§ Mr. NEVILLEI desire to ask the President of the Board of Trade the following question, of which I have given him private notice: Whether the organisation set up in connection with the Labour Bureaus has had applications from farmers for volunteer help in the harvest field, and if so for how many hands, and whether volunteer help has been in fact supplied by such organisation, and whether there is now any shortage of hands in the harvest field, and if so in what part of the country?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANI have not yet received full reports from all parts of the country as to the results of the action taken by the Labour Exchanges in connection with the supply of harvest labour. From such information as is already available, it appears that a number of vacancies were notified to the Exchanges and filled by them. I have as yet received no information of any case in which the farmer asked for volunteer help rather than paid labour, nor has any case been brought to my notice in which the Exchanges had any difficulty in supplying sufficient paid workers. It does not appear from the reports that there has been any general deficiency of labour for harvesting.