SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE OF CREDIT.

HC Deb 25 July 1916 vol 84 cc1521-606

Resolution reported,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £ 450,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses which may be incurred during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1917, for General Navy and Army Services in so far as specific provision is not made there for by Parliament; for the conduct of Naval and Military Operations; for all measures which may be taken for the Security of the Country; for assisting the Food Supply, and promoting the Continuance of Trade, Industry, Business and Communications, whether by means of insurance or indemnity against risk, the financing of the purchase and resale of foodstuffs and materials, or otherwise; for Relief of Distress; and generally for all Expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Mr. HOGGE

There is a point in connection with the Vote of Credit to which I think the House ought to pay some attention, which does not concern itself so much with the military questions which we discussed yesterday, which has definite reference to the needs of the people who are connected with those military forces who are left here at home. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee yesterday made some detailed criticism as to what would be of advantage to our fighting forces in the field, and I want, if I can, to do something to-day to direct the attention of the House to what one might call our fighting forces at home, because everybody will agree that the women and children of our soldiers and sailors who have been left at home to get along upon the allowances which the Government has given them are themselves putting up as good a fight in their own way as their male relatives who are in the field, and I think that the House ought to feel that in what we are doing for those dependants we are doing the right thing and doing as much as we can. There is one very broad fact to which, I think, the House ought to pay some attention in connection with these allowances. If Members have looked, as I suppose most of them have done, at the "Board of Trade Gazette" for July, and looked at the figures of percentages, which indicate the rise in the cost of living between the outbreak of the War and the first day of this month, they will find some extraordinary facts. If I may briefly draw the attention of the House to one or two of these facts, I think they will see that the point I wish to make is a perfectly good one. The general increase in prices over these three years has been no less than 61 per cent. That is the broad fact. But if you take, as I think it is only right that you should take, those goods which the average family uses, and deduct a certain percentage in respect of goods which are not ordinarily used by such a family, then the percentage is reduced a little, but not so much as not still to remain a very large amount. The "Board of Trade Gazette" puts it in this way, that if you take the whole country, and make allowance for the relative importance of the various articles of working-class household expenditure, the average in the retail prices of goods since the beginning of the War may be put at 61 per cent., which is reduced to 55 per cent. if the increase in the duties on tea and sugar are deducted. If you include food, rent, clothing, heating, and lighting, then the percentage is reduced to from 40 per cent. to 45 per cent.

If you take the goods used in these households you will see how extraordinary some of the percentages are. If you take the commodity of flour, which is so much used in each household, you will find that the increase since the 1st July, 1914, and the 1st July of this year has been 48 per cent.—roughly speaking, 50 per cent. increase. There has been an increase of 44 per cent. in the price of bread, 50 per cent. in the price of tea, 158 per cent. in the price of sugar, and in the case of potatoes there has been an increase of 109 per cent. If you put together potatoes, sugar, tea, and bread, which obviously form a very large part of the household expenditure of those in receipt of the separation allowance, you will find that these four percentage increases amount to no less than 90 per cent., inside the period from the 1st July, 1914, to the 1st July of this year. I think the House will agree that these increases must make an extraordinarily serious inroad into the separation allowance which was fixed upon by the Government at the outbreak of War, and, because of these facts, and because of the hardships which these people are suffering, I want to suggest to the Government that it is worth their while now, in view of these startling increases, to consider whether the minimum separation allowance is enough to maintain physical efficiency. I know that on this matter the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Dr. Macnamara) and the Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Forster) are sympathetic Ministers—Ministers who have met this House every time this question has been raised with as much sympathy as we could expect. I am perfectly certain that if they could see their way as individuals to do this, they would agree at once, but their position is based on other reasons. Let the House remember what the Government did. The minimum separation allowance paid to the wife of the soldier was 12s. 6d., and that was increased as she had one, two, or more children. That 12s. 6d. was calculated in this way—4s. for rent, and 8s. 6d. as the proportion which was required for sustenance or subsistence; so that, in considering the increase of prices, you will have to leave out of account altogether the 4s., which was calculated as the proportion for rent, and fix your attention entirely upon the 8s. 6d. which was put down for sustenance. If you bear in mind the figures I have given and the percentage of increase on the most radically required foodstuffs in average households and apply them to your 8s. 6d., you will find at once that that is absolutely insufficient to maintain physical efficiency.

4.0 P.M.

I have every sympathy with the Government in trying to protect the Treasury. I see that the new Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. McKinnon Wood) is present, and, as he is a Scotsman, that means that probably there will be more protection of the Treasury than ever; but, at the same time, we must get beyond the Treasury position to the position which will maintain the physical efficiency of the womenfolk of the men fighting for us in the field. That is a position which I think cannot be contested. One of the Ministers the other day—I think it was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Pretyman)—was asked a question in this House about the purchasing power of the sovereign, and he replied that the purchasing power of the sovereign was at March, 1916, which was the last figure he had apparently when he gave his answer, was only 15s., as compared with March, 1914. So, roughly speaking, the purchasing power of the sovereign has diminished 25 per cent. over the period of the War; so that the 8s. 6d., which was taken as the payment for subsistence in the separation allowance, obviously also has been diminished by 25 per cent., and is now only equivalent to the sum of 6s. 6d. The Government, therefore, at the present moment are, in fact, offering 6s. 6d. as the subsistence payment to the wife of the soldier or the sailor who is fighting our battles. If my hon. Friends have any difficulty in realising that, I may illustrate the point from the position of the old age pensioner, who draws a pension of 5s. a week, if he can show that he has only 8s. a week from other sources. Twenty-one pounds is the maximum amount which he must have from other sources before he will get 5s. a week. The result of the increased cost of living has been to drive old age pensioners into the workhouse, and all over the country you will find that a large number of these old people—mark you, many of them the grandparents of men who are fighting—have been dragged out of civil life, where they have civil rights, into the workhouse, where they lose their qualification as free British subjects entitled to vote upon our registers. That seems to me to point very vividly to the effects of the increase in prices on the cost of living and upon the social life of these poor people. If the facts are as I have stated, I think the Government must take into consideration an increase in the minimum grants of the separation allowances to our fighting men. I do not ask, although one might ask, for an all-round increase in every case. I do not ask it for cases that do not need it, but I do ask, as in the case of the old age pensioner where the 5s. weekly payment has been reduced in value to a sum which will not buy the necessaries of life, that the minimum amount paid to the wife of the soldier shall be at least an amount to maintain physical efficiency. I should like to deal also with the question of the administration of pensions by the Chelsea Commissioners. When a man is discharged from the Army, where he is suffering from the results of wounds which have disabled him, or from disease which has been aggravated by service in the Army, the amount of his pension is determined by the Chelsea Commissioners. The method of determining that pension is to send the man before a Medical Board at Chelsea, or before what is known as a Medical Invaliding Board, which tours the country to see these men. I think those of us who have had a considerable amount of experience with cases of pensions are rather disturbed in our minds with this fact. I put it quite frankly. Men who are refused pensions naturally and very properly write to Members of this House. Many of them are our own Constituents, and it is the duty of each of us to take up the case of those men, and if the man is entitled to have his case considered or to a pension, to do our level best to secure that pension for that individual. My own personal experience has been this, that I have been able to secure for the bulk of the men whose cases I laid before the Chelsea Commissioners through my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, that is the Financial Secretary to the War Office and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, whose help again I acknowlege, has always been very sympathetic, pensions for those men who, on their own application, have been refused.

I have sometimes said when I got letters from either of the hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench intimating to me that pensions had been granted, I am glad to know that the men have got the pensions, but I am rather sorry it comes in that way, because I feel this way about it, that that reveals this fact, that there are a great many poor soldiers and sailors perhaps, though not so many sailors as soldiers because of the difference between the two forces, one being organised for a greater time, but that there are a great many soldiers particularly throughout the country who are not getting what they are entitled to because they do not know the way to go about it, or because they do not know a Member of Parliament or somebody else to take up their case and to persuade the authorities that the facts are as they state. I have a case in mind which relates to the Admiralty of a man in Edinburgh who appealed to me on the ground that he had not got his pension. I submitted the matter to the Admiralty. I have never put a faked case in front of them, and I do not think a Member of Parliament is entitled to go either to the Admiralty or the War Office unless he is genuinely convinced there is a case. One turns down the others oneself. I think my hon. Friends will acquit me of bringing any case in which there is evidence of that kind of thing. The case to which I refer was that of a sailor who did not get a pension, and the letter I got finally from the Admiralty, paraphrasing it, was that "we found that A. B. C.'s disease was not attributable to the War, but on looking into it again we find that it is attributable to the War, and you will be glad to know that a pension of 16s. 3d. per week has been awarded." I was glad to know of the result, but I was sorry that it had been got in that way, because it rather persuaded me that there must be a number of men throughout the country who, because they have not the same advantage as others in getting the cases presented before the authorities, are really losing what they deserve to have. I dare say in the rush of this War and the way in which things are being done, that, perhaps, every case is not getting that consideration which it would get in ordinary circumstances. I will acquit both of my hon. Friends at once on that point, but if we were not running under circumstances so abnormal, those cases would receive much closer attention and more than they receive at present. I put a question yesterday to the Financial Secretary for War about the Chelsea Commissioners. I stated that the Commissioners were composed mainly of military men, and that there were no civilians on it. My hon. Friend pointed out to me that one-third of the number were civilians. My hon. Friend is a member himself, but I do not call him a civilian.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster)

I do.

Mr. HOGGE

I know you do. That is where we differ, because the hon. Gentleman is Financial Secretary for War. I think my hon. Friend does not quite understand what I mean by civilians. By civilian I mean somebody brought in from outside altogether, outside the organisation of the War Office—that is, a non-official element on that Committee. There are twenty-four members on that Committee, and the only member who has not got a military title, apart from my hon. Friend, is a gentleman who was formerly in the War Office. There is no non-official element on that Committee. I submit that that might have been all very well when we had a small Army such as we had before the outbreak of war, but now that we have got an Army which has been described correctly in this House as a Citizen Army, and which is a different Army from ever we had before, I do not think that an entirely military element or official element on the Chelsea Board is the best composition or congregation of men to determine the kind of question arising out of the fact that a Citizen Army is fighting in the field. I do not think my hon. Friends will misunderstand me when I say that all officialdom is the better of being broadened. Men who are concerned from day to day as officials with any organisation are more apt to get into a certain rut than people outside those organisations. I think the Chelsea Commissioners would be enorously improved if a non-official element were added. I should like also to refer to another matter which concerns a large number of people in the country, and that is to ask the Government whether they can see their way, now that we have so many various Committees dealing with the subject of pensions, to try some scheme of co-ordination. There is in existence the Statutory Committee and the Military Service Civil Liabilities Committee, and we have the Scale Pensions from the War Office and from the Admiralty. Thus we have at least four different bodies engaged in the consideration of payment of pensions.

People are a little mystified as to where they can get the maximum benefit. Let me illustrate. Suppose a soldier's wife is in receipt of a separation allowance of 12s. 6d. per week, as I have explained already, 4s. of that is rent and 8s. 6d. is subsistence. Suppose that the husband applies to the Military Service Civil Liabilities Committee for payment in consideration of rent, rates, taxes, insurance policy, school fees, or any of the objects for which they are entitled to apply, on the standard that that Committee is administering those grants they may not get enough to maintain them in anything like the standard in which they were previously. I have found in my own personal experience that a large number of those people do not know of the existence of a special scale of payments to which they are entitled, because it has now the approval of the Treasury under the Statutory Committee Regulations, known as the supplemental rent allowance—that is to say, if a woman's rent is 5s., 6s., 7s., 8s., 9s., 10s., 11s., up to 12s. per week, she can get as supplementary allowance above the 4s. of from 1s. to 8s. on top of the separation allowance. Thus if she lived in a house at a rent of 10s. per week, or £ 26 per year, she is entitled to get an extra 6s. per week from the Statutory Committee in the form of a supplementary rent allowance. If that were widely known it would be an enormous relief to a large number of very deserving women who are struggling, and honestly struggling, to keep a roof above their heads and their children's heads until the soldier returns home. I am perfectly sure of this, that the House of Commons has no desire in the world to do anything else than to maintain those women while the men are fighting either on land or sea for us.

That leads me to make this suggestion to my hon. Friend: We have a Press Bureau, which communicates information to the Press. When matters of interest to the general public are discussed in this House it largely depends on the space that is available in the newspapers whether the information gets circulated or not. I am not blaming the Press for one moment, because they do admirably in many ways, but there are little items of information which are most important to many individuals, but which may have no great general interest to those of us who attempt to create public opinion which never gets into the Press in a way which reaches the common households in all our big cities and towns. Therefore, I have often wondered whether the Press Bureau could not be used, as it has been used for other kinds of information, to circulate information now about supplementary rentals. If it were known throughout the length and breadth of the country that people had the right to go to the Statutory Committee, or the Pensions Committee, as it was called locally all over our boroughs and counties in this country, and to get a supplementary rent allowance running up to the sums I have mentioned, it would bring enormous comfort into a great many houses. That is why I make the suggestion.

Mr. WATT

A widow with a soldier son would also be entitled?

Mr. HOGGE

If the son of a widow is a soldier she is entitled to a supplementary rent allowance. I again would ask whether the time is not now ripe for a co-ordination of the various schemes? For instance, although I am a member of the Military Service (Civil Liabilities) Committee I am perfectly certain that that had much better have been a sub-committee of the Statutory Committee than an independent Committee. I am positive from my correspondence, and from the points raised with me by other Members of this House, that there is great confusion of thought with regard to this matter among the people of the country. This is perhaps a different subject from that discussed yesterday. We are so apt to be filled with the phrase of getting on with the War, and devoting all our energies to that, that sometimes we forget other things which are equally important. I am certain that the men who are asked to fight at the front will fight very much better if they know that their dependants in receipt of separation allowances or their old folk in receipt of old age pensions are being properly cared for by us. It is our solemn duty to make absolutely certain that no old man or woman in receipt of an old age pension is driven into the workhouse by the increased cost of living if we can prevent it, and I think we can. We ought also to prevent any woman in receipt of separation allowance from being reduced by the increased cost of living to such a pitch that she is worried and harassed as to where the next 1d. is to come from to keep herself and her children in physical sustenance. That is a big and important duty and one which demands from the House of Commons as full a House as it had last night to discuss the Irish question. It certainly demands the interest of every intelligent man and woman who has the welfare of the community at heart, and I hope my hon Friend will agree that there is something in the case which we are attempting to make.

Major WEDGWOOD

I hope the hon Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) will excuse me if I do not pursue the extremely interesting discussion which he has initiated, but deal with one or two other points in connection with the War which have come specially before my notice recently. I have just come back from East Africa, where the campaign under General Smuts is going extremely well, and I have been seeing there a great deal of the South African troops. There are a certain number of troops there—I cannot specify the number—who have done in Europe every bit as well as the troops of the other Dominions. Within a very few weeks, I hope, it will be possible to spare those troops from East Africa for service elsewhere, and I wish to urge upon the Government that as soon as possible an invitation should be sent to those troops, who at present have volunteered only for Colonial service, to serve elsewhere. If the South African troops go back to South Africa, and are partially disbanded or on leave, you will find it far more difficult to get them to come as a body to fight where their fighting would be fare more useful even than in East Africa. Therefore, I would urge most strongly that steps be taken at once to secure that not only the South African troops, but their generals as well, should come for active service in France or Salonika.

I saw there also a great deal of the fighting of our coloured troops. We raise in East Africa what are, perhaps, the very best coloured troops in the world. The Askaris, whether German or English, are devoted naturally to fighting. It is bred in their bones, and under European guidance they do better than any other coloured troops I have seen fighting. They never leave their officers behind when wounded, they never surrender, and they have proved over and over again that side by side with white troops they are equal to those white troops. These are the men we raise in British East Africa—men of the Nandi, Kavirondo, and Lumbiva tribes, and some from Uganda. Others are raised from the Yao and Angoni in British Central Africa, round Lake Nyassa. These are all admirable fighting troops, and, seeing these troops in East Africa untapped at present for military service elsewhere leads one to wonder why it is that, with the biggest black Empire in the world, we have as yet made so little use of that black Empire to help us in the fighting line. If you see the French Army, you find that a very large proportion are black troops recruited in Algeria, Morocco, or Senegal. Indeed, of recent months they have been raising black troops in the Pacific Islands, and in every French black colony. They are getting the maximum of assistance to their white troops by doing all that is humanly possible to supplement them from their Colonies. We at present have hardly scratched this resource. It is true we have made some use of India, though even there there has not been that constant stream of fresh supplies which one might have expected from the fighting races in India. From the Colonies we have so far drawn practically nothing at all. The Maoris helped us magnificently in Gallipoli, and there are other troops from the West Indies which I believe have done a certain amount of fighting; but, practically speaking, with this great black Empire we have made no use or very little use of it.

Sir J. D. REES

My hon. Friend does not call the Indian troops black, I hope.

Major WEDGWOOD

No, I should have said coloured troops. But whether they are black or coloured they are troops of which we ought to make more use than we do at the present time. The right hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill) yesterday suggested that they might be more largely recruited for service behind the lines. That also I think is a proposition which ought to be taken into account. At the same time I would remind the House that while the men of tropical Africa would do perfectly well for fighting in Mesopotamia, or for garrisoning Egypt, India, or Aden, they are not very suitable for ordinary manual work in a rainy and temperate climate. As far as the black Colonies are concerned, you will not get as much assistance behind the lines in non-combatant occupations at the docks or on the lines of communication as you may from more temperate Colonies. The Cape boy element in Cape Colony is particularly suitable for work behind the lines, but, having seen the Cape Boy Battalion in active operation in the field, I should say that they were much too good for dock work. I would also say that you would not be able to get Cape boys to join a purely non-combatant corps on the same cheap terms upon which you get them to join a combatant corps. I think they are paid 1s. a day in the combatant corps in the Cape Boys Battalion. I am sure you would not get them for 1s. a day for non-combatant work—which is a very proper reflection upon the spirit with which these men go into our wars. Outside the Cape Boy Battalion I do not think you will get much help behind the lines from many of our Colonies, unless you go to China—Hongkong—and enlist Chinese, a departure which I believe would be thoroughly well timed now, and of which we could not complain in any possible way. You would get cheap efficient labour. No doubt there are far too many non-combatant Englishmen behind the front, men who would do the same magnificent work as their fellows are doing at the front if they could get there.

But if these men from the tropics are not much use behind the line, just see what enormous resources we have for front line fighting, or at least for forming garrisons in Egypt, India and Aden, thereby releasing the white troops who are there at the present time. We have got first of all in British East Africa some 2,500,000 natives. There is there a certain amount of compulsory service. The natives in East Africa are at the present time compelled to serve in the Carrier Corps. Some 37,000 of them have passed through the corps. They are partially-trained men. In discussing this question with people who have trained native troops, one can get a pretty fair idea as to how long it would take to train these men who have already some training or to train the raw article. I do not propose to give any particulars of that sort now, but the representatives of the Government may take it from me that within a very short time you could raise from British East Africa, Uganda, British Central Africa, and indeed from many of the only too willing tribes in German East Africa, forces which would make a very effective diversion, and set free a very considerable body of British troops. If we turn to West Africa, you find one of the best fighting races in the Hausas of Nigeria. The Gold Coast battalions are well known. In Sierra Leone you can get good men. The Hausas and the Yorubas are perhaps the best fighting men, and are every bit as good as the Sengalese troops. These men could be recruited far more largely than they are at the present time. If you really put before the governments of these various Crown Colonies the responsibility that rests upon them to assist the Mother Country in this hour of trial, if they were dealt with competitively so that one Colony competed with another in its efforts to produce troops to maintain the honour of this country, if they were not perpetually looking at the problem from the point of view of balancing their annual expenditure and revenue, but were to convert themselves into recruiting agencies, you could raise as powerful a body of troops on the West Coast as you can on the East Coast.

In South Africa, apart from the Cape boys, you have in Zululand and Basutoland absolutely the best recruiting material in the world. I know it will be said that the South African Government would not approve of the use of these troops in European warfare, that they would not approve of their being given rifles or being trained in the use of the rifle. I believe that the South African Government takes this War quite seriously enough. I have talked with their leading men in that country. They know perfectly well that they have got to subordinate these old fears about the black populations rising which used to disturb them, and that we are now face to face with something far more deadly and far more desperate than a black rising. We have got to break the German spirit, or the German spirit will break South Africa just as it will break Europe. Therefore I feel certain that they, too, will put the shoulder to the wheel and do all that is humanly possible. We should allow the Zulus, the Basutos, and the Matabele to come to the help of the Mother Country, and so relieve English troops for service elsewhere, instead of the latter fighting in the tropical and sub-tropical fields of the campaign.

There are three difficulties in the way of that recruitment. The first is: Are you justified in taking the black man, who knows nothing about the causes of the War, and asking him to fight for you? That is an ethical question which we have to decide for ourselves. To my mind it is absolutely clear that in fighting this War we are not merely fighting for the white man, but for the black man. Anyone who has seen in the German Colonies the way the native there is exploited, where he is not yet set free from an absolute state of slavery—for instance, in the Island of Mafia, which we conquered the other day—anyone who has seen the way in which labour is got for the white planters in German Colonies, and then crosses the border and sees the way in which the British officials, whether it be in Nigeria or in British East Africa, are there the protectors of the native from exploitation, and are there, not exploiting but elevating him gradually to a higher civilisation, will doubt for one moment that the future of the native races of the world, Indian and black, depend on the perpetuation of our civilisation as opposed to German kultur. Therefore I have not the slightest hesitation whatever in saying that these men will be doing right by their own races, as well as doing right by our country, if they come to back us up in this fight.

The next difficulty, which is not an ethical difficulty, but a very practical difficulty, is that you cannot get the native to fight very long away from home. I think probably six months is the longest period you can take a man out of his own country without his wanting to get back. They can, however, be perfectly well trained in their own country, and then used during the hot season, and sent back again home when their time has expired, whether that time be six months, nine months, or a year. I believe it is perfectly possible for them to be sent home and still to remain efficient. The third difficulty is still a more serious one. It has become the fashion to say that coloured troops do not fight well. I beg the House to remember that the rumours about the troops in the various regiments are extraordinarily apt to get started. We have heard that certain coloured troops behaved badly on certain occasions, but all troops do badly on certain occasions. The difference is that it so happens that we all like to think that they belong to some other nation than our own. It is not fair to black troops to say that they do badly. I have seen them do extremely well. All kinds of troops will break down under very heavy shell fire, of whatever nationality they are, or whether black or white. Under circumstances of the sort any man's morale, whether he be black or white, may go.

The stories so often spread about the behaviour of coloured troops are very often exaggerations which it is very easy for the white soldier to pick up and spread. It is certainly true, as I can say from what I have seen in East Africa, that the German Askari troops will stand the very heaviest shelling and will not surrender nor desert to the enemy. If the German Askari can stand that, I do not see any reason why British native troops ought not to do the same. The Senegalese in Gallipoli stood any amount of shelling during the night and were quite ready for a bayonet charge in the morning. I have no hesitation in urging that these troops should be raised and trained, and that they should be employed, by actually putting them into the fighting line, to replace the white troops when the scarcity of these gets more pronounced. This source might have been tapped for over a year, but the raising of native troops has been postponed and postponed, because it was thought that the War would be over before their training would be completed. It might be said now that in six months' or a year's time, when they will be available, that the War will be over, and that therefore they will not be wanted. If we are going on that principle, thinking that the War is going to be over in six months' time or so, and that, therefore, there is no need to make preparation for next year, it will be a mistake, and we shall fail next year, and shall not complete the War, either next year, or perhaps the following, in the way we ought to do. Let us make our preparations. Let us spend the necessary money, which will not be much, for these black troops. Fortunately, they do not require the very high pay that some of our troops are getting at the present time. If they are not wanted when they are ready, let us thank our stars that the War is over, and that we have escaped having to carry it on any longer.

In the black races of the Empire you have first-rate fighting material and you have had that material lying idle and untouched for two years. During the recent fighting the battalions of the King's African Rifles have done well. There are enormous numbers of these men who are only too willing to be enrolled, and they would prefer to go into a fighting corps than into a carrier corps. You have got material which has been lying idle all these years, and it undoubtedly can be fitted in a very short space of time to take the place of the white, either in India or Egypt. You have in East Africa, fortunately, men who can officer these regiments, settlers and Government officials and old officers of the King's African Rifles. You have in the men who have performed admirable service in the white regiments the material for the non-commissioned officer element. If you turn to Nigeria, you have exactly the same thing. You have men who have been all through the Cameroons War who can officer the native regiments. You have in these places all the Hausas and the Yoruba millions. These men would make also a very valuable addition to your Army. The one difficulty is that of the people who live in the Colonies, the secretariat in particular. In their general attitude the Colonial Government always looks at the interests of their own Colony first and allows the interest of the Mother Country to go hang. They regard as of the most importance that they should balance their accounts whilst regarding as a nuisance being called upon to supply additional troops for use out of the Colony. You have what I might call a benevolent neutrality on the part of some of our Crown Colonies directly they are faced with a demand, or a request, for assistance for the Mother Country. Directly it becomes not a nuisance, but a competitive desire to supply the largest possible number of black troops, you would find in almost all these Colonies the energy to raise and the ability to train the men. In my opinion they will be found perfectly fit to stand side by side with our white troops.

Sir J. D. REES

My hon. and gallant Friend with a comprehensive view surveyed mankind from China to Peru. I would accept him as a very good authority on the fighting quality of various races, because if he is not fighting elsewhere he is fighting here against the anti-land taxers and others. I envy him his recent experiences and welcome his remarks. But he divides the fighting races rather arbitrarily into black and white. If he takes the African troops, by all means let him call them black; it is their colour; they are the Ethiopians of the Bible. But the Asiatics, including the Indians, to which he referred, are the colour of the Twelve Apostles. They are the same colour as the Syrians. They are yellow, brown—anything but black. When he suggests that Africans should command Indians he overlooks the whole difference between the Asiatic and the African, and the fact that no Asiatic serves under an African more than he himself would. I beg him to moderate his zeal for the employment of African troops, and not to dream of putting them in the position he indicates or comparing them with the troops of India, who are, in fact, highly civilised and belong to highly civilised races. We may look better in our country, but they think that we do not look so well as they do in their country, and I honestly believe that that is actually the case. I do not, however, wish to take any exception to what my hon. and gallant Friend says. On the contrary, knowing, not perhaps at first hand, but something of the native races in Nyassaland, I completely confirm what he says, for I believe they make excellent soldiers. If they, however, or other inhabitant of our African territory are to be got hold of to take their part in this War, they must be clothed and armed and transported across the seas. I confess I do not see much hope that in this or any other Vote likely to come before Parliament any such arrangement will be ever made for putting millions of Africans into the field in Europe.

Major WEDGWOOD

I said nothing about millions; in fact, I avoided numbers.

Sir J. D. REES

If my hon. and gallant Friend does not want many of them, what difference are they going to make? And if he does want many, how can he get over the problem of arming and equipping them? However, I merely wished to put in a caveat against his narrow division of mankind into black and white which, it is very evident, will not hold water for one moment. Nor, I must confess, can I go with him in his ethics. He talks about the propriety of making these Africans fight for our civilisation. I would make them fight for us because they are our subjects, and what is good enough for the British Army is presumably good enough for them. As to bringing in "civilisation," why it is no more a blessed word now than the once blessed word "Mesopotamia." It has nothing to do with these people. They do not care for our civilisation. I do not believe we are fighting for civilisation in the least. We are fighting for our lives, homes, and property. But I let that pass. My hon. and gallant Friend, in his speech, said that the Colonial Office always considered what was of most good for the Colonies, and never considered what was good for the Empire. In that remark he gave the Colonial Office a magnificent testimonial, which I am sure those concerned will have framed and hung up in every Colonial Office in the British Empire. It is their duty. It is for them to keep each Colony content; to look after its interests. By so doing they will best serve the interests of the British Empire as a whole.

The reason I rose was with regard to what was said yesterday about the question of the Russian subjects in the United Kingdom. The Home Secretary answered in this matter. He said it was not true that the only alternatives in their case was enlistment or repatriation. I do not know why he said that. I should have thought these were the proper alternatives. I do not quite understand whether the Home Secretary deprecated that. He went on to say that applications for exemption could be made as in the case of British subjects. Is that so? I presume it is so. Then he went on to say that only when exemption had been refused, and the alien nevertheless declared he would not serve, would the question of repatriation arise, and if the alien claimed that he was a political refugee that would be taken into consideration. Did the Home Secretary mean into favourable consideration? Is it possible, at a time when we are at war, and our gallant Allies the Russians are fighting with us and giving us splendid assistance, and showing that self-sacrifice they always have displayed, that a political refugee from Russia should receive favourable consideration from the Home Office or the tribunal? If so, I should deeply regret it. I should have thought that a political refugee of all men should be made to serve or be repatriated.

Whenever this question is raised there is an undercurrent criticism of the treatment of Russian subjects in their own country which I believe has animated the references made in this House and the objections made to their deportation. That, I understand, is a domestic matter which solely concerns the Russian Empire. Those who have lived in that Empire do not believe in this Russian cruelty in this or any other matter, and it seems a pity that any speech of the Home Secretary should give any colouring to that kind of intrusion into the domestic domain of an allied country's administration. If my hon. Friend can give me comfort upon that point I shall be much obliged to him. The Home Secretary said that the idea which seemed to be abroad that these men were being deported to Russia because they were not serving in the British Army was unfounded. I should have thought that they should either be serving in the British Army or deported to their own country to serve, if they are of military age. Although the Home Office deals immediately with this matter, it is a military question, and I hope the Financial Secretary to the War Office will be good enough to explain the position by repudiating the construction which I put upon the Home Secretary's speech—I hope erroneously—but which construction, if it holds good, is open to very serious objection

Mr. ASHLEY

We are now discussing this very large Vote of £450,000,000, which is £150,000,000 more than we had in the last Vote, and, if the House will permit me, I will bring forward certain instances where, in my opinion, economies could be made, so that so large a Vote should not have to be asked for in the future. There are also certain instances that I would ask Ministers to investigate to see whether economies cannot be made, because when we consider that we are now spending in forty days what we used to spend in one year, I think the House will agree that really the most relevant consideration on this Vote of Credit is not other questions, however important, about Russian subjects, or pensions, or anything else, but it is whether this sum of money ought to be voted, whether we can afford to find it, and, above all, whether we cannot effect economy so that these large sums should not be asked for in the future. I see in his place the right hon. Gentleman who answers for the Minister of Munitions. What I wish to put to him is: Whether his Department is justified, from an economical point of view, in employing direct labour for erecting large buildings? I will not put it more definitely, but he knows to what I refer, near a Southern seaport. I would also ask him whether, if he is justified in using this direct labour, it has up to now been most economically used?

I should have thought that, whatever were one's views upon municipal trading and direct labour, in contemplating the levelling of ground and erection of buildings on it, one would, first of all, communicate with the local employers of labour and local tradesmen to find out what assistance they could render, what prices they would want for certain building work, and would have made himself acquainted with the facilities in the neighbourhood to help him in the national task before him. If my information is correct, the right hon. Gentleman's Department, when it started those very large works, which, I understand, are expected to cost £ 1,000,000 or £ 1,500,000, if they go on as they have gone on up to the present, did not communicate with the local trade unions or the local employers, but sent down a gentleman, who arrived by train, took his lodgings at the best hotel, went round and commandeered all the bricks, put advertisements in the local papers that he wanted labourers, and generally that he was willing to engage all and sundry who would come and help him in making those big works. In consequence there were six weeks' very serious delay, not in getting to work, because they got to work, but in getting efficiently to work, which is, after all, much more important than getting to work. May I read here a letter which was written by the local employers' association to the right hon. Gentleman's Department? The letter says: The attention of ray association has been drawn to indications of waste occurring in connection with the preparation of the ground for the above proposed buildings, and, in order to satisfy myself as to the accuracy of the suggestions made, a number of members have been appointed by my committee to visit the works, which are open to the public highway, and make observations. This has been done, and there appears to be no doubt that the work is being carried through in such a manner as to probably double the cost of the levelling work in progress. The excessive leisure observed by the labourers is unmistakable, and is such as would never be tolerated in a private undertaking. I am also desired to point out that the effect of higher wages paid to the men on these works has been to deplete the staffs of local contractors, some of whom are engaged in works of public importance. No complaint would be made in regard to this latter question but for the belief (which my association contends is well grounded) that a much larger number of men are engaged than are being profitably employed. Here, very shortly, are some observations made by this association as to the manner in which those men were working: Men of all sorts apparently set on, many looking quite unused to work, but others taking same pace. Five men (two picks, two shovels, one barrow-man) to a barrow, first four waiting whilst barrow was wheeled to tip and back; no second barrow available. Wages, with extras on overtime, £ 2 12s. per week. That seems to me rather excessive wages to pay five men who work one barrow. Then again: New deals (cost now about 4s. 6d. to 5s. per foot cube) laid for barrow runs. Why new deals when we have had war economy weeks? Why should new plant be brought down which could have been hired locally, and second-hand plant which could have been obtained locally? A number of bricklayers said to be on at mechanic rates, doing what they can until wanted for brickwork, after foundations in. The bricklayers are doing anything and paid mechanic rates. Lastly: While observations were being taken two officers walking past exchanged audible remarks reflecting on the work, one of them saying to the other, 'One man working and three looking on.' That is the case from the employers' association point of view. What is the case from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view? And I must say that, after seeing this letter, I had a far higher opinion of the right hon. Gentleman's Department than I had before, because if a Department takes up the attitude that it may make mistakes, it is much more likely to do better in the future than if it takes up the attitude so prevalent in Departments of being infallible. The right hon. Gentleman's Department wrote: Dear Sir,—I have your letter of the 30th ult. It is a fact that the work on this site has been carried out in a manner open to criticism by your association. The resident engineer had to recruit as much labour as possible at very short notice, and unfortunately he was disappointed in obtaining the immediate services of the managing foreman and other assistants, owing to the fact that they could not leave their late employment as soon as we had hoped. His staff, is now, however, almost complete, and I feel confident you will have already noticed a great improvement, and that before long you will find that this work has been carried out in a manner which will bear comparison with that of any other job of a similar character. As I said, signs of repentance promise better things, but it shows almost inexcusable business oversight to engage your labourers before you have foremen and gangers to look after them and set them to work, because, from the letter of this association, we know that those men were set to work with nobody to look after them, working as easily as, they liked, resulting in a general waste of public money. There is only one other point. Personally, I entirely disagree with direct labour. Surely it is much better to try and get local men to do contracts. After all, there is nothing to prevent local men levelling ground. You knew in the Department in December you were going to do this work. You did not begin work until the end of April, and, therefore, the contention that you had not time to ask for a contract falls to the ground altogether, and seems to show that the Government prefers direct labour. But I put that on one side. There are many other more important subjects to discuss, and it is not in order to discuss, whether you should have municipal enterprise or not. But knowing, as you did in December, that you were going to do this work, and not starting it until the end of April, surely, better preparation could have been made for this very important job. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman later on will give me an answer, if, as I understand, he wishes to get away at present to deal with some very important deputations he has waiting for him.

I will go to another subject, to which, I hope, the Secretary to the Treasury will give his attention. He will. no doubt, remember that in the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, which was published at the end of May of this year, a very stinging paragraph appeared on page 3 pointing out gross negligence on the part of the authorities in Ireland in permitting certain witnesses to remain in Dublin at the public expense when they were never brought up as witnesses at the trial after all. They remained there for five months, enjoying themselves in Dublin, at an expense of £ 550 to the public. The sum of money involved is a very small matter. I asked a question three weeks ago on this point, and I got an unsatisfactory answer. I want to know, in this time of need—

5.0 p.m.

Mr. SPEAKER

That question is not relevant to the Vote of Credit. I understand the hon. Member is referring to the cost of certain witnesses who were kept in Dublin in respect of a certain trial, but that has nothing to do with the War.

Mr. ASHLEY

I wish to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office to inquire into the manner in which advertisements are being placed. An enormously increased number of advertisements are being placed at the public expense, and I am informed that they are still being placed with the same firm on the same terms as before the War. It did not matter so much then, because the number was very small. I am told that if local contracts were made with local people a considerable saving would probably be made in the public service, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will investigate that matter. I would also like to know if the Government cannot see their way to reduce the number of retired officers employed and use half-pay officers instead. I am sure that would result in a very considerable saving. Let me give an illustration of how public money is being wasted in this way at the present moment. You have now a large number of half-pay officers unemployed, and if you employ them instead of retired pay officers you would save a considerable sum. I would put a concrete case. Take two lieutenant-colonels, one on half-pay and the other on retired pay. The half-pay colonel gets £300 per year while unemployed and the retired pay officer who has done his work gets £ 420 a year. Suppose there is a brigadiership going at £l,000 a year. If you give that job to the retired pay officer it will be costing the country £1,720. A lieutenant-colonel costs £420 and a half-pay lieutenant-colonel only £300, and the brigadier will be costing the country £1,720 a year. Supposing you appoint the half-pay man, who is generally the best because he is younger, you save the £300 unemployed pay and you will only have to find £1,000 for the brigadier or £l,420 in all, and therefore there is a sum of £300 a year saved. I have met at least half a dozen officers who could very usefully be retrenched, and the retrenched men only given their retired pay.

I dealt with the next point I am going to raise on the last Vote of Credit, and the hon. Gentleman made an investigation into the matter. It is the case of ammunition boxes. On that occasion I told the story, which I said I would not vouch for, that ammunition boxes have been made at 13s. each at the beginning of the War, whereas the second lot have cost only 3s. each, and a competent business man has said that they should be made at 1s. 2d. each. The hon. Gentleman very kindly inquired, as he always does most promptly and thoroughly, and he wrote me a long letter saying he presumed I referred to eighteen pounder shell cases. I did not refer to them, but the explanation which the hon. Gentleman gave about eighteen-pounder shell cases I think revealed a want of foresight on the part of the War Office, because they had provided such boxes at 13s. at the outbreak of war and they have now been able to provide them at 6s. Perhaps some other means of economising has been brought out.

I want, in defence of myself, to say that here in the Appropriation Account published in February of this year, on page 83, there is a long paragraph showing that although my figures were inaccurate yet ammunition boxes were made at the beginning of the War at 10s. each, while the second lot obtained by contract were got at 5s. each, or exactly half the cost at the beginning of the War. The explanation given is that the War Office list was so restricted that they could not get a sufficient field of contractors, and therefore the price was put up, and the accounting officer hopes that the field of contractors has been widened. I want to know if the hon. Gentleman has got more contractors, and whether he has widened the basis of contracting not only with regard to ammunition boxes but generally, because obviously the more contractors you have the more likely you are to get a low price, and one more satisfactory to the nation. I am afraid that these may be considered small points, but a private Member who tries to economise must work on small points, and he cannot be expected to save millions. Here is a very interesting communication which I have received from an hon. Member of this House, and I will give the name to the hon. Gentleman in private I ask him to pursue his inquiries into the case if he thinks proper. The hon. Member who has given me the facts has asked me to keep the name of the firm private. Here is the letter which the hon. Member wrote to me: A. B. and Co. were asked by the War Office to quote for 30,000 packages of tapioca, which they did. A few days subsequently they were asked by a firm of grocers in a large town to quote for 10,000 packages of the same article, and suspecting the purpose of the inquiry they quoted a price higher than they quoted for the Government. Subsequently they received an inquiry from a firm of ironmongers to quote for another 10,000 packages, and in reply to this second inquiry they quoted the same figure as they had done to the grocer. In the result they received three separate orders for 10,000 packages, making 30,000 in all—one from the Government at the lower price, and the other two from the grocer and ronmonger at the higher figure, proving that instead of the Government accepting the offer for the whole lot at the lower price they had favoured the two middle men at the higher figure. Of course, I am not responsible for this statement, but I will give the representative of the War Office the name.

Mr. FORSTER

Is it suggested that the Government was placing an order for tapioca through an ironmonger?

Mr. ASHLEY

I admit it seems incredible, but I will give the name of the hon. Member who sent me the letter. It is the hon. Member for the Everton Division of Liverpool (Sir J. Harmood-Banner), who is a very able accountant and can no doubt substantiate his statement. I think if these facts are as stated the hon. Member will agree that there has been gross carelessness, or something worse if the facts are as stated in that letter. I now wish to refer to what I consider to be another great waste on the part of the War Office, and it is a matter which I raised on the last Vote of Credit, when I received what I consider was an unsatisfactory answer. I wish to know why it was necessary to take such a very large office for the Eastern Command in Pall Mall. The hon. Gentleman said it was necessary that this office should be in Pall Mall, very close to the War Office, so that messengers would be able to go backwards and forwards quickly to keep up communication with the War Office. If that is so how do they get on in the Southern and Western Commands and at York. They cannot have messengers always running up and down to the War Office. It seems to me that either you must have them all in London, close to the War Office, or else the hon. Gentleman's contention does not hold water. The Eastern Command has no greater responsibility than the others. The special commands on the East Coast are provided for in other towns and the Eastern Command have no more reason to communicate constantly and directly with the War Office than the Western Command at Salisbury. I would also like the hon. Gentleman to investigate whether it is absolutely necessary to employ so many people in the Army Finance Department, the Army Pay Department, and the Army Pay Corps.

In answer to a question of mine, the hon. Member informed me that he had in the Pay Office at Woolwich 1,572 people, and in the Army Pay Finance Department, the Army Pay Department, and the Army Pay Corps no less than 17,531 individuals, or almost a division of the British Army in the field. That is an enormous number, and, although I do not want to press the point unduly, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why this is necessary, because it seems to the outsider to be an enormous number of men to employ for those purposes. It is not as if these people paid the soldiers, because they only supervise and revise the accounts, so far as I understand. It seems to us, on the figures given by the Prime Minister, that we have one individual to supervise the pay of 157 people and their dependants. I am sure no railway company employs as many as that on their supervising staff. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give us an answer to this point, if not now on some other occasion. I have met business men who are quite willing to be convinced who seem to think there is an undue number of people employed in those Departments. Could not the hon. Gentleman hand over some of this work to the local authorities. I know, if he did, he would have to increase their staffs and would have to pay them, but surely there are organisations in the localities who might take this work on at less expense to the public than is now being incurred by the War Office. I throw that out as a suggestion.

Certain friends of mine are colonels in the third line draft supplying units of the Territorial Force. Those are units to train the men which fill up the depleted ranks abroad. It is almost incredible the amount of office work that is imposed upon them, involving much waste of time and energy. They have to fill up a large number of returns, 75 per cent. of which I am sure are never looked at. Their duty is to train men, and that is the duty they want to perform. They do not want to be in an office filling up forms. One commanding officer one month had to fill up 206 returns. It took him and his staff two days. Another had to fill up 122 permanent and fifty-one individual returns. It is not a matter, as the hon. Gentleman seemed to indicate in answer to a question, of simply answering some inquiry. They are solid returns on printed sheets of paper. They have to be sent in every month, and they are recognised as Army returns. Another commanding officer had to send in 200: They go to all sorts of people. They go to the Records, to the Territorial Force, to the recruiting authorities, to the pay office, and to the headquarters of the commands, and apparently only eight out of this 200 ever reached the War Office. I admit that some of them are no doubt compiled and sent in by the commands to the War Office, but I am sure, if the hon. Gentleman will inquire, he will see that it is a physical impossibility for the command to read all these returns. You have 200 a month, which is 2,400 every year, from each battalion, and that is about 10,000 to each brigade. Do you suppose that they are ever read? Of course they are not. I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman would save thousands of pounds of public money and an infinite amount of waste time in training our recruits if he would allow the commanding officers to deal with these things on a more sensible and broadminded principle.

Shall we to-day have any answer about the hutting contracts? There are some £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 worth of hutting contracts, and we are anxious to know what percentage now is to be paid to the contractors. I raised this question some three months ago, and we were then told that the hon. Gentleman was in negotiation with the contractors to see if they could not take less. That shows that the percentage agreed upon with the contractors must have been scandalously high or the contractors would not have gone so far as to have met the hon. Gentleman in negotiation with a view to disgorging some of their ill-gotten gains. When shall we hear something about this matter? I shall not feel satisfied to go away for the Recess and leave this question drifting on until October or November. It is a very big business involving many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us whether there is any prospect of his being able to inform the House anything about these negotiations.

The next point to which I want to draw the attention of the House is one of which I have some personal experience. It is not a matter involving large sums of money, but I suppose some three or four thousand pounds a year could perfectly well be saved. It seems to me the only reason it is not saved is because one Department of the War Office could not possibly submit to having any of its returns sent in by another Department. I refer to the Military Embarkation Officers at the various ports of England where stores only are embarked. The present Secretary for Scotland went into the matter, but I got no satisfaction out of him. There are five of these ports alto- gether in the United Kingdom. There is a naval staff to supervise the stores and to give sailing orders to the ships. There is a large and competent supply staff under a lieutenant-colonel belonging to one of the branches of the Quartermaster-General at the War Office to supervise the unloading of the stores from the railway trucks or vans and see that they are put on board, and then their responsibility ceases. Would not the House think that a lieutenant-colonel or the man in command of the supply staff would be considered to be sufficiently intelligent and of sufficient importance to be allowed to report to the naval officer on the quarterdeck that the stores had been handed over into his charge and to write two or three letters every day to the War Office to state what had been done at the port? No, the Executive Department of the War Office, or whatever they are called, would sooner die than allow the Department of the Quartermaster-General to perform this duty. They therefore keep at each port an officer of field rank whose only duty is to report to the naval people that the stores have been put on board and to write one or two reports to the War Office. In times like this, when we are told that every penny is of importance and when we cannot get to the railway stations because we are not allowed to have a gallon of petrol, it is absurd and childish that these Departments should be allowed to fight one against the other. I have been down to one of these ports, and I have seen a respectable officer of uncertain age performing this duty. I feel almost ashamed to bring it up in the House, because I should be very sorry that this very old gentleman should lose an easy-going and soft job; but if the hon. Gentleman will look into the matter with an impartial mind and go to one of these ports himself, I am perfectly willing to abide by his decision, because I know that he would say that these officers are redundant and that they are only put there to give somebody in the War Office a soft job.

There are three small points I want to put to the hon. Gentleman in the hope that some saving of public money may result. Probably the hon. Gentleman does not know—I did not know until I was told—that garrison gunners when they join the Army are always given a pair of slippers. It sounds a small point, but the garrison gunners are a very large number of men. This was a peace regulation. The slippers cost 5s. 9d. They were given in order that the men should not slip when they were on the gun carriage. Now only about 10 per cent. of the gunners have anything to do with garrison batteries. They are out in the field doing active work. I understand, however, that the hon. Gentleman's Department all the time has been and is still issuing these slippers to these men who have ceased to be garrison gunners and who have ceased to need these articles of clothing. I would ask him to inquire whether this waste of money could not be stopped. It must have amounted to thousands of pounds during the War. Then there is the question of the money given to master-tailors for changing the tunics of the men. It was a most excellent provision in time of peace. The tunics were given out in stock sizes, and 10d. was allowed the master-tailor for altering them and making them fit so that the men might do credit to His Majesty's uniform. I understand that in many cases—I certainly know of two Commands—this 10d. has been paid to the master-tailor, although there has been no alteration of the tunics, for the simple reason that there has not been time and the men have gone abroad. We do not want a beautifully fitting tunic to fight the Germans; we want one that is serviceable and will keep out the wet. I know of one draft of 600 men who went out without any alteration to their tunics, though the master-tailor was paid 10d. each tunic. A rapid calculation will show that £ 25 was paid to this master-tailor for work which he never performed, and, being a sensible man, I am quite sure that he never returned the money.

There is another point on the same lines. I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that I must not neglect these small economies. There was in my own county a Cyclist battalion. Everybody wanted to get into it. One of my own employes wanted to get into it. An unsympathetic War Office has turned it into an Infantry battalion. When they were cyclists they were provided with breeches at a substantially bigger cost than trousers, and now that they are an Infantry battalion they are still supplied with these breeches instead of trousers, and there is, therefore, an appreciable and unnecessary cost to the country. I feel almost ashamed to bring these things up in the House, but unless you save a penny you will not save a pound. I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that I do not bring them up in any carping spirit, but simply with a view to helping him to save money, which I know he is just as anxious to do as I am. There is another point which, perhaps, it is not quite so pleasant to bring up, but I think it is my duty to draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to it. I do not know whether he is responsible or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty. It is the apparently unnecessary number of doctors and orderlies on board the hospital ships which go to France.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)

I should think it is a matter for the War Office.

Mr. ASHLEY

I know it is not a very palatable thing to do, because you may be thought to be trying to stint the wounded, which, of course, is the last thing I should wish to do. The voyage from Havre to Southampton, or wherever they come, only lasts about seven hours. It is quite right to have a surgeon and a certain number of medical officers on board, but these ships are different from those which go on long voyages. Very few operations or dressings can be performed on the ships, and the minor dressings might be done by the efficient nurses on board. I would appeal to the hon. Gentleman to inquire as to the number of medical officers on board, because if my information is correct there are more than are really needed. Sometimes the ships are in port doing nothing for a week. I would also ask him to inquire into the number of orderlies on board who are of military age and fitness. I do think they would be much more usefully employed in fighting in the trenches, many of them, and that some men who have been invalided out of the Service, should be employed in their stead.

I turn to a rather bigger subject with which I dealt once before, namely, the case of the London General Omnibus Company, which the hon. Gentleman knew I was going to raise. For the information of the hon. Members who were not here when I raised the case of the omnibus company and the requisitioning of vehicles on the last Vote of Credit, may I say that what I complain of is that the War Office let slip an opportunity of saving a very large sum of money for the nation by treating the London General Omnibus Company practically in the same way as they treated the railways, when they did not take over the control of the omnibus company and guarantee their dividends. At the beginning of the War, the House will remember, the Government requisitioned a very large number of motor buses. They had to do so for transport in France, and for transport in other places. The Admiralty also requisitioned a large number of motor omnibuses, and the London General Omnibus Company were in a very unpleasant position, because they thought their position in London would be jeopardised, and that someone might come and take their place; and, to make a long story short, they were perfectly willing, and they were anxious, to be treated as the railway companies were treated, and to be taken under control with their dividends guaranteed on the basis of the last year before the War, namely, 1913. The Quartermaster-General's Department of the War Office, that is the Quartermaster-General, the Director of Supplies and Transport, and the Assistant-Director of Supplies and Transport, recommended and urged that this course should be taken in the interests of economy, and in the interests of efficiency too, I submit to the House that the people who had to work the omnibuses, and who had to requisition and to run the whole thing, were more likely to know what was most economical, and how the thing ought to be done than the finance branch of a public office, however distinguished, such as the Finance Branch of the War Office. It was objected to, however, by the Finance Department. Then it was urged again that the matter should be considered by an expert Committee, and that was turned down. That is the short history.

Mr. LEIF JONES

Why? Did they give any reason?

Mr. ASHLEY

My information does not go as far as that. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will give the reasons which, after all, are very germane. Before I give the result of the refusal I want rather to disagree with one statement the hon. Gentleman made last time I raised this question, because he said on 30th May, with reference to the London General Omnibus Company proposal— Those who recommended this course— that is to say, the taking over of the omnibus company— contemplated that it would cost us between £ 1,000,000 and £ 1,500,000." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th May, 1916, col. 2628,VoI. LXXXII.] I cannot make out where the hon. Gentleman got that statement from. I cannot help thinking that he was rather mixing up the statement of those who were recommending this course, that, unless their plan was adopted, it would cost one-and-a-half millions, and that is very nearly what it has cost. Surely no one who has recommended a course would go to the people who are opposing it and say, "You adopt our recommendations, and if you do, it will cost one-and-a-half millions." That is hardly the way you would get your proposals accepted. I think, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman must have been misinformed. Let us analyse what the result has been. There might be a chance of making this arrangement now; at any rate, with another company. The dividend paid by the London General Omnibus Company in 1913 amounted to £207,000. That is the datum line. The Government would have guaranteed the dividend of the omnibus company as in 1913, namely, £207,000. In 1914 a dividend was paid, on an increased capital—you must remember that—of £256,000. In 1915 a dividend, with the same increased capital, was paid amounting to £222,000. Therefore, to bring up 1914 and 1915 to the level of 1913 on the increased capital, £288,000 should have been paid. Let the House understand that, as a fair comparison, instead of paying £ 256,000, and £ 222,000, the Government ought to have paid £ 288,000 in dividends. The public, therefore, if this proposal had been carried out in 1914, would have paid £32,000, and in 1915 would have paid £66,000, or a total of £98,000 in all. That would have been the liabilities of the country up to the 31st December last if this proposal had been carried out, as was urged by the Quartermaster-General's Department.

Mr. FORSTER

That is payment of dividends only?

Mr. ASHLEY

Yes, I admit there would have been a sum, not considerable, to be paid for putting the chassis into the position they were in before the War. You must add that in fairness.

Mr. FORSTER

The hon. Gentleman does not know what that amount is? He cannot say what that is?

Mr. ASHLEY

No, I cannot. I admit that must be taken into account, and I accept the interpolation of the hon. Gentleman. What has been paid? Up to June of this year, the Admiralty paid to the London General Omnibus Company £ 46,000. The War Office paid three-quarters of a million, £750,000. In all, the Admiralty and War Office, up to June of this year, paid £796,000 to the London General Omnibus Company. The Admiralty still owes £3,000, and not half the claims have come in, so I put it down as £6,000, and I do not think that is stating it too highly against the Admiralty. The War Office still owes £15,000, so that, in all, they have either paid or owe £817,000, which means, deducting £98,000 from £817,000, that the country by the turning down, in my opinion, of this proposal by the Finance Department of the War Office, for which the hon. Gentleman is responsible, has lost so far £719,000 minus, I admit, the cost of putting back the chassis into the state in which they were when they were taken over.

Mr. FORSTER

I interrupt my hon. Friend with great reluctance, but as he. quotes statements I have made with regard to this matter, and as he seems to throw the whole of the onus of rejecting this proposal on the Finance Department, I think he ought to remember what I have already told him, that the Quartermaster-General assented.

Mr. ASHLEY

Of course, the Quartermaster-General assented. The Quartermaster-General is under the hon. Gentleman or his predecessor, and if they say "I decline to agree to this," he has to assent.

Mr. FORSTER

Oh, no!

Mr. ASHLEY

I do not think he had much option. At any rate, the scheme was put forward by the Quartermaster General's Department, and it was turned down by superior authority, and the nation has to find £719,000. But we have not finished yet, and our liabilities are not by any means at an end. I wish they were. Payments are still going on, and I suppose they will go on until the end of the War. The taxpayer has to pay for the use of garages at Clapham, Catford, Camberwell, and Hounslow—£1,500 a year each, which makes £6,000 a year, and this will continue to go on to the end of the War. Then there is the call on omnibuses on the streets—£5,200 a year; and the training of men as drivers, for which we have to pay 49s. a week, I understand—an unknown quantity. First and last, it seems to me that this transaction will cost the country not less than £750,000 in the end, certainly £700,000. The hon. Gentleman only came to the War Office after this was all over, but that does not help us. What we want to know is why, when the practical men who have the requisitioning to do, put forward a proposition, the dropping of which indisputably has cost, whether it be £700,000 or £750,000, an enormous sum which has been lost to the country, why was it turned down, and the practical men told that they did not understand what was going on. I am afraid I am detaining the House for a long period, but all these things are of importance in varying degree. Here, again, I think I must come back to the soldier for a moment.

Would the hon. Gentleman investigate the question of the food on the hospital ships, not for the sick and wounded, but the food provided for the doctors and staff, and generally for those on board the hospital ships when they are not being used, when they are lying by when nothing is being done? I do not grudge them excellent food, food as good as we get in this House, and no one could want any better, but what I do grudge, if my information is correct, is that they should have food as if those liners were being used as passenger liners on oversea voyages. Such dinners are notoriously six and seven course dinners, and I put it to the hon. Gentleman that when we are all told to economise, and when we are cutting down our food and drink bills, he should investigate as to whether an excessive amount of food is not consumed on those liners.

I have one or two matters to put before the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty. Can he tell us what has been the result of his deliberations about those table knives regarding which he was questioned in the House? Did he buy the ivory-handled ones or the humble bone ones?

Dr. MACNAMARA

Metal.

Mr. ASHLEY

I am very glad to hear that the newspaper paragraphs and questions in this House have brought more economy to the right hon. Gentleman's Department, but he showed want of supervision of his Department that tenders should have been put out for ivory-handled knives at all.

Dr. MACNAMARA

They may be more economical.

Mr. ASHLEY

If they are more economical, why does the right hon. Gentleman say he has taken the bone-handled knives?

Dr. MACNAMARA

made a remark which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.

Mr. ASHLEY

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do his best to see that economy is practised in the Navy. I do not think that these knives, after they had been through one commission, would have been much use for reblading at the end. Here is a much more important matter, when we are told that ships are so necessary to bring our foodstuffs and petrol here. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, at any rate in May, two ships under his control were being used at Havre for housing dock labourers? Can he tell us if that is going on still? I consider that an entire misuse of a ship. Havre is a big town, and we want ships very badly. Why use two tramp steamers for housing dock labourers at Havre when they could have been perfectly well put into billets, or tents, or when even the building of huts would have been cheaper than keeping these two ships in Havre Harbour for housing these dock labourers? Is that still going on? I want the right hon. Gentleman to give me some little hint as to why the hon. Member for the West Toxteth Division of Liverpool (Mr. Houston) received no answer to his question about ten tank steamers which he raised in the Debate on 17th February. In view of the terrible shortage of petrol, the way in which these steamers were used is a scandal.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Used for what?

Mr. ASHLEY

They were used as transports. There were ten steamers, whose names I have here. They were: the "Clam," the "T. A. Tamplin," the "Delaware," the" Cuspahoga," the "Massasoit," the "Patella," the "Barneson," the "San Silvestre," the "Nosconoma," and the "Mira." These ten steamers were taken by the Government. They were turned into transports and kept for several months at Southampton.

Dr. MACNAMARA

No.

Mr. ASHLEY

Yes. I will give you the history of one of them, if the right hon. Gentleman likes.

Mr. ROCH

Were they all tank steamers?

Mr. ASHLEY

Yes. This vessel remained at Southampton and only did a single voyage. That was from Southampton to a port in France. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why these tankers were turned into transports, why they were never used, and what they cost the country? I should put the cost at, at least, £750,000. The Government paid 11s. on dead-weight, finding everything but the stores and provisions, and they also took the war risks. On a dead-weight of 70,000 tons the monthly freight alone would be £38,500, in addition to the cost of alterations, maintenance, insurance, and war risks. In all, I should say the cost was from £600,000 to £700,000. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why that has happened? If the facts I have mentioned may be said to be ancient history, or something that is not happening now, what about the following information? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain this? The Government have taken over I understand, within the last six weeks, in the early stages of their construction, eleven large ships being built as tramps, in order that the construction should be carried out to make them meet the Government requirements as tankers. That is a very excellent idea and one that would commend itself to the House. The firms from whom the ships have been taken over—I will give the right hon. Gentleman all the information I have—are Messrs. G. M. Patterson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Pymans, Limited, of Hartlepool, Chambers, Limited, of Liverpool, and Mathias, of Cardiff. These ships although intended to be used as store ships for oil have been fitted with engines and boilers. In the interests of economy it is urged that the engines and boilers should not have been installed, but that the ships should have been constructed for use as store ships only and towed to the ports on the coast where tankers ready to trade at once are and have been for months as store ships. In the view of practical shipbuilders all the machinery necessary for these ships should be donkey engines and pumps. If you have to have a certain number of ships in ports for use as hulks for stores, why in the name of common sense should you build eleven ships as if they were oceangoing ships and use them as store ships, when they would have been just as useful as hulks, with donkey engines and boilers? What is the cost of this manœuvre? I do not know if I am right, the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps, will correct me, but I estimate the cost of putting engines and boilers into each one of these ships at £20,000, making £220,000 for the eleven steamers. In addition to that you have to recollect the cost to the nation of the delay in the completion of these steamers, because it will take at least three months to put in engines and boilers. You have a cost of £220,000, plus the delay of three months, yet we are told we cannot have petrol for our motor cars and must economise with every penny. If only the Government would economise a little, I am sure we should have enough petrol.

Finally, I want to bring up what I consider to be by far the worst instance of waste on the part of the Admiralty which has occurred since the beginning of the War, namely, the handling of the "Aqui-tania," the "Britannic," and the "Mauretania." As the House well knows, the "Mauretania" and "Aquitania," under an old agreement, which may have been perfectly right at the time—I am not going into that at present—were taken over by the Government at the beginning of the War and turned into armed cruisers. The Government, for reasons we need not go into, apparently thought it would not be a good thing to keep the "Aquitania" as an. armed cruiser. She is a big ship of 38,000 tons. Let me give her history. In August, 1914, she was a passenger ship. At the outbreak of War she was taken over and turned into an armed cruiser and used for a few months. In December, 1914, and January of last year she was turned back into a passenger ship. I know that because I went over her at Liverpool. That was her third change since the outbreak of War. She was then handed back to her owners. Then the Admiralty—it is a most extraordinary story—requisitioned her again and turned her into a transport. After she had done one or two voyages they turned her into a hospital ship, and I believe she did three voyages to the Mediterranean.

Captain Sir OWEN PHILIPPS

made an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.

Mr. ASHLEY

I am not complaining of her being used as a hospital ship or as a transport or as a cruiser, but I do say it can- not possibly be right to take a big ship of 38,000 tons and in less than two years make her fill seven rôles. The expense is enormous. It shows vacillation and no direct line of policy. You cannot keep changing her backwards and forwards. The hon. Gentleman (Captain Sir Owen Philipps) knows better than anybody else how much it costs to change a ship from one of these rôles into another. After being turned into a hospital ship she did nothing for three months, and laid in the Solent at a cost of £400 a day maintenance money. In the beginning of May the Admiralty made up their minds—I do not know what Department it was, at any rate, the naval authorities made up their minds—that she should be handed back to her owners again. They turned her into a passenger ship again. That makes seven changes. What has that cost the country? I understand that each time she is turned into a liner it costs £40,000. One can well believe it, because you have to take out all her enormous fittings. In the case of the "Britannic" it is just the same. I am quite sure that on these three ships the cost to the country will be £600,000 or £700,000. The "Mauretania" and the "Aquitania "are the laughing-stock of the South of England. How can the Government expect the people in Southampton and round there to go in for war saving when they see this lavish waste of money—£400 a day for maintenance—and when they see her lying in the Solent for three months doing nothing? It is very difficult to speak in measured terms of the way in which these ships have been handled. I am sorry to have detained the House so long, but it is only by little efforts of a humble Back-Bench Member that something can be done.

6.0 P.M.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I have naturally listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) with great interest. He gave to the House a great many details about the expenditure on the part of the Admiralty and the War Office. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones), as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, looked on admiringly. I will only say, in regard to his criticisms, that there are certain facts in connection with this expenditure which were naturally not open or available to him, but which, I hope, will put a very different complexion on what he described to the House in that rather overworked word, "scandal," more than once. With regard to the "Aquitania," the agreement was dated 30th July, 1903, and it gave the Admiralty the call on, the ships of the Cunard Line to be taken up as armed merchant cruisers in the event of war. The rate of hire was fixed in the agreement of 1903. It might be a fair criticism on that agreement, which is thirteen years old, to say that in view of the possible great expansion of tonnage there ought to have been some sort of provision, putting it in popular language, for a reduction on taking a quantity. That is a fair criticism, but there is the agreement. And it was under that agreement that we took the "Aquitania "in August, 1914. Very early en she collided with the "Canadian," and was brought back to Liverpool, where the damage done by the collision was repaired. Then, looking at the whole matter, and bearing in mind the cost of running her, she is a very fast ship and, under certain circumstances, would have been a very valuable ship; but as the War eventuated that justification for her continuance had not arisen or did not continue to arise, and therefore, looking at the whole matter, and because, under the actual conditions of the War as they then emerged, she did not appear to be so useful as she otherwise might have been, she was reinstated. I justify that proceeding, and will do so when the Controller and Auditor-General in due course places the matter, if he does—and he is fully commissioned to do so—before the Public Accounts Committee. In the circumstances, we did right to reinstate her and give her back to the owners. Later military necessities called for the transportation rapidly of large numbers of troops. War is waste. Does my hon. Friend object to that? There we get the next chapter in the history of the ship.

Mr. RUTHERFORD

Did she go?

Dr. MACNAMARA

Yes. She was used with the "Mauretania" for that transportation.

Mr. RUTHERFORD

She was stuck for weeks in the Mersey.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I hope my hon. Friend will take it from me that I am giving a correct history of what happened. Having sent her back and reinstated her for the reasons I have given, we were suddenly confronted with the necessity for a rapid transportation of large numbers of troops. She was taken over for that pur- pose and served with the "Mauretania." I cannot go into the matter in great detail, not because I desire not to place it before the House, not because I am anxious to screen the Department. Not at all. But there are details of military and naval transactions which we cannot discuss here. The whole matter will be the subject of discussion by the Controller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee if he sees fit to report upon it. Then will be the time for the closest details with all figures. After the use which I have mentioned, she and the "Mauretania "and the "Britannic" were turned into hospital ships to bring large numbers of sick and wounded men home. They were so used. Then the situation changed, and there being no further use for them in that capacity they were reconditioned and were returned to their owners. Beyond that I cannot carry it. I have said the whole of the facts will be before the Controller and Auditor-General and it will be his business if he thinks the matter requires further examination.

Mr. ASHLEY

We are not to have anything about the last change?

Dr. MACNAMARA

No. I will explain quite fully why not, and I am quite sure when I do the hon. Member will accept it. We have to be instantly ready for any emergency. We have been. We have used these ships in that capacity for that purpose. The hon. Member cannot have it both ways. I do not know that he wants to, but there are some who do. You cannot blame us for lack of foresight and energy in one case and then blame us for the cost of energy and foresight, because that is what it really comes to in regard to this transaction.

Leaving that, I turn to the oilers which were fitted up for transport service. That has been mentioned in the House at least once by the hon. Member (Mr. Houston), and I was blamed for not dealing with it then. There was no reason why I should not. I did not, because I had a good many other things to deal with, but I will deal with it now. He put it before the House as a sort of gross piece of carelessness, lack of foresight and stupidity on our part in taking up oilers which were intended to carry oil, fitting them with decks and making them into transports. There was nothing of the sort. That is all. This is the story of the oilers which were turned into transports. I have heard the criticism passed many times that it was a very stupid thing to do. As a matter of fact, it was not. The idea was to see whether oilers specially fitted for transport purposes might not be used for that work, the theory being—this is what they thought—that their extra buoyancy—this was pretty early on in the War—would render them less liable to sink after submarine attack. It was not a case of a stupid Department taking up oilers and turning them into transports without knowing or caring what their proper purpose was. It was a deliberate proceeding that as they were constructed, and as they were to be adapted, they might give the soldier a greater chance of immunity from drowning as the result of submarine attack. Ten of them were so fitted up, and one was actually used. It did not turn out very well. That is all. War is War! War is waste! You cannot wage war except by very often adopting expedients, which do not come off.

Mr. ASHLEY

Why could you not have experimented with one?

Dr. MACNAMARA

That is a perfectly fair comment. We might have experimented upon one. But to say that because you tried this idea and it was not successful, therefore you were wrong in trying it is wrong. There was no opportunity of testing the question of their remaining afloat, happily, after submarine attack. Other and better and more expedient means were promptly adopted for enhancing the safety of transportation, and therefore they were no longer used for transport purposes, and three months later—my hon. Friend spoke of a longer period——

Mr. Ashley

In one case, the "Myra," from February to August.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I am advised in June, there being a special demand for these oilers, they were reinstated as oilers, and they are now being so used. That will be a comfort to my hon. Friend, anyhow. He was rather anxious to know whether they were not still standing by as transports. They have reverted to their original purpose. The experiment was not successful, and they are now oilers.

Sir F. BANBURY

What have we lost by that?

Dr. MACNAMARA

I have not the precise figures by me. I dare say we have lost a lot of money. That is war.

Sir F. BANBURY

The Germans had nothing to do with it.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I am bound to say I think that is an unfair criticism. The right hon. Baronet did not hear the reason which I gave for trying the experiment; otherwise he would not have made that remark. You try an expedient. It does not prove successful. That is waste, but it is not failure. Failure lies in incapacity and inability to seize every means that seems to promise a prospect of success. As regards the figures, I will get them out if the right hon. Baronet likes. But in any case they will come before the Controller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee in due course. With regard to the eleven tankers which were converted I think my hon. Friend is quite wrong, but I have taken a note of his comment. I shall be very glad to give him the whole of the facts, but I think he has got the wrong end of the story there.

Mr. ASHLEY

I got it from one of the men who owned the ship.

Dr. MACNAMARA

That may be, but he may not be fully seised of the purpose for which we desire to use the ships. But I will give him the whole of the facts with regard to these eleven converted tankers. I was asked whether there are two ships used for housing labourers. Yes, two ships were so used for a long time. In one case, I am glad to say, it is now possible to make arrangements to house the men on shore, and in the other case there is no accommodation available on shore, and it is necessary for the purpose of the work which goes on in port to keep the men together and not distribute them. Therefore in that case they are still on the ship. We have returned one of the ships which is no longer used to the owners, and the other remains. It is a small railway steamer mainly of a passenger type, with very limited cargo accommodation, and I am very much disposed to think, if it is put on the ground of reducing tonnage available to the merchant service, although she certainly ought to be released as soon as we can find accommodation, when she is released she will probably be laid up for the rest of the War because of her character and of her accommodation. Therefore, this is not a case of reducing the merchant tonnage. With regard to the ivory-handled knives, we ought not to be blamed. There was a paragraph in a newspaper last March, and my hon. Friend put a question arising out of it. Are we to be blamed because directly we read a paragraph someone says, "What about that?" I am assured to this day that they are economical. Indeed, those who are responsible tell me that the handles wear a long time and stand knocking about on board ship, and the blades can be rebladed again and again before the handles are worn out. It was put to me, "You do not want an immediate large expenditure of public money even though in the long run you think matters might be more economical, and you must look at it from the point of view of immediate capital expenditure." We first of all tried to get a suitable substitute for ivory. In that we failed. Then we tried to see whether any suitable patent plated handle could be obtained at a price lower than the standard pattern, and my hon. Friend will be glad to know that we have now effected a saving on this year's purchases of about £900 on what would have been expended in all human probability if the paragraph had not appeared in the newspaper. Are we to be blamed for that?

Mr. ASHLEY

No. Praise the paper.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Praise the paper if you like, but the moment the point was made we looked at it to see whether we could fairly depart from the established custom. The Government even now may be buying in a way which in the long run may not be so economical, but, at any rate, the capital outlay is small.

Sir F. BANBURY

Could you not have bone handles?

Dr. MACNAMARA

We have had the matter fully examined, and we find that we cannot get any material for the purpose of ordinary use on board ship that would be a permanent substitute for ivory. If there is any other aspect of this particular question which has not been fully surveyed it shall be surveyed. My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) made a very interesting speech on the question of separation allowances, and the necessity, as he says, of increasing the amount, because of the increased cost of living. I would like to say that I have watched with great interest and sympathy the tireless way in which the hon. Member has always kept in touch with this question of State allow- ances for our fighting men and their dependants. He could not be better employed, neither could any of us. No duty, as the hon. Member said, is more solemn and more direct than to see that the men and their wives and children, and the widows and orphans if the men do not come back, are sympathetically treated. I dissent from one thing which the hon. Member said, and that was that the soldiers and sailors, I understood him, are dependent on the good offices of Members of Parliament for getting fair play. I dissent from that entirely. That is, in effect, a criticism upon those of us whose duty, to say nothing of our pleasure, lies in seeing that these men get fair play. What other interests have we but to see that they get fair play? I think it is going too far for the hon. Member to say that the soldier and the sailor, their wives, children, fathers, mother, or other dependants cannot get fair play and justice without getting it through the good offices of a Member of Parliament. Those of us at the War Office and at the Admiralty who are concerned with the carrying on of this work have no other interests but to see that these men and their dependants get fully what is due to them, and get it promptly and sympathetically. Of course, we are glad to get representations from those who may know the facts more intimately than we can do, and we are very glad indeed to have an opportunity of examining them. But do not let anyone imagine, because I think it would be unfair, that fair play must wait upon the representations of Members of Parliament. I could not allow such a statement to go forth without challenging it.

I would like the House fairly and squarely to look at the provision which is made. I have stated the facts before, and I make no apology for stating them again. I say that the provision which is made by the State to-day for the soldier's wife and the sailor's wife and their children, and the soldiers and the sailors themselves if they are disabled, or their widows and orphans if they do not return, is equitable and adequate. I say more, and that is that it is out of all proportion to anything that this country has ever done in any previous war. It is not correct to say that we have been niggardly, and that we have been wanting in sympathy. That is quite incorrect, and it gives a false impression as to how far we have been ready and able to carry out our duties. I would like to take a little wider survey of the question than my hon. Friend took, because he referred only to separation allowances. I have listened, not so much in this House, but out of it, to criticisms and comments upon what we have done. For instance, we appointed a Statutory Committee and we granted a certain amount of State aid to that Committee. We also suggest that it may get assistance from other sources to supplement the awards that are made from State funds, awards that may, almost certainly will, in the wide range of social circumstances which presents itself in the rank and file of an Army constituted like our present Army is constituted make any flat rate not universally satisfactory and sufficient. Because we have done that, in relation to this Statutory Committee, some people seem to forget altogether the State provision which is a precedent to that, and of which this is merely a supplement, and we are told that it is a scandal that the State should not itself do its duty.

I was never on surer ground in my life than I am at this moment when I say that the State is fully and amply doing its duty to the soldiers' and sailors' wives and children, and other dependant relatives, to the widows and orphans, and to the men themselves if they return broken by sickness, wounds, or hard campaigning. Let me remind the House of the provisions we have made and compare them with the provisions of the past, if they can be compared at all. I deal mainly with the naval regulations, because of my association with the Admiralty, but the provision for the soldiers and their dependants is upon similar lines. In the case of the soldier, the separation allowance to the wife is higher in consideration of the fact that the soldier's pay generally is lower than that of the sailor, and because he has not such opportunity for promotion as the sailor has. As the House knows, a man of the lower rank totally incapacitated gets 25s. a week and 2s. 6d. for each child under sixteen. If he is partially incapacitated he will get such pension as, together with what he may be deemed to be capable of earning, will make 25s. a week, with a rum up to 2s. 6d. for each child.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

That is where the difficulty comes in. These men are not aware that they can get, with what they earn, up to 25s. a week. Information to that effect should be given to the local committees.

Dr. MACNAMARA

It may be that all information that can be given should be given, but the failure to give information does not constitute a criticism of the main scheme itself. Let my hon. Friend bear that in mind. If the information has not been properly circulated, we must do what we can to circulate it. Of course the ordinary additions made to these Service pensions are also made to disablement pensions for rank in the Army, and for badges, service as petty officers, and so on, in the Navy. What was the allowance before the War as compared with the 25s.? Before the War, the highest rate of injury pension, even for total blindness, so far as the Navy was concerned, was only 15s. 9d. per week. There was no allowance of any kind for children, compared with the 2s. 6d. now for each child in cases of total disablement, or up to 2s. 6d. for each child in the case of partial disablement. Take the question of separation allowances. The State has made a provision for the wives and children of soldiers and sailors, which, certainly as regards sailors, is entirely new. There never was a separation allowance in the Navy before. The separation allowance to-day is entirely new and in addition to the payments formerly made for their services. The allowance to the wife varies from 6s. to 9s., according to the husband's rating. Then comes the sailor's allotment, which has to be added to the separation allowance. The allowances for children are 4s., 3s., 2s., and 1s. a week for the first, second, third, and any subsequent children, and 5s. a week for each motherless child.

The Army separation allowance is dispensed on a scale above anything contemplated before. Before the War a soldier, in order to get a separation allowance for his wife, had to be married on the strength, and very few were. Now the separation allowance is given to all. This is the scale which my hon. Friend wishes to be increased. I will take the rank of a corporal or private—there are additions for higher grades. The soldier allots 3s. 6d. per week; to such allowance the State adds 9s., which makes 12s. 6d. If the wife is living in London, an additional 3s. 6d. is allowed, which brings the amount up to 16s. a week for the woman alone, without children. If there is one child, the allowance and the allotment come to 17s. 6d. a week, and if in London 21s. a week. If there are two children, the allowance and allotment amount to 21s. a week, or in London 24s. 6d. a week. If there are three children the allowance and allotment amount to 23s. per week, or in London to 26s. 6d. per week. In the case of a wife and four children the amount is 25s., and in London 28s. 6d. These are cases of the lower rank, the wife and children of a private or corporal. Will anyone tell me that the allowance is ungenerous? It is not ungenerous. As regards dependent fathers and mothers, sisters, and other relatives, the provision we have made now is quite new. There never was an allowance in the old days for these relative dependants, no matter what the dependence has been before the man joined the Colours. The minimum pension for a widow is now 10s. a week. Again I am taking the rank of a private or corporal, and there are additions for higher rank, with corresponding additions, for rating in the Navy. That 10s. a week is increased to 12s. 6d. a week in the case of a widow who is over thirty-five years of age and under forty-five, and to 15s. a week when she exceeds the age of forty-five. What was it before? It was 5s. a week, regardless of age, as against the 10s., 12s., or 15s. at the present time. Take the allowances for orphans. These amount to 5s. for the first child, 3s. 6d. for the second child, and 2s. for the third and subsequent children as against 1s. 6d. a week in the pre-War period. Motherless children get 5s. a week as against 3s. a week before the War.

I am sorry, and, indeed, we are all sorry, that these poor people, in common with the whole community, have to face the increased cost of living, but I am afraid I cannot hold out on behalf of the Government any prospect of increased allowances. Here I speak quite strongly personally. Of course, we are all full of sympathy and anxious to meet our obligations to the dependants of our soldiers and sailors, but I cannot hold out any prospect of increased allowances beyond that scale.

Sir H. CRAIK

made a remark which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I mean from State funds. I cannot hold out any prospect of an increase beyond that scale from State funds. I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for his reminders. If the Statutory Committee with a hard case before them, in the wide social range with which we are confronted in our present Army, thinks that it is a proper case for an addition to the gratuity, pension, or other State allowance, of course it is within their power to add to it. But, so far as the scale is concerned, I cannot hold out any prospect of increase, and I cannot say that, having regard to the relative claims upon the public purse at the present time, that such an increase would be justified on the ground of fair play and equity. I was very much interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh at the close of his speech refer to the question of co-ordination of effort. I most cordially concur, although for a reason additional to that which he gave. What has been a very great shortcoming in all these grants and allowances to dependants of soldiers and sailors in the past has been the number of authorities, central and local, which dispensed them, and the amount of overlapping and waste which occurred, and if one thing is necessary it is this: Whatever money is to be dispensed, do for goodness rake let it be dispensed by one authority. If that is a counsel of perfection, then do let the various authorities which are going to give assistance to these people be closely informed as to each other's operations. Otherwise you will have what has so often been the case in the past with the very best intentions possible—a great deal of overlapping and waste and in some cases money which is wanted in other directions misapplied by the multiplicity of effort, central and local, among the various authorities charged with the administration of these matters.

Sir G. TOULMIN

I want to refer to one point specially which I hope will receive the attention of the Financial Seccertary to the War Office in connection with a subject with which the right hon. Gentleman has just been dealing, which was introduced by the hon Member for East Edinburgh, with regard to the question of pensions and the dependants getting fair play. I do not suppose that the hon. Member is—and certainly I myself am not—afraid of these deserving persons not getting fair play if they get before the right quarter. I have had the feeling myself when I have written to either the Secretary to the Admiralty or the Financial Secretary that if I write about the case it does get priority and does get attended to, and if I have not sent my letter to the proper place it is forwarded somewhere, while poor humble individuals sometimes write to me and say that they have written several letters without result. I scarcely like to feel that because someone applies to me I can get his case attended to when his letters are not attended to. I think that however humble the individual and however careless or indifferently expressed his letter may be, it ought to be forwarded to the proper quarter and some kind of an answer should be given to the individual concerned. The cost of living to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh referred affects everyone, every one of these cases, in a way which has an indirect bearing on the case to which I wish to refer—that is, to the weeks which follow the return of the sick or disabled soldier. I do not quarrel with the allowance on the basis that has been given. It is a vast advance on anything that has been given before. But it does not allow any margin. There is no margin for any one of these families to make a little saving for the time when the father comes home and is not immediately able to get work. When a man is discharged medically or physically unfit he is frequently left without resources for many weeks together. It is not any want of sympathy on the part of my hon. Friend to which I refer, but there is a weak place in the system.

Take one case—that of a soldier in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was discharged from the Army on the 11th of March last as physically unfit. Among other injuries he had been shot in the right buttock and is lame. He had previously served twelve years in the Fusiliers and was discharged in 1893. He rejoined in the early days of September, 1914. In civil life he was a bricklayer's labourer and has since—this was at the end of June—been unable to resume work. It is quite evident that an injury such as he has received is just the kind of injury which, though he may not be sick, disables him from the employment to which he was accustomed. He has a wife and five children under sixteen years of age. He is not only a soldier himself, but he is the father of soldiers. One son is also in the Fusiliers and has just been awarded the D.C.M. He has another son in the Fusiliers 5th (Reserve) Battalion. This man was for weeks, when he came back, without any allowance of any kind, and of course as soon as ever he got back the allowance to the wife and children was stopped. It is an amazingly perfect organisation, the organisation of the Army which stops these allowances, and really I should like the organisation which sees to the payment being made to these men to be as perfect as the organisation which stops the allowance to the wives. When the father was discharged in March he did not get either his insurance or his medical card. At a later date his approved society, the Liverpool Victoria, communicated with him. He filled up the form which they sent. There was further delay. He only received his medical certificate, according to the information supplied to me, early in June, and he did not receive the first payment which he ought to have had from his approved society for some time. Eventually he was awarded a pension of 18s. 9d. per week.

The consequence is that this man who was dismissed from the Army as unfit for work, never received a payment of any kind for some weeks after his discharge. That is a grievous matter. It is grievous to everyone about the town who hears of such cases—and I have them almost every week. I admit that it is difficult to know how to meet these cases. It does occur to me that before a man is discharged and his wife's separation allowance or its equivalent is stopped, his pension should be settled and he should be furnished with his necessary insurance papers. The two things ought to be simultaneous. When his allowance is stopped, then whatever he is to receive should begin. I will make a suggestion in a moment in regard to that. I am not sufficiently aware of the arrangements which the War Office make to know whether my suggestion is a practicable one, but if it is not I hope that the hon. Member will try to make a practicable suggestion. We all know that we get sympathetic answers from my hon. Friend in regard to these questions. My hon. Friend has given me a number of them and everyone knows that he himself personally feels sympathetic. He does not quite accept the details as to dates, but he does admit that there has been a sufficient interval to cause much anxiety and distress. He says that the man who was discharged on 11th March was on 13th April awarded a pension of 12s. 6d. per week for six months, conditionally, with effect from the date of his discharge, but he had been four weeks without anything at all. Twelve shillings and sixpence is rather meagre for this father of a family coming home from the War, seeing that he was not in a position to follow his previous employment. He was also granted an additional 1s. 3d. for each of his five children, which makes 18s. 9d. We do not consider 1s. 3d. quite enough for a child, while there was nothing for the mother. Those are the details connected with this individual case, and I am only using it as typical of the interval which takes place, and I wish specially to draw attention to the suffering which takes place on account of that.

I asked in regard to that case whether the separation allowance could not go on until the pension was payable. I was told that the separation allowance is not issuable in respect of a discharged soldier, and our present system is that a temporary allowance is issued to the soldier between the date of discharge and the commencement of his pension. If there is to be a temporary allowance, let the same order which goes to stop the separation allowance embody an order for the payment of these temporary allowances, with the proviso that the two orders should take effect in the same week. That is what is designed to happen. I am sorry that it does not always happen. The system of my hon. Friend was unfortunately not in force at the time of this man's discharge. His insurance card was sent two or three weeks after he left. I would like to know why cannot each soldier be allowed home on leave, for instance, for a time, and let the other payments go on until the payment which he is eventually to receive begins? I consider that this is a point that stings a man coming home, that his homecoming means that there is less in that house to eat than there was even when he was away, and less far than when he was earning the wage that some of these men have been able to earn. I trust that this defect will receive the attention of my hon. Friend, and I am quite sure that he will have the support of every Member in the House if he can devise some scheme which will prevent such things occurring.

Sir A. MOND

The point which was made by the hon. Member, who spoke last, is one which has been brought home to a great many of us. In fact, in spite of Parliament having endeavoured, both directly and by Committees, to elaborate a system of generous scales of pension, there is growing a large amount of anxiety and discontent among those who are coming home, having been discharged from the Army, both with these pensions and the way in which these pensions are being administered I am constantly getting letters of the character to which the hon. Member has just referred, and being in a position myself, perhaps to an exceptional extent, of coming into contact a great deal with men who are about to be discharged from the Army, I find that a profound ignorance prevails among soldiers in hospitals who are about to be discharged as to what they are to look forward to, and as to what their lives are going to be. Great anxiety prevails among them as to what is to become of them, and no effort is taken to allay that anxiety by informing these soldiers, who are about to be discharged, upon this point. The thing can be done by issuing a little pamphlet explaining what the position will be. As far as I understand the matter, they seem to be in a position to some extent of interregnum. That is to say, soldiers' and sailors' associations which have existed in most of our large towns and all over the country have wound up their affairs, and the local Statutory Committee has not yet come into existence. The result is that nobody knows where to go to look for help or advice. That is a very serious state of things. I do not know why it has ever been allowed to arise. It ought to be made absolutely impossible for the position which we have now to exist—that there is no one in a big town who is charged with looking after the affairs of widows of deceased soldiers or of soldiers who come home wounded and are discharged. I have had large numbers of letters from people in that position in my Constituency, which are most pathetic, saying that they do not know how to go on even while their cases are being considered. Of course a great many people dealing with these things never seem to realise that a workman and his family live on what they get every week, and cannot afford to wait for three weeks until some support is forthcoming. In some way this hiatus ought to be filled up.

The hon. Member's suggestion which he has just made is not at all an impracticable one. Why should not in some way a man be kept on furlough at home until his pension question has been settled? But there is another point to which I desire to call attention: There seems to be a suspicion about that these pensions are temporary. I personally know of a case where the pension has been granted for twelve months, and the man is under the impression that at the end of twelve months his pension will come to an end, and he will get no more. I am quite sure that is not the case, and I do not know why the pension papers are issued in that form. Were they issued in that form in order to enable the pensions to be revised? I do not know why it should not be made clear on the pension paper that this man is going to have his pension all his life for the injury he has received; at any rate, if the man cannot earn a full income because of that injury. If a clear statement were made upon the pension paper, it would remove an enormous amount of anxiety. A man who has lost his foot should know that his pension will not last only twelve months, and that at the end of that time he is going to keep it in the future. Then there is the question of artificial limbs for soldiers and sailors who have lost their limbs in the course of the War. I do not know whether my information is correct, but I have been informed that at present the possession of really good limbs, such as are provided at the Oakhampton Hospital, depends very largely on private endeavours. The hon. Gentleman dissents. I am very glad that is not the case, and I hope he will contradict that very wide and prevalent idea. I gather from him that every man who loses an arm or leg will have one substituted of the best kind, at the cost of the State. That is what we all want to see.

I think the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty was correct to some extent about the separation allowances. I have always felt, and I think that many will agree with me, that a great mistake was made, in connection with the separation allowance, when we went in for a flat rate all over the country. The result, apparently, has been that in our large industrial towns the separation allowance is felt to be deficient in a way which has not been experienced in the agricultural districts. When this matter was first discussed, I suggested that the separation allowance should be modified according to the cost of living in different districts. The only place where that has been adopted is in London, although the cost of living in my Constituency, according to the Board of Trade figures, is just about as high as in London. That is really where the difficulty comes in. Although the separation allowance of 12s. 6d. and the allowance for children may be looked upon as very generous in a district where the people make 15s. a week, it is not very large in industrial districts where people earn £2 or £3 a week. When you deduct 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. from that allowance, owing to the increased cost of living, it only comes to between 6s. and 7s.—not very much for an industrial town. I am not certain that we shall not have to revise these allowances if we really want to treat generously the populations in districts where the cost of living has gone up and up. You should have some regard to that, and that undoubtedly is a question that ought to be further considered. The right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Dr. Macnamara) made a very spirited defence of his Department, and I am sure his Department must be very much obliged to him for the great ability he displayed. He did not go back to the case of the ship which broke down when on its first voyage and was brought back; which ran into a sandbank, and was then taken back again, and then, finally, was handed over to the owners; transferred again on several occasions, but never was really utilised to the best advantage, for the cost would always have been out of proportion to her utility. I do not say she has not rendered some very useful service, but if the full proceedings had to be gone over again, I doubt if the same procedure would be followed now. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that war is waste. We all know what war is, but that is not an excuse for all the waste that takes place, and I think some waste could now be avoided if that principle were not laid down so axiomatically as the right hon. Gentleman laid it down. We ought to waste as little in war as possible.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I agree.

Sir A. MOND

However we may be impressed by the generosity of the nation, and anxious as we naturally are to do the best for everyone, still there is no reason why there should be no regard paid to economy. I think we should, perhaps, have succeeded in saving a certain amount of money which has been spent if we had not had so many steamers lying about in different parts of the world, waiting to do nothing. A steamer full of cargo has been commandeered, and the cargo taken out, while another steamer, practically a sister ship, was lying alongside, and, of course, she could have been commandeered and substituted, and because she had not been commandeered she could not be substituted. I have heard some of these things on very reliable authority, and they are really incomprehensible. There seems to be somewhere a hiatus in organisation. Ship X is commandeered, and nobody seems to be authorised to take Ship Y, or to get the order changed, although Ship Y would do quite as well. It depends upon the internal organisation of the Department, and the people who know about the details have not got authority to make any change, while the people who have originally given the order have not time to look at the details. There ought to be some possibility of improvement there. These things have happened more than once, and they are not to the advantage of the Admiralty or to the advantage of the owner of the ship. There seems to be some cast-iron sort of rule that no change is possible, inconvenient or expensive as the original order may have proved to be. The right hon. Gentleman is a very common-sense and businesslike man, and I think if these matters were investigated he would find some link missing in the organisation, which, if it could be established, might often save not merely money to the Admiralty, but would assist the very serious question of the transportation of goods to this country.

The holding up of any ship not required is, of course, as we all know, a loss of freight which we badly want. To clear out a ship which is already loaded when you could have a ship lying empty, practically at the same berth, is again a loss. These cases do occur, and the right hon. Gentleman will find that they are not altogether uncommon. I have often thought there must be some way of dealing with these matters, so as to avoid what is not only not an advantage to the conduct of the War but a serious disadvantage, from the point of view of expenditure and from the point of view of commercial service. The whole question of our shipping has been subject to a great deal of criticism, and I hope that a considerable improvement has been made by various eminent experts, who, I know, have been employed in order to report on a great many of these matters. I have never found anybody practically engaged in shipping who could not show that great improvement is possible, particularly in the case where far distant expeditions are concerned, such as that to the Dardanelles. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is looking into these matters. Whilst this House and country is anxious to give the utmost latitude for the efficient conduct of the War, they cannot be satisfied merely with the idea that we cannot help waste of money in war, and that we must go in for costly and sometimes unsuccessful experiments. Of course we must make experiments; it would be very foolish not to do so. On the other hand, I cannot help thinking that in regard to some of the experiments you could have told before; hand whether they would be successful or not. The right hon. Gentleman himself had to admit that a very important steamer was held up for some time in connection with oil tanks, and in view of the fact of the shortage of petrol from which we are now suffering in this country, I cannot help asking why the experiment in regard to oil tanks was not made on one ship, and why ten ships were held up when they might have been employed in bringing this most necessary commodity to this country, and we should not have been put in the position in which we are now. I hope my right hon. Friend will look into these points, and I trust that the Financial Secretary to the War Office will be able to tell us something more about the acceleration of the pension matters which have been referred to, and about which there is a considerable amount of anxiety throughout the country.

7.0 P.M.

Sir JOSEPH WALTON

The House is always ready to grant all the necessaries of life to those who are fighting our battles and to their dependants, and at this moment we have heartfelt gratitude to the brave men who are fighting for the very existence of our country with a heroism that was never surpassed in the history of the world. At a moment like this, we are, indeed, more than ready to spare money either to make their dependants comfortable at home while they are away, or to take care that they themselves shall not lack in equipment or provision, or in any other way, by reason of our being niggardly in our expenditure. But the expenditure is enormous. We have a further Vote of Credit for £450,000,000, and we have had two previous Votes of Credit this year, amounting to £600,000,000. When we bring our minds to bear on the fact that already in this War Votes of Credit have been proposed in this House to the total amount of 2,832 millions of money, it does at any rate cause one to ask oneself the question, "Are we getting any approach to value for our money? "That is a matter to which it is the duty of this House to give the most serious attention. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) that some separation of accounts ought to take place. The putting of loans to Allies, or to the Dominions, and the purchase of certain commodities on to the total and to call it all expenditure is misleading. If in some way a separation of these matters could take place it would make things much more satisfactory and much clearer. We are not allowed on this occasion to ask the Government how they propose to raise this money, but perhaps we may be allowed to recall the fact that we have a deficit in the two years ending March next of £1,700,000,000 sterling still to be arranged for permanently. This gigantic figure ought to give us pause as to whether or not everything is being done in every Department to reduce expenditure and to prevent waste of money. We have had several Retrenchment Committees appointed to try to effect economy. There is one in connection with the Army, and one in connection with the Navy, and one in connection with the Ministry of Munitions, and one in connection with the Civil Service Departments, but we have no Report given to this House as to what results those various Retrenchment Committees have achieved in the way of saving and of cutting down unnecessary expenditure. There is no doubt whatever that millions of money are being spent wastefully. Reference has been made to our shipping, and it is alarming to know that the commandeering of the shipping of this country has mounted up at the present time to 11,000,000 tons, or more than half the mercantile marine of the country; yet freights are still soaring, and the cost of food and the necessaries of life keeps going up and thus increasing the financial stringency, by adding to the expenditure of the country, because it is not only in public expenditure that we ought to have economy practised. It ought also to prevail in private expenditure, but that is made much less possible, unless the cost of living can be kept down. Personally, I do not know that I feel certain that all is being done in that direction that might be done.

The Board of Trade was specially active early in the War in making efforts to keep down the price of food supplies, but so far as I can judge they seem to have ceased their efforts to a large extent, and we no longer have those weekly or monthly statements in the papers, giving the maximum prices consumers ought to pay for the necessaries of life. I hope that even before this night's proceedings are over we may have some statement from the Government in regard to the work that has been accomplished by the Retrenchment Committees. I think that is due to the House. Various instances of extravagance and waste have been brought before the House repeatedly, and these Committees have been appointed for the express purpose of stopping that, and why then is the House denied all information? The Prime Minister did not say one word in moving the Vote of Credit about getting better value for our money and as to the prevention of waste and the practice of economy. It is all very well to say that we are a rich nation, but we are living on our capital largely, and this War is being financed out of the prewar accumulated savings of the nation, and if it goes on month by month and year by year the financial stringency will grow greater and greater. I do not know why, for instance, the Admiralty have not undertaken the insurance of total loss of all the shipping they have commandeered and have under their control. They might easily have saved a million or two by doing that. They say they do not do it because of the difficulty of working the business; but the same machinery which undertakes war risks could simply add the total loss risks, and thus receive the premiums that the insurance companies are receiving.

With regard to Army expenditure, we never seem to have an opportunity of discussing this matter thoroughly. Take the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General issued for the year ending the 31st of March, 1915. So far as I am aware this House has never had any opportunity of discussing that most serious Report, which has been termed a Report on muddle and waste. The Comptroller and Auditor-General said that, up to 12th February, 1916, no accounts of transport vehicles had been lodged, and the accounting for horses was extremely unsatisfactory. He points out that horses arrive by rail at night with no document to show who sent them or the station from which they come. One unit failed to keep accounts, and no record could be found either of the receipt or the disposal of animals. The results of investigation showed an apparent surplus of 5,000 horses. That is an extraordinary result. Large quantities of clothing, the Auditor-General tells us, were written off or destroyed.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is now referring to matters relating to 1914. This Vote of Credit is with regard to the forthcoming months. I think he can hardly consider as relevant to this Vote matters which occurred in 1914.

Sir J. WALTON

My only desire is to try and ascertain if drastic steps are being taken by the Government to prevent the continuance of the waste disclosed to us by the Auditor-General, and by referring to his Report I hoped to draw forth a more complete defence on the part of the Government.

Mr. SPEAKER

All I say to that is that I think there ought to be some time limit on Members going back into matters of this kind.

Sir J. WALTON

This is the last Report of the Auditor-General, issued, I suppose, jn the autumn of last year. If hon. Members will look at that Report they will see, on the authority of the Auditor-General, that there is very serious waste in various Departments of expenditure in the War Office which ought not to take place. I do think I ought to press for some statement of the work accomplished by the Retrenchment Committees. The Retrenchment Committee on the Civil Service reduced the expenditure of £96,000,000 by 4 per cent. I say that that was simply playing with the matter, and I want to know how much better they have done in connection with the Army and Navy and Munitions Department. With regard to the Ministry of Munitions, we really have a representative of the Department present to whom we can put questions. I find in the "New York Times" the statement that orders have been given out in the United States for £600,000,000 sterling worth of munitions of war. They state that the Dupont Powder Company has taken contracts for £40,000,000 sterling for powder at the price of 4s. 6d. per lb. which cost them 1s. 3d. per lb. to produce. Naturally I ask myself, "What is the Ministry of Munitions doing, and what steps have they taken in two years to increase the output of powder, instead of getting those enormous supplies at 4s. 6d. the lb. from the United States?" What progress is being made in the matter of increasing the output of munitions at home, and especially the output of powder, to enable us before long to reduce our orders to America, which hit us absolutely in every way financially. Though during six months the surplus imports over exports have gone down by £178,000,000, if we add another £178,000,000 to the second half and take half of the £600,000,000 in the two years for munitions, we still have a huge surplus of some hundreds of millions of imports over exports. That can be reduced if the Ministry of Munitions are able to lessen their demands upon America. I know that no matter what the munitions cost, we must have all the munitions we want, but I do not think that one ought to disregard some recognition of the fact that it is most urgently necessary that we should increase the output at home and reduce our imports from America at the earliest possible date.

There is a question which I addressed to the Financial Secretary several times and that is as to when they are going to cease employing a multitude of unnecessary officers at the bases in France and on all the lines of communication? There is the instance of twenty-six commandants, when one or two might well do the work, and those men are paid £650 per year each, and most of them with retired pay as well. I would also ask whether any decision has been arrived at as to whether the payment of service pay and retired pay should cease, and that one or other ought only to be paid. There are many other questions to which I might refer, but some of them would almost be a repetition of points that have been brought forward by other hon. Members in the course of the Debate. There is no question whatever but that we ought to take a survey of our financial situation in connection with the Votes of Credit. We are not allowed to discuss how the money is to be raised. What we want is that economies should be practised so that the amount of Votes of Credit will be less in the future, and we can only do that in one way, namely, by restricting imports. I would press again upon the Government that they ought not to allow the importation into this country during the War of anything but what is necessary for the national life and the conduct of the War. In that way we can approach a nearer balance of imports and exports and relieve the financial pressure. But vigorous and drastic steps do not appear to be taken—at least not to a sufficient extent. It was a, great misfortune that the President of the Board of Trade broke down in health because he certainly was doing most valuable work in that direction. We shall welcome him back again, and we shall hope that further steps may be taken to bring about a greater balance between imports and exports. We rejoice at the magnificent success of our troops in the field. We are prepared to supply everything they need; but we do say that having regard to the future economic condition of this country, that the Government ought to use every possible means to get us value for our money now, so that our resources may not be too much taken from us by reason of the War, otherwise we shall not have sufficient capital to make those necessary developments after the War which will be needed for the economic restoration of the country.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

I should like to say one or two words with regard to a matter that was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea (Sir Alfred Mond) and the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) with respect to the delay in the payment of pensions, and, in some cases, of separation allowances. I think we are all indebted for the admirable speech which we heard from the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, in which he gave us a mass of information that is very essential to the country. I certainly agree with the statement of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh that anyone who has had any experience in coming in contact with either of the Financial Secretaries of the present Government and the late Government or with the officials in the War Office will acknowledge that they have been met by them in every possible way, and promptly, when information has been brought before them. The most essential thing now is that information with regard to delays should be brought to the notice of the War Office. When such information is brought to their notice I have found personally that they attend to it with dispatch and with a certain degree of satisfaction. But we are in this position now: We have a very large number of troops coming back wounded, and we have a very much larger number of men coming under the claim for pensions week by week, and there is certainly great delay in the treatment of these men. I believe that is partly due to the congestion at the Chelsea Hospital, and I should like to press upon the Government the necessity of either widening the scope of the Commissions who deal with pensions or bring in, as they partly promised last year, a Bill to constitute a new Pensions Committee to deal with the whole questions of pensions. I think the suggestion which was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea was a very good one, and that is that some information should be given to the men when they are in the hospitals as to what powers they have now under the pension scheme. These men come back into their localities, they have no information, they do not know who to apply to, and I have found in many cases that they have had to wait a week, and in some cases months, before their pension is awarded, and in the meantime they are suffering. We have now set up in those localities which have put the Act into operation local committees under the Statutory Committee, and I believe that if these local committees—

Mr. SPEAKER

That does not seem to come within the scope of this proposal. The local committees are under the Statutory Committee, and there is a special Vote for that Committee's work.

Mr. SAMUEL

The point was raised and mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He was permitted to point out in his speech that there were now supplementary pensions coming under statutory committees, and I was simply going to point out that there is a defect in the system, because I personally have received letters from the Financial Secretary pointing out that where there is a deficiency, or where the pension has been reduced or is a small one, he has advised the applicant to apply to the local committee of the Statutory Committee for a supplementary pension, and it is in that sense I desired in a few words to point out where the defect is. I have been informed that the local committees of the Statutory Committee are not aware of these powers.

Mr. SPEAKER

That does not come within the scope of this Vote of Credit. There is a special Vote for the Statutory Committee. These local committees are all under the Statutory Committee. If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestions to bring forward, the time to do it is when that particular Vote is being discussed.

Mr. SAMUEL

I quite agree. I was led on, perhaps, by the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had mentioned it. I did not come in with the intention of speaking upon it because I know we are expecting the Vote of the Vice-Chairman of the Statutory Committee to be placed on the Table so that we can debate these points. I was led away by the mention of the powers that are now possessed by the Statutory Committee to supplement these pensions, and I thought of suggesting that some acceleration should be made in this respect so that the men in each locality should know that there are such powers in existence, and that such pensions can be obtained. The fact is that all our trouble arises because these men have not the information. They do not know where to apply to, and if this information is spread throughout the country I am quite certain it will mitigate to a large extent the suffering that is now going on up and down the country. There was one point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Sir J. Walton) which I hope the Minister in charge of the Munitions Department will not reply to. I think it is a very grave error for anybody in this country to supply information to our enemy as to the progress of the manufacture of munitions in this country. It is a very grave error, because Germany is in a position to multiply her production of munitions very much faster than we are in a position to do. Therefore if we in this House or in the Press from time to time give information in this way we are, I think, only multiplying the activities of our enemies and increasing their production to meet our production. In all these things it would be wiser if the country had confidence in the men at the head of affairs so that they could go on increasing the production of munitions without divulging to the country, as my hon. Friend required, whether we are increasing the manufacture of powder or not. I think the information we supply from time to time ought not to be supplied. I read articles this last week which surprised me very much. We talk about spying and men coming over to this country to glean information as to what we are doing, but they can glean all the information in some of our public Press and sometimes in the House of Commons. In the midst of this great War, when our brothers and members of our families are fighting, suffering and dying for this country, we should be careful not to give information which can be utilised by our enemies and be of service to them. On these grounds I think it would be a danger for the Minister of Munitions to give information about the quantities of munitions that we import from America or foreign countries, or information as to the growth of our production of munitions. I believe that growth should be kept as far as possible a secret in the nation and not given world-wide publicity so that it can be read by our enemies.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

I am not at all sure that the Germans do not already know all that we know, and more than the ordinary Member of Parliament knows. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that only yesterday, I think it was, the Secretary of State for War told us that we were making in one month twelve times as many heavy guns as we had in the Army before the War. That is an important piece of information. I was glad to hear it. I do not think it did us any harm in the eyes of the Germans, or that the Germans could make more heavy guns because we are making them. You may be quite certain that the Germans will make as many heavy guns and as much ammunition as they possibly can quite regardless of what we are doing. I was considerably cheered and went to dinner quite happy when I thought there was something being done by the Ministry of Munitions which deserved very great credit. I do think that we ought to be told a little bit more as to what is going on, and given a little more explicit information when these Votes of Credit are brought forward instead of merely being told, "Oh, we are spending on irrecoverable services £3,500,000 a day, and we are advancing £1,500,000 to the Allies, and we are doing something else, I forget now the exact sum, for this, that, and the other purpose." Really, that is very little information. We can easily divide it into three or four amounts. But that is not what we want to know. We want to know something on the lines outlined by the hon. Baronet who spoke a few moments ago (Sir Joseph Walton). The hon. Baronet did not wish, I am sure, to prevent the Government from getting all the money that is necessary for carrying on the War. I will make any sacrifice, and I am sure everybody else would, to give the Government all the money that is necessary for carrying on the War. But I do not quite take the view of the hon. Member who has just sat down that we are to trust the Government in everything.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

I did not say that. So far as munitions are concerned, I think we ought to have confidence and not divulge secrets.

Sir F. BANBURY

If we do not divulge matters we must have confidence. It is rather like the confidence trick. If you do not know what is going on it is blind confidence. I am very sorry, but I am not quite certain I have. There are some points on which no doubt the Government are indispensable; but there are other points on which I think somebody might have done—shall I say—slightly better? I do not want to put it, for the moment, at more than that. I do think it is necessary to have economy, because the money in this country is not unlimited. Hon. Members, especially those below the Gangway, talk as if all one had to do was to vote a certain sum of money for it to come from somewhere. It does not come from somewhere! You cannot dig it up out of the ground! It is very necessary that we should understand what is the sum of money that we have to spend, that it is a large sum, and that it may be a great deal more later. It is very necessary that we should get value for our money, and that if we spend a sovereign we should at least get 20s. value for it. I am very much afraid that has not been done lately, or, in fact, at any time during the War, though I am quite prepared to admit that at the commencement of a big War like this it was impossible to obtain the various things that were required as economically as you would have done in ordinary times. Still, I think that there has been a great deal of extravagance.

Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite do not always receive the criticisms which are made upon their conduct quite in the right spirit. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty is not here. When he was making his speech about what he called the oilers, and the necessity that there was for a considerable loss of money he offered to obtain the figures for me, while at the same time he said that they would appear in the Report of the Controller and Auditor-General. I do not want to give the Admiralty or any other Department unnecessary work in the preparation of figures. I quite agree that possibly these figures will appear in the Report referred to. I believe myself, from what I have been told, that the loss is something like £700,000 or £800,000. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he said that if these figures appeared in the Report of the Controller and Auditor-General, and were commented upon by the Public Accounts Committee, that then they will be dealt with in this House, because we can by no manner of means always obtain a day upon which the Report of the Public Accounts Committee can be discussed.

Sir J. WALTON

There has not been one since the War.

Sir F. BANBURY

Now that we have had that statement from a member of the Government—and it is very unfortunate that he is not here—I hope it will be remembered that we may possibly require a day, and have it given, for the consideration of the Report of the Public Accounts Committee. The right hon. Gentleman said that this was an experiment. When I interposed a remark, he said it was an unfair interjection, and that we were at war, and that it was necessary to make experiments. I do not object to our making experiments. But why, when you are going to make an experiment, is it necessary to take the whole of ten ships? Why not try whether the experiment is successful upon the one ship, and if it is successful, go on with the others? If the experiment is a failure—very well, you have done your best and have failed, but, at any rate, you have not, for the purpose of your experiment, held up ten ships which were absolutely necessary in order to obtain the supply of oil which could not otherwise be sent to this country. That is what I object to. It is no answer to say to us that there has been a failure because of the War. The War ought to make the Government do everything they can to avoid failures. In ordinary times a failure is not very important, but in war a failure may be a very important matter. The result of this experiment ending in failure has been that we have been—I do not know for how long—short of a considerable amount of oil which we need not] have been short of if ordinary business methods had been introduced into this matter. Perhaps my hon. Friend opposite will ask the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty what has happened to the originator of this experiment? What has happened to the gentleman who took the ten ships by way of experiment when, as everyone knows, we were short of shipping? Is he still at the Admiralty, and is he still making experiments in this or other directions?

Mr. ASHLEY

Yes, he is still there.

Sir F. BANBURY

If he is, I hope he has been, or will be, admonished. I do not think it is sufficient for him to read in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow that a very able attack was made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Blackpool, and that all the reply that we obtained from the Financial Secretary was that it was the War. We all know that we are at war. That is no answer. Every single question, every single failure on the part of the Government, every single commission or omission, is always defended on the ground that we are at war. I am getting tired of that excuse. I should like to hear some other reason—some good reason—advanced why these things occur. There is another question I should like to have raised in regard to the statement that was made by my hon. and gallant Friend in regard to the "Aquatania." We got no answer to that. It was complained that the "Aquatania" had been changed into a different vessel seven times at a cost of £40,000 each time. What she is doing now I do not know. My right hon. Friend beside me said that she was on a sandbank.

Sir A. MOND

Not now!

Sir F. BANBURY

Not now; but the last that was heard of her was that she was on a sandbank. We ought to have an explanation of these matters, and not merely the statement that we are at war. I took the trouble to tell the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary that I proposed to raise, quite shortly, the question that I have just raised, and the answer he made across the floor of the House was to accuse me of making an unfair attack upon him. I really do think that he ought to have been here. I am quite aware that he could not have spoken again: on the other hand, he might have listened to what I had to say. It is really because we have so many hon. Members of the House who have such blind confidence in the Government.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

I have not!

Sir F. BANBURY

The hon. Member says he has not, and I am glad he has not, and that he will support the view that Ministers should be here and should answer our questions. At the present time a majority of Ministers think that they can do what they like with the House of Commons, which is disposed to be subservient. They think they ought not to be here, and go away to dinner, and to other pleasant functions, and do not stay and listen to the speeches. I hope that on the occasion of another Vote of Credit we shall have a little more explanation, and a little clearer assurance given to us of what is really being done; what steps are being taken to ensure that economy is arrived at. Otherwise, I am very much afraid that we shall find we have spent enormous sums of money, and that the prosperity in the country, which is going on now, may be very much altered. After all, I really speak in the interests of the Government itself—certainly in the interests of hon. Members below the Gangway, because if all our capital goes I do not see where employment is coming from for the labouring classes. Therefore it is very essential, not only for the conduct of the War, but for what is going to happen after the War, that due economy should be had with regard to the expenditure which is now going on.

Mr. FORSTER

I have taken note of my right hon. Friend's observations on the Admiralty case, and I will duly convey them to the proper quarter. He criticised some of those sitting on this bench for putting forward as an excuse for all their shortcomings that we are at war. I am not going to offer any excuse of that kind upon my own behalf. Everybody knows we are at war. Everybody knows we are working under great pressure—though I do not want to labour that point unduly. Neither do I complain in the least of criticism which is constructive and offered with a view to effecting economies. Nobody is more keen on economy than I am. If useful criticism can be offered against my Department I hope it will be received and be fruitful. I must make some fragmentary and disjointed observations in reply to the various points raised. Perhaps it will be simplest if I go backwards, and deal with each point in turn—I hope very shortly. The hon. Member for Stockton complains of the delay in fixing pensions, and suggested that it might be due to the congestion of work at the Royal Hospital at Chelsea. Nobody regrets that delay more than I do. I admit it exists, and I am doing everything I can to find a remedy for it. The cause of it is partly—but only partly, and not mainly—due to the congestion at Chelsea. I might say a word or two later as to the enormous volume of work that falls upon those responsible. I am hunting out and pursuing the various causes which lead to the delay, and which exist between the time of a man's discharge and the date on which his pension is fixed. I hope materially to reduce the delay.

Meanwhile, in order to see that such a man is not left without funds—and this raises the point of my hon. and gallant Friend opposite—an allowance has been arranged since the beginning of May of 10s. a week for the single man and 20s. per week for the man against whom separation allowance is being drawn. I remember once saying 20s. a week for the married man. I should like the House to realise this allowance is not confined to married men, but the 20s. per week is given to men in respect of whom separation allowance is granted. The hon. Member for Barnsley commented once more upon the numerous officers at bases, and asked if any reduction could be made? I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the question of these officers, the provision of personnel and material of all kind has been subject to close scrutiny on more than one occasion during the past two or three months, and the views which he has expressed have been borne in mind by the Army Council. Steps have been taken to reduce any redundancy of officers to the lowest possible point. Then my hon. Friend asked me whether a decision has yet been reached with regard to the question of officers drawing pension as well as pay. I think the House may take it that the present arrangement will not be disturbed before the end of the War. There are various reasons why that is so—reasons into which, I think, I need not enter at the present moment. We are doing—and this, I think, touches a point to which the hon. Member for Blackpool referred—a good deal in the way of replacing retired officers who came forward when their services were urgently needed, and who have drawn retired pay as well as service pay. We are doing a good deal to replace those officers by officers on half-pay, officers who have been wounded, officers who are no longer able to go abroad.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) asked about the provision of artificial limbs. It is a most interesting question to find which is really the best artificial limb for general requirements. We have been looking closely into the matter recently, and I hope we may be able to find, and to standardise, a limb which will be most useful for general requirements, if it can be found. I should like to reassure him that, with the exception of one of the most elaborate of the artificial limbs, we do provide at public expense artificial limbs for those who have lost either an arm or a leg. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Sir G. Toulmin), and I think my right hon. Friend also, touched upon the ignorance as to what soldiers are entitled to when they leave hospital as constituting a hardship on the soldier. If there is still an ignorance of what they are entitled to, I will see if we can take further steps. We have written in the plainest, simplest possible language pamphlets we have sent an abundant supply to all the hospitals, and we have directed that the position is to be explained to men before they are discharged, so that they may know what the pension regulations are, where to apply to, how to get their pension, and so forth. But if there is still a shortcoming in that direction, I will have it looked into again, and see what further steps can be taken.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Blackpool raised a good many points, some of which he himself admitted were points of subsidiary importance, but others that were substantial. He raised the question of the cost of advertisements, and asked whether it was the fact that the advertisements had been placed through the agency of the firm of advertising agents who have always served the War Office in time of peace. That is so, and I admit at once that I am not wholly satisfied with what has taken place. I do not think there has been any real extravagance. I do not think there has been any real waste of money, but I am bound to say I think that possibly some more economical arrangement might have been arrived at, and the whole question is being examined to see that, at any rate for the future, the most economical arrangement will be made. Then he referred to the question of ammunition boxes, presumably for small arm ammunition, and he asked if anything bad been done to widen the area, or rather to increase the number of the contractors with a view to cheapening the price. Yes, I understand that the number of contracting firms has been largely increased, and the price has been lowered from 10s. to 6s. a box. I am not quite able to trace the 3s. to which my hon. Friend referred

Mr. ASHLEY

May I explain? I freely acknowledge that, when I raised it before, I was misinformed as to the figures. I said 13s. and 3s., and it turned out to be 10s. down to 5s.

Mr. FORSTER

I cannot find that, but what we have been able to do is to reduce the price from 10s. to 7s. 6d., on one occasion to 5s. 10d., and now to 6s. I think that is a substantial, and, I hope, my hon. and gallant Friend will admit, a satisfactory reduction. I am bound to admit that with regard to the purchase of tapioca my hon. and gallant Friend has got me out of my depth. I do not really for the life of me understand, if this story is true, why we should buy tapioca through an ironmonger, but I will have inquiries made and see what the facts are. Then my hon. and gallant Friend asked why there is so large a staff in the Pay Department, and I should like, without I hope trespassing unduly on the time of the House, to give one or two figures, which, I hope, will interest the House, and show why a large staff is unavoidable. My hon. Friend has quoted figures which I gave recently, showing that in the Army Pay Department there is a staff of something like 17,000 individuals. Of course, my hon. and gallant Friend will realise that a great many of those are women.

Mr. ASHLEY

Forty-five per cent.

Mr. FORSTER

I think, possibly, rather more now. A large number are women. Of course, we are increasing the number of women employed as quickly as we can, but I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend, and the House generally, that it is exceedingly difficult to replace men trained to this special kind of work by clerks, whether male or female, who are wholly untrained. I should like to remind the House that we are at present dealing with 1,198,000 wives every week, and 1,310,100 dependants. I should like to remind my hon. and gallant Friend that in some of the pay offices the number of soldiers and their families dealt with is one and a half times as much as the whole of the original British Expeditionary Force. I do not think it is realised how the growth of various corps and regiments has increased. For instance, the Army Service Corps, which is dealt with at one pay office, numbers 213,000 men; the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 225,000 men. In the pay office at Preston, which is the largest pay office, no less than 266,000 men are dealt with. Where you are dealing with numbers of that kind, you have an enormous number of men of the same name—possibly half a dozen or a dozen common names in a regiment. You may have hundreds and hundreds of men of the same name, and the difficulty, the delay, in dealing with many individual cases occurs from the fact that it is so difficult to wed the particular dependant to the particular man. We are doing all we can to get a simple and satisfactory device which will enable us always to bring the two together, but where you are dealing with enormous numbers of men of the same name it is really exceedingly difficult. I offer that as an explanation, not as an excuse. Then my hon. and gallant Friend referred to the number of returns that have to be filled up by commanding officers. I do not know, but I expect he himself has had to fill up a good many. He will know that a great many of those returns are absolutely essential. The commanding officer of the battalion has to make returns to the pay office, the Record Office, the various offices of the command, and so forth, giving detailed financial and military history of all the men under his command. I am not a soldier myself, unhappily, and therefore I am not so familiar as my hon. and gallant Friend with these returns.

Mr. ASHLEY

The point I tried to make about these returns is that, owing to the number of battalions in a certain command, we will say, it is physically impossible for the command to read and digest anything but a small proportion, and, therefore, though the returns in theory may be excellent, in practice they may be waste paper.

Mr. FORSTER

I will certainly represent my hon. and gallant Friend's view to my military colleagues, and I am sure they will not want to impose any unnecessary burden upon commanding officers. Then my hon. and gallant Friend asked whether I could say anything yet about the remuneration paid to the hut-building agents. I am very sorry to be so long about the negotiations with these agents. They are really exceedingly difficult, and difficult negotiations are often protracted, but I have been able to make a substantial advance, I hope, within the last few days, and I trust before the House rises I may be able to say that some definite arrangement has been reached. If I cannot do that, at any rate, before the House rises I can say exactly where we stand, what we have done, and why we have not been able to do more. Then my hon. Friend referred to the question of the military embarkation officers at various ports. I understand the position is this: The Army Service Corps is responsible for the collection of the goods to the ship; the Admiralty are responsible for the stowing of the goods on the ship.

Mr. ASHLEY

Under the Army Service Corps?

Mr. FORSTER

I am informed that is not so. I am informed that the Admiralty work through the stevedores, that the stevedores are responsible to the Admiralty, and that the embarkation officers, to whom my hon. and gallant Friend refers, are the representatives of the Director of the Quartermaster-General's branch who is responsible for the whole transactions. The Director of Movements is responsible for the movement of goods from ships, and it is his representative to whom my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

8.0 P.M.

I know the case which the hon. Member has in mind, and where everything is going smoothly the duties of the officers are light. I know the work is being admirably discharged. There may occur circumstances when the duties of these officers are far from light, but I am informed that it is absolutely essential that these appointments should be maintained. I will look into the question that has been raised about the master tailors, but I am not able to deal with this matter at present. I will also inquire into the question of the medical officers on hospital ships on short voyages. I wish to refer to my hon. Friend's criticism of the arrangement made with the London General Omnibus Company. I should like, first of all, to say that I think it is a pity that my hon. Friend should make an attempt to fasten responsibility for what has been done upon any particular branch of the War Office administration. I do not think it is quite fair for my hon. Friend to use what, after all, must be private information in order to indicate that one branch of the War Office were in favour of one course, while another branch prevented those recommendations being carried out. I should not have referred to the question of the Quartermaster-General had not the hon. Member thought it right to mention this matter. My hon. Friend thinks that it is within the power of the Finance Department actually to prevent the policy which is recommended by any of this officer's colleagues from being carried out, but I should like to say that that is not so. If one of my military colleagues differs from me on a question of policy, naturally and properly the matter is settled by the Army Council, and it is not fair that anyone should say that the responsibility for having blocked or prevented the execution of some advantageous proposal rests with one branch of the Department.

Mr. ASHLEY

Is it not a fact that the Quartermaster-General is subject to the hon. Member's ruling?

Mr. FORSTER

No; we are colleagues, and a settlement in these cases is reached by reference to the Army Council. We must deal with the War Office as a whole, and we cannot fasten responsibility upon individual officers. Having said so much I think I may say that the Quartermaster-General was in favour of this proposal when it was first put forward, but after it had been examined from the legal, financial, and every point of view, he agreed with the then Financial Secretary that the arrangement which had been suggested was not so advantageous as it was thought, and that some other arrangement should be made. I wish to make one or two very general observations. My hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Ashley) says that if we had taken over the London General Omnibus Company in the early days of the War on the same lines as we took over the railway companies, that we should have only incurred an expenditure of something like £98,000, making up the difference between the post-war and the pre-war rates of dividend We should have still been under the liability of replacing what we have taken. One of the conditions on which the London General Omnibus Company were willing to make this arrangement was that we were to guarantee them against any loss they might sustain by rival and competing companies. If we withdrew their 'buses from any particular route we must guarantee them against any loss they might suffer. That was a wholly unknown liability, and the House must remember that we are dealing with a situation which arose in 1914, and in those days it was not quite so easy to foretell what was going to happen.

There is very great difference between the position of the London General Omnibus Company and the railways. When we took over the control of the railways we did so, not because we wanted to commandeer their railway stock, but because we wanted to control their traffic and be able to send trains from one system to another without let or hindrance. Here we are not concerned about the traffic of the London General Omnibus Company. We wanted their rolling stock and personnel in order to send them to France, and that was what was done. Therefore I do not think that there is any real analogy between this omnibus company and the railway companies. My hon. Friend commented upon the fact that instead of spending £98,000 to make up the dividends of the London General Omnibus Company, we had spent something like £750,000, but I would like to remind him what we have got for our money. We have paid for and bought the buses that we took. It is true that the company are buying back some of them, but they are doing so at a price which will appear in due course, and which I think even my hon. and gallant Friend will consider is comparatively satisfactory. At any rate, we know where we stand. It was then thought advisable to limit our liabilities rather than face the unknown risk of guaranteeing the company against loss of business.

I have only one further word to add in reference to what fell from my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) with regard to the administration of pensions by Chelsea Hospital. I very much regretted to hear him express the view that it is necessary to secure a successful revision of the original case to get some Member of Parliament to take it up. I do not think that is true. I think it is a mistake. Certainly, from my own experience, I do not care whether the appeal comes from a Member of Parliament or anybody else. What really matters is that there should be advanced some ground on which revision or reconsideration can take place. It very often happens that Members of Parliament are able to secure successful appeals because they have taken great pains themselves to go into the cases,-and they have consequently been able to put them very much better than ordinary people and often they are able to show a loophole for reconsideration. Whatever the hon. Member for East Edinburgh may think about the constitution of the Board of Chelsea Hospital being too military or official in character, I can assure my hon. Friend, and I speak with considerable experience of their work, that wherever it is possible to give the soldier the benefit of the doubt, or to give him the advantage of the higher rather than the lower scale, the Commissioners are invariably anxious to do so.

Mr. SAMUEL

Would the hon. Member look into the case where a man is desirable of making an appeal? Instead of making it through the Member of Parliament for the Division, would he allow that man to make the appeal to the local committee which is now constituted in most of the towns, and which would be able to assist this man very considerably?

Mr. FORSTER

I do not care in the least who helps the man to make his appeal. That is what I want the House to understand. It may be a Member of Parliament, the local committee, the Nonconformist minister, or the parson. If there is a legitimate ground for reconsidering a case, it will be reconsidered no matter who makes the appeal. I want the House to remember that Chelsea Hospital is not responsible for making the Regulations. They are only responsible for carrying those Regulations out, and their hands are tied by the terms of the Royal Warrant, which, as I have explained before, is, after all, only the expression of the intentions of the Government. It does not matter who administers the Regulations, or how many civilians you have on the Board of Chelsea Hospital, as long as you have any regulations at all I am afraid you will inevitably have a certain number of hard cases. It is these hard cases that naturally and very properly move hon. Members of the House of Commons. I can only say that I have listened with great sympathy to what my hon. Friend has said. I recognise the very genuine interest he has taken in all these pension problems, and I am always glad to have the assistance of his criticism and advice. I have, however, to remember that I have to administer soldiers' pensions according to the definite scale in relation to the circumstances of their military service, and on the lines laid down by the Select Committee of the House of Commons. Some people may think those lines are too narrow, the limits too rigid, and the rates inadequate. But the Government anticipated that criticism, and provided a desirable and necessary element of elasticity by the creation of the Statutory Committee. In criticising the War Office and the Government it is not fair to leave the Statutory Committee out of account. Within the last few days the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given them a very substantial Grant out of the public fund, and at any rate they are no longer open to the suggestion that they can only deal with cases on charitable lines. The House ought to judge the pension scheme of the Government as a whole, and I am sure if they do they will come to the conclusion that the provision which is made is on a scale which has been unattempted and even undreamed of in any other country in the world.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MUNITIONS DEPARTMENT (Dr. Addison)

There are a few points which have been touched upon in this discussion which relate to the Ministry of Munitions, and perhaps I may for a moment occupy the time of the House in replying to them. I understand that the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) has commented on the absence of some of us who are connected with the spending Departments, and that the House sympathises with what the hon. Baronet has said and expects us to be here. I am sure that I need not tell the House that one's absence is not due to any lack of respect for the House, and as a matter of fact my right hon. Friend the Minister of Munitions has always been here when we have ever known that any subject affecting the Ministry was likely to come up. The hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) was good enough to notify me to-day that he was going to raise some questions. Perhaps I might take this opportunity of assuring the hon. Baronet that if we do not happen to be here it is not because we are slacking. I am sure that just now those of us who are connected with the great spending Departments—the War Office, the Admiralty and the Ministry of Munitions—have no time to waste, and I think we are patriotic enough not to want to waste any time. I can assure him that it is not because we are out to dinner or anything of that kind. I do not think that I have dined at home once a week for the last twelve months. The work of one's office often keeps one there until nine and ten o'clock at night. It is not from any desire to shirk the proper performance of one's duty. I am sure that the House will accept that explanation.

The hon. Member for Blackpool raised a very important question as to the desirability of our employing direct labour in connection with a very large undertaking at a place in the South of England to which he referred. I am glad he also said that when the Ministry became aware that certain waste was being incurred they were quite prepared to look into the matter and try to prevent its continuance. I know in this particular case that, apparently, there was for the first three or four weeks some waste of effort. Our attention was called to it, and we got rid of a number of individuals who were concerned with that waste, as I am sure the hon. Member would expect us to do. Since that time there has been a very commendable improvement. The hon. Member knows very well, however, that when you have an enormous undertaking in hand—and this is a gigantic undertaking—you cannot in these days simply rely on local contractors. Some of them, no doubt, are competent men, but they may be without the experience and the staff to carry out a very big job. We also just now suffer from this very serious difficulty. In some of these complicated establishments—and in some respects this is a very complicated establishment—it is impossible to get contractors to quote except on a time and line basis. We have found by experience that in matters of this kind it is almost impossible to get quotations from reliable contractors except on a time and line basis. I know that the House has more than once indicated its dislike to contracts of this kind, if they can properly be avoided; but it is not always possible.

It so happened that we had at our command a very large staff of men of the highest standing and experience—mostly, I am glad to say, volunteers—who were prepared to work and assist us in seeing this undertaking through—an undertaking in which time was the essence of the contract. We, therefore, decided that we had better do the job ourselves. We did not decide that lightly. We decided it after going into the whole matter, and I am quite sure that decision was a right one. We are doing the work ourselves, and if the hon. Member goes there now he will not have much fault to find with the way in which it is being done. I do not care to mention names, but I should be glad to give the hon. Member the names of the men who are seeing this business through, and he will see that they are engineers and experts of the very highest standing. They are, with one or two exceptions, doing the work voluntarily. I am satisfied myself that we have done our best to correct the initial faults which always arise in a great undertaking, and the work is now being carried out exceedingly economically and with unprecedented speed. When you have complicated machinery, all the work, as the hon. Member knows, is not done on the spot. There are places all over the country which are now getting ready their contributions—machinery and other things—which will be installed hereafter. The hon. Member for Barnsley (Sir J. Walton) referred to our contracts with the United States of America. I do not know from where the hon. Member got his information.

Sir J. WALTON

From the "New York Times."

Dr. ADDISON

All I can say is that he is certainly out in his figures. I am not prepared to give the correct figures, but he is very largely out in his figures as to the cost of the munitions contract in the United States. That, however, is a mere detail. The hon. Baronet's main contention was that it was our duty to reduce our purchases abroad as much as possible, and to make things at home as much as we can. I need not assure the hon. Baronet that not only are we anxious to do that for munition reasons, but that the Treasury are seeing to it that we are constantly reminded of our duties in that respect. We have made great strides, and we have made strides, I think, in connection with the particular class of explosives to which he was referring almost more than in any other direction. If the hon. Member were to go to some parts of the country he would see that we have undertaken the equipment and construction of factories for the provision of explosives on an undreamed of scale. We have done this apart from the fact that we want to make as much as we can at home, because it also avoids those exchanges and other difficulties which arise from purchases abroad; and also, I am glad to say, we are producing the stuff at a very much less cost. There is in one of our explosive factories an enormous plant adapted to the production of sulphuric acid, which is turning out at the present time double the output of the whole country before the War, and although our prices for this particular commodity for foreign purchases were fixed several months ago, we are now getting material for this plant at one-fourth the cost of those prices, which is very much less than one-fourth of the present market price. As a matter of fact, in one of the factories we are turning out the stuff at such a pace that we shall have paid for the whole plant, lock, stock, and barrel, in nine months from the commencement of operations. I only mention these facts, although as a matter of fact I could go on for two hours on that subject, in order to reassure the hon. Baronet on these points, and that we are alive to the necessity of getting as much done at home as we can, and of reducing our foreign purchases as much as possible. That policy is being very vigorously pursued.

Mr. HAZLETON

I am sorry I had not an opportunity while the Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Forster) was here to draw attention to a small matter in connection with Army contracts in Ireland. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Munitions Department (Dr. Addison) to convey to him the few observations I have to make on this subject, and to ask him to inquire into them. Last month there was an Officers' Training Corps formed at the Curragh Camp, in Ireland, and, in accordance with the practice that prevails elsewhere, it was decided to provide a distinctive uniform for the members of this Training Corps. I think a grant of £8 per head was advanced to the members of the corps, which was later to be deducted from the amount given to them when they obtained their commissions. In connection with these uniforms it was decided, very properly, by the War Office to give the contract in Ireland, and the contract was given to a firm in Dublin. I am sorry to say that there seems to be a great lack of supervision in connection with matters of this kind in Ireland. I do not know whether the War Office has no suitable representative there. I am sure it does not come within the purview of General Maxwell. But although Ireland has had every reason to complain up to the present of the fact that she has not had what she considers to be her fair share of munition work, or her fair share of contracts given either by the Admiralty or by the War Office, there has been no proper supervision, and the result is that in this particular case to which I refer, while the contract was given to a tailoring firm in Dublin, the tailoring in connection with, it is being done here in London. I would like the hon. Gentleman to convey the facts to the Financial Secretary to the War Office. I can give him full information, the name of the firm in question, and the name of the places where the tailoring is being done in London. The amount involved in wages, of course, compared with war expenditure, is a very small one, amounting only to a little over £1,000. I think, however, that even for a small amount like that, Dublin and Ireland are entitled to see that it should be spent in the country.

I understand that the reason for giving the contract away out of the country has been a complaint that there is a shortage of labour. I am in a position to deny that, and I think that if the matter is inquired into it will be found that there is no justification for it whatever, and that, moreover, the War Office has only to make inquiry and it will find that there are a great many firms in the city of Dublin who would be only too glad to help in connection with the contract of this kind. My information is that, for some reason which has not been explained, only one or two firms were asked to tender for this contract. That is an entire departure from what is done in the case of Oxford, Berkhamstead, and a large number of other places where similar corps have been started, and where similar conditions prevail. I am told that in most of those places either the members of the Officers' Training Corps are allowed a very wise discretion as to where they should go for their uniform—a large number of firms are on the Government list—or else they have absolute freedom altogether. In this Irish case, however, for what reason I do not know, only one or two firms were asked to tender. This is a small matter, but I hope, as I said, that the Financial Secretary to the War Office will look into and remedy this grievance, because there is no doubt whatever that the labour can be forthcoming at Dublin, and that there is a large number of firms ready and anxious to do work of this kind if they are allowed to do so by the War Office. It is a question, I believe, for supervision, and there should be no reason at all why contracts that were meant to be carried out in Ireland should not be carried out there, where the conditions, certainly as regards labour, are ample and sufficient for work of this kind. I merely want to draw attention to this small matter in the hope that it will be looked into.

Mr. AINSWORTH

I will only detain the House a few moments, and, in fact, I feel inclined to apologise to the representatives of the War Office for keeping them here any longer. I should like, however, to call attention to a matter in regard to which I do not expect to get an answer to-day, but which has been brought forward once or twice before. It is a matter of the highest importance, and I shall be glad if I can hear from them that we shall have a definite statement from the War Office shortly as to what they mean to do. I refer to the uniforms, rifles, and accoutrements for the Volunteer Corps which are now being established all over the country. I am sorry to say that, as the House knows, it is the fact that when the Volunteer Corps first started at the beginning of the War they did not receive anything in the shape of recognition on behalf of the War Office, and in consequence the numbers during the last eight months very largely fell away. I am pleased to say that the movement now has the support, acknowledgment, and approval not only of His Majesty, but of the War Office also, and in addition it may now be said to be on an acknowledged, practical, footing. We can, however, get no information from the Department, and although in many cases large sums of money have been supplied and extremely good offers have been made to help in the clothing of the men, we have received no information from the War Office in response to numerous inquiries to questions asked here and otherwise as to what uniforms the Volunteers may buy. The only reply we get is that they may buy a green-grey cloth if they like, but that at any moment the War Office may alter it into khaki. It is possible that Volunteers may be ordered into khaki. Of course, I should think they would prefer khaki and silver buttons, or something of that kind, on the same lines upon which the old Volunteers were allowed to wear scarlet and silver buttons. The Volunteers ask for a definite answer. They have made all the arrangements they can and money has been subscribed to supply them with uniforms. All they are waiting for is a definite statement from the War Office as to the sort of uniform they should get.

With regard to accoutrements and arms, unless the Volunteers have them they would not be of much use when called out. They do not ask for arms for the whole of their members, because a good many of them being engaged in civil occupations each man would only be able to serve a part of his time, so that they would serve on alternative days or in relays. The War Office might fairly go to the extent of supplying one-fourth of the number of men with arms so that they could be used in rotation by the men. The question of accoutrements could be easily settled by their being supplied either direct from the War Office or the Army contractors. We want every step to be taken to turn the Volunteers into a practical, useful body. They are now being called upon by the Defence officers and other officials to assist in finding guards for railways, munition works and other places and also, which is very important, to assist in extinguishing fires which would be almost certain to occur if we were to have anything like a bombardment from aeroplanes. The Volunteers are quite prepared to assist the police and local authorities by going wherever they are wanted. The House should not forget that the more the duties connected with the defence of the realm are carried out by Volunteers the more Regular soldiers can be released either for service abroad or in Home defence. The House will realise the enormous help that can be given by these men. The more you give them to do the better they will be pleased. Anybody who has read the re ports in the newspapers, anybody who saw the fine show of Volunteers in this City a short time ago and who read the report of what Lord French said at the inspection of the Volunteers, knows what a fine force they are, and how useful they might be made for the defence of the country, and to release men for service abroad or Home defence. Every day in the papers we see an increasing and a continuous demand upon the country from the field, therefore it is of importance that the Volunteers should receive every assistance from the War Office so as to enable them to take the place of those men who can be sent abroad to assist in the War. I cannot expect that anyone on the Front Bench now will be able to give me an answer to-day, but I shall be extremely glad to hear from anybody who can speak with authority that the War Office is occupied with the question, and that we shall have an answer, upon which the Volunteers will be able to act.

Mr. LUNDON

I desire to ask your ruling, Sir, whether it would be possible under the heading of this Vote to raise the question of martial law in Ireland, and the attitude adopted there by Sir John Maxwell and the troops under his command?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley)

I do not think that would come under this Vote.

Mr. LUNDON

Is not the Question before the House the Voting of £450,000,000 for the upkeep of the Army, and included in that is the maintenance of the 40,000 troops in Ireland? On that are we not entitled to raise the whole question as to the conduct of those troops, of the Government, and of Sir John Maxwell and the officers?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

It is the civil authority that is responsible for the institution and the prolongation of martial law in Ireland, therefore it must be on a Civil Vote that that question must be raised. Soldiers only act under orders.

Mr. LUNDON

Do we not understand that at this moment, I am speaking on the authority of Lord Lansdowne, who said in the House of Lords that Ireland was at this moment under the control of Sir John Maxwell and of the troops there? That has not been denied by the Prime Minister or any other member of the Government. Having no Civil Court in Ireland, we are ruled by Maxwell and the gentlemen under him. Therefore I submit that we are entitled under this Vote to raise the question.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I do not think that can be permitted. Clearly the military authorities are answered for at present by the Home Secretary representing the Government of Ireland, and it is upon some Vote upon which he, or the Prime Minister, as the head of the Cabinet, can reply that this matter must be raised.

Mr. LUNDON

Will not the expenses of these 40,000 troops, and the salary of Sir John Maxwell be paid out of this Vote?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

That may be so, but we have to discuss questions v here the Minister who is responsible to this House can make his answer. It is quite clear that it is not this particular general or soldier that is answerable, but the Cabinet or the Minister who is responsible to this House.

Mr. PATRICK MEEHAN

Cannot the question be raised in this way: There is a certain number of troops in Ireland which, under martial law, and the system of government obtaining there, are kept there whereas they could be better employed either at the front in Flanders or some other place. Are we not at liberty to discuss that point on this Vote?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

No, I think not, because, as I have explained, the Cabinet, for which the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary answers, is the present Government of Ireland, and the matter must be raised on some occasion upon which they can reply.

Mr. HAZLETON

Are not the Prime Minister and the other members of the Cabinet responsible for the conduct of the War, and is it not the conduct of the War that we are discussing here to-day on a Vote of this kind, and cannot a matter affecting the troops kept unnecessarily and provocatively in Ireland be debated upon an occasion of this kind?

Mr. KING

On that point may I call your attention to the fact that there was a considerable discussion, lasting, I think, three quarters of an hour, yesterday, upon the question of the deportation of aliens. That is a matter which was not only raised by arrangement with the proper authorities but replied to at considerable length by the Home Secretary. It was entirely a matter under his purview, and if the Home Secretary can reply upon one matter on this Vote of Credit yesterday, why cannot a similar matter be raised upon this Vote of Credit to-day?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I think I am right, but I have not had any notice that this question was to be raised. I certainly think I am right, but if the hon. Member likes to raise it to-morrow with Mr. Speaker he will be quite entitled to do so. I will not say anything to prejudge that matter. Of course, if it is in order now it is equally in order tomorrow. But I still hold to my opinion on the spur of the moment that it is a decision of the Civil Government, and, therefore, not open to discussion on this occasion.

Mr. KING

I am so surprised by the ruling, which I have no doubt has many reasons, that I shall consult with my Friends, and, if possible, raise it with Mr. Speaker to-morrow.

Mr. LUNDON

I do not blame you, Sir, in the least if in raising this question I am breaking the Rules of the House and breaking even the order of Debate, but it is most extraordinary that we in Ireland have to live under the tyranny of Sir John Maxwell and you will not allow us to discuss his tyranny, while you deny us a Parliament in our own country.

Resolved, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £450,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses which may be incurred during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1917, for General Navy and Army Services in so far as specific provision is not made there for by Parliament; for the conduct of Naval and Military Operations for all measures which may be taken for the Security of the Country; for assisting the Food Supply, and promoting the Continuance of Trade, Industry, Business and Communications, whether by means of insurance or indemnity against risk, the financing of the purchase and resale of foodstuffs and materials, or otherwise; for Relief of Distress; and generally for all Expenses, beyond those provided for in the Ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war."