HC Deb 12 November 1914 vol 68 cc43-166

Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question,

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—[Sir Robert Price.]

Question again proposed. Debate resumed.

Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON

The announcement made by the Prime Minister with regard to the White Paper scheme of Pension and Disablement Allowances, relieves me, for the present, of the necessity for dwelling on that subject. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Government for having acceded to the suggestion that we made that this was a subject that ought to receive the attention of the House at much greater length than could be given in the Debate on the Address. I hope that the day will be fixed very early, as all sections of the House will admit that there is a great amount of interest in the country on this important subject. In the few observations I have to make I will endeavour to emulate previous speakers by seeking to avoid anything in the nature of party controversy. It appears to me to be altogether impossible to overestimate the advantage that has accrued to this country and to the very serious cause it has in hand, both on land and at sea, from the splendid unity which has characterised all sections of the community since the War began. I want to say that, so far as we are concerned on these benches, we have come to the conclusion that everything ought to be done to preserve, right to the end of this great trial, that valuable asset, the unity of the entire Empire.

The brevity and substance of the Gracious Speech from the Throne remind us that there is only one supreme consideration upon which Parliament must concentrate its attention. All our energy, all the capacity and experience of the nation, both civil and military, must be so applied as to enable us to prosecute this War to a successful issue; and may I say the more expeditious the issue the more every one will be pleased. In making the statement that we must prosecute the War to a successful issue, I think I am expressing the view of the entire organised labour movement of this country. We feel that whatever differences of opinion there may have been prior to the opening of hostilities, there is no other course left open to us as a nation, there is no alternative that presents itself to us, than that we must go straight through with this very serious business. In fact, we feel that everything must be done to enable our Allies and ourselves to crown their efforts with a complete, and, I hope, a final victory. When the time of victory does come and when this House and the nation have to turn their attention to the question of a permanent settlement, the organised labour movement in this country will use its powerful influence in order to direct that settlement on the lines of the true spirit of nationalism and in keeping with the high ideals of democracy. Believing, as we do, that in proportion to the completeness of the victory will be the permanence of our future peace, we shall continue, as we have done from the commencement of hostilities, to give the Government our united support, in the hope, as the Gracious Speech says, that we may carry this issue to that desirable success upon which most of us have set our hearts.

There is in the second paragraph of the Gracious Speech a reference, a most important reference, to the extension of the area of the war. I am quite sure of this, that all sections of the House must have deplored that it became really necessary to extend that area which, most would admit, was already far too large. The experiences civilisation has passed through since the early days of August I am sure must lead all of us to the conclusion that the more the area of such operations can be restricted the better it must be for everybody. I must say here, having watched as closely as I could the public conduct of affairs, that it seems to me that the Government desire the credit of the country for the patient way in which they bore what were tantamount to very direct insults from Turkey during the days immediately preceding the declaration of War. It seems to me that Turkey left us no alternative than to take the very direct action which the Government on behalf of the country felt impelled to take. The reference to this part of the Gracious Speech leads me to make an inquiry—I regret that the First Lord is not in his place, but, perhaps, the Prime Minister will convey to him the point I wish to make—to ask him, with all reserve, whether the Government are in a position to tell us a little more about an incident, a very important incident, if not a very powerful factor in compelling the declaration of war with regard to Turkey. I refer to the escape of the two German warships, the "Goeben" and the "Breslau."

It may be that this is a subject upon which the Government cannot speak too freely. The House will be prepared to make every allowance, but I do think that we have not had quite all the information on this subject that might have been conveyed, not only to the House, but to the country. We saw some weeks ago that the officer in command had been recalled and that there was likely to be a trial by court-martial. That is so long ago that some of us had almost forgotten it, and it was only to-day, on my way to the House, that I was reminded of the whole incident once more by noticing on a placard that the court-martial had come to its finding on the subject. Now that the court-martial has come to its finding, it may be that the First Lord will be in a position to tell the House whether these two ships really escaped by accident or mismanagement; whether, in the opinion of the Government, they were in the waters where, I believe, they were chased for some time, trying to carry on acts of warfare quite legitimately, or whether, in the opinion of the Government, there was some prearrangement between Germany and Turkey with regard to these two ships; and whether there has been a legitimate sale or not? I do think the country is entitled to know a little with regard to the incident to which I have just called attention.

The next point to which I want to refer is one that was referred to yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that is the conditions, of which there is so much complaint, regarding the treatment of the New Army, now known in the country as Kitchener's Army, and the conditions under which thousands, yea, tens of thousands, of these men are at present placed. Before the House rose the hon. and gallant Member for South Monmouthshire (Sir Ivor Herbert) raised this question, and I took part in the Debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for War gave us, in the short time allowed, a little information. He promised, I think, certain reforms. At any rate, he promised that the matters that had been brought to the notice of the House would receive attention. I am not going to say that there has not been an improvement. I think there has been an improvement—a considerable improvement—but I must insist on saying that there is still room for very considerable improvement according to the letters I am receiving. I am quite sure I do not stand alone in this matter, anl that all sections, indeed nearly all Members of the House, have been receiving such letters from all parts of the country. I am going to quote from one I received two days ago, which was written on the 7th of the present month. It is an extract from a letter from one of my Constituents. He left a fair position and, responding to the appeal that was made, he enlisted in Kitchener's Now Army. [HON. MEMBERS: "The King's Army!"] Well, the King's Army. I said a little while ago that it was known in the country, and the War Office encourages the idea in its literature, as Kitchener's Army. I have one of their leaflets here in my hand, which encourages the use of that name. I do not think we need quarrel about it, for the Under-Secretary for War knows exactly what I mean. At any rate, my Constituent enlisted at Darlington into one of the new branches of the King's Army, and this is what he writes on 7th November:— I beg to call your attention to the deplorable conditions under which we are forced to exist. This is written from Aldershot on 7th November. The conditions can be described in one word as scandalous. It gives as an instance that they are sleeping, in the month of November, in an ordinary summer tent—healthy young men who responded to the appeal, who left good homes and good positions. We come here to be treated more like dogs than men, Sir. These statements are perfectly true, and I ask you if nothing can be done to alter these conditions which are the only cause of slow recruiting. I should like to call the Under-Secretary's attention to this further remark:— You would be surprised if you could read hundreds of letters that go home to parents and pals, also the deception of the recruiting officers must be stopped at once. This latter point about the deception of recruiting officers deserves the careful attention of the War Office. I have here a leaflet, Army Form B 218, and one paragraph opens:— A private soldier in the Infantry on joining gets 6s. 8d. a week, clear of all expenses. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell the House whether that is correct or not. If it is not correct it ought never to be published. My opinion is that it is very far from being correct. I think there are all sorts of stoppages, to say nothing about the allotment for the wife and for each child. There is the stoppage for insurance. I have heard in some cases of a stoppage to provide soap for the washing of the soldiers, and it seems to me if he starts off on 1s. Id. or 1s. 2d. a day and has 3s. 6d. stopped from his pay and allocated to his wife, if he has 1s. 1d. deducted for each child, if he has 1½d. deducted for insurance, if he has so many coppers deducted for soap to wash himself, and so much for the washing of his clothes, there is not going to be very much left. In fact, I have had cases brought to my notice where, after all the deductions were made, the only sum that could be left for the soldier to purchase tobacco or any other thing that he took a fancy to was 11d. per week, or 11½d., to put it strictly accurate. Can the House wonder that there is some delay in recruiting? When we raised this question before the House rose, what was the surprising answer that the Under-Secretary gave? He attributed the check to recruiting to the fact that the War Office had raised the height and chest measurement, and, I believe, altered the age.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant)

I think my hon. Friend is mistaken.

Mr. A. HENDERSON

I am informed by my Friends who heard the statement, that he said this was done to stop the rush. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept those words?

Mr. TENNANT

made an observation which was not heard in the Reporters' Gallery.

Mr. A. HENDERSON

It would have been perhaps better if the right hon. Gentleman had not challenged me on my first statement, because I am prepared to accept the suggestion that it was done to stop the rush. The effect is the same. What was stopping the rush or checking the recruiting, whichever way you care to put it, was mismanagement, the very grievous conditions which were being imposed, shall I go further and say the breach of faith as between some of the recruiting officers and the men who were being enlisted. Some of these men were leaving £3 and £4 a week. We know cases where they have left £5 per week. They have done it for the love of their country. They have done it out of a real spirit of patriotism. They have made the sacrifice and they have been told they they would receive 6s. 8½d. clear of all expenses. Week after week passes and we find that the magnificent sum of 11d. at the end of the week is their portion. The House, I think, was immensely pleased to hear the statement from the Prime Minister, that notwithstanding all these difficulties, notwithstanding this mismanagement, there has been the magnificent total of something like 1¼ million men raised practically since the War broke out, either in the Regulars or in the Territorials. This is a great credit. The men have enlisted, not because they wanted higher pay but because they wanted to do their duty to their country, and if that was the motive that inspired them the motive that ought to inspire the responsible trustees of the country, namely, Parliament, in this matter, is to see that as speedily as possible the grievances to which I have called attention are permanently removed.

Another matter that I should like to call attention to is the position of many of the women in this country. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Middlebrook) yesterday paid a very deserved tribute to the conduct of the great majority of the women. I want to associate myself with that tribute. I think every word that he said was deserved. Many of our women folk, and especially the wives of our soldiers and sailors, have gone during the last three months through the roughest time of their whole lives. Let me try to visualise the position that many of them have been placed in. Their husbands were called to the Colours. Many of them have been keeping their lonely vigil on the sea. Their wives were left at home. In connection with some of the wives of our sailors the only thing they have to depend upon in the early stage is what they received from the pay of the husband. In some cases they did not feel that it was sufficient and made application for assistance. I had letters sent tome before any allowance was granted by the Government which proved that some of these women had been most shamefully insulted by relief committees. In the case of soldiers' wives the case was even worse. For the last three or four months they have been almost the victims of an attack by misguided representatives of charitable organisations, and in some cases the representatives of an organisation which had had experience and should have known better. I am referring now to an organisation that I have some good opinion of, and that is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. These people were entrusted with filling up the gap that ought never to have existed. The War Office, it seems to me in the early stages, if they were not in a position to pay out the money to the wives directly, though their own pay offices ought to have done what I think the right hon. Gentleman had in his mind yesterday when he said the War Office had not taken advantage of the organised capacity of this country. We have the finest machinery of local government in this country that there is in any country in the world, and yet the War Office seems to> ignore the fact that we have county councils, borough councils, and urban district councils.

In the early stages of this War, if they found that they were incapable of paying the money direct through the pay office, or through the post offices, it seems to me that all they need have done was to enter into arrangements with the accountant's office of the county council, the borough-council, or the urban district council, giving to each soldier's wife a permit or cheque, or whatever you care to call it, to go to the accountant's office, and the money would have been paid straight away. What took place? Representatives of charitable organisations took this-work up, and they not only meddled unnecessarily, but they muddled most severely. Their inquisitorial methods were a disgrace to everybody concerned. I had a case brought to my notice where a small sum was coining into a sailor's home. The wife was asked what she did with it. The sum was £2 per month—10s. per week. It is the form of the question to which I take exception. The wife has one child. The question was asked what she did with the 10s. per week. Did she drink it? Did she go to see the pictures? Mark you, it was this woman's own money. It is the wages of the husband who is keeping his silent vigil on the sea, and the wife is to be insulted by being asked what she does with her husband's wages. Is this the sort of thing that the Board of Admiralty approve of? Yet this is done in connection with the administration that has been going on during the past three months through the War Office, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association, which is doing the work for the War Office. I could give some equally telling cases. I think there is not a Member of the House but could do the same. The point I want to make is this: Can we be told now that all the arrears have been overtaken by the War Office paying out the money, and is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association going to be done with this business? I hold that where these questions of sailors' pay or soldiers' separation allowances are concerned, no charitable organisation whatever has any right to be employed as between the Government and the Government employé, and I hope that from every part of the House this question of the unnecessary interference of charitable organisations between the soldier and the sailor and the Government Departments will be pressed until we are told that it is finally and permanently withdrawn.

I have another point to make so far as the wives of soldiers are concerned. I am glad to notice that the Home Secretary is now on the Front Bench. I want to bring to his notice what I conceive to be a very important case. I have told the House about the way soldiers' wives are being harassed by the agents of charitable organisations; but we have gone one worse. I wonder if the House is fully alive to the fact that the latest thing to be done is to move from the agent of the charitable organisation to the police. The Home Office the other day, I think, surprised everybody by issuing a notice. What do I find? I am going to read a few lines of the letter sent from the Home Office. It was headed in the "Daily News," "New Police Duty":— I am directed by the Secretary of State to say that the Army Council desire to have the assistance of the police in the measures which are being taken to provide for— I ask the House to notice this:— to provide for the withholding of separation allowances payable to wives or dependents of soldiers in the event of serious misconduct on the part of the recipient. I am going to pronounce this "the limit." I will yield to no one in the House in my anxiety to promote good living among the people. My views with regard to temperance are well known. I have supported legislation going in the direction of what I conceive to be the promotion of the sobriety of the people ever since I came into this House, but I must say I am going to oppose, so far as in me lies, any intention to put upon the wives of soldiers any such surveillance by the police as that described in the letter I have read. Which Member of this House would like any such treatment if he did not behave himself? And I suppose we do not all behave ourselves at all times to the satisfaction of everybody else, and not always to the satisfaction of the police. But whether it be to the satisfaction of the police or the civilian, I venture to think that the last thing we would ever tolerate would be that someone should intervene and say to us how we have got to spend our money. I claim that the separation allowance is only part of the pay—part of the actual earnings of the soldier, and though it may be regrettable that some soldiers' wives do not know how to spend the money, they are not alone in this respect. Unfortunately there are other wives who do not know how money should be spent, and there are many husbands who do not know how to spend their own money. Then why, if this be the case, should soldiers' wives, after being harassed in the way I have pointed out by the representatives of charitable organisations, be handed over to the police in the manner proposed. May I make an appeal to the Prime Minister? I am quite sure my appeal will be realised by him, that we have no right to put the police between the wives and the spending by them of the hard-earned wages of the soldier. I hope this Order will be immediately withdrawn.

I sincerely trust that the Government, in view of the day for discussion they have promised, and the Committee I understood the Prime Minister to say he was going to set up, will make the terms of reference sufficiently clear and broad that the whole conditions of the treatment of the soldier and sailor, and of their wives and children, will be subjected to a very careful analysis, and that they will report to this House, for I am quite certain that this should be done if the War should go on even for the period the Prime Minister hinted at, and if we have to have another million men recruited. I am doing my little bit in that direction. Since the House rose I think I have spoken at some thirty meetings, and I am prepared to speak at another thirty, but I do say that those who are throwing themselves into this work have a right to have at least a searching investigation, and to have a judgment pronounced upon the conditions I have brought before the notice of the House this afternoon.

Mr. DAVID MASON

I have a few words to say on another question which was raised by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, namely, the question of not giving way to clamouring newspapers by adopting a policy of vindictiveness towards those aliens who are in our midst. In common with some other Members of the House, I have received letters pointing out that many aliens are married to English wives, and that the wives and children of those who have been interned are suffering. I do hope that the Government will take this matter into consideration, and that they will thoroughly investigate each particular case on its merits, and not cause unnecessary hardship by any wholesale system of action against those people without sufficient investigation. I assume, for the sake of argument, that the Government are not animated by any vindictive motives, but are animated, as I believe they are, solely with the desire to do what is best for the country, but I submit that they should show due consideration to the dependants of those aliens. After all, they are innocent people. As has been suggested, they include some English wives. But even when they are not English wives they appeal to our humanity. They are in our midst. It is through the action of the Government that their breadwinners have been withdrawn. Therefore, I think that the Government ought to take the responsibility for their actions and make some provision for them.

I pass from that question to one other on which I wish to offer a few remarks. In the King's Gracious Speech we find the following words with reference to the making of financial arrangements for carrying on the War, which is, of course, a matter that comes more particularly before the House of Commons:—

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons,

You will be asked to make due, provision for the effectice conduct of the War."

The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister told us that the Chancellor of the Exchequer—on Monday, I think—would make a financial statement, and would give us some idea of the forthcoming loan, but so far as I am able to gather from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, there was no indication given as to anything in the way of meeting any part of the expenditure by new taxation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), in August last, made a plea which I think was responded to on all sides of the House, that a certain part of this expenditure should be met by taxation, and I think I saw in the "Times" that this was approved of by that newspaper; but, to my regret, I saw to-day that the right hon. Gentleman has written a letter to the "Times" disclaiming this attitude, which he had taken up, on the ground that the circumstances were not the same now, and that his advice had not been taken at the time in August. I do not follow his remarks there, because had his advice been taken in August I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman would suggest that taxes put on in August should be taken off in November. But he went on in that letter to point out that he did not know the facts, and that if the Government felt called on to bring forward new proposals for taxation they would do so on their own responsibility as he had not been consulted, and he ended his letter by stating that if they chose to bring forward proposals for fresh taxation he would not criticise these proposals. I speak from memory, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman will confirm what I say.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

What I said was that the opinion to which I gave expression in the House of Commons should not be quoted, as it was in the "Times," as being necessarily applicable to the present state of affairs. And the concluding sentence of my letter, to which the hon. Member has referred, states that if the Government now decide that it is not desirable to impose taxation at this moment, but that it is better to postpone their new proposals to a later date, I should not criticise that procedure.

Mr. MASON

I do not wish in any way to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

But you said the opposite of what I said.

Mr. MASON

I may have used the words in the opposite sense, but the sense in which I wish to convey them is that in which the right hon. Gentleman has used them, that if the Government bring in new proposals for taxation now he will not criticise them. My hon. Friend (Mr. MacCallum Scott) again corrects me. The right hon. Gentleman said that if they fail to do so he would not criticise their decision. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his subtlety, but I think that he will agree with me that, dismissing all subtlety of words, the main fact emerges from the right hon. Gentleman's letter that apparently he has changed his attitude of mind since last August on the great question of Taxation versus Borrowing. If His Majesty's Government have finally made up their minds on their proposals we shall hear more on the subject probably on Monday. I do hope that His Majesty's Government and this House will take into consideration the extreme gravity of facing now this problem and this responsibility, and the effects on the country which will result if they pursue the policy that has been adumbrated in certain quarters of carrying on this great War upon credit and upon credit only. Of course, I know that we are bound to have fresh taxation even for the purposes of the Sinking Fund and amortisation, but surely the principle of paying a part of the expenditure as we go along ought to be very soon, if not immediately, put into practice. I submit that there are immense issues hanging upon this principle being put into practice. There will be involved the most severe and tremendous hardships upon, more particularly, the wage-earning classes, if we go on, as we are doing, piling up an enormous loan expenditure. We have already incurred something like £101,000,000 expenditure, of which £90,000,000 have been spent on this War, which is purely loan expenditure. What will be the effect upon the industrial classes if this policy is pursued?

We are all agreed as the Leader of the Labour party said, in the vigorous prosecution of this War, and any criticism which is made—and the Prime Minister invited criticism—as to the way of carrying out this War, in getting recruits, in the finance of the warfare, and its maintenance in a vigorous, methodical, proper, and businesslike manner, must be directed to those who are in control, and the Government will surely give us credit for sincerity, patriotism, and a desire to see the War carried out in the best interests of the country in any criticism which we may offer. Why carry on this policy of finance, which, if it were entirely upon loan emissions, would be detrimental in the highest degree both to the industrial classes, and also to the interests of sound finance. It is well known by those who have given a study to this subject that if you pursue a policy of loan emissions you enormously stimulate the demand for labour for the time being. You bring a great influx of labour into the market, as is seen now in the decrease of unemployment throughout the country as a result of this vast expenditure of capital. When the War comes to an end, you are met with an enormously expanded labour influx, accompanied by depleted capital, if you largely finance the War through loan emissions. No one for a moment would suggest that this War can be carried on by taxation, or even largely by taxation, because of its enormous cost, but, if you have a certain proportion of War supplies derived from taxation, you would bring before the people the fact of what War is, what the expenses are, and this would tend, in the nature of things, to direct men's minds, as soon and as expeditiously as possible, to the possibility of bringing about an honourable peace.

It is interesting in this connection to look back to past wars. What was the cost of the Crimean war, and what was the financial conduct of that great operation? The Crimean war, which the Government may consider rather an important war, a great operation, actually cost this country only about £76,000,000. In the three months during which this War has already been going on, we have expended some £90,000,000. It is estimated in many quarters that before it is finished, this colossal undertaking in which we are engaged, will cost £300,000,000 or £400,000,000. Of course, the principle of meeting the expenditure by taxation is not so applicable to-day as in the days of the Crimean war. But the cost of the Crimean war was met by £40,000,000 additional taxation, and £41,000,000 added to the debt—about 50 per cent. from taxation and 50 per cent. from loan emissions. If hon. Members would take the trouble to read up the Debates at that time, they will find that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer contended with all his might for this most important principle of taxation to meet the cost. Mr. Disraeli, on the Conservative side, supported him, and many others at that time were alive to the extreme importance to the interests of the country with a view to preventing untold misery to the industrial classes later on, that they should pay a proportion of the expenditure out of taxation. I have taken this opportunity on the Address to bring this point before His Majesty's Government, in the hope that they will give it their serious consideration.

Mr. WALTER LONG

I rise now because I regret very much that the speech made by the hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Arthur Henderson) has not been followed by an immediate declaration from the Government on this question of pay. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say, as has been already observed by my Leader in this House, that anything we advance here, and in anything we say, we are not actuated by any desire to criticise, much less to find fault. We are actuated solely by the desire to which the Prime Minister referred in his speech, namely, that if by our experience recently we are able to assist the Government in this stupendous task which they are called upon to discharge, it is in our opinion our duty to do so. The statement made by the hon. Member for Barnard Castle is no exaggeration of the history of this question of pay. I had intended and hoped to be present myself at this very hour at a recruiting meeting within easy reach of this House, but I preferred to make my statement here, and get somebody else to take my place there, for the reason that, in my humble opinion, this question of pay and the allowances to dependants lie at the very root of the recruiting question. In a country village where you have twenty, twenty-five or thirty men gone to the front—and I can say from my part of England, the South and West, the response on the part of the men to the demand of the Government for recruits has been magnificent—where you have a village from which twenty to thirty men have gone to the front, in respect of half that number, or it may be more, there is no complaint, but if in respect of the dependents of four or five of those men the cases are as stated by the Member for Barnard Castle, it is useless for the Prime Minister, himself the most powerful orator this House or country could produce, to go into those villages and ask fresh men to join the Colours. I am speaking, not from my own experience alone in my own district; I am speaking from experience which I have gained as a member of the executive committee of the Prince of Wales' Fund, and from visits which I have paid to a variety of our camps in different parts of England. I have had in my hand long lists of men, members of the New Army, in each of whose cases, their dependants, their wives and children, have not received one penny of pay or allowance from the day when the husband and father joined the Colours up to the time I saw them. I have to-day received a letter from a man whom I at last succeeded in getting admitted to the Army, and who enlisted at the end of August. His wife has received since then something under 6s. per week, and up to two or three days ago the man received the sum of 6s. 9d.

Mr. BALFOUR

Gross, or per week?

4.0 P.M.

Mr. LONG

Those are the total sums, the whole of the payments. His wife got for some weeks 5s., a few pence per week, and the husband received 6s. 9d. He is a determined man, and he was not to be turned from his purpose, and he has gone to the Army. I am doing my best, and others are doing their best, to prevent his case from deterring others, but it is idle for this House to shut its eyes to the effects, and it is idle to say we must not mention them, because they may do harm since they are known all over the country. That is the difficulty, not the raising of the height which has, for the present at all events, kept recruits from joining the Colours. Is there any married man with children in this House who would not take the view that those men take. I have read some of the letters which those wives have addressed to their hnsbands, heart-breaking letters, in which they have said, "What are we to do; we are left without any means?" I venture to say if it had not been for the action of the executive committee of the Prince of Wales' Fund you would not only have had grave trouble among those who have recruited for the Army but your recruiting would have stopped altogether weeks ago. They meet in the course of an hour and a-half, and I believe they will find that we shall have expended up to date something like from £800,000 to £900,000 in connection with sailors and soldiers. And how has that money gone? It has gone in advancing money due from the War Office to the people whom they have recruited. I am not going to deal now with the amount of the allowance, because the Prime Minister made a statement on that subject yesterday, and he was good enough to announce that he had decided to give a day for the general discussion when we can open up all that question. I am only going to indicate in very general terms what have been the difficulties, in order that the Prime Minister may, if it so pleases him, bring immediate pressure on that Department to relieve us from the difficulty under which we now are, whatever may be the final settlement.

When the Prime Minister made his statement yesterday I ventured to say that whatever the decision of the Government might be as to allowances, and whatever scale they might adopt, or whatever plan they might decide upon, it was all useless so long as the channel through which those funds passed to their recipients were hopelessly blocked as they are at the present moment. To promise a particular amount of pay is easy enough, and here may I say that I wish with all my heart before we had reached this stage that a Committee of some kind had been appointed to advise the War Office and to help them out of the difficulty. The hon. Member for Barnard Castle spoke of the fact, and it is an undoubted one, that you have in your New Army a great many men who have been earning in civil life wages and salaries amounting to three, or four, or £5 per week. Let the House remember those salaries did not come to an end as a result of the War; they were in the great majority of cases solid places which those men could have kept and which they voluntarily surrendered in order to go to the Colours. What is the natural consequences of a salary like that? First of all, it is that a man earning such a salary will give his wife and children a better kind of home than otherwise he could have provided for them. All honour to the man. The money has not gone in luxuries or amusements, but he has deliberately decided to pay a rent for a home for his wife and children which he could not possibly have afforded to pay if he had not earned those big wages. What happens? Unless you can invoke the aid of some charitable organisation there is no possibility of that man being able to keep that home for his wife and children whilst he is away, the home that he has provided for them up to that time.

In many of those cases those homes are now being given up. [An HON MEMBER expressed dissent.] It is idle to deny it. I am not blaming the hon. Gentleman who interrupted me, I think he does so from a misapprehension. It is not the fault of the Government, and I doubt very much whether it could be prevented, but in many cases, I repeat, those homes are being given up. I think this House sympathises with the wives who are called upon to change their homes because their husbands have gone to the War. I know that what the Prime Minister said yesterday is absolutely true, that it passes the wit of man to invent a scale which is going to mete out equal justice to all those men who were earning different wages beforehand. The War Office have made a serious mistake in this matter, and I am going to tell the House why, in my judgment. The War Office made this first serious blunder, and I wish it had not been so. The War Office proceeded solely from what I may call the military point of view. Everybody who knows anything of civil and military employment knows that the man who lawfully rises to the higher ranks in the Army is very often not the man who has the gifts which make him the better workman in civil employment. The man who is gifted as a soldier with the power of command and a facility of drilling is very often not the man who in civil employment earns the higher wages. I can point out to hon. Gentlemen a case arising close to the neighbourhood where I live.

You have at this moment living in a village there a woman, the wife of a man whose wages were £4 per week, and who paid £35 per year rent for his house. You have side by side a labourer whose income was probably 22s. or 23s. per week at the very outside. They both joined the Colours, the labourer proves himself the more efficient soldier, and recollect that in the New Army you are raising corporals and sergeants in a few hours and days where it used to take weeks or years. The labourer proves himself the better man and gets his stripes and becomes a sergeant. What is the effect of that under the War Office scale? It is that the wife of the working man whose income had been from 22s. to 23s. per week gets an allowance of 27s. or 28s. per week, while her husband is kept and clothed and lodged in the barracks, and out of his pay has an allowance for himself. That woman is infinitely better off by many, many shillings than she ever was when her husband was at home. In the case of the man next door who was earning £4 per week and who is not so efficient a soldier the allowance his wife gets is from 18s. to 20s. per week.

The PRIME MINISTER

made an observation which was inaudible.

Mr. LONG

I think it is wrong, and I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why. I agree that you cannot invent a scale which is going to base your actual payments upon other than the man's rank in the Army. That is obvious. The Prime Minister and the other right hon. Gentlemen ask whether there is any way of meeting this. What have we done in dealing with the relief of civil distress in London and throughout the country? We have fixed the amount which is to be paid to the people as what we think the relief they ought to get, and we have given to the local authorities, whose duty it is to do this, a discretionary power to add to this amount certain payments if they think the circumstances of the case necessitate that; or, in other words, that the people concerned are living under conditions which demand an extra payment to be made in addition to the 20s.

Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL

You mean the local relief committees, not local bodies.

Mr. LONG

Yes, of course, but we do not call them relief committees, we call them mayors' committees.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

They are called relief committees.

Mr. LONG

You may call them what you like, but we who brought them into existence and formally christened them call them local representative committees or mayors' committees, not relief committees, and for very good reasons. Their proper title is local representative committee. Those are the committees which were given this power. It would be quite easy in dealing with this new Army to have exercised a power of this kind in some of those difficulties. The subject is one which has been a matter of most anxious consideration for us, both in the country districts and in London, where we have been sitting on a committee like the Executive Committee. It is not the first time we have approached this. At the very time those figures were issued I held these views, and I hold them still. I do not very much care what your scale is, and whatever your scale is there will be injustices and hardships, but what I ask is whatever payment you are going to make—and I hope and I am sure that it will be as adequate as it can be made—that it shall be promptly paid, and that it shall reach the people who are entitled to it. The hon. Member for Barnard Castle referred to a circular issued by the Home Office and which I never heard of until the hon. Member read it just now. That is no doubt an attempt, as I gather from his speech, to deal with intemperance. The House is probably aware that the committee on which I have been sitting has been violently attacked for making payments to women who were not legally married to their husbands or who have practically no relationship of any kind, or, in other words, that we have authorised women who were common prostitutes to receive the same relief and in the same way as it is given to the wives of men away. We have not done that. What we have done is to take the home and to endeavour to keep the home going where it exists, so that the man may not hear that in his absence the home has been, broken up. That is what we have done.

I am going to ask the House whether in these questions this is the moment to take them in hand, at a moment of war, when the country is plunged in all the horrors of war, and when the wives and children are separated from them, and have no friends to fall back upon and nobody to seek counsel or help from. Is that the moment to say to them "we are going to lecture you upon your conduct and examine into your life and to apply to you tests" which we would not dare to apply to people in a higher class of society? I am the last person, I hope, to say anything in any speech I ever made-here which would seem to me to draw a distinction between class and class, but, on the other hand, I do maintain that you: could not possibly propose, in regard to the middle or upper classes, the course which it is seriously suggested you should take at this precise moment of war. Therefore I deprecate, as much as the hon. Member for Barnard Castle, the attempt to interfere with those people at a time when they want all the help they can get and as little interference as possible in connection with that help. I hope that we shall have at once a statement, which need only be a very brief one, from the Government that those difficulties will be removed. It is no good telling us that in the case of widowhood, for instance, the woman will get twenty-six weeks' separation allowance after the death of her husband unless you are going so to alter your system that, whether it be a payment to the man or an allowance to the woman or a pension to the widow, those payments will be made the moment they are due and to the people concerned. You will not do this unless you entirely alter your War Office machinery. I believe myself that the only plan is to break up the country into much smaller districts than it is now, and to employ additional machinery, probably of a civilians character. Really it is not very difficult. In the country districts it is quite easy. I will undertake to say that in the part of the country where I live—many men, I am happy to say, have gone to the Colours, and there are also many sailors and members of what we now call the Old Army—any one of us who are resident there would be able to see that every woman had her money the day it was due. We did so in my own district, and it was done in a great many others. But what did we do it with? We did it out of a fund provided privately in advance, in order that the payments might be made and the people not be called upon to wait until the War Office payments were received.

That is what we want at the present time with regard to pay and allowances. I am confident that, whatever promises may be made, they cannot be carried into effect unless you alter the machinery and make it of a much wider character. Let the House think of the difficulties with which you are confronted. Your Army was the other day—I do not know how many—I suppose 250,0000—I do not know. You have now got, as the Prime Minister told us, an Army of 1,100,000 in this country to be paid. The difficulty does not end there. The old original Army was enlisted in a totally different way. The men came to the Colours because they elected to join the Army; there was no appeal to them; they were not asked to come, except by a requiting sergeant here or there; there was no general appeal. A man who entered the Army enlisted generally at the age of seventeen or eighteen; he was an unmarried man; he knew, however ignorant he was, that the inevitable consequence of his enlistment would be many interferences with his liberty, and that he would be unable to do many things which he had been able to do before—amongst them that he would be unable to marry unless he had the consent of his commanding officer and certain specified conditions were fulfilled. Therefore when he went to the Colours, he did not take with him the responsibilities and obligations of a married man. That is entirely changed by the appeal made the other day—an appeal in which we all joined.

Like the hon. Member for Barnard Castle, I went to many recruiting meetings, and I believed that I was only using the language that I was authorised to use by the statements I had heard here when I said, "If you men choose to come forward patriotically to serve your country, the Parliament of England and we, the people of England, whether we are Members of Parliament or not, say to you, that your women and children will be cared and provided for, and will undergo no suffering, much less endure want or poverty." That statement we made broadcast, and we believed we made it with authority. Can any man say that that statement has been carried out by the payments made by the War Office?

We know that the payments have broken down. Why have they broken down? Because of the machinery employed. Previously you had to deal with an Army of 200,000 or 300,000 men, and you tried to pay the men and the allowances to women and children in this case by the same machinery that was sufficient for a number about one-fifth of that with which you have now to deal. Of course, the machinery broke down, and it will break down again. We are at this moment, through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association, paying, and shall go on paying, I am confident, for weeks to come, moneys to these people. And why? Because we believe that the money was subscribed, not merely for the relief of civil distress, but also to aid sailors' and soldiers' wives and families, and we have determined that if we can help it none of these cases shall be left out. Unhappily, although we have paid out £800,000 or £900,000. although we have issued statement after statement in the Press, although we have written all over the country to the local representative committees, and to the local committees of the Sailors' and Soldiers' Families Association, there are to my knowledge to-day—I say it with profound regret—many cases where the women are getting nothing whilst their husbands are with the Colours. The War Office has to realise that it is the best cases which suffer the most. Let me give one case. I do not want to take up the time of the House unduly, but the matter is so important and so vitally affects recruiting that I believe the House will not feel their time to be wasted even in listening to what I have to say on the subject. I will quote only one case, but it is one case out of hundreds. The first difficulty was that the War Office declined to recognise the wives of men married off the strength.

The PRIME MINISTER

dissented.

Mr. LONG

I beg pardon. Even the Prime Minister must be cautious about interrupting in that way, because I am speaking of what I know.

The PRIME MINISTER

The reason I interrupted was that I myself announced in the House that no distinction would be made in those cases.

Mr. LONG

The Prime Minister is perfectly right, but, if he will permit me to say so, he has forgotten what it was to which I was directing the attention of the House at the moment. It was not the premises or statements made by the Prime Minister or the War Office; it was the machinery by which those promises were to be carried out. It is very easy to get up in this House and promise to do anything. You can promise every man who joins the Colours £100 a year if you like. The question is, are you going to see that the man gets the money or that his representatives get their share? I am talking now not of the promises made, but of the machinery. Will the Financial Secretary to the War Office deny this statement, which I make deliberately, and which, after the Prime Minister's interruption, I imagine the War Office will be prepared to take up. I am prepared to discuss it on the spot, and, if necessary, to give names, including the name of the regiment, and the name of the town. The Prime Minister said that he did not agree that the War Office were unable or declined to deal with women married off the strength.

Mr. TENNANT

You said that the War Office refused to recognise them.

Mr. LONG

It is a much better phrase, and is really more accurate. Many of us on these committees heard of cases where women were in dire want. We made inquiries, and found that they were women married off the strength. We naturally asked the War Office for information. They told us they had not got it, and they were quite right. How could they recognise cases when they did not know of the women, and how was the money to be paid to them?

The PRIME MINISTER

That is a totally different thing.

Mr. LONG

No, it is not a different thing. The Prime Minister is wrong. I am very sorry that he so interrupts me. I am dealing with the machinery by which the money is paid to these people. I say that these women got no money. The Prime Minister says that this is a different thing. Does he mean that his promise would be sufficient to put bread and meat into the mouths of these women and their children? If not, what does he mean?

The PRIME MINISTER

I am sorry to interrupt, but I am anxious that any mis-understanding should be cleared up. What I said was that at the beginning of the War I announced on behalf of the Government that no distinction would be made in the case of wives married on or off the strength, and, so far as I know, no distinction ever has been made. There may have been difficulties in machinery in carrying that out. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to charge the War Office with having refused to recognise these cases. I am very anxious that the matter should be cleared up. If there has been any difficulty in such cases, I am sure it has not been because the War Office refused to recognise them. It is due only to difficulties of practical application. I am very anxious to clear the War Office from any suggestion that I had made a promise which they refused to carry out.

Mr. LONG

If my phrase conveyed that idea, I withdraw it. That was not my intention for a moment. I would not suggest that the Prime Minister did not intend to carry out what he promised, still less that the War Office would depart from what he laid down. What I was trying to point out was that from the beginning the machinery had failed. I will give a case in point. A man married off the strength of the regiment; he had been in the regiment for some time, and probably had been married two years. He went to the front, and his wife was left without relief. I made inquiries through the medium of the War Office. There is no other way in which I could inquire, as the staff of the regiment is abroad. The War Office had not, at that time, and have not now, any machinery by which they could trace the wives of men married off the strength of the regiment. If they had before the War broke out or the moment the promise of the Prime Minister was made intimated to the regimental staff, or such of it as was left in this country, that they were to ascertain the name of every married man and the address of his wife, their machinery would not have been open to the charge I have made. But they did not do it, and their answer was, not that they were not willing, not that they did not desire to carry out the wishes of the Prime Minister, but that they had not the information. Your promises may be as full as you like, but if you have not the machinery to give effect to them you will have the results which we all deplore to-day. That is why I say that if you give more liberal allowances than you have given hitherto, unless, you entirely alter the machinery, you will have the same difficulty. I do not know whether it is true, but I am told that in some cases the attestation papers have been lost.

There is only one way in which you can deal with the matter, and that is by some civilian assistance on the spot where the wives are known. The local people know them. I have no doubt that there are officials of the local authorities who could act for you. There would be obvious objections to employing the relieving officer, but there are other people whom you could employ. If you object to employ them, there is not a single locality in which, if you invoked the aid of local people, you will not be able to get the assistance you require and obtain complete lists within a week. The moment you have those lists, whatever your separation allowance is, you can go to the people concerned and this grievance will disappear. I assure the Prime Minister that I have not raised this matter from any desire to bring charges or to attack him: that is the last thing I would do. God knows that I realise anybody who has been a member of a Government which has had to conduct a war can realise in some degree the terrible burden which rests upon the Prime Minister to-day, and I would be the last to add to that burden or to do anything that would weaken rather than strengthen his hands. But I am satisfied that we cannot get the men we want unless we at once remove this difficulty of adequate provision for those they leave behind. Most unmarried men in many districts have gone, and if more men are to be enrolled you will have to have more and more married men. It will have to be made perfectly clear that you are going to make adequate allowances; that your machinery is such that those concerned will be able to get what they want without any delay, or without any practical difficulty. Then I believe the patriotism of our people will enable them, will induce them, to answer your call as before, and you will get as many recruits as you want—whatever that number may be. Unless, however, you remove the difficulty you cannot blame men saying: "Before I join I must know what will be the fate of the women and children I leave behind."

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Harold Baker)

The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down complained that no answer was immediately given to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson). The reason is that a large part of that speech—and, indeed, a large part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite himself—was concerned with the amount of provision made—a subject for which a day next week is to be given and for the consideration of which there is a Committee to be appointed. I do not therefore propose to follow the right hon. Gentleman on points of that character which he raised in the course of his speech. The main gravamen of his charge, so far as it concerns us this afternoon, was, I think, in regard to the machinery which the War Office has employed, and the alleged delay that has been taking place in the payment of the separation allowance. Before I proceed to that there is one point in the speech of the hon. Member for Barnard Castle to which I shall just make reference, as there may not be another opportunity to deal with the subject—that of deductions from the pay of the private soldier. The hon. Gentleman drew a picture which I confess appeared to be of very serious import, showing that, when the full tale was told, nothing but a very few pence was left in the pocket of the man.

I was astonished to notice that apparently the answer made in the White Paper had entirely escaped the attention of the hon. Gentleman, that any deduction in respect of children was no longer a liability on the soldier, but one which the State has undertaken. That means that, so far as the family of the soldier is concerned, no man can have more than 6d. taken away from his pay. With regard to the 6d. that remains—the 6d. I mean in respect to the wife—I would like to point out to the House a consideration to which hardly any attention has been paid in the course of these controversies; that is that in law a man is liable to maintain his wife. If we did not make the deduction from the pay there-would only have to be the far more cumbrous process of a magisterial order to secure, by process of the Court, at a greater expenditure and waste of time and delay, the same result. In addition, we have, where the wife's means were sufficient without allotment from the husband, provided means whereby the husband and wife can agree that allotments by the husband need not be made. In many cases, where the husband is still compelled to make an allotment, it is merely to pay his wife money which by a far more cumbrous process he would be required to pay by the law which governs every citizen.

I pass now to what has been the main subject of this discussion—the amount of delay that has taken place in the payment of separation allowance. I must confess, although I certainly would not impute to the right hon. Gentleman any intention of making an unfair and partisan attack, that it did appear to me, and I hope it will appear to the House by the time I have finished, that he has given a very onesided and partial presentment of the case. It is very important in such a case as this to know the date of the grievances which are brought forward. I think a large part of the criticisms which have been made, both by the hon. Member for Barnard Castle and by the right hon. Gentleman, might have been true a month ago, or even three weeks ago, but really do not hold good at the present time.

Mr. LONG

One case which I quoted was dated yesterday or the day before.

Mr. HENDERSON

On a point of Order, I quoted from a letter dated 7th November.

Mr. BAKER

It is quite true that the hon. Member quoted one case—

Mr. HENDERSON

And I could give dozens.

Mr. BAKER

But we are dealing with half a million of them. And so far as we know at the War Office there are no arrears. I am confident that hon. Members will corroborate me when I say that every case which they have sent to the War Office has been remedied with the least possible delay. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]

Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSON

I wrote a letter about three cases fourteen or fifteen days' ago, and I have not yet even had an acknowledgment of that letter—

Mr. HOGGE

There are a lot more cases.

Mr. BAKER

And I shall be very much surprised to find that the cases sent in are not now having the money sent to them.

Mr. LONG

The hon. Gentleman has charged me with a partial and party attack. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] Well, partial and unfair attack. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] Then he misquotes me. Is the hon. Gentleman dealing with the pay or the allowances? Is it the pay or the allowances of dependants that he is dealing with when he says that the grievances have all been removed?

Mr. BAKER

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to say that I never suggested—I should be very sorry indeed to suggest it—that he made a party and unfair attack. What I said was that his account was partial and one-sided. I was referring to the separation allowances when I said that his complaint in regard to arrears was rather out of date, and for reasons which I will give. The right hon. Gentleman said that the channels had been hopelessly blocked, and that it was entirely due to the faulty machinery employed by the War Office.

Mr. HENDERSON

Hear, hear.

Mr. BAKER

Let me describe to the House what the situation was. As the Prime Minister reminded the House, the announcement was made that wives off the strength were to be included in those eligible for separation allowances. In peace time 1,100 women receive separation allowance. At this moment there are half a million. If no new decision had been taken there would have been 100,000 in a time of war. Suddenly there was thrown upon the resources of the War Office by the very wise and generous decision which the Prime Minister came to the task of dealing with a number magnified by that amount. To avoid any delay at all, and in order to deal efficiently with these numbers, we told the paymasters that they were to act on prima facie, evidence and pay at once, and we would verify afterwards. That, I think, disposes at any rate of part of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that we had not taken any steps at all to meet the emergency. We then, of course, had to discover who these women were who had married off the strength. We had to ask the units to furnish the necessary rolls. The units were invited to furnish these rolls. It is not a matter for blame to them, but they sent in lists, imperfect in some cases, and there was no list but what, through no fault of those concerned, there was not considerable difficulty in compiling. Remember that the colonel commanding the regiment had not the slightest knowledge as to who these women were. Being unrecognised they were unknown to the people who knew quite well those of recognised status who had married on the strength. This all put a sudden and enormous strain and burden on the Pay Office. In order to meet it, extra staffs had to be engaged, and we increased the establishment actually and literally tenfold. The increase in the number of staffs did not meet the whole difficulty, because we could not possibly find increased numbers who had the necessary training in this special kind of work. No doubt those concerned have suffered very considerably indeed from the fact that the new men taken on had to learn their work before they were able to deal with the subjects with the speed and skill of the old staff. Then, of course, there were certain changes—and proper changes—made for the benefit of the women which all threw largely increased work on these untrained staffs which had suddenly to cope with the situation. The rates were increased, weekly payments were introduced, instead of monthly; all changes, I think, which were pressed upon the War Office by this House, and which were widely approved by the country: all these meant considerably more work for the staff of officials who had to cope with this business.

So far as the War Office is concerned, I think that even if the civilian machinery for which the right hon. Gentleman has asked had been brought to bear upon the problem, it would still have been found inadequate to clear up all the cases. The fault did not really lie in the machinery or in the War Office. It lay in no want of energy, so far as I can discover, no lack of foresight that I am prepared to admit on the part of the War Office officials, but was owing to unalterable circumstances of the case, and largely because of the enormous variety of human error which, when you are dealing with a difficult situation, is possible, not merely in our own officials, but amongst the men and the women themselves. I would like to give the House some of the types of cases with which we have had to deal. In a vast number of cases the soldiers had either failed or refused to declare their children. The War Office could not know who the children were; they were bound to rely upon the soldiers' statements. In a large number of other cases, for reasons which I leave the House to conjecture, soldiers have enlisted and deliberately declared themselves to be unmarried. This was perhaps done very often with the object of avoiding the allotment—at any rate it was done—and it was impossible for either the recruiting officer or the central organisation to know that the man who had declared himself unmarried was, in fact, married, with very possibly a family at home.

A vast number of letters have come from women without any address to which the War Office could reply. Letters, again, have come with no reference to the husband, and not showing what his name or his regiment was. Again, women have given wrong addresses, and sometimes marriage and birth certificates have been sent in without any covering letter or any possible means of identification. There have been many causes of error—some in cases where soldiers have had the same name. There was one very extraordinary case in this connection where two women of the same name were living in adjoining streets with husbands in the same regiment: each had one child, and in each case the child was born on the same day. I think it was pardonable on the part of the paymaster to hesitate a moment before he dealt with those cases. The right hon. Gentleman, so far as I can follow that part of his speech, objected rather to the part which the Prince of Wales' Fund had been called upon to play in this matter. We certainly at the War Office had hoped that they would recognise the impossibility of our identifying all these women at once, so that separation allowance could be paid through the ordinary channel, and we had hoped that they would fall in with the scheme of making advances to them, which they would eventually recover from us. That was an essential part of our machinery. It has been carried out in some cases, not in all. If that had been carried out, very few indeed of the unpaid cases which have been brought to light, would have occurred, and a large part of the suffering and hardship which these women are said to have suffered—and which I know they have suffered—would not have taken place. Some branches of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association did in fact adopt that plan, and made advances upon our behalf. Others for some reason did not, and there the proposed machinery did not work with that smoothness which we inferred would come from the arrangements made in the earlier stages of these matters. We were not content with that.

When we learned from hon. Members the state of affairs, special officials were immediately sent out from the War Office to temporary pay offices to deal with the matter, and to take whatever measures they thought necessary immediately without reference to us in order to meet the local difficulty. I see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in his place and I am sure he will corroborate me when I say that on an appeal made by him we did meet him, and the same applies with regard to appeals made by hon. Members from Wales. These hon. Members will corroborate me with regard to the serious difficulties that arose in South Wales partly owing to the number of people of the same name and partly owing to other difficulties. We set up special staffs, in temporary offices, and they have been working night and day to deal with the applicants on the spot. Further, by means of advertisements, and with considerable inconvenience to ourselves, we invited those who had grievances to come to the War Office and to complain upon the spot. I have assured myself, from careful inquiry, that so far as we know centrally in the War Office the quantity of arrears now is very slight. If there are cases within the knowledge of hon. Members, and if they will follow the directions given, and if on writing to the Paymaster a woman fails to establish her claim, they then refer the matter to the War Office I think the arrears will be reduced very considerably.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Will the hon. Gentleman communicate from the War Office with the local representative committees of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association and ask them about the outstanding cases?

Mr. BAKER

I will do that.

Mr. JOHN WARD

Then you will get an eye-opener.

Mr. BAKER

There is one class of claim which I would have been willing to pass over. In some districts—not in all—we have to cope with a vast number of claims which in fact were not good, and had to be rejected, and I might mention, in no spirit of levity, another cause of considerable delay, namely, the tendency amongst those kept out of separation allowance to get not only one person, but often as many as eight or ten persons to write to the War Office on the matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] It enormously increases the amount of work.

There are other matters I should like to mention before I sit down. There have been complaints of various forms of interference with the lives of soldiers' wives and their families. The hon. Member for Barnard Castle made an attack upon the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association—an attack with which I am familiar—which goes very much beyond the truth. It must happen in all voluntary associations that a certain type of inquiry passes into the stage of inquisition. I should not like to let this occasion pass without recording the sincere thanks of the War Office, and of the community at large to the very valuable work done by the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. Such work cannot be done without a certain small amount of friction, but they have, so far as they have been able, risen to the occasion, and they have, I think, rendered great service. An hon. Member of this House, in control of a very considerable branch of this association, has told me his experience, and that, instead of complaining of inquisition people are much more apt to come and tell their story and ask for information. I do not think that voluntary organisations can even so be altogether satisfactory, and no doubt it is better to have an official organisation. If there are hon. Members who do object to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Association, I may say, I think, their official work is now complete, and that all that will be left to them in future will be to investigate cases of necessity that pass beyond those of State allowance. So far as supplementing and aiding the War Office machinery is concerned, their work is done, and done under great difficulties, and I say it deserves our thanks.

There is one other matter, and that is the question of a certain Police order to which attention has been drawn. All Police orders are objectionable, but I must say I think the hon. Member very much misrepresented this one. As I say, all Police orders are objectionable, and all Police orders, I think, are liable to misrepresentation; and it was with that idea. that long before any public attention was drawn to this matter that order was withdrawn, and its phraseology amended, so as to be entirely free from misconception as to what its purpose was. There was no question of inquisition into the lives of soldiers' wives, or of handing them over to the police. That order was devised by my Noble Friend the Secretary of State, simply and solely in the interests of the women themselves. All allowances and pensions are liable to be withdrawn in case of gross misconduct, and it was to avoid that that this order was issued and to show that if gross misconduct was likely it would involve this withdrawal, so that the woman might be warned and given a chance to avoid the danger. It was also in the interests of the children to see that they did not suffer by the misapplication of the allowance. I can assure the hon. Member and others who have been alai-med by the supposed purpose of that order that it is most strictly limited to cases in which misconduct has already arisen. There is no power or invitation given to the police to inquire until that is so, and the only object is to prevent cases reaching such a point that the allowance would have to be withdrawn.

It is not a new device. In the South African War allowances were withdrawn for misconduct, and it is the general principle which applies to allowances and pensions. Of course it might be possible to avoid friction and say "let things take their course" and allow these people to be deprived. It only applies to a small minority of cases. But it was thought better, and I have the authority of my Noble Friend to say that he still considers it better, that for the sake of these women themselves, they should in the last resort, but before they have reached the state of grave misconduct, receive this warning from the police, so that they still have a chance of retaining the allowance.

Mr. A. HENDERSON

May I ask the hon. Gentleman a question? He is aware that local representative committees have been asked to provide if possible the names of all the soldiers and sailors who have been getting relief, and in some cases the committees have distinctly refused under this order to give the names.

Mr. BAKER

I have heard that, but I fail to see how it affects my argument in any way at all. The police would not be in a position to warn these women if they did not know who they were. Supposing a woman is guilty of misconduct, how is a policeman to know if she is receiving an allowance unless she is on the list. I do not see how any great slight is put upon them than is put upon any of us whose addresses are known to the police. At any rate, the purpose of the chief constable was, in asking for that information, to be able to deal with those cases when, and not before, they arose. I have had to deal with matters that aroused a certain amount of criticism of the War Office. No doubt anyone who has had a special case of hardship brought to his notice is very apt to visit upon the person whom he conceives to be the offender in that respect a certain amount of natural feeling. But I venture to say, after the explanation I have offered to the House of the problem with which we were faced—a sudden and unforseeable problem—and the various steps we have taken, and the sending of Special Commissioners to deal with these matters, the House will realise that the officials have done their duty as well as they are able, and that the main grievances have been largely met, and will, I hope, in the course of the next few days entirely vanish.

Mr. J. WARD

There are one or two observations I should like to make. I entirely agree that we should debate this question now when the War is on, rather than later on, when perhaps we should not be so very considerate of the soldier as we are now, when so much depends upon his service. I am not very concerned just now about the pay of the soldier. I know, and have known for many years, in spite of what the Financial Secretary has said, that there are considerable deductions from the soldier's pay whether he makes a return for his wife or not, and that there are always considerable deductions from his pay for one thing or another. It is not the soldier's pay, however, that we are concerned with just now. What is most essential now is that we should secure recruits for the Army, and we can only do that by assuring them that those dependent upon them shall be properly cared for. For the extra men we require now. we must to a large extent rely upon married men who have large or small families as the case may be, and it is most essential, if we are to recruit, and maintain the voluntary system of enlistment—because after all, the way in which we can secure recruits goes to a large extent to decide whether voluntary service can supply us with an Army—and, if we are to preserve the voluntary system, that the men whom we ask now to fight the country's battle in this emergency though they will not concern themselves about their own pay, should at least know that their wives and families are cared for. I suppose we are not discussing the amount of the allotment, and therefore I need not refer to it. But I assure the Under-Secretary that if he carries out his suggestion of sending out to the mayors and chairmen of district councils a circular asking for lists that have been verified, and that have up to now recently received absolutely nothing, he will be surprised at the numbers with which he will be supplied.

5.0 P.M.

I do not know why it is, but it must be clearly the case that in places like York and Moseley, where I have been round to the different recruiting stations, there is still a good deal to be done. I have not attended a place up to this week where I have not received the offer of a lengthy list of cases of women dependants upon soldiers who are either at the front or preparing for the front, and although their husbands have been enlisted for weeks, they have not yet received any recognition at all. I think that is an unfortunate condition of affairs, and I am sure that is not the intention of the War Office. Nobody disputes the assertions which have been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand (Mr. Long), and I do not think that he imputed any want of consideration on the part of the War Office or the Government, but what is absolutely essential on this occasion is that the officials at the War Office should not be satisfied with what they have done, because there is still an immense amount of work for them to accomplish before they have solved the problem of distributing these allowances. No doubt there are complaints of inquisitorial inquiries, and I know some cases that would almost make a cat laugh if described, of the questions and inquiries made into what were self-evident cases, and you would never imagine that the inquisition would go to such an extent. But this is not the fault of the War Office. If we thought for one moment that the Financial Secretary, or the Secretary of State for War were really satisfied that they had now got in all the arrears of outstanding cases, we know that they would make one of the biggest mistakes they ever made.

I would suggest that the Financial Secretary should write to York and ask how many claims from Moseley have not been dealt with up to the beginning of this week. That is one little place where recruiting has gone on splendidly, and yet the number of these cases is very great. I told the mayor that the best thing to do was to send the cases to York, and he said that he might as well send them to New York. I know that the officers do not wish to delay these cases at York, and I should imagine that there is not really a sufficient staff at these places to accomplish the work. After all, our people are coming forward splendidly, and they include working people of all classes. Of course, the top and the bottom are better than the middle, and they always are. The fact is, they are the backbone of the State. I feel sure that if a young man within the military age was only certain that his wife would receive an allotment the moment he joined, you would get hundreds and thousands of recruits, and you will not get them until it is made positive that the enlistment of a man means an allotment for his wife and children. The one thing should be as automatic as the other. If a man were to absent himself for twenty-four hours from his duties as a soldier without permission he would be brought before a magistrate. The military authorities have the machinery to do that, but the payment of this money to the wife of a soldier seems to be the only machinery that is missing. I dare say it is true that the War Office have done wonders, and no one disputes that. I do not think there is any part of the House that does not recognise that under the special circumstances the War Office has done magnificently, but there is still a margin to make up which makes all the difference between successful recruiting, and that is the difficulty of the women getting this money. I appeal to the Financial Secretary to lay the position of affairs before his Noble Friend, because I feel sure that he will be able very soon to devise ways and means of solving the problem. There are still arrears that require to be made up. The machinery for this purpose is not in that perfect condition which the official mind imagines, and that is the cause of the delay in recruiting.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

I do not rise to continue the general discussion, but I wish to move the Amendment which stands in my name on the Paper, and which I had drawn up before I heard the speech of the Prime Minister.

Mr. BONAR LAW

I understand that my right hon. Friend is alluding to his Amendment about allowances and matters of that kind. As the Prime Minister has agreed to give a day to discuss those matters, I think it would be much better that the discussion should take place then, and that there should be no discussion now. I am sure the Whole House will agree that as my right hon. Friend has put down his Amendment, it would be right that the discussion should be initiated by him. Upon that understanding, I am sure my right hon. Friend will at once waive his right to move this Amendment.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

Upon that understanding, I waive my right. I have taken a special interest in this matter, and for a long time I have acted as Chairman of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation, dealing with the pensions of widows and orphans.

    cc79-123
  1. TREATMENT OF ALIEN ENEMIES. 18,369 words
  2. cc123-66
  3. PRESS CENSORSHIP. 18,519 words