I respectfully submit to you, Sir, that I am criticising a matter of administration that does depend on the inaction of the Colonial Secretary. Moreover, certain matters of fact were stated by me as of personal knowledge in this House, upon which the Colonial Secretary made a denial in this House on the information he had then received; and later as to the same facts the Under-Secretary had subsequently to acknowledge that my version of the case could not be denied. I think I am entitled to refer to the responsibility for contradictory statements made in this House by the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Under-Secretary about a matter which is certainly a reserved matter and within the competence of this House and to the suspension of the Constitution in connection therewith.

The supineness of the Colonial Department in counteracting anti-British propaganda in a portion of the Empire, is illustrated by this dealing with the Malta Constitution Trade Union Bill. In those portions of the Empire where vast military and naval interests are at stake sympathy should be the other way. The policy of seeing nothing, doing nothing and submitting to snubs and injury time after time, may have a diplomatic value —it may induce our rivals, or possible rivals, to be apparently quiescent, and thus create the appearance of give and take in other portions of the Empire, as, for instance; in Mosul and elsewhere—but it discourages and breaks down the loyal section of the community in any Dependency or great fortress and this Empire may have to stand on the support of the loyalists when the testing time comes in another great war. It is not by the policy of discouragement to-day that active loyalty can be established for the needs of to-morrow, but by the uninterrupted encouragement of those who are British in their sentiments, in their interests, in their objectives, and in their determination to induce others to do the best they can for the British cause at all costs. There has been a singular absence of that sympathy with the loyalists in the great Imperial fortress of Malta with which I am connected. I wish to refer to another feature of Colonial administration, which has a general aspect. This House has, on several occasions in the past, criticised the want of support of the representatives of the Central Government of Imperial officials working outside for England, have often been thrown over. There was the very regrettable case of General Dyer at Amritsar. I feel that those who supported his action and criticised the Government Department—