My Lords, before coming to the actual provision of this Bill I should like to call your Lordships' attention to some proceedings germane to the subject dealt with by the Bill. I refer to the discussion which took place on "Marriage in Christendom" at the Pan-Anglican Congress, and I think your Lordships will find that some rather strange expressions of opinion were there made which did not entirely agree with the legislation as it stands in this country. The chair was occupied by the Bishop of Montreal, and the discussion turned largely upon the subject of divorce in general and upon the re-marriage of divorced persons in Christendom and the attitude of the Church towards it. Perhaps the most violent speech on the subject was one made by a layman at that Congress, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, who attached great importance to what I might call the high ecclesiastical view of marriage and of divorce, and he said that there was a lamentable tendency even among Church people to compromise and to concession. He asked whether the re-marriage of divorced people was repudiated as legalised concubinage. I am glad to say that that extreme view did not commend itself to all present even at that Congress. He went on to say that he desired to reaffirm publicly his conviction that marriage was a sacramental institution and that marriage was perpetual. Your Lordships are well aware that by the Articles of the Church of England itself it is expressly declared that marriage is not a sacrament, and therefore no person who professes to be in entire agreement with the Church of England can properly describe marriage as being called a sacrament by his Church, differing in that, as your Lordships know, from the Roman Catholic Church. On that the argument was founded that the marriage was indissoluble. Canon E. F. Brown said that marriages of Christian men and women were, strictly speaking, indissoluble. It was not, he said, the function of the Church, whatever the view of the State, to re-marry any person who had a husband or wife alive. He added that—

"In this matter the Church of England ought to take her stand by the Church of Rome."

That is a perfectly possible view, and so long as that view is limited to persons who accept it and believe it, there is no objection to their holding it and acting upon it. But I submit to your Lordships that there is no reason why those who do not hold that view; why those who do not take that extreme view of marriage as a sacrament; and, still less, why those who, like myself, are free-thinkers and give no allegiance at all to the principles which underlie the doctrines of the Church, should be bound by the views taken by other people. When we come to the question of legislation, I venture to suggest that the considerations which should guide us are considerations of public policy and expediency, and that no matter how large, important, or influential a section of the community hold particular views on this question, they should be left themselves to observe the particular views they hold without attempting to impose thorn upon others. At the end of the discussion the chairman said—

"It rejoiced his heart to hear the magnificent conservative ring of the note which bad been sounded on the question of marriage."

And he went on to say—

"However the State might use its power to limit the lifelong force of the marriage tie, the Church, as long as it remained Christian, must follow Christ, even though such following mi ht bring it into partial or open conflict with the State."

I have no objection to these views if held and acted upon by individuals, but there is no sort of reason why individuals who hold these views should attempt to force them upon individuals who do not hold them. When you come to consider the matter from the point of view of the State, which by the speakers at the Congress was sharply distinguished from the point of view of the. Church, you have to consider what is expedient and advantageous. Since I last presented this measure to your Lordships I have received support from a quarter which, from the point of view of legislation and of knowledge of the subject, is, I think, entitled to carry much more weight than the Pan-Anglican Congress. I refer to some observations which were made by Sir Gorell Barnes, the President of the Divorce Court, in the case of Dodd v. Dodd. Sir Gorell Barnes is eminently fitted to know the hardships and difficulties which occur in the present marriage law, and the great disadvantages that are inseparable from a condition of things where we allow very freely judicial separation, while limiting strictly the right to re-marry and complete freedom from the marriage tie; and he made these observations on a case which arose from a magistrate's order. By recent legislation more and more powers have been given to magistrates to make orders for judicial separation which cause a husband and a wife to live apart, and which have practically all the effect of an order for judical separation made by the Divorce Court. After pointing out the large extent to which these judicial separations are being obtained— some 7,000 a year—the President went on to say—

"Applied first in an age remote and in a state of society different from the present, the remedy of permanent separation for matrimonial grievances would always seem to have been injudicious, even in days when persons could not escape from their surroundings as they can now, and when they were more amenable to the pressure and censures of the Church, and is now probably to be regarded as more unsatisfactory still and as tending to demoralisation and providing inadequate justice to the innocent. At the time of the Reformation, the Royal Commission issued by Henry VIII. and renewed by Edward VI., composed of ecclesiastics, civilians, and common lawyers, inquired into this subject. The project) of reforming the law came to an end with the death of the latter king, but the Commissioners' Report was printed in the reign of Elizabeth, under the title 'Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum,' and the recommendations were to the effect (inter alia) that separation a mensa et thoro should be abolished as productive of great abuses and scandal in the marriage state, and that, while restrictions and punishments should be imposed upon the guilty party, the innocent party should be permitted to obtain a divorce for, among other grounds, desertion: see Reeve's History, 2nd ed., vol iv., pp. 546, 547, summarising Ref. Leg. Eccl. 47–56. Desertion is a ground in Scotland and in certain other countries. Nothing, however, was done by the Legislature, and marriage remained indissoluble, except by Act of Parliament, until 1857, when, after much controversy, the Act of that year was passed, which can hardly be held to have attained to finality. By it the right of divorce was given, but confined to the cases specified therein. The remarks of Mr. Bishop in his work on marriage and divorce (s. 37), on the state of things which existed in England before that Act, are deserving of a most careful perusal. But the figures I have given above show the limited application of this Act, especially having regard to the great increase in the population of this country."

The President went on to say, and this is what I have often ventured to urge on your Lordships—

"That the tendency of these orders is to encourage immorality, bearing in mind that human nature is what it is, and the classes; of persons with whom the magistrates usually have to deal, I doubt whether anyone, of experience sufficient to judge, will deny. That is the opinion which I have formed after a long experience in this Court, where case after case shows what so often follows from these orders, and discloses a most unsatisfactory state of things. It is an opinion in accord with that expressed in very forcible language by Mr. Bishop on the subject of divorce a mensa et thoro, s. 29, where he collects the opinions of certain distinguished writers on the subject."

Continuing, the President said—

"Moreover these orders really impose a more serious penalty in the cases to which they apply than a decree of divorce would; for the result of a decree of judicial separation against a man is more severe to him, and in certain cases even to a woman, than a decree of divorce. The consequences of each are, in most cases, very much the same, except that the former imposes the disability of re-marriage while the latter does not; so that, for instance, a man may be more severely punished for the offence of adultery than for the same offence coupled with cruelty or desertion for two years or upwards; and, further in the latter case, the wife has the option of choosing whether she shall apply for separation or divorce …. I am anxious not to travel out of my province, which is jus dicere non jus dare, but the point as to how the Act of 1895 can be administered, with regard to the non-cohabition part of the order, by the magistrates who have, as noticed above, certain discretionary powers and can to a certain extent control the working of the Act so as to prevent, as far as possible, evil results, gives rise to the foregoing penal observations; and having, since I first sat on this bench in 1892, found it necessary to make myself familar with the history of the laws governing the relations of husband and wife, and the discussions which have from time to time taken place relating thereto, more particularly at the time of the passing of the Act of 1857, and the results of those laws, of which experience in this Court gives very considerable opportunities of judging, it is desirable, in my judgment, as bearing on the subject under consideration, to express the conviction, which has forced itself upon me, that permanent separation without divorce has a distinct tendency to encourage immorality and is an unsatisfactory remedy to apply to the evils which it is supposed to prevent. That the present state of the English law of divorce and separation is not satisfactory can hardly be doubted. The law is full of inconsistencies, anomalies, and inequalities amounting almost to absurdities; and it does not produce desirable results in certain important respects. Whether any, and what, remedy should be applied raises extremely difficult questions, the importance of which can hardly be over-estimated, for they touch the basis on which society rests, the principle of marriage being the fundamental basis upon which this and other civilised nations have built up their social systems; and it would be most detrimental to the best interests of family life, society, and the State to permit of divorces being lightly and easily obtained, or to allow any law which was wide enough to militate by its laxity against the principles of marriage. It is not necessary for me now to express a formal and final opinion upon these serious questions, but the consideration of what I have found it necessary to deal with in this judgment brings prominently forward the question whether, assuming that divorce is to be allowed at all, as it has been in England by judicial decree for the past fifty years and for a long time before that by Act of Parliament, any reform would be effective and adequate which did not abolish permanent separation, as distinguished from divorce, place the sexes on an equality as regards offence and relief, and permit a decree being obtained for such definite grave causes of offence as render future cohabitation impracticable and frustrate the object of marriage; and whether such reform would not largely tend to greater propriety and enhance that respect for the sanctity of the marriage tie which is so essential in the best interests of society and the State. It is sufficient at present to say that, from what I have pointed out, there appears to be good reason for reform, and that probably it would be found that it should be in the direction above indicated. The petition for divorce in this case must be dismissed, for the wife has only proved adultery, and that is not sufficient to enable her to obtain a decree of divorce; and it will not be any satisfaction to her to know that if her case had arisen and her suit could have been brought in Scotland or most other civilised countries she would have succeeded."

The learned President of the Divorce Court, in that judgment, expressed in words far better than any that I could use, the evils which arise from the present state of things; and the concluding sentence of that judgment, I venture to say, should suggest to your Lordships that the subject of my Bill is worthy of your consideration. In the concluding sentence Sir Gorell Barnes points out that in Scotland, and in almost every other civilised country, a remedy would have been open to the aggrieved spouse if desertion had taken place. There is no need for me to recapitulate what is so well said by the President as to the evils of a state of permanent separation, where no re-marriage is possible. You distinctly and deliberately, by that legislation, put people in a position of temptation from which many of them suffer, and which does not lead to good manners and good morals in the State. By this Bill I propose to deal with one, and one only, of those grounds which are now grounds for judicial separation—I mean the ground of desertion. The operative clause of the Bill has the effect, by inserting in the Matrimonial Causes Act certain additional words, of making desertion without cause for two years and upwards a ground for divorce. I do not conceal from myself or from your Lordships, that that is a very considerable change to make, but I venture to commend it to the House on the grounds of the judgment of Sir Gorell Barnes which I have read. I also venture to commend it to your Lordships on the ground which he mentions at the end of his judgment that it is already the law in most civilised countries, and even in a country so near to us as Scotland. There is this difference between the law in Scotland and the law as proposed in this Bill, that in Scotland the desertion has to be for three years and upwards; but as the term which now exists in the Matrimonial Causes Act for desertion is two years, and as this term has been generally adopted in English legislation, I thought it best to put that period in this Bill. It has been said before, and may be said again, that this is a subject which ought to be taken up by the Government and considered by a Commission or Committee and that no private member ought to attempt to legislate upon it. I quite agree that this is a matter which ought to be taken up by the Government and considered by a Commission or Committee; but it is not taken up, and meanwhile many thousands of people every year suffer great hardship from the existing law. That is my only excuse for again calling attention to the subject. The matter is one which is of great importance and can only be fitly dealt with by the Government of the day; and it is, I venture to think, a matter not so difficult as it is sometimes represented to be. I think a conclave of lawyers would find a remedy for the existing state of things without very much difficulty. But the present Bill has one merit, which was insisted upon by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in the discussions on the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. That is that it only deals with one point. At any rate it has that merit. I submit the subject to your Lordships for discussion because some settlement ought to be arrived at in the matter, and your Lordships, I think, must realise that when a man in the position of the President of the Divorce Court, holding high judicial office, feels it necessary to make so explicit and so clear a statement as to the disadvantages, the inequalities, and the evil effects of the present law, there must be some grievance which calls for a remedy. I, therefore, beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.

My Lords, I came here this afternoon in order to read prayers, not even knowing that this Bill was to be before your Lordships' House; but seeing it on the Paper I remained, and having heard the speech of the noble Earl in moving the Second Reading I cannot sit still. For the last fortnight I have been acting as chairman of a large committee of bishops of the Lambeth Conference to make a report upon marriage problems, the first being divorce. We have had evidence from bishops from all parts of the world as to the mischiefs that have resulted from weakening the marriage laws. In one of the States of the United States of America they are exceedingly pleased with themselves because, by the creation of anti-divorce committees, they have actually made such an improvement as this—that instead of the legislature having twelve causes for divorce the number has been brought down to seven; and they are very proud indeed of having done so much. Other States have not got so far. The evidence that we have from all parts of the world goes to show that if you once begin to weaken the marriage laws you never know where you will stop. In one of the United States one marriage out of every six is pronounced terminated by the courts of law. I do not propose to go into any of these details. I am perfectly certain that the social state is built upon the principle of the family life, and the family life is built upon the principle of the sanctity of marriage. To dare to tamper with all that by just one little bit of piecemeal legislation, slipping in another cause for divorce, whereas there is now only one, seems to me unworthy of the suggestion of the noble Earl and quite impossible for your Lordships' House to look at. Many of us are looking forward to the time when the very strong pronouncement of one whom I can call my friend, the President of the Divorce Court, will be taken up, not, if I may say so, by a miserable piece of piecemeal legislation like this, but by a great and important Royal Commission. When that Royal Commission sits they will have before them, I believe, evidence which will tend rather to stringency than to leniency with regard to the marriage laws. I entreat your Lordships not to look at a piece of legislation of this description.

My Lords, last year or the year before, in reference to a Bill on the subject of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, I had occasion to warn your Lordships of the danger of doing more than proceed step by step in reference to the marriage laws. They are very complicated; they touch the life of the

My Lords, I rise to move for a Return of the Closing Order which have been confirmed by the Home Office under the Shop Hours Act, and specifying those which have been for the hairdressers' trade; and of those now under consideration. I have been re quested to do so in order to show the working of the Act. So far as I have been able to ascertain the number of Closing Orders made in 1906 was 103 in 1907 29, and in 1908 41, or a total of 173. Considering that the Act is permissive, the result, if not all that might have been hoped, is satisfactory. It shows what may be done. The figures for London are, however, disappointing, mainly because instead of appointing the London County Council to administer the Act in London, as proposed in our Bill, the House of Commons inserted borough councils. The borough councils are, I doubt not, quite as disposed to assist in securing reasonable hours, but it has been found difficult to get them to agree on the same time. Still, even in London, hairdressers have been successful, which shows that if other trades were as energetic they might be equally successful. The hairdressers are anxious to know the number of Closing Orders which have been made for their trade. I believe this information would be useful, and hope there may be no objection to granting it.

My Lords, the Home Office will be glad to give the information for which the noble Lord asks, but they trust the noble Lord will be good enough to be content if they postpone supplying him with the information, on the ground that if a Return were made at once it would be for a broken period only. What I suggest is that the noble Lord should withdraw his Motion this afternoon and that later on information should be supplied for the whole year. If the information were given for a complete period it would be more useful, especially in view of the legislation which is contemplated for next session. So far as the past months of this year are concerned, the noble Lord would be able, by investigation, to find out for himself the number of Orders which have been published, because at regular intervals in Lords' and Commons' Papers there are to be found the numbers and the names of the Orders confirmed under the Shop Hours Act; so that for the time being, at any rate, the noble Lord would be able to discover these figures for himself. I hope that, in these circumstances, the noble Lord will withdraw the Motion and allow the information to be submitted later for a complete period.

I am much obliged to my noble friend for meeting me so far. With reference to hairdressers, I do not think the returns enable one to distinguish between that and other trades, and the hairdressers were particularly anxious that the number of Orders relating to them should be given. The suggestion which the noble Earl has made is a most reasonable one, and I shall be very happy, in those circumstances, to withdraw my Motion.

in whose name the following Notice stood on the Paper—"To call attention to the following Resolution unanimously passed by the House of Lords on the 10th of July 1905, 'That it would be a danger to the Realm, and limit the power of the Navy as an offensive force in war, to trust to it alone for home defence; and, inasmuch as it is admitted that the Navy cannot guarantee us against so-called hostile "raids," it is the more needful that our land defences should at all times be such that no nation would ever attempt, in any form, a hostile landing on our shores'; and further, to show how the War Office has signally failed to give effect to the said Resolution,"— said: My Lords, it was my intention to have taken this Notice off the Paper, but I was asked by a friend in this House to let it remain. He wisely said I that the more this subject was discussed the better, and therefore I allowed the Notice to remain. It was in consequence of the debate last week on the Motion I of the noble Duke, the Duke of Bedford, that I thought of taking my Notice off the Paper. That debate went fully into the question of armaments, and the alterations that have been made by His Majesty's Government—so fully that it did not appear to me necessary to say anything with regard to the Motion. I need not, therefore, refer to the figures, but I will quote a passage from the speech of the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War, which I think shows, more than anything else, the state in which we are in the matter of defence on land. Lord Lucas the other night, at the end of his speech, said—

"He hoped your Lordships would recognise that they were going through a transitory stage, and that it was too early to judge whether the Territorial Army would be a success or not. They had only touched the fringe of the recruiting system, and they must wait to see whether the result on the whole was satisfactory or not."

Do you think that is a satisfactory state to be in? The Secretary of State for War has got rid of the old military system. He has reduced the Army; he has abolished the Volunteers and I established in their place the Territorial Force, and now you have to wait until the "terriers" are full grown. That is not the way in which the safety of this nation should be looked after. I venture to protest against it as being most dangerous and absolutely to be resisted, if possible, by this House. I do not know how you can resist it. You can only resist it by repealing that Act and restoring what you have taken away. It is true that the old military system rested on compulsion, but it has never been enforced. Every occupant of the Front Benches and every man who has been Secretary of State for War knows that it has not been enforced, not, generally, from national reasons, but from party reasons. In the course of his speech the other night the Duke of Bedford gave utterance to a statement which I venture to question. The noble Duke said he was convinced that compulsory military service was impossible. Now, in Scotland, in the Scottish Church, we have a long and a short catechism. I will not put a long catechism to the noble Duke, but a very short one. I wish to know on what authority he makes that statement. Will he kindly tell this House on what authority he says that it is impossible in this country to enforce compulsion? I believe that compulsion is the only possible way of settling this question. I ask my noble friend—Can he quote any authority in his favour, except the two front benches? I grant him every Secretary of State except Lord Herbert, whose statue records what he thought about it. He wanted it, but could not get it from his Government. That is why his head is bowed. I have, as far as I could, tested public opinion in this country upon this vital question. I sent round circulars to all urban and county authorities asking them two questions. The first was whether they were satisfied with the state of things at present in England as regards homo defence on land. In 75 per cent, of the answers the reply was: Do you believe that the people of this country would object to a modified form of compulsory service? Two to one replied "No." I set those authorities against the ipse dixit—it is nothing else—of the noble Duke. With regard to the county which is represented by our great War Minister, who is called a modern Napoleon by the Westminster Review, in the year 1905 I invited the constituents of the Secretary of State to meet me in the Market Hall of Haddington and talk over this question of home defence and compulsory service. They came, and I read to them the Resolution which your Lordships passed, and which I think it is well that I should read now. It is as follows—

"That it would be a danger to the Realm, and limit the power of the Navy as an offensive force in war, to trust to it alone for home defence; and, inasmuch as it is admitted that the Navy cannot guarantee us against so-called hostile 'raids,' it is the more needful that our land defences should at all times be such that no nation would ever attempt, in any form, a hostile landing on our shores."

Further, I asked whether they would agree to compulsory service in the modified form which I proposed. What was that modified form? I may say that I am dead against compulsory service for everybody. There is a body in this country, the National Service League, who propose that everybody should serve compulsorily for home defence. The old principle of our military law was the Crown's right to call upon its subjects compulsorily to serve for home defence, and the law which gave that power has been done away with. If you were situated on the Continent of Europe and the only division between you and another country that had universal compulsory service was a red line on the map, you would be obliged to have it; but you have the sea around you and a fleet, though I do not believe that you should trust to the Fleet alone. But, when you have that, why should every man be required to serve, when by the law which the modern Nopoleon has repealed you had what was called the ballot? I know what some of my friends of the National Service League will say. The National Service League and those noble Lords who are associated with it will say it is very unfair that men should be chosen for service by ballot; but, if that league were condemned to death, would it object to decimation? Would the Duke of Bedford, Viscount Hardinge, or Lord Newton object?

Yes.

The ballot will do all that you possibly want, and it is on that ground that I feel strongly on this question. I believe that it is not only the better way, but that it is the only way in which you can make this country safe at home. That it will bear hardly on the people is not true. What the meeting in the town of Had-dington accepted was my modified proposal of the ballot, which should apply to a man only once in his life, and that when lie was twenty. The result would be in the case of a young working man of twenty that he would as a result of being drilled receive more wages. The effect of drill upon working men of that age would be to enable them to earn higher wages after they had undergone military training. A large employer of labour told me that he would be willing to pay Is. 6d. a week more in wages to such a man. I dare any noble Lord on either of the front benches to deny that the method which I advocate is the only way in which the problem can be solved.

My Lords, I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Earl, who quoted a passage from a speech which I made a few days ago in your Lordships' House and in which I stated that it was too early results of the Territorial I would ask that that remark should be coupled with what I had previously said, which was this—that we have at the present moment 180,000 men in the Territorial Force, in place of the 260,000 that we had in the Yeomanry and in the Volunteers before. I said that according to high military opinion that force, even if it grew no larger, and were unaided by any other military force, would be far more capable of defending this country than the larger number which existed previously, simply and solely because it had been given the organisation to enable it to take the field. I will not say that the force is at present, but:-,s soon as they begin to understand their duties, they will become, more competent, and efficient for the purpose of home defence than the Volunteers and Yeomanry, unorganised as they were, would have been, and therefore to that extent we are better off than we were before. On the question of increasing the force from its present strength of 180,000 to 300,000, which we wish it to reach, I then made the remark which the noble Lord did me the honour to quote, in which I said that no judgment could be formed until the County Associations had had time really to deal with the recruiting problem, and that that was a question bound to take a considerable time.

How long?

I think it will vary. In the case of the biggest county of all, London, probably the members of the County Associations would ask for two years before they could properly organise their recruiting; but in the case of other counties they wall be much quicker. It is impossible to manufacture an entirely new Army in the course of these three months. That must be remembered; but I absolutely deny that, even at the present moment, we have lost anything in military efficiency or in power for the defence of this country. The noble Earl did not go into the question which, after all, is at the root of all these matters —the numbers required for the purpose of home defence. The question of numbers is the important question in this case, and I listened to hear what the noble Earl's views were on that question. Some noble Lords may hold that the Militia ballot is fair and that it would produce a more efficient force; but I do not see why, if in the opinion of the Government's military advisors the task which the second-line Army would be asked to carry out would be effectively carried out under the voluntary system, that system should be condemned lock, stock, and barrel. I would like to know what are the requirements of the noble Lords who advocate compulsory service, what force they think necessary, and by what scheme they would put compulsion into operation. An eminent body, consisting for the most part of elderly gentlemen who, until they got past military age, maintained a discreet silence, are rending the skies with their clamour for compulsory service for everybody else. There are exceptions, but a majority of them have never rendered any military service to speak of to their country. They have a great many pious opinions on the subject of compulsory service; but I do not know that they have any definite plan of carrying them out. They attack us for the unfairness of our system; they say that it is not fair to put this burden, upon a man which his more fortunate, because less patriotic, brethren do not have to bear. If they consider that grossly unfair, it means that they must train every man who reaches military age, or else the unfairness is even greater under their system than under ours. To decimate the population for the purpose of military service would be to do a thing which is grossly unfair. Does the National Service League seriously propose to take every man who reaches the age of twenty years and train him? The number of such men would be between 400,000 and 500,000 every year. What proposals do they make for training? When we were discussing the question of six month's training, the noble and gallant Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, who is, I believe, president of that league, said that in his opinion, the period of six months was totally inadequate for a force of that kind. Does the National Service League propose to train 50,000 men every year and give more than six months training? How does it propose to train these men? Where is it going to find the country on which to do it? The whole island is hardly big enough for the purpose. What is proposed to be done in regard to barrack accommodation? What is it proposed to do with the force obtained by that means—an Army that will be numbered in millions? Do they really propose to train this large number of men simply on the abstract principle that everybody ought to be trained? And if they say they do not want to train the whole manhood of the nation and give them the kind of training which the president of the National Service League thinks essential to make them an efficient military force, what do they propose to do? I suppose they would either adopt the method advocated by the noble Earl—the ballot; or take a very high standard so as to get the pick of the men who reached the age of twenty every year. Suppose you took one man in eight. His seven more fortunate, because more weakly, brethren would get off; and you would be putting on the most finely-developed and the cream of the population a disability which we do not propose in our wildest moments to impose on the Territorial Force; and yet we are told by members of the National Service League that our requirements are grossly unfair. If you had a compulsory short service Army in this country you would still want a certain number of men for service abroad; but there is no question about it that the flow of men into the long service Army would be considerably curtailed by it. You would reduce the number of recruits from 35,000 to perhaps half that number; what will that mean? It will mean that this short service Army will form your Expeditionary Force when the time comes, because you cannot draw largely on your foreign garrisons for the purposes of a war abroad. How are those men to be trained? Where will the officer who is to command the force in war and his staff obtain the practice necessary? Where will they ever get the chance of handling a division in the field? Possibly they may get it for a fortnight in the year. Are you prepared to train your generals and staff in this way, when, in the opinion of a great many noble Lords in this House, that is not sufficient time in which to train a private or a Field Artilleryman? If, on the other hand, you propose to have an Army on the model of the French or German Army with two years service, that is another matter. We should like to know what the proposals of the National Service League are. We have had enough of this vague talk about a compulsory system, and we would like to know definitely what the proposals of the National Service League are and how they propose to work them out. In the meantime, and until it is proved that the system which the War Office are putting in force at the present time is inadequate in numbers and unable to fulfil the functions assigned to it, that system holds the field. That has not yet been proved. This scheme has from its inception been brought officially by the Army Council before the Committee of Imperial Defence, and it was only after that Committee had sanctioned the scheme as one which, in their opinion, satisfied all likely requirements, that it was proceeded with.

My Lords, it was not my intention to have said a word in this debate. I have so frequently expressed my opinions, and I am so well aware of the fact that my opinions are not likely to carry much weight here or elsewhere, that I should have conceived it unnecessary to speak at all, except for this reason, that I am afraid I am bound to include myself amongst that band of elderly Gentlemen alluded to by the noble Lord opposite. So far as I am concerned, my withers are comparatively unwrung. I quite admit that I might have done a good deal more, but I did serve for a good many years in one branch of the Auxiliary Forces—I am not sure that I did not serve for as many years as the noble Lord's age amounts to; but, at the same time, I fully admit that, in a military sense, I am a thoroughly inefficient person, and I attribute it to the voluntary system. I regret that I was totally unaware that the noble Lord was going to take this line this afternoon. I regret all the more that persons who are more competent to speak with authority than myself are not present. I suppose I ought to take the keen curiosity displayed by the noble Lord opposite as a compliment to the association to which I belong, but I cannot help remarking that, considering the airy, the confident, tie optimistic, I might almost say the doctrinaire, views laid down by the noble Lord from time to time, he shows an astonishing ignorance with regard to the views entertained by a certain section of his countrymen, among whom are certainly not the least distinguished of Englishmen. I will endeavour to explain, as shortly as I can, what the views of these people are who are represented by the National Service League. Briefly speaking, our view is this, that it ought to be the duty of every young man to be trained for the purposes of national defence. When I hear the noble Lord ask what are you going to do with the millions of men you are going to get under this system, I really can hardly believe my own ears. How many young men does the noble Lord suppose reach the military age in this country every year? If I am not mistaken, the number amounts to a little more than 300,000. Yet the noble Lord actually comes here and asks, what are you going to do with your half-million of men every year who become liable for military service? I cannot resist another opportunity of exposing the ignorance of the noble Lord. Does he really suppose that every young man in every civilised country, when he arrives at the military age, is taken by the Government and made to perform military service? Even I, amateur as I am, know that the exemptions in every civilised country amount to something like 50 per cent. If there are 300,000 who arrive at the military age in this country every year, not more than 150,000 would, therefore, be available for military service. The noble Lord asks what we are to do with them when we get them. We should propose to do very much the same with them as the noble Lord hopes to do with regard to his Territorial Force. But we know very well that he will not succeed. We should succeed because we should have it in our power to enforce efficiency. The essential difference between the plan recommended by the National Service League and the plan which finds so much favour with the noble Lord opposite is that our preparation for war would take place before the war had started, whereas in his case serious preparation for war is not going to take place until war has broken out—provided that the enemies of this country are kind enough to allow the serious preparation to take place at all. That is the essential difference between us, and I hope I have, at all events, made that point clear to the noble Lord. With regard to the period of training which we advocate, I admit that we cannot say exactly what that period should be, but we suggest a period of from three to six months preparatory training, followed by short courses such as is the system in Switzerland. There is only one other point with which I think it necessary to deal, and that is the statement made by the noble Lord with regard to the Regular Army. The noble Lord appears to be under the impression that if you have a universal system for home defence, therefore your Regular Army is going to disappear altogether. Why in the name of common sense should anything of the sort take place at all? Can anybody—I do not care who he is—give me any sort of reason why you should not continue to obtain exactly the same number of recruits for the Regular Army supposing this system were adopted, as you obtain at the present time? There is no reason why you should not, and there is every reason to suppose that the career of a professional soldier would be just as attractive under a universal system for home defence as it is at the present moment. I am the last person I in the world to set myself up as a military authority. Strange though it may appear to the noble Lord, I am a person of modest disposition, but there are certain things which I think are apparent I to the meanest intelligence, and to me it has been apparent for a long time that, in spite of the assurances of the noble Lord, the voluntary system is no longer equal to our requirements; and it is for that reason that I, at all events, I am more strongly in favour of universal service for home defence than I am of any proposal which is before the electors of this country at the present moment.

My Lords, the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War dwelt on the virtues of the new Territorial scheme, and urged that we ought to allow time to elapse in order to see how far it will be a success. But he did not mention in his speech the length of time for which the men have undertaken to serve in the Territorial Force. I have the honour to belong to a battalion in the south of England, which up to 31st March last numbered some 860 strong. In the new scheme the battalion was reduced to about 630, which is a fair reduction; but, as far as I know, hardly a single man has I signed on for more than one year. I do not know whether it will be a case of exeunt omnes at the end of the year, but it seems to be the same story where ever one turns. In very few cases have I the men joined for more than a year. If that is the case, what is to happen at the end of the year? A great deal of your new force will come to an end unless you can adopt some means to induce the men to stay on for a longer period. The noble Lord the Under-Secretary said it was very difficult to induce men who engage for a short period of military service to continue their service for a longer term. That appears to me to rather add to the difficulty of the Territorial Force. I am not one of those who wish to indulge in carping criticism on this most important subject. If you could produce an adequate force capable of meeting its requirements at a critical moment and which would get over the dangers that beset us, no one would be more pleased than myself; but I think it is most important that the full truth of these things should be stated, especially as we hear that a still further reduction of the Regular Force is contempated to the extent of several thousands of men. These are extremely important questions, of which the Government of the day is bound to give a clear and explicit explanation. I fear that part of the difficulty is that the Socialists, who are averse to all military defence of the Empire, have had too much influence over the Government. No doubt that is a difficulty whch might happen not only in the case of this Government but of others, but I would emphasise what seems to me to be the most serious point in this new departure, and express the hope that there may be a still fuller explanation of the very great difficulties which confront us.

My Lords, after the somewhat challenging speech of the noble Lord the Under-Secretary, I do not think anybody can be surprised at the two speeches which we have just heard; but, although I always feel that we are the richer for the exhortations of my noble friend who introduced this question, I am not sure that a weekly renewal of the contentions on either side in the present state of our forces will lead us to any very profitable result. The noble Lord the Under-Secretary has a tendency, if I may venture to say so, to overstate his case in defending himself against finality in the present position; and I do not think he can be surprised that the overstatement of his case which he made this afternoon produced the sort of protests which came from Lord Newton and Lord Zouche. I do not propose to pursue the question. I simply ask the noble Lord to consider this point. The present state of affairs causes anxiety to all those who desire to see our forces kept at full strength. We know that not merely are the numbers of our Regular Army less, but the same is the case in the Special Reserve and the Territorial Army; moreover the recruits coming in have been less and less during the past year in all these forces. We admit that it would be unfair to judge the scheme of the Secretary of State by its present results, seeing that it is manifestly incomplete. The noble Lord, having that fact before him, has told the House that, although we have only about two-thirds of the men we had formerly, yet the new force is more capable than the old force, and can be used more effectively because it is so much better organised. The noble Lord behind me spoke of his county. Let me speak of mine. We have done our best for the Territorial Army in the county of Surrey. We had 3,200 Volunteers this day last year, we have about half that number at this moment. There are no more Artillery ready now than before; there are no more officers, and there is no more organisation or equipment ready; yet the noble Lord says that we now possess a more effective military weapon than we had twelve months ago. I only raise that point to protest against an over-statement of the case which causes increased anxiety to those who really desire to see our forces effective, because it seems to show that the emergency created by recent changes is not fully appreciated. None of these statements by the noble Lord would induce us to believe that a part is greater than the whole, and that you can get more out of a pint bottle than you can get out of a quart. That is my strong feeling. May I say one word in reply to what fell from the noble Earl with regard to compulsory service? My noble friend has always assumed that the unwisdom of successive Secretaries of State has led them to reject a scheme for compulsory service, because they feared the effect on their own Party, and he stated that again to-night. I feel this subject very deeply. I do not believe that the question of compulsory service was ever more carefully considered in this country than during the South African War, and if the Government of that day or any Secretary of State who has desired further to strengthen our forces, has declined to submit that subject to the consideration of Parliament it has been, not because of their fear of the effect on their electoral strength, but because of their fear of its effect on the national strength. I do not know anything in military matters which could do more harm than to take such a step and have to recede from it; and, unless any Government is thoroughly convinced that the people of this country are prepared to support them and that they are alive to the necessity of compulsory military training, to set it up in order to see it foregone after the next general election would be, in my opinion, a very great national danger. You would leave the country weaker than it was before; and I have only to remind your Lordships of the fact that all the additions made to the Regular Army under the stress of the war have been swept away, and even the additions made by Lord Lansdowne before the war have been in jeopardy during the last few weeks. Many people believe that the total forces of the country have been reduced below the level of safety, and I would ask the noble Lord the Under-Secretary whether he will be good enough to grant a Return, dated 1st October, which would be before your Lordships in the autumn session, showing at that date the state of the Army, the Special Reserve, and the Territorial Force. As regards the Army, we should then see whether, in the nine months which had elapsed, we had made up any of the shortage which was apparent in the Return laid before the House in February; as regards the Special Reserve, the Militia would all have been out for training and we should be able to see what portion of the Militia had transferred and taken service in the Special Reserve, and also what recruits had come in; and, as regards the Territorial Army, although the noble Lord said we could not for two years see the whole effect of what had been done, still we should see where we stood as the result of this year's operations, and should know to what extent we have to depend on the recruiting of next year to fill up the gaps. My feeling is that so long as you have a shortage of numbers and until you have had that increased training and organisation which have been promised by the Government, you must not believe that by a mere change of name you have obtained, under the new system, something which is different from the old.

My Lords, I had not intended to speak upon this subject, but I rise to appeal to noble Lords opposite to give the Territorial Army a close time. I am perfectly certain that there is more harm done by these numerous discussions regarding the Territorial Army than is imagined. If some of your Lordships would go back to your counties and look after recruiting, you would do a great deal more good than by putting questions in this House. I hold no brief for the Territorial Army, but I am confident that it has come to stay. Mr. Haldane has at this moment more of the confidence of the Army and the Territorial Force than any Secretary of State has had since I joined in 1879. There has been a great deal said about the numbers in the Volunteers. Anybody who has been in camp with the old Volunteers knows that the old Volunteer Force was full of rubbish and wasters, and a great deal of this has been scrapped by Mr. Haldane in his Territorial scheme. I would, therefore, appeal to noble Lords on the Opposition side to give the Territorial Army a close time, and to forget about it for six months and let Mr.Haldane work out the scheme in his own way.

My Lords. I did not intend to take part in this discussion, nor do I wish to prolong it; but there is one point to which I wish to refer. The noble Lord the Undersecretary quoted the noble and gallant Field-Marshal Earl Roberts as having said that the men could not be trained in six months. If the noble Lord will refer to the Field-Marshal's speech, he will find that his reference was to the Territorial Artillery and not to the Territorial Force.

My Lords, like most other noble Lords who have spoken, I did not intend to take any part in this debate; but as it has reached somewhat larger dimensions than might have been expected, perhaps I may be allowed to say one or two words. I confess that I find myself in, very considerable agreement with the noble Lord behind me who deprecated this discussion. My noble friend Lord Wemyss said he himself would have taken this notice off the Paper but for some unknown noble friend of his who urged him to go on. I do not know who that was, but I cannot find myself in agreement with the noble Lord. I do not think that these discussions are of very great value, because what you are doing is this—you are rooting up the plant which was planted last year, with a very considerable degree of agreement, it must be remembered, from different sides of your Lordships' House, in order to see how it is getting on. Consider for a moment the character of some of the complaints that have been made. Lord Zouche drew attention to the fact that a large number of men had only engaged for one year—I believe the figure is between 40 and 50 per cent.— and he went on to assume from that that all these men would not re-engage. That seems to me a most gratuitous assumption. It seems to me exceedingly likely that these men engaged for one year in order to see what the new force was like; and to assume that they will all so much dislike it that they will desire to return at once to civil life seems to me, as I say, a most gratuitous assumption.

I did not mean to express to the House the complete assumption on my part that they would not remain on after the year; but I wished to draw attention to the fact, which had not been previously alluded to, that they had only signed on for a year. I hope they will sign on again.

I am glad to have the noble Lord's explanation. Then the noble Lord said we were entirely in the hands of the Socialists, which was a bad thing for increasing the Army. The noble Lord surely forgets that a very large number of Socialists are in favour of universal service; they are in favour of what is known as a Citizen Army, with no professional soldiers at all. I do not know whether that would meet the views of noble Lords opposite, but it is a view largely held by Socialists. It does seem to me to be a little unfair to forget the very frequent complaints which we used to have of the Auxiliary Forces before the Territorial Army was formed. We might almost imagine, from some of the criticisms that are levelled against it to-day, that we never had in former times debates in this House about the Auxiliary Forces. I very well remember a debate—I think it was when the late Government was in power—when the Duke of Bedford used about the Volunteers, or about a great many of them, a word used by my noble friend Lord Saye and Sele a moment ago, when he described them as "rubbish"; and I think it is only fair, when one is criticising this new force, to remember that the former forces were the subject of some pretty sharp criticism. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Newton, was somewhat severe upon my noble friend behind me (Lord Lucas). The noble Lord opposite reminds me of a very early friend of my youth—I forget whether it was Balbus or the less sympathetic figure of Caius—who was perpetually asserting that it was all over with the Army. I am certain that the noble Lord is descended from one of those ancient Romans. I was very glad that my noble friend behind me went into this question of compulsory military service, or, as it is sometimes called, compulsory military training, because I agree with him that we have not had from anybody, even from the most distinguished advocates of that project, anything like a coherent scheme in connection with it. I do not, of course, allude to my noble friend Lord Wemyss, because we know that what he desires is the Militia ballot, which is a totally different thing. What I have always wanted to discover, but never have been able to discover, is, supposing an invading force reaches these shores, and we have a scheme of compulsory military training, who will be the people who will actually be put into the field to meet it? Is it to be the conscripts of the year, or are you going, in addition, to have a Territorial Army? From what the noble Lord said just now, I gather that it is to be the conscripts of the year who are to form the home Army. Then you are going to have in addition a Territorial Army, with a far longer service.

There would be a Reserve as in the case of any other Army, and in the event of invasion the Reserves of the Territorial Army would be called out.

Yes; but has any scheme of organisation for a force of that kind ever been thought out or put into anything like a concrete form? I am totally unable to understand how, considering what the daily life of the citizens of this island is, anything of the kind is to be done. Conscription I understand, and in that case, of course, it is your conscripts who form your First Line, filled up from Reserves; but how your six months trained young men are to form your First Line, stiffened only by others from the Reserves who have been doing a week or two's training from time to time, is a matter which passes my comprehension. The noble Lord also said that he could not see why the institution of compulsory service for home defence should have any effect upon the Regular Army who have to serve abroad. One can only go to a great extent on the experience of foreign nations. There is no country in Europe, so far as I know, where it has not been found that it is an exceedingly difficult thing to get men who have been conscripts at home to volunteer for foreign service; and the noble Lord must know that there is a very large body of military opinion in this country which has the greatest dread of the effect upon the great force which we have to maintain in India and abroad on foreign service generally of anything like a system of compulsory home service. The only other point that I think I have to mention is that of the Return for which the noble Viscount asked. I understand from my noble friend behind me that there will be no objection, and that he will see that the Return is given.

My Lords, I only rise to answer one question put by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. He asked whether, with a system of compulsory service, it was intended in case of an invasion to defend the country with the conscripts of the year. The proposal is to adopt the Swiss principle, and at all events the First Line would consist of those of the last four years.

My Lords, our record in Berkshire is a very different one from that mentioned by the noble Viscount opposite. In that county the whole of the officers in the Yeomanry and Infantry Volunteers have joined the new Territorial Force. Of the Berkshire Yeomanry, 365 have joined out of 450 on the establishment, and of the Infantry Volunteers 715 out of 998 on the establishment. We have to find a new force of Horse Artillery. We have succeeded in obtaining the services of an officer who has served both in Horse and Field Artillery, and we have three subaltern officers under him. Of the men, we have already recruited 30 per cent., and soon hope to have 50 per cent, of the battery recruited. Mr. Sutton, the great seed merchant, and Mr. Palmer, the well-known biscuit manufacturer, are on our Association and are lending every assistance, with other large employers, in recruiting. Mr. Haldane stated in the House of Commons the other day that for the first time since the introduction of the Card-well reforms an equal number—seventy-four—of Infantry battalions will be at home and abroad, and an equal number of Cavalry regiments. The Army Reserve is now at its highest figure, and 25,000 men have joined the Special Reserve. What the cause of alarm can be, therefore, I cannot conceive.

rose to call attention to the recent Report of the Congested Districts Board of Scotland in regard to the large and increasing arrears in the payment of instalments due by settlers who had purchased holdings from the Board; also, to move for a Return of the correspondence or other basis upon which the Board had minded a comparison (see page ix. of he Report) between the position as to payment of rent and annuities due upon loans, of annuitants who had purchased from the Board, and of crofters who held from the proprietor and who had been aided by the Board to acquire their present holdings. The noble Earl said: My Lords, it will be in your Lordships' recollection that in the year 1907, and also in the present session of Parliament, the Secretary for Scotland introduced measures by which he sought to "crofterise" the whole of Scotland, by which. I mean to extend throughout the whole of Scotland the peculiar laws and customs with regard to the tenure of land, which prevail in the crofting districts, although the circumstances are entirely different. The one fact which was brought forward in support of those Bills was the extraordinary success of the Crofting Acts in Scotland. One is very glad, indeed, to get hold of some facts which one can examine and test, and in this Report of the Congested Districts Board some facts are adduced which, I think, are well worthy of your Lordships' attention. The Congested Districts Board, as your Lordships know, is a Board which is entrusted with certain funds by Parliament with which land can be purchased and resold to settlers, and out of which grants can also be made to persons who are intending to take up crofts. The Secretary for Scotland is Chairman of this Board, and, therefore, what is stated in this Report comes with some special authority. Let us examine by the light of this Report how far this transcendent success has been attained in Scotland. First of all let us take the question of land which has been purchased and re-sold to settlers. This is what the Report says—

"In a scheme of State-aided purchase of holdings it is manifestly of the highest importance that settlers should make punctual payment of the sums due from them. We regret to say that in the case of several estates the settlers, with some exceptions, are considerably in arrear, and we have thought it our duty to intimate that unless there is an immediate improvement in this respect steps will have to be taken to enforce payment or to foreclose".

Exactly the same remark was made in the Report which preceded this. Apparently no practical result has followed. The arrears are steadily accumulating, and I do not know whether the Board will consider it sufficient to have delivered themselves of this wise dictum and take no practical steps to enforce this payment. Then they go on to say—

"The result of our action since last year has not been satisfactory. The net result is that the payments in arrear have not decreased during the year in several estates purchased by the Board."

They then instance the estate of Syre, which was bought in the year 1902, and on which arrears immediately began. Those arrears on 1st March, 1907, reached the sum of £346, and on 1st MLTCII, 1908, £437. Therefore, there is a steady increase in the arrears. Exactly the same thing is to be found in the case of Barra. Here is another estate to which they allude. They say—

"In Kilmuir we purchased from the Baird Trustees arrears amounting to £4,463 19s. 7d. In circumstances explained in our Eighth Report, we cancelled £3,437 16s. 4d. of this, and agreed that the balance of £1,026 3s. 3d. should be paid in instalments. At 1st March, 1907, the amounts of rents unpaid, including the first instalment of Baird arrears, was £2,215 5s. 6d. At 1st March, 1908, the amounts unpaid, including the second instalment of Baird arrears, wore £2,656 4s. 5d."

So, therefore, on this estate likewise the arrears are constantly mounting up; and if I were inclined to detain your Lordships I might point out that on other estates the same thing is going on. I want to know, that being so, where is this extraordinary success of the crofting system on which the Secretary for Scotland founds his Bill? It seems to me that the experience is most unfortunate. These tenants are not paying their instalments, and I leave it to your Lordships to judge, so, far as purchase and reselling land to the tenants is concerned, how far this crofting system is a success. Leaving that subject, I turn to another. It is a favourite doctrine—I would almost call it a fad—of the Secretary for Scotland that rents are better paid to private individuals than they are to the State. That is entirely the plan on which his two Bills were founded. He said that the State should not purchase, but that what ought to be done was that private proprietors ought to get rid of their large tenants, cut up their farms, run the risk of getting their rent, and that his Board of Commissioners should regulate the rent and so on; in other words, that the nation was to have the whole regulation and the proprietor were to run all the risk. It is apparently because of this theory that he has introduced into this Report the comparison between the crofters who hold from the proprietor and who have been aided by the Board, and those who have bought from the State. He proceeds to uphold that theory, or rather to institute that comparison, by a statement which it is almost impossible to understand. On page 9 of the Report he takes nine cases involving a rental of about £900 a year, which have been furnished to him by persons whom he calls the landowners concerned, and of whom we know nothing further; and he argues from that that payments are made more regularly to private proprietors than they are to the State. In the first place, I am sorry to have to state, with regard to this comparison, that it is incomplete. In the second place it is defective and misleading. It is incomplete, for this reason, that if your Lordships will look on page 5 you will find that he says there are 666 settlers who come under this category. I have taken the trouble to add up the number of settlers from the appendix— it is, I can assure your Lordships, a most difficult Report, more difficult to understand than any one of the Government Bills—I have added up the number of those settlers upon whom he bases his conclusion, and I find that the whole of them put together come to 155. What means, I want to know, has he taken to arrive at this conclusion? Has he sent a circular to every one of the proprietors of this land and asked them to tell him how the matter stands in each case, or has he written a letter to certain selected proprietors and asked them questions with regard to individual holdings? As far as one can see, it would appear that the latter was the case. The Report is, therefore, incomplete, for of the 666 settlers only 155 are dealt with. Then I come to the case of its being defective. The Report states that the Secretary for Scotland has been informed of the position in respect of rent and annuities due upon loans, with the following result. The figures that follow are entirely limited to rent; there is nothing said about annuities which are due; and on consulting the Appendix I find that in the three cases given—the case of Bay, the case of Aignish in the Lewis, and of Battery Park—there are arrears of annuities not mentioned on page 9 of this Report. I do not say that the amounts of those arrears are large in themselves, but in proportion to the amounts due they are not inconsiderable; and under any circumstances care ought to have been taken to make the figures correspond with the statement. I say next that it is misleading, and I will tell your Lordships why. The Board have omitted from their Report the most important item, and without which it is impossible to form any real estimate as to the amount due by the settlers—the period at which these settlers' tenure commenced. Everything depends upon that. Take the case of Aignish in the Lewis, one of the cases cited, which shows a state of things so much better than that where purchase is concerned. On Aignish the annual rent is £96. The amount due on 1st March, 1907, was £80, and on 1st March, 1908, £70. But the tenure only commenced at the end of the year 1906, and, therefore, out of two years rent there is actually one year in arrear. I do not know whether the Secretary for Scotland thinks that a state of things of which one ought to be proud, and which compares favourably with the cases of purchase; but I should say, and I think most of your Lordships would say, that when a tenant has been two years in his holding and is one year in arrear, it is not an extraordinary case of punctual payment. Are these cases really a fair sample? That is the important thing. If the Secretary for Scotland really wished to institute a fair comparison between the system of purchase and the system of paying rent direct to the landlord, what he ought to have done would have been to take the whole of these estates, to have written to all the proprietors, and to have asked them to send in to him a statement showing how the payment of their rent stood. Let me take the two cases of Aignish and Battery Park. Can those two cases be fairly said to represent Major Matheson's estate in the Lewis? They are a mere drop in the bucket, and even in those cases there is not much to boast of. But when you come to the Lewis, whit is the state of things there? The Lewis is a part of the country in which the crofter system, which the Secretary for Scotland is so anxious to spread, and the cottar system hive been allowed to run free for 100 years. The Lewis shows, more than any other part of Scotland, what is the result of the crofter system when coupled with the cottar system. What is the result? At this moment the Lewis, which in 1880 had a population of 9,000, has now a population of 28,000. The average crofter rental at the present time is £1 18s. 6d., and the average arrears for each crofter is £7— between three and four years. The rates in the Lewis run from 15s. to 18s. in the £, and those rates fall, the very great proportion of them, at least, on the proprietors. What is the case with reference to Major Matheson? The rates he was called upon to pay in 1898 amounted to £4,000, and in the year 1908 he is called upon to pay £7,000. Of course, he has found it absolutely impossible to pay such a sum. This is the result of the crofter system run mad. In the case of the Lewis, I do not understand how the Secretary for Scotland came to put in merely these two cases of Aignish and Battery Park. The Secretary for Scotland knows perfectly well that petitions, I might almost say without end, have been addressed to the Government, pointing out the present condition of the Lewis, which is entirely owing to the cottar system, and calling for some remedy. It seems to me it is a warning and an example to the Government and to all those who are in favour of extending the crofter system. But I leave the Lewis and take other large estates. Take Lady Cathcart's estate. I know that on that estate arrears are nearer three years than two, and, if you take Lord Macdonald's estate or the McLeod's, I will answer for it that an examination of their estate books would show that the arrears are at least as large in proportion as any of those which are due to the Government on account of land which has been re-sold to the settlers. What reason is there to suppose that rents are likely to be better paid to a private individual than to the State? Is not the probability all the other way? Have your Lordships ever heard of a person who declined to make good to the State an obligation which, when it was due to a private proprietor, he was perfectly prepared to meet? It seems to me that to uphold this theory is to go contrary to all probability, and, moreover, it is not borne out by the facts. If the Secretary for Scotland wishes to prove to us that this crofter system is a success and is a system which ought to be extended over the whole of Scotland, he must produce something very different from the figures and the assertions in this Report. I believe that if he persists in endeavouring to extend the crofter and the cottar system over the whole of Scotland he will be doing Scotland a very great injury; while with regard to the western Highlands I most sincerely believe he will be doing his very best to reduce that part of Scotland to the condition that prevailed in Ireland in the days of the famine. Moved, "That there be laid before the House a Return of the correspondence or other basis upon which the Congested Districts Board of Scotland has founded a comparison (see page IX. of the Report) between the position as to payment of rent and annuities due upon loans, of annuitants who have purchased from the Board, and of crofters who hold from the proprietor and who have been aided by the Board to acquire their present holdings."—(The Earl of Camperdown)

My Lords, with your Lordships' leave I will say a few words first of all on the question of arrears in general. These arrears are not, as the noble Earl who has just sat down stated, of recent growth. They have been growing continuously and with perfect regularity for a considerable number of years, not only under the present Government but also under the late Government. This, of course, I do not mention as in any manner of means a mitigation of the gravity of the situation. His Majesty's Government fully realise the seriousness of the present condition, of affairs with regard to these arrears of rent, and they are quite alive to the fact that the arrears should be paid. After all, these settlements were instituted in response to a demand which it was felt could not be disregarded; and it is absolutely essential that those who have benefited by this settlement should have due regard to the obligations which they have thereby incurred. There may be, and there no doubt are, certain hard cases, as for example, the case of a woman whose husband has died; and these, naturally, will receive fair consideration. This question of arrears of rent is, in the opinion of the Secretary for Scotland, most serious, and he is giving it his close attention at the present time with a view to determining what steps ho should take. I now come to the question of the comparison which the noble Earl has raised on page 9 of the Report of the Congested Districts Board. This, of course, does not purport, nor does it say that it purports, to be a full comparison. In the first place, it simply says: "in order to institute some comparison." The reason why these particular estates were selected was this. The Board decided to write to the proprietors of those estates with whom they had come in contact, owing to loans having been made to them, to ask them to furnish, if they were willing to do so, particulars of the rents for publication in abstract form. All the proprietors were perfectly willing that the Board should receive the information confidentially, but they did not desire that the rents which they received should be made public property. Others, and these are the ones which we have on page 9, were willing to furnish this information, but on the distinct understanding, as stated here, that they were to be published in the abstract form. After all it would be a very difficult matter for the Board to apply to every proprietor, and proprietors to whose tenants no advances had been made, and to ask them for information as to the amount of rent which they received. As regards the omission of the amounts due as interest and principal for building loans, etc., it is true these were omitted. It was for this reason, that they were considered, taking them all round, to be of so small an amount that they were hardly worth taking into account. For instance, in the case of Northton there were arrears amounting to 12s. 6d.; in the case of Bourblock and Tarbert they amounted to £4 18s. 0d.; in the case of Stornaway to £44 4s. 0d.; and in the case of Bay to' about £21. In the aggregate they were not very important sums in the opinion of the Congested Districts Board, and therefore they were omitted.

What I pointed out was that the annuities due upon loans were omitted.

That is perfectly true.

Very well. Then it is an incorrect statement. The statement purports to put the position in respect to loans and to annuities due upon loans.

I confess it should not have been in those words. The reason why the Returns referred to were left out is that they do not materially affect the case owing to the smallness of the amount. As regards the noble Earl's Motion for the correspondence to be produced, of course he will see that these details in the Report have been given merely on the understanding that was given and accepted that they were to be published in their abstract form, and I can assure him that -there is nothing in those letters except what appears here put into abstract form. I therefore venture to hope that the noble Earl will not press his Motion for the correspondence in question to be produced, seeing that, after all, we only have it through the courtesy of the proprietors of these particular states.

I sympathise very much with the noble Earl who brought forward this question, as to the tenor of the paragraphs in this report. I must say I think they are unfortunate. There is an attempt running all through them to bolster up the idea that purchase is a bad thing and that leasing is therefore a better one. The whole facts given here are comparatively speaking small, and they will not bear the inferences which are sought to be drawn from them. That is the first point I would make. Even if it were true that purchase instalments had been less well paid than the annual instalments, there is another point which I think vitiates the comparison which is understood to be drawn. The case of those estates mentioned in page 9 of the Report, which are the cases of small holders, are cases, I think I am safe in saying, in which the landowner has selected the tenant, has taken the whole responsibility on himself for the repayment of the Government loan, and is acting with the tenant. Even if the comparison in these cases was favourable to that system it would not in any way support the contention which seems to be drawn in the body of the Report that compulsory hiring would be a more satisfactory thing than purchase. There could really be no inference of that kind drawn, because I believe in every case the landlord had selected the best tenant he could find and had taken the whole obligation upon himself. That is a wholly different thing from cases in which the tenants have been dumped down, as it were, upon the landlord and not chosen by him. I should like to say in justice to those two settlements, Barra and Syre, for which, to a large extent, I am responsible, that it is easy to make too much of the fact that there is a certain amount of arrears outstanding. The real comparison is to compare the amount of arrears outstanding with what has been paid and the total sum which ought to have been received. These facts are given upon page 9 of Appendix XI. of the Report. In the case of Syre the amount payable up to Martinmas, after every settler had fulfilled every obligation he had made, was £2,628 13s. 10d., and of that amount practically £2,100 has been received. When you consider that there are a considerable number of settlers, that some of them have been personally unfortunate, that in some cases the men who made the bargains have died, and their widows left to struggle with the new holdings, I think upon the whole, although not a thing to be proud of, it is not so bad a Return as might very easily have happened in what is a new experiment with men who have great difliculties to contend with. Take the case of Barra. In that case the total amount payable up to the date of the Report for principal and interest would have been £1,107 3s. The amount actually paid was £711 13s. 9d., so that there are arrears of nearly £400 on a total payment of £1,100. That is not satisfactory. But I venture to say that the difference between the two arises largely from the fact that the holdings in Barra are of a much smaller area, are further removed from being what is called self-supporting, and that the settlers had, therefore, very great difficulties to contend with. I do not think it is reasonable to make anything of the fact that those who have come under an obligation to purchase would like to be tenants, because the explanation is very obvious. In Scotland rates are divided between owner and occupier, and as the rates go up the owner has an increased obligation, and these men see that when they are only tenants they pay less than half the rates (the tenant's share), and when they are owners they are put under obligation for the whole. That is to my mind, having regard to the Scottish and Celtic nature, quite sufficient to account for the desire to become tenants rather than purchasers. I think that it is unfortunate that on that page of the Report the wording should have been put in precisely as it is, because I think it is intended, as I think on insufficient grounds, to bolster up the argument in favour of hiring rather than purchase. The real fact of the matter is this. I am afraid that in the West Highlands, certainly in the islands of Scotland, these schemes, benevolent as they are, are doomed to failure. After all, they were only experiments. I am responsible for the experiments in the cases of Barra and of Syre. They were undertaken some five or six years ago with the apprehension that they would fail, but it was thought desirable that object lessons at not very great expense should be given, and that the experiment should be made. Some of these people will succeed, some will not. What I am afraid of is that, wherever you increase, as you are increasing, the standard of comfort desired, by education and by, to some extent, improving the position of the settlers, you will find them not. I am afraid, getting more contented, but less contented, than they were before. They will struggle for further improvement. The younger generation is better educated and sees that the men who go away to the towns and cities of this country, or to the wider domain of Canada, get on better than those who remain at home, and therefore you are not going to stimulate their desire to stay at home, but, on the other hand, stimulate their desire to go after those who have gone before them. I am afraid from economic grounds it is evitable. In many of these cases I believe that if you gave them land for nothing they could not make a living, having regard to the prices they could obtain for produce. But I think upon the whole, although there is something to be desired, the state of matters so far as arrears are concerned has been rather exaggerated for the purposes of this discussion. I think if the facts are carefully and dispassionately considered it will be seen that, upon the whole, the majority of those concerned have tolerably fairly met their obligations. Those who have failed have failed to some extent owing to some especially difficult circumstances, such as the death of the breadwinner. But I sympathise with my noble friend who brought the question forward that in a Report which ought to have been a mere record of facts there is the intention to argue in favour of one system against another.

The noble Earl has hung upon his theme a sort of vindication of his own action in regard to the Scottish Small Holders Bill. That Bill has been killed, and ought to have been allowed to rest undisturbed, but its ghost seems to be flitting about, and I cannot help thinking that the noble Earl feels somewhat uneasy in regard to the undoubted dissatisfaction which exists because we have not been able to agree in reference to a Bill of this kind. The Report is criticised because it is supposed to favour hiring as against purchase. I know perfectly well that the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, said his scheme for Scotland was a purchase system; but is there any Member of your Lordships' House who knows Scotland who is prepared to say that he wants a small holders' system for Scotland resting upon purchase? I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, would not say so, because he knows his own country so well. It cannot be done, and it is quite unnecessary to bolster up the opposite system. The noble Earl himself brought in this very session a Bill based upon compulsory hiring. For my part, it does not disturb me whether there has been any indirect advocacy of the compulsory hiring system in the Blue-book or not, because the compulsory hiring will surely come, and the noble Lords here do not say anything to the contrary. The system of small holdings by purchase in Scotland is dead and buried, and will never be revived. The noble Lord referred to the disclosures in this Blue-book as some argument against what he called the "crofterisation" of Scotland under the proposed Bill which is now defunct.

What I said was that it seemed to me that these figures proved that these crofters had not been a success.

And the noble Earl also referred to the Bill which is no longer in existence as an attempt to "crofterise" Scotland.

Was it not?

I am going to deal with it. The noble Earl said that the Bill would reproduce in Scotland the condition of affairs existing in Ireland. What does the "crofterisation" of Scotland mean? Does it mean that you are going to translate to Scotland the climate, the race, and the lamentable poverty which exists in Ireland? Nothing of the kind. The only meaning is that the tenant crofters shall be extended to other counties. If you think it is more to the interest of the landlord that the tenure as in the English Bill should be adopted than that in the Bill which the noble Earl called "crofterisation" I am quite prepared to accept it. The landlord will find it a great deal better under what you call the "crofterisation" system than under the other. I feel it is a lamentable thing that we should not try to put our hands to settling this thing, which is most vital to Scotland, instead of going back over the old ground of the defunct Bill. I am sure the noble Earl will not think I am making these observations in any sense personally adverse to himself; only it seemed to me that he was seeking to justify to himself what I think was a great mistake, viz., the destruction of that Bill.

My Lords, I quite realise, as does the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack, the great difficulty of applying to Scotland or to any part of the United Kingdom, a wholesale system of small holdings founded upon purchase. We are it is true endeavouring to introduce such a state of things into Ireland, but we have been driven to do so, in spite of the great difficulties, financial and other, which stand in the way, on account of the failure of the particular kind of hiring system, which, as some of us think in an ill-advised moment, was introduced into that part of the United Kingdom. Noble Lords who sit on this side of the House do not object to compulsory hiring merely because it is compulsory hiring, but we object very strongly indeed to the particular kind of compulsory hiring which found a place in the Scottish Bill. I may remind the House of the difference between the system proposed in the Scottish Bill and the system proposed in the English Small Holdings Bill, which this House accepted. In the case of the English Bill the local authorities intervene. The proprietor lets his land to the local authority, which becomes responsible for the conduct of the transaction and stands between the occupier of the land and the owner. What we object to is any system under which the owner of the soil is compelled, in opposition to his own better judgment, and whether he likes it or not, to let his land directly to small holders and to stand the whole risk and responsibility of the failure of a very hazardous experiment. That is why we looked askance at the proposals contained in the Scottish Bill, and why we protested against it as being likely to introduce into another part of the United Kingdom many of the undoubted evils which have prevailed in Ireland, evils from which there is no means of escape except by recourse to that expensive and difficult system of wholesale purchase to which the noble and learned Lord referred.

After what the noble Lord opposite has said, I shall not persist with my Motion with regard to the production of the correspondence. With regard to what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said, I can assure him he entirely misunderstood me. What I said was this. I merely stated facts in regard to those Bills which were for the "crofterization" of Scotland, founded chiefly upon the fact that this crofters system as recently administered had not been a success. With regard to the hiring of land direct from tenants, I pointed out that in my opinion the statements that were made in that Report do not justify the inferences which appeared to be drawn. I had not in my mind the least idea in reference to the Bills lately before the House, and if it gives the noble and learned Lord any satisfaction I can assure him my mind is perfectly easy on the subject. The last thing I thought of was the raising of a debate with regard to the system on which land should be acquired in Scotland. My object was simply to point out that in my opinion this Report did not point to any success on the part of the crofters system.

My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord would rather give the idea that the officers of the mercantile marine are slightly deficient in education. I do not think that that can be held for one moment. Most young officers now go in for passing for the extra-masters certificate. We find young men of twenty-four or twenty-five who have passed for that certificate, and. I do not think that any man who has passed the very special examination that he is required to pass to obtain that certificate can be said to have anything deficient in his education. In his Motion, the noble Lord mentions cadets for the Naval Reserve. I do not know what he means by that. I have never heard of such a thing before. But if the noble Lord means cadets for the mercha it service, which I presume he does, we know that at the present time there are two very good school ships and other nautical establishments which give a very excellent education, and a turn-out of a quite sufficient number of officers for the merchant service. As a matter of fact there are, at the present moment, hundreds of captains and officers, fully qualified and able men, out of employment, and I do not think there is ground for any complaint of a shortage of officers or need of more training ships leading to the greater overstocking of our mercantile marine.

My Lords, the noble Lord seems to consider that there is a great lack of opportunity for members of the merchant marine to acquire knowledge. I do not think that is the case at all. I have made some inquiry into this matter, and I find that there are schools in nearly every big port in this country where persons wishing to embrace the calling of the sea can study all matters connected with it. In addition to this there are two ships, the "Conway" and the "Worcester," which render very valuable service in this respect. Owing to the new regulations brought in by Lord Selborne, an officer serving in the Navy is bound to acquire a knowledge of engineering. That has not been the case so far in the merchant service. It seems to me quite proper that officers of the merchant service should if possible acquire some knowledge of engineering. The "Conway" people inform me that they propose placing in the course of instruction on that ship a course of engineering. The noble Lord referred to a new ship fitting out by the White Star Company. I have no particulars to hand about that, but I understand that this ship was going to carry about sixty cadets, with instructors who will be competent to teach them all branches of marine knowledge. The question now is as to how is the Navy served with regard to the Royal Naval Reserve. The facts of the matter are simply these. Generally, every year we have in the Navy about seventy-five to eighty vacancies for officers of the Royal Naval Reserve; for those positions we generally have 400 to 500 applicants, and we are able, therefore, to take the pick of those men, and from the reports that are to hand the efficiency of the officers of the Royal Naval Reserve is beyond doubt. I was talking the other day to an Admiral of the Coast Defences, and he informed me that these men were everything a captain of a ship could desire. Therefore, from the point of view of the Navy, it does not seem necessary that we should spend any more money as suggested by the noble Lord. We are able to get a sufficiency of candidates desirous of joining the Naval Reserve, and, therefore, much as I sympathise with the objects of my noble friend's speech, I think no case has been made out for spending any extra money on this matter.

My Lords, this is a very small measure, but I think it is a useful Bill and a Bill that will give a great deal of satisfaction to a very deserving and gallant class of men—the sailors on the east coast. The object of the Bill is to legalise and regulate the use of the cran measure in the fresh herring trade in England and In Wales. An application for its adoption must be made by a local authority to the Board of Agriculture and the regulations under the Bill will be issued by the Board. It is an adoptive Bill and the local authority is the county council or the borough council. The word "cran" is a measure which really is a basket which contains 37½ imperial gallons, although the measure that would really be used in the herring trade would be what is called a quarter cran, equalling a little over 9 gallons. These measures have long been in use in Scotland, and they were legalised by the Herring Fisheries Bill of 1889. Persons interested in the herring trade on the east coast—and I need hardly remind the House what an important trade that is—hoped that this measure might also be legalised in England as well as in Scotland. Up to five years ago herrings on the east coast were sold by what is called "long hundred," which meant 132. That led to waste of time and labour and a certain amount of confusion, and there were frequent disputes as to the countings of fish, and so in 1903 quarter-cran baskets were introduced from Scotland and proved a great benefit. They began to be used at Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Grimsby, and Scarborough, but it was found after the introduction of these baskets that the buyers refused, and I think naturally refused, to accept the baskets that were not officially stamped. They had no guarantee that they contained the measure they were supposed to contain, and therefore the East Suffolk County Council and the Lowestoft Town Council both passed resolutions urging the legalisation of the cran measure for use in England. That happened in 1904, and they suggested that it might be carried out on the lines of the Scottish Act of 1889. The first clause of the Bill follows the provision of that Act. The Bill has the support of the East Coast herring traders en bloc, and has I believe, the unanimous support of the National Sea Fisheries Protection Association. There is one other point to which I need draw attention. Subsection 3 of Clause 1 states—

"Subject to the provisions of this Act cran and quarter cran measures so made and marked as aforesaid shall be the only legal measures for use in buying, selling, delivering, or receiving fresh herrings."

Attention was called to that, but I have to point out that it is provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the sale of herrings by weight, number, or bulk. I believe that this Bill would give a great deal of satisfaction to a most deserving and gallant body of men, and hope your Lordships will be pleased to accord it a Second Reading.

My Lords, on behalf of the herring trade, I beg to thank the noble Earl for having introduced this Bill, and also the officials of the Department who have taken the greatest trouble about the measure, and shown the greatest courtesy to the trade; when the matter was discussed by the executive of the National Sea Fisheries Association, the noble Earl was kind enough to allow one of the most important Members of his Department to be present at the discussion, and to promise that this Bill should be introduced. The draft Bill was afterwards sent to the Association, and was thoroughly approved. It is an adoptive measure, but at the same time, it will be, I think, adopted generally throughout the parts of the country affected. Our only regret is that it should have been brought in so late, although that is no fault of the noble Earl or of his Department. If the Bill cannot pass before the adjournment, it will be impossible for it to come into operation this year, as the Resolutions must be passed, and the permission of the Department obtained. If the noble Earl could see his way to pass the Bill—and members of our Parliamentary Committee will give him every assistance—before the end of this week and allow it to become law, it would be a great benefit, and be very much appreciated by the members of the great herring trade throughout the country. It would then give us about six weeks to pass the necessary Resolutions and bring it into action before the herring trade really begins.

rose "to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War, whether in view of the assurance given by the Secretary of State to the effect that no further reduction of the infantry of the line, either by the destruction of units or by the reduction of the strength or establishment of existing units, is in contemplation, he can now state what is the shortage below establishment of the infantry units on the British establishment, what measures are being taken to make good that shortage, and whether it is proposed, when the shortage has been made good, to increase, the present establishment of 720 rank and file." The noble Viscount said: I am sure my noble friend who represents the War Office in this House will understand that I am not making reference to anything connected with the Territorial Army and will understand the object therefore of the Question which appears in my name. With regard to the Special Reserve, to which I have the honour to belong, and as to the future of which I am therefore deeply anxious, perhaps the noble Lord will not mind my saying that his responses to some of my questions the other day were not altogether reassuring, more especially with reference to what he stated, that His Majesty's Government hoped to supply the new short rifle before the next training. I think it would have been far more satisfactory if he had stated that it was the intention of His Majesty's Government that the Special Reserve should be armed with the new rifle almost at once, for I think it must be patent to anyone who has any knowledge of military matters, that now that the Special Reserve are to be the real Reserve of the Regular Army it is absolutely essential that they should not only be taught the mechanism of this weapon but actually shoot with it. There is another point to which I wish to draw the noble Lord's attention. Referring the other day to the shortage in the Special Reserve, he threw out a hint implying, though perhaps unintentionally so, that he attributed the shortage in the 3rd Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment to the lack of encouragement given by the colonel of the regiment, my noble friend the Duke of Bedford. That was what we were led to believe; whilst as regards another battalion, the commanding officer, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, had, by the enthusiasm he had shown, been able to get many more men to join the Special Reserve. If the noble Lord did mean that it was an unfortunate remark to make, because the two battalions are on entirely different lines. The 3rd Battalion is simply for drafting purposes, whilst the 4th Battalion is to work as a unit by itself. I trust, therefore, that in answer to my Question the noble Lord will be able to make the statement that he did not intend to imply that which would be most uncalled for and unfair to the Duke of Bedford.

In answer, first of all, to the Question which the noble Lord has on the Paper, the figures on 1st July were as follows: The establishment of non-commissioned officers, and men of the Infantry of the Regular Army was 85,901, but the strength on that date was 83,802; that is a deficit of 2,099. At the present moment we are to some extent suffering shortage owing to the Indian drafts. The strength of the Infantry suffers greatly owing to drafts going out all through the winter and the spring, and the Infantry is at its lowest then and afterwards recruits up until the drafts begin again. We hope to see that deficit very considerably reduced in a few months time. As to the second point of the Question, we do not propose to take any special steps. Recruiting is good this year, and we hope that this deficit will be wiped off before long. As to the last part of the Question I can only refer the noble Lord to the Answer that was given by the Secretary of State in the other house. It was to the effect that when the shortage had been made good he would consider the question of increasing the establishment of the Home Battalions from the present number 720. As to the rifles for the Special Reserve, what I intended to convey was that it was decided that the Special Reserve shall be armed with the short rifle and that it was hoped that this rifle would be in the hands of the whole of the Special Reserve in time for next year's training.

There was one point I omitted as regards the filling-up of the lower ranks of the Special Reserve, on which 1 think the noble Lord could give us further information.

Officers?

Yes.

What is going to be done is this. The new system for providing the persons for the Special Reserve will be in full force by June of next year. As your Lordships know, the officers of the Special Reserve, if they do not choose to pass any form of examination before they go in, will be required to do a year's attachment with a unit of the Regular Army. There are two examinations they may pass, both of which exempt them for a certain time. The first examination for Certificate A will take place in the middle of December this year, and the first examination for Certificate B, about the middle of June next year. Any officer who joins the Special Reserve before the middle of December who has not had a chance of going in for either certificate will be exempted from eight months of his course. He will only have to do four months attachment, and he can do that any time either winter or summer, and if he wishes to do so he can, at the time the Special Reserve is training, leave his course and go out with the Reserve. After the middle of December, when he will have had a chance of doing so, if ho has passed for Certificate A, he will only have to do four months attachment. If he does not pass for Certificate A. hi will have to do eight months' attachment under the same conditions. After the middle of June of next year, after the scheme is in working order, and any officer who joins will have had a chance of getting both certificates, if he has not got those two certificates he will have to do a full year. As regards the other Question, I am sorry if anything I said about these two battalions of the Bedfordshire Regiment, commanded by the noble Duke and the noble Marquess should be considered an imputation. I brought the case forward simply to show how impossible it was to make any prophecies Here were two battalions in neighbouring counties; one had transferred 70 per cent, to the Special Reserve and one had transferred 40 per cent. When there were such startling variations in two neighbouring countries and two neighbouring battalions of the same regiment, I said it was quite impossible to attempt to forecast, as some speakers were doing, what the strength of the Special Reserve was going to be.

My Lords, under-stand this Bill is required because the disease of foul breed has spread rapidly and caused great loss. I understand from the noble Earl opposite, the Earl of Dououghmore that there will be no opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill, although some Amendments may be moved at a later stage. At this late hour, therefore, unless further information is asked for, I will content myself merely with moving the Second Reading.

I do not wish to offer any opposition, but should like to thank the noble Lord on behalf of the Government for the trouble ha has taken in bringing this Bill forward. I may have to draw attention to a number of detailed points in Committee, but in no case will I do so in any spirit of hostility to the Bill.

This Bill and the Polling Districts (Country Councils) Bill stand together, and I may say one word with regard to both of them. It is desirable that the polling districts for Parliamentary and country council elections should be identical, but various small anomalies have crept in which these Bills would redress. In the case of the country council elections there is this anomaly —that by some mistake in the wording of the original Act once a polling district has been created it cannot be altered, although changes take place in population and other respects, and this not only has the effect of leaving polling districts unequal but results in a divergence between the Parliamentary and the county council polling districts. Then as to the other measure. By the wording of the original Act, where the polling district is within one Petty Sessional Division the jurisdiction shall belong to the magistrate in Petty Sessions, whereas if a polling district happens to be in more than one Petty Sessional Division there is at once an appeal to another body. I am sure you will feel that in both Parliamentary and county council elections the jurisdiction should be the same. Both these Bills have passed your Lordships' House on five previous occasions.