Monday, 13th July, 1925.

The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

Brought from the Commons; read 1^a ; and to be printed.

Moved, That the order made in the 10th day of April last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday, the 30th of June next," be dispensed with and

that the Bill be now read 2^a .—( The Earl of Donoughmore.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2^a .

Read 3^a , and passed, and sent to the Commons.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill. Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: An Amendment proposed by the Committee made.

In drawing an analogy between the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Committee which it is proposed shall be set up, he pointed out that it would be like the Committee of Imperial Defence in that it would perform no executive action of itself; that it would advise the Cabinet and provide machinery for examining problems with which there was at present no departmental method of dealing; and that it would deal with civil questions as defence and military questions were dealt with by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The noble Earl said it was desirable to have a permanent Committee, though, as I understood, fluctuating in composition, to which should be referred the various problems which might arise, not in one Department alone but in several Departments, and it would exercise co-ordinating functions between the different Departments in regard to such problems. I understand that the proposed Committee could advise the Secretary of the State for the Colonies upon such subjects as research, education, transport, possible economical developments and, possibly, migration.

In making the Motion which stands in my name I desire to ask whether we can have in rather more detail than was possible on May 20 in the Kenya debate the exact functions, the exact position and the exact duties of this proposed Committee. The first thing that strikes me in regard to the analogy between the Committee of Imperial Defence and such a Committee as it is proposed to set up is that the Committee of Imperial Defence, though it advises the War Office, the Admiralty, the Air Department, and so on, has no objective functions and therefore has no control over expenditure. Presumably, then, if this new Committee is set up with a view of carrying out analogous functions in regard to civil matters, it will merely advise and will have no functions of expenditure, though it may devise schemes which will involve expenditure. But there is this great difference between the two Committees. Defence is one of the most expensive functions of government. We have no hesitation in spending, and probably spend wisely, sums running into millions and tens of millions sterling on defence. I imagine that the Committee mentioned by the noble Earl would not, in the advice it gives to the various Departments, approach in lavishness the expenditure advised by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The sums necessary to be spent in connection with advice on the civil side would not, I take it, amount to much more than a few thousand pounds. Transportation is an expensive matter, but it does not compare now, and probably will not for many years to come, with that involved in defending ourselves against material foes for which we have created a War Department, an Admiralty and an Air Department.

One might urge, perhaps, that we should be doing well in concentrating rather more on defending ourselves against the natural enemies of mankind—the insects, the microbes, the invisible animalcules—if that is the right scientific phrase—the ills which take off mankind indiscriminately, rather than spend large sums of money, which only create a rival expenditure on the opposite side of the Channel, or the opposite side of the world, in defending ourselves against enemies who ought not to be enemies but who ought to be co-operators. However, I propose to make no particular point of that, except to urge that if the Government do desire to develop these scientific investigations of our Empire by means of a Committee or by means of public expenditure, such work, such expenditure, will be not only for the benefit of our own selves and our own Empire but will be for the benefit of the world at large, and if we do have rivalry in that expenditure it will be rivalry of a healthy and useful character, whereas the rivalry which we see in the rivalry of armaments of defence is ruinous.

I would like to suggest for the noble Lord's consideration whether, in fact, there is not another Department recently set up which might be perhaps better as an exemplar for this Committee to follow than that of the Committee of Imperial Defence—I refer to the Development Commission that was set up in pre-War days by the Government which I supported when I was in the House of Commons, a Committee which, for the United Kingdom, expended money in various directions for the investigation and development in all its stages, but for the development I think entirely, of industry and enterprise in the United Kingdom. Would it not be possible to extend such Committee's work or to re-create a Committee dealing with Imperial development as the Development Commission dealt with home development. There is already scope for such a Committee to carry out work in regard to entomology. Two very closely inter-related sciences call for intensive investigation in relation to the possibility of carrying disease, putting down and, even more important, destroying the causes of disease. Much has been done in the last twenty or thirty years in that direction. The triumph over malaria and over Malta fever has shown that science, properly applied and with but a humble expenditure, can do a great deal in a way that has improved the condition of the world a thousand-fold. There remain problems similar in character still to be solved. As to the problems of tropical disease some of the causes, indeed, have been discovered, but, others are left unsolved.

The noble Earl, in speaking on May 20, referred to the tsetse fly, a devastating though minute influence throughout the whole, or practically the whole, of tropical Africa. If you could only get rid of the tsetse fly you would re-create economic possibilities in Central Africa which would add enormously to the resources of our Empire, and well would it be if such a Committee as the noble Earl suggests could devise or discover a method by which that one economic evil could be destroyed, even though the Committee did no more than that alone. There are, one might say, hundreds of other fruitful channels which might be investigated. Only last week we debated in this House on the problem of transport in Uganda. We were told by those who were acquainted with the economic problems of that country that the whole transport system of Uganda is out of date, inefficient, and very irritating and disastrous to traders. I have no doubt that entered the mind of the noble Earl when he moved on this subject. There, again, such a Committee as he proposes might deal fruitfully and wisely with the question.

A week ago I had the honour to be a member of a deputation to the Colonial Minister on the subject of a school of tropical agriculture. The deputation was moderate in its demands. It put forward, it seemed to me, a case of great urgency for practical agricultural investigation and asked for a small sum as things go now, a very small subsidy of £25,000, to enable the college to be continued in the West Indies. We received a favourable reply from the Secretary of State—as favourable as any Secretary of Stale can give, having in view the possibility of the Chancellor of the Exchequer looming behind his chair. But there was no promise that anything definite would be done. All we got was an undertaking from the Secretary of State that he would represent the case as strongly as he could to his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer and that he hoped to be able to persuade him.

I do not know if it is proper, I do not know that it is wise, that the possibilities of economic development and economic research should be dependent year by year on the good will of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It might well be that as a sum of money was annually voted for the Development Commission in the old days (I am not quite certain whether that sum of money is still voted) a sum might be given to an Imperial Development Commission, a Committee of Imperial Development, rather than a Committee of Imperial Defence—I would not say "rather than" but in addition to a Committee of Imperial Defence—and to that Commission might be assigned within the limits of its function a substantial grant, not such a grant as we give to our Army and Navy but such a grant as would produce very fruitful results indeed.

So far I have dealt with subjects which cannot be considered by any one to be within the realm of political controversy and, perhaps, it might be well to form the Commission in such a way that it should have the support of men of public Parties of all kinds and not introduce the more burning questions which involve differences of opinion between different schools of political thought. Yet such a Committee, if it were merely confined to scientific investigation, would, I think, not be fulfilling all its objects. There are two closely inter-related subjects which might also be made topics of inquiry and investigation by such a Committee—migration and the relations of different races settled in different parts of the Empire. We have been discussing migration throughout the Empire for the last four or five years and the results from the various Acts passed have not been equal to the expectations raised when those Acs were first brought forward. No doubt migration is a plant of slow growth and, having been checked or absolutely stopped during the War by other more urgent calls upon the young men of the country, it has been difficult to re-establish it. But those who are acquainted with the problems of migration between the Mother Country and the daughter nations of the Empire must be aware that the emigration movement from England to Australia, New Zealand or Canada during the past five years has not come up to what we expected, and has not satisfied either the Dominions or ourselves. It certainly has not relieved the over-burdened population which exists in this country.

It is a thorny question, it is a question full of difficulties, it is a question where feelings are very often aroused and hot words passed; yet it is a question of urgent importance, not only to this country but to every Dominion throughout the British Empire, and it might be that the question of furthering the matter and making more effective the money we spend on migration might be referred to such a Committee and such a Committee might be of service in bringing together the various interests. There it would more closely resemble the Committee of Imperial Defence in bringing together the Departments, not merely of this country but of the self-governing Dominions across the sea. There is no doubt that such a Committee would have to be purely an advisory one. You could not put upon any Committee of this country the duty of settling the policy of the Dominions. Such a course, though it may be logically argued, is politically impossible. I should not for a moment suggest that such a Committee could have anything more than a co-ordinating and unifying influence on the Departments concerned. But such a Committee would act as a very effective link—and we are all searching for links—between the Mother Country and the Dominions.

More difficult perhaps is the problem of coloured race migration within the Empire—the problem of how to deal with your Indian population which is moving out from India into the various self-governing Dominions and Colonies and which is a source of constant irritation to a large section of public opinion in India and, equally, a source of irritation to a large section of public opinion in the Dominions and the Colonies. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that at present there are difficulties which have not been overcome in dealing with the problem of Indian migration within the Empire. There is also the problem of the coloured races within the Dominions, and fiat is a subject which might well be investigated by the Committee. Again, the dangers and difficulties are so great that I, for one, should prefer to be excused attendance on the Committee when this subject was under discussion.

I do not need to enlarge upon the various duties which such a Committee might undertake. I have given one or two examples, and it would be perfectly easy to multiply them. But in asking the Lord President of the Council to enlarge a little the sketch which he made some six weeks ago, I am asking him to give us this information not in any captious spirit, not with any desire to create embarrassment—I do not think any single word of mine can be said to be dictated by any political or Party prejudice—but with a real desire to know, in this country and also in the Dominions, what is proposed. I believe there are great possibilities in the suggestion made by the noble Earl, and I should like to see the sketch filled in.

Like all constitutional and political developments in this country we begin with one idea, one political idea, and it develops perhaps in a very different way to that which we expected. It grows by use into something newer, perhaps something better, and I therefore welcome the announcement which has been made that such a Committee may be set up. I trust it will be set up very soon and will have functions assigned to it of real importance, functions the exercise of which will do something to improve the condition of the people of this Empire, enable trade to be developed and the producing power of our Colonies to be greatly extended. It is with this object in view that I put the Question which stands in my name, and I trust the noble Earl will be able to give us full information on the subject, as it will be of real interest, not ony to members of this House, but to the Empire as a whole. I beg to move.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2^a .—( The Earl of Shaftesbury.)

On Question, Bill read 2^a , and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

The only people who get nothing at all, or next to nothing, are the creditors of Turkey who, perhaps, have suffered more than anybody else. The original Sevres Treaty, as the House is well aware, contained the same provisions as the other Treaties which were negotiated at Paris, and it made provision for the compensation of British subjects, but owing, if I may say so, to the vagaries of Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson, the Treaty of Sevres went to the wall, and was succeeded by the Treaty of Lausanne. In the meanwhile Turkey, which was almost literally ground into the dust, has more or less recovered. Its position is now, without exaggeration, a nuisance to the whole civilised world. The first draft of the Lausanne Treaty fixed the claims of the creditors of the Turkish Government at £13,500,000 sterling. Eventually, by a process which is well known to everybody here, this sum of £13,500,000 was reduced to a sum of £10,800,000, and the Turks who, whatever may be their other failings, are never wanting in impudence, put forward two counter-claims. One was for £4,500,000, representing the gold which had been deposited in Berlin and Vienna as security for their loans. The second counter-claim was one for what is known as the battleship money, which amounts to £6,300,000.

I leave the battleship money alone for the moment, and deal first with the deposit money. This, which is called deposit money, consists of a fund amounting, as I have stated, to £4,500,000. It is vested in an International Commission which has been set up at the instance of the Turkish claimants, and, so far as I am aware, this Commission has made no payments whatsoever. I should like to remark that although the £4,500,000 sterling sounds a very imposing sum, it does not amount to much from the point of view of Turkish creditors when you examine it completely, because this £4,500,000 is a fund for which there is a kind of international scramble going on at the present moment. We are not the only claimants. There are French claimants, Italian claimants, Rumanian claimants and, I understand, even Japanese claimants, and all these people are represented on the Commission.

The circumstances are further complicated by the fact that the Smyrna claimants, who have nothing whatever to do with the War, have also been brought before this Commission, for what reason I am unable to discover. The two cases were entirely dissimilar. In the one case, the case of the War claims, we were belligerents, and each national considered that he was entitled to compensation for the loss which he had suffered. The Smyrna fire was a totally different matter. We were not at war with anybody at the time. The destruction of Smyrna was the result of hostilities between the Turks and the Greeks, and we had nothing whatever to do with it. It seems to me quite illogical that these two sets of claimants should be dealt with simultaneously. I may add that the prospects of getting anything substantial are most unsatisfactory. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that I believe the claims of the British nationals alone amount to £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, although they have never been actually assessed. These claimants were first of all told to wait for the Treaty in order to get their claims settled, then they were told to wait for the ratification of the Treaty, and finally they were told to wait until the Commission made its award. As I hive already observed, no payments so far as I am aware, have been made at all.

I shall probably be told when the answer is given that the British claimants, on the other hand, have got another sum to fall back upon in the shape of that sum of £5,000,000 associated with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Sumner which is a kind of ex gratia fund that was founded for the purpose of compensating British sufferers in all these belligerent countries. I understand that out of this ex gratia fund a considerable sum has been paid over to the claimants against the Turkish Government. I believe something like £600,000 has been paid. Here I would like to emphasise the fact that these payments from the ex gratia fund really amount only to a loan, because any money that these claimants obtain from the ex gratia fund will have to be refunded as soon as they obtain any payment from the deposit fund now administered at Paris. Therefore the prospects of these unfortunate people receiving any substantial sum are as unlikely as unlikely anything you can conceive. I am acquainted with one gentleman who put forward a claim to, I think, £43,000,

and who has received from this ex gratia fund something between £600, and £700, and he thinks it extremely improbable that he will ever receive anything more, unless I am able to make some impression by my statement this afternoon. So much for the so-called deposit fund.

I pass to what is known as the battleship money, which raises a much more important and a much more contentious point. This fund concerns British subjects only, and it is a much larger fund than the other. It amounts to no less than £6,300,000. The House will recollect that in 1914, when War broke out, there were in the English building yards three ironclads, two Turkish and one Chilian. The British Government, exercising their rights, appropriated these three ships. In the case of the Chilian vessel they paid full value for it, but in the case of the Turkish ships they refused payment, and, therefore, the ships were acquired for nothing. This action of the British Government at that time—I am not finding fault with it—naturally created extreme exasperation in Turkey, and created especial exasperation for this reason. These ships ere not built in the ordinary way by the Government, but were built largely out of private subscriptions provided by the population of Turkey. It was a kind of patriotic appeal to them, and I believe everybody in the country subscribed towards the battleships.

Naturally the greatest exasperation was caused by their appropriation by the British Government, and the people who are good judges of politics in the Near East have often maintained that if we had not effected this seizure it is quite conceivable the Turks would never have gone to war, and that the extreme exasperation and irritation caused by this proceeding enabled Enver Pasha and his friends to work up a violent agitation against us which eventually brought Turkey into the War. But it is no use discussing this particular point. The fact is we seized these vessels and we refused to pay for them, and the immediate and natural result was that the Turkish Government at once seized all the property of British subjects that they could lay their hands upon.

The question as to whether the British Government were entitled to seize then battleships without compensation has

never been actually made clear. Recently, in questions which have been put to the Government, the Government representatives have constantly denied that we had incurred any liability at all or were liable for any compensation. On April 13 of last year the late Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, when interrogated on this point, replied as follows:

"I am aware that Ismet Pasha renounced, On behalf of Turkey, any claim to the value of these battleships, but in doing so he was renouncing a claim which His Majesty's Government never recognised as valid."

That sounds plain enough, but if you look at Article 58 of the Lausanne Treaty, you will find these words:

"Turkey also agrees not to claim from the British Government or its nationals repayment of the sums paid for the warships ordered in England by the Ottoman Government."

There is here, therefore, a flagrant contradiction.

How can you renounce a thing which does not exist? The Lausanne Treaty was not a dictated Treaty like the Treaty of Paris. It was a negotiated Treaty on even terms, and if you admit an Article of that character and put your name to something to which you have given your agreement, it certainly looks, on the face of it, as if His Majesty's Government at that time realised that if the Turkish claim was not substantiated there was a good deal behind it. In order to fortify that view let me read to your Lordships v hat the late Lord Curzon is reported by the Blue-book of the proceedings at Lausanne to have said on this subject. The Blue-hook contains the following, under date February 4, 1923:—

"Let Ismet Pasha"—

he was, of course, the Turkish representative—

"realise quite clearly that in making a concession to Turkey regarding the payment for the ships which Great Britain had requisitioned in 1914, Lord Curzon had taken upon himself a responsibility which he would he obliged to defend before British public opinion. He had made this concesson and assumed this responsibility in order to please Ismet Pasha. It was by far the greatest concession Great Britain had made, and Ismet Pasha should fully appreciate its magnitude."

All this can be found in the Blue-book.

Further, Lord Curzon pointed out—and this is absolutely vital to my point—that

"The concession is made at the expense of British nationals in Turkey who have steadily ever since the Armistice held the view that this money was in the hands of the British Government and have asked that it may be used to pay something on account of admitted claims."

Here, as I have already said, the validity of the claims is practically acknowledged, and it was on the basis of this acknowledgment that Turkey consented to sign the Treaty. I do not want to throw any blame on the late Lord Curzon, for I consider he was, perhaps, the most valuable statesman this country has possessed of recent years, and it must be remembered that he was fighting this battle by himself and with absolutely no support from any of our Allies on any important point. The long and short of all this is that His Majesty's Government have got two very valuable battleships for nothing, and, on the other hand, the claimants upon Turkey, who have very strong claims, get nothing whatever. That is really the whole case.

I only desire to point out in conclusion that these are claims on the part of British merchants in the Near East who have been the mainstay of British trade in that part of the world for centuries. They suffered severely during the War. At a moment's notice many of them were turned out of the country, their property seized, their houses seized, and everything they enjoyed seized. They are now in an impoverished and crippled position. On the other side you hear laments that the trade of this country in the Near East is diminishing. In former years, indeed only a short time ago, British trade in Turkey was predominant and was, perhaps, as important as the trade of most of the European nations put together. If there is any real desire to recover that trade the most practical means of attaining that object is to enable these British merchants in Turkey, who thoroughly understand the question, to be allowed to recover; and we should try to set them on their feet again. It is only by obtaining some measure of compensation for the heavy losses they have sustained that anything of the kind can be effected.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2^a .—( Lord Emmott.)

This Bill is brought in by a private member of another Place who has only been for eight months in the House of Commons. So far as I can see from the names on the back of the Bill, there is not one who had been more than, if as much as, three years in that House and all but one of them were, I believe, connected with municipalities. We all know that the officials of municipalities are anxious to interfere with our private life and to impose fresh burdens upon us. It may be the case, and I think it is, that there are a few provisions in this Bill which might be advantageous if this country was still rich and prosperous. As it is a poor country, we have to cut our coat according to our cloth and to do everything we can, not only to avoid increasing expenditure but to diminish it.

The noble Lord, Lord Emmott, will excuse me, I do not want to misrepresent him in any way but I rather gather that he laid it down that this was a consolidation Bill.

Amendment moved:—

Leave out ("now") and at the end of the Motion insert ("this day six months").—(Lord Banbury of Southam.)

On Question, Amendment negatived, and Motion agreed to. Bill read 2^a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at ten minutes before seven o'clock.