asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the proposed amendment to the trade-mark law in China; and whether he will take the opportunity of making representations to the Chinese Government on the necessity of providing better protection to British trade marks in China?

Yes, Sir; His Majesty's Government have not awaited the occasion of the proposed amendment to make representations in the sense suggested. The amendment in fact appears to be an improvement on the existing law.

Can we have a little more information later?

Yes, but we have reason to think that the present difficulties will be met by this arrangement.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is yet able to make a statement on the future prospects of trade of this country with Manchukuo?

I am not in a position to forecast the future, but United Kingdom trade with Manchuria showed an increase in 1934 as compared with 1933 and I hope that this tendency will continue. A report on trading conditions in Manchuria will be published in the late summer or early autumn as an annex to a report on trading and economic conditions in China.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to state what is the result of his representations with regard to the increased duty on British flycatchers imported from this country into Finland; and what further action he intends to take in the matter?

I am awaiting a report from His Majesty's Minister at Helsingfors.

Will my hon. and gallant Friend bear in mind the urgency of the matter, owing to the seasonal nature of the trade?

The urgency of the matter is being borne in mind.

asked the President of the Board of Trade how the April imports of new potatoes from abroad compare in quantity and value with the similar imports for the corresponding period in 1934?

Information respecting imports in April will not be available till Wednesday, when I will send a statement to my hon. and gallant Friend.

Will the hon. Gentleman's Department encourage the consumption of British potatoes by letting it be known that they are a healthy form of diet and not fattening?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is proposed to publish a report of the official investigation into the circumstances of the Tungchow piracy in which a British vessel was captured by Chinese pirates concealed on board within a few miles of the port of Shanghai?

An inquiry by His Majesty's Government from which the Press and public were excluded was, for reasons connected with the taking of evidence, considered preferable to a public inquiry. The report on the inquiry is consequently not in a form suitable for publication.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Minister has made any representations to the Chinese Government requesting an early payment of principal and interest on the British loan for the construction of the Shanghai-Fencing section of the Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway; and, if so, with what result?

The loan in question was for the redemption of a mortgage. Repeated representations have been made but I regret to say so far without result.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that no payment in respect of interest has been made since 1928 and no repayment of capital since 1927, and cannot that matter be brought to the notice of the Chinese Government in a pressing manner?

I am confident that His Majesty's Minister is doing all that he can in the matter, but I will certainly look into the information which my hon. Friend has given.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information as to the arrest by the Chinese authorities in North-West Kansu of the Hon. Desmond Parsons; what offence he is alleged to have committed; and whether he has yet been handed over to the British consular officials?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether arrangements have yet been made for the release of Mr. Desmond Parsons, who was recently arrested in the province of Kansu, China?

Mr. Parsons was arrested a few days ago by the local authorities at Tunhuang in the Kansu Province on a charge of stealing antiquities from the local caves. His Majesty's Legation have made representations to the Chinese Government urging that Mr. Parsons be allowed to return to Peking and that he should be afforded every facility for the journey. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs have undertaken to instruct the provincial authorities at once to send Mr. Parsons to Peking and to provide for his proper protection on the way.

asked the Postmaster-General why he refused to accept for insertion in the London Telephone Directory an advertisement submitted by an agency acting on behalf of the Equity and Law Life Insurance Society?

The Post Office rejected the advertisement in January last because it objected to the wording on grounds subsequently explained to the company. I understand that the company renewed their application on the 29th March for an advertisement in modified form, but unfortunately the desired space had in the meantime been let to another advertiser.

Is it the policy of the Post Office to refuse advertisements of investments which mention a rate of interest which might be thought to compete with the Post Office or other Government stocks?

That is another matter of which I must have notice.

Was not that the ground of the refusal in the original case?

I understand that there was some discussion of that kind, but the company put forward the advertisement in a modified form after that. We were unable to insert it, but I hope that it will be possible to do something in future.

asked the Postmaster-General whether he is yet in a position to state to what extent the Colonial and Dominion Governments concerned have agreed to support, financially and otherwise, the scheme for sending all first-class Empire air-mail on the African and Australian routes by air; and whether he can make any statement arising out of the return of the delegation which recently visited the Far Eastern Colonies and Australia in this connection?

As regards the first part of the question, I regret that I am not at present in a position to make a comprehensive statement. The recent delegation discussed details of the Empire air-mail scheme with the Governments of the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and India. The discussions were extremely valuable and considerable progress was made.

Is any report to be issued?

They were private discussions.

When will my right hon. Friend be able to make a statement?

Not for some time.

asked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider making a contribution to the finances of the Mersey tunnel undertaking in view of the fact that his Department, who previously paid £2,000 per annum for conveyance of mails via the Mersey Railway and £200 per annum to the Birkenhead Corporation ferry steamers, now conveys mails free of all charge through the Mersey tunnel, the total value of which free service from 18th July, 1934, to 30th April, 1935, was £2, 434 6s. 9d., and also bearing in mind that any contribution would be welcome relief to the ratepayers of Liverpool and Birkenhead, who have to pay over £2,000,000 increase on the original estimate of £5,000,000 for the cost of the Mersey tunnel?

I regret that I do not see my way to grant a contribution from Post Office funds for the purpose mentioned.

Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to receive a deputation from the Mersey Tunnel Joint Committee if they decide on such a course?

I think I had better await their request. If the hon. Gentleman would like to have a word with me, I should be pleased to discuss the matter with him.

asked the Postmaster-General what progress has been made during the first four months of this year in reducing the proportion of Past Office vans the rear lights of which are substantially above the level for such lights; and what is the approximate proportion of Post Office vans with these lights above the normal level?

The position is as I previously informed my hon. Friend, but I am in communication with my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport on the subject.

asked the Minister of Health the results of such investigation as has been made in relation to the food qualities of Chinese eggs imported into this country; and if it has been ascertained that putrefaction takes place immediately such eggs cease to be in a frozen condition?

My right hon. Friend is not aware of any investigation into the food qualities of Chinese eggs. He is advised that putrefaction does not take place immediately the eggs cease to be in a frozen condition.

Is it not a fact that an investigation was promised on a former occasion, and will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what was the result of that inquiry?

The inquiry was into the bacteriological contents of the eggs, and the eggs were given, a good character.

Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the repulsive conditions under which these eggs are produced in China, and will not His Majesty's Government take any action to save the people of this country from having food of that kind brought here?

Is there any truth in the statement that these hens have a lower standard of living than British hens?

The simple fact is that the content of the eggs is not affected by what the hens eat.

Oh!

asked the Minister of Health whether he has made any reply to the resolution adopted by the National Poultry Council at its conference at Southport, on 30th April, that the import of Chinese eggs into this country is a menace to public health, and that analytical examination has proved that such eggs are produced under filthy and insanitary conditions; and whether he contemplates action to prevent those eggs being imported into this country?

This resolution does not appear to have been received either in my Department or in, the Ministry of Agriculture. As regards the latter part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him on this subject on the 14th March.

Would it be too much to ask the Minister to have inquiry made through our representative in China as to the circumstances under which these eggs are produced, so that the actual facts may be made known to the people of this country?

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that W. Barrett, a cattleman at Dromenagh Farm, Iver, Bucks, has been detained since 12th March in the isolation hospital at Cippenham on the unsupported statement of a single medical officer that he was suffering from an infectious disease, though he was at that date, and is now, considered by another doctor to be free from any disease; and whether he will take steps to procure his immediate release without prejudice to any claim he may put forward for damages for illegal detention?

My right hon. Friend understands that the man referred to was not detained in the isloation hospital on the unsupported statement of a single medical officer, but that eight consecutive bacteriological examinations of swabs taken from his throat disclosed the presence of haemolytic streptococci. My right hon. Friend is informed that he was discharged from hospital as soon as bacteriological examination indicated that the organisms were no longer present.

Will the man receive pay or compensation for the time he was detained in hospital, and, if so, from what source?

I should like notice of that question.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Member for this constituency has received no complaints regarding this case, and that it is only raised by the Anti-Vaccination League?

asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the statement at pages 96 to 98 of the Report on the Health of the Army for 1932, that no appreciable decrease in the total dysentery figures has occurred during the five years in which an extensive search for dysentery carriers has been in operation, and that routine investigation for carriers has been abandoned in view of the injustice entailed to individuals; and whether, in view of the fact that hæmolytic streptococci, which were the cause of the isolation of a cowman at Cippenham Isolation Hospital, are frequently found in healthy persons, he will institute inquiries with a view to preventing injustice to individuals in such cases?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, but my right hon. Friend is advised that dysentery is not comparable with the streptococcal infections, and that the isolation of the man referred to in the second part of the question was, in the circumstances of the case, the proper course. He was isolated not merely because of the finding of certain organisms in his throat, but as a result of a combination of bacteriological findings and epidemiological evidence. My right hon. Friend sees no necessity for special inquiries on this subject.

asked the Minister of Labour the number of persons in receipt of unemployment insurance benefit and allowances from the Unemployment Assistance Board at Castleford, Norman-ton, Pontefract, and Goole, respectively, at the latest date available?

As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he proposes to extend the number of specialised employment exchanges, on lines similar to those now operating for the catering and building trades in London?

The possibility of specialisation in the employment exchange service on lines similar to those indicated in the question is under consideration, but I am not at present in a position to make a statement.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of a practice of certain marketing boards of receiving names of unemployed shorthand typists from the employment exchanges and then sending them to private employment agencies to be engaged, and paying fees to such agencies; and whether any steps have been taken to prevent this practice?

Certain cases of this kind occurred, I understand, in the early part of last year but were immediately discontinued on being brought to the notice of the Marketing Board concerned. I have no knowledge of any more recent instances.

asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that, in some parts of the country, magistrates are endorsing the licences of motorists convicted of exceeding the 30-miles-perhour speed limit even when it is their first offence in many years of driving, whereas in other places licences are not endorsed in such circumstances; and whether, as endorsement of licence is too severe a penalty for a driver whose livelihood may depend on his clean licence and whose first offence it is, he will circularise all magistrates recommending a uniform penalty for first offenders without endorsing the licence unless special circumstances make the offence a serious one?

Under Sub-section (1) of Section 5 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, the court before which a person convicted of exceeding a speed limit is required to order the offender's licence to be endorsed, in the absence of any special reason to the contrary. The fact that he has not previously been convicted of a similar offence must be true at some time of every offender, and I could not suggest to magistrates that this could properly be regarded as in itself constituting a special reason for not ordering endorsement of the licence.

Will the Minister bear in mind, that endorsement of licence is very hard in the case of drivers convicted of a first offence, and that it is very difficult to drive a car with one eye on the speedometer and the other on the road?

asked the Minister of Transport whether he can state the number of accidents in which petrol-driven vehicles were involved during 1934 which resulted in loss of life or injury to the persons concerned through these vehicles catching fire; how many persons died or were injured in accidents in which fire followed some other mishap; and whether he has any record of petrol-driven vehicles taking fire on the roads apart from those cases in which loss of life or injury took place?

The special investigation into the causes of fatal road accidents in 1933 indicated that, in that year, explosion or fire on a vehicle was the primary cause of two, and a contributory cause of five, such accidents. Fires in motor vehicles in which no loss of life or injury occurs are not reported to my hon. Friend and he is therefore not in a position to give the hon. Member the other information for which he asks.

asked the Minister of Transport during which hour of the day most accidents occur on the roads in Great Britain?

The special investigation made in 1933 showed that the hour during which there was the greatest number of fatal road accidents was between 5 and 6 p.m., when 9.3 per cent. of all such accidents occurred. Similar information is not available in respect of accidents not involving death.

Is that in respect of the period when most of the public-houses are shut?

Can the hon. Gentleman give instructions that accidents not involving death should also be reported, so that we may know the accident figures, apart from those of fatal accidents?

I will take that suggestion into consideration.

asked the Minister of Transport when the new de-restriction signs are to be put into use?

Local authorities, with whom responsibility in this matter rests, have been asked to proceed as rapidly as possible with the provision and erection of the new signs.

Will the Ministry of Transport pay anything toward these signs?

That is a separate question, and had better be put down.

asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the local dissatisfaction at the inadequacy of the Number 52 omnibus service from Lad-broke Grove at the present time, especially at the rush hours; and whether he will make representations to the London Transport Board to improve it?

My hon. Friend is in communication with the board on this subject.

asked the Minister of Transport how many miles of British railways were electrified in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and to-day?

The route miles of electrified railways in Great Britain at the end of the years 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1934 were, respectively, about 25, 203, 370, 615 and 702.

asked the Minister of Transport whether he has received a report in connection with a firm of contractors at Hammersmith, who were fined £10 on each of two summonses and £3 5s. costs at Horncastle, Lincs., for causing a lorry driver to work more than 11 hours in 24 hours on 18th and 19th February and were also fined £2 for failing to cause records of journeys to be kept; whether he has received a report from Inspector Dodson in connection with this case; whether he is aware that the contractors have since dismissed the lorry driver without explanation; and whether he will take steps to withhold the granting of licences to contractors who violate the Road Traffic Act of 1933?

This case had not previously been brought to my hon. Friend's notice. The granting of licences under the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, is a matter for the licensing authorities set up under that Act. Under Section 13 of that Act they have power in certain circumstances to revoke or suspend a, licence if the conditions attached to it have not been complied with. Also in considering any application for an A or B licence they are required to have regard to the previous conduct of the applicant in the capacity of a carrier of goods.

Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware that the man in question is a Government contractor, and does he not think that if contractors of this kind employ people for such long hours they should be struck off the Government contract list?

This is a matter for the licensing authority, which is an independent authority set up by Parliament, and representation should be made to that authority and not to the Ministry.

Will not the Postmaster-General look into this matter, as it belongs to his Department?

asked the Minister of Transport whether he intends to take steps to secure that the provision in the new highway code enjoining that riders should make use of grass and other margins wherever possible shall override local by-laws or provisions to the contrary effect, in order that riders may know which set of instructions to follow?

The code directs riders to use grass and other verges where these are available. They cannot be said to be available if their use is prohibited by some local provision.

How will the riders know whether the by-laws stop the use of the grass tracks?

Riders are usually local people who know the local by-laws. No alteration has been made by putting this into the highway code.

asked the Minister of Transport whether, in connection with the provision in the new highway code that tramcars may be overtaken on either side, he can state which towns in Great Britain have in force local provisions to the effect that tramcars may only be overtaken on one particular side; and what steps will be taken to see that such local provisions are properly brought to the notice of through motor traffic?

There are local by-laws in force in four towns, namely, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen, which prohibit the passing of tramcars on the near side at authorised stopping places when passengers are boarding or alighting. These provisions have been in force for some years, and my hon. Friend is not aware that difficulties have arisen in the case of through traffic.

Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that there is often friction between the passing motorist and the police because motorists do not know these regulations, and when they pass trams as they do in other towns they get into trouble?

Would it not be so much better to have the same rule in every town in the whole country?

I do not think it has yet been decided whether the by-law in question is a success or not. In reply to the previous supplementary question, may I point out that the highway code does not alter the present position. I do not see what could be done short of putting another set of notices all round these towns, which is undesirable. The matter is much better left as it is at present.

Does not my hon. and gallant Friend think that the local authorities he has mentioned should come into line with the other local authorities?

I will ask my hon. Friend whether he will consider that suggestion.

The Committee will remember that we have now come to the last three of the 30 days which, under the arrangement that was come to, were allocated to the Committee stage of the Bill. I am going to suggest to the Committee what seems to me to be the fairly obvious allocation of these three days, as follows. I suggest that to-day we might complete the Seventh Schedule, to which there are a large number of Amendments down, though I do not think any of them need take any long time. About half of them are consequential. Then I would suggest that to-morrow we should finish the remainder of the original Schedules to the Bill. There is not very much on any of these, with the exceptions of a few Amendments to the Eighth Schedule. Possibly, after that, to-morrow night, we might start the new Schedules (Provisions as to Franchise). That would give us at any rate the whole of Wednesday, and I should hope part of to-morrrow, for the new Franchise Schedule. I only submit this to the Committee as being, as I have said, the fairly obvious allocation of the time, as we are now pretty near the end, and I hope it may be possible to do it in that way.

I feel a certain responsibility for the subject dealt with in the Amendment before the Committee, because I was Chairman of the Sub-Committee of the Joint Select Committee which heard the evidence on this subject presented by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Welling-borough (Wing-Commander James). I cannot say that I look back on the way in which I dealt with this subject as being one of the most successful of my efforts. The real truth is that, in this subject of backward tracts or excluded areas, we are dealing with a neglected garden. It is not a question of His Majesty's Government at this moment doing something new, which is going to throw these people into a dangerous position. The fact is that we are dealing with a number of areas which, under the old administration of the Government of India, before the reforms altogether, had not, perhaps, been dealt with with the discrimination which their particular problems demanded.

We listened on Friday to a most interesting speech from my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Sir R. Craddock), but we are dealing, for instance in the Central Provinces, with a large number of tracts which have not only been already under the full operation of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, but which were, if I am right, never even specially treated under the Scheduled Districts Act; and the proposal which is now being put to His Majesty's Government, which was put to the Simon Commission, and which was put to the Joint Select Committee, is that something new ought to be done to protect these areas. What can we reasonably do at this moment? What is it that the needs of these special districts demand? We are dealing, roughly speaking, with two broad classes of areas. One is composed of those areas which have a homogeneous primitive population. Of these, certain tracts are already in the Schedule. We are also dealing with a number of tracts where the aboriginal population exists side by side with, generally, an Hindu population. That is the case, I think, with most of the tracts in the Central Provinces. There are tracts which it is proposed in the Amendment to schedule as partially excluded areas, where the aboriginal population is not claimed to be more than from 25 to 60 per cent.

For dealing with these two broad classes of difficult areas, the Bill provides no fewer than three methods—the method of total exclusion, the method of partial exclusion, and the method of dealing with the areas under the Governor's special responsibility for minorities. As between these methods we wasted, I think, a considerable amount of time on the Sub-Committee of the Joint Select Committee in considering the relative merits of total and partial exclusion. It does not seem to me to matter very much. Personally, I should consider that partial exclusion in itself gives so much protection that the question whether it should be total or partial is merely a matter of administrative convenience, on which the arguments are very even either way. But is even partial exclusion a possible way of dealing with areas where the aboriginal population and what I may call for short the ordinary population exist side by side?

We never get on to this subject without somebody talking about the "Jungle Book"; but the chief impression left on my mind by the "Jungle Book" is precisely that of an aboriginal population existing in a semi-settled, semi-nomadic condition in the midst of an ordinary agricultural population. Is it possible to deal effectively with that problem by the exclusion of a whole area, and what is the extent to which such a situation can be dealt with under the Governor's special responsibility for minorities? Can the Governor, in his ordinary special responsibility to minorities, for instance, issue an ordinance excluding the application of a particular piece of agrarian legislation from application of particular populations or particular tracts of land within one of these broad areas? Our real trouble to-day—and I think it is the feeling of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough and of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) and of those supporting this Amendment—is, frankly, that this subject has been so neglected in the past that we have not a reasoned and fully stated body of knowledge on which we can judge the situation and what we ought to do. The Joint Select Committee assumed in its report—I do not say that it recommended—that this question would be dealt with by Order in Council and not be in the Bill at all, and that would at least have given time for a full inquiry, for the collection of information and the opinions of local administrators, and it would have been possible to issue an Order in Council with full knowledge before the appointed day when provincial autonomy comes into operation.

In dealing with the matter at the moment we are bound to do it on very imperfect information and on such recommendations from local governments as, I have no doubt, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will give us in a moment. Therefore, all I can do as a contribution to this discussion is to suggest one or two broad principles. In the first place, wherever there is a homogenous population occupying a district of this kind without any great intermixture of other more advanced populations, that area should be totally or partially excluded, even if it be very small and even if it be so large—as may be the case in Orissa—as seriously to diminish the area over which the Provincial Legislature will be able to legislate. Whether that exclusion demands a form of total exclusion or partial exclusion, as I have said, I do not very much care. Secondly, I suggest that we should have a clear definition of the special responsibilities of the Governor outside exclusion towards minorities whose needs cannot be dealt with by the wholesale withdrawal of a region from the operation of ordinary legislation. Thirdly, I would suggest that this Schedule should give power to the Secretary of State to add other areas by Order in Council either at any date before the appointed day when provincial autonomy comes into operation, or, if that does not leave time enough, say, within one or two years after the appointed day. Meanwhile, and starting at once, cannot we have such a survey of the problem and a collection of data laid before this House in the form of a report as will enable it to feel that it really has the facts before it and is capable of judging?

It is the most difficult problem in the world as to exactly how far you are to keep back in cold storage the aboriginal population, and as to how far and how fast you are to lead it on towards absorption into the wider community around it. That problem may have different answers from different sections of the same people. I should imagine, for instance, that the hill dwelling parts of the population are far less advanced than the plain dwelling parts, and that in the plain dwelling parts there might be a very good argument for not excluding them from the ordinary operation of legislation and administration under the new system. But let us, by the laying of a report before this House, have the facts upon which we feel that we can come to a considered judgment, for at the present moment neither the Statutory Commission nor the Joint Select Committee nor His Majesty's Government have been able to give the House sufficient guidance for a decision upon this most important matter.

In view of the fact that this Debate started at our last sitting and of the speech which has just been made, I think that it would be advisable if I present to the Committee at this stage the problem of the excluded and partially excluded areas as it appears to the Government. The speeches to which we have listened have all shown great evidence of the importance which the House of Commons attaches to these aboriginals, either in a wholly excluded or a partially excluded area. I had the privilege myself of sitting on the subcommittee of the Joint Select Committee over which my Noble Friend presided. All of us there were impressed by the sincerity of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James), who himself has had experience of these areas and of these tribes. The members of these tribes are such as to endear themselves to members of the Committee. They are of attractive disposition, free and friendly, and it would be the first wish of British legislators to do their best to look after them and to consider their economic and social welfare. Some hon. Members who have had the opportunity perhaps of meeting them in a shooting expedition in Central India know that they would do their best to provide any hon. Member with game, either large or small, and that by their general sportsmanship and their attractive character they would endear themselves to any hon. Member who had the privilege of having contact with them. Not only in these casual contacts, but also under the examination of specialists, who interest themselves in the aboriginal tribes of India, they reveal characteristics which should be of great interest to the Committee and cause us to insist upon attending to this matter with the utmost care and consideration.

My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan), speaking from his long experience, informed the Committee further upon some of these tribes. He referred to the Report of the Statutory Commission, and my Noble Friend the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) referred to the Report of the Joint Select Committee. The assessment of my Noble Friend was perfectly correct, that, if he wishes more to be done by the way of partial or total exclusion of these areas, it is not to the advice of either of these authoritative bodies that he must look. But I must warn the Committee that it was not the proposal of the Statutory Committee nor of the Joint Select Committee that other areas, taking the broad question raised, should be added to the list than His Majesty's Government have included in the Bill. We have included in the Schedule those areas which were laid before the Joint Select Committee, and I do not think that the Noble Lord or the hon. Member for Finchley put before us exactly the point of view that they have given us the advantage of hearing on this Amendment. However, it is not through any criticism of His Majesty's Government's inclusions in this Schedule that we are approaching the subject but, as the Noble Lord said, with a view to exploring a deserted garden. I cannot, however, accept the suggestion that the garden has been as long neglected as the Noble Lord made out.

These questions were examined thoroughly by the Statutory Committee and by the Joint Select Committee. The long Amendment now before us has been submitted by us to the closest examination and has been submitted to every Provincial Government concerned in India and to the Government of India. So far as time permits, I shall do my best to give the Committee some of the information that has come to us on the subject of the areas proposed by the Amendment either to be totally or partially excluded. Let me at once remove any anxiety on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley. I congratulate him on having returned from a visit to the head hunters. The hon. Member will realise, I hope with satisfaction, that the undertaking that he gave to the head hunters that he would do his best to look after their wishes and exclude them from the operations of the Bill has actually been already fulfilled.

I knew perfectly well that the Naga hill tribes had been excluded, and I was giving them as an example of the ordinary hill tribesmen of India.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. The Naga hill tribes, to which he devoted some part of his remarks, will be excluded among the totally excluded areas in the Bill. I do not think that I can accept the suggestion of my hon. Friend that they do represent literally and exactly the various other bill tribes, which I shall endeavour to consider in some detail. They have the somewhat unpleasant habit of which my hon. Friend spoke. Apart from that fact, they are very much isolated from the rest of India. In the district in which they are situated they fall very easily into the category of total exclusion. Before I further examine the Amendment I would repeat that every authoritative body that has examined the question, every Provincial Government to whom we have submitted it, and also the Government of India, hold certain views which it would be right at this stage to lay before the Committee.

Let me take, first, the question of the excluded areas. The general principle upon which we have come to the decision with regard to total exclusion is that those areas should be few and be selected with great care and that their total exclusion should be justified. We have, therefore, included the areas which hon. Members will have noticed in the Sixth Schedule. We have consulted the Government of India and the Provincial Governments concerned as to what opportunity there is for other total exclusions, and as a result of investigation we have found it possible to give an undertaking that at a later stage of the Bill we will submit proposals to omit certain other areas from the operation of the Measure and add them to the totally excluded areas. The areas which we have in mind are the Laccadive Islands, including the Amindivi Islands and Minicoy, and in Assam the North Cachar Hills District. We have also named those two isolated areas in the Punjab, Spiti and Lahaul. These areas we shall be prepared to put in Part I because they seem to us to justify the description that I have given for the category of total exclusion.

When we come to consider some of the other areas mentioned on the Order Paper, we find that they do not in any particular correspond to that general description of total exclusion, and for three main reasons it would be unwise totally to exclude them from the operation of the reforms. Let me remind the Committee that total exclusion implies that those areas will come under the Governor in his discretion and that therefore the administration of the areas will be a direct responsibility of the Governor himself. The administrative difficulty which would arise out of the isolation of certain of the areas contained in the Amendment, and their total exclusion, would be very great, particularly if the area were a small one. An area, for example, which came wholly under the direction of the Governor would very likely not be able to profit by the general scheme of administration, whether it be in education or other matters, so that the results of the administrative difficulty would be more than we can contemplate.

The second difficulty that we have in regard to the question of total exclusion is that many of the areas mentioned in the list of the Amendment have been already under the existing reforms since they were brought into operation in 1919. In Madras I am told by the Governor of Madras that the Nallamalai Hills, in Kurnool District, have always been subject to the ordinary administration. In the Central Provinces the Dindori Tahsil of Mandla District and the Garchiroli Tahsil, have been under the present reforms and have had the franchise. In Bihar and Orissa the Ranchi District, except the town and suburbs of Ranchi, have already been included in the existing reform scheme and therefore for over 12 years have enjoyed the benefit of the reforms. It would therefore be very difficult for the Committee at this stage suddenly to suggest, in view of the administrative difficulties to which I have referred, that these districts, which have already been benefiting from the reforms, should be totally excluded from their operation. I can assure the Committee that such a proposal would be received with intense dissatisfaction in India, and the dissatisfaction arising from such a proposal would operate against the future happiness of the areas which it is proposed should be totally excluded.

Let me deal with another question. I will take the percentage of aboriginals in some of these areas. There are, for example, in the United Provinces two areas which it is proposed totally to exclude. The percentage of men of lower caste, whether aboriginal or not, in each of these areas is very small. In Garwhal the population is made up somewhat as follows. There are about 245,000 Rajputs, 101,000 Brahmins, and only 68,000 men of lower caste. The proportions in the Almora District are very much the same. There are large numbers of Rajputs and Brahmins; the figures correspond closely to those in Garwhal, while the number of Hindus of lower castes and the number of aboriginals is only 90,000.

The characteristically small percentage of aboriginals in the areas proposed to be totally excluded by the amendment is also a feature of the areas in Bihar and Orissa. In the Damin-i-koh there are only 25 per cent. of aboriginals according to our advices from the local Government. In view of the administrative difficulties and the fact that many of the areas have been under the reforms for some years, as well as the small percentage of aboriginals in a large number of the areas which we have not been able to accept for total exclusion, I submit that it would be very improper and invidious to do so, and that it would alienate the population in the surrounding districts. Let me remind the Committee that the Almora and Garwhal Brahmins are some of the most prominent people in the provincial services of the United Provinces. Garwhal is also a centre for the recruitment of the Indian Army, and it is one of the most sacred centres of the Hindu religion. The Holy Himalaya contains the sacred place of Badrinat, and to suggest total exclusion at this stage would I think be unwise, because it would alienate these classes whom we ought to try to interest in the future of the aboriginals.

It seems, however, that the Noble Lord and others are not so much interested in total exclusion but are ready, if we can help them, to consider the matter of partial exclusion. Total exclusion is extremely difficult; let me consider for a moment partial exclusion. The problem which the Committee has to face in dealing with partial exclusion is that these areas have a population which is partly aboriginal and partly the ordinary agricultural population of the Province. There are in many of the areas which it is suggested should be partially excluded small pockets of aboriginals whom it would be almost impossible to pick out and surround with a ring fence. To use the garden metaphor of the hon. Member, the aboriginals do not always stick to their own particular garden border; these blooms are to be found in every part of the garden, and it makes it difficult to pick out a particular bed of aboriginals and ring it round with a small fence. That is why we have had great difficulty in including certain aboriginal areas as partially excluded areas, but in Part II of the Schedule there are a number of areas which can definitely be classed as partially excluded areas.

If an examination is made in detail of some of the areas which it is suggested should be excluded you will find that great injustice would be done if they were classed as partially excluded areas. Take the Province of Bengal, and the Sherpur and Susung Parganas of the Mymensingh District. There are in that district, so we are informed by the Bengal Government, only 34,000 Garos in a population for the whole district of 4,000,000. In the Parganas the number of aboriginal are but a small proportion of the population, and to pick out this particular district as a partially excluded area would make it almost impossible to deal with the problem when you are considering the rest of the Province and the various minorities in the Province. In the same way, the tribes in the Nilgiri Hills are mixed up with the rest of the population, and it is almost impossible to schedule them as a partially excluded area. In Bombay we have asked the Provincial Government to investigate the districts referred to in the Amendment. They were not declared backward tracts under the present Act, and they are unsuitable for inclusion in the partially excluded areas under the present Bill. The Bombay Government consider that it would result in extra cost and considerable difficulty, and, in addition, there is no demand on the part of the districts.

When the Under-Secretary refers to the present Act, is he referring to the 1919 Act?

I am referring to Section 52, paragraph A of the 1919 Act. None of these areas in Bombay were regarded as backward areas under that Act. In considering the Central Provinces we see most clearly the difficulty of picking out certain of these aboriginal areas and attempting to make them into partially excluded areas. In certain districts of the Central Provinces, although the aboriginals are found in preponderating numbers in certain parts unmixed with the rest of the population, for the most part you will find a pocket here and a rather larger number there, and it is extremely difficult to pick out a district like the Mehlgat Tahsil of the Amrasti District, which is a very small area, in which there are but a small number of aboriginals who are mixed with the rest of the population. It is in the partially excluded areas that we are up against the problem of these pockets of aboriginals. We have included in the Schedule as many partially excluded areas as we can find which correspond to the Noble Lord's requirement of being a homogeneous unit, but we cannot find, as at present advised, in his long list other areas which are susceptible to the definition of being homogeneous units.

The Noble Lord referred to the possibility of dealing with these pockets of aboriginals under the special responsibilities of the Governor-General. I understand from reading the evidence of Dr. Hutton and from the speeches which have been made that the Committee will be anxious to secure that a too rapid land alienation will not take place in these areas, that the operation of the revenue law in a particular area will be satisfactory and that they will receive proper educational facilities. I am asked by the Noble Lord whether in order to deal with the problem of land alienation and the application of the Tenancy Act to the area it would be possible for the Governor-General to do so as a special responsibility. On this point let me refer the Committee to the Instrument of Instructions to the Governor-General in dealing with minorities. The Instruments of Instructions to the Governor-General and Governors in dealing with minorities has always had in mind the possibility that the special responsibility should be used, if necessary, in cases of pockets of aboriginals, and if the Committee will turn to paragraph X dealing with the special responsibility of the Governors, as defined in the Instrument of Instructions, they will see that it reads as follows:

"Our Governor shall interpret his special responsibility for the safeguarding of the legitimate interests of minorities as requiring him to secure, in general, that those racial or religious communities for the members of which special representation is accorded in the Legislature—

This is the part to which I would call the attention of the Committee—

and those classes who, whether on account of the smallness of their number of their lack of educational or material advantages or from any other cause, cannot as yet fully rely for their welfare on joint political action in the Legislature, shall not suffer, or have reasonable cause to fear, neglect or oppression."

Those words in the Instrument of Instructions were intended to indicate to the Governor that he should use his special responsibilities for minorities, and, in particular, for aboriginals and backward tribes, and there is no doubt under his special responsibility it will be possible for him, in the words of the Noble Lord, to issue an ordinance to deal with particular populations in a particular way. The special responsibility, however, as defined in this Bill, in all matters operates within the sphere of action of the ministers, and, in the first place, it will be reasonable to hope that, in company with his own ministers, he can make the necessary arrangements. There are certain arrangements in force with regard to education, land alienation or tenancy in the Central Provinces, and it will be hoped that such arrangements will continue. In the event, however, of a quarrel with the ministers, the Governor would certainly be entitled to take the action to which the Noble Lord referred. The Committee may ask how can the Governor keep himself informed; how can he know that the situation is not deteriorating in one of those particular pockets of aboriginals, or that, say, in a little district the small tribe to which the hon. and gallant Member referred might be oppressed? How is the Governor of Madras to know how to start negotiations with ministers for the improvement of conditions, or, in the last and unpleasant resort, to use his own special powers under this Bill?

We have investigated this matter with as much sympathy as possible, and some time ago my right hon. Friend submitted a suggestion to local governments as to the possible appointment of an officer who should have the welfare of these particular backward tribes at heart. I am informed that the Government of Bombay have already such an officer and a board to deal with aboriginals and advise the local government, and on their advice it is possible for the local government to take action in cases where action is necessary. I can appreciate that the Committee feel anxious that there might not be sufficient information to deal with these areas. Therefore, the Government are quite ready, in submitting their draft of the Instrument of Instructions at a later date to the House, to give the assurance to the Committee now that, if the Committee so desire, some reference to this need for regular information being supplied to the Governor should be inserted, and the general wording of the Instrument of Instructions, advising the Governor of the method in which he should use his special responsibility, should also be reviewed at the same time, in order to try to meet the desire of hon. and right hon. Members who have raised this question in Debate in Committee. I am perfectly ready to give that assurance on behalf of my right hon. Friend whom I had the privilege of consulting over the week-end. We are extremely anxious to find the best possible solution for these areas. I have shown to the Committee the great difficulties of total exclusion, the partial difficulties of partial exclusion and the impossibility of further defining, as we can see it at present, homogeneous areas which it is possible partially to exclude.

In conclusion, I must warn the Committee of the general attitude on these matters of our advisers in India, of all the governments and of His Majesty's Government here. While we do not for a moment deny the importance of special measures for these areas, if we have to choose between assimilation or segregation, we go on as before with assimilation. Segregation, we feel, may not in every case meet the proper desires and needs of such areas. In certain areas, seats will be provided in the Legislature, and I believe that the arrangement made will be for the proper care and the proper welfare of these areas. But it would be disastrous at this stage to take any step which could alienate the public opinion of what may be called the advanced communities in India whom we wish to interest in the welfare of the backward areas. Let us look to the future. If at this moment we decide on a ring-fence policy and segregate as many areas as we can, we put off to a later date the chance of assimilating the backward areas in the general polity of India, and the Government are certain that if we insist on a policy of wholesale segregation, it will be unlikely to confer a benefit upon those areas commensurate with the discrimination against a majority of the population which would be felt by certain classes in India whom we wish to interest in these matters. We, therefore, regret that we are unable to accept the Amendment on the Order Paper, but I have given the assurance that we shall be ready to look into the matter in the sense I have indicated.

The Under-Secretary of State has for many months been most tolerant of my importunings on this subject, and in his defence this afternoon of these miserable, misleading proposals of the Government he has my most sincere sympathy. We recognise that he is not responsible for policy, and he is in an impossible position in trying to defend the policy of the Government in this matter. This problem of the backward tribes, as the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) said, has been allowed to slide all through. It has been a matter of no interest to anybody except to a few cranks like myself. These unfortunate people have always gone to the wall in politics, as in real life. In spite of what the Under-Secretary said, this subject has never been thoroughly examined. The Montagu-Chelmsford Report was quite clear on that point. It said this—I am quoting from the reference to the Report in the Simon Commission's report:

"There were certain backward areas to which the reforms could not apply and the typically backward areas should be administered by the Governors. Both the definition of these areas and their constitutional arrangements after the reforms were left for further consideration."

Therefore, naturally when the Under-Secretary referred to the 1919 Act and said that the areas in Bombay to which he referred were not at that time scheduled, all that had happened was that they were just allowed to slide. They were not scheduled then because they were not bothered about. The Statutory Commission was equally clear, and went so far as to say that, unless the primitive tribes were entrusted to the Centre, their interests would be overlooked. I am not going to bore the Committee or the Under-Secretary by quoting paragraph after paragraph, but all of them in the survey and recommendations of the Simon Commission make that clear. I would, however, like to call attention to this point. It is commonly assumed that the drafting of the Statutory Commission's Report was the work of the present Foreign Secretary. We all know with what care he avoids ever letting himself be put in the wrong. And how, if there is any doubt that he might not be correct, he inserts some phrase that enables him later to express a slightly different opinion. The argument that by so doing, while he is never likely to be put in the wrong, and is never wholly in the right, does not apply here, because that survey has never been contested, and the unqualified recommendation was that this matter should be the subject of further consideration.

Then we come to the Joint Select Committee. By no stretch of the imagination can it be said, with deference to the members of the Joint Select Committee present, that this Schedule implements the recommendation of that Committee. The reference on page 222, paragraph 378, shows that quite clearly. They said that there were matters for subsequent delimitation, and that those matters should be looked into—not that this matter should be dealt with finally in the Act, as there would not have been time for the needed survey. I think there would have been time if the Government had gone ahead with the survey, for which some of us asked nearly two years ago but they let the matter slide again, and now they have to tinker with the Instrument of Instructions to get round the mess they have made. I apologise for speaking with some heat, but I feel very strongly on this matter. I have spent a good many months in those backward areas in three separate Provinces, in not one of which is there any exclusion at all.

The Secretary of State, as he showed in the Debate on Clause 92 of this Bill, is completely misinformed. He said in this House on 22nd March, in a speech of a few minutes, four things which were definitely and provably contrary to the facts. He said, for example, that there was no part of our administration in India of which we could be more justifiably proud than our administration of these backward areas. The Franchise Committee, which also incidentally recommended further examination, referred to the injustice and oppression which those areas have suffered in the past at the hands of

"the ignorance of administration and legislation as to their special customs and conditions."

Then he said that the proposals of the Government did not cover the whole of the primitive population of India, but that they did cover those populations which are self-contained. That, of course, is the line on which the Under-Secretary has now gone. That is not the case. The Census Commission's report, 1931, shows that clearly. Take Bombay. There are 2,841,000 aboriginals in that Province. It cannot be contended that there are not very large areas with an overwhelming preponderance of aboriginal populations in Bombay. I have spent weeks and months in the areas. I do not profess to be an ethnologist or an anthropologist, but I know a Bhil when I see one. There are the Central Provinces, with 4,065,000 of these people, and huge areas as is so well known to the hon. Member for the English. Universities (Sir R. Craddock), and like part of South Chanda, which I know well, where you have 95 per cent. of population Dravidian, Madras has 1,266,000 of these people. I do not pretend that they are wholly in homogeneous areas, but there are large tracts which should well and properly be excluded. The principle of exclusion is not in dispute. What is good for one area surely cannot be bad for another area where the same conditions appertain?

Will the Under-Secretary reveal to the Committee the objections raised by the local Governments? If he will do that we shall be able to answer them. I am not prepared to guess, though I think I could do so fairly accurately, what the objections were. Will the Under-Secretary tell us in some detail what the objections were? I do not mind if the local Government is frightened of some particular politician. That is not a valid objection. My hon. Friend talked about the intense objection of those intellectuals whose help we want to secure. I can only say that the few prominent Indian politicians with whom in years gone by I have talked over this subject in India have never displayed the faintest interest in this subject. It was entirely outside their ken. They may be a little bit worried now about losing a little sphere of influence, but can anyone see a Poona Brahmin giving up anything willingly?

Then there is the question of cost. That is answered in the evidence and the discussion of the Joint Select Committee, as referred to in question No. 1675. At one time I thought that perhaps the Scheduled Districts Act might be applied, but the Act is entirely out of date and many of the names in it I cannot even recognise. Might not the Government consider reviving in some form the wide powers of certification that exist under the Scheduled Districts Act? Under the Bill areas excluded or partially excluded can revert, as and when they become fit, to normal government, and we would like to see them do so in due course, but there is no power whatever for a reverse procedure. If the Committee let this Schedule go through as it is, the matter is entirely out of their hands and in the hands of these local Governments, which I regret to say, are in many cases entirely hostile. I have had put into my hands this weekend a book which was published in Bombay last year. It is written by an unofficial Indian, Mr. A. N. Weling, and is a little study of one particular tribe. The author says in his preface that it is a revised version of the thesis that he submitted for his M. A. degree at Bombay University in 1930. He says, in his preface:

"Want of practical sympathy, or rather a right apprehension of the value and importance of anthropological research on the part of Indian administrative officers has at times proved an insurmountable obstacle in the way of giving the subject a thorough treatment."

That is the recent testimony of an unofficial Indian in a book published in Bombay. It refers to only three years ago, and in Bombay of all the Presidencies, because the particular tribe, the Katkaris, that he investigated is in Bombay Presidency, which is not by any means the most backward or benighted of the Provinces.

Then a lot of play was made on the ground that we must not upset the practice now in operation, particularly with reference to the Central Provinces. It is said, "The areas that you wish to exclude are already under normal provincial government; how then can we at this stage put them under any other form of government?" They have drifted under normal government in many cases comparatively recently. Many of these areas have been only relatively recently administered at all, or at least thoroughly administered, and to say that we are to continue the existing administration surely ignores one very important fact, and that is that the administration up to a few years ago was largely in the hands of Europeans, or under the direct supervision of Europeans who had a natural and strong sympathy with these people.

I call to mind being in the backward area of a Province 10 years or so ago. I shall not name the area, because I do not want to hurt anyone's feelings. It was a fairly remote backward area, which under the Bill has no exclusion or partial exclusion whatever given to it. When I went there for the first time the local subordinate British officer of the Indian Civil Service took a tremendous interest in the particular tribe among whom I spent a few months. I went back to the same area two years later. The official had been replaced by a most charming and excellent Indian gentleman, in every way efficient, I have no doubt, and a very nice person, but he neither knew nor cared anything whatever about the aboriginals in the area. That was the trouble. The former official enjoyed travelling and camping among them, and shooting with them. Mr. — sat in his office, made up his files and the Banyas and Labour recruiters had full swing. That is a point in which hon. Members on the Labour benches should take a particular interest. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn (Sir W. Smiles) is not present. He spoke briefly the other night, and told me that he could not be here to-day. He has personal knowledge of aboriginal labour recruitment. My hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities will know what real hardship is caused in these areas by recruiting for tea gardens in distant lands. These people must have supervision to prevent the grossest exploitation in this respect. Not all the recruiting is exploitation, of course, not by a very long way, but it is a general practice particularly capable of unscrupulous exploitation, particularly by Indians themselves.

The hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) asked whether some of the areas that we have put into our proposed Amendment of the Schedule are not too small to be administratively possible. The answer is no! There is no area in our Schedule as small as one of the areas already in the Government's list. If the areas we have put down are examined with the aid of a map you will find that some of the smaller ones are not isolated as they look on the Order Paper but are contiguous to other areas already included or recommended for official exclusion, so that in effect administratively they would come within larger homogeneous areas. People with very great experience of the administration of these particular areas, people with very much more experience than the Provincial secretariats which advise the Government, have no doubt whatever as to the case with which these areas could be excluded and administered when excluded.

The Under-Secretary made play with the population of Garwhal. I am not going to reply in detail to his criticism of our Schedule. We did not classify the Garwhali for the purpose of our Amendment as primitive at all. We suggested the exclusion for Garwhal on the ground that the Garwhali are so racially distinct from the people under whom they would come, that they would be happier and better, and much less likely to cause subsequent trouble, if they were excluded at this stage, always bearing in mind that if at a later stage the reforms work well, or these people want it, they can be put back.

The Government's conscience is clearly uneasy on the subject. I consider that the concessions offered of three areas, one of which is already in effect totally excluded, I am reminded, by Snow, another which is already totally excluded in effect by the Indian Ocean, and a third which is of no importance or size, is one that the Government happens to have failed to exclude before only owing to an oversight—those concessions simply are not worth anything. I very much hope that, unless the Government are prepared to indicate that on the Report stage they will give an assurance that they do not intend here and now to close the door which has been open to them for all these years, the Committee will for once in a way, on a matter which involves no principle, divide against the Government on this issue and defeat it.

I do not propose to occupy the time of the Committee for more than a few minutes. But like others I have been deeply interested in this debate as it has developed, and, if I may say so, particularly interested in the extremely able speech, so full of knowledge and practical information, which has been delivered by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James). I know that other Members who have made a special study of this topic wish to take part in the discussion, and the only contribution which I desire to make at this moment, until I am a little further informed, is of an entirely general character.

I do not quite understand what is the position either of the Government or of some of my hon. Friends who are criticising the Government. I understood that by this Bill we were conferring the great boon and blessing of self-government upon the democracy and peoples of India; that the educative value of the representative institutions, working as they have done in the West, would in the East be the greatest elevating force and the greatest stabilising and sobering force, that could possibly be applied to the population of India; that there you would find that this sense of responsibility, the grant of the franchise, would bring the people forward very much more rapidly and bridge the gulf which may have been existing between the East and the West. That, I understood, was the position of those who support this Bill; and that the vote has never been given because of fitness to exercise it, but is given as a form of protection, and the more helpless people are, it is argued, the more they stand in need of this form of protection. Now I am frankly puzzled. I hope to have my doubts removed and my mind clarified in the course of this debate but now it appears that these blessings are to be withheld from these alleged primitive peoples.

Since the right hon. Gentleman has charged those of us who are supporters of the Bill with inconsistency—

No, I have made no charge at all.

As he has, I think, suggested that there is inconsistency on our part, in regard to this particular point at any rate, may I say that we are quite consistent because this proposal does not affect Indian self-government. These peoples are quite distinct from the bulk of the population and my purpose is to urge that they should not be put under domination, as alien as and as yet much less sympathetic than ours. May I also, for the second time beg the right hon. Gentleman not to prostitute a legitimate committee point by using it for a general attack upon the principles of the Bill? There is nothing whatever in this Amendment to justify that.

While I gave way to my hon. and gallant Friend I must point out again that I was making no charge at all and that he has in fact sought to reply to my speech in controversial fashion before I have been able to complete it. However, unabashed by his warnings and unmoved by his appeal I continue, if I may, to continue to put these necessary points. There are, we are told, 22,000,000 people involved in this proposal. We are assured that these people are too primitive to be allowed to share in the advantages and boons of liberty, of responsibility, of the franchise and of the Parliamentary and legislative institutions which you are going to confer on the rest of that vast population. The speeches which we have heard seem to indicate that if these people were included in the ordinary scope of the functions of the Provincial Governments or of the Federal Government their lot would be worse than it will be if they are left outside the scheme. That statement very much disquiets me.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough spoke of the disaster of leaving these 22,000,000 people in unscrupulous Indian hands. Apparently, he contemplates that when the new bodies which we are calling into being have come into existence there will be a far lower range of government and administration in operation than is attained at the present time. My hon. and gallant Friend takes a warm and philanthropic interest in the affairs of these primitive tribes with whom he has come in contact and wishes to save them from the evils which apparently he apprehends. But, on the other hand, we are told of all the blessings which this Bill has to offer and I really do not see how any logical argument can be held on the basis of such a contradiction. It is clear however that there is general agreement, in principle though not in detail, between the Government and the hon. and gallant Gentleman and his friends. The Government too, by their own exclusions, admit that there are large areas and large populations whose fortunes they will not entrust to these new bodies which they are creating.

The speech of the Under-Secretary seemed to me to admit that these people or some of them at any rate would be better off if they were excluded. He agreed, partly, with my hon. and gallant Friend that some of them would be much better off if they were left outside this great liberating Measure. One thing which the Under-Secretary said struck me very much. He said that one of the difficulties of leaving out all these classes and districts enumerated in the Amendment was that it would alienate the opinion of the rest of the people of India. I suppose that means that those other people will be jealous at seeing all these districts and all these 22,000,000 people being allowed to continue in their present condition—which is admitted to be better than the condition into which they would be forced under the new system. Apparently it is feared that the people who are not excluded will say, "This is not fair. We are to have all these boons of democratic and modern Western institutions and here are these other people who are to be free from them." Naturally, the people who are in that position will envy the people who are being left alone and who are not to be subjected to the species of ingenious modern mental torments which constitute the higher forms of political thought at the present time.

We ought to know clearly from the Government and the supporters of the Bill whether they consider that the probable condition of these people, as they will be under the operation of the Bill, is worse or is better than their present condition. If their probable future condition under the Bill is regarded as worse than their present condition, then it is quite right to exclude these areas, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will not reject the Amendment. I shall certainly vote to exclude them. I am convinced from the admissions which have been made—and the fact that they are unconscious admissions makes them much more impressive—that the condition of these people will deteriorate under the proposed new system. I am satisfied that the more we can exclude from the operation of the Bill the better. I like this longer list. I like it much better than the Under-Secretary's list. The Under-Secretary proposes to exclude some millions but the Amendment would exclude no fewer than 22,500,000 people. If you have this feeling that you cannot trust the fortunes of these people in the hands of the new administration—to which you are going to entrust law and order, and every kind of vital function such as those connected with the police and the most difficult tasks of administration—if you think you cannot even trust them with administering the affairs of these primitive people surely you ought to pause. It might be argued that those to whom it is proposed to entrust the administration of these other matters know more about the primitive people than we do. Was not the whole idea of these proposals that Indian opinion was to be brought to bear on such problems? Did we not, hear the Lord President of the Council say how Indians would much prefer people of their own race and creed to white administrators?

I am at a loss to know on which ground the Government stand. Anyhow I know clearly that, for myself, the doubts which I have had all along are more than confirmed by the admissions which we are getting from people supporting the Bill, showing that they know that it will bring a worse form of government to India, and a less reliable form of administration and that they cannot trust these primitive tribes to the care of the new Indian bodies. The great issue of the government of a mighty land and such subjects as irrigation and police and revenue and so forth—all that we are told may be handed over to these new bodies. We are told that they can discharge those functions with perfect security. But when it comes to the administration of the primitive tribes, then sentimental reasons are advanced for taking another course and admissions are made which show that you know that the whole process in which you are engaged, means a great retrogression and decadence in the standard of administration in India to which you have reluctantly consented. I should be very glad indeed if the Under-Secretary were to accept the Amendment, and, even if my hon. and gallant Friend cared to add other districts to it, I should not object. I should not object indeed to including in it the entire scope of the great Indian peninsula. I am certain that the blessings which would be spread thereby would be gratefully received from one end of the continent to the other and really it would be the most happy exit we could find, after all this trouble and labour from the inconsistencies and contradictions of this Measure.

Though naturally not in agreement with all that he has said, I should like to pay a perfectly genuine compliment to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) who has just delivered a most brilliant debating speech. At the risk of being unpopular I should like to say how very refreshing the Committee found his contribution in contrast with orations of the dreary type which we sometimes hear in this House. The right hon. Gentleman has made a perfectly fair debating answer to the points which were put forward by my two hon. Friends behind me. Every argument used by my hon. and gallant Friend below the Gangway could be extended to the whole field of the franchise in India.

I am not concerned in this Amendment with the main principle of the Bill, but the point is that the Government have admitted the principle of excluding certain tribes and, once they have admitted that principle, I want them to apply it in the proper way.

My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. I was referring not to his speech but to that of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing - Commander James), and I think that whether one agrees or disagrees with the argument of the right hon. Gentleman one must in fairness admit that he was right in saying that my hon. and gallant Friend's argument could be extended to a far wider field than the excluded areas. But this is a very big issue and it would not be quite fair to say that the position occupied by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough is the same as the position occupied by the Government—for this reason. There have been, for generations past, ever since we attempted in India a system of real administration, areas corresponding to the excluded areas in the Bill. They have been treated as apart from the other areas in the particular provinces in which they were situated. Under what may be described without offence as a purely paternal government, prior to the reforms, prior even to the Morley-Minto Constitution, the method of administration in those areas was different from the method of administration in other areas. There were special officers responsible for them. Those Members of the Committee who are seized of what may be called the technical issues here involved will not have failed to notice that a great many of the charge's which my hon. and gallant Friend has brought—with perfect sincerity—are not so much charges against the present Government of India as against the general treatment of these excluded areas.

What do the Government propose to do? The Government in this Schedule propose to name certain areas which in the unanimous opinion of their experts—of the Government of India, I understand, and the Provincial Governments and official circles comprising in most cases the majority of Europeans—are held to be areas suitable for exclusion and roughly corresponding to those areas which both in the immediate and the remote past have been treated in a different way from other areas. But the whole trend of the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Welling borough and to some extent of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) was so to widen the areas of exclusion as to raise an entirely different set of problems. They propose not only to apply exclusion in those cases in which it has always been thought necessary, but to extend it to a great number of other tribes and in some cases sub-divisions of tribes. It is the genuine opinion of some of my hon. Friends who undoubtedly have wide experience that these people are in such a backward state that they cannot obtain or are not likely to obtain proper regard from the new government. Therefore, the attack—if it is to be called an attack—of the right hon. Gentleman on my hon. and gallant Friend is justified because the same arguments could be equally applied to some of the more backward people not in the list which my hon. and gallant Friend puts forward himself. He is in a dialectical difficulty, and I do not agree with that argument at all. This is not a party matter, and I hope we shall hear whether hon. Members opposite will support what I am going to say. I think they will. I believe far mere in assimilation than in isolation. I do not think you want to turn areas into modern Whipsnades where you have picturesque survivals and where Englishmen are able to go out and say, "This is a most interesting ethnological race of people divided by 500 or 1,000 years from the rest of India."

That is exactly what the Government are doing.

In the report of the hon. Member's own committee, they said, on page 109:

"The responsibility of Parliament for the backward tracts will not be discharged merely by securing to them protection from exploitation and by preventing those outbreaks which have from time to time occurred within their borders. The principal duty of the administration is to educate these peoples to stand on their own feet, and this is a process which has scarcely begun,"

and so on.

Will my Noble Friend read on?

Certainly; it goes on:

"Co-ordination of activity and adequate funds are principally required. The typical backward tract is a deficit area, and no provincial legislature is likely to possess either the will or the means to devote special attention to its particular requirements."

That is where the present Schedule comes in.

I was referring to the end of the paragraph, where it says:

"Only if responsibility for the backward tracts is entrusted to the Centre, does it appear likely that it will be adequately discharged."

Yes, but, as far as I know, there is no recommendation in the hon. Gentleman's report which would extend the definition of backward areas to the tribes and districts to which it is extended by the Amendment for which he is responsible. May I also point out another matter? It has been suggested in the Debate that this particular Schedule goes completely beyond the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee. It goes contrary to them in one sense, that the Committee suggested that the matter should be dealt with by Order in-Council. I do not know what the Government's attitude on this point will be, but if they are prepared to do that, I shall have no objection. It is, however, clear that my hon. Friends who are responsible for the Amendment would not be satisfied by any Order-in-Council which did not go nearly or entirely the length of their Amendment.

I hope the Noble Lord will not misrepresent us. What we have said is that this matter has not been surveyed.

There is no question of misrepresentation. I said that I understood from the speeches of my hon. Friends that they would not be content with any alteration of the existing Schedule, whether by Order-in-Council or otherwise, that did not go nearly or entirely the length which their Amendment goes; in other words, that their Amendment represents the object at which they are aiming. That raises a big question of principle, and I say that it would be impossible to exclude the areas which are placed in this Amendment to the Schedule without administrative difficulties of the greatest magnitude. You have a small district here surrounded entirely by administration districts, and 20 miles away another slightly larger excluded area, and it would be almost impossible—

I am most anxious to ascertain where my Noble Friend himself stands in this matter. Assuming that all these administrative difficulties could be overcome, would it be in accordance with his inclinations to allow these larger areas to be excluded?

No. My inclination is against having a large number of excluded areas. I believe that, except in the case of the areas already referred to in the Schedule and possibly one or two others such as those which the Government have already offered to consider, it would be in the interests of the Province as a whole and of the tribes themselves to be administered under the ordinary administration. I think we have to remember that we have put this Bill up, and this Committee has by its action, which I cannot criticise, put a very heavy responsibility upon both the Governor-General and the Governors. I think it would be greatly adding to those responsibilities to enlarge the excluded areas as proposed in this Amendment. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough is probably one of the prime authorities in this matter, but my experience of this House and this Committee tells me that it is not always safe to trust the greatest authorities on particular subjects to take a wholly common sense view of the situation, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend, who has made a personal study of this question and whose sympathy with these peoples we all recognise, is suggesting something which is administratively impracticable and also undesirable from the point of view of the interests of those people themselves.

I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will not think that I am making a personal attack on him when I say that I very much deprecate the references he made—perhaps I was wrong in reading a particular meaning into those references—to the officials in India, whether European or Indian. In the long years during which I had something to do with the administration of India I never saw any sign in the Government of India, in Provincial Governments, or in the officials of those Governments, whether Indian or British, of anything but complete sympathy with the excluded areas. I hope the Government will not alter the big general principle. Whether they think it wise or not to make a change on the question of the Orders-in-Council is a different matter. As a member of the Joint Select Committee, I cannot but support, as I think we all do, whatever may be our views on the Amendment, the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee, but supposing that Order-in-Council were changed in the direction wanted by my two hon. Friends, would they be willing to accept that?

The Noble Lord, if I heard him aright, said he was going to brighten up the Debate.

I never said anything of the sort. I never made the remotest reference to that. I paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Epping for the manner in which he had brightened up the Debate, and I am prepared in advance to pay tribute to the speech to which we are about to listen from the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood).

I would call in aid, against the arguments of the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), the views and acts of the hon. Member for North-West Manchester when he wars Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Twenty-nine years ago, the right hon. Gentleman the present Member for Epping was pushing through a Bill exactly like this for South Africa, and he excluded from the South African settlement the three areas of Bechuanaland, Swaziland, and Basutoland for precisely the same reasons that we are asking the Government to exclude these areas from India. Those reasons were that under the Constitution which we gave to South Africa there were no votes for the Bechuanas, the Swazis, and the Basutos. Therefore, we said we would exclude them and reserve the administration of those areas. Exactly the same arguments apply to these areas. These people have no votes, and, therefore, if they come under a Constitution with which they have no connection whatsoever, they should be excluded. If they had manhood suffrage, I would not say anything about it, but they have no votes whatever.

The hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) spoke of large masses of the population of these primitive tribes as being divided up among the other populations, that they were, as it were, mottled in the distribution of population. Do I understand that these people, because of their primitive character, would be deprived of the chance of obtaining the franchise, even if they lived in districts where the franchise and the ordinary reforms were operating?

They all belong to classes which are not enfranchised. When the right hon. Gentleman was in charge of the South African Bill, I wish he had also excluded the Trans Kei. I want to save these people in India from precisely the things from which the right hon. Gentleman saved those tribes in South Africa. It is exactly the same principle. I would like to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James), not merely on the presentation of his case, but on the whole way in which it has been supported. Never on any occasion during the passage of this Bill has an Amendment to the Bill been better prepared and organised. The objections raised by the Government really amount to two. In the first place, there is the administrative difficulty, and in the second place they say that there will be other people in these areas besides the aboriginals who would be shut off from the normal constitutional development in India and that they would object to being excluded from this Bill.

With regard to the administrative difficulties, let us observe that they come entirely from the Administration. The Administration's views on this particular question must, I think, be to a certain extent discounted. The Administration are to a certain extent in the dock, and they have not perhaps done all that they might have done for these backward tribes in India. At least, that is the argument in favour of increasing the number of excluded areas. Is it not natural that, when they have drafted their Bill and got their reasons accepted by the India Office here, when they have got the solution that they wish for, they will find every objection to excluding other tribes and increasing the number of scheduled areas? I think it is almost inevitable. They have a vested interest in the present position, and any change would naturally be one that they would counter by talking of the administrative difficulties.

The other objection is much more serious. The objection of the Under-Secretary of State was that in each of these areas there was a large number of Hindus or Mohammedans who would otherwise have their rights as citizens in the Provinces and elsewhere who would object to these areas being excluded. I do not believe there are many people in India who would not welcome exclusion from this Bill. But I am perfectly certain that the aboriginal inhabitants, these backward tribes, would object to a man to separation from the British Raj to be put under this Bill. The people whom we are asking help for now are people who unanimously would prefer British rule to this Bill. I think it is very probable that the others would as well.

If we have a certain number, of people, whether in India or elsewhere, who want unanimously to remain in the British Empire under British rule, have we the right to deprive them of their citizenship and of the rights which they enjoy to-day? We are treating all these backward tribes as though they were chattels who could be handed over either to the Indians or to Princes. The principle is all wrong. If people who have once had the advantages of British rule want to remain under British rule, we have no right to deprive them of it. That applies to the whole of India. If the whole of India objects to this Bill and wants the status quo then she is perfectly justified in demanding the status quo. It applies infinitely more to people who have no votes. Their interests must come first, and not administrative difficulties or the possibility of offending some Poona Brahmins who may live in the area.

The real reason why these people want to retain British rule is perfectly simple. If they are taken away from direct British rule, their land would be alienated, and they would be recruited for the tea plantations and elsewhere. Ordinarily labour recruiting is bad enough, but if you are dealing with people who have no education then labour recruiting becomes one of the most cruel forms of exploitation imaginable. They are taken away from their families, whom they never see again. They sign contracts which they know nothing about, and they are practically the slaves of the Khidmutgar. He is the man who is the foreman on the job. They all get in debt to him and can never get out of debt, and consequently they are enslaved for life. That sort of thing is bad enough anywhere in India, but when you are dealing with these absolutely savage people and you leave them at the mercy of the labour recruiter you are depriving them of their real right to live. It is not a question of exclusion or assimilation but of protecting these people until by the method of direct British rule they have sufficient education to be able to stand up for themselves and protect themselves by the vote.

Before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) rushed like a rogue elephant into a perfectly orderly part of the jungle—not only like a rogue elephant, but a very provocative rogue elephant, because he provoked the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), usually a most orderly elephant, into being disorderly—before that —I will not carry the simile any further or I may be thought to be rude—we were discussing the interests of the backward tribes, and I want to get back to the speech of the Under-Secretary, the only speech so far which has been really against the Amendment. I do not want to attack the Under-Secretary too bitterly for views which I do not believe he holds. I believe he is really with us in the spirit, like the Almighty, of whom the Scottish Minister said "The Almighty is forced to do many things in his official capacity which he would not do as a private individual." We are, after all, completely in the hands of the India Office. The hon. Gentleman never said that he was satisfied that the interests of the backward tribes would be adequately protected under the arrangement as suggested in the Bill. He chose his own examples when he went through this list. The Khondmals is almost solidly aboriginal. The hon. Gentleman appealed to the census figures, entirely omitting to mention the fact that the census is done on a linguistic basis which is not accepted as a guide by expert anthropologists. I think the Amendment goes too far. I am grateful to the Government for the areas that are included in the Sixth Schedule of the Bill, but I feel that one must admit that the situation is not satisfactory, that it never really has been looked into. I want to appeal to my hon. Friend on this ground. The Movers said that the people behind this Amendment are loyal supporters of the Government. I suggest that for once the Government make some concessions to their friends.

What about Lancashire?

I shall come to other backward tracts later on. I suggest that concessions have been made to every form of critic and enemy of the Government, and I think that supporters of the Government are due for a little consideration. This is a political question rather than an anthropological question. The anthropologists are united in the sense of this Amendment. The answers must be political; the case is a political case. The case is not that we accuse Indian political opinion of being hostile or neglectful with regard to the backward tribes, but that it is not fair firstly to the tribes, secondly to the provincial legislatures, to place them in charge of the legislatures. The Government have admitted as much. The real basis of the case is not that there will be wilful neglect, but that inevitably economies will be made when it comes to spending more on an area. Orissa is a deficit Province at the best of times. I cannot think that the future of a deficit area in a deficit Province will be particularly rosy. I should be very sorry indeed to have to vote against the Government on this question, but I cannot see that a promise at any rate to give this matter serious consideration would impinge on any provisions of the Bill, nor can I see that a promise to extend these areas is committing the Government to anything final. Any inclusion in the Sixth Schedule can always be gone back on at a moment's notice. I shall vote against the Government if the Under-Secretary does not make any further concession either in detail or in his attitude. If he fails to make a concession, I hope that there will be the largest possible vote against the Government.

Perhaps I might shorten the proceedings in Committee if I made a suggestion now to the Under-Secretary in view of the fact that this Amendment is not, like so many, either a suggestion to insert something in the Bill or to take something out. It is merely a suggestion to improve on what appears in the Bill. In view of the fact that my Amendment has a very considerable measure of support from various sections might I suggest that the Under-Secretary should reconsider the matter before the Report stage and see whether it would not be possible to retain some power of adding to the Schedule. If he can hold out any hopes of that kind, I should be prepared to withdraw my Amendment.

If the Debate is to go on, I want to say that, like other Members of the Committee, I have considered this matter and found it one of the most difficult to come to a decision about, and that largely because I share the experience of others of being in the position of knowing nothing personally about these excluded areas, with one or two small exceptions. That naturally must be the position of most Members of the Committee. But the difficulty I am in is this. While I entirely agree that the Statutory Commission and the Joint Select Committee have not been able to give the full and detailed consideration which is perhaps required to come to a decision on this matter, I do not quite know what we are to gain or to whom we can refer if we delay. The Amendment as I see it does include in it certain areas which to me at any rate make it appear impossible of acceptance. I could not possibly conceive that anybody who knew India at all, even if they knew nothing about the backward tribes, should include such districts as Darjeeling and the Surat District. These are immense areas in which there cannot be more than a fractional proportion of the population classed as aboriginal. To exclude in one Amendment enormous areas, which I know well personally, and which are inhabited by hundreds of thousands—for all I know mllions—of people who are closely engaged in industry and agriculture and in daily touch by cablegram with firms in this country, to exclude them, because there are some aboriginals, is carrying the proposal too far. For that reason I find it impossible to support the Amendment as it stands, but that does not mean that I am entirely satisfied that the whole subject has been thoroughly gone into. I am not. Further than that, I am in another difficulty. Suppose we defer the question, to whom can we go for information on a matter of this kind? The only people really capable of giving Parliament any information are the officials of the Government of India and the Provincial Governments, and it seems to me that, whatever course we take, we are bound on this matter above all others to depend on the authority and the opinion of the men on the spot. I assume that the Under-Secretary, in speaking for the Government, is giving the House the concensus of opinion of the Provincial Governments and the Government of India.

I have no objection to getting more facts from the Provincial Governments or British officials, but what we want are facts and not merely opinions. It is the facts that we have not got.

On that point, my noble Friend and I are entirely at one. I was trying to make clear that in the end the only people who can give the facts are the British officials. There is no dispute about that. If the Schedule in the Bill is the opinon of those officials, I do not see that we shall get very much further by delay. As I see it, the Bill contains the view of the Government of India, and I do not see what we are to gain by referring the matter back to them and saying: "Are you sure these are your views? Should there not be something more? "I understand that they have had this Schedule put before them. The Under-Secretary dealt with a number of the proposals in the Amendment and showed how impracticable they were. I can only deal with the one or two which I have mentioned and which do not appear to me to be desirable to put into the Schedule. Therefore, I get back to the difficulty that if we defer it we shall only arrive at the same opinion as we have now, and I do not know to whom we can apply further to get the matter cleared up.

We must be very careful in this matter not to forget the enormous responsibilities which are already placed upon the Governor-General and the Governors. I am well aware that it is a matter of argument whether we have not already put too much responsibility upon them. At any rate, if we realise that every matter connected with areas which are excluded will have to be a matter of personal examination and decision by the Governor, we must appreciate that it is undesirable to expand that work and responsibility more than is necessary. I do not want to oppose further consideration of the matter if it will result in further authentic information being given, but as matters stand I do not see what is to be gained by it.