commissioners that premises which have now become freehold are habitually used for any purpose or purposes other than those Specified in the trust, then, unless it appears to them that such use was due to inadvertence and will be discontinued, the Charity Commissioners may make void all these contracts and may prevent that user. That means that all those persons who hold land at present on lease, and who hold it subject to a trust for using the land for religious purposes, will, if they enlarge their leasehold into a freehold, always have before them the powers of the Charity Commissioners under Clause 4. Referring to the interesting details which were given by my hon. and learned Friend as to how he was engaged this morning, if he had been thinking of this Bill when he was in Court, he would have said, "Ah, I remember that if the Bill had been passed this would be impossible, because the Charity Commissioners would immediately interfere," and the contracts for a cinema show, and so on, with which he was dealing this morning, would have perished. Under Clause 4 the Charity Commissioners are able to ensure, not only now but in the future, that those who hold leaseholds which are enfranchised shall hold and use them for the purposes for which they are enfranchised, and that, if they are not so used, contracts made in relation to them will become void. It does not stop there, for in paragraph (3) of the Schedule a provision has been made whereby, in the case of land which is ultimately sold, a right of pre-emption is given to the original holder.

As I have said, I do not criticise my hon. and learned Friend's Clause verbally, but I criticise its purpose. What does he propose in place of what is laid down in the Bill? He says that, supposing that at any time this land should be used for any other purpose than the religious purpose, then it is to revert—I am not dealing with the question of whether the whole or a part should revert, because he has quite fairly said that he would ask only that a particular part should revert—it shall thereupon revert to the original owner and become a portion of the lands from which it was severed. That perhaps is not very difficult to work out in the course of the next year or two, when the original owners can easily be found. But go on to, say, 20 or 30 years. Are you always going to hold over the titles of this land, this provision, that if eventually any portion—I am taking the Clause and not the scheme of the Act—was not used for a place of worship that it should revert to the original owner or his successor in title and you have to find him? I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend quite means it, but quite apart from any verbal criticism of his Clause, he does not give the money back. There is no what I may call change of position between the parties that the original owner or his successor is to give the money back in return for the land which he gets back. It is that there is to be a sort of blot on the title and after 20, 30, or any number of years hence, it may become necessary under this Clause to find out the original owner or his successor, and thereupon the land will revert to him. I suggest that that is a bad method of trying to do what my hon. and learned Friend wants to do and a far better method is that which is adopted in the Bill, that is to say, assume that the trusts are to be fulfilled and are still to be binding upon the land, as in Clause 3, and to hold over those who are exercising the trust, the powers of the Charity Commissioners, which can be invoked at any time, to secure instead of alienating part of this enfranchised land for a purpose which is not contemplated, that they may know that if they attempt to do that the contracts they made for such a purpose will be made void. After drawing the attention of the House to these safeguards, which have been carefully provided and which are very powerful indeed, I hope my hon. and learned Friend will not think it necessary to press the Motion.

My hon. and learned Friend in his able and helpful speech missed the point of my Amendment. I quite agree that if the trustees act outside their trust, of course, the Bill has ample safeguards, but the point is— and the whole point of my illustrating the case was that it is not a breach of trust—that in the vast majority of these cases they have the fullest power. For instance, it is a very common thing indeed, where they have a particular bit of land that they can cut off half of it and let is for a shop, make whatever profits they can and use them, properly, for the purpose of the trust and the excellent religious work which they are doing in the particular place. Therefore the whole purpose of my Clause is that they are acting within the scope of their trust, and in that case Clause 4 does not help me at all.

Oh, yes!

Not if they are acting within the scope of their trust. The hon. Member for Thirsk (Mr. Turton) put my point as clearly as anything could be. He said he had granted a lease to a chapel and had put in a Clause to the effect that if at any time hereafter you use this for 12 months for any other purpose than a religious purpose it is to-revert to me at once. That is exactly what I mean by this Clause, and, as the hon. Member has got it in his lease, it is a very wise and proper Clause to put in. So long as it remains used for religious worship, he is willing to do it, but no doubt his lease will have a power of reversion as regards the particular part used for other purposes. That is all I am asking by this new Clause, and I press very strongly indeed that my point has not been met in any way. There is nothing in Clause 4 which will assist me at all where they are acting within the scope of their trust. Clause 3 does not help me on this point, because it covers a case like that mentioned by my hon. Friend (Mr. Turton), where in the original lease restricted covenants are inserted. If I can get an assurance that words can be put in which would meet the case with which I have sought to deal, I would accept them willingly, but failing that I shall have to go to a Division upon this point, which is a very vital point.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words, "whether in conjunction with other purposes or not."

The Clause would then provide that they shall not have power to enfranchise property which they are not using for religious purposes, such as a cinematograph or a shop, and they should only be able to enfranchise that part of the premises which is being used for religious worship. I submit that that part of the premises which is sub-let for purposes other than religious purposes should not be able to take advantage of the provisions of this Act, and be enfranchised on the favourable terms which can be arranged for that part which is used for religious worship. There may be some cases where it is difficult to differentiate between the two classes of property, but in the vast majority of cases there is a clear cut line where there is a separate lease of premises adjacent to but held on the same trust, which would come within the meaning of this Act, and which are clearly being used for commercial purposes.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The effect of the Amendment would be to destroy in very large measure the usefulness of this Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the Wesleyans. I believe that in the case of 98 per cent, of the Wesleyan Churches the land is held for the purpose of religious worship in conjunction with other purposes. The effect of the Amendment, so far as the Wesleyan Church is concerned, would be to destroy entirely the whole object of the Bill. As regards the other religious bodies, I believe that the position would also be gravely imperilled. If we were to pass the Bill in the form which the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests, the probability is that we should be told by the Nonconformist Churches that we might as well not have passed it. I know that my hon. and learned Friend is in favour of the general principle of the Bill, and I ask him not to press an Amendment which would so gravely impair it.

Can the hon. Gentleman meet me on the point where the land is used definitely and sub-let definitely for purposes such as I have mentioned?

I am not going to repeat the argument used by the Solicitor-General, but I hope that my right hon. Friend has said enough to convince the House that they have adequate safeguards.

No one doubts the sincerity of my hon. and learned Friend, but if he follows this proposal to its logical conclusion it would create much more injustice than it is going to remove. He seems to have associated, quite naturally, chapels and cinemas, as if there were some affinity between the two. The only place in this country where a cinema show is given every Sunday is within the confines of an Established Church. It has been given in one part of Birmingham. They are alleged to be religious pictures, Bible pictures, and so forth. If the hon. and learned Gentleman pressed this Amendment he would, I am quite sure, unconsciously inflict upon the great mass of Nonconformists a hardship for which he himself would be sorry. I do not happen to be a Wesleyan, but I am a Nonconformist. The denomination to which I am attached has had its doctrinal changes, and injury has been done to those who were original owners of the buildings because of the power of the landlord to step in. We want Nonconformist churches to be free from this irksome condition.

The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lewis) is under a slight misapprehension in opposing this Amendment. He said that the Amendment would knock the bottom out of the Bill so far as it applied to the Wesleyans and the majority of Nonconformists, because many of their trust deeds—98 per cent, in the case of the Wesleyans—provide for the holding of the premises, not only for religious purposes, but for other purposes also. The Amendment will in no way affect them, because it relates only to a particular case where the land is held for religious and secular purposes.

I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not press the Amendment, for I honestly think this particular item is not worth worrying about. I fear that the religious trusts of Nonconformist bodies would be seriously interfered with, and many of them would have to be altered if the Amendment were carried. Most of these Nonconformist trusts, which we are anxious to help by this Bill, are poor trusts belonging to religious communities which, in common with the Church of England, at this moment are very hard put to it to pay their way. Anything that will tend to encourage Nonconformist denominations to build up endowment funds I would heartily support. I do not want to see anything done to prevent the trusts being administered as liberally as possible. I should not be at all sorry to see them making a little money out of their property and devoting it to religious purposes. I personally would be most anxious to encourage the building up of endowments.

I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman did not convince me. I gather that the object is to get something out of somebody else.

This is a Bill to which I give my enthusiastic support. I have been a great many years in polities on the Liberal side, and fought four elections. I have continuously pressed the justice of this measure and I am glad that it is now received so heartily on both sides. I am only sorry that in this year of grace 1920 it should be necessary for Parliament to bring forward a measure which entitles certain religious bodies to have to come here to ask for authority in order that they may worship. Wherever there is a religious body, I think they ought to be given every possible facility for carrying on their worship in accordance with what they honestly believe. As a Churchman, I think the best we can do, when we remember the support which we received from hon. Members opposite on the Enabling Bill, is to give our hearty support to a Bill coming from the other side. I reciprocate entirely the great response and support we received on that Enabling Bill. I am glad when they come forward that we in an equal Christian spirit can meet them and endeavour, so far as we possibly can, to carry on religion in this country.

There is another reason why I support this Bill. I am bound to admit to hon. Members opposite that the Nonconformist bodies, as a rule, are extremely bad men of business. I can speak from personal experience. Thirty-five years ago my father gave a lease of a site for a Wesleyan Chapel in our village at the purely nominal rent of two shillings. Two years ago the trustees informed me that the lease had run out. What a splendid opportunity for your grasping Tory landlord to get possession of that site and of the different amenities. Frankly, I for one would have regarded it as blood money. I think I am entitled to say that of course the trustees had their lease renewed on the same easy terms as previously. It might have been that the land belonged to a syndicate or to somebody who held entirely different religious views. Therefore, I say, on that ground of business alone, it is only right that we should congratulate our Friends opposite en having obtained a measure of justice in regard to this matter. I am only sorry—and it is the only tone of regret that I have in this matter—that we should bring in the antiquated form of the Lands Clauses Act and the Railway Clauses (Consolidation) Act. Speaking as Chairman of the Standing Committee which had before it the Acquisition of Land Bill, I should have been delighted if there had been included in that Bill, not only local authorities, but religious bodies of all kinds, and I think it is unfortunate that our Friends opposite should not have been able to include their different sites for places of worship under the Land Acquisition Bill, instead of going back so far as 1845 to the Lands Clauses Act and the Railway Clauses (Consolidation) Act. However, I understand they are prepared to accept those antiquated Acts, and I would only say that I give my vote for the Third Reading with my most hearty support, and that I congratulate the promoters on having got through their Bill with the hearty good will of parties on both sides of the House.