Is it possible for the proceedings of Parliament to be broadcast?

That question does not arise now. The proper course would be to put a question down to the appropriate Minister.

I do not know who he is.

I beg to move, "That Mr. James Hope be the Chairman of Ways and Means, and that Captain Fitzroy be the Deputy-Chairman."

In this new House and with the peculiar circumstances of the balance of parties to-day, a few words explaining why the Motion is made are eminently desirable. It is well known to the older Members of the House that these appointments used not to be made until after the conclusion of the Debate on the Address. The change in practice arose when the custom was given up of Mr. Speaker leaving the Chair for an hour or an hour and half during the course of the evening for dinner. It is well known, probably to all Members of the House that no one can take the Chair in Mr. Speaker's absence except the Chairman or the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, and, therefore, for the continuance of our debates and the convenience of debate, it is necessary to have these officers appointed on the first day of the Session.

I would like to say a word or two about the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means. He is not in any sense a member of the Government, nor is he a Minister of the Crown. He is not subordinate to any Minister, he is not responsible to the Crown, to the Government, or to the Prime Minister. It is true it has been customary of recent years for his name to be put before the House by the Leader of the House for the time being. His responsibility, however, is not to the Leader of the House, but to the House itself, whose servant he is. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means in the last Parliament, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Deputy-Chairman, arc fully sensible of that responsibility, and if, after their election, circumstances should occur in which the House itself should desire a change, and the desire for that change should be intimated to them, they would immediately fall in with the wishes of the House. That is the reason for making the proposal to-day that they be appointed to the offices which I have named.

I think it only right that the House should be aware of this fact, and should realise that the appointment is for their convenience. On the other hand, if there is a general desire in the House that during the short period of the Debate on the Address, the old custom should be followed—subject, of course, to Mr. Speaker's assent being obtained, and Mr. Speaker has always been, as we all know, ready in these matters to fall in with what may be the wish of the House—in that case, I would not press this Motion. I would, however, remind the House that in the event—and I hope nothing of the kind may occur—of the Speaker being ill, or incapacitated in any way from taking the Chair, then, in the absence of these officers, there is no one who can be called into the Chair, and the House would have to adjourn until the Speaker's health permitted him to resume his duties. I felt that I owed it to the House in these circumstances to give this explanation. I hope, very much, they may see fit to support this Motion, but I shall await what may be said in the course of the discussion which will undoubtedly follow, and T shall endeavour, as far as I am able, to fall in with the wishes of the House.

I am sure the House is very much obliged to my right hon. Friend for putting the case in the fair and open way in which he has put it. It is perfectly evident that since we altered our Standing Orders, so that Mr. Speaker was no longer able to adjourn the House during a dinner-hour, it was necessary to elect a Chairman of Ways and Means, and a Deputy-Chairman, at this sitting. There is no use, however, shutting our eyes to any of the facts. We are meeting to-day in most unusual, most exceptional circumstances, and I think it would be a profound pity if we started with a Division at this time upon this subject. We are going to have a great many difficulties during the life of this Parliament. [HoN. MEMBERS: "You are!"] We are, whether it is short or whether it is long, and I feel it would be far better if an avoidable Division were obviated. I think, Mr. Speaker, it would be well if you informed us whether you could see your way to help us in this matter by saying it would be possible to adjourn the House for a short time—say, an hour—each day during the Debate on the Address, while you had your refreshment and we had ours in the evening. By the end of that time we will see what a greater and more critical Division will bring forth, and then we will be in a position to set about our business in the ordinary way. I think it would be far better, if I may express my own opinion, if this matter were adjourned, because it is quite impossible —however much one may regret it—to get this Motion through without a Division which would be most regrettable. If the matter were adjourned, and if Mr. Speaker were to get us out of our difficulty in the way I have suggested we could proceed later on to the appointment of these two officers.

An extremely interesting situation has developed, and apparently even before the Speech from the Throne has been read, some arrangement has been made by the parties represented on this side and by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. MacDonald) to decide that there shall be no Chairman of Ways and Means until such time, I suppose, as he is in a position to form a Government and to decide who the gentlemen are to be. That is only carrying on exactly the same tendency against which I protested the other day, and I most emphatically enter my protest against it now. This is a House of Commons appointment, as admitted by the Prime Minister in making the proposal. It is only an accident that the Prime Minister, or the Leader of the House as a rule makes the proposition, because it rarely happens that there is a Government which has not a majority of the Members of the House supporting it. It so happens that this Government has not a majority of the House supporting it, but while that may be urged against them, as a reason why this matter should be delayed, when the hon. Member for Aberavon forms his Government, he will be in a still more insignificant minority. If this argument holds good now, then we ought not to elect a Chairman of Ways and Means or a Deputy-Speaker at all, and the Government would be ill-advised if they accepted the suggestion of the hon. Member for Aberavon, and delayed this matter, especially as this old House is a peculiar institution and the hon. Member for Aberavon is no doubt counting his chickens, but they may be lost even yet. The hon. Members behind him, I suppose, occasionally sing that verse in their particular song about

"Craving for power and pelf."

[Interruption.] It is the first time I have ever had the chance of being in Opposition. For over 20 years I have been in the House, and I never had a chance of being in Opposition, but I have that chance now, as you will discover very often. Apart altogether from that, this is a House of Commons appointment, an appointment which should proceed from the Members themselves. These two gentlemen have given service to the House. They are not new men, they are not untried men. We have had them during the last Parliament, and for some considerable time their services have been well known to the House. I am astonished that the first pact made by the parties in this new Parliament should be, of all things, a pact between a Conservative Prime Minister and a prospective Socialist Prime Minister. That is a peculiar combination in my estimation. I would beg of the House to proceed with the election.

I think there will be general agreement that the Prime Minister has fairly consulted the probable views of the House in the course which he has taken. He has offered in respect of the Motion now before the House two alternatives, and I am extremely glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon has on behalf of his Party, and the Opposition, selected the second of those alternatives. I think it would have been unfortunate had the first been chosen, and for this reason—that it would have been open to all the objections which have just been put by my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Stoke (Lieut.Colonel J. Ward). We would be in this position, that to-day, on the motion of the Prime Minister, we would be electing the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. J. F. Hope) as Chairman of Ways and Means, and the hon. and gallant Member for Daventry (Captain Fitzroy) as Deputy-Chairman. That would be an assumption on the part of the Government, and an admission on the part of the House, that these appointments were within the gift of the Government of the day. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I am putting it as it appears to me, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite disagree with me, I am quite ready to hear any arguments which they can bring forward. I am endeavouring to suggest in a deferential way that such an arrangement as I have indicated would lead to these inferences—first, that the present Motion admits a right on the part of the Government, and that right having been admitted on the part of the present Government, then it would be the right of the new Government, whoever composes that Government, to nominate whom they please to sit in the Chair of Committee of Ways and Means and to be Deputy-Speaker.

It seems to me any such an arrangement would be most unfortunate, and furthermore, that in the exceptional and unusual conditions of the present House to which the hon. Member for Aberavon has referred, it would be wise to depart altogether from the, tradition of having the Chairman of Ways and Means and his deputy nominated by the Government of the day. It is true, as the Prime Minister has said, that for many years now the Government of the day has nominated the Chairman and that nomination has been accepted by the House without challenge, but there is one very interesting precedent, which is an exception to that rule, and it is an exception which arose under conditions very like those in which the House is now met. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel, like the present Prime Minister, was a minority Prime Minister. He had appealed to the country in exceptional conditions, in the hope of attaining a majority like the present Prime Minister. He had failed in his appeal but not so badly as the present Prime Minister. On that occasion Sir Robert Peel decided that he would endeavour to carry on The first trial of strength between the parties occurred then on the election of Mr. Speaker—a precedent which was happily not followed on the present occasion. When it came to the nomination of the Chairman of Ways and Means, Sir Robert Peel, whose nominee for the Speakership had been defeated, wisely saw that it was impossible for him to put his party nominee in the Chair of Committee of Ways and Means, and he nominated—I think it was in the month of March, 1835—Mr. Bernal a member of the Whig Opposition. That Motion was accepted without a Division by the House. On that occasion, he recognised, as I think the Prime Minister now recognises, and any future Prime Minister must recognise, that in these appointments the wishes of the House must be consulted.

It seems to me that the second alternative which the Prime Minister has put forward, namely, to adjourn the whole matter, would be preferable from every point of view. It is true that it would mean a temporary change in the order of our proceedings, in that you, Sir, in the Chair, would require to follow the example of your predecessors about 30 years ago, and suspend the sitting for the dinner hour. I apprehend that that can be done without any alteration in the Standing Orders of the House, but I have no doubt that the House will be prepared to be guided by you in that matter. If this is left open, there will be an opportunity in the intervening time to ascertain the general view of the House as to who should fill these offices, and, if I might make a suggestion, it would be to this effect, that such efforts as are possible should be made in the interval to ascertain the general sense of the House, so that in the Chair of Ways and Means and in the office of Deputy-Chairman, there should be those who commend themselves to all sections, and that, therefore, for the purposes of the present Parliament, the best possible appointments should be made.

At this stage, perhaps, it would be well if I answered the question put by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald). I am the servant of the House, and, as far as human frailty permits, I shall carry out the decision of the House. It may be necessary for me to leave the Chair in a long sitting for a short period.

I am one of those who believe in spoils to the victors, and I believe that this is an attempt to queer the pitch. Instead of being in the House of Commons, I imagine I am in Petticoat Lane. [An HON. MEMBER: "YOU ought to be."] I have been. Surely it ought to be left to the new House of Commons to get into order, to appoint our own officials without having them appointed for us. Who are these gentlemen who are coming along? Hope and Fear. I do not object to whoever gets the job. I never stand a chance, but I do want to ask the House to realise that we ought to have a chance of getting our breath. Some of you have lost it, but we are in the position to-day that we have parties more than equally divided, and I have the right to reecho the sentiment of one of the most celebrated statesmen of the day: "Wait and see." We have a right to ask that these appointments shall not be made until the proper time arrives, and then the gentlemen who are nominated may find themselves cremated. I hope they will not be, but I hope they will live to see a better time. I am, however, supporting the proposition that this Motion be adjourned until we have the opportunity of fully considering the situation and electing the officers of this House in accordance with the position of the people who have given their decision.

The hon. and gallant Member for Stoke (Lt.-Col. J. Ward), who always stokes up, who is always lecturing us on this side of the House about our imperfections, has, I am glad to see, turned over to the other side of the House. We are gradually finding him out. We were members of the same labour organisation when I was 17 years of age and he now becomes a reactionary and talks to me about constitutionalism.[HON. MEMBERS: "Order"] I am prepared to go on with it. This Gentleman knows more about it than I do. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order"] This hon. Gentleman, if I may he allowed to say so, cannot give me any lectures on constitutionalism. I want to see the officials of this House properly appointed, and we claim the right to appoint them, and we are going to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "We?"] Yes, I am one of the "we's." We are going to keep on keeping on until we have a chance of doing so, and we leave the House to judge.

This House has constantly created new precedents, and probably this Parliament will do so more than ever. I am one of those who have always been jealous for the privileges of the private Members of this House, and although there may he some difference in custom about it, it has always been considered, I believe, the right of this House as a whole, irrespective of party, to elect its Speaker. The position of Chairman of Ways and Means has of late years assumed a rather different aspect as his position as Deputy-Speaker has become more important, and it seems to me that the Members of this House should strive to preserve that same absence of any party spirit in the elections of these officers which it has been the tradition of this House to follow in the matter of the election to the Chair. Under these circumstances, I rise to ask the Prime Minister, and, if I may be allowed to do so, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) also, whether, in the case of these appointments, whoever may be the particular Member of the House who proposes the names, they will take off the Whips of their respective parties in the case of any Division on these appointments.

I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

I desire, Mr. Speaker, on the letter which you have just read from the Chair, to raise a question affecting the privileges of Members of this House. Members of the last House will recall that on a similar occasion in November, 1922, a communication from the Department of Home Affairs of Northern Ireland was also read by you, and I then raised the matter of privilege. On that occasion you came to the conclusion that there was no prima facie case, and that consequently I should not be in order in moving the Resolution which at that time I desired to ask leave to propose. In re-opening this matter, it is not to challenge the ruling you then gave I do not for one moment suggest that the ruling which was then given was a ruling which was incorrect or contrary to the practice of Parliament on the materials which were then at your disposal. I plead guilty to some extent to being responsible for the meagreness of the materials which were then put before you for the purposes of judging. The first point I wish to deal with on the present occasion is as to whether the fact that Mr. Cahir Healy is at present interned does not prevent privilege arising, or, in other words, that the privilege of freedom from arrest only occurs when a Member of Parliament is arrested subsequent to his election to this House. I have taken the trouble to look up the precedents in this matter, and I find that in those cases of arrest and imprisonment where privilege is admitted, in the past that privilege has been asserted by this House in relation to Members who were imprisoned before their election, with one exception, and I think you will find that this is clearly set out in Erskine May.

The precedents to which I would refer extend from the early part of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century. On 4th July, 1625, Mr. Bassett was imprisoned before election and afterwards discharged, but the House ordered his return. Sir Thomas Mores, who was in the same position, was discharged on 2nd April, 1673. George Galway Mills, who was in the custody of the Master of the King's Bench, was discharged on 8th July, 1807, and I now come to the latest case, Robert Christie Burton, who was discharged on 28th January, 1819. The only exception to that rule was a case which occurred in 1452, and that was the case of a Member called Thorpe, who was Speaker of the House, I regret to say, but when the precedents were subsequently surveyed, it was held that that case was irregular and "begotten by the iniquity of the times." On that point, as to the existing imprison- ment preventing the assertion of privilege, I submit to you, that on the precedents this House is entitled to call for the discharge of a prisoner if it sees that in fact the privilege has been infringed.

I pass from that to make one or two observations on the general question of privilege. It is agreed by all constitutional authorities that there is no privilege for a Member of Parliament who is arrested on a criminal charge or on an indictable offence. The different categories of crime include treason, felony, seditious libel, and, when a Member has been ordered to give securities to keep the peace, and has not obtained these securities, his imprisonment has been held net to be contrary to the privileges of this House; but in all civil cases the privilege was held to prevail, and that is illustrated in connection with contempt of court. Imprisonment in regard to contempt of court did not follow the invariable rule. If the contempt was civil in its character, the House of Commons was entitled to order the release of the prisoner. If, however, the contempt of court was criminal in its character, then in no case has the House asked for the discharge of the Member of Parliament who was imprisoned. Subsequently there arose a new type of case. When Acts were passed suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus, it was frequently the practice of Parliament to insert an express provision dealing with arrests under the terms of such Acts, and I think I could quote the provision. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!" and "Hear, hear!"] It is a very important matter. It is essential that Members of the House should be familiar with all the relevant arguments and all the relevant precedents in regard to it. The terms were that in cases of arrest under these Acts, intimation should be made by the Judge or Magistrate committing the prisoner to the Speaker, just as if the Member of Parliament had been imprisoned on a criminal charge.

I submit to you, Sir, that the effect of this provision is clearly that Parliament did not regard imprisonment under these conditions as imprisonment for crime. It drew a distinction—a distinction which has subsequently been drawn with regard to imprisonment under later Statutes—between imprisonment which was punitive in its character, and imprisonment which was merely precautionary. I submit to you that the imprisonment in the present case is not imprisonment punitive in its character, but is imprisonment which is purely precautionary, and that therefore it is proper for this House to assert its privilege. The question of the exact nature of internment, first of all under the Defence of the Realm Acts, and the Regulations made thereunder, which were in operation during the War, and subsequently under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, has been a matter of judicial determination. It came before the House of Lords in 1917, in what was called the Zadig case, and on that occasion Lord Finlay, formerly a respected Member of this House, and at that time Lord Chancellor, gave a very carefully considered opinion. He pointed out, that under the Statute measures which were of a punitive character could be taken, and also measures of a precautionary character, and he then went on to show that, under Regulation 27B, which is similar to that referred to in the letter which you have read from the Chair, the action taken by the Executive was precautionary in its character. He said:

"On the face of it, the Statute authorises in this Sub-section provisions of two kinds, for prevention and for punishment. Any preventive measures, even if they involve some restraint or hardship upon individuals, do not partake in any way of the nature of punishment, but are taken by way of precaution to prevent mischief to the State."

I would point out that that statement by a former Lord Chancellor clearly defines the nature of the detention which has taken place in the case of Mr. Cahir Healy, that it is, in other words, not criminal in its character, but purely precautionary. I could also quote a statement made in this House by the present Lord Chancellor at the time when he was Home Secretary. A question had been put to him on the 19th June, 1917, as to the distinction between internment and imprisonment. He there made it clear that internment is a precautionary measure, and he then distinguished imprisonment, which is a punishment imposed on persons convicted of crime. Therefore, on this distinction, I can fortify myself with the authority both of the present Lord Chancellor, and of his predecessor, Lord Finlay.

There is a further point which arises. Erskine May has laid it down—and this is a point which I did not submit to you at all on the last occasion—that when intimation is made by the authority responsible for the arrest and detention of a Member of this House, it is incumbent upon the authority making the intimation to state specifically the cause of arrest and detention. Now, the letter which you have read to the House contains no information at all. 1 invite any hon. Member in any part of the House to state now whether he has even the faintest and remotest idea in his mind why a Member of this House is now being detained by the Department of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland. I submit, therefore, that the failure to indicate the cause of imprisonment makes it advisable and appropriate that, following precedent, this House should appoint a Committee to inquire into the cause. On the last occasion, the letter which you read was very vague, but it is even shorter on the present occasion. I submit that the letter in the terms in which you have read it is positively disrespectful to this House. I can recall no example at any time, even in times of the greatest iniquity, in which such slender and meagre information has been offered to this House in relation to the imprisonment of a Member. We have had several precedents during the War. I am not going to quote many of them. There are some that are against me, and I wish to make a frank avowal as to those cases which are apparently against me. But the first case which arose during the War was on the 3rd June, 1918, when Mr. De Valera, Count Plunkett, Mr. Cosgrave, the present President of the Irish Free State, and Mr. McGuinness were interned. The intimation was then made to your predecessor in the Chair, and a long letter was read from the Chair stating the effect of the Regulation under which the arrest had been made, and stating clearly also the reasons why the representative of the executive—at that time Mr. Edward Shortt, who was Chief Secretary—thought it necessary that those people should be interned. So that if the House did not then assert its privileges, it was not because it was not clearly informed.

Let me recall, that if no discussion took place on their special case, there was at the same time prolonged discussion in the Rouse itself on the policy of the measures which the Government had taken, not only in regard to those four Members, but in regard to a largo number of Sinn Feiners in various parts of Ireland. That was a precedent during the War. I am also informed, that if you take practically the invariable custom in relation to this matter, on every occasion in which an intimation has been made, the cause of arrest has been clearly stated. On this occasion it is not. I would like to make a few observations as to the facts of the case. I agree that what I have to say will be an ex parte statement; but in determining whether there is a prima facie case, all that a judge, under usual conditions, has to help him, is either one or more ex parte statements. On the last occasion, I knew nothing of the facts. I merely raised the question from the point of view of this House, without any knowledge either of the wishes of the individual Member or the circumstances under which he had been arrested. Now information is available to me. The hon. Member has written several times to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City (Mr. F. Gray). He says, in a letter dated 15th December:

"I have again been elected for Fermanagh and Tyrone. When the last Parliament was assembled, I was in custody. I am still in custody. No charge can be brought against me. I have always kept the law, and the Northern authorities desire my being kept in custody until the boundary matter arising out of the Treaty is settled. They think they will, by holding 450 odd Wren here, and on the old cargo boat in Belfast Lough, have something to bargain over.

Is the hon. Member not aware that Mr. Cahir Healy has publicly repudiated that letter as a forgery?

I expected that interruption. It is due to the fact that the Northern Government has suppressed news. It is true that a statement has appeared in the "Belfast News-letter," of which the right hon. Member who has just interrupted knows something, stating that Mr. Cahir Healy had repudiated that letter. But he has since written in the following terms to Sir Dawson Bates, who, as the hon. Member opposite will know, is the Home Secretary of the Northern Parliament:

4.0 P.M.

"I have seen the statement issued to-day's 'Irish News' from the Belfast Home Office which indicates that I repudiate the contents of a letter published by Mr. Frank Cray, M.P. Though I did not pass the letter out "—

he would not be allowed to pass it—

"it represents the exact facts of the situation, and was written by my authority."

It is a forgery!

"Please give this letter the same publicity you did to the notice of to-day."

That letter, Mr. Speaker, from Mr. Cahir Healy has been suppressed. I am not going to read all the letters—[HON. MEMBERS: "Go on!"]—but I have another letter here in which he states his case somewhat more fully. As these are the statements and the authentic statements of a Member of this House, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, in giving your decision as to whether there is a prima facie case it is at least fair that his statements should be taken into account. Here is the letter:

"I have never been convicted of anything. Fermanagh, in which I have spent almost 30 years, is the most peaceful county in the North and has always been so. Once, it is true, I was prosecuted for the possession of some bills calling a meeting to protest against conscription—."

That may interest hon. Members of the Labour party. There was, I think, a dinner party the other night.

"The magistrate's conviction being taken into the County Court it was dismissed on the merits."

That is the only time Mr. Healy has been in Court. He had not at that time qualified for the dinner!

"I enclose you an original affidavit signed by a thoroughly reliable man who has never been convicted of anything either, and witnessed by a magistrate of the County Derry in the jurisdiction of the Northern Government, who happens to be interned here also. I was interned"—

This is a continuation of the letter, not the affidavit—

"in May, 1922. This affidavit, if it means anything, means that the man in charge of the police authorities in County Fermanagh was seeking evidence to justify my arrest as late as March, 1923."

For evidence against him in March, 1923, nearly a year after he had been interned!

"It also means that he was making suggestions to a man under arrest to incriminate me, and that if he gave information he should go free, as they had no charge against him. I was never an Intelligence officer or any other officer in the I.R.A., and I challenge them to produce a scrap of evidence in support of this."

I do not desire to read the whole of the affidavit; I will read a part.

Might I put a question? I do not suggest for a moment that the hon. Member who is speaking is not within his right in raising a question of privilege, for that is something which may happen to anyone; but I submit what he is doing now is to attack the administration of the Northern Government, and you, Mr. Speaker, have held in respect to the jurisdiction of the Northern Parliament that questions regarding local matters are not permissible in this House. I therefore submit to you that any investigation of the facts or the special facts of this case or of the action by the authority is not a matter which ought to be discussed.

It is quite true, that as the hon. and learned Member for Penistone, will remember, this House by statute transferred to the Government of Northern Ireland the responsibility for peace and order in that place. At the same time, I want to be very careful not to refuse to admit any matter which may be relevant to the question of privilege now being submitted to me. I confess, however, I do not see the relevance of the statement now being dealt with. While I think I am right in being careful not to refuse the admittance of anything which may seem to bear upon the matter, I do not desire that we should entrench upon the province of the government of Northern Ireland.

If in anything I have quoted from these letters I have overstepped the limits, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker; but I have been anxious to give the true effect of the letters. I will refrain, in reading from the affidavit, quoting anything that refers to anything except Mr. Cahir Healy, and in what I may give I trust I satisfy the hon. Member opposite:

"On Wednesday 7th, about 11 o'clock, I was taken into a room "—

This is an affidavit by a gentleman called Patrick Cleary, junr., which was sworn on the 7th day of January, 1924, before a Justice of the Peace of the County of Derry.

"—in the same building and interrupted by the county inspector of the R.U.C.… He asked mo if I knew Cahir Healy, and I replied I did. He asked: 'Do you know that Cahir Healy is a County Intelligence Officer?' I replied: 'It is the first time I have heard it.' He said: 'There is a secret society going on in this county. The Sinn Feiners are all the same: the Free Staters make the buildings and the Republicans fire them.' I replied: 'I know nothing about any secret society.' He asked: 'Do you know any man who is likely to be at the head of this society?' I said, Do you want me to give a name not knowing whether he is innocent or not?' He replied: 'You will have to bear with the consequences.'"

The importance of this is that this conversation, which is sworn to in the affidavit, took place in March, 1923, 10 months after Mr. Healy had been arrested; and the conversation indicates an endeavour to get evidence upon which to found a charge against Mr. Healy. I submit that all the evidence I have put before you shows that there is no charge against him. As has been publicly stated in the Northern Irish newspapers, he is solely interned because of unfavourable police reports. If these are the facts, as asserted by a Member of this House, and as shown in the evidence by the affidavit which I have read, I submit that there is here material for a Committee of this House to inquire into the facts, and further, to report to this House. In these circumstances I ask leave to propose a Motion similar to that which was proposed by Mr. Parnell from this place on 15th February, 1883, in regard to the imprisonment of Mr. Timothy Michael Healy, now His Majesty's Governor-General of the Irish Free State. It is in these terms:

"That the letter informing the House of the internment of Mr. Cahir Healy, a Member of this House, be referred to a Select Committee for the purpose of inquiring into all the matters referred to therein, and of reporting whether they demand the further attention of this House."

Might I be permitted, in a very few sentences, to supplement the submission which has been made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle). It is apparent from the letter which you, Sir, read to the House just now that an hon. Member, a man who has been elected to serve in this Imperial Parliament, is in custody, and is being physically detained from the opportunity of coming and sitting here in this House of Commons. That, I submit, raises an ancient and most important privilege of this House. It does not merely raise the question of the right of the individual who is thus detained, but it raises a question as to the privilege of the House of Commons itself, the ancient and undoubted privileges of the House of Commons, including those to which you, Sir, referred when you submitted yourself to the Sovereign in another place a week ago. One of the ancient and undoubted privileges of the House of Commons is this; that any Member of this elected body enjoys the privilege of freedom from arrest. While it is perfectly true that exceptions have been laid down to that wide proposition, those exceptions, you will know, have been laid down by Resolution of this House, and have not yet—I say it with great respect—been laid down by rulings from the Chair. It has been laid down ever since the 17th century that the privilege of freedom from arrest which anyone elected to this House enjoys does not extend to secure his release if he has been arrested for, or is serving a sentence of imprisonment for, treason or felony. I think it was in the time of John Wilkes, about the middle of the 18th century, that a Resolution of this House added to such exceptions the case of seditious libel—but it was done by Resolution of this House. I have it here. On 29th November, 1763, it was resolved by this House:

"That the privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor should be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of law in the speedy and effectual prosecution of such heinous and dangerous offences."

I submit to you it is plainly laid down that the privilege of freedom from arrest, which is one of the privileges enjoyed by every Member elected to this House, extends not only to save him from future arrest but to discharge him from past detention in every case, except the case where it is shown to the satisfaction of the House that he is detained on a charge of, or as a punishment for, treason or other indictable offence, or for a breach of the peace, or for the rather unusual case of contempt of Court of a criminal character.

May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that in the past history of the House of Commons this has been illustrated more than once in a case where a Member has been elected to this House at a time when he was a prisoner for debt? There have certainly been two cases—I think more—which I have looked into where a Member was elected to serve in this House who was at the time detained in the Fleet Prison for debt. May I give an illustration? If the vacancy in the City of London which now exists were to be filled by Mr. Samuel Pickwick, now detained in the Fleet Prison, the mere fact of his being elected would give us all the gratification of welcoming him here, and he would be automatically released from the Fleet Prison. It is quite clear that, except in the cases where you have an approved and definite report to the House that an individual is being detained for an indictable offence, or for a breach of the peace, that no communication of process to this House of Commons will deprive that Member of his privileges. May I quote a single sentence from a work of undoubted authority, the work of Sir William Anson, who observes in the first volume dealing with Parliament, on page 158:

"It should be added that the privileges of Parliament operate to take a Member out of custody if he is elected while in custody, always supposing that he is not in custody for an indictable offence or for contempt of court."

I submit with great respect that the question of my hon. Friend which is raised comes down to this: The letter you, Mr. Speaker, have read from the Chair is a singularly curt and uninforming document in some respects, but it is a letter which makes it obvious to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House, that this Irish Member is not in custody for an indictable offence or for contempt of court. I submit with the greatest confidence that nobody who knows even approximately the circumstances of internments which have taken place under the Defence of the Realm Regulations during the war, and under similar regulations now apparently existing in Ireland, will for a moment suggest that a person who is detained under them is detained for an indictable offence or for contempt of court. I see the Home Secretary sitting opposite, and I think he has good reasons to remember that when orders are made for the internment of persons who have never been put on trial, or charged with any crime and have never been sentenced or convicted, they cannot be described as persons guilty of an indictable offence or contempt of court. If the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone had been placed in an internment camp in this country by order of the Home Secretary—[An HON. MEMBER: "He is not interned in this country"]—we shall see in a moment whether the privileges of the Imperial Parliament are to be considered inferior to the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

Even if a Member elected to this House was interned by order of the Home Secretary here, under the authority of a British Act of Parliament, that would not avail to keep such an individual in custody once this question of privilege is raised. How much more is it obvious that a Member elected to serve in this House cannot lawfully be detained in custody by the mere report to Mr. Speaker that he is detained by the order of some subordinate Minister or official in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. I would point out that a test has constantly been applied whether the report made to you, Mr. Speaker, has been adequate, full, and precise, and you cannot imagine for a moment a report more barren and empty than the brief letter which you, Mr. Speaker, have read to the House informing us that this hon. Member, elected to this Parliament, is detained by order of the Home Secretary in Northern Ireland. I submit that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone is quite right, and that this is not a matter which merely affects the rights of this individual, whoever he may be, but it is a matter which goes to the foundation of the rights of the Members of the House of Commons. With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I submit that you should recognise that this matter is not so plain that it may be set on one side as not affording a prima facie case, but that it is one which plainly calls for investigation by a Committee of this House.

As the colleague of the hon. Member who is now interned, I would like to state one or two simple facts. Some time ago I had reason to pay a visit to my colleague at the Larne Workhouse, where he is interned, and he refuted a statement made in this House that he was not willing to come to this House. The hon. Member who is now interned has always been a constitutionalist Member. He was a Sinn Feiner, but he was a Constitutional Sinn Feiner, and he informed me before the election that if he were elected for Fermanagh and Tyrone, and his constituents so wished it, he would certainly attend this House. I do not wish to elaborate the able statement which has been made by the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) to-day, nor do I wish to enter into the legal technicalities of the case which have been placed before the House by the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). I wish, however, to point out that the Home Secretary has the power of life and death, and the power to wipe out all our civil liberties in the northern area of Ireland.

I must ask the hon. Member not to trench on matters which are within the province of the Government of Northern Ireland. We are not here to criticise their laws or their methods, and we must deal with this case simply as it affects a Member of this House.

I only wish to put before the House the facts of the case as neatly and as apropos as I can. Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, which created a subordinate Parliament in Belfast, lays down:

"Notwithstanding the establishment of the Parliaments of Southern and Northern Ireland, or the Parliament of Ireland, or anything contained in this Act, the supreme authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and Undiminished over all persons, matters and things in Ireland and every part thereof."

I appeal to this House as the superior authority to guard our liberties and give my colleague a chance of proving his innocence by having an inquiry before a Select Committee of this House. I am in a position to speak on this subject for my colleague, and I know that he is not afraid to appear before a Committee of this House or a Judge of any kind. He is an innocent man, who has now bean imprisoned for nearly two years without being charged and without a trial, and he demands a trial before any Judge, or before a Committee of this House. I have much pleasure in seconding the Motion, and I trust, Mr. Speaker, that this House will grant it.

I believe the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley laid down, in the course of his speech, that if a man were imprisoned in this country under the authority of an Act of Parliament, he could not be detained in prison, if during that time he were elected a Member of this House.

What I said was that if at present there were Defence of the Realm Regulations operating in this country under which an individual had been interned in this country who had never been tried or convicted, but had merely been detained, the privileges of Parliament would secure his release.

Then the right hon. and learned Gentleman admits that an Act of Parliament can prevail against the privileges of this House. A state of affairs has arisen in Northern Ireland which has never existed before. This House, in its wisdom, under the Act of 1920, transferred to the Parliament of Northern Ireland the responsibility for law, order and good Government in Northern Ireland. It has not been suggested that the Act of Parliament referred to passed by the Government of Northern Ireland is not within its competence. It is not suggested even that the regulations made under that Act are not authorised by that Act. My submission is that this matter refers to an entirely different state of affairs to that which has been argued. This House, by concurring in the passing of the Act of 1920, has transferred the responsibility and the power of enforcing law and order to the Parliament of Northern Ireland and within the ambit of that Act there are Acts which cannot be questioned. I submit that the Section of that Act quoted by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Harbison) has no application whatever to this case. Of course, it preserves the powers of this House, but it is my submission that nothing connected with the Parliament of the United Kingdom can override the Act of Parliament of 1920, and that the matter therefore is not a question which raises the privileges of this House.

It seems most extraordinary to some of us—of course, I am one of the unconstitutional Members of the House—to hear this unconstitutionalism preached by those who pretend to be the upholders of the Empire. Southern Ireland is supposed to have control over its own affairs. They have interned certain people in the South of Ireland. The Government of this country has used its influence, and has been defeated in the highest Courts of Law on the right of subjects not to be interned. These men have been released, and compensation has been paid by the Government responsible. Here we have the case of a Member of this House who has been interned for over 18 months without trial and without any crime being charged against him. The only crime that he has committed is that he is supposed to be a Sinn Feiner. So am I, and so are you. We are all Sinn Feiners. We believe in our own country first, do we not? I hope we do. This man's crime has not yet been alleged against him. He has never been on trial; he has simply been interned because he is supposed to be a dangerous person in the eyes of the Government of Northern Ireland. They are more dangerous to England than Mr. Cahir Healy ever was, because they are creating a feeling among the Irish people of Great Britain—[Interruption.]—I am telling you what I mean. This man has been interned for over 18 months, he has not been on trial, and he has never been convicted of any offence. He is entitled to a trial if there be any offence charged against him, and he is entitled as a Member of this House to be released under the privileges of this House. I am not innocent. I have been in gaol three times. I am not going to apologise for it. I am willing to go again for the same reason. Why should this man—

This is not quite relevant to the matter before the House. We should rather keep the subject of the personality of the hon. Member for a more appropriate occasion.

The appropriate occasion is now. I want to support the proposition that an inquiry should be established for the purpose of discovering the guilt or innocence of this hon. Member.

I want to deal with a different aspect of the case. The letter which you, Sir, have read seems to me, and I think it must have seemed to many hon. Members, both curt and, indeed, I might almost say, insolent, as addressed by an inferior officer of an inferior Parliament to the Speaker of the Parliament of Great Britain, and I hone that in any future communication which you may have with the authorities of the Parliament of Northern Ireland this House will authorise you to address to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland a very sharp rebuke for the insolence of their servant. It has been the custom in the past—

On a point of Order. Is it competent for any hon. Member of this House to criticise the action of the Government of Northern Ireland?

When we have transferred business to another Parliament, we must be careful in this House that we do not, by criticism in this House, infringe the authority of that body within the limits that have been given to it.

I submit that in any communications which the Parliament of Northern Ireland chooses to hold with the House of Commons of Great Britain there should be some control over the language and forms used in addressing you. I believe that men holding much higher and more dignified offices than the gentleman who wrote that letter have been accustomed in the past, in writing letters to the Speaker of the House of Commons of Great Britain giving similar information, to use forms and terms of far more courtesy, and I might almost say of obsequiousness. We do not ask for that, but I think this House of Commons is entitled to ask for respect from the servants of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and I therefore reiterate my original statement that I hope that in any future dealings that you, as our representative, may have with the Parliament of Northern Ireland you will be asked to bring to their attention the lack of courtesy which has characterised this communication, with the hope that in future greater courtesy will characterise them.

I do not for a moment intend to enlarge upon the principles of constitutional law which have been raised, but there is one observation which I would like to make about the point raised by the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle). The greatest authority on constitutional history that we know, Professor Morgan, in that impeccable organ the "Daily Mail," only the other day publicly rebuked him as one of the most hopelessly incompetent and misinformed authorities on constitutional law that the country has ever known.

Who is Professor Morgan?

In so far as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) is concerned, I notice that he bolstered up a somewhat weak case in constitutional law by invoking the immortal memory of Mr. Pickwick. I rise to enter a protest against the wholly fantastic and unfounded charge of discourtesy made by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Johnstone). I can appeal to the older Members of this House who will remember the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland when he sat on that Treasury Bench, and on both sides of the House. I think I may fairly challenge their opinion, as to whether he was not, by nature, instinct and training, a gentleman in demeanour—

rose—

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. Nobody could have a greater regard and respect for the dignity of this ancient and honourable House than the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, from whom that letter came.

On a point of Order. I desire to ask your ruling whether the character of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland is relevant to this matter, in view of the fact that the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland had nothing to do with the letter. It was written by a subordinate official of the Home Office. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

Perhaps I may dispose of this matter at once. Had I thought that there was any such thing as discourtesy in the letter addressed to me, I should have sent it back to the writer.

That was the observation which I was about to make—that I thought possibly the dignity and respect due to this House was in as worthy hands when they were left to you as in the hands of the hon. Member opposite, who seems, in my judgment, to have very little acquaintance with either. The hon. Member for Penistone has advanced one or two startling propositions, the effect of which is not, perhaps, quite realised. The first of them was that whatever is in an affidavit is true. I wonder whether he has ever heard the dictum of a famous Irish Judge who once said—and I commend it to his notice—that occasionally, but only occasionally, the truth slips into an affidavit, and particularly affidavits of the type which he presented. The second proposition which he advanced was that the only people whose testimony can be trusted are culprits examined in each other's favour. That perhaps is why he presented this series of affidavits in this Gentleman's favour.

On a point of Order.

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Penistone rises to a point of Order.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to one of the Members of Fermanagh and Tyrone as a, "culprit," although this Member has never been tried. I put it to you that that the hon. Member is out of Order in describing any Member of this House as a culprit.

I thought that the phrase was directed to the hon. Member for Penistone, but, if it were used in the sense of a convicted offender, of course it ought not to have been used.

I will restrict the observation entirely to the hon. Member. The last proposition which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley advanced was that to be elected to this House is in the nature of a general gaol delivery. I venture to warn the right hon. Gentleman to take care he does not make that doctrine too widely known, because the effect may be this that some 3,000 internees in Southern Ireland will proceed to assail the seats of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues and perhaps dispossess them—

At any rate they will not gerrymander the constituencies, as you have done.

I am very jealous of the privileges of this House, and I am therefore very reluctant to interfere with the complete presentation of the case under consideration, but the hon. Member is going very far wide of the question that is before the House.

The hon. Member for Penistone does not like my personal references. Exceedingly little has been said about the facts of this particular case, and, perhaps, I may be permitted to tell those facts in a few very simple phrases. What was the position and what were the conditions which led up to the arrest and internment of this Gentleman? I am in the happy position that I can appeal to hon. Members in various quarters of the House for confirmation of the facts I am about to state, and more particularly can I appeal to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), that when there was cast upon the Government of Northern Ireland the duty of taking over responsibility for law and order, the position was that £8,000,000 worth of property had been burnt by incendiaries and Sinn Feiners—

We cannot now go into the merits of that Act, or even refer to the way in which it has been administered.

The House will, I am sure, wish to realise what was the position taken over by the Government of Northern Ireland, and it ought to have a clear and precise picture of that position. The whole country was in chaos. Murder and outrage were rampant. The old Irish Royal Constabulary had just been disbanded, and within a short distance of Enniskillen, the town in which this hon. Member resided and was arrested—

Will the hon. and learned Member confine himself solely to the matter on which privilege is claimed? I shall not allow these other matters to enter into my mind in any decision to which I may come.

I appreciate your point, Sir, but may I respectfully submit that the hon. Gentleman who has lodged this attack assailed the Northern Government and said that this man was wrongly interned and wrongly detained? Surely in justice to that Government which he has attacked, and also in the interests of truth, I am entitled to submit what are the real facts?

On a point of Order. Is not the matter under discussion the privileges of a Member of this House, and is the hon. Gentleman entitled to raise any other question than that?

I might call upon the hon. Member to be a little consistent in his example.

In this town of Enniskillen, to which the hon. Member belongs, let me remind this House that a raiding party from the Free State entered the place, shot some people, and carried off—

This is the very matter on which one of the hon. Member's colleagues appealed to me, and I ruled that I could not allow any discussion in this House on the administration of the Government of Northern Ireland.

I submit at once to your ruling, although I confess it is with some feeling of disappointment that I am not permitted by the rules, which I, of course, observe, to submit some considerations to this House that would immediately dispose of the totally fictitious case which it has been attempted to make here. It comes to this that this Government, like other Governments, has been faced with exceptional circumstances and from time to time has been forced to resort to exceptional measures to deal with those exceptional circumstances and the justification for their action is this: that they have succeeded in breaking up the agitation led by terrorists, and, to use the language of the hon. Member for Penistone, Fermanagh and Tyrone have never been so absolutely free from crime as they are under the administration of the Government of Northern Ireland. That is the justification for what has been done.

Will the hon. Gentleman please come to the questmn of privilege?

On a point of Order. How many times are you going to call upon a Member to resume his seat before you say he may retain his seat?

That is not a point of Order.

The privilege claimed on behalf of this hon. Member is this, that, having been elected to this House, he is entitled to come here no matter what he has done elsewhere.

What has be done?

The hon. Member asks me to say what he has done, but the ruling of Mr. Speaker precludes me from telling him. Otherwise I could answer the question on the instant.

On a point of Order. Is it not your ruling that an hon. Member is entitled to say what the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone has done, but not what other people have done and not what the Government of Northern Ireland have done?

That is not a matter of substance in the present case.

An hon. Member suggests I should ask the "Belfast Telegraph" what the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone has done. If the hon Member who made that observation would consult that paper occasionally, he would know a good deal more of the facts.

But what has the hon. Member done?

The hon. Gentleman has had his case raised here by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I am reminded that he stands somewhat—

This is not at all relevant to the matter, and I must now ask the hon. Member to resume his seat. I have, I think, had every point submitted to me, and I am, as is the House, naturally very jealous of its ancient privilege. I do not think that any matter has been adduced which was not present to my mind when I gave my decision in November, 1922. But, after the long submission that has been made to me by the learned Members of the House, I think it would be courteous to them and to the House if I were to defer what I have to say until I have seen in print what has been submitted to me to-day; and I will ask the House to permit me, in these circumstances, to give my answer to-morrow.

I have to acquaint the House that this House has this day attended His Majesty in the House of Peers, and His Majesty was pleased to make a Most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, of which, for greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy, which is as followeth:

(in Court dress): I beg to move:

"That an humble Address he presented to His Majesty, as followeth:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

5.0 P.M.

It is seldom, indeed, that any Member rises to address this House with the knowledge that his rising will gratify, not only those who promoted, but also those who opposed, his return to Westminster. I feel assured, however, this afternoon, that not only my friends in the Swindon Division, but even my adversaries, will appreciate a distinction which is conferred, not upon the individual nor upon the party, but upon the constituency as a whole. In the course of the impending engagement, it is to be expected that hon. Members will employ the whole armament of Parliamentary warfare; but the long traditions of the office which I am discharging this afternoon hind me to a certain punctilio, which is aptly symbolised by the costume that I wear. Dressed, as I must be, in the mode of the age of Fontenoy, and girt, as I am, with the weapon of that age, it is not my duty to commence the onslaught, but rather, having made a few observations on the Gracious Speech, to make what I believe has been called the gesture of Fontenoy, and to say to hon. Members opposite:

"Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first!"

The Gracious Speech from the Throne covers a large number of important topics, and my comments must be confined to a very few; but I observe with pleasure that it forecasts the submission to this House of proposals connected with Imperial Preference. In my humble view, those proposals come under quite a different category, and should be approached in quite a different spirit, from the other fiscal proposals which are alluded to in a subsequent paragraph. I am aware that the Resolutions of the recent Conference cannot become effective until they have been approved and ratified by Parliament, but it seems to me that they do in some sort constitute au obligation towards the Dominions. We have summoned the leading men of those Dominions from the four quarters of the earth to the heart of the Empire in London, in order to discuss in detail a policy which has been accepted in principle by previous Imperial Conferences. They have expressed, in that impressive gathering, certain opinions and certain wishes, with which His Majesty's Ministers concurred; and deliberately to flout those opinions would, it seems to me, and, I believe, will seem to them, to be little short of a national breach of faith. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no" and "Hear, hear!"] Of those Dominions we may well say:

"The lot is fallen unto us in a fair place; we have a goodly heritage."

What, one wonders, would any other nation in Europe, in these times of darkness and distress, give for those vast territories and varied resources which are at our command? I say "at our command," because the good will of our kindred towards the Mother Country has been demonstrated beyond all dispute. May I remind the House that the Prime Minister of Australia told the Conference that

"During the last few years in Australia we have had many requests that we should enter into reciprocal arrangements with different countries. Those countries offered to give us very great advantages in their markets for our primary production, in exchange for advantage they sought in our markets for their manufactured goods. We have rejected all those requests, and have refused to listen to them. We say that the whole basis of our trading policy is to ensure, as far as we can, the Australian market for the British manufacturer."

Other Dominions give the same account; but it is not to be supposed that those other countries will continue to woo in vain if we who should be warm remain cold. A man would be very deficient in imagination who supposed that the fidelity of the Dominions, so wonderfully testified in Flanders and Gallipoli, could be adequately recompensed by any such commercial arrangement; but it seems to me to argue, if I may say so, an equal lack of imagination to measure these proposals merely by their cash value to either party. I think that Disraeli never showed greater insight than when he said, speaking on the question of Imperial relations in a classic speech:

"No Minister of this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of responding to those distant sympathies, which may some day become a source of incalculable strength and happiness to this land."

Do not let it be supposed, however, that, if I stress the sentimental aspect, I desire to underrate the practical effects of these proposals. May I remind the House that the value of the preference which the Dominions gave to Great Britain last year was about £11,000,000, and that, of the exports of our produce and our manufactures, the Dominions purchased from us goods to the value of £270,000,000, while Europe only took £247,000,000? Indeed, I hardly see how any statesman can approach the question of employment in this country without giving all those figures very serious consideration. So much for the importance to us and to our workmen of encouraging business with our kinsfolk. As to the importance of the new proposals to them, surely the beneficiary himself is the best judge of the value of the concessions offered, and their views in this regard have been made abundantly clear in passage after passage of the Report. The warmest expressions of appreciation have been employed by all the Dominion Ministers; I will only select two. Speaking of the proposed preference on dried fruits, Mr. Bruce observed:

"These proposals are extraordinarily welcome from our point of view, and we are gratified that the British Government have seen their way to take the action which they have taken. I think I can assure you that this will materially revolutionise the whole of the problems of the settlement scheme that I went into this morning."

That, of course, referred to the Murray River scheme, where we are informed there are bright prospects for hundreds of thousands of men, provided only that they can feel sure that there is a market for their products. Our men want work, and Australia wants men, and surely something can be made out of these two facts in conjunction. But Australia does not desire to fall into an error which is very easily made, and before she settles these men on the land she wants to feel sure that they can sell what they produce; and that, surely, is the department in which we can render her assistance. One more example on this question I quote with some diffidence. It is that of tinned salmon, which shares with its humbler congener, the kipper, the fact of making an irresistible appeal to a sense of humour which must be subtler than my own—a commodity, none the less, which the Canadian Minister took quite seriously. He said that it was threatened by competition and would be helped by a preference, and he expressed his thanks for the action of the British Government, which he believed would be very helpful to Canadian producers. The spirit in which those transactions were conducted seems to me to have been aptly expressed by the wise Greek who said:

"Much grace may go with a little gift, and all the offerings of friends are precious."

There is not one of the proposed preferences to which the Ministers of the Dominions affected did not refer in terms of the warmest appreciation, and I hope and believe that Parliament will decide that these proposals may be brought to fruition without laying violating hands upon that venerable system of economics without which, it appears, there is no political salvation, and upon which, I am sure, the leaders of our Dominions desire to make no assault. I welcome again the possibility that the agricultural problem may be raised above the plane of party strife and engage the best brains in every quarter of the House in friendly consultation. Such a suggestion savours, it is true, of idealism, but hon. Members opposite will not reject it on that score if, as I believe, their own professions or idealism are sincere. We who sit for industrial constituencies know well how direly the depopulation of the countryside affects our own peculiarly urban problems. It increases the congestion which is our deadliest enemy, it touches our health, it swells the crowds that throng our employment exchanges. Strangely enough it is upon us, the least instructed in agricultural technique, that the advocacy of remedial measures must always fall, for no measure to help the farmer and the farm labourer can be passed without the assent of the townsmen and that assent it is the duty of the industrial Members to secure. In these circumstances it would indeed be a joy to me, when appearing in an agricultural case before the tribunal of an urban electorate, to be in a position to say "I appear for all the parties concerned."

But no passage in the whole of the Gracious Speech will be welcomed with more unfeigned delight in every quarter of the House than the passage which predicts an alteration in the means limit of old age pensions. I can only say on that score:

"Let the galled jade wince, my withers are unwrung."

It is recognised that a soldier in the industrial army is entitled to the care of the community when he becomes a veteran, and I have never been able to see why a man should forfeit that right because he has exercised the qualities of prudence and thrift in the days of his vigour. [Interruption.] If I decline to embark upon repartee, it is not due to any personal incapacity to do so. I long ago gave an unconditional pledge to vote for such a proposal from whatever quarter of the House it might emanate. I have already redeemed that pledge upon one occasion, and I trust that the next time I cast my vote on that topic it will be for a Conservative measure.

My prologue is becoming too long, but I cannot conclude without expressing the hope that the drama which is to follow will be worthy of its historic setting and the gravity of the times. The fall of ministries, the defeat of parties, the making and the overthrow of reputations are mere episodes which these walls have witnessed 100 times, but what is of importance is that the institution of Parliament itself should suffer no discredit. I know well that this House has a well-founded distaste for the moralist. I cannot help saying I think the country has lost its appetite for a great many of the things which in happier days—I pay them the passing tribute of a sigh—used to delight it nearly as much as cup ties. The epigrammatic phrase, the adroit party manœuvre, these combats of Ajax and Hector, where the exchange of gifts rapidly followed on the exchange of javelins and no one was a penny the worse for it—these ancient sports have somewhat lost their popularity since the age of artificial politics was succeeded by the age of real politics. Those who sent us to the great council of the Realm expect, I think, that the spirit of our deliberations should be such that they may truly deserve the blessing which His Majesty invokes upon them, and I join in wishing inspiration:

"To all our statesmen, so they be

True leaders of the land's desire—

To both our houses may they see,

Beyond the borough and the shire."

(in Court Dress): In rising to second the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech from the Throne, moved in such eloquent well-chosen phrases by my hon. and learned Friend, may I say that, like him, I feel keenly the compliment paid to my constituency of Southampton upon the honour conferred on one of its Members. Perhaps, indeed, my colleague for Southampton and myself might be excused if we felt some slight personal satisfaction also, since during the last three weeks, in common I believe with other Members of this House, we have been congratulating our constituents on the wisdom of their choice of representatives in this House. I may add, however, that the wisdom of Southampton has been commended by others besides ourselves. That well-known American, Mr. Henry Ford, for whose judgment and whose cars I have always entertained the very highest respect, was once, I am told, overheard to remark that what Southampton says to-day Manchester will say to-morrow, thus giving our constituents a clear two days' start over the rest of England. The main theme which runs through the Gracious Speech from the Throne is the plea for stability. Without that neither our Imperial development nor our foreign relations, nor our home reforms can possibly proceed on their steady course of growth and improvement.

The League of Nations, to which the Gracious Speech refers, has its roots firmly embedded in good soil, but it must be carefully and adequately protected if it is to grow from a tender plant into a mighty tree under whose shade we and our descendants hope to rest. That is has, however, already borne fruit this year in the Treaties of commerce concluded between our country and Esthonia, Czechoslovakia and other small nations under the auspices of the League of Nations is already a hopeful sign for the health of the plant, and greater impetus yet is to be given to its growth from the fact that the United States have decided to send representatives to the committees which are to be set up to settle this urgent problem of reparations. We are told in the Gracious Speech that a Bill is to be introduced for the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey. The House is to be asked to treat this as an urgent Measure, because the matter has been delayed, and the Oriental mind is not always able to fathom the intricacies of British constitutional procedure, and we could not blame our friends the Turks if they grew impatient at this delay. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is to be congratulated upon the speedy conclusion of the agreement over the question of Tangier which had previously been in abeyance for a great number of years. The Gracious Speech refers to the regrettable murders on the Northern frontier of India, and through the good offices of the Amir of Afghanistan, it is hoped that these murderers will be punished and that the motives of these dastardly crimes will be inquired into. The Gracious Speech foreshadows a further extension of the Royal Air Force for home defence. Hon. Members will agree with me that every impetus given to the art, now fast becoming a profession, of aviation is to be encouraged and that the next few years may see an important development in commercial aviation. The Minister of Health is to be congratulated on his able execution of the Housing Acts. Over 85,000 houses have already been approved since this Act came into force, and they are proceeding at the rate of over 3,000 a week. Apart from subsidised houses, there has been a great recrudescence in the building of houses which are not subsidised.

The House has reassembled united in the opinion that the problem of unemployment must be solved but divided as to the method used in its solution. I understand that each party is convinced that its particular method is the right one and has in reality the greater support in the country, for one party has returned the strongest in the House, another has gained a greater number of seats, and a third claims to be the only party which did not go to the country with a policy which was to meet with the country's emphatic rejection. It reminds me of a battle fought between the armies of three States of mediæval Italy, which happened to be at war. They all met on the same day, but the generals commanding—and they were three of the most-highly-skilled and highly-paid condottieri of the day—came to an agreement not to spoil the battle, and it was arranged that while two of them should immediately join battle, the third should fight on the one side in the morning and on the other in the afternoon. When nightfall came the battle was still undecided. Each army returned to its camp, but on the following morning, as no one ventured to re-occupy the battlefield, each General sent despatches home saying that his army had won a glorious victory over both his enemies. I will not for a minute suggest that this system of partisan warfare should be applied by any party in this House to politics to-day. The Gracious Speech deals with a matter, the furtherance of which is close to the heart of every hon. Member, and that is, the government of the country. Though a young, inexperienced and humble Member of this House, I am convinced that there is no chance of the prosperity we all desire returning to this country unless we can ensure a stable government under the party system, with a strong Government in power and an active Opposition.

Since I entered this House in 1906 I have listened to many hon. Members moving and seconding the Address. They have all apologised for the way they were to do their work, and they have all said that it was a great honour not to themselves but to their constituencies. While the House always likes to listen to these modest expressions, very often those who do what I am now going to do, namely, congratulate the Mover and Seconder on the way they have performed their duties, say that it has not only been an honour to their constituencies, but to themselves as well. To-day we have listened to two speakers. One is an old friend whose sense of combativeness must have been restrained with a very master hand before he consented to don the Fontenoy garb, and show himself to us as he has done this afternoon. It has been a difficult part, which he has played admirably. I am not sure whether the speech of the Noble Lord who seconded the Address was a maiden speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I wish it had been, because our anticipation of the prospect of listening in times to come to the Noble Lord taking part in the more serious and dreadful encounters which may take place in this House later on would have been very much greater. Still, my function, my duty in congratulating the Mover and Seconder of the Address to his Gracious Majesty is most sincere, after listening to the two hon. Members to-day.

The Speech itself is rather a curious one. It is a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends. I can imagine how ponderously the Government scraped and searched for every item to put in its shop window in order to avert a probable calamity. It reminds me very much of the stock-in-trade of a penny bazaar. I do not like to say that any items have been stolen; certainly a great many items have been borrowed. The goods borrowed and stolen from us on this side[Interruption]—decorate the shop window of the party opposite. For instance, I am very much interested in finding that at last, after much pressure, financial giants are to be made to public utility and similar societies. I am very much interested to find that

"Steps will be taken to develop the existing system of Juvenile Unemployment Centres."

Who reduced them? Who starved them? I am very much interested to find that there is to be a conference upon agriculture, a suggestion which has been brought forward again and again by my colleagues and myself without, I admit, the somewhat idealistic proposal that the Government is to invite the representatives of the other political parties to take part in the conference. Idealism like that goes much too near to the sky for me, and does not keep near enough to the solid facts of political experience on this earth. I am also very glad to find that:

"Bills will be introduced to improve the position of pre-War pensioners, and to deal with the discouragement of thrift involved in the present means limitation to the grant of Old Age Pensions."

I wish hon. Members opposite had been in that frame of mind last February. We moved on this side of the House a Resolution to this effect. What happened? When the Division took place, 208 went into the "Aye" Lobby and 230 into the "No" Lobby. Of the 208, 131 belonged to the Labour party, 65 belonged to the two sections of the Liberal party, and 13 were hon. Members from the other side of the House. Of the 230 who went into the "No" Lobby, 229 were sitting on the opposite side of the House. We congratulate ourselves upon the massive capture that we have made.

"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be."

Hon. Members opposite are now experiencing the saving grace of sad sickness. I congratulate them and I welcome their declaration, because it means that whatever Government is in power, in carrying out a programme like this, right hon. and hon. Members opposite will raise no opposition, but will assist them in every possible way.

There is a question which occupies a good deal of space in the Address, and I do not object to it at all; I welcome it. I refer to the question of foreign affairs. The position becomes more and more serious. Again and again I have spoken from this box on this subject. The days have gone, weeks have gone, months have gone, and at this moment Great Britain stands on the Continent of Europe for no definite, no decisive, no effective policy. It is time we had a change in that respect. It is a very curious and melancholy thing that the results of the last Election and the prospects of a change of Government have done more to bring the influence of Great Britain into the minds of dominating Continental statesmen than 12 months of the last Government, and a good many years of government before it.

From the human point of view what is going on in Central Europe is absolutely deplorable. Anyone with a heart, anyone with any common human sentiment, reading the tales of destitution, reading of the experiences, of the harrow that is being driven over men and women, and children, above all, who feels no impelling sentiment as the result, is certainly not the type of man or woman we have been proud to associate with the name of Englishman and Englishwoman. That aught to be stopped; this country ought to speak quite plainly about the stopping of it and this country ought to be prepared to take its share in starting policies and creating machinery that will effectually stop what I have been describing. That is from the human point of view.

From the political point of view, every day accumulates the danger. It is one of those things about which one does not care to particularise too much. To-day the state of Europe is far nearer what it was in 1912 than anyone cares to think about—rival armies, rival nationalist policies, expenditure of enormous sums of money—not on reconstruction, but in preparing again for destruction; nations that were allies glaring across at each other in only semi-concealed hostility. That is the sort of thing that needs whole-hearted binding together of men and women of good-will of all parties to try to prevent it, and to try to bring back to it the sane, serious, solemn influence of this country in order that a new leaf may be turned over, with better prospects for all the peoples of Europe. We want new minds to deal with these problems. We need very skilful handling of the diplomacy that arises out of handling [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Yes. We want the objective observation of other people's susceptibilities and at the same time a friendly, firm, emphatic assertion of our own interests. We want a European outlook at the back of it all and, given that, 1 do not despair of Europe yet.

Twelve months ago we had a Government in power disagreeing with great policies which were being drawn out by France, and when it was advised by its own advisers that what was being done was illegal it said, "We cannot support you, we think you arc wrong, but we hope you will be successful." What folly! How can you expect anything when a nation is so treated, so dealt with, so hampered, and then, when the time comes when that, has got to be changed, when we have to speak, can any Member of this House imagine the colossal difficulty of the Government that does speak and does attempt to drag back this country into a state of importance which it ought never to have lost as it has lost it? We must have a new beginning. We cannot be disregarded. Our interests will not allow us to be disregarded, and I am certain that there is no nation in Europe that wishes to disregard us if we show enough self-respect to impress upon them our determination.

When, having said first, "We do not agree with you, so we stand out," as spectators they said, "We hope you will succeed"; another Governmentsucceeded, which took another view, which drafted a strong despatch, and then suffered paralysis, which went to Paris—everybody was listening, everybody was looking on, everybody was hoping—and issued a paragraph or statement, a beautiful reassuring paragraph; when that was done, everybody again looked and listened, and to this hour we have not heard any whisper of the result. What confidence can this House have in a Government like that? It is the same Government that is responsible for the two phases of foreign policy which I have described. There is not a single man or woman who would have the least hesitation in saying that on that indictment, and on that indictment alone, the Government is not worthy of the confidence of this country. Then there is another paragraph of great importance that deals with the Imperial Conference. I regret very much that the Mover of the Address associated himself with the claim that, if the Dominion Premiers come here and meet our Government, and they and our Government in conference come to a decision to recommend something to this Parliament, that means that this Parliament is under an obligation to accept that decision. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman holds no such constitutional heresy as that. I protest further against any hon. Member of this House holding that doctrine—a doctrine so subversive of our own rights of self government which we shall never surrender.

I did not propose such a doctrine. I said that thought that the obligations which were concurred in by His Majesty's Ministers should he met in view of the very handsome behaviour of the Dominions towards us.

I accept that explanation, but I want to point out that if the explanation of that handsome behaviour leads to the conclusion, which was enunciated also by the hon. Member, the effect would be that if such conferences were held in future and if that doctrine be accepted, Ministers may go to those conferences and aid in the passing of resolutions contrary to the will of this House, and then say, if this House does not carry the same resolutions, that this House is breaking the pledges given by its Ministers. Nobody said that in that form, but it was implied in that form, and I want to say this emphatically so that there may be no mistake about it. The Mover spoke about the obligations of this House to fulfil pledges. He talked about flouting the Dominions. I think that these are very unfortunate words, and let us remember that it is going to be a great misfortune—I will put it no higher than that—if those of us who stand by the rights of this House, and those of us who hold the doctrine that in fiscal matters the vote of the people of this country must determine the conduct of this House, and having established that, come here fulfilling our mandate are to be told by the other side, "You are doing violence to the pledges given to the Dominions, you are not good friends of the Dominions.' If that is to he done then I say that that is unfair political controversy. It is unfair to us, it is unfair to the Dominions and it is not a very good service to the British Commonwealth taken as a whole.

The position is perfectly plain. I do not care if the right hon. Gentleman opposite remains in office or if somebody else takes his place, but this will be done and there need be no mistake made about it. Every pledge given by Ministers at the Imperial Conference, economic and otherwise, that matters shall be brought before this House, shall be fulfilled to the last letter, and the fullest extent. What was that pledge? My right hon. Friend at the Guildhall banquet—he spoke several times and gave the same pledge several times but here is the most convenient form—said perfectly emphatically and, if I may say so, perfectly properly—I am reading from the report which appeared on 10th November:

"The purpose of that Conference had not been to frame final and binding resolutions. The conclusions at which they had arrived must be subject to any action which might be taken by the Government of the different Dominions later on."

That is quite right. That freedom is not to be one sided. That freedom I claim for this House. Having made it perfectly clear that every Dominion Parliament is absolutely unfettered by these resolutions, then he went on:

"He was convinced, however, that what had been accomplished would readily commend itself to the Parliament-at home."

Implying, of course, that, whatever was decided at this conference would be brought before the House, and in his opinion the House of Commons would accept the promise and programme which they had laid down. I think it far better that the position should be understood and not played with, and that this House should not be misrepresented abroad, especially in the Dominions, as having broken pledges when it was doing exactly what was promised. Moreover in the official report the position is perfectly clear. On page 4, you see a series of resolutions upon Imperial Preference. The second paragraph says:

"Further, as regards Imperial Preference under the United Kingdom Customs Tariff, to Empire goods, His Majesty's Government intimated that they intended to submit to Parliament the following proposals,"

and the following proposals will be submitted to Parliament, whoever is in office, and Parliament is absolutely free to carry those proposals or reject those proposals, and that is the only position with which We can deal. But in His Majesty's Speech there is a very interesting attempt made, by—I should imagine a right hon. Member, skilful in meaningless drafting to imply that the pledges which the Government gave at the Dominion Conference were given

"without departure from the existing fiscal system of this country."

What is the meaning of "without a

"departure from the existing fiscal system of this country"?

I am not going in for any logic chopping, but I think that if Ministers are going to extend a small beginning which was never accepted as a system, but as the exception to the system, that extension of the exception does become a new system. That was the position of my hon. and learned Friend. I will put it in another way. We are all opposed here to the taxation of food on principle. Food is taxed however, but food has always been taxed for revenue purposes, and that has been the only justification alleged, and a justification of that character must always be an apologetic justification, one, which sometimes creeps in, and we only lay this down that, where food has already been taxed for revenue purposes, the parts of that food which comes from the Dominions may be subject to a remission of taxation for the purpose of Dominion Preference. That is the present system accurately and coldly described. The Government now say, "We are going actually to tax for the purposes of Dominion Preference." That is where the departure comes in. Every Member of this House sees that that is not a small departure, but is a very fundamental departure which the House will resist most emphatically. That is another reason why we should refuse confidence to the present Government.

At this point the speech becomes a little modest, and refers to the fortunes of Ministers at the last Election. I would like to put a very simple question. I hope it is a searching one, although it may be simple. Does the Government still believe in Protection, or does it not? I suggested to my right hon. Friend, when he made one of his first speeches in the old Parliament, that he had hauled the flag of Protection only half-mast high. Is it still there? Has it gone? Supposing the House keeps the right hon. Gentleman there, can we really trust right hon. Members that they are not going to harbour again in their hearts that desire which compelled the right hon. Gentleman to run from Plymouth to a General Election? We all admit—I quite agree with the Seconder of the Motion—that all parties in this House would like to do something really substantial to relieve the burden of unemployment. I am sure that my right hon. Friend does. He has again and again told us that he does not care about all these political manoeuvrings, and so on, and that he wants to get straight, right, honestly down to the substance of the problem. I am sure that he does.

When we went away in the summer on the long vacation it was without a word about Protection, without a suggestion that the Parliament was drawing to an end. In the autumn, he told us that he had made up his mind—I am sure honestly—that he could not deal with unemployment unless he had power to establish tariff walls. He knew that he could not do that by the use of his majority last year; he knew that the pledge given by his late Leader stood between him and that. He declared for an election. He is back here, as full of sympathy with the unemployed as he was when he went away. He has no power to begin the building of tariff walls. Has he the intention? Has he given it up? Is he still going to try for Protection, or is he going to tell us now definitely, categorically and without any equivocation, "I am not any longer a Protectionist, and I believe that unemployment can be solved without it"?

So far as the unemployment programme is concerned, it is the old thing. We have had all these stories before. It is all very well to say, "We are in favour of grants." How much and under what conditions? Who is to pay them? Rates or Imperial revenue? Under what conditions are relief works to be carried out? It is a very old story. These phrases, these words, may allure the new Member who has never read them or heard them before, but they are rather hoary to us. We have been doing our level best not only to get words from the Government, but, to get a meaning imparted to the words in the Government's programme. That being so, we have no confidence that they are going to carry out these things. We are quite certain it will end in an energetic policy pursued by someone else, but, quite honestly, I would prefer trying someone else to spending months and months and months again trying to get some improvement in this scheme, produced by a Government that really has not enough driving force to face this tremendous problem of national unemployment.

The election has left this House in a very peculiar position. There is no party here that has a majority of its own. I am not sure that I am sorry, but we will not discuss that now. No, I am not at all sure that I am sorry, because I think that if this House is to go on for a century or so, and always with a Government in it that has in its own pocket the majority of votes that it requires to remain here, before the end of that century there will be no private Members' rights left. In making the remark that have made, I had no thought of what may happen in a few days. I was thinking only of Parliament as a great national institution which I wish to leave behind more powerful, more respected, and with more authority than it has even in our own days. Therefore, I am not at all sure but that in the practical working out of what is called a minority Government—a word that can be very easily abused, and certainly by none more than by hon. Members opposite—it may be a good exercise for the independent intelligence of hon. Members of all parties, and the experience may not be a bad one for the House of Commons as a whole. But in the ordinary course of affairs hon. Members opposite may say that they are the largest party, and that we ought to refrain from moving any Vote of no confidence in them.

I am in this difficulty, and I would like the Prime Minister to get me out of it. The right hon. Gentleman said last August, or September, or October, "I have a majority over all parties a 80, but unless I get authority to impose tariffs, I cannot rule, and I cannot make myself responsible for the Government of the country." That is a clear statement. He goes to the country and puts his case, and he comes back here with a minority of 100 as against the rest of the House. With a majority of 80, as against the rest of the House, he cannot rule without power to impose Protection, but to-day he is coming back and saying, "I have changed my mind most fundamentally, and with a minority against me in the House I am prepared to rule now." I am in a dilemma. In any event, I think there can be no confidence reposed in the right hon. Gentleman and his Government. It is absurd; it does not stand to good-humoured common sense that the right hon. Gentleman, having put the nation to the expense of an election, having broken his own word, having risked the steady development of European policy, having left his offices unattended, and having roused all sorts of passions and class hatred in the country[Interruption.] Hon. Members know perfectly well, and there is no use blinking the fact, that in the minds of other people there is a vast, narrow class hatred against us. We have had experience of it. That hatred is based neither on reason, nor on character, nor on their own superiority, nor on anything else except on false tradition and a good deal of vulgar vanity. But, that having been done, let me forget any passion which was aroused by the interjection. Really, after that had been done, can the right hon. Gentleman come back here and say, "Now that we have done all this, we will just begin again where we left off; we will just pick up the threads of our policy, of legislation and administration, where we left off in November. Do not say anything about our little escapade; let bygones be bygones. Do not let it make any difference. We have been to the country and have been defeated, and now we will start again from just where we were defeated last November." It is impossible from the point of view of the traditions of this House. It is impossible from the point of view of just ordinary common sense. Therefore, from these benches I propose to be moved at the very earliest opportunity an Amendment to the Address in these words:

"It is, however, our duty respectfully to submit to Your Majesty that Your Majesty's present advisers have not the confidence of this House."

As I have said, this House is in the unfortunate position—I am not quite sure which I should say, whether "fortunate" or "unfortunate"—I would like to see the experiment—this House, at any rate, is in the position—I will not use any adjective—of not having a Government that can command a majority composed of its own supporters. This House would, therefore, have to face a problem in constitutional government that no House has had to face before. It is a question of three great parties. The situation of previous Parliaments has not been at all the same as the situation of this Parliament. What I do wish to say is this, that if we are to have fresh minds dealing with foreign politics, if we are to have vigorous minds dealing with unemployment, if we are to have determined minds dealing with housing, this House, if it is going to maintain the reputation of Parliament, cannot afford merely to pursue old-fashioned partisan tactics. If we are to take up old age pensions, as no Government can refuse to do. if we are to deal with pre-War pensioners and other items in the King's Speech, we must try to find grounds of common agreement whilst we maintain our party independence and our party principles. I have already referred to an evil result of the election. Before I conclude, I wish in a sentence to refer to an evil result of after the election. The Press—certain sections of them—with their maniac ravings of evil and disordered minds, have been imagining that they are keeping back something—us. They have struck at us. They have done us no harm, but they have done their nation, their nation's credit and their nation's trade a great deal of harm.

During the Election.

Even during the Election, and it was misrepresentation that did it. So far as we are concerned, we want to make it perfectly clear that while such things are done, it is not us, it is not a party, it is not a section that is injured—it is an evil effect upon the whole national life that is wrought by criticism which is mere insanity and fears that are worse than insanity. I felt, rightly or wrongly, I ought to say that before resuming my seat. We have not got confidence in His Majesty's Government and we will try to show effectively that we have not got confidence in His Majesty's Government. What may happen is in the lap of the gods. Whatever is there, there is no party that can take over the responsibilities of this nation to-day without feeling that it would rather avoid doing so if it possibly could. The state of Europe, the state of affairs at home are so bad that nothing but sheer folly would rush in to take responsibility for them, but the nation's Government has to be carried on.

The King's Government.

The King's Government—I do not make distinctions of that kind. That is a new contribution to patriotism and loyalty. The nation's Government—the King's Government—must be carried on and whoever carries it on, under these circumstances, is entitled to appeal for fair play, entitled to appeal to the sportsmanlike instincts of Englishmen and Englishwomen so long as they are doing their duty. So long as they are helping on the people of this country they are entitled to appeal for the support of this House.

I regret that my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) has not sufficiently recovered control over his vocal chords to be able to take part in the Debate to-day, to administer the customary interroga- tories to the Government and make the prescriptive comments upon the King's speech which are usual. Before I come to that I should like to join with my hon. Friend who has just sat down in felicitating the Mover and Seconder of the Reply to His Majesty's Gracious Speech upon the very admirable way in which they discharged a most difficult function. I have heard a good many of these speeches in the course of my membership of this House, and there is no function that demands greater dexterity, tact and lightness of touch, but I am sure it will be the general feeling that on this occasion the duty has been performed with more than usual success, and that great tact, judgment and a good deal of humour and eloquence adorned the speeches which were delivered. I congratulate both the hon. Members upon the way in which they acquitted themselves.

The King's Speech is a very, remarkable document, and had there been no General Election it would not have been a bad document. As a matter of fact, it looks rather like an Election Address issued after the Election is over. Protection has been dropped—the one issue of the Election, the only issue, the dominant one—by the King's Speech. With one or two emendations the rest would not be a bad programme, and when Protection is dropped, the throwing over of a few more trifles would not embarrass His Majesty's Government. As a matter of fact, with these exceptions, it is a kind of re-hash of the Liberal manifesto—I should even say of the Labour programme without the seasoning. It is the result of very urgent advice given to the Government by their supporters, that before they departed this life they should say they would never do it again, that Protection was gone, that they would never repeat that indulgence again, and, in fact, if they were forgiven, they would lead a reformed or, at any rate, a reforming life. We should congratulate ourselves upon that were it not for the fact that there is no expression of regret or of repentance. It is put entirely on the grounds that the country caught them out.

I should ltke to make some comments upon two or three special paragraphs of the Speech and to ask one or two questions of the Prime Minister, if he will be good enough to answer me with regard to them. I am not going to say a word at the present moment about the Motion of which my hon. Friend has given notice to the House. A Motion, I believe, will also be put down in almost similar terms, by some hon. Friends of mine below the Gangway. I would rather confine myself on this occasion to a few comments upon particular paragraphs in the King's Speech and asking a few questions of the Prime Minister which will enlighten us as to our duty in reference to these Motions which have been put down and give guidance to us as to the way in which we are to vote. I should like to say one word with regard to what has been said about the Colonies and Dominions. The Dominions have never claimed that any Government had the right to commit the Parliament of Great Britain to any policy any more than has a Colonial Conference the right to commit the Parliaments of the Dominions. Mr. Bruce made that very clear in that admirable speech to which reference has been made by the hon. and learned Member for Swindon (Mr. Banks) and if the hon. and learned Member had proceeded—and I am not complaining that he did not, because that was not the point he was making—to quote a further passage, he would have observed that Mr. Bruce made it very clear that he had no grievance against this country because the Imperial Parliament would not honour the decisions of the late Conference.

He also said another thing which is very significant, and I think it is very important that this House and the country should realise it. Preference does not depend entirely upon duties. I have always thought that more practical advantages could be given to trade with the Dominions by means of improved transport than by means of duties. That was the view which I took in 1907, and which some of the Dominion Premiers shared then, and I am very glad to see that in Mr. Bruce's speech he did not exclude all possibility of dealing with the question of Preference by means of improved transport relations between the Dominions and the Mother Country, and, whatever Government comes into power, I hope they will be able to do a good deal in order to promote better trading relations between the Dominions and the Colonies and ourselves by that means.

With regard to agriculture, I do not know what the Government have in their minds. Whether they have any idea of a round-table conference, of a Commission, or a Committee, there is no explanation given in the particular paragraph bearing upon the subject, but there is no doubt that this is one of the most vital social and economic questions of the hour. It is not a question merely of whether the farmers are making profits this year or whether they will make profits next year. Like every other business, it has its bad times and I daresay the farmers, as a class, may survive even these bad times.

That is not the real mischief with regard to agriculture. It is that gradually rural life in Britain is withering away, and there is no more vital question for any Government or party to take into account than the question of how agriculture is to be restored and the life of rural England, Scotland and Wales regenerated. If anything can be done by co-operation between the parties to achieve anything on those lines, then this Parliament will have done something which will be memorable in the history of Parliaments, but I should like the Prime Minister to state what is his idea upon that particular subject, because I conceive he had some special proposal in his mind when he put clown that paragraph.

I come now to the questions relating to foreign policy, and there are three paragraphs here which I think arc gratifying. The first is the paragraph which refers to the liquor question in the United States of America. It is rather cryptic and a little ambiguous. It is not quite clear what is meant by removing "the difficulty with regard to the illicit importation of liquor," and it makes it all the more doubtful because we are told that the measures are taken with a view to strengthening the happy relations between the two countries I think we are entitled, therefore, to some explanation, but, seriously, I should like to say one word with regard to this. There is no doubt at all that this is doing us a lot of harm in the United States of America. It is not a question of whether we believe in prohibition or riot. The United States of America has definitely decided to make the experiment. I was told on all hands there by men who are opposed to prohibition that if you put it to the vote tomorrow you would get a vote of at least 60 per cent. in favour of renewing the experiment, and, what is rather important for us is this, that even those who are in favour of varying the experiment only wish to vary it by introducing light, wines and beers. If it were proposed to sell spirits, you would get 95 per cent., so I am assured, of the population of the United States of America voting for prohibition on the question of spirits. Smuggling from Great Britain and smuggling from the Dominions takes the form of smuggling spirits, so that therefore we are becoming the base from which operations are conducted for the purpose of breaking a law of which 95 per cent. of the people of the United States are in favour.

Another thing I am told is this. We are alienating our best friends. The men who are in favour of this law are the best friends of Great Britain in the United States of America, and, by giving facilities for the breaking of the prohibition law, we are offending some of the men who stood by Britain throughout the war, and stood against every section of the community there. Through good and evil report, they have always stood by Great Britain. Those are the very men we are offending by giving opportunities for the breaking of the liquor laws of the United States of America, and I sincerely trust that the Government are taking very effective measures for the purpose of stopping this smuggling. If it had been any other law, no one would have dreamt of permitting the British Empire to be made a base for breaking it —if it were the laws of property, if it were the laws of revenue or smuggling, for instance—and why should this law, then, be. made an exception? Whether they are prohibitionists or not is their business, and we have nothing whatever to do with it, and therefore I am very glad to read this paragraph.

The other question I should like to put to the Prime Minister has reference to Tangier. I am delighted to read this paragraph. There was a very ugly situation developing there, a situation that might at any moment produce a conflagration between some of the great Powers of Europe. What I should like to ask the Prime Minister is this: If he cannot tell us now what the terms are, will papers be laid immediately stating what are the terms which have been arrived at and especially what is the position with regard to the control of the port of Tangier, because our interests in the port of Tangier are vital, and if they pass away under the control of any other Power it will be very mischievous, not merely from the point of view of trade, but from the point of view of the security of the Mediterranean, which is vital to us. I, therefore, would like, if the Prime Minister cannot tell us now what the full terms are, to know what the terms are with regard to the control of the port.

The next question I should like to put is with regard to the appointment of a Committee of Experts under the Reparation Commission. I frankly rejoice that this has been done at last, but I should like to ask the Prime Minister this question: Why was not it done before? This was a proposal that was made, as I know, in October, 1922, by the Secretary of State for the United States of America, first of all to France. France turned it down. It was then communicated to our Ambassadors by the Secretary of State. Then he made a speech, in December. 1922, and the first thing I want to ask is this: When were those communications made by the Secretary of State of the United States? They were made, I know, before he delivered that speech. In what form were -they made, and could papers be laid on the Table?

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean the Newhaven speech?

No, before the Newhaven speech. That was about the end of December, 1922. The Secretary of State made that speech because nobody took any notice of his communications. He made that in despair. I was under the impression that that was his way of making the offer to Europe, and I thought, frankly, it was not a very good way of doing it. Then I discovered that Mr. Secretary Hughes had communicated it formally to the Governments, and no notice had been taken of it at all. I should like to know whether Papers can be laid on the Table showing when these communications were made, and in what form, because it is a very serious matter. You are now investigating the question of the capacity of Germany to pay under the Versailles Treaty.

Under a provision in that Treaty Germany had the right to that investigation. The United States of America, who was in the original Treaty, were prepared to Dome in, and offered to come in. Not only was that offer not accepted, it, was not even discussed for months and months. There were several conferences held between the Allies in Europe, and a proposal that comes from the United States of America, from its Secretary, was never even put on the agenda. That is a thing which is incredible. Since then the assets of Germany have naturally got less and less and less, and it is no use saying we are in the same position now as we were 12 months ago. We are not. I should like to ask the Prime Minister that question: What about the communication of Mr. Secretary Hughes made to the Ambassadors? The next question I should like to put is this: What has happened under the Customs Recovery Act?

The Reparation (Recovery) Act.

Yes, the Reparation (Recovery) Act. Here is a question in which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon will have a very practical interest, as there is a revenue of £7,000,000 in it. What is the position?Under that Act, when a German exporter Gold to a British purchaser, 74 per cent. was remitted to the German and 26 per cent. was paid to the Customs here. With the remission to the German exporter, a receipt was sent from the Customs here, and that was full payment. The German Government then reimbursed the German exporter the 26 per cent. in German currency. By that means we were collecting £7,000,000 a year, which was paid to our account. On 15th November last the German Government withdrew the payment of that 26 per cent. What was the result? It was that that 26 per cent. which was paid by them is now being paid by the British trader. It operates as a tariff, and sometimes a very high tariff, bemuse it is in addition to the 33 per cent. put on by the McKenna duties, But that is not the point. It means that we are collecting reparations out of our own traders. As long as we were paying here only 74 per cent. of the cost, and the 26 per cent, was paid by Germany, then it was the Germans who were paying reparations, but now, when we are paying not merely the 74 per cent. but the 26 per cent. as well, then of course we are paying it.

No, it means that we are prevented from importing the goods now.

Iam surprised at my hon. Friend, who knows very well that the City is up in arms about this subject, and that there has been a deputation to the Government on the subject, because there are certain raw materials that you can only get from Germany, and now we are paying the full 100 per cent., whereas formerly we were paying the 74 per cent. There are two things the Government can do, and they can do them under that Act. They can either suspend the Act altogether, or they can enforce it. Why is it that this happens now? It is contemporaneous with the time when Germany surrendered to France. Franca imposes her terms, and the moment she does it, we tamely accept a refusal on the part of Germany to carry out their terms with us. I think we ought to know what the Government have done with regard to that Customs Recovery Act, and what they propose to do.

The next question I want to ask is with regard to the Ruhr. What is the position in the Ruhr to-day? We have heard that the Germans have at last surrendered. What does surrender mean? Before the French marched into the Ruhr the Germans were delivering over 18,000,000 tons of coal out of a quota of 20,000,000 tons. The shortage was only 10 per cent. Does surrender mean that the position before the occupation is restored, and that henceforth the Germans will be delivering the quota they were delivering before the French ever entered the Ruhr, or is the quota to be increased What does it mean? The next thing I want to ask is this, because of certain very remarkable articles which have appeared in the "Times." Does surrender mean that henceforth the management, the control, the engineering of the mines is to be French, and the labour purely to be German If it is, it will end in inevitable mischief and disaster there. I constantly heard, when I was discussing the problem with the French and others, that the Ruhr miner is not like the British miner, and that he will stand anything. That is not true. He is a thoroughly independent man, who is not very easily handled, and I am certain that there is no miner in the world who will stand for years being ordered about by foreign managers, foreign directors, under foreign engineers, with his mines being run in the interests of the foreigner. If surrender means that, it means inevitable trouble in the Ruhr, and we have an interest in that.

I ask another question. We hear a good deal about certain arrangements between the French Government and German magnates. What are these arrangements? Have they been communicated to the Government? Have the British Government even been consulted about them? Do they involve control of the iron, the steel, the workshops, the factories of the Ruhr, with the coal of Lorraine and the Saar, by the French Government? It is vital to our industries to 'mow what they mean. Are we even in the negotiations? It is really incredible, after the sacrifices we made, after the fact that our intervention alone saved France from disaster, that when you come to settle a question of that kind, with interests from the reparation point of view, and the European point of view, and while we have vital interests from the business point of view, that we are not brought into the negotiations. I cannot believe it. I do not understand it, and I should like to ask the Government what is going on there, whether they know, whether they have assented to it, or whether they have protested against it, and whether they have made their protest effective. M. Loucheur, who is a very able man, and very friendly to this country, said, in the course of an article he has just published, that he is in favour of the four Allied countries coming into whatever control there is. But he is not the Prime Minister of France. Is that the basis? You may have the greatest coal and iron combination in Europe organised against us, and, in the interests of reparations, which we alone enabled France to achieve, we have a right to know where we are about that. It comes very near home to the industries of this country. M. Loucheur, I observe, says that British Governments have invariably refused to consent to any scheme for controlling German finances. That is not true—it is not accurate. M. Loucheur is quite incapable of saying what he knows to be untrue, but it is not accurate. In August, 1922, when my right hon. Friend the Member for the Hillhead Division of Glasgow (Sir R. Horne) was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. A. Chamberlain) was also with me,- we proposed an elaborate scheme for the complete control of German finance, which, I believe, the Germans would have accepted. I asked the Prime Minister to publish those documents and the report of the Conference.

They were promised.

They were promised, I quite agree. My two right hon. Friends pressed it at that time. They urged that those schemes should be published. It is right that the French should know. France is under the impression that we never proposed to do anything. It is right that France should know exactly what we did propose, because I am certain of this, that before any real settlement is effected, whether it is by my right hon. Friend or anybody else, they will have to come back practically to the scheme that was proposed at that date. It is the only way of securing reparations upon a real basis. I ask the Prime Minister. would he not consent to redeem the promise he made?

If I gave the promise, it will be done: but I will refer to it.

It was at the end of the Session, and a good many things have happened since. The Prime Minister has been very busy, like the rest of us, and he has kept the rest of us busy, too. I ask him to redeem that promise. There is a special reason why he should do it. Why should the proceedings of the November meeting and the January meeting be published in full, while the proceedings of the August meeting, which was simply adjourned till November, are not published? I ask the Prime Minister to publish those as soon as he possibly can. Then what about the Separatist movement on the Rhine? What is the position about that? It is a very grave position of things, and it is going to create infinite trouble, and may precipitate bloodshed. If the Allies had been genuinely neutral when that movement started, there is no one to blame. If any of the Allies encouraged it, it was a disgraceful breach of the Treaty they themselves had imposed upon Germany. They treated their own document, which, by force of arms, they compelled Germany to sign, as a scrap of paper. What has happened? I remember quite well in 1919 the French military generals on the Rhineland attempted to engineer a Separatist movement. They were dealing then with M. Clemenceau—as straight a man as any with whom one could have the honour of dealing. [Interruption.] The fact that my hon. Friend does not approve his policy does not show he is not a straightforward man. That he is a fearless, straightforward man, I think all will agree.. I have never seen him mislead a Conference or fail to carry out a bond once he had given his word, and that would be the testimony of everybody who dealt with him on that occasion. He reported instantly to the Conference that the French generals were doing this, and he gave the most peremptory orders that they were not to meddle with it. What was the result? You heard nothing of it. M. Millerand took the same line. M. Briand took the same line. Recently there is clear evidence that French money has been fostering the Separatist movement. More than that, when the outbreak came it did not come within the British lines. Why? Because we gave fair-play to the German authorities to deal with it. We did not encourage it. We dealt straightly with them. Within the French lines, what happened? There is overwhelming evidence that the population were opposed to it. The police were not allowed to deal with it in the only way you can deal with a treasonable conspiracy. More than that, a man in the position of the Lieut.-Governor of one of the cities was prosecuted, because he gave orders to the police to suppress a treasonable conspiracy against the Fatherland. There were brutal sentences by French courts-martial. The Lieut.-Governor was given 20 years' penal servitude because he gave an order that it was his business to give for the police to suppress the rebellion.

What has been done? I am not suggesting that the Government have merely no sympathy with it; I am perfectly certain they take a very strong view with regard to it. I am only asking questions now, and not suggesting the slightest sympathy with it; but I should like to know what action they are taking to put an end to something which is an outrage upon a document to which we ourselves are parties, and about which we have a right to say something. The fact of the matter is this, and I think the sooner we realise it the better. Take what is happening in the Saar. These articles in the "Times" are revelations to the outside public; they are not to those dealing with the matter from the inside. There is a powerful section of French opinion which feels that the Rhineland ought to have been annexed as the result of victory. The Treaty of Versailles refused to assent to that proposition. They have never accepted it. Marshal Foch, at a meeting of the Peace Conference, got up and protested openly against the action of M. Clemenceau and the French Government in assenting to any proposition that would not annex the Rhineland. All the other French Prime Ministers have honourably adhered to the pact. It looks to me as if that school of French opinion were dominant. If it succeeds, there is no peace in Europe. There will be an inevitable conflict. Whether in our time or not—next time it will be a more terrible conflict than we had before, and I think it is our duty to do our best to avert it.

My hon. Friend has given notice of a Motion which may. terminate the life of the existing Government. There will be another Government that will come into power. It will be the third Government since I had the privilege of being at the head of affairs. Each has come in with very high hopes. Each has felt that this trouble in Europe would be set right if you bad only the right methods and the right men to deal with it. Each had his own formula—more. sympathy with France, the revival of the Entente, keep the Allies together and all will be well. I cannot say that the sequel has been very encouraging. My hon. Friend is undertaking the task, also with high hopes. I wish him well. He will find that formulas, however unexceptionable, ideals however exalted, are not so easy to translate into action when you have got to deal with other nations. But I wish him well. Above all, I do hope that whatever Government comes into power, it will assert the authority and the influence that this Empire is entitled to by its power and by its sacrifices.

My first duty is to associate myself with the remarks which have been made by the leaders of the two branches of the Opposition in praise of the Mover and Seconder of the Address. It is always a feature of the Debate to-day that we open our proceed- ings in harmony, and by passing across the Floor of the House that meed of appre- ciation which is always so well earned by those who move and second the Address. And I must say I was delighted to hear that praise bestowed to-day, because I felt it more than justified the selection from among my own friends which I had made on this occasion. I congratulate them most warmly on having executed what we say every year—and it is absolutely true—is a most difficult task. But when we get away from that, we have departed a little from common form in the Debate, because usually there is a leader of the Opposition who tries to extort from the Leader of the House explanations of policy and explanations of portions of the King's Speech. To-day I have to face two leaders, representing I do not know how many schools of thought. The first leader who spoke was—most naturally— very impressed with the gravity of the occasion which is so soon to come, and his speech often appeared to me one perhaps better fitted to be made on the Amend- ment to be put forward to-morrow, or the next day, than on the main subject of the King's Speech. I think that was natural, and I find no fault with it. The only fault I do find—it was unpremedi- tated, I am sure, and came out in the excitement of the moment—is when he said that I had broken my word. I am going to speak about that by-and-bye.

The King's Speech, he said, was a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends. Then he said how pleased he was for the first time we had taken into consideration the extension of juvenile centres, additional aid to public utility works, and 50 forth. Of course, he must remember this: That we went to the country with our own proposals to relieve unemployment. Those proposals were not accepted. [Laughter.] I must just interpolate here, in answer to that laughter, what I did not mean to say. I remember saying from a platform in 1903 that when Protection came in this country, it would come from the Labour party. It was perfectly obvious that the constitutional duty of the Government, even though its proposals had been rejected in the country, was to meet the House of Commons, and take the verdict of that Chamber, which is what we are doing. That being so, it fell to us to introduce a King's Speech, and being debarred by the verdict of the country from putting into that Speech any such proposals as we should have done had the country confirmed us, we then had to take every other step outside that which we thought might be of use.

In regard to agriculture, there are slightly different points of view between the two leaders of the Opposition. The one leader, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald), thought that in trying to unite the parties of this House on the subject, I was hitching my wagon to a star. I think he was hitching his wagon to a star when he came to speak of foreign affairs—but I will perhaps come to that later. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) seemed to think it was not so quixotic an enterprise. Let me explain, and I commend it to anyone who may succeed me. We believe that certain proposals that were put forward would have been of lasting benefit to agriculture. The country did not think so. None the less, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that does not remove the agricultural problem at all. It is one of the gravest we have got. I may have my own view that it is almost insoluble without adopting remedies which the country at present would not give us. But that is no reason why we should not try to do something. It seems to me that in a House like this, where you have now three parties, not of equal strength certainly, but where none of them can govern without the support, to some extent, of either or both the other parties, the only way is to attempt a round-table conference, to see if there is at least some common measure on which they can agree, and see what must be eliminated. I am not sanguine. But that is no reason why it should not be tried. There may be something done by the agreement of the House. If there be the least possibility of it, I think any Government would be failing in its duty if it did not take any step, however distant and remote the prospect of success might seem to be.

The Leader of the Opposition dealt with the question of the pre-War pensioners. That is a subject left over from the last Parliament, and, had it not been for the events which took place, a. Bill would have been brought forward in the Autumn Session. There seems to have been some misunderstanding about the proceedings of the Imperial Conference. I think the Leader of the Liberal Party stated the gospel of the matter quite correctly. Any resolutions that are carried in the Conference are, naturally, subject to the ratification of the Parliaments, whether it be the Dominion Parliaments or this Parliament. When I made the statement that Parliament would ratify what was done, quite clearly I spoke then in the position of a Prime Minister who was able to ensure the ratification of what he put forward. Supposing any Prime Minister in such a case had put a matter forward, and Parliament refused to ratify it, then, of course, he would have had to resign. There is no question about that. As long as a Parliament lasts, whatever is agreed to by a Government can, naturally, count upon being ratified by Parliament, but there is no binding upon any subsequent Parliament. I think that is perfectly clear. It is a question of policy which our successors—if we are going to have any—will have to decide for themselves. Whether it is a wise thing to do is another question altogether; but it cannot be fairly said that there is a breach of faith if Parliament later on refuse to ratify action taken in the last Parliament. That is my view.

Any speech on an occasion like this has to be delivered in fragments, because the Minister never knows what he is going to be asked. He is asked a number of questions, often on intricate subjects. I am going to answer as far as I can today. To two or three of them, which are very technical, I am going to ask if I may reply to to-morrow. For this reason: they are very difficult questions, and I am extremely reluctant to give any answer that. may not be as full as possible, and may in any way make a difficult situation more difficult for those who must follow very soon. I am rather afraid at the present lest by anything I may say on the spur of the moment, and without con- sideration, I should make an already appallingly difficult situation more difficult, because depend upon it, just at this time when there is uncertainty as to the political future of the Government, whether the Government is to remain, or a new Government is to come, that does militate against us in the councils of all the nations—so that the sooner the period of uncertainty is put an end to the better. The more care, therefore, should be exercised by a Prime Minister as to what he says lest he should prejudice the work which may have to be taken up by others.

In regard to the American liquor question, I am glad to say that is in a fair way of being settled. The United States will have the right of search up to a certain distance outside the three-miles limit, and British vessels will be allowed to bring, as every reasonable man would agree they ought to bring, the liquor into American harbours under seal, so that liquors for the consumption of the crews and passengers of British ships should not be interfered with before their voyage back again. The proposed Treaty is being submitted to the Dominions concerned for examination. I do not anticipate any difficulty there, and I give an assurance—if it has not been given, as I think it has—that full opportunity will be given, as far as I am able to give it, for the discussion of this Treaty in Parliament before it is ratified. 1 am quite sure, whoever may succeed me, would give that same undertaking.

Is the extension a fixed distance?

I think it may be possible soon to publish the terms.

It is agreed?

Oh, yes, it is agreed. There is no hitch of any kind, and there is no doubt that its ratification will do away with what may seem to be a small matter, but will do more good between our two peoples than almost anything of which you can think. Iam glad to think that is one more troublesome question that has been got out of the way. In the same way in regard to Tangier, I should prefer that a statement on that subject should be made by the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs to-morrow.

With regard to the Expert Committee, I can quite understand the feeling with which the Leader of the Liberal Party spoke about the position on the Continent at this moment. Looking back over the last year it has not been a successful period in advancing the cause of European peace and prosperity. The Committee of Experts—and I agree that it has been a form of inquiry which we have pressed more than once from this country—was only agreed to in its present form by the Reparation Commission at the end of November. I am not awake myself of any communication of the nature to which my right hon. Friend alluded as having been sent by Mr. Hughes, but I will have that matter looked into, and the full reply shall be given. If it was sent, it must have been sent when the right hon. Gentleman's Government was in power.

The first proposal that was made to France was in October, that is after I left. That was not immediately communicated to us. My information is that France took no notice of it, and it was afterwards communicated to us.

I will look into it. It has been set up by the Committee of Experts to advise the Reparation Commission, and it is really the first step of progress that has been made in this whole year. It is a real step of progress because, in the first place, you get America in, which is worth a good deal, and, in the second place, you are going to get for the first time a real and thorough examination into what is necessary to stabilise German currency and balance German budgets. It is impossible to go fully into these matters without getting the very information which is the pre-requisite of any further conference of the Allies in Europe. As all who have had to do with these matters know, the great difficulty of dealing with them has been a consideration of the figures of the reparations problem, the consideration of the way in which German finance can be so rectified after reparations, and the unwillingness of the Allies to confer. Some of them have been most pessimistic during the past month about the prospects of bringing the Allies into conference, or of being able to accom- plish anything towards a settlement of the problem_ The most pessimistic of them now feel that there is a ray of daylight in the work of this Commission, and we must all trust that that belief is justified. It may be that the French Government will see in the present loss on exchange in that country that there are reasons coming why there should be no further delay in reaching close quarters with the whole problem, which they have kept at such a distance, with such success throughout this year.

With regard to the Separatist movements, I can assure the House that they have caused us just as much anxiety as they have caused the Leader of the Liberal Party. The Separatist movement which is occurring in the Palatinate at present has caused us the very gravest anxieties, and we have sent one of our own officials to visit that country, and to report to us. At the present moment we are awaiting his visit and its result, and if it be possible to communicate anything more to the House during the progress of this Debate, I shall be very pleased to do so.

With regard to the question of the negotiations between the French and German industrialists, and repayments under the Reparations Recovery Act, those are matters with which I should like to deal as fully as possible at a later stage in the Debate. I want to content myself with just touching on the other points which have been mentioned, points perhaps not so serious, and which can be answered very briefly and more easily. Having said that, I think there is nothing to which attention has been drawn which now calls for any further comment. I will only say one word in conclusion, and it is that when a challenge is thrown down on the Floor of the House, we shall be ready to take it up. No doubt there will be a very interesting Debate. We shall watch with interest the forces which will be allied, if allied they are, and which defeat us, if defeat us they do, and we shall watch with much interest to see what Government may be evolved out of the benches which I see opposite. I agree with one thing which fell from the Leader of the Opposition. It is that the Government of the country must be carried on, and if we find ourselves in Opposition, we shall be ready to criticise, we shall be ready to oppose, and to fight when we think things are wrong. But there will be no factious or fractious opposition from us, and we shall endeavour, as I expressed the hope when I spoke of the agricultural conference, in any matters where we can get unity in this House, to help such a cause as agriculture or unemployment, and we shall certainly not be behindhand in doing our utmost to put something into the common stock for the benefit of the country.