I beg to move, in page 1, line 16, to leave out "fifteenth" and to insert "first."

At the end of a week of grim preparations for war it is very pleasant, with the week-end before us, to discuss the prospects in one Bill of young people getting away to the country-side and of their watching the wild birds which we are seeking to protect under this Measure. The Amendment which I am moving needs some little explanation. At present the close season for wild duck and wild geese is from 2nd March to 31st July, and under this Bill and the Amendments which we seek to introduce we wish to extend it from 1st February— in some cases from 15th February and if a county council so desire, from 21st February— to 11th August.

On a point of Order. May we be told who is in charge for the Government at this moment, and whether the Secretary for Mines is looking after the ducks and geese?

This is a private Members' Bill and not a Government Measure. I think my colleague at the Home Office expected that the Debate upon the previous Bill would continue for a little longer, and I have no doubt that he will be here within a very few minutes. Until he does arrive I shall be glad to take notes and to acquaint him with what has been done.

I think the Secretary for Mines is quite competent to look after the interests of the wild ducks and geese.

I am very glad, Mr. Speaker, that you have protected me against any suggestion of inability to look after these birds which are being gradually extinguished. In reply to the hon. Member on the Opposition Front Bench, I may say that the Home Secretary, who I hope will be here in a few minutes, intended to be here from the beginning to support this Bill and my Amendments, and I have to pay a tribute to the very competent staff of the Home Office and to my right hon. Friend, who have taken such a prominent and helpful part in the negotiations which my Amendments represent. The Bill passed through all its stages in the other House without amendment, but in this House there are Members representing constituents, and certain opposition or criticism was put forward on their part. Further negotiations had, therefore, to take place, and the Amendments on the Order Paper in my name represent the result of those negotiations.

I hope the House will be good enough to agree to the first Amendment with which is associated the further Amendments in my name. Hon. Members will be content, possibly, if I tell them that the Amendments represent a compromise arranged among organisations who sponsor the Bill, and if I mention a few names they may give confidence to the House. Those names are the Royal Society, the National Trust, the Royal Zoological Society and the International Committee for Bird Preservation. With those great and distinguished bodies behind the Bill, hon. Members may be sure that the Measure is sanely and wisely designed, and that it gives the widest possible freedom. Representatives of the poultry trade to whom the Amendments have been submitted are in favour of the additional restriction on shooting.

We are seeking to prevent the old ducks and geese being killed off while they are mating and nesting, and at the other end to prevent the young birds being shot before they are able to fly. That is the whole purpose of the Bill and of my Amendments. It is rather difficult to take this Amendment alone, because the other Amendments which follow depend upon it. By this series of Amendments we are seeking democratically to give to the local authorities the right to submit an application to the Home Secretary for alteration of the close season as affecting their area, and if the Home Secretary is satisfied that the application is fair and just, he can alter the date from 1st February to 15th or thereafter, and to the 21st if need be for estuary districts and parts adjacent to the shore. It is somewhat difficult for me to answer the point in the Amendments on the Paper in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Major Mills), because they do not convey very much sense to me. I have no doubt that he will be able to put sense into them. I submit my Amendment to the House as drafted, and in the absence of the Home Secretary I shall be glad to answer any criticisms that may be made to my proposals.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Why does the hon. and gallant Member's Bill not include swans?

It is unnecessary to do so, because, as is well known, swans are more or less under Royal protection and cannot, under the existing law, be shot, whereas wild duck and geese are gradually being exterminated, and will be exterminated altogether unless we adopt the present proposals.

My hon. and gallant Friend has said that he could not see any sense in the Amendments which stand in my name, but I hope he will see some sense before I sit down. He has mentioned things as being contained in the Bill and in his Amendment, but I cannot find them there. He twice said that the Bill empowers local authorities to extend the open season to the 15th, and to the 21st along the shore, but I can find in the Bill no power of that sort, nor in the Amendment. That is the whole point of the Amendment which I am seeking to move later on. No doubt my hon. and gallant Friend will be able to clarify that point a little later.

I am rather sorry that 1st February was chosen as the date for the start of the close season and not 2nd February. I did not put down an Amendment to express this point of view because I did not want to appear to haggle over an individual day, but I hope it will be possible to put this right in another place. As we know, 2nd February is the day on which the close season for other game birds begins. You may shoot partridge and pheasant on 1st February, and it would be very confusing to the public and police if duck shooting were to end on 31st January while pheasant and partridge might be shot on the river banks on 1st February. It would be more convenient if the same dates were fixed for the close season right through. I do not propose to divide the House on this Amendment, but I should like to give a little account of what led up to it, because I think it will vary a little from the account which has been given by my hon. and gallant Friend and will lead to a clearer understanding of the position which I have taken up.

When the Bill came before us some time ago it seemed so wholly admirable that I would have held up every hand I have in favour of it. It provided one close season for the whole of the country, from 15th February to nth August, and provided also that county councils should recommend to the Home Secretary that: some other date should be chosen for the beginning of the close season earlier than 15th February. I was prepared to agree to that, because, while it was to apply right through the country, power was to be given to county councils to vary it, as they have very great local knowledge and know what is advisable in their areas. In Hampshire we have already fixed 15th February as the beginning date for our close season. We are a very intelligent county. Some years ago a small committee was appointed under the excellent chairmanship of the late Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who knew all about wild birds, and it was to recommend to the county councils at what date the close season was to begin and end. I had the honour to be a member of that very small committee, and we fixed the dates, 15th February and nth August, for the beginning and ending of the close season.

My interpretation of the negotiations which had led to the introduction of the Amendment is that it is the result of representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for North "Norfolk (Sir T. Cook) on behalf of the shore shooters of Norfolk and, I understand, the lodging-house keepers, who make money out of providing accommodation for people who come down when the shooting is on. As my hon. Friend was perfectly entitled to do, he raised objections during the Committee stage. Negotiations were begun, and he has been bought off, if I may use-that expression without any invidious implication, by the later provision in the Amendment which will give shore shooters the right to go on till 21st February if the Home Secretary approves and the county council makes an application to that effect. Although I am not going to oppose this, I would point out that it is at the expense of the rest of the country. In order to make up for this extra week which is to be given to the shore shooters, the whole of the rest of the country will have to start its close season a fortnight earlier. My hon. Friend gets a week, and everyone else loses a fortnight.

I should have preferred the Bill as it originally stood, but I am not going to oppose the starting of the close season on 1st February, because it has the advantage that it will be possible, under a later Clause: of the Bill, to prohibit the importation of dead duck and geese from the Continent and elsewhere, where a great deal of harm is done by the killing of these birds just as they are about to start on their flight to their nesting grounds, and Leadenhall Market is, I believe, the only market for them. If we prevent their importation, we shall save the lives of a great many of these wildfowl. I feel very strongly that the county councils should be given the right to apply to the Home Secretary for an extension of the open season to some date not later than 15th February, which was the date mentioned in the original Bill, and I hope it will be possible to meet me in that way. That is the whole purpose of my later Amendment. If my hon. and gallant Friend is able to satisfy me that that power is. in the Bill as it will be amended by his Amendment, I shall be prepared to agree to it. I do not desire to upset the arrangement which has been made with my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk, provided that I can secure equal protection for my own county of Hampshire, and I hope that a similarly reasonable attitude will be adopted by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr in my case also.

May I ask why the date is made 1st February, instead of 2nd February?

The only answer to that question is that, as I explained in my remarks on the Amendment, this date and the other dates mentioned in the Bill have been arrived at as the result of long negotiation and compromise between the various bodies interested in promoting the Bill, and I would ask the House not to fuss over one day, since it would mean disorganising all the arrangements which have already been made.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 1, to leave out Sub-section (3), and to insert:

"(3) After the commencement of this Act—

(a) no order shall be made under the power conferred by Section eight of the principal Act making any provision whereby the time during which the killing and taking of wild duck or wild geese or any kind thereof is prohibited is to begin with any date later than the first day of February or end with any date earlier than the eleventh day of August, and

(b) no order shall be made under the power conferred by Section nine of the principal Act exempting any county or any part or parts thereof from the operation of that Act as respects wild duck or wild geese or any kind thereof,

and any order made under the said Sections before the commencement of this Act shall cease to have effect if and in so far as it makes any such provision or exemption as aforesaid.

Provided that nothing in this Sub-section shall prohibit the making after the commencement of this Act of any such order as is mentioned in the next following Sub-section.

(4) The power of the Secretary of State under Section eight of the principal Act shall include power to make an order, in pursuance of an application made under the said Section after the commencement of this Act, providing that the time during which the killing and taking of wild duck and wild geese is prohibited shall begin with such date not later than the twenty-first day of February as may be specified in the order in such parts of the county or county borough to which the application relates, being parts contiguous to the low water mark of ordinary tides, as may be so specified."

My remarks regarding the previous Amendment practically cover the explanation of this Amendment also. As I have said, all the arrangements suggested in the series of Amendments are the result of compromise and negotiation. If my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Major Mills) will look at Sub-section (4) of this Amendment, he will see that it provides that the power of the Secretary of State under Section 8 of the principal Act shall include power to make an order in pursuance of an application made by the local authority. That is the whole point that I have previously stressed— that the local authority, who, as my hon. and gallant Friend has said, probably know the conditions in their own area better than anyone; else, can make their application to the Home Secretary for an order, and the Home Secretary will have power from his knowledge to approve the order or not. It seems to me that that is both democratic and reasonable. I should be the last to interfere with the rights of the local authorities, who have special knowledge of their own areas. Although the Amendment may appear rather formidable, it really is not so; it merely takes the place of the original Sub-section, and, as I have said, gives effect to the agreements which have been made for the purpose of saving these birds from, practically speaking, extermination.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Before putting the Question, I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the New Forest and Christchurch (Major Mills) whether he proposes to move his Amendment in line 17— at the end, to insert:

"and provided that nothing in this Subsection shall prohibit the making after the commencement of this Act of any such order as is mentioned in the next following Subsection.

(4) The power of the Secretary of State under Section tight of the principal Act shall include power to make an order, in pursuance of an implication made under the said Section after the commencement of this Act, providing that the time during which the killing and taking of wild duck and wild geese is prohibited shall begin with such date not later than the twenty-first day of February as may be specified in the order in such parts of the county or county borough to which the application relates, being parts contiguous to the low-water mark of ordinary tides, as may be so specified."

If. so, I shall have to save it in putting the Question.

I think the effect will be the same if I move my Amendment in line 5, to leave out "first" and to insert "fifteenth." I put down my Amendment in line 17 merely to show my bona fides to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Sir T. Cook). It would merely re-insert in the Bill the provision which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) is now moving.

What about the Amendment in line 15, to leave out "earlier" and insert "not later"?

I am in this difficulty, that, if my hon. and gallant Friend's Amendment is defeated, it will be necessary for me to move my Amendment to leave out "earlier" and insert "not later." The date of the commencement of the close season for the whole country having been changed from 15th February to 1st February it will be necessary to use the words "not later" instead of the word "earlier."

Then I will save that Amendment.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) has said that this alteration has been agreed upon with the various associations concerned. I rather deprecate that, and I think we ought to have much more information. We do not even know what associations they were.

I mentioned them.

We do not know all of them. We are told that, just because something has been agreed upon with various associations, we are to have a different date, and that we must not interfere by moving what I think my hon. and gallant Friend called a "fussy" Amendment. I think the hon. and gallant Member is taking up a very bad attitude. Many of us know that these different dates which affect game are a great nuisance and I would like to protest against this.

In answer to that criticism I would like to point out that the people and bodies concerned were represented and gave their opinions at a committee presided over by Dr. Low, of the Zoological Society. Among those present were sportsmen, representatives of the Advisory Committee of the Home Office and the Scottish Office, and others, and they all agreed on the dates and arrangements suggested in my Amendment.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 5, to leave out "first," and to insert "fifteenth."

The hon. and gallant Member said that it was going to be possible for the county councils to extend the shooting season to 21st February. I have read the Amendment most carefully, and I see that the power which is preserved to the Home Secretary for granting applications by county councils to extend the open season to 21st February applies only to such parts of the county which are

"parts contiguous to the low water mark of ordinary tides."

The whole of that Sub-section must be governed, surely, by the words:

"being parts contiguous to low water mark of ordinary tides."

Is the hon. and gallant Member not moving his first Amendment?

Yes, Sir.

He is dealing with the second Amendment.

I was dealing with both and particularly with what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), if I may say so with the greatest respect. By the Amendment which we have just dealt with, if the Bill goes through as amended, the close season for the whole country will start on 1st February and not on 2nd March, as heretofore. This Act and the Amendment refer to Section 8 of the Wild Birds Protection Act, 1880, which says:

"One of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State as to Great Britain, and the Lord Lieutenant as to Ireland, may, upon application of the justices in quarter sessions assembled of any county, by order extend or vary the time during which the killing and taking of wild birds or any of them is prohibited by this Act."

If we bring that up to date, it means that the Home Secretary, on the application of the county council, may fix dates earlier than 2nd March or later than 31st July. In Hampshire we start our close season on 15th February and end on nth August. I agree with what has been said by the hon. and gallant Member about democratic powers. The county councils consist of elected representatives of the people in the counties. They represent every locality in those counties, and have the greatest possible amount of local knowledge. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) that our laws, even on comparatively unimportant points, ought to be made by this House, and not decided through negotiations outside Parliament by associations, however eminent they may be. Personally, I think the county councils are wholly admirable for giving advice and making representations to the Home Secretary on matters such as this.

I consider I have been somewhat let down by the bringing forward of this important Amendment in this form and at this stage. In January I saw an inspired letter in the Press foreshadowing the sort of Amendment that was going to be moved, and I expressed my objections. I could, while the Bill was in the Committee stage, like my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Sir T. Cook), have held up the Bill when it came before the House after 11 o'clock, but I did not do so because I had received what I believed to be satisfactory assurances from the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs that my objections would be met. I did not let that stage go by default. When it came I was sitting immediately behind the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs, and I was given to understand that it would be all right, so I let the Bill go through. No doubt it was unwise of me not to see the Amendment in print, but I have a very confiding nature.

In the whole of the administrative county of Hampshire our close season starts on 15th February, and I sincerely hope the county council will preserve that date, as I am sure they will, even for the shore shooters, and will extend it. But I do ask that their rights regarding the rest of the country should be preserved. I have studied the habits of wild fowl on the River Avon, where I have lived for nearly 40 years. Commencing in December and right through to the end of February, we see on our river large flocks of widgeon and teal. It is particularly so if there are floods about. I have seen the water absolutely black with these birds. Under our system of shooting, we have to keep the river very quiet and undisturbed, and we can shoot the birds only once in three weeks. They arrive early in December, and you have to let them settle down. You can shoot them for the first time in the latter part of December. You get another shoot in the middle of January, and a third shoot either at the end of January or in the early days of February, if you have been held up by floods or bad weather, as so often happens. I am well aware that at the end of January mallard and teal begin to pair, and, if they do so, they mostly leave the main river and go off to the ditches and the smaller ponds and streams, and, therefore, do not come in the way of the big shoot. No one would be so foolish as to want to kill these birds when they are obviously going to breed. But the big flocks of teal and widgeon do not stay and breed. They migrate, and we might as well have a few of them before they go. The widgeon always- live and move in big flocks. They can look after themselves. But it is very interesting to see the teal as the season goes on, collecting the tens and twenties into fifties and even hundreds. I have seen 200 or 300, and sometimes as many as 600 or 700, in a flock, and a very imposing sight it is.

I would point out that in Hampshire we shoot by day, and therefore we can sec what we are shooting and can discriminate between the sex and variety of the birds we shoot. If you shoot at night or morning, that is, after dusk or before dawn, it is extremely difficult to discriminate between sexes and varieties. If you use punt guns and fire into the middle of flocks of wild fowl, it must do a great deal of damage, and it might even become dangerous if rival guns happened to stalk the same flock at the same time. I, therefore, urge very strongly on my hon. and gallan: Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs and on this House that if there is any thought of leaving to the shore shooter, who, I believe, usually shoots at flight time, the right of shooting as late as 21st February, then there can be no justification for refusing to give county councils, with their great amount of local knowledge, the opportunity to say to the Home Secretary that 15th February is a fit and proper date on which the close season should start for all or any part of their county. If my Amendment to the proposed Amendment were carried, I should not move the Amendment which follows to lay down a mileage limit.

Finally, I would like to say I am not moving this selfishly. It is true that I own such a shoot as that I have been describing to the House, but in these hard times when taxation is high I have to let my fishing, and as salmon fishing opens on 1st February, my tenants want to begin to fish on that date. A man with a rod will disturb the wild fowl on the river just as effectively as a man with a gun. I move this Amendment on behalf of other people on the River Avon in Hampshire and at Beaulieu or elsewhere in that county, and indeed in the country as a whole. Many people feel that 15th February, which was the date mentioned in the Bill as it was introduced, should be the date upon which the close season should commence and desire that representations should be made to the Home Secretary to that effect by their local councils, who have local knowledge and are so democratically constituted.

I beg to second the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.

I do so merely as a layman with none of that high technical knowledge that the hon. and gallant Gentleman possesses. I do not pretend to know whether the 1stor the 15th February is the better date in all parts of the country, but I believe that the case that has been made is really overwhelming. The standard date suggested in the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) is 1st February, which is a variation from the Bill as it has been sent to us with the authority, first, of another place, and, secondly, of our own Committee, that the date should be 15th February. It is now asked that there should be local variations so as to permit the date of 15th February once more to be the end of the shooting season. The Mover of the Amendment, no doubt unintentionally, rather misled the House when he said that the Bill, with his Amendment, would still preserve the rights of the existing law. It is clear that the date, 21st February, is limited to shooting in the estuaries but does not include shooting such as has been referred to by the Mover of the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.

There seems to be a very strong case for allowing this right of local variation. Probably many hon. Members opposite doubt the wisdom of county councils in administering some of the functions that belong to those bodies, but, when we ask the county councils to consider and declare the appropriate date for the preservation of bird life within their own area, we ask people who are eminently able to set up an appropriate committee to discover the best local answer. An overwhelming case has been made out that we ought to continue to allow local representation to be made to the Home Secretary, so that in appropriate cases the date of shooting should be extended to 15th February and not be a universal 1st February. I regret that the House has accepted the date of 1st February, because all the arguments in favour of 2nd February seem to be conclusive. It is ridiculous to have these consecutive dates. That will mean that the identical shooting party will be allowed to shoot the partridge, but not the duck because they happen to go out on 1st February. It is much better to have a single date, which will deal with so large a proportion of the shooting of these sporting birds.

The Home Secretary is the Minister who is responsible for administering the law, part of which we are considering to-day, in this particular instance. I have been an ornithologist all my life, and there is no part of ornithology which has interested me more than the study of ducks and geese. On that account, when I first went to the Home Office I gathered together a very representative body of the ornithologists of the country, on which body the local authorities were represented, with a view to dealing with what seemed to be a very urgent problem, namely, the possible extinction and the certain diminution of the ducks and geese of this country and of the seas surrounding it. If I had the time and this were the occasion I could convince hon. Members that there is a great danger that some of these very attractive species of ducks and geese are becoming extinct.

For some time past the ornithologists of the various countries of Europe have been considering how best to meet this danger. One of the most obvious ways of meeting it is, in the first place, to restrict the sale of ducks after a certain date. That is being done under the Bill. One of the most prolific causes of the slaughter of ducks has been the fact that the London market was open at a period of the year when the breeding season of ducks had already begun. If the London market were closed, this sale would cease and the slaughter of ducks in Holland and other countries would cease with it. The other way to deal with the problem is to restrict the close season for killing ducks. In the past there has been a great variety in the dates that have been in operation in this country. That is really the answer to the speech of the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman). You can have local option and variations in administration in many ways in public life, but I do not think that they are suitable in a problem of this kind, seeing that ducks breed and move about the country and the waters at very much the same date whether the shooting season is on 13th February or 1st March.

One of the difficulties that we have had to face in past years has been this variety of dates. That being so, my strong advice to the House is that we should go as far as we can to get uniformity. Assuming that we have uniformity, the question arises whether it is better to have it on the 1st or the 15th February. I am afraid that whatever date we select there will be anomalies and grievances. I very much sympathise with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Major Mills). He has one of those properties— there can be very few of them in this country— where there are a large number of widgeon inland. As a rule, as ornithologists know, the widgeon is a duck which mainly keeps to the coast, but my hon. and gallant Friend has a property in which there are widgeon some distance from the sea, and he would like to be able to go on shooting them later into February, at a time when there arc a great many widgeon about. He certainly has a grievance, but I would ask him to put his grievance against the general desire for restricting the killing of these birds. His is an exceptional case, but, whilst I sympathise with him, I should be sorry to go back to the local option which has failed in the past, in order to meet an exceptional case.

My advice to the House, therefore, would be to adopt a uniform date for the whole country, and to have no variation from that date, except in the case of the shore shooters, who are in a different category altogether from the owners of property. They depend to some extent upon their shore shooting for their livelihood. I am sorry that we should have to make any exception, but if there is to be an exception it should be for the shore shooters, up to 21st February. I have done a lot of shore shooting myself. A good deal of shore shooting is done in Norfolk, but actually they kill very few ducks. I have been out day after day and often have killed no ducks, or perhaps I have killed one duck on a very cold day in February. It is not simply a question of the killing of the ducks, but having the season open a little bit longer when the widgeon are about on the coast. A number of people go down to the villages in Norfolk not to shoot the birds, but to look at them. I would make some exception for the shore shooters, but I would strongly advise the House not to go further with any other exceptions. Sympathising as I do with my hon. and gallant Friend, I think that the close time ought to begin on 1st February. I would advise the House to reject, no doubt with regret, the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend, on the ground that if we once make an exception of that kind we should get back to local variations and not be able to deal in an effective way with this problem of avoiding the diminution or extinction of certain species of ducks and geese.

I agree with the advice which the right hon. Gentleman has given to the House, with the single exception that I am not at all sure that I would make an exception for Norfolk, such as he suggests. On the general question of county council options and variations of dates all over the country for the shooting of wild duck, the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman) said that it was ridiculous to tie every county area down to one date. I put it to the hon. Member that it would be ridiculous if county councils were left with the option of fixing a date, and the North, East and West Ridings of Yorkshire, three-parts of one county, had each separate dates. How would those who are charged with responsibility for the administration of the law find themselves? It would be ridiculous if the North Riding fixed the 14th, the East Riding the 13th and the West Riding the 12th. Those who would have to administer the Act would not know where they stood.

The answer is simple. The Orders have to be confirmed by the Secretary of State, who is the coordinating authority, and he, obviously, would not allow ridiculous variations. Another answer to the hon. Member is that conditions in Yorkshire are fairly similar throughout the county, but it is a mistake to say that the conditions in Yorkshire are identical in kind with those of Hampshire.

There may be a difference, but it is wholly in the mind of the hon. Member. The breeding season, the mating season, is pretty similar in all districts, and I do not see how you can have these variations. Although the Home Office is the co-ordinating authority, are you going to give county councils this power and then tell the Home Secretary that he must not allow them to use it? The hon. Member has no case at all. The hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Major Mills) has a special case of his own. He reminds me of the action of some hon. Members while the 1930 Land Drainage Bill was going through the House. Because there were some swampy areas where they grew reeds these hon. Members were opposed to land drainage at all; they did not want it; they wanted the swamps because they wanted the reeds. Despite the fact that there may be a case for a special concession here and there, the Bill, after all, as the Home Secretary has said, is designed to protect these kinds of birds, and if you are going to allow economics or personal sport to intervene where the protection of bird life is concerned you are not going to fulfil the desire of those who have promoted the Measure. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will stand by 1st February, a date which those who understand this particular problem have determined is the best date for the preservation of wild duck and wild geese. I hope the hon. Member will accept the advice of the Home Secretary.

I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to do me an injustice, but he seems to suggest that I have moved my Amendment from purely selfish motives. I pointed out in my speech that my shoot would not be affected by the Amendment, and that I was moving it in the interests of other people.

I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that I have no intention of reflecting adversely on him. Frequently hon. Members raise points which affect their own constituencies, and we regard it as a personal matter to that Member, although it is not in the individual interest of the hon. Member.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 23, to insert "or within twenty miles of."

The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) told me when I complained that I had allowed the Bill to go through Committee without a word of objection, that I should be safeguarded by the new Sub-section, and that he had been advised that the words "contiguous to" would fully cover my point. The point I had in mind was a distance of 15 miles up the river, and he said that would be covered by the words. I told him that I was sure the words "contiguous to" would not cover the case I had in mind, because within two miles of the sea there is a weir and two other sets of weirs, making three in all, before the Somerley shoot, some 15 miles up the river, is reached. I hope he will be able to repeat an assurance that the words "contiguous to" will cover my case and that his view will be endorsed by the Law Officers of the Crown and the Home Secretary. Even then I do not know whether it would have any binding effect in law. They may show the intention of the promoters of the Bill, but, quite frankly, I do not think the words can possibly cover the case I have in mind. I believe that if I went to the clerk of my county council or the Law Officers on the point they would say, "You must be mad. What does English mean "I am moving the Amendment in order that the rest of the county may have a little of the privilege given to shore shooters. I do not think any county council would give the right to inland shooters to go up to 21st February. This is the only way I have of trying to ensure what I believe to be fair and right to the country as a whole.

I beg to second the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.

I imagine, as the Home Secretary has said, that we shall have considerable amount of sympathy with the purely local conditions of the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest, but at the same time this, in the opinion of the promoters, is going much too far. The words "contiguous to" are far more suitable, so we are advised by the Parliamentary draftsman, because they give power to the Home Secretary to decide whether in the application which is submitted the words are applicable to a particular area or not. "Within 20 miles" is much too dogmatic and definite and would be inapplicable to vast parts of the country as a whole. They would undo a great deal of what we are trying to do by the Bill. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will not press the Amendment, but if he does I hope that the House will reject it.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 36, leave out "fifteenth," and insert "first."

This is merely to carry out the undertaking given by the Home Secretary to synchronise the prohibition on the importation of dead birds with the close season to which we have now agreed.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I wish to ask one question. Now that we are offered dates for the working of this Bill why is it that we were not offered a date for "any wild duck or wild goose recently killed or taken," which is left as the 28th day of February, when of course the close season has ended. There was a fortnight left between the dates. Now there is a whole month interval. It may be desirable to have so long a period, after the close of the shooting season, when birds can be on sale, but this is simply inviting evasion of the law and making it far more dim-cult to administer.

The answer to that question is fairly obvious. The birds shot abroad may have been shot before the season, before the date which we hope will be accepted, and it would be intolerable if other countries were not allowed to sell birds shot before the date when the close season started.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 22, after the second "duck," to insert, "ferruginous duck, gadwall, garganey, golden eye."

I am well aware I shall be told that the reason why the birds are set out in paragraph (b) of this Clause is that these are the species of duck which are found in the Schedule to the Act of 1880, the Wild Birds Protection Act. As long ago as 1881 that Act was found to be a difficult one to understand, and in 1881 an Act was passed "to explain the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1880."I have mentioned in my Amendment the names of various ducks, not from any desire to show that I know the names but because they are species most commonly found in the Avon Valley and in Hampshire, and I wish to make sure that they are covered and are not left to the changes and chances covered by the words of the Bill. It is true that I have known only one specimen of "ferruginous duck" and that was as long ago as 1874, but it might come back again. It would be well to have these species inserted in the Schedule so that there can be no mistake of any sort whatsoever.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It is with the greatest regret that I must ask the House to reject this Amendment, and consequential Amendments on the Paper. They are quite unnecessary and are rather dangerous because they are limiting in effect. If my hon. and gallant Friend will again look at the Bill, he will see that reference is made to "wild duck of any other species whatsoever." That is far more generous in its application and far less restricting than the proposals in my hon. and gallant Friend's Amendments. Indeed, on a point of law it might be argued that "wild duck" means wild duck other than the species separately mentioned; and therefore in our opinion and that of the Parliamentary draftsman it is essential that we retain the words of the Bill, which cover all types of wild duck and do not by implication limit the scope of the Bill to the birds mentioned in the Amendment.

I think I can reassure my hon. and gallant Friend if I tell him that I agree with him that the whole Statute about wild birds protection needs reviewing. In many ways it is in a state of confusion. I am very anxious to push along the review and I have now asked the Advisory Committee which advises me on these ornithological matters to see whether we could not get a new Wild Birds Protection Act. Then the kind of difficulty that my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind in moving the Amendment would be removed— the fact that some ducks are mentioned and some are not. In the meantime I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) that it would be a mistake to insert an Amendment of this kind, which would only make confusion worse confounded.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 31, at the end, to insert:

"This Act shall come into operation on the first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine."

In order to get the advantage of this Bill at the earliest moment so as to protect the young birds that will come on in the summer, I ask the House to accept this Amendment.

I beg to second the Amendment.

On the question of the preservation of game and the provision that it should be sold on 12th August, it seems to me unfair, when people have properties a long distance from London, in provincial centres, that game should be sold on the first possible day on which it may be shot. It may be game that has been poached in order to get a high price. I think the prohibition should be extended.

As one who objected to the Bill as originally drafted, I rise to support the Measure as amended. I welcome the opportunity of thanking my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who incidentally is a constituent of North Norfolk, and all those who have been responsible for carrying out the negotiations that have resulted in the present position.

:When the Home Secretary reviews this ornithological question I hope he will also review the dates on which birds can be shot or not. Nothing is more confusing to a local policeman than to find that one bird can be shot on the 1st and another on the 2nd of the month. In Scotland and England the same dates do not apply. The system ought to be modernised, and probably now is the right time to do it.

I want to repeat the question I have asked. As the Bill came to us, the close season began on the 15th and the latest date on which birds might be offered for sale was the 28th. The close season is now to begin on the 1st, and yet the 28th February is retained as the last date on which birds may be offered for sale. Why should we now allow a whole month, instead of a fortnight, in which birds may be offered for sale after the close season has commenced?

The difficulty to which my hon. Friend the Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman) has referred is really inherent in the exception we have made for shore shooters. They may go on until 21st February, and, that being so, I am afraid it is inevitable that we should allow ducks to be sold up to 28th February. I have been asked one or two other questions. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) asked whether I would take up the question of the revision of the Game Laws. I hesitate to give an undertaking upon so controversial a question, but I can tell my hon. and gallant Friend that I will ask my committee to look into the question of the confusion of dates and to see whether, in the new Wild Birds (Protection) Bill, which we hope we shall have some time, we can in any way deal with that matter. My own view, as an ornithologist and a shooter, is that the shooting season, in several cases, is too long. With the more efficient methods of killing birds, with the easier methods of transport, and perhaps most of all, because of the fact that it is now much more difficult to keep the country quiet for birds than it was in the past— and it has always seemed to me that what birds mostly need is quiet— I think we may well have reached the time when the shooting season in the case of some birds should be still further restricted.

Meanwhile, I am very glad that we have taken a step in that direction today. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) on having piloted through the House another of these birds protection Bills. Upon his tombstone— may it be many years hence— he will be entitled to have his executors place, "This was the friend who restricted the slaughter of quails and the massacre of ducks," and that is an epitaph which I very much envy him. I believe we are taking a step in the right direction to-day in making these further restrictions, and I believe that in future years we shall go further still. Criticism can be made against this Bill, as it can be made against any Bill, but I can only say that the dates that have been agreed upon have been the result of innumerable discussions between ornithologists and people interested in questions of this kind, and it is satisfactory that, whereas 18 months ago it looked as though it would be impossible to find agreement upon any dates, we have at least found agreement on these dates.

I wish to thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for his remarks, but I would ask him please to hurry up with the new Wild Birds (Protection) Bill, for otherwise my demise may come before the Bill is presented and the work completed. I would like to thank the Home Secretary for the help which he and his competent staff at the Home Office have given us. If there is any credit in this matter, it is due to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary more than to me.

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

It has always been the intention of the promoters of the Bill that there should be proper safeguards for water supplies. Obviously, it has been a matter of very great concern to the water undertakers that the risks of pollution should not be increased as a result of the passage of this Bill. In the Committee stage an undertaking was given that the representatives of the local authorities would be met and that consultations would take place with the Ministry of Health. The new Clause has the support of the advisers of the Government and meets with the approval of the representatives of the local authorities. It is designed to make secure the position of water undertakers when lands are brought within the scope of the Bill. Obviously, the original suggestion that all catchment areas should be excluded was too sweeping, but it is felt that in the new Clause all objections are met.

I beg to second the Motion.

May I ask the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) why this new Clause applies only to local authorities? Most of the water supplies on the moorlands are not local authority supplies, but village supplies, usually provided by landowners. It seems to me to be unfortunate that the large-scheme supplies to the towns should be protected and that the towns should be given unpolluted supplies, while the villages should get no protection. As far as I can gather from the Bill, it contains nothing to prevent anybody from bathing in a village water supply as long as there are not notice boards all along the stream telling him not to do so. Although I believe in encouraging bathing, I am opposed to bathing in village water supplies. It is important, in a Bill of this kind, that we should try to protect not only the health of the people in the big towns, but that we should also pay regard to the health of the villagers and secure that their water supplies are not polluted. A great deal has been done during the last two years to encourage village water supplies, and some of them will be covered, but a great many of them will not be covered. I do not want to delay the passage of the Bill, but I suggest that this is a matter which might be looked into in another place, and that the promoter of the Bill should seek to secure the same protection for village water supplies as for town water supplies.

I think it would be well if the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) did not assume that all local authority associations were in favour of this Clause. I wish to ask him whether the British Waterworks Association have approved of this Clause because, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, it deals only with local authorities and does not appear to safeguard private water undertakings?

If hon. Members refer to Sub-section (4) of the Clause they will see that the point of their objection has been met to a considerable extent.

No.

As to the point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) the basis of the Clause was agreed upon after consultation with the body to which he has referred. The principle of the Clause has been approved by the appropriate Government Department and it is considered adequate for its purpose. However, in view of what has been said by hon. Members, I will give an assurance that if there is need for a further tightening up of the Clause, that will be done in another place.

It is not a question of tightening up. It is a question of giving the same protection to the villages as it is proposed to give to the towns, and that is a point which is not covered by Subsection (4).

If the hon. Member had waited for one moment I was coming to that point. If the Clauses of the Bill are studied, it will become clear that when an order is being considered by the Minister there will be consultation with the interests concerned. The Minister will approach those who are interested in water supplies so that at any public inquiry held in respect of restrictions, their views may be heard. The general procedure of holding inquiries is laid down in the Bill and the Minister has power to impose what limitations and restrictions are considered necessary in the public interest. If there is still need for safeguarding the position of village water supplies, that point will be considered and suitable Amendments made in another place, but the House may take it that the position is covered in the Bill as it stands.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 21, to leave out "and," and to insert:

"(b) does not contravene any direction given in relation thereto by an order made by the Minister under Section five of this Act; and."

This Amendment is consequential on the insertion in the Bill of Clause 5 (Power to Minister to dose land where danger from fire exists.)

I beg to Second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 22, to leave out "any," and to insert "in relation thereto any of the."

This Amendment is consequential on the decision to make Clause 6 (General conditions) applicable in all cases.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 23, to leave out "having effect in relation to the land."

This Amendment, also, is consequential on the decision to make Clause 6 applicable in all cases.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 16, at the end, to insert:

"including in. particular, but without prejudice to the generality of this provision, limitations and conditions having the effect o prohibiting persons from entering at particular times upon land to which this Act applies or from entering upon particular area in such land."

The intention of the Amendment is to make the meaning of the Clause a little clearer. It is largely a matter of drafting. These words are being inserted with a view to elucidating certain obscurities, and do not raise any material point.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 17, to leave out Sub-section (4).

During the discussions in Committee doubt was expressed as to the wisdom of including this Sub-section and an undertaking was given that on the Report stage it would be removed from the Bill. That undertaking I now propose to fulfil.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I wish to thank the hon. Member for this Amendment, because had this Sub-section not been removed, the Bill would have been unacceptable. I would also draw attention in this connection to the dangers of private Members Bills which require very close examination on points of this kind. I wish that the House had opportunities to investigate them a little more closely in some cases. Provisions may be put into a Bill by which its whole object and intention may be rendered null and void, and after it is only when outside associations and representatives of various interests investigate such proposals that their full effect is made clear.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 8, to leave out "other than sheep walks or cliff."

From my point of view this is one of the most dangerous parts of the Bill. The framework of Clause 2 is a definition of the kinds of land which the Minister is to class as being exempted from the provisions of the Bill. Land which, in his opinion, is agricultural land, is to be exempted subject to these two exceptions, namely, sheep walks or cliff which are to be within the purview of the Bill. Although placed second in order of reference, I will deal first with the point about cliffs, because it is a short and rather curious point. The Bill when first introduced dealt only with moorlands and mountains, and an attempt was made by the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) to obtain an Instruction from the House to include foreshores, cliffs, and manorial ways. He was not fortunate enough to obtain that Instruction, but notwithstanding that, we find in this Clause that cliffs are brought within the purview of the Bill, and in my submission this is an abuse of the Rules of the House. We have in this Clause the word "cliffs" when the House has already decided that cliffs shall not be included in the Bill. Whether we were right or wrong, I do not intend to argue. I am not so interested in the cliffs part of the Bill as in the sheep walks, but if this Clause is persisted in with the word "cliffs" in it, I submit that the only proper course would be to recommit the Bill for this purpose.

In regard to sheep walks, to which I attach great importance and about which the farmers in my constituency and throughout Yorkshire are deeply anxious, I submit that the hon. Member for Shipley has got the wrong words. I have looked in Murray's Dictionary and other authorities to find out what a sheep walk is, and Murray is quite clear on the point. It is, what I have always thought it to be, "a tract of grass land used for pasturing sheep." Perhaps the hon. Member for Shipley will remember that Milton in "Paradise Lost" wrote:

"A field part arable and tilth….

The other part sheep walks and foulds."

That is what we mean by a sheep walk— land that is used for grazing sheep. I do not know whether the hon. Member intends that all these upland farms where they have not got the good fortune to have arable land but which are probably sheep farms are to be brought within the Bill. If so, it is a great injustice. I would have no objection to land being brought within the purview of the Bill which is moorland with a right of stray for a certain number of sheep, but to say that farmland for which a farmer pays rent and which in many cases is enclosed should be brought within the Bill is demonstrably wrong.

There is great danger in this matter to sheep walks, and I think some of the promoters of the Bill are rather apt to disregard the dangers that those who come on to the land can do to sheep. First of all, there is great danger at lambing time, and one or two persons, acting in an incautious manner in lambing time, especially people with dogs, can ruin the whole of a farmer's lamb crop during the year, and it is no answer to say, "Oh, yes, but we have provided for that by one of our glorious penalties later in the Bill, in Clause 6." Penalties will not help the farmer or recover for him the lost Iamb or the lost sheep. I have had a certain amount of experience of the damage that people can do to sheep, especially when folded, by leaving gates open. You can take a man to court and get him fined £2, but it may well mean that you will get a very different crop of lambs from what you expected. Therefore, I ask the promoter of the Bill to reconsider these words and to put in some form of words that will limit the Bill to moorlands over which sheep have the right of stray and no more. If he did that, he would cover a very serious point in the Bill.

I have no desire to obstruct the free passage of hikers on mountains or moorlands in this country, but I think we in this House must not forget that the farmers have an equal right with anybody else to carry on their business. From my own experience the people who damage agricultural land when they go on to it are not frequently the hikers or the ramblers, but rather the richer people who go in their Rolls-Royces and think they own, not only all the towns, but all the countryside as well. When you are looking at this Clause in the Bill and trying to make land for which a farmer pays rent free to everybody, you are not limiting it merely to the hikers or ramblers, but you are laying his land open to the free passage of the richer people, who really ought to pay for the benefits which they will be enjoying under the Bill. The ramblers and hikers in the North Riding of Yorkshire have never caused any trouble, and there has always been a very close friendship between them and the farmers over whose land they go— I know that some places in the West Riding are not so fortunate— but we have had trouble from people who come out from the towns to plant themselves in our rural districts and think they are just as important people on our moorlands as they are in the towns.

I think hon. Members opposite are really misapprehending the position in this part of the Bill. Why should a farmer who pays rent for a field for his sheep have these people from the towns coming frequently with their motor cars and walking on it? Why should not a farmer drive his sheep through a factory, say, in Middlesbrough or Sheffield? I am certain that if that happened, the factory owner would object very violently, and I assure the House that the farmers object very violently to their sheep fields and folds being included in this Bill. I hope that this House, if the promoter will not give way on this point, will exclude these words from the Bill.

On a point of Order. In respect to the point raised by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), as to the inclusion of cliffs in the Bill, in Clause 2 the Bill very clearly limits the land concerned to "mountain, moor, heath, or down," and in the second Sub-section it clearly indicates what lands must in any case be excepted from the Bill. Among those lands are agricultural land, and in view of the definition of agricultural land which has already been given in other legislation by this House, it was necessary to include these words "other than sheep walks or cliffs," so as to make it clear that, although only moorland and downland was included, if sheep were permitted to graze such land could be included within the scope of the Bill. As certain downlands include cliffs— for instance, in Cornwall— it was felt desirable that the point should be made clear that we are not asking for the inclusion of cliffs but rather making it clear that agricultural land docs not include cliffs where cliffs form part of downland.

I do not think any point of Order arises. The only point of Order that might arise would be whether the inclusion of these words altered the whole Clause. That is the only point that I can think of, and I do not think it does arise.

I beg to second the Amendment.

In Lincolnshire sheep are one of the main standbys in agriculture, and although we have various places which are called moors or downs, they are really grasslands. If these words are allowed to remain in the Bill, I can see a rather curious result. If there are sheep in these fields, which are all enclosed and on the side of hills, presumably ramblers will be allowed to go into them. If, however, the farmer for some reason puts cattle into them they will not come under the terms of the Bill and ramblers will not be allowed there. If there is nothing in the fields at all, again ramblers will not be allowed to go into them. As I read the Bill they will be allowed to go into them only when there are sheep in them. It is doubtful whether it is possible to say of a good many of these places whether they are devoted to sheep or cattle or are lying fallow and used for hay.

The point that my hon. Friend and I desire 1o stress is the danger of allowing people to use these lands before the lambing season. There is not so much danger after the lambing season, but before it the sheep are easily frightened. We want to be certain that the machinery for orders will give these safeguards. I do not think they will, because when an order is made in the first place there may not be sheep on the land in that particular year. This means that for ever after that land will be liable to have hikers and other people on it. I am not afraid of the hikers' organisations, because they are extraordinarily careful. I am afraid more of the irresponsible people in cars. I have seen them go on to land and strip the place clear of flowers and every kind of thing. They are the people who do the damage.

I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed, because an effort has been made in the drafting of the Bill to adjust all interests in the land concerned. The scope of the Bill covers mountain, moor, heath and down-land, and it is obvious that sometimes those lands will cover land which is used for grazing sheep. Under the machinery of the Bill definite provision is made for limitation of and regulations of access in order to meet any special conditions or circumstances in regard to the land. If these words are left out it will mean that considerable areas of moorland and mountainland will be excluded from the scope of the Bill. Within the limits of the Bill there is definite provision for meeting any special need in regard to the grazing of sheep. I submit that in these circumstances the Amendment is unnecessary and that the term "agricultural land" should stand as it is in the Bill. If it is modified in the way suggested it will add enormous restrictions to the land to which the Bill is intended to apply.

Perhaps I may say a few words in order to resolve the genuine difficulty that has been put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). If these words are omitted we shall be faced with the drawback that the categories of land, mountain, moor, heath and downland, which the Bill is intended to cover, might cease to be covered because they would come under the definition of agricultural land. On the other hand, it is possible that "sheep walks" go a little too far, and I would advise the promoters that it might be as well to have this matter considered in another place. Without committing the promoter to any particular phraseology, it might be worth considering a proviso stating that mountain, moor, heath and downland should not be regarded as agricultural land by reason of the fact that it is used for grazing sheep. Perhaps that will meet the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. It is clear that if these words are left out we shall be in danger of omitting mountain, moor, heath or downland because they came under the definition of agriculture land. From the general commonsense point of view it is not likely to do harm if people are allowed to go over a sheep walk, and we do not want to exclude people from these types of land because they are used for grazing. Bearing in mind the point which has been raised and the suggestion I have made for dealing with it, it may not be necessary to press the Amendment.

I do not think the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) realises that if the Clause is modified in the way suggested it would practically exclude all Derbyshire, for there are sheep on almost every moor in the county.

I said that I thought other words should be put in to except the right of stray over moorlands.

As I understand the hon. Member he would exclude from access practically every moorland which is used as agricultural land and that would exclude practically the whole of Derbyshire.

I shall be glad to give the assurance which the Minister mentioned.

In view of that undertaking, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 17, after "range," to insert "gliding ground."

Unfortunately, I was not on the Committee which considered this Bill, or I think that the gap which exists in it at present would not be there, because gliding grounds would have been included. I have been looking through a list of members of the committee and I think not one of them engages in the sport of gliding or has a gliding ground in his constituency, or they would have realised that there is a gap in the Bill. The Clause exempts from the provisions of the Bill:

"land used for the purpose of a golf course, racecourse, training gallop, sports ground, recreation or pleasure ground, shooting range, or aerodrome."

You do not find a racecourse on top of a moor, or aerodromes situated on mountains, but a gliding ground must always be situated on moorland or mountains, because that is essential in gliding. I happen to have in my constituency the best gliding ground in England, Sutton Bank. There are large hangars there, housing a number of valuable gliders, and the land is enclosed with a wall and a fence. Spectators who wish to be within the grounds pay a small charge for admission, while others who do not wish to pay but like to watch the gliding usually wait on the roadside or take up points of vantage on the hill. The gliding ground itself is rented by the Yorkshire Gliding Club from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and they pay a substantial rent for it, and unless gliding grounds are among the excepted grounds in this Measure that club will be placed in the position of not being able to secure any advantage in return for the rent which they pay. I cannot understand why the hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. Marshall) shakes his head at that remark, and I hope he will explain himself, but if we are going to deprive these gliding enthusiasts of the enjoyment of rights which they have purchased by the payment of rent we shall be going very far towards Marxian Socialism, which I do not think the House has associated with this Bill. I feel that the House ought to pay attention to the claims of what is a new industry and provides much recreation for people who come out of the towns to engage in the sport of gliding. I cannot understand why gliding grounds have not been excepted from the provisions of the Bill, because I feel there is more reason for excepting them than for excepting aerodromes.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I would point out that it is in the national interest that we should encourage gliding. That is how the Germans learned flying— by gliding, on the quiet. Thousands and thousands of them have taken up gliding, and we should do everything we can to encourage our young men to engage in this to some extent dangerous sport, because it will qualify them to help us if the day of trouble should come, though we hope it never may.

I should like to assure the Mover and the Seconder of the Amendment that we have great sympathy with gliding and appreciate that there is a definite point in this Amendment, but there is the difficulty that we have no clear definition of a gliding ground. It might be any hill from which people can start gliding, and such a definition would be much too wide. We think that under the Bill as it stands it will be within the powers of the Minister to deal with gliding grounds in any Order which he makes, but if there is any doubt whether he has sufficient power for that purpose we are quite ready to agree to have the point looked into before the Bill gets to another place if the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) sees fit to withdraw the Amendment.

I hope that the promoters of this Bill will not concede too much in this matter. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) talks about having the best gliding ground in the country in his division, but I very much doubt whether he has, because there is one in Derbyshire—

The English championship meetings take place at Sutton Bank, or at Dunstable, and I am afraid that any gliding ground in the hon. Member's constituency must rank very low.

I do not want to vie with the hon. Member in expressions of local patriotism, but I would defy him to define what is a gliding ground.

It is what you pay for.

I do not suppose that any Minister of Agriculture would include any small area such as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has spoken of in any Order which he made, and I feel that the owners of that flying ground are perfectly safeguarded by the existing provisions of the Bill. But the hon. Member knows that gliders often travel miles away from the particular area in which they start their flight—

So do aeroplanes.

— and it may be that the hon. Member would want to define the area which the gliders cover as the gliding ground.

No.

I have seen hundreds of spectators watching these gliding exhibi-

Racing does not go on every day.

— and I think it would be better that we should leave things to the Minister.

In view of the fact that the encouragement of gliding is a matter of national interest I was very glad to hear the promoters of the Bill say they would be willing to look into the point raised by this Amendment, but although the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) no doubt knows this Bill much better than I do, I would like to point out to him that already there is a provision that the Minister before making an Order shall have regard to whether it will depreciate any rental value, and if he does make an Order a local authority is empowered to make up any loss of rent. I think those two provisos do fairly safeguard the interests of gliding grounds.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 20, to leave out from "authority" to "and," in line 22, and to insert:

"(including any authority having power to levy a rate as defined for the purposes of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, or for whose expense a precept may be issued for the levying of such a rate, and any combination or joint committee of any such authorities as aforesaid)."

The definition as it stands in the Bill does not include joint committees and is unduly loose in regard to London. In the attempt to tighten up the definitions this Amendment has been put down and is in the same form as words included in Section 12 of the Air-Raid Precautions Act, 1937.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 32, after "tramway," to insert "or."

I move the Amendment in this form rather than in the form in which it appears on the Order Paper, namely, to insert "or land." It is a purely drafting point, and I understand that the promoters are willing that the Bill should be improved in this manner.

I beg to second the Amendment. Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 32, at the end, to insert:

"Provided that no Order shall be made in respect of any land to which regular public access has been permitted for a continuous period of ten years prior to the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine."

The object of this Amendment is to preserve existing rights. Where for a period of 10 years, or, indeed, for very much longer, perhaps hundreds of years, the public have been permitted access, there is no reason why this should be disturbed, and it is a fact that in the greater part of England and Wales there is no problem or trouble. It is only in the Derbyshire district that trouble arises, and that is why this Measure is required. It may be said that landowners are unlikely to take advantage of the provisions of the Act to disturb what has been going on satisfactorily for so long, but undoubtedly there is power under Clause 3 for an owner of land to apply for an Order the effect of which, if made, would be to bring in all the penal Clauses with regard to access, to abolish the law of trespass, and to limit the periods during which people could go on to the land. It would be deplorable if the passage of this Measure made it possible for some reactionary landowner to take it into his head to disturb what has been going on satisfactorily for so long, and put into operation this new and restrictive machinery, which is nothing like so good as what is happening in the greater part of England and Wales at the present time. I desire to press the Amendment very strongly, because I feel that it would be disastrous if any power were given to disturb existing arrangements. I am not dealing with the Bill itself, or with what it does for the areas under consideration, but am simply speaking of places where everything is going on satisfactorily. Why disturb them and make it possible for any landowner to alter the present satisfactory arrangement?

I beg to second the Amendment.

I think that all of us would sympathise with the point of view that the hon. Member has put, but, unfortunately, the Amendment hardly covers the position he has in mind. It should be appreciated that at the present time, in respect of private land, the public have no rights whatsoever to wander, and it could quite easily happen that land which had been opened up to public access, but which was still in private possession, could be fenced round and the public excluded altogether. It often happens that there is a change of ownership, when land is transferred to another owner or when the present owner dies, and if in such a case the new owner should decide that the public should not have access to the land, under this Amendment the public would have no redress whatsoever. Therefore, while we sympathise with the object of the Mover, we ask the House to resist the Amendment, so that, what-may be the future of the land, at least it shall be possible, if it comes within the terms of the Bill, for the Minister to make an order on an application with respect to the land should the land be closed in.

Personally, I think we should leave the matter as it is, to the discretion of the Minister. We recognise the very generous way in which numbers of landowners have agreed that, so far as their own rights in respect of the land are concerned, they shall be transferred to the Minister in order that he may exercise his discretion, and the public likewise should be prepared to trust the Minister to exercise his discretion wisely should an application ever be made for the enclosure of land to which the public now enjoy access. If it can be established that, without damage or prejudice to the owner, access to the land has been enjoyed by the public for a long period, it is very unlikely that the Minister will make such an order, because, after all, his order will only be made after a public inquiry, and if at the public inquiry it is established that no prejudice to the owner has resulted from the public having access to the land, we must trust the Minister and believe that he will not make an order imposing restrictions on the access to the land. For these reasons we ask the House not to accept this Amendment, much as we sympathise with its object.

This is a very specious Amendment, the result of which would be that many owners who have allowed their land to be used by the public will say that they must protect themselves. I can recall one case in which something of that kind happened. A new owner came in, took over a piece of waste land to which the public had had access for many years, and, with great agricultural skill, made it blossom like the rose, and, of course, it had to be taken away from the public. If this provision came into operation, that beneficial action might have been prevented. It is a very dangerous Amendment.

I should feel inclined to support the general idea of this Amendment, seeing that in my own constituency, the Forest of Dean, the public have had access to the forest and open land around it for centuries. Therefore, anything which might facilitate the owner—in this case the Forestry Commission, or the Crown— to close in part of this land I should naturally resist. On the other hand, I do not see that this Amendment is very necessary. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) has shown that there is machinery in the Bill to prevent anything of that kind. I am prepared to trust to that machinery and to the force of public opinion in the locality, which should be very considerable. In any case, I do not think the Forestry Commission would close lands other than those now being closed.

The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) is unduly apprehensive, I think, with regard to this Clause, and I do not believe the Amendment would improve it. In the first place, if everybody concerned wanted to have an order and no objection was raised, there seems to be no reason why the Minister should prohibit the making of the order. If a public inquiry was held and it was shown that an order was undesirable, by reason of the fact that the public had had access for years, I cannot see the Minister lightly disregarding the history of the area. Thirdly, there is a danger that I see in accepting the Amendment. Take the case of an area which has been regularly visited by the public. Suppose a new landowner comes along who is of a less friendly disposition. If this Amendment were on the Statute Book there would be no power to make the order, and, so far from this being in the interests of the public, it would be to their disadvantage. From a psychological point of view, it is worth remembering what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) has said. The Amendment would not improve the Bill, and would, in certain cases, do considerable harm to the very interests which the Mover and most of us wish to protect.

In view of the fact that the promoter considers the words to be unsuitable and to go too far, would he be prepared to consider inserting in another place an Amendment which would meet apprehensions that many of us feel?

I rise to support the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander). I think there ought to be some protection of existing rights. The protection afforded by the fact of the Minister having to make an order is not sufficient, and possibly in another place the promoter of the Bill would be able to meet what is the purpose of this Amendment, but what, unfortunately, it does not achieve. I daresay there are other members in the same position as myself, having had letters from the ramblers' associations objecting to the Bill in the form it is now, because it will possibly take away liberties that they now enjoy. The purpose of this Amendment should be secured. I admit that, having listened to the various interpretations, I think the Amendment as it stands would be dangerous. But the House should be given the assurance that rights enjoyed by the public at present are not going to be derogated in any way by the passage of the Bill. If the Bill is to be passed, it must be an addition to the rights at present enjoyed by the public. I have been approached by people in my constituency who have been very interested in the Bill, and about the one good thing that I see in the Bill now is the last Clause, which says that the Act shall not apply to Scotland. If it were to apply to Scotland, I think that I would, with my colleagues, try to prevent it passing in its present form.

It is not a question of rights, but of permission.

I wish to support the appeal that an effort should be made in another place to meet the intention of the Amendment. The Minister indicated that, although he disapproved of the terms of the Amendment, there was a very reasonable purpose underlying it. I think it would be possible, with the help of the Law Officers, for the promoters to find some words to safeguard the public on a point on which there is widespread anxiety. It would be lamentable if this Bill, which is called the Access to Mountains Bill, should finally take a form which would justify the title "Prevention of Access to Mountains." No one wants that to happen, after the very devoted labours of the promoters, of the Bill. I think that in all parts of the House there is a desire that the purposes of the Bill should be fulfilled, and it should get on the Statute Book in a form which will command general assent. I do not think it will be beyond the power of the Law Officers and the promoters to find a form of words which will have the effect of safeguarding existing rights and not extending the law of trespass.

Everybody in the House has great sympathy with the point of view of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment and those hon. Members who supported it. They want to be assured that on land where liberal practices have been adopted that shall continue to be the case. But I suggest that the Amendment would achieve exactly the opposite of what they want. It would, in many cases, prevent the public from being protected, whereas the Bill will protect them. I suggest, with the utmost respect, that there are two mistakes in the minds of hon. Members supporting the Amendment. They assume that those owners who have pursued a very intelligent practice up to the present will be induced by the Bill to change their policy, and, in the second place, that the public have got rights now which could be diminished by the operation of an order by the Courts. But the owners who have adopted that intelligent policy in the past will be likely to continue to do so in future. If they tried to introduce new restrictions they would bring a hornets' nest about their ears. I can imagine what would happen, for instance, to a landowner in the Lake District who tried to diminish the facilities for access to the public.

On the second point, the public, unfortunately, have no rights. It is not a question of, as the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) said, protecting existing rights; the rights do not exist. If an owner tries to impose restrictions, as owners do continually— I could take the hon. Member to many places within reach of London to which it is highly desirable that the public should have the right to go, but where within the last 10 years new owners or the successors of old owners have forbidden access which used to be allowed— under this Bill we have the right to stop him, and we can rely upon the Minister to see that the rights of the public are secured. As to the point put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) I do not think the Bill would so operate. I hope that the hon. Member for East Wolver-hampton (Mr. Mander) will not persist in his Amendment.

I made an appeal to the promoters to facilitate the further passage of this Measure by saying that they would try to consider whether certain words could not be found, agreeing that my words are unsuitable, between now and what happens in another place. The promoters have made no response, and I hope that in the interests of the further progress of the Bill, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) will be good enough to promise to do something.

Certainly, if the point can be properly covered, but the real difficulty is that the law gives the public no rights what ever, and we are trying to secure, by order of the Minister, the continuance of access. The Amendment would, unfortunately, have the opposite effect, and it would be a matter of considerable difficulty to find words to meet the point of view of the Mover of the Amendment. We will search for the words, if such can be found, and consider whether they can be put down in another place, but I submit that it is far wiser to leave the whole matter to the discretion of the Minister, who will make a decision in the light of past experience where the public have had this enjoyment without prejudice to existing rights. Therefore, I suggest that the Amendment should not be pressed. We will search for a form of words, but I cannot possibly say whether such words can be found.

I have not followed the progress of this Measure very closely, but I have followed this particular discussion, and I wonder whether the point made by the hon. Member for East Wolver-hampton (Mr. Mander) has really been seized, or whether I myself may have possibly misunderstood it. We are saying that in many places access has been allowed by the owner of land for a number of years. It may be true to say that the public does not acquire any rights thereby, but, on the other hand, one would have thought that if it had gone on for long they would have acquired some rights. I understood the Mover of the Amendment to say that if the position were left as it now is, the public would be satisfied, but if, on the other hand, an order were made affecting the land, the order having the consequences which this Rill contemplates, it might leave the public in a worse position than they were before. That seems to be a simple point. It may be that this particular Amendment is not apt to meet it, but it looks as if it is not unreasonable to ask that the point should be met, and not impossible to devise some form of words to meet it. The promoters of the Bill ought to have no difficulty, and certainly ought not to display any reluctance, in attempting to see whether they can find some form of words to meet this limited class of case, so that the making of an order should not leave the public worse off than they were before.

We ought to assume that the Minister will act intelligently.

If we can find a way of doing this we shall be delighted, and if a means can be suggested to us between now and another stage of the Bill, we shall be glad to consider it. We cannot think of any form of words which would not do more harm than good, and we are satisfied that the words of the Amendment would do more harm than good.

In view of the attitude taken by the promoters, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 2, to leave out from "conditions," to the end of line 3.

This Amendment is consequential on the Amendment to leave out Sub-section (4) of Clause 1.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 13, to leave out from "that," to "during," in line 14.

This Amendment must be read together with the following Amendment. The Clause is intended to enable the Minister by order temporarily to close land and prevent access. Where he is satisfied, by reason of exceptional weather conditions, danger of fire is likely to result from such access, it is necessary to have some provision to deal with any persons who may be disposed to disregard such temporary order. The Amendment is designed to meet that position.

I beg to second the Amendment.

This provision is very necessary, as during dry periods there is great danger of fire taking place. This provision is on the same principle as that which obtains when the Minister makes an order to deal with foot-and-mouth disease. He can act at once, and the order can be taken off whenever he thinks fit. We think that this suggestion is the safest way of dealing with the one great danger to forestry and timber.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 15, at the end, to insert:

"no person shall, without lawful authority (proof of the possession whereof shall lie upon him), enter upon the fend or upon any particular area therein specified in the order."

This Amendment relates to the Amendment I have just previously moved.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The promoter of the Bill ought to have told us a little more about this Amendment. Suppose he does not know that an order has been made in respect of the land, and he goes on to the land as he has been in the habit of doing. What will be his position? He may be told: "You have no right to be on that land; you have not the permission of the proprietor." People may have been in the habit of going on to certain land without getting permission from the proprietor, and I should like to know whether that position is covered. The explanation which we have had so far is inadequate. Are we to take away privileges that people have had in the past and are they to be faced with the possibility that heavy penalties may be imposed upon them under this Bill?

There are no existing rights in respect of the land in question.

No, but there are privileges. They are not definitely legal rights but they are privileges which have been long enjoyed. Because those privileges are not legal rights I do not want us in this Bill to take them away and to put thousands of people in the position that every week they may be fined, on summons, by obnoxious proprietors.

I share the hon. Member's desire in the point of view he has expressed, but I would point out that this Clause relates to the prevention of fire. It is a very restrictive Clause and has been drafted in the public interest as well as in the private interest. A great deal of land covered by the Bill is land to which the public has no access at the present time. A great deal of land will for the first time be thrown open to the general public. Therefore, no question of existing privileges or rights will arise. In these circumstances we feel that it is very important that if the danger of fire exists there should be some adequate way of dealing with the danger. This is not a general Clause designed to modify in any respect the common law of trespass. It is an effort made to impose a sanction in respect of deliberate violation of an order regarding land which has been temporarily closed because of the danger of fire. I hope that in these circumstances the hon. Member will accept the explanation and will not press his objection.

It may be the case that this Amendment is not designed to alter the law of tresspass, but I do not think it will be contended that it does not actually alter it. It may be a justifiable, alteration, but, obviously, it does alter and extend the law of trespass and make it apply where it would not otherwise apply. It involves criminal penalties which are not involved now. The onus of showing that such an extension of the criminal law is necessary lies, I suggest, on those who seek to extend it. I do not understand what is meant by saying that the presence of people upon land causes danger of fire. I do not think that walking across land ever set it on fire. If people walk across certain types of land at certain times and they happen to be careless with matches and other things, they may do a lot of damage. Why not make that the criminal offence?

What is suggested here is that a man should be prevented from peacefully walking over land, even without a pipe, or without matches, and he is to be prevented from doing so because there is a fear that some fool, over whom he has no control, without his knowledge or consent, does something which no sensible person would do. If we introduce this restriction into a Bill intended to increase the facilities for walking over open spaces, we shall introduce something which is difficult to justify. I do not see any necessity for the Amendment. If it is necessary to make it a criminal offence for people to be grossly negligent or grossly careless in dangerous situations, I should have no objection to that, but we ought to define the offence and not seek to prevent the commission of one kind of offence by creating into an offence something which is not an offence.

It is clear that the Amendment is moved simply to meet an exceptional case where, owing to exceptional weather conditions, the danger of fire exists, with the result that it has been felt right that certain areas should be temporarily excluded by the Minister from public access. I note what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) said, but he must realise that under this Bill new areas are open to access, and these include areas in which there are the possibilities of fire, particularly in very dry weather. Some people may not be as careful as the hon. Member and may throw away a burning cigarette or a match. I remember that I once spent two or three weeks in the Rocky Mountains in Canada, where there was great danger of forest fires, and it needed a terrific effort of concentration on my part not to throw away a match and to remember to put out my cigarette before throwing it away.

You need not have smoked.

:I need not have smoked and a great many people need not do so, but in fact they do.

You did not do anything that was dangerous.

That is so, but there were exceptionally dangerous conditions there. There was a big forest fire raging at the time, and the danger was very present to my mind. The danger of fire may not be present to the mind of people who go on to these particular lands covered by the Amendment. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) spoke of a man wandering into an excluded area, not realising that it was excluded. In that case he will not be liable to penalty. He will be covered by a proviso to Clause 7. If he could show that all he had done was to be present on the land, quietly, and that he did not know of the order, then he would not have committed an offence.

Is that quite so?

Yes, I think that is the case.

The proviso to Clause 7 certainly makes that defence available in the case of an offence under Clause 7, out this would be an offence under Clause 5.

If the hon. Member will look at Sub-section (1) of Clause 7 he will see:

"Any person who in or upon any land contravenes or fails to observe any of the provisions specified in the last preceding section that have effect in relation thereto or any condition specified in relation thereto in an order made under Section three of this Act, Shall be guilty of an offence under this Section."

That, I think, covers the point. At any rate, it is the intention of the promoters that the proviso should apply to the case, but if it does not, I will look into the matter again. As at present advised I think it does.

The right hon. and learned Member has drawn my attention to the fact that Sub-section (1) of Clause 7 refers to the previous Clause.

I must remind the hon. Member that he must not make a second speech.

I am only asking a question. The offence which is created by the proposed Amendment is an offence under Clause 7, and not an offence under Clauses 6 and 5. Therefore, is it not true that the proviso provides no defence for an offence committed under Clause 5?

I think the hon. Member is right as the Bill stands at present, but I will look into the point again, as I know it was intended to cover the case.

I should like to say that if there is any further ambiguity in the Clause we will look into it again and see that it is rectified in another place. Of course, there will be notices posted up if an area is closed, and anyone who goes there unintentionally is not liable to a penalty. I hope in the light of these explanations that hon. Members will allow the Bill to go through without further opposition. This point was considered carefully in Committee upstairs and was adopted without dissent. The danger of fire is very great indeed. Last year there were more than 1,000 fires which did great damage all over the country, not only to private owners but even more damage to those who desire to go to these places for the purposes of pleasure and exercise. There is literally no way of preventing fires in times of exceptional danger except by keeping people off. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) asked why he should suffer because some fool of whom he had no knowledge does foolish things. We have to deal with the fool, and you cannot deal with him by saying that he is not to smoke or that he must put out his cigarette. You are not there when he is, and it is impossible to have people supervising him all the time. Even with the best will in the world you cannot be satisfied as to whether he has thrown away a cigarette which has started a fire, because there are cases in which 24 hours have elapsed before any visible fire broke out. This is a very limited restriction, it applies only to a very small part of the land to which we are trying to get access, and it will apply only for a very short period. In view of the great danger of fire, I hope hon. Members will allow the Amendment to go through.

This matter was considered very thoroughly upstairs and there was general agreement upon it. It seems to me a reasonable way of dealing with the problem, and I hope it will be allowed to go through. I want to make one comment, and it is that I hope we shall hear no more in the discussions on this Measure that no alteration whatever is being made in the law of trespass. Of course a fundamental difference is being made. It may be quite right and a wise and proper thing to do. That is not the point. Do not let us pretend that the law of trespass is not being altered. In this case it is being done, and perhaps rightly done.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 19, to leave out from the beginning, to "no," in line 22.

This is a drafting Amendment which makes the Clause more clear and intelligible.

I beg to Second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 35, to leave out from "water" to the end of the paragraph.

The prohibition in this Clause deals with bathing. The promoters suggest that it should be a subject of a penalty if you bathe in non-tidal waters in contravention of a notice displayed near the water prohibiting bathing. My object is to keep the beauty of the country-side, and for that reason I want to delete this allusion to notice boards. We are dealing with moorland scenery. It is the moorland stream that we want to protect. I know that in many cases people do no harm by bathing in a moorland stream, but I am equally certain that in many cases it is most inadvisable. It would be a monstrous thing if we had to dot up and town the streams prohibition notices saying "You must not bathe." If the promoters wish that to be done half the beauty of rural England is to disappear. In my part of the country there is no difficulty in dealing with the problems of hikers and ramblers. We let people bathe in certain parts and in other parts we explain politely to them that they had better not bathe there because of fishing or because the water supply of some neighbouring village is affected. It is important for us to keep the purity of our streams.

I am not casting aspersions on bathers, but it is better that such streams should not be used as bathing places. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not? "] In many country places the water from these moorland streams is drunk. Personally, I should never think of bathing in the Don. I would far rather bathe in some moorland stream. But we are not here involved in the question of the Don; we are involved in a simple issue, whether the promoter's idea of plastering notice boards over this moorland scenery is right or wrong? If the House is right no doubt the House will keep in these words, but if we are to have a prohibition from bathing in non-tidal water, and it is already in the Bill, the notice boards should be deleted.

Why not delete the whole Sub-section?

The hon. Member says gaily, "Delete the whole Sub-section." But he represents Scotland, which does not come into this Bill at all. He wants to prevent access to mountains.

I want to get complete access to the mountains of Scotland and the moorlands of this country, which is what the hon. Member is trying to prevent.

I understood the hon. Member was a very keen supporter of the Bill, but he has on the Paper an Amendment which makes the Bill not apply to Scotland. Therefore I think I am justified in drawing the conclusion I have drawn. I am asking, in the interests of villagers and of rural scenery, that the allusion to notice boards should be cut out of the Bill.

I beg to second the Amendment

The wording of this Sub-section was very carefully considered in the discussions and negotiations which went on with the respective landowning interests, and it is the form of words which met with general agreement because it was felt that no harm was likely to be done by the person who was taking exercise across a moor on a hot day if sometimes he bathed his feet or entered a stream.

Does the hon. Member envisage that water being the drinking water of some neighbouring village?

Under the scheme of the Bill provision is made to safeguard the public against water pollution, and all that the promoters are asking is that a Clause which has the general good will and agreement of the landowners themselves should not now be deleted. It is a very small point that the hon. Member has raised, and I hope he will not press the Amendment.

I really do not understand what this paragraph means. It says it will be an offence to

"bathe in any non-tidal water in contravention of a notice displayed near the water prohibiting bathing."

Does that mean the whole length of the non-tidal water, or is there some point within a specified distance of the notice board where bathing is not an offence? If so, how near to the notice can the bather go, or how far from the notice must the bather be before he can bathe in a mountain stream without committing an offence?

That is not the Amendment we are discussing. The hon. Member must confine himself solely to the Amendment.

I hope the House will reject the Amendment. I think that a good many of these Regulations are objectionable, and I am sorry they are in the Bill. I regret that it is here proposed to create new offences. Do not let us fine people £2 for doing other things in addition to what is already in the Bill. The Bill is bad enough already.

I appeal to the Mover of the Amendment not to press it. The Amendment would make matters worse than they are. The hon. Member has referred to an Amendment to another Clause, which stands on the Paper in my name. I have already said that I am not at all enthusiastic about the Bill, and the possibility is that I shall vote against the Third Reading. The ramblers' associations regard the Bill in its present form as objectionable, and the hon. Member is now seeking to make it worse still.

I beg to move, in page 10, line 12, after "hedge," to insert "fence or wall."

In Yorkshire there are no hedges and we have fences or walls. If we are to have a proviso dealing with damage and protecting hedges, we must also include fences and walls. It was probably through a slip in Committee that these words were omitted.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 10, line 38, to leave out from the beginning to the end of line 2, page 11.

This Amendment seeks to delete the proviso to Sub-section (1) of this Clause, which deals with offences. I am in a little difficulty because some of the objections to the proviso are being met by the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones). He has given the proviso some meaning, whereas before it was meaningless. To that extent, my argument is curtailed. I really share the views of the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen). I do not like this method of penal provisions, and really I do not like the Bill, and would far rather that we went on as now, by consent; but if there are to be offences, and if it is to be an offence, under Clause 6, to do certain things, I think it is rather unfortunate that we should include this proviso to make a person try to prove that he did something unintentionally.

If a person did something unintentionally, the natural thing would be for the matter not to be brought before the court, but if it were brought before the court, the court would have a wide power of discretion to dismiss the case either on payment of costs or, as I would expect, without the payment of costs, or in certain cases it might even award costs against the person bringing the action. This proviso interferes with the discretion of courts of summary jurisdiction. Surely, it is not wise to say that if somebody unintentionally commits an offence, it is not an offence. Surely, the court has to look into such a matter when trying any cases. The court has to consider whether it is merely a technical offence or whether it is something more. If it is a technical offence, the court knows perfectly well how to deal with the charge, and if it is something more than a technical offence, the court imposes a fine. For these reasons I ask the House to delete this proviso. If it is retained, certainly it must be changed, and I am not certain even now whether the changes which are being proposed by the hon. Member for Shipley will be entirely satisfactory. I suggest that it would be far better to leave out the proviso.

I beg to second the Amendment.

This Amendment indirectly raises the question, which will be debated on a subsequent Amendment, of trespassing, and therefore, I will limit my remarks to the single point raised by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) as to whether or not it is desirable that the word "unintentional" should be included in the Clause. The purpose of the proviso is to prevent a person from being charged with an offence when, accidentally and certainly without intention, he contravenes any restriction or condition laid down by an order of the Minister. Most of those who roam about the countryside at some time or other unintentionally go on to private land. What we are seeking to do in this Clause is to make it clear that if a restriction is unintentionally violated, a charge of criminal offence cannot be lodged against a rambler. There is considerable feeling that the proviso should be retained, because it is unlikely that the House will take a different view from that embodied in the Bill in respect of sanctions for certain offences. I hope the hon. Member will not press his Amendment.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 10, line 39, to leave out "unintentional."

The effect of omitting this word would be to extract the act of mere trespassing, whether deliberate or innocent, from the penalty Clauses of the Bill. The ramblers believe that this is the most vital part of the Bill. They believe that a great and fundamental breach is being made in the law of trespass, and they are offering their most vigorous opposition. I have this morning received a telegram from the Secretary of the Southern Ramblers' Federation asking the House to urge the deletion of this particular Clause. I have another telegram from the Midland ramblers in which they say that the Bill is entirely unacceptable in its present form and hope that it will be opposed. I have also here a batch of correspondence with Northern ramblers on this subject and in all cases they ask that this objectionable provision should be taken out of the Bill. There is also an expression of opinion from the National Federation of Ramblers to the effect that this trespass provision is entirely unacceptable to them and that they would rather be without the Bill than have it. Therefore, I make no apology for moving this Amendment. There is no doubt that the rambling fraternity in general are vigorously opposed to this proposed breach in the common law which they have regarded for generations as a protection, I will not say of their rights, but of what they have been doing as regards going on to the hills and moors of the country.

The ramblers start from this point. They claim that they have a natural right to trespass, or to go to see these places of beauty. They do not trespass with any vicious motive. As a matter of fact, the motive of their trespass is one which we should all praise. It contributes to health, to aesthetic taste and, I think, to morality. From that point of view it is very commendable on the part of the ramblers that they should seek to visit these places of beauty. They have the idea that that is a natural right and that there should be no law to prevent it. It is true that up to the present the only restriction upon them has been the ordinary law of trespass, and that has been a very mild yoke. There have been few prosecutions. Indeed, the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) has himself paid great tributes to the ramblers, both in Committee and the House. He has said that it is not the ramblers who cause trouble and commit offences, and in Committee he tried to convert all ramblers to the idea of one organisation so that they could carry on their very fine traditions of conduct. Start- ing from the point which I have indicated, that this is a natural right, ramblers regard with great horror the idea that the law of trespass should be modified to suit the purposes of this Bill.

As the Bill stands, the mere act of trespass will be an offence punishable by a fine. It will be an offence if a man goes on to a place which is temporarily restricted under the provisions of this Measure. According to advice which has been given, this will not apply to land which is permanently excluded from the operation of any order under the Bill. Therefore, I take it that it is confined to those patches of land which will be temporarily excluded, for some reason such as the danger of fire or because of the breeding or shooting of game, from the provisions of the Bill. From that point of view ramblers are up against the proposal that a 40s. fine should be imposed. They feel that such a fine is out of all proportion to the offence. Their view is that there is no offence in merely walking over a moorland. Many hon. Members here have done so and will continue to do so, but what I want to avoid is that ramblers should get hold of the idea that the only remedy is to institute mass trespass in order to maintain what they consider to be the rights which they have enjoyed for many years. This excessive fine will occasion very deep resentment among the rambling fraternity. They feel that this proposal strengthens the law of property, places barriers round the land and gives the landowner a firmer grip of his land, and an instrument by which he can defend his ownership with vindictive penalties. As the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) said in Committee, it is almost equivalent to a new Enclosure Act and the ramblers will not accept it in any circumstances. I have said that trespass is a small offence and ought not to involve a fine of this kind. There is no reason for such a fine. For the purposes of this Bill a provision could be devised by which the mere act of trespass, whether deliberate or not, could be dealt with by the ordinary law of trespass.

There is another reason for opposing this proposal. This fight for freedom to ramble has gone on for 50 years or more, and has sometimes attained a certain degree of bitterness. The rambling move- ment is growing and the demand for freedom to ramble becomes stronger every year. This is a most inappropriate time at which to inflict upon the rambling fraternity the possibility of such huge fines for such small offences. They tell me that they are prepared to swallow the other penalties which have been put into the Bill. Many of those they feel to be out of all proportion to the offences. For instance, there is a fine of 40s. for leaving a newspaper or a bottle on a moorland. No people are more anxious to defend and protect the amenities of the countryside than the ramblers, and they resent the implication that it is they who leave litter behind them. But while they do not like those provisions they are prepared to swallow them. They demand, however, that this major provision about trespass should be taken out of the Bill.

I wish to pay a tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) in connection with the Bill. I know how hard he has worked and how much he has accomplished, and I know that this Amendment will embarrass him to some extent, but I feel sure that the rambling fraternity are solidly behind this Amendment and their view ought to be placed before the House. If the representatives of the landowners could see their way to accept the Amendment, it would be a gesture of good will to which the rambling community would readily and happily respond, and I believe that it would ensure that those associated with this great and growing movement would do more to protect the moorlands than could be accomplished by any kind of policing.

I beg to second the Amendment.

We fought this point very strongly in Committee and, for my own part, I am not worried about the ramblers as much as about the general public. The ramblers can combine in associations and sometimes get privileges which are denied to the general public. I speak, however, as one who was born on the moors, and who has the greatest love for them that any man could have, and I am anxious to see that not only ramblers, but those who have for generations been living in the vicinity of the moors shall have access to them. It would be a very serious thing if we were to do anything which would limit access to the moors in areas such as North Cumberland where I was brought up, or the Yorkshire moors, which are so well known to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). I have known what it is to wander on to those moors in the morning and to climb to heights of 1,500 or 1,800 feet. In that way a man was a great deal more refreshed than he would be by physical exercises in a school or a hall. I think the landowners ought to give us the concession which is asked for in this Amendment. If they are anxious that people should defend the country and that we should all be fit A.I men, then they should, at least, open the moorlands to us.

I am one of those who have always defended the right to protect the ewes on the moor, because, after all, there are times, such as the breeding season, when we should limit access to the land. Moorland sheep are much more tender and fearful than inland sheep, and men with pet dogs have a tremendous effect on the ewes at these periods. My father had sheep, and I know what it means. I should give the birds also an opportunity and protect them at certain seasons, but after you have done that, I think everybody should have access to the land. They can do no damage, and I feel assured that to-day there is a great need and a greater desire than ever before for people to get into the open air. All my family are hikers and ramblers, but they can associate with young and vigorous people and get opportunities that the ordinary person cannot get. I am anxious lest people whom I have known all my life should now be restricted and be fined for wandering about on the moor, and if that 'should happen, I say that it would be not only serious, but a very wicked thing.

There are landlords and landlords, but we are getting now a new class of landlord. I have always paid and shall always pay triblute to the old aristocratic families, who never bothered at all about these matters, but now we are getting some new ones, the quick-rich gentlemen, who can afford to have more gamekeepers than there is game on the job. As I said upstairs, we have some Americans now, and they are as boisterous as they always are. They can afford to have an army of gamekeepers, who would be very welcome to the Minister for War just now. They ire lined up so thickly that the people who have lived in the area are hardly able to get past them. These people come along in special trains, with photographers, and bad shots, who spend more on the gamekeeper than on anybody else to see that they get a "bag." That is the sort of thing that I am up against. I feel honestly, in my very heart, that there is a moral and a spiritual advantage in breathing the very air in which you were brought up.

I agree that it is the people with motor cars whom we are up against most of a11 and that they are the people who do the damage, but is that any reason why we should punish the poor people who never get a breath of fresh air, but whom we are now beginning to allow to do so? They always behave themselves, and I think the people in the motor cars are more dangerous than anything else by breaking bottles on the roadside and dropping their cigarettes and other things that are more dangerous than cigarettes. They are a danger to the country generally, and they should be taught decent manners when they are out in the country places. They go and tear up wild flowers, and yet our people have to suffer because these other people cannot behave themselves. I hope we shall allow full access to the land, and I have great pleasure in seconding the Amendment, which will give us access to the beauty of everything that is glorious on the moors and that is ours by right. Let us be careful that we do not arouse the passions of the people, because there is such a desire now to get health in the open air that we might easily find that a force or a passion might be aroused that would not allow us to do as we are doing now. As to this Bill, I would rather have half a loaf than no loaf at all, but I think the last trust that we want to hand over to the landlords is liberty of access to our own hills.

The Mover of the Amendment suggested that I should feel some embarrassment in opposing the Amendment. I confess that I have considerable sympathy with the point of view that he has expressed, but I would ask the House to appreciate that a struggle for this Bill has been going on for more than 50 years and that we now have a compromise arrangement which involves concessions by the rambling fraternity as well as by the landowners themselves. Consequently, I feel that as in the negotiations I have entered into an agreement with the landowners in the hope that this Bill will be carried through the House, I am unable to support the Amendment. I feel that the agreement stands as it is and that it must have my support, however much I may sympathise with the point of view that has been put forward by my hon. Friends. I very much appreciate the enormous feeling which has been expressed by ramblers and their organisations in all parts of the country in opposition to this particular Clause of the Bill, but I would ask the rambling fraternities to appreciate that the landowners have made very considerable concessions, in that they are now, by this Bill, entrusting their own rights over big areas of the country to the Minister of Agriculture for him to use his discretion in respect to the new public access which this Bill will give.

For a long time past attemps have been made in various parts of the country to secure access by mass trespass or by deliberate trespass week after week, and I am sure that it is far better that access should be properly regulated than that we should drift into a state of anarchy wherein everyone would feel that he was fully justified in violating the law according to his own whims and wishes. I would ask the House to notice that in the negotiations one has not been concerned merely with the private landowner but with the public landowner, the public utility company, as well, and our efforts in these negotiations have been to get some kind of workable scheme which would safeguard the legitimate and special interests of all those who are concerned in the land. Those interests are public as well as private, and therefore, it has been necessary that the Minister, when access has been required, should make regulations, and what we now suggest is that in respect of those regulations, restrictions, or conditions, sanctions should be allowed to operate in order that there should be regulated access to safeguard the various types of interest that are involved in the land that is covered by the Bill.

I do not hesitate to trust the Minister in this matter so far as the restrictions in respect of the orders are concerned. The Minister is asked to administer an access Bill, and the House has given its endorse- ment to the general principle of access. Consequently, he will be called upon, after due public inquiry, to make restrictions in respect to which he will be accountable to this House and subjected to public criticism as well. Therefore, I am prepared in respect to the restrictions which the Minister may make, to allow him to exercise his discretion in the administration of what is, after all, an access Bill. Certain of these restrictions will obviously be concerned with the exclusion of the public for limited parts of the year, for a few weeks or possibly certain months, from particular corners or parcels of land in areas to which the public for the first time are enjoying the right of access. These limitations will be imposed only after the Minister by public inquiry has been completely satisfied that in the interests of the public and of the special interests these restrictions are necessary.

Therefore, it seems to me that there is some justification on the part of private and public landowners in urging that there should be certain sanctions in respect to the restrictions which the Minister will be obliged to impose after public inquiry, restrictions for which he will have to answer to the House and be subject to public criticism. Already in a large number of instances this kind of fine is imposed for the violation of a restriction made by a local authority or a Minister. One immediately thinks of the foot-and-mouth disease restrictions. The Minister may prescribe an area, and a person who deliberately trespasses into it commits an offence and is liable to a fine of £50. In public parks certain areas are often prescribed and it is an offence punishable by a fine to violate regulations made by a local authority in regard to them. Likewise, in regard to reservoirs, if it is laid down that the public shall pot have access to land 50 yards round the reservoir, it becomes a punishable offence if a person deliberately trespasses. One can multiply instances where, in the public interest as well as in special social and economic interests, restrictions have been made and sanctions have been imposed as a result of regulations made by Ministers or local authorities. Therefore, when the Minister has been obliged, after full public inquiry, to make a restriction, it does not seem that one is making a grave incursion into the common law in respect of trespass to ask that certain sanctions should operate.

My name appears on the back of this Bill, but I am bound to say that if I had known that this phrase would appear in the final stages of the Bill, I should have asked leave to put down an Amendment that the Bill be read this day six months. By this so-called compromise the landowning classes are getting with respect to their land a thing that the old landlords' Parliaments would never have given them in the eighteenth century. At the moment trespass is not a criminal offence, except in highly specialised cases to which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) referred, where special sanctions have been given by this House or under regulations made by authority of the House. I was brought up with this story of the law of trespass. A Lord Chief Justice was found by the gamekeeper of one of his colleagues on some of the hitter's land and was asked if he knew it was Lord So-and-So's land. The Lord Chief Justice handed the gamekeeper 2d., and said, "I offer this to his Lordship in compensation for any damage I may have caused. In handing it to him will you tell him it constitutes no claim on the freehold." I understand that that is the law of trespass in this country at the moment. If you commit damage you are liable to a civil action and the landowner can also bring an action against you to restrain you from going on to his land at any future time. That law, presumably, still stands. Not only is there the old trouble of compensation for damage, but there are now new offences created — I do not object to a great many of them— for which any person misbehaving himself on the land can be held liable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bright-side (Mr. Marshall) and those who think with him are not concerned with people who misbehave themselves on the land. We are concerned with people who exercise— I do not know whether it is a right or a privilege— but who enjoy an Englishman's capacity for walking across land with the knowledge that, unless he does damage, only a civil action can be brought against him. We often hear on Friday afternoons from the propertied interests that certain matters ought not to be dealt with by a private Member and that they are so important that only the Government should deal with them with the assistance of the Law Officers of the Crown and the recognised draftsmen. Surely so fundamental an alteration in the law of England as this ought not to be slipped in as a final Amendment into a private Member's Bill as a result of some compromise arrived at, not upstairs, but mainly between the various landowners' associations and the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society. This is an Amendment which we ought not to pass. Compromises arrived at outside the House are not binding on the House. No one will deny that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley has loyally stood by the agreement into which he has entered, and I do not think the landowning classes can complain that he has done any other than stand manfully for the bargain which they struck with him. I do not know with what they struck him when they managed to secure his assent to it. I appeal to the House not to be parties to what is not a compromise but is just the complete surrender of one of the most cherished possessions of an Englishman, who likes to wander about the face of his country and behaves himself reasonably while he does so.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). The present situation is quite satisfactory, and the Lord Chief Justice is quite right in his law, because if you carry a penny or two pence about in your pocket you can go anywhere under the present law. So far as I understand it, in this Bill we are not changing that law at all, except in the cases where certain rights are given under this Access to Mountains Bill. Let me say frankly that I do not like the Bill, and I hope there will be no cause ever to put Clause 7 into operation. In the North Riding, as, indeed, in most of the North of England, we have worked in harmony with the ramblers, and we welcome them on our land, but, like the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson), we do not always like the man in the Rolls-Royce who wants to transport home most of the countryside, whether poaching for grouse or taking wild plants.

I think that hon. Members opposite must realise that if they want to have these additional powers under this Access to Mountains Bill those powers ought to be defined. Let me take the point raised by the hon. Member for Durham. He said he quite appreciated that people walking about the land with dogs in the lambing season were not welcome, and I think he was right in his remarks about black-faced sheep being more timid mothers than the heavier breeds of sheep, but that makes it all the more necessary why, if we do exempt certain land during the lambing season, the farmer should have the power to enforce his right to keep people off that land at lambing time. Let the House remember that the farmer is making a great many concessions. As he does at present, he is going to allow people to go over his land during the whole of the rest of the year, but he asks that they shall keep off at lambing time, because otherwise they can ruin the whole of his farming for the year— at any rate they can make a tremendous difference to his lambing prospects.

Without this Clause 7 there is no way under the English law of stopping people from interfering with a farmer's operations. I have taken lambing because it was an illustration which was given by the hon. Member for Durham, but I think my observations apply with even greater force to the question of fires. If the Minister of Agriculture says that in view of the tindery nature of a moorland or because land is adjacent to a forest he must declare it to be reserved land and people intentionally go there, I do not think it is unreasonable for the House to say that they are committing an offence and that the courts should punish them for it. That is all that this Clause is trying to do. It is not altering by one jot or tittle the law of trespass in this country.

The right of anybody to go over another person's land is not governed by this Measure. People can still do that with their two pence in their pocket, and I think that over the greater part of this country they will meet with no objection, but while members of ramblers' associations do behave themselves very well there are other people who have to be taken into account. The hon. Member for Durham talked about new landlords, but there are also new people coming to the countryside, who would not come there but for the motors, who do not behave as the people who walked to the countryside behaved in the old days. We must deal with the man who comes in his Rolls-Royce and thinks he owns the country- side. People in the country want protection from that type of man, and if the House passed the Amendment I am afraid we shall rob the countryside of that protection. I do not believe that the poor man has anything to fear from this Clause; it is from the man who is in a better way but has not the same respect for the people who live in the countryside that we need to be protected. I, therefore, hope very much that the House will consider very carefully before voting for this Amendment.

:I fully appreciate the difficulty of the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) and what his inward feelings must be at the present time. He has carried out a task of negotiation with the greatest skill, and I marvel at it because I never thought at the beginning that he would get agreement at all. He has obtained agreement— I personally think at much too high a price from his point of view— but he has stuck to it and he is doing all he possibly can to carry it through. At the same time the House of Commons is not for a moment bound by an agreement come to by certain interested parties, and I hope that the Amendment will be carried.

After all, the real promoters of the Bill are the ramblers' associations. They are the people who for 40 or 50 years have been pressing and urging, year after year, that this matter should be dealt with. Therefore, I claim that their views should receive special consideration when we are coming to any conclusions about this matter. There is no doubt what their views are, because we have all had letters from five or six different ramblers' associations. I mention in particular the Midland Ramblers' Association who sent me a telegram to-day. As a clear expression of their views I would like to read an extract from a letter, written by about a dozen leading ramblers from Sheffield, which has been received by Members of this House. I would read to the House two paragraphs, in which they say:

"These modifications [in the Bill] apparently have been insufficient and during the Committee stage further restrictive Clauses have been added, including one which in effect will make simple trespass upon uncultivated land, without causing damage, a punishable offence if carried out deliberately during a period, or in an area, closed to public access by an order of the Minister. Such a Clause has been vehemently opposed by the ramblers' organisations since it was first mooted in a draft Bill put forward some months ago.

It is well known in the north country that access to most mountains and moorlands can be obtained to-day by those prepared to trespass, and there is in fact a growing number of people who trespass knowingly and often, because they believe the law which debars them from the beautiful, unspoilt and quite uncultivated parts of their native land is an unjust law which should be ignored. The only practical obstacle at present to such harmless trespass is the intimidation of misleading notice boards and aggressive gamekeepers."

That extract clearly puts their point of view, and I sympathise with it. I have an interest in this matter because I trespass nearly every week-end. I do not think anybody is the worse for it, and I am sure that I am the better.

It was said by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) that this proposal did not alter the law of trespass but, of course, in so far as all the land and the orders which come into the Bill are concerned, the law of the land on this subject is completely altered. All the orders, in the Bill directly alter the law of trespass. It is no doubt true that the present rights of the public under the law of trespass are not all they might be. They are somewhat embarrassing at times, and perhaps people have to snatch a fearful joy in the expeditions that they make. I remember some years ago making an ascent of Kinderscout. I was warned by my friends that it would be advisable to start before 9 o'clock because that was the hour when the trains arrived from Manchester, Sheffield and places around, and when the keepers came out. So I started at 8.30 and had an entirely unencumbered and enjoyable ascent of the mountain. The others came afterwards, and they were able to do just the same thing, but it was no doubt not quite so agreeable because they had people trying without success to intimidate them.

I hope that the House, anxious to pass this Bill and realising that it will mean a great step forward, will take hold of the position itself and will insist that this Amendment be carried. The promoter will have done all he can and the rambling fraternity will have obtained what they are very justly entitled to.

I do not think that the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) has made quite such a bad compromise as some people have suggested. In the first place, the Clause only affects areas in respect of which orders within the Act are made; that is to say, it only affects land in areas in which, for the first time, the public will have a legal right of access, but in the case of which there may be, for the time being, what some people may term prohibition. One has to realise that one is dealing with an area in which, for the first time, by reason of an order made under the Act, the public have a legal right of access. It may well be that there is nothing very unreasonable in saying, when you come to excluded areas, that within those areas the ordinary law of trespass, which applies outside them, may not be altogether appropriate. These excluded areas will, of course, be areas which have been excluded by the Minister for certain special reasons, and that is another point which is worth bearing in mind. This sanction will not operate over moorlands generally, but over parts of moorlands which otherwise are within the area, for special reasons which may seem good to the Minister.

We have discussed to-day two of those reasons. In the first place, there are areas which may be excluded in order to prevent water being polluted; and in the other case, which we discussed on Clause 5, areas may be excluded temporarily during exceptionally dry weather in order to prevent the danger of fire. I quite agree that there may be other reasons of a public character, but in any case we are now dealing with areas which the Minister, for some reason, is satisfied ought to be excluded. If a person deliberately goes into an area which has been excluded in the public interest for either of the two reasons I have mentioned, he commits an offence. If he goes there inadvertently, he does not. The Clause only deals with cases where there is a deliberate invasion of a part of an area which has been excluded for special reasons of a public character which may seem good to the Minister.

I think the Attorney-General has rather overstated the case. The prosecutor will not have to prove that the defendant was deliberately there, but the defendant will have to prove that he was not there intentionally. The question of deliberation does not come in unless the defendant raises it, and then he has to prove that he was not there deliberately; but the prosecution have only to prove that he was there.

I did not mean, of course, to misstate anything. I think that it necessarily so. The man was there, and obviously it must be for him to prove that he was there inadvertently. That does not alter the accuracy of what I was saying. This leads to the conclusion that the hon. Gentleman who has promoted this Bill, to whom so many tributes have been paid, has not made an unreasonable compromise. Certain analogies have been referred to— at least they have been described as analogies by the hon. Members who have referred to them— such as penalties under foot-and-mouth orders, under reservoir provisions, and so on. There is a general provision on the Statute Book dealing with commons. As hon. Members probably know, up to 1925 members of the public as a whole had no right to go on commons— although everybody did. "Commons" were common land only for particular localities, and people who lived elsewhere than in the locality of a particular common had no right to go on that common. The House thought it an unsatisfactory state of affairs, and in 1925 gave the public a legal right to go on commons. At the same time it gave the Minister power to exclude the public from certain areas in the common land, on which, for the first time, under that Act they were given a legal right to go.

The position is very similar, I think, in many ways to the position under this Bill. If a member of the public went into an excluded area, he was not subject merely to the law of trespass, but he was liable to a penalty not exceeding 40s., exactly as is provided in this Bill. It seems to me that that is worth bringing to the attention of the House. In that case, the House was taking these common lands, giving a legal right to use them, and giving the Minister power of exclusion; but, by reason of the fact that the only areas excluded would be excluded for special purposes, saying that that exclusion should be safeguarded by a penalty. The Act was more stringent, in fact, than this Bill, because there was no provision as to inadvertancy. These, I think, are good reasons for the compromise that the promoter has recommended to the House.

I confess that I would much rather that the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside (Mr. Marshall) should be accepted by the House if hon. Members opposite would agree. I think the Bill would be a better Bill if the Amendment were accepted, and if we could get it without destroying the Bill I would vote for the Amendment. But I am afraid that if we did carry the Amendment we should destroy the Bill. The question is not, is this as good a Bill as we can have, but is it a Bill which will improve the present situation as far as rights of access are concerned? In order to judge that matter there are two points which we must take into account. The first is that we are increasing the rights of access and opening a lot of land which has hitherto been closed to those who desire to ramble on it, and the second is whether, in opening that land and increasing the rights, we are impairing or undermining some principle consdered of great importance by those who use the country-side. We are opening a great deal of land and greatly increasing the rights of access. That is one side of the picture.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside said, there are many people, including organisations of ramblers, who consider that this so undermines the principle of the law of trespass, to which they attach great importance, that they would rather give up the Bill altogether. I admit at once— as I think the Attorney-General would admit— that this does, in a limited measure, make an incursion into the law of trespass, but, as he has explained, the real question is, how grave is that evil, if it is regarded as an evil? I think with him, that it is a very narrowly restricted evil. You are only allowing this incursion in the law of trespass for specific reasons within very narrow limits of time and space in respect of land which you are forcing an unwilling landowner to open. If we look at the practical cases raised in the Debate of the water undertaking, the pollution of an area round a lake or reservoir, the area which is to be restricted on account of fire in time of drought, and the closing of places where sheep are breeding during the lambing season, it is evident that the restrictions, if required, should be put on by the Minister. If these restrictions are reasonable, is it very unreasonable to say that there should be a sanction, or is it a very great evil?

My hon. Friend the Member for Durham City (Mr. Ritson) can be perfectly happy in his mind about what is to happen after the lambing and nesting seasons are over. The restrictions will be removed, and people will have the access which he desires them to have. This is not really the introduction of a new principle that is going, in a revolutionary manner, to undermine the law of trespass. It is an extension— and not a very wide extension, if rightly understood— of what has been done by the Law of Property Act, 1925, in respect of commons, and by other Acts as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) stated the analogy of the restrictions about foot-and-mouth disease. These go interminably further than it is proposed to go in this instance, and the penalties are very much heavier. Farms are closed, and roads and bridle paths leading to farms are closed to the public, and if you go on these roads and bridle paths, where there is serious and grave danger of infection, you are liable to a penalty of £ 50. Some people say that this restricts their rambling. But I would remind the House that the foot-and-mouth disease regulations entirely abolish hunting in places where they are imposed.

I regard this incursion into the law of trespass as a restrictive evil, which, I think, is the price of the Bill. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley when he said that the landowners on their side have made very considerable concessions in the preparation of this Bill, and if we have to accept the Amendment, if the Bill is not to be lost, I hope that we shall not lose the results of the great efforts that have been made in this regard.

The only good reason there could be for rejecting the Amendment would be to say, as has been said, that, unfortunately, a bargain has been made, a compromise has been reached and it is better to abide by the bargain and to keep the compromise that has been agreed upon. That is not the position. This is not a compromise that has been agreed upon. The people concerned in the compromise were those on the one side who wanted access and those on the other side who wanted to prevent access, but most of us have had communications from bodies of people who want access to the land but who are not prepared to accept this compromise.

indicated dissent.

I think there is a good deal of evidence. Many hon. Members have had communications which are very emphatic on the part of people who are entitled to be heard on this matter and who say: "Much as we want this Bill, much as we want access, we would prefer not to have the Bill rather than have it unamended in the way suggested." Therefore, the hon. Member for Shipley is not in a position to say that an agreed compromise has been reached, because one block of people who ought to have been in that compromise make it clear that they do not agree. For my part I should like to make it perfectly clear that when you are doing something for the first time— I still contend that it is so, in spite of the analogy given by the Attorney-General— to make it a criminal offence merely to be upon land, then you are doing something so dangerous as to outweigh any of the other advantages that remain in the Bill. I hope the Amendment will be pressed to a Division.

I feel very strongly about this matter. It is such a grave departure that we very much regret it on this side of the House. The Attorney-General mentioned what was done in 1925. He said that something similar was done then. We had to agree to that legislation, although some of us thought that there were bad things in it. Because there were bad things done then, we do not see why we should extend the bad principle. I do not know whether that Bill in its penalties embraced such a list of penalties as are included in this Bill, in addition to the £ 2 fine for ordinary trespass. People have had this right from time immemorial and every step ought to be taken to protect that right. Anything that would seek to take the right away, is a very wrong sep.