HC Deb 14 March 1916 vol 80 cc1985-2046
Mr. JOWETT

I beg to move to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to insert instead thereof the words "in the opinion of this House, the State should accept the responsibility for the payment of pensions and allowances to all soldiers discharged from the Army on account of diseases contracted or developed during service with the Colours and, in the case of death, pensions and allowances to the dependants, if any."

7.0 P.M.

My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary this afternoon made certain concessions to meet the acknowledged difficulties with respect to soldiers disabled by disease, or accident, contracted during service, but I respectfully suggest that those concessions are not adequate to meet the case. I understand that at present pensions of from 4s. 8d. to 7s. a week are granted to meet cases where disability arises through sonic cause which is supposed or alleged to have been in existence to some extent before. The Under-Secretary of State for War bas made the concession that at the discretion of the authorities the pension may henceforth—in cases where disease has only been developed during service—be any amount up to four-fifths of the present limit of 25s. for cases where the whole liability rests upon the State; but this leaves to the authorities the determination of the question which, to many who have dealt with this subject and have had to meet the various parties' concerned, is one of great importance—that is, that the men who have enlisted have actually been medically examined, they have been passed into the Army, and, so far as I am concerned—and I am sure this feeling of mine is shared by the members of the party to which I belong and a great many others outside that party—the mere fact that enlistment has been permitted after a proper medical examination places, or ought to place, an obligation upon the State, in case of disability arising, to meet the whole liability and pension the soldier in full if he is disabled owing to sickness which was not detected on the medical examination. Because we have to bear in mind the fact that a man who may be able with care in civilian life to go on month after month and year after year earning his living, when he has passed into the Army is subject to circumstances so different as to make it impossible for him to maintain his health and strength as he would have done in the ordinary circumstances. I submit that liability under these circumstances clearly belongs to the War Office, who ought to take that responsibility after having withdrawn him from civil life and put him into the Army. Indeed, this principle is recognised in our present law, for, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, the employer is not entitled to claim, where a man has met with an accident, that it was on account of his unfitness for the employment to which he had been allowed to devote himself. If the employer takes the responsibility of employing a man who may be unfit for his particular work, the Workmen's Compensation Act in no way absolves the employer from paying compensation in case of accident. It is only in the case of wilful neglect on the part of the workman, after his engagement and during the term of his employment, and when, the employer is able to say that the man, through contributory negligence of his own, is responsible for the accident, that the employer escapes the obligation of paying compensation.

The right hon. Gentleman, the Under-Secretary of State for War, has to-day stated the concession which is to be made, and I submit that, clearly, if that concession is just, it should apply not only to future cases but to the cases of those who are already suffering by reason of an adverse decision on the part of the War Office. I trust my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office will assure us that the terms of the promised concession will be made retrospective and that it will not merely cover cases which occur in future. I will await the hon. Gentleman's reply to that. May I pursue the subject by giving a few examples of what has been happening up to now; they are the kind of cases which it is clearly the duty of the War Office to meet. Let me interpolate, if I may, this remark, that among all the tasks and duties that fall to Members of Parliament during the present trying period of this nation's history, there is none which can be regarded as so unsatisfactory as that of dealing with the cases of disabled soldiers who have returned to civil life through sickness. We have heard it said that Members of Parliament in these days have not much to do, but my experience is that they have more than ever to do. Any Member who takes a serious interest in his Constituency, day after day has to go through a large mass of correspondence relating to Army grievances, and of all the duties which fall to Members of Parliament owing to this War, those which relate to the cases of these men of whom I speak are the worst. Let me give several cases. I take that of a private of the 3rd West Yorkshire Regiment. He was in business for himself, but through patriotic fervour he enlisted in the early part of the War—on 1st September, 1914. After serving one year and 129 days, he was invalided from the front, and discharged from the Army as medically unfit. Owing to terribly bad weather he contracted what is known as trench neurasthenia. He has a wife and two children, and the authorities granted to him 4s. 8d. per week. That man, at the present time, is the inmate of a workhouse.

Another case, that of a private in the South Staffordshire Regiment, was brought to the notice of the Financial Secretary to the War Office, of whom I wish to sax, and I think all Members will agree with me, that he is at all times invariably courteous and anxious to assist; I have no fault to find with him. This private received a gun shot wound in the ankle, and, after being in the hospital, he was discharged. He was in the South African War, and wears the South African medal. He was in the retreat from Mons in the early part of this War, and he repeatedly slept in wet clothes on wet ground. His hardships were such as we can all understand—they were extremely great, and what is more likely then that the particular complaint from which he suffered, rheumatoid arthritis, was caused by the hardships, exposure, and sleeping on the ground in wet clothes while he was on military service? Yet the decision of the medical board was that the disease from which he suffered was not due to his military service. I cannot understand how, under the circumstances which I have described, any body of men, medical or lay, could undertake the tremendous responsibility of saying that the man's disablement through sickness was not caused by his military service. But it is the fact that this man, in spite of his long service, in spite of the fact that he was passed into the Army after medical examination, is only receiving 4s. 8d. per week, and he is entirely disabled front ordinary work in civil life. The next case is that of a private in the Seaford' Highlanders, who joined on 15th June last year. He was invalided home from the front suffering from bad feet. On the 23rd January this year he was admitted into the imbecile ward of a Poor Law hospital. Here let me ask why this malt should be put into a lunatic asylum or imbecile ward? Surely it might have been expected that he would be placed amid associations different from those of a lunatic asylum or imbecile-ward until it was clearly established that such a course was necessary. This man's mother is a widow, and she has received notice that she is liable to the Poor Law authority for his maintenance and support at the rate of Hs. per week, notwithstanding that she has another son in the Army who has been wounded and has returned. Still another son has attested and is waiting his turn to be called up. I am sure. I need say no more about this case, and that the details will fall on sympathetic ears.

The next case is that of a private in a Welsh Regiment disabled by bronchitis and rheumatism brought on by exposure. The man was a stoker in civil life, habitually working in front of a hot furnace. It is not an extravagant thing to expect that a man so employed and normally healthy would break down by living in tents, sleeping on damp ground, and other necessary forms of exposure. That was actually the case. This is one of the reasons why we say that the medical examination carried out by the War Office should itself be the warrant for the responsibility of the State in the case of any illness not due to the act of the man from that time forward, but due to the changed circumstances of living. This man of whom I have been speaking had never previously received a penny of sick pay from the society of which he is a member and of which my hon. Friend (Mr. Hodge) is the secretary. It must therefore follow that he enjoyed good health before he joined the Army. In that case he gets no pension at all. The next is the case of a soldier in the West Yorkshire Regiment who enlisted in September, 1914, and was discharged 1915, vomiting blood from the stomach. He has received no grant from the Army authorities. He had no illness previous to enlistment. It may well be that there may have been in certain cases incipient phthisis. A man under those circumstances might have gone through civil life engaged in a civil occupation without a disease of the kind developing. That in itself, along with the medical examination, throws the responsibility for what happens on the State. We contend that the Department which is responsible for making such a violent change in a man's life after medical examination should be responsible for compensation if he returns to civil life disabled. The next case is that of a man who enlisted on 7th November, 1914, and who was discharged suffering from gastritis and enteritis, and who has suffered from no previous illness. I could give any number of other instances, and at least fifty are here available if required.

The question for the Financial Secretary to face here and now is, what changes are going to be made? This sort of thing cannot go on. I do not think there is a Member of the House who has not been brought into contact with numerous cases of hardship arising from this cause. It is creating much bitter feeling and I can say with full responsibility that it is having a serious effect upon the attitude of the ordinary members of the public towards the Army and the military service. Every one of those cases where a man is sent back to civil life, broken in health and unable to work, creates a centre of dissatisfaction and complaint which it behoves the Government not to allow to exist any longer. I recognise that the concession under which twenty shillings per week is to be paid where total disability has been contributed to by the Service. We are thankful for that concession, but what we want to know as well is, what is to become of the cases that have accumulated up to now. Are they not to have the same justice dealt out to them as is to be dealt out to those cases that are considered in future? There is then the question as to the body that determines these matters. We have the Chelsea Commissioners. Who are they? They are some kind of a mystery board, or as an hon. Friend here suggests, a secret society. It is not satisfactory that these cases should go before a body of that kind. I respectfully suggest to the Minister in attendance that some body ought to be entrusted with this work which is more accessible and the existence of which is known, and the members of which are known and responsible. Why not put this work in the hands of the Pension Committees. Those Committees have done the work entrusted to them up to now very well. At any rate some change should be made so that the body responsible for this work should not be so far away from the persons concerned as are the Chelsea Commissioners.

Let me also refer to the medical boards and again I ask, who are they? They are, I suppose, creatures of the War Office, or the War Office, at any rate, appoints them. The safety of anonymity is not quite the thing in a matter of this kind. Whoever is to determine questions of this sort should be responsible and known and it should not be persons who are hidden away behind a screen and who cannot be brought to book for their actions. Surely in cases of dispute there should be a right given to the aggrieved person, the injured man, to produce his own doctor to give evidence. The testimony of the man's own doctor would be very valuable towards securing justice. We await with considerable interest and anxiety the statement that is to be made on behalf of the Government, and we trust that the hon. Gentleman who is to make that statement will meet the necessities of the case, not only by proposing to deal with those cases that have already occurred, but also, and I lay great emphasis on this, that he will make it perfectly clear that when a man undergoes examination before enlistment and is passed into the Army with the knowledge of the great difference of conditions under which Army life is conducted as compared with civil life, that, save and except when and where the man himself has brought on his illness, in cases of disablement he should be considered to be disabled by reason of his employment, that is, by reason of his military service.

Mr. HODGE

In rising to second the Amendment, I would seek to emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend that justice cannot be done unless any concession made by the War Office is retrospective. I do not intend to give any examples in addition to those given by my hon. Friend, but, if need be, we have here over fifty cases equally as bad as those cited by him. The examples given must have convinced the House of the strength of the case which we are presenting. I am sure that one of the things at which every Member of the House wonders has been the lack of consideration by the War Office for the soldier who has come back disabled, not only by wounds but by disease, as compared with the treatment of similar cases by the Admiralty, which has been much more humane than that meted out by the War Office. My hon. Friend has dealt with the question of the examination by the medical officers before a man is enlisted. We know that in the early days of the War the examination was very severe and rigid. That of itself is a demonstration that when a man breaks down as a result of the hardships of the training and the difference in his method of living and housing as compared with civilian life, it is easy to undertand how a man contracts disease. We have many complaints. The fifty cases I have here are cases upon which no representations have yet been made to the War Office, although I think I must have made myself a bit of a nuisance to the Financial Secretary by the number of cases I am continually putting before him. I cannot say that in very many instances I have received satisfaction, but we will hope that, the Department having come to realise their sins and turned over a new leaf, much better treatment will be meted out in future. At any rate, we must emphasise the point that justice will not be done unless every man who has been discharged has his case re-heard and re-dealt with.

When all is said and done, the War Office have been casting on a section of the community a burden which ought to have been a national burden. The national insurance societies have had this burden put upon them. When a man is discharged from the Army, and immediately declares sick, he gets 10s. a week for twenty-six weeks from the approved society, and if no pension or only a partial pension is forthcoming, he becomes a burden on his society in respect of invalidity pension. The Financial Secretary, who is inch an expert so far as the National Insurance Act is concerned and who took such an active part in the Debate when that measure was passing through the House, must realise that the actuaries never took into their consideration the question of men coming back broken or wounded as a result of war. The present custom of repaying to the approved societies one-half of the twenty-six weeks' sickness benefit is inequitable. It is unfair to put upon any section of the community a burden which should be borne by all, and more particularly to put that burden upon the workers, who are the subject of compulsory thrift so far as sickness and invalidity are concerned. We on these benches, at any rate, will never be contented until these moneys have been refunded in full to the approved societies by the War Office. While we get many complaints from the rank and file with regard to this kind of treatment, up to the present I have not had a single complaint so far as officers are concerned. Is it that you have a different standard for the rank and file as compared with the officer? I do not grudge anything that is given to the officer any more than I grudge it to the man. I have already said from my place in the House of Commons that never have we had better leadership, so far as our officers are concerned, than we have had during the present War. Nor have we ever had a closer relationship between the rank and file and the officers than we have to-day. There is real comradeship between them. We have heard of many episodes where the officer has sought to save his private's life and lost his own; and we have also heard of the gallantry of the private seeking, at the expense of his own life, to save that of his officer. These are deeds in which we all glory, because they are a demonstration of the courage of our race.

Reference was also made by my hon. Friend to the Chelsea Commissioners. Is it not possible for that body of gentlemen to be reinforced by perhaps some members of this House, who would bring a new view of the position to the consideration of these cases on the question of pensions? We are all conscious of the fact that bodies of this kind get into a rut, and it becomes necessary that new blood Should be introduced to get them out of it. I, at any rate, hope that something may be done in that direction. Those of us who listened to the Under-Secretary of State for War this afternoon must have realised that his speech demonstrated a change in the policy of the War Office in the direction we are now advocating. In the early days of the War there was a. wave of enthusiasm as well as of decision in all ranks and classes that never again should our broken-down warriors require to seek the shelter of the workhouse. But my hon. Friend has given one case where a broken-down warrior who deserved better of his country has had to take that course. It is not the only case in those fifty of which I have spoken. There are various others. One very bad case occurred in South Wales, where a man came back broken as a result of his service, having a wife and four children to keep. He has had to receive 11s. per week parish relief, which, plus the 10s. sick benefit for twenty-six weeks, was all that stood between him and having to find the inside of the workhouse with his wife and children. In these days of high prices for commodities we can appreciate that 21s. per week from these two sources is not sufficient to maintain a man and his wife with four children. I do most earnestly urge that the Department should treat the men with more consideration and humanity. If they err at all, let them err on the men's side.

We have also to realise that the occurrence of numerous cases of this kind has had a most evil influence on recruiting. Why is it that to-day we have a demand for a moratorium? Why is it that married men are hesitating about coming forward, particularly men who are in rather good positions? Because they have come to hear that those who come back broken in health are being so badly treated. That of itself ought to be an inducement to the War Office to treat these cases with greater concern, more care and more generosity. When the Under-Secretary was making his speech he paid a tribute to those members of the House who had been taking part in recruiting. He thanked and lauded them for their services. I think the reward we have received for our services is poor indeed if the men who came forward as the result of our efforts are, when they come back broken from the War, to be treated in the way indicated by my hon. Friend. With respect to the small amount of pension given in some of the cases, there seems to me to be a lack of appreciation of the amount necessary to keep the home of a working man going. I am afraid amongst the Chelsea Commissioners there is no representative of the workman—not one there who can put forward the point of view of the workman's home. Such a position reinforces the claim we have made that that particular body of gentlemen should be added to as I have indicated. I believe the House is not only absolutely sympathetic with the Motion which has been made, but one might say is determined that justice shall be done to those who have come back as the result of having been broken in this great struggle. There is another point which I think has not been stated either during this Debate or on any previous occasion. What are we doing for the nurses who come home broken as the result of war service? So far as I understand it, nothing is being done for them. I sincerely hope that if the War Office has not so far taken notice of this subject that they will do so.

Colonel YATE

The hon. Member who has just addressed the House was quite right when he said that the subject on which he spoke has the full sympathy of the House. The question of invalided soldiers was one raised by myself the other day on another Vote, and I do not want to repeat what I then said. But I do wish to join with the two hon. Members who have just spoken in urging this question on the attention of the right hon. Gentleman who to-day represents the War Office. So far as I could gather from what the Under-Secretary said, it appears that he has already agreed to give four-fifths of their pension to men who come back invalided by disease aggravated by service. We ail rejoiced to hear that statement. It will go a long way towards allaying the anxiety which has been caused throughout the country. The Financial Secretary, who will speak subsequently, will no doubt be able to give us further assurances, but from what the Under-Secretary said I think we may all rest assured that these men will now receive the treatment they deserve.

Mr. BARNES

I should like to supplement what has already been said by my hon. Friend, and I also want to open up further ground. I would like to direct the attention of the House to a warrant which is dated 19th February last, and which deals with cases of pensions to dependants other than wives and children. This warrant is of such a character that really it has been drawn up without any proper advice as to how it would bear upon the cases dealt with, and without any connection as to the possible income of the persons dealt with. In paragraph 2 of this warrant the dependants in question are described as "Dependants, Class (A) parents and others." I will only deal with the father, because I want to make the thing as simple as possible. What I say in regard to the father will also apply to the others. In the first sentence of this paragraph all parents are dealt with who are totally dependent upon a soldier. Divested of its official language—no figures are mentioned here, but we know what the person is entitled to under certain circumstances—it means—at least I take it so—that if a man has been totally dependent upon a son who gets killed, that dependant may get 10s. per week pension. The second sentence of the paragraph sets out the position of those who have been only partially dependent. As I read it, it means that that person shall be entitled to 5s. per week. There is no intermediate step. It is either 10s. or 5s. Let us note the bearing of this.

Mr. HOGGE

Take the father and the mother!

Mr. BARNES

I am making it as simple as possible. There may be no mother. I am taking the position of the father by way of illustration. In this country there are, perhaps, between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 of working-class people who belong to friendly societies, trade unions, and various voluntary organisations. These men have paid into these voluntary organisations during a long working life. I belong to one—the Hearts of Oak—from which, should I be so unfortunate as to be dependent for a few shillings when I get to be old—or shall I say older?—I shall be entitled to 4s. per week. There are other societies, I believe, which have a system of reduced sick benefit, by which a person when he gets old, and is no longer able to work, though he may be able to potter about, gets 2s 6d. a week. Take the Odd-fellows, or the Foresters. The man gets 2s. 6d. per week for either of these, and he gets it because he has paid for it. Let us not forget that. I want to emphasise that. The man has paid for this 2s. 6d. during a long life of industry. Then there comes along this warrant. Consider the position of the man who does not belong to any society at all, but who has probably earned just as much money as the man who has. The roan -who has been thrifty and has paid his money week by week into his society, who has saved, and saved by collective savings and putting his savings with those of his fellows, gets 7s. 6d. per week—that is to say, 5s. from the Government and 2s. 6d. from his society, while the man who has never saved at all and belongs to no society gets 10s. That is, as I read it, the meaning of this document. There is no 10s. mentioned, and there is a lot of official language with which I am not going to trouble the House, but I have given the common sense of the document. Will the right hon. Gentleman when he gets up to speak defend that document? Can anybody defend it? If he cannot defend it will he undertake to get it redrafted in such a way that the man who gets 2s. 6d. per week, or whatever it may be, shall not be worsened because he is getting that 2s. 6d. a week? I put forward that claim. I think it is a reasonable claim. I suggest that the man should be left that 2s. 6d. in addition to the 10s. I do not want to put forward any immoderate claim, and I shall be quite satisfied if my right hon. Friend will say that at all events the man who has saved that 2s. 6d. shall not have that 2s. 6d. put against him as part of his income, but that he shall be regarded in the same way as a man who had been totally dependent upon his son, and gets 10s. Passing from that I want to mention the matter of accidents. I came in while my hon. Friend the Member for West Bradford was speaking, and therefore I do not know if any mention at all has been made of accidents.

Mr. JOWETT

None whatever!

8.0 P.M.

Mr. BARNES

Then I will proceed to say something. I am not going to weary the House with a lot of cases. They are all well known. There have been numerous cases. They have been before the House, and they have been the subject of newspaper comments. It is, however, well known that there are a large number of men who have come back from the front having met with accidents in France and elsewhere. I know there are a number of cases about which the less said the better.;The tragic circumstances under which men have lived in France are such that possibly there may be some cases which will not bear very close examination. On the other hand, there are a large number of cases where men have met with accidents in respect of whom no complaint can be made. These men, I think, ought to get something in respect to those accidents. I have here a case about which I have been written to by a town councillor of Glasgow. The letter points out that if a soldier is killed from an accident of any kind, even while on service in France, there is no pension granted to the widow or children. This man was a driver in the 119th Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, and he met with injuries which caused his death by falling out of a troop train, shortly after leaving a certain railway station in France. He was attempting to go from one horse-truck to another when the train was in motion. Let me quote from the War Office letter: The death of your husband was due to his own fault. It is regretted that yourself and children are not liable for a pension. The case has been noted that it may be considered in due course by the Statutory Committee. Any claim for a dependant's pension should be put forward when the proposed Statutory Committee is in a position to deal with it. I happen to know, because I am a member of that Statutory Committee, that these poor folk may be grey-headed before that statutory Committee may be able to deal with the case. I submit, however, that the case is not one for the Statutory Committee. The Statutory Committee will deal with charitable funds. I submit to the House that we have no right to allow men who meet with accidents of this sort to be dealt with by charitable funds. I am going to submit to the right hon. Gentleman that he might adopt the principle of the Compensation Act. This has been mentioned before, but no reply was given. The Compensation Act lays down the reasonable, plain, common-sense principle that a man who meets with an accident in or about or in the course of his employment is entitled to some solatium. Now why should not the War Office adopt the same principle in regard to accidents which happen in France? I see no reason why they should not. Of course, there are cases where an accident has occurred through serious or wilful misconduct, and I think the widow and children of a man, even if he meets with his death through serious and wilful misconduct, are still entitled to the full amount. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us plain, straightforward reason, if there is any reason, why the War Office should not adopt the same principle with regard to accidents which happen in France, or anywhere else for that matter, that we have already imposed on private employers of labour throughout the country. Coming to the matter which has been pretty fully discussed already—that is, the question of disease—I join with my hon. Friends here in welcoming the change that has been made. As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman now proposes that a man who develops a disease in contradistinction to having contracted one, shall in future be entitled to four-fifths of the pension. Of course, that is better than nothing at all; in fact, it may be said to be a very great improvement on anything which had been in operation prior to this War even in regard to disease contracted during war, and we are grateful that so much advance has been made towards meeting those eases in the spirit just enunciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Hodge). But there are difficulties in the way, and I would like to point out one or two. First of all, will there not be a disposition on the part of those disbursing funds to be less generous than they would otherwise be with regard to the 25s.? Human nature is human nature after all, and the Medical Board, or whoever it is who has to decide as to the eligibility for a pension, and what the amount of that pension shall be, having in their mind that there is a sort of second-degree pension, will not be so much disposed, as they otherwise would lie, to give the man a full pension. Let me give an illustration from my own experience recently. I was in France trying to get men from the Army into the workshops, and we got a good few. First we had to deal with men as to whether or not they were eligible to come hack for the workshops—that is to say, whether they had sufficient skill or not, and there was no second course in dealing with men who were not up to top-hole standard. After a little while there came along a man from the Flying Department, and he offered to take men who were not quite up to our standard, but, being young men, could be trained sufficiently, from his standpoint. After that we were not so exacting as we had been, and we put men into the second standard, so to speak, so that that shows what, I think, may be present in the minds of those who disburse these pensions when it comes to the question of a second standard being set up, and many men, who might otherwise get the 25s., will only get the 20s. I should like to have some assurance that that, at all events, will be safeguarded in some way, and if you are now giving 25s. in cases of extreme aggravation, or to men who have developed disease only after a few months abroad or in camp life at home, those cases shall be still met by the 25s.

Then I should like to be assured on another point. What standard are you going to set up as to when a man is to be entitled to this 20s.? Of course, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty last week put the case of men who might be examined this week and break down the week following, and he put it to us whether we demanded a full pension for those men. [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes, certainly!"] After all, we have to look into the matter in the light of common sense. But a man might be examined this week and, although he might not know it, there might be some latent disease, and a month in the trenches might develop that disease, and I should like to be assured that, at all events, the man shall get 20s. if he breaks down within a reasonable time of being passed by the doctor. I think you ought to have regard to your own doctor having passed a man into the Army, and, therefore, he ought to have a pension—four-fifths, as it may be.

We are grateful so much advance has been made since we first discussed this proposal. We are still somewhat sceptical as to how it is going to be worked out, and I should like to be assured on those points I have mentioned, and particularly I should like my right hon. Friend to reconsider that Warrant, dated 19th February—less than a month ago—and which seems to me to he a Warrant we cannot look at for a single moment. We must. make an emphatic protest against that. It is a Warrant not yet understood—in fact it is not yet known—but as soon as it gets known throughout the length and breadth of the country and by the rank and file of the trade unions and friendly societies, if it is not altered there is going to be a. row about it, and. T should like my right hon. Friend to avert that row if possible, and to say quite frankly that he will reconsider the Warrant with a view of preserving for the man the 2s. 6d., 3s., 4s or whatever it may be, which accrues to him as a result of his own saving. Then I want to emphasise what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton as to the change being made retrospective. I have numerous cases. Let me mention one. I began last week when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty stopped me. I know it is the ease with the Army. This is the case of a man named James Gardner, belonging to one of the Scottish regiments who joined somewhere about the back end of 1914. He had rheumatics, so the doctors say—latent rheumatics. He went into the trenches and was there for some months, and was afterwards somewhere in the .south of England. He made complaint to a doctor in the Army, and the doctor actually said he was shamming, but after some little time the man had to be put in hospital, and after some months the man was discharged from the Army. After the Army doctor had actually charged the man with shamming, the Medical Board, before whom his case was put, say that not only was he not shamming but that he had latent rheumatics before going into the Army, and he is refused any pension. I mention that case to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton has said as to the absolute need, from the point of view of justice, of reviewing these cases, so that that man and hundreds like him shall come under the terms of the new arrangement. I should like some reassurance that such a man may have the benefit of the change about to be made.

Mr. BUTCHER

I desire to express my warm support of this Amendment. The Under-Secretary this afternoon concluded his interesting speech by paying the warmest eloquent tribute to the splendid gallantry which our men have shown in the fighting in the field—an eloquent and well-deserved tribute. In this House we are determined that our admiration and gratitude shall not end in words, more especially for those of our men who have come home after their gallant display disable? from further service in the field. And let me associate myself entirely with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton, that, if we are going to err in this matter, let us err on the side of the disabled men. This War is costing us a great deal, but of all the cost that is being incurred in this War, or will be incurred after it, I believe there is no cost which the country will pay more gladly than the cost of seeing our disabled soldiers saved from penury and want. This is an Amendment which will command the sympathy of every man in this House, and I think every man outside, but I venture to think that some of us who are perhaps better off in this world's goods—it may be better off than we deserve—have not quite imagination enough to realise what the fate of these disabled men is when they come back to their homes. They are not only broken in health when they come hack to their wives and families, but if they have not got sufficient to enable theta to keep—I will not say starvation from the door, but their families in reasonable comfort, then their fate is bitter indeed. I was glad to hear from the Under-Secretary that the Government had taken the matter into their consideration, and I have no doubt we shall hear from my hon. Friend presently that they are going to treat it in a generous manner.

There is one point which has already been referred to, and I hope my hon. Friend may be able to give us an assurance upon it, and that is, that the alterations indicated will be retrospective. There can be no reason I can see why a man who is disabled after this date, 14th of March, should receive a certain allowance, and a man who was disabled before should receive less. The thing is inconceivable. It may have been clue to pressure of work in the War Office, to indecision, or to other causes, but no one could suggest that the disabled man should suffer because of that delay or indecision, and, therefore, although the Under-Secretary was unable to assure us this afternoon that this change will be retrospective, I do trust he will be able to give us that assurance, and be able, on the general question now before the House, to comply with the demand not only made in this House, but throughout the country, for generous treatment of those men who have become disabled in the service of their country.

Mr. GILBERT

As a recently elected Member of this House I wish to support the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Jowett). I have taken part in a number of recruiting meetings, and when we addressed those meetings we promised those present that if they were disabled the country would give them adequate pensions, in order that they would be able to live if they were so disabled. I do not think there were any recruiting meetings held in any part of the country where similar promises were not given. I would like to mention one case brought before my notice from my own Constituency, to show how the War Office treat some of these cases. 'This is the case of an Army Service man, who was a motor transport driver and belonged to the Special Reserve, which was formed before the War commenced, and he was called up at the outbreak of war as a motor transport driver. He served abroad for over twelve months, and last September he was sent home ill, suffering from a nervous breakdown, and he was sent to the military hospital at Napsbury, where they deal with such cases. He was there until February, and then his wife was informed that his case was hopeless and that he had been sent to one of the county asylums, certified as a lunatic. Three days after she had received notice that her husband had been sent to the asylum she received notice from the paymaster that she would receive no further allowance. She told me when her husband was at Napsbury they told her that the best thing she could do to help to bring her husband to his normal condition was to go and visit him and bring her four children to see him as often as possible. She told me also that any savings she had managed to accumulate from the money allowed her by the War Office while her husband was on active service had been spent in fares taking herself and children to see her husband while he was at Napsbury. Her husband's certificate is marked "very good," and he had performed all his duties in a satisfactory manner. I think this is an extremely hard case which I am quite certain this House and the country does not wish the War Office to treat without a pension.

I took this case up, and I sent it to the War Office and to the new Statutory War Pensions Committee, and I was told by a distinguished member of that Committee, whom I know personally, that this was not a case for them to deal with, but one in which the War Office ought to allow a pension. I believe the Statutory Committee have sent this case to the War Office, telling them that it is a case with which they ought to deal. I said to my friend on the Pensions Committee, "What is to become of this woman and her children, while this case is being sent back from the Statutory Committee to the War Office in order to find out whether they should allow this woman a pension or not?" I have other cases, but this is the worst one that has come under my notice from my own Constituency. I want to put it to the House and to the right hon. Gentleman who represents the War Office, that we do not want cases of this kind to happen. I do not know the reasons why the War Office took the view they did of this case, or whether they took it from the point of view of economy. If that is their view, I want to tell them I do not believe the country will support them. We are spending a great deal of money on this War. Up to the present the country has cheerfully borne that expenditure, and I am sure that people do not mind if it costs £5,000,000 or £10,000,000 a year more, as long as these men get an adequate and proper pension.

I will mention another case which is not quite so important as the one I have just dealt with. A woman complained to me that she had got no pension, and she said that living in the same building as herself was the wife of an alien enemy whose husband was interned in this country, and who was receiving through the guardians an amount which I believe is paid by the Government of this country. She complained that although her husband had fought for his country and done his duty, she was cut off without a pension, while the wife of an alien enemy was receiving a grant from the country. I think the hon. Gentleman who represents the War Office ought to realise that the electors outside—and I can speak with some recent knowledge, having fought a contested election only two months ago—do want these men who have gone to fight our battles recognised and treated generously, and in cases like the one I have mentioned I do not think you ought to turn these men down and you should provide them with adequate and proper pensions.

Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL

I rise to support very heartily the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Bradford, because I think it is a proposal which ought to be carried and which the Government ought to accept. There is one remark made by the hon. Member for York about which I think there ought to be some explanation. I understood the hon. Member to say that there was a date fixed for the new pension coming into force which the Government had suggested.

Mr. BUTCHER

I was only illustrating my point that the change should be made retrospective.

Mr. SAMUEL

I understood the hon. Member to say that a date had been fixed. If that had been the case it would be most serious, because we are most anxious that if this proposal is going to be brought into operation and the Government are going to act, it should be retrospective. Like the last speaker, I have had a number of cases brought to my notice of men suffering from disease, or who have died from the effect of disease, whose families are not in any way benefited or pensioned; in fact, in one of these cases the War Office refused a pension. Before I mention this particular case may I say that when this matter was debated the year before last, the present Colonial Secretary undertook to discuss these points from the other side of the Table, and he raised over and over again the case of the man who suffered from disease, and we understood—or at least I understood, and I am quite certain that those who addressed meetings asking for recruits also understood—that the men who suffered from disease would receive a pension, or in case of death their families would benefit. I called the attention of the War Office to a particular case some time ago of a man who was for many years—in fact I think for teens of years—a Volunteer. He continued with the Territorials, and he was in camp when the War broke out. He was passed by the doctor; he served for fifteen months in the Territorials, and he died. His wife applied for a pension and her brother-in-law brought the case to me, and I submitted it to the War Office. It is because they allege that they were suffering from some disease before the outbreak of the War that they refused the widow and the family any pension. She has a number of children, and it is an extremely hard case. I have called the attention of the Financial Secretary to the War Office, whom I have always found to be very generous and very fair in his treatment of these cases, to it. but it is a principle that has been laid down by the War Office, and I think it is a matter which the House ought to take up. I contend that in these cases the widows and the children are as much entitled to a pension as if the man had died on the field of battle. I hope the Government will take these cases into their consideration. There are a very large number of complaints in the different constituencies about them, and I am quite certain that unless there is a remedy found those complaints will continue to grow.

Mr. BARTLEY DENNISS

It is only a month or two ago that the Prime Minister stated, with some heat, that the Army was not represented in this House. I never had an opportunity of answering that until to-night. The Army now is the nation and the Army is represented in this House. I say that for the purpose of suggesting to the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the War Office that if this Amendment under any circumstances is pressed to a division, which I do not believe it will be, he will find that the House is so sympathetic and so absolutely in favour of it that when the pressure of the Government Whips will not have the slightest effect. For my part, at almost every recruiting meeting I addressed—and they were very numerous—I told them that we should never let the men who were offering their lives for us in our emergency go into the workhouses, and that pledge I intend to keep in spite of any Government Whips. The Under-Secretary of State for War, I think, has almost met the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution. He has announced that although a man may have had some latent disease before he enlisted yet if it has been developed or aggravated by the War he is to have a pension, and the amount is to be four-fifths of the ordinary pension for wounds or injury caused by actual belligerency. I do not know whether that is sufficient or not, or whether it will meet the views of the Labour party, but I think on the whole it is a compromise which this House might accept.

There is outstanding the question of whether these pensions on this more generous scale, or rather more just scale—this ought not to be a question of generosity, but of justice—are to be made retrospective or not. I hope the Financial Secretary of the War Office will assure us that those who, before a particular date when this subject had not been properly considered by the Government, were only to get the miserable pension of 4s. 8d. per week, will now be put in the position in which they ought to have been put if the Government had considered this question earlier in the War. I think there will be no doubt about it, but of course one has to make sure. The House ought to remember, and I am sure it will remember, the pleas that have been made by the members of the Labour party regarding the hardships inflicted upon the insurance societies, the trades unions, and the friendly societies by reason of the refusal of these pensions or by reason of the small amount of them. It will also remember that this money should not be regarded as a charge upon the public purse, because the Poor Law is largely and will be largely relieved by the pensions given to these men who have been fighting for us. All those who go into the workhouse become a charge upon the local rates, and I can never see much distinction between the payment of rates and the payment of taxes.

I should like to say a word on the question of accidents. I had a very extra- ordinary case brought to my notice from Egypt, where the Territorials of my constituency were stationed for a time. One of them, a young fellow, went up to the Pyramids, and when there fell off one and was injured. He was refused the pension. The Financial Secretary to the War Office very kindly said that he was putting his case before the Statutory Committee for the exercise of their charitable consideration, and I have no doubt that he will do so. That is a case upon the line. It is very difficult to know whether accidents of that kind ought to be the subject of a pension or not. In another case a man who was in charge of horses on a train in France was killed whilst passing from one coach to another, and his widow was refused a pension. That is a case in which the pension ought certainly to have been granted. He was not doing it for his pleasure, but with the idea of doing his best for his country. He was trying to get from one truck to another to meet some emergency that had occurred in the other truck. He had not been forbidden to do it by the military authorities, and a soldier is always obliged to do everything that is needed of him, even although he may endanger his life in doing it. It could not be said to be serious or wilful misconduct, and had it been a case under the Workmen's Compensation Act, knowing as I do so well the decisions given under that Act, I can cay that it would not have been called serious or wilful misconduct, and his widow would have got the full pension. I quite agree with the members of the Labour party with regard to the constitution of the Statutory Committee. They are altogether out of touch with the ordinary affairs of the working classes. They have little or no knowledge of what constitutes a sufficient sum for the support of a working man and his family, and, besides that, it is tainted with charity. We are the most charity ridden country in the world. I should like' to see charity obliterated, at any rate in all cases concerning these men who have risked their lives and their limbs in the service of the country.

Mr. RAFFAN

I desire to join with my hon. Friends in expressing my appreciation of the concession announced by the Under-Secretary of State for War this afternoon. It is a very real and a very substantial concession, and if it is administered in a generous spirit there is no doubt that it will meet the vast majority of the cases which will arise in the future. I desire to say that, very strongly and very frankly, but I am bound to say I cannot understand why there is this hesitation to give a plain answer to the repeated question as to whether the cases which have arisen in the past are to receive the benefit of this concession. I am glad to hear that cheer from the Front Bench to the view that this should be administered in a generous spirit, but there could be no more niggardly way of applying the concession than to say that while the man who may be broken in the War in the future is to receive the benefit, the man who has been broken in the War in the past is not to receive it. I cannot imagine what the Government can hope to gain by adopting any such attitude.

Mr. TENNANT

I would ask my hon. Friend not to be in quite such a hurry.

Mr. RAFFAN

When I put a question in the House this afternoon the Financial Secretary to the War Office informed me that he could not answer at that moment, but that he would to the best of his ability deal with the matter in the Debate.

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

And that is what, with permission, I shall do.

Mr. RAFFAN

I do not want to waste time. If we had had any indication that the concession was to be made it would have saved a very great deal of time and argument this evening. In view of the indication now given I will not amplify my argument. There is no doubt that agitation has helped forward this matter, and it will be absolutely necessary for the Government to give way on this point. There are one or two little matters of detail, and I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman will deal with them. I am bound to say he is very courteous and very sympathetic in giving information. I want to refer to the case of a man not physically broken by the War, but one who is suffering from mental weakness. His parents were told he would be sent to an asylum unless they could make a home for him. They have done so, but all applications for anything in the nature of a pension or allowance have been refused. On the advice of the hon. Gentleman, I applied to one of the public funds, and got a donation of £2 but it has been quite impossible to obtain any regular allowance, and I would like some assurance that in cases of this kind where it is not mere physical disability, but where the trouble is the result of mental weakness, allowances will be made to the wife or mother or whoever may be maintaining the unfortunate soldier. With the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Jowett) who introduced this matter, I regret that it has been found necessary or desirable to send soldiers suffering from nervous shock to lunatic asylums, and especially to workhouse lunatic asylums. I hope the hon. Gentleman and his advisers will consider the suggestion that suitable homes should be provided for such cases, without their being sent to lunatic asylums.

I hope also we may have some definite assurances with regard to cases of accident. A number of such cases have already been cited. I have mentioned the case of a man who was drowned when, technically speaking, he was off duty. He was drowned while bathing. Application was made for a pension for his widow, but so far it has failed. I am sure it is the desire of the country that in such a case the man's widow should be generously treated, and I hope, therefore, that the Government will deal generously with cases of accident as well as cases of disease. When all these cases are dealt with—and no doubt the great majority of cases will be covered, if the Regulations are generously administered-there will still be a residuum of cases which will be dealt with under the provisions of the Naval and Military Pensions Act when the Statutory Committees get to work. But that cannot take place for some months. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I do not want to argue that point, but I venture to say it will not be before the end of June. I know that the county council with which I am connected will have its preliminary scheme settled by the end of April, and after that there is to be a supplementary scheme for setting up district committees. When we have got the supplementary scheme agreed to the committees will have to be set up, and it will probably not be until their August meeting of the county council that the committees will be actually arranged. It is true there is no money at the moment, but a Bill is being pressed forward for the purpose of getting funds at the disposal of these bodies.

While these cases will no doubt receive consideration when the committees get to work, great hardship may ensue in the meantime. In fact, homes are in process of being broken up, and I have letters in my pocket in which it is stated that a home is only just being kept together because the wife and mother go out to do work in order to maintain the husband, and the children and the father are left at home during the daytime. There is, I am sure, no desire on the part of the people of this country that this should occur. They would wish that broken soldiers should be properly provided for, and if it be true that these cases cannot be dealt with for a few months, then I venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the separation allowance should be continued in the meantime to these widows until their, cases can be heard by the new tribunal and a decision arrived at. It is not right these people should be left absolutely penniless, and therefore I do urge that the separation allowances should be continued beyond the six months during which they are now paid, thereby avoiding little bits of furniture having to be taken to the pawnshop, and the home gradually being broken up. While I am grateful for the concessions which have been made, I would like to press upon the Government my view that they will gain very little by dealing with these matters in a haggling and niggardly spirit. They will in the long run have to pay, and it would be far better if soldiers' wives and dependants could be made to feel that there has been no blot on our escutcheon, and that we have redeemed our promises made at the beginning of the War, that no home should be broken up in the case of a soldier who is broken in his country's service, and that no widow should want because her husband was killed while fighting for his country.

Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS

Like almost all Members of this House, I have had many cases reported to me from my Constituency coming within the grievance that has been discussed to-night. I do not intend to weary the House by giving. details of those cases, but I want to say that while I recognise the excellence of the change which has been announced to-night, there are two warnings given which I would like to repeat from the point of view of my own experience in, perhaps, a slightly different way. The Financial Secretary to the War Office is, of course, always very sympathetic. It seems hard to blame him or the other officials of the War Office in a matter of this sort, but, after all, we must hold somebody responsible, and we must hold the people who are officially responsible as being really responsible: otherwise we can never get anything done. Therefore, we must look to them to see that it is done and that it is done in the right way. A good deal has been said this evening as to the necessity of making this retrospective. We are told that we are in such a hurry. It is not right that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench should make a criticism of that kind. We are not in such a hurry, for this matter has been going on ever since the beginning of the War. Shortly after the War broke out men began to come back hopelessly disabled for life, yet after eighteen months of war we are simply told that a change will be made, bringing the pension up to four-fifths, and when we ask whether that will apply to all cases from the beginning or only to new cases occurring after to-day, we are told that we must not be in such a hurry. That is not a fair way of answering the criticism. I am perfectly sure that if this is not made retrospective it will be most unsatisfactory to the country, not only to those of the poorer classes who will get the pensions, but to the vast majority of the people of this country, who desire to make the necessary sacrifices in order that the broken soldiers of the country may be treated in a proper way.

I should like to see the words of the new Warrant, or whatever the document is called, which is to embody this new principle of pensions, because everything will depend upon those words. They will be interpreted by officials who will feel it their duty not to spend. a penny more of the country's money than is clearly included in the words of the Warrant, if it is a Warrant. Therefore, we should like to see the words of that document and know, for instance, whether cases of blindness will all be included. Yesterday I saw a soldier who is nearly blind, who attributed his blindness to having had to live in very damp places and to sleep in damp blankets. He had been a miner, and was one of my own constituents. Before the War broke out he had never suffered in any way with his eyes. How it is to be proved for certain whether the blindness is due to his having slept in wet blankets and general hardship, or whether it can be attributed in any way to something before the War, perhaps something in his ancestry, I do not know. The case of accidents has been referred to. I am not going to repeat that case, but unless some- thing like the principle of the Workmen's Compensation Act is followed and something like the principle of insurance is adopted, namely, of putting the State in the position of being an insurer of the life, limb, and health of the soldier, then there will not be a satisfactory solution to this question. If a man after a reasonable amount of service is found to be disabled there ought to be a very strong presumption that the State is responsible for compensating him according to the amount of his injury, whether he is absolutely disabled or partially disabled, or, in the event of his being killed, for giving compensation to his widow and those dependant upon him. At the beginning of the War the financial treatment of our soldiers was such as we had occasion to be ashamed of in a rich country like this. Fortunately, it has been very greatly improved, both as to the separation allowances and the dependants' allowances, though the question of the dependants' allowances is certainly not yet upon a wholly satisfactory basis. I hope the Financial Secretary to whom we must give a great part of the credit for the advance which has been announced tonight, will go forward and see that the hard-and-fast report of the Committee which ties him down in the matter of dependants' allowances is put upon a much better basis, just as the pensions are being put on a better basis to-night. If that is done, and if the new Warrant for pensions is properly and widely enough worded, then we shall have a system of which we may, I will not say be proud, but of which we need have no shame in regard to the treatment of those who have served the country. There must be enormous hardship arising out of a great war like this. You could not wage such a war without it. But there is no reason why there should be hardship and injustice in the matter of money in a rich country like this, which can amply afford to pay what is right to those who have served it.

Mr. HOGGE

I believe that the House has got to realise that this is probably the largest social question with which it has to deal in connection with the War, because this is a problem that is not only with us to-day but one which will be with us to-morrow and the next day, and for many Parliaments to come Members of this House will be continually sent to Parliament pledged to one thing or another in regard to those who are in receipt of pensions. It is significant that on so important a topic the House has been empty for so long, and that so little interest has been taken in the Debate except by those of us who have been waiting our turn to speak. One of the most interesting episodes in connection with the Debate has been the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), with regard to a Royal Warrant dealing with the pension that is to be paid to the fathers and mothers of soldiers who have no other right save the fact that they were dependent upon that soldier to secure a pension, to know what exactly it means. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Select Committee that dealt with pensions. He was one of those who put out the first White Paper, the second White Paper, the third White Paper, and the fourth White Paper, and all that is in the Warrant of the Financial Secretary is what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Blackfriars Division asked him. to put into it because he was a member of that Committee. Here you. have a prominent member of the Labour party, supposed to be interested in looking after the interests of his constituents, getting up and putting a ridiculous question like that to the Front Bench. Surely when the Labour party appoints one of its members to be a member of one of these Committees on special reforms they should take care that they would not be put in a difficulty like that in which they have been put to-night by one of their number asking a question of that kind.

Mr. WARDLE

Better put you on the Committee.

Mr. HOGGE

That is the trouble. My hon. Friend who now leads the Labour party, and who may be right hon. before he has finished leading it, suggests that it might be better to put me on the Committee. I have the common sense to stop off every Committee. As soon as a man, goes on to a Committee in this House he destroys his whole value to criticise the work of that Committee, as has been exhibited in the incident we had to-night of the nominee of the Labour party not knowing what was in his own report.

Mr. BARNES

May I ask my hon. Friend to be a little more definite. He has made a charge against me that I do not know what is in our own report. In what respect have I exhibited. that ignorance?

Mr. HOGGE

If the hon. Member wants me to say it over again I can do so, if Mr. Deputy-Speaker will not call me to order for needless repetition. What I said was that in the fourth White Paper issued by the Pensions Committee the very material is contained which my right hon. Friend complained about to-night as to the interpretation of it in the Royal Warrant, and all that is done in the Royal Warrant is that the conclusions arrived at by that special Committee were transferred into the Royal Warrant, and my right hon. Friend ought to have thought of that.

Mr. BARNES

That is not quite definite.

Mr. HOGGE

I will try to make it more definite. The fourth White Paper says that a father and mother who are entirely dependent upon a son, who otherwise would not be able to give them anything, shall get 10s. or fifty-two times the separation allowance, whichever is less. That is to to say, that 10s. must be the maximum, and if the disablement is partial, then 5s. That is exactly what you recommended in the fourth Paper.

Mr. BARNES

It is not what we recommended in the Paper. What we recommended in the Paper was that a dependant should get an amount of money based upon the degree of pre-war dependence, which is not in the Paper.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I think the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) is going a good deal beyond the Amendment now before the House, which deals simply with the question of pensions or allowances in the case of soldiers contracting or developing disease through service.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. HOGGE

I quite agree, and I would not have taken the point except that my right hon. Friend made it and was not called to order, therefore I assumed that if it was in order to raise the point, it was in order for me to deal with it, but as you rule that we are both out of order I will not pursue it further. To come to a case on which we are in agreement, I happen to have a letter concerning the case mentioned by my right hon. Friend with regard to the accident to a driver who lost his life when moving from one place to another in France. It has been referred to already, but I hope to emphasise some other aspects of the accident side of the story. My right hon. Friend said this man had lost his life by moving from one truck to another, and as a result his widow was denied a pension. I have a letter signed by his own Major, and the circumstances of that man's death were these: In answer to your letter of 29th February, I beg to inform you that the late driver Smith of this battery met his death by being kicked out of the train by one of the battery horses. I regret that I could not write to you at the time, as I had not your address. Private Smith died doing his duty, and his death should be mourned as if he had fallen on the actual field of battle. He died for his country, and I beg you to accept my sincere sympathy. That is a letter from his commanding officer. His wife had been informed that she was not eligible for a pension because it was an accident. Is it an accident when a battery horse kicks a driver out of a train and the man is killed? Is it any worse to be killed by the kick of a horse than by the kick of a shell? When you come to examine this question of accidents you have to come to some clear decision. I do not want the House to be satisfied to-night by what, after all, may be a concession, but that does not meet all the circumstances and may prevent the House from dealing with other necessary things which require to be settled. Everyone has said, up to the present, that the fact that you are going to get four-fifths of the pension which you ought to get, instead of the 8d. a day which has been usual in the case of the Chelsea Commissioners, is a great concession, and we ought to be very thankful for that, and everyone has taken the line that because that has been met we might let my right hon. Friend off on this occasion. I want my hon. Friend to say definitely where we stand in that matter.

Here is another case illustrating the kind of thing. It is the case of a driver in the 2nd Scottish Horse who was run down by a motor, and his widow is told that "in view of the circumstances of the death of her husband neither you nor your children are eligible for any pension from the Army Fund." The continuous reply that we get to that is, "We are going to have a supplementary pension by a Statutory Committee as soon as it is set up." There is an Order on the Paper to-day for the Second Reading of a Bill which will supply £1,000,000 in some form or other for that purpose. I do not suppose we shall reach that Order to-night, but it is not good enough to refer us to the fact that because this kind of accidental death does not at the moment bring the person within the purview of the Chelsea Commissioners, and therefore within the purview of a pension, they may get something from a committee which is not set up. As a matter of fact, everyone knows what the size of the problem is. We have had casualty lists given in this House. We know that altogether there are getting on for something like 150,000 men killed, in addition to 250,000 odd casualties by wounds, and every one of these, except those which actually recover and go back to the trenches, leaves a man in some kind of disability. That will require to be met, and it cannot be met out of a paltry provision such as we hope to provide in the Statutory Committee's Bill. Where do we stand then with regard to accidents? Is a man who is an attested soldier on board a transport, about a camp, on the lines of communication, if he is killed otherwise than by shell fire or by rifle fire, or by any of the arts and devices of warfare, entitled to an Army pension or is he not? The broad, general answer at the moment is "No, he is not entitled," I want to know why that man is not entitled, and why his widow and children are to be deprived of the perpetual support which he otherwise would have given to them in civil life, with the only amelioration that he may or may not apply to the Statutory Committee? I do not think that that meets the case at all. Let me go a little further in regard to this increased allowance. We are told—and the House seems to be very well satisfied at the moment—that the pension will be increased to four-fifths of that amount. Does that. carry several other things? For instance, in the original provision for pensions, if a man dies within seven years of having received his wounds, his dependants are entitled, as my hon. Friend (Mr. Forster) knows, to a pension as if he had received his actual death in combat. Does that apply in this case? You cannot determine at once in regard to a man who has developed a disease while he is in the forces how much his pension is going to be. Is he to get the benefit of the seven years' extension? Supposing he dies, can my hon. Friend tell us whether the widow and children of that man who, in other circumstances, would be entitled to the Smaller pension, are to get the pension at this increased rate? That is a very important point, and it has not been put at all. It is a point of great interest to the women and children of these men. You are going to increase the pension in that case to four-fifths of the ordinary pension. If the men die from that same disease for which you are going to increase the pension, will the pensions and allowances to the widows and children be brought up to the four-fifths level? Hon. Members will see exactly where these people are going to be unless that is done. If you are going to give a man simply because he has developed a disease in the Army four-fifths of his pension to live on you are only dealing with a very partial part of the problem. You must address yourself to the other point, namely, if the man dies of disease which has been developed by his being put into the Army, what are his widow and children going to get? In May or June of last year I raised the first case that was debated, and it is one which will illustrate the point I now make. The hon. Member for Sutherlandshire (Mr. Morton) knows the case well. It is the Gordon case.

Mr. MORTON

It is known an the Gordon-Sutherland case.

Mr. HOGGE

There is the case of a man who was accused of having developed disease during his service with the Army. I need not go through the history of the case, but he was finally discharged, and a few days after discharge he died. He left a widow and, if I remember rightly, five or six children, for whom no provision has been made. They live in the Highlands, where the conditions of making a livelihood are not so varied as they are in our towns, and because the man developed a disease while he was in the Army his widow and dependants are treated in this way. The point I wish to make is this, and I hope the House will support me in it, that if you are going to increase the pension to four-fifths of what is being given in a normal case, obviously if a man dies from that particular cause for which you give the pension, you ought to make provision on the same basis for his widow and children. It was in order to emphasise that point that I have remained to the end of this Debate. It is really wasting time for each hon. Member to give cases, because we have all got them from our own constituencies. We have all been saying very complimentary things about my hon. Friend (Mr. Forster) the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who is very courteous to all of us. He does everything we ask him to do, if possible, but we cannot get away from the fact that he is the voice of the Government on this question in the House, and I tell him quite frankly and plainly that until this matter is settled we must keep at, and we will keep at the Government.

We will not be content to have pensions left in this unsatisfactory way. We have brought the Government up to a point tonight which is very far removed from their first position, and I am perfectly certain that if my hon. Friend (Mr. Forster) were an ordinary Member he would be making the same point as we are making. He quite understands that we are not up against him so much as up against the system. With regard to our suggestions as to what ought to be done, his defence may be, "I have got the Treasury to deal with." If that is his defence, we will all go with him as a deputation to the Treasury. Every Member of the House will go with him as a deputation to the Treasury. The Treasury is paying out £5,000,000 a day just now for wasting life—apart altogether from the reasons, we agree on that—and we are going to be asked in this Bill, which is to provide a paltry million, to deal with the wastage of life. It is preposterous. The nation can afford this money. The nation can afford the money which is required by this Motion, because we ask the Government to take over the control of a great many more classes than they have taken over. Do not let the House be deceived. All that the Government is proposing to do is to deal with cases of developed disease. They have said nothing about accidental death. Cannot they settle that to-night or are we to wait again for another agitation before we bring them up to the scratch on that point? In every case, as my hon. Friend knows, it has got to be retrospective. If he agrees, as he probably will do to-night, that it is to be retrospective in regard to disease, he is bound to agree that in the near future it will be retrospective in regard to accidents. It has got to be done finally, therefore why make two bites at one cherry? Why not be generous and straight away deal with this enormously important social problem which affects so many of the widows and children of these men who have endured so much for us?

Mr. ROCH

I think that everyone in the House welcomed the statement of the Under-Secretary for War that he was going to deal with the cases raised by this Motion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman who was going to reply (Mr. Forster) will make more clear some of the points which have arisen on that statement. I do think that it is somewhat of a reflection on the great Department of which he is spokesman in this House that it is only now, at the end of eighteen months of war, that these very hard and urgent cases have at last got the attention of the War Office. I think that the statement of facts made by the War Office a short time ago that 35,000 men have been discharged from the Army, and that out of that total more than one-third were discharged without any pension, is in itself a very grave reflection on the War Office as to the way they have looked at this problem. I certainly hope that the hon. Gentleman will make it quite clear upon what basis this question is going to be put. Is he going to bring the Royal Warrant up to the Admiralty standard, and is he going to alter the words of the Royal Warrant and include the words "or aggravated by disease"? What on earth is the reason for saying that these people who are disabled in this way are only going to be entitled to four-fifths of the normal pension. After all, the pension was given because of the need and necessity of the man who was disabled. In regard to the man who is disabled by tuberculosis or disease, the liability for which is recognised, his need is just as great and his necessities are just as urgent as those of the man who is injured in any other way. I know that the hon. Gentleman is anxious to reply, so I will only shortly put one or two points, and make one or two suggestions. First of all I would like to ask him to give his very earnest attention to the delay in the payment of pensions. In many cases these men are discharged from the Army, and month after month goes by before their pension is paid, and these men are discharged out of the Army and turned on to the streets without any means of subsistence at all.

I will give just one specific case, showing the really incredible delay which arises in some of these instances. The case was that of a man—I have given the facts to the Under-Secretary—who joined on 2nd September, 1914. He was then sent to Brecon. That was in the early days of the War, and he was put for five nights to sleep in the barrack square without even a blanket. The result was that he very soon got a severe cold on the lungs, and the natural result was that ultimately, after going to and from hospital, he contracted tuberculosis and was discharged from the Army in February, 1915. For many months the War Office would not recognise his claim at all. Month after month went by. He was completely dependent upon the charity of friends, and even public subscriptions were got up for hint. I then got into touch with the matter only in August. He had heard then that if he could get a peer to intervene for him he would be able probably to get some little compensation. He was unable to get a peer, and he was only able to fall back on me. [An HON. MEMBER: "Much better!"] As a result, after endless letters to the War Office, it was only in January that he was awarded a pension of 19s. 6d. I really think that that was an outrageous case. Here was this man, who had contracted this fatal disease which has made him quite incompetent to earn a living, solely owing to the neglect of the War Office in putting that man for five nights to sleep in a barrack yard without as much as a rug to cover him, and yet it was only just short of a year before he could get, the pension which was ultimately awarded him.

Then there is another point to which I hope the hon. Gentleman will give his attention. The public have got the impression that while 12,000 of these men are unpensioned—and that is serious enough in all conscience—yet that the remaining 23,000 have been given adequate pensions. That is not the case at all. The hulk of these men have pensions of from only 4s. to is. 6d. a week

Mr. FORSTER

Not the bulk of them.

Mr. ROCH

A great many of them. I could give endless cases in which men seriously injured were only given pensions of from 4s. to Ss. a week. What is the position of these men? In the labour market to-day it is perfectly true that, owing to abnormal circumstances, they may be able to earn higher wages than will be at all possible when the War comes to an end. Can they have those pensions revised when the War is over? When a pension is awarded the man should be able to register the fact that he has got a claim, and that his position will be very similar to that which constantly arises under the Workman's Compensation Act, where a man perhaps is able to work, and he has no claim because his wages are not decreased, but the Act takes cognisance of the fact that circumstances may arise when that disability may get worse, and he will not be able to earn his wages, and therefore the device has been settled that he registers the fact that he has got a claim for compensation and that at any time he can get it reviewed. While we have an absolutely abnormal state of the labour market to-day, yet great industrial stress is certain to follow when the War comes to an end, and these men will be faced with the ruthless competition which only fit men can face. I do hope that they will be able then to see that their claims can be registered and that their claims for pensions can be reviewed.

I would also ask the hon. Gentleman to consider whether it would not be advisable in these cases to fix once for all the pension to which the man is entitled for his injury. That course has been adopted in France. There they tried the sliding scale of making up the difference between his wage earning capacity and what he is able actually to earn, but they have found it is much better in the long run to fix absolutely once for all the pension to which a man is entitled. It is obvious, I think, that when a man's pension is fixed on the basis of what he is able to earn it often gives hint a direct interest in saying that he cannot earn money at all. Twenty-five shillings a week pension is better than 30s. made up partly of wages which may not last." So, by not fixing the maximum pension to which a man is entitled, you offer a deliberate incitement not to work. That is bad for the State and for the individual as well. I would also like the hon. Gentleman to give consideration to the question whether these pensions cannot be taken from the War Office altogether and brought into the great machinery of local government which exists all over the country. We have got the Pension Committees which now have to deal with numerous cases of pensions, and I would like the hon. Gentleman to consider the advisability of placing the dealing with these. pensions with these local authorities.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley)

The hon. Gentleman is raising a much larger question than is raised by the Motion now before the House, which is to extend the existing pensions to cases arising from disease contracted or developed while on service.

Mr. ROCH

I am much obliged. I realise that I have been travelling somewhat far, but I think that I have made the point quite clear, and I will not delay the hon. Gentleman any further.

Mr. FORSTER

We have discussed this question on three separate occasions recently, and I think that I have heard every speech that has been made in the course of the Debates that have taken place. I am bound to say that I do not remember one speech with the tone of which I could quarrel, and certainly I am not the individual to take as directed against myself, personally, any criticism that really is directed against a system which I may have to administer for the moment. In my view, the House of Commons could not be better engaged than in discussing problems of this kind, and I can only hope that I shall be able to deal with it in the calm, dispassionate manner of those who have preceded me. The object of the Motion which has been made tonight is really to give a pension to everyone who is discharged from the Army on account of disease developed in the course of his military service. We are told that we are responsible for passing him by means of the medical authorities into the Army as fit for service, and that if we pass him out of the Service as unfit the responsibility for it should rest upon us and our system is condemned as harsh and inadequate. I hope that the House will bear a few minutes with me if I discuss very briefly what our system is, because I think that I may be able to remove some misconceptions which prevail both within and without the walls of this House. Before I come to the question of pensions, I should like to refer very briefly to the system of administration of pensions. First of all, I should like to say a word with regard to the question of medical examination. On previous occasions I have pointed to the fact that the medical examination which the recruit has to undergo is directed rather to seeing whether he is fully equipped with the requisite limbs and eyes to fit him for a soldier, rather than to detect whether he bears within his body the seeds of latent disease.

And I must now ask the House to look back upon what was done by the medical authorities in the early stages of the War, where you have all the complaints as to those who were passed into the Army. I really ask the House to look on this question from the common-sense point of view. At that time we were taking recruits under a system which provided no means of registration, because it was not possible in those days to register a recruit, and send him home, and then call him up when he was required. Recruits brought into the recruiting office had to be medically examined, and obviously it had to be done in a great hurry, with the result, no doubt; that a great number of men were passed into the Service who ought not to have been passed into it. You may say, that is the fault of the authorities for not making adequate and proper arrangements beforehand. But supposing anyone in time of peace had been able even to dream of calling into existence, within the space of time in which it happened, an Army so gigantic and so vast as has been called into being in this country—supposing anyone had foreseen the possibility of that having to be done, of course more adequate preparations would have been made. If anyone had realised that we would want an Army of four millions of men, can it be doubted for a single moment that we should have gone in for a system of universal service years before? With a system of universal service we should have had a system of more thorough, more complete, and more satisfactory medical examination. I say that not in regard, to the criticism that has been directed against the War Office, but really to remind the House of the conditions under which a large number of these men were taken into the Service. Then, having taken a man into the Service and having passed him out of it, the question arises, Is he or is he not entitled to pension under the Regulations of the Royal Warrant? I have been twitted with having allowed the House to believe or think that the Royal Warrant is like the laws of the Medes and Persians.

I have no doubt it is to the fault of my poverty of expression that this is due, but obviously to anyone who has any knowledge of the system at all the Royal Warrant is merely the verbal expression of the pension policy adopted by the Government. I was endeavouring to point out, when I referred to the question before, that so long as the Royal Warrant remains as it is it ties the Lands of those who administer pensions. The fact is that for them it prescribes the limits within which the pensions may be given. Of course, the Royal Warrant changes as the pension policy changes, as I hope that we are going to make a change in consequence of our Debate to-night. It has been suggested that in the administration of pensions under the Royal Warrant we have restricted it and brought it within narrower limits than those which were recommended by the Select Committee and adopted by the House. If that be true—[An HON. MEMBER: "No!"] If it was not adopted by the House, the House would have taken steps to show that it was not.

Mr. HOGGE

We asked for an opportunity to be heard on this question over and over again, but the Prime Minister refused. But in the sense my hon. Friend means, the House did agree.

Mr. FORSTER

I did not mean that a Motion was made, and that the recommendation of the Select Committee was adopted by the House. In my view it would be an improper thing for any Government Department to narrow or restrict the definite policy which has been adopted and laid down by the House of Commons. I only mention this matter because I wish to recall to the recollection of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) that the terms of the Royal Warrant were before the Select Committee at the time when they made their recommendations. The question whether or not pensions should be given in the very cases which we are discussing to-night was before the Select Committee also. I think I am giving correct expression to the then views of the Committee when I say that the feeling was that the experience which was in their possession at that time was insufficient upon which to form a judgment which might have such far-reaching consequences that it was desirable, in the interests of everybody, to wait for further experience before coming to a final decision upon so important a question.

Mr. BARNES

I would remind the hon. Gentleman that the general principle upon which the recommendations of the Select Committee are based is the amount or degree of pre-war dependence being taken as the amount to which the person is entitled, and I have endeavoured by showing the succeeding paragraphs issued only last month that effect has not been given to that recommendation.

Mr. FORSTER

I will come to that later. I am at present dealing with the point whether or not the language of the Royal Warrant really restricts the policy which the Select Committee laid down. I do not think the War Office can fairly be charged with having unduly restricted the pension policy of the Select Committee. I come to the question of the machinery by which this policy was administered. The pension is fixed by the Commissioners of the Royal Hospital itself. I have heard one of my hon. Friends refer to the Commissioners of the Royal Hospital as a body consisting of comparatively, if not wholly, unknown persons, and I think another of my hon. Friends referred to that Committee as a mysterious body. I do not think it is really unknown or mysterious to anyone who wishes to inform himself. As to the personnel of the Commission, it is composed mainly of distinguished soldiers. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and myself also had the honour of seats upon the Board. The Board of Chelsea Hospital, composed as it is mainly of soldiers, has full and free discretion untramelled by the red tape of the War Office, if you like to call it so, or at all events untramelled by active interference on the part of the War Office, has free discretion in the interpretation of the Royal Warrant, and it rests with them, and with them alone, to decide what pension the man is entitled to in each particular case. I have the advantage of rather a long connection, not continuous, with the Board of Chelsea Hospital, for when I was a Whip in another Government, I am afraid it is a good many years ago now, I was for three years a member of the Board of Chelsea Hospital as one of the Junior Lords of the Treasury. I then took great interest in the work which they did, and that interest has lasted ever since. I was glad to find myself once more a member of the Board of Chelsea Hospital when I was appointed to the office I now have the honour to hold. I can testify from experience to the careful, fair-minded, impartial, and yet sympathetic manner in which these difficult questions are administered by the Board of Chelsea Hospital.

I should like to make a passing reference to a question that was mooted by the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Roch), and that was his reference to the question of delay in the payment of pensions. Perhaps the House will allow me to describe what happens, as it will be simpler and much more easily understood than by making general references. What happens in the majority of cases when a man is discharged from the Army is this: The man is examined in the locality where he is by a medical board composed of three medical officers. They report what his condition is and they recommend him to be discharged by a certain time. Their recommendation is made so long before the date of his discharge as to give Chelsea the opportunity of fixing his pension, and in the great majority of cases the man's pension is fixed and settled before he is discharged from the Army and he receives the first payment the first week after he is discharged.

Mr. WARDLE

Why not that system in all the cases?

Mr. FORSTER

Under the present system, although I would not like to commit myself to precise dates, it takes a comparatively short time to get this thing through Chelsea Hospital, and therefore it is found if the Invaliding Board allow, say, a fortnight or three weeks, or something of that kind, the pension is fixed. Those are cases that are straightforward. There may be cases where there is either some doubt, where there is insufficient evidence, or where Chelsea Hospital, wishing to give a man the benefit of the doubt and put him on a higher scale, in which it is necessary to make further inquiries, and in those cases there is delay while inquiries are being made. Then it may happen that the man is discharged before the pension is fixed, and there is delay in making payment. I do not think there ought to be, and I hope that the arrangements we had in contemplation will at any rate enable some payment to be made to the man between the time he is discharged and the time when his pension becomes payable. We are looking closely into that, and I hope we shall he able to have something done on those lines. Under the existing system most of the cases of the men who have served at the front are covered, and fully covered, by the Royal Warrant as it stands. Of course, all cases where the disease is wholly and directly due to war service are wholly and completely covered at present. There is nothing in the Warrant at present which says explicitly that any pension is to be given in a case where the man's disease is aggravated by the service, but Chelsea has been able, by exercising its discretion, to deal with cases of aggravation of disease by calling in aid another article of the Royal Warrant which enables a lower scale of pension to be given. In that way it has been able to deal with cases of aggravation, and as to the scale I will have a word to say in a moment. In all these cases Chelsea must be guided, and the pension often depends, upon the medical opinion.

Let me take a typical case and trace it from the start to the time when the pension is given, and I think in that way the House will see the system more clearly than in any other way. The man is examined with a view to his discharge on account of disease which has developed. He is examined in his own neighbourhood by a board composed of three medical men. The case then comes to Chelsea. If it is a straightforward case Chelsea deals with it at once. Chelsea may have reason to think that the medical men have taken an unduly unfavourable view of the man's case. We then discuss it at the board, and we have the advantage of the presence of Sir Launcelotte Gubbins, the Director-General of Medical Service. We discuss the case and see whether we cannot take a more favourable view to the soldier than the medical authorities have done, and where we think such a course is justified we order another medical board to examine the man, not the same medical board, to see whether or not there is any reason for taking a more favourable view of his case. He is examined by the second medical board, and again his ease comes to Chelsea. Again the Chelsea Commissioners inquire into it, and, if necessary, again we take the direct opinion of the Medical Commissioner at Chelsea or of the Director-General of the Army Medical Service himself. That happens before a final judgment is formed. I want the House to remember that in these cases the man has been examined personally by not less than six different doctors. Their decisions have been reviewed by the Director-General of the Medical Service. These medical men have had before them the whole of the man's military history and his medical history, which is of particular importance. I say, and I say it with some confidence, that these men are in a better position to judge of a man's medical condition than the philanthropist who, after all, very often hears only the man's story of what has happened.

Mr. JOWETT

Is there any means of getting to know the identity of the medical men who form these various boards?

Mr. FORSTER

They are all over the country. A man is examined by three local medical men in his own neighbour- hood. We have not a specially constituted medical board to whom all these cases are sent. What we have got are scattered all over the country in the various localities—boards made up of one, two, or three doctors drawn from the medical men in the neighbourhood.

Mr. JOWETT

If I understand rightly, there i5 no published list of these individuals?

Mr. FORSTER

No, I do not think there is any published list.

Mr. MORTON

How do you know whether or not these medical officers are qualified men?

Mr. FORSTER

I do not think there is any doubt about that.

Mr. PRINGLE

How much do the examinations by these six medical men cost?

Mr. FORSTER

These are men in the Royal Army Medical Service, and this is part of the duties they are constantly giving. There is no special cost about the medical board at all. The House will see that the great bulk of the men who have been , invalided out of the Army are covered as things stand—all the cases of disease wholly and directly due to service, and a large number of cases where the disease has been aggravated by service, although the pension given in the latter case is inadequate. I do not want to weary the House with figures—they were quoted by my right hon. Friend this afternoon—but I might give one figure which I hope will relieve the minds of some hon. Members who have expressed an interest in the subject. The number of cases of tubercle contracted abroad is 1,226. Out of those, 1,180 have been pensioned, and only 46 rejected. I think it is quite likely that my hon. Friends have heard of a very large proportion of the cases where no pension has been given. My right hon. Friend quoted the cases of other diseases where the full war pension has been given. It is not true, and it does not even approach the truth, to say that it is no use for a man who has not suffered from an actual wound to apply to Chelsea Hospital, because everybody who suffers only from disease has been thrown away like an old glove. That is not true, and it does not approach the truth. I am glad that in this House this afternoon such wild and unfounded statements have not been made.

There remain the residue of men who have war service and no pensions, and men who have neither. The Amendment as it stands on the Paper will include both. The difference between the present 'practice and the Amendment as it stands on the Paper is that the present practice makes the pensions depend on something due to war service, while the terms of the Amendment would make enlistment practically the only qualification. My hon. Friends have called in aid the analogy of the Workmen's Compensation Act. I speak as a layman. I am not a lawyer, and I speak with considerable trepidation in the presence of so many Members who are experts in these matters, either from practical experience of the working of the Act, or from experience of it from the legal point of view. It seems to me that our practice of dealing with cases of injury or of disease is really closely analogous to that under the Workmen's Compensation Act. We have men who suffer from wounds or injuries, and we deal with them almost precisely as cases of accident are dealt with under the Workmen's Compensation Act. I think my hon. Friends want us to go rather further than we are able to go under our present system, and I think rather further than we ought to go. They rather look upon the fact of a man being in military service as practically being in his employer's works the whole time. I do not think we can do that. I do not think we ought to do that. Let me take an instance or two. Suppose a man is playing football in France and breaks his leg. Do you say that in that case we ought to give him a pension? [HON. MEMBERS:"Yes!"]

Mr. ROCH

You have done so.

Mr. FORSTER

He would not get a pension under those conditions under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Sir A. MARKHAM

Because he is not employed all the time.

Mr. MORTON

You encourage and recommend football.

Mr. FORSTER

Then we are going beyond the Workmen's Compensation Act. Take another case. Suppose a man has an accident while bathing off duty. He would get no compensation for that under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Do you say that in every case we ought to give it under our system of pensions? I honestly do not think that you can regard the mere fact that a man is in military service as making him within his employer's works. I do not think the cases are really analogous.

Mr. BARNES

May I point out that the man would get compensation under the Compensation Act in the case of the bathing, for it would practically be in the case of his employment.

Sir A. MARKHAM

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman to ask him—

Mr. SPEAKER

Would it not be better to allow One Member to speak at a time?

Sir A. MARKHAM

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman to ask if he is aware that in the case of a man who meets with an accident going to his employment over a private road that his employer is liable?

Mr. FORSTER

Surely that is quite a different thing, a man meeting with such an accident, to the one who was either bathing or playing football? Honestly, I do not think the contention can be sustained. I hope hon. Members will not press me on this point, because if they do I shall have to refer to other questions as to why I think it is clearly impossible that in all cases of accidents the same rule should apply. One knows they are accidents of a very curious kind in the neighbourhood of first line trenches. Any hon. Member who has been out at the front will know what I mean; and I think it will occur to other Members of this House. I do not think you can give compensation in all cases of injury merely because a man is a soldier, and is not always on military duty. I would really ask the House not to press me unduly upon this point. The argument adduced by my lion Friends is one which is specious and attractive, and one which it is not easy to meet except in a rather unsympathetic fashion, because it is quite obvious that no one can think without a thrill of pride of that devotion to duty, that heroic endurance, that willing self-sacrifice and splendid response to the call of arms that has given us the enormous Army that we have to-day. No one can look on the halt, the maimed, and the blind without being almost passionately resolved, come what may, cost what it may., that none of these men shall ever feel the pangs of hunger or of want, or without the feeling that it is up to this country to see to it that this matter is properly attended to. These men have been described, and truly described, as noble heroes. They ought to be treated as such. We hope that they will be fully and generously dealt with. But, Sir, I am afraid that is not the whole of the picture. If we look in the background we may see whole categories of men—I hope they are not very numerous—who cannot be described in that way, and who ought not, in my view, to be dealt with as we hope to deal with the men whom I have earlier described. I leave out of account the case—because no one has suggested it—that the man whose disease is due to his own fault should be brought within the ambit of this Motion. Upon that we are all agreed. I honestly do not think that we ought to include men—I find it difficult to use a word, for I do not want to suggest fraud—who enlisted knowing that they were not qualified, men who knew they were already diseased, men who had actually been notified as suffering from consumption, men actually in receipt of sickness benefit on account of consumption, men who having been discharged from the Army as over age who re-enlisted, and men who having been discharged from the Army on account of disease hid that disease and again re-enlisted. Whole categories of men there are to whom you cannot apply this Motion, and to whom this Motion ought not to apply. I will, I think, carry the House with me when I say that the categories of men to whom I have made reference ought not to be, and do not deserve to be, treated in the same way as those who have shed their blood for us. After all, we are not all saints—even in war time!

10.0 P.M.

I want to mention two cases showing how impossible it is in my judgment to lay down hard-and-fast rules, and to bring everybody in. I know a man who was cruelly wounded. In course of time, after he came out of the hospital, he was examined by a medical board and told he was medically unfit for further service. He would not go. The medical board reexamined him, and said they were afraid he was unfit. Nothing, however, would persuade him to go. He might have gone with a good pension, but he would not listen to it. His one aim and object was to fight the Germans, to get out again to France, because for the moment he did not feel that he had "done his bit." He only had five wounds. That man, owing to his pluck, resolution, and clean living, who had been passed out by the Medical Board, and might have had a pension, is, I am glad to say, fully restored to health. I can give a further instance of this astonishing patriotism. It is a case we have at Chelsea Hospital. This man was also invalided out of the Army and discharged with a pension. He would not draw it. Why? He was the son of a poor mother, yet he would not draw his pension. He would not draw it because he was afraid if he did the authorities would look upon him as a marked man, and he would never be able again to enlist. He was told that he was in receipt, or might be, of a disability pension, and that therefore he could not be fit for further service. The man was determined, as soon as he felt able, to serve again. He was determined to fight. Again, as in the other case, this man's pluck, determination, and clean living was responsible for an extraordinarily rapid recovery, and I am glad to think that this man also is serving his King in the ranks of the Army. Both of these men are possessed of the spirit of patriotism that we can all appreciate, and that we cannot reward as it deserves. But, as hon. Members know, there are others who look at this matter from a different point of view. There is the man who joins the Army knowing he is diseased, and because he wants to get free hospital and free medical treatment. They make no secret of it.

Mr. SUTTON

Why did the doctors pass them then

Mr. FORSTER

I have already reminded the House of the extraordinary rush—[An HON. MEMBER "Not at the beginning! "] I beg the hon. Member's pardon. When we were taking recruits at the rate of 30,000 and 40,000 a week it was absolutely impossible for the medical authorities to do more than give a very hurried examination. Let my hon. Friends remember that where a man is exceedingly anxious to pass the doctor, unless the medical examination is extremely thorough, it is very difficult for the doctor really to find out whether the man is sound or not. My hon. Friend, I am sure, has had cases in his own experience where he knows how difficult it is. I think we ought to deal fairly and generously with those who are really deserving, but I do not think it is fair to them, and I do not think it is fair to anybody else, that by adopting too wide a system we should give pensions to those who do not really deserve them, or that we should take the Amendment in the terms in which it stands, and I do not think my hon. Friends could really-wish to press it in that form. But I quite agree, as my right hon. Friend has told the House this afternoon, that the terms of the Warrant as they stand are not wide enough. I think we should adopt the principle, where there can be shown—where indeed, we admit—some measure of responsibility for the man's disease and his-condition, in that case our responsibility should be reflected in the man's favour. Where our responsibility is full; where we ourselves through our medical authorities admit that the man's disease is wholly and directly due to service, in that case he should get the full pension; but where the measure of our responsibility is less, there, I think, it is only fair and only logical that the pension which he draws from our fund should be lower that the full war standard. The matter has been very carefully considered by the Government, and it has been decided that in these cases where the man's disease is aggravated, though not wholly and directly due to service, we should give explicit authority for a pension up to 20s. a week.

Mr. JOWETT

What about the cases that have already occurred?

Mr. FORSTER

I was just coming to that.

Mr. J. SAMUEL

Might I ask if that wilt apply to dependants as well?

Mr. FORSTER

To children, yes. This is a question of where a man is enjoying a pension himself. Under the terms of the Warrant the full scale is 25s. a week for himself and 2s. 6d. for each child. Under the scale we propose, where the disease is aggravated by service, though not caused by it, we propose he should get a pension of 20s. for total incapacity and 2s. for each, child.

Mr. SAMUEL

In case of death, will the widow and children come within the four= fifths of the existing pensions?

Mr. FORSTER

They would be on the lines of other cases which are due to. disease. With regard to the question whether the pensions should be retrospective or not, yes, I think they ought to be. My hon. Friend asked whether these cases of men who were rejected should be reexamined. I think clearly they ought to. be re-examined, but I was in some doubt as to what my hon. Friends mean by retrospective. I mean retrospective in the matter of examination of their claims. Where those men have been put on one side as, having no claim, it should be open to them to resubmit their case for examination again. But do my hon. Friends really suggest that we are to make the full scale of 20s. in each case retrospective? [HON MEMBERS: "Yes!"] All I wanted to know was what my hon. Friends had in mind when they said "retrospective." I understand what they mean by retrospective is that you should not only re-examine the cases already dealt with, but that you should actually bring the scale of payment from 4s. 8d. or 7s. a week, at which it stands, up to 20s. from the time of the pension over the whole period. I am not in a position to-night to say that can be done, but I am in a position to say tonight that the cases of the men who have been ruled out shall be re-examined, and I think my hon. Friends will not press me to go further than that on this occasion.

Sir J. WALTON

Would my hon. Friend also say that in cases where they have not been absolutely ruled out, those cases shall be dealt with?

HON. MEMBERS

He has said so.

Mr. FORSTER

They do not want re-examination. Under the Warrant they will go up automatically from 4s. 8d. or 7s., or whatever they are now, to 20s. in case of total disablement. In case of three-quarter disablement, of course the pension will be graduated down, just as war pension is graduated down according to the degree of earning capacity. I hope I have made that clear. My hon. Friends have referred to hard cases. I admit there are hard cases. Whatever Regulations you make, whatever scale of pensions you fix, unless you give pensions to everybody, deserving and undeserving alike, there will be always borderland cases—those which fall just outside the Regulations and cannot be drawn into them. I hope that by careful, systematic administration, we shall make those borderland cases few and far between; but where they exist the Government must set up a Statutory Committee, an authority which will be able to deal with them. It is suggested that the Statutory Committee will have only charitable funds at its disposal. If my hon. Friends will make haste and pass the Bill which has been introduced there will be placed at the disposal of the Statutory Com- mittee a million sterling of public money. They will have that with which to deal with cases of hardship which cannot be dealt with under the terms of the Warrant even as they are extended and amended. We can never hope that any office or any institution, either public or private, can deal with so difficult a problem on so gigantic a scale without giving rise to some hard cases. What I am anxious the House should understand is that in cases where claims are rejected there is perfect willingness on the part of Chelsea to reconsider the case on appeal, whether the appeals comes from a peer, a Member of Parliament, or the man himself. Attacks have been made upon our system outside the House of Commons, but I am glad to recognise that inside the House we have had nothing in the nature of an attack of which the most sensitive administrator can complain. Attacks outside the House do not help the soldier or the general community, and they spread mistrust and dismay broadcast to an extent which cannot be calculated, and by so doing they create a sense of insecurity in the minds of the poorer portion of our community which is greatly to be deplored. These attacks are generally founded upon cases of individual hardship. If you could see as I have done the care, the sympathy, and the determination to give the soldier the benefit of the doubt which has characterised the administration of Chelsea Hospital ever since I have known it or have had anything to do with it, you would realise that the attacks upon our system have been ill-founded. I hope that what has been said from this bench by my right hon. Friend and myself will satisfy the House that this subject, which has evoked, most properly, such widespread' interest, has been and is being dealt with in a way that is fair to the community and sympathetic to the soldier, and I hope my hon. Friends will not think it necessary to press their Amendment to a Division.

Mr. PRINGLE

After listening to the speech of the Financial Secretary to the. War Office, I think hon. Members will agree with me when I say that the hon. Gentleman is much better than his Department, and I think there will be general agreement that his speech represents a considerable advance upon the attitude of the War Office in the past. On the last occasion upon which we debated this question we had on the part of the spokesman of the War Office an out-and- out defence ","of the Royal Warrant. On that occasion the Under-Secretary for War said: So far as I can sue the justice of the matter, the terms of the Royal Warrant are quite adequate and quite just. That is from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Debate on the 16th February, 1916, column 180.

Mr. TENNANT

I did not say that.

Mr. PRINGLE

My recollection is that the right hon. Gentleman did say it, and the OFFICIAL REPORT agrees with me.

Mr. TENNANT

I absolutely repudiate the whole of it. What I said is, "Does the hon. Gentleman wish the Royal Warrant to be altered?" It was an interruption.

Mr. PRINGLE

I have taken the trouble to take the words from the OFFICIAL. REPORT. I know from my own experience of 'the Official Reporters that very often they say directly the opposite of what you have said in the House, and in these circumstances I do not wish to bind my right hon. Friend to those words.

Mr. TENNANT

I may say that I have no time to read the reports of my speeches.

Mr. PRINGLE

That is a matter in which I sympathise with my right hon. Friend. I wish to point out that while these may not have been the exact words of the right hon. Gentleman, up to the Debates we have had, first of all on going into Committee on the Navy Estimates and these Estimates to-night, we had no indication from' any spokesman of the Government in this House that there was Any intention of modifying the terms of the. Royal Warrant.

Mr. FORSTER

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty referred to it.

Mr. PRINGLE

What I said was that until the debates on going into Committee on the Navy Estimates and the Army Estimates we had no intimation that there was to be any change of policy on the part of the Government. I regret that I was misunderstood. I wish to point out that even the change which has been admitted does not bring the policy of the Government into line with the statements of principle laid down by Lord Lansdowne in another place. In the course of the Debate in another place, Lord Lansdowne said: But on the other hand,1 am certainly not here to say that when a wan has been formally accepted for the Army by responsible officials of the State, he can afterwards be mulcted because those officials failed to perform their duty with the amount of care which might properly have been expected of them. That is the principle which we wish the Government to apply. He goes on: If, as Lord Peel put it, the State has 'winked at undue leniency of that kind,' the State has to suffer for it, and it is most unfortunate that that may be so.". We know that the State has winked at it The Financial Secretary gave a somewhat hesitating account of the action of the War Office in regard to medical examination. He spoke of medical examination simply meaning to see that a man had the normal number of eyes, limbs, and ears. Then, in response to a correction from his right hon. Friend beside him, he spoke of the enormous pressure which existed at one particular period during the rush of recruits.

Mr. TENNANT

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

Mr. PRINGLE

The apparent inconsistency between the two statements is not easily explained, as I had imagined. I could have understood the inconsistency if it was due to some external stimulus, but I can hardly understand it as a result of the operations of the right hon. Gentleman's own mind. His two propositions were, first, that medical examination only consisted in allowing a man to go through if lie had the normal number of eyes, limbs, and ears, and then, that of course mistakes might have been made owing to the enormous pressure during the rush of recruits. How can you reconcile these two statements There should be no difficulty, no matter what the pressure is, as to the normal number of eyes, limbs, and ears.

Mr. FORSTER

If my right hon. Friend wants an explanation, I can give it. The medical examination, in the rush of recruits, had to be reduced practically to seeing that the men had the proper number of eyes, limbs, and ears. There was no time for anything more.

Mr. PRINGLE

I think the hon. Gentleman's explanation is not sound when tested by experience. As a matter of fact, while it is true that a number of men were passed on the first medical examination they were in nearly every case subjected to a second examination when they went td Aldershot. In any number of cases I knob "men,' when they got to Aldershot, were sent back right up to the North of Scotland because they wanted half an inch on one of their fingers, or something of that sort. As a matter of fact, it was not in the enormous rush that we had this difficulty in the medical examination. It was when there was a dearth of recruits. It was in the days when the harvest had fallen off. It was after the first fat weeks had gone by and they had fallen on lean weeks of recruiting that they began to pass men with bad hearts, bad eyesight, and without hearing. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are doing that to-day!"] Yes, I am coming to that. It is the policy of the War Office to pass men who are medically unfit.

Mr. TENNANT

No.

Mr. PRINGLE

It is so. My right hon. Friend contradicts me. I regret to have to differ from him. He cannot speak for the recruiting officers throughout the country. When friends of mine refer recruiting officers to statements made by the right hon. Gentleman in this House they are told by the recruiting officers that the right hon. Gentleman has no authority, that he is merely a political officer making a statement in Parliament for political purposes. That is the fact. There was a report in one evening paper only last night in which the recruiting officer is quoted as using those words, and I have a letter in my own pocket in which the same thing was said by another recruiting officer. The words are: We do not pay any attention to what the representatives of the War Office say in the House of Commons.

Mr. TENNANT

I should be very much obliged to my hon. Friend if he will give me those references.

Mr. PRINGLE

I will give both to the right hon. Gentleman. I am very glad to do it. I am very anxious my right hon. Friend should have authority in the War Office. I am quite sure that if the two officials of the War Office who sit on the Front Bench here had real authority in the War Office we would not have so much to complain of, for they really show a sympathetic attitude in all the Debates in this House. But our complaint is that these Gentlemen have no power to make their will felt by the bureaucracy in the War Office. I still maintain, in spite of what has been said, that men are coming into the Army and are being passed today for general service who are not medically fit for general service. I had a letter two days ago from the father of a recruit who is chronically asthmatic. He produced before the medical officer who examined him a certificate from his own medical man to the effect that he had had recurring attacks of asthma every two months for something like a year, and yet he was passed for general service. Why should it be so? I cannot understand, it. The only explanation I have been able to get is that these people are being passed into the Army in order to justify Lord Derby's Report. Undoubtedly whatever may be said by the spokesmen of the War Office in this House, medically unfit men are being passed into the Army to-day, and I think if they are so passed they should be dealt with on the basis laid down by Lord Lansdowne in another place: I am certainly not here to say that when a man has been formally accepted for the Army by responsible officers of the State he can afterwards be mulcted because those officials failed to perform their duty with the amount of care that might properly be expected of them. Is that to be the policy of the Government? We are entitled to know that. That is the real basis of the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend to-night, and it is that statement by the leader in another place which justified us indeed in pressing the Amendment to a Division. We have been told a great deal to-night about the procedure which is followed in these cases by the War Office. The hon. Gentleman told us about six medical inspections to get Army pensions. I should have thought there would have been more care about getting men into the Army than about settling the pensions. Why should it be necessary to go before six medical boards before you can settle the liability of the State?

Mr. FORSTER

Two.

Mr. PRINGLE

Six medical men or two medical boards. I do not know how many medical men there are on these boards and why all this amount of medical inspection should be required when your medical man in the first instance has passed a man as fit for service. The hon. Gentleman has said that they are quite willing to accept the principle of the Workmen's Compensation. Act, but even to-night they have not accepted the principle of the Workmen's Compensation Act. In the first place, under the Workmen's Compensation Act the man can go to a Court of Law, while in regard to these pensions the War Office is the judge in its own cause. That is one serious difference. The concession that has been made to-night in respect of the amount of pension does not equal what is given under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Where death or disablement is accelerated by an accident, there is no difference in the amount of the allowance made under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The man is entitled to exactly the same payment, whether his death or disablement is due entirely to the accident or is only accelerated by the accident. Consequently, I say that on the principle of the Workmen's Compensation Act the War Office are not entitled to reduce the amount of the payment by one-third where the disease has only been aggravated by service. If they accept that basis, then this reduction is not in accordance with the principle they themselves have laid down. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken about only exceptional cases being quoted in this House. But they are not really exceptional. Of course the cases are possibly not numerous relatively to the number of pensions actually granted, but the cases are likely to become infinitely more numerous in the future. We have the statement of Lord Newton in another place with regard to recent recruits. He said: Vast numbers have been recruited who were physically unfit. It is not the smallest use my attempting to deny the fact. It is perfectly plain and everybody realizes it. Lord Lansdowne, on the same day, said: Medical examination has been conducted with culpable negligence. This relaxation of medical examination did not take place, as the representatives of the War Office would have us believe, in the days when recruits were numerous, when they could pick and choose the men they wanted, in the days when they raised the standard of height and increased the chest measurement. Those were not the days when the medically unfit were passed. It is now in these days, when they are seeking to swell the numbers in the Derby Report, that we have more medically unfit men than we ever had before, and it is precisely at this time, more than at any other, that we should insist that the War Office should admit their responsibility for the recruits they are taking into the Army. It has been difficult indeed to raise this matter. During the past months there have been few opportunities of doing so in this House. When it was done, only a comparatively small number of Members took any interest in it, indeed, the con- ditions of the House to-night shows how little interest Members, as a whole, take in what is likely to become more and more a burning question throughout the country. It is only an index and symptom of the moribund character of the present House of Commons. When attempts have been made outside to draw attention to the matter what has been the result? One gentleman who had the temerity to say at an open-air meeting in Hyde Park that there were two men in the workhouse as a result of the niggardly treatment of the War Office was sentenced to six weeks' hard labour for making statements prejudicial to recruiting. That was reported in the "Pall Mall Gazette," 8th March, 1916, although no one would have thought it mattered very much what anyone said about recruiting now, as we have the Military Service Act in operation, but apparently it is still the conviction of many magistrates that it is so. Then we know that a former distinguished Member of this House, Sir Frederick Milner, endeavoured to draw attention to the matter by writing letters to the Press in September. What was the result? In his own words in a letter to the "Times" on 26th February, 1916, he said: Last September I prepared a long statement giving proof of the callous and capricious way in which the men had been treated. The principal London papers had arranged to publish this simultaneously, but the Censor, having received information of the letter from the Press Association, sent a hurried message around to suppress it. Prejudicial to recruiting, I suppose. It is not surprising that in view of all the difficulties which have been placed in the way of having this matter brought to the test, not only by discussion in this House but by discussion in the Press and at meetings outside, we should insist that the War Office should accept its full responsibility in regard to these men.

My hon. Friend referred to certain accidents which occur in the front line trenches in which he said hon. Members would not insist that compensation should be given. I fancy I know to what he refers. I agree; but if he adopts the principle of the Workmen's Compensation Act those cases would have been covered under wilful misconduct, and he knows it. Then he quoted the cases of men bathing and men playing football, but after all it is a part of the policy of the Army to encourage men to do everything to keep themselves in a condition of physical fitness. Consequently when a man goes bathing and when he plays football he is doing something to keep himself physically fit for military service, and if he meets with an accident while he is doing these things it is as much in the course of his employment as if he were a workman in the mill in which he works. It is in the course of his employment for the purpose of the Army if he meets with an accident under either of these conditions, and indeed a Noble Lord in another place, Lord Newton, who is in the habit of speaking for the War Office, admitted that in one case the liability had been accepted where a man had been injured by accident when he was playing leap-frog. Why should not he be compensated if he met with an accident playing football at the front for the same purpose—of keeping himself in condition? All these things are surely accidents arising out of and in the course of the man's employment. After all, the War Office retains absolute control over these men for twenty-four hours of the day. The workman is employed for eight or ten hours in his factory, and when he leaves the factory he does what he likes. But he cannot do that in the Army. He is under the control of the military authorities the whole of his time. The War Office encourage these games for the purpose of training, consequently accidents occurring while the men are engaged in these games ought to be dealt with in the same manner as accidents occurring while the men are going to or from the trenches.

Mr. HOHLER

I know of the case of a man who played football and was injured; he has been compensated.

Mr. PRINGLE

Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman did not hear the speech of the Financial Secretary to the War Office. I was dealing with the argument of the Financial Secretary, in which he denied liability for these cases. I was pointing out that it had been admitted in another case by Lord Newton. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that compensation should be given in these cases. I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend (Mr. Forster) deny that the men were entitled to compensation in such cases. I cannot understand who has instructed him to take up that position. I believe that if he had been fully informed of the practice of the Department he would not have selected football as an illustration of a case where compensation ought not to be paid.

Mr. FORSTER

I mentioned it to show the difference between the Army system and the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Mr. PRINGLE

I do not think it proves that there is a difference. The difference is as to what may be deemed "arising out of and in the course of the man's employment." If it is the policy of the Army authorities to encourage men to indulge in sports to keep up their physical power, then accidents arising out of these sports obviously are accidents in the course of or arising out of the employment. That surely is admitted. It really is not a distinction; it proves the case which I have been endeavouring to make. While this Debate has been fruitful in compelling the authorities to relax the rigid rules which have been in the past embodied in the Royal Warrant, the relaxation which they have made is inadequate to meet the situation, especially in view of the new situation arising out of the methods of enlistment going on at the present time. Had there been a reasonable medical examination; had it been the policy of the War Office only to accept men who are medically fit; and had their instructions to the medical officers been only to pass men whose physical condition is sound we might have been satisfied with the answer which my hon. Friend has given. But, as we now know that medical officers in every part of the country are every day passing men into the Army, not only for garrison duty and for sedentary occupations, but even for general service, men who in the past would have been regarded as medically unfit, we believe that provision should be made in accordance with the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Bradford.

Mr. WARDLE

The hon. Gentleman who has replied for the War Office to the Amendment of my hon. Friend has given a. reply which is partly satisfactory and partly not satisfactory. We are very much obliged for the progress which we are making in the direction of the War Office recognising its responsibility in a greater measure than it has done hitherto. At the same time not all the ground has been covered by the promise which up to now has been made. I would like specially to refer to that part of the question which deals with accidents, and to the case which has been made out on the floor of the House on this occasion and on previous occasions for the application of the methods employed with regard to the Workmen's Compensation Act, in large measure to the Army; and I do not think that the War Office would lose anything, but I believe that they would ,gain immensely in clearness of decision if they would accept the standard and methods of the Workmen's Compensation Act.

With regard to the question which is immediately the cause of the Motion now before the House, I should like still to press for a rather clearer statement—at any rate, if it cannot be made to-night, I hope that we shall have it on some occasion—of the responsibility of the War Office to retain the soldier until the actual time when his pension is ready to be paid to him. That is to say that there should be no discharge of the soldier, when it is a question of pension, until he is ready to receive it. I cannot see why that cannot be done. I know that in regard to another class of soldiers who have lost their limbs, and who go to Roehampton, the War Office, I am glad to say, do retain them on their list until they have actually got their limbs, and axe ready to be discharged from hospital. What they do in that case they could do in the case of pensions. I submit that that course would mitigate many of the hardships which occur at the present time, and would materially assist in a solution of the question. With regard to the charge in the Warrant I hope that the House will have an opportunity of considering that charge before it is actually and finally made. I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that in some way or other this might be laid upon the Table before it actually comes into operation, so that we may have an opportunity of seeing it, and, if possible, criticising it before it becomes, again, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, very difficult to alter.

On the question of retrospective effect we do feel that we should press the War Office that in the case of men who are now being paid from 4s. 8d. to 7s. pension, and who would be entitled under the new Regulation to £1, it is really only fair that the arrears should be paid. There are in civil life many examples of arbitrators in which back payment is always awarded, and we think that in this case also it ought to be awarded. The hon. Gentleman talked about border line cases as if the whole of the cases that we brought forward were border line cases. But that is not so. I cannot understand how a case like this could be called a border line case. It is that of a private in the South Wales Borderers, No. 19184, who joined on the 3rd September, 1914. . He was discharged on the 17th April; 19150 as unfit for further military service, suffering from double pneumonia, contracted while training. He has received no Army pay and his wife and four children are irk receipt of 14s. 6d. parish relief. I cannot understand how a case like that can be Called on the border line. Either it has been aggravated or occasioned by military service, or it has not, and we think that in a case like that it is a disgrace to the country that these men who have been accepted, and have been serving in the Army, should be in receipt of parish relief.

I do not follow my hon. Friend who preceded me all the way. With regard to his point about the acceptance of men into the Army who are not medically fit at the present time, I believe the testimony is all on one side. I myself have known cases quite recently of men passed into the Army, and we know that these eases are occurring. If we are going to accept men for sedentary service, or garrison service, if we accept men knowing what they are, then we ought to be prepared to accept responsibility, otherwise, it is a farce to take them into the Army at all. I want to say a word about the Charity Commission. I have nothing to say against the gentlemen who are members of the Charity Commission. But it is most anomalous that this body—granted it has upon it distinguished Members of this House—should {have the power to spend money which has to be voted by this House. It is an anomaly in our Constitution, and one very difficult to defend, that they should be able to spend money and simply come to this House to vote that money. I submit that the control and spending of money ought to be more within the control of the House of Commons than it can possibly be under existing circumstances. [An HON. MEMBER: "The War Office!"] I am not sure that we have that control of the spending of money by the War Office that I should like to see. I think that if there were a little more control there would be less waste than there is at the present time. I do not think that the decision of the question as to who shall get the pension, and what the pension shall be, should lie with a body which has no responsibility directly to this House.

Mr. TENNANT

They are responsible to the Army Council, and the Army Council are responsible to this House, and my hon. Friend and I are responsible also.

Mr. WARDLE

That does not help me. I do not see how the Charity Commission is responsible to this House, but I will refer to the subject on a future occasion. I do not wish to argue that question on the floor of the House at this moment. If I prove to be wrong, I will admit I am wrong, if I am right, I will stick to my point. I have no desire to press, the Amendment to a Division. We are not fully satisfied with what we have received. We are thankful for what we have received, and we shall press on until we get what we think to be the full satisfaction of our needs. On those grounds, as I do not see that we can do any good by pressing the Amendment, I shall ask my hon. Friend to withdraw.

Mr. SPEAKER

Does the hon. Member ask leave to withdraw his Amendment?

Mr. JOWETT

No.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Mr. JOWETT

I beg to ask leave to withdraw.

Mr. SPEAKER

Is it your pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?

HON. MEMBERS

No, no!

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question again proposed.

Mr. TENNANT

May I appeal to the House to allow Mr. Speaker to leave the Chair We have had a full Debate to-day, and we have two more days. To-morrow there will be a full discussion on Vote A and Vote 1.

Sir A. MARKHAM

I do not think that it is possible to get. Mr. Speaker out of the Chair near eleven o'clock, because a number of us want to speak, and we shall be very confined when we get into Committee.

Mr. TENNANT

No, no!

Sir A. MARKHAM

Much more confined than on this Motion.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is mistaken as to the point of Order. The Debate will be exactly the same on the first Vote. I only wish to correct him in case misapprehension did arise.

Sir A. MARKHAM

When the House is in Committee the rulings are not quite so certain as when we are on this par- ticular Motion now before the House as to what we can say and what we cannot say. I prefer to take my chance of being able to say what I want on the Motion before the House. Therefore I propose to deal with a variety of subjects which I wish to bring before the attention of the House, and I shall only be able now to indicate them Very briefly and make a commencement. In the first place, I desire to know what is the position of the Ordnance Department and the Munitions Department of the War Office. I want to know what, in the first place, is the position of Major-General von Donop. We were told that this officer, in the early stages of the War, had the complete confidence of His Majesty's Government and of Lord Kitchener. Notwithstanding this fact, the whole of the Ordnance has been removed from the direction of Major-General von Donop, and has been placed in the hands of the Ministry of Munitions. That was done at the time Lord Kitchener was abroad and during the period he made his visits to the East. Where do we stand?

It being Eleven o'clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed to-morrow.